Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is Episode 125 by Rand Sofar Away, the life and times of Edwin

of Deira.

Today, we're going to talk quite a bit about Northumbria, and actually, Northumbria is

going to start to get really important in our story going forward.

Now, much of what we know of Northumbria during this period is due to the efforts of Bede,

and also other Northumbrians who maintained his tradition of keeping annals, but mostly Bede.

And actually, it's been argued that even the term Northumbria might have been coined by Bede

himself. So clearly, this is a very important source for us. But something to keep in mind with

this fact is that Bede wasn't writing from personal experience. He wasn't yet a twinkle in his

grandfather's eye when these events occurred. He wouldn't be born for another 56 years,

and he wouldn't be writing his annals for much longer than that. So where does this information

come from? After all, no one alive would have had any memory of these events.

Well, a large portion of it comes from oral sources, and we need to keep in mind that oral stories

can change depending on who's doing the speaking, what is remembered, and how it is remembered.

Now, naturally, simply because something is written down doesn't make it true. I'm sure you

already knew that from being internet savvy, but the fact that Bede is dealing with oral sources

does create a bit of uncertainty with these events. Another aspect to keep in mind is that the

information regarding Northumbria is coming out of the educated men of society. Learned men,

men who knew how to write. So, men who lived in monasteries.

Monasteries, Northumbria and otherwise, did not have a single unified culture on the island,

and as we touched on several times now, not all monasteries were created equal. A Northumbrian

...