Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/369

 church should be in union with and in subjection to the church of Rome. This letter has long been held to have been the cause of the synod of Clovesho (, Gesta Regum, i. c. 83;, Origines, i. 243; , Lives, i. 224). The authors of ‘Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents’ (iii. 383), however, have clearly proved that Boniface, so far from dictating in this letter the course to be taken by the English church, must have written it to show Cuthbert that he had followed his example; and apart from other arguments, the opening words of the letter, in which he thanks the English archbishop for the communications received through the deacon Cyneberht, afford a strong presumption that this was the case. When Cuthbert heard of the martyrdom of Boniface, who was slain on 5 June 755, he wrote to Lullus, his successor in the see of Mentz, informing him that it had been determined at a general synod of the English church to celebrate the martyr's anniversary. Up to this time Christ Church, Canterbury, although the cathedral church of the province, had scarcely been looked on as equal in dignity to the church of St. Peter and St. Paul (St. Augustine's), which, as the burial-place of the archbishops, received many rich offerings. It is said that Cuthbert, anxious for the honour and welfare of his cathedral, obtained leave from the pope, when he went to fetch the pall, that he and his successors might be buried there. Having persuaded King Eadberht to confirm this license, he built at the east end of the cathedral a chapel of basilican shape, and dedicated it to St. John the Baptist. This new building served both for the baptistery of the church and for the court of the archbishop, and he intended that he and his successors should be buried in it. As he knew that if the monks of St. Augustine's heard of his intention, which their chronicler describes as ‘foul, snake-like, and matricidal,’ they would endeavour to thwart it, he kept the matter secret, and when he felt his death was near, instructed his clerks not to toll for him or allow any one to know that he was dead until they had buried him some days. He died on 26 Oct. 758, and was buried according to his desire. It was not until the third day that his death was made known, and the bells of the church were tolled for him. Then Ealdhun, abbot of St. Augustine's, came with his monks to take the body to their church, and found that they were too late. The contest was revived on the death of Bregwin [q. v.], Cuthbert's successor; but from this time every archbishop up to the time of the Conquest, to go no further, was, with one exception, buried in Christ Church. Besides the letter to Lullus, two short poems written by Cuthbert are preserved by William of Malmesbury—one on a splendid cross he presented to the church of Hereford, and the other on a tomb he erected there for some of his predecessors in that see (Gesta Pontiff. 299). Leland says that he saw a volume of his epigrams in the library of Malmesbury Abbey, but no trace of this work now exists.

 CUTHBURH or CUTHBURGA, (fl. 700), abbess, sister of Ine, king of the West Saxons, married Aldfrith [q. v.], king of the Northumbrians, and probably bore him Osred, his son and successor. With her husband's consent Cuthburh adopted the monastic life. After spending some time in the nunnery of Barking in Essex, then under the government of the abbess Hildelitha, she founded, probably with the co-operation of her sister Cwenburh, the nunnery of Wimborne in Dorsetshire. As Bishop Aldhelm [q. v.], in a letter written in 705, speaks of her as abbess of that house, her foundation must bear an earlier date. She remained abbess of Wimborne until her death. A manuscript in the British Museum (Lansdowne MS. 436, f. 38) contains what purports to be a dialogue between her and her husband Aldfrith, and her farewell charge to her nuns. Her day is 31 Aug.

 CUTHRED (d. 754), king of the West-Saxons, succeeded his kinsman Æthelheard in 740, when the Mercian Æthelbald was at the height of his power, and appears to have been over-lord of the West-Saxon kingdom. Cuthred struggled against both the Mercians and the Welsh, though he managed never to 