Life of Bishop Wilfrid
A Latin life of Wilfrid, bishop in Northumbria, written at his monastery of Ripon by one of his followers in the years after his death. It gives the account of the Synod of Whitby told in Wilfrid’s own circle, earlier than Bede’s.
The author names himself Stephen, a priest. He has long been identified with the singing-master Aedde, surnamed Stephen, whom Bede says Wilfrid brought from Kent to Northumbria, though the manuscripts give little support for the full name “Eddius Stephanus”. Its editor, Bertram Colgrave, judged that he wrote at Ripon, where Wilfrid was buried, probably within ten years of the bishop’s death, and that he had probably travelled with Wilfrid on his last journey to Rome.
The Life is the work of a partisan. Kings prosper while they favour Wilfrid and fail when they turn against him, and his opponents are seldom given a hearing. It is none the less the earliest narrative of Wilfrid’s career, written by a man who knew him, and Bede had it before him when he wrote his own shorter account. Its tenth chapter describes the debate at Whitby in a few lines, with a different speech for Wilfrid from the one Bede gives.
Cited in
- AD 664, firm date