CONCERNING THE HOLY ANCHORITES BALTHER THE PRESBYTER AND BILFRID THE GOLDSMITH, IN SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND,
ABOUT THE YEAR 757.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Balther, Presbyter, in Scotland and England (Saint)
Bilfrid the goldsmith, in Scotland and England (Saint)
Section I. The Acts of Saint Balther. His feast day. His burial.
[1] We join together these holy anchorites whose exercise of the same virtues in life was also in the same century and region, and whose sacred bones after death were exhibited for public veneration in the same bier in the same church. Among them Saint Balther stood out by the dignity of the Presbyterate, Of these anchorites also called Baltherius and Baltere. About him Roger of Hoveden in the first part of his Annals, at the year of Christ 756, published this small eulogy: "In the same year Baltere the anchorite followed the life of the Saints, Saint Balther the Presbyter, and migrated to the Lord." Hoveden copied this from the History of Simeon of Durham on the Deeds of the Kings of England, whose words are: "In the same year Balther the anchorite followed the way of the holy Fathers, migrating to Him who reformed him in the image of His Son." But senior to these is Turgot, who flourished about the year 1100 as Prior of the Church of Durham and alone exercised the care of Christianity throughout the entire diocese, and was afterward assumed as Bishop of Saint Andrews in Scotland. He wrote a History of the Church of Durham, which we shall demonstrate was wrongly published under the name of the said Simeon, a monk and Precentor of Durham, in the preliminary Commentary on the Translation of the body of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, to be illustrated with his Life on March 20. This Turgot, therefore, because he saw the relics of Saint Balther translated to his own Church of Durham and preserved with the greatest veneration, as will be said below, wished to indicate some notice of his life, and prefixed this title to the second chapter of the second book of his History: "How a certain man of royal lineage fled to the peace of Blessed Cuthbert, and was dragged away from there, and how Bishop Cynewulf was thrust into prison on his account, and concerning the death of Saint Balther."
[2] Then at the end of this chapter the following history is appended: "When Eadbert reigned after Ceolwulf, Cynewulf received the episcopate of the Church of Lindisfarne, Under King Eadbert and Cynewulf, Bishop of Lindisfarne, which he held for no small time indeed, but harassed by many troubles of adverse events. For Offa, of the royal line, had fled to the body of Saint Cuthbert when enemies were pursuing him, and being dragged away thence by force, was killed by an abominable death. Whereupon King Eadbert, being offended, seized the Bishop and ordered him to be held captive at Bamburgh, with Friuthubert, Bishop of Hexham, administering the diocese of Lindisfarne, until the King was placated and Cynewulf, released from captivity, returned to his Church. In the seventeenth year of this Bishop's pontificate and the twentieth of King Eadbert's reign, He died on March 6 the man of the Lord and Presbyter Balther, who had led the anchoretic life at Tyningham, entered the way of the holy Fathers, migrating to Him who reformed him in the image of His Son, on the day before the Nones of March." From these things it is certain both that the day of death corresponds to March 6 In the year 756 or the following. and that the year was either 756, as indicated above by Hoveden, or at least the following year, 757. For when Saint Ceolwulf the King became a monk among the Lindisfarne monks in the year 737, Eadbert, son of his uncle, succeeded him, and when Saint Ethelwold, Bishop of Lindisfarne, of whom more frequent mention will be made below, died in the year 740, the aforementioned Cynewulf was substituted. Friuthubert was also already Bishop of Hexham before that, having been ordained on the sixth day before the Ides of September in the year 734, as all these things are read at the aforesaid years in Simeon of Durham's History of the Deeds of the Kings of England. In the manuscript Usuard of the Duke of Altemps at Rome, but augmented in England, the following is read at March 6: "In Britain, the deposition of Saint Balther, Presbyter and Confessor."
[3] Among the aforementioned histories -- both Turgot's on the Church of Durham and Simeon's on the Deeds of the Kings of England -- there exists at column 67 and following, under this title: "History of Saint Cuthbert, and the commemoration of the places and regions of his ancient possession from the beginning until the present time" -- which, however, is not indicated, nor the author's name, who seems to have lived long after Turgot and Simeon. In this history the boundary of the land of the diocese of Lindisfarne is described, and first that part is indicated which is contained on this side of the river Tweed in the present-day county of Northumberland as far as the diocese of Hexham; then that which lies beyond the Tweed in the neighboring part of present-day Scotland. And then is added: "all the land which pertains to the monastery of Saint Balther, which is called Tyningham, from Lammermuir to the mouth of the Esk." Buried at Tyningham, These territories are now in Scotland, where first toward the ocean is the province of the March or Merse, some inland part of which toward Lothian is still called Lammermuir. Then Lothian, In Lothian, now part of the Kingdom of Scotland, which is also called the province of Laudonia and Lothiana, is watered by the river Tyne, and before it flows into the German Sea, it washes the aforementioned monastery of Saint Balther and the town of Tyningham. The other and somewhat larger river of the said Lothian is called the Esk, the northern boundary of the diocese of Lindisfarne, where the mouth of the Esk is placed above. And all this land is said to have pertained to the monastery of Saint Balther.
Section II. The same saint honored under the name Baldred. Whether he was rightly considered a Bishop.
[4] On this day, March 6, on which Saint Balther died, Saint Baldred the Confessor is recorded in the ancient Martyrology printed at Cologne in the year 1490, Called Baldred by others, whom we do not consider different from Saint Balther. About Baldred, Hector Boece writes the following in book 9 of the History of the Scots, page 171: "In those times there lived, nearly contemporaneous with the holy men already mentioned, Saint Baldred, a Scot by race, a teacher of the Picts, who, when he had instructed the Picts in the true faith with pious labor, died in Bassa Died on the island of Bassa. (this is the name of a fortress in Lothian, the most fortified of all places by nature, situated on a very high rock more than two miles from the mainland, surrounded on all sides by the sea). And when the men of three parishes -- Aldham, Tyningham, and Preston -- contended for the carrying out of the funeral, each wishing that so sacred a treasure
should be honored in their parishes, and the matter was approaching almost to the point of offense, it was agreed by common consent that they should spend the following night attending with pious prayers and holding sacred vigils. The next day, whatever the bishop of the place (who happened to have come there to attend the sacred procession) should say ought to be done in the matter, they would carry out without dispute. When the night was spent, three coffins with three bodies, Whose body is asserted to have been tripled, decently adorned with sacred vestments, with no difference among them in size or color or any other respect, were found by the priests in the doubtful light. At the bishop's command, with the pious and joyful acclamations of the people, they were carried to the three neighboring churches, where the same funeral, by divine working, was celebrated in three places with splendid pomp. And the bodies, deposited in honorable sarcophagi, are honored in our age by the religious people with pious prayers. So much from Boece, whom John Leslie follows in book 4 of the Deeds of the Scots, under Aidan the forty-ninth King, where he comprehends in brief what was said in these words: "At the same time Baldred flourished, who, marvelously inflamed with desire to extend religion, turned to the Picts and trained them by his precepts to hold to the right way of Christ. About his body, found after his death in three places at once, wondrous things scattered through our histories are found." So he writes, and leaves us all in doubt about the tripled body of Saint Baldred or Balther. Nor is it an obstacle that they refer him to the seventh century, whom we have said flourished in the following one, since we know them to be little concerned about one century in that origin of the Christian religion, since on the same page in Leslie there is also appended Bathenus, called Baithene and Baterus by others, who died at the end of the sixth century as the second Abbot of the monastery of Iona, and is recorded in the English Martyrology and the Catalogue of Ferrarius on September 11, in the Scottish Menologium of Camerarius on the thirteenth of the same, and in Dempster on June 5 and 7.
[5] Indeed, he was considered a Bishop, Meanwhile a greater controversy arises because, citing the same Hector Boece, Baldred is called a Bishop by Dempster on March 6, whose words are: "At Preston, of Baldred the Bishop, whose body by divine power was found tripled to settle the disputes of the faithful." Preston itself is one of the three places in which the body of Saint Baldred is also said to be preserved, not far from the German Sea, between the overflowing rivers Tyne and Esk, to which latter it is closer. Meanwhile others also called him a Bishop: Hermann Greven in the additions to Usuard, the contemporary author of the manuscript Florarium Sanctorum, Canisius in the German Martyrology, and Ferrarius in the General Catalogue. Against all of whom it seems sufficient to set Matthew of Westminster in the Flores Historiarum, using these words: "In the year of grace 941, Anlaf, newly created King, while he was devastating the church of Saint Balther and burning Tyningham with fire, was soon seized by the judgment of God and miserably ended his life; and King Edmund, making for Northumbria, powerfully expelled Anlaf, son of Sihtric, and Reginald, son of Cuthred the King, and again subjugated the monarchy of all England" -- of which the last events are reported at the year 944 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronologist. But by a faulty chronology of ten years, these things from the cited Flores of the Westminster writer are reported in the Annals of Baronius at the year 951.
[6] Finally, a certain Life of Saint Baldred is reported in the Breviary of Aberdeen, And indeed as Bishop of the city of Glasgow. where he is said to be Bishop of Glasgow under King Aidan in the year 608 and successor of Saint Kentigern, whose Life, duly corrected in our Notes, we gave on January 13. We therefore append this epitome of his Life, but not sufficiently approved by us, and leave it to the Reader's judgment. It reads thus.
[7] "In the year of our salvation and grace 503, on the Ides of January, when the most reverend Father and Bishop Saint Kentigern, at the city of Glasgow over which he presided, in the one hundred and eighty-third year of his age, A disciple and Suffragan of Saint Kentigern, after various and very many miracles divinely shown through him, was translated by the power of the Most High God to the heavenly realms, joined to the angelic choir, Blessed Baldred, who had been the suffragan of the same Blessed Kentigern while he lived in the world, flourished in Lothian for his virtues and illustrious miracles -- a truly most devout man, leaving behind all worldly pomp and its vain care. Pursuing the divine John as much as he was able, he sought out solitary, deserted, and secluded places, and transferred himself to maritime islands. He used to dwell on the island of Bassa. Among these maritime islands he landed at one called Bassa, where he undoubtedly led a contemplative and strict life. There, through the long courses of time, he commended to memory the most blessed Kentigern, his teacher, by continual meditation upon the holiness of his life. Yet he did not cease to imprint the most bitter Passion of Christ above all his other meditations -- in fasting, weeping, and lamentation, in the secret of his heart, in vigils and assiduous prayers -- so greatly that he rendered himself pleasing and acceptable to God Himself and to people everywhere throughout the world. For indeed the parish churches of Aldham, Tyningham, and Preston, And to cultivate three parishes of Lothian, which he had received from the said most reverend Father Kentigern to govern, and to whom the care of souls was committed by God's working, he by no means consigned to oblivion the preaching of Christ's faith to his parishioners; but he instructed and informed them with humility and devotion, as befitted a minister of God. And the sick, if he found any, he healed and restored to health by divine power with the word alone, with the intervening sign of the Cross. And among the other remarkable signs of his miracles, one sufficiently worthy of remembrance comes to be recited. Renowned for miracles, A huge rock of great natural size, which had remained fixed and immovable midway between the said island and the nearest land, presenting itself level with the waves of the sea, caused the greatest impediment to ships and other seafarers, who were sometimes accustomed to be wrecked with their ships. For these Blessed Baldred, moved by piety, He is believed to have transported a rock of the sea to the shore, determined to place himself upon the same rock. When this was done, that rock was immediately raised up from below at his command and, like a little boat driven by a favorable wind, approached the nearest shore. It remains there to this day as a memorial of this miracle and is called to this day the tomb or boat of Blessed Baldred."
[8] "But at last, reaching extreme old age through the labors and woes of this most wretched life, And having died at Aldham on March 6, in order to better instruct those he had had in his care, he determined to attend to the aforesaid church of Aldham. Not long after this, near it, in a little dwelling of his parish clerk, on the day before the Nones of March, with all patience and eagerness and compunction of heart -- while all mourned the departure from the fragile world of so excellent a pastor from his flock -- having poured out a prayer in farewell, he commended his soul to the Lord. When, I say, the parishioners of the three aforementioned churches heard that their most gentle and most meek pastor had ascended from this life to heaven, And with his body divinely tripled, they approached in three companies the place of the body of the most sweet Baldred, who, going back and forth to one another, requested the body for their respective churches with the greatest desire and insistently demanded it, so that the one they had had as Teacher on earth, they might have as a pious intercessor in heaven by showing him fitting reverence. When they could not agree among themselves, having taken the counsel of a certain old man, they left the body unburied through the night and all separately betook themselves to prayers, that the glorious God might of His grace send some sign as to which church the body of the holy man should be given. In the morning, Buried in three churches. a thing not frequently heard of appeared: assembling as before, scattered with their companies, they found three equal bodies prepared with a similar pomp of funeral rites. For which miracle they gave thanks to Almighty God and Blessed Baldred with the greatest joy, and singing and chanting psalms, each parish lifting up one little body with its coffin, they carried them to their churches with all reverence and honorably deposited them, where they are held and venerated to this day in the greatest honor and reverence."
