[ 1 ] Now there succeeded the man of the Lord Cuthbert in the exercise of the solitary life, which he had led on the island of Farne before the time of his bishopric, the venerable man Oidiluald, who for many years in the monastery which is called Ripon had himself consecrated by worthy deeds the office of the priesthood that he had received. That his merit, or what manner of life he had, may shine forth more surely, I relate one miracle of his, which one of the brethren—for whose sake and in whom it was accomplished—himself related to me, namely Guthfrid, the venerable servant and priest of Christ, who also afterward presided by the right of an abbot over the brethren of that same church of Lindisfarne, in which he was brought up.
'I came,' he said, 'with two other brethren to the island of Farne, desiring to speak with the most reverend father Oidiluald; and when, refreshed by his discourse and having sought his blessing, we were returning home, behold, suddenly, when we were placed in the midst of the sea, the calm by which we were borne was broken off, and so great and so fierce a storm of tempest rushed upon us, that we could make no headway either by sail or by oar, nor hope for anything other than death.
And when, long and much striving in vain against the wind and the sea, we at length looked back behind us, in case perhaps by some effort we might be able to regain that very island from which we had set out, we found ourselves shut in on every side by an equal tempest, and no hope of safety remaining to us in ourselves. But when we lifted our gaze farther off, we saw, on that very island of Farne, the father Oidiluald, most beloved of God, come forth from his hiding-places to behold our journey. For having heard the crash of the gales and of the raging ocean, he had gone out to see what was befalling us; and when he beheld us set in toil and despair, he bent his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to pray for our life and safety.
And when he was completing his prayer, he at once stilled the swelling waters; so that, the fury of the tempest ceasing in every respect, favourable winds attended us all the way to land over the smooth surfaces of the sea. And when, escaping to land, we had also carried our little boat out from the waves, immediately that same tempest, which for our sake had been silent a little, returned, and did not cease to rage greatly all that day; so that it was given plainly to be understood that that brief respite of quiet which had come about had been granted from heaven, at the prayers of the man of God, for the sake of our escape. Now the same man of God remained on the island of Farne twelve years, and died there;
but he was buried on the island of Lindisfarne, beside the bodies of the aforesaid bishops, in the church of the blessed apostle Peter. Now these things were done in the times of King Aldfrith, who after his brother Ecgfrith ruled over the people of the Northumbrians for nineteen years. [ 2 ] At the beginning of his reign, Bishop Eata having died, John, a holy man, took up the prelacy of the church of Hexham; concerning whom those who knew him familiarly are wont to tell many miracles of his virtues, and most of all the most reverend and most truthful man Berhthun, once his deacon, but now abbot of the monastery which is called Inderawuda, that is, 'In the wood of the Deira'; of which we have thought it fitting to hand down some to memory.
There is a certain rather secluded retreat, surrounded by sparse woodland and a rampart, not far from the church of Hexham—that is, separated by a space of about a mile and a half, with the river Tyne flowing between—having an oratory of Saint Michael the Archangel, in which the man of God was wont, more frequently when opportunity of time smiled upon him, and most of all in Lent, to abide with a few, and quietly to give heed to prayers and reading. And when, on a certain occasion, at the beginning of Lent, he came there to abide, he ordered his men to seek out some poor person burdened with greater infirmity or want, whom they might have with them in those days for the doing of almsgiving; for so he was always wont to do.
Now there was in a village not far off a certain dumb youth, known to the bishop, for he had often before been wont to come before him for the sake of receiving alms, who could never utter even a single word; but he had so great a scabbiness and scurf on his head that no hairs at all could ever grow for him on the upper part of his head, but only round about, shaggy hairs seemed to stand. This one, therefore, the bishop ordered to be brought, and a little hut to be made for him within the enclosures of that same retreat, in which, remaining, he might receive a daily dole from them. And when one week of Lent had been completed, on the following Sunday he ordered the poor man to come in to him, and when he had entered, ordered him to put forth his tongue from his mouth and to show it to him;
and taking hold of him by the chin, he impressed the sign of the holy cross upon his tongue, and bade him draw it, thus signed, back into his mouth, and to speak: 'Say,' he said, 'some word; say gae,' which in the English tongue is the word of affirming and assenting, that is, 'yea.' He said at once, the bond of his tongue being loosed, what he had been bidden. The bishop added the names of the letters: 'Say A'; he said A. 'Say B'; he said this also. And when, the bishop saying them, he answered the several names of the letters, he added also syllables and words for him to say. And when in all things he answered accordingly, he commanded him to say longer sentences, and he did so;
nor did he cease thereafter, all that day and the night following, as much as he could keep awake—as they relate who were present—from speaking something, and from showing to others the secrets of his thought and will, which he had never been able to do before; in the likeness of that man long lame, who, healed by the apostles Peter and John, leaping up stood and walked; and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising the Lord; rejoicing indeed to use the office of his feet, of which he had been so long deprived. And the bishop, rejoicing together at his health, ordered the physician also to apply care for the healing of the scabbiness of his head.
