Eddius Stephanus was a monk from Kent and an expert in ecclesiatical music, who accompanied the bishop Wilfrid as his choir cantor, when the latter went to Northumbria to serve as the archbishop of York in 669.
He later wrote a biography of Wilfrid, which is sometimes hailed as the "first commemorative biography in Anglo-Saxon England". Written in Latin as Vita S. Wilfridi, or the Life of St Wilfrid it was composed sometime bewtween Wilfrid's death in 709 and Eddius's own death in 720.
The Life of St Wilfrid is one of the earliest examples of Anglo-Saxon hagiography and is unflinching partisan in its promotion of Wilfrid. It does however contain some historical material relating to seventh century Northumbria that is not available elsewhere.
"This very task of preserving the blessed memory of Bishop Wilfrid is of great gain and value to myself. Indeed it is in itself a ready path to virtue to know what Wilfrid was."