What Bede’s Use of Caveats Reveals about his Attitude to his Sources.

Richard Shaw, NMS 59.

Until relatively recently Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica (HE) tended to be treated as a primary source for the events it recorded. The recognition that the work, for the most part at least, is at best a secondary account of the seventh century has been one of several strands of more critical treatment that the HE has received over the last fifty years.1 Yet, primary or secondary, Bede’s history remains our main source for early Christian Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, for many events it is our only source. The question, then, is how reliable is Bede’s account? A simple question, but with no simple answer. One approach prevalent in recent historiography has been to focus on Bede’s ‘agency’. Like all authors, Bede wrote in a real context and with a genuine purpose — or more plausibly, purposes. Historians have spent much time trying to understand and analyse these. From the ‘Ghost of Bishop Wilfrid’,2 to ecclesiastical reform,3 via a voice for the missions,4 or monastic competition, 5 with others in between,6 all of these perspectives have cast light on Bede and the HE, whether or not each and every conclusion has received general acceptance. Taken together they have enriched our appreciation for the complexity of Bede’s character and the nuances within the HE itself. In the light of such discussions, the HE’s narrative can be ‘read’, bringing us closer to the reality behind the description.
Another approach, which has not been so favoured of late, is to focus in addition on the issue of Bede’s own sources. However precise our appreciation for Bede’s biases, his account is only as reliable as the information he possessed. And, as Henry Mayr-Harting put it: ‘The Ecclesiastical History reads so fluently and seems such a finely woven fabric, that we have to remind ourselves how patchy and uneven were the sources on which Bede was forced to rely.’7 Thus, any reconstruction of events in the seventh century on the basis of Bede needs not only an understanding of his perspectives, but also of his sources.

1 As Ian Wood put it, ‘for most of its first four books the Ecclesiastical History is not a primary source, but a secondary work with a particular ax to grind’: Wood, ‘Mission of Augustine’, p. 4.
2 Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History, pp. 235–328; Goffart, ‘L’Histoire Ecclésiastique’, pp. 149–58; Goffart, ‘Bede’s uera lex historiae’, pp. 111–16; and Goffart, ‘Bede’s History’,
pp. 203–26.
3 See, for instance, DeGregorio, ‘Monasticism and Reform’, pp. 673–87; Thacker, ‘Bede’s Ideal of Reform’, pp. 130–53.
4 Rollason, Bede and Germany, pp. 1–42.
5 Gunn, Bede’s Historiae, pp. 24–93.
6 Such as Higham’s claim the HE was intended to provide something of a speculum principis, with specifically tailored implicit criticisms designed for King Ceolwulf. Higham, (Re-)Reading Bede, pp. 69–82 and 148–212.
7 Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity, p. 45.

Richard Shaw. What Bede’s Use of Caveats Reveals about his Attitude to his Sources. Nottingham Medieval Studies, Volume 59, pp. 1-24. 2015.

Richard Shaw – What Bede’s Use of Caveats Reveals about his Attitude to his Sources 2015.pdf by Venerabilis Beda on Scribd

NOTE: Please be aware that the rights of this article belong only and exclusively to the journal Nottingham Medieval Studies. You must not use this article for any commercial or professional activity without direct and explicit permission of it’s copyright holders. We do not store illegal materials nor promote any illegal activity, and this document is being cited only as a reference widely available through Internet, to help the personal study and investigation of researchers and students, without any kind of commercial/profitable usage.