786. Papal legates visit England
In 786, Pope Hadrian sent his legates George, bishop of Ostia, and Theophylact, bishop of Todi, to England, apparently to investigate the state of the English church and root out any heresy that might be found there. A report of the legates survives (EHD 191), and from it we can see that they first visited Jænberht, archbishop of Canterbury, then the court of Offa, then on to a joint council with Offa of Mercia and Cynewulf of Wessex, at which both English kings promised to make needful reforms. Then Theophylact continued his visits in Mercia and Wales, while George went up to Northumbria, where he was joined by Alcuin for his meeting with King Ælfwold and Archbishop Eanbald of York. In Northumbria George produced a set of twenty canons, dealing with both religious and secular affairs. These were witnessed by the Northumbrians, and then taken back to Offa's court and witnessed there also. The following year saw synods both in southern England and in Northumbria.
From a letter of Pope Leo to Offa's successor Coenwulf in 798 (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, III.523-5), we learn that Offa vowed before a synod including the papal envoys and all the bishops and nobles of Britain that he would send each year 365 mancuses (a mancus was a coin worth 30 pence) to Rome as a sign of thanksgiving to St Peter. One suspects that Offa was giving thanks not merely for the legates' efforts in suppressing heresy, but also for the papal approval he had secured for his moves in the following year, when he would establish a third English archbishopric at Lichfield, and have his son Ecgfrith anointed (see entries for 787). There is no direct evidence that the legates concerned themselves with this, but it seems a reasonable assumption given that papal approval would certainly be necessary for the creation of a new archbishopric. The several references in the twelfth canon to the king as the lord's anointed would be interpreted by Offa's circle as referring to Ecgfrith's anointing the following year, whether that was the original intention or not.
Catherine Cubitt has recently argued that the canons were partly the work of Alcuin of Northumbria, and so more closely related to Northumbrian affairs: certainly the emphasis on loyalty to the king in canons eleven to fourteen addresses a severe shortcoming in contemporary northern affairs, as the entries on 758/9, 765, 774, 778/9, 788, make quite clear. One might also remember Alhred of Northumbria's mission to Charlemagne as a point of contact between Northumbria and the Continent (see entry on 765).
A letter from Pope Hadrian to Charlemagne written probably a year or two before the visit of the legates mentions a rumour that Offa had proposed to dethrone the Pope (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, III.440-3), and although Charlemagne reassured the Pope that the rumour was completely untrue, curiosity as to how it came about may have been another reason for sending Roman envoys to Britain, the first since the mission of Augustine back in 597. (For a possible explanation of the rumour, see entry on 787.)