¹ Text and commentary of the metrical life of St. Cuthbert are those of Jaager, Werner, Bedas metrische Vita sancti Cuthberti (Leipzig, 1935); the text is hereafter cited as VCM, the commentary as “Jaager.” Text and commentary of the anonymous life of Cuthbert and Bede's prose life is that of Colgrave, Bertram, Two ‘Lives’ of Saint Cuthbert (Cambridge, 1940). The commentary is hereafter referred to as “Colgrave”; the texts are cited as VCA and VCP respectively. Text of Bede's Ecclesiastical History is that edited by Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969), hereafter referred to as HE. Google Scholar

I wish to thank David Dumville and John Niles for their helpful suggestions; the editors of Traditio, especially Michael Roberts, and the anonymous reviewer for their careful readings; Frederick Liers for his cheerful and tireless help with the article's final stages; and finally Robert Brentano, who first introduced me to Cuthbert.Google Scholar

² On monastic techniques of embalming and conditions of Cuthbert's interment, see Battiscombe, C. F., The Relics of St. Cuthbert (Oxford, 1956), 94.Google Scholar

³ In his prose and metrical lives of Cuthbert, Bede ascribes to Eadberht a speech advertising the miracle. Thus in the metrical life we are told at lines 835–36 that “Eadberhtus … rerum miracula dignis / laudibus extulerat” (“Eadberht had advertised the miracles with worthy praises”). On the question whether Eadberht's panegyric was a poem written by Bede or whether Bede later put Eadberht's words into verse, see Colgrave, , 359.Google Scholar

⁴ For an overview of the development of the cult of St. Cuthbert, see Battiscombe, , The Relics of St. Cuthbert, 1–98.Google Scholar

⁵ On the political importance of these land grants as guarantors of continuity of land ownership, see Rollason, David, Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1989), at 196–214. As Rollason writes, “preservation or recovery of land and privileges could be the key to [a church's] survival” (205).Google Scholar

⁶ Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, chap. 23, cited in Rollason, , Saints and Relics, 207–8.Google Scholar

⁷ Rollason, , Saints and Relics, 207.Google Scholar

⁸ Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, chap. 26. See Craster, Edmund, “The Patrimony of St. Cuthbert,” English Historical Review 69 (1954): 177–99 at 191.Google Scholar

⁹ Dumville, David, “Between Alfred the Great and Edgar the Peacemaker: Aethelstan, First King of England,” in Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar (Woodbridge, 1992), 141–71. Dumville points out that, aside from Aethelstan's military achievements, the king's introduction of “national councils,” the creation of a royal secretariat, and the issuance of a national coinage furthered his dynastic ambitions of creating an English monarchy. Since “the king's coinage came to bear the style rex totius Britanniae,” this indicated “once again the importance of Britannia as a political concept” (170).Google Scholar

¹⁰ This incident is judged by Craster (“The Patrimony of St. Cuthbert,” 178) to be an eleventhcentury interpolation into the mid-tenth-century Historia de Sancto Cuthberto. Google Scholar

¹¹ On the political significance of the Alfred episode, see Simpson, Luisella, “The King Alfred/St. Cuthbert Episode in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: Its Significance for Mid-Tenth Century English History,” in St. Cuthbert: His Cult and His Community (New Hampshire, 1989), 397–411. This important collection of essays commemorating the thirteen-hundredth anniversary of St. Cuthbert's death is hereafter cited as St. Cuthbert: His Cult. Google Scholar

¹² See Piper, A. J., “The First Generations of Durham Monks and the Cult of St. Cuthbert,” in St. Cuthbert: His Cult, 437–46, and Tudor, Victoria, “The Cult of St. Cuthbert in the Twelfth Century: The Evidence of Reginald of Durham,” ibid., 447–67.Google Scholar

¹³ On the posthumous miracles of Cuthbert, see Colgrave, Bertram, “The Post-Bedan Miracles and Translations of St. Cuthbert,” in The Early Cultures of North-West Europe, ed. Fox, Cyril and Dickens, Bruce (Cambridge, 1950), 307–32. Several of the miracles that Colgrave cites involve defense against the Scots.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Rollason, , Saints and Relics, 105.Google Scholar

¹⁵ VCM 44, 904–5.Google Scholar

¹⁶ VCA 6. 17, 136–38; VCP 45, 298–301.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Dam, Raymond Van, Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, N.J., 1993), 138.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Lapidge, Michael, “Bede's ‘Metrical Vita S. Cuthberti,’ ” in St. Cuthbert: His Cult, 77–93 at 93.Google Scholar

