The coming of Christianity meant not simply a new life and leader for England; it meant also the wealth of a new language.  The scop is now replaced by the literary monk; and that monk, though he lives among common people and speaks with the English tongue, has behind him all the culture and literary resources of the Latin language.  The effect is seen instantly in our early prose and poetry.

NORTHUMBRIAN LITERATURE.  In general, two great schools of Christian influence came into England, and speedily put an end to the frightful wars that had waged continually among the various petty kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons.  The first of these, under the leadership of Augustine, came from Rome.  It spread in the south and center of England, especially in the kingdom of Essex.  It founded schools and partially educated the rough people, but it produced no lasting literature.  The other, under the leadership of the saintly Aidan, came from Ireland, which country had been for centuries a center of religion and education for all western Europe.  The monks of this school labored chiefly in Northumbria, and to their influence we owe all that is best in Anglo-Saxon literature.  It is called the Northumbrian School; its center was the monasteries and abbeys, such as Jarrow and Whitby, and its three greatest names are Bede, Caedmon, and Cynewulf.

BEDE (673-735)

The Venerable Bede, as he is generally called, our first great scholar and “the father of our English learning,” wrote almost exclusively in Latin, his last work, the translation of the Gospel of John into Anglo-Saxon, having been unfortunately lost.  Much to our regret, therefore, his books and the story of his gentle, heroic life must be excluded from this history of our literature.  His works, over forty in number, covered the whole field of human knowledge in his day, and were so admirably written that they were widely copied as text-books, or rather manuscripts, in nearly all the monastery schools of Europe.

The work most important to us is the Ecclesiastical History of the English People.  It is a fascinating history to read even now, with its curious combination of accurate scholarship and immense credulity.  In all strictly historical matters Bede is a model.  Every known authority on the subject, from Pliny to Gildas, was carefully considered; every learned pilgrim to Rome was commissioned by Bede to ransack the archives and to make copies of papal decrees and royal letters; and to these were added the testimony of abbots who could speak from personal knowledge of events or repeat the traditions of their several monasteries.