288 Beozuulf and Widsith 



after visit quickened the intellectual temper of the country; and it is 

 not too much to say that under Aldfrith, himself a man of learning and 

 study, Northumbria became the literary centre of Western Europe. 



Ill what follows we shall devote ourselves chiefly to the illus- 

 tration of the last sentence quoted, but it will first be necessary to 

 consider the chronology of Aldfrith's life, in so far as it can be 

 ascertained by a combination of the facts at our disposal. The 

 dates of his accession and death are known with sufficient accuracy, 

 the former being determined by that of Ecgfrith's death, which, 

 according to Bede,^ was May 21, 685, and the latter by that in the 

 Saxon Chronicle, which is Dec. 14, 705. The date of his birth is 

 not so easily fixed, even approximately. William of Malmesbury 

 distinctly states- that he was older than Ecgf rith ; but Bede says 

 that Ecgfrith was in his fortieth year when he was slain in 685. 

 Accordingly, Ecgfrith would have been born in 645, or before 

 May 21, 646 at latest; and Aldfrith, being older, would of course 

 have been born in an earlier year. The passage from William of 

 Malmesbury is as follows : 



While a more than common report everywhere noised the death of 

 Ecgfrith, an intimation of it, 'borne on the wings of haste,'^ reached 

 the ears of his brother Aldfrith. Though the elder brother, he had 

 been deemed by the nobility unworthy of the government, because of 

 his illegitimacy,^ . . . and had retired to Ireland, either through com- 

 pulsion or indignation. In this place, safe from the hatred of his 

 brother,^ he had, from his ample leisure, become versed in literature, 

 and had enriched his mind with all philosophy." On this account, the 



^ Eccl. Hist. 4. 26. 



'Gest. Reg. I. I. §52. 



^ Juvenal 4. 149. 



■"Bede calls him 'nothus' (Plummer 2. 263); similarly ^Ifric, Horn. 

 2. 148 : 'His cyfesborena bro'Sor sit5San rixode, se Se for wisdome wende 

 to Scottum, ]>xt he selSeodig on lare geSuge.' 



"Plummer (2. 263) says: 'Ecgfrith had wished to make him a bishop 

 [of. Ten Brink, Beowulf, p. 227], perhaps with the idea of excluding him 

 from the succession to the crown, but he declined on the ground of his 

 unworthiness ; Vita Anon., and Vita Cudb. u. s.' [chap. 24] ; but Bede is 

 clearly referring to Cuthbert, not to Aldfrith. For Cuthbert's reluctance 

 to be made a bishop, see also Eccl. Hist. 4. 28. He was not elected till 

 684, nor consecrated till March 26, 685, less than two months before 

 Ecgfrith's demise. 



" 'Philosophy' is probably to be here taken in the sense of 'theological 

 learning.' 



