Bede

Resumo: Como um dos períodos mais ricos em termos de produção de documentos, o reinado de Alfredo, o Grande (871 – 899) se destaca em diversos âmbitos. Estando em um contexto de reformas, o reinado de Alfredo ressignifica as produções intelectuais em Inglês Antigo. Tal ressignificação acontece na criação de documentos oficiais como a Crônica Anglo-Saxônic e diversas obras clássicas em Latim são traduzidas ao vernacular. Uma destas traduções é a da Ecclesiastica Historia Gentis Anglorum, de autoria do monge Beda, o Venerável (673 – 735) publicada na língua latina em 731. A origem desta tradução está dentro do projeto alfrediano que visa contemplar a construção de unidades dos povos Ingleses na esfera do político, com Alfredo proclamando-se rei dos Anglos e dos Saxões e do cultural, com a criação e tradução de documentos no vernacular. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho é investigar a trajetória dos seis manuscritos que compõe a versão de Beda em Inglês Antigo e, principalmente, dissertar sobre sua origem e transmissão. Ao investigar isto, lemos como um único documento, envolvido em projeto de unidade, fragmenta-se em manuscritos que possuem trajetórias distintas no decorrer da história.

Palavras-Chave: Beda; Alfredo; Unidade; Transmissão manuscrita; Inglês Antigo.

Abstract: As one of the richest periods in terms of production of documents, the kingship of Alfred, the Great (871 – 899) stands out in various scopes. Being in a context of reforms, the kingship of Alfred resignifies the intelectual productions in Old English. Such resignification happen in the creation of official documents like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and a number of classical works in Latin are translated to the vernacular. One of these is the Ecclesiastica Historia Gentis Anglorum, authored by the monk Bede, the Venerable (673 – 735) and published in Latin language in 731. The origin of this translation is on the alfredian project which aims to contemplate the construction of unities of the English people in the sphere of the political, with Alfred claiming itself king of the Angles and the Saxons, and of the cultural, with the creation and translation of documents into vernacular. Thus, the purpose of this work is to investigate the trajectory of the six manuscripts which compounds the version of Old English Bede and, mainly, to dissert of its origin and transmission. By investigating this, we read how a single document, involved in a project of unity, fragments itself in manuscripts which have distinctive trajectories throughout history.

Keywords: Bede; Alfred; Unity; Manuscript transmission; Old English.

The chapters in Bede’s De temporum ratione begin with an etymology for the name of the subject to be examined. Sources and analogues for some have not hitherto been identified. This article shows that some of these etymologies of words for the divisions of time come ultimately, though perhaps not directly, from bk XI of Virgil the Grammarian’s Epitomae. These accounts of the origins of calendrical and cosmological terms wound their way through early western computistical works and eventually into Bede’s De temporum ratione. The article identifies exam- ples of Virgil’s influence on anonymous early medieval biblical commentaries and discusses their significance as pointers towards their place of composition.

Anglo Saxon interest in the Roman liturgy picks up sharply from the late seventh century when in 674 the soldier turned abbot Benedict Biscop built a monastery of stone ‘after the Roman fashion’ at Wearmouth. The house was dedicated to Saint Peter and in 681 Benedict established a second house at nearby Jarrow dedicated to Saint Paul. These twin houses were among the most exposed stations of the Catholic faith in the north. Benedict repeatedly overcame the great distance that separated his monastic foundation from the papal city undertaking six pilgrimages to assemble a library at Wearmouth-Jarrow with few parallels in the West. Benedict also wanted to learn and teach the ‘yearly cursus of chanting together with its ordo of rite, chanting and reading aloud.’ To accomplish this he returned from his fifth pilgrimage with John, an archicantator of Saint Peter’s basilica and abbot of Saint Martin’s, one of four monasteries serving the basilica in the services of the Hours but also at Mass. This is the earliest securely documented case in the early Middle Ages of one centre lending a singer to another. The practice was essential for the transmission of chant which could not be written down and was stored in the memory of one and passed on to the ears of the many to be imprinted on their memories by consistent repetition. Though the founding of the Schola Cantorum of Rome is still uncertain, and it is not clear whether John was trained there, its mission was certainly to operate as a kind of living library of singers who, like John, could be borrowed to faithfully pass on the chant as it was sung in Rome. This paper examines the role of the Schola Cantorum in bridging the interruption of the transmission of chant in the Anglo Saxon church.

