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Bibliography
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Bible: Aids to Biblical Study
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Summary
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:
He selected the best text he knew, JEROME's third psalter, iuxta hebriacos. From this, he selected verses from each psalm which could be used as direct prayer or praise, as food for meditation, plea for mercy, protest, contrition, or adoration and exultation. Sometimes one verse alone was used, sometimes several. The verses were also selected so that a sense of the meaning of the psalm as whole was retained; it would be possible to recall the whole psalm from these clues.
Lost Works
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Summary
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.
Index
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Introduction
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Summary
This second volume completes our survey of the reception of Bede's writings in Anglo-Saxon England. Reading Bede through the works of his immediate followers makes us aware of how useful he was to them, providing the tools they needed to carry on, most prominently, recording history and spreading the faith through preaching. With its entries on the HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM and the two chronicles that are part of DE TEMPORIBUS and DE TEMPORUM RATIONE, volume one focused on the first topic. With those on HOMILIES and on the EXTRACTS from the COMMENTARIES on Mark and Luke, which served the same purpose, volume two is dominated by the latter. There is much else in both, but in these areas, geography, hagiography, metrics, orthography, rhetoric, and science, Bede primarily taught.
Bede's theology is only occasionally a focus of the entries in this volume, in part because he chose not to accentuate doctrinal differences. This is not to say he avoided these issues when they arose. As Faith Wallis (2013) and Peter Darby (2012) have demonstrated, it appears to have been his interest in combatting eschatological speculation around the year 700 that led to both his De temporibus and the COMMENTARIUS IN APOCALYPSIM. Similarly, his unprecedented commentaries on the tabernacle and the temple demonstrate the degree to which Bede pursued topics that caught his interest. Here the study of Conor O’Brien (2015) breaks new ground in our understanding of Bede's developing thought. Passing over much other scholarship, we would finally note the work of Benedicta Ward (1995) and Sarah Foot (2014) on Bede's understanding of prayer, particularly as it applied to female monastic communities. There is much more to be learned in these areas; and yet, for the moment, it appears that Bede stood out from his contemporaries in having the time and inclination to read deeply in the Fathers and engage with their work in order to produce original commentaries on the Bible.
So we return to Bede the preacher to conclude this introduction.
Contents
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Bible: Commentaries
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Summary
Although Bede is now known primarily as an historian, he considered himself foremost a biblical exegete, and most of his works are exegetical. He emphasized this role in the bio-bibliographic note at the end of the HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM, which suggests that there were two overlapping phases in his study of the Bible. The first covered his entire intellectual and spiritual life, beginning when, at the age of seven, he was given to the abbey of Monkwearmouth (ed. Lapidge 2010 2.478-80; trans. Colgrave and Mynors 1969 p 567):
Qui natus in territorio eiusdem monasterii, cum essem annorum VII, cura propinquorum datus sum educandus reuerentissimo abbati Benedicto, ac deinde Ceolfrido, cunctumque ex eo tempus uitae in eiusdem monasterii habitatione peragens, omnem meditandis scripturis operam dedi, atque inter obseruantiam disciplinae regularis, et cotidianam cantandi in ecclesia curam, semper aut discere aut docere aut scribere dulce habui.
(I was born in the territory of this monastery. When I was seven years of age I was, by the care of my kinsmen, put into the charge of the reverend Abbot Benedict and then of Ceolfrith, to be educated. From then on I have spent all my life in this monastery, applying myself entirely to the study of the Scriptures; and amid the observance of the discipline of the Rule and the daily task of singing in the church, it has always been my delight to learn or to teach or to write.)
As this passage makes clear, his study of and meditation on scripture was a life-long occupation, fit in around his other duties in the monastery, observing the monastic rule, learning, teaching, and writing.
