Bede
Andy Merrills
By the early eighth century, vanguard of Christian Latin scholarship had moved far from Mediterranean heartland old empire. As North Africa and Hispania were subsumed into brighter cultural spectrum Islam, Frankia witnessed birthing pangs Carolingian ‘renaissance’, it was Northumbria regions surrounding Irish Sea – liminal between Germanic ‘Celtic’ Britain which carried torch learning. Here splendid ambition Rome, brought to island by Pope Gregory I Augustine Canterbury, met quiet evangelism Hibernian Church combined form an extraordinarily vibrant culture. It within this context in celebration very triumph that Venerable Bede composed his Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum.
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