Ceolfrith was abbot of the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow and something of a father-figure to Bede. To some extent, our view of him is overshadowed by the monastery's founder Benedict Biscop and it is difficult to identify his own particular contribution to its development. We can, however, see his influence behind the development of biblical scholarship for which the monastery became renowned.
Ceolfrith was born into the higher echelons of Northumbrian society; his father was sufficiently intimate in the royal household to offer the king a banquet. At the age of 18 he entered the religious life at the monastery of Gilling (North Yorkshire) where his brother Cynefrid was abbot. After a short spell here, Ceolfrith and other monks were invited to transfer to Ripon where some years later, in 669, at the age of 27 he was ordained priest by Bishop Wilfrid.
These details of his life, though few, are enough for us to place Ceolfrith's early career within the context of the party had grouped around the court of Alhfrith, sub-king in Deira, with Wilfrid a leading figure, which was promoting the Roman strand of Christianity as against the Irish church of King Oswiu's Northumbrian state. Gilling was very much a Deiran monastery, set up at the instigation of Queen Eanflæd who herself observed Roman religious practices; and the migration of Gilling monks to Ripon probably came when Wilfrid re-founded this as a Benedictine monastery under Alhfrith's patronage. Thus Ceolfrith was well placed to observe the events which culminated in the victory of the Roman party at the synod in Whitby in 664. His ordination to the priesthood comes on Wilfrid's return from his first period of exile.
After his ordination, he travelled to broaden his education by observing monasteries in Kent and East Anglia before returning to Ripon, His biographer writes of his humility in following the rule of the monastery and serving in the office of miller and baker. He also taught the brethren in the observance of the rule.
If Ceolfrith had not already met Wilfrid's former travelling companion Benedict Biscop before the mid 660s, he must have done so while in Kent where Biscop had taken charge of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul in Canterbury. The working partnership between the two men, Biscop by fourteen years the senior, began when Biscop returned to Northumbria and in 674, on land granted by King Ecgfrith, founded the monastery of St. Peter at Wearmouth. Ceolfrith, now 32 years old, was appointed Prior in the monastery. In this office, he was responsible for internal management and discipline and he found it difficult to control a group of noblemen who had entered the monastery as a career choice and who were unwilling to accept the disciplines of the life. So great was the problem that Ceolfrith resigned the post and returned to Ripon whence he had to be persuaded back by Biscop. Cuthbert, as Prior of Lindisfarne, had had similar problems in establishing monastic discipline.
In 679, with the main building programme completed, Biscop placed Eosterwine in charge and took Ceolfrith with him to Rome to collect books, relics, paintings and other resources for the monastery. This journey enabled Ceolfrith to observe Roman Christianity at first hand. On their return the following year they received into their care Bede, then a seven year old child of a family living on the monastery lands.
With another endowment from King Ecgfrith, Biscop was able to make a second foundation in 681, dedicated to St. Paul, in Jarrow, with the two houses constituted as a single monastery. Ceolfrith, appointed abbot of the new house, took a group of monks from Wearmouth as the founding party. The new basilican church was dedicated on 23 May 685, the event recorded by a stone inscription which can still be seen in St. Paul's Church, Jarrow. The new house nearly failed in its early years when a plague carried off all the choir monks save Ceolfrith himself and a young boy, possibly Bede himself.
With the death of Biscop in 690, Ceolfrith, 47 or 48 years old, became abbot of both houses of the monastery. Bede says that he completed Biscop's work but any suggestion that Ceolfrith was merely a follower and not a leader in his own right is countered by his work in the monastic library and scriptorium. According to Bede, he doubled the collection of books in the library; and since we know that Biscop was an energetic collector, this means that Ceolfrith's contribution in this sphere was also enormous. Bede's brief note that he added three copies of the new translation of the bible hardly does justice to the great scholarly enterprise which Ceolfrith initiated. Through this he provided both parts of the monastery with a text of the bible in Jerome's Latin translation, the text known as the Vulgate which was the standard in medieval Christendom. Previously the monastery had to make do with the old translation. To achieve a reliable text in the days before printed books was difficult, for works passed down through several stages of hand-written copies were prone to errors. It required close study and comparison of different versions to work out the best text. Bede himself, the monastery's greatest scholar, must surely have been closely involved in this work.
Of the bibles, the third was for the Pope. In 716, at the age of 74, Ceolfrith determined to make a final journey to Rome taking with him a presentation copy. On 5 June he left the monastery for the last time by boat across the River Wear and then to the Humber for the journey across the North Sea to the consternation of the monks who realised they would not see him again. Bede was particularly affected by Ceolfrith's departure; so much so that for some time he was unable to continue his writings. His breakdown (today we might call it a mid-life crisis) shows how deeply Bede felt for Ceolfrith as the father-figure who had guided him for thirty-six years.
Ceolfrith never reached Rome. He died at Langres in France on 25 September of that year. Some amongst his party turned back to bring the news to his monastery; others continued on to Rome where they presented his gifts to the Pope; others stayed for a while to tend his tomb. The book which Ceolfrith was carrying with him has survived to this day; it is now in Florence and is known as the Codex Amiatinus. It is Ceolfrith's great achievement and monument.
