Cynewulf of Lindisfarne

Cynewulf of Lindisfarne (also Cwynewulf; † 783 ) was 740-780 an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Lindisfarne.

Life

In 750 Prince fled Offa, son of Aldfrith, from his enemies in the cathedral church of Lindisfarne to the asylum, but was nevertheless taken and murdered. Bishop Cynewulf, which did not prevent, was imprisoned by King of Northumbria Eadberht temporarily in Bamburgh and declared deposed. The diocese was co-managed by Bishop of Hexham Friothubert until Eadberht be reconciled with Cynewulf and put him back in his office.

Modern historians see in Eadberht the presumed authority of the murder of Offa. So Cynewulf would be a prominent member of a conspiracy against the king, Offa should help to the crown.

Cynewulf put in 780 resigned his episcopal office and withdrew into seclusion on the Farne Islands, where he died in 782 or 783.

Possibly he is identical with the poet Cynewulf, who lived about the same time.

Swell

• Symeon of Durham, History of the Church of Durham
• Symeon of Durham, Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum
• Anonymous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
• Kirby, D. P.: The Earliest English Kings. Routledge, New York 2000, ISBN 0-415-24211-8.
• Maurice Powicke and EB Fryde Handbook of British Chronology 2nd. ed London: Royal Historical Society in 1961