Wilfrid
Wilfrid (Wilfrith) (c.633–709), bishop. Born in Northumbria, the son of a nobleman closely connected with the court, he was educated at Lindisfarne, the principal centre of Irish culture in the North. Dissatisfied, apparently with its insularity, but encouraged both by the queen, Enfleda, and some of the monks, he went to Canterbury and then to Rome (653), where he studied under the archdeacon Boniface both Scripture and Canon Law. On his way back, he spent three years at Lyons, where he had previously been tonsured and had refused an offer of marriage. Here he experienced and admired the power, wealth, and importance of the local bishop in a town of Merovingian Gaul where Roman influence was still strong. On his return to England, he became abbot of Ripon at the invitation of the sub-king Alcfrith. Now, he introduced the Rule of St. Benedict and adopted the Roman (or Western) method of calculating Easter, introduced by Kentish missionaries like
He was now chosen as bishop by Alcfrith; in the current dearth of bishops in England, he went to France to receive episcopal consecration by twelve Frankish bishops at Compiègne. But he stayed there too long and found on his return in 666 that Alcfrith was dead (or exiled), and that his own place at York had been taken by Chad, nominated by King Oswiu but dubiously consecrated. Wilfrid retired to Ripon, but was fully reinstated by Theodore in 669. The years which followed were externally the most successful of his life. He enjoyed the favour of King Egfrith and his wife Etheldreda; he obtained large endowments of land for his churches, especially Hexham, where he built a monastery and a church reckoned to be the finest north of the Alps; he adopted a life-style based on that of the Frankish bishops, with a large household, numerous retainers, and extensive patronage; he presided over a diocese co-terminous with the kingdom of Northumbria, extending from the Wash to the Forth at the time of its greatest expansion, with York as its centre. But this did not last. Wilfrid encouraged Queen Etheldreda to separate from her husband and become a nun in 672, while his power and wealth were the target of adverse criticism. In close collaboration with King Egfrith, Theodore in 678–81 divided the Northumbrian diocese into four over Wilfrid's head and without his consent. The substance of the decision was reasonable, but not the way it was executed. Wilfrid felt that he had been virtually deposed, quite unjustly and for no canonical cause; so, like many bishops from other parts of Christendom before him, he appealed to Rome for restoration. In doing so, he made history, as he was the first Anglo-Saxon to make such an appeal. On his way to Rome, he spent a year preaching in Frisia; by this example and later encouragement of disciples, he began the influential Anglo-Saxon Christian mission on the Continent.
The papacy, who had appointed Theodore to Canterbury, nevertheless ruled in favour of Wilfrid's restoration. But King Egfrith refused to obey and imprisoned Wilfrid, only releasing him on condition that he left the kingdom. Wilfrid went to Sussex, the last stronghold of paganism in Ango-Saxon England, preached there and in the Isle of Wight, and founded a monastery at Selsey. In 686 he was reinstated in Northumbria, but with reduced jurisdiction, by Theodore, and there he remained until 691. But a series of disputes broke out with the new king of Northumbria, Aldfrith, concerning endowments and the status of Ripon; Wilfrid retired to Mercia, where he acted as bishop in the Leicester area, and founded several monasteries. Their identification is not certain; but it seems that Peterborough, Brixworth, Evesham, and Wing all have some claim to be his foundations.
In 703 a synod of Austerfield (West Yorkshire), presided over by Bertwald, archbishop of Canterbury, decreed that he should resign his see of York, accept virtual deposition and confinement, and give up his monasteries. Once again, after an eloquent defence of his achievements, he appealed to the papacy; once again he was vindicated. His prolonged exile, widely believed to be unjust, was ended in 705 with a compromise at the Synod of the River Nidd. There he agreed to leave John of Beverley as bishop of York, but he resumed full episcopal control of the diocese of Hexham and of his monasteries in various parts of the country in accordance with the papal privileges he had obtained for them. A few years later he died, aged seventy-six, at his monastery at or near Oundle (Northants), having bequeathed his considerable fortune to four causes: offerings to Roman churches, to the poor, to his followers who had shared his exile, and to his abbots ‘so that they could purchase the friendship of kings and bishops’. He believed that this would be the best way to secure the monasteries' continuity.
The cult of Wilfrid was centred on Ripon, where he was buried, and on Hexham, where his disciple Acca succeeded him as bishop and abbot. His widespread apostolate, and the translation of his relics, it was claimed, to both Canterbury and Worcester in the 10th century by Oda and Oswald respectively, led to a further diffusion of his cult, which became nationwide. Forty-eight ancient churches were dedicated to him. In art he is represented either preaching to, and baptizing the pagans, or else as a fully robed bishop with pastoral staff. The impressive crypts of his churches at Hexham and Ripon survive.
As an apostolic pioneer, a monastic founder, a builder of churches and patron of art, and as a person of remarkable fortitude and persistence, inspired by grandiose ideals and imaginative vision, he deserves to be considered one of the most important men of the OE Church. Feast: 12 October; translation, 24 April.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- B. Colgrave (ed.), Eddius Stephanus' Life of St. Wilfrid (1927); also ed. W. Levison, M.G.H., Scriptores rerum merov., vi. 163–263 and J. F. Webb and D. H. Farmer (ed.), The Age of Bede (1983); Bede, H.E., iii. 25, iv. 2, 12–16, 19, 23, v. 19; later Lives in A. Campbell, Frithegodii Breviloquium (1950) and B. J. Muir and A. J. Turner, Vita S. Wilfridi, (1998). D. P. Kirby (ed.) St. Wilfrid at Hexham (1973), M. Gibbs, ‘The Decrees of Agatho and the Gregorian Plan for York’, Speculum, xviii (1973), 213–46; E. D. C. Jackson and E. G. M. Fletcher, ‘Excavations at Brixworth, 1958’, J.B.A.A., xxiv (1961), 1–15 and id., ‘The Apse and Nave at Wing, Buckinghamshire’, ibid., xxv (1962), 1–20. See also F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (1946), pp. 123–45; E. S. Duckett, Anglo-Saxon Saints and Scholars (1947); D. H. Farmer, The Rule of St. Benedict (1968); D. P. Kirby, ‘Bede, Eddius Stephanus and the Life of Wilfrid’, E.H.R., xcviii (1983), 101–14; W. T. Foley, Images of Sanctity in Eddius Stephanus' Life of Bishop Wilfrid (1992)
