By the Rev. W. R. Jones. 65 



light had just begun to break through the darkness which brooded 

 over it by the extinction of its primitive Christianity through the 

 oppression of the Saxon invaders. Possibly the very year of 

 Aldhelm's birth was that in which Birinus, afterwards Bishop of 

 Dorchester, the real apostle of Wessex, came over from France to 

 England, with the sanction indeed of Rome but without owning 

 any allegiance to the successors of Augustine in the See of Canter- 

 bury, and was the means of inducing King Cynegils and his family 

 to profess the Christian faith. 



Aldhelm was of royal lineage. His father's name was Kenter, a 

 near kinsman of Ina, who in 688 became King of Wessex. Some 

 writers have spoken of him as Ina's nephew, but Wm. of Malmes- 

 bury, referring for his authority to a kind of common-place book ; 

 written by Alfred the Great which seems to have been before him 

 when he compiled the life of Aldhelm, states such an opinion to 

 be incorrect. 1 Indeed a mere comparison of dates would shew its 

 improbability, for though Aldhelm died at the ripe age of 70, the 

 decease of Ina was not till sixteen years afterwards. 



In the charter to which I have already referred, the foundation- 

 deed of the Abbey, there is an expression which implies that from 

 his earliest infancy and throughout his boy-hood he was brought 

 up at Malmesbury. 2 His principal instructor appears to have been 

 Maildulf, a Scot, or perhaps Irish, hermit, who settled here in the 

 earlier part of the seventh century, and of whom it will be necessary 

 presently to give a more particular account. 



passage of which the following is a translation. " Hcedda 'the bishop, with 

 permission of Coedwalh, who, though a heathen, confirmed it with his own hand, 

 gave Lantokay." Haedda was Bishop of Wessex A.D. 675—702. Coedwalh 

 was baptized, and died, at Rome, in 688. 



1 His words are— "Qui enim legit manualem librum Regis Alfredi reperiet 

 beati Aldhelmi patrem non fuisse Regis In&a germanum, sed arctissima 

 necessitate consanguineum." Godwin (Prsesul. Anglic.) speaks of Aldhelm as 

 "propinquus Inae Regis, qui erat, sicuti traditur, ejus ex fratre nepos, si non, 

 quod asserit Capgravius, filius." 



2 Kemble's Cod. Dipl., No. 11. Bishop Leotherius thus speaks of Aldhelm's 

 early association with Malmesbury :— « in quo videlicet loco a primo £evo 

 VOL. VIII. — NO. XXII. -p 



