Eadnoth the Younger

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Eadnoth
Dissolution of the Monasteries

Eadnoth the Younger or Eadnoth I was a medieval

Cnut the Great
.

Family

Eadnoth the Younger was the son of Æthelstan Mannessune by a kinswoman of Oswald, Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of York.[1] His father came from family of hereditary Fenland priests from in or around the Isle of Ely.[1] Æthelstan had lands in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire, with "outlying" [Hart] estates in Norfolk and Lincolnshire.[2] Eadnoth is styled "the Younger", Iunior, to distinguish him from Eadnoth "the Elder", Senior, the follower of Oswald who served as prior of the monastery of Ramsey in the years before Eadnoth the Younger became abbot.[3]

Eadnoth the Younger had one brother, Godric (died 1013), and at least two sisters,

Worcester Abbey, where his mother's kinsman Oswald was bishop, and thus could not inherit anything.[5] 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.[6] Eadnoth became Abbot of Ramsey in 992,[7] having probably already taken over Eadnoth the Elder's duties as prior from at least 991, if not earlier.[8]

Abbot of Ramsey

The Liber Benefactorum calls Eadnoth the Younger the "first abbot of Ramsey".

Westbury on Trym in the 960s, and those who had fled there in the 980s from Winchcombe 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.[11]

According to historian Cyril Hart, "there is no shred of doubt" that Eadnoth the Younger obtained this office through the influence of Oswald.[12] Although such nepotism contradicted the usual spirit of the Benedictine revival in England at the time, Oswald himself had similarly advanced because of family connections.[12] As abbot Eadnoth founded a nunnery on his family lands at Chatteris, and his younger sister Ælfwyn became its first abbess.[13] In 1007, the Chatteris nunnery received the lands of Over and Barley, following the death of their sister Ælfwaru.[14]

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.[15] All of these lands (including their churches) had been the property of Eadnoth's father Æthelstan.[15] Elsworth had been left to Ramsey in the will of Eadnoth's sister Ælfwaru.[15] 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.[16]

Bishop of Dorchester

At some point between 1007 and 1009, Eadnoth became

bishopric of Lincoln.[20]

Little is known of Eadnoth's episcopate. His first appearance as bishop is as a witness to a charter of 1009, issued by

Cnut, the Danish invader who was claiming the English crown.[24]

Eadnoth's body was taken north into the Fenlands, heading back to Ramsey. According to the

Bishop of Elmham.[25] Thereafter the body remained at Ely, where Eadnoth the Martyr was venerated as a saint.[25]

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).[26] 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.[27]

Citations

  1. ^ a b Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", pp. 49–50
  2. ^ Hart, "Eadnoth I", p. 615
  3. ^ Lapidge (ed.), Byrhtferth, pp. xvii–xviii, xxv–xxvi
  4. ^ Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", pp. 49–51
  5. ^ Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", p. 51
  6. ^ Lapidge (ed.), Byrhtferth, pp. xxv–xxvi
  7. ^ Lapidge, "Abbot Germanus", p. 409; Knowles, Brook and London, Heads of Religious Houses, p. 61, give 993
  8. ^ Lapidge (ed.), Byrhtferth, p. 180, n. 144
  9. ^ Lapidge, "Abbot Germanus", pp. 409, 413; Sandler, "Historical Miniatures", p. 607; Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", p. 51; some other modern authorities list Oswald and Germanus as his predecessors in this office, as in Knowles, Brook and London, Heads of Religious Houses, p. 61
  10. ^ Lapidge (ed.), Byrhtferth, pp. 64–65, n. 58; see also Lapidge, "Abbot Germanus", p. 409, nn. 94–96
  11. ^ Lapidge (ed.), Byrhtferth, pp. 64–65, n. 58
  12. ^ a b Hart, "Eadnoth", p. 621
  13. ^ Lapidge (ed.), Byrhtferth, pp. 180–81, n. 144; Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", pp. 51–52
  14. ^ Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", pp. 51–52
  15. ^ a b c Hart, "Eadnoth I", pp. 617–18
  16. ^ Lapidge (ed.), Byrhtferth, pp. 180–81, n. 144
  17. ^ Wareham, "St Oswald's Family", p. 52, gives 1008, while Lapidge, "Abbot Germanus", p. 409; Lapidge, Byrhtferth, pp. 180–81, n. 144, and Keynes, Atlas, Table LXb (1 of 2), shows that it was no earlier than 1007 and no later than 1009
  18. ^ Hill, Atlas, pp. 147–148
  19. ^ Hill, Atlas, p. 148; Whitelock, "Dealings", pp. 74–75
  20. ^ Fryde, Greenway and Porter, Handbook of British Chronology, p. 255
  21. ^ Sawyer 917; Sawyer 922; Keynes, Atlas, Table LXb (1 of 2); Lapidge, Byrhtferth, pp. 180–81, n. 144
  22. ^ Sawyer 923; Sawyer 924; Sawyer 926; Sawyer 927; Sawyer 929; Sawyer 931; Sawyer 935, plus two unlisted by Sawyer; Keynes, Atlas, Table LXb (2 of 2)
  23. ^ Lawson, Cnut, p. 117; Whitelock (ed.), English Historical Documents, p. 250
  24. ^ Lawson, Cnut, p. 28
  25. ^ a b c Blair, "Handlist", pp. 528–29; Fairweather (ed.), Liber Eliensis, p. 169
  26. ^ Sandler, "Historical Miniatures", p. 607, depicted p. 609, figure 46; image lies in Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M. 302, fol. 4v
  27. ^ Sandler, "Historical Miniatures", p. 606

References

External links
Christian titles
New title
Abbot of Ramsey

c. 992–1006x1008 		Succeeded by
Wulfsige
Preceded by
Bishop of Dorchester

1007 x 1009–1016 		Succeeded by
Æthelric


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