Hwaetberht (died 740s) was
AbbotThe word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...
of
Monkwearmouth-Jarrow PrioryWearmouth-Jarrow is a twin-foundation English monastery, located on the River Wear in Sunderland and the River Tyne at Jarrow respectively, in the Kingdom of Northumbria . Its formal name is The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Wearmouth-Jarrow...
where he had served as a
monkA monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, whilst always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
.
He was elected to succeed Abbot Ceolfrith in 716 or 717 when Ceolfrith set off on a
pilgrimageIn religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith. Members of many major religions participate in pilgrimages...
to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
.
BedeBede , also Saint Bede, the Venerable Bede, or Beda , 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.He is well known as an author and...
reports that Hwaetberht had himself made a pilgrimage to Rome, "and had stayed there a good long while, learning, copying down and bringing back with him all that he thought necessary for his studies" during the papacy of
Sergius IPope Saint Sergius I was Pope from 687–701. Selected to end a schism between Antipope Paschal and Antipope Theodore, Sergius I ended the last disputed sede vacante of the Byzantine Papacy....
(687–701).
Hwaetberht was the author of a collection of sixty
riddleA riddle is a statement or question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and...
s, known as the
Enigmata Eusebii, written under the pen-name Eusebius.
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Hwaetberht (died 740s) was
AbbotThe word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...
of
Monkwearmouth-Jarrow PrioryWearmouth-Jarrow is a twin-foundation English monastery, located on the River Wear in Sunderland and the River Tyne at Jarrow respectively, in the Kingdom of Northumbria . Its formal name is The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Wearmouth-Jarrow...
where he had served as a
monkA monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, whilst always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
.
He was elected to succeed Abbot Ceolfrith in 716 or 717 when Ceolfrith set off on a
pilgrimageIn religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith. Members of many major religions participate in pilgrimages...
to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
.
BedeBede , also Saint Bede, the Venerable Bede, or Beda , 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.He is well known as an author and...
reports that Hwaetberht had himself made a pilgrimage to Rome, "and had stayed there a good long while, learning, copying down and bringing back with him all that he thought necessary for his studies" during the papacy of
Sergius IPope Saint Sergius I was Pope from 687–701. Selected to end a schism between Antipope Paschal and Antipope Theodore, Sergius I ended the last disputed sede vacante of the Byzantine Papacy....
(687–701).
Hwaetberht was the author of a collection of sixty
riddleA riddle is a statement or question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and...
s, known as the
Enigmata Eusebii, written under the pen-name Eusebius. These were written as a supplement to forty riddles written earlier by Tatwine,
Archbishop of CanterburyAlso see Leaders of ChristianityThe Archbishop of Canterbury is the chief 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, the see that churches must be in communion with in order to be...
. Bede's
De temporum rationeDe temporum ratione is a treatise written in Latin by the Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon monk Bede in 725. The treatise includes an introduction to the traditional ancient and medieval view of the cosmos, including an explanation of how the spherical earth influenced the changing length of daylight, of...
is dedicated to Hwaetberht and Bede appears to have regarded him highly. A part of the correspondence between Hwaetberht and
Saint BonifaceSaint Boniface , the Apostle of the Germans, born Winfrid or Wynfrith at Crediton in the kingdom of Wessex , was a missionary who propagated Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 8th century. He is the patron saint of Germany and the first archbishop of Mainz.He was killed in Frisia in 754...
has survived, date to
circaCirca means "in approximately" , referring to a date...
747, placing Hwaetberht's death after that date.
It was during Hwaetberht's time that the remains of Abbots
SigfrithSigfrith, abbot of Monkwearmouth Priory. He was a deacon at the time he was chosen "by Ceolfrid [abbot of the twin abbey at Jarrow] and the monks" . Bede states:...
and Eosterwine were reburied alongside those of
Benedict BiscopBenedict Biscop was an Anglo-Saxon abbot and founder of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory.-Early career:He was born of a good Northumbrian family and was for a time a thegn of King Oswiu....
next to the main altar at Jarrow.