Christianity and the Church in Pre-Conquest England

Introduction

The history of the pre-Conquest Church can be roughly divided into three periods. In chronological order, at the very start is Roman Christianity, which we can think of as a sort of prehistoric period, followed by the age of missionary activity and conversion, running from the early 7th century up to the Viking invasions of the 9th century. Finally, there is the revival of monasticism and intellectual life covering the last two centuries of Anglo-Saxon times. The Roman period is mostly covered by the work of archaeologists and, as such, will only be treated briefly; the sources are very thin, being mainly material remains with some enlightened inferences about place names. No contemporary writer, neither Christian nor (Roman) pagan, and neither from the British Isles nor the Continent, said anything that has survived about the church in Roman Britain. There have been attempts to determine the beliefs and the adherence to pre-Christian “paganism,” though here too we have little in the written record. For the latter two chronological periods—from 597 to about 900 and then from 900 to the conquest in 1066—there is a wealth of contemporary materials (primary sources) as well as modern scholarly analysis and discussion. Both types of material will be explicated in this entry. Some basic reference tools, such as encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries, have been cited in the Oxford Bibliographies article on “Christianity and the Church in Post-Conquest England” and are omitted here unless they are vital for a focus on ecclesiastical history. The same is the case for the general bibliographies that appear in various annual guides. There are a number of Oxford Bibliographies articles that are relevant to this article. They are complementary or parallel, and can be used to cover aspects of religious life that are better treated as literature, that focus on individual figures such as “Alfred the Great” and Alcuin, and that indicate the extent to which the archaeological record reinforces (or runs counter to) an entry that relies on written materials. In addition, the Oxford Bibliographies article on “Pre-Conquest England” can be used to great advantage alongside this more specialized look at one aspect of the Anglo-Saxon world before 1066.

General Overviews

Studies that offer a wide view of religious life and ecclesiastical institutions are valuable for the way they synthesize the detailed research that is published in the voluminous stream of monographs, collected volumes, and scholarly journals. Though these surveys become dated regarding details as new findings are published and new scholarly interpretations are offered, such volumes give a very useful overview as an introduction to topics and areas of scholarship of current interest. Accordingly, there is a real need for surveys such as Blair 2005, Barlow 1979, Deanesly 1961, and Godfrey 1962, though not all of them tackle the entire period and some have a distinct or even a controversial view concerning the interpretation of the evidence or in assessing such issues as the role of the papacy in missionary work. Some works deliberately focus on a more limited slice of the chronological framework, even if a general coverage is the goal. We see this with Fisher 1952, while Hollis 1992 offers a survey of a different kind, as it is based on a close reading of some key texts to determine the role of women and their status in Anglo-Saxon Christianity, as spelled out or allowed by various major authors. In chapters written for books with a particular focus, Darlington 1959, Deanesly 1961, and Deanesly 1969 set the early church within the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms into a wider context, one looking at two-way contacts with continental Christianity and one relating Anglo-Saxon Christianity to the papacy.

Barlow, Frank. The English Church, 1000–1066: A History of the Anglo-Saxon Church. London: Longman, 1979.
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The second edition of a study (and now with a list of monasteries added) that looks at institutional aspects of the church in the last Anglo-Saxon centuries; concerned with how the reforms and renewal of the 10th and 11th centuries actually played out in the church and in society.
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Blair, John. The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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An excellent overview, covering much recent work and setting ecclesiastical history in a larger context. Now perhaps the best place to begin for a general survey.
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Darlington, Reginald R. “The Anglo-Saxon Period.” In The English Church and the Continent. Edited by Charles R. Dodwell, 9–24. London: Faith Press, 1959.
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This chapter is a counter to the tendency (once more prevalent than today) to treat Anglo-Saxon Christianity in an insular and isolated fashion.
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Deanesly, Margaret. The Pre-Conquest Church in England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.
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Rather outdated now in terms but still a reasonable and readable synthesis. Also of interest is the author’s Sidelights on the Anglo-Saxon Church (London: A. & C. Black, 1962), a book of interesting short essays.
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Deanesly, Margaret. “The Anglo-Saxon Church and the Papacy.” In The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages. Edited by C. Hugh Lawrence, 29–62. London: Burns and Oates, 1969.
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The volume was reprinted in 1999 (Stroud, UK: Sutton), and it is still of value as a survey of an important aspect of ecclesiastical history, especially as the mission of 597 had been sent from (and by) Rome.
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Fisher, D. J. V. “The Church in England between the Death of Bede and the Danish Invasions.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (Fifth Series) 2 (1952): 1–19.
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Looking at a sort of middle period or lull between the exciting bits—a period that generally gets less attention, though it was in these years that Christianity really put down its roots in the various states and kingdoms of the heptarchy.
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Godfrey, John. The Church in Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1962.
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Though a bit dated, it still offers a useful single-volume coverage of a complex topic, though in many respects, Blair 2005 has replaced it.
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Hollis, Stephanie. Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church: Sharing a Common Fate. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1992.
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An examination of some important texts (Theodore’s “Penitential,” Eddius’s “Life of Wilfrid,” Bede on Cuthbert, etc.) to assess their view of the role of women in the new church. This touches a topic of much current interest and gives a different slant to our reading of basic and familiar primary sources.
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Loyn, Henry R. The English Church, 940–1154. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2000.
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A bold attempt to bridge the gap between the late Anglo-Saxon church and the church that was shaped by the Normans during the years of the great reform movement in western Christendom (the Investiture Controversy).
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Reference Works

Different kinds of aids are listed here. Some, such as Fletcher 1989, Williams 1991, Farmer 2004, and Lapidge, et al. 1999 are reference volumes of a familiar sort, with alphabetical entries for people and/or topics. These are easy to use and offer reliable, if short, guides. Other works, such as Knowles and Hadcock 1994 and Knowles, et al. 2001, represent the efforts of long-term research projects, sifting ecclesiastical records and reducing their information to a reference volume format, in this case giving basic information about all the known Anglo-Saxon monasteries and their heads. Sawyer 1968 offers a guide to all the charters known at the time of publication, and the work remains the starting point for any inquiry into this basic source for Anglo-Saxon history. The atlas of Hill 1981 is invaluable, largely replacing maps in standard historical atlases. Harrison 1976, while not written as a reference book, includes a scholarly discussion of the calendar, which is a useful starting point for an inquiry into the basic framework of dating: this framework being critical for an understanding of the fierce quarrels about the celebration of Easter that wracked the Christian communities of the island through much of the 7th century. Fryde 1986, the Royal Historical Society’s Handbook of British Chronology, lists the preconquest bishops, many presiding over dioceses that were replaced or wiped out after 1066.

Farmer, David. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
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Particularly attentive to early saints of the British Isles: handy and reliable, a wealth of information in a short paperback volume and a calendar to take us through the course of the year (day by day).
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Fletcher, Richard. Who’s Who in Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England. Chicago and London: St. James, 1989.
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Short biographies, with ecclesiastical figures well represented.
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Fryde, Edmund B., ed. Handbook of British Chronology. 3d ed. Guides and Handbooks. London: Royal Historical Society, 1986.
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This volume lists all the bishops from the arrival of the missionaries in 597 through the conquest. Many of the dioceses of preconquest times were changed, moved, or dissolved after 1066.
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Harrison, Kenneth. The Framework of Anglo-Saxon History: To A.D. 900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
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A learned discussion of the Christian calendar, the framework within which historical writing and dates were calculated and established. This was a matter of great importance to the church, especially concerning the dating of Easter. (See also Harrison’s “Easter Cycles and the Equinox in the British Isles.” Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978): 1–8). The Oxford Bibliographies article on the “Venerable Bede” covers this important topic at some length.
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Hill, David. An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.
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Covers the entire waterfront for the island, from physical geography to trade routes, and with maps showing ecclesiastical organization and the course of the post-Viking reforms and rebuilding.
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Knowles, David, and R. Neville Hadcock. Medieval Religious Houses, England and Wales. London: Longman, 1994.
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First published in 1953, this basic listing of every regular house covers Anglo-Saxon houses, though the great age of monastic foundation and endowment really came after 1066. This volume remains the starting point of any inquiry into monastic history, and an immense amount of vital information is presented in a very compact form. This work will not be superseded.
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Knowles, David, Christopher N. L. Brooke, and Vera C. M. London. The Heads of Religious Houses, England and Wales I: 940–1216, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511496226Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This supersedes the edition of 1972, with new material by Brooke. The arrangement is by monastic orders; see pp. 207–224 for Benedictine nunneries. This book is the logical follow-up of Knowles and Hadcock 1994, listing the house and then the men and women who presided over it, in chronological order.
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Lapidge, Michael, John Blair, Simon Keynes, and Donald Scragg, eds. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
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Recent coverage on most topics by major authorities; good short bibliographies for the entries.
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Sawyer, Peter. Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography. London: Royal Historical Society, 1968.
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Still the basic guide, with notes and references. Any discussion of charters, or a search for key documents in understanding how the church became “established,” begins here. A clear presentation of a complicated matter.
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Williams, Ann, Alfred P. Smyth, and D. P. Kirby, eds. A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain: England, Scotland, and Wales, c. 500–c. 1050. London: Seaby, 1991.
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As it advertises; basic information and handy to use, with the inclusion of key figures from the Celtic sections of the islands.
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Bibliographies