A number of Anglo-Saxon authors in both Old English and Latin demonstrate a strikingly unified conception of sacred space and ritual purification. By weaving together elements from sources as diverse as Roman paganism, Mosaic Law, and the rite of church dedication, these writers formulated an understanding of sacred space that had clear influence poetically. Much of the Anglo-Saxon conception of sacred space centers on the meaning of a particular Old English word (fælsian) and its relationship to a similar Latin term (lustrare). While neither of these words is common, they appear in a small number of important works in startling similar contexts. It is possible that this view of the Sacred also affected the actual process of Christianization, though this is more speculative.

The early Germanic-speaking peoples of Europe lacked a word for 'religion', as one might expect of people who cultivated a variety of religious practices in various times and places. In early Anglo-Saxon England, religious practices and beliefs were very likely subject to contestation and the accommodation of rival interests, in keeping with the syncretistic nature of Anglo-Saxon culture in general.

This essay surveys many of the noteworthy aspects of this syncretistic religious culture, starting from the writings of Bede, evidence drawn from the Old English lexicon, place-name evidence, and evidence drawn from funerary archaeology, and moving on to consider textual evidence drawn from the late Anglo-Saxon period.

Much of Wilfrid's career was spent in exile from his homeland of Northumbria, in part due to his often rancorous relationship with Northumbrian kings. In the two most extensive accounts of Wilfrid by Stephen in the Vita Wilfrithi and Bede in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, Wilfrid is portrayed as a charismatic figure, almost unfailingly charming to most of the royals, nobles and clerics he encountered. Why then was Wilfrid unable to get along with Ecgfrith and Aldfrith, kings of his homeland, who could and frequently did threaten his hold over his beloved monasteries and his monastic empire?

This study considers the possibility of a misreading of the name 'Ambrosius Aurelianus' as 'Ambrosius Arturus', and so suggests that the Roman Ambrosius and the British Arthur are the same character. A close examination of the main source-texts—the 'De Excidio Britanniae', the 'Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum', and the 'Historia Brittonum' and appended 'Annales Cambriae'—indicates that a number of adjustments can be made in relation to ancestry, leadership, chronology and characterisation. Each personage is an adult military man; each one has notional (but not actual) links to Roman emperors; and the wars between Briton and Saxon, from initial to final, may perhaps be placed in the later part of the fifth century. Gildas probably makes his 'Ambrosius Aurelianus' the last of the noble Romans in Britain rather than the very last Roman in the land, and only suggests that his parents have worn the imperial colours. Bede is arguably mistaken when he proposes that Badon was fought in A.D. 493, and the notice of this battle in the 'Annales Cambriae' may ultimately be based on this faulty date. The concept of the youthfulness of 'Ambrosius' in the 'Historia Brittonum' is derived from the biblical story of David and Saul; the notion of his fatherlessness may stem from his uncertain ancestry; and his declaration that the Britons will defeat the Saxons does not mark him as a prophet, since he is merely revealing a documented victory from an era long gone. The victories against the Saxons are not likely to have been won by any British personage, because Gildas specifies that the peace of his time was achieved with 'unexpected assistance', and because any support recorded as coming out of the blue can only have been from Rome. And the Ambrosius of the 'Historia Brittonum' is surely handed the control of the kingdoms of western Britain because he is the one who will finally drive out the Saxons. He is said to be the son of a Roman consul. (Comments welcome.)

This thesis revisits Gregory the Great’s Registrum Epistolarum, Gregory of Tours’ Historia Francorum, and the Venerable Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum to specifically examine their depiction of plague. Their portrayal of plague and its disruption of communities reveals fresh perspectives on Early Medieval ideas of disease and the role of ecclesiastical leadership in times of crisis. Since the publication Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541-750, edited by Lester Little, scholars have begun exploring this plague, often using quantitative methods. In contrast, this thesis has provided an initial foray into the process of exploring what people in Late Antiquity understood and recorded about the illness that they experienced. Because of its limited scope, I chose to examine these source by three of this period’s largest figures as an important foundation for further analysis. I chose two letters from among Gregory the Great’s many writings because they clearly offered specific instructions focused on the bishop being actively engaged with the salvation of the souls of the living. His opinions of how bishops should respond to the personal and communal crisis of a plague outbreak provide context for his own actions in Rome and an ideal against which to compare the depictions in the Histories. Gregory of Tours allowed more freedom to bishops to respond as best fit their people. Bede’s perspective, the only non-episcopal view, proposes the possibility of plague as a blessing that cleansed the sufferer of sin and prepared them for a swift entry into heaven. These perspectives contribute to our understanding of the First Plague Pandemic in its
own context and therefore more completely as a disease.

