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Bede's Reputation as an Historian in Medieval England1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Antonia Gransden
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Extract

The Hand-List of Bede Manuscripts by M. L. W. Laistner and H. H. King is not definitive, since it is based partly on the evidence of catalogues and other printed material and not on the manuscripts themselves. However, it provides a useful rough guide. It lists approximately 160 surviving manuscripts of the Historia Ecdesiastica. Laistner constructed a table showing the percentage of the total number copied in each century:

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , October 1981 , pp. 397 - 425
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

2 M. L. W. Laistner, with the collaboration of King, H. H., A Hand-list of Bede Manuscripts, Ithaca, New York 1943, 7Google Scholar. The edition of the Historia Ecdesiastica cited below Venerabilis Baedae Historiam Ecdesiasticam …, ed. Plummer, C., Oxford 1896, 2 volsGoogle Scholar.

3 Laistner, op. cit., 8. 0022–0469/81/0000–0022$02.00 © 1981 Cambridge University Press

4 Printed in M.G.H., Auctorum Antiquissimorum, xiii, Chronica Minontm saec. ixi-vii, iii, Mommsen, T., Berlin 1898, 247–317Google Scholar.

5 Printed in ibid., iii. 247–327.

6 Printed in Two Lives of St Cuthbert, ed., with an English translation, Colgravc, B., Cambridge 1940Google Scholar.

7 Printed as ‘Bedas metrische Vita Sancti Cuthberti’, ed. Jaager, W., Palaestra, cxcviii, Leipzig 1935Google Scholar.

8 Printed in Plummer, Venerabilis Baedae, i. 364–87.

9 Professor Laistner constructed a table which demonstrates the percentage of the surviving manuscripts of Bede's biblical commentaries belonging to each century, similar to his table for the Historia Ecclesiastica; Laistner, Hand-List, 4. The pattern resembles that for the Historia Ecclesiastica, in so far as there is a high percentage belonging to the twelfth century. However, as most of the extant manuscripts of the commentaries are of continental provenance, his table does not indicate their popularity in England as accurately as does that for the Historia Ecclesiastica.

10 The epitome is printed in Plummer, Venerabilis Baedae, i. 352–6, and the continuations to 734 and 766 in ibid., i. 361–3. Cf. ibid., ii. 345 note.

11 See Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs (Rolls Series (hereafter cited as R.S.), 1868/71, 4 vols), xxviii-xxx, and Blair, P. H., ‘Some observations on the Historia Regum attributed to Symeon of Durham’, Celt and Saxon, ed. Chadwick, N. K., Cambridge 1963, 86–99Google Scholar.

12 Printed as The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. T. Miller (Early English Text Society (hereafter cited as E.E.T.S.), o.s., xcv-xcvi. cx-cxi, 1890, 1898, 3 pts). Six manuscripts of the Old English Bede survive, all of the ninth and tenth centuries; Laistner, Hand-List, 111–12.

15 Professor Whitelock, after a careful examination of the Old English Bede, concluded: ‘That the work was undertaken at Alfred's instigation remains a probability'; Whitelock, D., ‘The Old English Bede’, Proceedings of the British Academy, xlviii (1962), 77Google Scholar.

14 Plummer believed that King Alfred commissioned the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; see Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, C. and Earle, J., Oxford 1892–1899Google Scholar, 2 vols, n. civ-cv). A case can be made for regarding it as an official history; see Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England c. 550-c. 1300, London 1974, pp. 34–5Google Scholar. However, Professor Whitelock takes a cautious view; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, D., with D. C. Douglas and S. I. Tucker, London 1961, xxii–xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

15 See Plummer and Earle, op. cit., n. xli and n. 2, lxviii-lxix, cxiii and n. 1. It is noteworthy that in the southern versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Ā, B and C) nearly all the annals derived from the Historia Ecclesiastica are from the epitome, while in the northern version, that lying behind D and E, most such annals are from the main text. (The northern version also used the Northumbrian annals; see ibid., 11. Ixviii-lxxi.) The complex relationship of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to Bede is fully discussed byj. Bately, , ‘Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, Saints, Scholars and Heroes, ed. King, M. H. and Stevens, W. M., Hill Monastic MS Library, Minnesota 1979, 233–44Google Scholar.

16 For the use of Bede in the Old English martyrology see An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfield, G. (E.E.T.S., o.s., cxvi, 1900Google Scholar), xxxiii/xxxiv, xxxvi/xlii passim, and Fell, C. E., ‘Edward King and Martyr and the. Anglo-Saxon hagiographical tradition’, Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. Hill, D. (British Archaeological Reports, British series, lix, 1978Google Scholar), 2, 3. For the date of the Old English Martyrology, and its probable association with King Alfred's reforms, see Sisam, C., ‘An early fragment of the Old English Martyrology’, The Review of English Studies, N.S., iv (1953), 217Google Scholar. It is probably based on a lost ninth-century Latin original; ibid., 212–13, Herzfeld, op. cit., xxxii, xxxvi, and Liebermann, F., ‘Zum Old English Martyrology’, Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen, cv (1900Google Scholar), 86 et seq.

17 Regularis Concordia, ed., with an English translation, T. Symons, Nelson's Medieval Texts 1953, 2 and n. 2. Cf. pp. xlv n. 1, 3 and n.c.

18 The Historians of the Church of York, ed. J. Raine (R.S., 1879–94, 3 vols), i. 462.

19 See The Benedictional of Saint Æthelwold, ed., in facsimile, G. F. Warner and H. A. Wilson (Roxburghe Club), Oxford 1910, xv-xvi, 37, and fos 1, 90v.

20 Raine, op cit., i. 462.

21 Aelfric's Lives of Saints, ed. W. W. Skeat (E.E.T.S., o.s., lxxvi, lxxxii, xciv, cxiv, 1881–1900, 2 vols), i. 414–41 (nos xix, xx); ii. 124–43 no-xxvi) ; cf. ibid., ii. xlviii. For Ælfric's use of Bede for his Lives see J. H. Ott, über die Quellen der Heiligenleben in Aelfrics Lives of Saints, 1 (Inaugural-Dissertation), Halle 1892, 44–7 (for SS Alban and Æthelthryth), Ruth Waterhouse, ÆClfric's use of discourse in some saints’ lives’, Anglo-Saxon England, v(1976), 83/91 and nn. passim, and Fell, ‘Edward King and Martyr’, 2, 3.

22 The earliest Lives of SS Dunstan, Ethelwold and Oswald are printed respectively in: Memorials of St Dunstan, ed. W. Stubbs (R.S., 1874), 3–52; Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. J. Stevenson (R.S., 1858, 2 vols), ii. 255–66; and Raine, op. cit., i. 399–475.

23 Raine, op cit., i. 448. Cf. Bede's metrical life chap, ix (ed. Jaager, ‘Bedas metrische Vita’, 77–8).

24 Raine, op. cit., i. 439–41. Foldbriht was abbot of Pershorec. 970–88; Knowles, M. D., Brooke, C. N. L. and London, V. C. M., The Heads of Religious Houses, England and Wales 940–1216, Cambridge 1972, 58Google Scholar. For later examples of visions resembling Drythelm's experienced by inhabitants of the north of England, see p. 404 n. $6 below.

25 Printed as Byrhtfcrth's Manual, ed. S. J. Crawford (E.E.T.S, o.s., clxxvii, 1929; only one volume, comprising text with footnotes, published). For the use of Bede in the Manual see Crawford's footnotes and Henel, H., ‘Byrhtferth's Preface: the Epilogue of his Manual?’, Speculum, xviii (1943), 290Google Scholar. Byrhtferth has a eulogy on Bede, especially praising his contribution to computistics, in his ‘epilogue’, which was written to accompany a copy of Bede's computistical works, or perhaps as an epilogue to the Manual: see the printed text in Forsey, G. F., ‘Byrhtferth's Preface’, Speculum, iii (1928), 516–19Google Scholar; cf. Henel, op cit., 288–302, and Lapidge, M., ‘The hermeneutic style in tenth-century Anglo-Latin literature’, Anglo-Saxon England, iv (1975), 90 and n. 3.Google Scholar

26 Printed as Aelfric's De Temporibus Anni, ed. H. Henel (E.E.T.S., o.s., ccxiii, 1942). For Ælfric's use of Bede therein see ibid., liii-lvi.

27 Alcuin, De Pontificibus et Sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracensis Carmen in Raine, Historians of … York, i. 388.

28 Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. T. Arnold (R.S., 1882, 1885, 2 vols). i. 88–9. Cf. Offler, H. S., ‘The date of Durham (Carmen de Situ Dunelmi)’, Jnl English and Germanic Philology, lxi (1962), 592–3Google Scholar.

