Editing Cædmon (section)

{{short description|Ancient English poet}}
{{Other uses|Caedmon (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2020}}
{{Infobox saint
|honorific_prefix = [[Saint]]
|name=Cædmon of Whitby
|image=MemorialToCaedmon(RichardThomas)Jul2006.jpg
|caption=Memorial to Cædmon, St Mary's Churchyard, [[Whitby]].
|titles=[[The Most Venerable#Eastern Orthodoxy|Venerable]]|death_date=c. 684
|feast_day=11 February
|venerated_in=[[Eastern Orthodox Church]]<br>[[Catholicism]]<br>[[Anglicanism]]
|major_works=''[[Cædmon's Hymn]]''}}

'''Cædmon''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|æ|d|m|ən|,_|ˈ|k|æ|d|m|ɒ|n}}; fl. c. 657–684) is the earliest English poet whose name is known.<ref>Henry Bradley (1886). "[[wikisource:Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cædmon|Cædmon]]". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). ''Dictionary of National Biography''. '''8'''. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 195-201.</ref> A [[Northumbria]]n cowherd who cared for the animals at the [[double monastery]] of Streonæshalch (now known as [[Whitby Abbey]]) during the abbacy of [[Hilda of Whitby|St. Hilda]], he was originally ignorant of "the art of song" but learned to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the 8th-century Christian historian and saint [[Bede]]. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational Christian poet.<ref>{{Cite EB1911|wstitle= Cædmon | volume= 4 |last1= Bradley |first1= Henry |author1-link= Henry Bradley | pages = 934&ndash;935 |short=1}}</ref> He is [[venerated]] as a [[saint]] in the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]], Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, with a feast day on 11 February.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Latin Saints of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome |url=http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/saintsc.htm |access-date=2024-11-09 |website=www.orthodoxengland.org.uk}}</ref>

Cædmon is one of twelve [[Anglo-Saxon literature|Anglo-Saxon poets]] identified in [[Middle Ages|mediaeval]] sources, and one of three of these for whom both roughly contemporary biographical information and examples of literary output have survived.<ref>The twelve named Anglo-Saxon poets are [[Æduwen]], [[Aldhelm]], [[Alfred the Great]], [[Anlaf (poet)|Anlaf]], [[Baldulf]], [[Bede]], Cædmon, [[Cnut]], [[Cynewulf]], [[Dunstan]], [[Hereward]] and [[Wulfstan the Cantor|Wulfstan]] (or perhaps Wulfsige). Most of these are considered by modern scholars to be spurious—see [[Cædmon#odonnell2005|O'Donnell 2005, Introduction 1.22]]. The three for whom biographical information and documented texts survive are Alfred, Bede, and Cædmon. Cædmon is the only Anglo-Saxon poet known primarily for his ability to compose vernacular verse, and no vernacular verse survives that is known to have been written by either Bede or Alfred. There are a number of verse texts known to have been composed by [[Cynewulf]], but we know nothing of his biography. (No study appears to exist of the "named" Anglo-Saxon poets—the list here has been compiled from [[Cædmon#frank1993|Frank 1993]], [[Cædmon#opland1980|Opland 1980]], [[Cædmon#sisam1953|Sisam 1953]] and [[Cædmon#robinson1990|Robinson 1990]].)</ref> His story is related in the ''[[Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum]]'' ("Ecclesiastical History of the English People") by Bede, who wrote, "[t]here was in the Monastery of this Abbess a certain brother particularly remarkable for the Grace of God, who was wont to make religious verses, so that whatever was interpreted to him out of [[Bible|scripture]], he soon after put the same into poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility in [[Old English]], which was his native language. By his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven."

Cædmon's only known surviving work is ''[[Cædmon's Hymn]]'', a nine-line [[Alliterative verse|alliterative]] [[vernacular]] praise poem in honour of God. The poem is one of the early attested examples of [[Old English language|Old English]] and is, with the [[runic]] [[Ruthwell Cross]] and [[Franks Casket]] inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of [[Anglo-Saxon literature|Old English poetry]]. It is also one of the early recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. In 1898, Cædmon's Cross was erected in his honour in the graveyard of [[Church of Saint Mary, Whitby|St Mary's Church]] in [[Whitby]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Time to move Caedmon's Cross?|url=http://theheritagetrust.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/time-to-move-caedmons-cross/|website=The Heritage Trust|date=December 2012|publisher=The Heritage Trust|access-date=24 October 2014}}</ref>