Source: Raine (1864) and Hunt (1896) suggest Richard of Hexham as the author because the work emerges from a Hexham-centred textual milieu, and Richard was actively compiling local Northumbrian ecclesiastical history in this period. However, the attribution remains conjectural.

Raine, J. (ed.) (1864) The Priory of Hexham, its Chroniclers, Endowments, and Annals. 2 vols. Durham: Surtees Society.
Hunt, W. (1896) ‘Richard of Hexham’, in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Vol. 48, pp. 187–188.

Here begins the Life of Saint Eata, Bishop of Hexham.

¹ In the year 633 from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, when Edwin, the most noble king of the Northumbrians, had been slain in battle, the kingdom of Bernicia passed in his place to a son of Æthelfrith named Eanfrith, whose race and kingship drew their origin from that province. For throughout the whole time that Edwin reigned, the sons of that King Æthelfrith who had reigned before him, lived in exile among the Scots or Picts with a great band of noble youths; and there, instructed in the doctrine of the Scots, they were reborn by the grace of baptism. When the king who was their enemy was dead, they were permitted to return to their homeland; and the first of them, Eanfrith as we have said, took the kingdom of Bernicia. But as soon as he had obtained the crown of an earthly kingdom, he renounced and lost the sacraments of the heavenly kingdom in which he had been initiated, and gave himself back to be polluted and destroyed by the ancient filth of idolatry. Nor was there delay: Cædwalla, king of the Britons, slew him with an impious hand but a just retribution. When he had been slain, his brother Oswald, a man beloved of God, came with an army small indeed but fortified by the faith of Christ, and destroyed the unspeakable king of the Britons, his brother’s murderer, together with those immense forces which he boasted nothing could withstand; and by God’s will he gained the kingdom of the Bernicians and the Deirans alike. When he had taken up the kingdom, desiring that the whole people over whom he had begun to rule should be steeped in the grace of the Christian faith, he sent to the elders of the Scots, among whom he himself had been baptised in exile, asking that a bishop be sent to him by whose teaching and ministry the English people whom he governed might receive the sacraments of the Lord’s faith. Nor was it long before he obtained what he asked. For he received as bishop Aidan, a man of the greatest gentleness, piety and discretion; and when Aidan came to him, King Oswald granted him the place of his episcopal see on the island of Lindisfarne, as he himself desired, and humbly and gladly heeding his counsels, he took care most diligently to build up and enlarge the Church of Christ in his kingdom. So churches were built in various places; the people flocked together joyfully to hear the word; and by the king’s gift estates and lands were bestowed for the founding of monasteries. And Bishop Aidan, among his other lessons in living, left the clergy a most wholesome example of abstinence and self-restraint; and what most commended his teaching was that he himself taught his people in no other way than he lived. For he was accustomed to seek nothing of this world and to love nothing in it. Moreover his life stood so far apart from the sloth of our own times that all who went about with him, whether tonsured clerics or laymen, had to give themselves to meditation — that is, to labour either at reading the Scriptures or at chanting psalms. This most reverend bishop therefore, among the other early marks of his holy teaching and illustrious works, took twelve boys of the English nation in the first days of his episcopate to be instructed in Christ. One of these was Eata, a boy of good natural gifts, docile by nature and of a very gentle spirit. He was an attentive hearer of his teacher’s holy counsels and examples, clinging to them with all his mind, and in a short time he shone out, conspicuous for every excellence of character. And so, when he reached the bounds of a riper age, acceptable to God and men, he became a monk, and in a monk’s labours he kept vigil night and day. For he was a man outstanding in the virtue of patience, pure in chastity, affable and kindly to all; and, as the most reverend Bede the priest bears witness of him, he was adorned beyond all men with the grace of gentleness and simplicity. As he grew therefore more and more in holy virtues, the heavenly grace grew in him also, exalting him with its gifts. For not long afterwards, made the most worthy abbot of the church of Melrose, he set the brethren far greater examples of humility and charity than before. Hence all the monks, loving him with the most fragrant affection, did not fear him as a threatening master, but embraced him fondly as a loving father. And he was venerable not only to monks and clergy, by merit of his holiness and the example of his whole religious life, but was held in such honour by the powerful and the wealthy of this world that even kings revered him as a father and generously granted him lands and possessions for the building of monasteries. But he, rejoicing in the devotion of princes to the worship of God, diligently established churches and monasteries in fitting places. He took care also to gather into them good disciples devoted to the pursuit of holy living, among whom — and eminent above them — were Boisil and Cuthbert: both men shining with the brightness of wondrous holiness, both magnificently endowed with the spirit of prophecy. Of these, the former presided over the church of Melrose as provost under the same father; the latter afterwards shone forth as the glorious bishop of the church of Lindisfarne. At this time, the conflict being ended and the controversy settled which Bishop Colman and his followers had maintained against Wilfrid and the other catholic men concerning the observance of Easter, Colman returned to his own country; and going to King Oswy, he obtained from him that this venerable man, Abbot Eata, should preside over the brethren of the church of Lindisfarne with abbatial authority. For the Scots also greatly venerated this same Abbot Eata, because he was, as has been said above, one of the twelve boys of Bishop Aidan. So Saint Eata, receiving the church of Lindisfarne under the care of his rule, gave that church, as he had Melrose, every diligence of spiritual watchfulness. He also transferred to this church the blessed Cuthbert, whom he had made provost of the church of Melrose after the death of Boisil, the priest beloved of God, and committed its provostship to him to administer under himself. Then, when the cycle of very many years had revolved, a dissension arose between King Ecgfrith and the most reverend bishop Wilfrid, and that bishop was driven from the seat of his episcopate; and two bishops were set in his place to preside over the people of the Northumbrians: Bosa, to govern the province of the Deirans, and the Abbot Eata already named, that of the Bernicians — the former having his episcopal throne in the city of York, the latter in the church of Hexham or of Lindisfarne. Now the holy men beloved of God, Bosa and Eata, were ordained at York by Archbishop Theodore; and after three years of Wilfrid’s absence, Theodore added two bishops to their number: Trumwine for the province of the Picts, then subject to English rule, and Tunberht for the church of Hexham, while Eata remained at Lindisfarne. But after three years Tunberht was deposed for a certain fault of disobedience, and in his place the most holy Cuthbert was chosen. But because Cuthbert himself preferred to preside over the church of Lindisfarne, in which he had lived as a monk, rather than over Hexham, it was agreed that Eata should return to the see of the church of Hexham, to govern which he had first been ordained, and that Cuthbert should take up the government of the church of Lindisfarne. So the venerable father Eata, restored to the episcopal throne of the church of Hexham, was received with the great joy of all — everyone exulting and giving thanks to God that, by God’s provident grace, they had been counted worthy to receive again their most beloved shepherd, whom they had sorrowfully lost. Now what manner of man he showed himself in his episcopate cannot be set forth by any eloquence of my littleness. For he was constant in prayer, exhorting in season and out of season, intent on works of mercy, given over to the discipline of the Church by the vow of his resolve; and whatever he came to know must be done through the Holy Spirit, he took care to carry out diligently and devoutly. And when the loving Lord had decreed to repay his holy labours with an eternal reward, he was struck by a most severe disease of the bowels, which physicians call dysentery. As this grew worse day by day, like gold tested by fire, with all the rust of his sins boiled away, he closed his last day; and he entered the gates of the heavenly kingdom, to live there for ever, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

