What does it look like?

It is a manuscript, a little larger than A4 in size, with 256 parchment pages. It has very little decoration, just a few words in red. The text is written by hand, in dark brown ink and appears to be quite cramped together on the page: there is no sign of paragraphs, or even spaces, between the words.

The text is a copy of Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum (An Ecclesiastical History of the English People), by the Northumbrian monk, Bede (672/3 – 735 CE). It is written in Latin, in a quite spiky, angular script.

Who, what and where?

It was copied by monks at Bede’s own monastery of Wearmouth Jarrow, in northern England. They wanted his text to be read by people far and wide. In an age before printing, the only way to distribute a text, was to copy it by hand. This manuscript was copied by just one scribe, using a form of script/writing known as ‘insular minuscule’. It was easier for scribes to write rapidly using this. The scribe could also fit more of this type of text on a page than ‘uncial script’, which was used for the production of elite, biblical manuscripts, for wealthy people.

This particular manuscript is one of the earliest copies of the text to survive, being written just after Bede’s death. We know that this manuscript was sent to the Holy Roman Empire, where it was read and notes were added to it. Many other manuscript copies of the text were made from this one, possibly at the royal court of the Emperor Charlemagne (742-814 CE).

It is usually called the Moore Bede because, prior to entering the collections of the University of Cambridge in 1715, as a gift from George I, it had been owned by John Moore, bishop of Ely (1707–1714). Moore had acquired it sometime between 1697 and 1702, and before that it had been in France, in the library of the cathedral of St. Julien at Le Mans. This information is written at the bottom of the last page.

Why is it significant to the study of religion?

Bede’s History has been hugely influential in shaping ideas about the early history of Christianity in England, for over 1000 years. He was keen to show how Christianity had helped to unify the English people, at a time before England was ruled by a single king. Christians who had been converted by Roman missionaries disagreed with those converted by Irish missionaries about the correct date for celebrating Easter. Bede tells how the two sides resolved their dispute at a synod.

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is also famous for containing the earliest hymn in English, composed by Caedmon (the earliest English poet whose name is known and who he lived during the late 600s CE).