The Venerable Bede
'The Venerable Bede translates John' J. D. Penrose (ca. 1902)
Doctor of the Church
Born	ca. 673[1], near Newcastle-upon-Tyne[1]
Died	26 May 735, Jarrow, Northumbria[1]
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, Lutheran Church
Canonized	1899 recognised as Doctor of the Church, Rome by Pope Leo XIII
Major shrine	Durham Cathedral.
Feast	26 May 27 May (General Roman Calendar, 1899-1969)
Patronage	English writers and historians; Jarrow

Bede (IPA: /ˈbiːd/) (also Saint Bede, the Venerable Bede, or (from Latin) Beda (IPA: [beda])), (c. 673–May 26, 735), was a Benedictine monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow (see Wearmouth-Jarrow), both in the Kingdom of Northumbria.

He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The Father of English History". Bede is regarded as a Doctor of the Church by the Roman Catholic Church, a position of theological significance; he is the only man from Great Britain to achieve this designation (Anselm of Canterbury, also a Doctor of the Church, was originally from Italy).

Life

Almost everything that is known of Bede's life is contained in the last chapter of his Historia Ecclesiastica, a history of the church in England. It was completed in about 731,^[2] and Bede implies that he was then in his fifty-ninth year, which would give a likely birthdate of about 673–674.^[3][1] He gives his birthplace as "on the lands of this monastery".^[4] He is referring to the monastery of Wearmouth;^[5] he would have been born somewhere near modern Newcastle-on-Tyne.^[1] Bede says nothing of his origins, but his connections with men of noble ancestry suggest that his own family was well-to-do.^[6] Bede's first abbot was Benedict Biscop, and the names "Biscop" and "Beda" both appear in a king list of the kings of Lindsey from around 800, further suggesting that Bede came from a noble family.^[3]

At the age of seven, he was sent to the monastery of Wearmouth by his family to be educated by Benedict Biscop and later by Ceolfrith.^[7] Bede does not say whether it was already intended at that point that he would be a monk.^[8] Wearmouth's sister monastery at Jarrow was founded by Ceolfrith in 682, and Bede probably transferred to Jarrow with Ceolfrith that year. Four years later, in 686, plague broke out at Jarrow. The Life of Ceolfrith, written in about 710, records that only two surviving monks were capable of singing "with antiphons";^[9] one was Ceolfrith, and the other a young boy of 14, thought by most historians to have been Bede.^[7]

When Bede was about 17 years old, Adomnan, the abbot of Iona Abbey, visited Wearmouth and Jarrow. Bede would probably have met the abbot during this visit, and it may have been Adomnan who sparked Bede's interest in the Easter dating controversy.^[10] In about 692, in Bede's nineteenth year, Bede was ordained a deacon by his diocesan bishop, John, who was bishop of Hexham. The canonical age for the ordination of a deacon was 25; Bede's early ordination may mean that his abilities were considered exceptional, but it is also possible that the minimum age requirement was often disregarded.^[11] There may have been minor orders ranking below a deacon; but there is no record of whether Bede held any of these offices.^{[12][notes 1]} In Bede's thirtieth year (about 702) Bede became a priest, with the ordination again performed by Bishop John.^[3]

In about 701 Bede wrote his first works, the De Arte Metrica and De Schematibus et Tropis; both were intended for use in the classroom.^[11] He continued to write for the rest of his life, eventually completing over 60 books, most of which have survived. Not all of his output can be easily dated, and Bede may have worked on some texts over a period of many years.^[3][11] His last surviving work is a letter to Ecgbert of York, a former student, written in 734.^[11] A sixth century manuscript of Acts that is believed to have been used by Bede is still extant.^[13] Bede may also have worked on one of the Latin bibles that were copied at Jarrow, one of which is now held by the Laurentian Library.^[9] Bede was a teacher as well as a writer;^[14] he enjoyed music, and was said to be accomplished as a singer and as a reciter of poetry in the vernacular.^[11]

