Notes

NOTES.

1. S. Coi.UMBA was born of royal descent at Gartan in Donegal on Dec. 7, 520 or 521. Educated under the two Finnians and others, he was in due time ordained deacon and priest, but never raised to the episcopate. He taught at Glasnevin near Dublin until the plague broke up the school in 544, when he returned to the north of Ireland, and founded numerous monasteries, the most important of which were Durrow (Dearmach), Derry and Kells. Dr Reeves enumerates thirtyseven of these foundations in Ireland. The actual circumstances which led to his leaving his native country are variously given. The bestknown story is as follows. In his enthusiasm for manuscripts he had secretly copied a Psalter belonging to Finnian, who thereupon claimed the copy as his own. The matter was referred to king Diarmid, Columba's kinsman, at Tara, who decided in favour of Finnian, saying: 'To every cow her calf; so to every book its copy.' Offended at this decision Columba stirred up the families of the north Hy Neills against the south Hy Neills who acknowledged Diarmid, and the result was the defeat of Diarmid, owing to the prayers and songs of Columba. Columba's Latin copy of the Psalter became the national relic of the O'Donnell clan, and for a thousand years was carried with them to battle. It is still preserved, and from its date may well have been written by the saint. But whatever was the immediate cause of quarrel, it seems certain that the battle of Cooldrevny (Coledebrina) fought in 561 between the Hy Neills was attributed in a great measure to Columba's influence.

A synod held at Teltown in Meath censured his conduct, though apparently it did not excommunicate him. Stung with remorse, he sailed from Ireland with twelve companions, a voluntary exile for the cause of Christ (pro Christo peregrinari volens mavigavit, Adamnan pref. 2), and settled in the island of Iona (Hy) in the year 563 (see

D. S. 13

Reeves' Life of S. Columba; Bede H. E. iii. 4 gives it 565). Here he founded his chief monastery, and evangelised the heathen Picts. He also taught more carefully the Scots, who had already been converted to Christianity by S. Ninian. For thirty-five years S. Columba laboured with wonderful energy, travelling through great parts of Scotland, and penetrating northward as far as Inverness, and eastward into Aberdeenshire, founding churches, and monastic institutions, among others the famous monastery of Deer. He frequently visited Ireland on matters connected with his monasteries, which he superintended until the end.

The circumstances of his death are very touching. On the Saturday afternoon he was transcribing the thirty-third Psalm. He reached the verse, 'They who seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good,' and then said, 'Here I must stop; what follows let Baithen write.' As the midnight bell summoned the brethren to the matins of the Sunday festival he hastened before the other monks to the chapel. When lights were brought, they found him prostrate before the altar, and in the act of blessing them he passed away with a smile upon his face, 'doubtless seeing the holy angels coming to meet him.' This according to Dr Reeves' computation was early in the morning of Sunday, June 9, A.d. 597.

The chief authority for the life of S. Columba is his biography by Adamnan, ninth abbot of Iona, written between 692 and 697 (edited by Reeves Dublin 1857). See also Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 4, Montalembert Monks of the West iii. p. 97 sq. (Engl. trans.), and especially Reeves' Life of S. Columba in Historians of Scotland Vol. VI.

2. This devoted follower was Mochonna, son of the provincial king of Ulster. 'In vain Columba represented to him that he ought not to abandon his parents and native soil. "It is thou," answered the young man, "who art my father, the Church is my mother, and my country is where I can gather the largest harvest for Christ." Then, in order to render all resistance impossible, he made a solemn vow aloud to leave his country and follow Columba, " I swear to follow thee wherever thou goest, until thou hast led me to Christ, to whom thou hast consecrated me."' Montalembert Monks of the West iii. p. 132.

