King Alfred's ( Alfred the Great ) translation of Orosius ' history of the world uses Angelcynn (- kin ) to describe England and the English people ; Bede used Angelfolc (- folk ); there are also such forms as Engel, Englan ( the people ), Englaland, and Englisc, all showing i-mutation.

Bede ( ; ; 672 / 673 – 26 May 735 ), also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede (), was an English monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow ( see Monkwearmouth-Jarrow ), both in the Kingdom of Northumbria.

In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Leo XIII, a position of theological significance ; 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 may also have worked on one of the Latin bibles that were copied at Jarrow, one of which is now held by the Laurentian Library in Florence.

Wilfrid did not respond to the accusation, but a monk present relayed the episode to Bede, who replied within a few days to the monk, writing a letter setting forth his defence and asking that the letter be read to Wilfrid also.

Cuthbert's letter also relates a five-line poem in the vernacular that Bede composed on his deathbed, known as " Bede's Death Song ".

Bede would also have been familiar with more recent accounts such as Eddius Stephanus's Life of Wilfrid, and anonymous Lives of Gregory the Great and Cuthbert.

Bede also had correspondents who supplied him with material.

Bede acknowledged his correspondents in the preface to the Historia Ecclesiastica ; he was in contact with Daniel, the Bishop of Winchester, for information about the history of the church in Wessex, and also wrote to the monastery at Lastingham for information about Cedd and Chad.

Bede also mentions an Abbot Esi as a source for the affairs of the East Anglian church, and Bishop Cynibert for information about Lindsey.

Bede also followed Eusebius in taking the Acts of the Apostles as the model for the overall work: where Eusebius used the Acts as the theme for his description of the development of the church, Bede made it the model for his history of the Anglo-Saxon church.

Bede also appears to have taken quotes directly from his correspondents at times.

Bede is also concerned to show the unity of the English, despite the disparate kingdoms that still existed when he was writing.

Bede also wrote homilies, works written to explain theology used in worship services.

This was based on parts of Isidore of Seville's Etymologies, and Bede also include a chronology of the world which was derived from Eusebius, with some revisions based on Jerome's translation of the bible.

According to his disciple Cuthbert, Bede was also doctus in nostris carminibus (" learned in our songs ").

Cuthbert's letter on Bede's death, the Epistola Cuthberti de obitu Bedae, moreover, commonly is understood to indicate that Bede also composed a five line vernacular poem known to modern scholars as Bede ’ s Death Song

The chronicler also wrote down the names of seven kings that Bede listed in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum in 731.

Bede also describes hot baths in the geographical introduction to the Ecclesiastical History in terms very similar to those of Nennius.

Bede also says that Æthelberht died twenty-one years after his baptism.

In 733, Bede travelled to York, to visit Ecgbert, who was then bishop of York.

Because of his widespread correspondence with others throughout the British Isles, and due to the fact that many of the letters imply that Bede had met his correspondents, it is likely that Bede travelled to some other places, although nothing further about timing or locations can be guessed.

Bede tells us that he travelled first to Canterbury, where he found that Archbishop Deusdedit was dead and his replacement was still awaited.

Cuthwine was known to Bede and is known to have travelled to Rome, returning with a number of illuminated manuscripts, including Life and Labours of Saint Paul: his library also included Prosper Tiro's Epigrammata and Sedulius ' Carmen Pachale.

Bede, in the Historia, gives his birthplace as " on the lands of this monastery ".

Monkwearmouth's sister monastery at Jarrow was founded by Ceolfrith in 682, and Bede probably transferred to Jarrow with Ceolfrith that year.

The preface makes it clear that Ceolwulf had requested the earlier copy, and Bede had asked for Ceolwulf's approval ; this correspondence with the king indicates that Bede's monastery had excellent connections among the Northumbrian nobility.

A full catalogue of the library available to Bede in the monastery cannot be reconstructed, but it is possible to tell, for example, that Bede was very familiar with the works of Virgil.

One of Bede ’ s correspondents was Albinus, who was abbot of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul ( subsequently renamed St. Augustine's ) in Canterbury.

Northumberland's patron saint, Saint Cuthbert, was a monk and later Abbot of the monastery, and his miracles and life are recorded by the Venerable Bede.

Oswald apparently controlled the Kingdom of Lindsey, given the evidence of a story told by Bede regarding the moving of Oswald's bones to a monastery there ; Bede says that the monks rejected the bones initially because Oswald had ruled over them as a foreign king.

He encounters the Venerable Bede in a monastery, and gives him somewhat ironic explanations of the developments of the coming centuries.

* Plague kills almost all the monks in a Northumbrian monastery, aside from the abbot and one small boy – future scholar Bede.

The nobleman Benedict Biscop had visited Rome and headed the monastery at Canterbury in Kent and his twin-foundation Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey added a direct Roman influence to Northumbrian culture, and produced figures such as Ceolfrith and Bede.

However, Bede speaks of " the monastery of Bangor, in which, it is said, there was so great a number of monks, that the monastery being divided into seven parts, with a superior set over each, none of those parts contained less than three hundred men, who all lived by the labour of their hands.

Since William Camden, Burgh Castle has been suggested as the site of " Cnobheresburg ", the unknown place ( a castrum or fort ) in East Anglia, where in about 630 the first Irish monastery in southern England was founded by Saint Fursey as part of the Hiberno-Scottish mission described by Bede.

The author of a continuation of Dionysius's Computus, writing in 616, described Dionysius as a " most learned abbot of the city of Rome ", and the Venerable Bede accorded him the honorific abbas, which could be applied to any monk, especially a senior and respected monk, and does not necessarily imply that Dionysius ever headed a monastery ; indeed, Dionysius's friend Cassiodorus stated in Institutiones that he was still only a monk late in life.

Oswald gave the island of Lindisfarne to Aidan as his episcopal see, and Aidan achieved great success in spreading the Christian faith ; Bede mentions that Oswald acted as Aidan's interpreter when the latter was preaching, since Aidan did not know English well and Oswald had learned Irish during his exile.

However, Bede admits that it was Penda who freely allowed Christian missionaries from Lindisfarne into Mercia, and did not restrain them from preaching.

There is a significant amount of information known about Cuthbert thanks to two accounts of Cuthbert ’ s life that were written shortly after his death, the first by an anonymous monk from Lindisfarne, and the second by Bede, a famous monk, historian, and theologian.

Bede appears to place a major assault on Bernicia by Penda, which reached the gates of Bamburgh, at some time before 651 and the death of Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne.

In the 6th century, North East England was famed for its centre of religious enlightenment and education, with the holy isle of Lindisfarne, close to Bamburgh and important religious clergy: St Aidan, St Bede, St Cuthbert, St Hild ( Hilda ).

* Eata, ' bishop of Bernicia ', with his seat at Hexham and / or Lindisfarne, died 685, succeeded by John of Beverley ( Bede, Ecclesiastical History IV. 12 )

* Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, 685, after Tumbert's deposition, moving his seat to Lindisfarne to become bishop of Lindisfarne ( Bede, IV. 28 )

The only major fact that Bede gives about Chad's early life is that he was a student of Aidan at the Celtic monastery at Lindisfarne.

Bede places Egbert, and therefore Chad, among an influx of English scholars who arrived in Ireland while Finan and Colmán were bishops at Lindisfarne.

According to Bede, Tuda had been succeeded as abbot of Lindisfarne by Eata, who had been elevated to the rank of bishop.

The period saw the flowering of Insular art in Northumbria and produced the Lindisfarne Gospels, perhaps begun in Aldfrith's time, the scholarship of Bede, and the beginnings of the Anglo-Saxon missions to the continent.

The source of the text for this manuscript and the Lindisfarne Gospels was probably a hypothetical " Neapolitan Gospelbook " brought to England by Adrian of Canterbury, a companion of Theodore of Tarsus who according to Bede had been abbot of Nisida, an ( also hypothetical ) monastery near Naples.