THE VENERABLE BEDE (ca. 673–735) completed his magnum opus, the Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum (hereafter HE) around AD 731. The work covers the history of the island of Britain from the first invasion of Julius Caesar in 55 BC up to Bede’s own time, concluding with a reflection on the state of the island of Britain in 731. The work is divided into five books, the majority of which are concerned with the conversion of the English to Christianity, a process which began when a group of missionaries led by Augustine (later of Canterbury) were sent from Rome in AD 597. Book One opens with a description of the geographical location of Britain, followed by an account of the period from the invasion of Caesar to the arrival of the Roman missionaries. In this book, Bede briefly rehearses the collapse of Roman Britain and the arrival of Germanic peoples, whom he called the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (HE 1:15), in what has become known as the adventus Saxonum, which Bede dated to the mid-fifth century: HE 1, chapters two to twenty-two. From HE 1:23 onwards, Bede’s primary focus is the conversion to Christianity of the English peoples and the subsequent development of the Church amongst them, which for the most part occurred in the seventh century. Bede relates the activities of bishops, kings, queens, and, as the book progresses, abbesses, and created many memorable pen portraits of his favourite figures from this period—for example, the Irish missionary and first bishop of Lindisfarne, Aidan (HE 3:5).