Oswald

ON ST. OSWALD, KING AND MARTYR,

IN ENGLAND.

In the year 642.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Oswald, King and Martyr, in England (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. P.

§ I. His birth, education, victory, reign, the propagation of the Christian faith, a church completed, a bishopric erected.

Beware of confusing today's St. Oswald, king of Northumbria and martyr, with the Saint of the same name, His birth bishop of Worcester and archbishop of York; as we noted had been done in volume III of February, at the XXIX day of that month, on which that prelate is given by us, page 750. Concerning the birth of this our Saint, the author of the Life which we are illustrating writes thus: Oswald was sprung of the high and long blood of kings, son of king Ethelfrid, who had reigned over the nation of the Northumbrians before king Edwin, most valiant in deeds, etc. To this belong the things which Simeon, monk of Durham, published among the ancient writers of English History in the year 1652, records thus in chapter 1: He was… the son of the most powerful king Ethelfrid, whose father was king Ethelric, whose father was king Ida, from whom (as Bede reports) the royal stock of the Northumbrians took its origin. Nor did he draw a most distinguished genealogy from his father's side only, but also from his mother's, being begotten namely of the sister of king Edwin. Let us add to these, from our Séguier copy, of which I shall speak afterward, the following: Which Edwin, admonished by a heavenly oracle, renouncing idolatry, received the washing of holy regeneration, Paulinus the archbishop preaching, together with all the nobles of his nation and very many of the common people, and had so much devotion toward the worship of the truth that he even persuaded Eorpwald, king of the East Angles, son of Redwald, that, the superstitions of idols being left behind, he should receive the faith and Sacraments of Christ with his province.

[2] In Alford, in the chronological index which is had in his third volume after the Annals of the English church, and the Saint's genealogical series: page 57 and following, this line of kings is woven

of Northumbria (that is the nation of the English which dwells toward the Northern quarter of the river Humber, on Bede's testimony in the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, book 2, chapter 9) — woven, I say, is this series of those kings, in which Ida is fixed at the year 547; Alla at the year 559; Ethelric at the year 589; Ethelfrid the Fierce at the year 593; Edwin at the year 617: concerning whose conversion to the Catholic faith, procured through Paulinus archbishop of York, the praised Alford treats in volume 2 at the year 626, number 7 and the two following. Further, the name of St. Oswald's mother, and her male offspring by Ethelfrid, our Saint's brothers, the transcript of St. Oswald's passion which we have, from the Manuscript of St. Maximin at Trier, reviews in these words: This so great man Adilfrid is said to have begotten of Acha, sister of Edwin, afterward his successor, three sons: of whom the first received the name Anfrid; the second, Oswald; but the third, Oswin. That the mother of St. Neophyta, virgin and martyr, was not St. Oswald's sister was said long ago in volume 1 of January, page 166 and following. But Florence of Worcester at the year 672 records the monastery of the abbess St. Ebba, namely the sister of the kings St. Oswald and Oswy. Of Ebba Alford treats at the year 683. Let these few things about our holy King's genealogy suffice; for I neither delay over nor examine the things which are heaped up at greater length in Capgrave in the Life of St. Oswald, folio 254.

[3] It is set forth how he succeeded But because our biographer does not explain how the Saint succeeded in administering the kingdom of Northumbria, I supply him from Bede mentioned above, book 3, chapter 1. Edwin having been slain in battle, he says, there took up in his place the kingdom of the Deiri (from which province he had had the stock of his family and the beginnings of his reign) the son of his uncle Elfric, by name Osric, who at Paulinus' preaching had been imbued with the Sacraments of the faith. But the kingdom of the Bernicians (for into these two provinces the nation of the Northumbrians was anciently divided) was taken up by Ethelfrid's son, who had drawn the origin of his family and kingdom from that province, named Eanfrid. For during all the time that Edwin reigned, the sons of the aforesaid king Ethelfrid, who had reigned before him, were in exile among the Scots or Picts with a great company of noble youth: and there, being catechized in the teaching of the Scots, they were renewed with the grace of baptism: who, when, their enemy the king being dead, they were permitted to return to their country, the first of them, Osric, whom we have named, received the kingdom of the Deiri; but the second, Eanfrid, the kingdom of the Bernicians. But each of them, as he obtained the lands of an earthly kingdom, so by apostatizing lost the sacraments of the heavenly kingdom into which he had been initiated, and restored himself to be defiled and destroyed by the old filths of idolatry. Without delay Cadwalla, king of the Britons, destroyed both with impious hand but by just vengeance… That unlucky year, etc. Whence it pleased all who reckon the times of the kings that, the memory of the faithless kings being removed from the midst, that same year should be assigned to the reign of the following king, that is, of Oswald, a man beloved of God; which was the year of Christ 634, as may be seen in Alford at the same year.

[4] after exile among the Scots, in administering the kingdom of Northumbria For the rest, our most religious Prince's stay among the Scots the cited author thus sets forth in the same place, number 11: This royal Youth remained in exile among the Scots from the year 617 to the death of his brother Eanfrid (which he attaches to the year 634), passing his growing years both in learning the rudiments of faith and in military exercises and the other things which could commend a nobler disposition, so that, idleness — the stepmother of all virtues — being put to flight, he might play a prelude to his future sanctity. At length, when he saw his country most wretchedly torn; when he saw the blood of citizens poured out by various faction, and his brother slain by a barbarian hand; and moreover the altars violated, and all sacred things subject to the furies of most wicked men; the most holy Man could not restrain his royal spirit from rising up to avenge the cause of his God and of his country. Therefore toward the end of this year, when he had armed himself and his soldiery with faith, he fought so happily that in the following year he stormed everything, as will be said below. Consult our biographer from number 7.

[5] Alford at the year 635, number 16, treating of the place and likewise in what place he was in exile. where the Saint was in exile, says: It must be said that Oswald, as an exile, did not leave Britain; nor did he seek teachers of the faith, he says, from anywhere but from our North. And this he concludes from these words of Bede which I cited above: For during all the time that Edwin reigned, the sons of the aforesaid king Ethelfrid were in exile among the Scots or Picts with a great company of noble youth. But from the fact that there, as Alford observes, he does not distinguish Scots from Picts, that people seems gradually to have coalesced, and to be called by Bede, for distinction from the Irish, the Northern Scots. To whom without doubt Oswald fled, this being a common asylum for those fleeing hence: and to the same he sent when he obtained Aidan. Of which matter I shall presently speak, and shall confirm what has been said.

[6] To St. Oswald's victory won by arms from Cadwalla, leader of the Britons, The victory, and its place. concerning which the author of the Life at number 7, refer the address of St. Columba, which in our Work, volume II of June, at the IX day, page 188, stands in the Life of that same holy abbot: He addressed king Oswald when encamped in readiness for war and sleeping in his tent upon a pillow, and bade him go forth to battle. He went forth, and victory followed; and returning, he was afterward ordained by God emperor of all Britain, and the whole unbelieving nation was baptized. St. Columba died at the end of the sixth century, but king Oswald, that victory being won, obtained the sum of the kingdom of Northumbria in the year 634, from what was said above at number 3; and accordingly that address must have occurred after St. Columba's death. The name of the place in which that victory happened is marked by the author of the Life below at number 7; but Alford at the year 635, number 1, judges that it happened by the copyists' fault that, a few letters being changed, it is exceedingly difficult to find it. If, however, you read what altogether seems must be read, not Denises-Burne but Deviles-Burne, that town is among the Ottadini, and in the territory of Northumbria which the river Tyne waters: which thence is Devilestone, now more contractedly Distone.

[7] The Life which we shall give below speaks thus of St. Oswald at number 6: When first he was meditating with his whole mind to serve almighty God, Whence he summoned heralds of the divine word and judged that this could be done if he should attach to his own faith his servants and the ministers of the divine word, he sent to Scotland, and thence summoned Aidan, a man full of God, etc. And at number 12 he says, from Bede: As soon as he took up the kingdom, desiring that the whole nation over which he had begun to preside should be imbued with the grace of the Christian faith… he sent to the elders of the Scots, among whom, while in exile, he had himself obtained the Sacraments of baptism… he received the prelate Aidan. You see here that the place in which the Saint was in exile, and from which he called out Aidan as bishop, is the same, namely Scotland, which I designated a little before; and accordingly that hence the controversy is settled to which Scots Oswald sent, whether to the Irish, the true ancient Scots, or to the new ones, inhabitants of Britain. The matter I confirm thus from the aforesaid Alford at the year 635, number 13: At the outset, he says, the assertion of certain persons must be removed which forces into Ireland all those who at this time are called Scots. For Bede more than once assigns a twofold province to the Scots: one Southern, of the island of Ireland; the other Northern, joined to the Picts. The former he calls the country of the Scots, and couples with the island of Ireland; the latter a PROVINCE rather than a country; from the said Bede, book 3, chapter 3; whence our biographer transcribed those things, as you may see in his own context among us at number 13. For Bede thus records of the Scots who celebrated Easter in a different manner: The Northern, he says, province of the Scots, and the whole nation of the Picts, at that time still celebrated the Lord's Easter.

[8] he called them out. And presently of the island Scots, But, he says, the nations of the Scots who dwelt in the Southern parts of the island of Ireland have long since, at the admonition of the Prelate of the Apostolic See, learned to observe Easter by the canonical rite. Then, after the aforesaid author of the Annals had cited these things, he thus concludes: Behold Southern Scots in Ireland, and a Northern province of Scots, bordering on the Picts, in place, religion, and rites. For although Ireland can and should sometimes be distinguished into Southern and Northern; yet because Bede said that the Picts, seeking Ireland and asking a seat there, were sent into Britain and occupied its Northern parts; and afterward he expressly writes of Britain's inhabitants in book 1, chapter 1: "But as time went on, Britain, after the Britons and Picts, received a third nation, the Scots, in the part of the Picts; who, under their leader Reuda, going out from Ireland, won for themselves, whether by friendship or by the sword, seats among those which they hold to this day" — namely the Northern parts of Britain; these things, I say, prove that Bede, when he speaks of Northern Scots, must be understood of inhabitants of Britain. Thus far he: to which may be added the things which our writer of the Life has from Bede at number 15. From what has been said, therefore, it is concluded that St. Aidan was called out by St. Oswald not from outside but from within Britain, to announce Christ's law to the peoples of Northumbria subject to that same king.

[9] He completes the church of St. Peter, Among other sacred monuments of a mind devoted to God, our most pious Prince built… an honorable church of blessed Peter the Apostle, which he wondrously adorned, and by royal usage appointed worthy ministers who should serve God there; as our biographer writes at number 6. The deed the so often mentioned founder of the Annals explains thus, in the place cited, number 24: In Deira also that pile which the holy Edwin had begun in the name of the Prince of the Apostles was awaiting the piety of king Oswald: who, pursuing the work with great devotion, brought it to completion, on Bede's testimony, book 2, chapter 20, where he narrates this: But the head of king Edwin was brought to York, and afterward brought into the church of blessed Peter the Apostle, which he himself began, but his successor Oswald completed.

[10] and institutes the bishopric of Lindisfarne. Simeon, monk of Durham, of whom above, chapter 2, reports to us another monument of our holy King: In the year, he says, of the Lord's incarnation 635… the most pious king Oswald, in the second year of his rule, appointed for Aidan, who came to him, an episcopal see on the island of Lindisfarne: where also that prelate, by the King's bidding, support, and cooperation, established a dwelling for the monks who had come with him, the King and the bishop procuring this for them: that both the newborn faith might be strengthened by pontifical authority, and that by monastic institution the observance of religion might ever afterward receive increase: whence, as we read and have received by the tradition of the elders, monks were accustomed to be chosen to the prelacy of that same church, by the example

namely of the first prelate Aidan, who was both a monk and was accustomed to lead the monastic life with all his people. Which was observed from the year of the Lord's incarnation 635 down to the year 1072 of that same incarnation, when from the clerical order there was consecrated to the bishopric a religious man of the nation of the Lotharingians, Walcher. For among the bishops I think that man should not even be recalled who long before was ordained from the clergy through the Simoniac heresy, but, forestalled by death, was permitted to perform no episcopal office. Thus far he: by which are illustrated the things which our author of the Life briefly narrates concerning the church of Lindisfarne at number 13.

§ II. His marriage, offspring, prodigious healing from plague, foreknowledge of death; the length of his life; the place of his death; a eulogy, miracles; his right hand immune from corruption.

He marries Kineburga, daughter of Cynegils: St. Oswald's marriage with the daughter of Cynegils, king of the West Saxons, whom he had first raised from the sacred font, our biographer records at number 24 from Bede, book 3, chapter 7. Alford at the year 636, number 13, calls her Kineburga, and binds the deed to that same year 636; but to the next following year, 637, a male offspring received from her named Ethelwald. The son… of king Oswald, Ethelwald, on Bede's testimony, book 3, chapter 24; but degenerate from his father's virtue in this, that in the conflict of Oswin or Oswy his uncle with Penda, the pagan king of the Mercians, he who ought to have been of help was on the side of the adversaries, and had stood forth as leader to those same men about to fight against his fatherland and his uncle; although at the very time of fighting he withdrew himself from the battle, and awaited the outcome of the crisis in a safe place. But the aforesaid son of St. Oswald showed something more of his father when he granted to Cedd, a man of the Lord and bishop among the East Saxons, a monastery in which he might be buried. Bede reporting the deed, book 3, chapter 23, says: Whom (Cedd), when Ethelwald, son of king Oswald, who had a kingdom in the parts of the Deiri, saw a holy and wise man and upright in character, he asked him to receive from him some possession of land for building a monastery, in which the king himself might both come more frequently to pray to the Lord and to hear the word, and, being dead, might be buried. That is the monastery of Lastingham in the county of York, according to the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 1, page 62; and on page 63 the place for building it is written as given to Cedd by Edilbald in the year 648. Further, that this was the holy King's only son by the said wife; that the kingdom of the Deiri was granted him by Oswy in the sixteenth year of his age; and that his not being counted by many among the kings of Northumbria came about through Oswy's power and greatness — I read in Alford at the year 652, number 2. But that he forbade himself the use of marriage toward the end of his life, on the occasion of a vision which he had, Capgrave affirms, folio 255 verso: of which matter presently. The Saint's wondrous healing from a pestilential contagion I here transcribe on Capgrave's credit, folio 255:

[12] A grievous plague having been sent everywhere throughout England, he says, seized by a pestilential plague, very many, perishing most savagely in the slaughter, ascended to the heavenly kingdoms. And so, when the holy King saw the judgment of divine chastisement hanging over the people subject to him, with tears and plaintive voices and groans he began to ascribe this scourge of God chiefly to his own sins… When therefore he had persisted long in prayers and tears, suddenly, by God's will, he was seized with that same plague… And when he had come to the end of life, the vigor of his spirit utterly failing, he began to lift his eyes to heaven, and to move his lips as if conversing with someone. His intellectual eyes indeed, as he was afterward accustomed to relate to the holy bishops, together with his bodily ones, often saw certain angelic spirits standing by in bright vision: of whose number three, coming to console him, said:

[13] [by angels, who appeared to him, both he himself and his subjects are said to have been freed from it;] Oswald, most chosen king of God, do not fear the horror of death: reckoned our colleague and partner in heaven, when the term of your life is finished you shall be added to our fellowship. Yet you are not to die at this time, nor to be smitten further by the bitterness of this pestilence. Christ, pitying the straits of your desolation, has freed all the people of the English from plague and disaster, absolved by your merits and prayers, and, mercifully adding so many years to your life, has appointed that you be crowned with martyrdom, and has henceforth delegated to us the guardianship of you both living and dying. They designated the day and hour of his martyrdom, asserting that they would then be present with him… The King being at once restored to health, no plague presumed to disturb the borders of the English in the days of his life.

