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Bede, translating the Gospel
of Saint John on his deathbed.
Date: 1902.
Author: James Doyle Penrose.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Modern historians and editors of Bede have been lavish in their praise of his achievement in the Historia Ecclesiastica. Stenton regarded it as one of the "small class of books which transcend all but the most fundamental conditions of time and place", and regarded its quality as dependent on Bede's "astonishing power of co-ordinating the fragments of information which came to him through tradition, the relation of friends, or documentary evidence ... In an age where little was attempted beyond the registration of fact, he had reached the conception of history." Patrick Wormald described him as "the first and greatest of England's historians".
The Historia Ecclesiastica has given Bede a high reputation, but his concerns were different from those of a modern writer of history. His focus on the history of the organisation of the English Church, and on Heresies and the efforts made to root them out, led him to exclude the Secular history of Kings and Kingdoms, except where a moral lesson could be drawn or where they illuminated events in the Church.
Some historians have questioned the reliability of some of Bede's accounts. One historian, Charlotte Behr, thinks that the Historia's account of the arrival of the Germanic invaders in Kent should not be considered to relate what actually happened, but rather relates myths that were current in Kent during Bede's time.
He is also parsimonious in his praise for Aldhelm, a West Saxon who had done much to convert the native Britons to the Roman form of Christianity. He lists seven Kings of the Anglo-Saxons, whom he regards as having held imperium, or overlordship; only one King of Wessex, Ceawlin, is listed, and none from Mercia, though elsewhere he acknowledges the secular power several of the Mercians held. Historian Robin Fleming states that he was so hostile to Mercia, because Northumbria had been diminished by Mercian power, that he consulted no Mercian informants and included no stories about its Saints.
Bede relates the story of Augustine's mission from Rome, and tells how the British Clergy refused to assist Augustine in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. This, combined with Gildas's negative assessment of the British Church at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions, led Bede to a very critical view of the native Church. However, Bede ignores the fact that at the time of Augustine's mission, the history between the two was one of warfare and conquest, which, in the words of Barbara Yorke, would have naturally "curbed any missionary impulses towards the Anglo-Saxons from the British Clergy."
English: The Venerable Bede's "De naturis rerum".
Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire de Strasbourg, France.
Conservateur : Louis Schlaefli.
Français: Bède le Vénérable, De naturis rerum (Ms 31/3), page de titre (IXe-Xe s.),
à la bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire de Strasbourg.
Conservateur : Louis Schlaefli.
Photo: 18 June 2013.
Source: Own work.
Author: Photo Claude TRUONG-NGOC.
(Wikimedia Commons)
At the time Bede wrote the Historia Ecclesiastica, there were two common ways of referring to dates. One was to use indictions, which were fifteen-year cycles, counting from 312 A.D. There were three different varieties of indiction, each starting on a different day of the year. The other approach was to use regnal years—the reigning Roman Emperor, for example, or the ruler of whichever kingdom was under discussion. This meant that, in discussing conflicts between kingdoms, the date would have to be given in the regnal years of all the kings involved. Bede used both these approaches on occasion, but adopted a third method as his main approach to dating: the anno domini method, invented by Dionysius Exiguus. Although Bede did not invent this method, his adoption of it, and his promulgation of it in De Temporum Ratione, his work on chronology, is the main reason why it is now so widely used.
The Historia Ecclesiastica was copied often in the Middle Ages, and about 160 manuscripts, containing it, survive. About half of those are located on the European Continent, rather than on the British Isles. Most of the 8th- and 9th-Century texts of Bede's Historia come from the Northern parts of the Carolingian Empire. This total does not include manuscripts with only a part of the work, of which another 100 or so survive.
It was printed for the first time between 1474 and 1482, probably at Strasbourg, France. Modern historians have studied the Historia, extensively, and a number of editions have been produced. For many years, Early-Anglo-Saxon history was essentially a retelling of the Historia, but recent scholarship has focused as much on what Bede did not write as what he did. The belief that the Historia was the culmination of Bede's works, the aim of all his scholarship, a belief common among historians in the past, is no longer accepted by most scholars.
English: The Venerable Bede's "De naturis rerum".
Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire de Strasbourg, France.
Conservateur : Louis Schlaefli.
Français: Bède le Vénérable, De naturis rerum (Ms 31/3), page de titre (IXe-Xe s.),
à la bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire de Strasbourg.
Conservateur : Louis Schlaefli.
Photo: 18 June 2013.
Source: Own work.
Author: Photo Claude TRUONG-NGOC.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Historia Ecclesiastica has given Bede a high reputation, but his concerns were different from those of a modern writer of history. His focus on the history of the organisation of the English Church, and on Heresies and the efforts made to root them out, led him to exclude the Secular history of Kings and Kingdoms, except where a moral lesson could be drawn or where they illuminated events in the Church.
Besides the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Mediaeval writers, William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, used his works as sources and inspirations. Early-Modern writers, such as Polydore Vergil and Matthew Parker, the Elizabethan Archbishop of Canterbury, also utilised the Historia, and his works were used by both Protestant and Catholic sides in the Wars of Religion.
English: Figure published 1727 in ""Theatrum arithmetico geometricum"
by Jacob Leupold (1674–1727). Representing counting with fingers,
described by The Venerable Bede.
Suomi: Kuva julkaistu 1727 kirjassa ""Theatrum arithmetico geometricum" teikijä Jacob Leupold (1674–1727). Esittää sormilla laskemista, jota Bede Venerabilis (kuoli 735) kuvaili jo 700 luvulla.
Date: Circa 1727.
Source: John D. Barrow: "Pi in the Sky", 1992, Oxford University Press, figure.
Author: original figure by Jacob Leupold (1674–1727).
(Wikimedia Commons)
Some historians have questioned the reliability of some of Bede's accounts. One historian, Charlotte Behr, thinks that the Historia's account of the arrival of the Germanic invaders in Kent should not be considered to relate what actually happened, but rather relates myths that were current in Kent during Bede's time.
It is likely that Bede's work, because it was so widely copied, discouraged others from writing histories and may even have led to the disappearance of manuscripts containing older historical works.
PART SEVEN FOLLOWS
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