Berhtwald
Abbot of Glastonbury; Archbishop of Canterbury
Berhtwald (died 731) was the ninth Archbishop of Canterbury in England. His predecessor had been Theodore of Tarsus. Berhtwald begins the first continuous series of native-born Archbishops of Canterbury, although there had been previous Anglo-Saxon archbishops, they did not succeed each other until Berhtwald's successor Tatwine.
Berhtwald's period as archbishop coincided with the end of Wilfrid's long struggle to regain the Bishopric of York, and the two-year delay between Theodore's death in 690 and Berhtwald's election may have been due to efforts to select Wilfrid for Canterbury. After his election, Berhtwald went to Gaul for consecration and then presided over two councils that attempted to settle the Wilfrid issue, finally succeeding at the second council in 705. Berhtwald was also the recipient of the first surviving letter close in Western Europe.
Early life
Little is known of Berhtwald's ancestry or his early life, but he was born around the middle of the seventh century. By 679, he was made abbot of the monastery at Reculver in Kent, and a charter dated May 679 names Berhtwald as abbot. This charter, from Hlothere, King of Kent, is the earliest surviving original Anglo-Saxon charter.
Election as archbishop
The see of Canterbury was vacant for two years after the death of Theodore before Berhtwald was elected to the office on 1 July 692.
The public source identifies “Berhtwald” as abbot of Glastonbury; Archbishop of Canterbury. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Berhtwald, Abbot and Glastonbury.
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This entry incorporates text from “Berhtwald” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.