¹ While Edbald reigned in Kent and Oswald in Northumbria, Wilfrid was born of the illustrious stock of the English nation in the year of the Lord six hundred and thirty-four, marked as holy from the first by a heavenly prodigy. For while in the silence of the dead of night the blessed boy came forth from the womb, a column of fire sent down from heaven upon the house in which he was being born swept away all the darkness of night by the ray of its light. Then the neighbours, bursting forth, ran quickly to the fire, and found a flame emitting rays, but saw with wonder the house suffering no injury. For he was a boy of good disposition, and transcending his age in manners, would admit into his manners nothing of boyish levity or insolence, but bore himself so modestly in all things that he was loved and venerated even by his elders. To neither garrulity, detraction nor contention, but to the things that are God’s, he clung with utmost zeal.

² And when he had reached the fourteenth year of his age, he came to Queen Eanfled, to whom he revealed the purpose of his intention — that he wished to leave the world and give himself to God’s service. Whom she sent to the island of Lindisfarne and caused to be joined to the community of monks. In which monastery, when he had served Christ some years, he purposed in his mind to go to Rome. Whom the same queen sent to Eorcenberht king of Kent, her uncle’s son, asking that he would send him honourably to Rome. And when he had stayed some time with him, at the king’s command he set out on the journey towards Rome with Benedict surnamed Biscop. When they had come to Lyons, they were honourably received by Dalfinus, bishop of the same city; and Wilfrid being kept by the pontiff, Benedict went on as far as Rome. For the bishop delighted in the youth’s prudence, the grace of his comely face and the maturity of his purpose. And so he abundantly furnished to him and his companions, while they wished to be with him, all necessaries, and moreover offered that, if he wished, he would commit to his government no small part of Gaul, give him his brother’s daughter, a virgin, to wife, and have him always as his adopted son. But he, giving thanks for the kindness which he deigned to show towards him, a stranger, answered that he had a purpose of another manner of life, and for that reason, leaving his country, had undertaken the journey to Rome. Which heard, the bishop sent him to Rome, abundantly providing necessaries for the way; begging that on his return from Rome he would turn aside to him.

³ And when he had come to Rome, he sought the most blessed prince of the apostles’ thresholds for the sake of prayer. From there going out and entering St Andrew’s oratory, he prostrated himself humbly on the ground and began thus to pray: “Most loving of God’s apostles, brother of the most blessed apostle Peter, look, I, a citizen of a distant province, have come to your thresholds, about to ask pardon for my sins. I beg you therefore, by the kindness which you are proved to show to others, that I may not seek in vain the pardon of sins which I trust to obtain through you, lest so great a progress of way may proceed for me in vain. But that I may prove the bonds of my impiety to be loosed by your merits, loose, I beg, the hindrances of my wit and of my tongue, that I may both perceive in heart the mysteries of God’s word, and be able by a clear manner of speech to instil the same into others.” And no sooner had he finished the words of his prayer than he perceived that he had received the liveliest wit of mind and the readiest manner of speech. Dwelling therefore in Rome, giving himself to prayer and meditation, he learned from Boniface, archdeacon of the apostolic see, the four books of the gospels, the reasonable term of Easter, and certain other things.

⁴ Instructed therefore in ecclesiastical discipline, he returned, went to Bishop Dalfinus, and abode with him three years; by whom he was tonsured, and held in such love that the bishop purposed to make him his heir. But lest this should come to pass, the bishop was overtaken by a cruel death, and Wilfrid returned to England. For Bathild, queen of the Franks, at that time brought a persecution upon Christ’s church, burning with vengeance and condemning many churchmen to the basest death; from where among countless lesser men, she wickedly delivered eight fathers of churches, with the same bishop, to be slain. Whom Wilfrid followed even to the place appointed for his slaughter, desiring, if it were permitted, to die with him by the sword at once. But the bishop in every way forbade that this should be done. Yet he buried the slain man’s body with due honour, and returned to England. And the fame of his holiness and prudence, of his eloquence and apostolic doctrine, became known on every side.

⁵ At that time Oswy reigned in Northumbria with his son Alfrid, who, on account of St Wilfrid’s fame, conferred on him by royal munificence the church of Ripon, which is now called Ripon, with the things that were of its right. Which place indeed they had formerly given for the building of a monastery there to those who followed the Scots; but because they afterwards, when the choice was given, preferred to quit the place rather than receive the catholic Easter and the other canonical rites according to the custom of the Roman and apostolic church, they gave it to him whom they saw imbued with better disciplines and manners; and they caused him to be consecrated priest by Agilbert, bishop of the Gewissae, that is, of the West Saxons.

⁶ At that time the question was stirred concerning the observance of Easter: for the Scots, and also Aidan and Finan and many of the English, celebrated Easter against the custom of the universal church. And so it sometimes happened that Easter was celebrated twice in the year, and when King Oswy, the fast being ended, kept Easter, then the queen with her people, persisting still in the fast, kept Palm Sunday. Now this dissonance of the paschal observance, while Aidan lived, was patiently tolerated by all, who had openly understood that, though he could not keep Easter after the manner of those who had sent him, yet he diligently took care to perform the works of faith, piety and love according to the manner customary among all saints; from where he was deservedly loved by all, even those who thought otherwise concerning Easter, and was held in veneration not only by ordinary men, but by Honorius, bishop of the men of Kent, and Felix, bishop of the East Angles. And so this question deservedly moved the senses and hearts of many, who feared lest perhaps, having received the name of Christianity, they were running or had run in vain.

⁷ A synod therefore was held in the monastery of the abbess Hilda at Streaneshalch — which is now called Whitby — where the question should be ventilated and determined. There came together the kings Oswy and his son Alfrid, Bishop Agilbert with blessed Wilfrid: against whom came Bishop Colman with his clerks, and he had Hilda the abbess, the upholder of his sect, and Bishop Cedd, with many others. And silence being had, King Oswy spoke in this manner: “Until now, venerable fathers, a schism arisen in the churches of Christ has brought certain men, less studious of the truth, to so great an error that the holy Easter has been celebrated twice in the year — which is proved a thing abominable to utter. For those who are known to have Christ alone as the undivided way of attaining to life — it is clearly very absurd that they should will to divide Christ himself in his mysteries by a dissonant observance. For this reason the very necessity of the matter has chiefly brought me to this sentence, that the defenders of each part should be bound by my command to come together; that, reason being heard on both sides, when the error has been resolved, we may be able to see what is to be followed and what to be shunned.”

