02Knights Templar - Julian Emperor

CELTIC AND EARLY ENGLISH SAINTS
672 AD. What is known of Bede is recorded in his most famous
work Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum or ‘The
Ecclesiastical History of the English People’. He gives a brief
biographical description of his life in which he relates that he
was sent to join the monastery of St Peter at Monkwearmouth
in Northumbria when he was seven years old. He goes on to
say that he became a deacon at the age of nineteen and, after
training, became a priest. He also said that he became a priest
when he was thirty. Bede served under and was trained by
Abbot Benedict Biscop and Abbot Ceolfrid. It is likely that
Bede joined the monastery of Jarrow with Abbot Ceolfrid in
682 AD.
It is interesting to note that the title of the ‘Venerable’
Bede may actually derive from a mistaken translation of words
on the monk’s tomb at Durham Cathedral. An inscription
written in Latin on his tomb reads, ‘Here lie the venerable
bones of Bede’. However, it is thought that this was wrongly
interpreted as saying, ‘Here lie the bones of the Venerable
Bede’!
Lindisfarne
One of the most infamous events to take place in the history
of Lindisfarne, and one that would have dramatic repercussions
for Christianity in England, was a fierce attack on the
monastic community there by a Viking raiding party. The
entry for the year 793 AD in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, a
collection of manuscripts charting the history of England during
this period, makes for particularly compelling reading and
describes the circumstances surrounding the attack in vivid
detail as presaging a kind of cosmic disaster:
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