Frithestan (or Frithustan) was the Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester from 909 until his resignation in 931. Frithestan is first recorded in 904 as a deacon who witnessed two charters in which King

Edward the Elder Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin ...

granted land to the

Old Minster, Winchester The Old Minster was the Anglo-Saxon cathedral for the diocese of Wessex and then Winchester from 660 to 1093. It stood on a site immediately north of and partially beneath its successor, Winchester Cathedral. Some sources say that the minster w ...

.Yorke "Frithestan" According to

William of Malmesbury William of Malmesbury ( la, Willelmus Malmesbiriensis; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as " ...

, he was one of seven bishops who were consecrated on the same day in 909 by

Plegmund Plegmund (or Plegemund; died 2 August either 914 or 923) was a medieval English Archbishop of Canterbury. He may have been a hermit before he became archbishop in 890. As archbishop, he reorganised the Diocese of Winchester, creating four ne ...

, the Archbishop of Canterbury.Farmer ''Oxford Dictionary of Saints'' Shortly after he was appointed, the diocese of Winchester was divided, and the area which is now Wiltshire and Berkshire was transferred to the new bishopric of Ramsbury. When King Edward died in July 924, Ælfweard, his eldest son by his second wife Ælfflæd, was elected king by the nobles of Wessex at Winchester, while

Æthelstan Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his fir ...

, Edward's son by his first wife

Ecgwynn Ecgwynn or Ecgwynna (Old English ''Eċġwynn'', lit. "sword joy"; ''fl''. 890s), was the first consort of Edward the Elder, later King of the English (reigned 899–924), by whom she bore the future King Æthelstan (r. 924–939), and a daughter ...

, was elected in

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879) Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era= Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ...

. Ælfweard died within four weeks of his father, but resistance to Æthelstan centred on Winchester appears to have continued, and Frithestan was not present when Æthelstan was crowned king on 4 September 925. Frithestan first witnessed a charter of Æthelstan's in April 928, and thereafter he witnessed regularly until his resignation in 931, but he always attested in a lower position than his seniority would normally have entitled him to. In 1827, St

Cuthbert Cuthbert of Lindisfarne ( – 20 March 687) was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Nort ...

's tomb at Durham was opened, and among the objects found was a stole and maniple which appear from inscriptions on them to have been given by Queen Ælfflæd to Bishop Frithestan, presumably before Edward put her aside to marry his third wife in about 919. Æthelstan probably took them from Winchester to donate to Cuthbert's tomb, another indication of his bad relations with Frithestan.Foot ''Æthelstan'' pp. 122-23 Frithestan was remembered at Winchester for establishing good relations between the Old and New Minsters. One of the regulations he laid down was that when a priest of either minster died, members of both would take part in the funeral observances. Frithestan resigned between 23 March and 29 May 931,Powicke ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 257 and died in 932 or 933. He was buried in the Old Minster, but by William of Malmesbury's day in the twelfth century the location of his tomb had already been lost. There was some attempt to develop a cult of him as a saint at Winchester, and he was listed in some later martyrologies, but his cult never became popular. His feast day is 10 September.

Citations

References

* Foot, Sarah (2011) ''Æthelstan: The First King of England'', Yale University Press
Farmer, David Hugh, ''Frithestan'', The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press, 2003
* Powicke, F. Maurice and E. B. Fryde ''Handbook of British Chronology'' 2nd. ed. London:Royal Historical Society 1961
Yorke, Barbara, ''Frithestan'', Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography, 2004

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Frithestan West Saxon saints Bishops of Winchester 10th-century Christian saints 10th-century English bishops 9th-century births 930s deaths