# Earconwald

Saint Earconwald or Erkenwald (died 693) was a Saxon prince and Bishop of London between 675 and 693. He is the eponymous subject of one of the most important poems in the foundations of English literature (thought to be by the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Pearl Poet). He was called Lundoniae maximum sanctus, 'the most holy figure of London', and Lux Londonie, "the light of London". Peter Ackroyd has said of him, "we may still name him as the patron saint of London, [his]... cult survived for over eight hundred years, before entering the temporary darkness of the last four centuries".
He is associated with a very early Anglo-Saxon phase of building at St Paul's Cathedral, and William Dugdale says he began the building.
In recent times he has been portrayed in novels and films, for example in the work of Bernard Cornwell.
The early diocese of London was coterminous with the Kingdom of Essex, making the Bishop of London the Bishop of the East Saxons.

## Life
### Origins

Earconwald was of royal ancestry. William Dugdale states that he was a prince, a son of the house of King Offa, King of Essex or the East Saxons.
He may have been born in the Kingdom of Lindsey in modern Lincolnshire.

### Career

In 666, he established two Benedictine abbeys, Chertsey Abbey in Surrey for men, and Barking Abbey for women. His sister, Æthelburh, was Abbess of Barking. Earconwald is said to have engaged Hildelith to instruct Æthelburh in the role of abbess.
Earconwald himself served as Abbot of Chertsey. A charter states that in the late 7th century, he and Frithwald gave land in Streatham and Tooting Graveney to Chertsey Abbey; this grant was confirmed in the time of Athelstan in 933.
A legend says that he often preached to the woodmen in the wild forests that lay to the north of London.

### Bishop

In 675, Earconwald became Bishop of London, succeeding Bishop Wine. He was the choice of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. It is also said that his selection as Bishop of London was at the insistence of King Sebbi. An ancient epitaph says that Earconwald served as bishop of London for eleven years.
He was granted the manor (landholding) of Fulham about the year 691 for himself and his successors as Bishop of London. The manor house was Fulham Palace. Nine centuries later, it was the summer residence of the Bishops of London.
Earconwald was an important contributor to the reconversion of Essex, and the fourth Bishop of London since the restoration of the diocese, and he was present at the reconciliation between Archbishop Theodore and Wilfrith.
While bishop, he contributed to King Ine of Wessex's law code, and is mentioned specifically in the code as a contributor. King Ine named Earconwald as an advisor on his laws and called Earconwald "my bishop" in the preface to his laws.
Current historical scholarship credits Earconwald with a major role in the evolution of Anglo-Saxon charters, and it is possible that he drafted the charter of Caedwalla to Farnham.
When St Fursey (a Celtic cleric who did much to establish Christianity throughout the British Isles and particularly in East Anglia) died in 650 he was buried in a church built specially by Earconwald in Péronne which has claimed Fursey as patron ever since.

### Building works

Bishopsgate, one of the eastern gates on London's largely lost Roman and medieval city wall, was said to have been repaired by Earconwald, and to have taken its name from him.
Earconwald is said to have spent a good deal on the early building of St Paul's, and in later times he almost occupied the place of a traditionary founder; the veneration paid to him was second only to that which was rendered to St Paul.

### Death and legacy

Earconwald died in 693 while on a visit to Barking Abbey. His remains were buried at a pilgrimage shrine in Old St Paul's Cathedral.
For a period immediately after the Norman Conquest, St Earconwald was marginalised in religious practice. The Normans replaced most of the English ecclesiastical office holders, either immediately, or upon their death with the appointment of a Norman cleric as successor.
The most important collection of early materials concerning Earconwald is the Miracula Sancti Erkenwaldi, preserved as a 12th-century manuscript in the Matthew Parker collection (Parker 161) at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The miracle in the poem is not in these materials, suggesting that the story post-dates this manuscript.

