Bede is undoubtedly better known than many of those that I have considered in my series on the greatest figures in English history but, nevertheless, much of his significance is largely forgotten. We owe him the very concept of Englishness, and whenever you date a contract by the conventional dating system for years, 2026 for instance, you are commemorating Bede.
Bede lived in the northeast of England in the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, where he wrote commentaries upon the Bible, composed sermons, considered dates, and developed a system for counting on fingers by which schoolboys could pass coded messages to each other. Perhaps most famously, he wrote what is called the first English history.
Bede’s life, by way of biography, is little known. His works were prodigious and influential, but he rarely mentioned much of his personal life, although there are a few hints. One such is that he was orphaned at an early age and had a strong monastic vocation. This comes from the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith.
Ceolfrith was the abbot of Jarrow, which was hit so badly by the plague that only two members of the monastic choir survived. One was the abbot himself, and the other seems to have been Bede. As the Life recounts, “In the monastery over which Ceolfrith presided, all who could read or preach or recite the Antiphons were swept away, except the Abbot himself and one little lad nourished and taught by him, who is now a priest of the same monastery, and both by word of mouth and by writing commends to all who wish to know them the Abbot’s worthy deeds. And the Abbot, sad at heart because of this visitation, ordained that contrary to their former rite, they should, except at Vespers and Matins, recite their Psalms without Antiphons, and when this had been done with many tears and lamentations on his part for the space of a week, he could not bear it any longer, but decreed that the Psalms and the Antiphons should be restored to their order, according to the regular course; and by means of himself and the aforesaid boy, he carried out with no little labour that which he had decreed, until he could either train them himself or procure from elsewhere men able to take part in the divine service”. The little lad, nourished and taught by him, was almost certainly Bede, and Ceolfrith was almost an adopted father, in effect, as well as being Bede’s spiritual father.
When Ceolfrith departed for Rome in 716, as he knew his life was drawing to a close, Bede was struck by a sudden anguish of mind. Benedicta Ward, in her biography of Bede, argues that his shock and unawareness of Ceolfrith’s departure show the extent to which Bede was concentrating on his studies and his daily religious duties; she indicates a rather unworldly young man.
This is supported by his comments about religious people, even bishops, who enjoyed “laughing, joking, storytelling, feasting and drinking, instead of feeding their souls with heavenly sacrifices”. This makes Bede sound rather humourless, but he had a high purpose. He wanted to save souls and devoted all his work to that end.
There is a story of how in his old age, when his sight was failing him, “Some mockers said to him… ‘Bede, behold, the people are gathered together waiting to hear the word of God, arise and preach to them’. And he, thirsting for the salvation of souls, went up and preached, thinking that there were people there, whereas there was no one but the mockers”.
