The Early Texts
The Story of Old English
Course 1 · Chapter 5 · The Early Texts
Once English could be written (Chapter 4), what did people write? The earliest answer comes from the Northumbrian monasteries of the seventh and eighth centuries, where the great scholar wrote in Latin and the first poem we can date in English is credited to a cowherd.
Bede
According to Wikipedia's Bede article, Bede (c. 672 or 673 to 26 May 735) was an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monk, writer and scholar in the Kingdom of Northumbria. He was born on lands of the twin monastery of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, was sent to Monkwearmouth at about the age of seven, and later moved to Jarrow with Abbot Ceolfrith. He spent most of his life there. He was canonised in 1899 as a Doctor of the Church.
| Work or topic | What the article says |
|---|---|
| Ecclesiastical History of the English People | Completed around 731; his best-known work; it traces the growth of Christianity in England, with a focus on the church rather than secular kings; it earned him the title "The Father of English History" |
| Other works | Biblical commentaries, homilies, saints' lives (including of Cuthbert), works on computus (calculating the date of Easter) and the reckoning of time, grammar and metre textbooks, and some Latin poetry |
| Language | His works were in Latin; the article quotes Michael Lapidge calling him "without question the most accomplished Latinist produced in these islands in the Anglo-Saxon period" |
| Dating years | He did not invent Anno Domini, which came from Dionysius Exiguus, but adopted it as his main method in De Temporum Ratione, which is the main reason it became widely used |
The point for this course is that the best-educated Englishman of his day wrote in Latin, not in English. Bede is also the source for Chapter 2's three peoples, and the Cædmon story below.
Bede's Death Song
The Bede article says that Cuthbert's letter on Bede's death describes a five-line vernacular poem Bede composed on his deathbed, known as "Bede's Death Song". Its attribution to Bede is uncertain, since not all manuscripts name him as the author. The Cædmon's Hymn article calls the Death Song the most attested Old English poem. I did not read the text of it for this chapter.
Cædmon
Wikipedia's Cædmon's Hymn article gives Bede's story. Cædmon was an illiterate cowherd at Whitby. He left a feast when the harp came round, because he could not sing. In a dream a man asked him to "Sing to me the beginning of all things", and he woke able to sing new verses. The Abbess Hilda encouraged him to become a monk, and he went on to compose more poems on biblical subjects.
The article says that if Bede is right the hymn was composed between 658 and 680, which would make it the oldest surviving English poem. Even on manuscript evidence alone it is the earliest securely datable Old English verse.
Bede gave Latin, not English
The article records that Bede gave only a Latin prose paraphrase of the hymn, not the Old English. He remarked that verse cannot be translated word for word without losing its beauty and dignity. The Old English survives only because scribes added it, often in the margins, to copies of Bede's Latin text or of its Old English translation. The article says closely related Bede manuscripts sometimes contain very different versions.
How many versions?
Old English Reading 1, Chapter 3 reads the hymn in the normalised Northumbrian text of the Moore Bede. The article says the picture is more complicated than "a Northumbrian and a West Saxon version": it identifies five substantively different recensions, two Northumbrian and three West Saxon, distinguished by the word used in one half-line. It counts about two dozen manuscripts (23, though it is not consistent about whether the count includes a destroyed manuscript known from a facsimile), all copies of Bede's History or its Old English translation. It names the Moore Bede (Cambridge, mid-eighth century, Northumbrian) as the oldest or second-oldest copy, and the Saint Petersburg Bede (first half of the eighth century) as the other candidate.
Words to know
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Computus | The calculation of the date of Easter and of the calendar |
| Recension | A distinct version of a text that is preserved in a group of manuscripts |
| Paraphrase | A restatement in other words, not a word-for-word translation |
| Vernacular | The everyday language of a people, as opposed to Latin |
| Doctor of the Church | A title given to a few saints for their teaching |
✏️ Try It Yourself
Think of the answer first, then click to check.
1. In what language did Bede write his works?
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Latin.
2. Where did Bede spend most of his life?
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At the twin monastery of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow in Northumbria.
3. Which work of Bede's was completed around 731?
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The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
4. Who was Cædmon, according to Bede?
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An illiterate cowherd at Whitby who was miraculously given the ability to sing, and who became a monk.
5. When was the hymn composed, if Bede is right?
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Between 658 and 680.
6. Did Bede give the Old English of the hymn?
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No, only a Latin prose paraphrase. The Old English was added by scribes to manuscripts.
7. How many recensions of the hymn does the article identify?
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Five: two Northumbrian and three West Saxon.
8. Why is Bede's Death Song's authorship uncertain?
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Not all manuscripts name Bede as its author.