Introduction
Introduction
by D. H. Farmer
THE five texts presented in this volume are important sources for the early history of the Christian Church in England and Ireland. The saints described in them lived in the sixth and seventh centuries. Each was an attractive pioneer both of monasticism and of the primacy of the spiritual. In an age and environment in which the heroic was deeply appreciated, each of them embodied a heroism comparable to, yet different from, that of mythical gods and warriors. They fought spiritual battles against invisible diabolical enemies with the weapons of prayer, fasting and solitude; yet each also contributed powerfully to building Christian cities, communities of monks. Each obtained posthumous and permanent, as well as transient, glory.
These men came from different backgrounds and had contrasting temperaments. Brendan was the earliest, an Irish monk, abbot and founder. But his Navigatio is the latest of the five documents and arguably the least rich in authentic personal detail. It is, however, both an attractive and a rewarding document, part fact and part fiction, which represents a long Irish monastic tradition of which the historical Brendan (d. 575) is one famous example. Better known personalities in the same tradition are Columbanus (d. 615), whose writings, missionary activity and monasteries (especially Bobbio and Saint-Gall) made him the most famous Irish apostle in Western Europe, and Columba of Iona (d. 597), especially important in south-west Scotland and through his disciples in Northumbria also.
Cuthbert was a Northumbrian, born in 634. He was trained as a young man by Irish monks at Melrose. After a few years as guestmaster in the abortive foundation at Ripon, followed by the famous Synod of Whitby (663/4), he became prior of Lindisfarne. He was attracted, however, to a more complete solitude, realized first on St Cuthbert’s Isle close by and later on the island of the Inner Farne, where he lived as a hermit until 685 when he was called to be a bishop. Lindisfarne was his see, but he lived as bishop for only two years. He died in 687 at the age of fifty-three.
Wilfrid was a Northumbrian also. Like Cuthbert, he became both monk and bishop, being trained first by Irish monks at Lindisfarne and later at Rome, the centre of Christendom. He went to Rome for the first time as a young man, staying for a while at Lyons on his way. Here he experienced the ideals and lifestyle of the Merovingian bishops. After his return to England he became the spokesman for the ‘Roman’ side at the Synod of Whitby and, soon afterwards, bishop of Northumbria. He experienced extremes of favour and disgrace, was expelled from his see and appealed to Rome for reinstatement. After a second expulsion he again appealed to Rome, not against the division of the Northumbrian diocese but against his virtual deposition and loss of monasteries he had founded in Northumbria, Mercia and even Sussex, whose apostle he had become in exile. Eventually he was reinstated as bishop of Hexham, where he died in 709. Important as a church builder, as the propagator of the Rule of St Benedict and as a pioneer missionary in Frisia as well as Sussex, he was also a controversial figure in life and after death. His Life by Eddius Stephanus, now often called simply Stephen, a fervent partisan, was written in about 720. Whatever its faults, it has the merit of being the first historical biography to be written by an Anglo-Saxon.
Bede’s Lives of the Abbots is a document rather different from the others. First, it concerns several abbots, not just one. Secondly it is a work of local history as well as biography. Thirdly it was written by England’s pioneer historian within the monastery ruled by the abbots it describes, probably within ten years of the death of one of its principal characters, Ceolfrith. Of the five works included in this volume it is the shortest, but also the richest in authentic detail. It provides attractive character sketches, vivid details about the daily life, the endowments and the art treasures of England’s largest monastery of the seventh century. It is now completed by the contemporary anonymous Life of Ceolfrith.
The Voyage of St Brendan was immensely popular in the Middle Ages. This is shown by the unusually large number – 116 – of surviving Latin manuscripts, and by the existence of vernacular translations in Middle English, French, German, Flemish, Italian, Provençal and Old Norse. It is still immensely readable today. Recently the journeys of Dr Timothy Severin in his ship Brendan have proved the possibility of the Hebrides, the Faeroes, Iceland and Newfoundland being reached by a craft built on traditional early medieval principles. His book The Brendan Voyage is a fascinating record of his journey.
Nevertheless, great caution is necessary in claiming that the Navigatio is an authentic biography. For one thing the work appears c. 200 years after the death of the historical Brendan (c. 486–575). He was a monk and abbot whose main area of activity was western Ireland: Mount Brandon in the Dingle peninsula is named after him. His most important monasteries were Clonfert, Annadown, Inishadroum and Ardfert. He is said to have visited Columba at Hinba (Argyll), to have founded a monastery at Llancarvan (Wales) and journeyed in Brittany with St Malo. These stories reveal a tradition that, like some other Irish abbots of his time, he was a great traveller. His cult can be traced back to the ninth century, but could well be older. However, both his Life and the Navigatio were most probably written in the eighth century.
The earliest surviving manuscript of the Navigatio dates from the ninth century. It is an abridged copy, so it is witness to at least one earlier manuscript, of uncertain date. It is written in a Carolingian minuscule hand: it belonged to, and was quite likely written at, the monastery of St Maximin at Trier. It is now in the British Library (Add. MS 36,736). It is clearly the product of an environment very different from that of Brendan himself: its handwriting contrasts sharply with the Irish or Northumbrian scripts of the Cathach of Columba, the Lindisfarne Gospels or the Book of Kells.
The Navigatio is usually, and probably correctly, described as the work of an expatriate Irish monk of the late eighth century. His name is unknown. He was familiar with Irish hagiography, geography and folklore: he wrote good Latin but with some insular characteristics. The six earliest surviving manuscripts all come from the Rhineland or the Low Countries. Monks of Irish origin had settled in this area, either through voluntary exile for Christ or because they had taken refuge there from Viking harassment. Their monasteries were built at such places as Metz. Trier, Liège, Cologne and Utrecht. There presumably they would have followed the Rules of Columbanus or another Irish abbot before the Rule of St Benedict replaced them.
The author of the Navigatio knew the Life of Brendan and wrote his attractive story to harmonize with it. As it stands, his work is a fascinating mixture of fact, fantasy and literary borrowing. Its basic theme, the quest for a paradise on earth, can be traced back through early Christian writings to Greek, Roman and Egyptian literature. Parallels can be drawn with the Book of Enoch or the Shepherd of Hermas. But the closest resemblances are to the literature of Visions, some of which originated in Ireland and probably made use of pre-Christian Irish elements. The story of an adventurous sea-voyage is common in early Irish literature.
The appearance of Judas Iscariot in the story as an example of the damned and of a Hibernicized Paul the First Hermit as an example of the saved show, with other passages, that this is no historical biography. The use of numbers seems to be symbolical, not historical. His companions number thirty-three, he goes round an island for three days, forty days are spent in preparatory fasting, supplies are also for forty days, for forty years the hermit Paul was brought up in ‘Patrick’s monastery’, and the island was so wide that forty days’ wandering did not bring the travellers to the further shore.
The general influence of Scripture and the monastic rule are clear in these and other passages. Wherever the monks go they sing the psalms: so also do the birds. The journeys are marvellously timed to coincide with the Christian festivals. But this dream world has some genuine details. Travelling monks may well have encountered whales, icebergs and volcanoes; Irish settlement in some northern islands has been confirmed by archaeologists, while Viking sagas of Iceland tell of the displacement of Irish monks who had settled there before them. Given the long time-gap between Brendan’s death and the appearance of the Navigatio, there is little chance of its recording accurately the speech and the journeys of the historical Brendan and his community, whose comradeship in prosperity and adversity is such an attractive feature of the story. Brendan and his followers are written about as representatives of the Irish monastic system who embarked with faith into the unknown. Whatever may be thought of identifying striking details of the story, there can be no doubt of the imaginative charm of this fairy-like tale or of the skilful ingenuity of its author.
Irish monasticism, glimpsed in the Navigatio, was a movement of great interest and significance. Its dependence on Eastern regimes as well as the unusual circumstances of Irish society combined to give it a character of its own. This was in many ways unlike that of most Benedictine monasteries in the West.
The principal apostle of Ireland, St Patrick, a Briton who set up his episcopal see at Armagh, was not a monk himself, but his writings show that he encouraged monasticism for men and women. But within a century of his death in c. 461 the monasteries emerged as the most important element in the life of the Christian Church in Ireland. Lack of evidence prevents our knowing exactly how this happened. There were no towns in Ireland, nor had it ever been part of the Roman Empire. This meant that the structure of civil government in dioceses, into which the organization of the Christian Church fitted so admirably elsewhere, was lacking. Owing to the absence of towns an Irish urban episcopate could not flourish. Irish society was tribal in structure: the extended family was the significant unit. When the family became Christian, it was natural for it to remain together as a group. From this developed the early Irish monasteries.
Monasteries were numerous and often large numbers of inmates were claimed for them. Within them several different forms of life were represented. Often there were a few hermits, esteemed and influential. There were also cenobites, or community monks, who lived under the verbal rule of the local abbot or one of the written rules such as that of Columbanus. But, it would seem, there were also even larger numbers of married layfolk attached to the monastery, still part of the family unit, who pursued normal lay occupations such as agriculture and cattle-rearing. Such people were, however, called ‘monks’. Presumably this section of the monastery was the one which became involved in cattle-rustling and even in ‘wars’ mentioned in Irish chronicles. Their existence makes less incredible the claim that Irish monasteries sometimes numbered some thousands of inmates. The head of the whole establishment was the abbot: he was of the same family as the founder and even sometimes a layman. Monasteries would often remain in the hands of the same family from one generation to another.
The importance of the abbot in Ireland led in practice to the diminution of the power of the bishop. The bishop remained superior to the abbot in his Orders, which he could receive only from another bishop. But sometimes he seems to have been subordinate to, and dependent on, the abbot. Bede, who heard of this system at Iona, rightly regarded it as novel and unheard of. It was certainly quite different from the tradition, doctrine and practice of the rest of the Christian Church, both in East and West. Long before this time the Christian Church had been organized in territorial sees, situated in towns, whose dioceses were often coterminous with the units of civil administration. From these urban centres Christianity eventually spread into the countryside: it is often forgotten that the word pagani (pagans) originally meant country-dwellers.
The mission of Augustine to England in 597 (the very year of Columba’s death on Iona) brought Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons who had settled extensively in the south and east of Britain. By the conversion of Ethelbert, king of Kent, then the most important of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and the establishment of dioceses at Canterbury, Rochester and later London, a small but firm bridgehead was built. In spite of reverses after Augustine’s early death in 604, Christianity spread throughout the whole country through the labours of Irish and Frankish as well as Italian missionaries. Within less than a century a fully articulated, normal diocesan system under one metropolitan (later two) was set up over the whole of Anglo-Saxon England. In this ultimate fulfilment of the grand strategy, if not of all the details of Gregory the Great (the pope who had sent Augustine), Theodore of Tarsus was the most important single influence. This Greek monk, unexpectedly promoted to the see of Canterbury by the Pope after a plague had wiped out most of the English episcopate, ruled from 665 until his death in 690 at the age of nearly ninety.
The contact between ‘Irish’ and ‘Roman’ Christianity in England, sometimes in conflict but eventually in fusion, is illustrated in the other Lives printed in this volume. The dramatic confrontation at the Synod of Whitby, with Wilfrid as the principal spokesman for the Roman side and Colman for the ‘Irish’, soon led to the consolidation of local centres of diverse origin into a united, organized, nationwide church under territorial bishops. These were more numerous than before, and were in closer contact with each other and with the papacy, whose influence was considerable in England in the seventh century. English monastic missionaries such as Willibrord and particularly Boniface would be its principal supporters in Western Europe in the eighth century. This creative synthesis, of cultural as well as religious importance, was achieved in England partly through the achievements of Wilfrid, Cuthbert and the abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow.
Although Cuthbert was educated in an Irish monastery, he should be regarded as a transitional, moderate figure rather than a reactionary. After the Synod of Whitby, at which he took no known part, he became prior of Lindisfarne in his early thirties. Here, according to Bede (ch. 16), some of the brethren preferred their old way of life to that of his rule, but he won them over by patient persistence.
It was not surprising that there was trouble at Lindisfarne. Founded by Aidan, the deeply respected apostle of Northumbria who had come from Iona at the invitation of King Oswald in 633, it became the most important Christian centre in Northumbria (and arguably in England) during the next thirty years. But after Whitby its bishop, Colman, left England in 664 for Iona and eventually Inisboffin in western Ireland with thirty of his monks, rather than accept the ‘Roman’ Easter calculation. The Iona reckoning had been abandoned some years before by southern Ireland: only the north and Iona stood out. At the Synod of Whitby Northumbria opted for universalism, Europeanism and the papacy against insularity and parochialism. This did not mean that all Irish influence ceased forthwith, nor that men like Cuthbert rejected at a stroke all their previous sympathies. Much was admirable about the Irish tradition: austerity, learning, calligraphy, pioneer missionary endeavour. But on the crucial issues of the date of Easter and the place of the bishop in the Church the future lay with Wilfrid and Theodore.
Bede’s Life of Cuthbert was written by a devoted adherent of the Roman outlook and a scholarly partisan of the Roman Easter, but Bede was also a sympathetic admirer of Irish saints like Aidan. Cuthbert exemplified both elements in Bede’s outlook. His Irish training did not prevent his accepting the decision of Whitby, which he implemented at Lindisfarne: at the end of his life he warned his disciples against the danger of schism, telling them to have ‘no dealings with those who had wandered from the unity of the Church either through not celebrating Easter at the usual time or through evil living’ (ch. 39). This was in 687, more than twenty years after Whitby: the reference to Irish diehards is clear.
The earliest Life of Cuthbert had been written by an anonymous monk of Lindisfarne about 700, or soon after the discovery of Cuthbert’s body being incorrupt had given fresh impetus to an existing cult. Using this source, Bede wrote a verse Life of Cuthbert in 716. About 721 he wrote the Prose Life, translated below. He also wrote of Cuthbert in his History of the English Church and People (iv, 27–32).
The Prose Life is really a rewriting of the earlier Anonymous Life, but with ten chapters of new material (3, 6, 8–9, 19, 23, 31, 35, 43 and 46) which add considerably to our knowledge of the saint. Those derived from Herefrith, written in a style different from Bede’s, are specially authentic and important. Throughout the work Bede developed certain elements, interpreted events, sometimes giving a different emphasis: he also provided sources and made comparisons. Above all he improved the style. Detailed comparisons have been made more than once between the two Lives and some recent writers prefer the simplicity of the earlier anonymous work. But medieval preference for Bede is clearly reflected in the number of surviving manuscripts of each: seven of the anonymous Life and thirty-eight of Bede’s. Moreover Bede’s text was chosen for the two outstanding illustrated manuscript Lives of Cuthbert produced at Durham in the twelfth century. These are now Oxford, University College MS 165 and British Library, Yates Thompson MS 26.
In the opinion of this writer, the medieval preference for Bede was justified. If the anonymous Life had been fully adequate, there would have been no need for the Lindisfarne monks to commission Bede to write another. This invitation revealed not only their confidence in his ability and skill, but also a real need for some additional account of Cuthbert for posterity. Fifty years and more after the Synod of Whitby, Lindisfarne, the ancient core of Irish influence, and Wearmouth–Jarrow, the newer centre of Roman influence, were on very friendly terms. The affectionate tone of Bede’s preface entirely confirms this impression. So does his request to be inscribed on the Lindisfarne list of monks and benefactors so that he could share in the spiritual benefits of their Masses and prayers.
Bede’s admiration for Cuthbert was evident, unsurprising and shared with the monks of Lindisfarne. Bede and Cuthbert were both monks; both knew and valued the Rule of St Benedict; both were men of unity and regretted Colman’s departure. Even though Bede found fulfilment in his community and his studies while Cuthbert (like Francis later) found it in solitude and the world of nature, the agreements between them were far more significant than the differences. Both were thoroughly orthodox Christians and disciples of the great monastic tradition of which St Benedict was an important, but by no means the earliest figure. Their two communities shared interest in the texts of the Bible which both assiduously copied. The Lindisfarne Gospels (written before 698 ‘In honour of St Cuthbert’) owed its text and several other features to Bede’s monastery of Wearmouth–Jarrow.
Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, being an example of hagiography, exemplifies the nature and purpose of this particular literary form. This was to stress that the saint was a man of God and shared in divine qualities and even in the power of miracles. For Bede, as for Gregory the Great before him, these were to be expected in the early days of Christianity in England just as they had been prominent in the early Church, as testified in the Acts of the Apostles. In his commentary on Mark, Bede stressed that the Church ‘was nourished with miracles in order that she might grow firm in the faith. When we plant bushes, we water them until they stand firm, but once they have taken root, the watering ceases’ (Lib. iv cap. xvi; P.L. 92, 299–300).
Several of the miracle-stories he relates are modelled at least in their literary expression on scriptural examples; others on incidents in Gregory’s Dialogues and other similar works. It is often difficult or impossible to determine the original event behind particular miracle stories. But frequently they yield an unexpected harvest of historical detail which is otherwise unknown. Thus (ch. 3) a story of how the wind changed direction at Cuthbert’s prayer and so prevented some monks at Tynemouth from being carried out to sea in rafts also reveals that the peasants jeered at the monks for abolishing the pagan ways of worship. Such evidence is very seldom recorded. Again, a prophecy by Boisil about Cuthbert (ch. 6) tells us that he owned both a horse and a spear when he entered the monastery: this reveals his comparatively high social status. These are examples of interesting details which can be gleaned from these miracle-stories.
But Bede’s contemporaries expected some elements which modern readers do not. People of an unscientific age, sometimes uncertain about secondary causality, would have been most surprised if religion did not offer marvellous events of one kind or another as confirmation of divine power. Such was expected by the sophisticated as well as by the ignorant in the late Roman Empire and the age of the barbarian invasions. If Christianity were to prove superior to paganism, its power in such matters, as well as its teaching, would have to surpass those of the pagan gods. Bede’s History of the English Church and People contains many marvellous events of this kind; so did the anonymous Life of Cuthbert which was the principal source for his own Life and which contributes considerably to its slightly unreal atmosphere.
The Life is specially valuable for the light it throws on Cuthbert’s monasteries: Melrose, Ripon, Lindisfarne and the Inner Farne. As a young monk at Melrose, he ‘watched, prayed, worked and studied harder than anyone else… being robust and strong, he was fit for whatever work he cared to undertake’ (ch. 6). This energetic zeal, a lifelong characteristic, was complemented by pleasant affability. The latter found full expression when Cuthbert was appointed guestmaster in his twenties at Ripon, a short-lived foundation of Melrose (ch. 7). A special interest of his, as of his master Boisil, was the Gospel of John. This they studied intensively during Boisil’s last week on earth. They were able to complete it rapidly because they concentrated on the ‘simple things of faith which works by love’ rather than on the deepest questions of theological dispute (ch. 8). Nor was Cuthbert’s contribution to the apostolate of Northumbria negligible. While he was prior of Melrose, he not only counselled monks about the religious life but also preached in villages and remote hill farmsteads, for a week, a fortnight or a month at a time. These journeys, often the occasion for unusual or miraculous events, were specially necessary in times of plague, which could be the occasion for apostasy or the revival of magic.
When he was prior of Lindisfarne, he still showed the same qualities (ch. 16). The departure of Colman and thirty monks with the consequent absence of a bishop must have caused some crisis. Bede hints at unspecified irregularities: ‘Some of the brethren preferred their old way of life to that of the rule’ as propounded by the teaching and example of Cuthbert, who ruled in the absence of Eata, abbot of Lindisfarne from 664 and later bishop, first at Hexham, then at Lindisfarne and lastly again at Hexham (d. 686). Until 678 there was no bishop at Lindisfarne: York, under Chad and Wilfrid, had again become the principal ecclesiastical centre of Northumbria. This reflected a return to the example of Paulinus rather than that of Aidan. Yet another change of direction was marked by the division of the Northumbrian see in 678, with sees at Hexham and Lindisfarne as well as York. But this is to anticipate.
After many years in the monastery (as Benedict allowed) Cuthbert became a hermit with the approval of the abbot and monks of Lindisfarne. This was in 676. Bede, like most monastic writers of antiquity but unlike many Christians of today, regarded such a change as a promotion, from ‘a long and spotless active life… to the stillness of divine contemplation’ (ch. 17). In the same place Bede recorded precious details about the primitive buildings on the Inner Farne, where Cuthbert lived and prayed.
His solitude, however, was not to be permanent. In 685 he visited Aelfflaed, King Egfrith’s sister, abbess of Coquet Island, to whom he hinted that he might become a bishop. Soon after, Egfrith with Trumwine, bishop of Abercorn (near Edinburgh), came to the Inner Farne to persuade him to accept a bishopric for which he had been chosen at a recent synod. He agreed on a change of sees with his old master Eata, by which Cuthbert became bishop of Lindisfarne instead of Hexham. These appointments were part of the further division of Wilfrid’s vast see of Northumbria, arranged by Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, and King Egfrith. The latter was killed in battle the following year (ch. 27).
As bishop, Cuthbert retained his austere monastic regime (ch. 26). He was also conspicuous for feeding the hungry, caring for the poor and consoling the afflicted. He resumed the preaching journeys which he had initiated at Melrose (chs 9, 28, 30). Doubtless on these expeditions he used both the portable altar of wood and the fine jewelled pectoral cross which survive to this day at Durham cathedral with his wooden coffin and other treasures associated with him.
His episcopate lasted barely two years. Early in 687 he retired once more to his hermitage on the Inner Farne. Herefrith, monk and priest of Lindisfarne, was Bede’s principal source for the account of Cuthbert’s death (chs 37–40). Cuthbert knew he was going to die, gave details concerning his burial and exhorted the Lindisfarne community to persevere in unity and charity, to shun schism at all costs and to carry out his monastic teaching and that of the Fathers.
From his hermitage the monks, who were with him at the end, signified the news of his death by lighting torches. These were seen by the monk keeping watch in the tower at Lindisfarne. Cuthbert was only fifty-three years old when he died. A man of prayer and peace who lived close to nature and had the reputation of being a miracle worker, he had been monk and hermit for most of his life. Yet he became, and still is, northern England’s most popular saint.
The first step in this somewhat surprising development took place eleven years after his death. His reputation for sanctity in life, confirmed by miracles after death, was such that Edbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, decided with his community on the ‘elevation’ of Cuthbert’s body. This was the ancient equivalent of canonization: only those honoured by a burial above ground in the church were considered worthy of liturgical cult. Bede recounts the details (ch. 42). When they opened the coffin, they found to their surprise that Cuthbert’s body was intact and incorrupt, with the joints still flexible. It had the appearance of a man asleep rather than dead. The bishop, then living in solitude in an island off Lindisfarne, rejoiced in wonder and compared this happening in lyrical terms with some of the biblical miracles.
Edbert died soon afterwards and was succeeded by Edfrith, now identified as the scribe of the Lindisfarne Gospels. This masterpiece of insular script and illumination, written ‘in honour of St Cuthbert’, was an integral element of the cult and was for centuries kept with Cuthbert’s shrine. It is now in the British Library.
The cult of Cuthbert, while grounded on the impact of his holiness in life, grew through extrinsic causes also. One of these was the incorruption of his body; the other the extraordinary story of his relics. Until 875, the year of the second Viking raid on Lindisfarne, the coffin had remained there in the church. But then it was taken to a place of refuge elsewhere in Northumbria. This proved difficult to find, so the shrine, accompanied by clerics from Lindisfarne and containing other treasures as well as Cuthbert’s body, rested in turn at Norham, Ripon, Chester-le-Street and other places until it found its permanent home at Durham in 995. The relics were enshrined in a church there in 999.
Later still, after the Norman Conquest and the establishment of Durham as a permanent see with a monastic chapter, the relics were translated into the present cathedral in 1104. There they still rest; Cuthbert’s bones under the floor of the chancel where his shrine stood in the Middle Ages; the secondary relics, of unique archaeological interest, are in a secure museum within the cathedral precinct. Durham became the most important pilgrimage centre of the North, while Cuthbert’s cult and influence remained strong there and elsewhere until the Reformation. His memory is far from dead today.
*
In temperament, in the external circumstances of his life and in his historical reputation, Wilfrid contrasts sharply with Cuthbert. Both were Northumbrian monks of noble birth: their differing ideals and practice were complementary rather than contradictory; both were necessary to the Church of the seventh century.
Wilfrid was born within a year or two of Cuthbert but lived nearly a quarter of a century longer. His first education was at Lindisfarne, where he must have met Aidan. But he tired of its insularity and desired to see the Christian Church in other countries. Enfleda, queen of Northumbria, encouraged him and enabled him to travel to Canterbury and Rome, where he studied Scripture and Canon Law. On his way back he stayed for three years at the important political and commercial centre of Lyons, where he experienced the patronage and lifestyle of the bishop, an aristocrat who mixed with dukes and counts as their social equals, inheriting the traditions of public service and patronage from the late Roman Empire. Sometimes such men combined public munificence with private austerity. Wilfrid also saw at close quarters, as a guest of the bishop, the day-to-day working of the local Church.
It is not known where or when he became a monk, but it was probably during this period of his life. On his return to England, he obtained patronage from Alcfrith, sub-king of Deira (roughly the equivalent of Yorkshire), who gave him the abbey of Ripon, from which a community from Melrose had withdrawn rather than accept the Roman Easter. At Ripon Wilfrid introduced the Rule of St Benedict, a momentous move with important consequences.
Soon afterwards, at the important Synod of Whitby, Wilfrid was chosen as principal spokesman for the ‘Roman’ side, his learning and eloquence in the vernacular outweighing his comparative inexperience. This was his big chance and he took it eagerly. Bede’s famous account in his History (iii, 25) is fuller than that of Eddius (ch. 10). The conflict had arisen in Northumbria because churches of Roman and Irish origin followed divergent customs in the same area. This diversity was manifest in the court: King Oswiu had learnt his Christianity from the monks of Iona while his queen had been brought up in Kent with its strongly Roman tradition. Disagreement centred on the rival calculations for the date of Easter. This often differed by a week or more. It is not sufficiently appreciated moreover that different dates for Easter led inevitably to different dates for Lent, Ascension Day and Pentecost, because Easter is the pivot of the liturgical year.
By now southern Ireland had conformed and some of the most intransigent Romanists, such as Ronan, were of the Irish race. Thirty years earlier the Irish abbot Cummian had complained that Iona seemed to think that Rome was wrong, Alexandria was wrong, Gaul was wrong and only Iona and a tip of Ireland were right. Wilfrid likewise stood for universalism against insularity: ‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘that a handful of people in one corner of the remotest of islands is to be preferred to the universal Church of Christ which is spread throughout the world?’
King Oswiu, who had summoned the council, having heard both sides, opted firmly and unexpectedly for the Roman side ‘with a smile’. Their calculation was believed by some to be the practice of St Peter and was certainly that of many of his successors in the Roman see, of the council of Nicaea and of nearly all the churches in Europe. The argument in favour of conforming with the rest of the Christian Church (including most of Ireland) was overwhelming. But it was a bitter blow to the diehard bishop of Lindisfarne, Colman, who retired to Ireland rather than accept this decision. Wilfrid’s reputation, on the other hand, stood high. Not surprisingly, helped again by his patron Alcfrith, he was chosen to be Bishop of York (chs 11–12).
While Wilfrid was being consecrated in Gaul, Oswiu had appointed the Irish-trained Chad as bishop of Northumbria. The existence of two rival candidates presumably reflects a political struggle between King Oswiu and his son Alcfrith. When Wilfrid returned, he found Chad established at York; with his patron dead or in exile, he could only retire to his monastery at Ripon. But the new archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, on visitation in the north, put an end to this irregular situation. Chad’s consecration was uncanonical because it was performed by schismatical British bishops. Theodore had him reconsecrated and transferred to Lichfield, the new Mercian see, while Wilfrid was enthroned as bishop of York, with the charge of all Northumbria. It is agreeable to note that everyone, including Eddius, spoke well of Chad (chs 14–15).
Wilfrid now began the most prosperous period of his life. The new king Egfrith and his queen Etheldreda, from East Anglia, considerably older than himself, both favoured Wilfrid and made him extensive grants of land. His diocese was coterminous with the kingdom and so extended at its maximum to most of the land between the Forth and the Wash. Wilfrid restored the ruined church of York, started by Paulinus, its first bishop, and built afresh fine churches at Ripon and Hexham. These significant buildings were suitably and lavishly adorned (chs 16, 17, 22): they were also endowed equally generously. Lands were given which had been left by Britons when they fled westwards, while Hexham was provided with extensive properties close at hand through the queen, and the king gave more distant properties in the Pennines. Some abbots and abbesses, rightly anxious about the permanence of their monasteries, made over their estates to Wilfrid in return for his protection (ch. 21). Now and later Wilfrid held extensive lands which were comparable with those held by Merovingian bishops; but in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria no previous bishop had been so powerful, and his considerable wealth was one factor in his fall from royal favour.
