Does Venerable Bede's account of the 789 Viking raid on Portland in Dorset mention the name of the bailiff?

Factual Questions
1

Does Venerable Bede’s account of the 789 Viking raid on Portland in Dorset mention the name of the bailiff ? I haven’t been able to track it down.

2

Bede died in 735, so how could he write an account of an event that took place in 789?

3

Wikipedia says:

Beaduheard was an Anglo-Saxon reeve who was based in Dorchester in Dorset, who in 789 became the first known person killed by a Viking raid in England.[

4

Thanks bob_2 but I specifically asked about the bailiff, who is unnamed in all the sources I’ve read.

5

I may be wrong, but AFAIK “bailiff” was a later term for the Anglo Saxon “reeve”.

6

Is this a mistake?

"The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that one day in 789, three Viking ships approached the island of Portland, and, thinking them to be traders, a local bailiff called for the reeve to collect the necessary taxes to trade in Wessex. "

7

:wave:

8

Also, from this site …

According to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, which is the major and at times only source for the period, in 789 the reeve or sheriff of Wessex called Beaduheard went with several of his men to meet three ships of Norwegians who have entered the bay of Portland on the Channel.

Beaduheard appears to be the sheriff/reeve. I suspect he was the bailiff.
Most sites i can find don’t mention that he was sent by the bailiff. So i suspect …

…yes.

9

Ok. So the account was from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, not Bede and there is (apart from some dodgy websites) no mention of a bailiff in the original account, only the reeve/sheriff Beaduheard. I think that solves the issue. I do see lots of websites distinguishing a reeve from a bailiff in the 8th century(credible?). I think the Wikipedia website has it right: " Bailiff was the term used by the Normans for what the Saxons had called a reeve".

10

And later on a “reeve” became a “Shire Reeve” or Sherrif and a bailiff was a more junior and local official.

11

Thanks bob_2. That development in the classification of ‘reeve’ and ‘bailiff’ makes sense now.

12

Threads like this are the reason I’ve stayed at Straight Dope for so long :slight_smile:

13

That’s true. I had some vague ideas about this bit of history, but the question made me spend several hours reading.