Bede

 

Were it not for one book by a monk whom we know only by his nickname, British history would be almost unknown from about 500 to 750 AD.  That was when illiterate barbarians overran the isle, city life almost vanished, and paganism re-established.  The man’s short name was Bede or Bedae, Saxon for ‘commander’.  When he wrote the 5-volume Ecclesiastical History of the English People in 730, he put a brief autobiography in the last chapter. 

            Bede was born on the monastery lands of Monkwearmouth—at the mouths of the Wear and Tyne rivers in Northumberland (far north England)—about 672. His parents put him in the monastery at age 7 where he grew to be the most learned scholar in Europe. In 686, a plague broke out and the monastery was moved to nearby Jarrow.  All the senior priests died.  But Bede, age 14 and his teacher, Ceolfrith, had memorized the liturgy until it could be taught to new monks. Consequently he was awarded the office of deacon, then priest  several years before normal. He wrote 60 books and was a premier translator who made Old English versions of texts of early church fathers from Latin and Greek that helped his fellow monks. He worked out the date for Easter, wrote theology and farming practice, mathematics, and Codex Laudianus (recopied book of Acts in Latin by Bede) which is in the museum at Oxford. He also is an unnamed copier of Codex Amiatinus, the earliest-surviving complete manuscript of the Latin Vulgate Bible (in Florence, Italy).

            So how did Bede fill in English history? “In 409,” he wrote, “the Romans ceased to rule Britain.” They abandoned the province—too far away, not enough troops.  Primitive and pagan Scottish Picts and Irish Celts began to attack the Bretons, now 3 centuries peaceful.  In alarm, Breton leader Vortigern, 449, invited Jutes (from today’s Denmark), Saxons (Elbe River area), and Angles (Schleswig) to help repel the warlike Celts.  Word went back quickly to the German coast that Britain was free for the taking. For a century and a half the Teutonic invaders swarmed in, fought often, until a combined group defeated the Brits at Deorham, 577.  Eventually many Celts fled to the mountains of Wales, Cornwall and across the Channel to Britanny. Unlike the barbarian invasion on the continent, there was little assimilation.  The Germans divided the island.  Jutes were a small group that established Kent (extreme SE England just across from Calais).  Angles formed 3 kingdoms—Northumberland (just south of Scotish border), Mercia (Midlands), and East Anglia (SE).  Saxons had 3 more—Wessex, Essex, and Sussex. Essex surrounds the lower Thames River and included the Roman fort of London. Since it was one of the few cities left, British became known as ‘Saxons’. “Bede”(his nickname) is Saxon, not Northumbrian, and he wrote in Old English which is close to the Frisian-Saxon dialect of German. The Heptarchy, as the 7 kingdoms were called (finally united in 829), was first pagan with German-Norse gods and culture with little experience in agriculture. Bede recounts successions of the kings, wars, and expansion of Christianity as well as telling about the barbarian way of life turned Christian. This differed from the continent because there was little left of Roman Law or methods. Amazingly,1500 years later, many royal titles still reference the Heptarchy.  Harry was Duke of Sussex. There’ll always be an England.

            Re-evangelism started over a century after the Heptarchy with Augustine of Canterbury (599) converting Kent and ended with Wilfrid converting the last of the Saxons about the time of the plague.  It took 87 years and was advanced primarily out of Canterbury on the SE coast and Northumbrians who had been early converts in the north. Irish monasteries and Rome generously provided the texts for the monastery where Bede was educated and worked.  That is how he became such a scholar in such a distant place.

            The man Bede never mentions is Arthur. That comes from a somewhat fanciful history-sermon of St. Gildas, a Welsh monk about 546.  It is thought he may have made up the Celtic character “to break the heathen and uphold the Christ”.  Was there a real Arthur or not? If there was, he was not king of all England nor living in a Camelot palace, but a Celtic warlord from the 500s when they lived in huts, amid recurrent famine. This brings up a salient point.  Bede was, as best we can test, very accurate-- unusual for ancient historians who wrote fibs to laud their kings and heroes. “You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free,” said Jesus of the gospel.  Christians have ever since loved truth and made it the standard for good investigation.  Humble Bede was given an added title of ‘Venerable’ a century after he lived.