People ADALBERO, BISHOP OF LAON (FRANCE; 977-1030) Adalbero was very involved in the politics of the end of Carolingian dynasty in Western Frankia and its replacement by the Capetians, with the accession of Hugh Capet as king in 987. He was one of the writers who expressed the concept of society divided between the three orders. ADOMNÁN , ABBOT OF IONA (DIED 704) Adomnán was the ninth abbot of the monastery of Iona, founded on the island of that name in the Hebrides by Columba. He is particularly noted by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People for having promoted the Roman dating of Easter. His best-known work is his Life of St Columba. ÆLFRIC, ABBOT OF EYNSHAM (1005-C. 1010) Ælfric joined the monastery of Cerne Abbas (Dorset) around 987. He may have been in charge of the school there, and he certainly produced a series of writings, including works in Old English, principally homilies for reading and preaching and lives of saints, and a grammar of Latin written in Old English. In 1005, he became the first abbot of the reformed abbey of Eynsham near Oxford, where he died around 1010. ÆTHELEBERHT I, KING OF KENT (DIED 616) Ætheleberht, who had married the Christian, Frankish princess, Bertha, some while before, welcomed the mission of St Augustine when it arrived in Kent in 597. He permitted the conversion of his subjects, and was himself converted, perhaps soon after Augustine's arrival. Bede identified him as one of the seven overlords of southern England (Bede, Eccl. History, II.15) and attributed to him a code of laws 'in the manner of the Romans', which is extant. He died in 616, but there are problems regarding the beginning of his reign. Bede places it in 560 or 561, but this seems too early. ÆTHELFLÆD, 'LADY OF THE MERCIANS' (D. 918) Daughter of King Alfred the Great, and wife of Æthelred, ealdorman and ruler in Mercia, the Midland kingdom of England, who formed a close alliance with Alfred, she was called by a contemporary writer the 'lady of the Mercians'. She was actively involved in wars against the Viking invaders of Mercia, especially after her husband's death in 911, when she and her brother Edward the Elder were active in the development of a system of fortifications, known as burhs). She was buried in the monastery of St Peter at Gloucester, which she had founded. ÆTHELFRITH, KING OF THE NORTHUMBRIANS (604-16) Ruler of northern Northumbria or Bernicia from 592, his period of rule is presented by Bede in hisEcclesiastical History of the English People as notable for its conquests of the lands of the Britons. He defeated an invasion by the king of the Scots of western Scotland at the Battle of Degsastan in 602, and won a savage victory against the Britons at Chester between 613 and 616. He remained a pagan until his death. ÆTHELRED II THE UNREADY, KING OF ENGLAND 978-1016 His accession was marred by the murder at Corfe (Dorset) of his half-brother, King Edward the Martyr, in which his mother was later suspected of involvement, and his reign was noted for persistent Viking attacks, culminating in the conquest of England by Swein and Cnut. ÆTHELSTAN, KING OF ENGLAND (924-39) Æthelstan's reign was notable for a series of military campaigns, including his victory over a combined force of Scots, Irish, and Vikings at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937; and also for a number of marriage-alliances and other contacts with Continental Europe. AËTIUS A Gallo-Roman commander of the remaining Roman forces in Gaul in the middle of the fifth century, who led those forces in combination with those of the king of the Goths to win the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields in 451 against the Huns. AIDAN , MONK OF IONA, BISHOP OF LINDISFARNE (635- 51) Aidan was summoned by Oswald, king of the Northumbrians, to convert his kingdom, and with him he founded the monastery of Lindisfarne, on Holy Island, a tidal island on the Northumberland coast. This was a monastery and a bishopric combined, and Aidan was the first bishop. ALCUIN, SCHOLAR AND ABBOT OF ST MARTIN'S AT TOURS (C.735-804) Alcuin was the leading scholar of the church of York until, probably in 781 or 782, he moved to the court of Charlemagne at Aachen, where he taught and wrote, until becoming abbot of Saint-Martin at Tours (France) from 794 until his death in 804. He was closely involved with Charlemagne, with whom he corresponded extensively, and also in the same way with the kings of Northumbria. He was the author of an important series of letters, books on the liberal arts of dialectic and rhetoric, a history of the church of York in verse, and a rebuttal of the heresy of Adoptionism. ALFRED THE GREAT, KING