Bede, Saint

Bede, Saint (about 673-735 AD), monk and scholar, b. Monk, wearmouth, Durham, England.

The Venerable Bede's family put him in a monastery near his home at the age of seven and he moved to a new monastery at Jarrow five years later. He spent almost all his life there, at first studying and then reading, writing and teaching.

Bede wrote more than fifty books and became famous in Europe.

His greatest work is The History of the English Church and People. You can buy this book today as a paperback. Much of our information about the early history of England comes from it.

When Bede died, a monk was asked to write some words for his gravestone. He wrote the following lines:

'Hac sunt in fossa Bede . . . ossa. '

'Here in this grave are the bones of.... .Bede.'

According to a story, the monk could not think of a word to fit in the second line. He went away and when he came back found the word 'venerabilis' in the space. He was sure that an angel had written this word and, from that day onwards, the saint was known as the Venerable Bede.

MARY R. PRICE Bede and Dunstan