archbishop Elfric, and their places were filled with Benedictine monks. After another change, these were finally established in it by archbishop Lanfranc, who rebuilt a great part of the cathedral, and the adjoining monastery, and about the year 1080, placed a hundred and fifty monks there. From that time it was frequently called the church or priory of the holy Trinity. During many ages its rich possessions were increased from time to time, till the dissolution; when its estates were seized by K. Henry VIII. But against this house at least no crime could be alleged but its wealth. The king restored a great part of its lands to the cathedral, for the endowment of a dean and twelve canons or prebendaries, besides preachers, minor canons and others.

The city of Canterbury formerly contained many. hospitals and a house of Benedictine nuns. The orders of the Augustinian, the Dominican, and the Franciscan Friars had also, each of them, a house there.

The present cathedral was built at different periods, as its varied architecture bears witness. The oldest part belongs to the end of the eleventh century. Additions were gradually made by succeeding archbishops, till the nave and cloisters were built, about the beginning of the fifteenth century. It was once full of chauntries, altars, and shrines of inestimable value, but the hand of sacrilege has left little remaining except the walls. The chapel of S. Thomas was enriched by the offerings of thousands of pilgrims, and his shrine was one mass of gold and jewels. We read that those treasures "filled two great chests, one of which six or eight strong men could do no more

than carry out of the church. All these were taken to the king's use, and the bones of S. Thomas were burnt to ashes, in September 1538."

For ever hallowed be this morning fair,

Blest be the unconscious shore on which ye tread, And blest the silver Cross, which ye, instead Of martial banner, in procession bear; The Cross preceding Him who floats in air, The pictured Saviour.-By Augustin led, They come and onward travel without dread, Chaunting in barbarous ears a tuneful prayerSung for themselves, and those whom they would free, Rich conquest waits them ;-the tempestuous sea Of ignorance, that ran so rough and high, And heeded not the voice of clashing swords, These good men humble by a few bare words, And calm with fear of God's divinity. Wordsworth, Eccl. Sonnets, Part i. xiv.

MAY 27.

Venerable Bede, Priest.

735.

THIS illustrious doctor of the Church was born near the village of Jarrow, in the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, about the year 673. When he was seven years of age he was sent by his relations to the monastery of S. Peter at Weremouth. S. Benedict Biscop, who was then abbat, had founded it in 674, with the assistance of K. Egfrid. Not far from it was the monastery of Jarrow, near the mouth of the river Tyne, which the same holy abbat had dedicated in honour of S. Paul, in the year 684. These houses were then governed by one superior. They afterwards became cells to the abbey of Durham.

While he was still very young, Venerable Bede was removed to the house at Jarrow; and there he spent his life, as he himself says, "in meditating on Holy Scripture, in the observance of the discipline of his rule, and in chaunting the daily Office in the church, in learning, teaching, and writing." He became master of the Latin and Greek languages, and of every science known in that age. The monasteries were then, as in later times, seminaries of learning, both for the young religious, who became teachers in their turn, and for the sons of the nobility who generally received their education in them. Trumbert, a former disciple of S. Chad at Lichfield, was the chief instructor of Ven. Bede in sacred studies; and in the music of the Church he was trained by John the arch-chaunter of S. Peter's in Rome, whom S. Benedict Biscop had brought with him from Italy to teach his monks the exact performance of the divine office.

At the age of nineteen, Bede was ordained deacon by S. John of Beverley, bishop of Hexham, afterwards archbishop of York. With the permission of Ceolfrid his superior, the canons which forbid the admission of so young a man into holy orders were for some reason set aside. When he was thirty years old he was ordained priest by the same holy hands. After his ordination, he devoted himself more exclusively to the study of Holy Scripture, and wrote commentaries on a great part of it. In 724 he composed a book on the six ages of the world, which made some ignorant persons accuse him of heresy. He was at great pains to clear himself from the charge, and took occasion in his defence to protest against any attempt to conjecture the time when the

end of the world will come, which God has hid in His secret counsels. He wrote the lives of many holy men of his time; among others, of the first five abbats of his monastery, and of S. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne. He also compiled a martyrology, containing the names and short notices of the lives of the saints whom the Church honoured yearly in his age.

His great work is the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, from the landing of Julius Cæsar in Britain till the year 731. It is divided into five books. He was assisted in it by many of the learned men of that age, who furnished him with information regarding the various parts of the kingdom where they lived.

Thus Albinus, abbat of S. Augustin's in Canterbury, sent him memoirs of the history of the south-eastern counties. They were brought to Jarrow by Northelm, a priest of London, who gave Ven. Bede much information orally regarding them, and undertook a journey to Rome to search in the archives of the Church, with the permission of Gregory III, the reigning pontiff. He discovered many original letters of S. Gregory the Great, and other documents connected with the mission of S. Augustin to Britain. From Daniel, bishop of Winchester, S. Bede learned many particulars of the history of Wessex and Sussex. His own researches, aided by the monks of Lindisfarne, sufficed for the kingdom of Northumbria; and regarding Mercia and Essex he gained his information from the religious of Lestinghen. This history was one of his latest works. Besides these he composed a number of smaller treatises chiefly in illustration and defence of Catholic doctrine and practice, of which he has left a catalogue continued till very near the time of his death. His

writings have ever been highly valued for their remarkable accuracy. S. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, requested Egbert, archbishop of York, to send him some of Ven. Bede's works, for his mission. Many of the lessons in the daily Office of the Latin Church are taken from his homilies. Thus, as it is remarked by Turgot, prior of Durham, and afterwards bishop of S. Andrew's in Scotland, in the 12th century, "Ven. Bede while alive was concealed in the furthest corner of the world, but after his death he became known in every part of it and still lives in his writings."

Soon after he was ordained priest, pope Sergius wrote to his superior, desiring him to send Ven. Bede to Rome; but the death of the chief Bishop in the same year prevented him. Numbers of disciples were attracted by his name to Jarrow; and many of them became eminent for learning and holiness. He seems to have rarely left his enclosure, but employed the intervals of study in manual labour, as his rule enjoined. In the year before his decease, he visited the city of York, and Egbert, who had been only lately consecrated to the see, invited him to return in the following year. But his last sickness had then come upon him, and he could only write a letter to the archbishop, filled with advice regarding the government of the Church, which his venerable age entitled him to offer. He urged him to be careful that every one should know the Lord's Prayer and the Creed by heart, and that those who were ignorant of the Latin should be taught to repeat them in their own language. For this purpose he said that he had translated them. He complained of the relaxation of discipline, and of the irregularities which had crept