He loved his own English tongue, he was skilled in English song, his last work was a translation into English of the Gospel of St.John, and almost the last words that broke from his lips were some English rimes upon death.
But the noblest proof of his love of England lies in the work which immortalizes his name.

In his "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation," Baeda was at once the founder of mediaeval history and the first English historian.

All that we really know of the century and a half that follows the landing of Augustine we know from him.

Wherever his own personal observation extended, the story is told with admirable detail and force.

He is hardly less full or accurate in the portions which he owed to his Kentish friends, Albinus and Nothelm.