In the fourth year of his reign, Bede, the historian, after having written many books for the holy church, entered the heavenly kingdom, for which he had so long languished, in the year of our Lord's incarnation 734; of his age the fifty-ninth. A man whom it is easier to admire than worthily to extol: who, though born in a remote corner of the world, was able to dazzle the whole earth with the brilliancy of his learning. For even Britain, which by some is called another world, since, surrounded by the ocean, it was not thoroughly known by many geographers, possesses, in its remotest region, bordering on Scotland, the place of his birth and education. This region, formerly exhaling the grateful odour of monasteries, or glittering with a multitude of cities built by the Romans, now desolate through the ancient devastations of the Danes, or those more recent of the Normans,[1] presents but little to allure the mind. Here is the river Wear, of considerable breadth and rapid tide; which running into the sea, receives the vessels, borne by gentle gales, on the calm bosom of its haven. Both its banks[2] have been made conspicuous by one Benedict,[3] who there built churches and monasteries; one dedicated to Peter, and the other to Paul, united in the bond of brotherly love and of monastic rule. The industry and forbearance of this man, any one will admire who reads the book which Bede composed concerning his life and those of the succeeding abbats: his industry, in bringing over a multitude of books, and being the first person who introduced in England constructors of stone edifices, as well as makers of glass windows; in which pursuits he spent almost his whole life abroad: the love of his country and his taste for elegance beguiling his painful labours, in the
- ↑ The country was laid waste by the Danes, a.d. 793, and continued to be disturbed by them throughout the reigns of Alfred and Ethelred. The great devastation was made by William the Conqueror a.d. 1069.
- ↑ This is not quite correct: Jarrow, one of Benedict's monasteries, is on the river Tyne.
- ↑ Benedict surnamed Biscop, a noble Northumbrian, quitted the service of king Oswy, when he had attained his twenty-fifth year, and travelled to Rome five several times; occupying himself while there, either in learning the Roman ritual, or in collecting books, pictures, and ornaments of various descriptions for the monasteries he had founded at Wearmouth: he also brought over masons from France to build a church after the Roman manner; as well as artificers in glass. See Bede's Lives of the Abbats of Wearmouth and Jarrow.