3. 'It was the general belief of the time that all islands fell under the jurisdiction of the Papal See, and it was as a possession of the Roman Church that Henry sought Hadrian's permission to enter Ireland. His aim was "to enlarge the bounds of the Church, to restrain the progress of vices, to correct the manners of its people and to plant virtue among them, and to increase the Christian religion." He engaged to "subject the people to laws, to extirpate vicious customs, to respect the rights of the native Churches, and to enforce the payment of Peter's pence" as a recognition of the overlordship of the Roman See. Hadrian by his bull approved the enterprize as one prompted by "the ardour of faith and love of religion," and declared his will that the people of Ireland should receive Henry with all honour, and revere him as their lord.' Green History of the English People i. 176. Hadrian IV (Nicholas Breakespeare), a native of S. Albans and the antagonist of Frederick Barbarossa, was pope from 1154 to 1159 (Milman Latin Christianity Book VIII. ch. 7).

4. On the influence of S. Columban (543—615) and his Celtic followers upon the evangelisation of Europe see Montalembert Monks of the West ii. p. 387 sq, Neander Church History v. p. 39 sq. He preached in France, Switzerland and Italy. His principal monasteries were Luxeuil in the Vosges, and Bobbio near Milan. St Gall on Lake Constance was founded and named after his companion Gallus. S. Columban first gave the impulse to the missionary enterprise in England and Ireland which produced Cilian, Wilfrid, Willibrord, Willibald, Winfrid (Boniface) and many others.

6. Paulinus was one of four monks sent from Rome by Gregory the Great in 601 to recruit the mission of Augustine. In 625 he was chosen to accompany as chaplain Ethelburga, daughter of Eadbald, king of Kent, when she went to be bride to Edwin, king of Northumbria; and he was consecrated bishop of York by Justus, archbishop of Canterbury. Though allowed free exercise of his religion, he made little or no impression on king or court, until the escape of Edwin from an assassin's dagger on Easter-eve 626, and the birth to him of a daughter the same night, were taken advantage of by Paulinus to direct his attention to Christianity. Edwin allowed the infant to be baptized at Pentecost, but with characteristic caution hesitated to embrace the faith; and it was not until the following winter that he summoned his Witan at Goodmanham to listen to the preaching of Paulinus. The effect of the conference was immediate: Coifi, the chief Pagan priest, took the lead in the desecration of the heathen shrine at Goodmanham: on Easter-eve 627, in a wooden chapel erected for that purpose at York on the site of the present Minster, Edwin and his nobles were baptized, and the impulse thus given to Christianity was felt through the length and breadth of the great kingdom of Northumbria. Everywhere crowds flocked to receive baptism at Paulinus' hands. The Glen in Northumberland, the Derwent in Durham, the Eure and the Swale in Yorkshire are rivers associated with his missionary journeys. Pallinsburn, some three miles from the Tweed near the well-known field of Flodden, preserves his name. His traditionary well at Holystone, in the Coquet valley, is still shown. He even penetrated as far south as Lindsey, then subject to Northumbria, and preached at Lincoln; and there he consecrated Honorius to be fifth archbishop of Canterbury. But he appears to have taken no steps to organize his work. The results, though brilliant, were superficial, and when the defeat and death of Edwin at Hatfield (Oct. 12, 633) were followed by the cruel devastation of Northumbria by Penda and Cadwalla, he felt that Christianity was a lost cause, abandoned his bishopric, and set sail with the widowed Ethelburga for Kent, where archbishop Honorius and king Eadbald gave him the see of Rochester. Next autumn arrived from Rome the pall intended for him as archbishop of York in accordance with Gregory's original scheme for two archbishoprics in England each with twelve suffragan bishops. But it came too late: and so Paulinus was never archbishop. He died bishop of Rochester Oct. 10, 644, and was buried in the chapter-house there. See Bede Hist. Eccl. i. 29; ii. 9, 12—14, 16—18, 20; iii. 1, 14.

6. Nullum fidei Christianae signum, nulla ecclesia, nullum altare in tota Berniciorum gente erectum est, priusquam hoc sacrae crucis vexillum novus militiae ductor, dictante fidei devotione, contra hostem immanissimum pugnaturus statueret. Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 2.