OF THE WEST SAXONS (871-99) Faced with the invasion of his kingdom by the Viking Great Army, he won a decisive victory at Edington (Wiltshire), and in 886 he occupied London which had been under Viking control. He began the process of building fortified sites and towns (burhs) for defence against the Vikings, he began also the reform of the English church which was to culminate in the later tenth century, and he gathered scholars at his court, and himself contributed to their work by translating books into Old English. AMBROSE, BISHOP OF MILAN (373/4-397) The son of the Praetorian Prefect (the principal Roman official) of Gaul, he was first an administrator, becoming governor of the province of which Milan was the head. After the death of its bishop in 373/4, he was persuaded to become bishop himself, even though he was not yet baptised. He was a successful bishop, acting at the highest level, for example, in excommunicating the emperor, Theodosius, for a massacre at Thessalonica (Greece). He convened the Council of Aquilea (Italy) in 381 and, in 391/2, the Council of Capua (Italy). ANSKAR, ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG (832-65) Anskar conducted missions to the Danes and, in 829, a mission to the Swedish trading-centre of Birka. He was made bishop of Hamburg in 831, and elevated to archbishop in 832. He had responsibility for missions to the Swedes, Danes, and Slavs. ANTHONY OF EGYPT, MONK (D. 356) Born at Queman on the River Nile, according to his biographer, Athanasius, he came of a good family and, after the death of his parents, he placed himself under the direction of an old man leading a holy life. Eventually he moved to live in a tomb, and then to a ruined fortress on the edge of the desert, where he struggled with demons who appeared to him in various forms, such as those of animals or beautiful women. Overcoming the temptations which these apparitions placed before him, he attracted a considerable following of persons who venerated him for his holiness and, wishing to escape their presence and to be alone in his spiritual struggles, he moved to an even more remote place, the Outer Desert, where he died in 356. ARIUS, HERESIARCH (DIED 336) He was ordained priest at Alexandria in Roman Egypt, and emerged as a champion of teaching that Christ was subordinate to God the Father. He was condemned for this teaching, known as Arianism, at Alexandria, and again at the Council of Nicaea (325). Arianism was nevertheless very influential in the fourth century and, amongst the barbarian peoples, well beyond that. ATTILA, KING OF THE HUNS (435/40-453) Becoming sole king of the Huns after murdering his brother Bleda in 445 Attila built up a powerful confederation of Hunnic and other peoples. He invaded: the Roman Empire in the east in 442-3 and 447; Gaul in 451, where he was defeated by Aetius and his allies at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields; and Italy in 452. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO (354-430), FATHER OF THE CHURCH Originally a devotee of the teachings of Mani, that is Manichaeism (that there are co-equal powers of good and evil), he was baptised a Christian by Bishop Ambrose in 386. In 388, he returned to Africa, and in 391 he was seized by the people of Hippo Regis and forced to become a priest. In 395, he became bishop of that city until his death in 430, at the time when the barbarian Vandals were besieging it. He wrote very influential works on Christianity, especially a sort of autobiographical meditation called theConfessions (395-8), and politico-religious discourse, the City of God, written at the height of barbarian invasions in 416-22. This sought to defend Christianity against the charge that the abandonment of the old pagan gods had led to the sack of Rome by the Goths in 410. Augustine argued that the City of God was what really mattered and that, although it could be struggled towards on earth, it really belonged to the other world. AUGUSTINE, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY (597-604 X 609) A monk at Rome, and prior of the monastery of St Andrew there, he was sent by Pope Gregory the Great as leader of a mission to England which arrived in Kent in 597. The king, Æthelberht, received him favourably, and himself became converted to Christianity. Augustine became the first archbishop of Canterbury, where the king endowed his see, and consecrated Justus as bishop of Rochester and Mellitus as bishop of London. BASIL, MONK AND BISHOP (C. 330-79) Educated at various schools in the eastern Roman Empire, he became a monk, spent time in Syria and Egypt, and in 358 settled as a hermit at Neocaesarea in Asia Minor.