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You are here: English 401 > Lessons > Lesson 10 > Introduction to Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica

Introduction to "The Conversion of Edwin" and "The Poet Cædmon" from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica

Bede's Historia

Bede (ca. 672 - 735), usually known as "the venerable Bede," is best known now as the author of the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), from which these two extracts are taken, but his reputation in the Middle Ages was based on a much wider range of his works, especially works of Biblical commentary or exegisis, but also including saints' lives, grammatical and metrical treatises and works on the calculation of time. You may find this biography of interest.

The Historia is an account of English history from the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the island to Bede's own time, focussing primarily on the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and the growth of the church in England (as the title suggests). Written, naturally, in Latin, it was completed about 731 c.e. Bede says that he based it on the authority of documents, the "traditions of our forefathers," and his own knowledge of events. It is outstanding as an early attempt at exact and trustworthy historical writing, and a major source for our knowledge of early English history.

The Old English version of the Historia dates from the Alfredian period and is one of the works that resulted from Ælfred's program of translation announced in his preface to Gregory's Cura pastoralis. It is thus about 150 years later than the Latin original, and written in the West Saxon dialect rather than Bede's own Northumbrian.

The Conversion of Edwin

The first extract is an account of the coming of Christianity to the kingdom of Northumbria. St. Augustine's mission (in 597 c.e.) to the pagan Anglo-Saxons had its earliest success in Kent with the conversion of King Æþelberht--a fact that accounts for the pre-eminence to this day of the archbishopric of Canterbury ( OE Cantwaraburh or the city of the inhabitants of Kent) in the Church of England. After the death of Augustine, Æþelberht's daughter Æþelberg was married (in 625 c.e.) to Edwin, king of Northumberland (reigned 616 to 632), bringing with her as chaplain the monk Paulinus, who had been consecrated bishop in expectation that he would be able to effect a conversion to Christianity of Edwin, the most powerful king in his day. After some considerable hesitation, Edwin agreed in 627 c.e. to convert after consultation with his witenagemot (or council), and the passage here is the famous one describing the discussions in council and the subsequent desecration of his former temple by Cefi, the pagan chief priest.

The passage has, no doubt, much that is "accretion" or fictional addition to the conversion story over a century of retelling between the events and Bede's own time, but it is nevertheless an important document, not only for the brief glimpse it gives us of Anglo-Saxon paganism, but also for its account of the arguments in council. There is little likelihood that the speeches that are reported were actually made as Bede records them, but they do give an idea of what Bede, his oral informants, and his audience, thought were appealing arguments for Christianity, and from this point of view are trustworthy documentary evidence of "Anglo-Saxon attitudes."

The Poet Cædmon

Bede's story of the poet Cædmon would be of relatively minor interest did it not, in the course of recounting the miracle that occurred to this gentleman and his saintly life and death, give us so much information about the history of poetry in the Old English period, and about the conditions of performance of oral verse. Cædmon himself was an illiterate man whose job, at least part of the time, was to look after the cattle. He was also, and with much more resulting social disadvantage, unable to perform poetry at beer parties. Since this implies that others could perform poetry at beer parties, the miracle that Bede recounts does not make Cædmon "the first English poet," as he has sometimes been called. What is apparently innovative in his poetry is his turning of the verse-form and traditional diction of Anglo-Saxon oral verse to praise of the creator--he would more accurately be described as "the first Christian poet to compose in English," which isn't, unfortunately, so catchy.

The Old English poem usually known as "Cædmon's Hymn" is recorded in the manuscripts of the Old English Bede in place of Bede's Latin. It is generally taken to be the actual poem composed by Cædmon, though there is certainly the possibility that it is simply a retranslation into Old English of Bede's Latin translation of Cædmon's original poem. If it is, in fact, Cædmon's poem, it is the earliest recorded English poem. In any case, the story itself makes clear to us that it is a fragment rather than a complete poem, since Cædmon "added many verses to it in the same metre." Of the other poems composed by Cædmon and written down in Abbess Hild's monastery that are mentioned in the story we probably have nothing, though you may still see in older anthologies poems described as "Cædmonian," usually because they are the kind of biblical paraphase that the story describes Cædmon carrying out.


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Contact: Murray McGillivray at mmcgilli@acs.ucalgary.ca or the Listserv at mailto:eg401-m@acs.ucalgary.ca