St. Cuthbert — 637–687 (part 1 of 2)

Contrast between "Wilfrid and the saints of the Northumbrian coast. — His glory eclipsed by that of Cuthbert. — Childhood of Cuthbert, a shepherd on the Scottish borders. — He becomes a novice at Melrose. — He evangelises the Scottish marches. (Note upon the Monastery of Dull, cradle of the University of St. Andrews.) — His austerities: his baths: legend of the otters. — He goes from Melrose to Ripon, from which he is expelled by Wilfrid, along with all the Celtic monks. — He becomes prior at Lindisfarne, where he establishes the customs of Rome and the Benedictine rule. — His life at Lindisfarne in its cloistral and in its external aspect. — His extreme modesty. — He becomes a hermit in a cave of the Isle of Fame. — Popular traditions concerning this portion of his life.—The birds of St. Cuthbert, and the beads of his chaplet. — His charity towards the crowd of penitents who sought him there.— His hospitality. — His humility. King Egfrid takes him from his rock to make him Bishop of Lindisfarne. — He continues both monk and missionary during his short episcopate. —His compassion for the sufferings of his penitents.— The mad countess. The mother consoled. — His affection for his foster-mother, for Queen Etheldreda, and the great abbesses Ebba of Coldingham and Elfleda of Whitby. (Note upon the exclusion of women from his monastery.) — His last visit to the Abbess Verca. — He returns to his rock to die. — The abbess's shroud. — Last exhortations of Cuthbert: his death. — His closest friend dies at the same hour on the same day. — Their annual interview upon the rock of Fame. — Great and lasting popularity of his memory. —Translation of his relics to Durham. — Magnificence and wealth of that cathedral, after Toledo the richest in the world. — Right of asylum. —

Efficacy of his protection to the oppressed. — Alfred, Canute, and William the Conqueror. — The independence, almost sovereign, of Cuthbert's successors under the Anglo-Norman monarchy. — He is invoked by the English against the Scottish invasions. — Battle of Neville's Cross. — His banner appears for the last time in the insurrection of the North against Henry VIII.— It is profaned and burned with his body. — His popularity at sea.— The sailor-monks. — Cuthbert, while a child, saw them like seabirds on the waves. — His appearance to sailors in danger. — The hermit Ethelwold prays for the shipwrecked. — Grace Darling, the Christian heroine of these islands in the nineteenth century.

Beside the great figure of "Wilfrid there appears in history an entire family of monastic saints, his contemporaries and countrymen, who should have found a place in the narrative we have just concluded, had it not been already too much prolonged. But although they were all inhabitants of Northumbria during the rule of Wilfrid, they form naturally into a g^oup apart. This separation is due partly to the reserve, somotimes approaching enmity, which they manifested towards him, and still more to the essentially peaceful nature of their character and position, If in some cases they are found in contact with the struggles and agitations of their age and country, it is evidently against their inclinations. Their desire for peace, and ascetic and studious retirement, was as great as that of Wilfrid for the fatigues and hazards of the fight; and their history and aspect, retired as they were in their monasteries upon the coast of the Northumbrian kingdom, where the conflict between Wilfrid and the descendants of the Man of Fire was continually breaking out with fresh force, afford a pleasant and refreshing contrast to the stormy career of the great abbot.

In the first rank of these peaceful men stands the monk honored by the Church under the name of St. Cuthbert,^ and whose glory soon eclipsed that of St. Wilfrid, though the place he holds in history is of much inferior importance. Yes, great as was the influence of Wilfrid—a great bishop, a great abbot, the offspring of a noble race — his popularity was surpassed among his contempora-

¹ His Life was first written by a monk of Lindisfarne during the reign of King Aldfrid — that is, before 705, less than twenty years after the death of the saint — and afterwards, both in verse and prose, by Bede, who had attained the age of fourteen when Cuthbert died, and who takes care to state, with his usual exactness, the names and profession of all who supplied him with materials. ries as well as with Catholic posterity by that of a shepherd boy, who also became a bishop, and whose diocese was one of those produced by the division of that of Wilfrid. The Celts have claimed Cuthbert as belonging to them, at least by birth.2 They make him out to have been the son of an Irish princess, reduced to slavery, like Bridget the holy patroness of Ireland, but who fell, more miserably, victim to the lust of her savage master. They have also given him a place among the disciples of their great sanctuary in lona.-^ His Celtic origin would seem to be still more conclusively proved by his attitude towards Wilfrid than by the constant tradition of the Anglo-Saxon monks of Durham. But, to tell the truth, nothing is certainly known either of his place of birth or the rank of his family.

His first appearance in history is as a shepherd Youth of in Lauderdale, a valley watered by a river which cuthbert. flows into the Tweed near Melrose, upon the borders, as now defined, of England and Scotland. It was then a district annexed to the kingdom of Northumbria, which had just been delivered by the holy King Oswald from the yoke of the Mercians and Britons. As he is soon afterwards to be seen travelling on horseback, lance in hand and accompanied by a squire, it is not to be supposed that he was of poor a shepherd extraction. At the same time it was not the flocks gcottfsh of his father which he kept, as did David in the borders. plains of Bethlehem; it is expressly noted that the flocks confided to his care belonged to a master, or to several mas-

^* The Irish origin of Cuthbert is undoubtingly asserted by Reeves, in his Notes on Wattenbach, p. 5. Lanigan (vol. iii. p. 88) states that Usher, Ware, and Colgan entertained the same opinion. There exists a Life of Cuthbert, translated from Irish into Latin, which was partly published, first in the collection of Capgrave, and afterwards reprinted by the Surtees Society in 1838, from a MS. much more full, but dating only from the fourteenth century. In this Life, his mother is said to have been a daughter of the King of Leinster, whom the King of Connaught outraged and kept as his slave, after having slain all her family. Her child, whom she sent into Britain, was named Nullhoc — that is to say, wailing — because of the tears of his outraged mother. (Colgan, Act. SS., ad 20 Mart.) Many other ancient authors, both Irish and English, pronounce him an Irishman. Bede makes no reference to his birthplace. The Bollandists, who reckon him among the Anglo-Saxons in the article devoted to him on the date of the 20th March, seem to count him as Irish in their Life of St. Wiro, on the 8th May. Mabillon supposes him to have been born where he kept his sheep, on the banks of the Leader, but without giving any proof. Lanigan evidently inclines to the same opinion.

^ " Una cum matre pucr ad insulara, quae Hy dicitur, profectus est: ubi aliquandiu cum religiosis viris loci illius conversatus est." — Libellus de Ortu S. CuthbeHi, ed. Surtees, p. 79.