He did as he had been commanded, and with the help of the bishop's blessing and prayers, fair hair grew together with sound skin, and he was made a young man of clear countenance and ready speech, with most beautifully curling hair, who before had been deformed, poor, and dumb. And so, rejoicing in the health he had received, though the bishop offered him a place to remain in his own household, he chose rather to return home. [3] The same Bercthun related another miracle of the aforesaid bishop:
For when the most reverend man Wilfrid, after a long exile, had been received back into the bishopric of the church of Hexham, and the same John, upon the death of Bosa, a man of great holiness and humility, had been appointed bishop of York in his stead, he himself came on a certain occasion to a convent of virgins at the place called Watton, over which the abbess Heriburg then presided. "When we had come there," he says, "and had been received with great joy by all, the abbess told us that one of the number of the virgins, who was her own daughter according to the flesh, was held by a most grievous sickness;
for she had lately been bled in the arm, and while she was at her studies she was seized with the affliction of a sudden pain, which soon increasing, that wounded arm was the more aggravated, and so swollen that it could scarcely be encircled with both hands, and she herself, lying in bed, seemed from the excess of pain already about to die. The abbess therefore begged the bishop to deign to go in to her and bless her, for she believed that at his blessing or touch she would soon be better. But he, asking when the girl had been bled, and learning that it was on the fourth day of the moon, said: 'You acted very foolishly and unskillfully in bleeding on the fourth day of the moon.'
'For I remember Archbishop Theodore of blessed memory saying that bloodletting at that time is very dangerous, when both the light of the moon and the tide of the ocean are on the increase. And what can I do for the girl, if she is to die?' But she, beseeching the more urgently for her daughter, whom she dearly loved—for she had even arranged to make her abbess in her own place—at last prevailed, so that he went in to the sick girl. So I went in with him, having been taken along to the virgin, who lay, as I have said, gripped by great pain, and her arm so swollen that there was no bending at all in the elbow; and standing by, he said a prayer over her, and blessing her, went out.
And when after this, at the fitting hour, we were sitting at table, a certain man came and called me outside, and said: 'Quoenburg' (for that was the virgin's name) 'asks that you return to her more quickly.' When I did so, entering I found her with a more cheerful countenance and as though like one in health. And while I sat beside her, she said: 'Would you like us to ask for something to drink?' And I said: 'Yes, I should be very glad, if you are able.' And when a cup was brought and we both drank, she began to tell me that, from the moment the bishop went out, having finished his prayer and blessing for me, I straightway begin to feel better;
and although I have not yet recovered my former strength, yet all the pain, both from the arm, where it was more burning, and from my whole body, has been utterly taken away, as though the bishop himself had carried it out with him, even though the swelling of the arm still seems to remain.' But as we departed thence, immediately the flight of the dreadful swelling followed upon the pain of the limbs that had been put to flight; and the virgin, snatched from death and from her pains, gave praises to the Lord her Saviour together with the rest of His servants who were there. [4] The same abbot related another miracle of the aforesaid bishop, not much unlike this one, saying: 'There was the estate of a certain gesith called Puch, not far from our monastery, that is, separated by a distance of about two miles;
whose wife had been held for nearly forty days by a most bitter sickness, so that for three weeks she could not be carried out of the chamber in which she lay. It happened at that time that the man of God was called thither by the same gesith to dedicate a church. And when the church had been dedicated, the gesith asked him to come into his house to dine. The bishop refused, saying that he ought to return to the monastery, which was close by. But he, pressing the more insistently with his prayers, even vowed that he would give alms to the poor, provided that on that day the bishop would deign to enter his house and break his fast.
