A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



680. He brought back a still greater quantity of church furniture, and his 

 former patron Egfrid gave him another but rather smaller grant of land in the 

 neighbourhood of what is now Jarrow Slake, then termed ' gyrwy ' or ' marsh.' 

 This little bay formed a safe harbour for ships, and its being known as Egtrid's 

 Harbour suggests that the king had some family or personal connexion with 

 the spot, as he had perhaps with Wearmouth. However this may be, the 

 site was given in recognition of the success at Wearmouth, and building was 

 pushed on with the same dispatch as before. The new monastery, dedicated 

 to St. Paul, though seven miles distant from Wearmouth, was regarded as part 

 and parcel of the same institution. The chief glory of Jarrow lies in the fact 

 that it was for nearly fifty years the home, the school, the library, and the 

 oratory of Bede. Here English learning, born at Wearmouth, was cradled 

 and nursed, and here a generation of scholars was brought up under the 

 fostering care of the first English teacher. 



Both Jarrow and Wearmouth were richly endowed with books by 

 Benedict, and also by Ceolfrid, who in 690 became the single ruler of the 

 double monastery. We thus get the beginning of monastic libraries in the 

 North of England. "^ The two houses were severely treated by the famous 

 plague, which had first made its appearance in 664, and ravaged Northum- 

 bria with frightful desolation in and about 685.-^ But apart from the 

 havoc caused by this early ' Black Death,' Northumbria began to decline from 

 that same fatal year, 685, when Egfrid, under the temptation of securing 

 external conquest, was lured into a Pictish ambuscade and perished." Thus 

 the last legitimate descendant of the old Northumbrian royal house passed 

 away. His successor, Aldfrid, reigned for 20 years more over an attenuated 

 kingdom. After him a period of usurpation, conspiracy, and murder set in, 

 which only partially gave way to greater stability in the reign of Eadbert, 



737-58.'' 



Bede wrote on quietly at Jarrow during this troublous period, beginning 



with his grammatical works between 691 and 703, proceeding to his Com- 

 mentaries in or about 709, and taking up history, in addition, with the Lives 

 of the Abbots in 716. No historian came after him, and a considerable gap 

 follows his death in 735, during which interval we have merely a very general 

 knowledge of Northumbrian history. In 788 there occurs an obscure 

 reference to a synod held in Pincanheal, which place has been identified with 

 Finchale, near Durham, but the fancied likeness of the word is the only 

 ground of such identification, and is altogether too precarious. But be that as 

 it may, an event took place in the preceding year which is a considerable 

 landmark. Xhe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle places the first coming of the Danes in 

 787. Soon after this a piratical foray devastated the Lindisfarne monastery 

 in 793, and next year a descent was made upon Jarrow, but it was repelled 

 with some success, the defeated Danes suffering shipwreck in their flight. 

 Apparently the Northumbrian churches were now left without molestation 

 for seventy years. One event of considerable magnitude took place during 

 this long respite, when Ecgred, bishop of Lindisfarne, increased the possessions 



^ For what is known of these early libraries see Plummer's BeJe, i, p. xviii. 



" See Dr. Charles Creighton, Hist, of Epidemics in Britain, i, 7. Further evidence of the general desolation 

 occurs in Arch. Ael. xix, 1 52. 



*' J. Hodgson Hi de, Hist, of 'Northumberland, i, 93. 



'^ Particulars in Plummer's editio 1 of Bede, i, p. xxxiii. 



