ABSTRACT
Bede (c. 673-735) was the foremost intellectual figure of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Educated in the monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow from the age of seven, Bede is thought never to have left the kingdom of Northumbria. The extensive body of work that he produced is a remarkable achievement for a scholar of any era, let alone one that lived in such a remote part of medieval Europe. In a famous sentence of the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, which documents the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to the Christian faith, Bede attests to the pleasure that he derived from the three main activities of his life: ‘It has always been my delight’, he writes, ‘to learn or to teach or to write’.1 This statement is found in the autobiographical account of Bede’s life which concludes the Historia ecclesiastica. Bede informs us that he was born within close proximity to Wearmouth-Jarrow, was ordained as deacon aged 19 and became a priest at the canonical age of 30 (c. 703). The final chapter of the Historia ecclesiastica preserves a detailed list of Bede’s Latin works. The catalogue is dominated by several biblical commentaries, but it also contains contributions to many other genres. Bede compiled hagiographic, historic, poetic and educational works, as well as several letters and a martyrology. Though a small number of compositions that are known to be authentic are not included in Bede’s autobiographical list, it nevertheless gives a reasonably comprehensive overview of his body of work.
