Modern British English translation — the Bollandist’s historical commentary followed by the Life taken from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History.

Historical commentary of the Bollandist #

¹ Mercia was the widest realm of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, comprising the seventeen provinces of today’s England which Henry Spelman before the Ancient Councils of Britain and William Camden in his Britannia enumerate; it took its name from the English word Mearc, which in Camden’s sense signifies a boundary — as the word “March” was in use among other nations. A reason for the name is added in that six other realms of this heptarchy bordered Mercia. Nor only those, but Wales itself — almost the ancient Cambria — was contiguous to it; and moreover, where the county of Lincoln now is, then the chief part of the Lindisfari, lay toward the east on the German Ocean; and Chester with its Wirral peninsula between the rivers Dee and Mersey reached on the west to the Irish Sea.

² The Venerable Bede, at the end of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, prefacing with a recapitulation the state of the English nation as it was in 731, names these bishops in the realm of Mercia: Aldwin over the Mercians; Walstod over the peoples dwelling beyond the Severn to the west; Wilfrid over the province of the Hwicce; Cyneberht over the province of the Lindisfari. Of these, Walstod was fourth bishop of Hereford, as Wilfrid was of Worcester — both sees established in 680, when St Ceadda had been dead seven years; whether these districts had been administered by him is not clear. But the province of the Lindisfari or Lindsey first received Bishop Eadhæd in 678 under Egfrid king of the Northumbrians, to whom that province was then subject. When it was recovered for the Mercians by King Æthelred, Bishop Eadhæd departed to the monastery of Ripon in Yorkshire, and Æthelwine was made bishop of the Lindisfari — whose see was long in Oxfordshire, in the little town of Dorchester at the confluence of the Thames and Isis, from which the Thames, rising, is famous under its own name. At last under William the Conqueror the see was established anew at Lincoln. Aldwin of the Mercians, related by Bede, died two years later, in 737, and for him Hwicca and Totta were consecrated prelates over the Mercians and Middle Angles — so Simeon of Durham in the Deeds of the English Kings; where under 744 this is found: “Totta, bishop of the Mercian nation, died, and Eadberht was ordained bishop in his place.” The see of these bishops was Leicester, still the capital of the county named from it. But that see was under King Edgar united to the bishopric of the Lindisfari, as William of Malmesbury relates. Bede says below (§9) that St Ceadda took the episcopate of the nation of the Mercians together with the Lindisfari; but at §15 he relates rather more distinctly that Winfrid was ordained in his place, “who, like his predecessors, presided in the episcopal office over the provinces of the Mercians, the Middle Angles and the Lindisfari.” Those here called “the Middle Angles” were called Middelangli above and lived in the counties subject to the same bishop: Stafford, Derby, Chester, and part of Warwick and Shropshire.

³ The episcopal see in the said county of Stafford was Lichfield or Licisfeld — so named as though “field of corpses”, because very many Christians there suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, to whose memory the 12th of January is dedicated, as we said on that day. “In this place,” says Camden among the Cornavii, “Oswiu king of the Northumbrians, the pagan Mercians being subdued, founded a church in the year of redeemed world 656 for the propagation of the true religion of Christ, and ordained Diuma first bishop, that he might have his see there.” For, as Bede asserts, Diuma was ordained by Bishop Finan bishop of the Middle Angles and Mercians together — the fewness of priests compelling one bishop to be set over two peoples, or even three if the people of the Lindisfari is added. Diuma being dead, Ceollach took the episcopate, and on his return to the monastery which is on the isle of Iona, Trumhere succeeded. Then the Mercian leaders rebelling against King Oswiu, Wulfhere was raised to the kingship — a most mighty champion of the Christian faith; in whose reign were bishops the said Trumhere, then Jaruman, and the now-mentioned St Ceadda and Winfrid. Of Mercia and King Wulfhere more was said by us on 13 February at the Life of St Ermenild the queen, Wulfhere’s wife — who, as we there said, styles himself in a certain diploma “king of the Mercians, the Middle Angles, and the southern realms.” Bede distinguishes by the river Trent the northern Mercians whom Oswiu king of the Northumbrians had joined to his realm, and the southern Mercians over whom Wulfhere ruled — among whom the see of Worcester was afterwards established. Wulfhere’s brother Merewalh, a king, ruled the western Mercians beyond the Severn, to whom the bishop of Hereford was afterwards given. Of Merewalh and his kingdom see what was said at the Life of St Milburga the virgin his daughter on 23 February. When in course of time more bishops were established in those provinces, the see of Lichfield by its antiquity stood out above the rest — being at one time even held archiepiscopal, a pallium being sent by Pope Hadrian I to Bishop Eardulf, to whom all the bishops of the Mercian and East Anglian realms were subject; which dignity however could not stand in its vigour. Moreover, as Malmesbury writes, “Lichfield was a small town, far from the concourse of cities; the region about was wooded, a little stream flowed by. The church was in a narrow site, befitting the moderation and abstinence of the men of old… There the most holy Ceadda both sat and died.” To which Camden adds: “Among the bishops the most famous was Ceadda, enrolled among the saints for his holiness; and some later, when by synod in 1075 episcopal sees were forbidden to lurk in obscure villages, Peter bishop of Lichfield transferred his see to Chester, Robert de Limesey his successor removed it to Coventry. A little later Roger Clinton brought it back to Lichfield, and in 1148 began a most elegant church in honour of the Blessed Mary and St Ceadda, and restored the castle.”

