¹ There is an island called Hii, whose monastery, flourishing with a large community of monks, for a considerable time held the highest authority over nearly all the monasteries of the northern Scots and all the Picts, and presided over the governance of their peoples. This island belongs by right to Britain, from which it is separated by no great strait, but it was long ago granted by the Picts, who inhabit those regions of Britain, to the monks of the Scots, because they received the faith of Christ through their preaching. From this island, therefore, Aidanus was sent, after receiving episcopal rank, to instruct the province of the Angles in Christ. Among the other lessons he gave concerning the proper way of life, he left the clergy a most beneficial example of abstinence and self-discipline. For he taught no differently from the way in which he and his companions lived. He cared neither to seek nor to love anything of this world. Whatever was given to him by kings or wealthy people of the world, he delighted to distribute immediately to any poor people whom he met. He usually travelled not on horseback, unless some greater necessity compelled him, but on foot, so that wherever he saw anyone, rich or poor, as he walked, he would immediately turn aside to them. If they were not believers, he would invite them to receive the sacrament of the faith; if they were believers, he would strengthen them in that faith and encourage them, by both words and deeds, to give alms and perform good works. His life differed so greatly from the idleness of our own time that all who travelled with him, whether tonsured clergy or laymen, were required to meditate—that is, to devote themselves either to reading the Scriptures or to reciting psalms. This was his daily occupation, and that of all who accompanied him, wherever they went. If he happened—which was rare—to be invited to a king’s banquet, he entered with one or two clerics and, after taking a little refreshment, quickly hastened away to read with his companions or to pray. At that time, all religious men and women, instructed by his example, made it their custom throughout the year, except during the relaxation of the fifty days after Easter, to prolong their fast on Wednesdays and Fridays until the ninth hour. He never remained silent about the faults of the wealthy out of respect or fear, but corrected them with stern rebukes. He was never accustomed to give money to the powerful people of the world, except to provide food when he received any of them as guests. Instead, he distributed what had been given to him by the wealthy either for the use of the poor or for the redemption of those who had been unjustly sold. He made many whom he had redeemed by paying a price his own disciples and, by teaching and instructing them, advanced them to the priestly rank. When king Oswaldus had asked the province of the Scots for a bishop who would minister the word of faith to him and his people, another man of a more austere disposition was sent first. When he returned without having achieved anything, Aidanus said to the brother who had returned, in an assembly of the elders: “It seems to me, brother, that you were harsher than was right towards your unlearned hearers, and that, according to apostolic teaching, you did not first offer them the milk of gentler doctrine [1 Corinthians 3:2], until, gradually nourished by the word of God, they became capable of understanding more perfect things and fulfilling the higher commandments of God.” On hearing this, they all decided that Aidanus himself ought to be sent to teach the unbelieving and the unlearned. Thus instructed by the teaching of this bishop Aidanus, king Oswaldus, together with the people of the Angles over whom he ruled, not only learned to hope for the kingdoms of heaven, which had been unknown to his ancestors, but also received greater earthly kingdoms than any of his forefathers from him who made heaven and earth [Psalm 146:6]. When a certain venerable priest named Vtta was sent to Canciam to bring back a wife for king Oswio—namely Eanfledam, the daughter of king Edwini, who had been taken there after her father was killed—he went to bishop Aidanus and begged him to pray to the Lord for him and his companions, who were about to undertake so great a journey by sea. Aidanus blessed them and commended them to God. He also gave them consecrated oil, saying: “I know that a storm and a contrary wind will come upon you at sea; but remember to pour this oil into the sea, and immediately, when the winds have fallen calm, a serene sea shall accompany you joyfully.” When they had boarded the ship, a storm arose and the waves of the sea raged. The sailors attempted to hold the ship in place by casting anchors into the sea, but when this achieved nothing, the ship began to fill with water, and they all saw that death was threatening them and was already at hand. At last, the priest remembered the bishop’s words, took the flask and poured some of the oil into the sea. Immediately, as