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 relates the story of Augustine's mission from Rome, and tells how the British clergy refused to assist Augustine in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons.

Whereas Adomnán just tells us that Columba visited Bridei, Bede relates a later, perhaps Pictish tradition, whereby the saint actually converts the Pictish king.

Bede relates an anecdote that the British bishops consulted a wise hermit as to how to respond to Augustine when he arrived for the second council.

Bede relates that Paulinus told Edwin that the birth of his and Æthelburg's daughter at Easter 626 was because of Paulinus ' prayers.

On the other hand, if Coenred went willingly, as Bede relates, then the apparently friendly relationship between Offa and Coenred, his overlord, makes it clear that the relationship between an overlord and his underking was not hostile in every case.

Bede relates the death story as that of a man who was already regarded as a saint.

In writing of one miracle associated with Oswald, Bede gives some indication of how Oswald was regarded in conquered lands: years later, when his niece Osthryth moved his bones to Bardney Abbey in Lindsey, its inmates initially refused to accept them, " though they knew him to be a holy man ", because " he was originally of another province, and had reigned over them as a foreign king ", and thus " they retained their ancient aversion to him, even after death ".

* Bede writes On the reckoning of time ( De temporum ratione ) explaining how to calculate medieval Easter.

Bede explains how each of the four Evangelists was represented by their own symbol: Matthew was the man, representing the human Christ, Mark was the lion, symbolizing the triumphant Christ of the Resurrection, Luke was the calf, symbolizing the sacrificial victim of the Crucifixion, and John was the eagle, symbolizing Christ ’ s second coming ( The British Library Board ).

Nonetheless, it is important to observe that the authors, despite their relatively good access to sources concerning the synod, still wrote at a considerable distance, and the accounts, especially the quotations attributed to the participants, are more likely to be summaries of how Bede and Stephen understood the issue rather than something like true quotations.

658-680 AD., and Bede tells us that he was an illiterate herdsman to a monastery who one night in a dream learned how to sing beautiful Christian verses praising God's name.

Bede tells how after her death, Æthelthryth's bones were disinterred by her sister and successor, Abbess Seaxburh of Ely, and buried in a white, marble coffin from Cambridge.

Bede gives a long account of how Egbert fell dangerously ill in Ireland in 664 and vowed to follow a lifelong pattern of great austerity so that he might live to make amends for the follies of his youth.

According to Farmer, Bede took this idea from Gregory the Great, and illustrates it in his work by showing how Christianity brought together the native and invading races into one church.

However, as there are no surviving documents to indicate how these people described themselves, the most that can be said is that by the time Bede was writing ( early 8th century ), the phrase " West Saxons " had come into use by scholars.

Bede describes Oswiu's friendship and influence over Sigeberht of the East Saxons, but generally the pattern in the southeast is of more local domination, with Oswiu's influence unlikely to have been particularly strong.

Egbert had been a disciple of the Venerable Bede, who urged him to raise York to an archbishopric.

King Eadbert and his brother Egbert oversaw the re-energising and re-organisation of the English church, with an emphasis on reforming the clergy and on the tradition of learning that Bede had begun.

The need to persuade his nobles to undertake work for the ' common good ' led Alfred and his court scholars to strengthen and deepen the conception of Christian kingship that he had inherited by building upon the legacy of earlier kings such as Offa as well as clerical writers such as Bede, Alcuin and the other luminaries of the Carolingian renaissance.

The name probably derives from the Old English bēd, or prayer ; if Bede was given the name at his birth, then his family had probably always planned for him to enter the clergy.

The standard theological view of world history at the time was known as the six ages of the world ; in his book, Bede calculated the age of the world for himself, rather than accepting the authority of Isidore of Seville, and came to the conclusion that Christ had been born 3, 952 years after the creation of the world, rather than the figure of over 5, 000 years that was commonly accepted by theologians.

Bede had another brush with Wilfrid, for the historian himself says that he met Wilfrid, sometime between 706 and 709, and discussed Æthelthryth, the abbess of Ely.

Wilfrid had been present at the exhumation of her body in 695, and Bede questioned the bishop about the exact circumstances of the body and asked for more details of her life, as Wilfrid had been her advisor.

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.

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.

Bede quotes from several classical authors, including Cicero, Plautus, and Terence, but he may have had access to their work via a Latin grammar rather than directly.

Bede also had correspondents who supplied him with material.

Bede quoted his sources at length in his narrative, as Eusebius had done.

However, Bede, like Gregory the Great whom Bede quotes on the subject in the Historia, felt that faith brought about by miracles was a stepping stone to a higher, truer faith, and that as a result miracles had their place in a work designed to instruct.

He says relatively little about the achievements of Mercia and Wessex, omitting, for example, any mention of Boniface, a West Saxon missionary to the continent of some renown and of whom Bede had almost certainly heard, though Bede does discuss Northumbrian missionaries to the continent.

Another difficulty is that manuscripts of early writers were often incomplete: it is apparent that Bede had access to Pliny's Encyclopedia, for example, but it seems that the version he had was missing book xviii, as he would almost certainly have quoted from it in his De temporum ratione.

Bede notes that the native Old English month Ēostur-monath ( Old English " Ēostre-month ") was equivalent to the month of April, yet that feasts held in the goddess's honor during Ēostur-monath had gone out of use by the time of his writing and had been replaced with the Christian custom of the " Paschal season ".

Bede states that when Æthelberht died in 616 he had reigned for fifty-six years, placing his accession in 560.

Pope Gregory issued more practicable mandates concerning heathen temples and usages: he desired that temples become consecrated to Christian service and asked Augustine to transform pagan practices, so far as possible, into dedication ceremonies or feasts of martyrs, since " he who would climb to a lofty height must go up by steps, not leaps " ( letter of Gregory to Mellitus, in Bede, i, 30 ).

He left to become Director of Development of the BD-5 aircraft for Bede Aircraft in Newton, Kansas, a position he held until 1974.

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

This may indicate that the brothers had become controversial figures: certainly Bede must have thought that his material about them would be of more than usual interest to the reader.

Bede wrote about sixty years after the crucial events of Chad's episcopate, when the Continental pattern of territorial bishoprics and Benedictine monasticism had become established throughout the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, including Northumbria.

Some have suggested that Arthur was a mythological or folklore figure, that other mythological figures also may have become historicised: one suggestion is that Hengest and Horsa were originally Kentish totemic horse-gods, ascribed a historical role by Bede.

By the time Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, in about 731 AD, the northern outlet of the Wantsum had become known as the " river Yenlade ".