CHAPTER XII

MONASTICISM AND LITERATURE

THE monastic life, so largely developed in England both by Celtic and Latin Christianity, increased the force of some of the literary elements on which I have dwelt in the last chapter, added others, and brought to the help and adornment of literature new arts, and new forms of human life. Moreover, it enlarged the material of literature by producing a literary class and by the collection into libraries of the literature of the past. It founded the literature of History, Rhetoric, and Philosophy. It established schools. Laymen attended them, and it actually created in this fashion, and for a time, a small literary class of laymen in Northumbria. By means of the unity, which, independent of diverse nationalities, knit together the monasteries, monasticism opened to Englishmen Rome, Ireland, and the Continent. New thoughts, new scenes, new views thus entered into the life of thought in England. The pilgrimages which it encouraged did the same kind of work; and the movement to and fro of the missionaries whom England sent out to the Teutonic lands brought her into contact again with the original spirit which informed her poetry, and strengthened that spirit. It is worth while to briefly develop these various points, and to bring them, however diverse they may be, into as united a form as possible.

First, those emotional habits of daily life, of custom and thought on which I have dwelt in the last chapter, and which form, as it were, the ground-ooze of poetic literature, grew into a special charm in English monastic life. There was added to them a religious tenderness, a fuller love of quiet beauty, an imaginative heavenliness, which our sacred poetry has never lost. That charm is seen most clearly in the writings of Baeda. It runs like a sweet clear stream through the stories he tells of holy men and women who, while yet alive, heard celestial sounds and saw their convent gardens, the woods and moors

and starry heavens irradiated by the "solemn troops and sweet societies" of the angels. A history of literature is bound to quote one of these tales,' itself a lovely illustration of the temper I am describing, and told with an ideal grace and innocent simplicity which arise out of Baeda's own delight in that of which he speaks.

When Ceadda, bishop of the Mercians, was near the hour of his death, it happened that a monk, whose name was Owini, was employed in the garden of the monastery at Lichfield, and became aware of a strange thing. The bishop was alone, reading or praying in his oratory, when on a sudden Owini "heard the voice of persons singing most sweetly and rejoicing, and the sound seemed to come down from heaven. And he heard the voice moving from the southeast, but afterwards it drew near to him, till, coming to the roof of the oratory where the bishop was, it entered therein and filled it. Owini listened, all attent, and after the space of half an hour the same song of joy ascended from the roof and returned to heaven with an inexpressible sweetness. While he stood astonished, turning seriously in his mind what this might be, the bishop opened the window of the oratory, and clapping with his hand as he was wont to do, bade him come in. Make haste to the church,' he said, and cause the seven brothers to come hither, and do you come with them.' When they were at hand he admonished them to keep the virtue of peace among themselves and towards all, and to be careful to practise the rules of regular discipline."

"And then he said, 'The time of my death is at hand, for that amiable guest who was wont to visit our brothers has vouchsafed also to come to me this day and to call me from the world. Return, therefore, to the church and speak to the brethren, that they recommend in their prayers my journey to the Lord; and be careful also (for the hour is uncertain) to provide for their own, by watching and prayer and good works.' When he had spoken thus much and more, and they, having received his blessing, had gone away in sorrow, he who had heard the heavenly song came back alone, and, kneeling on the ground, said, 'I beseech you, Father, that I may ask a question

1 No history of poetic literature would be in any sense complete which did not draw special attention to the stories contained in the Ecclesiastical History and in the Biographies of Baeda. I have quoted one of them above, in order to ask those who care for fine literature to read them all. I wish they were collected separately. I think it would be an admirable thing if some Anglo-Saxon professor were to put them into Anglo-Saxon and make a little reading-book out of them; or were to isolate them in their original Latin, and give them to the Class to reproduce in the manner of the later Anglo-Saxon of the Chronicle.

of you.''Ask what you will,' answered the bishop. Then he added, 'I entreat you to tell me what song of joy was that which I heard coming upon this oratory, and after some time returning to heaven?' The bishop answered, 'If you heard the singing, and know of the descent of the heavenly company, I command you, in the name of our Lord, that you tell it not to any before my death. These were angelic spirits who came to call me to my heavenly reward, for the which I have always longed; moreover, they promised to return seven days hence and take me with them.""

This is but one of many tales, full of so heartfelt a harmony of feeling and style, that it is impossible to ignore them as one of the original sources of English religious poetry. This sweet and well-bred gentleness, this religious fervour, with its tender supernaturalism, its natural dignity, its grave seriousness of life, and its quietude in death, added new and special elements to the Sacred Song of England, which, continued up to the present day, is not excelled in the world for its variety and depth, for the passion of its sadness and joy.

The romantic tone added to it by the Celtic missionaries ministered still further to its endurance. Our island religion -at least in the home of poetry in the North was first made by the Irish, and was deeply tinged by their nature. Owing to their influence, a more changing colour was given to the religious life, a greater spirit of adventure pervaded it, a freer and more passionate daily life entered into it. Moreover, the life the Irish missionaries led and the spirit they imposed on religion were alike romantic. These things have been one of the powers of our literature one of the fires which have burnt in it down to the present day.