⁸ Then Bishop Colman said: “We celebrate Easter,” he said, “from the fourteenth moon to the twentieth, and we affirm it should be celebrated, and we prove by valid authority that it ought so to be done. For the most blessed John the Evangelist celebrated it in the same order as we do, and appointed it to be celebrated by the churches over which he presided. This, handed down to us by the succession of holy men and observed by us, we assert must by no reasoning be violated.” When he had said these and certain like things, the king ordered Bishop Agilbert to bring forward the manner of his observance, that it might be known from what beginning or by the institution of whose authority it rested. And he: “Let Wilfrid the priest speak in my stead, I beg, since we both are of one mind, with the rest who here assist as observers of the ecclesiastical tradition; and he can explain what we think better and more manifestly in the English tongue itself than I through an interpreter.”

⁹ Then Wilfrid, beginning at the king’s command, showed by open reason that Colman was not only falsely relying on the authority of blessed John, but proved that he thought against John, against the law and the gospel, and also against the doctrine of the apostles — indeed, against the custom of the universal church — in the paschal observance; saying: “The Easter which we keep, we have seen celebrated by all at Rome, where the blessed apostles Peter and Paul lived, taught, suffered and are buried. This we have seen done by all in Italy, in Gaul, which we traversed for the purpose of learning or praying. This we have learned that Europe, Asia, Egypt, Greece and the whole world, together with Christ’s church, observe through diverse nations and tongues in one and not diverse order of time — save only these and the partners of their obstinacy, I mean the Picts, Scots and Britons, with whom, from the two uttermost islands of the ocean, and these not wholly, they fight against the whole world with foolish labour.” To whom Colman: “It is a marvel why you should wish to call our labour foolish, in which we follow the examples of so great an apostle, who was worthy to recline upon the Lord’s breast; since the whole world knows that he lived most wisely.”

¹⁰ Wilfrid said: “Far be it,” he said, “that we should charge John with folly, since he kept the decrees of the Mosaic law according to the letter, the church as yet judaising in many things, nor were the apostles able suddenly to repudiate all the observance of the law which was instituted by God — as all who come to the faith must repudiate the idols invented by demons — namely, lest they should give scandal to those who were Jews among the gentiles. Hence it is that Paul circumcised Timothy, that he offered victims in the temple, that he shaved his head at Corinth with Aquila and Priscilla: all to no use, namely, save to avoid scandal to the Jews. Hence it is that James said to the same Paul: ‘You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed, and all these are zealots for the law.’ Yet today, when the gospel shines through the world, it is not necessary — indeed, not lawful — for the faithful either to be circumcised or to offer God sacrifices of fleshly victims. And so John, according to the custom of the law, began the celebration of the paschal feast on the fourteenth moon of the first month at evening, not caring whether this came on a sabbath or any other weekday. But Peter, when he preached at Rome, mindful that the Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week and brought the world the hope of resurrection, so understood that Easter should be kept that, according to the custom and precepts of the law, he always awaited, like John, the fourteenth moon of the first month rising at evening: and when this had risen, if the Lord’s day — which was then called the first day of the week — was to come the next day, he began to celebrate the Lord’s Easter on that same evening, as we all are wont to do today. But if the Lord’s day was not to come on the next morning after the fourteenth moon, but on the sixteenth or seventeenth or any other moon up to the twenty-first, he awaited it, and on the evening of the preceding sabbath began the most holy solemnities of Easter; and so it came to pass that the Lord’s day of Easter was kept only from the fifteenth moon to the twenty-first. Nor does this evangelical and apostolic tradition break the law, but rather fulfils it, in which it was commanded that Easter should be observed from the fourteenth moon of the first month at evening to the twenty-first moon of the same month at evening; to which observance, to be imitated, all blessed John’s successors in Asia after his death and the whole church throughout the world were turned. And that this is the true Easter, this alone to be celebrated by the faithful, was in the Nicene council not newly decreed, but confirmed, as the Ecclesiastical History teaches. From which it is plain that you, Colman, neither follow the examples of John, as you suppose, nor of Peter, whose tradition you knowingly contradict, nor do you accord with the law or the gospel in the observance of your Easter. For John, keeping the paschal time according to the decrees of the Mosaic law, cared nothing for the first day of the week: which you do not do, who celebrate Easter only on the first day of the week. Peter celebrated the Lord’s day of Easter from the fifteenth moon to the twenty-first: which you do not do, who observe the Lord’s day of Easter from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon; so that often you begin Easter on the thirteenth moon at evening, of which neither the law made any mention, nor did the Lord, the author and giver of the gospel, eat the old passover or deliver the sacraments of the new testament to the church to be celebrated in commemoration of his passion on that day, but on the fourteenth moon at evening. For the twenty-first moon, which the law most of all commanded to be kept, you utterly eliminate from the celebration of your Easter. And so, as I have said, in the celebration of the supreme feast you accord neither with John nor Peter nor the law nor the gospel.”

