Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/104

Bede ecclesiastic named Albinus. Both these helped Bæda in his 'Historia Ecclesiastica,' and Albinus more than any one urged him to undertake the work. Ecgberht, archbishop of York, and Acca and Frithhere, bishops of Hexham and Sherborne, were also his friends. To Acca he dedicated most of his theological works. From this bishop, who was also one of the most faithful friends of Wilfrith (, 56, 64), Bæda probably obtained the full information which he had about Wilfrith's good deeds. Even Bæda had some enemies who seem to have been jealous of his literary pre-eminence. At a feast held by Wilfrith, bishop of York (d. 732), he was accused by some of the guests of having expressed heretical opinions in his 'De Temporibus liber minor.' The scandalous accusation was heard unrebuked by the bishop, and was probably circulated by one of his household. Bæda replied to it by a letter to a friend (Ep. ad Plegwinum), which was written with the expressed intention that it should be shown to Wilfrith. In it he speaks plainly of the unseemly revelry of the episcopal feast, and this reference (cf. Carmen de Pontif. Eccl. Ebor. 1. 1232) shows that the bishop in question was the second of that name and not the more famous Wilfrith.

Bæda loved to meditate and make notes on the Scriptures. Simeon of Durham (d. 1130) records (Hist. de Dunelm. Eccl. c. 14) that there used to be shown a stone hut (mansiuncula), where, secure from all interruption, he was wont to meditate and work. In the time of Leland (Collect. iv. p. 42, ed. 1720), the three monks of Jarrow, all who were then left of that once famous congregation, showed what is described as his oratory. The little boy who worked so hard with his abbot to keep up the antiphonal chant when all the burden of the singing lay on them alone, rejoiced all his life to take part in the services of the monastery church. Alcuin, writing after Bæda's death to the monks of Wearmouth, tells them (Alc. Ep. 16, ed. Migne), that he loved to say, 'I know that angels visit the congregation of the brethren at the canonical hours, and what if they should not find me among the brethren? Would they not say, "Where is Bæda? Why comes he not with his brethren to the prayers appointed?"' The attainments of Bæda prove that he must have been a diligent student. He has recorded the name of another of his teachers besides the abbot Ceolfrith. Trumberht, he tells us, used to instruct him in the Scriptures. He had been a pupil of Ceadda, and used to tell his scholar much about his old master (H. E. iv. 3). From him doubtless Beeda learned to reverence the holy men of the Celtic church. John of Beverley is also said by Folcard (Vit S. Johan. c. 2) to have been his teacher. It may have been so, but, as Folcard lived in the middle of the eleventh century, he must not be regarded as an authority on this matter. It is not unlikely that Bæda received help from some of the disciples of Theodore and Hadrian, of whom he speaks with admiration (H. E. iv. 2), and he must certainly have come under the instruction of John the archcantor (Vit. Abb. 6; see 's Introd. p. ix). Besides knowing Latin he understood Greek and had some acquaintance with Hebrew. He quotes Homer, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Terence, and many other writers of less classical fame (, Biog. Lit. i. 39-41). He was familiar with patristic literature, and was a diligent translator and compiler of extracts from that great storehouse. Like most of his countrymen at that age, he was a singer. His mind was well stored with the songs of his native land, and he had what was then in England the not uncommon gift of improvisation. Besides his powers as an historian and a biographer, he knew all the learning of his time, its grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, and physical science. All his talents were employed in the cause of his church and in the instruction of others. He was a diligent teacher, and found many scholars among the six hundred monks who in his days thronged the sister houses of St. Peter and St. Paul (Vit. Abb. 17). Some of these pupils, like Nothelm who has been already mentioned, Huætberht and Cuthberht, two successive abbots of Wearmouth, and Constantine, became the friends of after years, and were among those to whom Bæda dedicated his works.

A sentence in the 'Ep. ad Wicredum de Paschæ Celebratione,' which speaks of 776 as the current year, gave rise to the belief that Bæda lived at least to that date. Mabillon has however pointed out that the sentence is an interpolation by another hand (, Critic. Baron. xii. 401;, Analect. i. 398). The day of his death is known to have been the Feast of the Ascension, 26 May 735, by a letter written by one of his pupils named Cuthberht to Cuthwine, his fellow scholar (, Introd. xiv; of Durham, p. 8; S.  Op. ep. 113, ed. Giles). Bæda, Cuthberht says, suffered from a tightness of breath which grew rapidly worse during the month of April. Up to 26 May, however, he continued his lectures, and through the many sleepless hours of night was still cheerful, sometimes giving thanks to God, sometimes chanting words of Holy