“STEPHEN THE PRIEST” is how the author of a ‘Life’ of St.Wilfrid – written by a follower of Wilfrid, probably during the decade following Wilfrid's death in 709 – describes himself in one of the two surviving manuscripts.* The name is confirmed by William of Malmesbury, in his ‘Gesta Pontificum Anglorum’ (Deeds of the Bishops of England), who precedes his own record of Wilfrid with the comment:

Now, Bede (‘Historia Ecclesiastica’ Book IV Chapter 2) mentions one “Æddi, surnamed Stephen” (Eddi cognomento Stephanus) – a singing-master brought to Northumbria by Wilfrid, from Kent, in 669. Within the ‘Life’ itself (Chapter 14) it is noted that Æddi (no surname given) was actually one of a pair of singers (“Ædde and Æona”) that Wilfrid brought with him. At any rate, putting two and two together, the singer, Æddi, and the author of the ‘Life’ have traditionally been seen as one and the same. In all likelihood, however, they were two individuals who, by coincidence, shared the name Stephen – after all, Æddi would have to have been at least sixty years old at the time of Wilfrid's death. Nevertheless, Wilfrid's biographer continues to be referred to as Eddius Stephanus, though there is a modern tendency to call him Stephen of Ripon.