[9] So far the epitome of the Life, in whose beginning it is said that Saint Kentigern departed this mortal life, having been translated to the heavenly realms, in the year 503; The error of the Scots regarding the age of Saint Kentigern but we judge he was born long after that year. For, as the ancient author of his Life asserts, as found in James Ussher, On the Origins of the British Churches, chapter 15, page 684, the man of God, going to Rome seven times, "unfolded to Saint Gregory, the special Apostle of the English, his whole life, his election and consecration, and all the events that had befallen him, in order." And the holy Pope, understanding him to be a man of God and full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, confirmed his consecration, which he knew to have proceeded from God, and at his many-times-repeated and barely-obtained request, supplying what was lacking in his consecration, destined him for the work of the ministry enjoined upon him by the Holy Spirit. Under the same Gregory, in the year 597, Saint Columba the Abbot died, with whom a conversation of Saint Kentigern is reported in chapter 7 of his Life, published by us on January 13. That King Aidan of the Scots grieved so greatly at the death of Saint Columba that he barely survived, John Mair reports in book 2 of the Deeds of the Scots, chapter 7; and that Saint Kentigern flourished under King Aidan, with this author and Adam King, the heading of these lessons in the Calendar indicated, placing the death of Saint Baldred at the year 608. Mair himself at the said chapter 7 reports the following: "At the same time Saint Baldred lived, And of Saint Baldred or Balther. whose body, intact, is said to be deposited in three churches not far distant, namely Aldham, Tyningham, and Preston, of which the first two villages are a thousand paces from Glegorno, the third one league. Saint Baldred taught the people by word and example in these three places." So Mair. All of which concerning Saint Baldred we wished to present; whom, these things notwithstanding, we do not consider different from Saint Balther, and that he cultivated the said places of the province of Lothian, which then belonged to the kingdom of the Northumbrians and were subject to the Bishops of Lindisfarne. Since the writers of Scottish affairs had less knowledge of these, they could very easily err by one or two centuries -- they whom we have shown to be so grossly mistaken about the age and death of Saint Kentigern their own Bishop.
Section III. Notice of Saint Bilfrid, the goldsmith. A codex of the Gospels adorned with gold and gems.
[10] We infer that Bilfrid's anchoretic life was spent in the diocese of Lindisfarne from what will presently be said, but we have not yet been able to find it assigned to any particular place. That he was a distinguished goldsmith is indicated by the above-mentioned Turgot in the same book 2 of the History of Durham, Saint Bilfrid, anchorite and goldsmith, on the occasion of the sacred body of Saint Cuthbert, which would have been carried to Ireland during the time of the Danish devastation, had not a storm arising at sea required it to be brought back. "During which tempest," says Turgot in chapter 11, "when the ship was turning on its sides, a text of the Gospels, beautifully adorned with gold and gems, falling from it, was carried into the depths of the sea." But
as is said in the following chapter, by divine admonition they went three days later to the sea, and saw that it had receded far more than usual, and walking three or more miles, The codex of the Gospels unharmed for three days in the sea, they found the same holy codex of the Gospels, which so preserved outwardly its beauty of gems and gold, and inwardly its former beauty of letters and leaves, as if it had not been touched at all by the water... "This is certainly believed to have been accomplished by the merits both of Saint Cuthbert himself and also of those who were the makers of the book, namely the venerable Bishop Eadfrith of revered memory, who had written this with his own hand in honor of Blessed Cuthbert, and also his successor the venerable Ethelwold, who had ordered it to be adorned with gold and gems, and also the holy Bilfrid the anchorite, who, carrying out the wishes of the one who commanded with his skilled hand, Had adorned it with gold and gems. had composed the outstanding work: for he was preeminent in the art of goldsmithing. These, equally burning with love for the beloved Confessor and Bishop of God, left behind this work so that their devotion toward him might be known to all posterity." Furthermore, Still preserved at Durham about the year 1000: as the said Turgot testifies, "the aforementioned book is preserved to this day in this Church of Durham, which has merited to possess the body of the same holy Father Cuthbert" (and indeed, when in the year 1004 the body of Saint Cuthbert was displayed, it was found at his head), "in which, as we said, no sign at all of damage by water is shown."
