Was Bede English?

[SigniferOne]

"Yes but, in what way was Bede "English"?"

I would be keen to know in which way he was *not* English.

Well it's a curious definitional issue. But don't you think that logical rules require the proof of a positive? It's impossible to prove negatives, pink elephants, or non-Englishness. What is it that you think makes Bede English, a statement you've made in the affirmative and thus carry the onus of clarifying your reasons for. I mean, he was even pre-William, there is nothing British about him. Unless you are prepared to think that the pre-Roman Gauls were British, and some primordial prehistoric people which they displaced were British originally too, ad infinitum.

The whole concept of what "British" means is under question here, and I'm not prepared to accept things other than the contents of our minds in a cultural definition. This reason is precisely why William has always been considered the beginning of Britishness in all the old "History of..." books, because he brought the first original scraps of the British contents of mind with him.

Same with the Romans by the way. Prior to the 8th century BC there were no Romans in Italy, not even primordial natives who had lived on the Palatine or the Quirinal for centuries. If that's the case, that means that in the future there would no longer be "Romans" in exactly the same way, though there'd be a a people still living on the peninsula, and live on it for centuries into the future.