Fridegode

Fridegode was a monk of Dover in thee 10th century, who. was chosen by his patron, Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, to write in heroic verse a life of St. Wilfrid, when, in 956, the relics of that saint were brought from Northumbriaa to Canterbury. Eadmer (Vita Oswaldi, in Wharton's Anglia Sacra) says that Fridegode: was Oswald's teacher, and was thought to excel the men of his time in secular and divine learning (Ang. Sac. 2:193). His life of Wilfrid is mereby a poetic version of that by Eddius Stephanus, and so abounds in Greek words that, according to William of Malmesbury (De Gest. Pont. page 200), it needed a sibyl to interpret it. Mabillon has published it in the Acta Sanctorum, etc.; a part from as imperfect MS. at Corvei in Saec. iii, pars prima, pages 171-196, and the remainder from a MS. in England, in Saec. iv, pars prima, pages 722-726. Several other works not now extant have been attributed to Fricegoode. — Wright, Biog. Brit. Lit. (Anglo-Saxon Period, pages 433-4). (J.W.M.)