had been foretold, the sea ceased from its fury. Thus it came about that the man of God, through the spirit of prophecy, foretold that the storm would arise and, through the power of that same spirit, calmed it after it had arisen, although he was physically absent. At another time, a hostile army of the Mercians, led by Penda, was laying waste the regions of the Northumbrians with impious slaughter. It reached the royal city formerly called Bebeburch after Queen Bebbe, and now called Bamburch. Unable to capture it either by force of arms or by siege, Penda attempted to destroy it by fire. He brought together a vast heap of beams, rafters and hay and, surrounding the city to a great height on the side adjoining the land, set it alight and tried to burn the city. At that time, the holy Aidanus was staying on the island of Farne, which lies nearly two miles from the city. He often used to withdraw there for private prayer and silence. When, amid raging winds, he saw balls of fire and smoke rising above the city walls, he raised his eyes and hands to heaven and said with tears, “See, Lord, how great are the evils that Penda is committing.” As soon as he had spoken, the winds turned away from the city and drove the flames back upon those who had kindled them. Some were injured and all were terrified, so they ceased attacking the city, which they now understood to be protected by divine aid. After completing seventeen years of his episcopate, Aidanus was staying at a royal estate not far from the city already mentioned. He had a church and a chamber there and often used to visit and remain there, going out from it to preach, as he was accustomed to do at other royal estates, since he owned no property of his own apart from his church and the small adjoining fields. When he fell ill, they pitched a tent for him on the western side of the church, so that it was attached to the church wall. Thus, leaning against a buttress placed outside the church to support it, he breathed his last. He died in the seventeenth year of his episcopate, on the day before the Kalends of September, in the year of grace 651. The holy Cuthbertus, who was still a young man and was tending livestock beside the river Leder in the mountains, was praying in the silence of the dead of night when he was permitted to see Aidanus’s soul being raised to heaven by choirs of angels. His body was soon afterwards taken from there to the island of Lindisfernensis and buried in the brothers’ cemetery. Some time later, when a larger church had been built there, his bones were transferred into it and laid to rest on the right side of the altar. Finanus succeeded the holy Aidanus in the governance of the episcopate, and Colmannus, a Scot by birth, succeeded him. In the third year of his episcopate, in the year of grace 664, Colmannus abandoned his see and returned to his monastery in Scotiam, taking with him some of the bones of the holy Aidanus. The remaining bones of the holy Aidanus are preserved with due honour in our own time at the monastery of dunelmense. Some years later, Penda, king of the Mercians, happened to lay waste every place in that province with sword and fire, and the settlement in which the bishop had died was consumed by flames together with the church. Yet, miraculously, that support-post alone, against which he had leaned when he died, could not be consumed by the devouring flames that surrounded it. When this miracle became widely known, the church was soon rebuilt on the same site, and the same support-post was again placed outside to strengthen the wall, as it had been before. Once again, after some time had passed, through culpable negligence the same settlement and the church itself were together consumed by a devouring fire. But even then the flames could not touch the support-post. In a great miracle, although the fire entered and destroyed the very sockets by which it was fastened to the building, it was not permitted to damage the post itself in any way. Therefore, when the church was built there for a third time, they did not place that support-post outside to strengthen the building, as before, but set it inside the church as a memorial of the miracle, so that those entering might kneel there and implore the mercy of God. It is well established that, from that time onwards, many people received the grace of healing in that place. Indeed, many obtained remedies for their own illnesses and those of their companions by cutting splinters from the support-post and placing them in water. The venerable Beda, who wrote the life of the holy Aidanus, said the following about the saint, among other things: “I have written about the character and works of the man mentioned above, by no means praising or approving the fact that his understanding of the observance of Easter was imperfect—indeed, I strongly condemn it—but, as a truthful historian, simply describing what was done by him or through him, praising those deeds of his that are worthy of praise, and committing them