Regular publications like Anglo-Saxon England (an annual volume of scholarly papers) and the Old English Newsletter (OEN) offer current bibliographies as one of their regular features, sometimes with editorial comments and criticism. The OEN also publishes “subsidia” on specific topics that touch ecclesiastical history and bibliography, though their main focus is usually literary. Bonser 1957 is quite comprehensive and well arranged by topics, but obviously the book has become dated, as is the case with the excellent short guide Keynes 1993 (though it is much more up-to-date than Bonser 1957). Given their different focuses or purposes, both kinds of guides are of value.

Anglo-Saxon England. 1972–.
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An annual volume of scholarly work published by Cambridge University Press; in addition to articles covering a wide range of relevant topics, each volume has a bibliography that deals with recent publications. Entries for ecclesiastical history appear in the section on Anglo-Latin work, on the liturgy, and in the general sections. The coverage is extensive with an effort to include work from beyond the English-speaking scholarly world.
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Bonser, Wilfrid. An Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Bibliography (450–1087). Oxford: Blackwell, 1957.
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Ecclesiastical history and religion, pp. 160–279. Though obviously dated there are valuable references to many older works, with subsections on such topics as hagiography, missions, monasticism, and biography. When published, this volume aimed to be as comprehensive as possible (and there was much less work to cover). Still a useful guide to older work.
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Catholic Historical Review. 1915–.
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A scholarly journal that offers a regular bibliography of periodical literature, with sections on both “general and miscellaneous” publications and those treating the medieval (and Anglo-Saxon) church.
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Keynes, Simon. Anglo-Saxon History: A Select Bibliography. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 1993.
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The second edition of a short but valuable bibliography published as subsidia 13 for the Old English Newsletter. Its compressed style lists many entries in a short booklet, covering the church and intellectual life along with most secular topics.
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Old English Newsletter. 1967–.
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Now published through the University of Massachusetts Amherst where, to date, Stephen Harris is its editor in chief. Carries extensive bibliographies covering many aspects of Anglo-Saxon England. Ecclesiastical history is not covered as such, but many relevant items are listed, scattered through many of the subsections. The editors of the various sections of the Newsletter make an effort to relate work on the same field and offer some commentary on items that are cited. Many hands contribute to this invaluable newsletter, and a very wide range of publications (in many languages) are treated, including PhD dissertations and some impressively obscure articles. The “subsidia,” as with Keynes’ bibliography, are often of value for church history.
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Collected Papers

Much of the scholarship on the church in Anglo-Saxon England appears in the form of short papers rather than of full-size books, and many such items are cited in this article. Some of the shorter pieces are published in annual volumes, usually the proceedings of a regularly scheduled conference, or in a collection organized for a special purpose or to assemble the widely scattered works of a distinguished scholar. The items cited here are chosen to illustrate the varieties of such material, as well as to steer the reader to some important materials that are not readily classified in other sections of this article. Beginning in 1958, an annual lecture, delivered in Bede’s church at Jarrow, has been published, and the Jarrow Lectures have been collected in two volumes (Lapidge 1994), making them much more convenient to find and use than in their original pamphlet form. The annual volumes of the Ecclesiastical History Society, published as Studies in Church History are designed to span the chronological course of Christianity; many of these volumes have papers on the Anglo-Saxon world. A volume of the collected papers of a single scholar can give easy access to important work on Bede and the process of conversion that is otherwise widely scattered, as in the case with Campbell 1986 or the recent volume of the writings of the late Patrick Wormald (Wormald 2006). Szarmach 1996 not only brings together a group of papers on a topic very central to Anglo-Saxon Christianity but shows how the gap between “history” and “literature” is readily crossed to the great benefit of both disciplines.

Campbell, James. Essays in Anglo-Saxon History. London: Hambledon, 1986.
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Under a single cover, valuable papers published by Campbell in journals and collections, dealing with the process of conversion (see “The First Century of Christianity in England,” pp. 49–67), Bede, the church in towns, and the value of the written sources.
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Lapidge, Michael, ed. Bede and His World. 2 vols. Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1994.
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This is the title under which the two volumes of Jarrow Lectures have been published. Volume 1 reprints the lectures from 1958–1978; the preface by Michael Lapidge gives a survey of recent Bedan scholarship. Volume 1 reprints such valuable papers as those of Bertram Colgrave (“The Venerable Bede and His Times,” 1958), Dorothy Whitelock (“After Bede,” 1960, telling of the spread of the manuscripts and, with them, of his influence, especially on the Continent), Paul Meyvaert (“Bede and Gregory the Great,” 1964), Charles Thomas (“Bede, Archaeology, and the Cult of Relics,” 1973), and Henry M. R. E. Mayr-Harting (“The Venerable Bede, the Rule of St. Benedict and Social Class,” 1976). Volume 2, covering 1979–1993, includes the lectures of Eric Fletcher (“Benedict Biscop,” 1981), Peter Clemoes (“The Cult of St. Oswald on the Continent,” 1983), and Patrick Wormald (“Bede and the Conversion of England: The Charter Evidence,” 1984).
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Studies in Church History.
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The regular publication of the Ecclesiastical History Society, and each year’s volume is likely to have some relevant papers. Each volume (and the conference at which the papers originated) has a specific theme, such as “Elite and Popular Religion” (2006), “Martyrs and Martyrologies” (1993), and “Gender and Christian Religion” (1996). Papers are short and cover many aspects of the chosen topic.
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Szarmach, Paul E., ed. Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their Context. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.
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The context here proves to be a broad one, relating the lives—usually dealt with as a form of Old English literature—to the historical context whence they came.
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Wormald, Patrick. The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and Its Historian. Edited by Stephen Baxter. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
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Some of the late scholar’s collected papers of major import on conversion, Christian kingship, Bede, and the role of law in the regulation of society. The papers have been edited by Stephen Baxter.
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Collections of Primary Sources

Many of the contemporary sources for Anglo-Saxon Christianity are literary in style and purpose; these are covered elsewhere in Oxford Bibliographies. Volumes that bring together excerpts from the primary sources, as well as those that include materials from the records of secular and ecclesiastical government, are useful as quick introductions to a range of topics and styles of treatment. The great compilation of all sorts of sources is Whitelock 1996; many obscure sources are included in this very large volume, as are most of the obvious and basic ones, and with a masterful introduction and bibliography. The follow-up volume in the English Historical Documents series (Douglas and Greenaway 1981) is in the same model, though it is not as comprehensive for church history. Primary materials such as charters (Campbell 1973 and Kelly 2005) and church councils (Whitelock, et al. 1981, following the path of Haddan and Stubbs 1869) are basic for a more detailed study of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, though for the student they are harder to use than the narrative sources. The efforts to impose a Christian lifestyle on both clerics and the laity are well illuminated in the McNeill and Gamer 1938 volume of penitentials.

