译者按
本文译自 Marnie Hughes‑Warrington 所著 Fifty Key Thinkers on History（Routledge，2014 年第三版）一书中关于比德的词条。
原书版权归作者及出版社所有。本译文为个人兴趣翻译，非官方授权版本，仅供学习、交流与研究之用，不作任何商业用途。
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比德（约673–735）

“读一点比德关于圣奥斯瓦尔德神迹的记述，便会深感烦恼与厌恶。”¹ 约翰·罗斯金并非唯一一个认为盎格鲁-撒克逊史家比德过分沉迷于神迹的人。事实上，当你想到他最为人铭记的著作——《英吉利教会史》（公元731年）——就不难理解个中缘由。在这本书中，你可以读到盲人复明、病人痊愈、风暴平息、城市因上帝的恩典而免于毁灭。这些内容固然令人读来有趣，但也使现代读者难以将比德作为一位史学家来认真对待。然而，他并不像乍看起来那样轻信，而且他的著作在帮助我们理解早期英国历史中的政治、宗教、圣经研究和文化动态方面，发挥了重要作用。

关于比德生平的一切，几乎都来自《英吉利教会史》的最后一卷（第5卷第24章；下称《教会史》）。他于673年前后出生于威尔茅斯英国修道院附近。七岁时，他的父母将他送到修道院，交由修士们照料。两年后，修道院的创始人本尼迪克特·比斯科普院长将他与其他二十名修士送到泰恩河南岸，在那里建立了贾罗修道院。他于692年被按立为执事，约703年成为司铎。虽然比德曾到访过圣岛上的林迪斯法恩隐修院，也可能去过约克，但他余生都在贾罗度过。在那里，他利用了比斯科普积累的丰富藏书，撰写了大量关于圣经、拉丁语、圣徒生平（圣徒传）、编年史和历史方面的著作。他于735年去世。11世纪时，他的遗骨被迁往达勒姆保存，后来散失，但其墓冢至今仍在达勒姆大教堂可见。

通过他的著作，比德希望帮助人们在基督教信仰上得到成长。例如，在《教会史》的序言中，他写道：

如果历史记述了善人及其善报，那么善于思考的听众就会被激励去效仿善行；如果它记录了恶人的恶果，那么虔诚而认真的听众或读者同样会被有效地点燃热情，去规避有害和悖谬之事，并更加谨慎地追求那些他已知在上帝眼中是良善和可喜悦的事。

而这意味着，首先要教导他的同修们学习教会的官方语言——拉丁语。比德借鉴了晚期古代拉丁语法学家的著作，撰写了若干关于拉丁语语法和拼写的作品。然而，他也认识到方言（古英语）在基督教教育中的重要性。据他的学生卡斯伯特告诉我们，比德在口述完古英语译本《约翰福音》的最后一行后便去世了（《教会史》，第302页）。此外，在《教会史》第四卷中，他介绍了凯德蒙——第一位留名于世的英国诗人。在记述凯德蒙生平时，比德提供了关于将诗歌从一种语言翻译成另一种语言之困难的最早记载之一。他写道：“这是大致的意思，而不是凯德蒙在梦中歌唱的实际用语；因为诗歌，无论多么精妙，都无法逐字从一种语言翻译成另一种语言而不失其许多优美和庄重之处”（第4卷第24章）。精通拉丁语使修士们能够研读圣经以及安布罗斯、哲罗姆、希波的奥古斯丁和教皇格里高利等作家的神学著作。显然，比德希望为这种研读提供帮助，因为他所写的著作中有超过一半是关于经文和“教父”思想的（第5卷第24章）。

在比德的时代，编年学（即对时间和历法的研究）在修道院生活中也占有重要地位。当盎格鲁-撒克逊入侵切断了爱尔兰与基督教世界其他地区的联系时，计算复活节日期的标准尚未普遍确立。随着罗马基督教在不列颠重新立足，它与来自爱奥那和林迪斯法恩的凯尔特传教士所奉行的基督教发生了冲突，导致了对复活节日期的争论。在惠特比宗教会议（664年）上，这一争端以罗马派获胜而告终，但该决定仅适用于诺森布里亚王国。在《论时代》（703年）中，比德描述并论证了罗马基督教所使用的规则和公式。他呼应六世纪修士小狄奥尼修斯的主张，提出了一种以基督诞生为中心的纪年体系——即我们今天所熟悉的“公元前”（BC）和“公元”（AD）缩写。此前，盎格鲁-撒克逊人通常以国王在位年份或“十五年循环”来纪年（即君士坦丁于313年设立的每十五年一个财政周期）。这两种体系各有弊端：一个盎格鲁-撒克逊王国的在位年份不适用于另一个王国，在国外也无法理解；而十五年循环只是一个十五年为一轮的周期，有时并不清楚指的是哪一个周期。² 比德不仅解决了此前困扰吉尔达斯（其在著作中仅给出一个年代）和内尼厄斯（其使用了不下二十八种不同的纪年法）等史学家的问题，而且确立了这样一种观念：时间是由政治和宗教事件来组织和规约的。

《论时代》及其后的《论时间的计算》（725年）还包括世界编年史——即按年代顺序列出日期及对应事件的列表。这些编年史详细记载了上帝对人类事务的干预，以及圣男圣女们的生活。从这些编年史中衍生出了比德对多位圣徒事迹的赞颂，其中最著名的是关于威尔茅斯和贾罗前三位修道院院长（切奥尔弗里德、赫维特伯特与本尼迪克特·比斯科普）的生平，以及《圣卡斯伯特传》两种版本。

比德对编年学和圣徒传的兴趣在他的《教会史》中融为一体。在这部著作中，比德为我们提供了对597年至731年这一时期教会与政治发展的宝贵洞见——这一时期留存下来的其他史料寥寥无几。全书按时间顺序编排，但在一定程度上被圣徒传记和对盎格鲁-撒克逊诸王国各阶段情况的描述所打断。《教会史》第一卷开篇概述了盎格鲁-撒克逊人统治不列颠人以及凯尔特人未能使他们皈依基督教的历史和地理背景。接着，他记述了迫害基督徒的运动——这场运动遍布整个帝国，并在戴克里先统治下达到了新的高峰。在不列颠，这场迫害产生了这片土地上第一位殉道者——圣阿尔班。比德对阿尔班受难经过的记述极为生动，正如这段节选所示：

圣阿尔班满怀热切之心，渴望尽快实现殉道，他来到急流边，举目向天。于是，河床在那一处便干涸了，他看见河水让开，为他提供了一条可行走的路。……当他到达山顶时，圣阿尔班向上帝求水，立刻有一道永久的泉水涌出，被限制在河道中，就在他脚下，使所有人都能看到即使是水流也在为这位殉道者效劳。……于是，在这神圣之地，这位英勇的殉道者被斩首了……但那将不洁之手放在那神圣颈项上的人，并未被允许为他的死亡而欢欣；因为这位有福殉道者的头颅和刽子手的双眼一同落到了地上。 （第1卷第7章）

在比德看来，不列颠人就像希伯来人在前往应许之地途中寄居西奈一样。当他们尊重上帝的律法时，就繁荣兴盛；当他们犯罪时，上帝便允许他们承受其恶行的恶果。他们的恶行中首要的，就是未能向与他们同住不列颠的盎格鲁人和撒克逊人传讲信仰。然而，上帝“并没有完全抛弃他所拣选的子民；因为他记念他们，派遣了更值得尊敬的真理传道者到[不列颠]来，引领他们归信”（第1卷第22章）。这些“更值得尊敬的传道者”就是坎特伯雷的圣奥古斯丁以及597年与他一同被派往不列颠的那群修士。比德对奥古斯丁在不列颠使命的记述，其显著特点是他收录了据称是格里高利对奥古斯丁牧灵问题的逐字答复（第1卷第27章）。³

