End of the Celtic Heresy. — Adamnan, Egbert, St. Aldhelm (part 2 of 2)

was destined to become the principal glor3^ A Scottish

monk named Ma'idulf, moved by the same impulse which led so many Anglo-Saxons to the cloisters and hermitages of Ireland, had come to England to seek a solitude where he could pray and study in peace. He established himself in an immense forest upon the borders of Wessex and Mercia, and lived there as a hermit, sheltered by a hut which he had been allowed to build under the walls of an old castle, a place which had come into the possession of the Saxon kings after having been the dwelling of British chiefs, and was the sole

St. Aldhelm wrote: "Librum egregium adversus errorem Britonura, quo vef Pascha non suo tempore celebrant, vel alia perplura ecclcsiasticce castitati et pad contraria gerunt." In all Aldhelm's writings that have been preserved to us there is not the least allusion to the irregular morals of the Celtic clergy.

'^* Except certain lines in Bode (v. 18), and the biographical details which have been found in Aldhelm's works, we have no contemporary information as to his life. But AVilliam of Malmesbury, in the twelfth century, and before him another monk, Faricius, a member of the great monastery of which Aldhelm had been abbot, compiled two separate biographies of the saint, from the traditions of their community. The work of William, which is very curious, has been published by Mabillon and the Bollandists in an abridged form, .which was all they themselves knew of it. The complete text is to be found only in the Anglia Sacra of Wharton, vol. ii. The literary position of Aldhelm has been ably examined by Lingard (Anglo-Saxon Church, vol. ii.) and Ozanam {Etudes Germaniques, vol. ii. 489).

»«" Chron. Saxon., ad. ann. 552.

VOL. II. 45

530 CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS

remnant of a British town which the Teutonic conquerors had destroyed.!*^! The Celtic solitary, to provide himself with the means of living, opened a school. Any man ih our day, in any country in the world except the Far West of America, who should open a school in a wood, would run great risk of dying there of hunger. But at that time such a thirst for instruction had arisen among the Anglo-Saxons, and the fountains at which they could satisfy it were so rare, that the speculation of Maidulf succeeded perfectly. Scholars came to him in sufficient numbers to enable him shortly to form a community, and among the rest came Aldhelm, first as a pupil and afterwards as a monk,^^^ He remained there for fifteen He becomes years, was elected abbot on the death of Maidulf, and by his exertions the foundation of the Celtic anchorite became one of the principal monasteries in England, still, however, bearing the name of the old and saintly stranger whom the Celts were always proud to remember they had given as a master to the great Aldhelm.^^^ His studies Before, however, he was called to rule his codisciples, Aldhelm desired to have the advantage of other instructions than those of his Celtic master. He went repeatedly to Canterbury ,^6^ where the great monastic schools had taken new life under that Abbot Adrian whom we have already so often referred to, and who had come from Africa with the Asiatic Archbishop Theodore, to preside over the Catholic education of the Anglo-Saxons. This eminent man, described by a monastic historian four centuries after his death as the master of masters, the fountain-head and centre of letters and arts, gained the heart of Aldhelm by developing the fulness of his intelligence. The young West Saxon came out of the hands of his African preceptor furnished with all which then constituted '®* Liber Antiquitatum Meldunensis Caenohii, ap. Dugdale, Monasticon. The remembrance of this catastrophe appears to survive in the modern name of Broken-boroHgh, not far from Malmesbury.

¹⁶² " Deficientibus necessariis soholares in discipulatum accepit ut eorum liberalitate victus tenuitatem corrigeret. Illi procedenti tempore magistri sequacesex scholaribus nionachi effecti, in conventum non exiguum coaluere." — GuiLL. Malmesb., Vita Aldhelmi, ap. Wharton, page 3.

*^^ Maildulfs hiirgh, whence Malmesbury. "Abbas monasterii quod Maildufi urbem nuncupavit." — Bede, v. 18. "A quodam sancto viro de nostro genere nutritus es." — Epist. Scoti Anonym., ap. Giles, p. 98.

'*^* It is difficult to conceive how William of Malmesbury could attribute the first training of Aldhelm to the Abbot Adrian. Aldhelm, who died a septuagenarian in 709, must have been at least twenty in 6G9, the year in which Adrian landed in England. Besides, it is proved that Aldhelm made two distinct visits to Canterbury. a course of literary and religious instruction.^^s During his entire life he retained a grateful recollection of his teacher, and took pleasure in dating the true birth of his mind from his residence at Canterbury. " It is you, my beloved," he wrote to Adrian, " who have been the venerable teacher of my rude infancy, it is you whom I embrace with the effusion of a pure tenderness, longing much to return to you." ^^^ It was thus at Canterbury that Aldhelm acquired ^.^ ^^^ that profound knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, literary that love of Greek, Latin and Hebrew, these literary ^^^^ **'°'^' tastes and habits, which gained him the first place in the universal admiration of his countrymen. Not only contemporaries, such as Bede,i^7 but their distant descendants, offered him a homage which has attracted the unaccustomed attention of several modern writers. I am aware that he is the first Saxon whose writings have been preserved,^^^ the first man of Teutonic race who cultivated the Latin muse, as he boasts in applying to himself while still very young these lines of Virgil: —

" Primus ego in patriam niecum, modo vita supersit,

Aonio rediens deducam vertice Musas.

Primus Idumaeas referam tibi, Mantua, palmas."

But I cannot but think that his literary importance has been singularly exaggerated. Of all the Fathers of the Church, or even of ecclesiastical writers generally, I know none whose productions are more wearisome. He has neither the fiery originality of Ceadmon nor the eloquent and elegant simplicity of Bede. He is certainly well-informed for his time, and is not without a certain warmth of feeling when his mind is not frozen by pedantic formalism. Sometimes he applies happily texts from the Bible, and in his famous essays in prose and verse upon virgins and virginity he shows himself thoroughly instructed in sacred and ecclesiastical history. His verses, rhymed and unrhymed, are a little better than his 165 <<Quem in arcem scientiae stotisse qui Anglorum gesta perleget, intelliget.... Fons liberarum vivus artium." — Goill. Malmesb., p. 3.

