The Royal Monks

The star of Northumbria pales, notwithstanding the erection of the see of York into an archbishopric. — Sad end of the lineage of Oswy. — King Ceolfrid, to whom Bode dedicates his History, becomes a monk at Lindisfiirne. — His successor Eadbert follows his example. — Other monk-kings. — Almost each dynasty of the Heptarchy furnishes its share: in East Anglia, Sigebert, who dies on the field of battle; in Essex, Sebbi, who leads back his people to the faith — his desire to die in solitude; and Ofiii, M'ho dies at Rome; in Mercia, which inherited the preponderating power of Northumbria, Coenred, the travelling companion and fellow-novice of Offa; Ethelred, founder, monk, and abbot of Bardeney. — Another Mercian king, Ceolred, dies in a debauch. — Ethelbald, pursued by Ceolred, takes refuge in the marsh of Croyland with the hermit Guthlac, who predicts to him that he will be King of Mercia. — AVhat Guthlac had been before he became an anchorite. — His solitary life resembles those of some of the most illustrious saints in the monastic order. — Death of Guthlac. —Foundation of the celebrated Abbey of Croyland upon the site of his cell. — Continuation and end of the reign of Ethelbald. — Remonstrances of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Germany. — The supremacy passes from Mercia to Wessex. — Three West Saxon kings abdicate to become monks or pilgrims to Rome: Centwin; Ceadwalla, the friend of Wilfrid, who lives just long enough to be baptized by the Pope; and Ina the friend of St. Aldhelm. — Reign of Ina, the legislator, victor, and pacificator of the Britons; restorer of the Celtic sanctuary of Glastonbury, the first protector of St. Boniface. — In consequence of a surprise prepared for him by his wife, he goes to Rome as a penitent to die, and founds the Schola Saxonum there. — Crowd of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims of both sexes to Rome. — Abuses and disorders. — False monks and false pilgrims. — The age of gold a chimera in the Church as elsewhere.

" Must lose

The name of king ? O' God's name, let it go.
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage;
My fjay apparel for an almsman's gown;
My tigured goblets for a dish of wood
My sceptre for a palmer's walking stall;
My subjects for a pair of carved saints;
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little, little grave, an obscure grave."

— SHAKESPEAiiE, Richard II,

Bede dedicated his History of the EnglisJi to the king of his dear Northumbria, Ceohvulf, whose tender solicitude for monastic interests made him hope for an approaching reform of the abuses of ecclesiastical government in the north of England.2'^ But two years after the death of the great monastic historian, Ceolwulf himself became a monk. He was of the race of Ida the Burner, sprung, however, from another branch than that from which came all those descendants of Ethelfrid the Ravager, whose connection with Aidan and Wilfrid, Hilda and Ebba, Lindisfarne and Melrose, has already occupied us so long.

Sad end of The line of Ethelfrid had come to a sad conclusion o&^vvy"°'^^ in that young Osred, who came to the throne during 705-716. the last struggles of Wilfrid, and whom the people had taken pleasure in regarding as the adopted son of the great bishop.^"* Far from walking in the footsteps of his father Aldfrid and his grandfather Oswy, he has left no trace of sympathy with the institutions and ideas represented among the Anglo-Saxons by the monks. From an early age he manifested all the inclinations of a tyrant, abandoning himself to frequent explosions of wild passion, which show only

273 u Pj.q ijisita sibi dilectione pietatis, quicquid ad regulam pietatis pertinet, firma protinus intentione adjuvare curabit." — Epist, ad Ecgbertum, c. 5.

2'* See p. 430. too clearly how hard was the task of the doctors and ministers of Christian purity among the Teutonic races. It Ljcpntjoug. was the delight of his precocious and impetuous lib- nc-ssof the ertinism to outrage virgins consecrated to the Lord, *°° and he went from monastery to monastery to seek his sacrilegious prey.^'^ On the other hand, he obliged the nobles whom he oppressed, when he deigned to spare their lives in his massacres, to be shaven, and to bury themselves against their will in the cloisters.^'^ A violent death put a stop to his evil ways.

But already the star of Northumbria had paled beyond remedy. The final erection of the great northern bishopric of York into a metropolis, to which all the bishoprics north of the Humber were to be subject, was not sufficient to restore to Northumbria the power which she had exercised under kings like Oswald and Oswy and bishops like Aidan and Wilfrid, Egbert, the Bishop of York, the correspondent of Bede, and a prince of the reigning dynasty, obtained from Pope Gregory II., after repeated requests, the re-establishment of the metropolitan dignity, which had been at first bestowed upon the see of York by St. Gregory the Great, but which, since the flight of Paulinus, had fallen into disuse, and which the later decrees of Popes Vitalianus and Agathon had seemed to sacrifice to the supremacy of Canterbury. This restoration, however, was of advantage only to the splendor of the new metropolis, and in no way to the kingdom of which it was the capital, as indeed the authority of Canterbury, so long universal and always undisputed, had not given the slightest

275 (< Osredum spiritus luxurias fornicantem et per monasteria nonnaruni sacratas virgines stuprantem et furentem agitavit, usquequo ipse gloriosum regnum et juvenilem vitam et ipsam luxuriosam animam contemptibili et despecta morte perdidit." — S. Bonifacii Epist. 59 ad Ethelbaldum. " Turpem vitam sanctimonialium stupris exagitans." — Guill. Malmesb., i. 53.

^''* " Non proceres veneratus erat: non denique Christum.

Ilic igitur multos miseranda morte peremit.

Ast alios cogit summo servire parenti,

Inque monasterii attonsos consistere septis.... Anglorum proceres nimium trucidante tyranno

Servitium Domini miles praifatus inibat."

— Ethelwolfi Carmen de Ahhatibiis et Viris Piis Lindisfarnens., c. 2 antl 4. Mabillon (Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. iv. p. 317), in publishing this poem, proved that, notwithstanding its title, this was not the great Monastery of Lindisforne of which we have so largely spoken, but another monastery of the same name, founded Ijy Duke Eadmund, " dux nobilis natu et moribus^" one of those whom King Osred forced to become monks. supremacy over the rest of the Heptarchy to the kings of Kent.

After two obscure reigns, Ceolwulf attempted in vain to struggle against the disorder and decadence of his country. He was vanquished, and made captivo by onemics whose names are not recorded, and had to submit, as happened to more than one Merovingian prince, to receive the tonsure by compulsion, and was shut up in a convent. He escaped, however, regained the crown, and reigned for some time in a manner which gained the applause of Bede, and weighed with the Pope in his decision in respect to the metropolis of York. But, after a reign of eight years, a regret, or an unconquerable desire, for that monastic life which had been formerly forced upon him against his will, seized him. He made the best provisions possible for the security of his country, and for a good understanding between the spiritual and temporal authorities, nominating as his successor a worthy prince of his race, the brother of Archbishop Egbert. Then giving up the cares of power, and showing himself truly the master of the wealth he resigned, he cut his long beard, had his head shaved in the form of a crown, and retired to bury himself anew at Lindisfarne, in the chief monastic sanctuary of his country.

