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Monasticism and Reform in Book IV of Bede's ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2010

SCOTT DeGREGORIO
SCOTT DeGREGORIO
Affiliation:
Department of Literature, Philosophy and the Arts, University of Michigan – Dearbon, 4901 Evergreen Road, Dearborn, MI 48128; e-mail: sdegreg@umd.umich.edu
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Abstract

The reform of the Northumbrian Church constitutes a predominant theme in much that Bede wrote in his later years. Recent analyses of his later biblical commentaries have confirmed this, although a tendency remains to treat his historiographic masterpiece, theEcclesiastical history of the English people, completed in c. 731, as only aloofly reformist in outlook. This article contests such a view through an analysis of the narrative and characters of book iv, which when scrutinised can be seen to amplify some of the key reform-oriented issues voiced in Bede's last and most openly reformist work, theLetter to Egbert.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 673 - 687
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 The English translations published in Liverpool University Press's Translated Texts for Historians series are perhaps the brightest indicator of the resurgence of the commentaries in recent scholarship. See, most recently, Bede: On Ezra and Nehemiah, trans. Scott DeGregorio, Liverpool 2006, and Bede: On Genesis, trans. Calvin B. Kendall, Liverpool 2008. Twelve of Bede's exegetical commentaries have now been translated: for bibliography and further discussion of this key development see Scott DeGregorio, ‘Introduction: the new Bede’, in Scott DeGregorio (ed.), Innovation and tradition in the writings of the Venerable Bede, Morgantown 2006, 1–10, as well the chapters on Bede's biblical exegesis in Scott DeGregorio (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Bede, Cambridge 2010.

2 Bede enumerates his works, placing his biblical commentaries first, in EH v.24 (pp. 567–71). Two new editions of the Ecclesiastical history have recently appeared: Bède le Vénérable: Histoire ecclésiastique du peuple anglais, I: (Livres i.ii); II (Livres iii.iv): III (Livre v), critical text by Michael Lapidge, introduction and notes by André Crépin, translation by Pierre Monat and Philippe Robin, SC cccclxxxix–xci, Paris 2005; and Beda: Storia degli inglesi (Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum), ed. Michael Lapidge, trans. Paolo Chiesa, Milan 2008–9. For critical commentary in English see J. Robert Wright, A companion to Bede: a reader's commentary on the Ecclesiastical history of the English people, Grand Rapids 2008.

3 Bede's originality is a leitmotif of the chapters on exegesis in DeGregorio, Innovation and tradition. On the issue of dating see the important debate on the commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah between DeGregorio, Scott, ‘Bede's In Ezram et Neemiam and the reform of the Northumbrian Church’, Speculum lxxix (2004), 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Meyvaert, Paul, ‘The date of Bede's In Ezram and his image in the Codex Amiatinus’, Speculum lxxx (2005), 1087–1133CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 The seminal discussion is Thacker, Alan, ‘Bede's ideal of reform’, in Patrick Wormald and others (eds), Ideal and reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon society: studies presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Oxford 1983, 130–53’, Early Medieval Europe xi (2002), 107–22Google Scholar; ‘Bede's In Ezram et Nehemiah: a document in church reform?’, in Stéphane Lebecq and others (eds), Bède le Vénérable entre tradition and postérité, Lille 2005, 97–107; and ‘Bede's In Ezram and reform’.

5 N. J. Higham, (Re-)reading Bede: the Ecclesiastical history in context, London 2006, 54–8.

6 For discussion of the letter's key themes see DeGregorio, ‘“Nostrorum socordiam temporum”’; ‘Bede's In Ezram et Neemiah’; and ‘Bede's In Ezram and reform’, as well as the fine comments of John Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon society, Oxford 2005, 100–8.

7 Higham, (Re-)reading Bede, 56–7.

8 In the preface Bede addresses the work ‘Gloriosissimo regi Ceoluulfo’: EH, praefatio (p. 2). On the tantalising question of Ceolwulf's role in shaping the work see Kirby, D. P., ‘King Ceolwulf of Northumbria and the Historia ecclesiastica’, Studia Celtica xiv–xv (1979–80), 168–73Google Scholar, as well as Higham's own remarks in (Re-)reading Bede, ch.v.

