Ceadda (Chad), St.

CEADDA (CHAD), ST.: Third bishop of Mercia; d. at Lichfield Mar. 2, 672. He was one of Aidan's pupils at Lindisfarne and also spent some years at the monastery of Rathmelsige (Melfont, near Drogheda?) in Ireland. His oldest brother, Cedd, chose him to succeed himself as abbot at Lastingham, Northumbria, in 664. After the Synod of Whitby Wilfrid was elected to the Northumbrian bishopric and went to Gaul to be consecrated. As he did not return immediately King Oswy saw fit to appoint Ceadda, and he was 462consecrated (665?) by Wine of Winchester and two British bishops. Wilfrid acquiesced on going back to England, but when Theodore became archbishop of Canterbury (669) objection was raised to Ceadda's consecration; he expressed his willingness to lay down an office of which he had never deemed himself worthy, retired to his monastery in Northumbria, and Wilfrid was instated in his place. Theodore, however, impressed by Ceadda's humility and worth, reconsecrated him as bishop of the Mercians to succeed Jaruman, and he fixed his residence at Lichfield (Sept., 669). His simplicity, piety, and devotion to duty won the hearts of all, and in later times he was one of the most popular of English saints.

Bibliography: Bede, Hist. eccl., iii. 23, 24, 28; iv. 2, 3; v. 19. 24; Fasti Eboracenses ed. W. H. Dixon and J. Raine, i. 47–55, London, 1863; W. Bright, Early English Church History, pp. 243–246, 259–266, Oxford, 1897; DNB, ix. 391–393.