BENEDICT BIS'COP (c.629-690). An Eng lish ecclesiastic of the Seventh Century, who exercised a most important and beneficent influ ence on Anglo-Saxon civilization and learning. Ile was born about the year 629. of a noble Northumbrian family (his patronymie, accord ing to Eddins, being Baducing), and until about his 25th year was a courtier of ()swim King of Northumbria. About that time he gave up his court, life and accompanied Wilfrith to France. whence he went on to Rome (654), where lie spent about ten years in study, and whence lie seems to have returned soon after the Synod of Whitby in 664. In 665 lie was in Rome a second time, being sent on a mis sion by Alchfrith. King of Northumbria. After a stay in Rome of a months, lie proceeded to in Provence. where lie became a monk, received the tonsure, and spent about two years, thus acquiring a knowledge of mo nastic discipline. He returned to Rome in 6(17, came to England with Theodore and Adrian, and was made abbot of the Monastery of Saint Peter (afterwards that of Saint Augustine) in Canterbury. This charge he resigned two years later and went to Rome for a third time, for the purpose of bringing home the literary treasures which he had already collected. He returned about 672, bringing with him a large collection of valuable hooks, and repaired to Northumbria, where King Eegfrith gave him land near the mouth of the Wear, on which lie founded the famous Monastery of Wearmouth. Workmen were brought from France to build and glaze the church and monastery. this being one of the earliest instances of the use of glass for win dows in England. Ile also introduced from Gaul and Rome (which he visited again in 687) church utensils and vestments, relics, pictures, images, and again a vast number of books. He also
brought with him John, arch-chanter of Saint Peter's, who introduced the Roman choral ser vice. On his return from this visit to Rome, King Eegfrith presented him with more land on the other side of the Wear, at a place called Barrow, on which he built a second monastery, dependent on Wearmouth. Benedict made his fifth and last journey to Rome in 687, and, as on former occasions, came home laden with books and pictures, bringing with him also, ac cording to Bede, two silk palls "of incomparable wo•kmanship." Shortly after his return from Rome lie was seized with palsy, under which he languished three years, (lying on the 12th of January, 690. During his long illness, h6 often anxiously exhorted his monks to look care fully after his books, and to preserve them from loss or injury.
The benefits conferred by Benedict on Anglo Saxon civilization. which was then only in its dawn, and the impulse given by his labors to Auglo-Saxon learning, were greater than can now be estimated. It is not certain that he wrote any books, and those ascribed to him are of little value; but by his personal teaching, and especially by his founding at Wearmouth such a valuable and, for the time, extensive library, he implanted in the nation a taste for literature and learning, which soon was fruitful in results, and continued to be so for many cen turies. Bede, a pupil, wrote his life.