council · 747
At the beginning of September 747 Cuthbert of Canterbury sat with eleven bishops — Dunn of Rochester, the Mercians Totta, Hwita and Podda, the West Saxons Hunferth and Herewald, Heardulf of the East Angles, Ecgwulf of the East Saxons, Milred of the Hwicce, Alwig of Lindsey and Sigga of the South Saxons — and Æthelbald king of Mercia was there with his ealdormen. Two letters of Pope Zachary were laid in the middle of the assembly and read out, and then, in the acts' own words, apertius interpretata in nostra lingua: construed aloud in English so that everyone present could follow what Rome had said, which was that they should live more strictly and that those who would not would be anathema. The thirty-one canons that followed are a portrait of what was thought to be wrong with the English church, and they are unusually concrete: bishops to go round their dioceses every year; monasteries fallen into lay hands to be taught to live by a rule anyway; nobody ordained before his life is examined; priests not to take a price for baptising a child, and not to be men of business; the Lord's Prayer and the Creed to be learned and taught in English; one date everywhere for Sunday and for the saints' days; the seven canonical hours kept; and the clergy not to be drunk. Cuthbert sent the acts to Boniface at Mainz at once, by his deacon Cyneberht, and Boniface wrote back congratulating him — which is the seam between the English reform and the Frankish one, since it is Boniface's letters into England that the council is answering. ⚠ Where Clovesho was is not known. Haddan and Stubbs take the candidates one at a time and reject them: Cliff-at-Hoo rests on the resemblance of the name alone and is not in Mercia, Abingdon is conjecture from the sound of an old name, and Kemble's Tewkesbury rests on a mistaken identification in two charters. What can be said is that Clovesho lay in Mercia or in a kingdom under it, because every recorded council there falls inside the period of Mercian predominance and the Mercian kings lead them — often with no other king present at all.
Cuthbert of Canterbury and eleven bishops at the start of September 747, Æthelbald of Mercia present with his ealdormen: two letters of Pope Zachary read out and construed aloud in English, thirty-one canons of reform, and the acts sent on to Boniface the same season. ⚠ NO PLACE ROW ON PURPOSE — where Clovesho was is not known, and Haddan & Stubbs set aside Cliff-at-Hoo, Abingdon and Tewkesbury in turn
Whether the English church would reform itself — after years of Boniface writing from Germany that it would not, and two letters from Rome threatening anathema if it did not.
Thirty-one canons, and an order that the Lord's Prayer and the Creed be learned and taught in English.