In most European languages the Christian festival of the Resurrection has a name derived from the Hebrew word Pesach for the Jewish Passover, when Jesus was said to have been crucified. However, in English and German the festival goes by a very different name: Easter and Ostern. This was first explained in AD 725 by the Northumbrian monk Bede, who wrote that Easter takes its name from an Anglo-Saxon goddess called Eostre. In 1835, Jacob Grimm proposed that the German equivalent Ostern must have derived from the name of the same goddess, whose Germanic name he reconstructed as “Ostara.” More recently it has been suggested that Bede was only speculating about the origins of the festival name, although attempts by various German linguists to find alternative origins have so far proven unconvincing. Nevertheless, there may be a more direct route by which Ostern could have entered the German language. Much of Germany was converted to Christianity by Anglo-Saxon clerics such as St Boniface (c. AD 673–754), who could have introduced the Old English name Eastron during the course of their missionary work. This would explain the first appearance of Ostarun in the Abrogans, a late eighth-century Old High German glossary, and does not require any complex linguistic arguments or the existence of a Germanic goddess Ostara.

The exegesis of the Venerable Bede (672-735 CE) is "cut" from the same cloth as his theology of history and his understanding of human transformation. Bede's exegetical theory displays a concern with the verbal "garments" of Christian Scripture, expressed as Scriptures "shapes" (*figurae*) and "adornments" (*ornati*), and his exegetical practice demonstrates a similar preoccupation. his understanding of human transformation, expressed in his exegetical, homiletic, and historical practice, is similarly related to the concepts of *figura* and *ornatus*. Bede's readers are meant to pattern their ethical selves upon the historical figures of Scripture in order to become clothed with the virtues displayed therein. The thesis advances its argument primarily by engaging with Bede's rhetorical treatise "On Schemes and Tropes" and his biblical commentaries.

The thesis then explores the implications of Bede's thought on history, morality, and language for the ongoing study of his historiographical works and for the contemporary study of Scripture.

The ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus is well known today, and was also very popular in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Medieval Christians read Josephus’s works in Latin translations made in the fourth to sixth centuries, and Josephus was recommended by none other than Jerome and Cassiodorus. There has, however, been relatively little study of the Latin text of Josephus, or of Josephus’s medieval reception and influence. Previous work has only hinted that the latter was vast, and that Josephus enjoyed a high reputation. This article carefully traces the reception of one Latin adaptation of Josephus’s Jewish War (the so-called “Hegesippus”) in the early Middle Ages. This heavily Christianized reworking of Josephus was read all over Europe, from Italy to England to Iberia. More importantly, because this text was invariably attributed to Josephus up to the ninth century, it becomes clear that some of Josephus’s considerable reputation in the Middle Ages was due— ironically — to a heavily Christianized perversion of his Jewish War.

Many aspects of Old English literature and Anglo-Saxon culture reflect the lingering influence of a pagan substratum of belief and of popular practices that were not necessarily condoned by the clergy. This essay surveys many aspects of this dimension. The evidence taken into account ranges from historical sources (Bede in particular) to funerary archaeology, place-name studies, animal-style imagery, literary motifs (such as 'the birds and beasts of battle'), saints' lives, ecclesiastical condemnations of heathenism, medical charms, books of wonder (such as 'Marvels of the East'), and the imagery of 'Beowulf'.

This paper is primarily an investigation into the unknown history of tension caused by Greek and Latin N. African doctrines of the sexual transmission of original sin in utero. This tension was felt first by Augustine in the 4th century in respect to Mary. The culmination of irreconcilable doctrines of sexually based original sin and Mary's all-holiness required explicit theological reflection and response by the invention of the feast of the Conception of St. Ann.

