Home	EASTER AND THE VENERABLE BEDE
	Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar, when believers celebrate the resurrection of of Jesus and his ascension to Heaven. But unlike Christ's birth, which is celebrated on the same day every year, Easter is a moveable feast. The man responsible was one of the outstanding figures of the mediaeval church, a scholar, teacher and academic who changed the world from the banks of the River Wear. He described himself as "Servant of Christ and Priest of the Monastery of Saints Peter and Paul which is at Wearmouth and Jarrow" - but the world knows him better as the Venerable Bede. Bede was born in 673 AD and entrusted at the age of seven to the care of Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monastery at St Peter's.  At the time, the twinned monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow had one of the largest libraries in England, containing between 300 and 500 books. Ordained deacon at the age of 19 and a priest at 30, Bede became an academic superstar of the mediaeval church. Bishop Boniface said he " shone forth as a lantern in the church by his scriptural commentary " and the range of his scholarship, which encompassed the physical world as much as the spiritual, is breathtaking. Bede himself said "It has always been my delight to learn or to teach or to write." Bede's 731 AD Ecclesiastical History of the English People is the main source for our understanding of the origins of the English and the dawn of Christianity in Britain.  It was also the first written history of the English people, completed two centuries before there was a unified England, was the first written work to use the word English and was the first work to use the BC / AD dating system. Bede knew the earth was a sphere, developed a sense of the movement of the sun in northern and southern hemispheres by studying the varying length of shadows and knew the moon influenced the tides. It was Bede who came up with a calculation to set the date of Easter, solving one of the biggest problems for the church in his day. Bede wanted to ensure the most important Christian feast in the church calendar would be celebrated at the correct time - and at the same time - by believers across the world. He used theology, mathematics and astronomy to develop and exted the world of earlier academics, devising a calculation based on the lunar calendar. Henceforth, Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon on or after the equinox on March 21 - the solar equinox. The formula meant Easter could fall anywhere between 22 March and 25 April and Bede devised what he called his "Giant Easter Cycle" - 532 year repeating timetable predicting when Easter would fall for every year in the future. It is thought that Bede died in 735 AD
	SYMBOLS OF EASTER
	Easter eggs were originally given to represent new life and as a symbolic recreation of the cracking open of Christ's tomb, although the use of eggs at feast times pre-dates Christianity.   Eggs have long been thought to be special because they seem inanimate but have life inside.  The fact that eggs hatch in the springtime, when so much in nature is coming back to life after winter, made them an obvious metaphor for the season. Gift eggs were originally made of wood or precus stones.  Sweet eggs only appeared in the Nineteenth Century, made of sugar or marziapn wich was overtaken by the now traditional chocolate. Rabbits, too, have been associated with the arrival of spring since ancient times and it is believed that the hare was a symbol of the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of Spring, Eostre, whose name was apparently corrupted to become Easter. Eostre is also believed to have been honoured in the eating of hot cross buns, with the cross thought to have symbolised the stages of the moon. Again, the emerging Christian church sought to adapt, rather than quosh, the pagan tradition.
	EASTER  AROUND THE WORLD
	In Bermuda, people of all ages make kites in the run-up to Easter, which are then flown to symbolise Christ's ascent into Heaven. In The Netherlands, Belgium and France church bells are left silent as a sign of mourning before Easter, leading to a tradition that the bells leave their steeples and go to Rome, returning with gifts. In Scandinavia, children dress as witches to collect sweets in exchange for decorated pussy willows, while in northern Germany fires are lit at sunset on Easter Day. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia women are spanked with a special handmade whip made of willow rods.  Traditionally the woman gives a coloured egg to the man - but she is later allowed to pour a bucket of cold water on any man she meets. The butter lamb is a traditional feature of Easter for Polish Catholics, with butter sculpted into the shape of a lamb either by hand or using a mould.