Councils of Clovesho
Encyclopedia
The Councils of Clovesho were a series of synod
s in England in the eighth and ninth centuries.
The location of Clovesho has never been conclusively identified, though it must have been in or near the kingdom of Mercia
, but also relatively convenient for bishops from the south of England. It has been described as "the most famous lost place in Anglo-Saxon England". The leading suggestion has long been Brixworth
in Northamptonshire
, where the surviving Anglo-Saxon church of All Saints' Church, Brixworth
is evidence of the early importance of the place. Hitchin, Herfordshire has recently been suggested. Older suggestions were Cliffe
near Rochester, Kent, previously known as Cliffe-at-Hoo. Lingard
takes it to be Abingdon
, and Kemble
to be Tewkesbury
, but Haddan
and Stubbs
consider these conjectures to be based upon unreliable evidence.
When Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus
held the Council of Hertford
between 672/3, in which he declared to the assembled bishops that he had been "appointed by the Apostolic See to be Bishop of the Church of Canterbury", a canon was passed to the effect that in future yearly synods should be held on 1 August every year "in the place which is called Clofeshoch." This ruling represents the inauguration of the first parliamentary system known to have operated in Britain; "there had never before been a parliament with authority enough to decide on matters concerning all the English peoples." Meetings were held at Clovesho for more than 150 years.
The councils held at Clovesho, and those generally of the Anglo-Saxon period, were mixed assemblies at which not only the bishops and abbots, but the kings of Mercia
and the chief men of the kingdom were present. They had thus the character not only of a church synod but of the Witenagemot
or assembly fairly representative of the Church and realm. The affairs of the Church were decided by the bishops, who were in turn presided over by the archbishop(s), while the king, presiding over his chiefs, gave to their decisions the co-operation and acceptance of the State. Both parties signed the decrees, but there is no evidence of any ingerence of the lay power in the spiritual legislation or judgments of the Church. The country was not yet united into one kingdom, but the decisions made at Clovesho, as far as can be judged from participants' signatures, represented the decisions of the primatial See of Canterbury and the whole English Church south of the Humber.
Notwithstanding the Hertford council provision, ìt was not until seventy years later that the first Council of Clovesho of which we have an authentic record was assembled. In the Canterbury Cartulary there is a charter which says that the Privilege of King Wihtred to the churches was "confirmed and ratified in a synod held in the month of July in a place called Clovesho" in the year 716; some scholars have expressed doubt about the authenticity of this document.
The privilege of King Wihtred, assuring the liberty of the Church, was solemnly confirmed. Beyond this, no mention is made of particular provisions.
They state that the council was composed of "bishops and dignitaries of less degree from the various provinces of Britain", and that it was presided over by Cuthbert
, Archbishop of Canterbury. According to the Manuscript preserved by William of Malmesbury
, "King Ethelbald and his princes and chiefs were present". It was thus substantially representative of the Anglo-Saxon Church.
The Acts relate that "first of all, the Metropolitan
, as president, brought forth in their midst two letters of the Apostolic Lord, Pope Zachary
, venerated throughout the whole world, and with great care these were plainly read, and also openly translated into our own language, according as he himself by his Apostolic authority had commanded". The papal letters are described as containing a fervent admonition to amendment of life, addressed to the English people of every rank and condition, and requiring that those who condemned these warnings and remained obstinate in their malice should be punished by sentence of excommunication. The council then drew up thirty-one canons dealing mostly with matters of ecclesiastical discipline and liturgy.
The thirteenth and fifteenth canons are noteworthy as showing the close union of the Anglo-Saxon Church with the Holy See. The thirteenth canon is: "That all the most sacred Festivals of Our Lord made Man, in all things pertaining to the same, viz.: in the Office of Baptism, the celebration of Masses, in the method of chanting, shall be celebrated in one and the same way, namely, according to the sample which we have received in writing from the Roman Church. And also, throughout the course of the whole year, the festivals of the Saints are to be kept on one and the same day, with their proper psalmody and chant, according to the Martyrology of the same Roman Church." The fifteenth canon adds that in the seven hours of the daily and nightly Office the clergy "must not dare to sing or read anything not sanctioned by the general use, but only that which comes down by authority of Holy Scripture, and which the usage of the Roman Church allows".
