Bede's Ecclesiastical History of EnglandBede, the Venerable, Saint
History
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England
Bede, the Venerable, Saint
England -- Church history -- 449-1066
Chap. II. How Theodore visited all places; how the Churches of the English
began to be instructed in the study of Holy Scripture, and in the Catholic
truth; and how Putta was made bishop of the Church of Rochester in the
room of Damianus. [669 A.D.]
Theodore came to his Church in the second year after his consecration, on
Sunday, the 27th of May, and spent in it twenty-one years, three months,
and twenty-six days. Soon after, he visited all the island, wherever the
tribes of the English dwelt, for he was gladly received and heard by all
persons; and everywhere attended and assisted by Hadrian, he taught the
right rule of life, and the canonical custom of celebrating Easter. This
was the first archbishop whom all the English Church consented to obey.
And forasmuch as both of them were, as has been said before, fully
instructed both in sacred and in secular letters, they gathered a crowd of
disciples, and rivers of wholesome knowledge daily flowed from them to
water the hearts of their hearers; and, together with the books of Holy
Scripture, they also taught them the metrical art, astronomy, and
ecclesiastical arithmetic. A testimony whereof is, that there are still
living at this day some of their scholars, who are as well versed in the
Greek and Latin tongues as in their own, in which they were born. Nor were
there ever happier times since the English came into Britain; for having
brave Christian kings, they were a terror to all barbarous nations, and
the minds of all men were bent upon the joys of the heavenly kingdom of
which they had but lately heard; and all who desired to be instructed in
sacred studies had masters at hand to teach them.
From that time also they began in all the churches of the English to learn
Church music, which till then had been only known in Kent. And, excepting
James, of whom we have spoken above,(536) the first teacher of singing in
the churches of the Northumbrians was Eddi, surnamed Stephen,(537) invited
from Kent by the most reverend Wilfrid, who was the first of the bishops
of the English nation that learned to deliver to the churches of the
English the Catholic manner of life.(538)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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