Northumbria Under the Successors of Oswald — The Celtic Bishops — The Great Abbesses, Hilda and Ebba (part 2 of 2)

But the most touching particular of all in the enthusiastic narrative of the venerable Bede, is that which proves the passionate tenderness felt for her by her daughters, especially by the young virgins whom she prepared for religious life in a separate house, by the discipline of a novitiate establishment regularly constituted and attentively superintended.^^ Nor did the royal abbess confine herself to the government of a numerous community of nuns. According to a usage then very general, but principally prevailing in Celtic countries, a monastery was joined to the nunnery. And Hilda inspired the monks subject to her authority with so great a devotion to their rule, so true a love of sacred literature, and so careful a study of the Scriptures, that this mon-

** " Quam omncs qui noverant, ob insigne pietatis et gratite Matrem vocare consueverant... nam et episcopus A/dan et quique noverant earn rcligiosi pro insita et sapientia et amore divini faraulatus, sedulo cam A-isitare... solebant.... Kegularis vita3 institution! niultum intenta.... Tantaj autem erat ipsa prudentiaj, ut non solum mediocres in necessitatibus suis, sed ctiam reges ac principcs nonnunquam ab ea quajrerent consilium et invenirent.... Quam omnes qui noverant, ob insigne pietatis et gratia; Matrem vocare consueverant.... Etiam plurimis longe manentibus ad quos felix industria3 ac viriutis ejus rumor pervenit, occasionem salutis et correctionis niinistravit."

'^^ " Cuidam virginum... quaj illam immenso araore diligebat. ... In extremis nionasterii locis scorsum posita ubi nuper venientcs ad convcrsionem femina; solebant probari, donee regulariter institutaj in societatem congregationis susciperentur." astery, ruled by a woman, became a true school of missionaries, and even of bishops.^'^ Many ecclesiastical dignitaries, as remarkable for their virtue as for their learning, were sent forth by it; ^^ one of whom in particular, St. John of Beverly, attained a degree of popularity rare even in England, where the saints were of old so universally and so readily popular.

But neither the kings nor princes who consulted the great abbess on her sea-girt promontory, northe j^jgj^Qpg^ ^q^. gyen the saints nurtured in her school, "s^Angfo- occupy in the annals of the human mind, or in the learned researches of our contemporaries, a place comparable to that held by an old cowherd who lived on the lands belonging to Hilda's community, and whose memory is inseparably connected with hers. It is on the lips of this cowherd that the Anglo-Saxon speech first bursts into poetry, and nothing in the whole history of European literature is more original or more religious than this first utterance of the English muse. His name Avas Ceadmon. He had already reached an advanced age, having spent his life in his humble occupation, without even learning music, or being able to join in the joyous choruses which held such a high place at the feasts and social gatherings of all classes, both poor and rich, among the Anglo-Saxons as among the Celts. When it was his turn to sing at any of these festal meetings, and the harp was handed to him, his custom was to rise from table and go home. One evening, when he had thus withdrawn from his friends, he went back to his humble shed and went to sleep by the side of his cattle. During his slumber he heard a voice, which called him by name, and said to him, '' Sing me something; " to which he replied, " I cannot sing, and that is why I have left the supper and come here." " Sing, notwithstanding," said the voice. " But what, then, shall 1 sing? " " Sing the beginning of the world; the creation." Immediately on receiving this command, he began to sing verses, of which before he had no knowledge, but which celbrated the glorj^ and power of the Creator, the eternal God, worker of all marvels, father of the human race, who had given to the sons of men the heavens for their roof, and the ®' " Tantum lectioni divinarum Scripturarum suos vacare subditos... faciebat, ut facillime viderentur ibidem qui ecclesiasticum gradum, hoc est, altaris officiuui apte subirent, plurimi posse reperiri." — Bede, iv. 23.

