Righteous Ceolwulf of Lindisfarne, King of Northumbria

Ceolwulf’s forcible tonsure: lithograph by Ernest Prater, 1920

Today in the Orthodox Church we also venerate Saint Ceolwulf, the holy king of Northumbria to whom Saint Bede dedicated his History of the English Church and People. With the exception of a brief interregnum in 731, Ceolwulf reigned in Northumbria from 729 to 737, when he abdicated his throne to his cousin Éadberht. He then spent the rest of his life as a monk on the holy isle of Lindisfarne.

Ceolwulf was born around the year 695 into the illustrious House of the Idingas, the sons of the elder royal line of Bernicia. He rose to power in the wake of ‘a number of unsatisfactory and short-lived kings’ mostly derived from among his kin, and he himself seemed to be made from the same mettle for a brief time. He was known to have consulted Saint Bede on matters relating to the state; and for his part the holy monk made answer the best he could. Although Bede liked and esteemed Ceolwulf as a good man and a pious Christian, he expressed some doubts about the young man’s ability to rule his kingdom. Indeed, it seemed to him that Ceolwulf’s interests and temperament lay in a more monastic and scholarly direction.

Not two years after he rose to power, he was captured and dragged from his court by his foes there, and forcibly tonsured as a monk. It may have been the case that Saint Acca of Hexham had colluded in this coup, as one of Ceolwulf King’s first acts after being restored to power in Northumbria was to strip Acca of his bishop’s honours and send him packing for Galloway.

Ceolwulf reigned for six more years after this. He was a particularly generous patron of the monastery on the holy isle. He donated large sums of money and precious books to Lindisfarne, and even granted them a special dispensation such that on feast-days they were allowed to drink beer and wine, as opposed to the more customary milk and water. This was somewhat contrary to the established Celtic ascetic practices on the Holy Isle, but it seems the monks greeted the change with gladness and gratitude all the same. When Ceolwulf abdicated his throne at the age of forty-two to his younger cousin, he chose to make his retirement as a simple monk at Lindisfarne. Éadberht himself would choose to retire to a monastery in York some twenty years later. This was apparently no uncommon practice by this time among the nobility and royalty of Northern England – a practice they had indeed learned from their Celtic neighbours to the north.

Ceolwulf gained a reputation for piety and humility at Lindisfarne, and reposed in the Lord on the fifteenth of January, 765. He was soon thereafter venerated as a local saint, and his tomb became known as the site of wondrous healings. As his hagiography on Lindisfarne’s website notes: ‘His life is another example of the importance in that period of the personal connections between kings and Christian leaders, which enabled monasteries like Lindisfarne and Jarrow to flourish and the Christian faith to take root among the people.’ As a king, Ceolwulf may have lacked a certain regal je ne sais quoi in the eyes of Saint Bede, but as a monk his reputation has been æternally memorable. Holy Ceolwulf king, generous ruler and humble monk, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!