¹⁹ The metrical vita is dated between 705 and 716, the reign of Osred, who is referred to at lines 552–55. See Jaager, , 4. Lapidge, , “Bede's ‘Metrical Vita,’ ” claims that the metrical vita closely follows the anonymous vita (77). He argues for a date for the metrical vita close to 705, as Osred, who is described in lines 554–55 as a young Josiah, would hardly fit that characterization later in his monstrous reign (78). However, Lapidge believes that the poem was revised by Bede a decade later (78–85). On the dates of the anonymous vita and Bede's prose vita, see Colgrave, 13 and 16 respectively. On the identity of the author of the anonymous vita, see Colgrave at 11–13. Colgrave argues that the author must have been at least connected with Lindisfarne, since he refers to it either as “our island” (VCA 3. 1; 4. 15) or as “our church” (1. 3; 2. 8; 4. 1).Google Scholar

²⁰ The chapters concerning Cuthbert are 27–32 of book 4 of the Ecclesiastical History, 431–49.Google Scholar

²¹ A similar catalogue of saints exists in Venantius Fortunatus's De Virginitate (Carm. 8. 3 in MGH, Auct. Ant. 4. 1), a poem that Bede certainly knew, as he quotes its line about the English martyr Alban (155) in the Ecclesiastical History (HE 1. 7, 28). In Fortunatus's poem, Alban is Britain's contribution to the martyrs that Rome celebrates. Bede brings English sanctity into the present and offers the world a new model of sanctity in the teacher.Google Scholar

²² Brown, George Hardin, Bede the Venerable (Boston, 1987), 72. For a survey of the English and continental manuscripts of the VCA and VCP, see Colgrave, 17–50. See also Jaager, 24–32 for a survey of the manuscripts of the metrical vita.Google Scholar

²³ Thus David Dumville (Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England [Woodbridge, 1992]), commenting on tenth-century libelli containing Bede's two lives of Cuthbert that were written in Southern England and seem to have been intended for liturgical use: “there is every reason to think that from the tenth century at the latest St. Cuthbert had become something of a national saint in England” (109). Dumville also comments on St. Cuthbert's universal appearance in calendars of the period.Google Scholar

²⁴ On the opus geminatum see Godman, Peter, ed., The Bishops, Kings and Saints of York (Oxford, 1982), lxxviii–lxxxviii. On Bede's acknowledgment of Sedulius's influence on this form see HE 5. 18, 514.Google Scholar

²⁵ Plummer, Charles, ed., Venerabilis Baedae: Opera Historica, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1896), xlvi gave authority to the negative evaluation of the prose vita by accusing Bede of too much “rhetorical padding.“ Jones, Charles W., Saints’ Lives and Chronicles in Early England (Ithaca, N.Y., 1947), complained of the prose vita that “its eighty-five pages bog in verbiage” (54). Correspondingly, the anonymous vita has been generally preferred, until recently, to Bede's prose vita as simpler and more straightforward. Colgrave's edition of the two lives gave authority to this view, although Colgrave notes with approval the greater lucidity and coherence of Bede's account (15–16).Google Scholar

²⁶ See Berschin, Walter, “Opus deliberatum ac perfectum: Why Did the Venerable Bede Write a Second Prose Life of St Cuthbert?” in St. Cuthbert: His Cult, 95–102. Berschin compares in detail Bede's prose vita with the anonymous vita in style, vocabulary, and structure.Google Scholar

²⁷ Cowdrey, H. E. J., “Bede and the ‘English People,’ ” Journal of Religious History 11 (1981): 501–23 at 504.Google Scholar

²⁸ See n. 20 above.Google Scholar

²⁹ HE 4. 2, 333.Google Scholar

³⁰ Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary (Oxford, 1988), notes that Book 5 alone omits the heading “the ecclesiastical history of the English people.” He suggests that this may be “because the book's thrust is to bring the Picts and Irish within the Catholic fold. The theme of English conversion was already complete” (174).Google Scholar

³¹ Thacker, Alan, “Bede's Ideal of Reform,” in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society, ed. Wormald, Patrick et al. (Oxford, 1983), 130–53 at 130.Google Scholar

³² Thacker, , “Bede's Ideal,” 132.Google Scholar

³³ Text in Plummer, , Opera Historica 1, 406–23.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ibid., 406–7.Google Scholar

³⁵ Of course, like Bede, Cuthbert was a Northumbrian, and this must surely have been part of the saint's appeal. In the prose vita Bede avoids many of the local details found in the anonymous vita. In this way the landscape upon which Cuthbert moved is universalized, and Cuthbert becomes detached from purely partisan interests to serve as a figure of Christian, English unity.Google Scholar