This paper attempts a tour de force of Greek harmarteology of original sin in play with Mary's all-holiness in the tradition of Gregory Nazianzen. I meticulously catalogue the use of prepurification and by Augustine of Hippo, Leo the Great, John Cassian, Ephraim the Syrian, Sophronius of Jerusalem, Maximus Confessor,  Theodore of Canterbury, Venerable Bede, Paschasius Radbertus and Ildephonse of Toledo.

The narrative tells the story of the tension between N. African concepts of original sin and Mary's all-holiness. the drama intensifies at Maximus' Lateran 649 and its dispersal into Latindom. At the onset of the feast of the conception of Mary in Anna's womb, both Greeks (Damascene) and Latins (Paschasius Radbertus) were forced to apply some kind of theory to justify Mary's all-holiness (prepurification) in the face of N. African theology´s sexually transmitted original sin.

The study of social and ethnic identity in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica (HE) is well-trodden ground, and many scholars have interpreted the work and its meaning, to various ends. It is a testament to the coherence and complexity of Bede's history that its readers continue to engage with it on many levels and to learn from it. The HE has been valued across the thirteen hundred years between his and our time, but has been read very differently, depending on the context of the reader. Modern scholarly discussion of Bede, his work and his themes is wide and diffuse. However, in the last thirty years there has been a revolution in our understanding of the use of history in the medieval period, and a movement away from the scientific understanding of medieval history that pervaded in the nineteenth century. Rather than the result of empirical observation and a record of fact, Bede's history can no longer be believed at face value, without consideration of his wider purposes for writing the narrative. Recently, scholars have come to understand that history writing in the medieval period was much more complicated than previously appreciated. This history was often an expression of Christian theology and morality within a teleological framework. Believing that all events were the unfolding of God's plan, and that the study of events in the past were a way of understanding this plan, medieval historians wrote history within a providential model, Bede included.

Abstract: This article considers the cultural implications of the distinctive use of Old Testament personal names by Brittonic-speaking peoples (Welsh, Breton, and Cornish) in the centuries down to ca. 1100. An argument is made that the origin of the tradition is early, developing among the Britons in the Roman and
sub-Roman periods. The case is made for the geographic dispersal of the practice, for the constructedness of British ecclesiastical identity, and the maintenance of the tradition among successive communities of the Brittonic-speaking peoples despite their other differences.

The Old English Bede (OEB), a vernacular version of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica (HE), was written sometime before c.900, possibly at King Alfred's behest. It adds little to Bede's text but makes substantial excisions and abbreviations, removing much historical narrative, many quoted documents and most references to theological controversy. It is often argued that Bede provided an ideological blueprint for the creation of a single English kingdom in the tenth century, but the parts of the HE upon which this interpretation depends are among those omitted from the OEB. This is significant, since there are indications that the OEB was more widely known that the HE in the tenth century. It seems that the translator was not concerned with promoting an English ideology. Rather, he appears to have aimed to produce a text focussed on the inculcation of virtue through examples. This interpretation of the OEB has significant implications for our understanding of the significance of ‘Englishness’ and of whether it was believed that the English were a ‘chosen people’ who enjoyed a ‘special relationship’ with God. In turn, this demands reconsideration of the factors underlying the emergence and endurance of the English kingdom.

In this paper, the writings related to four seventh century individuals will be examined with a hope of better understanding what happened in that time period and how news of events in the eastern Mediterranean reached western Europe.  While two of the four, Isidore of Seville and the Frankish ‘Fredegar’, repeated information they’d gathered at second hand, the other two, Bishop Arculf and Theodore of Tarsus, themselves traveled from the Levant to the British Isles.  As witnesses to the world changing events of their century, all four are certainly important sources.  This study, though, will not focus on reconstructing the truth of events but, instead, will attempt to discover what these four thought they knew, how they knew what they did, and how such information might have been carried from one end of the former Roman Empire to the other.  The purpose will be to seek a better understanding of communications and connections in one of the murkiest and most important eras in history.

Throughout most of the Latin middle ages, “Saracen” (Saracenus, Sarracenus, Sarrasin, etc.) is the standard term used by most Latin authors to refer to Muslims. By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it has clearly religious overtones: Islam is referred to as “lex Sarraceni” or “lex Mahometi”, terms which are used more or less interchangeably. Yet “Saracenus” was originally a term used by Greek and Roman geographical/ethnographical writers to refer to certain peoples of the Arabian peninsula. The medieval image of “Saracens” in fact is a fusion of two traditions: biblical discourse on the “Ishmaelites”, descendants of Abraham’s illegitimate eldest son, and Roman discourse on marauding “Scenitae” or “Sarraceni” of the Arabian peninsula. This fusion is made well before the rise of Islam: we find it in Jerome. This talk will concentrate on the image of the Saracen/Ishmaelite in three Latin authors: Jerome, Isidore and Bede. We will see that the image of fierce Saracens found in Jerome is still quite operative in Bede and that the rise of Islam has not fundamentally altered it.

