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.634â€"709) gained his first experience of monastic life as a boy at Lindisfarne.