BENEDICTINES | The Venerable Bede

This painting by my sister Brigid Marlin was commissioned
by the Benedictines of St. Ottilien, near Munich, for a study
 room named after Bede. The model was Brigid’s son Chris.

May 28, 2020—The Venerable Bede was an English Benedictine monk based at two neighboring  monasteries.

One was the monastery of St. Peter and the other the  monastery of St. Paul, both in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles.

The location would now be in Tyne and Wear, named after two rivers.

The boroughs north of the River Tyne are part of the historic county of Northumber-land. Those to the south, including Sunderland (where George Washington's ancestors settled), belong to the historic county of Durham. In 1974-1986 Tyne and Wear was an administrative unit, but in 1986 its powers were devolved to its five constituent boroughs.

The two monasteries have been combined and go by the name of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey in Tyne and Wear. Born on lands belonging to the twin monasteries, Bede was sent to Monkwearmouth at seven and later joined Abbot Ceolfrith at Jarrow, both of whom survived a 686 plague that killed a majority of the population there.

Bede spent most of his life in the monastery, but travelled to several other monasteries across the British Isles, visiting the archbishop of York and King Ceolwulf of Northumbria. He was an author, teacher and scholar. His most famous work was The  Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which earned him the title "The Father of English History".

Another important area of study for Bede was the academic discipline of computus, otherwise known to his contemporaries as the science of calculating calendar dates. For example, Bede tried to settle the dating of Easter. He also popularized the practice of dating forward from the birth of Christ (Anno Domini – in the year of our Lord).

Bede was one of the greatest teachers and writers of the Early Middle Ages and is considered by many historians to be the most important scholar of antiquity for the period between the death of Pope Gregory I in 604 and the coronation of Charlemagne in 800.

In 1899, Pope Leo XIII declared him a Doctor of the Church, the only native-born Briton to achieve this designation. Anselm of Canterbury, also a Doctor of the Church, was originally from Italy.

Bede was also 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.

PORTSMOUTH | Priory/Abbey School 1958 and Today (Updated Apr 11, 2017)

Portsmouth Priory (as it then was called) had a community of 24 Benedictine monks when I was there in 1955-58. All but two of the monks are in the photo above. The year before, Fr Aelred ("Barney") Wall, Headmaster, was in the photo; he switched to a more contemplative monastery in my senior year. The strength of the monastery may have peaked a few years later when Luke, Paul, Anselm and Gregory became novices.

The lay faculty numbered 16 in 1958, as indicated in the photo below. So of a total teaching pool of 30 (24 monks and 16 lay), three-fifths was monastic.

As vocations to monastic life have fallen off, and older monks have gone to their eternal reward, the ratio of monks to lay staff has reversed. The lay faculty today outnumbers the monks. On the Abbey web site five monks are shown as actively involved in the school, while the Portsmouth directory shows 116 on staff.

Since 1958, the number of seniors has grown from 35 to 94 in the Class of 2017. The teaching faculty has grown from 30 to 50, supported now by, it appears, 66 listed non-teaching staff.

Similar trends are observable in other monastic institutions. Ampleforth Abbey and College in England is one of the houses of the English Benedictine Congregation (along with Downside) that founded Portsmouth. Ampleforth is one of the largest religious college-preparatory schools in the country. The number of monks has fallen at Ampleforth, from more than 100 when I was there in 1952-55 to about 30 today. 

At Ampleforth today, according to its Headmaster Fr Wulstan, who was in New York City this past week, monks are placed in roles where they can have a maximum influence on the spiritual life of the boys and girls at the school. Almost all of the teaching is now assigned to people who recruited for their teaching skills and academic background.