Ceolfrith

Summary:

Abbot who continued the work of Saint Benedict, acted as a father-figure to the Venerable Bede and oversaw production of the Codex Amiatinus.

Dates:

Abbot Ceolfrith, also known as Ceolfrid
Born: c.642, Northumbria, UK
Died: September 25 716, Langres, France

Early Years:

The son of a noble Northumbrian family, Ceolfrith entered the monastery at Gilling, Yorkshire, when he was eighteen. Gilling's founding had been influenced by Roman Christian ideas promoted by Bishop Wilfred and Ceolfrith moved to the house Wilfred personally oversaw at Ripon within a few years. Ceolfrith was ordained by Wilfred in 669 CE and left Ripon to tour the monasteries of southern England, teaching but primarily learning their methods and practices.

St. Peter and St. Paul:

At some point Ceolfrith met Biscop Baducing, Wilfred's companion on a journey to Rome and by 669 an Abbot called Benedict. However, we don't know when: it may have been during Ceolfrith's stay at Ripon, or maybe only for the first time when Ceofrith visited Canterbury as he roamed England. Either way, the two formed a friendship in the early 670's and when Benedict founded St. Peter's monastery at Wearmouth in 674, Ceolfrith was made prior.

Rome:

By all accounts the new monks of Wearmouth were a problematic group and Ceolfrith initially struggled, even resigning his position and returning to Ripon for a short period. He did return, but soon embarked on a longer absence: in 679/80 he accompanied Benedict on another of the Abbot's journeys to Rome. Here Ceolfrith encountered Roman Christianity in situ for the first time, exactly as Wilfred and Benedict had done years earlier. He also acquired his friends love of acquiring books.

Jarrow and Bede:

By 681 Abbot Benedict's work secured the monastery a new foundation, a twin house at Jarrow dedicated to St. Paul; Ceolfrith became Abbot. Amongst the monks who accompanied Ceolfrith to the founding was a young boy called Bede. The Life of Ceolfrith claims they were the only survivors of a plague which devastated Jarrow and, whether this is true or not, Ceolfrith became a father figure and great influence on Bede, the era's greatest scholar.

Building His Monastery:

Despite his problems as a Prior, it was Ceolfrith who became Abbot of both St. Peter and St. Pauls after Benedict's death in 690. He didn't fail to continue his master's work in establishing the monastery as a redoubtable center of learning, and the already rich library was doubled in size. More famously, the scriptorum produced three copies (one for Wearmouth, one for Jarrow and one for Rome) of Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible – the Vulgate - a feat requiring considerable research.

A Final Trip To Rome:

In 716, at 74 years of age, Ceolfrith left his monastery on what was widely expected to be his final journey: a return to Rome, where he intended to present the Pope with one of the three new bibles. He died within three months of leaving, at Langres in France. The bible he took, now called the Codex Amiatinus, completed the journey and survives to this day: the oldest complete version of the Vulgate left, it's a vital source for biblical scholars.

Bede's Account of Ceolfrith's (Ceolfrid's) Departure:

"But Ceolfrid having now practised a long course of regular discipline...saw himself now old and full of days, and unfit any longer, from his extreme age, to prescribe to his brethren the proper forms of spiritual exercise by his life and doctrine. Having, therefore, deliberated long within himself, he judged it expedient, having first impressed on the brethren the observance of the rules which St. Benedict had given them, and thereby to choose for themselves a more efficient abbot out of their own number, to depart, himself, to Rome, where he had been in his ' youth with the holy Benedict; that not only he might for a time be free from all worldly cares before his death, and so have leisure and quiet for reflection, but that they also, having chosen a younger abbot, might naturally, in con sequence thereof, observe more accurately the rules of monastic discipline.

At first all opposed, and entreated him on their knees and with many tears, but their solicitations were to no purpose. Such was his eagerness to depart, that on the third day after he had disclosed his design to the brethren, he set out upon his journey. For he feared, what actually came to pass, that he might die before he reached Rome; and he was also anxious that neither his friends nor the nobility, who all honoured him, should delay his departure, or give him money which he would not have time to repay; for with him it was an invariable rule, if any one made him a present, to show equal grace by returning it, either at once or within a suitable space of time."

An excerpt from 'The Lives of The Holy Abbots of Weremouth and Jarrow' by Bede, translated by J. Giles, available online at the Internet Medieval Source Book.