⁴ We give the Life of St Ceadda extracted from the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which the Venerable Bede, nearly a contemporary author, wrote accurately, and elucidated by annotations and the writers who followed. In it Bede, after the episcopates happily administered — both the York one and afterwards that of the Mercian realm — relates his pious death, and then his body’s translation and the miracles divinely wrought by his merits.

⁵ St Ceadda died on the sixth day before the Nones of March (2 March), as is related below at §13 — which day was afterwards dedicated to his veneration, as various martyrologies both handwritten and printed attest. We have a very ancient one, perhaps written six hundred years ago, bearing Bede’s name, in which these words are read: “The same day, St Ceadda bishop.” The same is found in the Brussels manuscript of St Gudula’s church, in the Marchiennes and Cologne ones kept in the Carmelite monastery. In the Jumièges manuscript in Normandy it runs: “In Britain, the deposition of St Ceadda bishop.” The Florarium manuscript records: “In England, St Ceadda bishop of Lichfield and confessor.” Hermann Greven about two hundred years ago inscribed this elogium in his Auctarium to Usuard: “In England, the blessed Ceadda, bishop of the nation of the Mercians and Lindisfari — whose virtues Bede, commemorating in Books 3 and 4 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, preaches among his other merits that he was full of the fear of the Lord and ever mindful of his last end.” The author of the Cologne Martyrology printed in 1490, Molanus on Usuard, Canisius, Felicius and Galesinius in their tables of the sacred calendar also have their elogia. In the present Roman Martyrology it is read thus: “In England, St Ceadda, bishop of the Mercians and Lindisfari, whose illustrious virtues Bede commemorates.”

⁶ St Ceadda is also enrolled in the English martyrologies — one being Richard Whitford’s printed at London in 1526, the other John Wilson’s published and republished in our century. In the Nova Legenda Angliae, once gathered by John Capgrave, a Life of St Ceadda from Bede is likewise inserted. There exists, printed in old type without stated place or time of impression, the Breviary according to the Use of Sarum, in which an Office of St Ceadda is contained with proper antiphons, responsories and nine lessons drawn from Bede and variously adorned. His Life abridged from Bede also exists in the Aberdeen Breviary for the use of the Scottish churches. Citing the latter, Thomas Dempster inscribed his memory in his Scottish Menologium in these words: “At York in England, Ceadda the archbishop, who had before stood bishop of the East Angles at Lichfield.” See how many errors in few words! He had administered the church of York first and afterwards lived as bishop not of the East Angles but of the Mercians and Lindisfari — and died not at York but at Lichfield in Staffordshire. But under 7 March the same Dempster reports: “Ceadda’s relics were brought into Scotland and religiously placed at Dundrennan” — citing “King Adam’s Kalendar” or I know not what else. Whether this be the cause of his veneration among the Scots, or rather that a great part of Scotland in St Ceadda’s time was subject to the Northumbrian kings — in which kingdom we shall say below he was born. Among the saints of Ireland John Colgan also reckons this same Ceadda, because in the time of his adolescence, from desire of a more perfect life and good letters, he is said (§12 below) to have betaken himself to Ireland.

