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St Wilfrid and two charters dated AD 676 and 680

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Patrick Sims Williams
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No original Anglo-Saxon charter bearing an AD date earlier than 736 is extant, which seems to suit the traditional view that dating by the Era of the Incarnation, as opposed to the indiction or regnal years, was due to its popularisation by Bede's treatise De temponim ratione and his Historia ecclesiastica. ‘Consequently,’ in R. L. Poole's words, ‘not a few Anglo-Saxon charters which contain the date from the Incarnation have been condemned as spurious or corrupt.’ He then added that ‘there seems, however, to be no reason to suppose that the adoption of this era was originated by the treatise of Bede’, maintaining that it is ‘much more likely’ that it was derived from the Easter Tables of Dionysius Exiguus, arguing on the basis of the accounts of St Wilfrid's instruction at Rome and his speech at the Synod of Whitby in 664, that the saint championed the use of the Dionysian computation. Kenneth Harrison has shown how likely this is on various grounds. These include a defence of four charters bearing AD dates in the seventh century and arguably connected with Wilfrid. Harrison's case has been accepted by Nicholas Brooks, though not by Anton Scharer, and Harrison later brought two more charters into the discussion. The earliest of Harrison's charters, the foundation charter of Bath, dated AD 676 and attested by Wilfrid, and a charter concerning Ripple, Worcestershire, dated AD 680, will be discussed in detail below. Three others, all attested by Wilfrid, belong to the group of charters which Anton Scharer and Patrick Wormald associate with Eorcenwald, bishop of London, who also attests: Casdwalla of Wessex's grant of Farnham, Surrey, dated (problematically)AD 688, Eorcenwald's grant of Battersea, Surrey, dated AD 693, and his charter for Barking monastery, in which his visit to Rome is dated (again problematically) to AD 677. It is entirely possible that Wilfrid was responsible for the inclusion of the annus Domini in these charters, even if their actual drafting was done by Eorcenwald or one of his circle; the absence of the annus Domini from the other credible ‘Eorcenwald’ charters is significant. (Eorcenwald attests the Bath foundation charter, but so does Wilfrid.) Harrison's remaining charter is Æthelred of Mercia's confirmation of a grant in Thanet to the Kentish abbess Æbbe, dated AD 691 in the best manuscript.6 Significantly, this is the only one of the thirteen charters between 675 and 737 in Elmham's Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis to bear an AD date. Wilfrid does not attest — the confirmation carries no witness list — but Brooks comments that, of the four charters originally discussed by Harrison (Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, nos 42, 43, 51 and 72), only BCS 42 [the Thanet charter] has no evident connection with Wilfrid. Yet it shows Wilfrid's friend and protector, King Æthelred of Mercia, intervening in Kent by force in January 6gi (‘dum ille infirmaverat terram nostram’) at a time when the see of Canterbury was vacant. Wilfrid was by this time again running into difficulties with the Northumbrian king, and his biographer claims that he had been offered the succession to the see of Canterbury by Archbishop Theodore himself.

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , April 1988 , pp. 163 - 183
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

ASE = Anglo-Saxon England; JSA = Journal of the Society of Archivists; MGH Auct. Ant. = Monumenta Germaniae Historica Auctores Antiquissimi; MHB = Monumenta Historica Britannica, i; CCSL = Corpus Christianorum Series Latina; MGH SS rer. Merov. = Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum; EPNS = English Place-Name Society

For advice at various places in this paper I am indebted to Mr K. Harrison, Dr M. Lapidge, Dr W. J. Ford, Prof. B. Cunliffe, Dr R. Sharpe and Mr O. J. Padel.

1 Cf. Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn, Oxford 1971, 186Google Scholar ; Harrison, K., ‘The beginning of the year in England, c. 500-900’, ASE ii (1973), 63Google Scholar and 65. Scharer, A., Die angelsdcksiche Konigsurkunde im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert, Vienna 1982, 53Google Scholar and n. 176, 180. Harrison, K., The Framework of Anglo-Saxon History to A.D. 900, Cambridge 1976, 98Google Scholar.

2 Studies in Chronology and History, Oxford 1934, 32–4Google Scholar . See The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by. Eddius Stephanas, ed. Colgrave, B., Cambridge 1927Google Scholar , ch. x. Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B., Oxford 1969, iii. 25Google Scholar and v. iq. , Harrison, op. cit. 49 and 62–5Google Scholar ; Blair, P. Hunter, ‘Whitby as a centre of learning in the seventh century’, in Lapidge, M. and Gneuss, H. (eds), Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: studies presented to Peter Clemoes, Cambridge 1985, 21Google Scholar . Cf. Crdini'n, D. Ò, “The Irish provenance of Bede's computus”, Peritia ii (1983), 232–3Google Scholar and 245, who stresses dissemination via southern Ireland rather than Rome.