After describing his ordinations as a deacon and a priest at the ages of nineteen and thirty, Bede focused more specifically on his biblical commentaries: “ex quo tempore accepti presbyteratus usque ad annum aetatis meae LVIIII haec in scripturam sanctam meae meorumque necessitati ex opusculis uenerabilium patrum breuiter adnotare, siue etiam ad formam sensus et interpretationis eorum superadicere curaui” (ed. Lapidge 2010 2.480; “from the time I became a priest until the fifty-ninth year of my life I have made it my business for my own benefit and that of my brothers, to make brief extracts from the works of the venerable fathers on the holy Scriptures, or to add notes of my own to clarify their sense and interpretation,” trans.
Letters
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Summary
The relationship of Bede's letters to his other works is more complex than his statement in HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM V.xxiv (ed. Lapidge 2010 2.482) that he placed five in a LIBER EPISTOLARUM suggests. While we could have limited this section to these five and to two more, the EPISTOLA AD ALBINUM and the EPISTOLA AD ECGBERCTUM, that also circulated independently, to do so would have been to overlook what even they indicate about the different ways that Bede used this genre. Instead we discuss these seven letters along with fourteen additional texts that, while serving as prefaces to other works and so considered primarily as such in these fascicles on Bede, either began as letters or follow epistolary conventions; we exclude, however, prefaces without these conventions. We also include two letters, the EPISTOLA AD NAITONUM (Nechtan mac Derile) and the EPISTOLA AD GREGORIUM PAPAM, which Bede wrote for successive abbots, CEOLFRITH and HWÆTBERHT, and then included in other works, the Historia ecclesiastica and the HISTORIA ABBATUM. As a group these letters reveal a surprising fluidity in Bede's manipulation of generic conventions. Moreover, on a practical level, considering them together helps us not only to assess the immediate reception of these texts but also to date much of Bede's corpus.
The survival of the original letter, datable to 704/5, from WEALDHERE, bishop of London, to BEORHTWALD, archbishop of Canterbury, provides a dramatic reminder that sending and receiving epistolae would have been a normal (and yet not constantly interrupting) part of Bede's life. From his reading, he would have understood that this experience was part of a much older practice, which we may recall here with a few examples that appear to have been significant to him. Both his COLLECTIO EX OPUSCULIS AUGUSTINI IN EPISTULAS PAULI and his COMMENTARIUS IN EPISTOLAS SEPTEM CATHOLICAS attest to the importance he placed on the New Testament Epistles. Indeed, the latter work begins with a comment about the Epistle of James that establishes a letter's ability to stand in for its author: “therefore, because he had been ordained an apostle for the circumcised, he took care both to teach those present from among the circumcised by speaking to them and also to encourage, instruct, rebuke, and correct the absent by letter” (trans. Hurst 1985 p 7).
Martyrology
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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- Bede Part 2
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Summary
Since Bede's Martyrologium is related to several of his other works, particularly the KALENDARIUM AD USUM COMPUTANDI, which he used to teach computus (see EDUCATIONAL WORKS), but also his HISTORIES and his SAINTS’ LIVES, it is treated here in its own section.
According to Jacques Dubois (1978 p 13), the word “martyrologium” was first used in the Latin West by Bede in HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM V.xxiv (ed. Lapidge 2010 2.484) when he applied it to his own work. It was, however, a term that he would have both heard and spoken throughout his life, especially if the text that influenced his own work, the MARTYROLOGIUM HIERONYMIANUM, was indeed brought to Monkwearmouth in 679 by John the Arch-Chanter, as both Padraig O Riain (1993 p 1 and 2002 pp 338-39) and Michael Lapidge (2005b p 45) have argued. Bede would have been six or seven at this time, and might well have also just arrived, if in humbler fashion, at the monastery. Even if not instructed directly by this new teacher, he would have been influenced by the changes to the liturgy that John would have introduced. It also seems likely that the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, a document that combined the local celebrations of saints throughout the Christian world and so a source of geographical and historical information, would have fascinated the young Bede. His own interest in local saints, although not martyrs, is recorded, for example, in his metrical VITA CUTHBERTI and his hymn to Athelthryth, ALMA DEUS TRINITAS QUAE SAECULA CUNCTA GUBERNAS. Yet Bede's thoughts moved well beyond Northumbria as he sought to understand God's plan as it unfolded throughout the world and time. Like the opening of Genesis and the Acts of the Apostles, the Martyrologium Hieronymianum would have been a primary source for plotting the spread of the faith. Unlike Genesis or Acts, however, it had, as a historical document, a serious defect: as a list of places and names associated with particular days of the year, it lacked the narrative details necessary to keep the accounts of the separate martyrdoms distinct. Bede solved this problem by creating a new kind of work, the historical martyrology, providing identifying material for each saint he included.
