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|feast_day=25 May
27 May (General Roman Calendar, 1899-1969)
|venerated_in=Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, Lutheran Church
|image=The Venerable Bede translates John 1902.jpg
|imagesize=220 px
|caption="The Venerable Bede Translates John" by J. D. Penrose (ca 1902)
|birth_place= near Sunderland
|death_place=Jarrow, Northumbria
|titles=Doctor of the Church
|beatified_date=
|beatified_place=
|beatified_by=
|canonized_date=1899 recognised as Doctor of the Church
|canonized_place=Rome
|canonized_by=Pope Leo XIII
|patronage=English writers and historians; Jarrow
|major_shrine=Durham Cathedral.
|suppressed_date=
|issues=
}}
Bede (pronounced "Bead" / ; ; 672 / 673 – 26 May 735), also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede (), was a 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". In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Leo XIII, a position of theological significance; 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).
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,[Brooks "From British to English Christianity" Conversion and Colonization p. 5] and Bede implies that he was then in his fifty-ninth year, which would give a likely birth date of about 672–673.[Colgrave & Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, p. xix.][Campbell "Bede" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography] A minor source of information is the letter by his disciple Cuthbert which relates Bede's death. Cuthbert is probably the same person as the later abbot of Wearmouth-Jarrow, but this is not entirely certain.[ Bede, in the Historia, gives his birthplace as "on the lands of this monastery".][Bede, Ecclesiastical History, V.24, p. 329.] He is referring to the twinned monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow,[Colgrave & Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, pp. xix–xx.] Bede says nothing of his origins, but his connections with men of noble ancestry suggest that his own family was well-to-do.[ His name is uncommon, only occurring twice in the Liber Vitae of Durham Cathedral, one of which is assumed to be the writer. There is also a Bieda who is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 501, but these are the only mentions in manuscripts of the name.][Swanton Anglo-Saxon Chronicle pp. 14-15] The name probably derives from the Old English bēd, or prayer, and if it was the name given Bede at birth, probably meant that his family had planned on his entering the clergy from birth.
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.[Colgrave & Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, p. xx.] 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";
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 be that Adomnan sparked Bede's interest in the Easter dating controversy.[ but it is also possible that the minimum age requirement was often disregarded.]
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.[ 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.][ His last surviving work is a letter to Ecgbert of York, a former student, written in 734.][ A 6th-century manuscript of Acts that is believed to have been used by Bede is still extant.][A few pages from another copy are held by the British Museum. ] Bede was a teacher as well as a writer;
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 from 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.[Goffart Narrators p. 322]
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In 733, Bede travelled 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 also travelled to the monastery of Lindisfarne, and at some point visited the otherwise unknown monastery of a monk named , a visit that is mentioned in a letter to that monk. Because of his widespread correspondence with others throughout the British Isles, and due to the fact that many of the letters imply that Bede had met his correspondents, it is likely that Bede travelled to some other places, although nothing further about timing or locations can be guessed.][ Cuthbert's letter is mainly concerned with relating the last days of Bede, and mainly has interest for two things, one that Bede was still struggling to complete works right before his death, and two, the relating of a poem that Bede composed on his deathbed.]
One further oddity in his writings is that in one of his works, the Commentary on the Seven Catholic Epistles, he writes in a manner that gives the impression he was married.[Quoted in Ward Venerable Bede p. 57] Another passage, in the Commentary on Luke, also mentions a wife in the first person, where Bede writes "Formerly I possessed a wife in the lustful passion of desire and now I possess her in honourable sanctification and true love of Christ."[ The historian Benedicta Ward argues that these passages are Bede employing a rhetorical device,][Ward Venerable Bede p. 57] but another historian, N. J. Higham, offers no explanation for the passages.
Works His works show that he commanded all the learning of his time. It is believed that his library at Wearmouth-Jarrow had between 300-500 books, making it one of the largest in England. It is clear that Biscop made strenuous efforts to collect books during his extensive travels.
Bede 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[Holder (trans.), Bede: On the Tabernacle, (Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Pr., 1994), pp. xvii-xx.] 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.[McClure and Collins, The Ecclesiastical History, pp. xviii-xix.]
He dedicated his work on the Apocalypse and the De Temporum Ratione to the successor of Ceolfrid as abbot, Hwaetbert.
