Bede the Venerable, Saint (673?-735),

English Benedictine monk and scholar, chiefly known for his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), a history of England from the Roman occupation to 731, the year it was completed.Bede was born near Wearmouth, in Northumbria (now Sunderland, England). When he reached the age of seven, he was turned over to Benedict Biscop, abbot of the monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow, to be raised as a monk a common practice in the early Middle Ages. Remaining in the monastery for the rest of his life, he was ordained a deacon and later a priest. Bede's studies and writings were devoted to religious purpose. The central theme of his Historia Ecclesiastica is that of the church as a force welding spiritual, doctrinal, and cultural unity out of violence and barbarism. The work integrates a mass of laboriously collected information; its intellectual and artistic integrity set the standard for historical writing in medieval Europe. Knowledge of England before the 8th century rests substantially on Bede's work, on his painstaking efforts to gather documents and oral testimony and evaluate them according to the best critical standards of his time. He introduced to historical writing the system of dating events from the birth of Christ and did careful work on historical chronology, exemplified in De Temporum Ratione (On the Reckoning of Time, 725). Bede wrote about 40 works, among them commentaries on the books of the Bible, biographies of saints and of the abbots of his monastery (Historia Abbatum, c. 725), and books on liturgy and festivals and on rhetoric. The breadth of his learning reveals the extensive library available to him and the level of culture achieved in England in his time. Bede was canonized in 1899; his feast day is May 27, the day of his death.

Contributed by: Nancy F. Partner "Bede the Venerable, Saint," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.