Feast day: August 2
Archbishop of Canterbury. Born in Mercia, England; died at Canterbury, England, on August 2, 914.
Saint Plegmund was a hermit on an island near Chester, called Plegmundham after him and later Plemstall, who was noted for his holiness and scholarship...
He was called to the court of Alfred the Great to be his tutor. He helped Alfred write the Old English version of Pope Saint Gregory the Great’s “On Pastoral Care” (Liber regulae pastoralis) and may have been responsible for the compilation of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle.
At that monarch’s request, in 890, he was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Formosus in Rome. He crowned Edward the Elder at Kingston in 901, and consecrated the Newminster at Winchester in 908. Plegmund travelled to Rome again in 908, probably to secure approval of his bishopric by Pope Sergius III, because the consecrations of Formosus were condemned in 897 and 905. He returned from Rome with some of the relics of Saint Blaise.
His episcopacy was noted for promoting learning and developing Canterbury’s metropolitan jurisdiction.