70-402: The Vita Sancti Cuthberti (English: "Life of Saint Cuthbert") is a prose hagiography from early medieval Northumbria . It is probably the earliest extant saint's life from Anglo-Saxon England , and is an account of the life and miracles of Cuthbert (died 687), a Bernician hermit-monk who became bishop of Lindisfarne . Surviving in eight manuscripts from Continental Europe , it
140-447: A neophyte at the monastery of Ripon , Cuthbert is given the job of greeting guests; having washed and rubbed the feet of one guest, Cuthbert seeks to feed the visitor, finds he has no bread in the guesthouse and so goes to the monastery; but because the bread there is still baking, he has to return empty handed; when Cuthbert returns the visitor—an angel in disguise—has vanished leaving three warm loaves. Cuthbert, having been invited to
210-424: A pejorative reference to biographies and histories whose authors are perceived to be uncritical or excessively reverential toward their subject. Hagiography constituted an important literary genre in the early Christian church , providing some informational history along with the more inspirational stories and legends . A hagiographic account of an individual saint could consist of a biography ( vita ),
280-418: A boy from demonic possession (fifteen). A monk from the household of Bishop Willbrord , visiting Lindisfarne, was taken by serious illness but was cured after praying at Cuthbert's coffin (chapter sixteen). Likewise, a paralytic youth brought to Lindisfarne by another monastery for attention from Lindisfarne medics, is cured only after wearing the shoes once worn by Cuthbert (chapter seventeen). The author ends
350-463: A boy were walking along the river Teviot teaching and baptizing the mountain people , when an eagle came from the sky and landed by the river; the boy ran towards the eagle and found a fish; after giving half of it to the eagle, the party fed themselves with the other half (chapter five). On the same trip the Devil created an illusion of a burning house, tricking some of the men despite Cuthbert's warning;
420-448: A common origin, a 12th-century legendary from the diocese of Trier. Both manuscripts share common features, such as the omission of place-names and personal names (e.g. Plecgils). Colgrave likewise attributed a common parent manuscript to Trier, Public Library 1151 and Paris Bibliothèque Nationale Fonds Latin 5289, as he did to Arras 812 (1029) and the two St Omer manuscripts. The Salzburg manuscript may be descended from an ancestor predating
490-711: A completed text. As the text also says that King Aldfrith "is now reigning peacefully", it must have been written before the latter's death in 705. The author of the Life of St Cuthbert has not been identified. Heinrich Hahn in 1883 put a case for Herefrith, the abbot of Lindisfarne mentioned as a source by Bede in his own Vita of the saint. Bertram Colgrave, the Anonymous Life's most recent editor, has roundly rejected Hahn's argument. While offering Baldhelm and Cynemund (two other sources of Bede) as better candidates, Colgrave did not endorse either and declared that "it must always be
560-550: A description of the saint's deeds or miracles, an account of the saint's martyrdom ( passio ), or be a combination of these. The genre of lives of the saints first came into being in the Roman Empire as legends about Christian martyrs were recorded. The dates of their deaths formed the basis of martyrologies . In the 4th century, there were three main types of catalogs of lives of the saints: The earliest lives of saints focused on desert fathers who lived as ascetics from
630-551: A largely illiterate audience. Hagiography provided priests and theologians with classical handbooks in a form that allowed them the rhetorical tools necessary to present their faith through the example of the saints' lives. Of all the English hagiographers no one was more prolific nor so aware of the importance of the genre as Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham . His work Lives of the Saints contains set of sermons on saints' days, formerly observed by
700-676: A longer account of Cuthbert's death supplied to him by abbot Herefrith. Bede also expands the story of Hereberht, adding the name of Hereberht's abode as Derwentwater . Otherwise Bede omitted many of the Old English proper names supplied in the Anonymous Life. Bede adds stories about the death of Boisil , a goose on Farne, the death of Bishop Eadberht, and provides information about Cuthbert's successors on Farne. Hagiography A hagiography ( / ˌ h æ ɡ i ˈ ɒ ɡ r ə f i / ; from Ancient Greek ἅγιος , hagios 'holy' and -γραφία , -graphia 'writing')
