1 Note on names: the majority of personal names from this period have been received with now-standardized spelling — e.g., Bede, Wilfrid, Hadrian, and Aldhelm himself. In four cases, Maildubh (Aldhelm's Irish schoolmaster), Ehfrid (recipient of a famous letter from Aldhelm), Egwin (the bishop of Worcester who is said to have brought Aldhelm's body back to Malmesbury for burial), and Hlothhere (bishop of Wessex, 670-76), the spelling and even usage varies widely. For the first three, I adopt the spelling used by Rudolf Ehwald, Aldhelm's modern editor, and for Hlothhere I adopt the Kentish spelling of his name (as does Charles Plummer) to emphasize his Frankish origins. In direct quotations, of course, I leave the spelling as it stands.Google Scholar

2 For a succinct account of the determination of the title Brytenwalda (vice the longstanding modern usage Bretwalda), see Wormald, Patrick, The Times of Bede (Oxford, 2006), 131–32.Google Scholar

3 The major source for Aldhelm's life is the biography, from ca. 1125, in Book 5 of William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum , 2 vols. (Oxford, 2007); vol. 1 ed. and trans. Winterbottom, M., with the Commentary in vol. 2 by Thomson, R. M. (William knew, corrected, and greatly expanded on the earlier — ca. 1093-99 — vita by Faricius, ; “Vita S. Aldhelmi,” ed. Winterbottom, Michael, Journal of Medieval Latin 15 [2005]: 93-147.) Gwara, Scott, in the introductory volume to his edition of Aldhelm's Prosa de virginitate, CCL 124 (Turnhout, 2001), 22 and n. 10, 23-24 and n. 16, 32-34 and n. 54, 38, and 47-55, addresses the reliability of William's factual assertions concerning Aldhelm's life and his use of evidence. Overall, he finds William more corroborated by other evidence than not. Aldhelm's works are in Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, Rudolf, MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi 15 (Berlin, 1919), and in Aldhelm: The Prose Works , ed. and trans. Lapidge, Michael and Herren, Michael (Ipswich, 1979), and Aldhelm: The Poetic Works , trans. Lapidge, Michael and Rosier, James L. (Cambridge, 1985).Google Scholar

4 Brooks, Nicholas, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (London, 1984), 67–69, and Sharpe, Richard, “The Naming of Bishop Ithamar,” English Historical Review 117 (2002): 889-90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Bede, , Historia ecclesiastica 3, 20 (ed. Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, R. A. B. [Oxford, 1969], 278).Google Scholar

6 Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 181 n. 6. Lapidge (“The Career of Aldhelm,” Anglo-Saxon England 36 [2007]: 15-22) expands on his initial hypothesis that Centwine was Aldhelm's father, through self-acknowledged but informed conjecture; he highlights the importance of Aldhelm's own titulus for the church of Bugge (more on this dedicatory poem below).Google Scholar

7 Birinus's ethnic origin is unknown (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 650, refers to him as a “Roman” bishop). He was consecrated in Genoa by Asterius, the archbishop of Milan. Following his initial successes, he fades from historical sight, and the next bishop in Wessex is Agilbert, a Frank who had studied in southern Ireland and who had been consecrated in Gaul. He arrived in Wessex sometime towards the middle of the century and was installed in Dorchester by King Cenwalh (another son of Cynegils, he succeeded his father in 642, was driven into exile by Penda of Mercia and converted to Christianity during the three years, 645-48, he was in refuge with Anna, king of the East Angles). Cenwalh, however, reportedly grew weary of Agilbert's inability to speak English and, in 660, “sub-introduced” a bishop Wine in Winchester (Dorchester came under the control of King Wulfhere of Mercia). Wine had also been consecrated in Gaul. Agilbert next surfaces as the senior representative of the Roman party in the debate over Easter-reckoning at the Synod of Whitby in 664 (he had, apparently, been in Northumbria as a guest for some time, having in 663 ordained Wilfrid a priest) and, in 667/8, he becomes bishop of Paris. In that position, he entertained Theodore while Theodore was en route to his post as the new archbishop of Canterbury. In 670, Agilbert's nephew Hlothhere was consecrated by Theodore to the then-vacant see of Winchester (Wine, having quarreled with Cenwalh after some three years, had subsequently purchased the Mercian see of London from King Wulfhere). In 676, Hlothhere was succeeded by Hæddi, presumably a West Saxon. Upon Hæddi's death in 705, the see was divided with Daniel succeeding in Winchester and Aldhelm establishing a new see at Sherborne. This historical sketch of the episcopal framework for Aldhelm's life comes from Bede, Historia ecclesiastica 3, 7 and 25; 4, 1 and 12; and 5, 18 (ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , 232-37 and 294-309; 328-33 and 368-71; and 512-17, respectively, with the various dates taken largely from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle); cf. Stenton, Frank Sir, Anglo-Saxon England , 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971) 117–18, 122-23, and 131-33; Plummer, Charles, Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford, 1896) 2, 144-45; and Yorke, Barbara, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1995), 171-73. And see Fouracre, Paul, “The Origins of the Carolingian Attempt to Regulate the Cult of Saints,” The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages , ed. Howard-Johnston, James and Hayward, Paul Anthony (Oxford, 1999), 157-61, for a consideration of the interconnections between Agilbert and Hlothhere and both Frankish and Kentish politics. Interestingly, while the two Frankish bishops were not so honored, Birinus and Hæddi were venerated as saints, cults developing soon after their deaths; see Blair, John, “A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Saints,” Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West , ed. Thacker, Alan and Sharpe, Richard (Oxford, 2002), 517 and 537.Google Scholar

8 Gesta Pontificum Anglorum , chap. 190 (p. 506).Google Scholar

9 The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems , ed. van Kirk Dobbie, Elliott, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 6 (New York, 1942), xc–xcii, clxix, and 97-98; and Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ewald, , 219-20 (where Ehwald provides a Latin translation). See also Whitbread, L. G., “The Old English Poem Aldhelm,” English Studies 57 (1976): 193-97.Google Scholar

10 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 479–80 and 499-500.Google Scholar

11 See, however, Bede's cautionary tale ( Historia ecclesiastica 5, 6 [ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , 464–69]) concerning one of Bishop John of Beverley's young clergymen.Google Scholar

12 Stephanus, Eddius, Vita S. Wilfridi , chap. 2 (ed. Colgrave, Bertram [Cambridge, 1927], 5–7).Google Scholar

13 For all three, see my article, “Aldhelm of Malmesbury and the Irish,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 99C (1999): 1–22. Lapidge's, Michael “The Career of Aldhelm,” which fortunately appeared during the revision stage of the present article, proposes a radical revision of Aldhelm's early schooling with the Irish. Lapidge (“Career,” 22-48) proposes that Aldhelm studied with Adomnán at Iona. “Two classes of evidence” (27) support his hypothesis: Aldhelm's rhythmical Latin verse and connections of various glossaries to Aldhelm and to Adomnán. However, while the first certainly does require an Irish schoolmaster (as I note in regard to Maildubh), there is nothing pointing exclusively to Iona; and, while Lapidge, building on the work of other scholars, does securely link Aldhelm to the Leiden and Épinal-Erfurt glossaries and makes a good case (46) for “a link” between Adomnán and the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary, the linkages are independent and separable. In contrast, against any association of Aldhelm and Adomnán is the telling lack on the part of Aldhelm of any knowledge of Adomnán's De locis sanctis or his Vita S. Columbae. Most troubling, this hypothesis necessitates the dismissal of the traditional account of Aldhelm's early schooling under Maildubh, an account not just endorsed, in telling detail, by William of Malmesbury but corroborated by a range of evidence for both Maildubh's historical existence and his schoolmastering of Aldhelm at Malmesbury (as set out in my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury and the Irish,” 5-9), which Lapidge simply ignores. In particular, all the early variants of the place-name supports its derivation from “Maildubh” (or, more properly, its Old Irish counterpart, Máeldub). Perhaps most strikingly, a fellow monk, in writing to Lull to recall the friendship of their early years under Abbot Eaba (apparently Aldhelm's immediate successor), refers to Malmesbury as “Maldubia civitas” (S. Bonifatii et Lulii Epistolae , ed. Tangl, Michael, Ep. 135, MGH, Epistolae Selectae 1 [Berlin, 1916], 274); presumably, if Maildbuh had not existed, Archbishop Lull would have been aware of it.Google Scholar

