Windows of St Bede’s – The Venerable Bede
In memory of Edward Marston Ashwin
St Bede spent most of his time as a monk in the monastery of St Paul . (Jarrow) One of the only churches in which he worshipped that still survives. Situated in the south of the Tyne on the banks of the River Don lies the St Paul ‘s, the parish of old Jarrow. St Paul ‘s Church is till in use for worshipping and is one of the earliest Anglo-Saxon buildings in England . The church stands beside the atmospheric ruins of a late monastery, dating from the 4 th Century. It was built on the remains of the Anglo-Saxon monastery where Bede lived and worked, but which was ravaged by the Village only sixty years after his death.
St Bede who lived from 673-735AD was the TRANSLATOR of the First English Bible and Author of the First History of England. He was the author of the classical “Ecclesiastical History of the English People” and the greatest scholar of his day. He spent his life in the monasteries of St Peter, Monkwearmouth and St Paul , Jarrow where he died in 735. About 1022 his bones were brought to Durham and buried with those of St Cuthbert but in 1370 were finally placed in a splendid shrine the Galilee chapel. This was destroyed at the reformation and Bede’s bones buried in the place where it stood. In 1831 they found some remains of Bede’s, there were remains such as some of his bones and an iron finger ring, of which now they are placed in a Cathedral Museum. The bones were re-interred, and the present altar tomb erected above them, with the ancient inscription. ‘In this tomb are the bones of the Venerable Bede”