¹⁶⁶ <'Reverendissimo patri mcajquc rudis infantio3 venerando praeceptori.... Mi charissime, qucm gratia puraj dilcctionis amplector." — Aldhelmi Opera, p. 330, ed. Giles.

167 <' vir undecumque doctissimus: nam et sermone nitidus, et scripturarum tarn liberalium quam ecclesiasticarum erat eruditione mirandus." —Bede, v. 18.

'^* " Constat ncminem nostraj stirpis prosapia genitum, et GerraanicaB gentis cunabulis confotum, in liujuscemodi ncgoeio ante nostram mediocritatem tantopcre desudasse." — Uj'ist. ad Acircium, ed. Giles, p. 327. prose, but still are destitute of any special charm or brilliaucj, notwithstanding the pompous affectation of his images and metaphors. But in verse and in prose, this Teuton, in whom it would be pleasant to find something wild and primitive, delights in literary sleight-of-hand, in acrostics, in enigmas, in alliterations, in a play upon words, and a childish and grotesque redundance of expression ^^^ — in short, in all the paltry refinements of the Greek and Latin decadence.

We should judge him no doubt more leniently if we were acquainted with his Anglo-Saxon works, which must have contributed largely to his popular reputation. But of these His Ancrio- there remains to us only a vague recollection, associated with the most curious and touching feature of his youth.. What would not one give to have the actual text of those canticles and ballads which he sang upon the bridges and at the wayside corners, lying in wait for the Saxon peasants who left church in haste as soon as mass was over to avoid the sermon? Appearing before them as a musician, one of their ordinary bards, he attempted no doubt to teach them, under that popular and fascinating form of utterance, the same truths of religion wdiich it wearied them to hear from the pulpit.^'^ These songs in the vernacular tongue retained their popularity for several centuries, and gained for Aldhelm the honor of being proclaimed prince of Anglo-Saxon poetry by the great King Alfred.

Literary The most Striking particular in the history and writings of Aldhelm is the view they afford us of the literary and.intellectual life, developed as it were in a moment, in the Saxon cloisters, almost before their completion, by an inspiring breath, at once Catholic and classic, from Italy and the East. The same phenomenon had been apparent two centuries earlier in the Irish monasteries under an inspiration more original but less easy to

169 J refer those who may think me too severe, and who may not have at hand the convenient volume published by Dr. Giles, to the extracts from St. Aldhelm given by Lingard and Ozanam.

'^° " Litteris ad plenum instructus, nativae quoque linguse non negligebat carmina, adeo ut, teste libro iElfredi... nulla unquam setate par fuerit quisquam, poesim Anglicam posse facere vel canere.... Carmen triviale quod adhuc vulgo cantitatur fecisse.... Populura eo tempore semi-barbarum, parum divinis sermonibus intentum statim cantatis missis domos cursitare solitum; ideo sanctum virum super pontem qui rura et urbem continual, abeuntibus se opposuisse obicem, quasi artem canendi professum.... Hoc commento sensim inter ludicra verbis scripturarum insertis, elves ad sanitatem reduxisse." — Guill. Malmesb., p. 4.

OF ST. WILFRID. ' 533

study. This literary life had its clouds and its pettinesses, its pretentious and affected aspect. But such a blossoming of human thought, of study and knowledge, of poetry and eloquence, in the bosom of a barbarous and warlike race, still apparently absorbed by war, invasions, dynastic and domestic revolutions, and all the storms and blunders which characterize the childhood of society, is not the less a great and wonderful sight.

The good and evil sides of this development could Extent and not be better manifested than in the person of St. Aldhelm, and especially in the extent and variety of knowledge, bis information. He was an excellent musician, and studied eagerly all the instruments known in his day.^"^ What was still more rare, he had studied Roman law,i"2 happily ignored by all the other Anglo-Saxon monks and men of letters, even including the Venerable Bede, whose learning seemed universal. He was acquainted, as has been seen, with the three sacred languages, and knew enough of Hebrew to read the Bible in the original. He not only read Greek, but spoke and pronounced it like an ancient Greek, according to the two professors whom King Ina, cousin of Aldhelm, brought from Greece to aid him in his studies. As for Latin, it occupied him only too much. He makes wearisome dissertations upon the minute details of grammar, prosody, and metrical rules, and quotes to extremity Virgil and Lucan, Persius and Terence, Horace and Juvenal: he even quotes Juvencus and the Priapeia!

At the same time, his literary or classical occupations never made him lose sight of the exigencies tudcVor''"' or perils of the soul. In a letter which has been often quoted, he warns one of his countrymen who was going to study in Ireland against the dangers of pagan philosophy, and, above all, of mythology. '* What fruit," he asks, " can orthodox truth derive from the studies of a man who spends his strength in examining into the incests of the impure Proserpine, the adventures of the petulant Herraione, the bacchanals of Lupercus, or the parasites of Priapus? All that

^" " Omnia instrumenta quae fidibus vel fistulis aut aliis varietatibus mclodiae fieri possunt... in quotidiano usu habuit." — FARiciva, Vita Aldhelm., ap. BoLLAND., t. vi. Maii, p. 83.

