Vadim Erlikhman

I. The Life and Works of Master Bede

In completing his Ecclesiastical History of the People of the Angles in 731 A.D., the monk Bede of the Northern English monastery of Yarrow could count on the grateful memory of posterity. Unlike the anonymous chroniclers, who diligently supplemented the records of their predecessors with their own, he rightly put his name on an unprecedented work – the first history of England. True, he himself did not value this work very highly – in the list of his works given at the end of the History, it stands at the very end, giving way to commentaries on the Holy Scriptures. Their Bede composed his whole life "for his own good and for the benefit of the brethren" [2] – few of those who entered the monastery knew Latin, and he considered it his duty to enlighten and instruct the novices. For the same purpose, he translated the Symbol of Faith and the main prayers into his native Anglo-Saxon language, and just before his death he began to translate the Gospel of John.

For the sake of enlightenment and instruction, he also wrote treatises on chronology, natural history, and versification. For this purpose, he wrote the History, which was the result of his many years of difficult work. By his own admission, he drew material for it "from all trustworthy sources" [3]. These sources were divided into three main groups: the writings of historians of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the writings of the Church Fathers, and oral traditions reported to him by numerous informants from different parts of Britain. Bede was able to combine all this mosaic of facts and legends with a rare art for his time into a single picture of the history of his native island. Such diverse topics as the miracles of saints, wars and alliances of kings, natural phenomena and even the behavior of animals, he covered with the same skill of storytelling and common sense. The vivid pictures of the past of England painted by him were included in school anthologies. In addition, Beda possessed the most important property for a historian – the ability to single out the main thing in the chaos of written and oral evidence and to combine the facts obtained into a single cause-and-effect chain.

It is no coincidence that "History", like its author, was waiting for great fame. Immediately after writing, it began to be copied in monastic scriptoriums in England, and then in other countries. Almost 160 manuscripts of Bede's work have survived to this day, which in itself speaks of his enormous popularity in the Middle Ages. In addition, four of these manuscripts date back to the eighth century, that is, they were written by the author's contemporaries or even by his disciples. Most manuscripts have unusually few errors [4]; This suggests that their copying was entrusted to the best scribes. In 880, King Alfred the Great of England, a patriot and educator, had Bede's work translated into Anglo-Saxon as one of the four books "most necessary for all men" [5]. The "History" was not forgotten even after the invention of printing; it was one of the first books published in the 1470s by the famous Strasbourg printer Heinrich Eggenstein. Then there were dozens of publications, translations into different languages, detailed scientific research, and now the "History" still occupies an honorable place not only in the tablets of science, but also on the shelves of bookstores. Perhaps the monk from Yarrow himself would be pleased with such a result of his work.

We know little about his own life. The main information about it is contained in the last chapter of the History (V, 24), in the pages that supplement it from the History of the Abbots of Wirmouth and Yarrow, and in the story of Bede's pupil Cuthbert about the death of his teacher (see appendix). Bede reports that he was born in 673 on the lands of the monastery of Wirmut (Wiremud), possibly in the village of Moncton, where the "well of Bede" is still preserved. Probably, he was the son of a free community member-curl, who became dependent on the monastery founded in 674. We know nothing about his relatives, except that through their efforts, a talented boy at the age of seven was sent to the education of the Abbot of Wirmuth, Biscop-Benedict. This former warrior, energetic and skillful administrator, was able to create a prosperous monastery in a short time, where almost 500 monks lived. Seven times he went to Rome, which was a real feat at that time, and brought books from there for the monastery library and teachers who taught the brothers from Wirmouth crafts and church singing.

At that time, on the shores and hills of the formerly wild Northern England, churches and monasteries sprang up with unprecedented rapidity, where monks copied books, made amazingly beautiful jewelry, and grew new crops. The same thing happened all over England, less than a hundred years after a few Roman priests, led by Augustine, cautiously landed on its shores to bring the faith to a "barbarous, ferocious, and distrustful people." In fact, the Angles and Saxons had previously destroyed the civilization of the Romanized Britons with barbarous ferocity, as Gildas the Wise, a British priest from Rues, wrote with sorrow in the sixth century (see appendix). Having expelled or enslaved the local population, the tribes of the invaders built their unsightly huts around the Roman ruins and began to lead their usual life among leisurely rural labor, noisy feasts and military battles with each other and with the rebellious Britons.

