Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/154

 Egbert and instruct his young clerks till midday; he then prayed privately and celebrated mass. At dinner he ate sparingly, and listened to his scholars discussing literary questions. In the evening he always said the compline service with them, and then gave each his blessing singly (Vita Alcuini, Bibl. rerum Germ,, iv. 10, 11). He corresponded with the English missionary Boniface, who wrote to him thanking him for his gifts, asking him to send him the 'Commentaries' of Bæda, and consulting hiih on a question of church discipline (epp. 60, 100). In 758 he received into his monastery his brother Eadberht, who voluntarily resigned his crown and became a monk. He died on 19 Nov. 766, after having ruled the diocese for thirty-four years (Carmen de Pontiff.; thirty-two years, ), and was buried in one of the porches or chapels of his cathedral church. A letter of Paul I, with a superscription addressing it to Ecgberht as well as Eadberht, was really written to the king alone (Councils and Eccl. Docs. iii. 394-6). Ecgberht wrote: Other versions of the 'Penitential' ascribed to Ecgberht have been printed by Spelman, Wilkins, and Thorpe, but in each case his work has been mixed up with much that is clearly extraneous. A book of 'Excerptiones,' also ascribed to him, is of later date. The editors of the 'Councils,' &c. (see above), in a learned note on the works attributed to Ecgberht, consider that 'it seems rather more probable than not' that he may have translated the Anglo-Saxon version or paraphrase of the 'Confessionale' from the 'Penitential' of the 'so-called Cummeanus.' Other writings of which, if they ever existed, no traces now remain are ascribed to him by Bale (Scriptt. Brit, cent. ii. 109).
 * 1) 'The Pontificale,' or a book of ritual, first printed by the Surtees Society, vol. xxvi. 1853.
 * 2) The 'Succinctus Dialogus Ecclesiasticæ Institutionis, 'printed with two epistles of Bæda by Ware 1664, by Wharton 1693, by Wilkins in his 'Concilia' 1737, by Thorpe in his 'Ancient Laws and Institutes' 1840, and by Haddan and Stubbs in their 'Councils,' &c.,180l.
 * 3) 'The Pænitentiale,' printed by Haddan and Stubbs in their 'Councils,' &c., iii. 413 sq., from the text of Wasserschleben, which presents what may be taken as the genuine work of the archbishop.



EGBERT, ECGBERHT, or ECGBRYHT (d. 839), king of the West-Saxons, son of Ealhmund, an under-king of the kingdom of Kent, which at this time, besides Kent, included Surrey, Sussex, and Essex (A.-S, Chron. sub an. 823), was when a young man banished from England by the joint action of Offa, king of Mercia, and [q. v.], king of Wessex. He represented the branch of the house of Cerdic that sprang from, the son of Ceawlin [q. v.], for his father was the great-grandson of Ingils, the brother of Ine. The West-Saxon kingship had departed from his house when Ine was succeeded by his kinsman Æthelbeard. When the West-Saxon king, Cynegils, died in 780, Ealhmund was reigning in Kent, and probably died shortly afterwards; for soon after Beorhtric succeeded Cynegils the pretensions of Ecgberht were held to endanger his throne. Beorhtric forced him to take refuge in Mercia, and sent an embassy to Offa offering alliance and requesting that the fugitive might be given up. Offa determined to support Beorhtric, probably because the accession of Ecgberht to the West-Saxon kingdom might have led to the withdrawal of Kent from the Mercian over-lordship and its union with Wessex; he therefore made alliance with the West-Saxon king, gave him his daughter [q. v.] to wife in 789, and joined him in driving Ecgberht out of England. Ecgberht took refuge with the Frankish king, Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles the Great (Charlemagne), who entertained many exiles from the different English kingdoms. The date of Ecgberht's banishment and its duration are uncertain. The 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' (sub an. 836), Florence of Worcester (i. 69), and Henry of Huntingdon (p. 733) say that his exile lasted for three years; William of Malmesbury (Gesta Regum, sec. 106) makes it last for thirteen years. While, as far as written evidence goes, the period of three years thus rests on strong ground, it is less probable than the other. Ecgberht certainly came to the throne in 802 (, Codex Dipl. Introd. p. 87; Eccl. Documents, iii. 557, the dates of the 'Chronicle' needing correction by two years at this period), and it is likely that he returned to England in that year on the death of Beorhtric; his exile, however, could not have begun three years before that date, as Offa was then dead. If the account given in the 'Chronicle' is to be accepted, his return must have taken place