The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical history of England / [translated by J. Stevens] Also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. With illustrative notes, a map of Anglo-Saxon England and a general index. Edited by J.A. Giles.

  • Bede, the Venerable, Saint, 673-735.
Date:
1847
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical history of England / [translated by J. Stevens] Also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. With illustrative notes, a map of Anglo-Saxon England and a general index. Edited by J.A. Giles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    T1 Chronicles of Anglo-Saxon History. Although of limited dimensions, they present us with a most extraordinary num- ber of facts arranged chronologically, and form a mass of history such as no other nation of Europe possesses. CHAP. II.—LIFE OF BEDE. Sect. 1.—Of his birth. The year of our Lord 673, remarkable for one of the most important of our early English councils, held at Hertford, for the purpose of enforcing certain general regulations of the church, has an equal claim on our attention, as the year in wliich that great teacher of religion, literature, and science, the Venerable Bede, first saw the light. The time of his birth has, however, been placed by some writers as late as a.d. 677, but this error arose from not per- ceiving that the last two or three pages of his Chronological Epitome, attached to the Ecclesiastical History, were added by another hand.* Bede’s own words appear decisive in fixing the date of his birth:—“ This is the present state of Britain, about 285 years since the coming of the Saxons, and in the seven hun- dred and thirty-first year of our Lord’s incarnation.” To this he subjoins a short clironology which comes down to 731, and was continued to 734, either by another hand or by Bede himself, at a later period just before his death : he then gives a short account of the principal events of his own life, and says, that he has attained (ottigisse) the fifty-ninth year of his life. Gehle, in his recent publication on the life of Bede, has not scrupled to fix the year 672, interpreting Bede’s expression that he had attained his fifty-ninth year as implying that he was entering on his sixtieth. On the other hand, another learned critic,t whose opinion has been adopted by Stevenson in his Introduction [p. 7], has endeavoured to show that 674 is the true date. But in so unimportant a particular it is hardly wortli while to weigh the conflicting opinions, and the intennediate date, so long ago settled by • Mabill. in v. Bed. sect. ii. Sim. Dun. de Ecc. D. 8, and Ep. de Archie. Ebor. Stubbs’s Act. Pont. Eborac. Sparkc’s Hist. Ang. Scrip. 1723. Surtees’ Hist, of Durham, ii. p. 69. + Piigi Critic, in Baron. Ann. a.d. 693, sect. 8.