It is highly likely that he was from an aristocratic family. However, the practice of giving children to a monastic house continues throughout much of the medieval period.īede was ordained a deacon at the age of 19 and ordained a priest aged 30.īede tells us very little about his family background. Interestingly, a church council held at Toledo 24 years earlier (656) had forbidden the acceptance of oblates under the age of ten.

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In the early middle ages, the connotation was someone offered to God. The word oblate comes from the Latin oblatus – meaning someone who has been offered. Bede would have been given to the monastery as a child oblate. Peter’s monastery, Wearmouth. Bede remained at the monastery of Monkwearmouth and the nearby sister monastery of Jarrow until his death. In the 14th century, Dante had Bede in paradise sitting next to Isidore of Seville.īede entered Monkwearmouth monastery at the age of 7, he was entrusted by his relations to Benedict Biscop, Abbot of St. The popularity of Bede and the cult surrounding him only intensified during the revival of monasticism in the tenth century. (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Concilia, 2/2, 1908, 359). In 836 at the Council of Aachen in he was described as an ‘honourable and admirable teacher and was considered to be an equal of the Church Fathers. Indeed shortly following his death, Bede came to be regarded as a saint. Bede was never formally canonized as a Saint, quite often the development of sanctity in the Early Medieval period depended upon local interest. Often referred to as ‘Venerable’ – this is the first of 3 stages leading to canonization. He is the only Englishman to be named a Doctor of the Church, a title conferred onto him by Pope Leo XIII in 1899 for Bede’s contribution to theological writings. But who was Bede and why is he often accredited as the Father of English History? Bede the Monkīede was a Northumbrian monk, he was born around 673 and he died in 735 AD. Undoubtedly a title that holds great honour and reverence. Bede is often accorded the title ‘The Father of English History’.

History of the english church bede