 Bede is described by Michael Lapidge as " without question the most accomplished <unk> produced in these islands in the Anglo @-@ Saxon period " . His Latin has been praised for its clarity , but his style in the Historia Ecclesiastica is not simple . He knew rhetoric , and often used figures of speech and rhetorical forms which cannot easily be reproduced in translation , depending as they often do on the connotations of the Latin words . However , unlike contemporaries such as Aldhelm , whose Latin is full of difficulties , Bede 's own text is easy to read . In the words of Charles Plummer , one of the best @-@ known editors of the Historia Ecclesiastica , Bede 's Latin is " clear and limpid ... it is very seldom that we have to pause to think of the meaning of a sentence ... Alcuin rightly praises Bede for his <unk> style . " 
