The Ecclesiastical History of the English People

Bede's Ecclesiastical History is the foundational work of English history and the finest Latin prose of the early medieval West. Completed at the monastery of Jarrow in 731, it is the single most important source for the history of Anglo-Saxon England, the work that carried the Anno Domini dating convention into common use, and a model of narrative history unmatched between antiquity and the twelfth century. It fills the long gap in the Western canon between Boethius and Aquinas with a work of real literary and intellectual stature.

The Venerable Bede (c. 673–735) spent almost his entire life in the twin monastery of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow in Northumbria, then one of the great centres of learning in Europe. Working from its exceptional library, he wrote across scripture, science, and history; the Ecclesiastical History, completed around 731, traces Christianity in Britain from Roman times to his own day. Bede popularised dating events from the Incarnation (Anno Domini), the system that became standard across the Western world, and earned the title “the Father of English History.” He is the only Englishman named by Dante in the Paradiso and was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1899.