INTRODUCTION

was unable to sing,¹ of the belated traveller coming to the village festivity,² of the peasants flocking round the missionary preacher to listen to his words.³

Bede does not shrink from passing judgment upon public events which come within the plan of his work. He sympathizes with the Mercians when they threw off the Northumbrian yoke of Oswy.⁴ He makes plain his disapproval of the unhappy enterprises of Egfrid against Ireland and against the Picts, the last of which proved fatal to the fortunes of Northumbria.⁵ He condemned abuses in the Church, both in diocesan matters and in the monasteries. He was devoted to monastic life, and in such an age it is hard to see how a man of his character could have found scope for his gifts outside the cloister. His whole narrative shows the increasing hold of monasticism upon the life of the country. He sympathizes with those who, like Sigbert, king of the East Angles, renounce their earthly dignities and receive the tonsure,⁶ or, like queen Ethelthryth, quit home and husband to take the veil.⁷ To take vows or go on pilgrimage was to despise the world and follow the light. But all the same, at the end of his days, he sees the evil results of the passing of all available land into the possession of monastic institutions. No room could be found, after their time of service, for the fighting men who were needed to defend the country against the invasion of barbarians. Posterity would feel the consequences,⁸ when so many, as well noblemen as

¹ IV. 24.       ² III. 10.       ³ III. 26.
⁴ III. 24.       ⁵ IV. 26.       ⁶ III. 18.
⁷ St. Etheldred or Audrey, IV. 19.
⁸ In 793 the Viking raids began and Lindisfarne was sacked.