Bede and the Cosmos examines Bede’s cosmology—his understanding of the universe and its laws. It explores his ideas regarding both the structure and mechanics of the created world and the relationship of that world to its Creator. Beginning with On the Nature of Things and moving on to survey his writings in other genres, it demonstrates the key role that natural philosophy played in shaping Bede’s worldview, and explores the ramifications that this had on his cultural, theological and historical thought. From questions about angelic bodies and the destruction of the world at judgement day, to subtle arguments about free will and the meaning of history, Bede’s fascinating and unique engagement with the natural world is explored in this comprehensive study.


Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Background and Context

Chapter 2: De natura rerum and the Topography of the Cosmos

Chapter 3: Bede’s Cosmogony: Creation, Perfection, Decline

Chapter 4: Soul and Body

Chapter 5: Aetherial Angels and Aerial Demons

Chapter 6: God and Creation

Chapter 7: Heaven, Hell and the Interim

Chapter 8: The End of the World and After

Chapter 9: Conclusion

Multiple scholars over the last two centuries have argued that Germanic pagans celebrated a solar festival in February, called the Spurcalia. While there is no consensus about the purpose of this festival (with everything from divination, to the changing of the seasons, to ritual purification suggested), scholars agree that the Spurcalia was a major holiday, which died out only over the course of the early Middle Ages. A closer examination of the medieval sources, however, reveals that this festival never actually existed. Instead, the legend of this holiday arose through a series of misunderstandings on the part of medieval writers, which modern scholarship only compounded. The corrected history of spurcalia makes Germanic polytheism even more mysterious, but it also illustrates how medieval descriptions of paganism reflected clerical ideas about Christianization and the nature of religious worship.

The Libellus responsionum is accepted by most scholars today as an authentic work of Pope Gregory I, with the exception of its chapter on incest, which is believed to contain a telling interpolation. Doubt concerning the Libellus’s incest chapter can be traced back to the mid-eighth century, when it was cited by St Boniface (and by at least one prominent Frankish or Bavarian aristocrat) as allowing marriage between a nephew and his aunt. Boniface was rightly doubtful that such an allowance could have come from the papacy, and so he challenged the authenticity of the Libellus. But Boniface was in fact misreading the Libellus, whose incest chapter clearly prohibits such marriages. Indeed, there is nothing in the incest chapter that is inconsistent with either Gregory’s thinking or the legal standards of time. Boniface was therefore wrong to doubt the authenticity of the incest chapter, as has been most recent scholarship. The incest chapter does not contain an interpolated passage; rather this passage is herein shown to have been present in the earliest extant version of the Libellus, which (contrary to the conclusions of Paul Meyvaert’s research) must have been the so-called Capitula version. The early transmission of the Capitula version is traced through two seventh-century Italian canon law collections. It was probably via these collections that the various forms of the Libellus entered England and Francia, where Bede and Boniface finally encountered them. An attempt is made to reconstruct the early transmission of the Libellus within the early Anglo-Saxon church. Boniface is shown to have been familiar with multiple versions of the Libellus, at least one of which omitted the offending passage from the incest chapter; this may explain why Boniface continually expressed doubt about the authenticity of that passage throughout the later years of his career on the Continent.

