Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum

[Chez_Guevara]

It’s been a while since we had a thread about the Venerable Bede (AD 673-735) so here’s another one concerning his famous work Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

From Wikipedia we learn of Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum:

Divided into five books (about 400 pages), the Historia covers the history of England, ecclesiastical and political, from the time of Julius Caesar to the date of its completion (731). The first twenty-one chapters, covering the period before the mission of Augustine, are compiled from earlier writers such as Orosius, Gildas, Prosper of Aquitaine, the letters of Pope Gregory I, and others, with the insertion of legends and traditions.

After AD 596, documentary sources, which Bede took pains to obtain throughout England and from Rome, are used, as well as oral testimony, which he employed along with critical consideration of its authenticity.

The Historia, like other historical writing from this period cannot be expected to have the same degree of objectivity as modern historical writings. It was indeed a form of literature, a mixture of fact, legend and literature. For example, Bede took liberties by making up fictional quotations from people who were not his contemporaries.

Also this site (again Wikipedia) additionally informs us that, from AD 596 onwards:

He cited his references and was very concerned about the sources of all his sources, which created an important historical chain.

I am curious to know why Bede, so concerned with historical accuracy post AD 596, inserted legends, traditions and fictional quotations into the first 21 chapters of his most famous work.

Many thanks.

[Polycarp]

Real simple answer: that’s what was available. We’re concerned with historical accuracy. Bede wanted to get it as right as possible, so he turned to the available sources. After 596 they are what we consider good historical sources. Before that, legend and debatable material. (Vortigern, for example: his real name had more GW’s in it than a White House panegyric to the President, but he was demonstrably an ancestor to the princely house of Powys. The man, real; his misdeeds? maybe not so much so.)

[Chez_Guevara]

I’m not sure I completely buy that.

If Bede wanted to get it as right as possible then making up quotations was not a compatible idea. Also, fictional quotations aren’t available as sources. They come from the imagination. Incidentally, this:

He cited his references and was very concerned about the sources of all his sources, which created an important historical chain.

suggests that Bede would have made an excellent member of the SD.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Chez Guevara

If Bede wanted to get it as right as possible then making up quotations was not a compatible idea. Also, fictional quotations aren’t available as sources. They come from the imagination.

Right, but his goal wasn’t just to “get it as right as possible”. His goal was to “commit to writing such things as I could gather from common report, for the instruction of posterity”. If that meant that he had to create quotations that weren’t said but should have been said then so be it.

Remember,

if history relates good things of good men, the attentive hearer is excited to imitate that which is good; or if it mentions evil things of wicked persons, nevertheless the religious and pious hearer or reader, shunning that which is hurtful and perverse, is the more earnestly excited to perform those things which he knows to be good, and worthy of God.