第二卷聚焦于诺森布里亚国王埃德温的皈依。比德声称，上帝如此赐福埃德温及其王国，“以至于至今仍流传着这样一句谚语：一位妇人可以怀抱新生婴儿从一海横穿全岛到另一海，而无需担心任何伤害”（第2卷第16章）。在这一卷中，与前一卷一样，政治与教会的发展相互交织。例如，他记载了633年埃德温成为异教徒国王彭达所领导叛乱中的牺牲品。然而，他在第三卷开篇欣然指出，奥斯瓦尔德国王的军队“人数虽少，却因基督信仰而刚强”，击败了彭达及其军队（第3卷第1章）。第三卷后面的章节记载了基督教在诺森布里亚的发展，以凯尔特派与罗马派关于复活节日期计算之争作为结尾。鉴于比德对编年学的重视，他大概认为很少有事件能与惠特比宗教会议相提并论。尽管他的同情心站在罗马派一边，但必须承认，他对凯尔特派的论点给出了公允的记述。事实上，正如在《教会史》的其他地方一样，比德在这里借机赞扬了凯尔特神职人员的德性及其追随者的虔诚（第3卷第25章）。

在第四卷中，比德首先叙述了大主教西奥多的使徒工作，这之所以极为重要，是因为他是“第一位被整个英格兰教会所服从的大主教”。我们得知，尽管年事已高，西奥多仍积极地组织教会。他进行正式巡视，鼓励学生前往坎特伯雷，在赫特福德和哈特菲尔德召开宗教会议，并在交战的国王埃格弗里德和埃塞尔雷德之间促成了和平（第4卷第5、17章）。接着是对巴金修道院以及埃塞尔德雷达女王、圣希尔达和圣卡斯伯特生平中“诸多圣洁明证”的记述。第五卷即最后一卷将《教会史》叙述至731年中期。比德对自己时代的简要记述几乎没有透露他在《致埃格伯特书》中所表达的对当代教士无知、世俗和腐败的不满。相反，他的批评是在对早期事件的记述中传达的。在那些记述中，人们可以相当清楚地看出比德眼中何为美德、何为恶行。例如，考虑一下他对艾丹主教生平的描述——这位主教的行为与我们“现代的怠惰”形成了对比：

他既不因尊重也不因畏惧而对他人的罪过保持沉默，而是以严厉的责备加以纠正。他从不向世上有权势的人赠送钱财，只在款待他们时才供给食物；相反，他将从富人那里收到的金钱赠礼……分发给穷人，或用于赎回那些被不公正地卖为奴隶的人。 （第3卷第5章）

《教会史》的最后一章主要是对所涵盖事件的概要总结，比德将其作为“帮助记忆的辅助”。由于这份概要包含了一些正文中未提及的事件，有学者认为比德在撰写《教会史》时，先是从他的若干复活节年表和编年体著作中生成了一份事件列表，然后添加了来自国王世系表、主教名录以及爱尔兰记录中的条目。在编好了一份带日期的事件大纲之后，他再用圣徒传记、传说和战役记述中的无日期材料来扩充叙事——他认为这些材料能够教化那些听他或读他书的人。

比德向《教会史》的读者保证，他致力于核实所详述的事件。对于作品的第一部分（涵盖坎特伯雷的圣奥古斯丁于597年抵达不列颠之前的历史），他取材于“此前作家从各种来源收集的著作”。这些来源主要被认定为老普林尼、优西比乌、奥罗修斯、索利努斯、吉尔达斯、阿基坦的普洛斯珀和康斯坦提乌斯的著作。他还参考了匿名作者所著的《圣阿尔班传》和《教皇列传》（教皇生平的官方记录）。对于597年之后的时期，他引述阿比努斯院长为主要权威。阿比努斯详尽地搜寻了与肯特及其周边地区相关的传说和传统的文字记录及口头叙述，并将其转交给伦敦的教士诺塞尔姆，诺塞尔姆再转交给比德。诺塞尔姆还访问了罗马，并获得了教皇格里高利二世的许可，查阅罗马教会档案中关于大格里高利及后世教皇与不列颠有关的信函和文献。比德还感谢了温彻斯特主教丹尼尔、基内伯特主教、埃西院长、拉辛厄姆的修士们以及诺森布里亚无数的“忠实见证人”的帮助。这些肯定包括了来自威尔茅斯、贾罗和林迪斯法恩修道院的修士们。其他来源还包括爱奥那修道院、埃迪乌斯的《威尔弗里德传》和《教皇列传》。与大多数中世纪作家不同，比德细致地注明了来源，区分了间接记述和目击者报告（第2卷第16章；第3卷第15章），并在听闻传闻时予以说明（第1卷第15章；第2卷第5、15章）。他意识到传闻的不确定性，并明确请求读者：

