ON THE TWELVE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF BEDE *

To be remembered by posterity after twelve hundred years is in itself exceptional ; it is more than exceptional when one reflects that during the twelve hundred years which have elapsed since

the death of the Venerable Bede dynasties have risen and van?

ished, Christendom has been divided and subdivided, new con?

tinents have been discovered and settled. And the wonder is not

lessened by recalling the fact that the figure we are concerned with was not a great pontiff, nor a crusader, nor an empoeror; he was

of all things a historian. To understand why after twelve hun? dred years the slight figure of Bede should be remembered at all it may be practical to borrow the suggestion in the inscription carved for an Englishman of a later time :

" Si monumentum

quaeris, circumspice "

and transpose it into the injunction, "

tolle,

lege," for Bede has a monument and that monument, the written

word, is indeed an impressive one. Bede's monument is composed of a series of works which includes theological and scriptural studies, literary pieces, that is to say the technical side of letters as well as some verses, treatises on natural science, and of par? ticular importance, history.1 The variety of fields of human

knowledge covered by Bede is little less than astonishing. The

physical labor alone incident to the production of his intellectual

output judged by any standards is considerable, but when it is reckoned, as it should be, both with reference to the troubled times in which he lived and to his own position in life, the results of Bede's industry cannot fail to amaze us. So it appeared to

* Read at the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical

Association, December 26, 1935, Boston, Mass. 1 Venerabilis Baede Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum, Historiam,

Epistolam ad Eggbertum, una cum Historia Abbatum Auetore Anonyme Ad Fidem Codicum Manuscriptorum Denuo Recognovit, Commentario tarn Critico

quam Hist?rico Instruxit Carolus Plummer, A.M. (Oxford, 1896) ; J. A. Giles, Bede the Venerable. (The complete works of Venerable Bede in original Latin, 12 v. London, 1843-4).

297

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298 PHILIP J. EUELONG

Symeon of Durham, who wrote of Bede as one living " in a remote

corner of the world, who never crossed the seas in order to learn

knowledge, who did not visit the schools of the philosophers, [yef] should be famous for such great learning and should be known

everywhere in the world for the composition of so many books." 2

But mere quantity production cannot explain Bede's importance. There are certain characteristics about his writing that set him far above his fellows. Bede's sympathy, his variety of intellec? tual interests no less than his technical equipment as historian are

in fact the characteristics which place his work far above that of

his contemporaries. An understanding of his life which was

marked by singular sincerity of purpose and a high respect for truth is the key to Bede the historian. His life which covered in all some sixty-two years, after his seventh year was passed behind the protecting walls of the monastery. The years spent quietly at

Jarrow vitalized his career. As a monk meditating upon the reali? ties of life and upon the verities of eternity Bede must have

acquired that feeling for truth and that sense of proportion which characterized his work. In this cultural oasis set in the midst of a

world torn by strife and given to destruction, the scholar was pro? tected against those disturbing influences which beset the path of

historians of our own times. The monastery, too, apparently was a treasury of source material and in this treasure house Bede was

able to sort his materials, using that which was worthy and dis?

carding the spurious. The picture of these influences has been

admirably set forth by Francis S. Betten, S. J.3 A full appreciation of Bede the historian requires an excur?

sion along the avenue of his non-historical works and while it is

not here practical to make more than a passing reference to their

subject-matter even this little will disclose the fact that all human knowledge was within the sphere of Bede's interest. Bede was no

Doctor Dryasdust, he was not a specialist of the present day

variety hobbled to a single point, wandering hopelessly through a

2 Thomas Allison, Pioneers of English Learning, p. xvii (Oxford, 1932). 3 " St. Bede, the Venerable," in Church Historians, ed. P. Guilday (New

York, 1926); Raby, "Bede" in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Geographie eccl?siastiques (Paris, 1933).

