'The people whom he foreknew': The English as a chosen people in Bede's 'Historia ecclesiastica'

Abstract

This article investigates the representation of the Anglo-Saxons as a ''chosen people' in Bede's 'Historia ecclesiastica'. Although Bede rarely makes the connection between the 'gens Anglorum' and the people of Israel explicit, I argue that he was continuing and reinventing a tradition in Christian historiography, which represented individual Christian nations after patterns established by Old Testament authors. I argue that appreciating the centrality of this biblical motif is crucial for our understanding of 'Historia ecclesiastica' and consequently for our understanding of how national identity developed in Anglo-Saxon England.