Heavenfield

Over to the left you will notice another new web page. They seem to be really proliferating. So what is Lindisfarne’s Century? Well, its a place to collect posts on Lindisfarne.

Lindisfarne’s Century refers to their short period of dominance or high influence from about 635 to 750. Lindisfarne continued, of course, into at least the ninth century but after the 750s their influence significantly fell. In 750, King Aldfrith’s son Offa was forcefully removed from Lindisfarne and executed. Interestingly, abdicated king Ceolwulf was in Lindisfarne when Offa was dragged out of the monastery and killed. It is possible that Offa went to Lindisfarne hoping to get protection from Ceolwulf (who was the hand picked successor of his reputed brother Osric). The recording of King Ceolwulf’s death in the Irish annals under the name Eochaid also suggests that Ceolwulf and by extension Lindisfarne did keep contacts with the Irish. After Offa’s death and the later obit of Ceolwulf little is heard from Lindisfarne until the Norse raid it in 793. Eventually they abandoned the island and began their exodus to Durham. They wandered in their wilderness for much longer than 40 years but the community of St Cuthbert stayed together. The wandering community of St Cuthbert and the Prince Bishops of Durham are fascinating but beyond my scope. By then they have moved from innovation to preservation.

So anyway, there is now a page to collect posts on Lindisfarne and sphere of influence (Whibty, Lastingham, Melrose, etc).

Œthelwald son of Oswald has always been a figure of controversy. Everything we know of him comes from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. Beginning with Bede himself memories of Œthelwald have been viewed in slanted hindsight. Bede has his known biases for a united Northumbria (Bernicia + Deira), for which Œthelwald is a spoiler, and against Mercia in general and Penda in particular. We in turn too often share Bede’s biases and look back with a hindsight colored by not only Northumbria’s golden age but norms of later medieval expectations. We can not forget that a united Northumbria was not a real reality until the reign of Ecgfrith (670-685) and really only cemented in the long, peaceful reign of Aldfrith (685-704). I’ve discussed the process of Northumbrian ethnogensis before (here and especially here).

After a lot of thought, I don’t think that Œthelwald was anyone’s puppet. I don’t think he was ‘placed’ there by anyone. I do think that he was a compromise candidate whom both the Deiran nobles and Oswiu of Bernicia could live with. This suggests that the Deiran nobles had likewise accepted Oswald as King of Deira, as the nephew of Edwin. Oswald and his son Œthelwald were the grandson and great grandson of King Aelle, Edwin’s father. Oswiu on the other hand, had no Deiran blood that we know of; I have argued against his being the son of Acha sister of Edwin elsewhere. Oswiu shows every indication of taking direct control when he could, as he did in Mercia after Penda’s death and probably in Lothian early in his reign. The fact that he faced ‘rebellion’ by three successive kings of Deira– Oswine, Œthelwald and his own son Alchfrith– really suggests to me that the nobles/ealdormen of Deira really never accepted Oswiu has their king. After his son’s rebellion, Oswiu appears to have taken direct control over Deira for about only the last five years of his 28 year reign.

There have been some speculations about Œthelwald’s age and mother. If he was the son of Cynegils’ daughter then he would have only been about 17 when he became king in about 651, but I have argued elsewhere that it is quite possible that he was born during Oswald’s exile. Oswald was about 30 years old when he came home to Bernicia and could have easily had several children, as his brother Eanfrith already did and as Edwin had during his exile.

The one thing we do know for sure about Œthelwald is that he had close ties to the church of Lindisfarne, as we would expect for Oswald’s son. We know that the four brothers, Cedd, Cælin, Cynebill, and Chad were all closely tied to the church in Deira. Cælin was the personal priest of Œthelwald and his family and he mediated the donation of Lastingham to his brother Bishop Cedd. It is interesting that Bede claims that Œthelwald mainly came to know Cedd through his brother Caelin, since as a pupil of Aidan’s you would think that Œthelwald would have known him. Yet, Cedd had long been a missionary away from Bernicia and Deira, so it is possible that Oethelwald and Cedd had not known each other well before 651. I do think that is likely that the church of Lindisfarne helped Œthelwald come to the throne of Deira. They certainly could have helped the Deiran nobles contact Œthelwald if he was not in Deira before Oswine’s death (and I think it is unlikely he would have been an ally of Oswine, unless he had a major falling out with his uncle before 651). After Oswine’s murder and Aidan’s death heartbroken over Oswine, Lindisfarne would not have been very high on Oswiu or his sons, and supporting a son of Oswald would have seemed like the best option.

