<i>A Companion to Bede</i> (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Companion to Bede Emily V. Thornbury A Companion to Bede. By George Hardin Brown. Anglo-Saxon Studies, 12. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2009. Pp. ix + 170. $90. The Venerable Bede’s influence has never died, as George Hardin Brown makes clear in this excellent and comprehensive introduction to the Northumbrian monk’s great oeuvre; but the last twenty years have been particularly kind to his work. The canon of Bede’s writings has been tested and its dating refined; many new manuscripts have been discovered, leading to considerable new insights about the dissemination of texts both popular and rare; and close examination has begun to reveal the subtlety of Bede’s rhetorical technique. Some modern editions, and especially the important translations published by Liverpool University Press, have also opened the less well-known didactic and exegetical works to a new readership. This surge of interest in—and fresh accessibility of—Bede’s entire corpus makes A Companion to Bede all the more welcome and necessary, and it will undoubtedly be immensely useful to students of early English history, literature, and theology. The present work is an update of Brown’s earlier Bede the Venerable (Boston: Twayne, 1987); given the development of Bedan scholarship in the interim, it amounts to an entirely new book. The references are in fact so up-to-date that they will become most useful in the near future—the final chapter in particular, on “Bede’s Works Through the Ages,” references a great deal of forthcoming work (including Brown’s own The Bedan Legacy, and the Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. Scott DeGregorio). The time-warp aspect of this is a bit disconcerting in 2009, but besides ensuring the volume’s ongoing usefulness, it also gives a strong impression of the present vibrancy of this field and the continued need for scholarship. Brown several times points out major desiderata (for instance, the lack of translations of the New Testament commentaries, p. 59; further consideration of Bede’s Latinity and rhetoric, pp. 96 and 134), as well as the virtues of understudied works. The Companion provides encouragement as well as orientation to beginning scholars, therefore, and it would be an excellent book around which to structure a seminar. The first chapter, “Bede’s Life and Times,” is tightly focused on Bede himself and [End Page 385] his monastery. Brown gives a brief history of the foundation of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow and the labors of its early abbots Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrith to build the paired houses up as a seat of learning and correct monastic observance. The treatment of early Northumbrian political and ecclesiastical history is extremely concise (pp. 3–4), and readers not already familiar with the period will probably need to supplement this section with the references provided and Bede’s own accounts. The real purpose of the Companion, however, is not to provide immediate historical or social context—although the notes generally indicate where this can be found—but rather to explicate the nature, purpose, and unique contributions of Bede’s writings. This it does exceptionally well. The bulk of the book (chaps. 2–5) is a systematic consideration of each of Bede’s works in its generic context: so the groups discussed are “Educational Works,” “Biblical Commentaries” (subdivided by Old and New Testament and “Biblical Aids”); “Homilies, Hagiography, Martyrology, Poems, Letters,” and “Histories.” The references for each section are complete, and there are considerable cross-references along with a full index and table of contents, so those looking for particular texts can use this volume piecemeal. It would be a pity to do this exclusively, though, because the discussions of genre which introduce chapters 2, 3, and 5 are illuminating and wide-ranging considerations of the development of immensely popular medieval forms. Brown’s explanation of Biblical commentary in particular (pp. 33–42) beautifully illuminates how central these commentaries are to an understanding of medieval reading practices, particularly the fourfold interpretation, of which “Bede was the definitive authority in the Middle Ages” (p. 38). Literary scholars will find the summary of Bede’s terminology for allegorical and figural interpretation particularly useful (p. 37), along with the extended discussions of the...