We can trace these romantic roots of poetry and the subjects of poetry in the lives of the evangelisers of Northumbria. They were the eager bringers into life of an imaginative, richly-coloured, natural music. They filled with poetry popular religious emotion. Aidan, with his gentleness and fire thrilled the land he converted. We may even claim the life of Columba as another influence in the same direction, for after his death his romantic soul touches from afar the hearts of English kings. Oswald, who had been in exile at Iona, felt all through his life the spirit of the founder of Iona. The legend runs that on the evening before the battle of Denisesburn, Columba (now dead for thirty-six years) appeared to him, and stretched his glittering robe over the little army, and cried, "Be of good courage and play the man. Join battle at

the dawn. I have won victory for you from God, and the death of the tyrants." But the ideal example of this influence is Cuthbert, and the best also to take, for he was not, like Aidan, a Scot, but an Englishman. His very birthplace is one of the homes of our romance, for he grew up on the Lammermoor, in the country of Tweed and Teviot, and kept the flocks of his master on the sheep walks of the Leader. He is bound up with Aidan, as Elisha was with Elijah; for as he was watching the sheep one night in the starry silence he saw Heaven opened, and a host of angels descend on a stream of light, and fly upwards again with a resplendent soul. And he knew afterwards, it is said, that this was Aidan who had just died at Lindisfarne. At fifteen years old, the story runs, he came to Melrose on his horse, like a young warrior, spear in hand, and with an attendant rider, and the picture is like a ballad. No life could be wilder, more impassioned than the missionary life he then undertook, roving from one lonely hamlet to another among the pathless fells, living in the open air from glen to glen, lighting the desolate country with "his angel face," preaching to English and Celts, redeeming them from the remnants of heathenism. For weeks, for months, he was away from the monastery, going from the Forth to the Solway, even piercing northward into the land of the Picts.1

Then the anchorite spirit seized him, and he prayed on the dark nights beside the icy waves, and the otters or seals came out of the water, moved with pity, to lie over and to warm his feet, a story which clung to the popular memory. All through his life he had pleasant doings with the animals, as many others had among the early English saints. Cuthbert, in this relation, is the St. Francis of England; and it is agreeable to think, and may have more in it than mere fancy, that the love of Walter Scott and Burns - lowlanders like Cuthbert - for the poetry of animal life had a far-off origin in Cuthbert's affectionate regard for birds and beasts-creatures who, he thought, served God, and ought to love God's minister. To the birds who wasted his barley on Farne he spoke, appealing to their honesty not to injure that which belonged to another; yet they might take the corn, he said, if God had given them

1 The wandering missionary bearing the Gospel from land to land carries on into Christian times, and is in full analogy with the wandering Scôp bearing his sagas from hall to hall. The bishops, like Ealdhelm, who preached from village to village, brought to the people, by the stories and parables in their sermons, even by the old songs they did not disdain to sing or to make in English, something of what we may call literature. The sermon was often the successful rival of the War Tale.

leave. One day, hungry and in a waste place, an eagle killed a fish for him. His boy brought him the food. But Cuthbert reproved him. "What have you done, my son; why have you not given part to God's handmaid? Cut the fish in two pieces, and give her one, as her service well deserves." Two ravens that lived on the rocks of Farne pulled out the thatch of his hut to build therewith their nest. He reproved them, and they fled away in sorrow. At the end of three days one returned, and spread out his wings and bent his head most piteously, asking pardon by his gestures of Cuthbert who was digging in his field. And the man of God gave them leave to return, the which both of them did, and brought a large piece of hog's lard with them, with which Cuthbert always greased the brethren's shoes; and for many years in all humility, penitence, and peace, the ravens dwelt with him in Farne. I write this, I think of the spirit which fills the Ancient Mariner of Coleridge.

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But he was not as yet living in this lonely island. It was after years passed at Melrose, at Ripon, at Lindisfarne and in his frequent journeys, that, wearying for loneliness with God, he came at last to Farne, an island opposite Bamborough, ceaselessly swept by the winds and waves of the fierce sea. There he lived a happy, and, when he was visited, a hospitable life for nine years (676-684). Made bishop then of Lindisfarne, he carried, as before, his poetic spirit and the peace of God over the whole of his wild diocese in incessant journeys. When, worn out, he went back, after two years to die at Farne, his last breath was drawn in the midst of the quiet sea, and the bells of Lindisfarne answered the waving candles of Farne which told his brethren on the mainland that their master had departed (687). This was a romantic life, and it sank deep into the hearts of the English people. One beautiful story after another is told of his tender, passionate, daring, and childlike character. Women loved him well in all honour and noble friendship. His life has been called uneventful, but the spirit of it was more longlived than the memory of all the wars and policy of his time. Northumbria chose him for patron. Every valley and fell loved his memory. He gathered round his bones a host of the relics of noble Englishmen. The head of Oswald lay on his breast; the bones of the bishops Aidan, Eadberht, Eadfrith, Ethelwold, the head of the most glorious Ceolwulf, and the relics of Baeda, rested with him in his coffin. The kings of England paid him homage. He edged Elfred's falchion on the Dane, and the Norman