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FROM ENGLISH CHRONICLERS 49
tation ; insomuch that he rose up from the midst of the
assembly of his nobles, and bowed his knees to the ground,
giving thanks to God that he should be worthy to receive
such a gift from the land of the Angles.
"
And indeed I knew even before," said he, " that this
was the true celebration of Easter ; but now I know so well
the reason for the observance of this time that I seem to
myself in all these things.
ways to have understood before but little of
And hence I profess openly and protest to you
present who sit here that I will ever observe, with my whole
nation, this time of Easter ; and decree that all clerics who
are in my realm must receive this tonsure, which we have
heard to be wholly reasonable." And without delay he fulfilled
by his royal authority what he had said. For immediately
by public command the nineteen-year cycles of Easter
were sent throughout all the provinces of the Picts to be
transcribed, learned and observed the ; faulty cycles of eightyfour
years being everywhere suppressed. All servants of the
altar and monks were tonsured in the manner of the crown ;
and the nation corrected rejoiced that it had been devoted
as it were to a new discipleship of Peter, the most blessed
prince of the apostles, and placed under the protection of his
patronage.
710 x 711
BEDE, HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA, RECAPITTJLATIO, V, 24 ;
VOL. I, p. 356. !
Picts.
In the year 711 Bertfrid the prefect 2
fought
with the
am silent about his fellow-countrymen, who emulously sent
336-337 : "I
their writings to [Aldhelm] to submit to the criticism of his judgment. I
pass over the Scots, then most deeply learned : they are known to have
done the same. But I could name some of them of no mean literary gift ;
especially Artwil, the son of the king of Scotland. Whatever he produced
in the art of literature, and this was not at all trifling, he committed to
Aldhelm's judgment, that by the revision of his accomplished mind might
be scraped off the Scottish roughness."
1 Cf. A.S.C., MSS. A, B, s.a. 710, MS. C, s.a. 709.
" Bertfrid, king Osred's prefect, fought with
Fl. of W., i, 48, s.a. 710 :
the Picts and was victorious."
2 "
Bertfrid, second prince from the king," Eddi, LX, in Raine's York,
i, 90, (cf. ibid., i, 91,) was the supporter of king Osred, the son of Aldfrid,
against Adulf ; cf. Eddi, LIX, u.s., i, 88-89. Cf. W. of M., G.P., 242.
Bertfrid is the same name as Berctred, supra, s.a. 698. The bearers of
these and the allied name Bert (supra, s.a. 685, note,) may have belonged to
the same family.