Anglo-Saxon Christianity
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The history of Christianity in England from the Roman departure to the Norman Conquest is often told as one of conflict between the Celtic Christianity spread by the Irish mission, and Roman Christianity brought across by Augustine of Canterbury. Ultimately, though, it was more of a creative symbiosis.
Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England began around AD 600, influenced by Celtic Christianity from the north-west and by the Roman Catholic Church from the south-east, gradually replacing Anglo-Saxon polytheism which had been introduced to what is now England over the course of the 5th and 6th centuries with the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. The first Archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine took office in 597. In 601, he baptised the first Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelbert of Kent. The last pagan Anglo-Saxon king, Arwald, died in 686. The Anglo-Saxon mission on the continent took off in the 8th century, assisting the Christianisation of practically all of the Frankish Empire by AD 800.
Ethelbert of Kent's wife Bertha, daughter of Charibert, one of the Merovingian kings of the Franks, had brought a chaplain (Liudhard) with her. Bertha had restored a church from Roman times to the east of Canterbury and dedicated it to Saint Martin of Tours, the patronal saint for the Merovingian royal family. Ethelbert himself, though a pagan, allowed his wife to worship God her own way. Probably under influence of his wife, Ethelbert asked Pope Gregory I to send missionaries, and in 596 the Pope dispatched Augustine, together with a party of monks.
Augustine had served as praepositus (prior) of the monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome, founded by Gregory. His party lost heart on the way and Augustine went back to Rome from Provence and asked his superiors to abandon the mission project. The pope, however, commanded and encouraged continuation, and Augustine and his followers landed on the Island of Thanet in the spring of 597.
Ethelbert permitted the missionaries to settle and preach in his town of Canterbury. By the end of the year he himself had converted, and Augustine received consecration as a bishop at Arles. At Christmas 10,000 of the king's subjects underwent baptism.
Augustine sent a report of his success to Gregory with certain questions concerning his work. In 601 Mellitus, Justus and others brought the pope's replies, with the pallium for Augustine and a present of sacred vessels, vestments, relics, books, and the like. Gregory directed the new archbishop to ordain as soon as possible twelve suffragan bishops and to send a bishop to York, who should also have twelve suffragans. Augustine did not carry out this papal plan, nor did he establish the primatial see at London as Gregory intended, as the Londoners remained heathen. Augustine did consecrate Mellitus as bishop of London and Justus as bishop of Rochester.
Pope Gregory issued more practicable mandates concerning heathen temples and usages: he desired that temples become consecrated to Christian service and asked Augustine to transform pagan practices, so far as possible, into dedication ceremonies or feasts of martyrs, since "he who would climb to a lofty height must go up by steps, not leaps" (letter of Gregory to Mellitus, in Bede, i, 30).
Augustine reconsecrated and rebuilt an old church at Canterbury as his cathedral and founded a monastery in connection with it. He also restored a church and founded the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul outside the walls. He died before completing the monastery, but now lies buried in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul.
In 616 Ethelbert of Kent died. The kingdom of Kent and the associated Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which Kent had had influence over relapsed into heathenism for several decades.
The Synod of Whitby in 664 forms a significant watershed in that King Oswiu of Northumbria decided to follow Roman rather than Celtic practices.
[edit] Further reading
- Mayr-Harting, H., The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, London 1991.
- Thomas, Charles, Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500, London 1981.
- Yorke, Barbara, The Conversion of Britain, London, 2006.
- Higham, N.J., Re-Reading Bede: The Historia Ecclisiastica In English History, London, 2006. ISBN 9780415353687
- William A. Chaney, Paganism to Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, The Harvard Theological Review (1960).
[edit] See also
- East Saxons - Prittlewell burial
- Battle of Hexham
- Hexham
- Anglo-Saxon architecture
- St Cuthbert
- Bede
- Benedict Biscop
- Celtic Christianity
- Edward the Confessor
- History of the Church of England
- Early Insular Christianity
- Germanic Christianity
- Hiberno-Scottish mission
- Anglo-Saxon mission
