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The Old English Version of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica
Author(s): Sharon M. Rowley (Author)
- Publisher: D.S.Brewer
- Publication Date: 15 Sept. 2011
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 270 pages
- ISBN-10: 1843842734
- ISBN-13: 9781843842736
Book Description
The Old English version of Bede’s
Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum is one of the earliest and most substantial surviving works of Old English prose. Translated anonymously around the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century, the text, which is substantially shorter than Bede’s original, was well known and actively used in medieval England, and was highly influential. However, despite its importance, it has been little studied.In this first book on the subject, the author places the work in its manuscript context, arguing that the text was an independent, ecclesiastical translation, thoughtfully revised for its new audience. Rather than looking back on the age of Bede from the perspective of a king centralizing power and building a community by recalling a glorious English past, the Old English version of Bede’s Historia transforms its source to focus on local history, key Anglo-Saxon saints, and their miracles. The author argues that its reading reflects an ecclesiastical setting more than a political one, with uses more hagiographical than royal; and that rather than being used as a class-book or crib, it functioned as a resource for vernacular preaching, as a corpus of vernacular saints’ lives, for oral performance, and episcopal authority. Sharon M. Rowley is Associate Professor of English at Christopher Newport University.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Rowley’s book is groundbreaking. Her careful and thorough scholarship enhances her fresh, original readings, and her willingness to think through larger contexts and implications is a major strength. MEDIEVAL REVIEW
[This] excellent study of the Old English version of Bede’s
Historia Ecclesiastica recasts our views on this most important text in all its variations. . Rowley’s book is groundbreaking. Her careful and thorough scholarship enhances her fresh, original readings, and her willingness to think through larger contexts and implications is a major strength. The study necessitates changes in how we consider the impact and uses of Bede. MEDIEVAL REVIEW, September 2013This study has set down the foundations not only for the study of the OEHE, but also for bringing out how the OEHE can contribute to, and should be considered in, various other fields of research pertaining to Anglo-Saxon England and Old English. ENGLISH STUDIES
This is one of those books that start from an idea so simple and so seemingly obvious that the reader is left wondering why nobody ever thought of it before […] this is an exemplary and innovative work of scholarship. CERCLES
[This] wide-ranging and thoughtful study of the ways in which the late ninth- or early tenth-century Old English translation of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica reshapes its source is a valuable contribution to the field that deepens our understanding of both works. REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES
