Today is the Feast of the Translation of his holy relics. Primary
Feastday is 25 May.
Born in Wessex, England, c. 640; died at Doulting in Somerset, May 25,
709.
There is a short mention in Bede, who was his contemporary, but most of
our knowledge of Aldhelm comes from the Life written by the monk William
of Malmesbury. He was born about 639 when Cynegils, the first Christian
King, ruled the West-Saxons, and Birinus, who had brought the Faith to
Wessex, was the bishop at Dorchester. At the age of fifteen, he was sent
to the monastery at Malmesbury to study under an Irish monk called
Maedulph (Maeldubh). Although it had only been established for twenty
years, it had already gained a reputation for scholarship and a fairly
extensive library.
In 661 Aldhelm took monastic vows, and ten years later went to
Canterbury, where the school under the two great scholars, Hadrian the
abbot and Theodore the Archbishop, attracted students from every part of
England. He spent two years at Canterbury and would like to have made
another visit, but illness prevented him, and in 675 he was elected
Abbot of Malmesbury on the death of Maedulph. Aldhelm was then thirty
five years old and was to remain abbot until his death in 709.
Maedulph's church was a wooden structure, and Aldhelm replaced it with a
great church built in stone, celebrating its completion and dedication
to SS Peter and Paul with a poem of twenty one lines. He was an
accomplished poet, and King Alfred's Handbook tells the story of how,
when the congregation was thin at Malmesbury, Aldhelm went out and stood
at the bridge, entertaining the people as a minstrel until he had lured
them back to worship in the church.
Besides the minster at Malmesbury, Aldhelm established two other
religious houses, St. Laurence at Bradford upon Avon and St. John
Baptist at Frome, and there is still evidence of his buildings at both
places. At Wareham the ancient church of St. Martin is believed to have
been built by Aldhelm while he was waiting to cross to the continent on
pilgrimage to Rome, and there is a small chapel dedicated to him on the
headland which bears his name to the west of Swanage. His visit to Rome
was a great success, and he returned with a charter from the Pope for
his two monasteries at Malmesbury and Frome, exempting them from
episcopal jurisdiction. Ina of Wessex and Ethelred of Mercia signed this
document, guaranteeing peace to his foundations.
It is as a scholar that Aldhelm is best remembered, and among the
writings that survive are his treatise on the number seven, which he
sent to his friend and fellow student Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, a
book of a hundred riddles, and a dissertation on poetic metre. His
famous treatise In Praise of Virginity, he addressed to Hildilida and
her nuns at Barking, among whom was Cuthburga, the wife of Aldfrid, who
was to be the first abbess of Wimborne.
When Hedda, the West Saxon bishop, died in 705, the diocese was divided,
with Daniel having his seat at Winchester, and St. Aldhelm becoming
bishop of a new diocese with Sherborne as his Cathedral town. This new
diocese incorporated the counties of Dorset, Somerset and part of Devon,
stretching to Cornwall, with which Aldhelm had already had contact when
he wrote a letter to King Geraint urging the British church to conform
to the Roman customs.
St. Aldhelm was only bishop for four years, during which he built a
cathedral at Sherborne and continued to administer his monastic
communities. He died at the age of seventy in the church at Doulting,
and his friend Egwin, the bishop of Worcester, had a vision at the time
of his death and came post haste to bury him. The funeral procession
from Doulting to Malmesbury was marked by stone crosses every seven
miles and these were known as Bishopstones and were still in existence
when William wrote. His tomb became a place of pilgrimage, and in 955
his body was translated to a magnificent shrine given by Ethelwulf, the
father of Alfred the Great. Alfred's grandson Athelstan is buried by the
side of his favourite saint, to whom he prayed before the battle of
Brunanburh
(
Platts,
Gallyon,
Bowen).
Chronicle of the Kings of England
by William of Malmesbury
http://www.littlebohemia.org/malmesbury.html