Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch during the abbacy of St. Hilda , he was originally ignorant of "the art of song" but learned
to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the
8th-century historian Bede. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational Christian poet.