Frontmatter
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Bible: Homilies
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Summary
Although the homilies in the work that Bede referred to in HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM V.xxiv as “omeliarum euangelii libros II” (ed. Lapidge 2010 2.482; “homilies on the Gospel: two books,” trans. Colgrave and Mynors 1969 p 569) have been identified (Morin 1913), edited (CCSL 122), and translated (Martin and Hurst 1991), their popularity has, for three reason, left many basic questions about their circulation unanswered. First, Bede's careful fashioning of his collection was quickly obscured by PAUL THE DEACON's dismemberment of it for his own widely-influential HOMILIARY, commissioned by CHARLEMAGNE before he became emperor; see Reginald Grégoire (1980 p 422). This work contains 36 sermons from Bede's HOMILIARY (Grégoire pp 427-78; HOMILY I.4 appears twice, in I, 12 and II, 76, Grégoire pp 432 and 467). Second, similar passages from Bede's other works – the COMMENTARIUS IN MARCUM, the COMMENTARIUS IN LUCAM and, in a few cases, the Historia ecclesiastica itself – readily adapted to the same purposes of preaching and spiritual reading were extracted and disseminated alongside of his actual homilies. Paul the Deacon included 22 such passages (two are used together in II, 75, Grégoire pp 466-67), all taken from the Commentaries on Mark and Luke (Grégoire pp 427-78), and later English versions of his Homiliary contain around 40 more. Finally, following in Bede's footsteps, Carolingian writers, especially HAYMO OF AUXERRE, SMARAGDUS, and HEIRIC OF AUXERRE, used both his works and his main sources, AUGUSTINE and GREGORY THE GREAT, in writing sermons similar to Bede’s. The result is that while we know in this case as in most others what Bede wrote, establishing the form in which his words were read or heard by later Anglo-Saxons is often still unclear.
To respond to this problem, we have separated this section on the homilies, which consists of an entry on the collection as a whole, and individual ones on each homily, from Bede's other exegetical works among which he included his “two books” in the list in the Historia ecclesiastica, where they follow the Commentarius in Lucam and precede the COLLECTIO EX OPUSCULIS AUGUSTINI IN EPISTULAS PAULI.
Bible: Chapter Divisions and Prologues
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Summary
Three items in the list of works at the end of HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM establish that Bede wrote sets of short summaries, which he called capitula lectionum and which he used to divide particular books of the Bible. In investigating these summaries, Paul Meyvaert (1995) also noted that since those for the Pauline Epistles had been connected to a set of prologues to the same letters, Bede must have been their author as well, even though he did not include them in his list of his works. Because Meyvaert's study is essential for understanding both these chapter divisions and prologues and because the works themselves are found in similar sources, we will consider both in this section, beginning with the capitula lectionum. Most of the information that we present here derives from Meyvaert's study.
The first list of capitula lectionum in the Historia ecclesiastica, which is accurate even though it is a scribal addition, appears between the references to the COMMENTARIUS IN CANTICA CANTICORUM and to the COMMENTARIUS IN EZRAM ET NEEMIAM. It reads (ed. Lapidge 2010 2.480; trans. Colgrave and Mynors 1969 p 569),
In Isaiam, Danihelem, XII prophetas et partem Hieremiae distinctiones capitulorum ex tractatu beati Hieronimi excerptas.
(On Isaiah, Daniel, the twelve prophets, and part of Jeremiah: chapter divisions taken from the treatise of St Jerome.)
