Bede’s studies in this area also popularised the division of time into the BC and AD system that we still use today. With a special interest in numbers, he spent much time and effort investigating such things as the Church calendar, in particular attempting to calculate the precise date of Easter. Just a few years later, in 682 AD, Bede moved to St Peter’s twin monastery at Jarrow where he spent the rest of his life, surrounded by the hundreds of book s and manuscripts that had been collected from all corners of Christendom.ĭuring his lifetime Bede wrote around 40 books, dealing mainly with theology and history. So, who was this humble monk and what are the stories he recorded that have earned him such accolades? It is thought that Bede was born in Monkton, Durham, however there is no record of his very early life or family background.Īt the age of seven however, he was put into the care of Benedict Biscop, who in 674 AD had founded the monastery of St Peter at Wearmouth. Today, Bede is widely recognised as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar of his day, and by many as the greatest English historian of all time. The dramatic story of what unfolded was recorded by Beada, or Bede, a monk of the great Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow. Andrew in Rome, to convert these pagan ‘angels with dirty faces’ to Roman Christianity.Īlthough the inhabitants of lowland Britain at that time were in fact made up of many rival kingdoms, including Saxons, Jutes and Angles, Pope Gregory considered them as one English nation, only ever referring to them as ‘Angli’. Whether this story is true or not, what is known is that in 596 AD Pope Gregory dispatched a Roman mission of 40 monks headed by Augustine, the prior to the Benedictine monastery of St. It is possible that the inventor of the concept of the English was actually Pope Gregory the Great, when around 580 noticing fair haired slaves for sale in an Italian marketplace he was told that they were Angles: ‘Not Angles, but angels’ was said to be his reply.

History of the english church bede