ON ST. BENEDICT BISCOP, ABBOT IN ENGLAND.
A.D. 703.
PrefaceBenedict Biscop, Abbot in England (St.)
From various sources.
[1] The Vedra is a river of Britain in Ptolemy, the Wirus in Bede, the Wira in others, now commonly called the Were by the English, which waters far and wide the Bishopric of Durham, once part of the province of the Brigantes: and at length it mingles with the Ocean at Wiran-muth, The river Wear. as Bede calls it, now, on the testimony of Camden, Monckswere-mouth, that is, the mouth of the Vedra which belonged to the monks. The reason for the name is gathered from William of Malmesbury, book 1 of the Deeds of the Kings of the English, chapter 3: "Britain, which is called by some another world, because, being surrounded by the Ocean, it has not been explored by many cosmographers, Bede's native land. has in its most remote region, near Scotland, the place of Bede's birth and upbringing. A region once both sweet with the fragrant flowers of monasteries and shining with a multitude of cities built by the Romans; now, mournful either from the ancient ravaging of the Danes or the recent ravaging of the Normans, it holds out nothing that greatly attracts the mind. There is the Wear, a river neither of scanty breadth nor of sluggish flow, The monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. which, flowing into the sea, receives in the calm bosom of its mouth ships borne in by a fair breeze. Both of whose banks a certain Benedict distinguished with churches, and there built monasteries, one in the name of Peter, the other in the name of Paul, not differing in the union of charity and of rule." He says that both banks of the Wear were distinguished with churches, perhaps because he built churches in several villages of that region. Otherwise the monastery of St. Paul, at Girwy or Jarrow, is about five miles distant from the Wear, beside the river Tyne, of which below in the Notes.
[2] The monks of Wearmouth long ago, not long after his death, kept with annual celebration the feast of St. Benedict the Abbot, father of these monasteries, The feast of St. Benedict, their founder, January 12. as is clear from Bede's homily to be cited below. His name was afterward inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on the day before the Ides of January in these words: "In England, of St. Benedict, Abbot and Confessor." Molanus and Galesinius add the place: "At Wearmouth in England, of St. Benedict, first Abbot and Confessor." But Menard: "At London in England, of St. Benedict, Abbot, surnamed Biscop." Wion: "At Wearmouth in England, of St. Benedict, first Abbot of the monastery of Sts. Peter and Paul at London, who, having been taught the monastic discipline at Rome and having returned to his homeland, propagated it with manifold increase." There was indeed at London a monastery dedicated to St. Peter, which is commonly called Westminster, of which on January 5 in the Life of St. Edward and elsewhere. But that has nothing to do with Benedict Biscop. He is moreover recorded on this day by Dorganius, and by the German and English Martyrologies. But Trithemius, book 3 of the Illustrious Men of the order of St. Benedict, chapter 151, writes that his Feast is celebrated on the day before the Nones of December. Elsewhere December 4. On which day, in a single manuscript Calendar of the Saints of the order of St. Benedict, and that not an ancient one, the following is found: "Of St. Benedict, Abbot of the monastery of St. Peter at Girwy in England, who was the Abbot and Father of the Venerable Bede, Priest." The monastery of Girwy was St. Paul's, as was said above, and will be said again below; that of St. Peter was Wearmouth. Yet Bede, book 5, chapter 22, calls Ceolfrid Abbot of the monastery of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, "which is at the mouth of the river Wear, and beside the river Tyne in the place which is called Ingriuum." So must be understood what is said in the English Martyrology, that the church built by Benedict was consecrated to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. And although, as has been said, those two monasteries were some little distance apart, and had each its own Provost, they were nevertheless subject to one Abbot, and were reckoned one monastery. In a very ancient Irish manuscript of the convent of Donegal, on January 17, this is found: And January 17. "Of Benedict, Abbot"; which we suspect is to be understood of him.
[3] The Life written by Bede. The Venerable Bede, after the epitome of the history of the English nation, acknowledges that among other things he wrote "the History of the Abbots of this monastery," he says, "in which I rejoice to serve the divine goodness, Benedict, Ceolfrid, and Werbert, in two little books." These little books we have not yet seen. There is extant in Capgrave a Life of St. Ceolfrid, but not the one written by Bede. We shall give here what the same Bede wrote about Benedict in a homily delivered on his feast day, and then certain things from William of Malmesbury, book 4 of the Deeds of the Bishops of the English, and from the Flowers of Histories of Matthew of Westminster. He is moreover recorded by Ranulph of Chester, book 5, chapter 16; by Florence of Worcester often; by Nicholas Harpsfield, seventh century, chapter 37; by Antonio Yepez, volume 2, century 3, at the year 703; by Clement Reyner, On the antiquity of the Benedictines in England, treatise 1, section 1, §9; by John Capgrave, from the Westminster writer; by Baronius, volume 8 of the Annals, at the year 703, numbers 4 and 5; by Alcuin Flaccus, letter 49, to the Brethren of the Church of Wear and Girwy. But as for Clement Reyner's statement that the name of Alcuin was inscribed in the roll of the fraternity by Benedict and Ceolfrid, it can be refuted from his Life, written by a contemporary, since it is established from it that he died in the year 804, 101 years after Biscop's death, and that as a boy he was taught by Egbert, a disciple of Bede. Mention of Benedict is, however, made in that same Life.
[4] The age of Benedict we can gather thus. Ranulph, in the place cited, writes as follows: "In this year also (654, in which Anna, King of the East Angles, was slain by Penda) Benedict Biscop, Abbot and foster-father of Bede the Priest, and minister of King Oswy, leaving his home, kinsfolk, and homeland for love of Christ, in the 35th year of his age went to Rome, and returned from there more learned." Florence of Worcester relates the same, but at the year 653, and says that he was then in the twenty-fifth year of his age. In 653 or 654 he goes to Rome, He had St. Wilfrid as companion of his first journey. So William of Malmesbury, book 3 of the Bishops: "After a year, given by the King (Ercombert) to accompany the industrious young man Benedict, who was afterward Abbot of Wear, he was hastening the journey to Rome." And Bede, book 5, chapter 20, speaking of St. Wilfrid, says: "Coming to Queen Eanfled, wife of Oswy, to whom he was known, and by whose counsel and support he had been joined to the aforesaid monastery, he made known to her that there was in him a desire to visit the thresholds of the blessed Apostles: she, delighted with the young man's good purpose, sent him into Kent to King Erconbert, who was the son of her uncle, asking that he send him honorably to Rome. with St. Wilfrid, afterward Bishop of York. At that time Honorius, one of the disciples of the blessed Pope Gregory, a man loftily instructed in Ecclesiastical matters, held the rank of Archbishop there. When the young man of lively mind had stayed there for some time and was diligently applying himself to learning the things he observed, there arrived there another young man, named Biscop, surnamed Benedict, of the nobility of the English, who himself also desired to come to Rome, of whom we made mention above. To his company, therefore, the King joined Wilfrid, and ordered him to take him with him to Rome. When they had come to Lyons, Wilfrid was detained there by Dalfinus, Bishop of the city; Benedict diligently completed the journey he had begun as far as Rome." Thus Bede. Angered, as William of Malmesbury says, by Wilfrid's delay, he went on ahead. "But Wilfrid, supported by the Archbishop's counsel and relieved by his purse, set out on the journey he had begun and shortly overtook his companion; and they reached Rome together." Since St. Honorius (after their departure from England) died on September 30, either in the year 653, as Florence of Worcester will have it, or in 654, as Ranulph, from this also it can be determined when that journey was undertaken.