He there passed the last thirty years of his life in study and happiness.^" He had, while king, enriched this monastery with many great gifts, and obtained permission for the use of wine and beer for monks who, up to that time, according to the rigid rule of ancient Catholic discipline, had been allowed no beverage but water and milk.

-^^^ successor, Eadbert, followed his example, After having, during a reign of twenty-one years, victoriously contended against the Picts, Scots example. Mercians and Welsh — after having received presents and offers of alliance from the first of the Carlovingians, Pepin the Short, — he became a monk at York, where he had alread}'' founded what was then called a very noble library, and where he enrolled himself among the monks who constituted the clergy of his brother the archbishop's metropolis. He lived there for two years, preferring, says an annalist, the 277 it Yere beatus et litterarum scientia sufficienter constitutus."— Guill. Malmesb., i. 64. " Sponte divitiarum non servus, sed dominus, quasi magnus viles abjecit." — Henri Huntingd., Ilist.,L iv. p. 340. " Barbam deposuit, coronam accepit." Simeon Ddnelm., De Gest. Reg., p. 69, and 139, ap. TwTSDEN, vol. i. service of God to all the kingdoms of the earth, and rapt by his violent love for the celestial country .^"S Care has been taken to prove that he received the Roman tonsure, that of St. Peter, and not that of the Celts, which is the last mention in history of a difference which, a century earlier, had stirred up so many tempests.^"^

These two kings of Northumbria were not the other first or only ones who embraced monastic life, Ead- monk kin-s bert, indeed, is the eighth pointed out by English chroniclers as having preferred the eight beatitudes of voluntary poverty to the grandeurs of this world.^so Certain annalists even go so far as to count more than thirty kings or queens of the different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms who entered the new cloisters during the seventh and eighth centuries.^^i

What transformation had thus passed upon those heathens, savage descendants of Odin, impetuous and bloody chieftains of a race which breathed only war and pillage, and knew no

greater shame than to die a peaceful death! We see them

penetrated by the spirit of gentleness and concord, seeking union, fraternity, even equality, and that sometimes with the humblest of their subjects, under the Benedictine habit, in the nightly chant of psalms, in the peaceful labors of agriculture or of the monastic library. They sought, they aspired to that retreat, as the crown of their warlike exploits and their political and military career. But it was little to the satisfaction of the Anglo-Saxons to see themselves thus abandoned by their kings. The spirit of proud independence which made them, like all the other Teutonic nations, so often rebellious and intractable, did not expel from their minds a passionate affection, or rather a mysterious worship, for the old blood of the first chiefs of the conquest. They made vain efforts to keep their kings back from the cloister, and reserved to themselves the right of reclaiming them by their own will or against it, in order to put them at the head of the army, and march against the enemy under their orders. Such Avas the fate, as has been seen,^^^ of King Sigebert of East

^''^ Sim. Ddnelm., Hist. Dunelm. Eccles., 1. ii. c. 3, ibid.

2-9 i( j)j.j amoris causa ct coelestis patriae violentia, accepta S. Petri tonsura." — Apj). ad Bedara, ann. 758.

'-" " Qui pro regno temporali commutaverunt aeternum, ut octo beatitudinurn jucunditatem, qua; voluntariae paupertati debetur, pro future habcrcnt in coelis." — Rich. Cikenc, p. 242. Mabillon counts eight before Eadbert, who is the ninth on his list. — Ad. SS. 0. S. B., vol. iii. p. 4G3.

=**' Stevexs, continuation of Duodale, vol. i. p. 19.

"^'^ See p. 280.

Anglia, the first of the Anglo-Saxons who entered the cloister, and who, torn from his cell by his desperate subjects to lead them against the pitiless Penda, ended his life, like so many of his heathen ancestors, on the field of battle. Each dy- Each of the dynasties of the Heptarchy furnished ^" succession its contingent to the new army. Like the UfSngs of East Anglia, and the descendants of the Man of Fire in Northumberland, the children gf ^\^q ^q^ Saxnoto, whom the baptized Saxons ^^''•^ were made to abjure along with the gods Thor and Woden, ^^^^ Q'^so their tousurcd king. This race reigned over the Saxons of the East, whom King Sebbi had the happiness of bringing back to the faith, after their first defection.28^ The same king, who had reigned for thirty years as a faithful soldier of the King of kings, obtained, not without difficulty, the consent of his wife to enable him to assume before he died the monastic dress for which he had long sighed. But though he thus believed himself to have become a monk indeed, this descendant of Scandinavian gods and heroes, with the heart of a king under his monastic robe, feared, according to Bede, that, dying in his bed, he might seem to be overcome by sufiferji^g. ²⁸⁵ jj-^ ^Ijq anguish, of his last illness he trembled lest, wlfile struggling against the terrors of death, pain might tear from him cries or gestures unworthy of him. For this reason he would have no spectator of his last moments except the Bishop of London. This prelate, who had invested him with the monk's black robe, had the consolation of seeing him give up his last sigh in perfect peace, and buried him in his own monastic cathedral of St. Paul, where for a thousand

166G

years, until the time of the great fire which consumed that famous edifice under Charles IL, was to be seen the immense stone coffin which contained the body of the monk-king, whose frame must have been as gigantic as his heart was manful.^^*^

^^^ Lappenberg, p. 114.

2«* See p. 291.

²⁸⁵ "Vitam privatam et nionacliicam cunctis regni divitiis et honoribus prseferens, quam et olim jam, si non obstinatus conjugis animus divortium negaret, subiisset.... Cumque annos triginta in regno miles regni coelestis exegisset... liabitum religionis, quern diu desiderabat, accepit.... Correptus infirmitate maxima, timere coepit homo animi regalis, ne ad mortem veniens, taiito aftectus dolore, aliquid indignum su£e personse vel ore proferret vel aliorum motu gereret membrorum." — Bede, iv. 11.

^^'^ Note by Smith in his edition of Bede. " This is the first example I know of the devout idea so general, in later ages, of dying in the dress of a monk." — Fleury, 1. xi. c. 3.

OF ST. WILFRID, 581

Fifteen years after the death of Sebbi, his suecesser and grandnephew, King Offa, imitated example while still in the fulness of youth and delights. Though a man beloved and sought after by all, he gave up his betrothed bride, his family, country, and crown, and, resisting the passionate remonstrances of his subjects, went away to embrace monastic life, not even in an English cloister, but at Rome. The young Offa was accompanied in his pilgriaiage and sacrifice by Coenred, K^n^of' the King of the Mercians, detached on his side from the world by witnessing the last moments of one of his best knights,-^^ ^vho died in despair from having voluntarily kept back from confession.^^^ Before leaving England they were both present at the last act of the great Wilfrid's apostolic life— the dedication of the new Monastery of Evesham, which they had endowed and freed fi'om ail temporal jurisdiction.^^^ When they arrived at Rome, both these kings received the tonsure and cowl from the hands of Pope Constantinus, before the Confession of St. Peter, and, after some j^ears of penitent life, they passed from the tomb of the apostles to celestial blessedness, to enjoy the society of the saints forever.290

Since the death of the last Northumbrian Bretwalda, Oswy, and especially since the overthrow of comes tuo his son Egfrid in his struggle with the Picts, Mercia ^mnt'" had acquired the ascendency which was departing the'uepLrfrom Northumbria. The Mercians, under the war- c'jylike descendants of the terrible Penda, and thanks to the military spirit which inspired its people and race, swayed the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy for nearly a century.

