Bede and the Beginnings of English Racism (Studia Traditionis Theologiae, 49)

Description

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. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments Abbreviations Prologue Raising the Question: Was Bede Racist? 1. Bede’s Historia and the Victorian Anglo-Saxonists 2. Was Bede Racist? Chapter 1: Reading the Historia Racially and Religiously 1. Reading the Historia Racially 2. Reading the Historia Religiously Chapter 2: The ‘Latin’ Race and the Church Universal 1. The Early Church as a Model for Establishing Deliberative Consent 2. Catholicity and the Christian Latin Tradition: Cyprian and Augustine 3. Obstacles to Catholic Unity in the Narrative World of the Historia Chapter 3: Racing the Britons 1. The Oak Meeting Episode: Augustine’s First Meeting with the British Bishops and Teachers 2. The Spurning Episode: Augustine’s Second Meeting with the British Bishops and Teachers 3. The Battle Episode: King Æthelfrith’s Slaughter of British Monks and Soldiers at the Battle of Chester 4. Excursus: A Remnant of Righteous Britons 5. The Oak Chapter as Aftermath and Prologue 6. Summary: The Embarrassed Narrator Chapter 4: Racing the English 1. Peculiar Features of the Northumbrian Conversion Narrative 2. King Edwin the Footdragger 3. Interpreting the Northumbrians’ Conversion Story through its Narrative Inversions 4. Reevaluating King Edwin 5. Reading Racially the Northumbrians’ Council and Conversion Story Chapter 5: Racing the Ionan Irish 1. The Opening Frame: The Lindisfarne Church as Building 2. Conflicts that Occasioned the Synod of Whitby 3. King Oswiu’s Introduction of the Debate 4. Antiquity or Catholicity? 5. John or Peter? 6. Columba or Anatolius? 7. Heading for Home 8. The Closing Frame: Lindisfarne as a Holy Community 9. The Historia’s Depiction of the Irish as a Holy but Uninformed Race Chapter 6: The Historia and its Legacy of Racist Discourse 1. The Final State of the Races 2. The Historia’s Understanding of Sin and Its Construction of Race: Faithfulness vs. Faithlessness 3. The Historia and the Darker Side of Christian Universalism 4. The Historia’s Racism: A Concluding Assessment Bibliography Ancient and Medieval Authors Modern Authors Indices Index of Scripture Index of Bede’s Works Index of Ancient and Medieval Names Index of Modern Authors