The sixteenth canon requires that the litanies and rogations are to be observed by the clergy and people with great reverence "according to the rite of the Roman Church". The feasts of St. Gregory and of St. Augustine
, "who was sent to the English people by our said Pope and father St. Gregory", were to be solemnly celebrated. The clergy and monks were to live so as to be always prepared to receive worthily the most holy Body and Blood of the Lord, and the laity were to be exhorted to the practice of frequent Communion (Canons xxii, xxiii). Persons who did not know Latin were to join in the psalmody by intention, and were to be taught to say, in the Saxon tongue, prayers for the living or for the repose of the souls of the dead (Can. xxvii). Neither clergy nor monks were in future to be allowed to live in the houses of the people (Can. xxix), nor were they to adopt or imitate the dress which is worn by the laity (Can. xxviii).
At or about the time when the papal legate
s presided at the Council of Chelsea in 787, Offa had obtained from Pope Adrian I
that Lichfield
should be created an archbishopric and that the Mercian sees should be subjected to its jurisdiction and withdrawn from that of Canterbury. Consequently at this Council of Clovesho in 794, Higbert of Lichfield, to whom the pope had sent the pallium
, signs as an archbishop.
He states that his first care was to examine diligently "in what way the Catholic Faith was held and how the Christian religion was practised amongst them". To this inquiry, "they all replied with one voice: 'Be it known to your Paternity, that even as it was formerly delivered to us by the Holy Roman and Apostolic See, by the mission of the most Blessed Pope Gregory, so do we believe, and what we believe, we in all sincerity do our best to put into practice.'"
The rest of the time of the council was devoted to questions of church property, and an agreement of exchange of certain lands between the archbishop and the Abbess Cynethryth
.
.
In 798 King Coenwulf of Mercia
addressed to the pope a long letter, representing "with great affection and humility" the disadvantages of the new archbishopric which had been erected at Lichfield
some eleven years previously by Pope Adrian I
, at the prayer of King Offa. King Coenwulf in this letter submits the whole case to the pope, asking his blessing and saying: "I love you as one who is my father, and I embrace you with the whole strength of my obedience", and promising to abide in all things by his decision. "I judge it fitting to bend humbly the ear of our obedience to your holy commands, and to fulfil with all our strength whatever may seem to your Holiness that we ought to do."
Æthelhard
, Archbishop of Canterbury, went himself to Rome, and pleaded for the restitution of the sees. In 802 Pope Leo III
granted the petition of the king and the archbishop, and issued to the latter a Bull in which he restored to him the full jurisdiction enjoyed by his predecessors. The pope communicated this judgment in a letter to King Coenwulf.
This decision was duly proclaimed in the Council of Clovesho held in the following year. Archbishop Ethelheard declared to the synod that "by the co-operation of God and of the Apostolic Lord, the Pope Leo", he and his fellow-bishops unanimously ratified the rights of the See of Canterbury, and that an archbishopric should never more be founded at Lichfield, and that the grant of the pallium made "with the consent and permission of the Apostolic Lord Pope Adrian, be considered as null, having been obtained surreptitiously and by evil suggestion".
Higbert, the Archbishop of Lichfield, submitted to the papal judgment, retiring into a monastery, and the Mercian sees returned to the jurisdiction of Canterbury.
ruling and controlling the Synod", according to the record of the first, and "Wulfred the Archbishop presiding, and also Beornwulf, King of Mercia", according to the second. The first assembly was occupied in deciding a suit concerning an inheritance, and the second in terminating a dispute between the archbishop and the Abbess Cynethryth.
Attribution
Synod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...
s in England in the eighth and ninth centuries.
The location of Clovesho has never been conclusively identified, though it must have been in or near the kingdom of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
, but also relatively convenient for bishops from the south of England. It has been described as "the most famous lost place in Anglo-Saxon England". The leading suggestion has long been Brixworth
Brixworth
Brixworth is a village and civil parish in the Daventry district of Northamptonshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a parish population of 5,162. The village is particularly notable for All Saints' Church, Brixworth, its historic Anglo-Saxon church....
in Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
, where the surviving Anglo-Saxon church of All Saints' Church, Brixworth
All Saints' Church, Brixworth
All Saints' Church, Brixworth, in Northamptonshire is an outstanding example of early Anglo-Saxon architecture located in central England, and has been called "perhaps the most imposing architectural memorial of the 7th century yet surviving north of the Alps"...
is evidence of the early importance of the place. Hitchin, Herfordshire has recently been suggested. Older suggestions were Cliffe
Cliffe, Kent
Cliffe is a village on the Hoo peninsula in Kent, England, reached from the Medway Towns by a three-mile journey along the B2000. Situated upon a low chalk escarpment overlooking the Thames marshes, Cliffe offers the adventurous rambler views of Southend-on-Sea and London...
near Rochester, Kent, previously known as Cliffe-at-Hoo. Lingard
John Lingard
Dr. John Lingard was an English Catholic priest, born in St Thomas Street in Central Winchester to recusant parents and the author of The History Of England, From the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII, an 8-volume work published in 1819...
takes it to be Abingdon
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
Abingdon or archaically Abingdon-on-Thames is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Vale of White Horse district. Previously the county town of Berkshire, Abingdon is one of several places that claim to be Britain's oldest continuously occupied town, with...
