The venerable Bede (AD 672-735) was not the first historian of the British Isles, but he was the first to to list and master his documentary and oral sources. For a man who travelled little, he showed a great depth of understanding about the outside world, informing himself by commissioning others to copy documents in the Papal Regista and various episcopal and monastic archives.

This new edition has been carefully revised by Gerrish Gray and is beautifully typeset in Bembo type.