The previous chapter illustrated that the Ecclesiastical History clearly fits within a particular genre of writing. However, it was also stated that if a text did not fit into a particular generic tradition it became a source of unease. This certainly seems to be the case with Bede's History of the Abbots (HA). This text is an anomaly to which surprisingly little attention has been given. Both Patrick Wormald and Alan Thacker (in greater detail) have offered evidence as to the sources that have influenced this text but very little has been done to discuss it in its wider context. Even a superficial glance at the HA reveals elements of hagiography, history, and biography which together make it a fairly complex book – and one that is especially difficult to categorize as its function is not immediately clear. The main objectives of this chapter are to assess the nature of the HA as a text and thereby suggest a possible motive for its production; to question certain comments made about its hagiographical content by authors such as Alan Thacker; to show that the predominantly influential sources of this text were not necessarily only the Lerins texts which have been emphasized; and, finally, to suggest that what Bede is attempting do becomes clearer if a comparison is made with the Carolingian Deeds of the Abbots (Gesta Abbatum) texts.

The first object of this analysis is, then, to look at the nature of the HA as a text.