vi. The History: its models and sources xxx
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vi. The History: its models and sources As Professor Levison has pointed out,1 when Bede was writing his History, saints' Lives were being written everywhere, but other forms of historical writing were in decay. Bede was familiar with two histories, both of which may have served him as models, namely Rufinus' translation and adaptation of the Ecclesiastical
History of Eusebius and Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks.
But though Bede may have gained hints from both of these and possibly other works, he had one great aim. It was to tell the story of the development of God's plan for the conversion of the English people and the building up of one united Church in the land. He began by painting a background, geographical and historical, picturing the British inhabitants as feeble in time of war and, though Christian in name, vicious in time of peace, easily falling into heresies; but, worst of all, refusing to co-operate in the con version of the 'heathen Saxons'. Then he plunges straight into the story of the mission of St. Augustine and its arrival in England.
From this basis the other books spring directly. Bede shows how the gospel passed the bounds of the petty kingdoms and united the whole land under the aegis of the great catholic Church over which the bishops of the 'apostolic see', as he loved to call Rome, exercised a paternal and benevolent rule. The Irish Church is led into the same fold but the Britons, who refused to help in God's great task of the conversion of the English, meet their due reward and in the last chapter of the Fifth Book we find them partly subject to their English masters and wholly powerless. All other minor aims are subservient to this one. He had at his disposal fairly complete lists of the bishops of each kingdom and thereby he was able to emphasize the continuity of the Church and its close contact with the Church universal. This is only one of the many methods he employed to throw into relief the unity of the whole English race; and it is not for nothing that he ends his first book with the final and utter defeat of the British and Irish people and the firm establishment of the English people in their new land.
Bede was perhaps the first to lay stress on the unity of all the smaller kingdoms in the one great English nation.
But, as Bede explains in his Preface, his motive in writing is also didactic; history tells of good men and bad, and the thoughtful
1 B LT W , p. h i .
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xxxi listener is spurred on to follow the good and eschew the bad.
Further he sees the deep spiritual significance which underlies the events of history and the lives of men and women. Nor is he unaware that what he has to say will also be welcome and give pleasure especially to the inhabitants of the various towns and districts he mentions; his desire to produce matter of special interest to some of the 'more important places' led him to insert some of the biographies and delightful stories with which his
History is sprinkled. In fact there can be no doubt whatever that Bede was not only hoping to give pleasure to other people but was definitely giving himself the pleasure which every artist finds in producing a genuine work of art.
Let us consider briefly some of the historical sources on which Bede relies. His first book where he is preparing the scene for the coming of Augustine's mission is based largely upon older material and there is little that is original. His first chapter, for instance, is a mosaic of quotations from Pliny, Gildas, Solinus, and Orosius, together with a sentence from the Hexaemeron of St. Basil.1 In the next few chapters he continues to use Orosius principally, with a few additions from Eutropius and Vegetius as well as from the Liber Pontificalis, the official collection of the lives of the popes which he was to use considerably in later books.
When he reaches the Diocletian persecutions he is able to use the first saint's Life which had any reference to Britain, that of St.
Alban. So he continues mostly from Orosius with occasional in sertions from Eutropius, Gildas, and a poem of Prosper. But with the end of the Roman rule, Bede is dependent on Gildas, though with many additions and explanatory notes of his own and occa sional facts drawn from other historians. The Gildas borrow ings continue to the end of chapter 16 with his own important insertion about the origin of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in chapter 15. In chapter 17 he turns to another Life, that of St.
Germanus written by Constantius, and this he follows almost verbally to the end of chapter 21 when the Gildas extracts begin again. Then, at the end of chapter 22, with something like a sigh of relief, he turns to his papal and other sources.
