Meanwhile Britain enjoyed a rest from foreign, though not from civil, wars. Amid the wreckage of deserted cities destroyed by the enemy, the citizens who had survived the enemy now attacked each other. So long as the memory of past disaster remained fresh, kings and priests, commoners and nobles kept their proper rank. But when those who remembered died, there grew up a generation that knew nothing of these things and had experienced only the present peaceful order. Then were all restraints of truth and justice so utterly abandoned that no trace of them remained, and very few of the people even recalled their existence. Among the other unspeakable crimes, recorded with sorrow by their own historian Gildas, they added this – that they never preached the Faith to the Saxons or Angles who dwelt with them in Britain. But God in his goodness did not utterly abandon the people whom he had chosen; for he remembered them, and sent this nation more worthy preachers of truth to bring them to the Faith.1
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In this chapter Bede falls back on Gildas as a source, but emphasizes the refusal of the British (Welsh) to preach the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons. Moreover the Roman Empire had no further part to play in Bede’s story. During this chronological gap of about 150 years the Anglo-Saxons consolidated their settlements and kingdoms. The contrast between the energetic preachers from Ireland and Rome and the non-cooperative Welsh is fundamental for the whole book. ↩