SOURCE: Gerald Bonner, "Bede and Medieval Civilization," in Anglo-Saxon England, Vol. 2, 1973, pp. 71-90. [In the following essay, Bonner discusses the limitations of Bede's library and the subsequent ramifications for his writings.]

The mortal remains of the Venerable Bede rest today in the cathedral church of Christ and Blessed Mary the Virgin, Durham. They were brought there in the early eleventh century by one Ælfred Westou, priest and sacrist of Durham and an enthusiastic amateur of that characteristically medieval form of devotion expressed in the acquisition, by fair means or foul, of the relics of the saints to the greater glory of God. The removal of Bede's remains to Durham, involving as it did considerable preliminary planning and solitary nocturnal vigil before the final successful snatch, was one of his more brilliant coups, upon which he seems especially to have preened himself. The bones were first kept in the...