730-749 Lindisfarne Gospels & Anglo Saxon History

In this twenty year period the Lindisfarne Gospels were being written and down the road in a monastery in Jarrow the Venerable Bede (pictured) wrote "The Ecclesiastical History of the English People" in 731 which, while religious based, elevates the English people -- the Angles and the Saxons -- as God's people.

It was the first account of Anglo-Saxon England ever written and he became “the Father of English History”.

Starting with Julius Caesar's invasion in the 1st century BC, it goes on to tell of the kings, bishops, monks and nuns who helped to develop government and convert people to Christianity.

Bede was put in a monastery at Wearmouth when he was seven, became a deacon at 19 and a priest at 30. Being a soldier or a priest -- or both -- was the only occupation open to most young men without a farm to inherit, and he was perfectly aware of the comfort of his life compared to that of others.

He also describes landscape, customs and ordinary lives -- such as famines where starving South Saxon families, hold hands and jump off white cliffs in tragic suicide pacts -- and includes the famous analogy comparing life to a sparrow's experience of flying out of the darkness into a great hall:

 "After a few moments of comfort the bird vanishes from sight into the wintry world that he came from."