The Gregorian Mission to Kent in Bede's Ecclesiastical History

What material lay behind Bede’s narrative in his Ecclesiastical History? What were his sources and were they primary or secondary? This book represents the first systematic attempt to answers these questions, taking as a test case the coherent narrative of the Gregorian mission and the early church in Kent. Through this critique the book is able to catalogue Bede’s sources and assess their origins, provenance and value. The striking paucity of Bede’s primary sources for the period emerges clearly. This study explains the reason why this was the case. At the same time, Bede is shown to have had access to a greater variety of sources, especially documentary, than has previously been realised.