Bede

The Venerable Bede

Lived

c. 673–735

Era

Medieval

Where

Northumbria, England

Tradition

The apostolic communities

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People

A monk at Jarrow from the age of seven, who left Northumbria barely at all and produced the most substantial body of scholarship in western Europe in his century.

Why it matters

The Ecclesiastical History is the reason anything is known in detail about early English Christianity, and it is unusually careful for its time about naming sources and distinguishing what he was told from what he could verify. He popularised dating years from the incarnation — anno domini — which is why the convention became universal. He was translating John into English on the day he died.

All the figures, from the apostolic age to the present, or the timeline they stand in.