Modern historians have completed many studies of Bede's works. His life and work have been celebrated by a series of annual scholarly lectures at St. Paul's Church, Jarrow from 1958 to the present.[[http://www.stpaulschurchjarrow.com/index.php?p=1_9_The-Jarrow-Lecture The Jarrow Lecture]] The historian Walter Goffart says of Bede that he "holds a privileged and unrivalled place among first historians of Christian Europe".[Goffart Narrators p. 236]
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 hagiographical works. The non-historical works contributed greatly to the Carolingian renaissance.[Goffart Narrators pp. 242-243]
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
Bede's best-known work is the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, or An Ecclesiastical History of the English People.[ 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 evangelise Northumbria.][Bede, "Preface", Historia Ecclesiastica, p. 41.] 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.
= Sources =
The monastery at Wearmouth-Jarrow had an excellent library. Both Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrith had acquired books from the Continent, and in Bede's day the monastery was a renowned centre of learning.[Cramp, "Monkwearmouth (or Wearmouth) and Jarrow", pp. 325–326.]
For the period prior to Augustine's arrival in 597, Bede drew on earlier writers, including Orosius, Eutropius, Pliny, and Solinus.[ Bede's account of the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons is drawn largely from Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae.][Lapidge, "Gildas", p. 204.] Bede would also have been familiar with more recent accounts such as Eddius Stephanus's Life of Wilfrid, and anonymous Lives of Gregory the Great and Cuthbert.[Meyvaert "Bede" Speculum p. 831] and there was a copy of the Liber Pontificalis in Bede's monastery.[Meyvaert "Bede" Speculum p. 843]
Bede also had correspondents who 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.[Keynes, "Nothhelm", pp. 335 336.] Almost all of Bede's information regarding Augustine is taken from these letters.[ Bede acknowledged his correspondents in the preface to the Historia Ecclesiastica;][Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, Preface, p. 42.] he was in contact with Daniel, the Bishop of Winchester, for information about the history of the church in Wessex, and also wrote to the monastery at Lastingham for information about Cedd and Chad.[ Bede also mentions an Abbot Esi as a source for the affairs of the East Anglian church, and Bishop Cynibert for information about Lindsey.]
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 modelled on Stephen of Ripon's Life of Wilfrid.[Goffart Narrators pp. 296-307] Most of Bede's informants for information after 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.[Brooks "From British to English Christianity" Conversion and Colonization pp. 7-10][Brooks "From British to English Christianity" Conversion and Colonization pp. 12-14]
= 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,[ and his title is an echo of Eusebius's Historia Ecclesiastica.][ 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.][ 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.][ 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.]
Bede's work as a hagiographer, and his detailed attention to dating, were both useful preparations 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.
= 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.[ Most of the 8th- and 9th-century texts of Bede's Historia come from the northern parts of the Carolingian Empire.][Wright Companion to Bede pp. 4-5] Modern historians have studied the Historia extensively, and a number of editions have been produced.[ 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 common among historians in the past, is no longer accepted by most scholars.][Goffart Narrators pp. 238-9]
The Historia Ecclesiastica has given Bede a high reputation, but his concerns were different from those of a modern writer of history.[ His focus on the history of the organisation of the English church, and on heresies and the efforts made to root them out, led him to exclude the secular history of kings and kingdoms except where a moral lesson could be drawn or where they illuminated events in the church.][ Besides the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the medieval writers William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Geoffrey of Monmouth used his works as sources and inspirations.]
Some historians have questioned the reliability of some of Bede's accounts. One historian, Charlotte Behr, feels that the Historia's account of the arrival of the Germanic invaders in Kent should not be considered to relate what actually happened, but rather relates myths that were current in Kent during Bede's time.[Behr "Origins of Kingship" Early Medieval Europe pp. 25-52]
Other historical works
thumb presenting the work to the saint. This manuscript was given to St. Cuthbert's shrine in 934.[Cannon Oxford Illustrated History pp. 42-43]]]
= Chronicles =
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.[Wallis (trans.), The Reckoning of Time, pp. lxvii-lxxi, 157-237, 353-66]
= Lives =
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.[Goffart Narrators pp. 245-246]
Theological works In his own time, Bede was as well known for his biblical commentaries and exegetical, as well as other theological works. The majority of his writings were of this type, and covered the Old Testament and the New Testament. Most survived the Middle Ages, but a few were lost.[Ward "Bede the Theologian" The Medieval Theologians pp. 57-64]
Bede was not an innovative religious thinker. He made no original writings or thoughts on the beliefs of the church, instead working to synthesise and transmit the learning from his predecessors. In order to do this, he learned Greek, and attempted to learn Hebrew. He spent time reading and rereading both the Old and the New Testaments. He mentions that he studied from a text of Jerome's Vulgate, which itself was from the Hebrew text. He also studied both the Latin and the Greek Fathers of the Church. In the monastic library at Jarrow were a number of books by theologians, including works by Basil, Cassian, John Chrysostom, Isidore of Seville, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, Pope Gregory I and Ambrose of Milan. He used these, in conjunction with the Biblical texts themselves, to write his commentaries and other theological works.[ He also used lesser known writers, such as Fulgentius, Julian of Eclanum, Tyconius, and Prosperius. Bede was the first to refer to Jerome, Augustine, Pope Gregory and Ambrose as the four Latin Fathers of the Church.][Ward Venerable Bede p. 44] It is clear from Bede's own comments that he felt his job was to explain to his students and readers the theology and thoughts of the Church Fathers.[Meyvaert "Bede" Speculum p. 827]
Bede also wrote homilies, works written to explain theology used in worship services. Bede wrote homilies not only on the major Christian festivals such as Advent, Lent or Easter, but on other subjects such as anniversaries of significant events.
