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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2014
The author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People was the greatest historian writing in the West between the later Roman Empire and the twelfth century, when we come to William of Malmesbury, Otto of Freising, and William of Tyre. Bede's qualities as a historian are well known and widely appreciated, and they need no further exposition here. Instead, we propose to be perverse and to attempt to read Bede's text as though he had been a sociologist or an economic anthropologist: What can we learn from him about the “material conditions” of life in post-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon England, especially about life in the sixth and seventh centuries. This is surely a strange purpose for which to use the Ecclesiastical History. We do so both to show that Bede is so rich and so multifaceted that he is immensely valuable for many purposes besides those of greatest obvious interest to him, and because the sources for social and economic life in those years are so poor that everything available is legitimate grist for the mills of our analysis.
Actually there are two reasons why Bede might have furnished us with the kind of information we are seeking. One is that among classical and early medieval historians there was a considerable tradition of describing the barbarian world, of paying particular attention to the institutions, mores, and customs of the Germanic people or whoever might be the subject of the tale.
1 An earlier version of this paper was read at the Mid-Atlantic States Conference on Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies at Villanova University, September 1976. I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of Paul Szarmach and William McDermott and of the members of Donald Fry's Old English seminar at Stony Brook.
2 The edition of Bede used in this paper is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, eds. Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, Roger A.B. (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar, (hereafter, EH). For Bede as historian, Levinson, Wilhelm, “Bede as Historian,” in Bede, , His Life, Times, and Writings, ed. Thompson, A.H. (Oxford, 1935), (hereafter, BLT), pp. 111–51Google Scholar; Stephens, J.N., “Bede's Ecclesiastical History,” History LXII (1977), 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, C.W., “Bede as an Early Medieval Historian,” Medievalia et Humanistica, IV (1946), 26–36Google Scholar; Venerabilis Baedae, Opera Historica, Plummer, Charles (ed.), (Oxford, 1896), I, ix–lxxixGoogle Scholar.
3 Braudel, Fernand, Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800 (trans., Kochan, M.) (London, 1973), especially the discussion of “material life” and “material civilization,” pp. ix–xvGoogle Scholar.
4 Caesar, Julius, The Gallic Wars (trans., Hadas, M.) (New York, 1957), V, 12–14Google Scholar on the Britons, VI, 11-20 on the Gauls, and VI, 21-28 on the Germans.
5 Tacitus, , Germania (trans., Hutton, M., rev., Warmington, E.H.) (London, 1970)Google Scholar, and Agricola (trans., M. Hutton, rev., R.M. Ogilvie), #10-13.
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7 Jordanes, , The Gothic History, trans., Mierow, C.C. (Princeton, reprinted 1960)Google Scholar.
8 The relevant passages in Priscus are conveniently collected in Gordon, C.D., The Age of Attila (Ann Arbor, 1960), especially pages 57–58, 81–82, 88–89, 110–11Google Scholar.
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11 Laistner, , BLT, 263–66Google Scholar. Bede had access in his library to Eusebius via Jerome and Rufinus and to Isidore's Chronicon. Barnard, L. W., “Bede and Eusebius as Church Historians,” in Bonner, G. (ed.), Famulus Christi, Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of Bede (London, 1976), pp. 106–24Google Scholar. For Bede's debt to Eusebius, and Gildas, , Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Early Germanic Kingship (Oxford, 1971), pp. 72–97Google Scholar.
12 Jordanes, , The Gothic History, p. 85Google Scholar. For the Silures, pp. 54-55, and for the Huns, pp. 85-87.
13 Stephens, , History, p. 2Google Scholar. “Bede's History has more in common with the histories of Gregory of Tours, Fredegar, and Paul the Deacon, for all of them concern the story of the barbarian gentes.” Similar views are to be found in Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Early Medieval History (Oxford, 1975), pp. 96–97Google Scholar.
14 Collingwood, R.G. and Myers, J.N.L., Roman Britain and the English Settlements (hereafter, Roman Britain) (Oxford, 2nd ed., 1937), pp. 201–07Google Scholar.
15 Ibid, pp. 180-81; Russell, J.C., Late Ancient and Medieval Population, “Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,” new series 48, part 3, 1958, p. 85Google Scholar; Gilbert, E.W., “The Human Geography of Roman Britain,” in Darby, H.C. (ed.), An Historical Geography of England to A.D. 1800 (Cambridge, 1936), pp. 76–80Google Scholar, with bibliographical references to the various contributions to the controversy.
