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
Catalogue details

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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    inscription to his memory concluding with the well known monkish rhyme:— ‘ ISac sunt (n fossa IScDae btntrabilis ossa.” Here lie beneath these stones—venerable Bede’s bones. CHAP. III.—ANALYSIS OF BEDE’S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. The Ecclesiastical History of venerable Bede was first published on the Continent: numerous editions of it have been printed, which it is here necessary to enumerate. It was first published in England by Wheloc, fol. Cantab. 1643-4, with an Appendix containing the Anglo-Saxon translation by king Alfred the Great. To this succeeded the edition of Smith, printed at Cam- bridge in 1722, which superseded all the preceding. The basis of this edition was a MS. formerly belonging to More, bishop of Ely, and now deposited in the public library at Cambridge. [Kk, 5, 16.] At the end of the MS., which is written in Anglo-Saxon letters, are several notes in a some- what later handwriting, by which it would appear that the volume was copied in the year 737, i.e. two years after Bede’s death, and probablj' from the author’s original manu- script. The last edition of this eelebrated and valuable work is that of Stevenson, published by the English Historical Society, Bond. 8vo. 1838. The editor professes to have used the same MS. of bishop More, and to have occasionally collated four others [Cotton. Tib. C, IT, Tib. A, XIV, Hark 4978, and King’s MS. 13 C, V.]. Prefixed to the volume is a copious and valuable notice of the author and his work, from which we take the liberty of making the following long extract, as containing the most judicious account of this our author’s greatest work. “The scope of this valuable and justly esteemed work is sufficiently indicated by its title. After some observations upon the position, inhabitants, and natural productions of Britain, the author gives a rapid sketch of its history from the earliest period until the arrival of Augustine in a.d. 597, at wliich era, in his opinion, the ecclesiastical history of our