about to begin.Illustration by Sophia Foster-Dimino
On a late May morning in 735 in the Northumbrian monastery known as Jarrow, England's preëminent historian and scriptural scholar lay dying while still hard at work. As a famous letter written by his disciple Cuthbert tells it, the Venerable Bede lay surrounded by colleagues, who took their leave in order to attend the morning's Ascension Day