The Venerable Bede

The pioneer English historian and author of the Lives of the Abbots and Life of Cuthbert, lived from 672/3 to 735. He lived out his life at a Northumbrian monastery, the Monastery of St. Peter, along with Saint Paul's monastery, its companion also located in Northumbria. Bede is best known for his Ecclesiastical History of the English People and was made a Doctor of the Catholic Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1899.

Little is known about Bede's life as he describes few details about his life. He claimed to have been born at Monkton, two miles from the Jarrow monastery. He was connected to noble blood and his first Abbot was Benedict Biscop, who he writes about in Lives of the Abbots. At age 7 he entered the Wearmouth monastery for education, and may have been adopted as a son of the monastery abbot. He then came under the...