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203 Bede’s History in a Harsher Climate Walter Goffart In a memorable appreciation of Bede, the late Sir Richard Southern spoke of being awed by Jarrow, the site of the monastery in which Bede lived and worked.1 The Jarrow that I visited inspired more regret than elation. There was a church lying amidst the decay of industrialism, with pylons and hightension wires providing the only uplift. Since then, there have been changes for the better, but South Tyneside seems immune to improvement. Hopeful organizers have now created a small theme park called “Bede’s World.” Jarrow is a few miles downstream from Newcastle (a twelfthcentury town) and not far from Hadrian’s Roman wall. With Wearmouth, its twin, about fifty miles to the south, Bede’s home was among the earliest monasteries in Northumbria. It had been 1 R. W. Southern, “Bede,” in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (1970; reprinted, Oxford, 1984), p. 1. His comment that “whatever beauty there may be is distinctly austere,” suggests that, at a simple level, his eyes and mine made out the same spectacle. Southern grew up near Jarrow. My remarks in what follows are based mainly on my chapter “Bede and the Ghost of Bishop Wilfrid,” in The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550800 ): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton, N.J., 1988; reprinted, Notre Dame, 2005), pp. 235–328. It is supplemented by my “The Historia ecclesiastica: Bede’s Agenda and Ours,” Haskins Society Journal: Studies in Medieval History 2 (1990): 29–45, and “L’Histoire ecclésiastique et l’engagement politique de Bède,” in Bède le Vénérable entre tradition et postérité. Actes du colloque international Bède le Vénérable: bilan et perspectives, ed. Stéphane Lebecq, Michel Perrin, and Olivier Szerwiniack (Lille, 2005), pp. 149–58 (which overlaps with the present study). Walter Goffart 204 founded by a rich, restless nobleman named Benedict Biscop. The English Benedict tirelessly traveled to the Continent and Mediterranean, acquiring sumptuous furnishings for his foundations and a library of some 200 books.2 He made Wearmouth and Jarrow treasure-houses for these artifacts from an advanced civilization. At no time before (even in the days of Roman Britain ) had so much written culture been accumulated so far to the north. Bede was the most learned and productive scholar of the eighth century. He probably has no rival even in glamorous , remote Byzantium. The missionary and pedagogic activity of Anglo-Saxons in the Carolingian empire gave his name and exegetical writings wide currency beyond the homeland he himself never left. While living, Bede was neither hidden away nor obscure. By middle age he was the Northumbrian equivalent of a celebrity. Dignitaries from Canterbury far to the south dealt with him on serious matters, notably the contents of the history he was composing; and when he wrote admonitions to the bishop of York, he could expect a hearing.3 Monks were not normally ordained; Bede, however, was made a priest in 703. This marked his start as an ecclesiastical writer, a preacher on parchment. He died thirty-two years later. Biblical commentaries were the staple of his production, but he also wrote historical works. In 725 he composed a chronicle, or compact history of the world. Precisely when he started the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is not certain. Nevertheless he was old when this long, ambitious work was launched. He had not written anything of the kind before.4 The Historia ecclesiastica has five books. Starting with a description of the British Isles and their population, and with a glance at the Roman period, the history traces the gradual Christianization of England and ends with a brief account of conditions at 2 Peter Hunter Blair, The World of Bede (1970; reprinted, Cambridge, 1990), pp. 155–83. 3 Goffart, Narrators, pp. 241 n. 33, 274–5, 296–8. 4 Goffart., pp. 241–42, 246–49. Bede’s History in a Harsher Climate 205 the time of writing. These final lines are concerned only with Northumbria, and the same holds for more than half the entire history. Bede does not disregard England, but his work is not about all the lands conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. His slant is overwhelmingly Northumbrian. The chronological scope is also uneven. We hear much in books one and two about the Gregorian mission that started in 596, and most of the seventh century is well taken care of. But that...

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