The+Venerable+Bede

The Venerable Bede

A lifelong monk whose works in theology, history, chronology, poetry and biography have led him to be accepted at the greatest scholar of the early medieval era, Bede is most famous for producing the //Historia ecclesiastica// (Ecclesiastical History), a source essential for our understanding of the Anglo-Saxons and the Christianisation of Britain

Born: 672/3 Died: May 25 735, Jarrow, Northumbria, UK Canonized: 1899, feast day on May 25

In 731/2 Bede completed the //Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum//, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. An account of Britain between the landings of Julius Caesar in 55/54 BC and St. Augustine in 597 AD, it's the key source on the christianisation of Britain, a mixture of sophisticated historiography and religious messages containing details simply not found elsewhere. As such, it now overshadows his other historical, indeed all his other, works.

The //Historia ecclesiastica// finishes with a short account of Bede about himself and a list of his many works: "Thus much of the Ecclesiastical History of Britain, and more especially of the English nation, as far as I could learn either from the writings of the ancients, or the tradition of our ancestors, or of my own knowledge, has, with the help of God, been digested by me, Bede, the servant of God, and priest of the monastery of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, which is at Wearmouth and Jarrow; who being born in the territory of that same monastery, was given, at seven years of age, to be educated by the most reverend Abbot Benedict, and afterwards by Ceolfrid; and spending all the remaining time of my life in that monastery, I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture, and amidst the observance of regular discipline, and the daily care of singing in the church, I always took delight in learning, teaching, and writing. In the nineteenth year of my age, I received deacon's orders; in the thirtieth, those of the priesthood, both of them by the ministry of the most reverend Bishop John, and by the order of the Abbot Ceolfrid. From which time, till the fifty-ninth year of my age, I have made it my business, for the use of me and mine, to compile out of the works of the venerable Fathers, and to interpret and explain according to their meaning..."

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