1 - From Máeldub to Aldhelm

Summary

The story of the earliest days of the monastery at Malmesbury is obscure. The most important figure in the history of the monastic community of Malmesbury was St Aldhelm, who died 709–10 and was recognised during his own lifetime as a scholar and ecclesiastic of national significance. The later tradition of the house held that Aldhelm was not the first abbot, and instead an Irish holy man called Máeldub was revered as the founder of the community. Over four hundred years after Aldhelm's death, William of Malmesbury set out to explain how the monastery of Malmesbury was established by this Irish missionary.

It had been founded by one Meldum, also called Meildulf, an Irishman, a learned philosopher and professed monk, who went there in voluntary exile from his homeland, and, captivated by the agreeable woodland which at that period flourished exceedingly there, he began to practise the life of a hermit. When he ran short of what he needed to live, he took on boys as pupils, so that their generosity might make good the slenderness of his means. As time went on they followed in their master's footsteps by becoming monks instead of students, and came to form a sizeable convent.

According to William, it was this pre-existing community that Aldhelm joined and ultimately came to lead. It has been suggested that William may have invented some of the detail of his account of the career of Meldum. If the Irishman had indeed been the teacher of Aldhelm one might expect a reference to him in the extensive surviving works of Aldhelm; but there is none. Although understandable doubts have been raised about the Meldum/Máeldub story, there is evidence to suggest that a religious community at Malmesbury was founded by an Irish monk with a name similar to this and that he may well have been Aldhelm's earliest teacher. One early reference to a version of the placename, ‘Malmesbury’, comes from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, in which he described Aldhelm as the abbot of a monastery called Maildubi Urbs, which means literally ‘the city of Maildub’. The name ‘Maildub’ appears to be a rendering of an authentic Old Irish personal name, Máeldub. Bede was a careful historian and although he was based in Northumbria, he took steps to make sure that his information about the history of the faraway West Saxons was correct.