It is at this point that he begins to use the chief sources of his information concerning Augustine's mission, namely the material
1 See also footnotes to the various chapters especially in Books i and ii, and Index of Quotations.
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collected by Abbot Albinus gathered both from tradition and from the written records which at that time existed in Kent; besides this there w'ere the letters of Gregory transcribed by Nothhelm from the papal registers and brought to him by the latter. He also had the copy of Gregory's Responsiones1 2 which he had used ten years before when writing the Life of St. Cuthbertz and a copy of the second recension of the Liber Pontificalis. Of the twenty-nine letters which are still extant referring to the mission of Augustine he uses sixteen, eight from Gregory and eight from other popes, all those from Gregory appearing in the first book.
These he quotes verbally, though not always in full, which makes the first book seem heavy and overweighted to the modern reader.
But for Bede it is an assurance of accuracy; though he uses oral tradition freely in this and the other books, yet he likes to rely on written documents and his great reverence for Gregory made him choose, when possible, to use the words of the saint himself. The last chapter of the first book reminds us that he had some North umbrian annals at his disposal which he was to use later on. In spite of all this mosaic the book serves its purpose and moves steadily on through the course of the early history, leaving the English nation firmly settled in their new land and the Christian mission well under way.
At the end of his History Bede describes how he 'put together this account of the church of Britain and of the English people in particular, gleaned either from ancient documents, or from tradition or from my own knowledge'.3 This is an exact descrip tion of his sources for the rest of the History. The ancient docu ments are there in the form of more letters from the popes, from Boniface V to Vitalian, seven in book two and one in book three:4 there are the proceedings of the first two synods of the English church, that of Hertford in 672 and Hatfield in 679.5 He makes plenty of use of saints' Lives, some of which are still extant, like the Lives of Fursa, Wilfrid, and Cuthbert, while he also uses a lost Life of Æthelburh for the miracles of the nuns of Barking.6
Other sources which come under the same heading are genealo gies, regnal lists, annals and lists of bishops, and records which 1 See notes on the Libellus Responsionum at i. 27.
2 BLTW , p. 128 n. 2.
3 V. 24.
4 ii. 8, 10, 11, 17, 18, 19 (two); iii. 29.
5 iv. 5; iv. 17. Cf. W. Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth.
Century, p. 275.
6 iii. 19; iv. 7-10, 27-33; v.
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xxxiii he obtained from his various friends and helpers such as those referred to in the Preface—from Kent, Wessex, East Anglia,
Lastingham, and Lindsey and perhaps some Celtic sources too, though these are uncertain. Then of course there was still much information to be gained from the floating traditions, preserved possibly in the form of a saga, such as Bede brings together in the differing accounts of Edwin's conversion, which he attempts to make, not altogether convincingly, into one whole.1
As Bede reaches his own times he is dependent to a much greater extent on what he calls in the Preface 'the faithful testimony of innumerable witnesses' ; these he usually names and at the same time attempts to distinguish between first-hand and second-hand information.2 Though Bede himself, so far as we know, travelled but little, yet he was living in a monastery which was very much in touch with the outside world, and much information from all parts of England, from Ireland, and the Continent would quickly reach them. Thus he is aware of the Moslem invasions; some
Roman pilgrim has given him a copy of the epitaphs on Gregory the Great and on Cædwalla in Rome. It is the miscellaneous nature of his information which makes his last book less of an integrated whole than the other books.
The five books into which the History is divided differ slightly in length, the first two being slightly shorter than the other three.
The first book, as we have already seen, builds up a background and sees the English people firmly planted in their own land and the mission begun. The second book begins with a brief biography of Gregory and an account of his works, emphasizing the im portant part played by Gregory in English tradition; it goes on to describe the conversion of the north and reaches up to the fall of Edwin and the temporary destruction of the Northumbrian
Church. It covers a period of twenty-seven years. The third book deals very largely with the spread of the Celtic Church chiefly in Northumbria but in other parts of the country too. The book reaches a climax with the Council of Whitby after which there follows an uneasy period of reaction and decline in the Church all through the midlands and the south and ends up with the events which led to the appointment of Theodore. The fourth book describes the great revival of Church life which followed the coming of Theodore, all over the country. It finishes with the 1 See ii. 13 and note.
2 There is an important note on the subject at Plummer, I. xliv, n. 3.