to memory for the benefit of readers: namely, his devotion to peace and charity, self-restraint and humility; his spirit, victorious over anger and greed, and equally contemptuous of pride and empty glory; his diligence in both practising and teaching the heavenly commandments; his zeal for reading and keeping vigil; his priestly authority, worthy of one who rebuked the proud and powerful; and, at the same time, his compassion in comforting the weak and refreshing or defending the poor. To sum up many things briefly, according to what we have learned from those who knew him, he neglected nothing that he had recognised as needing to be done in the writings of the Gospels, the Apostles or the Prophets, but strove with all his strength to fulfil everything by his deeds. I greatly value and love these qualities in the bishop mentioned above, because I do not doubt that they were pleasing to God. But I neither approve nor praise the fact that he did not observe Easter at its proper time, whether because he did not know its canonical date or because the authority of his own people prevented him from following it once he had learned it. Nevertheless, I approve of this in him: that in celebrating his Easter he held, revered and preached nothing in his heart other than what we do—that is, the redemption of the human race through the passion, resurrection and ascension into heaven of the mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus [1 Timothy 2:5]. Therefore, he did not celebrate it, as some falsely suppose, with the Jews on the fourteenth day of the moon regardless of the day of the week, but always on the Lord’s Day, between the fourteenth and the twentieth day of the moon. He did so because of his faith in the Lord’s resurrection, which took place on the first day of the week [Matthew 28:1–6; Mark 16:2–6; Luke 24:1–6; John 20:1–9], and because of the hope of our own resurrection, which he believed with the holy Church would truly occur on that same first day of the week, now called the Lord’s Day.” Anyone who devoutly seeks the other deeds of this holy bishop may find them in the lives of the holy kings Oswaldi and Oswini and of the holy bishop Cuthberti.

Narrative #

¹ Around the year of our Lord 1103, there were two clerics in the city of Vannetis who were not yet old enough to become priests. They were thoroughly educated in letters and were very close friends. They made an agreement that whichever of them died first would appear to the other, whether he was awake or asleep, within thirty days, and each gave the other a solemn pledge. Not long afterwards, one of them died. On the thirtieth day, the dead man appeared, with a bloodless and pallid face, before the other, who was awake and occupied with some task, though I do not know what. Addressing the living man first, he said, “Do you recognise me?” “I recognise you,” the other replied, “and I wonder why you have delayed so long.” After first excusing his delay, the dead man finally said, “At last I have come. My coming, should you wish it, may be profitable to you, but it will bring no benefit to me, for I have been condemned to everlasting punishment.” “I shall help you,” said the other, “with prayers, fasts and abundant almsgiving.” The dead man replied, “The judgements of God in hell cannot be revoked. As long as the heavens turn the stars and the sea beats upon the shores, I shall be punished for my sins. Even if the whole world came together to bring me relief, I should still suffer eternal and innumerable kinds of punishment. So that you may recognise one of my punishments, see this one.” He stretched out a hand dripping from a festering ulcer and cast three drops upon him. Two struck his temples and one his forehead, piercing the skin like a fiery dart and making holes large enough to hold a nut. When the living man cried out, declaring how great the pain was, the dead man said, “This shall remain with you for as long as you live, both as a grave proof these punishments and, unless you neglect its warning, as a singular safeguard of your salvation. Go, therefore, while you still can; change both your clothing and your disposition, and become a monk at Redonis, at sanctum Melanium.” When the living man refused to answer, the dead man said, “If you hesitate to be converted, wretched man, read these letters.” As he spoke, he stretched out a hand inscribed with dreadful writing. In it, sathanas and all the servants of hell sent thanks from the depths of Tartarus to the whole body of the Church, because, while the clergy denied them none of their pleasures, through their neglect of preaching and good works they allowed so great a number of the souls entrusted to them to descend into hell that no former age had ever sent so many. When he had said these things, the speaker vanished from sight. The man who had heard him sold his possessions and distributed the proceeds to the poor [Matthew 19:21; Luke 12:33], became a monk in the monastery of sancti Melanii, and lived there in an exemplary manner.