The Life and Times of Aldhelm. 



63 



written till 400 years after his death, and its author was a monk of 

 the Abbey of which Aldhelm was the founder. The honor of the 

 society seemed involved in exalting the fame of its Abbot ; and 

 hence the story of his life abounds in fulsome eulogy and a long 

 detail of presumed miracles 1 which the credulity of the age too 

 willingly accepted as real. In truth, legend and fact are so strongly 

 interwoven in the writings of the early monastic chroniclers, that 

 it is difficult, and, at this distance of time, hopeless to attempt to 

 disentangle them. 



We know, for certain, neither the time nor the place of Aldhelm's 

 birth. Wright, in his " Biographia Literaria," 2 gives it as his 

 opinion, that he could not have been born before the year 656. 

 He relies on a statement made by Wm. of Malmesbury, to the 

 effect that Aldhelm, whilst yet a lad — (the term employed is "pusio" 3 

 which, he contends, could not be applied to any one more than 15 

 or 16 years of age) — went to study in Kent under Hadrian who did 

 not arrive in England till 670. From other authorities, as trust- 

 worthy at least as Wm. of Malmesbury, we learn that he presided 

 over his Abbey for more than 30 years, and was, at the time of his 

 decease in 709, fully 70 years old. This would give an earlier date 

 for his birth by some 16 or 17 years : — in fact would fix it about the 

 year 640. 



There is, among the Glastonbury charters, 4 one of the date 

 of 670, to which the name of Aldhelm is appended as an 

 attesting witness, and he there calls himself "Aldhelm Abbas" 

 There is also, in the Malmesbury Chartulary, a copy of what may 



1 Amongst the miracles ascribed to him were the following. A beam of wood 

 is said on one occasion to have been lengthened by his prayers : the ruins of the 

 church which he built, though open to the skies, were declared never to have 

 been wet with rain during the worst weather : one of his garments, when he 

 was at Rome, it is gravely asserted, remained for a time self- suspended in mid- 

 air. See Turner's Anglo-Saxons, iii., 402. 



2 Biograph: Brit: Literaria, p. 212. 



3 The exact words are — " Ibi pusio Greecis et Latinis eruditus Uteris, brevi 

 mirandus ipsis enituit magistris." Wm. of Malmesbury, MS. Cotton, fol. 128 } 



^Kemble's Cod. Dipl., No. 7. 



