RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



but he remained firm in his determination. 

 Early in the morning of Thursday, 4 June, all 

 received the Holy Eucharist in the churches of 

 St. Mary and St. Peter at Wearmouth, and the 

 Abbot prepared for his journey. Having prayed 

 before the altar in St. Peter's, he blessed and 

 censed the assembled brethren. Singing the 

 Litany, their voices choked with tears, they went 

 into the oratory of St. Lawrence, and there 

 Ceolfrid bade them farewell, giving them his 

 pardon for all transgressions, and asking their 

 forgiveness and prayers for himself. Then they 

 all went down to the shore, and the brethren 

 knelt round him weeping, while he prayed and 

 gave them the kiss of peace. The deacons of 

 the church, carrying lighted tapers and a golden 

 cross, entered the vessel with him. He passed 

 over the stream, knelt in adoration before the 

 cross, mounted his horse and rode away.^'' 



Huetbert was chosen abbot in his place. With 

 some of the brethren he went at once to Ceolfrid, 

 who had not yet embarked, and on Whitsunday, 

 7 June, received his approval and blessing. Ceol- 

 frid never reached Rome, but died at Langres, 

 25 September, 715, aged seventy-four.^* 



Huetbert had been trained in the monastery 

 from boyhood, and had been to Rome, where he 

 had learned and copied everything which he 

 thought useful or worthy to be brought away.^^ 

 He is said to have gained many privileges for the 

 monastery. He took up the bones of Easterwin 

 and Sigfrid and buried them in one coffin, divided 

 by a partition, inside St. Peter's Church, near 

 the grave of Biscop.^' During his abbacy the 

 arts of writing and illuminating were pursued by 

 the monks, and they began to be noted also for 

 bell-founding and metal-work.^* 



In 735 Bede died at Jarrow in his sixty-third 

 year, and was buried there.^^ His life from early 

 childhood had been passed in the monastery, and 

 the monks were constantly employed in making 

 copies of his writings to be sent to distant lands. 

 In a letter written in 764 to Lul, bishop of 

 Maintz, Cuthbert, then abbot of Wearmouth and 

 Jarrow, acknowledged the receipt of a request 

 from the bishop for copies of Bede's works. He 

 said he was sending the ' Life of St. Cuthbert' in 

 prose and verse ; he and his boys had done their 

 best, but the bitter cold of the winter had so 

 benumbed their hands that they had no more to 

 send at present. He thanked the bishop for the 

 gift of an embroidered rug ; it had been intended 

 for his own use in the cold weather, but he had 

 with great joy devoted it for a covering for the 

 altar in St. Paul's Church, as a thankoflering for 

 his forty-six years in the monastery. 



" Bede, Vit. Abbatum (ed. Stevenson), §§ 17-18. 

 ■' Ibid. §§ 18, 21-3 ; Raine, Hist. Ch. of York 

 (Rolls Ser.), i, 387. 



-*= Bede, ut supra, § 18. " Ibid. § 20. 



'' Monumcnta Mogtmtina, Epp. 61-2, 100. 

 =' Sim. Hht. Eccles. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), 41-2. 



Abbot Cuthbert mentioned twenty knives, a 

 bell, and some books which had been previously 

 sent from Jarrow to the bishop, and asked him 

 to send over a glass-worker, as the monks had 

 forgotten the art taught by Benedict's foreign 

 workmen.'" 



Amongst the letters of Alcuin '' are two 

 congratulating Ethelbald and Fridwin respec- 

 tively on their several elections to the abbacy of 

 the twin monasteries, but there is notiiing to 

 indicate the order or exact dates of their succes- 

 sion.^' In another letter Alcuin told the monks 

 of Wearmouth that all he saw whilst with them^' 

 of their domestic arrangements and manner of 

 life pleased him exceedingly ; '^ but on yet 

 another occasion he urged them to pay closer 

 attention to the training of the boys in their 

 charge, to educate them for teachers, and not to 

 let them waste their time in hunting hares and 

 foxes.'' 



In 794 the house at Jarrow was attacked and 

 pillaged by the Danes, who, however, lost their 

 leader and were defeated.'^ Nearly a hundred 

 years later both monasteries were devastated by the 

 same savage foes,'' and from that time until the 

 Norman Conquest they were represented by 

 churches, grievously despoiled indeed, but not 

 wholly ruinous nor deserted. The priest Alfred 

 of Westoe had attended the commemoration of 

 Bede's festival at Jarrow regularly for some years 

 before, in 1022, he succeeded in carrying off the 

 saint's bones by stealth to Durham,'* and it is 

 thought that though no restoration of the monas- 

 tery buildings had taken place since the Danish 

 invasion, some part of St. Peter's Church had been 

 so far repaired as to be usable by the inhabitants 

 of the country round.'^ This theory is borne 

 out by the fact that in 1069, when Bishop 

 Ethelwin and his companions fled from Durham 

 to Lindisfarne with the body of St. Cuthbert, 

 they found shelter on the first night of their 

 journey in St. Paul's Church,^" and in 1070 

 English fugitives took refuge at Wearmouth.''^ In 

 the former of these years King William attacked 

 and fired the church at Jarrow ;^^ and in the 

 latter year Malcolm, king of Scotland, in a raid, 

 burnt down St. Peter's, ' himself looking on.'^' 



^'' Monumenta MogunAna, (ed. JafFe), Ep. 1 34. 



^' Lived 735-804. 



'' Monumenta Akuiniana, Epp. 272-3. 



" Probably before 780 ; see Diet. Nat. Biog. i, 239. 



'^ Monumenta Akuiniana, Ep. 274. 



'' Ibid. Ep. 27. 



=' Sim. Hist. Eee/ts. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), 56; Angl.- 

 Sax. Ckron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 49 ; see Arch. Aeliana, 

 (New Ser.), x, 203-4. 



" Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), i, 393. 



'' Sim. Hist. Eccles. Dun. c. xlii. 



'' Arch. Aeliana (New Ser.), xi, 43-4. 



" Sim. Hist. Eccles. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), 100. 



" Hoveden, Chronica (Rolls Ser.), i, 121. 



" Sim. Dun. Hist. Cont. (Surt. Soc), 85. 



'^ Script. Tres. App. cccc.xxiv. 



83 



