So died Bede, surnamed the Venerable.
We have come to think of Venerable as meaning very old. But Bede was only sixty-two when he died, and Venerable here means rather "Greatly to be honored."
There are two or three stories about how Bede came to be given his surname. One tells how a young monk was set to write some lines of poetry to be put upon the tomb where his master was buried. He tried hard, but the verse would not come right. He could not get the proper number of syllables in his lines.
"In this grave lie the bones of
Bede,"
he wrote. But he could not find an adjective that would make the line the right length, try how he might. At last, wearied out, he fell asleep over his task.
Then, as he slept, an angel bent down, and taking the pen from the monk's tired fingers, wrote the words, "the Venerable," so that the line ran, "In this grave lie the bones of the Venerable Bede." And thus, for all time, our first great historian is known as The Venerable Bede.
BOOK TO READ
The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, by Bede, translated by Dr. Giles.
Chapter XV HOW ALFRED THE GREAT FOUGHT WITH HIS PEN
WHILE Caedmon sang his English lays and Bede wrote his Latin books, Northumbria had grown into a center, not only of English learning, but of learning for western Europe. The abbots of Jarrow and Wearmouth made journeys to Rome and brought back with them precious MSS. for the monastery libraries. Scholars from all parts of Europe came to visit the Northumbrian monasteries, or sent thither for teachers.