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Continuation

7317 min read

The Continuation of Bede.1

In the year 731 King Ceolwulf was taken prisoner, and tonsured, and sent back to his kingdom; Bishop Acca was driven from his see.

In the year 732, Egbert2 was made Bishop of York, in the room of Wilfrid.

[Cynibert Bishop of Lindsey died.]

[In the year of our Lord 733, Archbishop Tatwine, having received the pall by Apostolic authority, ordained Alwic3 and Sigfrid,4 bishops.]

In the year 733, there was an eclipse of the sun on the 14th day of August about the third hour, in such wise that the whole orb of the sun seemed to be covered with a black and gloomy shield.

In the year 734, the moon, on the 31st of January, about the time of cock-crowing, was, for about a whole hour, coloured blood-red, after which a blackness followed, and she regained her wonted light.

In the year from the Incarnation of Christ, 734, bishop Tatwine died.

In the year 735, Nothelm was ordained archbishop; and bishop Egbert, having received the pall from the Apostolic see, was the first to be established as archbishop5 after Paulinus, and he ordained Frithbert,6 and Frithwald7 bishops; and the priest Bede died.8

In the year 737, an excessive drought rendered the land unfruitful; and Ceolwulf, voluntarily receiving the tonsure, left the kingdom to Eadbert.9

In the year 739, Edilhart,10 king of the West-Saxons, died, as did Archbishop Nothelm.

In the year 740, Cuthbert11 was consecrated in Nothelm’s stead. Ethelbald, king of the Mercians, cruelly and wrongfully wasted part of Northumbria, their king, Eadbert, with his army, being employed against the Picts. Bishop Ethelwald died also, and Conwulf,12 was consecrated in his stead. Arnwin13 and Eadbert14 were slain.

In the year 741, a great drought came upon the country. Charles,15 king of the Franks, died; and his sons, Caroloman and Pippin,16 reigned in his stead.

In the year 745, Bishop Wilfrid and Ingwald, Bishop of London, departed to the Lord.

In the year 747, the man of God, Herefrid,17 died.

In the year 750, Cuthred, king of the West Saxons, rose up against king Ethelbald and Oengus; Theudor and Eanred died; Eadbert added the plain of Kyle and other places to his dominions.18

In the year 753, in the fifth year of King Eadbert, on the 9th of January,19 an eclipse of the sun came to pass; afterwards, in the same year and month, on the 24th day of January, the moon suffered an eclipse, being covered with a gloomy, black shield, in like manner as was the sun a little while before.

In the year 754, Boniface,20 called also Winfrid, Bishop of the Franks, received the crown of martyrdom, together with fifty-three others; and Redger was consecrated archbishop in his stead, by pope Stephen.

In the year 757, Ethelbald, king of the Mercians, was treacherously and miserably murdered, in the night, by his own guards; Beornred21 began his reign; Cyniwulf,22 king of the West Saxons, died; and the same year, Offa, having put Beornred to flight, sought to gain the kingdom of the Mercians by bloodshed.

In the year 758, Eadbert, king of the Northumbrians, receiving St. Peter’s tonsure for the love of God, and to the end that he might take the heavenly country by force,23 left the kingdom to his son Oswulf.

In the year 755, Oswulf was wickedly murdered by his own thegns; and Ethelwald, being chosen the same year by his people, entered upon the kingdom; in whose second year there was great tribulation by reason of pestilence, which continued almost two years, divers grievous sicknesses raging, but more especially the disease of dysentery.

In the year 761, Oengus,24 king of the Picts, died; who, from the beginning to the end of his reign, continued to be a blood-stained and tyrannical butcher; Oswin25 was also slain.

In the year 765, King Aluchred came to the throne.26

In the year 766 a.d., Archbishop Egbert, of the royal race, and endued with divine knowledge, as also Frithbert, both of them truly faithful bishops, departed to the Lord.