Anyway, Œthelwald is remembered diplomatically as the patron of Lastingham where he intended for himself and his family to be buried. The brothers of Lastingham must have stressed this to Bede for it to be included in the History. Bede doesn’t tell us where Œthelwald was buried but it is possible that some of his family was indeed buried at Lastingham. The stress on Œthelwald’s family does suggest that he was old enough to have a family. Alternatively it could just be Lastingham’s way of stressing that they would have been a major monastery for this king, as York was for Edwin, Whitby was Oswiu & Edwin, Wearmouth-Jarrow was for Ecgfrith, and probably Lindisfarne for Oswald (and Aldfrith?).

The last we hear of Œthelwald is during Penda’s last campaign into Bernicia in the fall of 655. Bede tells us that Œthelwald had acted a guide for Penda’s army into Bernicia and later refused to take part in the battle of Winwæd on November 15th, 655. For this Bede branded him a traitor, a claim surely influenced by Bede’s desire to project a united Northumbria. Accompanying Penda’s army into Bernicia would likely have been enough for a Bernician patriot to consider him a traitor, though it is perhaps hard to see how he could have refused Penda. It would have been suicide for a single king to have stood in the way of Penda’s army. We already knew from Oswine’s encounter with Oswiu that Deira did not have an imposing enough army to stand up to Oswiu’s forces, so it is unlikely that they could have faired better against Penda’s massive Southumbrian-British coalition. His decision to pull his army out of the fray at Winwæd may speak as much to the the shock of Oswiu’s attack as anything else. Was it a moment of indecision or had Penda’s alliance begun to fray enough that he would not side with him? Penda’s army must have still been very formidable for Œthelwald not to try to switch sides and fight for his uncle. It also tells us that Œthelwald may have been unwilling to fight against his own kinsmen (as Æthelhere of East Anglia probably did against his brother Anna). Bede tells us that the river in flood was a major factor in Oswiu’s victory as Mercians and their allies drowned trying to escape and we might also guess that an early death of Penda may have contributed to the loss. If the dominant king of a grand army was killed early, then military discipline probably would have fell as each unit would only then be concerned about its escape.

Œthelwald’s fate is left unknown. We don’t hear that he was executed, as Lastingham might have remembered. I doubt they would have been ashamed of another Deiran king who died for not fighting like Oswine. Indeed, it would have further vilified Oswiu in line with Deiran sympathies. It seems likely to me that Iona would have recorded Œthelwald’s death if it had occurred at Winwæd, as they recorded Penda’s death (Annals of Ulster). I tend to think that not hearing anything about his fate may mean that he was exiled. The mysterious fates of King Oswiu’s nephew Oethelwald and his son Alchfrith, who also disappears after a rebellion, are certainly two on my list of ‘things I would like to know’!

The person of the week for this week is Bishop Æthelwald of Lindisfarne, one of the possible owners of the Prayer book of Æthelwald in the Book of Cerne.

Bishop Aethelwald of Lindisfarne first enters the historical record in Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, where is said to have been one of Cuthbert’s retinue and currently Abbot of Melrose. Later when Bede writes the Ecclesiastical History, he refers to Aethelwald, former Abbot of Melrose, as the current Bishop of Lindisfarne. So he appears to have been marked for leadership in the Lindisfarne-Melrose community as early as the 680s. Aethelwald would have been present in the community during the entire period from Cuthbert’s episcopate to the establishment of his veneration, compilation of his lives, the Lindisfarne Gospels to honor St Cuthbert, and last but not least the establishment of Boisil as the saint of Melrose.

In the Life of Cuthbert, Bede cites Aethelwald as a witness to a miracle of St Cuthbert.

“Cuthbert was making his usual preaching mission through the villages and had come to one where there were a few nuns. They had fled their own monastery for fear of the barbarian army shortly before, and hand been lodged in the village by Cuthbert. One of them, a relation of Aethelwald, was seriously ill, seized with pains in her head and all down one side, so that doctors had given her up. Cuthbert’s companions pointed her out to him and begged him to heal her. Full of pity for her wretchedness he anointed her with holy oil. She began to improve from that very moment an din a few days completely recovered.” (Farmer ed, p. 84)

This all suggests that Aethelwald’s family was from northern Bernicia or even Lothian. Northumbrian monasteries in Lothian (near Abercorn) were abandoned for fear of the Picts after Ecgfrith’s death at the battle of Dunnichen in May 685. Bishop Cuthbert must have been very active in relocating the monastics and other English settlers who had moved into Lothian and southern Pictland during Ecgfrith’s reign.

In the Ecclesiastical History, Bede refers to King Aldfrith’s visits to Melrose during Æthelwald’s tenure as abbot. The hermit Dryhelm was active at Melrose during that time and King Aldfrith could come to visit with Dryhelm, who had after all previously been a noble. We don’t know which monasteries King Aldfrith favored, but Lindisfarne and its daughter house Melrose are likely.

Æthelwald becomes Bishops of Lindisfarne in 724, during the tenure of King Osric son of Aldfrith. He is the only Northumbrian bishop to come through the turbulent 730s without being deposed. During his tenure, King Osric was died on 9 May 729 appointing Ceolwulf as his successor. Bede makes it clear that it was not a smooth succession. The Moore MS of Bede’s History continues the chronology with the note: 731: “King Coelwulf was captured as tonsured and then restored to his kingdom; Bishop Acca was driven from his see” (McClure and Collins 1994: 296). It is unknown where he was tonsured, but it may be related to the expulsion of Bishop Acca of Hexham. King Ceolwulf returned to the throne, but he did not allow Bishop Acca to return, suggesting to me that Acca was probably in league with Ceolwulf’s enemies. When Ceolwulf did voluntarily enter a monastery, it was Lindisfarne during the time of Bishop Æthelwald. Ceolwulf’s death was recorded in Irish sources as under the name Eochaid. It is possible that like King Aldfrith that may imply an Irish mother, or that he took the name after he entered the Irish-influenced monastery, although others at Lindisfarne were not known for taking Irish names. It seems likely that Ceolwulf may have been born during Aldfrith’s reign when relations with Dalriada were the best since before the synod of Whitby. So anyway, it is significant that King Coelwulf chose to take the tonsure from Bishop Æthelwald, rather than Bishop Egbert of York, whose brother he named as his successor. It was Bishop Æthelwulf’s successor Cynwulf who gave King Aldfrith’s son Offa refuge from King Eadbert and paid a heavy price for it. It is worth noting that King Ceolwulf was still a monk at Lindisfarne when Offa took refuge there in 750. Coelwulf did not die until 764-765, so he must have been quite young when he abdicated.

Aside from politics, pious Bishop Æthelwald was involved in the production of several manuscripts. According to a 10th century note in the Lindisfarne Gospels (left), Æthelwald had his predecessors work bound into the gospel book and commissioned its jeweled covers. Symeon of Durham claimed that Æthelwald continued to build up St Cuthbert’s veneration by commissioning a stone cross in memory of St. Cuthbert. A hymnal from Fulda called the Ympnarius Edilwaldi may have belonged to him. It has since been lost but it may have been the source from some hymns from Bede in Germany. It has also been suggested that the ‘Prayer book of Æthelwald’ bound in the Book of Cerne belonged to him. This book contains a number of Irish influnced prayers and an abbreviated psalter using the Old Latin Psalter (unlike Bede’s use of the Hebraicum).

Update (1/22): I forgot to mention that Æthelwald is considered the last saint of Lindisfarne. When the community left Lindisfarne they placed some of his bones in the coffin of St Cuthbert for their long migration eventually to Durham. He was also an informant for the Anonymous Life of Cuthbert written in c. 704.

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Farmer, David. Ed. Age of Bede, Penguin.

Judith McClure and Roger Collins, eds. 1994. Bede: Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford UP.

Michael Lapidge, John Blair, Simon Keynes, and Donald Scragg, ed. 1999. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Blackwell.

I made a really exciting find today! While skimming through Martin McNamara’s The Psalms in the Early Irish Church I picked up on the trail of another abbreviated psalter contemporary with Bede’s abbreviated psalter!

There is an Abbreviated Psalter in the Book of Cerne, which dates to the 8th century. The psalter is found in one of the three codexes bound in the Book of Cerne, called ‘The Book of Æthelwald the Bishop”. The Prayerbook of Æthelwald has been traced to northern England in the 8th century and linked to Æthelwald, Bishop of Lindisfarne 724-740. So he was the bishop of Lindisfarne for the last decade of Bede’s life.

