14
July 664 A.D. Deusdedit,
6th Archbishop of Canterbury, Dies.
The first Saxon in the See.
Deusdedit (died c. 664), perhaps originally named Frithona, Frithuwine
or Frithonas, was a medieval Archbishop
of Canterbury, the first native-born holder of the see of Canterbury.
By birth an Anglo-Saxon,
he became archbishop in 655 and held the office for more than nine years until
his death, probably from plague. Deusdedit's successor as
archbishop was one of his priests at Canterbury. There is some controversy over
the exact date of Deusdedit's death, owing to discrepancies in the medieval
written work that records his life. Little is known about his episcopate, but
he was considered to be a saint
after his demise. A saint's life
was written after his relics
were moved from their original burial place in 1091.
Contents
Life
A post-Norman
Conquest tradition, originating with Goscelin,[1] gives Deusdedit's
original name as Frithona, possibly a corruption of Frithuwine.[2][a] He was consecrated
by Ithamar, Bishop of Rochester, on 26 March[4] or perhaps
12 March 655.[5] He was the sixth
archbishop after the arrival of the Gregorian missionaries,[6] and the first to
be a native of the island of Great Britain rather than an Italian, having been
born a West Saxon.[2][7] One reason for the
long period between the Christianization
of the Kentish kingdom from Anglo-Saxon paganism in about 600 and the appointment of the first native archbishop may have
been the need for the schools established by the Gregorian missionaries
to educate the natives to a sufficiently high standard for them to take
ecclesiastical office.[8] Deusdedit probably
owed his appointment to the see of Canterbury
to a collaboration between Eorcenberht of Kent and Cenwalh of Wessex.[2] The name Deusdedit
means "God has given" in Latin,[9] and had been the
name of a recent pope,[1] Deusdedit, in office from 615 to
618;[10] it was the
practice of many of the early medieval Saxon bishops to take an adopted name,
often from recent papal names.[1] It is unclear when
Deusdedit adopted his new name, although the historian Richard Sharpe considers
it likely to have been when he was consecrated as an archbishop, rather than
when he entered religious life.[10]
The see of Canterbury seems at this
time to have been passing through a period of comparative obscurity.[1] During Deusdedit's
nine years as archbishop, all the new bishops in England were consecrated by Celtic or foreign bishops, with one exception:[11] Deusdedit
consecrated Damianus,
Ithamar's successor as Bishop of Rochester.[1] Deusdedit did,
however, found a nunnery
in the Isle of Thanet
and helped with the foundation of Medeshamstede Abbey, later Peterborough
Abbey, in 657.[11] He was long
overshadowed by Agilbert,
bishop to the West Saxons,[12] and his authority
as archbishop probably did not extend past his own diocese and that of Rochester, which had traditionally been dependent on Canterbury.[1]
The Synod of Whitby, which debated
whether the Northumbrian
church should follow the Roman or the Celtic method of dating Easter, was held in 664.[13] Deusdedit does not
appear to have been present, perhaps because of an outbreak of the plague
prevalent in England at the time.[14]
Death
Deusdedit died at some time around the
Synod of Whitby, although the exact date is disputed.[5] Bede, in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, states that "On the fourteenth of July in the above mentioned year,
when an eclipse was quickly followed by plague and during which Bishop Colman was refuted by the unanimous decision of the Catholics and returned to his
own country, Deusdedit the sixth Archbishop of Canterbury died."[15] A solar eclipse
occurred on 1 May 664, which
would appear to make the date of Deusdedit's death 14 July 664. But that conflicts with Bede's own
information earlier in the Historia,[5] where he claims
that Deusdedit's predecessor, Honorius, "died on the 30th of September 653, and after a vacancy of 18
months, Deusdedit, a West Saxon was elected to the archiepiscopal see and
became the 6th Archbishop. He was consecrated by Ithamar, Bishop of Rochester,
on the 26th of May, and ruled the see until his death nine years, four months,
and two days later."[6] If this
information is accurate, then Deusdedit must have died on 28 July 664.[5] Various methods of
reconciling these discrepancies have been proposed. Frank Stenton argues that Bede
began his years on 1 September; thus the date of Honorius' death should be
considered 30 September 652 in modern reckoning. Further, Stenton argued
that medieval copyists had introduced an error into the manuscripts of the Historia,
and that Bede meant that the length of Deusdedit's reign was 9 years and 7
months, rather than 9 years and 4 months as stated in the manuscripts. From
this, he concludes that Deusdedit's death occurred in the year September 663 to
September 664. This would make the year of death correct according to the
eclipse, but still leave a discrepancy on the specific day of death, for which
Stenton asserted the length calculations given by Bede were more correct than
the actual death date given. Thus Stenton concluded that Deusdedit died on 28
October 663.[14]
Other historians, including Richard
Abels, P. Grosjean, and Alan Thacker, state that Deusdedit died on 14 July 664.[1][5][16] The main argument
was put forward by Grosjean, who claimed that Bede had the consecration date
wrong, as 26 May was Maundy Thursday in 655, not a date
that would normally have been chosen for a consecration. Grosjean argues that
the best method for resolving the conflicts is to just take 14 July 664 as
the date of death, and figure backwards with the length of reign given by Bede,
which gives a consecration date of 12 March 655.[5] Thacker and Abels
agree generally, although Thacker does not give a specific consecration date
beyond March.[1][5] Abels adds to Grosjean's
arguments Bede's association of Deusdedit's death with that of King
Eorcenberht, which Bede gives as occurring on the same day. Bede states that
the plague of 664 began soon after the eclipse on 1 May. Nothing in Bede
contradicts the date of 14 July 664 for Eorcenberht; therefore, Abels
considers that date to be the best fit for the available data.[5] The historian D.
