Bede and the Beginnings of English Racism

by W. Trent Foley

This book examines how the Venerable Bede constructs a racial order in his most famous historical writing, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a remarkable eighth-century work known for how it combines myth and history into a compelling, charming narrative of the English conversion to Christianity. Yet Bede's History also disturbingly deploys Scripture's tropes and types, many of them anti-Jewish, to render unflattering sketches of some of Britain's "races" (gentes)-especially the Britons. To uncover the History's characterizations of what it identifies as the British, Irish, English, and Latin races, Foley examines three of its episodes that narrate attempted conversions of the first three races- respectively-either to Christianity or to a better, more orthodox, catholic, Latin version of it. This close analysis exposes the theological dimensions of each episode's racial constructions. Foley argues that, unlike modern conceptions of race, which are grounded in imagined biological difference, Bede's is rooted in his perception of a particular race's affective disposition, its habits of the heart. More than that, Bede closely ties a race's disposition to its relative proximity to theological orthodoxy and catholicity. This book's close reading also highlights surprising similarities between Bede's medieval Christian discourse and modern, secular and white discourses on race.

221 pages, Paperback

Published June 30, 2022

Reviews

[Tim Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit forced as far as how the division of populations in the ancient, medieval, "Dark Ages" eras could be understood as a proto-racism. Foley has taken a lot of consideration as far as how the formation and _RezeptionsKriticism_ of The History of the English People / Races by the Venerable Bede was a kind of "We Win / You Lose" game theory; it will shed light for readers who are looking for a sense of whether a kind of Ethnic chauvinism was inherent or nascent in the ancient, late Christianity, Christendom eras of CHURCH HISTORY. 5* - recommended.