'"^ He himself states this in a letter to his predecessor Hedda, ed. Giles, p. 96. Compare Lappenberg, i. 196. I do not know how Palf^rave discovered the existence somewhere of a manuscript treatise of Aldhelm upon Roman law, which, in 1832, he hoped soon to publish. has vanished; it has become as nothing before the Cross, victorious over death." ^"^

This anxiety for the salvation of souls, which he gives as the motive of all his works, reveals itself especially in his correspondence. For example, here are certain expressions iu a letter which might have been addressed yesterday to the youth, half clerical, half noble, of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge — so unchanging is the Anglo-Saxon nature in its vices as in its virtues: *' Dear Ethelwald, who are at once my son and my disciple, you are still very young; but, I entreat you, do not let yourself be too much in bondage to the vain pleasures of this world. Avoid carefully daily excesses in drinking, long and endless repasts, even riding-parties too much prolonged, and every other miserable sensual delight.i'^ I implore you also not to let yourself be overcome by the love of money or of vain glory., or by that secular boasting which is odious to God. Consecrate rather your time, my beloved, to the study of the Scriptures and to prayer; and if you wish, in addition, to study secular literature, do it with the special intention of understanding better the sacred text, the meaning of which depends almost everywhere on the understanding of the rules of grammar. Put this letter among your other books, that you may read it over and over again."

In dedicating his voluminous treatise on Latin versification, after twenty years' absence, to the chief ^"^ of a Northumbrian or Scottish tribe who had been his companion in his studies, and had become his spiritual son, he insists warmly that the poor prince, whom he calls his " very reverend son," should consider it a duty to read the wearisome volume from beginning to end. He expatiates at length upon the trouble which his production had cost him in the midst of his pastoral cares, and the convulsions of the age. " It would be absurd," he says, '' if you did not take the trouble to eat

'" " Quidnain, rogitum quaeso, orthodoxoe fidei Sacramento commodi affert circa temeratum spurcae Proserpinfe incestuiii... enucleate legendo scrutendoque sordescere... qu£e... alma mortis morte stipite patibuli affixa, solo tenus diruta evanuere."— Epist. ad Wilfrid., ed. Giles, p. 337.

"'* " Sive in quotidianis potationibus et conviviis usu frequentiore ac prolixiore inhoneste superfiuis, sive in equitandi vagatione culpabili.... Seu in quibuslibet corporeae delectationis voluptatibus execrandis.... Multo magis, mi amantissime, vel lectionibus divinis, vel orationibus sacris semper invigila." — P. 332, ed. Giles.

''* It is not known who this Acircius was, whom he describes pompously as "Aquilonalis imperii sceptra gubernanti," but whom he reminds that they contracted in their youth " inextricabile conglutinati foederis pignus." what I have taken so much pains to grind and make into bread." 1"^ Then he invokes the example of the great Emperor Theodosius, who, while ruling the world, found time to copy the eighteen books of the grammarian Priscian. But he adds: " Let not the sound of the trumpet of the last judgment depart from your ears; let it recall to you day and night the book of the law, which ought to be meditated day and night. You will never sin if you think always of your last end. What is our prosperity here below? a dream, a vapor, the foam on the sea. God grant that the possession of present good may not hold to us the place of future recompense, and that the abundance of that which perishes may not be followed by the dearth of that which endures. I ask this for you and for myself, from Him who for us has hung upon the cross." ^'^

The rare fragments of his correspondence are at the same time the only evidence by which the heart of Aldhelm can be estimated; and his heart seems to us to have been much superior to his intelligence. A tenderness and kindness are here visible, which, in the person of a monk of barbarous race, are much more touching and attractive than all his rhetoric and learning. We perceive with pleasure that his soul was neither inflated nor disturbed by his great and increasing reputation, nor by the crowd of disciples and admirers who came to him, not only from the Britannic Isles, but also from Greece and Spain. He continued always the same mild and afi'ectionate spirit which, while passionately studying prosody, astronomy, and Roman law, at Canterbury, wrote to his bishop lamenting that he could not celebrate Christmas in the joyous company of his brethren of Malmesbury, and charging him to salute tenderly in his name all the brethren, from the first to the last.^"^

These features of his character explain the great popularity which he enjoyed in his own country. It was such that when he returned from his journeys, he was met not only by a long procession of monks with chants and

176 <( Absurdum nempe arbitror si... illud te pigeat velut insolescentem ac delicatum paulatiin masticare ac runiinare, quod me non piguit, utpote pistoris pinsentis officio functuni, commolere et tollere." — P. 328, ed. Giles.

177 4< propterea coelestis tuba) ehingor.... Utinam caducarum copia, sccutarum non sit inopia... quod priestare dignetur, qui pro nobis in patibuio pc'pendit." Jbid.

"** " Fateor me decrevisse.... Natalis Domini solemnitatem in consortio fratrum tripudians celebrare.... Salutate in Christo oninem sodalium meorum catervara a minimo usque ad maximum." incense, but also by a crowd of laymen, who formed themselves into a kind of rhythmic dance in his honor.^"^

After this prolonged discussion of the literary position held by Aldhelm, it is necessary to recall to our readers that the great point of interest for us is his monastic life, and his connection with the Celtic dissidents.

^ ^ This indifferent writer was a great monk. He monfs'tic divided his life between stud}^ and prayer, but ^^^^' study was for him only a succession of conversations with God. " When I read," he said, " it is God who speaks to me; when I pray, it is to God that I speak." i^*^ Like his contemporaries, Wilfrid and the holy abbots of the Northumbrian coast, he professed and extended the rule of St. Benedict, whose praises he has written in his poem in honor of Virgins, and whom he does not hesitate to regard as the first author of the conversion of England, his disciples having been its earliest missionaries.^^^ He thus substituted the teachings and traditions of Canterbury for the influence of his first Celtic master. This, however, was not prompted by self-indulgence, for he continued, as did Wilfrid himself, faithful to the great austerities which characterized Irish monastic life. Aldhelm imposed upon himself the same extraordinary penances as were habitual to the Celtic monks. To subdue the impulses of the flesh he would plunge during the night into a fountain near the monastery, and there re-

¹⁷⁹ a Venienti occursura est ubique magna pompa, longo apparatu salutantium.... Laicorum pars pedibus plaudunt cboreas; pars diversis corporum gestjbus internas pandunt lastitias." — Guill. Malmesb., p. 19.

