The thing I love about Latin is the precision and richness of the language, which is why I find bad translation so irritating. Word order is not so important because case and tense and other indicators of grammar confirm the intended meaning clearly. Yet bad translations are the received stuff of English history because English historians, like historians everywhere, prefer inaccurate, romantic, patriotic whimsy to accurate but uncomfortable historical truth.
Below is the Venerable Bede's first paragraph of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
In short, there was a part of Britain that was quite simply a Belgian Gallic colony in Bede’s day - the civitas Bede references later in the same line. The bit about cuius proximum litus transmeantibus aperit ciuitas is more accurately translated as "whose nearest shore opens/reveals the colony on the Channel crossing." Aperit does not mean 'opens to the eye', it means opens or discloses and the noun is the nearest shore. The coast from Richborough to Pevensey along the Channel made the Belgian-Gallic colony open and accessible to Frankish tribes opposite on the continent, kinsmen of the Franks living in coastal areas and taxing inland Britain. Transmeantibusis the ablative case of the verb participle of cross, and therefore can only mean 'on the Channel crossing'. If you think of the Channel as a watery commons surrounded by Frankish tribes who traded and inter-married with each other all around its coasts you would have the right idea.
What Bede was saying was that in his day (672 to 735) there was a Belgian-Gallic canton in the south of Britain, held by Frankish tribes that had settled both sides of the English Channel and controlled all trade and emigration across the Channel for nearly a thousand years. Anti-Viking, Anti-German and Anti-French sentiment, 800 years of war with France, and separation from the Roman Catholic Church mean that the English would rather not recognise that in their early history they were colonised, taxed and controlled by Frankish tribes, no matter how clear the Venerable Bede's Latin statement to that effect.
The second common error is to take Bede's reference to the gente Anglorumhere and in other places in his record as a reference to Bede's own tribe. Bede may be regarded as the father of English history in retrospect, but he would have been gravely insulted to have been called English to his face during his life. Bede was emphatically not 'English', nor was he one of the other indigenous tribes he describes derisively as Britons, Picts and Scots. He also was not from the invading tribes he called Angles, Jutes or Saxons. When Bede was writing, the Kingdom of Northumbria was not yet part of England. Even if it had been, Bede was raised in an ecclesiastical community that saw itself as separate and apart from the native populace, more aligned with Belgic-Gaul and Rome than Britain.
Raised and writing at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, Bede was likely a wealthy Northumbrian Frank. When his colleague Cuthbert described Bede's death, he recorded a song commended by Bede on his deathbed in Anglo-Saxon vernacular. His comment that Bede "was learned in our song" confirms that Bede was an outsider to the Anglo-Saxons.
Bede was probably from a wealthy Frankish family of merchants or trademen. The very elegance and clarity of his Latin support him being Frankish, as the coastal Franks considered themselves the inheritors of Roman privilege and spoke Latin - or Romanz as they called it - in preference to any local tribal languages. Bede was likely descended from the Belgian-Gallic colonists Rome had installed at York, Colchester, Rochester, London, Hastingas and Canterbury to control and tax trade and markets in Britain, or the skilled Frankish emigrants who came to Roman ports and market towns to bring their superior industry and sell their goods to the backwards British. That Bede was a Frank himself is supported by his being sent to Monwearmouth to be monk at the tender age of 7, the age at which Frankish families typically sent their children away to be trained to a profession or trade that would expand the family’s influence. In confirmation of his Frankish connections, more than half of the manuscripts of Bede's works that survive were found in Frankish religious orders on the continent.
Finally, people miss the jest about Ritupi portus being corrupted to Reptacastirby the English. A more medieval name would be Reeve City or Rape City. Bede probably thought this was a knee-slappingly funny way to begin his history, as his Roman, Frankish and clerical readers would get the jest. Ritupi, the capital of the Belgian-Gallic colony in the south of Britain, was where the Belgian-Gallic tax-farmers of the Roman Empire had been stationed since Caesar's conquest of Britain in 54 BC. After Caesar took Britain he gave control of cross-Channel trade and taxation of its inland tribes to a Belgian-Gallic client king named Commius under a publicani contract with the Roman state. Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Warsmentions plainly that he was using tax-farmers under Commius' direction to collect taxes in Gaul, and he extended the system to Britainnia after defeating the Morini in 55BC and invading with 8,000 Roman troops in 54BC. Coins of Commius and his sons are found on both sides of the Channel. Caesar also used the same Frankish tribes in trading settlements along the Rhine to tax trade with Germanic tribes, situating them in defended trade cantons along the river.
