demanded triumphantly.
‘I have not rejected his gift,’ Etheldreda replied patiently, sad that her sister couldn’t see what was so apparent to her. ‘It is just that I have now seen that He has given me a special gift, and that there is more to this gift than I had at first dreamed of. There is fire that burns on the hearth and there is the invisible fire that burns in the love of God. Just as the ordinary fire needs fuel so that it may burn – the invisible fire needs the souls of dedicated people through which it can manifest. Knowing the weakness of my own nature and how easily it can be distracted from eternal matters, I have chosen to strengthen my resolution with a vow, and seal it with a sacrifice.’
Saxberga sighed. She acknowledged the strength in her younger sister with a bow of her head, and said no more.
Prince Tondbert arrived a few days before the ceremony with his entourage of noisy, bearded companions. King Anna’s thegn looked at them askance as they strode through the stockade gate, singing a ribald song. When Etheldreda walked out to meet them, greeting her betrothed with a curtsey, they crowded round her laughing loudly and shouting to each other in their barbarous guttural dialect.
Prince Tondbert let them say what they had to say and then took her hand and led her away from them. They fell back at once and turned their attention good-naturedly to finding food and drink.
The fields around the palace enclosure were crowded with tents of many colours, some small and unpretentious, others grand and spacious. The travelling tent of Bishop Honorius was the grandest of all. He had learnt in Rome that bishops should impress with splendour if they wanted to convert, and his way of living was very different from the simple life of the Celtic missionaries from Ireland, Iona and Lindisfarne. The great Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne would have scorned to sleep in anything but the lowliest peasant hut. Even at his death the canopy that was drawn over his ailing body was of the very roughest kind.
Wilfrid and Biscop attended the Kentish bishop wherever he went. They admired him greatly and were eager to learn all there was to learn from him while they were with him.
Biscop was twenty-five years of age and had recently left the service as thegn to King Oswy of Bernicia, to join the Church. He had been greatly shaken by Oswy’s ruthless murder of Oswin and had begun to question the violence of secular life, and the immorality of earthly power, without wishing to go the whole way literally into the poverty and humility of the Celtic Church. Rome seemed much more to his taste, and so to Rome he decided to go.
Wilfrid too had lived under the protection of King Oswy, since his mother died and his father had taken to wife a woman who mistreated him. He had served at court as a child, and had been sent by Queen Eanfleda to Lindisfarne for education. He had learnt much and had been treated well, but he was impatient with the simple life of the monks. The monastery at Lindisfarne was cut off from the mainland at every high tide. It lay low in the sea, almost invisible from the Northumbrian shore. Sometimes Wilfrid felt they had been cut adrift from the world and were floating far beyond the reach of everything he longed for. He was intelligent and learned fast all the monks had to teach, the library of precious manuscripts his constant joy. But he had begun to hate the feel of homespun on his skin and long for a bright sword at his side and an embroidered cloak to fling over his shoulder. The chance to travel to countries beyond his own became his constant dream.
When it was known that Biscop Baducing was to go to Rome, Wilfrid had asked to share his journey. Biscop was by no means loath to take the youth, for although only seventeen, he was tall and strong, and the pilgrim route to Rome was a dangerous one, robbers being well aware that many pilgrims took treasures to buy their peace in St Peter’s city.
In
‘I have not rejected his gift,’ Etheldreda replied patiently, sad that her sister couldn’t see what was so apparent to her. ‘It is just that I have now seen that He has given me a special gift, and that there is more to this gift than I had at first dreamed of. There is fire that burns on the hearth and there is the invisible fire that burns in the love of God. Just as the ordinary fire needs fuel so that it may burn – the invisible fire needs the souls of dedicated people through which it can manifest. Knowing the weakness of my own nature and how easily it can be distracted from eternal matters, I have chosen to strengthen my resolution with a vow, and seal it with a sacrifice.’
Saxberga sighed. She acknowledged the strength in her younger sister with a bow of her head, and said no more.
Prince Tondbert arrived a few days before the ceremony with his entourage of noisy, bearded companions. King Anna’s thegn looked at them askance as they strode through the stockade gate, singing a ribald song. When Etheldreda walked out to meet them, greeting her betrothed with a curtsey, they crowded round her laughing loudly and shouting to each other in their barbarous guttural dialect.
Prince Tondbert let them say what they had to say and then took her hand and led her away from them. They fell back at once and turned their attention good-naturedly to finding food and drink.
The fields around the palace enclosure were crowded with tents of many colours, some small and unpretentious, others grand and spacious. The travelling tent of Bishop Honorius was the grandest of all. He had learnt in Rome that bishops should impress with splendour if they wanted to convert, and his way of living was very different from the simple life of the Celtic missionaries from Ireland, Iona and Lindisfarne. The great Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne would have scorned to sleep in anything but the lowliest peasant hut. Even at his death the canopy that was drawn over his ailing body was of the very roughest kind.
Wilfrid and Biscop attended the Kentish bishop wherever he went. They admired him greatly and were eager to learn all there was to learn from him while they were with him.
Biscop was twenty-five years of age and had recently left the service as thegn to King Oswy of Bernicia, to join the Church. He had been greatly shaken by Oswy’s ruthless murder of Oswin and had begun to question the violence of secular life, and the immorality of earthly power, without wishing to go the whole way literally into the poverty and humility of the Celtic Church. Rome seemed much more to his taste, and so to Rome he decided to go.
Wilfrid too had lived under the protection of King Oswy, since his mother died and his father had taken to wife a woman who mistreated him. He had served at court as a child, and had been sent by Queen Eanfleda to Lindisfarne for education. He had learnt much and had been treated well, but he was impatient with the simple life of the monks. The monastery at Lindisfarne was cut off from the mainland at every high tide. It lay low in the sea, almost invisible from the Northumbrian shore. Sometimes Wilfrid felt they had been cut adrift from the world and were floating far beyond the reach of everything he longed for. He was intelligent and learned fast all the monks had to teach, the library of precious manuscripts his constant joy. But he had begun to hate the feel of homespun on his skin and long for a bright sword at his side and an embroidered cloak to fling over his shoulder. The chance to travel to countries beyond his own became his constant dream.
When it was known that Biscop Baducing was to go to Rome, Wilfrid had asked to share his journey. Biscop was by no means loath to take the youth, for although only seventeen, he was tall and strong, and the pilgrim route to Rome was a dangerous one, robbers being well aware that many pilgrims took treasures to buy their peace in St Peter’s city.
In
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