ray - bede's vera lex historia

8/9/2019 Ray - Bede's Vera Lex Historia

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SPECULUM55,1

1980)

Bede's VeraLex Historiae

By Roger Ray

Toward the end of the

epistolarypreface

to

the Historia

cclesiastica, ede

asked

that

none

blame him should the narrative ontain errors,for

he had

triedto

instruct osterity ysetting own, according to what he calls

vera lex

historiae, thingscollected from common report:

Lectoremque suppliciter

obsecro

ut,

siqua in his quae scripsimusaliterquam se

veritas abetposita

eppererit,

on hoc nobis

nputet,

ui,

quod vera ex

historiae

est, implicitera quae fama ulganteollegimusd instructionemosteritatisitteris

mandare tuduimus.1

Until

1947,

when

Charles W.

Jones published Saints' Lives and Chronicles

n

EarlyEngland, no one had questioned the view that this true law of

history

was evidence of critical

scholarship, of the transparent good

faith, as

Charles

Plummer

wrote,

with

which Bede

used

hearsay

sources.2 Nor had

much more been said about

it, xcept

to note that

n

Bede's

writings

he words

vera exhistoriae

irst

ppear

in

the

commentary

n Luke. There Bede

explains

thattheEvangelist, opinionem vulgi exprimens, uae vera historiae ex est,

spoke

in

2.33-34 as if

Joseph were the natural

father

of

Jesus.3

Plummer nd Wilhelm

Levison quoted

this

passage

from

n

Lucam

but

gave

no

estimate

of its

possible

importance

for the

preface

of the

HE.4

For

Jones

the commenton Luke

2 lay at the

heart

of Bede's

historiography.5

e found

that the vera ex historiae f

In

Lucam came verbatim

frorn

erome'sAdversus

Helvidium.

n

this

tractBede

learned,

said

Jones,

that the true aw of

history

led

the Evangelists o teach

theology

nd

morals throughpopular

information

whose factual

truth

was

unimportant.

The New Testament

narrators,

when

they poke as though Jesushad a human father, ven made heretical pinio

vulgi serve

a didactic

purpose.

Thus the vera

lex

historiae f

the

HE,

in

consonance

with the

Gospels,

is to

express

the common

view to use ac-

cepted symbols

for

attaining

the

ideal

end, though

the

words

may

not

be

1

Bede, Ilistoria

cclesiasticaraef.,

ed.

Bertram

Colgrave and R. A.

B.

Mynors Oxford,

1969),

p. 6. This

edition

hereafter ited

as HE.

2 See

Venerabilis

edae opera

historica,

d.

Charles

Plummer

Oxford,

1896),

1

xliv-xlv,

n.

3; and

2:3-4,

where Plummer

cites the

similar views of

Theodor E.

Mommsen,

Die

Papstbriefe

bei

Beda,

Neues

Archiv 7 (1892),

389.

In thisvein see

also Wilhelm

Levison, Bede theHistorian, n

Alexander H.

Thompson, ed., Bede,

His Life,

Times, nd

Writings1935;

repr., New

York,

1966),

pp.

140-141.

3

Bede, In

Evangelium

ucae

expositio ,

lines 1908

-1911, CCSL

120.

4Opera

historica,

d.

Plummer, 2:3-4;

Levison,

Bede, p.

141,

n.

1.

Charles W.

Jones,Saints'

Livesand Chronicles

n

Early

England 1947;

repr.,

New

York,

1968),

pp. 80-93,

esp.

83.


2/21


3/21

Bede's

Vera Lex

Historiae

3

vera exhistoriae

ndoubtedlycame from

Adversus

elvidium, nd clearly

Bede

realized

that theywere

not a technical ermbut

words that

one might mploy

to

signify

ny true aw

of

history.

ike Jerome,he wrote

them for

rhetorical

emphasis,apparentlyto offsetwithstriking anguage certainthings aid by

Isidore of Seville.

Written

n

the 380s,Adversus elvidium

e

Mariae virginitate

erpetua

ttacked

an obscure

layman

of

Rome who

in

a

recent

work

had defended the

parity

f

the

married and

celibate lives by calling to

account the central

pro-celibacy

argument

that

Mary

was

always

a

virgin.

It

is

one of

Jerome's

most self-

conscious rhetorical xhibitions.

At

the

outset,

after

having implied

that his

opponent's methodhad been nothingmore than forensicposturing,Jerome

proposes to make his own

case not

by artful pleading but

by

a

superior

knowledge of the

Bible.

2

This

turns out to be an

empty promise, for

throughout

he work

Jerome

misses

no rhetorical hance.

Toward the end he

admits

t:

I

have become

rhetorical nd conducted

myself

omewhat

n

the

manner

of

a declaimer.

And

this too

he blames on Helvidius.13

Adversus

Helvidium smells of the

rhetoricalschool,

Harald Hagendahl

once

complained; J.

N. D.

Kelly

has

recently aid worse, that

Jerome traves-

ties

Helvidius's

views.14The especially

annoying feature of

the tract s that

Jerome ikes to scorn the iteracy fHelvidius to laugh,forexample,at the

artlessness f a ridiculous exordium. '5

The

campaign

of derision

suffuses

everything,

ven

Jerome's use of the

words verahistoriae

ex.

From the follow-

ing sentence Bede took

this term

and other language for

his comment

on

Luke

2.33-34:

Denique

xcepto

oseph,

t

Elisabeth,

t

psa

Maria, aucisque dmodum,

i

quos

ab

his udisse

possumus

estimare,

mnesJesum iliumestimabant

oseph;

ntantum,

ut

etiam

Evangelistae

pinionem ulgi

xperimentes,

uae

vera

historiae

ex

est,

patrem

um

dixerint

alvatoris....16

This

statement

upports

one

of

Jerome's

main

arguments.

Helvidius

did

not

question

the

virginbirth,

but

Jerome

contends that

by

understanding

what

the

Gospel writers re

doing

when

they

call

Joseph

the fatherof

Jesus,

one

sees

what

t

means

when they peak as

if

Jesus had natural

brothers,

r

as

-if

Mary

were not

a

perpetual virgin.17

II

PL

23:183-206. On

this treatise

nd

Helvidius, see

J.

N.

D.

Kelly,Jerome,

is

Life,

Writings,

and

ControversiesLondon,

1975), pp.

104-107.

Helvidius's

book is

lost,

aside

fromthe

tortured

excerpts

from t

given

in

Adversus elvidium.

12 PL 23:185.

13

PL 23:206.

14Harald

Hagendahl, The

LatinFathers nd theClassics

Goteborg,1958), p. 284;

Kelly,Jerome,.

107.

15

PL 23:200.

16

PL 23:187.

17PL 23:188.


4/21

4

Bede's

Vera

Lex

Historiae

ObviouslyJerome

did not believe that the chief

function

of

history

s to

express

the

vulgar

opinion.

It

would

have

been

heresy

o

think

uch

a

thing

f

the

biblical

histories.Aside from

this, having long

fancied himself

histo-

rian, 18Jeromeknew verywell the

correctrules of

historiography.

or him

the firstaw ofhistorywas to telltheactualtruth, nd Bede wouldhave known

this

from

Jerome's

preface

to

his translation nd

continuation f

Eusebius

of

Caesarea's Chronicon. here

Jerome promises

that

in

a

future

work

he

will

report the timesof

Gratian and

Theodosius, and

he postpones

this

projected

history f

the recentpast not

because

he fearsto write

freely nd truly f

the

living

for the fear of God

drives

out the fear of

man

-

butbecause

for

the

moment

the

barbarians have made

everythingo

confusing.'9 This is

a

Christian adaptation of the

long standing Greco-Roman ideal

of

historical

truth.

For

Jerome the words

vera

historiae

ex,

as

he

uses

them in

Adversus

Helvidium, ould not have conveyed the thoughtthatBedan scholarshiphas

attached to their

appearance

in

the

preface of

the HE.

