Desideratissimo et reverendissimo patri Albino,
Beda Christi famulus, salutem.
Dedicatio Gratantissime suscepi munuscula tuae dilectionis, quae per venerabilem fratrem nostrum Nothelmum presbyterum mittere dignatus es, et maxime litteras, quibus me iam secunda vice in ecclesiastica gentis nostrae historia, ad quam me scribendam iamdudum instigaveras, creber adiuvare atque instituere curasti. Propter quod et ipse tibi rectissime eandem historiam, mox ut consummare potui, ad transcribendum remisi. Sed et aliud, quod te partim desiderare comperi, volumen tibi vice remunerationis aeque ad transcribendum destinavi, videlicet, illud quod de structura templi Salomonis atque allegorica eius interpretatione nuper edidi. Teque, amantissime pater, supplex obsecro, ut pro mea fragilitate cum his, qui tecum sunt, famulis Christi, apud pium Iudicem sedulus intercedere memineris: sed et eos, ad quos eadem nostra opuscula pervenire feceris, hoc idem facere monueris.
Bene vale, semper amantissime in Christo pater optime.
I HAVE thankfully received the testimonies of your love which you have condescended to send me by the hands of our venerable brother Nothelm the priest, and especially your letter, in which you have shown so much solicitude, this second time, to give me aid and information for my Ecclesiastical History, a work which I first undertook at your instigation. Wherefore also I have with great propriety sent it to you, as I was able to finish it, to be copied.* But I intend to repay you by forwarding to you another volume for the same purpose, as I find, also, is consistent with your own wishes, namely, that which I have lately published on the building of Solomon's temple, and its allegorical signification. And I humbly beseech you, most loving father, and Christ's servants who are with you, to intercede fervently with the righteous in behalf of my frailty; and to admonish those, to whom you shall show my work, to do the same. Fare you well, my good and ever loving father in Christ.
Bede, servant of Christ and priest, to the most reverend and learned Abbot Albinus, greetings.
The Ecclesiastical History is complete, or at least I have completed it as fully as my sources allow — and here I must thank you, whose generosity in sharing the Canterbury archives has made a large part of the work possible.
The history of the southern English church — the Augustinian mission, the archbishops of Canterbury, the councils and controversies of the seventh century — is documented in your archives in ways it is not documented anywhere in Northumbria. Without your assistance in providing copies of documents, narrative accounts from knowledgeable informants, and the episcopal lists that I needed for the chronology, I would have been writing the history of the north only and leaving the south as a shadow.
What I still lack — and I write partly to acknowledge the gap and to ask whether anything can be done about it — is reliable documentation for certain events in the history of the East Anglian and Middle English churches. The informants I have consulted have been helpful but incomplete, and I am aware that what I have written about those regions is thinner than I would like.
If you know of any further sources — letters, narrative accounts, episcopal records — that bear on those churches and that could be shared, I would be grateful to receive them even if the History is already complete. They could inform a revised edition if the work is widely enough copied to justify one.
With all gratitude,
Bede
Update: it gets so much worse. All of Bede's letters have no basis in the original Latin at all. This one reads like a modern email!
(Original Latin, real translation, fake "translation")
![[Scene is a suburban UK street, at night. A voice is coming from a semi-detached house.]
VOICE:
So let me get this straight:
You're a large, magic bunny...
[Cut to interior scene. We see a close-crop of the EASTER BUNNY, standing in the darkened living room of the house. The room is all drawn in atmospheric purples and blues, and a quadrant of light is cast on the wall from a streetlight outside the window.]
[We are still looking at the bunny. He is holding a boxed Easter egg. We noiw see that the voice speaking is not him but is instead coming from a character outside of frame].
Who's broken into this house at 1am to deposit shop-bought chocolate eggs...
EASTER BUNNY [looking awkward]:
Yes.
VOICE:
So people can remember...Jesus.?
EASTER BUNNY:
Yes.
[Pause]
Well I mean it sounds weird when you say it like that.
It is weird.
EASTER BUNNY:
Not as weird as you!
[Pull wider shot. We now see that the Voice is that of a large HAMSTER, who is holding a digital clock].
EASTER BUNNY:
What even is the 'BST Hamster' anyway?
BST HAMSTER:
*sigh*
I'm a large, magic hamster who breaks into people's houses at night and changes their clocks so they feel confused.
[Pause. They stand in silence, in the dark, thinking].
[Close up of the Bunny's face. he is still thinking in silence. He looks existentially nauseous].
EASTER BUNNY:
Do you ever feel your life makes no sense?
[Close up of the BST Hamster. He looks the same - silent, horrified].
BST HAMSTER:
Yeah.
[They stand in the silent living, dark room, in depressed silence.]
[Ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreidaqmqiczrufgnsunewc7ycgunis4jtwmcejlufc7p6r4fxqkbpve)