The contents of the Prayer book of Æthelwald are given as the passion and resurrection of Christ accounts from all four gospels, a collection of 74 prayers, then followed by the abbreviated psalter, and ended (in its current truncated form) with an apocryphal dialogue between Adam, Eve, and Christ in limbo patrum.

McNamara describes the abbreviated psalter as:

“composed of verses from consecutive psalms, strung together so as to form a continuous prayer (e.g. Pss. 1.1, 2; 2.1; 3.4; 5.2 etc). We have another early example of such an abbreviation of the Psalter in the Collectio Psalterii Bedae found in Migne’s edition of Alcuin’s works (PL 101, cols 569-79)…. The abbreviated psalter of the Book of Cerne, like most other times in the Prayer Book of Aedueluald, was most probably intended for private devotion.” (p. 41)

McNamara notes that the text is that of the Romanum, not the Gallican psalter. This, he suggests, indicates that it was originally compiled in England rather than Ireland.

Well, this is all very exciting…my early 8th century texts of the abbreviated psalter just doubled. Two distinctive abbreviated psalters within a single subkingdom, within one generation. Could it be that Bede saw an abbreviated psalter from Lindisfarne and decided to make his own with the Hebraicum? Looks like I will be hunting for more information on the Book of Cerne!

~~~

Martin McNamara. (2000) The Psalms in the Early Irish Church. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series 165. Sheffield Academic Press.

Another topic in William Trent Foley’s article “Imitatio Apostoli: St Wilfrid of York and the Andrew Script” (1989, Am Benedictine Rev) that I found very interesting is his discussion of Cuthbert and Wilfrid following different and indeed clashing life scripts.

“The difference between Aidan and Cuthbert, on the one hand, and Wilfrid on the other can be traced to their different scripts. Aidan and Cuthbert received their scripts exclusively through the Celtic Christian meliu of northern Britain. In that melieu, sanctity has long been bound up in the ideal of martyrdom that centered on ascetic self-control. Wilfrid had taken more of his script, however, from the Latin-Mediterranean cities of Rome and Lyon … both… had been drenched with the blood of Christian martyrs who stood firm against persecution from secular authorities. …In both places, Wilfrid encountered through legend and witnessed in person this ancient ideal which understood martyrdom as the holy person’s struggle against the secular ruler who is hostile to God’s people and purposes. …the Hexham church’s dedication to Andrew is owing to more than simply some general devotion that Wilfrid had for the Roman Gregorian tradition which Andrew supposedly symbolized; it can be traced more specifically to Wilfrid’s recognition that Andrew’s story was also his own. The Hexham church thus stands as a memorial not only to Andrew’s ordeal, but to Wilfrid’s as well.

…In the final chapter of Wilfrid’s Life, Eddius [Stephan] writes the following in loving admiration of his late master: ‘But now it is for us to believe fully and perfectly that our intercessor [Wilfrid] by the sign of the holy cross has been made equal to the apostles of God, Peter and Andrew, who he specifically loved.” … I suspect that by so ending his Life in ascribing to Wilfrid an apostle-martyr status equal to Andrew’s, Eddius was remembering his old abbot to the world in exactly the way that Wilfrid would have wanted.” (p. 29-31)

I think Foley’s identification of the Latin-Mediterranean model for Wilfrid’s life is a very important one. We often write/talk about authors modeling their subjects on this or that, but it is also probable that people really did model their lives on their heroes. Remember that a saint is a hero; a more important hero to a true monastic than any secular hero, real or fictional. Its also not surprising that these two different religious lifestyles would each choose a local model saint that exemplified those ideas, Wilfrid for the Mediterranean model and Cuthbert for the Anglo-Celtic/Celtic model. I think it may be better to talk of Wilfrid in this Mediterranean mode because the term Romanist (which I admit that I use all the time) is charged with many post-Reformation feelings and images that are not relevant for the seventh century.

I wonder if it is likely that two such polar examples of piety could have only developed in direct opposition to one another. Both living in the same kingdom at the same time. Cuthbert is the student of Eata, who was the bishop in most direct contact and conflict with Wilfrid (previously discussed here), and Eata was the oldest and perhaps most trusted English pupil of Aidan of Lindisfarne. Wilfrid was the student of Bishop ‘Dalphinus’ of Lyon and Bishop Agilbert (later of Paris, originally of somewhere in Gaul).