§ Two. St Ceadda’s brothers, native land, monastic life, and his name in the Benedictine calendars #

⁷ We here separate for brief examination his birthplace, upbringing and monastic life. First Bede relates (History III.23): “Four brothers indeed, Cedd and Cynibil and Caelin and Ceadda (which is rarely found), were all famous priests of the Lord, and two of them also discharged the office of high priest: the first, namely, and senior to the rest, Cedd or Ceddus, and the last or junior, of whom we treat, Ceadda — also called Cedda by others — both enrolled in the catalogue of saints: St Cedd under 7 January, on which day we also gave his Acts from Bede. For St Cedd was among the first apostolic men who converted the Middle Angles — over whom Penda, or rather Peada the son of Penda king of the Mercians ruled — to the faith of Christ. But afterwards Cedd was sent by Oswiu king of the Northumbrians to Sigeberht king of the East Saxons; he converted many of his subjects and was made their bishop — second bishop of the city of London after the coming of the Angles. To this St Cedd, Æthelwald king of Deira, son of St King Oswald, gave a place and possessions for the monastery which he built, called Lastingham, in the northern part of Yorkshire on the borders of the territories of Ryedale and Pickering — the latter adjoining the German Ocean. That monastery is treated in the Monasticon Anglicanum p. 62 ff.; and from the manuscript History of John of Tynemouth it is added: ‘His brother Cynibil — above called Cymbil by Bede — ruled this place after him, and in the time of the mortality was buried there.’ Rather, he ruled it while his brother St Cedd was among the East Saxons in his diocese; no, as Bede witnesses, St Cedd coming to that same monastery in the time of the mortality, seized there by bodily sickness, died in 664 or the following year. But the third brother, Caelin the priest, a man equally devoted to God, used to minister the word and the sacraments of faith to King Æthelwald and his household. And the fourth of the brothers, St Ceadda — his elder brothers being dead — was made abbot of the said monastery of Lastingham: in which, after administering the episcopate of York, resigned by the command of St Theodore archbishop of Canterbury, he again lived the quiet life until he was assumed to the episcopate of the Mercians and Lindisfari.

⁸ These things being posited, we judge these four brothers to have been sprung from the realm of the Northumbrians. Certainly St Cedd, when he had gathered a great church to the Lord among the East Saxons with his fellow priest, “it happened at a certain time that the same Cedd returned home and came to the church of Lindisfarne for conference with Bishop Finan — who, when he learned the work of the Gospel had prospered with him, made him bishop in the nation of the East Saxons, calling to him two other bishops for the ministry of the ordination.” So Bede, who immediately adds: “The man of the Lord Cedd, while discharging the episcopal office among the East Saxons, was custom often to revisit also his own province, namely that of the Northumbrians, for exhortation’s sake.” See — Cedd’s home linked to the church of Lindisfarne, and “his own” province again named the Northumbrians’. In the realm of Bernicia was the present county of Northumberland, to which toward Scotland in the German Ocean adjoins the small island Lindisfarne, now commonly Holy Island, so called from the dwelling of very many saints there. There St Finan the bishop lived — whose Life we gave on 17 February, where we treated of that island; more exactly shall we treat at the Life of St Cuthbert, likewise bishop of Lindisfarne, to be given on 20 March. It was St Finan who, when he had baptised King Peada with his counts and soldiers, sent St Cedd with others to convert his people. Moreover, when Cedd had built the said monastery of Lastingham in the realm of Deira, he instituted it with religious customs after the rite of Lindisfarne where he had been brought up.

⁹ Let these things suffice concerning the birthplace of these four brothers (for the account seems the same for all). The elder is said to have been educated in the said island and monastery of Lindisfarne — why not the other brothers also? — therefore under the discipline of St Aidan the bishop, who from the monastery of the Scots (which acknowledges as its founder on the isle of Iona the most holy man Columba) came there with other monks, called by St King Oswald, and lived with them according to the monastic rule prescribed by the said Columba, and taught others so to live. Bishop Aidan presided over the church of Lindisfarne from 634 until 31 August, on which he ceased to live in 651, obtaining as successor the said St Finan. St Ceadda also was, as Bede asserts below in the Life (§2), a disciple of Aidan, and took care to instruct his hearers in the same acts and manners after his example and that of his brother Cedd — whom at §8 he exhorts to the same institutes of military discipline which they had either learned from him or seen in him; and at §5 the traces of the regular life instituted by him are said to remain in the monastery built by him in the province of Lindsey. When St Finan died in 661, St Colman succeeded — with whom St Wilfrid (not yet bishop), disputing, objected these things in Bede III.25: “Of your father Columba and his followers, whose holiness you profess to imitate and whose rule and precepts confirmed by heavenly signs you profess to follow, I can answer,” etc. That there were among those Scots — that is, Irish — four different Rules, Ussher relates in his book on the Primordia of the British Churches, ch. 17 p. 919, of which the first is called Columba’s and was also observed in England. From that disputation returning, St Cedd — as the same Bede says (ch. 26) — leaving the footsteps of the Scots, returned to his see, the observation of the Catholic Easter being now recognised. We treated of that controversy at the Life of St Colman on 18 February, §§2–3.

