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On the Scholar |
Excerpted from Historia Ecclesiastica |
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Moreover, Oswald, the most Christian king of the Northumbrians, ruled for nine years, also counting that year which both the deadly impiety of the king of the Britons, and the insane apostasy of the English kings made detestable. If indeed, as we have explained above, it was established by the unanimous consensus of everyone that the name and memory of apostates should be entirely abolished from the catalog of Christian kings, and neither should any year in their reign be recorded. At the completion of this period of years, he [Oswald] was killed in a terrible battle by the same pagan people and the pagan king of the Mercians, by whom his predecessor Edwin had also been murdered, in the place that in the English language is called Maserfelth, in his 38th year of life, on the fifth day of August. Est monasterium nobile in provincia Lindissi, nomine Beardaneu, quod eadem regina cum viro suo Aedilredo multum diligebat, venerabatur, excolebat, in quo desiderabat honoranda patrui sui ossa recondere: Ossa igitur illius translata et condita sunt in monasterio quo diximus: porro caput, et manus cum brachiis a corpore praecisas, iussit rex qui occiderat, in stipitibus suspendi. Quo post annum veniens cum exercitu successor regni eius Osuiu, abstulit ea, et caput quidem in coemeterio Lindisfarnensis ecclesiae: in regia vero civitate manus cum brachiis condidit. Nec solum inclyti fama viri Brittaniae fines lustravit universos, sed etiam trans Oceanum longe radios salutiferae lucis spargens, Germaniae simul et Hiberniae partes attigit. Sed et in Hibernia cum presbyter adhuc peregrinam pro aeterna patria duceret vitam, rumorem sanctitatis illius in ea quoque insula longe lateque iam percrebuisse ferebat: e quibus unum quod inter alia retulit miraculum, praesenti nostrae Historiae inserendum credidimus. |