Works (excl. History) 4

[1] But Edwin having been slain in battle, in his stead Osric received the kingdom of the Deirans, from which province he had derived the lineage of his race and the origin of his kingdom—the son of his uncle Ælfric, named Osric, who at the preaching of Paulinus had been initiated into the sacraments of the faith. Furthermore, the kingdom of the Bernicians—for into these two provinces the nation of the Northumbrians had been anciently divided—was received by the son of Æthelfrith, who had drawn the origin of his race and kingdom from that province, named Eanfrith.

For during the whole time that Edwin reigned, the sons of the aforesaid king Æthelfrith, who had reigned before him, were in exile among the Scots [Irish] or the Picts, together with a great company of noble youth, and there they were catechized in the teaching of the Scots, and renewed by the grace of baptism. When, on the death of the hostile king, they were permitted to return to their fatherland, the first of them, Eanfrith, whom we have mentioned, received the kingdom of the Bernicians. Each of these kings, when he had obtained the insignia of an earthly kingdom, betrayed by anathematizing the sacraments of the heavenly kingdom into which he had been initiated, and restored himself to the ancient defilements of idolatry, to be polluted and destroyed. And without delay, Caedwalla king of the Britons slew them both with impious hand, but by just vengeance.

And first indeed, the next summer, when Osric had rashly besieged him in a fortified town, bursting out suddenly with all his men, he destroyed him, unprepared, with his whole army. Then, when for a whole year he had laid waste the provinces of the Northumbrians, not as a victorious king possessing them, but as a tyrant raging and tearing them with tragic slaughter, at length he condemned Eanfrith to a like fate, who had come to him inconsiderately with twelve chosen soldiers for the sake of suing for peace. That ill-starred year, hateful to all good men, remains so even to this day, as much on account of the apostasy of the Anglian kings, by which they had stripped themselves of the sacraments of the faith, as on account of the insane tyranny of the British king.

Hence it was agreed by all who reckon the times of the kings that, the memory of those faithless kings being blotted out, the same year should be assigned to the reign of the following king, that is, of Oswald, a man beloved of God. In that year, after the slaying of his brother Eanfrith, Oswald came up with a small army, but one fortified by faith in Christ, and the abominable leader of the Britons was slain, together with those immense forces with which he boasted that nothing could withstand him, in the place which in the tongue of the English is called Denisesburna, that is, the brook of Denis.

To this very day there is shown, and is held in great veneration, that place where Oswald, as he was about to come to this battle, set up the sign of the holy cross, and bending his knees prayed to God that, in so great a crisis of affairs, He would succour His worshippers with heavenly aid. Indeed it is related that, when the cross had been made in haste and a hollow prepared in which it was to be set up, the king himself, fervent in faith, seized it and placed it in the hollow, and held it upright with both hands until the soldiers heaped up earth and fixed it fast; and when this was done, raising his voice on high he cried out to the whole army:

“Let us all bend our knees, and together beseech the almighty, living, and true God in His mercy to defend us from the proud and fierce enemy; for He Himself knows that we have undertaken a just war for the salvation of our nation.” They all did as he had commanded, and so, as dawn was breaking, advancing upon the enemy, they gained the victory, according to the merit of their faith. In that place of prayer countless miracles of healing are known to have been wrought, as a sign and memorial, namely, of the king's faith. For to this very day many are wont to cut splinters from that wood of the most holy cross, and when they put them into water and give it to sick men or beasts to drink, or sprinkle them with it, they are presently restored to health.

That place is called in the tongue of the English Hefenfelth, which may be rendered in Latin as 'the heavenly field,' a name it received in ancient times by a sure foretoken of things to come, signifying assuredly that there a heavenly trophy was to be raised, a heavenly victory begun, and heavenly miracles celebrated even to this day. The place lies beside that wall, toward the north, with which the Romans once girded all Britain from sea to sea to ward off the assaults of the barbarians, as we have related above.

In which place, namely, the brethren of the church of Hexham, which is not far off, had for a long time now made it their custom to come every year, on the day before that on which king Oswald was afterwards slain, to keep vigils for the salvation of his soul, and, after the singing of many psalms of praise, to offer in the morning the victim of the holy oblation for him. And as this good custom grew, they lately built a church there, and so made the place more sacred and more honourable than all others.

And not without reason, for, as we have learned, no sign of the Christian faith, no church, no altar was raised in the whole nation of the Bernicians before that new leader of the host, prompted by devotion of faith, set up this banner of the holy cross, being about to fight against a most savage enemy. Nor is it amiss to relate one out of the many miracles of power wrought at this cross. A certain one of the brethren of the same church of Hexham, named Bothelm, who survives to this day, a few years ago, while incautiously walking by night upon the ice, suddenly fell and broke his arm, and began to be tormented by the very grievous trouble of that fracture;

so much so that he could in no way bring that arm even to his mouth, the pain forbidding it. When one morning he heard that one of the brethren had resolved to go up to the place of that same holy cross, he begged him, on his return, to bring him some part of that venerable wood, saying that he believed that through it, by the Lord's gift, he might obtain healing. The man did as he was asked, and returning at evening, when the brethren were already sitting at table, offered him a little of the old moss with which the surface of the wood was covered. And since, sitting at table, he had no place at hand where he might lay the gift offered to him, he put it into his bosom. And when he went to bed, forgetting to lay it down anywhere, he let it remain in his bosom.

But in the middle of the night, when he awoke, he felt something cold lying against his side, and putting his hand to it to find out what it was, he found his arm and hand so sound, as if he had never had any such infirmity. [3] This same Oswald, then, as soon as he had received the kingdom, desiring that the whole nation over which he had begun to rule should be imbued with the grace of the Christian faith—the greatest proofs of which he had already received in vanquishing the barbarians—sent to the elders of the Scots, among whom, while in exile, he himself, together with the soldiers who were with him, had received the sacrament of baptism; asking that a bishop be sent to him, by whose teaching and ministry the nation of the English which he ruled might both learn the gifts of the Lord's faith and receive the sacraments.

