See also Bede the Venerable; Hild
Further Reading
Primary Sources
ASPR 6:105–06; Colgrave, Bertram, and R.A.B. Mynors, eds.
and trans. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
Oxford: Clarendon, 1969, pp. 414–21.
Secondary Sources
Dobbie, E.V.K. The Manuscripts of Cædmon’s Hymn and Bede’s
Death Song: With a Critical Tex t of the Epistola Cuthberti de
obitu Bedae. New York: Columbia University Press, 1937.
Fritz, Donald W. “Cædmon: A Monastic Exegete.” American
Benedictine Review 25 (1974): 351–63.
Fry, Donald K. “Cædmon as a Formulaic Poet.” Forum for Mod-
ern Language Studies 10 (1974): 227–47.
Fry, Donald K. “The Memory of Cædmon.” In Oral Traditional
Literature: A Festschrift far Albert Bates Lord, ed. John Miles
Foley. Columbus: Slavica, 1981, pp. 282–93.
Howlett, D.R. “The Theology of Cædmon’s Hymn.” Leeds Studies
in English, n.s. 7 (1973–74): 1–12.
Lester, GA. “The Cædmon Story and Its Analogues.” Neophilo-
logus 58 (1974): 225–37.
Magoun, Francis P., Jr. “Bedes Story of Cædmon: The Case His-
tory of an Anglo-Saxon Oral Singer.” Speculum 30 (1955):
49–63.
O’Keeffe, Katherine O’Brien. “Orality and the Developing Text
of Cædmon’s Hymn.” Speculum 62 (1987): 1–20.
Wrenn, Charles Leslie. “The Poetry of Cædmon.” PBA 33 (1946):
277–95.
Donald K. Fry
CAESARIUS OF HEISTERBACH
(1180–ca. 1240)
A Cistercian monk educated in Cologne, Caesarius be-
came the prior and master of novices at the monastery
of Heisterbach. His extant writings include a number
of sermons and a few saints’ lives, but Caesarius is
most noted for his Dialogus miraculorum (Dialogue on
Miracles), compiled and written in Latin between 1219
and 1223. As novice master, he gathered the material
together in a collection of stories intended to illustrate
Christian doctrine for the monks in his charge and aid
in the development and preparation of sermons on
particular topics. Hence, the stories are divided into a
variety of thematic units, with subject headings such as
conversion, contrition, confession, temptation, demons,
the Eucharist, and the Miracles of the Virgin Mary. The
collection is framed by a dialogue between a novice
monk (novicius interrogans) and the master (monacbus
respondent). The content, owing as much to an oral tradi-
tion as to religious sources, straddles the border between
offi cial canonical doctrine and that of folk legend. Many
of the stories depict scenes drawn from the everyday life
of the region and time period, including that of emper-
ors, peasants, townspeople, beggars, and clergy. Because
the stories are meant to serve as examples to live by,
they are called exempla, and while they are shaped as
miracle tales, weaving religious doctrine with popular
material, each has a particular moral point. While the
primary audience for the Dialogus miraculorum was
that of male Cistercian monasteries, there is evidence
that the works of Caesarius are important in the history
of medieval women’s spirituality in Germany. There
are over two hundred references to women’s cloisters
in Caesarius’s works and evidence that he personally
knew six Cistercian women’s monasteries in the Lower
Rhineland.Further Reading
Caesarius of Heisterbach. Caesari Heisterbacensis Monachi Or-
dinis Cisterciensis Dialogus miraculorum, ed. Joseph Strange.
2 vols. Bonn: Colonia, 1871.
——. The Dialogue on Miracles, trans. H. von E. Scott and C.
C. Swinton Bland. London: Routledge, 1929.
Moolenbroek, J. J. van. “Caesarius von Heisterbach über Zister-
zienserinnes.” Citeaux 41 (1990): 45–65.
Rosemary Drage HaleCAMPIN, ROBERT (ca. 1376–1444)
Late-medieval painter whose career is shrouded in
mystery because of limited archival information and few
attributed works. He is known principally for his famous
pupil Rogier van der Weyden. Campin’s reputation in
Tournai as a master is substantiated by the positions he
held: subdeacon of the goldsmith’s guild, head of the
painter’s guild, and one of the stewards to the city in
charge of fi nances and accounts. Tournai’s relationship
with the Burgundian court ultimately affected Campin’s
production. In one of his earlier works, the Entombment
Triptych (1415–20), Campin displays a knowledge of
the italianate painters of the court, such as Malouel and
Bellechose, in his use of gold background and treatment
of the angels. Court patronage, however, did not provide
the artists of Tournai with a steady source of income.
Instead, they belonged to guilds and served the city
and local clients. Campin’s most famous work and the
one that epitomizes his style is the Merode Altarpiece
(ca. 1425), now at the Cloisters in New York. Commis-
sioned by the Ingebrecht family, who appear at the left
of the panel, the triptych demonstrates Campin’s skill
with disguised symbolism. The composition teems with
mundane objects that acquire meaning in the presence
of the divine. Sadly, Campin’s career suffered greatly in
the 1430s, when the pro-Burgundian faction in Tournai
snatched power away from the guilds. In the midst of
the confl ict, Campin was arrested and, though he was
eventually set free, his career never recovered.
See also Van der Weyden, RogierCÆDMON