Bede and the Theory of Everything

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams endorses Michelle Brown's Bede and the Theory of Everything, calling it “a lively picture of the material surroundings of Bede's life and work.” Brown's book is indeed that. Brown is former Curator of Manuscripts at the British Museum and a prolific author. This book, her latest, is beautifully produced with full-color pictures, gorgeous paper, and elegant mise-en-page. It is also a gallimaufry of history, Manuscript Studies, geography, and much more. The conceit in Brown's title is that Bede had a “theory of everything,” a phrase used in physics and sometimes called the Unified Theory. Although Einstein and Hawking appear in the book's introduction, contemporary science is thereafter rarely mentioned. We quickly learn that Brown's conceit amounts to the agreeable proposition that Bede was an extraordinarily accomplished polymath who sought to understand both the nature of God and God in nature. Brown describes Bede's “remarkably joined-up thinking and his ability to see the bigger picture,” an ability to integrate “arts, sciences and faith” (p. 8). At the book's conclusion, Brown writes, “Within the confines of the extent of human knowledge in his day, [Bede's] thinking encapsulated a theory of everything” (p. 243). The conceit sets up the reader to learn a little bit about everything that Bede wrote, and to imagine how all of it conduces to a study of God. Bede was a professed monk and priest in the Benedictine tradition at the twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow in Northumbria, then a kingdom in northeastern Britain stretching between the River Mersey and the Firth of Forth. He was born around 673 and died on 26 May 735, Ascension Day. Soon after his death he was popularly styled Venerable, a title formalized by the Catholic Church in 853, two steps from sainthood. In 1899, Pope Leo XIII declared Bede a Doctor of the Church, effectively canonizing him. Bede's body lies in Durham Cathedral. In his day, Bede was internationally known as a commentator on Scripture. He also wrote poetry, homilies, saints lives, and letters; improved the Western calendar (popularizing the BC/AD system); invented the footnote; helped to plan, write (inscribe), and decorate three massive one-volume Bibles; and wrote a ground-breaking history of the English Church, our main source for seventh-century England.Brown's book contains nine chapters. None have arguments, for this is not that kind of book. It is more like a docent's tour of an exhibition, moving fairly quickly from topic to topic, interjecting interesting details or necessary background. Brown often veers off for a few pages on an interesting aside before returning to a theme. Her style is affable and engaging. But Brown's book is in no way an introduction to Bede, so to best appreciate Bede and the Theory of Everything, one ought to begin elsewhere, perhaps with Sister Benedicta Ward, The Venerable Bede (1990), or George Hardin Brown, Bede the Venerable (1987). A good introduction to seventh-century Northumbria is Peter Hunter Blair, The World of Bede (1970). Brown's chapter one begins with Bede's boyhood and background. She introduces us to Oswy, Ælfled, Benedict Biscop, and then tours the grounds of Wearmouth-Jarrow. We learn about parchment, the stylus, scriptoria, how to make ink and paint, nearby rivers and roads, and Bede's affinity with the prophet Samuel. The topic of chapter two is Bede the monk and priest. We learn a bit about Charlemagne, Whitby, Edwin of Northumbria, Paulinus, Cuthbert, Irish missions, and Celtic and Roman dates for Easter. Brown introduces “computistics and calendrical calculations” (p. 70)—that they exist, but not how they are made. The Pelagian heresy is mentioned. Chapter three begins with Bede the scholar and scientist. Brown asks, “What did the Anglo-Saxons and their neighbors know of their world?” (p. 75). A great deal, it seems. We learn about roads, geography, history, Pliny, Isidore, Insular missionaries, Wilfrid, the Silk Road, the Japanese poet Prince Shotoku, Chinese printing, and more. Summarizing Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Brown writes, “Bede sought to weave his people into the broader fabric of the Christian story” (p. 83). A picture of the Franks casket and a short aside on multiplicity of meaning lead to a section on hagiography and the lives of St. Felix and St. Cuthbert, both of whom Bede wrote about.Chapter four turns to Bede's literary art as exemplified in his books On Tropes and Figures, The Art of Poetry, Book of Hymns, Book of Epigrams, and Book of Orthography (p. 119). Brown describes some of Bede's literary and rhetorical sources. She discusses Bede's Hymn to Æthelthryth (a.k.a. Etheldreda, Audrey), his metrical and prose lives of St. Cuthbert, and his Death Song. Caedmon comes up, as does The Dream of the Rood. There is a nine-page excursus on Aldred's Old English gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels made after Bede's death—apparently a topic of previous interest to Brown. The chapter includes a beautiful two-page photograph of the Vespasian Psalter, which Brown attributes to the nuns of Barking Abbey near London. Chapters five and six revolve around Bede the patristic scholar and Bede the historian, respectively. They are also broadly conceived and move from topic to topic, keeping generally but not exclusively to their themes.Chapter seven takes as its theme the production of three massive, one-volume Bibles. Based on a lost sixth-century exemplar from Vivarium in Italy, they were produced at Wearmouth-Jarrow and contain Bede's own hand. Only one of these complete pandects remains extant: the Codex Amiatinus. It weighs about seventy-five pounds and along with the Lindisfarne Gospels is the best extant exemplar of the original Vulgate text of St. Jerome. It was intended as a gift for the Pope, but its giver, Bede's abbot Ceolfrith, died on the way to Rome. At some point, Ceolfrith's name was scrubbed from the dedication page and replaced with the name Petrus Langobardorum. Only in the nineteenth century was the codex recognized as English. We learn a little about the Vulgate text, the education necessary to edit it, Vivarium's founder Cassiodorus, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the ancient Hebrew scribe Ezra. Chapter eight turns to Lindisfarne, a small island off the Northumbrian coast in sight of the Anglian fortress at Bamburgh. Brown gives a history of the island, its abbey, and its famous Gospel book.Chapter nine briefly assesses Bede's legacy. Brown begins with a four-page quote from a letter that recounts Bede's death written by his student Cuthbert to another of Bede's students, Cuthwin. The chapter and book end with Bede's Death Song. There is an appendix of Bede's works, some endnotes, a good bibliography, and an index. The seventh century is an obscure period in British history. Brown offers an accessible, learned, and thoroughly engaging account of the period by organizing some of its scattered remains around the extraordinary figure of Bede.