VOL. XL 39 ters. nis family must have been in the rank of those clients or vassals to whom the great Saxon lords gave the care and superintendence of their flocks upon the vast extent of pastures which, under the name of folc-land or commons, was left to their use, and where the cowherds and shepherds lived day and night in the open air, as is still done by the shepherds of Hungary in the joustas on both sides of the Danube.*

Popular imagination in the north of England, of which Cuthbert was the hero before as well as after the Norman Conquest, had thus full scope in respect to the obscure childhood of its favorite saint, and delighted in weaving stories of his childish sports, representing him as walking on his hands, and turning somersaults with his little companions.^ A more authentic testimony, that of his contemporary Bede, informs us that our shepherd boy had not his equal among the children of his age for activity, dexterity, and boldness in the race and fight. In all sports and athletic exercises he was the first to challenge his companions, with the certainty of being the victor. The description reads like that of a little Anglo-Saxon of our own day — a scholar of Eton or Harrow.^ At the same time a precocious piety showed itself in him, even amid this exuberance of youth. One night, as he said his prayers, while keeping the sheep of his masters, he saw the sky, which had been very dark, broken by a track of light, upon which a crowd of angels descended from heaven, returning afterwards with a resplendent soul which they had gone to meet on earth.''' Next morning he heard that A'idau, the holy Bishop of Lindisfarne, the apostle of the district, had died during the night. This vision determined his monastic vocation.

^* " Ac statiru commendans suis pecora quae pascebat dominis." — Bede, Be Vita et Miraculis S. Cuthberti, c. 54. Cf. Kemble, Saxons in England.

^* " Cum jocantibus satis jucundus apparuit. Quidam saltu, alii luctamine... nonnulli vertice capitis in terrain depresso, pede utroque in sublime porrecto, se subrigere decertabant." — Ibid., p. 80.

® " Omnes coaetaneos in agilitate et petulantia superans."— Monach. Lin- DiSFARN., ap. BoLLAND., t. iii. Martii, p. 118. " Agilis natura... acutus ingenio... fessis nonnunquam aliis, ille indefessus, si quis ultra secum vellet certare, quasi victor laetabundus inquireret. Sive enim saltu, sive cursu, sive luctatu, sive quolibet alio membrorum siuuamine... ille omnes aequaevos et nonnullos etiam majores a se gloriabatur esse superatos." — Bede, De Vita et Miraculis S. Cuthberti, c. 1. Cf. c. 6.

^ " Vidit subito fusum de ccelo lumen medias largae noctis interrupisse tenebras. In quo ccelestium choros agminum terram petisse."— Bede, c 4.

Some time afterwards we find him at the gates of the Monastery of Melrose, the great Celtic establishment for novices in Northumbria. He was then only fifteen, yet nevertheless he arrived, like Wilfrid at the court of Queen Eanfleda, on horseback, lance in hand, attended by a squire; for he had already begun his career in the battlefield, and learned in the face of the enemy the first lessons of abstinence, which he now meant to practise in the cloister.^ He was received by two great doctors of the Celtic Church — the abbot Eata, one of the twelve Northumbrians first chosen by A'idan, and the prior Boswell, who conceived a special affection for the new-comer, and undertook the charge of his monastic education. Five centuries later, the copy of the Gospels in which the master and pupil had read daily was still kissed with veneration in the Cathedral of Durham.

The robust and energetic youth very soon showed the rarest aptitude for monastic life, not only for cenobitical exercises, but, above all, for the missionary work, which was the principal occupation of monks in that country and period. He was not content merely to surpass all the other monks in his devotion to the four principal occupations of monastic life — study, prayer, vigils, and manual labor ^— but specially applied himself to the work of casting out from the hearts of the surrounding population the last vestiges of pagan superstition. Not a village was so distant, not a mountain-side so steep, not a cottage so poor, that it escaped his zeal. He sometimes passed weeks and even months out of his monastery, preaching to and confessing the rustic population of these mountains.!*'

The roads were very bad, or rather there were no roads; only now and then was it possible to travel on horseback; sometimes, when his course lay along the coast of the districts inhabited by the Picts, he would take the help of a boat.^^ But generally it was on foot

^* " In castris contra hostem cum exercitu sedens, ibique habens stipendia parva." — Bolland., p. 118. " Cum equo desilisset et hastam quam tenuerat manu ministro dedisset." — Bede, c. G.

^* " Legend! videlicet, orandi, vigilandi, atque operandi solertior." — Bede, Vita S. Cuthb., c. 6.

'*' " Solebat ea maxima loca peragrare, illis praedicare in viculis, qui in arduis asperisque montibus procul positi, aliis horrori erant ad visendum, et paupertate pariter ac rusticitate sua, doctorum proliibebant accessum. ... In montanis plebem rusticam." — Bede, Vita S. Cuthberti, c. 9.

" " Cum duobus fratribus pergens et navigans ad terrain Pictorum, ubi Mudpicralegis (?) prospere pervenerunt." — Boll., p. 119. "Ad terram Pictorum qui Nidwari vocantur."— Bede, c. 11. The late Mr. Joseph that he had to penetrate into the glens and distant valleys, crossing the heaths and vast table-lands uncultivated and uninhabited, where a few shepherds' huts, like that in which he himself had passed his childhood, and which were in winter abandoned even by the rude inhabitants, were thinly scattered. But neither the intemperance of the seasons, nor hunger, nor thirst, arrested the young and valiant missionary in his apostolic travels, to seek the scattered population, half Celts and half Anglo-Saxons, who, though already Christian in name and by baptism, retained an obstinate attachment to many of their ancient superstitions, and who were quickly led back by any great calamity, such as one of the great pestilences which were then so frequent, to use of magic, amulets, and other practices of idolatry.^^

The details which have been preserved of the geiizeslhe wonders which often accompanied his wanderings tweenThe''" show that his labors extended over all the hilly disfhi Forth"*^ trict between the two seas— from the Solway to the Forth.^3 They explain to us how the monks administered the consolations and the teachings of religion, before the organization of parishes, ordained by Archbishop Theodore, had been everywhere introduced or regulated. As soon as the arrival of one of these apostolic missionaries in a somewhat central locality was known, all the population of the neighborhood hastened to hear him, endeavoring with fervor and simplicity to put in practice the instruction they received from him. Cuthbert especially was received among them with affectionate confidence: his eloquence was so persuasive that it brought the most rebellious to his feet to Robertson, one of the greatest antiquarians in Scotland, who kindly exerted himself to enlighten me upon the principal difficulties of the history of Cuthbert, supposed this place to be Newburn, near Largo, in the county of Fife.

'^ "Ecce, inquit, in itinere quo vadis, nullum viculum, nulla hominum habitacula reperies.... Tuguria pastorum quae, testate infirmiter posita, tunc jam deserta patebant.... Aliquoties equo sedere at saepius pedes.... Ad erronea idololatrias medicamiua currebant... per incantationes vel alligaturas vetata quselibet daemoniacce artis arcana." — Vita, c. 5, 9. BoL- LAND., pp. 119, 120.

