Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/313

 1907, Twysden; Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 447 sq.; Haddan and Stubbs's Councils and Eccl. Docs. iii. 398; Kemble's Codex Dipl. 98; Dict. of Christian Biog. art. ‘Bugga,’ by Bishop Stubbs.]

EADBURGA, EADBURGH, or EADBURH (fl. 802), queen of the West-Saxons, a daughter of Offa, king of the Mercians, first appears with other members of the royal family as attesting a charter granted by her father in 787 (, Codex Dipl. 151). In 789 (A.-S. Chron. 787) she married [q. v.] or Brihtric, king of the West-Saxons. Asser says that she gained great power in the kingdom through the king's affection for her, and that she used it tyrannically; that she laid plots against many, accused them to the king, and so caused them to lose life or power; and that when the king refused to hearken to her she would slay her enemy by poison. In 802 she prepared poison for a young man who was much beloved by the king. It so happened that Brihtric tasted the poison before his favourite, and both died from its effects. After this crime Eadburh could not remain in the West-Saxon kingdom, and taking a great amount of treasure with her she crossed the sea to the court of the emperor Charles the Great. When she appeared before the emperor and offered him many gifts, he said, ‘Choose, Eadburh, which you will have, me or my son, who stands with me in the hall.’ She answered, ‘If I may have my choice, I choose your son, because he is the younger.’ Then Charles said with a smile, ‘If you had chosen me you should have had my son; but as you have chosen my son you shall have neither him nor me.’ However, he gave her a great nunnery, and for a very few years she ruled it as abbess. Her conduct was bad, and she was guilty of unchastity with one of her own nation. The emperor expelled her, and she passed the rest of her life in poverty, being reduced before her death to beg in the streets of Pavia, attended only by one young slave. There many of her countrymen saw her, and told Asser about her. After her flight from England the West-Saxons would not give the title of queen to any of her successors, nor suffer any of them to share the royal throne, but called each of them simply the king's wife. This custom was first broken through in the case of Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, who was crowned by Hincmar on her marriage with Æthelwulf, and who on her coming to England was allowed to sit beside her husband on the throne.



EADFRID or EADFRITH (d. 721), bishop of Lindisfarne, was a monk of Lindisfarne and an ardent disciple of St. Cuthberht. That saint died in 687, and eleven years afterwards, in 698, Eadfrid succeeded to his bishopric, and held the see until his death in 721. He is described by Symeon as a ‘pious and worthy bishop,’ but nearly his whole history is connected with the monastery of Lindisfarne, over which he continued to rule. He was one of the monastic bishops of the Celtic type rather than the more active Roman organisers. Though, as an Englishman who lived after the synod of Whitby, he was orthodox in regard to the questions which had separated the two churches, he lived in the spirit of the Columbas and Aidans. We only know of two facts concerning him not connected with Lindisfarne. He is probably the ‘Eahfrid’ to whom, on his return from Ireland, Aldhelm addressed a long and hardly intelligible letter (, Opera, pp. 91–5, ed. Giles). He is also mentioned as the counsellor and friend of Eanmund, the Northumbrian noble whom the tyranny of King Osred drove into some monastery dedicated to St. Peter. Eadfrid entertained the fugitive, gave him pious instruction, and, at his own request, furnished him with a teacher for his monastery (, Carmen de abbatibus cellæ suæ, in, i. 270, ed. Arnold). But as this monastery was probably a cell of Lindisfarne, Eadfrid acted as much in the capacity of abbot as of bishop. The rest of his acts are in direct relation to his island home.

The great object of Eadfrid's life was to promote the honour of his master Cuthberht. He restored the rude oratory in which Cuthberht had spent his hermit life in Farne Island, and which, though still tenanted by Felgild, the second in succession to the saint, had fallen into great disrepair. He showed equal anxiety to commit to writing the records of Cuthberht's fame. At his instance and that of the whole ‘family’ of Lindisfarne the anonymous author of the ‘Life of St. Cuthberht,’ himself plainly a monk of the same house, was inspired to write his biography ( Omnia Opera, vi. 357, ed. Giles). The much more important work of Bæda, ‘De Vita et Miraculis S. Cuthberti,’ was also due to the urgent solicitation of Eadfrid and the ‘congregation of brothers who serve Christ in Lindisfarne,’ whose elders and teachers read it through before it was published, and in reward for which Eadfrid pro-