Ecclesiastical History of the English People

Bede

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014044565X ISBN 13: 9780140445657

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1990

Written in AD 731, Bede's work opens with a background sketch of Roman Britain's geography and history. It goes on to tell of the kings and bishops, monks and nuns who helped to develop Anglo-Saxon government and religion during the crucial formative years of the English people. Leo Sherley-Price's translation brings us an accurate and readable version, in modern English, of a unique historical document. This edition now includes Bede's Letter to Egbert concerning pastoral care in early Anglo-Saxon England, at the heart of which lay Bede's denunciation of the false monasteries; and The Death of Bede, an admirable eye-witness account by Cuthbert, monk and later Abbot of Jarrow, both translated by D. H. Farmer.

About the Author:

Bede was born in 673. He became a monk at an early age and lived most of his life at Jarrow. Scholar, teacher and writer, he wrote biblical and other works. He has been described as the 'Father of English History'. Bede died in 735. Leo Sherley-Price is a Rural Dean and parish priest at Devon. He has translated a number of other historical and theological texts. D. H. Farmer is author and editor of several books on ecclesiastical and monastic history.

From the Back Cover:

His Letter to Egbert gives his final reflections on the English Church just before his death, and all three texts here are further illuminated by a detailed introduction and explanatory notes.