ON ST. TATWINUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT CANTERBURY IN ENGLAND.
In the year 734.
A collection concerning the cult and the deeds.
Tatwinus, Bishop and Confessor, at Canterbury in England (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
The archbishop of Canterbury, ninth in order, St. Tatwinus is variously inflected, as one whom some pronounce Tacuine, Tarwine, Tadwinus, Cadwinus, Scadwinus, and otherwise, yet indicating the same man, who was long ago numbered among the Saints, Concerning the cult at Canterbury it is sufficiently established, as you have in the supplements of Usuard, where the Altemps codex most distinctly marks: In Kent, the deposition of St. Tadwinus, bishop and confessor. Of the same our manuscript Florarium makes mention in almost the same terms, but wrongly on the twelfth of April, as on that day you will find observed in the list of the Passed-Over. Ghinius reported him among the canons on the tenth of June, which is not the day of his death, but of his episcopal consecration. Ferrarius followed [him], badly alleging the Anglican Martyrology, inasmuch as it keeps deep silence concerning St. Tatwinus on such a day, commemorating him in each edition on this very day. Furthermore, that he was always honored with the title of Saint in England, you will clearly perceive from the Life of St. Augustine, the apostle of that nation, on the twenty-sixth of May, page 438, when, among the bodies of the holy prelates there translated, he of whom we treat, St. Tatwinus, holds not the last place, so that at least in his own primatial church, as long as it stood Catholic, it seems most certain that he was venerated with the veneration due to the Saints.
[2] But whether he was also a monk, and of the Benedictine Order, I should not dare so positively to assert, whatever Parker and Godwin and others may insinuate about it, not likewise that he was a monk. which John Trithemius long ago seized upon, from whom perhaps Menard, who had read nothing about him in Wion's Martyrology, although elsewhere he calls Tadvinus a Saint. Bucelinus adorned St. Tatwinus with no small eulogy; but in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, edited by Mabillon, he was passed over, and when he treats of him in the Annals, he leaves it quite doubtful whether he recounts him among his own. I do not indeed settle the dispute; of whatever condition he was, from Bede it is clear that he was a plainly illustrious man, when he writes of him in the History of the nation of the English, book 5, chapter 24 and last; at the year 731, the death of Brechtwald his predecessor being mentioned, adding thus: In whose place, in the same year, there was made archbishop one by the name of Tatwine, from the province of the Mercians, when he had been a presbyter in the monastery which is called Brindum. He was consecrated in the city of Dorovernum by the venerable men Daniel of Winchester, and Ingwald of London, and Alduin of Lichfield, and Aldulf of Rochester, prelates, on the tenth day of the month of June, a Sunday; a man distinguished in religion and prudence, and also nobly instructed in sacred letters.
[3] Bede he had before his eyes, Gervasius, a monk of the twelfth century, thus recording concerning the Pontiffs of Canterbury: Tatwinus, presbyter of the monastery which is called Brindun, from the province of the Mercians, was elected and consecrated at Canterbury by Daniel of Winchester, and Ingwald of London, The eulogies of Gervasius and Radulf; and Altwin of Lichfield and Aldulf of Rochester, on the tenth day of the month of June [731], a man distinguished in religion and prudence, and also nobly instructed in sacred letters. He received the pallium sent by Pope Gregory: for three years he ruled the church of Canterbury, and at last on the third day before the Kalends of August departed from the world. The same father of English history Radulf de Diceto copied word for word, not even mentioning a word about the Saint's monastic profession. But these things he added of his own to the words of Bede: To this man Pope Gregory gave the Pallium, writing to him in these words: We command that every man of all England obey you, and know you to be primate of the whole island. But he died when he had sat three years. In his time Bede died: nay, as is the most received opinion, which against the doubting opinion of Baronius our Alford rightly proves, in the very same year in which St. Tatwinus died, 734.
[4] All these things the collector of the Antiquities of the British Church comprehended; whose words too, likewise of the Antiquities of Britain, since other monuments concerning our Saint are not extant, it will be helpful here to recite: In the same year (731) in which Birthualdus died, Tatwinus the Mercian was made archbishop of Canterbury; otherwise Cadwinus or Scadwinus, a monk of the Order of St. Benedict in the abbey of Brenton, although others write that he was not a monk. Bede constantly affirms that he was a priest of the monastery of Brenton, in the province of the Mercians. He was consecrated in the first year of Gregory III, Roman Pontiff, in his own city by Daniel of Winchester, Ingwald of London, Adwin of Lichfield, and Adulf of Rochester, bishops. He was a man distinguished in religion, and excellently instructed in sacred letters. In the second year after his consecration there arose between the see of Canterbury and York a controversy about the primacy, for which cause he himself set out for Rome, where, presented by Pope Gregory with the pallium, he also received the confirmation of the primacy, then hastened into England with a swift course. Not long after, he ordained two bishops. Of his deeds we find little or nothing worthy of memory. To his times Bede brought down his history … Tatwinus, when he had completed three whole years, closed his last day in the year 734, and was honorably buried at Canterbury.