I think we also sometimes get into this mode of considering Cuthbert to be all goodness and light and Wilfrid to be nasty and political, but that is a trap. Each followed their own model and teacher. I don’t doubt Wilfrid’s faith, sincerity, or belief that it was right — and he usually was! Contemporary kings gave him plenty of reason to feel persecuted. I’m sure they did prefer the quiet monks who, as far as we know, very rarely interfered in politics and didn’t want their wealth. Yet, Wilfrid’s practical approach to politics and endowments to his monasteries got results. Endowments are a necessary thing when your king dies and the throne passes from his lineage, as no doubt Jarrow knew full well. Their endowments ended abruptly with the death of King Ecgfrith. From then on they have to barter with King Aldfrith for additional lands and there are no royal building programs at Wearmouth-Jarrow. I really have to wonder how monasteries like Lastingham survived when their founder was branded a traitor. They must have got help from the episcopal sees of Cedd and Chad. Their political position would have made establishing veneration of Cedd even more important than usual.

“ne of his [Bishop Chad's] brothers named Trumberht, a monk educated in his monastery and under his Rule and one of those who taught me Scriptures, used to tell me about him: if he happened to be reading or doing something else and suddenly a high wind arose, he would at once advoke the mercy of the Lord and beg him to have pity on the human race. If the wind increased in violence he would shut his book, fall on his face, and devote himself more earnestly to prayer. But if there were a violent storm of wind and rain or if lightening and thunder brought terror to earth and sky, he would enter the church and, with still deeper concentration, earnestly devote himself to prayers and psalms until the sky cleared. When his people asked him why he did it, he replied, ‘Have you not read, “The Lord also thundered in the heavens and the Highest gave His voice. Yea, He sent out His arrows and scattered them and He shot out lightenings and discomfited them”? For the Lord moves the air, raises the winds, hurls lightening, and thunders forth from heaven so as to rouse inhabitants of the world to fear him, to call them to remember the future judgment in order that He may scatter their pride and confound their boldness by bringing the their minds to that dread time when he will come in the clouds in great power and majesty, to judge the living and the dead, while the heavens and the earth are aflame. And so,’ said he, ‘we ought to respond to his Heavenly warning with fear and love; so that as often as He destrubs the sky and raises His hand as if about to strike, yet spares us still, we should implore His mercy, examining the innermost recesses of our hearts and purging out the dregs of our sins, and behave with such caution that we may never deserve to be struck down.’ This brother’s account of the bishop’s death also agrees with the story of a vision related by the most reverend father Egbert…” (Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV Chapter 3; McClure and Collins, eds. 1994: p. 177-178.)

This is one of the few passages that tells us anything about Bede’s training. Trumberht had been trained by Bishop Chad and was probably a member of his household. Although Chad founded a monastery at Barrow in Lindsey, it seems more likely that he came from Lastingham since he came to Northumbria after the death of Chad. Barrow was probably Chad’s primary residence while he was administering to his duties in Lindsey.

Bede tells us that Trumberht was one of those who taught him scriptures as a child. As Trumberht himself had been trained under Chad’s direction, we can guess that he was significantly influenced by the Irish in his scriptural interpretation. We can imagine that this story of Chad’s Fear of God and of storms would have come up several times in Bede’s scriptural studies. We can envision the child Bede sitting near Trumberht listening to stories from his travels and the monasteries that he had lived in. It may be from Trumberht and his stories of Chad that Bede gained some of his initial good will toward the Anglo-Celtic party.

This story of Chad that Trumberht tells Bede reminds me of the Fear of God found in Cuthbert’s ‘Letter on the Death of Bede’. What we know for certain is that with the help of Trumberht and others, Bede developed a palpable Fear of God. Bede clearly thought that Chad’s Fear of God was appropriate. Of the stories that Trumberht told Bede, this is the story that Bede chose to include in his History.

As for Chad’s fear of storms, this may come from his childhood on Lindisfarne when they would have weathered storms in probably initially insubstantial cells. The monastery was on the side of the island that faced the mainland. This is not high ground like the location of the castle. Indeed, the mainland side is low enough for the sea to flood in making it a tidal island. What high ground there is on Lindisfarne is on the sea side, which makes a great deal of sense for the island’s formation. During my visit to Lindisfarne in 2003 we happened to come to the island when a regular storm rolled in over the North Sea. It wasn’t a great thunderstorm, just driving rain, but on Lindisfarne it was quite impressive. Feeling the sea charged up by the storm on a tidal island where it seems like the sea could swallow it up at any time, its not hard to imagine where Chad’s fears originated. The Christian God of storms is found most strongly in the psalms, particularly psalm 29. We know the tradition set up by Aidan and continued by Chad placed great emphasis on the psalms. Psalm 29 must have felt like it was written particularly for Lindisfarne.

