No More Learning

”

820 His baptismal name was Colum (_columba_ = a dove). He is said to
have acquired the name of Colum-cille, because in his youth he was
so constantly in the “cell” or oratory.

821 Jonah, i, 12.

822 Nothing more is known of him. Alcuin mentions him in his life of
Wilbrord. His name is included in a list of the eleven companions of
Wilbrord given in a life of St. Suidbert (_v. infra_ c. 11), but no
value is to be attached to it (_v. _ Haddan and Stubbs, III, 225).
Bede distinctly says that he retired from missionary efforts after
this unsuccessful attempt.

823 The story is told that at one time Rathbed was about to receive
baptism at the hands of St. Wulfram, Archbishop of Sens, but drew
back on being told that his ancestors were among the lost, refusing
to go to Heaven without them. His perpetual wars with the Franks
ended in his defeat and expulsion, and he died in 719.

824 The authority for Wilbrord’s life is Alcuin, who wrote it both in
prose and verse. Wilbrord was born in 657 or 658 in Northumbria, and
was handed over by his mother to the monks at Ripon in his infancy.
His father, Wilgils, became a hermit on a promontory at the mouth of
the Humber. At the age of twenty he went to Ireland for the sake of
study and a stricter life. In 690 he set out for Frisland with
eleven others, landed at Katwyk and went to Utrecht, which was
afterwards his episcopal see (_v. infra_ c. 11).

825 They turned aside to Pippin on finding Rathbed obdurate. Pippin of
Heristal, Mayor of the Palace of the Austrasian kings, had defeated
the Neustrians at Testry in 687 and was now the actual ruler of the
Franks, though it was his grandson, Pippin the Short, who first
assumed royal power.

826 Cf. c. 9, p. 319, and note.

827 Roger of Wendover places their mission in 695. It must have been
later than Wilbrord’s in 690.

828 “Satrap,” cf. Stubbs, Constitutional History, i, pp. 41-42. From
this passage and similar notices of the Continental Saxons he infers
that they had remained free from Roman influences and from any
foreign intermixture of blood or institutions. “They had preserved
the ancient features of German life in their purest forms. . . . King
Alfred, when he translated Bede had no difficulty in recognizing in
the satrap the ealdorman, in the villicus the _tungerefa_, in the
vicus the _tunscipe_ of his own land. ”

829 The year cannot be fixed.

830 The Church of St. Cunibert, Cologne (Gallican Martyrology, quoted by
Smith).

831 Sergius I: _v. s. _ c. 7.

832 Alcuin tells how he killed some of the sacred cattle of the god
Fosite, a son of Balder, in Heligoland, and baptized three men in
his well.

833 A life of him by Marcellinus (_v. s. _ c. 9, note on Wictbert) is
worthless historically. Besides what we learn from Bede, we have the
date of his death (713) given by the “Annales Francorum. ”

834 This was after Wilfrid’s second expulsion (V, 19). Bertwald was
elected in July, 692, and returned from the Continent in August, 693
(_v. s. _ c. 8).

835 The usual form of the name is Plectrude.

836 Kaiserwerth on the Rhine, where it is believed that his relics still
remain in a silver shrine in the thirteenth-century church. (For the
preposition, _v. _ II, 14, p. 119, note 5. )

837 This was Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. The festival is 22nd November.
As to the year, Mr. Plummer considers that an entry in an old
calendar belonging to Epternach, near Trèves, Wilbrord’s own
monastery, giving the date 695, is almost certainly by Wilbrord
himself.

838 Utrecht. A distinction has been drawn between the two places,
Wiltaburg, or Wiltenburg, being a village near Utrecht, but the
names appear to be interchangeable.

839 The Church of St. Saviour. He also rebuilt a small church which had
been destroyed by the pagans, and consecrated it in honour of St.
Martin (Letter of St. Boniface to Pope Stephen). The cathedral
stands on the site of this church.

840 Bede writes in 731. As Alcuin says Wilbrord lived to be eighty-one
years of age, he must have died in 738 or 739. Boniface is fairly
accurate when he says that he preached for fifty years.

841 Mr. Skene (“Celtic Scotland,” i. , p. 219) has shown that the place
cannot be Cunningham in Ayrshire, which was not in Northumbria, but
in Strathclyde, and not at that time subject to Northumbria. He
suggests Tininghame in East Lothian, which Simeon of Durham calls
Intiningaham, and places in the diocese of Lindisfarne (C being a
scribe’s error for T). Chester-le-Street (Saxon: Cunungaceaster) has
also been suggested.

842 Melrose, _v. _ III, 26; IV, 27; V, 9.

843 Cf. III, 19. On mediaeval visions, cf. Plummer, _ad loc. _, and
Bright, p. 144.

844 Vergil, Aen. VI, 268.

845 IV, 26; V. 1.

846 Cf. c. 23. He began life in the service of St. Cuthbert. He became
first Prior, or Provost, then Abbot of Melrose, and succeeded
Eadfrid, who died in 721, as Bishop of Lindisfarne. He enriched
Lindisfarne with two treasures of art: a beautiful stone cross which
he erected there, and a cover of gold and jewels for the Lindisfarne
Gospels, written by Eadfrid in honour of St. Cuthbert. The book is
now in the British Museum, but the cover is lost.

847 704-709. Cf. _infra_, c. 19, pp. 345, 356, and c. 24. He was the son
of Wulfhere, but being a boy at the time of his father’s death, was
passed over in favour of Ethelred, Wulfhere’s brother.

848 Ps. xxxi, 1, in the Vulgate (xxxii in our Psalter).

849 Bishop of Whitern; _v. infra_, cc. 18, 23.

850 Cf. 1 John, v, 16.

851 Acts, vii, 56.

852 The northern Irish, and of them only those who were independent of
Iona (_v. infra_). The southern Irish had conformed much earlier;
cf. III, 3, and note.

853 It is not clear whether Bede means that any Britons were converted
by Adamnan. If so, they must have been Britons of Strathclyde. The
Welsh only conformed 755-777. The reference may be to those of the
Cornish Britons, subject to the West Saxons, who were led in 705 by
Aldhelm’s letter to Geraint to adopt the Catholic Easter (_v.
infra_, c. 18).

854 Ninth Abbot of Iona, 679-704, the author of the Life of St. Columba.

855 Of Northumbria. Aldfrid, who had studied in Iona during his exile,
was his friend. Adamnan visited the king twice, first, circ. 686,
when he obtained the release of the sixty Irish prisoners taken to
England by Berct in 684 (_v. _ IV, 26 _ad init. _) and again two years
later (cf. _infra_ c. 21, p. 372, note 2).

856 The Irish annals mention two voyages to Ireland subsequent to that
in 686 with the prisoners, viz. , in 692 and 697, after which he
probably stayed there till after Easter, 704.

857 On 23rd September, 704. (The dates are those of Tighernach and the
“Annales Cambriae. ”)

858 Adamnan’s “De Locis Sanctis,” and Bede’s account here, are the only
sources of information with regard to this bishop. Adamnan’s book is
based on the narrative of Arculf compared with other authorities.
Bede, again, in his own work on the the same subject, made
selections from Adamnan, using also other authorities, _e. g. _
Josephus.

_ 859 I. e. _, he had copies made of it.

860 Nevertheless he quotes his own book rather than Adamnan’s.

861 Cf. Warren and Conder, “Survey of Western Palestine”: “Bethlehem, a
well-built stone town, standing on a narrow ridge which runs east
and west . . . towards the east is the open market place, and, beyond
this, the convent in which is the fourth century church of St. Mary,
including the Grotto of the Nativity beneath the main apse. ”

862 “Vulturnus” seems to be distinguished from its Greek equivalent,
“Eurus. ”

863 The Basilica of the Anastasis was completed by Constantine in 335
A. D. , and destroyed in 614 by Chosroes II, King of Persia. Other
ancient travellers besides Arculf describe the Holy Places.
Eucherius, writing about 427-440, mentions the Martyrium, Golgotha
and the Anastasis, and describes their respective sites in similar
terms. Theodorus (about 530 A. D. ) alludes to the Invention of the
Holy Cross by Helena, but the earliest authorities do not connect
her with it.

864 “Brucosa. ” The adjective is not found in the dictionaries. But
Ducange has the following words from which one may, perhaps, infer
an adjective of kindred meaning: “_Brua_, idem quod supra _Brossa_,
silvula, dumetum,” “_Bruarium_, ericetum,” and “_Broca_, ager
incultus, dumetum. ”

865 The Basilica of the Ascension, on the summit of Mount Olivet, is
mentioned by the Pilgrim of Bordeaux who was in Jerusalem in 333
A. D. No traces of the church have been found. He also speaks of the
Anastasis, which was being built at the time.

866 Saewulf (1102 A. D. ) writes: “Below is the place called Golgotha,
where Adam is said to have been raised to life by the Blood of our
Lord which fell upon him, as is said in the Passion, ‘And many
bodies of the saints which slept arose. ’ But in the sentences of St.
Augustine we read that he was buried in Hebron, where also the three
patriarchs were afterwards buried with their wives, Abraham with
Sarah, Isaac with Rebecca, and Jacob with Leah, as well as the bones
of Joseph which the children of Israel carried with them from
Egypt. ”

867 He died at Driffield (supposed to mean the “field of Deira”), in the
East Riding of Yorkshire, on 14th December, 705 (Saxon Chronicle).

868 Bede and the Chronicle do not mention the usurper Eadwulf, who held
the sovereignty for eight weeks. With Aldfrid the greatness of
Northumbria, which had begun to decline after Egfrid’s defeat and
death, passed away, except for a brief revival in the time of
Eadbert and his brother, Archbishop Egbert. Osred was a tyrannical
and lawless boy, and a period of political and ecclesiastical
trouble set in (cf. Bede, “Epistola ad Egbertum”; Boniface, Ep. 62,
etc. ).

869 III, 7; IV, 12.

_ 870 Infra_ c. 23. He has been mentioned, c. 13, _ad fin. _ He studied
under Aldhelm at Malmesbury (_v. infra_).

871 The greatest scholar of his time and the man of widest influence as
a teacher. He was a West Saxon, of royal blood, born about 639; he
studied first under Hadrian in the School of Canterbury, then under
Maildufus (_v. infra_), was ordained priest by Bishop Hlothere
(Leutherius, _v. _ III, 7), and about the year 675 became Abbot of
Malmesbury, which under his rule grew to be a place of importance
and attracted crowds of students. On one occasion he went by
invitation of Pope Sergius to Rome. He became Bishop of Sherborne,
when in 705 the West Saxon diocese was divided (_v. infra_).
He died
in 709 in the little church of Doulting in Somerset and was buried
in St. Michael’s Church at Malmesbury. He greatly strengthened the
Church in Wessex by his influence with King Ini and his zeal in
building churches and monasteries in various places. His widespread
influence, as well as his generous use of it, is shown by his letter
to Wilfrid’s clergy after the Council of Estrefeld, exhorting them
to remain faithful to their bishop (v. Haddan and Stubbs, III, 254).

872 In 705. The bishopric of the West Saxons was the only one which
Theodore did not subdivide. The delay may have been due to the
political disturbances of the time, and these had come to an end
under the rule of Ini. Haedde’s death removed a further difficulty.
He seems to have resisted Bertwald’s attempt to divide the diocese,
for we find in 704 a council threatening the West Saxons with
excommunication if the division is not carried out. Hampshire,
Surrey, and, for a time, Sussex, were assigned to Winchester;
Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire to Sherborne
(Haddan and Stubbs, III, 276), but the authorities differ on this
point. After the Conquest, the combined bishoprics of Sherborne and
Ramsbury (founded in 909 for Wiltshire) had their see established at
Old Sarum.

873 Cf. Preface, p. 3, and note, and IV, 16. In 744 he resigned his see
and died in 745. It appears from a letter of Boniface to him that he
became blind in his old age.

874 Malmesbury. It was founded by an Irish monk and scholar, Maildufus
(Irish “Maelduib”), as a small settlement living under monastic rule
(_v. s. _ note on Aldhelm).

875 His letter to Geraint or Gerontius, king of Dumnonia (Devon and
Cornwall). A West Saxon synod in 705 appointed Aldhelm to write a
book, “quo maligna haeresis Britonum destrueretur” (Faricius, Life
of Aldhelm). He appears to have influenced only those Britons who
were subject to the West Saxons. Devon and Cornwall did not finally
conform to the Catholic Easter till early in the tenth century.

876 Cf. IV, 10 (note on Hildilid).

877 A poet of the fifth century (circ. 450), author of a poem called
“Carmen Paschale. ” He translated it into prose and called it “Opus
Paschale. ” Aldhelm wrote his prose work first.

878 His style is turgid and grandiloquent, and, owing to the high
estimation in which he was held, his influence in this respect on
contemporary writing was harmful.

879 Cf. _infra_ c. 23. A letter to him from Archbishop Bertwald is
extant. We do not know how long he lived. We have his signature to a
charter of 739.

880 Cf. IV, 15. The see was established at Selsey. The date of this
event is not known (Matthew of Westminster is the only authority for
711). Bede indicates it very vaguely (“quibus administrantibus”),
and does not make it clear to whose administration he alludes. The
more obvious reference is surely to Daniel and Aldhelm, the passage
about Forthere being parenthetical, but the other view has the
authority of Haddan and Stubbs (III, 296), viz. , that he means
Daniel and Forthere, and that thus the date is fixed to some time
after Aldhelm’s death (709).

