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Extending Operations Over All England
angels and to hear the praises which are sung in heaven.
Bede then goes on to tell us concerning what Fursa saw
and heard in the vision, the accounts of which later became
so celebrated.
We are told that Fursa, after building his monastery in
East Anglia and preaching with much success, became
desirous of ridding himself of all business of the world, and
even of the monastery itself, and forthwith left the same
and the care of souls to his brother Foillan and the priests
Cobham and Dicuil and, being himself free from all
that was worldly, resolved to end his life as a hermit.
He had another brother called Ultan, who, after a long
monastical probation, had also adopted the life of an
anchorite. Repairing all alone to him, he lived a whole
year with him in continence and prayer and labored daily
with his hands. Afterwards seeing the province of East
Anglia in confusion by the irruption of the pagan Mer-
cians under Penda, who slew King Sigebert and slaughtered
his army, and presaging that the monasteries would
be also in danger, Fursa left all things in order and sailed
over to France, and, being there honorably entertained by
Clovis, king of the Franks, accomplished a great work.
The facts related concerning Fursa, his work and visions,
Bede tells us, he found in a little book about his life, a
book he advises everybody to read believing that much
spiritual profit would be thereby derived. 1
When Fursa arrived in East Anglia, Algeis, with Cor-
bican, and his servant Rodalgus, went on to Corbei and
thence to Laon, while Foillan, Ultan, Gobain, Decuil,
Etto and Madelgisilus remained behind with Fursa.
They all appear in France later on, and two of them gave
their names to French localities, St. Algise and St. Gobain
i Hist. Eccl. Ill, XIX. The life of Fursa to which Bede refers is extant.
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