Campbell, Alistair, ed. Charters of Rochester. London: British Academy and Royal Historical Society, 1973.
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This was the first volume in an invaluable series looking at materials from an ecclesiastical institution (see Kelly 2005); the charters are in Latin, with introductions and explanatory material. This is a “collection” in that it brings together Rochester-related documents that originated over the courses of several centuries. This is an on-going series that aims to publish what extant material there is from other preconquest dioceses.
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Douglas, David C., and G. W. Greenaway, eds. and trans. English Historical Documents. Vol. 2, 1042–1189. London: Eyre and Spottiswood, 1981.
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The second edition of this major compendium of sources, bridging the Conquest. While not as comprehensive as Whitelock 1996, it contains a huge amount of basic material.
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Haddan, Arthur, and William Stubbs, ed. Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1869.
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These basic documents, reprinted 1969, cover the establishment of “a church” in the land, touching both the internal regularization of the church and its relations with secular powers. The charters are in Latin.
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Kelly, Susan E., ed. Charters of Malmesbury Abbey. London: British Academy and Royal Historical Society, 2005.
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A recent volume in the series launched by the Campbell 1973 volume on Rochester. This book discusses and publishes thirty-six different royal diplomas and fourteen detached boundary clauses. It also gives a history of a major pre-Conquest abbey. The gifts and privileges spelled out in these charters show how the church became part of the economic and political fabric of (upper class) society.
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McNeill, John T., and Helena Gamer, eds. and trans. Medieval Handbooks of Penance. Columbia Records of Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press, 1938.
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Penitentials were guidebooks for priests and confessors in their efforts to impose an acceptable Christian life style on their flock. The “Anglo-Saxon Penitential of Archbishop Theodore” is included, amidst much material that originated in Ireland, and the lists of sins are most comprehensive, whether the prescribed punishments were ever enforced or not. Reprinted in 1965. A useful guide to “popular religion” and the Christianization of Celtic and Germanic society, though the interesting list of offenses emphasizes normative rules rather than lived behavior.
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Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. and trans. English Historical Documents. Vol. 1: c. 500–1042. London: Routledge, 1996.
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The second edition of what remains the best collection of sources ever compiled for English history: documents, an exhaustive bibliography, and the commentary on the material by a great scholar.
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Whitelock, Dorothy, Martin Brett, and Christopher Brooke, eds. Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church. Vol. 1, A.D. 871–1204. Part 2: 871–1066. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
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This project picks up, chronologically, where Haddan and Stubbs 1869 ended.
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Christianity in Roman Britain

There are no written records from the British Isles dealing with Christianity—either as a belief system or as an institution—prior to the 7th century. Thus, the story of Roman Christianity has largely rested on archaeologists, looking with great attention at cemeteries, burial practices, and grave goods, with less on remnants of buildings that may have been churches. Thomas 1981 and Watts 1991 offer a synthesis of what has been learned from scholars who work in a variety of disciplines, and there is perhaps more speculation in this subtopic than in any other covered below. The key issue in the scholarship (and subsequent debates) centers around the extent to which Christianity was a serious factor in late Roman-British life and whether it was most visible in the cities, the countryside, among the upper classes (Roman and British), those of lesser status, or in the army. The Oxford Bibliographies articles on archaeology help bridge the undocumented gap between the Romans and the arrival of the first missionaries. Some items in the discussion of paganism also touch on this earliest appearance of Christianity in Britain.

Thomas, Charles. Christianity in Roman Britain to A.D. 500. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
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A patchwork quilt of evidence is how we have to put the picture together. The evidence is physical and linguistic, with a look at many archaeological sites in order to construct the argument offered here, with suitable qualifications and disclaimers, for an organized church. This remains the standard work, supplemented and amplified by Thomas’s The Early Christian Archaeology of North Britain. (London: Oxford University Press, 1971).
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Watts, Dorothy J. Christians and Pagans in Roman Britain. London: Routledge, 1991.
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An effort to find a balance between evidence for an organized church and a miscellany of sources of questionable value and meaning. Good coverage of various schools of interpretation and the relevant historiography, and working largely from Thomas’s approach but with the inclusion of more recent finds and with the benefit of subsequent scholarly publication.
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Missionaries and Conversion (597 CE Onwards)

The earliest written accounts of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons as accomplished by missionaries launched by the papal initiative are from the 7th century (as in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History). From a synthesis of Bede, of other written sources, and of archaeological studies, a fairly coherent narrative can be constructed, though we have come to realize that the traditional master narrative does not do justice to the Celtic church and missionaries coming from Ireland. Each Anglo-Saxon kingdom had a different variation of what by 675 CE had become the common theme of Christianization, often imposed from the top down. Mayr-Harting 1991 is the major recent effort, though this analysis is more a series of chapters or essays than an attempt at a synthetic, chronological tale. Several studies of Augustine and his mission of 597 (one a collection of papers in Gameson 1999 and the older one of Mason 1897 with documents) try to begin at the very start of the Roman mission, and Brooks 2000 focuses on the role of the papacy. For variations that take us away from the efforts in Kent and the southeast, Hughes 1971, which looks at Irish Christianity after the triumph of the Roman version, and Sims-Williams 1990 on the process of Christianization in a region away from the center, offer a different approach to the issue. Dunn 2009 and Yorke 2006 offer narratives and analyses of the process of conversion, while Wormald 1978 on Bede, our main window into and interpreter of events, continues to hold its place as the major short foray into complicated and critical questions about how we assess the process and the way it has been told.

Brooks, Nicholas. “Court, Rome, and the Construction of English Identity.” In Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough. Edited by Julia M. H. Smith, 221–249. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
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Argues that there was a deliberate attempt to embrace a mixed British and Anglo-Saxon population into one with a common English identity.
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Dunn, Marilyn. The Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons, c. 597–700: Discourses of Life, Death, and Afterlife. London: Continuum, 2009.
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With a discussion of what “conversion” means, as examined through what we know about baptism, burial, and other rituals and the material aspects of religion and religious behavior.
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Gameson, Richard, ed. St Augustine and the Conversion of England. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1999.
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A collection of sixteen papers, with some focus on continental links behind the Roman mission and the early reception of those missionaries by royal courts and the people of the different kingdoms.
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Hughes, Kathleen. “Evidence for Contacts between the Churches of the Irish and the English from the Synod of Whitby to the Viking Age.” In England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock. Edited by Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes, 49–67. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1971.
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Comparative work by a great expert on Celtic Christianity. Very useful in an area where the sources and most of the scholarship look to the Celtic or the Roman-based church; rarely do works consider them in tandem (and not always in a harmonious tandem).
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Mason, Arthur J., ed. The Mission of St Augustine to England According to the Original Documents. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1897.
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This old study includes the correspondence of Pope Gregory and Augustine of Canterbury: more material than what is quoted in Bede; still of value.
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Mayr-Harting, Henry. The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. 3d ed. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.
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First written in 1972 and revised in 1977, this remains the basic account of the tale, with some concern for the impact of the Celtic church and its missionaries, coming into “England” from the north and the west. Comments by the author in the third edition about his own earlier opinions are of much interest, as are insights into how a historian assesses his work in light of new findings and reconsiderations. More a series of perceptive essays than an effort at a master narrative, but not too complicated for student use.
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Sims-Williams, Patrick. Religion and Literature in Western England, 600–800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511553042Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of the process of Christianization in a region where Rome and the Celtic church came into close contact, frequently doing so with considerable friction.
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Wormald, Patrick. “Bede, Beowulf, and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy.” In Bede and Anglo-Saxon England. Edited by Robert T. Farrell, 32–95. British Archaeological Reports 46. London: British Archaeological Reports, 1978.
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A major article; analysis of the process of Christianization as presented by the greatest of English historians.
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Yorke, Barbara. The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics, and Society in Britain, c. 600–800. London and New York: Pearson Education, 2006.
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An easy-to-follow narrative that integrates the story of conversion and Christianization into the political history of the different kingdoms. The situation in Celtic and Pictish areas is also treated.
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The Persistence of Paganism

