The Venerable Bede

Venerable Bede (Born in the years 672/673 and died on May 26, 735) is also referred to as Saint Bede, the Venerable Bede (Latin: Beda Venerabilis), or simply Bede. He was an English monk at the monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth and its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow, Northeast England, both of which were located in the Kingdom of Northumbria. He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The Father of English History".

In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII; he is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation (Anselm of Canterbury, also a Doctor of the Church, was originally from Italy). Bede was also a skilled linguist and translator, and his work made the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons, contributing significantly to English Christianity.

Bede became known as Venerable Bede (Lat.: Beda Venerabilis) by the 9th century, but this was not linked to consideration for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church.

030