²⁸⁷ "Vir in laico habitu atfiuo officio niilitari positus." — Bede, v. 13. William of Malmesbury calls him " miles." — Gest. Reg. Angl., 1. i. c. 78. Turner proves that the order of knighthood existed among the Anglo-Saxons long before the Norman conquest. — Ilist. of Anglo-Saxons, book viii. c. 12.

-"'* The vision of this knight may be read in Bede, I. c. Two other passages in Bede (iii. 22 and v. 10) seem to prove that in his time the word " miles " was applied not only to all fighting men, but to nobles or patricians.

=»» See p. 439.

200 t( Coinred qui regno Merciorum nobilissime tempore aliquanto praifuit, nobilius multo sceptra regni reliquit... monachus factus ad limina Apostolorum, in precibus, jcjuniis, et eleemosynis, usque ad diem permansit ultimum.... Offii juvenis amantissimaj ajtatis ct venustatis, totffique sua; genti ad tenenda servandaque regni sceptra exoptatissimus... reliquit uxoreni, agros, cognatos et patriam, attonsus ct in monachico vitam habitu complens, ad visonem beatorum apostolorum in coelis diu desidcratam pervcnit." —Beda, Hist. Eccles., v. 19.

582 CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS

Coenred, who died a monk at Rome after having fought valiantly against the Britons, was Penda's grandson; and he was far from being the only recruit which the family of the dauntless champion of old Paganism was to furnish to the monastic order.-^^ His own son, and second successor, Ethelred, the predecessor of Coenred upon the throuo of Mercia, touched by divine grace, after a SanJeney. long and Warlike reign, entered as a simple monk into the Monastery of Bardeney which he had founded, and ruled it for ten years as abbot before he died the death of a saint.^^^ This is the Ethelred with whom we have already made acquaintance, first as the enemy and then as the devoted friend of Wilfrid,^^^ whose cause he sustained with all the authority conferred on him by his double rank as monk and monarch.

Excesses of These two kings, however, who were so entirely devoted to the Benedictine institution as to enroll themselves in it till the end of their worthy existence, were succeeded on the throne of Mercia by a prince of a very different stamp. Ceolred, like the young Northumbrian king of whom we recently spoke, did not content himself with despising the rights and liberties guaranteed to the monasteries by the charters of his predecessors; he took from them the young and beautiful virgins there consecrated

to the Lord, for the gratification of his own passions. He

died in one of his orgies among his earls, not only uurepentaut, but calling upon the devil, and cursing the Christian priests with their Gospel.-^^ It was perhaps the last out- "^' See in the Appendix the table of his monastic descendants. The line of Mercian kings after Penda is as follows: —

G26-655. Penda.
656-675. Wulphere, son of Penda.
675-704. Ethelred, brother of Wulphere.
704-709. Coenred, son of Wulphere.
709-716. Coelred, son of Ethelred.

716-757. Ethelbald, called Clito, grandson of a brother of Penda. 757-797. Offa, great-grandson of the same.

It is well known that among the Merovingians it was often the eldest or most popular prince of the reigning dynasty who succeeded to the crown to the injury of the direct heir, who might regain his rights at a later period if be lived long enough to see the question of his succession once more opened.

²⁹² " Omnipotentis benignitate visitatus fit monachus." — Henkic. Hck- TiNGD., Hist., 1. iv. p. 337.

²⁹³ See p. 430.

^^* " In stupratione et adulterio nonnarum commorans •.. nam Ceolredum prcedccessorem tuum stupratorem sanctimonialium et ecclesiasticorum privilegiorum fractorum splendide cum suis comitibus epulantem spiritus

OF ST. WILFRID, 583

break of conquered heathenism: not certainly that heathen morals and lusts were forever extirpated from the bosom of these wild races, but since that time their ascendency has never been so great as to lead an Anglo-Saxon prince to the point of making a public denial of the Gospel.

After this worthy grandson of the savage Penda, the Mercian throne fell to a collateral scion of the race, Ethelbald, known under the name of Clito or Childe, which was then used among the Anglo-Saxons, as that of Infanto in Spain at a later period, to designate the princes of the reigning dynasty. Ethelbald, who was savagely pursued by Ceolred, had a stormy and hard youth. He was not himself a monk, but his history is connected with that of one of the most holy and popular monks of the eighth century .295 In the course of his wander- Takes reings from province to province and from strong- 'Vf^'^i*'^ hold to stronghold, while flying with some devoted companions from the persecution of his pitiless enemy, he learned that a young and warlike chief called Guthlac, sprung, like himself, from the royal race of Mercia, had retired from the world to consecrate himself to study and prayer, in an island surrounded by the marshes which then covered a great district on the borders of Mercia and East Anglia. Ethelbald put himself under the guidance of a neighboring abbot, who knew the country sufficiently to find his way through the black and stagnant waters and muddy soil of these inaccessible marshes, and the two reached Croyland in a fisher's boat. In this watery retreat abode the good and pious Guthlac, and there the fugitive found a hospitable welcome and a safe shelter. He did not continue long there: when rest had given him renewed confidence, he left the refuge in which Ceolred neither could nor dared reach him, to resume his life of adventure. But new dangers led

malignus invasit... sine pcenitentia et confessione, furibundus ct cum diabolo sermocinans, et sacerdotes Dei abominans ... ad tormenta inferni niigravit." — S. Bonifacii Epist. ad EtJielhaldum Regem Mercionum, n. 62, ed. Giles; 17, cd. Serrar.

^^'^ The learned and accurate Philippe Jaffe, the last editor of the Epistles of St. Boniface, believes King Ethelbald to have been in his youth a pupil of St. Aldhelm. He attributes to him the letter addressed to that holy abbot, which is published with those of St. Boniface (ed. Jaffe, No. 5) and those of Aldhelm (ed. Giles, p. 100). But the letter itself seems to prove that it is the work of a young ecclesiastic, and not of a prince unacquainted, as Ethelbald must have been, with the life of the cloister. It was very probably the same student to whom Aldhelm addressed the answer, a fragment of which we have quoted above at page 534 of this volume. him again and again to Croyland, where Guthlac always received him with the same affection, and lavished upon him, in their long and frequent conversations, the spiritual consolations and varied instruction which he needed. He had a cell beside that of Guthlac, his sole friend and consciences One day, returning from one of his dangerous journeys, during which he had found himself separated from all his followers, closely surrounded by enemies, and at the end of his strength and resources, he arrived exhausted and desperate, and threw himself into the arms of his protector and friend. " Dear child," said Guthlac, " I know all your troubles and misfortunes; I have followed your laborious career from its Who pre- beginning; for this reason I have prayed God much for you, and he has granted my prayer. I announce he will be, "^ • tt" xi, j. i "n j

to you in His name that you shall one day reign Mercia. ^^^^ jouY native country. You shall see the defeat of your enemies; you shall overcome them sword in hand; you shall trample them under your feet, and become the master of all their possessions. Learn only to wait: the kingdom will come to you, not by rapine and violence, but from the hand of God, when that hand shall have demolished the wicked man who now reigns, and who shall pass away like a shadow." ^97 From that moment Bthelbald placed his hope in God alone, and waited with trust and patience. The prophecy was accomplished two years after: Ceolred perished in his orgies,298 and the Childe was immediately recognized as king by all the Mercians.