14 See my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury and the Irish,” 4, 7, 10 and 14-15; and my “‘Claviger aetherius’: Aldhelm of Malmesbury between Ireland and Rome,” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 131 (2001): 13–14. On these issues, my articles incorporate findings by, amongst others, Hughes, Kathleen, Crónin, Dáibhí Ó, Bischoff, Bernhard, McNamara, Martin, Herren, Michael, Orchard, Andy, and Lapidge, Michael. That Maildubh was from such an intellectual coterie as the Romani is speculation based on his student Aldhelm's knowledgeable censure of errant calculations of Easter (notably in his letter to Geraint, which shall be dealt with in the text) and his sensitivity to Antiochene exegesis. On the latter, see my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury and the Paris Psalter: A Note on the Survival of Antiochene Exegesis,” Journal of Theological Studies 38 (1987): 381-82. While Aldhelm was one of the first to list the fourfold scheme of exegesis that became traditional — historia, allegoria, tropologia, anagoge — he signaled, in the introductory part of his Epistola ad Acircium (Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, [n. 3 above], 74), his sensitivity to Antiochene concerns with historical reality: “quamvis catholici patres spiritalem semonum medullam enucleantes latentemque in litteris sensum perscrutantes allegorice ad sinagogae tipum retulerint, nullatenus tamen sacrosanctae matris personam fuisse historica relatione infitiari noscuntur.” It may well be that, here, Aldhelm directly reflects a schooling in the Irish adaptation of Antiochene exegesis; see McNamara, Martin, The Psalms in the Early Irish Church (Sheffield, 2000), 272, who notes that the Irish used sensus as a specific technical term denoting “the mystical sense of Scripture” in distinction to the historical interpretation (this usage was restricted to Hiberno-Latin texts).Google Scholar

15 See my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury's Social Theology: The Barbaric Heroic Ideal Christianised,” Peritia 15 (2001): 58–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 202 (“inter tot tantosque saecularium rerum tumultuantes strepitus constitutum et ecclesiastica pastoralis curae sollicitudine depressum”) and 320 (“pastoralis curae sarcina gravatus negotiorumque terrenorum ponderibus oppressus ita perniciter … quia securae quietis spatium et morosam dictandi intercapidinem scrupulosa ecclesiastici regiminis sollicitudo denegabat et tumultuans saecularium strepitus obturbabat. Otium namque clandistinae quietis et remotio secretae solitudinis largam scribendi materiam dictantibus affatim conferunt, sicut econtrario … infesta saecularium negotia … violenter auferunt”). Aldhelm is noting not just that he is aware of the distinction between the two spheres of the “affairs of state,” but also that he is intimately involved in both.Google Scholar

17 The judgment is that of Michael Lapidge ( Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, [n. 3 above], 1). We are, of course, dependent on William of Malmesbury's great biography for the preservation of many of Aldhelm's letters and pertinent charters, as well as for a deepening of Aldhelm's life.Google Scholar

18 Cf. Lapidge, Michael, “Aldhelm's Latin Poetry and Old English Verse,” in Anglo-Latin Literature 600-899 (London, 1996), 249–50.Google Scholar

19 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 202; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 45-46.Google Scholar

20 Again, , my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury's Social Theology.” Google Scholar

21 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 142–43; Aldhelm: The Poetic Works , trans. Lapidge, and Rosier, (n. 3 above), 91.Google Scholar

22 Aldhlemi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 15; Aldhelm: The Poetic Works , trans. Lapidge, and Rosier, , 48.Google Scholar

23 The one fixed date is that of Aldhelm's death, noted in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 709; William of Malmesbury (Gesta Pontificum Anglorum [n. 3 above], chap. 188.3 [p. 502]) states that Aldhelm was not less than seventy years old when he died (thus placing his birth in the later 630s), and (chap. 231 [p. 576]) that Aldhelm died in the thirty-fourth year after he had been made abbot by Bishop Hlothhere. William also prints (chap. 199 [pp. 524-27]) the text of Hlothhere's grant, dated 26 August 675, of Malmesbury to Aldhelm (more on this grant below).Google Scholar

24 In his references to Malmesbury and to Aldhelm in both his Gesta Regum Anglorum (ed. Mynors, R. A. B., Thomson, R. M., and Winterbottom, M. [Oxford, 1998], chap. 29 [pp. 44–45]) and his Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (chap. 189 [pp. 502–5] and chap. 197 [pp. 520–24]), William of Malmesbury's emphasis is very much not just on Aldhelm's success in rescuing the foundation from its early impecuniousness but in enriching it.Google Scholar

25 See Coates, Simon, “Venantius Fortunatus and the Image of Episcopal Authority in Late Antique and Early Merovingian Gaul,” English Historical Review 115 (2000): 1122–24; and Lapidge, Michael, “Knowledge of the Poems of Venantius Fortunatus in Early Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Latin Literature 600-899, 400-403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, (n. 3 above), 11, line 6 (William of Malmesbury's reading is “Clauiger o caeli, portam qui pandis in aethra”).Google Scholar

27 The term “sub-monastery” usefully distinguishes those daughter foundations that remain under the rule of the abbot of the mother-house from those that have their own abbot.Google Scholar

28 Apparently, the only dedication to John the Baptist in early Anglo-Saxon England; see Cubitt, Catherine, “Universal and Local Saints in Anglo-Saxon England,” Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West (n. 7 above), 446.Google Scholar

29 Gesta Pontificum Anglorum , chap. 197-98 (pp. 520–25) for Aldhelm's primary monastic foundations; chap. 216 (pp. 544-47) for St. Michael's and the construction of St. Mary's; chap. 217 (pp. 546-49) for the church at Wareham; chap. 222 (pp. 558-61) for the marble altar and Aldhelm's church at Bruton; chap. 225 (p. 566) for the cathedral at Sherborne (this cathedral, though abandoned by the Normans who moved the see to Salisbury, was partially rebuilt in 1122 “incorporating parts” of the Anglo-Saxon building; see Fernie, Eric, “Architecture and the Effects of the Norman Conquest,” England and Normandy in the Middle Ages , ed. Bates, David and Curry, Anne [London, 1994], 107 n. 4). Cf. Thomson, , Commentary (n. 3 above), 330-33, “Appendix B, The Churches of Malmesbury Abbey.” Also see Haslam, Jeremy, ed., Anglo-Saxon Towns in Southern England (Chicester, 1984), 90-94 for Bradford-on-Avon (with maps and town-plan); 111-17 for Malmesbury (with maps and town-plan); 174-76 for Bruton (with a map); 176-78 for Frome (with a map); 208-12 for Sherborne; and 213-14 for Wareham.Google Scholar

30 Dudley, E. Jackson, C. and Fletcher, Eric G. M., “Aldhelm's Church near Wareham,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 26 (1963): 1–5.Google Scholar

31 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 524–28; Aldhelm: The Poetic Works , ed. Lapidge, and Rosier, , 177-79.Google Scholar

