Hwaetberht

Hwaetberht (died 740s) was Abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory, where he had served as a monk.

He was elected to succeed Abbot Ceolfrith in 716 or 717 when Ceolfrith set off on a pilgrimage to Rome. 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.^[1] A part of the correspondence between Hwaetberht and Saint Boniface has survived, date to circa 747, placing Hwaetberht's death after that date.

It was during Hwaetberht's time that the remains of Abbots Sigfrith and Eosterwine were reburied alongside those of Benedict Biscop 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, Archbishop of Canterbury.^[2]

References

• Bede, Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow in Webb and Farmer (eds & trs), The Age of Bede. London: Penguin, 1998. ISBN 0-14-044727-X
• Lapidge, M., "Hwaetberht", in M. Lapidge et al., The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Blackwell, 1999. ISBN 0-631-22492-0
• Bede, Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow

External links

• Hwætberht 1 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England