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TWELVE HUNDEEDTH ANNIVEBSARY OF THE DEATH OP BEDE 299

maze of detail with neither perspective nor direction. Bede was

what the model historian must be, an explorer. His inquisitive ness, for example, led him to make special studies of the reasons

and the ways of reckoning time. Bede's studies of chronology are of special importance and even though the results have been

the subject of controversy, as witness among others that carried on in the Athenaeum (1930) between Sir James H. Ramsay and

Mr. A. Anscombe, the conclusions prove only this : that Bede was

a careful historian and in the matter of chronology he is far more

careful than his contemporaries. Professor Charles W. Jones has called attention to the fact that in the subject of chronology Bede seems to have assembled a library of exceptional completeness for

that time. At any rate Bede's knowledge stood him in good stead

when he came to write history, for history must have strict regard to chronology. Indeed, the fifth book of his Ecclesiastical History contains a chronological recapitulation of English history from the Roman invasion under Julius Caesar to the death of Arch?

bishop Bertwald in 731. Mathematics challenged Bede. This no doubt made him careful in computing figures or accepting the totals of others. In some of the Old English versions of Bede's

Ecclesiastical History, as George Hempl notes, there has been a

misreading of numerals.4 These errors, however, are not to be attributed to Bede who is most careful about figures. Thus, for

example, in the third book of the history he is careful to note that in 655 A. D. five thousand families lived in southern Mercia on the careful enumeration of the bishops who took part in the ecumenical councils of the Church from Nicea to the second at

Constantinople (Book IV, cxviii). The historical works of Bede are unquestionably his most im?

portant productions and of these the Ecclesiastical History of the

English People by far out-distances his other works, for although the Martyrology has a place in the catalogue of Bede's writings, in its present form it undoubtedly is not entirely his work. Bede's

Chronicle of the Six Ages of the World is limited in its appeal. His two biographies of St. Cuthbert, one is verse, relatively speak

* G. Hempl, Modem Language Notes (Baltimore, 1896).

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300 PHILIP J. FUKLONG

ing, are likewise unimportant. But the Ecclesiastical History is a

different matter. This is a genuine masterpiece and upon it Bede's fame chiefly rests. The history was written in his fifty-eighth or

fifty-ninth year, at the suggestion of Albin, a disciple of Arch?

bishop Theodore and Abbott Adrian.5 Perhaps not more than a

year was consumed in the writing of the history, which in itself is an achievement. The history in Everyman's Library comprises

nearly 300 pages of closely printed matter, a most representative production. But while in the actual writing of this work great speed was brought to bear, in the larger sense a lifetime went into its making. Perhaps here is the explanation of the attractiveness of this book. In any case Bede's History is the one history written

during the medieval period that towers above its fellows. The

importance of his text was so clearly perceived that it was copied probably hundreds of times so that even today at least one hun? dred thirty manuscripts are extant which are, or were, to be found from Leningrad to Mexico City. And after the invention of print? ing this book was among the first to come from the presses. But this does not explain its greatness. There are, however, charac? teristics in this book more or less discernible which do indicate the reasons for the appeal of Bede's masterpiece. There is a poetry in the history; there is also a certain epic quality that raises it from a standard chronicle to a piece of literature. There is, be?

sides, the honesty and sincerity of the author that speak forth from every page and finally there is the technical equipment of the writer himself who evidently regarded the office of historian

with reverence. The effectiveness of a historian depends to some

extent upon his style for no matter how painstaking his research, he must be able to clothe the fruits of his labor in beautiful lan?

guage. Bede was a poet.6 We have his verse, but we have his

poetry in his prose also. And here is one explanation of the

beauty of Bede's writing, because a writer of history, for being a

poet, is not less a historian; rather his writing will be rich and

5 Peter Wilcock, Lives of the first Five Abbots of Wear mouth and Jarrow

(Sunderland, 1910). 6 P. J. R. Baby, Christian Latin Poetry (Oxford, 1927).

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TWELVE HUNDREDTH ANNIVEBSAEY OF THE DEATH OP BEDE 301

complete. So in the Ecclesiastical History Bede speaks of a " hill

adorned, clothed with flowers" (Book I, cvii). "Craggy and uncouth mountains " are noticed (Book IV, cxxvii),

" The bois? terous wind,"

"

raging pain," 7 make definite what he wants us

to see.

