BED 



130 



BED 



~, -. 1 . rWMtutM to thu m iura, and the effect il 



had in lea mhly of the States-General, nnd 



ultim ;.^ to another article. 



HKDA.ur 15KDK. :ui English monk, one of the brightest 

 orn imcnts i'!' the eolith century, and one of the most cim- 

 nont fathers of ; '> church, whose talents and vir- 



prooured liim the name of the t'enerabte Hrd 

 oorn, according to gome, about the year 672, after Malmes- 

 iil.itiun in 675, according to Syraeon of Durham 



,", upon the estates which afterwards belonged in the 

 two abbeys of St. Peter nnd St. Paul in the bishopriek of 

 Durham, at \Vcarmouth and J arrow, near the mouth of the 

 river Tj ne. We have his own authority that at seven years 

 of age" he was brought to the monastery of St. Peter, and 

 committed to the care of Abbot Benedict, under whom and 

 .accessor Ccolfrid he was carefully educated for twelve 



. a favour which he afterwards repaid by writing their 

 In his nineteenth year he took deacon's orders, and in 

 his thirtieth year, at the instance of Ceolfrid his abbot, was 

 ordained priest, both times by John of Beverley, then bishop 

 of Haijustald, or Hexhara. who had been one of his early 

 preceptors. The fame of Bede now reached even to Rome, 

 and Pops Scruius made an earnest application to Abbot 

 Ceolfrid that Bede might be sent to assist him in the 

 promulgation of certain points of ecclesiastical discipline ; 

 but Bede, who was attached to his studies, remained in his 

 monastery, improving himself in all the learning of his age, 

 and directing his more particular attention to the compila- 

 tion of an 'ical Ilist'iry ';/' the Kngliih .\iitinn, 

 the materials for which he obtained partly from chronicles, 

 partly from annals preserved in contemporary convents, 

 and partly from the information of prelates with whom he 

 was acquainted. Making allowance for the introduction 

 of legendary matter, which was the fault of the age, few 

 works have supported their credit so long, or been so 

 generally consulted as authentic sources. Bede published 

 this history about the year 734, when, as he informs us, 

 he was fifty-nine years of age, but before this he had 

 written many other books on various subjects, a cata- 

 logue of which he subjoined to his history. By these he 

 obtained such reputation as to be consulted by the most 

 eminent churchmen of his age, and particularly by Egbert, 

 Archbishop of York, who was himself a very learned nun. 

 To him Bede wrote an epistle which illustrates the state of 

 the church at that time. It was one of the last, and in- 

 deed probably the very last of Bede's writings. In this letter 

 he expresses himself with much freedom, both in the advice 

 he gave to Egbert, and with respect to the inconveniences 

 winch he foresaw would arise from the multiplication of re- 

 ligious houses, to the prejudice both of church and state. 



It appears from this epistle that Bede was much indis- 

 posed when he wrote it, and probably began to fall into 

 that declining state of health from which he never recovered. 

 William of Malmesbury in his history (De Ge^tis Iti'xii 

 lib. iii. c. iii.), and Symeon of Durham m his account of the 

 church of Durham (lib. i. c. xv.), chiefly from the relati m o| 

 one Cuthbcrt, a fellow monk, have preserved full accounts 

 of the manner in which Bede died: whence we learn that 

 the last stage of his distemper was an asthma, which he 

 supported with great firmness of mind, although in much 



neb* and pain, for seven weeks, during which time he 

 did not in the least abate his usual employments in the mo- 

 nastery, but continued to pray, to instruct the younger 

 monks, and to prosecute the literary undertakings which 

 still in his hands. In the nights of his sickness, in 

 which, from the nature of his disease, he had little sleep, he 

 sung hymns and praises to God ; and though he expressed 

 the utmost confidence, and was able, on a review of his own 

 conduct, to declare seriously that he had so lived as not 

 to bo afraid to die, yet he did not deny his appTetMtukml 

 of death, and that dread which is natural to man at the ap- 

 proach of his dissolution. He was continually active to the 

 last, and particularly anxious about two works, one his 

 translation of St John's Gospel into the Saxon language, 

 the other some passages which he was extracting from the 

 works of St. Isidore. From the monks' relation it appears 

 that the day before his death he grew much worse, and his 

 feet began to swell, yet he passed the night as usual, and 

 continued dictating to the person who acted as his am.uni- 

 ensis, who, observing his weakness, said, ' There remains 

 now only one chapter, but it seems difficult to you to sp< ak.' 