The second, which is authorial apart from its last seven words, appears at the end of the list of works on the Old Testament (ed. 2.482; trans. p 569, except for the last seven words):
Item capitula lectionum in Pentateucum Mosi, Iosue, Iudicum; in libros Regum et Verba Dierum; in librum beati patris Iob; in Parabolas, Ecclesiasten et Cantica Canticorum; in Isaiam prophetam, Ezram quoque et Neemiam; item in libro Tobiae, Iudith et Aester.
(Also, summaries of lessons on the Pentateuch of Moses, on Joshua and Judges, on the books of Kings and Chronicles, on the book of the blessed father Job, on Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, on the prophets Isaiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah; the same on the book of Tobias, Judith, and Esther)
Bede Part 2
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
- Edited by Charles Wright
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- 11 December 2020
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This newest volume in a long-running work of mapping the sources of Anglo-Saxon literary culture in England from 500 to 1100 CE takes up one of the most important authors of the period, the eighth-century monk-scholar known as the Venerable Bede. Bede is best known as the author of the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, which is one of the key sources for our historical and cultural knowledge of the period; this collection covers that and more, drawing on manuscript evidence, medieval library catalogues, Anglo-Latin and Old English versions, citations, quotations, and more, putting Bede and his work in the context of his period.
Dedication
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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The Taipan Galaxy Survey: Scientific Goals and Observing Strategy
- Elisabete da Cunha, Andrew M. Hopkins, Matthew Colless, Edward N. Taylor, Chris Blake, Cullan Howlett, Christina Magoulas, John R. Lucey, Claudia Lagos, Kyler Kuehn, Yjan Gordon, Dilyar Barat, Fuyan Bian, Christian Wolf, Michael J. Cowley, Marc White, Ixandra Achitouv, Maciej Bilicki, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Krzysztof Bolejko, Michael J. I. Brown, Rebecca Brown, Julia Bryant, Scott Croom, Tamara M. Davis, Simon P. Driver, Miroslav D. Filipovic, Samuel R. Hinton, Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, D. Heath Jones, Bärbel Koribalski, Dane Kleiner, Jon Lawrence, Nuria Lorente, Jeremy Mould, Matt S. Owers, Kevin Pimbblet, C. G. Tinney, Nicholas F. H. Tothill, Fred Watson
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- Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia / Volume 34 / 2017
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- 24 October 2017, e047
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The Taipan galaxy survey (hereafter simply ‘Taipan’) is a multi-object spectroscopic survey starting in 2017 that will cover 2π steradians over the southern sky (δ ≲ 10°, |b| ≳ 10°), and obtain optical spectra for about two million galaxies out to z < 0.4. Taipan will use the newly refurbished 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory with the new TAIPAN instrument, which includes an innovative ‘Starbugs’ positioning system capable of rapidly and simultaneously deploying up to 150 spectroscopic fibres (and up to 300 with a proposed upgrade) over the 6° diameter focal plane, and a purpose-built spectrograph operating in the range from 370 to 870 nm with resolving power R ≳ 2000. The main scientific goals of Taipan are (i) to measure the distance scale of the Universe (primarily governed by the local expansion rate, H0) to 1% precision, and the growth rate of structure to 5%; (ii) to make the most extensive map yet constructed of the total mass distribution and motions in the local Universe, using peculiar velocities based on improved Fundamental Plane distances, which will enable sensitive tests of gravitational physics; and (iii) to deliver a legacy sample of low-redshift galaxies as a unique laboratory for studying galaxy evolution as a function of dark matter halo and stellar mass and environment. The final survey, which will be completed within 5 yrs, will consist of a complete magnitude-limited sample (i ⩽ 17) of about 1.2 × 106 galaxies supplemented by an extension to higher redshifts and fainter magnitudes (i ⩽ 18.1) of a luminous red galaxy sample of about 0.8 × 106 galaxies. Observations and data processing will be carried out remotely and in a fully automated way, using a purpose-built automated ‘virtual observer’ software and an automated data reduction pipeline. The Taipan survey is deliberately designed to maximise its legacy value by complementing and enhancing current and planned surveys of the southern sky at wavelengths from the optical to the radio; it will become the primary redshift and optical spectroscopic reference catalogue for the local extragalactic Universe in the southern sky for the coming decade.
