Benedict Biscop

Benedict Biscop ( – 690), also known as Biscop Baducing, was an Anglo-Saxon abbot and founder of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory (where he also founded the famous library). Following his death, he was canonized as a saint.

It has been suggested that Baducing appears as Biscop Beding, the son of Beda Bubbing, King of Mercia in the Lyndsey/Lindfearnan lists of geneaologies held by the Anglian Collection and great-grandfather of Alfred The Great.

Life

Early career Benedict, born of a noble Northumbrian family, was for a time a thegn of King Oswiu of Bernicia At the age of 25 ( 653) Benedict made the first of his five trips to Rome, accompanying his friend Saint Wilfrid the Elder. However, Wilfrid was detained in Lyon en route. Benedict completed the journey on his own, and when he returned to England, he was "full of fervour and enthusiasm ... for the good of the English Church".

Benedict made a second journey to Rome twelve years later. Alchfrith of Deira, a son of King Oswiu, intended to accompany him, but the king refused to grant permission. On this trip, Biscop met Acca and Wilfrid. On his return journey to England, Benedict stopped at Lérins, a monastic island off the Mediterranean coast of Provence, which had by then adopted the Rule of St. Benedict. During his two-year stay there, from 665 to 667, he underwent a course of instruction, taking monastic vows and the name of "Benedict".

Following the two years in Lérins, Benedict made his third trip to Rome. At this time, Pope Vitalian commissioned him to accompany Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus back to Canterbury in 669. On their return, Archbishop Theodore appointed Benedict as abbot of SS. Peter and Paul's, Canterbury, a role he held for two years.

Bibliophile Benedict Biscop, the Bibliophile, assembled a library from his travels. His second trip to Rome had focused on book-buying. Overall, the collection comprised an estimated 250 titles, mostly service books. The library included scripture, classical, and secular works.

Founder

Ecgfrith of Northumbria granted Benedict land in 674 for the purpose of building a monastery. He traveled to the Continent to recruit masons capable of building a monastery in the Pre-Romanesque style. Benedict made his fifth and final trip to Rome in 679 to bring back books for a library, saintly relics, stonemasons, glaziers, and a grant from Pope Agatho that conferred certain privileges on his monastery. Benedict made five overseas voyages in all to stock the library.

In 682, Benedict appointed Eosterwine as his coadjutor, and the King was so delighted by the success of St Peter's that he gave him land in Jarrow and urged him to build a second monastery. Benedict erected a sister foundation (St Paul) at Jarrow. He appointed Ceolfrid as the superior, who left Wearmouth with 20 monks to start the foundation in Jarrow. Bede, one of Benedict's pupils, tells us that he brought builders and glass-workers from Francia to erect the buildings in stone.

He drew up a rule for his community, based on that of Benedict and the customs of seventeen monasteries he had visited. He also engaged Abbot John, Arch-cantor of St. Peter's in Rome, to teach Roman chant at these monasteries.

Benedict's idea was to establish a model monastery in England, drawing on his knowledge of the Church's experience in Europe. It was the first ecclesiastical building in Britain constructed in stone, and the use of glass was a novelty in 7th-century England. It eventually possessed what was a large library for the time – several hundred volumes – and it was here that Benedict's student Bede wrote his famous works. The library became world-famous, and manuscripts copied there became prized possessions throughout Europe. including especially the Codex Amiatinus, the earliest surviving manuscript of the complete Bible in the Latin Vulgate version.

Death For the last three years of his life, Benedict was bedridden. He suffered his affliction with great patience and faith.

Veneration A sermon of Bede (Homily 17) indicates that there was a very early public cult of Biscop; for his feast, but it became more widespread only after the translation of his relics to Thorney under Ethelwold . He is recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church, the Church of England, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, which hold his feast day on 12 January.

Benedict is remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration on 12 January. The parish church in Wombourne, Staffordshire is the only one in England dedicated to Benedict.

The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates him as a saint and celebrates his feast day on 12 January on the New Calendar.