Benedict Biscop (pronounced "bishop"; – 690), also known as Biscop Baducing, was an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. Th ...

and founder of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory (where he also founded the famous library) and was considered a saint after his death.

Life

Early career

Benedict, born of a noble

Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

n family, was for a time a

thegn In Anglo-Saxon England, thegns were aristocratic landowners of the second rank, below the ealdormen who governed large areas of England. The term was also used in early medieval Scandinavia for a class of retainers. In medieval Scotland, there ...

of King Oswiu of Bernicia () At the age of 25 ( 653) Benedict made the first of his five trips to Rome, accompanying his friend Saint Wilfrid the Elder. However Wilfrid was detained in

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

''en route''. Benedict completed the journey on his own, and when he returned to England was "full of fervour and enthusiasm ... for the good of the English Church". Benedict made a second journey to Rome twelve years later. Alchfrith of Deira, a son of King Oswiu, intended to accompany him, but the king refused to grant permission. On this trip Biscop met Acca and

Wilfrid Wilfrid ( – 709 or 710) was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and ...

. On his return journey to England Benedict stopped at Lérins, a monastic island off the Mediterranean coast of Provence, which had by then adopted the Rule of St. Benedict. During his two-year stay there, from 665 to 667, he underwent a course of instruction, taking monastic vowsOtt, Michael. "St. Benedict Biscop." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 23 January 2020 and the name of "Benedict". Following the two years in Lérins Benedict made his third trip to Rome. At this time Pope Vitalian commissioned him to accompany Archbishop

Theodore of Tarsus Theodore of Tarsus ( gr, Θεόδωρος Ταρσοῦ; 60219 September 690) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690. Theodore grew up in Tarsus, but fled to Constantinople after the Persian Empire conquered Tarsus and other cities. Afte ...

back to

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of t ...

in 669. On their return Archbishop Theodore appointed Benedict as abbot of SS. Peter and Paul's,

, a role he held for two years.

Bibliophile

Benedict Biscop, the Bibliophile, assembled a library from his travels. His second trip to Rome had been a book-buying trip. Overall, the collection had an estimated 250 titles of mostly service books. The library included scripture, classical, and secular works.

Founder

Ecgfrith of Northumbria Ecgfrith (; ang, Ecgfrið ; 64520 May 685) was the King of Deira from 664 until 670, and then King of Northumbria from 670 until his death in 685. He ruled over Northumbria when it was at the height of its power, but his reign ended with a d ...

granted Benedict land in 674 for the purpose of building a

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whic ...

. He went to the Continent to bring back masons who could build a monastery in the Pre-Romanesque style. Benedict made his fifth and final trip to Rome in 679 to bring back books for a library, saintly relics, stonemasons, glaziers, and a grant from

Pope Agatho Pope Agatho (died January 681) served as the bishop of Rome from 27 June 678 until his death. He heard the appeal of Wilfrid of York, who had been displaced from his see by the division of the archdiocese ordered by Theodore of Canterbury. Du ...

granting his monastery certain privileges. Benedict made five overseas voyages in all to stock the library.Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Saints''. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. . In 682 Benedict appointed Eosterwine as his

coadjutor The term coadjutor (or coadiutor, literally "co-assister" in Latin) is a title qualifier indicating that the holder shares the office with another person, with powers equal to the other in all but formal order of precedence. These include: * Coadj ...

and the King was so delighted at the success of St Peter's, he gave him land in Jarrow and urged him to build a second monastery. Benedict erected a sister foundation (St Paul) at

Jarrow Jarrow ( or ) is a town in South Tyneside in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. It is east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is situated on the south bank of the River Tyne, about from the east coast. It is home to the southern portal of the Ty ...

. He appointed

Ceolfrid Saint Ceolfrid (or Ceolfrith, ; c. 642 – 716) was an Anglo-Saxon Christian abbot and saint. He is best known as the warden of Bede from the age of seven until his death in 716. He was the Abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, and a major contri ...

as the superior, who left Wearmouth with 20 monks to start the foundation in Jarrow.

Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom ...

, one of Benedict's pupils, tells us that he brought builders and glass-workers from

Francia Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks ( la, Regnum Francorum), Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire ( la, Imperium Francorum), was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks du ...

to erect the buildings in stone. He drew up a rule for his community, based on that of Benedict and the customs of seventeen monasteries he had visited. He also engaged Abbot John, Arch-cantor of St. Peter's in Rome, to teach Roman chant at these monasteries. In 685, Ecgfrith granted the land south of the River Wear to Biscop. Separated from the monastery, this would be known as the "sundered land," which in time would become the name of the wider urban area. Benedict's idea was to build a model monastery for England, sharing his knowledge of the experience of the Church in Europe. It was the first ecclesiastical building in Britain to be built in stone, and the use of glass was a novelty for many in 7th-century England. It eventually possessed what was a large library for the time – several hundred volumes – and it was here that Benedict's student Bede wrote his famous works. The library became world-famous and manuscripts that had been copied there became prized possessions throughout Europe, including especially the

Codex Amiatinus The Codex Amiatinus (also known as the Jarrow Codex) is considered the best-preserved manuscript of the Latin Vulgate versionBruce M. Metzger, ''The Text of the New Testament'' (Oxford University Press 2005), p. 106. of the Christian Bible. It w ...

, the earliest surviving manuscript of the complete Bible in the Latin Vulgate version.

Death

For the last three years of his life Benedict was bed-ridden. He suffered his affliction with great patience and faith. He died on 12 January 690.

Veneration

A sermon of

(Homily 17) indicates that there was a very early public cult of Biscop; for his feast, but it became more widespread only after the translation of his relics to Thorney under Ethelwold c.980. He is recognised as a

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Or ...

by the Christian Church, which holds his

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context do ...

on 12 January. Benedict is remembered in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

with a

commemoration Commemoration may refer to: *Commemoration (Anglicanism), a religious observance in Churches of the Anglican Communion *Commemoration (liturgy) In the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church, a commemoration is the recital, within the Li ...

12 January Events Pre-1600 * 475 – Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople, and his general, Basiliscus gains control of the empire. *1528 – Gustav I of Sweden is crowned King of Sweden, having already reigned ...

Notes

Sources

* * * Wikisource:Ecclesiastical History of the English People/Book 4#18 * Wikisource:Ecclesiastical History of the English People/Book 5#19 * Wikisource:Ecclesiastical History of the English People/Book 5#21 *''HAbb'
Bede, Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow
*Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Saints''. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. . *Bede's World guidebook, 2004 *''AVCeol'': Anonymous, "Life of Abbot Ceolfrith" in Webb & Farmer (eds), ''The Age of Bede.'' London: Penguin, 1983. *Blair, Peter Hunter, ''The World of Bede.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. .

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Biscop, Benedict 628 births 690 deaths Abbots of St Augustine's Abbots of Wearmouth Northumbrian saints Anglo-Saxon Benedictines Benedictine abbots Benedictine scholars Benedictine saints Anglo-Saxon saints English chroniclers People from Northumberland 7th-century Christian saints Burials at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey Anglican saints