>
> * Cedd, bishop of the East Saxons (664)
> - brother of St Chad; agreed to forsake Celtic custom re
Easter
> observance at Whitby synod of 664; died soon afterward
The other week I happened to visit Lastingham, on the edge of the North
Yorkshire Moors. I picked up the rather useful guide book to the
church. It quotes from St Bede on Cedd's foundation of a monastery at
Lastingham:
"During his episcopate among the West Saxons, God's servant Cedd often
visited his own province of Northumbria to preach. Ethelwald, son of
King Oswald, knowing Cedd to be a wise, holy and honourable man, asked
him to accept a grant of land to found a monastery. In accordance with
the king's wishes, Cedd chose a site for the monastery among some high
hills, which seemed more suitable for the dens of robbers and haunts of
wild beasts than for human habitation. His purpose in this was to
fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah: . . . in the haunts where dragons once
dwelt shall be pasture, with reeds and rushes, and he wished the fruits
of good works to spring up where formerly lived only wild beasts, or
men who lived like beasts."
This became something of a topos; whenever the Cistercians founded a
monastery it is described in very similar terms. Thus Fountains is
described as a place "uninhabited for all the centuries back, thickset
with thorns, and fit rather to be the lair of wild beasts than the home
of men."
We should be wary of taking such descriptions at face value: as we
see, there is a literary precedent of the highest authority, and a
scriptural prophecy to be fulfilled.
The Supple Doctor.
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