¹¹ Then Colman said: “Did Anatolius, a holy man and much praised in the same Ecclesiastical History, think things contrary to the law or the gospel, who wrote that Easter should be celebrated from the fourteenth to the twentieth? Or must we believe that our most reverend father Columba and his successors, men beloved of God, who kept Easter in the same way, thought or did things contrary to the divine pages — since there were very many among them to whose sanctity heavenly signs and the miracles of the virtues which they worked bore witness? Whom I, doubting not that they are saints, cease not ever to imitate in life, manners and discipline.” Wilfrid said: “It is plain,” he said, “that Anatolius was a most holy man, most learned and most worthy of praise; but what have you to do with him, since you do not follow his decrees either? For he in his Easter, following the rule of truth throughout, laid down the cycle of nineteen years, which you either are ignorant of, or knowing it, count for nothing though it be kept by the whole church of Christ. He so reckoned the fourteenth moon in the Lord’s Easter that he confessed it to be the fifteenth moon at evening on the same day after the Egyptian manner. So again he marked the twentieth on the Lord’s day of Easter, as believing it to be the twenty-first when that day had declined. That you are ignorant of his rule of distinction is proved by this, that sometimes you most manifestly keep Easter before the full moon, that is, on the thirteenth moon. And concerning your father Columba and his followers, whose sanctity you profess to imitate and whose rule and precepts, confirmed by heavenly signs, you profess to follow — I could answer that to many who shall say to the Lord in the judgement that in his name they prophesied and cast out demons and did many mighty works, the Lord will answer that he never knew them. But far be it from me to say this of your fathers: since it is much more just to believe good of the unknown than evil. And so I also do not deny that those men were servants of God and beloved of God, who loved God with rustic simplicity and pious intention. Nor do I think such an observance of Easter much hurt them, as long as none had come to show them the decrees of the more perfect institution which they should follow: whom I indeed believe, had any catholic reckoner then come to them, would have followed his counsels, as they are proved to have followed God’s commandments which they knew and had learned. But you and your companions, if, having heard the decrees of the apostolic see — indeed, of the universal church — and these confirmed in writing, you despise to follow them, sin beyond all doubt. And if your fathers were holy, is their fewness in one corner of the uttermost island to be preferred to the universal church of Christ which is throughout the world? And if that Columba of yours — indeed, and ours, if he was Christ’s — was holy and mighty in virtues, could he be preferred to the most blessed prince of the apostles, to whom the Lord said: ‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven?’”

¹² When Wilfrid had thus spoken, the king said: “Is it true, Colman, that these things were said to that Peter?” Who said: “It is true, O king.” And he: “Have you,” he said, “to bring forward anything of so great power given to your Columba?” And he: “Nothing.” Again the king: “If you both,” he said, “agree in this without any controversy, that these things were principally said to Peter, and that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given him by the Lord?” They answered: “Yes, indeed.” And he thus concluded: “And I tell you that this is that doorkeeper whom I am unwilling to contradict; but inasmuch as I know or am able, I desire to obey his statutes in all things; lest perhaps, when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven, there should be none to open, he being turned away who is proved to hold the keys.” When the king said this, all favoured it, and abandoning the less perfect institution, they hastened to transfer themselves to those better things which they had learned. And the conflict being ended, Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, seeing his doctrine despised and his sect held in contempt, took with him those who wished to follow, who would not receive the catholic Easter and the tonsure of the crown — for concerning this also the question was no small one — and returned to Scotia, intending to treat with his own what he should do in these matters. But Bishop Cedd, forsaking the Scots’ footsteps, returned to his own see, having learned the observance of the catholic Easter. Now this question was made in the year of the Lord six hundred and sixty-four.

¹³ And the man of God Wilfrid, held in veneration by all, is chosen by King Alfrid and all the people to the bishopric of York; and though with all his endeavour he tried to resist its being done, at last overcome by the importunity of all, he is sent to Gaul to be consecrated. And while he lingered there, King Oswy, circumvented by the instigation of evil men, set Cedda, abbot of Lastingham, over the church of York. At length Wilfrid, returning to his country, is cast by a sea-tempest into the region of the South Saxons, held fast by pagan errors; and the waves being straightway drawn back into their bosoms, the native pagans fly upon them, claim the ship and all that was in it as their own right, and purpose with obstinate heart to enwrap those who resisted them either in captivity or in death. Which known, the man of God offered them copious money, and humbly admonished them by entreaty to withdraw from their intention. And when they, made fiercer, could in no way be recalled from their purpose, the bishop’s companions, prayer being first sent up to God, take up arms, choosing rather to fall in battle than by serving in a slothful captivity to prolong the spaces of a longer life. So while the pagans directed their missiles, the chief priest of idols on a high mound was busy with his incantations as it were strengthening his own by blessing, and enervating the holy man’s companions by cursing. And look, a certain youth, Wilfrid’s servant, cast a stone from a sling, and striking the magician on the forehead, slew him. Then as the pagans’ assaults pressed most bitterly, Wilfrid prostrated himself in prayer: and the Lord fighting for his own, the hostile band was confounded and departed vanquished. And when, thrice conquered, they were preparing for a fourth assault with their king, by the holy man’s merits the sea flowed long before its hour, lifted the ship and, only five of his men being slain, prosperously bore God’s saint to the port of Sandwich. And hearing that Cedda had been substituted for him, with placid countenance and cheerful heart he went to Ripon, and there, intent on God’s services, dwelt for a time in a more retired habitation. At length, at the king of Kent’s entreaty he went to Kent, and preaching there for three years, ordained ministers of the church and instituted the order of right living.

¹⁴ And when Theodore, the archbishop sent from the apostolic see, had come from Rome into England, Wilfrid, Cedda being expelled, was restored to his own see. Who straightway built a church in honour of the blessed apostle Peter from the foundations. And while he was preaching to the people one day, a certain woman, afflicted with exceeding grief, bearing her dead son in her arms, prostrated herself before the holy bishop, and with bitter weepings earnestly begged him to raise her son. Soon the bishop, prostrate on the ground and his face bedewed with tears, poured out a prayer, saying: “O Lord God, almighty Father, not to my merits but to the works of your mercy, attend, I beg, appeased, and to the anguish of this woman grant the help of your consolation, restoring to her unharmed her son, through Jesus Christ our Lord, your only-begotten Son.” Which said, the boy arose alive and was restored unharmed to his mother.

¹⁵ This holy bishop, ever-watchful in the divine services, wondrously afflicted his body, which he had kept clean from all contagion from his mother’s womb, as well with vigils as with cold, plunging it at nights in cold water; nor did he cease from this custom until John, bishop of the apostolic see, on account of the weight of his age, ordered him to put an end to this practice. Neither the heat of summer nor the cold of winter could draw him back from the pursuit of the work of God once begun. If at any time he took any dainties for food, by whatever chance, and that with the utmost sparingness, he afterwards avenged the same in himself by a grievous penance. In the town of Hexham he made a church of wondrous work and dedicated it in honour of St Andrew the apostle. There while the masons were smoothing the upper wall, one of them fell headlong and lay as dead with all his members crushed. And the man of God, absent and seeing this in spirit, dissolved in tears, disclosed in order to those sitting by what had befallen. Soon going there, at his touch the members received their former health.

¹⁶ Now King Ecgfrith, who had succeeded Oswy, had taken a wife named Etheldreda, who had purposed rather to pass this life in a vow of virginity than to be violated by another’s lust: yet she was joined to the same king in the conjugal law, not in carnal union. For which reason the king met blessed Wilfrid both himself and through others, praying and begging that he would persuade the queen to lay aside her purpose of virginity and yield assent to the royal will. But he, not consenting, watchfully took care lest through any inconstancy of a woman’s mind she should put away her purpose and, overcome, subject her soul to earthly allurements. For it was his endeavour that the virgin should seek a divorce, that having obtained liberty she might leave the world and happily cleave to the eternal King. And it was done so. For when the king knew that she could by no pact be changed from her purpose, though unwilling he granted that, leaving the world, she might, as she wished, receive the veil of virginity.

¹⁷ And Ermenburgis, a certain woman sprung of noble stock, was joined in royal marriage. Through her the devil exerted the hatred which he bore against the man of God, and inflamed her mind against him by certain quarrels cast in. And so she began to envy his glory and dignity, and to seek occasions how she might spoil him of his dignity and cast him out spoiled. At length, setting forth to the king the abundance of the man of God’s riches, the multitude of monasteries, the greatness of the buildings, the crowd of subject princes, she said: “And what more does he yield to you than you to him? Your whole kingdom is his bishopric; and if your power be compared with his power, it is less. For the bound of your empire is narrowed by its borders; but the bound of his bishopric goes beyond your borders in authority and transcends them. I confess, indeed, that your faithful and friends must fear lest, if your enemies at any time take up arms against you, he, following the peace which he preaches, should keep his men free from arms, and you, inferior in the fewness of your men, should fall conquered. For this reason, lest perhaps your strength should fail in the very act of the business, cautiously ordain beforehand the things that hinder. For it can in no way be to your honour that you should have anyone — I say not superior — but equal in your kingdom.” The king, troubled by such words, thought that he could not better consult his own interests than if, the man of God being deprived of all his goods, his bishopric should be divided into more bishoprics. And when this could not be done without the consent of the archbishop of Canterbury, he sends words of malignant accusation to Archbishop Theodore, and inclines him to the effect of his will, by deceit.

¹⁸ Theodore therefore came to the royal court, about to fulfil by his own authority the royal will concerning Wilfrid. And straightway he ordained in his place three bishops, Wilfrid being absent: Bosa for the church of York, Eata for Lindisfarne, Tunberht for Hexham; and not long after Trumwine for the province of the Picts in the place called Candida Casa, which was then subject to the English sway. Which heard, Wilfrid, moved by the utmost wonder, with cheerful heart, alert countenance and modest step approached the king’s palace, to inquire the cause of the business. To whom Theodore spoke in this wise: “We neither charge you at present with the commission of any crime, nor yet will we on this occasion change the judgement decreed concerning you.” These things heard, he straightway appealed to the apostolic see: and indignant at their injustice, turning back his step, began to leave the hall. And seeing certain men insulting his fall with a most foul cackling: “O sons,” he said, “may you lead long days in happy prosperity: but know that a hostile lot will soon dissolve this your joy. You shall not see this year pass before you pay with bitter sorrow for these mockeries which you have over me.” And it was done so; for a grievous battle being joined between Ecgfrith and Ethelred king of the Mercians beside the river Trent, Elfwine, King Ecgfrith’s brother, was slain, from whose death all the joy which they had had over Wilfrid’s expulsion was turned by God’s just judgement into sorrow.

¹⁹ And when he had entered the sea, being driven by a changed wind into Frisia, preaching the word of God there he converted many thousands of men to Christ’s faith. Now that land was of great saltness, sterility and great discomfort for inhabiting: but when the same people had received Christ’s faith, the land’s saltness was changed into sweetness and its sterility into fertility. Meanwhile envoys were sent from England with gifts to Francia, that they might slay the man of God Wilfrid with a most cruel death; but Ebroin, prince of the royal court, directed letters with gifts to the king of Frisia, asking that he would despoil blessed Wilfrid the bishop of all his goods and slay him with a cruel death. But the king, not consenting, cast the letters into the fire with indignation, and commanded the envoys, dismissed without honour, to return at once.

²⁰ After this Wilfrid went into Francia and was received with the utmost honour by King Dagobert — as one who, when the same king was once an exile and cast by a sea-tempest to the shores of Ireland and at last brought to him, had kept him with him for a time with great benignity and protected him from all peril. Wilfrid, having taken necessaries from King Dagobert, departed from the court, and approaching the duke of Champagne was nobly received. Who, after the offices of true charity and humanity had been shown, abiding with the man of God, began to tell him how his enemies had wished to destroy him and to bend him to his destruction by gifts offered. “But I,” he said, “not unmindful of the fidelity and friendship I once found in a certain pagan king when, driven from my country, I was an exile with him, was unwilling to be found less faithful, a Christian to you a Christian, than a pagan man was to me a Christian man. For when the gentile king of the Huns kept me dwelling with him for the cause of preserving my safety, he entered into a covenant with me in the name of his gods that he would never betray me to my enemies on any occasion. And after some days, envoys coming to him from my enemies and promising him immense money for my destruction, ‘May the gods,’ he said, ‘cut off my life, if for any earthly gain, yielding to you, I shall in any wise dissolve the covenant entered.’ If therefore an unbelieving man would not break his covenant, that he might stand faithful to his false god, shall I, faithful by Christ’s grace, violate for the sake of earthly advantage the faith which I promised to the true God? Far be it: indeed, I receive you into my own faith; and if there is anything in my possessions you love more dearly, take it, use it, possess it.”

