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the monastery of Lindisfarne from the very first instead of that of Melrose, 16 and that it was only the great reputation of the prior, St. Boswell, that drew him to the latter. This surely implies that the home of his youth lay more within the sphere of influence of Lindisfarne than that of Melrose. Roddam, too, lies about half-way between Tyneside and Lauderdale, the first and second known scenes in which he makes an appearance. An additional argument in favour of the hypothetical claims of Roddam may, it will afterwards be seen, be drawn from its propinquity to Ilderton. On the other hand it must not be forgotten that the elision of 'ing' in place-names is of rare occurrence. At any rate, there is no reason to suppose that St. Cuthbert was a Scotsman in the nineteenth century application of that term, any more than that he was one in the seventh century application.

His vision of the assumption of St. Aidan's soul determined Cuthbert to embrace the monastic life; but in the meantime he bravely did garrison-duty as a soldier in defence of the Christian faith and the Bernician monarchy.17 He even had a second similar vision. This time it was the soul of a righteous prefect that was received into everlasting bliss.18 Returning from the south, possibly from the pursuit of the discomfited host of Penda in 654, he made his way in the depth of winter through the great waste that then stretched from the Tees to the Tyne. After crossing the Wear at Chester-le-Street,19 he providentially discovered some food for himself and his horse in the deserted shielings' of some shepherds. He proceeded to Melrose, where, leaving his horse and spear, he became the favourite disciple of St. Boswell. Two or three years later he became hosteller' at Ripon,2

20

16 Quidam Lindisfarnensem ecclesiam multos habere sanctos viros, quorum doctrina et exemplis instrui posset, noverat, sed fama praeventus Boisili sublimium virtutum monachi et sacerdotis, Mailros petere muluit.'-Bede, § 6.

17 in castris contra hostem cum exercitu sedens.'- Vita Lindisf. lib. i; Giles ed. vi. p. 361.

18 animam Praefecti in obitu suo ad caelum elevari vidit.'-Ibid.

.

19 Vita Lindisf. i. § 4. The Arras MS. has 'uuir' and 'Kuncacester;' the Treves MS. uiur' and cunca cestur.' Cf. Sedes episcopalis, quam in Lindisfarnensi insula superius diximus, in Cuncacestre restauratur.'-Hist. Dun. Eccl. iib. ii. cap. xiii.; Symeon of Durham, Rolls ed. i. p. 69. The Bollandists call the river Wir,' the place Leunckcester,' an error that has caused it to be identified with Lanchester.

praepositus hospitum,' Bede, § 7; Metrical Life of St. Cuthbert, bk. ii. 1. 1403, p. 42.

a monastery that had been placed under the care of Eata the abbot of Melrose. On the return of Wilfrid from Rome in 659, Eata and Cuthbert were forced to retire again to the banks of the Tweed, as they clung to the ancient Roman practice of fixing Easter (which had been confirmed by Pope Leo the Great in 443,21 and followed by the churches in Britain and Ireland), and refused to accept the reforms introduced on this subject by Pope Victor in 525, when Britain was cut off from the rest of the western patriarchate by the piratical fleets of the heathen Saxons.22 In 664, the Northumbrian witenagemot at Whitby definitely condemned the continuance of the Leonine usage, 23 and St. Colman was consequently obliged to withdraw from his see of Lindisfarne. Eata and Cuthbert chose this time to conform, and on St. Colman's parting recommendation, Eata was appointed abbot over the English monks who remained at Lindisfarne. Hardly had these changes been completed when St. Boswell died of the great plague then raging, and Cuthbert succeeded him as prior of Melrose. Boswell had been a great missionary on Tweedside, but Cuthbert surpassed him in this respect, spending often two or three weeks or even an entire month in mission tours among the mountains. It was an ancient custom that had survived in Britain to call churches after the saints who founded them. Probably we have a memorial of St. Boswell's personal labours in the dedication to him of the church of Tweedmouth, and it gives us a very much higher estimate of St. Cuthbert's work in the evangelisation of Central Britain, if we regard many of the churches dedicated to him as having been the actual scenes of his preaching, instead of mere resting places of his shrine. This latter idea, which has taken such root in popular fancy, rests solely on the authority of John Wessington, prior of Durham in the

21 Annales Cambriae, in anno; Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 830. This, the very opening statement of the chronicle, is perhaps the clearest explanation of the intricate point, on which see Haddon and Stubbs, Ecclesiastical Councils and Documents, I. p. 152.

22 The charge brought against the Celts that they were Quarto-decimans is of course absolutely without foundation.-Ibid.

23 It should be remembered that the fixing of Easter at Whitby was an act of the civil power. Far from attaching the great importance to the precise date of the Easter festival that Wilfrid and his followers did, the Roman Church, even at the present day, allows it to be kept according to the eastern calendar by Catholics of the Latin rite in the whole of Russia except the kingdom of Poland, and by Catholics of the Greek rite in Austria. It also recognises Colman as a Northumbrian saint.

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fifteenth century, and even he restricted it to the Cuthbertine churches on the western sea-board.24 If we accept it on Wessington's authority, we may just as well swallow the extraordinary Irish fairy tales of St. Cuthbert's infancy, which Wessington was equally ready to vouch for.25 Wessington makes no allusion to the Cuthbertine dedications in the south of Scotland. We may be certain that the great period of St. Cuthbert's missionary activity was while he was prior of Melrose, a fact that the monks of Lindisfarne and Durham seem to have considered it to be to their interest to gloss over. The sea and the mountain both had powerful attractions for St. Cuthbert. At Coldingham26 he is said to have walked into the waves up to his neck for several nights, singing hymns of praise. With Tydi and another monk he sailed in mid-winter down the Solway in a boat to the country of the Nithsdule Picts,27 probably to Kirkcudbright, and remained there storm-bound for nearly a fortnight. On another occasion we hear of his setting out from Melrose and journeying southward along the Tesgeta 28 and then of his visiting his adopted mother Kenswith at Rutlingaham,' which seemed to have been a village in a street running east and west,2 and therefore, probably, at any rate, not situated upon the Leader which flows in a southerly direction.

29

How long St. Cuthbert remained as prior at Melrose before he was transferred in the same office to Lindisfarne cannot be determined

24 in partibus occidentalibus,' see Raine, Saint Cuthbert, p. 43, n.

25 natione Hibernicus, regiis parentibus ortus,' ibid. p. 15, n.

28 Vita Lindi. ii. § 3, 'colodesbyrig,' Arras MS.; 'colodesburg,' Treves MS. The Bollandists misreading r' for 's' have 'Coloderbyrig.' The forms byrig' and burg deserve notice; as also the fact that in Coldingham we have a settlement of the descendants of this Colod who appears to have founded the burg which Bede calls urbs Coludi.' This is a strong argument against Kemble's idea that these patronymics in 'ing' referred to remote ancestors on the Continent.

Vita Lindisf. ii. § 4; ad terram pictorum ubi niudwæra legio,' Arras MS.; 'ubi dicitur niudera regio,' Treves MS. fo. 136, d. The reading regio' is no doubt more accurate than 'legio.' The Bollandists gravely print the extraordinary muddle ubi Mudpieralegis,' that first led me to suspect the general accuracy of their rendering of the place-names. Bede's life, § ii. has ad terram Pictorum, quæ Niduari vocatur.' See Skene, Celtic Scotland, i. 133, 238; ii. 208, 209.

28 So the Acta Sanctorum and the MSS. all read. The river was no doubt the Teviot, as is generally supposed.

29 At any rate Kenswith's house in extrema parte vici ad orientem posita videbatur. Cf. the conflagration at Bywell in 1285, Chronicon de Lanercost, p. 119; Arch. Ael. N.S. xiv. 374, n.

with certainty. The Lindisfarne life would lead us almost to suppose that it was not until Eata became bishop of Lindisfarne in 678.30 That he was not so very long prior of Lindisfarne may be gathered from the fact that there is only one detailed miracle ascribed to him during that period. One day, we are told, a prefect of King Egfrid, named Hildemer,31 arrived at Lindisfarne begging the prior to send a priest to administer the sacrament to his wife who was he said at the point of death, and afterwards to accord her the privilege of sepulture on Holy Island. Cuthbert decided to accompany Hildemer himself, and they set out on horseback together. On the way, he rightly conjectured that the real facts of the case were that the lady had gone out of her mind, and he comforted Hildemer with the assurance that by the time they reached his house she would come forth to greet them, perfectly cured in mind and body, and it was so. It seems not improbable that Hildemer's 'town' may be the present Ilderton, anciently called Hilderton.32 This incident has been admittedly taken out of the chronological order so as to immediately follow that relating to Rutlingaham,33 and for this there seems to be no other reason than that Roddam and Ilderton being so close together, the writer was led on from an event happening at the one to an event happening at the other by a very natural train of thought.