“Ascribe to the Lord, you gods, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his Name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord is mighty upon the waters.

The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is splendor.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon;

He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Mount Hermon like a young wild ox.

The voice of the Lord splits the flames of fire; the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare.

And in the temple of the Lord, all are crying, “Glory!”

The Lord sits enthroned above the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as King for evermore.

The Lord shall give strength to his people; the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.

Book of Common Prayer, Psalm 29, p. 620-621.

This past weekend is the feast day of St. Hild of Whitby. According to Bede, she died on 17 November 680 and her feast is celebrated in the Episcopal Church on November 18th and in the Church of England on November 19th.

Hild’s return to Northumbria from East Anglia in 646 was one of the most important events in the development of the early Northumbrian church. She had been in East Anglia staying with her nephew King Ealdwulf waiting for a ship to take her to Gaul (France) where she could join her sister Hereswitha in the convent at Chelles. Like her sister, Hild was almost certainly a widow. She was 32 years old and for a woman of her time, she would have been expected to either marry or enter a convent long before, particularly since her closest male kinsmen were all dead.

Hild and her sister Hereswitha remind me of Mary and Martha of Bethany. When she was widowed, Hereswitha decided to leave England and enter a convent in Gaul (France) where she could be free to lead a contemplative life, free of all the hassles of royal, secular life or even royal religious life. She left behind at least one son who became a long reigning king of East Anglia. Gaul was a common destination for southern English women before the 650s because there were very few convents or double monasteries in England. Had she remained in the land ruled by her brothers in law, she would have had to found her own monastery as most other royal women of her era did if they wished to remain in Britain. Its also possible that her brothers in law would rather she leave the kingdom than require support from them. So at age 32 Hild goes to East Anglia to wait for a whole year for transportation to join her sister at Chelles when Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne and probably her cousin King Oswine calls her home to Northumbria (Deira?). If she was a widow, then presumably she could have refused and continued to join in her sister in Gaul. If she wasn’t a widow, then her cousin King Oswine, the head of her father’s kindred in 647, could have demanded that she return home, but it seems likely that King Anna of East Anglia could have seen to it that she made it to Chelles, if they wished. So, there is no reason to believe that Hild didn’t return home to a world of work of her own accord. There were no convents in Northumbria; she would have to build everything from scratch.

So why did Bishop Aidan want to to come home so badly that he would make a last ditch effort to catch her before she boarded a ship for Gaul? It was finally time for the Lindisfarne mission to begin to found women’s monasteries (convents) and Aidan was certainly searching for capable women. He needed a Martha. I believe that with the help of King Oswine, Aidan identified Hild as just the woman he needed probably because she had a reputation as been a good manager of a household. Aidan had previously given the veil to Heiu, the first nun in Northumbria, but she doesn’t seem to have been cut out to be an abbess. Aidan gave Hild the veil at the age of 33, and placed her on one hide of land (big enough to support one family) on the north side of the River Wear (possibly near Abbot Utta’s monastery of Gateshead?) where she remained for one year while she was learning to be a nun.

After her year of training, Hild moved on to become Abbess of Hartlepool in her homeland of Deira. Abbess Heiu who had earlier founded Hartlepool retired to Calcaria (Tadcaster?). Bede does not connect Heiu’s retirement to Hild’s arrival at Hartlepool; he simply says that Heiu retired shortly after founding Hartlepool. Running the first convent, really double monastery (both men and women under an abbess), was not an easy job! Bede tells us that when she came to Hartlepool she set to work establishing the Rule of Life in accordance with that she had been taught by Bishop Aidan with great industry. In 651 her cousin King Oswine was executed by his rival King Oswiu and Bishop Aidan died within a fortnight of each other. Despite the bitterness that Oswine’s execution must have held for Abbess Hild, as it did for Oswiu’s Queen Eanflæd another cousin of Oswine, Hild seems to have had at least the respect of Oswiu. While at Hartlepool she was entrusted the infant oblate Ælfflæd daughter of King Oswiu and Hild’s cousin Queen Eanflæd, whom she raised and eventually succeeded her as abbess of Whitby.

