The ‘Venerable Bede’ was a 7th century English monk who lived at a monastry in Jarrow.
He wrote the ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’, finishing in 1731. He became known as ‘venerable’ (meaning both ‘impressive by reason of age’ and ‘profoundly honored’ 1) soon after his death. The Catholic Encyclopedia 2 notes that
‘There is of course no early authority for the legend repeated by Fuller of the “dunce-monk” who in composing an epitaph on Bede was at a loss to complete the line: Hac sunt in fossa Bedae . . . . ossa and who next morning found that the angels had filled the gap with the word venerabilis.’
