Happy Feast Day of Saint Bede

The Venerable Bede Translates John by J. D. Penrose (ca 1902)

Today is the feast of St Bede (c673-735 AD), also known as the Venerable Bede, who was an Anglo-Saxon monk, theologian and historian living in Britain. His most famous work, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People has gained him the title Father of English History. At the National Shrine of Saint Jude, we have remembered this special saint.

In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII; 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 was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work made the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons, contributing significantly to English Christianity. Bede's monastery had access to an impressive library which included works by Eusebius and Orosius, among many others.