he induced to come and work upon his buildings and to teach his monks. Is it not a fair inference from the facts that the influence of Theodore and Hadrian went for something here? Whether or no, Biscop's work was just what was wanted to supplement theirs and to ensure its continuance after their removal.
We do not find these intellectual fathers of the English race figuring as writers. This is a slight matter. Their effectiveness as teachers and the importance of their literary equipment are attested by the works of the first generation of English scholars. Both Aldhelm and Bede are able to use books on grammar and prosody in large numbers: they know the standard poets, both heathen and Christian, and have access, it seems, even to contemporary Spanish writers. The great Latin fathers, and such other books as were valued for their bearing on the Scriptures, doubtless formed the bulk of the libraries which now began to be formed at Canterbury, York, Wearmouth, and perhaps Malmesbury. To put it shortly, within the space of a few years England was placed on a level with the Continent (and with Ireland) in respect of the apparatus of learning. There was this great difference between them, that on the Continent the tools were lying neglected, in England they were in active use.
It is not, perhaps, necessary to describe in any detail the literary monuments of the first age of our literature: the age of which Aldhelm marks the youth and Bede the prime. The subject is well-worn: little that is new can be offered in a general survey. The central fact is that at the beginning of the eighth century England was the home of the one great writer of the time, and was a source of light to the whole of the West. In Bede's Ecclesiastical History we have a book of real literary excellence, as well as an invaluable historical source. In his other works, some of which have outlived their period of greatest usefulness, especially his commentaries, he provided sources of information which were at once welcomed as superior to anything then available, and which retained their popularity until the thirteenth century at least[1].
The lifetime of Bede tides over the first third of the eighth century. The last third sees the beginning of the Carolingian Renaissance. The middle third, compared with its neighbours, is a barren time so far as regards the production of writings of abiding value.
Indeed, when one has named Boniface, with the small group of English writers who were his contemporaries, and Virgilius of Salzburg, almost all is said. Boniface and his circle bear witness, in their letters
- ↑ See also Vol. II. p. 574.
Ceolfrid gave to King Aldfrid in exchange for some lands. (Bede, Vitae Abbatum, 15.) This may possibly have been the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, from which we undoubtedly find an excerpt in Latin in a manuscript given by King Aethelstan to the see of St Cuthbert (CCCC. 183)