3 Harrison, K., ‘The Annus Domini in some early charters’, JSA iv (1970-1973), 551–7Google Scholar ; Brooks, N., ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: the work of the last twenty years’, ASE iii (1974), 225Google Scholar ; , Scharer, op. cit. 53Google Scholar n. 176. , Harrison, Framework, 67–75Google Scholar , 97, 138. The two additional charters were Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an annotated list and bibliography (hereinafter cited as Sawyer), London 1968Google Scholar , nos 1246, 1248 . Cartularium Saxonicum (hereinafter cited as Birch), ed. Birch, W. de G., London 1885-1899, nos 87, 82Google Scholar.

4 Sawyer, nos 235, 1248, 1246. See , Scharer, op. cit. 129–41Google Scholar ; Wormald, P., Bede and the Conversion of England: the charter evidence, Jarrow Lecture 1984 [Jarrow 1985]Google Scholar ; also Whitelock, D., Some Anglo-Saxon Bishops of London, Chambers Memorial Lecture 1974, London 1975, 5–10Google Scholar.

5 Cf. the argument below concerning the annus Domini in the Bath charter, probably drafted by Leutherius or one of his circle.

6 Sawyer 10. Cf. , Harrison, Framework, 142–5.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. 69 and n. 15; ‘Beginning of the year’, 63 n. 4.

8 , Brooks, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters’, 225Google Scholar n. 1. Cf. idem. The Early History of the Church of Canterbury, Leicester 1984, 77Google Scholar . Birch 42, 43, 51, 72 are nos 10, 51, 52, 235 in Sawyer.

9 Sawyer 51. I quote from the manuscript (using æ for its e caudata) since Birch is inaccurate, e.g. omitting Osuualdi (probably Osric's brother, cf. Sawyer 70) from the column of lay witnesses, and misspelling Ergnuualdus. A better edition is by Hunt, W., Two Chartularies of the Priory of St. Peter at Bath (Somerset Record Soc. vii, 1893), 6–7Google Scholar , but here episcopus is omitted from Leutherius' attestation. The dating-clause was explained by , Harrison, ‘The Annus Domini,’ 553Google Scholar.

10 An archaic spelling of the name Beomgyth, cf. Campbell, A., Old English Grammar, Oxford 1959, §§42, 199Google Scholar ; Scott, F. S., ‘The Hildithryth Stone and the other Hartlepool name-stones’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th ser. xxxiv (1956), 204Google Scholar.

11 Sawyer 1167. See Sims-Williams, P., ‘Continental influence at Bath Monastery in the seventh century’, ASE iv (1975), 1–10Google Scholar . On the formula ‘In nomine Domini Dei saluatoris nostri Iesu Christi’, see Stevenson, W. H., ‘Trinoda Necessitas’, EHR xxix (1914), 702–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; on ‘ut habeatis jure dominioque uestro, quam monasterio uestro uindicetis’, see John, E., Land Tenure in Early England, 2nd imp., Leicester 1964, 6, 23Google Scholar . There is no evidence for the supposition that Æthelmod was a Hwiccian prince. Stenton, F. M., The Early History of the Abbey of Abingdon, Reading 1913, 21Google Scholar ; English Historical Documents, i, ed. Whitelock, D., 1st edn, London 1968, 346Google Scholar ; Handbook of British Chronology, 3rd edn, ed. Fryde, E. B. et al., London 1986, 11Google Scholar . Cf. n. 69 below. In her note on no. 57 in the 2nd edn of English Historical Documents, London 1979, 483Google Scholar , Professor Whitelock points out that Sawyer 1167 is not necessarily in favour of Bath because it is in the Bath cartulary; however, the peculiarity of the name Folcburg and the occurrence of Æthelmod both here and in the foundation charter are highly significant.

12 , Sims-Williams, op. cit. 5–6Google Scholar ; Sawyer 1164 ; Levison, W., England and the Continent in the Eighth Century, Oxford 1946, 227–8Google Scholar . On Sawyer 1164 cf. also , Stenton, op. cit. 11, 16Google Scholar ; Hoskins, W. G., The Westward Expansion of Wessex, Leicester 1960, 20Google Scholar ; , Scharer, Konigsurkunde, 167Google Scholar n. 38. Levison dares to identify the scribe with Boniface's teacher of the same name, the abbot of Nursling. He is followed by Wormald, P., ‘Bede and Benedict Biscop’, in Bonner, G. (ed.), Famulus Christi: essays in commemoration of the thirteenth centenary of the birth of the Venerable Bede, London 1976, 160 n. 39Google Scholar.

13 ‘The Annus Domini’, 554; Framework, 69. In a personal comment Dr Lapidge compares ‘piaclorum...meorum’ in , Aldhelm'sCarmen de virginitate, V. 2822Google Scholar , Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, R., MGH Auct. Ant., XV, Berlin 1919, 467Google Scholar.

14 These and other examples are cited by Harrison, ‘The Annus Domini’, 554 n. 20, and , Sims-Williams, ‘Bath’, 5Google Scholar n. 1. If the episcopal attestations in Anglo-Saxon charters represented the bishops’ actual signatures, one might expect more than one example of the style of humility within a single witness list, cf. , Poole, Studies, 77Google Scholar ; the rarity of this is therefore relevant to the matter of the production of charters. Sawyer 239 and 1164 may have been drafted by the bishop who uses the style of humility, even though the writing was due to the named scribe.