'^^ " Lectionibus frequenter, orationibus instanter incumbebat, ut sicut ipse in quadam epistola dicebat, legens Deum alloquentem audiret, orans Deum alloqueretur." — Ibid., p. 13.

*'*' We quote the lines for the satisfaction of our readers. They contain the first homage ever offered by a Teutonic pen to St. Benedict and his institution: —

" Temporibus faustus Benedictus claruit isdem,

Quem Deus Ausonise clemens indulserat auctor....

Primo qui statuit nostras certamina vitae, Qualiter optatara teneant coenobia normam,

Quoque modo properet directo traniite sanctus,

Ad supera scandens coelorum culmina cultor;
Cujus prjeclaram pandens ab origine vitam
Grffigorius praesul chartis descripserat olini,
Donee aethralem felix niigraret in arcem.

Hujus alumnorum numero glonieramus ovantes,

Quos gerit in gremio foecunda Britannia cives, A quo jam nobis baptismi gratia fluxit,

Atque magistrorum veneranda caterva cucurrit."

£}e Laudibus Virginum, p. 159.

OF ST. -VYILPRID. 537

main immersed to the neck, till he had said the Psalter, and this in winter as in summer. The fountain long retained his name, and the memory of his wonderful austerities.^^^ I suppose he is the sole poet, the sole philosopher, of whom such recollections have been preserved.

But he was far from concentrating his zeal within the narrow enclosure of his monastery. It was he who by his preaching, completed the conquest of Wessex, the kingdom which, a hundred years after his death, was to absorb the other seven kingdoms of the Heptarchy. This work was long and laborious. The people seem to have been Christian only in name: they neither listened to the priests nor attended the churches. Aldhelm employed all the resources of his eloquence to attract them. He even went to the fairs and market-places, mingled with the groups of buyers and sellers, and succeeded, by his persuasive addresses, in making them leave their merchandise for the moment, and follow him to the church, where he fed them with the bread of the divine Word.i^^

His anxiety for the good of souls and the honor of the Church extended even beyond his native province. He was not indifferent, as were so many other holy bishops and abbots of his time, to the noble struggles of Wilfrid. One of his letters still exists, addressed to the numerous members of Wilfrid's clergy who had abandoned their pontiff in the midst of his trials, and who, during his exile, sought the favor of his persecutors. " I entreat you on my knees," wrote Aldhelm, " not to allow yourselves to be disturbed by the hurricane which has just shaken the foundations of your Church, the sound of which has echoed even to us. If it is needful, take courage to leave the country of your fathers with your bishop, and follow him into exile. What pain, what labor should ever be allowed to separate you from him who has fed you, trained you, carried you in his arms and on his breast, with so tender a charity?...

*^* " Ut vim rebelli corpori consoinderet, fontl se humero tenus immergebat. Ibi nee glacialem in hyeme frigorem, ncc aestate nebulas ex locis palustribus halantes, eurans.... Fons ille ... in valle coenobii lenibus scatebris fluens." — GuiLL. Malmesb., p. 13.

J83 (( iiiJQg provincia; populus, perversiis opcre, quamvis subditus fidei nostrae, ecclesiam non frequentabat, nee saeerdotum eurabat imperium qucm vir blandus verbis nionens suavibus.... Mereatoruni ex diversis patribus mnltitudo congregabatur maxima: cui pater iste extra urbeni veniebat obviando.... Quidam eorcm... pro quibus vencrant rclinquentes ad tempiis mercimonia... post ha;c... repedabant ad propria, animabus 6uis divino prius officio saginatis." — Bolland., t. vi. Maii, p. 85.

Look at the meu of the world, who are strangers to all knowledge of divine things. What would be said of laymen, who, after having loved and served their lord in his prosperity, should abandon him when he fell into misfortune and poverty? What would be said of those who should prefer the repose of their own hearths, instead of joining themselves to the misery and exile of their prince? By what a universal explosion of laughter, of contempt, and execration, would not they be overwhelmed? And you too, you priests, what will not be said of you if you allow the bishop who ordained you to go alone into banishment? " ^^^ We are not informed what was the effect of this letter; but it is not the less curious to behold our Anglo-Saxon abbot, worthy descendant of Odin, invoking to the aid of episcopal authority, and endeavoring to awake in the breasts of his priestly brethren, that tradition of personal devotion, that passionate sentiment of fealty to prince and lord, of which the Anglo-Saxons have left us so many touching examples.

Aldhelm was the true founder of Malmesbury, of which he was abbot for thirty years. It was to him it owed the powerful and popular existence which lasted till an advanced period in the middle ages; and he attracted to it an immense crowd of monks and students.^^^ By the grandeur and variety of his buildings, he made it the most magnificent edifice which then existed in England. The sympathy which existed between him and the kings and nobles of Wessex and Mercia procured vast territorial gifts to the monastery situated on the borders of the two kingdoms. The abbatial demesne, which contained only thirty dairies,!^^ when he became abbot, included more than four hundred at his Komrto*" death. In order to protect the liberty and property *'riviie-e''of °^ ^^^^ community as much as possible from lay or exemption, ecclesiastical cupidity, he went to Rome, with the ''^^"'''^" consent of the kings of Mercia and Wessex, and obtained from Pope Sergius I. an act of privilege which placed 184 u Yqs viscerales contribulos, flexis genuuni poplitibus, subnixa expose© prece.... Ecce seculares divinse scientiae extorres, si devotum dominum quern in prosperitate dilexerunt... deseruerint.... Nonne execrabiles cachinni ridiculo et gannaturas strepitu ab omnibus ducuntur? Quid ergo de vobis dicetur?" etc. — Bpistola ad Clerum Wilfridi Episcopi, p. 335.

