Bede died at the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in 735, with 26 May commonly used as the date.

The date matters because Bede had already completed work that became central to the written record of early English Christianity. He lived and worked in a Northumbrian monastery, not at a royal court or on campaign. His authority came from books, teaching, scripture, chronology and monastic study.

Wearmouth-Jarrow was a serious centre of Christian learning. Bede’s writing came from a religious community with access to books and wider church contacts. It was local work, but it was not narrow.

His best-known text, the *Ecclesiastical History of the English People*, became one of the main sources for early English history. It records kings, bishops, missionaries, monasteries, conversion and conflict. It is especially important for the history of early English Christianity and for later understanding of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

It should not be treated as a modern neutral history. Bede wrote as a Christian scholar. He preserved material, but he also selected and arranged it within a Christian view of time and order.

Bede wrote more than history. His work covered scripture, chronology, science and teaching. That range helps explain why his reputation lasted. He was not only recording the past. He was organising knowledge for a Christian world.

Bede’s death at Jarrow ended a long monastic life. The writing remained. Much of what is still said about early English Christianity and the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms depends on Bede’s work.