The hermit who with so much confidence prophesied to the future King of Mercia, s|)rang himself from the dynasty which reigned over the

jr, quadam casula... Guthlaci qui solus refugium et consolatio laborum ipsius erat." — Vita S. Guthl., c. 39.

^^' " Est in mediterraneorum Anglorum partibus iramensae magnitudinis sacerrima palus, nunc stagnis, nunc flactris, interdura nigris vaporibus et laticibus, nccnon crebris insularum nemoribus intervenientibus, et flexuosis rivigarmn anfractibus... protenditur.... Arrepta piscatoria scaphula.... Cum hue illucque ... in diversis nationibus jactaretur... usque ad prjBfatam insulam pervenit.... Alio die, deficiente virium ipsius valitudine, suorumque inter dubia pericula, postquam inanitiaj vires defecere, tandem ad colloquium sancti viri Guthlaci, ut assolebat, pervenit.... O mi puer, laborum tuorum non sum expers, miseriarura tuarum ab exordio vitse non sum inscius... misertus calamitatis tua3 rogavi Domiuum ut subveniret tibi.... Tribuet tibi denominationem gentis tuK-... Terga eorum videbis et gladius tuus vincet adversarios tuos."— Vita S. Guthlaci, auctorc FEhicE monacho ejus CEquali, ap. Acta SS. 0. S. B., sajc. iii. pars. 1, ad. ann. 714.

²⁹⁸ See above, p. 583,

OF ST. WILFRID, 585

greater part of the Heptarchy .^^^ His youth had as a hermit, been spent in fight and pillage, like that of all the ^''^-^h. princes and lords of his time. Excited by the recollection of the exploits of his ancestors, he dreamed only of battles and devastation, and at the head of a numerous band of friends and dependants he vanquished his enemies, sacked many towns and castles, and collected immense booty. But his companions observed with surprise that he had so much pity left as to restore to those whom he robbed a third part of their goods. He led this bandit life, which was supposed among his countrymen to be heroic, from the age of fifteen to that of twenty-four. But one night, while he camped with all his followers in a forest, his imagination suddenly presented before him the crimes, excesses, and miserable end of the kings of his race, then his own inevitable and perhaps approaching death, and the nothingness of the wealth and fame which he had sought. He felt himself as if burnt up by an internal flame — the flame of celestial desires. His decision was made on the spot. As soon as the first song of the birds announced the dawn he awoke his comrades, and told them to choose another chief, as he had just devoted himself, for his own part, to the service of Jesus Christ. Then, in spite of their remonstrances, cries, and lamentations, he instantly set out, carrying with him only a broad and short sword, such as was worn by laborers.s^'^ Doubtless this was to defend himself during the long and solitary journey which he had before him, for he went alone, and far from his native district and his friends, to knock at the door of one of those double monasteries, governed by abbesses, several of which already existed in England, and where the humility of the monk was so much the more tried that he was subject to a woman as superior.^^i He there assumed

²⁹⁹ u jiujus viri progenies, per nobilissima illustriutn regum noraina, antiqua ab origine Icles digesto ordine cucurrit." — Vita, c. 4. This Icles was the fillh ancestor of the terrible Penda.

^°" " Cum jnvcnili in pectore cgregius dominandi amor fevesceret, valida priscoruni heroum facta reminiscons.... Cum adversantium sibi urbes et villas, vicos ct castella igne ferroque vastaret... tertiam partem agregatie gaza; possidcntibus remittobat.... Post tot praedas, casdes, rapinas... lassi quieverunt.... Quadam nocte... extemplo spiritualis flamnia omnia prajcordia viri incendere ccepit,... Antiquorum regum stirpis sua3 per transacta sa;cula niiserabiles cxitus et flagitiosum vitaj terminum contemplans... ecce subito... cum sol demoverat ortum, in quo matutinae volucrcs avido forcipe pipant." — Vita, c. 10, 11.

^"' At Kipadun, or Repton, situated on the Trent. The name of the abbess was Elfrida. This abbey, where the kings of Mercia were buried, was the monastic habit, having his long hair cut, according to the form of the Roman, not the Celtic, tonsure, as his biographer takes pains to tell us. There he passed two years, 697-69 dedicated to the study of the Holy Scriptures, of

cenobitic customs, and of liturgical music.^^^ At twenty-six his soul was illuminated by a new light while reading the life of the Fathers in the desert; he determined to plunge into a deeper and more austere solitude, and it was then that he betook himself to the marshy forests of Croyland. He found there an ancient tumulus, already excavated by the greed of the neighboring population, who expected to find treasure there. They had dug it into a sort of pit. The fierce young Mercian prince fitted it with a penthouse of straw, made it his home, and there ended his life.

There are various features in this life which are to be found in those of the most illustrious saints of the monastic order. Like St. Benedict, Guthlac excited by his austerities the ill-will of his brethren. With true Anglo-Saxon spirit, they reproached him specially for his unalterable resolution never to drink either beer or hydromel, nor wine, except in the communion.^*^^ Like St. Columba, his solitude was continually disturbed by crowds of the faithful attracted by the increasing fame of his holiness, and who surmounted all the obstacles which Nature had heaped around his island retreat to seek light, consolation, and the healing of their infirmities he was sought by all conditions of men from all quarters, abbots and earls, rich and poor, monks and laymen; and these not only from all parts of Mercia, but from the most distant corners of England.^o^

Like the Fathers of the desert, he was exposed to a thousand temptations, a thousand diabolical visions, the most curious of which, in a historical point of view, is that which makes it apparent that the Cambrian or British marauders

destroyed by the Danes, and replaced under the Normans by a priory of regular canons.

³⁰² "Mysticam S. Petri apostolorum principis tonsuram accepit.... Sacris litteris et monastic-is disciplinis erudiebatur... psalmis, canticis, orationibus precibusque ecclesiasticis per biennium imbutus." — Vita, c. 13.

303 a JJQ^ ullius inebriantis liquoris aut alicujus libaminis haustum.... Hac ex causa omnibus fratribus illic cohabitantibus aspero odio habebatur." — Vita, c. 12.

