Beda Family in England

Beda in England

Below is a list of the Geneology of the Kings from what  called the Anglo Saxon of Lyndsey that appeared to survive for only a century. You will observe the name Beda and variations of this name throughout these list of Kings. Not much is know about what happened to the kingdom or who they were until now. They were a kingdom of Levite High Priest Kings who later became Celtic Druids, Kings, Fathers, Doctors , Saints of the Catholic Church and then Kings Bedesmen. A tradition that that was followed in my family for thousands of years that passed from father to son.

Beda Kings of Lyndsey

Lindsey or Linnuis (Old English Lindesege) is the name of a petty Anglo-Saxon kingdom, absorbed into Northumbria in the 7th century. (Northrumbia is where Saint Beda (Bede) resided).

It lay between the Humber and the Wash, forming its inland boundaries from the course of the Witham and Trent rivers (with the inclusion of an area inside of a marshy region south of the Humber known as the Isle of Axholme), and the Foss Dyke between them. It is believed that Roman Lindum (Lincoln) was the capital of this kingdom, with continuity of the place-name suggesting continuity of settlement traditions: in 625, Bede recounts,[1] the missionary Paulinus of York was received by the praefectus of Lindum.[2] Place-name evidence indicates that the Anglian settlement known as Lindisfaras spread from the Humber coast. Compare Winta and Winteringham.

The “Anglian collection” of genealogies, created in the last years of king Offa‘s reign, gives the names of the ruling lineage of Lindsey. The early names will relate either to life in Angeln or to a boastful genealogy arising from gods such as Woden.

  • Geot – Compare the Geats who are frequently mentioned in Beowulf‘s story.
  • Godulf
  • Finn
  • Frioðulf
  • Frealaf
  • Woden – Compare Woden, the god.

From Winta on, the names will refer to the early leaders in Lindsey.

  • Winta – Compare Winteringham (the homestead of Winta’s people).
  • Cretta
  • Cuelgils
  • Caedbaed
  • Bubba
  • Beda
  • Biscop
  • Eanferð
  • Eatta
  • Aldfrið

None of the individuals can be securely dated. With regard to Aldfrið, Frank Stenton referred to the witness list for an Anglo-Saxon charter which includes an “Ealfrid rex”, and dated its writing to some time between the years 787 and 796.[3] Unfortunately it is now believed that the name on the witness list should read “Ecgfrið Rex“, and refers to Offa‘s son, who was anointed King of the Mercians in 787, nine years before his succession in 796, and would have been correctly styled “rex”. Stenton also suggested that the name ‘Biscop’ came from the title ‘bishop’ and must post-date Paulinus’s mission to Lindsey of 628 CE. However, as Sarah Foot has pointed out, Biscop is a perfectly good name, and we have no need to look for an external origin. The other genealogies in the Anglian collection close with historic personages whose dates are known, such as Edwin of Deira (616-33), Ethelred of Mercia (675-704) and Ethelbert II of Kent (725-62), but this wide range offers little help in dating Aldfrið.[4]

Detailed List:

  • King Beda is grandafather to St Bede and father is Benedict Biscop born 628
  • 640–High King Cadwaladyr invites Archbishop Honorius to visit him at his court, and Honorius accepts. They discuss the religious divisions on the island (the Roman Church vs. the British Church vs. pagan and Pelagian remnants) and agree that something must be done to resolve them. High King Cadwaladyr agrees to call a Synod for the following year to discuss these issues. Also in this year, Pope-elect John IV writes to the Irish about the Easter Controversy and Pelagianism. Also in this year, the King of Middle Anglia dies without heirs. The closest male claimant is King Biscop of Lindsay, and the two kingdoms are joined. Also in this year, King Eadbald of Kent dies, and is succeeded by Earconbert
  • Benedict Biscop (628–89), founder and first abbot of Wearmouth, scholar, and patron of the arts. He was born of a noble Northumbrian family, and, as Biscop Baducing (his family name), was in the service of the Northumbrian king Oswiu until 653. He then decided to become a monk, but went first with Wilfrid to Rome to visit the tombs of the apostles. He returned to Northumbria and soon took Aldfrith son of Oswiu, back to Rome on his second visit. Biscop became a monk at Saint-Honorat, Lérins, on his way back, taking the name of Benedict. His third visit to Rome coincided with the presence of Wighard, archbishop-elect of Canterbury, who died in Rome before consecration. Biscop returned to England with Theodore of Canterbury in 669, becoming abbot of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, for a short time. Soon he wanted to make his own foundation: with the help of King Egfrith, who gave him seventy hides of land, he founded Wearmouth in 674. Within a year he had imported Frankish stonemasons who built a Romanesque church there; soon afterwards he brought in glassmakers and other craftsmen, who not only made what was necessary, but also taught local men. Books bought at Rome and Vienne were added to the endowment. He drew up a rule for his community, based on that of Benedict and the customs of seventeen monasteries he had visited. The pious servant of Christ, Biscop, called Benedict, with the assistance of the Divine grace, built a monastery in honour of the most holy of the apostles, St. Peter, near the mouth of the river Were, on the north side. The venerable and devout king of that nation, Egfrid, contributed the land; and Biscop, for the space of sixteen years, amid innumerable perils in journeying and in illness, ruled this monastery with the same piety which stirred him up to build it. If I may use the words of the blessed Pope Gregory, in which he glorifies the life of the abbot of the same name, he was a man of a venerable life, blessed (Benedictus) both in grace and in name; having the mind of an adult even from his childhood, surpassing his age by his manners, and with a soul addicted to no false pleasures. The History of the Abbots reminded me first that Biscop was not an old or retired warrior but in his mid-twenties when he left the king’s service to explore the church. When King Oswiu made him a thane and gave him land it was recognition that it was time for him to begin the life of an active adult male. His warrior days were not expected to be over. In any major campaign the thegns would be expected to participate along with what ever men they could being. The kings retinue that Biscop would have left were mostly teenagers in various levels of training and responsibility. Biscop was a young man in his prime when he began his first trip to Rome.
  • c.645 – Gwynedd and much of Wales is in the grasp of famine. King Biscop of Lindsay dies, and he is succeeded by his son, who rules as King Bede.
  • 649–Diarmait mac Aedo Slaine was defeated by Guaire Aidni, King of Connacht at the Battle of Carn Conaill.
  • 650–Crown Prince Rhodri is married to a fair maiden named Hildegard, the only childand heiress of King Bede of Lindsay.
  • 651–High King Cadwaladyr dies. Crown Prince Hywel ascends the throne. Prince Rhodri is installed as King of Gwynedd. King Oswine of Deira dies childless later thatsame year. There being no remaining male heirs of the House of Deira, the kingdom isgiven by High King Hywel to Aethelhere, brother of King Anna of East Anglia.
  • 653–King Sigebehrt I of Essex dies. He is succeeded by Sigebehrt II.  Biscop Baducing travels to Rome to pursue a career in the church. He shortly thereafter enters a monastery at Lerins, in the south of France. While there, he adopts the name of Benedict.
  • 669–Benedict Biscop Baducing travels with Theodore of Tarsus to Canterbury.
  • 670–King Bede of Lindsay dies. High King Rhodri inherits the kingdom, which becomes a personal land of the High King. King Aethehere of Deira dies. He is succeeded by his son, Beorna. As did his father before him, he swears allegiance to the British High King as overlord.
  • St Bede, the Venerable, 673-735:Bede was born in 673, in Northumberland, became a monk and died at Jarrow in 735. His modern feast day is May 25. He was one of the most important intellects, and most prolific writers of his time. Among his other accomplishments was in becoming the only Englishman in Dante’s Divine Comedy. His most important work his is History of the English Church and People, but he wrote many others – biblical commentaries and hagiography in particular.

Beda Celtic Church and the Catholic Church Collide:

A monastery-centred establishment seems to have grown up in sixth-century Britain, though our knowledge of this period there is limited. There may have been interaction with Ireland at this time, perhaps partly brought about by a very severe plague in Ireland in 548/9,[17] only a few years after the extreme weather events of 535–536. However, Bede speaks of “the monastery of Bangor, in which, it is said, there was so great a number of monks, that the monastery being divided into seven parts, with a superior set over each, none of those parts contained less than three hundred men, who all lived by the labour of their hands.”

