Christian Historiography
Medieval Approaches to History
Christian Historiography
• Last Roman Emperor was dethroned by AD476 –
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the end of the Western Roman Empire, but
eastern empire based on Byzantium by emperor
Constantine in AD325 survived for another
thousand years.
Britain a far-flung outpost of the Roman Empire
was under threat – after the collapse of the
Roman Empire there was obviously uncertainty
about what/who would fill the power vacuum
left by the Roman Empire.
Christian Historiography
• It was ultimately the Saxons that sought
to establish their supremacy over Britain.
By 500 Saxons were in control of the
eastern and south eastern coasts. By the
middle of the seventh century great
Anglo- Saxon kingdoms had been
established over much of England.
Christian Historiography
• Two main historical issues emerge at this
time.
– The collapse of the Roman Empire
– Development of Christianity
Christian Historiography
• Christian Historiography did not accept
Classical Historiography
• God had a design for the world expressed
through linear time – a sense of
development and progression was a part
of this approach – not a cyclical idea.
• History began with Adam and would end
with the Second Coming.
Christian Historiography
• Medieval writers and chroniclers felt a need to list events
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– starting their works with summaries of the main events
– using the pattern of six ages established by St
Augustine in the early 5th century.
Six ages corresponded with the account in the first
chapters of Genesis – God’s creation of the world in six
days.
Christian attitude to the Roman Empire was problematic
– Nero and Diocletian had persecuted Christians – but
Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the
Empire.
Christian Historiography
• This unity between the Roman Empire and
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Christianity was the foundation of Eusebius’Ecclesiastical History- difficult to sustain when
the empire collapsed.
Christian History was according to Warren
‘inevitably propagandist’. History was an
important weapon in fighting paganism- could
be used to demonstrate the emergence of
Christian truth.
Christian Historiography
• Events themselves had a Christian meaning –
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rather than fortune, luck and coincidence – the
divine plan was the foundation of all Historical
thinking.
Classical Historians preferred tradition or eye
witness accounts to the written source –
uncomfortable concept to the Christian historian
committed as he was to the written word- the
Old and New Testament
Christian Historiography
• Medieval Historiography
• Two main features of Medieval
Historiography
• Annal
• Medieval historians identified very little
difference between past and present.
Christian Historiography
• Annal
• The format precluded effective analysis of causes
• Historians throughout Christian Europe had a tendency
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to ascribe causes either to God’s will or to a rather
superficial account to personal motives
Medieval historians
Could see very few differences between the present and
the past and so therefore imposed their own attitudes
and experiences upon the past.
The Venerable Bede
• Bede a monk of the twin Northumbrian
Abbeys of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow
The Venerable Bede
• Seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England
had close contacts with the Continent and
it was the Anglo-Saxon church that sent
missionaries to the continent to convert
the pagans.
• Bede was primarily perceived as a biblical
scholar rather than a historian
The Venerable Bede
• Bede was primarily perceived as a biblical
scholar rather than a historian
The Venerable Bede
• Bede spread the
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AD/BC system
throughout Europe.
Wrote on the
geography of the Holy
land and saints lives –
Hagiography.
The Venerable Bede
• Bede as a propagandist
for his version of
Orthodox Christianity in a
society that was by no
means fully converted.
Bede and his use of Sources
• Bede’s use of sources – he actually cites
his sources – see question sheet
• Bede also comments upon the relationship
between the informant and the person
who was the subject of his information.
• Bede gives the informants whereabouts –
he provides too much information to be
fictitious.
Bede and his use of Sources
• Bede admits there may be inaccuracies in
his reporting, ’I have laboured honestly to
transmit whatever I could ascertain from
common report for the instruction of
posterity’
• Bede according to Warren is not a
‘detached scholar’
Bede and his use of Sources
• Bede’s humility is very
much a literary device his
work had an evangelical
purpose – including the
contemporary needs of
his own Northumbrian
Church. Bede believed
that God’s providence
was working through
History.
Bede and his use of Sources
• Bede includes many miracles- Bede making the
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point that God intervened directly in the world to
reward virtue and punish sin.
Bede stressed the workings of the hard of God
in the affairs of Kings – whose role was to serve
and protect the Church.
‘God rewarded good kings with victory and
prosperity and punished bad ones with earthy
calamities’
Bede and his use of Sources
• ‘God rewarded good
kings with victory and
prosperity and
punished bad ones
with earthy calamities’
Bede and his use of Sources
• Bede says kings would be rewarded on
earth for their Faith.
• Bede does not mention the successes of
pagan kings – does this selectiveness
make him less of an historian?
Bede’s own
context/environment
• Attitude to the Britons is harsh for religious
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reasons
Bede was loyal to the Pope
Arguably Mercia was the dominant kingdom in
7th-8th century Britain but Bede places Bernicia
centre stage and portrays it as the dominant
power – as he writes from a Bernician
perspective. He perceives that the rightful claim
to imperium - the inheritance of the Roman
Empire is seen by Bede as Bernician.
Bede’s own
context/environment
• Bede not only has religious imperatives
but also secular priorities- reflecting the
medieval relationship of the church and
state.
• Bede praises Northumbrian missionaries to
Germany but makes no mention of
Boniface
Bede’s own
context/environment
• Warren argues that Bede was not an
‘unworldly scholar, unaffected and
uninterested by the secular world lapping
at the doors of his haven. Instead we
have realistic picture of a man of his time’
Bede’s Style and Rhetoric
• Did Bede use tools of classical rhetoric that are
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designed to persuade? Bede made use of
Eusebius and Orosius- Bede believes that Bede
knew some of Cicero’s work.
When describing the Synod of Whitby – he uses
a pattern of paired speeches.
Warren writes, ’Bede’s work betokens his desire
to persuade more than it betokens his concern
for strict accuracy.’
Bede’s Style and Rhetoric
• Warren and Gramsden see that Bede’s brief was
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propagandist and that this effort to persuade
was the motivating force behind his citing of
sources – to strengthen his arguments.
Bede’s concept of truth was not an objective
concept of truth but rather a Christian truth, ‘the
truth of History was God’s plan revealed’ –
Warren
Bede’s Style and Rhetoric
• Bede does cite his sources thoroughly and
is more rigorous in his methodology but
that does not separate him from his
medieval context.
• He did however move beyond the
annalists – ‘storms and sheep’