The Ecclesiastical History of the English People/The Greater Chronicle/Letter to Egbert

496 Pages·1999·7.74 MB·English

by  Bede, Roger Collins, Judith McClure

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE
B ede was probably born in Bernicia, the northern component of the
Kingdom of the Northumbrians, around the year 673. Nothing
is known of his parents. At the age of 7 he entered the recently
founded monastery of St Peter at Wearmouth, and was ordained
a priest c. 703. By about 710 he had begun writing a series of
commentaries on various books of the Old and New Testaments,
and he undertook his first hagiographical commissions in the
same period. His work as historian began with his compilation of
chronicle sections to form part of works that he wrote on the
divisions of time. He completed writing his best-known book,
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, in 731. His last
known work was the letter that he sent to Bishop Egbert of York
in 734. He died on 25 May 735. After his death his fame in Britain
was matched by the interest in him shown by the Anglo-Saxon
missionaries on the Continent, for or by whom many of the sur­
viving early manuscripts of his works were written. The Viking
attacks on Northumbria in the ninth century cut short a growing
cult of Bede, which was revived in a more limited way after the
Norman Conquest.
J udith M cC lure is Head of St George’s School for Girls in
Edinburgh and is the author of articles on Bede and on the Latin
Bible in the Early Middle Ages. She is married to her co-editor.
R oger C o llins has taught at the University of Liverpool and
is currently Research Fellow in the Department of History in the
University of Edinburgh. He is the author of several books on early
medieval European history. He and Judith McClure are currently
writing the first volume of the Oxford History of Medieval Europe.
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
BEDE
The Ecclesiastical History
o f the English People
The Greater Chronicle
Bede’s Letter to Egbert
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
JUDITH McCLURE
and
ROGER COLLINS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 0x2 6dp
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Published in the United States
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Text of The Ecclesiastical History © Oxford University Press 1969
Editorial matter and Translation of The Greater Chronicle and Letter to
Egbert © Judith McClure and Roger Collins
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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First published as a World’s Classics paperback 1994
Reissued as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 1999
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bede, the Venerable, Saint, 673-735.
[Historica ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, English]
The ecclesiastical history of the English people; The greater
chronicle; Bede’s letter to Egbert / Bede; edited with an
introduction by Judith McClure and Roger Collins.
(Oxford world’s classics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. England—Church history—449-1066. 2. Civilization, Anglo-
Saxon I. McClure, Judith. II. Collins, Roger, 1949—
III. Title: Ecclesiastical history of the English people.
IV. Title: Greater chronicle. V. Title: Bede’s letter to Egbert.
VI. Series.
BR746.B5 1994 274.2'02—dc20 96-3926
ISBN 0-19-283866-0
6
Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
CONTENTS
Abbreviations vii
Introduction ix
Note on the Translations xxxiii
Select Bibliography xxxiv
Map xxxvi
TH E E C C L E SIA ST IC A L H ISTO R Y OF
TH E EN G LISH PEO PLE i
CUTHBERT’S LETTER ON THE DEATH OF BEDE 299
TH E G R EA T ER C H RO N IC LE 305
B E D E ’S L E T T E R TO E G B E R T 341
Explanatory Notes 358
Index 431
v

