Notes on Venerable Bede and Ibn Khaldūn

Lived approximately 673-735 CE.
At age 7, he was taken to the monastery of Wearmouth to be raised by the monks.
Two years later, he was sent to establish the monastic community of Jarrow, where he spent the rest of his life.
Bede's life coincided with the revival of much Roman culture that had been abandoned when the Romans left England around 410 CE.

Taught his fellow monks Latin, the official language of the Christian church. Additionally, he translated parts of the Bible into Old English, the vernacular language.
Most remembered for his major work, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), which is a work of didactic (instructional) history.
Considered miracles as historical fact.
Authored hagiographies, or biographies of saints.

Bede believed that history should encourage people to do good and avoid evil. According to him,:
‘[I]f history records good things of good men, the thoughtful hearer is encouraged to imitate what is good: or if it records evil of wicked men, the devout, religious listener or reader is encouraged to avoid all that is sinful and perverse[,] to follow what he knows to be good and pleasing to God.’

Advocated for a universally accepted chronology.
- In De Temporibus (703), he argued for the reinstatement of the Roman Christian system to achieve uniformity in calculating important events, exemplified by the moveable feast of Easter.
- He advocated for introducing the Roman dating system of BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, 'in the year of Our Lord').
Recognized as a cultural historian.
- The Ecclesiastical History recorded details of Caedmon, the first English poet known by name.
He was an oral historian, akin to Herodotus.
Notably, he named his sources and provided references.

Lived from 1332 to 1406.
Milani suggests that Ibn Khaldūn 'foreshadows European modernity'.
Like Bede, he was deeply religious but maintained a separation between the sacred and the secular.
Similar to the other historians discussed, Ibn Khaldūn did not merely record the past but also sought to explain it.

Born on 1 Ramadan 732 (27 May 1332).
His role as the secretary to the Moroccan Sultan Abu ‘Inan led to his imprisonment on suspicion of aiding a captured prince.
He was freed after Abu ‘Inan's death but subsequently fled to Spain.
After further political turmoil, he went to Algeria and began writing history.
Later, in Egypt, he wrote his most famous work, The Muqaddimah.

Ibn Khaldūn stated that The Muqaddimah did not aim to 'move or charm the reader', to 'moralise or convince', or to serve a political purpose.
He claimed the work was unbiased, not based on hearsay or false assumptions, and not written to gain favor with those in power.
Importantly, it omitted the supernatural.
It appealed to religious faith by stating that it was not the historian’s place to speculate about the causes of things beyond a certain point, as this was God’s domain.