Works (excl. History) 4 part 2/5

For at that time, not many monasteries having yet been built in the region of the English, many from Britain, for the sake of the monastic mode of life, were wont to repair to the monasteries of the Franks or of the Gauls; and they also sent their daughters to be instructed there, and to be united to their heavenly Bridegroom; chiefly in the monastery of Brige, and of Cale (Chelles), and of Andelys; among whom was Saethryth, daughter of the wife of Anna, king of the East Angles, of whom we have made mention above, and Aethelburg, the natural daughter of the same king; both of whom, though they were strangers, were, for the merit of their virtues, appointed abbess of the same monastery of Brige. The elder daughter of which king, Sexburg, wife of Earconbert, king of the men of Kent, had a daughter Earcongota, of whom we are about to speak.

Now of this virgin dedicated to God, many works of power and signs of miracles are wont to be related by the inhabitants of that place even to this day. But for us let it suffice to say briefly something only of her passing, by which she sought the heavenly kingdoms. As the day of her calling drew near, then, she began to go round in the monastery the little cells of the sick handmaidens of Christ, and chiefly of those who were either advanced in age or more eminent in uprightness of manners. Humbly commending herself to the prayers of them all, she did not conceal that her death, which she had learned by revelation, was shortly to come. Which revelation she declared to be of this kind: that she had seen a band of men clad in white enter that same monastery;

and that, being asked by her what they sought, or what they wanted there, they answered that they had been sent thither for this purpose, that they might take with them that golden coin which had come thither from Kent. And on that very night, in whose last part, that is, as the dawn was beginning, passing through the darkness of the present world she migrated to the supernal light, many of the brethren of the same monastery, who were in other buildings, declared that they had now plainly heard the concerts of angels singing psalms, and also a sound as of a very great multitude entering the monastery;

whereupon, presently going out to learn what it was, they saw a very great light sent down from heaven, which was leading that holy soul, loosed from the bonds of the flesh, to the eternal joys of the heavenly country. They add also other miracles which on that same night were shown by divine power in the same monastery; but these, as we are pressing on to other matters, we leave to be related by their own people. The venerable body of the virgin and bride of Christ was buried in the church of the blessed proto-martyr Stephen; and it pleased them, after the third day, that the stone with which the tomb was covered should be removed, and be set up higher in the same place;

And while this was being done, so great a fragrance of sweetness bubbled up from the depths that to all the brothers and sisters who stood by it seemed as though storerooms of balsam had been opened. Moreover her aunt, of whom we have spoken, Æthelburh, herself also preserved the glory of perpetual virginity, beloved of God, with great bodily continence; and of how great virtue she was became more clearly manifest after her death. For when she was abbess, she began to build in her monastery a church in honour of all the apostles, in which she desired her own body to be buried. But when that work had been carried forward to about its midpoint, she, lest she should complete it, was snatched away by death, and was laid in that very place of the church where she had longed to be.

After her death, since the brothers were more occupied with other matters, this building was left off for seven years; and when these were completed they resolved, on account of the excessive labour, to abandon the structure of this church entirely from its foundations, but to raise up the bones of the abbess from that place and transfer them into another church which was finished and dedicated. And opening her tomb, they found her body so undefiled that it was as free from corruption as it had been immune from the lust of carnal desire; and so, washing it anew and clothing it in other garments, they translated it into the church of the blessed martyr Stephen. His feast day, indeed, is wont there to be celebrated in great glory on the Nones of July.

Now Oswald, the most Christian king of the Northumbrians, reigned nine years, counting in also that year which both the savage impiety of the king of the Britons and the demented apostasy of the kings of the English had made detestable. For, as we have shown above, it was established by the unanimous consent of all that the name and memory of the apostates should be utterly abolished from the catalogue of Christian kings, and that no year should be reckoned to their reign. When this course of years was completed, he was slain, a grievous battle having been joined, by that same pagan people and pagan king of the Mercians by whom his predecessor Edwin too had been killed, in the place which in the tongue of the English is called Maserfelth, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, on the fifth day of the month of August.

How great his faith in God was, and how great the devotion of his mind, was made manifest even after his death by the miracles of his powers. For in the place where, fighting for his country, he was slain by the pagans, healings of the sick, both of men and of cattle, do not to this very day cease to be wrought. Hence it came to pass that many, carrying off the very dust of the spot where his body fell to the earth and casting it into water, brought much relief thereby to their sick. And this custom grew so prevalent that, the earth being gradually carried away from there, it left a pit as deep as the height of a man. Nor is it to be wondered at that the sick should be healed in the place of his death, who, while he lived, never ceased to care for the sick and the poor, to give alms, and to bring help.

And indeed many miracles of healing power are told to have been wrought in that place or by the dust of that place; but we have thought it enough to relate only two which we have heard from our elders. Not long after his death, when some time had passed, it happened that a certain man, riding on horseback, was making his journey near that place; and his horse suddenly began to grow weary, to stand still, to droop its head to the ground, to let foam fall from its mouth, and, as its excessive pain increased, to sink down to the earth. The rider dismounted, and, drawing off the saddle-cloth, began to wait for the hour when he should either recover the beast restored, or leave it dead. But it, long tormented by grievous pain, while it twisted itself this way and that, suddenly by rolling came upon that very spot of ground where the memorable king had fallen.

And immediately, the pain ceasing, it left off from the frantic movements of its limbs, and, after the manner customary to horses, as though after fatigue, rolled itself in turn from one side to the other; and rising up at once, as though wholly sound in every part, it began more eagerly to crop the green herbage. Seeing this, the rider, being a man of shrewd wit, understood that there was something of wonderful holiness in this place where the horse had been cured; and setting up a sign there, not long after he mounted his horse and came to the lodging to which he had purposed. And when he arrived there, he found a girl, niece of the head of the household, oppressed by a long sickness of palsy.

And when the members of that household were lamenting in his presence over the bitter infirmity of the girl, he began to tell of the place where his horse had been cured. Why say more? Placing her on a cart, they led her to the place, and there set her down. But she, laid in the place, slept a little while; and when she awoke, perceiving herself healed of that dissolution of her body, she asked for water, washed her own face, arranged her hair, covered her head with a linen cloth, and, sound and walking on her own feet, returned with those who had brought her. At the same time there came another man, of the nation of the Britons, as they say, making his journey near that very place in which the aforesaid battle had been fought; and he saw one spot of ground greener and more lovely than the rest of the field;

and he began with shrewd mind to conjecture that there could be no other cause of the unusual greenness in that spot, except that some man holier than the rest of the army had been slain there. He therefore took with him some of the dust of that earth, binding it in a linen cloth, thinking — as indeed came to pass — that the dust would avail for the healing of the sick; and pursuing his journey he came towards evening to a certain village, and entered into a house in which the villagers were feasting at supper; and being received by the masters of the house, he too sat down with them at the banquet, hanging up the little linen cloth with the dust which he had brought upon one post of the wall.

And while they gave themselves at length to feasting and drunkenness, a great fire having been kindled in the midst, it happened that, as sparks flew up on high, the roof of the house, which was woven of twigs and thatched with hay, was filled with sudden flames. When the guests, thrown into confusion by terror, suddenly beheld this, they fled outside, being able to do nothing to help the burning house already on the very point of perishing. The house, therefore, having been consumed by the flames, only the post on which that dust hung enclosed remained safe from the fires and untouched. Marvelling greatly at this power which they had seen, and inquiring more carefully, they found that the dust had been taken from that place where the blood of King Oswald had been shed.

These miracles being made known and spread abroad far and wide, many began for days to frequent that place, and to receive there the grace of healings for themselves and their own. Among these things I think it ought by no means to be passed over in silence what virtue and heavenly miracle was shown when his bones were found and translated to the church in which they are now kept. Now this was done through the industry of Osthryth, queen of the Mercians, who was the daughter of his brother, that is of Oswiu, who after him held the summit of the kingdom, as we shall tell in what follows.

There is a noble monastery in the province of Lindsey, by name Bardney, which that same queen, together with her husband Æthelred, greatly loved, venerated, and cherished, in which she desired to lay up the honourable bones of her uncle. And when the cart in which those bones were being conveyed had come, as evening was drawing on, to the aforesaid monastery, those who were in the monastery were unwilling to receive them gladly; for although they had known him to be a saint, yet, because he had sprung from another province and had received rule over them, they pursued him even when dead with their old hatreds. Hence it came to pass that on that very night the relics that had been brought remained outside, only a large tent being stretched over the cart in which they lay.