'^ It would even appear that the sphere of his operations extended much farther north, for the Libellus de Ortu S. Citthberti, written in the Irish tongue, a Latin version of which has been published by the Surtees Society^ mentions a stone cross raised by him when he left the Monastery of Dull, in the district of Athole, close to Taymouth. This monastery, which is celebrated in the annals of the Celtic Church, was the cradle of the University of St. Andrews. In the eleventh century it had for Coarb or Combarba — that is, for lay and hereditary abbot— the ancestor of the royal house of the Stuarts.

OF ST. WILFRID. 461

bear their sins revealed to them, and to accept the penance which he imposed upon them.^*

Cuthbert prepared himself for preaching and the austeriadmiuistration of the sacraments by extraordinary penances and austerities. Stone bathing-places, in which he passed the entire night in prayer, lying in the frozen water, according to a custom common among the Celtic saints, and which Wilfrid himself, as has been seen, had borrowed from them, are still shown in several different places.^^ When he was near the sea, he went to the shore, unknown to any one, at night, and, plunging into the waves up to his neck, sang his vigils there. As soon as he came out of the water he rC' sumed his prayers on the sand of the beach. On one occasion one of his disciples, who had followed him secretly in order to discover the aim of this nocturnal expedition, saw two otters come out of the water, which, while the saint prayed on his knees, licked his frozen feet and wiped them with their hair until life and warmth returned to the benumbed members.!^ By one of those strange caprices of human frivolity which disconcert the historian, this insignificant incident is the only recollection which now remains in the memory of the people. St. Cuthbert is known to the peasant of Northumberland and of the Scottish borders only by the legend of those compassionate otters, even as the name of Columba recalls to the mariners of the Hebrides only the history of the tired crane, which he sent back to Ireland, its native country.

He had been for some years at Melrose, when the Abbot Eata took him along with him to join the community of Celtic monks established by King Alchfrid at Ripon. Cuthbert held the office of steward: and in this office showed the same zeal as in his missions.

'• "Erat quippe moris eo tempore populis Anglorum, ut veniente in villain clerico vel presbytero, cuncti ad ejus iniperium verbum audituri confluebant.... Cudbercto tanta erat dicendi peritia, tantus amor persuadendi." ~ Vita, c. 9.

'* " Vas quoddam balnearium de lapide integro sibi fabricavit... quod vas adhuc in montis vertice permanet." — Libellus, c. 25. See above, p. 272, the history of Drychthelme, the penitent of Melrose, and for Wilfrid, p. 360.

'* " Homo Dei obstinata mente... in niediis fluctibus et mari aliquando usque ad ascellas tumultuante et fluctuante tinctus est.... Vcnere continuo de profundo maris quadrupedal qu;e vulgo lutraj vocantur.... Haa... anlielitu suo pedes ejus fovere coeperunt... lambentes pedes, volutantes tcrgebant pellibus suis, et calefacientes odoribus suis." — Boll., p. 119. Bede, c. 40.

When travellers arrived through the snow, famished and nearly fainting with cold, he himself washed their feet and warmed them against his bosom/'^ then hastened to the oven to order bread to be made ready if there was not enough. It may be perhaps remembered that the sons of Melrose had to give place to Wilfrid, when he, at the commencement of his campaign in favor of the Roman ritual and paschal unity, attempted to compel the Celtic colony of Ripon to give up their national customs.^^ It was a great and sudden storm, said Bede, with the prudent reserve which he observes in all that relates to the struggle between Wilfrid and other saints. Cuthbert returned with his countrymen to Melrose, resumed his life of missionary preaching, and again met his friend and master, the prior Boswell, at whose death in the great pestilence of 664,19 Cuthbert was elected abbot in his place. He had been himself attacked by the disease; and all the monks prayed earnestly that his life might be preserved to them. When he knew that the community had spent the night in prayer for him, though he felt no better, he cried to himself, with a double impulse of his habitual energy, " What am I doing in bed? It is impossible that God should shut His ears to such men. Give me ray staff and my shoes." And getting up, he immediately began to walk, leaning upon his staflp. But this sudden cure left him subject to weakness which shortened his life^*^ He is trans- However, he had not long to remain at Melrose.^i undfs-" The triumph of Wilfrid and the Roman ritual at the fame. Conference of Whitby brought about a revolution in the monastic metropolis of Northumbria, and in the mother monastery of Melrose at Lindisfarne. Bishop Colman, as has been seen, had returned to lona, carrying with him the bones of his predecessor, the first apostle of the country, and fol- " See the Legend of the Angel. — Vita S. Cuthberti, c. 7.

'* See above, p. 313, " Instante subito turbine, praefatus abbas cum Cuthberto et cceteris... domum repulsus est." — Bede, c. 8.

i» See above, p. 833.

^" "Utquid jaceo?... Date baculum et caligas. Statimque exurgens, coepit tentare incessum baculo innitens." — Vita, c. 8.

'^' It is difficult to reconcile the per aliquot annos of Bede (c. 9) with the precise dates assigned by Simeon of Durham, or rather Turgott, the official historian of the diocese, who recognized Cuthbert as his patron — dates which are drawn from a comparison of the most ancient records. The Bollandists, agreeing with Simeon, fix in 664, the year of Boswell's death, and consequently the first year of Cuthbert's priorate, his translation to Lindisfarne. The chronology of his life is simple enough. He was born in 637, became a monk at Melrose in 651, prior at Lindisfarne in 664, an anchorite at Fame in 676, bishop in 684. He abdicated in 686, and died in 687. lowed by all the monks who would not consent to sacrifice their Celtic traditions to Roman unity. It was of importance to preserve the holy island, the special sanctuary of the country, for the religious family of which its foundress had been a member. Abbot Eata of Melrose undertook this difficult mission. He became Abbot of Lindisfarne, and was invested with that kind of episcopal supremacy which has been already described, and which on Wilfrid's first downfall was to change into a full episcopate. He took with him the young Cuthbert, who was not yet thirty, but whom, however, he held alone capable of filling the important office of prior in the great insular community.

