Bede's Ecclesiastical History of EnglandBede, the Venerable, Saint
History
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England
Bede, the Venerable, Saint
England -- Church history -- 449-1066
Then King Oswy, according to the vow he had made to the Lord, returned
thanks to God for the victory granted him, and gave his daughter
Elfled,(438) who was scarce a year old, to be consecrated to Him in
perpetual virginity; bestowing also twelve small estates of land, wherein
the practice of earthly warfare should cease, and place and means should
be afforded to devout and zealous monks to wage spiritual warfare, and
pray for the eternal peace of his nation. Of these estates six were in the
province of the Deiri, and the other six in that of the Bernicians. Each
of the estates contained ten families, that is, a hundred and twenty in
all. The aforesaid daughter of King Oswy, who was to be dedicated to God,
entered the monastery called Heruteu,(439) or, “The Island of the Hart,”
at that time ruled by the Abbess Hilda,(440) who, two years after, having
acquired an estate of ten families, at the place called
Streanaeshalch,(441) built a monastery there, in which the aforesaid
king’s daughter was first trained in the monastic life and afterwards
became abbess; till, at the age of fifty-nine, the blessed virgin departed
to be united to her Heavenly Bridegroom. In this monastery, she and her
father, Oswy, her mother, Eanfled, her mother’s father, Edwin,(442) and
many other noble persons, are buried in the church of the holy Apostle
Peter. King Oswy concluded this war in the district of Loidis, in the
thirteenth year of his reign, on the 15th of November,(443) to the great
benefit of both nations; for he delivered his own people from the hostile
depredations of the pagans, and, having made an end of their heathen
chief, converted the Mercians and the adjacent provinces to the grace of
the Christian faith.
Diuma was made the first bishop of the Mercians, as also of Lindsey and
the Midland Angles, as has been said above,(444) and he died and was
buried among the Midland Angles. The second was Ceollach,(445) who, giving
up his episcopal office before his death, returned into Scotland. Both
these bishops belonged to the nation of the Scots. The third was Trumhere,
an Englishman, but educated and ordained by the Scots. He was abbot of the
monastery that is called Ingetlingum,(446) and is the place where King
Oswin was killed, as has been said above; for Queen Eanfled, his
kinswoman, in expiation of his unjust death, begged of King Oswy that he
would give Trumhere, the aforesaid servant of God, a place there to build
a monastery, because he also was kinsman to the slaughtered king; in which
monastery continual prayers should be offered up for the eternal welfare
of the kings, both of him that was murdered, and of him that commanded the
murder. The same King Oswy governed the Mercians, as also the people of
the other southern provinces, three years after he had slain King Penda;
and he likewise subdued the greater part of the Picts to the dominion of
the English.
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