[5] Wilfrid, having stayed at Rome for some time, received the Ecclesiastical tonsure at Lyons while returning to his homeland: he received the monastery of Ripon from Alfrid, son of King Oswy, as the Westminster writer reports at the year 661; and at length, in the year 664, he was ordained Bishop at Compiègne in Gaul by Agilbert, Bishop of Paris, as Bede has it, book 4, chapter 28, and in the epitome. Benedict seems to have remained for several years at Rome, and for two years in the monastery of Lérins: having returned from there to Rome, He departs from there in the year 668. he was ordered by Pope Vitalian to conduct Theodore the Archbishop to England in the year 668. Whence you may correct what Baronius writes in the Notes to the Martyrology: "Benedict lived for some time at Rome, until the times of Pope Agatho, by whom he was ordered to return to England with John the Archcantor, to instruct that people in the disciplines of the Roman Church." Pits departs further from the truth, writing that when he first came to Rome he was kindly received by Pope Agatho; and that afterward he received the clerical tonsure in the monastery of Lérins in the same year in which Theodore the Cilician was created Archbishop of Canterbury. In Florence of Worcester you may recognize an error when he twice notes his third journey to Rome, in the years 668 and 671; at the former year he writes thus: "Biscop, who is also Benedict, came to Rome for the third time" (it seems it should read the second). "At that time there was at Rome a monk Theodore, He conducts Theodore the Archbishop to England. born at Tarsus in Cilicia, endowed with secular and Ecclesiastical philosophy, sufficiently instructed in Greek and Latin, upright in character, 66 years of age. Him, ordained Archbishop on the seventh day before the Kalends of April, a Sunday, Pope Vitalian commended to Biscop (because he was a wise and vigorous man) to be conducted to Britain, together also with the Abbot Adrian."
[6] He becomes Abbot at Canterbury in the year 669. "In the year 669," says the same Florence of Worcester, "Archbishop Theodore came to Kent on the sixth day before the Kalends of June, a Sunday; and he gave to Benedict (who is also Biscop) the monastery of Blessed Peter the Apostle, to be ruled by right of Abbot." Others will have it that that monastery was given him by King Egbert. "In the year 671," the same says, "the Venerable Abbot Benedict, who is also Biscop, when he had presided for two years by right of Abbot over the monastery of Blessed Peter the Apostle, He goes again to Rome, 671. with the leave of Archbishop Theodore set out from Britain for Rome for the third time. In the government of the monastery he was succeeded by Abbot Adrian (whom we mentioned above), a man African by nation, diligently instructed in sacred letters, most skilled in both the Greek and Latin languages."
[7] He returns, 672. "In the year 672," he says, "Benedict Biscop returned from Rome, and having entered Britain, made for the nation of his homeland and the soil on which he was born. He went to Egfrid, King of the Northumbrian nation, who at once gave him land of 70 families, so that he might build a monastery at the mouth of the river Wear." Then, "in the year 674, He builds the monastery, 674. Biscop at the mouth of the river Wear, in the 2nd indiction." That monastery, therefore, was not founded in the year 670, as Pits writes.
[8] "In the year 676," writes the same Florence of Worcester, "Benedict Biscop, with Ceolfrid, a religious monk, made for Rome from Britain for the fourth time: He goes again to Rome. he brought back Ecclesiastical privileges received from Pope Agatho, with the leave, consent, desire, and exhortation of King Egfrid, by which his monastery might be rendered safe and free in perpetuity. He also received John, Archcantor of Blessed Peter the Apostle, to be conducted to Britain, so that he might teach in his monastery the course of chanting through the year." But since we showed above, in the Life of St. Agatho on January 10, that he began to sit at the end of the year 678, either Biscop stayed at Rome for nearly two years, or he visited other monasteries in Gaul and Italy on the way, or rather he set out for Rome later; and Florence of Worcester himself makes this year of Christ 676 the second of Agatho.
[9] "In the year 682," as the same says, "the most Reverend Abbot Benedict Biscop, choosing from his monastery the Priest Easterwine, his cousin, distinguished for sanctity, set him over the same monastery as Abbot, with the right of ruling.
King Egfrid, for the redemption of his soul, also gave Abbot Benedict another piece of land of 40 families. There, having sent monks to the number of 22, He builds the monastery of Jarrow in the year 682. and having set over them as Abbot Ceolfrid, his most vigorous helper in all things, at the King's command he built a monastery to Blessed Paul the Apostle in the place which is called Giruum." Of this monastery the Westminster writer, at the year 681: "The monastery at Jarevve was founded." Of which place Camden: "Below this village (Gateshead), almost at the very mouth of the Tyne, is seen Girwy, now Jarrow, the native soil of the venerable Bede, where also a little monastery once flourished, whose founder and the time of whose foundation this Inscription teaches, which is read on the wall of the church:
DEDICATIO BASILICÆ
S. PAVLI VIII. KL. MAII
ANNO XVI. EGFRIDI REG.
