Itinerant kings, royal estates and monasteries

The other day I was reading a news article on the movements of itinerant kings among their royal estates and more surprisingly royal farmsteads and it got me thinking. Basically what they were saying is that early medieval kings moved around their kingdom from one royal estate to another, and used these estates and farms...

LKM: Bernicia/Bryneich

Bernicia or Bryneich? We know that the name of the kingdom was British and their name for it was Bryneich. No one has put forth a compelling translation for Bryneich. It appears to have been the southern part of Votandini (Gododdin) territory under the Romans, although it may have been independent then just without its...

PW: Abbot Berhthun of Beverly

You might be wondering, who is Abbot Berhthun and why should we care about him? First of all, he was someone known and respected by Bede and second, we owe practically everything we know about St John of Beverly to Berhthun. According to Bede, Berhthun was John's deacon while he was Bishop of Hexham and...

PW: St Owine

St Owine is a somewhat malleable figure in the veneration of St Audrey. He first appears in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People where he is a member of St Chad's household at Lichfield. Owine witnesses an exchange between Chad and an angel shortly before Chad's death. Bede goes on to explain that Owine...

St Andrew’s Appeal

St Andrew's appeal in Britain is one of those stories of meandering coincidences that are common in development of the veneration of saints. After all, Andrew is mainly venerated in the East. His missionary work occurred in Asia Minor where he was martyred. He is the patron saint of Greece, Russia, Sicily, Romania, Malta, Prussia,...

Eata of Melrose: Shouldering the Burden

St. Eata died of dysentery on October 26, 686/7 at Hexham in Bernicia, 22 years to the day after St Cedd, Aidan of Lindisfarne's other famous disciple. I have to admit that I have always like Eata. Although consistently described by Bede as the "gentlest and simplest of men", he was the real worker of...