Saint Edfrith
Incipit of theGospel of Matthew from theLindisfarne Gospels, anilluminated manuscript said to have been created by Eadfrith
Bishop ofLindisfarne
Born	654
Died	721 or 722
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church[1] Anglican Communion Roman Catholic Church
Feast	June 4

Eadfrith of Lindisfarne (died 721), also known asSaint Eadfrith, wasBishop of Lindisfarne, probably from 698 onwards. By the twelfth century it was believed that Eadfrith succeededEadberht and nothing in the surviving records contradicts this belief.^[2]Lindisfarne was among the main religious sites of the kingdom ofNorthumbria in the early eighth century, the resting place of SaintsAidan andCuthbert.^[3] He is venerated as a Saint in theRoman Catholic Church, and in theEastern Orthodox Church, as also in theAnglican Communion.

Acolophon added to theLindisfarne Gospels in the tenth century states that Eadfrith was the scribe and artist responsible for the work. The Lindisfarne Gospels were the product of a single scribe and illustrator, working full-time over a period of about two years. For this reason, many historians who accept that the work was authored by Eadfrith in person date it to the period before he became bishop. Not all historians accept that he was the scribe: some argue that he may have commissioned the work rather than creating it in person; some reject the association as an unreliable tradition. Michelle Brown, "Lindisfarne Gospels" argues for Eadfrith being the artist and scribe, working on it as eremitic devotional act in the Columban tradition from 715-722 (dated on textual grounds of the liturgies marked by initials therein and historical context), and the main architect of the cult of St Cuthbert.^[4]

Contemporary witnesses to Eadberht's episcopacy portray him as a supporter of the cult ofSaint Cuthbert. He commissioned threelives of the Saint, the first by an anonymous writer, written between 699 and 705. ThisAnonymous Life of Saint Cuthbert was revised on Eadfrith's orders byBede, writing around 720, to produce bothprose andverse lives.^[5]

Eadfrith also oversaw the restoration of thehermitage onFarne where Cuthbert had often lived.^[6] He is named in Æthelwulf's ninth century poemDe abbatibus as having advised Eanmund, first abbot of a monastery—its name and location are unknown—founded during the reign of KingOsred.^[7]

When Lindisfarne was abandoned in the late ninth century, Eadfrith's remains were among those taken on the community's long wanderings through Northumbria. The relics of Saint Cuthbert, and those of Eadfrith along with them, eventually found a new home atChester-le-Street, where they remained for a century. In 995 the relics were translated toDurham Cathedral. At Durham Eadfrith, along with his predecessor Eadberht and successorÆthelwold, was commemorated on 4 June.^[8]

• Media related toLindisfarne Gospels (710-721) - BL Cotton MS Nero D IV at Wikimedia Commons
• Eadfrith 3 atProsopography of Anglo-Saxon England
• The Lindisfarne Gospels
• British Library feature on The Lindisfarne Gospels
• Bede's Life of Saint Cuthbert dedicated to Eadfrith

• 7th-century births
• 721 deaths
• Northumbrian saints
• 8th-century English bishops
• Bishops of Lindisfarne
• Manuscript illuminators
• English Christian monks
• 8th-century Christian saints
• Anglo-Saxon artists
• 8th-century artists
• 8th-century writers in Latin
• 8th-century English writers

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