770-492: A matter of conjecture". From the text itself, and from the writings of Bede, it can be deduced that it was written by a monk of Lindisfarne . Bede, in his introduction to his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum , is almost certainly referring to this work when he wrote that What I have written concerning the most holy father and bishop Cuthbert, whether in this volume or in my little book concerning his acts, I took in part from what I have previously found written about him by
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#1732855507292840-475: A miracle related to the author by Tydi, Cuthbert saves an infant and the infant's family from the plague at a village named Medilwong . Cuthbert is the savior of a servant Sibba, a Tweedside gesith, is retold thanks to the account provided by another former servant of Sibba's who is now a monk at Lindisfarne (chapter seven). With King Ecgfrith off fighting the Picts, Cuthbert visits the queen at Carlise; as Cuthbert
910-457: A three-year-old playmate, addressing him as "bishop and priest", chides him for lack of humility; this miracle the author claimed to have learned from Bishop Tumma , who apparently heard it from Cuthbert's own mouth (though Cuthbert confessed that the significance was unknown to him at the time). Still an eight-year-old, Cuthbert becomes lame and is visited by an angel who instructs him on a cure (chapter four). In chapter five Cuthbert, while still
980-560: A very large legendary from Arnstein Abbey in the diocese of Trier (now Limburg ), and the Anonymous Life is found at Harley MS 2800, folios 248 to 251b. The same legendary is in three 13th-century Brussels volumes, Royal Library MSS 98–100, 206, and 207–208. The Anonymous Life is present in MS 207–208 folios 158 to 163. In Trier, in another legendary composed around 1235 probably at the Abbey of St Maximin ,
1050-504: A youth tending to sheep in Lauderdale , has a vision of a bishop being borne to heaven; subsequently it is discovered that Aidan , bishop of Lindisfarne, had died on the same hour as Cuthbert's vision. Far to the south, a young Cuthbert is travelling during the winter and crosses the river Wear at Chester-le-Street , taking shelter in one of the empty summer dwellings; suffering from lack of food, his horse pulls down warm bread and meat from
1120-432: Is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might consist of a biography or vita (from Latin vita , life, which begins the title of most medieval biographies), a description of the saint's deeds or miracles, an account of
1190-518: Is an account of the life and miracles of Cuthbert ( Old English : Cuðberht ), sometime Melrose monk, hermit of Farne and bishop of Lindisfarne who died on 20 March 687. In common with Irish saints of the period, the Anonymous Life depicts the Bernician saint in the mold of Martin , bishop of Tours (died 397), who like Cuthbert successfully combined the role of hermit and bishop. The Anonymous Life appears to have been particularly influenced by
1260-460: Is conducted by Waga, the city's reeve, he announces that the war is over and that the Ecgfrith has been slain; it was later revealed that Cuthbert's assertion happened at the same hour as the king's death in battle (chapter eight). At Carlisle Cuthbert meets an anchorite named Hereberht , who asks to die at the same day and hour as Cuthbert; the request is granted, and subsequently both go to heaven on
1330-413: Is described in book iii. Having served as prior of Melrose for some time performing other miracles (omitted by the author), Cuthbert departs for Lindisfarne at the instigation of Bishop Eata ; designing a monastic rule for the monks there, Cuthbert seeks a more solidary existence on the island of Farne, defeats the demons there and begins to build a residence (chapter one). Cuthbert moves a huge rock for
1400-479: Is extant in Folios 67b to 83b of St Omer 267. This manuscript contains works of saints Cyprian , Jerome , and Augustine , as well as hymn lyrics and music dedicated to Martin of Tours and Bertin of St Omer . St Omer 267 is still regarded as the best of all the available manuscripts in terms of accuracy, as well as age. Another St Omer manuscript, St Omer 715 preserves the Anonymous Life, occupying folios 164 to 168b. Here
