Amidst Bede’s mastery of engaging historical narrative, of ostensible objectivity (exceptional among early medieval historians), of finesse in the Latin language and of biblical and patristic tradition, it is his ostensibly bigoted racial views, in particular of the Britons, that the modern reader is likely to feel most shocked by. Those inclined to set aside Bede’s unfortunate racial overtures and focus on other matters (the present reviewer included) are reminded of the importance of ‘race’ in the very title of his primary historical work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum – and W. Trent Foley thus justifiably takes on this important topic as the focus of the study under review here.

The author outlines his motivation for undertaking the investigation as lying in his upbringing in the racist society of the American South, where the prevalent views perpetuated those found earlier in nineteenth-century England; he sets out to exculpate Bede of the racism that characterised leading Victorian figures in England, such as Edward Freeman, the Oxford Regius Professor of modern history, no less, whose anti-disestablishmentarianism was a manifestation of superiority over the Welsh (which Foley identifies as being linked specifically to Bede’s attitude to the Britons), but whose abhorrent racist views were directed at all and sundry. Although Bede clearly did not espouse comparable views, Foley admits that he was none the less only partially successful in his initial task; the current work forms a fuller investigation of the issue that first piqued Foley’s interest.

There can be little doubt that Bede distinguishes, and judges, races (the English, the Britons, the Irish): but as Foley notes, ‘Anyone who inhabits the Historia’s imaginative world for very long soon becomes sensitive to how it distinguishes the races more by their respective moral characters than by physical characteristics.’ In contrast, modern racists tend to judge in terms of innate (genetic) qualities: someone is immoral because they are Black (or whatever). It may be debated just what the parameters of racism are, but there seems a fundamental difference between judging people on moral/religious grounds (something that in principle they have control over) and judging them on a racial basis (their genetically determined characteristics) – though of course this is a minefield which I will avoid entering into. Foley does show how Bede was a source for Victorian racists; the degree to which Bede really refrained from judgement in terms of innate rather than moral/theological qualities, and indeed how we separate these qualities, remains, I think, somewhat murky.

Throughout his study, Foley shows that Bede’s ‘racism’ is, in any case, nuanced. True, it is characterised by the all-too-typical failings of an ‘ingroup-outgroup’ mentality, of generalising and stereotyping the characteristics of the outgroup, while particularising individuals with a range of personalities and moral approaches within the ingroup (the English); yet, in Foley’s reading, theological rectitude does not necessarily correspond fully with moral uprightness – Edwin’s temporising opportunism, and Augustine’s and Wilfrid’s haughtiness, stand out, as does the implicit pity for the ruthlessly slaughtered British monks at Chester, or the ‘golden-age’ presentation of life in early Lindisfarne (an Ionan foundation).

Foley also points out the irony of the focus on perfidia, untrustworthiness or betrayal, as the characteristic fault of those who did not follow the Roman way, when the very foundation of the English kingdoms relied on an original act of betrayal of the British hosts. Bede’s explanation, that the Britons deserved all they got, appears unconvincing, and indeed sordid, to the modern reader. Foley also expresses what readers find unsettling about Bede’s attitude to the British view of Roman Catholicity: ‘What the Historia presents as having been freely consented to by the rest of the world is offered up to the Britons as fiat and ultimatum.’ Whilst we may feel Bede is not really a racist in a modern sense, such instances do not help his case, and Foley is right to point them out.

The earlier part of Foley’s book, then, stems from his starting-point of modern racism. None the less, those whose interest is more directed to Bede and the Historia itself are amply served when Foley moves on to his more detailed discussion of the three primary ‘races’ Bede concerns himself with: the English, the Britons (Welsh) and the ‘Irish’ (mainly Dalriadans, with their spiritual centre in Iona), which he deals with through a consideration of three councils or meetings between contingents from the various races: St Augustine’s meetings with the British churchmen and the subsequent battle at Chester; Edwin’s court discussion of whether to adopt Christianity (represented by Paulinus); and the Synod of Whitby with its argument over the Ionan versus Roman dating of Easter (the main representatives being respectively Colman and Wilfrid). Foley offers detailed analyses of all three episodes, valuable not only from the perspective of race theory, but also as patristics-centred readings of Bede’s text.

Foley makes clear from the start the parameters of his investigation:

A reading which takes Bede on the terms he would himself have expected is to be welcomed; on the other hand it does explicitly close off issues of potential historical relevance: among these might be included a wider perspective on what a gens was considered to be (if it was even considered at all by anyone other than Bede). Bede hailed from Northumbria, a kingdom that, on his own account, had pursued a particularly expansionist and militaristic policy against the Britons in the preceding century: this surely inured him to the notion of political polarity between peoples, even though much of the Northumbrian populace must have been of recent British descent, as hinted at in the British name of the earliest English poet, Cædmon. Contemporaries elsewhere may well have held different notions of ‘race’.

The success of Foley’s welcome and illuminating approach to Bede as an ecclesiastical writer may be illustrated with a few examples. In terms of structural analysis, Foley brings out the parallel between the fatal stabbing of Edwin’s ministers and the spearing of the pagan gods, consigning them to oblivion, or, in the account of the Synod of Whitby, how Bede sandwiches the synod between descriptions of Lindisfarne, the first devoted to the physical church and edifices, the second to the Church in the spiritual sense, made manifest in the church of Lindisfarne, and its importance to English Christianity. The biblically based method of interpretation is exemplified by the identification of the source of Eumer’s attempted assassination of Edwin as the tale of Ehud, judge of Israel (but with the good and evil roles of the main characters reversed). The detailed appeal to Bede’s precise wording clarifies how the famous sparrow in the hall, termed, unusually, ‘unus passerum’ derives from ‘unus ex illis [passeribus]’ of Luke xii.6 or Matthew x.29, where we are told that not a single sparrow falls into oblivion in the sight of God: hence neither sparrow is in fact solitary, as the hall sparrow appears to be, since God watches over all. It is challenging to summarise Foley’s sometimes complex arguments, but suffice it to say that they are well-grounded both in Bede’s text and in a good grasp of the interplay of biblical and patristic allusion within the network of historical events.

Foley’s detailed approach to analysis is satisfying, as long as we bear in mind the limitations (if that is an appropriate way to look at the matter). One limitation is that his readings are not exhaustive (they are, after all, focused primarily on the issue of race), and other views are possible within a patristic typological approach (such varied readings are not necessarily mutually exclusive, even). An example is the debate, which Foley mentions briefly, over whether Bede saw the English as a sort of chosen race given their own land to inhabit, on the pattern of the Israelites. Foley rejects this, on the basis that it is the whole Church which constitutes the new people of God. The text of the Historia none the less does seem to support, if somewhat obliquely, the notion of the English as a chosen race which has gained a sort of ‘promised land’ forfeited by its native inhabitants because they have turned from the path of wisdom. Bearing in mind the figurative thinking behind many patristic texts, the English – or more particularly the Northumbrians – might well be conceived as a metonym of the whole people of God (without excluding other peoples with whom Bede was not concerned). The point is open to debate, but Foley’s interpretation here comes over as perhaps too literal-minded.

Another limitation is, again, the eschewing of historical context. An example is Bede’s account of the battle of Chester: this must have relied in part on a source going back ultimately to the monks of Bangor, and interesting questions arise about how this may have happened and what the Britons’ view of the encounter was (and what evidence may be adduced to try to determine it) – and the disparity of Bede’s sources, which Foley, quite justifiably given his stated parameters, excludes from consideration, may well affect Bede’s finished presentation. Some of the issues of historical interpretation are of a more general nature. Thus, for example, in presenting a reading focused very much on the text of Bede, Foley paints rather a rosy picture of the papacy at the time. For sure, the papal office was not exercised in quite the way it was later, but insofar as the popes of the time refrained from imposing their personal authority, we may suspect that this was often more a reflection of the lack of sufficient means of doing so than of deep-felt theological conciliarity; certainly, the history of conflict between the pope and the patriarch of Constantinople, for example, spread over many centuries (but culminating well after Bede’s time), can be seen as a power struggle. Bede’s papacy is, surely, more an ideal than (necessarily) a reality: Bede is concerned to present the Church as, in Augustinian terms, the City of God, with the pope as its figurehead and ultimate executor. Bede’s excoriation of the Britons was justified, to himself at least, on the basis that their heretical ways (as he chose to see them) shattered the otherwise unsullied and unified essence that made the Church the prefigurement of the New Jerusalem of the parousia.

The text of Foley’s book is editorially relatively clean, but a scattering of sometimes annoying errors occurs, such as ‘lay waste to’ (several times), ‘wax eloquently’ (several times), ‘Banconaburg’, ‘not without anonymity’ (he doesn’t mean this), wrong verb number (‘the nature of these new predictions differ’), catholic calculator (in Latin). Fortunately, such errors do not amount to too much of a stumbling-block to readers.

In conclusion, Foley’s book is well worth investigating by those interested in ecclesiastical history, particularly those concerned with how a historical work from this period should be read within its patristic and biblical context; it will also, of course, be of interest to race theorists. Race for Bede is intimately bound up with the Church and implicitly with the fallen nature of members of the Church; one of Foley’s successes is in pointing out the complexity, subtlety and ambiguity of Bede’s presentation. I certainly learned a great deal about sections of Bede’s Historia that I thought I knew well, and, albeit they may feel they have heard the tale recounted ad nauseam, anyone that reads Foley’s analysis will behold the sparrow flitting through Edwin’s hall in a much brighter and more fulsome light than hitherto.