Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/173

 Rh wisdom, he gained many privileges for the monastery; and, amongst others, one which gave great delight to all; he took up the bones of Abbot Eosterwine, which lay in the entrance porch of St. Peter's, and also the bones of his old preceptor, Abbot Sigfrid, which had been buried outside the Sacrarium towards the south, and placing both together in one chest, but separated by a partition, laid them within the church near the body of St. Benedict. He did this on Sigfrid's birthday, the 23rd of August, and on the same day. Divine Providence so ordered that Christ's venerable servant Witmær, whom we have already mentioned, departed this life, and was buried in the same place as the aforesaid abbots, whose life he had imitated.

§ 21. But Christ's servant Ceolfrid, as has been said, died on his way to the threshold of the holy Apostles, of old age and weakness. For he reached the Lingones about nine o'clock, where he died an hour after, and was honourably buried the next day in the church of the three twin martyrs, much to the sorrow, not only of the English who were in his train, to the number of eighty, but also of the neighbouring inhabitants, who were dissolved in tears at the loss of the reverend father. For it was almost impossible to avoid weeping to see part of his company continuing their journey without the holy father, whilst others, abandoning their first intentions, returned home to relate his death and burial; and others, again, lingered in sorrow at the tomb of the deceased among strangers speaking an unknown tongue.

§ 22. Ceolfrid was seventy-four years old when he died: forty-seven years he had been in priest's orders, during thirty-five of which he had been abbot; or, to speak more correctly, forty-three—for, from the time when Benedict began to build his monastery in honour of the holiest of the Apostles, Ceolfrid had been his only companion, coadjutor, and teacher of the monastic rules. He never relaxed the rigour of ancient discipline from any occasions of old age, illness, or travel; for, from the