Sigebert

ON ST. SIGEBERT, MARTYR, KING OF THE EAST ANGLES,

IN THE YEAR DCXXXVII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Sigebert, king of the East Angles and martyr. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

§ I. The position of the Angles in Germany and Britain. The family of St. Sigebert, his exile and conversion in Gaul. The arrival of St. Felix, bishop, from Kent. The conversion of the people. The fortunes of the episcopal see. The bounds of the kingdom.

When about the middle of the fifth century, through the Saxons who at the invitation of Vortigern had gone to Britain, The position of the Angles in Germany and in Britain. there had spread through northern Saxony and the neighboring regions the report of the fertility of the island, of the discords among the great men, and of the sloth of the people, a desire seized all to occupy lands so extensive and so good. They came, says Bede Hist. eccl. Angl. book I, chapter 15, from three of the stronger peoples of Germany, that is, the Saxons, the Angles, the Jutes. Of Jutish origin are the people of Kent and the Victuarii *, … and that which down to today in the province of the West Saxons is called the nation of the Jutes, situated opposite the Isle of Wight itself. From the Saxons, that is, from that region which is now called that of the Old Saxons, comprising Holstein, Dithmarschen, Stormarn, and Wagria, came the East Saxons, the South Saxons, the West Saxons. Further, from the Angles (that is, from that country which is called Angulus and which from that time to this day is reported to remain deserted between the provinces of the Jutes and the Saxons) arose the East Angles, the Middle Angles, the Mercians, the whole progeny of the Northumbrians, that is, of those peoples who dwell to the north of the river Humber, and the other peoples of the Angles. Now the original Anglia lies between the bay of the Schlei and the town of Flensburg, bounded on the east by the Baltic Sea, on the west by the public road which runs between Schleswig and Flensburg; the vernacular language of which little region to this very day comes very close to Theotisc or Old Saxon, which has been cultivated only in Belgium and the Netherlands [Firmenich, Germaniens Völkerstimme, page 35. Cf. the Itinerary of Other, in Langebek, Scriptt. rer. Danicarum, volume II, page 115 and following]. It had, as Ethelwerd says Chronicorum book I, in Petrie, Monumenta historica Britanniæ, page 502, a capital town, which in the Saxon speech is called Sleswic, but according to the Danes Haithaby Acta SS. October volume IX, page 387 and following.

[2] [The East Angles are converted to Christ through the efforts of Edwin, King of the Northumbrians, St. Felix, bishop, and St. Sigebert, their king.] Although St. Gregory the Great, who at Rome had seen only Angles exposed for sale, had sent St. Augustine and his companions to Britain to win over the people of the Angles to Christ, they were nevertheless by no means the first to receive the Christian doctrine. Only in the year 627 did this happiness fall to them. Hear the Venerable Bede Hist. Eccl. Angl. book II, chapter 9. At the exhortation of Pope Boniface V and by the preaching of St. Paulinus, soon to be bishop of York, the King of the Northumbrians, Edwin, whom no one among the Angles had ever equaled in power and dominions, had received, with all the nobles of his people and a very large number of the common folk, the faith and the laver of regeneration, in the eleventh year of his reign; which is the year of the Lord's Incarnation 627, and from the coming of the Angles to Britain about the year 180 Ibid. book II, chapter 14. So great was Edwin's devotion to the worship of the truth that he even persuaded the king of the East Angles, Earpwald, son of Redwald, to abandon the superstitions of idols and to receive the faith and sacraments of Christ with his province… But Earpwald, not much time after he received the faith, was slain by a pagan man, by name Sicberct; and thereafter for three years the province was plunged in error, until the kingdom was received by the brother of the same Earpwald, Sigberct, a man most Christian in all respects and most learned; who while his brother was still living, being in exile in Gaul, was imbued with the sacraments of the faith; of which, as soon as he began to reign, he took care to make his whole province a sharer. His endeavors were most gloriously favored by Bishop Felix, who, when he had come from the parts of Burgundy, where he was born and ordained, to Honorius, archbishop of Canterbury, and had shown him his desire, was sent by him to preach the word of life to the aforesaid nation of the Angles. Nor did his wishes fall in vain; but rather the pious tiller of the spiritual field found among it a manifold fruit of believing peoples. For he led that whole province, in accordance with the mystery of his name, set free from long iniquity and unhappiness, to the faith and works of justice and to the gifts of perpetual happiness, and he received the seat of the bishopric in the city of Domnoc: and when for seventeen years he had presided over the same province with pontifical rule, he ended his life there in peace. Our predecessors have given the Acts of St. Felix at the 8th of March; so that what pertains to St. Sigebert is alone to be set forth here.

[3] The family of St. Sigebert. In those words of the Venerable Bede St. Sigebert is first of all called the brother of Earpwald, and below (book III, chapter XVIII) this same is repeated. The same is more accurately explained by William of Malmesbury [Gesta regum Anglorum, book I, no. 97, volume I, page 134, edition of Duffus Hardy], by whom St. Sigebert is related to have been the brother of Earpwald on the mother's side. But this mother, like the father, is unknown. Nor have the English historians neglected these things, who have composed the following genealogical tree Lappenberg, Geschichte von England, volume I, at the end.

[4] St. Sigebert, a fugitive into Gaul for fear of Redwald, King of the East Angles, St. Sigebert is related by Bede (book III, chapter 18) to have been for a long while in exile in Gaul, fleeing the enmities of Redwald; he is said by William of Malmesbury to have been driven into exile by Redwald [Gesta regum Anglorum, book I, §97, edition of Duffus Hardy, volume I, page 134]. The envy of a stepfather toward a stepson has seemed to Smith In the notes to book III, chapter 18, of the History of Bede the enmities

to have kindled. Not a bad conjecture. For among the Angles and Saxons the royal power was not hereditary by public law; but the election was so placed in the choice of the great men that it was scarcely permitted to them to create a king outside the royal house Cf. Sharon Turner, the History of the Anglo-Saxons, book VIII, chapter 1. Since therefore St. Sigebert had entered the royal house through his mother, and was older than his half-brothers, the sons of Redwald, it could easily happen, and in fact did happen, that he should be elected king by the nobles. To avert this, nothing remained for Redwald but to remove St. Sigebert from the scene or to compel him to go into exile. For neither was foreign to the manners of the Angles and Saxons: for the history of the royal houses of the octarchy is full of murders committed from ambition; and exile was held among the lawful penalties Ibid. book VI, appendix III, chapter 8. But in this place it is rather a voluntary flight that is to be understood, which those who feared another's enmity were accustomed to enter upon, and which was so frequent among the northern peoples that from the presence of fugitives, called vlemingen or vlamingen, the maritime coast of Belgium received the name of Flanders Kervyn de Lettenhove, Histoire de Flandre, volume I, page 110. Speed conjectures The British Empire, page 310 that Redwald feared betrayal from St. Sigebert; and others say other things; which we forbear to examine.