¹⁰ Edward Maihew, in the Trophies of the English Congregation of the Order of St Benedict, in his elogium of St Ceadda for this 2 March, judges that he embraced St Benedict’s rule at least after that celebrated conference between St Wilfrid and Colman — so all agree. But hitherto we know not even one of all who writes that in that conference anything was done about embracing St Benedict’s rule. Perhaps it is hinted at in St Wilfrid’s Life, published by Malmesbury, as seeming to offer sufficient testimony for all — when he, being asked whether he would rather live privately under quiet, answered: “Nothing is so much to a man’s infamy as if he should condemn himself by his own voice: that he was the first who taught the true Easter in Northumbria, the Scots being cast out; who instituted the ecclesiastical chants antiphonally; who bade the monks observe the rule of the most holy Benedict — for all which things he now, an old man and a pontiff of nearly seventy years, should receive this reward: to be forced to condemn himself in writing.” See — seventy and more years had elapsed after the aforenamed conference, of which near the beginning of the said book the same Malmesbury writes: “Colman being convicted by Wilfrid in the said conference of the erroneous Easter, the same Wilfrid was elected to the episcopate of York and sent to Gaul to be consecrated by King Alchfrid son of King Oswiu. And while he lingered over the sea, King Oswiu — forestalled by the counsels of the Quartodecimans (so called because they celebrated Easter with the Jews on the fourteenth moon) — intruded Ceadda, a most holy man but one consecrated against the rules, into the tribunal of York.” See — they did not yet follow the true Easter, even though St Wilfrid had taught it. Then, as regards the ecclesiastical chant instituted antiphonally, we are taught by Bede IV.2 that in Archbishop Theodore’s time “the sounds of singing in church, which hitherto they had known only in Kent, began to be learned through all the English churches; and the first singing-master of the Northumbrian churches was Æddi surnamed Stephen, invited from Kent by the most reverend Wilfrid — who first among the bishops of the English nation learned to hand on the Catholic manner of life to the English churches.” So far Bede. And since Pitseus and others report that Æddi Stephen flourished under Osric reigning in Northumbria in the year 720 and, at the exhortation of Acca bishop of Hexham, wrote elegantly in prose one book on the Life of St Wilfrid (which Malmesbury asserts was written in a great torrent of words and which he compressed into a compendium), it must be that he came to St Wilfrid from the Canterbury monastery in the last years of Archbishop Theodore — at least after 680 — a man already noted by celebrated fame. Finally — which most concerns this point — Wilfrid asserts that he commanded the most holy Benedict’s rule to be observed. No, when after St Cuthbert’s death in 687 he presided also over the Lindisfarne church for a whole year, perhaps he wished the same rule to be observed by the Lindisfarne monks — so that Bede perhaps for this reason wrote in Cuthbert’s Life (§61) that that church was shaken by such a blast of temptation “that several of the brethren chose rather to depart the place than to be present amid such perils.” Of the institutes of the regular life prescribed there by St Cuthbert we shall treat at his Life on 20 March. But those things are far distant from the times of St Ceadda, who departed this life in 672 — whom we said lived after the example and rule of his master St Aidan and commended the same institutes to his own.

