From the eighth century to the present, the Venerable Bede has been honored as the father of English history; his contributions to every discipline of the early medieval curriculum have been established. During the past twenty years many new editions and translations of his works have appeared; some works thought lost have been rediscovered and wrongly attributed works have now been culled from his great repertory; numerous critical appraisals have been published emphasizing Bede's program of reform in his later works; and important studies of early Anglo-Saxon history have changed basic understandings of his life and times. Although excellent essays have examined Bede's contributions to individual disciplines, extensive analysis of all Bede's writings as related works are exceptionally rare. This new analysis of Bede's writings and influence synthesizes recent and older critical studies, especially of his less well-known writings, and reexamines his historical, exegetical, pedagogical, and epistolary writings from a unified perspective enriched by years of study.

Bede understood all his endeavors as related, and the thematic unity appears in various degrees and guises in every work; to see the unity of the whole, the entirety of his lifework must be encompassed. Historians have tried to detect Bede's motives in composing the Ecclesiastical History of the English People and his historically related works. Some think he was idealistically inspired to record the history that would go unrecognized if he did not do it; others suggest he had a more particular purpose, cleverly devised in execution, such as to counter Bishop Wilfrid's coterie and powerbase by holding up Cuthbert and his values as the true ideal. Without denying such special intentions, I contend that a complete survey of all Bede's writings reveals a larger consistent purpose and an overall design integral to his whole work. A review of Bede's exegesis and hagiography can elucidate his other writings, all sharing a single purpose: to express the working out of salvation history particularly among the English.

My research on the Venerable Bede and his works has greatly profited from numerous publications as well as shared insights and communications from Bedan scholars. Although I have tried to read all the available scholarship on Bede, I list only works I actually cite; so I apologize to all those whose works I have not formally noted.