## The poem of St Erkenwald

Earconwald was the subject of the alliterative St Erkenwald Poem, written in the 14th century by a poet from the Cheshire/Shropshire/Staffordshire area.
The text is thought to be the work of the Pearl Poet whose identity is debated and uncertain. If it is true that it is within the set of this author's work, that would mean that text shares its author with:
* Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
* Pearl
* Patience
* Cleanness
The poem is significant in the way it deals with the spiritual welfare of people who could not hear the Christian message, and critics have compared it to the Beowulf poem in this regard.
The poem has survived in only one manuscript, British Library MS Harley 2250.
The document was discovered in 1757 by Thomas Percy; the manuscript had been in the possession of Sir Humphrey Pitt of Balcony House, Shifnal, and Priorslee, Shropshire.
Other important ancient literary materials narrowly avoided being burnt as kindling by household staff in the circumstances in which Percy was discovering this important cultural survival.
The poem has been linked thematically and in plot terms with the Legend of Trajan and the Miracle of St Gregory; that legend itself being referred to in the Divine Comedy by Dante (Purgatorio (x. 73-75) and Paradiso (xx 106-117)).
Another possible inspiration for the plot in the poem is found in Kaiserchronik, the Middle High German history of Roman and German emperors dating to around 1150.
Some familiarity with the story is also contended for St Thomas Aquinas.
Within pictorial art, the Berne tapestry (copied from paintings by Roger van der Wayden of the Brussels Town Hall in the mid-1400s, which were lost in the conflicts of the 1600s) and apparently repeated in the Cologne Town Hall in the High Medieval period, provides a visual expression of the themes.
The intention of this art was to remind judges to dispense impartial justice.

## Feast day and translation day

His feast day is 30 April, with successive translations (see below) being celebrated on 1 February, 13 May and 14 November. He is a patron saint of London.
Prior to the Reformation, the anniversaries of his death as well as his translation were observed at St Paul's as feasts of the first class, by an ordinance of Bishop Braybroke in 1386.
The following Antiphon and Collect for the Feast of St Erkenwald is recorded:
   "De Sancto Erkenwaldo Episcopo. Antipho: O decus insigne, nostrum pastorumque benigne, O lux Londonie, pater Erkenwalde beate, Quem super astra Deum gaudes spectare per eum, Aspice letantes tua gaudia nos celebrantes, Et tecum vite fac participes sine fine. V. Ora pro nobis beate Erkenwalde. R. Ut digni efficiamur. "Oratio. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, apud quem est continua semper Sanctorum festivitas Tuorum, presta, quesumus, ut qui memoriam beati Erkenwaldi pontificis agimus, ab hostium nostrorum eruamur nequitia: et ad eternorum nos provehi concedas premiorum beneficia. Per. Pater noster. Ave Ma"
   (Concerning Saint Erkenwald the Bishop.
   Antiphon: O distinguished God, our kind shepherd, O light of London, blessed father Erkenwald, Whom above the stars you rejoice to behold God through him, Look upon us celebrating your joys, and live with you without end.
   V. Pray for us blessed Erkenwald.
   R. That we may become worthy.
   Prayer. Almighty and everlasting God, with whom is the continual festival of Thy Saints, grant, we beseech, that we who commemorate the blessed high priest Erkenwald, may be delivered from the wickedness of our enemies: and grant us to advance to the eternal blessings of the first. Through [Jesus Christ]. Our Father. Ave Maria)

