Relationship With Benedict Biscop
In 674, Benedict Biscop received a land grant from King Ecgfrith for the explicit purpose of erecting a monastery. During the construction of his first monastery at Wearmouth, Biscop appointed Abbot Eosterwini (anglicized as "Easterwine") as his primary Abbot and Coadjutor. The monastery took eight years to build. This institute had left Egfrith so enamoured that soon after the completion of the Wearmouth Monastery, he granted Biscop another segment of land for the construction of a second monastery, Jarrow, with the intention that the two should be administered as one.
It is during the construction of the Wearmouth Monastery that Benedict Biscop sought out Ceolfrid, who would become "his most zealous assistant from the first foundation of the former monastery", as well as a close friend. It appears that Biscop's invitation came at a most opportune time, for Ceolfrid had been contemplating the idea of leaving the post he held at the time. He had grown rather disenchanted with the power stratification within the institution (the name of which is unknown), and had had enough of the "jealousies and very bitter persecutions of certain men of rank", and had been looking to return to his own monastery (assumed to be Ripon).
Upon the completion of the Jarrow Monastery, Ceolfrid became the Abbot of the St. Paul's Church on the monasterial grounds. Conflicting reports state that the presence of Ceolfrid during Jarrow's construction varied. Some papers state that Jarrow came into his hands after its completion, while another identified Ceolfrid as being paramount to the actual construction of the monastery; as the individual who directed the construction of the monastery itself.
The friendship between the two was fairly close. When Benedict sailed across the English channel to Rome for the last time, he chose only Ceolfrid to join him in his journey. This trip was to be the very trip that would lead to both Abbot's immortalization in the works of Ceolfrid's ward and later contemporary, The Venerable Bede. Ceolfrid also used the trip as an opportunity to explore his role in Biscop's institution, feeling that Rome would be an opportune place to learn his position's responsibilities. Twelve years later, upon the death of Abbot Eosterwini, Ceolfrid was appointed as the sole Abbot for both Monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, an honour never heard of before. In 690, Benedict Biscop died, after being bedridden for a lengthy period of time, and Ceolfrid became the leading head of both monasteries, " libraries of both monasteries, which Abbot Benedict had so actively begun, under his zealous care became doubled in extant".
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