From author's preface to the present edition:
In some measure to supply a deficiency which common history cannot obviate, to make the period of the Crusades interesting, by giving to it the tangible thread of authentic narrative, these biographies of the " Heroines" who inspired the troubadour, animated the warrior, or in person " took the cross," have, with much care and labor, been selected and compiled.

"Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum" Translated by John Stevens. Edited by Dr. J.A. Giles. Describes the events of the history of England from 55.B.C. to 731 A.D.
Venerable Bede was born in 672 in Northumbria, near Jarrow. When he was 7, he was brought to the Benedictine abbey at nearby Wearmouth where he became a monk, scholar, and theologian. In 735 Venerable Bede died at monastery at Jarrow. His most famous work "The Ecclesiastical History of the English People" was finished in 731.
From editor's preface to the present edition: "The first version in modern English was that of Stapleton, bearing the following title, " The History of the Church of Englande, compiled by Venerable Bede, Englishman, translated out of Latin into English by Thomas Stapleton, Student in Divinity. Antw. by John Laet, 1565." ...The work was again translated into English by John Stevens, Lond. 8vo. 1723; and a third time (with some omissions) by W. Hurst, Lond. 8vo. 1814, and apparently with the same object which influenced Stevenson. The translation, attached to the text in this volume, is that of Stevens, but corrected without scruple, wherever it was necessary."

From the preface to the present edition:
"It is intended to give a history of the city of Jerusalem from about the year 30 to the present time. This period includes the siege and capture by Titus, the last revolts of the Jews, the Christian occupation of three hundred years, the Mohammedan conquest, the building by the Mohammedans of the Dome of the Rock, the Crusades, the Christian kingdom, the reconquest of the city, and a long period of Mohammedan occupation, during which no event has happened except the yearly flocking of pilgrims to the Church of the Sepulchre, and an occasional quarrel among the monks."