The struggle into which Eata and Cuthbert, in their proper persons, had entered against Wilfrid on the subject of Roman rites — a struggle to which they had themselves been victims at Ripon — did not point them out as the best men to introduce the novelties so passionately defended and insisted upon by the new Bishop of Northumbria. Notwithstanding, everything goes to prove that the new abbot and prior of Lindisfarne adopted without reserve the decisions of the Assembly of Whitby, and took serious pains to introduce them into the great Celtic community. Cuthbert, in whom the physical energy of a robust organization was united to an unconquerable gentleness, employed in this task all the resources of his mind and heart. All the rebels had not left with Bishop Colman; some monks still remained who held obstinately by their ancient customs. Cuthbert reasoned with them daily in the meetings of the chapter; his desire Avas to overcome their objections by patience and moderation alone: he bore their reproaches as long as that was possible; and when his endurance was at an end, raised the sitting without changing countenance or tone, and resumed next morning the course of the debate without ever permitting himself to be moved to anger, or allowing anything to disturb the inestimable gift of kindness and lightheartedness which he had received from God.-^

^ " Erant in monasterio fratres qui priscae su^ consuetudini quam rcgulari mallent obtemperare custodiae, quos... modesta patientiaj suas virtute superabat et quotidiano exercitio... paulatim convertebat.... Saepius in coetu fratrura de rcgula disputans, cum acerrimis contradicentium fatigaretur injuriis... placido vultu atque animo egrediens.... Erat nainque vir ad perferenda fortiter omnia quae vel animo vel corpore adversa ingerebantur invictissimus, nee minus inter tristia qua; contigissent faciem praetendens hilarem."— Vita, c. 46. "Omni hora bilaris et ladtus." — Moriach. Lindisf., p. 121.

He insists ^^ ^as not Only the orthodox Eastern and other formit"°ia ^it^^gical observancBS which he had to make acceptable to the monks of Lindisfarne. The difficuldiscipiine. ^^ ^^ establishing in his monastery that regularity and uniformity which become monastic life was not less great. Was it the Benedictine rule in all its purity, such as Augustin had brought into Canterbury, and which Wilfrid at that very moment was laboring to communicate to Northumbria, which Cuthbert desired to introduce at Lindis- The opinions of the most competent authorities are divided in respect to this.^-^ Everything leads us to believe that the young and holy prior was desirous of adding to the rule of St. Benedict certain special customs justified by the habits and necessities of the Northumbrian climate and people. But his great desire was the strict observance of the rule when once established; and his historian boasts as one of his most remarkable victories the obligation he imposed forever upon the monks of Lindisfarne of wearing a simple and uniform dress, in undyed wool, and thus giving up the passionate liking of the Anglo-Saxons for varied and brilliant colors.^*

During the twelve years which he passed at Linbothmthe^ disfame, the life of Cuthbert was identical with that which he had led at Melrose. Within doors this Lindfsfarne. ^if© ^'"^^ spout in the severe practice of all the austerities of the cloister, in manual labor united to ^' Mabillon maintains the affirmative in opposition to the Bollandists (pp. 96 and 115), which latter go so far as to believe that the troubles which ensued on Wilfrid's arrival at Lindisfarne to replace Cuthbert as bishop, and of which Bede (see above, page 410) speaks so mysteriously, were caused by his attempt to introduce the rule of St. Benedict in place of the observances followed and recommended by Cuthbert. The opinion of Mabillon is founded chiefly on these words of the Lindisfarne monk: "Nobis regularem vitam primum componens constituit, quam usque hodie cum Regula Benedicti observamus." The Bollandists recognize the trace of a modern interpolation in the narrative of this monk, where he says that Cuthbert received on his entrance at Melrose "tonsurse Petri formam, in modum coron£e spinese caput Christi cingentis," whereas it is known that Melrose was the citadel of the Celtic tonsure. Let us acknowledge, in passing, that whatever was the rule established by Cuthbert, the saint, himself so austere, softened its regulations greatly for his monks, since we see thai he recommended, and even enjoined them to eat a fat goose, upon which Mabillon adds, " Nee niirum si monachi illi anserina carne vescebantur, qui jam tum forsitan volatilia in piscium numero habebant." Finally, we observe that the use of wine was perfectly admitted among the companions of Cuthbert, and that they seem to have been connoisseurs in this matter.

^* " Ut neque munditiis neque sordibus esset notabilis, ne quis varii aut pretiosi coloris habeat indumentum, sed ea maxime specie quam naturalis ovium lana ministrat."— Vita, c. 16. the punctual celebration of divine worship, and such fervor in prayer that he often slept only one night in the three or four, passing the others in prayer, and in singing the service alone while walking round the aisle to keep himself awake. Outside, the same zeal for preaching, the same solicitude for the salvation and well-being, temporal as well as spiritual, of the Northumbrian people, was apparent in him. He carried to them the word of life; he soothed their suiferings by curing miraculously a crowd of diseases which were beyond the power of the physicians — a class which does not seem to have been wanting among the Anglo-Saxons of this period, as they are mentioned almost at every page of their miraculous records. But the valiant missionary specially assailed the diseases of the soul, and made use of all the tenderness and all the ardor of his own spirit to reach them. When he celebrated mass before the assembled crowd, his visible emotions, his inspired looks,- his trembling voice, all contributed to penetrate and overpower the multitude. The Anglo- Saxon Christians who came in crowds to open their hearts to him in the confessional, were still more profoundl}^ impressed: though he was a bold and inflexible judge of impenitent vice, he felt and expressed the tenderest compassion for the contrite sinner. He was the first to weep over the sins which he pardoned in the name of God; .and he himself fulfilled the penances which be imposed as the condition of absolution, tims gaining by his humility the hearts which he longed to convert and cure.-^

But neither the life of a cenobite nor the labors Hebccomes of a missionary could satisfy the aspirations of his soul after perfection. When he was not quite forty, after holding his priorship at Lindisfarne for twelve years, he resolved to leave monastic life, and to live as a hermit in a sterile and desert island, visible from Lindisfarne, which lay in the centre of the archipelago, south of the holy isle, and almost opposite the fortified capital of the Northumbrian kings at Bamborough.^^ No one dared to

^ " Circuibat insxilam,... pariter et longitudinem psalmodice ac vigiliarum incedendo alleviabat.... Circumquaque morantein viilgi multitudincm more suo crebra visitatione ad ccelestia quasrenda ct promerenda siicccndebat.... Spiritu mansuetudinis modcstus ad ignosccnduni poenitentibus, ita ut nonnunquam confitentibus sibi peccata sua his qui dcliquorant, prior ipse miserans infirinos, lacryniis funderet, ct quid peccatori agendum esset, ipse Justus suo praimonstraret cxcmplo." — Vita, c. 16.

-^ A minute description and plan of this island, now inhabited and crowned by two lighthouses, will be found in the History of St. Cuthbert, by Mgr. Eyre; London, 1858. live on this island, which was called Fame, in consequence of its being supposed the haunt of demons. Cuthbert took possession of it as a soldier of Christ, victorious over the tyranny of evil, and built there a palace worthy of himself, hollowing out of the living rock a cell from which he could see nothing but the sky, that he might not be disturbed in his contemplations. The hide of an ox suspended before the entrance of his cavern, and which he turned according to the direction of the wind, afforded him a poor defence against the intemperance of that wild climate. His holy historian tells us that he exercised sway over the elements and brute creation as a true monarch of the land which he had conquered for Christ, and with that sovereign empire over nature which sin alone has taken from us.^" He lived on the produce of a little field of barley, sowed and cultivated by his own hands, but so small that the inhabitants of the coast reported among themselves that he was fed by angels with bread made in paradise.

