(Cedmon) (died c.670)English poet. According to Saint Bede, he was attached as a laborer to the double monastery of Whitby founded by Saint Hilda, 657, and was commanded in a vision to glorify God in hymns. He was thereupon urged by Hilda to take the Columban habit and entered the monastery as a lay brother. He put the history of the Old and New Testament into alliterative verses. Only one short Northumbrian hymn is now extant.