Ecclesiastical History of the English People

To return to the few facts which we know about Beda's life. He tells us that he was born on the domain of the abbey of Wearmouth and Jarrow. The abbey at Wearmouth was begun A.D. 674, on land given by Ecgfrith, King of Northumberland, to Biscop Benedict. The abbey at Jarrow was begun A.D. 682, on land given for the purpose by the same king. But the year of Beda's birth is a matter of uncertainty. The two manuscript Lives of him already referred to fix it A.D. 677. Pagi Critic. in Annal. Baron. A.D. 698, § 8. places it in A.D. 674; Mabillon Mabillon's Elogium Historicum, appended to the first Life of Beda, in Smith, p. 794. in A.D. 673; the editors of the Monumenta Historica Britannica in A.D. 672. But Mabillon's reasoning seems incontrovertible. If it be true that the History was written A.D. 731, it follows that Beda, being then in his fifty-ninth year, must have been born in A.D. 673 or 672.

He was born then on the lands to the north of the Wear, which even then Cenwalh of Wessex died A.D. 672, on which Benedict returned to Northumberland, and so charmed Ecgfrith that he immediately ('confestim') gave him the land for Wearmouth Abbey; p. 374. may have been destined by King Ecgfrith for the ground on which the future abbey was to be built. At seven years old he was put under the care of Abbot Benedict by his relations. In A.D. 684 Benedict, on his going to Rome for the fifth time, made Ceolfrid abbot of Jarrow, and Easterwine of Wearmouth. Ceolfrid ultimately became abbot of both, as he succeeded Sigfrith, Easterwine's successor, in A.D. 688; but as Beda in his short autobiography makes no mention of either Easterwine or Sigfrith, we must conclude that he was bred up in the abbey of St. Paul at Wearmouth. He proceeds—'I have passed all my life since then in the same monastery, and have given my whole attention to studying of the Scriptures; and in the intervals of my observance of the monastic discipline and of the daily occupation