Hwaetberht (died 740s) was
abbot
Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...
of
Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory, where he had served as a
monk
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
.
He was elected to succeed Abbot
Ceolfrith
Saint Ceolfrid (or Ceolfrith, ; c. 642 – 716) was an Anglo-Saxon Christian abbot and saint. He is best known as the warden of Bede from the age of seven until his death in 716. He was the Abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, and a major co ...
in 716 or 717 when Ceolfrith set off on a
pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
to
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
.
Bede reports that Hwaetberht had himself made a pilgrimage to Rome, "and had stayed there a good long while, learning, copying down and bringing back with him all that he thought necessary for his studies" during the papacy of
Sergius I (687–701). Bede's ''
De temporum ratione'' is dedicated to Hwaetberht, so Bede appears to have regarded him highly. A letter from
Saint Boniface to Hwaetberht dated to circa 747 has survived in the
Boniface Correspondence, placing Hwaetberht's death after that date. In the letter (Tangl 76), Boniface asks Hwaetberth to send him "the treatises of the monk Bede, that profound student of the Scriptures"; he also asks him to send him a cloak: "it would be of great comfort to me in my journeys". In return, he sent Hwaetberht a "coverlet" made of goat hair.
It was during Hwaetberht's time that the remains of Abbots
Sigfrith and
Eosterwine were reburied alongside those of
Benedict Biscop
Benedict Biscop (pronounced "bishop"; – 690), also known as Biscop Baducing, was an Anglo-Saxon abbot and founder of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory (where he also founded the famous library) and was considered a saint after his death.
Lif ...
next to the main altar at Monkwearmouth.
In the preface to the fourth book of his commentary on I Samuel (''In primam partem Samuhelis''), Bede associates Hwaetberht with the Latinate name Eusebius, which seems therefore to have been an alternative name taken by Hwaetberht (citing Bede, ''De natura rerum'', ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 119 (Turnhout 1962) 212.). For this reason, it has been inferred that Hwaetberht was the author of a collection of sixty
Latin riddles known as the ''
Enigmata Eusebii''. These were written as a supplement to forty riddles written earlier by
Tatwine
Tatwine ( – 30 July 734) was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was a monk and abbot of a Benedictine monastery. Besides his ecclesiastical career, Tatwine was a writer, and riddles he compo ...
,
Archbishop of Canterbury.
[Mercedes Salvador-Bello, 'Patterns of Compilation in Anglo-Latin ''Enigmata'' and the Evidence of A Source-Collection in Riddles 1-40 of the ''Exeter Book'', ''Viator'', 43 (2012), 339–374 (p. 340 n. 3). 10.1484/J.VIATOR.1.102554.]
References
* Bede, ''Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow'' in Webb and Farmer (eds & trs), ''The Age of Bede.'' London: Penguin, 1998.
* Lapidge, M., "Hwaetberht", in M. Lapidge et al., ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England.'' Blackwell, 1999.
*
Bede, Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow
External links
*
{{authority control
Anglo-Saxon writers
Abbots of Jarrow
740s deaths
Burials at Glastonbury Abbey
Year of birth unknown
7th-century English writers
8th-century English writers
8th-century Latin writers