While the “official” story of conversion, as told by Bede, is one of relatively quick and deep success, we know that the new religion made accommodations with the old and that many rulers, peoples, and many pockets of the island held out against Christianity for several generations. Other tribal groups and regions produced and endorsed a blend of faith and practice that was an amalgam of old and new. Since no contemporary was inclined to write anything explicating, let alone extolling paganism, the evidence of its (underground?) existence has to be adduced by inference and by a critical look at ritual, as Owen 1981 offers for the sacraments, Chaney 1970 for kings, Crawford 1963 for witchcraft (as any practice that seemed a pagan one was apt to be so labeled), Carver 2010, and Jolly 1996 for medicine and medical manuscripts. Gelling 1961 looks at one of the more conservative social markers, place names, to trace a persistent devotion to the old ways, and Meaney 2006 investigates what we might consider the imposition of social control on behavior considered to be non-Christian or even anti-Christian. Hutton 1991 picks up the tale of religion on the island, as the Romans found it, and carries the story of paganism up to the early Christian missionaries of the 6th and 7th centuries. North 1997 offers linguistic and literary evidence, but given the paucity of material, another perspective is helpful. Wilson 1992 provides a summary of the whole question, pointing out that “paganism” is not really a religion in the way we usually define a religion.

Carver, Martin, Alex Sanmark, and Sarah Semple, eds. Signals of Belief in Early England: Anglo-Saxon Paganism Revisited: Papers presented at conferences held at Oxford University, 2005–2006. Oxford and Oakville, CT: Oxbow, 2010.
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Papers on a topic of perennial interest, testing the scratchy evidence and the persistence of the old beliefs (whatever they were).
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Chaney, William A. The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1970.
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Argues for the persistence of paganism and its many influences on kingship even after it seemed to fade away. A strong if controversial presentation of the evidence.
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Crawford, Jane. “Evidence for Witchcraft in Anglo-Saxon England.” Medium Aevum 32 (1963): 99–116.
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“Witchcraft” was a convenient blanket term for any practice that offended the defenders and guardians of orthodox belief and ritual. Witch hunters usually found what they were looking for, once they went to work.
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Gelling, Margaret. “Place-Names and Anglo-Saxon Paganism.” University of Birmingham Historical Journal 8 (1961): 7–25.
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Place names are a guide to conservative mores, though reading them correctly is not always crystal clear. See also Gelling’s “Further Thoughts on Pagan Place-Names,” in Place-Name Evidence for the Anglo-Saxon Invasion and Scandinavian Settlements, edited by Kenneth Cameron, 99–114. (Nottingham, UK: English Place-Name Society, 1975).
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Hutton, Ronald. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.
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A survey of pagan or folk or popular religion, from pre-Roman through early Christian times. This book is followed up by chapters in his 2013 Pagan Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; relevant chapters being “Conversion to Christianity” and “The Legacy of British Paganism”). Lots of information, but uses caution because of a temptation to include anything that seems to fall within the wide boundaries of paganism.
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Jolly, Karen L. Popular Religion in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
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A faith that was an amalgam of old and new emerged; such sources as ritual words and medical manuscripts argue in this direction.
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Meaney, Audrey L. “Old English Legal and Penitential Penalties for ‘Heathenism.’” In Anglo-Saxons: Studies Presented to Cyril Roy Hart. Edited by Simon Keynes and Alfred P. Smyth, 127–158. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts, 2006.
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This too explores social control and the perceived need to stamp out old practices, as getting an illiterate and tradition-oriented populace to fall into place is not easy.
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North, Richard. Heathen Gods of Old England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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Linguistic evidence and Old English literature are the databases, but useful for a comparative perspective on a topic so poorly documented.
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Owen, Gale R. Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons. Newton Abbot, UK: David and Charles, 1981.
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Draws heavily on rituals, burials, and physical remains to show the strength of the old religion(s).
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Wilson, David. Anglo-Saxon Paganism. New York: Routledge, 1992.
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A reader-friendly summary of a lot of thin evidence and a powerful reminder that paganism is more a matter of “rituals that leave no trace” than of what we consider as an organized belief system. This is a valuable caveat in a field where paganism is the label attached to any and all sorts of folk beliefs and practices that fall outside the official ecclesiastical boundaries.
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Saints

Many of the men and even a fair number of women who led the church in its early centuries were considered to be saints, as the new realm of Christendom sought to stake its claim to sanctity and divine guidance through the exaltation and sanctification of its heroes and heroines. There is so much literature on this aspect of Anglo-Saxon Christianity that it can only be hinted at here. Two categories are listed: the lives of saints (Hagiography) as written in Anglo-Saxon times (and also by post-Conquest historians), and then modern Scholarship about these figures and their role in the building of the church and in the creation of popular and localized or regionalized piety. Oxford Bibliographies articles on “Anglo-Saxon Art,” “Aelfric,” and the “Exeter Book,” among others, also shed light on the popularity and depiction (in art and literature) of these venerated figures.

Hagiography

Hagiography—the writing of a saint’s life—was a popular genre of literature, perhaps as read by literate clerics and as received in oral and visual form by the illiterate many. There could be no saint without a saint’s life, and great writers such as Bede, as well as others whom we only know by their finished product, turned their hands to this genre of biographical writing. Much of the success of the new religion hung on its ability to offer heroes and heroines with a local following, men and women connected to places, to events, and to various natural phenomena. Many of the major hagiographic writings are available in modern versions, usually with a translation, listed here by the editors and translators. The popularity of Cuthbert is readily attested: Albertson 1967, Colgrave 1940, and Webb and Farmer 1983 all look at the various versions of his life, and Colgrave 1927 and Colgrave 1985 made the lives of Wilfrid (d. 704) and Guthlac (d. 714) readily available. Lapidge and Winterbottom 1991 turned to saints of less renown: the life of Oswald as written by Ecgwine, and that of Aethelwold as written by Wulfstan. Clayton and Magennis 1994 shows that Anglo-Saxon hagiographers were also part of the larger world of Western Christendom, and they too paid deference to the universal saints of Christian history.

Albertson, Clinton, ed. and trans. Anglo-Saxon Saints and Heroes. New York: Fordham University Press, 1967.
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A collection of seven saints’ lives, in English, with useful introductory matter. Cuthbert (as in Bede’s life of the saint), Guthlac, and Wilfrid are among those included.
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Clayton, Mary, and Hugh Magennis, trans. The Old English Lives of St Margaret. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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The legend and cult in England, introduced in the 9th century and growing through the 11th century, with a translation and the Old English version, plus a discussion of the numerous versions and manuscripts. Also on the theme of popular hagiography devoted to non-English figures is Clayton’s The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
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Colgrave, Bertram, ed. and trans. The Life of Bishop Wilfrid, by Eddius Stephanus. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1927.
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Wilfrid was the immensely influential and important organizational man of the northern church in the second half of the 7th century: the life shows his prodigious efforts and his uneven and often difficult career.
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Colgrave, Bertram, ed. and trans. Two Lives of St Cuthbert: A Life by an Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s Prose Life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1940.
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Bede’s prose life and that of the Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne, promoting the patron saint of Northumbria, a figure who remained a powerful image through the Middle Ages and beyond, especially in the north of England but with a cult that spread far beyond its original region.
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Colgrave, Bertram, ed. and trans. Felix’s Life of St Guthlac. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
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Guthlac was a major figure in the conversion of the people of the fens of East Anglia. These various lives edited by Colgrave reveal the powerful voice and charisma of these wandering figures who devoted their lives to missionary activity—winning converts by preaching and by example—among their fellows.
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Lapidge, Michael, and Michael Winterbottom, ed. and trans. The Life of St Aethelwold, by Wulfstan of Winchester. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.
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An early 11th-century life, showing the later reverence held for men of the heroic age of English Christianity.
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Webb, F. P., and David Farmer, ed. and trans. The Age of Bede. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1983.
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A Penguin Classic, bringing together Bede’s Prose Life of Cuthbert, the Life of Wilfrid, Bede on the Abbots, and The Voyage of St. Brendan. A handy collection, well suited for classroom use.
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Scholarship

Much of the work on hagiography as a genre of writing as well as on some of the more prominent individual saints is presented in collected volumes, often coming from a conference held to mark an anniversary of the saint’s death (which was usually the date of her or his feast day). Thus the papers listed here cover many aspects of saints and sainthood (or saintliness); some look at the saint’s post-Conquest reputation and later life, and some are rewritten versions from late Anglo-Saxon or post-Conquest England of a life written before the Conquest. We see examples of this popular form of scholarly publication in Barrow and Brooks 2005; Brooks and Cubitt 1996; Kirby 1974; and Ramsay, et al. 1992. Blair 2002 and Rollason 1978 are compilations that help inform almost any inquiry into contemporary Anglo-Saxon hagiography. Ridyard 1988 turns our attention to that peculiar subgenre of hagiography that focuses on royal saints—very important figures in gaining royal support, especially among the upper-class families who were powerful leaders of their society. Colgrave 1958, defending the historical value of Anglo-Saxon hagiography, and Jones 1947, on saints’ lives as an important category of historical literature, both work to vindicate the heroes and the works written about them. Jones and Colgrave wrote at a time when hagiography was often dismissed as a serious historical source.