"* Bede names six with the highest euhjgies — " Quinque episcopos omnes singularis meriti ac sanctitatis viros.... Vir strenuissimus et doctissimus, atque excellentis ingenii vocabulo Tatfrid, de ejusdem abbatissaj monasterio electus." earth for their dwelling-place. On awaking, he recollected all that he had sung in his dream, and hastened to tell all that had happened to him to the farmer in whose service he was.s-^

The Abbess Hilda, when the story Avas repeated to her, called for Ceadmon and questioned him in the presence of all the learned men whom she could assemble around her. He was made to relate his vision and repeat his songs, and then different passages of sacred history and various points of doctrine were explained to him, that he might put them into verse. The next morning he was again called, and immediately began to recite all that had been told him, in verses which were pronounced to be excellent. He Avas thus discovered all at on<;e to possess the gift of improvisation in his mother tongue. Hilda and her learned assessors did not hesitate to recognize in this a special gift of God worthy of all respect and of the most tender care. She received Ceadmon and his whole family within the monastic community of "Whitby, and afterwards admitted him to the number of monks who were under her rule, and made him carefully translate the whole Bible into Anglo-Saxon. As soon, accordingly, as the sacred history and the gospel were narrated to him, he made himself master of the tale, ruminated it, as Bede said, as a clean animal ruminates its food, and transformed it into songs so beautiful that all who listened to him were dehghed.^*^ He thus put into verse the whole of Genesis and Exodus, with other portions of the Old Testament, and afterwards the life and passion of our Lord and the Acts of the Apostles.

His talent and his poetic faculty thus went on day by day to fuller development, and he devoted numerous songs to such subjects as were best calculated to induce his companions to forsake evil and love and practise the good: the terrors of the last judgment, the pains of hell, the joys of paradise, the action of Divine Providence in the world— all these great and momentous subjects were in their turn woven

"' " Nonnunquam in convivio cum essct laetitiaj causa decretum ut omnes per ordinem cantare deberent, ille ubi abpropinquare sibi citharam cernebat, surgebat a media coena.... Dum relicta domo convivii egressus esset, ab stabula jumentorura... ibique membra dedisset sopori. C»dmon, canta milii aliquid ... at ille: Ncscio cantare.... Canta principium creaturarum." — Bede, iv. 24.

*"* "Ipse cuncta, quEe audiendo discere poterat, remcmorando sccum et quasi niundura animal ruminando in carmen dulcissimum convertebat; suaviusque rcsonando doctores suos vicissim auditores suos faciebat." into his verse. The fragments that remain enable us to estimate the earnest and impassioned inspiration, strongly Christian and profoundly original, which characterized these first efforts of genius, barbarous, but subdued and baptized. The pre- "^^^ Northumbrian cowherd, transformed into a wujsor of monk of Whitby, sang before the abbess Hilda the revolt of Satan and Paradise Lost a thousand years earlier than Milton, in verses which may still be admired even beside the immortal poem of the British Homer.^'' Notwithstanding Bede's assertion that poetry cannot be translated from one language to another without losing its honor and dignity, we shall borrow from the nervous pen of one of our contemporaries a translation which conveys a just idea of the sombre and wild genius of this truly biblical poet.^^ " Why," says Satan, speaking of God, " should I implore His favor, or bow myself before Him with obedience? I can be a god like Him. Up with me, brave companions who will not fail me in the struggle? brave-hearted warriors who have chosen me for your chief! illustrious soldiers! With such warriors, in truth, one can choose a side; with such combatants one can seize a post. They are my zealous friends, faithful in the warmth of their hearts. I can, as their chief, govern in this kingdom; I have no need to flatter any one; I will be His subject no more!

He is vanquished, and hurled into the city of exile— into the abode of groans and hatred — into the hideous eternal night, the darkness of which is broken by smoke and crimson flames. " Is this," he says, " the narrow spot in which my master shuts me up? How different from the dwellings that we know on high in the kingdom of heaven! Oh! if I had the free power of my hands, and if I could issue forth for once, for one winter only, I and my army! But bands of iron

^^ This fragment of Ceadmon's poem on the revolt of Satan, discovered by Archbishop Usher, and printed for the first time in 1655, has been preserved, and frequently published since that date. It has been republished with learned annotations by Dr. Bouterweck, De Cedmone poeta Anglo-Saxonum vetustissimo brevis Dissertatio, at Elberfeld, 1845. Sir F. Palgrave, one of the most competent critics of English history and literature, justly remarks that there are in this fragment passages so like the Paradise Lost that some of Milton's lines read like an almost literal translation. There was an interval of a thousand years between them, Ceadmon dying about 680, and Milton in 1674. Compare Shakon Turner's History of the Anglo- Saxons, 1. iv. c. 3.