[14] and thereafter he leads a life of greater perfection. From that time in all things he showed himself more amended toward God and men, and awaited the end of his life with joy. He transcended by the devotion of his mind the natural bent of his past life: by alms and tears he daily redeemed his past negligences. After this vision also, together with Kineburga his wife, daughter of Cynegils king of the West Saxons, he preserved thereafter the purity of chastity. Thus Capgrave; which would that I could confirm from older documents!

[15] The length of his life, and the time of his death: Oswald reigned, on Bede's testimony, book 3, chapter 9, nine years, counting also that year which both the deadly impiety of the king of the Britons and the mad apostasy of the English kings had made detestable. This happened from the year 633; in the next the Saint began to reign, according to what was said at number 3; and he ceased in 642; to which if with Bede you prefix that deadly year, you will have nine years of reign. And so the twofold Winnoc copy which we have of the Life of St. Oswald, in that text of Bede, wrongly puts for "nine years" "ten years"; with which the Utrecht copy agrees. As regards his death, our biographer indeed sets it forth at number 26 in Bede's words; but neither in the printed text of the latter, book 3, chapter 9, nor in the transcript of the former, do I find the year of death. But Alford at the year 642, number 18, testifies that, in place of what the printed copies of Bede's History in the place cited have — He was slain… in the thirty-eighth year of his age — his own Manuscript codex reads, in the year of the Lord's incarnation 642, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. And so Matthew of Westminster in the Flowers of Histories, and John Ypres in the Chronicle of St. Bertin, which is inserted in the New Treasury of Unpublished Works in Martène, volume 3, column 461, are not to be heeded when they note the year 644; nor Sigebert in his Chronicle, when he marks 643. Siffrid, a priest of Meissen, in his Epitome, among the Writers of Germany published by John Pistorius at Frankfurt in the year 1583, volume 1, page 685, errs more shamefully when he prefixes the year 703 to a compendium of the deeds done by our Saint. Wilson in his English Martyrology wrongly writes that he was slain in the year 635. But I wonder that he wrote thus, because he cites Bede's Epitome. For Bede in the Epitome of his History of the English writes thus: In the six hundred and forty-second year king Oswald was slain; on the very day on which his annual memory is celebrated, the fifth day of the month of August; so that it is remarkable that Harpsfeld in the English History, seventh century, chapter 26, notes for the fifth day the sixth of August.

These things concerning the time of his life; now concerning the place of his death. Alford at the year 642, number 16, says: Bede designates the place of the battle and calls it Maserfield. But Camden places this by the little river Morda, and toward the west of the county of Shropshire, among the Cornavii — namely there where the town called from Oswald, Oswestry, is seen (concerning which see below, number 47). The men of Lancashire are unwilling to believe Camden, but say that the place of the battle, and accordingly of Oswald's death, was near the noble village of Winwick. For there they have found a place which today is still called Maserfield. Then, having subjoined verses which were once written in the church of Winwick (concerning which below, number 43), Alford draws another conjecture from this, that the province of Lancashire belonged to the crown of Northumbria; that of Shropshire to the Mercians; and Penda king of the Mercians was attacking the holy Oswald in war, not the latter Penda. But one must stand by Camden and the county of Shropshire: both because the town of Oswestry, which is also called by the Britons Oswald's Cross, speaks for itself by the very appellation of its name; and because the author of the Life in Capgrave expressed the place more distinctly: whose words, which he subjoins, I do not transcribe here, since what has been said suffices.

[16] The poem on the pontiffs and Saints of the church of York, a eulogy from Flaccus Alcuin. prefixed with the name of Flaccus Alcuin as author, to be praised a little later, and published from the Manuscript codices of Reims and of St. Theodoric near Reims, among the Fifteen Writers of British History, etc., at Oxford in the year 1641, binds St. Oswald's deeds and miracles in heroic meter: whence from page 707 I subjoin this eulogy, which will here supply the place of an epitaph:

A man mighty in virtue, guardian and lover of his country, Excellent in character, following Christ's commands, Bountiful to the poor, sparing to himself, rich toward all, Truthful in judgments, kindly in piety of soul, Lofty in merits, yet lowly in that very mind, Terrible to enemies, delightful to all his friends, As unconquered in war, so faithful to covenants in peace. After he grew strong in the sceptre and the height of the kingdom, He builds churches and adorns them with rich gifts, Furnishing precious vessels for the consecrated services; With silver, gems, and gold he clothed the altars, Stretching silken hangings on the sacred walls, Beautifully picked out with purple and with crowns of gold, And hung various lamps through the holy roofs, That there might be in the churches an image of the starry heaven, And devoutly led Christian flocks into them, That there might be praises of those singing to the Lord without end. O piety, O lofty faith! for whatever he had, Lavish, he scattered to the honor of the Lord's treasuries: Wherefore he shone with the titles of virtues, and Was made known everywhere by the celebrated fame of signs, Which now throughout the world are read written in books.

By the word "blateolis" here seems to be understood "purple ornaments"; according to what I read in Du Cange in the Glossary, at the word "Blatta."

[17] The holy and venerable Bede, priest and monk in England, describes St. Oswald's miracles in the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, book 3, The miracles of the holy Martyr chapters 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13; and book 4, chapter 14. He flourished at the beginning of the eighth century and thereafter, dying in the year of the Lord 735. The truth of the miracles, and the credit of him who wrote them, are commended by the following things which the praised author inserted into them. For in chapter 10 he says: In the place… where he was slain by the pagans, TO THIS DAY healings of the sick, both of men and of cattle, do not cease to be celebrated. And presently: The custom of carrying off for the sick that very dust where his body fell to the ground, he says, so increased, etc. And many miracles of powers indeed are narrated as having been wrought in that place, or from the dust of that place: but we have thought it enough to report only two which we have heard from our Elders. But in chapter 13 these things are had: Nor did the fame of the renowned Man traverse the bounds of Britain only

entirely; but, scattering the rays of its saving light far even beyond the Ocean, it reached the parts of Germany and of Ireland alike. In short, the most reverend prelate Acca is wont to relate that, when, going to Rome, he was staying with Willibrord, the most holy bishop of the Frisian nation, together with his own prelate Wilfrid, he often heard him narrating what had been done in that province concerning the wonderful relics of that same most reverend King. And in Ireland, when he was still living as a priest… he reported that the rumor of his sanctity had already spread far and wide in that island too; of which he reported among others one miracle, etc. From these things the truth of St. Oswald's miracles, and the credit of their writer, are commended.

[18] Meanwhile the Magdeburg Centuriators in Century 7, The Magdeburgers rashly gnaw at them. chapter 12, column 558, have something to snarl against the miracles wrought in the place where the Saint ceased to live: The miracles, they say, afterward done at that place the same author (Bede) records: but they seem lies and empty. Empty indeed? To those, namely, who, full of the spirit of pride and empty of Christian docility, become vain in their thoughts, assailing and profaning all holy things. Lies? So indeed are they wont to clamor against miracles who, declaring war on the spirit of truth, cling tooth and nail to the father of lies; who, born and reared without a miracle, can have nothing above nature that is wonderful in Life; but in death, without any miracle, are compelled to bury all their dead. The said haters of miracles in the same place, chapter 13, column 566, attack with the censor's rod the miracles of St. Oswald reported by Bede in book 3, chapter 9, and following. But what is easier and at the same time more unworthy than to speak and chatter, and prove nothing? And indeed who is so dull and stupid, provided he be bold enough, that he cannot do this? Malmesbury in book 1, On the Deeds of the Kings of the English, chapter 3, treats of St. Oswald's miracles. The most illustrious Richard Smith in the Flowers of the Ecclesiastical History of the English, book 2, chapter 1, section 4, defends the miracles of that same Saint against the heterodox.

[19] That his right hand remained immune from corruption Among these an outstanding place is deservedly claimed above all by the holy King's right hand, which after his death remained entire for a good many centuries, and immune from all corruption. The venerable Bede narrates the matter in the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, book 3, chapter 6. William Camden in his Britannia, treating of the Coritani and the people of Lincoln, page 406 in the edition which was published at London in the year 1607 (which another had preceded twenty years before, from the author's preface to the reader), although, after the manner of the heterodox, he did not restrain himself sufficiently from attacking the Saint's miracles, yet either could not or dared not gnaw at the integrity of the right hand, being convinced perhaps even against his will by the continued authority of writers drawn through so many series of centuries. Receive his words: The writers of a former age did not hold it enough to celebrate this most Christian hero Oswald, unless they stitched to his most illustrious deeds ridiculous miracles, which I knowingly pass over. But that his hand survived here (in the monastery of Bardney) uncorrupted for many centuries our forefathers believed: and a sufficiently ancient poet wrote:

By no worm does the Man's right hand perish, by no rottenness Does it decay; by no cold can it be stiffened, by no Heat dissolved: but it always persists unchanged in the same State: dead, it lives.

Thus he: where you see that the Saint's other miracles are indeed hooted down as ridiculous; but that the hand's immunity from corruption is not even in the slightest plucked at; otherwise than had been done in another edition which Alford cites at the said year 642, number 23; where he had attacked both the other miracles and the hand itself.

[20] For that hand was above all uncorrupted in the seventh century, namely from the year 642, in which the Saint died, from the 7th century down to the 17th, to the end of that same century. Such likewise it was in the eighth century, in which St. Bede flourished. Such then in the same century in which lived Flaccus Alcuin, himself also an Englishman by nation, master of the emperor Charlemagne, and disciple of St. Bede; who in the Poem assigned above sings thus of the holy King's right hand:

That it is still entire, the growing nail is a sign, And the flexible sinew, the fresh flesh, the comely form.

Such it continued to be in the twelfth century, in which William of Malmesbury was famous, writing of it thus in book 1, On the Deeds of the Kings of the English, chapter 3: I judge also that the credit of the heavenly sentence has been temporally discharged: because a divine oracle once resounded: He has dispersed, he has given to the poor: his justice remains unto the age of the age. For — what the hearer ought to marvel at, and dare not deny — that royal right hand, the bestower of such great alms, TO THIS VERY DAY flourishes uncorrupted with its arm, skin, and sinews. But all the rest of the body, save the bones, dissolved into ashes, did not escape the common lot of mortality. For the twelfth century again, and for the thirteenth, let Roger of Hoveden speak, who in the Annals, part 1, page 403, testifies this: It (the city of Bamburgh) has on the summit of the hill a church most beautifully made, in which there is a precious shrine, in which, wrapped in a pall, lies the right hand of St. Oswald the king, UNCORRUPTED. For the fourteenth century we have Matthew of Westminster at the year 644, a most brilliant witness of the integrity of which we are speaking as carried down to his own times; when he narrates this in the same place: Although in the battle in which he (Oswald) was slain that hand with the arm was cut off, IT HAS COME ABOUT THUS FAR that it remains UNCORRUPTED.

[21] In the fifteenth century lived John Capgrave, in whom, in the Life of our Saint, is proved by the testimonies of writers. he says: Oswald being afterward slain, the arm cut from the body HAS LASTED UNCORRUPTED TO THIS DAY. For the sixteenth century there is Nicholas Harpsfeld; who at the seventh century, chapter 26, speaks in most express words to our purpose thus: Aidan, marveling at this munificence of the King… prayed that so liberal a hand might never wither: whose prayer, DOWN TO THESE OUR TIMES, has NEVER been frustrated. And lower down: That munificent hand… NEVER withered: and what Bede in his own, and others afterward at another time, declared to be true, OUR AGE TOO has confirmed. There live today most worthy witnesses, beyond all exception, who have reported to me that they saw it. Since these things are so, who, unless with brazen brow and driven aside by the impetus of an opinion once ill conceived, would dare to deny that it is historically certain that that uncorrupted integrity of the right hand constantly persevered from the seventh century down to the sixteenth?

But what became of that most sacred pledge in the sixteenth century — so tragic and mournful for England, when sacred things were turned upside down together with the fall of the Catholic religion — and whether it still lies hidden somewhere, I have no ground to affirm. But where was it at first?

§ III. Where the right hand was preserved, as also the bones; their translation into Flanders, and their elevation.

It is inquired Now let us examine where that right hand of which I spoke was formerly preserved, and what are the Saint's other remains. Our Life at number 39, with Bede as guide, book 3, chapter 42, says: His head, with the hands and arms cut from the body, the king who had slain him ordered to be hung on stakes. Which barbarity of the tyrant a certain poet thus laments in Camden, among the Cornavii, page 452:

Whose severed head and severed arms, Fixed on three stakes, bloody Penda Bids hang; through which he might leave to the rest manifest Examples of his terror, and might prove the blessed King Wretched; but he fails of both purposes: For Oswy, his brother's avenger, by no means fears him, Nay, makes him fear; nor is the King wretched, nay, blessed Is he, who enjoys the fount of good once and without end.

