The Venerable Bede of Jarrow - sharpening his quill. From a manuscript in Engelberg Abbey, Switzerland. Monk of the Blessed apolstles Peter and Paul at Wearmouth and Jarrow, Northumberland. He was a Monk of Jarrow from 682 until his death in 735. His works include many commentaries on the Scriptures, lives of saints and abbots, treatises on poetry and chronology (the reckoning of years from the birth of Christ was set on a firm basis by Bede) on rhetoric and science. The History, his last work, ws completed in 731, four years before his death.