The History of the Church of Englande . Compiled by Venerable Bede Englishman. Translated out of Latin into English by Thomas Stapleton

Venerable Bede

Shakespeare Head Press, 1930

Bound in 1/2 leather over marbled boards. Hardcover. Shelf wear. Front gutter starting. Bookplate of Boies Penrose II on verso. Clean, unmarked pages. 479 pages : illustrations (map), 29 cm. 

Bede (673-735) was an Anglo-Saxon monk based in Northumbria. He is now often considered the father of English history for his book Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 'Ecclesiastical History of the English People,' which he finished in 731. Bede mentions all of the major ethnic groups then in Britain: Britons, Picts, Gaels, and Anglo-Saxons (whom he lumps together as Angli, thus facilitating a unified identity) and draws upon a wide variety of sources and traditions. Bede built on Gildas's condemnation of British chieftains, depicting the Angli as God's new chosen people whose invasion into Britain served as punishment for the sins of the Britons. 86 Bede thus acts as a strong advocate on behalf of the English and their interests. 

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