The idea

behind

Jerome's words,

though

not the words

themselves,

ame

fromthe

rhetorical

doctrineof

probability.All his

writings how

thatJerome

was

a

great

master of

rhetoric. He

learned his lessons from such

works as

Cicero's

De

inventione nd

Marius

Victorinus's Explanationes

n

Ciceronis

rhetoricam,

fourth-century

ommentary on

De

inventione.20Both

rhetors

taught that a

forensic speech

usually

contains a

narrative of the facts in

question

and

that this narratio

must possess

the virtues

of brevity,

larity,

and probability.2'An adequately probable narrativemakes everythingn

the

story

seem

congruous, fitting,

imely,

oherent. It

requires sufficient

information bout

persons,

places,

times,causes, and

so on. It demands as

well

some

accommodation of

public

opinion, of

what people

think

s

true.22

On

this

core

the

NeoplatonistVictorinus

was

especially trong, oncerned as

he

was with

he

epistemological

istinction etween

knowledge and

opinion.23

At

any rate, both

he and Cicero make

it plain

thatthe rhetorical

elevance

of

popular belief

does not

spring from

ts

objective truthbut

strictly rom ts

tactical

value.24

The narrator

may

momentarily tate

erroneous

common

opinion

if it

is

somehow

congruous

with

other

elements of

his

story.

18

These are Kelly's words, fromJerome, . 170.

19Die Chronik es

Hieronymus,

d.

Rudolf Helm,

in

Eusebius'

Werke, ,

pt.

1,

Die

griechischen

christliche chriftsteller er ersten

drei

jahrhunderte

24 (Leipzig, 1913), p. 7.

20

On

Jerome's rhetorical ducation, see Kelly,Jerome,

p. 10-16.

21

Cicero,

De

inventione

.19.27-1.21.30; Victorinus, xplanationesn Ciceronis

hetoricam.19-

1.21,

ed.

Charles Halm, Rhetores

atini

minores

Leipzig,

1863), pp. 201-208. For the virtuesof

narrative n other rhetors, ee

Heinrich Lausberg,

Handbuch er iterarischenhetorik, (Munich,

1960), 168-184.

22

Cicero,

De

inventione

.21.29:

Probabilis

erit

narratio,

si in

ea videbuntur

nesse

ea

quae

solent

apparere

in

veritate .

. si res

et ad eorum

qui

agent

naturam

et

ad

vulgi

morem et ad

eorum qui audient opinionem accommodabitur.

23

See

Lausberg, Handbuch,

:

182

-183;

and

Pierre

Hadot,

Marius Victorinus:echerchesur

a

vie

et ses

oeuvres

Paris, 1971), pp.

47-58.

24 Victorinus,Explanationes

1.21,

in

Halm, ed.,

Rhetores, . 207. Cf. Cicero's definitionof

probabilityDe

inventione

.29.46): Probabile

.. est d

quod fere solet fieri ut

quod

in

opinione

positum

est aut

quod

in se

ad haec

quandam

similitudinem,

ive id

falsum est sive

verum.

Victorinus's

view of

narratio

robabilis

ests on this

understanding

of the

probable.


5/21

Bede's Vera

Lex

Historiae

5

The

passage at issue

in

Adversus

Helvidium rests on

this

assumption.25

Jerome

took

for

granted

that he

Evangelists

had remained alert

to the

climate

of

opinion

at the various

stages

of the

unfolding

drama.

In

the

early period

none but

a few were aware

that

Mary had conceived of

the

Holy Spirit. The

rest went on thinking he usual thing, hata womanwho givesbirthhas lain

with man.

Among

the

Judean

crowd the

suggestion

hat

Joseph

was not

the

father of

Jesus

would

have

brought

Mary's

morals

into

question.

So

the

insiders

kept quiet.

If the

Gospel

writers,

or their

part,

had

not written

he

common

view,

they

would

have

made

theirreaders wonder about

the

reputa-

tion

of

Mary. Since

her

public

image

was

in

fact

good,

it would

have been

incongruous

not

to

record

the

opinio

vulgi

about

Joseph.

Hence the

Evangelists

followed

the

relevantrhetorical

principle:

they

aid not what

was

actually

true but what fittedwithin the

narrative

context.

Expressing

the

vulgaropinion,which s a true law ofhistory, hey poke as thoughJoseph

were the father f

Jesus,

nd

in like

manner

they

lsewhere made it seem

that

Mary had

other

children.This

vera

historiaeex

represents

n

exception

to the

main rule

of

history.

t authorizes brief

trategic eparture

from he

normal

goal

of

factual truth.

The

virtuesof

narratives were

used alike by

ancientlawyers nd

histo-

rians.

n

his tract n

writing

istory, ucian

assumed

thatthe historian

would

give his

work

these qualities by the

usual

means.26Victorinus

observed that

the virtues

prevailed

n

narratives ther than

those

used to plead cases,

and

his one example was history: In expositionhistory ught to be brief, lear,

and

probable. 27 n

thinking hat historians

must

respect the

conditions of

forensic

narrative,

Jerome was on

good

ground indeed. But I

daresay

that

Adversus

elvidium

s the only ancient

text n which t s

suggested

that xpres-

sing vulgar

opinion

is a

true aw of

history.

Moreover,

the

oldest manuscript

of

the tract

does

not

include the

clause quae vera

historiae ex

est,

which

makes one

wonder whether

Jerome

himselfwrote t.

There can

be little oubt

that the

clause

appeared

in

the

text known

to Bede.28 If

Jerome was the

author of

these

rather excessive

words,

then he

must have

set them

down

without ny thoughtof a formaland recognized list of legeshistoriae. icero

25

For what

follows

ee PL

23:187-188.

26

Lucian,

How

to

Write

History

3, trans. Kenneth

Kilburn,

n

Lucian,

6, Loeb

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

1959).

27

Victorinus,

xplanationes

.20,

in Halm,

ed.,

Rhetores,

. 203.

28

The PL

edition of the treatise

reproduces

D.

Vallarsi's

edition of

1734-1742,

printed at

Verona.

In

a footnote

PL

23:187,

n.

2)

Vallarsi writes:

Isthaec, quae vera

Historiae ex

est,

n

Veronensi ms. non

habentur unde

subdubito

ex alio

quam

Hieronymicalamo

profecisse. The

manuscripthere

alluded

to is

Verona,

Bibl.

Capit. MS

XVII(15), of the

sixth

century.

Paul

Meyvaert,

who

has a

microfilm f

this

manuscript, as

confirmed

Vallarsi's

observation.

For

a list

of othermanuscriptswith histreatise, ee B. Lambert,Bibliotheca ieronyma anuscripta, (The

Hague,

1969),

367-376.

On

p.

367 Lambert ists ll the

pre-tenth-century

anuscripts,

f

which

there

re

ten,

ncluding

he Verona

manuscript. aul

Meyvaert

eports

o me

that t

least seven of

these

manuscripts

ave the

phrase

about

vera

ex

historiae. his

suggests

hat he

phrase was added

at a

very

early

date

-

possibly

as a

result of

Jerome's

revising

his own

text

and that

the

manuscript sed

by

Bede in

all likelihood

already

contained t. It

is

apparent from

his

nforma-

tion that

a

new

critical

dition of the

Adversus

elvidium s needed.


6/21

6 Bede's

Vera

Lex

Historiae

spoke

of

laws of

history,

ut he had

in

mind the few

principles

hatworked

for impartial truth and

certainly

not

the rhetorical

icense that

sometimes

permitted

narrators

to

make a tactical

use of erroneous vulgar

opinion.29

Clearly

the clause

quae

vera historiae

ex est was

meant above all

for

rhetorical

mpact,

to

taunt Helvidius again for

not

having earned his lessons

in

the higher education. A

self-respecting raduate of the

rhetorical chool

would have

taken

umbrage

if

someone had

presumed

to

remind him of

something

o routinely aughtas the

rules of

rhetoricalprobability. t would

have

stung all the

more to be told

pompously that this theory

applied to

history. he

affrontwould have been

great for a

writer ike Helvidius, who

had ust

published a tract

ealing

in

partwith he

rhetoric f biblicalnarrative.

Thus when

Jerome

explains a rule of history, is

intention s not even civil,

let alone edifying. t is as if

he had said thatthe

Evangelists

ccommodated

their tory o

opinio vulgi

because, as any schoolboyknows, ll good narrators

do.

On the technical evel

Jerome's

vera historiae ex

was

an

appeal

to

a

recog-

nized

featureof realistic

iarrative nd, more

generally, o the acknowledged

interconnection f

rhetoric nd history. t was,

however,plainlynot

a techni-

cal

term,

nderstood as tied

always

o

a

single meaning.

