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Tilbert of Hexham

Our Father among the Saints Tilbert, Bishop of Hexham

Bishop · d. 789

Commemorated 7 September — Commemoration with his predecessor Alcmund

Tilbert (Tilberht; †789) was the eighth bishop of Hexham in Northumbria, consecrated in the autumn of 780 or 781 in succession to Alcmund and holding the see until his death in 789. The record of him is a handful of annal lines: his consecration on October 2, his presence at the consecration of Aldulf, bishop of the Saxon monastery of Mayo, at Corbridge in 786, and his subscription at the Northumbrian synod of Pincanheale in 788. Nothing else of his acts survives. He is venerated with Alcmund on September 7, the pair carried together by the Benedictine martyrologies and by the modern Orthodox calendars of Britain.

The record of Tilbert is thinner still than his predecessor's, and this Life states it and stops. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the annal that records Alcmund's death on September 7, adds that "Tilbert was consecrated in his place on the sixth before the Nones of October" — October 2 — in 780 by the Chronicle's reckoning, 780 or 781 by the modern chronologies. The 1903 Hexham parish account of the see, drawn from the chronicle tradition, records two appearances in his nine years as bishop: at Corbridge in 786, at the consecration of Aldulf as bishop of Mayo — the Irish monastery of the English founded after St Colman's withdrawal from Lindisfarne — and at the synod of Pincanheale in 788 (the Chronicle's "Fingall"), where he subscribed the decrees immediately after King Ælfwald. He died in 789 and, by the same account, was buried at Hexham. Baring-Gould's verdict on the two bishops covers him: "Nothing is known of their acts."

Feast and commemoration

September 7 (Old Calendar civil September 20), jointly with his predecessor Alcmund: the St Constantine York calendar (the Antiochian GB&I witness) carries "SS. Alcmund (781) and Tilbert (789), bishops of Hexham," and the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Great Britain and Northern Ireland keeps the same pair on the same day. Orthodox England lists him at September 7 (†789). He is not in the Greek or Slavonic liturgical books, and no OCA commemoration was found.

Iconography

No depiction of Tilbert, early or modern, was found. He would be painted as a Northumbrian hierarch in episcopal vestments.

Disputed questions

  • Name form. The Old English name Tilberht appears in Baring-Gould and in Orthodox England under the later corruption "Gilbert"; the person is the same.
  • Year of consecration: 780 or 781. As with Alcmund's death (the same annal), the Chronicle gives 780 and the modern reference chronologies allow either year.
  • Veneration. The Romanian Archdiocese's notice states that he was venerated as a saint already in his lifetime; no early source for the claim is apparent, and it is recorded here only as that notice's statement. His attested cultus is the joint commemoration with Alcmund in the Benedictine martyrologies (Menardus, Bucelinus, per Baring-Gould) and the gathering of the early bishops' relics at Hexham in the twelfth century, which the medieval church there commemorated (the 1903 parish account gives March 3 as the translation commemoration).

Sources

  1. St Constantine York, Calendar of Saints and Readings (ICS feed), retrieved 2026-07-29 — the GB&I witness for the commemoration and date.
  2. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, annals for 780 and 788 (tr. J. A. Giles, public domain) — his consecration "on the sixth before the Nones of October" in Alcmund's place; the synod "at Fingall" (Pincanheale) in 788.
  3. Orthodox England (Fr Andrew Phillips), saints list, s.v. "Tilbert (Gilbert), Sept 7" (via the Wayback Machine, retrieved 2026-07-29): "†789. Bishop of Hexham in Northumbria in England 781–789."
  4. S. Baring-Gould, Lives of the Saints, vol. X (September), September 7, "SS. Alkmund and Gilbert, BB." — the joint feast from the Benedictine martyrologies of Menardus and Bucelinus; death in 789; "Nothing is known of their acts."
  5. J. W. Fawcett, "Bishops of the Ancient See of Hexham," Hexham Parish Magazine, April 1903 (via the Hexham Abbey heritage pages) — Corbridge 786, Pincanheale 788 and the subscription after King Ælfwald, burial at Hexham, the March 3 translation commemoration.
  6. Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (roarch.org.uk), "Sts. Alcmund and Tilbert, Bishops of Hexham" — the joint Orthodox commemoration; the lifetime-veneration statement noted above.
  7. The underlying medieval witnesses (Symeon of Durham, Roger of Howden) were not consulted directly; Wikipedia ("Tilbeorht") was used as a lead only.