Aldfrith's Qitalifications as a Patron of Literature 303 



was his successor, Ceolfrith, who eventually received the grant in 

 question.^ The fact just related would of itself be sufficient to 

 demonstrate Aldfrith's interest in geography and travel" ; but this 

 is placed beyond all question by his acceptance from Adamnan, 

 probably in 688, of another book of travel, the gift of which was 

 liberally recompensed. This was Bishop Arculf 's famous account 

 of the Holy Places, taken down from his lips by Adamnan, which 

 was afterwards made the basis of Bede's book on the same sub- 

 ject, while this, in turn, was abridged to two chapters in the 

 Ecclesiastical History.^ 



The story of Arculf's book is sufficiently extraordinary to be 

 called romantic. We find it related, with greater or less fulness, 

 three times — in the introduction to Adamnan's book, in the 

 epilogue to Bede's tract. On the Holy Places, and in the Ecclesias- 

 tical History (5. 15). The first of these accounts is as follows*: 



Arculf, a holy bishop, a Gaul by nation, well acquainted with many 

 far distant lands, a truthful and right worthy witness, who dwelt in 

 the city of Jerusalem for a space of nine months, and examined the 

 Holy Places by daily visits, told me, Adamnan, all that is hereafter 

 to be written, as I sedulously asked him to tell me his experiences, 

 which at first I wrote down on tablets as he dictated in a faithful 

 and unimpeachable narrative, and now briefly inscribe upon parchment. 



Benedict Biscop, may have stimulated Aldfrith's interest in the subject. 

 Addressing his monks, he says (De Inst. Div. Lift., chap. 25 : Migne, Pair. 

 Lat. 70. 1 139) : 'Cosmographise quoque notitiam vobis percurrendam esse 

 non immerito suademus, ut loca singula qu?e in libris Sanctis legitis, in qua 

 parte mundi sint posita evidenter agnoscere debeatis. Quod vobis proveniet 

 absolute, si libellum Julii Oratoris, quem vobis reliqui, studiose legere 

 festinetis ; qui maria, insulas, montes famosos, provincias, civitates, flumina, 

 gentes, ita quadrifaria distinctione complexus est, ut pene nihil libro ipsi 

 desit quod ad cosmographise notitiam cognoscitur pertinere.' Though you 

 are fixed in one spot, adds Cassiodorus in effect, your minds can roam over 

 the whole earth, wherever man has wandered. The other cosmographers 

 whom he recommends are Marcellinus, Dionysius, and Ptolemy. On the 

 whole subject, see the first volume of Beazlcy, Tlie Dazvn of Modern 

 Geograpliy. 



^ Bede, Hist. Abb., chap. 15 ; Plummer 2. 362, 364. 



" Dottin, p. 36: 'Of the ancillary sciences, the Irish have cultivated 

 especially genealogy and historical geography.' For a tenth-century 

 geographical poem, see Joyce i. 440; for the CosmograpJiy of Aethicus of 

 Istria, Joyce i. 403-4. 



' 5. 16, 17 ; cf . Palestine Pilgrims Text Society, p. xvii ; Plummer 2. 304. 



*P.P. T.S.,v- I- 