Both types of Bede's theological works circulated widely in the Middle Ages. A number of his biblical commentaries were incorporated into the Glossa Ordinaria, an 11th-century collection of biblical commentaries. Some of Bede's homilies were collected by Paul the Deacon, and they were used in that form in the Monastic Office. Saint Boniface used Bede's homilies in his missionary efforts on the continent.
= Works on the Old Testament =
The works dealing with the Old Testament included Commentary on Samuel,[Ward Venerable Bede p. 67] Commentary on Genesis,[Ward Venerable Bede p. 68] Commentaries on Ezra and Nehemiah, On the Temple, On the Tabernacle,[Ward Venerable Bede p. 72] Commentaries on Tobit, Commentaries on Proverbs, Commentaries on the Song of Songs, Commentaries on the Canticle of Habakkuk,[Ward Venerable Bede p. 74] The works on Ezra, the Tabernacle and the Temple were especially influenced by Gregory the Great's writings.
He was also the one responsible for replacing the title God in the Hebrew texts to read 'Lord of Hosts.'
= Works on the New Testament =
Bede's works included Commentary on Revelation,[Ward Venerable Bede p. 51] Commentary on the Catholic Epistles,[Ward Venerable Bede p. 56] Commentary on Acts, Reconsideration on the Books of Acts,[Ward Venerable Bede pp. 58-59] On the Gospel of Mark, On the Gospel of Luke, and Homilies on the Gospels.[Ward Venerable Bede p. 60]
Works on historical and astronomical chronology De temporibus, or On Time, written in about 703, provides an introduction to the principles of Easter computus.[ In about 723,][ Bede wrote a longer work on the same subject, On the Reckoning of Time, which was influential throughout the Middle Ages.]
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.[Wallis (trans.), The Reckoning of Time, pp. 82-85, 307-312] 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.[Wallis (trans.), The Reckoning of Time 15, pp. 53-4, 285-7; see also [http://www.nabkal.de/beda/beda_15.html]] 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 Wilfrid, his chronology being contrary to accepted calculations. Once informed of the accusations of these "lewd rustics," Bede refuted them in his Letter to Plegwin.[Wallis (trans.),, The Reckoning of Time, pp. xxx, 405-415]
In addition to these works on astronomical timekeeping, he also wrote De natura rerum, or On the Nature of Things, modelled in part after the work of the same title by Isidore of Seville.[Wallis (trans.), The Reckoning of Time, p. lxxxv]
Educational works Bede wrote some works designed to help teach grammar in the abbey school. One of these was his De arte metrica, a discussion of the composition of Latin verse, drawing on previous grammarians work. It was based on Donatus' De pedibus and Servius' De finalibus, and used examples from Christian poets as well as Virgil. It became a standard text for the teaching of Latin verse during the next few centuries. Bede dedicated this work to Cuthbert, apparently a student, for he is named "beloved son" in the dedication, and Bede says "I have laboured to educate you in divine letters and ecclesiastical statutes"
Another educational work is De schematibus et tropis sacrae scripturae, which discusses the Bible's use of rhetoric.[ Bede was familiar with pagan authors such as Virgil, but it was not considered appropriate to teach grammar from such texts, and in De schematibus ... Bede argues for the superiority of Christian texts.][Colgrave gives the example of Desiderius of Vienne, who was reprimanded by Gregory the Great for using "heathen" authors in his teaching.] Similarly, his text on poetic metre uses only Christian poetry for examples.
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:
Facing that enforced journey, no man can be
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More prudent than he has good call to be,
If he consider, before his going hence,
What for his spirit of good hap or of evil
After his day of death shall be determined.
