I understand that most of Bede's work is now considered wrong. What I wanted to know is if there is still any part of it that is still considered to be true.

by sharryhanker
GeorgiusFlorentius

I do not have time to elaborate but I am pretty sure that no-one ever said, wrote or even though that in the academia. There are I think three different things you may wish to consider:

(1) Bede certainly was wrong on some things, most importantly his narrative of the early post-Roman history of England. On the other hand, he did his best with the few sources he had, and modern historians actually solve the problem by not reconstructing the fifth and sixty century (which is indeed the wisest thing to do).

(2) Bede certainly omitted things that did not fit his interpretation; as James Campbell puts it (in his Essays in Anglo-Saxon History), his Ecclesiastical History is a gallery of good examples, and certainly omits many failures (as his Letter to Egbert, a complaint about the Northumbrian Church of his time, makes clear). He may also have written out of history things either because they were not present in his documentation, or because they did not fit his intentions; for instance, modern historians tend to emphasise Frankish role in the conversion of England more than he did. Maybe Bede omitted the Franks on purpose, or maybe he was simply dependant on the archives of the papal mission.

(3) Some of Bede's sources may be unreliable, and some of his narrative methods may be partially fictive. For instance, when narrating the conversion of Edwin, approximately one hundred years before the time of writing, he stages a dialogue between various protagonists. But this is no more deceptive than, say, dialogues in Thucydides. Similarly, miraculous events can prompt disbelief for modern readers, but there is no doubt than Bede believed in them.

Overall, the only part of the Ecclesiastical History where the criticism you are mentioning may be true is the first couple of chapters (1-22, and esp. 11-22).

centurion44

Well if that is true than a lot of my papers shouldn't have been given much lower grades...

Bede like any other historian, past or present, needs to be read with a certain level of distrust. Do I believe everything someone like Herodotus says? Hell no, but it doesn't make his works 'wrong' or lacking in value.