16 Collingwood, and Myers, , Roman Britain, p. 444Google Scholar.
17 The Ruin, lines 1-6, from the translation by Raffel, Burton, Poems from the Old English (Lincoln, Nebraska, 2nd ed., 1964), p. 27Google Scholar. The same theme figures in The Wanderer, lines 85-87: “Thus the Maker of men lays waste/ This earth, crushing our callow mirth./ And the work of old giants stands withered and still,” p. 61. Whitelock, D., “Anglo-Saxon Poetry and the Historian,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, xxxi (1949), p. 93Google Scholar.
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20 The important Roman towns of Verulam, Silchester, Wroxeter and Caistornext-Norwich completely disappeared: Collingwood, and Myers, , Roman Britain, p. 318Google Scholar.
21 EH, iii, 27.
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25 Russell, J.C., “The Earlier Medieval Plague in the British Isles,” Viator, VII (1976), 65–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Ibid., p. 65-68 for a discussion of the evidence on the incidence and mortality of the plague. Bede's evidence is discussed on pp. 73-74.
27 Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks (hereafter, Franks), (trans., Thorpe, L.) (Harmondsworth, 1974), ix, 22Google Scholar: The inhabitants fled for two months and then returned, “thinking themselves safe. Then the disease started again and all who had come back died.” Gregory describes the plague, v, 34, and famine, vii, 45.
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29 Ibid, x, 30. Spiritual weapons, for example, alms and abstinence, were resorted to and “in this way the wrath of God was turned aside and things became better.” In ix, 13 a “serious epidemic of dysentery” is mentioned, primarily to launch a series of anecdotes about the lechery of Duke Beppolin's son, who eventually married the widow of the man whose death from dysentery was the opening point of the story.
30 Hunter-Blair, P., “Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation and Its Importance Today,” (Jarrow Lecture, 1959), p. 7Google Scholar: “… Bede's skill in heightening the interest of his narrative by the addition of relevant detail …”
31 EH, i, 12.
32 Ibid.
33 EH, iii, 23.
34 Bede is quoting from Isaiah, xxxv, 7, and he adds: “that is, the fruit of good work shall spring up where once beasts dwelt or where men lived after the manner of beasts,” EH, iii, 23.
35 Felix, 's Life of St. Guthlac, in Albertson, C., Anglo-Saxon Saints and Heroes (hereafter, Saints and Heroes) (New York, 1967)Google Scholar, chapter xxiv-xxviii, xxxvii-xl. Whitelock, D., The Audience of Beowulf (Oxford, 1951), pp. 72–77Google Scholar.
36 The case for continuity between Roman (and post-Roman) Britain and Anglo-Saxon England is put forth in Finbert, H.P.R., Lucerna, Studies in SomeProblems in the Early History of England (London, 1964), especially pp. 14–16, 51–57Google Scholar.
37 Bautier, R.H., The Economic Development of Medieval Europe (hereafter, Economic Development) (trans., Karolyr, H.) (New York, 1971), pp. 18–29Google Scholar.
38 Postan, M.M., The Medieval Economy and Society (Harmondsworth, 1975), p. 16Google Scholar. Also Postan, in The Cambridge Economic History (Cambridge, 2nd ed., 1966), I, 549Google Scholar: There were “at least six centuries of internal colonization before Domesday.” Loyn, H. R., Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest (New York, 1962), pp. 17, 44–48Google Scholar.
39 Whitelock, D., “Anglo-Saxon Poetry and the Historian,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 4th Series xxxi (1949). p. 93Google Scholar.
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42 EH, iii, 24.
43 Ibid.
44 EH, iv, 13.
45 Ibid.
46 EH, iv, 16.
47 EH, iv, 19.
48 Russell, , Late Ancient and Medieval Population, p. 97–98Google Scholar; Blair, , Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 267–68Google Scholar; Albertson, , Saints and Heroes, p. 251Google Scholar
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51 Stenton, F.M., Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2nd ed., 1947), pp. 40–53Google Scholar. For the nature of the tribal hidage and the problems involved in using its figures, Brownbill, J., “The Tribal Hidage,” English Historical Review, xxvii (1912), pp. 625–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and xl (1925), 499-503; Lennard, Reginald, “The Origin of the Fiscal Carucate,” Economic History Review, xiv (1944–1945), 51–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with particular attention to Bede's use of the hide, the “family-land unit,” p. 58-59; Hart, Cyril, “The Tribal Hidage,” TRHS, 5th series, xxi (1971), 133–57Google Scholar. A glimpse at the document indicates how much ingenuity was needed to transform its data into digestible material; de Gray Birch, Walter, “An Unpublished Manuscript List of some Early Territorial Names in England,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association, xl (1884), 28–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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53 EH, iii, 25.
54 EH, iv, 4, and chapter xxxiii of The Anonymous Life ofCeolfrith the Abbot, in Albertson, , Saints and Heroes, p. 267Google Scholar.