² He was buried beside the sanctuary of that church of Hexham on the south side, and a small stone chapel was built over his tomb. From that place it is uncertain by whom he was translated and set within the church in a shrine of fitting honour; yet it seems most likely that he was translated by Alfred son of Westou, priest of the church of Durham, who raised his venerable successors Acca and Alcmund from the earth and placed them honourably in shrines within the church.

How Thomas, Archbishop of York, was prevented from transferring the body of Saint Eata to York. #

¹ In the year 1113 from the Incarnation of the Lord, while Thomas the Second, a man of kindly memory, was nobly administering the pontificate of the church of York, certain of the archdeacons and clergy of that church approached the Archbishop himself and, under the colour of consulting him, suggested to his provident solicitude — complaining among themselves and saying that it was a most unjust and ill-considered wrong to the church of York that she was honoured by the bodily presence of none of her holy bishops, while all of them were worthily venerated by every people in other churches by merit of their holiness. They added that it was just that the Archbishop should exert all his effort to recall at least one of her ancient shepherds to the mother church, lest she should seem wholly bereft of the venerable presence of their relics. And since Paulinus, the first high priest of that church, and likewise his holy successors — Wilfrid, Chad, John and Oswald — were held in such great veneration in the churches where their life-giving bodies are laid that it would be vain to form any plan of transferring them, they began to beg him to transfer Saint Eata, bishop of the church of Hexham, to York; protesting that the church of Hexham could well enough spare him, since besides him that same church was magnificently endowed with the treasured relics of four holy bishops — led by I know not what notion to declare that he had been a bishop of the church of York, though this is found neither in the History of the priest Bede nor in any chronicles of the English people. The Archbishop therefore yielded to their importunate prayers, and appointed men from among them to go with him to Hexham to carry out the business they urged upon him. But when the brethren of the church of Hexham heard this, they were made very sorrowful; and at last taking confidence in the Lord’s mercy, they implored Saint Eata with fervent prayers not to despise, nor forsake, nor deprive of his presence the place which in life he had tended, had loved, and had enriched with his burial. So the Archbishop came to Hexham, attended by the instigators of that business, and remained there for some days. But on the very night after which they had determined to carry off the venerable relics, in the deep silence of that same night, while the Archbishop lay sunk in sleep, there appeared to him a certain man of venerable aspect, clothed about in pontifical vesture and bearing a pastoral staff in his hand; and looking upon the Archbishop terribly, he addressed him thus: “What is this that you intend to do? You have come here to carry me from the place of my rest to a church not my own — which the Lord has not commanded you. I tell you, you shall pay the penalty for your presumption.” And raising the staff he carried in his hand, he struck him twice upon the shoulder and, threatening him fiercely, vanished. The Archbishop awoke and began to cry out for excess of fear; with confused cries he roused all the clergy sleeping beside him and, trembling with dread, he told them what he had seen and suffered. And at once, when morning came, he sent for the brethren of the church and begged them to pray for him, binding himself by a vow that he would never again despoil the church of Hexham of any of her patrons. But he was held in sickness for three whole days, and only on the fourth day recovered; and so, with the business for which he had come unaccomplished, he returned to York with his clergy.