7. Montalembert Monks of the West iv. p. 88.

8. Montalembert Monks of the West iv. p. 125.

9. Montalembert Monks of the Westiv. p. 126.

10. Habere autem solet ipsa insula rectorem semper abbatem presbyterum, cujus juri et omnis provincia, et ipsi etiam episcopi, ordine inusitato, debeant esse subjecti, juxta exemplum primi doctoris illius, qui non episcopus, sed presbyter extitit et monachus (Moreover, the island itself is wont to have always an abbot, who is a presbyter, for its ruler, to whose jurisdiction all the province and the bishops also themselves, after an unusual order, are bound to be subject, according to the example of their famous first teacher, who was not a bishop, but a presbyter and a monk) Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 4. See also Bright Early English Church History (2nd edition) p. 139 sq.

11. The three forms of tonsure were (1) the Roman (S. Peter's) 'the hair shorn away from the top of the head in a circular shape more or less wide, according as the wearer happened to be high or low in order: the hair clipt over the ears and all about the neck in such a way, that from behind and on the sides it looked like a ring or crown around the head;' (2) the Celtic 'made by cutting away the hair from the upper part of the forehead in the figure of a half-moon, with the convex side before;' (3) the Greek (S. Paul's) the shaving of the whole head. Great importance was attached to the form of tonsure. Theodore of Tarsus when nominated archbishop of Canterbury 'waited four months' in Rome 'until his hair should be grown, so that it might be shorn in the shape of a crown. For he had had the tonsure of the holy apostle Paul, after the manner of the Easterns (quatuor exspectavit menses, donee illi coma cresceret, quo in coronam tonderi posset; habuerat enim tonsuram more orientalium sancti apostoli Pauli)' Bede Hist. Eccl. iv. 1. The Celtic tonsure was nicknamed by its opponents 'the tonsure of Simon Magus' (Bede Hist. Eccl. v. 21). See Mayor and Lumby Bede p. 293 sq.

The question of the keeping of Easter was a more intricate one. There was no dispute as to the day of the week, for, like the Roman, the Celtic Church kept the festival always on a Sunday. The Celtic Church therefore was never Quartodeciman, and Colman's appeal at the Council of Whitby to the precedent of S. John was rightly disproved by Wilfrid. The difference between the usages was twofold; (1) in calculating the date of Easter, the Celtic Churches used an antiquated and imperfect Paschal Calendar, which elsewhere had been superseded by a more accurate reckoning; (2) the Celtic Church allowed Easter day to fall on the fourteenth day of the moon, the Roman Church never before the fifteenth day. Eanfleda, Oswy's queen, who had been brought up in Kent, observed the Roman usage; hence, as Bede tells us (Hist. Eccl. iii. 25) 'it sometimes happened in those times that the paschal feast was kept twice in one year; and when the king, having ended his fast, was keeping the Lord's paschal feast, the queen with her court still continuing in her fast was keeping Palm Sunday.' See further in Bright, pp. 79 sq., 202 sq.

12. The Council of Whitby (Streanieshalch) was held in the spring of 664 to settle these points. Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, Hilda, abbess of Whitby, Cedd, bishop of the East-Saxons (then on a visit to Lastingham) represented the Celtic usage, to which king Oswy also inclined : queen Eanfleda, her son, prince Alchfrid, Agilbert the Frank, bishop of Dorchester, James the Deacon, a survivor of the mission of Paulinus, Tuda, an Irish bishop recently arrived in Northumbria, and above all, Wilfrid, abbot of Ripon, supported the Roman view. King Oswy presided, and when Colman had spoken in favour of the customs of Lindisfame called upon Agilbert on the other side. He not being able to speak Saxon requested that his disciple Wilfrid might be spokesman on his behalf. Thereupon Wilfrid, whose visits to France and Rome gave him a great advantage over his opponents, had little difficulty in disposing of the arguments of Colman. The end of the debate was remarkable. Colman, after his appeal to S. John had been d'sproved, had quoted in support of his view Anatolius and Columba. Wilfrid replied, 'Even if your Columba,—let me say ours if he was Christ's—was a saint and a wonder worker, ought he therefore to be preferred to the most blessed chief of the apostles, to whom the Lord said, '' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it: and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven?"' King Oswy was much impressed by this reference. He asked Colman whether the words were really spoken by Christ to S. Peter? 'Certainly.' 'Did He ever give the like power to your Columba?' 'No.' 'You both agree that these words were said especially to Peter, and that the keys of heaven were given him by the Lord.' 'Yes,' they both said, 'certainly.' 'And I tell you, that this is that doorkeeper, whom I choose not to contradict, but as far as I know or am able, I desire in all things to obey his rulings; lest perchance when I come to the doors of the kingdom of heaven, I may find none to unbar them for me, if he be averse who is proved to hold the keys.' And with that he decided against the Celtic party. Colman retired first to Iona, afterwards to Inisboffin, an island off the coast of Mayo, leaving Eata, abbot of Melrose, formerly one of Aidan's ' twelve boys,' to rule, as abbot, over those of his brethren who preferred to remain behind at Lindisfame. See Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 25, 26.

