When the Roman legions left Britain shortly after 400 A.D., the Scots from Ireland overran parts of the country before the Anglo-Saxon conquest, and pushed north into present-day Scotland conquering the Picts. Small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were formed in Britain in the sixth century. By 800 A.D. the Germanic Anglo-Saxons had occupied most of the territory previously held by the Romans. They established a number of kingdoms with boundary that were vague and fluctuating. Bernicia and Deira were sometimes separate, sometimes joined into Northumbria. Kent was often divided among brothers. Occasionally one king would defeat the others and be called "bretwalda" or chief of the Anglo-Saxon kings, but without forming a unified Anglo-Saxon kingdom. The older pre-Anglo-Saxon peoples occupied territories west and north; the Picts in the north and the Celts in western Britain and Ireland. King Offa of Anglo-Saxon Mercia (767-796 A.D.) built a "dyke" or ditch to mark off his kingdom from the tribesmen of Wales. West Wales, modern Cornwall, had in 800 been recently conquered by Wessex (or West Saxons). The "Scots" from Ireland had conquered from the Picts the region called Dalriada, the ancestor of the Scottish state which emerged in the ninth century.
Christianity had come to Britain as early as A.D. 156. But the fourth and fifth century pagan Anglo-Saxon invasions drove the Britons, and with them Christianity, into ever-smaller enclaves. Through hatred of the Anglo-Saxons, the Britons refused to evangelize them. Their conversion finally came through two ways.
The most famous one was started by Gregory the Great who sent Augustine of Canterbury with forty monks to England. Augustine landed in Kent in 597 A.D. and its king, Ethelbert, gave him land and a disused church at Canterbury. This became the grounds for the subsequent claims to primacy in the English Church. Ethelbert, the king of Kent, whose territory lay closest to the Continent, had married a Christian princess of the Franks named Bertha, and she had brought to England with her Bishop Liuthard as her chaplain. Ethelbert at the this time was the dominant ruler among the Anglo-Saxon tribes south of the Humber River. Within four years, and perhaps much sooner, Ethelbert received baptism. Augustine was then made archbishop, and Bede says that the consecration took place at Arles. It had been the intention of Gregory to make the old Roman centers of London and York the metropolitan sees of the English Church. London, however, belonged to the East Saxons, and Augustine fixed his seat at Canterbury. Later Augustine sent his companions, Justus (to preach west of the Medway as bishop of Rochester) and Melitus (to convert the East Saxons as bishop of London). Augustine failed (c.603 A.D.) in his attempt to carry out Gregory's order to reach agreement with the leaders of the Celtic Church in the west of Britain.
Beyond Kent, the successful conversion of the Anglo-Saxons was carried out by other missions unrelated to that of Augustine. The monk and missionary Paulinus of York (c.584-644 A.D.), who was probably a Benedictine at St. Andrew's Monastery in Rome, was part of the second contingent of missionaries sent in 601 A.D. by Gregory to assist Augustine in Britain. He worked in Kent, where he was consecrated bishop in 625 A.D., then traveled north as the chaplain of Ethelburga, who was to become the Christian wife of Edwin of Northumbria. Ethelburga, who was the daughter of Queen Bertha of Kent, repeated the experience of her mother, and was asked for in marriage by the non-Christian King Edwin. Her brother Eadbald, now King of Kent, replied to the suitor, Edwin, that the Church would forbid such a marriage.
"But Edwin declared it possible that he might himself submit to her religion, provided that his wise men (Witan) should find it holier and more worthy of God. And so the maid was promised, and sent to Edwin. And, as had been arranged, Paulinus, a man dear to God, was ordained bishop to go with her, to strengthen her and her companions against the defilement of mixing with the heathen, by daily exhortation and celebration of the blessed sacrament."
(Bede, II, 9, quoted by John Foster, They Converted Our Ancestors, p.89)
Paulinus' efforts were successful and in 627 A.D. Edwin was baptized at York, where Paulinus established his see. Edwin persuaded the son of Redwald, King of the East Anglians, who now was ruler of the East Angles, to break with heathens. Paulinus extended his work to Lindsey, and established a Bishop at Lincoln. His preaching and baptizing continued until Edwin was killed at the Battle of Hatfield in 632 A.D. with the heathen King, Penda of Mercia. A heathen reaction followed in Northumbria. With Ethelburga the widow, and the children whom he had baptized, Paulinus sadly took ship for Kent, to die ten years later as Bishop of Rochester. Paulinus administered the vacant bishopric at Rochester until his death. Since he deserted York before receiving the pope's pallium, it is disputed whether he was York's first archbishop. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons in England was a slow process, paganism was never far below the surface. Famine or a natural disaster might find a kingdom relapsing into paganism. Personal quarrels about the church between the kings also resulted in relapses into paganism. In the ninth and tenth century the pagan Scandinavian invasions of the Vikings ensured that paganism remained a problem up to and beyond 1066 A.D.