CEOLFRIDI ABB. EIVSDEMQ.
ECCLES. DEO AVCTORE
CONDITORIS ANNO IIII.
[The dedication of the basilica of St. Paul on the eighth day before the Kalends of May, in the 16th year of King Egfrid, in the 4th year of Ceolfrid, Abbot and, under God's authority, founder of the same church.]"
Egfrid began to reign in the year 670, on the Kalends of March; therefore the 16th year of his reign was the year of Christ 685. From this it is clear that Pits is mistaken, who writes that the monastery of Jarrow was founded in the year 673.
[10] At length, in the year 703, Benedict departed from life, in the 76th year of his age according to the reckoning of Florence of Worcester, He dies, 703. or the 86th according to that of Ranulph: not the 58th or 78th, as Pits writes.
[11] Sigebert, On the illustrious Ecclesiastical writers, chapter 62, has the following: Whether he wrote the Concord of Rules. "Benedict the Abbot wrote for monks a book which he called the Concord of Rules, comparing the rules of many Fathers with the rule of St. Benedict of Cassino, so that no rule of the Fathers might be at variance with the rule of Benedict, but rather the rule of Benedict might agree with the rules of all the Fathers." This is understood of St. Benedict Biscop by Trithemius, On the illustrious men of the order of St. Benedict, book 2, chapter 19, Clement Reyner in the place cited, Wion in the Notes to the Martyrology, John Pits, Antonio Possevino, Antonio Yepes, and others: and this seems to have been the opinion of Sigebert as well, since he places him between Jonas the Abbot and Theodore, Archbishop of the Scots (perhaps of the English), sent by Vitalian. Others, such as Hugo Menard, book 2 of his Observations, on February 12, attribute that Concord of Rules to another Benedict, Abbot of Aniane in Septimania, and afterward of Inde, or St. Cornelius near Aachen in Belgium, who flourished under Charlemagne. This we shall discuss when we publish those rules themselves, as we promised a little earlier when we treated of St. Caesaria.
[12] His other writings. Pits relates, moreover, that Biscop wrote certain other works: Exhortations to monks, book 1; On his privilege, book 1; On the celebration of the feasts of the whole year, book 1; and others. But as for the book on the celebration of feasts, there will perhaps be someone who suspects that it is rather the work of John, the Roman Archcantor, on account of what will be said below.
LIFE FROM THE HOMILY OF THE VENERABLE BEDE.
Benedict Biscop, Abbot in England (St.) BHL Number: 1101
By Bede.
[1] "Everyone," He says, "who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold and shall possess eternal life." Matt. 19:29. For he who has renounced earthly affections or possessions for the sake of discipleship of Christ, the more he advances in His love, the more people he will find who rejoice to receive him with inward affection and to sustain him with their own substance; sharers, namely, in his possessions and life, who delight to receive into their homes and lands one who has become poor for Christ, and to cherish him with a devotion of charity altogether greater than a carnal wife, parent, How religious receive a hundredfold from God. brother, or son. For the hundredfold of which He speaks shows, not the number of those who love in Christ and serve the faithful for Christ's sake, but the universality and perfection with which they serve one another through charity. Of this thing, dearest brethren, we have often taken an example in ourselves also, when, going away to some place for the needs of our affairs, we have found all the dwellings of the monasteries open to us as if our own, and have beheld all inclined to our service with the most sincere devotion.
[2] And most of all in our Father of blessed memory, Blessed Benedict, the venerable day of whose assumption we recall today with due solemnity, we see the whole tenor of this reading most perfectly fulfilled. For, having left all things, he followed Christ, when, despising the things which he had acquired, or was able to acquire, in the a royal service, since he was of noble birth, St. Benedict goes to Rome to be instructed. he hastened to make pilgrimage to the thresholds of the blessed Apostles: so that, since the faith and the ordering of the Churches were still flourishing in their rude beginnings among the nation of the English, he might rather receive the perfect form of living there, where through the chief Apostles of Christ the head of the whole Church stands out preeminent. There, therefore, instructed in Christ, b tonsured in those parts, he was there imbued with the monastic institutions: there he was going to spend the whole of his life c, He is ordered to return to England. had not the Apostolic authority of the Lord Pope forbidden it, who ordered him to return to his homeland in order to conduct to Britain the Archbishop of holy memory d Theodore.
