Archbishop Higbert of Lichfield

Summary. Following King Offa’s success at removing competing warlords, making money with exports and taxation and building a mother church, he persuaded the pope in 787 to convert the Bishop of Lichfield into an Archbishop. He ruled over an extended Mercia for 12 /14 years. In 788, Offa had his son made co-king in a remarkable coronation led by the archbishop.

 

          When Bishop Berthun of Lichfield died, c. 777/9, he was succeeded by Higbert in 779.[1] Higbert was probably a native of Mercia and known to King Offa. In 787, he was elevated to be an archbishop, signing himself as Hygeberht or Hygebeorht. His see was much of Southumbria, an area from the Thames to the Humber,[2] until 799, After Offa’s reign he was demoted to be an abbot and Ealdwulf succeeded him at Lichfield,[3] 799-80. Higbert died sometime in or after 803.[4]  This meant for 12 to 14 years there was an archbishop for the enlarged Mercian part of Southumbria and based at Lichfield.

    

 

Hygeberht in a floor roundel in the presbytery.

 

Hygeberht signing a charter, the third name, in 787. From BL Cotton MS Augustus II 97 

 

Multiple reasons for raising an archbishopric at Lichfield have been speculated. 

1.     Offa became the king of Mercia in 757 and continued, like Æthelbald his predecessor, to overpower other Early Medieval kings and warlords until he was unopposed. By the 770s, he ruled over most of England from the River Ribble southwards. An Archbishopric then marked Offa’s new found power. He began trading skins and furs through the ports of Chester and London and became wealthy. Abundant coins were then issued and taxation became normal. It was an accumulation of power.

 

The Archiepiscopal See of Higbert according to William of Malmesbury in 1120, but is probably incorrect. Higbert and Offa could have had more control of much of the church in southern England, especially after the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Jaenberht) in 792, but this was short-lived,

 

                                          Offa penny found at Elford. Courtesy of Yorkcoins.com

 2.     Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor of west and central Europe (Francia), called Offa his dearest brother. Trade was negotiated between Francia and Mercia, cloaks and stones were mentioned. At one time, both rulers had a silver coin of similar size and parity to enable this commercial interchange. People, especially scribes, also freely passed between the kingdoms. Offa began to see himself as equivalent to Charlemagne and wanted the same standing, including having an archbishop. This also enabled his son Ecgfrith being anointed co-ruler and thus securing Offa’s royal hereditary.[5] Archbishop Jænberht of Canterbury, is thought to have resisted this unprecedented arrangement and so Offa by-passed him.[6] Despite Offa having nominal control over Kent, he was not free to arrange a consecration of his son.[7] With Pope Hadrian’s permission Offa elevated his bishop to archbishop in 787 and in 788 had a coronation of his son, probably then aged around 17. After this, Ecgfrith witnessed at least two of Offa's charters as ‘Ecgfrith King’ or ‘Ecgfrith King of the Mercians’. After Offa's death and Ecgfrith’s early death[8] his distant relative Coenwulf became king, and he petitioned the pope to have Lichfield returned to a bishopric. The pope agreed to do so in 802 and this was confirmed at the council of Clovesho in 803; by which time Hygeberht was no longer even considered a bishop. Instead, he was listed as an abbot, his abbey is unknown, at the council that oversaw the demotion of Lichfield in 803.[9] 

3.     Offa was the first English king to hold a Council in 786 with papal legates attending and approving how Offa was generously giving to the church. This bought Pope Hadrian’s support for Offa’s request for a third archbishop.[10] Canterbury and York[11] remained, but Lichfield could have had pre-eminence. Consequently, Higbert officiated at the coronation of his son and heir in 788. This was the first coronation in England with a king being holy oil-anointed and probably the first ceremony with a religious element in the making of a king. It must have been opulent and unprecedented.[12] Maybe, Offa thought his kingship needed further confirmation[13] and this was a way of continuing his royal lineage.[14] Offa was grandstanding.   

Offa on the west front of Lichfield Cathedral. He is looking southwards to Rome whilst holding his Archbishop’s mitre.

          The new archbishop of Canterbury appointed in 793 was consecrated by Archbishop Higbert, which shows his pre-eminence at this time. When Offa had Ethelbert, king of the East Angles, executed in 794, Higbert buried the body in Lichfield cathedral in the presence of his clerks and deacons.[15]

 

     4.     A letter to the Pope Leo III written by Coenwulf, who succeeded Offa's son Ecgfrith to the Mercian throne, claimed that Offa's motives were his dislike of Jænberht the archbishop and of the men of Kent; there was a personal enmity.[16] Furthermore, Jænberht supported the Kentish king Egbert II, who appeared not to be a firm supporter of Offa's. This might say more about Coenwulf who was only distantly related to Offa; and later goes on to crush Kent.[17] In 798, Alcuin writing from the Palace School of Charlemagne in Aachen to Æthelheard, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, suggested that it would be good if the unity of the southern English church could be restored, given that it was apparently torn asunder not out of reasonable motives but out of a desire for power by Offa. This was a harking back to the traditional arrangement with Canterbury having the earliest church.  

