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.