Eadnoth the Younger or Eadnoth I was a medieval
monk
A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...
and
prelate
A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Minister (Christianity), Christian clergy who is an Ordinary (church officer), ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which me ...
, successively
Abbot of Ramsey and
Bishop of Dorchester. From a prominent family of priests in
the Fens
The Fens or Fenlands in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system o ...
, he was related to
Oswald,
Bishop of Worcester
The Bishop of Worcester is the Ordinary (officer), head of the Church of England Anglican Diocese of Worcester, Diocese of Worcester in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title can be traced back to the foundation of the diocese in the ...
,
Archbishop of York
The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers the ...
and founder of
Ramsey Abbey. Following in the footsteps of his illustrious kinsman, he initially became a monk at
Worcester. He is found at Ramsey supervising construction works in the 980s, and around 992 actually became Abbot of Ramsey. As abbot, he founded two daughter houses in what is now
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...
, namely, a monastery at
St Ives and a nunnery at
Chatteris. At some point between 1007 and 1009, he became Bishop of Dorchester, a
see that encompassed much of the eastern
Danelaw. He died at the
Battle of Assandun in 1016, fighting
Cnut the Great
Cnut ( ; ; – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rul ...
.
Family
Eadnoth the Younger was the son of
Æthelstan Mannessune by a kinswoman of Oswald, Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of York.
[Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", pp. 49–50] His father came from family of hereditary Fenland priests from in or around the
Isle of Ely.
[ Æthelstan had lands in ]Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...
, Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a local government district in Cambridgeshire, England, which was historically a county in its own right. It borders Peterborough to the north, Fenland to the north-east, East Cambridgeshire to the e ...
and Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...
, with "outlying" artestates in Norfolk
Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
and Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...
.[Hart, "Eadnoth I", p. 615] Eadnoth is styled "the Younger", ''Iunior'', to distinguish him from Eadnoth "the Elder", ''Senior'', the follower of Oswald who served as prior
The term prior may refer to:
* Prior (ecclesiastical), the head of a priory (monastery)
* Prior convictions, the life history and previous convictions of a suspect or defendant in a criminal case
* Prior probability, in Bayesian statistics
* Prio ...
of the monastery of Ramsey in the years before Eadnoth the Younger became abbot.
Eadnoth the Younger had one brother, Godric (died 1013), and at least two sisters, Ælfwaru (died 1007) and Ælfwyn, all of whom inherited estates (in addition to a fishery
Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a., fishing grounds). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish far ...
) from their father.[Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", pp. 49–51] Eadnoth, by contrast, became a monk at Worcester Abbey, where his mother's kinsman Oswald was bishop, and thus could not inherit anything.[Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", p. 51] Eadnoth appears for the first time in the 980s when, according to the ''Liber Benefactorum Ecclesiae Ramesiensis'', he supervised the repair of the western tower of Ramsey Abbey. Eadnoth became Abbot of Ramsey in 992, having probably already taken over Eadnoth the Elder's duties as prior from at least 991, if not earlier.
Abbot of Ramsey
The ''Liber Benefactorum'' calls Eadnoth the Younger the "first abbot of Ramsey". It says that he was elected according to the Benedictine Rule by the monks of Ramsey, after Ealdorman Æthelwine had given Germanus enough money to found a new monastery at Cholsey. Ramsey had had two communities of monks, those who had been moved by Oswald there from Westbury on Trym in the 960s, and those who had fled there in the 980s from Winchcombe
Winchcombe () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the county of Gloucestershire, England, situated northeast of Cheltenham. The population was recorded as 4,538 in the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 census and ...
because of the anti-monastic reaction in Mercia; until 992, Oswald, who died in 992, had been titular abbot of the former with Eadnoth the Elder as his prior, while the Winchcombe monks had Germanus as their abbot.
According to historian Cyril Hart, "there is no shred of doubt" that Eadnoth the Younger obtained this office through the influence of Oswald.[Hart, "Eadnoth", p. 621] Although such nepotism
Nepotism is the act of granting an In-group favoritism, advantage, privilege, or position to Kinship, relatives in an occupation or field. These fields can include business, politics, academia, entertainment, sports, religion or health care. In ...
contradicted the usual spirit of the Benedictine revival in England at the time, Oswald himself had similarly advanced because of family connections. As abbot Eadnoth founded a nunnery on his family lands at Chatteris, and his younger sister Ælfwyn became its first abbess. In 1007, the Chatteris nunnery received the lands of Over and Barley
Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...
, following the death of their sister Ælfwaru.[Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", pp. 51–52]
Eadnoth also founded a monastery at St Ives, Cambridgeshire. Established as a daughter-house of Ramsey (like Chaterris), the monastery's entire endowment consisted of ''Slepe'' (what became St Ives) as well as part of Elsworth and Knapworth.[Hart, "Eadnoth I", pp. 617–18] All of these lands (including their churches) had been the property of Eadnoth's father Æthelstan.[ Elsworth had been left to Ramsey in the will of Eadnoth's sister Ælfwaru.][ On 24 April 1002, soon after founding St Ives, he translated its eponymous saintly resident—discovered by a ploughing peasant a year before—to Ramsey Abbey.
]
Bishop of Dorchester
At some point between 1007 and 1009, Eadnoth became Bishop of Dorchester. Dorchester was a sprawling diocese based far to the south of most of its territory in the eastern Danelaw, at Dorchester on Thames. It was roughly equivalent to the pre-Viking east Mercian diocese of Leicester, and after Eadnoth's episcopate came to include the Diocese of Lindsey too. In the Norman era the bishopric's seat returned north and became the well-known bishopric of Lincoln.
Little is known of Eadnoth's episcopate. His first appearance as bishop is as a witness to a charter of 1009, issued by King Æthelred to a thegn named Morcar; the last notice of Eadnoth's predecessor as bishop, Ælfhelm, occurs in a similar document of 1007. Eadnoth subsequently subscribes at least another eight royal charters before his death, all between 1011 and 1013, with a possible further subscription in 1016. On 18 October 1016, Bishop Eadnoth fought and was martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' Word stem, stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In ...
ed at the Battle of Assandun in Essex
Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...
, alongside Wulfsifge, his successor as abbot of Ramsey, and Æthelweard son of Ealdorman Æthelwine f East Anglia He was fighting on behalf of Edmund Ironside against Cnut
Cnut ( ; ; – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rul ...
, the Danish invader who was claiming the English crown.
Eadnoth's body was taken north into the Fenlands, heading back to Ramsey. According to the '' Liber Eliensis'', the guards of the body stopped at Ely Abbey and got drunk, during which the Ely monks seized and hid the body.[Blair, "Handlist", pp. 528–29; Fairweather (ed.), ''Liber Eliensis'', p. 169] The plot was led by Ælfgar, formerly Bishop of Elmham
The Bishop of Norwich is the Ordinary (Catholic Church), ordinary of the Church of England Anglican Diocese of Norwich, Diocese of Norwich in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers most of the county of Norfolk and part of Suffolk. Th ...
.[ Thereafter the body remained at Ely, where Eadnoth the Martyr was venerated as a saint.][
It is thought that Abbot Eadnoth is the abbot depicted alongside a bishop (his kinsman Bishop Oswald) in one of the miniatures in the 14th-century Ramsey Psalter (not to be confused with British Museum MS Harley 2904). Below Bishop Oswald is a ram, after the first element of the place-name Ramsey, and below Eadnoth a bull, in reference to the foundation legend of the abbey.][Sandler, "Historical Miniatures", p. 606]
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Eadnoth
10th-century English clergy
11th-century English Roman Catholic bishops
1016 deaths
Anglo-Saxon saints
Anglo-Saxons killed in battle
Anglo-Saxon warriors
Bishops of Dorchester (Mercia)
People from Ely, Cambridgeshire
East Anglian saints
Year of birth unknown
Abbots of Ramsey
10th-century Christian abbots