Nor did he obtain what he asked any the more slowly; for he received bishop Aidan, a man of the utmost gentleness, piety, and moderation, and one who had zeal for God, though not fully according to knowledge. For he was wont to keep the Lord's Easter day, according to the manner of his nation, of which we have often made mention, from the fourteenth moon to the twentieth. For in this order the northern province of the Scots, and the whole nation of the Picts, at that time still celebrated the Lord's Easter, supposing that in this observance they followed the writings of the holy father Anatolius, worthy of praise. Whether this is true, any learned man very easily perceives.

Moreover the nations of the Scots who dwelt in the southern parts of the island of Ireland had long since learned, at the admonition of the bishop of the apostolic see, to observe Easter according to the canonical rite. To the bishop, then, on his coming to him, the king granted a place for the episcopal see on the island of Lindisfarne, where he himself desired it. Which place, indeed, as the tide flows and ebbs, is twice a day surrounded by the waves of the sea after the manner of an island, and twice, the shore being laid bare again, is rendered continuous with the land. And humbly and gladly hearkening in all things to his admonitions, the king took great care to build up and extend the church of Christ in his kingdom.

Whereupon it often came to pass, a most beautiful spectacle, that, while the bishop, who did not perfectly know the language of the English, was preaching the gospel, the king himself became the interpreter of the heavenly word to his commanders and ministers; for during so long a time of his exile he had now fully learned the language of the Scots. Thereafter more and more, day by day, began to come from the country of the Scots into Britain, and with great devotion to preach the word of faith to those provinces of the English over which Oswald reigned, and, whoever were endowed with priestly rank, to administer the grace of baptism to those who believed.

Churches therefore were built throughout the places; the peoples flocked rejoicing to hear the word; possessions and territories were bestowed by royal bounty for the founding of monasteries; the little ones of the English were imbued by Scottish teachers, together with their elders, in the pursuits and observance of the regular discipline. For they were mostly monks who had come to preach. The bishop Aidan himself was a monk, being sent, namely, from the island which is called Hii (Iona), whose monastery for no small time held the chief place among almost all the monasteries of the northern Scots and of all the Picts, and presided over the governing of their peoples;

which island, indeed, belongs by right to Britain, being separated from it by no great strait, but was long since given over to the monks of the Scots by the gift of the Picts who inhabit those parts of Britain, because through their preaching they had received the faith of Christ. [4] For in the year of the Lord's incarnation 565, at which time Justin the Younger received the helm of the Roman empire after Justinian, there came from Ireland a priest and abbot, distinguished by the habit and life of a monk, named Columba, into Britain, to preach the word of God to the provinces of the northern Picts, that is, to those who are separated from their southern regions by steep and rugged ranges of mountains.

For the southern Picts themselves, who have their seats within those same mountains, had, as men relate, long before forsaken the error of idolatry and received the faith of truth, when Ninian, a most reverend and most holy bishop, of the nation of the Britons, who had been regularly instructed at Rome in the faith and mysteries of the truth, preached the word to them; whose episcopal see, distinguished by the name and church of the holy bishop Martin, where he himself also rests in the body together with many saints, the nation of the English now holds. This place, belonging to the province of the Bernicians, is commonly called Ad Candidam Casam (the White House), because there he made a church of stone, after a manner unusual among the Britons.

Columba came to Britain when Bridius son of Meilochon, a most powerful king, was reigning over the Picts, in the ninth year of his reign, and converted that nation to the faith of Christ by word and example; whereupon he also received from them the aforesaid island for the making of a monastery. For it is not large, but about of five families, according to the reckoning of the English; which his successors hold to this day, where he himself also was buried, being seventy-seven years of age, about thirty-two years after he came to Britain to preach. He had also, before he came to Britain, built a noble monastery in Ireland, which from the abundance of oaks is surnamed in the language of the Scots Dearmach, that is, the field of oaks.

From both these monasteries very many monasteries thereafter were propagated by his disciples, both in Britain and in Ireland; among all of which the same island monastery, in which he himself rests in the body, holds the primacy. That island, moreover, is wont always to have for its ruler an abbot who is a priest, to whose authority both the whole province and even the bishops themselves, by an unusual order, must be subject, after the example of that first teacher of theirs, who was not a bishop but a priest and a monk; of whose life and words some writings are said to be held by his disciples.

But whatever manner of man he himself was, we hold this as certain concerning him, that he left successors distinguished by great continence, divine love, and observance of the rule; though, indeed, in the time of the chief festival they followed doubtful cycles, inasmuch as no one had brought to them, placed as they were far beyond the world, the synodal decrees concerning the observance of Easter; only diligently observing those works of piety and chastity which they were able to learn from the prophetic, evangelical, and apostolic writings. And this kind of paschal observance continued among them for no short time, that is, until the year of the Lord's incarnation 715, for one hundred and fifty years.

But then, when there came to them the most reverend and most holy father and priest Ecgberht, of the nation of the English, who had long lived in exile in Ireland for Christ, and was both most learned in the Scriptures and eminent for the long-continued perfection of his life, they were corrected by him and brought over to the true and canonical day of Easter; which, however, even before, they did not always celebrate on the fourteenth moon with the Jews, as some supposed, but indeed on the Lord's day, yet in another week than was fitting. For they knew, as Christians, that the Lord's resurrection, which took place on the first day of the week, must always be celebrated on the first day of the week;

but, as barbarous and unlettered men, they had by no means learned when that same first day of the week, which is now called the Lord's day, should come. Yet because they did not cease to be fervent in the grace of charity, they merited also to receive the knowledge of this matter to perfection, according to the promise of the apostle who says: 'And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you.' Of which more fully must be said in its proper place hereafter. [5] From this island, then, from the company of these monks, Aidan was sent to instruct the province of the English in Christ, having received the rank of the episcopate. At which time Segeni, abbot and priest, presided over the same monastery.

