The Councils of Clovesho or Clofesho were a series of synods attended by Anglo-Saxon kings, bishops, abbots and nobles in the 8th and 9th centuries. They took place at an unknown location in the Kingdom of Mercia. Location The location of the place-name Clovesho has never been conclusively identified. Scholars believe that Clovesho must have been located in the kingdom of Mercia, or close to it, and close enough to the sees of the southern English bishops to travel to. It has been described by Catherine Cubitt as ‘the most famous lost place in Anglo-Saxon England’. The placename, given by Bede as clofeshoch, is Old English. The first element is clof, a variant of cleófa, ‘a cleft, a chasm’, while the second is hóh, ‘a heel-shaped spur of land’. The modifiery, clóf, is a rare word in place-names, Clovelly being the only other certain example of its use in a toponym. On the other hand, hóh is more common, with the densest concentration in the south-east Midlands. This pattern suggests that the place ought to lie within south-eastern Mercia, as has been deduced from the historical evidence. The current favourite candidate for the location of Clovesho is Brixworth in Northamptonshire, where the surviving Anglo-Saxon church of All Saints' Church, Brixworth is indicative of the importance of the settlement during the Anglo-Saxon period. Previously suggested locations have included Cliffe (formerly called Cliffe-at-Hoo), Abingdon and Tewkesbury (which were considered by Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs to be based upon unreliable evidence). More recently, Clifford Offer has suggested Hitchin in Hertfordshire, while Keith Bailey has proposed Royston, also in Hertfordshire, Dunstable in Bedfordshire and somewhere near Hertford itself. The dates of several Councils are known, although some references are thought to be spurious, including one mentioned in the endorsement of a fraudulent charter in the name of Wihtred of Kent dated 716, and another of 742 by Æthelred of Mercia. Those Councils for which evidence thought to be authentic exists are those of 747, 793×6, 794, 798, 803, 804(?), 824 and 825. The purpose and nature of the councils When Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus held the Council of Hertford in 672 or 673, he declared to the assembled bishops that he had been "appointed by the Apostolic See to be Bishop of the Church of Canterbury". A canon was passed to the effect that in future yearly synods should be held on