³⁶ See Cowdrey, , “Bede and the ‘English People’ ” (n. 27 above), on Bede's treatment of Wilfrid in the Ecclesiastical History: “Bede's many-sided reserve leaves the reader with the impression that there was much about Wilfrid for good men not to copy” (515). Thacker has earlier argued that Bede's prose life of Cuthbert was essentially political in purpose, and that it was a specific part of a pamphlet war designed to support the Lindisfarne community in its rivalry with the supporters of the controversial bishop Thacker, Wilfrid. A., “Lindisfarne and the Origins of the Cult of St. Cuthbert,” in St. Cuthbert: His Cult, 103–22.Google Scholar

³⁷ HE 3. 3, 218.Google Scholar

³⁸ Thacker cautions that the term monasterium was used to refer to communities of varying size, status, and organization. Thus it is misleading to translate the Latin term as “monastery” or “minster.” Thacker, Alan, “Monks, Preaching and Pastoral Care in England,” in Pastoral Care Before the Parish, ed. Blair, John and Sharpe, Richard (Leicester, 1992), 137–70 at 139. I will follow Thacker in keeping to the Latin monasterium. Google Scholar

³⁹ VCA 2. 2. Cf. VCM 7, 180 (Ripon); VCP 6 (Melrose).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Stancliffe, , “Cuthbert, Pastor and Solitary,” in St. Cuthbert: His Cult, 23–24. In n. 14 she argues for the greater credibility of Melrose as the site of Cuthbert's tonsuring.Google Scholar

⁴¹ VCP 16, 208.Google Scholar

⁴² For both Aidan and Oswald see HE 3. 1–17, 212–66.Google Scholar

⁴³ Competition between saints and their lives was a major feature of medieval sanctity. Fontaine, Jacques, Sulpice Sévère. Vie de saint Martin, vol. 1 (Paris, 1967), 65, observes that Suplicius's Vita Martini is underpinned by the debate comparing Antony and Martin, which becomes more aggressively open in the Dialogues. Google Scholar

⁴⁴ See Fontaine, Jacques, Vie de saint Martin, 63.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Text is that of Fontaine.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Heffernan, Thomas J., Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988), 20.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Stancliffe, , “Cuthbert, Pastor and Solitary,” in St. Cuthbert: His Cult, 21–44.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Heffernan, , Sacred Biography, 141.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Lapidge, Michael, “The Saintly Life in Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature (Cambridge, 1991), 243–63 at 254.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ VCA 1.3, 64–67; VCM 1, 39–74; VCP 1, 155–59.Google Scholar

⁵¹ The anonymous vita tells us that Cuthbert kept in mind the child's words, “prophetiae verba in mente retinens” (66), but does not explain how they changed Cuthbert beyond the immediate result of his abandoning his childish games. The metrical vita is vaguer. The spirit teaches Cuthbert an enduring lesson in maturity (70–71); we are not told, however, what effect this lesson had on Cuthbert's actions then or later in life.Google Scholar

⁵² “Quoniam puer Domini Cuthbertus, quae per hominem accepit hortamenta sedulo corde retinebat, etiam angelico visu et affatu confortari promeruit” (“since Cuthbert, child of God, carefully retained the exhortations he received through man, he deserved to be comforted by the sight and speech of an angel also”; VCP 12, 158).Google Scholar

⁵³ “Sepe in angustiis se vallantibus orans Dominum” (“when hedged around by trouble, he would often pray to the Lord”; VCP 3, 160).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ “Nec non etiam pro aliis in periculo constitutis quia benigna pietate supplicabat, exaudiebatur ab illo, qui clamantem pauperem exaudire, et ex omnibus tribulationibus eius consuevit eripere” (“and because he would also pray with kindly piety for others immersed in danger, he was heard by him who has been accustomed to hear the cry of the poor man and to snatch him from all his tribulations”; VCP 3, 160).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ The final word of this episode in the metrical life, “suorum” (119), refers to the mob as God's own; they are thus not heathens.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ For Martin's destruction of pagan shrines and the opposition he encountered not only among the pagans but also among the bishops, see VM 11, 13, 14, 15. See also Dial. 2. 8, Benedict's destruction of a temple of Apollo, an act full of reminiscences of Sulpicius's Martin.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Thus in chap. 10 we are told that Cuthbert was growing in virtues and in signs: “sanctus vir … virtutibus signisque succresceret” (188), and in the following chapter (11) we are told that Cuthbert now had started to grow also in the spirit of prophecy: “coepit inter ista vir Dei etiam prophetiae spiritu pollere” (192).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ “Gubernatrix vitae fidelium gratia Christi voluit famulum suum artioris propositi subire virtutem, altioris praemii gloriam promereri” (“Christ's grace, navigator of the life of the faithful, wished his servant to submit to the test of a more demanding way of life and deserve the glory of a higher reward”; VCP 3, 164).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Brown, Peter, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1982), 121.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ In the prose vita, Bede accepts personal, individual responsibility for the authority of his narrative while at the same time making the monks of Lindisfarne, to whom he gave the work for a preliminary reading, complicit in the process: “… ad vestrae quoque fraternitatis praesentiam asportare curavi, quatinus vestrae auctoritatis iudicio vel emendarentur falsa, vel probarentur vera esse quae scripta sunt” (“I took care to bring my draft into the presence of your brotherhood so that through your authoritative judgment the falsity or the truth of what I had written might be either corrected or confirmed”; VCP, praef., 144).Google Scholar