Barrow, Julia, and Nicholas P. Brooks, eds. St. Wulfstan and His World. Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005.
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Wulfstan lasted beyond the Norman Conquest, and these papers look at his life and subsequent cult, the cathedral at Worcester, touching its estates and its musical tradition. In this wide range of papers, the various aspects of hagiography are explored.
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Blair, John. “A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Saints.” In Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West. Edited by Alan Thacker and Richard Sharpe, 495–565. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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A valuable tool for many lines of research into hagiography and popular religion; could be considered and used as a reference tool.
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Brooks, Nicholas, and Catherine Cubitt, eds. St Oswald of Worcester: Life and Influence. London: Leicester University Press, 1996.
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From a conference, fifteen papers covering the bishop (d. 992) and the establishment of his see, the town, ecclesiastical administration, art and liturgical manuscripts, and Oswald’s links with continental reform.
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Colgrave, Bertram. “The Earliest Saints’ Lives Written in England.” Proceedings of the British Academy 44 (1958): 35–60.
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An important lecture, arguing for the historical value of the lives at a time when they were taken less seriously than today. This work is by a scholar who edited and translated many of the important lives of early saints and helped overthrow the stereotype about hagiography as a quaint form of legend with little value for the historian.
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Jones, Charles W. Saints’ Lives and Chronicles in Early England. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1947.
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Important discussion of hagiography as a genre of literature and history; lives of Pope Gregory (written by a monk of Whitby) and of Guthlac are included.
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Kirby, D. P., ed. Saint Wilfrid at Hexham. Newcastle on Tyne, UK: Oriel, 1974.
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Papers on the saint and on the Northumbria in his day, his church (as a building—the crypt still remains, perhaps as Wilfrid knew it), sculpture, and metalwork. Illustrations include pages from the manuscript of Wilfrid’s life by Eddius Stephanus. Wilfrid and Cuthbert stand as the major figures in the conversion of the north.
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Ramsay, Nigel, Margaret Sparks, and Tim Tatton-Brown, eds. St Dunstan: His Life, Times, and Cult. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1992.
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A collection of sixteen papers covering the saint (d. 968), the early hagiography and his cult, the art and manuscripts that help preserve his memory, plus a look at the priory at Canterbury. Many dimensions to this study of a major figure in the post-Viking reform and renewal.
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Ridyard, Susan J. The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
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The basic case studies are Edburga of Winchester and the cult of St. Edmund: holiness and politics. An important study of the links between hagiography and the politics of the courts, without which Christianity would have had a much harder time becoming established across the land.
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Rollason, D. W. “List of Saints’ Resting Places in Anglo-Saxon England.” Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978): 61–93.
DOI: 10.1017/S0263675100002866Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A key to regional popularity, which was sometimes a source of competition and discord. See also Rollason’s “Cult of Murdered Royal Saints in Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1983): 1–22. These papers bookend with Blair 2002.
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Bede

Although a complete bibliography of work on Bede would fill a large volume on its own, the narrow focus here is on Bede as an historian. Plummer 1896 remains the great scholarly edition, while Colgrave and Mynors 1969 is an accessible and scholarly version of high quality (with a Latin text and a translation). Sherley-Price 1990 is a useful translation, well suited for classrooms and student reference. Editions of some of Bede’s work on time and the calendar, recently edited and translated and of considerable importance for early Christianity and Anglo-Saxon learning and scholarship, are treated in the Oxford Bibliographies “Bede” article.

Colgrave, Bertram, and R. A. B. Mynors, eds. and trans. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford: Clarendon, 1969.
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This is now the standard scholarly version, with a long introduction on Bede and on the history of the text: Latin and English translation on opposite pages.
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Plummer, Charles, ed. Venerabilis Bedae Opera Historica. Oxford: Clarendon, 1896.
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The classic edition of the Latin text, with a running commentary in the second of the two volumes. Plummer also included Bede’s “Lives of the Abbots” and his “Letter to Egbert.” This is still the edition for advanced work using (the original) Latin. The 19th-century commentary is still of value.
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Sherley-Price, Leo. Bede: Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Revised and edited by Ronald E. Latham and David H. Farmer. London: Penguin, 1990.
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Good introduction and a classroom favorite.
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Scholarship

Basic contributions to the scholarship on Bede are not hard to find. Several collections contain major papers by teams of distinguished scholars: the old volume of Thompson 1935 and the more recent one of Bonner 1976 both have papers on various Bedan topics by leading experts; Bede as a historian ranks among the topics treated in the essays. Our understanding of Bede’s use of miracles affects how we interpret his historical and hagiographic writing, a problem or topic dealt with by McCready 1994. Wallace-Hadrill 1988, a running commentary on the Ecclesiastical History, was the summation or culmination of long scholarly career devoted to the early Middle Ages, though Wallace-Hadrill meant his work as a supplement to the commentary of Plummer 1896 (cited under Bede) rather than as a replacement. Goffart 1988 sensitized scholars to a more critical reading of the major historians of early medieval Europe, while Meyvaert 1977 tackled the rather hot dispute over the authenticity of the letters from Pope Gregory to Augustine (and he argues for their authenticity). More references to Bedan scholarship appear under Collected Papers, especially those of Patrick Wormald.

Bonner, Gerald, ed. Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede. London: SPCK, 1976.
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Twenty essays by leading authorities on virtually all aspects of Bede; at least as much on Bede the historian as on Bede the theologian and scholar.
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Brown, George Hardin. A Companion to Bede. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2009.
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A useful and current treatment, looking at Bede’s life and works; a good introduction for students. A chapter, “A Brief History of Bede’s Work through the Ages,” is both a valuable historiography and a mark of Bede’s continuing relevance for early medieval studies.
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deGregorio, Scott, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Bede. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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Sixteen essays by major scholars covering much of the vast Bede waterfront: exegesis of biblical and patristics texts, Bede as historian, the world of the North in which Bede lived and died, and the monasteries that housed him; valuable bibliography.
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Goffart, Walter. The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede and Paul the Deacon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
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Major historiographical analysis and revisionism. An important book with sage advice on how to read these major writers whose visions guide and govern our interpretation of the early Middle Ages.
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McCready, William D. Miracles and the Venerable Bede. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1994.
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Coming to grips with the role of miracles is basic to an understanding of Bede’s outlook on the world and its great spiritual figures.
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Meyvaert, Paul. “Bede’s Text and the Libellus Responsumn of Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury.” In Benedict, Gregory, Bede and Others. By Paul Meyvaert. London: Variorum, 1977.
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A basic article (in a volume of Meyvaert’s collected papers) arguing for the authenticity of the papal correspondence as it was incorporated in Bede’s text.
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Thompson, A. Hamilton, ed. Bede: His Life, Times, and Writings: Essays in Commemoration of the Twelfth Centenary of his Death. Oxford: Clarendon, 1935.
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The nine papers, all by major authorities of the day, are still of value, despite their age. Together with Bonner’s edited volume (Bonner 1976), the volumes offer a treasury of focused scholarship and an indication of where views have changed and where older interpretations still hold their place in scholarly discourse.
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Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
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A learned reader’s guide and a pathway through the great text; background and learned insights into the text.
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The Anglo-Saxons as Missionaries Abroad

