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Download fileBede, Willibrord and the Letters of Pope Honorius I on the genesis of the archbishopric of York
journal contribution
posted on 2012-06-13, 13:51 authored by Joanna E. StoryIn his Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, completed in 731, Bede incorporated the texts
of fourteen papal letters: eight were from Gregory the Great (590–604); three from Boniface
V (619–25); two from Honorius I (625–38); one from Vitalian I (658–72). The two letters
from Pope Honorius are the subject of this article. Previously known only through the pages
of Bede’s History, copies of both these letters have been identified within an early eighthcentury
manuscript that has no other connection with Bede’s text. This manuscript was made
at Echternach, in modern day Luxembourg, for Willibrord (658–739), the Northumbrian
missionary archbishop of Frisia. This copy of the letters of Pope Honorius I has not been
studied before now and analysis of it has far reaching implications for our understanding of a
number of important issues, namely: the division of the English Church into two provinces
each headed by a metropolitan bishop, as envisaged by Gregory the Great in his letters to
Augustine of Canterbury; the circumstances surrounding establishment of the archbishopric
of York in 735 and Bede’s involvement in that process; the circulation and transmission of
Bede’s primary sources; networks of communication and the use of ‘old records’ to solve
contemporary problems in early eighth-century Europe; the proliferation of archbishoprics in
England and in Francia in the later seventh and eighth centuries.
History
Citation
The English Historical Review, Volume 127, Issue 527, August 2012, Pages 783–818, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ces142Author affiliation
/Organisation/COLLEGE OF ARTS, HUMANITIES AND LAW/School of Historical StudiesVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)