The venerable Bede
Happy feast of the Epiphany! Or Theophany, if you prefer. Thus ends the Christmas season - enjoy!
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So, I had a friend over here the other night who was fangirling like crazy about Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica. Now, I have a copy of Bede and I thought, "hm, maybe I should see what all the fuss is about."
OMG BEDE IS THE BEST THING EVER YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I mean, he's explaining the electrostatic properties of Jet as necessary background to a history of the church in Britain. And, seriously, just check this out:
"Because Britain lies almost under the North Pole, it has short nights in summer, so that often at midnight it is hard for those who are watching to say whether it is evening or twilight which still lingers, or whether morning dawn has come, since the sun at night returns to the east through regions of the north without passing far below the horizon. For this reason the summer days are very long. On the other hand the winter nights are also of great length, namely eighteen hours, doubtless because the sun has then departed to the region of Africa. In summer too the nights are extremely short; so are the days in winter, each consisting of six standard equinoctal hours, while in Armenia, Macedonia, Italy and other countries in the same latitude the longest day or night consists of fifteen hours and the shortest of nine."
(emphasis mine).
Guys. He's talking about the earth's angle of inclination with respect to the ecliptic. Guys. In an ecclesiastical history of britain. *splutters.*
So, yes, I am officially a Bede fangirl now. Apparently it was contagious.
Bear in mind the the above was written in 731 A.D. (the term anno domini as a standard way of marking dates? Coined and popularized by Bede. YEAH.)
Anyway, wishing you a Bedeful Epiphany! Be happy in all things!
------
So, I had a friend over here the other night who was fangirling like crazy about Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica. Now, I have a copy of Bede and I thought, "hm, maybe I should see what all the fuss is about."
OMG BEDE IS THE BEST THING EVER YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I mean, he's explaining the electrostatic properties of Jet as necessary background to a history of the church in Britain. And, seriously, just check this out:
"Because Britain lies almost under the North Pole, it has short nights in summer, so that often at midnight it is hard for those who are watching to say whether it is evening or twilight which still lingers, or whether morning dawn has come, since the sun at night returns to the east through regions of the north without passing far below the horizon. For this reason the summer days are very long. On the other hand the winter nights are also of great length, namely eighteen hours, doubtless because the sun has then departed to the region of Africa. In summer too the nights are extremely short; so are the days in winter, each consisting of six standard equinoctal hours, while in Armenia, Macedonia, Italy and other countries in the same latitude the longest day or night consists of fifteen hours and the shortest of nine."
(emphasis mine).
Guys. He's talking about the earth's angle of inclination with respect to the ecliptic. Guys. In an ecclesiastical history of britain. *splutters.*
So, yes, I am officially a Bede fangirl now. Apparently it was contagious.
Bear in mind the the above was written in 731 A.D. (the term anno domini as a standard way of marking dates? Coined and popularized by Bede. YEAH.)
Anyway, wishing you a Bedeful Epiphany! Be happy in all things!