Ceolwulf

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Ceolwulf (d. 764), king of Northumbria (729–31, 731–7). Such Anglo-Saxons of his day who can claim immortality, however humbly, owe this to Bede. So with Ceolwulf. Bede, in dedicating his Ecclesiastical History to ‘the most glorious King Ceolwulf’, says that he had sent an earlier version to him ‘to read and judge’. In the same year (731) Ceolwulf was, an annalist says, ‘seized, tonsured [i.e. forced to become a monk] and restored to rule’. Six years later he was deposed for good. He lived long as a monk at Lindisfarne and was (later) credited with the introduction of alcohol there.

James Campbell

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