¹¹ These things notwithstanding, we highly praise that SS Cedd, Ceadda, Aidan, Finan, Cuthbert and others of the like are enrolled in the Benedictines’ sacred calendars and their veneration and imitation proposed — since those monasteries in succeeding times, together with their own institutes, received St Benedict’s rule to be observed in very many respects. But St Ceadda they ascribe not only to their martyrologies but to the Order itself. Trithemius led the way, and as though he had never read Bede, makes two out of St Ceadda and his brother St Cedd — treating of them in his tract on the illustrious men of the Order of St Benedict, and of Ceadda at book 3 ch. 147 and book 4 ch. 99. In the former book he calls him abbot of Lastingham, in the latter of “Lentesgen”; in the former he calls him archbishop of the Lindisfari and the Mercian nation — who should be called bishop; in the latter archbishop of York, and brother of Cedd bishop of Lindisfarne. Finally he says he flourished in the former place in 790, in the latter in 675 — whereas it certainly stands from Bede that he died in 672. Of St Cedd the same Trithemius treats twice in book 4, namely ch. 66 and 110: in the former place he creates him from abbot of Lastingham into archbishop of London; in the latter from a monk he makes him bishop of the Lindisfarne church and brother of St Ceadda the archbishop of York. Finally he says he flourished in the former place in 680, in the latter in 670 — whereas he died about 664. But Cedd was not bishop nor abbot of Lindisfarne but a monk, and afterwards bishop of the East Saxons or of London, and built the Lastingham monastery in Yorkshire as said above. But whether Trithemius knew the Lindisfari — of whom St Ceadda was bishop — to be distinct from the Lindisfarnenses, we plainly doubt: the latter were in Northumberland and the Bernician realm, the former chiefly in Lincolnshire and the Mercian realm. Among the writers of English history printed at London in 1596, after the Durham history there stands column VII — a donation of King Egfrid of the Northumbrians made to St Cuthbert, but (as we shall show at his Life) plainly corrupted by many inserted errors; and it is said to be signed in 685, to which Cedd bishop of the East Saxons and Ceadda bishop of Lichfield are feigned to have subscribed. Sigeulf bishop of the Mercians also subscribes — he was of Lichfield, before whom Winfrid had sat there after St Ceadda’s death. In the same manner the bishop of London then was Earconwald, successor to Wine appointed after St Cedd’s death. Whether Trithemius was deceived by a similar diploma, or whether the errors are to be ascribed to his own carelessness, let others inquire; for us it suffices to have pointed out the errors to be avoided.

¹² Of the Benedictine martyrologies, the first is Arnold Wion’s, who at this day of 2 March transcribes St Ceadda’s elogium nearly from Molanus, and in his Notes — citing Trithemius — states that from monk and abbot of the Lastingham coenobium he was made bishop of Lichfield of the Northumbrians; which bishopric, deserting in the third year of his government, he returned to his monastery, in which he died about the year 700. So Wion — not without many errors, as though he had not read or at least not examined Bede’s passages which he accurately cites and from which we give the Life; else he would have avoided the enormous error of assigning eighteen years to his death, since — as we said above — it stands from Bede that he died in 672. Moreover it was on leaving the archbishopric of York — which Wion does not mention — that he returned to his monastery of Lastingham, not Lichfield where he died, a city not of the Northumbrian realm but of the Mercians, and indeed of the Middle Angles in Staffordshire. It may be added, since Molanus — and Wion following him — report in the elogium that he was bishop of the Mercians and Lindisfarnensium in place of Lindisfarorum, that they seem to have understood the Lindisfarne bishopric in Northumbria. Menard transcribes Wion’s elogium and in his Observations is silent about him. Dorgan briefly recalls him, Bucelin at greater length — and yet omits the York archbishopric, makes him bishop of the Lindisfarnenses in place of Lindisfari, and finally cites only Harpsfield, in whom however he could not have read either that he was a Benedictine monk or the founder of the Lichfield bishopric. Harpsfield treats of St Ceadda in the seventh century, both ch. 98 among the archbishops of York and chiefly ch. 99 among the bishops of the Mercian realm.

The Life — from St Bede, History III.28 and IV.2–3 #

Chapter One — St Ceadda’s charge of Lastingham monastery; the archbishopric of York #

¹ King Alchfrid sent Wilfrid the priest to the king of the Gauls, that he might be consecrated bishop for himself and his people. And the king sent him to be ordained to Agilbert — who, leaving Britain, had become bishop of the city of Paris — and he was consecrated with great honour by him, many bishops assembling in the royal vill called Compiègne. And while he tarried beyond the sea after his ordination, King Oswiu, imitating his son’s industry, sent to Canterbury a holy man, modest in manners, sufficiently instructed in the reading of the Scriptures, and diligently performing in works what he had learned from the Scriptures should be done — to be ordained bishop of the church of York. He was a priest, Ceadda by name, brother of the most reverend prelate Cedd of whom we have often made mention, and abbot of the monastery called Lastingham. And the king sent with him his priest named Eadhæd, who afterwards, Egfrid reigning, was made prelate of the church of Ripon. But they, coming to Canterbury, found that Archbishop Deusdedit had already departed this world and no other pontiff had yet been established in his place. From where they turned aside to the province of the West Saxons, where Wini was bishop — and by him the foresaid man was consecrated prelate, two bishops of the British nation being assumed into the fellowship of the ordination, who keep the Lord’s Easter day, as has often been said, against canonical custom from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon. For there was then no bishop canonically ordained in all Britain except that Wini.