← V.24 Chronological recapitulation of the whole work: also concerning the author himself. · Contents

Footnotes

  1. (Only names which have not occurred in the narrative are annotated; references for those already mentioned will be found in the Index.) The Continuation is by a later hand. But Mr. Plummer considers that the entries under the years 731, 732, 733 and 734, may have been added by Bede himself. They appear in the great Moore MS., and those for 733 and 734 also in another eighth century MS. The entries enclosed in square brackets are found in a fifteenth century MS. ↩

  2. He succeeded Wilfrid II, and two years later became Archbishop of York (v. infra under 735). It was to him that Bede addressed the “Epist. ad Egberctum.” ↩

  3. Bishop of Lindsey. ↩

  4. Bishop of Selsey. ↩

  5. I.e., of York. ↩

  6. Bishop of Hexham. ↩

  7. Bishop of Whitern. ↩

  8. The early authorities differ as to the year, but this is the traditional date, and is usually accepted. ↩

  9. King of Northumbria 737-758 (v. infra); died in 768. He was a son of Eata, called by Nennius, Eata “Glinmaur,” a descendant of Ida, and was the brother of Archbishop Egbert. Under him the Northumbrian power revived for a period. ↩

  10. He was the kinsman and predecessor of Cuthred (v. infra). ↩

  11. Archbishop of Canterbury in succession to Nothelm. The first archbishop not buried in St. Augustine’s, v. II, 3, p. 90, note. ↩

  12. Bishop of Lindisfarne in succession to Ethelwald (V, 12, ad fin., note). ↩

  13. Probably a son of that Eadwulf who usurped the throne of Northumbria at Aldfrid’s death (V, 18); cf. Simeon of Durham, II, 38 (Rolls Series), “Arwine filius Eadulfi.” ↩

  14. Not known. ↩

  15. Charles Martel. ↩

  16. Pippin the Short. Carloman resigned in 747, and became a monk. ↩

  17. There is a letter of Boniface (v. Haddan and Stubbs III, 358) to a priest, Herefrid, who is supposed to be the man mentioned here. ↩

  18. This seems confused and obscure. The West Saxons under Cuthred threw off the Mercian yoke in the insurrection which culminated in the battle of Burford (v. V. 23, p. 380, note 9). Oengus or Angus (the Brythonic form is Ungust), son of Fergus, was a Pictish king who crushed the Dalriadic Scots, and, in alliance with Eadbert of Northumbria, conquered the Britons of Strathclyde. But this does not explain the strange statement which brings him into connection with Ethelbald of Mercia. Nor is it told who Eanred was. Theudor was a king of the Britons of Strathclyde. Kyle is a district in Ayrshire. ↩

  19. Adopting the emendation “quinto Idus” (Hussey). The date is thus right for the eclipses, but the year is the sixteenth of Eadbert. Probably the numeral (XVI) has fallen out, and the passage ought to run: “anno regni Eadbercti XVI, quinto Id. Ian.” ↩

  20. The great missionary bishop of Germany, a West Saxon by birth. He crossed to the Continent circ. 716, and, supported by Charles Martel and his sons, evangelized Central Europe, became Archbishop of Mainz, and founded sees throughout Germany. Finally he was martyred in Frisland. Lul, a West Saxon, was his successor, not Redger, but it has been suggested that this may be another name for him. The pope is Stephen III. ↩

  21. He is said by William of Malmesbury to have been the murderer of Ethelbald. After a year of anarchy Offa succeeded, and retrieved the position of Mercia. ↩

  22. He was killed in an insurrection in 784. (Sax. Chron.) ↩

  23. St. Matt. xi, 12. After Eadbert, Northumbria fell into a state of anarchy, obscure kings contending for the throne. ↩

  24. Cf. supra, sub 750. ↩

  25. An aetheling killed by Moll, king of Northumbria, at a place called Edwin’s Cliff (Sax. Chron.). ↩

  26. Of Northumbria. ↩

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