By Walt Garlington
The foundation of Southern literature is, quite naturally, English literature. And the roots of English literature lie in the era from approximately the middle of the 6th century to the end of the 11th century, when Old English was the dominant spoken and written language in the lands of Britain conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, which would later become the single kingdom of England. While the author of Beowulf would probably be considered the most important father of Old English literature, there were other important writers in those early years who contributed greatly to the establishment and growth of the Old English literary canon. One of them is undoubtedly St Aldhelm (+709), a monk and bishop of the Orthodox Church of England.
The Orthodox Faith came to the English in the latter half of the 6th century through the efforts of St Augustine of Canterbury, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Columba of Iona, and other missionaries, known and unknown. St Aldhelm was amongst the firstfruits of their evangelistic work. But the young age of the English Church was no impediment to the growth of his zeal for and knowledge (both theoretical and experiential) of God:
This holy hierarch was born in the Kingdom of Wessex about the year 639 and was related to the royal house of the West Saxons. He belonged to the second generation of Christians in Wessex after the conversion of the kingdom through the preaching of Saint Birinus. From his youth he desired the monastic life and became the disciple of the Irish ascetic Saint Maeldub, who dwelt in prayer and solitude amid the forests of Wiltshire.
The place where Saint Maeldub established his cell and school later became known as Malmesbury. There the young Aldhelm was instructed in the Holy Scriptures, prayer, sacred chant, and the ascetic life. He was tonsured a monk about the year 661 and quickly became known for wisdom, zeal, humility, and extraordinary intellectual gifts.
His gifts would flourish all the more under the wise direction of the Grace-filled teachers Sts Theodore and Hadrian:
Desiring greater learning for the service of the Church, the saint journeyed to Canterbury, where he studied under the holy Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian. There he learned not only theology and the Scriptures, but also Greek, Latin, Hebrew, grammar, rhetoric, astronomy, arithmetic, music, poetry, and the writings of the holy Fathers. Yet amid such learning he remained humble and deeply ascetic.
After returning to Malmesbury, the saint was ordained to the priesthood and eventually succeeded Saint Maeldub as abbot. Under his guidance Malmesbury became one of the greatest monasteries in England and a renowned centre of holiness, learning, sacred music, and missionary work.
All of this prepared his heart and soul to bring forth an abundance of literary works of exceptionally good quality that spanned several different genres:
St. Aldhelm wrote books, letters, treatises, sacred poems, grammatical works, and even riddles in Latin which survive to this day. They were read all over Western Europe, were popular and influenced several noted saints (for example, Boniface of Germany) till the eleventh century. His style of writing was elaborate and involved, for undereducated people even obscure. It was called hermeneutic. Most of his surviving works have been translated into modern English. Perhaps his best known work is the treatise De Laude Virginitatis (In Praise of Virginity), which he composed both in prose and verse for the abbess and nuns of Barking Monastery near London, one of whose nuns, St. Cuthburga, was his relative (she later founded a great double monastery in Wimborne, Dorset). In it he extolls the life of virginity, devout living, citing examples of numerous Biblical and early Christian saints of both sexes and referencing a host of the Holy Fathers of both the East and the West. (A Saxon drawing of him survives, showing him presenting his treatises to St. Hildelith, abbess of Barking).
His Epistola ad Acircium, a letter addressed to King Aldfrith of Northumbria, of whom we spoke above, is worth mentioning too. It comprises three treatises, namely on the number seven, on meters and metric feet. Other examples of his correspondence are those with the learned Abbot Cellanus of the Irish Monastery of Peronne (now in France); with the scholar Eahfrid who visited Ireland; Bishop Leuthere; St. Hadrian, Pope Sergius; the saint’s disciples Wihtfrith and Ethelwald; numerous abbesses and princes. There is also a poem describing his travels across western England and, notably, Carmina ecclesiastica—that is, tituli, poems for the dedication of a church or its altar. Among them are very beautiful poems for the dedication of two churches built by him in Malmesbury and for one built for Abbess Bugga, probably his sister.
Most interestingly, the saint wrote a collection of 100 Latin riddles (Aenigmata) and handed them over to King Aldfrith. The word “riddle” comes from an old English word meaning “advise” or “explain”. Therefore, a riddle’s role is to teach by representing old things in new ways. The saint’s riddles were extremely popular and didactic through the early middle ages and were copied in many monasteries, thus popularizing this genre. In this collection one sees the wisdom, erudition, power of observation and inquisitive nature of the holy man. It is not for nothing that St. Aldhelm is praised by some as “the first European librarian”.
