The Age of Bede

by David Hugh Farmer

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Summary

This volume contains Bede's Life of Cuthbert and Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow; Eddius's Life of Wilfrid; and The Voyage of St Brendan.

They are all set in the sixth and seventh centuries - a period which witnessed the clash between Roman episcopoal orthodoxy and the democratic monasticism that was spreading over Ireland and Northern England. Brendan's whimsical travelogue shows us Celtic monasticism before it was challenged; Bede describes its canalization into missionary activity by Cuthbert at Lindisfarne; and Eddius tells of Wilfrid's enforcement of decisions made by the Synod of Whitby. The individual character of each of these three classics of the early Church is clearly preserved in J.F. Webb's translation.

An earlier version of this volume, entitled The Lives of the Saints, was previously published in the Penguin Classics.

This selection of writings from the seventh and eighth centuries AD provides a powerful insight into the early history of the Christian Church in England and Ireland. From Bede's Life of Cuthbert and Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow to the anonymous Voyage of St Brendan a whimsical mixture of fact and fantasy that describes a quest for paradise on earth these are vivid accounts of the profoundly spiritual and passionately heroic lives of Christian pioneers and saints. Both vital religious writings and a revealing insight into the reality of life at a formative time for the church, they describe an era of heroism and bitter conflict, and the rapid spread of the Christian faith.

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