In 708, a number of monks at Hexham accused Bede of heresy, because his work De Temporibus offered a different chronology of the Six Ages of the world theory than the one commonly accepted by theologians. The accusation occurred in front of the bishop of Hexham of the time, Wilfrid, who was present at a feast when some drunken monks made the accusation. Wilfrid did not respond to the accusation, but a monk present relayed the episode to Bede, who replied within a few days to the monk, writing a letter setting forth his defence and asking that the letter be read to Wilfrid also.^{[15][notes 2]} Bede had another brush with Wilfrid, for the historian himself says that he met with Wilfrid, sometime between 706 and 709, and discussed Æthelthryth, the abbess of Ely. Wilfrid had been present at the exhumation of her body in 695, and Bede questioned the bishop about the exact circumstances of the body and asked for more details of her life, as Wilfrid had been her advisor.^[16]

In 733, Bede traveled to York, to visit Ecgbert, who was then bishop of York. The see of York was elevated to an archbishopric in 735, and it is likely that Bede and Ecgbert discussed the proposal for the elevation during his visit. Bede hoped to visit Ecgbert again in 734, but was too ill to make the journey.^[17] He died on 26 May 735 and was buried at Jarrow. Bede's remains may have been transferred to Durham Cathedral in the 11th century; his tomb there was looted in 1541, but the contents were probably reinterred in the Galilee chapel at the cathedral.^[3]

Work

His works show that he had at his command all the learning of his time. It was thought that the library at Wearmouth-Jarrow was between 300-500 books, making it one of the largest and most extensive in England. It is clear that Biscop made strenuous efforts to collect books during his extensive travels.

Bede's wrote scientific, historical and theological works, reflecting the range of his writings from music and metrics to exegetical Scripture commentaries. He knew patristic literature, as well as Pliny the Elder, Virgil, Lucretius, Ovid, Horace and other classical writers. He knew some Greek and Hebrew. His Latin is generally clear, but his Biblical commentaries are more technical.

Bede's scriptural commentaries employed the allegorical method of interpretation^[18] and his history includes accounts of miracles, which to modern historians has seemed at odds with his critical approach to the materials in his history. Modern studies have shown the important role such concepts played in the world-view of Early Medieval scholars.^[19]

He dedicated his work on the Apocalypse and the De Temporum Ratione to the successor of Ceolfrid as abbot, Hwaetbert.^[20]

Modern historians have completed many studies of Bede's works, including during anniversary celebrations held during 1935 and 1973, as well as a series of annual lectures at Jarrow. The historian Walter Goffart says of Bede that he "holds a privileged and unrivaled place among first historians of Christian Europe".^[21]

Although Bede is mainly studied as a historian now, in his time his works on grammar, chronology, and biblical studies were as important as his historical and haigiographical works. The non-historical works contributed greatly to the Carolingian renaissance.^[22]

Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

Bede's best-known work is the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, or An Ecclesiastical History of the English People.^[23] Completed in about 731,^{[notes 3]} the first of the five books begins with some geographical background, and then sketches the history of England, beginning with Caesar's invasion in 55 B.C.^[25] A brief account of Christianity in Roman Britain, including the martyrdom of St Alban, is followed by the story of Augustine's mission to England in 597, which brought Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons.^[3] The second book begins with the death of Gregory the Great in 604, and follows the further progress of Christianity in Kent and the first attempts to evangelize Northumbria.^[26] These ended in disaster when Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, killed the newly Christian Edwin of Northumbria at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in about 632.^[26] The setback was temporary, and the third book recounts the growth of Christianity in Northumbria under kings Oswald of Northumbria and Oswy.^[27] The fourth book begins with the consecration of Theodore as Archbishop of Canterbury, and recounts Wilfrid's efforts to bring Christianity to the kingdom of Sussex.^[28] The fifth book brings the story up to Bede's day, and includes an account of missionary work in Frisia, and of the conflict with the British church over the correct dating of Easter.^[28] Bede wrote a preface for the work, in which he dedicates it to Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria.^[29] The preface mentions that Ceolwulf received an earlier draft of the book; presumably Ceolwulf knew enough Latin to understand it, and he may even have been able to read it.^[25][3] The preface makes it clear that Ceolwulf had requested the earlier copy, and Bede had asked for Ceolwulf's approval; this correspondence with the king indicates that Bede's monastery had excellent connections among the Northumbrian nobility.^[3]

Sources

For the period prior to Augustine's arrival in 597, Bede drew on earlier writers, including Orosius, Eutropius, Pliny, and Solinus.^[3][30] He used Constantius's Life of Germanus as a source for Germanus's visits to Britain.^[3][30] Bede's account of the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons is drawn largely from Gildas's De Excidio Britanniae.^[31] Bede's correspondents also supplied him with material. Albinus, the abbot of the monastery in Canterbury, provided much information about the church in Kent, and with the assistance of Nothhelm, at that time a priest in London, obtained copies of Gregory the Great's correspondence from Rome relating to Augustine's mission.^[3][30][32] Almost all of Bede's information regarding Augustine is taken from these letters.^[3] The historian Walter Goffart argues that Bede based the structure of the Historia on three works, using them as the framework around which the three main sections of the work were structured. For the early part of the work, up until the Gregorian mission, Goffart feels that Bede used Gildas's De excidio. The second section, detailing the Gregorian mission of Augustine of Canterbury was framed on the anonymous Life of Gregory the Great written at Whitby. The last section, detailing events after the Gregorian mission, Goffart feels were modeled on Stephen of Ripon's Life of Wilfrid.^[33] Most of Bede's informants for information after the Augustine's mission came from the eastern part of Britain, leaving significant gaps in the knowledge of the western areas, which were those areas likely to have a native Briton presence.^[34][35]

Models

Bede's stylistic models included some of the same authors from whom he drew the material for the earlier parts of his history. His introduction imitates the work of Orosius.^[3], and his title is an echo of Eusebius's Historia Ecclesiastica.^[1] Bede also followed Eusebius in taking the Acts of the Apostles as the model for the overall work: where Eusebius used the Acts as the theme for his description of the development of the church , Bede made it the model for his history of the Anglo-Saxon church.^[36] Bede quoted his sources at length in his narrative, as Eusebius had done.^[3] Bede also appears to have taken quotes directly from his correspondents at times. For example, he almost always uses the terms "Australes" and "Occidentales" for the South and West Saxons respectively, but in a passage in the first book he uses "Meridiani" and "Occidui" instead, as perhaps his informant had done.^[3] At the end of the work, Bede added a brief autobiographical note; this was an idea taken from Gregory of Tours' earlier History of the Franks.^[37]

Bede's work as a hagiographer, and his detailed attention to dating, were both useful preparation for the task of writing the Historia Ecclesiastica. His interest in computus, the science of calculating the date of Easter, was also useful in the account he gives of the controversy between the British and Anglo-Saxon church over the correct method of obtaining the Easter date.^[23]

Themes

One of the important themes of the Historia Ecclesiastica is that in the conversion of the British Isles to Christianity, it had all been the work of Irish and Italian missionaries, with no efforts being made by the native Britons. This theme was developed from Gildas' work, which denounced the sins of the native rulers during the invasions, with the elaboration by Bede that the invasion and settlement of the British Isles by the Angles and Saxons was God's punishment for the lack of missionary effort and the refusal to accept the Roman date for celebrating Easter. Although Bede discusses the history of Christianity in Roman Britain, significantly he utterly ignores the missionary work of Saint Patrick.^[38] He writes approvingly of Aidan and Columba, who came from Ireland as missionaries to the Picts and Northumbrians, but disapproved of the failure of the Welsh to evangelize the invading Anglo-Saxons.^[39] Bede was a partisan of Rome, regarding Gregory the Great, rather than Augustine, as the true apostle of the English.^[40] Likewise, in his treatment of the conversion of the invaders, any native involvement is minimized, such as when discussing Chad of Mercia's first consecration, when Bede mentions that two British bishops took part in the consecration, thus invalidating it. No information on who or where these two bishops came from is presented. Also important is Bede's view of the conversion process as an upper-class phenomenon, with little discussion of any missionary efforts among the non-noble or royal population.^[34]

Another view, taken by historian D.H. Farmer, is that the theme of the work is "the progression from diversity to unity". According to Farmer, Bede took this idea from Gregory the Great, and illustrates it in his work by showing how Christianity brought together the native and invading races into one church. Farmer cites Bede's intense interest in the schism over the correct date for Easter as support for this argument, and also cites the lengthy description of the Synod of Whitby, which Farmer regards as "the dramatic centre-piece of the whole work."^[37]