如果在我所写的任何东西中发现了非真实的内容，请不要归咎于我。因为，按照真实历史的原则，我只是为了教导后人，将我从公共传闻中收集到的东西付诸文字。 （序言）

读者不太可能看到当今的历史书写者以这种方式免除自己的责任。

比德对自己努力的陈述可能会让我们得出他是一个天真记录者的结论。如前所述，《教会史》中的神迹成分往往令许多读者感到不安。比德希望，对上帝权能之神奇展现的描述能够鼓励听众和读者“追随那些在上帝眼中良善和可喜悦的事”（第1卷第20章；第2卷第7、22章；第4卷第25、26章）。既然这些描述“来自上帝”，他认为篡改它们就是错误的。与保卢斯·奥罗修斯和弗赖辛的奥托等犹太-基督教史学家一样，比德将自己树立为读者的教会之父，但同时也努力使自己隐退，以便他的权威不被视为高于《圣经》或上帝。然而，他偶尔也会插话，为某件神迹提供合理的解释。例如，他将贝弗利的约翰治愈一个头上长痂的哑巴男孩归功于医疗和我们今天所说的言语治疗（第5卷第2章）。此外，正如约翰·穆尔黑德所论证的，比德对《圣经》的解读表明，他不愿承认彼得——或其后任何一位教皇——拥有特殊权能。⁴ 就此而言，比德的著作表明，他对教会应当如何被看待这一观念进行了积极的塑造。

比德的《教会史》在中世纪被广泛阅读和尊重。现存手稿超过150份，其中最早的是在他去世后十年内于威尔茅斯和贾罗修道院写成的。在八世纪，它是一项重要的文学输出品，在欧洲的盎格鲁-撒克逊传教士率先推动了它的流传。模仿者和剽窃者很快出现。⁵ 该《教会史》在阿尔弗雷德大帝统治时期被译成古英语，第一部现代英语译本由托马斯·斯泰普尔顿完成。在斯泰普尔顿写给伊丽莎白女王一世的献词信中，我们可以感受到这部《教会史》如何被用于信仰争论：

在这部历史中，陛下将看到，在您治下那些自称的教会改革者，在多少个重大的问题上背离了由圣奥古斯丁——我们的使徒——首先在英格兰人当中所播种的那种纯正而大公的信仰模式。⁶

在后来的岁月中，《教会史》被罗马天主教徒和新教徒各自用来支持自己的主张。该著作的第一个评注版于1722年由约翰·史密斯和乔治·史密斯出版。此后，查尔斯·普卢默的《比德全集》（1896年）的出版、多种《教会史》版本以及利物浦大学出版社对比德圣经和编年体著作的一系列译本，极大地推动了对比德著作的研究。尽管在这个世俗时代，读者可能难以理解比德著作背后的动机，但作为一位历史书写者，他那“令人着迷的谦逊”仍有一种吸引力。⁷

比德主要著作

《圣卡斯伯特传》两种版本，B. 科尔格雷夫译，剑桥：剑桥大学出版社，1940年。
《福音书讲道集》，L. T. 马丁和D. 赫斯特译，密歇根州卡拉马祖：西多会出版社，1991年。
《时间的计算》，F. 沃利斯译，利物浦：利物浦大学出版社，2004年。
《论圣殿》，S. J. 康奈利译，利物浦：利物浦大学出版社，2006年。
《论创世记》，C. B. 肯德尔译，利物浦：利物浦大学出版社，2008年。
《英吉利教会史》，J. 麦克卢尔和R. 柯林斯译，牛津：牛津大学出版社，2009年。
《论万物的本性》和《论时代》，C. B. 肯德尔和F. 沃利斯译，利物浦：利物浦大学出版社，2011年。