The words

themselves

sprang

entirely

rom

corn,

from he desire

to

bury Helvidius

under

a

weight

of

emphatic

language.

They

were a

contrivance

that would have

served

equally

well to

stress

ny

other

egitimate rinciple

of

history,

nd

because of

thisadaptability hey ppear in the preface of the

HE.

In any case,

Adversus

Helvidium

does not teach

that

it

was the chief

function f history

o record

what

ordinarypeople

believe,

nor

does

it

plead

for

a truth

whichdenies the

literal tatement r uses

the iteral

tatement o achieve an image in

whichthe

literal statement

s

itself

ncongruous.

30

II

Bede

wrote

n

Lucam

long

before

the

HE.31

For his comment

on

2.33

-34 he

took material

both from

Jerome

and

from

Augustine's

De

consensu

Evangelis-

tarum,

a mainstayof his patristic ibrary. n

De consensu

Augustinealso ob-

serves,

without

any

reference

to

narrative

theory,

that common

opinion

caused

the New

Testament writers o

speak

as

though

Mary

were not a

virgin.

Yet

he

especially

stresses hat since

Joseph adopted

the

son of

his

only wife,

instead

of the child

of some other

woman,

he

was

Jesus's

father

n

more

than

an

adoptive

sense.

This

point

Bede linked to

what

he

got

from

Jerome.32

he

29

Cicero, Epistulae

dfamiliares .12.3.

30

The first uotation s fromHunter Blair, The HistoricalWritings f the Venerable Bede,

p. 202,

the second from

Jones,

Saints'

Lives,

p.

83.

31

Between 709

and

716;

theHE

was apparently

inished

n

731, except perhaps

for

the preface

and

the

autobiographical

conclusion.

See

M. L.

W.

Laistner,

A

Hand-List

of

Bede

Manuscripts

(Ithaca, N.Y., 1943), pp. 44, 94.

32

Augustine,De consensu

vangelistarum.1.2-3, CSEL 43.

Cf.

Bede,

In

Lucam 1, lines 1911-

1918.


7/21

Bede's Vera Lex

Historiae 7

great part of Bede's

briefexposition came fromAdversus elvidium.

Patrem

salvatoris ppellat [Evangelista]

oseph

non quo vere iuxta Fotinianos pater

fueriteius sed quo

ad famam Mariae conservandam pater sit

ab omnibus

aestimatus. 33n AdversusHelvidiumthe same thought, n much the same

words but without

the

mention of the

Photinians,34

ies several sentences

beyond

the

statement

rom

whichBede drew the

crux

of

his next

observation:

Neque enim oblitus

evangelista quod eam

spiritu sancto concepisse

et vir-

ginem peperisse

narrarit ed opinionemvulgi exprimensquae

vera

historiae

lex est patrem loseph nuncupat Christi.

From opinionem onward the

words are

basically

Jerome's.35

Did Bede understand them? have no doubt

thathe possessed

the fulltext

ofAdversus elvidium,

otjust

excerpts

hat

might

have caused

him

to missthe

full

force

of

Jerome's

rhetorical ampaign.

In hisExpositio ctuum postolorum,

which was

completed

some years

before the work on Luke, Bede skillfully

compressed

an

argument

that runs through

more than three columns of the

Patrologia atina edition

of

Jerome's polemic.36

One

of his Christmas ermons

is fairly

ull

ofAdversus

elvidium.37

n

general

Bede was not a passivecopyist;

several studies now show that

it

was his

career-long habit to

appropriate

secondhand materialonly fterhaving

understood t.38

An

intelligent eading

of AdversusHelvidiumwould have

required

comprehension of the section

whichcontainsJerome's

vera

historiaeex.

One of the work's major arguments

begins there, and

on a late page Jerome refers back to

this

place

on the

assumption hatthe reader will ong since have gotten centralpoint.39 ede's

commrent n Luke

2.33-34 joins

the

two

sentences

that catch

the nub of

Jerome's

rhetorical

argument.

He seems to have

known

exactly

where the

main ideas lay.

Bede could not have thoughtthat the

great rule of biblical historywas to

record the vulgar

view,nor that uch an idea ever crossedJerome's

mind.

But

I

am sure too thatBede

had enough rhetorical ophistication o grasp

the

true

meaning of Jerome'svera historiaeex. One

passage

fromthe

Expositio

ctuum

Apostolorum

in

which work, as

I

have noted,

he used

Adversus

Helvidium will suffice o show it. In this place Bede expounds part of a

courtroomnarrative,

he

recital

of Hebrew

history

hat takes

up

nearly

ll of

Stephen's speech

before

the

Jerusalem

ouncil

of scribes nd

elders who were

33In Lucam 1, lines 1905-1908.

34

PL 23: 188.

35

In Lucam 1, lines 1908 -1911.

Cf. PL

23:187.

36

Bede, Expositio ctuumApostolorum

t

retractatio,

d.

M. L. W.

Laistner (Cambridge, Mass.,

1939), p. 11. Cf. Adversus elvidium, L 23:195-198.

37

Bedae Venerabilis

omeliarum

vangelii

libri

duo

1.5,

CCSL

122.

The

editor,

David

Hurst,

ascribesonly a few ines toAdversus elvidium, ut from ine 14 onward the deas and much ofthe

language show that Bede

wrote the sermon

with

Jerome's

work

in his

hands.

38

Robert B. Palmer,

Bede as a Textbook Writer:

A

Study

of hisDe arte

metrica,

PECULUM

34

(1959), 573-584;

Charles,W.

Jones, Bedae opera

de

temporibus

Cambridge, Mass., 1943), pp.

125-129; idem, Some Introductory emarks

on Bede's Commentary

n

Genesis,

Sacris

rudiri

19 (1969-70), 115-198; Paul Meyvaert, Bede

the

Scholar,

pp. 42-44.

39

PL 23:201.


8/21

8

Bede's Vera Lex Historiae

trying

im

for blasphemy gainst

the

holy place

and

the law.40

n the

Retrac-

tatio

n

ActusApostolorum, ritten bout thirty ears after the Expositio, ede

praises

in

general Stephen's ars loquendi, his or-atorical

kill. He says in

particular hatthemartyrwas shrewdtohave begun in a moderatevein,so as

to prepare the audience to listen at some length.4'

This remark continues a

line of rhetorical thought established long

before in the

Expositio,

n the

comment

on Acts

7.16. The verse contained a

factual detail thatwas irrecon-

cilable

with

certain texts

n

Genesis. Stephen gave the wrong burial place for

Jacob;

he used information romGenesis

33.19,

whichhas nothing o do with

the

question, nstead

of

the clear testimony f 23.3-20

and 49.29-33. Since it

would have been

unthinkable o attribute he

error to Stephen or Luke, Bede

laid the blame on opinio vulgi :

Verum eatus tephanus ulgo oquensvulgimagisndicendo equitur pinionem;

duas enimpariter arrationesoniungens, on tam

rdinem ircumstantisistoriae

quam causam de qua agebatur ntendit. ui

enim

nsimulabaturdversus

ocum

sanctum t

legem docuisse,pergit

ostendere

uomodo

lesus

Christus x

lege

monstretursse promissus

t

quod ipsi

nec tunc

Moysi

nec domino

nunc

servire

maluerint.42

The language

-

causam de qua agebatur, insimulabatur, ostendere,

monstretur

fits

he

courtroom. The members

of

the Jerusalem council

are said

to

be

vulgar presumably

ecause their

knowledge

of

Scripture

was

not

entirely

rudite.

n

any case,

Bede

argues

that

Stephen

did what the

oratorical

occasion

demanded.

The

martyr ept

n

mind two

narratives,

is

own

and one

thatwas fixed

n

opinion. His purpose was not

to correct ncidental

detailsthat

had

no

materialbearing

on the

main purpose

of the speech. To risk ffending

the audience on

the

wrongpoint,on a question

far smallerthan the one

really

at

issue,

would have

been

poor strategy.

When

on

minor mattersthe two

narratives

diverged,

there was

no

sense

in

preferring

he

actual ordo his-

toriae

f

the

truth

tself

mighthave caused a bog

of factualdoubt

in

the midst

of the

discourse. Hence, since Stephen was after

ll

speaking

to the

vulgar,

he followed with ll themore reason (magis) hecommon opinion about the

momentary opic

of

Jacob's grave

site and hastened

on undeterred to

sound

the

full

thunderof his major claim.

