326 Beowulf and Widsith 



Whether or not Driffield, or some place in its vicinity, was a 

 customary residence of Aldfrith, can never, perhaps, be deter- 

 mined. What we do know is that the royal city'- of Edwin, 

 whether it was at Aldby, near Stamford Bridge, at Malton, or at 

 Londesborough,^ near Market Weighton, was within twenty miles 

 of Driffield ; and certainly Goodmanham, where Coifi profaned 

 his heathen temple,^ was only a dozen miles away. Twenty miles 

 distant is Flamborough Head, where Ida,* the Flamebearer, the 

 first Northumbrian king, is supposed to have landed with his 

 sixty ships in 547. The region, as we see, is associated with some 

 of the most significant events in the earlier history of Northum- 

 bria.^ It would not be surprising, therefore, if somewhere in the 

 vicinity Aldfrith should have habitually dwelt, whether from 

 inclination or from motives of policy. At Beverley, a dozen miles 

 to the south, which, toward the end of his life was to be the favor- 

 ite abode of St. John of Beverley (d. 721), Aldfrith's friend^ and 

 fellow-student" under Theodore, there was already in the king's 

 lifetime a religious establishment,* which John, probably after he 

 became Bishop of York in 705, was instrumental in re-establish- 

 ing and extending. He was born either at Harpham or Cherry 

 Burton,® in either case within a dozen miles of Driffield. A for- 



' Eccl. Hist. 2. g. 



^ See Murray, pp. 133, 137, 174; Green, p. 60. 



^ Eccl. Hist. 2. 13. 



* De Prima Saxonum Advctitu (Simeon of Durham, ed. Arnold, 2. 374) : 

 'Venerat autem Ida . . . cum Ix. navibus ad Flemabirig, indeque boreales 

 plagas occupans.' Cf. pp. 310, 313. 



^ For its earlier occupation by the Britons, and the reasons, see the refer- 

 ences in note i, p. 324. 



"Cf. Leland, Collectanea, 2d ed., p. 100: 'Alfridus rex fautor S. Joannis'; 

 Raine {D. C. B. 3. 377) : 'It was probably owing to King Aldfrith that 

 John was made bishop of Hexham' (Aug. 25, 687). The same influence 

 was probably operative in his elevation to the see of York (705), before 

 Aldfrith died. That he was a favorite with Osred, Aldfrith's 3'oung son, 

 at least in the earlier part of his reign, is clear from the account by Folcard 

 (Histor. Church York i. 254-5; cf. Leland, op. cit., p. loi. He consecrated 

 Bede both as deacon (691-2) and as priest (702-3), while Bishop of Hexham 

 (Eccl. Hist. 5. 24). He was also an inmate of Whitby in Hild's time 

 (Eccl. Hist. 4. 23; Raine, Fasti Ebor., p. 84), and may therefore have 

 known Csedmon. 



''Leland, p. 100; Histor. Church York, p. 244. 



' Leland, p. loi. 



* Leland, p. 100; Murray, pp. 139, 157. 



