¹ In the year of the Lord’s incarnation 664, a sudden pestilential plague, having first depopulated the southern regions of Britain, also seized the province of the Northumbrians and, raging far and wide for a long time with cruel destruction, laid low a great multitude of people. By that plague of the Lord the priest Tuda was snatched from the world, and was buried honourably in the monastery which is called Pægnalæch. This same plague also afflicted the island of Ireland with an equal destruction. There were in Ireland at that time many of the nobles and the common folk alike of the English people, who in the time of the bishops Finan and Colman had left their native island and withdrawn there, either for divine reading or for a more continent life. Some at once gave themselves over faithfully to monastic conversation; others took more pleasure in going round through the cells of the masters and giving attention to reading. The Scots received them all most gladly, taking care to offer them daily food without price, books also for reading, and gratuitous teaching. Among them were two young men of great promise, of the English nobles, Ethelhun and Egbert; of whom the former was the brother of Ethelwine, a man equally beloved of God, who himself also in later age went to Ireland for the sake of study and, returning to his country well instructed, was made bishop in the province of Lindsey and ruled the Church most nobly for a long time.

² While they were in the monastery which in the language of the Scots is called Rathmelsige, and all their companions had either been snatched from the world by the mortality or dispersed through other places, both were seized by the disease of that same mortality and most grievously afflicted. Of these, Egbert — as a certain most truthful priest of venerable grey hairs related to me, who said that he had heard these things from Egbert himself — when he reckoned he would die, went out at morning time from the chamber in which the sick were resting; and sitting alone in a fitting place, he began to think earnestly upon his deeds; and stricken by the memory of his sins, he washed his face with tears and prayed God from his inmost heart that he might not yet have to die before he had either more perfectly chastised in due time his past negligences, which he had committed in boyhood or infancy, or exercised himself more abundantly in good works. He also vowed a vow: that he wished so to live as a pilgrim that he would never return to the island in which he was born, that is Britain; that besides the solemn psalmody of the canonical hours he would each day — unless bodily health prevented him — chant the whole psalter to the memory of divine praise; and that in every week he would pass a day together with a night in fasting. And when, his tears and vows finished, he returned home, he found his companion sleeping; and he too, mounting his little bed, began to relax his limbs in quiet. And when he had rested a little while, his companion awoke, looked at him, and said: “O brother Egbert, O what have you done? I hoped that we would enter eternal life together. Nevertheless know that you will receive what you have asked.” For he had learned by a vision both what Egbert had asked and that he had obtained his petition. To say no more: Ethelhun himself died the following night. But Egbert, casting off the trouble of the illness, recovered; and living long afterwards, adorning the accepted degree of the priesthood with worthy deeds, after many goods of virtue he passed over, as he had himself desired, lately — that is, in the year of the Lord’s incarnation 729, being ninety years of age — to the heavenly kingdoms.

³ Now he led his life in great perfection of humility, gentleness, continence, simplicity and justice; and so he greatly profited both his own people and those nations in which he was an exile — the Scots and the Picts — by the example of his living, the earnestness of his teaching, his authority in correcting, and his piety in bestowing from what he had received from the rich. To the vows we have mentioned he added this: that in Lent he was always refreshed no more than once a day, tasting nothing other than bread and the thinnest milk, and that in measure. Which milk, to wit, he used to set fresh the day before in a phial; and after the night, taking off the thicker surface, he drank the remainder with a little bread, as we have said. This manner of continence he also took care to observe always for the forty days before the Nativity of the Lord, and for as many after the solemnities of Pentecost, that is of Quinquagesima, had been completed.

