The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical history of England / [translated by J. Stevens] Also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. With illustrative notes, a map of Anglo-Saxon England and a general index. Edited by J.A. Giles.

  • Bede, the Venerable, Saint, 673-735.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical history of England / [translated by J. Stevens] Also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. With illustrative notes, a map of Anglo-Saxon England and a general index. Edited by J.A. Giles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    whole of the southern part of Scotland. The piety of frid induced liim to grant the large tract of land above men- tioned to one Biscop, sumamed Benedict, who had formerly been one of liis thanes, but now became a monk, and built thereon a monastery, which he dedicated to St. Peter, on the north bank of the river Wear, and which from this circum- stance derived the name of Wearmouth. The same pious abbat, eight years after [a.d. 682], built another monastic establishment, which he dedicated to St. Paul, at Jarrow, on the banks of the Tyne, at the distance of about five miles from the former. In memory of this, the following inscrip- tion, wliich has been preserved, was carved on a tablet in the church at Jarrow:— Dedicatio Basiiicae S. Pauli VIII Kal. Maii Anno XV Egfridi Ceolfridi Abb. ejusdemque Ecclesiffi Deo auctore ConditorU anno IV. The Dedication of the Church of Saint Paul, on the 24th of April in the fifteenth year of king Egfnd and in the fourth year of abbat Ceolfrid, who, under God, founded the same church. These two establishments were for many years ruled by Benedict himself, and his associates Ceolfrid, Easterwin, and Sigfrid, and from the unity and concord which prevailed between the tAvo, deserved rather, as Bede expresses it, to be called “one single monastery built in two difierent places.” * We cannot be certain as to the exact spot, but it is sufiici- ently near the mark to ascertain that Bede was bom in the neighbourhood of these two monasteries, and probably in the village of Jarrow. Of his parents nothing has been recorded. He tells us, in his owm short narrative of himself, that he was placed, at the age of seven years, under the care of abbat Benedict, in the abbey of Weiirmouth, that of Jarrow being not yet built. Wlicn, however, this second establishment Avas founded, Bede appears to have gone thither under Ceolfrid * Lcland. Antiq. de Rcb. Brit. CoU. ed. Hceinic, uL 42,