, and Kemble
John Mitchell Kemble
John Mitchell Kemble , English scholar and historian, was the eldest son of Charles Kemble the actor and Maria Theresa Kemble....
to be Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury is a town in Gloucestershire, England. It stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon, and also minor tributaries the Swilgate and Carrant Brook...
, but Haddan
Arthur West Haddan
Arthur West Haddan was an English churchman and academic, of High Church Anglican views, now remembered as an ecclesiastical historian, particularly for Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, written with William Stubbs.-Life:He was born at Woodford, Essex on...
and Stubbs
William Stubbs
William Stubbs was an English historian and Bishop of Oxford.The son of William Morley Stubbs, a solicitor, he was born at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, and was educated at Ripon Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1848, obtaining a first-class in classics and a third in...
consider these conjectures to be based upon unreliable evidence.
Councils of Clovesho
Whatever uncertainty exists in determining the place which was known as Clovesho, there is no doubt as to the fact of the councils or to the authenticity of their Acts. The councils of Clovesho of which we have authentic evidence are those of the years 742, 747, 794, 798, 803, 824, and 825.When Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus
Theodore of Tarsus
Theodore was the eighth Archbishop of Canterbury, best known for his reform of the English Church and establishment of a school in Canterbury....
held the Council of Hertford
Council of Hertford
The Council of Hertford was a synod of the Christian Church in England held in 673. It was convened at Hertford by Theodore of Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury...
between 672/3, in which he declared to the assembled bishops that he had been "appointed by the Apostolic See to be Bishop of the Church of Canterbury", a canon was passed to the effect that in future yearly synods should be held on 1 August every year "in the place which is called Clofeshoch." This ruling represents the inauguration of the first parliamentary system known to have operated in Britain; "there had never before been a parliament with authority enough to decide on matters concerning all the English peoples." Meetings were held at Clovesho for more than 150 years.
The councils held at Clovesho, and those generally of the Anglo-Saxon period, were mixed assemblies at which not only the bishops and abbots, but the kings of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
and the chief men of the kingdom were present. They had thus the character not only of a church synod but of the Witenagemot
Witenagemot
The Witenagemot , also known as the Witan was a political institution in Anglo-Saxon England which operated from before the 7th century until the 11th century.The Witenagemot was an assembly of the ruling class whose primary function was to advise the king and whose membership was...
or assembly fairly representative of the Church and realm. The affairs of the Church were decided by the bishops, who were in turn presided over by the archbishop(s), while the king, presiding over his chiefs, gave to their decisions the co-operation and acceptance of the State. Both parties signed the decrees, but there is no evidence of any ingerence of the lay power in the spiritual legislation or judgments of the Church. The country was not yet united into one kingdom, but the decisions made at Clovesho, as far as can be judged from participants' signatures, represented the decisions of the primatial See of Canterbury and the whole English Church south of the Humber.
Notwithstanding the Hertford council provision, ìt was not until seventy years later that the first Council of Clovesho of which we have an authentic record was assembled. In the Canterbury Cartulary there is a charter which says that the Privilege of King Wihtred to the churches was "confirmed and ratified in a synod held in the month of July in a place called Clovesho" in the year 716; some scholars have expressed doubt about the authenticity of this document.
First Council
The first Council of Clovesho, in 742, was presided over by Ethelbald, King of Mercia, and Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury. According to the record of its proceedings, the council "diligently enquired into the needs of religion, the Creed as delivered by the ancient teaching of the Fathers, and carefully examined how things were ordered at the first beginning of the Church here in England, and where the honour of the monasteries according to the rules of justice was maintained".The privilege of King Wihtred, assuring the liberty of the Church, was solemnly confirmed. Beyond this, no mention is made of particular provisions.
Second Council
The second Council of Clovesho, held in 747, was one of the most important such gatherings recorded in the history of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Its acts were copied by Spelman from an ancient Cottonian manuscript now lost.They state that the council was composed of "bishops and dignitaries of less degree from the various provinces of Britain", and that it was presided over by Cuthbert
Cuthbert of Canterbury
Cuthbert was a medieval Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury in England. Prior to his elevation to Canterbury, he was abbot of a monastic house, and perhaps may have been Bishop of Hereford also, but evidence for his holding Hereford mainly dates from after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066...