29 The Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury, ed. Darlington, R. R. (Camden Society, 3rd sen, xl, 1928), 20Google Scholar.

30 Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, i. 108.

31 Ibid., i. 109.

32 Ibid., i. 111.

33 Ibid., i. 112.

34 Ibid., i. 113.

35 MS B 11.35 in the chapter library at Durham ; Mynors, R. A. B., Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century, Oxford 1939, 41Google Scholar.

36 Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, i. 120. An instance of the strength of the Bedan tradition in the Durham area is provided by Symeon who relates that a local man, Eadulf, died and came alive again, having had a vision of the afterworld; Symeon explicitly compares Eadulfs experience with Drythelm's; ibid., i. 114–15. A similar vision was experienced by a boy, Orm, who also lived in north-east England; an account was written in 1126 or soon after, and sent by Sigar, the parish priest of Newbald, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, to Symeon at Durham. See Farmer, H., ‘The Vision of Orm’, Analecta Bollandiana, lxxv (1957), 72–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a pre-Conquest example of a man having a vision like Drythelm's see p. 402 and n. 24 above.

37 Walcher's attempt to placate the English in the political sphere was, ironically, one factor leading to his murder; see Douglas, D. C., William the Conqueror, London 1964, 240–1Google Scholar.

38 William of St Carilef could not rely on the support even of the king. For his quarrel with William Rufus, 1087–8, see Poole, A. L., From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, Oxford 1951, 100–4Google Scholar.

39 The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed., with an English translation, M. Oxford Medieval Texts 1969–1981), iii. 66Google Scholar, 68.

40 Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum, ed. Arnold, T. (R.S., 1879), 115–16Google Scholar.

41 Florentii Wigornunsis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Thorpe, B. (English Society, 1848–1849, 2 vols), i. 53Google Scholar.

42 ibid., i. 50. For other references to Bede see ibid., i. 44, 45, 46. For Florence's interest in chronology, see Gransden, Historical Writing, 144 and n. 56, 145 and n. 63, 146.

43 Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi de Gestis Regum Anglorum …, ed. W. Stubbs 1887–9, 2 vols), i. 58–67.

44 Ibid., i. 59.

45 Ibid., i. 1–2.

46 Ibid., i. 66–7.

47 Ckronicon ex Chronicis, i. 53.

48 Gesta Regum, i. 2.

49 Historia Anglorum, 3.

50 Gesta Regum, i. 1–2.

51 Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi de Gestis Pontificum Anglorum …, ed. Hamilton, N. E. S. A. (R.S., 1870Google Scholar).

52 Historia Angbrum, 5–7.

55 Rouen MS 1343. See Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed., with an English translation, Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford Medieval Texts, 1969), p. lxiGoogle Scholar.

54 The Ecclesiastical History qfOrderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, vi. 550–6. See ibid., vi. 556 n. 1.

55 Historia Anglorum, 13.

56 Gesta Regum, i. 13. Cf. Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Plummer, ii. 85 note.

57 Gesta Pontificum, 210; cf. ibid., 238–9.

58 Ibid., 293; cf. Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Plummer, ii. 141, 158, notes.

59 Gesta Pontificum, 296.

60 Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake (Camden Society, 3rd ser., xcii, 1962), 2, 13.

61 See ibid., pp. xxviii, liii, 2–50 passim.

62 Ibid … 50–1.

63 Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius, hoc est Dunelmensis Ecclesiae, printed as Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesiae in Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, i. 3–135.

64 Printed in ibid., i. 222–8. One Hugh was dean from 1090-c. 1109, and another from c. 1 130-c. 1132; see Neve, J. Le, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, Oxford 1854, 3 vols, iii. 120Google Scholar.

65 See. 402 above.

66 See his letter to Hugh; Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, i. 227.

67 Ibid., i. 43.

68 Ibid., i. 42–3.

69 Ibid., i. 29, 30, 228.

70 Ibid., i. 29.

71 The letter to Hugh; ibid., i. 227–8. See also the Libellus; ibid., i. 37. Cf. pp. 406–7 above.

72 Ibid., i. 41.

73 See the letter to Hugh; ibid., i. 227–8.

74 Ibid., i. 228. Expoiitio in Cantica Canticorum, Lib. 1 (the Complete Works of the Venerable Bede, ed. J. A. Giles, London 1843–4, 12 vols, ix, 200). A copy (now lost) of Bede's commentary on the Song of Songs was among the books given by William of St Carilef to the cathedral; see Turner, C. H., ‘The earliest list of Durham MSS.’, J.T.S., xix (1918), 130Google Scholar, no. 40.

75 Passages are cited verbatim from the prose Life. For a direct reference to the verse Life see Symeonis Monachi Opera Ontnia, i. 38 and n. a.

76 Ibid., i. isg. Cf. Historia Ecclesiastica, iv. 27; ed. Plummer, i. 269.

77 Printed in Historians of … York, ed. Raine, ii. 312–87.

78 See ibid., ii, pp. xxi-xxii.

79 Ibid., ii. 313.

80 Ibid., ii. 332–5.

81 Ibid., ii. 327–8, 331, 334.

82 Ibid., ii. 313–16.

83 See Lanfranc's letter to Alexander 11; The Letters of Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury, ed., with an English translation, Clover, H. and Gibson, M. (Oxford Medieval Texts, 1979), 50–1Google Scholar. Cf. Southern, R. W., ‘The Canterbury forgeries’, E.H.R., lxxiii (1958), 195CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 Macdonald, A. J., ‘Eadmerand the Canterbury privileges’, J.T.S., xxxii (1931), 41Google Scholar.

85 The letter is printed in Historians of … York, ed. Raine, ii. 228–51 (see esp. 228–39). See Southern, op. cit., 208–9.

86 Raine, op. cit., ii. 235–6.

87 Eadmeri Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. Rule, M. (R.S., 1884), 279–88Google Scholar. See Southern, R. W., Saint Anselm and his Biographer, Cambridge 1963, 236Google Scholar.

88 Nicholas's letter is printed in Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great and Ireland, ed. Haddan, A. W. and Stubbs, W., Oxford 1869–1878Google Scholar, reprinted 1964, 3 vols, ii. 202–4.

89 According to Eadmer (Historia Novorum, 18–19), Walkelin, bishop of Winchester, planned to replace the monks by secular canons not only in his own cathedral but also in Christ Church, Canterbury. Professor Knowles, however, doubted the reliability of Eadmer's information on this point; see Knowles, M. D., The Monastic Order in England, 2nd edn, Cambridge 1963, 130CrossRefGoogle Scholar and n. 2.

90 For the spurious bull of Boniface iv, see Levison, W., England and the Continent in the Eighth Century, Oxford 1946, 202–4Google Scholar, and Brooke, C. N. L., ‘The Canterbury forgeries and their author’. Downside Review, lxviii (1950), 465–7Google Scholar.

91 See Levison, op. cit., 181 et seq. Professor Brooke argued that all the Canterbury forgeries were the work of one man, Guerno; Brooke, op. cit., 462–76, and the continuation of the same article, Downside Review, lxix (1951) 210–31Google Scholar, passim. This is unlikely, since the forgeries produced at Christ Church in relation to the primacy dispute, which do not concern us here, were probably produced 1121–2. However, it is quite possible that Guerno was responsible for the earliest Christ Church forgery, the bull of Boniface iv, as well as for the St Augustine's forgeries; see Southern, op. cit., 193–4 and n. 1.

92 For Maurice and his works see Powicke, F. M., ‘Maurice of Rievaulx’, E.H.R., xxxvi (1921), 17–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 For Ailred and his family see The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx by Walter Daniel, ed. Powicke, F. M.Nelson's Medieval Texts 1950, pp. xxxiii–liGoogle Scholarpassim. For his family tree see Raine, J., Hexham Priory (Surtees Society, xliv, xlvi, 1863–1864, 2 vols), i. li–liiGoogle Scholar.

94 Powicke, op. cit., pp. xxxix-xlii.

95 Ibid., pp. xxxvii-xxxviii.

96 See Reginaldi Monachi Dunelmeruis Libellus de Admirandis Beati Cuthberti Viitutibus. ed. J. Raine (Surtees Society, i, 1835), viii, 4, 7, 32.

97 Raine, Hexham Priory, i. 33.

98 Consuetudines, c. lviii; P. Guignard, Us Monuments primitifs de la Regie Cistercienne, Dijon 1878, 266. Cf. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, 643–4 and n. 6.