55 Knowles, K. and Hadcock, R.N., The Medieval Religious Houses in England and Wales (London, 1971), pp. 488–95Google Scholar. The monastic population averaged about 15-25 per house. Russell, J.C., “The Clerical Population of Medieval England,” Traditio, ii (1944), 177–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
56 EH, iii, 24. Hodgkin's willingness to follow Chadwick and to accept a Mercian army of 15,000 seems naive, at the very least; Hodgkin, R.H., A History of the Anglo-Saxons (Oxford, 3rd ed., 1952), I, 211Google Scholar.
57 EH, iv, 14.
58 Bloch, Marc, Feudal Society (trans., Manyon, A.L.) (Chicago, 1961), pp. 60–65Google Scholar, for a discussion of the psychological aspects of population density. Finberg, op. cit., pp. 116-30, for another treatment of the continued habitation of the countryside.
59 EH, ii, 13. In Beowulf, Heorot is described (lines 725 and 994-96). Morris, William, trans., The Volsungsaga (New York, 1962), pp. 93–94Google Scholar.
60 EH, ii, 16. Whitelock, D., English Historical Documents (London, 1968), I, 695Google Scholar, for the passage in Eddius Stephanus' Life of Bishop Wilfrid where the great stone church at Hexham is described: “My feeble tongue will not permit me to enlarge here upon the depth of the foundations in the earth, and its crypts of wonderfully dressed stone, and the manifold building above ground.” Albertson, , Saints and Heroes, p. 114Google Scholar for a description of the stone church at Ripon.
61 EH, iii, 19.
62 EH, v, 7.
63 EH, ii, 3. Brooke, C.N.L., London, 800-1216 (Berkeley, 1975), pp. 16–17Google Scholar.
64 Whitelock, D., English Historical Documents, p. 400Google Scholar. The charter is a grant of the 750s, from Frithuwold, subking of Surrey, to Chertsey Abbey. Robertson, A.J., Anglo-Saxon Charters (Cambridge, 2nd ed., 1956), p. 3Google Scholar: A Mercian charter of the 750s carries the grant, “Very gladly then I have granted them remission of all the dues on two ships which are exacted by the tax-gatherers in the harbour of London.” de Gray Birch, Walter, Cartularium Saxonicum (London, 1885), I, #424Google Scholar, “… in loco praeclaro antiquorum Romanorum arte constructa vulgoque per tulluris spatio vocitato civitas Lundonia magna.”
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66 Bloch, , Feudal Society, p. 64Google Scholar, and Bautier, , Economic Development, p. 22Google Scholar: “Contacts became so frequent between Rome and the British Isles that St. Aumaire … built a hospice in the heart of Puiseye … which was wild country at that time, especially to lodge the English on their way to Rome.
67 EH, ii, 16. There is also the standard comment about the ability of the “new born child” to walk from sea to sea without harm. Among the extant charms there is a special one to be said to ensure a safe journey: “I pray … for a good journey, a mild and gentle wind from these shores,” Gordon, R.K., Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, 1926), pp. 91–92Google Scholar. Cockayne, O. (ed.), Leechdom, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England) (London, 1864–1866) (Rolls Series, 35), I, 177Google Scholar: “He who will travel an over long way, let him have with him on the journey, the wort which one nameth heraklia … then he dreadeth not any robber, but the wort puts them[all] to flight.”
68 EH, ii, 20.
69 Whiting, C.E., “The Life of the Venerable Bede,” BLT 32–33Google Scholar. Jenkins, C., “Christian Pilgrims,” in Travels and Travellers in the Middle Ages, ed. Newton, A.P. (New York, 1950 ed.), pp. 38–39Google Scholar.
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71 Pirenne, Henri, Mohammed and Charlemagne (New York, 1939)Google Scholar. Lyon, Bryce, The Origin of the Middle Ages (New York, 1972), pp. 70–76Google Scholar, for a survey of the literature on the “Pirenne Thesis”and the question of economic continuity between late classical and early medieval times. Lopez, R.S., The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950-1350 (Cambridge, 1976), p. 18–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Grierson, Philip, “The Relations between England and Flanders before the Norman Conquest,” in Essays in Medieval History, Southern, R.W. (ed.), (London, 1968), pp. 61–92Google Scholar.
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78 Morris, , The Age of Arthur, pp. 431–34Google Scholar, for a sanguine view of the spread of agriculture and the improvement of agricultural technique. Morris also points out how often various types of agricultural miracles comprise part of a saint's catalog of wonders.
79 Mayr-Harting, H., The Coming of Christianity to England (New York, 1972), p. 217Google Scholar.
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