¹⁸⁵ " Currebatur ad Aldhelmum totis semitis: his vitae sanctimoniam, illis litterarum scientiam desiderantibus.... Tunc res monasterii in immensum augeri." — GaiLL. Malmesb., p. 10.

1^^ I translate tlius the cassatos of William, which I suppose to be eq,uivalent to the more usual term casata. the Monastery of Malmesbury and its dependencies under the special protection of the Holy See, and guaranteed to them an absolute independence of all secular or episcopal authority.^^' When he became a bishop, Aldhelm took pains to have this exemption confirmed, with all requisite solemnity, by his cousin, King Ina.

For he too became a bishop towards the end ef his life, and in spite of all his efforts to be delivered from this burden. On the death of the bishop of the West Saxons, Hedda, the plan of Archbishop Theodore was brought into operation to divide his vast diocese into two. A new bishopric was created at Sherburne, which still, however, was of much too vast extent, since it included almost all the south-west of England to the point of Cornwall, which the West Saxons had not yet completely conquered.i^^ Aldhelm Avas called to this new diocese. After his promotion it was his desire that the monks of his different communities ^^^— or, as he said, his families — should proceed, in all freedom, to the election of a new abbot; but they obstinately refused to give him a successor. To his reiterated requests they answered, " As long as you live, we will live with you and under you. But one thing we ask of you unanimously. It is, to guarantee to us, by the Holy Scriptures and the consent of the powerful, that after your death neither king, nor bishop, nor any man whatsoever, ecclesiastic or layman, may exercise over us an authority which we are not willing to accept i'-*^ Aldhelm procured an

'*^ The authenticity of the Act given by William has been contested, but the fact of the exemption does not seem doubtful. On this subject the Bollandists say, "Tales exemptiones (from episcopal jurisdiction), licet eo tempore rariores, non omnino inusitatas fuisse ostendit eruditissimus Mabilio, de lie diplomaiica, 1. i. c. 3, ex quibus corrigas quaj alibi forte in contrarium diximus." Our readers will not wish us to enter into the coarse fables, little to the honor of the Papacy, which the biographers of Aldhelm have mingled with the narrative of his journey to Rome, nor to the extraordinary trial which the holy author of the Eulogij of Virginity, like Robert d'Arbrissel at a later period, imposed upon himself to prove his victory over his senses. " Quomodo," says Henschenius, with reason, " monacho id crcdam fuisse permissum?" And it is well to add, as Malmesbury says on another occasion, " Non enim cget Aldhclmus ut mendaciis asseratur."

'"^ The seat of the ancient diocese continued at Winchester. That of Sherburne was shortly afterwards transferred to Sarum or Salisbur}'. It comprehended the six existing counties of Wilts, Berks, Somerset, Dorset, Devonshire, and Cornwall. It was afterwards subdivided, and the two additional dioceses of Bath and Exeter taken from it.

'*** There were three of these — Malmesbury, Frome, and Bradford, the two latter having sprung from the former.

¹⁹⁰ K ^bbatem quern sibi spontanea voce familiarum mcarum optio, conacknowledgment of the perpetual freedom of the ^dcTs^TOn- monastery, which he continued to rule, from his Abbot of consin King Ina, from his colleague the Bishop of Winchester, and from all the clergy of Wessex ^'^' assembled in synod. He then went to Canterbury to be consecrated by the former companion of his studies, the Archbishop Brithwald, successor of the great Theodore.

A curious incident is associated with this journey. When Aldhelm was at Canterbury he learned that ships from France, from the land of the Morins, had touched at Dover. On receiving this news he went to Dover, hoping to find among their cargoes books or other articles of use to his church. And, in fact, he did discover among the merchandise displayed upon the shore many books, and one in particular, of which, after having carefully examined it, he asked the price. The sailors, seeing him so poorly clad, laughed at him, and pushed him roughly away. Soon after a storm broke out, endangering the anchored ship. Aldhelm threw himself into a boat (like the generous sailors in the life-boats at the present day), to aid the crew of the threatened vessel. At his prayer the waves calmed down, and their lives were saved; the sailors, confused and deeply touched, then gave him the book he desired. It was a complete Bible, the Old and New Testaments, which he carried with him as a precious treasure to Malmesbury.^^i This anecdote is not without interest in connection with the history of material and intellectual commerce in England; it shows, too, that so far from interdicting the stud}^ of the Bible, as the modern English so blindly accuse her of doing, the Church, from the most primitive times, has neglected no occasion of spreading the knowledge of it.

sona voce elegisset.... TJt nullus post obitum tuum nee regalis audacitas, nee pontificalis auctoritas, vel aliquid ecclesiasticae seu secularis dignitatis vir, sine nostro voluntatis arbitrio, in nobis sibi vindicet principatum." —Epist. Aldhelmi de Libertate PropricB Eledionis, ap. Guill. Malmesb., BoLLAND., and Giles, p. 350.

'^^ " Spatiabatur sanctus juxta mare, intentosque oculos mercimoniis inflgebat, si quid forte commoduni ecclesiastico usui attulissent nauta? qui e Gallico sinu in Angliam provecti librorum copiani apportassent. Conspieatus librum totius Testamenti Veteris et Novi seriem continentem.... Cum gnarus folia volveret, pretiuni effringeret, barbari eum nautica lascivia conviciis aggrediuntur.... Mox ipse in scapha ascensa virtute remigum periclitantes adisset, mutata in bonum." — Guill. Malmesb., p. 20. Cf. Bol- LAND., loco cit., p. 8. This Bible was still in existence at Malmesbury in the time of the historian — more than four centuries after the death of Aldhelm.

The episcopate of Aldhelm lasted only four years, Death of which he passed in continual journeys through his vast diocese, preaching day and night. He died the same year as his master, the famous African abbot, Adrian of Canterbury, and his illustrious contemporary, Wilfrid of York. Depth surprised him, as it did the holy apostle of Northumberland,^^^ in a village,^^^ during one of his apostolic journeys. According to his own desire, he drew his last breath in the little wooden church to which he had come to preach the word of God; the stone on which he laid his dying head was shown long afterwards.

