INTRODUCTION

Trumbert Book IV, Chapter 3. "He was no gadder about": we have traces of visits to Lindisfarne and York, but in all probability he rarely went outside the bounds of the monastery. As he says, "I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture, and amid the observance of monastic discipline, and the daily care of singing in the church, I always took delight in learning, teaching and writing," and so he might be spared the labours of the plough, the winnowing fan, the bakehouse, garden, kitchen, and other work which fell to the lot of his less scholarly brethren History of the Abbots, 8, according to the Benedictine rule. The monastery of Wearmouth was founded in the year 674, and that of Jarrow in 681 or 682, but, though at some distance apart, the two formed a single monastery. Of the abbots who ruled the two divisions of the monastery, jointly or separately, in Bede’s lifetime, he has given an account in his Lives of the Abbots, and from this work we gain a picture of monastic life according to Bede’s own ideal.

In his own monastery, Bede had the advantage of a good library: he speaks with enthusiasm of the books which Benedict Biscop brought back from his visits to Rome, and this collection was doubled by the care of abbot Ceolfrid History of the Abbots, 6, 9, 15. Books could also be borrowed by one monastery from another. Bede knew Latin, Greek, and probably some Hebrew. The learning of Western Europe in his day was summed up in his various works, and so made available for his countrymen. The bulk of his writings are theological, taking the form mainly of commentaries which are largely based upon the