Deusdedit perhaps originally named
Frithona,
Frithuwine or
Frithonas, was a medieval
Archbishop of CanterburyThe Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
, the first native-born holder of the see of Canterbury. By birth an
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
, he became archbishop in 655 and held the office for more than nine years until his death, probably from the 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
saintA saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
after his demise. A
saint's lifeHagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
was written after his
relicIn religion, a relic is a part of the body of a saint or a venerated person, or else another type of ancient religious object, carefully preserved for purposes of veneration or as a tangible memorial...
s were moved from their original burial place in 1091.
Life
A post-
Norman ConquestThe Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
tradition, originating with
GoscelinGoscelin of Saint-Bertin was a Benedictine hagiographical writer, born between 1020–1035 and who died shortly after 1107...
, gives Deusdedit's original name as Frithona, possibly a corruption of Frithuwine. He was consecrated by
IthamarIthamar was the first bishop in England to be Saxon-born rather than consecrated from among Augustine's Roman missionaries...
,
Bishop of RochesterThe Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers the west of the county of Kent and is centred in the city of Rochester where the bishop's seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin...
, on 26 March or perhaps 12 March 655. He was the sixth archbishop after the arrival of the
Gregorian missionaries, and the first to be a native of the island of Great Britain rather than an Italian, having been born a
West SaxonThe Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
. One reason for the long period between the conversion of the Kentish kingdom in about 600 and the appointment of the first native archbishop may have been the need for the schools established by the
Gregorian missionariesThe Gregorian mission, sometimes known as the Augustinian mission, was the missionary endeavour sent by Pope Gregory the Great to the Anglo-Saxons in 596 AD. Headed by Augustine of Canterbury, its goal was to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. By the death of the last missionary in 653, they...
to educate the natives to a sufficiently high standard for them to take ecclesiastical office. Deusdedit probably owed his appointment to the see of Canterbury to a collaboration between
Eorcenberht of KentEorcenberht of Kent was king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent from 640 until his death, succeeding his father Eadbald....
and
Cenwalh of WessexCenwalh, also Cenwealh or Coenwalh, was King of Wessex from c. 643 to c. 645 and from c. 648 unto his death, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in c. 672.-Penda and Anna:...
. The name Deusdedit means "God has given", and was the name of a recent pope,
DeusdeditPope Saint Adeodatus I or Deodatus I was Pope from November 13, 615 to his death....
, in office from 615 to 618; it was the practice of many of the early medieval Saxon bishops to take an adopted name, often from recent papal names. 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.
The see of Canterbury seems at this time to have been passing through a period of comparative obscurity. During the nine years of Deusdedit's pontificate all the new bishops in England were consecrated by Celtic or foreign bishops, with one exception: Deusdedit consecrated
DamianusDamianus served as Bishop of Rochester from his consecration between 655 and 664 until his death about 664. He was consecrated by Deusdedit, the Archbishop of Canterbury.-External links:*...
, Ithamar's successor as Bishop of Rochester. Deusdedit did, however, found a nunnery in the
Isle of ThanetThe Isle of Thanet lies at the most easterly point of Kent, England. While in the past it was separated from the mainland by the nearly -wide River Wantsum, it is no longer an island ....
and helped with the foundation of
MedeshamstedeMedeshamstede was the name of Peterborough in the Anglo-Saxon period. It was the site of a monastery founded around the middle of the 7th century, which was an important feature in the kingdom of Mercia from the outset. Little is known of its founder and first abbot, Sexwulf, though he was himself...
Abbey, later
Peterborough AbbeyPeterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral in the United Kingdom – is the seat of the Bishop of Peterborough, dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the...
, in 657. He was long overshadowed by
AgilbertAgilbert was the second Bishop of the West Saxon kingdom and later Bishop of Paris. Son of a Neustrian noble named Betto, he was a first cousin of Audoin and related to the Faronids and Agilolfings, and less certainly to the Merovingians...
, bishop to the West Saxons, and his authority as archbishop probably did not extend past his own diocese and that of
RochesterThe Diocese of Rochester is a Church of England diocese in South-East England and forms part of the Province of Canterbury. It is an ancient diocese, having been established in 604; only the neighbouring Diocese of Canterbury is older in the Church of England....
