, a famous abbot in the seventh century, was born of a noble family
, a famous abbot in
the seventh century, was born of a noble family among
the English Saxons, and flourished under Oswi and Egfrid
kings of Northumberland. In the twenty-fifth year of his
age, he abandoned all temporal views and possessions, to
devote himself wholly to religion, and for this purpose travelled to Rome in the year 653, where he acquired a
knowledge of ecclesiastical discipline, which, upon his return home, he laboured to establish in Britain. In the
year 665, he took a second journey to Rome; and after
some months stay in that city, he received the tonsure in.
the monastery of Lerins, where he continued about two
years in a strict observance of the monastic discipline. He
was sent back by pope Vitalian, and upon his return, took
upon himself the government of the monastery of Canterbury, to which he had been elected in his absence. Two
years after, he resigned the abbey to Adrian, an abbot,
and went a third time to Rome, and returned with a very
large collection of the most valuable books. Then he went
to the court of Egfrid, king of Northumberland, who had
succeeded Oswi. That prince, with whom he was highly
in favour, gave him a tract of land on the east side of the
mouth of the river Were; where he built a large monastery, called, from its situation, Weremouth; in which, it
is said, he placed three hundred Benedictine monks.
The church of this convent was built of stone after the
Roman architecture, and the windows glazed by artificers
brought from France, in the year of Christ 674, and the
fourth of king Egfrid; and both the monastery and the
church were dedicated to St. Peter. In the year 678,
Benedict took a fourth journey to Rome, and was kindly
received by pope Agatho. From this expedition he returned loaded with books, relics of the apostles and
martyrs, images, and pictures, when, with the pope’s consent, he brought over with him John, arch-chanter of St.
Peter’s, and abbot of St. Martin’s, who introduced the
Roman manner of singing mass. In the year 682 kingEgfrid gave him another piece of ground, on the banks of
the Tyne, four miles from Newcastle where he built
another monastery called Girwy or Jarrow, dedicated to
St. Paul, and placed therein seventeen monks under an
abbot named Ceolfrid. About the same time he appointed
a Presbyter named Easterwinus to be a joint abbot with
himself of the monastery of Weremouth soou after which,
he took his fifth and last journey to Rome, and, as before,
came back enriched with a farther supply of ecclesiastical
books and pictures. He had not been long at home before he was seized with the palsy, which put an end to his
life on the 12th of January, 690. His behaviour during
his sickness appears to have been truly Christian and exemplary. He was buried in his own monastery of Weremouth. He wrote some pieces, but Leland ascribes to
him only a treatise on the Agreement of the rule of the
Monastic life. Bale and Pits give this book N the title of
“Concordia Regularum,
” and the last-mentioned author
informs us, that the design of this book was to prove, that
the rules of all the holy fathers tallied exactly with that of
St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictines. He wrote
likewise “Exhortationes ad Monachos;
” “De suo Privilegio.
” And “De celebratione Festorum totius anni.
”
Mr. Warton, in his History of Poetry, mentions Benedict
Biscop as one of the most distinguished of the Saxon ecclesiastics. The library which he added to his monastery,
was stored with Greek and Latin volumes. Bede has
thought it worthy to be recorded, that Ceolfrid, his successor in the government of Weremouth abbey, augmented
this collection with three volumes of Pandects, and a book
of cosmography, wonderfully enriched with curious workmanship, and bought at Rome. The historian Bede, who
wrote the lives of four of the abbots of Weremouth and
Jarrow, was one of the monks in those convents, and pronounced a homily on the death of Benedict. His body
was deposited in the monastery of Thorney, in Cambridgeshire.