Poetry: De die Iudicii
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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- 02 February 2021
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Summary
Too long to be considered an EPIGRAMand not intended for liturgical use as a HYMN, De die iudicii might have been collected with the metrical VITA CUTHBERTIin a section called, for example, “Other Verse.” It seems, however, preferable to consider the prose and metrical works on Cuthbert together in SAINTS’ LIVES, as Bede himself did in his list of works at the end of the HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM(ed. Lapidge 2010 2.482). Moreover, the COLLECTIO PSALTERII, published by J. Fraipont in part 4, Opera rhythmica, of the CCSL edition of Bede's works, is metrical not by the standard that Bede followed in his own verse but rather inasmuch as JEROME's translation adapts Hebrew prosody (see Toswell 2014 pp 45-46). It is included in BIBLE: AIDS TO BIBLICAL STUDY. There is, then, a single “other work” to be considered here.
De die iudicii[BEDA.Carm.Iudic.]: CPL 1370; RBMA 1646, 1; ICL 8197. ed.: CCSL 122.439-44.
MSS
1. Cambridge, University Library, Gg. 5. 35: ASM 12; ASMMF 9.
2. Cambridge, Trinity College, O. 2. 31 (1135): ASM 190; ASMMF 12.
3. London, British Library, Add. 11034: ASM 280.
4. London, British Library, Cotton Domitian i, fols. 2-55: ASM 326; ASMMF 5.
5. London, British Library, Royal 15.B. xix, fols. 79-199: ASM 493.
6. Salisbury, Cathedral Library, 168: ASM 750.
7. Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, lat. 8092: ASM 890.
Lists
none.
A-S Vers
1. JDay II (A17).
2. HomU 26 (Nap 29; B3.4.26).
Quots/Cits
1. Carm.Iudic., 161: ATHELBERHT.Epist. 124, 413.11.
2. Carm.Iudic., 161: ALCVIN.Epist. 29, 71.14.
3. Carm.Iudic., 161: ALCVIN.Epist. 65, 109.25
4. Carm.Iudic., 161: ALCVIN.Epist. 95, 140.12
5. Carm.Iudic., 161: ALCVIN.Epist. 102, 149.27
6. Carm.Iudic., 156-57: ALCVIN.Epist. 234, 380.19.
7. Carm.Iudic., 161: ALCVIN.Epist. 252, 408.25
8. Carm.Iudic., 161: ALCVIN.Epist. 262, 420.28.
9. Carm.Iudic., 58: ALCVIN.Epist. 294, 452.18.
10. Carm.Iudic., 30: ALCVIN.Vers.Eubor., 469-70.
11. Carm.Iudic., 35: ALCVIN.Vers.Eubor., 636.
12. ? Carm.Iudic., 95: ALCVIN.Vers.Eubor., 910-14.
13. Carm.Iudic., 161: ALCVIN.Carm. 12, 3.
14. Carm.Iudic., 1-3: ALCVIN.Carm. 23, 3-4.
15. ? Carm.Iudic., 157: ALCVIN.Carm. 28, 14.
16. Carm.Iudic., 161: ALCVIN.Carm. 28, 26.
17. Carm.Iudic., 156-57: ALCVIN.Carm. 29, 1-2.
18. Carm.Iudic., 142: ALCVIN.Carm. 76, 21.
Frontmatter
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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- 02 February 2021
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Contents
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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- Bede
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Histories
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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Summary
“Bede was in many ways a natural historian”: so Alan Thacker begins his “Bede and History” in the Cambridge Companion to Bede (2010 p 170). An explanation of how he became a writer of histories, however, underlies our grouping of the HISTORIA ABBATUMand the HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUMin this section. The earliest work by Bede that we can date with certainty, DE TEMPORIBUS(703), ends with the so-called Chronica minora (chapters 17-22), a record of the main events in each of the six ages of the world. While this chronicle sometimes circulated separately, its author embedded it into a larger argument. As Calvin B. Kendall and Faith Wallis point out in the introduction to their translation of De temporibus (2010 p 6), it is “not without significance” that Bede was writing his COMMENTARIUS IN APOCALYPSIMat about the same time: both offer “a vigorous challenge to a chronology of world history that encouraged belief in the imminence of the Last Judgement.” Bede's other BIBLICAL COMMENTARIESalso provided ample opportunity to consider the progress of history, but they did not prompt their author to write a history of his own. Similarly, the earliest (probably) of his SAINTS’ LIVES, the metrical VITA CUTHBERTI, written in 705 or shortly thereafter, was intended to accompany the already existing anonymous VITA CUTHBERTI(see ACTA SANCTORUM). Its purpose was less to tell the events of Cuthbert's life than to encourage spiritual reflection on them, a feature common to the genre. Even Bede's innovation in his MARTYROLOGY, to combine chronicle and hagiography by including brief accounts of each saint's life and death, stops short of constructing a sustained historical narrative.
Bede's first history, the Historia abbatum, developed, we would suggest, out of the crisis of 716, when CEOLFRITH, abbot of Monkwearmouth- Jarrow, suddenly departed for Rome, where he planned to end his days. Although HWÆTBERTwas quickly elected to replace him, Bede's uncertainty about what the journey implied about the direction of the monastery would have increased when the community learned of Ceolfrith's death in Langres (in northeastern France) far from his destination. At a moment of some personal doubt Bede felt compelled to write a narrative that would affirm the history of his own monastery. “
Educational Works
- Fred Biggs, George Brown
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- Book:
- Bede
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 02 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 28 February 2017, pp 39-122
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- Chapter
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Summary
Following his verse compositions in his list of works in book 5, chapter 24 of the HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM(ed. Lapidge 2010 2.484; trans. Colgrave and Mynors 1969 p 571), Bede itemised five of the works considered in this section:
Two books, one on the nature of things and the other on chronology: also a longer book on chronology.
A book about orthography, arranged according to the order of the alphabet.
A book on the art of metre, and to this is added another small book on figures of speech with which the holy Scriptures are adorned.
Because these books conclude the list, one might assume that they were indeed low in Bede's own relative estimation of his writings, perhaps youthful work that then gave way to what he considered his more serious projects, such as the BIBLICAL COMMENTARIESor HISTORIES. Recent scholarship, however, has challenged this assumption, showing that the subjects addressed in them occupied Bede's interest across his career. Two, DE TEMPORIBUSand DE NATURA RERUM, are almost certainly early, and yet by 703, the likely date of De temporibus, Bede was around thirty years old, and so more than capable of putting the systematic reading that must have occupied his actual youth to good use in his own writings. That he revised De temporibus as DE TEMPORUM RATIONEin 725 confirms his sustained interest in its subject. Similarly, his MAGNUS CIRCULUS SEU TABULA PASCHALIS ANNIS DOMINI DXXXII AD MLXIII, a Paschal table that carried the calculations of DIONYSIUS EXIGUUSinto the eleventh century, could have been written at any point in his career. Moreover, DE ARTE METRICA, DE SCHEMATIBUS ET TROPIS, and DE ORTHOGRAPHIAare all now considered works of Bede's so-called “mature” period. They are, nonetheless, gathered here – in alphabetical order – under the rubric “educational works” because they were probably intended to be used in teaching. Two additional works considered in this section (even though Bede did not mention them in his list of works in the Historia ecclesiastica ), the KALENDARIUM AD USUM COMPUTANDIand the PAGINA REGULARUM, were composed as aids for users of De temporum ratione, and almost certainly played a role in the classroom. As Bede himself wrote, “it has always been my delight to learn or to teach or to write” (ed. 2.480; trans. p 567; emphasis added).