[5] [there he embraces the Christian faith; and, made king in his homeland, he summons St. Felix, bishop, from Kent.] Concerning the conversion of St. Sigebert and the coming of St. Felix to the East Angles there is not complete agreement among the old historians of England. Florence of Worcester relates Chronicum, in Petrie, Monumenta historica Britanniæ, page 529, and following him William of Malmesbury [De Gestis pontificum Angliæ, book II, in Migne, Patrol., volume CLXXIX, column 1517] and Ranulph Higden [Polychronicon, book V, in Gale, Hist. Britannicæ, Saxonicæ etc., page 232, edition of 1691], that Bishop Felix, a Burgundian by birth, having become an intimate of Sigebert, King of the East Angles, in exile in Gaul, came to England with him after the death of Earpwald and was made bishop of the East Angles. Brompton declares Chronicon, regum Estangliæ, in Twysden, Scriptores decem, column 745 that some report that St. Sigebert with his people was converted in England by St. Felix; and indeed in the Hyde book, of which only an English version had recently been published, these things are in fact read Church historians of England, volume II, part II, page 487. Yet it is said, Brompton adds, according to some, that this King Sigebert, in exile in the province of Gaul, had been baptized in the time of the said King Redwald; by no means adding, after the example of Worcester, Malmesbury, and Ranulph, that this grace was conferred on him by St. Felix. And rightly: for the Venerable Bede, speaking twice of this most blessed bishop, so far from indicating that he had any intimacy with St. Sigebert in Gaul, plainly narrates that the venerable man came of his own accord to Canterbury, to present himself to St. Honorius, primate of all Britain; that while he was there, St. Sigebert came to the same place from his kingdom of the East Angles, who after the killing of Earpwald and three years of discord and overthrow of sacred things had summoned him from Gaul; for that soon after he began to reign he resolved to make his people sharers in the sacraments of the faith, and for that reason requested from the primate of Canterbury a bishop or priests; that Honorius kindly received these wishes, and sent St. Felix; and that so it came about that, as the Venerable Bede himself says, St. Sigebert received Bishop Felix from Kent.

[6] [He established the episcopal see at Dummoc, where his court seems to have been. The bounds of his kingdom. The translations of the episcopal see and the divisions of the diocese.] The same Bede relates that St. Felix received the seat of the bishopric in the city of Domnoc. This city is called Dummuca by Bishop Titfrid in a diploma of the year 803 Kemble, Codex diplomaticus ævi Saxonici, volume V, page 66, Domuce in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Edition of Thorpe, volume I, page 105, and Dommoc or Dommuc by Florence of Worcester In Petrie, Monumenta, page 529, and, to omit other forms, Dommocceaster, that is, the camp of Dommoc, in the document which Gibson saw Explicatio nominum locorum in Chronico Anglo-Saxonico, page 25, (if I am not mistaken) in the Anglo-Saxon version of Bede's History; but now its name is Dunwich. It is situated on the seashore, by whose waves it has been partly worn away, partly overwhelmed [Cf. Leland, Collectanea, edition of 1770, volume IV, page 26; Gardner, Historical account of Dunwich, page 62; Monasticum Anglicanum novum, volume III, page 404], now having one parish church, formerly four others and a number of religious houses; which Tanner enumerates in the Notitia monasteriorum in Anglia. Here, as the see of the bishop, so beyond doubt was the court of the king; for what Alford relates Annales eccl. Anglo-Saxon. at the year 248, no. 9, that the king's court was placed at Seham, now Soham (of which villa there will soon be further talk), seems to lack authority; nor does what Camden declares Britannia, in Cambridge'shire, page 230, edition of Blaeu appear, that St. Felix had his first see there and thus began the conversion of the people. The authority of the king and of the bishop was contained within the same bounds of territory. About these bounds there is not complete agreement. According to that distinguished man, Count Charles de Montalembert Les Moines d'Occident, volume III, page 428, East Anglia comprised the present counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and parts of the counties of Cambridge, Huntingdon, Berford, and Hertford. Concerning the same bounds the monk of Malmesbury who in the fourteenth century wrote the Eulogium historiarum Edition of Scott Haydon, volume II, page 159 committed this to writing: The fourth kingdom was that of the East Angles, containing Nortfolke, Southfolke, having on the east and on the north, toward the northwest, Cantebrigeschire, on the west the ditch of St. Edmund, and on the south Hertfortschire, Essex. But another monk, who added at this place an appendix or commentary, included the district of Cambridge also within the dominions of the kings of the East Angles; who ruled, he says Ibid. at the page cited, in the district of Grantebruge, Nortfolk and Soutfolk. And rightly. For in the appendix to the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, on the kingdom of the East Angles, this is read [In Petrie, Monumenta, page 644. William of Malmesbury has the same, Gesta regum Anglorum, book I, no. 102, volume I, page 141, edition of Duffus Hardy]: The kings of the East Angles ruled in the district of Grantebrige; and there is a bishop there, whose see is at Heli (the isle of Ely): and in Norfolk and Suffolk; and there is a bishop there, whose see is at Norwich: it was formerly at Elmham or Thetford. For the diocese of the East Angles was first divided about the year 673 between Dommoc in Suffolk and North Elmham in Norfolk; but because of the incursions of the Danes the see of Elmham from the middle of the ninth century, and that of Dommoc from about the year 870, were widowed until the year 955; in which year a certain Athulf, who placed his cathedra at Elmham, was set over both dioceses, united once more. But about the year 1070 the bishop's see was transferred to Thetford, and in the year 1094 to Norwich. And to this very day the Protestants have retained this arrangement; so that the dioceses of Norwich and Ely represent the kingdom of East Anglia; for in Ely, which through the wars of the Danes had acknowledged the authority of the prelate of Lincoln, in the year 1109 a bishop was instituted, having almost the whole district of Cambridge subject to his jurisdiction.

* Wight

§ II. Of the school which St. Sigebert instituted according to the customs of Gaul and the usage of the people of Kent. Whether this is the origin of the university of Cambridge.

St. Sigebert, who cannot be called the author of the university of Cambridge, Since St. Sigebert had spent many years in Gaul (for there, as Bede says, he had become, certainly not in a short time, a man most Christian in all respects and most learned), when he obtained the kingdom, soon desiring to imitate what he saw well ordered in Gaul, he instituted a school in which boys might be taught letters: with the help of Bishop Felix, whom he had received from Kent, and who furnished them with pedagogues and masters according to the usage of the people of Kent. Concerning these words there was formerly a great controversy between the academics of Cambridge and Oxford, because the former contended that the school instituted by St. Sigebert was placed at Grantchester, from whose ruins Cambridge rose; and that therefore the university of Cambridge, which is only the heir and continuer of that of Grantchester, far surpasses in antiquity that of Oxford, which boasts that it was founded by Bl. Alfred the Great in the ninth century: against which contention the Oxford men objected that the site of St. Sigebert's school was not established; that it was only a boys' elementary school, in which the elements of the vernacular language, or at most Latin grammar, were taught. So Smith, when he was preparing his edition of the Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bede, wrote at this place a huge appendix, in which he fought with all his might for the Cambridge men; happier however in demonstrating that the Oxford men refer the origin of their university to Bl. Alfred by only weak and invalid arguments than in establishing the antiquity of the Cambridge school. For there is, as he himself says Opp. Ven. Bedæ, volume VI, column 355, edition of Migne, a very strong objection, which will scarcely (as I judge) yield to an answer. Peter of Blois, or some other chronographer of whatever kind, hiding under this mask, in his Continuation of Ingulf relates "that Joffrid, abbot of Croyland, in the times of Henry II, sent over to his manor of Cotenham, near Cambridge, certain of his monks, most learned in philosophical theorems and other sciences, who, going daily to Cambridge, and having hired a public barn, teaching their sciences, in a short course of time drew together a great number of disciples; which soon so grew that neither the barn nor any church sufficed to receive them." From that little spring, as the Blois writer continues, which has grown into a river now great, we now see the city of God gladdened, and all England made fruitful by very many masters and doctors going forth from Cambridge, in the likeness of the most holy paradise. Smith attempts some sort of answer to these things; but, overcome by so great an authority (although some [Cf. Duffus Hardy, Descr. cat. of mat. rel. to the hist. of Great Britain, volume II, pages 128 and 129] will have these things to be interpolated or apocryphal), he is compelled to conclude his immense commentary with these words Dissertation cited, column 356: Finally, if the Sigbertine school was not instituted at Granta, it is most probable that it was placed either in the city of Domnoc, in which Felix had received the seat of the bishopric; or at Seham, where, a church having been built and dedicated, no small company of monks

he had gathered Historiæ Ramesejensis, chapter LXXXII, in Gale, Scriptores XV, page 437.

