Winchester Cathedral
This Sunday in the Orthodox Church we commemorate Hædde [or Hedda or Heddi], venerable monk and holy bishop of Wessex and Winchester – most noteworthy in his office for his ordination of our God-bearing Holy Father Gúðlác of Crowland.
Hædde was, according to Church tradition, born somewhere in the land of the East Saxons – though again, as with many early English saints, the details of his early life are unclear. However, he did join the monastery of Saint Hilda at Whitby in the chilly English north, and there distinguished himself for some time, to such a degree that in the year 676 he was appointed Bishop of Wessex by Saint Theodore of Tarsus himself.
The newly-minted Bishop Hædde took up his residence first at Dorchester-on-Thames, near Oxford, where the bones of Saint Berin were ensconced. However, he did not long remain there: he moved his office (and translated the relics of Saint Berin) some forty-five miles south, to Winchester. It was Bishop Hædda who convinced the heathen king of the West Saxons, Cædwalla, to accept baptism and undertake a pilgrimage to Rome. Cædwalla was indeed baptised, but he died in Rome in the year 689, was honoured with a burial in the Church of the Holy Apostles, and was succeeded in Wessex by his younger kinsman Ine.
Ine King of the West Saxons struggled to keep his grasp over Cædwalla’s wide holdings: he faced incursions by the Welsh, which he repelled; he also faced several insurrections within his kingdom. However, he did ultimately manage to consolidate his rule by committing to writ a code of laws – the first of its kind for an Anglo-Saxon ruler outside of Kent (Saint Æþelberht having written the first law-book for the Kentish kingdom) – at a great moot of bishops and ealdormenn held in the year 693. Saint Hædde is one of two bishops – the other being Earconwald of London – whose help in draughting this law code is acknowledged in the text of the book itself. The laws of Ine may be thought of as rough justice, and they certainly bear the impress of Old Testament legality – the strict penalties for theft and robbery bear witness to the lawlessness of the times in which they were written. At the same time, the laws of Ine are notable for their mercy and leniency to debtors and servants: a foretaste of the general Christian trend away from servility during late Antiquity and into the Middle Ages. Saint Hædde also doubtless encouraged Ine first to establish the custom of ‘Peter’s pence’, a tax of one penny upon landholders payable directly to the Bishop of Rome for use in philanthropic works.
As mentioned above, Saint Hædde also consecrated the servant of God Gúðlác. For thirty years, he ruled the Bishopric of Winchester, and departed this life in the year 705. Saint Bede, in his History of the English Church and People, describes Saint Hædde as ‘a good, just man, who carried out his duties as bishop guided by an inborn love of goodness rather than by anything learned from books.’ Hædde was succeeded in his office by Daniel of Winchester; however, his diocæse was by mutual consent divided in half, and the scholarly Saint Aldhelm presided over the remainder of Saint Hædde’s sway in the newly-created diocæse of Sherborne. Holy Hierarch Hædde, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!
You were made bishop of the West Saxons,
and established your episcopal see in the city of Winchester
whither you caused the body of Saint Berin to be translated.
You organised the Church of your region
into a haven of peace for Christ’s faithful.
Holy Hædde, entreat the Lord to save us!
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