Why does the Church of England have two archbishops?

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent.(Photo: Getty/iStock)

The Church of England has been much in the news in recent months. Among the many issues that have dominated the headlines has been the role and responsibilities of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was Justin Welby until his recent resignation over safeguarding issues.

As the established church in England prepares to replace him as its overall leader, the spotlight is falling on how the Church of England is structured and governed. And this raises some fascinating questions regarding how early medieval history lies behind the authority structure of the twenty-first century Church of England.

The structure of the Church of England today

The Church of England today is led by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York, along with 106 other bishops. Consequently, the episcopal (i.e. led by bishops) established church in England is structured into two provinces: the Province of Canterbury and the Province of York.

The Church of England is composed of 42 dioceses (regional areas), each of which is led by a diocesan bishop, with most of these supported by additional ('suffragan' or 'area') bishops. The head church in a diocese is a cathedral. The area governed by a bishop is technically known as a 'see'. The word 'see' is derived from the Latin word 'sedes', meaning seat or chair, and originally referred to where a bishop (literally) sat in authority. This symbolic bishop's chair is also known as the bishop's 'cathedra', hence the term 'cathedral'.

Each diocese in England is divided into parishes. Each parish is overseen by a parish priest (usually called a 'vicar,' 'rector,' or 'incumbent'). They and their bishop are responsible for what is officially termed the 'cure of souls' in their parish - there are about 12,300 parishes.

The monarch, in this case His Majesty, King Charles III, is the supreme governor of the Church of England. The king appoints archbishops, bishops and deans of cathedrals on the advice of the prime minister. This position as supreme governor of the Church of England has existed since Henry VIII's break with Rome in the 16th century, as part of what became the English version of the European Reformation.

After the Reformation, the national church in England continued to be called the 'Church of England' – as it had frequently customarily been described before, during the medieval period – but it repudiated the supremacy of the pope as its leader. Consequently, it became a national church, rather than a national unit within an international church structure (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church) under one leader (i.e. the pope). To put it simply: Henry VIII, in effect, nationalised the church in England. Despite this huge change, it retained its ancient episcopal (led by regional bishops) structure.

By the 1534 Act of Supremacy, Henry VIII became 'Supreme Head of the Church of England'; then, by the 1559 Act of Supremacy, Elizabeth I became 'Supreme Governor of the Church of England'. Both titles and roles supplanted the position previously held by the pope.

The official CofE website explains the relative episcopal hierarchy in England under its section on 'Leadership and governance' in these terms:

"The Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior bishop of the Church and has oversight for the ministry and mission in the southern two-thirds of England. He also fills a unique position in the worldwide Anglican Church as spiritual leader.

"The second most senior bishop is the Archbishop of York and has oversight for the ministry and mission in the northern third of England. Together they lead the vision and direction of the Church of England."

It should be noted that the monarch does not hold the title 'Supreme Governor' of the Church of Scotland (unlike his title in the Church of England). The independence of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was hard-wired into the arrangements that were hammered out in the Act of Union, 1707. As a result, British monarchs swear to uphold the Protestant religion in Scotland and maintain the Presbyterian Church Government there; with the Accession Oath reflecting the constitutional independence of the Scottish Church from the state. The Church of Scotland is entirely self-governing. It is managed on a local level by kirk sessions, at a regional level by presbyteries, and at a national level by the General Assembly.

Finally, the Church in Wales (not 'Church of Wales') was disestablished and separated from the Province of Canterbury by an act of Parliament in 1920. The Archbishop of Wales does not have a fixed archiepiscopal see, but serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishops in Wales.

The early medieval roots of the two provinces in the Church of England

Looking at the modern structure of the established Church of England, two questions immediately come to mind: why two archbishops? And why in Canterbury and York? It is a curious feature of ancient English history that the established church in the country has two provinces and that their archbishops are located in Canterbury and York.

We have only the vaguest idea of the way that the Christian church was structured in Britain by the end of the Roman Empire. The empire had become officially Christian in the 4th century but there were Christians in Britain well before this and their church community exhibited the same characteristics of organisation found across the Roman Empire. They were organised under bishops, who were located in Roman urban centres. We know that three British bishops attended the imperial council at Arles in 314. These were probably from what are now London, York and Lincoln.

We can assume that other bishops existed, based in other towns that were the key urban sites within a region. There was probably one based in what is now Cirencester. By the end of the Roman Empire, it is likely that Christians (whether nominal or committed) made up a sizable proportion of the population in Roman Britain. However, these were probably concentrated in urban settings and also among many of the villa-owning class and on their estates, in the army, and in the imperial administration.

During the 5th century, Roman rule ended in Britain, central governmental authority collapsed, political power fragmented, urban centres declined (this decay of towns had started well before the end of Roman rule) and large areas of, what is now, eastern England came under the control of Germanic pagan rulers and settlers (often termed 'Anglo-Saxons,' but the ethnic make-up was much more complex).

These incomers we term 'Early English', and they battled each other and rival British kingdoms for supremacy. What had once been Roman Britain broke up into a fractious mosaic of warring little kingdoms. This would last in England until one unified kingdom of the English finally emerged in the later 10th century.