*•* " Neque enim possunt carmina, quamvis optima composita, ex alia in aliam linguam ad verbum sine detrimento sui decoris ac dignitatis transferri." surround me — chains bind me down helpless. I am without a kingdom. The fetters of hell shackle me so firmly, clasp me so tightly! Here are huge flames; above and below I have never seen so horrible a place. The fire never languishes— its heat ascends above hell. The rings that encircle me, the manacles that gnaw my flesh, keep me from advancing, and close the way before me; my feet are tied, my hands imprisoned. Thus has God shut me in." Since nothing can be done against Him, it is against His own creature, man, that the enemy must turn. To him who has lost all, revenge is still left; and in securing that, the vanquished may yet be happy and rest placidly even under the weight of the chains with which he is laden.*^^

It would, however, be a totally mistaken idea to ins holy recognize in the Abbess Hilda's dependant nothing ^'^'-'• but a poet or literary pioneer; he was above all a primitive Christian, a true monk, and, in one word, a saint.^'^ His mind was mild and humble, simple and pure; he served God with tranquil devotion, grateful for the extraordinary grace that he had received from heaven. But he was so full of zeal for monastic regularity that he opposed with great vehemence the transgressors of the rule — an error for which he seems to have felt some compunctions at the very point of death. No frivolous or worldly subjects ever inspired his verse; he composed his songs only that they might be useful to the soul, and their solemn beauty did even more for the conversion than for the delight of his countrymen. Many were moved by them to despise this world, and to turn with ardent love to the divine life. Many Englishmen after him, says Bede, have tried to compose religious poems; but no one has ever equalled the man who had only God for his master.^^

^' This translation is borrowed from Ullistoire de la LitUrature Anglaise, by M. Taine. The author of that work, in which so much talent is mixed up with so many lamentable errors, says vcr}' justly of Ceadmon: " Thus is true poetry born. ... It does but repeat, over and over, one passionate burden. These are the songs of the ancient servants of Odin, now tonsured and wrapt in a monk's frock. Their poetry remains unchanged. They think of God, as of Odin, in a succession of images, brief, crowded, impassioned, like successive flashes of lightning. The Satan of Milton exists in that of Ceadmon as a picture exists in a sketch, for both derive their picture from the race, and Ceadmon has found his materials in the warriors of the North, as Milton in the Puritans."

'''** The Bollandists have devoted a special article to him (vol. ii. Feb., p. 552), De S. Cedmono, cantorc theodidacto; but they make no material addition to what we learn from Bede.

'^ " Erat vir multum religiosus et regul.aribus disciplinis humiliter subditus.... Quadam divina gratia spccialiter insignis.... Quicquid ex Hiso-entie ^^ ^'^^^ ^^ poets soldom die. At the very bedeatfi. ginning of his illness he desired his bed to be made in that part of the infirmary which was assigned to the dying, and while smiling and talking cheerfully with his brethren, asked for the viaticum. At the moment ^vhen he was about to administer the communion to himself, according to the usage of the period, and while holding in his hands the holy eucharist, he asked all those who were round him if any one had any grudge against him, or any complaint to make. All answered, No. Then said he, " I too, my children, have a mind at peace with all God's servants." A little after he had made his communion, as they were about to awaken the monks for matins, he made the sign of the cross, laid his head on the pillow, and fell asleep in silence, to awake no more.^^

Apart from the interest which attaches to Ceadmon from a historical and literary point of view, his life discloses to us essential peculiarities in the outward organization and intellectual life of those great communities which in the seventh century studded the coast of Northumbria, and which, with all their numerous dependants, found often a more complete development under the crosier of such a woman as Hilda than under superiors of the other sex. It is apparent that admission to the benefits of monastic protection and shelter was not confined to isolated monks, but was extended to whole families.^3 And the example of Hilda also discloses how earnest was the desire of the superiors of monasteries to instruct the ignorant masses, and to familiarize them, by instruction in the vulgar tongue, or by poetic paraphrases, with Holy Scripture and Christian doctrine.

divinis litteris per interpretes disceret hoc ipse post pusillum.... Verbis poeticis maxima suavitate et compunctione compositis in sua, id est, Anglorum, lingua proferret.... Alii post ilium in gente Anglorum religiosa poemata facere tentabant, sed ei nullus sequiparari potuit: non ab hominibus... sed divinitus adjutus gratis canendi donum aceepit.... Unde nihil unquam frivoli et supervacui poematis facere potuit; sed ea tanturamodo quffi ad religionem pertinent.... Simplici ac pura mente tranquillaque devotione Domino servierat." — Bede, 1. c.