The True Context Of Ancient History And The Gordian Emperors (Roman Piso, 02-25-2017) This paper is about the Gordian Emperors; Gordian I, Gordian II, and Gordian III. However, it is also about much, much more. It is about their ancestors and their royal relatives, as well as statistical data and how they were related to a group of ancient authors known as the Philostratii. [I] I, and a few other researchers have discovered something which had never been considered within academia before, but which is now of extreme importance and must be considered because of what it means to research itself. Basically, what we have discovered is that there is an alternate version of history that exists, but that has not been known except to those few who did not want others to know. That other version of history changes the context in which we must now view it. And that is because what we contend, due to what has been discovered, means that only royalty had the privilege of writing anything for publication (under penalty of death); no matter what the subject matter. Most of us now know of at least some examples where history (or those recording history) had lied or deliberately misled us. And, we also now know of several examples of what we term "whitewashed" history. [II] Some of us have long wondered, how it was that there were so many people (i.e., the masses or non-royals) within such a great empire, who were illiterate. And yet, somehow, there were some people who lived an entirely different life within that empire than the majority did, people who had received a fantastic education, and who demonstrated great genius within their writings. And this, our discovery of the true nature of ancient history, gives us that answer.

This article investigates the representation of the Anglo-Saxons as a ‘chosen people’ in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica. Although Bede rarely makes the connection between the gens Anglorum and the people of Israel explicit, I argue that he was continuing and reinventing a tradition in Christian historiography, which represented individual Christian nations after patterns established by Old Testament authors. I argue that appreciating the centrality of this biblical motif is crucial for our understanding of Historia ecclesiastica and consequently for our understanding of how national identity developed in Anglo-Saxon England.

Early Christians adopted a numeric week from Judaism, but wherever their communities spread they encountered the planetary week invented by Hellenistic astrologers. Greek Christians replaced that week with their own in the fourth century C.E., but Latin Christians were only partly successful in doing the same. A timeline for the Christianization of the planetary week between the third and seventh centuries is provided by a database of Greek and Latin documents dated by both an annual calendar and one of the two weeks. The documentary evidence is supplemented by analyses of literary and legal references to the two weeks from the same period. These show that Greek authors were accommodating toward the planetary week while Latin authors were often hostile. Latin hostility was engendered by the presence of non-Christian social practices tied to the planetary week that threatened Christian religious identity. These practices included worship of the planetary deities, rest on the Day of Jupiter rather than on the Lord's Day, and the reservation of activities like marriage, travel, and personal grooming to certain planetary weekdays. A brief survey of the spread of the two weeks throughout much of Afro-Eurasia contextualizes the changes occurring in the Mediterranean and shows that the Latin conflict was unique. That conflict was likely a product of the relatively slow pace of Christianization in some parts of Western Europe and the integration of the planetary week into the Roman calendar to produce a coherent cycle of pagan time which was difficult to replace.

The Venerable Bede s eighth-century De arte metrica was the most important treatise on Latin metrics to emerge in the early Middle Ages. It played a central role in the transmission of the classical literary tradition to the medieval audience, but, at the same time, constitutes one of the first efforts at creating a textbook on metrics that was primarily intended for the monastic curriculum. This historical background, together with the author s Christian agenda, is present in virtually every aspect of the way the work discusses the Latin poetic heritage. The main focus of De arte metrica is on hexameter verse and the problems inherent in its composition at a time when syllable quantity had disappeared from spoken Latin. The work departs from previous grammatical tradition by incorporating syllable lengths into its discussion of poetic metres, a didactic solution necessitated by the linguistic conditions of Anglo-Saxon England. Even here, Bede consciously strives to create a consistently Christian literary norm. Instead of relying on the example of Vergil and other classics, he seeks to base his presentation of metrical rules, from syllable lengths to larger structures, on the example of Christian poets, most notably Sedulius, implying that pagan authors were even prosodically less advanced than Christian ones. Bede s views have been influenced by his belief in the biblical origins of metre, an idea expounded by several Christian apologists. Bede s discussion of other poetic metres is mainly restricted to those employed in Christian hymnody, and their simplified analyses correspond with Christian usage. Bede is also the first author to give an appropriate presentation of rhythmic or non-quantitative verse, anticipating later medieval poetic practices. The aim of this thesis is to examine the ways in which Bede sought to recast the classical poetic heritage in a form more appropriate for Christian scholars. This usually manifests itself in minute alterations of wording, but sometimes Bede takes a definite stand for the virtues of Christian verse as opposed to the pre-Christian classics. As many of Bede s definitions influenced numerous generations of medieval grammarians and poets, and the work itself became a model for the genre of Artes metricae, the strong role of its Christianising tendency must not be underestimated.

Dissertation written for Cambridge MPhil in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic (2018):
Recent work has helped to dispel prior conceptions of Bede as a sceptical and antagonistic reader of Isidore of Seville; this has left open questions about the precise nature of Bede’s reliance upon, creative use of, and attitude towards Isidore.  The current paper examines, in detail, three main areas of borrowing: 1) in Bede’s scientific writings, 2) in his biblical commentaries, and 3) in his historical writings.  It concludes by briefly examining further areas of dependence, in grammatical writings and poetic borrowings.  It demonstrates that Bede’s familiarity with Isidore’s corpus was broader and deeper than has been previously reckoned—in fact, Bede had access to four treatises by Isidore not previously thought to have circulated in Anglo-Saxon England.  Contrary to any theory indicating the Northumbrian’s scepticism or antagonism towards the Spanish bishop, Bede saw in Isidore an intellectual foundation upon which he would model much of his own work and intellectual identity.

Bishop Wilfrid is frequently credited with the conversion of Northumbria to the Roman practices for Easter.  Stephen of Ripon’s Vita Wilfridi followed by Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica are the main sources for his career.  A recent collection of essays allows readers to assess claims expressed by Stephen for Wilfrid’s success. 
This is a REVIEW ARTICLE of N. J. Higham, ed., Wilfrid, abbot, bishop, saint: papers from the 1300th anniversary conferences (Shaun Tyas: Donington, 2013). 
Please contact me with your preferred email address if you would like a pdf copy.

The Venerable Bede’s eighth-century treatise De arte metrica contains the first description of the trochaic septenarius, an archaic metre best-known from early Roman comedy but also adopted by Christian hymnodists.  Although Bede’s presentation was partly flawed, it became a guideline for Carolingian poets who often followed it to the letter, demonstrating the artificiality of their verse technique and their dependence on metrical theory.

Eolas 8 (2015), 20-38
How does Bede represent the Irish in his eighth-century work, the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum? How does this Anglo-Saxon monk conceive of them as a people, and how does this influence his use of them in his narrative of the development of the Anglo-Saxon Church? Ireland and the Irish are very visible elements in his account, and Bede’s description of the gens Scottorum and his depictions of the individual Irish who populate his work feed into his interest in ethnicity. Aspects and indicators of this, such as origin tales, language, and common customs, can be discussed in the context of the Irish in the Historia ecclesiastica to great effect. However, ethnicity alone does not define the Irish who appear in Bede’s text. They are not a homogeneous group for Bede: they are scholars and missionaries, penitents and kings, and he inserts them throughout the work, making them an integral part of his story.

This edition attempts to concisely represent the many variations found within the known manuscript witnesses of Caedmon's Hymn. It presents the 'best texts' to exemplify the variations amongst the poem's established recension groups and attempts to physically depict the differences between the various forms this poem takes.
This mini-edition is primarily aimed at the student reader but would be valuable to all levels of readership as it its transcriptions are both detailed and succinct.

Although various analogues have been cited to Bede's account of the poet Caedmon, none are very close. The plot of a tale well known in modern Irish and Scottish tradition, however, "The Man Who Had No Story" (Irish type 2412B), resembles the first part of Bede's chapter so closely as to suggest that Bede shaped his account under the influence of this narrative pattern. Bede's monastic milieu was not impervious to oral culture, it seems. His account of Caedmon involves much myth-making, and it is best read as an example of the storyeller's art.

This paper was reworked as chapter 8 (pp. 309-24) of my book 'Old English Heroic Poems and the Social Life of Texts' (2007).

The Venerable Bede (672-735 AD) provides our only account of the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, which he claimed to be the origin of the Easter festival name in the English language. In the early nineteenth century the goddess was imagined to have been a pan-Germanic deity renamed Ostara, and subsequently suggested to be the Germanic reflex of a more ancient Indo-European dawn goddess. However, by the latter half of the twentieth century many academics began to question the reliability of Bede's account, with these doubts now being reflected in wider reference publications. More recently Eostre has been thrown a linguistic lifeline, not as a pan-Germanic or Indo-European deity, but as a local goddess in eastern Kent, said to have been shaped by naming practices that parallel the Romano-Germanic matron cults of the Lower Rhine region. This article reexamines the principal evidence that underpins this 'local goddess' theory, offers an alternative explication for the Matronae Austriahenae, and argues that any reinterpretation of Eostre cannot simply ignore or dismiss the one piece of evidence Bede provides about her cult, namely the timing of her month (Eosturmonath) and celebrations.