Whence, among other examples of living, he left to the clergy a most wholesome pattern of abstinence and continence; and what most commended his teaching to all was that he himself taught no otherwise than as he lived with his own people. For he cared to seek nothing of this world, to love nothing. All things that were given to him by kings or rich men of the world he rejoiced to bestow at once on the poor whom he met. He was wont to traverse all places, both in town and country, borne not on the back of horses but by the going of his feet, unless perhaps a greater necessity compelled otherwise; so that wherever, as he went, he saw any, whether rich or poor, he would at once turn aside to them, and invite them, if unbelievers, to the sacrament of receiving the faith;

or, if they were believers, he would strengthen them in that very faith, and stir them up, both by words and deeds, to almsgiving and to the performance of good works. So far, moreover, did his life differ from the sloth of our time, that all who walked with him, whether tonsured or laymen, were bound to meditate, that is, either to give heed to reading the Scriptures or to learning the psalms. This was the daily work of him and of all who were with him, wherever they came. And if it perchance happened—which yet rarely happened—that he was invited to the king's banquet, he entered with one clerk or two; and when he had refreshed himself a little, he hastened the more quickly to go out with his own people to read or to pray.

Formed by his examples, all religious men and women of that time made it their custom throughout the whole year, except the relaxation of the fifty days of Easter, to prolong the fast until the ninth hour on the fourth and sixth days of the week. Never did he, for the sake of honour or fear, keep silence with the rich if they had transgressed in anything, but corrected them with sharp rebuke. He was never wont to give any money to the powerful of the world, except only food, if he had received any in hospitality; but rather those gifts of money which were bestowed on him by the rich he either, as we have said, distributed for the uses of the poor, or dispensed for the ransom of those who had been unjustly sold.

Indeed, many whom he had ransomed with a price paid, he afterwards made his disciples once redeemed, and by instructing and educating advanced them even to the priestly rank. Now it is related that, when king Oswald had asked from the province of the Scots a bishop who should minister the word of faith to himself and his nation, there was sent first another man of more austere spirit, who, when he had preached for some time to the nation of the English and profited nothing, nor was gladly heard by the people, returned to his own country, and reported in the assembly of the elders that he had been able to do no good by teaching the nation to which he had been sent, because they were untameable men, and of a hard and barbarous mind.

But they, as men relate, began to hold great deliberation in council as to what should be done; desiring indeed to be of saving help to the nation by which they were sought, but grieving over the preacher whom they had sent, who had not been received. Then said Aidan—for he too was present at the council—to the priest of whom the matter was treated: 'It seems to me, brother, that you were harsher than was just toward your unlearned hearers, and did not first offer them, according to the apostolic discipline, the milk of gentler doctrine, until, little by little nourished by the word of God, they should be able to take in the more perfect things and to perform the loftier precepts of God.'

On hearing this, the faces and eyes of all who sat there were turned to him, and they carefully examined what he said, and decreed that he himself was worthy of the episcopate, and that he himself ought to be sent to instruct the unbelieving and unlearned, since before all else he was proved to be imbued with the grace of discretion, which is the mother of the virtues; and so, ordaining him, they sent him to preach. When he received his time, just as before by the governance of discretion, so afterwards he appeared adorned also with the other virtues. [6] By the teaching, therefore, of this bishop, king Oswald, together with the nation of the English over which he presided, being instructed, learned not only to hope for the kingdoms of heaven unknown to his forefathers;

but he also obtained the kingdoms of the earth, more than any of his ancestors, from the same one God, who made heaven and earth. In fine, he received into his dominion all the nations and provinces of Britain, which are divided into four tongues, that is, of the Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the English. Raised to such a height of power, he was nonetheless—which is wonderful to tell—always humble, kindly, and generous to the poor and to strangers.

In fine, it is related that on a certain occasion, when on the holy day of Easter he had sat down to dinner with the aforesaid bishop, and a silver dish heaped with royal viands was placed on the table before him, and they were now on the very point of putting forth their hands to bless the bread, there suddenly came in a minister of his, to whom the care of receiving the poor had been entrusted, and informed the king that a very great multitude of poor, coming from every quarter, was sitting in the streets, asking some alms of the king. The king at once commanded the dishes set before him to be carried to the poor, and the dish also to be broken in pieces and divided among them bit by bit. Seeing this, the bishop, who sat beside him, delighted by such a deed of piety, took hold of his right hand and said:

'May this hand never grow old.' And so it came to pass, according to the prayer of his blessing. For when, after he was slain in battle, his hands with the arms were cut off from the rest of the body, it came about that they have continued incorrupt until now. Indeed, in the royal city, which is named from a queen formerly called Bebba, they are kept enclosed in a silver casket in the church of saint Peter, and are venerated by all with due honour. By the industry of this king the provinces of the Deirans and the Bernicians, which until then had been at variance with one another, were joined into one peace, and as it were compacted into one people. He was, moreover, the nephew of king Edwin by his sister Acha; and it was fitting that so great a predecessor should have such an heir, both of his religion and of his kingdom, from his own kindred.

[7] At that time the nation of the West Saxons, who in ancient times were called the Gewissae, under the reign of Cynegils received the faith of Christ, the word being preached to them by bishop Birinus, who had come to Britain with the counsel of pope Honorius, promising indeed that, in his presence, he would scatter the seeds of the holy faith in the innermost parts beyond the regions of the English, where no teacher had gone before. Whence also, by command of the same pontiff, he was consecrated to the rank of the episcopate by Asterius, bishop of Genoa. But arriving in Britain, and first entering the nation of the Gewissae, when he found them all there utterly pagan, he judged it more useful to preach the word there rather, than, proceeding further, to seek out those to whom he should preach.

And so, while he was preaching the gospel in the aforesaid province, when the king himself, being catechized, was washed in the font of baptism together with his nation, it happened at that time that the most holy and most victorious king of the Northumbrians, Oswald, was present, and received him as he came forth from the laver, and, by a most beautiful alliance truly worthy of God, took him—whose daughter he was about to receive in marriage—first as his own son, now dedicated to God by a second birth. Both kings, moreover, gave to the same bishop the city which is called Dorchester, for the making there of an episcopal see;

where, having built and dedicated churches, and called many peoples to the Lord by his pious labour, he passed to the Lord, and was buried in the same city; and after many years, while Haedde held the episcopate, was translated thence into the city of Winchester, and laid in the church of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. But the king also having died, his son Coinwalch succeeded to the kingdom, who both refused to receive the faith and sacraments of the heavenly kingdom, and not long after lost also the power of the earthly kingdom. For having repudiated the sister of Penda, king of the Mercians, whom he had married, he took another woman to wife; and therefore, attacked in war and deprived of his kingdom by him, he withdrew to the king of the East Angles, whose name was Anna;

in whose company, living in exile for three years, he came to know and received the faith of truth. For he himself also, with whom he was in exile, was a good man as king, and happy in good and holy offspring, as we shall show in what follows. But when Coinwalch had been restored to his kingdom, there came into the province from Ireland a certain bishop named Agilbert, a Gaul indeed by nation, but who had then for no small time tarried in Ireland for the sake of reading the Scriptures, and joined himself to the king, taking up of his own accord the ministry of preaching. Seeing his learning and industry, the king asked him to take an episcopal see there and remain bishop of his nation; and he, consenting to his prayers, for many years presided over that nation by priestly right.

