Egbert

Egbert (d. 729), monk and bishop. A Northumbrian of noble birth, Egbert became a monk at Lindisfarne. When he was studying in Ireland at an unidentified monastery called Rathmelsigi, his companion Æthelhun was killed by the plague of 664. He also was struck by the same disease and vowed voluntary exile for life if he recovered. In 684 he tried unsuccessfully to dissuade King Egfrith from invading Ireland. Egbert inspired the Anglo-Saxon missionaries on the Continent such as Wigbert, Wilfrid, and Willibrord. He was prevented from going himself, according to Bede, by a monitory vision, in which he was instructed to go to Iona instead. There he lived for the last thirteen years of his life and succeeded where Adomnan had failed, in persuading the Iona community to adopt the Roman calculation of Easter. On the very day that he died, 24 April, the Iona monks were celebrating Easter for the first time on the same day as the rest of the Western Church. Feast: 24 April; mentioned in Roman and Irish martyrologies and in the metrical calendar of York.

Bibliography
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• AA.SS. Apr. III (1675), 313–15 and Propylaeum, pp. 154–5; Bede, H.E., iii. 4, 27; iv. 3, 29; v. 9–10, 22–4; W. Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (1956), pp. 52–6