1470-618: Is out of order towards the end. It is followed in the manuscript by the Vita Sancti Guthlaci ("Life of Saint Guthlac "), the Vita Sancti Dunstani ("Life of Saint Dunstan ") and the Vita Sancti Filiberti ("Life of Saint Filibert ", abbot of Jumièges), and originally contained another hagiography of a Jumièges abbot, that of Aichard of Jumièges . Three British Library manuscript volumes, Harley MSS 2800–2802, contain
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#17328555072921540-481: Is primarily based on St Omer 267. The Anonymous Life consists of 4 books, book i relating Cuthbert's youth, book ii his early years serving God, book iii his time as a hermit on Farne, and book iv his time as bishop. Chapters one and two of book i consist of the prologue and preface, with the author indicating that the work was commissioned by Bishop Eadfrith. In chapter three the eight-year-old Cuthbert plays with other children, showing off his physical abilities, until
1610-662: The Church of Scientology is commonly described as a heavily fictionalized hagiography. Victorius of Aquitaine Victorius of Aquitaine ( fl. 457 ), a countryman of Prosper of Aquitaine and also working in Rome, produced in AD 457 an Easter Cycle , which was based on the consular list provided by Prosper's Chronicle. This dependency caused scholars to think that Prosper had been working on his own Easter Annals for quite some time. In fact, Victorius published his work only two years after
1680-586: The Cornish-language works Beunans Meriasek and Beunans Ke , about the lives of Saints Meriasek and Kea , respectively. Other examples of hagiographies from England include: Ireland is notable in its rich hagiographical tradition, and for the large amount of material which was produced during the Middle Ages. Irish hagiographers wrote primarily in Latin while some of the later saint's lives were written in
1750-632: The Dialogi of Gregory the Great (containing an account of the life of Benedict of Nursia ). This may be an indication that the author regarded Cuthbert as a saint of stature comparable with Benedict and Martin. The Anonymous Life's biggest literary influence was the Christian Scriptures , though it also borrowed some of the stories contained in Gregory's Dialogi , Sulpicius Severus ' Vita Sancti Martini and
1820-564: The Ge'ez language are known as gadl (Saint's Life). There are some 200 hagiographies about indigenous saints. They are among the most important Medieval Ethiopian written sources, and some have accurate historical information. They are written by the disciples of the saints. Some were written a long time after the death of a saint, but others were written not long after the saint's demise. Fragments from an Old Nubian hagiography of Saint Michael are extant. Jewish hagiographic writings are common in
1890-516: The Martyrology of Tallaght and the Félire Óengusso . Such hagiographical calendars were important in establishing lists of native Irish saints, in imitation of continental calendars. In the 10th century, a Byzantine monk Simeon Metaphrastes was the first one to change the genre of lives of the saints into something different, giving it a moralizing and panegyrical character. His catalog of lives of
1960-536: The Picts , become hungry in the territory of the Niuduera (probably in eastern Fife ) waiting for the sea to calm in order to resume their voyage; their hunger is relieved however when three slices of prepared dolphin meat is found on the beach, enough to feed them for three days; the story was reported to the author by a priest named Tydi, still living as the work was authored (chapter four). According to Tydi too, Cuthbert and
2030-586: The Vita Sancti Antonii , Evagrius ' Latin translation of Athanasius ' biography of Anthony the Great . This influence extends to long verbatim extracts, such as those from the Sulpicius Severus at book i chapter 2 and book iv chapter 1. The author was also familiar with Victor of Aquitaine 's Epistola ad Hilarium and the Actus Silvestri . The primary source used however was the oral tradition of
2100-437: The 16th. Production remained dynamic and kept pace with scholarly developments in historical biographical writing until 1925, when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (d. 1938) placed an interdiction on Ṣūfī brotherhoods. As Turkey relaxed legal restrictions on Islamic practice in the 1950s and the 1980s, Ṣūfīs returned to publishing hagiography, a trend which continues in the 21st century. The pseudobiography of L. Ron Hubbard compiled by