At length the king, who knew only the Saxon tongue, weary of his barbarous speech, secretly introduced into the province another bishop of his own tongue, named Wine, who had also himself been ordained in Gaul; and dividing the province into two dioceses, he gave to this man the episcopal see in the city of Venta, which by the nation of the Saxons is called Winchester; whereupon Agilbert, gravely offended that the king did these things without consulting him, returned to Gaul, and, having received the episcopate of the city of Paris, there died, an old man and full of days. But not many years after his departure from Britain had passed, Wine too was driven from the episcopate by the same king;

who, withdrawing to Wulfhere, king of the Mercians, bought from him for a price the see of the city of London, and remained its bishop until the end of his life. And so the province of the West Saxons was without a prelate for no short time. At which time also the aforesaid king of that nation, very often afflicted by his enemies with the gravest losses to his kingdom, at length brought back to memory that, as faithlessness had formerly driven him from his kingdom, so the acknowledged faith of Christ had recalled him to his kingdom; and he understood that the province, then likewise destitute of a pontiff, had rightly been at the same time destitute of divine protection. He therefore sent envoys into Gaul to Agilbert, beseeching him with humble satisfaction to return to the episcopate of his nation.

But he, excusing himself and protesting that he could not come, because he was held bound by the episcopate of his own city and diocese, yet, lest he should bring no help to one who so earnestly entreated, sent for him in his stead the priest Leutherius, his nephew, who, if he wished, might be ordained bishop for him; saying that he himself judged him worthy of the episcopate. He being honourably received by the people and by the king, they asked Theodore, then archbishop of the church of Canterbury, to consecrate him their bishop; who, consecrated in that same city, for many years by synodal sanction alone administered the episcopate of the Gewissae with diligent governance.

[8] In the year of the Lord's incarnation 640, Eadbald, king of the men of Kent, passing out of this life, left the governance of the kingdom to his son Earconbert; which, once received, he held most nobly for twenty-four years and some months. This man, first of the kings of the English, by sovereign authority commanded that idols be forsaken and destroyed throughout his whole kingdom, and at the same time that the fast of forty days be observed. And that it might not easily be despised by anyone, he set forth worthy and fitting punishments for transgressors. His daughter Earcongota, an offspring worthy of such a parent, was a virgin of great virtues, serving the Lord in the monastery which was built in the region of the Franks by a most noble abbess named Fara, in the place which is called in Brige (Faremoutiers).

For at that time, not many monasteries having yet been built in the region of the English, many from Britain, for the sake of the monastic mode of life, were wont to repair to the monasteries of the Franks or of the Gauls; and they also sent their daughters to be instructed there, and to be united to their heavenly Bridegroom; chiefly in the monastery of Brige, and of Cale (Chelles), and of Andelys; among whom was Saethryth, daughter of the wife of Anna, king of the East Angles, of whom we have made mention above, and Aethelburg, the natural daughter of the same king; both of whom, though they were strangers, were, for the merit of their virtues, appointed abbess of the same monastery of Brige. The elder daughter of which king, Sexburg, wife of Earconbert, king of the men of Kent, had a daughter Earcongota, of whom we are about to speak.

Now of this virgin dedicated to God, many works of power and signs of miracles are wont to be related by the inhabitants of that place even to this day. But for us let it suffice to say briefly something only of her passing, by which she sought the heavenly kingdoms. As the day of her calling drew near, then, she began to go round in the monastery the little cells of the sick handmaidens of Christ, and chiefly of those who were either advanced in age or more eminent in uprightness of manners. Humbly commending herself to the prayers of them all, she did not conceal that her death, which she had learned by revelation, was shortly to come. Which revelation she declared to be of this kind: that she had seen a band of men clad in white enter that same monastery;

and that, being asked by her what they sought, or what they wanted there, they answered that they had been sent thither for this purpose, that they might take with them that golden coin which had come thither from Kent. And on that very night, in whose last part, that is, as the dawn was beginning, passing through the darkness of the present world she migrated to the supernal light, many of the brethren of the same monastery, who were in other buildings, declared that they had now plainly heard the concerts of angels singing psalms, and also a sound as of a very great multitude entering the monastery;

whereupon, presently going out to learn what it was, they saw a very great light sent down from heaven, which was leading that holy soul, loosed from the bonds of the flesh, to the eternal joys of the heavenly country. They add also other miracles which on that same night were shown by divine power in the same monastery; but these, as we are pressing on to other matters, we leave to be related by their own people. The venerable body of the virgin and bride of Christ was buried in the church of the blessed proto-martyr Stephen; and it pleased them, after the third day, that the stone with which the tomb was covered should be removed, and be set up higher in the same place;

And while this was being done, so great a fragrance of sweetness bubbled up from the depths that to all the brothers and sisters who stood by it seemed as though storerooms of balsam had been opened. Moreover her aunt, of whom we have spoken, Æthelburh, herself also preserved the glory of perpetual virginity, beloved of God, with great bodily continence; and of how great virtue she was became more clearly manifest after her death. For when she was abbess, she began to build in her monastery a church in honour of all the apostles, in which she desired her own body to be buried. But when that work had been carried forward to about its midpoint, she, lest she should complete it, was snatched away by death, and was laid in that very place of the church where she had longed to be.

