will point out the typology (an Old Testament event as
prefi guration of the New). Often he presents a twofold
relationship in a text, with a single allegorical inter-
pretation superimposed upon the literal meaning, At
other times he spreads out a threefold meaning, either
historical, allegorical, and moral (applying to one’s own
life) or historical, allegorical, and anagogic (applying to
the fi nal Judgment), or he follows the fourfold method
of historical, allegorical, tropological (moral), and ana-
gogic interpretations. Though he derived this schema
from Cassian, Bede became the defi nitive authority in
the Middle Ages for it. In addition to his biblical com-
mentaries he compiled two biblical aids, a compendium
on the places of the Holy Land, derived primarily from
the itinerarium of Adomnán, and a gazetteer explaining
and locating places mentioned in the Bible.
For Bede preaching was a priest’s primary func-
tion and had a special, even sacramental, signifi cance:
preachers are the successors of the prophets and
apostles. For the liturgical year he composed two books
of 25 homilies each. In hagiography Bede revised the
lives of various saints, including Felix, Athanasius, and
Cuthbert; he also composed an historical martyrology,
114 brief accounts of martyrs’ lives and deaths, which
played an important role in the development of the
Roman martyrology. Although Bede wrote “a book of
hymns in various meters and rhythms” and “a book of
epigrams in heroic and elegiac meter,” we now possess
only a few of each, about two dozen poems in all. These
include a poetic tour de force in honor of St. Æthelthryth,
the famous Hymnos canamus gloriae, and the even more
famous De die iudicii, on Judgment Day. Although well
versed in OE poetry, he may not have composed the
fi ve-line OE poem called “Bede’s Death Song,” which
he recited on his deathbed.
Bedes fame today derives mainly from his work as an
historian. His histories not only provide us with infor-
mation now known only because of him; as products of
his mature scholarship and long writing career they also
mark momentous advances in the science of historiogra-
phy. His History of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow
fi rst describes the life and career of the great founder of
the monastery, Benedict Biscop, then incorporates and
edits the anonymous life of Abbot Ceolfrith, fused with
descriptions of the abbots Eostorwine and Sigefrith,
and ending with Bede’s coeval Hwætberht. Although
he attributes no miracles to any of the fi ve remarkable
abbots, he represents them in this monastic chronicle
as splendid characters. Unlike the two world chronicles
he appended to his treatises on time his Ecclesiastical
History of the English Peoples is history in the grand
and full scale, which has gained Bede the well-deserved
title of “father of English history.”
The fi rst Englishman to write history with a full
sense of historical responsibility and with control by
his use, arrangement, and omission of materials, Bede
was also the fi rst to relate the history of England. He
is the fi rst literary authority for a structured history
stretching from Roman Britain, the invasions of the
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, some events in Scotland and
Ireland, to the mission of Augustine to Kent, Paulinus to
Northumbria, the doings of Theodore, Chad, and Acca,
the power and glory of Northumbria, and events in the
recent past. Each division contains memorable events
told with extraordinary but restrained artistry: Gregory
the Great’s apostolic love for the English, the conver-
sion of King Edwin and his people, King Oswald and
St. Aidan, Abbess Hild and the poet Cædmon.
Bede’s title tells us that his work belongs to the genre
and tradition of ecclesiastical history, based on biblical
rather than classical concepts of time and event, presup-
posing a theocentric universe in which the secular is
understood in terms of the sacred, tracing the progress
of the church as it advances in time and geography.
Furthermore it is “of the English people,” treating the
Anglo-Saxons as one nation, God’s chosen, even though
divided into kingdoms and privileging Northumbria in
the later books. The fi rst three books of the History deal
primarily with the christianization of the English; the
last two describe the way in which the Christian life
developed among them, especially in Northumbria. The
fi rst book sweeps through 650 years, whereas each of
the remaining four covers about a generation. Dedicated
to Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria (729–37), the His-
tory emphasizes the good and bad infl uence of various
Anglo-Saxon kings; it also stresses the infl uence of the
clergy and their activity, offering as models John of Hex-
ham (Beverley), Aidan, and especially Cuthbert, with
whom the History comes to a climax in book 4.27–32.
In contrast to Stephens admiring Life of Wilfrid, Bede
adroitly diminishes the worth and importance of Bishop
Wilfrid by downplaying his role in the Northumbrian
church and passing over in silence some major facts
in Wilfrid’s career, such as the Council of Austerfi eld,
even while giving Wilfrid credit for gaining the victory
of the Roman practice of Easter-dating and tonsure
over the Irish faction under Colmán at the Synod of
Whitby in 664.
The History is written in a soberly elegant Latin. It
was translated into OE during the period of King Alfred.
Over 150 manuscripts from the Middle Ages and many
editions and translations of the History attest to its per-
during importance and interest. No one was comparable
to Bede as an historian until the 12th century, and his
work still provides medieval English historians with
endless topics for research and discussion.
Bede wrote a number of formal instructional letters,
one of which has great historical importance, his late
Letter to Ecgbert, a disciple who was to become the fi rst
archbishop of York (735) and whose brother EadberhtBEDE THE VENERABLE