While Bede's achievements as scholar, theologian, historian and teacher down the ages are well known, his accounts of people and events, famous as they are, are so charming and delightful that we often do not realise how design, demographics and divinity converge in the 'History's' deeper intent. We shall focus, for the most part, on particular chapters and events. class members are encouraged to read more as they wish. (Class members may find the Penguin edition more accessible, the Oxford edition more accurate and stylistically more elegant).