15 These examples are taken from charters listed by , Wormald, Bede and the Conversion, 30Google Scholar nn. 24-6. At p. 10 Wormald associates the ‘“humility” formula’ with Eorcenwald, although he has it only in Sawyer 1246 (where he is servorum Dei servus at the beginning of the charter), and it is Aldhelm who is indignus abbas in Sawyer 235, the only other charter of Wormald's ‘Eorcenwald’ group, p. 30 nn. 23-4 (some references to Sawyer 1248 are wrong here), to contain the formula. He suggests that ‘the “humility” formula very probably appeared independently in Wessex’ and posits a Frankish as well as Gregorian background for it, at pp. 11, 16. On the Gregorian serous servorum Dei see , Levison, England and the Continent, 238Google Scholar n. 6; also Theophilus: De diuersis arlibus, ed. Dodwell, C. R., London 1961, pp. xxxv–xxxviGoogle Scholar ; Canterbury Professiom, ed. Richter, M. (Canterbury and York Society lxvii, 1973), p. xli n. 2Google Scholar ; Charles-Edwards, T. M., ‘The seven bishop-houses of Dyfed’, Bulletin of the Board ofCeltic Studies xxiv (1970-1972), 259Google Scholar ; Aldhelm: The Prose Works, transl. Lapidge, M. and Herren, M., Ipswich. 1979, 151Google Scholar . Even Wilfrid describes himself as simplex et humilis servus servorum Dei episcopus, Colgrave, Life of Wilfrid, ch. li.

16 The appearance of both bishops is not suspicious; for possible explanations see the references in , Sims-Williams, op. cit. 4 n. 7Google Scholar , to which add: English Historical Documents, 1st edn, i. 455 n. 11. Gibbs, M., ‘The decrees of Agatho and the Gregorian plan for York’, Speculum xlviii (1973), 241Google Scholar and n. 105 ; , Harrison, Framework, 103, 108Google Scholar ; , Brooks, Canterbury, 126Google Scholar ; and the witness list of Sawyer 98. Yet another possibility is that we glimpse here an attempt to divide the West Saxon diocese that could have proved abortive when Leutherius died, cf. , Brooks, op. cit. 74Google Scholar.

17 , Harrison, op. cit. 65, 71-2, 98.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. 68. See , Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, iv. 6Google Scholar . The exact date seems to depend on ‘Florence’ of Worcester, MHB, ed. Petrie, H., London 1848, 535Google Scholar.

19 Colgrave, op. cit. passim. , Wormald, ‘Bede and Benedict Biscop’, 145–6Google Scholar.

20 , Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, iii. 25Google Scholar and iv. 2 On Agilber t see , Sims-Williams, ‘Bath’, 4–8Google Scholar ; Croinfn, O., ‘Irish provenance’, 245Google Scholar ; Blair, Hunter, ‘Whitby’, 30–2Google Scholar.

21 sic; Hunt reads pro and silently emends sacramentum to sacramento.

22 sic; sujfragente Hunt.

23 This verb seems superfluous, since cathedram also seems to be governed by construere; see below.

24 ‘The Annus Domini’, 554; Framework, 68.

25 ‘Appendix’ to ‘Florence’ of Worcester, MHB, 622 (cf. Haddan, A. W. and Stubbs, W., Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Oxford 1869-1871, iii. 127–8)Google Scholar , and the closely related tract in Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 157, printed in Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. Caley, J. et al., London 1846, i. 607Google Scholar . The occurrence of the phrase cathedram erexit pontificalem here may well be independent of the charter. Pontificalis cathedra is found already in Aldhelm's prose De virginitate, Opera, 257 line 16, 271 line 20.

26 Florentii Wigorniensis monachi chronicon ex chronicis, ed. Thorpe, B., London 1848-1849, ii. 8Google Scholar ; The Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury, ed. Darlington, R. R. (Camden Series xl, 1928), p. xxxi n. 1Google Scholar.

27 , Bede, Historia ecclesiaslica, iv. 5Google Scholar . On the date see , Harrison, Framework, 84–5Google Scholar . ‘Sinodalia decreta’ are also mentioned in Sawyer 1164 (on which see p. 165–6 and n. 12 above), and on references to statuta synodalia see , Wormald, Bede and the Conversion, 10–11Google Scholar.

28 ‘Anglo-Saxon episcopal lists, Part III’, ed. Page, R. I., Nottingham Mediaeval Studies x (1966), 2–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar , at p. 10, etc. Seaxwulf succeeded Wynfrith, who was deposed in 675 (thus ‘Florence’) or a little earlier; see Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, ed. Plummer, C., Oxford 1896, ii. 215Google Scholar , and below, n. 52. Seaxwulf attests the Bath charter.

29 Historia ecclesiastica, iv. 23. , Plummer, op. cit. ii. 246Google Scholar , takes Bede's paulo ante to mean that Tatfrith's election took place ‘shortly before’ Oftfor's election in the early 690s. Apart from the problems Plummer himself mentions, this strict interpretation is impossible to reconcile with Bosel's attestation of Sawyer 1167 already in 681.

30 See n. 23 above.

31 In such expressions conslruere may refer to physical construction, as in Bede's ‘monasteria magnifico opere construentes’, CCSL cxix A. 303, but it is safer to translate ‘establish'; this meaning is clear from the letter of Gregory 1 discussed by Ferrari, G., Early Roman Monasteries, Vatican City 1957, 11Google Scholar . Th e letter also suggests that a woman could be called abbatissa in anticipation of the founding of her house. Both points are relevant for the interpretation of the wording of Anglo-Saxon charters.

32 See Pretty, K. B., The Welsh Border and the Severn and Avon Valleys in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries A.D.: an archaeological survey, unpubl. Ph D diss., Cambridge 1975.Google Scholar

33 Historia ecclesiastica, iv. 13.

34 But without royal title, Sawyer 1165. , Scharer, Konigsurkunde, 136Google Scholar , is misleading on Osric's dates.

35 On the problems in interpreting funerary evidence see Bullough, D., ‘Burial, community and belief in the early medieval West’, in Wormald, P. et al. (eds), Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: studies presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Oxford 1983, 177–201Google Scholar , and my review of this volume in this Journal xxxvii (1986), 114–17Google Scholar.

36 ‘The Annus Domini,’ 553; Framework, 68.

37 ‘Bath’, 2 n. 2. Cf. Lapidge, M., ‘The hermeneutic style in tenth-century Anglo-Latin literature’, ASE iv (1975), 99–101Google Scholar ; , Scharer, op. cit. 213Google Scholar n. 9. On ‘Regnante ac gubemante regimonia regni Osrici regis’ in the dating clause (cf. Sawyer 268 and Stenton, F. M., The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period, Oxford 1955, 26)Google Scholar , see , Harrison, ‘The Annus Domini’, 553Google Scholar . For such a degree of alliteration already in Aldhelm, see Lapidge, M., ‘Aldhelm's Latin poetry and Old English verse’, Comparative Literature xxxi (1979), 219–23Google Scholar.

38 , Ehwald, Opera, 269, 261–2Google Scholar ; , Lapidge and , Herren, Aldhelm, 90, 85Google Scholar . In a personal communication D r Lapidge compares the charter's ‘gratia…enitesceret’ with Aldhelm's ‘gratia enituerit’. , Ehwald, op. cit. 250Google Scholar line 18, and notes that its ‘subnixis precibus’ (in the sanctio) is also Aldhelmian, ibid. 713, s.v. subnitor. See also above, nn. 13 and 25.

39 Thus Grierson, P., ‘Les livres de l'abbe Seiwold de Bath’, Revue Benedictine lii (1940)Google Scholar , in Cf. M. Lapidge, ‘Surviving booklists from Anglo-Saxon England’, in , Lapidge and , Gneuss, Learning and Literature, 60–1Google Scholar.

40 , Lapidge and , Herren, op. cit. 13-15, 137.Google Scholar

41 Cf. Sims-Williams, P., ‘An unpublished seventh—or eighth-century Anglo-Latin letter in Boulogne-sur-Mer MS 74 (82)’, Medium Mvum xlviii (1979), 9–10Google Scholar , 20 n. 88. It has been suggested that Aldhelm and Boniface encouraged the Rule in Wessex, but see ibid. 20 n. 87.

42 On Bath and Hatton 48 see ibid. 9-10 (to be elaborated elsewhere). For Bath's association with (perhaps ‘dedication to’ is too strong) Benedict see S. Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's books’, in , Lapidge and , Gneuss, op. cit. 160–2Google Scholar . Bath acquired a relic of St Benedict (among many other saints), according to the eleventh-century relic list in CCCC in. , Hunt, Two Chartularies, p. lxxviGoogle Scholar , but too late to be relevant to the Athelstan inscription discussed by Keynes, for the same donor, Heorstan, also gave relics of St Ethelwold and St Alphege (d. 1012). A problem with the assumption that Bath was originally dedicated to Peter and Benedict is Cynewulf's grant of 808 (recti 757 x 8) ‘fratribus in monasterio sancti Petri’ (Sawyer 265), but this charter is in the twelfth-century cartulary and was produced as evidence in a land dispute in 1121 , , Hunt, op. cit. xxivGoogle Scholar , so it may well have been edited to accord with the standard later dedication, cf. ibid. p. lxxvi; Sawyer 414, etc.; and , Keynes, op. cit. 162Google Scholar n. 101. It has been argued that Sawyer 265 has been edited in respect of the date (but cf. , Sims-Williams, ‘Bath’, 8 n. 10)Google Scholar , and its reference to fratribus may not be wholly trustworthy. For possible late Anglo-Saxon evidence for a nun at Bath see Cunliffe, B., ‘Saxon Bath’, in Haslam, J. (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Towns in Southern England, Chichester 1984, 353Google Scholar.

