Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey in the context of "Bede"

Jarrow (/ˈdʒæroʊ/ or /ˈdʒærə/) is a town in South Tyneside in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. Historically in County Durham, it is on the south bank of the River Tyne, about three miles (five kilometres) from the east coast. It is home to the southern portal of the Tyne Tunnel and five miles (eight kilometres) east of Newcastle upon Tyne. At the 2021 census the Jarrow built up area as defined by the Office for National Statistics had a population of 29,470.

In the eighth century, St Paul's Monastery in Jarrow (now Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey) was the home of the Venerable Bede, who is regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar and the father of English history. The town is part of the historic County Palatine of Durham. From the middle of the 19th century until 1935, Jarrow was a centre for shipbuilding, and was the starting point of the Jarrow March against unemployment in 1936.

The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres (5.4 in × 3.6 in), the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.

The book takes its name from Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, North East England, in whose tomb it was placed, probably a few years after his death in 687. Although it was long regarded as Cuthbert's personal copy of the Gospel, to which there are early references, and so a relic of the saint, the book is now thought to date from shortly after Cuthbert's death. It was probably a gift from Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey, where it was written, intended to be placed in St Cuthbert's coffin in the few decades after this was placed behind the altar at Lindisfarne in 698. It presumably remained in the coffin through its long travels after 875, forced by Viking invasions, ending at Durham Cathedral. The book was found inside the coffin and removed in 1104 when the burial was once again moved within the cathedral. It was kept there with other relics, and important visitors were able to wear the book in a leather bag around their necks. It is thought that after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England by Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541, the book passed to collectors. It was eventually given to Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school in Lancashire.

The Codex Amiatinus, also known as the Jarrow Codex, is considered the best-preserved manuscript of the Latin Vulgate version of the Christian Bible. It was produced around 700 in the northeast of England, at the Benedictine Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey in the Kingdom of Northumbria, now South Tyneside. It was one of three giant single-volume Bibles then made at Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, and is the earliest complete one-volume Latin Bible to survive, only the León palimpsest being older. It is the oldest Bible where all the biblical canon present what would be their Vulgate texts. In 716 it was taken to Italy as a gift for Pope Gregory II. It is named after the location in which it was found in modern times, Monte Amiata in Tuscany, at the Abbazia di San Salvatore and is now kept at Florence in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (Laurentian Library).

Designated by siglum A, it is commonly considered to provide the most reliable surviving representation of Jerome's Vulgate text for the books of the New Testament, and most of the Old Testament. As was standard in all Vulgate Bibles until the ninth century, the Book of Baruch is absent as is the Letter of Jeremiah, the text of the Book of Lamentations following the end of Jeremiah without a break. Ezra–Nehemiah is presented as a single book, the texts of the canonical Book of Ezra and Book of Nehemiah being continuous. Similarly the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles are each presented as a single book.

Sunderland (/ˈsʌndərlənd/ ) is a port city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately 10 miles (16 km) south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most populous settlement in the Wearside conurbation and the second-most populous settlement in North East England, after Newcastle.

The centre of the modern city is an amalgamation of three settlements founded in the Anglo-Saxon era: Monkwearmouth, on the north bank of the Wear, and Sunderland and Bishopwearmouth on the south bank. Monkwearmouth contains St Peter's Church, which was founded in 674 and formed part of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey, a significant centre of learning in the seventh and eighth centuries. Sunderland was a fishing settlement and later a port, being granted a town charter in 1179. The city traded in coal and salt, also developing shipbuilding industry in the fourteenth century and glassmaking industry in the seventeenth century.

St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth is the parish church of Monkwearmouth in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. It is one of three churches in the Parish of Monkwearmouth. The others are the Victorian All Saints' Church, Monkwearmouth and the Edwardian St Andrew's Church, Roker.

St Peter's was founded in AD 674–5 as one of the two churches of the Benedictine double monastery of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey. The other church is St Paul's Church, Jarrow. St Peter's is a Grade I listed building and part of a scheduled monument.

St Paul's Church, Jarrow, is a Church of England parish church in the Parish of Jarrow and Simonside, on the south bank of the River Tyne in northern England. It was founded in 681 as a part of the Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey. Most of the church is later, but the chancel is the remains of a free-standing chapel of the original monastery. Above the chancel arch is a dedication stone dating to 23 April 685, making this one of, if not the, oldest church dedication stones in England. The Church was dedicated to St Paul by King Ecgfrith and Abbot Ceolfrith. The priest and scholar Bede spent most of his life at the monastery and almost certainly worshipped in the oldest part of the church.