The immediate causes of his fall were manifold. Already in 673 at the important council of Hertford, Theodore had embarked on the policy of dividing dioceses within the existing kingdoms. Now in 678 he turned his attention to Northumbria. This area was obviously far too large for one bishop to care for it adequately as a pastor. It was unfortunate that Theodore used Wilfrid’s difficulties to divide his diocese over his head. Wilfrid’s lifestyle, extensive wealth and numerous retainers were criticized and envied. Moreover Etheldreda’s marital problems had been a contributory factor. Here, unexpectedly, Bede is more revealing than Eddius. Twice married, but retaining her virginity, Etheldreda refused to consummate her marriage with Egfrith, who was far younger than herself. With Wilfrid’s help and advice, pursuing her desire or her vow to become a nun, she had left Egfrith and joined the monastery of Coldingham before founding her own nunnery at Ely. Egfrith had married again: the new queen, Ermenburga, was bitterly hostile to Wilfrid. Egfrith wished to be rid of Wilfrid and Theodore wished to divide his diocese, with or without Wilfrid’s consent. Wilfrid, having lost the king’s favour, appealed to the Pope against his virtual deposition without any canonical cause. In so doing, Wilfrid made history, for it was the first time that such an appeal had been made from England. He set out for Rome to plead his case in person.
Adversity in Wilfrid’s life was usually the occasion for fresh achievements. On his way to Rome, he took the first step towards the conversion of the Frisians, a work accomplished later by his disciple Willibrord and by Boniface (ch. 26). The element of high adventure too was continued: Aldgisl, king of the Frisians, refused to surrender Wilfrid to his enemies. Shortly afterwards Dagobert II offered him the see of Strasbourg in recognition of Wilfrid’s earlier help when he was in exile. Wilfrid had sent him some fighting men to help him regain his kingdom. Chapters 26–28 enable us to glimpse the violent world of seventh-century politics: exile or assassination was the common fate of claimants to the thrones of Frankish or Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
Eddius’s account of Wilfrid’s appeal to Rome (chs 29–33) with its lengthy citation of documents (surprisingly not used by Bede) is among the most valuable elements of his work. The papal decision was in Wilfrid’s favour. It upheld him in his appeal against virtual deposition and restored him to his see. But at the same time the principle of dividing the diocese was recognized. Wilfrid was enjoined to choose new coadjutors and expel the intruded bishops. Rome’s decision was based on limited knowledge and legal precedent in similar cases; it lacked any procedures which could enforce its acceptance. This depended ultimately on the recognition of its jurisdiction and moral authority.
First this was refused in Northumbria, but eventually after Wilfrid’s second appeal it was accepted. The consequences of Egfrith’s refusal to restore Wilfrid were vital for him, as it led to his becoming the apostle of Sussex, the last pagan stronghold of Anglo-Saxon England; he reached Sussex after being rejected in both Mercia and Wessex, through the machinations (if we are to believe Eddius) of their queens, who were related to the Northumbrian royal family. His Sussex apostolate lasted from 681 to 686 and appears to have been very successful. Bede’s account in his History (iv, 13) should be read to complement Eddius.
Meanwhile Theodore wished for a reconciliation and used his good offices with the new king of Northumbria, Aldfrith, to achieve Wilfrid’s restoration. This took place in 687 and involved the ‘new’ reduced see of York with the monasteries of Ripon and Hexham. All these were returned to Wilfrid, but peace lasted for only five years (chs 43–5). Ripon, it seems, was the principal bone of contention, for the king had sequestered some of its lands and given Wilfrid’s monastery there to Aethelwine, the bishop of Lindsey who had returned to Northumbria when Mercia reconquered his see in 692. This, at least, seems the most likely explanation of a somewhat obscure incident. Whatever the reason, Wilfrid again went into exile, this time to Mercia, where he acted as bishop, at Leicester rather than at Lichfield. Not much is known of him in these ten years (692–702), but it is likely that he then founded six monasteries which probably comprised Peterborough, Oundle, Brixworth and possibly Evesham, Wing and Withington.
In 703 a council was held at Austerfield, near Bawtry, at which Bertwald, archbishop of Canterbury and most of the English bishops were present (ch.46). Bede omits all mention of this important gathering and it is not known what other decisions were made. Once again some of the council attempted to remove Wilfrid by interning him in his monastery at Ripon, obtaining his resignation from the episcopate and removing from his ownership and control all his other monasteries. They tried to obtain his consent by urging him in advance to agree to whatever the council decided. This ruthless plan, prepared by king and archbishop, was rejected by some: its proposal was the occasion for Wilfrid’s vindication of his life-work. He recalled with passion all he had done for Northumbria: he had brought them to the observance of the ‘true Easter’, he had introduced the Rule of St Benedict, the Petrine tonsure and the Roman system of singing. What his enemies proposed involved the rejection of papal privileges for his monasteries, so to Rome once again he appealed.
Now seventy years old, he set out once more to put his case to the Holy See (chs 50–54). Eddius gives the text of his petition, which requested papal directives to the kings of Northumbria and Mercia with the renewal of the papal privileges to his monasteries. Wilfrid was acquitted of alSee (chs50–54)l charges against him, while the privileges given by previous popes in his favour were confirmed. Furthermore, a papal letter was written to the kings of Northumbria and Mercia which resumed the case up to now and enjoined Archbishop Bertwald to hold a synod with Wilfrid, Bosa and John and there finally settle the matter. If no agreement were reached, then the parties would have recourse again to the Holy See. In fact Bertwald and the king of Mercia accepted the papal decision, but Aldfrith, king of Northumbria, unwilling to upset the established order in his kingdom, refused. Eventually he changed his mind (chs 58–9).
The final settlement was reached at the synod of the River Nidd in 705. This compromise was worked out with the help of Abbess Aelffled; Osred, the new boy-king of Northumbria, and his counsellors made a peace pact with Wilfrid, which they kept until the end of his life. Wilfrid was restored to the exercise of full episcopal functions in Northumbria, but the extent of his jurisdiction was limited to the diocese of Hexham. This monastery and Ripon were fully restored to him with all their revenues (chs 60–61). For Wilfrid it was peace at last, vindication of all he had stood for, but only partial restoration to the area of his earlier jurisdiction. The other Northumbrian bishops were left undisturbed, or, in the case of John of Beverley, promoted. The final solution was an honourable compromise all round.
Just before his death in 709 Wilfrid provided for the future of his monasteries and distributed his worldly goods. Acca succeeded him at Hexham, Tatbert at Ripon, and the Mercian monasteries would be ruled by his nominees, declared as such by these and a few close followers. Wilfrid also divided his treasure into four. one part for the churches of Rome, one part for the poor, one for his followers who had shared his exile and one for the abbots of Hexham and Ripon, ‘so that they may be able to purchase the friendship of kings and bishops’. These divisions fittingly represented four of the main interests of his life. The last of them has been most frequently commented upon: its purpose was to safeguard the permanence of monastic life in his foundations and to deliver them from the current risks of lay control and lay ownership.
