ALDHELM Y ALDFRITH (704)

Aldhelm was the most learned teacher of 7th-century Wessex, a pioneer in the art of Latin verse among the Saxons, and author of numerous extant writtings in Latin verse and prose.


Trained in Latin and in Celtic-Irish scholarship by Malmesbury´s Irish founder, he went on to study at the famous School of Canterbury, where he was exposed to continental influences. He read widely in Latin poetry and prose, pagan as well as sacred; he learned Greek; he followed the artihmetic and astronomy of his day; and he experimented with various forms of poetic meter. About 675 he became abbot of Malmesbury, where he remained, carrying on a threefold works, as monk and priest, as encourager of learning, and as Latin poet. In 705 he was consecrated bishop of Sherborne. He was also a popular vernacular poet, through none of his verse survives.


In addition to his pastoral duties, building churches, and founding monasteries, Aldhelm wrote vigorous letters of encouragement to other scholars, which betray his Celtic training: they are written in an almost unreadable Latin, a mixture of foreign, hybrid, and artificial words such as delighted many medieval Celtic scholars. In similar prose he also wrote a lengthy treatise on the celibate life for the nuns of Barking. Its flood of learning and its difficult style so delighted the community that he made a second version of it in Latin hexameters.


Metrical science was Aldhelm´s special preoccupation, and his most famous work is a treatise on metrics sent to his friend Aldfrith, king of Northumbria (685-704). It includes as examples 100 aenigmata or riddles of Aldhelm´s own invention in Latin hexameters, which served as models for such 8th-century Saxon writers as Tatwine, archbishop of Canterbury, and St. Boniface, apostle of Germany.




Aldfrith was king of Northumbria and patron of literature. An illegitimate son of Oswiu, he succeeded to the throne when his brother Egfrith was killed at the Batle of Nechtansmere. Educated for the priesthood, he stimulated the growth of scholarship in Northumbria during his reign, producing conditions under which the historian Bede flourished.