Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Michael Lapidge
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- PART ONE ALTER ORBIS
- PART TWO TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY
- PART THREE THE GROWTH OF MONASTICISM
- 12 Gaulish and Italian Influences
- 13 Spanish Influences
- 14 Aspects of English Monasticism
- 15 Benedict Biscop's Early Years
- 16 The Foundation of Wearmouth
- 17 The Foundation of Jarrow
- 18 The Abbacy of Ceolfrith
- PART FOUR LEARNING, TEACHING AND WRITING
- Select Bibliography
- Index
17 - The Foundation of Jarrow
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Michael Lapidge
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- PART ONE ALTER ORBIS
- PART TWO TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY
- PART THREE THE GROWTH OF MONASTICISM
- 12 Gaulish and Italian Influences
- 13 Spanish Influences
- 14 Aspects of English Monasticism
- 15 Benedict Biscop's Early Years
- 16 The Foundation of Wearmouth
- 17 The Foundation of Jarrow
- 18 The Abbacy of Ceolfrith
- PART FOUR LEARNING, TEACHING AND WRITING
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The zeal displayed by Benedict Biscop and the evident success of his monastery at Wearmouth encouraged King Ecgfrith to endow a second foundation, and for this purpose he gave Benedict a site some few miles away from Wearmouth on a low eminence at the confluence of the Don with the Tyne where extensive mudflats, commemorated in the place-name Jarrow, offered a sheltered haven for shipping. Bede himself never used any other name save Jarrow, but other sources refer to the place as portus Egfridi regis and to Ecgfrith's monastery as at Donemuthan. The new foundation was colonised by a group of monks who moved from Wearmouth with Ceolfrith as their abbot. The Life of Ceolfrith says that the migrants numbered 22, but only 10 of them were tonsured monks. Bede gives the number of monks as 17 and it is very probable that, as a boy of 9 or 10, he was among the company which moved to the new foundation. Developments at Jarrow followed much the same pattern as had been set at Wearmouth. Ecgfrith's endowment was given ‘eight years after they had begun the aforesaid monastery’, i.e. Wearmouth. First the necessary monastic buildings were erected and ‘after one year’ Ceolfrith and his companions moved.
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- Information
- The World of Bede , pp. 175 - 183Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990