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If it hadn't been for Bede we wouldn't know anywhere near as much about Britain after the Romans as we do. He was a meticulous scholar and chronicler of his time, and has come to be regarded as the 'Father of English History'. He went to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of his work, and became renowned throughout Europe, in spite of the fact that he never travelled more than 80 miles from his monastery in Jarrow. Bede was born sometime about 673AD just a few miles south of Jarrow, at a place called Wearmouth, now a part of the town of Sunderland. When he reached the grand old age of seven he was handed over to the local Benedictine monastery to be raised as a monk - a common practice in the early Middle Ages. Two years later he was transferred to a new monastery which had just been founded at Jarrow. But soon after his arrival the plague reached the monastery, and the majority of the monks responsible for leading the worship succumbed. Only two were left to keep the services going: the abbot and the 10-year old Bede. It was this experience which led him to commit himself to a disciplined life of prayer. He became a deacon at 19 and was ordained priest when he was 30. Apart from brief excursions to York and Lindisfarne he remained close to the place that he loved, the fine monastic library at Jarrow. His great History, the 'Ecclesiastical History of the English People', was completed in AD731. It was written in Latin, and parts of it were first translated into English by King Alfred in the 9th century. This is not the dry-as-dust history that one might expect, but a collection of stories about the people of his era, of kings and bishops, priests and monks, saints and sinners. It was Bede who introduced into historical writing the system of dating events from the birth of Christ, and he was very careful with his historical chronology. Unlike many early histories, Bede's work has stood the test of time and of later research. He gathered his material only from reliable sources such as the Pope's archive in Rome where he had a monk colleague researching for him. But his History is only one of the many books that he wrote. A prolific writer, he completed forty in all, and this in the days before word-processors and typewriters or even pencils, ballpoints or fountain pens. He wrote several commentaries on books of the Bible, together with a number of biographies of saints. He also produced primers on Latin and astronomy, and a book of tables to determine the date of Easter. And he achieved all this without moving far from the monastery in Jarrow, that remote place on the Northumbrian coast, where he spent virtually the whole of his life. He always thought that his most important works were his 25 Bible commentaries, which circulated among the monasteries of Europe. In these he enlarged on the works of the earliest Christian scholars, adding his own understandings of particular passages, which proved to be specially illuminating. It was the decision of the synod held at Whitby in 664 that the English church should adopt the Roman method of determining the date of Easter that prompted him to write his highly technical book of calculations to show how the date was calculated. Few people in Europe could understand the system until Bede explained it. (A lot of people still can't.) He also found time to write a long letter to his pupil, Egbert, who had become Archbishop of York. In this he set out what he believed to be the duties of a bishop, stressing the importance of Confirmation, daily Communion, almsgiving and Masses for the dead. But as always happens in cases like this, few of his suggestions were carried out. Bede died on the 27th May in the year 735, which happened to be the eve of Ascension Day. There is a moving account by the monk Cuthbert of his death. He had been working on a translation of St John's Gospel into English. Realising that death was fast approaching he managed to dictate the last few sentences to the boy who was acting as his scribe. He then sang some antiphons from the Divine Office for Ascension Day and then a poem about death. It was while he was singing the Gloria that he drew his last breath. He was buried at Jarrow, but during the 11th. century his bones were moved to Durham Cathedral, where a tomb bearing his name is still to be seen. He was canonized in 1899. Bill Hutchings |
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page last updated 7 DECEMBER 2001 |
