Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Venerabilis Baedae Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum, Historiam Abbatum, Epistolam Ad Ecgberctum, Una Cum Historia Abbatum Auctore Anonymo, Vol. 1: Prolegomena Et Textum Continens
In the notes I have brought together what I could from other sources to illustrate the historical, social, and ecclesiastical bearings of Bede's text. Most of these sources are, of course, obvious enough. My special studies have enabled me to add some less obvious illustrations from Celtic and Scandinavian sources. One important source of illustration has been almost wholly neglected by previous editors. I mean the other writings of Bede himself. Yet apart from the numerous direct illustrations of the text which they supply, the whole texture of Bede's thought, the whole tone and temper of his mind, is so consistent, that we can hardly judge even his his torical works aright, without some knowledge of his other writings, especially of his theological works. To attempt to judge of Bede merely as an historian is inevitably to misjudge him. In history and in science, as well as in theology, he is before all things the Christian thinker and student.
To bring out this, the predominant note of Bede's life and work, is the object of the first part of the Introduction, which, as the notes to it will show, is based almost entirely on Bede's own writings. This part, though always written with a view to its ulti mate appearance here, was first read as an Essay before two College Societies, to which, by the kind ness of undergraduate friends, I belong: the C. C. C. Church Society, and the Pelican Essay Club. Since then it has been carefully revised, and in part rewritten. But I have not cared to obliterate every trace of the circumstances under which it first acquired a limited publicity. A somewhat prolonged study of Bede's works has produced in my mind such a personal feeling towards their author, that I am well content that some trace of my own personal feelings and circumstances should remain in what I have written about him.
Of the second part of the Introduction, which deals with the mss., enough has been said above.
In regard to the scope and execution of my work, I may be allowed perhaps to repeat what I wrote just ten years ago in the preface to my edition of Fortescue.
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