The account of St Bede’s death is very moving, as his whole life is moving. It is the little details that are so telling: the finishing of his dictation, the singing of Rex Gloriae, the praying in his mother tongue. But there is one detail that has sometimes attracted a good deal of, not criticism exactly, but a raising of eyebrows among historians who ought to know better. That is the sharing out of his little personal treasures, including that tiny box of pepper.
Pepper was a luxury in the Northumbria of Bede’s time, an expensive luxury. How he came by it, we do not know. I suspect it came as a gift from a rich benefactor, and that Bede was allowed to keep it by his abbot as, even today, elderly monks and nuns are allowed to have the use of one or two ‘luxury’ items that would be deemed inappropriate for others. Ageing taste-buds often appreciate the stronger flavours extra seasoning can provide, but some of the clucking over Bede’s pepper tells us more about the cluckers than it does about Bede. For what we touch here is people’s expectations of what Bede should be, rather than what he actually was. Many a historian has fallen into the trap of expecting monks and nuns to conform to their idea of monasticism, or have failed to take into account the reality of life lived in community.
Bede was not less of a monk because he liked a little pepper. His life was not a particularly easy one, though some have thought it so. The long hours of prayer and work, study and teaching are largely hidden from us. We see only what has been left behind and forget the rest. Most do not know what it is like to steal into the cold monastery church, night after night, and sing Matins (Vigils) to the accompaniment of X singing flat or Y hacking and coughing; the depressing sameness of the monastic diet; the sheer ineluctability of the monastic time-table; the abbot’s moods(!). But Bede did, and, little by little, it made him a saint.
I think there is something we can all take from this. Whatever our circumstances in life, they are not a barrier to holiness. We do not need a perfect situation to become perfect in love and service, nor do we need to worry and fret over occasional indulgences. We cannot be saints without first being human, and there is no way we can side-step that!
I enjoy these posts because they always contain something I didnt know – like Bede’s box of pepper. And there is always something to stimulate further thought. Like the fact that a life of self-denial makes one value the occasional touch of luxury far more than if one had it all the time. Thank you again for these posts
“Whatever our circumstances in life, they are not a barrier to holiness.” Thank you for that inspiring message today!
I didn’t know this story! Good for Bede! Of course, he knew the true spice of life!
Perhaps he used it medicinally? We associate spices with flavouring but for our ancestors they were much more.
Always wonderful to see/remember that saints are human. God does not ask us to stop being human and become unfeeling robots. If an occasional indulgence of pepper (hardly the most scandalous indulgence!) made life more comfortable or reminded St Bede of the joy of a tasty meal then he has probably gone up in most people’s estimation. Far too often saints are portryed as other worldy (Not in a good way) and totaly unlike the rest of us mere humans. Surely a little comfort or tasty pleasure is not a bad thing – particularly for someone who has already given up so much in terms of comfort/pleasure.
I will think of St Bede every time I reach for pepper in my kitchen – and hopefully offer up a prayer.
The depressing sameness of the monastic diet. I can relate to that. My children have been known to say to me “Not the depressing sameness of your rice pudding.” Not being a cook of note, I took that criticism on the chin!
I note Bede’s greatest work was his Latin Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People) which is the single most valuable source for early English history. Got to admire that. 🙂
I think Bede might have enjoyed rice pudding, had it been on offer. His diet would have featured a lot of beans . . . As to his greatest work, I think Bede would probably have thought of his De Templo as his most important, but comparatively few people read it nowadays.