^^ " In proxima casa, in qua infirmiores et qui prope morituri esse videbantur, induci solebant.... Cum ibidem positus vicissim aliquo gaudente animo, una cum eis qui ibidem ante inerant, loqueretur et jocaretur.... Ut tamen, ait, afferte mihi eucharistiam. Qua accepta in manu, interrogavit si omnes placidum erga se animum et sine querela controversias ac rancoris haberent.... Sicque se coelesti muniens viatico... reclinavit caput ad cervical, modicumque obdormiens, ita cum silentio vitam finivit."

^^ " Susceptum in monasterium cum omnibus suis fratrum cohorti adsociavit." — Bede, I. c.

Whitby, with its lighthouse and its great mon- Ebba, priuasteiy, was the most southerly place of refuge on Bernfda, that Northumbrian coast, still so formidable to ^'^^^.I^f'j. sailors, which at that time was lined with so many coidiug° sanctuaries. At the northern extremity of the same ^''^™" coast, beyond Lindisfarne, on what is now the frontier of Scotland, at Coldingham, rose also, as at Whitby, two monasteries— the one for men and the other for women— both founded and governed by one abbess. While Hilda, the Deirian princess, ruled her monasteries on the shores of her father's kingdom, Ebba, a princess of the rival dynasty, granddaughter of Ida the Burner, daughter of Ethelfrid the Ravager, but sister of the sainted King Oswald, and of Oswy the reigning king, formed on the sea-coast of Bernicia another manastic centre, which was yet to hold an important position, and to work out a stormy history. It had been the intention of her brother to give her in marriage to the king of Scots —a union meant undoubtedly to strengthen or to re-establish the alliance of the restored family of Ethelfrid with the Scottish dynasty which had offered the exiles such generous hospitality during the reign of Edwin, the chief of the race by which they had been exiled. Ebba, however, was obstinately opposed to this marriage. Her family had all embraced, during their banishment, the principles of the Christian faith, and it was now her desire to advance to the practice of the counsels of the Gospel. It was not from the hands of A'idan, but from those of Finan, his successor at Lindisfarne, that she received the veil:^^ Oswy left her at liberty to devote herself to God, and gave her a piece of land on the banks of the Derwent where she might found her first monastery, which received the name of Ebba's Castle.^^ But the principal scene of her activities was Coldingham, in a situation which she seems to have chosen in emulation of that of Whitby. Her great and famous monastery was built, not on the spot now called by her name,'-^'^ but on the summit of an isolated promontory which still bears the title of St. Abb's Head, or Cape, and which abruptly terminates the range of the Lammermoors, thrusting itself out into the German Ocean. From this headland, or rather precipice, which rises perpen-

9^ Ad. SS. Bolland., vol. v. August, p. 197.

^^ Ebbai-Castrum, whence Ebbchestcr, a village in the county of Durham.

"* It owes this name to a priory founded by a colony of monks from Durham in 1098, and very richly endowed by the kings of Scotland. dicularly for more than 500 feet from the level of the sea, the view embraces, on the north, the Scotch coast to the farther side of the Forth, and, on the south, the English coast as far as the holy isle of Lindisfarne and the royal acropolis of Bamborough. A small ruined chapel is all that remains to mark the site of the great sanctuary of Ebba, who was, like Hilda, placed at the head of a double community of men and of women, and presided over the religious life of northern Northumbria with no less success, and for an equal length of time, taking her part, also during nearly thirty thiffyyears J^ars, with no Icss authority in the affairs of her country.97 She did not always succeed, however, in maintaining amongst her daughters the fervor and the regularity of which she herself gave an example. That relaxation of discipline from which, by a mysterious and terrible judgment of God, the religious orders have never been able to preserve themselves, and which was destined to invade so speedily the Anglo-Saxon cloisters, made its way into Coldingham even during the lifetime of the foundress. She was Warned of this by a holy priest of her community '^vho had come from Ireland with the other Celtic missionaries, and who was called Adamnan, like the historian and successor of Columba at lona As ho went with the abbess through the vast and lofty buildings which she had erected upon her promontory, he said to her with tears, " All that you see here, so beautiful and so grand, will soon be laid in ashes." And as the astonished princess exclaimed against his prophecy, " Yes," continued he; " I have seen in my vigils an unknown one who has revealed to me all the evil that is done in this house, and the punishment that is prepared for it. He has told me that be has visited each cell and each bed, and that everywhere he has found the monks and the nuns either wrapt in a shameful sleep, or awake to do evil. These cells, intended for prayer or for study, are made use of sometimes for irregular repasts, sometimes for senseless gossip and other frivolities. The virgins consecrated to God, employ their leisure in weaving garments of excessive fineness, either to attire themselves as if they were the brides of men, or to bestow them on strangers. For this the vengeance of heaven will