2170-512: The 4th century onwards. The life of Anthony of Egypt is usually considered the first example of this new genre of Christian biography. In Western Europe , hagiography was one of the more important vehicles for the study of inspirational history during the Middle Ages . The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine compiled a great deal of medieval hagiographic material, with a strong emphasis on miracle tales. Lives were often written to promote
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2240-400: The Anonymous Life forms part of a larger legendary copied in the 12th century, with fifty-seven surviving vitae covering saints with feast days in the first three months of the year (January, February and March). Missing nine chapters, the Anonymous Life is preserved in a late 10th-century manuscript from the abbey of St Vaast , Arras , Arras 812 (1029). It occupies folios 1 to 26b, and
2310-403: The Anonymous Life is the first piece of Northumbrian Latin writing and the earliest piece of English Latin hagiography. This is an honour sometimes given to the anonymous Vita of Gregory the Great written at Whitby , though the date of 710 attributed to the latter by historian R. C. Love (in contrast to a date between 680 and 704) makes it later than the Anonymous Life of Cuthbert. The work
2380-420: The Anonymous Life of Cuthbert declaring that he has omitted many other miracles in order to avoid overburdening his reader (chapter eighteen). For Bede's two dedicated accounts of Cuthbert's life, the Anonymous Life is the chief source. Bede however made little acknowledgment of his debt to the Anonymous Life in either his prose or verse life, and indeed if we were dependent only on Bede we would probably not know
2450-662: The Continent, particularly Gregory the Great 's Dialogi and Sulpicius Severus ' Vita Sancti Martini , as powerful influences. The name of the author is not known, though he was a monk of the monastery of Lindisfarne . It is often called the Anonymous Life to distinguish it from the "Prose Life" and the "Metrical Life" of Bede. There are four modern editions of the Anonymous Life, the latest by historian Bertram Colgrave . Written just after or possibly contemporarily with Adomnán 's Vita Sancti Columbae ("Life of Saint Columba "),
2520-665: The English Church. The text comprises two prefaces, one in Latin and one in Old English , and 39 lives beginning on 25 December with the nativity of Christ and ending with three texts to which no saints' days are attached. The text spans the entire year and describes the lives of many saints, both English and continental, and harks back to some of the earliest saints of the early church. There are two known instances where saint's lives were adapted into vernacular plays in Britain. These are
2590-453: The Lindisfarne monks. Many of the men the author consulted were unnamed priests, deacons and other men respected in their communities, though some are named directly, namely Ælfflaed , Æthilwald, Plecgils, Tydi and Walhstod. The Anonymous Life was complete somewhere between 699 and 705. The posthumous miracles set after Cuthbert's translation in 698 make 699 the earliest possible date for
2660-467: The Sikh Janamsakhis ) concerning saints, gurus and other individuals believed to be imbued with sacred power. Hagiographic works, especially those of the Middle Ages , can incorporate a record of institutional and local history , and evidence of popular cults , customs, and traditions . However, when referring to modern, non-ecclesiastical works, the term hagiography is often used today as
2730-469: The anonymous life can be found: the Trier, Public Library 1151, folios 135 to 142. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale , Fonds Latin 5289, written in the 14th century, contains the last extant version of the Anonymous Life. It has been copied out of order, beginning on folio 55b, continuing on folios 49b to 52b, and ending on 56 to 58b. Historian Bertram Colgrave believed that Harley MS 2800 and Brussels MS 207–208 have
2800-489: The brethren of Lindisfarne. Throughout the Anonymous Life the author refers to Lindisfarne and its monastery with possessive pronouns . Though possibly written by many authors, the first person singular is used often enough to suggest only one major author. The Anonymous Life is extant in eight manuscripts. The oldest, according to historian Donald Bullough, lies in Munich , Bayerische Staatsbibliothek , Clm. 15817 The manuscript
