Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/73

 CHAPTER VI

JUNE 9, 832—AUGUST 29, 832

T. FEOLOGILD, or Theologild, also called Swithred, was the 16th Archbishop of Canterbury, succeeding Wulfred, who died in March, A.D. 832. Feologild had formerly (in 803) been Abbot of a Kentish Monastery; possibly he had been Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, as "Abbot" was a general term in those days for the head of a religious house of either regulars or seculars. As Abbot, he witnessed several Charters during the Archiepiscopates of Athelard and Wulfred, from A.D. 803 onwards. For example, he attested the Act of the Council at Clovesho, held on October 12, 803, forbidding the election of laymen or seculars as Rulers of Monasteries, as " FEOLOGELD PRESBYTER ABBAS ."

This document, an illustration of which is given in facsimile, is not only most interesting on account of its age—it is eleven and a quarter centuries old—but also on account of the number of those ecclesiastics who attended the Council at Clovesho. There are 90 Bishops, Abbots, Priests and Deacons in all, headed by Archbishop Athelard, whose names are recorded thereon. The Rev. William Hunt, in his History of the English Church from 597 to 1066, thinks that Clovesho was probably in the Mercian Dominions, and near London; but he agrees that the old opinion that Clovesho is to be identified with "Cliffe-at-Hoo" in Kent is supported by the fact of the supremacy of Mercia over Kent in the eighth century, and especially from the ecclesiastical supremacy of Canterbury, though these arguments are not altogether convincing. 43