dilodi83
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- Aug 27, 2006
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Hi everybody...I'm writing my thesis to take the degree and I also have to write part of it in English. Is there any native or a very good English teacher who can correct what I have written so far? I'll post what I have written. Thank you very much in advance to whoever will help me. )
THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
BEDE
Bede lived during the VIII century in Northumbria. He is surely the most learned and certainly the most productive of the European scholars of his day. His works include treatises on grammar, metric and chronology, lives of saints, homilies and, above all, commentaries on the Bible. He also wrote historical works such as the Ecclesiastical History and the Historia Abbatum.
We get all the information we have about Bede from what Bede himself wrote at the end of the Ecclesiastical History, a kind of curriculum vitae, followed by a list of works written within the year 731. Bede was put into the monastery to be educated at the age of seven into the charge of Benedict Bishop at first and then of Ceolfrid. He spent his entire life in the monastery. Among his most important works, we have to cite De Arte Metrica, De Schematibus et Tropis, De Temporibus, De Natura Rerum, De Locis Sanctis and particularly the Ecclesiastical History, which gained Bede the accolade of "father of English history". It is also a masterpiece of literature, and its early translation into Old English at the end of IX century further enhances its worth for literary historians.
Bede's fame is mainly due to his work as an historian. The Ecclesiastical History, which is the final product of Bede's long educational process, is, without a doubt, the most important and his biggest work. The title of the work has been minted by Bede himself at the end of the V book, when the author speaks about the content of the entire work and, to be more exact, when he says he had just finished writing about the ecclesiastical history of the English people until his time. But I want to underline that Bede had already mentioned the title he would have given to his work even in the preface to the I book when he had written, talking to Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria: Historiam gentis Anglorum ecclesisticam... tibi... transmisi. From the title itself we get what the work deals with; Bede reconstructs in five books the history of Britain from the incoming of the Germanic tribes to his own times, he also tells, through the use of learned data and concrete documents, the incoming of the first Christian missionaries who brought the new faith into England, the birth of the first bishoprics and how they followed each other, and, moreover, how the first Anglo-Saxon kings received the Christian faith. For this work he mined all the sources available to him and lots of Christian authors from the IV century on. Most of these sources were available in the library of his monastery, but he also used personal exchange and correspondence from other ecclesiastical places. Perhaps the most important model was Eusebius with the Ecclesiastical History, which might have been read in the Latin translation by Bede. The most fundamental and important difference with Eusebius's work is the fact that Bede did not focus his attention only on the history of the generic church, but he also concentrated on a gens; particularlyhe focused on the ecclesiastical history of the Anglo-Saxon people. But since Bede reviewed several centuries, it is easy to suppose he needed a long and hard work of research and many sources. He, in fact, knew the Adversus Paganos of Orosius, the De excidio et conquestu Britanniae of Gildas and Gregory of Tours's Historia Francorum. He used Orosius and Gildas to get all the information about the Roman period and the conquest of Britain from the Anglo-Saxon tribes but he took the idea of an historical introduction, an autobiographical end and, of course, his strong will to tell the religious history of a unique people (the Anglo-Saxon) from Gregory of Tours's work, even though with different ways and results. Bede also used papal letters, hagiographical and biographical texts for those information about members of clergy and lives of saints. But, without a doubt, an entire life dedicated to the study and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and to the biblical exegesis, like Bede's life, has influenced his work for the Ecclesiastical History. Also the oral sources and all the news that Bede took from the oral tradition or from ecclesiastical men are of great thickness.
It is really important to point out that Bede did not focus, all things considered, on the political events of his time; he aimed at celebrating the power and the greatness of God on the English land and at emphasizing the ecclesiastical and religious events that followed the Anglo-Saxon conquest. Doing this, Bede has also the opportunity to talk about the political, cultural, economical and social events that were at the basis of the process of their Christianization.
The first three books of the Ecclesiastical History are about the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons; in the other two books it is described how the new faith took root among the barbarian tribes and how it influenced their habits and customs. All the five books have a similar length but it is worth noticing that, the first one deals with events that took place in 650 years, whereas the other four books cover just a generation.
THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
BEDE
Bede lived during the VIII century in Northumbria. He is surely the most learned and certainly the most productive of the European scholars of his day. His works include treatises on grammar, metric and chronology, lives of saints, homilies and, above all, commentaries on the Bible. He also wrote historical works such as the Ecclesiastical History and the Historia Abbatum.
We get all the information we have about Bede from what Bede himself wrote at the end of the Ecclesiastical History, a kind of curriculum vitae, followed by a list of works written within the year 731. Bede was put into the monastery to be educated at the age of seven into the charge of Benedict Bishop at first and then of Ceolfrid. He spent his entire life in the monastery. Among his most important works, we have to cite De Arte Metrica, De Schematibus et Tropis, De Temporibus, De Natura Rerum, De Locis Sanctis and particularly the Ecclesiastical History, which gained Bede the accolade of "father of English history". It is also a masterpiece of literature, and its early translation into Old English at the end of IX century further enhances its worth for literary historians.
Bede's fame is mainly due to his work as an historian. The Ecclesiastical History, which is the final product of Bede's long educational process, is, without a doubt, the most important and his biggest work. The title of the work has been minted by Bede himself at the end of the V book, when the author speaks about the content of the entire work and, to be more exact, when he says he had just finished writing about the ecclesiastical history of the English people until his time. But I want to underline that Bede had already mentioned the title he would have given to his work even in the preface to the I book when he had written, talking to Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria: Historiam gentis Anglorum ecclesisticam... tibi... transmisi. From the title itself we get what the work deals with; Bede reconstructs in five books the history of Britain from the incoming of the Germanic tribes to his own times, he also tells, through the use of learned data and concrete documents, the incoming of the first Christian missionaries who brought the new faith into England, the birth of the first bishoprics and how they followed each other, and, moreover, how the first Anglo-Saxon kings received the Christian faith. For this work he mined all the sources available to him and lots of Christian authors from the IV century on. Most of these sources were available in the library of his monastery, but he also used personal exchange and correspondence from other ecclesiastical places. Perhaps the most important model was Eusebius with the Ecclesiastical History, which might have been read in the Latin translation by Bede. The most fundamental and important difference with Eusebius's work is the fact that Bede did not focus his attention only on the history of the generic church, but he also concentrated on a gens; particularlyhe focused on the ecclesiastical history of the Anglo-Saxon people. But since Bede reviewed several centuries, it is easy to suppose he needed a long and hard work of research and many sources. He, in fact, knew the Adversus Paganos of Orosius, the De excidio et conquestu Britanniae of Gildas and Gregory of Tours's Historia Francorum. He used Orosius and Gildas to get all the information about the Roman period and the conquest of Britain from the Anglo-Saxon tribes but he took the idea of an historical introduction, an autobiographical end and, of course, his strong will to tell the religious history of a unique people (the Anglo-Saxon) from Gregory of Tours's work, even though with different ways and results. Bede also used papal letters, hagiographical and biographical texts for those information about members of clergy and lives of saints. But, without a doubt, an entire life dedicated to the study and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and to the biblical exegesis, like Bede's life, has influenced his work for the Ecclesiastical History. Also the oral sources and all the news that Bede took from the oral tradition or from ecclesiastical men are of great thickness.
It is really important to point out that Bede did not focus, all things considered, on the political events of his time; he aimed at celebrating the power and the greatness of God on the English land and at emphasizing the ecclesiastical and religious events that followed the Anglo-Saxon conquest. Doing this, Bede has also the opportunity to talk about the political, cultural, economical and social events that were at the basis of the process of their Christianization.
The first three books of the Ecclesiastical History are about the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons; in the other two books it is described how the new faith took root among the barbarian tribes and how it influenced their habits and customs. All the five books have a similar length but it is worth noticing that, the first one deals with events that took place in 650 years, whereas the other four books cover just a generation.