Archbishop Theodore

About this book

Until quite recently, our knowledge of the career of Archbishop Theodore has depended almost entirely on the information conveyed by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica, which may be summarized as follows: Theodore died on 19 September 690, aged 88 (HE V.8), and hence was born in 602; according to Bede he was a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, was well instructed in secular and Christian literature both Greek and Latin (HE IV.1) and was latterly living as a monk in Rome when he came to the attention of Pope Vitalian (657-72), through the recommendation of Hadrian, then abbot of a monastery near Naples but subsequently to become Theodore's companion during his English appointment; and after being consecrated archbishop of Canterbury in Rome on 26 March 668, Theodore arrived in England a year later, on 27 May 669, then aged 67, to begin his twenty-two-year archbishopric, a period described by Bede as the happiest since the English first came to Britain.