List of the ten kings of Northumbria of Alcuin’s
time.—Destruction of Lindisfarne, Wearmouth, and Jarrow, by the
Danes.—Letters of Alcuin on the subject to King Ethelred, the
Bishop and monks of Lindisfarne, and the monks of Wearmouth and
Jarrow.—His letter to the Bishop and monks of Hexham.
We must now turn to Alcuin’s native kingdom of Northumbria, over whose
evil fortunes he grieved so greatly in the home of his adoption.
I do not know how better some idea can be formed of the political chaos
to which Northumbria was reduced in the time of Alcuin than by reading a
list of the kings of that time. It is a most bewildering list.
All went well so long as Eadbert, the brother of Archbishop Ecgbert,
reigned. He was the king of Alcuin’s infancy and boyhood and earliest
manhood. His reign lasted from 737 to 758, when he retired into a
monastery. He was the 21st king, beginning with Ida who created the
kingdom in 547. He was succeeded by (22) Oswulf his son, who was within
a year slain by his household officers, July 24, 759, and was succeeded
on August 4 by (23) Ethelwald, of whose parentage we do not know
anything. In 765 he was deprived by a national assembly, and (24) Alchred
was placed on the throne, a fifth cousin of the murdered Oswulf, and
therefore of the royal line. In 774 he was banished, and went in exile to
the king of the Picts, being succeeded by (25) Ethelred, the son of his
deprived predecessor Ethelwald. Ethelred reigned from 774 to 779, when
in consequence of cruel murders ordered by him he was driven out, and
(26) Alfwold, son of (22) Oswulf, and therefore of the old royal line,
succeeded. Alfwold was murdered in 788, and was succeeded by (27) Osred,
the son of (24) Alchred, sixth cousin of his predecessor, and therefore
of the royal line. After a year he was deposed and tonsured, and was
eventually put to death in 792 by (25) Ethelred, who had recovered the
throne lost by his expulsion in 779. He was killed in 796 in a faction
fight, after he had put to death the last two males, so far as we know,
of the royal line of Eadbert, Ælf and Ælfwine, sons of (26) Alfwold.
Simeon of Durham tells us (A.D. 791) that they were persuaded by false
promises to leave sanctuary in the Cathedral Church of York; were taken
by violence out of the city; and miserably put to death by Ethelred in
Wonwaldrenute. He was succeeded by (28) Osbald, of unknown parentage,
but a patrician of Northumbria; he only reigned twenty-seven days, fled
to the king of the Picts, and died an abbat three years later, in 799.
He was succeeded by (29) Eardulf, a patrician of the blood royal,[131]
who had been left for dead by (25) Ethelred, but had recovered when laid
out for burial by the monks of Ripon. He had the fullest recognition as
king; was consecrated at the great altar of St. Paul in York Minster on
May 26, 796, by Archbishop Eanbald. In his reign Alcuin died. In 806 he
was driven out by (30) Elfwald, of unknown parentage, but by the help
of the Emperor Charlemagne he was restored in 808. He died in 810, and
was succeeded by his son (31) Eanred, who was the last king but one of
the royal house, and the last independent king of Northumbria, dying in
840, and being succeeded by his son (32) Ethelred II, expelled in 844,
restored in the same year, and killed _sine prole_ in 848.
This, as has been said, is a most bewildering list. It is, however,
convenient to have it stated at length, inasmuch as several of these
kings are named in a noteworthy manner in the letters of Alcuin. To
emphasize the view that Alcuin took of the state of Northumbria, the list
just given may be summarized thus, it being borne in mind that every king
who reigned in Alcuin’s time after Eadbert’s death in 758 is included
in the summary. Oswulf, murdered 759; Ethelwald, deprived 765; Alchred,
banished 774; Ethelred, expelled 779; Alfwold, murdered 788; Osred,
deposed 789; Ethelred, killed by his own people, 796; Osbald, expelled
797; Eardulf, expelled 806.