The

errorwas actually

he

audience's, and

Stephen repeated

it for

benign

rhetorical

reasons.

Not

entirely

atisfied

with his solution to the factual

problem,

Bede

wrote:

This

I

have said as

best I

can

without

prejudice

for a betteropinion, should

one come

along. 43

This

uneasy

remarkmakes

t certain

hat

he fashionedthe

exegesis

of

Acts 7.16

on his

own,

fromhis own

knowledge

of

the

possible place

of

opinio

n

a

forensic narrative.

From

Adversus

elvidiumBede could have

40Expositio

ActuumApostolorum

t retractatio,p.

32-33.

41

Ibid.,

p. 118.

42

Ibid., pp.

32-33.

43

Haec, ut

potui, dixi, non

praeiudicanssententiaemeliori

i

adsit.

Ibid., p.

33. The

Retrac-

tatio see

p. 131) shows that a better

opinion

never

arrived.


9/21

Bede's

Vera

Lex

Historiae

9

extrapolated

the

principle

that

a truthful

narrator

may sometimes

make

a

tactical

use

of vulgar

opinion

even

if

it

is false. But

no amount

of

inference

from

Jerome's

vera

historiae

ex

could

have equipped

him

to

manipulate

this

traitof probable narrative

n

a

forensic

way.

He handled

the

courtroom

language

and

rhetorical

theory

with

aplomb,

as

if he

had learned

it

from

literature

hat

directly

deals

in

it.

The

general

scholarly

view

is that

the library

at

Monkwearmouth

and

Jarrow

held

no

rhetorical

manual

other

than

Isidore

of Seville's

Etymologiae,

Book

Two.

Perhaps

the abbey

owned

a

copy

of the nstitutiones

f

Cassiodorus,

but this

s

far

from

certain.44

At

any

rate,

neither

work explains

the

function

of opinion

in

narratio

robabilis.

he

recent

critical

edition

of Bede's

De

orthographia,

e schematibus

t

tropis,nd

De

artemetrica

hows

that

he

consulted

at first and more than twenty

rammars

nd

grammarians.45

f in all

their

apparent

zeal

to multiply

rammars

Benedict

Biscop

and

Ceolfrid,

thegreat

builders

of

the abbey

library,

othered

to collect

from ll their

travels

o

the

continent

not one

rhetor

other

than

Isidore,

one

certainly

wonders why.

A

generation

after

Bede Cicero's

De inventione

eems

to have

been

vigorously

studied

at

York.46

Bede's

exegesis

of

Acts 7.16 amply

llustrates

hat

monastic

scholars

could put

some

aspects

of

forensic

hetoric

o

good

use

indeed.

The

comments

n

thistext

nd

on Luke

2.33-34

involved

major

doctrinal

ssues:

on

the

one hand,

the reliability

f

scriptural

history;

n

the

other,

the

virgin

birth

of

Jesus.

Surely

Bede

gave

his own students

an introduction

to

the

rhetorical houghtnecessaryto protectthe faith.

A

passage

from

Bede's

commentary

n

Samuel

suggests

that

his

library

contained

pagan

works

that

were,

as

we

might

say,

classified

materials,

n-

tended

only

for

the

eyes

of authorized

persons

and

not

for

general

reading.

The eruditus

might

profit

from

them

in his

own private

study,

discuss

them

cautiously

n the classroom,

or

apply

things

from

them

n his works,

probably

withoutquotations

or

citations,

but

he would

not have

allowed

unattended

persons

to inspect

these

books,

for fear

of seeing

them

confused by,

for

example,

the Ciceronianism

hatonce put

Jerome

n

peril

of

his soul.

In

the

treatise n Samuel, reflecting n Jerome'sLetter 22 and in factquoting the

famous

words non christianus,

ed Ciceronianus

of the

dream

it

re-

lates,

Bede

entered

the usual Christian

demurrers

about

the heathen

litera-

ture

but

immediately

dded

that

the

highly

earned

may

use

it

to avoid

error

44

Laistner's

ist of

thebooks

known

to Bede

stillreflects

he prevailing

view of

his

rhetorical

reading:

see The Library

f the Venerable Bede,

in his The ntellectual

eritage

f

he

arly

Middle

Ages Ithaca,

N.Y.,

1957), pp. 117-159,

which first

ppeared

in

Thompson,

ed.,

Bede

pp.

237-

266.

In

the first

olume

of a

newedition

of Bede's

school

treatises,

harles

Jones,

the

principal

editor, tatesthatCassiodorus's nstitutionesas probably

t

Wearmouth

and

Jarrow;

ee

Bede,

Opera

didascalica,

,

CCSL 123A, p.

2.

But if a

work

so

congenial

to Bede's

purposes

had been

in

the

abbey library,

would

it not

have

left unmistakable

traces

in his

writings?

45

Opera

didascalica,

:2,

HereJones

giveshis

ist f

grammatical

iteraturecertainly

r almost

certainly

known to

Bede; another

eightitems are

said

to have

been

probably

or possibly

available.

46

Peter

Hunter

Blair,

From

Bede

to

Alcuin,

in Bonner,

ed., Famulus

Christi,

. 253.


10/21

10 Bede's VeraLex Historiae

(as

he did

in

the comment on Acts 7.16). Indeed the teacher who effectively

rules his pupils believes that

he must sometimesbe helped by the arguments

and opinions [argumentis ive sententiis]

f the

gentiles. 47What

were these

dangerous but valuable pagan works? The nature of Jerome's letter and

Bede's reference

to

arguments

and

opinions suggest

the

rhetors.

Direct quotations are

not the only index to Bede's knowledge of classical

literature.His practice

of

pagan

argumentaive ententiaes certainly

nother,

though

it

may

not

always lead

to a specific text.

If

his works contain no

firsthand orrowings rom,

ay,

Cicero's De inventione,is unmistakable

ppli-

cation of a forensicprinciple

n the commenton

Acts 7.16 proves

thathe was

not entirely ut offfrom ncient

rhetorical hought. am sure thatfairly arly

in his career, before he wrotethe expositionof Acts,not to mention

n Lucam,

Bede knewthe correctrhetorical ole of vulgar opinion. When

he excerpted

Adversus elvidium

orhis

nterpretation

f

Luke 2.33 -34, he learned nothing

new about whatJerome calls vera historiaeex. He copied these

words into n

Lucam

without

xplanatory

remark or the mention of his patristic uthority.

Apparently

he

assumed that

theirrhetoricalmeaning would come readily to

the

reader's mind which

says something about

the

monastic

curriculum.

From

all

his biblical

studies

Bede would

have concluded

that

historians

ought

to write from

the

best

sources.

In

his

comment on Luke 1.1-4 he

emphasizes

that

the

Evangelists,

unlike the writers

f

apocrypha, spoke

ver-

itas historiae not only

because

of

their

nspiration

ut also because of

eyewit-

ness

information.48 e

realized thatthe sacred historians

racticed

their

raft

with ome didactic freedom.49

hroughout

his

work as an

exegete,

however,

Bede

took

for

granted

that the biblical narrators

gave

actual facts on

good

authority.

n the rare instances

when details were

clearlywrong,

t

was

always

because

the

scriptural

uthors had reason to

express

the

vulgaropinion.50

It

was,

of

course, mperative

o know

why

he

writers

ccasionallydeparted

from

the

truth f

history

n

this

way.

Yet

for

both

Jerome

and

Bede the

rhetorical

rule

that

aused

the

biblical

narrators

o

take

the mistaken

popular

view was

a

seldom practiced

and

altogether

minor

principle

of biblical

history.

t could

not have become the major premise of the HE.

III

The

truth

s that

when

Bede

used the

term

vera ex

historiae

n the

commen-

tary

n

Luke and

then

again

in

the

preface

of the

HE, nothing

emained n

the

second instance

but

the

words.

The

meaning

had

completely

hanged.

He

was

still

alking

bout

a

true aw of

history,

ut

there was no

thought

f rhetorical

probability. n the preface

the rue aw of

history espected

the

factual

basis

of

edifying

narrative.

t was

in

fact

the

antithesis

f

Jerome's

vera historiae

ex,

47

Bede,

In

primam artem amuhelis ibri uattuor

,

lines

2173-2196,

CCSL

119.