^^^^ legends of Northumbria linger lovingly upon the Solitary sojourn of their great national and popular saint in this basaltic isle. They attribute to him ^^iq extraordinary gentleness and familiarity of a peculiar species of aquatic birds which came when called, allowed themselves to be taken, stroked, and caressed, and whose down was of remarkable softness. In ancient times they swarmed about this rock, and they are still to be found there, though much diminished in number since curious visitors have come to steal their nests and shoot the birds. These sea-fowl are found nowhere else in the British Isles, and are called the Birds of St. Cuthbert?-^ It was he, according to the narrative of a monk of the thirteenth century, who inspired them with a hereditary trust in man, by taking them as the companions of his solitude, and guaranteeing to them that they should never be disturbed in their homes.2^

^'' " Miles Christi, devicta tyrannorura acie, monarchus terrae, quam adierat, factus est.... Condidit civitatem suo aptam imperio... vivara caedendo rupera.... Qui enim Auctori omnium creaturarum fidelitcr et integro corde famulatur, non est mirandum si ejus imperiis ac votis omnis creatura deserviat. At nos plerumque idcirco subjectse nobis creaturaB dominum perdimus, quia Domino et Creatori omnium ipsi servire negligimus." —Vita, c. 17, 21.

^^ Eider or Cuthbert-Ducks, — the Oie a duvet of BufFon, the Anas mollissima of Linnaeus.

29 " Aves illae B. Cuthberti specialitcr nominantur.... Ipse, adhuc viv-

OF ST. WILFRID. 467

It is he, too, according to the fishers of the surrounding islands, who makes certain little shells of the genus Entrochus, which are only to be found on this coast, and which have received the name of St Cuthbert's Beads. They believe that he is still to be seen by night seated on a rock, and using another as an anvil for his work. This tradition, like many others, has been consecrated by Sir Walter Scott in the poetic picture which he has drawn of the Northumbrian coast, between the two great monasteries of Whitby and Lindisfarne.-^*^

The pious anchorite, however, in condemning himself to the trials of solitude, had no intention of withdrawing from the cares of fraternal charity, He continued to receive frequent visits, in the first place from his neighbors and brethren at Lindisfarne, and in addition from all who came to consult him upon the state of their souls, as well as to seek consolation from him in adversity. The number of these pilgrims of sorrow was countless. They came not only from the neighboring shores, but from the most distant provinces. Throughout all England the rumor spread that on a desert rock of the Northumbrian coast there lived a solitary who was the friend of God, and skilled in the healing of human suffering. In this expectation no one was deceived; no man carried back from the sea-beaten island the same burden of suffering, temptation, or remorse which he had taken there. Cuthbert had consolation for all troubles, light for all the sorrowful mysteries of life, counsel for all its perils, a helping hand to all the hopeless, a heart open to all who suffered. He could

ens, avibus illis firraam pacem et quietem in patribus suis dederat.... Quod patribus avium antiquitus dederat, hoc, de iilarum genere pullis procreandis, et filiis Jiereditarie in pucis et raisericordise custodia perpetuis temporibus conservando prtestabat.... Dura solitarius in rupe secura conimancret, ita edomuit priedicta volatiliaetnatilitia.... Se palpantes capere, contrectare et tcnere permittunt ... in gremio tuo ludendo reticent... ad niensani tuam si incola fueris veniunt ... ad manus ctiam blandientis, alis palpitantibus, confugiunt." — Reginald Ddnelmensis, De Admirandis Cuthberti Vii-tutibus, c. 27. Cf. Raine's St. Cuthbert; Edinburgh, 1828, p. 22.

^° " But fain Saint Hilda's nuns would learn,

If on a rock by Lindisfarne,

Saint Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame
The seaborn beads that bear his name.
Such tales had Whitby's fishers told,
And said they might his shape behold.
And hear his anvil sound."

Scott, Marmion, canto ii. draw from terrestrial anguish a proof of the joys of heaven, deduce the certainty of these joys from the terrible evanescence of both good and evil in this world, and light up again in sick souls the fire of charity — the only defence, he said, against those ambushes of the old enemy which always take our hearts captive when they are emptied of divine and brotherly love.^^ His hospi- To make his solitude more accessible to these taiity. visitors, and above all to his brethren from Lindisfarne, he bad built at some distance from the cave which was his dwelling-place, at a point where the boats could land their passengers, a kind of parloir and refectory for the use of his guests. There he himself met, conversed, and ate with them, especially when, as he has himself told, the monks came to celelDrate with him such a great feast as Christmas. At such moments he went freely into all their conversations and discussions, interrupting himself from time to time to remind them of the necessity of watchfulness and prayer. The monks answered him, " NotJiing is more true; but we have so many days of vigil, of fasts and pra3^ers! Let us at least to-day rejoice in the Lord."32 The venerable Bede, who has preserved to us the precious memory of this exchange of brotherly familiarity, has not disdained to tell us also of the reproaches addressed by Cuthbert to his brothers for not eating a fat goose which he had hung on the partitionwall of his guests' refectory, in order that they might thoroughly fortify themselves before they embarked upon that stormy sea to return to their monastery.^'^

This tender charity and courteous activity were united in him to treasures of humility. He would not allow any one to suspect him of ranking the life of an anchorite above that

^' " Nee cos fefellit spes. Nullus ab eo sine gaiidio consolationie abibat nullum dolor anirai quern illo attulerat redeuntem comitatus est. Noverat quippe mcestos pia exhortatione refovere: sciebat angustiatis gaudia vitse ccelestis ad memoriam revocare... didicerat tentatis multiforias antiqui hostis pandere versutias, quibus facile carperetur animus, qui vel fraterno, vel divino amore nudatus exsisteret." — Vita, c. 22.

•'^ " Quondam cum adhuc demorarer in niea insula solitarius.... Obseco, fratres, caute agamus et vigilante r.... Cumque post hoc aliquandiu epulis, exsultationi ac fabulis indulgeremus, rursus adnionere coepi ut soUiciti exsisteremus in orationibus et vigijiis.... Et illi: Bene, inquiunt, et optime doces, sed tamen, quia abundant dies jejuniorum, orationis et vigiliarum, hodie gaudeamus in Domino... epulantibus nobis et diem Iffitum ducentibus." — Vita, c. 27.