[3] Nor long afterward the Kings of the world too, having learned of his zeal for the virtues, took care to give him a place for building a monastery, He builds and orders a monastery. not taken away from any of lesser persons, but given out of their own. Having received it, he soon ordered it most perfectly according to regular discipline within and without, not laying down decrees for us according to his own notion, but setting forth to be observed by himself and his monks the most certain e statutes of the ancient monasteries, which he had learned abroad.
[4] Nor ought it to seem burdensome to any of you, Brethren, if we speak of things known, but it should rather be thought delightful, because we speak true things when we narrate the spiritual deeds of our Father, for whom the Lord fulfilled by a manifest miracle what He promised to His faithful: "That everyone who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold in this time, and in the world to come eternal life." For he left his kinsfolk, He receives a hundredfold, honored everywhere. when he forsook his homeland: but he received a hundredfold, because not only was he held in deserved veneration by all in this land for the diligence of his virtues, but he was also loved in Gaul and Italy, at Rome and in the islands of the sea, by all who were able to know him: so much so that the Apostolic Pope himself, for the advancement of this monastery, which he rejoiced that he had lately founded, furnished him with f John, Abbot and archcantor of the Roman Church, as your charity well remembers, to be conducted from Rome to Britain, through whom the same monastery might receive the manner of chanting and of ministering canonically according to the rite of the holy Roman and Apostolic Church.
[5] He left the houses and lands which he had had, for Christ, from whom he hoped to receive the land of the ever-green paradise, How he left all things. and a house not made with hands but eternal in the heavens. He left wife and children; not indeed a wife he had taken and children born of the flesh, but out of love of chastity he altogether disdained to take a wife from whom he might have children, preferring to belong to those hundred and forty-four thousand of the elect who sing a new song before the throne of God and of the Lamb, which no one can sing but they. Apoc. 14 and 4. "For these are they who were not defiled with women, and they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes." And he received a hundredfold, when not only in these parts, How he received a hundredfold. but also in the lands across the sea, very many desired to receive him into their homes as he journeyed, and to refresh him with the fruits of their lands: when very many g served him as a patron, when men devoted to God, on account of the excellence of his constant spirit, served him with an earnestness of love no less than they gave to their own wives or parents. He received a hundredfold of houses and lands when he obtained those on which he might build monasteries. For to put away a wife for Christ is also to receive a hundredfold in this: because the merit of charity would then be a hundredfold greater of souls among the continent for the sake of the fruit of the spirit than formerly among the wanton for the sake of the desire of the flesh. The sons whom he scorned to have according to the flesh, he merited to receive a hundredfold as spiritual sons. For the number one hundred, as has often been said, signifies perfection figuratively. For we are his sons, whom the loving provider brought into this monastic house: we are his sons, if we hold to the path of his virtues by imitating it, if we do not turn aside through sloth from the regular path which he taught.
[6] For we remember, brethren, we who were able to know him, and those have learned it by frequent hearing whom the divine goodness gathered after his death into the company of our brotherhood, He was always laboring. that as long as he was sound in body he persisted in always laboring for the glory of the holy Church of God, and most of all for the peace, He brings various things from Rome for the good of the monastery. honor, and quiet of this monastery. So often did he cross the sea, and never, as is the custom of some, did he return empty and useless: but now he brought an abundance of holy books, now the venerable gift of relics of the blessed Martyrs of Christ; now he brought with him architects for building the church, now glassmakers for adorning and securing its windows, now masters of chanting and of ministering in the church through the whole year: now he brought h a letter of privilege sent by the Lord Pope, by which our liberty might be kept safe from every outside incursion: now he conveyed pictures of the holy histories, which were to be set up not only for the adornment of the church but also for the instruction of those who looked on them, so that those who could not read letters might learn the works of our Lord and Savior through the contemplation of the images themselves.
