ABSTRACT
In the Insular world of the seventh century, Rome, seat of apostles and martyrs and fount of holy relics, undoubtedly enjoyed the status of caput urbium, ‘the chief of cities’. Benedict Biscop’s and Wilfrid’s trips to the city in search of the necessaries of worship and cult are so well-known as scarcely to bear repeating. For the purposes of this chapter, I wish only to stress that the English writers who recounted those journeys – Bede, Stephen of Ripon, and the anonymous author of the Life of Abbot Ceolfrith – all take Rome’s primacy in these matters for granted. It is clear from Bede’s Historia Abbatum that, while builders, books, sacred vessels and vestments could be obtained from gaul, Rome and Rome alone was the proper place to obtain relics.1 The dedications of the churches and oratories of Biscop’s twin foundations are all eloquent of the ‘sweet memorial of the relics of the blessed martyrs’2 brought back from the Eternal City: the apostles Peter and Paul themselves, the virgin Mary, and Lawrence, the Roman patron and proto-deacon.3 Wilfrid’s Roman relic-gathering was probably even more wide-ranging. He adopted as his special patron Peter’s brother Andrew, whose cult had been focused on a basilica attached to the vatican since the time of Pope
I am grateful to Tom Brown, Marios Costambeys and Richard gem for much helpful discussion and comment on earlier versions of this paper.
