over silk robes for sale to the kings in exchange for grants of land;
and he brought glaziers from Gaul for his churches. Jarrow alone
contained 500 monks, and possessed endowments of 15,000 acres.

It was under the walls of Jarrow that Baeda himself was born, in the year
672. Only fifty years had passed since his native Northumbria was still
a heathen land. Not more than forty years had gone since the conversion
of Wessex, and Sussex was still given over to the worship of Thunor and
Woden. But Baeda's own life was one which brought him wholly into
connection with Christian teachers and Roman culture. Left an orphan at
the age of seven years, he was handed over to the care of Abbot
Benedict, after whose death Abbot Ceolfrid took charge of the young
aspirant. "Thenceforth," says the aged monk, fifty years later, "I
passed all my lifetime in the building of that monastery [Jarrow], and
gave all my days to meditating on Scripture. In the intervals of my
regular monastic discipline, and of my daily task of chanting in chapel,
I have always amused myself either by learning, teaching, or writing. In
the nineteenth year of my life I received ordination as deacon; in my
thirtieth year I attained to the priesthood; both functions being
administered by the most reverend bishop John [afterwards known as St.
John of Beverley], at the request of Abbot Ceolfrid. From the time of my
ordination as priest to the fifty-ninth year of my life, I have occupied
myself in briefly commenting upon Holy Scripture, for the use of myself
and my brethren, from the works of the venerable fathers, and in some
cases I have added interpretations of my own to aid in their
comprehension."

The variety of Baeda's works, the large knowledge of science and of
classical literature which he displays (when judged by the continental
standard of the eighth century), and his familiar acquaintance with the
Latin language, which he writes easily and correctly, show that the
library of Jarrow must have been extensive and valuable. Besides his
Scriptural commentaries, he wrote a treatise _De Natura Rerum_, Letters
on the Reason of Leap-Year, a Life of St. Anastasius, and a History of
his Own Abbey, all in Latin. In verse, he composed many pieces, both in
hexameters and elegiacs, together with a treatise on prosody. But his
greatest work is his "Ecclesiastical History of the English People," the
authority from which we derive almost all our knowledge of early
Chris