32 Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, chap. 228 (p. 572). William tells us that Aldhelm had given the village (villa) of Doulting to the monks of Glastonbury (an Irish foundation), reserving the use to himself for his lifetime; however, evidence of such a donation does not survive in the Glastonbury archives (see Abrams, Lesley, Anglo-Saxon Glastonbury [Woodbridge, 1996], 114; and eadem, “A Single-Sheet Facsimile of a Diploma of King Ine for Glastonbury,” The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey , ed. Abrams, Lesley and Carley, James P. [Woodbridge, 1991], 127-28 and n. 141). See Warren, F. E., The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church , ed. Stevenson, Jane, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, 1987), 85-88, for the building of churches in wood as an Irish practice; the construction of such a wooden church is described in detail in The Hisperica Famina: I. The A-Text , ed. Herren, Michael W. (Toronto, 1974), 108-9, lines 547-60: “De oratorio” (see also 187). For the Anglo-Saxon use of wood for churches, see Foot, Sarah, Monastic Life in Anglo-Saxon England, c. 600-900 (Cambridge, 2006), 111-16.Google Scholar

33 Gesta Pontificum Anglorum , chap. 229-32 (pp. 572–79); cf. Thomson, , Commentary, 327-28.Google Scholar

34 Cf. Stenton, Frank Sir, Anglo-Saxon England (n. 7 above), 151; and Taylor, H. M., “The Eighth-Century Doorway at Somerford Keynes,” Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 88 (1969): 68–73.Google Scholar

35 Edwards, Heather, The Charters of the Early West Saxon Kingdom , British Archaeological Report 198 (Oxford, 1988), 93–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Jones, W. H., An Account of the Saxon Church of St. Laurence, Bradford-on-Avon (Bradford-on-Avon, 1907) and The Life and Times of Saint Aldhelm (Bath, 1878).Google Scholar

37 See now Blair, John, “Bradford-on-Avon,” Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England , ed. Lapidge, Michael et al. (Oxford, 1999), 72; and, for the quotation, Taylor, H. M. and Taylor, Joan, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1965), 1:86-89 (and, for illustrations, 2:401-2).Google Scholar

38 Dudley, E. Jackson, C. and Fletcher, Eric G. M., “Porch and Porticus in Saxon Churches,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 19 (1956): 5. See also Fernie, Eric, The Architecture of the Anglo-Saxons (London, 1983), 145-53.Google Scholar

39 Specifically, at the frontier of the sub-kingdom of the Hwicce; see Dark, K. R., Civitas to Kingdom (London, 1994), 107–8. In addition to Aldhelm's receiving grants from both Mercian and West Saxon, a further indication of Malmesbury's frontier condition would be that Bede had the story of the errant military aide of King Cenred of Mercia from Bishop Pehthelm of Whithorn, previously a monk at Malmesbury under Aldhelm (Historia ecclesiastica 5, 13 [ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , 498-503]). Augustine's abortive meeting with British bishops also took place “in confinio Huicciorum et Occidentalium Saxonum” (Bede, Historia ecclesiastica 2, 2 [ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , 134]). Barker, Katherine, “Institution and Landscape in Early Medieval Wessex: Aldhelm of Malmesbury, Sherborne and Selwoodshire,” Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 106 (1984): 33: Malmesbury, Bradford-on-Avon, Frome, and Sherborne are all to the west of the watershed marked by Selwood forest.Google Scholar

40 Edwards, , Charters , 126. For this summary account of the grants received by Aldhelm at Malmesbury, I rely largely upon the findings and judgments of Heather Edwards's rigorous scrutinies (a study conducted under the supervision of Patrick Wormald), as confirmed in the main by Kelly, S. E., ed., Charters of Malmesbury Abbey, British Academy Anglo-Saxon Charters 11 (Oxford, 2005); in the note citing each charter, I quote the specific overall judgments of both Edwards and Kelly.Google Scholar

41 Edwards, , Charters , 90–92, and Kelly, , Malmesbury, 133-38; the charters are S71 and S73 (S = Sawyer, P. H. Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography [London, 1968]; texts at Kelly, Malmesbury, 134 and 135. S73 would add thirty hides west of the Fosse Way [at Long Newnton]. Edwards's overall judgment of the grant [90], “appears to be authentic”; Kelly's [135], “essentially acceptable” [both judgments pertain to the shorter version]). See also Scharer, Anton, Die angelsächsische Königsurkunde im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert (Vienna, 1982), 148-50.Google Scholar

42 Edwards, , Charters , 97–100, and Kelly, , Malmesbury, 142-46 (S231 and S234); texts at Kelly, Malmesbury, 142 and 143-44. S234 would add another eight hides to the grant at Kemble Wood, as well as thirty hides east of Braydon Wood and five hides at the confluence of the Avon and Wylye rivers. Edwards's overall judgment (97), “basically authentic”; Kelly's (144), “of very uncertain authenticity, although there can be little doubt that they are based on early documentation.” Google Scholar

43 Edwards, , Charters , 93–94, and Kelly, , Malmesbury, 138-41 (S1169); text at Kelly, Malmesbury, 139. Presumably, this is the Berhtwald who is identified by Stephanus, Eddius (Vita S. Wilfridi [n. 12 above], chap. 40 [ed. Colgrave, , 80-81]) as Æthilred's nephew and who gave land to Wilfrid for a monastery. For his status as a “ruler” of some sort, see Sims-Williams, Patrick, “St. Wilfrid and Two Charters Dated AD 676 and 680,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988): 177-79 (reprinted in idem, Britain and Early Christian Europe [Aldershot, 1995]). Edwards's overall judgment (93), “appears to be authentic”; Kelly's (140), “very probable that a genuine seventh-century diploma underlies the present text.” Google Scholar

44 Edwards, , Charters , 98.Google Scholar

45 Edwards, , Charters , 94–97, and Kelly, , Malmesbury, 147-50 (S1170); text at Kelly, , Malmesbury, 147. Aldhelm received land at Startley and Sutton Benger in exchange for land east of Braydon Wood. Edwards's overall judgment (94), “appears to be authentic”; Kelly's (148), “authenticity … uncertain” (more on this below).Google Scholar

46 See Edwards, , Charters , 94–97. of Malmesbury, William, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (n. 3 above), chap. 211.3 (p. 536), claimed that Aldhelm had increased the monastery's land-holdings from sixty hides to over four hundred, all of which then lay so close to the monastery that they could be visited in a single day. Thacker, Alan, “England in the Seventh Century,” New Cambridge Medieval History 1, ed. Fouracre, Paul (Cambridge, 2005), 495, notes that the assessed holdings of some 110 hides of the joint monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow equated to “over a third of the size, on the evidence of the Tribal Hidage, of a small province or kingdom.” Google Scholar

47 At Garsdon, Gauze Brook, and Rodbourne; Edwards, , Charters , 105–7, and Kelly, , Malmesbury, 150-53 (S243); text at Kelly, , Malmesbury, 151. Edwards's overall judgment (105), “may well be wholly authentic” and (107), “The wording and content of this document seem equally to indicate that it is a genuine charter of Ine”; Kelly's (151), “fundamentally authentic.” Google Scholar

48 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, (n. 3 above), 507–9, 512-14, and 514-15.Google Scholar

49 The text of the charter (S1245) is also at Kelly, , Malmesbury , 125–27 (with discussion at 127-31) and at BCS 37 (BCS = Birch, W. de G., ed., Cartularium Saxonum [London, 1885-93]).Google Scholar

