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EBERT'S ACCOUNT OF BEDA.

Northumberland, in order, as he says, to leave the reader no ground for doubt. The most eminent clergy of the several provinces aided his undertaking; one brought him also from Rome transcripts of bulls from the papal archives. Everywhere we discern the pursuit of truth and that faithful reproduction 5 of tradition, which, as he himself says in his preface, is 'the true law of history'. Moreover Beda appears throughout this work as a master of the learning of his times, with whose comprehensive knowledge probably no man then living could vie; he can discover and appreciate what is really important, though 10 no less a dupe to the current faith in miracles than the far more ignorant and unenlightened historian of the Franks. If in his opinion also (as the preface tells us) the worth of history is principally moral, as it incites us to imitate good and avoid evil, yet in the narrative itself the moral tendency is less obtrusive than 15 in Gregory of Tours. It bears throughout the stamp of a rare fairness and objectivity, which is maintained even in ecclesiastical matters, as in relation to the Scots. Herewith accords the calm, even tone of the relation, which in its diction, clear, natural and yet for the age so pure, affords the surest evidence 20 of mental discipline won by the study of the ancients and of the chief fathers of the church.

A supplement to the great historical work—important especially for the history of civilisation and often exceedingly attractive-is Beda's little book, founded partly on a sermon 25

introd I xxiv seq and cf Schmid
Gesetze der Angelsachsen 11 xlix

seq.
It is there said at the end
lectoremque suppliciter obsecro ut si
qua in his quae scripsimus aliter
quam se ueritas habet, posita reppe-
rerit, non hoc nobis imputet, qui,
quae uera lex historiae est,
simpliciter ea quae fama uul-
gante collegimus ad instruc-
tionem posteritatis litteris
mandare studuimus.

22 It may be added that in many

mss and edd of the historian a very short 'epitome' is appended, recapitulating the chief dates in chronological order; whether composed by Beda himself, we cannot 30 determine.

25 By a monk of his cloister; it may be seen in Stevenson II 318 -334. On such uitae generally see above pp 429-431 [where 35 the biographical works of Jerome, Rufinus, Sulpicius Seuerus, Ennodius, Hilary, Eugippius, are mentioned, and two classes dis

. WEARMOUTH AND JARROW.

7

in commemoration of St Ceolfrid: VITÁ BEATORVM ABBATVM WIREMVTHIENSIVM ET GIRVENSIVM BENEDICTI, CEOLFRIDI, EASTERWINI, SIGFRIDI ATQVE HVETBERTI. These are the abbats of his own fraternity, some of them his tutors and 5 teachers. The most interesting life is Benedict's, which also fills the largest part of the book. Benedict, originally called Biscop, an Angle of noble descent, 'minister' of king Oswy, when about twenty-five years of age devoted himself to the religious life, becoming a monk in Lerinum; he then by the pope's 10 command attended abp Theodore from Rome to England and afterwards founded the two monasteries on the Wear and Tyne. His unwearied activity-he travels to Rome alone five times and brings from Gaul even the masons for church building—is truly admirable. Benedict's services to culture in England are 15 very great; he it was who made Beda's works even possible. For he brought, as we here learn, from each of his pilgrimages to Rome not only great store of books, but also (which was a motive of such journeys) pictures to adorn the monastic churches. At one time the pictures were intended for St Peter's 20 Wearmouth, at another for St Paul's Jarrow and for the monastery there. In this case, as Beda says, regard was had chiefly to the concordia of the O and N T. But Benedict also brought costly silk robes ‘of incomparable work', which he exchanged for land with the king and his counsellors. For the church 25 windows he imported glaziers from Gaul, Britain having till then been destitute of artists in this trade. He also brought

tinguished, the one more rhetorical, in imitation of the heathen panegyrics, e.g. sermons on the saint's 30 festival, the other unpretending narratives].

17 c 5 p 295 22 Smith innumerabilem librorum omnis generis copiam apportauit. cf c 4 pr [and 35 c 8]. The books were partly gifts, partly purchases; in Gaul also, especially at Vienne, he bought books on his journey.

19 P 295 35 Smith pictures of

the virgin, the twelve apostles, the apocalyptic visions; we are told also in the same place how they were exhibited.

22

c 8 p 297 uerbi gratia: Isaac ligna quibus immolaretur portantem et dominum crucem in qua pateretur aeque portantem proxima super inuicem regione pictura coniunxit. item serpenti in eremo a Moyse exaltato filium hominis in cruce exaltatum comparauit.

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EBERT'S ACCOUNT OF BEDA.

