Some, most, all, I really don’t know but I hope all, variations on the Anglican calendar mark out today as a feast for the seventh century poet Caedmon. He is the earliest English poet that we can name. A monk in the monastery of the equally, if not more remarkable abbess Hilda of Whitby. The story has it that he was a lay brother charged with tending the monastery’s animals. He is thought to have been illiterate. One night he had a dream in which “someone” came to him and told him to sing to the creation of all things. He told his superiors, who took him to the abbess who questioned him closely, and charged him with composing the poem. He did over night, and the next day recited it to her. Astonished at the poem’s beauty and believing he was touched by the divine, she had him professed as a full monk and ordered he be given a formal education to support his composition.
And he wrote. According to the Venerable Bede his works were widely recited and he inspired many to the monastic life.
Possibly he was ordained a priest in old age. Little is known with any certainty, beyond the reputation of his poetry.
Sadly only one poem survives, which has come to be called Caedmon’s Hymn…
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