P. Kirby agrees that Deusdedit died in 664, although he does not give a precise
date within that year.[17]
Most historians state that Deusdedit
died of the plague that was prevalent in England at the time.[1][5][18] Because Bede
records the death of Deusdedit shortly after he mentions the outbreak of the
plague, the historian J. R. Maddicott asserts that both
Deusdedit and Eorcenberht were struck suddenly with the disease and died
quickly.[18] Bede is not
specific on the type of plague, but Maddicott argues that because of the time
of its eruption and the way it arrived in England it was probably bubonic plague. Although Bede
does not describe either Eorcenberht or Deusdedit's symptoms he does discuss
another victim of the 664 disease, who suffered from a tumour on his thigh,
resembling the characteristic groin swellings of bubonic plague.[19]
Legacy
Except for the bare facts of his life,
little is known about Deusdedit.[1][8] Deusdedit's
successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Wighard, had been one of his
clergy.[20] Deusdedit was
regarded as a saint after his death, with a feast day of 14 July,[21] although the Bosworth
Psalter, a late 10th or early 11th-century psalter produced at St Augustine's Abbey, gives a date of 15 July.[1] His feast day is
designated as a major feast day, and is included along with those of a number
of other early Canterbury archbishops in the Bosworth Psalter.[22] Deusdedit was
buried in the church of St Augustine's in Canterbury, but was translated to the new abbey church in 1091. A hagiography, or saint's
biography, on Deusdedit was written by Goscelin after the translation of his
relics, but the work was based mainly on Bede's account;[1] the manuscript of
the De Sancto Deusdedit Archiepiscopo survives as part of British Library manuscript (ms) Cotton Vespasian B.xx.[23] Because of the
late date of the Sancto, Bede's Historia is the main source for
what little is known about Deusdedit.[8] Other than the
hagiography, there is scant evidence of a cult surrounding him.[1] His shrine
survived until the dissolution
of the monasteries in the 1530s.[24]
Note
Citations
1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m Thacker "Deusdedit (d. 664)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
References
- Abels, Richard (1983). "The Council of Whitby: A Study in Early Anglo-Saxon Politics". Journal of British Studies 23 (1): 1–25. doi:10.1086/385808. JSTOR 175617.
- Bede; translated by Leo Sherley-Price (1988). A History of the English Church and People. London: Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044042-9.
- Blair, Peter Hunter (1990). The World of Bede (Reprint of 1970 ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39819-3.
- Brooks, Nicholas (1984). The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066. London: Leicester University Press. ISBN 0-7185-0041-5.
- Delaney, John P. (1980). Dictionary of Saints (Second ed.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-13594-7.
- Farmer, David Hugh (2004). Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Fifth ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-860949-0.
- Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.
- Hindley, Geoffrey (2006). A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons: The Beginnings of the English Nation. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7867-1738-5.
- Kirby, D. P. (July 1963). "Bede and Northumbrian Chronology". The English Historical Review 78 (308): 514–527. doi:10.1093/ehr/LXXVIII.CCCVIII.514. JSTOR 562147.
- Kornhammer, P. M. (1973). "The Origin the Bosworth Psalter". Anglo-Saxon England 2. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 173–187. doi:10.1017/S0263675100000417.
- Lapidge, Michael (2001). "Deusdedit". In Lapidge, Michael; Blair, John; Keynes, Simon; Scragg, Donald. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. p. 140. ISBN 978-0-631-22492-1.
- Maddicott, J. R. (August 1997). "Plague in Seventh-Century England". Past and Present (156): 7–54. doi:10.1093/past/156.1.7. JSTOR 651177.
- Müller, Michael (1881). God the Teacher of Mankind: or, Popular Catholic Theology, Apologetical, Dogmatical, Moral, Liturgical, Pastoral, and Ascetical 3. New York: Benziger Brothers.
- Sharpe, R. (September 2002). "The Naming of Bishop Ithamar". The English Historical Review 117 (473): 889–894. doi:10.1093/ehr/117.473.889.
- Staff. "Full Description: Cotton Vespasian B.xx". Manuscripts Catalogue. British Library. Retrieved 3 July 2011.
- Stenton, F. M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England (Third ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5.
- Thacker, Alan (2004). "Deusdedit (d. 664)" ((subscription or UK public library membership required)). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7560. Retrieved 21 August 2010.
- Wood, Susan (April 1983). "Bede's Northumbrian Dates Again". The English Historical Review 98 (387): 280–296. doi:10.1093/ehr/XCVIII.CCCLXXXVII.280. JSTOR 569438.
Further reading
- Orchard, N. (1995). "The Bosworth Psalter and the St Augustine's Missal". In Eales, R. and Sharpe, R.. Canterbury and the Norman Conquest. London: Hambledon Press. pp. 87–94. ISBN 1-85285-068-X.
- Sharpe, R. (1995). "The Setting to St Augustine's Translation, 1091". In Eales, R. and Sharpe, R.. Canterbury and the Norman Conquest. London: Hambledon Press. pp. 1–13. ISBN 1-85285-068-X.
External links
- Deusdedit entry at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England project
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