How, When and Why did Bede Write his Ecclesiastical History?

Richard Shaw

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English

Routledge
25 September 2023

Historiography; Medieval history

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is our main source for early Christian Anglo-Saxon England, but how was it written? When? And why? Scholars have spent much of the last half century investigating the latter question – the ‘why’. This new study is the first to systematically consider the ‘how’ and the ‘when’. Richard Shaw shows that rather than producing the History at a single point in 731, Bede was working on it for as much as twenty years, from c. 715 to just before his death in 735. Unpacking and extending the period of composition of Bede’s best-known book makes sense of the complicated and contradictory evidence for its purposes. The work did not have one context, but several, each with its own distinct constructed audiences. Thus, the History was not written for a single purpose to the exclusion of all others. Nor was it simply written for a variety of reasons. It was written over time – quite a lot of time – and as the world changed during that time, so too did Bede’s reasons for writing, the intentions he sought to pursue – and the patrons he hoped to please or to placate.

By: Richard Shaw
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781032185651
ISBN 10: 1032185651
Pages: 302
Publication Date: 25 September 2023
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Richard Shaw is Associate Professor and Chairman of the History Department at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College, in Ontario, Canada. His first book, The Gregorian Mission to Kent in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History: Methodology and Sources, was published by Routledge in 2018.

Reviews for How, When and Why did Bede Write his Ecclesiastical History?

‘The results [of Shaw’s research] are illuminating and thought-provoking … He has read very widely and thoroughly, and his book provides an excellent overview of the current state of play in the study of Bede’s most famous work’ – Barbara Yorke, Northern History.