ecclesiastical history of the english people by bede

I have the old 1955 Penguin translation by Leo Sherley-Price, who translates the title as A History of the English Church and People.īede is called the Father of English History for several reasons:

(He usefully provides us with a list of his works.)īut Bede is best-known for his masterpiece, regularly described as the first and greatest work of English history, the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ( The Ecclesiastical History of the English People). Thus encouraged by kind sponsors and in a uniquely well-provisioned environment, Bede began to write, and went on to compose some 40 works, including commentaries on numerous books of the Bible, a life of St Cuthbert, lives of famous Saxon abbots, and so on. It also contained probably the most extensive library in Anglo-Saxon Britain. The honorific Venerable (as in ‘the Venerable Bede’) apparently derives from the tombstone erected some years after his death.īede was fortunate in that his monastery was run by the enlightened abbot, Benedict Biscop, and his successor, Ceolfrith, who both encouraged his historical studies. Wallace-Hadrill Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford Medieval Texts, 1988) have been added.Bede was a monk who spent most of his life in the monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth and its companion monastery, Saint Paul’s in what is now modern Jarrow, both situated in the Dark Age Saxon kingdom of Northumbria.

A number of printer's errors has now been corrected, and marginal cross-references to discussion in J. The present edition, first published in 1969, is recognized as standard and authoritative: its text is based on all the important early witnesses (including, for the first time, the 'Leningrad Bede'), and the Introduction contains Sir Roger Mynors's classic account of the work's complex manuscript transmission. From its pages we learn the stories of Edwin and Oswald, Cuthbert and Caedmon, and many more which have become an indelible part of English national consciousness. The work was read in every part of Europe throughout the Middle Ages, and today it still remains the best-known text to have survived from Anglo-Saxon England. Bede's clear narrative, his scrupulous sifting of evidence and his vigorous pursuit of information from many sources written and oral are all features which commend themselves to modern readers. Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731, is a masterpiece of historical writing.

Ecclesiastical history of the english people by bede