292 Beowulf and M^idsith 



Mailduf/ from whom the future Malmesbury was to be named. 

 Finally, two letters, or rather a letter and a treatise, both addressed 

 by Aldhelm to Aldfrith, attest and confirm their close friendship. 



Aldhelm and Aldfrith seem to have been about of an age, as we 

 shall now attempt to show. We have the explicit statement of 

 William of Malmesbury^ that Aldhelm was not less than seventy 

 years old at his death on May 25, 709 ; consequently, we have no 

 reason to suppose that he was born after May 25, 639. The rea- 

 sons for assuming that Aldfrith was of about the same age we 

 will now consider. They are drawn from the two letters referred 

 to above, known respectively as the Epistle to Eahfrith^ and the 

 Epistle to Acircius^ — these having been separated by a consider- 

 able space of time. 



The former of these epistles was written on Aldfrith's return 

 from exile in Ireland, or at least from a six years' residence in 

 that country, where he had been engaged in study (*ex Hiberniae 

 brumosis circionis insulae climatibus, ubi ter bino circiter annorum 

 circulo uber sofise sugens metabatur''^). This return can hardly 

 have been that of 685, when he was called to the throne of North- 

 umbria, as has sometimes been assumed," since, as he had resorted 

 to Ireland on the accession of Ecgfrith, and the interval between 

 that and the death of Ecgfrith was fourteen years, the six years 

 of which Aldhelm speaks would have begun in 679, instead 

 of 671. We can only suppose, then, that there must have been 

 more than one return from Ireland, and it is the simplest hypo- 

 thesis to assume that, on some express permission from Ecgfrith, 

 he revisited England in 677, whence, after a season, he again 



* Plummer 2. 310. 



* Gest. Pont., p. 332 (but cf. p. 385) : 'Aldhelmus non minor decedens 

 septuagenario' ; cf . Giles, p. xvii, who says, 'consequently he must have been 

 born in a. d. 639, or earlier'; Plummer says (2. 309) 'about 639.' 



'Ehwald (p. 487) denies that Eah frith =: Aldfrith ; but cf. his pp. XIX, 

 61, and note 6, below. 



* 'Eahf rith' is an unaccountable spelling for 'Ealdf rith' ; 'Acircius' is to 

 be interpreted in the light of the Latin circius, 'west-northwest wind,' so 

 that when Aldhelm sends his letter (Giles, p. 216) 'illustri Acircio, 

 Aquilonalis imperii sceptra gubernanti,' he may be understood as addressing 

 Aldfrith as the king of the North (Northumbria) who had come from the 

 West (Ireland) or Northwest (as it would have been from Aldhelm's 

 Wessex) ; see Ehwald i. 61; Hahn, p. 22, note i; and cf. Dan. 11. 13 ff. 



"Giles, pp. 91-2; Ehwald, p. 489. 



"For example, Hahn, p. 6, note 3; Bonhoff (p. 100) says 682-4. 



