Brithwald was abbot of Glastenbury, but gave up that office and came to the little monastery of Riculver near the Isle of Thanet in Kent, so that he could study the Scriptures near St Theodore.
Read the essentials →Brithwald was abbot of Glastenbury, but gave up that office and came to the little monastery of Riculver near the Isle of Thanet in Kent, so that he could study the Scriptures near St Theodore.
January 9
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Brithwald was abbot of Glastenbury, but gave up that office and came to the little monastery of Riculver near the Isle of Thanet in Kent, so that he could study the Scriptures near St Theodore.
After Theodore's death he was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 692. Butler says he held the see for thirty-seven years and six months, 'a living rule of perfection to this church', and died in 731.
Thin entry · the 1914 book gives only 247 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.
Bede says that after the death of S. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 690, "Berthwald succeeded, being abbot of the monastery of Reculver, which lies on the north side of the mouth of the river Inlade. He was a man learned in the Scriptures, and well instructed in ecclesiastical and monastic discipline, yet not to be compared with his predecessor. He was chosen Bishop in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 692, on the first day of July, Withred and Suebhard being kings of Kent; he was consecrated the next year, on Sunday, the 29th June, by Godwin, Metropolitan Bishop of France, and was enthroned on Sunday, April 31st."
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Bede [English monk and historian (d. 735)] says that after the death of S. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 690, "Berthwald succeeded, being abbot of the monastery of Reculver, which lies on the north side of the mouth of the river Inlade. He was a man learned in the Scriptures, and well instructed in ecclesiastical and monastic discipline, yet not to be compared with his predecessor. He was chosen Bishop in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 692, on the first day of July, Withred and Suebhard being kings of Kent; he was consecrated the next year, on Sunday, the 29th June, by Godwin, Metropolitan Bishop of France, and was enthroned on Sunday, April 31st."
"In the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 731, Archbishop Berthwald died of old age, on the 9th of January, having held his see thirty-seven years six months and fourteen days."
S. Genoveva, Jan. 3, p. 46 .
FOOTNOTES:
[37] This tonsure [shaving part of the head as a sign of entering the clergy or monastic life] consisted in shaving the whole head.
S. Nicanor , M. , a.d. 76. SS. Thecla , V., and Justina , Confessors in Sicily, 3rd cent. S. Marcian , P. C., at Constantinople, circ. a.d. 476. S. Domitian [Roman emperor 81–96] , B. C., in Armenia, circ. a.d. 600. S. Agatho , Pope of Rome , a.d. 682. S. Sethrida , V., Abbess of Brie, in France, 7th cent. S. William , Ab. and Abp. of Bourges , a.d. 1209. S. Gonsalvo , P. C., Portugal , a.d. 1259. B. Christiana , or Oringa , V., in Etruria , a.d. 1310.
Feast: January 9
One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Brithwald of…'s story, and a nudge to keep going.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new and revised edition (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1914; first edition 1872). Public domain.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new and revised edition (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1914; first edition 1872). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.