Given to the twin monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow as a seven-year-old oblate around 679, Bede survived a plague in 686 that left only him and Abbot Ceolfrith able to sing the full liturgical offices. This deep dive traces how a child raised in a remote Northumbrian monastery became one of Europe’s most influential scholars.

Bede studied tides, the spherical Earth, and the science of computus to calculate Easter, and he popularized the Anno Domini dating system that became the standard. His Ecclesiastical History of the English People earned him the title father of English history, and he died in 735 while dictating a translation of the Gospel of John.

• How the 686 plague accelerated his intellectual and spiritual development
• His observational work on tides varying along a single coastline
• The heresy accusation over recalculating the age of the world and his sharp written defense
• His pro-Northumbrian biases and hostility toward the native Britons
• His final gifts of pepper, napkins, and incense, and his 1899 naming as a Doctor of the Church