Such was the man to whom all agree in attribu- what he ting the principal part in putting down what has blck'Jhe'"^ been called the schism in the west and south Great Britain. It is interesting to search out in his writings, as in his life, all the traces of his connection with the Celts. They are, however, few in number, and seem all connected either with his first education under the Celtic Maidulf, or his consequent literary studies. He receives pompous compliments from several Irishmen, one of whom requests from him the loan of a book, and afterwards that ho would receive him as a disciple, sending him a specimen of Latin verses, and announcing that he could easily find horses and a servant for the journey, if Aldhelm's answer was favorable.^'-** Another, exiled, as he describes it, in the most distant corner of the Frankish kingdom, beside the tomb of his holy countryman Fursy (at Laguy-sur-Marne), begs him, whom he calls the Archimandrite of the Saxons, to send him his Latin panegyrics.^'-'^ At another time, it is the son

'8* See p. 251.

'^^ At Dulling in Somersetshire. " In prajclicationibus noctes perinde ac dies continuans, dioeceses non segniter circumiens.... Lignea erat ecclesia, in qua se ultimum spirans afferre jussit." — Gdill. Malmesb., p. 23. Eight centuries after his death his feast was still celebrated at Malmesbury by such a crowd of worshippers that, according to Camden, the presence of a troop of soldiers, cohors militum, was necessary to prevent disorder. Then came the Reformation of Henry VIII., with its usual train of devastations. The magnificent church of Malmesbury would have been razed to the ground had not a weaver bought it from the king to establish his looms there. The monastery was sacked. The precious MSS. of his library were long employed to fill up broken windows in the neighboring houses, or to light the bakers' fires. — Maitland's Bark Ages, p. 281.

'^^ " Domino sancto, sapientissimo, Christo quidem carissimo Aldhelmo Scotus ignoti nominis in Deo aeterno salutem," etc. — P. 98, ed. Giles.

i9o a Domino lectricibus ditato studiis mellifluisque ornato lucubratiunculis, Aldhelmo Archimandritaj Saxonura.... Cellanus in llibernensi insula natus, in extreme Francorum limitis latens angulo exul." Aldhelm answers VOL. IL 46 of a Scottish king, learned in the literature of his time, who sends all his works to Aldhelm, in order that the file of so accomplished a genius may rub off the Scottish rust from them.i'^'^ Then we find him, in his own person, congratulating one of his Anglo-Saxon friends on his return from foggy Ireland, after having studied there for six years. On this occasion he gives us an emphatic picture of the constant journeys of English students, who filled whole fleets going and coming to Ireland, in order to examine deeply, not only into the secrets of grammar, geometry, and physical science, but also into all the different interpretations of Scripture, " as if," he says, " there was a failure of Greek and Latin roasters in green and fertile England to explain the obscurities of the celestial library to all who desire to know them." Then he instances his dear master Adrian, of ineffable urbanity, and the metropolitan Theodore, whom he represents surrounded by a troop of Irish disciples, like a wild boar surrounded by a crowd of furious dogs, holding them back, as by strokes of his tusks, by the nervous vigor of his dialectics, and the close ranks of his syllogisms.^^'^

In all this there is no allusion to the religious differences which separated the Celts from the Anglo-Saxons, an omission which is of itself a new proof of the reconciliation already effected between the Irish Celts and the Anglo-Saxon clergy, while the British Celts remained obstinate in their distinct and even hostile observances. Since the great victories of the Northumbrian kings it was specially the West Saxons who carried on the struggle against the Britons who had taken refuge in the mountainous peninsulas of Cambria and Cornwall, and whose unwearied resistance was no doubt seconded in an unforeseen and often dangerous way by the other Britons scattered through the districts already con-

" Miror quod me tantillum homunculum de famoso et florigero Francorum rure vestrte fraternitatis industria interpellat Saxonicie prolis prosapia genitum." — P. 331, ed. Giles.

¹⁹⁶ u Arcivillura regis Scotiae liliura.... Ut perfecti ingenii lima eraderetur scabredo Scotica." — Guill. Malmesb., p. 4.

¹⁹⁷ a £x Hiberniae brumosis insulse climatibus.... Tam creber meatus est (istinc illincque, istuc illucque) navigero sequoreas fretantium calle gurgites.... Cur Hibernia quo catervatira istinc lectores classibus advecti confluunt... ac si istic, fcecunde Britannite in cespite, didascali Argivi Romanive quirites rainime reperiri queant.... Etiamsi Theodorus, Hibernensium globo discipulorum (seu aper truculentus Molossorum catasta ringente vallatus), stipetur; limato perniciter grammatico dente rebelles phalanges discutit," etc. — Pp. 92-94, od. Giles; Cf. Ozanam, op. cit., 492. This letter must have been written before G90, the date of Theodore's death. quered bj the Saxons. After one of these wars or insurrections, more cruel than usual, the national assembly of the West Saxons deliberated long over the measures it would be best to take by way of getting rid of one of the principal obstacles to the fusion of the two races, by leading back the vanquished Britons to unity in respect to paschal observances. The discussion lasted several days. At last, starting from the principle that no force must be employed, but solely reason and persuasion, it was resolved that Abbot Aldhelm, who was as blameless in life as in doctrine, should be charged to teach them the true laws of the Church, and to end the schism, for the honor of his country, as well as for the common salvation.^^® A national council (probably that of Becancelde), at which almost all the Anglo-Saxon clergy were represented, confirmed the mission which the Abbot of Malmesbury had received from his countrymen. He accepted the task with his usual charity. Without adventuring his person in the midst of these refractory tribes, he addressed himself to their chiefs and clergy in writing. An unexpected success attended his efforts. Of all that he wrote on this subject there remains to Abbot Aldus only one letter, addressed to a petty British king who still maintained his independence in Cornwall, at the extreme point of southern England. He draws in it a striking picture of the religious separation, of the moral repulsion, which still at the end of the seventh century rose like a wall between the two races — between the victors and the vanquished. " Beyond the mouth of the Severn," he says, " the priests of Cambria, proud of the purity of their morals, have such a horror of communication with us that they refuse to pray with us in the churches, or to seat themselves at the same table; more than this, what is left from our meals is thrown to dogs and swine, the dishes and bottles we have used have to be rubbed with sand, or purified by fire, before they will condescend to touch them. The Britons give us neither the salutation nor the kiss of peace; and if one of us went to live in their country, the

