ETHELHARD
555
ETHERIANUS
Ethelhaxd (jEthelhe.vrd, Ethelheard), four-
teenth Archbishop of Canterbury, England, date of
birth unknown; d. 12 May, 805. "Much obscurity sur-
rounds the details of liis hfe previous to his election.
He is described by SjTneon of Durham as "Abbas
Hludensis Monasterii", but it is uncertain what mon-
astery is thus designated. It has been variously lo-
cated at Louth in Lincolnshire (the most probable
identification), Lydd. and Luddersdown in Kent, and
at Malmesbury. Wilham of Malmesbury is certainly
mistaken in identifying him with Ethelhard, ninth
Bishop of Winchester.
The rise of Offa, King of the Mercians (757-796), had divided England into tliree great states: Xorth- umbria, Mercia, and Wessex. The king souglit to consolidate his kingdom by giving it an independent ecclesiastical organization; for although Xorthumbria had its own archbishopric at York, Mercia. after con- quering Kent, was still ecclesiastically subject to the powerful see of Canterbury, then ruled over by Jaen- bert (766-791). Offa's scheme was to weaken Can- terbury's influence by dividing the southern province, and creating a Mercian archbishopric at Lichfield : this he successfully accomplished when on the occasion of the Legatine visit of George and Theophvlact, sent by Pope Hadrian I (772-795) in 786-788^ Higbert re- ceived the pallium as .\rchbishop of Lichfield, and Canterbury was left with only London, Winchester, Sherborne, Rochester, and Selsey as suffragan sees. On the death of Jaenbert (12 Aug.. 791), Ethelliard was raised to the see through the influence of Off'a, which makes it likely that he was a Mercian abbot. Although he was elected in 791, his consecration only took place on 21 July, 79.3: the delay being proliably due to the unwillingness of the Kentish clergj' and people to receive a Mercian archbishop, and to his being consecrated by the Archbishop of Lichfield. Had Offa's policy of separate ecclesiastical organiza- tion prevailed, it would have impeded the attainment of national unity, and its defeat by Ethelhard is an event oi the greatest importance in the history of the making of the English nation. During Offa's "lifetime little could be done to restore Canterljury's rights and prestige. The year 796 was full of incident: the nobles of Kent rose in arms, and rallying round Ead- bert Praen, a cleric and a member of their royal hou.se, endeavoured to shake off the yoke of the Mercian Offa. .\s Ethelhard's difficulties increased Alcuin ex- horted him not to desert his Church ; but after taking severe ecclesiastical measures against the recalcitrant cleric he was obliged to flee. Offa died on 26 July. His successor Egfrith died after a very short reign, about 13 Dec; Cenwulf succeeded in Mercia, but the struggle continued in Kent until the capture of Ead- bert in 798.
The co-operation of Ethelhard and Cenwulf in de- posing Eadbert, and in upholding the Mercian cause i:i Kent, increa.sed the importance of Canterbury, and the archiepiscopal authority of Higbert waned. Cen- wulf restored an estate taken from Canterbury by Offa, and wrote in 798 to Pope Leo asking him to ex- amine into the question of the diminution of the rights of that see, and enclosing a letter from Ethel- hard and his suffragans. Ethelhard meanwhile had returned to his see, and Alcuin wrote exhorting him to do penance for having deserted it. The success of Abbot Wada's mission to Rome, the tone ol the letter of Leo III to Cenwulf, and the successful conference with Eanbald II of York, with reference to the restora- tion of the rights of his see, determined Ethelhard to set out for Rome in 801. .\lcuin's friendship once more stood liim in good stead; he sent a servant to meet him at .St. Josse-sur-mer. and furnished him with letters of recommendation to Charles the Great. Suc- cess attended his efforts in Rome. Pope Leo III (79.5-816) granted his request, and ended the dispute between Canterbury and Lielifield by depriving Lich-
field of its recently acquired honours and powers. The
pope's decision was oflicially acknowledged by the
Council of Clovesho on 12 Oct., 803, in presence of
Cenwulf and his \\'itan, anti Higbert was deprived of
his pallium, in spite of Alcuin's plea that so good a
man should be spared that humiliation.
