Caedmon - First Known English Poet
The Story of the Sixth-Century Cowherder Who Became a Writer
Only one of Caedmon's poems survives, but it is still in publication some 1300 years after his death.
Caedmon lived in the north of England during the sixth century and is credited as England’s first known poet. Although just one of his poems survives today, he is mentioned as an influential poet in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
The Life of the Poet Caedmon
Caedmon was employed at Whitby Abbey, a double monastery of monks and nuns, ruled by Hilda, a member of the Northumbrian royal family. Caedmon’s own origins were humble. As a manual worker in the monastery, he followed a hard day’s work by sitting around the fire with his co-workers. During the evenings, there was singing and story-telling, popular entertainments to pass the long nights. Each person was expected to take his turn on the harp as it passed around the circle, and sing to entertain the others.
We are told that Caedmon would often leave the gathering before his turn on the harp came, to avoid the attentions of others. Caedmon’s surviving poem concerning ‘the creation of all things’ is supposed to have come to him in a dream. He supposedly went to sleep unable to sing and awoke with the beginnings of a poem in his head, having never before composed poetry or songs.
However Caedmon’s poem was created, it is still in publication today, some 1300 years after it was written. The monks and nuns at Whitby were amazed at the talents of their untrained cowherder. Bede writes of Caedmon’s amazing powers of recall, and that he was able to remember his verses without writing them down. His was an instinctive talent.
Following his first poems, Caedmon was enrolled as a lay-brother at the monastery, where he was further able to study the scriptures and gain more inspiration for his poems. None of these have survived. Perhaps Caedmon is referred to as the Father of English poetry because he made his religious poems accessible to the ordinary people around him.
The Poetry of Caedmon
Caedmon’s song, or hymn, of nine lines was translated by Bede. It begins with the line ‘Now we must praise God in heaven above/the all powerful ruler who created our world’. A collection of Caedmonian poems were published in 1655, but most scholars doubt that any of these were written by Caedmon himself.
All of Caedmon’s poems were said by Bede to have been on religious themes: ‘he could never compose any foolish or trivial poem, but only those which were concerned with devotion’. Bede lists Caedmon’s poetry as including stories from the old and new testaments of the Bible and accounts of creation.
Caedmon’s influence is still strong in Whitby; a school in the town is named after him and a large stone cross stands in Whitby churchyard, the site of the monastery where his talents were first discovered.
Source
The Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People [Penguin Classics, 1993]