, Archbishop of Canterbury. According to the Manuscript preserved by William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. C. Warren Hollister so ranks him among the most talented generation of writers of history since Bede, "a gifted historical scholar and an omnivorous reader, impressively well versed in the literature of classical,...
, "King Ethelbald and his princes and chiefs were present". It was thus substantially representative of the Anglo-Saxon Church.
The Acts relate that "first of all, the Metropolitan
Metropolitan bishop
In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of a historical Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital.Before the establishment of...
, as president, brought forth in their midst two letters of the Apostolic Lord, Pope Zachary
Pope Zachary
Pope Saint Zachary was Pope of the Catholic Church from 741 to 752. A Greek from Calabria, he was the last pope of the Byzantine Papacy...
, venerated throughout the whole world, and with great care these were plainly read, and also openly translated into our own language, according as he himself by his Apostolic authority had commanded". The papal letters are described as containing a fervent admonition to amendment of life, addressed to the English people of every rank and condition, and requiring that those who condemned these warnings and remained obstinate in their malice should be punished by sentence of excommunication. The council then drew up thirty-one canons dealing mostly with matters of ecclesiastical discipline and liturgy.
The thirteenth and fifteenth canons are noteworthy as showing the close union of the Anglo-Saxon Church with the Holy See. The thirteenth canon is: "That all the most sacred Festivals of Our Lord made Man, in all things pertaining to the same, viz.: in the Office of Baptism, the celebration of Masses, in the method of chanting, shall be celebrated in one and the same way, namely, according to the sample which we have received in writing from the Roman Church. And also, throughout the course of the whole year, the festivals of the Saints are to be kept on one and the same day, with their proper psalmody and chant, according to the Martyrology of the same Roman Church." The fifteenth canon adds that in the seven hours of the daily and nightly Office the clergy "must not dare to sing or read anything not sanctioned by the general use, but only that which comes down by authority of Holy Scripture, and which the usage of the Roman Church allows".
The sixteenth canon requires that the litanies and rogations are to be observed by the clergy and people with great reverence "according to the rite of the Roman Church". The feasts of St. Gregory and of St. Augustine
Augustine of Canterbury
Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597...
, "who was sent to the English people by our said Pope and father St. Gregory", were to be solemnly celebrated. The clergy and monks were to live so as to be always prepared to receive worthily the most holy Body and Blood of the Lord, and the laity were to be exhorted to the practice of frequent Communion (Canons xxii, xxiii). Persons who did not know Latin were to join in the psalmody by intention, and were to be taught to say, in the Saxon tongue, prayers for the living or for the repose of the souls of the dead (Can. xxvii). Neither clergy nor monks were in future to be allowed to live in the houses of the people (Can. xxix), nor were they to adopt or imitate the dress which is worn by the laity (Can. xxviii).
Third Council
The record of the third Council of Clovesho, in 794, consists merely in a charter by which Offa, King of Mercia, made a grant of land for pious purposes. The charter states that it has been drawn up "in the general synodal Council in the most celebrated place called Clofeshoas".At or about the time when the papal legate
Papal legate
A papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....
s presided at the Council of Chelsea in 787, Offa had obtained from Pope Adrian I
Pope Adrian I
Pope Adrian was pope from February 1, 772 to December 25, 795. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman.Shortly after Adrian's accession the territory ruled by the papacy was invaded by Desiderius, king of the Lombards, and Adrian was compelled to seek the assistance of the Frankish king...
that Lichfield
Lichfield
Lichfield is a cathedral city, civil parish and district in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly north of Birmingham...
should be created an archbishopric and that the Mercian sees should be subjected to its jurisdiction and withdrawn from that of Canterbury. Consequently at this Council of Clovesho in 794, Higbert of Lichfield, to whom the pope had sent the pallium
Pallium
The pallium is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Roman Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the Pope, but for many centuries bestowed by him on metropolitans and primates as a symbol of the jurisdiction delegated to them by the Holy See. In that context it has always remained unambiguously...
, signs as an archbishop.
Fourth Council
A fourth council was held at Clovesho in 798 by Archbishop Ethelheard with Coenwulf, King of Mercia, at which the bishops and abbots and chief men of the province were present. Its proceedings are related in a document by Archbishop Ethelheard.He states that his first care was to examine diligently "in what way the Catholic Faith was held and how the Christian religion was practised amongst them". To this inquiry, "they all replied with one voice: 'Be it known to your Paternity, that even as it was formerly delivered to us by the Holy Roman and Apostolic See, by the mission of the most Blessed Pope Gregory, so do we believe, and what we believe, we in all sincerity do our best to put into practice.'"
The rest of the time of the council was devoted to questions of church property, and an agreement of exchange of certain lands between the archbishop and the Abbess Cynethryth
Cynethryth
Cynethryth was the wife of Offa of Mercia and mother of Ecgfrith of Mercia. Cynethryth is the only Anglo-Saxon Queen consort in whose name coinage was definitely issued.-Origins and marriage:...
.
Fifth Council
The fifth Council of Clovesho, in 803, is one of the most remarkable of the series, as its Acts contain the declaration of the restitution of the Mercian sees to the province of Canterbury by the authority of Pope Leo IIIPope Leo III
Pope Saint Leo III was Pope from 795 to his death in 816. Protected by Charlemagne from his enemies in Rome, he subsequently strengthened Charlemagne's position by crowning him as Roman Emperor....
.
In 798 King Coenwulf of Mercia
Coenwulf of Mercia
Coenwulf was King of Mercia from December 796 to 821. He was a descendant of a brother of King Penda, who had ruled Mercia in the middle of the 7th century. He succeeded Ecgfrith, the son of Offa; Ecgfrith only reigned for five months, with Coenwulf coming to the throne in the same year that Offa...
addressed to the pope a long letter, representing "with great affection and humility" the disadvantages of the new archbishopric which had been erected at Lichfield
Diocese of Lichfield
The Diocese of Lichfield is a Church of England diocese in the Province of Canterbury, England. The bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Chad in the city of Lichfield. The diocese covers 4,516 km² The Diocese of Lichfield is a Church of England...
some eleven years previously by Pope Adrian I
Pope Adrian I
Pope Adrian was pope from February 1, 772 to December 25, 795. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman.Shortly after Adrian's accession the territory ruled by the papacy was invaded by Desiderius, king of the Lombards, and Adrian was compelled to seek the assistance of the Frankish king...
, at the prayer of King Offa. King Coenwulf in this letter submits the whole case to the pope, asking his blessing and saying: "I love you as one who is my father, and I embrace you with the whole strength of my obedience", and promising to abide in all things by his decision. "I judge it fitting to bend humbly the ear of our obedience to your holy commands, and to fulfil with all our strength whatever may seem to your Holiness that we ought to do."
Æthelhard
Æthelhard
Æthelhard was a Bishop of Winchester then an Archbishop of Canterbury in medieval England. Appointed by King Offa of Mercia, Æthelhard had difficulties with both the Kentish monarchs and with a rival archiepiscopate in southern England, and was deposed around 796 by King Eadberht III Præn of Kent...
, Archbishop of Canterbury, went himself to Rome, and pleaded for the restitution of the sees. In 802 Pope Leo III
Pope Leo III
Pope Saint Leo III was Pope from 795 to his death in 816. Protected by Charlemagne from his enemies in Rome, he subsequently strengthened Charlemagne's position by crowning him as Roman Emperor....
granted the petition of the king and the archbishop, and issued to the latter a Bull in which he restored to him the full jurisdiction enjoyed by his predecessors. The pope communicated this judgment in a letter to King Coenwulf.
This decision was duly proclaimed in the Council of Clovesho held in the following year. Archbishop Ethelheard declared to the synod that "by the co-operation of God and of the Apostolic Lord, the Pope Leo", he and his fellow-bishops unanimously ratified the rights of the See of Canterbury, and that an archbishopric should never more be founded at Lichfield, and that the grant of the pallium made "with the consent and permission of the Apostolic Lord Pope Adrian, be considered as null, having been obtained surreptitiously and by evil suggestion".
Higbert, the Archbishop of Lichfield, submitted to the papal judgment, retiring into a monastery, and the Mercian sees returned to the jurisdiction of Canterbury.
Further synods
In 824 and again in 825 the sixth and seventh synods were held at Clovesho, "Beornwulf, King of Mercia, presiding and the Venerable Archbishop WulfredWulfred
Wulfred was an Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury in medieval England. Nothing is known of his life prior to 803, when he attended a church council, but he was probably a nobleman from Middlesex. He was elected archbishop in 805 and spent his time in office reforming the clergy of his cathedral...
ruling and controlling the Synod", according to the record of the first, and "Wulfred the Archbishop presiding, and also Beornwulf, King of Mercia", according to the second. The first assembly was occupied in deciding a suit concerning an inheritance, and the second in terminating a dispute between the archbishop and the Abbess Cynethryth.
See also
- History of the Church of EnglandHistory of the Church of EnglandThe history of the Church of England has its origins in the last five years of the 6th century in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Kent, and the Gregorian mission of Saint Augustine. The Church of England emphasises continuity through apostolic succession and traditionally looks to these early events for...
Attribution