What can a reassessment of the relationship between the main textual recensions of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica reveal about his last stages of work on the History ?

Abstract

This essay offers a reassessment of the relationship between the two main textual recensions of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica. The evidence for which of the two is earlier is complex and apparently in tension. No previous, simple answer is persuasive. Nonetheless, it is possible to recreate the stages by which the two traditions came about in a way which provides a more comprehensive explanation of the contradictory evidence. This reconstruction shows that Bede was at work on the History almost up until the end of his life. Bede allowed two very slightly different versions of the book to be transcribed and distributed - a pre-final version and a final, final version. In the discrepancies between these, some of Bede’s last revisions to his History can be identified.