Below we give three riddles from Aldhelm’s collection (translated from Latin by W. B. Wildman in his book, Life of St Ealdhelm (1905). This selection as well as some other facts used in this article are kindly provided by Sheelagh Wurr from Bishopstrow, the author of a booklet on St. Aldhelm, entitled St. Aldhelm of Wessex, His Life, His Work, and His Miracles):
Forth from the fruitful turf I spring unsown,
My head gleams yellow with its shining flower;
At eve I shut, at sunrise ope again;
Hence the wise Greeks have given my name to me.
(Answer: a sunflower)
Though the war trumpet bray with hollow brass,
The lutes throb sweetly and the bugles call,
My inward parts give forth a hundred notes,
And, when I roar, men hear no other sound.
(Answer: an organ. It was said that St. Aldhelm was the first English saint to make an organ with his own hands!).
Of willow wood and tough bull-hide am I,
And I can stand the shrewdest knocks of war;
With my own frame I guard my warrior’s frame
And shield him from death’s grip. Who like myself
Has felt as oft the deadly blows of war
And known as many wounds, a soldier bold?
(Answer: a shield)
In addition to all of this, he also combined his literary skills with music, for the sake of uniting more people to Christ:
The saint took care of the ordinary people of Malmesbury and neighboring settlements, many of whom were uneducated. A very talented man, Aldhelm composed numerous songs, poems and hymns in his native Old English, and he mastered the Anglo-Saxon harp as well as other instruments (some state that he could play all the instruments available for that period). From time to time he would go to public places and sing secular songs in the vernacular. Crowds would gather around him and he would start singing spiritual songs in order to attract as many unchurched people to Christ as possible. Most often on Sundays after the church service he would often walk amid people or stand on the bridge in Malmesbury, playing the harp and performing his own hymns and songs in the manner of minstrels, and people would gather around him and listen, glorifying God.
As to the reason for these great blessings from God that blossomed forth in St Aldhelm’s life, it may be ascribed in large measure to his great asceticism done for the sake of calming and healing the passions that he might be filled with more of God’s Grace:
He prayed unceasingly, lived a modest, austere life, kept all the fasts, and (following the Celtic tradition of the Irishman Maeldub) would stand in the waters of the stream near the abbey up to his neck for the whole night, where he would recite the whole Psalter. He did this even in the autumn and winter, when the water was icy-cold.
To give an indication of the manner of holiness he possessed, we will recount a remarkable miracle of his:
During his stay in Rome, Aldhelm celebrated services every day. There he was given a miraculous chasuble (epitrachelion, or priest’s stole). It was made of fine silk on an Eastern pattern, scarlet, with tracery and images of peacocks. Once, after the service, the saint pulled the chasuble off, thinking that his assistant was standing near him to catch it. But there was no assistant beside him at that moment and the chasuble would have fallen down but for a sunbeam that suddenly struck through the window and had it “suspended” on itself at a distance above the floor! That chasuble was kept at Malmesbury for many centuries and displayed to pilgrims as a relic. Alas, during the destructive Reformation it disappeared, as did the relics of St. Aldhelm.
Such are the Saints of Dixie’s forefathers in the Orthodox Church: not inspiring but fictional creations of talented Southern novelists, but real men and women who have been truly deified, set ablaze by and burning with the Holy Fire of the Holy Ghost. And this makes them supremely gifted, able to do any work the All-Holy Trinity asks of them.
In St Aldhelm in particular we see many of the art forms that have defined the South for nearly her whole existence brought to a high plane of development: poetry, music, sermons, humor. He fell asleep in the Lord in 709 and was venerated for centuries as a holy man and miracle-worker. The Protestants destroyed his relics, but his soul remains alive before the Lord, ever ready to intercede for all those who call upon him, whether they be in England, Dixie, or anywhere else in the world.
Especially those interested in continuing the Southern (and English) tradition of writing splendid literature should call upon him for help in perfecting their craft. He will hear, and he will answer, as God directs him.
Walt Garlington is a chemical engineer turned writer and editor of the website Confiteri: A Southern Perspective. This longtime Southern Baptist, then Anglican, was united to the Orthodox Church in 2012 and makes his home in Louisiana where he attends a GOA parish.
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