50 On Hlothhere's use of such a formula, see also Sims-Williams, Patrick, “Continental Influence at Bath Monastery in the Seventh Century,” Anglo-Saxon England 4 (1975): 5–7 (reprinted in idem, Britain and Early Christian Europe); and, for associated usage by Aldhelm, see idem, “St Wilfrid and Two Charters Dated AD 676 and 680,” 165-66. Additionally, Edwards notes that the sanction and dating clause “may well derive from an authentic charter of the 670s.” Kelly (Malmesbury, 129-30) confirms the “convincing” seventh-century nature of the dating clause, the “humility formula,” and the witness-list (in particular, the spelling of Bishop Hlothhere's name as “Cleutherius [is] unlikely to be later than the seventh century”).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 Edwards, , Charters , 85–87.Google Scholar

52 That Maildubh's foundation was a school (attached to his hermitage) would seem to have been the distinct tradition in our earliest surviving medieval accounts as subsumed in both William of Malmesbury's account and, separately, in Thomas of Malmesbury's Eulogium historiarum (1361), which seemingly drew on traditional accounts of Maildubh preserved at Malmesbury. See my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury and the Irish,” 6 n. 27 and Luce, Richard H., The History of the Abbey and Town of Malmesbury (Malmesbury, 1929 [repr. 1979]), 4–5. See also Foot, Sarah, “Anglo-Saxon Minsters: A Review of Terminology,” Pastoral Care before the Parish , ed. Blair, John and Sharpe, Richard (Leicester, 1992), 214-25.Google Scholar

53 Cook, A. S., “A Putative Charter to Aldhelm,” Studies in English Philology , ed. Malone, Kemp and Ruud, Martin B. (Minneapolis, 1929), 254–57.Google Scholar

54 Edwards, , Charters , 87; cf. Aldhelm: The Prose Works , ed. Lapidge, and Herren, (n. 3 above), 173. But the presence of Aldhelmian phrases (“nearly every line of the poem reproduces a phrase from somewhere or other in Aldhelm's corpus”) is used by Lapidge (ibid., 17) to argue for the identification of Aldhelm as the author of the first rhythmical poem included by Ehwald (Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, [n. 3 above], 523-28). Lapidge (“The Career of Aldhelm” [n. 6 above], 48–52) continues to deny any authenticity to Hlothhere's grant and argues for 682×685 as the beginning of Aldhelm's abbacy. His arguments, however, are highly conjectural and require him to dismiss as a “forgery” or a “fabrication” or “suspicious” a half-dozen charters with conflicting dating; see his nn. 156-59.Google Scholar

55 Kelly, , Malmesbury , 128–29.Google Scholar

56 Edwards, , Charters , 100–105. For new editions of both the Old English and Latin texts, see Edwards, , “Two Documents from Aldhelm's Malmesbury,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 59 (1986): 16-19; Edwards's critical edition of the Old English text has now been superseded by Rauer, Christine, “Pope Sergius I's Privilege for Malmesbury,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s., 37 (2006): 271-76. The texts are also found, respectively, at BCS 105 and 106, and the Latin text also at Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 512-14.Google Scholar

57 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 494.Google Scholar

58 Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (n. 3 above), chaps. 218-21 (pp. 548–59).Google Scholar

59 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 15, lines 17-32. Lapidge (“The Career of Aldhelm,” 52-64) provides a highly plausible reconstruction of Aldhelm's activities in Rome, involving fruitful study of Latin epigrammatic inscriptions (tituli).Google Scholar

60 Cf. Orchard, Andy, The Poetic Art of Aldhelm (Cambridge, 1994), 211–12.Google Scholar

61 Rauer, Christine (“Pope Sergius I's Privilege,” 261–81) and Anton, H. H. (Studien zu den Klosterprivilegien der Päpste im frühen Mittelalter [Berlin, 1975], 60-61, 67-82, 91, and 117) base their conclusions on close stylistic comparisons of the formulaic nature of the document with other papal privileges and documents (particularly with the Liber diurnus). Rauer also (266-68) argues, persuasively, that the Latin version is the original (Edwards, , “Two Documents from Aldhelm's Malmesbury,” 9-10, believed the Old English “the earlier of the surviving versions and … the Latin … a translation of it.”).Google Scholar

62 Bede, , Historia Abbatum , chap. 6 (ed. Carolus, [Charles] Plummer [Oxford, 1896], 1:368–70).Google Scholar

63 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 514–15 (text also at Kelly, , Malmesbury [n. 40 above], 159-60 and at BCS [n. 49 above], 114).Google Scholar

64 Edwards, , Charters (n. 35 above), 115–16; cf. Cubitt, Catherine, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c. 650-c. 850 (London, 1995), 260. Kelly, (Malmesbury, 38, 56-58, 127-31, and 160-65) is not so certain (more on this below) but would link a rejection of the authenticity of Hlothhere's grant with Aldhelm's testament, arguing that both, in the form in which they have reached us, were devised for “polemical purposes” and reached their final form during the period in which William of Malmesbury was revising the first edition of his Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, ca. 1125-1135, a period when the abbey was in especial need of defending its independence against episcopal encroachment. Both, though, were known, at least in substance, to Faricius, with this biographer of Aldhelm from a generation earlier (as we noted, William cites his work) specifically noting that Sergius's bull guaranteed freedom from both secular and episcopal interference and that Aldhelm's testament, deposited “in Meldunensis ecclesie armario,” provided for the free election of the abbot by the monks (“Vita S. Aldhelmi,” ed. Winterbottom, [n. 3 above], 105 and 110).Google Scholar

65 See Chaplais, Pierre, “The Letter from Bishop Wealdhere of London to Archbishop Brihtwold of Canterbury: The Earliest Original ‘Letter Close’ Extant in the West,” Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries , ed. Parkes, M. B. and Watson, A. G. (London, 1978), 3–23; and Whitelock, Dorothy, ed., English Historical Documents, c. 500-1042 (London, 1955), #164 (729-30), for the letter from Wealdhere, bishop of London, to Berhtwald, archbishop of Canterbury, touching on this dispute (text at BCS 115). William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, chap. 223.7 (p. 562) identifies Berhtwald as a fellow student and old friend of Aldhelm's, who as archbishop would consecrate him bishop of Sherborne.Google Scholar

66 Daniel, Bede tells us ( Historia ecclesiastica, Praefatio [ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, (n. 5 above), 4]), was his informant on church matters West Saxon. Aldhelm is described by Bede (Historia ecclesiastica 5, 18 [ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , 514]) as administering his diocese strenuissime. Daniel, who also corresponded with Boniface, resigned his see in 744, having become blind, and retired to Malmesbury as a monk.Google Scholar

67 See of Malmesbury, William, Gesta Regum Anglorum (n. 24 above), chap. 36 (pp. 52–53); and cf. Aldhelmi Opera (n. 3 above), 229 n. 1. We shall take particular, and telling, note in the text of the concurring findings of Kelly, Malmesbury, 164-65. Stenton, Frank Sir, Anglo-Saxon England (n. 7 above), 160, treats Aldhelm's dispositions as normative.Google Scholar

68 Edwards, , Charters , 115–16. It would be more sensible to view this Northumbrian synod — which reached a final settlement of the long dispute of Wilfrid with Northumbrian kings over the disposition, inter alia, of his monasteries and which was apparently hosted by Abbess Ælffled — as mirroring the West Saxon synod that, in the preceding year, had endorsed Aldhelm's settlement (see Stephanus, Eddius, Vita S. Wilfridi [n. 12 above], chap. 60 [ed. Colgrave, , 128-33]).Google Scholar

69 For the “incorporation of direct speech” into documents as modeled on the accounts of proceedings of papal synods, see Cubitt, Catherine, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils , 81–84.Google Scholar

70 Kelly, , Malmesbury , 164–65.Google Scholar

71 Edward, , Charters , 127; Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, chap. 226 (pp. 568-71).Google Scholar

72 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, (n. 3 above), 508–9; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, (n. 3 above), 174. Wormald, Patrick, Times of Bede (n. 2 above), 162 n. 14, singles out this admonitory section of Hlothhere's charter as, along with the witness-list, fitting “the early West Saxon pattern well.” Overall, he puts the charter in his “Class III” (141), which “show clear signs of forgery or interpolation, but have what might be called ‘original symptoms’; they offer corroborative, but not unsupported, testimony.” Google Scholar

73 See in particular the second paragraph of the privilege as edited by Ehwald, , Aldhelmi Opera , 513–14.Google Scholar

74 Ibid., 515. Bishop Erkenwald's foundation charter for Barking (dated 677), where he installed his sister Ethelburga as first abbess, similarly assures to the nuns perpetual freedom from episcopal control and the right to elect their own abbess; see Hart, Cyril, The Early Charters of Eastern England (Leicester, 1966), 117–23, with the text of the charter (S1246) on 122-23 (the charter also refers to privileges obtained orally from Pope Agatho, and it was witnessed, amongst others, by bishops Wilfrid and Hæddi); and idem, The Early Charters of Essex (Leicester, 1971), 10: “The text of [Erkenwald's] charter may now be accepted as wholly authentic.” It was to Hildelith (Ethelburga's successor as abbess) and her nuns that Aldhelm addressed his De virginitate. See Wormald, Patrick, The Times of Bede, 144-45, for a consideration of Bishop Erkenwald as a “source or channel” of diplomatic desiderata and formulae in both Essex and Wessex.Google Scholar

75 For a similar (and, perhaps, innovative) concern by Archbishop Theodore for the independence of monasteries, see Brett, Martin, “Theodore and the Latin Canon Law,” Archbishop Theodore , ed. Lapidge, Michael (Cambridge, 1995), 127–28. Indeed, Aldhelm's efforts in this area were fully in line with the policy of Archbishop Theodore, as evidenced both by the provisions of the third chapter of the Synod of Hertford (672/73), the first national synod over which the archbishop presided (see Bede, , Historia ecclesiastica 4, 5 [ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , 348-55]), and by numerous canons in his penitential (see Book 2, 6 in the Die Canones Theodori Cantuariensis und ihre Überlieferungsformen , ed. Finsterwalder, Paul W. [Weimar, 1929], 319-21).Google Scholar

76 Lapidge, Michael ( Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 204 n. 2) initially rejected Sergius's bull as “patently spurious”; he then upgraded (“Aldhelm,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 6 vols. [Oxford, 2004], 1:261) his judgment of it to “not beyond suspicion” and further judged that “if genuine, it would be consonant with Aldhelm's ambitions on Malmesbury's behalf”; and now (“The Career of Aldhelm” [n. 6 above], 62-64) he agrees that a genuine privilege of Pope Sergius is involved and, in particular (64), he notes that “the endorsements by the kings of Wessex and Mercia (Ine and Æthelred) preserved in the Old English version are likely to be an original feature.” Google Scholar

77 Aldhelm's endorsement survives solely in the Old English version of the privilege (Edwards, , “Two Documents” [n. 56 above], 13 and 17), though William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (n. 3 above), chap. 222.5-6 (p. 560), both describes the occasion and paraphrases the endorsement; see also Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 514; and Edwards, , Charters (n. 35 above), 104. Rauer (“Pope Sergius I's Privilege” [n. 56 above], 268), pace Edwards, has demonstrated, persuasively, that the Latin is the original, representing a “more or less formulaic document,” while the Old English version “displays a distinctively … quasi-homiletic idiom.” It may be, then, that the Old English translator was concerned to demonstrate the particular relevance of the bull to Malmesbury within the society of the time (a translation as interpretive as this Old English version would seem to be has independent value as a witness).Google Scholar

78 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 500–502.Google Scholar

79 See the revised dates as given by Lapidge, Michael, “Wilfrid,” Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England (n. 37 above), 474–75.Google Scholar

80 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 500 n. 1.Google Scholar

81 Stephanus, Eddius, Vita S. Wilfridi (n. 12 above), chap. 60 (ed. Colgrave, , 128–33).Google Scholar

82 Herren, Michael in Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 150–51.Google Scholar

83 Whitelock, Dorothy, English Historical Documents, c. 500-1042 (n. 65 above), 730.Google Scholar

84 As well as Wilfrid's own conception of Gaulish episcopal dignity and might; see Mayr-Harting, Henry, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England , 3rd ed. (London, 1991), 132–34.Google Scholar

85 See my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury's Social Theology” (n. 15 above), 61.Google Scholar

86 See my “Legal Terminology in Anglo-Saxon England: the Trimoda Necessitas Charter,” Speculum 57 (1982): 847–48.Google Scholar

87 Aldhelm, and Wilfrid, , exact contemporaries (both were born in the 630s and both died in 709) though from opposite ends of Anglo-Saxon England, were united by their devotion to the same idée fixe: a bitter opposition to Irish influence in the English church (for Aldhelm, see my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury and the Irish” [n. 13 above], particularly 14-22; and, for Wilfrid's career as a combative rejectionist of the Irish tradition, see Charles-Edwards, T. M., Early Christian Ireland [Cambridge, 2000], 318–26). Ironically, each began his ecclesiastical life in Irish foundations: Aldhelm at Malmesbury and Wilfrid at Lindisfarne.Google Scholar

88 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, (n. 3 above), 317–18; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, (n. 3 above), 127-28.Google Scholar

89 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 497. In the only surviving copy of this letter, the name of Æthilwald's fellow student (“meo tuoque clienti”) is given as “Wynfrido” (cf. the facsimile edition, Sancti Bonifatii Epistolae [Codex Vindobonensis 751] , ed. Unterkircher, Franz [Graz, 1971], fol. 36r, second line from the bottom). This was emended by Ludwig Traube to “Wihtfrido” on the grounds (as Ehwald gives them, Aldhelmi Opera, ed. idem, 497 n. 14) that whereas Aldhelm's letter to a Wihtfrid exists, neither Aldhelm nor Boniface (born Wynfrid) makes any reference to any personal relationship with the other (amidst his missionary labors, Boniface is not shy about asking his fellow countrymen at home to send him books, including the works of Bede, but it is left to Boniface's disciple and successor, Lull, the former student at Malmesbury (apparently under Aldhelm's successor, Abbot Eaba; cf. Kelly, , Malmesbury [n. 40 above], 10-11), to write requesting “Aldhelmi episcopi aliqua opuscula … ad consolationem peregrinationis meae et ob memoriam ipsius beati antestitis” (S. Bonifatii et Lullii epistolae , ed. Tangl, [n. 13 above], 158 and 144). However, Aldhelm does write to Wynberht, Boniface's teacher ( Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 502-3, and 502 n. 1), and the codex that preserves Æthilwald's letter is primarily a collection of the letters of Boniface.Google Scholar

90 Howlett, David ( British Books in Biblical Style [Dublin, 1997], 128 and 254) considers Aedeluald, bishop of Lindisfarne (721-40), “probably identical” with this pupil of Aldhelm's. His predecessor in the see of Lindisfarne, Eadfrith (698-721), was also one of the possibilities for Ehfrid, that student of Aldhelm's to whom he wrote such an exuberantly scolding letter upon Ehfrid's returning from school in Ireland; see Brown, Michelle P., The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, 2003), 105.Google Scholar

