1 - Bede’s Life and Times

Summary

BEDE stands an eminence on the landscape of the eighth century; there is no other writer comparable. Gregory of Tours in the sixth century and Isidore of Seville and Aldhelm in the seventh century preceded him, and Alcuin of Tours followed at the end of the eighth century, but as a scholar Bede is supreme. In all Europe no contemporary matches his talents and influence. How do we account for Bede's erudition in a remote region of the North with its limited resources? How is it that he is elevated so quickly to the high status of Father of the Church, the only monk to be granted that title, on a plane with Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory? He spent his life far from urban centers of Europe, in a geographically isolated monastery. And who is responsible for his extraordinary erudition and mastery of Latin, of prose and poetry both? Of teachers besides his abbots Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrith, he mentions only one, Trumberht, “who taught me the Scriptures.” Although Bede was in fact an autodidact, he had great mentors, namely, the biblical texts and patristic authors found in his monastic library supplied by his provident superiors. With his energy and genius devouring and absorbing those works, he became master of every discipline in the monastic curriculum and “teacher of the whole Middle Ages.”

Bede gained all that knowledge within the confines of the remote but well-endowed monastery established by his solicitous abbots, as the first words of his oft-quoted summary at the end of the Ecclesiastical History record:

I, Bede, servant of God and priest of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul which is at Wearmouth and Jarrow, have, with the help of God and to the best of my ability, put together this account of the history of the Church of Britain and of the English people in particular, gleaned either from ancient documents or from tradition or from my own knowledge. I was born in the territory of this monastery. When I was seven years of age I was, by the care of my kinsmen, put into the charge of the reverend Abbot Benedict and then Ceolfrith, to be educated.