^^ " Sanctimonialis femina et mater ancillarum Christi, nomine Ebba, regens monasterium... religione pariter et nobilitate cunctis honorabilis." — Bede, VitaS. Cuthberti, c. 10. send fire to consume the place and chastise its inhabitants." It is evident that these scandals were not by any means so serious as many that occurred elsewhere and at a later period; but in the midst of the general fervor of the new Christians of England they seemed to deserve fire from heaven. Ebba, thus warned, did what she could to amend the state of affairs, and the fire which devastated for the first time her great community did not break out till after her death.^s

It is right to give this incident with some minuteness, for it is the only symptom of decay which we have discovered in the period. With this one exception, no cloud, of which history has preserved any record, obscures the re- fervor and nown af the regular clergy of Northumbria. The j^f^''^^^^^ universal admiration won for the monastic capital thumbdaa of Lindisfarne by the regularity, the fervor, and the '"°"'^^- extraordinary austerity of its numerous inhabitants, is proved by all witnesses as with one voice. Their fasts, which came to them by tradition and obligation from Ireland, excited special wonder— fasts very much more meritorious in that raw, damp climate, than those of the fathers of the desert under the burning sky of the East, and which contrasted strangely with the habitual voracity of the Anglo-Saxons, whose sons began to people Lindisfarne and its dependencies. In Ireland the Cenobites, and especially the Anchorites, frequently lived on bread and water alone.'^^ Two centuries later, a German ^'^^ monk related to his wondering countrymen that the usage of the Scotic monks who inhabited Ire-

^ " Cunctahaec qua; ccrnis ffidificia publica vel privata, in proximo est ut ignis absumens in cincrem convertat.... Singulorum casas ac lectos inspexi... onines et viri et feniinae aut sorano torpent inerti, aut ad peccata vigilant. Nam et domuncuke qua! ad orandum vol legenduni factae crant, nunc in commissationum, potationum, fabulationum et ca;terarum sunt illeccbrarum cubilia conversie, virgines... quotiescunque vacant, texondis subtilioribus indumentis opcram dant.... Post obitum abbatissge redierunt ad pristinas sordes, immo soeleratiora fecerunt." — Bede, iv. 25. Honest Bede, always so careful in stating tbe source of his narratives, does not fail to tell us that he bad these details from a priest of Coldinghara, who, after the fire, fled for refuge to the Monastery of Yarrow, in which the author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English composed his work. Let us add that regular discipline was promptly re-established in Ebba's monastery, and that in the following century, at the invasion of the Danes in 870, the nuns, in order that they might not attract the passion of these barbarians, cut off their noses and lips; thus, in saving their honor, winning the glory of martyrdom.

»» Bede, v. 12.

""* Ratramnus Corbeiensis, Contra Gracos, lib. iv. land was to fast all the j-ear round, except on Sundays and feast-dayt5, and never to eat before nones or vespers. Bishop A'idan induced all the communities of monks and nuns in Northumbria to adopt the fast which he observed himself namely, to eat nothing before nones on the Wednesdays and Fridays of every week, except those between Easter and Pentecost.i<^i At Lindisfarne, for more than a century, wine and beer were totally unknown; and the first relaxation of this severity was introduced in favor of a king of Northumbria who became a monk there in 737.^*^^