881 Selsey, cf. IV, 13, 14.

882 The vacancy was filled in 733 by the appointment of Sigfrid (_v. _
Continuation).

883 Cf. c. 18, _ad init. _ His fourth year was 709.

884 C. 13 and _infra_ c. 19 _ad fin. _, and c. 24. For a similar action,
cf. Caedwalla and Ini (_v. s. _ c. 7) and (_infra_) Offa.

885 Constantine I, 708-715.

886 709-716. St. Boniface (Letter to Ethelbald) gives Ceolred a very bad
character, and says that he died impenitent at a banquet, seized
with sudden madness. He alludes to him and Osred of Northumbria as
the first kings who tampered with the privileges of the Church.

887 III, 30, and IV, 6. Sighere reigned jointly with Sebbi. They were
succeeded by Sebbi’s sons, Sighard and Swefred (IV, 11). Offa
probably succeeded them just before this time (709); William of
Malmesbury says he reigned for a short time. He was succeeded by
Selred (d. 746).

888 St. Matt. , xix, 29; St. Mark, x, 30; St. Luke, xviii, 30.

889 Oundle in Northamptonshire, where he had a monastery on land given
him by Wulfhere of Mercia. For the form of the name, cf. _infra_,
“in provincia Undalum. ” Here the preposition is prefixed as often;
_v. _ II, 14, note. Wilfrid died on a Thursday in October: there is
some uncertainty about the day of the month.

890 Cf. the epitaph (_infra_) and c. 24, where Bede places his
consecration in 664. This is supported by William of Malmesbury, but
Eddius says he was bishop for forty-six years.

891 Ripon, _v. infra_, p. 56. In the tenth century, Odo, Archbishop of
Canterbury, removed certain relics to Canterbury, believing them to
be the body of Wilfrid. At Ripon it was maintained that the relics
were those of Wilfrid II.

892 Our main authority for the life of Wilfrid is Eddius (_v. _ IV, 2).
Bede’s account is remarkable for its omissions, though it gives a
few facts which Eddius omits.

893 His birth must be placed in 634 (cf. _infra_, his consecration at
the age of thirty). His father was a Northumbrian thegn. He is said
to have had an unkind stepmother. He was sent by his father to the
court of Oswy, thence, by Eanfled (cf. II, 9, 20; III, 15, 24, _et
saep. _) to Lindisfarne, at that time under the rule of Aidan.

894 III, 8. He was the son of Eadbald (II, 5, 6, 9, _et saep. _).
Eanfled’s mother was the sister of Eadbald, the Kentish princess
Ethelberg (“Tata”), wife of Edwin (II, 9, 11, 20).

895 II, 18 _et saep. _

896 IV, 18, and note.

897 Cf. III, 25. Annemundus was the name of the Archbishop. Dalfinus,
Count of Lyons, was his brother. Eddius makes the same mistake.

898 A daughter of the Count.

899 He presented Wilfrid to the Pope, Eugenius I. A leaden “bulla” with
the name of Boniface, Archdeacon, inscribed upon it was found at
Whitby not long ago.

_ 900 I. e. _, to Annemundus.

901 This seems to be another mistake in which Bede follows Eddius. It
was probably Ebroin (_v. _ IV, 1, note), Mayor of the Palace to her
infant son Clothaire III, who put Annemundus to death. Baldhild was,
however, regent at the time. Eddius calls her a Jezebel, but all
that we know of her shows her to have been a most pious and
charitable lady, and she has been canonized by the Church. She was
especially active in her efforts to stop the traffic in slaves. She
herself, though she is said to have been of noble English birth, had
been sold as a slave into Gaul. She was married first to Ercinwald,
Mayor of the Palace, the predecessor of Ebroin (_v. _ III, 19), and
afterwards to Clovis II, King of Neustria and Burgundy, 638-656.
Baldhild ended her life in the monastery of Chelles (_v. _ III, 8,
and note).

902 III, 14, 21, 24, 25, 28. He was a friend of Coinwalch of Wessex,
from whom, as Eddius says, he learned to love the Roman rules.

903 Possibly Stamford, in Lincolnshire; more probably, since the land
belonged to Alchfrid, Stamford Bridge, on the Derwent, in Yorkshire.

