A few years ago, Ben and Will sat down to chat with Dr. Michelle P. Brown, Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London and the previous Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library. She has published numerous books, key among which are works on Bede, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the Luttrell Psalter. Their conversation with Dr. Brown was so rich that it was deemed worthy of two whole episodes!
The focus of their conversation was Bede the Venerable, especially in relation to Dr. Brown’s then-forthcoming book, Bede and the Theory of Everything. Bede was a Benedictine monk of the twin monastery Monkwearmouth–Jarrow in Northumbria, England. He is famous for his work Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), a work that proved central to the formation of the English identity, and which has, over time, earned Bede the title, “Father of English History.”
Dr. Brown is a well of information on the life and writings of Bede, but she is equally full of insight into—what is, for her—the vocation of medieval studies. She speaks of moving into the world of Bede, coming to see every individual artifact—no matter how mundane it may at first appear—as an “individual witness” with its own biography. For her, “every pot shard matters.” Every shred of history is irreducibly unique and, in that way, a clue to the whole.