Holy Hierarch Æþelnóð, Archbishop of Canterbury

Canterbury Cathedral

The thirtieth of October is the feast-day of Æþelnóð, one of the last sainted Archbishops of Canterbury prior to the Great Schism: the predecessor in office of Saint Éadsige. Despite some personal grounds for bad blood, Saint Æþelnóð nonetheless maintained a warm and edifying friendship with the Danish king Cnut, providing us with a positive example of symphonía in Old English Church-state relations.

Æþelnóð was a West Saxon, a man of Glastonbury – and a son of the illustrious ealdorman Æþelmær Cild (or ‘the Stout’), grandson of Æþelweard the Historian, great-grandson of Æþelræd King and great-grandnephew of Saint Ælfrǽd. He was baptised, as tradition has it, by Saint Dúnstán himself. It was said that as he was dunked in the water, he raised his hand to the saint as if in blessing, which Dúnstán took as a sign that he was destined to become a bishop. The young Æþelnóð was apparently a gifted and studious pupil, and throughout his life maintained a firm attachment to Glastonbury, where he received his learning.

He became the Dean of Christ Church Priory at Canterbury. When Sveinn Forkbeard invaded, the forces of the English southwest under Æþelmær Cild went to the town of Bath to submit to him and give up hostages. When Sveinn’s son Cnut took power, he executed some of these hostages the better to strengthen his own control over England: one of them was Æþelmær’s own son (and Æþelnóð’s brother) Æþelweard.

Æþelnóð himself was called upon to perform services for the King; one of which involved ‘bestowing chrism’ on him (according to the Kentish historian Osbern). After three years, it appears either that Æþelnóð was willing to forgive and forget, or else that Cnut had developed a conscience and grown less severe on the western English: he appointed Æþelnóð Archbishop of Canterbury in 1020 – while he was still a sæcular priest. He would journey to Rome to get his omophor two years later, and receive it from the hands of Benedict VIII. On his way home he stopped in Pavia to pay a pilgrim’s visit to the tomb of Saint Augustine of Hippo. He received at Pavia a relic from Saint Augustine, which he gifted to his friend Leofríc eorl of Mercia and his famous wife Gódgifu – both generous donors to religious houses – for use in the restoration of one of their churches.

Æþelnóð himself had something of a reputation as a restorer of churches: in particular Canterbury Cathedral. The building was much in need of repair when he came to it, and his predecessors had only given the building partial and cosmetic patches. Archbishop Æþelnóð undertook real and significant repairs to the church structure, and what’s more beautified it with many ornaments and vessels provided by his benefactor Cnut.

As mentioned above, as strange and as unlikely as it appears, the Saxon archbishop and the Danish king worked well together and developed a firm friendship. Saint Æþelnóð managed to convince Cnut, for example, to retrieve and translate for him the remains of Saint Ælfhéah – the second Archbishop of Canterbury before him, who had met a martyr’s death in defence of the poor at the hands of Danish raiders. For Cnut it was something of a propaganda coup. It greatly bolstered his legitimacy for a Danish king to make public reverence to a Kentish saint who had been felled by Danish whips and swords – atoning for a historical sin of his people and associating himself with a beloved English saint at the same time. For Saint Æþelnóð, it meant that the relics of the beloved Archbishop would come home to rest at last. Of course it was done with great show to please the king: Cnut, his Norman wife Emma and his son Harðacnut were all in attendance – along with great throngs of Englishmen – as the ship bearing the saint from Saint Paul’s made its way down the Thames to Kent.

As archbishop, Saint Æþelnóð went out of his way to seek the company of all manner of folk, particularly the poor and needy. But he would indeed align himself very closely with the royal couple and their young son in the coming years. He consecrated several bishops, one of whom was located in Roskilde, Denmark. When Cnut was on his deathbed in 1035, he tasked Æþelnóð with assuring Emma and Harðacnut of his support in the line of succession, and Æþelnóð did faithfully as he was charged. The throne went not to Harðacnut, but instead to Cnut’s illegitimate son Harald Harefoot. Æþelnóð attended the coronation, with the crown and the other regalia, but he placed them not on Harald’s head or in his hands, but on the altar. He said this to him:

These are the crown and sceptre which Cnut committed to my care. To you, sir, I neither refuse nor present them. Take them if you see fit to do so. But I strictly forbid my brother bishops from usurping an office which is the prerogative of my see.

In this way, as long as Æþelnóð lived, Harald Harefoot went uncrowned and unanointed, but Saint Æþelnóð suffered – as far as we know – no reprisal. Æþelnóð demonstrated through this – symphonía, after all, is not submission – that the position of the English Church was by no means wholly subordinate to the government, even if he was a personal friend and confidante of the previous king.

Saint Æþelnóð reposed in the Lord on the thirtieth of October, 1038, and he was much mourned by his friends. One of them, Bishop Æþelríc of Sussex, wished that he might not live longer in the world than Æþelnóð was out of it, and his wish indeed was granted him, for he reposed the following week. In his own day, and in those of the Danish kings that followed, Æþelnóð was regarded as a ‘good’ archbishop, and the veneration in which he was held would indicate that he had the reputation of a saint. However, Éadweard Andettere did nothing to promote his cultus, and neither of course did the Normans who suppressed the cults of most of the Old English saints. Holy Archbishop Æþelnóð, wise and temperate advisor to princes, restorer of churches, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!