Early Historians: Bede and Ibn Khaldun

The Venerable Bede

• Lived approximately 673-735 CE.
• At age 7, he was taken to the monastery of Wearmouth to be raised by monks.
• Two years later, he was sent to establish the monastic community of Jarrow, where he spent the rest of his life.
• His life coincided with the revival of Roman culture after the Romans left England around 410 CE.

Bede’s Achievements

• Taught Latin to his fellow monks, the official language of the Christian church. He also translated parts of the Bible into Old English.
• Most remembered for The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), a work of didactic (instructional) history.
• Believed miracles were historical facts.
• Authored hagiographies, which are biographies of saints.

Bede's View on History

• History should record good things of good men to encourage imitation of good, and record evil of wicked men to encourage the avoidance of sin.

Bede’s Legacy as a Historian and Historical Source

• Advocated for a universally accepted chronology in De Temporibus (703).
• Argued for the reinstatement of the Roman Christian system to standardize the calculation of important events, such as Easter.
• Introduced the Roman dating system of BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, ‘in the year of Our Lord’).
• Cultural historian: The Ecclesiastical History recorded details of Caedmon, the first English poet known by name.
• Oral historian, similar to Herodotus.
• Named his sources, thus referencing them.

Ibn Khaldūn

• Lived 1332-1406.
• Considered by some as a foreshadowing of European modernity.
• Deeply religious but separated the sacred and the secular.
• Like other historians, he not only recorded the past but also explained it.

Biographical Information

• Born on 1 Ramadan 732 (27 May 1332).
• Served as the secretary to the Moroccan Sultan Abu ‘Inan, which led to his imprisonment due to suspicions of freeing a captured prince.
• Freed after Abu ‘Inan’s death, but fled to Spain.
• After further political issues, he went to Algeria and started writing history.
• Later, in Egypt, he wrote his most famous work, The Muqaddimah.

The Muqaddimah

• Unlike the historical works of his contemporaries, Ibn Khaldūn declared that The Muqaddimah did not aim to ‘move or charm the reader’, to ‘moralize or convince’, or to serve a political purpose.
• It was not biased, based on hearsay or false assumptions, or written to gain favor with those in power.
• Importantly, it excluded the supernatural but appealed to religious faith by stating that it was not the historian’s place to speculate about causes beyond a certain point, which was considered God’s domain.