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126 Bede and His Martyrology ALAN THACKER In seeking to analyse Bede’s aims and working methods in one of his lesserknown works, this essay is in a small way following in the footsteps of Jennifer O’Reilly, who has set the standard for such study over a wide range of Bede’s writings. Like Jennifer, it will stress the essential unity of Bede’s approach across a variety of genres, driven ultimately by his concern for aedificatio ecclesiae, the building up of the Church. The martyrology began as a register of those primary witnesses to the Christian faith, the martyrs, who were believed to have suffered the extreme penalty during the imperial persecutions. At its briefest it might be no more than a list of names arranged calendrically: either according to the dies natalis, the day on which the martyr died, or the depositio, the day when the body was laid to rest. Often, however, entries were augmented with brief mention of the location of the execution or place of burial. As time progressed, they came to include confessors, originally those who, without suffering death, nevertheless witnessed to the faith through heroic asceticism . The earliest of these lists, or ‘enumerative martyrologies’, was the Depositio Martyrum, made in Rome in the mid-fourth century,1 but the classic example is that attributed to Jerome.2 This problematic text is generally thought to have taken shape in north Italy, in the early to mid-fifth century, and to have been reshaped in France in the later sixth century.3 The earliest surviving versions all date from the eighth century. They fall into two groups. The unique text of the first, the earliest of all, is from Echternach, probably copied from an English exemplar, c.700–10;4 a second, somewhat different recension is recorded in two late eighthcentury Carolingian manuscripts.5 The function of the enumerative martyrology was to locate martyrial commemoration within the recurring liturgical year, rather than in historical Bede and His Martyrology 127 time. Bede’s text, however, is rather different. It is what has been termed a historical martyrology; as far as we know, the first of its kind.6 Bede was apparently aware of this and offered quite an elaborate characterization of the work in the list of his writings which he appended to Historia Ecclesiastica. He saw it as: A martyrology of the festivals of the holy martyrs, in which I have carefully endeavoured to set down all those whom I could find – not only on what day, but also by what sort of combat or under what judge they overcame the world. [Martyrolgium de nataliciis sanctorum martyrum diebus; in quo omnes, quos invenire potui, non solum qua die, verum etiam quo genere certaminis, vel sub quo iudice mundum vicerint, diligenter adnotare studui.]7 Bede was thus very clear about the historical and informative nature of his work, and underlined this by separating it from his hagiographical writings and listing it immediately after the Historia Ecclesiastica itself. His description implied that his martyrology would only include those about whom he could find out certain important details – at the very least the nature of the sufferings which the martyrs endured and the name of the persecutor (and hence the date of the event). His entries were mostly considerably longer than those in Pseudo-Jerome, reaching as many as 190 words.8 He had transformed the brief timeless record of the enumerative martyrology, focused only upon the commemorative date within the liturgical year, into a historical record, replete with particularity. Bede’s description of his project evokes a comment by Gregory the Great in a letter to Eulogius, archbishop of Alexandria, dated July 598. The pope commented that although in Rome the names of almost all the martyrs had been collected in one codex, and Mass was performed daily in veneration of them, ‘it is not indicated in that volume who suffered in what way, but only the name, place and day is there’.9 The codex has been identified as the Hieronymian martyrology, although this has recently been questioned.10 For our purposes, however, the important point is that Gregory’s allusion to the impoverished nature of the entries offered a blueprint for Bede’s project. There is no evidence that Bede knew this text, but it is suggestive that it was probably entered in the papal register next to another letter also addressed to Eulogius and dated July 598 in which Gregory recounts the progress...

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