So cruel an end awaited the excellent King: but God was more powerful for his glory than the tyrant for his punishment. For the earth on which his body fell, and the wood on which his head had hung, became famous for prodigies: concerning which matter our biographer from number 26, and number 42, from Bede.

[23] in what place But coming thither after a year, as you have from the same Bede in the same place at number 39, with an army, Oswin his successor in the kingdom took away the limbs; and the head indeed he laid away in the cemetery of the church of Lindisfarne; but the hands with the arms in the royal city. Alford at the year 642, number 21, setting forth this deed, writes that for a whole year the Saint's head and left hand hung on the stake, with unfailing beauty, no one daring for fear of the tyrant to take them down; but that Oswy, Oswald's brother, was admonished by a divine oracle to lay them away more religiously, claimed for a worthier tomb; that the right hand with the arm was under the waters; and that, finding it there, he reverently carried it off, and at the city of Bebba (then royal, now Bamburgh), enclosed in a silver box, honorably deposited it in the church of St. Peter, as also the left arm. William of Malmesbury, in the place designated above, after he had confirmed some of the things which I have just said, asserting that the arms with the hands… were by his brother Oswy at the city of Bamburgh… laid in a shrine, a miracle having been shown, subjoins this: In what place — since I waver in opinion whether they are preserved to this day — I do not utter a headlong affirmation.

[24] St. Oswald's right hand was afterward preserved. Capgrave judges they were taken away by theft. A certain monk, he says, of the Burgh of St. Peter, coming into those parts and diligently exploring the secret places of the church where the relics were laid, an opportunity being had, drawing the arm of St. Oswald out of the shrine, secretly carried it off with him, and placed it with honor in his own monastery. And indeed the suspicion of theft seems to be increased by Ingulf, abbot of Croyland, who flourished toward the end of the eleventh century, when at the year 1018, page 891, on the occasion of the Danish devastation, he narrates how the monastery of the Burgh (that is, Peterborough) felt that disaster; and, the flight of the abbot being reported, as also of the greater part of its convent, to Thorney (of the monastery of Thorney in the county of Cambridge the Monasticon Anglicanum treats, volume 1, page 242) — these things, I say, being reported by Ingulf, he writes thus of the Prior: But the Prior with some brethren, having taken with him the arm of St. Oswald the king, fled to the isle of Ely (in the Duchy of Cambridge). But if that arm was at that time carried off from there, it must afterward have been brought back thither, since it still existed in that same place at the close of the twelfth century, according to what Roger of Hoveden, then living, writes at the year 1175; inasmuch as he flourished in the year 1204, from Pits, On the Illustrious Writers of England. At the said year 1175, then, Hoveden records thus: In the same year Richard, archbishop of Canterbury, deposed William de Waterville, abbot of St. Peter of the Burgh, for this cause, that he with violent and armed hand had broken into his own cloister, and wished to carry off the relics of the Saints together with the arm of St. Oswald, king and martyr.

[25] Where our King's bones were deposited in St. Bede's time [Where the bones were deposited in St. Bede's time, and whither afterward translated:] we learn from him, book 3, chapter 11; and from him the writer of the Life which we are illustrating writes at number 32: His bones were found and translated to the church in which they are now preserved; namely to a noble monastery in the province of Lindsey, by name Bardney. The deed may be read at greater length in the places cited. Whither they afterward removed, Simeon of Durham records in the History of the Deeds of the Kings of the English, published among the ancient writers of English History at London in the year 1652, column 152: In the year 910 the bones of St. Oswald, king and martyr, were translated from Bardney into Mercia. The same translation John Bromton, abbot of Jervaulx, notes more distinctly in his Chronicle, published also among the ancient writers of English History whom I mentioned; where, at column 833, after he had made mention of the ninth year of king Edward (of Christ 909 according to Alford, Annals, volume 3, page 220), he subjoins this: In this year Ethelred, duke of the Mercians, and his wife Elfleda translated the bones of St. Oswald, king and martyr, from the monastery of Bardney in Lindsey as far as the city of Gloucester: where in honor of that same Saint they built a monastery. The Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 1, page 142, has this concerning the monastery of Bardney: There were there at that time (namely when St. Oswald's body was buried there) three hundred monks, whose abbot was lord of Lindsey. Afterward the monastery was leveled to the ground by the Danes Hinguar and Hubba; but it was repaired after many years by Gilbert de Gaunt, uncle of William the Bastard. When we read these things about that translation, does it not seem quite remarkable that in the Martyrology customarily cited under the name of Canisius, and published at Dillingen in the year 1573, it is written at this V day of August that the Saint's body was buried at Rebha in Ireland?

[26] There is extant among us at the XX day of June, volume IV of that month, until in the 11th century they were carried across to Bergues-Saint-Winnoc. page 29, a little Commentary on St. Idaberga, an English virgin, translated to the monastery of St. Winnoc at Bergues, of the Order of St. Benedict in Flanders: where from the Chronicle of Bergues this is noted: In 1038 the bodies of Sts. Oswald, king of England and martyr, and Idaberga the virgin, Balger the monk translated from England to Bergues into the monastery of St. Winnoc; concerning which translation Drogo the monk wrote to Rumold (abbot of that same place). Our Malbrancq, On the Morini, volume 3, part 1, book 11, chapter 27, from the Annals of Bergues and the ecclesiastical Ephemerides of the Saints, at the year 1221 has nearly the same thus: The body (of our Saint) Balger, a distinguished ascetic among the people of St. Winnoc, obtained from the king across the sea, to be assigned to his own college, in the year 1038. But this indeed is the first translation, designated by the said author in the title which he prefixes to that chapter.

[27] The elevation of that same sacred deposit. It is presently followed in the same place by another, or rather an elevation, if you will, of St. Oswald's body, expressed in these words: For when the most holy King's cult grew day by day, it seemed good to abbot Philip (the Monuments indeed do not name him, but from what is to be said afterward, he is shown to have been the one who came between Alexius and Ingelmarus) to honor the Martyr of royal blood with a more precious casket, and to see whether all things within stood with their own parts and documents. Which was performed by Adam, prelate of the Morini, most exactly and at the same time most magnificently: for the countess Joanna was present with a great deal of the nobility of the Morini and of Flanders, the Castellans attending her side with the utmost devotion: there were present the abbots John of Saint-Bertin, Roger of St. John on the Mount of Thérouanne, William of La Chapelle, William of Andres, John of Auchy: also others equipped with their crozier, whom they call by the name of Provosts: William of Watten, John of Voormezele, Giles of Loo, John of Eversham.

[28] Various The things which I have just now brought forward from Malbrancq concerning the first translation I explain by these observations. Let us recall to memory what in volume V of July, at the XXIV day of that month, page 610, concerning Balger the monk and his carrying across to his own people from England the sacred deposit of St. Oswald, the Most Eminent Master Ryckewaert, the present head of the monastery of St. Winnoc, affirms that he found written in the Annals of his abbey; and which I here transcribe: In the year of Christ 1042 among the monks of Bergues-Saint-Winnoc there flourished Balger the ascetic, a most religious man, and burning above all with love of the Saints… Since he knew that England abounded in pledges of this kind, he did not shrink from crossing thither often, and from bringing himself into a more intimate friendship with Edward, king of the English… In turn Edward too set great store by Balger's great candor of soul and exceptional ardor toward the Saints: whence, when he urgently demanded that power be given him to carry off some bodies of the heaven-dwellers to his people of St. Winnoc, he dared even to inscribe king Oswald first in his petition… By his pious importunity he carried the matter… Drogo, our prelate of the Morini, having been informed, he presented his people of St. Winnoc with a gift not otherwise more welcome, not without a rather festive pomp of translation, and an unwonted dancing of the town. Thus far there.

[29] observations upon these deeds St. Edward, of whom it was treated among us on the V day of January, sacred to his annual memory, began to reign in the year 1042; he ceased in 1066. How then did Balger under his reign in the year 1038, as was said above, translate our Saint's body from England to the monks of St. Winnoc? Emmanuel Sueyro in the Annals of Flanders, published in Spanish, notes another king under whom this happened, when at the year 1038 he writes that that Balger, being very acceptable to Harold, king of England, and to his wife, carried across from that island to his own people the relics of which we here treat. And the reckoning of the time agrees: for in Alford at the year 1036 the beginning of Harold, king of England, is marked; but his end is attached to the year 1040. Gazet in the Ecclesiastical History of Belgium, page 410, sets the same year 1038 indeed and the same Balger; but he does not express the names of the king and queen; above, as we saw at number 26, the year 1038 stands twice; but under what king it was done is not said: so that I have nothing at hand by which to compose or explain this chronological difficulty: let us therefore pursue our other observations, since concerning the first translation of St. Oswald from England to the monastery of St. Winnoc enough now seems to have been said.

[30] But on the occasion of what Malbrancq said above concerning the abbots, for the sake of the second translation or elevation made among the people of Bergues-Saint-Winnoc, are given. I observe, first: In the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict in Mabillon, century III, part I, page 328, is given a Catalogue of the abbots of Bergues, in which Alexius, of whom I made mention before from Malbrancq, is said to have subscribed in the year 1172 to a charter of Philip, Count of Flanders, etc., and to have died on the XIX day of March: to whom in the same place there is next set down Philip, named above, without a note of time: and to him in the same way Ingelmarus: so that it is consequent that they belong to the thirteenth century; for in that century occurred that second translation or elevation, namely: In the year 1221 the sacred body of St. Oswald, king and martyr, is translated in this monastery by Adam, bishop of the Morini; as we have from our copy, transcribed by Master Honoré de Camargo, ascetic of the abbey of St. Winnoc, from the Annals which the abbot of that same place had ordered to be examined by him, and sent by our Father Oliver Bonart in the year 1637, on the VII day of January, to Father Bolland.

[31] I observe, second, the manifest hallucination of some who confound matters of the present subject. For Molanus in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium, treating of St. Oswald at the V day of August, says: His body or relics… were translated into the monastery of St. Winnoc by Adam, bishop of the Morini, in the year 1221. Whom Miraeus supports in the Belgian Calendars. Alford at the year 642, after he had said at number 34 concerning St. Oswald's relics, There are those who write that they were deposited in Belgium, and at the town of St. Winnoc, in the same place at number 35, citing the Calendars of Miraeus, says: That again something of the relics was brought into Belgium, and deposited by Adam, bishop of the Morini, in the monastery of St. Winnoc, ought in no way to be disputed; since the church of Bergues there observes… the anniversary memory of the said translation. Then he cites Miraeus in the Calendars. From these things it is concluded that the aforenamed authors were of that opinion: that Adam, bishop of the Morini, translated our Saint's relics from elsewhere to the people of Bergues-Saint-Winnoc; whereas he, from what was said above, translated or raised those same relics, brought thither before from England by Balger the monk, into a more honored place of the said monastery of Bergues-Saint-Winnoc; conformably to the words of our copy directed to us thence: In the year 1221 he is translated IN THIS MONASTERY, etc., as I said above.

§ IV. The bones burned among the people of Bergues-Saint-Winnoc; whether the body is at Soissons; other relics elsewhere; the Saint's apparition; his public cult.

The Saint's remains burned by the heretics at Bergues. Molanus in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium says: The relics were lost through the wars and devastations of Henry, king of the French, except a very small part of the bones. To which, for the greater confirmation of the matter, add the words of the Most Eminent abbot at St. Winnoc's, which on another occasion were inserted in volume V of our July, page 610, and run thus: In the year 1558 by the French heretics the bodies of Sts. Oswald, Idaberga, and Lewinna, and whatever was precious in our church, were given to the fire and consumed, under Jerome de Grimberghe, our abbot.

[33] Whether, and what things, are at Soissons Meanwhile the French Legend-writer published at Paris in the year 1704, in the Life of St. Oswald at this V day of August, affirms that there are some who will have it that this Saint's body was translated into France, and deposited in the abbey of Our Lady of Soissons. He adds that it is in fact shown there in the sacred treasury of relics which are preserved in that place; and he cites the History of the aforesaid abbey which was published by Master Michel Germain of the Order of St. Benedict at Paris in the year 1675. To various questions of mine, which I took care to direct to Soissons upon this matter, I received the answer that in the church of the said place there is preserved a gilded wooden casket, together with others, exposed to the veneration of the faithful, with this French inscription, which in Latin sounds thus: The body of St. Oswald, king of England and martyr; but that it is not known by whom, when, and whence it was translated thither; nor whether it is there whole and entire, or only some part of it; nor is it ascertained whether it is a notable part or not: besides, that the matter rests on tradition alone; nor is it exposed otherwise than in its own place, in which it is left; that an Office is celebrated every year with a double rite from the Common of one Martyr; that four lessons are contained in the said Office, drawn from an uncertain source, etc. All of which are very weak for producing credit,

for proving that that sacred pledge is of that Saint whom the inscription designates.

[34] The head found together with the body of St. Cuthbert, But the parts of the sacred body which are attributed to various places must not be passed over in silence. The English Chronicle, by the author Ralph of Coggeshall, abbot, woven from the year 1066 down to 1200, and in Martène's Collection of ancient writers and monuments, volume 5, column 801, among the things which are had in column 804, records thus at the year 1101: The body of St. Cuthbert was found uncorrupted and flexible after 418 years from his deposition; and together with it the head of St. Oswald, king and martyr. Of the translation of St. Cuthbert's body into a new tomb in the year 1104, 418 from his death, we spoke at the XX of March, page 137: but he died in the year 687, as is premised in the same place, page 94; and accordingly from the month of August of the year 1104, in which that translation occurred (see the same place, page 125), to the XX day of March of the year 687, on which he departed this life (same place, page 94), 418 years are easily found intervening between that Saint's deposition and the said translation: so that I do not sufficiently see that the year 1101 is rightly expressed in the aforecited Chronicle. Malmesbury toward the end of book 3, On the Deeds of the Pontiffs of the English, confirms the present fact, when among the wondrous immunity of St. Cuthbert's body from corruption he intermingles this: The head of Oswald, king and martyr, was found between his arms.