It is during Ethelhard's occupancy of the See of Canterbury that we first meet with o'fficial records of the profession of faith and obetlience made by the English bishops-elect to their metropolitan. The fitrst document of that type is the profession of obedi- ence to the See of Cante'rbury made in 796 by Bishop Eadulf of Linsey, who, as a suffragan of Lichfield, ought to have been consecrated by Higbert: it would appear to coincide with the collapse of Higbert's archiepiscopal authority at the death of Offa.
Symeon of Durham (ffo/b Series). II, 53; William of Malmesbury, Gesla Pontificum (Rolls Series). 57-59; Stubbs, s. V. Elhelkard in Diet. Chrisl. Biog.; Hunt in Did. Nat. Biog. The extant documents concerning Ethelhard are collected in Hadd^n* a.nd Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, III, 467-555 (Oxford, 1871).
Edw.^rd Myers.
Ethelwold, S.^int, Bishop of Winchester was born there of good parentage in the early years of the tenth century; d. 1 Aug., 984. After a"y"outh spent at the court of King Athelstan, Ethelw"old placed himself under Elphege the Bald, Bishop of Winchester, wlio gave him the tonsure and ordained him priest along with Dunstan. At Glastonbury, where he was dean under Saint Dunstan, he was a mirror of perfection. In 955 he became Abbot of Abingdon ; and 29 Novem- ber, 963, was consecrated Bishop of Winchester by Dunstan, with whom and Oswald of Worcester he worked zealously in combating the general corruption occasioned by the Danish inroads. At Winchester, both in the old and in his new minster (see Swithin, S.\int), he replaced the evil-living seculars with monks and refounded the ancient nunnery. His labours e.x- tended to Chertsey, Milton (Dor.se"tshire), Ely, Peter- borough, and Thorney; expelling the unworthy, re- building and restoring; to the rebellious " terrible as a lion", to the meek "gentler than a dove". The epi- thets "father of monks" and "benevolent bishop" summarize Ethelwold '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. He was buried in Winchester cathedral, his body being translated later by Elphege, his successor. Abingdon monastery in the twelfth century had relics of Ethelwold. He is said to have written a treatise on the circle and to have translated the "Regularis Concordia". His feast is kept on 1 August.
Not to be confounded with the foregoing are (2) St. Ethelwold, monk of Ripon, anchoret at Lindisfarne, d. about 720; feast kept 23 March; and (3) St. Ethel- wold, .A.bbot of Melrose, Bishop of Lindisfarne, d. c. 740; feast kept 12 February.
Primary sources for Ethelwold of Winchester are Chronicon de Abingdon, in Rolls Series, passim, especially his Life, by ^LFRic. II. 255; and the it/eascribed to Wclfstan. precentor of VVmchester. in Acta SS., August, 1,83 sqq. Cf. also Memor- ials of Dunstan, in Rolls Series. 6; Dcgdale, Monasticon. I, 190; BoLLANDlSTS. BM. hag. lat., 39S; Chevalier. Repertoire 1367; Stanton, 375; Hunt, in Diet. \at. Biog., XVIII, 37 For Ethelwold's Benedictional. see Archceologia, XXIV.
For (2) Acta SS., March, III, 463, with citations from Bede, Life of St. Culhbert; Stanton, Menologg: Chevalier. Rcver- toire, 1367 (bis).
For (3) Acta SS.. Feb., II, 604; Stanton. 63; Chevalier. P.\TRicK Ryan.
Etherianus, Hugh and Leo, brothers, Tuscans by birth, employed at the court of Con.stantinople under the Emperor Manuel I (Comnenus, 1143-1180). Their name is spelled in various ways; ^Etherianus, Ileterianus, Eretrianus, etc. Leo is of little impor- tance. We know from his brother (.\dv. Gra!c.. 1, 20) that he was "occupied in translating the imperial