^^ " Pendebat autem auca in pariete.... Citissime mittite earn in caldaria: coquite et comedite, et sic in nomen Domini ascendite navem ac domum redite." — Vita, c. 36. of a member of a community. " It must not be supposed," lie said, " because I prefer to live out of reach of every secular care, that my life is superior to that of others. The life of good cenobites, who obey their abbot in everything, and whose time is divided between prayer, work, and fasting, is much to be admired. I know many among them whose souls are more pure, and their graces more exalted than mine; especially, and in the first rank, my dear old Boswell, who received and trained me at Melrose in my youth." ^

Thus passed, in that dear solitude, and among these friendly surroundings, eight pleasant years, the sweetest of his life, and precisely those during which all Northumberland was convulsed by the struggle between Wilfrid and the new king, Egfrid. All those important events, the expulsion of the great bishop from his see of York, his first appeal to Rome, his return with a verdict in his favor, his fruitless application to Egfrid, his imprisonment and exile, have left no trace upon the life which Cuthbert, tranquil and happy, lived on his island rock, until a da}^ arrived when the reverberation of this blow struck him in his turn.

This was the day upon which the king of the iioismadc Northumbrians, accompanied by his principal nobles lIS'^^ and almost all the community of Lindisfarne, landed ^''^^^ upon the rock of Fame, to beg, kneeling and with tears,^^ that he would accept the episcopal dignity to which he had just been promoted in the synod of Twyford, presided over by the Archbishop Theodore, He yielded only after a long resistance, himself weeping when he did so. It was, however permitted to him to delay his consecration for six 2f>ui March, months, till Easter, which left him still a winter to '^^' pass in his dear solitude, before he went to York, where he was consecrated by the primate, Theodore, assisted by six bishops. He would not, however, accept the diocese of Hexham, to which he had been first appointed, but persuaded his friend Eata, the Bishop and Abbot of Lindisfirne, to give up to him the monastic bishopric where ho had already lived so long, and to occupy in his place the diocese created to vex Wilfrid in his own monastery. There is, however, no

^* " Jure est ccenobitarum vita miranda... quorum plurimos novi parvitatein meam longe et munditia mentis et culmine gratise prophetalis anteire. E quibus... Boisilus qui me quondam senex adolescentem nutriebat." —Vita, c. 22.

^'' "Genuflectunt omnes, adjurant per Dominum. lacrymas fundunt, donee ipsum quoque lacrymis plenum dulcibus extrahunt latebris." — Vita, c. 24. Cf. Hist. Eccles., iv. 28.

470 CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS

evidence that he was influenced in this change by any reluctance to become an accomplice, even indirectly, in the spoliation of which Wilfrid had been the victim.-^*^

The diocese of Lindisfarne spread far to the west, much beyond Hexham. The Britons of Cumbria, who had come to be tributaries of the Northumbrian kings, were thus included in it. King Egfrid's deed of gift, in which he gives the district of Cartmell, with all the Britons who dwell in it, to Bishop Cuthbert, still exists.^'' The Roman city of Carlisle, transformed into an Anglo-Saxon fortress, was also under his sway, with all the surrounding monasteries. It has been already told how the inhabitants were exhibiting to him the fine ruins, the walls and fountains of their city, at the moment when the mysterious intimation of Egfrid's downfall was given to him.^'^ It was at Carlisle that he offered the first consolation to Queen Ermenburga, whom that calamity made a widow; and it was there also he returned to give to the queen the veil of the brides of Christ.

He remains ^^^ episcopate of Cuthbert attaches itself to amoukand general history only by means of this dramatic episode of Carlisle, and by his connection. With the g^g^y Qf Wilfrid, from this moment struck in her turn, and converted by adversity. But the history of his life receives an additional lustre from the virtues and good works which distinguished the brief course of this apostolical

^^ See above, page 375. Let us repeat here that from the first deposition of Wilfrid in 678, lii.s vast diocese, which comprehended all Northumberland, had been divided into two new dioceses, the boundaries of which seem to have been those of the two kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The seat of the former remained at York, and that of the latter was established either at Hexham or Lindisfarne. The Abbot of Lindisfarne and of Melrose, Eata, was placed in the Bernician bishopric. In 681, Archbishop Theodore, always occupied with the thought of diminishing the size of dioceses, separated Hexham from Lindisfarne, and, leaving Eata in his monastic cathedral, nominated to Hexham Trumbert, who had just been deposed by the synod of 684 i)'''o culpa cujusdam inobedientics. When he gave up Lindisfarne to his former prior, Cuthbert, and went to Hexham, he took up again the government of a church which he had already occupied for three years. There was also the monastic bishopric of Abercorn, quite in the north, the bishop of which, Trumwine, accompanied Egfrid when he went to Cuthbert to pray him to accept the episcopate. Eata died in 686, and was replaced by St. John of Beverley.

^' Camden's Briiannife, iii. p. 13L Melrose was in the diocese of Lindisfarne; thus the population of Cuthbert's diocese was in a great part composed of vanquished races — Picts and Britons. This diocese was produced by the reaction of the foreign population whose lands had been absorbed in the kingdom of Bernicia." — Varin, p. 33.

'* See above, p. 402.

OF ST. WILFRID. 471

mission. His new dignity made no difference in his character, nor even in his mode of life. He retained his old habits as a cenobite, and even as a hermit. In the midst of his episcopal pomp he remained always the monk and missionary of old. His whole episcopate indeed, seems to bear the character of a mission indefinitely prolonged. He went over his vast diocese, to administer confirmation to converts, traversing a crowd more attentive and respectful than ever, lavishing upon it all kinds of benefits, alms, clothing, sermons, miraculous cures— penetrating as of old into hamlets and distant corners, climbing the hills and downs, sleeping under a tent, and sometimes indeed finding no other shelter than in the huts of branches brought from the nearest wood to the desert, in which he had made the torrent of his eloquence and charity to gush forth.^^

Here also we find illustrations, as at all previous Tenderness periods of his life, of the most delightful feature of his good and holy soul. In the obscure missionary of Melrose, in the already celebrated prior of Lindisfarne, and still more, if that is possible, in the powerful and venerated bishop, the same heart, overflowing with tenderness and compassion, is always to be found. The supernatural power given to him to cure the most cruel diseases was wonderful. But in his frequent and friendly intercourse with the great Anglo-Saxon earls, the ealdormen, as well as with the mixed populations of Britons, Picts, Scots, and English, whom he gathered under his crosier, the principal feature in the numerous and detailed narratives which remain to us, and which gives to them a beauty as of youth, always attractive, is his intense and active sympathy for those human sorrows which in all ages are the same, always so keen, and capable of so little consolation. The more familiar the details of these meetings between the heart of a saint and true priest and the simple and impetuous hearts of the first English Christians, the more attractive do they become; and we cannot resist the inclination of presenting to our some incidents which show at once the liveliness of domestic affections among those newly-baptized barbarians, and their 3" " Implebat episcopi dignitatem, non taraen ut proposituni nionaclii et anachoretaj virtutem desereret." — Bolland., p. 122. "Inter freqiiontiani turbaruni monaciiicic vitaj rigorem soilicitus observare... duni parocliiam suani circuniiens omnibus ruris casis et viculis monita salutis largiretur... devenit in inontana et agresta loca, ubi multi erant de circumpositis villulus, quibus manus erat imponcnda.... Tetenderunt ei tentoria, et cajsis do vicina silva ramusculis." — Vita, c. 26, 29, 32.