另见：傅华萨、图尔的格里高利、司马迁、塔西佗

进一步资源

德格雷戈里奥，S.，《可敬的比德著作中的创新与传统》，西弗吉尼亚州摩根敦：西弗吉尼亚大学出版社，2006年。
戈法特，W.，《蛮族历史的叙述者（公元550—800年）：约达尼斯、图尔的格里高利、比德和执事保罗》，新泽西州普林斯顿：普林斯顿大学出版社，1988年。
冈恩，V.，《比德的〈教会史〉：体裁、修辞与盎格鲁-撒克逊教会史的建构》，纽约州罗切斯特：博伊德尔出版社，2009年。
海厄姆，N. J.，《（重）读比德：语境中的〈教会史〉》，伦敦：劳特利奇出版社，2006年。
麦克纳马拉，J.，“比德在〈教会史〉中传播传说中的作用”，《盎格鲁-撒克逊考古与历史研究》，1994年，第7卷：61—69。
华莱士-哈德里尔，J. M.，《比德的〈英吉利教会史〉：历史评注》，牛津：牛津大学出版社，1988年。

英文原文

‘Read a little of Bede’s accounts of miracles of St Oswald, and much vexed and disgusted’.⁸ John Ruskin is not the only person to have dismissed the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede as overly fond of miracles. Indeed, when you consider the work for which he is most remembered – The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (AD 731) – it is not hard to see why. In this book you can read of the blind regaining their sight, the sick being cured, storms being quelled and cities being saved from destruction through the grace of God. Such things make for entertaining reading, but they also make it hard for modern readers to take Bede seriously as a historian. Yet he is not as gullible as he first appears, and his writings have played an important role in helping us to understand the dynamics of politics, religion, Biblical studies and culture in early English history.

Nearly everything we know about the life of Bede derives from the last book of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (5: §24; hereafter History). He was born near the English monastery of Wearmouth around 673. When he was seven, his parents brought him to the monastery and gave him over to the care of the monks. Two years later, the founder of the monastery, Abbot Benedict Biscop, sent him and twenty other monks to the south bank of the River Tyne, where they established the community of Jarrow. He was ordained a deacon in 692 and a priest around 703. While Bede visited Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island and possibly also York, he spent the rest of his life at Jarrow. There he took advantage of the impressive library that Biscop had amassed and wrote a number of works on scripture, Latin, saints’ lives (hagiography), chronology and history. He died in 735. In the eleventh century his remains were removed to Durham for safekeeping. They were later dispersed, but his tomb may still be seen at Durham Cathedral.

Through his writings, Bede hoped to help people grow in Christian faith. In the preface to his History, for instance, he writes,

Should history tell of good men and their good estate, the thoughtful listener is spurred on to imitate the good: should it record the evil ends of wicked men, no less effectually the devout and earnest listener or reader is kindled to eschew what is harmful and perverse, and himself with greater care pursue those things which he has learned to be good and pleasing in the sight of God.

And this meant, in the first instance, teaching his fellow monks the official language of the church: Latin. Bede drew on the works of Latin grammarians of late antiquity to compose a number of works on Latin grammar and spelling. Yet he also recognised the importance of the vernacular (Old English) in Christian instruction. Bede died, his pupil Cuthbert tells us, just after he dictated the last line in an Old English translation of the gospel of John (History, p. 302). Furthermore, in Book 4 of his History, he introduces Caedmon, the first English poet known by name. In his account of Caedmon’s life, Bede offers one of the earliest recorded observations concerning the difficulty of translating verse from one language to another. ‘This is the general sense’, he writes, ‘but not the actual words that Caedmon sang in his dream; for verses, however masterly, cannot be translated literally from one language into another without losing much of their beauty and dignity’ (4: §24). Proficiency in Latin made it possible for monks to study the Bible and works of theology by writers such as Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory. It is clear that Bede wished to help with such study, because over half of the works that he wrote were on the scriptures and the ideas of the ‘church fathers’ (5: §24).

