196

LINGARD. LAPPENBERG.

[TESTIhigher praise than any other specimen of the age. to some readers the credulity of the writer with respect to miracles will appear a blemish; but no one can doubt his candour and veracity, nor rise from his pages without feeling himself pleased and edified with that spirit of unaffected piety 5 which pervades and animates his narrative.

XXIV

THE

HE reputation of Beda survived and grew after his death. the Saxons were proud that their nation had produced so eminent a writer; the monks of Wear- 10 mouth and Jarrow were harassed with solicitations for copies of his works; and, at the distance of a hundred years, the prelates of the Franks, in the council of Aix-laChapelle, numbered him among the fathers of the church, and styled him the venerable and admirable doctor. if the 15 improvements of modern times have diminished the value of his writings, this circumstance ought no more to detract from his merit, than it does from that of the philosophers of Greece and Rome. Beda was a great man for the age in which he lived; he would have been so had he lived in 20 any other age.

XXV

O one imparts to the age of the 'wisest king' [Aldfrith of Northumberland] greater brilliancy than [Beda], whose knowledge was profound and almost universal...... 25 if, on a consideration of his works, it must appear manifest that that age possessed more means of knowledge, both in manuscripts and learned ecclesiastics, than we are wont 7 ibid 183.

22 JM Lappenberg history of England under the Anglo-Saxon kings translated by B Thorpe (London 1845) I 209 210.

MONIA]

LAPPENBERG. GINZEL.

197 to ascribe to it; and even if we must recognise in Beda the high culture of the Roman church, rather than AngloSaxon nationality, yet the acknowledgement which his merits found in Rome during his life, and, shortly after 5 his death, whereever learning could penetrate, proves that in him we justly venerate a wonder of the time. his numerous theological writings......throughout many ages, until the total revolution in that branch of learning, found readers and transcribers in every cloister of Europe. his 10 knowledge of Greek, of medicine, of astronomy, of prosody, he made subservient to the instruction of his contemporaries; his work 'de sex huius saeculi aetatibus', though less used than it deserves to be, is the basis of most of the universal chronicles of the middle age. but his greatest 15 merit, which will preserve his name through all future generations, consists in his historic works, so far as they concern his own native land. if a second man like himself had arisen in his days, who with the same clear, circumspect glance, the same honest and pious purpose, had recorded 20 the secular transactions of his forefathers, as Beda has transmitted to us those chiefly of the church, then would the history of England have been to posterity almost like revelation for Germanic antiquity.

XXVI

25 DAS gelehrte England soll nicht vergessen dem 'Lehrer

Englands' ein würdiges Denkmal zu setzen durch eine vollständige und kritische Ausgabe sämmtlicher Werke Beda's, welcher Katholiken wie Protestanten der Ehrwürdige' bleiben soll und wird.

24 JAGinzel in Wetzer und Welte Kirchenlexicon Freib i Br 1854 1724. 29 This endeavour to find common ground with protestants was omitted, as out of date after the Vatican council, in the reprint (J A

198

VARIN. RANKE.

[TESTI

XXVII

PERSONNE plus que nous ne rend hommage au génie

du moine anglo-saxon, génie encyclopédique et vraiment surprenant pour l'époque et dans les circonstances où il vivait. à ne le considérer même que comme historien, 5 c'est non-seulement le chroniqueur le mieux renseigné et le plus méthodique du moyen âge, c'est encore un critique fort habile et très-pénétrant.

DER

XXVIII

ER erste Germane, der sich die allgemeine aus dem 10 Alterthume stammende Gelehrsamkeit aneignete, ist ein Angelsachse gewesen, der ehrwürdige Beda; der erste germanische Dialekt, in welchem man Geschichte geschrieben und Gesetze verzeichnet hat, war dagegen ebenfalls der angelsächsische. trotz alle Verehrung gegen die 15 Schwellen der Apostel, nahm man doch nicht mehr fremdgeborne Priester bei sich auf, als zur Gründung der neuen Kirche unentbehrlich waren bei dem allmählichen Fortgang der Bekehrung bedurfte es dessen nicht, in kurzem finden wir überall in der Kirche angelsächsische 20 Namen: die Erzbischöfe und vornehmsten Bischöfe stehen in so enger Beziehung zu den königlichen Geschlechtern, wie früher die heidnischen Oberpriester.

G kirchen-historische Schriften Wien 1872 II 13): 'eine kritische Ausgabe der sämmtlichen Werke Beda des ehrwürdigen ist noch immer ein eben so berechtigter als frommer Wunsch der Gelehrten, und es ist ungemein zu beklagen, dass es den gelehrten Maurinern nicht gegönnt war, auch dieses Verdienst sich zu erwerben'.

1 Varin in mémoires presentés par divers savants à l'acad d inscr ser I V (1) 158 (1857).

9 Leopold Ranke englische Geschichte (Berlin 1859) 1 17.

MONIA]

BERNHARD TEN BRINK.

199

XXIX

So verkörpert Beda...die energische Arbeitskraft, den

positiven und historischen Sinn, die Liebe zur Einfachheit und Wahrheit, die in dem besseren Kern des 5 englischen Volksthums vielleicht die bestimmenden Elemente bilden.

1 Bernhard ten Brink Geschichte der englischen Literatur Berlin 1877 143-47 (the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, their libraries and school, Beda's wide reputation; his pupil Egbert a patron of learning; Aldhelm and Beda, alike enthusiastic for religion and learning, alike 'rooted in their native soil, yet powerfully attracted by ancient culture', but in other respects opposites; Aldhelm of a more feminine, Beda of a more masculine type; the former of more delicate sensibility, of a livelier fancy, but less energetic, less productive; the latter distinguished by clearness and simple grandeur of conception, of less poetic genius, but active in every region of science. In every subject, which he took in hand, he became an often cited authority for the whole remainder of the middle ages,—and that not in his own country alone'. His church history displays a love of truth, a diligence in collecting documentary materials, and is distinguished in conception and style by an objectivity, clearness and simplicity, which raise it far above the level of contemporary history').

& P 47.

NOTES

ON

EBERT'S NOTICE OF BEDA.

P1

ACCOUNT OF BEDA this account is translated from the Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Literatur von ihren Anfängen bis zum Zeitalter Karls des Grossen von Adolf Ebert. Leipzig, Vogel 1874; an instalment of a general history of medieval literature in the west.

LIVES OF BEDA. Beda der Ehrwürdige und seine Zeit von 5 Dr Karl Werner. Wien 1875 8vo pp vIII 236; the fullest that has appeared. Mabillon acta ss Bened (1672) III (1) 539—61, IV (2) 599 is reprinted in Migne patrologia latina xc and forms the basis of Remy Ceillier's article (hist gén des auteurs sacrés ed Bauzon Paris 1862 XII I-19). See also acta ss May 27 (Maii VI 710—5 Par. 1868), 10 Baronius ann 731 14-30 with Pagi 693 8, 701 2, 731 4-8, 12. Biographia Brit ed Kippis II 115—133. ́ General hist dict of Bernard and Birch III (1735) 123-8. Cave (a good article, to which Henry Wharton contributed). Fabricius bibl lat med et inf aet. Lanfranci opera Paris 1648 pp 340 341. J A Giles Bedae opp I xli--cxli. Mon- 15 talembert moines d'occident V (1867) 56—101. Monumenta hist Brit (1848) pref 69--74. Jos Stevenson introd to Bed he 1838 v-xXXV, church historians of England (1853) 1 (2) i—xlviii. W Stubbs in DCB. Varin in mém. prés. acad. inscr. (1857) I ser v (1) 114—20, 158-85 (in the paper entitled 'études relatives à l'état politique et religieux des 20 îles Britanniques au moment de l'invasion saxonne' pp 1—270).

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Brunet, Grässe, Lowndes, Darling (who gives the contents of Bedae opp Col 1688 and ed Giles). Ulysse Chevalier répertoire des sources historiques du moyen-age 1 Paris 1877 252—3.