ciple of Hild, became Archbishop of York, and Tatfrith was elected
bishop of the Hwicce, though he died before his consecration.

None of these, however, have a greater claim to be remembered than the
cow-herd Caedmon, the first English poet, and the story as given by Bede
is perhaps one of the most charming in his Ecclesiastical History.[22]
Apart from the literary interest attaching to the story, his life shows
some of the details in outward organisation of these great double
monasteries. Before his entry into the monastery, says Bede, he was
advanced in years, and yet had so little skill in music that he was
unable to take his turn at feasts in singing and playing on the harp, an
accomplishment common to high and low among the Anglo-Saxons and kindred
nations.

The story is familiar: on one occasion when the feast was over, he left
the hall as soon as he saw the harp being passed, according to custom,
from hand to hand. He went out to the cattle-sheds, tended the beasts
and lay down to sleep. In a dream he heard a voice, "Caedmon, sing me
something." He answered, "I know not how to sing; and for this cause I
came out from the feast and came hither because I knew not how." Again
he who spoke with him said, "Nevertheless, thou canst sing me
something." Caedmon said, "What shall I sing?" He answered, "Sing me the
Creation." Then Bede relates how the cow-herd sang songs before unknown
to him, in praise of "the Creator, the Glorious Father of men, who first
created for the sons of earth, the heaven for a roof, and then the
middle world as a floor for men, the Guardian of the Heavenly Kingdom."
When the abbess Hild heard of the miracle, she instructed him in the
presence of many learned men to turn into verse a portion of the
Scriptures. He took away his task and brought it to them again
"composed in the choicest verse." Thereupon the abbess, says Bede,
"embracing and loving the gift of God in the man, entreated him to leave
the secular, and take upon him the monastic life, and ordered him to be
instructed in sacred history." So he was received into Whitby monastery
with all his family "and," continues the story, "all that he could learn
he kept in memory, and like a clean beast chewing the cud, he turned it
all into the sweetest verse, so pleasant to hear, that even his teachers
wrote and learned at his lips."

The story throws a good deal of light on the way in which a large double
monastery was organised. One gathers