The jury is still out on how many of these 'Early English' were actual immigrants from northern Europe and how many were indigenous Britons who had adapted to the arrival of new warrior rulers by 'acculturating' to the new realities in terms of language, dress, and – crucially – religion. What is clear is that an – officially – Christian part of the Roman Empire had become largely pagan in its eastern regions, while its western regions continued to maintain a Christian culture. The stage was set for Christian missionary activity to bring things back to Christian faith in areas lost to Germanic paganism.

This Christian missionary activity was largely undertaken by Irish missionaries in the north and west; and then by a missionary expedition launched from Rome and led by a man named Augustine. Other Christians were also involved. These included the activities of continental Christians from the Franks (in what is now France). Their role is evidenced by later contacts between England and the Frankish Church. In addition, the letters of Pope Gregory the Great, relating to the mission of Augustine, make it clear that this 'Roman' mission benefited from help given it by the Frankish Church. British Christians were almost certainly involved too but we think were written out of history by the later Northumbrian (English) writer Bede, due to ethnic antagonism regarding the British.

The first Christian missionaries to the southern Anglo-Saxons were sent by Pope Gregory the Great, and they arrived in Kent in the year 597. The leader of this missionary activity, Augustine, quickly converted King Ethelbert of the kingdom of Kent. His queen, Bertha, a Frankish princess, was already a Christian and this may have helped in the conversion process since she had earlier been accompanied to Kent by a Christian chaplain. Augustine founded what was later called St Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury. It should be noted that this Augustine (sometimes called the 'Apostle to the English') is not the same as St Augustine of Hippo (in North Africa) who earlier had written the famous book entitled the City of God.

About 30 years later another member of the 'Roman' missionary campaign, named Paulinus, baptised King Edwin of Northumbria at York. In this we can begin to see the outline of an organisational structure that is still with us today.

Why Canterbury and York?

Late Roman Britain was administered from a number of regional centres but the preeminent of these were located in what is now London (Londinium) and York (Eboracum). That in the north was key to a more militarised zone; while that in the south was the major entry point from the continental empire.

After Roman Britain fragmented in the 5th century, warring Early English kingdoms battled for mastery. While they aspired to dominate the whole of what later became England, these overlords frequently more easily dominated the land north or south of the Humber estuary. These 'Northumbrian' and 'Southumbrian' overlordships mirrored the old Roman political structures.

It seems clear that the 597 mission sent by Pope Gregory was intended to be based on this Late Roman administrative structure, with one head bishop (an archbishop) based in London and one based in York, with regional bishops under them. The plan for London did not work out because, in the 7th century, that settlement was part of the newly converted kingdom of Essex which temporarily lapsed into paganism. This caused a relocation back to Canterbury, in the kingdom of Kent, where the conversion process had started; and this fossilised as the location of the archbishop of the southern half of England.

Paulinus was intended to be the first archbishop of York in the 630s, but upheavals in the Northumbrian kingdom caused him to leave York and become bishop of Rochester instead. As a result, the holder of the position in York operated as a diocesan, rather than archdiocesan prelate, until Ecgbert of York received the official insignia of an archbishop (the 'pallium') from Pope Gregory III in 735 and then established what are called metropolitan rights in the north.

So, the key locations became Canterbury and York, not London and York. A 7th-century series of events decided the location of the two archbishops in England. For a brief time (from 787 to 803) there was a third archbishop and province based on Lichfield, in Staffordshire, but this did not last.

The primacy of Canterbury

That Canterbury today has precedence over York was not a foregone conclusion. In 1071, Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Thomas of Bayeux, Archbishop of York, put the question to Pope Alexander II, who decided that Canterbury was to have precedence and that, in future, Archbishops of York would have to be consecrated by, and swear allegiance to, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This precedence was overturned in 1119 but was finally settled by Pope Innocent VI in the 14th century, when precedence was once more given to Canterbury. Canterbury would be acknowledged as 'Primate of All England' and York would be titled 'Primate of England'. Canterbury's supremacy over York was increased just before the 16th-century Reformation, when its archbishop came to exercise the powers of papal legate throughout England.

Soon a new Archbishop of Canterbury will be appointed to sit in the 'Chair of St Augustine' (in Latin, the 'Cathedra Augustini'), in Canterbury Cathedral, in Kent. When that occurs it will continue a process which stretches back to the original mission that took place in 597.

Martyn Whittock is a historian and a Licensed Lay Minister in the Church of England. The author, or co-author, of fifty-six books, his work covers a wide range of historical and theological themes. In addition, as a commentator and columnist, he has written for several print and online news platforms and is frequently interviewed on TV and radio news and discussion programmes exploring the interaction of faith and politics. His recent books include: Trump and the Puritans (2020), Daughters of Eve (2021), Jesus The Unauthorized Biography (2021), The End Times, Again? (2021), The Story of the Cross (2021), Apocalyptic Politics (2022), and American Vikings: How the Norse Sailed into the Lands and Imaginations of America (2023). He is currently writing Vikings in the East: From Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin, the Origin of a Contested Legacy in Russia and Ukraine (2025 forthcoming).