Venerable Bede

Bede (/ˈbiːd/ beed; Old English: Bǣda or Bēda; 672/3 – 26 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (Latin: Bēda Venerābilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St. Peter and its companion monastery of St. Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles (contemporarily Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey in Tyne and Wear, England). He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People gained him the title "The Father of English History".

In 1899, Pope Leo XIII declared him a Doctor of the Church; he is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation; Anselm of Canterbury, also a Doctor of the Church, was originally from Italy. Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work made the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons, which contributed significantly to English Christianity. Bede's monastery had access to an impressive library which included works by Eusebius, Orosius, and many others.

Contents

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• 1Life
• 2Works
• 3*Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum*
  • 3.1Sources
  • 3.2Models and style
  • 3.3Intent
  • 3.4Omissions and biases
  • 3.5Use of *Anno Domini*
  • 3.6Assessment
• 4Other historical works
  • 4.1Chronicles
  • 4.2Lives
• 5Theological works
  • 5.1Works on the Old Testament
  • 5.2Works on the New Testament
• 6Works on historical and astronomical chronology
• 7Educational works
• 8Vernacular poetry
• 9Veneration
  • 9.1Modern legacy
• 10See also
• 11Notes
• 12References
• 13Sources
  • 13.1Primary sources
  • 13.2Secondary sources
• 14Further reading
• 15External links

Life[edit]

Opera Bedae Venerabilis (1563)

Almost everything that is known of Bede's life is contained in the last chapter of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 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 birth date in 672 or 673.^[1][3][4][a] A minor source of information is the letter by his disciple Cuthbert (not to be confused with the saint, Cuthbert, who is mentioned in Bede's work) which relates Bede's death.^[8][b] Bede, in the Historia, gives his birthplace as "on the lands of this monastery".^[9] He is referring to the twinned monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow,^[10] in modern-day Sunderland, claimed as his birthplace; there is also a tradition that he was born at Monkton, two miles from the monastery at Jarrow.^[1][11] Bede says nothing of his origins, but his connections with men of noble ancestry suggest that his own family was well-to-do.^[12] 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.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede