Aelred was born at Hexham in 1109, entering the Cistercian Order at Rievaulx in about 1133, after spending some years in the court of King David of Scotland he became Abbot of Revesby in 1143 and returned to Rievaulx four years later to become abbot and to spend the remainder of his life.
He was profoundly influential through his spiritual writings, which he began at the request of Bernard of Clairvaux, the two having a similar approach to the spiritual life. Because of this, Aelred was often called ‘the Bernard of the North’. He died on this day at Rievaulx in 1167.
Benedict Biscop, was born a Northumbrian nobleman in 628, serving at the court of King Oswiu of Northumbria until he joined Wilfrid of York on his pilgrimage to Rome to the tombs of the apostles.
He made a second trip accompanied by the King’s son and on his way home was clothed a monk at the Benedictine house of Lérins.
It was on his third trip to Rome that he met and returned to England with Theodore, the newly-appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, who made him Abbot of St Augustine’s in 669.
Five years later, he was permitted to make his own foundation at Wearmouth, which he had built in the Roman style and endowed with a huge library. He encouraged the development of the Uncial script which also acted as a vehicle for the propagation of the Roman Rite. His own scholarship, and that promoted through the religious houses he founded, played a large part in the acceptance of the primacy of Roman over Celtic practice throughout northern England.
Benedict Biscop died on this day in 689.
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