I too joined him in asking, promising likewise that I would give alms for the sustenance of the needy, if only he would enter the gesith's house to dine and to give his blessing. And when we obtained this slowly and with difficulty, we went in to take refreshment. Now the bishop had sent to the woman who lay sick some of the holy water which he had consecrated at the dedication of the church, by one of those brothers who had come with me, charging that he should give it her to taste, and that wherever he learned the greatest pain to be in her, he should wash her with that same water. When this was done, the woman rose up at once whole, and perceiving that she was not only free of her long sickness, but had also regained the strength she had lately lost, she offered the cup to the bishop and to us;
and she did not cease the service she had begun of serving drink to us all until the meal was finished, imitating the mother-in-law of blessed Peter, who, when she had been wearied by the heats of fever, rose at the touch of the Lord's hand, and having received both health and strength, ministered to them. [5] At another time likewise, being called to dedicate the church of a gesith named Addi, when he had fulfilled what was asked of him, he was begged by the same gesith to go in to one of his servants, who was oppressed with a most severe sickness, so that, with every function of his limbs entirely failing, he seemed even now about to die; for whom a coffin had even already been prepared, in which when dead he should be buried.
And the man added tears to his prayers, earnestly beseeching that he would go in to pray for him, because his life was very necessary to him; and he indeed believed that, if the bishop would lay his hand upon him and bless him, he would at once be better. The bishop therefore went in thither, and saw him, with all in grief, already near to death, and the coffin set beside him in which he was to be laid for burial; and he said a prayer and blessed him, and going out said with the customary word of those who console: 'May you recover well, and quickly.' And when after this they were sitting at table, the servant sent to his master, asking that a cup of wine be sent to him, because he was thirsty. He, rejoicing greatly that he could drink, sent him a cup of wine blessed by the bishop;
and when he drank it, he at once rose up, and, the lethargy of his sickness being shaken off, he himself put on his garments; and going out from there he came in, and saluted the bishop and the guests, saying that he too would delight to eat and drink with them. They bade him sit down with them at the feast, rejoicing greatly at his recovery. He sat, ate, drank, was merry, and behaved as one of the guests; and living many years after this, he remained in the same health which he had received. Now this miracle the aforesaid abbot reports to have been related to him not as done in his presence, but by those who were present.
[6] Nor should this be passed over in silence, the miracle which Heribald, a servant of Christ, is wont to relate as wrought upon himself by him—a man who then indeed dwelt among his clergy, but now by right of abbot presides over the monastery which is near the mouth of the river Tyne. 'His life,' he says, 'so far as it is permitted to men to judge, I, who was present, knew most excellently, and found it in all things worthy of a bishop. But of what merit he was held to be before the inward Witness, I have proved both in many other matters and most of all in my own self; inasmuch as he recalled me, so to say, from the very threshold of death, and led me back by his prayer and blessing to the way of life.
For when in the earliest time of my youth I dwelt among his clergy, given over to the studies of reading and singing, but not yet perfectly restraining my mind from youthful allurements, it happened one day that, as we journeyed with him, we came upon a level and broad road well suited for the coursing of horses; and the young men who were with him, especially the laymen, began to beg the bishop that it might be allowed them to test their horses against one another in a swifter course. At first he refused, saying that what they desired was idle; but at last, overcome by the unanimous intent of many, he said: 'Do it, if you wish, yet so that Herebald keep himself utterly from that contest.'
Moreover I myself, beseeching the more earnestly that the chance of contending with them might be given me also (for I trusted in a horse which he himself had given me as an excellent one), could by no means obtain it. But when, with myself and the bishop looking on, they again and again returned hither and thither with their horses urged into a course, I too, overcome by a wanton spirit, could not restrain myself, but, though he forbade it, mingled with the players, and began at once to compete in the horse's course. While I was doing this, I heard him behind my back saying to me with a groan: 'O what great grief you cause me by riding thus!' And I, though I heard, none the less persisted in the forbidden undertaking.
And without delay, while my mettlesome horse with stronger impetus was leaping over a certain hollow in the road, I slipped and fell, and at once, as though dying, I utterly lost all sense and motion. For there was in that place a stone level with the ground, covered with thin turf, nor could any other stone be found in all that plain of the field; and by chance it came about—or rather by divine provision, for the punishment of the fault of my disobedience—that I struck it with my head and with the hand which in falling I had put beneath my head, and, my thumb being broken, the joint of the head too was loosened; and I, as I said, became most like a dead man. And because I could not be moved, they stretched a tent there in which I might lie.
