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Two abbeys, a cathedral, and a seventh-century English poet

Two abbeys, a cathedral, and a seventh-century English poet

Last updated on: May 10, 2026 at 4:44 pm by Dan Peterson

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Two abbeys, a cathedral, and a seventh-century English poet 2026-05-10T16:44:02-06:00 Dan Peterson

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A 2003 Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph of the York Minster or Cathedral of York

We began the day by walking (through the Shambles, no less) to the magnificent York Minster, the Cathedral of York (or, officially, the Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of Saint Peter in York), for a Sunday morning service. The congregation wasn’t very large — our group made up at least a third of it, I would guess — and by far most of those in it were pretty plainly tourists (judging from the fact that they were clearly struggling, as we were, to follow the liturgy). The choral singing was exquisitely done.

Fountains Abbey (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph), on a beautiful day much like today

From the city, we drove to Fountains Abbey, a ruined Cistercian monastery near Ripon in North Yorkshire. Founded in the first half of the twelfth century, it eventually became the “mother abbey” to a dozen subordinate “daughter abbeys” and one of the wealthiest monasteries in England. Its diverse landholdings, we were told, extended from the North Sea all the way over to the Lake District.

The Abbey was abandoned and pillaged in 1539 as part of Henry VIII’s brutal and rapacious “Dissolution of the Monasteries.” Today, though, it’s widely considered to be the best preserved of all English abbeys as well as one of the country’s most picturesque ruins. It’s a favorite of our English Latter-day Saint guide, Peter Fagg, and it was at his suggestion that we included it in this tour’s itinerary; my wife and I had never been to it before.

Evening sunlight on the ruins of Whitby Abbey, by Colin Park

Today was definitely a day for cathedrals and abbeys. Our final visit of the day, prior to having dinner in the town of Whitby below it, was to the ruined Whitby Abbey, which stands atop a cliff overlooking the North Sea. My wife and I first visited it several years ago; we loved not only the ruins themselves but their picturesque location.

Founded in AD 657, as a Benedictine institution, the Abbey hosted the Synod of Whitby in AD 664, which decided the question of whether the Christians of Northumbria would follow the Easter dating of Iona (which followed an 84-year cycle) or the new nineteen-year cycle that had recently been adopted at Rome. The synod also determined what kind of tonsure clergy and monks should use.

The proper dating of Easter was a surprisingly big and divisive issue during the first several centuries of post-biblical, post-apostolic Christianity, and not just in England. (The “proper” tonsure seems to me a triviality from any perspective; perhaps it’s because of my own naturally constrained hairstyle, but I simply don’t care and can’t imagine ever caring about such a topic.). But the real (and much more fundamental) question at the Synod of Whitby was whether the English Christian church would accept the leadership of Rome, and its decision to do so was pivotal for the course of Christianity in Britain.

A portion of “Caedmon’s Cross,” a memorial at Whitby’s St. Mary’s Church. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Still, I have to confess that what interests me most about Whitby Abbey (apart from the beauty of its ruins and its location) is its association with the Anglo-Saxon poet Cædmon. According to the Northumbrian monk-historian the Venerable Bede (d. 735) , Cædmon was an illiterate and unmusical cowherd, a lay brother at what would become Whitby Abbey, who cared for the monks’ flocks and herds.

As the story goes, while the monks were feasting, singing, and playing a harp one evening, Cædmon fell asleep among the animals. In a dream, “someone” (quidam) came to him and directed him to sing principium creaturarum, “the beginning of created things.” At first, presumably aware of his musical and literary inadequacy, he refused to sing. (Which reminds me of Muhammad’s initial refusal to “recite” at the command of the angel Gabriel, though he soon began to dictate the Qur’an.) Shortly thereafter, though, Cædmon produced a short poem in praise of God, the Creator of heaven and earth. “Caedmon’s Hymn,” as it’s known, is the poet’s only surviving composition, but it seems to be the oldest securely dated specimen of Old English — that is, of recognizably English — verse that has survived. Here it is, in its original form. There are numerous textual variants, but this will do the job:

Nū scylun hergan hefaenrīcaes Uard,
metudæs maecti end his mōdgidanc,
uerc Uuldurfadur, suē hē uundra gihuaes,
ēci dryctin ōr āstelidæ
hē ǣrist scōp aelda barnum
heben til hrōfe, hāleg scepen.
Thā middungeard moncynnæs Uard,
eci Dryctin, æfter tīadæ
fīrum foldu, Frēa allmectig.

Here is a fairly literal translation of the poem, from Wikipedia:

Now [we] shall honour / heaven-kingdom’s guardian,
the measurer’s might / and his mind’s plan,
the work of the father of glory / as he of each wonder,
eternal lord, / the origin established;
he first created / for the children of men
heaven for a roof, / holy creator.
Then Middle-earth / mankind’s guardian,
eternal Lord, / after bestowed
the lands to men, / Lord almighty.

Here is another rendition into modern English, this one done by Roy A. Liuzza:

Now let us praise Heaven-Kingdom’s guardian,

the Maker’s might and his mind’s thoughts,

the work of the glory-father—of every wonder,

eternal Lord. He established a beginning.

He first shaped for men’s sons

Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator;

then middle-earth mankind’s guardian,

eternal Lord, afterwards prepared

the earth for men, the Lord almighty.

The monastery at Whitby was laid waste by Danish Vikings in multiple raids between 867 and 870 and lay in ruins for about two centuries thereafter. Its splendor and its prominent location overlooking the North Sea seem to have been an insuperable temptation to my ancestors. (My paternal grandfather was Danish.) Meanwhile, others of my ancestors were living not terribly far away to the south-southwest, near York (aka Jorvik, the Viking capital of the Danelaw), where the family of my maternal grandfather lived.

Henry VIII, ca. 1539-1540 (portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger). I confess that I’ve never completely warmed up to him, despite our obvious similarities in character and personality. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Whitby Abbey lay in ruins for about two centuries after the catastrophic Viking raids but was rebuilt in the 1220s — significantly, after the close of the so-called “Viking Age” — on a grander scale than previously, and it flourished for slightly more than three centuries as a center of scholarship. But then, once again, Henry VIII came along. In 1540, as part of his “Dissolution of the Monasteries,” he turned his kindly attentions toward Whitby, and you can admire the results of his work in the photograph above. Of course, it didn’t help much that, in December 1914, two German battlecruisers shelled the Abbey for about ten minutes, and did considerable damage to it, as part of the early festivities of the First World War.

Posted from York, England

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