The Venerable Bede had said in his letter to Archbishop Ecgbert in 735
that unless some very great change for the better was made in all walks
of life in Northumbria, that country would find its men quite unable to
defend it successfully if an invasion took place. We have seen that so
far as the reigning persons were concerned, the change was for the worse;
we have now to see how bitterly true Bede’s prophecy, or rather his
calculation of the necessary consequences, proved to be. We are taken
in thought to the year 793, not quite sixty years after Bede’s letter.
One excellent reign had lasted twenty-one years, the next eight reigns
averaged four and a half years, and all ended in violence.
Higbald, the eleventh Bishop of Lindisfarne, 780-803, takes us back
nearly to the best times of that specially Holy Isle. Ethelwold, 724-40,
his next predecessor but one, was the bishop under whom King Ceolwulf,
to whom Bede dedicated his famous work the _Ecclesiastical History of
the English Race_, became a monk. It was this king-monk that taught the
monks of Lindisfarne to drink wine and ale instead of the milk and water
prescribed by their Scotic founder, Aidan. His head was preserved in
St. Cuthbert’s coffin. Ethelwold’s immediate predecessor was Eadfrith,
698-721, who wrote that glorious Evangeliarium which is a chief pride of
England, the _Lindisfarne Gospels_. To Bishop Eadfrith and his monks Bede
dedicated his _Life of St. Cuthbert_, between whom and Eadfrith only one
bishop had intervened. The entry at the end of the _Lindisfarne Gospels_
connects Ethelwold and Eadfrith with the production and binding of that
noble specimen of the earliest Anglian work. Put into modern English it
runs thus:—
“Eadfrith, bishop of the church of Lindisfarne, he wrote this book at
first, for God and St. Cuthbert and all the saints that are in the
island, and Ethelwald, the bishop of Lindisfarne island, he made it firm
outside and bound it as well as he could.”
The entry proceeds to tell that Billfrith, the anchorite, wrought in
smith’s work the ornaments that were on the outside with gold and
gems and silver overlaid, a treasure without deceit. And Aldred, the
presbyter, unworthy and most miserable, glossed it in English, and made
himself at home with the three parts, the Matthew part for God and St.
Cuthbert, the Mark part for the bishop—unfortunately it is not said for
which of the bishops, the Luke part for the brotherhood. Only one bishop
came between Ethelwold, who bound this priceless treasure, and Higbald,
to whom we now turn.
The Saxon Chronicle has under the year 787 this entry:—“In this year King
Beorhtric [of Wessex] took to wife Eadburg, daughter of King Offa. In his
days came three ships of the Northmen from Haurthaland [on the west coast
of Norway]. And the sheriff rode to meet them there, and would force them
to the king’s residence, for he knew not what they were. And there they
slew him. These were the first ships of Danish men that sought the land
of the English race.”
They soon came again, this time not to the coast of Wessex, but to the
coast easiest of access from their own land. In 793 this is the entry in
the Saxon Chronicle:—
“In this year dire forewarnings came over the land of Northumbria and
pitifully frightened the people, violent whirlwinds and lightnings, and
fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. These tokens mickle hunger
soon followed, and a little after that, in this same year, on the sixth
of the ides of January [January 8] the harrying of heathen men pitifully
destroyed God’s church in Lindisfarne through rapine and manslaughter.”
In the next year, 794, it is said:—
“The heathen ravaged among the Northumbrians, and plundered Ecgferth’s
minster at Donmouth [Wearmouth]; and there one of their leaders was
slain, and also some of their ships were wrecked by a tempest, and many
of them were there drowned, and some came to shore alive and men soon
slew them off at the river mouth.”
Wattenbach and Dümmler make the ruin of Lindisfarne take place not on
January 8 but on June 8. The Saxon Chronicle has Ianr. in both of the
MSS. which name the month. There is only one other entry in the year 793,
and it follows this,—“And Sicga [who had murdered King Alfuold] died[132]
on the 8th of the Kalends of March,” that is, February 22. It is clear
that these two events took place at the end of 793, the years at that
time ending with March, and January, not June, was the month of ruin.
The twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow are described as Ecgferth’s
minster, because King Ecgfrith of Northumbria, 670-85, gave land to Benet
Biscop to found a monastery at the mouth of the Don, now called the Wear,
and some years later another portion of land for the twin monastery of
St. Paul, Jarrow. Later in Biscop’s life he purchased two additional
pieces of land from the next king, Aldfrith, giving for the first two
royal robes, or palls, made all of silk, worked in an incomparable
manner, which he had bought in Rome. For the second, a much larger piece,
he gave to the king a manuscript collection of geographical writings,
of beautiful workmanship. We in the south-west must always remember
that Benedict Bishop first brought his vast ecclesiastical treasures to
the court of Wessex, but finding his royal patron dead went up north
with them. But for the death of the King of Wessex, we should have had
Wearmouth and Jarrow here as well as Malmesbury, Bede as well as Aldhelm,
and it may be Alcuin too.
We have letters of Alcuin to King Ethelred, to Higbald the Bishop of
Lindisfarne, and to the monks of the twin monastery of Monkwearmouth and
Jarrow, on this catastrophe. The letter to Ethelred comes first:—
[Sidenote: Ep. 22. A.D. 793.]
“To my most loved lord King Ethelred and all his chief men the humble
levite Alchuine sends greeting.
“Mindful of your most sweet affection, my brothers and fathers and
lords honourable in Christ; deeply desiring that the divine mercy may
preserve to us in long-lived prosperity the fatherland which that mercy
long ago gave to us with gratuitous freedom; I therefore, comrades most
dear, whether present, if God allow it, by my words, or absent by my
writings under the guidance of the divine spirit, do not cease from
admonishing you, and by frequent repetition to convey to your ears, you
who are citizens of the same fatherland, those things which are known to
pertain to the safety of this earthly realm and to the blessedness of the
heavenly home; so that things many times heard may grow into your minds
with good result. For what is love to a friend if it keeps silence on
matters useful to the friend? To what does a man owe fidelity if not to
his country? To whom does a man owe prosperity if not to its citizens? By
a double relationship we are fellow-citizens of one city in Christ, that
is as sons of Mother Church and of one native country. Let not therefore
your humanity shrink from accepting benignly what my devotion seeks to
offer for the safety of our land. Think not that I am charging faults
against you: take it that I aim at warding off penalties.”
We should here bear in mind that Ethelred had fourteen years before this
been expelled for cruel murders, and that he was now in the first year
of his restored reign and had already sent away his first wife and taken
another, a scandal so great in those days—bad as they were—that the Saxon
Chronicle with remarkable particularity gives the month and the day of
the gross offence, September 29. He afterwards murdered the two surviving
members of the royal house.
Alcuin’s letter to the king proceeds:—
“It is now nearly 350 years that we and our fathers have dwelt in this
most fair land, and never before has such a horror appeared in Britain
as we now have suffered at the hands of pagans. And it was not supposed
that such an attack from the sea was possible.[133] Behold, the church
of the holy Cuthbert is deluged with the blood of the priests of God, is
spoiled of all its ornaments; the place more venerable than any other in
Britain is given as a prey to pagan races. From the spot where, after the
departure of the holy Paulinus from York, the Christian religion took
its beginning amongst us, from that spot misery and calamity have begun.
Who does not fear? Who does not mourn this as if his fatherland itself
was captured?”
We should note Alcuin’s recognition of the fact that the restoration of
Christianity in Northumbria was due not to persons of the Anglo-Saxon
race and Church, but to Aidan and his monks of the Irish race and Church.
“My brethren, give your most attentive consideration, your most diligent
investigation, to this question,—is this most unaccustomed, most
unheard-of evil, brought upon us by some unheard-of evil custom? I do not
say that there was not among the people of old the sin of fornication.
But since the days of King Alfwold[134] fornications, adulteries,
incests, have inundated the land to such an extent that these sins are
unblushingly perpetrated even among the handmaids dedicated to God. What
shall I say of avarice, rapine, and judicial violence, when it is clearer
than the light how these crimes have increased, and a despoiled people
are the evidence of it. He who reads the Holy Scriptures, and revolves
ancient history, and considers the working of the world, will find that
for sins of this nature kings lose kingdoms, and peoples lose their
father-land. He will find that when men in power have unjustly seized the
property of others, they have justly lost their own....
“Consider the manner of dress, the manner of wearing the hair, the
luxurious habits of princes and of people. Look at the way in which the
pagan manner of trimming the beard and cutting the hair is imitated. Do
you not fear those whom you thus copy? Look at the immoderate use of
clothes, beyond any necessity of human nature. This superfluity of the
princes is the poverty of the people. Some are loaded with garments,
while others perish with cold. Some flow over with luxuries and feasts
like the rich man in purple, while Lazarus at the gate dies of hunger.
Where is brotherly love? Where is that pity which we are bidden have for
the wretched? The satiety of the rich man is the hunger of the poor. That
Scripture saying is to be dreaded, ‘He shall have judgement without mercy
that hath shewed no mercy’[135]; and we have the words of the blessed
Peter the Apostle[136], ‘The time is come that judgement must begin at
the house of God.’ Judgement has begun, and with terrible force, at the
house of God where rest so many lights of the whole of Britain. What is
to be expected for other places, if the divine judgement has not spared
this most holy place? It is not for the sins of only those who dwelled
there that this has been sent.
“Would that the penalty that has come upon them could bring others to
amend their lives. Would that the many would fear what the few have
suffered, and each would say in his heart, groaning and trembling, ‘if
such men, if fathers so holy, did not save their own habitation, the
place of their own repose, who shall save mine?’ Save your country by
assiduous prayers to God, by works of justice and of mercy. Be moderate
in dress and in food. There is no better defence of a country than the
equity and piety of princes, and the prayers of the servants of God.”
This is the letter which Alcuin wrote to the Bishop and monks of
Lindisfarne:—
[Sidenote: Ep. 24. A.D. 793.]
“To the best sons in Christ of the most blessed father the holy bishop
Cuthbert, Higbald the bishop and the whole body of the Church of
Lindisfarne, the deacon Alchuine sends greeting with heavenly benediction
in Christ.
“When I was with you, your friendly love was wont to give me much joy.
And now that I am absent the calamity of your affliction greatly saddens
me every day. The pagans have contaminated the sanctuaries of God, and
have poured out the blood of saints round about the altar; have laid
waste the house of our hope, have trampled upon the bodies of saints
in the temple of God like dung in the street. What can I say but groan
forth along with you before the altar of Christ, Spare, O Lord, spare
thy people; give not thine heritage to the Gentiles, lest the pagans say
‘Where is the God of the Christians?’
“What assurance is there for the churches of Britain if the holy
Cuthbert, with so great a number of saints, does not defend his own
Church? Either this is the beginning of greater affliction, or else the
sins of the dwellers there have called it upon them. It has not happened
by chance; it is the sign that calamity was greatly deserved.
“But now, ye that survive, stand like men, fight bravely, defend the
camp of God. Remember Judas Machabeus, how he purged the Temple of God,
and freed the people from a foreign yoke. If anything in your manner of
life needs correction, pray correct it speedily. Call back to you your
patrons, who have left you for a time. It was not that their influence
with God’s mercy failed; but, we know not why, they did not speak. Do not
boast yourselves in the vanity of raiment; that is matter not of boasting
but of disgrace for priests and servants of God. Do not blur the words
of your prayers with drunkenness. Do not go forth after pleasures of the
flesh and greediness of the world; but remain firmly in the service of
God and in the discipline of the life by rule; that the most holy fathers
whose sons you are may not cease to be your protectors. Go in their
footsteps, and abide secure in their prayers. Be not degenerate sons of
such ancestry. Never will they cease from your defence, if they see you
follow their example.
“Be not utterly cast down in mind by this calamity. God chastens every
son whom he receives; and He has chastened you the more because he
loves you more. Jerusalem, the city loved of God, and the Temple of
God, perished in the flames of the Chaldeans. Rome, with her coronal of
holy Apostles and innumerable martyrs, has been broken up by a pagan
visitation; but by God’s pity has quickly recovered. Nearly the whole
of Europe has been laid waste by the sword and the fire of Goths and
of Huns; but now, by God’s mercy, as the sky is adorned with stars, so
the land of Europe shines bright with churches, and in them the divine
offices of the religion of Christ flourish and increase.