^"^ " Inter densas arundinum compages... abbates, fratres, comites, divites, vexati, pauperes... confluebant.... Loca spinosa sine calle agresti rura gradiendo, inruit (quidam comes exsulis Ethelbaldi) in spiuu- 1am sub incultae telluris herbis latentem." — Vita, c. 24, 31. were not afraid of crossing the whole breadth of the island to disturb their conquerors even in East Anglia. It is told that Guthlac was much comforted by discovering that the enemies by whom he had felt his cell to be surrounded and threatened all the night through, were demons and not Welsh, as he had supposed them to be by their hoarse voices and guttural accents.'^'^^

Like many holy monks of Celtic countries and of Merovingian Gaul, he lived in a close and touching familiarity with all living creatures, and especially with the birds who inhabited the trees and great reeds of his island. The crows served him with docility as messengers, the swallows came twittering to seat themselves on his shoulders or knees, on his head or breast; and he, on his side, built them nests with his own hands, little baskets made of rushes and bits of straw, which he placed under the thatch of his cell, and to which his gentle guests returned yearly, seeking their accustomed dwelling-places. " My father," said an astonished visitor, " how have you managed to give those daughters of solitude so much trust in you? " '' Know you not," answered Guthlac, " that he who is united to God in purity of heart, sees in his turn all created things unite themselves to him? The birds of heaven, like the angels, seek those who do not seek the society of men." ^oo

Like St. Romuald, he inspired the surrounding population with so much reverence for him, that speculations began to be made during his life on the price of his relics; the monk who came to him every twenty days to renew his tonsure thought seriously of using his razor to cut his throat, with the conviction that the place in which so great a saint perished would be enriched by the veneration of kings and princes.3*^7

^"' " Cum Britones, infesti hostes Saxonici generis, bellis, praedis publicisque vastationibus Anglorura gentem deturbarent.... Quadam nocte... extra cellulam egressus, et erectis auribus adstans verba loquentis vulgi Britannicaque agniina tectis succedere agnoscit: nam illc... inter illos exsulabat, quoadusque eorum stridulentas loquelas intelligere valuit."

— Vita, c. 20.

306 " Velut magna lajtitia avino forcipe flexuosi gutturis carmen canentes, reluti ad assuetas sedes.,. sese humeris viri Dei imposuerunt, ac deindo cantulis vocibus garrulentes.... Utquid incultae solitudinis volucres.... Nonne legisti quia qui Deo puro spiritu copulabitur, omnia sibi in Deo conjunguntur, et qui ab hominibus cognosci denegat, agnosci a feris et frequentari ab angelis quajrit? " — Vita, c. 25.

^^' " Quidam clericus, nomine Beccelinus.... Cum, ut adsolebat, post bis denos dierum cursus tonderare devenisset... proponens ut si ipsum

And finally, like St. Cuthbert, he had a friend, a noble and pious abbess, daughter of the King of the East Anglians, who offered to him, in testimony of their mutual affection, a leaden cofBn and a shroud.^^ He accepted these presents; and although he had vowed to wear neither woollen nor linen, but to dress himself entirely in the skins of beasts, he consented, for the love of Edburga, that his body should be buried in the linen which she had woven for him.^'^ He died after a week of severe suffering, but having still nth April, strength enough to rise and say mass on the day of ^^** his death, and afterwards to take the holy viaticum himself from the altar. He was still young; and during the fifteen years which he had passed in these marshes, had yet retained, in the midst of his austere solitude, "that grave kindness and light-heartedness which are the inalienable inheritance of true monks and saints.^^'^

On receiving news of the death of his friend, Ethelbald hastened to the body of him who so long protected his misfortune and consoled his misery. He threw himself, bathed in tears, on his knees before the coflSn. " My father," he cried, " thou who hast known all my sufferings, and who hast sustained me in all dangers, as long as thou livedst I could never despair. Thanks to thee, ¹ know how to call upon the Lord, who has saved me up to this day. But if thou forsakest me, to whom can I have recourse? who will help, who will comfort me? "

The following night, in the midst of his tears and prayers, Guthlac appeared to him, resplendent with light, to confirm his ancient prediction, and to announce the end of his trials.2^1

interimere potuisset, locum ipsius postea cum magna regum principumque venerantia habiturus foret."— Ibid., c. 21.

^°8 See p. 479.

³⁰⁹ a Eevercntissima virgo virginum Christi et sponsarum Egburga abbatissa, Aldulfl regis filia.... Nolui quidem juvenis ullo lineo tegmine corpus meum tegere, sed pro amore dilectse Cbristi virginis, quae htec munera mibi mittebat." Ibid., c. 33, 35. Egburga or Edburga then governed the same Monastery of Repton from which Guthlac had issued to shut himself up in Croyland.

^'^ " Ut adsolebat hilari vultu secessit; nam semper gratia eximias charitatis in ore ipsius et vultu fulgebat." — Vita, c. 25.

^'' "Pater mi, tu scis miserias meas, tu semper adjutor mei fuisti, te vivente non desperabam in angustiis.... HiBC proloquens, se solo sternebat, ct supplex orans crebris lacrymarum fluentis totum vultum rigavit.... Totam cellulam immensi luminis splendore circumfulgescere vidit.... Noli tristari, dies enim miserise tuae praeterierunt.... Nee ilium fides fefellit: ex illo enim tempore usque in hodiernum diem infulata regni ipsius felicitas per tempora consequentia de die in diem crescebat." — Ibid., c 39.

And in fact, two years after, Ethelbald succeeded to the throne of Mercia, which he occupied for forty years. The first use which he made of his power was to found a monastery at Croyland, in honor of him whom he continued to call his friend and consoler. Notwithstanding the difficulties involved in such a building, an immense abbey, richly endowed, and inhabited by a colony of monks brought from the new Abbey of Evesham,^^^ rose upon the site of his cell. Ethelbald built in the midst of these stagnant waters, upon piles driven into a little heap of earth which was brought from a distance in boats, to solidify the marsh which the industry of the monks was soon to render Avholesome, and transform into fertile meadows. Croyland was specially distinguished for the knowledge of its monks, and occupied for several centuries the first rank among English monasteries. The coffin of Guthlac, taken from the earth in which it was to have been buried, by the tenderness of Ethelbald, and richly decorated, formed the principal ornament of the great church, built in stone, which replaced the modest wooden oratory where Ethelbald and Guthlac had prayed together. This church, often destroyed, was always rebuilt with increased magnificence; and its great bell, known as the largest and most harmonious in England, retained to its last day the name and recollection of the hermit whom its royal founder had so much loved.^^^

It would be pleasant to believe that Ethelbald showed himself always worthy of the tender sympathy with which his holy friend had honored him in his youth. But this confidence is scarcely possible in presence of the famous and eloquent letter addressed to him by six English bishops, who were occupied during his whole reign in the work of evangelizing Germany,

^'- See, p. 439, the foundation of this abbey by Bishop Egwin, and its consecration by Wilfrid.