9 James Campbell, ‘Bede’, in T. A. Dorey (ed.), Latin historians, New York 1966, 159–90 at p. 176. Campbell continues (pp. 176–7): ‘While his commentaries contain numerous references to the shortcomings of the Church and in his letter to Egbert he is open and violent in denunciation he has very little to say directly about the sins of the clergy in his history … Had we to rely on the Ecclesiastical History for our knowledge of the Church in the first generation of the eighth century we should know little of it, and still less of Bede's severe judgment on it.’

10 On Bede's treatment of Cuthbert see Thacker, ‘Ideal of reform’; on the commentaries see DeGregorio, ‘Reforming impulse’ and ‘Bede's In Ezram et Neemiam’.

11 Bede himself supplies this date at the end of the letter: ‘Scripta Nonas Nouembris, indictione tertia’: Ep. Ecg. § 17 (p. 423).

12 ‘dominicae autem incarnationis anno DCCXXXI’: EH v.23 (p. 561).

13 To use Walter Goffart's terminology, the year 731 is best viewed as the work's ‘official date’: The narrators of barbarian history, Princeton 1988; repr. Notre Dame 2005, 235–328 at p. 242. See also the remarks of Lapidge in Beda: Storia degli inglesi, i, pp. xlviii–ix n. 2.

14 D. P. Kirby, ‘Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum: its contemporary setting’ (Jarrow Lecture 1992), 2–3; repr. in Michael Lapidge (ed.), Bede and his world: the Jarrow Lectures: 1979–1993, Aldershot 1994, ii. 906–7. See also Goffart, Narrators, 241 n. 34, and Baedae Opera historica, ed. Charles Plummer (1896), Oxford 1946, 338–9.

15 Cuthbert, ‘Epistola de obitu Baedae’, EH, 582.

16 ‘In tantum autem uita illius a nostri temporis segnitia distabat’: EH iii.5 (p. 226).

17 ‘Qua adridente pace ac serenitate temporum, plures in gente Nordanhymbrorum, tam nobiles quam priuati, se suosque liberos depositis armis satagunt magis, accepta tonsura, monasterialibus adscribere uotis quam bellicis exercere studiis. Quae res quem sit habitura finem, posterior aetas uidebit’: EH v.23 (p. 560).

18 Scholarship on Cædmon is extensive: see the recent bibliography in Daniel Paul O'Donnell, Cædmon's hymn: a multi-media study, edition and archive, Woodbridge 2005, 233–48.

19 ‘risui, iocis, fabulis, commessationibus et ebrietatibus, ceterisque uitae remissioris illecebris’: Ep. Ecg. § 4 (p. 407); trans. J. McClure and R. Collins, Bede: the Ecclesiastical history of the English people, The greater chronicle, Bede's letter to Egbert, Oxford 1994, 344–5.

20 ‘Et quia litteris sacris simul et saecularibus, ut diximus, abundanter ambo erant instructi, congregata discipulorum caterua scientiae salutaris cotidie flumina inrigandis eorum cordibus emanabant’: EH iv.2 (p. 332).

21 EH iv.2 (p. 334); cf. iv.6 (p. 354), where Theodore is shown undertaking a similar role, deposing the Mercian bishop Winfrith for ‘some act of disobedience’ (‘per meritum cuiusdam inoboedientiae’).

22 ‘Audiuimus enim, et fama est, quia multae uillae ac uiculi nostrae gentis in montibus sint inaccessis ac saltibus dumosis positi, ubi nunquam multis transeuntibus annis sit uisus antistes, qui ibidem aliquid ministerii aut gratiae caelestis exhibuerit; quorum tamen ne unus quidem a tributis antistiti reddendis esse possit immunis’: Ep. Ecg. § 7 (p. 410); trans. McClure and Collins, Bede: Ecclesiastical history, 347.

23 ‘Itaque Theodorus perlustrans uniuersa ordinabat locis oportunis episcopos, et ea quae minus perfecta repperit his quoque iuuantibus corrigebat’: EH iv.2 (p. 334).

24 ‘Fecerat uero sibi mansionem non longe ab ecclesia remotiorem, in qua secretius cum paucis, id est septem siue octo, fratribus, quoties a labore et ministerio Verbi uacabat, orare ac legere solebat’: EH iv.3 (p. 338).