Professor Abbott8 has called attention to the epic quality of Bede's writing. Bede, unconsciously perhaps, is recounting the

progress of a tremendous struggle, the battle between paganism and Christianity. Christianity had by no means triumphed even in Bede's day, for it was not until several centuries later that the

northern peoples who constituted the chief threat to England came

under the yoke of Christ. England itself, during the seventh cen?

tury, was undergoing the process of conversion and Bede was born

during the eighth. He therefore knew much of the power of the forces which Christianity must overcome. And the conqueror?

Who He was and how He was regarded had already been pro? claimed in The Dream of the Rood but not more eloquently than in Bede's own words at his death preserved for us in Cuthbert's letter to Cutwin : " The time for me to be set free is at hand, for indeed my soul much desires to behold my King Christ in His

beauty." Here is the secret: Bede's King, the White Christ, is He who is fighting the powers of darkness. He is the hero of the Ecclesiastical History.

Factual history is taken for granted in the historian. Bede's

honesty amounts to genius. Perhaps this quality explains why his

history begins as it does by omitting a grandiose survey of world

history and beginning directly in chapter I with a statement con?

cerning the geography of Britain and the character of its early inhabitants, and, in chapter II, giving the story of Caesar's inva? sion. Had Bede followed the practise of contemporary writers, and later writers also, he should have written a history largely apocryphal in parts and one that long since had been forgotten.

When dealing with the miraculous, Bede is carefully objective. 7 See Jones, Putnam, Fennell, A Concordance to the Historia Ecclesiastica

of Bede (Cambridge, 1929). 8 William Cortez Abbott, Conflicts with Oblivion (New Haven, 1924).

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302 PHILIP J. FUBLONG

In describing the virtues of saintly characters there is a complete absence of pietism. Indeed there is a rugged honesty which is

especially appealing. See, for example, Pope Gregory's exhorta? tion to Augustine that he glory not in his miracles :

" It remains, therefore, most dear brother, that amidst those things which you

outwardly perform through the working of our Lord, you always inwardly strictly judge yourself. . . . And if any time you have offended our Creator . . . call it to mind that the remembrance of your guilt may crush the vanity which rises in your heart."

But the professional historian will perhaps be chiefly interested in Bede's method of writing. Concerning his method of writing

history he has this to say, that his sources were "

the writings of the ancients, or the tradition of our ancestors or of my own knowl?

edge." What were the writing of the "

ancients " ? They were, among others, Eddius' Life of Wilfrid, or the anonymous Life of

Pope Gregory, or The Life of Cuthbert. Bede was acquainted also with Pliny, Orosius, Eutropius, Vegetius, Isidore of Seville, Tertullian, and, no doubt, others, for what has been called the

monastic travelling library was evidently an efficient institution and was in successful operation in Bede's day. This explains why it was not necessary for him to leave his monastery for source

material; the sources came to him. His friends journeyed as far as Borne to procure material. Unfortunately, it is not always pos? sible to particularize concerning the sources used by Bede. Plum?

mer remarked some years ago that a really critical edition of Bede, which should show exactly how much he borrowed and how much

is original, is a great desideratum. After forty years this situa? tion has not been remedied. Such a task would be a monumental one because Bede rarely indicates specifically which sources he has used; the authority may be mentioned but not the particular work. This neglect must not always be charged against Bede.

Probably in copying the manuscripts later scribes failed to note all the indications.9 Bede enjoyed the friendship of many of the best informed men of his day, those who had personal knowledge of the events he describes or who had been in contact with a previ

9 E. J. Sutcliffe, S. J., B?blica, 7 (1926).

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TWELVE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 0E THE DEATH OE BEDE 303

ous generation that had know of these events first hand. Their

contributions are for the most part duly noted. The professional historian, therefore, cannot fail to be satisfied with Bede's method

of writing history and his careful use of source material.

So we turn from an attempted analysis of the method employed by Bede and the all too sketchy consideration of the sources used

by him to the man himself to justify?if justification were needed ?the salutation on the twelfth hundredth anniversary of his

death, Bede, model for historians. We like to think that this may be found in the concluding words of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, where Bede writes :

" And now, I beseech

these, good Jesus, that to whom thou hast graciously granted sweely to partake of the words of thy wisdom and knowledge, thou wilt also vouchsafe that he may some time or other come to

three, the fountain of all wisdom, and always appear before thy face, who livest and reignest world without end. Amen !

"

Philip J. Furlong.

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