The historian Walter Goffart says of the Historia that many modern historians find it a "tale of origins framed dynamically as the Providence-guided advance of a people from heathendom to Christianity; a cast of saints rather than rude warriors; a mastery of historical tecnique incomparable for its time; beauty of form and diction; and, not least, an author whose qualities of life and spirit set a model of dedicated schoalrship."^[41] Goffart also feels that a major theme of the Historia is concerned with local, Northumbrian concerns, and that Bede treated matters outside Northumbria as secondary concerns to his main concern with northern history.^[42] Goffart sees the writing of the Historia as motivated by a political struggle in Northumbria between a party devoted to Wilfrid, and those opposed to Wilfrid's policies.^[43]

Much of the "current" history in the Historia is concerned with Wilfrid, who was an bishop in Northumbria and whose stormy career is documented not only in Bede's works, but in a Life of Wilfrid. A theme in Bede's treatment of Wilfrid is the need to minimize the conflict between Wilfrid and Theodore of Tarsus, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was involved in many of Wilfrid's difficulties.^[44]

The Historia Ecclesiastica includes many accounts of miracles and visions. These were de rigueur in medieval religious narrative,^[45] but Bede appears to have avoided relating the more extraordinary tales. There is no doubt that Bede did believe in miracles, but the ones he does include are often stories of healing, or of events that could plausibly be explained naturally.^[3] The miracles served the purpose of setting an example to the reader, and Bede explicitly states that his goal is to teach morality through history, saying "If history records good things of good men, the thoughtful reader is encouraged to imitate what is good; if it records evil of wicked men, the devout reader is encouraged to avoid all that is sinful and perverse."^[46]

Omissions and bias

Bede apparently had no informant in Mercia, and is consequently less well-informed about the history of the church there.^[47] His sympathies were with Northumbria; Bede viewed Mercia under King Penda in the 7th century as an aggressive pagan force, responsible for the death of the Christian king Edwin of Northumbria.^[48] Mercia was a rising power when Bede wrote the Historia Ecclesiastica, and Bede's regional bias is apparent.^[48]

There were clearly gaps in Bede's knowledge,^[49] but Bede also says little on some topics that he must have been familiar with.^[3] For example, although Bede recounts Wilfrid's missionary activities, he does not give a full account of his conflict with Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, or his ambition and aristocratic lifestyle.^[3][50] Only the existence of other sources such as the Life of Wilfrid make it clear what Bede discreetly avoids saying.^[3] The omissions are not restricted to Wilfrid; Bede makes no mention at all of Boniface, though it is unlikely he knew little of him; and the final book contains less information about the church in his own day than could be expected.^[3] A possible explanation for Bede's discretion may be found in his comment that one should not make public accusations against church figures, no matter what their sins; Bede may have found little good to say about the church in his day and hence preferred to keep silent.^[3] It is clear that he did have fault to find; his letter to Ecgberht contains several criticisms of the church.^[3]

Bede's account of life at the court of the Anglo-Saxon kings includes little of the violence that Gregory of Tours mentions as a frequent occurrence at the Frankish court. It is possible that the courts were as different as their descriptions makes them appear but it is more likely that Bede omitted some of the violent reality.^[49]

Anno Domini

Bede's use of something similar to the anno Domini era, created by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in 525, throughout Historia Ecclesiastica was very influential in causing that era to be adopted thereafter in Western Europe.^[51] Specifically, he used anno ab incarnatione Domini (in the year from the incarnation of the Lord) or anno incarnationis dominicae (in the year of the incarnation of the Lord). He never abbreviated the term like the modern AD. Unlike the modern assumption that anno Domini was from the birth of Christ, Bede explicitly refers to his incarnation or conception, traditionally on 25 March. Within this work, he was also the first writer to use a term similar to the English before Christ. In book I chapter 2 he used ante incarnationis dominicae tempus (before the time of the incarnation of the Lord). However, the latter was not very influential—only this isolated use was repeated by other writers during the rest of the Middle Ages. The first extensive use of 'BC' (hundreds of times) occurred in Fasciculus Temporum by Werner Rolevinck in 1474, alongside years of the world (anno mundi).

