INTRODUCTION

Between the years 635 and 804, a succession of three great scholars, whose fame extended far beyond their native land, adorned the Church in England: Aldhelm, Bede, and Alcuin. Aldhelm belonged to Wessex, while Bede and Alcuin belonged to Northumbria. Aldhelm was abbot of Malmesbury and bishop of Sherborne; Alcuin was master of the school of York and later passed into the service of Charlemagne.

Bede, says Fuller Thomas Fuller, Church-history, century viii, sections 15-18, was "the profoundest scholar of his age for Latin, Greek, philosophy, history, divinity, mathematics, music, and what not." The simple facts of his life, as well as a list of his various writings, are given in his own words at the end of the Ecclesiastical History Book V, Chapter 24. He was born in 672 or 673 upon lands which shortly afterwards were granted to Benedict Biscop Book IV, Chapter 18 for the foundation of Wearmouth Abbey. At the age of seven he was "given by the care of his kinsfolk to abbot Benedict to be brought up," and the rest of his life was spent in the monastery, first at Wearmouth and then, a year after he had been received, at Jarrow, where he had been taken by Ceolfrid, its first abbot. He was no doubt educated in the monastery school, but of the brethren who taught him he only names