However, over time, the situation changed. The growing royal power needed a more reliable support than the old paganism, and the preaching of Christianity came in handy. In addition, the pagan Anglo-Saxons were surrounded by Christian peoples: the Franks in the south, the Britons and Scots (Irish) in the north and west. If the Britons refused all contact with the "accursed Saxons", the Irish hastened to turn their missionary fervor to the conversion of their neighbors. The Roman Church was no less active, especially during the pontificate of Gregory the Great (590-604), which significantly strengthened the papal authority and authority of Rome. It was on his orders that Augustine's mission went to England, more precisely to Kent, one of the seven traditional Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In reality, there were more kingdoms, and their number was constantly changing as a result of wars and dynastic alliances. From time to time, a ruler subjugated most of England and assumed the title of "Bretwalde" (high king), but after his death, fragmentation again prevailed. The strongest kingdoms were Kent and Wessex in the south and Northumbria in the north, later Mercia in central England. Wales and Cornwall were inhabited by descendants of the Britons, and in Scotland there were independent states of the Picts and the Irish.

The social picture was no less variegated than the political one. Initially, like other Germanic peoples, Anglo-Saxon society consisted of nobles (earls), free community members (curls) and slaves. Soon after moving to Britain, the power of tribal leaders or kings increased significantly, and stratification began within the community. The kings, who became the supreme owners of the conquered lands, began to transfer them to the possession (bokland) of their retinue, the Thanes and the Gesites. The most powerful representatives of the nobility became ealdormen - hereditary governors of the regions. On the other hand, more and more curls became dependent on glafords (lords) and gradually became enslaved by them, falling into the category of semi-free (litas). The growth of inequality was clearly illustrated by the articles of the Anglo-Saxon laws: if according to the earliest of them, the wergeld (vira) for the murder of the curl was half of the similar vira of the earl, then later it was only one sixth [7].

Under these conditions, kings and representatives of the nobility saw in the new religion a means of strengthening and sanctifying their own power. It is no accident that Christianity established itself in England, as well as in the neighboring Celtic lands, relatively quickly and painlessly, although there were isolated cases of pagan reaction, and a long tradition of dual faith. The victory of the Christian faith was facilitated by the excellent organization of the church, a clear and convincing doctrine and the support of the upper classes, which is vividly described by Bede in the scene of the dispute at the court of King Edwin of Northumbria (II, 13). The conversion of England began in 596, but church and monastic life flourished in the northern kingdom of Northumbria, where the new faith was established only in 634. In the 7th century, rich and populous monasteries grew up on the shores of the North Sea: Lindisfarne, Whitby (Strenescalk), Hartlepool, Lastingham, Peterborough, Ely and many others.

Among these monasteries was Wirmouth, not far from which, on the seashore, a new monastery of Yarrow (Girvum) arose in 681, headed by the learned monk Ceolfrith. Together with him, eight-year-old Bede moved to the new monastery. Soon the monastery was struck by a plague epidemic, after which, according to the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith, only two monks remained in Yarrow who were able to perform daily prayer. They were the abbot himself and a certain boy [8], apparently Bede. The historian himself does not mention this event, but he retained a deep affection for his teacher Ceolfrith, and with a heavy heart accompanied him to Rome in 716, from which the abbot never returned. He took with him a Bible, transcribed and illustrated by the monks of Yarrow [9].

At least three such Bibles came out of the monastery scriptorium; it is possible that Bede also took part in their decoration. From his youth he sang well and until his death he was engaged in singing prayers and psalms every day. However, most of all, by his own admission, he loved "studying, teaching and writing" [10]. The talents of the young novice were noticed by Bishop John of Hexham, who highly valued learning. At his request, Bede was ordained first to the diaconate, then to the priesthood, and was given the opportunity to devote himself entirely to scientific studies. The main subject of these studies was also the Bible: the monks learned Latin, analyzed and memorized passages from the Scriptures, studied the lives and works of the Church Fathers. They had at their disposal a rich library collected by Benedict and Ceolfrith in various countries. Its composition can be judged from the sources of Bede's works; In addition to patristics, there were historical works, books on natural history, poetry collections - not only Christian, but also antique. Diligently studying these works, the young priest began to teach others himself after a few years, at the same time continuing his literary studies.