Erkenwald

Erkenwald (Eorcenwald) is often described as being the son of Offa the king of the East Saxons.

He used his own lands to found Chertsey and Barking Abbeys in 666AD.

He was abbot of Chertsey from 666-75 and then Bishop of London 675-93.

Prologue of the Foundation of the House of Chertsey.

Incipit Prologus (from Vita Erkenuualdi).

In the year of the Incarnation of our Lord, 666.     Egbert, the glorious king of the English then reigning, the House of Chertsey was founded by Frithwald and the Venerable Father Erkenwald, whose life and conversation is reported to have been so very holy that seeking in the inner man the riches of heavenly glory, he despised all perishable and worldly things.

He had a sister, by name Ethelburga, whom he so inflamed with celestial doctrine that she, a virgin in life, manners, and behaviour irreproachable, strove in all things to render herself pleasing to God.

Having, therefore, renounced secular pomp through love of heavenly glory, they transferred their earthly dignity and ample Estates into a Divine and ecclesiastical Inheritance. Wherefore, ­by their mutual consent, this renowned Brother, namely Erkenwald, before his Pontificate, shone as the primitive Founder of two illus­trious Monasteries, and established them both, that is to say, his own and his sister’s with a divine Family, plenty of necessaries, and regular discipline ; his own in the county of Surrey upon the river Thames, in the place which is called Certesey, or the isle of Ceroti, still flourishing in its plantations, where he himself, the Father of the Monks, was most conspicuous in the holiness of his life ; and that of Ethelburga, in the province of the East Saxons, in a place which is called Barking, in which she also as a most gentle Parent of the sacred Sisterhood of Virgins shone conspicuously-and at length both yielded up their souls to Heaven.