Bedes Ecclesiastical History Of England

Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede is a key work for historians, church historians and intelligent lay readers. Here is the perfect introduction. Bede's best known work, An Ecclesiastical History of the English People, was written in Latin and is not immediately easy to understand and follow. Yet it is a key text for any student of English history. Rowan Williams shows in his introduction how Bede works to create a sense of national destiny for the new English kingdoms of the seventh century, a sense that has helped to shape English self-awareness through the centuries, by using the imagery both of imperial Rome and of biblical Israel. But Bede also wrestles with the difficult question of how the Church relates to and serves the political order. The attraction and fascination of his work is partly in seeing the tension between the strategic use of wealth and political power for religious ends and the example of self-effacing service and simplicity of life offered by some of Bede's greatest Christian heroes. The issues around these questions are not academic or antiquarian. Understanding Bede is a key to understanding British society in the present as well as the past.

The Venerable Bede's history of the Christian church in England, written in the early eighth century, still stands as a significant literary work. Translated from Latin into various other languages, Bede's fascinating history has long been widely studied. Thirteen centuries later, this thorough and reliable guide by J. Robert Wright enables today's readers to follow the major English translations of Bede's work and to understand exactly what Bede was saying, what he meant, and why his words and account remain so important. Wright'sCompanion to Bede provides the answers to most questions that careful, intelligent readers of Bede are apt to ask. Despite the countless numbers of books and articles about Bede, there is no other comprehensive companion to his text that can be read in tandem with the medieval author himself. A Giniger book

Bede's Ecclesiastical History is the most important single source for early medieval English history. Without it, we would be able to say very little about the conversion of the English to Christianity, or the nature of England before the Viking Age. Bede wrote for his contemporaries, not for a later audience, and it is only by an examination of the work itself that we can assess how best to approach it as a historical source. N.J. Higham shows, through a close reading of the text, what light the Ecclesiastical History throws on the history of the period and especially on those characters from seventh- and early eighth-century England whom Bede either heroized, such as his own bishop, Acca, and kings Oswald and Edwin, or villainized, most obviously the British king Cædwalla but also Oswiu, Oswald's brother. In (Re-)Reading Bede, N.J. Higham offers a fresh approach to how we should engage with this great work of history. He focuses particularly on Bede's purposes in writing it, its internal structure, the political and social context in which it was composed and the cultural values it betrays, remembering always that our own approach to Bede has been influenced to a very great extent by the various ways in which he has been both used, as a source, and commemorated, as man and saint, across the last 1,300 years.

Bede (672 – 26 May 735), also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede, was an English monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow, both in the Kingdom of Northumbria. Bede's monastery had access to a superb library which included works by Eusebius and Orosius among many others.An author and scholar, his most famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The Father of English History". This work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; has as its main focus the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity. It is considered to be one of the most important original references on Anglo-Saxon history and has played a key role in the development of an English national identity. It is believed to have been completed in 731, when Bede was approximately 59 years old.

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between the pre-Schism Roman Rite and Celtic Christianity. It was originally composed in Latin, is considered to be one of the most important original references on Anglo-Saxon history and has played a key role in the development of an English national identity. It is believed to have been completed in 731 when Bede was approximately 59 years old.