INTRODUCTION

consulted, if they did not actually decide the appointment of bishops,¹ who at first were their chaplains, and the stormy career of Wilfrid shows how powerful was the enmity of the kings in spite of the support which Wilfrid received from Rome.² As regards the wars which so frequently took place, Bede tells us of those battles, like the victory of Oswald over Cadwallon,³ and of Oswy over Penda,⁴ which had a decisive result upon the fortunes of the Church.

Bede is no dull chronicler. His history is full of stories rendered vivid by his sympathy and dramatic power: his characters are lifelike and distinct: they are made real to us by some revealing incident or saying, as in the story of Edwin’s exile and his dealings with Paulinus,⁵ or of the meeting of Oswin and Aidan in the king’s hall after the day’s hunting.⁶ Most of Bede’s work is occupied with the history of missionary enterprise and Church organisation, with the austerities of the anchorites, the life of the monasteries, the visions of monks and nuns, the marvellous preservation of the bodies of saints and the cures wrought by their relics, as well as (over-much we sometimes feel), with the fluctuations of controversies like that dealing with the right time for celebrating Easter; but incidentally there occur sketches of the ordinary life of men in the outer world, such as the feasts in the houses of thanes,⁷ the young nobles racing their horses to the grief of their venerable guide,⁸ the adventures of the thane who had escaped the slaughter of a battle,⁹ or, in humbler life, of the beer parties at which Caedmon