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16 SCOTTISH ANNALS
this time the abbot and priest Seghine l ruled that mon-
astery.
And hence in addition to other rules of life he left the clerics
a most wholesome example of abstinence or continence ;
and
this chiefly commended his teaching to all, that he taught not
otherwise than as he lived, and his followers also. For he
endeavoured to ask nothing, to desire nothing of this world.
or the rich men
Everything that was given to him by the kings
of the world he rejoiced to bestow immediately upon the poor
whom he chanced to meet.
It was his custom to travel about through the whole dis-
trict, both of town and of country, not riding on horseback,
but going on foot; unless perchance some greater need constrained
him : to the end that wherever on his way he should
see men, rich or poor, he might turn aside to them at once, and
either invite them to the sacrament of the adoption of the
faith, if they were unbelievers ; or, if they were believers,
strengthen them in their faith, and incite them both by words
and deeds to acts of charity and the performance of good works. 2
Now his life differed so much from the sloth of our times
that all who went with him had to study, whether tonsured or
that is, to employ themselves either in reading scriptures,
lay ;
3
or in learning psalms. This was the daily work of [Aidan]
and of all who were with him, in whatever place they came to.
And if it ever fell out (what yet seldom chanced) that he
was called to the king's banquet, he entered with one cleric,
s.a. 635. Fl. of W., i, 245-246. R. of H., D.H.E., in Raine's Hexh., i, 10,
s.a. 634.
Aidan's bishopric cannot have begun before 635.. Twice, in H.E., III,
17 (infra, s.a. 651,) and III, 26 (infra, s.a. 664,) Bede in the same chapter
counts his bishopric from both 635 and 634 ; though two MSS. of III, 17,
count it from 635 only. It is reckoned from 634, e.g. by S. of D., H.D.E.,
i, 57 (though ibid, his reckoning places Cuthbert's death in 686 instead of
687 ;) but from 635, ibid., i, 7 ; cf. i, 24.
"
Bede, H.E., III, 3, i, 132 : To the bishop therefore when he came
to him the king assigned the place of the episcopal see in the island of Lindisfarne,
as he himself desired. As the tide ebbs and flows this place is twice
each day, like an island, washed round by the waves of the sea ; and twice
the beach is bared again, and contact with the land restored."
A list of the bishops of Lindisfarne is given by Fl. of W., i, 246.
1
Seghine was abbot of lona from 623 to 652. He may be the Seghine
among the Scots to whom the pope-elect John addressed a bull on the Easter
question, in 740; Bede, H.E., II, 19; i, 123, ii, 113. Cf. Adarnnan, 16, 26,
111 ; Reeves, ibid., 373. Cf. Cummian's letter to Seghine on the Paschal
controversy, in Migne, 87, 969-978.
2 Cf. the diocesal journeys of Boisil and Cuthbert ; Bede, V.S.C., IX,
infra, s.a. 661.
3 The A.S. Version adds :
" or, thirdly, to stand in holy prayers."