york00orns

86 YORK.
ignorantly made against Bede for some supposed
heretical teaching in his book " De Sex ^tatibus
Mundi." He resigned his see in 732, and retired
into some monastery to end his days. He died
about 745.
The successor of A\ ilfrid H. was a man of great
eminence, Egbert, the son of Eata, and a scion of the
royal house of Northumbria. He was appointed by
Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria. the sovereign to whom
Bede dedicated his ecclesiastical history. When
Egbert succeeded as Bishop of York, Bede's life was
drawing to its close ; but advancing years had not
weakened his mental powers, and he addressed along
and deeply interesting letter to the newly consecrated
bishop. It is clear from this epistle that the holy
zeal of earlier days had waxed cold or lukewarm, and
that corruptions existed in the Church which filled
the mind of the writer with gloomy forebodings as to
the Church's future, if no remedies were applied by
the watchful care of her chief ministers. The gifts
which a pious liberality had poured into the Church's
treasury, and which had been administered for that
Church's weal with a scrupulous fidelity by those in
whose care they first were placed, now seemed to
offer only temptations to cupidity, and to afford means
for self-indulgence.
Luxury, and worse than luxury,
prevailed within walls which had been erected to be
the homes of devotion and self-denial. Grants of
land, moreover, were now not uncommonly obtained
by men of rank for the foundation of monastic
houses. The land thus became free from secular
claims and burdens, and the house was made a resi-