Benedict Biscop ( – 690), also known as Biscop Baducing, was an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

and founder of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory (where he also founded the famous library) and was considered a saint after his death. It has been suggested that Baducing appears as Biscop Beding the son of Beda Bubbing, King of

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

in the Lyndsey/Lindfearnan lists of geneaologies held by the Anglian Collection and great-grandfather of

Alfred The Great Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfr ...

Life

Early career

Benedict, born of a noble

Northumbria Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland. The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout ...

n family, was for a time a

thegn In later Anglo-Saxon England, a thegn or thane (Latin minister) was an aristocrat who ranked at the third level in lay society, below the king and ealdormen. He had to be a substantial landowner. Thanage refers to the tenure by which lands were ...

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 (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

''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. 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 back to

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

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 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 Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

. 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 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 Eosterwine (or Easterwine) (650 – 7 March 686) was the second Abbot of Wearmouth (Sunderland) in Northumbria (England). Life Descended from the noblest stock of Northumbria, as a young man he led the life of a soldier in the army of King Egf ...

as his coadjutor 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. He appointed

Ceolfrid Saint Ceolfrid (or Ceolfrith, ; also Geoffrey, 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, an ...

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

Bede Bede (; ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (), was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most f ...

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

Francia The Kingdom of the Franks (), also known as the Frankish Kingdom, or just Francia, was the largest History of the Roman Empire, post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks, Frankish Merovingian dynasty, Merovingi ...

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 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 . He is recognised as a

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

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 does n ...

on 12 January. Benedict is remembered in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

with a commemoration on 12 January. The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

in Wombourne, Staffordshire is the only one in England dedicated to Benedict. The

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...

venerates him as a saint and celebrates his feast day on 12th January on the New Calendar.

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 7th-century Christian abbots