Merovingian ruler. In the year 751 he became king of the Franks, in a ceremony of consecration conducted, we are told by the Frankish Royal Annals , by another English cleric, St Boniface, archbishop of Mainz and today patron saint of Germany. Towards the end of the century, his son, Charles the Great (in German Karl der Grosse, in French Charlemagne), presided over the ‘Carolingian renaissance’, the first great cultural flowering in Europe since the fall of Rome in the West, with the Northumbrian Alcuin of York his principal director of studies.
Leading roles in Northumbria’s golden age (an overworked term in the view of some modern historians of Mercia!) go first to the five kings: Æthelfrith the pagan and his Christian successors Edwin, Oswald, Oswiu and his son Ecgfrith. Next, to the churchmen and women, mostly of noble stock: Abbess Hild (Hilda) of Whitby, whopresided over the Synod held there in 664 with momentous consequences for Europe; Cuthbert, charismatic monk-bishop and hermit; Benedict Biscop, monastic founder, patron of learning and library builder and frequent visitor to Rome; Wilfrid of Ripon and York, a prince bishop on the European stage and Archbishop Ecgberht, a king’s brother who, along with his successor Archbishop Ælbert, created northern Europe’s principal seat of learning, where Alcuin would dazzle the continent. Greatest of all was Bede.
Soon after their deaths Cuthbert and Wilfrid were subjects of notable biographies. Cuthbert’s, completed some time between 698 and 705, almost certainly prompted the Vita Wilfridi written by Stephen, a monk at Ripon, shortly after Wilfrid’s death at Oundle in 709 or 710. There ensued what has been called ‘a virtual “pamphlet” war’. Bede himself was very much on the side of the modest Cuthbert as opposed to the fiery Wilfrid, who it has been said ‘came into conflict with almost every prominent secular and ecclesiastical figure of the age’. He founded many monastic communities and every year, at the liturgical commemoration of his death, readings from the biography, delivered no doubt in a dramatic manner, would have revived memories of that towering physical presence and sonorous voice.
Formation of a kingdom
The name ‘Northumbria’ may actually be Bede’s coinage, but the state originated in the two constituent kingdoms of Bernicia to the north and Deira to the south. In 600 Deira was ruled by King Ælle and Bernicia by King Æthelfrith, who was married to Ælle’s daughter Acha. Her brother Edwin, their father’s heir in Deira, was robbed of the succession when Ælle died in 604 and the Bernician king drove the young man into exile – a century later the Deirans would still regard this as the act of a tyrant. Edwin found asylum at the court of Rædwald of the East Angles and survived at least one assassination attempt ordered by his brother-in-law.
Æthelfrith won decisive victories over his Christian neighbours, the Scots Irish of Dál Riata to the northwest and the British of the kingdom of Rheged, to the west. 2 Such border kingdoms were almost a symbiotic necessity for an expansionist English king. Either they paid tribute or he could distribute their land and wealth among his warrior thegns as befitted a ring-giving lord in the Beowulf tradition. Bede, perhaps here a better Northumbrian than Christian, admired Æthelfrith the pagan warrior lord. Reporting his victory at Degsastan (Degsa’s Stone) over the Scots in 603, the monk compares the heathen war leader to King Saul of ancient Israel. Like Saul, Æthelfrith exterminated or enslaved the defeated population to open the conquered territory to settlement. Bede duly notes that, unlike Saul, Æthelfrith ‘was ignorant of the true religion’.
Describing the destruction of the Britons of Strathclyde at the Battle of Chester in 614, Bede’s triumphalism is open. The British had a detachment of monks praying for victory in the sight of the enemy. Æthelfrith attacked
Leading roles in Northumbria’s golden age (an overworked term in the view of some modern historians of Mercia!) go first to the five kings: Æthelfrith the pagan and his Christian successors Edwin, Oswald, Oswiu and his son Ecgfrith. Next, to the churchmen and women, mostly of noble stock: Abbess Hild (Hilda) of Whitby, whopresided over the Synod held there in 664 with momentous consequences for Europe; Cuthbert, charismatic monk-bishop and hermit; Benedict Biscop, monastic founder, patron of learning and library builder and frequent visitor to Rome; Wilfrid of Ripon and York, a prince bishop on the European stage and Archbishop Ecgberht, a king’s brother who, along with his successor Archbishop Ælbert, created northern Europe’s principal seat of learning, where Alcuin would dazzle the continent. Greatest of all was Bede.
Soon after their deaths Cuthbert and Wilfrid were subjects of notable biographies. Cuthbert’s, completed some time between 698 and 705, almost certainly prompted the Vita Wilfridi written by Stephen, a monk at Ripon, shortly after Wilfrid’s death at Oundle in 709 or 710. There ensued what has been called ‘a virtual “pamphlet” war’. Bede himself was very much on the side of the modest Cuthbert as opposed to the fiery Wilfrid, who it has been said ‘came into conflict with almost every prominent secular and ecclesiastical figure of the age’. He founded many monastic communities and every year, at the liturgical commemoration of his death, readings from the biography, delivered no doubt in a dramatic manner, would have revived memories of that towering physical presence and sonorous voice.
Formation of a kingdom
The name ‘Northumbria’ may actually be Bede’s coinage, but the state originated in the two constituent kingdoms of Bernicia to the north and Deira to the south. In 600 Deira was ruled by King Ælle and Bernicia by King Æthelfrith, who was married to Ælle’s daughter Acha. Her brother Edwin, their father’s heir in Deira, was robbed of the succession when Ælle died in 604 and the Bernician king drove the young man into exile – a century later the Deirans would still regard this as the act of a tyrant. Edwin found asylum at the court of Rædwald of the East Angles and survived at least one assassination attempt ordered by his brother-in-law.
Æthelfrith won decisive victories over his Christian neighbours, the Scots Irish of Dál Riata to the northwest and the British of the kingdom of Rheged, to the west. 2 Such border kingdoms were almost a symbiotic necessity for an expansionist English king. Either they paid tribute or he could distribute their land and wealth among his warrior thegns as befitted a ring-giving lord in the Beowulf tradition. Bede, perhaps here a better Northumbrian than Christian, admired Æthelfrith the pagan warrior lord. Reporting his victory at Degsastan (Degsa’s Stone) over the Scots in 603, the monk compares the heathen war leader to King Saul of ancient Israel. Like Saul, Æthelfrith exterminated or enslaved the defeated population to open the conquered territory to settlement. Bede duly notes that, unlike Saul, Æthelfrith ‘was ignorant of the true religion’.
Describing the destruction of the Britons of Strathclyde at the Battle of Chester in 614, Bede’s triumphalism is open. The British had a detachment of monks praying for victory in the sight of the enemy. Æthelfrith attacked
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