Theodore, with Hadrian’s help, not only started the Canterbury School, but encouraged similar foundations in other English monasteries. In southern England, however, Canterbury remained the centre of learning, and many ecclesiastics were attracted to it in consequence. Bede amply proves its efficiency as a school. And forasmuch as both Theodore and Hadrian were “fully instructed both in sacred and in secular letters, they gathered a crowd of disciples, and rivers of wholesome knowledge daily flowed from them to water the hearts of their hearers; and, together with the books of Holy Scripture, they also taught them the metrical art, astronomy, and ecclesiastical arithmetic. A testimony whereof is, that there are still living at this day some of their scholars, who are as well versed in the Greek and Latin tongues as in their own, in which they were born.”[62] Elsewhere he mentions some of these scholars by name. Albinus, already referred to as the first English abbot of St. Augustine’s, “was so well instructed in literary studies, that he had no small knowledge of the Greek tongue, and knew the Latin as well as the English, which was his native language.”[63] “A most learned man” was another disciple, Tobias, bishop of Rochester, who, besides having a great knowledge of letters, both ecclesiastical and general, learned the Greek and Latin tongues “to such perfection, that they were as well known and familiar to him as his native language.”[64]
Canterbury’s most notable scholar was Aldhelm, the first bishop of Sherborne. In him were united the learning of the Canterbury and the Irish monks, for he studied first under Maildulf, the Irish monk and scholar who founded and gave his name to Malmesbury, and then under Hadrian. When he went to be consecrated an incident befell him which at once shows his zeal for learning, and casts a welcome ray of light on the importation of books. While at Canterbury he heard of the arrival of ships at Dover, and thither he journeyed to see whether they had brought anything in his way. He found on board plenty of books, among them one containing the complete Testaments. He offered to buy it, but his price was too low; although, afterwards, when it was believed his prayers had delivered the owner from a storm, he secured it on his own terms.[65]
Aldhelm at length became abbot of Malmesbury (c. 675), and under him it grew to much greater eminence, and attracted a large number of students. Here, in the solitude of the forest tract, he passed his time in singing merry ballads to win the ear of the people for his more serious words, playing the harp, in teaching, and in reading the considerable library he had at hand. Bede describes him as a man “of marvellous learning both in liberal and ecclesiastical studies.” Judging by his writings he was in these respects in the forefront of his contemporaries, although his learning was heavy and pretentious. From them also it is perfectly evident he could make use not only of the Bible, but of lives of the saints, of Isidore, of the Recognitions of Clement, of the Acts of Sylvester, of writings by Sulpicius Severus, Athanasius, Gregory, Eusebius, and Jerome, as well as of Terence, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Persius, and Prosper, and some other authors.[66]
§ III
Meanwhile Northumbria had become one of the leading centres of learning in Europe, almost entirely through the labours and influence of Irish missionaries. St. Aidan, an ascetic of Iona who journeyed to Northumbria at King Oswald’s request, founded Lindisfarne, which became the monastic and episcopal capital of that kingdom. Aidan required all his pupils, whether religious or laymen, to read the Scriptures, or to learn the Psalms. The education of boys was a part of his system. Wherever a monastery was founded it became a school wherein taught the monks who had followed him from Scotland. Cedd, the founder and abbot of Lastingham, was Aidan’s pupil, so was his brother, the great bishop Ceadda (Chad), who succeeded him in his abbacy. At Lindisfarne was wrought by Eadfrith (d. 721) the beautiful manuscript of the Gospels now preserved in the British Museum, and a little later the fine cover for it. Lastingham, founded on the desolate moorland of North Yorkshire, “among steep and distant mountains, which looked more like lurking-places for robbers and dens of wild beasts, than dwellings of men,” upheld the traditions of the Columban houses for piety, asceticism, and studious occupations. Thither repaired one Owini, not to live idle, but to labour, and as he was less capable of studying, he applied himself earnestly to manual work, the while better-instructed monks were indoors reading.
In many directions do we observe traces of Aidan’s good work. Hild, the foundress of Whitby Abbey, was for a short time his pupil. Her monastery was famous for having educated five bishops, among them John of Beverley, and for giving birth, in Caedmon, to the father of English poetry. “Religious poetry, sung to the harp as it passed from hand to hand, must have flourished in the monastery of the abbess Hild, and the kernel of Bede’s story concerning the birth of our earliest poet must be that the brethren and sisters on that bleak northern shore spoke ‘to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.’ ”[67] Of Melrose, an offshoot of Aidan’s foundation, the sainted Cuthbert was an inmate. At Lindisfarne, where “he speedily learned the Psalms and some other books,” the great Wilfrid was a novice. Of his studies, indeed, we know little: he seems to have sought prelatical power rather than learning. But he and his followers were responsible for the conversion of the Northumbrian church from Columban to Roman usages, and the introduction of Benedictinism into the monasteries; and consequently for bringing the studies of the monks into line with the rules of Benedict’s order.
