How Venerable Are The Brits Today Poem by gershon hepner

HOW VENERABLE ARE THE BRITS TODAY?

Although they used to call St. Bede the Ven-
erable I wonder if today most British men
and women would towards him be as generous,
I venture to say not, since they're more venerous.

In case it is your choice pedantically to read
the point I make about the Venerable Bede,
adding e and saying they're venereous,
doesn't in the least make my point deleterious.

Please treat this poem with some generosity,
unless you disapprove of venerosity.

Inspired by a review on a book by Malcolm Lambert, Christians and Pagans: The Conversion of Britain from Alban to Bede, by Diarmaid MacCulloch in the LRB,6/2/11 ("Rome's New Mission") :

Fortunate is the reader seeking the story of early Christianity in Britain. At its heart is one of the greatest and most readable of medieval historians, the Venerable Bede, and its modern exponents include such engaging and stylish writers as Charles Thomas, Leslie Alcock and Henry Mayr-Harting. The literary sources have attracted much idiosyncratic talent, for they possess the fascination of a cryptic crossword in which one must sift fact from propaganda, post-Norman Conquest forgery from dimly glimpsed ancient original. At one pole, there is the sixth-century Welshman Gildas, whose gloomy rhetoric in De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae testifies to the survival of solid classical education after the Roman legions departed. At the other pole, six centuries later, stand the heroic liar Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose Historia Regum Britanniae conjured up Arthurian splendour from scrappy British memories that they had had a champion against the Saxons, and some ingenious Welsh bishops who, furious at the unholy alliance of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Johnny-come-latelies, consolidated their prestige and estates against the interlopers by inventing evangelistic exploits for ancient saints like Dyfrig or David. Malcolm Lambert is a judicious guide to the shifting opinions of scholars amid these quicksands, casting a sceptical eye even on Bede's motives for glorifying and sanitising the Roman mission to the Anglo-Saxons.

What makes Lambert's account so valuable, however, is the excellent use he makes of archaeological evidence. Advances in archaeology have been aided by the responsible use of metal detectors: once regarded with contempt by professionals, the evolution of sensible ground rules for their use has generated a vast auxiliary force of enthusiastic amateurs with a wide range of historical expertise. Our mania for building roads has helped too, thanks to the enlightened arrangements that now allow for excavations to take place before work begins. Consequently, the last century has witnessed an astonishing array of new finds. The Sutton Hoo grave was the flagship: it was discovered on the eve of the Second World War, and in it we can say with reasonable certainty is interred King Raedwald of East Anglia, a familiar if ambiguous historical figure from Bede's account of the early years of the papal mission to England. In 2003, the richly caparisoned chamber-grave of another sixth to seventh-century king, on whose eyes had been laid crosses in gold foil, was found in Prittlewell in Essex; he may reasonably be identified as King Saeberht of Essex (d.617) , who was the first of his line to convert to Christianity and made possible the institution of St Paul's Cathedral in London. Metal detecting has also given us the Staffordshire Hoard, discovered in 2009, whose five kilos of gold and over a kilo of silver have inspired more public excitement and regional pride than Sutton Hoo. Supplementing the hoard's array of military ostentation are gold crosses ruthlessly folded, maybe by an enemy of the Christian faith, together with a mysterious gold strip bearing a quotation from Numbers 10.35, which could have been part of the consecration jewellery of some great church of the conversion era.

5/5/12 #10,086