Ecgbert (Archbishop of York)

Infobox Archbishop of York
name = Ecgbert


birth_name =
began = unknown
consecration = about 734
term_end = 19 November 766
predecessor = Wilfrid II
successor = Ethelbert
birth_date = "unknown"
death_date = 19 November 766
tomb =

Ecgbert or Ecgberht or Ecgbeorht (died 766) was an eighth century Archbishop of York and correspondent of Bede and Saint Boniface.

Life

He was the son of Eata, who was descended from the founder of the kingdom of Bernicia. His brother Eadberht was king of Northumbria from 737 to 758. Ecgbert went to Rome with another brother, and was ordained deacon while still in Rome.Mayr-Harting "Ecgberht (d. 766)" "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8580 Online Edition] accessed 9 November 2007] He studied under Bede, who visited him in 733 at York.Blair "World of Bede" p. 305]

Ecgbert was made bishop of York in 734Fryde "Handbook of British Chronology" p. 224] by his cousin and fellow-Leodwalding Ceolwulf of Northumbria, succeeding Wilfrid II on the latter's resignation. The pallium was sent him in 735 by Pope Gregory III and he became the first northern archbishop after Paulinus of York.Ashley "Mammoth Book of British Kings & Queens" p. 288-290] Alcuin as a child was given to Ecgbert, and was educated at the school at York that Ecgbert founded.Hindley "A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons" p. 85] Liudger, later the first bishop of Munster, and Aluberht, another bishop in Germany, both studied at the school in York.Stenton "Anglo Saxon England" 3rd ed. p. 175] He was the recipient of a famous letter of Bede, dealing with the evils arising from spurious monasteries as well as the problems of large dioceses. Bede urged Ecgbert to study Gregory the Great's "Pastoral Care." Bede's admonition to divide up dioceses, however, fell on deaf ears, as Egbert did not break up his large diocese.Mayr-Harting "Coming of Christianity" p. 241-243] The suffragans continued to be limited to the bishops of Hexham, Lindisfarne, and Whithorn.Cubit "Finding the Forger" "English Historical Journal" p. 1222]

The problem of the spurious monasteries came from the secular practice of families setting up monasteries that were totally under their control as a way of making the family lands book-land or land free from secular service. Book-land was exclusively a right of ecclesiastical property, and by transferring land to a family controlled monastery, the family would retain the use of the land without having to perform any services to the king for the land.Mayr-Harting "Coming of Christianity" p. 252-253] Ecgbert himself wrote a "Dialogus ecclesiasticae institutionis", a "Penitentiale" and a "Pontificale", although the Penitentiale may have had many later additions. The Dialogus was basically a legal law code for the clergy, setting forth the proper procedures for many clerical and eccleisastical issues including weregild for clerics, entrance to clerical orders, deposition from the clergy, criminal monks, clerics in court, and other matters. It details a code of conduct for the clergy and how the clergy was to behave in society.Mayr-Harting "Coming of Christianity" p. 251-252] The historian Simon Coates saw the "Dialogues" as not especially exalting monks above the laity.Coates "Role of Bishops" "History" p. 194] He was a correspondent of Saint Boniface, who asked him to support his censure of Ethelbald of Mercia. Boniface also asked the archbishop for some of Bede's books, and in return sent wine to be drunk "in a merry day with the brethern."quoted in Hindley "A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons" p. 143]

The school he founded at York is held by the modern historian Peter Hunter Blair to have equalled or surpassed the famous monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow.Blair "World of Bede" p. 225]

Ecgbert died on 19 November 766.

Notes

References

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* Ashely, Mike "The Mammoth Book of British Kings & Queens" New York: Carroll & Graff 1998 ISBN 0-7967-0692-9
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* Hindley, Geoffrey "A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons: The beginnings of the English nation" New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers 2006 ISBN 978-0-78671738-5
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* Mayr-Harting, Henry "Ecgberht (d. 766)" "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8580 Online Edition] accessed 9 November 2007
* Stenton, F. M. "Anglo-Saxon England" Third Edition Oxford:Oxford University Press 1971 ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5

External links

* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05326a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article on Ecgbert]
* [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Ecgbert_(Archbishop) Ecgbert at 1911 Britannica Encyclopedia Online]
* [http://www.pase.ac.uk/pase/apps/persons/CreatePersonFrames.jsp?personKey=884 Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England entry on Ecgbert]

Persondata
NAME=Ecgbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Ecgbeorht; Ecgberht
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Archbishop of York
DATE OF BIRTH=
PLACE OF BIRTH=
DATE OF DEATH=19 November 766
PLACE OF DEATH=