¹⁹⁹ " Tunc rebellionem nieditantes Kentuinus rex tam anxia ca;tle perdomuit, ut niliil ulterius sperarent.... Ilinc frequenter West-Saxonum conventus, crebri coetus coacti... sententia per plures dies multo verborura agmine volutata, nunc finem habuit: non vi cogendos schismaticos sed rationibus ducendos.... Ambitur precibus B. vir, ut hunc laborem impendat... patriaj laudi et cunctorura in commune saluti." — Guill. Malmesb., p. 14, Cf. BOLLAND, I. c, p. 87.

544 CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS

natives would hold no communication with him till after he had been made to endure a penance of forty days."

Aldhelm then enlarges upon the cruel scandal of such struggles and hatreds in the Church of Christ. He discusses in succession the question of the tonsure and that of paschal observance. " We entreat you on our knees/' he says, '•' in view of our future and common country in heaven, and of the angels, our future fellow-countrymen — we adjure you not to persevere in your arrogant contempt of the decrees of St. Peter, and the traditions of the Roman Church, by a proud and tyrannical attachment to the statutes of your ancestors.... Whatever may be the perfection of good works, they are unprofitable out of the Catholic Church, alike to cenobites, however faithfully they may follow their rule, and to anchorites hidden in the wildest solitudes. To sum up everything in one word, it is vain for any man to take credit to himself for belonging to the Catholic faith so long as he rejects the doctrine and rule of St. Peter. For the foundation of the Church and the consolidation of the faith, placed first in Christ and secondly in St. Peter, wavers not before the assaults of any tempest. It is on Peter that the Truth himself conferred the privilege of the Church, saying, ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.' " i99

It is generally admitted that the zeal and eloquence of Aldhelm led back to orthodox rule a great many Britons, especially those who lived under the daily extending sway of the kings of Wessex.^*^ But even the narratives most

¹⁹⁹ '<Geruntio regi, simulque cunctis Dei sacerdotihus per Domnonia conversantibus.... Nuper cum enim in concilio episcoporuni ex tota pene Britannia innumerabilis Dei sacerdotum caterva confluxit.... Demetarum sacerdotes de privata propria^ conversationis munditia gloriantos nostram commiinionem magnopere abominantur... reliquias epularum lurconum canura rictibus et immundis devorandos porcis projiciunt. Vascula quoque et phialas.... Propter communera coelestis patriae sorteni et angelica; sodalitatis collegium.., flexis poplitibus... suppliciter efflagitamus ut... traditionem Ecclesise Romanae propter prisca priorum statuta vestrorum nequaquam tyrannica freti pertinacia arroganter aspernemini.... Petro autem Veritas ita privilegium sanxit Ecclesiae." — Pp. 83-89, ed. Giles. Two words little used in the seventh century — barones and katharos— the first applied to military chiefs, the second to heretics who thought themselves purer than their neighbors — will be remarked in this curious letter.

200 li Scripsit, jubente synodo suce gentis, librum egregiura adversus errorem Britonum... multosque eorum qui occidentalibus Saxonibus subditi erant Britones, ad catholicam Dominici Pascha; celebrationem hujus lectione perduxit." — Bede, v, 18. It is difficult to believe with Mabillon that this librum egregiiim was nothing else than the letter to the King of Cornwall which has just been quoted. The monastic historians of Malmesbury attrib-

7ro. favorable to him make it apparent that all did not yield. The greater part of those who retained their independence beyond the Severn remained, according to all appearance, inaccessible to his ejQTorts.

When at length they yielded, it was not to the preaching or influence of a stranger. The victory which neither the learned Saxon abbot nor the whohadVegreat Roman missionary could win, was the work of a native prelate. Elbod, Bishop of Bangor, a saxon mis- Briton by birth, succeeded, not without much resistance, in introducing the Roman computation, East°nn first in North Cambria, and afterward in the southern part of the province, towards the end of the eighth century .2*^^ From that date there is no longer any question of dissent between the two Churches. In everything belonging to worship and faith, the Cambrian Britons, while still defending their independence with jealous pride, were henceforward at one with the Anglo-Saxons.^^^ Like them, they went in crowds to Rome, their kings at their head,203 swelling the armies of pilgrims who mingled at the foot of the chair of Peter their aspirations, their enmities, their diversities of race, but who returned with the lawful assurance that the supreme advantage of catholic unity exacted no sacrifice of truly national independence, right, or tradition.

Thus the different centres of that Celtic dissidence which has been so unjustly called schism, were successively overcome; and thus finished, upon the ground of religion, though ute greater results to Aldlielm's work than does Bede. " Ad Dominicae fidei regulam, et ipsos praesules et innumerani populi revocavit multitudineni." —BoLLAND., I. c, p. 85. " Debent usque liodie correctioncm suam Aldhelrao; quaruvis pro insita nequitia et virum non agnoscant et volumen pessuradederint." — Guill. Malmesb., ap. Whakton, p. 15.

^"' " Anno DCCLXX. Pasclia rautatur apud Britones, emendante Elbod, honiino Dei." — Ann. Eccl. Menevensis, in Anglia Sacra, vol. ii.p. 648. Cf. AuGUSTiN Thierry, Ilistoire dela Conqutte (VAngleterrc, t. i. p. 87.

