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People. A historical commentary (Oxford, 1988), 139.
103
W. Goffart, The narrators of barbarian history, AD 550  800. Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, Paul the
Deacon (Princeton, 1988), 235 328; W. Goffart,  The Historia Ecclesiastica. Bede s agenda and ours ,
Haskins Society Journal, 2 (1990), 29 45. This view is also expressed less explicitly in A.T. Thacker,
 Lindisfarne and the origins of the cult of St Cuthbert , in: St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to
A.D.1200, ed. G. Bonner, D. Rollason and C. Stancliffe (Woodbridge, 1989), 103 22, at 119 122; D.P.
Kirby,  The genesis of a cult. Cuthbert of Farne and ecclesiastical politics in Northumbria in the late seventh
and early eighth centuries , Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 46 (1995), 383 397.
104
It should, however, be noted that Wilfrid and Cuthbert were both almost certainly aristocrats and that
Cuthbert s apparent poverty is balanced by the burial of an object of wealth, his pectoral cross, alongside his
body. See The relics of Saint Cuthbert, ed. C.F. Battiscombe (Oxford, 1956), 308 25.
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84 Simon Coates
Coenred whose ascent to the throne broke a monopoly of royal power which had been
established since the days of King Oswald (634 42).105 If the rule of Coenred were
unfavourable this could split the community, hence the insistence of the Vita Ceolfridi
on the need to preserve monastic unity. Ceolfrid s departure had political resonance.
Also in 716, in his commentary on Samuel, Bede condemned the inert clergy whose
inadequacies allowed compromise with heathen practice.106 Moreover, the years of
uncertainty seem not to have diminished at the time of Bede s composition of the
Historia Abbatum. His commemorative homily on Benedict Biscop hints at this,
emphasizing the salvation of the just and the punishment of the wicked whilst the
prologue to De Templo, a commentary on the construction of the temple of Solomon
composed between 729 31, speaks of the consolation of the scriptures in times of
affliction.107 He increasingly deplored the lack of virtue and intellect of those within the
church whose avarice and indolence left the laity bereft of spiritual teaching.108
Moreover, the close of the Historia Ecclesiastica tells of how the beginnings of King
Ceolwulf s reign, which began in 729, had been filled with so many varied and serious
commotions that it was impossible to know what to say about them or to guess at their
outcome.109 Ceolwulf was captured in 731 and tonsured by unnamed opponents who
kept him prisoner in a monastic centre before he was restored to the kingship. In the
same year, Acca, bishop of Hexham, Bede s diocesan, was expelled from his see.110 The
possibilities of dynastic faction fighting, which came to find particular expression in the
later history of the eighth-century Northumbrian kingdom, coupled with the problem of
the increasing secularization of land and ignorant priests and bishops who neglected
their dioceses led Bede to be particularly resilient about stressing the unity of the
monasterium and to ignore any possible political controversy. As Paul Fouracre has
noted in a Merovingian context, the further away from its subject in time a hagiographi-
cal work was written, the more opportunity there was to create a distinctively saintly
image.111 Wearmouth Jarrow needed to be disassociated from such a contentious figure
as the likes of Wilfrid since the behaviour of such individuals had created tension and
schism in the Northumbrian Church. Bede certainly did not wish to diminish the
importance of Ceolfrid s career nor did he, in any way, present it as controversial.
Although Ceolfrid s decision to depart without consulting his diocesan was contrary to
canon law,112 neither Bede nor the anonymous saw any need to criticise it. Nor was it
considered contrary to the monastic principle of stabilitas. In his homily on Benedict
Biscop, Bede had written of the profit that came out of Biscop s journeys but hinted that
peregrinatio was not to be for all:  As often as he crossed the sea, he never returned, as
105
Bede, HE, 5. 22; D. P. Kirby, The earliest English kings (London, 1991), 147.
106
Bede, In primam partem Samulhelis libri IV, ed. D. Hurst, 122 3, 222.
107
Bede, Opera Homiletica, 1. 13, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL, 122 (Turnhout, 1955); Bede, De Templo, prologus, ed.
D. Hurst, CCSL, 119A (Turnhout, 1969).
108
Bede, In Ezram et Neemiam prophetas allegorica exposition, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL, 119A (Turnhout, 1969),
303, 324, 360.
109
Bede, HE, 5. 23.
110
Bede, HE, 572 3; Kirby, The earliest English kings, 148 9.
111
P. Fouracre,  Merovingian history and Merovingian hagiography , Past and Present, 127 (1990), 3 38.
112
Wormald,  Bede and Benedict Biscop , 147.
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Ceolfrid: history, hagiography and memory in seventh- and eighth-century Wearmouth Jarrow 85
is the custom with some people, empty-handed and without profit 113. Instead of
criticism, therefore, Biscop s journeys were performed so that his community could
enjoy the peace of contemplation. Bede s other omissions are tied into the need for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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