At the end of the 6th century, the face of Christianity in Britain was forever changed by the Gregorian mission. In this endeavour, Pope Gregory I sent a group of clerics headed by the monk Augustine to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and to establish new churches and dioceses in their territory. Gregory intended for Augustine to become the metropolitan archbishop over all of southern Britain, including over the bishops already serving among the Britons. Augustine met British bishops in a series of conferences in which he attempted to assert his authority and persuade them to abandon certain customs that conflicted with Roman practice. However, these conferences failed to reach any agreement.

The only surviving account of Augustine’s meetings with the British clergy is that in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum of the Northumbrian writer Bede. According to Bede, some bishops and other representatives of the nearest province of the Britons met Augustine at a location at the border of the Kingdom of Kent, which was thereafter known as Augustine’s Oak. Augustine tried to convince the delegates to join his proselytizing efforts, and to reform certain of their customs, particularly their Easter computus. Though impressed with the newcomer, the Britons asserted that they could not agree to his demands without conferring with their people. They then withdrew until a fuller assembly could be arranged.[18]

Bede relates an anecdote that the British bishops consulted a wise hermit as to how to respond to Augustine when he arrived for the second council. The hermit replied that they should make the decision based on Augustine’s own conduct. If he should rise to greet them at the council, they would know him as a humble servant of Christ and should submit to him, but if he arrogantly kept his seat, they should reject him. As it happened, Augustine did not rise at the council, causing outrage. Augustine offered to allow the Britons to maintain most of their customs if they made three concessions: they should adopt the Roman method of calculating Easter’s date, reform their baptismal rite, and join the missionary efforts among the Saxons. The Britons rejected all of these, and, adds Bede, refused to recognize Augustine’s authority over them.[18] Bede reports that Augustine is said to have then delivered a prophecy that the British church’s failure to proselytize the Saxons would bring them war and death at their hands. He gives the Battle of Chester, at which many British clergy were said to have been killed by the pagan King Æthelfrith of Northumbria, as the fulfillment of this prophecy.[19][20][21]

Thereafter, “Celtic” customs were often seen as conflicting with the Roman customs adopted in most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The most significant contention was over the Easter dating, which of all the points of disagreement would have produced the most obvious signs of disunity for observers.[22] Under the two systems Easter did not generally coincide, and as such it would be matter of course for Christians following one system to be solemnly observing Lent while others were celebrating the feast of the Resurrection. Indeed, this is noted as occurring in the household of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whose kingdom had been evangelized by both Irish and Roman missionaries.[23] The other custom that consistently drew the ire of adherents to Roman custom was the Celtic tonsure. There is no indication that Augustine himself raised this issue, but it does appear in several other sources, which invariably connect it to the Celtic dating for Easter. John Edward Lloyd suggests that the primary reason for the British bishops’ rejection of Augustine, and especially his call for them to join his missionary effort, may have been his claim to sovereignty over them.[24] It may have been difficult for them to accept the supremacy of a see so deeply entwined with the power of Anglo-Saxon Kent.[24]

The Lindisware fall under Mercian dominance and the Beda’s Are Hidden From History

  • 675 – Bede
  • 675 – 679 – The Lindisware fall under temporary Northumbrian dominance following the death of the Mercian King Wulfhere.
  • 679 – Mercia restores its control of the Lindisware and quite possibly removes its kings. No further native rulers of Lindey are recorded for half a century, and even those may not be kings, but ealdormen.
  • 725 – Eanfrith
  • 750 – Eatta
  • 786 & 796 – Aldfrith Ruled at some point between these dates.
  • 796 – 875 – Aldfrith’s ancestors may have ruled Lindsey but the kingdom has normally been subject to Mercia or Northumbria. From this point Lindsey is directly controlled by Mercia alone, until it is conquered by the Danes of the Scandinavian kingdom of York. The region of the Spaldingas, situated around the Wash and now called Stamford, becomes one of York’s Five Boroughs (in 940).

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