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Irish Tutelage of England
4. BY THE TIME OF BEDE AND ALCUIN
By the time of Bede and Alcuin, the north of England
was covered with Irish schools. Bede himself was trained
at Jarrow and had as masters there, as he himself tells us,
Trumhere, or Trumbert, the disciple of St. Chad and
Sigf rid, who had been the fellow pupil of Cuthbert at the
Irish foundation of Melrose under Boisil and Eata, whom
Aidan had rescued from slavery, educated and ordained.
From these Bede "derived the Irish knowledge of Scrip-
1
ture and discipline." Another of those who influenced
him was John of Beverly, the pupil of Theodore and
of the Irish foundation of Whitby. Trumbert was brought
up among the Irish-trained monks of Lestingham,
founded by Chad. Sigfrid was living at Jarrow
an aged invalid when Bede was writing his history and
the methods and all-consuming passion for teaching and
learning derived from his Irish masters are movingly
portrayed by Bede in the scenes preceding
his death.8
Ceolfrid, 3 the patron and teacher of Bede, had always
been subject to Irish influences, having assumed the habit
and entered the monastery of Ingetlingum (i. e., Collingham),
where his elder brother, Abbot Cynefrid, then
ruled. He committed him for instruction to his relative
Tunberht, who afterward became bishop of Hexham.
Cynefrid himself, as the "Anonymous History
of the
Abbots" tells us, had been to Ireland for the purpose
of studying the Scriptures and "of seeing the Lord more
frequently in tears and prayers." Benet Biscop, who
founded Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, received like Wilfrid
his education among the Irish monks of Lindisfarne
and its dependent foundations, who cooperated in the new
i Stubbs, Diet, of Chr. Biog., sub voce Bede.
2De Abbatibus.
Patrol. Lat., LXXXIX.
271