Overview

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is our main source for early Christian Anglo-Saxon England, but how was it written? When? And why? Scholars have spent much of the last half century investigating the latter question – the ‘why’. This new study is the first to systematically consider the ‘how’ and the ‘when’. Richard Shaw shows that rather than producing the History at a single point in 731, Bede was working on it for as much as twenty years, from c. 715 to just before his death in 735. Unpacking and extending the period of composition of Bede’s best-known book makes sense of the complicated and contradictory evidence for its purposes. The work did not have one context, but several, each with its own distinct constructed audiences. Thus, the History was not written for a single purpose to the exclusion of all others. Nor was it simply written for a variety of reasons. It was written over time – quite a lot of time – and as the world changed during that time, so too did Bede’s reasons for writing, the intentions he sought to pursue – and the patrons he hoped to please or to placate.

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9781032185651

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‘The results [of Shaw’s research] are illuminating and thought-provoking … He has read very widely and thoroughly, and his book provides an excellent overview of the current state of play in the study of Bede’s most famous work’ – Barbara Yorke in Northern History. ‘Shaw’s textual analysis often provides intriguing insights … The most compelling part of this argument is the discussion of Bede’s source collection, particularly when Shaw uses the differences between the narratives in Bede’s chronicles, the Historia abbatum, and the Historia ecclesiastica to identify potential dates for Bede’s reception of specific sources. Likewise, the discussion of redrafts under Ceolwulf ’s patronage is equally compelling in fleshing out the argument for a post-731 dating of the Historia’s final version … The monograph’s overall thesis is an interesting and often compelling one’ - Peritia, 34 (2023).

‘The results [of Shaw’s research] are illuminating and thought-provoking … He has read very widely and thoroughly, and his book provides an excellent overview of the current state of play in the study of Bede’s most famous work’ – Barbara Yorke, Northern History.

Author Information

Richard Shaw is Associate Professor and Chairman of the History Department at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College, in Ontario, Canada. His first book, The Gregorian Mission to Kent in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History: Methodology and Sources, was published by Routledge in 2018.

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