After her death, since the brothers were more occupied with other matters, this building was left off for seven years; and when these were completed they resolved, on account of the excessive labour, to abandon the structure of this church entirely from its foundations, but to raise up the bones of the abbess from that place and transfer them into another church which was finished and dedicated. And opening her tomb, they found her body so undefiled that it was as free from corruption as it had been immune from the lust of carnal desire; and so, washing it anew and clothing it in other garments, they translated it into the church of the blessed martyr Stephen. His feast day, indeed, is wont there to be celebrated in great glory on the Nones of July.

Now Oswald, the most Christian king of the Northumbrians, reigned nine years, counting in also that year which both the savage impiety of the king of the Britons and the demented apostasy of the kings of the English had made detestable. For, as we have shown above, it was established by the unanimous consent of all that the name and memory of the apostates should be utterly abolished from the catalogue of Christian kings, and that no year should be reckoned to their reign. When this course of years was completed, he was slain, a grievous battle having been joined, by that same pagan people and pagan king of the Mercians by whom his predecessor Edwin too had been killed, in the place which in the tongue of the English is called Maserfelth, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, on the fifth day of the month of August.

How great his faith in God was, and how great the devotion of his mind, was made manifest even after his death by the miracles of his powers. For in the place where, fighting for his country, he was slain by the pagans, healings of the sick, both of men and of cattle, do not to this very day cease to be wrought. Hence it came to pass that many, carrying off the very dust of the spot where his body fell to the earth and casting it into water, brought much relief thereby to their sick. And this custom grew so prevalent that, the earth being gradually carried away from there, it left a pit as deep as the height of a man. Nor is it to be wondered at that the sick should be healed in the place of his death, who, while he lived, never ceased to care for the sick and the poor, to give alms, and to bring help.

And indeed many miracles of healing power are told to have been wrought in that place or by the dust of that place; but we have thought it enough to relate only two which we have heard from our elders. Not long after his death, when some time had passed, it happened that a certain man, riding on horseback, was making his journey near that place; and his horse suddenly began to grow weary, to stand still, to droop its head to the ground, to let foam fall from its mouth, and, as its excessive pain increased, to sink down to the earth. The rider dismounted, and, drawing off the saddle-cloth, began to wait for the hour when he should either recover the beast restored, or leave it dead. But it, long tormented by grievous pain, while it twisted itself this way and that, suddenly by rolling came upon that very spot of ground where the memorable king had fallen.

And immediately, the pain ceasing, it left off from the frantic movements of its limbs, and, after the manner customary to horses, as though after fatigue, rolled itself in turn from one side to the other; and rising up at once, as though wholly sound in every part, it began more eagerly to crop the green herbage. Seeing this, the rider, being a man of shrewd wit, understood that there was something of wonderful holiness in this place where the horse had been cured; and setting up a sign there, not long after he mounted his horse and came to the lodging to which he had purposed. And when he arrived there, he found a girl, niece of the head of the household, oppressed by a long sickness of palsy.

And when the members of that household were lamenting in his presence over the bitter infirmity of the girl, he began to tell of the place where his horse had been cured. Why say more? Placing her on a cart, they led her to the place, and there set her down. But she, laid in the place, slept a little while; and when she awoke, perceiving herself healed of that dissolution of her body, she asked for water, washed her own face, arranged her hair, covered her head with a linen cloth, and, sound and walking on her own feet, returned with those who had brought her. At the same time there came another man, of the nation of the Britons, as they say, making his journey near that very place in which the aforesaid battle had been fought; and he saw one spot of ground greener and more lovely than the rest of the field;

and he began with shrewd mind to conjecture that there could be no other cause of the unusual greenness in that spot, except that some man holier than the rest of the army had been slain there. He therefore took with him some of the dust of that earth, binding it in a linen cloth, thinking — as indeed came to pass — that the dust would avail for the healing of the sick; and pursuing his journey he came towards evening to a certain village, and entered into a house in which the villagers were feasting at supper; and being received by the masters of the house, he too sat down with them at the banquet, hanging up the little linen cloth with the dust which he had brought upon one post of the wall.

And while they gave themselves at length to feasting and drunkenness, a great fire having been kindled in the midst, it happened that, as sparks flew up on high, the roof of the house, which was woven of twigs and thatched with hay, was filled with sudden flames. When the guests, thrown into confusion by terror, suddenly beheld this, they fled outside, being able to do nothing to help the burning house already on the very point of perishing. The house, therefore, having been consumed by the flames, only the post on which that dust hung enclosed remained safe from the fires and untouched. Marvelling greatly at this power which they had seen, and inquiring more carefully, they found that the dust had been taken from that place where the blood of King Oswald had been shed.

These miracles being made known and spread abroad far and wide, many began for days to frequent that place, and to receive there the grace of healings for themselves and their own. Among these things I think it ought by no means to be passed over in silence what virtue and heavenly miracle was shown when his bones were found and translated to the church in which they are now kept. Now this was done through the industry of Osthryth, queen of the Mercians, who was the daughter of his brother, that is of Oswiu, who after him held the summit of the kingdom, as we shall tell in what follows.

There is a noble monastery in the province of Lindsey, by name Bardney, which that same queen, together with her husband Æthelred, greatly loved, venerated, and cherished, in which she desired to lay up the honourable bones of her uncle. And when the cart in which those bones were being conveyed had come, as evening was drawing on, to the aforesaid monastery, those who were in the monastery were unwilling to receive them gladly; for although they had known him to be a saint, yet, because he had sprung from another province and had received rule over them, they pursued him even when dead with their old hatreds. Hence it came to pass that on that very night the relics that had been brought remained outside, only a large tent being stretched over the cart in which they lay.

But the manifestation of a heavenly miracle made plain with what reverence they ought to be received by all the faithful. For all that night a column of light, stretching from that cart up to heaven, stood conspicuous in almost all the places of that same province of Lindsey. Hence when morning came, the brothers of that monastery, who the day before had refused, themselves began diligently to entreat that those holy relics, beloved of God, might be laid up among them. The bones, therefore, having been washed, they placed in a shrine which they had prepared for this purpose, and set them in the church with fitting honour;

and that the royal person of the holy man might have an everlasting memorial, they set up his banner, wrought of gold and purple, above the tomb, and poured out the very water in which they had washed the bones into a corner of the sanctuary. From that time it came to pass that the very earth which had received that venerable washing had the effect of saving grace for driving out demons from the bodies of those possessed.