Caesar’s taxation method was so successful that Ptolomy observed within a century Rome was collecting more in tribute from Britain than if it invaded and occupied the island. The restoration to the impoverished Roman Republic (where the portorium tax at Italian ports had been temporarily repealed) of huge tributes of gold and silver, steel, grain and wool, from Gaul and Britannia largely explains Caesar's popularity and rise to power in Rome. Claudius invaded and occupied Britain a century later anyway, of course, but the Frankish colonists settled in Britain's ports and cantons continued to run the ports, control cross-Channel shipping, and collect the taxes from the natives. By sharing a little pun about Ritupi/Reptacastir at the English people's expense with his readers in his opening paragraph, Bede is pretty clearly signalling that his allegiance is with the Frankish tax-collectors and with Rome, not with the diverse tribes of Britain.
Makes you wonder what else has been badly mangled by translators and historians after the first paragraph, doesn't it?
Below is the Venerable Bede's first paragraph of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
It is commonly translated as appears below, from The Medieval Sourcebook:[1] Brittania Oceani insula, cui quondam Albion nomen fuit, inter septentrionem et occidentem locata est, Germaniae, Galliae, Hispaniae, maximis Europae partibus, multo interuallo aduersa. Quae per miliapassuum DCCC in Boream longa, latitudinis habet milia CC, exceptis dumtaxat prolixioribus diuersorum promontoriorum tractibus, quibus efficitur, ut circuitus eius quadragies octies LXXV milia conpleat. Habet a meridie Galliam Belgicam, cuius proximum litustransmeantibus aperit ciuitas, quae dicitur Rutubi portus,a gente Anglorum nunc corrupte Reptacaestir uocata, interposito mari a Gessoriaco Morynorum gentis litore proximo, traiectu milium L, siue, ut quidam scripsere, stadiorum CCCCL. A tergo autem, unde Oceano infinito patet, Orcadas insulas habet.
The first common error in the translation is to suggest Galliam Belgicam is opposite Britain, which is not at all what the sentence plainly says. Habet means 'it has/holds/manages/possesses', and 'it' is Britain. This means that whatever follows is in the south part of Britain itself, not offshore somewhere. If the place being held or possessed was across the Channel, the place of reference would be in the ablative case: Gallia Belgica. Galliam Beligcam is in the accusative case, and therefore Belgian-Gaul is being held or possessed in the south of the island of Britain. None of this says 'as you pass along'.BRITAIN, an island in the ocean, formerly called Albion, is situated between the north and west, facing, though at a considerable distance, the coasts of Germany, France, and Spain, which form the greatest part of Europe. It extends 800 miles in length towards the north, and is 200 miles in breadth, except where several promontories extend further in breadth, by which its compass is made to be 3675 miles. To the south, as you pass along the nearest shore of the Belgic Gaul, the first place in Britain which opens to the eye is the city of Rutubi Portus, by the English corrupted into Reptacestir. The distance from hence across the sea to Gessoriacum, the nearest shore of the Morini, is fifty miles, or as some writers say, 450 furlongs. On the back of the island, where it opens upon the boundless ocean, it has the islands called Orcades.
In short, there was a part of Britain that was quite simply a Belgian Gallic colony in Bede’s day - the civitas Bede references later in the same line. The bit about cuius proximum litus transmeantibus aperit ciuitas is more accurately translated as "whose nearest shore opens/reveals the colony on the Channel crossing." Aperit does not mean 'opens to the eye', it means opens or discloses and the noun is the nearest shore. The coast from Richborough to Pevensey along the Channel made the Belgian-Gallic colony open and accessible to Frankish tribes opposite on the continent, kinsmen of the Franks living in coastal areas and taxing inland Britain. Transmeantibusis the ablative case of the verb participle of cross, and therefore can only mean 'on the Channel crossing'. If you think of the Channel as a watery commons surrounded by Frankish tribes who traded and inter-married with each other all around its coasts you would have the right idea.