Bede’s Lives of the Abbots is a unique and important document. It gives basic biographical information about Benedict Biscop, founder of Wearmouth and Jarrow, and the equally important Ceolfrith, his successor, who shared his ideals and his policies. It also contains short but unforgettable sketches of Eosterwine and Sigfrid, who both became abbots and both died young. Precious details about the monks’ daily occupations, about their numbers and about their land are also provided. Nor are their buildings, libraries and works of art neglected. All in all, such a full and articulate, if summary account, does not occur again in England for several centuries: this work, in fact, became the source and model for monastic chroniclers who accomplished a similar task for monasteries in their own times.
When the greatest historian of the early Middle Ages tells the story of his own monastic home from his own experience, the authority of such a document is very high; so also is its interest. This is both factual and human, reflecting the author’s accuracy and his articulate perceptiveness. Its date is not known for certain, but it could not have been written before 716, when Ceolfrith died. It seems likely that it was written before the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith. This latter work was written by a monk of Wearmouth or Jarrow. While most of the information given in it is entirely in accordance with Bede’s Lives of the Abbots, it is centred on Ceolfrith, about whom it tells us more concerning his family, his early life, and the first stages of his cult after death. It is difficult to see why Bede should have omitted this last element if he had been writing after this anonymous Life, especially as he mentions the cults of both Eosterwine and Sigfrith.
Bede’s account is more complete and balanced. His aim was not primarily to narrate the life of his own dearly loved father abbot, whose unexpected departure caused Bede to interrupt his Commentary on Mark for several months, and whose influence on him from childhood had been deep and lasting. It was to narrate in a balanced way the origins and development of England’s largest and most notable monastery of the late seventh century in a succinct and accurate way. As such it is of permanent historical importance.
The founder of Wearmouth and Jarrow, Benedict Biscop, deserves to be better known than he is. This Northumbrian nobleman (Baducing was his family name) was not only a monastic founder but also an important pioneer in the history of art and education. Vital to all three achievements was his conviction, shared with his contemporary and friend Wilfrid, that it was desirable for England to be enriched, ecclesiastically and culturally, by western Europe and especially Rome.
Biscop was born in 628 and served Oswiu, king of Northumbria, until 653. His career included military service, for which the traditional and expected reward was the granting of land. In 653 he renounced both his career and the prospect of acquiring land in this way, in order to become a monk. First he went to Rome with Wilfrid to visit the tombs of the apostles. Having returned to Northumbria, he went back to Rome (664–5), this time in the company of Oswiu’s son Alcfrith, who later became Wilfrid’s patron. From Rome he went in 665 to Saint-Honorat, Lérins, a small island off the south coast of France, where he became a monk and took the name of Benedict. This change of name was highly significant as an early indication of his interest in the great monastic patriarch, many of the enactments of whose Rule were to be followed later in Biscop’s monasteries.
Biscop spent two years at Lérins, but we next hear of him again, in Rome, in 667. This visit coincided with that of an important group from England. This included the archbishop-elect of Canterbury, Wighard, sent to Rome for consecration after being chosen by Oswiu, king of Northumbria and overlord of other Anglo-Saxon kings, and Egbert, king of Kent. They had agreed on this candidate, himself a member of the household of the archbishop of Canterbury, after the Synod of Whitby. The future archbishop would have the task of unifying the Church after this crisis, as well as that of consecrating new bishops for a hierarchy decimated by plague (ch. 3, History iii, 19). Unfortunately, Wighard died in Rome before consecration.
Biscop returned to England in the company of Theodore, the newly appointed Greek archbishop of Canterbury, in 669: he became abbot of the monastery of SS Peter and Paul, at Canterbury, founded by St Augustine. After only two years’ rule he looked round for an opportunity to found his own abbey. He was replaced as abbot of Canterbury by Hadrian, Theodore’s African adviser, who had been the Pope’s first choice as archbishop. Biscop planned to found a monastery in Wessex, but his patron Cenwalh, its king, died early (ch. 4). He returned instead to his native Northumbria whose new king Egfrith gave him seventy hides of land for his foundation of Wearmouth. Progress there was rapid. With the help of Frankish stonemasons and glaziers whom he imported, the principal buildings were completed in less than two years (ch. 5). The exact size of his community at this time is not known, but his rule was based on the Rule of St Benedict and the customs of other monasteries he had visited. Books also were provided by him from the start.
Once all was in order he visited Rome, yet again, in 679. He returned with diverse treasures, which Bede enumerates in one of the most interesting passages of this work (ch. 6). The books, the pictures (painted on panels), the relics, calendars were all primarily for the monastery, as were the important privileges which attached it closely to the Holy See. Eventually the influence of all these radiated beyond Wearmouth; of more immediate importance for the Anglo-Saxon church as a whole was the presence of Abbot John, the arch-cantor of St Peter’s, Rome, who accompanied Biscop on his return. The purpose of his visit was both to assure the doctrinal orthodoxy of the Anglo-Saxons and to teach them the liturgy and the chants as practised at Rome. Not surprisingly, Bede thought this so important that he devoted a chapter in his History to it (iv, 16). The religious, artistic and cultural consequences of his presence were incalculable: isolation and insularity were reduced, contacts with the religious and cultural centre of Western Europe increased. And for Wearmouth itself it very probably resulted in the organization of the scriptorium in such a way that books could be produced in uncial script, which was written only in centres where Roman influence was strong.
In 682 Jarrow was founded. King Egfrith again provided land, this time an estate of forty hides (enough for forty families, say 160 persons). This estate was far smaller than that of Wearmouth and the founding community consisted of twenty-two monks, including boys, one of which was most probably Bede himself. The anonymous biographer of Ceolfrith relates the famous story of how, in a time of plague, only the abbot Ceolfrith and a small boy, probably Bede himself, knew the chant well enough to sing it ‘with antiphons’. After a few days of monotone recitation, the abbot could no longer endure it, so he and the boy alone sang the antiphons as before. This story illustrates how the foundation of Jarrow met with severe setbacks in early days. In spite of these, however, it prospered and increased in numbers.
This was in large part due to the personal qualities and firm but kindly rule of Ceolfrith himself. Like Biscop, he was of noble Northumbrian birth. He had become a monk at Gilling, but soon moved to Ripon, founded by Wilfrid, where he was ordained priest at the early age of twenty-seven. Visits to Canterbury and to Icanho (probably Iken, Suffolk) under its founder Botulf had increased his monastic experience and his learning, but he also excelled in practical matters, which explains his appointment as baker (or caterer?) on his return to Ripon. Biscop invited Ceolfrith to join him at Wearmouth, where in 676 he acted as prior during Biscop’s absence in Rome. He met with opposition from certain monks of noble birth at Wearmouth, who caused his temporary return to Ripon. But Biscop persuaded him to come back to Wearmouth and in 682 appointed him abbot of Jarrow.