25 For general discussion of the symbiosis of action and contemplation in Bede's thought see DeGregorio, Scott, ‘The Venerable Bede on prayer and contemplation’, Traditio liv (1999), 1–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bede's treatment of St Cuthbert's anachoresis instances a comparable melding of the two lives. For discussion see Clare Stancliffe, ‘Cuthbert and the polarity between pastor and solitary’, in Gerald Bonner and others (eds), St Cuthbert, his cult and his community to A.D. 1200, Woodbridge 1989, 21–44; Simon J. Coates, ‘The bishop as pastor and solitary: Bede and the spiritual authority of the monk-bishop’, this Journal xlvii (1996), 601–19; and Thacker, ‘Ideal of reform’.

26 ‘Venerat enim cum regina Aedilthryde de prouincia Orientalium Anglorum, eratque primus ministrorum et princeps domus eius’: EH iv.3 (p. 338).

27 ‘Qui cum crescente fidei feruore saeculo abrenuntiare disponeret, non hoc segniter fecit, sed adeo se mundi rebus exuit, ut relictis omnibus quae habebat, simplici tantum habitu indutus et securim atque asciam in manu ferens, ueniret ad monasterium eiusdem reuerentissimi patris, quod uocatur Laestingaeu. Non enim otium, ut quidam, sed ad laborem se monasterium intrare signabat. Quod ipsum etiam facto monstrauit, nam quo minus sufficiebat meditationi scripturarum, eo amplius operi manuum studium inpendebat’: ibid.

28 Ep. Ecg. §§ 12–13 (pp. 415–18).

29 This, after all, appears to be a major facet of Bede's attack: ‘At alibi grauiore adhuc flagitio, cum sint ipsi laici, et nullo uitae regularis uel usu exerciti, uel amore praediti, data regibus pecunia, emunt sibi sub praetextu construendorum monasteriorum territoria in quibus suae liberius uacent libidini’: Ep. Ecg. § 12 (p. 415).

30 ‘Ac si opus esse uisum fuerit, ut tali monasterio, causa episcopatus suscipiendi, amplius aliquid locorum ac possessionum augeri debeat, sunt loca innumera, ut nouimus omnes, stilo stultissimo in monasteriorum ascripta uocabulum, sed nichil prorsus monasticae conuersationis habentia’: Ep. Ecg. § 10 (pp. 413–14); trans. McClure and Collins, Bede: Ecclesiastical history, 349–50.

31 ‘Horum distortis cohortibus, suas, quas instruxere, cellas implent, multumque informi atque inaudito spectaculo, idem ipsi uiri modo coniugis ac liberorum procreandorum curam gerunt, modo exsurgentes de cubilibus, quid intra septa monasteriorum geri debeat, sedula intentione pertractant. Quin etiam suis coniugibus simili impudentia construendis, ut ipsi aiunt, monasteriis loca conquirunt, quae pari stultitia, cum sint laicae, famularum se Christi permittunt esse rectrices’: Ep. Ecg. § 12 (p. 416).

32 ‘Quae nimirum caecitas posset aliquando terminari, ac regulari disciplina cohiberi, et de finibus sanctae ecclesiae cunctis pontificali ac synodica auctoritate procul expelli, si non ipsi pontifices magis huiusmodi sceleribus opem ferre atque astipulari probarentur’: Ep. Ecg. § 13 (p. 417); trans. McClure and Collins, Bede: Ecclesiastical history, 352.

33 EH iv.4 (pp. 346–8).

34 ‘Hic sane, priusquam episcopus factus esset, duo praeclara monasteria, unum sibi alterum sorori suae Aedilburgae construxerat, quod utrumque regularibus disciplinis optime instituerat’: EH iv.6 (p. 354).

35 ‘quae [Torhtgyth] multis iam annis in eodem monasterio commorata et ipsa semper in omni humilitate ac sinceritate Deo seruire sategebat, et adiutrix disciplinae regularis eidem matri existere minores docendo uel castigando curabat’: EH iv.9 (p. 360).

36 ‘eidem monasterio strenuissime et in obseruantia disciplinae regularis et in earum quae ad communes usus pertinent rerum prouidentia praefuit’: EH iv.10 (p. 360).

37 EH iv.18 (p. 388).

38 ‘Cum ergo aliquot annos huic monasterio regularis uitae institutioni multum intenta praeesset, contigit eam suscipere etiam construendum siue ordinandum monasterium in loco, qui uocatur Streanaeshalch; quod opus sibi iniunctum non segniter impleuit. Nam eisdem, quibus prius monasterium, etaim hoc disciplinis uitae regularis instituit, et quidem multam ibi quoque iustitiae pietatis et castimoniae ceterarumque uirtutum, sed maxime pacis et caritatis custodiam docuit’: EH iv.23 (p. 409).

