Deusdedit of Canterbury - Legacy

Legacy

Except for the bare facts of his life little is known about Deusdedit. Deusdedit's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Wighard, had been one of his clergy. Deusdedit was regarded as a saint after his death, with a feast day of 14 July, although the Bosworth Psalter, a late 10th or early 11th-century psalter produced at St Augustine's Abbey, gives a date of 15 July. His feast day is designated as a major feast day, and is included along with those of a number of other early Canterbury archbishops in the Bosworth Psalter. Deusdedit was buried in the church of St Augustine's in Canterbury, but was translated to the new abbey church in 1091. A hagiography, or saint's biography, on Deusdedit was written by Goscelin after the translation of his relics, but the work was based mainly on Bede's account; the manuscript of the De Sancto Deusdedit Archiepiscopo survives as part of British Library manuscript (ms) Cotton Vespasian B.xx. Because of the late date of the Sancto, Bede's Historia is the main source for what little is known about Deusdedit. Other than the hagiography, there is scant evidence of a cult surrounding him. His shrine survived until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s.