2870-772: The case of Talmudic and Kabbalistic writings and later in the Hasidic movement. Hagiography in Islam began in the Arabic language with biographical writing about the Prophet Muhammad in the 8th century CE, a tradition known as sīra . From about the 10th century CE, a genre generally known as manāqib also emerged, which comprised biographies of the imams ( madhāhib ) who founded different schools of Islamic thought ( madhhab ) about shariʿa , and of Ṣūfī saints . Over time, hagiography about Ṣūfīs and their miracles came to predominate in
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2940-472: The common ancestor of the former and the latter set. The Anonymous Life has been published four times in the modern era: The Bollandist version was based on St Omer 267 and Trier Public Library 1151. Giles' edition was a reprint of the Bollandist version. Stevenson's version too was a reprint of the Bollandist version, with some corrections brought in. Colgrave's edition was new, but like the Bollandist version
3010-405: The construction of his building (chapter two), and orders his men to dig up some stony ground created an open spring into being (chapter three). The waves provide Cuthbert with the 12-foot beam he needs for the house after his men are unable to obtain one (chapter four). When ravens , despite being warned, disturb the roof of the shelter built for Cuthbert's servants, the saint banishes them from
3080-524: The cult of local or national states, and in particular to develop pilgrimages to visit relics . The bronze Gniezno Doors of Gniezno Cathedral in Poland are the only Romanesque doors in Europe to feature the life of a saint. The life of Saint Adalbert of Prague , who is buried in the cathedral, is shown in 18 scenes, probably based on a lost illuminated copy of one of his Lives. The Bollandist Society continues
3150-559: The example of Martin in its portrayal of Cuthbert's pastoral and healing activities. It was commissioned by Bishop Eadfrith (died 721), the bishop famous for the Lindisfarne Gospels who also commissioned Bede's Prose Life of the saint. The Anonymous Life was organised into four books; though this was not common in the literature of the day, it followed the organization of the metrical Vita Sancti Martini of Venantius Fortunatus , Gregory of Tours ' De Virtutibus Sancti Martini and
3220-503: The final publication of Prosper's Chronicle. Victorius finished his Cursus Paschalis in 457. From that date onward, he left blank the column giving the names of the consuls, but his table continued until the year AD 559 or Anno Passionis 532 (in the year of the Passion [of Jesus ] 532 — Victorius placed the Passion in AD 28), hence the name Cursus Paschalis annorum DXXXII (Easter Table up to
3290-512: The genre of manāqib . Likewise influenced by early Islamic research into hadiths and other biographical information about the Prophet, Persian scholars began writing Persian hagiography , again mainly of Sūfī saints, in the eleventh century CE. The Islamicisation of the Turkish regions led to the development of Turkish biographies of saints, beginning in the 13th century CE and gaining pace around
3360-512: The hagiographer's native vernacular Irish . Of particular note are the lives of St. Patrick , St. Columba (Latin)/Colum Cille (Irish) and St. Brigit/Brigid —Ireland's three patron saints. The earliest extant Life was written by Cogitosus . Additionally, several Irish calendars relating to the feastdays of Christian saints (sometimes called martyrologies or feastologies ) contained abbreviated synopses of saint's lives, which were compiled from many different sources. Notable examples include
3430-402: The hero-warrior figure, but with the distinction that the saint is of a spiritual sort. Imitation of the life of Christ was then the benchmark against which saints were measured, and imitation of the lives of saints was the benchmark against which the general population measured itself. In Anglo-Saxon and medieval England, hagiography became a literary genre par excellence for the teaching of
3500-424: The island in the name of Jesus; after three days one raven returns seeking pardon and, having been forgiven by Cuthbert, both ravens provide the saint with enough pig lard to grease everyone's boots for a whole year (chapter five). Cuthbert is summoned to Coquet Island by the sister of King Ecgfrith, the royal abbess Ælfflaed ; following her entreaties for information about her brother's fate, Cuthbert prophesies
