Æthelwold of Winchester
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- For the second Bishop of Winchester of this name and all other homonyms see Æthelwold
Saint Æthelwold of Winchester (also spelled Aethelwald, Ethelwold, etc) (909-984) was a 10th century Bishop of Winchester and leader of the monastic reform movement in Anglo-Saxon England.
[edit] Life
Æthelwold was born in Winchester of good parentage in about 909. After a youth spent at the court of King Athelstan, Æthelwold placed himself under Alphege the Bald, Bishop of Winchester, who gave him the tonsure and ordained him priest along with Saint Dunstan. Æthelwold became a monk at Glastonbury Abbey, where he was dean during Dunstan's abbacy, until about 955 when he was appointed Abbot of Abingdon [1] (Kelly 2000).
On 29 November 963, he was consecrated Bishop of Winchester by Saint Dunstan, and with Oswald of Worcester, he worked zealously in combating the general corruption occasioned by the Danish inroads into the country. At Winchester, both in the Old and the New Minster, he replaced the evil-living seculars with monks and refounded the ancient nunnery known as Nunnaminster. His labours extended to Chertsey, Milton, Ely, Peterborough, Thorney and elsewhere; expelling the unworthy, rebuilding and restoring. The epithets "father of monks" and "benevolent bishop" summarize Æthelwold's character as reformer and friend of Christ's poor. Though he suffered much from ill-health, his life as scholar, teacher, prelate and Royal counsellor was ever austere, said to be "terrible as a lion" to the rebellious, yet "gentler than a dove" to the meek. He is said to have written a treatise on the circle and to have translated the "Regularis Concordia". He died on 1 August 984.
[edit] Veneration
He was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester, his body being translated by Alphege, his successor, and then again into the new Cathedral. By the 12th century, Abingdon Abbey had acquired an arm and a leg [2].
His liturgical feast is kept on 1 August.
[edit] Sources and references
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. [3]
- Fryde, E. B. and others, 1986. Handbook of British Chronology, 3rd edition.
- Kelly, S. E. 2000. Charters of Abingdon, part 1. Anglo-Saxon Charters 7.
- Yorke, Barbara 1997. Bishop Aethelwold: His Career and Influence
- Lapidge, M and Winterbottom, M, 1991. Wulfstan of Winchester: Life of St AEthelwold.
- Lambertson, Reader Isaac. Commemoration of Our Father among the Saints Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester
- St. Aethelwold
- EBK: St. Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester (AD 909-984)
- EBK for Kids: Aethelwold & Monastic Reforms
- Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909: St. Ethelwold
- London, British Library, MS. Add. 49598 (The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold)
- Detail of St. Æthelwold, The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold
