Sigeric (died 28 October 994) was the

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

from 990 to 994. Educated at

Glastonbury Abbey Glastonbury Abbey was a monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. Its ruins, a grade I listed building and scheduled ancient monument, are open as a visitor attraction. The abbey was founded in the 8th century and enlarged in the 10th. It wa ...

, he became a monk there before becoming an abbot and then

Bishop of Ramsbury The Bishop of Ramsbury is an episcopal title used by a suffragan bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Salisbury, in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title takes its name from the village of Ramsbury in Wiltshire, and was first used ...

before his elevation to the archbishopric. An account of his pilgrimage to Rome in 990 survives and is an important source for historians studying Rome during his lifetime. While archbishop, Sigeric was faced with

Viking invasions Viking expansion was the historical movement which led Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, to sail most of the North Atlantic, reaching south as far as North Africa and east as far as Russ ...

, and supported giving money to the invaders to deter their attacks. He also advised King

Æthelred the Unready Æthelred II ( ang, Æþelræd, ;Different spellings of this king’s name most commonly found in modern texts are "Ethelred" and "Æthelred" (or "Aethelred"), the latter being closer to the original Old English form . Compare the modern diale ...

on religious foundations. Sigeric died in 994 and his will gave his books to Canterbury.

Early career

Sigeric was educated at

, where he took holy orders. He was elected

Abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The fem ...

of St Augustine's in about 975 to 990,Knowles, et al. ''Heads of Religious Houses'' pp. 35, 243 and

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

Archbishop Dunstan Saint Dunstan (c. 909 – 19 May 988) was an English bishop. He was successively Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, later canonised as a saint. His work restored monastic life i ...

in 985 or 986.Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 220 He was transferred to the

see of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

in 990.Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 214 He may have been a disciple of Dunstan's,Knowles ''Monastic Order'' p. 50 and some accounts state that it was Sigeric that changed the clergy at

Christ Church, Canterbury Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England. It forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Justin Welby, leader of the Ch ...

from secular clerics to monks.

Archbishop

Sigeric made the

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

to Rome following the

Via Francigena The Via Francigena () is an ancient road and pilgrimage route running from the cathedral city of Canterbury in England, through France and Switzerland, to Rome and then to Apulia, Italy, where there were ports of embarkation for the Holy Land. It w ...

to receive his

pallium The pallium (derived from the Roman ''pallium'' or ''palla'', a woolen cloak; : ''pallia'') is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the pope, but for many centuries bestowed by the Holy See upon metropolit ...

in 990,Ortenberg "Anglo-Saxon Church and the Papacy" ''English Church and the Papacy'' p. 49 and a contemporary record of this journey still exists.Hindley ''Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons'' pp. 294–295 This work is essentially a group of entries on the itinerary written by an unknown member of the group accompanying the archbishop. It details in Latin the stay in Rome and the return journal to Canterbury. It is now in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

as a part of the

Cotton Library The Cotton or Cottonian library is a collection of manuscripts once owned by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton MP (1571–1631), an antiquarian and bibliophile. It later became the basis of what is now the British Library, which still holds the collection. ...

as manuscript Tiberius B.V.Magoun "Two Northern Pilgrims" ''Harvard Theological Review'' p. 269 The manuscript mentions the 23 churches in Rome that were visited, a lunch with Pope John XV, and the stages of the return journey. It is usually given the title the "Itinerary of Archbishop Sigeric".Ortenberg "Archbishop Sigeric's Journey" ''Anglo-Saxon England'' p. 197 The importance of the document lies in its information on the churches in Rome in the tenth-century.Ortenberg "Archbishop Sigeric's Journey" ''Anglo-Saxon England'' p. 200 It was Sigeric who advised King

to pay

protection money A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from viol ...

to the invading Danish king

Sweyn Forkbeard Sweyn Forkbeard ( non, Sveinn Haraldsson tjúguskegg ; da, Svend Tveskæg; 17 April 963 – 3 February 1014) was King of Denmark from 986 to 1014, also at times King of the English and King of Norway. He was the father of King Harald II of D ...

in 991. Æthelred presented Sweyn with of silver, in response to which Sweyn temporarily stopped his invasions, though he later returned. Sweyn's ever-increasing demands in the following years resulted in a tax later known as the

danegeld Danegeld (; "Danish tax", literally "Dane yield" or tribute) was a tax raised to pay tribute or protection money to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the ''geld'' or ''gafol'' in eleventh-century sources. It ...

.Brooks ''Early History of the Church of Canterbury'' p. 282 In 994, Sigeric paid a sum of money to the Danes to protect

Canterbury Cathedral Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England. It forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Justin Welby, leader of the ...

from being burned.Williams ''Æthelred the Unready'' p. 52 In the same year, a diploma granting rights to the diocese of Cornwall and Bishop

Ealdred of Cornwall Ealdred was a medieval Bishop of Cornwall. He was consecrated between 981 and a period between 988 and 990. He died between 1002 and 1009.Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 215 In 994, King Æthelred of England removed the dioces ...

stated that it was written by Sigeric, but it is unlikely that the document was actually written by the archbishop.Chaplais "Royal Anglo-Saxon 'Chancery'" ''Studies in Medieval History'' pp. 41–51 In 993 or 994, Sigeric conducted the ceremony rededicating the

Old Minster The Old Minster was the Anglo-Saxon cathedral for the diocese of Wessex and then Winchester from 660 to 1093. It stood on a site immediately north of and partially beneath its successor, Winchester Cathedral. Some sources say that the minster w ...

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

, an event that the historian

H. R. Loyn Henry Royston Loyn (16 June 1922 – 9 October 2000), Fellow of the British Academy, FBA, was a British historian specialising in the history of Anglo-Saxon England. His eminence in his field made him a natural candidate to run the Sylloge of the ...

calls "magnificent".Loyn ''English Church'' p. 14 While Sigeric was an abbot,

Ælfric Ælfric (Old English ', Middle English ''Elfric'') is an Anglo-Saxon given name. Churchmen *Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955–c. 1010), late 10th century Anglo-Saxon abbot and writer *Ælfric of Abingdon (died 1005), late 10th century Anglo-Saxon Archbi ...

dedicated a book of translated homilies to him.Knowles ''Monastic Order in England'' p. 62 He also advised Æthelred to found

Cholsey Abbey Cholsey Abbey was an Anglo-Saxon nunnery in Cholsey in the English county of Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), which was founded in 986. History After King Edward the Martyr was murdered, his stepmother, Ælfthryth, was implicated in the crime. E ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

(the site is now in

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

), in honour of King

Edward the Martyr Edward ( ang, Eadweard, ; 18 March 978), often called the Martyr, was King of the English from 975 until he was murdered in 978. Edward was the eldest son of King Edgar, but was not his father's acknowledged heir. On Edgar's death, the leade ...

, as well as having Edward memorialised at

Shaftesbury Abbey Shaftesbury Abbey was an abbey that housed nuns in Shaftesbury, Dorset. It was founded in about 888, and dissolved in 1539 during the English Reformation by the order of Thomas Cromwell, minister to King Henry VIII. At the time it was the second ...

.Mason "Sigeric" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''Williams ''Æthelred the Unready'' p. 36

Death and legacy

Sigeric died on 28 October 994. He was buried in

. His will left wall hangings to Glastonbury Abbey as well as a collection of books to Canterbury.

Notes

Citations

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sigeric the Serious 994 deaths Archbishops of Canterbury Bishops of Ramsbury (ancient) People from Glastonbury 10th-century English archbishops