⁴ To the revelation and account of the brother Trumbert concerning the death of the bishop Chad, the words of the most reverend father Egbert — of whom we have spoken above — are also fittingly joined. Long ago, when the same Chad was a youth and Egbert likewise a youth, he lived a diligent monastic life with him in Ireland, in prayers, in continence and in meditation upon the divine Scriptures. But when Chad afterwards returned to his country, Egbert remained a pilgrim for the Lord until the end of his life. Now when, a long time afterwards, a most holy and continent man named Higbald, who was abbot in the province of Lindsey, came to him from Britain for the grace of visiting him, and they were speaking, as befitted saints, of the life of the fathers of old and rejoicing to imitate it, mention came in of the most reverend bishop Chad. And Egbert said: “I know a man in this island, still remaining in the flesh, who when that man passed from the world saw the soul of Chad’s brother Cedd descend from heaven with a band of Angels and, having taken his soul with them, return to the heavenly kingdoms.” Whether he was speaking of himself or of someone else remains uncertain to us; yet this much is certain: since so great a man said it, it cannot be untrue.

⁵ At that time the venerable servant of Christ and priest Egbert — who, as we have related, was living a pilgrim’s life in the island of Ireland to obtain a heavenly country — is to be named with all honour. He purposed in his mind to profit many, that is, undertaking an apostolic work, to commit the word of God by evangelising to some of the nations which had not yet heard it. In Germany he knew there were very many nations from which the English or Saxons who now inhabit Britain are known to have drawn their race and origin — and so they are to this day corruptly called Garmani by the neighbouring people of the Britons. These are the Frisians, the Rugians, the Danes, the Huns, the Old Saxons and the Boructuarians. There are also very many other peoples in those same parts, still serving pagan rites, to whom that soldier of Christ resolved to come, sailing round Britain, in the hope that he might rescue some of them from Satan and transfer them to Christ; or, if this could not be done, he intended to go to Rome, to see and adore the thresholds of the blessed Apostles and martyrs of Christ. But lest he should accomplish any of these things, heavenly oracles and works alike stood in his way. For when most strenuous companions had been chosen, fitted to preach the word, distinguished alike in action and in erudition, and all things prepared which seemed necessary for a voyage, there came to him early one morning one of the brothers — formerly a disciple and minister in Britain of the priest Boisil, beloved of God, when this same Boisil was provost of the monastery of Melrose under the abbot Eata — relating to him a vision which had appeared to him that same night. “When,” said he, “the hymns of matins had been completed and I had laid my limbs upon my bed and a light sleep had crept over me, my former master and most loving fosterer Boisil appeared to me, and asked me whether I could recognise him. I answered: ‘Yes; for you are Boisil.’ But he said: ‘I have come for this — to bring to Egbert the answer of the Lord the Saviour, which must nevertheless come to him by your report. Tell him, therefore, that he cannot fulfil the journey he has purposed; for it is God’s will that he go rather to the monasteries of Columba to teach.’ Now Columba was the first teacher of the Christian faith to the Picts beyond the mountains to the north, and the first founder of the monastery in the island of Hy which long remained venerable to many peoples of the Scots and Picts — that Columba, namely, who is now called by some Columkili, a name compounded of cella and Columba.

⁶ Hearing the words of the vision, Egbert commanded the brother who had related it not to repeat it to anyone, lest perhaps the vision should prove illusory. He himself, considering the matter in silence, feared that it was true; yet he did not wish to cease from preparing the journey on which he would go to teach the nations. But a few days later the same brother came to him again, saying that on that night also, after matins had been completed, Boisil had again appeared to him in a vision, saying: “Why have you told Egbert what I commanded you to tell him so negligently and tepidly? Now go and tell him this: whether he will or no, he must come to the monasteries of Columba, because their ploughs do not go straight; he must call them back to the right path.” Hearing these things, Egbert again commanded the brother to disclose this to no one. Yet although he was now made certain of the vision, he nonetheless attempted to begin the planned journey with the same brothers. And when they had already put aboard the ship what the necessity of so great a journey demanded, and were waiting for favourable winds for some days, there arose one night so savage a tempest that, some part of the things in the ship being lost, it left the ship itself lying on its side among the waves; yet all that belonged to Egbert and his companions was saved.