Elsewhere these customs were improved upon by still more notable austerities. At Coldingham, the Adamnan of whom we recently spoke, expiated a youthful fault by taking food only twice a-week, on Sundays and Thursdays, while, at the same time, he often passed the whole night in vigils. He adopted this system from remorse and fear of God, but the love of God at last transformed it into a delight.^'^'^ At ^ ^^^^ Melrose, a monk was held in veneration who, having fallen into a trance, had one of those visions of Jieaven and hell which made many of the Celtic monks persecutors of Dante. It was his custom to plunge into the waters of the Tweed which flowed by the monastery, to pray there, and that even when the river was covered with ice, which he had to break before he could enter the stream. " Brother Drychthelme," some one called to him from the bank, '^ how can you bear such cold? " "I have seen it harder and colder," he quietly answered.i^* Foundatioa When a new monastery was to be founded, the Celtic*missionaries and the monks trained in their school thought they could not better inaugurate it than by redoubling their fervor and austerity. The son of the sainted King Oswald, who held a kind of provincial royalty in Deira, determined to establish a monastery where he might hear the Avord of God, and, above all, where he

»"' Bede, iii. 5.

'"^ Roger Hoveden, ap. Lingakd, i. 227.

¹⁰³ u QuQ,j causa divini timoris semel ob reatura compunctus cceperat, jam causa divini amoris delectatus priemiis indefessus agebat." — Bede, iv. 25.

^°* " De fluentibus circa eum semifractarum crustis glacierum, quas et ipse contriverat quo haberet locum standi sive immergendi in fluvio.... Mirum, frater Drycbthelme, quod tantam frigoris asperitatem ultra rationetn tolerare prtevales.... Frigidiora ego vidi... austeriora ego vidi." —Bede, v. 12. Bede is careful to mention, as he always does when he relates his marvels, that he has the story from a certain Irish monk, who, as well as the wise Northumbrian King Aldfrid, had often visited and conversed with this Drychthelme. might be buried, and be benefited after bis death by the powerful help of the prayers of those who served God in that place. For this purpose he applied to a monk of Lindisfarne, who had become a missionary bishop among the Saxons of the East, persuading him to accept one of his estates as an endowment. This man of God — Cedd by name — chose a spot among the mountains as difficult of access as possible, and which seemed fit rather for the haunt of bandits or wild beasts than of men. He then proceeded to purify the spot he had selected by prayer and fasting, and asked leave from the king to remain there in prayer the whole of Lent. During this retreat he fasted every day except Sunday till evening, and then took only a little bread, an egg, and some milk and water. Such, said he, was the custom of those from whom he had learnt the rules of monastic discipline; ^'^^ and such was the beginning of the Monastery of Lastingham, between York and Whitby, which was established on the model of Lindisfarne. We shall hereafter see its abbots holding an honorable place in the annals of the Church of England.^'^*^ Let us quote once more, in evidence of the virtues of the monks and bishops who converted the north of England, the unquestionable testimony of the celebrated historian, who was at once their adversary and their successor, but who, notwithstanding his dislike, and his strangely exaggerated description of their special peculiarities, yet rendered to the services and virtues of the Celtic missionaries that signal homage which generous hearts delight to accord to the vanquished whom they honor. " The greatness of their disinterestedness and self-denial was very apparent,"' says Bede, '' after their retreat." At Lindisfarne and elsewhere they had only such buildings as were absolutely necessary for existence and decency .i'^' They had neither money nor cattle: what the rich gave them they immediately distributed to the poor. They did not consider themselves bound to receive with 105 (t -^Q ^m^g quidem nisi panis pormodicum, ct unum ovum gallinaceum cum parvo lacte aquae iiiixto percipiebat. Diccbat banc esse consuetudinem eorum a quibus normani disciplinaj regularis didicerat.... Explcto studio jejuniorum et orationis, fecit ibi monasterium... et religiosis moribus, juxta ritus Lindisfarmensium ubi cducatus erat, instituit." Bede, iii. 23. Whence we can sec, says Fleury, that in that country neither milk, nor even eggs, were forbidden in Lent. — Hist. Eccl., 1. xxxix. c. 4.

""* There is still to be seen at Lastingham a beautiful church, believed to be one of the oldest in England.

