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FROM ENGLISH CHRONICLERS 19
651
BEDE, HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA, III, 17 ;
VOL. I, PP. 159-1 60. l
When the day of death compelled him to depart from the
body, after he had completed
seventeen 2
years of his bishop-
ric, [Aidan] was in the royal vill not far from the town [of
Bamborough] of which we have been speaking. For having
in this [vill] a church and a bedchamber he had been accustomed
very often to turn aside and stay there, and to go out
thence in all directions to preach. And this he used to do
also in other royal vills, inasmuch as he had nothing of his
own possession excepting his church and the plots of ground
adjoining it.
When [Aidan] fell ill, therefore, they set up for him a tent
on the western side of the church, so that the tent was made
fast to the wall of the church. And hence it happened that
he was leaning upon a buttress 3
placed against the outside
of the church as a support when he breathed out the last breath
of life.
He died in the seventeenth 4
year of his bishopric, on the
day 5 before the Kalends of September. And his body was
carried over thence to the island of the monks of
presently
Lindisfarne, and buried in the graveyard of the brethren.
But after some considerable interval of time, when a greater
church 6 had been built there, and dedicated in honour of the
most blessed prince of the apostles, [Aidan's] bones were carried
over thither and bestowed, according to the reverence due to
so great a bishop, to the right of the altar.
And Finan succeeded him in the bishopric, he also being
1 Cf. A.S. Vers., i, 202, 204. A.S.C., s.a. 651 (MS. E, s.a. 650). Ann. of
Lind., in M.G.H., SS., xix, 504, s.a. 651. S. of D., H.D.E., i, 21.
King Oswin gave a fine horse to Aidan, and afterwards apologized for
having been angry when Aidan had given it in alms to the poor : whereupon
Aidan foretold his death, because the nation was not worthy of him. Bede,
H.E., III, 14 ; i, 156-157.
Oswin was slain by treachery on the 20th August, 651 ; ibid., i, 155. Cf.
Life of Oswin, Misc. Biog., 11.
"
Bede, u.s., i, 157 : But bishop Aidan himself was removed from the
world and received from the Lord the eternal reward of his labours no later
than the twelfth day after the slaying of the king whom he loved ; that is,
on the day before the Kalends of September." [August 31.]
"
Sixteen," MSS. M and N. So below, " in the seventeenth year."
3 The church was burned down twice, but neither time was this wooden
when the church was again rebuilt, the prop was preserved
prop consumed ;
inside, and worked many miracles : Bede, H.E., III, 17 ; i, 160-161.
4 The A.S. Vers., 204, has " fourteenth," misreading xuii as xiiii.
5
August 31.
6
basilica major.