⁶¹ “Quae lyrico liceat cursim contingere plectro / ne potior lassis generet fastidia versus” (“let me touch on these lightly with my lyrical plectrum/lest my potent verse weary my readers”; VCM 22, 563–64).Google Scholar

⁶² “Ad tuae peregrinationis levamentum beati Cuthberti episcopi, quae nuper versibus edidi, gesta obtuli” (“to lighten your journey, I have offered you my lately finished poem of the blessed bishop Cuthbert's deeds”; VCM, praef., 56). It is not clear whether by peregrinatio (“journey”), an actual journey is meant or a spiritual journey through life.Google Scholar

⁶³ VCM 29, 610–26; 30, 627–59; 31, 660–79.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Athanasius's Vita Sancti Antonii, translated by Evagrius, emphasized the similarity between the careers of Elijah and Antony. On the influence of the Old Testament prophets upon the Vita Sancti Antonii and Vita Martini as well as Gregory's Life of Benedict in Dialogues 2 see Petersen, Joan, The “Dialogues” of Gregory the Great in Their Late Antique Cultural Background (Toronto, 1984) at 26–38.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Colgrave, , 15.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Thus on his deathbed Cuthbert presents his spiritual ambitions in terms of a victorious ascent to the lofty kingdom of God (VCM 34, 723).Google Scholar

⁶⁷ “Ex illo iam die promptior factus est ad ieiunandum, quia nimirum intellexit eius dono sibi refectionem procuratam in solitudine, qui quondam Heliam solitarium, quia nullus hominum aderat qui ministraret, eiusdem modi cibo per volucres non pauco tempore pavit” (“from that day he was readier to fast, because he certainly understood that refreshment had been prepared for him in the wilderness as a gift from the one who fed Elijah in the desert for a long time with similar food through birds, because there were no humans there who could attend to him”; VCP 5, 170).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ “Haec mihi religiosus nostri monasterii quod est ad hostium Wiri fluminis presbiter nomine Inguuald, qui nunc longe gratia senectutis magis corde mundo coelestia quam terrena carnalibus contemplatur aspectibus, ab ipso Cuthberto iam tunc episcopo se audisse perhibuit” (“a religious man of our monastery, which is at the mouth of the river Wear, a priest by the name of Ingwald, who for a long time now, thanks to old age, has been contemplating not earthly things with carnal vision, but heavenly things with pure heart, said he had heard this story from Cuthbert himself when he was a bishop”; VCP 5, 170).Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Many, we are told in chap. 22, came from all over Britain to Fame for counseling and consolation; in particular, even though he is on retreat on Fame, Cuthbert preaches the virtues of the monastic life (VCP 22, 228, 230).Google Scholar

⁷⁰ VCP 20, 222: “Libet etiam quoddam beati Cuthberti in exemplum praefati patris Benedicti factum narrare miraculum” (“it pleases me to tell of a certain miracle performed by the blessed Cuthbert after the example of father Benedict, whom I mentioned earlier”).Google Scholar

⁷¹ Thacker, , “Bede's Ideal” (n. 31 above), 133–36; Stancliffe, , “Cuthbert, Pastor and Solitary” (n. 40 above), 40. See Regula Pastoralis praef.: “necesse est ut pastoris bonum quod vivendo ostenditur, etiam loquendo propagetur” (“it is essential that the good that is demonstrated in the pastor's life should be propagated also by preaching”). Text and commentary of the Regula Pastoralis in Grégoire le Grand. Règle pastorale , ed. Judic, Bruno et al. (Paris, 1992).Google Scholar

⁷² VCP 22, 220; Gregory, , Regula Pastoralis 3, praef.: “non una eadem cunctis exhortatio congruit, quia nec cunctos par morum qualitas astringit” (“one type of preaching does not suit everyone, because people's characters are variously composed”).Google Scholar