[35] Finally, in the Historical narrative of the deed printed among us in the place cited from various Manuscript codices, and laid away at Durham. page 139, concerning our Saint's relics found together with others at St. Cuthbert's, this is written: Which relics indeed, as is read in old books, it is established are the head of the glorious king and martyr Oswald, etc. And on page 140 this is narrated: But of all the relics which had been found there, they placed only the head of blessed king Oswald beside the body of the glorious Pontiff, just as it had been before. It is reported that that precious deposit, at Durham from the eleventh century in which it had been found, still existed there in the sixteenth century; for on that matter Harpsfeld says: His head, once laid away at Lindisfarne by his brother, is NOW said to be laid away at Durham between the arms of St. Cuthbert. For the rest, various things are given concerning Durham at the said XX day of March, page 124.

[36] If we return to the earlier centuries, from which we have for a while digressed, [That head is said by a divine admonition to have been deposited with St. Cuthbert.] and inquire on what occasion that sacred treasure was deposited with St. Cuthbert, Capgrave in the Life of St. Oswald, folio 256, will have it that the matter happened thus: Many years after his martyrdom, St. Cuthbert, appearing to one devoted to his services, said: Rise, and do not delay to bring to me the head of St. Oswald, too negligently kept in the church of Bamburgh, that it may rest with me in one coffin. For what God had chosen for me, buried in my cemetery, by commending it to me, ought not to be separated from me by man's violence. That man rising, and coming to the place designated, an opportunity being had, taking up the Martyr's head, returned home with hasty step. And behold St. Cuthbert's tomb, with an inner motion sounding, without the touch of anyone's hand, is suddenly seen to be opened, and, the head being laid with him, to close again of its own accord. These things indeed are splendid: would that they were confirmed by an author of better note! Besides this: it was said above that the Saint's head was too negligently kept in the church of Bamburgh. But his successor in the kingdom, Oswin, laid it away in the cemetery of the church of Lindisfarne; but in the royal city (of Bamburgh) the hands with the arms. Who then, at what time, with what witnesses, brought the aforesaid head into the church of Bamburgh? That the Irish also claim our Saint's remains for themselves, Alford is the authority, at the year 642, number 34. In the most illustrious Fontanini, in the Commentary on St. Columba published at Rome in the year 1726, page 48, it is written that in the diocese of Aquileia, in that mountainous and northern tract of the province of Friuli which is called Carnia, in a place whose name is Sauris, a finger of St. Oswald the king is honored with great devotion: ours, or another's? I certainly know no other holy king of the same name.

[37] In the additions to the XX day of January among us, volume II of that month, page 1138, [The head is also said to be at Echternach, the chin in the monastery of Weingarten, etc.] from John Bertels, abbot of the monastery of Echternach in Luxemburg, a province of Belgium, in the History of Luxemburg, the following occur: In no less honor is there venerated and preserved (at Echternach) the head of the renowned martyr Oswald, king of England, together with the body of St. Willibrord, the most celebrated patron: and in how great esteem, honor, or reverence these are held, both by the Religious of the monastery themselves and by all who each year repeat their holy pilgrimages, daily miracles still demonstrate. Thus it is said there. But whatever may be the case about that head which is said to be in the said place, at least that some sacred pledge of our Saint anciently existed among the Frisians seems to be concluded from St. Bede, book 3, chapter 13, narrating this: The most reverend prelate Acca is wont to relate that, when, going to Rome, he was staying with Willibrord, the most holy archbishop of the Frisian nation, together with his own prelate Wilfrid, he often heard him narrating the wonders which were wrought upon the RELICS of that same most reverend King IN THAT PROVINCE. Whatever, I say, may be the case about that head: for according to what was said above at number 35, the Saint's head is said to have been at Durham from the eleventh century down to the sixteenth. But whether, by whom, and when it was carried elsewhere, I have not yet learned. In Bucelin, in the second part of the Monasteriology of the German Empire, page 305, among the sacred remains of the monastery of Weingarten, of which he himself was an ascetic and theologian, are numbered great portions and the entire chin of St. Oswald, king of England and martyr. Besides these, relics from England into Herford of the Westphalians Blessed Waltger, Count and founder, translated; says Gelenius, On the Greatness of Cologne, book 4, at the V of August. Of that translation our Theodore Rhay also makes mention in the book which is entitled Illustrious Souls of Jülich, Cleves, etc.

Among the relics of Lisbon, of which it is treated in volume II of our January, there is noted in the same place, page 612, the name of St. Oswald, king of Northumbria. Let it be permitted briefly to add to these, that among us at the XX day of March, in the history of St. Cuthbert, volume III of that month, page 135, there occurs an apparition of St. Oswald, which may be read in the same place. Now his public cult calls us.

[38] [The Saint is inscribed in the ancient Martyrologies, as also in the modern Roman:] Two classic Martyrologists, Wandelbert and Usuard, record our Saint on this day: of whom the latter indeed has thus: Of St. Oswald, king of the English, whose acts the venerable Bede the priest records in the deeds of that same nation. But by the former Oswald is reported as A king pious among the English in merit and virtue. That he is recorded on this day by no other ancient Martyrologist; and that it does not seem doubtful that he was entered by Usuard into the sacred Calendars from Bede's History, was indicated in the Observations upon Usuard published and illustrated by us, at this same day: on which also, and indeed in the same phrasing of the hagiologist just named, he is inscribed in the modern Roman Martyrology. For thus it reports him: In England, of St. Oswald the king, whose acts the venerable Bede the priest records. Our Florarium of the Saints speaks thus: On the same day (V of August) of St. Oswald, king of the English, joined by affinity to the stock of the Carolingians. He was the son of Acha, sister of St. Edmund the king, who on the twentieth of November, etc. The Saint's genealogical series we gave above at number 2; concerning that affinity let the author of the Florarium see to it. Add that Acha, mother of St. Oswald, was the sister of king Edwin (not, as he will have it, Edmund), from what was said above at number 2; and see how prettily that Edmund, of whom the author of the Florarium treats on the XX day of November, coheres with the age of our Saint and of his mother — who is noted in the same place as slain in the year of salvation 873. Wilson also announces our Saint today in his Martyrology, and praises him. He begins thus: At Oswestry in Shropshire, the passion of St. Oswald, king of the Northumbrians and martyr, etc. In the Manuscript Martyrology which is among us in volume 3 of the Manuscript Martyrologies, and to which Henschen added in his own hand that it is of Trier, of the monastery of St. Mary and of the Martyrs, there is noted also the memory of Blessed Oswald, king of the English. Of that monastery of the Benedictine Order Mabillon treats in volume 3 of the Annals of that same Order, at the year 975, number 31. For indeed, as Polydore Vergil rightly says in book 4: Because he had passed his life without stain; because he had always most holily worshipped God; because finally he had met death for religion — not undeservedly did our fathers report him among the Saints: whose memory even now is celebrated among mortals by a good many miracles.

[39] Alford at the year 642, number 37, says: Although the Roman tables do not call him Martyr, the title of martyr is claimed for him from elsewhere. yet ours, and almost all others, most deservedly grant him that palm of glory: because, fighting in defense of the faith, he was carried off by a violent death at an unbelieving hand, in hatred of religion. For Penda, most hostile to God and the Christian faith, accustomed to trample upon all sacred things, rose up against the Saint. And indeed, on the testimony of William of Malmesbury, On the Deeds of the Kings of the English, book 1, chapter 3: Out of zeal for the Church of God, joining battle with a heathen, he poured out his spirit sooner (which he desired) than he should see (which he feared) the harm of Christendom. Nor shall he indeed be cheated of the glory of the Martyrs, who, aiming first at a good life, afterward spending his body on a glorious death, trod in their footsteps: and with almost fuller praise, in that they consecrated each one himself alone; he consecrated with himself to God all the Northumbrians. Thus far there. Since these things are so, although neither the ancient Martyrologists whom I mentioned above, nor the Roman Martyrology, announce him with the title of martyr; why should he nevertheless not truly enjoy it, especially since in sacred liturgies and divine Offices, of which below, he is celebrated as a martyr?

§ V. His public veneration in England, Belgium, and Germany; sacred buildings, monuments.

Public veneration in England, That England was once most zealous for St. Oswald's glory, and venerated him on a fixed day each year, the V of August, with a double feast, Alford hands down at number 38; reciting this collect: Almighty, everlasting God, who consecrated the venerable and holy gladness of this day in the solemnity of your holy Servant: give to our hearts an increase of love and charity toward you, that we may feel in heaven the patronage of him whose holy shedding of blood we celebrate on earth. But that scarcely any memory of our holy King survives there today,

as you have in the same place, number 37, is not surprising; these, namely, are the fruits of that most mournful defection from the true and only head and pastor of the Church after Christ. Of the sacred buildings erected there in honor of St. Oswald I shall speak below.

[41] The Man's fame, as Bede testifies in book 3, chapter 13, in Belgium and after him our biographer, reached the parts of Germany. This I explain thus. For Lower Germany, or our Belgium, we have the abbey of St. Winnoc, of which I spoke above. Among us in volume V of July, at the XXIV day, page 610, from the Annals of the said abbey this is cited: Among the memorials of the Martyrs there is read yearly by the people of Bergues, on the XII of the Kalends of July, the glorious translation of St. Oswald, king and martyr, and of St. Idaberga the virgin, with double rite of the second class. Where you see that the Office of the translation is joined, just as the translation of both bodies from England to the people of Bergues-Saint-Winnoc happened at the same time, according to what is premised in the same place. But presently the Most Eminent abbot of the said abbey notes this: But now we observe their translation separately; which I judge was introduced about three hundred years ago. The feast of St. Oswald's translation is observed on the XX of June (and accordingly on the XII of the Kalends of July); but that of St. Idaberga on the XXIII of the same month, with the aforesaid rite. If these things are so, that manner of cult of about three hundred years, as pleased that Most Eminent man, seems not always to have been stable: for Master Honoré de Camargo, mentioned above at number 30, in the copy which he sent hither, after he had treated of the translation of both holy bodies, has this: But his festivity is observed by us on the XXI of May. Finally, when on the occasion of St. Lewinna, Virgin and Martyr, who was illustrated in the said volume V of July, recourse was had again to the praised Most Eminent man, to the difficulties proposed he answered those things which you have in the same place, page 611: whence I take out what bears on my purpose:

[42] A most ancient Manuscript codex, he says, whose title is Customs of the abbey of St. Winnoc, among the people of Bergues-Saint-Winnoc; and in Upper Germany. I found among its monuments; and he there describes it. From it it is certain and undoubted that the people of St. Winnoc's at that time, etc. (what he subjoins regards St. Lewinna). Likewise, as he immediately continues, the feasts of St. Idaberga on the XXI of May, and of St. Oswald on the V of August, were observed with Octaves: and finally the translation on the XX of June with a double rite. Why my predecessors changed these things, I do not know, he says: certainly I shall see to it that hereafter it be observed as of old. To these add, from the cited volume V of July, page 610, an altar dedicated to Sts. Oswald and Idaberga, which is still had. Of the Saint's public veneration among the people of Echternach it was briefly said above at number 37. These things I had to say of his public veneration among the Belgians.

For the Saint's cult in Germany — to say nothing of Missals — various Breviaries printed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which are extant among us, bear witness; likewise the printed notices concerning the reciting of the divine Offices, which we have: for from those documents we learn that he is venerated among the people of Cologne, Mainz, Münster, Constance, Speyer, Bamberg, Salzburg, Augsburg, and Bohemia. And for his cult indeed among the Bohemians, the following monument bears witness, which from the Chronicle of Mansfeld stands in our Crugerius, in the Sacred Dusts of the month of August, page 37, expressed in these words:

In the year one thousand four hundred and twenty-one, On St. Dominic's day, and likewise on Oswald's feast, Frederick, then Margrave of Meissen, wars honorably, Who near Brüx laid low the Bohemians and put them to flight, etc.

The subject is the battle before Brüx (otherwise called Pons), situated on the borders of Meissen, joined between the men of Prague and Tabor and the Catholics in the year 1421, and fortunate for the Catholics; according to what Crugerius premises in the same place, page 36. Now concerning the sacred buildings.

[43] Churches Alford, gathering the churches, at the year 642, number 42, says: I shall not run through them one by one; because recent impiety and hatred toward the Saints has erased most of them. Nor have I, on this journey, guides to follow, except those who obliterate rather than illustrate the glory of the Saints. Camden writes thus of the county of York, page 563: The Went… flows out of a pool near Nostell; where once there was a monastery sacred to Oswald, king and Saint, which A., confessor of king Henry the first, restored. Of the church of the Canons Regular of Nostell or Nostle, situated in the county of York in England, and called by the name of our St. Oswald, mention was made in volume I of August, page 256, in the Annotations, letters b, d. The praised Alford says: In the province of Lancashire, among the rich benefices of England, is Winwick, of which I spoke above (namely at the year 642, number 16): there too verses inscribed on the walls seem to indicate a church sacred to Oswald; which from the said number 16 I here transcribe:

This place, O Oswald, once pleased you greatly: You had been king of the Northumbrians, and now you hold The realms of heaven, having suffered in the place called Maserfield.

[44] More certain, however, says Alford, is that which is on the river Eden, in the county of Cumberland: for even today a place there is called Kirkoswald, or Oswald's church; in honor of St. Oswald and Camden advises that it was once sacred to him. But also near Gloucester, whither we said his ashes were translated, more recent writers write of a church named from Oswald and set up by Ethelfleda, daughter of king Alfred. But the citizens of Northumbria too were exceptionally devoted to their Prince. For at Silchester, beside the wall, they raised a church to Sts. Cuthbert and Oswald. Camden among the Ottadini, page 664, says: Whose name so overshadowed the others that, the former name being obliterated, it is now called St. Oswald's.

