Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ceolnoth
CEOLNOTH (d. 870), archbishop of Canterbury, is said by Gervase to have been dean of that church; this statement, however, probably arises from a confusion between Ceolnoth and Æthelnoth (consecrated 1020), who certainly held that office (Eccl. Docs. iii. 611 n.) He was elected 29 June and consecrated 27 Aug. 833 (Gervase). This date, however, depends on that of the death of Feologeld, and on his being accepted as an archbishop. Feologeld appears to have died 29 Aug. 832, and his consecration is mentioned by the Canterbury version of the chronicle followed by William of Malmesbury and others; on the other hand, the dates of the chronicles do not agree with this chronology, and 27 Aug. did not fall on a Sunday in 833, but did so fall in 831. 'The point is very obscure, and it is not probable that it can ever be completely cleared up' (Eccl. Docs.) It is said, on the highly doubtful authority of a Latin insertion in the Canterbury chronicle (anno 995), that in the first year of Ceolnoth's archbishopric there was a great sickness among the monks of Christ Church, so that five only were left, and that, finding it difficult to supply their places with other monks, he admitted secular clerks into the monastery, This story, which forms part of the account of the supposed expulsion of the seculars by Archbishop Ælfric [q. v.], cannot be accepted as of much weight, though it illustrates the constant presence of secular clerks in religious houses before the struggle between the two orders in the tenth century. On the overthrow of the kingdom of Kent it is probable that little good feeling existed between the see of Canterbury and Ecgberht, the West-Saxon conqueror, and it has been suggested that Ceolnoth was a West Saxon, and that his accession was due to Ecgberht's desire to gain the support of the metropolitan see (Robertson, Hist. Essays, 196, 200). If this was so, the king's policy was successful, for at the council of Kingston in 838 Ceolnoth made a strict and perpetual alliance between his church and the West-Saxon kings, Ecgberht and Æthelwulf, receiving in return certain lands at Malling, which had been granted to Canterbury by Baldred, king of Kent, on the eve of his final defeat. This alliance was confirmed in 839, the first year of Æthelwulf, at a council held at 'Astran.' In 844 a long-pending dispute, arising out of the will of Oswulf, ealdorman of East Kent, and first heard in 810, was decided by Ceolnoth in favour of the church at an assembly held at Canterbury in the presence of the king. In 851 the Danes took Canterbury, and in 864 a Danish army wintered in Thanet; the invaders made peace with the Kentish men, who promised them money, but during the progress of the negotiations they plundered the country. The measures taken for defence and the payment here noticed have been connected with the large number of Ceolnoth's coins that have been found; it is possible that he may have had to turn some part of the treasure of his church into money. He died and was buried in his church at Canterbury in 870 (Asser, Gervase), for the statement of the Worcester chronicler that he died at Rome is evidently incorrect.
[Haddan and Stubbs's Councils and Eccl. Docs. iii. 610-36; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Asser, Mon. Hist. Brit. 476; Gervase, Twysden. col. 1643; Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury. i. 282-96.]