bede's ecclesiastical history of england

Stewart’s version of the Lives of the Abbots, and the Letter to Egbert. He has had too the advantage of using Dr. Stewart’s notes for the introduction as well as his corrections of Stapleton’s translation. The present editor has had the advantage, for which he must express his gratitude, of being allowed to use Dr. Matter that is common to different editors has not been specially acknowledged. Bright’s lectures are referred to as Bright, and Oman’s History as Oman. Alterations taken from Plummer’s edition, as well as notes which have been borrowed have been acknowledged with the letters Pl Dr. The Latin text of the present edition is that of Moberly, Oxford, 1881, which is practically Smith’s text. The early authorities for the period of Bede’s History will be found in Monumenta Historica Britannica, 1848.

Maitland’s Dark Ages describes the state of religion and literature in the centuries succeeding Bede’s time. Norman Conquest, and Bishop Browne’s The Venerable Bede, S.P.C.K.

Bright’s Chapters on Early Church History, Oman’s England before the Plummer, Oxford, 1896.īesides the notes of Plummer’s edition, help may be obtained from Mayor and Lumby’s edition of Bks. It gives an atmosphere in which we breathe more naturally: we see, as it were, the ancient building in a mellower and less garish light.Įditio princeps of the Historia Ecclesiastica, Eggestyn, Strasbourg, 1475 (about).Ĭollected edition of Bede’s works, Basle, 1563.įirst critical edition, Smith, Cambridge, 1722.

And, apart from the intrinsic merits of his work, it is probably better to read an author dealing with an age like Bede’s, so different from our own in its thoughts and ways, through the medium of a translation which does not belong to our own day. The structure of his clauses is nearer akin to the Latin than the more choppy sentences of modern English: he has a dignity and nobility of style and a constant happiness of phrase, which have deservedly kept his translation alive. But, notwithstanding such drawbacks, Stapleton belonged to the age of the Book of Common Prayer and the Authorised Version of the Bible. He paraphrases and amplifies and omits, and it is not too much to say that there is scarcely a sentence in which some alteration is not required, if the English version is to be a close rendering of Bede’s Latin. But apart from this it must be admitted that he treats the Latin of his author rather cavalierly. Stapleton used the Basle edition of Bede’s collected works, 1563, and this accounts for some errors in his translation. The first critical edition of the text was that of Smith, 1722.

Bede's ecclesiastical history of england