In particular it lays out the efforts of Christianity to take root in England, with a focus in the Northumbrian kingdoms which Bede was more familiar with, through the agency of Irish monks, priests sent by the pope in Rome, and kings who play roles of saints or villains in this story that Bede shaped. Bede benefited from having a well-stocked library, with books and papal letters collected by abbots who visited Rome he also took into account oral histories as told to him or relayed to him secondarily.īut what is an “ Ecclesiastical History”? It’s a history book, in that it describes ‘what happened to whom and where’. Many have expressed surprise that a monk at what is then considered the edge of the civilised world can produce such historical writing about Europe that, according to some scholars’ assessment, isn’t matched till the 12th century. He has written many other works - commentaries on Biblical books, biographies, etc - but it is for the EH that he is today called the father of English history. Today he is best known for the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, or the Ecclesiastical History of the English People (common shorthand: EH). Bede lived in 7th and 8th century Northumbria, apparently spending virtually his entire life at the monastery in Jarrow.
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