Bede's best known work, An Ecclesiastical History of the English People, was written in Latin and is not immediately easy to understand and follow. And yet it is a key text for any student of English history. Rowan Williams shows in his introduction how Bede works to create a sense of national destiny for the new English kingdoms of the seventh century, a sense that has helped to shape English self-awareness through the centuries, by using the imagery both of imperial Rome and of biblical Israel. But Bede also wrestles with the difficult question of how the Church relates to and serves the pol… (more)