Was Bede English?

[Urselius]

To return to Bede, it seems that the concept of Englishness that he used was perhaps not ethnic but linguistic and, even more so, cultural. Bede states, quite flatly, that St. Chad was English, and a Northumbrian Englishman to be precise. However, there is plenty of evidence that Chad's family were not English ethnically. Chad's name, as rendered by Bede, was Ceadda; Ceadda he had a number of brothers, Cedd, Caelin and Cynibil. All of the brethren had Celtic names, not Anglo-Saxon. At the very least they were named by parents who were Celtic speakers even if they themselves spoke Old English (possibly they were bi-lingual) and were culturally "English."

Another of Bede's "Englishmen" was the monk Caedmon the father of Old English devotional poetry. Caedmon had a name incorporating the same Celtic root as is found in Ceadda - cad or cat - meaning "battle."

[sonic]

Unfortunately, this all ties in with debates concerning 'ethnicity' and 'belonging' which are currently grey areas in large parts of Britain.

To simplify, consider this question:

I was a teacher in a 'mixed-ethnicity' school. Large numbers of the students I taught had parents who were born and brought up in Pakistan. The students were born and brought up in England. They could speak fluent English and 'Pakistani'.

Are the students 'English'?

Discuss.

[Urselius]

It would seem that Bede would have said yes.

The differences in appearance between people from Angeln and surrounding areas and the inhabitants of ancient Britain would have been hardly apparent, unlike the case between modern natives of Britain and people derived from the Indian sub-continent. Perhaps a more exact parallel would be between those people, second and third generation, who are descendants of Poles who came to Britain in WWII. I definitely feel that the vast majority of these would be considered as more English than Polish by themselves and the other English, and even by more recent Polish incomers.

[Crispvs]

My wife's parents were from Jamaica, but she gets very annoyed when people try to call her a Jamaican, or even 'Black British'. She will tell you very emphatically that she was born in England, raised in England, educated in England and speaks English as her first language and is therefore English. She went to Jamaica for a two week holiday to get to know her cousins about ten years ago and felt extremely homesick throughout the visit. Like many other black people, she also finds ethnically based (rather than culturally based) 'equal opportunity monitoring' forms highly offensive and often, when forced to fill one in will often deliberately write that she is of German decent (through her great grandfather) rather than tick any of the options given. As she says, she is not white, but why should she have to be classed as 'black British' rather than simlpy 'English', which is not usually given as an option.

Sorry if that seems a little off topic, but I think it does demonstrate that it can be quite misleading to apply labels to people who may have a particular image of themselves and the society they live in.

Crispvs

[Urselius]

I also have problems with census forms and others which ask ethnicity questions. Usually they give options of "white British" and "white Irish," which I object to on two grounds: a) I'm not white but yellowish-pink, and b) I'm just about evenly mixed beween Irish and English ancestry. I usually tick both boxes when instructed to tick only one.

[Arturus Uriconium]

As far as we know Bede was an Angle from Northumbria and never left the kingdom.

The clue as to whether or not he thought himself English could be in the title of his book: Ecclesiastical History of the English People. This in Latin is Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, with Anglorum being translated to English but it may have had slightly different conatations then. He also mention the ' Anglorum' constantly throughout his work. However since he lived 672 to 735 and the English state hadn't really coalesced he probably thought more of himself as a Northumbrian.

However, you could say he was British; not a Briton of course but a resident of the isles of Britain. He calls the isles such in the first line of the above book. He probably wouldn't have liked it very much though as the Britons really were seen as a bunch of second class citizens who brought the Anglo-Saxon invaders upon themselves and he wouldn't want to be associated with them!

So Bede was a Mackam ( a form of Geordie) and the Mackams, Geordies and Pitmatics of today still use some Angle words, although they believe they're speaking Danish. I am one and thought the same for a long time. But no, those are Angle words we're using and when we say 'That'll larn ya' it's not bad English for 'That will teach you' but correct Angle as 'larn' means 'teach'. (I know Angle is virtual Danish but the Danes influenced further south in Yorkshire).

Who knows, Bede could have been from a long line of Angles and his ancestors might even have been feodorati on Hadrian's Wall!

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I think you may find that the original spelling was more like 'Baeda'.

Crispvs

As in the line from the Fifth Element Taxi crash scene?

"Bigada boom...bigada baeda da boom" lol:

Sorry, I have such low resistence..... :oops: :lol: