The Gregorian Mission to Kent in Bede's Ecclesiastical History - 9780367593216

Taylor & Francis

The Gregorian Mission to Kent in Bede's Ecclesiastical HistoryMethodology and Sources\nAuthor(s): Richard Shaw\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Routledge\nISBN-13: 9780367593216, 978-0367593216\nSynopsis\nHistorians have long relied on Bedes Ecclesiastical History for their narrative of early Christian Anglo-Saxon England, but what material lay behind Bedes own narrative? What were his sources and how reliable were they? How much was based on contemporary material? How much on later evidence? What was rhetoric? What represents his own agendas, deductions or even inventions? \n\nThis book represents the first systematic attempt to answer these questions for Bedes History, taking as a test case the coherent narrative of the Gregorian mission and the early Church in Kent. Through this critique, it becomes possible, for the first time, to catalogue Bedes sources and assess their origins, provenance and value even reconstructing the origin.