Chapter 20

In the year following the death of the above Father Wilfrid, that is, the fifth year of King Osred, the most reverend father, Abbot Hadrian, fellow-worker in the word of God with Archbishop Theodore of blessed memory, died and was buried in the church of the blessed Mother of God in his own monastery. This was the forty-first year after his dispatch by Pope Vitalian with Theodore, and the thirty-ninth after his arrival in Britain. Among other testimonies to his learning and that of Archbishop Theodore is the fact that his disciple Albinus, who succeeded him as abbot of his monastery, was so well grounded in the study of the Scriptures that he had no small grasp of Greek, while he understood Latin as thoroughly as his native English tongue.¹

Wilfrid’s successor as Bishop of the church of Hexham was his priest Acca, a man of great energy and noble in the sight of God and man. He greatly beautified and enlarged the structure of his church, which was dedicated in honour of blessed Andrew the Apostle. He devoted much care, as he still does, to obtaining relics of the blessed Apostles and martyrs of Christ from various places, and builds altars for their veneration, placed for this purpose in recesses within the walls of his church. He has also collected accounts of their sufferings and other books on religious subjects, to form a very complete and excellent library. And he has been diligent in providing sacred vessels, lights, and similar articles necessary for the furnishing of God’s house. He also invited a famous singer named Maban, who had been trained in vocal music by the successors of blessed Pope Gregory’s disciples in Kent, to come and instruct him and his clergy. He retained his services for twelve years, to teach them whatever church music they did not know, and also to restore to their original form any familiar chants that had become imperfect through lapse of time or neglect; for the bishop himself was a singer of great experience. He was also most learned in the holy Scriptures, orthodox in his profession to the Catholic Faith, and well acquainted with the rules of church administration. And in all these activities he remains unflagging until the time comes for him to receive the reward of his piety and devotion. For he was reared and trained from boyhood among the clergy of the most holy Bosa, God’s beloved Bishop of York; he later came to Bishop Wilfrid in the hope of improving himself, and remained under him continuously until the latter’s death, travelling to Rome with him, and there learning many valuable things about the organization of Holy Church which he had no means of learning in his own country.