^'^ " Sarcophagum non humo terrae condidit, immo in memoriale quod nunc ab Ethelbaldo rcge miris ornamentorum structuris... aedificatum conspicimus.... Quia palustris humus lapideam molem sustinere non poterat, ingentes ex quercis palos innumeraj niultitudinis homo infigi fecit, duramquc terram... scapbis deferri et paludibus commisceri ... ad honorem Dei et sancti ancboretae quern valde dilexerat, pro dulci consolatione quam eo dum exsulabat multotics perceperat." — Vita, c. 37, 41. Some remains of the abbey church of Croyland still exist, but these are of the church built in the twelfth or fourteenth century. In the tympanum of the portal, in the western front, five medallions in bas-relief represent the principal incidents in the life of Guthlac — his arrival in the marsh of Croyland in a boat, his first interview with Ethelbald, his death, «Ssc. and who had at their head the great Boniface. The holy apostle of the Germans went from England to the Continent the same year in which Ethelbald became king, and two years before the end of his reign he died the death of a martyr. The letter of the bishops informs us that the private conduct of the king awakened a religious and patriotic sorrow in those noble missionaries of Anglo-Saxon faith and glory. They accuse him, according to public report, of having sought in celibacy, not Christian mortification, but the satisfaction of his sensual instincts, and in the efi"ervescence of his passions of respecting neither the domestic hearths of his fellow-citizens, nor even the sanctuaries of virgins consecrated to God.^^* They remind him in this respect of the honor paid to chastity by their heathen ancestors, the Saxons of Germany, and the cruel penalties which were exacted for adultery. They entreat him not to dishonor his old age, not to encourage the English nation by his example to descend by debauchery to the level of the degenerate nations of Spain and the south of Europe, of whom the Saxons had already made a prey. They reproach him besides with having violated the charters and stolen the possessions of several monasteries, and with authorizing the Mercian lords, by his example, to subject the monks and priests to violence and servitude, till then unknown in Christian England.^^^

On the other hand, these witnesses of imposing authority congratulate him highly on his charity to the poor, as well as on his zeal for the administration of justice, the protection of the weak, and the repression of local quarrels and disorders.

Other testimony informs us that he was a just, generous, and brave king; that, by his frequent and fortunate wars, the friend of Guthlac raised Mercia to a degree of power which it had never before reached, and that he was regarded as the supreme monarch of England up to the day on which, after a long and prosperous reign, he fell fighting against the "^ " Quando aliqua injuria de statu regni vestri, vel eventu bellorum facta, aut quod majus est, de salute animse periculosum damnum perpetratuni per auditura usque ad nos pervenerit, moerore et tristitia cruciamur.... Qui nobis narrant, adjiciunt quod hoc scelus maxime cum sanctimonialibus et sacratis Deo virginibus per monasteria commissura sit. Audivimus praeterea quod optimates paene oranis gentis Merciorum tuo exemplo legitimas uxnres deserant, et adulteras et sanctimoniales constuprent." — S. Bonifacii EpistolcB, 59, ed. Jaflfe.

^'^ " Et dicitur quod prsefecti et comites tui majorem violentiam et servitutem monachis et sacerdotibus irrogent, quara caeteri ante Christiani reges fecissent." — Ibid. or ST. WILFEID. 591

West Saxons, in a struggle, the picturesque and impassioned narrative of which has been enshrined by popular poetry amid the historic annals of the period.^i^

The kingdom of the West Saxons, which was to inherit the power of the Mercians, as the latter had oftiieweft inherited that of the Northumbrians, was destined fkj^^^to^ to absorb all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and

1 T-11-1 • i-i T

thus to create that hnglish unity which no dismem- piisnmsto berment has ever broken up. The dynasty of the ™*^" sons of Cerdic, reputed by tradition to be himself the ninth in descent from the god Odin, was to produce Egbert and the great Alfred. It prefaced these generous lives by giving three kings, one after another, to the monastic order, which already owed to it the holy and learned Abbot Aldhelm. He who opened the march in a career which was so novel to the sons of Odin, was Centwin, son of the first Christian King of Wessex,-^^'' who, after a brilliant and warlike reign of nine years, interspersed with battles between the Mercians and Britons, determined to end his days in one of the monasteries which he had founded and endowed.3^^ After him it was the turn of Ceadwalla, the ferocious devastator of the Isle of Wight, and the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex, who remained obstinately heathen, notwithstanding the conversion of his neighbors and his country, but who, all at once, at the age of thirty, recalling to his memory the instructions which he had received when himself in exile from the great exile Wilfrid,^!^ abdicated his

^'^ Henricus Huntingdon, TJistoria Anglorum, 1. iv. p. 341. The friend of Guthlac describes himself in a charter of 736, " Rex non solum Merciorum sed et omnium provinciarum qua; general! nomine Sut-Angli dicuntur; " and elsewhere, " Eex BritanniaB."

^" C3-negils, converted and presented for baptism by his son-in-law, Oswald of Northumbria. See above, p. 284.

^'"^ His history is scarcely known to us, except through the verses of Aldhelm addressed to his daughter Bugga, who is perhaps the same as the abbess of that name to whom Boniface addressed several of his epistles: —

" Hoc templum Bugge pulchro molimine structum,

Nobilis erexit Centwini filia regis.

Qui prius imperium Saxonum rite regebat,
Donee priesentis contemnens culmina regni,
Divitias niundi rerumque reliquit habenas ;

Plurima basihcis impendens rura novellis

Qua; nunc christicohe servant monastica jura....

Exin sacratara perrexit quasrere vitam, Dum proprium linquit Christi pro nomine rcgnum....

Donee conversus cellam raigravit in almam."

— Ed. Giles, p. 117. 3'» See above, p. 398. crown, crossed the sea, the Alps, and Lombardy, and appeared at Rome, the first of the Anglo-Saxon kings, as Wilfrid, thirty years before, had been the first monastic pilgrim of the same I'^'C© who had visited the Eternal City. He asked baptism from Pope Sergius, who conferred upon him the name of Peter, in memory of the great devotion which had brought him from so great a distance to the tomb of the prince of the apostles. Ten days later, before he had even laid aside the white robe of the catechumens, he died. The Pope gave orders that he should be buried in St. Peter's, and inscribed upon his tomb an epitaph in tolerable verse, intended to stir up the zeal of future generations by the example of the young and formidable victor, who had given up everything that he and his father had conquered or hoarded up, and abjured his barbarous religion to become the humble godson of St. Peter, and who had gone clothed with the whiteness of baptism to increase in heaven the flock of Christ.320

The crown of the West Saxons passed after him to Ina, the friend of St. Aldhelm, as Ceadwalla had been the friend of Wilfrid. His long and prosperous reign laid the foundations of the future ascendenc}'' of his race over all England. Though very warlike and very fortunate in war, the conqueror of the Southern and Eastern ^axous, he owes his fame specially to the code of laws which he gave to his people, and which has been preserved in its integrity, like the laws given a century before by Ethelbert of Kent, with the help of the Roman missionaries.321 Ina drew out his under the inspiration, and with the aid, of the two monk-bishops of Winchester and of

320 (( (;;ulmen, opes, sobolem, pollentia regna, triumphos,

Exuvias, proceres, moenia, castra, lares: Quajque patrum virtus, et quae congesserat ipse,

Cifidival armipotens, liquit amore Dei,

Ut Petrura sedemque Petri rex cerneret hospes.... Barbaricam rabiem, nomen et inde suum

Conversus convertit ovans.. •.

