Aethelhard of Canterbury

Saint Aethelhard of Canterbury was archbishop of Canterbury in England and reposed on 12 May 805. Nothing is known of his family or early life; he is assumed to have been a native of Mercia, and he first appears as abbot of a monastery at Louth in Lincolnshire.

He was raised to the see of Canterbury in 792 and enthroned on 21 July 793, through the favour of King Offa of Mercia. Offa had also set up a rival archbishopric at Lichfield, under Hygberht, which brought great difficulties. Around 796, after Offa's death, King Eadberht III of Kent drove him out, and Aethelhard fled to the court of Coenwulf of Mercia. Alcuin of York urged him to return and suggested a compromise, but Aethelhard could not go back while Eadberht held power. The pope ruled that the southern archbishopric must remain at Canterbury and excommunicated Eadberht. In 798 Coenwulf invaded Kent and captured Eadberht, and Aethelhard was restored to Canterbury, where he set about recovering the possessions of the see.

He then went to Rome with Bishop Cyneberht of Winchester, and Pope Leo reduced Lichfield to a bishopric again. Back in England in 803 he convened the Council of Clovesho, which decreed that no archiepiscopal see besides Canterbury should ever be established in southern Britain, and he presented a papal decision on the freedom of churches from secular authority. He presided over at least eleven synods. He died in 805 and was buried at Canterbury.

He was later revered as a saint, with a feast on 12 May, but his cult was suppressed by Archbishop Lanfranc in the late eleventh century. The Orthodox Church in England still keeps his feast, and some parishes have taken him as patron.