The Life of Wilfrid offers us a graphic portrait of one of the most forceful characters in the history of the English Church: a man courageous and energetic yet at the same time litigious, ostentatious and overbearing, his life punctuated by restless travels and the most violent quarrels. Of noble birth, Wilfrid (c.634?709) gained his first experience of monastic life as a boy at Lindisfarne.