 Bede wrote some works designed to help teach grammar in the abbey school . One of these was his De arte metrica , a discussion of the composition of Latin verse , drawing on previous grammarians work . It was based on Donatus ' De <unk> and Servius ' De <unk> , and used examples from Christian poets as well as Virgil . It became a standard text for the teaching of Latin verse during the next few centuries . Bede dedicated this work to Cuthbert , apparently a student , for he is named " beloved son " in the dedication , and Bede says " I have laboured to educate you in divine letters and ecclesiastical statutes " Another textbook of Bede 's is the De <unk> , a work on orthography , designed to help a medieval reader of Latin with unfamiliar abbreviations and words from classical Latin works . Although it could serve as a textbook , it appears to have been mainly intended as a reference work . The exact date of composition for both of these works is unknown . 
