Bede ignored Arab defeats of Byzantium until the conquests reached the west

Evidence

For Bede (c. 673–735), monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow from his childhood, the Saracens were a distant and obscure threat. The conversion of the Berbers took place when he was almost thirty. Before then, the Saracen invasions had primarily been at the expense of the Persian empire and its eastern neighbors (about whom a Northumbrian monk could scarcely be expected to have much knowledge or interest) and against the Byzantine empire, which Bede disliked for the same reasons Isidore had: he opposed its universalist political pretensions and saw it as prone to all sorts of heresy. Only in later years, as Saracens conquered Spain and raided Italy and Gaul, did Bede see them as dangerous. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 431 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Bede’s account of the reign of Heraclius provides some telling examples of his method and interests. He devotes twenty-three lines (in the Patrologia Latina edition) to the martyrdom of the monk Anastasius, decapitated by the Persian emperor Chosroes, then fourteen lines to the mission of Paulinus of York to King Edwin of Northumbria, then seven to a controversy between the Pope and the Scots about the dating of Easter. Here are the three subjects that Bede finds worthy of commemoration during the reign of Heraclius. In the context of Anastasius’s martyrdom, he does indeed mention in passing that Heraclius defeated the Persians but makes not the slightest allusion to his defeats against the Arabs at Ajnâdayn (634) or Yarmûk (636). Bede only notices the Muslim conquests as they reach the Western Mediterranean. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 451 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Bede’s guide to the Holy Land barely shows the Arab conquest happening; Western chroniclers ignored Muslim conquests until they reached Europe — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 451; Bede only feared Saracens once they reached the West. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 431

Broader Connections

• Western chroniclers ignored Muslim conquests until they reached Europe #corroborates (1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 451
• Bede only feared Saracens once they reached the West. #corroborates (1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 431