Once Christianity took hold in Anglo-Saxon England, many men and some women, as well as the monks from Celtic Britain and Ireland, carried the faith to unconverted peoples on the Continent. Talbot 1954, the valuable translation of the lives of leading figures in this missionary movement, remains a major source, while Reuter 1980 talks of the great role played by Boniface, a man from Devon who heard the call. Decades after Boniface crossed the Channel, Alcuin of York became part of Charlemagne’s “brain trust.” His life and letters are covered by Allott 1974, while the large question of insular-continental learning is treated in Levison 1946, an old (but still critical) study of 8th-century thought and an early effort to link Anglo-Saxon life and church to that of the continent. Palmer 2009 follows this line of discussion with much attention to missionary efforts across the channel. Since some of the evidence for early missionary activity and church building is physical, Parsons 1983 surveys some of what we have unearthed for activity in Germany, while Abrams 1995 looks farther afield and reinforces the idea that a cultural and spiritual message was an early export from Anglo-Saxon England.

Abrams, Lesley. “The Anglo-Saxons and the Christianization of Scandinavia.” Anglo-Saxon England 24 (1995): 213–249.
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There is limited direct evidence, but many scattered clues to such an enterprise tell of missionary work that went far beyond the Rhine, the Low Countries, and western Germany.
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Allott, Stephen. Alcuin of York: His Life and Letters. York, UK: William Sessions, 1974.
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With a translation of the letters, a key source for the transplantation of northern Anglo-Saxon learning and letters to the Frankish court. About half of Alcuin’s letters are either published or excerpted, arranged by topics and recipients.
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Emerton, Ephraim, trans. The Letters of St Boniface. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2008.
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Covering some of the same ground as the Talbot volume, though the letters are more those of a man at work, juggling both the conversion of pagans and the politics of Rome and the Carolingians.
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Levison, Wilhelm. England and the Continent in the Eighth Century. Oxford: Clarendon, 1946.
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These Ford Lectures of 1937 (publication delayed by World War II) illuminated links that had rarely been treated by English-speaking historians. Remains an important work on the topic.
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Palmer, James T. Anglo-Saxons in the Frankish World, 690–900. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009.
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In Levison’s footsteps, with valuable comments about the sources on which much of the tales of cross-channel evangelization are known. Coverage evenly divided between the Anglo-Saxon and the continental world, and due attention to the role of some important women.
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Parsons, David. “Sites and Monuments of the Anglo-Saxon Mission in Central Germany.” Archaeological Journal 140 (1983): 280–321.
DOI: 10.1080/00665983.1983.11077691Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Looking for and finding physical evidence to argue for a sustained wave of missionary activity.
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Reuter, Timothy, ed. The Greatest Englishman: Essays on St Boniface and the Church at Crediton. Exeter, UK: Paternoster, 1980.
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Essays from a conference celebrating this great figure and his powerful influence at home and on the Continent. Boniface was the most important of all Anglo-Saxon missionaries, and his links with the Carolingian court helped shape European history.
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Talbot, Charles H., ed. and trans. The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, Being the Lives of SS Willibrord, Boniface, Sturm, Leoba, and Libuin. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1954.
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By far the most convenient collection of basic primary material, with some of Boniface’s letters included. The women involved in missionary work and in letter writing get early and fairly extensive (and affectionate) attention in this valuable collection.
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Kings, Queens, and Royal Patronage of the Church

From the earliest days the fate of the church rested on the support of various kings (and queens) and the ruling families of various kingdoms of the heptarchy, many of whom entered monastic life. Kings and queens lent support to Christianity, or, for a contrasting scenario, spearheaded the opposition to the new faith. One way or another, they played a vital role in the narrative of conversion. The general discussion of Higham 1997 focuses on some case studies, while Hollis 1992 looks in detail at the role of some of the queens. Royal patronage was important in building a solid edifice of women’s monasticism (nunneries), and a comparison with the Irish examples (Stancliffe 1980) or with the way king and secular courtly ritual entered and became part of the lofty world of consecrated kingship (Nelson 1977) show some of the many sides of royal support for Christianity and how the two establishments worked together.

Higham, N. J. The Convert Kings: Power and Religious Affiliation in Early Anglo-Saxon England. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997.
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Mostly a case study of Aethelbert of Kent, looking at why he converted, and of King Edwin, examining royal strategies to explain why the critical decision to support Christianity seemed the correct one.
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Hollis, Stephanie. “Queen Converters and the Conversion of the Queen: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and the Royal Marriage.” In Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church. By Stephanie Hollis, 208–242. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1992.
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Royal and high-born women were vital allies in the cause, and some of them were recognized and applauded for this at the time or shortly thereafter.
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Meyer, M. A. “Patronage of the West-Saxon Royal Nunneries in Late Anglo-Saxon England.” Revue Bénédictine 91 (1981): 332–358.
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Kings, queens, and various members of the royal families were key players in the foundation of and support for women’s regular houses.
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Nelson, J. L. “Inauguration Rituals.” In Early Medieval Kingship. Edited by Peter H. Sawyer and Ian N. Wood, 283–307. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds School of History, 1977.
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The coronation ritual developed to the benefit of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and as a royal strategy as it became a key element of Christian kingship and the elevation of secular rulers.
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Stancliffe, Clare, E. “Kings and Conversion: Some Comparison between the Roman Mission to England and Patrick’s to Ireland.” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 14 (1980): 59–94.
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Lack of support from on high could make things more difficult; in other instances the support helped put conversion over the top.
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Monasticism and Ecclesiastical Organization

The early missionaries were monks, and as they developed the infrastructure of institutional Christianity, much of the new religion came to be taught and exercised through the agency of monks and monasteries, houses operating under a rule and quickly becoming centers of learning and missionary activity. As the church became more structured, councils were held and ecclesiastical legislation was shaped toward a uniformity of belief and practice, both considered to be key in building a stable and long-lasting institution. This is treated by Cubitt 1995, while the narrower approach to regular life as studied by Foot 2000, for women, or by Yorke 2003, should be set against the big-picture narrative written by Knowles 1963 and still a basic starting point as a narrative. Licence 2007 shows that even before the Conquest there was scope for variations in dedicated behavior, presenting evidence about some who just chose to leave secular life but wished to stop short of formal vows within the orders—a time when women were still a powerful component of the religious establishment, a role that diminished after the Vikings and the 10th-century reform movement. The church developed the scope of canon law to cover many aspects of society, providing some elements of consistency to balance those of social control (Helmholz 2004).

Cubitt, Catherine. Anglo-Saxon Church Councils, c. 650—c 850. London: Leicester University Press, 1995.
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The Councils of Clofesho (747) and of Chelsea (816) are of particular interest, the latter reflecting the years of Mercian supremacy before the rise of Wessex.
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Foot, Sarah. Veiled Women. 2 vols. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000.
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Two volumes, covering the diverse lives and roles of nuns, from their early days of great influence and large numbers through their more marginal role by the time of the Conquest. Volume 2 looks at sixty-one houses, some dissolved or abandoned by the end of the Anglo-Saxon period. The reform movement of the 10th century was not good for women in religious life, even for high born ones.
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Helmholz, Richard H. The Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198258971.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The growth of canon law, as it came to play a role in social as well as spiritual matters; a discussion by a major scholar of the field, relying on cases and judicial decisions as far as possible. Traces the development and application of canon law through the end of the Middle Ages.
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Knowles, David. The Monastic Order in England. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1963.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511583742Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The second edition of the major study, with attention to the pre-Conquest monastic establishment. It remains the basic narrative.
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Licence, Tom. “Evidence of Recluses in Eleventh-Century England.” Anglo-Saxon England, 36 (2007): 221–234.
DOI: 10.1017/S0263675107000087Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
There were varieties of religious experience and a tolerance for such even at this early time; looking at some case studies of women as reported in literary and ecclesiastical sources.
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Yorke, Barbara. Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses. London: Continuum, 2003.
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Strong royal links were strained but not broken by the Viking invasions, though abbesses lost a good deal of their earlier autonomy and their houses lost resources in the reform movement on the 10th century. The reform movement had but limited interest in protecting, let alone enlarging, the role of women.
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The Monastic Reforms of the 10th and 11th Centuries

In the revival of monastic and intellectual life after the chaos of the Viking invasions, royal patronage was vital, and Winchester, the de facto capital of the kings of Wessex, was the major center. The basic text that tells us of the new dedication is Symons 1953, and this is the starting point for a discussion of the reform. Darlington 1936 tells the tale, and John 1966 focuses on royal support and the question of the location of the most effective activity in the movement. Fisher 1952 reminds us that more than one current could flow, while Meyer 1977 looks at the diminishing role of women in the post-Viking church. Parsons 1975, the proceedings of a conference, offers papers that reveal the diversity and complexity of the “reform.”