Computes, the study of time and the calendar, also played an important part in monastic life during Bede’s day. When the Anglo-Saxon invasions severed the ties between Ireland and the rest of Christendom, the means for calculating the date of Easter had not been universally established. As Roman Christianity re-established itself in Britain, it collided with the Christianity practised by Celtic missionaries from Iona and Lindisfarne. This led to arguments about the date of Easter. At the synod of Whitby (664) this dispute was settled in favour of the Roman side, but the decision applied only to the kingdom of Northumbria. In De Temporibus (trans. as ‘On Times’, in ‘On the Nature of Things’ and ‘On Times’, 703), Bede described and argued in favour of the rules and formulas used by Roman Christianity. Echoing the sixth-century monk Dionysius Exiguus, he also argued for a dating system centred on the birth of Christ, known to us now through the abbreviations BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, trans. as ‘in the year of our Lord’). Previously, the Anglo-Saxons had usually dated by the regnal years of their kings, or by the indiction (the fifteen-year fiscal period instituted by Constantine in 313). Both systems had their disadvantages, as the regnal years of one Anglo-Saxon kingdom were inapplicable to another and incomprehensible abroad, and as the indiction was only a cycle of fifteen years it was not always clear which cycle was intended.⁹ Bede not only solved a problem which had troubled earlier historians such as Gildas (who gave only one date in his writings) and Nennius (who used no fewer than twenty-eight different eras), but he also established the idea of time as being organised and regulated by political and religious events.

De Temporibus and the later De Temporum (trans. as The Reckoning of Time, 725) also include chronicles of world history: lists of dates with corresponding events. These chronicles detail the intervention of God in human events and the lives of holy men and women. Out of these chronicles arose Bede’s celebrations of the deeds of a number of saints, of which the best known are those concerning the lives of the first three abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow (Ceolfrid, Hwaetbet and Benedict Biscop) and Two Lives of St Cuthbert.

Bede’s interest in chronology and hagiography are combined in his History. In this, Bede offers us valuable insight into the ecclesiastical and political developments of a period – 597 to 731 – for which there are few other surviving sources. It is arranged in chronological order, but this is broken up to some extent by saints’ lives and descriptions of the phases in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The first book of the History opens with a sketch of the historical and geographical background for the domination of the Anglo-Saxons over the British and the failure of the Celts to convert them to Christianity. He then writes of the persecution of Christians that became empire-wide and reached a new intensity under the rule of Diocletian. In Britain, it produced the land’s first martyr, St Alban. Bede’s account of Alban’s execution is colourful, as this excerpt attests:

St Alban, whose ardent desire it was to achieve his martyrdom as soon as possible, came to the torrent and raised his eyes towards heaven. Thereupon the river-bed dried up at that very spot and he saw the waters give way and provide a path for him to walk in. … When he reached the top of the hill, St Alban asked God to give him water and at once a perpetual spring bubbled up, confined within its channel and at his very feet, so that all could see that even the stream rendered service to the martyr. … And so on this holy spot the valiant martyr was beheaded … But the one who laid his unholy hands on that holy neck was not permitted to rejoice over his death; for the head of the blessed martyr and the executioner’s eyes fell to the ground together. (1: §7)

For Bede, the Britons were like the Hebrews in their sojourn in Sinai on the way to the Promised Land. When they respected God’s laws, they prospered; when they sinned, God permitted them to suffer the evil consequences of their misdeeds. Chief among their misdeeds was their failure to preach the faith to the Angles and Saxons who inhabited Britain with them. God, however, ‘did not utterly abandon the people whom he had chosen; for he remembered them, and sent [Britain] more worthy preachers of truth to bring them to the faith’ (1: §22). These ‘more worthy preachers’ were St Augustine of Canterbury and the band of monks sent with him to Britain in 597. Bede’s description of Augustine’s mission in Britain is notable for his inclusion of the purportedly verbatim responses of Gregory to Augustine’s pastoral questions (1: §27).¹⁰

