SOURCE: Peter Hunter Blair, "The Historical Writings of Bede," in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, edited by M. Lapidge and P. Hunter Blair, Variorum Reprints, 1984, pp. 197-221.

In the following lecture originally presented in 1969, Blair defends Bede's historical writings against some modern-day critics who impugn the accuracy of his chronologies, accuse him of prejudice against the Celtic and Welsh churches, and suggest that he was fooled by forgeries and suppressed evidence.

Bede was born c. 671, about 260 years after the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, and about 225 years after what came to be regarded as the year in which the English first came to Britain. He died on 25 May 735, aged about 64. At the end of the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum he records that he had spent the whole of his life from the age of seven within the walls of the monastery at Wearmouth and Jarrow. Although the two places...