Darlington, R. R. “Ecclesiastical Reform in the Late Old English Period.” English Historical Review 51 (1936): 385–428.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/LI.CCIII.385Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An early survey, written before the importance of the reform movement was widely understood or appreciated.
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Fisher, Douglas J. V. “The Anti-Monastic Reaction in the Reign of Edward the Martyr.” Cambridge Historical Journal 10 (1952): 245–270.
DOI: 10.1017/S147469130000295XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Not all parties were enamored by what we generally see as the badly needed fresh start; there were competing interest and agenda within the church and among supporters of the reform, as well as regional and local loyalties.
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John, Eric. “The King and the Monks in the Tenth-Century Reformation.” In Orbis Britanniae, and Other Studies. By Eric John, 154–180. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1966.
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Emphasizes the critical role of royal support for the movement.
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Meyer, Marc A. “Women and the Tenth-Century Monastic Reform.” Revue Bénédictine 87 (1977): 34–61.
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Their status was slipping, though some women—almost all of high-born families—still had a role, though never again what it had been in the heroic days of conversion.
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Parsons, David, ed. Tenth Century Studies: Essays in Commemoration of the Millennium of the Council of Winchester and the Regularis Concordia. London: Phillimore, 1975.
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Thirteen papers from a conference that heralded the importance of the reform movement and of Winchester men within it, covering the Regularis, other aspects of the reform, and the artistic and intellectual accomplishments that were also part of the movement.
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Symons, Thomas, ed. and trans. Regularis Concordia. Edinburgh: Nelson’s Medieval Texts, 1953.
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The basic text for monastic reform and regulation under the new and more scrupulous regime. Its influence indicates the acceptance of a reform and a “new start” to revive spiritual discipline and focus.
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Regional Christianity, Churches, and Cathedrals

Though a master narrative, largely built on such sources as Bede, might argue for the concept of one church and one people, a tale of regional decision making about conversion and the establishment of local churches is probably closer to how things “really happened.” Much work on the church in regions or sections of the island—especially as there was no long-term dominant kingdom until the 10th century—makes us aware of the process of change across the early centuries of Christianization. Chadwick 1963 and Angus 1965 on the northeast, Finberg 1953 on the southwest, Whitelock 1945 and Whitelock 1972 on East Anglia before and after the Vikings, Godfrey 1964 on Lichfield in the Midlands, and Hill 1977 on the bishops York. Brooks 1984 tells of the complex at Canterbury, where cathedral and monastery and town had to learn to coexist.

Angus, W. S. “Christianity as a Political Force in Northumbria in the Danish and Norse Periods.” In Proceedings of the Fourth Viking Congress: York, August 1961. Edited by Alan Small, 142–165. London: Oliver and Boyd, 1965.
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A hard-pressed church proved very resilient.
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Brooks, Nicholas P., ed. The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1984.
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A valuable collection of papers that, in their range, give an idea of how a monastic community was built, how it interacted with the town and region, and how it meshed with secular political agendas.
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Chadwick, Nora D. “The Conversion of Northumbria: A Comparison of Sources.” In Celt and Saxon: Studies in the Early British Border. Edited by Kenneth Jackson and Nora Chadwick, 138–166. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1963.
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A local setting in which we can see the competition of missionary efforts, each with its own views about ecclesiastical organization, as well as the push and shove of personalities and localized cults.
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Finberg, Herbert P. R. “Sherborne, Glastonbury, and the Expansion of Wessex.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (Fifth Series) 3 (1953): 101–124.
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Linking political expansion and Episcopal organization and endowment as the center of political gravity moved to the southwest.
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Godfrey, John. “The Archbishopric of Lichfield.” Studies in Church History 2 (1964): 145–153.
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This was a see of and for Mercia, and its creation shows how a localized church was a vital part of the process of Christianization, though an archbishopric located there rather overshot the mark and gave way to the domination of Canterbury and York.
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Hill, Rosalind M. T. “From 627 until the Early Thirteenth Century.” In A History of York Minster. Edited by Gerald E. Aylmer and Reginald Cant, 1–43. Oxford: Clarendon, 1977.
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Pages 1–43 look at the earliest days of York, home of missionary activity and conversion as the northern headquarters of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. The article focuses on the status and role of “the other” archbishop of the Anglo-Saxon church.
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Whitelock, Dorothy. “The Conversion of the Eastern Danelaw.” Saga Book of the Viking Society 12 (1945): 159–176.
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This is an obscure tale, unraveled here as well as possible by one who knew all the sources.
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Whitelock, Dorothy. “The Pre-Viking Age Church in East Anglia.” Anglo-Saxon England 1 (1972): 1–22.
DOI: 10.1017/S0263675100000053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Reconstructing the tale, with many sources lost during the Viking raiding years.
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Learning, Schools, and the Liturgy

These entries give only some idea of the diversity of learning and cultural and educational enterprises that flourished in the Anglo-Saxon church as early as the time of Theodore of Tarsus (d. 690); Lapidge 1986 and Lapidge 1991 devote considerable attention to this early push to make learning and scholarship an integral part of the new faith. Christianity was propagated through prayers; as work to make the liturgy accessible, as indicated by Pfaff 1995; by the introduction of penitential considerations, as explored by Frantzen 1983; and by the popularization of saints and their feast days, revealed by the Kalendars of saints and their feast days, analyzed by Wormald 1934 and more recently by Rushforth 2008 (which picked up on Wormald’s unfinished project of the 1930s). Service books and gospel books were vital tools in the creation of an educated clergy; Wordsworth and Littlehales 1926 covers these matters in detail in a study that, despite its age, is still of value. Riché 1976 offers a compact summary of the entire movement and of the major contributions of Anglo-Saxon England in these areas. Since prayer played such a vital role in bringing the new faith to the people, the actual services are also of interest; Pfaff 2009 and Gibbs 2005 make this material accessible.