[45] St. Bede in book 3, chapter 2, after he had narrated St. Oswald's victory dedicated to God and had treated of the wonders which were done in that place, etc., is the authority that new honor accrued to it from the brethren of the church of Hexham, which was certainly not far distant thence: for besides that they gathered there every year, also, the good custom increasing (the words are Bede's), a church having lately been built and dedicated in that same place, they made the place more sacred and more honorable than all others. The reason, which Bede presently adds, the author of the Life which we publish will give from him at number 10. There are extant in Camden these little verses on that deed, which in the place cited he asserts he gives from the Life of Oswald:

Then first it knew the cause why it should bear the name Heavenfield, that is, the Heavenly Field; and to it The appellation of a past people gave the name from of old, As though prescient of the war to come. And the cause of the name presently was assigned in that place By the heavenly host storming from heaven the wicked one. And lest the sloth of old age should be able to destroy the honor Of a place so celebrated, and of so great a triumph, The devout brethren of the church of Hexham are wont To be present and to celebrate Christ every year: And that the honor of the place may persist in honor of blessed King Oswald, they built there a chapel.

[46] Capgrave in the Life, folio 256, concerning the church on the island of Farne in England in the German Ocean on the coastal shore of Northumbria are reviewed; (which according to what is to be said in the annotations to chapter 2, letter e, differs from Lindisfarne) handed down this to memory: At Farne, he says, a church was built in honor of St. Oswald, in which many, asking his benefits, have often experienced remedies of infirmity and of trouble: whose keys a certain thief secretly taking away, entered with the door opened, and, seizing all its ornaments, carried them off. And behold, the light of his eyes being darkened, he was utterly ignorant whither to turn himself. A priest at length coming, the wretched man, poured out in tears, begged his mercy; and, judging himself deservedly guilty and damnable, disclosed how fraudulently he had acted at the devil's instigation. Hearing which, the priest, rendering immense thanks to God and to Blessed Oswald, grieved for his error, and permitted him to go away free. Thus far there: but these things are reported without a witness. In the same place, folio 255 verso, writing of the place where the Saint was slain by Penda, he adds this: In which field indeed a church, which is called the White church, is founded in St. Oswald's honor; and not far thence a perennial spring rises, which is called by the inhabitants the spring of St. Oswald.

[47] as also a place called by St. Oswald's name. Camden among the Cornavii of the County of Shropshire, page 452, gives this, which I may intermingle with the buildings in England sacred to the Saint: Further from the river (he had been treating of the Severn), toward the western boundary of the county, lies Oswestry or Oswaldstre, in British Croix Oswalde, a small town enclosed with a ditch and wall, and fortified with a small castle, but prosperous in trade, especially in the rare and fine weaving of Welsh cloths (light-woven, if you please, in the phrase); a great quantity of which is sold here every week. It has its name from Oswald, king of the Northumbrians (whereas before it was called Maserfield), whom Penda, the pagan prince of the Mercians, slew here in a grievous battle.

[48] Many monuments of pious affection toward the Saint abolished by the heretics. But concerning the churches in England Alford observes at number 43 that the most celebrated of them, and most frequented by the vows of the faithful, seems to be that which, built in the province of Lincoln and in the monastery of Bardney, preserved St. Oswald's relics and name the longest. Nor is it surprising if there were once, as the same author affirms, many other monuments of piety by which the citizens, and many provinces throughout the island, excellently venerated the holy Oswald, which a novelty envious of truth and of the Saints has erased. For how should the most holy King's name not remain in benediction among the English, who gave his nation (to use the words of William of Malmesbury, book 1, chapter 3) the first-fruits of sanctity: since no Englishman before him, so far as I know, he says, was famous for miracles?

[49] A church in Germany As regards the Germans: Bruschius, On the Monasteries of Germany, folio 159 verso, speaking of the monastery of Vineae or Weingarten, of the Benedictine Order, in the diocese of Constance, mention having been made of a chapel of St. Oswald, in the Catalogue of the abbots which immediately follows, writes this: Hermann of Pirchtenwyler: He died in the year of the Lord 1213. Under him the church was again dedicated in the year of the Lord 1207 by the venerable Conrad II, bishop of Constance, in honor of the holy and undivided Trinity, and of the holy Cross, of the blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the heavenly Powers: but chiefly in honor of the holy Martin and Oswald; namely our King and martyr, according to Bruschius cited above: for when reviewing in verse the patrons of the church, whom I have already given from him in prose, he assigns on folio 160 a place among them to the martyr and to Oswald.

§ VI. The Acts published in print and in Manuscript; the author of those which we publish, and some observations concerning them.

The Acts published in print The source from which the Saint's Acts have flowed down to us we know none earlier than the holy and venerable Bede, who died ninety-three years after his death. Whence we refer thither whatever was afterward committed to letters concerning his deeds. A collection of them stands printed in Surius at this day, marked as book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History of the nation

of the English, the first seven chapters, and also the following 9, 11, and 12. A Life besides has been published in Capgrave, folio 254 and following, and most recently another appeared among the Lives of the Saints printed in the French language at Paris in the year 1704. To weave together here a catalogue of the older writers who treat of the Saint is of no use, since we have indicated them in the course of this Commentary. Now receive this concerning our Manuscripts.

[51] We have one from the codex of Master Séguier, chancellor of France, and Manuscripts consisting of a prologue to the Life and miracles, with this opening: Since the life and miracles of Oswald, king and martyr, beloved of the Lord, etc. Another copy is at hand, longer than the former, from the Manuscript of St. Maximin at Trier, to which this title is prefixed: The Passion of St. Oswald, the renowned king. The prologue begins thus: Therefore how pious and how holy it is to dwell more attentively upon the praises of the holy Martyrs, etc. To these two I add a third, briefer than they, from the Utrecht Manuscript of St. Salvator, which is entitled: The Martyrdom of St. Oswald the king. It begins: Oswald was the son of king Elfrid. Besides, we have another, marked with the name of Gamans, also quite brief, whose beginning is: To the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal king, etc.

[52] To all these finally is added a transcript from the Manuscript of St. Winnoc in Flanders; A certain idea of the Life of which place, notable for the Benedictine monastery of the same name, a notice is given among us at the XXIV day of July, page 608. After the title is noted The Prologue of Master Drogo; which a very brief Preface follows; but this is followed by this title: The words of Bede the priest upon the life and passion of St. Oswald, king of the English and martyr. Chapter I; and the narrative of the matter is completed in twenty-one chapters; and at its end it is said: Here end the words of the venerable Bede the priest upon the passion and miracles of St. Oswald, king of the English. And presently is subjoined: A sermon of master Drogo on the feast of that same precious King and martyr. In one of the two copies which we have of this subject, that sermon is written as to be read on the feast of the same, etc. To this sermon, not very long, is subjoined a second sermon, briefer than the former: let it be enough to have mentioned each here in passing.

[53] But that the Life which we give to the press has as its author Drogo, a monk at Bergues-Saint-Winnoc, written by Drogo the monk; I confirm from elsewhere. Possevino in the Sacred Apparatus affirms that Drogo wrote on the life of St. Oswald, king of Northumbria; and on the same, two sermons, which are extant in the monastery of Bergues in Manuscript. Molanus in the notes to his Usuard published in the year 1573, besides Bede, who wrote of St. Oswald, affirms that Drogo, a monk of Bergues, wrote one book and two sermons, in Manuscript at Bergues-Saint-Winnoc. To these add Valerius Andreas in the Bibliotheca Belgica. But who and of what sort was that Drogo? That several Drogos of the same name lived in that same eleventh century, and that they were fused into one by authors, you will find in volume II of July, at the VI day of that month, page 362, on the occasion of St. Godeleva, Virgin and Martyr, whose Life, written by an author of the same name, then furnished occasion for inquiring various things about those Drogos, and for distinguishing the monk of Bergues from the curate or priest of Ghistelles, and also from the prelate of the Morini, whom others had confounded. But since that controversy was there not drowsily weighed and decided, and touched again in volume V of July, at the XXIV day of the said month, page 612, number 24 (see also the same place, page 610, number 14), it would therefore be superfluous now to unweave that web again.

[54] And so Drogo of Bergues in the prologue, giving the reason of his purpose, indicates, first, to whom he dedicates the Life, namely to the monks of Bergues, among whom St. Oswald's remains were preserved. Weighing this, he says, concerning whose copy and satisfying your petition and will, brothers, I have joined in one work the life and martyrdom of St. Oswald the king, and his miracles, and have sent them to you written out, that of him whose relics you embrace with pious love, etc. Second, he presently adds from what source he drew his material, speaking thus: But lest anyone should think that what I have joined together is my own, I come excused; but it is the material of blessed Bede the priest, made clear by his pen. Third, indicating what manner of writing he followed, he says this: But we have arranged his own ordered writings in order, the sequence being turned about; now putting after what was put first, now putting first what was put after: since he, following the history, where a worthy discourse required it, put the earlier matter after the following; and, as the same required, willed that what followed should be begun before what preceded. Fourth, Drogo confesses that he added some things from his own store: Adding from our own, he says, etc. Fifth, he indicates that he was of the monastery of those to whom he directs his prologue, saying: Receive therefore the gift of your son.

[55] various things are observed The texts of Bede from which he drew his material are noted in our edition in the margin. The prologue and preface are Drogo's: the passages which he inserts into Bede's text by his own effort I shall enclose in brackets [] for distinction. But what is the reason that both Drogo and the compiler of the Life in Surius did not give those things which Bede reports in book 4, chapters 13 and 14? Since I did not find these in Drogo, I have taken them from Bede and added them to his Life. Further, that history is had in our Manuscripts of Trier and of Séguier; and I have learned from elsewhere that it is moreover noted in the Manuscript of Rooklooster, part 1 of the Hagiology of Brabant. But in Bede it is prefaced with this title: How by the intercession of king Oswald a pestilential mortality was removed. A certain heterodox writer, in the Saxon-Latin edition of Bede's Ecclesiastical History which he published at Cambridge in the year 1643, gnaws here and there at the narrative of that deed in his notes upon it; but I do not delay over such a poor little Aristarchus, worthy rather of contempt than of an answer. The notorious Magdeburg Centuriators had gone before; who in Century 7, column 180, their pen dipped in bitter gall against sacred things, shamelessly affirm that the apparition of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, which we there have from Bede, was diabolical spectres; they do not prove it. But we have dealt with these silly pettifoggers above at number 18.

[56] as also concerning its edition Further, in the printing of the Oswaldian matters which we publish from our Manuscripts, these things have been done. First, our copy which we have from the Manuscript of St. Winnoc has been collated both with the Manuscript of Rooklooster and with the Basel edition of Bede of the year 1543, and also with the Cambridge one mentioned a little before. Second, a very few things, and those of lighter moment, we have corrected in our edition from those two. Third, our copy, distributed into twenty-one chapters, we have now furnished with a new division of chapters after our manner, its own titles being also appended to each by our labor. Fourth, in one Bergues-Saint-Winnoc copy (for we have two), besides the division of chapters, the numbers of the lessons are noted; which is an argument that the Life which is written in it was used for performing the ecclesiastical Office. It remains, reader, that I now subjoin it.

* perhaps "drenched"

THE LIFE.

By the author Master Drogo, monk of the monastery of Bergues-Saint-Winnoc in Flanders.

From the Manuscripts of that same monastery.

Oswald, King and Martyr, in England (S.)

BHL Number: 6362

By the author Master Drogo

THE AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE.

[1] The author, having premised some things about the study of holy reading, By most mortals a good and pious zeal is required for the exercise of holy reading for this reason, that thence the inner man, by growing accustomed to good things, may be constantly fed with a skilful understanding. Whence the pattern of a whole good life, and also the practice of the best morals, are increased day by day by seeking, by attending, by gradually awaking with the ears of an intent mind. For the sluggish soul has hence whence it may awake; hence it holds whence it may shake itself from torpor; hence it establishes the government of its own right, now by avoiding disgraces, now by seeking the best things; thence also it discerns by what it may be kindled, by admiring good things, by imitating another's good things indeed, and then by working those in which it may shine. To this is added that in every struggle, or in every exercise of the wrestling-school, he avoids the darts of the threatening enemy who, learned or wary, is above all trained for doing this by another's teaching, and by whom this very thing is applied by the assiduity of long practice. So, so indeed, ought every faithful man to hammer these things out by very great practice: now let him admire the deeds of good men set before him; now let him hasten by fulfilling things worthy of praise; let him now and again shake off his sluggish mind; and whatever is good and just, let him skilfully lay up in a mindful breast. And the exercise and diligent study of this matter are joined by moral discipline to the teaching mind, when the truth of history sets forth such a man in worthy discourse, whose excellent morals of life, and besides his good works, and then his care for himself and his own, may be a testimony for them to imitate.

[2] Weighing this also, and satisfying your petition and will, he sets forth the Life and miracles of St. Oswald to be read; brothers, I have joined in one work the life and martyrdom of St. Oswald the king, and his miracles, and have sent them to you written out ^b, that of him whose relics you embrace with pious love, you may be able to imitate the same man's life and the good things of his acts. But lest anyone should think that what I have joined together is my own, I come excused; but it is the material of blessed Bede the priest, made clear by his pen. But we have arranged his own ordered writings in order, the sequence being turned about; now putting after what was put first, now putting first what was put after; since he, following the history, where a worthy discourse required it, put the earlier matter after the following; and, as the same required, willed that what followed should be begun before what preceded. But then, where so great a history compelled the man to abridge his discourse, we have made it a little clearer, adding ^c from our own store what he might perhaps have said, if the brevity of the sentences or of the matter had allowed. Receive therefore the gift of your son ^d — nay rather of your servant — demanded of us, and help my imperfection with your prayers, that thence I may be diligently sustained by your aid, whence I fear the threatening peril of the ruin of sin ^e.

[3] The inborn form of the Almighty Good, and the firm and eternal dispensation of the highest glory, foresees this, that to the human acts of mortals a heavenly reward be rendered according to the distinction of persons. another brief preface being premised. And by how much loftier a power anyone uses above other mortals, by so much greater is he lifted up by the goodness of the Lord's clemency, if he serves the Lord himself in mind, in act, in the solicitude of continual exercise. For this befits the eternal and unchangeable Height, that any man lofty both in wealth and in the height of noble birth be exalted with the glory of a greater reward, if in that very earthly power of his honor he embraces humility, patience, love of God and of neighbor, and the other arts of the virtues. Nor does the Apostle's saying hinder our discourse: There is no respect of persons with God: since one thing was said by us concerning the recompense of glory and reward; another the Apostle says concerning judicial sentence. For one thing is the fair enactment of judgment; another indeed is held worthy glory in reward. But let us now omit this, and turn our pen to the order of narrating.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Rooklooster manuscript: "rewards"

CHAPTER I.