472 CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS

The mad filial and familiar confidence in their pastor. One countess. ^f |.|^q ealdormen of King Egfrid arrived one day in breathless haste at Lindisfarne, overwhelmed with grief, his wife, a woman as pious and generous as himself, having been seized with a fit of violent madness. But he was ashamed to disclose the nature of the attack; it seemed to him a sort of chastisement from heaven, disgracing a creature hitherto so chaste and honored: all that he said was that she was approaching death; and he begged that a priest might be given him to carry to her the viaticum, and that when she died he might be permitted to bury her in the holy isle. Cuthbert heard his story, and said to him with much emotion, " This is my business; no one but myself can go with you." As they rode on their way together, the husband wept, and Cuthbert, looking at him, and seeing the cheeks of the rough warrior Avet with tears, divined the whole, and during all the rest of the journey consoled and encouraged him, explaining to him that madness was not a punishment of crime, but a trial which God inflicted sometimes upon the innocent. " Besides," he added, '' when we arrive we shall find her cured; she will come to meet us, and will help me to dismount from my horse, taking, according to her custom, the reins in her hand." And so the event proved; for, says the historian, the demon did not dare to await the coming of the Holy Ghost, of which the man of God was full. The noble lady, delivered from her bondage, rose as if from a profound sleep, and stood on the threshold to greet the holy friend of the house, seizing the reins of his horse, and joyfully announcing her sudden cure.**^

On another occasion, a certain Count Heunna, from whom he sought hospitality during one of his pastoral journeys, received him on his knees, thanking him for his visit, but at the same time telling that his wife was at the point of death, and he himself in despair. "However," said the count, "I

"' " Erat prtefectus Egfridi regis Hiklmer nomine... a B. Cuthberto specialiter dilectus, et... crebro ab eo visitatus. Cujus uxor... membra in diversa raptando, non minimum cunctis incutebat horrorem.... Adscendit vir equum et concitus A^enit.... Erubescebat earn confiteri insanam quam vir Domini sobriam semper videre consueverat... olim tarn pudicam et castam.... Hoc est meum ministerium: non aliura sed ipse tecum pergere dcbes. Cumque agerent iter, videns socium suum flentem... profluentibus in maxillas lacrymis... consolari eum mitissimis verbis coepit.... Ipsa mihi occurrens in acceptione liabenarum istius equi quas nunc teneo... ministrabit nobis." — Vita, c. 15. " Viro Dei gratulabunda, occurrens, jumentum quo sedebat per frenum tenuit." Bolland., p. 120. iBrmly believe that were you to give her your blessing, she would be restored to health, or at least deliv^ered by a speedy death from her long and cruel sufferings." The saint immediately sent one of his priests, without entering into the sick-room himself, to sprinkle her with water which he had blessed. The patient was at once relieved; and herself came to act as cupbearer to the prelate, offering him, in name of ail her family, that cup of wine which, under the name of the loving cup, has continued since the time of the Anglo-Saxons to form a part of all solemn public banquets.'^^

A contagious disease at another time broke out The mother in one part of his diocese, to which Cuthbert immediately betook himself After having visited and consoled all the remaining inhabitants of one village, he turned to the priest who accompanied him, and asked, " Is there still any one sick in this poor place whom I can bless before 1 depart? " " Then," says the priest, who has preserved this story to us, **' I showed him in the distance a poor woman bathed in tears, one of whose sons was already dead, and who held the other in her arms, just about to render his last breath. The bishop rushed to her, and taking the dying child from its mother's arms, kissed it first, then blessed it, and restored it to the mother, saying to her, as the Son of God said to the widow of Nain, ' Woman, weep not; have no more fear or sorrow; your son is saved, and no more victims to this pestilence shall perish here.' " "^^

No saint of his time or country had more frequent or affectionate intercourse than Cuthbert with the nuns, whose numbers and influence were daily increasing among the Anglo-Saxons, and especially in Northumberland. The greater part of them lived together in the great monasteries, such as Whitby and Coldingham; but some, especially those who were widows or of advanced age, lived in their own houses or with their relatives. Such was

" " Pervenit ad comitis vicura. Ille... rem ut erat miserabilis et lacrymatjilis oinni familiai, hoc est, uxoris velut liurticae, vitani desperabileni episcopo revelavit.... Jam surgens, sicut socrus Petri, sanata ministravit eis. Ilia eniin primum totius episcopo poculum IcetiticB dedit, qui sibi exspiranti calicem mortis auferebat." Bolland., p. 122.

"•^ "Presbyter Tidi ... in quodam vico qui dicitur Medelpong.... Conversus ad me raitissime dixit: Est-ne aliquis in villa hac adhuc postilcntia languens?... Ego jam ostendens signavi ei mulicrem... qua? lacrymis faciem rigantibus prajteritara ac prajsentera testabatur arumnam.... O mulier, noli Acre... ne raetuas, nee moesta sis." — Bolland., p. 124. Vita, c. 33.

With his ^ woman devoted to the service of God, who had watched over Cuthbert's childhood (for he seems to ™" ^'^' have been early left an orphan) while he kept his sheep on the hills near Melrose, from the eighth year of his age until his entrance into the convent at the age of fifteen. He was tenderly grateful to her for her maternal care, and, when he became a missionary, took advantage of every occasion furnished to him by his apostolic journeys to visit her whom he called his mother, in the village where she lived. On one occasion, when he was with her, a fire broke out in the village, and the flames, increased by a violent wind, threatened all the neighboring roofs. " Fear nothing, dear mother," the young missionary said to her; '' this fire will do you no harm; " and he began to pray. Suddenly the wind changed; the village was saved, and with it the thatched roof which sheltered the old age of her who had protected his infancy .*3 With Queen From the cottage of his foster-mother he went to the palaces of queens. The noble Queen of Northumberland, Etheldreda, the saint and virgin, regia virgo, says the historian, before she left her throne and conjugal life to bury herself in the cloister, loved to surround herself with the religious of both sexes most renewed for their piety, and to converse familiarly with them for the good of her soul. She often called the young prior of Lindisfarne to her as well as Wilfrid, her guide and spiritual master, and this is the only occasion on which a meeting between these two contemporaries, so venerable yet so different, can be supposed to have taken place. The holy queen had a great friendship for Cuthbert. She overwhelmed him and his monastery with gifts from her own possessions, and wishing, besides, to offer him a personal token of her close affection, she embroidered for him, with her own hands (for she embroidered beautifully), a stole and maniple covered with gold and precious stones. She chose to give him such a present that he might wear this memorial of her only in the presence of God whom they both served, and accordingly would be obliged to keep her always in mind at the holy sacrifice.'^ *^ "A quadam muliere, nomine Kenspid, adhuc vivens, sanctimonialis vidua.... Namque earn niatrem appellavit, sxpe visitans earn.... Ventus abripiebat ignitos foenei tecti fasciculos.... Praefata Dei faraula concita accurrit.... Non timeas, inquit, mater; animi aequior esto: non enim tibi tuisve haec quamlibet ferox flamma nocebit." — Bolland., p. 120. Vita, c. 14.