Two years later, in 657, Hild went on to found a new monastery at Whitby (Streanæshalch), one of the greatest monasteries of the age. It was here that the famous Synod of Whitby was held in 664 with Abbess Hild as the hostess. Synods are not usually held at convents or double monasteries; that it was held here is a testament to the respect Hild and her monastery as held by the entire Northumbrian church. Here as Lees and Overing famously entitled an article, she was ‘birthing bishops and fathering poets’. Throughout the seventh century, Whitby was the lead training and learning monastery in Northumbria. Among the young men trained at Whitby, five went on to become bishops — Bosa of York (678-86, 691-706), Ætla of Dorchester (670s), Oftfor of the Hwicce (c. 691-?), John of Beverly (bishop of Hexham 687-706 and York 706-721) and Wilfrid II of York (721-732). Another of Hild’s students Tatfrith had been chosen to become bishop of the Hwicce died before he could be consecrated. It was also Hild who recognized that the shy cowherd Cædmon had been blessed by God with the ability to compose songs of praise to God in the English language. Bede considered Cædmon to be the first Christian poet in the English language and he includes a snippet in his History, translated into to Latin. Some of the early scribes who copied Bede’s History translated it into Old English and they are the among the earliest examples of Old English poetry (in at least two dialects, if I recall correctly). One of the most impressive modern crosses (below) raised in Britain is dedicated to Cædmon and Hild and placed near modern Whitby. The four panels are from top down: Christ, David with his lyre, St. Hild (surrounded by the faces of her five students who became bishops) and Cædmon near eye level. We know during this time Hild was also expanding her monastic network to include at least another monastery at Hackness and perhaps another monastery near Carlisle.

Cædmon’s Cross (modern), Whitby

(available here via a creative commons license)

Hild did not escape being pulled into the politics of her day. She had been baptized by the Roman Bishop Paulinus of York in c. 626 with her uncle King Edwin. Yet, she returned to Northumbrian at the summons of Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne, who followed Iona’s practices and was, as we would say today, not in communion with Rome. We know that she was on Lindisfarne’s side at the Synod of Whitby and consistently was a leader among the Anglo-Celtic party in Northumbria. This made her the rival of Bishop Wilfrid. When Wilfrid was deposed and his see was divided in 678, Hild’s student Bosa became Bishop of York with authority over Whitby. According to Stephan’s Life of Wilfrid, when Bishop Wilfrid appealed the loss of his see and his exile to Rome (the first such appeal from Britain), much to his surprise when he reached Rome in 679 he found representatives from “holy” Abbess Hild and Archbishop Theodore waiting for him. They lost their case to Wilfrid, but King Ecgfrith would not allow Bishop Wilfrid to return to Northumbria. We don’t know if Hild heard the outcome of their case against Wilfrid, she died the following year on November 17th. Despite Wilfrid’s various wins and losses over the next 25 years, Whitby managed to keep a bishop of its own training at least through the lifetime of Hild’s successor and foster child Abbess Ælfflæd who died about 714.

Hild was considered a saint immediately upon her death. Although Bede does not tell us that she was buried in the Church of St. Peter at Whitby we can probably assume this is so. Her legacy at Whitby became a complicated one that I shall save for another post. However, material in Bede’s History, deference given to her memory even by her rivals disciples in the Life of Wilfrid, and the beautiful account of her death in the Old English Martyrology both confirm that information of Hild’s life was preserved in detail outside of Whitby. We might suspect that her five bishops and the countless numbers of students who enjoyed her hospitality and instruction ensured her sainthood. The works of Anglo-Saxon England’s own Martha have stood the test of time and her memory flourishes today as one of the few early female saints of the Church of England. She is the only female English “Celtic” saint recognized today; books on female Celtic saints must always make room for this one Englishwoman. There are probably more church and school dedications to St. Hild within the Anglican Communion than any other non-biblical female saint.

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Updated 20 Nov 2007

Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book III Chapter 25 and Book IV Chapters 23, 24. McClure and Collins, eds. Oxford UP, 1994.

Stephan of Ripon, Life of Bishop Wilfrid, D. Farmer, Ed. The Age of Bede, Penguin.

Lees, Clare and Gillian Overing. “Birthing Bishops and Fathering Poets: Bede, Hild, and the Relations of Cultural Production.” Exemplaria 6 (1994) 35-65.