Assessment

The Historia Ecclesiastica was copied often in the Middle Ages, and about 160 manuscripts containing it survive. About half of those are located on the European continent, rather than on the British Isles. This total does not include manuscripts with only a part of the work, of which another 100 or so survive. It was printed for the first time between 1474 and 1482, probably at Strasbourg.^[52] Modern historians have studied the Historia extensively, and a number of editions have been produced.^[21] For many years, early Anglo-Saxon history was essentially a retelling of the Historia, but recent scholarship has focused as much on what Bede did not write as what he did. The belief that the Historia was the culmination of Bede's works, the aim of all his scholarship, a belief current among historians in the past, is no longer accepted by most scholars.^[53]

Other historical and theological works

A page from a copy of Bede's Lives of St. Cuthbert, showing King Athelstan presenting the work to the saint. This manuscript was given to St. Cuthbert's shrine in 934.^[54]

Bede lists his works in an autobiographical note at the end of his Ecclesiastical History. He clearly considered his commentaries on many books of the Old and New Testaments as important; they come first on this list and dominate it in sheer number. These commentaries reflect the biblical focus of monastic life. "I spent all my life," he wrote, "in this monastery, applying myself entirely to the study of Scriptures."^[55] Bede’s poem “The Great Forerunner of the Morn,” written originally in Latin and translated into English by renowned hymn translator John Mason Neale in 1854, is still sung today as a hymn set to various tunes.^{[citation needed][notes 4]}

As Chapter 66 of his On the Reckoning of Time, in 725 Bede wrote the Greater Chronicle (chronica maiora), which sometimes circulated as a separate work. For recent events the Chronicle, like his Ecclesiastical History, relied upon Gildas, upon a version of the Liber pontificalis current at least to the papacy of Pope Sergius I (687-701), and other sources. For earlier events he drew on Eusebius's Chronikoi Kanones. The dating of events in the Chronicle is inconsistent with his other works, using the era of creation, the anno mundi.^[56]

His other historical works included lives of the abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow, as well as verse and prose lives of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, an adaptation of Paulinus of Nola's Life of St Felix, and a translation of the Greek Passion of St Anastasius. He also created a listing of saints, the Martyrology.^[57] In his Letter on the Death of Bede, Cuthbert, monk and later Abbot of Jarrow, describes Bede as still writing on his deathbed, working on a translation into Old English of the Gospel of John and on Isidore of Seville's On the Nature of Things.^[58]

Depiction of Bede from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.

Scientific writings

The noted historian of science, George Sarton, called the eighth century "The Age of Bede". He wrote several major works: a work On the Nature of Things, modeled in part after the work of the same title by Isidore of Seville; a work On Time, providing an introduction to the principles of Easter computus; and a longer work on the same subject; On the Reckoning of Time, which became the cornerstone of clerical scientific education during the so-called Carolingian renaissance of the ninth century. He also wrote several shorter letters and essays discussing specific aspects of computus and a treatise on grammar and on figures of speech for his pupils.

On the Reckoning of Time (De temporum ratione) included an introduction to the traditional ancient and medieval view of the cosmos, including an explanation of how the spherical earth influenced the changing length of daylight, of how the seasonal motion of the Sun and Moon influenced the changing appearance of the New Moon at evening twilight, and a quantitative relation between the changes of the Tides at a given place and the daily motion of the moon.^[59] Since the focus of his book was calculation, Bede gave instructions for computing the date of Easter and the related time of the Easter Full Moon, for calculating the motion of the Sun and Moon through the zodiac, and for many other calculations related to the calendar. He gives some information about the months of the Anglo-Saxon calendar in chapter XV.^[60] Any codex of Bede's Easter cycle is normally found together with a codex of his "De Temporum Ratione".

For calendric purposes, Bede made a new calculation of the age of the world since the creation, which he dated as 3952 BC. Due to his innovations in computing the age of the world, he was accused of heresy at the table of Bishop Wilfred, his chronology being contrary to accepted calculations. Once informed of the accusations of these "lewd rustics," Bede refuted them in his Letter to Plegwin.^[61]

His works were so influential that late in the ninth century Notker the Stammerer, a monk of the Monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland, wrote that "God, the orderer of natures, who raised the Sun from the East on the fourth day of Creation, in the sixth day of the world has made Bede rise from the West as a new Sun to illuminate the whole Earth".^[62]

Vernacular poetry

According to his disciple Cuthbert, Bede was also doctus in nostris carminibus ("learned in our songs"). Cuthbert's letter on Bede's death, the Epistola Cuthberti de obitu Bedae, moreover, commonly is understood to indicate that Bede also composed a five line vernacular poem known to modern scholars as Bede’s Death Song

And he used to repeat that sentence from St. Paul “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and many other verses of Scripture, urging us thereby to awake from the slumber of the soul by thinking in good time of our last hour. And in our own language,—for he was familiar with English poetry,—speaking of the soul’s dread departure from the body:

As Opland notes, however, it is not entirely clear that Cuthbert is attributing this text to Bede: most manuscripts of the letter do not use a finite verb to describe Bede's presentation of the song, and the theme was relatively common in Old English and Anglo-Latin literature. The fact that Cuthbert's description places the performance of the Old English poem in the context of a series of quoted passages from Sacred Scripture, indeed, might be taken as evidence simply that Bede also cited analogous vernacular texts.^[64] On the other hand, the inclusion of the Old English text of the poem in Cuthbert’s Latin letter, the observation that Bede "was learned in our song," and the fact that Bede composed a Latin poem on the same subject all point to the possibility of his having written it. By citing the poem directly, Cuthbert seems to imply that its particular wording was somehow important, either since it was a vernacular poem endorsed by a scholar who evidently frowned upon secular entertainment^[65] or because it is a direct quotation of Bede’s last original composition.^[66]

Bede's tomb in Durham Cathedral.

Manuscript tradition

There are two surviving manuscripts written within a few years of Bede's death:

• St Petersburg Bede
• Cambridge University Library MS.

After this, there is a gap of some 50 years. Manuscripts written before AD 900 include:

• Corbie MS, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
• St. Gall Monastery Library

Copies are sparse throughout the 10th century and for much of the 11th century. The greatest number of copies of Bede's work was made in the 12th century, but there was a significant revival of interest in the 14th and 15th centuries. Many of the copies are of English provenance, but also surprisingly many are Continental.^[67] Bede's collected works were published in Patrologia Latina vols. 90-95, but this edition was "bad on a monumental scale, and included more spuria than any previous edition".^[68]

Palatine Library:

• De natura rerum {CPL 1343} [685]/1
• De tabernaculo {CPL 1345} [245]/1
• Commentarius in Parabolas Salomonis {CPL 1351} [759]/1
• In Marci evangelium expositio {CPL 1355} [247]/1
• In Lucae evangelium expositio {CPL 1356} [242], 1ra-157va. excerpts [50], passim
• Super epistolas catholicas expositio {CPL 1362} [246], 1r-80r. [947], 92r-99r {RB 1639: Beda abbrev.}. excerpt (prologue to 2.Ioh.) [1], 8ra
• Homilies {CPL 1367} [50], passim; [563], passim. Hom. I 3 [193], 258ra-vb (exc.); hom. I 8 [193], 166ra-vb (exc.); hom. I 9 [193], 164rb-165ra (exc.); hom. I 12 [193], 177va-179ra; hom. I 15 [193], 174ra-175vb
• Liber hymnorum {CPL 1372} Hymnus 1 [809]/4
• De schematibus et tropis {CPL 1567} [345]/1 (exc.)
• De temporibus liber {CPL 2318} [685]/2
• De temporum ratione {CPL 2320} [685]/3

Veneration

Pilgrims were claiming miracles at Bede's grave only fifty years after his death.^{[citation needed]} His body was stolen from Jarrow and transferred to Durham Cathedral around 1020, where it was placed in the same tomb with Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne. Later they were moved to a shrine in Galilee Chapel at Durham Cathedral in 1370. The shrine was destroyed during the English Reformation, but the bones were reburied in the chapel. In 1831 the bones were dug up and then reburied in a new tomb, which is still there.^[52] Other relics were claimed by York, Glastonbury and Fulda.

