Bertwald
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- For Saint Bertwald of Ramsbury, see Bertwald of Ramsbury
Saint Bertwald of Canterbury (also known as Brihtwald) (died 731) was the ninth Archbishop of Canterbury (693–731) in England.
Although of Royal lineage, little is known of his early life. According to Bede he was well acquainted with Holy Scripture and with ecclesiastical and monastic science. He corresponded with Saints Boniface, Aldhelm and Wilfrid.
Cenwalh, King of Wessex appointed Bertwald as the first Anglo-Saxon Abbot of Glastonbury in 667, on the advice of his friend, Saint Benedict Biscop. He received a generous land grant, around Meare, from the King some four years later. About 676, he was made Abbot of the Monastery at Reculver in Kent and, in 693, he travelled to France for his consecration as Archbishop of Canterbury, by Godwin, Archbishop of Lyons.
He appears to have been an able governor of the English Church, establishing new bishoprics in Wessex, whilst Sussex, the last pagan kingdom, was converted to Christianity.
Bertwald presided at the Council of Easterfield in 702, at which Bishop Wilfrid of York was deposed and excommunicated; and three years later at a further Council, when it was arranged that Wilfrid should receive the Bishopric of Hexham, in place of that of York.