Book 2 focuses on the conversion of Edwin, King of Northumbria. God blessed Edwin and his realm so much, Bede claims, ‘that the proverb still runs that a woman could carry her new-born babe across the island from sea to sea without any fear of harm’ (2: §16). In this book, as with the previous one, political and ecclesiastical developments are intertwined. He records that in the year 633, for instance, Edwin became a victim of a revolt led in part by the pagan king Penda. He is happy to note in the opening of Book 3, however, that the army of King Oswald, ‘small in numbers but strong in the faith of Christ’, destroyed Penda and his army (3: §1). Later chapters of the third book document the growth of Christianity in Northumbria, concluding with the Celtic–Roman dispute over the calculation of the date of Easter. Given the importance that Bede attached to computes, he would have considered few events equal to the synod of Whitby. Though his sympathies were on the side of the Roman party, it must be said that he gives a fair account of the Celtic argument. Indeed, here, as in other places in the History, Bede takes the opportunity to extol the virtues of the Celtic clergy and the devotion of their followers (3: §25).

In Book 4 Bede first recounts Archbishop Theodore’s apostolate, which was of great importance because he was ‘the first archbishop whom the whole Church of England obeyed’. Despite his age, we learn, Theodore energetically organised the church. He conducted official visits, encouraged students to go to Canterbury, arranged synods at Hertford and Hatfield and brought peace between the warring kings Egfrid and Ethelred (4: §§5, 17). This leads on to an account of the ‘many proofs of holiness’ at the convent at Barking and in the lives of Queen Etheldreda, St Hilda and St Cuthbert. The fifth and final book brings the History to mid-731. Bede’s brief account of his own times reveals little of the unhappiness that he expressed in his Letter to Egbert about the ignorance, worldliness and corruption of contemporary clergymen. Rather, his criticisms are conveyed in his account of earlier events. In that account, one gets a pretty clear idea of what Bede sees as virtues and vices. Consider, for instance, his description of the life of Bishop Aidan, whose actions provide a contrast to our ‘modern slothfulness’:

Neither respect nor fear made him keep silence about the sins of the rich, but he would correct them with a stern rebuke. He would never give money to powerful men of the world, but only food on such occasions as he entertained them; on the contrary he distributed gifts of money which he received from the rich … for the use of the poor or the redemption of those sold unjustly into slavery. (3: §5)

The final chapter of the History consists primarily of a summary of events covered in the work, which Bede offers as ‘an aid to the memory’. As the summary offered includes events not mentioned in the body of the work, it has been suggested that Bede began his History by generating a list of events from his several Easter-annals and chronological works. He then added entries from regnal and bishops’ lists, and Irish records. Having composed an outline of dated events, he then expanded the narrative with undated material from saints’ lives, legends and accounts of battles that he thought would edify those who heard or read his book.

Bede assures the readers of his History that he worked hard to verify the events detailed. For the first part of the work, covering the lead-up to the arrival of St Augustine of Canterbury in Britain in 597, he drew his material from ‘the works of earlier writers gathered from various sources’. These have been identified chiefly as the works of Pliny the Elder, Eusebius, Orosius, Solinus, Gildas, Prosper of Aquitaine and Constantius. He also drew on the anonymous Life of St Alban and the Liber Pontificalis, the official record of the lives of the popes. For the years after 597, he cites as his principal authority Abbot Albinus. Albinus searched exhaustively for written records and verbal accounts of legends and traditions that pertained to Kent and surrounding regions. He passed these on to Northelm, a priest of London, who in turn passed them on to Bede. Northelm also visited Rome, and gained permission from Pope Gregory II to search the archives of the Roman church for letters and documents of Gregory the Great and later popes relating to Britain. Bede also acknowledges the help of Bishop Daniel of Winchester, Bishop Cynebert, Abbot Esi, the monks of Lashingham and countless ‘faithful witnesses’ from Northumbria. These must have included monks from the communities of Wearmouth, Jarrow and Lindisfarne. Other sources include the community at Iona, Eddius’s Life of Wilfrid and the Liber Pontificalis. Unlike most medieval writers, Bede meticulously named his sources, distinguished between indirect accounts of events and reports of witnesses (2: §16; 3: §15), and noted when he obtained a story by hearsay (1: §15; 2: §§5, 15). He was conscious of the uncertainty of rumour, and expressly requested of the reader that

if he finds anything other than the truth set down in what I have written, not to impute it to me. For, in accordance with the principles of true history, I have simply sought to commit to writing what I have collected from common report, for the instruction of posterity. (preface)

