Bede - The Ecclesiastical History of the English People

Bede was born around 672 or 673 in lands most probably part of Monkwearmouth monastery, located in present-day Sunderland.

At the age of seven he was sent to Monkwearmouth monastery to be educated and later joined Abbot Ceolfrith at the Jarrow monastery. When plague struck in 686 both survived, most others died.

As a Benedictine monk Bede spent most of his life at the monastery though occasionally he travelled to other abbeys and monasteries, even visiting the archbishop of York and King Ceolwulf of Northumbria.

Bede is well known as an author, teacher and scholar. His most famous work is, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and over time this gained him the title ‘The Father of English History’. His ecumenical writings included a number of Biblical commentaries and other theological works of exegetical erudition. Another important area he studied was computes; the science of calculating calendar dates. Bede spent time, often mired in controversy, in trying to compute a date for Easter.

Bede also helped establish the practice of dating forward from the birth of Christ (Anno Domini – in the year of our Lord), a practice which is now the standard dating method.

He is considered by a multitude of historians to be the single most important scholar of antiquity for the period between the death of Pope Gregory I in 604 and the coronation of Charlemagne in 800.

Bede died on the Feast of the Ascension, Thursday, 26th May 735, on the floor of his cell at Jarrow.