At length, in a later time, when the aforesaid queen was staying in that same monastery, there came to greet her a certain venerable abbess, who survives to this day, by name Æthelhild, sister of the holy men Æthelwine and Aldwine, of whom the former was bishop in the province of Lindsey, and the second was abbot in the monastery which is called Partney, not far from which she too had a monastery. When therefore she had come and was speaking with the queen, and among other things, the conversation having turned to Oswald, said that she too had seen on that night the light reaching up to heaven above his relics, the queen added that from the dust of the floor on which the water of that washing had been poured out, many sick had already been healed.

And she begged that a portion of the health-giving dust might be given to her; and receiving it bound up in a cloth, she laid it up in a little casket, and returned. Now after some time had passed, when she was in her own monastery, there came thither a certain guest, who was wont very often in the night hours to be most grievously vexed by an unclean spirit. When he had been kindly received and after supper had laid his limbs on the bed, suddenly seized by the devil, he began to cry out, to gnash his teeth, to foam, and to twist his limbs with diverse motions. And when he could be neither held nor bound by anyone, a servant ran and, knocking at the door, announced it to the abbess.

But she, opening the door of the monastery, herself went out with one of the holy women to the quarters of the men, and calling the priest, asked him to come with her to the afflicted man. When they came thither and saw that many were present who, striving to hold the vexed man and to restrain his frantic movements, were by no means able to prevail, the priest recited exorcisms, and did whatever he could to calm the fury of the wretched man. But neither was he, though labouring much, able to accomplish anything. And when it seemed that no hope of health remained for the raging man, suddenly there came into the abbess's mind that aforesaid dust; and at once she ordered the servant-girl to go and to bring the little casket in which it was.

And when she, bringing what she had been ordered, entered the hall of the house, in whose inner parts the demoniac was being tormented, he suddenly fell silent, and as though relaxed into sleep laid down his head, and composed all his limbs into rest. All fell silent, and intent held their lips, anxiously awaiting what outcome the matter should have. And after the space of some part of an hour the one who had been vexed sat up, and sighing heavily said: 'Now I am of sound mind, for I have recovered the sense of my soul.' But they earnestly questioned how this had come about. And he said: 'As soon as this maiden, with the casket which she was carrying, drew near to the hall of this house, all the malign spirits who were oppressing me departed, and leaving me appeared nowhere.'

Then the abbess gave him a little portion of that dust, and so, prayer having been said by the priest, he passed that night most quietly; nor from that time did he suffer anything of nocturnal fear or vexation from the ancient enemy. In the time that followed thereafter there was in that same monastery a certain little boy, grievously vexed by a long ailment of fevers. When one day he was anxiously awaiting the hour of the attack, one of the brothers, coming in to him, said: 'Do you wish, my son, that I teach you how you may be cured of the trouble of this sickness? Rise, enter the church, and going to the tomb of Oswald, sit there, and remaining quiet keep close to the tomb. See that you go not out from there, nor move from the place, until the hour of the fevers' departure has passed.

Then I myself will come in, and lead you out from there.' He did as the other had advised; and as he sat by the saint's tomb, the sickness by no means presumed to touch him; nay, fearing him to such a degree, it fled away, so that neither on the second day, nor on the third, nor ever afterward did it dare to come upon him. He who related this to me, a brother coming thence, added that this had so happened that at the very time when he was speaking with me, there still survived in that same monastery the man, now a youth, in whom, when he was then a boy, this miracle of healing had been wrought. Nor is it to be wondered at that the prayers of that king, now reigning with the Lord, should avail much with him who, once holding the helm of a temporal kingdom, was rather wont always to labour and pray for the eternal kingdom.

In short, they relate that often from the time of morning praise until the day he would persist in prayers, and that, on account of his frequent habit of praying or of giving thanks to the Lord, wherever he was sitting he was wont always to hold his hands turned upward upon his knees. It has become commonly known, and turned into a proverb, that he ended his life even amid the words of prayer. For when, surrounded by arms and enemies, he now saw himself on the point of being slain, he prayed for the souls of his army. Hence they say in a proverb: 'God have mercy on the souls,' said Oswald, falling to the earth. His bones, therefore, were translated and laid up in the monastery of which we have spoken.

Furthermore, the king who had slain him ordered his head and his hands with the arms, cut off from the body, to be hung up on stakes. Coming thither a year later with an army, Oswiu, the successor of his kingdom, took them away, and laid the head indeed in the cemetery of the church of Lindisfarne, but the hands with the arms in the royal city. Nor only did the fame of the renowned man traverse all the bounds of Britain, but, scattering far the rays of its health-giving light even across the ocean, it reached the regions both of Germany and of Ireland.

In short, the most reverend bishop Acca is wont to relate that, when going to Rome he stayed with Wilbrord, the most holy archbishop of the nation of the Frisians, together with his own bishop Wilfrid, he often heard him narrate about the wonders that had been wrought at the relics of that same most reverend king in that province. And he reported that in Ireland too, while as a priest he was still leading a pilgrim life for the sake of his eternal fatherland, the report of his holiness had already spread far and wide in that island also; of which reports, one miracle which among others he related, we have believed ought to be inserted in this our present history.

'In the time,' he said, 'of the mortality which laid waste Britain and Ireland with widespread destruction, there was struck by the calamity of that same plague, among others, a certain scholar of the race of the Scots, a man indeed learned in the study of letters, but bearing no zeal or industry at all concerning the care of his own everlasting salvation. When he saw himself near to death, he began to fear and to dread, lest, soon dying, he should on account of the merits of his crimes be snatched away to the prisons of hell; and he called me, since I was placed in the neighbourhood, and trembling amid sick sighs, with a tearful voice he lamented to me such things as these: «You see,» he said, «that now, with the trouble of my body increasing, I am driven to the moment of undergoing death;

nor do I doubt that, after the death of the body, I shall straightway be snatched away to the everlasting death of the soul, and be subjected to infernal torments; for during no little time, amid the studies of divine reading, I was wont rather to serve the entanglements of vices than the divine commands. But it is in my mind, if the heavenly mercy shall grant me some space of living, to correct my vicious manners, and to transfer my whole mind and life entirely to the rule of the divine will. Yet I know that it is not of my merit that I should either receive a respite of living, or trust that I shall receive it, unless perhaps the divine pity deign to be favourable to me, wretched and unworthy as I am, with pardon, through the help of those who have faithfully served Him.»

