Cedd, the founder and
abbot of Lastingham, was Aidan's pupil, so was his brother,
the great bishop Ceadda (Chad), who succeeded him in his
abbacy. At Lindisfarne was wrought by Eadfrith (d. 721) the
beautiful manuscript of the Gospels now preserved in the
British Museum, and a little later the fine cover for it.
Lastingham, founded on the desolate moorland of North
Yorkshire, "among steep and distant mountains, which
looked more like lurking-places for robbers and dens of
wild beasts, than dwellings of men," upheld the traditions
of the Columban houses for piety, asceticism, and studious
occupations. Thither repaired one Owini, not to live idle,
but to labour, and as he was less capable of studying, he
applied himself earnestly to manual work, the while better-
instructed monks were indoors reading.
In many directions do we observe traces of Aidan's
good work. Hild, the foundress of Whitby Abbey, was for
a short time his pupil. Her monastery was famous for having
educated five bishops, among them John of Beverley, and
for giving birth, in Caedmon, to the father of English poetry.
"Religious poetry, sung to the harp as it passed from hand
to hand, must have flourished in the monastery of the abbess
Hild, and the kernel of Bede's story concerning the birth of
our earliest poet must be that the brethren and sisters on
that bleak northern shore spoke to each other in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs.
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