“And thou, holy father, leader of the people of God, shepherd of the holy
flock, physician of souls, light set upon a candlestick, be the form
of all goodness to them that see you, the herald of salvation to all
that hear you. Let your company be honest in character, an example to
others unto life, not to destruction. Let thy banquets be with sobriety,
not with drunkenness. Let thy dress be suited to thy condition. Be not
conformed unto men of the world in any vain thing. The empty adornment of
dress, and the useless care for it, is for thee a reproach before men and
a sin before God. It is better to adorn with good habits the soul that
is to live for ever, than to dress up in delicate garments the body that
soon will decay in the dust. Let Christ be clothed and fed in the person
of the poor man, that so with Christ you may reign. The ransom of a man
is true riches. If we love gold, we should send it before us to heaven,
where it will be of service to us. What we love, we have; then let us
love that which is eternal, not that which is perishable. Let us aim at
the praise of God, not of men. Let us do what did the holy men whom we
laud. Let us follow their footsteps on earth, that we may be worthy to be
partakers in their glory in the heavens.
“May the protection of the divine pity keep you from all adversity, and
set you with your fathers in the glory of the kingdom of heaven. When
our lord, King Karl, comes home, his enemies by God’s mercy subdued, we
will arrange to go to him, God helping us. If we are able then to help
your holiness, either in the matter of the youths who have been carried
captive by the pagans, or in any other need of yours, we will take
diligent care to carry it through.”
Alcuin soon after wrote another letter to the bishop and monks of
Lindisfarne, and yet another to Cudrad, probably Cuthred, a presbyter of
Lindisfarne, who had been carried off by the Northmen and then rescued.
In these letters he urges them to bear in mind that prayers are more
valuable as a defence than collections of arrows and weapons, and heaps
of stones for hurling at an enemy. From this it would appear that the
monastery at Lindisfarne was being fortified.
To the monks of Wearmouth and Jarrow, whose geographical situation
rendered them very liable to a raid by the pirate northmen, he wrote a
very long and interesting letter, some extracts from which may here be
given.
[Sidenote: Ep. 27. A.D. 793.]
“Keep most diligently the regular life [the life by rule] which your most
holy fathers, [the abbats] Benedict[137] [Biscop] and Ceolfrid,[138]
decreed for you.
“Let the Rule of Saint Benedict [of Nursia, the abbat of Monte Cassino]
be very often read in the assembly of the brethren, and expounded in the
vulgar tongue that all may understand.
“Consider whom you have as your defence against the pagans who have
appeared in your maritime parts. Set not your hope on arms, but on God.
Trust not to carnal flight, but in the prayer of your forefathers. Who
does not fear the terrible fate which has befallen the church of the holy
Cuthbert? You, also, dwell on the sea, from which this pest first comes.
“Bear in mind the nobleness of your fathers, and be not degenerate sons.
Look at the treasures of your library, the beauty of your churches, the
fairness of your buildings. How happy the man who, from those most fair
dwellings, passes to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.
“Accustom the boys to the praise of the heavenly King, not to digging
out the earths of foxes, not to coursing the swift hare. How impious
it is to leave the worship of Christ and follow the trace of the fox.
Let them learn the sacred Scriptures, that when they are grown up they
may teach others. He who does not learn in youth does not teach in age.
Remember Bede the presbyter, the most noble teacher of our age, what a
love he had for learning as a boy; what honour he has now among men; what
glory of reward with God. Quicken slumbering minds with his example.
Attend lectures; open your books; study the text; understand its meaning;
that you may both feed yourselves and feed others with the food of the
spiritual life.
“Avoid private feasting and secret drinking as a pitfall of hell. Solomon
says that stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant,
but the guests are in the depth of hell; he means that at such feasts
there are demons present. Do not lose eternal joys for sloth of mind or
fleshly delights.”
