A.D. 764. DEATH OF rElTHWOLD. 7 church at Norham, according to the accounts given by the inhabitants of that place, became famous for working many miracles. Through the influence of this king, after he had become a monk, licence was granted to the monks of the church of Lin-disfarne to drink wine or ale ; for before, they Avere in the habit of drinking only milk or water, according to the ancient rule prescribed by Saint Aidan, the first bishop of that church, and that of the monks who, coming with him from Scotland, had received there a settlement by the munificence of king Oswald, and rejoiced to live in great austerity, with a view to a future life. In the same year, many cities, monasteries, and towns, in various places, and even kingdoms, were laid waste by sudden conflagrations ; such, for instance, as the city of Sterburgwenta,2* Homunic,23 the city of London, the city of York, and Doncaster ; many other places" also, the same calamity overtook. In the same year died Frehelm the priest and abbat, and Tocca,24 bishop of the Mercians, on which Eadbert was ordajned bishop in his room. At this period, also, Frithwold, bishop of "Whitherne, departed from this world, and Pechtwin was appointed in his stead.25 22 This is most probably an error, the name of two places being made into one. Lambarde in his Dictionary, qnoting from Simeon of Durham, mentions in place of this name, Stretbourgh and Winton, and adds, " by which order of speech it seemeth that he took it for a great town ; how-beit, I have not hitherto found it." Holinshed (whether quoting from Roger de Hoveden, or Simeon of Durham, does not appear,) mentions here Stretehu and Geivento, places, not improbably, as imaginary as the Sterburgwenta of our text. 23 It is not clear what place is meant by this name. Holinshed mentions it as Alnwick. « V. r. Totta. ι 25 In the text, " Candida Casa," or " the White House." The bishopric of Whitherne was also called that of the Picts, Abercorn, or Galloway. Its establishment is thus related by Bede, Eccles. Hist. B. iii. c. 4. " In year of our Lord 565, when Justin the younger, the successor of Justinian, had the government of the Roman empire, there came into Britain a famous priest and abbot, a monk by habit and life, whose name was Columba, to preach the word of God to the province of the northern Picts, who are separated from the southern parts by steep and rugged mountains ; for the southern Picts, who dwell on the side of those mountains, had long before, as is reported, forsaken the errors of idolatry, and embraced the truth, by the preaching of Ninias, a most reverend bishop and holy man uf the British nation, who bad been regularly instructed at