To have been possessed by Bede, it must be eleven hundred years old; but there is no precisely authentic testimony of its belonging to that learned writer.  The Danes and Normans are said to have plundered the monastery of all its valuables; though it is reasonable to suppose, that the monks would preserve the seat of their principal with more reverential care, and attach to it more importance, than they would to any other article of furniture.  Mr. Fosbroke, the diligent antiquarian, refers to it as Bede’s Chair in accredited manner; that is, as taken for granted, or without note or comment of doubt.

Venerable Bede was born at Wearmouth, A.D. 672, only a few years after the introduction of Christianity into Northumberland.  When seven years of age, he was received into the monastery of his native place, where his infant mind acquired the rudiments of that knowledge which has rendered his memory immortal.  When only nineteen, he was ordained deacon; and, even at that early age, was regarded as exemplary for his piety and studious life:  he was subsequently removed to the new foundation at Jarrow, where he continued to study throughout a long life.  The results of his monastic seclusion furnish a bright page even in these dark ages.  “Such was the authority of his writings, that, though only a humble monk in the most remote, barbarous, and recently converted of the Saxon principalities, he attained (what was even then) the singular honour of being the most celebrated writer of Christendom for more centuries than one."[5] His great work is entitled, an “Ecclesiastical History,” detailing ecclesiastical with civil events; which was, indeed, inevitable, when the ecclesiastics were the only men of knowledge.  Bede believed in miraculous interpositions, and honestly related them; nevertheless, our obligations to his industry are invaluable.  To him we owe all our knowledge of English history, from the landing of the Saxons in Kent to his time, (nearly three centuries,) and all our certain information respecting the various tribes who then inhabited the island:  from him it is apparent that the work called the Saxon Chronicle copies long passages.  Bede also translated St. John’s Gospel into English; and it is said, that a copy of some of St. Paul’s Epistles, in Bede’s handwriting, is still preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.  His works, published at Basle, extend to eight folio volumes.

Bede died May 26, 735, in the sixty-third year of his age.  He was first buried in his own monastery, but his remains were afterwards removed, and interred in Durham cathedral; and, being subsequently canonized, he was enrolled in the Romish calendar of saints.  His character is thus drawn by William of Malmsbury:—­“He was a man, that, although born in the extreme corner of the world, yet the light of his learning spread over all parts of the earth.  All the hours which he had to spare from the monastic exercises of prayer, and singing in the choirs by day and night, (in which he was constant, and very devout,) he most diligently spent in study, and divided his whole time between that and his devotions.”