Lives of the Northern Saints

Aelred of Rievaulx, the saintly abbot, tells here of saintly forebears and wonderous events in the North of England. An exile and son of exiles, Aelred was well aware of the conflicts and contradictions of human life in exile from the true homeland. He became the great cistercian teacher of the Incarnation, the spiritual guide of fallen humans to the god who had become a man. He wrote of and for flawed and foolish men and women on their journey to the heavenly Jerusalem; his pilgrims are cloistered and uncloistered, men and women: kings and queens, monks and nuns, saints on horseback and workers in purple and lepers and robbers and priests. Through his eyes, we see the saint who evangelized Scotland (The Life of Ninian, written probably 1155-1160), and the saints of the church of Aelred's family home (The Book of the Saints of the Church of Hexham and Their Miracles, ?1154-1155), and we learn of A Certain Wonderful Miracle (1158-1165).