904 Cf. III, 25, where the extent is given as forty families, _i. e. _,
“hides. ”

905 Cf. III, 7, 25, 28; IV, 1, 12. For the Gewissae, _v. _ II, 5 and
note.

906 At the synod of Whitby, 664 (III, 25).

907 Tuda (III, 26) had died of the plague of 664. For Wilfrid’s
consecration, _v. _ III, 28, _ad init. _, and note. Agilbert was not
Bishop of Paris till 666 (cf. III, 25, p. 194, note).

908 Cf. III, 28, and note. Wilfrid did not return to Britain till 666.
Bede omits the story of his shipwreck on the coast of Sussex, and
says nothing of the three years spent as Abbot of Ripon, whither he
retired on finding Ceadda installed in his place. During this time
he acted occasionally as Bishop for Mercia, where the see was vacant
by the death of Jaruman in 667, and for Kent, during part of the
vacancy between the death of Deusdedit in 664 and Theodore’s arrival
in 669.

909 The same Witan which elected Wilfrid decided to transfer the
Northumbrian see from Lindisfarne back to York, where Paulinus had
originally established it.

910 In 678, _v. _ IV, 12, and note. Bede passes over nine years of
ceaseless activity in the diocese. It was during this time that
Wilfrid built his great churches.

911 Eddius says that he went there by his own wish. This is not the
occasion referred to in III, 13 (_v. _ note, _ad loc. _). Ebroin, from
motives of private enmity (Wilfrid had helped his enemy, Dagobert II
of Austrasia), attempted to bribe Aldgils to kill or surrender
Wilfrid, but his offer was indignantly rejected.

912 Cc. 10, 11; cf. III, 13.

913 On the way he visited Dagobert II of Austrasia, and Perctarit, king
of the Lombards.

914 At a council of fifty bishops held in the Lateran in 679. Theodore
had sent documents stating his side of the case in charge of a monk
named Coenwald. For Agatho, _v. _ IV, 18. The decision was that
Wilfrid should be reinstated in his bishopric and the intruding
bishops removed, but that afterwards he should appoint coadjutors
who should be consecrated by the Archbishop.

915 This council was held in 680 in preparation for the Council at
Constantinople in 680-681, against the Monothelites (cf. IV, 17, 18,
and notes).

916 In 680. Here Bede strangely omits important events. On Wilfrid’s
return to Northumbria he was accused of having procured his
acquittal by bribery and was imprisoned for nine months, first at
Bromnis (unidentified) and then at Dunbar. Being released at the
request of Aebba, Abbess of Coldingham (_v. _ IV, 19, 25), who was
Egfrid’s aunt, he went first to Mercia and then to Wessex, but was
expelled from both provinces. Egfrid’s sister Osthryth was the wife
of Ethelred of Mercia, and in Wessex the king, Centwine, had married
a sister of the Northumbrian queen, Eormenburg.

917 IV, 13.

918 IV, 13, 16. His connection with Caedwalla of Wessex is to be placed
here (IV, 16).

919 In 686 he was restored to the bishopric of York and the monastery of
Ripon. The diocese over which he was now placed was greatly
circumscribed. Lindsey and Abercorn, besides having been detached by
the subdivision, had both ceased to belong to Northumbria;
Lindisfarne and Hexham were separate bishoprics and were merely
administered by Wilfrid till the appointment of Eadbert to
Lindisfarne and of John to Hexham. The restoration of Wilfrid was
brought about by Theodore who had become reconciled to him and
induced Aldfrid to allow him to be reinstated.

920 This was his second expulsion, in 691. Dissensions had arisen about
various matters. The most important were the attempt, resisted by
Wilfrid, to form Ripon into a separate see, and the requirement that
he should accept the decrees of Theodore of 678. To accept these
would have been equivalent to a rejection of the Pope’s judgement in
his case.

921 Bede omits here Wilfrid’s second sojourn in Mercia (eleven years),
when he acted temporarily as Bishop of the Middle English (he
alludes to it in IV, 23), and the great Council, representative of
the whole English Church, summoned by Aldfrid in 702 and held at a
place in Northumbria (unidentified; possibly Austerfield in the West
Riding of Yorkshire) called by Eddius “Ouestraefelda” and
“Aetswinapathe” (supposed to mean “at the swine’s path,” or
“Edwinspath”). At this Council Wilfrid was excommunicated and
deprived of all his possessions except the monastery of Ripon. He
appealed again to the Apostolic see and returned to Mercia. Probably
in the following year he set out for Rome, visiting Wilbrord in
Frisia by the way (cf. III, 13).

922 John VI, 701-705. Bertwald had sent envoys to represent Wilfrid’s
opponents.