2 - Secular and political contexts

Summary

The present chapter is not concerned with Bede's intellectual achievement, but, rather, with the political, social and economic circumstances of his life. Much of what we know of these circumstances comes from his own historical work. Bede's prose is lucid, and his style engaging. Such qualities have helped to secure a warm home for his Ecclesiastical History of the English People in the hearts of readers in every generation since his own. Early England and its Church are generally seen through Bede's eyes. Necessarily so: he is the chief source. But the simplicity and apparent candour of his style may deceive. In his historical work Bede deployed outstanding abilities to support strong convictions and homiletic intentions. With him, as with others like him, it is nearly as important to attend to what he does not say as to what he does. For example, mark that in the moving, almost elegiac, autobiographical passage in his Ecclesiastical History (V. 24) he fails to tell us who his father was. It is a fair guess (though unprovable) that his father was an aristocrat. Bede moved in the highest company. He sent a draft of his Ecclesiastical History to King Ceolwulf for comment. He was on visiting terms with Ceolwulf's cousin, Egbert, bishop (soon archbishop) of York; and it was to Egbert that he wrote the letter of detailed reformist rebuke which gives his harsh judgement on the Northumbrian Church. These relationships suggest that he was near to a circle of men in power.