      5. Fuller [18] in 1837 gave another reason why the Archbishopric came to Lichfield. He explained Lichfield was ‘in the navel of the land’ (the centre of Offa’s kingdom). “The highest candlestick should be in the middle of the table.” For him, Canterbury was located at a remote corner.

 

          Offa died on 29 July 796, but his place of burial is unknown.[19] It would be reasonable to think Archbishop Higbert officiated at his funeral just as he had for King Ethelbert two years previously. If so, it would be reasonable to assume this also was in Lichfield Cathedral and would be somewhere in the choir area. 

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[1] At a Mercian council he attended that year at Hartleford he was styled electus praesul or bishop elect. H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra. (1691), 430 calls him Higberthus.

[2] An estimated area used by M. W. Greenslade, 'Lichfield: History to c.1500', in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield, (London, 1990), 4-14. 

[3] William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum  Book 4, 311 (Cambridge: 1125), 467 has Ealdwulf being elevated to archbishop. Also, in William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the kings of England. From the earliest period to the reign of King Stephen, c. 1090-1143; trans. J. Sharpe, 1769-1859; J. A. Giles, 1808-1884, (1887), “Yet rebellious against God, he (Offa) endeavoured to remove the archiepiscopal see formerly settled at Canterbury, to Lichfield, envying forsooth, the men of Kent the dignity of the archbishopric: on which account he at last deprived Lambert, the archbishop, worn out with continual exertion, and who produced many edicts of the apostolical see, both ancient and modern, of all possessions within his territories, as well as of the jurisdiction over the bishoprics. From pope Adrian, therefore, whom he had wearied with plausible assertions for a long time, as many things not to be granted may be gradually drawn and artfully wrested from minds intent on other occupations, he obtained that there should be an archbishopric of the Mercians at Lichfield, and that all the prelates of the Mercians should be subject to that province.” 80.

[4] A. Williams, Hygeberht [Higbert], Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2004.

[5] In 781, Charlemagne had his two sons oil anointed by the pope.

[6] By about 765 Offa’s overlordship was recognised in Kent, and from this time onwards Offa would be increasingly restive under the commanding position of the archbishop of Canterbury. See C. J. Godfrey, The Archbishopric of Lichfield, (Cambridge: 2016).

[7] Perhaps as early as 786 the creation of a Mercian archbishopric was being discussed at Offa's court.

[8] Some think his death might not have been natural. One Chronicle stated he was seized with a malady.

[9] The Decree of the church council at Clofesho abolishing the archbishopric of Lichfield is known from Cotton MS Augustus II 61. The list of witnesses begins with two names: Æthelheard of Canterbury, who signed as archbishop, while Ealdwulf attested this decree as bishop.

[10] Offa vowed to donate 365 mancuses each year to the papacy, to provide for poor people in Rome and provide lights for St Peter’s church. The donation was in return for approval of an archdiocese. 

[11] In 735, the papacy elevated another Anglo-Saxon bishopric to an archbishopric when Ecgbert became the first Archbishop of York.

[12] See the post on the Second Cathedral. A large basilical shaped church would have been appropriate for this grand occasion. The order of service is unknown. The next order for a coronation is thought to have been written in the mid-9th century and the second was for the coronation of Edward the Elder, reigned 899‑924, in the year 900. These services were disregarded in 1066, but reimagined for the coronation in 1953.

[13] Unlike predecessors, Offa’s ancestry was not directly linked with earlier kings.

[14] See N. Brooks, The early history of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066. (Leicester Uni. Press: 1984), 118–126.

[15] See note 2.

[16] The enmity between Offa and Jænberht raises the possibility that it was Jænberht who started the rumour that surfaced in about 784 that Offa planned to dethrone the pope, as part of a plan to discredit Offa in the Papal Curia and ensure that any suggestion from the Mercian king about changing the arrangement of bishoprics should fall on deaf (or enraged) ears. From N. Brooks, see note 5.

[17] He requested the pope centre the archbishopric in London, but this was refused.

[18] T. Fuller, The Church History of Britain, (London: 1837), 160.

[19] Matthew Paris, a 13th-century St Alban’s monk, recorded he was buried in a chapel by the river Usk outside Bedford, but both chapel and tomb were destroyed in a flood. The text was Vitae duorum Offarum, ‘The lives of the two Offas’. Author and veracity of the history have been questioned.