[5] But as to what Maihew, in his Trophies, added to the things already said, Maihew that Gotzelinus wrote his wondrous and praiseworthy virtues, and proclaimed his miracles, and exalted his signs; these could perhaps have existed while the author of Malmesbury lived; but neither did he himself see them, nor is any of them now at hand: so that here you may now have all that survives concerning the deeds of St. Tatwinus, in which our Alford observed this difficulty, that one would not easily explain what contention arose between this our Saint and the then archbishop of York, as he sets forth a little more fully in his Annals at the year 732, number 1 and 2, where, the words which we have just given being cited, he is in suspense in the controverted matter, as to who in the church of York contended with St. Tatwinus, and at last concludes in these words: Wherefore, since the ancients say nothing of a dispute stirred up between the church of Canterbury and York, nothing of the contesting parties, I think that Tatwinus appealed to Rome only in that manner in which a little before Boniface had appealed; that is, by acknowledging Gregory as the prince of all the churches, and by requesting that by apostolic authority he would protect the privileges of the see of Canterbury. Alford then continues:
[6] This is more rightly said, than that you should call Wilfrid, a man of modest mind, and of Alford. contentious, or should so quickly have consecrated Egbert (a man of a more spirited disposition, I confess with the author of Malmesbury) as bishop. He indeed afterward did and said much for the dignity of the see of York, which perhaps gave a handle to Parker and Godwin for confusing the times: but he is not thought to have sat with Tatwinus. However that may be, Tatwinus, having set out for Rome, obtained from Gregory III the pallium, the insignia of dignity, and this letter, inscribed to all the bishops of England, in this manner, no mention being made of the church of York. There follow the Pontifical letters themselves, the only document that remains concerning St. Tatwinus, therefore by no means to be omitted by us, where, for the completion of our whole collection, we shall have exhibited from Hoveden, in the praised Alford, the passing of the Saint himself, perhaps foresignified by a heavenly portent. Thus he writes at the year 734: The moon was suffused with a bloody redness for almost a whole hour on the second day before the Kalends of February about cock-crow, then, a blackness following, returned to its own proper light. In the same year Thatwinus, ninth bishop of the city of Dorovernum in Kent, died on the third day before the Kalends of August. Behold now the Pontifical diploma:
Gregory the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the bishops of England, greeting.
[7] We praise together the magnitude of the immense goodness of almighty God, The Saint being praised for his merits, who deigned so to spread abroad the glory of his majesty, that already into all the earth the sound of his preachers has gone forth, and to the ends of the world their words. By whose ineffable grace of goodness, as we are known to have been begotten, so also we have been adopted, bearing the mystery of holy regeneration, in hope of the glory of the sons of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rejoicing therefore together with the college dedicated to your reverence, we exhort you that you may be found stable in faith and effective in work, in honor preventing one another, and bearing one another's burdens, which you will so fulfill
the law of Christ, having continual charity, in the love of God and of neighbor, without which it is impossible to please God. The arrival, therefore, of our brother Tatwinus, who has been substituted to the chair of Augustine of blessed memory, your preacher, greatly gladdened us, because we came to know him as a man of religion and of great probity during the very time in which he stayed with us. Accordingly, his petitions having been heard, we caused the rights of the dignity of his predecessors to be sought out in the sacred archive: and finding that he had asked just things, we handed over to him the sacred pallium, with the venerable use of the dalmatic, by Apostolic authority: granting also all the rights of the dignity which his predecessors, from the time of Augustine of blessed memory, are known to have had.
[8] he confirms the preeminences of the see, As therefore our predecessor Gregory, the Roman Pontiff, by his decree subjected all the bishops of England to the aforesaid Augustine, his syncellus, your preacher: so we, God being the author, and blessed Peter the prince of the Apostles, though unworthy, bearing his stead in his name, subject to you, Tatwinus, archbishop of the city of Dorovernum, and to your lawful successors, all the churches of Britain and their rulers, commanding by Apostolic authority that every man of all England obey your canonical commands: and know you to be primate and overseer of the whole island, to whom we have committed our stead to be borne in all things in that region. But your church, established at Dorovernum, as our own, and the first offspring of your religion in Christ, we hold specially under the protection of our hand: which we wish to flourish in the tranquillity of peace: and its rights and privileges of dignity to be preserved forever unmutilated.
[9] and he exhorts the bishops to subjection. Because it is the first, and the mother of all the others, first established in your religion, in honor of the holy Savior our Lord Jesus Christ. For it is written: There is none holy as is the Lord: and where there is a vigorous head, the rest of the members are more strongly quickened. You therefore, brethren, hear and receive these commands of the Apostolic authority, with alacrity and the reverence of subjection, and with our aforesaid brother, your Archbishop, labor in the harvest of God. But if anyone shall wish to disturb these things, and shall strive to tear apart and violate the statutes of our determination: let him know that he strives against the very Savior of the world, and against the authority of blessed Peter; and therefore, unless he repent, that he incurs the sentence of eternal damnation. May God keep you safe, most beloved. Thus far Gregory.