² Ceadda therefore being consecrated to the episcopate, began at once to employ the greatest care for ecclesiastical truth and purity, to give himself to humility, continence and reading, and to travel about towns, countrysides, houses, villages and strongholds for evangelising — not on horseback but on foot in the apostles’ manner. For he was a disciple of Aidan, and took care to instruct his hearers in the same acts and manners after his example and that of his brother Cedd.

[Bede’s chapter footnotes, abridged: a) On King Alchfrid see 6 March at the Life of SS Kineburga and Kineswitha. b) The year 664 of this mission is given by the Worcester and Westminster chroniclers. c) St Wilfrid was ordained priest by Agilbert bishop of the Gewissae — the West Saxons — at Alchfrid’s command. d) This is Chlothar III, whose reign we vindicated for fourteen years, 660–674. e) On Agilbert’s episcopate among the English then at Paris, and this mission of Ceadda, we inquired accurately in our Diatribe on the Three Dagoberts, IV.2. f) Compiègne, as though “Epitome of Paris”, they would have it, a most beautiful town in the Valois. g) So Capgrave reads “King Oswiu,” not “of King Oswiu” as misprinted in Bede; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Worcester chronicler assign 664. h) The names Ceadda and Cedd are often confused; of St Cedd we treated on 7 January. i) On Lastingham’s site and building see above. k) Egfrid succeeded his father Oswiu in 670 and was slain by the Picts in 685. l) John Bromton in his Chronicle on Eadhæd’s ordination in Lindsey and his recall to Ripon. m) St Deusdedit died in 664, the day before the Ides of July. n) Wini, ordained in Agilbert’s place on his return to Gaul, lived at Winchester. o) On the Paschal controversy see the Life of St Colman bishop of Lindisfarne; St Cedd, St Ceadda’s brother, was with the Scots in the disputation before King Oswiu in 664. p) St Aidan is venerated on 31 August.]

Chapter Two — The Lichfield episcopate among the Mercians; his death #

³ Meanwhile Theodore, surveying all things — he had been ordained bishop at Rome by Pope Vitalian and sent into Britain — ordained bishops in fitting places and corrected with their help whatever he found less perfect. Among whom, when he charged Bishop Ceadda with not having been duly consecrated, he answering with most humble voice said: “If you know me not to have duly received the episcopate, I willingly depart from the office — for neither did I ever judge myself worthy of it; but for obedience’s sake, being bidden, I consented to undertake it, though unworthy.” And he, hearing the humility of his answer, said that he ought not to leave the episcopate — but he himself completed his ordination anew after the Catholic manner.

⁴ At that time King Wulfhere presided over the province of the Mercians — who, when Jaruman was dead and he asked Theodore that a bishop be given him and his people, Theodore would not ordain a new bishop for them, but asked King Oswiu that Bishop Ceadda be given them — who was then living the quiet life in his monastery at Lastingham, Wilfrid administering the episcopate of the church of York and of all the Northumbrians, and also of the Picts so far as King Oswiu could extend his sway. And because it was that most reverend prelate’s custom to perform the work of the Gospel by walking through the places rather than riding, Theodore bade him ride wherever a longer journey pressed; and when he greatly resisted from zeal and love of the pious labour, Theodore lifted him onto the horse with his own hand — for he perceived him doubtless to be a holy man, and compelled him to be borne on horseback where necessity required.

⁵ Having therefore received the episcopate of the nation of the Mercians together with the Lindisfari, Ceadda took care to administer it after the example of the ancient fathers in great perfection of life. To whom King Wulfhere also gave land of fifty households for building a monastery in the place called Ad Barvae — “at the wood” — in the province of Lindsey, in which the traces of the regular life instituted by him remain to this day. He had his episcopal seat in the place called Lichfield, in which he also died and was buried — where the seat of the subsequent bishops of that province is to this day. He had made himself a dwelling not far from the church, wherein with a few — that is, seven or eight brethren — he used to pray and read more secretly whenever he was free from the labour and ministry of the word.