99 The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. Griscom, A., London 1929, 219Google Scholar.

100 Historia Anglorum, xx-xxi.

101 Speculum Charitatis, lib. ii. c. 17: P.L. cxcv, col. 565.

102 Aluredi Beverlacensis Annales sive Historia de Ctstis Regum Britanniae, ed. Hearne, T., Oxford 1716Google Scholar.

105 Ibid., 1–2. Cf. Tatlock, J. S. P., The Legendary History of Britain, Berkeley, Cal. 1950, 210–11Google Scholar.

106 Aluredi Beverlacensis Annales, 2.

105 Ibid., 56. See Historia Regum Britanniae, 330, 360, 362, 365–6, etc.

106 Aluredi Beverlaiensis Annales, 24.

107 Ibid.. 76.

108 Ibid., 76.

109 Ibid., 2.

110 Ibid., 2–3.

111 Printed in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. R. Howlett (R.S., 1884–9, 4 vols), i. 3–408; ii. 411–500.

112 Ibid., i. 3–4.

113 The suggested tract, as it survives in the prologue, might well have ended at ‘ab omnibus respuatur’ (ibid., i. 18, line 18), at which point William changes theme and starts leading up to his own chronicle.

114 See Treharne, R. F., The Clastonbury Legends, London 1967, 105–6Google Scholar, and Tatlock, J. S. P.‘Geoffrey and King Arthurin "Normannicus Draco”’, Modem Philology, xxxi (1933–1934Google Scholar), 122 and n. 7, 123.

115 Chrons. Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. Howlett, i. 106–7.

116 Ibid., i. 235.

117 Ibid., ii. 463–4.

118 Ibid., i. 11.

119 See Tatlock, ‘Geoffrey and King Arthur’, 1–2, 124.

120 Ibid., 124–5.

121 Ibid., 3, 113–23.

122 Treharne, op. cit. 105–6.

123 Chrons. Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. Howlett, i. 17.

124 Ibid., i. 14.

125 Ibid., i. 11.

126 Ibid., i. 14, 18.

127 Ibid., i. 15.

128 Ibid., i. 14.

129 Ibid., i. 18.

130 Ibid., i. 11.

131 Matthew Paris borrowed his account of Bede mainly from William of Malmesbury, but in addition he used Henry of Huntingdon; Matthan Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, H. R. (R.S., 1872–1883, 7 vols), i. 333–6Google Scholar. Higden also took his account mainly from William of Malmesbury; Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis, ed. Babingtonand, C.Lumby, J. R. (R.S., 1865–1868, 9 vols), vi. 218–26Google Scholar.

132 For appeals to the Historia Ecclesiastica in Gerald's letter (1199) to Innocent in, in his De Invectionibus (1205), and in his Dejure et Statu Mtnevensis Eccltsiae (c. 1218), see Giraldi Cambrcnsis Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer et alii (R.S., 1861–91, 8 vols), iii. 169–76 passim, 44–51, 111, respectively.

133 The Hisloria Ecclesiastica and the Historia Regum Britanniae are cited side by side by, for example, Matthew Paris, Higden and Gerald of Wales.

134 See Radulfi de Diceto Decani Lundoniensis Opera Historica, ed. Stubbs, W. (R.S., 1876, 2 vols), i. 66Google Scholar.

135 Thomas Rudborne, Historia Major … Ecclesiae Wintoniensis, in Wharton, H., Anglia Sacra, London 1691, 2 vols, i. 180Google Scholar; Rous, John, Historia Regum Angliae, ed. Hearne, Thomas, Oxford 1716, 48Google Scholar.

136 See Historia Anglica, Basle 1546, 15–19 (for a reference to William of Newburgh's criticisms see ibid., 17, line 3). For the passage in the sixteenth-century English translation see Polydore Vergil's English History, ed. Henry Ellis (Camden Society, original sen, xxxvi, 1846, xxix, 1844, 2 vols), i. 26–33.

137 Polychronicon, v. 332–8.

138 Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. 188.

139 Whethamsted in his Granarium, Pt. 1, an encyclopaedia of historians and historical personages, disputes the Brutus legend; B.L. MS Nero C vi, fos. 33–33v. (His scepticism is noticed in Keeler, L., ‘The Historia Regum Britanniae and four medieval chroniclers’. Speculum, xxi (1946), 36Google Scholar.) However, he appears to accept the legend of Belinus and that of Brennus; ibid., fos. 28, 30v–32.

