Monges, reis e santos : a cristianização e o imaginário na História Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum

Abstract

With the departure of the Romans from the territory of Great Britain and the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon migration in the fifth and sixth centuries, Roman customs and laws weakened. The Anglo-Saxon people had their customs, legends, religions and pagan cults, but the Christian clergy which had already been constituted in Britain, had the need to combat paganism and to obtain the conversion of this people to Christianity, mainly of its leaders. In this work we will analyze how, during the period of Late Antiquity, Venerable Bede made uses of the imaginary and the marvelous as elements of rhetoric for the Christianization of Britain in his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum.