made all posterity indebted to him, are his historical and biographical
writings. He wrote a poem on the miracles of St. Cuthbert, and
afterwards he wrote a prose narrative "Of the Life and Miracles of St.
Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne;" and in this, though a new and
independent work, something of the poem is reproduced. It is in this
prose work that we find the call of Cuthbert on the night of Aidan's
death, the details of his hermit life on the rocky islet of Farne, to
which he had retired for greater rigour of devotion, from which he was
called back to be bishop at Lindisfarne, and to which after two years'
episcopate he again retired for the remnant of his life.

He wrote also a prose life of St. Felix, drawing his materials from the
metrical life of that saint in hexameters by Paulinus.

His greatest biographical work is "Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and
Jarrow, namely, Benedict, Ceolfrid, Easterwini, Sigfrid, and Hwetbert."
These were the heads of the two sister foundations with which his career
was identified; and some of them had been his own teachers. The Life of
Benedict is the most interesting, as might be expected, and it fills the
largest part of the book.

Finally, his greatest work, the work which is a gift for all time, is
his "Church History of the Anglian People." This was the work of the
author's mature powers, and some of his earlier writings are made use of
in it. In this history, which is divided into five books, there is,
first, a summary of the history of Britain, from the time of Julius
Cæsar down to the time of Gregory the Great. This part occupies
twenty-two chapters, and is drawn from Orosius and Gildas and
Constantius. The proper narrative of Bede begins at chap. xxiii., and
there the conversion and early history of Saxon Christianity is given