HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

68 JOAQUÍN MARTÍNEZ PIZARROof the Latin Bible and to the “stylisation biblique” of late antiqueand early medieval saints’ lives, 75 but also to his familiarity withancient rhetoric, especially in its postclassical Christian incarnation. 76Bede has been praised so highly for his superior Latin, Englishcommon sense, and quasi-modern standards of scholarship that ithas taken modern historians a very long time to express dissatisfactionwith certain aspects of the HE. Dissatisfaction is now the dominantnote in studies of Bede as a historian, 77 and not only becauseof his relative lack of interest in secular matters or his attention tomiracles. It is difficult to say, when reading the HE, whether theauthor is painting an idealized, unproblematic picture of Christianorigins among the English or whether, in ascribing particular holinessto the customs of an earlier time (e.g., IV,27: “Erat quippemoris eo tempore populis Anglorum ut ...”) and occasionally voicingdisappointment with the Christianity of his own day (e.g., III,5:“In tantum autem vita illius [Aidan] a nostri temporis segnitia distabat,ut ...”), he is proposing his vision of the early church as ameasure of the height from which the English have fallen. Suchuncertainties are laid to the account of Bede’s discretion, i.e., theuncompromising way in which he eliminates overt criticism and everynegative note from his historical canvas. As a quality, Bede’s discretionis the more questionable because of the sharp contrast betweenthe HE and the letter he addressed to Bishop Egbert of York inNovember 734, only months before his death. In it, Bede reviews aseries of church abuses—primarily the neglect of episcopal visitationsand the proliferation of pseudo-monasteries ruled by private owners—ofwhich there is hardly a trace in his ecclesiastical history.The HE has often been read as a national history malgré soi, andscrutinized for intimations of national consciousness or a less definable“Englishness”. 78 Bede, however, writes from within a wholly imperialinstitution and, unlike Isidore, projects no sense of alienation orsecession from the Roman world. In fact, his constant argumentagainst the Irish Easter is that it constitutes the religious tradition ofa single, remote nation. In a passage that long has been taken asevidence for the early existence of an English state, Bede lists seven75Van Uytfanghe (1987), 17–60; Kendall (1979).76Kendall (1978); Ray (1986).77Cf. especially Wormald (1978).78Cowdrey (1980–81).