Gathered here in alphabetical order are four short works that, like the COMMENTARIES, were written to help others understand scripture but that lack the sustained arguments of Bede's exegesis. It would, of course, have been possible to include many other works here as well. Most obviously, the CHAPTER DIVISIONS and PROLOGUES for books of the Bible are in some ways similar to the COLLECTIO PSALTERII in that they distil complex texts into more understandable forms. Moreover, while M.L.W. Laistner (1939 p xxxvii) is somewhat dismissive of the NOMINA REGIONUM ET LOCORUM DE ACTIBUS APOSTOLORUM, calling it “a not very distinguished performance,” we are more impressed by Bede's systematic study of diverse materials in order to acquire the knowledge he needed in order to understand God's unfolding plan. The three geographical works included here appear to be like his early study of time that led to DE TEMPORIBUS and the COMMENTARIUS IN APOCALYPSIM.

COLLECTIO PSALTERII [BEDA.Coll.Psalt.]: CPL 1371.

ed.: Browne 2001.

MSS – Quots/Cits

none.

Refs

ALCVIN.Epist.259, 417.9-11.

This little florilegium consists of, usually, one to a dozen key verses selected from each of the Psalms. Noting ALCUIN's “dicitur” in the reference listed above – which will be discussed in more detail in a moment – and the lack of any mention of this work in Bede's list of his writings at the end of the HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM (ed. Lapidge 2010 2.480-84), Michael Gorman (1998 pp 230-31) casts doubt on the attribution. Alcuin's remark is, however, less ambiguous than Gorman suggests, and the work is, as he notes, identified as Bede's in the three ninth-century manuscripts in which it survives.

In a more extensive study of “Bede and the Psalter,” Benedicta Ward (1991 p 10) discusses Bede's method in compiling the work:

Bede's list in HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM V.xxiv (ed. Lapidge 2010.480-84) establishes not only what he had written up to 731 but, more remarkably, what he considered a work to be even though here he ingeniously avoided using any word to characterize his own compositions. From it Michael Lapidge (2010 1.xliv-xlvi) enumerates 30 items. While most can be identified with a simple reference to the Clavis Patrum Latinorum, a few problems, to which we will turn in a moment, appear. Lapidge then lists nine “altre opere” that can be attributed to Bede “con certezza.” While we accept Lapidge's judgement that Bede composed them, we would point out that he might not have considered all to be, as we do, opera. Clearly, the EPISTOLA AD ECGBERCTUM is both a work and was considered one by Bede, as the slight but significant evidence of a fifteenth-century manuscript now in Merton College Oxford indicates: after he wrote it in 734, he placed a copy into his LIBER EPISTOLARUM. Would he, however, have viewed the MAGNUS CIRCULUS SEU TABULA PASCHALIS ANNIS DOMINI DXXXII AD MLXIII and the PAGINA REGULARUM, tables designed to help students as they studied DE TEMPORUM RATIONE, opera? That we do calls attention to perhaps other lost handouts, other lost letters that Bede must have sent, other verse that he might have included in his LIBER HYMNORUM and his LIBER EPIGRAMMATUM, and three are listed there: other HOMILIES that he probably preached. Two more potentially lost works were mentioned by CUTHBERT in his EPISTOLA DE OBITU BEDAE (ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors 1969 pp 580-87), a translation of John's Gospel (to 6:9) and selections from ISIDORE's DE NATURA RERUM.

That there are so few lost works is a mark of the respect Bede has been given over the centuries. While the work of editing, translating, and interpreting the corpus is ongoing, identifying what Bede wrote has been largely accomplished, as several recent discoveries may make clear. Paul Meyvaert and Carmela Vircillo Franklin (1982) pick out the PASSIO ANASTASII that Bede mentioned in Historia ecclesiastica V.xxiv from among the anonymous versions of this work; Franklin (2004) edits and analyzes it. Lapidge (1996c) has identified the first version of the VITA CUTHBERTI METRICA, which he will edit in Bede's Latin Poetry.