²¹ At length coming to Rome, before Pope Agatho, in the presence of his accusers, he advanced his cause so modestly that he neither accused Archbishop Theodore nor suffered his own innocence to waver. For he said to the lord pope: “What is this, that Theodore, by his own authority, while I live and do not consent, has ordained three bishops in my see? Whom, because he was sent from this see, I forbear to accuse.” And in the council against those who dogmatised one will and operation in Christ, he declared his faith and that of his province. And when he had been found catholic and deprived of his priestly dignity without cause, it pleased them both that he should be restored to the episcopate by decree of the Roman see, and that this writing should be inserted into the acts of the same synod as a monument of his catholic faith: “Wilfrid, the God-beloved bishop of the city of York, appealing to the apostolic see in his cause and absolved by this authority from things certain and uncertain, and set together with a hundred and twenty-five other fellow-bishops in the judgement-seat of the synod, confessed the true and catholic faith for all the northern part of Britain and Ireland, which are inhabited by the nations of the Angles and Britons, and also of the Scots and Picts, and confirmed it with his subscription.”

²² Restored therefore to the episcopate by apostolic and synodal decree, and having received from the apostolic see letters directed to King Ecgfrith and Archbishop Theodore concerning the restoration of his state, he returned towards England. And when he had come to Gaul, look, a band of robbers, prepared to slay, met the man of God in a no pleasing procession: for these were they who had stretched snares for King Dagobert and had lately slain him, plunging a sword into his groin. Meeting therefore the man of God, they said among other things: “Betrayer of your country, petulant and doomed traveller, you indeed long since violated the Gallic sceptres, reduced Gallic liberty to servitude, when you restored to the kingdom by your insistence the tyrant justly exiled by us of old. But his cruelty being punished by a just death, we have decreed that you also, his greatest abettor, should be punished with the same death. Fall down therefore, pestilent man, fall down, and punished with a worthy vengeance, succumb to the same death which you fostered against us.” Wilfrid said: “If I did unjustly,” he said, “when I set the king, unjustly expelled from the kingdom, in his hereditary dignity as far as in me lay — and this the equity of the most just judge holds to be so in itself — I confess, I will most readily suffer the penalties of just vengeance. But if in this deed I did not against justice but with justice, as my own conscience bears me witness, the more gladly, if you wish to slay, do I desire to die, in that I consider that I, slain for justice, shall be crowned with the glory of martyrdom.” But when they saw the man stand fast with such constancy of mind, struck with exceeding terror, they cast away their arms and, prostrate on the earth, sought with kisses the feet of the man in asking pardon. And a blessing being given, the bishop with his men returned to England by a prosperous journey.

²³ And when in the assembly of the nobles he defended his cause with his living voice and showed by free protestation that he had been falsely accused and unjustly degraded, yet the king preferred to persist in his pertinacity against equity rather than mitigate his pertinacity by the reason of equity: he despised the pope’s letters with swelling pride, mocked them and cast them far from him; and all the nobles rise in unanimous conspiracy against the saint, afflict him with many contumelies, and, torn from the king’s sight, seize him to be thrust into a dark prison. And Queen Ermenburgis, the persecutor of all good and the author of this schism, took the capsule of relics from his neck and cast him off, mocked with a woman’s loquacity. And the man of God, turning to his own, said: “Let not this injury which is brought upon us trouble you, nor turn you aside in any wise from the path of truth. Have it ever before your eyes, that those who will live piously in Christ must of necessity suffer tribulation. For none is crowned save he who has striven lawfully to contend against the devil.” And look, they who bound him with their hands, inflamed with keener fury by his words, thrust him bound into the dark prison.

²⁴ Meanwhile the wife of the prefect who had the saint in custody, seized with a most sharp sickness, was brought to the end of her life. But when the bishop, his bonds loosed, had been led to her, he blessed water and sprinkled it over her: and the water had not yet touched the sick woman’s members when, all sickness driven away, perfect health returned to her. And the prefect, when he had seen this miracle, sent to the king, saying: “By your salvation and kingdom I adjure you, that you cause the priest of the Lord Wilfrid to be held by me no longer: for I confess it is better for me to die than to exercise any further injury against him. But if, this adjuration being despised, you prefer to persist in your sentence, know that I would rather undergo torments and death together with him than keep him in torments.” At this the king, vehemently enraged, commanded the saint to be led to another prefect as being stronger, bidding that bound strongly with fetters and chains he should be given to a stricter custody. And when the man tried to fulfil this, the bursting chains flew asunder, or at least, unable to be bound, fell apart; and so much the less power of binding there was, by how much the more savagely the hostile ferocity raged to bind.

²⁵ While these things were being done, the queen, swelling with exceeding pride and abusing the relics she had seized, was seized by God’s anger and soon vexed by a demon. Which when the king learned from the wise had been done on account of the injury inflicted on Wilfrid, he commanded the saint, loosed from his bonds, to leave his land. And the servant of God, wishing to render good for evil, prayed to the Lord and, the demon being put to flight, restored the queen to health.

²⁶ Going therefore towards the southern parts, he was honourably received by a certain Brithwald, brother of Ethelred king of the Mercians: and he kindly ministered to him the things that were needful. Yet the devil’s envy at last so infected him that he caused Christ’s soldier, stripped of his munificence, to be removed from himself and all his own; for he feared the offence of his brother, who had King Ecgfrith’s sister to wife. And so multiply afflicted and injured, the more he was struck by adversities, the more he prepared himself for God’s works and for patience. He came at length to the court of King Centwine, and is humanely enough received. But, as elsewhere, so also there he suffered a woman’s wrath at the demon’s instigation: for the king’s wife was the sister of Ermenburgis, the author of nearly all the evils that had befallen the man of God. She therefore caused Wilfrid, afflicted with many injuries, to be expelled from her borders.