48

Bede, In

Lucam 1, lines 12-56.

49

See Ray,

Bede, pp.

129-132.

50In Lucam 2, lines 1905-1911; Expositio ctuum

postolorumt

retractatio,

p. 32-33, 57-58,

131 -132.


11/21

Bede's Vera Lex Historiae

11

which authorized the

momentary trategicuse of informationknown to be

patently

alse.

As

for Bede's own vera exhistoriae, hich appears only in the

HE,

it

contained

historiographical

deas that were exemplified

in

several

available works,

one of them

pagan.

Bede wrote the words, it seems, with

Isidore of Seville mainly

on his mind,

not

Jerome,though

he

surelytook

the

term tselffromAdversus elvidium.

The preface is built upon the exordial topoi

that came into Christian

historiography romclassical

literature.51

n

the conventionalway Bede first

addresses a friendly eader,

King

Ceolwulf of Northumbria, nd triesto put

him n a docile mood.52Within hiscommonplace he

sets another,thatof the

moral utility f history.53 t the end of the address to

Ceolwulf,Bede turns o

a

larger

audience

and

develops

at

length

the

topos

of

sources.54

t

affirms is

own

credibility,

nd for

exactly

hisreason

subsumes

his

vera

ex

historiae. hen

he finishes heprefacewith he topical statement fauthorialmodesty, sking

prayers that God take pity

on the weaknesses both of mind and body

in

whichhe has worked.55 o an earlier

book

of historia,

he

separate prose lifeof

St.

Cuthbert,

Bede affixed

preface written,

s he

remarks,

iuxta morem. 56

Whatever

may

have been his

literarymodels,

he

practiced

the

Latin exordial

mores rather well. The

preface of the HE is a skillfulweb of long-standing

commonplaces, and they

all function

n

the traditionalway.

There is genuine sentiment

n

them. Clearly

Bede hoped that Ceolwulf

would

measure himself

by the famous men

of

our nation, especially the

godlyNorthumbriankingsof the seventh entury.57he statement fhumil-

ityreflects ife when he wrote

the

preface,

Bede was an old and perhaps

sick man.58

The

sheer

size of the discussion

of

sources

is an

idiosyncracy.

f

51

For the

prefatory ommonplaces

of ancient and

medieval

historiography,

ee the helpful

surveys

f Elmar Herkommer,

Die

Topoi

n denProomien

errbmischen

eschichtswerkeTubingen,

1968), and Gertrud

Simon,

Untersuchungen

zur

Topik

der

Widmungsbriefe

mittelalterlicher

Geschichtsschreiber

is

zum Ende des

12.

Jahrhunderts, ArchivfiirDiplomatik

(1958),

52-119,

and

continued

in 5-6

(1959-60),

73-153.

52

HE

Praef.,

p.

2: Gloriosissimo egi

Ceoluulfo

Beda famulus

Christi

..,

etc. Herkommer,

Die Topoi,

pp.

22-34; Simon, Untersuchungen,

pt.

1,

pp.

54-86.

53

HE Praef.,

P.

2:

Sive enimhistoria

de

bonis bona referat

.., etc.

Herkommer,

Die

Topoi,

pp.

128-135; Simon,

Untersuchungen,

pt.

2,

pp.

94-112.

54

HE Praef.,p. 2:

Ut autem

in his quae scripsi

vel tibi vel ceteris auditoribus

sive

lectoribus

huius

historiae

occasionem

dubitandi

subtraham

.

.,

etc. Herkommer,

Die Topoi,

pp.

86-102;

Simon,

Untersuchungen,

pt.

2,

pp.

89-94

and

pt. 1,

pp.

87-98.

55

HE

Praef.,p. 6:

Praeterea

omnes

..

.

legentes

ive audientes suppliciter recor,

ut

pro meis

infirmitatibus

t mentis

t

corporis

.

.,

etc. Herkommer,

Die Topoi,pp. 52-59;

Simon,

Unter-

suchungen,

pt.

1,

pp.

109-117.

56

Vita

Sancti

CuthbertiuctoreBeda

Praef.,

ed. Bertram Colgrave,

Two Lives of Saint

Cuthbert

(1939; repr.,

New York, 1969), p.

142.

57

See

J.

M.

Wallace-Hadrill,

Gregoryof Tours and Bede: Their Views on the Personal

Qualities

of

Kings,

Friihmittelalterlichetudien (1968),

31-44;

repr., dem,

EarlyMedieval

History

(London,

1976), pp.

96-1114.

58

The preface was

written

t some time fter

he narrative,

whichends

in 731, was finished,

s

is clear from

HE Praef.,p. 2.

Bede was

too ill to travel

n

the

autumn of 734 (see

his Epistola d

Ecgbertum,d.

Plummer,Opera historica,

:405) and

died

the next

year.


12/21

12

Bede'sVera

Lex

Historiae

one can udge

frompublished

surveys

f the exordial

rhetoric

n ancient

and

medieval

historiography,

heHE is

highly nusual

in the

amount of

space

and

detail

t

gives

to this ommonplace.59

ormost

Latin writers few entences

f

general

comment

were

enough.

In the latestedition

of the HE the

topos

fills

two

pages with

mpressively pecific nd comprehensive nformation bout

sources.

Bede

did not

go

to all thistrouble

iuxta morem.

A

more mmediate

purpose

must

have prompted

him.

Beginning

with his

information

about

the English

church

below

the

Humber,

Bede emphasizes

that all

his southern materials,

ncluding

what

he

calls

traditio seniorum

and traditio priorum,

came to

him

through

the

mediation

of good

and

sometimes

erudite

ecclesiasticalhelpers.60

He

men-

tions

them,

some

by

name.

Abbot

Albinus of Canterbury,

a man

most

learned

in

all things,

had

been

the

preeminent

ource,

auctor

ante

omnes.

Through his aid Bede had even been able to studyKentishChristianityn the

days

of

the

Gregorian

missionaries

partly,

though

indirectly,

from

monimenta

litterarum,

eliable written

nformation.

A priest of

London

named

Nothelm,

under the guidance

of

Albinus,

had

gone

abroad

to

search

the papal

archives

for

Roman sources

relevant to

Augustine's

mission.

Bede

cites others

who had

put

him in touch

with the South

-

Bishop

Daniel of

Winchester,

n

East

Anglian

abbot called Esi,

the monks

of Lastingham,

Bishop

Cynibert

f

Lindsey,

and

other

faithful

men. The

point

is

that the

southern

nformation

was

responsibly,

ven

officially, athered.

For the history f the North therewere innumerablefaithfulwitnesses

who

either knew

fromactual

experience

or somehow

remembered

the facts.

Overseeing

the northern

research

was an

eruditus,

ede

himself;

for the

region above

the

Humber he played

the role thatAlbinus

had performed

for

the

South.

Of

course Bede

followed

his own

personal

knowledge

of

North-

umbria,

things

which

I

myself

have

been able

to

learn.

The

life of

St.

Cuthbert, great

desideratum,

he took

mainly

from

the

authorized

Lindis-

farnevita.

He read

it,

s

he

says,

simpliciter

idemhistoriae

..

accomodans,

as

if the

volume

were unalterably

rue.

Bede

explains

that

he

had

augmented

it, s before n the separateprose lifeof thesaint,fromhis own knowledgeor

the

testimony

f

trustworthy eople.

On the

whole the

long topos

of sources

says

more

by

far about

reliable

informants

nd

respectable

written

nformation han about

common report.

It reflects,

ndeed

displays,

n

awareness

of the kinds

of sources

that

historians

were

supposed

to

prefer.

Yet Bede

does not leave

the

impression

that his

narrative

ests

n the main

on

eyewitness

ccounts

and

credible

writings

whose

truthhe could

personally

recognize.

In

a

deeply

felt tatement

he concludes

the

topos

with the

acknowledgment

that a

large part

of his

source

material no doubt includingmost of what he got fromAlbinus and the

other

dentified ontributors

was

fama

vulgans,

oral

tradition

he factual

59

See

the

literature

ited

above,

note

54.

60

For

the

following

ee

HE

Praef.,

pp.

2-6.


13/21

Bede's

Vera LexHistoriae

13

quality of

which he

was

himself n a poor position

to

judge.

I offer

the

following

revision

of Colgrave's translation:

I humbly

mplore hereader hat e not mpute

tto me f

n what havewrittene

finds nythingther han hetruth. or, n accordancewith true awof history,

havetried o set

down

n

a simple tylewhat havecollected

rom ommon

eport,

for he

nstructionf posterity.6'

This vera lex

historiae annot mean

thetrue law of

history, or it is clearly

subordinate

o

veritas,

he

governing

deal of the

topos

of sources.

It

is equally

clear thatthis

truth

espects

factual ccuracy nd

thatthe disclaimer odged

in his vera exhistoriaepplies

to factual

rror. Bede would never have

thought

that a veteran Christian

teacher might

disown theological and moral

errors

repeated even innocently

n

a written

work. When he published the

HE, he

was confident

hat n one sense itwas true throughout true to theCatholic

faith,

Roman

obedience,

and the practice of the Christian

ife. It

makes no

difference hatBede wanted his narrative

o edify,nor

thathe loved to record

miracle stories.

n

a

long

tradition

f historicalwriting, e thought

that one

gives moral

lessons only fromevents

that really

took place, and he believed,

based

on a Christian onception of historical

eality, hat saintlywonders

are

undoubtedly among the

things that

actually happen.62 History

was, by

definition,

narrativeof literal deeds

and words,

events reported secun-

dum

litteram. 63

or Bede, as

for

Jerome,

the true aw of historywas

to write

instructive actual narrative,whetherof kings or of saints.

His vera exhistoriae

as a related

but

different

ule. It

recognized

thatBede

had

no choice

but to work

from ources

thathe could

not

always,

r even

very

often,personallyappraise.

Eyewitness estimony

was but a small

part

of

his

materials;besides,

the closer he came

to his own

day,

when

firsthandwitnesses

would have

been most

helpful,

he ess

he

wrote. Of

written

ources

he seems

to

have had

short upply:

some

regnal

and

episcopal

lists,

few

etters,

ertain

conciliardocuments,

small

number

of

hagiographical

vitae,perhaps

annals

written

on

Easter tables,

a half dozen

or so

works of

largely peripheral

interest,ikeOrosius's Historiae, nd little lse.64Through mostof his narra-

61

Ibid., pp.

6-7.

62

From

a

broad knowledge

of

Bede's works,

Jan

Davidse, Beda

Venerabilis'

nterpretatie

an de

historische

erkelijkheid

Groningen,

1976),

pp. 22-54,

has argued

that Christian

iewof

historical

reality, uite

apart from

hifting

ttention

way from

oncrete

xperience,reinforced

n interest

n

actual facts.

Central

to Bede's notion

of history, avidse says,

s

the

assumption

that

a

useful

exemplum

s

one thatdepicts

ventsthat

really ook

place. For

if worthy

eeds once happened,

they

could,

through

mitation,

appen again. Secularized,

thisbelief

was

familiar o classical

practition-

ers of exemplary historiography.

ede's most

vigorous

ffirmation

f factual

history

ies in the

preface

to his separate

prose

lifeof St. Cuthbert;

ee Vita

ancti

Cuthberti

raef.,

d. Colgrave,

Two

Lives, pp. 142-146.

63

Bede,

De tabernaculo ,

lines 784-785,

CCSL

119A:

Historia namque

est cum res aliqua

quomodo

secundumlitteram

acta ive dicta

sit

plano sermone

refertur....

The factualbasis

of

history,s

I shallpresently

how,

wasrigorously

tressed y sidore

of

Seville, tymologiae

.41.1-

2,

1.44.4-5.

For

him narrative hat

acked factual

substance

wasfabula.

or argumentum.

64

See

Colgrave's

summary

f Bede's

written ources

in

HE, pp.

xxxi-xxxiv.


14/21

14

Bede's Vera LexHistoriae

tive Bede wrote ama vulgante

ecause

there

was no other

way. Some

of

his

common

reportwas

more

than a century ld;

the whole

body

of

t

was seldom

if

ever

verifiable.65 ede believed, as the last

paragraph of the preface em-

phasizes, that thefama was worthy

f

memory

nd

accepted

as true

in

its

native

regions.66As

I

shall stress gain

in

a

moment,

he

was satisfied hatthe

common

reportwas trustworthyo

far

as responsible

ecclesiasticalmen

could

say.Shaped without nternal

hange

into a

larger

narrative

design,

the

tradi-

tionswere acceptable to give the

English people

some

first essons

in

their

ecclesiastical

istory. y

the standardsof Latin

historiography, owever,

Bede

could not himself

retend

to know whether

hefama

was

fully

rue to fact.To

confirm

t

there were neither

yewitnesses

nor sober works.

Bede would not

have

written romcommon

report

f

there had

not

been good precedent

for

doing so. He felt ure thatthe received

genre

of

history

uthorized the

use

of

unprovable oral traditions,bettersources failing,so long as he made no

personal commitment

to their

factual

truth. This

was

his, though

not

Jerome's,

vera lex historiae.Within the

topos

of

sources,

it

permitted

him

to

embrace unverifiable

popular

informationwithout

calling

into

question

his

own

respect

for the ideal of truth.

For Jerome and Bede the words true law of

history

meant

different

things, but on

the rhetorical level both

writers

used them in

the

same

way to draw striking ttention o

historiographical

notions

that were

ur-

gently

mportant.

Bede's law was a combinationof

long-established rem-

ises.The disclaimer ixed n itwasa classical dea availabletohim nat leasttwo

places.

The

first, late pagan work, was Julius

Solinus's Collectanea erum

memorabilium,

ftencalled

Polyhistor,

hich

was a minor source for

Bede's De

temporum

atione

725)

and the first ook of theHE

.67 The second

was Jerome's

version of

Eusebius's

Chronicon,

hich Bede

used

in

many connections.

Both

Solinus

and

Eusebius

take

an

attitude

that

was,

according

to

Seneca,

wide-

spread

among

ancient historians.

When

they

annot

be

sure of their

nforma-

tion,

historians

lways say,

wrote

Seneca, Liability

or

the truth

hall lie

with

the sources. 68

Clearly

Bede's vera ex historiae

eaves all

responsibility

or

the

factualtruthto sources of which he could not be altogethersure. Now the

writing

f

history

from oral traditions

was

practiced

by

so

many

Christian

authors familiar

o Bede

(Gregory

the

Great

and

Gregory

of

Tours,

to name

just two)

that t would

hardly

seem to have needed

any

defense.

He

gives

his

vera

ex

historiae ithout

xplanation

or the mention of an

authority,

s

if

it

65

On

the oral traditions ee David

P.

Kirby,

Bede's Native Sources fortheHistoria

cclesiastica,

Bulletin f the ohnRylands ibrary

8

(1966),

341-371.

66

HE Praef.,p. 6: . . . qui de singulisprovinciis ive ocis sublimioribus, uae memoratudigna

atque incolis grata credideram,diligenter dnotare

curavi....

67

Jones,Bedae opera

de

temporibus,p. 239, 245;

HE

1.1,

note

1, p.

14.

68

Seneca, Naturales uaestiones .3.1: Penes auctores fides

erit.

Cf. Solinus, Collectanea erum

memorabiliumraef., d. Theodor E. Mommsen Berlin, 1895), p. 2: . . . constantia eritatis enes

eos est,quos secuti umus. Eusebius leaves the reader to decide the truth f some of his nforma-

tion: Verum

utcumque quis volet, omputet.

ee Die Chronik es

Hieronymus,

d.

Helm, p.

9. For

further

xamples

of this

attitude,

ee

Simon, Untersuchungen,

pt.

1, pp. 87-98.


15/21

Bede's Vera Lex

Historiae

15

were well established.

Yet he

states

t with mphatic and cautious

words,as if

the point were somehow

n question. And it comes, as I have already

noted, at

the end of a topos

that Bede took to extraordinary engths, as if

his own

authorial truthfulnesswere under some threat. All this he does,

I believe,

because of what s said

in

Isidore's Etymologiae,

hichcontainsthe onlydiscus-

sion

of the

genre

of

history ertainly

nown

to have been in the

abbey ibrary.

Commenting

on historiography,sidore affirms

he

ideal

of factual truth

withunprecedented rigor.69 istoria s unlikefabula,

he

says, because

it nar-

rates real

events,or,

as he remarks

n

a slightly

ater section, true eventsthat

reallyhappened. 70 The word history omes

fromthe Greek historein, hich

means

to

see

and comprehend. Therefore history roper is a record

of events

literally ithin ight

f the narratorhimself.

