Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and the Material Conditions of Anglo-Saxon Life

Joel T. Rosenthal

The author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People was the greatest historian writing in the West between the later Roman Empire and the twelfth century, when we come to William of Malmesbury, Otto of Freising, and William of Tyre. Bede’s qualities as a historian are well known and widely appreciated, and they need no further exposition here. Instead, we propose to be perverse and to attempt to read Bede’s text as though he had been a sociologist or an economic anthropologist: What can we learn from him about the “material conditions” of life in post-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon England, especially about life in the sixth and seventh centuries. This is surely a strange purpose for which to use the Ecclesiastical History. We do so both to show that Bede is so rich and so multifaceted that he is immensely valuable for many purposes besides those of greatest obvious interest to him, and because the sources for social and economic life in those years are so poor that everything available is legitimate grist for the mills of our analysis.

Joel T. Rosenthal. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and the Material Conditions of Anglo-Saxon Life. Journal of British Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Autumn, 1979), pp. 1-17. 1979.

Joel T. Rosenthal – Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Material Conditions of Anglo-Saxon Life by Venerabilis Bedae Studiosus on Scribd

NOTE: Please be aware that the rights of this article belong only and exclusively to the Journal of British 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.