ABBREVIATIONS
A L C Anonymous prose Life of Cuthbert, tr. B.
Colgrave, in id. (ed.), Two Lives of St Cuthbert
(Cambridge, 1940)
A S C Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
A S E Anglo-Saxon England
A S S A H Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History
A U Annals of Ulster, eds. S. MacAirt and G.
MacNiocaill (Dublin, 1983)
C C SL Corpus Christianorum Series Latina
C LA Codices Latinae Antiquiores, ed. E. A. Lowe, 11
vols. + supplement (Oxford, 1934-71)
C&M B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (eds.), Bede:
Ecclesiastical History of the English People (rev.
edn.; Oxford, 1991)
D TR De Temporum Ratione
E E Bede’s Epistle to Egbert; text in P i. 405-23
E H Bede’s Ecclesiastical History
EH D English Historical Documents, i. 500-1042, tr. D.
Whitelock (London, 1968)
EH R English Historical Review
H A History of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow
(Bede) text in P i. 364-87
H B Historia Brittonum, ed. J. Morris [under the title
of Nennius] (Chichester, 1980), 50-84
H E Historia Ecclesiastica (Bede): the Latin text
H R Historia Regum, attributed to Symeon of Dur­
ham, ed. T. Arnold, Rolls series, lxxv, pt. 2
(London, 1885)
L C Life of Ceolfrid; text in P i. 388-404; tr. in EH D
697-708
L W Stephanus’ Life of Wilfrid, tr. B. Colgrave, in id.
(ed.), The Life of Bishop Wilfrid (Cambridge,
1927)
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
M G H A A Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores
vii
Abbreviations
Antiquissimi
M G H SR G Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores
Rerum Germanicarum
M G H SR M Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores
Rerum Merovingicarum
P Plummer’s edition of H E: Venerabilis Baedae
Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum, ed. C.
Plummer, 2 vols. (Oxford 1896)
P L Patrologia Latina
P LC Bede’s prose Life ofCuthbert, tr. B. Colgrave, in
id. (ed.), Two Lives of St Cuthbert (Cambridge,
1940)
S P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters (London,
1968)
S LH Scriptores Latini Hiberniae
TRH S Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
V LC Bede’s verse Life of Cuthbert, in W. Jaager (ed.),
Bedas metrische Vita sancti Cuthberti (Leipzig,
1935)j never translated
WH J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Bedels Ecclesiastical
History of the English People: A Historical C o m ­
mentary (Oxford, 1988)
Vlll
INTRO DUCTIO N
THE MAN AND HIS MONASTERY
Whether as ‘the Venomous Bead’ of 1066 and All That or
through more serious appreciation of his life and work, Bede
may fairly be called the best known of all medieval historians
who wrote in Britain. His Ecclesiastical History of the English
People, which he completed in 731, has been enjoyed either in
its original Latin or in numerous English translations for
centuries. It has been seen as the first attempt at a national
history, and although this would not have been Bede’s real
aim, it certainly provides us with most of what can be used
to compile a narrative history of the early Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms, from the fifth to the mid-eighth centuries. Sites
associated with Bede’s life have also aroused considerable
interest, not least through the growing appeal of popular
archaeology, both in books and on television. The church of
St Paul’s at Jarrow, whose chancel contains much of a build­
ing dating from Bede’s time, receives frequent visitors, and
their number will probably expand in the light of the recent
development of the site as a museum of early Anglo-Saxon life
and culture. It is with Bede’s monastery, his home for all but
seven years of his life, that it is best to begin a consideration
of his work, not least because he has left us considerably more
direct information relating to it than he has to himself.
Wearmouth and Jarrow
Between completing his Chronicle in 725 and commencing
the Ecclesiastical History of 731, Bede wrote an account of the
foundation and subsequent history of his own monastery. It is
largely thanks to this work, the History of the Abbots of
Wearmouth and Jarrow> that we know as much as we do of the
setting of Bede’s life, and can also understand how such a
wealth of resources, especially books, was available for him to
draw on throughout his scholarly career. His narrative can
IX
Introduction
occasionally be supplemented by references in other sources,
and these indicate that his History of the Abbots is perhaps
not always impartial. As will also be seen in the case of his
Ecclesiastical History, let alone the Letter to Egbert, the image of
Bede as a detached and saintly scholar does less than justice
to the complexity of his personality and of his work.
Combining Bede’s account in the History of the Abbots with
other sources, notably a shorter, anonymous work known as
the Life of Ceolfrid, written c.716/17, the history of the foun­
dation of Wearmouth and Jarrow can be described as fol­
lows.1 At the age of 25 a Northumbrian noble called Biscop
Baducing (later also known as Benedict) received a gift of
land from king Oswy (642-70), probably following a period of
personal and military service in the royal household. He then
began a series of journeys to Rome that continued almost
until his death. The first of these took place around 653, and
Biscop was accompanied as far as Lyons by the future bishop
Wilfrid, a detail that Bede does not include.2 The second visit
occurred in the 660s, and after some time in Rome Biscop
returned to southern France where he became a monk in the
once celebrated island monastery of Lérins. After two years
he returned to Rome, where he was present at the arrival and
death of Wigheard, who had been sent from England to be
consecrated archbishop of Canterbury.3 When pope Vitalian
chose Theodore to replace Wigheard, he also sent Biscop to
accompany him on the journey to England. On their arrival in
669, Biscop took over the vacant abbacy of St Augustine’s
monastery in Canterbury, but relinquished it on the arrival of
the African abbot Hadrian in 670. Soon afterwards Biscop
was back in Rome, where he began amassing an impressive
collection of books. He eventually returned to England and to
Northumbria in 674, when he founded the monastery of
1 For consideration of the possibility that the Life of Ceolfrid was actually written
by Bede, as an anniversary sermon, see J. McClure, ‘Bede and the Life of Ceolfrid’,
Peritia, 3 (1984), 71-84.
2 L Weh. 3, p. 8. Only this source adds the detail of Biscop’s family name. For the
view that Bede was hostile to the influence of Wilfrid and of his supporters, see
W. Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History (Princeton, NJ, 1988), ch. iv: ‘Bede
and the Ghost of Bishop Wilfrid’, 235-328. EH v. 19 mentions Wilfrid’s presence.
’ On these events, see EH m. 29 and rv. 1.
X