Bede
Northumbrian monk who spent his life at Wearmouth and Jarrow studying and teaching Scripture. His Ecclesiastical History of the English People, finished in 731, is a principal source for the early English church.
Bede says that he was born on the lands of the monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow, was given to Abbot Benedict Biscop at seven and brought up by him and by Abbot Ceolfrid, became a deacon at nineteen and a priest at thirty, and lived there all his life, studying Scripture and “learning, or teaching, or writing”. He was in his fifty-ninth year when he finished the History in 731, which puts his birth in 672 or 673. The list of his works that follows is mostly biblical commentary (Bede, Ecclesiastical History 5.24).
His pupil Cuthbert records that he died on the eve of the Ascension, a Wednesday, still dictating a translation of John’s Gospel into English, and that Ascension Day fell on 26 May (Cuthbert, Letter on the Death of Bede pp. xl–xliii). That fits the year 735. See Bede Completes His Ecclesiastical History.
In the timeline
- AD 731, firm dateBede Completes His Ecclesiastical History
At Wearmouth-Jarrow the monk Bede finishes a history of the English church in five books, dated by years from the birth of Christ and built on named sources. He lists his other works, mostly on Scripture, and dies four years later while translating John’s Gospel.