By the Rev. W. 11. Jones. 69 



are given with the passing comment — " quod Angli biphario vocitant 

 onomate." Of course, it is by no means contended that the names 

 of its two founders may not have had something to do in modifying 

 the name of the place, still a suggestion is hazarded, that as Caer- 

 Bladon was its name in British times, — and Ingel-boiirne when the 

 English arrested it from its first possessors, — so Mal-dunes-herg may 

 possibly mark the period when once more the Christian church was 

 planted here, and the doctrine of the Cross again permitted to be 

 proclaimed to those who lived in this part of the country. You 

 have at all events an analogous name at no great distance from 

 this place. What is now termed Christian Malford was originally 

 Christes-mcel-ford ; — i.e. the ford by " Christ's- cross." 



Aldhelm, whilst yet in early life, is said to have travelled in 

 Gaul, and Italy, and to have spent some time in various schools of 

 learning. On his return to England he went to study in Kent 

 under Hadrian, an African by nation, and a monk originally of the 

 Niridan monastery, supposed to have been situated near Monte 

 Cassino in the kingdom of Naples. Pope Vitalian, to whom the 

 kings of Kent and Northumbria agreed, under the peculiar circum- 

 stances of the times, — especially with regard to the angry disputes 

 between the ancient British church and that planted by Augustine 

 in the island, — to leave the selection, had chosen this same Hadrian 

 as successor to Wighard in the See of Canterbury. Hadrian, 

 though a learned man, felt that something more was required for 

 the high office, and so declining it for himself recommended Theo- 

 dore, a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, as the man whose practical 

 talents and administrative ability marked him out as eminently 

 fitted for the post. With true generosity he consented to accom- 

 pany the new archbishop to England as, so to speak, an " amicus 

 curiae," and, when here, carried out the work to which he had 

 devoted himself by establishing at Canterbury a school of theology 

 in which the clergy were especially trained in a knowledge of those 

 doctrines which it was their mission to make known to others. 

 William of Malmesbury describes Hadrian as " a fountain of letters 

 and a river of arts." Together with the Archbishop Theodore he 

 understood the importance of a learned clergy ; and these two great 