²⁷ He went therefore to the province of the South Saxons, which still served pagan errors: and ministered the word of faith. Now the king of that people, Ethelwalch, had been baptised not long before in the province of the Mercians, Wulfhere king of the Mercians suggesting it, by whom, on coming forth from the font, he was received in the place of a son; in token of whose adoption Wulfhere gave him two provinces, namely the Isle of Wight and a certain province in the nation of the West Saxons. So, the king greatly rejoicing, Wilfrid baptised the first duces and soldiers of the province, and his priests washed the rest of the people in the sacred font. For there was there a certain monk of the nation of the Scots named Dicul, having a very small monastery in the place called Bosham, surrounded with woods and sea, and in it five or six brethren serving the Lord in a humble and poor life: yet none of the provincials before the coming of the man of God Wilfrid cared either to imitate their life or to hear their preaching. For three years before his coming no rain had descended in those parts, and so famine invaded the people and prostrated them with impious death. For often forty or more, macerated by want, proceeded to the sea and, joining hands, plunged themselves to be swallowed by the waves. But on the first day on which that people received the faith, copious rain descended and the earth flourished again. And he taught them to seek their living by fishing; for the people had no skill in fishing save for eels only. Eel-nets therefore being collected from all sides and cast into the sea by the bishop’s men, they took three hundred fish of diverse kinds; of which he distributed a hundred to the poor, gave a hundred to those from whom he had received the nets, and kept a hundred for himself. By which benefit the bishop turned the heart of all to his own love, and they began the more willingly, he preaching, to hope for heavenly things, by whose ministry they had received temporal goods.

²⁸ For there, by King Ethelwalch’s gift, he received a land of eighty-seven households, where he might receive his men who wandered in exile, called Selsey, that is, “the isle of the seal”, and founded a monastery there. In which possession he baptised two hundred and fifty of either sex, and absolved them from the yoke of human servitude.

²⁹ Meanwhile Caedwalla, of the royal stock of the Gewissae, that is, of the West Saxons, coming with an army while he was an exile from his country, slew King Ethelwalch and wore down that province with savage slaughter and depopulation. After this Caedwalla took the Isle of Wight, which until then was wholly given to idolatry, and strove by a tragic slaughter to exterminate all the natives and substitute men of his own province in their stead; binding himself by a vow, though not yet regenerate, that if he conquered and subdued the island, he would give the fourth part of it, together with the spoil, to the Lord. Now the measure of the same island is, by the reckoning of the English, twelve hundred households. Caedwalla therefore gave St Wilfrid the possession of land of three hundred households; who converted the whole island to the faith. And two sons of Arwald, king of that island, were crowned with a special grace of God. For when the irruptions of the enemy threatened, they slipped away in flight from the island; and being carried over to the nearest province of the Jutes, when they believed themselves hidden from the victorious king’s face, they were betrayed and commanded to be slain. Which heard, Abbot Cyniberht, having a monastery in the place called Hreutford, that is, “the ford of the reeds”, came to King Caedwalla and asked of him that, if the boys must be slain, they might first be imbued with the sacraments of the Christian faith. The king granted it, and he, having instructed them in the word of truth and washed them in the healthful font, rendered them certain of entrance into the eternal kingdom. Soon they, the executioner pressing on, underwent temporal death joyfully, through which they doubted not that they would pass to the life of the soul everlasting.

³⁰ Now in the year of the Lord six hundred and eighty-five, Ecgfrith king of the Northumbrians rashly led an army to devastate the province of the Picts: and the enemy feigning flight, he was led into the straits of inaccessible mountains, and with the greatest part of his army which he had brought with him, was destroyed. And in the preceding year the same Ecgfrith, sending an army, miserably devastated the nation of the Scots and Picts, harmless and ever most friendly to the English nation, so that the hostile hand spared not even churches or monasteries: but the inhabitants, invoking divine aid, asked by continual imprecations that they might be avenged from heaven; and although the cursed cannot possess the kingdom of God, it was yet believed that those who were deservedly cursed for their impiety would the sooner pay the penalties of their guilt, the Lord being their avenger. And because the king would not hear the most reverend father Egbert not to attack Scotia, which was doing him no hurt, it was given him for the punishment of that sin that not even in the following year would he hear his friends, and chiefly blessed Cuthbert, who desired to recall him from destruction. From which time the hope and strength of the English kingdom began to fail, for the Picts and Scots received back the land of their possession which the English had held, and their liberty, “which they held for forty-six years”, as Bede says in the fourth book, chapter twenty-four. For then the English were expelled and slain from that province, and the part of the Bernician kingdom from the sea to the Tweed, until then subject to the kings of the Northumbrians, was utterly taken away, nor could it be brought back even to our age to its pristine state and subjection, God’s hidden judgement opposing. Ecgfrith therefore, who deigned in no way to admit St Wilfrid to his friendship, deserved to die at the hands of the same enemies whom, he being despised, he had before merited by his prayers to subject happily to his sway.

³¹ For in the same hour in which the king was pressed by a grievous battle, St Wilfrid was intent on the sacred solemnities of mass; and when the “Lift up your hearts” had been said and the “We lift them up to the Lord” answered, rapt into an ecstasy of mind he saw Ecgfrith smitten on the head and sinking to death: and when in the preface “through Christ our Lord” was being said, he looked, and look, two malign spirits wretchedly brought the king’s soul before his eyes, and so carried it, sighing with a horrible groan, with them to the bars of hell. Straightway he called Acca, his priest, and told him all that he had seen.