140 See Polychronicon, i. 24.

141 Rudborne questioned the Arthurian legends because historic persons mentioned in them, notably the Emperors Lucius and Leo, did not rule at the time of King Arthur. He demonstrated these chronological flaws in the legends with some care, but Higden had already noticed them briefly. (For references see nn. 138, 137 above, respectively.)

142 See Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the British Museum (Trustees of the British Museum, lithographic reprint, 1912–67, 9 pts), i. 71.

143 For a survey of the printed editions, see Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. lxx-lxxii.

144 See McKisack, M., Medieval History in the Tudor Age, Oxford 1971, 39Google Scholar, and Levy, F. J., Tudor Historical Thought, Huntingdon Library, California 1967, 110–12Google Scholar.

145 Pantin, W. A., ‘Some medieval English treatises on the origins of monasticism’, Medieval Studies presented to Rose Graham, ed. Ruffer, V. and Taylor, A. J., Oxford 1950, 189–215Google Scholar.

146 Printed as Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis, by Thomas of Elmham, ed. Hardwick, C. (R.S., 1858Google Scholar). For the original title, Speculum Augustinianum, see Taylor, F., ‘A note on Rolls Series 8’, Bulletin of theJohn Rylands Library, xx (1936), 379–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Speculum must have been written before 1414 because in that year Elmham joined the Cluniac order, becoming prior of Lenton, near Nottingham; see Roskell, J. S. and Taylor, F., ‘The authorship and purpose of the Cesta Henrici Quinti: 1’, Bull, of the John Rylands Library, liii (1970–1971), 436Google Scholar.

147 For St Augustine's claim to exemption from archiepiscopal control see Knowles, M. D., ‘Essays in monastic history, iv. The growth of exemption’, Downside Review, 1 (1932), 401–15Google Scholar. For the dispute in the late eleventh century see pp. 411–12 and n. 91 above. The course of the struggle is described in the earlier chronicles of St Augustine's, the lost one by Thomas Sprott, which apparently ended in 1228, and William Thome's to 1397, both of which Elmham used; see Hardwick, op. cit., 77. Thome's chronicle is printed in Twysden, Roger, Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores X, London 1652, 2 vols, i. cols 1757–2202Google Scholar; for a discussion of the chronicles of St Augustine's see William Thome's Chronicle of Saint Augustine's. Abbey, translated by Davis, A. H., with a preface by Thompson, A. Hamilton, Oxford 1934, xx–xxviGoogle Scholar.

148 Hardwick, op. cit., 309.

149 Ibid., 185–6, 202–5. Cf. Historia Ecclesiastica, iv. 1 (ed. Plummer, i. 204) and Polychronicon, vi. 78. Plummer (Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Plummer, ii. 204) points out Bede's Historia Abbatum §§3.4 (ibid. i. 366–7) has evidence mat Biscop was once abbot of St Augustine's (for two years), despite Elmham's assertion to the contrary.

150 Hardwick, op. cit., 202–4.

151 Ibid., 279.

152 Ibid., 268–70. Cf. Historia Ecdesiastica, ed. Plummer, ii. 228, 265.

153 For Wessington's career see Dobson, R. B., Durham Priory 1400–1450, Cambridge 1973, 89–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

154 Dobson, op. cit., 204–5, 222–4, and Storey, R. L., Thomas Langley and the Bishopric of Durham, 1406–1437, London 1961, 199–200Google Scholar.

155 See Dobson, op. cit., 203.

156 See (with further references) Dobson, op. cit., 32 and n. 1, 350 n. 4, 360.

157 Wessington's history, the Libellus de exordio et statu ecctesie cathedralis quondam Lindesfamensis, post Conchestrensis, demum Dunelmensis, ac de gestis pontificum eiusdem, is unprinted. Three manuscripts, all from Durham, are known to survive; one is cited in the next footnote. See Craster, H. H. E., ‘The Red Book of Durham’, E.H.R., xl (1925), 504–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. passim. For the place of the Libellus in the historiography of Durham see Offler, H. S., Medieval Historians of Durham, Durham 1958, 17Google Scholar.