13. Montalembert Monks of the West iv. p. 170.

14. See the panegyric of Bede (Hist. Eccl. iii. 26), a summary of which is given in Montalembert Monks of the West iv. 22 sq.

18. In 675, when contemplating the monastery of Wearmouth, Benedict Biscop brings back from Gaul 'masons to erect a church in the Roman style, which he had always admired (caementarios qui lapideam sibi ecclesiam juxta Romanorum, quern semper amabat, morem facerent).' Bede Vitae B. Abbatum 5. At Ripon and Hexham Wilfrid erected stone churches of great magnificence. In 710 we find Naiton (Nectan), king of the Picts, sending to Ceolfrid, abbot of Jarrow, for 'architects to build a church of stone in his nation in the Roman style (architected petiit qui juxta morem Romanorum ecclesiam de lapide in gente ipsius facerent)' Bede Hist. Eccl. v. 21.

16. On the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals see Neander Church History (Torrey's translation) vi. p. 1 sq. A collection of ecclesiastical laws had been drawn up in the sixth century by Dionysius Exiguus containing the papal decrees from the time of Pope Siricius (384—398) downwards. This collection was widely circulated, and was added to from time to time by the admission of later ecclesiastical ordinances. One of the best known of these recensions was that of the learned Isidore of Seville (560—636). But in the ninth century suddenly appeared, under the name of Isidore, a collection no longer commencing from the fourth century, but comprising a complete series of decretals of the Roman bishops from Clement of Rome (c. 92—100) onwards. It was headed by five letters purporting to have been written by Clement, of which one was a Latin translation by Rufinus (c. 398—402) of a spurious letter to James, which is found in Greek prefixed to the Clementine Homilies, a work of the second century; the others later fabrications. The letters from subsequent bishops of Rome in this collection abound in anachronisms and blunders of such a kind that a less credulous age would have detected the imposture at once; and the whole series was designed to set forth in the completest way, and to invest with the authority of great antiquity, the inviolability of the Church, and the claim of the Pope, as the head of Christendom, to be the sole court of appeal in civil and religious matters alike.

