Book V, Chapter 8. How, when Archbishop Theodore died, Bertwald succeeded him as archbishop, and, among many others whom he ordained, he made the learned Tobias bishop of the church of Rochester. [690 a.d.]

The year after that in which Caedwalla died at Rome, that is, 690 after the Incarnation of our Lord, Archbishop Theodore, of blessed memory, departed this life, being old and full of days, for he was eighty-eight years of age; which number of years he had been wont long before to foretell to his friends that he should live, the same having been revealed to him in a dream. He held the bishopric twenty-two years,¹ and was buried in St. Peter’s church,² where all the bodies of the bishops of Canterbury are buried. Of whom, as well as of his fellows of the same degree, it may rightly and truly be said, that their bodies are buried in peace, and their names shall live to all generations. For to say all in few words, the English Churches gained more spiritual increase while he was archbishop, than ever before. His character, life, age, and death, are plainly and manifestly described to all that resort thither, by the epitaph on his tomb, in thirty-four heroic verses.³ The first whereof are these:

“Here in the tomb rests the body of the holy prelate, called now in the Greek tongue Theodore. Chief pontiff, blest high priest, pure doctrine he set forth to his disciples.”

The last are as follow:

“For September had reached its nineteenth day, when his spirit went forth from the prison-bars of the flesh. Mounting in bliss to the gracious fellowship of the new life, he was united to the angelic citizens in the heights of Heaven.”

Bertwald⁴ succeeded Theodore in the archbishopric, being abbot of the monastery called Racuulfe,⁵ which stands at the northern mouth of the river Genlade.⁶ He was a man learned in the Scriptures, and perfectly instructed in ecclesiastical and monastic teaching, yet in no wise to be compared to his predecessor. He was chosen bishop in the year of our Lord 692,⁷ on the first day of July, when Wictred and Suaebhard were kings in Kent;⁸ but he was ordained the next year, on Sunday the 29th of June, by Godwin, metropolitan bishop of Gaul,⁹ and was enthroned on Sunday the 31st of August. Among the many bishops whom he ordained was Tobias,¹⁰ a man instructed in the Latin, Greek, and Saxon tongues, and otherwise of manifold learning, whom he consecrated in the stead of Gedmund, bishop of the Church of Rochester, who had died.

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← V.7 How Caedwalla, king of the West Saxons, went to Rome to be baptized; and his successor Ini, also devoutly journeyed to the same threshold of the holy Apostles. [688 a.d.] · Contents · [[BEH V.09|V.9 How the holy man, Egbert, would have gone into Germany to preach, but could not; and how Wictbert went, but because he availed nothing, returned into Ireland, whence he came. [Circ. 688 a.d.] →]]

Footnotes

1. He was consecrated 26th March, 668, and died, as Bede says here, on 19th September, 690. ↩

2. The church of SS. Peter and Paul. Cf. II, 3, p. 90. ↩

3. They are elegiacs. Cf. I, 10. ↩

4. Cf. II, 3, and infra 19, 23. ↩

5. The old Roman town Reculver, in Kent. A charter of 679 exists (the oldest original English charter extant) by which King Hlothere of Kent grants land in Thanet to Bertwald and his monastery. ↩

6. Said to be the Inlade. ↩

7. The see was, therefore, vacant for two years, possibly owing to the political troubles of the time, cf. IV, 26, ad fin. The further delay of a year between Bertwald’s election and consecration may have been caused by his desire to obtain greater weight as consecrated by the Primate of a neighbouring Church (Haddan and Stubbs, III, 229). ↩

8. For Wictred, v. IV, 26, and note. Thomas of Elmham tries to identify Suaebhard with Suefred, son of Sebbi, king of the East Saxons (v. IV, 11, ad fin.), and says that he made himself king of Kent by violence, but this seems very improbable. ↩

9. He was Archbishop of Lyons. The Church of Lyons did not obtain the primacy over other metropolitan churches till the eleventh century, but apparently it held a leading position even before this time. ↩

10. He was trained under Theodore and Hadrian in the School of Canterbury; cf. V, 23, ad init. The date of Gebmund’s death and the succession of Tobias cannot be earlier than 696, as Gebmund (v. IV, 12) appears to have been present at the Kentish Witenagemot of Bersted in that year. (Haddan and Stubbs, III, 238, 241.) Tobias died in 726. ↩