Biography
John of Beverley
About John of Beverley
John of Beverley served the church in Northumbria at the turn of the eighth century. He became bishop of Hexham and later bishop of York. Bede, who knew the Northumbrian church closely, wrote several chapters about John's ministry and credited him with ordaining Bede to the priesthood. Bede also preserved reports of healings associated with John, naming people who had told him the stories. Those chapters show how John's contemporaries remembered him, while their miracle claims should remain attributed to their witnesses.
John later withdrew from the episcopal office to a community at Beverley. Local diocesan accounts date his death to May 7, and Beverley Minster gives the year 721. The town's memory of him continued around the minster and its earlier monastery. Details of his early life remain unknown, so they should not be reconstructed from later legend.
The Diocese of Leeds commemorates John on May 7. The Orthodox Church in America's May 27 page is the life of Bede and mentions John there with the same May 7 date. Correcting the index's May 27 field keeps the two men and their feast days distinct. John's significance rests both in his episcopal work and in the unusually early witness Bede left to his reputation.
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