In his H. E. he uses "Pliny,
Solinus, Orosius, Eutropius Marcellinus Comes, Gildas, probably
the Historia Brittonum, a Passion of St. Alban, and the Life of
Germanus of Auxerre by Constantius"; while he refers to
lives of St. Fursa, St. Ethelburg, and to Adamnan's work on the
Holy Places. Cf. Sandys, i. 468; Camb. Lit., i. 80-81. Bede also
got first-hand knowledge: the Lindisfarne records provided him
with material on Cuthbert; information came to him from
Canterbury about Southern affairs and from Lastingham about
Mercian affairs. Nothelm got material from the archives at Rome
for him.
Section IV
Canterbury, Malmesbury, Lindisfarne, Wearmouth and
Jarrow, and York were like mountain-peaks tipped with gold
by the first rays of the rising sun, while all below remains
dark. Yet while not indicative of widespread means of
instruction, the existence of these centres, and the character
of the work done in them, suggests that at other places the
same sort of work, on a smaller and less influential scale,
soon began. At Lichfield, on the moorland at Ripon, in
"the dwelling-place in the meadows" at Peterborough, in
the desolate fenland at Crowland and at Ely, on the banks
of the Thames at Abingdon, and of the Avon at Evesham,
in the nunneries of Barking and Wimborne, at Chertsey,
Glastonbury, Gloucester, in the far north at Melrose, and
even perhaps at Coldingham, Christianity was speeding its
message, and learning--such as it was, primitive and
pretentious--caught pale reflections from more famous places.
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