Church Eretide of the English Folk/One

An Anglish overbringing of Bede's Church Eretide of the English Folk.

Book One

Of the standing of Britain and Ireland, and their olden dwellers

Britain, an iland in the sea, formerly called Albion, sits between the north and west, gainstanding, though at some length, the shores of Teutonland, Frankrike and Spain, which make up the greatest share of Europe. It is eight hundred miles long towards the north, and two hundred miles broad, but for where some headlands thrust out further, thereby making its girth some 3675 miles. To the south, as you go along the nearest shore of the Belgish Gaul, the first town in Britain which opens to the eye is Rutubi Portus, now misshapen by the English to Reptacestir. The length from here over the sea to Gessoriacum, the nearest shore of the Morini, is fifty miles, or as some writers say, 450 furlongs. On the back of the iland, where it opens up to the endless sea, are the ilands called the Orcades.

The iland is yieldful in corn and trees, and is fit for feeding livestock and workstock. Wineberries grow here and there, and it has many sundry kinds of land and waterfowls. It is known for eas teeming with fish, and its many springs. It has the greatest yield of lax and eels; seals are also often taken, and seapigs, as also whales.

Caius Julius Caesar, the first Roman that came into Britain

Britain had never been gammed by the Romans, and was, indeed, outright unknown to them before the time of Caius Julius Caesar, who, in the year 693 after the building of Rome, but the sixtieth year before the birth of our Lord, was consul with Lucius Bibulus, and afterwards while he made war upon the Teutons and the Gauls, which were cloven only by the river Rhine, came into the shire of the Morini, from whence is the nearest and shortest way into Britain. Here, having given about eighty ships of burden and ships with oars, he sailed over into Britain, where, being first roughly handled in a battle, and then meeting with a wroth storm, he lost a great deal of his fleet, no small deal of footmen, and almost all his horses.

Lucius, King of Britain, writing to Pope Eleutherus, wishes to be christened

In the year of our Lord's birth, 156, Marcus Antoninus Verus, the fourteenth from Augustus, was made caesar, together with his brother, Aurelius Commodus. In their time, whilst Eleutherus, a holy man, was at the head of the Roman church, Lucius, king of the Britons, sent a letter to him, beseeching that at his behest he might be christened. He soon gained his godly asking, and the Britons kept the belief, which they had gotten, unmisshapen and whole, in frith and stillness until the time of Caesar Diocletianus.