On the Twelve Hundredth Anniversary of the Death of Bede
Author(s): Philip J. Furlong
Source: The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Oct., 1936), pp. 297-303
Published

To be remembered by posterity after twelve hundred years is in itself exceptional ; it is more than exceptional when one reflects that during the twelve hundred years which have elapsed since the death of the Venerable Bede dynasties have risen and vanished, Christendom has been divided and subdivided, new continents have been discovered and settled. And the wonder is not lessened by recalling the fact that the figure we are concerned with was not a great pontiff, nor a crusader, nor an empoeror; he was of all things a historian. To understand why after twelve hundred years the slight figure of Bede should be remembered at all it may be practical to borrow the suggestion in the inscription carved for an Englishman of a later time : “Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice” and transpose it into the injunction, “tolle, lege,” for Bede has a monument and that monument, the written word, is indeed an impressive one. Bede’s monument is composed of a series of works which includes theological and scriptural studies, literary pieces, that is to say the technical side of letters as well as some verses, treatises on natural science, and of particular importance, history.1 The variety of fields of human knowledge covered by Bede is little less than astonishing. The physical labor alone incident to the production of his intellectual output judged by any standards is considerable, but when it is reckoned, as it should be, both with reference to the troubled times in which he lived and to his own position in life, the results of Bede’s industry cannot fail to amaze us. So it appeared to Symeon of Durham, who wrote of Bede as one living “in a remote corner of the world, who never crossed the seas in order to learn knowledge, who did not visit the schools of the philosophers, [yet] should be famous for such great learning and should be known everywhere in the world for the composition of so many books.”

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Philip J. Furlong – On the Twelve Hundedth Anniversary of the Death of Bede by Venerabilis Bedae Studiosus