Stigand (died 1072) was an Anglo-Saxon churchman in pre-Norman Conquest England who became Archbishop of Canterbury. His birth date is unknown, but by 1020, he was serving as a royal chaplain and advisor. He was named Bishop of Elmham in 1043, and was later Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop of Canterbury. Stigand was an advisor to several members of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman English royal dynasties, serving six successive kings. Excommunicated by several popes for his pluralism in holding the two sees, or bishoprics, of Winchester and Canterbury concurrently, he was finally deposed in 1070, and his estates and personal wealth were confiscated by William the Conqueror. Stigand was imprisoned at Winchester, where he died.
Stigand served King Cnut as a chaplain at a royal foundation at Ashingdon in 1020 and as an advisor thereafter. He continued in his role of advisor during the reigns of Cnut's sons, Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut. When Cnut's stepson Edward the Confessor succeeded Harthacnut, Stigand in all probability became England's main administrator. Monastic writers of the time accused Stigand of extorting money and lands from the church, and by 1066 the only estates richer than Stigand's were the royal estates and those of Harold Godwinson.
In 1043 Edward appointed Stigand to the see of Elmham. Four years later, he was appointed to the see of Winchester, and then in 1052 to the archdiocese of Canterbury, which Stigand held jointly with Winchester. It was later claimed that five successive popes, including Nicholas II and Alexander II, excommunicated Stigand for holding both Winchester and Canterbury, but there is no evidence for this. Stigand was present at the deathbed of King Edward and at the coronation of Harold Godwinson as king of England in 1066. After Harold's death, Stigand submitted to William the Conqueror. On Christmas Day 1066 Ealdred, the Archbishop of York, crowned William King of England. Stigand's excommunication meant that he could only assist at the coronation.
Despite growing pressure for his deposition, Stigand continued to attend the royal court and to consecrate bishops until, in 1070, he was deposed by papal legates and imprisoned at Winchester. His intransigence toward the papacy was used as propaganda by Norman advocates who argued that the English church was backward and needed reform.
Early life
Neither the year nor the date of Stigand's birth is known. to an apparently prosperous family His brother Æthelmær, also a cleric, later succeeded Stigand as bishop of Elmham. but her given name is unrecorded. which was dedicated by the reforming bishop Wulfstan of York. Little is known of Stigand's life during Cnut's reign, but he must have had a place at the royal court, After Harthacnut died Stigand became an advisor to Emma of Normandy, Cnut's widow and the mother of Harthacnut and his successor Edward the Confessor. and it is possible that Stigand was already one of her advisors while Cnut was alive, and that he owed his position at Ashingdon to Emma's influence and favour. Because little is known of Stigand's activities before his appointment as a bishop, it is difficult to determine to whom he owed his position.
Bishop of Elmham and Winchester
Stigand was appointed to the see of Elmham shortly after Edward the Confessor's coronation on 3 April 1043, probably on Emma's advice. This was the first episcopal appointment of Edward's reign. The diocese of Elmham covered East Anglia in eastern England, He was consecrated bishop in 1043, but later that year Edward deposed Stigand and deprived him of his wealth. Although Ealdred, the Bishop of Worcester, went to the Continent in search of Edward the Exile, Ian Walker, the biographer of King Harold Godwinson, feels that Stigand was behind the effort.
Final years and legacy
Norman Conquest
thumb|250px|HIC RESIDET HAROLD REX ANGLORUM. STIGANT ARCHIEP(I)S(COPUS). "Here sits Harold King of the English. Archbishop Stigand". Scene immediately after the crowning of Harold by (according to the Norman tradition) Stigand. Detail from the [[Bayeux Tapestry.]]
thumb|upright|250px|[[William the Conqueror, shown here from the Bayeux Tapestry, at first accepted Stigand's position, but later allowed papal legates to depose him.|alt=A seated man in robes holding a sword upright in one hand and pointing with his other hand. Behind the seated figure is a standing man pointing in the same direction as the seated figure.]]
King Edward, on his deathbed, left the crown to his brother-in-law Harold Godwinson, the son of Earl Godwin. Norman writers claimed that Stigand crowned Harold as king in January 1066. This is generally considered false propaganda, as it was in William's interest to portray Harold as uncanonically crowned. If Harold was improperly crowned, then William was merely claiming his rightful inheritance, and not deposing a rightful king. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts Stigand at Harold's coronation, although not actually placing the crown on Harold's head. The English sources claim that Ealdred, the Archbishop of York, crowned Harold, while the Norman sources claim that Stigand did so, with the conflict between the various sources probably tracing to the post-Conquest desire to vilify Harold and depict his coronation as improper. Another historian, Frank Barlow, writing in 1979, felt that the fact that some of the English sources do not name who consecrated Harold "tip(s) the balance in favour of Stigand".
Stigand did support Harold, and was present at Edward the Confessor's deathbed. Stigand's controversial position may have influenced Pope Alexander II's support of William the Conqueror's invasion of England. The reformers, led by Archdeacon Hildebrand, later Pope Gregory VII, opposed the older type of bishop, rich and installed by the lay powers.
After the death of Harold at the Battle of Hastings, Stigand worked with Earl Edwin and Earl Morcar, as well as Archbishop Ealdred of York, to put Edgar the Ætheling on the throne. This plan did not come to fruition, however, due to opposition from the northern earls and some of the other bishops. Stigand submitted to William the Conqueror at Wallingford in early December 1066, and perhaps assisted at his coronation on Christmas Day, 1066, William took Stigand with him to Normandy in 1067, although whether this was because William did not trust the archbishop, as the medieval chronicler William of Poitiers alleges, is uncertain. Stigand was present at the coronation of William's queen, Matilda, in 1068, although once more the ceremony was actually performed by Ealdred.
Deposition and death
After the first rebellions broke out in late 1067 William adopted a policy of conciliation towards the church. He gave Stigand a place at court, as well as giving administrative positions to Ealdred of York and Æthelwig, Abbot of Evesham. Archbishop Stigand appears on several royal charters in 1069, along with both Norman and English leaders. He even consecrated Remigius de Fécamp as Bishop of Dorchester in 1067. At a council held at Winchester at Easter 1070, the bishops met with papal legates from Alexander II. On 11 April 1070 Stigand was deposed and was imprisoned at Winchester. His brother Æthelmær, Bishop of Elmham, was also deposed at the same council. Shortly afterward, Aethelric the Bishop of Selsey, Ethelwin the Bishop of Durham and Leofwin Bishop of Lichfield, who was married, were deposed at a council held at Windsor. Some accounts state that Stigand did appear at the council which deposed him, but nothing is recorded of any defence that he attempted. The charges against his brother are nowhere stated, leading to a belief that the depositions were mainly political. The king appointed Lanfranc, a native of Italy and a scholar and abbot in Normandy, as the new archbishop.
King William appears to have left the initiative for Stigand's deposition to the papacy and did nothing to hinder Stigand's authority until the papal legates arrived in England to depose the archbishop and reform the English Church. Besides witnessing charters and consecrating Remigius, Stigand appears to have been a member of the royal council and able to move freely about the country. But after the arrival of the legates, William did nothing to protect Stigand from deposition, and the archbishop later accused the king of acting with bad faith. It was probably the death of Ealdred in 1069 that moved the pope to send the legates, as that left only one archbishop in England; and he was not considered legitimate and unable to consecrate bishops. The historian George Garnett draws the parallel between the treatment of King Harold in the Domesday Book, where he is essentially ignored as king, and Stigand's treatment after his deposition, where his time as archbishop is as much as possible treated as not occurring.
Stigand died in 1072 and his death was commemorated on 21 February or 22 February. He was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester. Medieval writers condemned him for his greed and for his pluralism. Hugh the Chanter, a medieval chronicler, claimed that the confiscated wealth of Stigand helped keep King William on the throne. A recent study of his wealth and how it was earned shows that while he did engage in some exploitative methods to gain some of his wealth, other lands were gained through inheritance or through royal favour. The same study shows little evidence that he despoiled his episcopal estates, although the record towards monastic houses is more suspect. There is no complaint in contemporary records about his private life, and the accusations that he committed simony and was illiterate only date from the 12th century.
Although monastic chroniclers after the Norman Conquest accused him of crimes such as perjury and homicide, they do not provide any evidence of those crimes. Almost 100 years after his death, another Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, was taunted in 1164 by King Henry II's barons with Stigand's fate for daring to oppose his king. Modern historians views tend to see him as either a wily politician and indifferent bishop or to see him purely in terms of his ecclesiastical failings. The historian Frank Stenton felt that his "whole career shows that he was essentially a politician". Concurring with this, the historian Nick Higham said that "Stigand was a seasoned politician whose career had been built on an accurate reading of the balance of power." Another historian, Eric John, said that "Stigand had a fair claim to be the worst bishop of Christendom". However, the historian Frank Barlow felt that "he was a man of cultured tastes, a patron of the arts who was generous to the monasteries which he held".