WOMAN'S LONG STRUGGLE 37 



tery became, as Venerable Bede informs us, a school not 

 only for missionaries but for bishops as well. He speaks 

 in particular of six ecclesiastical dignitaries who were 

 sent forth from this noble institution all of whom were 

 bishops. Five of them he describes as men of singular 

 merit and sanctity "singularis meriti et sanctitatis viros," 

 while the sixth, he declared, was a man of rare ability and 

 learning "doctissimus et excellentis ingenii." Of this 

 number was St. John of Beverly, who, we are told, "at- 

 tained a degree of popularity rare even in England, where 

 the saints of old were so universally and so readily popu- 

 lar." 1 Hilda governed her double monastery with singu- 

 lar wisdom and success; and, so great was the love and 

 veneration she inspired among all classes that she merited 

 the epithet of "Mother of her Country." 



Celebrated, however, as Hilda was for her great educa- 

 tional work at Whitby, she is probably better known to the 

 world as the one who first recognized and fostered the 

 rare gifts of the poet Caedmon. "It is on the lips of this 

 cowherd, " as Montalembert beautifully expresses it, "that 

 the Anglo-Saxon speech first bursts into poetry. Indeed, 

 nothing in the whole history of European literature is 

 more original or more religious than this first utterance 

 of the English muse." 2 



As soon as Hilda discovered the extraordinary poetic 

 faculty of Caedmon, she did not hesitate to regard it "as 

 a special gift of God, worthy of all respect and of the most 

 tender care." And, in order that she might the more 

 readily develop the splendid talents of this literary pro- 

 digy, the keen discerning abbess received Caedmon into 

 the monastery of monks, and had him translate the entire 

 Bible into Anglo-Saxon. "As soon as the Sacred Text 

 was read for him he forthwith," as Bede declares, "rumi- 

 nated it as a clean animal ruminates its food, and trans- 



iHistoria Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Lib. IV, Cap. 23. 

 2 The Monies of the West, Book XI, Chap. II. 



