Ailred

, Ethelred, Ælred, or Ealred, abbot of Revesby in Lincolnshire in the reigns of king Stephen and king Henry II. was born of nobie parents, in 1109, and educated in Scotland, together with Henry, son of David, king of Scots. Upon his return into England, he took the habit in the Cistertian monastery of Revesby, where his extraordinary piety and learning soon raised him to the dignity of abbot. Leland says he outshone his brethren as the sun eclipses the brightness of the inferior luminaries: and endeared himself no less to the great men of the kingdom than to the monks of his own house. His great love of retirement, and a life of contemplation and study, induced him to decline all offers of ecclesiastical preferment, and even to refuse a bishopric. He was particularly attached to St. Austin’s works, especially his “Confessions;” and was a strict imitator of St. Bernard in his writings, words, and actions. He left behind him several monuments of his learning; in the composition of which he was assisted by Walter Daniel, a monk of the same convent. This abbot died January 12, 1166, aged fifty-seven years, and was buried in the monastery of Revesby, under a tomb adorned with gold and silver; and, we are told, he was canonized on account of some miracles said to have been wrought by him after his death.

Of his works, the following have been printed in the “Collection of ten English Writers” by Roger Twisden, Lond. 1652: “De Bello Standardii tempore Stephani regis, anno 1138;” “Genealogia Regum Anglorum;” “Historra de Vita et Miraculis S. Edwardi Regis et Confessoris;” “Historia de Sanctimoniali de Watthun.” Ailred wrote another “Life of St. Edward” in elegiac verse, which is extant in manuscript in the library of Gonvil and Caius college in Cambridge. The following were published by Richard Gibbons, a Jesuit, at Doway, in 1631, and | afterwards in the “Bibliotheca Cistertiensis,” and in the “Bibliotheca Patrum;” namely, “Sermones de Tempore etde Sanctis;” “In~Isaiam Prophetam Sermones XXXI;” “Speculum Charitatis libris III.” “Tractatus de puero Jesu duodecenni in illud Luc. ii. cum factus esset Jesus, &c.” “De spirituali Amicitia.” He wrote also “Regulse ad Inclusas, seu Moniales,” which is erroneously ascribed to St. Augustin, and usually printed with his works; and among the works of St. Bernard is “Tractatus de Dominica infra octavas Epiphaniae, et Sermones XI. de oneribus Isaiae,” which was written by Ailred. Leland, Bale, and Pits, have enumerated his unpublished writings, as has Tanner under the article Ealredus. ¹