{"id":319,"date":"2018-02-08T13:33:57","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T20:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/venerabilisbeda.plgo.org\/?p=319"},"modified":"2018-02-08T18:07:16","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T01:07:16","slug":"article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/venerabilisbeda.plgo.org\/?p=319","title":{"rendered":"Article. Richard Shaw. What Bede\u2019s Use of Caveats Reveals about his Attitude to his Sources. 2015."},"content":{"rendered":"

What Bede\u2019s Use of Caveats Reveals about his Attitude to his Sources.<\/h2>\n

Richard Shaw, NMS 59.<\/h4>\n
\n

Until relatively recently Bede\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s account? A simple question, but with no simple answer. One approach prevalent in recent historiography has been to focus on Bede\u2019s \u2018agency\u2019. Like all authors, Bede wrote in a real context and with a genuine purpose \u2014 or more plausibly, purposes. Historians have spent much time trying to understand and analyse these. From the \u2018Ghost of Bishop Wilfrid\u2019,2 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\u2019s character and the nuances within the HE itself. In the light of such discussions, the HE\u2019s narrative can be \u2018read\u2019, bringing us closer to the reality behind the description.
\nAnother approach, which has not been so favoured of late, is to focus in addition on the issue of Bede\u2019s own sources. However precise our appreciation for Bede\u2019s biases, his account is only as reliable as the information he possessed. And, as Henry Mayr-Harting put it: \u2018The 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.\u20197 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.<\/p>\n

1 As Ian Wood put it, \u2018for most of its first four books the Ecclesiastical History is not a primary source, but a secondary work with a particular ax to grind\u2019: Wood, \u2018Mission of Augustine\u2019, p. 4.
\n2 Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History, pp. 235\u2013328; Goffart, \u2018L\u2019Histoire Eccl\u00e9siastique\u2019, pp. 149\u201358; Goffart, \u2018Bede\u2019s uera lex historiae\u2019, pp. 111\u201316; and Goffart, \u2018Bede\u2019s History\u2019,
\npp. 203\u201326.
\n3 See, for instance, DeGregorio, \u2018Monasticism and Reform\u2019, pp. 673\u201387; Thacker, \u2018Bede\u2019s Ideal of Reform\u2019, pp. 130\u201353.
\n4 Rollason, Bede and Germany, pp. 1\u201342.
\n5 Gunn, Bede\u2019s Historiae, pp. 24\u201393.
\n6 Such as Higham\u2019s 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\u201382 and 148\u2013212.
\n7 Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity, p. 45.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Richard Shaw. What Bede\u2019s Use of Caveats Reveals about his Attitude to his Sources<\/strong>. Nottingham Medieval Studies<\/em>, Volume 59, pp. 1-24. 2015.<\/p>\n

Richard Shaw – What Bede\u2019s Use of Caveats Reveals about his Attitude to his Sources 2015.pdf<\/a> by Venerabilis Beda<\/a> on Scribd<\/p>\n