THE VENERABLE BEDE

THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

CHAPTER I

How after the death of Deusdedit Wighard was sent to Rome to be made bishop: but upon his dying in that same place Theodore was ordained archbishop and sent to Britain with abbot Hadrian [664-669].

In the year recorded of the foresaid eclipse and pestilence that soon after followed, in which also bishop Colman, overcome by the general sentence of the catholics, returned home to his countrymen, Deusdedit the sixth bishop of the church of Canterbury died the 14th day of July; moreover, Earconbert king of Kent died the same month and day, and left to his son Egbert the throne of his kingdom, which he received and held by the space of 9 years. At that time, the bishopric being vacant a great while,¹ Wighard, priest, a man well learned in the disciplines of the Church, an Englishman born, was sent to Rome by Egbert as well as by Oswy king of the Northumbrians (as we have briefly mentioned in the foregoing book), they being desirous for him to be ordained archbishop of the Church of the English: and at the same time presents were sent to the