Bede and Gregory of Tours: A Reconsideration

Abstract Although the Historiae of Gregory of Tours (composed in the late sixth century) has frequently been invoked as an influence on Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (composed circa 731), no detailed study of this connection has hitherto been attempted. This article first addresses the manuscript tradition of the Historiae, demonstrating that there were at least two versions of Gregory’s text in circulation in Bede’s time, and that it matters significantly which version Bede encountered. It then compares the two texts in order to assess the case that Bede was influenced by his reading of the Historiae, firstly in analysing some of the sections of the Historia Ecclesiastica where Bede might have drawn on historical material from it, and secondly by considering the case for influence between the two authors at a structural and thematic level. It emerges that Bede almost certainly did not have access to a full ten-book version of the Historiae at the time of writing the Historia Ecclesiastica, but that his reading of the shorter, ‘B’ recension of Gregory’s text helped him to develop the scope of his own work as a geographically bounded Church history. The article concludes by arguing that Bede’s accomplishment as a historian should be located in the context of a historiographical renaissance that was already underway in the post-Roman west.