What Bede was saying was that in his day (672 to 735) there was a Belgian-Gallic canton in the south of Britain, held by Frankish tribes that had settled both sides of the English Channel and controlled all trade and emigration across the Channel for nearly a thousand years. Anti-Viking, Anti-German and Anti-French sentiment, 800 years of war with France, and separation from the Roman Catholic Church mean that the English would rather not recognise that in their early history they were colonised, taxed and controlled by Frankish tribes, no matter how clear the Venerable Bede's Latin statement to that effect.
The second common error is to take Bede's reference to the gente Anglorumhere and in other places in his record as a reference to Bede's own tribe. Bede may be regarded as the father of English history in retrospect, but he would have been gravely insulted to have been called English to his face during his life. Bede was emphatically not 'English', nor was he one of the other indigenous tribes he describes derisively as Britons, Picts and Scots. He also was not from the invading tribes he called Angles, Jutes or Saxons. When Bede was writing, the Kingdom of Northumbria was not yet part of England. Even if it had been, Bede was raised in an ecclesiastical community that saw itself as separate and apart from the native populace, more aligned with Belgic-Gaul and Rome than Britain.
Raised and writing at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, Bede was likely a wealthy Northumbrian Frank. When his colleague Cuthbert described Bede's death, he recorded a song commended by Bede on his deathbed in Anglo-Saxon vernacular. His comment that Bede "was learned in our song" confirms that Bede was an outsider to the Anglo-Saxons.
Bede was probably from a wealthy Frankish family of merchants or trademen. The very elegance and clarity of his Latin support him being Frankish, as the coastal Franks considered themselves the inheritors of Roman privilege and spoke Latin - or Romanz as they called it - in preference to any local tribal languages. Bede was likely descended from the Belgian-Gallic colonists Rome had installed at York, Colchester, Rochester, London, Hastingas and Canterbury to control and tax trade and markets in Britain, or the skilled Frankish emigrants who came to Roman ports and market towns to bring their superior industry and sell their goods to the backwards British. That Bede was a Frank himself is supported by his being sent to Monwearmouth to be monk at the tender age of 7, the age at which Frankish families typically sent their children away to be trained to a profession or trade that would expand the family’s influence. In confirmation of his Frankish connections, more than half of the manuscripts of Bede's works that survive were found in Frankish religious orders on the continent.
Finally, people miss the jest about Ritupi portus being corrupted to Reptacastirby the English. A more medieval name would be Reeve City or Rape City. Bede probably thought this was a knee-slappingly funny way to begin his history, as his Roman, Frankish and clerical readers would get the jest. Ritupi, the capital of the Belgian-Gallic colony in the south of Britain, was where the Belgian-Gallic tax-farmers of the Roman Empire had been stationed since Caesar's conquest of Britain in 54 BC. After Caesar took Britain he gave control of cross-Channel trade and taxation of its inland tribes to a Belgian-Gallic client king named Commius under a publicani contract with the Roman state. Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Warsmentions plainly that he was using tax-farmers under Commius' direction to collect taxes in Gaul, and he extended the system to Britainnia after defeating the Morini in 55BC and invading with 8,000 Roman troops in 54BC. Coins of Commius and his sons are found on both sides of the Channel. Caesar also used the same Frankish tribes in trading settlements along the Rhine to tax trade with Germanic tribes, situating them in defended trade cantons along the river.
Caesar’s taxation method was so successful that Ptolomy observed within a century Rome was collecting more in tribute from Britain than if it invaded and occupied the island. The restoration to the impoverished Roman Republic (where the portorium tax at Italian ports had been temporarily repealed) of huge tributes of gold and silver, steel, grain and wool, from Gaul and Britannia largely explains Caesar's popularity and rise to power in Rome. Claudius invaded and occupied Britain a century later anyway, of course, but the Frankish colonists settled in Britain's ports and cantons continued to run the ports, control cross-Channel shipping, and collect the taxes from the natives. By sharing a little pun about Ritupi/Reptacastir at the English people's expense with his readers in his opening paragraph, Bede is pretty clearly signalling that his allegiance is with the Frankish tax-collectors and with Rome, not with the diverse tribes of Britain.
Makes you wonder what else has been badly mangled by translators and historians after the first paragraph, doesn't it?