Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

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Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

Folio 3v from Codex Beda Petersburgiensis (746)

The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (in English: Ecclesiastical History of the English People) is a work in Latin by the Venerable Bede on the history of the Church in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.

It is considered to be one of the most important original references on Anglo-Saxon history. It is believed to have been completed in 731, when Bede was approximately 60 years old.

Scope
Contents
Editions
Translations
Literature
See also
External links

Scope

Divided into five books (about 400 pages), the Historia covers the history of England, ecclesiastical and political, from the time of Julius Caesar to the date of its completion (731). The first twenty-one chapters, covering the period before the mission of Augustine, are compiled from earlier writers such as Orosius, Gildas, Prosper of Aquitaine, the letters of Pope Gregory I, and others, with the insertion of legends and traditions.

After AD 596, documentary sources, which Bede took pains to obtain throughout England and from Rome, are used, as well as oral testimony, which he employed along with critical consideration of its authenticity.

The Historia, like other historical writing from this period has a lower degree of objectivity than modern historical writings. It is a mixture of fact, legend and literature. For example, Bede took liberties by making up fictional quotations from people who were not his contemporaries.

The History of the English Church and People has a clear polemical and didactic purpose. Bede sets out, not just to tell the story of the English, but to advance his views on politics and religion. In political terms he is a partisan of his native Northumbria, amplifying its role in English history over and above that of Mercia, its great southern rival. He takes greater pains in describing events of the seventh century, when Northumbria was the dominant Anglo-Saxon power, than the eighth, when it was not. The only criticism he ventures of his native Northumbria comes in writing about the death of King Ecgfrith in fighting the Picts at Nechtansmere in 685.

Bede attributes this defeat to God's vengeance for the Northumbrian attack on the Irish in the previous year. For while Bede is loyal to Northumbria he shows an even greater attachment to the Irish and the Irish Celtic missionaries, whom he considers to be far more effective and dedicated than their rather complacent English counterparts.

His final preoccupation is over the precise date of Easter, which he writes about at length. It is here, and only here, that he ventures some criticism of St Cuthbert and the Irish missionaries, who celebrated the event, according to Bede, at the wrong time. In the end he is pleased to note that the Irish Church was saved from error by accepting the correct date for Easter.

Editions

1475: printed in Germany
1563: "basic edition" (incomplete)
1643: first edition printed in England
1688: "Cologne edition"
1742: Smith
1884: Giles, reprinted in Patrologia Latina
1896 C. Plummer, Oxford
1969: Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford, Clarendon Press, reprint with corrections 1992
2005: Michael Lapidge, Paris

Translations

Bede's Ecclesiastical History was translated into Old English at the insistence of Alfred the Great, in the 890s.

1565: T. Stapleton, Antwerp
1866: M. M. Wilden, Schaffhausen
1903: L.C. Jane, Temple Classics.
1907: A. M. Sellar, London, George Bell & Sons.
1955: Leo Sherley-Price, Penguin, reprinted with revisions 1965, revised 1968, revised 1990
1969: Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford, Clarendon Press, reprint with corrections 1992
1997: Günter Spitzbart, Darmstadt.
2005: Pierre Monat, Philippe Robin, Paris
2008: Hirosi Takahashi, Kodansha

Literature

Jones, P. A., A Concordance to the Historia ecclesiastica of Bede, Cambridge 1919
Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Bede's Ecclesiastical history of the English people : a historical commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York : Oxford University Press, 1988.