Cuthbert of Canterbury

Of noble birth, Cuthbert is first recorded as the abbot of Lyminge Abbey, from where he was elevated to the see of Hereford in 736. The identification of the Cuthbert who was Bishop of Hereford with the Cuthbert who became archbishop, however, comes from Florence of Worcester and other post-Conquest sources. The contemporary record in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that Cuthbert was consecrated archbishop, where if he had been Bishop of Hereford, he would have been translated. No consecration is needed when a bishop is translated from one see to another. Given the nature of the sources, the identification of the bishop of Hereford with the archbishop of Canterbury, while likely, must not be regarded as proven. If Cuthbert was at Hereford, he served in that capacity for four years before his elevation to the See of Canterbury in 740. He is credited with the composition of an epitaph for the tomb of his three predecessors at Hereford. The cathedral church of the see may not even have been located at Hereford by Cuthbert's time. Whoever Cuthbert was prior to his election to Canterbury, he probably owed his selection as archbishop to the influence of Æthelbald, King of Mercia. A number of Mercians were appointed to Canterbury during the 730s and 740s, which suggests that Mercian authority was expanding into Kent. ==Canterbury==

Cuthbert was the recipient of a long letter from Boniface who complained about the lax morals of the clergy in the British Isles, and too much drinking of alcohol by the Anglo-Saxon bishops. Cuthbert also sent letters to Lull who was Archbishop of Mainz and a native of England. During Cuthbert's time as archbishop he no longer claimed authority over all of Britain, like his predecessor Theodore. Pope Gregory III in 735 had sent a pallium to the bishop of York, raising the see of York to the status of an archbishopric. As a sign of the enhanced status of York, Cuthbert only consecrated bishops south of the Humber and his synods were attended only by bishops from the south of England. This gathering mandated that all clergy should explain the basic tenets of Christianity to the laity, After the council, Cuthbert continued to correspond with Boniface up until Boniface's martyrdom in 754, and then sent condolences to Boniface's successor. Cuthbert held a second synod in 758, but nothing is known of any enactments it made. He also built the church of St. John the Baptist in Canterbury, which was destroyed by fire in 1067. He was buried in his new church. The new church was located on the west side of the cathedral, and was used as a baptistery. The church also became a burial site for many of the archbishops, and later was used for trials by ordeal. There is no explicit contemporary reference that states that these uses were intended by Cuthbert, but the fact that the church was dedicated to St. John the Baptist argues strongly that Cuthbert at least intended the new building as a baptistery. The burial practices of the archbishops did change after Cuthbert, but it is not clear whether this was intended by Cuthbert, as a Post-Conquest Canterbury cartulary has it, or due to other reasons, unconnected with Cuthbert. Although Sonia Hawkes argues that the change in burial customs, which extended over most of Britain, resulted from Cuthbert's mandating burial in churchyards, instead of outside the city limits as had been the custom previously. However, the main evidence for this theory is a 16th-century tradition at Canterbury and the archaeological evidence of a change in burial patterns. Although a change did occur, the archaeological evidence does not give a reason why this change happened, and given the late date of the Canterbury tradition, the theory cannot be considered proven. ==Death and legacy==

Cuthbert died on 26 October 760, He was buried in his church of St. John, and was the first Archbishop of Canterbury that was not buried in St Augustine's Abbey. His letters to the Anglo-Saxon missionaries on the European continent show him to have been highly educated. ==Citations==