3570-488: The king's coming death and his succession by Aldfrith, monk of Iona ; Cuthbert agrees to become bishop within two years (chapter six). In chapter seven, the author closes book iii with a summary of Cuthbert's virtues and achievements. Cuthbert becomes bishop of Lindisfarne at the beginning of book iv, accepting the position only with reluctance and continuing his monastic style of life (chapters one and two). A number of healing miracles are subsequently recounted. Cuthbert cures
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#17328555072923640-427: The men, realising their mistake in seeking to extinguish the flames, asked and were given Cuthbert's forgiveness . Cuthbert is said in chapter seven to have saved from flames the house of his childhood nanny, a nun and widow named Kewswith of Hruringaham through prayer, while in chapter eight he drives out a demon from the wife of a religious man named Hildmer, curing her illness. Cuthbert's time as an island hermit
3710-403: The monastery of Coldingham by Abbess Æbbe , is followed by a cleric to the beach where he keeps one of his night-time vigils ; the cleric sees two sea-animals emerge from the waves to clean and rub Cuthbert's feet; the author of the Anonymous Life was told this by a priest of Melrose called Plecgils (chapter three). In the following chapter Cuthbert and two brothers, having sailed to the land of
3780-459: The order of miracles found in book iv. The Anonymous Life suggests that Cuthbert began his career at Ripon, whereas Bede shows that it was in fact Melrose. Historian Clare Stancliffe suggested that the Anonymous Life made Ripon Cuthbert's place of tonsure because Melrose may have been tarnished in some eyes due to its use of Irish-style tonsure (in contrast to the Petrine tonsure of Ripon). Bede adds
3850-481: The original life stories of their first saints, e.g. Boris and Gleb , Theodosius Pechersky etc. In the 16th century, Metropolitan Macarius expanded the list of the Russian saints and supervised the compiling process of their life stories. They would all be compiled in the so-called Velikiye chet'yi-minei catalog (Великие Четьи-Минеи, or Great Menaion Reader ), consisting of 12 volumes in accordance with each month of
3920-405: The popular heroic poem, such as Beowulf , one finds that they share certain common features. In Beowulf , the titular character battles against Grendel and his mother , while the saint, such as Athanasius ' Anthony (one of the original sources for the hagiographic motif) or the character of Guthlac , battles against figures no less substantial in a spiritual sense. Both genres then focus on
3990-426: The roof of the dwelling (chapter six). Book i ends with the anonymous author making mention of several other miracles of Cuthbert's youth without going into detail: how God provided food for him in camp with his army against an enemy, how he saw the soul of a reeve taken up to the sky, his defeat of some demons, and his cure of the insane (chapter seven). In book ii Cuthbert becomes a monk (chapter one). While still
4060-703: The saint's martyrdom (called a passio ), or be a combination of these. Christian hagiographies focus on the lives, and notably the miracles , ascribed to men and women canonized by the Roman Catholic church , the Eastern Orthodox Church , the Oriental Orthodox churches , and the Church of the East . Other religious traditions such as Buddhism , Hinduism , Taoism , Islam , Sikhism and Jainism also create and maintain hagiographical texts (such as
4130-512: The saints became the standard for all of the Western and Eastern hagiographers, who would create relative biographies and images of the ideal saints by gradually departing from the real facts of their lives. Over the years, the genre of lives of the saints had absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images (often, of pre-Christian origin, such as dragon fighting etc.), mediaeval parables , short stories and anecdotes . The genre of lives of
4200-621: The saints was introduced in the Slavic world in the Bulgarian Empire in the late 9th and early 10th century, where the first original hagiographies were produced on Cyril and Methodius , Clement of Ohrid and Naum of Preslav . Eventually the Bulgarians brought this genre to Kievan Rus' together with writing and also in translations from the Greek language. In the 11th century, they began to compile
