Introduction
The following story is paraphrased from The Little Book of the Wonderful Virtues of St Cuthbert, compiled by Reginald of Durham, a monk at the Benedictine Abbey in Durham in the latter half of the twelfth century. It tells of monk Martin, who in the world had been Sir Rodbert, a prosperous knight, but who found the simple life of the Abbey challenging and exasperated his tutors with his oddly sluggish wits.
MANY have turned to Cuthbert for the gift of understanding and received more than they asked for. The great teacher Bede was liberated from a rather burdensome speech impediment,* and a similar miracle occurred in the days of Bishop William of St Barbara.*
A knight named Rodbert joined the Durham community as a monk, taking the name Martin.* Owing to his refined and prosperous background, he had some difficulty adjusting to monastic life. They set him to learn the Seven Penitential Psalms,* the Lord’s Prayer* and the Creed,* but when he woke each morning, as God would have it Martin could never repeat them. His teachers put it down to negligence, and Martin grew increasingly ashamed and anxious.
He recalled hearing about Cuthbert and Bede, and made some cautious inquiries about where they were buried. (He did manage to remember that much.) One morning when again he could not repeat his lessons, he rose with a flurry of imprecations, and taking along his book to Cuthbert he threw it down in front of him. “Did you call me away from the world” he complained “just so you could poke fun at me in church?
* In the introduction to his Verse Life of St Cuthbert, St Bede (?673-735) tells the dedicatee (an unidentified priest named John) that he has not included all the miracles done by Cuthbert, either in his earthly life or through his relics after his death, and reminds him: “One of them being that which, as I have already told you, I experienced for myself through the healing of my tongue while I was celebrating his miracles (ex quibus unum est quod in me ipso, sicut jam tibi dixi, per linguæ curationem, dum miracula ejus canerem, expertus sum).” Reginald evidently assumed, or had learnt from the traditions of his brotherhood, that in the very act of singing about Cuthbert’s miracles Bede himself was cured of a speech impediment. Something similar is told of another great Church musician, Roman the Melodist (?490-?556) in Constantinople. See also The Bishop and the Chatterbox.
* William of St Barbara (?-1152), Dean of York from 1138 to 1143 when he was elected Bishop of Durham. His name suggests that he was born in Sainte-Barbe-en-Auge in Calvados, Normandy.
* After St Martin of Tours (316-397), a very popular saint in the British Isles long before the Norman Conquest.
* The Penitential Psalms or Psalms of Confession: see Seven Penitential Psalms. The name goes back to Cassiodorus (?485-?585), in his Commentary on the Psalms.
* See The Lord’s Prayer, which begins “Our Father, which art in heaven”.
* Elfric, tenth-century Abbot of Eynsham in Oxfordshire, declared that “Every Christian man shall know his Our Father and his Creed”. The Roman Church of the day had three chief Creeds. The Apostles’ Creed, spread in the West during the eighth century by Charlemagne, was a lightly abbreviated form of the The Creed produced at the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381). The latter is called ‘the Mass Creed’ by Elfric as it is said in every communion service (‘the Mass’). If they set Martin to memorise the long and wordy ‘Athanasian’ Creed it is no wonder he could not master it — and just as well. Not only was it (as we now know) an early sixth-century forgery, it vigorously promoted the Filioque heresy that tore the Church apart in the 11th century.
Précis
After wealthy Sir Rodbert joined the monastic community in Durham in the twelfth century, he was surprised and ashamed to find himself struggling with his studies. His tutors ascribed it to negligence, but Martin (to use his new name) knew better. At last he confronted St Cuthbert at his shrine, demanding an explanation for his uncharacteristically slow wits. (58 / 60 words)
After wealthy Sir Rodbert joined the monastic community in Durham in the twelfth century, he was surprised and ashamed to find himself struggling with his studies. His tutors ascribed it to negligence, but Martin (to use his new name) knew better. At last he confronted St Cuthbert at his shrine, demanding an explanation for his uncharacteristically slow wits.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: despite, if, otherwise, ought, unless, until, whereas, who.
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