 To which he answered, ' It is easy ; take your pen, dip it in 

 the ink, and write as fast as you con.' About nine- o'clock 



he sent for some of his brethren, priests of the raona-- 

 to divide amongst them some incense and other thin, 

 little value, which he had preserved m a chest. V> 

 he was speaking, the young man, Willierch, who wn>: 

 him, saul, ' Master, thei.- is now b ..encc .n:: 



upon which he bid him write quick, and soon after the 

 scribe said, ' Now it i-, finished.' To which he replied, ' Thou 

 hast said the truth, " consummation est." Take up my 

 head, I wish to sit opposite to the place where I have been 

 accustomed to pray, and where now sitting I HM> yet in- 

 voke my Father.' Being thus urding to his 

 desire, upon the tloor of his cell, he said, ' Glory bu to the 

 Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,' und as be 

 pronounced the last word he expired. He died, according 

 to the best opinion, May 'Jiiili. 7:i5, though the < 

 has been contested. His body was interred in the church 

 of his own monastery at Jarrow, but long afterwards was 

 removed to Durham, ami placed in the same coflin or client 

 with that of St. (.'uthlxirt, as up|H>ars by a very antient 

 S.iV'ii poem on the relics preserved in the cathedral of 

 Durham, printed at the end of Symeon of Durham's history. 

 (Twvsdcn's J),;viii Si-rijitnret, col. ;!_'.> 



Malmesbury' says, With this man was buried almost all 

 knowledge of history down to our times; inasmuch as there 

 has been no Englishman either emulous of his pursuits, or 

 a follower of his graces, who could continue the thread of 

 his discourses now broken short.' He complains, in addi- 

 tion, of the indolence and want of learning oi the monks in 

 Bede's monastery, down even to his own time, which he 

 exemplifies in the meanness of the lines so disgracelully 

 suffered to remain upon Bede's tomb : 



l'n^li\ t<T i: "iltui : 



DOM. Chritte, animam In c<*U* gaadtn) per n-vnm ; 

 llaqm- illi KiphiK ci.-brijn fonle, cni jam 

 Susjii: -tt-nlo semper amor*.' 



' Hi'tr iii tlif ili-Oi iv*u ItiMf ilif ^riu>t; O give 

 His sonl with joy etpninlly to live: 

 And let him quart'. O ClirM. uf w icdum's xli,M 

 This was his wish, hi* lullil, jHMl'i'liial llu-im 1 .' 



Warton, in the second dissertation prefixed to his first 

 volume of the History of English Poetry, has justly ob- 

 served that Bede's knowledge, if we consider his ,ige, was 

 extensive and profound; and it is amazing in so rude a 

 period, and during a life of no considerable length, that he 

 should have made so successful a progress, and such rapid 

 improvements in scientific and philological studies, ami 

 Irive composed so many elaborate treatises on different 

 subjects. It is diverting, he adds, to see the French cntu s 

 censuring Bede for credulity ; they might as well have ac- 

 cused him of superstition. There is much perspicuity and 

 facility in his Latin style, but it is void of elegance, und 

 often of purity; it shows with what grace and propriety he 

 would have written had his taste In-en formed on belter 

 models. Whoever looks for digestion of mal' 

 Warton. disposition of parts, and accuracy of narration ii> 

 this writer's historical works, expects what could not exist 

 at that time. He 1ms recorded but few civil trans ic; 

 bill beside* that his history professedly considers cci , 

 tical afl'airs, we should remember that the building ul a 

 church, the preferment of an abbot, the canoni/aiion of a 

 martyr, and the importation into England of the slnn-l>one 

 of an apostle, were necessarily matters of much more im- 

 portance in Bede's conception than victories and revolu- 

 tions. He is fond of minute description : hut particularities 

 are the fault, and often the merit of early hi-toriaus. 



The first catalogue of Bede's works, as we have 1 

 observed, we have from himself, at the end of hi- 

 tiral Ilixlury, which contains all he had written before tho 

 year 731. This wo find copied by Leland, who al-u men- 

 tions some other pieces he had met with of Hcde's, and 

 points out likewise several that passed under Bede's name, 

 though, in Inland's judgment, spurious. (I.el. </ S,rr/il. 

 ////. ed. Hall, Oxf. 170'J, torn. i. p. 115.) Bale, in the first 

 edition of his work on British writers (Ito. Cippcsw. I .">!, 

 ), mentions 96 treatises written by Kede, and in his 

 last edition (fol. 1559, p. 94) swells these to 143 tracts ; and 

 declares at the close of both catalogues that there were 

 numberless pieces besides of Bede's which he had not seen. 

 Pits has enlarged even this catalogue ; though, to do him 

 justice, he appears to have taken great pains in drawing up 

 the article on Bede, and mentions many of the libraries ni 

 which those treatises are to be found. The catalogues 

 given by Trittenheiin, or Trithemius (Catal. Scrijil. Kcrle- 

 tiatt. 4to. Col. 1531, fol. 50 b.), and Dempster (Hist. EC- 



