Bede

The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) was an Anglo-Saxon monk, scholar, and the foremost intellectual of early medieval England. He entered the twin monastery of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow in Northumbria as a boy and spent virtually his entire life there, devoting himself to scriptural exegesis, computus (the calculation of dates, including Easter), and history. His masterwork, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), is the single most important source for early Anglo-Saxon history and popularized the AD dating system; his surviving letters, such as the influential Letter to Egbert urging church reform, reflect his deep engagement with the ecclesiastical and pastoral concerns of his age. Canonized as a saint and named a Doctor of the Church, he remains the only native of Britain to hold that title.