His birth, education, administration of the kingdom, the victory won through the cross, its prodigies.

[St. Oswald, his father having died, sets out into Scotland, and is educated as a Catholic,] Therefore Oswald was sprung ^a of the high and long blood of kings, son of king Ethelfrid, who had reigned over the nation of the Northumbrians ^b before king Edwin — most valiant in deeds, most greedy of glory; who more than all the chief men of the English laid waste the nation of the Britons: so that he seemed comparable to Saul, once king of the Israelite nation, save only in this, that he was ignorant of the divine religion. For no one among the tribunes, no one among the kings, made more of their lands, the natives being exterminated or subjugated, either tributary to the nation of the English or habitable. To whom that could deservedly be applied which the patriarch Jacob, blessing his son, said in the person of Saul: Benjamin a ravening wolf: in the morning he shall eat the prey, and in the evening he shall divide the spoils. But his mother is acknowledged to have been begotten of no less royal stock and of so noble a family, of that same nation. As therefore a rose from thorns, so this Oswald was sprung from pagan parents. But his father having died, for fear of king Edwin ^c, who had succeeded his father in the kingdom, the boy, being small, was led by God's providence into Scotland; where, as long as Edwin reigned, he was in exile with many nobles of the Northumbrians ^d. There at length the boy of good disposition was trained, according to the teaching of the Scots, to follow the true religion, to love God according to the precept of the evangelical writing, to have compassion on his neighbor, to succor one oppressed by calumny, bountifully to bestow necessaries on the needy, a garment on the naked, to feed the hungry.

[5] Also to do all things which are held of virtue; and in virtues to beware of the deceptive softness of vices or of pleasure. Why more? To hold fast all things which are of the best virtue and of goodness. Since therefore he was such a boy, he passed into adolescence; and moreover into the strength of manhood, not omitting to do the same things, nay even greater. But indeed, Edwin having been slain in battle ^e, Oswald succeeded ^f him in the kingdom — a man beloved of God, renowned for those same offices of virtue which we have mentioned before.

Having therefore taken up the kingdom of the Northumbrians, he began in every way to meditate and to strive that the religion of Christianity should everywhere be strong and be spread abroad, and that the church should grow from the fruit of the faith by the prospering succession of peace, and by growing should prosper. He began therefore to bear the care of his kingdom, to guard his borders from the incursions of enemies, to provide for his own safety and that of his people: and although he was very often occupied with the affairs of the kingdom, yet with diligent mind he pondered this, that holy religion should always be his solicitude. For of what mind he was, and how great hope he had in God, appeared at the beginning of his reign.

[6] For he built an honorable church of blessed Peter ^g the Apostle, He summons Aidan from Scotland to instruct his subjects. which he wondrously adorned, and by royal usage appointed worthy ministers who should serve God there. But when first he was meditating with his whole mind to serve almighty God, and judged that this could be done if he should attach to his own faith his servants and the ministers of the divine word, he sent to Scotland ^h, and thence summoned Aidan ⁱ, a man full of God, most holy, upright in act, chaste, who should preside over his nation and should preach the word of the Lord to him and to the rest. For today Scotland makes light of the religion of the English, and calls even religious men of barbarous manners. Nay, on account of the skilful merit and the good spirit of the aforesaid king, a great many monks of excellent repute, clerics, or God-fearing laymen, followed the holy Aidan, that they might impart the preaching of God's word to the nation of the Northumbrians, and be fellow-workers with him: whom that same King received honorably, and venerated God in them.

[7] Since therefore that same king Oswald, so distinguished a man, He conquers the leader of the Britons, was strong in these and other virtues of mind and act, the enemy, who envied such great offices of virtue, contrived against him the engines of fraud and the ambushes of guile, and stirred up against him the leader of the Britons ^k; who, gathering a most powerful band of an army, came prepared for battle: trusting in so great and abundant a multitude of soldiers, which he hoped no one could resist. But it belongs to God alone to overcome very many by few, and to grind down those who glory in their strength. For king Oswald, a small army being collected, came against him, and before battle was joined, armed his men with words and with faith. Then, the divine power aiding him, the enemies were crushed, the aforesaid leader was slain, and almost all perished together ^l, and victory fell to the King beloved of God, in the place which in the language of the English is called Denisesburn ^m, that is, the brook of Denis.

From Bede, book III, chapter II.

[8] But there is shown to this day, and is held in great veneration, that place where Oswald, when about to come to this battle, raised the sign of the holy cross, and with bended knees besought God that in so great a necessity of affairs he would succor his worshippers with heavenly aid. In short, it is reported that, a cross having been made in haste, and a hole prepared in which it should be set, he himself, fervent in faith, seized it and placed it in the hole, and held it upright with both hands until, the earth being heaped up by the soldiers, it was fixed in the ground; and, this being done, with voice raised on high he proclaimed to the whole army: the sign of the holy cross being first raised, and God piously invoked. Let us all bend our knees, and let us in common beseech the Almighty, living and true God, that by his compassion he defend us from a proud and fierce enemy. For he himself knows that we have undertaken just wars for the safety of our nation. All did as he had commanded, and so, at the beginning of dawn, advancing against the enemy, according to the merit of their faith they obtained the victory, as we have said.

[9] the place where this happened became famous for prodigies In the place of which prayer innumerable mighty works of healings are known afterward to have been wrought, namely as an indication and memorial of the King's faith. For even to this day many are wont to cut splinters from that very wood, the sign of the holy cross; which, when they have put them into water and have given it to sick men and cattle to drink or have sprinkled them with it, they are presently restored to health. That place is called in the language of the English Heavenfield, which may be said in Latin the heavenly field. Which surely by a certain presage of things to come received its name of old, signifying namely that there a heavenly trophy was to be raised, a heavenly victory begun ⁿ, and heavenly miracles celebrated even to this day. And the place is beside that wall ^o to the North with which the Romans once girded all Britain from sea to sea, to keep off the assaults of the barbarians.

[10] and celebrated for devotion. In which place indeed the brethren of the church of Hexham [p], which is not far off, had now for a long time made it a custom, coming every year on the day before that on which afterward that same King was slain, to keep vigils for the salvation of his soul [q], and, many praises of psalms being celebrated, to offer for him in the morning the victim of the sacred oblation. Who also, the good custom increasing, a church having lately been built and dedicated in that same place, made the place more sacred and more honorable than all others. And not undeservedly, since, as we have learned, no sign of the Christian faith, no church, no altar was raised in the whole nation of the Bernicians [r] before this standard of the holy cross was set up by the new Leader of the host, at the dictate of the devotion of faith, when about to fight against a most monstrous enemy. Nor is it beside the purpose to relate one miracle of power out of the many which were wrought at this cross.

[11] An arm healed by its power. A certain one of the brethren of that same church of Hexham, named Bothelin, who survives to this day, a few years ago, while he was walking somewhat incautiously by night upon ice, suddenly falling, crushed his arm, and began to be wearied with a most grievous trouble from that fracture, so that he could by no means, pain preventing, bring that arm even to his mouth. And when on a certain day in the morning he heard that one of the brethren had arranged to go up to the place of that same holy cross, he asked that on returning he would bring him some part of that venerable wood, saying that he believed that through it, the Lord granting, he could obtain health. That man did as he was asked: and returning toward evening, the brethren now sitting at table, he offered him some of the old moss with which the surface of the wood was overgrown. And he, sitting at table and having nothing at hand where he might lay the gift offered him, put it into his bosom. And when he went to bed, forgetting to lay it anywhere, he allowed it to remain in his bosom. But in the middle of the night, when he awoke, he felt something cold lying against his side, and putting his hand to it began to ask what it was, and so found his arm and hand sound, as if he had never had any such sickness.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Alford at the year 635, number 23, says: At this same time the monastery of Hexham is thought to have arisen, namely in that place where the Romans once set Axelodunum, and a little later a bishop's see. But Axelodunum is a town of the Ottadini in Great Britain, now Hexham, a village of Northern England in the County of Northumberland upon the river Tyne, and 14 English miles distant from Newcastle toward the west, says Baudrand. Camden among the Ottadini will give more.

q. Below at number 39 we have from Bede that he already reigns with the Lord, etc. Let us say, therefore, that what the monks are here said to have done was done not for the refreshment of his soul, which was to be placed in heavenly rest, but in thanksgiving for it as already placed there.

r. Of the Bernicians and the Deiri, the two peoples inhabiting the province of Northumbria, it was treated in the Commentary, number 3. More in Alford at the year 547, to which he attaches the beginning of the kingdom of Northumbria.

* Rooklooster manuscript: "filled"

* The Basel and Cambridge editions: "Denises burna"

* Same place: "raised"

* Same place: "Almighty God"

* The said editions: "Heofonfeld"

* Basel and Cambridge editions: "king Oswald"

* Both editions: "the place than all"

* Basel edition: "Bothelmus." Cambridge: "Bothelm"

CHAPTER II.

The Saint's zeal in propagating Christ's faith among his people, his pious works; the apostolic labors and endowments of bishop Aidan.

CHAPTER III.

That same Oswald, therefore, as soon as he took up the kingdom, desiring that the whole nation over which he had begun to preside The Saint promotes Christ's faith in England by the effort of bishop Aidan, should be imbued with the grace of the Christian faith — of which he had already received very great proofs in conquering the barbarians — sent to the elders of the Scots, among whom, while in exile, he himself with the soldiers who were with him had obtained the Sacraments of baptism, asking that a prelate be sent him, by whose teaching and ministry the nation of the English which he ruled might learn the gifts of the Lord's faith and receive the Sacraments. Nor did he obtain what he asked any later. For he received as pontiff Aidan, as has already been said, a man of the highest gentleness and piety and great moderation, and having a zeal of God, though not fully according to knowledge.

[13] who does not in all things judge according to prudence. For he was accustomed to observe the Lord's day of Easter after the manner of his nation, of which we have often made mention, from the fourteenth moon to the twentieth. For in this order the Northern province of the Scots ^b and the whole nation of the Picts at that time still celebrated the Lord's Easter, thinking that in this observance it was following the writings of the holy and praiseworthy father Anatolius ^c; whether which is true, any skilled person most easily knows ^d. But the nations of the Scots who dwelt in the Southern parts of the island of Ireland have long since, at the admonition of the Prelate of the Apostolic See, learned to observe Easter by the canonical rite. To the bishop, therefore, coming to him, the king granted a place for the episcopal see on the island of Lindisfarne ^e, where he himself sought it. Which place indeed, as the tide comes in and goes out, is twice daily, like an island, washed round by the waves of the sea; twice, the shore being laid bare again, it is restored contiguous to the land.

[14] St. Oswald cooperates for the salvation of souls, And so the King, humbly and gladly listening in all things to his words and admonitions, took care very diligently to build up and to spread abroad the Church of Christ in his kingdom: where it often happened by a most beautiful spectacle that, while the prelate preached the Gospel, who did not perfectly know the language of the English, the King himself stood forth to his commanders and ministers as the interpreter of the heavenly word, because indeed in so long a time of his exile ^g he had already fully learned the language of the Scots. O [h renowned King, in all his acts to be praised, proclaimed, imitated! Hither, hither let David the heavenly harper come, hither let the excellent King hasten. For the one strikes the harp before the ark of the Lord, dances, sports naked, walks about turned aside; but the other, receiving the word of the Lord from the bishop's mouth, ministers it to the people. And each is to be compared in each respect, although indeed they are held of different merit.]

[15] and gives his labor to pious works. Thereupon more began day by day to come from the region of the Scots to Britain, and to preach the word of faith with great devotion in those provinces of the English over which king Oswald reigned, and, as many as were endowed with priestly rank, to minister the grace of baptism to believers. Churches therefore were established in various places, the peoples flocked together rejoicing to hear the word. Possessions and territories were given by royal gift for founding monasteries. The little ones of the English were instructed by Scottish teachers, together with their elders, in studies and in the observance of regular discipline. For those who had come to preach were chiefly monks; the bishop Aidan himself was a monk, inasmuch as he was sent from the island which is called Hy ⁱ, whose monastery for no short time held the chief place among almost all the monasteries of the Northern Scots and of all the Picts, and presided over the ruling of their peoples. Which island indeed belongs by right to Britain, being separated from it by no great strait; but by the gift of the Picts, who inhabit those parts of Britain, it was long since handed over to the monks ^k of the Scots, because through their preaching they received the faith of Christ.

CHAPTER V.

[16] From this island therefore Aidan ^l was sent (as has already often been premised) to instruct the province of the English in Christ, Aidan's virtues, having received the rank of the episcopate. [The time, the place, the person therefore admonish me to say something of the life and virtues of so great a man, and to linger a little upon his merits, although we may seem to digress a little from the discourse begun. For the praise of a recruit is then most greatly exalted when his teacher is honored in the proclaiming of his praise. Nay rather, the teacher is exalted by the praise and proclamation of the other, when the recruit is rendered distinguished by his proclamation. That same Aidan, then, stood forth a man of the greatest virtue, striving with all effort to fulfill his excellent words with honorable deeds.] Whence among other lessons of living, he left a most salutary example of abstinence or continence to clerics; whose teaching this above all commended to all, that he himself taught no otherwise than he lived with his own people. For he took care to seek nothing of this world, to love nothing. All things which were given him by kings or by the rich of this world he rejoiced presently to bestow upon the poor whom he met.

[17] He was wont to travel through all places, both of town and country, his apostolic labors, carried not on horseback but on foot, unless perhaps a greater necessity had compelled him, so that wherever as he went he had seen any, whether rich or poor, at once turning aside to them, he might either invite them to receive the sacrament of the faith, if they were unbelievers, or, if they were believers, strengthen them in that faith, and stir them both by words and by deeds to almsgiving and to the doing of good works. But his life was so far removed from the sloth of our time that all who walked with him, whether tonsured or laymen, had to meditate — that is, either to give their labor to reading the Scriptures or to learning psalms. This was his daily work and that of all who were with him, wherever they had come. And if it perhaps happened, as however rarely happened, that he was called to the King's banquet, he entered with one cleric or two, and, when he had refreshed himself a little, he hastened the sooner to go out to read with his own people or to pray.

