Sigeric, who was the 27th person to be elevated
to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, has gone down in history as “Sigeric the
Serious”, which suggests that there might have been another Sigeric around at
the time who deserved the nickname “Sigeric the Barrel of Laughs” or something
similar. However, there is no evidence that this was the case, and “Serious”
probably means nothing more in this case than that he was a particularly learned
man or even that his name could be transliterated in Latin as “Serio”.
Little is known about his early life, including when he was
born, but it is known that he was a monk at Glastonbury Abbey and became abbot
of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, in 980. He was consecrated as Bishop of
Ramsbury in 985 and Archbishop of Canterbury in 990.
A new Catholic Archbishop can only exercise his full
authority after he has received his pallium from the Pope. This is a narrow
band of cloth that is worn across the shoulders and down the chest, forming a Y
shape (this was the shape in Sigeric’s time but it has since changed). It was
expected that the new Archbishop would journey to Rome in person to meet the
pope and receive the pallium.
Sigeric kept a meticulous record of his journey to Rome and
back, his route being the traditional pilgrim route that passes through France,
Switzerland and Italy and is known as the Via Francigena (see map, above). His journal included
details of each of the 79 stages between Calais and Rome and the 23 churches
that he visited en route.
Sigeric’s time as Archbishop coincided with the struggle for
control of England between Anglo-Saxons and Danes, which generally meant that
the Danes had to be paid off in order to prevent them from causing trouble.
There is a record of Sigeric being one of the group of advisers who persuaded
King Ethelred to buy off the Danes in 991, and there is also evidence that
Sigeric had to take similar action himself in 994 to prevent Canterbury
Cathedral from being burned down.
Another record states that Sigeric installed monks in Christ
Church Priory (which was an addition to the Cathedral proper), having dismissed
the secular clerks who had lived there previously.
He died in 994 at an advanced age and was buried in the
crypt of Christ Church. His devotion to “serious” scholarship can be deduced
from the fact that he left a valuable collection of books to Canterbury
Cathedral.
© John Welford
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