Urbem Romuleam vidit, templumque verendum

Aspexit, Petri niystica dona gerens.

Candidus inter oves Christi sociabilis ibit

Corpore nam tumul"ura, mente superna tenet
Commutasse magis sceptrorum insignia credas.
Quern regnum Christi promeruisse vides."

— Apud Bede, v. 7. ^"' Dooms of Ina, ap. Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, London,322 of Ill's earls, and all the wise men {loitan) who composed the parliament of his three kingdoms, and besides, according to his own declaration, with the help of many monks or servants of God, in order to provide for the salvation of souls and the prosperity of his people. Among these laws may be remarked some which guarantee the inviolability of marriage, and the sanctity of betrothal; consecrate the right of asylum in churches; improve the condition of the peasants, while maintaining their feudal thraldom to the soil of their lords; provide for the support of their widows and orphans; forbid the exportation of slaves, and declare free of all bondage the slave who should be compelled by his master to work on Sunday .^^s

He pursued with energy the struggle with the victor, and Britons of Wales, and finally succeeded in incorpo- ^rthr*^*^ rating into his kingdom those of Cornwall, dethroning Britons, the king of that province, to whom Aldhelm had addressed his famous letter upon the Celtic Easter.-^^i -^^i i^y^^ ^yI^q was himself born of a Celtic mother, consulting at once the precepts of Christian morality and the well-understood interests of his nation, completed the pacification of the conquered population by guaranteeing the validity of marriages contracted between Saxons and Britons, and entered into relations with the Celts of Armorica.^-^ He rebuilt and endowed magnificently the national sanctuary of the Britons at Glastonbury,"-'^ consecrating to this work of conciliation the thirty thousand pounds of silver which he had torn, sword in hand, from the Jutes of Kent, on account of ive?^e, or compensation for the life of a West Saxon prince whom they had burned

^-^ Iledda, the friend and predecessor of Aldhelm and Erconwald. ³²³ <'Ego Ine Dei gratia West-Saxonum rex, exhortatione et doctrina.... Heddae cpiscopi mei... et omnium Aldermannorum meorum et seniormn et sapientum regni mei, multaque congregatione scrvorem Dei, sollicitus de salute animarum nostrarum ct do statu regni mei, constituti rectum conjugium et justa judicia pro stabilitate ct confirmatione populi meibenigna sedulitate celebrari. ... Si servus operetur dominica die per pra^ceptum domini sui, sit liber: si liber operetur ilia die sine jussu domini sui, perdat libertatem suam." — Latin text in the Chronicle of John of Brompton, ap. TwYSDEN, Script. Aug., i. 761.

^-^ See above, p. 543.

^" Judicial tradition noticed by Lappenberg, p. 258.

^-® See vol. i. p. G57. Ilensclien, the learned and conscientious Bollandist, after having quoted two apocryphal charters of Ina in favor of Glastonbury, in vol. i. of February, pp. 'J07, 908, has acknowledged and proclaimed the falsehood of the articles in vol. ii. of April, p. 31. He adds modestly " Si eadem, qua nunc Aprilcm absolventibus, adfuisset scicntia Februarium tractantibus, explodi ista potuissent."

50* alive.^7 He thus testified the veneration of the Saxon conquerors for the celebrated monastery which, after having been the cradle of Celtic Christianity ,^28 a^^l the tomb of King Arthur, was about to become one of the principal centres of Anglo-Saxon monachism, and one of the burying-places of English royalty. It is the sole example in Great Britain of a religious foundation which has become equally dear and sacred to the two races — to the victors as to the vanquished.

With the help of the princes and patricians of his own country, Ina founded or enriched many other monasterieSj^^o being specially guided in his good w^orks by the most illustrious abbot in Wessex, his friend and cousin Aldhelm, whom he had drawn from the cloister of Malmesbury to make him a bishop, and whose counsels he followed with affectionate docility.230 The first And, finally, thanks to Ina, at the moment when protector Aldhelm disappeared from the scene, one of the most illustrious of the saints whom England has given to the Church rises on our sight, the great Winefred, whose youth Avas spent in a monastery in Wessex, from which Ina took him to intrust him with certain delicate negotiations with the Archbishop of Canterbury.-^^i This is the first appearance in history of him who Avas to be the victor over Teutonic heathenism, the true Christian conqueror of Germany, and whose name, Latinized into Boniface, is inscribed in ineffaceable characters in history along with those of Charles Martel and of Charlemagne.

While Ina was still in full possession of his power and popularity,332 after thirty-seven years of a prosperous and glorious reign, his wife, Ethelburga, in whose veins, as in his own, ran the warlike blood of Cerdic, and who had shared all the cares of his life even to the point of victoriously leading his people to battle in his absence, persuaded him to give

^" Chron. Anglo-Sax., ad. ann. G87 and 69i. Lingard, History, p. 161. 32^ See vol. i. pp. 658 and 674.

^^' See details on the part he took in the foundation of Abingdon, given in the Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, c. 12, 13, newly published by J. Stevens in the Rerum Britannic Scriptores. In an assembly held in 704, he confirmed the monasteries of Wessex in their charters and possessions, by a deed signed by all the principes, senatores, judices, et patricii. — Kem- BLE, Cod. Diplomat., n. 50 and 51.

330 (( Adfuit pater Aldhelmus cujus ille prsecepta audiebat humiliter suscipiebat granditer, adimplebat hilariter." — De Regib., lib. i. c. 2.

^^' S. WiLLEBALDi Vita S. BouifacH, c. 4.

