Throughout the previous discussion of Bede's understanding of historia it has been stressed that the narration of personal actions performed a central role. Moreover, it has been noted that for reasons of authority and legitimacy many of Bede's historiae have obvious generic links with patristic and Rome-associated predecessors. At the same time they included deviations from these texts, thereby making Bede's writings unique within the genre in which they are normally classified. Within this framework Bede's Martyrology is another of his works that deserves to be admitted, at least as a sub-genre, to the corpus of his history writings. Although Bede did not himself identify it as a historia, he did place it directly after his histories in the bibliographic note at the end of the EH and the importance of this text as the first of the ‘historical’ martyrologies has been noticed by Hippolyte Delehaye, Wilhelm Levison, and Jacques Dubois.

Despite the undoubted originality of Bede's approach to his Martyrology the text has been little considered by academics. Quentin, Dubois, and Renaud are the only authors to have really attempted any significant research and the results of their studies have remained largely confined to the writings of a handful of Bedan scholars. Indeed, there is no critical edition of the Martyrology and for the purposes of this chapter the ‘practical’ edition drawn up by Dubois and Renaud has been used.