91 Schröbler, Ingeborg, “Zu den Carmina rhythmica in der Wiener Handschrift der Bonifatiusbriefe (MGH AA XV, 517 ff.) oder über den Stabreim in der lateinischen Poesie der Angelsachsen,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 79 (1957): 2–7. Unfortunately, Æthilwald's poems to Aldhelm survive in only one manuscript. However, if Wynfrid (that is, Boniface) did study with Aldhelm along with an Æthilwald (see discussion in n. 89 above), we can only imagine the implications if the latter were, as Ehwald argued, the future king. See now Miles, Brent, ed. and trans., “The Carmina Rhythmica of Æthilwald: Edition, Translation and Commentary,” Journal of Medieval Latin 14 (2004): 73-117.Google Scholar

92 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 528–37.Google Scholar

93 Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 147; Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 522-23 and 536; and Vita Guthlaci, chaps. 45 and 49 (Colgrave, Bertram, trans., Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac [Cambridge, 1956], 138-39, gives “Ofa” as the Old English equivalent).Google Scholar

94 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 524–28; Aldhelm: The Poetic Works , trans. Lapidge, and Rosier, (n. 3 above), 171-79. For a new edition and translation, see Howlett, David, “Aldhelmi Carmen Rhythmicum,” Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi (Bulletin du Cange) 53 (1995): 119-40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

95 The name of the recipient has been deduced through a typically Aldhelmian pun, setting the lector in apposition in the first two lines of the poem as casses (= Old English helm) and obses (= gisl); see Aldhelm: The Poetic Works , trans. Lapidge, and Rosier, , 172.Google Scholar

96 See my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury and the Irish” (n. 13 above), 15 n. 85.Google Scholar

97 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 480–86; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 155-60.Google Scholar

98 Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 141–42. Herren argues that, while the council at Hatfield was convened specifically to endorse the condemnation of Monothelitism (vice Herren's Monophysitism) at the Lateran Council of 649, the council of Hertford “dealt precisely with the issues raised by Aldhelm in his letter to Geraint.” This is not accurate. As I note in the text, Aldhelm has two polemical objectives: the proper calculation of Easter and the proper form of tonsure. He goes on at equal length about both. While the proper calculation of Easter is the subject of Chapter I at Hertford (Bede, Historia ecclesiastica 4, 5 [ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, (n. 5 above), 348-55]), tonsure is nowhere mentioned; rather, there are nine additional chapters dealing with other matters of ecclesiastical discipline and organization. Additionally, Hertford's Easter reference is summary, merely noting that it was to be celebrated “on the Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon of the first month,” while Aldhelm, as I also describe in the text, provides in detail the methods of both the proper and errant calculations. As Catherine Cubitt (Anglo-Saxon Church Councils, c. 650-c. 850 [n. 64 above], 21-24) concurs, Aldhelm's council “could equally well refer to … otherwise unknown councils.” Lapidge (“The Career of Aldhelm” [n. 6 above], 67-68) endorses Cubitt's judgment and specifically “rules out the possibility” of Hertford.Google Scholar

99 As noted, Aldhelm identifies the episcopal council in question as involving nearly all Britain: “ex tota paene Brittania.” Among Aldhelm's rare uses of Brittania are two in connection with Theodore and Hadrian in his letter to Ehfrid ( Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, [n. 3 above], 492). We might also project Aldhelm's fulfilling of this ecclesiastical commission as the origin of the phrase “lumen Britanniae”; it is very much the focus of Bede's brief account of Aldhelm (Historia ecclesiastica 5, 18 [ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , 514-15]).Google Scholar

100 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 492; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, (n. 3 above), 163.Google Scholar

101 See my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury and the Irish” (n. 13 above), passim.Google Scholar

102 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 478; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 153-54.Google Scholar

103 As Campbell, James, The Anglo-Saxons (New York, 1982), 50–51, observes, Canterbury, at the time of Theodore's arrival, was “recognizably a Christian capital” in an otherwise still-barbarian England — surely, a further reason for Aldhelm's anguish.Google Scholar

104 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 475–78; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 152-53.Google Scholar

105 Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (n. 3 above), chap. 195.2 (p. 514).Google Scholar

106 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 475 n. 1; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, , 137.Google Scholar

107 Aldhelm: The Poetic Works , trans. Lapidge, and Rosier, (n. 3 above), 7.Google Scholar

108 Again, cf. Cubitt, Catherine, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils , 21–24 and 261.Google Scholar

109 Mayr-Harting, Henry ( The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England [n. 84 above], 122) terms it the “most unequivocal enunciation of papalism in seventh-century England.” Google Scholar

110 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 481.Google Scholar

111 By McCarthy, Dan and Cróinín, Dáibhí Ó; see my article “Aldhelm of Malmesbury and the Irish” (n. 13 above), 14–15.Google Scholar

112 In fact, the “quartadecimani” always celebrated Easter on the fourteenth day (the date of Passover) regardless of its day of the week, while these traditionalist British, like the Irish (such as Columbanus) who resisted the imposition of the Roman calculation of Easter, simply believed that if Easter Sunday happened to coincide with Passover, then it was still Easter; see Charles-Edwards, T. M., Early Christian Ireland (n. 87 above), 396–405.Google Scholar

113 By Herren, Michael W. and Brown, Shirley Ann, Christ in Celtic Christianity (Woodbridge, 2002), 56–64, 87-88, and 130-34.Google Scholar

114 See my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury's Social Theology” (n. 15 above), 73–76.Google Scholar

115 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 524, line 9; Aldhelm: The Poetic Works , trans. Lapidge, and Rosier, , 177. Cf. Grimmer, Martin, “Saxon Bishop and Celtic King: Interactions between Aldhelm of Wessex and Geraint of Dumnonia,” Heroic Age 4 (2001): 1-9. See also Yorke, Barbara, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (n. 7 above), 179-81, for prevailing attitudes between the Wessex and British churches in this region. Aldhelm moves, in his writings, in a world exclusively peopled by Christians (however heretical some of them may have been); the only pagans appear in Aldhelm's use of passiones in his De virginitate. See also Todd, Malcolm, The South West to AD 1000 (London, 1987), 270-73, for a succinct listing of the various battles between West Saxon and British in this area in the seventh century, though Wessex was not to “absorb” Dumnonia until the mid-ninth century.Google Scholar

116 Edwards, , Charters (n. 35 above), 252–53; Yorke, Barbara, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages, 178; Barker, Katherine, “The Early History of Sherborne,” in The Early Church in Western Britain and Ireland , ed. Pearce, S., BAR 102 (1982): 77-116; eadem, “Sherborne in Dorset: An Early Ecclesiastical Settlement and Its Estate,” Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 3 (1984): 1-33; and O'Donovan, M. A., ed., Charters of Sherborne, British Academy Anglo-Saxon Charters 3 (Oxford, 1988), 87-88.Google Scholar

117 Edwards, , Charters , 107–14 (S245); new text edition in Edwards, “Two Documents” (n. 56 above), 15-16; and also at Kelly, , Malmesbury (n. 40 above), 154, who agrees on the substance: “there is a valid contemporary context for the grant of general privileges to the West Saxon churches,” also citing (156) Wihtred of Kent's grant in 699.Google Scholar

118 Edwards, , Charters , 93. Edwards (91-92) argues that the longer version of King Æthilred's grant, S73, is a later copy of S71 with interpolations, notably the exemption clause, essentially because a later copyist “would have chosen to omit” such validating clauses. However, it is S73 that contains the correct incarnational year; it may not have just been the dating that the copyist of S71 got wrong.Google Scholar

119 Edwards, , Charters , 112 and 114; see discussion above, concerning the division into two of the West Saxon diocese.Google Scholar

120 Aldhelm's involvement is considered to have extended to being a member of King Ine's witan; see for example Lapidge, Michael, “Beowulf, Aldhelm, the Liber Monstrorum and Wessex,” Anglo-Latin Literature 600-899 (n. 18 above), 275 n. 20 (274-76 provide a summary of Aldhelm's extensive contact with kings and nobles: “Aldhelm was an exceedingly active man of the world.”) Google Scholar

121 Edwards, , Charters , 21, 30, 133, 204, and 292-94.Google Scholar

122 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, (n. 3 above), 502–3; Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (n. 3 above), chaps. 207-11 (pp. 532-37).Google Scholar

123 Edwards, , Charters , 96–97 (S1170). Kelly (Malmesbury, 148-49) raises numerous objections to this interpretation, judging that the “details of the letter and the charter are not really compatible.” Considering that she also judges the “formulation of [S1170 as] not intrinsically suspicious,” her various objections seem, to me, to be more quizzical than convincing. Thomson (Commentary [n. 3 above], 265 and 267), though he refrains from the same level of detail, seems inclined to accept William of Malmesbury's (and Heather Edwards's) account that the charter and letter pertained to “Cædwalla's confirmation of Baldred's grant.” Google Scholar

124 Edwards, , Charters (n. 35 above), 97 and 13 (S231 and S237).Google Scholar

125 For this “Frankish custom,” see for instance Levison, Wilhelm, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946), 227–28.Google Scholar

126 S234; text at Kelly, , Malmesbury , 143.Google Scholar

127 Edwards, , Charters , 309.Google Scholar

128 Aldhelm also concludes his Epistola ad Acircium with identical sentiments ( Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 204): “Quae est enim labentis mundi prosperitas aut fallentis vitae felicitas?” Google Scholar

129 See Armitage Robinson, J., Somerset Historical Essays (London, 1921), 51–52; altogether, a notable confluence of rigorism, Pelagianism, Ireland, and Wessex.Google Scholar

130 S227 (Cenwalh's); S1249 (Hæddi's); S71 and S73 (Æthilred's); S1170 (Baldred's); and S230 (Cædwalla's).Google Scholar

131 Stevenson, W. H., “Trinoda Necessitas,” English Historical Review 29 (1914): 702–3. “It is also found in the continental models on which the first surviving English diplomas were based; in particular, in the influential charter of Gregory the Great for his monastery of St Andrew in Rome, in Roman synodal decrees, and in the Liber diurnus” ; see Abrams, Lesley, “A Single-Sheet Facsimile” (n. 32 above), 113.Google Scholar

132 Brooks, Nicholas, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (n. 4 above), 240–43. The Chichester charter is S232.Google Scholar

133 Also for references to Stevenson's, W. H. analysis in “Trinoda Necessitas,” see my “Legal Terminology in Anglo-Saxon England: The Trimoda Necessitas Charter” (n. 86 above), 843–49.Google Scholar

134 S235; Edwards, , Charters (n. 35 above), 132–37. See also Blair, John, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), 57 n. 181.Google Scholar

135 Stevenson, W. H., “Trinoda Necessitas,” 694–95; he also finds the witness list and the dating to be historically acceptable.Google Scholar

136 Kelly, S. E., ed., Charters of Selsey , British Academy Anglo-Saxon Charters 6 (Oxford, 1998), 102–3, states that I “tried to rescue the charter in its entirety” in my 1982 article. I believe that it would be more accurate to say that I was attempting to cast doubt on the doubts, by focusing on the role of Aldhelm. Thus, while Kelly claims that the rhyming couplets appended to Aldhelm's lengthy and ornate subscription are “highly unlikely to be the work of Aldhelm, as argued by Dempsey” (though she does not say precisely why), I would point to the rhyming couplets Aldhelm inserted into his De virginitate (Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 235), an octosyllabic poem that Andy Orchard (The Poetic Art of Aldhelm [n. 60 above], 19 n. 2) linked with the rhyming couplets in Cædwalla's charter as “poems most probably by Aldhelm.” Similarly, while Kelly cites “the use of the rare verb perstringo in the immunity clause” (in the form “perstrinxi” in Cædwalla's subscription) as one of the anachronistic “tenth-century ‘symptoms’” to be found in this charter, I would point to Aldhelm's use of this verb (Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, [n. 3 above], 478: “perstrinximus”) in a letter to his ordinary from the school at Canterbury (the authenticity of this letter, dated to 671, remains uncontested). Accordingly, and keeping in mind the separate acceptability (within the history and “diplomatic” of Aldhelm's time, that is) of all the various procedural and substantive elements of the charter, I suggested in my 1982 article, and will argue now, that this charter's core historical declarations (if I may use this term to designate the charter's invocation of purpose in its proem — that the grant is to Wilfrid — and its statements of intent in Cædwalla's and Aldhelm's subscriptions) are historically valid — that is, that they are the work of Aldhelm as he wrote them in the ninth decade of the seventh century. Beyond that, it may well be that the tenth-century copyist manipulated our preexisting text to serve the interests of Canterbury.Google Scholar

137 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 510-12. Indeed, why would a forger go to such elaborate lengths as to concoct a subscription clause (for Cædwalla) defining the common burdens, as well as appending a rhythmical poem in genuine Aldhelmian style to Aldhelm's subscription, if all he needed were believable formulas? In telling contrast, the Chichester charter is short and sweet and utterly bereft of these typically Aldhelmian elaborations (text in Kelly, S. E., Charters of Selsey , 3–4).Google Scholar

138 Stevenson, W. H., “Trinoda Necessitas,” 691–92.Google Scholar

139 My article, “Legal Terminology” (n. 86 above), 846.Google Scholar

140 As summarily reflected by the regular reference in royal grants to the grant's having been petitioned (“rogatus”) or consented to (“cum consensu”) by leading men; cf. S71 and S73, S79, S230, S232, S236, S241, S243, S245, S246, and S248.Google Scholar

141 In another charter (S242), which is also considered spurious, a grant by King Ine to Winchester cathedral and subscribed by Aldhelm, the burdens are given thus (text at BCS 102): “tribus exceptis expeditione pontis arcisve restauratione”; see Edwards, , Charters (n. 35 above), 137–38.Google Scholar

142 From Aldhelm's subscription, the last couplet is from the short rhythmical poem he appended; Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 512.Google Scholar

143 As Bede, Historia ecclesiastica 3, 24 (ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, [n. 5 above], 292), puts it, in reference to the dedication by King Oswiu of his daughter Ælfflaed to consecrated virginity and his endowment of her monastery with land: “in quibus ablato studio militiae terrestris ad exercendam militiam caelestem supplicandumque pro pace gentis eius aeterna devotioni sedulae monachorum locus facultasque suppeteret.” Google Scholar

144 Surely, nameless forgers are not to be the only ones to be credited with linguistic inventiveness. Put simply, you could not find a more Aldhelmian phrase than “trimoda necessitas,” considering the two words both individually and in combination. As noted in the text, Aldhelm consistently uses necessitas in the post-classical sense of “obligation,” while trimodus, a post-classical coinage (see Niermeyer, J. F., Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus [Leiden, 1976], 1045), is precisely the sort of quantifiable modifier Aldhelm was enamored of (cf. von Erhardt-Siebold, Erika, Die lateinischen Rätsel der Angelsachsen [Heidelberg, 1925], 242).Google Scholar

145 Blair, John, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (n. 134 above), 99–100.Google Scholar

146 Percival, John, The Roman Villa (Berkeley, 1976), 166–82; and Wickham, Chris, Framing the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2005), 465-81.Google Scholar

147 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 502–3; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, (n. 3 above), 170.Google Scholar

148 Severus, Sulpicius, Chronicon 2, 3, 3 (ed. de Senneville-Grave, Ghislaine, SC 441 [Paris, 1999], 228–29); as Aldhelm knew Sulpicius Severus's Paschal computus (as well as his Vita S. Martini), he most likely knew his Chronicon. Google Scholar

