[6][7] Previously suggested locations have included Cliffe (formerly called Cliffe-at-Hoo), Abingdon[8] and Tewkesbury[9] (which were considered by Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs to be based upon unreliable evidence[10]).
The councils at Clovesho, and those generally of the Anglo-Saxon period, were mixed assemblies which included bishops, abbots, the king of Mercia and the chief men of his kingdom.
The Canterbury Cartulary contained a charter stating that in 716 the privilege of Wihtred to the churches was "confirmed and ratified in a synod held in the month of July in a place called Clovesho".
According to the record of its proceedings, the council "diligently enquired into the needs of religion, the Creed as delivered by the ancient teaching of the Fathers, and carefully examined how things were ordered at the first beginning of the Church here in England, and where the honour of the monasteries according to the rules of justice was maintained".
[16] The papal letters are described as containing a fervent admonition, addressed to the English people of every rank and condition, and stated that those who condemned these warnings and remained obstinate in their malice should be punished by sentence of excommunication.
[16] The fifteenth canon adds that in the seven hours of the daily and nightly Office the clergy "must not dare to sing or read anything not sanctioned by the general use, but only that which comes down by authority of Holy Scripture, and which the usage of the Roman Church allows".
The clergy and monks were to live so as to be always prepared to receive worthily the most holy Body and Blood of the Lord, and the laity were to be exhorted to the practice of frequent Communion.
Around the time when the papal legates presided at the Council of Chelsea in 787, Offa had obtained from Pope Adrian I that a new archbishopric should be created at Lichfield and that the Mercian sees should be subjected to its jurisdiction and withdrawn from that of Canterbury.
A council was held at Clovesho in 798 by Archbishop Ethelheard with Coenwulf of Mercia, at which the bishops and abbots and chief men of the province were present.
Its proceedings are related in a document by Archbishop Ethelheard,[20] who stated that his first care was to examine diligently "in what way the Catholic Faith was held and how the Christian religion was practised amongst them".
To this inquiry, "they all replied with one voice: 'Be it known to your Paternity, that even as it was formerly delivered to us by the Holy Roman and Apostolic See, by the mission of the most Blessed Pope Gregory, so do we believe, and what we believe, we in all sincerity do our best to put into practice.
'"[16] The Council also devoted time in dealing with questions of church property, and producing an agreement of exchange of lands between the archbishop and the Abbess Cynethryth.
The fifth Council of Clovesho was one of the most remarkable of the series, as its Acts contained the declaration of the restitution of the Mercian sees to the province of Canterbury by the authority of Pope Leo III.
In the letter the king submitted the whole case to the pope, asking his blessing and saying: "I love you as one who is my father, and I embrace you with the whole strength of my obedience", and promising to abide in all things by his decision.
Archbishop Ethelheard declared to the synod that "by the co-operation of God and of the Apostolic Lord, the Pope Leo", he and his fellow-bishops unanimously ratified the rights of the See of Canterbury, and that an archbishopric should never more be founded at Lichfield, and that the grant of the pallium made "with the consent and permission of the Apostolic Lord Pope Adrian, be considered as null, having been obtained surreptitiously and by evil suggestion".