## Relics and shrine

The old St Paul's Cathedral's "greatest glory was the Shrine of St Erkenwald". The shrine rivalled that of Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey.
It is said that on the death of St Erkenwald, there was a struggle between the canons of St Paul's and the monks of Chertsey as to who should bury him, during which the people of London brought his body to St Paul's. The people of London, bringing the body to the city, are supposed to have said:
   "We are like strong and vigorous men who will... undermine and overturn cities heavily fortified with men and weapons before we give up the servant of God, our protector... we ourselves intend that such a glorious city and congregation shall be strengthened and honoured by such a patron."
On the journey to London with the body, the River Lea is said to have parted to make way for the dead saint.
After a great fire in 1087 (one of several Erkenwald's relics are said to have survived) the relics were put in a silver shrine. This shrine was put in a new, vast crypt, specially built to hold the "valuable remains of St. Erkenwald" in the wider new building which was built to replace the lost St Paul's by Bishop Maurice. The body was transferred to a shrine in the cathedral in 1140. In 1314, Bishop Gilbert de Segrave laid the first stone of a new shrine to which the relics of Erkenwald were translated twelve years later.
By accounts, the relics were sealed in a leaden casket fashioned in the form of "a gabled house or church". By the time his relics were placed behind the high altar of St Paul's they were supposed to have been with the couch in which he was carried in his declining years, fragments of which were associated with miracles. In the time of Bede, it was recorded that miracles were effected by this couch.
It is recorded that the servants of the church could only move the relics of St Erkenwald "clandestinely at night" because to do otherwise would have created hysteria among the crowds.
The shrine was constantly enriched by canons and by the merchants of London, well into the 15th century, and miracles were reported at the site of the shrine into the 16th century. The citizens of London took special pride in the magnificent shrine, and had a special devotion to St Erkenwald.
Amongst the Ashmole manuscripts in the Bodleian Library is the following entry in Ashmole's own hand that concerns work on the shrine in 1448:
   "Pondus Cancelli ferrei ante Altare Sancti Erkenwaldi facti Ao Dni. 1448 per manus Stephani Clampard, fabri, sumptibus Decani et Capituli elevati ibidem vi. die Junii anno predicto, 3438 lb. precii cujuslibet lb. cum ferra 4d. Summa 641. 2s.
   Expens. in ferro 3438 lb. precio cujuslibet vs. Summa 8 li. 16 s. 8 d.
   Item in vasos ferri ixc precio ut supra. Summa xlv s.
   Item in Stannum ad dealban. Summa viij. li.
   (The weight of the iron chancel in front of the Altar of St. Erkenwald made AD 1448 by the hands of Stephen Clampard, carpenter, at the expense of the Dean and Chapter raised there on 6 June of the aforesaid year, 3438 lb. the price of each lb. with iron 4d. Total 641. 2s.
   Expense. in iron 3438 lb. price of each vs. Total £8 16s. 8d.
   Also in vessels of iron at the same price as above. Total 45 shillings.
   Also for tin for whitewash. The sum of £8
Ackroyd notes that:
   "successful lawyers of London…on nomination as serjeants of law, would walk in procession to St Paul’s in order to venerate the physical presence of the saint."
When Catherine of Aragon made her entry into London, two days before her marriage to Prince Arthur, heir to the throne, she visited St Paul's and made an offering there at the shrine of St Erkenwald. The couple were married on St Erkenwald's Day, with the date likely selected to be in alignment with the saint's day.
The St Paul's shrine had the relics removed during the Reformation; the empty shrine survived until the Great Fire of London. In late 1549, at the height of the iconoclasm of the Reformation, Sir Rowland Hill altered the route of his Lord Mayor's day procession and said a de profundis at the tomb of Erkenwald.
There are differing accounts of what happened to his relics, with suggestions the relics were plundered or incinerated, or that he was reburied in St Paul's Cathedral at the east end of the choir, or that they might have been "hidden to be recovered later".
One commentary on the location of his relics summarises the understanding of this point as follows:
   "his relics were either destroyed or hidden in a secure place by the faithful from the bloodthirsty iconoclasts. There is a modern speculation that the relics... may still rest at the east end of the present Cathedral choir next to the east altar. Perhaps one day... will reveal the fate of this holy man’s bodily remains."
One commentator has observed that "destruction of this major shrine, located behind the high altar, severed the last connection between St Paul’s and its Saxon predecessor ... (the precise whereabouts have yet to be discovered)."
The burials of both Earconwald and Sebbi quickly became the focus of saints’ cults and pilgrimages. This local mania for miracles and relics has been described as the first evidence that Londoners were becoming enthusiastic about Christianity and that newly returned religion had found its footing in the area.
Erkenwald's grave was a popular place of pilgrimage up to the Reformation.
After the Great Fire of London, Christopher Wren made archaeological investigations into the ruins to St Paul's Cathedral looking for the Saxon building Erkenwald had had built.

