How reliable is Bede’s Ecclesiastical History as a

source for seventh- and eighth-century Anglo-Saxon

history?
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is an unique work, and one of the very best sources
we have for the early history of Anglo-Saxon England. More to the point, it is
one of the only sources we have. Bede presents us with a detailed narrative of
several hundred years of history, from the arrival of the Saxons to the events of
his own day. It is these later records which we are concerned with now, those
for which Bede was a contemporary, or near-contemporary, author. Evidently,
of course, this lends a great deal of weight to his status as a source—the closer he
was in time and space to the events about which he writes, the more reasonable
it seems to suspect that his writings give us the truth about these events. On
the other hand, most historians have an agenda, so information may have been
left out or distorted in order to push his particular line. Another way in which
Bede may become less reliable is simple misinformation. There are plenty of
events in the history of England which he simply wasn’t fully informed about
of which we are aware, and from this we can deduce that even what he reports
about things he does know isn’t guaranteed to be correct.
The single biggest point for Bede’s reliability as a source for the seventh and
eighth centuries is that this is when he lived, as he was born in the 670s and died
in the 730s1 . He was therefore a contemporary or nearly contemporary source
for the events of these years. Something happening in the 630s, for example,
would still have living witnesses from whom he could gather information about
it, and so his reports should be reliable. This is reinforced by his habit of giving
citations for some of the accounts he relates. To take but one example, there is a
story given as an example for the church to follow, in order to reinforce the point
that one must first concentrate on godly works, not secular ones. He begins this
tale with the words “I myself knew a brother...”, before going on to tell about this
man2 . From this, we can see a still closer level of proximity on Bede’s part to his
subject, and also his extremely modern approach of evidencing his statements,
to give his readers a good idea of how well-founded they are.
Another excellent point in Bede’s favour is the particular stories and ex-
planations of historical events which he chooses to record. The origin of the
Britons, while well outside the seventh or eighth centuries, was an event for
which many explanations existed in the information Bede would have pos-
sessed. The one he recorded, of the Britons having come from Armorica, fits
well with the current state of the world when he was writing, where the cultures
of Armorica and the native Britons were extremely similar. The other, more leg-
endary tale which was also popular at the time was undoubtedly known to him,
but much less external evidence existed to support it3 . Or for yet another exam-
ple, we have his account of why Pope Gregory paid such attention to the state of
1 The Coming of Christianity, p40
2 Bede’sEcclesiastical History, p503
3 The World of Bede, p14

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the Angles, which he clearly records as being “a tradition of our forefathers”,
that needs to be recorded, but is not necessarily true4 . Overall, therefore, we
have a picture of Bede as a careful and meticulous historian. While he records
local traditions and legends in his work, he also marks them as such, showing
their differing veracity from other information he gives. This in turn lends great
credibility to the events which he reports as an eyewitness, and lets us consider the
possible biases or inaccuracies in other reports he records.
On the other hand, Bede was not an eyewitness to much. He spent his en-
tire life in the vicinity of his monastery, apart from brief trips to other nearby
locations5 . This in turn restricts his knowledge. Much he incorporated was
probably learned by sending out letters to ask for documents or information
from other centres of Christian learning, but this in turn will skew his reports
based on what he was sent back. If only one monastery in an area felt the need
to send him something, then only that monastery’s take on events would be
recorded. The most obvious way this might shape the final report is in the ac-
tions of saints, as they were often local. It seems likely that for every saint Bede
records, another in a different part of England has been forgotten to history,
simply because of who sent him information6 . This doesn’t affect his reliabil-
ity on the events he reports, but it does urge caution in assuming these were
the only people or places which were important—an absence from Bede does
not mean that nothing happened. On other important topics, the sources were
simply absent until very late in Bede’s writing. A key event in the history of the
English church was a visit by St. Augustine, and yet Bede did not even have a
date for this mission until 725, when another English monk went to search the
archives in Rome itself to find this out7 . This lack of information about such
a key event does lead one to wonder what else may not have been recorded,
or may be simply erroneous, because Bede could not find out anything more
concrete, and was forced to rely on questionable traditions for his information.
This also explains the general focus of the Ecclesiastical History on events in
Northumbria, for his information from this nearby kingdom would naturally
have been superior, both in quantity and in reliability, to that he learned about
other kingdoms such as Wessex in the far south. The nearby monasteries may
also have been more inclined to answer his requests for information, which
would have skewed the picture still further.
Bede was also likely not without his biases. The simplest way for him to
bias his history was by omission. This is more relevant in the case of his re-
ports about people from well before his own times, where it is quite likely that
he used them as moral examples as much as actual historical figures. Indeed,
he argues in his preface that by recording the good deeds of good men he will
inspire his listeners to the same8 . Therefore we can reasonably assume him to
have not mentioned the evil or questionable deeds of those he presents as good,
4 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, p133
5A Companion to Bede, p10
6 The Coming of Christianity, p46
7 The World of Bede, p42
8 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, p3

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and by omission in this way shaped our knowledge of those who we only know
through his works. Bede also had a personal agenda, laid out for us in his let-
ter to Egbert (the Epistola ad Ecgberctum). Here he argues strongly the need for
church reform in various ways, such as a crackdown on monasteries founded
only for financial benefit not the true worship of God. Yet it is not clear how
much of this agenda was imported into the Ecclesiastical History—one of the
final paragraphs records how so many in Northumbria had “laid aside their
weapons and taken the tonsure.”9 . It seems likely that this is a reference to
the same spate of pseudo-monasteries, but from the phrasing we have here,
his own opinions on the topic are not being brought out explicitly. There are
further many characters whose treatment by Bede may have been intended to
present them in a particular light, which is not necessarily particularly repre-
sentative of reality. These, however, are hard to find, for we generally have very
few sources that are wholly divorced from Bede to compare his work with. One
clear example of how his own positions influence his portrayal of a group is pro-
vided in the closing of his work, where he is summing up the state of England
at the time of his writing. Bede was devoutly Catholic, which lead in turn to
his disapproval of any group of Christians who did not hold to the authority of
the Roman church, and separated itself from its practices. Therefore we have
his damning words on the Britons, describing their “...inbred hatred, ... their
incorrect easter and their evil customs.”10 It seems likely that this is something
of an exaggeration, but for Bede their refusal to accept the Roman date of Easter
marked them out as terrible sinners, and his presentation of them reflects this.
Overall, however, Bede is a reasonable source, when one remembers to make
appropriate allowances. He was generally concerned with presenting the facts
accurately and without much bias, and he is clear about his sources in a way
that stands in great contrast to many other mediaeval historians. He is under
informed on some topics, but records where what he has set down is mere tradi-
tion or story, as opposed to fact with documentary evidence. His presentation
of people is shaped by his explicit moral aims, but the bias this introduces can
be tempered by remembering that none of his saints are likely to have been
truly perfect. His reliability is best summed up by a simple reading of the pref-
ace, which concerns itself nearly entirely with the sources for the work which
follows. He gives us names of his informants, abbots and monasteries who con-
tributed to the work and where their primary contributions were. This level of
sourcing is what can really give us confidence that his reported facts are actually
such.

9 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, p561

10 Ibid.