4270-412: The same hour of the same night (chapter nine). Cuthbert, dining at Ovington with abbess Ælfflæd , predicts the death of one of Ælfflæd's servants, Hadwald (chapter ten). The bishop resigns his bishopric after an episcopate of two years and returns to Farne (chapter eleven). Miracles continue as Cuthbert cures a ("still surviving") brother named Walhstod from dysentery . Cuthbert dies on Farne, and his body
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#17328555072924340-438: The study, academic assembly, appraisal and publication of materials relating to the lives of Christian saints (see Acta Sanctorum ). Many of the important hagiographical texts composed in medieval England were written in the vernacular dialect Anglo-Norman . With the introduction of Latin literature into England in the 7th and 8th centuries the genre of the life of the saint grew increasingly popular. When one contrasts it to
4410-451: The wife of one of Aldfrith's men, a gesith ( comes ) named Hemma from a district name Kintis (chapter three). He cures a maiden from a village called Bedesfeld , a miracle witnessed and reported by Æthilwald, then a priest but in the author's day prior of Melrose, whose relation the maiden was (chapter four). He cures a paralytic boy brought to him in the district of Ahse in the mountains between Hexham and Carlise (chapter five). In
4480-491: The work ever existed. Stylistically the Latin of the Anonymous Life is not as grammatical and classicizing as Bede's Prose Life, and Bede went to some effort to 'improve' the prose. Bede adds some details in his own accounts but, in the words of historian Antonia Gransden "most of his additions are verbal and hagiographical trimmings". While following the Anonymous Life's order for most of the Prose Life, Bede considerably alters
4550-558: The year 532). This first version was later continued by other authors, who filled in the names of the consuls as the years passed. The Victorian system of the Cursus Paschalis was made official by a synod in Gaul in 541 and was still in use for historical work in England by 743, when an East Anglian king-list was created, which was double-dated with Victorian and Dionysian (A.D.) eras. Also, it
4620-511: The year. They were revised and expanded by St. Dimitry of Rostov in 1684–1705. The Life of Alexander Nevsky was a particularly notable hagiographic work of the era. Today, the works in the genre of lives of the saints represent a valuable historical source and reflection of different social ideas, world outlook and aesthetic concepts of the past. The Oriental Orthodox Churches also have their own hagiographic traditions. For instance, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church hagiographies in
4690-542: Was not as well read in the Middle Ages as the prose version by Bede . It was however Bede's main source for his two dedicated works on Cuthbert, the "Metrical Life" and the "Prose Life". It was completed soon after the translation of Cuthbert's body in 698, at some point between 699 and 705. Compiled from oral sources available in Bernicia at the time of its composition, the Vita nonetheless utilized previous Christian writing from
4760-434: Was probably compiled at Salzburg under Bishop Adalram . It occupies folios 100v-119v, following two works of Augustine of Hippo ( De pastoribus / Sermo xlvii , 1–53, and De Ovibus , 53r to 99v), and preceding Isidore of Seville 's Synonyma . The copy contains many scribal errors, but also a number of readings superior to other versions. Of the others, the oldest, probably written at the Abbey of St Bertin around c. 900,
4830-615: Was used for a letter to Charlemagne in 773, and probably, in its continued form, a source for both Bede (who found here that Aetius was consul for the third time in 446) and the Historia Brittonum . Victorius also wrote a 98-column multiplication table which gave (in Roman numerals ) the product of every number from 2 to 50 times and the rows were "a list of numbers starting with one thousand, descending by hundreds to one hundred, then descending by tens to ten, then by ones to one, and then
4900-416: Was washed and dressed before being shipped to Lindisdfarne (chapter thirteen). After eleven years, Cuthbert's successor Bishop Eadberht orders the reopening of Cuthbert's coffin; Cuthbert's body is found to be incorrupt, i.e. having not decayed any noticeable way (chapter fourteen). Miracles begin happening at Cuthbert's coffin, prayers and holy water from the trench Cuthbert's body had been washed in curing
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