39 ‘Porro Cudbercto tanta erat dicendi peritia, tantus amor persuadendi quae coeperat, tale uultus angelici lumen, ut nullus praesentium latebras ei sui cordis celare praesumeret, omnes palam quae gesserant confitendo proferrent, quia nimirum haec eadem illum latere nullo modo putabant, et confessa dignis ut imperabat, poenitentiae fructibus abstergerent’: EH iv.27 (p. 432).

40 On Hild see especially Peter Hunter Blair, ‘Whitby as a centre of learning in the seventh century’, in Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (eds), Learning and literacy in Anglo-Saxon England: studies presented to Peter Clemoes, Cambridge 1985, 3–32; on Cuthbert see Thacker, ‘Bede and reform’.

41 For one exception to this tendency, which however offers a rather different reading from what is proposed here, see Less, Clare and Overing, Gillian, ‘Birthing bishops and fathering poets: Bede, Hild, and the relations of cultural production’, Exemplaria vi (1994), 35–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 ‘Erat enim uir multum religiosus et regularibus disciplinis humiliter subditus; aduersum uero illos, qui aliter facere uolebant, zelo magni feruoris accensus, unde et pulchro uitam suam fine conclusit’: EH iv.24 (p. 418).

43 ‘Frater is used more generally in speaking about men within monasteries and may encompass estate workers or tenants on the ecclesiastical estates as well as monks’: Cubitt, Catherine, ‘The clergy in early Anglo-Saxon England’, Historical Research lxxviii (2005), 273–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 275. Accordingly, the term could possibly also describe Cædmon's status as a labourer on the monastic estates before his official profession of vows. For more on the term's range of meanings see Sarah Foot, Monastic life in Anglo-Saxon England, c. 600–900, Cambridge 2006, 179.

44 ‘Siquidem in habitu saeculari usque ad tempora prouectioris aetatis constitutus’: EH iv.24 (p. 414).

45 Cædmon is the only named person of such stature in the Ecclesiastical history: Scott DeGregorio, ‘Literary contexts: Cædmon's hymn as a center of Bede's world’, in Allen J. Frantzen and John Hines (eds), Cædmon's hymn and material culture in the world of Bede, Morgantown 2007, 51–79 at p. 77.

46 Blair, ‘Whitby as a centre of learning’, 3; cf. ‘Vocations to the religious life were not restricted to the highest strata of society, nor were only those of noble birth educated to a sufficient understanding of Christianity to voice spiritual ambitions. Even so, it must have been difficult for those of peasant stock to express a pious ambition to renounce the world. Not only did they lack the material resources to create their own religious houses, they were also bound in service to a secular lord. Cædmon's story is patently exceptional’: Foot, Monastic life, 122.

47 ‘sed demoratus in montanis plebem rusticam uerbo praedicationis simul et opere uirtutis ad caelestia uocaret’: EH iv.27 (p. 432).

48 ‘A quo interrogatus qui esset, timuit se militem fuisse confiteri; rusticum se potius et pauperem atque uxoreo uinculo conligatum fuisse respondit, et propter uictum militibus adferendum in expeditionem se cum sui similibus uenisse testatus est’: EH iv.22 (p. 402).

49 Alan Thacker, ‘Monks, preaching and pastoral care in early Anglo-Saxon England’, in John Blair and Richard Sharpe (eds), Pastoral care before the parish, Leicester 1992, 137–70 at p. 137; cf. ‘Virtually, the only non-aristocratic churchman to appear in our sources is the Whitby cow-herd Cædmon who was miraculously inspired to compose religious song, which sufficiently accounts for his prominence in the church despite his lowly social class’: David Rollason, Northumbria, 500–110: creation and destruction of a kingdom, Cambridge 2003, 182.

50 For an excellent recent discussion see Christopher Loveluck, ‘Cædmon's world: secular and monastic lifestyles and estate organization in northern England, ad 650–900’, in Frantzen and Hines, Cædmon's hymn, 150–90.

