Bregowine

Bregowine (also spelled Bregwine or Bregowin) was Archbishop of Canterbury in the mid-eighth century. Almost nothing about him can be established from sources written in his own lifetime. He was consecrated to the see in 761, succeeding Cuthbert, and he died in 764 after an episcopate of only about three years. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records both his consecration and his death but gives no further biographical detail. There is no surviving evidence that he received a pallium from the pope, which was the usual mark of metropolitan authority for archbishops of Canterbury in this period, and no charters or conciliar acts can be securely assigned to his tenure.

The only substantial contemporary document connected with him is a letter he wrote to Lull, the English-born Archbishop of Mainz and successor of Saint Boniface among the continental missions. In that letter Bregowine recalls an earlier meeting with Lull and refers to gifts exchanged between them. The correspondence is valuable chiefly as evidence of continued contact between the church in England and the Anglo-Saxon missionary effort in Germany in the generation after Boniface. Beyond this letter and the brief chronicle notices, eighth-century sources are silent about Bregowine’s birth, education, and conduct as metropolitan of the southern English church.

Later medieval writers, working long after his death, composed hagiographical accounts that filled those gaps. In the early twelfth century Eadmer of Canterbury wrote a Life of Bregowine presenting him as a man of noble family from the European continent who came to England in the reign of King Æthelberht II of Kent in order to study, and who was then chosen as archbishop for his learning and holiness. These particulars cannot be confirmed from any source close to Bregowine’s own time and are treated by modern historians as pious legend rather than established fact. His birthplace, parentage, and early career therefore remain unknown.

Bregowine died in 764 and was buried in the baptistery of Saint John, a structure attached to the cathedral at Canterbury that had been built by his predecessor Cuthbert. His remains were later translated into the cathedral church itself. A local cult developed around him at Canterbury, and he was venerated as a saint, with his feast observed on 26 August. In the early twelfth century Eadmer took an interest in his relics and memory as part of the Canterbury community’s effort to record and honour its early archbishops. Apart from the letter to Lull and this later liturgical cult, Bregowine remains one of the more obscure holders of the see of Canterbury, and no other writings or detailed acts of his pontificate have survived.