149 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 502 and 61 n. 1.Google Scholar

150 In his direct address to King Aldfrith in the opening chapters of the Epistola ad Acircium, Aldhelm refers ( Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 69) to Daniel as “ab ipso tirocinio rudimentorum licet in medio barbarae gentis divinis cultibus mancipatus”; Bishop Hlothhere's charter refers (Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 508) to Malmesbury as the place in which Aldhelm “ab ipso tirocinio rudimentorum liberalibus litterarum studiis eruditus.” Google Scholar

151 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 250–51.Google Scholar

152 Cf. Bugge, John, Virginitas (The Hague, 1975), 44–47; and Brown, Peter, The Body and Society (London, 1988), 66-67.Google Scholar

153 In some cases, this quality is particularly emphatically accentuated by the language of the verse De virginitate ; Elijah, : Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 249–50 and 363-65 (particularly lines 250-51); Elisha: ibid., 250 and 365 (particularly line 284); Jeremiah: ibid., 250 and 365-66 (particularly lines 301-6); Daniel: ibid., 250-51 and 366-68 (particularly lines 324-33); Joseph: ibid., 310-11 and 457; John of Lycopolis: ibid., 267-68 and 388-89 (particularly line 837); and Benedict: ibid., 268-69 and 389-90.Google Scholar

154 See my article, “Aldhelm of Malmesbury's Social Theology” (n. 15 above), 58-80. Did Aldhelm so pursue this physically imperative vision that he ran afoul of a king, as Wilfrid had with King Ecgfrith, by urging a royal wife to enter the religious life? Cuthburg, a sister of King Ine and abbess of Wimborne and previously one of the nuns at Barking to whom Aldhelm addressed his De virginitate, had been married to King Aldfrith of Northumbria, abandoning this marriage to enter religious life. In his Epistola ad Acircium, Aldhelm puts forward a plea to Aldfrith that their friendship be resumed. The reason for its having lapsed is not given, but one of the reasons why Aldhelm dedicated this work to Aldfrith could have been as a peace offering (Aldfrith was, as well as a dispenser of royal favor, a noted scholar).Google Scholar

155 Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent (Oxford, 1971), 55–65.Google Scholar

156 See my “Aldhelm of Malmesbury's Social Theology.” Google Scholar

157 Orchard, Andy, The Poetic Art of Aldhelm (n. 60 above), 161–221.Google Scholar

158 Cf. Coates, Simon, “Venantius Fortunatus and the Image of Episcopal Authority in Late Antique and Early Merovingian Gaul” (n. 25 above), 1110–11; and Mathisen, Ralph W., Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul (Austin, TX, 1993), 13-16, who notes that the conviction that one could seek favors on the basis of friendship (as Aldhelm did of King Aldfrith) lay at the very core of amicitia. Google Scholar

159 Cf. Bede, , Historia ecclesiastica 2, 1 (ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, [n. 5 above], 124–25); and Brown, Peter, The Rise of Western Christendom, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2003), 199-201. It was Augustine who restored to the Christian usage of otium the classical sense of leisure devoted to productive efforts; see Jean Leclercq, Otia Monastica (Rome, 1963), 37-40.Google Scholar

160 Cf. Higham, N. J., The Convert Kings (Manchester, 1997), 15-16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

161 Cf. Markus, Robert, “Living within Sight of the End,” Time in the Medieval World , ed. Humphrey, Chris and Ormrod, W. M. (Woodbridge, 2001), 23–34.Google Scholar

162 Aldhelm's only such references seem formulaic rather than normative, and are to be found in the proems of two charters: S1166 (“Fortuna fallentis seculi procax”) and S1245 (“iamque appropinquante eiusdem [mundi] termino,” with a reference to Christ's prophecies of the end-time in Luke 21). The first charter is uniformly held to be a forgery (see for instance Kelly, , Malmesbury [n. 40 above], 132–33); the phrase in the latter reproduces a phrase from Gregory I's letter to King Æthelbert, which also leads into a paraphrase of Luke 21 (cf. Bede, , Historia ecclesiastica 1, 32 [ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , 112]). Perhaps Aldhelm read Gregory's letters while resident in Canterbury; certainly, having the assertion fresh in his memory could account for its replication in Bishop Hlothhere's grant (S1245) dated 675. More typical of Aldhelm's outlook is to be found in the grant (S236) of Baldred (of Mercia) to Hæmgils, abbot of Glastonbury, which Aldhelm subscribes as its drafter: “quia incertus humanae vitae status evidenter agnoscitur.” Google Scholar

163 This is the specific message of the acrostic Sibylline text De die iudicii, which Aldhelm cites and which he may have been the translator of, under the tutelage of Archbishop Theodore; see Lendinara, Patrizia, “The Versus Sibyllae de die iudicii in Anglo-Saxon England,” Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England , ed. Powell, Kathryn and Scragg, Donald (Cambridge, 2003), 85–101, especially 95-96; and Aldhelm: The Poetic Works , trans. Lapidge, and Rosier, (n. 3 above), 16. Aldhelm also acknowledges that the world would end after the seventh age of the reign of Christ (Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, [n. 3 above], 70; Aldhelm: The Prose Works , trans. Lapidge, and Herren, [n. 3 above], 41, 188 n. 5, and 189 n. 20). Cf. Martin Heinzelmann, Gregory of Tours (Cambridge, 2001), 79-83.Google Scholar

164 Brown, Peter, Augustine of Hippo , new edition (Berkeley, 2000), 10, 257, 261, 272, and 342.Google Scholar

165 See O'Loughlin, Thomas, Celtic Theology (London, 2000), 132–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

166 Peers, Charles Sir and Ralegh Radford, C. A., “The Saxon Monastery at Whitby,” Archaeologia 89 (1943): 27–88; Rahtz, Philip, “The Building Plan of the Anglo-Saxon Monastery of Whitby Abbey,” The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England , ed. Wilson, David M. (London, 1976), 459-62 (with site drawing on 224-25); and Cramp, Rosemary, “A Reconsideration of the Monastic Site of Whitby,” The Age of Migrating Ideas , ed. Michael Spearman, R. and Higgitt, John (Edinburgh, 1993), 64-73: here, the buildings of restricted dimensions were stone-walled with thatched roofs and (perhaps) with internal dividers of wattle-and-daub and timber.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

167 Edwards, ( Charters [n. 35 above], 102–5), though finding, as we have noted, authenticating parallels — both in the formulas of the Liber diurnus and in other Anglo-Saxon monastic privileges of the time — for the various substantive elements contained in Sergius's bull, is uncertain of the origin of this exhortatory passage.Google Scholar

168 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 513: “ut castitas atque sobrietas corporis simul et spiritus vestri ante Dei oculos luceat.” Google Scholar

169 Ibid., 231–32.Google Scholar

170 Ibid., 203.Google Scholar

171 Ibid., 465.Google Scholar

172 See Wieland, Gernot, “Geminus Stilus: Studies in Anglo-Latin Hagiography,” Insular Latin Studies , ed. Herren, Michael W. (Toronto, 1981), 115–18.Google Scholar

173 Aldhelmi Opera , ed. Ehwald, , 320.Google Scholar

174 Ibid., 466, lines 2781-93. The relatively small library of even so learned an Anglo-Saxon scholar as Aldhelm would have been commensurate with his cramped working-space; Lapidge, Michael, The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford, 2006), 60–62, estimates Aldhelm's library at ca. 120 books (Bede's at ca. 230-50) and visualizes them stored not on shelves in a book-press but in wooden chests on the floor (an image drawn largely from Aldhelm's own enigma 89, “Arca libraria”).Google Scholar