^** " Kegia virgo... eanctas religionis ministros in foedus amicitiae viros

Cuthbert was on still more intimate terms with ^j^jj^jje. the holy princesses, who, placed at the head of srreat great •^ •^- n J ,• x" I abbesses: communities oi nuns, and sometimes even oi monks, exercised so powerful an influence upon the Anglo-Saxon race, and particularly on Xorthumbria. While he was still at Melrose the increasing fame of his sanctity and eloquence brought him often into the presence of the sister of King Oswy, who then reigned over the two Northumbrian kingdoms. This princess, Ebba,'*-5 was abbess of the double monastery of Coldingham, of which mention has already been made, the farthest north of all the religious establishments of Northumbria, and that in which Queen Etheldreda sought refuge first after leaving her husband. Cuthbert was the guest for several days of the royal abbess; but he did not intermit on this account his pious exercises, nor, above all, his austerities and long prayers by night on the sea-shore. During the day he preached to Ebba's two communities, edifying them by the wonderful harmony between his life and his doctrine.'^'^ Perhaps he was not himself equally edified by all he saw, if we give faith to the assertions of later historians, who trace back to that visit the severe regulations attributed to him in respect to the intercourse of monks with women of whatsoever condition.47

ac mulieres sibi admittebat, quorum consilio atque consortio in omnem sanctimoniam provehi... arbitrabatur... prcesertim ... in familiaritatem coUigendani fore ex ccetu monastico asserebat, inter quos... vitaj sanctitatis decore insignitum Cutbhertum ... in gratiam ac dilectionem exbibuit. •.. Opus eximiura et praeclarum ... ex auro et lapidibus pretiosis, propriis ut fertur manibus docta auri texturse ingenio... ob interna; dilectionis intuituni... festinavit.... Juste enim virgo virginem et dilccta dilectum tali decebat oppugnari obsequio.... Unde solum in conspectu regis Domini assistens uteretur." — Tuomas Eliexsis, Vita S. Etheldr., c. 9. This writer of the twelfth century affirms that the stole and maniple embroidered by Etheldreda for Cuthbert were venerated till his time at the Cathedral of Durham.

*'" " Sanctimonialis femina et mater ancillarum Christi nomine Ebba, regens monasterium... religions pariter ac nobilitate cunctis honorabilis." — Vita, c. 10.

"^ "Nee negare potuit quod ab eo charitas ex ancillse Dei corde poposcit.... Dies aliquot ibi permanens, viani justitise quam predicabatur, omnibus actu pariter ac sermone pandebat." — Vita, c. 10.

'"' No trace of this prohibition is to be found in Bede, or in the narrative of the monk of Lindisfarne. But an obstinate tradition, repeated by all more recent writers, declares that Cuthbert forbade the entrance of women into the church of the monastery at Lindisfarne. When bis body was transferred, along with the episcopal see, at an after period to Durham, the same prohibition was maintained there. No woman could enter the great cathedral of that city. The history of this celebrated church is full of anecdotes relative to the attempts made by ladies of high rank to evade this With El- -^^^ *^® authority of this tradition, weakened as fledaof it is by the total silence of Cuthbert's biographers, ^' is contradicted by his example. To the end of his life he maintained a very intimate and constant friendship with another abbess of the blood-royal of Northumbria, Elfleda, niece of St. Oswald and of King Oswy, who, though still quite young,^^ exercised an influence much greater than that of Ebba upon the men and the events of her time. It has been seen,*^ that, out of consideration for her, the holy anchorite left his islet of Fame to hold a conference with her in another island nearer to Whitby, in respect to the anxieties by which she was assailed on account of her brother, King Egfrid. Cuthbert was heartily attached to all the royal family of Northumbria, the Bernician dynasty, which had been restored in his childhood under the great and saintly Oswald. He had a special devotion for that martyred king, whose head was represented on his seal. Oswald's niece, the Abbess Elfleda, before she became the generous and powerful protectress of Wilfrid, was thus the friend and client of St. Cuthbert, linking together these two illustrious personages as the holy Queen Etheldreda had done. She had the liveliest affection for the Prior of Lindisfarne, and at the same time an absolute confidence in his sanctity. When she was assailed by an alarming illness, which fell into paralysis, and

humiliation. As time went on the severity relaxed, and there is still shown in the cathedral a line in blue marble which no woman could cross, but which permitted them at least to enter the nave, and see from a distance the choir and shrine of the saint. One of his historians adds: " Non taraen sexum ilium detestando persequitur, sed occasionis delinquendi materiam amputando elidere conatur." — Reginaldus Dunelmensis, Z>e Admirandis B. Cuthbcfti Vcrtutihns, p. 151. The Irish version of his Life gives two reasons for this prohibition — the first, that the daughter of the Pictish king, "in domo patris adulterata a quovis juvene," had represented the young hermit as being the father of her child; and afterwards, that, when he was a bishop, and during a pontifical procession, he saw himself followed by a woman of dazzling beauty, who attracted the eyes and troubled the minds of all present. " Vidit plerosque hominium cachinno resultando ridere.... Circumspiciens videt quandam sub specie mulieris, et crine, et facie, cum nitente vestium varietate, miro modo fulgentem. Omnem humanum effigiena sui pulchritudine praecedebat.... Quicumque illius vultus inspexerant prje nimias cupidinis lascivia pene seipsos excesserant." It was a devilish apparition, which he put to flight by sprinkling it with holy water. From that time until the twelfth century women were forbidden to be interred in churches dedicated to him, Libellus de Ortii, c. 29. One of these churches gave its name to the town and county of Kirkcudbright (Cuthbrichtiskhirche), Reginaldus, c. 84.

"** She was born in 654, and was not thirty when Cuthbert met her in Coquet Isle. See the genealogical table, Appendix VI., p. 752.

*» Page 407. found no remedy from physicians, she cried, " Ah, had I but something which belonged to my dear Cuthbert, I am sure I