^"^ This has been perfectly demonstrated by F. Walter {Das alte Wales, p. 232), against the childishly absurd affirmations of Koberts, Gieseler, and even of Liipjicnberg. All that can be admitted is, that the Cambrian bishops, who had tlK'ir own metropolitan see either at Menevia (St. David's) or at Llandatf, did not recognize the metropolitan rights conferred by St. Gregory upon Augustin. The question was definitely settled only by Innocent III., who placed the Cambrian bishops under the authority of Canterbury.

^^^ Cadwalladcr is noted as one of the Welsh kings who met the Anglo- Saxon kings at Home in the year 680, but the assertion rests upon a doubtful tradition, while the pilgrimages of Howell and Cyngus in the ninth century, like that of Howell the Good in the tenth, rest upon more satisfactory authority. onl}^ to begin over again and perpetuate itself elsewhere, the long struggle between the Celts and the Saxons. According to the common fate of human conflicts and passions, all this tumult died away into silence and forgetfulness, as the Rhine disappears obscurely in the sand and marshes of Holland after its majestic and sometimes stormy waters have swept through so many famous lands proud of, and blessed by, its presence.

In casting a last glance upon these prolonged contests, so insignificant at bottom, yet so seriously affecting national influences and interests, and animated by the passions, talents, and virtues of their principal champions, —the wisdom, I may even add, the grave beauty, of the language used by him who was the greatest monk of the greatest age, will be profoundly admired.

" This dispute regarding the date of a day," says our Mabillon, " occupied 'the Church for six centuries, and it required three of these centuries to restore union. Human nature takes back in this kind of controversy its downward inclination. The heat of warfare and the passion of success take possession of the soul under the cover of religion; and as they know no limits, it often happens that the laws of Christian charity are sacrificed to questions of purely human invention. In such cases, no one is permitted to disobey the judgment of the Church; but it is important that the pastors of the Church should use their authority with so much moderation as not imprudently to provoke feeble spirits too much attached to their own opinions into revolt, thus producing the greatest evils from an insignificant cause." ^oi

At the same time, this generous son of St. Benedict congratulates himself with reason that the Benedictines had the honor of leading back to unity the Scots and Britons so long separated for so small a matter from the Roman Church.

It must be recollected at the same time that, during all the seventh century, the Celtic or British Church was much more extensive than the British nation. The nation was concentrated in Cambria and in the neighboring peninsulas;

-"•* " Sic unius diei quoestio Ecclesiam detinuit per annos fere sexcentos: et tria minimum sscula vix fuerunt satis componendae hominum rixosorum coronfe. ... In his vero casibus, sicut ab Ecclesiaj catholicae sententia recedere nemini licet; ita convenit Ecclesiae pastores sic moderari auctoritatem suam, ut nee imbecilles animos, propriis sensibus nimirum addictos, incaute provocent ad secessionem, nee in levibus causis pariant grande malum." —Mabillon, Prcefatio in III. Seoul. Benedict., No. 14, 15. the Clmrcb embraced, besides the western coast of England, all Ireland and Scotland, without mentioning the Irish colonies in Gaul and Belgium. Let us repeat that the opposition which rose in that Church against conformity to Roman rights and usages was exactly proportioned to the degree of patriotic resistance excited by the invasion of the Saxons, behind whom appeared the Roman missionaries. This resistance was desperate among the British Christians, who retained the memory or daily felt the weight of the terrible excesses of the conquest. It Avas less violent and less prolonged in Caledonia, and came to a conclusion there as soon as the struggle ceased between the Celts and the Saxons. And it was almost non-existent in Ireland, where, except in the incursion of Egfrid, which was universally blamed by the Northumbrian saints, the Saxons never penetrated by the strong hand, and where the two races lived peaceably together. Nothing could give more satisfactory proof how little the fundamental truths of Christianity and the infallible authority of the Church had to do with the matter, and how much in it was national rather than religious.^*^^

In all that concerns the special subject of these ceiticmonvoluraes, it will be remarked that the result of the "anq^shed struggle between the two great elements which jn the Britdisputed the empire of the monastic world was the aVin^Ga^ui same in the British Islands as in Gaul. This ofst.^'"'^ struggle was much longer and more serious in Benedict. Great Britain, because it was complicated by national dislike, legitimate resistance, and an unappeasable resentment, which had no place in the influence exercised in France by Columbanus of Luxeuil and his Irish monks. The rule and order of St. Benedict were naturally associated, in the eyes of the vanquished and dispossessed Celts, with the ferocious foreigners who pursued them even to the mountain-glens and islands, in which they found a last asylum. Besides, the Columba of lona, the great partriarch of the Celtic monks of Great Britain, was, it appears to us, a much more attractive personage than his illustrious namesake of Luxeuil; his sons, his heirs, Aidan, Adamnan, and so many others, had a greater fascination, a much greater influence upon the masses and upon events than the successors of Columbanus among the Gallo-Franks. At the same time the sons of St. Benedict, the victors of the struggle, from St. Augustin to

2"^ Varix, 2e Memoire.

Bede, were much more remarkaWe men than the greater* part of the Gallo-Frankish Benedictines of their day. St. Eloysius and St. Leger, whose history we shall soon relate, was scarcely equal to Wilfrid, Cuthbert, Benedict Biscop, and the Venerable Bede. The latter, besides, are more entirely monks, more completely identified with the Benedictine institution. It is, however, evident on both sides of the Channel that the Celtic element fell, died away, and disappeared before the Roman element as personified in the order of St. Benedict. The Benedictine influence everywhere carried the day, and prepared for the Church those valiant legions which, after having edified and disciplined France, and conquered and civilized England, marched on to new victories, and extended beyond the Rhine and the Elbe the frontiers of Christendom.