2 - Eadric

Summary

Eadric the second abbot

The appointment of Eadric as abbot of St Alban and the virtues, vices and death of the same

Eadric. Eadric succeeded him; he was an outstanding abbot. In the same year in which King Offa and Abbot Willegod were removed from our midst Eadric was chosen from the bosom of his church and raised to the pastoral seat without any waste of time or any disgrace of disagreement. His election had been asked for by that most Christian King Offa, who, while he was alive, had often taken the trouble to vurge the monks never to choose a pastor for themselves from the congregation of another church, but to fill the vacant office in the church without the damaging disharmony of a delay; otherwise his house would give the impression of being devoid of religion and in need of men of religion for its ranks: unless of course – and this was something he deeply deprecated – it should by chance happen that necessity forced their hand and they were compelled through lack of suitable candidates to make use of an outsider.

This Eadric was a kinsman of kings, namely of Offa, and Offa's son Ecgfrith and closely joined to them by bonds of love and friendship. In his many contests against many rebels, although they were powerful men and powerfully attacked him, Eadric, relying on the king's help, ruled the church entrusted to him firmly and protected it with the shield of their blazon.

How some in the time of same abbot murmured against the great benefits bestowed on the monastery by King Offa

But there were many who, objecting to the great benefits bestowed on the church of St Alban by the generosity of King Offa (although they pejoratively called it his ‘wastefulness’), murmured that he seemed to have gone beyond the bounds, so that the king's dignity, being greatly marred, had been lowered and diminished. These critics almost influenced the mind of the king, who was still a young man, to think the same thing. But the blessed martyr did not allow his church, founded as it was on a strong rock, namely that of Christ, to be shaken by winds or made to totter by storms.