[7] He strove to labor so much in these and in things of this kind for this reason, He is zealous for the quiet of his monks. that no such need of laboring should remain for us. He went so often to lands across the sea for this reason, that we, abounding in all the dishes of saving knowledge, might be able to rest within the cloisters of the monastery and serve Christ with secure liberty. He also, when he was seized by bodily infirmity and was pressed more bitterly, always, i amid the due thanksgivings, Patient in illness. took delight in speaking of and repeating the rules of the monasteries, which he had learned and taught, that were to be kept; always of the Ecclesiastical observances which he had seen throughout all the cities, and above all at Rome; always of the holy places which he remembered having visited as a young man. He dies. Thus, exercised in long pursuits of the virtues, and moreover purified by long patience of mind in the continual martyrdom of infirmity, after the hundredfold gifts of present grace he passed over to eternal life.
[8] Wherefore it is necessary, dearest brethren, that as good sons, He is to be imitated by religious. and worthy of so great a parent, we take care to keep his examples and precepts in all things; and that no allurement of soul or of flesh call us back from following the footsteps of so great a leader: so that we too, who have left carnal affections and earthly substance, who, for love of the Angelic life, have scorned to take wives and to beget children according to the flesh, may, as the merit of spiritual virtues increases, deserve both to receive a hundredfold in the present from the fellowship of the Saints, and in the world to come to possess eternal life; by the grace of our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, through all ages of ages. Amen.
AnnotationsON THE SAME, FROM WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY.
Benedict Biscop, Abbot in England (St.)
AnnotationsON THE SAME, FROM MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER.
Benedict Biscop, Abbot in England (St.)
From various sources.
[1] In the year of grace 703, St. Benedict, an English Abbot, after a praiseworthy life, rested in the Lord by a glorious end. St. Benedict as a young man serves as a soldier. This man of God was born of a noble stock of the nation of the English, and in his youth was given over to the rudiments of military service. Then, when he was a minister of King Oswy, and had received no small possession by his gift, spurning all the perishable things of the world for Christ, he went to Rome, He goes to Rome. so that, instructed there in Ecclesiastical discipline, he might take up the spiritual warfare, by which he might profit himself and others, and might be found a useful minister in the cultivation of the Lord's vineyard.
[2] Returning from there, he joined himself to the company of monks at the island of Lérins, He lives at Lérins. and received the tonsure: there, having been regularly instructed for two years, he went back again to the thresholds of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. He returns to England. At that time, when Pope Vitalian a sent Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, into Britain, he, coming at the same time, brought back with him many relics of the Saints.
[3] He builds two monasteries. He afterward attached himself to Egfrid, King of the Northumbrians; the King at once conferred on him land of 60 families, at the mouth of the river Wear, for building a monastery to Peter, Prince of the Apostles, in the year of grace 674, in the second Indiction. And he also built another monastery in honor of Paul, Teacher of the gentiles, at Girwi, not far from the other, and, having received from the aforesaid King estates b of 60 families, took care to enrich it in manifold ways. Filling these monasteries with religious monks, he appointed Ceolfrid in the one, c Easterwine in the other, as Provosts. This he did so that, both in his absence and in his presence, regular observance might always be kept.
[4] To this servant of God, Benedict, the venerable Bede, Teacher of the English, d is related to have been given to be brought up, and under him he is read to have been promoted also to the order e of Priest. He is asserted to have made for Rome five times, He receives Bede. He goes to Rome five times. and always returning, enriched with divine benefits, he took care to instruct those subject to him by work and example alike. At length, after a praiseworthy life, Benedict, victor over vices, most pious confessor of Christ, overcome by the infirmity of the flesh, gave back his spirit to the Creator on the day before the Ides of January. He dies. He was succeeded in burden and honor by a holy man and his disciple, Ceolfrid, under whom Bede, the servant of Christ, for the benefit of the universal Church, praiseworthily completed the labor he had begun on the holy Scriptures.
Annotations