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Ireland and the Making
creations on the banks of the Tyne
of Britain
and Wear. Bede's
history seems to have been modeled on Irish historical
works like those of Adamnan, who wrote his life of
Columcille when Bede was a young man, and who is
said to have written also in Latin a history of the Irish
people down to his own times. 1
There was evidently a very close connection between
Northumbria and Clonmacnois, for Tighernach, abbot
of that great seat of learning, in his Annals, gives the dates
of Bede's works as they are written, evidently copied from
contemporary records, and notices the date of the founding
of Lindisfarne and the changing of Easter at lona.
The letters of Alcuin reveal the intimate intercourse
between Clonmacnois and the school of York as well as
Tours and the court of Charlemagne. 2
In the Annals of
Ulster under the year 730, and in the Annals of Tighernach
in 731, we read, "Echdach (i. e., Eochaid), the son
of Cuidin (i. e., Cuthwene), King of the Saxons, was
tonsured (clericatus) and imprisoned (constringitur)."
The Eochaid here referred to was Ceolwulf, King of
Northumbria, to whom Bede dedicates his history. Ceol-
wulf, like Aldfrid, had apparently
an alternative Irish
name, but there is no other indication, beyond the fact
that he was an ardent student, that he had lived in Ireland.
He lived for the last twenty-three years of his life at
Lindisfarne. During the central years of Bede's life the
reigning king of Northumbria was Aldfrid, whose affilia-
tions with Ireland were so intimate and enduring. 3
iWard, Vita Rumoldi, p. 218, Lovan., 1662.
2 Prom Tours he addresses Colgu, Fer-leiginn or Rector of Clonmacnois, as
"master and father" and discusses its affairs with him. He gives the gossip
of Clonmacnois to Josephus Scotus, who was student under Colgu at Clonmacnois
and instructor at York (Migne, Pat. Lat. C, cols. 128, 142, 143, 445).
His learning made him appear an Irishman to his contemporaries. Thus the
Chronicon Turonense at 791: "Erat autem Alcuinus Scotus, ingenio clarus,"
etc. (Migne C, col. 128).
3 See Dublin Review. XXI, 519.
272