Bede tells us that it was always Biscop’s intention that these two communities should remain as one. Biscop was still abbot-founder of both houses, but appointed Eosterwine as abbot of Wearmouth (ch. 7). It seems likely that his position, and that of Ceolfrith at Jarrow while Biscop was alive, resembled that of more recent coadjutor-abbots, appointed to help the abbot founder, who was aged or ill or frequently absent, to sustain the burden. It was also doubtless connected with the presumption of Germanic law that monasteries belonged to their founders. Both Wilfrid and Biscop developed monastic life within this particular legal framework, but Biscop soon modified it in one very important respect. This modification, as we shall see later, took place on his deathbed.
Meanwhile the young abbot Eosterwine assumed effective control of Wearmouth. Bede’s portrait of him (ch. 8) is exceptionally attractive. A cousin of Benedict Biscop, Eosterwine used neither his birth nor his office to place him at any distance from the brethren. On the contrary, he identified so completely with them that he shared in their ordinary work of milking, winnowing and threshing, ploughing, gardening, baking, cooking and metal-work. He followed the common regime in everything, eating and sleeping and working with the other monks. Strong but gentle, of distinguished appearance, conspicuous for his cheerful generosity, he won the hearts of his subjects. Unfortunately he died at the early age of thirty-six, after only four years in office.
He had died during the absence of Benedict Biscop, who was on his fifth journey to Rome. As usual, Biscop returned with many treasures, including some panel paintings of Christ, Mary and typological scenes from the Old and New Testament. He also brought two silk cloaks, later exchanged for three hides of land near Wearmouth (ch. 9). The community had elected Sigfrith, a deacon, as abbot; the equal of Eosterwine his predecessor, he too was destined to die young, from a disease of the lungs, presumably tuberculosis (ch. 10).
The subsequent chapters (11–14) which describe the deaths of both Benedict and Sigfrith in 689, are full of interest in several ways. The personal details such as the paralysis of Benedict, the bringing of Sigfrith, equally ill, to his bedside and other elements must surely be due to an eyewitness, possibly Bede himself, then at the impressionable age of sixteen. Even more important are Biscop’s deathbed recommendations to his community. He exhorted them to observe the rule and customs which he had carefully arranged from the seventeen monasteries he had visited, to keep his library intact, and to choose his successor according to the Rule of St Benedict. The last of these enactments was the most important, especially as it was accompanied by a strongly expressed warning to his community on no account to choose Biscop’s own brother. ‘I would far rather have the monastery revert for ever to a wilderness,’ he said, ‘than have my brother, who has not entered on the way of truth, succeed me as abbot.’
Against the contemporary assumption of family ownership of monasteries (even more explicitly denounced by Bede at the end of his life in his Letter to Egbert) Benedict’s action has been seen as virtually disinheriting his brother. It is noteworthy that the presuppositions and procedures of the Rule of St Benedict were in this instance preferred to those of Anglo-Saxon law. This is an example of his preference of spiritual fatherhood and monastic inheritance to their natural and earthly equivalents.
Another point also needs to be made. The power and influence of the abbot in St Benedict’s Rule was so strong and fundamental that the whole tone and scale of values set in the monastery depended on the character of the abbot more than almost any other factor. In insisting on election of a new abbot who possessed the qualities recommended by St Benedict, Biscop was simultaneously providing in the best possible way for the future quality of his monasteries. He was also arranging for them to be governed according to the Rule of St Benedict.
The precise influence of this in the early years of Wearmouth and Jarrow is not easy to determine. Certainly there is no incompatibility with Benedict’s Rule. Some elements such as the singing of the office ‘with antiphons’ are best understood in the framework of the Rule. Moreover Bede cites the Rule several times and significantly compares Biscop’s early life to that of St Benedict described by Gregory. The connection of both Biscop and Ceolfrith with Wilfrid makes Benedictine influence likely. At the present time some scholars (and the Bede museum at Jarrow) emphasize the influence of Benedict’s Rule there. But some mixture of other customs was certainly present. This was so in virtually all monasteries of the time. Perhaps Biscop’s customs emanating from seventeen monasteries should be compared to some of those from Cluny, Canterbury and elsewhere, which in later ages safeguarded the Rule by legislating for details not explicitly mentioned in it.
Another important influence at Wearmouth and Jarrow, not mentioned here by Bede, is that of Cassiodorus. This influence is certain: Bede himself read and handled the great Codex Grandior which came from Cassiodorus’s monastery at Vivarium. Cassiodorus was a retired civil servant who founded two monasteries in Italy during the sixth century. They had as part of their explicit aim the preservation of the learning of the past, the detailed study of the text of the Bible and the production of manuscripts. It is likely that other books of his found their way to Wearmouth and Jarrow among the acquisitions of Biscop and Ceolfrith.
Wearmouth and Jarrow were centres, but not the only ones in Europe, where the influences of Benedict and Cassiodorus met. One result of this fruitful fertilization was the emergence of the Benedictine scholar, of whom Bede is an early and notable example. But his knowledge of secular literature was comparatively slight: he was primarily a monastic, scriptural scholar. His development in this direction must surely be ascribed to Ceolfrith more than to anyone else. Since Bede’s childhood Ceolfrith had been like a father to him and this relationship continued and deepened after Biscop’s death when, both by Biscop’s choice and that of the community. Ceolfrith succeeded him in the powers of founding abbot of both Wearmouth and Jarrow. This charge of both monasteries lasted for twenty-eight years, until 716 (ch. 15).
His policy was to complete the work of Biscop. This included building chapels. furnishing them with plate and vestments, doubling the number of books in the library and exchanging lands. The ownership of these lands was guaranteed by a papal indult, and confirmed by the king and the bishops: it needed to be clearly recognized against the possible claims of Biscop’s relatives and any would-be intruders. In character Ceolfrith was diligent. zealous, mortified and tactful (ch. 16).
One of the finest achievements of his abbacy was the production of three large complete Bibles, written in uncial hand, of which one (the Codex Amiatinus) survives virtually intact at Florence, while there remain a few leaves from another one in the British Library.
The Codex Amiatinus (so called because it later belonged to the monastery of Monte Amiato in the Central Apennines) is an enormous volume: the size and weight of it are such that two men carry it in when the student requests to see it. It consists of 1,030 folios (2,060 pages): each double page or opening, measures twenty-seven and a half by twenty and a half inches. It weighs more than seventy-five pounds. It has been credibly estimated that about 1,550 calves were needed to provide the parchment, but recent research suggests that it came from Italy. In either case, only a large and wealthy monastery could have commissioned a volume of this size. Yet Ceolfrith commissioned three.
The Amiatinus is the oldest surviving complete Latin Bible in one volume from anywhere in the world. It was more usual in antiquity for the Bible to be bound up in nine volumes or more, as is exemplified in the painting of Ezra in the Amiatinus itself. The influence of Cassiodorus is manifest in the planning and execution of this great project. Its text is that of Jerome’s Vulgate.
It is probable that it was written in nine sections by seven different scribes. ‘Every page,’ wrote E. A. Lowe in English Uncial, ‘was executed by English scribes and painters. The diagrams use rustic capitals, capitulary uncials, and a curious sloping uncial script.’ There are also in various places, examples of insular spelling and of insular minuscule script. These, with the dedicatory verses described below, clearly prove its English origin.
