Chapter 23

During his episcopate among the East Saxons, God’s servant Cedd often visited his own province, that is the province of the Northumbrians, to preach. Ethelwald, son of King Oswald, who ruled in the region of Deira, knowing Cedd to be a wise, holy, and virtuous man, asked him to accept a grant of land to found a monastery, to which he himself might often come to pray and hear the word of God and where he might be buried: for he firmly believed that the daily prayers of those who would serve God there would be of great help to him. The king’s chaplain had been Cedd’s brother, a priest named Caelin, a man equally devoted to God, who had ministered the Word and Sacraments to himself and his family, and it was mainly through him that the king came to know and love the bishop. In accordance with the king’s wishes, Cedd chose a site for the monastery among some high and remote hills, which seemed more suitable for the dens of robbers and haunts of wild beasts than for human habitation. His purpose in this was to fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass, with reeds and rushes’, so that the fruits of good works might spring up where formerly lived only wild beasts, or men who lived like wild beasts.

The man of God wished first of all to purify the site of the monastery from the taint of earlier crimes by prayer and fasting and make it acceptable to God before laying the foundations. He therefore asked the king’s permission to remain there throughout the approaching season of Lent, and during this time he fasted until evening every day except Sunday according to custom. Even then, he took no food but a morsel of bread, a hen’s egg and a little watered milk. He explained that it was the custom of those who had trained him in the rule of regular discipline to dedicate the site of any monastery or church to God with prayer and fasting. But ten days before the end of Lent a messenger arrived to summon him to the king. So in order that the king’s business should not interrupt the work of dedication, Cedd asked his brother the priest Cynibil to complete this holy task. The latter readily consented, and when the period of prayer, and fasting came to an end, he built the monastery now called Laestingaeu,¹ and established there the observance of the usages of Lindisfarne where he had been trained.

When Cedd had been bishop of the province for many years and ruled the monastery through the priors he had chosen, he happened to visit the monastery during a time of plague, and there fell sick and died. He was first buried in the open, but in the course of time a stone church was built, dedicated to the blessed Mother of God, and in it his body was reinterred on the right side of the altar.

The bishop bequeathed the abbacy of the monastery to his brother Chad, who subsequently became a bishop as I shall record later.² The four brothers I have mentioned – Cedd, Cynibil, Caelin, and Chad – all became famous priests of our Lord, and two became bishops, which is a rare occurrence in one family. When the brethren of Cedd’s monastery in the province of the East Saxons heard that their founder had died and been buried in the province of the Northumbrians, about thirty of them came there visiting wishing either. God willing, to live near the body of their Father, or else to die and be laid to rest at his side. They were kindly welcomed by their brothers and fellow-soldiers of Christ, and all of them died there of the plague with the exception of one little boy who must surely have been preserved from death by the prayers of his Father Chad. For many years afterwards, when this boy was still alive and applying himself to the study of the Scriptures, he suddenly learned that he had never been baptized; so he at once sought salvation in the waters of the font, and was subsequently admitted to the priesthood and proved himself a support to many in the Church. So I have no doubt that, when the boy visited the tomb of his beloved Father, he was saved from imminent death by his prayers, in order that he might escape eternal death and by his witness exercise a ministry of life and salvation to the other brethren.