[11] John Selden, in his prefixed judgment on the author of the History of Durham and other associated writers, on page 25, treats of this codex long submerged in the sea and asserts that the same things already related are transmitted in almost the same syllables in the manuscript History of Durham preserved in the Cotton Library, folio 18. He judged that the aforementioned Bishop Eadfrith of Lindisfarne, who had written it with his own hand in honor of Cuthbert, and Ethelwold his successor, He did not live in the seventh century under Saint Cuthbert, who had ordered it to be adorned with gold and gems, and finally Saint Bilfrid the anchorite, who, carrying out the wishes of the one who commanded with his skilled hand, had composed the outstanding work -- that all these had accomplished these things while Cuthbert was still alive and for his honor, namely while Eadfrith and Ethelwold were monks of that Church, or about the year 680. But here everything must be understood as the words themselves express. Saint Cuthbert ceased to live among mortals on March 20 in the year 687. He was celebrated in life and after death for illustrious miracles; and among other things, eleven years after his death, his body with its vestments was found completely uncorrupted under Bishop Saint Eadbert, whom the above-mentioned Eadfrith succeeded in the year 698. Eadfrith lived until the year 720, and in honor or for the public veneration of Saint Cuthbert wrote with his own hand, or at least left at his death thus written, the Gospel, But in the eighth century under Saint Ethelwold. which his successor Ethelwold ordered to be adorned with gold and gems. Ethelwold died in the year 740, on February 12, and although he is here called only "venerable," he has nevertheless been enrolled among the Saints, as is evident from his Life, which we published on the said February 12. Whence it is established that Saint Bilfrid the anchorite, preeminent in the art of goldsmithing as was said above, flourished at the same time. To what age he afterward attained, and in what year or on what day he died, we have not yet found.
[12] We add, moreover, what Selden saw fit to note: that this same codex, so ancient The codex of the Gospels still exists in the Cotton Library, and always held at such great value, is doubtless still to be seen among the treasures of the Cotton Library. For there is kept a most beautiful codex of the Gospels of that century, most splendidly written and adorned, to which the prefaces and canons of Eusebius and Jerome are prefixed, with a Saxon interlinear version by the Presbyter Aldred also inserted. And from certain items from the end of the codex that are cited, there follows there, he says, a Saxon writing in which express mention is made of the already-mentioned labors of Eadfrith, Ethelwold, and Bilfrid in writing and adorning that codex, in accordance with what Turgot narrates, With an ancient notice of Saint Bilfrid. as also of the Presbyter Alfrid, both of the version and of the Saxon writing and other connected matters; but it was written after the death of Cuthbert and Eadfrith. And having transcribed the Saxon text, he adds the following from that codex: "Eadfrith, Ethelwold, Bilfrid, Aldred constructed and adorned this Gospel for God and Cuthbert." And finally Selden concludes that this is the very same codex of Cuthbert thus mentioned by Turgot and Simeon, which anyone who has examined so venerable a monument must easily enough concede. And these are the only things we have thus far been able to obtain about the deeds of these Saints, whose Life and miracles we do not doubt were formerly written down.
Section IV. The bodies of Saints Balther and Bilfrid elevated. Some bones translated to Durham.
[13] After two or more centuries had elapsed since the death of the anchorites Saints Balther and Bilfrid, the body of Saint Cuthbert was translated to Durham together with the episcopal see, and Aldune or Aldwin was established as the first bishop. When he died in the year 1018, The Presbyter Elfrid adds a Saxon version to the codex of the Gospels: and that Church had been without a Pastor for nearly three years, Edmund was ordained. Under this Bishop, says Turgot in book 3 of the History of Durham, chapter 7, "there was distinguished in that same Church a certain Presbyter who by pious and religious works had stood in great familiarity with Saint Cuthbert, named Elfrid, son of Weston." Where, after his virtues are broadly indicated, it is added: "He was very zealous in educating boys for the service of God, taking care to instruct them daily in singing and reading and to train them in ecclesiastical offices." From which it can be inferred that he was the author of the Saxon version in the said Gospel, which is also confirmed by the following. He elevates the bones of Saints Balther and Bilfrid for veneration, "For he, commanded by a vision, traveling through the ancient sites of monasteries and churches in the province of Northumbria, raised from the earth the bones of the Saints which he knew to be buried in them, and left them placed above ground to be shown to the people and venerated: namely the bones of the anchorites Balther and Bilfrid, and also of Acca and Alcmund, Bishops of Hexham, and of King Oswin, and also of the Abbesses Ebba and Ethelgitha. Of all their relics he carried some portion with him to Durham He places some at Durham with the body of Saint Cuthbert, and deposited them with the body of Father Cuthbert." The same things are narrated with scarcely any change of words in the History of the Translation of the body of Saint Cuthbert from the island of Lindisfarne to Durham, which we shall publish from a manuscript codex on the oft-mentioned March 20, and at the same time we shall vindicate the History of the Church of Durham for the said Turgot. He brought it down to the year 1096, that is, to the death and burial of William I, Bishop of Durham, who died on the fourth day before the Nones of January and was buried on the sixteenth before the Kalends of February.
