On the popularity of Bede

Venerable the Bede may have been, but not clairvoyant
- Endeavour Morse, Endeavour S02E01


Today is the feast-day of Bede (d.735), a monk at the monastery of Jarrow in Northumbria (now on the coast of Durham County) who was canonised in 1899. In the English-speaking world, Bede is currently most famous as a historian, in particular for his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, the ecclesiastical history of the English people. Among later historians in medieval England, Bede was a model to be emulated in the writing of chronicles, and William of Malmesbury (d.1143) praised Bede's work in one of his own chronicles, Gesta Regum Anglorum, the deeds of the kings of the English. Indeed, William claimed to be the first historian since the Venerable Bede to have undertaken a historiographical project on such a scale.

Historia Ecclesiastica provides us with a valuable, if questionable source to Britain's history before 735, and the accuracy of several of Bede's claims have come under close scrutiny in modern historical research. Once, at a conference in Oxford, I was sitting in a pub together with a group of mostly junior scholars, where David Rollason, one of the most established scholars of early medieval Northern England, told about how he had once written a paper on Bede's Historia, tentatively titled "Would you buy a car from this man?". Sadly, the paper was never published.

 In the Middle Ages, however, Bede's reputation as a historian was greatest within England. In the rest of Latin Christendom, Bede's significant and widespread popularity rested predominantly on his theological works, which circulated widely from a relatively early point. A good example of this disparity in popularity between his historical and his theological work can be found in Legenda Aurea, the collection of saints' legends written in the 1260s by Jacobus de Voragine. Here, Jacobus engages several times with the history of the British Isles, such as when recounting Saint Germanus of Auxerre's journey to Britain. Germanus' sojourn to Britain is also mentioned by Bede, and it is possible that Bede serves as the ultimate source for Jacobus' account, but there is no reference to this in Legenda Aurea. This is notable, because in several other chapters of Legenda Aurea, Jacobus mentions Bede as an authority for various claims, but only for Bede's theology, and never for his historical writing. This might serve as a good measurement of Bede's importance outside of England.

The popularity and importance of Bede's theological works can also be illustrated in a different way. Just as Jacobus de Voragine had employed Bede as a theological authority in Legenda Aurea, Bede's scriptural commentaries were a part of that corpus of established scriptural knowledge that provided the foundation for several commentators in the new flourishing of theology that came about in the post-Carolingian period. To exemplify this, we have a fragment from a German breviary which is now kept in the special collections at the University Library of Southern Denmark.

Lectio from the office for the celebration of the dedication of a church

RARA Musik M 4, fragment XI, Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek

The fragment contains readings and chants for the feast of the dedication of a church. The exact date of this feast naturally varied from institution to institution, but the repertoire of liturgical material was common to all of Latin Christendom. This was a feast in which the new church was typologically connected to the temple of Solomon, the model for all Christian churches according to Christian exegesis. Another typological connection was also made to the site of Bethel where Jacob wrestled with God's angel, about which I have written more here.

In order to emphasise the connection between the new church and the old temple, theological authorities were invoked in the readings for the feast of the dedication. In the fragment above, we see one of the lessons read aloud during Matins, and this text provides a good insight into Bede's place among theological authorities. 

The lesson itself, as it stands in the fragment, is of unknown provenance. It is a collection of snippets and quotations from older works, where each individual part can be identified, while the current constellation of materials might have been assembled at any point and at any place. The snippets in question all refer to the temple of Solomon, and the surviving Latin text reads as follows (I have not yet had time to translate it):  


[superimpositi]s sibi inuicem ordinibus lapidum [a]mbulando ac proficiendo de uir[t]ute in uirtutem. Cepit salemon [e]dificare domum domini in jerusalem in [m]onte moria. Edificat in monte domus domini in uisione quia dilatata per orbem ecclesia in una eademque fidei et ueritatis catho[l]ice societate consitit. Namque in scissura mentium deus non est sed factus est in pace locus eius ac habitacio eius in syon. Edificatur in monte in ipso uidelicet sal[u]atore nostro. Ipse est enim mons montium qui de terra quidaem per originem assumpte carnis ortus est sed omnium terrigenarum potentiam ac sanctitatem singularis culmine dignitatis transcendit. In quo nimirum monte ciuitas siue domus domini constructa est quia si non in illo radicem frigat spes et fides nostra nulla est tu au[tem]


Despite being an assemblage of parts, this is coherent, and its coherence is a testament to the skillful compiling of the unknown liturgist who executed this passage. The compilation points to the importance Bede in two ways. First of all, by the fact that this compilation includes material from his treatise on the temple of Solomon, De templo salomonis. Secondly, by the fact that Bede is woven into the text twice (and perhaps even more, given that we have lost the opening of the lesson). 

The lesson comprises four snippets of texts: First, an extract from Bede; second, an extract from 2 Chronicles 3:1 (to which Bede's text presumably refers); third, a passage whose author is as yet undetermined, but who appears to be either Johannes Cassianus, Eucherius, or Hrabanus Maurus; fourth, another extract from Bede's De templo salomonis. In short, Bede appears to bookend the entire passage - although since the opening is lost we cannot make any certain judgement about this. 

What we see here is a good example of Bede's importance and popularity as a theological authority in the intellectual milieu of Latin Christendom. While his historiographical enterprise might have been appreciated more notably in medieval England, his theology established him as one of the universal theologians among Latin Christians throughout the Middle Ages.