The Probert Encyclopaedia of People

BEDE

The Venerable Bede (Beda or Baeda) was an Anglo-Saxon scholar. He was born in 672 or 673 in the neighbourhood of Monkwearmouth, county Durham and died in 735. He was educated at St Peter's monastery, Wearmouth; took deacon's orders in his nineteenth year at St Paul's monastery, Jarrow, and was ordained priest at thirty by John of Beverley, bishop of Hexham.

His life was spent in studious seclusion, the chief events in it being the production of homilies, hymns, lives of saints, commentaries, and works in history, chronology, grammar, etc. He was the most learned Englishman of his day, and in some sense the father of English history, his most important work being his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (or Ecclesiastical History of England), afterwards translated by King Alfred into Anglo-Saxon. Besides his familiarity with Latin, he knew Greek and had some acquaintance with Hebrew.

Most of his writings were on scriptural and ecclesiastical subjects, but he also wrote on chronology, physical science, grammar, etc, and had considerable ability in the writing of Latin verse. An interesting record of his closing days was preserved in a letter by his pupil Cuthbert. After his death his body was after a lapse of time removed from Jarrow church to Durham, but of the shrine which formerly inclosed them only the Latin inscription remains, ending with the verse 'Hac sunt in fossa Bedae venerabilis ossa.'
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