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Cu, I do not think it's so much a matter of translation as of using different recensions. All other things being equal we should use newer versions (though many contain commentaries so can be construed as secondary). But Bede seems to have been messed with over the years. Particularly, you'll find there appears to be a lacuna in all versions - Bede promises to return to ""the siege of Badon-hill, when they made no small slaughter of those enemies, about forty-four years after their arrival in England. But of this hereafter."" And ""hereafter"" never comes: what comes is the only loss of temporal sequence in the book. So this is why comprehensive secondary sources are needed. Anyhow, I am not going to try to impose some novel reading but on the other hand I accept that Martin of Tours was a soldier, Germanus led an army, Patrick's mission was accompanied by a Saxon fleet (Annals of Ulster) - I do not want to suppress this information in the service of an unrealistically sweetened picture of these Christian saints either. So this is why I am wary of the idea that those British bishops were dedicated to ""Romanism"" - in fact the British invented all this ""Joseph of Arimathea"" stuff purely in order to claim an apostolic succession that did NOT involve Rome. In this context I find it significant that David was made Archbishop in Jerusalem - and that this western Archbishopric has completely disappeared!   "