Bede

Family: English · Role: historian and narrator · First appears: Book IV · Chap. XIV

Bede was an English historian and narrator. At seven, his kinsmen entrusted him to Benedict for education, and afterwards to Ceolfrid, “spending all the remaining time of my life a dweller in that monastery.” In his nineteenth year he received deacon’s orders, and in his thirtieth the priesthood, through John (bishop) and at Ceolfrid’s bidding; the same account records his fealty to John (Roman abbot).

His work drew on earlier writers and the lives of saints: he used Augustine on the Apostle, Jerome on prophetic books, translated Felix from Paulinus, corrected the life of Anastasius, and wrote the life of Cuthbert. He also recorded the histories of the abbots Benedict, Ceolfrid, and Huaetbert. In Book IV he set down a story related by Acca, and in Book V one learned from Pechthelm, “for the salvation of such as shall read or hear it.”

In Book V, Bede questioned Adamnan about his tonsure and received his answer, then admonished Naiton to observe the unity of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the year 735, the priest Bede died.

Relationship record

Life events

• 735 · Bede died.(Book V · Chap. XXIV · part 1)
  • “and the priest Bede died.”

Book IV · Chap. XIV

• with Acca (Acca related the account to the narrator, identified canonically as Bede.) “one which the most reverend Bishop Acca was wont often to relate to me, affirming that it had been told him by most creditable brothers of the same monastery.”

Book V · Chap. XIII

• with Pechthelm (Bede identifies Pechthelm as the source from whom he learned the story.) “This story, as I learned it of the venerable Bishop Pechthelm, I have thought good to set forth plainly, for the salvation of such as shall read or hear it.”
• with Pechthelm (Pechthelm was Bede's source for the story.) “This story, as I learned it of the venerable Bishop Pechthelm, I have thought good to set forth plainly, for the salvation of such as shall read or hear it.”