ding, which had to be removed by reason of the breaking through of
the new doorways, were used to fill up the lower part of the great west
door. The latter was again removed in 1846, when the west doorway was
re-opened. Langley's two doorways have four centred arches enclosed
beneath a square label moulding, with shields bearing the Cardinal's
coat-of-arms in each spandrel. To Langley also may be attributed the
five massive buttresses on the exterior of the western wall of the
chapel, which partly cover the arcading and panelling with which it was
decorated. In adding the new roof Langley raised the walls above the
arches to carry it, giving a somewhat peculiar effect to the interior.
The original roof lines can still be made out on the west wall. Of the
contents of the chapel remaining, perhaps the most interesting to the
visitor is the grave and site of the shrine of the Venerable Bede. The
shrine, like that of S. Cuthbert's, is gone, and all that remains is the
stone slab on which it once stood, and which bears the inscription
(placed there in 1831):

Hac sunt in Fossa
Baedae Venerabilis Ossa

This remarkable man was contemporary with S. Cuthbert, whom, as we have
said, he survived forty-eight years. His holiness and piety, together
with his great learning, earned for him the title Venerable, and after
his death, in 735, his bones were enshrined. Of his parentage we know
nothing, except that, from his own writings, he was born in the
territory of the Abbey of Wearmouth. At the age of seven he was being
educated in that monastery, and by the time he was ten years old he
moved to the newly-founded Abbey on the Tyne, at Jarrow. He had able and
learned teachers in Benedict Bishop and Ceolfrid, and appears to have
turned his advantages to the best account. Deacon at nineteen, and
priest at twenty-nine years of age, he led a holy and studious life.
After his ordination he wrote his "Commentaries on the Scriptures," and
writings on all the known sciences--geography, arithmetic, and
astronomy. The greatest work of his life is, however, his
"Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation," to which we owe all our
knowledge of the introduction of Christianity into Great Britain, and
the early history of the English Church. It is dedicated to King
Ceolwulf. His information was collected from various sources--by letter
as to Canterbury, by communication with bishops and priors as to England
generally, and from personal k