Apparently arried awaywith he

etymology, nd in a style that the following

translation tries to

preserve,

Isidore explains:

For among he ancients o one wrote istory

xcepthe who tookpart

n and saw

what e recorded. or

t s better o discover y

eeing han ocollect yhearing. or

things hat re seen

are publishedwithoutying.7'

On this

howing

any history ut what one writesfrompersonal experience

is

not worth the risk.

The

gaucherie

of the repeated for (enim) s only one thing

that led

Jacques Fontaine to decide that the stringent mphasis on autopsy was Isi-

dore's

own accent.72 need

hardlypoint out

thatthe remark bout

the veteres

shows

how little sidore knew about them.

What

would

have

astonished Bede

is that ven the biblicalnarratives o not always

fit sidore's definition

f deal

history.

t

excludes,

for

thatmatter,nearly

ll the

historiographical

iterature

known to Bede.

In

any event, he knew that

there was more

to the genre of

history han sidore allows. On Isidore's strict

erms,none of Bede's

historical

works

or Isidore's)

could have been written. he HE would have been

simply

unthinkable.

There may well be an interplaybetween

Isidore's discussion and

Bede's

sentence that contains veralexhistoriae:

ISIDORE

BEDE

Apud

veteres

nimnemo onscribebat

Lectoremque uppliciter

bsecro

ut,

historiam,

isi s

qui interfuisset,

t ea

siqua

in

his

quae scripsimus

liter

quae

conscribenda

essent vidisset.

quam se veritas habet

posita rep-

Meliusenim

oculis

quae

fiunt

epre-

pererit,

on hoc nobis

inputet,

ui,

hendimus, uam

quae

auditione

ol- quod

vera ex historiae

st,

impliciter

legimus. Quae

enim

videntur,

ine

ea

quae

fama

vulgante ollegimus

d

69

Etymologiae .41.1-2.

70

Ibid., 1.44.5.

71 Ibid., 1.41.1-2.

72

Jacques

Fontaine,

sidore

eSeville t a

culture

lassique

ans 'Espagnewisigothique,

Paris,1959),

180-183.


16/21

16

Bede's VeraLex

Historiae

mendacio

proferuntur.

aec disci- instructionem

osteritatisitteris an-

plina

pertinet d

Grammaticam,uia dare studuimus.73

quidquid memoria

ignum

st itteris

mandatur.

Isidore leaves the

impression that oral sources

of information re all but

illegitimate,

ontrary

to the rule of historical

truth,

nd that

anyone

who

writes

from them is

likely

to be

a liar. Bede asserts

that

the

historian s

not

personally

at fault

if, quod

vera lex historiae

est,

he sets

down

edifying

things

fromcommon

report

and

in

so

doing unwittingly epeats

errors con-

cealed

in his

sources. sidore's

quae [fiunt]

uditione

collegimus

functions o

discourage

what

Bede's

ea

quae fama

vulgante

collegimus provisionally

endorses,

and the two authors use

even

more similar

words,

litteris

man-

datur and litterismandare, in connectionwithwidely differing iews of

what

s

worthy

f written

ecord.

The

opposition

of deas

makes

the

similarity

of

language

and

syntax

ll the more

interesting.

However much Bede

owed to

him, he wasmany times t

odds with sidore,

and the

animus seems

to

have

grown

progressively tronger.

Two of

his

earliest

racts,

e

temporibus

nd

De

natura

rerum,were

written

artly o correct

or

replace things

aid

by

his

Spanish

forerunner, hough

Bede never

names

him. In two

major works fromthe last decade

of his life,Bede

calls Isidore's

name forthe first imes ver, and in

each of

these three nstances t s to refute

him, once with ome scorn. At this tage he also continued to correct sidore

without

mentioninghim, s

I

believe he

does

in

the

etter o

Ceolwulf.74

hen

occasional

criticism

ave way

to

stern

polemic

in

Bede's last

days and weeks.

Cuthbert,

a former

student who

wrote what is

generally accepted as an

eyewitness

ccount of

Bede's

final llness nd death, reports

hatnear the end

his masterwas so set against

certaincontents f

Isidore'sDe

natura rerum

that

he used

flaggingenergies

to

finish quasdam

exceptiones,

dicens

'Nolo

ut

pueri

mei mendacium

legant,

et in

hoc

post meum obitum

sine

fructu abo-

rent'. The angry words

ascribed to Bede

-

I do not want

my studentsto

read a lie and to waste effort n this

book after am gone

-

make

it

plain

that Cuthbert took exceptiones in the classical sense, to mean exceptions,

not excerpts,

contrary to

what scholars from Mabillon to

Colgrave have

thought.75 uthbert

laims that

Bede completed a Latin

opusculum

ntended at

least to steer his

pupils away

fromthe lie

in

Isidore'sDe

natura

rerum,

f

not

73

Etymologiae .41.1-2; HE Praef.,

p. 6.

74

For

details

about Bede's attitude

oward

sidore,

see

Laistner,

The

Library

f the Venerable

Bede, pp. 138-139;

Jones,Bedae opera

de

temporibus,p.

131-132;

and

esp.

Meyvaert,

Bede

the

Scholar, pp. 58-60.

Bede criticizes sidore by name twice n the Retractatio

n Acts (Expositio

Actuum postolorum

t

etractatio,p.

96, 145)

and once in De

temporum

ationeed. Jones,Bedae opera

de temporibus,. 247); in the last case the scorn comes out.

75

See

Epistola

Cuthberti

e obitu

edae,

most

recently

d.

Colgrave

and

printed

s an

appendix

to

HE, pp. 580-586; for the comment

bout Isidore, p. 582.

The translations mine. Meyvaert, n

Bede the Scholar, p. 59, was

the first cholar to publisha correctreading

of Cuthbert'swords

about

Bede's

polemic

against

Isidore.

W. F.

Bolton, Epistola

uthbertie obitu

edae:

A

Caveat,

Mediaevalia thumanistica,

. s.

1

1970),

127-139,

has

argued

thatCuthbert's etter s

poor

evidence

for the biography

of

Bede. Bolton's case against

the

Epistola

s not convincing.


17/21

Bede's

VeraLex

Historiae

17

to quash

the

whole

book.

It is not

surprising

hat this iber xceptionum

s

now

lost,

for

Isidore's

eighth-century

eputation

was

almost that

of an

official

Doctor

of the Church.

Bede

attacked

his

errorsprecisely

because

his

works

were

everywhere.

Bede wrotetheHE duringthe same decade whenhis long-standing kepti-

cism about

Isidore

sank

into apparent

bitterness.

Hence

if the preface veils

a

quarrel

with

he encyclopedist,

his

ime bout

the genreof history,

t

certainly

fits

nto

an increasingly

harged

attitudinal

ontext.

No doubt

some,

probably

many,

of Bede's

public

had read

the Etymologiae

n

historiography.

The

discussion

would

have

been

nearly

unavoidable;

it comes

in

the

long section

on

grammar,

he

major

discipline

of

the monastic

iberal

rts.

The memorable

distinction

between

oculis

deprehendere

nd

auditione

collegere

might

have

prompted

a

fewto

wonder

whether

he

HE

conformed

to its

genre

or, worse,

was a mendaciousbook. In theabbeyschoolBede musthave openlycriticized

Isidore's

ideas

about

historical

writing,

t

least to

defend

the

practices

of

authors

ike Luke.

If

in the

preface

of the

HE he

used

Isidore's

own words

to

state n anti-Isidoran

position,

he

rony

would

not

have

been lost

on his

more

alert students.

Cuthbert

would

have

caught

it.

Actually

Cuthbert

writes

s if

Bede's deathbed

broadside

against

Isidore

was

part of the

virtue

that

caused

his

teacher to

die

in the

beauty

of

holiness.

At any rate,

Bede

found

forceful

anguage

to brace his

prefatory

tance

against

any

detractors.

A

great

master supplied

the

rhetoric. Plainly

Bede

understood thatJerome'swords verahistoriaeex were a literary rtifice,

polemical

contrivance

used to correct

a

misleading

teacher,

and that

they

might

well

be

employed

to stress

ny principle

f

history.

hrough

them

Bede

expressed

not

the

rhetorical

premise

that Helvidius

had

ignored

but

the

specifically

istoriographical

otions

that nother

troublesome

eacher

had

all

but

denied.

In Bede's

hands the words

vera

ex

historiae,

n the

one side,

appeal

to

the

circumstances

nder

which

the

historian,

aving

no

choice,

s

permitted

to treat

parts

of his

story

rom low

grade

of source material,

ommon

report;

on

the

other, they

ssign

all

liability

or

the factual

truth o the ama

vulgans

itself.For all thosewho thoughtthattheEtymologiae as a standard literary

authority,

he

display

of

Jerome's

anguage

would have

emphasized

that

the

genre

of

history

llowed

Bede to do without

ying

what n the encyclopedia

s

said

to

be

nearly

mpossible.

The rest

of the

ong

topos

of sources exhibits,

s

I

have pointed

out,

proper

respect

for the

kinds

of

information

hat

were

generally

hought

to be

trustworthy.

s

a

whole

Bede's

development

of

the

topos

is

an effective ounterweight

o the

Etymologiae.

In the

preface

Bede

is cautious

about

hisfama

vulgans,

ut

n the main

body

of

the

work

he

proceeds

as

if t tells

for the most

part

what

really

occurred.

t

is important o recognizethatthecommonreport s never called opinio ulgi,

which

for

Bede

was

almost

a technical

term,

used

to

designate

erroneous

popular

beliefs

about

history.76

he folk traditions

f the

HE are said

to

be

traditio eniorum,

traditio

riorum,

traditio

malorum,

historia,

nd

in

76

See,

in

addition to the places

citedin note 50, Bede's

Epistola d

Pleguinam, d. Jones,

Bedae

opera

de

temporibus,

p. 313-3

14.


18/21

18

Bede's Vera LexHistoriae

the preface

alone fama vulgans. 77

More typically

Bede implies his oral

information

with verbs and locutions

like fertur, perhibentur,

nd

ut

aiunt. On

rare occasions the single word

opinio meanis

ommon report,but

the term pinio ulgi neverappears in the

HE.78

This pattern s tooconsistent

to have been

accidental.

Bede's ecclesiastical ntermediaries,

Albinus and the

-others,must have recommended

their

ocal traditions s true so far

as could

be told;

thiswas surelyhis own udgment

on the northernfama.

hus he did

not write

historyfrom opiniovulgi but

from oral traditions

that respected

people viewed

with favor.

From another angle

opiniovulgi

and the common

report

of

the HE were

different.

ne was

unmistakably

alse historical

nformation,

while

the

other

was popular history

he

factual

reliability

f which

Bede could neither

fully

affirm

nor

fully deny.

If it

would

have

seemed

grotesque

to write a

long

narrative

romthe

one,

it

was

worrying

nough

to think f

trusting

most of

a

book

to the

other.

The unknown

factual

quality

of

fama

vulgans

concerned

Bede

in

various

ways.

For

example, though

unwritten

hagiographical

lore

sometimes

chieved

a certain

fixity,

ess

highly harged

and

precious

material

would

have

varied

a

good

deal

in the

retelling.

he

anonymousWhitby

ita of

Gregory

the

Great

illustrates

omething

of the

problem

Bede faced. For

an

incident

n

the

ife

of

King

Edwin

of

Northumbria,

not of

Pope

Gregory,

he

author complains

that different

people

reported

different

hings.79

Bede

found

t

difficult

nough

to

gather

the ocal traditions

hat

finally

ame

to

him;

it would have been impossibleto collectand sortout all the variants n them.

For

his

separate prose

life of St.

Cuthbert,Bede conducted

what seems

to

have

been a

complicated

program

of research, consulting

and

consulting

again

with

persons

at Lindisfarne

o make

sure that

no

one would

question

the

narrative.80

here

was

no

possibility

f

doing

the same

thing

for

a

work

the

size

of the

HE.

Though

Bede tried

to

get

his oral

traditions

rom

responsible

churchmen,

he could not

be

sure that

other

knowledgeable persons

would

accept

the traditions

s

they

had

been sent

to him.

Then too

it must have troubled

Bede to think

how

much

opiniovulgi

was

hidingin thefama vulgans,for there was little hance of detecting t. From

bitter

xperience

he knew how

wrong

unlettered

folk could be when it came

to historical ruth.

Long

before

he wrote the

HE,

some Hexham

rustics,

s

he

calls

them,

ccused

him

of

heresy

for

having taught

hat here

was

less time

between

Adam and

Christthan

they

were

prepared

to believe.81

They

made

the

charge

at table

with

no

less

than

Bishop Wilfrid,

Bede's

diocesan. Bede

77

E.g., HE

Praef., pp.

4-6; 2.1, p. 132;

4.2, p. 404; 5.24, p.

566.

78

On this

practice

ee

Plummer'sdetailed note,Operahistorica,

xliv-xlv,

n. 3. For

opinio,

HE

2.1, pp. 132-134.

79

The WhitbyLife

urvives

n

a single

manuscript, t.

Gall MS 567, pp.75-110.

Itwas firstedited

by

Francis A. Gasquet,

A

Life of

Pope

St. Gregory

he

Great

Westminster,

904),

and then

(with

translation nd

notes) by

B. Colgrave, TheEarliest

ifeofGregoryhe

Great y

n Anonymous onk

of

Whitby

Lawrence,Kans.,

1968).

The referencehere

is to chapter 16 (Colgrave,

pp.

98-99).

80

Vita

Sancti Cuthbertiraef.,

ed.

Colgrave,

Two Lives,pp. 142-144.

81

On this affair ee

Jones,

Bedae

opera

de

temporibus,

p. 132-135.


19/21

Bede's Vera

Lex

Historiae

19

had formed

his view

from he study f Hebraica

veritas, erome's

translation f

the Hebrew

Old Testament.The

other opinion was a millenarian

hronology

thathad

grown fromthe Latin

version of

the Septuagint and was apparently

current n ecclesiastical nstruction

n

Northumbria.

Replying to the

charge,

Bede pronounced

it opinio vulgaris

and appealed

angrily to

the clear

testimony

f a betterbiblical

text.82 he whole affair

remained on

his mind

for many years.

It

must have

made

him

ask, as

he

began

to gather materials

for the HE, whether

common

people could be right

about English history

when n the presence

of bishops

theymightbe inflexibly

rong bout even the

sacred

past.

Folk traditions

were

not the ideal startfor

Latin

historiography,

nd Bede

knew t. His vera ex

historiae,hen,

s partly caveat, warning

the reader

that

hisfama

vulgansmaycontain factual

errors.As such it concedes

something

o

Isidore, though not much. Bede wrote thepreface n theconfidence hat his

authorial reputation

was

not at the mercy of the common

report, for the

genre

of history oth authorized

its use and protected

the historian

himself

against

the lies, factualerrors,

for which he could hardlybe held

responsi-

ble. Hence he offered his vera ex historiae

o assure his

readers of all this

especially,

t

seems,

those who were

closely

familiar

with

Isidore's views

of

historical

writing.

Nothing

but circumstances

made this

true aw of

history major

premise

of the HE.

It

was certainly

not

the

key

to Bede's

understanding

of

the

historian's ffice, or did itgovernthe whole of theHE. The assumption hat

the true

aw of history ules

the entire

narrative

may

cause one

to miss the

appearance

of other

historiographical

principles.

Once,

for

example,

Bede

refers

to

himself

s verax historicus,

nd some have concluded that

these

words reflect is vera exhistoriae,

ince

the true historian

beys

the

true

aw

of

history. 83

he term comes

in

his

account of

Bishop

Aidan of Lindis-

farne.84

Concluding

the section,

Bede laments

briefly

he

saintly

prelate's

failure to follow the

Roman date

of Easter. He

gives

Aidan the benefit f

a

doubt, allowing

that

the

authority

f his

people (the

force of

opinio

vulgi?)

mighthave caused him to keep the Irish calendar, and takes comfortto

observe

that the

bishop

at

least celebrated

Easter on

Sunday.

Though

Bede

eventually

emarks

hathe detests

the

error,

there

s

never

any

malice.

For

the

most part he had

tried, as he says,

to

present

Aidan

. . .

quasi

verax

historicus impliciter

a, quae

ray - bede's vera lex historia

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