Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica
The graph and tables on this page were all generated from data gathered from Book 3 of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum (completed c. AD 731). This book is primarily concerned with the reigns of the Northumbrian kings Oswald (AD 634-42) and Oswiu (AD 642-70), the activities of the missionaries from Iona, especially Aidan, and the Synod of Whitby in AD 664.
The network shows all characters and connections in the book. Male characters are upward-pointing triangles in teal, female characters are downward-pointing triangles in pink, and non-gendered characters are yellow circles (e.g. angels).
The central cluster represents the Northumbrian royal family and their close connections; the significant separate cluster to the right represents the royal house of East Anglia, especially the female members who entered the monastic life and whose lives are recounted in HE 3:8; and the relatively dense cluster at the top is the network of characters outlined in Bede's brief life of Fursa in HE 3:19.
This table is a matrix and represents the distance between all the female characters in HE 3. The information is duplicated on the diagonal axis running left to right. Each character appears twice as they are presented on the vertical and horizontal axis so all connections can be shown; the numbers represent how many steps are between any two women, e.g. Aelfflaed is 1 step from Hild, indicating a direct connection, which is shown by a value of 1.0 connecting these two women.
This is also a heatmap as, in addtion to numerical values, the darker the colour the closer the contact: e.g. see the cluster of 1.0 measurements near the centre of the table which represents the women of the East Anglian royal family.
This table shows the type of relationship connections that are represented in HE 3. The relationship types are those of our Data model which records 21 different types of relationship: 18 of these categories are used in HE 3.
The dominant relationship between characters in HE 3 is kinship, which is also the most dominant category for the HE as a whole. The next highest is Friendship, and the third highest is Church Meetings, which specifically represents the Synod of Whitby: the Synod was a major event in Bede's narrative, and a large number of characters are present.
For our published work on Bede see our publications page.
