Chronology of Aldfrith's Life 291 



But there are other considerations which bear upon this point. 

 These grow out of the intimate relations which subsisted between 

 Aldfrith and the celebrated Aldhelm of Malmesbury. The 

 grounds and proofs of their intimacy are these. In the first place, 

 they were both of royal blood : Aldfrith, we have seen, was the 

 son of the Northumbrian monarch, Oswy, while Aldhelm's father 

 was Centwine/ who ruled over Wessex from 676 to 685.^ Then 

 the two were related by marriage, Centwine having wedded a sis- 

 ter^ of Ecgfrith's second wife. Eormanburh, while Aldfrith 

 espoused Cuthburh,^ a sister of Ini, who was king of Wessex from 

 688 to 725. Thirdly, both had come under the influence of Irisli 

 teachers — Aldfrith in Ireland itself, and Aldhelm under the hermit 



Hujus nunc Tyrio venerabile pignus in ostro 

 Jure datas patrio sceptri jam tractat habenas, 

 where the youthful Osred is presumably 'reverend' only in his regal capacity. 



^Freeman, in Soiiierset Arch. Soc. Journal, 18. 2. 14, note; 20. 2. 24-6; 

 BonhofiF, p. 35; Manitius, GcscJi. dcr Lai. Lit. dcs Mittelaltcrs, p. 134; but 

 see Diet. A'at. Biog. 9. 422-3 (forgetting p. 245) ; Ehwald, p. XI. Cynegils 

 (d. 643), father of Centwine, could not have been born later than 597, when 

 his father died, nor Centwine later than 643, though probably many years 

 earlier, since Cynegils was not less than 46 at his own death, and came to 

 the throne 32 years earlier than that. If Centwine had been born in the 

 year of his father's accession, or within several years thereafter, he might, 

 by a first wife (see Freeman, p. 24), have been the father of Aldhelm. 



^ Sax. Chron. 676, 685; Lappenberg i. 321-4; Wm. Malm., Gcst. Pont., 

 P- 352; Giles, pp. 115-117; Montalembert 4. 291. 



^ Eddi, chap. 40; Bright, p. 302. Lingard (i. 125) calls her Irmenigild. 



*Sa.\\ Chr. 718; Wm. Malm., Gest. Reg. i. i. §35; Montalembert 4. 

 408-9. They separated, no doubt by mutual consent, in order, apparently, 

 that Cuthburh might enter the convent at Barking, where, as a matter of 

 fact, she was when Aldhelm addressed his prose treatise on Virginity to 

 the abbess and nuns of that house (Giles, p. i; Eckenstein, p. 113). In 

 705 we find her as abbess of Wimborne (Cartiilariiii>i Sa.roniciini i. 168; 

 Giles, p. 351; Eckenstein, p. 116, according to whom she died between 720 

 and 730, probably before 725). She can hardly have left Aldfrith before 

 797, when her son Osred was born (Eccl. Hist. 5. 18), nor even then, since 

 another son, Offa (Diet. Chr. Biog. 4. 67; Oman, p. 325), was probably 

 younger than Osred; Osric, who reigned from 718 to 729, may have been 

 yet another son {Plummer 2. 337-8; Simeon of Durham, ed. Arnold, i. 39; 

 Oman, p. 325), though he was possibly a half-brother of Osred, as Plummer 

 suggests. 



It is to the bonds of relationship referred to in the text that Aldhelm 

 may be supposed to refer in the phrase, 'domesticfe familiaritatis fiducia 

 fretus' (Giles, p. 228). 