The anonymous biographer of Ceolfrith described the enterprise as follows:
The collection of books which he himself or Benedict had brought from Rome he splendidly enlarged: among other things he caused three pandects to be transcribed, two of which he placed in his two monasteries in their churches, so that whoever wished to read a chapter of either the Old or the New Testament, could easily find what he was looking for. As for the third, when he was to leave for Rome, he decided to offer it as a gift to Saint Peter, prince of the Apostles (ch. 20).
It is thus neither affirmed nor denied that the original purpose of the book was to be a present for the Pope: it is not impossible that it was originally destined to be Ceolfrith’s own copy, or one to be available for reference or as a model for others. But whatever the original purpose was, it must have been of great importance to justify the enormous expenditure involved both in materials and in deployment of precious skilled labour of the scribes. One of these could have been Bede himself. The exact date of its production is unknown: it could have been as early as the Lindisfarne Gospels (late 690s) or as late as the last few years of Ceolfrith’s rule. He resigned his charge in 716 at the age of seventy-four. It was then that he took the precious volume as a gift for the Pope, as, like several other Anglo-Saxon kings and bishops, he wished to end his days at Rome. It is the most impressive artefact to survive from his reign.
The chapters in Bede’s work which describe his resignation and departure are very moving (16–18). Diligent and zealous, austere and tactful, he combined in a remarkable degree the qualities of St Benedict’s abbot. Conscious that his advancing years made him unable to maintain the standards which he considered proper, he decided to give up his charge and thus enable a younger man to lead his community to a more perfect observance of their rule. When he left, Wearmouth and Jarrow numbered about six hundred monks; their land amounted to 150 hides. The affectionate farewell of abbot and community described by Bede is one of the most moving scenes of monastic literature from the early Middle Ages.
The deep regard the community held for Ceolfrith is also revealed in the letter to Pope Gregory II written by Hwaetberht, his successor, who outlived Bede himself (ch. 19). One of the first actions of his rule had been to obtain the elevation of the bones of Eosterwine and Sigfrith (ch. 20). Bishop Acca of Hexham, disciple and successor of Wilfrid, authorized this, thereby approving the cult of these two as saints. Benedict Biscop was venerated already and Ceolfrith soon would be. Meanwhile he had fallen ill at Langres on his way to Rome, presumably in a large company for security. Faithful to his chosen vocation right up to the end of his life, he recited the psalter twice a day and offered Mass even in extreme weakness (ch. 22). He died on 25 September 716 (ch. 23).
While Bede’s account of the abbots of his monastery can be considered a chronicle of local history, the Life of Ceolfrith, below, pp. 213–29, is more of a biography of the most important of Biscop’s successors. It survives in only two manuscripts (one of the tenth, the other of the twelfth century), while Bede’s work is contained not only in these same two manuscripts but also in another six. Inevitably there is much common ground between the two works, but sufficient differences to make it worth while printing them both in English in the same volume.
The anonymous author seems to have been a monk of Wearmouth rather than Jarrow and one of the monks who accompanied Ceolfrith on his last journey to Rome, which was terminated by his death at Langres. He also describes events of some importance which are not found in Bede’s narrative. One of these is the tedium experienced by Ceolfrith in his early days as prior, caused by discontented noblemen. In spite of this, our author emphasizes more than once Ceolfrith’s aristocratic origins and provides a delightful anecdote of Ceolfrith’s father and his generosity to the poor. Again, he is fuller about Ceolfrith’s last journey and he transcribed (though Bede did not) the letter of Pope Gregory to Abbot Hwaetberht in response to his covering letter of recommendation of Abbot Ceolfrith. Each writer recorded elements which the other did not; perhaps the most memorable of the anonymous writer’s anecdotes is the famous one of how Ceolfrith and one of the monastery’s boys together performed the Divine Office with antiphons after the plague had removed many of the others. This boy is generally thought to have been Bede himself. And if anyone suspects that the scale of the disaster has been exaggerated, it is well to remember that the personnel of the monastery of St Albans was literally reduced to half by the Black Death between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday in 1348.
The anonymous writer inspires confidence in his accuracy because of his simple, matter-of-fact narrative. If his sentences are sometimes too long and his style too verbose, by these very qualities he provides comparison with Bede, a master of Latin style in every way. The anonymous biographer, like the monk Cuthbert who wrote the moving account of Bede’s death, reminds us of the achievements of other monks from Bede’s monastery who, like him, laboured hard to achieve a very creditable Latin culture near the ends of the civilized world.
One of the fruits of this culture was the splendid Pandect, later called the Codex Amiatinus, appropriately offered to the Bishop of Rome by Ceolfrith and actually presented to him by Ceolfrith’s monks. This huge volume is one of the treasures of the Laurentian Library at Florence. Written throughout in uncial characters (seemingly regardless of the considerable cost), it provides one of the best texts of the Vulgate Latin Bible in existence. The dedicatory verses, recorded by our author alone in chapter 37, were subsequently altered when the then pope presented this same volume to the monastery of Monte Amiato (near Florence) during the twelfth century. This alteration could easily have resulted in the Jarrow provenance of this volume not being recorded for posterity, but the nineteenth-century scholars G. B. de Rossi and F. J. A. Hort suggested further investigation. The use of ultraviolet photography restored the original text of the dedication and showed it to be identical with the text in the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith. This important discovery effectively confirmed not only the English origin of this book, but also its identification with the volume taken by Ceolfrith on his last journey to Rome.
The cult of Ceolfrith as a saint began (as usual) around his tomb. Reports were made of wonderful and unusual light around it. Pilgrims came, the monks visited the shrine regularly; other signs and cures believed to be miraculous soon followed. At an unknown date his body was brought back to Wearmouth and enshrined. There it was visited and venerated until the Viking invasions. In the tenth century, with the revival of monastic life in England under St Dunstan, some of his monks from Glastonbury claimed to have translated these relics again, this time to their own monastery. There he was venerated on his traditional death-day, 25 September.
Of the five texts translated in this book the Voyage of Brendan has immense interest as an imaginative reconstruction of a way of life attributed to the historical Brendan, of whose life it gives us little historical detail. Eddius’s Life of Wilfrid however aims at being a commemorative biography of a great man, about whom Bede also wrote with fluency but also a certain reserve. In spite of its partisan quality and its several inaccuracies, it is largely convincing, although allowances have to be made for it being an ‘official’ biography. Bede’s Life of Cuthbert to a considerable extent depended on the earlier biographer’s work, but altered its emphasis; while it tells us much of Cuthbert as a man of prayer and of miracles, it does not give us even in outline a clear impression of his historical importance. In his Lives of theAbbots, however, Bede writes as a historian of his own house, describing in detail what he had seen himself or learnt from other eyewitnesses in his community. Certainly, an experienced reader of Bede will detect here and there the way he uses the characteristics of the heroes of the past to remind his contemporaries of their decline from real or supposed higher standards; but of the five works this is surely the one with the greatest claim to historical accuracy. It is usefully completed by the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith.
The characters described in these works were all great men, with considerable appeal to generations other than their own. Brendan and Cuthbert are primarily of insular importance, whereas Wilfrid, Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrith were all Europeans as well as Englishmen, whose achievements in the fields of religion and culture was far greater than that of most of their contemporaries. The rich and contrasting age in which they lived, brought to life for us by the writings of Bede more than any other author, is being rediscovered at the present time by an increasing number of students. The ideals and the scale of values of its great men still appeal across the centuries.