The Venerable Bede says in The Reckoning of Time that this month Eostur is the root of the word Easter.

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.

Bede says: " Prayers are hindered by the conjugal duty because as often as I perform what is due to my wife I am not able to pray.

The historian Walter Goffart says of Bede that he " holds a privileged and unrivalled place among first historians of Christian Europe ".

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.

Bede dedicated this work to Cuthbert, apparently a student, for he is named " beloved son " in the dedication, and Bede says " I have laboured to educate you in divine letters and ecclesiastical statutes " Another textbook of Bede's is the De orthographia, a work on orthography, designed to help a medieval reader of Latin with unfamiliar abbreviations and words from classical Latin works.

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

Bede says that Æthelberht received Bertha " from her parents ".

Bede says that Horsa was killed in battle against the Britons and was thereafter buried in east Kent.

The medieval chronicler Bede says that Augustine sent Laurence back to Pope Gregory I to report on the success of converting King Æthelberht of Kent and to carry a letter with questions for the pope.

Bede says that Mellitus was exiled because he refused the brothers ' request for a taste of the sacramental bread.

In fact, Bede merely says that the Picts used matrilineal succession in exceptional cases.

Oswald was apparently born in or around the year 604, since Bede says that he was killed at the age of 38 in 642 ; Æthelfrith's acquisition of Deira is also believed to have occurred around 604.

Bede says that Oswald held imperium for the eight years of his rule ( both Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle say that Oswald's reign was actually considered to be nine years, the ninth year being accounted for by assigning to Oswald the year preceding his rule, " on account of the heathenism practised by those who had ruled that one year between him and Edwin "), and was the most powerful king in Britain.

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.

This could conflict with Bede's saintly portrayal of Oswald, since an aggressive war could hardly qualify as a just war, perhaps explaining why Bede is silent on the cause of the war — he says only that Oswald died " fighting for his fatherland "— as well as his failure to mention other offensive warfare Oswald is presumed to have engaged in between Heavenfield and Maserfield.

Bede says that the spot where he died came to be associated with miracles, and people took dirt from the site, which led to a hole being dug as deep as a man's height.

Bede says that Ninian was a Briton who had been instructed in Rome ; that he made his church of stone, which was unusual among the Britons ; that his episcopal see was named after Saint Martin of Tours ; that he preached to and converted the southern Picts ; that his base was at " hwit ærn ", which was in the province of the Bernicians ; and that he was buried there, along with many other saints.

Bede says that Alhfrith alone nominated Wilfrid, and that Oswiu subsequently proposed an alternative candidate, " imitating the actions of his son ".

Edwin's zeal, so Bede says, led to Raedwald's son Eorpwald also converting.

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.

As Bede does not describe Justus ' origins, nothing is known about him prior to his arrival in England.

Jaruman was not the first bishop of Lichfield ; Bede mentions a predecessor, Trumhere, but nothing is known about Trumhere's activities or who appointed him.

However, Chad was the teacher of Bede's own teacher, Trumbert, so Bede has an obvious personal interest in rehabilitating him, to say nothing of his loyalty to the Northumbrian establishment, which not only supported him but had played a notable part in Christianising England.

19th century scholar Jacob Grimm notes, while no other source mentions the goddesses Rheda and Ēostre, saddling Bede, a " father of the church, who everywhere keeps heathenism at a distance, and tells us less than he knows " with the invention of the goddesses Rheda and Ēostre would be uncritical, and that " there is nothing improbable in them, nay the first of them is justified by clear traces in the vocabularies of the German tribes.

The objections of the Council of Paris concerned penitentials of uncertain authorship ; by this time there were many manuscripts that attributed penitential decisions to certain authorities ( e. g., the Venerable Bede ) who had nothing to do with them.

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.

However, the unlikelihood that the reputable historian Bede invented Ninian without some basis in the historical record, combined with an increased knowledge of Ireland's early saints and Whithorn's early Christian connections, has led to serious scholarly efforts to find Bede's basis.

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.

Apart from referring to the odd kinsman, Bede offers little that is of help in determining Sigeberht's family connections.

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.

King Alfred the Great and the chronicler Æthelweard identified this place with the district that is now called Angeln, in the province of Schleswig ( Slesvig ) ( though it may then have been of greater extent ), and this identification agrees with the indications given by Bede.

A tradition which Bede accepts makes him a twin with his sister Scholastica.

Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work with the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers contributed significantly to English Christianity, making the writings much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons.

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

The dedication stone for the church has survived to the present day ; it is dated 23 April 685, and as Bede would have been required to assist with menial tasks in his day-to-day life it is possible that he helped in building the original church.

In Bede's thirtieth year ( about 702 ) Bede became a priest, with the ordination again performed by Bishop John.

According to Cuthbert, Bede fell ill " with frequent attacks of breathlessness but almost without pain ", before Easter.

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 was a Northumbrian, and this tinged his work with a local bias.

This, combined with Gildas's negative assessment of the British church at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions, led Bede to a very critical view of the native church.

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.

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.

Bede was familiar with pagan authors such as Virgil, but it was not considered appropriate to teach biblical grammar from such texts, and in De schematibus ... Bede argues for the superiority of Christian texts in understanding Christian literature.