His scholarship and importance to Catholicism were recognised in 1899 when he was declared a Doctor of the Church, and was declared a sanctus in 1935.^[3] He is the only Englishman named a Doctor of the Church.^[52] He is also the only Englishman in Dante's Paradise (Paradiso X.130), mentioned among theologians and doctors of the church in the same canto as Isidore of Seville and the Scot Richard of St. Victor.

His feast day was included in the General Roman Calendar in 1899, for celebration on May 27 rather than on his date of death, May 26, which was then the feast day of Pope Saint Gregory VII; however, the 1969 calendar reforms allowed Bede's feast day to move to its proper day.^{[citation needed]} He is venerated in both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Church, with a feast day of 25 May.^[52]

Bede became known as Venerable Bede (Lat.: Beda Venerabilis) by the ninth century,^[69] but this was not linked to consideration for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church. According to a legend the epithet was miraculously supplied by angels, thus completing his unfinished epitaph.^[70]

See also

• Adtwifyrdi - term coined by subject
• English historians in the Middle Ages

Schools and colleges:

• College of St Hild and St Bede at Durham University, England
• Bede College (now part of City of Sunderland College) in Sunderland,England
• San Beda College in Manila in the Philippines
• St. Bede Academy in Peru, Illinois, United States
• St Bede's Catholic College in Bristol, England
• St. Bede's Catholic Comprehensive School in Peterlee, County Durham, England
• St Bede's College in Christchurch, New Zealand
• St Bede's College in Manchester, England
• St Bede's College in Victoria, Australia
• St. Bede's Grammar School in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England
• St. Bede's Prep School in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England
• St Bede's School, in Hailsham, East Sussex, England
• St. Bede's School in Redhill, Surrey, England

Other places:

• Bede's World Museum in Jarrow

Notes

References

Sources

Primary sources

• Bede (1969). Colgrave, Bertram and R.A.B. Mynors. ed. Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford. 
• Bede (1943). Bedae Liber De Temporibus Major Sive De Temporum Ratione. Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America. 
• Bede (1991). Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price, revised R.E. Latham, ed. D.H. Farmer. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-044565-X. 
• Bede (1994). McClure, Judith and Roger Collins. ed. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-283866-0. 

Secondary sources

• Blair, Peter Hunter (1990). The World of Bede (Reprint of 1970 edition ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39819-3. 
• Brooks, Nicholas (2006). "From British to English Christianity: Deconstructing Bede's Interpretation of the Conversion". in Howe, Nicholas; Karkov, Catherine. Conversion and Colonization in Anglo-Saxon England. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. pp. 1-30. ISBN 0-86698-363-5. 
• Campbell, J. (2004). "Bede (673/4–735)" (fee required). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (revised May 2008 ed.). Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1922. 
• Cannon, John; Ralph Griffiths (1997). The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monarchy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822786-8. 
• Chadwick, Henry (1995). "Theodore, the English Church, and the Monothelete Controversy". in Lapidge, Michael. Archbishop Theodore. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England #11. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 88-95. ISBN 0-521-48077-9. 
• Farmer, David Hugh (1978). The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19282-038-9. 
• Goffart, Walter A. (1988). The Narrators of Barbarian History (A. D. 550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-05514-9. 
• Higham, N. J (2006). Re-Reading Bede: The Historia Ecclisiastica In English History. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415353687. 
• McCready, William D (1994). Miracles and the Venerable Bede: Studies and Texts. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies #118. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. ISBN 0-88844-118-5. 
• Mayr-Harting, Henry (1991). The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-00769-9. 
• Opland, Jeff (1980). Anglo-Saxon Oral Poetry: A Study of the Traditions. New Haven and London. ISBN 0-300-02426-6. 
• Bede (2004). Bede: The Reckoning of Time. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0-85323-693-3. 
• Wright, J. Robert (2008). A Companion to Bede: A Reader's Commentary on The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-6309-6. 

External links

• Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Books 1-5, L.C. Jane's 1903 Temple Classics translation. From the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
• Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Continuation of Bede (pdf), at CCEL, edited & translated by A.M. Sellar.
• Bede's World: the museum of early medieval Northumbria at Jarrow
• The Venerable Bede
• The Venerable Bede from In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)
• Bede the Venerable
• Saint Bede at The Online Library of Liberty

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Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Bede". Image Credit.

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