In the autumn of 685, Cuthbert was with great difficulty induced to quit the hermitage to which he had retired on Farne Island, in order to be elected bishop of Hexham at the synod held at Twyford on the Alne, the river that formed the boundary between the dioceses of Lindisfarne and Hexham. He made it a condition of accepting the dignity that his consecration should be deferred till the following spring, and again retired to Farne. Eata, who was still bishop of Lindisfarne, requested the bishop-elect of Hexham to come and see him at his monastery of Melrose. On the return journey Cuthbert

30 a venerabili et sancto episcopo Eata invitatus et coacte ad hanc insulam nostram quæ dicitur Lindisfarne . . . advenit.'-Vita Lindisf. lib. iii.; Giles, ed. p. 368.

31 Ibid. lib. ii. § 8; 'hildmær,' Arras MS.; Hildimer,' Treves MS. fo. 137,d; 'Hildmer,' Act. Sanct. Bolland.

$ 8.

32 Placita, 10 Ric. I.; Hodgson, Northumberland III. ii. p. 337, etc.

33 illa tempore ecclesiae nostrae Praepositus erat.'- Vita Lindisf. lib. ii.

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crossed the Tweed34 at Examford35 a little above the great earthwork of Wark, and Sibba,36 the lord of the vicus,' that preceded the medieval castle, besought him to bestow his benediction upon it. Accordingly Cuthbert entered the stronghold with solemn chants of psalms and hymns. Hearing that one of Sibba's servants lay at death's door, he blessed some water and sent another of the earl's household, named Baldhelm,37 with it to the sick man, who after the third draught fell asleep and recovered. On this being told to King Egfrid, he and all the Britons with him are said to have given St. Cuthbert the land of Cartmel, and the town called Suth-gedluit. This the saint in his turn entrusted to the good abbot Cyneferth.38

At Easter, 685, Cuthbert was consecrated at York, and it is said that Eata and he exchanged sees the same day. On the 20th of May, the day of Egfrid's defeat and death at Nechtansmere, Cuthbert was at Carlisle, and after consecrating on the following day the church of a

3 Ibid. iv. § 7, Giles ed. p. 376; 'twide,' Arras MS.; 'tuiude,' Treves MS. 140, d. The Bollandists have Opide,' but several writers have seen that the river between Melrose and Farne must necessarily be the Tweed. The chronology and geography of this incident rests on Bede's Life, § 25; ed. Giles, p. 291 :'Cum. . electus ad episcopatum Cuthbertus suam remeasset ad insulam evocavit eum venerabilis episcopus ejus Eata, atque ad suum colloquium Mailros venire praecepit. Quo expleto colloquio, dum domum redire coepisset,' etc.

35 We should never have looked for Examford' on the Tweed, but the Survey by Bowes and Ellerker in 1541 speaks of 'An other forde called Hexham forde enteringe into the said ryver of Twede in the said feldes of Warke upon the southe syde and stretcheth over unto the said feldes of Caldstreame upon the northe syde.'-Hodgson, Northd. III. ii. p. 200, n. There can then be no reasonable doubt of this being the same miracle as that recorded in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: Postquam vero sanctus Cuthbertus suscitavit puerum a mortuis in villa quae vocatur Examforda, dedit ei rex Egfridus terram quae vocatur Cartmel, et omnes Britanni cum eo, et villam illam quae vocatur Suthgedluit.'-Symeon of Durham, Rolls ed. p. 200.

36 Vita Lindisf. iv. § 7, Giles ed. p. 376; Sibba,' Arras MS.; Sibca,' Treves MS.; Sibba,' Act. Sanct. Bolland.

benedixit aquam et dedit ministro comitis nomine Baldhelmo.'- Bede, Vita S. Cuthberti, § 25, Giles ed. p. 292. Baldhelm's is the only proper name that is given by Bede, and not by the Lindisfarne biographer.

See above, note 35. When Examford' proves to be on the Tweed near Wark, and not, as but for the passage quoted from the Border Survey of 1541, we might have concluded on the Crake, near Egton in Furness, it is impossible any longer with certainty to identify the land and town, given by king Egfrid to St. Cuthbert, with Cartmel and Nether Kellet in North Lancashire. Considering the locality of the miracle and the general sphere of St. Cuthbert's interests, it would be more natural if Cartmel' should turn out to be the district of the Carter Fell, and Suth-gedluit' to be South Dean on the Jed. To judge from the details of the boundaries of the territories of the two Gedweardes' (Jedburghs) given by bishop Egred 831-847 to the church of St. Cuthbert, Hist. de S. Cutberto, §, Rolls ed. p. 201, this latter district was independent of them, and was already known by the name of ' Duna.'

VOL. XVI.

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