to England the papal arch-chanter, who became in the first instance the teacher of his monastery, in particular of our Beda; but from all English convents monks resorted to him to learn singing. Thus Benedict promoted England's civilisation in the most various directions, and Ceolfrid emulated his example. The 5 picture of these admirable men appears in their scholar's beautiful tract the more serene, as no sort of miracle is recorded of them. Another supplement to Beda's church history, to which, as of much earlier date, he also alludes in the course of it, is the book DE VITA ET MIRACVLIS S CVTHBERTI EPISCOPI LINDIS- 10 FARNENSIS. This prose work, undertaken at the request of a successor of Cuthbert's, Eadfrid, and of the monks of Lindisfarne, adopts here and there the language of an earlier work of Beda's, a poem DE MIRACVLIS S CVTHBERTI. It is not however a mere version of this latter, but an independent work, 15 as appears even from the preface. Beda, as he there assures us, had taken all pains to report the truth, having first communicated his manuscript to some monks long intimate with Cuthbert, and then submitted a copy revised in accordance with their judgement to the criticism of a meeting of elders and 20 teachers of Lindisfarne monastery, who however found nothing further to alter. The difference between the subject-matter of the prose life and the poem is correctly indicated by their titles: in the latter only the miracles are recorded, while the former embraces in addition the remainder of the saint's life. Beda 25 had indeed promised such a supplement in the preface to his poem. As regards the subject-matter therefore, it will suffice here to notice the prose work, the poem, as regards its form, being reserved for later consideration. The main source however, from which Beda drew his materials, is still extant, a life 30 of the saint by a monk of Lindisfarne.

Still Beda's VITA CVTHBERTI, in spite of all well-meant precautions in the interest of historic truth and in spite of the citation of eyewitnesses, is distinguished from his VITA ABBATVM, as a historical romance from history. The romantic 35

24 Even Cuthbert's admission to the monastery is barely alluded to.

[31 Printed in Stevenson's Beda II 259-284.]

LIFE OF CUTHBERT.

9

element lies in the miracles, which play here, as in the poem, a principal part. Not only are the most natural things wrested into miracles, but all the saint's trances, who like St Martin believed that he was often visited by angels and devils, pass 5 current as simple truth; to say nothing of his sympathetic cures. On the other hand however the book is not wholly devoid of real historical facts, which give it greater worth. Thus we read (c 9 sqq) how Cuthbert as provost of Melrose at the time of the plague withstood the general relapse into heathen 10 superstition by journeying alone for months through the country preaching, or how, when transferred to Lindisfarne, he introduced a stricter rule into this monastery afterwards so famous, or lastly how as a hermit in the rocky islet Farne he led a solitary Robinson-Crusoe kind of life (here depicted in all detail), 15 to be summoned from thence to the most momentous political deliberations (c 24), or to the bishop's throne (AD 685), which however he filled only two years, then to return to his hermitage.

As Beda grounds this prose life of a saint on a poem of his own, so too, probably at an earlier date, he wrote on the basis 20 of Paulinus' natalicia a shorter prose life of St Felix, because, as he says in the preface, the hexameters of Paulinus were more accessible to 'metrical' than to plain readers. For the benefit of these latter, the great majority, he had executed the work on the model of the prose metaphrast of Prudentius' hymn on Cassianus.

25

One other historical work, and that of great importance for literary history, was composed by Beda. This work, whose influence in the middle ages was still more extensive than that of his church history, belongs to a region of strictly

6 Cuthbert, just like Martin in 30 his old age, loved to descant on the miracles wrought by him; often too he covertly hinted more than he exprest (see c 7).

19 It stands higher in the cata35 logue of his works.

20 Esp c IV, V, VI. See above 291 -4. [On each anniversary of his patron saint's death, (his dies natalis, birthday into eternity) Paulinus

wrote a panegyric on him. Thirteen of these poems are extant entire, beside a fragment of a fourteenth.]

24 To whom Beda here alludes, must remain uncertain; but it is noticeable that the literary fashion, so usual in the later middle age, of resolving into prose the versified lives of saints, seems already to have come into voguc.

ΙΟ

EBERT'S ACCOUNT OF BEDA.

scientific studies, in which Beda's learning appears for that time truly marvellous. I mean his chronicle of the world, composed 725-6 by way of appendix to his great chronolcgical work DE TEMPORVM RATIONE, and as an integral part of it. The latter was preceded by a much smaller book 5 DE TEMPORIBVS, containing as it were only the outlines of the complete work, and written as early as 703 (c 14). Here too we find an outline of the chronicle, embracing not only fewer dates, but also far fewer facts and those only in the curt style of inscriptions. To give a conception of the propor- 10 tionate bulk of the two works, and also of the two universal chronicles appended to them, I may remark, that in Giles' edition the chronological section of the book 'de temporibus' occupies 9, its chronicle 6 pages, as against 129 and 61 pages respectively of the 'de temporum ratione'.

15

The greater chronological work is accordingly only an expansion of the smaller, though with the intercalation of some entirely new paragraphs. As Beda says in the preface, he undertook it by desire of his 'brethren', for whom the treatment of the subject in the book 'de temporibus' was far too 20 brief. More precisely to indicate the contents of this work, which Ideler terms a complete guide to the calculation of times and festivals:-we find here discussed the mode of reckoning on the fingers, the divisions of time, weights, the day, the night, the week—including the so-called great week, the week of 25 ages c 10-the months-where beside the Roman, those also of the Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks and Angles are considered, the last from patriotism—, the signs of the month (constella

4 In the introduction to the chronicle c IO 'de temporum ratione' is cited as supra.

22 Handbuch der Chronologie II 292.

24 These first two chapters are entirely wanting in the smaller work; in many mss. of the larger also they are not found, but rather as independent treatises, while in the Brit Mus mss according to

Giles (vi p vii) they are incorporated in the work 'de temp rat', 30 and certainly they appear here connected with the whole in style also.

25 The world-week. See Lactantius above 80 [diu inst VII 14- 35 26 where each day stands for 1000 years.]

26 c15 antiqui autem Anglorum populi (neque enim mihi congruum

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