43 Three Old English Elegies, ed. Leslie, R. F., Manchester 1961, 22–8Google Scholar . Cf. , Cunliffe, op. cit. 349–50Google Scholar , and idem. The City of Bath, Gloucester 1986, 51–2Google Scholar ; Page, R. I., Anglo-Saxon Aptitudes: an inaugural lecture, Cambridge 1985, 20–4Google Scholar . Bath is ‘famoso urbe’ (sic) in Sawyer 210 (also ‘celebri vico’ in Sawyer 148, but cf. , Sims-Williams, op. cit. 9 n. 8)Google Scholar.

44 Dialogi, ii. 8.10-11, ed. Vogüé, A. de, Grégoire le Grand: Dialogues (Sources Chrétiennes ccli, cclx, cclxv, 1978-1980), ii. 166–8Google Scholar . At ii.19.1 (p. 194) Gregory refers to sanctimoniales in a nearby vicus whose inhabitants Benedict had converted from idolatry. For Benedict's duodecim monasteria see ii.3.13 (p. 150). On a copy of the Dialogi at Bath see , Grierson, ‘Seiwold’, 107Google Scholar ; , Lapidge, ‘Booklists’, 59Google Scholar.

45 , Sulpicius, Vita S. Martini, xiii. 9Google Scholar and xiv. 6, ed. Fontaine, J., Sulpice Severe: Vie de saint Martin, Sources Chretiennes cxxxiii-cxxxv, i. 282Google Scholar and 284. On Sulpicius' language see ibid. ii. 787-8; on the probable influence on Gregory's Benedict see Petersen, J. M., The Dialogues of Gregory the Great in their Late Antique Cultural Background, Toronto 1984, 119Google Scholar ; and on the historical context see Stancliffe, C., St. Martin and his Hagiographer, Oxford 1983, 155, 328–40Google Scholar.

46 I am indebted to Dr W. J. Ford for these comments on the unpublished excavation. Cf. also Ford, W. J., ‘Blacklow Hill, Warws (SP 2905 6755)’, West Midlands Archaeological News Sheet xiv (1971), 21–2Google Scholar ; Rahtz, P. A., ‘Buildings and rural settlement’, in Wilson, D. M. (ed.), The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, London 1976, 70, 85Google Scholar , 411. For place-names see Gelling, M., Signposts to the Past, London 1978, 160Google Scholar ; Wilson, D., ‘A note on OE hearg and weoh as place-name elements representing different types of pagan Saxon worship sites’, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History iv (1985), 179–83Google Scholar ; cf. Bronnenkant, L.J., ‘Place-names and Anglo-Saxon paganism’, Nomina viii (1984), 72Google Scholar.

47 , Cunliffe, City of Bath, 47–8Google Scholar . Cf. ibid. 48-9, 61; and The Temple ofSulis Minerva at Bath, i, part 1: The Site, ed. Cunliffe, B. and Davenport, P. (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph vii, 1985), 66–78Google Scholar . The location of Berta's monastery is uncertain, but it may have been on the temple site; see , Cunliffe, op. cit. 48Google Scholar , and ‘Saxon Bath’, 348. Rodwell, W., ‘Churches in the landscape: aspects of topography and planning’, in Faull, M. L. (ed.), Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon Settlement, Oxford 1984, 7–8Google Scholar . It has been suggested that some Romano-British shrines were used by pagan Anglo-Saxons, but there is no solid evidence for this; cf. Rahtz, P. and Watts, L., ‘The end of Roman temples in the west of Britain’, in Casey, P.J. (ed.), The End of Roman Britain (British Archaeological Reports, British ser. lxxi, 1979), 183–210Google Scholar.

48 Birch 51; Sawyer 52. See , Harrison, ‘The Annus Domini’, 552Google Scholar ; Framework, 67.

49 , Petrie, MHB, 536Google Scholar (s.a. 680). , Dugdale, Monasticon, i. 607–9Google Scholar . Cf Finberg, H. P. R.The Early Charters of the West Midlands, 2nd edn, Leicester 1972, nos 222, 59, 257Google Scholar ; also Robertson, A. J., Anglo-Saxon Charters, 2nd edn, Cambridge 1956, 264Google Scholar.

50 Keynes, S., The Diplomas of King Æthclred ‘the Unready’, Cambridge 1980, 33–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 Framework, 67; ‘The Annus Domini,’ 553. He detects a similar explanatory tone in a Bedan reference, and suggests emending sexta to octaua.

52 See n. 28 above. Th e reason is suggested by , Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 137Google Scholar , following Haddan and , Stubbs, Councils, iii. 122Google Scholar . D. P. Kirby goes beyond the evidence in stating that Wynfrith was driven out by Wulfhere and appealed to Rome, ‘Northumbri a in the time of Wilfrid’, in Kirby, D. P. (ed.), Saint Wilfrid at Hexham, Newcastle 1974, 12Google Scholar.

