ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



preacher. Little is known of its actual details, but the stories of his miracles 

 apparently belong to the district immediately round Beverley," and he is 

 •chiefly famous as the founder of the monastery of Beverley, where he died in 

 72 1 J about three years after he had resigned his see, and had consecrated to it 

 his pupil, the younger Wilfrid.'* About 732, Wilfrid II followed the 

 example of St. John, and was succeeded by Ecgberht, a Northumbrian prince. 

 His episcopate, which lasted for thirty-four years, is remarkable for the 

 revival of the metropolitan dignity of York. He visited Rome some three 

 years after his consecration, and received the pall from Gregory IIL'' As 

 metropolitan, he consecrated bishops to the suffragan sees of Hexham and 

 Whithorn.**' We here meet with the claim of the Archbishop of York to 

 ■exercise jurisdiction over the bishops of Scotland. Paulinus had been the 

 sole bishop of Eadwine's kingdom, and the extent of his diocese was limited 

 only by the boundaries of Eadwine's conquests. In practice, these stopped at 

 the Forth, but the conquest and Christianization of the northern tribes was a 

 possible achievement. Since that day, the Northumbrian diocese had been 

 subdivided. The restoration of the pall to York gave its bishop provincial 

 authority over the prelates of the ancient united monarchy, and he was not 

 slow to exercise it over districts which were thus theoretically within his 

 scope." 



In the time of Ecgberht's successor, Ethelbert or Albert, York became for 

 the first time the effective centre of the diocese. The monastic system, 

 which prevailed at Ripon and Beverley, never took root at York. Ecgberht's 

 episcopate synchronized with the regulation of the system of canonical 

 chapters by St. Chrodegang. It seems probable that a body of canons, 

 modelled more or less on St. Chrodegang's system, served the church of 

 York in Ecgberht's days. A school of clerks grew up in connexion with 

 the metropolitan church, and Ethelbert, a relative of Ecgberht, became its 

 master.*^ His pupil Alcuin speaks with enthusiasm of a range of teaching 

 which included grammar, rhetoric, song, astronomy, physical geography, 

 natural history, and theology. When, in 780, Ethelbert retired, he gave over 

 the school to Alcuin, with his library. The list of the authors contained in 

 this library is given by Alcuin. Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Lucan, Statius, 

 represented classical literature ; later philosophers, historians, grammarians, 



" Wetadun or Betendune (Bede, op. cit. v, 3 ; Folcard, Hist. Ch. Tori [Rolls Ser.], i, 248) is usually 

 identified with Watton. The vi//a of Earl Puch (Bede, op. cit. v, 4) is called by Folcard (Hisl. Ch. Tork 

 [Rolls Ser.], i, 249) South Burton, and Earl Addi's church (Bede, op. cit. v, 5 ; Folcard, Hist. Ch. York 

 [Rolls Ser.], i, 350) was in the neighbourhood. 



^ The date of St. John's resignation is not absolutely fixed. The anonymous ' Chronicon Pontificum,' which 

 was continued by Stubbs, in Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 329, says that he spent four years at Beverley, with 

 which the metrical continuator of John of Allhallowgate agrees (ibid, ii, 472, 1. 1 13). The Angl.-Sax. Chron. 

 an. 721 ; Folcard, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 259, and Stubbs, Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 329, state 

 that he was a bishop for thirty-three years, eight months, and fourteen days. His consecration to Hexham 

 probably took place in 687. See note 28 above. 



" Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 735. Symeon,HwA Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 253, 254. Ecgberht's application 

 for the pall may have been a direct consequence of the letter addressed to him by Bede {H.ist. Ch. York [Rolls 

 Ser.], i, 413). 



"Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 737, 763. Frithwald, Bishop of Whithorn, v/ho died in 763, was consecrated 

 at York in 733 or 734. His successor received consecration at Adlingfleet. 



*' During the reigns of Oswiu and his successors and the pontificate of Wilfrid, the Archbishop of 

 Canterbury exercised what was practically metropolitan influence in Northumbria. The subdivision of York 

 diocese in 678, as well as the first restoration of Wilfrid in 669, were the work of Archbishop Theodore, and 

 Archbishop Berhtwald was present at the synods of Austerfield and the Nidd. 



" Alcuin, ' Carmen de Pontt. et Sanctis Eccl. Ebor.' Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 391, 1. 1430. 



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