³² And when the king’s death was divulged, Theodore the archbishop caused Wilfrid to come to him, and said to him: “Son — or rather, most holy father of the virtues of the mind — I who was appointed for this above others, that I might withstand every injustice that could arise in this kingdom, overcome by my own frailty, confess that I consented, sinning much, to very many opposing you. But to me confessing my fault and doing penance in my inmost heart, stand by, I beg, a kindly bestower of pardon. For the last times of my life, as you see, are now at hand: and for this which I ask, consent, and, humbly asked by me, intercede for me.” To whom he answered: “And that I was afflicted with many tribulations, you consenting, venerable pastor, I know not: yet far be it, far be it that I should believe you did this from malice; but rather, as I think, you did it with that intention, because you wished me to be exercised in patience by those very tribulations, that driven by straits I might attain the height of perfection through the path of patience. And so I ought much rather to give you thanks for your good intention than that you should from there ask pardon of me, especially since pardon is never rightly asked save where some offence is thought to have been contracted. But since I am not ignorant that you are circumspect on every side, I judge that you considered acutely and subtly the things that were to be seen. For this reason, if you think you have contracted any sin in those things which you consented to be done against me: as far as in me lies, I freely forgive, and forgiving I ask with suppliant devotion that the eternal judge’s mercy may come upon you.” Theodore therefore sent letters to King Aldfrith, Ecgfrith’s successor, that he should become a friend to blessed Wilfrid from the heart and not delay to receive him into the see from which he had been unjustly deposed. Who straightway recalled the saint and sent him back to his church with honour. And so he remained in peace in his own see for five years.

³³ At length the king, inflamed by the words of informers, began to burn with a sudden cupidity for his possessions, and, the fear of God set aside, took them away: whom Wilfrid, not fearing to oppose with episcopal authority, inflamed with a grievous wrath against himself. And so it came to pass that the king expelled him, spoiled of all his goods, from his kingdom; who straightway approached Ethelred king of the Mercians. At whose instance Archbishop Brihtwald called a council and promised Wilfrid that all justice should be done. Yet certain bishops, favouring the royal will, began to harass the man of God in the council with false calumnies and to disturb him with what objections they could. But when he had answered reasonably to all the charges, horror invaded even his enemies themselves, who said it was impious that a holy man should be spoiled of all his goods without any certain crime. So the king and archbishop, petitioned by not a few, granted him the monastery which he had built at Ripon on this condition, that he should sit quiet there and not go out of its bounds without the king’s licence, nor administer the care of the episcopal office further. To whom he said: “I,” he said, “will not lay down the sacerdotal degree; for I confess that, though unworthy, yet I have worked works not meanly worthy of the pontificate, aided by the Lord’s grace. For forty years I have preached Christ’s faith as I could, and corrected many from error and joined them to the church’s members. Yet this not I, but God himself through me. The rite of ecclesiastical observance, depraved through England by the Scottish tradition, I corrected supported by apostolic authority. At least obey the precepts of the apostolic see, which excused me when accused and condemned by a like injustice and decreed me to be absolved, if neither for love nor for fear of God you are willing to suffer me to be quiet: but, as I think, those precepts you have either forgotten or at least, known and understood, count for nothing. And so, though I am spent with old age, yet know that I will prove at Rome before the apostolic see that the calumnies which you lay upon me for the king’s displeasure are not true. And know no less that I shall truly declare with what zeal you bear the sacerdotal ministry, who prefer to favour men’s injustice rather than hold God’s justice.”

³⁴ And when Wilfrid had come to Rome, he is magnificently received by Pope John, and before the pope and many bishops set forth his cause and proved it by firm reason. So by the sentence of the common judgement the man of God’s innocence is proved, and the accusations are reproved as false calumnies. And the reading of Pope Agatho’s synod, which had formerly been held in his presence when he sat in the midst of a council of bishops, helped his cause. For when, the matter requiring it, the same synod was read at the pope’s command, they came to that place where it was written: “Wilfrid, the God-beloved bishop of the city of York, appealing to the apostolic see in his cause” and the rest. And when it had been read through, wonder seized the hearers; and the reader being silent, they began to ask one another who that Bishop Wilfrid was. Then Boniface, the pope’s counsellor, and many others who had formerly seen him, said that he was the bishop who, accused by his own and needing judgement from the apostolic see, had lately come to Rome: “who,” they said, “coming here accused once before, his cause being soon heard and judged by Pope Agatho, was proved to have been expelled from his bishopric against what is right. And so he was also held in such esteem with him that he ordered him to sit in the council of bishops which he had gathered, as a man of uncorrupt faith and approved mind.” Which heard, all said together with the pope that a man of such authority, who had been invested with the episcopate for forty years, ought by no means to be condemned, but, absolved, should return to his country with honour, as being free from every fault. It was therefore written to the kings of the English, Ethelred and Aldfrith, that if they were unwilling to be stricken with anathema, they should cause him to be received into the seat of his bishopric without further dispute.

³⁵ The servant of God therefore, enriched with great relics of the saints, returned to his country. And when he had come into the parts of Gaul, he is seized with a sudden sickness, so that he was carried on a litter in the hands of his servants. At length he lay like a dead man for four days and nights: and on the fifth day, when he was already mourned by his own as about to die, St Michael the archangel is sent by the Lord, by whom he might be restored to his former health; to whom he said: “Wilfrid, most worthy fellow-citizen, arise, why do you lie? for though you are numbered among the citizens of heaven, yet on account of the prayer of your sons you shall not die at this time, and chiefly through the merits and intercessions of blessed Mary the mother of God and perpetual Virgin. For she has prayed for you, because certain works have pleased her done by you: for she knows what work you did for Peter, what you built for his brother Andrew. And so now indeed you shall be called back from death and restored to life and health: but be prepared, for after four years I will visit you again. And coming to your country, you shall receive back the possessions taken from you, and in tranquil peace shall end your life.” These things said, the angel vanished: and he straightway, as from a heavy sleep, arose, sat up, and opening his eyes saw around him the choirs of brethren singing psalms and weeping; and sighing a little, asked where Acca the priest was. Who, being called, straightway entered, and seeing him better and able to speak, with bent knees gave thanks to God with all the brethren who were present. Then the pontiff, turning to Acca the priest, related all that he had seen, binding him by a dreadful adjuration that while he lived he should reveal this vision to no one.

