‘Monk Inok’, by Russian artist Konstantin Savitsky (1844–1905). Monk Martin must have looked equally flummoxed. He had been a wealthy and dashing knight, and Reginald tells us that it was hard enough adjusting to community life in the Abbey without the additional frustration of seemingly losing his wits. He seems to have struggled to understand quite simple concepts while reading, and to have forgotten by the morning whatever he had tried to memorise.
Part 1 of 2
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)
Part Two
Durham Cathedral, painted in 1883 by American architect Arnold William Brunner (1857-1925). It was begun in 1093 as a new home for the relics of St Cuthbert (?634-687), Bishop of Lindisfarne, and those of St Bede (?673-735), a monk of Jarrow. Much of the cathedral as it is today was completed by Reginald’s time, including the Galilee Chapel, but there were no towers yet and no Rose Window or Chapel of the Nine Altars at this east end (nearest the artist).
“You can have your book back” continued Martin. “The harder I study the less I remember. You and your Bede* drain intelligence from me, while pouring it on others who don’t even ask. By God, soon I’ll struggle to have faith even in your sanctity.” After more of the same he left, giving the book a kick.*
He soon returned, however, in case losing it brought more derision. “St Cuthbert” he added, scooping it up, “now at least I will find out what pity you have for me. If you have none your book may as well go on the fire. And you, Bede, urge St Cuthbert to pity, until I am quite familiar with your lessons.” He smuggled the book back to his room and was soon engrossed in it. For wonder of wonders, he now grasped every word he read. He marvelled that ideas so easy had not gone in before. Such are the gifts of St Cuthbert! Wisdom to the foolish, learning to the untaught. Indeed, Martin could hardly be prised away from his book. He even painted an icon of St Cuthbert, which he would often kiss, into the margin of the opening page.
* “Tu, Cuthberte, cum Beda tuo.” Bede (?673-735), who was about fourteen when St Cuthbert died in 687, was devoted to him and wrote his biography in both prose and verse. Bede’s remains were brought to Durham from Jarrow (now a suburb of Newcastle-upon-Tyne) in 1022 and buried alongside the saint he loved and admired. In 1370 Bede was given his own shrine in the Galilee Chapel at the west end of the Abbey Church. Both shrines were broken up and sold off on the recommendation of the Government experts who masterminded the sixteenth-century English Reformation, but the relics of both Bede and Cuthbert escaped the bonfires to which other saintly remains were condemned. Bede’s were returned to a substantial if severe tomb in the Galilee Chapel. Cuthbert lies under a plain slab at the east end, behind the High Altar.
* “I poured out my complaint before him” said King David; “I shewed before him my trouble”. See Psalm 142:2, and also Psalm 39. Martin stands in a long tradition of good men tested to the limits of endurance and even of civility, who nonetheless grasped at some level that God would do right by them. Job’s similarly petulant outburst brought a wrathful response from God: “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?”. See Job 38:2. Yet the friends who had told Job to suffer in silence, conjuring up various ingenious reasons why God would do nothing to help him, fared worse. “Ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job.” See Job 42:8.
Précis
Martin’s first impulse was to throw away his baffling textbook, but becoming calmer he bade Cuthbert and Bede help him understand it instead. From that moment, everything he studied seemed clear as day, and fixed itself effortlessly in his mind. In grateful wonder, Martin painted an icon of St Cuthbert into his schoolbook, and treasured it ever after. (58 / 60 words)
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