Narrating providential history: Bede's account of the conversion of King Edwin of Northumbria in his Historia ecclesiastica

Abstract

This article takes Bede's account of the conversion of King Edwin of Northumbria as a case study in the mechanics and function of narrative. It is now recognized that Bede's sources for his Ecclesiastical History were very limited and that in composing it he relied upon his own deductions as a historian and upon his narrative skill to provide circumstantial detail and causal connections. This article shows how Bede exploited oral narratives to create his account of Edwin's conversion, harmonizing three, conflicting explanations for it. It analyses his use of oral stories, including traditional story types and folkloric stories, and argues that he combined these with additional information of his own invention to endow his History with causality and plausibility. In this, Bede was following the rules of classical rhetoric.