Readers are unlikely to see present-day history makers absolve themselves of responsibility in this way.

Bede’s claims about his endeavours may prompt us to conclude that he was a naïve cipher. As suggested earlier, the miraculous element in the History tends to raise the eyebrows of many a reader. Bede hoped that descriptions of miraculous demonstrations of God’s power would encourage hearers and readers to ‘follow what is good and pleasing to God’ (1: §20; 2: §§7, 22; 4: §§25, 26). Being ‘of God’, he would have thought it wrong to tamper with descriptions of them. As with other Judeo-Christian historians such as Paulus Orosius and Otto of Freising, Bede set himself up as church father to his readers but also worked to efface himself so that his authority would not be taken as greater than that of the Bible or God. Occasionally, however, he does interject and offer a rational explanation for a miracle. For example, he puts John of Beverley’s cure of a dumb boy with a scabby head down to medical treatment and what we would now call speech therapy (5: §2). Moreover, as John Moorhead has argued, Bede’s interpretation of the Bible suggests a reluctance to acknowledge Peter – or any of the subsequent popes – as having special powers.¹¹ In this way, Bede’s writings suggest that he actively shaped views of how the church ought to be seen.

Bede’s History was widely read and respected in the Middle Ages. More than 150 manuscripts still survive, the earliest of which were written at the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow within a decade of his death. In the eighth century it was a great literary export, Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Europe being the first to promote its circulation. Imitators and plagiarists soon appeared.¹² The History was translated into Old English during the reign of Alfred the Great and the first modern English translation was prepared by Thomas Stapleton. In the prefatory letter that Stapleton wrote to Queen Elizabeth I, we get a sense of how the History could be used in disputes of faith:

In this history your highness shall see in how many and weighty points the pretended refourmers of the Church in your grace’s dominions have departed from the patern of that sounde and catholike faith planted first among Englishemen by holy St Augustine our Apostle.¹³

In subsequent years, the History was used to support the claims of Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. The first critical edition of the work was produced in 1722 by John and George Smith, and since then, studies of Bede’s writings have been greatly boosted by the publication of Charles Plummer’s Operae Bedae (1896), numerous editions of the History and a series of translations of his Biblical and chronological works by Liverpool University Press. Though in these secular times it may be difficult for the reader to understand the motivation behind Bede’s works, there is an attraction to his ‘captivating modesty’ as a history maker.¹⁴

Bede’s major works

Two Lives of St Cuthbert, trans. B. Colgrave, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940.
Homilies on the Gospels, trans. L. T. Martin and D. Hurst, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1991.
The Reckoning of Time, trans. F. Wallis, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004.
On the Temple, trans. S. J. Connelly, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006.
On Genesis, trans. C. B. Kendall, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008.
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. J. McClure and R. Collins, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
‘On the Nature of Things’ and ‘On Times’, trans. C. B. Kendall and F. Wallis, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011.

See also: Froissart, Gregory of Tours, Sima Qian, Tacitus

Further resources

DeGregorio, S., Innovation and Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede, Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2006.
Goffart, W., The Narrators of Barbarian History (AD 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Gunn, V., Bede’s Historiae: Genre, Rhetoric, and the Construction of Anglo-Saxon Church History, Rochester, NY: Boydell, 2009.
Higham, N. J., (Re-) Reading Bede: The Ecclesiastical History in Context, London: Routledge, 2006.
McNamara, J., ‘Bede’s Role in Circulating Legend in the Historia Ecclesiastica’, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, 1994, 7: 61–9.
Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.