158 B.L. MS Cotton Claudius D IV, fo. 14. The reference is presumably to John of Tynemouth's Sanctilogium, compiled between 1327 and 1347, for which see V. H. Calbraith, ‘The Historia Aurea of John, vicar of Tynemouth, and the sources of the St. Albans Chronicle (1327–1377)’, Essays in History presented to Reginald Lane Poole, ed. Davis, H. W. C., Oxford 1927, 385Google Scholar. The passage cittd by Wessington is almost identical with that in the Nova Legenda Anglie, ed. Horstman, Carl, Oxford 1901, 2 volsGoogle Scholar, i. in, and in the Historia Aurea. The latter is a mid-fourteenth century version of die Sanctilogium in which the saints’ Lives are arranged chronologically (see Galbraith, op. cit., 382–5); a late fourteenth-century copy from Durham priory is now Lambeth Palace MSS 10, 11 and 12. It is possible that Wessington in fact copied the passage in question from the Historia Aurea from which he derived his copy of Pope Sergius's letter (Claudius D iv, fo. 14), and not directly from the Sanctilogium. This is suggested by the fact diat both he and the Durham copy of the Historia Aurea (Lambeth Palace MS 12, fo. 50) have the marginal note in the hand of the scribe, ‘Legenda Sanctorum in fine'. However, it is unlikely that he was using the copy now in Lambeth Palace; his version of the passage on why Bede was called ‘venerable’ has, besides a few slight variants from that in the Lambeth MS, a different beginning. Wessington begins: ‘Licet enim Beda in sanctorum cathalogo computetur et a Dunelmensibus sanctus Beda nominetur, non tamen a pluribus aliis “sanctus” sed “venerabilis” appellatur'; Claudius D iv, fo. 14v. The Historia Aurea (and the Nova Legenda Anglie) begins: ‘Licet enim Beda in sanctorum cathalogo computetur, tamen ab ecclesia non “sanctus", sed “venerabilis” appellatur'; Lambeth Palace MS 12, fo. 50. Wes-sington's account of Bede is in toto much fuller than that in the Historia Aurea.

159 Craster, ‘The Red Book of Durham’, 516–17.

160 A contemporary of Wessington, who listed his tracts, comments that Wessington ‘compiled them not without labour and study for the perpetual preservation and defence of die rights, liberties and possessions of the church of Durham against the malice and machinations of would-be molesters'; Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, Gaufridus Coldingham, Robertus de Graystanes, et Willielmus de Chambre, ed. Raine, J. (Surtees Society, 1839), cclxviii–cclxixGoogle Scholar. Cl. Dobson, Durham Priory, 379 and n. 2, and Craster, ‘The Red Book’, 515 and n. 2. For Wessington's tracts in general see Dobson, op. cit., 382–4.

161 The text is printed in Rites of Durham, ed. Fowler, J. T. (Surtees Society, cvii, 1903), 124–36Google Scholar.

162 Historia Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, clxx. The ‘declaration’, dated 17 June 1426, is now 1. 7. Pontificalia, no. 2, in the muniments of the dean and chapter of Durham. It is listed in R. B. Dobson, The Priory of Durham in the Time of John Wessington Prior 1416–1446 (unpublished Oxford D.Phil, thesis, 1962), 583, no. 22.

163 Rites of Durham, 46.

164 Ibid., 45, 233.

165 Ibid., 225.

166 In his account of his visit to Durham on his return from the court of James 1 of Scotland, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (later Pius 11) apparently mentioned only Bede's tomb, not that of St Cuthbert: ‘Exinde Dunelmiam venit, ubi sepulchrum venerabilis Bedae presbyteri sancti viri hodie visitur, quod accolae regionis devota religione colunt'; Pii Secundi Max. Commentarii Rerum Memorabilium, quae temporibus suis contigerunt, Frankfurt 1614, 5. This passage is mistranslated as ‘Next he came to Durham, where today men go to see the tomb of the holy abbot, the Venerable Bede, which is piously revered by the inhabitants of the region’, in The Commentaries of Pius II, translated by F. A. Gragg, ed. L. C. Gabel (Smith College Studies in History, xxii, nos 1–2, 1936–7), 20, The erroneous rendering of ‘venerabilis Bedae presbyteri sancti viri’ as ‘the holy abbot, the venerable Bede’, perhaps explains the assertion by a recent scholar that Aeneas Sylvius confused Bede's shrine with that of St Cuthbert's ; Dobson, Durham Priory, 105.

167 Laistner, Hand List, 7.