53 Historia ecclesiastica, iv. 3 and 6.

54 Colgrave, Life of Wilfrid, ch. xxv. Wynfrith is in France in 678, on the road to Rome (reason unspecified), and is attacked and robbed, being mistaken for Wilfrid, who had fortunately travelled via Frisia. Bede does not have this story and gives the impression that Wilfrid's going to Frisia was accidental, Historia ecclesiastica, v. 19. Cf. , Plummer, Baedae Opera Historica, ii. 324–5Google Scholar ; Kirby, D. P., ‘Bede, Eddius Stephanus and the “Life of Wilfrid”’, EHR xcviii (1983), 109CrossRefGoogle Scholar . An early twelfth-century York writer noted the problem of distinguishing the names Wilfrid and Winfrid. The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, ed. Raine, J. (Rolls Series, 1879-1894), ii. 330Google Scholar.

55 Cf. , Page, ‘Anglo-Saxon episcopal lists, III’, 5Google Scholar , etc.

56 For the date see , Plummer, op. cit. ii. 318Google Scholar and , Levison, England and the Continent, 51Google Scholar and n. 1. For the political context see , Brooks, Canterbury, 72–5Google Scholar . On the time a journey to Rome took, see , Harrison, ‘Beginning of the year’, 58Google Scholar.

57 See the proceedings of Pope Agatho's Easter council, quoted in the Life of Wilfrid, ch. liii, cf. , Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, V. 19Google Scholar . Cf. , Haddan and , Stubbs, op. cit. iii. 140Google Scholar , 261. , Plummer, op. cit. ii. 318Google Scholar ; , Whitelock, Documents, 1st edn, 678Google Scholar n. 8. Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 141 n. b and , Poole, Studies, 77–8Google Scholar wrongly see a contradiction between the subscription by Wilfrid in the Acts of the Council of the 125 bishops and the report of proceedings in the Vita Wilfridi and Bede. On these Acts see also Levison, W., ‘Englische Handschriften des Liber Pontificalis’, Neues Archiv xxxv (1910), 376Google Scholar , no. 4 ; Thomson, R. M., ‘William of Malmesbury's edition of the Liber Pontificalis’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae xvi (1978), 100Google Scholar . The wording of Wilfrid's subscription is slightly different in the text in Cambridge, University Library, Kk. 4.6, fo. 265V.

58 Historia ecclesiastica, iv. 13 and 26.

59 Life of Wilfrid, chs xxxiv-xxxix. , Poole, Studies, 68Google Scholar , thinks that Wilfrid's biographer lost touch with the saint on his return to England in 680, while Kirby argues that their personal involvement did not begin until c. 703, ‘Bede, Eddius Stephanus’, 103 and n. 7. Poole rightly prefers Bede's account of Wilfrid in Sussex, but is probably mistaken in saying, p. 61, that Acca, Bede's informant for the interpolated iv. 14 at least, accompanied Wilfred, cf. , Colgrave and , Mynors, Ecclesiastical History, p. xliGoogle Scholar ; see D. Whitelock, ‘Bede and his teachers and friends’, in , Bonner, Famulus Christi, 19–39Google Scholar , 37 n. 56. , Gibbs, ‘Decrees of Agatho’, 234, 245Google Scholar , notes Ceolfrith and Bishop Daniel as possible informants about Wilfrid.

60 , Plummer, Baedae Opera Historica, ii. 318–19Google Scholar ; , Poole, Studies, 69Google Scholar . Cf. , Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 138Google Scholar ; Moore, W. J., The Saxon Pilgrims to Rome and the Schola Saxonum, Fribourg, Switzerland 1937, 29Google Scholar and nn. 3 and 5. , Kirby, op. cit. 110Google Scholar.

61 That is, to 711 x 715, unless the chapter is an addition to the original Vita. Cf. , Poole, Studies, 57Google Scholar ; Kirby, op. cit. Kirby argues that Stephen had particular connections with Ripon and with Mercia. For Levison's dating of ch. xl see his edition, ‘Vita Wilfridi’, MGH SS rer. Merov. vi. 163-263, at p. 174.

62 , Raine, Historians of York, i. 56Google Scholar ; , Colgrave, Life of Wilfrid, 80–1Google Scholar ; Eddius Stephanus: Het Leven van Sint Wilfrid, ed. Moonen, H., 's-Hertogenbosch 1946, 142Google Scholar . Cf. Darlington, R. R. in the Handbook of British Chronology, ed. Powicke, F. M. and Fryde, E. B., 2nd edn, London 1961, 15Google Scholar ; Campbell, J., ‘Bede's words for places’, in Sawyer, P. H. (ed.), Names, Words, and Graves: early medieval settlement, Leeds 1979, 42Google Scholar ; P. Wormald, ‘Bede, the Bretwaldas and the origin of the Gens Anglorum’, in , Wormald, Ideal and Reality, 112Google Scholar . Stephen had just used praefectus without vir in chs xxxvi, xxxviii.

