20 The presentation and treatment of the Irish in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (hereafter the HE) are a fascinating element in the text. Completed c. 731 at the Northumbrian monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow, this is Bede’s best known work (though he probably would not have considered it his magnum opus), and it has long been a profoundly important source for early medieval history. 1 The text charts the origin, development, and maturation of the Anglo-Saxon Church up to the 730s, and, alongside this account, Bede discusses the history of other peoples, the interactions of kings and kingdoms, and the accomplishments of a multitude of churchmen of various backgrounds. Included among them are numerous Irish individuals, and this text on the Anglo-Saxon Church is a beneicial source for discussions of the Irish in the seventh century. Of course, Bede’s text is most useful for what it reveals about Bede’s idea of the Irish. 2 Bede 1 The most recent critical edition of the HE is in Michael Lapidge, ed. and notes, Beda: Storia degli Inglesi, 2 vols. (Rome: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla/Mondadori, 2010). The English translation can be found in Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, ed. and trans., Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), and all English quotations from the text are from this edition. Hereafter, book and page numbers are given in parenthesis. 2 N.J. Higham examines Bede’s minimalist account of the Irish in his Chronica maiora, part of his De temporum ratione, which difers from that of the HE. The latter is the later, more detailed, and more personal work, and I consider it a more accurate relection of Bede’s attitude toward the gens Scottorum. Higham, (Re-) Reading Bede: The Ecclesiastical History in Context (London: Routledge, 2006), 115-27. Plures de Scottorum regione: Bede, Ireland, and the Irish Sarah Mccann University College Dublin abStract How does Bede represent the Irish in his eighth-century work, the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum? How does this Anglo-Saxon monk conceive of them as a people, and how does this inluence his use of them in his narrative of the development of the Anglo-Saxon Church? Ireland and the Irish are very visible elements in his account, and Bede’s description of the gens Scottorum and his depictions of the individual Irish who populate his work feed into his interest in ethnicity. Aspects and indicators of this, such as origin tales, language, and common customs, can be discussed in the context of the Irish in the Historia ecclesiastica to great efect. However, ethnicity alone does not deine the Irish who appear in Bede’s text. They are not a homogeneous group for Bede: they are scholars and missionaries, penitents and kings, and he inserts them throughout the work, making them an integral part of his story. By looking closely at his presentation of the Irish as a whole, alongside his individual portraits of Irishmen, a better appreciation of the complexity of Bede’s understanding of the role of the Irish in his history can be realized. ––––––––––