⁶ And when he had ruled the church in that province most gloriously for two years and a half, the time approached by the heavenly judgement’s disposal of which Ecclesiastes speaks — “a time to cast away stones and a time to gather them.” For a plague divinely sent came upon them, which by the death of the flesh should translate the living stones of the Church from earthly seats to the heavenly building. And when very many of that most reverend prelate’s church had been taken from the flesh, and his own hour came to pass from this world to the Lord, it happened one day that he tarried in the foresaid dwelling with one brother only, named Owini — his other companions having returned to the church for an opportune cause. This Owini was a monk of great merit, leaving the world with pure intent of heavenly reward, worthy in all things to have the Lord reveal His secrets to him, worthy to be believed by his hearers. For he had come with Queen Æthelthryth from the province of the East Angles, and was first of her ministers and the prince of her house. Who, when with growing fervour of faith he resolved to renounce the world, did it not sluggishly — but so stripped himself of worldly things that, leaving all he had, clad only in a simple habit and bearing an axe and an adze in his hand, he came to the same most reverend father’s monastery called Lastingham. For he signified that he entered the monastery not for ease, as some, but for labour — which he showed by the deed itself. For the less he sufficed for the meditation of Scripture, the more he devoted zeal to the work of his hands. In short, being held among the brethren with the bishop in the foresaid dwelling for the reverence of his devotion, while they within gave themselves to reading, he worked outside at whatever seemed needful.

⁷ And when one day he was doing some such work outside — his companions, as I had begun to say, having gone off to the church, and the bishop alone in the oratory of the place giving himself to reading or prayer — he suddenly heard, as he afterwards related, a most sweet voice of singers rejoicing descend from heaven to the earth. Which voice he said he first heard from the south-east — that is, from the height of the winter’s rising — and then gradually approaching him until it came to the very roof of the oratory in which the bishop was; and entering it, it filled it all and surrounded it in a circle. And while he attentively bent his mind to what he heard, he heard again — after about half an hour had passed — the same song of joy ascend from the roof of that oratory and return with ineffable sweetness to the heavens by the way it had come.

⁸ And when he remained as it were astounded for some while, searching with diligent mind what these things might be, the bishop opened the oratory window and making a sound with his hand, as he was often custom, bade whoever was outside come in to him. He entered in haste; to whom the prelate said: “Go quickly to the church and cause those seven brethren to come here, and be you present likewise.” And when they had come, he first admonished them to keep the virtue of love and peace toward one another and toward all the faithful, and to follow with unwearied instance the institutes of the regular discipline which they had either learned from him and seen in him, or found in the deeds or words of the fathers before them. Then he added that the day of his death was now near at hand. “For,” said he, “that lovable guest who used to visit our brethren has deigned to come also to me today and to call me out of this world; therefore, returning to the church, bid the brethren commend my departure to the Lord in prayers, and remember to anticipate their own departure — whose hour is uncertain — with vigils, prayers and good works.”

⁹ And when he had spoken these and many such things, and they, his blessing received, were now very sorrowful, the man returned alone who had heard the heavenly song; and prostrating himself on the ground he said: “I beseech you, Father, may I ask something?” “Ask what you will,” said he. And he: “I beseech you, tell me what was that song of rejoicing ones which I heard coming from the heavens over this oratory, and after a time returning to the heavens?” He answered: “If you have heard the voices of the song and have known the heavenly companies to come upon us, I command you in the Lord’s name that you tell it to none before my death. In truth they were angels’ spirits who came to call me to the heavenly rewards which I ever loved and desired — and they promised that after seven days they would return and take me with them.” Which indeed was fulfilled in deed as had been foretold him: for at once he was touched by bodily languor, and this growing heavier through the days, on the seventh day — as had been promised him — after he had fortified his death by receiving the Lord’s body and blood, his holy soul, loosed from the body’s prison, sought the eternal joys, led, as is right to believe, by angel companions.

¹⁰ Nor is it wonderful if he saw the day of death — or rather the Lord’s day — with joy, which he ever, so long as he lived, took care to expect anxiously. For among the many merits of his continence, humility, teaching, prayer, voluntary poverty and the other virtues, he was so subject to the fear of the Lord, so mindful of his last things in all his works, that — as a certain brother of those who instructed me in the Scriptures and who was brought up in his monastery and school, Trumberht by name, used to relate — if by chance while he read or did anything else a stronger gust of wind arose, at once he invoked the Lord’s mercy and begged Him to be propitious to the human race. But if a more violent blast pressed on, he would now close the book, fall on his face and bend earnestly to prayer. And if a stronger storm or rain pressed on, or lightning and thunder terrified the lands and the air, then coming to the church he would anxiously give himself with fixed mind to prayers and psalms until the air’s serenity returned.

