Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. A Northumbrian cowherd who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch during the abbacy of Hilda, he was originally ignorant of "the art of song" but learned to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the 8th-century Christian historian and saint Bede. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational Christian poet. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, with a feast day on 11 February.
