Ecgberht of Ripon
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Ecgberht (or Egbert, and sometimes referred to as Egbert of Rath Melsigi) (died 729) was an Anglo-Saxon monk of Northumbria. After studying at Lindisfarne and Rath Melsigi, he spent his life travelling among monasteries in northern Britain and around the Irish Sea. He was instrumental in the establishment of Wihtberht's mission to Frisia.
Life
Ecgberht was an Anglo-Saxon of a noble family, probably from Northumbria.<ref name=mayr>Mayr-Harting, Henry. "Ecgberht (639–729)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004, accessed 24 Jan 2014</ref> After some years of study in the monastery of Lindisfarne, he travelled to Ireland to study.<ref>Barrett, OSB, Michael. "Saint Egbert, Priest and Monk, A.D. 729". The Calendar of Scottish Saints, 1919. CatholicSaints.Info. 9 March 2014Template:PD-notice</ref> One of his acquaintances at this time was Chad of Mercia.<ref>Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 4.3</ref> He settled at the monastery of Rath Melsigi, in modern-day county Carlow.<ref name=bede>Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 3.27</ref> In 664, most of his Northumbrian travelling companions, including Æthelhun, died of the plague, and he contracted it as well.
Ecgberht vowed that if he recovered, he would become a "peregrinus" on perpetual pilgrimage from his homeland of Britain and would lead a life of penitential prayer and fasting.<ref name=mayr/> He was twenty-five, and when he recovered he kept his vow until his death at age 90.<ref name=bede/> According to Henry Mayr-Harting, Ecgberht was one of the most famous ‘pilgrims’ of the early Middle Ages,<ref name=mayr/> and occupied a prominent position in a political and religious culture that spanned northern Britain and the Irish Sea.<ref name=costambeys>Costambeys, Marios. "Willibrord [St Willibrord] (657/8–739)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011, accessed 24 Jan 2014</ref>
Ecgberht was ordained a priest and began to organize monks in Ireland to proselytize in Frisia;<ref name=bede2>Bede Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 5.9</ref> many other high-born notables were associated with his work: Adalbert, Swithbert, and Chad. He, however, was dissuaded from accompanying them himself by a vision related to him by a monk who had been a disciple of Boisil (the Prior of Melrose under Abbot Eata).<ref name=bede2/> Ecgberht instead dispatched Wihtberht, another Englishman living at Rath Melsigi, to Frisia.<ref name=costambeys/> Ecgberht then arranged the mission of Wigbert, Willibrord, and others.<ref>Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 5.9, 5.10</ref>
In 684, he tried to dissuade King Ecgfrith of Northumbria from sending an expedition to Ireland under his general Berht, but he was unsuccessful.<ref>Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 4.26</ref>
While in Ireland, Ecgberht was one of those present at the Synod of Birr in 697, when the Cáin Adomnáin was guaranteed.<ref>Kuno Meyer, "Cain Adamnain: An Old-Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnan", available at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.</ref>
Ecgberht had influential contacts with the kings of Northumbria and of the Picts, as well as with Iona, to which he moved around 716. He attempted to persuade the monks there to adopt the Roman Easter dating.<ref>Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 5.22, cf. 3.4</ref> He died on Iona<ref>Monks of Ramsgate. “Egbert”. Book of Saints, 1921. CatholicSaints.Info. 22 November 2012. Web</ref> at the age of ninety, on the first day that the Easter feast was observed in this manner in the monastery, on 24 April 729.<ref>Bede Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 5.22</ref>
His feast day in the Roman Catholic Church, 24 April, is found in both the Roman and Irish martyrologies, and in the Metrical Calendar of York. Although he is now honoured simply as a confessor, it is probable that Ecgberht was a bishop.<ref>Phillips, George. "St. Egbert." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 24 Jan. 2014</ref>
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, his feast day is celebrated on January 5.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Ecgberht ought not to be confused with the later Ecgberht, Archbishop of York, or Egbert of Lindisfarne.