So he really was canonized; I never knew that. I figured the process had never been completed because I had only heard him called The Venerable Bede. I don't know why folks leave the "Saint" off his name, but I think I like him better as the Venerable Bede. He's a particularly human saint for me, one I might relate.
He didn't perform miracles, nor were any attributed to his relics (that I know of). He didn't suffer for his faith, unless living quietly as a scholar and a monk since age seven is suffering. Lots of us hedonists might say it is, but for his part, he said, "I have taken delight always either to study, to teach, or to write."
His Ecclesiastical History of the Church of England is our only source of contemporary historical writing for the eighth century. I have not read other ecclesiastical histories from that era, but I understand that they are mostly lists. Bede's, however, is an engaging account of how Christianity and the diverse peoples of Britain influenced each other as England coalesced into a nation.
Scholar. Teacher. Writer. What more does a saint need to be?
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