Why read The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800)?

Book cover of The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon

Book description

In this substantial work Walter Goffart treats the four writers who provide the principal narrative sources for our early knowledge of the Ostrogoths, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Lombards: Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon. The University of Notre Dame Press is pleased to make this book available for…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800) as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Richard Shaw

Author

This book – intentionally – shook up the study of Bede (and of the other early medieval historians the work surveys) when it was initially released in 1988.

One book-length chapter is dedicated to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, and it is this part of Narrators which has had probably the greatest influence. Consciously controversial, with polar expression of ideas and a rhetorical presentation of the evidence suited to an attempt to break new ground, Goffart argued for an intentionality in the writing of the History that was tied to the contemporary ecclesio-political context – and, specifically, the enduring impact of what…

From Richard's list on The best books about Bede, his Ecclesiastical History and early Christian Anglo-Saxon England.