51 ‘Dant autem principes patrum Iosue uidelicet et Zorobabel ac fratres eorum pecunias eisdem latomis et cementariis quo eos promptiores ad operandum reddant cum euangelizantibus uerbum hi qui tempore merito eruditione praecessere doctores Christo auctore uel exempla uirtutum suarum proponunt uel diuinorum apicum paginas largiuntur quorum exhortationibus uel promissis confortati minus in labore caelesti lassescant’: In Ezram et Neemiam, ed. David Hurst, CCSL cxixa, Turnhout 1969, 275; trans. DeGregorio, Bede: On Ezra and Nehemiah, 58.

52 ‘Vnde recte in collo ecclesiae doctorum persona designatur qui et uerbo aedificationis rudes instituunt et eiusdem institutionis officio cibum salutis in commissa sibi sanctae ecclesiae membra transmittunt’: In Cantica Canticorum, ed. David Hurst, CCSL cxixb, Turnhout 1983, 202; my translation.

53 ‘ubi non sunt docti praedicatores frustra ad audiendum confluit turba plebium’: In prouerbia Salomonis, ed. David Hurst, CCSL cxixb.83; my translation.

54 For discussion of the image see West, Philip J., ‘Rumination in Bede's account of Cædmon’, Monastic Studies xii (1976), 217–26Google Scholar, and more recently Pizarro, J., ‘Poetry as rumination: the model for Bede's Cædmon’, Neophilolgus lxxxix (2005), 469–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 ‘Sed et alia perplura de beneficiis et iudiciis diuninis, in quibus cunctis homines ab amore scelerum abstrahere, ad dilectionem uero et sollertiam bonae actionis excitare curabat’: EH iv.24 (p. 418).

56 ‘mansit humilis, fratrumque simillimus aliorum, ut uentilare cum eis et triturare, oues uitulasque mulgere, in pistrino, in orto, in coquina, in cunctis monasterii operibus iocundus et obediens gauderet exerceri. Sed et abbatis nomine graduque assumpto, idem animo qui prius manebat ad omnes’: Historia abbatum auctore Baeda § 8, ed. Plummer, Baedae Opera historica, 371–2.

57 ‘Quod tamen a malitia inhabitantium in eo, et praecipue illorum qui maiores esse uidebantur, contigisse omnes qui nouere facillime potuerunt aduertere’: EH iv.25 (p. 420).

58 ‘quia et tibi et multis opus est peccata sua bonis operibus redimere et, cum cessant a laboribus rerum temporalium, tunc pro appetitu aeternorum bonorum liberius laborare; sed hoc tamen paucissimi faciunt. Siquidem modo totum hoc monasterium ex ordine perlustrans, singulorum casas ac lectos inspexi, et neminem ex omnibus praeter te erga sanitatem animae suae occupatum repperi; sed omnes prorus, et uiri et feminae, aut somno torpent inerti ut ad peccata uigilant. Nam et domunculae, quae ad orandum uel legendum factae errant, nunc in comesationum, potationum, fabulationum et ceterarum sunt inlecebrarum cubilia conuersae; uirgines quoque Deo dicatae, contemta reuerentia suae professionis, quotiescumque uacant, texendis subtilirentia suae professionis, quotiescumque uacant, texendis subtilioribus indumentis operam dant, quibus aut se ipsas ad uicem sponsarum in periculum sui status adoraent, aut externorum sibi uirorum amicitiam conparent. Vnde merito loco huic et habitatoribus eius grauis de caelo uidicta flammis saeuientibus praeparata est’: EH iv.25 (p. 424).

59 For the parallel between Bede's letter and the reforming ideals of the Council of Clofesho later in the eighth century, and the further observation that ‘The account in canon twenty … of the occupations to be banned in devout monasteries reads like a description of Bede's Coldingham’ see Catherine Cubitt, Anglo-Saxon church councils, c. 650–850, Leicester 1995, 121.

60 ‘Siue enim historia de bonis bona referat, ad imitandum bonum auditor sollicitus instigatur; seu mala commemoret de prauis, nihilominus religiosus ac pius auditor siue lector deuitando quod noxium est ac peruersum, ipse sollertius ad exsequenda ea quae bona ac Deo digna esse cognouerit, accenditur’: EH praef. (p. 2).

61 Calvin Kendall, ‘Imitation and the Venerable Bede's Historia ecclesiastica’, in Margot H. King and Wesley M. Stevens (eds), Saints, scholars and heroes: studies in medieval culture in honour of Charles W. Jones, Collegeville, Mn 1979, i. 161–90.

62 Higham, (Re-)reading Bede, 56.