[18] Formed by his examples, all religious men and women at that time made it a custom throughout the whole year, and his distinguished examples: except for the relaxation of the Paschal fifty days, on the fourth and sixth day of the week to prolong their fast to the ninth hour. He never kept silence toward the rich, for the sake of honor or of fear, if they had done anything amiss; but corrected them with a sharp rebuke. He never was accustomed to give money to the powerful of this world — except only food, if he had received any into hospitality — but rather those gifts of money which were bestowed on him by the rich he either scattered for the uses of the poor, as we have said, or dispensed for the ransom of those who had been unjustly sold. In short, many whom he had ransomed by paying a price he afterward made, when ransomed, his own disciples, and by teaching and training advanced them even to the priestly rank.

[19] who, for the salvation of the English, But they report that when king Oswald had asked from the province of the Scots a prelate who might minister the word of faith to himself and to his nation, there was first sent another man of harsher spirit; who, when for some time preaching to the nation of the English he made no progress, and was not gladly heard by the people, returned to his country, and reported in the presence of the elders that he had been able to profit nothing by teaching the nation to which he had been sent, because they were untameable men, and of hard and barbarous mind. But they, as they relate, began to hold a great discussion in council as to what should be done, desiring indeed the salvation of the nation which sought it, but grieving that the preacher whom they had sent had not been received. Then Aidan (for he himself was present at the council) said to the priest of whom the matter was: It seems to me, brother, that you were harsher than was just toward untaught hearers, and did not, according to the Apostolic discipline, first offer them the milk of milder teaching, until, being little by little nourished by the word of God, they should be able to take in more perfect things and to do the loftier precepts of God.

[20] was substituted for another less fit for this ministry. Which being heard, the faces and eyes of all who sat there were turned to him, and they diligently sifted what he said, and they decree that he himself is worthy of the episcopate, that he himself ought to be sent to instruct the unbelieving and the untaught: who above all is proved to be imbued with the grace of discretion, which is the mother of virtues: and thus, ordaining him, they sent him to preach. Who, when he received his opportunity, as before he had appeared adorned with the governance of discretion, so afterward also with the other virtues.

CHAPTER VI.

By this prelate's teaching, therefore, king Oswald, together with the nation of the English over which he presided, being instructed, learned not only to hope for the kingdoms of heaven unknown to his forefathers; but also the kingdoms of earth, more than

any of his Ancestors, he obtained from that same one God who made heaven and earth. In short, he received into surrender all the nations and provinces of Britain, which are divided into four tongues, that is, of the Britons and Picts, of the Scots, and of the English. Raised to which height of kingship, he was nevertheless (what is wonderful to say) always humble, kindly, and bountiful toward the poor and toward strangers.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Both editions add "indeed"

* Basel edition: "into Britain"

* Basel and Cambridge: "were being built"

* Basel edition adds "of God"

* Basel edition: "went out"

* Basel and Cambridge editions: "No"

* Basel edition: "to his country"

* Same place and Cambridge: "assembly"

* Both editions add "most reverend"

* Same place add "almighty"

CHAPTER III.

The Saint's hands immune from corruption; the propagation of the Catholic religion; his virtues; his death, and the miracles which followed it.

St. Oswald's hands, intent upon alms, In short it is reported that at a certain time, when on the holy day of Easter king Oswald had sat down to dinner with the aforesaid bishop Aidan, and a silver dish had been placed on the table before him, filled with royal dainties, and their hands were just about to be put forth to bless the bread, it happened that his servant suddenly entered, to whom the care of receiving the needy had been delegated, and told the King that a very great multitude of the poor, coming from every quarter, was sitting through the streets, asking some alms from the King. Who at once commanded that the dishes set before him be carried to the poor, and also that the dish be broken and divided in small pieces among them. Which the pontiff, who was sitting by, seeing, being delighted with such a deed of piety, took his right hand and said: May this hand never grow old. Which also so came to pass according to the wish of his blessing.

[22] are preserved immune from corruption. For when, he having been slain in battle, the hands with the arms were cut from the rest of the body, it came to pass that to this day they remain uncorrupted ^a. In short, in the royal city ^b, which is surnamed from a certain queen named Bebba, enclosed in a silver coffer, they are preserved in the church of St. Peter, and are venerated by all with worthy honor. By this King's industry the provinces of the Deiri and the Bernicians, which until then were at discord with one another, were joined together into one peace and as it were into one people. But he was the nephew of king Edwin by his sister Acha; and it was fitting that so great a predecessor should have from his own kindred such an heir both of his religion and of his kingdom.

CHAPTER VII.

[23] He takes care that the Catholic religion be extended among others: [But the most glorious king Oswald was solicitous not only for his own nation, but also for other nations which were set under the rule of foreign kings, wishing to bring all to the worship of the one true God and to the path of the true religion; wherefore he sent his ecclesiastical messengers to the kings most friendly to him, calling them to the light of his faith; and both by letters and by royal gifts he diligently allured their minds. Sometimes he admonished them in person and by his own presence, that they should embrace his religion with a pious mind, and should submit their necks to almighty God; that thereby they might stand forth gloriously as conquerors of their enemies; in whom he affirmed that to hope, or to lean, was always true victory. Whence we shall set down one example out of many. And let that suffice for those who read the so glorious deeds of so great a King.] In his time the nation of the West Saxons, who anciently were called Gewissae, king Cynegils reigning ^c, received the faith of Christ, the most holy king Oswald exhorting them to it, and bishop Birinus ^d preaching to them, who had come to Britain by the counsel of Pope Honorius, promising indeed that he, in his presence, would scatter the seeds of the holy faith in the inner parts of the English beyond, where no teacher had gone before; whence also by the command of that same Pontiff he was consecrated into the rank of the episcopate by Asterius ^e, bishop of Genoa.

[24] But coming to Britain, and first entering the nation of the Gewissae, when he found all there most utterly pagan, he judged it more useful to preach the word of God there rather than, going further, to seek those to whom he ought to preach. And so, while he was preaching the Gospel in the aforesaid province, when the king himself, being catechized, was washed in the font of baptism with his nation, [he marries the daughter of a king of Britain, whom he had raised from the sacred font.] it happened at that time that the most holy and most victorious king of the Northumbrians, Oswald, was present, and received him coming forth from the washing, and so it came about by a most beautiful fellowship, altogether worthy of God: for him whose daughter he was about to receive in marriage, he first received as his son, dedicated to God by a second generation. And both kings gave to that same bishop the city which is called Dorchester ^f, to make there an episcopal see.

[25] [But that same King, notable in virtues and Christ's distinguished athlete, He is praised for his virtues: the Holy Spirit governing all his acts, was always advancing to better things, and went from virtue to virtue, so that he deserved to attain what follows: The God of gods shall be seen in Sion. Then in his act, and also in mind, he embraced the four virtues — prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance — and bore them before him as something holy and just, through which heaven is gained and God is approached; and he held them fixed in memory as most dear pledges. In short, he was always held good, pious, gentle toward the good; but he seemed fierce, harsh, and as it were arrogant to the impious, so that his goodness might profit the good and his harshness, as it seemed, the impious. But indeed the rule of justice holds this: that the just be coaxed and exhorted by example, by mild word, by good work; and that the unjust also be deterred by harsh rebuke. So indeed did he order his acts, so his manners, so his life, that he desired to profit himself and all. All the things in which he was strong cannot be pursued in writing, and in which the young King, dwelling in this body, strove to exercise himself now in work, now in mind. Wherefore we must hasten to his martyrdom ^g, which he underwent for his faith and for the salvation of his nation, in which the Prince of all kings worthily distinguished so excellent a King according to his merits.]

CHAPTER IX.

[26] Oswald, therefore, the most Christian king, reigned ten ^h years, exercising himself in all the good works of the virtues [he meets death, which we have already mentioned, or in which every Christian ought to exercise himself.] Which course of years being completed, he was slain, a grievous battle having been joined, by that same pagan nation and by the pagan king of the Mercians, Penda ⁱ (by whom also his predecessor Edwin had been slain), in the place which in the language of the English is called Maserfield ^k, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, on the fifth day of the month of August ^l. [But indeed

it is clear, and is held manifest concerning him, what is read in Solomon: That he was taken away, lest malice should change his understanding, or lest deceit should beguile his soul. For he was taken away as a young man, so that, being such, and scarcely even yet of middle age, he might be crowned by God, who both as boy and as young man rendered him continual service.] How great his faith in God, and what his devotion of mind, was, shone forth by miracles of powers even after his death. For in the place where, fighting for his country, he was slain by the pagans, to this day healings of the sick, both of men and of cattle, do not cease to be celebrated.

[27] Whence it happened that many, carrying off that very dust where his body fell to the ground, what various and putting it into water, brought much benefit thereby to their sick. Which custom indeed so increased that, the earth being little by little carried off thence, it made a hollow as deep as the measure of a man's stature. Nor is it to be wondered at that the sick are healed in the place of his death, who, while he lived, never ceased to look to the sick and the poor, and to bring them help by alms. And many miracles of powers indeed are narrated as having been wrought in that place or from the dust of that place; but we have thought it enough to report only [two] which we have heard from our Elders. Not long after his slaying, when some time had passed, it happened that a certain man, sitting on a horse, was making a journey beside that place. Whose horse suddenly, growing weary, stopped, began to bend its head to the ground, to let foam fall from its mouth, and, its excessive pain increasing, to fall to the earth.

[28] followed in the place of that same The rider leaped down, and, the bridle being taken off, began to await the hour in which he should either take back the beast improved or leave it dead. But it, long vexed with grievous pain, when it twisted itself in different directions, suddenly by rolling came to that place where the memorable King fell. Without delay, the pain ceasing, it left off from the mad motions of its limbs, and, after the accustomed manner of horses, as though after weariness, rolled itself in turn to either side, and rising at once, as though wholly sound, began eagerly to crop the green herbage everywhere. Seeing which, that man, being of shrewd wit, understood that there was something of wondrous holiness in this place where the horse was cured, and, having set a sign there, not long after mounted his horse and went on to the lodging to which he had purposed.

[29] When he arrived there, he found there a girl, the master of the house's niece, long burdened with the disease of paralysis. miracles. And when the household of that house were complaining, in his presence, of the girl's bitter infirmity, he began to tell of the place where his horse had been cured. Why more? Placing her in a cart, they led her to the place and there laid her down. But she, being placed in the place, slept a little, and when she awoke, feeling herself sound from that dissolution of body, having asked for water, she herself washed her face, arranged her hair, covered her head with a linen cloth, and returned with those who had brought her, walking soundly on her own feet.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Same place: "about to send"

* Same place: "nephew"

* Same place: "Acha"

* Same place: "At that time"

* Same place: "Cynegils"

* Same place: a word is added

* Same place: "with the counsel"

* Basel edition: "into Britain"

* read "Asterius"

* Basel edition: "But in"

* Cambridge: "arriving"

* Both editions: "Dorcinca"

* Rooklooster manuscript: "in every way growing in his act"

* Both editions: "to give alms, to bring help"

* Both editions: "or from"

* Same place: "two" is added

* Same place: "to grow weary, to stop"

CHAPTER IV.

Certain other prodigies; the translation of the bones; malignant spirits driven off.

CHAPTER X.

At the same time there came a certain other man of the nation of the Britons, Certain other as they report, making a journey beside that very place in which the aforesaid battle had been fought, and he saw the space of one spot greener and more beautiful than the rest of the field, and began with shrewd mind to conjecture that there was no other cause of the unusual greenness in that place than that some man holier than the rest of the army had there been slain. And so he took with him some of the dust of that earth, binding it in a linen cloth, thinking — what was to come to pass — that that same dust would avail for the healing of the sick. And going on his journey, he came in the evening to a certain village, and entered a house in which the neighbors were feasting at supper, and, being received by the masters of the house, he too sat down with them to the banquet, hanging the little linen cloth with the dust which he had brought upon one post of the wall.

[31] And when they had for a long while given themselves to feasting and drunkenness, a great fire having been kindled in the midst, prodigies, it happened that, sparks flying on high, the roof of the house, which was woven of twigs and thatched with hay, was suddenly filled with flames. When the guests, confounded with terror, suddenly saw this, they fled outside, able to avail nothing for the burning house now just about to perish. The house therefore having been consumed by the flames, only the post on which that dust hung enclosed remained safe from the fires and untouched. Who, seeing this power, marveled greatly, and, inquiring more carefully, found that the dust had been taken from that place where king Oswald's blood had been shed. Which miracles being made known and spread abroad far and wide, many day by day began to frequent that place, and to receive there the grace of healings for themselves and their own.

CHAPTER XI.

[32] Among which I think it must by no means be passed over in silence what power and heavenly miracle had been shown when his bones were found The translation of the bones and translated into the church in which they are now preserved. But this was done through the industry of Ostrida, queen of the Mercians, who was the daughter of his brother, that is, of Oswy ^a, who after him held the summit of the kingdom, as we shall say in what follows. There is a noble monastery in the province of Lindsey, by name Bardney ^b, which that queen with her husband Ethelred ^c greatly loved, venerated, and cherished, in which she desired to lay away the honorable bones of her Uncle. And when the cart in which those same bones were being carried had come, evening drawing on, to the aforesaid monastery, those who were in the monastery were unwilling to receive them gladly; because, although they knew him a Saint, yet because he had been born of another province and had received the kingdom over them, they pursued him with their old hatreds even when dead. Whence it came about that on that night the relics that had been brought remained outside in a tent, with a banner spread above the cart in which they were, so much the greater a sign ^d. But the showing of a heavenly miracle made plain how reverently they must be received by all the faithful.

[33] it is honored from heaven; For on that night a column of light, stretching from that cart up to heaven, stood visible in almost all the places of that same province of Lindsey. Whence, when morning came, the brethren of that monastery, who the day before had refused, themselves began diligently to ask that those same holy relics, beloved of God, be laid away among them. The bones therefore being washed, they brought them into a shrine which they had prepared for this, and placed them in the church with fitting honor. And that the holy Man's royal person might have an eternal memorial, they set his banner, made of gold and purple, above the tomb, and poured that very water in which they had washed the bones into a corner of the sanctuary.

[34] and they avail From which time it came about that that very earth which received the venerable washing had the effect of saving grace for driving demons from the bodies they possessed. In short, at a later time, when the aforesaid queen was staying in that same monastery, there came to greet her a certain venerable abbess, who survives to this day, by name Ethelhild, sister of the holy men Ethelwin and Aldwin: of whom the former was bishop in the province of Lindsey; the second was abbot in the monastery which is called Partney, not far from which she too had a monastery. When therefore, coming thither, she was speaking with the queen, and, among other things, a conversation having arisen about Oswald, she said that she too had seen on that night a light above his relics reaching up to heaven, the queen added that from the dust of the pavement on which the water of that washing had been poured out many sick had already been healed. But she asked that a portion of the health-bringing dust be given her, and, receiving it, first bound it up and laid it in a little casket, and returned.

[35] for driving off But some time having passed, when she was in her own monastery, there came thither a certain guest,

who was accustomed rather often in the hours of night to be most grievously vexed by an unclean spirit. Who, having been kindly received, when after supper he had laid his limbs on a bed, suddenly seized by the devil, began to cry out, to gnash with his teeth, to foam, and to twist his limbs with various bitings. And when he could be neither held nor bound by anyone, a servant ran and, knocking at the door, announced it to the abbess. But she, opening the gate of the monastery, went out herself with one of the holy women to the place of the men, and, calling out the priest, asked him to come with her to the sufferer.

[36] by its power When, coming there, they saw that many were present who, though they tried, could by no means hold the vexed man and check his mad motions, the priest said exorcisms, and did whatever he could to quiet the wretched man's fury; but not even he, though laboring much, could avail anything. And when no hope of relief seemed left to the raging man, suddenly that aforesaid dust came into the abbess' mind, and at once she bade a servant go and bring the little casket in which it was. And when she, bringing what she was bidden, entered the courtyard of the house in whose inner parts the demoniac was being tormented, he suddenly fell silent, and, as if relaxed into sleep, laid down his head, and composed all his limbs in quiet.

[37] All fell silent, and, intent, held their mouths still, malignant spirits. anxiously awaiting what outcome the matter would have. And after the space of some little while, he who had been vexed sat up, and, sighing heavily, said: Now I feel myself sound: for I have recovered the sense of my mind. But they diligently asked how this had happened. And he said: As soon as this maiden with the little casket which she carried drew near the courtyard of this house, all the malignant spirits which oppressed me departed, and, leaving me, appeared nowhere. Then the abbess gave him a small portion of that dust, and so, a prayer having been said by the priest, he passed that night most quietly, nor from that time did he suffer anything of nocturnal fear or vexation from the ancient enemy.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Same place: "At that"

* Basel edition: "Offrida." Cambridge: "Osfrida."

* Basel edition: "Osuuini." Cambridge: "Oswin."

* Basel edition: "Adilredo." Cambridge: "Æthilredo."

* Both editions: "all that night"

* So also the Cambridge edition. Basel wrongly: "the whole"

* Basel edition: "Edilhilt." Cambridge: "Ethilhild."

* Both editions: "Peartaneu"

* Same place: "from whom"

* Same place: "suddenly" is added

* Same place: "he was doing."

* Same place: "I am sound in understanding"

* Same place: "leaving me"

* Basel edition: "nor anything at all"

CHAPTER V.

Fevers cured; the Saint's patronage with God; a certain man endowed with health of body and of soul; as also a boy, with the foretelling of secret things and the enjoyment of heavenly glory.

CHAPTER XII.

At a following time there was in that same monastery a certain little boy grievously vexed by a long trouble of fevers. A little boy is healed of fevers. And when on a certain day he was anxiously awaiting the hour of the attack, a certain one of the brethren, coming in to him, said: Do you wish me to teach you how you may be cured of the threatening trouble of this sickness? Rise, enter the church, and, going to Oswald's tomb, sit there, and, remaining quiet, cling to the tomb. See that you do not go out thence, nor be moved from the place, until the hour of the fever's departure shall have passed: then I myself shall enter and lead you out from there. He did as that man had urged; and as he sat at the Saint's tomb, the infirmity by no means presumed to touch him. Which fled away in such fear that neither on the second day nor on the third, nor ever thereafter, did it dare to touch him. That this was so done, the brother who reported it to me, coming thence, added that at that very time when he was speaking with me there survived in that same monastery, now a young man, he in whom, when a boy, this miracle of healing had been wrought.

[39] A reason is given why the Saint avails so much with God. Nor is it to be wondered at that the prayers of that King, now reigning with the Lord, avail much with him, who, once holding the helm of a temporal kingdom, was always accustomed rather to labor and to pray for the eternal one. In short, they report that from the time of morning praise he very often persisted in prayers until day, and that, on account of his frequent habit of praying or of giving thanks to the Lord, he was accustomed always, wherever he was sitting, to keep his hands upturned upon his knees ^a. But it is commonly said, and has passed into the usage of a proverb, that even amid the words of prayer he ended his life. For when, hedged about by arms and enemies, he saw that he was just about to be slain, he prayed for the souls of his army. Whence they say in the proverb: "God, have mercy on their souls," said Oswald as he fell to the ground. His bones therefore were translated and laid away in the monastery which we have mentioned. But his head, with the hands and arms cut off from the body, the king who had slain him ordered to be hung on stakes. Coming thither after a year with an army, Oswy his successor in the kingdom took them away, and the head indeed he laid away in the cemetery of the church of Lindisfarne; but in the royal city the hands with the arms ^b.

[40] His fame shines in Germany and Ireland. Nor did the fame of the renowned Man traverse the bounds of Britain only; but, scattering the rays of its saving light far even beyond the ocean, it reached the parts of Germany ^c and of Ireland alike. In short, the most reverend prelate Acca ^d is wont to relate that, when, going to Rome, he was staying with Willibrord ^e, the most holy archbishop of the Frisian nation, together with his own prelate ^f, he often heard him narrating the wonders which were wrought upon the relics of that same most reverend King in that province. But also in Ireland, when as a priest he was still leading a pilgrim life for the sake of the eternal country, he reported that the rumor of his sanctity had already spread far and wide in that island too. Of which we believe that one miracle, which he reported among others, must be inserted into our present history.

[41] To a certain man sick in body and mind At the time, he says, of the mortality which laid waste Britain and Ireland with wide slaughter ^g, there was smitten by the destruction of that plague, among others, a certain scholar of the race of the Scots, a man indeed learned in the study of letters, but bearing no zeal or industry at all toward the care of his perpetual salvation. Who, when he saw himself near death, began to fear and to be afraid lest, soon dead, he should for the deserts of his crimes be carried off to the prisons of hell: and he cried out, when I was placed in the neighborhood, and, trembling amid sick sighs, complained to me in a mournful voice thus: You see, he said, that, the trouble of my body increasing, I am now compelled to the crisis of undergoing death. Nor do I doubt that after the death of my body I shall be carried off to the perpetual death of my soul, and be subjected to infernal torments; because for no small time amid the studies of divine reading I was accustomed to serve the entanglements of vices rather than the divine commands. But it is in my mind, if the goodness from above shall grant me any span of living, to correct my vicious ways, and wholly to transfer my whole mind and life to the command of the divine will.

[42] But I know that this is not of my merit, that I should either receive a respite of living, health of both is restored through the Saint. or trust that I shall receive it, unless perhaps he shall deign to be propitious with pardon to me, wretched and unworthy, through the help of those who faithfully served him. But we have heard, and it is most widely reported, that there was in your nation a king of wondrous sanctity, by name Oswald, whose excellence of faith and of virtue shone, even after death, by the working of frequent mighty deeds; and I pray that, if you have anything of his relics with you, you would bring it to me, if the Lord shall be willing through his merit to have mercy on me. But I answered: I have indeed something of the wood on which his head was fixed when he was slain by the pagans: and if you shall believe with firm heart, the divine goodness can, through the merit of so great a Man, both grant you longer spans of this life and render you worthy of entering upon everlasting life. And he without delay answered that he had entire faith in this. Then I blessed water, and, putting in a splinter of the aforesaid oak, offered it to the sick man to drink. Without delay he began to be better from his infirmity; and thereafter he lived a long time, converted in heart and mind, and everywhere he came he proclaimed the clemency of his pious Maker and the glory of his faithful Servant.

Book IV. CHAPTERS XIII, XIV.

[43] At which time ^h king Ethelwalch ⁱ gave to the most reverend prelate Wilfrid land of eighty-seven households ^k, where he might receive his own men who were wandering in exile, called Selsey ^l; which is said in Latin the Island of the sea-calf. But that place is surrounded on all sides by the sea, Another certain little boy seized by disease except on the west; whence it has an entrance of the breadth as it were of a sling's cast: such a place is wont to be called by the Latins a peninsula, by the Greeks a chersonese. When therefore bishop Wilfrid had received this place, he founded there a monastery and established it in the regular life, chiefly with those brethren whom he had brought with him, which his successors are known to hold to this day. In which monastery they relate that certain gifts of heavenly grace were then spiritually shown: inasmuch as where the devil's tyranny had lately been driven out, Christ had now begun to reign. Of which we have thought it convenient to commit to memory one which the most reverend prelate Acca was wont often to relate to me, and to assert had been disclosed to him by the most faithful brethren of that same monastery. At nearly the same time in which that province had received Christ's name ^m, a savage mortality ⁿ was seizing many provinces of Britain: which, when by the will of the divine dispensation it touched also the aforesaid monastery, over which then, to be ruled, the most reverend and most religious priest of Christ named Eappa ^o presided, and many, whether of those who had come with that prelate, or of those who had lately been called to the faith from that same province of the Saxons, were being carried off everywhere from this life, it seemed good to the brethren to keep a three days' fast,

and suppliantly to beseech the divine clemency, that it would deign to bestow mercy upon them, either by freeing from the present disease those imperiled by this sickness, or by preserving those taken from the world from the perpetual damnation of the soul. There was at that time in that same monastery a certain little boy of the nation of the Saxons, lately called to the faith, who, touched by that same infirmity, lay reclining for no small time upon his little bed.

[44] When therefore the second day of the aforesaid fast and supplications was being kept, it happened by chance that that same boy, about the second hour of the day, was found alone in the place where he lay sick: [he learns from the holy Apostles Peter and Paul that he is to be led to heaven, and that the pestilential plague] to whom by the divine dispensation the most blessed Princes of the Apostles suddenly deigned to appear. For the boy was of a very simple and gentle spirit, and kept with sincere devotion the Sacraments of the faith which he had received. Greeting him therefore with most kindly words, the Apostles said: Do not fear, son, the death about which you are anxious: for we shall this very day lead you to the heavenly kingdoms. But first you must wait until Masses be celebrated, and, the Viaticum of the Lord's body and blood being received, so, being absolved at once from infirmity and from death, you may be lifted up to eternal joys in the heavens. Call therefore to you the priest Eappa, and say to him: That the Lord has heard your prayers and devotion, and has looked graciously upon your fasts; and that no one from this monastery, or from the little possessions adjoining it, shall die of this plague: but all who anywhere of your people labor under this sickness shall rise from their weakness and are to recover their former health — except you alone, who are this day to be freed from death, and to be led to heaven to the vision of the Lord Christ, whom you have faithfully served.

[45] is to be taken away through the merits of St. Oswald Which the divine mercy has deigned to confer upon you through the intercession of the religious king Oswald, beloved of God, who once presided in sublime fashion over the nation of the Northumbrians, both by the authority of a temporal kingdom and by the devotion of Christian piety, which leads to the everlasting kingdom. For on this day that same King, slain bodily in war by the unbelieving, was presently taken up to heaven to the everlasting joys of souls, and joined to the ranks of the elect. Let them seek in their books in which the deposition of the Dead is noted, and they will find that he was, as we have said, on this day snatched from the world.

[46] is to be removed. Let them therefore celebrate Masses through all the oratories of this monastery, both for a thanksgiving that their prayer has been heard, and also in memory of the aforesaid king Oswald, who once presided over their nation: and therefore prayed for them as suppliant to the Lord, as for strangers of his own nation; and, all the brethren coming together to the church, let all communicate in the heavenly Sacrifices, and thus, the fast being broken, let them refresh their bodies also with their own food.

[47] The truth of which When the boy had told all these words to the priest, who had been called to him, he anxiously asked him what the men who had appeared to him were like in habit or in appearance. He answered: Altogether distinguished were they in habit and in face: most joyful and most beautiful, such as I had never seen before: nor did I believe that any men could be of such comeliness and beauty. One indeed was tonsured, like a cleric; the other had a long beard: and they said that one of them was called Peter, the other Paul; and that they were ministers of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, sent by him from the heavens for the protection of our monastery. The priest therefore believed the boy's words, and, going out at once, searched in his annals, and found that on that very same day king Oswald had been slain. And, the brethren being called, he ordered a meal to be prepared, Masses to be said, and all to communicate after the usual manner: at the same time also he commanded that a particle of that same Sacrifice of the Lord's oblation be carried to the sick boy.

[48] the outcome proved. These things being so done, not long after, on that very same day, the boy died, and by his death proved that the words which he had heard from Christ's Apostles were true. But this also bore testimony to his words, that no one besides himself was at that time snatched from the world out of that same monastery. From which vision indeed many who were able to hear these things were wondrously kindled both to beseech the divine clemency in adversities, and to undergo the saving remedies of fastings. And from that time not only in that same monastery, but also in very many other places, the birthday of that same King and soldier of Christ began to be venerated yearly with the celebration of Masses [p].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. What is here narrated from Bede's book 4, chapters 13 and 14, we have just noted from the Preliminary Commentary, number 55, was added by us from him to our biographer; where also the disparagers are dealt with.

* Both editions add "in"

* Both editions add "at once"

* Same place: "and recovering from his infirmity"

* Same place: "and converted to God with his whole heart and work"