Now it was about the seventh hour of the day, from which until evening I remained quiet and as if dead, and then I revived a little, and was carried home by my companions, and lay silent the whole night through. I was vomiting blood, too, because my inward parts had also been bruised by the fall. But the bishop grieved most grievously over my mishap and ruin, because he loved me with a special affection; nor would he that night, after his custom, remain with his clerics, but spending the whole night alone in prayer, kept vigil, beseeching the supernal mercy, as I suppose, for my recovery. And at early morning, coming in to me, and having said a prayer over me, he called me by my name, and, as though rousing me from a deep sleep, asked whether I knew who it was that spoke to me.
And I, opening my eyes, said: 'Yes; you are my beloved bishop.' 'Can you live?' he said. And I: 'I can,' I said, 'through your prayers, if the Lord will.' He, laying his hand upon my head, with words of blessing, returned to prayer; and revisiting me after a little while, he found me sitting up and now able to speak; and he began to ask me, prompted, as soon appeared, by divine instinct, whether I knew without doubt that I had been baptized. To which I answered that I knew this without any doubt, that I had been washed in the saving font for the remission of sins; and I named the priest by whom I knew I had been baptized. But he said: 'If you were baptized by this priest, you were not perfectly baptized;
for I know him, and that, although he had been ordained priest, he could by no means learn the ministry of catechizing or baptizing, on account of the slowness of his wit; for which reason I myself charged him by all means to cease from the presumption of this ministry, which he was unable to fulfil according to the rule.' Having said this, at that same hour he himself took care to catechize me; and it came to pass that, as he breathed upon my face, I straightway felt myself better. He also called a physician, and bade him set and bind together the loosened joint of my skull. And so much did I forthwith recover, upon receiving his blessing, that on the morrow, mounting a horse, I made the journey with him to another place; nor long afterward, being fully cured, I was also bathed in the water of life.
Now he remained in the bishopric thirty-three years, and so, ascending to the heavenly kingdoms, was buried in the porch of St Peter in his own monastery, which is called In the Wood of the Deira folk, in the year from the Lord's incarnation 721. For when through greater old age he was less sufficient for administering the bishopric, having ordained his own priest Wilfrid into the bishopric of the church of York, he withdrew to the aforesaid monastery, and there completed his life in conduct worthy of God. [7] Now in the third year of the reign of Aldfrith, Caedwalla, king of the West Saxons, when he had most vigorously ruled over his people for two years, leaving his sovereignty for the sake of the Lord and an everlasting kingdom, came to Rome;
desiring to attain this for himself as a singular glory, that at the thresholds of the blessed apostles he might be washed in the font of baptism, in which alone he had learned that the entrance of the heavenly life lies open to the human race; hoping at the same time also that, soon after being baptized and loosed from the flesh, he might pass over now cleansed to eternal joys; both of which, as he had purposed in mind, were accomplished with the Lord's help. For coming thither, while Sergius held the pontificate, he was baptized on the holy day of the Easter Sabbath in the year from the Lord's incarnation 689; and while still in the white robes, being seized by sickness, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of May he was loosed from the flesh and joined to the kingdom of the blessed in heaven.
At the time of his baptism the said pope had also imposed on him the name of Peter, that he might be joined even in the partnership of that name to the most blessed prince of the apostles, to whose most sacred body he had come, drawn from the ends of the earth by a devout love; who was also buried in his church; and by the pontiff's command an epitaph was written on his monument, in which both the memory of his devotion might remain fixed through the ages, and the example of the deed might kindle those reading or hearing it to zeal for religion. It was written, then, in this manner: 'Eminence, wealth, offspring, mighty realms, triumphs, spoils, nobles, walls, camps, household gods; and whatever the valour of his fathers, and whatever he himself, Caedwal mighty in arms, had heaped together, he forsook for the love of God;
that the king, a guest, might behold Peter and the seat of Peter, that from his font the gracious one might take the pure waters, and from the radiant draught might pluck the splendid brightness, from which the life-giving radiance flows everywhere. And eagerly receiving the rewards of a renewed life, his barbaric fury and his name as well, being converted, he changed, rejoicing; and Bishop Sergius bade him be called Peter, being himself a father by the font of one reborn, whom the grace of Christ cleansing straightway bore, made white, into the citadel of heaven. Wondrous the king's faith, exceeding great the clemency of Christ, whose counsel none can approach! For coming safe from the farthest bound of Britain, through various peoples, through straits, and through ways, he beheld the Romulean city, and gazed upon the venerable temple, bearing the mystic gifts of Peter.