¹¹ And when he was asked by his own why he did this, he would answer: “Have you not read, ‘The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High gave His voice; He sent His arrows and scattered them, He multiplied lightnings and troubled them’? For the Lord moves the air, stirs the winds, hurls the lightnings, thunders from heaven, that He may rouse earthborn men to fear Him, recall their hearts to the memory of the future judgement, scatter their pride and trouble their boldness — calling to mind that tremendous time when He, the heavens and earths burning, shall come in the clouds with great power and majesty to judge the living and the dead. Therefore,” said he, “it behoves us to respond to His heavenly admonition with due fear and love: that as often as He moves the air and raises His hand as though threatening to strike — yet strikes not yet — we should at once implore His mercy and, the innermost parts of our heart being shaken out and the rubble of our vices purged, act anxiously lest we ever deserve to be struck.”

¹² To the revelation and relation of the foresaid brother concerning this prelate’s death agrees also the discourse of the most reverend father Egbert, of whom we spoke above — who long before, while Ceadda was a youth and he also a youth, lived in Ireland a monastic life, sedulous in prayers and continence and meditation of the divine Scriptures. But when Ceadda afterwards returned to his country, Egbert remained a pilgrim for the Lord to his life’s end. When therefore, long after, the most holy and continent man named Hygbald — who was abbot in the province of Lindsey — came to him from Britain for the grace of a visit, and, as became saints, they spoke of the life of the earlier fathers and rejoiced to emulate it, mention came of the most reverend prelate Ceadda; and Egbert said: “I know a man still remaining in the flesh in this island who, when that man of God passed from the world, saw the soul of Cedd his brother descend from heaven with a company of angels and, taking his soul with her, return to the heavenly kingdoms.” Whether he spoke this of himself or of another remains uncertain to us.

¹³ Now Ceadda died on the sixth day before the Nones of March (2 March); and he was first buried beside the church of St Mary, but afterwards, the church of the most blessed Prince of the Apostles Peter being built on the same spot, his bones were translated into it — in which both places, in token of his virtue, frequent miracles of healings are accustomed to be wrought. In particular, a certain madman lately, while wandering and running about everywhere, came there at evening, the keepers of the place not knowing or not caring; and there resting all night, in the morning he went out healed in his senses, showing to all, wondering and rejoicing, that he had there obtained his health by the Lord’s bounty.

¹⁴ Now the place of the sepulchre is a wooden tomb made in the manner of a little house, covered, having a hole in the wall through which those who come there for devotion’s sake are accustomed to put in their hand and take part of the dust; which when they have cast into waters and given them to sick beasts or men to taste, the trouble of the infirmity being at once taken away, they return to the joys of desired health.

¹⁵ In his place Theodore ordained Winfrid, a good and modest man — who, like his predecessors, presided in the episcopal office over the provinces of the Mercians, the Middle Angles and the Lindisfari; in all of which Wulfhere, who still survived, held the sceptre of the realm. Now Winfrid was of the clergy of the prelate whom he succeeded, and had served him in the deacon’s office for no small time.

[Bede’s chapter footnotes, abridged: a) St Theodore was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury on 26 March 668, a Sunday; he died in 690 and is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on 19 September. b) Wulfhere reigned from 658 to 675; his daughter St Werburga is venerated on 3 February. c) Jaruman’s death is generally referred to 669. d) After St Colman’s departure no one had succeeded to the Lindisfarne bishopric. e) On Mercians and Lindisfari see above. f) So the last Cambridge edition; “Barrow” on the German Ocean between the rivers Ancholme and Humber. g) Namely from about September 669 to 2 March 672. h) Of St Owini we treat on 4 March. i) St Æthelthryth, daughter of King Anna of the East Angles, wife of Egfrid king of Northumbria, kept her virginity; venerated on 23 June. a) “Trumbrecht” and “Tumberht” in other copies. b) St Egbert is venerated on 24 April; Bede says he died in 729 on Easter Day itself, which feast he had procured to be celebrated after the Roman manner on Iona and elsewhere.]

[The scan ends at the heading of the next day’s article: “OF ST WILLEICUS THE PRIEST — of the coenobium of Kaiserswerth founded by St Suitbert, ruled by his disciple St Willeicus; inscribed in the martyrologies under 2 March, about the year 726.” Its text continues in the Willeicus/Suitbert material.]