Wow! eBook
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People: An Introduction and Selection First Edition
Author(s): The Rt Hon Rowan Williams (Editor, Compiler), Benedicta Ward SLG (Compiler)
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
- Publication Date: 21 Jun. 2012
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 200 pages
- ISBN-10: 1441123547
- ISBN-13: 9781441123541
Book Description
Bede’s best known work, An Ecclesiastical History of the English People, was written in Latin and is not immediately easy to understand and follow. Yet it is a key text for any student of English history. Rowan Williams shows in his introduction how Bede works to create a sense of national destiny for the new English kingdoms of the seventh century, a sense that has helped to shape English self-awareness through the centuries, by using the imagery both of imperial Rome and of biblical Israel. But Bede also wrestles with the difficult question of how the Church relates to and serves the political order. The attraction and fascination of his work is partly in seeing the tension between the strategic use of wealth and political power for religious ends and the example of self-effacing service and simplicity of life offered by some of Bede’s greatest Christian heroes. The issues around these questions are not academic or antiquarian. Understanding Bede is a key to understanding British society in the present as well as the past.
Editorial Reviews
Review
This modest (in the best sense) volume achieves admirably and precisely what it sets out to do: to give an integrated introduction to Bede’s History. Lucid and attractive (because it is highly readable), this is an excellent short lead-in to later study of the work as a whole. — Brian Murdoch, University of Stirling, UK ― Literature and Theology Published On: 2014-02-25
About the Author
Sister Benedicta Ward is a member of the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God. She is Reader in the History of Christian Spirituality at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Harris Manchester College.
Rowan Williams is a former Archbishop of Canterbury and was until 2020 Master of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of many books, including Looking East in Winter, Holy Living, and The Edge of Words, published by Bloomsbury Continuum. He lives in Cardiff and continues to broadcast, preach and lecture internationally. In 2022, he gave the second of the BBC’s centenary Reith Lectures. He is contributing writer to The New Statesman.
