ETHELRED AILRED

See also:

• ETHELRED AILRED IELRED (1109-1166)

IELRED (1109-1166)  , English theologian, historical writer and abbot of Rievaulx, was born at Hexham about the year 1109 . In his youth he was at the court of Scotland as an attendant of Henry, son of David I . He was in high favour with that sovereign, but renounced the prospect of a bishopric to enter the Cistercian house of Rievaulx in Yorkshire, which was founded in 1131 by Walter Espec . Here "Eked remained for some time as master of the novices, but between the years 1142 and 1146 was elected abbot of Revesby in Lincolnshire and migrated thither . In 1146 he became abbot of Rievaulx . He led a life of the severest asceticism, and was credited with the power of working miracles; owing to his reputation the numbers of Rievaulx were greatly increased . In 1164 he went as a missionary to the Picts of Galloway . He found their religion at a low ebb, the regular clergy apathetic and sensual, the bishop little obeyed, the laity divided by the family feuds of their rulers, unchaste and ignorant . He induced a Galwegian chief to take the habit of religion, and restored the peace of the country . Two years later he died of a decline, at Rievaulx, in the fifty-seventh year of his age . In the year 1191 he was canonized . His writings are voluminous and have never been completely published .

Amongst them are homilies " on the

burden of Babylon in Isaiah "; three books " on spiritual friendship "; a life of Edward the Confessor; an account of miracles wrought at Hexham, and the tract called Relatio de Standardo . This last is an account of the Battle of the Standard (1138), better known than the similar account by Richard of Hexham, but less trustworthy, and in places obscured by a peculiarly turgid rhetoric . See the Vita Alredi in John of Tynemouth's Nova Legenda Anglie (ed . C . Horstmann, 1901, vol. i. p . 41), whence it was taken by Capgrave . From Capgrave the work passed into the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum (Jan. ii. p . 30) . This life is anonymous, but of an early date . The most complete printed collection of eElred's works is in Migne's Patrologia Latina, vol. cxcv.; but this does not include the Miracula Hagulstaldensis Ecclesiae which are printed in J . Raine's Priory of Hexham, vol. i.(Surtees Society, 1864) . A complete list of works attributed to EElred is given in T .

Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica (1748), pp . 247-248 . The Relatio de Standardo has been critically edited by R . Howlett in Chronicles, &c., of Stephen, Henry H. and Richard I., vol. iii . (Rolls Series, 1886) . (H . W . C .