Holy Hierarch Éadsige, Archbishop of Canterbury

Canterbury Cathedral

The last saintly Archbishop of Canterbury prior to the Great Schism, Éadsige, is commemorated today in the Orthodox Church. A priestmonk and court chaplain for the Danish Cnut, Éadsige is best-known as the Archbishop of Canterbury who anointed Éadweard Andettere King of England.

Nothing exists in the historical record of Éadsige’s parentage or place of birth. Éadsige became a monk at Christ Church in Canterbury in 1030, and he owed that admission largely to Cnut’s influence: Cnut granted the land at Folkestone to Christ Church Abbey on the condition that they admit Éadsige into their ranks. He was made a suffragan bishop in Kent, with his see at the Church of Saint Martin in Canterbury, a mere five years later. When the Archbishop of Canterbury Saint Æþelnóð met his blessed repose in the Lord in 1038, Éadsige was chosen as his successor. He made a journey to Rome to receive his omophor from the Pope in 1040.

Saint Éadsige also served as the Sheriff of Kent during his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury. He may have celebrated the coronation of Harðacnut the same year; but he definitely presided over the coronation of Éadweard Andettere on the third of April, 1043 – during which he delivered a stern exhortation to the English king and to the people. He was overtaken by ill health the following year, and approached both Éadweard King and Godwine eorl of Wessex about appointing a suffragan bishop to take on some of the Archbishop’s duties – fearing that someone might obtain the Archbishopric by corruption or intrigue otherwise. They appointed Siweard, the Abbot of Abingdon, to the position.

Saint Éadsige recovered from his illness by 1046, as his name appears with his title of Archbishop in charters from that year. His co-adjutant Siweard, however, really did fall ill and went into decline, retiring from his post back to Abingdon and dying in 1048. William of Malmesbury apparently published a spurious story about Siweard, that during Éadsige’s illness he abused the Archbishop by keeping him short of food, and for this reason he was denied the archbishopric after Éadsige’s recovery. However, this story seems to have risen from William’s confusion between the Abbot of Abingdon and another Siweard, who was bishop of Rochester a decade later. Éadsige apparently was responsible for leasing a number of Christ Church’s lands to Godwine eorl, and this may have strained his relationship with the Church. Upon Saint Éadsige’s repose, he gave many of his bequests to Saint Augustine’s Abbey.

Éadsige’s saintly reputation clearly stems from his connexions with Éadweard King, his exhortations to heavenly virtue on the part of English king and nation, and his jealous concern for the integrity of his office – not wanting it to become a plaything of nobles’ purses and prestige. But even this latter virtue of his shows how tenuous the situation of the English Church was in the waning years of her independence. His own attainment of the office, owing to the patronage of the Danish warlord, demonstrates this latter fact well. The capacity for corruption within that last generation of the English Church was greatly expanded, but the fact that there were still men like Éadsige to be found in England in Éadweard’s time shows that England was not as wholly lost to its elder pieties as the Norman propaganda which followed has made it seem. Holy hierarch Éadsige, pray to God for us!