¹⁰⁷ " Paucissimaj domus... illaj solummodo sine quibus conversatio civilis esse nuUatenus potcrat." — Bede, iii. 2G. splendor the lords and nobles who came to their monasteries for the sole purposes of prayer and to hear the word of God. Kings themselves, when they came to Lindisfarne, brought no more than five or six attendants with them, and contented themselves with the ordinary fare of the brethren. These apostles desired to serve God only, and not the world— they sought to win men through the heart only, not through the stomach. Thus the monkish frock was held in great veneration. Wherever a clerk or a monk appeared he was received with welcome as a true servant of God. Those who met him by the way hastened to bow their heads before him and receive his benediction. Their discourses were listened to by attentive crowds. Every Sunday these crowds flowed into the churches of the monasteries, to gather there the seed of life. As soon as a priest appeared in a village, all the inhabitants clustered round him begging him to preach to them. The priests and clerks travelled through the country only to preach, to baptize, to visit the sick, to save souls. They were so entirely free from all desire of gain, that the princes and nobles had to force them to accept the lands and estates necessary for the founding of monasteries.ios

^^ ^^ ^°^j however, to be supposed, that the conversion of Northumbria and of the six other kingdoms of the Heptarchy was carried through without hinderance and convulsions. The monastic historians have made the mistake of dwelling too lightly on the resistance and the revolts which their heroes had to encounter, and which added so much to the merit of what they achieved in the sight of God, as well as in that of man. But enough is visible to enable us easily to fill up what they have left untold. During the two centuries which separate the arrival of Augustine from the accession of Egbert, the perpetual conflict of the savage and uncontrollable nature of the Saxon kings with their new faith and the authority of the bishops and monks, is apparent. Changeable as Protcus, WO SCO them Constantly escaping by abchar7cter ^~^V^ changes from all the efforts made to obtain a salutary influence over them. The king who to-day distinguished himself by the fervor of his devotions, and his munificence to the new establishments, would tomorrow abandon himself to all the debaucheries and excesses

¹⁰⁸ <<Tota enim tunc fuit sollicitudo doctoribus illos, Deo serviendi, non saeculo; tota cura cordis excolendi, non ventris." — Bede, iii. 26. suggested, or pardoned, by heathen instinct. Others sought in the very monasteries, and among the virgins consecrated to God, a prey attractive beyond all other to their ungovernable sensuality. Intestine wars, usurpation, murder, pillage, abominable tortures, violence, and spoliation of every kind, sully at every turn the pages which have preserved to us so many pious and touching incidents. And it was And among not the kings and chiefs only that were hard to win: the people presented the same difficulties, the same disappointments. In vain the holy bishops and monks, produced so rapidly and in such numbers by the Saxon race, endeavored to win souls and purify them by an exhaustless charity, bestowing with free hands on the poor all the treasures that they received from the rich. Frequently the revolt was open, and the apostle of a district found himself obliged to fly into solitude or exile, there to await the dawn of better days. Sometimes an unforeseen calamity, famine or pestilence, sufficed to convulse the minds of a people, who then in a body would abjure the faith of Christ, and return to their ancient gods. On one side the monks had to struggle without intermission against old customs, which all their zeal could not avail to extirpate, — against the inveterate belief in witchcraft, against the practice of the slave trade, with all its refinements of greed and debauchery; ^^^ while, on the other, dull resistance, murmurs, and- threats accompanied the work of salvation.

On the north-east coast of England, where the Celtic missionaries had just founded such illustrious monasteries, certain tribes of the coast took vows for their destruction. Bede himself, from whom we have just borrowed so striking a picture of the popularity which surrounded them in Northumbria, forgot, in that description, various particulars which he has recorded elsewhere. It is he who tells how, when the little vessels of the monks, abroad in foul weather, ran the risk of being swamped at the mouth of the Tyne, a crowd of spectators assembled on the shore exulting in their danger, mocking at their self-devotion, and crying with savage irony — " Well done! this will teach them to live differently from everybody else. Perish the fools who would take our ancient customs from us, imposing new ones which God knows how we can observe! " ^^"^

^"^ Turner, op. cit., book vii. c. 9, p. 53.

"" " Stabat in altera amnis ripa vulgaris turba non modica... coepit

Nevertheless, truth and goodness conquered everything. In the long run the humble courage and generous perseverance of the missionaries triumphed over the fury, cunning, and opposition of fallen nature in these children of barbarism. The soldiers of Christ,iii as from that time the monks were called, remained masters of the field of battle.