Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/55

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE LIFE OF BEDE.
xlvii

Cantalupe, is evidently spurious. This is shown both by the anachronisms in which it abounds, and by the letter of Alcuin, and Bede's final exhortation, which are copied in some parts verbatim from the letter of Cuthbert, describing Bede's last illness.[1]


CHAPTER VII.

OF HIS OCCASIONAL VISITS TO HIS FRIENDS.

From the foregoing narrative we may infer that Bede did not travel far from the monastery. This is both plainly asserted in his own account of his secluded life, and appears also from the want of any evidence to the contrary. Yet it is certain that he made visits and excursions to other places, nor can we suppose that he secluded himself entirely within the monastery, and never indulged the pleasure of seeing and conversing with his friends. In his own letter to Egbert, Archbishop of York, and nephew to King Ceolwulph, he alludes to a visit which he paid to that nobleman and prelate, and acknowledges an invitation to go there for the sake of conferring with


  1. See Bal. de ill. Maj. Brit. Scrip. Vesaliæ, 1548. J. Caii Histor. Cantab. Acad. 1574. Fuller's Worthies in Durham. Leland Comin. in Cyc. Can. in Itin. Hearn. Ox. 1768, vol. ix. Brian Twin, Antiq. Acad. Ox. Ap. I. 114. Voss, de Hist. Lat. Dyer's Hist, of Univ. of Camb. p. 40.