³⁶ Then Wilfrid, entering Britain, and the papal letters being read in the sight of the nobles, was honourably received by Brihtwald the archbishop and by Ethelred, once king but now abbot of Bardney. For Ethelred exhorted Coenred, whom he had made king in his stead, when summoned, that he should ever cherish, love and foster the servant of the Lord from his soul, and stand as his untiring defender against all adversaries. But King Aldfrith strove to show by certain evasions thrown in his way that it was utterly impossible for him to fulfil what was commanded. But God’s wisdom, searching the secrets of hearts, examined his wickedness, and so weakened his body by the vexation of a sharp pain that he was destitute of the use of all his members. Who, when he knew himself to be dying, witnesses being called, promised that if God granted him life, he would both obey the apostolic commands and incline himself to Wilfrid for all time and love him. But he himself departed from life, and a certain Eadulf succeeded to the kingdom, who thus answered Wilfrid’s envoys sent to him: “By my salvation,” he said, “I swear that unless he depart from my kingdom within the space of six days, whomever of his men I can find, I will deprive of life.” And a conspiracy being made against the king, he is driven from the kingdom, which he held two months. After whom, Osred, Aldfrith’s son, reigning, Wilfrid was received into his see: to whose familiar friendship the king was joined with great affection, and commanded throughout the whole kingdom that no one should gainsay the holy bishop in any matter whatever, but that all should obey him in everything as God’s servant. And it was done so.

³⁷ And four years having passed, the holy bishop is invaded by a grievous sickness of body, and wearied is taken to his bed. For it is hard to utter how many sick were healed of all sickness by him sick, how many demoniacs delivered, paralytics strengthened, blind illuminated, deaf and dumb cured, how many afflicted with other calamities were magnificently restored to health by God working through him. At length, calling the brethren together, he said: “Labour, dearest brethren, with all your might that the grace of divine love may remain in you continually: strive to exercise brotherly love in all, that you may happily deserve to obtain that grace. Let nothing be that may draw you from charity; let you not fall from the sincerity which is in Christ. You know the snares which the malign deceiver stretches for the faithful: beware with all solicitude of those snares, as you have often heard from me, and cast them far from you, as you have seen me do. Do these things, and the God of peace shall be with you. And now, my dearest brethren, do not delay me departing. For you once called me back as I was going to life: but now spare me, I beg. For it delights me, the burden of the flesh laid down, to follow the Lamb of God.” These things said, and the brethren around him singing psalms: when they came to the verse of the hundred and third psalm “Send forth your spirit and they shall be created”, he happily sent forth his spirit into the Creator’s hands, on the twenty-fourth of April, in the year of the Lord seven hundred and nine, the seventy-fifth of his life and the forty-fifth of his episcopate: and he is honourably buried in the monastery which he himself built from the foundations at Ripon.

³⁸ And the year of his burial having run its course, when a very great multitude of people had gathered to keep vigil around his sepulchre, they look, and look, a light sent down from heaven from the east irradiated the whole place with wondrous splendour and put to flight by its presence all the horror of night and darkness. Which those present, seeing, were filled with great joy and gladness. For the greatness of the signs which the Lord ceased not daily to work at his body declared his merits far and wide, and gathered countless peoples, moved by his illustrious fame, to his memory.

³⁹ And in process of time, about the year of the Lord nine hundred and fifty-nine, Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, approaching the province of York, went to Ripon, to see the desolation of blessed Wilfrid’s monastery: and seeing the horrible solitude, he began to bedew his cheeks with tears. For before those times the hostile incursion of the Danes had occupied that province, the inhabitants’ sins demanding, had slain many thousands of men, and devastated all the places lying around St Wilfrid’s monastery like a wilderness. The monastery itself, broken into and ruined, stood ignominious with the filth of beasts and cattle: the holy bishop’s body, deprived of all honour, remained unmoved in the first place of its burial amid the very filth. And St Odo, supplication to God first sent up, strove to fulfil in deed what he had long pondered in mind: for on an appointed day they open the earth where St Wilfrid’s body lay buried, reverently take up all the bones with the dust, and carry them with them to Canterbury with the utmost honour and joy. Yet the place which blessed Wilfrid the bishop himself loved above others while he was in the body was not utterly deprived of those relics: some part of them was left by them with the dust in the place and laid up in a fitting spot. St Odo therefore placed the venerable relics of blessed Wilfrid which he had brought in the greater altar, which had been consecrated in honour of the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴⁰ For when they had been kept in that place for many years, at last, by the hidden judgement of almighty God, nearly the whole city of Canterbury was burnt with fire, and the church of Christ was consumed in the same burning. In the third year of which conflagration, Lanfranc, abbot of Caen, consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, about to build all things new, overthrew whatever had remained of the old work of that church. When therefore the same altar was being overthrown, the relics of blessed Wilfrid were found, taken up, and placed in a shrine. But when after some years the brethren’s will agreed that they should be shut up in a more fixed place, a sepulchre was made for them in the northern part of the altar, and they were shut up in it on the twelfth of October.

A Further Story #

¹ In those days, about the year of the Lord seven hundred and seven, blessed Hædde, bishop of the West Saxons, passed to the heavenly life; for he was good and just according to the faith, and exercised the episcopal life or doctrine, instructed rather by the love of virtues inborn in him than by readings. And in the place where he died, for the merit of his sanctity many miracles of healing were worked, and the men of that province, it is related by Bede, were wont to take dust from there for the sick and cast it into water, whose taste or sprinkling conferred health on many sick. In those days also Coenred, king of the Mercians, coming to Rome and there made a monk, remained at the apostles’ thresholds in prayers, fastings and alms even to his last day. And there came with him Offa, king of the East Saxons, a most lovable youth, who, led by a like devotion, left wife, kindred and kingdom for Christ and for the gospel, that in the world to come he might possess a hundredfold and life eternal: and being tonsured at Rome, completing his life in the monastic habit, he attained to the long-desired vision of the blessed apostles in the heavens.