17. John, surnamed the Faster, patriarch of Constantinople (585— 595) had assumed the title of ' oecumenical' or 'universal' bishop in the time of Pelagius, Gregory's predecessor. The title was not a novelty, nor did it apparently imply a claim for jurisdiction over the whole church; but Gregory remonstrated strongly in his letters. Writing to the emperor Maurice he declares (Ep. vii. 33), Ego fidenter dico quia quisquis se universalem episcopum vocat, vel vocari desiderat, in electione sua Antichristum praecurrit, quia superbiendo se caeteris proponit. Nec dispari superbia ad errorem ducitur quia, sicut perversus ille deus videri vult super omnes homines, ita quisquis iste est, qui solus sacerdos appellari appetit, super reliquos sacerdotes se extollit (I say confidently that whoever styles himself 'universal bishop,' or seeks to be so styled, becomes by his own choice a precursor of Antichrist; because by his proud vaunting he places himself above the rest. In a like spirit of pride he is being led away into error; for just as that false god wishes to seem superior to all men, so whoever this person is, who covets to be called priest all to himself, he exalts himself above his fellow priests). Again in a letter addressed to Eusebius, bishop of Thessalonica and other bishops (Ep. ix. 60), after an allusion to superbum et pestiferum oecumenici, id est universalis, vocabulum (the proud and pestilent title of 'oecumenical' or 'universal'), he continues, Quia hoc jam, ut videmus, mundi hujus termino propinquante, in praecursione sua apparuit humani generis inimicus, ut ipsos, qui ei contradicmre bene atque humiliter vivendo debuerunt per hoc superbiae vocabulum praecursores habeat sacerdotes, hortor et suadeo ut nullus vestrum hoc nomen aliquando recipiat (Since therefore with the end of this world approaching, as we see, in his due time of forerunning has appeared the enemy of the human race, so as to have as his precursors the very men who ought to have given him the lie by living good and humble lives, the priests, I advise and urge that none of you on any account admit this title). And later on in the same- letter, Quis, rogo, in hoc tam perverso vocabulo nisi ille ad imitandum proponitur, qui, despectis angelorum legionibus secum sociabiliter constitutis, ad culmen conatus est singularitatis erumpere, ut et nulli subesse et solus omnibus praeesse videretur (Who, I ask, in this preposterous title is held up for imitation but he who despised the legions of angels which had been associated with himself on equal terms, and essayed to force his way to the topmost point of singularity, so that he might appear not merely inferior to none, but sole head above all)? Many equally strong passages might be quoted from Ep. v. 18, 20, 43; vii. 31, 33; viii. 30, ix. 68. See Robertson History of the Christian Church ii. 376 sq.

18. Tennyson The Passing of Arthur \. 183.

19. Finan, the successor of S. Aidan and the predecessor of Colman in the bishopric of Lindisfame (651—661), built the church at Lindisfame 'after the manner of the Scots (Celts), not of stone but entirely of hewn oak, and thatched it with reeds (more Scottorum non de lapide sed de robore secto totam composuit atque harundine texit)' Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 25. This may be considered the mother-church of the present cathedral at Durham, the chief intermediate links being bishop Eardulph's wooden church at Chester-le-Street (883) and bishop Aldhun's stone church at Durham completed 999, and pulled down to make room for the present structure. On Aug. 11, 1093 the foundation stone of Durham Cathedral was laid in the presence of William of Carileph, bishop of Durham, Turgot, prior of the monastery, afterwards bishop of S. Andrews, and perhaps also Malcolm, king of Scotland. The building went on rapidly, and at the death of William of Carileph (Jan. 6, 1095—6) was completed from the east end of the choir as far as the first great bay of the nave, including the piers and arches which carry the central tower. Bishop Ralph Flambard (1099—1128) finished the nave, including the side aisles and their roofs as far as the vaultings, and also the western towers up to the height of the nave. See Greenwell Durham Cathedral (2nd ed.) p. 21 sq.

20. Ecclesiasticus xlix. 4, 'All, except David and Ezekias and Josias, were defective: for they forsook the law of the most High, even the kings of Juda failed.'

21. The references are 2 Chron. xxxiii. 23, xxxiv. 2, 2 Kings xxi. 13, xxiii. 22, 25.

22. Zechariah xii. 11'In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.'

23. Revelation xvi. 16.

24. Ecclesiasticus xlix. I—3.

26. Elfric and Ella were brothers; Osric was the son of Elfric; Edwin and Acha the son and the daughter of Ella; Acha married Ethelfrid and became the mother of Eanfrid, Oswald and Oswy. Oswald was therefore younger brother of Eanfrid, and second cousin (through his mother) of Osric.

The union or separation of the two kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira was bound up with the varying fortunes of the Deiran dynasty of Yffi father of Ella, and the Bemician dynasty of Ida father of Ethelric. Of the Deiran dynasty, Ella, Osric, and Oswin ruled over Deira, and Edwin was strong enough to annex Bernicia also: of the Bernician dynasty, which was the more powerful, Ethelric, Ethelfrid, and Oswald governed Deira as well as Bernicia ; but Oswy until Oswin's death was obliged to be content with Bernicia.

