Images of visionaries and visions in «Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum» by Bede the Venerable

Abstract

The article considers the classification of different types of visionaries and the images of their visions as exemplified in «Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum», a fundamental work by Bede the Venerable written in the eighth century. Rich variety of types of visionaries creates the unique work where all the functions of visions – cognitive, entertaining, didactic and predictive – are represented to show the constant presence of God in everyday life. We have considered and shortly described all the episodes telling the reader about the miracle of visions, and we have proved that each type of visionary has its own range of images, and those images are connected with the target function of the episode. Taking into consideration all these factors we have created a new scheme, classifying types of visionaries and images according to their functions. According to this scheme, human images mostly perform all the four functions of visions, while the images of different objects and objectless images aim to represent only one or two functions, necessary in a definite episode.