Fore ðæm nedfere nænig wiorðe
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ðonc snottora ðon him ðearf siæ
to ymbhycgenne ær his hinionge
hwæt his gastæ godes oððe yfles
æfter deað dæge doemed wiorðe.:[Colgrave and Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, pp. 580-3]
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.[Opland, Anglo-Saxon Oral Poetry, pp. 140-141] 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[McCready, Miracles and the Venerable Bede, pp. 14-19] or because it is a direct quotation of Bede’s last original composition.[See Jeff Opland, Anglo-Saxon Oral Poetry, pp. 140-141 for a discussion]
Veneration
There is no evidence for cult being paid to Bede in England in the 8th century. One reason for this may be that he died on the feast day of Augustine of Canterbury. Later, when he was venerated in England, he was either commemorated after Augustine on 26 May, or his feast was moved to 27 May. However, he was venerated outside England, mainly through the efforts of Saint Boniface and Alcuin, both of whom promoted the cult on the Continent. Boniface wrote repeatedly back to England during his missionary efforts, requesting copies of Bede's theological works. Alcuin, who was taught at the school set up in York by Bede's pupil Egbert, praised Bede as an example for monks to follow and was instrumental in disseminating Bede's works to all of Alcuin's friends.[Ward Venerable Bede pp. 136-138] Bede's cult became prominent in England during the 10th-century revival of monasticism, and by the 14th century had spread to many of the cathedrals of England. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester (c. 1008-1095) was a particular devotee of Bede's, dedicating a church to him in 1062, which was Wulfstan's first undertaking after his consecration as bishop.[Ward Venerable Bede p. 139]
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.[Wright Companion to Bede p. 4 caption of the picture.] 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.[ He is the only Englishman named a Doctor of the Church.][ 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 27 May rather than on his date of death, 26 May 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. He is venerated in both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Church, with a feast day of 25 May.
Bede became known as Venerable Bede (Lat.: Beda Venerabilis) by the 9th century,[Wright Companion to Bede p. 3] 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.[[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02384a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia]] It is first utilised in connection with Bede in the 9th century, where Bede was grouped with others who were called "venerable" at two ecclesiastical councils held at Aix in 816 and 836. Paul the Deacon then referred to him as venerable consistently. By the 11th and 12th century, it had become commonplace. However, there are no descriptions of Bede by that term right after his death.
See also
List of works by Bede
List of manuscripts of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica
Bede's World museum in Jarrow
Notes
References
Sources
= Primary sources =
(Parallel Latin text and English translation with English notes.)
= Secondary sources =
External links
[http://www.bedesworld.co.uk/ Bede's World: the museum of early medieval Northumbria at Jarrow]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20041125.shtml The Venerable Bede] from In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)
[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book1.html Ecclesiastical History of the English People], Books 1-5, L.C. Jane's 1903 Temple Classics translation. From the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bede/history.pdf Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Continuation of Bede (pdf)], at [http://www.ccel.org/ CCEL], edited & translated by A.M. Sellar.
[http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Fperson=4039&Itemid=28 Saint Bede] at The Online Library of Liberty
Category:670s births
Category:735 deaths
Category:8th-century Christian saints
Category:8th-century historians
Category:8th-century writers
Category:Anglo-Saxon poets
Category:Anglo-Saxon writers
Category:Bible translators
Category:Burials at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, Northumbria
Category:Christian theologians
Category:Chronologists
Category:Doctors of the Church
Category:Early medieval Latin writers
Category:English Christian monks
Category:English theologians
Category:Hagiographers
Category:Northumbrian saints
Category:Old English poetry
Category:People from Jarrow
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Category:Renewers of the church
Category:Roman Catholic saints
Category:Roman Catholic theologians
Category:Anglican saints
Category:Trope theorists
ang:Bēda
be:Беда Вялебны
be-x-old:Бэда Вялебны
bg:Беда Достопочтени
ca:Beda
cs:Beda Venerabilis
cy:Beda
da:Beda
de:Beda Venerabilis
el:Βέδας
es:Beda
eo:Bede (historiisto)
fr:Bède le Vénérable
fy:Beda
gl:Beda
ko:베다 베네라빌리스
hy:Բեդա Պատվելի
id:Beda
is:Beda prestur
it:Beda il Venerabile
he:בדה ונרביליס
sw:Bede Mheshimiwa
la:Beda
lt:Beda
hu:Beda Venerabilis
ml:ബീഡ്
nl:Beda
ja:ベーダ・ヴェネラビリス
no:Beda den ærverdige
pl:Beda Czcigodny
pt:Beda
ro:Beda Venerabilul
ru:Беда Достопочтенный
sq:Shën Beda i Nderuari
simple:Bede
sk:Beda Venerabilis
sr:Беда Поштовани
sh:Beda Uvaženi
fi:Beda Venerabilis
sv:Beda venerabilis
tl:San Beda
th:นักบุญบีด
tr:Bede
uk:Беда Преподобний
zh:比德
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