Bede: Biography, Achievements & Lasting Legacy

His theological writings were extensive and included a number of Biblical commentaries and other works of exegesis. Another important area of study for Bede was the academic discipline of computus, otherwise known to his contemporaries as the science of calculating calendar dates. One of the more important dates Bede tried to compute was Easter, an effort that was mired in controversy. He also helped to popularise the practice of dating forward from the birth of Christ (Anno Domini—in the year of our Lord), a practice which eventually became commonplace in medieval Europe. He is considered by many historians to be the most important scholar of antiquity for the period between the death of Pope Gregory I in 604 and the coronation of Charlemagne in 800. Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work made the Greek and Latin writings of the early Church Fathers much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons, which contributed significantly to English Christianity. Bede's monastery had access to a library that included works by Eusebius, Orosius, and many others.

A cult formed around Bede by the tenth century and was widespread in England by the fourteenth. His body was translated to Durham Cathedral in 1020 and placed in the same tomb as Saint Cuthbert, before being moved to an independent shrine in 1370. The shrine was demolished during the English Reformation, but Bede was reburied in the cathedral. In 1899, Pope Leo XIII declared him a Doctor of the Church. He is the first native of Great Britain to achieve this designation.