Wulfred [SEP] position held
Wulfred
Wulfred (died 24 March 832) was an Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury in medieval England. Nothing is known of his life prior to 803, when he attended a church council, but he was probably a nobleman from Middlesex. He was elected archbishop in 805 and spent his time in office reforming the clergy of his cathedral. He also quarrelled with two consecutive Mercian kings – Coenwulf and Ceolwulf – over whether laymen or clergy should control monasteries. At one point, Wulfred travelled to Rome to consult
when Wulfred presided over a council which attacked lay control of religious houses. The council, held at Chelsea, asserted that Coenwulf did not have the right to make appointments to nunneries and monasteries, although both Leo and his predecessor, Pope Hadrian I, had granted Offa and Coenwulf the right to do so. Coenwulf had recently appointed his daughter, Cwoenthryth, to the position of abbess of Minster-in-Thanet. Leo died in 816, and his successor, Stephen IV, died the following January; the new pope