## State events

So far back as 1431, the Masters of the Lincoln's Inn Bench restricted the number of annual revels to four: the feast of St Erkenwald, alongside the feast of the Purification of our Lady; Midsummer and Halloween.
There were other examples of statecraft being associated with St Erkenwald in the Tudor period: in 1522, there was a state visit to London by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, hosted by Henry VIII. The entertainments included a pageant near Cheapside, where Charlemagne greeted the two heads of state and gave them gifts; Erkenwald was incorporated into the performance, with St Dunstan, Thomas Becket, John the Baptist, John of Gaunt all also featured. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn are understood to have married on St Erkenwald's Day.

## Memorialisation of St Erkenwald

St Erkenwald has also been commemorated in the following ways:
* In the 1932 Barking Pageant
* in the Chapel of St Erkenwald and St Ethelburga at St Paul's Cathedral
* with a cross in Battersea Park erected in the year 2000, which was placed on the site of a manor granted to St Erkenwald by King Ceadwalla, believed to the site of the home of St Æthelburg
* St Erkenwald's Church, Barking
* St Erkenwald's Church, Southend-on-Sea (demolished)
* St Erconwald's Catholic Church Walton-on-Thames
* St Erconwald's Roman Catholic Church, Wembley
* St Paul's Cathedral holds a sung Eucharist for Erkenwald, conducted by the Bishop of London.
* Between 1931 and 1990 a senior school in Barking was called Erkenwald School. It is now a campus of Mayesbrook Park School.
* In a statue in Wells Cathedral
* In a window at St Albans Cathedral
* In an imaginatively-named Essex League Basketball team

## In contemporary culture

In 1997 the Royal Shakespeare Company performed a play called Erkenwald in The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon.
Erkenwald is a supporting character in the Bernard Cornwell stories:
* The Saxon Stories novel series
* The Last Kingdom books
and in the associated 2018 television series. In that fictional world he is in service to King Alfred. The actor Kevin Eldon has portrayed him.
The British children's writer Abi Elphinstone chose "Erkenwald" as the name of a mythical kingdom in her 2021 book Sky Song.

## Miracles

There are 19 miracles associated with Erkenwald:
* a boy, who took refuge from his angry school master at the tomb of St Erkenwald, received a message he had not known until then
* a man punished with sudden death for scorning the feast day of the saint
* concerning a prisoner who was set free
* how, amid the great burning of the city and church the pall on his tomb survived unharmed
* concerning the building of a more splendid church in London, and concerning the mobility impaired person, who after journeying to many tombs of famous saints throughout the world, obtained healing from St Erkenwald
* concerning the man who prevented his wife from honouring the saint, his punishment, and the restoration of his health in accordance with the saint's instructions
* how he demonstrated, with the wonderful largesse of his merciful acts, that he was pleased with the honour being shown to him
* concerning the blind girl whose sight was speedily restored
* concerning the death of the drunken buffoon who got inside the shrine of St Erkenwald when it was under construction
* concerning the doctor, healed of deadly sickness
* concerning the blind woman who received her sight
* concerning the man who was cured of his fever by the saint, who visited him in person
* how one of the saint's painters (from when his body was in the crypt) violated his festival, was punished, the saint himself appertaining to him and declaring the reason for the punishment
* concerning the deformed nun who was visited by St Ethelburga and St Erkenwald and made whole and undeformed
* concerning the deaf girl whose hearing was restored
* Other miracles associated with an invisible wheel and growing a construction beam are recorded.