Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/75

 II.

ANOTHER LIFE OF ST. CUTHBERT,

IN PROSE.

To the Holy and most Blessed Father Bishop Eadfield, and to all the Congregation of Brothers also, who serve Christ in the Island of Lindisfarne, Beda, your faithful Fellow-servant, sends greeting.

PREFACE.

§1. as you bade me, my beloved, to prefix to the book, what I have written at your request about the life of our father Cuthbert, of blessed memory, some preface, as I usually do, by which its readers might become acquainted with your desire and my readiness to gratify it, it has seemed good to me, by way of preface, to recal to the minds of those among you who know, and to make known to those readers who were before ignorant thereof, how that I have not presumed without minute investigation to write any of the deeds of so great a man, nor without the most accurate examination of credible witnesses to hand over what I had written to be transcribed. Moreover, when I learnt from those who knew the beginning, the middle, and the end of his glorious life and conversation, I sometimes inserted the names of these my authors, to establish the truth of my narrative, and thus ventured to put my pen to paper and to write. But when my work was arranged, but still kept back from publication, I frequently submitted it for perusal and for correction to our reverend brother Herefrid the priest, and others, who for a long time had well known