EADFRID (EADFRITH, EDFRID): Eighth bishop of Lindisfarne, 698 till his death in 721. He was an ardent disciple of St. Cuthbert (q.v.) and the great aim of his life was to honor his master. He repaired Cuthbert's oratory on Farne Island, and at his solicitation the anonymous life of Cuthbert was written, as well as both of the lives by Bede, the one in prose being dedicated to Eadfrid and his monks. The so-called "Durham Book" or "Lindisfarne Gospels," a manuscript of Jerome's version of the four Gospels with the addenda usual in such manuscripts, beautifully written on vellum in half-uncial letters now in the British Museum, is believed with good reason to have been originally written and illuminated by Eadfrid. His successor at Lindisfarne, Ethelwald, adorned the work with gold and jewels, and in the tenth century a certain Aldred added an interlinear gloss in the Northumbrian dialect. The manuscript is one of the most beautiful in Europe and testifies to Eadfrid's skill. The Latin text and Aldred's glosses were edited for the Surtees Society by J. Stevenson and G. Waring (4 parts, 1854-65) and for the Cambridge Press by J. M. Kemble, C. Hardwick, and W. W. Skeat (1858-78).

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sources are in: Symeon of Durham, Historic Dunelmensis ecclesiœ, ed. T. Arnold, Rolls Series, no. 75, vol. i. passim, London, 1879; Bede, Vita Cuthberti, preface. Consult also DNB, xvi. 306-307.