, which had traditionally been dependent on Canterbury.
The
Synod of WhitbyThe Synod of Whitby was a seventh century Northumbriansynod where King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome, rather than the customs practised by Iona and its satellite institutions...
, which debated whether the
NorthumbriaNorthumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
n church should follow the
RomanThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
or the Celtic method of dating Easter, was held in 664. Deusdedit does not appear to have been present, perhaps because of an outbreak of the plague prevalent in England at the time.
Death
Deusdedit died at some time around the Synod of Whitby, although the exact date is disputed.
BedeBede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
, in the
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis AnglorumThe Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...
, states that "On the fourteenth of July in the above mentioned year, when an eclipse was quickly followed by plague and during which Bishop
ColmanColmán of Lindisfarne also known as Saint Colmán was Bishop of Lindisfarne from 661 until 664. He succeeded Aidan and Finan. Colman resigned the Bishopric of Lindisfarne after the Synod of Whitby called by King Oswiu of Northumbria decided to calculate Easter using the method of the First...
was refuted by the unanimous decision of the Catholics and returned to his own country, Deusdedit the sixth Archbishop of Canterbury died." 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, 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." If this information is accurate, then Deusdedit must have died on 28 July 664. Various methods of reconciling these discrepancies have been proposed.
Frank StentonSir Frank Merry Stenton was a 20th century historian of Anglo-Saxon England, and president of the Royal Historical Society . He was the author of Anglo-Saxon England, a volume of the Oxford History of England, first published in 1943 and widely considered a classic history of the period...
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.
Other historians, including Richard Abels, P. Grosjean, and Alan Thacker, state that Deusdedit died on 14 July 664. The main argument was put forward by Grosjean, who claimed that Bede had the consecration date wrong, as 26 May was
Maundy ThursdayMaundy Thursday, also known as Holy Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Great & Holy Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, is the Christian feast or holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles as described in the Canonical gospels...
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. Thacker and Abels agree generally, although Thacker does not give a specific consecration date beyond March. 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. The historian D. P. Kirby agrees that Deusdedit died in 664, although he does not give a precise date within that year.
Most historians state that Deusdedit died of the plague that was prevalent in England at the time. Because Bede records the death of Deusdedit shortly after he mentions the outbreak of the plague, the historian
J. R. MaddicottDr John Maddicott has published works on the political and social history of England in the 13th and 14th centuries, and has also written a number of leading articles on the Anglo-Saxon economy, his second area of interest. Born in Exeter, Devon, he was educated at Worcester College, Oxford...
asserts that both Deusdedit and Eorcenberht were struck suddenly with the disease and died quickly. 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 likely
bubonic plaguePlague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
. 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.
Legacy
Except for the bare facts of his life little is known about Deusdedit. Deusdedit's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury,
WighardWighard was a medieval Archbishop-elect of Canterbury. What little is known about him comes from 8th-century writer Bede, but inconsistencies between various works have led to confusion about the exact circumstances of Wighard's election and whether he was ever confirmed in that office...
, had been one of his clergy. Deusdedit was regarded as a saint after his death, with a feast day of 14 July, although the Bosworth Psalter, a late 10th or early 11th-century
psalterA psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the later medieval emergence of the book of hours, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons and were...
produced at , gives a date of 15 July. 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. Deusdedit was buried in the church of St Augustine's in Canterbury, but was translated to the new abbey church in 1091. A
hagiographyHagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
, 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; the manuscript of the
De Sancto Deusdedit Archiepiscopo survives as part of
British LibraryThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
manuscript (ms)
CottonThe Cotton or Cottonian library was collected privately by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton M.P. , an antiquarian and bibliophile, and was the basis of the British Library...
Vespasian B.xx. Because of the late date of the
Sancto, Bede's
Historia is the main source for what little is known about Deusdedit. Other than the hagiography, there is scant evidence of a cult surrounding him. His shrine survived until the
dissolution of the monasteriesThe Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
in the 1530s.
External links