Bede and medieval civilization

The mortal remains of the Venerable Bede rest today in the cathedral church of Christ and Blessed Mary the Virgin, Durham. They were brought there in the early eleventh century by one Ælfred Westou, priest and sacrist of Durham and an enthusiastic amateur of that characteristically medieval form of devotion expressed in the acquisition, by fair means or foul, of the relics of the saints to the greater glory of God. The removal of Bede's remains to Durham, involving as it did considerable preliminary planning and solitary nocturnal vigil before the final successful snatch, was one of his more brilliant coups, upon which he seems especially to have preened himself. The bones were first kept in the coffin of St Cuthbert, being subsequently removed to a reliquary near the saint's tomb. In 1370 they were placed in the Galilee Chapel, where they now lie under a plain table-tomb of blue marble, made in 1542 after the medieval shrine had been defaced. Bede himself would certainly have preferred that his body should have been left in its grave among his brethren at Jarrow, there to await the coming of Christ which he so ardently desired to see; but if a removal had to be made, we need not doubt that he would have been content to lie at Durham, near but not too near the shrine of St Cuthbert, the great saint and patron of the north, under a modest tombstone, so much more in keeping with his nature than the earlier and richer shrine, despoiled by the commissioners of Henry VIII

Amateur · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Chapel · Coffin · Eleventh · Glory · Middle Ages · SAINT · The Venerable · Vigil · Byzantine Studies and History · Classics · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Medieval Literature and History

• History and Geography in Late Antiquity

  A H Merrills, Andy Merrills•History and Geography in Late…•2009

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• Germanic and Roman antiquity and the sense of the past in Anglo-Saxon England

  Open Access•Michael Hunter•Anglo-Saxon England•1974

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• The Bishop as Pastor and Solitary

  Open Access•SIMON COATES, Simon J Coates•The Journal of Ecclesiastical…•1996

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• Bede and Cicero

  Open Access•Roger D Ray, Roger Ray•Anglo-Saxon England•1987

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• The penitential motif in Cynewulf's Fates of the Apostles and in his epilogues

  Open Access•Robert C Rice•Anglo-Saxon England•1977

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• Bede's "In Ezram et Neemiam" and the Reform of the Northumbrian Church

  Scott DeGregorio•Speculum•2004

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• The conflict between paganism and Christianity in the fourth century

  Arnaldo Momigliano•The conflict between paganism and…•1964

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• Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages

  R W Southern, Richard Southern•Western Views Of Islam In The…•1962

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• The Wandering Scholars

  Open Access•Helen Waddell•The wandering scholars•1990

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• Bedae Opera De Temporibus

  Heinrich Henel, Charles W Jones•The American Historical Review•1944

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• Bede as a Classical and a Patristic Scholar

  Open Access•M L W Laistner•Transactions of the Royal…•1933

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• Bede's Early Reading

  Ruby Davis•Speculum•1933

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• Microcosm and Mediator. The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor

  Endre Von Ivänka, Lars Thunberg•Vigiliae Christianae•1968

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