(ABOUT A.D. 680.)
[Anglican Martyrology, published by John Wilson. Authority:--Bede:
Hist. Eccl. iv. 24.]
According to an usage very general in the 7th century in England, but
principally prevailing in Celtic countries, monasteries and nunneries
were placed under the rule of one abbot or abbess. This was the case
at Whitby, where the abbess Hilda governed a community of men, as well
as one of women; and she inspired the monks subject to her authority
with so great a devotion to their rule, so true a love of sacred
literature, that this monastery, ruled by a woman, became a true
school of missionaries, and even of bishops. But not all the bishops
and saints nurtured in her school, occupy in the annals of the human
mind a place comparable to that held by an old cowherd who lived on
the lands belonging to Hilda's community. It is on the lips of this
cowherd that Anglo-Saxon speech first bursts into poetry, and nothing
in the whole history of European literature is more original or more
religious than this first utterance of the English muse. His name was
Ceadmon. He had already reached an advanced age, having spent his life
in his humble occupation without ever learning music, or being able to
join in the joyous choruses which held such a high place at the feasts
and social gatherings of all classes, both poor and rich, among the
Anglo-Saxons as among the Celts. When it was his turn to sing at any
of these festal meetings, and the harp was handed to him, his custom
was to rise from the table and go home. One evening, when he had thus
withdrawn himself from his friends, he went back to his humble shed
and went to sleep by the side of the cattle. During his slumber he
heard a voice, which called him by name, and said to him, "Sing me
something"; to which he replied, "I cannot sing, and that is why I
have left the supper and am come hither." "Sing, notwithstanding,"
said the voice. "But what, then, shall I sing?" "Sing the beginning of
the world: the Creation." Immediately on receiving this command he
began to sing verses, of which before he had no knowledge, but which
celebrated the glory and power of the Creator. On awaking he
recollected all that he had sung in his dream, and hastened to tell
all that had happened to him to the farmer in whose service he was.
The Abbess Hilda, when the story was repeated to her, called for
Ceadmon and questioned him in the presence of all the learned men whom
she could assemble around her. He was made to relate his vision and
recite his songs, and then the different passages of sacred history
and various points of doctrine were explained to him that he might put
them into verse. The next morning he was again called, and immediately
began to repeat all that had been told him, in verses, which were
pronounced to be excellent. He was thus discovered all at once to
possess the gift of improvisation in his mother tongue. Hilda, and her
learned assessors, did not hesitate to recognise in this a special
gift of God, worthy of all respect and of the most tender care. She
received Ceadmon and his whole family within the monastic community of
Whitby, and afterwards admitted him to the number of monks who were
under her rule, and made him carefully translate the whole Bible into
Anglo-Saxon. As soon, accordingly, as the sacred history and the
gospel were narrated to him, he made himself master of the tale,
ruminated it, as Bede said, and transformed it into songs, so
beautiful that all who listened to him were delighted. He thus put
into verse the whole of Genesis and Exodus, with other portions of the
Old Testament, and, afterwards the life and passion of Our Lord, and
the Acts of the Apostles. His talent and his poetic faculty thus went
on, day by day, to fuller development, and he devoted numerous songs
to such subjects as were best calculated to induce his companions to
forsake evil, and love and practise the good: the terrors of the last
judgment, the pains of hell, the joys of paradise--all these great and
momentous subjects were in their turn woven into verse. The fragments
that remain enable us to estimate the earnest and impassioned
inspirations, strongly Christian and profoundly original, which
characterised these first efforts of genius, barbarous, but subdued
and baptized. But it would be a totally mistaken idea to recognise in
the Abbess Hilda's dependant, nothing but a poet or a literary
pioneer; he was, above all, a primitive Christian, a true monk, and,
in one word, a saint. His mind was simple and humble, mild and pure;
he served God with tranquil devotion, grateful for the extraordinary
grace that he had received from heaven. But he was full of zeal for
monastic regularity. No frivolous or worldly subjects ever inspired
his verse; he composed his songs only that they might be useful to the
soul, and their solemn beauty did even more for the conversion than
for the delight of his countrymen. Many were moved by them to despise
this world, and to turn with ardent love to the divine life. He died
as poets seldom die. At the very beginning of his illness he desired
his bed to be made in that part of the infirmary which was assigned to
the dying, and, while smiling and talking cheerfully with his
brethren, asked for the _viaticum_. At the moment when he was about to
administer the Communion to himself, from the pyx brought from the
Church, according to the usage of the period, and while holding in his
hands the Holy Eucharist, he asked all those around him, if any one
had any grudge against him, or any complaint to make? All answered,
"No." Then said he, "I, too, my children, have a mind at peace with
all God's servants." A little while after he had received the
venerable Sacrament, as they were about to waken the monks for Matins,
he made the sign of the Cross, laid his head on the pillow, and fell
asleep in silence, to awake no more.