Milred

Summary

Milred (died 774) (also recorded as Mildred and Hildred) was an Anglo-Saxon prelate who served as Bishop of Worcester from c. 744 until his death in 774.

Milred
Bishop of Worcester
Appointedbetween 743 and 745
Term ended774
PredecessorWilfrith I
SuccessorWaermund
Orders
Consecrationbetween 743 and 745
Personal details
Died774
DenominationChristian

Life edit

Milred was consecrated between 743 and 745.[1] He attended the major council of Clofesho in 747, and is found as a regular witness to charters of the Mercian kings Æthelbald and Offa. Milred is known to have travelled to Germany, where he met Boniface and Lull, in the early 750s. A letter from Milred to Lull written soon after his return, on the subject of Boniface's martyrdom shows that the writer was familiar with the works of Virgil and Horace.

A work by Milred, a compilation of epigrams and epigraphs on Anglo-Saxon churchmen, some of whom are known only from this work, is now lost apart from a single 10th-century copy of one page, held by the library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Antiquarian John Leland recorded some other parts of this work, which now survive only in his 16th-century copies.[2][3]

Milred died in 774,[1] and the event is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

References edit

  1. ^ a b Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (13 February 1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 223. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.
  2. ^ Patrick Sims-Williams, 'Milred of Worcester's Collection of Latin Epigrams and its Continental Counterparts', Anglo-Saxon England, 10 (1981), 21-38.
  3. ^ Patrick, Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in Western England 600-800, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 328-59.

Bibliography edit

  • Lapidge, M., "Milred", in Michael Lapidge et al., The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Blackwell, 1999. ISBN 0-631-22492-0

External links edit

Christian titles
Preceded by Bishop of Worcester
c. 744 – 774
Succeeded by