Hygeberht

Higbert (also spelled Hygberht or Hygeberht) (d.803) was the bishop (779-787) and archbishop (787-799) of Lichfield during the reign of the powerful Offa, king of Mercia, in the late eighth century.

Perhaps as early as 786, the creation of a Mercian archbishopric was being discussed at Offa's court. Offa had no love for the Kingdom of Kent and the archbishop of Canterbury, Jaenberht. At the council of Chelsea held in 787, he secured the creation of an archbishopric for his province centred on the diocese of Lichfield (in modern Staffordshire). In 788, the bishop of Lichfield, Higbert, received a pallium from Pope Hadrian I at Rome. Throughout his episcopate, Jaenberht of Canterbury was his senior and enjoyed precedence, though upon his death, Higbert became the foremost prelate in England. He consecrated Jaenberht's successor Aethelheard after Offa consulted the learned Alcuin of York about procedure.

It seems that Cenwulf, Offa's successor, seriously considered removing both archdioceses and replacing them with one at London. This was avoided when a Kentish rebellion was put down and finally, in 802, Pope Leo III granted that the decision of Hadrian I was invalid because the unanimity of the English clergy as told him had been a misrepresentaion. He returned all jurisdiction to Canterbury in Southumbria.

Higbert and Jaenberht both remained well above the fray involving their diocese: Jaenberht not appealing the division of his and Higbert stepping down before the dissolution of his. Higbert was the senior cleric in England by 803, the year of his death, and he had resigned his see sometime before that and after 799. He ended his days as an abbot at the head of the Mercian clergy.

There has been some minor talk in the present age of recreating the archdiocese of Lichfield, to no avail.