63 , Levison, ‘Vita Wilfridi’, 233Google Scholar ; , Raine, op. cit. i. 141, 201Google Scholar ; Willelmi Malmesbiriensis De Geslis Pontificum Anglorum, ed. Hamilton, N. E. S. A. (Rolls Series, 1870), 232Google Scholar . Raine and Colgrave cite the variants perfectum/perfecto from the Cotton manuscript only, thereby implying that praefectumjpraefecto in their main texts are the readings of the Fell manuscript; however, the latter has the standard abbreviation for per on both occasions (fo. 46V). Dr Richard Sharpe kindly checked this for me.

64 Ibid. 351-2; Sawyer 1169; Birch 65. Cf. , Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 69, 151Google Scholar ; and Darlington and Wormald, as in n. 62 above. William says he was Wulfhere's son, perhaps guessing.

65 Stenton, F. M., Preparatory to ‘Anglo-Saxon England’, ed. Stenton, D. M., Oxford 1970, 52 n. 7Google Scholar ; , Whitelock, Documents, 1st edn, i. 343Google Scholar and n. 2. See also Chaplais, P., ‘The origin and authenticity of the royal Anglo-Saxon diploma’, JSA iii (1965-1969), 48–61Google Scholar , 56 n. 70-66 The date of Bosel's consecration is uncertain; cf. 168 above. A point in favour of the dating clause, since Theodore is a witness, is perhaps the use of'concurrent dating'; cf. , Harrison, ‘The Annus Domini,’ 555Google Scholar , and Framework, 69-70. , Haddan and , Stubbs, op. cit. iii. 169Google Scholar , place the synod at Burford, but the early forms of the latter do not suit. It could be Beorhford where the Mercians and West Saxons fought in 752; see , Stenton, op. cit. 57Google Scholar n. 4; idem, Anglo-Saxon England, 204 n. 3.

67 If one may believe its charters at all, for which see ibid. 69. , Stenton, Preparatory, 52Google Scholar and n. 7. Darlington, R. R. in The Victoria County History of Wiltshire, ii, London 1955, 3–5Google Scholar ; and , Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, 516Google Scholar . See also Haslam, J., ‘The towns of Wiltshire’, in Haslam, J. (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Towns of Southern England, 113–14Google Scholar . (Malmesbury is wrongly included in Worcester diocese in the map in Blair, P. Hunter, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, 2nd edn, Cambridge 1977, 145Google Scholar , and the discussion of the border by Hart, C. R., ‘The Tribal Hidage’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. xxi (1971), 149–50Google Scholar makes uncritical use of charters.) Somerford Keynes was transferred from Wilts, to Glos. in 1897.

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68 For sub-kings in Wessex at the period see , Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, iv. 12Google Scholar ; , Stenton, Abingdon, 17–18Google Scholar ; Sawyer, P. H., From Roman Britain to Norman England, London 1978, 46Google Scholar . Æthelmod (n. 11 above) may be one, or may have ruled in Middle Anglia, where the subject of his grant, the Cherwell, lay.

70 , Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 151Google Scholar : , H. M. and Taylor, J., Anglo-Saxon Architecture, Cambridge 1965-1978, ii. 556–8Google Scholar ; Taylor, H. M., ‘The eighth-century doorway at Somerford Keynes’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society lxxxviii (1969), 68–73Google Scholar.

71 , Hamilton, Gesta Pontificum, 337–9Google Scholar ; , Ehwald, Aldhelmi Opera, 500–2Google Scholar ; , Lapidge and , Herren, Aldhelm, 168–70Google Scholar . On the difficult problem of the date of the letter cf. ibid. 150-1 ; , Plummer, Baedae Opera Historica, ii. 327Google Scholar ; , Haddan and , Stubbs, Councils, iii. 135Google Scholar ; , Whitelock, Documents, i, 1st edn, 730Google Scholar ; , Gibbs, ‘Decrees of Agatho’, 240 n. 101Google Scholar . Whatever its date, it shows that Wilfrid would probably have had Aldhelm's support in dealing with Berhtwald.

72 Sawyer 1667-8 an d 1674-5. Cf. Robinson, J. A., Somerset Historical Essays, London 1921, 32, 63Google Scholar ; Roper, M., ‘Wilfrid's landholdings in Northumbria’, in , Kirby, Wilfrid at Hexham, 61–2Google Scholar . The relevant texts are printed in. Johannis Glastoniensis chronica sive historia de rebus Glastoniensibus, ed. Hearne, T., Oxford 1726, ii. 370, 375–6Google Scholar ; The Early History of Glastonbury, ed. Scott, J., Woodbridge 1981, 94, 142, 198 n. 88Google Scholar ; The Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey, ed. Carley, J. P., Woodbridge 1985, 40, 92, 286 n. 156Google Scholar.

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74 Colgrave translates ‘the kings’, referring back to Ecgfrith and Ælfwine, but in that case one might not have expected reges to be repeated as subject of dederunt; I have therefore preferred the translation of , Stenton, Latin Charters, 32Google Scholar . The Latin is quoted from Levison's edition.

75 , Colgrave, op. cit. chs lxii–lxvGoogle Scholar ; , Roper, ‘Wilfrid's Iandholdings’, 63Google Scholar . Kirby argues that Stephen was particularly interested in Wilfrid's Mercian connections (see n. 61 above).