[14] In the elevation of the body of Saint Cuthbert, made by the said Turgot, then Prior of Durham, in the year 1104, approaching the opened casket, they beheld there so many relics of saints that the narrowness of the casket could by no means hold them, unless the holy body of Father Cuthbert, leaning on its side, had permitted them more ample space to rest together with it on either side... "They wished therefore to lay the holy body on its back, which was turned on its side; but because they could not do this conveniently on account of the multitude of relics placed around it, it was decided that, having moved the holy body aside a little, In the year 1104, placed separately: they should gather the relics of the Saints together, and having deposited them separately, the incorrupt body should henceforth keep its place of rest... When therefore they raised the venerable body from the place of its repose, they reverently laid it down on the pavement on spread-out tapestries and cloaks, and having removed the relics of the Saints, they replaced it in its shrine... Furthermore, of all the relics that had been found there, they placed only the head of the blessed King Oswald beside the body of the glorious Bishop, just as it had been before. For the other relics, having been removed as already said, were solemnly arranged otherwise and are preserved in a prominent place in the church." All these things are narrated in these words in the History of the aforesaid Elevation or Translation, which we shall give from several manuscripts on the oft-mentioned March 20, and at the same time we shall vindicate the History of the Church of Durham for the said Turgot. He brought it down to the year 1096, that is, to the death and burial of William I, Bishop of Durham, who died on the fourth before the Nones of January and was buried on the sixteenth before the Kalends of February.
[15] An appendix is attached to this History of Turgot from page 59, and more probably by Simeon the Precentor of Durham, concerning the four Bishops of Durham who succeeded the said William -- namely Ranulph, Geoffrey, William II, and Hugh, elected on the eleventh before the Kalends of February in the year 1154. By Bishop Hugh, He, besides very many buildings erected in the city and diocese, extended the church in which the body of Saint Cuthbert rests with a distinguished work, and made it both longer and brighter, adding marble brought from afar with which the entire building was adorned, and multiplying the stained-glass windows around the altars with distinguished painting. Furthermore he constructed With the bones of Saint Bede, a most precious reliquary, excellently fabricated from the purest gold and the finest silver and adorned with precious stones in a marvelous work, in which he deposited the bones of the venerable Bede, Presbyter and monk of Jarrow, together with the relics of many other saints. In a precious reliquary, The relics detained in the Church of Durham are then listed in this order: "The body of the holy Father Cuthbert, whole and entire with flesh and bones, as if he were still alive. The head of Saint Oswald, King and Martyr, which was placed in the shrine with the body of Saint Cuthbert. The bones With the relics of other saints. of Saints Aidan, Eadbert, Eadfrith, and Ethelwold, Bishops; of Balther and Bilfrid, anchorites. The body of the venerable Bede, Presbyter and Doctor. The bones of the holy women Ebba and Elfgita. The body and vestments of Saint Boisil, who had been the teacher of Saint Cuthbert. The bones and hair of Saint Ethelwold the Presbyter, who succeeded Saint Cuthbert in the anchoretic life. The head of Ceolwulf, King and afterward monk in the Church of Lindisfarne." So much for that. Of the said Saints: Oswald the King is venerated on August 5; Aidan on the 31st of the same month; Eadbert on May 6; Ethelwold on February 12; Bede on May 27; Ebba on April 2 and August 25; Boisil on January 25; Ethelwold the Presbyter on March 23; King Ceolwulf on January 15. The feast day of some does not occur, as we noted above concerning Saint Bilfrid, Why Bilfrid is joined with Saint Balther: whom we have joined with Saint Balther because both lived as anchorites at the same time and in the same province, and because their sacred bones are reported together by the already-mentioned authors. In the same way, Bishop Eadfrith of Lindisfarne may be joined on May 6 (unless meanwhile another day should occur) with his predecessor Saint Eadbert. Furthermore, Turgot in book 1 of the History of Durham, chapter 11, treats of them thus: "Eadbert for ten years, after whom Eadfrith for twenty-two -- two holy and worthy bishops -- presided over the Church." In the same way, Saint Ethelgitha or Elfgita the Abbess, on account of their joined bones, may be proposed for veneration together with Saint Ebba the Abbess, unless she seems rather to be referred to Saint Edith.
