The Venerable Bede's history of the Christian church in England, written in the early eighth century, still stands as a significant literary work. Translated from Latin into various other languages, Bede's fascinating history has long been widely studied. Thirteen centuries later, this thorough and reliable guide by J. Robert Wright enables today's readers to follow the major English translations of Bede's work and to understand exactly what Bede was saying, what he meant, and why his words and account remain so important. Wright'sCompanion to Bede provides the answers to most questions that careful, intelligent readers of Bede are apt to ask. Despite the countless numbers of books and articles about Bede, there is no other comprehensive companion to his text that can be read in tandem with the medieval author himself. A Giniger book

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Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede is a key work for historians, church historians and intelligent lay readers. Here is the perfect introduction. Bede's best known work, An Ecclesiastical History of the English People, was written in Latin and is not immediately easy to understand and follow. Yet it is a key text for any student of English history. Rowan Williams shows in his introduction how Bede works to create a sense of national destiny for the new English kingdoms of the seventh century, a sense that has helped to shape English self-awareness through the centuries, by using the imagery both of imperial Rome and of biblical Israel. But Bede also wrestles with the difficult question of how the Church relates to and serves the political order. The attraction and fascination of his work is partly in seeing the tension between the strategic use of wealth and political power for religious ends and the example of self-effacing service and simplicity of life offered by some of Bede's greatest Christian heroes. The issues around these questions are not academic or antiquarian. Understanding Bede is a key to understanding British society in the present as well as the past.