Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/25

 THE

 CHAPTER I.

OF HIS BIRTH.

year of our Lord 673, remarkable for one of the most important of our Early English Councils, held at Hertford, for the purpose of enforcing certain general regulations of the Church, has an equal claim on our attention, as the year in which that great teacher of Religion, Literature, and Science, Venerable Bede, first saw the light.

The time of his birth has, however, been placed by some writers as late as A.D. 677, but this error arose from not perceiving that the last two or three pages of his Chronological Epitome, attached to the Ecclesiastical History, were added by another hand.

Bede's own words appear decisive in fixing the 