⁷³ Thacker, , “Bede's Ideal,” 135.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Dial. 2. 8. 3. Text in Grégoire le Grand: Dialogues II , ed. de Vogüé, Adalbert (Paris, 1979). The anonymous vita draws from Gregory's episode details of the raven's behavior: Gregory's raven, like that of the anonymous vita, appears “expansis alis,” and its voice is described with the onomatopoeic “crocitare.” Google Scholar

⁷⁵ On Martin's ability to arouse controversy, particularly among his fellow bishops, see VM 9, 11, 26; on Benedict, see the wry remark of Adalbert de Vogüé, Gregory the Great: The Life of St. Benedict (Petersham, Mass., 1993): “the holy man seems to have had the gift of arousing passions to the extent of committing crimes” (58).Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Dial. 2. 3. 2–5.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ VCP 16, 210.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Lapidge (“Bede's ‘Metrical Vita’ ” [n. 18 above], 90) suggests that Bede was immensely influenced by Arator in the metrical vita; he argues that “fidelity to the model of Arator caused Bede to focus on the figural significance of the event rather than the concrete.” Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Cf. Epistola ad Ecgbertum 7: “Audivimus enim, et fama est, quia multae villae ac viculi nostrae gentis in montibus sint inaccessis ac saltibus dumosis positi … numquam multis transeuntibus annis sit visus antistes” (“it is common knowledge, and I have heard it too, that because many of the villages and hamlets of our people are situated in remote mountains and rough, open country … a bishop has never been seen there for many years past”)· Google Scholar

⁸⁰ VCP 16, 212 (clothing); VCP 6, 174 (food). Vita Sancti Antonii 14. 1 informs the reader that Antony spent almost twenty years alone in a tomb, never coming out or permitting anyone to see him. Compare this with the visitors that Cuthbert receives on Fame, and his use of his retreat to teach others.Google Scholar

⁸¹ VCP 9, 184, 186. See especially Bede's remark that Cuthbert preached the way of truth to those who had fallen into pagan ways, “et viam veritatis praedicabat errantibus” (186).Google Scholar

⁸² On the term “man of God” as used in Vita Sancti Antonii and hagiographical tradition, see Steidle, B., “Homo Dei Antonius,” Studia Anselmiana 38 (1956): 148–200; on the frequency of the term in Dialogues 2 see Mahler, M., “Évocations bibliques et hagiographiques dans la Vie de saint Benoît par saint Grégoire,” Revue Bénédictine 83 (1973): 398–429, at 399.Google Scholar

⁸³ Thus, at line 299, Elijah is referred to as “vates.” Google Scholar

⁸⁴ The term vir/homo Dei is also used to refer to Cuthbert sixty-three times in the prose vita, far more than in the anonymous vita. This is not surprising, since the prose vita emphasises the importance of miracles, although it interprets them differently from the anonymous vita.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ “Ut ibi quoque fratribus custodiam disciplinae regularis et auctoritate propositi intimaret et propria actione praemonstraret” (HE 4. 27, 434).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ “Et, quod maxime doctores iuvare solet, ea quae agenda docebat ipse prius agendo praemonstrabat” (HE 4. 28, 438).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Thacker, , “Bede's Ideal” (n. 31 above), 144–45.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Namely, , Aethilwald, and Eadfrith, .Google Scholar

⁸⁹ VCP praef., 142: “Domino sancto et beatissimo patri Eadfrido episcopo.” Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Dial. 2. 25. 1 (anger); 2. 2–3 (sexual temptation); 8. 10–11 (pagan shrine).Google Scholar

⁹¹ HE 3. 5, 228: “gratia discretionis quae virtutum mater est, ante omnia probatur inbutus” (“he [Aidan] proved to be endowed with the fine quality of moderation, the mother of all virtues”).Google Scholar

⁹² See Colgrave, 5–10, for a brief outine of the stormy period in which Cuthbert lived; also Campbell, J., “Elements in the Background of the Life of St. Cuthbert and His Early Cult,” in St. Cuthbert: His Cult, 3–19.Google Scholar

⁹³ Markus, R. A., Bede and the Tradition of Ecclesiastical Historiography (Jarrow on Tyne, 1975), 7.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Thacker, , “Bede's Ideal,” 142: “Cuthbert is presented as an exemplary monk, ascetic, and bishop, fulfilling in these roles all the requirements of a Bedan rector, doctor, and praedicator. He is seen as the Northumbrian equivalent of the great holy men of the Christian past.” Google Scholar