⁷ Then he, as though uttering that prophetic saying — “because of me is this tempest” — withdrew himself from that journey and suffered himself to remain at home. But one of his companions, named Wictbert, himself also notable for contempt of the world and knowledge of doctrine — for he had lived many years in Ireland as a pilgrim, an anchorite’s life in great perfection — boarded the ship and, reaching Frisia, preached the word of salvation for two continuous years to that nation and to its king Radbod, and found no fruit of so great labour among those barbarous hearers. Then, returning to the place of his beloved pilgrimage, he began to be free for the Lord in his accustomed silence; and since he could not profit outsiders towards the faith, he took care to profit his own the more by the examples of his virtues.

⁸ When the man of the Lord, Egbert, saw that he was not permitted to go himself to preach to the nations — being retained for another service of holy Church, of which he had been forewarned by the oracle — and that Wictbert, going into those parts, was accomplishing nothing, he attempted still to send holy and industrious men into the work of the word, among whom the distinguished Willibrord shone by his priestly rank and merit. And when they had arrived there — they were twelve in number — and had turned aside to Pippin duke of the Franks, they were graciously received by him; and because he had lately taken nearer Frisia, King Radbod having been driven from it, he sent them there to preach. He himself also aided them with imperial authority, lest anyone should bring any trouble upon the preachers, and lifted up with many benefits those who were willing to receive the faith. And so it came to pass, by the help of divine grace, that they converted many in a short time from idolatry to the faith of Christ.

⁹ Not long afterwards, those also who dwelt in the island of Hy — monks of the Scottish nation — together with the monasteries subject to them, were brought by the Lord’s procuring to the canonical rite of Easter and the tonsure. For in the year from the Lord’s incarnation 716, when Osred had been slain and Cenred had taken up the government of the Northumbrian kingdom, the father and priest Egbert, beloved of God and to be named with all honour, came to them from Ireland, and was honourably received by them with much joy. And since he was a most gracious teacher and a most devoted doer of the things he taught should be done, he was gladly heard by them all; and by his pious and assiduous exhortations he changed that inveterate tradition of their fathers — of whom it is permitted to utter that apostolic saying, that “they had a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge” — and thoroughly taught them to keep the celebration of the chief solemnity, as we have said, after the Catholic and apostolic manner, under the figure of a perpetual crown. This was done, it is agreed, by a wondrous dispensation of divine goodness: that since that nation had willingly and without envy taken care to communicate to the peoples of the English the knowledge of divine understanding which it had obtained, it should itself afterwards, through the English nation, arrive at the perfect rule of life in those things in which it had been lacking. Just as, on the contrary, the Britons, who were unwilling to open to the English the knowledge of the Christian faith which they had, still persist, now that the English peoples believe and are instructed in all things in the rule of the Catholic faith — they still persist, inveterate and limping from their own paths, in putting forth heads without the crown, and in venerating the solemnities of Christ without the society of the Church of Christ. The monks of Hy, then, being taught by Egbert, received the Catholic rites of life under the abbot Dunchad, about eighty years after they had sent the bishop Aidan to preach to the English nation. And the man of the Lord, Egbert, remained for thirteen years in the same island, which he had himself consecrated to Christ as though with a new resplendent grace of ecclesiastical fellowship and peace; and in the year of the Lord’s incarnation 729, when the Lord’s Easter was celebrated on the eighth kalends of May, when he had celebrated the solemnities of the Mass in memory of that same Lord’s Resurrection, on that same day he also passed over to the Lord; and the joy of that supreme festival, which he had begun with the brothers whom he had converted to the grace of unity, he completed with the Lord and the Apostles and the other citizens of heaven — or rather, he ceases not to celebrate it without end. Wondrous, moreover, was the dispensation of divine provision, that the venerable man not only passed from this world to the Father at Easter, but also passed on the day when Easter was celebrated as it had never before been celebrated in those places. The brothers therefore rejoiced in the certain and Catholic knowledge of the Easter season; they were glad of the patronage of the father who was going to the Lord, by whom they had been corrected. He himself was glad that he had been kept in the flesh so long, until he saw his hearers receive and keep with him that Easter day which they had always shunned before. And so the most reverend father, made certain of their correction, exulted that he should see the day of the Lord: he saw it, and was glad.

¹⁰ In the year of the Lord’s incarnation 729, the holy man of the Lord, Egbert, passed to the Lord on the very day of Easter.