76 See below.

77 Apud. , Colgrave, op. cit. 164Google Scholar. Cf. , Poole, Studies, 72Google Scholar ; Blair, P. Hunter, ‘The Northumbrians and their southern frontier’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th ser. xxvi (1948), 123–4Google Scholar ; John, E., ‘The social and political problems of the early English Church’, Agricultural History Review xviii (1970)Google Scholar , supplement ‘Land, Church, and people: essays presented to H. P. R. Finberg’, ed. Thirsk, J., 41 n. 2Google Scholar ; Cox, B., ‘The place-names of the earliest English records’, Journal of the English Place- Name Society viii (1975-1976), 45Google Scholar . On Dent and Yeadon see Ekwall, E., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th edn, Oxford 1960, 142, 543–4Google Scholar ; Smith, A. H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire (EPNS xxx-xxxvii, 1961-1963), iv. pp. xi, 155Google Scholar ; vi. 252-3; and vii. 76 n. 1; idem. English Place-Name Elements (EPNS xxv-xxvi, 1956), i. 143, 305Google Scholar ; , Cox, ‘Place-names’, 29, 39–40Google Scholar . On Catlow see ibid. 18 ; Ekwall, E., The Place Names of Lancashire, Manchester 1922, 86Google Scholar , 91. On Dunutinga see also the interesting suggestion of Morris, J., The Age of Arthur, London 1973, 573Google Scholar.

78 See , Ekwall, Dictionary, 385–6Google Scholar ; , Smith, West Riding, vii. 93Google Scholar , 135-6; cf. , Gelling, Signposts, 39Google Scholar ; Llawysgrif Hendregadredd, ed. Morris-Jones, J. and Parry-Williams, T. H., Cardiff 1933, 17Google Scholar (transl. Williams, Gwyn, Welsh Poems, Sixth Century to 1200, London 1973, 33)Google Scholar.

79 See , Ekwall, op. cit. 388Google Scholar ; , Smith, Elements, ii. 84Google Scholar ; Mawer, A. and Stenton, F. M., The Place-Names of Worcestershire (EPNS iv, 1927), 158Google Scholar . Cf. Dyer, C., Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: the estates of the bishopric of Worcester, 680-1540, Cambridge 1980, 94 fig. 8Google Scholar.

80 On these formations see , Ekwall, op. cit. pp. xviii–xxGoogle Scholar , and , Smith, op. cit. i. 5-7, 32–3Google Scholar , 281; also , Plummer, Baedae Opera Historica, ii. 103–4Google Scholar.

81 Leland, John, De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea, ed. Hearne, T., 2nd edn, London 1774, iv. 109–10.Google Scholar

82 Ibid. iv. 154. , Levison, ‘Vita Wilfridi’, 188Google Scholar.

83 Collectanea, iv. 105-11. Leland's travels in Yorkshire are described in part i of his Itinerary, for Ripon see The Itinerary of John Leland, Parts I to III, ed. Smith, L. Toulmin, London 1907, 80–4Google Scholar and map 1. His rough notes in part xi unfortunately lost a quire just before he comes to Ripon, see The Itinerary of John Leland, Parts IX, X, and XI, ed. Smith, L. Toulmin, London 1910, pp. vii-viii and 136.Google Scholar

84 , Leland, Collectanea, ed. , Hearne, iv. 109Google Scholar . Leland underscored the last five letters of Geding and wrote dene above them. This may represent a revision of his first reading, an emendation, or a variant from some other text of the Vila. For Amounderness see , Ekwall, Place Names of Lancashire, 139Google Scholar ; Anderson, O. S., The English Hundred Names, Lund 1934, 29Google Scholar.

85 , Leland, op. cit. iv. 110–11Google Scholar ; , Robinson, Somerset Historical Essays, 130Google Scholar.

86 , Leland, op. cit. iv. 110.Google Scholar

87 Cf. , Raine, Historians of York, i. 26Google Scholar nn. 1-3 ; , Levison, ‘Vita Wilfridi’, 191-2, 212Google Scholar nn. 2-4. For Dunnington see Book, Domesday and Smith, A. H., The Place-Names of the East Riding of Yorkshire and York (EPN S xiv, 1937), 273Google Scholar.

88 Ripon and York interests can hardly be distinguished here since Wilfrid was the patron of both, and York had absorbed Ripon estates; see, for example, Sawyer 1453. Stevenson, W. H., ‘Yorkshire surveys and other eleventh-century documents in the York Gospels’, EHR xxvii (1912), 18–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Domesday Book.

88 Sawyer 407. Early Yorkshire Charters, i, ed. Farrer, W., Edinburgh 1914, 1–5Google Scholar ; , Raine, op. cit. ii. 339Google Scholar and 475. Cf. , Stenton, Latin Charters, 30Google Scholar n. 3. Whitelock, D., ‘The dealings of the kings of England with Northumbria in the tenth and eleventh centuries’, in Clemoes, P. (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons: studies presented to Bruce Dickins, London 1959, 72–3, 85-6Google Scholar.

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