HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM. LIBER PRIMUS. PROLOGUS. -GLORIOSISSIMO REGI CEOLWULPHO, BEDA, FAMULUS CHRISTI ET PRESBYTER. ISTORIAM Gentis Anglorum Ecclesiasticam, quam nuper edideram, libentissime tibi desideranti, rex, et prius ad legendum ac probandum transmisi, et nunc ad transcribendum ac plenius ex tempore meditandum retransmitto; satisque studium tuæ sinceritatis amplector, quo non solum audiendis Scripturæ sanctæ verbis aurem sedulus accommodas, verum etiam noscendis priorum gestis sive dictis, et maxime nostræ gentis virorum illustrium, curam vigilanter impendis. Sive enim historia de bonis bona referat, ad imitandum bonum auditor sollicitus instigatur; seu mala commemoret de pravis, nihilominus religiosus ac pius auditor sive lector, devitando quod noxium est ac perversum, ipse solertius ad exsequenda ea, quæ bona ac Deo digna esse cognoverit, accenditur. Quod ipsum tu quoque vigilantissime deprehendens, historiam memoratam in notitiam tibi simulque eis, quibus te THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH NATION. BOOK I. PREFACE. TO THE MOST GLORIOUS KING CEOLWULPH, BEDE, THE SERVANT OF CHRIST AND PRIEST. FORMERLY, at your request, most readily transmitted to you the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, which I had newly published, for you to read, and give it your approbation; and I now send it again to be transcribed, and more fully considered at your leisure. And I cannot but commend the sincerity and zeal, with which you not only diligently give ear to hear the words of the Holy Scripture, but also industriously take care to become acquainted with the actions and sayings of former men of renown, especially of our own nation. For if history relates good things of good men, the attentive hearer is excited to imitate that which is good; or if it mentions evil things of wicked persons, nevertheless the religious and pious hearer or reader, shunning that which is hurtful and perverse, is the more earnestly excited to perform those things which he knows to be good, and worthy of God. Of which you also being deeply sensible, are desirous that the said history should be more fully made familiar to yourself, regendis Divina præfecit auctoritas, ob generalis curam salutis latius propalari desideras. Ut autem in his quæ scripsi, vel tibi, Magnanime Rex, vel ceteris auditoribus sive lectoribus hujus historiæ, occasionem dubitandi subtraham, quibus hæc maxime auctoribus didicerim breviter intimare curabo. Auctor ante omnes atque adjutor opusculi hujus Albinus abbas reverendissimus vir per omnia doctissimus exstitit; qui in ecclesia Cantuariorum a beatæ memoriæ Theodoro archiepiscopo et Hadriano abbate, viris venerabilibus atque eruditissimis, institutus, diligenter omnia, quæ in ipsa Cantuariorum provincia, vel etiam in contiguis eidem regionibus, a discipulis beati papæ Gregorii gesta fuere, vel monimentis literarum vel seniorum traditione cognoverat; et ea mihi de his, quæ memoria digna videbantur, per religiosum Londoniensis ecclesiæ presbyterum Nothelmum, sive literis mandata, sive ipsius Nothelmi viva voce referenda, transmisit. Qui videlicet Nothelmus postea Romam veniens, nonnullas ibi beati Gregorii papæ simul et aliorum pontificum epistolas, perscrutato ejusdem sanctæ ecclesiæ Romanæ scrinio, permissu ejus, qui nunc ipsi ecclesiæ præest, Gregorii pontificis, invenit, reversusque nobis nostræ historiæ inserendas, cum consilio præfati Albini reverendissimi patris, attulit. A principio itaque voluminis hujus usque ad tempus quo gens Anglorum fidem Christi percepit, ex priorum maxime scriptis hinc inde collectis ea, quæ promeremus, didicimus. Exinde autem usque ad tempora præsentia, quæ in ecclesia Cantuariorum per discipulos beati papæ Gregorii, sive successores eorum, vel sub quibus regibus gesta sint, memorati abbatis Albini industria, Nothelmo, ut diximus, perferente, cognovimus. Qui etiam provinciæ Orientalium simul et Occidentalium Saxonum, nec non et Orientalium Anglorum atque Northanhumbrorum, a quibus præsulibus vel quorum tempore regum gratiam Evangelii percepeand to those over whom the Divine Authority has appointed you governor, from your great regard to their general welfare. But that I may remove all occasion of doubting the truth of what I have written, both from yourself and other readers or hearers of this history, I will briefly intimate from what authors I chiefly learned the same. Abbot of Adrian. My principal authority and aid in this work was the learned and reverend Abbot Albinus; who was educated in Albinus the Church of Canterbury by those venerable and learned Canterbury. men, Archbishop Theodore of blessed memory, and the Abbot Adrian, and transmitted to me by Nothelm, the Abbot pious priest of the Church of London, either in writing, Nothelm. or by word of mouth of the same Nothelm, all that he thought worthy of memory, that had been done in the province of Kent, or the adjacent parts, by the disciples of the blessed Pope Gregory, as he had learned the same either from written records, or the traditions of his ancestors. The same Nothelm afterwards went to Rome, and by permission of the present Pope Gregory, searched into the archives of the holy Roman Church, where he found some epistles of the blessed Pope Gregory, and other popes; and on his return home, by the advice of the aforesaid most reverend father Albinus, he brought them to me, to be inserted in my history. Thus, from the beginning of this volume to the time when the English nation received the faith of Christ, have we collected the writings of our predecessors, and from them gathered matter for our history; but from that time till the present, what was transacted in the Church of Canterbury, by the disciples of St. Gregory or their successors, and under what kings the same happened, has been conveyed to us by Nothelm through the industry of the aforesaid Abbot Albinus. They also partly informed me by what bishops and under what kings the provinces of the East and West Saxons, as also of the East Angles, and of the Northumbrians, received the |