26, 27. Infaustus ille annus et omnibus bonis exosus usque hodie permanet, tam propter apostasiam regum Anglorum qua se fidei sacramentis exuerant, quam propter vesanam Brettonici regis tyrannidem. Unde cunctis placuit regum tempora computantibus, ut ablata de medio regum perfidorum memoria idem annus sequentis regis, id est Osualdi, viri Deo dilecti, regno adsignaretur (This year remains to this day illomened and hateful to all good men, both by reason of the apostasy of the kings of the Angles, who had renounced the sacraments of the faith, and because of the mad tyranny of the British king. Wherefore it has seemed good to all who have computed the chronology of the kings to wipe out absolutely the memory of the renegade kings, and to assign the year in question to the reign of the following king, that is Oswald, the man beloved of God) Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 1.

28. Bede Hist. Eccl. in. 2. 'The battle seems to have been fought near S. Oswald's [seven miles north of Hexham]; but Cadwalla fell at a place, on the south and opposite side of the Tyne, called Denisesburna, from the rivulet Denis, now Rowley-water, which flows into the Devil's Water above Dilston.' Greenwell Durham Cathedral p. 3.

29. The battle of Maserfield was fought on Aug. 5, 642, eight years after Heavenfield (Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 9). S. Oswald had reconquered Lindsey from Penda, hence his quarrel with the Mercian king. After his victory, Penda struck off S. Oswald's head (as he had struck off Edwin's head nine years before at Hatfield), and set it up on a pole on the battle-field. It was rescued, carried to Lindisfame, and buried by S. Aidan; but afterwards exhumed and taken to Bamborough, where it remained till S. Cuthbert's time. In 875 when the monks of Lindisfame retired before the Danes, it was placed in S. Cuthbert's coffin, and accompanied the wanderings of that saint. The historian of the translation of S. Cuthbert's remains in 1104 states that the head was found and left with them (so also Reginald of Durham c. 42, and Malmesb. Gest. Pontif. iii. 134). In 1827 when S. Cuthbert's grave was opened the skull was still there (Raine S. Cuthbert p. 187). S. Oswald's body was removed by his niece Osthryd to the monastery of Bardney (Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 11), and in the tenth century taken to Gloucester and placed in a shrine.

SO. Adamnan Vita Columbae i. 1. Oswald told the dream to the abbot Seghine.

31. Plato Republic v. 473 (Davies and Vaughan's translation p. 186).

32. Collect in the Sarum use for August 5.

¹ Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui hujus diei jocundam sanctamque laetitiam in sancti servi tui Oswaldi passione consecrasti; da cordibus nostris tui timoris caritatisque augmentum, ut cujus in terris sancti sanguinis effusionem celebramus, illius in caelo collata patrocinia sentiamus. Per Dominum nostrum.' Procter and Wordsworth Breviarium ad Usum Sarum. Fasc. iii. p. 589.

33. Bede Hist. Eccl. ii. 20.

34. Cadwalla, king of Gwynedd or North Wales, defeated by Edwin 'in his thirst for vengeance allied himself, Briton and Christian as he was, with a Saxon prince who combined in his own person the fiercest energy of a Teuton warrior with the sternest resistance to the progress of the new creed: who, succeeding to power at fifty years old, was for thirty years the prop and the sword of Heathenism, and also came near to reducing the various kingdoms to a monarchy centred in the youngest of them all. This was Penda the Strenuous, king of the Mercians, whose name was long a terror to the inmates of cell and minster in every Christianised district. There is a sort of weird grandeur in the career of one who in his time slew five kings, and might seem as irresistible as destiny.' Bright Early English Church History p. 132.

He slew Edwin at Hatfield (633), Egric and Sigebert, kings of East-Anglia (635), Oswald at Maserfield (642), Anna, king of EastAnglia (654), and was himself slain by Oswy at Winwidfield (Nov. 15, 655). 'With Penda fell paganism.' Penda's son, Peada, had been baptized by Finan, bishop of Lindisfarne, two years before his father's death, and when the great kingdom of Mercia became free and united again under Penda's son Wulfhere, the teaching of the Celtic bishops Diuma and Cellach had won its way, and monarch and people embraced Christianity.

35. Bede Hist. Eccl. ii. 16.

36. Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 5. The name of the first missionary sent was Corman (Bellenden's Boece ix. 10, vol. ii. p. 105).

37. The chief passages in Bede in praise of S. Aidan are Hist. Eccl. iii. 3, s, 14, r7.

38. 'Quid loqueris, rex? Numquid tibi carior est ille filius equae, quam ille filius Dei?' Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 14. 'It seems probable from the gender of this word [equae] that the tradition which represents the bishop as playing in his answer on the words 'mare' and'Mary' gives the correct version of the story, the former portion of which play on words is given in the Saxon 'myran sunu.' See Higden Polychronicon v. 15.' Mayor and Lumby Bede p. 247.

39. Cedd (Cedda) was one of four Celtic missionaries sent (653) by Oswy into Mid-Anglia (the part of Mercia which lay between the Trent and the Bedford district) at the request of his son-in-law, the convert Peada,—the first mission to the Midlands. The missionaries also preached in Mercia proper. Cedd however did not remain there many months, being summoned by Oswy to head a mission to the East Saxons, where king Sigebert, who had been baptized by Finan the same year as Peada, was asking for Christian teachers. The next year,—being thirty-eight years after the failure of the Roman mission there by the expulsion of Mellitus from London,—Cedd was consecrated by Finan to be bishop of the East Saxons, but his seat was Tilbury, not London. Bishop Cedd paid many visits to Northumbria and founded Lastingham. He acted as interpreter at the Council of Whitby (664), and dying of the plague the same year was buried at Lastingham (Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 21—23).

Chad (Ceadda), the younger and more famous brother of Cedd, became abbot of Lastingham on the death of his brother in 664. On the retirement of bishop Colman from Northumbria, Wilfrid had been raised to the see of York, and had gone to France for consecration, but showed no disposition to return; whereupon Oswy prevailed on Chad to become bishop of York, and sent him to Canterbury to be consecrated by archbishop Deusdedit. He found the archbishop dead of the plague, but was consecrated by Wini, bishop of Wessex, and two British bishops. Ceadda continued to act as bishop of York until archbishop Theodore's visitation in 669, who detected the irregularity of his consecration. Chad resigned his see, and retired to Lastingham; but Theodore, who was struck with his piety and humility, on the death of Jaruman, bishop of Mercia, suggested him through Oswy to Wulfhere for the see of Mercia. He had previously corrected the informality of his consecration. Chad's see comprised the whole of Mercia proper, MidAnglia, and Lindsey; and his seat was Lichfield. After an exemplary episcopate he died March 2, 672. Bede is loud in his praises of Chad's character (Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 23, 28; iv. 1, 3). Chad is the patron saint of Lichfield.

40. Bede Hist. Eccl. iii. 17.

41. S. Aidan's Herrington, and S. Aidan's Benwell in Newcastleon-Tyne. There are now (April, 1890) in the present diocese of Durham six churches associated with S. Aidan's name; three (at Herrington, Blackhill and South Shields) already consecrated; three (at West Hartlepool, Sunderland and Gateshead) in course of erection, or shortly to be commenced.

43. Coleridge's Confessions of an Inquiring Mind p. 307 (ed. Bohn).

43. The exact date of S. Hilda's. death is November 17, 680 (anno Dominicae incaraationis sexcentesimo octogesimo die quintadecima kalendarum Decembrium Bede Hist. Eccl. iv. 23). Her day has been misplaced, and is usually, but wrongly, kept on November 18 (Alban Butler).

44. Hild is the name of a Saxon war-goddess; Hilda is the Scandinavian goddess of war and victory; Veleda, a German deified heroine, is mentioned in Tacitus Germ. 8; Hist. iv. 61, 65; Statius Sill/. 1. iv. 90.

45. The site of S. Hilda's monastery on the Wear has not been identified. Bede describes it as a small establishment, locum unius f