[8] [he instituted the school most probably at Dummoc, although St. Felix seems also to have instituted other lesser ones in monasteries, for example at Soham.] Nor do Taylor Index monasticus of the diocese of Norwich, page 82 and Lappenberg Geschichte von Engeland, volume I, page 150, note 2 doubt that that school was erected in the camp of Dummoc or Dumnoc, the bishop's see; the latter however erring in this, that he believed Grantchester, which he confuses with the later Grantabrycge, to have been a town of the kingdom of the Mercians. Nor does it seem to me that it can be denied that the school was established at Dummoc. For whether St. Felix was a monk, as is read in the Book of Hyde Liber de Hyda, edited by Edwards, page 10, no differently from all Gallic clerics Ruinart, Preface to the Works of St. Gregory of Tours, no. 35 because of the Vercelli institutions of St. Eusebius brought across the Alps by St. Martin Cf. Gervaise, Vie de S. Martin de Tours, page 39 and following, or whether he was not enrolled in the monastic order; whether the bishopric of Dummoc was monastic (as certainly that of Norwich from about the year 1100 Wharton, Anglia sacra, volume I, page 407 and that of Ely from its beginnings [Ibid. page 615 and following. Cf. Reyner, Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia, page 78], both of which succeeded Dummoc), or was free of the monastic rule; since the holy man could scarcely have brought from Kent other learned men than monks, there must have been a monastery at Dummoc; from which kind of institution public schools were then scarcely absent in England. But if he found secular clerics, he could not have failed (unless he departed from the disciplinary custom of that age Cf. Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, volume II, column 606 and following) to institute a school in his episcopal court. Yet Smith's other conjecture is not absurd, namely that the school was placed at Seham, now Soham, in the district of Cambridge, but in the diocese of Norwich; but this probably began after the death of St. Sigebert. For in fact, as the Ramsey historian witnesses, St. Felix founded there a church and a monastery of no small size; concerning which Thomas of Ely, a writer of the beginning of the twelfth century, handed down this Life of St. Etheldreda, Acta SS. June volume IV, page 500: This place is said to be at the entrance of the isle of Ely, where there was a great and famous monastery, in which no small congregation of monks, established by a certain venerable man, Ditone-Lugdingus by name, observed the order of the holy Rule under Abbot Werefrid. For in the English it is read that St. Felix originally founded the old monastery at Seham and a church at Redham; which monastery stood until it was utterly overthrown by the Danes. The Ramsey historian was preceded by William of Malmesbury De gestis pontif. Angl. book II, Opp. edition of Migne, column 1517; who, although silent about the monastery, nevertheless reports the other things, from which it can easily be concluded that a monastery existed there. And in the same place, too, William, treating of the deeds of St. Felix, mentions not one school, but schools of letters instituted by him in suitable places, by which the barbarism of the people might gradually be formed by Latin refinement

[9] [The school praised by the Venerable Bede embraced not only a boys' elementary school, but also the higher disciplines, as in Gaul] By no means are those to be heard who would have it that only a boys' elementary school was instituted by St. Sigebert. For the blessed king was himself most learned; he desired to imitate what he had seen well ordered in Gaul; St. Felix furnished not one pedagogue, but pedagogues and masters; the school's end was this, that the barbarism of the people might gradually be formed by Latin refinement, which by no means happens in a grammar school; and finally the school was to be instituted according to the usage of the people of Kent. Who would see in these things only an elementary institution? But Bede declares that this school was founded in order that Boys might be taught. Indeed; since in monastic schools boys were instructed from their earliest age, but education was carried on up to the completion of youth. For this reason Bl. Alfred the Great in his Anglo-Saxon version of the History of the Venerable Bede rendered pueros by geongemen and pædagogos by lareowas [Cf. Smith, Appendix XIV to the History of the Venerable Bede, Opp. volume VI, column 345]. What shall I report of the literary discipline of Gaul in the seventh century? Smith touched on it, but Rivet explained it far more clearly in the Literary History of France Hist. litt. de la France, volume III, page 417 and following. For as those witnesses show, St. Sigebert certainly had not seen there the former splendor of letters, by which in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries a number of Gallic cities easily equaled Rome; but he had nevertheless seen schools well ordered in the houses of bishops, in almost all monasteries, even those of women, also in the homes of rural priests [Ibid. in the place cited, and in Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, volume II, column 575 and following]; and indeed in the palace of the kings His Eminence J.-B. Pitra, Vie de Saint Leger, page 112 and following. Nor did it then seem a strange thing that scholastic institutions should be transferred from Gaul to England. St. Bertilia sent back to England monks and nuns trained in the double cloister of Chelles; and St. Benedict Biscop, as it were the father of monasteries in England, Agilbert, bishop of the West Saxons, Leutherius, his nephew and successor, and St. Wilfrid, prelate of York, shared the literary discipline of Gaul with the islanders. This comprised all the parts of grammar; the tenets of philosophy; the exegesis of Sacred Scripture; the reading not only of the Latin Fathers, but also of orators, poets, and historians; music; and also in some places the explanation of the Theodosian Code.

[10] and they were taught at Canterbury. Juridical studies certainly did not penetrate into England (whence to this very day it has remained almost free of Roman law); but all the other things were contained in the usage of the people of Kent. The praise of their school is most easily of all understood from the deeds of Oftfor, bishop of Worcester. He had been trained first in the double monastery of Kaelcacæstir, then in the other double monastery of Streaneshalch; in the latter of which St. Hilda, a most learned woman, made her subjects devote themselves so much to the reading of the divine Scriptures, and exercise themselves so much in works of justice, that there very many seemed quite easily to be found there who could fitly take up the ecclesiastical grade, that is, the office of the altar; and so, adds the Venerable Bede Hist. eccl. Angl. book IV, chapter 23, whose words those are, we have seen five from the same monastery afterwards bishops, and all of them men of singular merit and holiness, whose names are these: Bosa, Ætla, Oftfor, John, and Wilfrid… Of the middle one let us now say that, when he had devoted himself in both monasteries of the abbess Hilda to the reading and observance of the Scriptures, at length, desiring more perfect things, he came to Kent to Archbishop Theodore of blessed memory: where, after he had for some time been engaged in sacred readings, he also took care to go to Rome: which at that time was reckoned of great virtue. And St. Wilfrid also, after he had spent some years among the people of Lindisfarne, learning very quickly the psalms and some codices, stayed for a while among the people of Kent, while Honorius held the rank of archbishop, and diligently gave his attention to learning those things which he observed Ibid. book V, chapter 19. Yet, although the Venerable Bede did not live at Canterbury, from his writings, so learned and so varied, it can be known much better than from any testimonies whatever how widely the literary discipline extended among the Angles and Saxons; and certainly the school of Canterbury was inferior to no other. But I have now dwelt too long on these things: let him who wants more read Lingard's History and antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon church [The hist. and antiq. of the Anglo-Saxon church, volume II, page 127 and following, edition of 1858].

§ III. The coming of St. Fursey and his companions. The cloister of Cnobheresburg founded for them. The cloister of Betricheswurth, afterwards of St. Edmund, in which St. Sigebert, having abdicated the kingdom, became a monk.

[St. Sigebert receives into his kingdom SS. Fursey, Foillan, and Ultan, brothers, and a number of other Irish monks, for whom he builds the monastery of Cnobheresburg] While Sigberct still held the emblems of the kingdom (for we shall soon see that he laid them down), there arrived from Ireland a holy man, by name Fursey, renowned in word and deeds, and marked also by excellent virtues, desiring for the Lord's sake, wherever he might find it suitable to him, to lead the life of a pilgrim. When he had come to the province of the East Angles, he was honorably received by the aforesaid king: and pursuing his accustomed work of evangelizing, by the example of his virtue and the stimulus of his speech he either converted many unbelievers to Christ or further confirmed those already believing in the faith and love of Christ. There, seized by a certain infirmity of body, he merited to enjoy an angelic vision; in which he was admonished to persevere diligently in the ministry of the word he had begun, and to apply himself tirelessly to his customary vigils and prayers; because his departure was certain for him, but the hour of that departure was to be uncertain, as the Lord says: "Watch therefore, because you know neither the day nor the hour." Strengthened by this vision, he took care very swiftly to build the site of a monastery, which he had received from the aforesaid King Sigberct, and to establish it in regular disciplines. The monastery was pleasant by the neighborhood of woods * and sea, built in a certain camp, which in the language of the Angles is called Cnobheresburg, that is, the City of Cnobher; which afterwards Anna, king of that province, and all the nobles adorned with more stately buildings and gifts. These and many other things the Venerable Bede took almost word for word from the Life of St. Fursey, which our predecessors published at the 16th of January, and Mabillon in the second Benedictine century.

[12] and who live there most holily. These things done, it is then read in both places Acta SS. Ord. S. Benedicti, second century, page 308, the holy man, desiring to withdraw himself from all care of the world and of the monastery itself, took counsel with the wisest brothers. For he had with him most reverend and spiritual men, who by the example of so great a man might advance both in the probation of the monastery and in diverse labors of life and in the grace of humility and charity. Among whom he had also his own brothers Foillan, a very holy man, to whom he also left the allotted care of the monastery and of souls. The other, Ultan, leaving off the long probation of the monastery, to the hermit life, chosen by him already many years before, abandoning all cares and affairs, went alone and naked to his brother, who was already being fed on the contemplative life. Serving daily labor and continual prayers, they philosophize there for a whole year. Then, certain causes pressing upon them,

by the people or the king, St. Anna, the successor of St. Sigebert, a man of loftier mind called to counsel, nay even compelled, he left the place of the wilderness that he had longed for. And pondering all things with a watchful spirit, and judging both that the province was disturbed by an incursion of pagans, probably the Mercians, and that the monastic order there would not be lasting, having dismissed and ordered everything, he sailed for the shores of Gaul; that is, after the year 640 Cf. Pagi, Critice Annalium Baronii at the year 644, no. 3, at least three years after the killing of St. Sigebert.

[13] [It is wrongly said by many that St. Sigebert became a monk in the monastery of St. Fursey;] But if credit be given to Hillinus, monk of Corbie, who at the beginning of the eleventh century wrote the Life of St. Foillan in metrical speech and dedicated it to the monk Sigebert (which Life, never up to now published, we shall take care to print in the next volume), King St. Sigebert joined himself to SS. Foillan and Ultan, the brothers and companions of St. Fursey, and submitted himself to their mastery. Hear then Hillinus:

Hence through the reason of the two brothers

The summit of holy church so flourished in these parts,

That the king, having humbly taken a monk's tonsure,

Cast away the sword of his accustomed warfare;

And becoming a soldier of Christ he submitted himself to him

Who gives his servants a kingdom without end.

And because Foillan was seen to be the more skillful there,

The public care of guarding the place fell to him.

Philip of Harvengt, Premonstratensian abbot of Bonne-Espérance in Hainaut, who in the twelfth century ran through Hillinus's Life of St. Foillan, which the monks of Fosses had described in verse, in another kind of writing, and, freeing it from meter, brought it down into the plain of prosaic liberty Philippi de Harvengt Opp. column 1325, edition of Migne, related likewise that St. Sigebert became a monk in the cloister of St. Fursey. King St. Sigebert, he says Ibid. column 1328, building a monastery in his land, suitable in its situation, adorned it with care with convenient buildings, sufficient possessions, and religious inhabitants, and, casting off the royal power, he gave himself up in it to the order. Similarly Bartholomew of Cotton, monk of Norwich, who at the end of the thirteenth century compiled an English History, having narrated the foundation of the monastery of Cnobheresburg, adds Edition of Richards Luard, pages 26 and 35: There the king himself became a monk, leaving his kingdom.

[14] [he embraced the monastic life in the monastery of Betricheswurde; which was afterwards succeeded by St. Edmunds-Bury.] But neither the biographer of St. Fursey nor the Venerable Bede relates that St. Sigebert put on the monastic habit in the cloister of St. Fursey, the latter saying only that he entered the monastery which he had made for himself, and, having received the tonsure, took care to soldier rather for the eternal kingdom; so that Hillinus, Philip, and Bartholomew seem to have narrated those things from conjecture rather than from ancient testimony. Certainly Camden Britannia, in Suffolk, page 217, edition of Blaeu, Alford Annal. eccl. Anglo-Saxonicæ, at the year 638, no. 4, volume II, page 251, Cressy The Church history of Britanny, book XV, chapter VII, no. 2, page 355, and Mabillon Annales Benedictini, at the year 639, book XII, no. 61, who had not read the lucubrations of Hillinus, Philip, and Bartholomew, thought they found in the words of the Venerable Bede that St. Sigebert became a monk in the cloister of St. Fursey; and nothing stands in the way of Hillinus and the others having thought they found the same there. To which, to close this place, I shall add nothing else but that Cnobheresburg is now called Burghcastle, situated in Suffolk, at the mouth of the river Yare; and that this cloister, of which after these times no further mention is made by historians or in the Anglo-Saxon Diplomatic Codex, is related by that same Philip Work cited, column 1329 to have been despoiled by a plundering band of Penda, King of the Mercians, the brothers being led away into captivity, but afterwards redeemed by St. Foillan. But not only the silence of the Venerable Bede and of the biographer of St. Fursey impels us to deny credit to Hillinus and the others; but, what is chief, Thomas of Ely in the Life of St. Etheldreda declares that St. Sigebert took the monastic cowl at Betricheswurde; which monastery was afterwards succeeded by the celebrated religious house of Saint-Edmundsbury. Here are Thomas's words Acta SS. June volume IV, page 498: Meanwhile the same king (Sigebert) entered the monastery which he had made for himself at Betricheswurde; and having received the tonsure, he served the eternal King for a long time. Where a number of writers will have it that, under the principate of the Roman emperors, there was situated the Villa Faustini, which is noted in the Itinerary of Antoninus, and where coins, inscriptions, and ruins have rather often revealed that there certainly was a Roman station. In very truth Thomas of Ely, who wrote at the beginning of the twelfth century, is not older than Hillinus; but he was writing in the region of the East Angles, amid the memories of the first Christian king and the ruined walls and remains which had survived the Danish invasions. Nor did Thomas alone among the ancients relate these things: but an anonymous monk of St. Edmund's, living in the very place where St. Sigebert was held to have shone by his virtues, declared the same; adding from the Chronicles of Croyland and Chester many singular things: which singularity is customarily a sign of truth. Hear his words In the Monasticum Anglicanum novum, volume III, page 136: In the fourth year of King Canute, of Christ 1020, the same King Canute … having expelled and cast out from there the clerics who then were leading a less regular life at Bedricesworth, which is now called the town of St. Edmund, brought in monks … there, 383 years after Sigebert, King of the East Angles, who had built the aforesaid monastery at Bedricesworth, in which, having received the monastic tonsure, he faithfully served Christ the eternal King through the course of many years, and at length in the year of the Lord DCXXXVII had been slain by the King of the Mercians, Penda by name, a pagan and sacrilegious man, 234 years before the passion of the glorious king and martyr Edmund, who was slain in the year 870… The magnificent prelate of Elmham, namely Aldwin, in the first year immediately following the introduction of the monks at St. Edmund's, namely in the year of the Lord 1021, began to build the church of St. Edmund, the aforesaid king and martyr, namely in the same place in which the monastery had originally been built by Sigebert, the aforesaid king, and in which the same devout king, clad in the monastic habit, led the regular life, in the time of Felix, bishop of the East Angles, as is manifestly gathered from the Chronicles of Croyland and Chester.

[15] [Hence it is plain how sincere St. Sigebert's conversion was and how abundantly God conferred his grace on the people of the Angles.] Wherever, finally, St. Sigebert took the monastic habit, it is plain from this how sincere was his conversion to the Christian faith and how pious and devout his spirit. But this was the more plain in the battle in which he was compelled to take part, but in which he took part in such a way as both to fill the duties of a commander and to do nothing foreign to his monastic profession. Lappenberg himself Geschichte von England, volume I, page 147, although less curious of ecclesiastical matters, could not but commend this. A deed surely splendid for all, to teach that the kingdom of heaven is to be sought first; nor did it lack force and efficacy, as is abundantly plain from the deeds of St. Ceolwulf, King of the Northumbrians, a very dear friend of the Venerable Bede and a constant reader of his History. For he, as the Huntingdon writer says In Petrie, Monum. hist. Britanniæ, page 727, taking his example from the aforesaid History of the blessed man Bede, a truly most valiant man, followed six most valiant kings: namely Edelred, King of Mercia, and Cenred his successor; and also Cedwalla, King of Wessex, and Ine his successor; and moreover Sigebert, King of East Anglia, who became a monk, whom Penda afterwards slew; and Sebbi, King of Essex, who, having become a monk, foresaw the happy day of his death; he saw it and was glad… So Ceolwulf completed the week of perfect kings. Of whom St. Sigebert was the first to lead the way by example; although in some places [Liber monasterii de Hyda, page 10; The book of Hyde, chapter IV, Church historians of England, volume II, part II, page 487] he is said to be only the third among the kings of the octarchy to have shown so excellent a specimen of religion. A like enumeration is found in the Book of Hyde Ibid. chapter IX, page 491, and Smith has reworked it Flores historiarum, page 162. But from the genealogical scheme also, which we produced above at no. 3, it is manifestly plain that this zeal for holiness did not stop at St. Sigebert alone, but so penetrated the whole royal house that four daughters of King Anna are counted among the saints; from which roll the father himself is not absent, inscribed in some calendars at the 9th of December Challoner, Memorial of British piety, page 169. Other royal families too, shortly after they embraced the faith of Christ, abounded in a wealth of saints: for the sake of a specimen see the names inscribed in the genealogical schemes of the houses of Kent and Mercia, which we published in the Acts of SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert Acta SS. October volume VIII, page 90, or also the Narrative of the saints resting in the land of the Angles, which we subjoined in the same place Ibid. page 101 in Latin according to an old little Anglo-Saxon writing. It appears however from history by how violent movements and passions the spirits of the Saxons and Angles were driven, how hard and implacable were their dispositions, and how great their ambition and cruelty. But divine grace conquered all these things, poured out with such great largess that within the space of one century the Anglo-Saxon church could contend with the best-established churches both in zeal for souls, and in the study of sacred letters, and in active love of God. Why has a people which owes God such great benefits, and which does not deny that these came to it through the care and solicitude of the Roman pontiffs, suffered itself to be separated from Catholic communion? These are the judgments of God. But come, O Lord, and do not delay: forgive the crimes of thy people!

[16] By the tonsure Since the Venerable Bede wrote that St. Sigebert, monastic, St. Sigebert had ceased to be king. then, leaving the business of the kingdom and entrusting it to his kinsman Ecgric, who already before held a part of the same kingdom, entered a monastery, a number of writers have thought that they detected in those words that St. Sigebert did not cease to be king, but only entrusted the business of the kingdom to his kinsman Ecgric. But surely they are more acute than is right. For men in that age were not so subtle as to retain for themselves the radical power and commit its exercise to another. Next, at that time monks were put on a level with penitents and penitents with monks, except that monks were not forbidden the use of sacred things; and both alike were by the same law forbidden to be in military service. And since at that time the office of emperors and kings consisted first of all in military affairs, if any embraced monasticism (which of its nature is perpetual), or were condemned to perpetual penance, by that very fact, no less than ordinary soldiers, they were deprived of royal honor and dignity; just as

is manifest from the example of Wamba, King of Spain, who abdicated the kingdom on account of the sign of the venerable tonsure, received for the sake of penance Cf. Mabillon, Annales Benedictini, book XVII, nos. 12 and 27. To which add that in the fifth and following centuries the royal crown was held to be so opposed to the monastic tonsure that the history of the kings of the Franks is full of a multitude of princes, of whom for some, even unwilling, the way to the royal throne was shut off by the monastic tonsure, and from others the purple was taken away forever. In very truth violent men were rather often thrown down from their hope; but from their very efforts it plainly follows that all were then persuaded that no one could be at the same time a monk and a king. Rightly, therefore, did William of Malmesbury interpret the Venerable Bede, when he wrote this about the same matter [De gestis regum Anglorum, book I, no. 97, volume I, page 135, edition of Duffus Hardy]: Sigebert, renouncing the world and taking possession of the monastic tonsure, left the throne to his kinsman Ecgric.

* otherwise silvanum

§ IV. The killing of St. Sigebert. The times of his reign and death. His cult. Whether he is rightly called martyr and Benedictine. Deeds wrongly attributed to him.

[Penda, King of the Mercians, slayer and father of a number of saints, moved by ambition and savagery of spirit rather than hatred of religion, begins the war in which St. Sigebert falls, whence he is called a martyr.] While in the cloister of Betricheswurth St. Sigebert was devoting himself to contemplation, the chanting of the psalms, fasts, and the labor of his hands, the lands of the East Angles were invaded by Penda, King of the Mercians, stirred rather by savagery of spirit, the lust of war, and the ambition of ruling than by hatred of the Christian religion. His name is certainly hateful in English history; because, clinging to the worship of idols, he extended the kingdom of Mercia much more widely than any of his predecessors [Appendix to the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, in Petrie, Monumenta Britannica, page 637] and caused the greatest slaughter in the church or people of the Northumbrians Bede, Hist. eccl. book II, chapter 20. For he slew in war two kings of the Northumbrians, St. Edwin and St. Oswald, and three kings of the East Angles, St. Sigebert, Ecgric, and Anna, who also has been inscribed in the roll of the saints See above, no. 15. Cf. Acta SS. June volume IV, page 501 Appendix to the Chronicle of Florence, in the place cited. Yet about the middle of the seventh century King Penda did not forbid the word of God to be preached even in his own, that is, the Mercian nation (if any wished to hear it). Rather he hated and despised those whom, imbued with the faith of Christ, he found not to have the works of faith; saying that those men were contemptible and wretched who disdained to obey their God in whom they believed Bede, Hist. eccl. book III, chapter 21. And indeed by the favor of God, who knows how to raise up from stones sons of Israel, the parent ever rebellious to the Lord, as a certain monk of Malmesbury says Eulogium historiarum, volume II, page 162, poured forth most holy fruits for heaven. For his queen Kineswitha bore him five sons, namely Peada, who was as it were the apostle of the Middle Angles, Wulfhere, who first among the Mercians received baptism, St. Æthelred, St. Merewald, and St. Mercelm *, and two daughters, St. Kineburga and St. Kineswitha Appendix cited. Wherefore by a certain violence of spirit, from which only a very few barbarian kings are immune, rather than from hatred of the Christian religion, Penda seems to have begun the war against the East Angles. For that St. Sigebert, who fell in the battle, is called a martyr has no force to persuade us that the difference of religions was the cause of the conflict. For as we rather often point out in almost all our volumes, the word martyr formerly extended much more widely than now. For at the present time we call martyrs only those who endure a savage death for piety; but formerly they gave this name also to those who fell piously by an unjust or bloody death, especially if they had previously flourished in the praise of virtue.

[18] St. Sigebert came to England with St. Felix in the year 650 Up to this point we have narrated the deeds of St. Sigebert approximately in order of time, yet assigning no fixed years to them. Since in this matter there is the greatest confusion among chronographers both old and new, arising chiefly from this, that in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle In Petrie, Monum. hist. Brit. page 310, and from it in book II of the History of the Angles of Henry of Huntingdon Ibid. page 716 and in the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester Ibid. page 529, St. Felix is read to have preached the Christian faith to the East Angles in the year 636, some ordering seems to have to be attempted, which may embrace at least the chief affairs of the most blessed king. The hinge of this chronology is in fact the arrival among the East Angles of St. Felix, whom St. Sigebert brought with him from Kent; the time of which arrival Wharton has diligently tried to define: In what year, he says Anglia sacra, volume I, page 403, Felix first preached the Christian faith among the East Angles, there is little agreement among historians. The Saxon Chronology and Florence will have it to have been done in the year 636. I should judge it to have happened rather in the year 630 or the following. For Bede is the authority that Honorius, archbishop of Canterbury, bestowed the gift of consecration on Thomas and Boniface, successors of Felix. Now Felix sat XVII years, Thomas V, and Honorius died in the year 653. Therefore Felix could not have begun his preaching after the year 631. Further, on the same man's authority, Felix was first brought into East Anglia by King Sigebert. Sigebert succeeded Earpwald after an interregnum of three years. Earpwald, converted to the faith by Edwin, King of the Northumbrians, perished shortly after. And Edwin himself did not embrace the faith before the year 627; but in that very year 627, as Bede witnesses Hist. eccl. book II, chapter 14. Therefore Felix could not have entered the province before the year 630. He sat for XVII years in the opinion of all, relying on the testimony of the Venerable Bede Ibid. chapter 15; except however that Thomas of Ely Acta SS. June volume IV, page 500 wrote eighteen years, certainly meaning incomplete ones. He died in the year 650 according to the Florilegus; in the year 649, or rather the XII of the reign of King Anna, according to Thomas of Ely; in the year 647 according to Florence; who alone reached the truth. Whence it follows that St. Sigebert became king of the East Angles about the year 630. Pagi draws the knot tighter Critice in Annales Baronii, at the year 646, no. 5, demonstrating that St. Felix departed from the living in the year 646. For the Continuator of Ingulf, who is commonly (but wrongly [Hardy Duffus, Descr. catalogue of mater. rel. to the hist. of Great Britain, volume II, page 128]) said to be Peter of Blois, designated with most accurate characteristics the death of St. Felix in the letter which he prefixed to his book: He passed, he says, to the Lord in the year of the Lord DCXLVI, in the fourth indiction, the nineteen-year cycle beginning through I, the pagan Penda still reigning over the Mercians; which marks agree among themselves. Since therefore the English generally began the year from the 25th of December Art de vérifier les dates, page IX, edition of 1770, and since St. Felix, after an episcopate of eighteen years, died on the 8th of March, he must have begun his episcopate in the year 630. For this reason Pagi judges Critice at the year 627, no. 25 that the interregnum after the killing of Earpwald lasted only two years and a few months, and that St. Sigebert returned to his countrymen in the year 629. But it is not necessary to state that St. Sigebert came to the East Angles a whole year before St. Felix.

[19] and he died in the year 637. As to the year in which he met his death, there is no less obscurity. Florence of Worcester In Petrie, Monumenta, page 529 at the year 636 follows through the whole life of St. Sigebert, judging beyond doubt that he departed from the living in that year; in which year others also have said that St. Sigebert died. But Thomas of Ely in the Life of St. Etheldreda Acta SS. June volume IV, page 498 declares that he was slain in the six hundred and thirty-seventh year; and with him agrees the anonymous monk of the monastery of St. Edmundsbury Monast. Anglic. nov. volume III, page 136. Cf. above, no. 14. Yet Thomas is not consistent with himself, since in another place of the same Life he seems to have stated that St. Anna, father of St. Etheldreda, succeeded St. Sigebert and Ecgric in the year 635. For where he narrates the death of St. Etheldreda's father he says Acta SS. June volume IV, page 501: King Anna, hastening to meet him, was slain by the same Penda, King of the Mercians, in the nineteenth year of his reign, and in the six hundred and fifty-fourth from the Incarnation of the Lord. This year 654 is also read in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle In Petrie, Monumenta, page 312 and in its follower Florence of Worcester Ibid. page 531; and likewise in Richard of Cirencester Speculum historiale de gestis regum Angliæ, volume I, page 172, edition of Mayor, to omit others. According to this computation, therefore, St. Sigebert seems to have been slain in the year 635. And since elsewhere Acta SS. June volume IV, page 500 the same Thomas of Ely declares that St. Felix, who we said a little above died in the year 647, ended his life in peace in the twelfth year of the reign of King Anna, he seems again to refer the beginnings of this reign to the year 635 Ibid. page 498. Among more recent writers I find no one except Pagi who has inquired with singular diligence into the time of St. Sigebert's death. To omit those who relate that he was slain in the year 652 [Holinshed, Stow, etc. in Alford, Annales, at the year 642, no. 5. Challoner, British Martyrology, page 136. But the latter in Britannia sancta, volume I, page 162, wrote the year 642], Edward Maihew Trophæa Benedictina, volume II, at the 7th of August and Colgan Acta SS. Hiberniæ, page 97, following Matthew of Westminster in his Flores, mark the year 650; Speed The British Empire, page 310, Alford Annales, at the year 642, no. 5, Cressy The Church history of Britany, page 358, and Sharon Turner Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, volume I, page 219, Paris, 1840 the year 652; Mabillon Annales Ord. S. Bened. book XII, no. 62 the year 639; Churchill Divi Britannici, page 123 the year 638; Yepes Coronica de la orden de S. Benito, volume II, page 100 the year 636; the Maurists Art de vérifier les dates, page 771, edition of 1770, Petrie Monumenta hist. Brit. page 960, and Lappenberg Geschichte von England, volume I, page 151 the year 635; Lingard Hist. of England, volume I, page 60, Paris, 1840

the year 634, and finally Palgrave [The rise and progress of english common wealth, Anglo-Saxon period, volume II, page 309] the year 633. Those who propose the year 635 rely on the Life of St. Etheldreda, not noticing Thomas's inconsistency. What then? I prefer the year 637, since Thomas of Ely, who handled with diligent hand English and Latin books Acta SS. June volume IV, pages 493, 500, etc. which we now lack, and the anonymous writer of St. Edmund's, who in these matters followed the Chronicles of Croyland and Chester Monast. Angl. nov. volume III, page 136, which have not yet been published, directly, in full words or with other marks of time, declare that St. Sigebert was slain by Penda in the six hundred and thirty-seventh year, in the 234th year before the martyrdom of St. Edmund, slain in the year 870 on the XII day before the Kalends of December; while on the other hand in other places Thomas marks only in what year of St. Anna's reign things were done: which manner of computing is often very uncertain. Pagi believed Critice Annalium Baronii at the year 644, no. 7 that in the year DCXXXVII there was a copyist's mistake, and that DCXXXV was written by Thomas himself; but in full words (as I have pointed out) our predecessors found written the six hundred and thirty-seventh year. He thought also that the testimony of Thomas of Ely was solitary; but it is confirmed by the authority of the anonymous writer of St. Edmund's. It is better, therefore, to retain the year 637. It follows from this, however, that Henry of Huntingdon Hist. Angl. book I, in Petrie, Monumenta, page 716 uses hyperbole, who declares that St. Sigebert was a monk for many years. Lastly, the Venerable Bede relates that he entered a monastery; which may not be interpreted as if he had done this at the end of his life, since he is said by the same venerable man to have been in the monastery for a long time; suppose three years, so that about the year 634 he laid down the royal scepter.

[20] St. Sigebert was formerly listed among the saints I have adduced in this Commentary a good many writers, ancient and more recent, Catholic and Protestant; and among these I have found none who does not praise St. Sigebert for learning, zeal, goodness, and holiness. The Magdeburg Centuriators themselves, who blame St. Felix, the apostle of the East Angles, because within a few years he transformed all those churches into papist masks Centuria VII, page 534, commonly mention St. Sigebert not without some reverence. I do not wish, however, to recite the words of any, since nearly all either copy the Venerable Bede or abridge his statements. Among the ancients in print, however, I have found only one who calls Sigebert SAINT, so that this praise affects the person, not the life, namely the author of the appendix to the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, whose statements we recited above, no. 17. But in a manuscript codex of the thirteenth century, formerly of the Bollandian Museum, now of the public library of Brussels No. 8497, which contains the book of Henry of Huntingdon on the Saints of England, I find this: At the time when Oswald, and Oswin, and Aidan sought the joys of heaven, Erchemburth reigned in Kent, and Sigebert in Estlandia. Of both of whom we must speak. And in fact it then speaks of St. Erchembert; but St. Sigebert is passed over, although in the index there comes this title, written in an ancient hand: Of St. Sigebert, king; so that it is not to be doubted that in better codices a chapter on St. Sigebert is found. From which it is plain that in the twelfth century, in which the Huntingdon writer lived, the excellent king was held in the census of the saints. Capgrave also, who flourished in the fifteenth century, counts Sigebert among the holy kings crowned with martyrdom, as Pagi is my witness Critice Annalium Baronii, at the year 644, no. 8, who judges with every right that this title belongs to him. Moreover in the English Calendar which Lingard compiled from printed Missals and Breviaries of Salisbury and York, and from manuscript ones of Durham (Harleian Library no. 5289) and of St. Paul's (ibid. no. 2787) Cf. Harris Nicolas, The Chronology of History, page 97, there is read at the 27th of September Sigeberht, king and martyr Ibid. page 112. But in the Salisbury books which we have it does not occur; so that Lingard must have seen it in one of the three others. But in the English Martyrology according to the use of Sarum, as it was read in Syon, the London monastery, published in the year 1526 in the vernacular language with additions by Whitford, we have this before us at the 16th of January: The feast of St. Sigebert, who was King of England, and driven out by enemies into Gaul, where he received the faith of Christ and was baptized; and he was restored to his kingdom, where he erected schools of Sacred Scripture; and then he resigned his crown to a kinsman and became a monk of great perfection; and at the last he underwent martyrdom for the faith. So that St. Sigebert seems formerly to have been venerated on two different days in a few places, unless perhaps because of St. Fursey, for whom St. Sigebert built a monastery, he was here announced together with the blessed abbot on the 16th of January. But, however that may be, the genuine natal day was beyond doubt the 27th of September, since Penda is not to be reckoned to have burst into East Anglia with an army in winter time.

[21] and even now he is listed, and indeed among the Benedictines, Wilson in the English Martyrology, in the later edition, celebrates the same most holy king at the 27th of September; whom Alford Ann. eccl. Anglo-Sax. at the year 642, no. 6 and Cressy Eccl. hist. of Brit. page 358 as usual follow in their Annals. Challoner strays by one day, marking him at the 26th of September in the English Martyrology A memorial of ancient british piety, page 135: but in Britannia sancta Lives of British Saints, volume I, pages 161 and 162 he praises him together with St. Felix, bishop, at the 8th of March. — In our Acta it has indeed been doubted at times whether St. Augustine and his companions, who introduced the Christian religion and the monastic life among the Anglo-Saxons, followed the Rule of St. Benedict; but after Mabillon handled the same argument in the Prefaces to the Acta of the saints of his Order, Papebroch declared that he entirely went along with his opinion. Wherefore, since (as we showed above) St. Sigebert became a monk not in the cloister of St. Fursey, which used the Irish institutions, but in that of Betricheswurth, which more probably owed its beginnings to the monks of Canterbury, the Benedictine monks have not rashly inscribed him in their roll. Arnold Wion, then, who published the Lignum vitæ in the year 1595, although he did not insert his name (unless my diligence in searching has failed me) in the Benedictine monastic Martyrology, which is part of book III, nevertheless begins the catalogue of kings who professed the Benedictine Rule (which catalogue occurs in book IV) with St. Sigebert, King of the East Angles, weaving together his elogium from the Venerable Bede, Matthew of Westminster, and Polydore Vergil Lignum Vitæ, page 449.

[22] [on the days 16 January, 7 August, and 27 September, and through the carelessness of writers on the days 17 August and 17 September;] Next comes Edward Maihew, a monk of the English Benedictine Congregation of Westminster, who from the year 1619 to 1625 published at Reims in three volumes the Trophies of the English Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict; of which volume or table II sets forth the natal days of the saints Catalogus lib. impr. bibl. Bodlejanæ, volume II, page 633. What this book, sought by me in vain in Belgium, contains about St. Sigebert I have known only from what Colgan Acta SS. Hiberniæ, page 97 and our predecessors Acta SS. August volume II, page 181 have reported from it. He then established (by what authority I know not) the natal day of St. Sigebert at the 7th of August. In which matter he has been followed by the other Benedictine martyrologists and menologists, Ménard Martyrol. SS. ord. S. Bened. pages 67 and 657, who in his observations reasons not badly about him; Bucelinus; Heredia Vidas de santos de la religion de S. Benito, volume III, page 199; Ranbeck, monk of Scheyern Annus Benedictinus, volume III, page 372, who also published his image engraved by Gabriel Ehinger; and finally Cherle Martyrologium Bened. page 387. A monk of Donauwörth Kirchenkalender aller HH. w. u. d. Regel d. H. Benediktus gelebt haben, page 80 mentions him at the 14th of February, in connection with St. Ina, King of the West Saxons, pointing out that he lacks a fixed cult, since Mabillon did not inscribe his name in the Benedictine calendar; and Peter Lechner Ausfürliches Martyrologium des Ben.-Ordens, Augsburg, 1855, who has published the most recent Benedictine Martyrology, has passed over him altogether in silence. Du Saussay, since St. Sigebert received the faith in Gaul, mentions him in the supplement to the Gallican Martyrology, and indeed after the example of the Benedictines at the 7th of August. Someone seems also to have announced him at the 17th of August. For Castellanus Martyrologe universel, page 895, who was persuaded that St. Sigebert never obtained even a shadow of cult and that he was mentioned in the sacred calendars by only three or four more recent writers, points out that he is mentioned by one of them at the 17th of August; certainly by an easy error of ten days. And indeed by a similar but inverted error Castellanus himself had earlier Ibid. page 470 made memory of St. Sigebert, and following him de Saint-Allais Martyrologe universel, page 353 and Pétin Dictionnaire hagiologique, volume II, columns 1003 and 1004, on the 17th of September instead of the 27th of September.

[23] [and even on the 29th of October, at which we have spoken of him, although at one time it seemed good to our predecessors to pass him over.] At the latter day our predecessors in the Passed-Over Saints, persuaded by Castellanus, judged that he was not to be spoken of in our work, because he had never been publicly venerated in the church. But earlier, in the Passed-Over Saints at the 7th of August, having before their eyes, besides Wilson and the Benedictine menologists, the English Martyrology of Whitford according to the customs of the monastery of Syon, and Maihew, who reports other witnesses of immemorial cult, they had thought quite otherwise, referring however the Acts of the holy king to the supplement of the 16th of January. Yet, although today St. Sigebert has never been venerated, since nevertheless he is recalled on the present day by Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of the saints, where at the 27th of September he had already been praised, and by Adalbert Muller in the Universal Martyrology Allgemeines Martyrologium, page 546, and since we ourselves in the booklet on the Continuation of the Bollandist work have entered his name at this day, it has seemed more opportune to treat of him now than again to defer his Life to another day.

[24] [The cathedral

church of St. Paul and the Westminster church of St. Peter were not built by St. Sigebert, King of the East Angles, but by Sigebert, King of the East Saxons, wrongly numbered by some among the saints.] It remains at the end for me to review some errors or rash assertions that are in circulation about St. Sigebert. In the first place I must point out that St. Sigebert, King of the East Angles, is to be distinguished from Sigebert, King of the East Saxons. This error Ailred, abbot of Rievaulx, did not know how to avoid, who in the Life and miracles of St. Edward the Confessor wrote this In Twysden, Scriptores decem, column 383: At the time when King Æthelbert, who reigned in Kent, had received the sacraments of the faith at the preaching of Bl. Augustine, his nephew Sebert too, who presided over the East Angles, received the faith at the evangelizing of the same bishop. He, building at London, which was held to be the metropolis of his kingdom, within the walls a church in honor of the most blessed Paul, wished it to be raised to the eminence of an episcopal see … And the king, wishing to show himself grateful to both apostles, in the western part of the same city outside the walls founded a distinguished monastery in honor of Blessed Peter. And others transfer other things from the one to the other, which there is no leisure to pursue. For the rest, Sigebert, King of the East Saxons, surnamed the Good, was never publicly venerated. He is indeed praised by the Venerable Bede Hist. eccl. book III, chapter 23 and by other chronographers following him because about the year 660 he was slain on account of his excessive clemency; but this sad death had been foretold to him by St. Cedd, bishop, as a heavenly punishment, because he had violated the laws of excommunication. Wherefore Alford cannot be approved, who wrote his name at the end of the third volume of his Annals in the index of the saints of England, nor Cressy, who did the same in the index of his History. England has enough genuine dwellers in heaven, whose cult the authority of the church has confirmed, so that there is no necessity to increase its roll with names rashly and unlawfully inscribed.

[25] [It was not St. Sigebert who had a literary correspondence with St. Desiderius of Cahors, but St. Sigebert, King of the Austrasians.] It seems that it must also be pointed out that Smith [In the annotations to chapter XVIII, book III, of Bede's Eccl. Hist., Works volume VI, column 143] was led into error by Pits, so that he believed that St. Sigebert the Angle, while he was staying in Gaul, had a literary correspondence with St. Desiderius, who from the year 629 to 654 occupied the see of Cahors, and that those letters were still preserved at that time in the Swiss monastery of St. Gall. This error, which he detected in Maihew's Trophies, Ménard first refuted in the observations on the Benedictine Martyrology; but anyone at all can refute it very easily. For those letters were published in the Lectiones antiquæ of Henry Canisius, and thence in Basnage's Thesaurus monumentorum, and finally in Migne's Patrology. For the two letters of Desiderius to King Sigebert and the two of King Sigebert to Desiderius which are read there must most manifestly be referred to another King Sigebert. In letter IV of book I Desiderius says In Migne, Patrologia, volume LXXXVII, column 250: The favor of intimacy was held by the lord your father toward my very small and slight person; and in the earlier letter he asks him Ibid. at the column cited that those whom his father piously brought up his rigor might bear with equanimity. Finally in letter XVII of book II Sigebert himself wrote this Ibid. column 263: Although the statutes of the canons and the ecclesiastical rules, as our parents have preserved them in the name of God, so we too desire to preserve etc. There is then treated a synod which without the king's knowledge had been called for the Kalends of September (in our kingdom, says the writer), and to which the king indicates to St. Desiderius that he must by no means go. Since therefore that King Sigebert had Christian forebears, intimates of St. Desiderius, and held the kingdom of the Franks, he can only be St. Sigebert II, son of Dagobert I, who after his father from the year 638 held the kingdom of Austrasia and departed this life on the 1st of February of the year 656.

[26] [It is said without authority that St. Sigebert and St. Felix built the first churches at Babingley and at Sharnborn.] Finally Alford, who seems to have come close to writing in his Annals a tragedy about St. Sigebert (so abundant is he, so eloquent, and with such great apparatus does he everywhere send the holy king on stage!), has handed down this about the founding of the Christian religion among the East Angles: Churches, he says Annales at the year 636, no. 9, meanwhile arose in more than one place, Bishop Felix attending to them, the king furnishing everything toward the expense. Besides the church and see of the bishop erected at Dunwich, a sacred building was built where Felix had first landed on the island, at the town of Babingley, as Camden writes: others in the place called Sharnborne; and these were the first in the province of the Angles. Speed was the first to commit these things to writing The British Empire, Northfolke, page 35, relying (if I am not mistaken) on this one argument, that the church of Babingley was dedicated to St. Felix, and that the church of Sharnborn, long called Stock-Chappell, had in its wooden walls a certain mark of antiquity. Camden took these things from Speed Britannia, Northfolke, page 223, indicating however that they circulate only by popular tradition, and are by no means established by ancient documents. It may indeed be that these things were so done; nor is it to be doubted that the most blessed king and St. Felix erected wooden sacred buildings here and there in towns and villas, in some appointing a keeper to call the people together to common prayers, in others a priest to perform all the parts of the sacred ministry, and taking care above all that the people should not return to their former superstitions: but these and many other things which can be imagined, but not demonstrated by the testimony of antiquity, must be excluded from history.

* Mercelinus otherwise.

OF THE LIFE OR DEATH OF THE RELIGIOUS KING SIGBERCT

From the Ecclesiastical History of the English People of the Venerable Bede, book III, chapter XVIII, according to the edition of Henry Petrie in the Monumenta historica Britannica.

Sigebert, king of the East Angles and martyr. (S.)

BHL Number: 0000

BY THE VENERABLE BEDE.

[The conversion of St. Sigebert and his countrymen; the institution of a school through the efforts of St. Felix;] In these times the kingdom of the East Angles, after Earpwald, the successor of Redwald ^a, was ruled by Sigberect his brother, a good and religious man: who earlier in Gaul, while he was in exile fleeing the enmities of Redwald ^b, received the laver of baptism, and returning to his homeland, when he obtained the kingdom, soon desiring to imitate what he saw well ordered in Gaul, instituted a school in which boys might be taught letters: with the help of Bishop Felix, whom he had received from Kent, and who furnished them with pedagogues and masters according to the usage of the people of Kent ^c.

[2] The monastic life of St. Sigebert; his military command in war; his killing. And so much did that king become a lover of the heavenly kingdom that at the last, leaving the business of the kingdom and entrusting it to his kinsman Ecgric ^d, who already before held a part of the same kingdom, he entered the monastery which he had made for himself ^e, and having received the tonsure took care to soldier rather for the eternal kingdom. And while he was doing this for a long time, it happened that the people of the Mercians, led by King Penda, went forth to war against the East Angles ^f; who, when they saw themselves inferior to the enemy in war, asked Sigberct to come with them into battle to strengthen the soldiers. When he was unwilling and refused, they dragged him unwilling from the monastery and led him into the contest, hoping that the spirits of the soldiers would tremble less, and that they could think less of flight, with a once most vigorous and outstanding commander present. But he, not unmindful of his profession, though surrounded by an excellent army, would have nothing but a rod in his hand ^g: and he was slain together with King Ecgric, and their whole army, the pagans pressing on, was cut down or scattered.

[3] His successor, St. Anna. Their successor in the kingdom was Anna, son of Eni, of the royal family, an excellent man, and the father of excellent offspring; of whom we must speak in what follows in due time: who himself also was afterwards slain by the same leader of the Mercians by whom his predecessor was.

ANNOTATIONS.

Similar examples are not lacking in what follows; and to certain monks of royal stock it seemed so little incongruous to bear arms that some of them did not even hesitate to enter into marriage.