[16] We indicated above that some bones of Saints Acca and Alcmund, Bishops of Hexham, were also translated to Durham by the Presbyter Elfrid. Of these, Saint Alcmund is venerated on September 9, and Saint Acca on October 20, Referred by Maihew to November 27, the day on which he also died. But Edward Maihew in the Trophaea Anglicanae of the Order of Saint Benedict referred Saint Acca to November 30; and since from the Life of Saint Cuthbert published by Capgrave he learned that together with the relics of Saint Acca, the bones of the anchorites Saints Balther and Bilfrid had also been translated to Durham, and since he did not know their feast day, lest their memory should perish, he wished to insert them in his Trophaea on a day convenient to himself. For what reason, Since he had five empty days between November 24 and 30, he chose the middle of these, November 27, to which day he refers them under this title: "Concerning Saints Balther and Bilfrid, anchorites, and the Translation of their bodies and those of other Saints." He then cites the words of Capgrave in the Life of Saint Cuthbert, and adds that since among all these saints, whom we accurately described above, Balther and Bilfrid are named first, this is an indication that they should be held among the principal saints. Concerning Saint Balther he also adduces the words of Hoveden related above. He notes finally that he believes they were monks themselves, As Benedictine monks: since in those centuries people scarcely ever proceeded to the anchoretic life except from the monastic one; and immediately he is quite certain that they should be ascribed to the Benedictine Order. We determine neither violently to oppose nor easily to subscribe to either part of this conclusion, aware that in Scotland and Northumbria the rule and statutes of Saint Columba the Abbot and of Saint Cuthbert the Bishop were observed, as will be said in connection with the latter's Life.
[17] Hugo Menard, although elsewhere he was accustomed to copy Edward Maihew, here did not dare to trust the report of Capgrave, Saint Balther also by Menard, omits Bilfrid, and inscribed in his Benedictine Martyrology at November 27 Saint Balther the anchorite in England, citing in his Observations the authority of Hoveden, who, however, does not call him a saint. By Bucelinus, But Gabriel Bucelinus in the Benedictine Menologium at the same November 27 writes: "In England, of Saint Balther, monk and hermit, who in the year of Christ 756 shone forth, conspicuous for the extraordinary holiness of his life." Then by way of proof he adds: "Mart. Bened. Gall. Menard. Roger. Hoveden. vol. 2. Sanct. Ord. etc." These seem enigmatic, perhaps to be explained thus: the Benedictine Martyrology of the Frenchman Menard, or printed in France; then Roger of Hoveden; and finally volume 2 of the Saints of the Order -- but by whom and when it was printed is hidden from us. Colgan also inserted the above-mentioned Life of Saint Cuthbert, as reported by Capgrave, And by Colgan, in his Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae, and in note 32 observes that Balther is referred by Menard to November 27. But not sufficiently mindful of himself, the one whom he had correctly published from Capgrave as Bilfrid, in the said note he calls Wilfrid, and being much concerned Who wrongly adds Wilfrid. whether this is Saint Wilfrid, Bishop of York, either the first or the second of that name, he inclines more toward the second, if indeed he was an anchorite -- from which anxiety we release him and others reading that note.
[18] Finally, Saint Baldred is commemorated on March 29 by David Camerarius in the Scottish Menologium, Baldred on March 29. by John Wilson in the English Martyrology of both the first and second editions, and, citing Wilson, by Ferrarius in the General Catalogue in these words: "In Scotland, of Saint Baldred, Confessor." In his Notes he distinguishes him from the Baldred referred to on March 6, whom he had believed to be a Bishop. But both Camerarius and Wilson identify them as the same person, citing the passages from John Mair, Hector Boece, and John Leslie, which we produced above.