3IO Beowulf and Widsith 



policy of Archbishop Theodore.' It is no wonder, then, if Aldf rith 

 was beloved by his Northumbrian subjects. Montalembert, who, 

 it will be remembered, sympathizes with his opponent, declares^ 

 that he 'ranks among the most enlightened and justly popular 

 princes of his time,' and elsewhere calls him- 'a monarch justly 

 dear to the Northumbrians.' 



A man of spirit this king was, we see, notwithstanding the 

 'learning, meekness, and piety' which Oman^ attributes to him. 

 A man of poetry and visions, notwithstanding — shall we not rather 

 say because of ? — his intense devotion to the sacred Scriptures. 

 A man of attachments and affections — to his foster country, to his 

 friends, Benedict Biscop and Adamnan. to his councillors, and to 

 his realm — carrying them with him in his private interests and his 

 public duties. Withal, a man who, according to Montalembert,* 



had been Roman ; henceforth they were Enghsh.' Aldhelm, who was con- 

 secrated bishop by Berhtwald in 705, had been his fellow-student under 

 Theodore at Canterbury (Wm. Malm., Gcst. Pont., p. 376), so it is at least 

 possible (see above, p. 294) that Aldf rith and Berhtwald had also been fellow- 

 students, and therefore friends from youtli. Berhtwald, like Aldfrith, was 

 of royal race, being the nephew of King ^thelred of Mercia (Eddi, chap. 

 40; Wm. Malm., Gcst. Reg., Bk. i, § 29), and was therefore reputed to be 

 13th in descent from Woden, as Aldfrjth was 17th, and Aldhelm 15th (see 

 the genealogical tables appended to Lappenberg, Vol. i ) . They thus repre- 

 sented three royal houses descended from a common mythical ancestor — of 

 Mercia, Northumbria (Bernicia), and Wessex. It is curious, if not particu- 

 larly significant, that there had been an Aldhelm who was cousin to 

 ^thelfrith (see above, p. 285), and grandson of Ida, the founder in England 

 of the Bernician royal line (Eccl. Hist. 5. 24; Plummer 2. 119, 120; 

 Chadwick, Origin of the English Amotion, p. 156), while .Ethelfrith, in his 

 turn, was the grandfather of Aldfrith. Of the perpetuation of protothemes 

 and deuterothemes (cf. Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum , pp. xii ff.) 

 in the same family, see Weinhold, Altnordisches Leben, pp. 267 ff. 



Light is thrown upon Berhtwald's character by a letter written between 

 709 and 712, in which he begs Forthhere, Aldhelm's successor as Bishop of 

 Sherborne, to intercede with Beornwald, Abbot of Glastonbury, for the 

 release, on payment down by her brother, the bearer of the letter, of three 

 hundred shillings, of a Kentish captive girl, 'so that she may pass the 

 remainder of her life with her kinsfolk, not in the sorrowfulness of slavery, 

 but in the gladness of freedom.' A first application having been of no avail, 

 he now renews it. See Moniinicntii Mogitiitiini. ed. Jaffe, p. 48. 



'4- 81. 



' 4- 72. 



"P. 315. 



'4.67. 