«Now we have heard, and it is a most frequent report, that there was in your nation a king of wonderful holiness, by name Oswald, the excellence of whose faith and virtue, even after death, has shone forth by the working of frequent miracles; and I pray that, if you have any of his relics about you, you bring them to me, if perchance the Lord may be willing through his merit to have mercy on me.» But I answered: «I have indeed some of the wood on which his head, slain by the pagans, was fixed; and, if you believe with a firm heart, the divine pity can, through the merit of so great a man, both grant you longer spaces of this life, and render you worthy of entrance into life everlasting.» And he without delay answered that he had whole and entire faith in this.

Then I blessed water, and putting in a chip of the aforesaid oak, I offered it to the sick man to drink. There was no delay: he began to be better, and recovering from his infirmity, he lived for a long time thereafter; and being converted to God with his whole heart and work, he proclaimed everywhere, wherever he came, the clemency of the merciful Creator and the glory of His faithful servant.' Oswald, therefore, having been translated to the heavenly kingdoms, his brother Oswiu received in his stead the seat of the earthly kingdom, a young man of about thirty years, and held it most laboriously for twenty-eight years, being assailed, namely, both by the pagan nation of the Mercians, which had slain his brother, and also by his own son Alchfrith, and likewise by his nephew, that is the son of his brother who had reigned before him, Œthelwald.

In the second year of his reign, that is in the year 644 from the Lord's incarnation, the most reverend father Paulinus, formerly indeed bishop of York, but then of the city of Rochester, passed to the Lord on the sixth day before the Ides of October; he had held the bishopric for nineteen years, two months, and twenty-one days; and he was buried in the sacristy of the blessed apostle Andrew, which King Æthelberht had built from the foundations in that same city of Rochester. In his place archbishop Honorius ordained Ithamar, a man indeed sprung from the nation of the men of Kent, but to be matched with his predecessors in life and learning.

Now Oswiu had, in the first times of his reign, a partner of the royal dignity, by name Oswine, of the stock of King Edwin, that is the son of Osric, of whom we have related above, a man of exceeding piety and religion; who for seven years governed the province of Deira in the greatest affluence of all things, himself also beloved by all. But he could not have peace even with him who ruled the other part of the Transhumbrian nation from the north, that is the province of Bernicia; nay rather, the causes of dissensions growing graver, he destroyed this man by a most wretched slaughter.

For when, an army having been gathered against each other, Oswine saw that he could not contend in war with him who had more auxiliaries, he judged it more useful then, his intention of warring laid aside, to keep himself for better times. He therefore dismissed the army which he had gathered, and ordered each man to return home from the place which is called Wilfaresdun, that is the mount of Wilfar, and is about ten miles distant from the village of Catterick towards the south-west; and he himself turned aside with only one soldier most faithful to him, by name Tondhere, to be hidden in the house of the count Hunwald, whom he reckoned to be most friendly to himself. But alas, for grief! it was far otherwise;

for being betrayed by that same count, Oswiu, by means of his reeve Æthelwine, slew him together with the aforesaid soldier of his by a death detestable to all. This was done on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of September, in the ninth year of his reign, in the place which is called Gilling; where afterward, for the sake of expiating this crime, a monastery was built, in which daily prayers should be offered to the Lord for the redemption of the soul of both kings, namely both of him who was slain, and of him who ordered him to be slain. Now King Oswine was both comely in aspect, and lofty in stature, and pleasant in speech, and courteous in manners, and bountiful to all, that is to the noble and the ignoble alike;

whence it came to pass that, on account of the royal dignity both of his mind, and of his countenance, and of his merits, he was loved by all, and from every quarter, from almost all the provinces, even men of the noblest rank flocked to his service. Among his other glories of virtue and modesty and, so to speak, of special blessing, the greatest is said to have been his humility, which one example will suffice to prove. He had given a most excellent horse to bishop Aidan, on which he, although accustomed to walk, might either cross the streams of rivers, or, if any other necessity should press, accomplish his journey. When, after a little space had intervened, a certain poor man met him asking for alms, he, dismounting, ordered the horse, just as it was royally caparisoned, to be given to the poor man;

for he was very merciful, and a cherisher of the poor, and as it were a father of the wretched. When this was reported to the king, he said to the bishop, when they were about to go in to dinner: 'What did you mean, lord bishop, by giving to a poor man the royal horse which it befitted you to have as your own? Had we not many cheaper horses, or other things, which would have sufficed for gifts to the poor, even though you gave them not that horse which I specially chose for you to possess?' To whom the bishop at once: 'What are you saying,' he said, 'O king? Is that son of a mare dearer to you than that son of God?' These things being said, they went in to dine. And the bishop indeed sat down in his place.

Now the king — for he had come from the hunt — began, standing by the fire, to warm himself with his servants; and suddenly, in the midst of warming himself, recalling the word which the bishop had spoken to him, he ungirded himself of his sword, and gave it to a servant, and hastening forward fell down before the feet of the bishop, beseeching that he would be appeased toward him; for 'never henceforth,' he said, 'will I speak anything of this, nor judge what, or how much, of our money you should bestow upon the sons of God.' Seeing this, the bishop was greatly afraid, and rising at once raised him up, promising that he was much appeased toward him, provided only that he, sitting down to the feast, would lay aside his sadness.

And while the king, at the bishop's bidding and entreaty, was recovering his gladness, the bishop on the contrary began to be made sad, even to the shedding of tears. When his priest asked him in their native tongue, which the king and his household did not know, why he wept: 'I know,' he said, 'that the king will not live for a long time; for never before this have I seen a humble king. Whence I perceive that he will quickly be snatched from this life; for this nation is not worthy to have such a ruler.' Nor long after were the bishop's dire forebodings fulfilled by the king's sorrowful death, of which we have spoken above.

But the bishop Aidan himself also, not more than twelve days after the slaying of the king whom he loved, that is on the day before the Kalends of September, was taken away from the world, and received from the Lord the everlasting rewards of his labours. Of what merit he was, the inward Judge taught even by the signs of miracles, of which it will be enough to set down three for memory's sake. A certain priest, by name Utta, a man of great gravity and truth, and on that account honourable to all, even to the very princes of the world, when he was sent to Kent to fetch thence a wife for King Oswiu, namely Eanfled, daughter of King Edwin, who, her father being slain, had been brought thither;

who indeed arranged to come thither by a land journey, but to return with the maiden by ship, came to bishop Aidan, beseeching him to supplicate the Lord for himself and his company, who were about to undertake so great a journey. He, blessing them and commending them to the Lord, gave also consecrated oil: 'I know,' he said, 'that when you have boarded the ship, a tempest and a contrary wind will come upon you; but do you remember to cast into the sea this oil which I give you; and at once, the winds quieting, a calm of the sea will joyfully attend you, and send you home on the journey you desire.' All which things, as the bishop had foretold, were fulfilled in order;

and indeed at first, the waves of the deep raging, the sailors tried by anchors cast into the sea to hold back the ship, nor by doing this did they avail anything. And when, the waves sweeping in on every side and beginning to fill the ship, they all saw death threatening them, and now already at hand, at last the priest, remembering the words of the bishop, taking the flask, cast some of the oil into the sea, and at once, as had been foretold, it ceased from its raging. And so it came to pass that the man of God, both by the spirit of prophecy foretold the tempest to come, and by the power of the same spirit, though bodily absent, lulled it when it had arisen.

The order of which miracle no doubtful narrator, but a most faithful priest of our church, by name Cynimund, narrated to me, who declared that he had heard this from the very priest Utta, in whom and through whom it was accomplished. Many who could have known it tell another memorable miracle of the same father. For in the time of his bishopric, the hostile army of the Mercians, with Penda as leader, devastating the regions of the Northumbrians far and wide with impious slaughter, came as far as the royal city which is named after Bebba, once queen, and tried to consume it with flames, since he could take it neither by arms nor by siege;

and having pulled down the little villages which he found in the neighbourhood of the city, he conveyed thither a very great heap of beams, of rafters, of wattle walls, and of thatched roofing, and surrounded the city with these to a great height on the side which is adjacent to the land; and when he should perceive a favourable wind, fire being applied, he strove to burn the city. At which time the most reverend bishop Aidan was staying on the island of Farne, which is about two miles distant from the city. For thither he was wont very often to withdraw for the sake of secret prayer and silence; and indeed to this day they are wont to point out the place of his solitary seat on that same island.

When he, with the winds bearing them, beheld globes of fire and smoke raised above the walls of the city, he is said, with eyes and hands lifted up to heaven, to have said with tears: 'See, Lord, how great evils Penda does!' This said, immediately the winds, turned away from the city, drove back the burning flames upon those who had kindled them, so that, some being injured and all terrified, they ceased to assail the city further, which they had recognized to be helped by God. When the day of his death compelled him to go forth from the body, the years of his bishopric being completed at seventeen, he was in a royal vill not far from the city of which we have spoken before. For in this place, having a church and a chamber, he was wont often to turn aside and stay there, and thence to go out round about to preach;

This same thing he was accustomed to do in the king's other estates as well, since he possessed nothing of his own property, save only his church and the small fields adjoining it. So they pitched a tent for him in his sickness on the western side of the church, in such a way that the tent itself leaned against the wall of the church. Whence it came to pass that, leaning upon a buttress that had been set outside the church for its support, he breathed out the last breath of his life. He died in the seventeenth year of his episcopate, on the day before the Kalends of September. His body was soon afterward translated thence to the island of the Lindisfarne folk, and was buried in the cemetery of the brethren.

But after some considerable time, when a larger church had been built there and dedicated in honour of the most blessed prince of the apostles, his bones were translated thither and laid to the right of the altar, with the veneration befitting so great a bishop. He was succeeded in the episcopate by Finan, who was likewise sent for this office from the island and monastery of the Scots at Hii, and remained in the bishopric for no short time. Now it happened, after some years, that Penda, king of the Mercians, coming into these parts with a hostile army, while he destroyed by sword and fire all that he could, that village too, in which the bishop had died, together with the church already mentioned, was consumed by the flames.

But, marvellous to relate, that one buttress alone, against which he had leaned when he died, could not be consumed by the fires that devoured everything around it. This miracle becoming famous, the church was soon restored on the same spot, and this same buttress was set up again on the outside as a support of the wall, as it had been before. And again, when some further time had passed, it came to pass through careless neglect that the same village, and the church together with it, was consumed by fire. Yet not even then was the flame able to touch that buttress; and though, by a great miracle indeed, it entered the very holes by which the buttress had been fastened to the building and ate them away, it was nevertheless in no way permitted to harm the buttress itself.

Wherefore, when the church was built there for the third time, they did not, as before, place that buttress on the outside to prop up the building, but set it within the church itself in memory of the miracle, where those who entered should bend the knee and implore the mercy of heaven. And it is well established that from that time many have obtained the grace of healing in that place; nay more, that by chips cut from the buttress itself and put into water, many have gained for themselves and for their own remedies of their sicknesses. Now I have written these things concerning the person and works of the aforesaid man, by no means praising or approving in him this, that he was less perfectly instructed about the observance of Easter; nay, greatly detesting this, as I have most plainly shown in the book which I composed concerning the times;

but as a truthful historian, simply describing those things which were done by him or through him, and praising in his deeds what is worthy of praise, and commending it to the memory of readers for their profit: namely his zeal for peace and charity, for continence and humility; a mind that conquered anger and avarice, and a despiser alike of pride and vainglory; his diligence in both performing and teaching the heavenly commandments, his earnestness in reading and in vigils, an authority worthy of a priest in rebuking the proud and the powerful, and likewise his clemency in consoling the weak and in relieving or defending the poor.