Frantzen, Allen. The Literature of Penance in Anglo-Saxon England. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983.
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Tracing the literature designed to build or enforce a Christian lifestyle from its Irish roots, with a look at continental trends and monastic reform.
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Gibbs, Helen, and M. Bradford Bedingfield, eds. The Liturgy of the Late Anglo-Saxon Church. Henry Bradshaw Society, subsidia 5. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2005.
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The Henry Bradshaw Society publishes liturgical material; texts with scholarly material on the church after the revival of the 10th century.
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Lapidge, Michael. “The School of Theodore and Hadrian.” Anglo-Saxon England 15 (1986): 45–72.
DOI: 10.1017/S0263675100003689Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Almost from the start there was a strong commitment to education, learning, book collecting, and links with the more advanced culture of the Continent.
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Lapidge, Michael. “Schools, Learning and Literature in Tenth Century England.” Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo (Spoleto) 38 (1991): 951–1005.
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A wide sweeping survey by one of the leading contemporary scholars of Anglo-Saxon literature and ecclesiastical sources.
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Pfaff, Richard. The Liturgical Books of Anglo-Saxon England. Old English Newsletter Subsidia 23. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 1995.
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A collection of short essays and a discussion of the major extant manuscripts for each section of the prayer service. Though technical, a basic understanding of the structure of the prayers is easy to follow. (For a guide to material from Anglo-Saxon England, see also Pfaff’s Medieval Latin Liturgy: A Select Bibliography. [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982].
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Pfaff, Richard. The Liturgy in Medieval England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511642340Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Now the definitive survey, from the earliest material after the coming of the missionaries through the span of the Middle Ages.
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Riché, Pierre. “The Flowering of Monastic and Episcopal Schools in England.” In Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: Sixth through Eighth Centuries. By Pierre Riché, 307–323. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1976.
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A learned survey, translated by John J. Contreni. Pages 307–323 and 366–399 cover Anglo-Saxon learning; other chapters offer comparisons with continental developments.
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Rushforth, Rebecca. Saints in English Kalendars before A.D. 1100. Henry Bradshaw Society 117. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2008.
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Following Wormald 1934 and drawing on and comparing the saints as listed in twenty-seven kalendar manuscripts. A key to hagiographic conventions and popular piety.
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Wordsworth, Christopher, and H. Littlehales. The Old Service-Books of the English Church. London: Methuen, 1926.
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A reprint of a 1904 study in the “Antiquary’s Books” series and still a valuable introduction. This was the material on which daily prayers and church life was built.
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Wormald, Francis. English Kalendars before A.D. 1100. Henry Bradshaw Society 72. London: Harrison, 1934.
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The various calendars offer an invaluable guide to saints’ days and the special prayers they invoked. They also tell of regional favorites and of links with continental customs. Wormald never completed the project; now recently carried on by Rushforth 2008.
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The Development of “Popular Religion”

After the kings and their subjects had been converted, in a formal sense, there was still the huge issue of making Christianity a part of what we call ordinary life. The various aspects of this slower and more gradual process have been treated by historians, looking at many sides of the issue, from the forms of “popular religion” to the church’s structured way of bringing pastoral care to the many corners of a thinly populated and largely illiterate island, with Bedingfield 2002 looking at the more negative aspects of adjusting to a new belief system. The organization of the parish was an important step in this, as Addleshaw 1970 and Godfrey 1969 treat it; Tinti 2005 offers papers on various aspects of parish-centered Christianity. The pre- or extra-parochial church has been examined in the collection of valuable papers in Blair and Sharpe 1992 and in a case study, by Campbell 1979. Though the role of localized saints and hagiography has been treated previously, more on this theme, with a concern for the localized value of these heroes, is presented by Battiscombe 1956, editing papers on the relics of St. Cuthbert, and by Rollason 1989, writing in a more general fashion on the use and role of relics in the creation of popular religious belief and a sense of identification with the holy dead. Dunn 2009 and Gittos 2013 deal with the complicated questions of Christianization and of drawing the line between semi-pagan popular belief and the official line of the church.

Addleshaw, G. W. O. The Beginnings of the Parochial System. 3d rev. ed. York, UK: Saint Anthony Publishing, 1970.
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A concise account of how Christianity was institutionalized so it could cover most corners of the land.
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Battiscombe, C. F., ed. The Relics of St Cuthbert: Studies by Various Authors Collected and Edited with an Historical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956.
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An elaborate and lavishly illustrated volume; a study of how material objects buried with or linked to Cuthbert had been used to build a cult around the great saint who was long revered across much of England, though mostly in the north.
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Bedingfield, Brad. “Public Penance in Anglo-Saxon England.” Anglo-Saxon England 31 (2002): 223–255.
DOI: 10.1017/S0263675102000091Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A tale of expulsion and expiation; how the social control literature made available (as that translated by McNeill and Gamer 1938, cited under Collections of Primary Sources) and discussed by Frantzen 1983 (cited under Learning, Schools, and the Liturgy) was translated into practice among the folk.
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Blair, John, and Richard Sharpe, ed. Pastoral Care before the Parish. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1992.
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A collection of six essays on how the message of the new faith was translated and adapted to the people. Includes contributions by Alan Thacker on the role of monasticism, Sarah Foot on baptism and the sacraments, Gervase Rosser on urban minster churches and their role, Catherine Cubitt on pastoral care, and Foot and Blair on the ministers that came before parish churches were established across the rural and the urban landscape.
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Campbell, James. “The Church in Anglo-Saxon Towns.” Studies in Church History 16 (1979): 119–135.
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A story of minster churches, staffed by secular rather than regular (monastic) priests. Such men preceded the familiar figure of the parish priest, and they were vital in the spread of the new faith.
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Dunn, Marilyn. The Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons, c. 597—c. 700: Discourses on Life, Death, and Afterlife. London and New York: Continuum, 2009.
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A reading of the ecclesiastical sources against the backdrop of a still-pagan people, emphasizing the great transition that had to take place as the people adopted the new religion.
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Gittos, Helen. Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199270903.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The focus is on the liturgy, ecclesiastical processions, and the value and role of relics with an emphasis on sacred places, an issue first treated in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History.
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Godfrey, John. The English Parish, 600–1300. London: SPCK, 1969.
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A short account that remains useful and informed and a good place to start for a look at an important aspect of church life. This pamphlet sets the Anglo-Saxon parish into a context, touching such aspects of parochial life as the priestly standard of living.
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Rollason, David W. Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
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Picking up with the cults and martyrs of Roman Britain and looking at the politics of sainthood as it was used to further a political and social culture.
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Tinti, Francesca, ed. Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2005.
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A collection of essays on various aspects of parochial-focused Christianity: the liturgy, processions, church dues, and such problems at “the ground level.”
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Biographies

Everyone who offers the biography of a medieval woman or man is usually quite frank in admitting that we cannot write “real” biography because of the limited sources of the Middle Ages and because their focus, even if a single life is the subject, is so different from those of modern writers. Nevertheless, enough is known about lives and writings of some Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical leaders and writers to attract our attention, and it is not a coincidence that many of the subjects of biography have appeared in entries regarding the sources and the roles these men played in the establishment of the church. This would cover Brown 1987 on Bede, Deanesly 1964 on both Augustine and Alcuin, and Duckett 1955 on Dunstan. Duckett 1948 offers biographical essays about three outstanding figures, Rumble 2012 on a larger number of well-known figures. Mason 1990 bridges the critical gulf between the Conquest and the early Norman church. Although the shelf of such biographies is likely to remain thin, if we turn to secular figures from Anglo-Saxon times we realize that only Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, as kings, have received treatment that is as detailed as the works cited here.

Brown, George Hardin. Bede, the Venerable. Boston: Twayne, 1987.
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Part of Twayne’s English Authors Series. An attempt to set out what we know of Bede’s life along with an examination of his works and influence.
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Deanesly, Margaret. Augustine of Canterbury. London: Nelson, 1964.
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Straightforward narrative: the man and his mission.
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Duckett, Eleanor S. Anglo-Saxon Saints and Scholars. New York: Macmillan, 1948.
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Short pieces on Aldhelm, Wilfrid, Bede, and Boniface. Standard biographical data, given the limited state of our knowledge; very readable.
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Duckett, Eleanor S. Alcuin, Friend of Charlemagne: His World and His Work. New York: Macmillan, 1951.
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How English learning was exemplified and carried across the Channel by an important figure who trained at York played a significant role in the Carolingian Renaissance; told for a general reading public.
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Duckett, Eleanor S. Saint Dunstan of Canterbury: A Study of Monastic Reform in the Tenth Century. New York: Norton, 1955.
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A biographical approach to the large movement that shaped the face of late Anglo-Saxon Christianity; a focus on the most prominent and knowable leader of the reform of the 10th century.
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Mason, Emma. St Wulfstan of Worcester, c. 1008–1095. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
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The life and career of the Anglo-Saxon bishop who held his see longer into Norman England than any of his contemporaries.
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Rumble, Alexander R., ed. Leaders of the Anglo-Saxon Church, from Bede to Stigand. Manchester Centre of Anglo-Saxon Studies 12. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2012.
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Though the figures covered are generally well known, these short biographical essays are a useful complement to some longer studies, and there is also material on otherwise-neglected people of high profile.
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