^^^ " Sine alto insidiarum metu securus incanuit, sanctissimus amoris publici lenocinatur." — Guill. Malmesb., I. c. up his throne and the world. According to narratives which unfortunately are not given us by contemporaries, but which are in conformity with the characteristic conditions of Anglo- Saxon nature, the queen's device for deciding Ina to the sacrifice which she meant to make along with him, was after the

following fashion: — A great banquet, accompanied by all

the refinements of lordly luxury in these days, had been given in one of the royal villas. Next morning the princely pair set out on their journey, but after riding for an hour or two, the queen begged her husband to return whence they came. He consented, and on returning to the castle, he was struck with consternation to find the scene of the recent rejoicings not only silent and desert, but destroyed and desecrated. It was covered with ruins and filth, and the very bed on which they had slept was occupied by a sow with her litter. The astonished king looked at the queen, who had given secret orders to this effect to the steward of the villa, for an explanation. " Yes, my lord husband/' said Ethelburga, " where are now our yesterday's pleasures? where are our purple hangings, our gay parasites, our heavy silver dishes and delicate meats? All has passed away like smoke, and those who prize such pleasures shall pass away like them. Behold, then, I pray you, into what misery falls this flesh which we feed so delicately; and we who are fed still more daintily than other men, shall not we fall into a still more miserable corruption? " 3*^

This was enough, according to the legend, to de- jnaabditermine the king to think only for the future of his cates, and soul. Authentic history proves his abdication, which obscirity was given in the midst of a Parliament of Witan, 70(^0™^' to whom he announced his resolution to pass the rest of his days in penitence.^^* Then, accompanied by Ethelburga, he went to Rome. He arrived there after a long and painful journey, to end his life in penitence and obscurity. According to some accounts, he embraced monastic life according to the rule of St. Benedict; *^'^ according to others,

³³³ " Villicus ex roginaB conscientla ... in lecto ubi cubuerant porcam noviter cnixam collocat.... Regis oculi ad mulierera rediere. Et ubi sunt, ait, domine conjux, hesterni strepitus!... Nonne nos qui ingurgitamur uberius, putrescemus miserius?... Maritum compulit in sententiam exemplo, quam nmitis annis frustra insusurraverat verbo." — Guill. Maljiesb., I. c.

"^ LiXGARD, i. 1G2.

^^^ Act. SS. Bolland., t. i. Febr., p. 913. Mabillon, Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ill. p. 465. he preferred, for humility's sake, to remain lost in the crowds of poor pilgrims, with neither tonsure nor cowl, gaining his livelihood by the work of his hands.^^*^

Upon the left bank of the Tiber, then almost desert, and not far from the Vatican, the lawgiver and king founded under the name of Schola Saxonum, an establishment for the orthodox education of young princes, and for the priests and clerks of his country who desired to complete their religious and literary education in the shadow of the basilica of St. Peter.32' He added to this a church and burying-ground specially intended for his countrymen, and in which he was himself buried, for he died in Rome in the obscurity he had voluntarily sought. His faithful Ethelburga remained with him till his death, and then returning, became a nun in England.

The great Benedictine Wilfrid had set the example of these pilgrimages to Rome, which nobody had thought of before his time.^^^ Some years after his deatfi it became a kind of epidemic. During the seventh and eighth centuries Rome was the meeting-place of in- Kome. numerable pilgrims, who came from all quarters of, the West to see the holy city, and pray by the tombs of the saints and martyrs. By no nation was this pious duty accomplished with greater zeal and fervor than by the Anglo- Saxons. Their kings set them the example,^^ differing in that point from the Merovingians, not a single individual of whom ever crossed the Alps to go to Rome.

An irresistible attraction to the Eternal City soon became apparent among Saxons of all ranks; princes and bishops, rich and poor, priests and laity, men and women, undertook the pilgrimage with eagerness, often going so far as to repeat

^^® GuiLL. Malmesb., I. c. "Dux foemina facti," adds the monastic historian, steeped, like all his fellows, in the recollections of classical antiquity.

'^^'' It was transformed by Innocent III. into a hospital, which has become, under the title of *S'. Spirito in vico cle Sassia, the most celebrated in Rome. Other traditions attribute this important foundation to young Offa of Essex, who also died a monk at Rome (Richard de Cirencester, p. 229, cd. Mayor), or, again, to the powerful Offa, King of Mercia, who died in 7V)6, and will be referred to further on. In any case, the latter was a great benefactor of the national foundation in Rome, the doors of which he opened to students of all countries. " Ut ibidem peregrin! ... ex diversis mundi partibus barbari... linguas quas non noverint, addiscerent." —Math. Paris, in Vitis Abbatum S. Albani, c. 1.

«38 See p. 306.

^^^ Lingard counts as many as eight kings, including, however, Ethelwulf and Canute, who belong to a later period. — Antiquities, i. 116. the journey notwithstanding its difficulties and dangers.^^o They were so numerous that, collecting round the foundation of King Ina, they gave their name to an entire quarter of the city, the Vicus Saxonum,^^ situated in the immediate neighborhood of St. Peter's, and inhabited exclusively by them. They came, says their historian, to make acquaintance in their lifetime with the saints, by whom they hoped to be well received in heaven.

But as there were false monks who introduced even into the cloister the indolence and vices of worldly life, so there were also false pilgrims whom frivolous or guilty motives carried abroad; and the monastic writers have remarked the one as well as the other. The wandering inclina- ^,,gipj,ig. tion of the Teutonic races may well have contribu- orderly ted, after the first impulse of fervent and sincere ''^'^'*^'^''- piety, to increase the number of those undevout pilgrims who often scandalized by their conduct the Christian coun-

tries through which they travelled. Women especially, and

even virgins consecrated to God, excited the just indignation of the priests and the faithful in France and Italy, by their license and lamentable downfalls, during their journeys to Rome. The melancholy revelations transmitted by the great apostle of Germany on this point to his colleague and countryman, Bishop Cuthbert of Canterbury, which led the latter to request the English assemblies and princes to forbid absolutely the pilgrimages of women and nuns to Rome, will not bear repetition.^^

I shall have succeeded poorly in expounding the history of these times, and ill served the truth, if the reader has not been struck by the singular mixture of good and evil, peace and war, freedom and slavery, which, from the beginning of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, shows itself in all the relations between society and the Church. It is evident that goodness

³⁴⁰ u Cupiens in vicinia sanctorum locorum ad tempus peregrinari in erris, quo familiarius a Sanctis recipi mereretur in coelis; quod his temporibus plures de gente Anglorum, nobiles, ignobiles, laici, clerici, viri ac feminas certatim facere consuerunt." — Beue, v. 7.

'^*^ From whence comes the name .Sassia, still preserved in this part of Eome.

³⁴² "Aliquod levamentura turpitudinis esset, si prohiberent synodus et principes vestri mulieribus et velatis feminis illud iter et frequentiam, quam ad Komanum civitatem vcniendo et rcdcundo faciunt; quia magna ex parte pereunt, paucis rcmanentibus integris. Perpauca; enim sunt civitates in Longobardia, vel in Francia, vel in Gallia, in qua non sit adultera vel meretrix generis Anglorum: quod scandalum est et turpitudo totius Ecclesiae." — S. BoNiFACii Epist. ad Cuthbertum archiepi^copum.

598 SUCCESSORS OF ST. WILFRID.

bad the advantage over evil, but that the evil was formidable, the dangers continual and flagrant, the deceivers and ill-doers more numerous than the saints. This, notwithstanding, has been called the Golden Age of religion, in England; not without reason, if the name has been given by comparison with later periods, but wrongly if attributed solely to its real merits. The fact is, that in true history there is no golden age. All ages, without exception, are infected by the evil which proceeds from man's natural corruption. All bear witness to his incurable weakness, but at the same time all proclaim his greatness and freedom, as well as the justice and mercy of God, his Maker and Redeemer.