His emblem is an axe, he is said to have been beheaded, his claimed relics
were taken to Jerusalem and later sent to Rome by the empress Helen.
26 May Saint Augustine of Canterbury (died 604) - (and not of Hippo!)
He was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury
in 597. He is considered to be the ‘Apostle of the English Church’. He had
been Prior of a monastery in Rome when Pope Gregor the Great chose him
in 596 to lead a mission to Britain to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons and King
Ethelberth of Kent. Ethelberth had married a Christian princess from Gaul
(Bertha) Augustine is said to have landed on the island of Thanet where a
stone marks the place. The King gave the missionaries land to build an
Abbey outside Canterbury, where St Augustine was buried. He is said to
have baptised thousands on Christmas day 597, He founded bishoprics in
London and Rochester, but attempts to persuade the Celtic bishops to
submit to his authority failed. After his death on 26 May 604 Augustine was
soon revered as a Saint.
27 May The Venerable Bede (also referred to as St Bede), lived 672/73
to 26 May 735
Bede was an
English monk at
the Northumbrian
monastery of St
Peter at
Monkwearmouth
near Newcastle.
He was of noble
birth and entered
the monastery
aged 7 to be
educated. In 682
he moved to St
Paul’s at Jarrow,
both monasteries had superb libraries and Bede was known as a scholar
and prolific author in Latin. He translated the early Church Fathers and
contributed significantly to the English Church. His most famous work is The
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731, which gained
him the title ‘Father of English History’. His non-historical works on grammar,
chronology and biblical studies contributed greatly to the Carolingian
Renaissance. He was Priest to Saint Cuthbert who described Bede’s death
in a letter. He died at Jarrow on 26 May 735 and was buried there. In 1899
he was made a ‘Doctor of the Church’, the only native Britain to receive that
title. He was not canonised.
Brigitte Williams
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