Aldhelm received his first education in the school of the Irish scholar and monk Máeldub (also Maildubh, Maildulf or Meldun) (died c. 675),[3] who had settled in the British stronghold of Bladon (or Bladow) on the site of the town called Mailduberi, Maldubesburg, Meldunesburg, etc., and finally Malmesbury, after him.

[2] Ill health compelled Aldhelm to leave Canterbury and he returned to Malmesbury Abbey, where he was a monk under Máeldub for fourteen years, dating probably from 661 and including the period of his studies with Hadrian.

[2] When Máeldub died, Aldhelm was appointed in 675,[1] according to a charter of doubtful authenticity cited by William of Malmesbury, by Leuthere, Bishop of Winchester (671–676), to succeed to the direction of the monastery, of which he became the first abbot.

Following a pilgrimage to Rome, he was given permission by Pope Sergius I in a Papal Bull of 701 to establish the monastery at Frome, where he had already built a church circa 685.

Aldhelm wrote a long and rather acrimonious letter to king Geraint of Dumnonia (Geruntius) achieving ultimate agreement with Rome.

[9] He wished to resign the abbey of Malmesbury which he had governed for thirty years, but yielding to the remonstrances of the monks he continued to direct it until his death.

This included going into public places where he would sing hymns and passages from the gospels interspersed with bits of clowning to draw attention to his message.

Rogers has Aldhelm claiming to have built an innovative organ,[10] "a mighty instrument, with innumerable tones, blown with belows, and enclosed in a gilded case."

[2] That Aldhelm's merits as a scholar were early recognised in his own country is shown by the encomium of Bede (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 5.18), who speaks of him as a wonder of erudition.

This verborum garrulitas shows the influence of Irish models and became England's dominant Latin style for centuries,[19] though eventually it came to be regarded as barbarous.

Peter Hunter Blair compares him unfavourably to Bede: "In the mind of his older contemporary, Aldhelm, learning of equal depth produced little more than an extravagant form of intellectual curiosity...Like Bede he drank deeply from the streams of Irish and Mediterranean scholarship, but their waters produced in him a state of intellectual intoxication which delighted its beholders, but which left little to posterity.

[22] According to William of Malmesbury, Aldhelm also wrote poetry in Old English and set his own compositions to music, but none of his songs, which were still popular in the time of Alfred, have survived.

Finding his people slow to come to church, he is said to have stood at the end of a bridge singing songs in the vernacular, thus collecting a crowd to listen to exhortations on sacred subjects.