Suggest an Edit — Bede

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Biography

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The Venerable Bede, also known as Saint Bede, was an Anglo-Saxon monk, priest, historian, and theologian of the Kingdom of Northumbria in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. He is the chief narrative source for the conversion of the English peoples to Christianity and one of the most learned writers of the early medieval Latin West. In the short autobiographical notice that closes his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, he states that he was born in the territory of the monastery of the apostles Peter and Paul at Wearmouth and Jarrow. The precise year is not independently recorded; from his own statement that he was in his fifty-ninth year when that history was completed in 731, scholars infer a birth about 672 or 673. At the age of seven his kinsmen placed him in the care of Benedict Biscop, founder of Wearmouth, and then of Abbot Ceolfrith. He remained in that community for the rest of his life. The house followed a monastic rule in the Benedictine tradition, kept close contact with Rome, and possessed a library of unusual size and quality for eighth-century Britain, gathered by its abbots on repeated journeys to the Continent.

Bede was ordained deacon when he was nineteen and priest when he was thirty, on both occasions by John of Hexham, later venerated as Saint John of Beverley. He devoted himself to the study of Scripture, to the instruction of the monks, and to writing. His works, composed in Latin, include biblical commentaries, homilies, a martyrology, prose and verse lives of Saint Cuthbert, a history of the abbots of Wearmouth-Jarrow, school texts on grammar and rhetoric, a treatise on the nature of things, and several books on chronology and the computation of Easter. In his chronological writings he explained and advocated the system of dating years from the Incarnation associated with Dionysius Exiguus, and his influence helped that system become standard in the Latin West. He had some knowledge of Greek and drew on a wide range of patristic and other authorities available in the monastic library.

His most celebrated work is the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, finished in 731 and addressed to King Ceolwulf of Northumbria. It recounts the history of Britain from the Roman occupation through the Anglo-Saxon settlements and the Roman mission of Augustine of Canterbury, and it remains fundamental for the political and church history of the English kingdoms in the sixth and seventh centuries. Bede identified many of his written and oral sources and attempted a consistent chronology. He also wrote to Bishop Egbert of York about pastoral and monastic reform in Northumbria. A letter of his disciple Cuthbert describes his final illness: he continued to teach and to dictate, including work on a translation of the Gospel of John into English, and he died at Jarrow on 26 May 735, the eve of Ascension Day.

He was first buried at Jarrow. In the eleventh century his relics were translated to Durham, and his tomb is now in the Galilee Chapel of Durham Cathedral. He was called Venerable from an early period after his death. His cult spread in England and on the Continent. The Catholic Church keeps his feast on 25 May; he is likewise commemorated in the Church of England and in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In 1899 Pope Leo XIII declared him a Doctor of the Church, the only native of Britain to receive that distinction. He is honoured as a patron of historians and of English writers and is associated with the town of Jarrow.

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