White he shall go, a fellow among the sheep of Christ; for in body he holds the tomb, in mind the things above. You would rather believe he had exchanged the ensigns of his sceptre, whom you see to have merited the kingdom of Christ. Here is laid Caedwal, who is also Peter, king of the Saxons, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of May, in the second indiction; who lived more or less thirty years, in the reign of the most pious lord Justinian Augustus, in the fourth year of his consulship, while the apostolic man lord Pope Sergius held the pontificate in his second year.' Now when Caedwalla departed to Rome, Ine succeeded to the kingdom, of the royal stock;
who, when he had held the rule of that people for thirty-seven years, himself too, leaving the kingdom and committing it to younger men, set out for the thresholds of the blessed apostles while Gregory held the pontificate, desiring to sojourn for a time in the lands near the holy places, that he might be the more familiarly received by the saints in heaven; which in these times many of the English nation, noble and common, lay and clergy, men and women, have been wont eagerly to do. [8] Now in the year next after that in which Caedwalla died at Rome, that is, the 690th of the Lord's incarnation, Theodore, archbishop of blessed memory, an old man and full of days, that is, of eighty-eight years, died;
which number of years he himself, long before instructed by a revelation in sleep that he would attain to it, was wont to foretell to his own people. Now he remained in the bishopric twenty-two years, and was buried in the church of St Peter, in which the bodies of all the bishops of Canterbury are laid; of whom, together with the partners of his own rank, it can rightly and truly be said that 'their bodies are buried in peace, and their name shall live unto generations and generations.' For, to speak briefly, the churches of the English took such spiritual advance in the time of his prelacy as they had never before been able to take.
His person, life, age, and death, the epitaph also of his monument, in thirty-four heroic verses, openly and clearly sets forth to all coming thither; of which the first are these: 'Here a holy prelate rests in the tomb with his body, whom now the Pelasgian tongue calls Theodore. Chief of pontiffs, blessed and supreme priest, he expounded clear doctrines to his disciples.' And the last are these: 'For September held its nineteenth day, when the spirit went forth from the prison of the flesh. Mounting blessed to the fellowship of the new life, joined to the angelic citizens in the citadel of heaven.' Now there succeeded Theodore in the bishopric Berhtwald, who had been abbot in the monastery which, set near the northern mouth of the river Genlade, is called Reculver;
himself also a man imbued with the knowledge of the scriptures, but withal supremely instructed in ecclesiastical and monastic disciplines, though by no means to be compared with his predecessor; who was indeed elected to the bishopric in the year of the Lord's incarnation 692, on the first day of the month of July, while Wihtred and Swæfheard reigned in Kent; but was ordained in the following year on the third day before the Kalends of July, on a Sunday, by Godwin, metropolitan bishop of Gaul; and sat in his see on the day before the Kalends of September, a Sunday;
who, among the many prelates whom he ordained, also, when Gebmund, prelate of the church of Rochester, had died, consecrated Tobias in his stead, a man manifoldly instructed in the Latin, Greek, and Saxon tongue and in learning. [9] At that time the venerable servant of Christ and priest Ecgberht—to be named with all honour—whom we have related to lead a pilgrim life in the island of Ireland for the sake of attaining a homeland in heaven, purposed in his mind to be of profit to many; that is, having entered upon an apostolic work, to commit himself to evangelizing the word of God to some of those nations which had not yet heard it;
of which he knew there were very many nations in Germany, from whom the Angles or Saxons, who now inhabit Britain, are known to have derived their race and origin; whence to this day they are corruptly called Garmani by the neighbouring people of the Britons. There are, moreover, the Frisians, the Rugini, the Danes, the Huns, the Old Saxons, the Boructuari; there are also very many other peoples in those same parts still serving pagan rites, to whom the aforesaid soldier of Christ resolved to go, having sailed round Britain, if perchance he might be able to bring some of them, rescued from Satan, over to Christ; or, if this could not be done, he thought to come to Rome to see and adore the thresholds of the blessed apostles and martyrs of Christ.
But lest he should accomplish any of these things, those heavenly oracles and works alike withstood him. For when he had chosen most vigorous companions, fit for preaching the word, as being distinguished alike in action and in learning, and all things had been prepared which seemed necessary to seafarers, there came one day at early morning to him one of the brothers, formerly in Britain a disciple and minister of the priest Boisil, beloved of God (when the same Boisil was prior of the monastery of Melrose under abbot Eata, as we have related above), relating to him a vision which had appeared to him that same night: