Unwona

Unwona
Bishop of Leicester
Appointed	between 781 and 785
Term ended	between 801 and 803
Predecessor	Eadbeorht
Successor	Wernbeorht
Orders
Consecration	between 781 and 785
Personal details
Died	between 801 and 803
Denomination	Christian

Unwona (also Unuuona, Unwano) was a medieval Bishop of Leicester.

Unwona was consecrated between 781 and 785. He died between 801 and 803. ^[1]

Unwona appears as a witness to records of ecclesiastical councils and Mercian royal charters twenty times between 785 and around 800. Unwona's name is rare or even unique among Anglo-Saxon names, and seems to derive from Old English wana ('lack'), and to mean 'not lacking'. It is possible that he was the addressee of a letter sent in 797 by Alcuin of York to one 'Speratus'; the letter includes Alcuin's most famous injunction: 'verba Dei legantur in sacerdotali convivio: ibi decet lectorem audiri, non citharistam, sermones patrum, non carmina gentilium. Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?' ('Let God's words be read at the episcopal dinner-table. It is right that a reader should be heard, not a harpist, patristic discourse, not pagan song. What has Hinield to do with Christ?'). ^[2]

Citations

1. Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 218
2. Donald A. Bullough, 'What has Ingeld to do with Lindisfarne?', Anglo-Saxon England, 22 (1993), 93-125 (p. 93 for the Latin [quoted from Epistolae Karolini Aevi II, ed. by E. Dummler, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistula 4 (Berlin, 1895), p. 183 (no. 12)]; pp. 114-15 for the biographical information aboute Unwona; p. 124 for the translation); doi : 10.1017/S0263675100004336.

References

• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-56350-X.

External links

• Unwona 2 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England

Christian titles
Preceded by Eadbeorht	Bishop of Leicester c. 783–c. 802	Succeeded by Wernbeorht