But the manifestation of a heavenly miracle made plain with what reverence they ought to be received by all the faithful. For all that night a column of light, stretching from that cart up to heaven, stood conspicuous in almost all the places of that same province of Lindsey. Hence when morning came, the brothers of that monastery, who the day before had refused, themselves began diligently to entreat that those holy relics, beloved of God, might be laid up among them. The bones, therefore, having been washed, they placed in a shrine which they had prepared for this purpose, and set them in the church with fitting honour;

and that the royal person of the holy man might have an everlasting memorial, they set up his banner, wrought of gold and purple, above the tomb, and poured out the very water in which they had washed the bones into a corner of the sanctuary. From that time it came to pass that the very earth which had received that venerable washing had the effect of saving grace for driving out demons from the bodies of those possessed.

At length, in a later time, when the aforesaid queen was staying in that same monastery, there came to greet her a certain venerable abbess, who survives to this day, by name Æthelhild, sister of the holy men Æthelwine and Aldwine, of whom the former was bishop in the province of Lindsey, and the second was abbot in the monastery which is called Partney, not far from which she too had a monastery. When therefore she had come and was speaking with the queen, and among other things, the conversation having turned to Oswald, said that she too had seen on that night the light reaching up to heaven above his relics, the queen added that from the dust of the floor on which the water of that washing had been poured out, many sick had already been healed.

And she begged that a portion of the health-giving dust might be given to her; and receiving it bound up in a cloth, she laid it up in a little casket, and returned. Now after some time had passed, when she was in her own monastery, there came thither a certain guest, who was wont very often in the night hours to be most grievously vexed by an unclean spirit. When he had been kindly received and after supper had laid his limbs on the bed, suddenly seized by the devil, he began to cry out, to gnash his teeth, to foam, and to twist his limbs with diverse motions. And when he could be neither held nor bound by anyone, a servant ran and, knocking at the door, announced it to the abbess.

But she, opening the door of the monastery, herself went out with one of the holy women to the quarters of the men, and calling the priest, asked him to come with her to the afflicted man. When they came thither and saw that many were present who, striving to hold the vexed man and to restrain his frantic movements, were by no means able to prevail, the priest recited exorcisms, and did whatever he could to calm the fury of the wretched man. But neither was he, though labouring much, able to accomplish anything. And when it seemed that no hope of health remained for the raging man, suddenly there came into the abbess's mind that aforesaid dust; and at once she ordered the servant-girl to go and to bring the little casket in which it was.

And when she, bringing what she had been ordered, entered the hall of the house, in whose inner parts the demoniac was being tormented, he suddenly fell silent, and as though relaxed into sleep laid down his head, and composed all his limbs into rest. All fell silent, and intent held their lips, anxiously awaiting what outcome the matter should have. And after the space of some part of an hour the one who had been vexed sat up, and sighing heavily said: 'Now I am of sound mind, for I have recovered the sense of my soul.' But they earnestly questioned how this had come about. And he said: 'As soon as this maiden, with the casket which she was carrying, drew near to the hall of this house, all the malign spirits who were oppressing me departed, and leaving me appeared nowhere.'

Then the abbess gave him a little portion of that dust, and so, prayer having been said by the priest, he passed that night most quietly; nor from that time did he suffer anything of nocturnal fear or vexation from the ancient enemy. In the time that followed thereafter there was in that same monastery a certain little boy, grievously vexed by a long ailment of fevers. When one day he was anxiously awaiting the hour of the attack, one of the brothers, coming in to him, said: 'Do you wish, my son, that I teach you how you may be cured of the trouble of this sickness? Rise, enter the church, and going to the tomb of Oswald, sit there, and remaining quiet keep close to the tomb. See that you go not out from there, nor move from the place, until the hour of the fevers' departure has passed.

Then I myself will come in, and lead you out from there.' He did as the other had advised; and as he sat by the saint's tomb, the sickness by no means presumed to touch him; nay, fearing him to such a degree, it fled away, so that neither on the second day, nor on the third, nor ever afterward did it dare to come upon him. He who related this to me, a brother coming thence, added that this had so happened that at the very time when he was speaking with me, there still survived in that same monastery the man, now a youth, in whom, when he was then a boy, this miracle of healing had been wrought. Nor is it to be wondered at that the prayers of that king, now reigning with the Lord, should avail much with him who, once holding the helm of a temporal kingdom, was rather wont always to labour and pray for the eternal kingdom.

In short, they relate that often from the time of morning praise until the day he would persist in prayers, and that, on account of his frequent habit of praying or of giving thanks to the Lord, wherever he was sitting he was wont always to hold his hands turned upward upon his knees. It has become commonly known, and turned into a proverb, that he ended his life even amid the words of prayer. For when, surrounded by arms and enemies, he now saw himself on the point of being slain, he prayed for the souls of his army. Hence they say in a proverb: 'God have mercy on the souls,' said Oswald, falling to the earth. His bones, therefore, were translated and laid up in the monastery of which we have spoken.

Furthermore, the king who had slain him ordered his head and his hands with the arms, cut off from the body, to be hung up on stakes. Coming thither a year later with an army, Oswiu, the successor of his kingdom, took them away, and laid the head indeed in the cemetery of the church of Lindisfarne, but the hands with the arms in the royal city. Nor only did the fame of the renowned man traverse all the bounds of Britain, but, scattering far the rays of its health-giving light even across the ocean, it reached the regions both of Germany and of Ireland.

In short, the most reverend bishop Acca is wont to relate that, when going to Rome he stayed with Wilbrord, the most holy archbishop of the nation of the Frisians, together with his own bishop Wilfrid, he often heard him narrate about the wonders that had been wrought at the relics of that same most reverend king in that province. And he reported that in Ireland too, while as a priest he was still leading a pilgrim life for the sake of his eternal fatherland, the report of his holiness had already spread far and wide in that island also; of which reports, one miracle which among others he related, we have believed ought to be inserted in this our present history.

'In the time,' he said, 'of the mortality which laid waste Britain and Ireland with widespread destruction, there was struck by the calamity of that same plague, among others, a certain scholar of the race of the Scots, a man indeed learned in the study of letters, but bearing no zeal or industry at all concerning the care of his own everlasting salvation. When he saw himself near to death, he began to fear and to dread, lest, soon dying, he should on account of the merits of his crimes be snatched away to the prisons of hell; and he called me, since I was placed in the neighbourhood, and trembling amid sick sighs, with a tearful voice he lamented to me such things as these: «You see,» he said, «that now, with the trouble of my body increasing, I am driven to the moment of undergoing death;

nor do I doubt that, after the death of the body, I shall straightway be snatched away to the everlasting death of the soul, and be subjected to infernal torments; for during no little time, amid the studies of divine reading, I was wont rather to serve the entanglements of vices than the divine commands. But it is in my mind, if the heavenly mercy shall grant me some space of living, to correct my vicious manners, and to transfer my whole mind and life entirely to the rule of the divine will. Yet I know that it is not of my merit that I should either receive a respite of living, or trust that I shall receive it, unless perhaps the divine pity deign to be favourable to me, wretched and unworthy as I am, with pardon, through the help of those who have faithfully served Him.»

«Now we have heard, and it is a most frequent report, that there was in your nation a king of wonderful holiness, by name Oswald, the excellence of whose faith and virtue, even after death, has shone forth by the working of frequent miracles; and I pray that, if you have any of his relics about you, you bring them to me, if perchance the Lord may be willing through his merit to have mercy on me.» But I answered: «I have indeed some of the wood on which his head, slain by the pagans, was fixed; and, if you believe with a firm heart, the divine pity can, through the merit of so great a man, both grant you longer spaces of this life, and render you worthy of entrance into life everlasting.» And he without delay answered that he had whole and entire faith in this.

Then I blessed water, and putting in a chip of the aforesaid oak, I offered it to the sick man to drink. There was no delay: he began to be better, and recovering from his infirmity, he lived for a long time thereafter; and being converted to God with his whole heart and work, he proclaimed everywhere, wherever he came, the clemency of the merciful Creator and the glory of His faithful servant.' Oswald, therefore, having been translated to the heavenly kingdoms, his brother Oswiu received in his stead the seat of the earthly kingdom, a young man of about thirty years, and held it most laboriously for twenty-eight years, being assailed, namely, both by the pagan nation of the Mercians, which had slain his brother, and also by his own son Alchfrith, and likewise by his nephew, that is the son of his brother who had reigned before him, Œthelwald.

In the second year of his reign, that is in the year 644 from the Lord's incarnation, the most reverend father Paulinus, formerly indeed bishop of York, but then of the city of Rochester, passed to the Lord on the sixth day before the Ides of October; he had held the bishopric for nineteen years, two months, and twenty-one days; and he was buried in the sacristy of the blessed apostle Andrew, which King Æthelberht had built from the foundations in that same city of Rochester. In his place archbishop Honorius ordained Ithamar, a man indeed sprung from the nation of the men of Kent, but to be matched with his predecessors in life and learning.

Now Oswiu had, in the first times of his reign, a partner of the royal dignity, by name Oswine, of the stock of King Edwin, that is the son of Osric, of whom we have related above, a man of exceeding piety and religion; who for seven years governed the province of Deira in the greatest affluence of all things, himself also beloved by all. But he could not have peace even with him who ruled the other part of the Transhumbrian nation from the north, that is the province of Bernicia; nay rather, the causes of dissensions growing graver, he destroyed this man by a most wretched slaughter.

For when, an army having been gathered against each other, Oswine saw that he could not contend in war with him who had more auxiliaries, he judged it more useful then, his intention of warring laid aside, to keep himself for better times. He therefore dismissed the army which he had gathered, and ordered each man to return home from the place which is called Wilfaresdun, that is the mount of Wilfar, and is about ten miles distant from the village of Catterick towards the south-west; and he himself turned aside with only one soldier most faithful to him, by name Tondhere, to be hidden in the house of the count Hunwald, whom he reckoned to be most friendly to himself. But alas, for grief! it was far otherwise;

for being betrayed by that same count, Oswiu, by means of his reeve Æthelwine, slew him together with the aforesaid soldier of his by a death detestable to all. This was done on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of September, in the ninth year of his reign, in the place which is called Gilling; where afterward, for the sake of expiating this crime, a monastery was built, in which daily prayers should be offered to the Lord for the redemption of the soul of both kings, namely both of him who was slain, and of him who ordered him to be slain. Now King Oswine was both comely in aspect, and lofty in stature, and pleasant in speech, and courteous in manners, and bountiful to all, that is to the noble and the ignoble alike;

whence it came to pass that, on account of the royal dignity both of his mind, and of his countenance, and of his merits, he was loved by all, and from every quarter, from almost all the provinces, even men of the noblest rank flocked to his service. Among his other glories of virtue and modesty and, so to speak, of special blessing, the greatest is said to have been his humility, which one example will suffice to prove. He had given a most excellent horse to bishop Aidan, on which he, although accustomed to walk, might either cross the streams of rivers, or, if any other necessity should press, accomplish his journey. When, after a little space had intervened, a certain poor man met him asking for alms, he, dismounting, ordered the horse, just as it was royally caparisoned, to be given to the poor man;

for he was very merciful, and a cherisher of the poor, and as it were a father of the wretched. When this was reported to the king, he said to the bishop, when they were about to go in to dinner: 'What did you mean, lord bishop, by giving to a poor man the royal horse which it befitted you to have as your own? Had we not many cheaper horses, or other things, which would have sufficed for gifts to the poor, even though you gave them not that horse which I specially chose for you to possess?' To whom the bishop at once: 'What are you saying,' he said, 'O king? Is that son of a mare dearer to you than that son of God?' These things being said, they went in to dine. And the bishop indeed sat down in his place.

Now the king — for he had come from the hunt — began, standing by the fire, to warm himself with his servants; and suddenly, in the midst of warming himself, recalling the word which the bishop had spoken to him, he ungirded himself of his sword, and gave it to a servant, and hastening forward fell down before the feet of the bishop, beseeching that he would be appeased toward him; for 'never henceforth,' he said, 'will I speak anything of this, nor judge what, or how much, of our money you should bestow upon the sons of God.' Seeing this, the bishop was greatly afraid, and rising at once raised him up, promising that he was much appeased toward him, provided only that he, sitting down to the feast, would lay aside his sadness.

And while the king, at the bishop's bidding and entreaty, was recovering his gladness, the bishop on the contrary began to be made sad, even to the shedding of tears. When his priest asked him in their native tongue, which the king and his household did not know, why he wept: 'I know,' he said, 'that the king will not live for a long time; for never before this have I seen a humble king. Whence I perceive that he will quickly be snatched from this life; for this nation is not worthy to have such a ruler.' Nor long after were the bishop's dire forebodings fulfilled by the king's sorrowful death, of which we have spoken above.

But the bishop Aidan himself also, not more than twelve days after the slaying of the king whom he loved, that is on the day before the Kalends of September, was taken away from the world, and received from the Lord the everlasting rewards of his labours. Of what merit he was, the inward Judge taught even by the signs of miracles, of which it will be enough to set down three for memory's sake. A certain priest, by name Utta, a man of great gravity and truth, and on that account honourable to all, even to the very princes of the world, when he was sent to Kent to fetch thence a wife for King Oswiu, namely Eanfled, daughter of King Edwin, who, her father being slain, had been brought thither;