Saint Bede the Venerable, Priest and Doctor of the Church

Bede was born about 673 in Northumbria and at seven was given to the monastery of Wearmouth, then moved to its sister house at Jarrow, where he spent the rest of his life. He wrote commentaries on the Bible, works on grammar, poetry and the calculation of time, and the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, finished in 731, the chief source for early English history. His use of dates counted from the birth of Christ helped spread that custom.

His disciple Cuthbert described his death: on the eve of the Ascension, 25 May 735, Bede was dictating an English translation of the Gospel of John, and when the boy writing for him said the last sentence was finished, he answered, “It is finished,” and died soon after. He was named a Doctor of the Church in 1899.