As we have seen, the same destruction that had come upon Lindisfarne
came very soon after upon Wearmouth and Jarrow. Bede little knew how
close home the blow which he forecast would strike.
We should have felt that something was wanting if no letter had been
preserved from Alcuin to the bishop and monks of Hexham. Hexham was the
see of one of Bede’s most highly valued correspondents, Acca. Of the
very small number of letters written by Bede which have come down to
us, only fourteen in all, eight are addressed to Acca. They are in the
main formal treatises on several parts of the Old and New Testaments,
including a treatise on the Temple of Solomon which was probably
suggested by the remarkable illustration of the Tabernacle in the _Codex
Amiatinus_. The Church of St. Andrew, Hexham, built by Wilfrith, and St.
Peter, Ripon, also built by him, were in Wilfrith’s time the two finest
churches north of the Alps. We have the description of them by Wilfrith’s
chaplain, Stephen Eddi.[139] Almost the whole of one of the two exquisite
sculptured crosses which were placed at the head and foot of Acca’s grave
is still in existence. The magnificent restoration of the Abbey Church of
Hexham in this year of grace, 1908, is one of the greatest ecclesiastical
works of the young twentieth century.
[Sidenote: Ep. 88. Before Oct. 16, 797.]
“To the shepherd of chief dignity Aedilberit[140] the bishop, and to
all the congregation of the servants of God in the Church of St. Andrew
[of Hexham], Alchuini, the humble client of your love in Christ, wishes
health.
“Earnestly desirous of spiritual friendship, I am at pains to address
to your sanctity the poor letters of my littleness, both that I may
renew the pact of our ancient intimacy and that I may commend myself to
your most sacred prayers. And if according to the Apostle the prayer of
one just man availeth much, how much more the prayers of a most holy
congregation in Christ, the intercessions of whose peaceful concord
daily at the canonical hours are believed to reach heaven, while the
secret prayer of each single one beyond doubt reaches to the ears of the
omnipotent God. Wherefore with all humility of entreaty, so far as my
request may avail with your piety, I commend myself both to the united
prayer of all and to the individual prayer of each; that by the prayers
of your sanctity, freed from the chain of my sins, I may with you, my
dearest friends, enter the gates of life.
“O most noble progeny of holy fathers, successors of their honour and
their venerable life, and inhabiters of their most beautiful places,
follow the footsteps of your fathers; that from these most beautiful
habitations you may attain by the gift of God to a portion in the eternal
blessedness of those that begat you, to the beauty of the kingdom of
heaven.
“Learn to know God and to obey His precepts, Himself saying to you ‘If
thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments.’ Therefore the reading
of the Holy Scriptures is necessary, for in them each may learn what he
must follow and what avoid. Let the light of learning dwell among you,
and give light through you to other churches, that the praise of you
may sound forth in the mouth of all, and your reward may remain eternal
in the heavens. Each man shall receive the reward of his own work. Teach
diligently the boys and the young men the knowledge of books in the way
of the Lord, that they may become worthy to succeed to your honour, and
may be your intercessors. For the prayers of the living are profitable
to the dying, whether to the pardon of sin or to the increase of glory.
He who sows not does not reap; he who learns not does not teach. And
such a house as yours without teachers cannot be, or can scarcely be,
safe. Great is alms-doing, to feed the poor with food for the body; but
greater is it to satisfy the hungry soul with spiritual doctrine. As the
provident shepherd takes care to supply his flock with all that is best,
so the good teacher ought with all pains to procure for those under him
the pastures of eternal life. For the increase of the flock is the glory
of the shepherd, and the multitude of the wise is the safety of the
world. I am aware that you, most holy fathers, fully know all this, and
accomplish it; but the love of him that dictates this has dragged the
words from his mouth, believing that you are willing to read with pious
humility that which I dictate with devoted soberness in the love of God.
Again and again I beseech you that you deign to have my name in memory
among those of your friends.
“May the God Christ Himself hearken to your kindliness interceding for
the whole Church of God, and grant that we may attain unto the glory of
eternal beatitude, my dearest brothers.”