Such progress would have been impossible had not the rulers of Northumbria from Oswald to Aldfrith been friendly to Christianity. Aldfrith had been educated at Iona, and was a man of studious disposition. His predecessor had advanced Northumbria’s reputation enormously by giving Benedict Biscop (629-90) sites for his monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow.[68] We know enough of this Benedict to wish we knew very much more. He suggests to us enthusiasm for his cause, and energy and foresight in labouring for it. Naturally, Aldhelm’s writings have gained him far more attention in literary histories than the Northumbrian has received. But the influence of Benedict, a man of much learning, wide-travelled, was at least as great and as far-reaching. Lérins, the great centre of monachism in Gaul, and Canterbury under Theodore, had been his schools. On six occasions he flitted back and forth to Rome, and to go to Rome, in those days, was a liberal education, both in worldly and spiritual affairs. Not a little of his influence was the direct outcome of his book-collecting. From all his journeys to Rome he is said to have returned laden with books. He certainly came back from his fourth journey with a great number of books of all kinds.[69] He also obtained books at Vienne. His sixth and last journey to Rome was wholly devoted to collecting books, classical as well as theological. When he died he left instructions for the preservation of the most noble and rich library he had gathered together.[70] “If we consider how difficult, fatiguing, ... even dangerous a journey between the British Islands and Italy must have been in those days of anarchy and barbarism, we can appreciate the intensity of Benedict’s passion for beautiful and costly volumes.”[71] The library he formed was worthy of the labour, we cannot doubt: possibly was the best then in Britain. It served as the model for the still more famous collection at York. The scholarship of Bede, who used it in writing his works, proclaims its value for literary purposes.[72] Bede tells us he always applied himself to Scriptural study, and in the intervals of observing monastic discipline and singing daily in the church, he took pleasure in learning, or teaching, or writing.[73] The picture of Bede in his solitary monastery, leading a placid life among Benedict’s books, poring over the beautifully-wrought pages with the scholar’s tense calm to find the material in the Fathers and the historians, and to seek the apt quotation from the classics, must always flash to the mind at the mere mention of his name.[74] Every fact in connexion with his work testifies to the excellent equipment of his monastery for writing ecclesiastical history, and to the cordial way in which the religious co-operated for the advancement of learning and research.
§ IV
Canterbury, Malmesbury, Lindisfarne, Wearmouth and Jarrow, and York were like mountain-peaks tipped with gold by the first rays of the rising sun, while all below remains dark. Yet while not indicative of widespread means of instruction, the existence of these centres, and the character of the work done in them, suggests that at other places the same sort of work, on a smaller and less influential scale, soon began. At Lichfield, on the moorland at Ripon, in “the dwelling-place in the meadows” at Peterborough, in the desolate fenland at Crowland and at Ely, on the banks of the Thames at Abingdon, and of the Avon at Evesham, in the nunneries of Barking and Wimborne, at Chertsey, Glastonbury, Gloucester, in the far north at Melrose, and even perhaps at Coldingham, Christianity was speeding its message, and learning—such as it was, primitive and pretentious—caught pale reflections from more famous places. Now and again definite facts are met with hinting at a spreading enlightenment. Acca, abbot and bishop of Hexham, for example “gave all diligence, as he does to this day,” wrote Bede, “to procure relics of the blessed Apostles and martyrs of Christ.... Besides which, he industriously gathered the histories of their martyrdom, together with other ecclesiastical writings, and erected there a large and noble library.” Of this library, unfortunately, there is not a wrack left behind. A tiny school was carried on at a monastery near Exeter, where Boniface was first instructed. At the monastery of Nursling he was taught grammar, history, poetry, rhetoric, and the Scriptures; there also manuscripts were copied. Books were produced under Abbess Eadburh of Minster, a learned woman who corresponded with Boniface and taught the metric art. Boniface’s letters throw interesting light on our subject. Eadburh sent him books, money, and other gifts. He also wrote home asking his old friend Bishop Daniel of Winchester for a fine manuscript of the six major prophets, which had been written in a large and clear hand by Winbert: no such book, he explains, can be had abroad, and his eyes are no longer strong enough to read with ease the small character of ordinary manuscripts. In another letter written to Ecgberht of York is recorded an exchange of books, and a request for a copy of the commentaries of Bede.