The other way that the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity was by the missionaries of the Celtic Church from Ireland and Scotland who converted much of Northern England.
Ireland was a land of tribal chiefs; it had been Christianized in late Roman times by Patrick (c.389-461 A.D.) who returned to Ireland as a bishop in 432 A.D. and spent the next thirty years ministering there. Patrick was probably born in Roman Britain, the son of a deacon and magistrate named Calpurnius, and the grandson of a priest. At the age of sixteen, while staying on his father's farm, Patrick was seized by raiders and sold as a slave into Ireland. After six years of service as a shepherd he escaped and eventually reached home again. He spent considerable time in Gaul at the monastery of Lerins, off the southern coast of France, and trained for his missionary work to which he believed God had called him. In 432 A.D. Patrick was ordained a missionary bishop by Bishop Germanus of Auxerre, and he returned to Ireland. His missionary work continued until his death in 461 A.D. Most of Patrick's missionary work was in the northeastern Ireland, though not without some efforts in the south and the wilder west. He had great influence on several chieftains and had special ties in the areas of Tara, Croagh Patrick and Armagh. Although he was not well educated, he encouraged learning and possibly through contact with strict monasteries in Gaul he began to emphasize the ascetic life and monasticism. But the great developer of the peculiar Irish monasticism was Finian of Clonated (c.470-548 A.D.), under whose leadership a strongly missionary and learned group of Irish monasteries came into being. In the later Irish church the basic unit became the monastery led by the abbot, rather than the bishop's diocese. Patrick also communicated to Celtic Christianity the priority of mission. The Celtic Church produce a great numbers of monks who evangelized Western Europe during the sixth and seventh centuries. They also sent out missionaries to convert the Picts and the Anglo-Saxons.
Irish monks also acquired a great enthusiasm for scholarship, which may have been encouraged by continental scholars who fled to Ireland from the barbarian invasions of the fifth century A.D. Fifth-century Ireland was a tribal society without large towns, and the monasteries exerted a great influence on the church life. Unlike Western monasticism on the mainland of Europe, Irish monks put little value on staying in one place, and from the sixth century A.D. onwards the wandering Celtic monk became a common figure on the continent. Such wandering monks founded some of the most famous of the early continental monasteries, including Luxeuil, St. Gall and Bobbio; they promoted the evangelization of much of central Europe. Columbanus, or Columba the Younger (c.543-615 A.D.), became a monk of the celebrated Irish monastery of Bangor, which was founded in 558 A.D. by Comgall, a leader in learning and missionary zeal. From Bangor, Columbanus set forth, about 585 A.D., with twelve monastic companions, and settled in Anegray, in Burgundy, near which he planted the monastery of Luxeuil. The discipline of his school was extremely severe, and while his movement was approved by the people, it was bitterly opposed by the clergy. Expelled from France in about 610 A.D., in consequence of his severe rebuke of the vices of the Burgundian court, and King Theuderich II (Thierry) and the King's grandmother, Brunhilda, Columbanus worked for a brief time in northern Switzerland at Lake Constance, where his Irish companion and disciple, Gallus, was to live as an anchorite, and to give his name to, rather than to found the later monastery of St. Gall. Columbanus made his way to northern Italy, and there established in 614 A.D., in the Appenines, the monastery of Bobbio, in which he died a year later. Columbanius was an able and sharp controversialist of his time. His correspondence with Pope Boniface IV and later with Gregory the Great makes claims for the purity and independence of the Celtic Church, and challenges their claim to papal supremacy. He was a gifted poet and an able expositor of Scriptures, his commentary is in the Ambrosian library in Milan. Unusual for his day, he was able to study the Scriptures in both Hebrew and Greek.
The beginnings of Christianity in Scotland are very obscure. Ninian is said to have labored there in the fourth century A.D. and the early years of the fifth, but of his date and real work little is known. Kentigern, or Mungo (c.527-c.612 A.D.), who spread Christianity in neighborhood of Glasgow, is almost as dim a figure. It would seem probable that the northern Irish settlers who founded, about 490 A.D., the kingdom of Dalriada, embracing the modern Argyleshire, came as Christians. The great missionary to Scotland was Columba (521-597 A.D.), a man closely related with some the most powerful tribal families of Ireland, and a pupil of Finian of Clonard. Having distinguished himself as monk and founder of monasteries in Ireland, he transferred his labors to Scotland in 563 A.D. On the island of Iona or Hy off the western Scottish coast he with twelve companions founded a famous monastery, under the protection of a fellow countryman and relative, the King of Dalriada. It served as a base for evangelism among his fellow Scots and among the Picts, who occupied the northern two-thirds of Scotland. Many churches were founded and much of the religious, political and social life of Scotland Christianized. Columba was the apostle to Scotland as Patrick was the apostle to Ireland.
Oswald (c.605-642 A.D.), the king of Northumbria, was the son of Aethelfrith. Fleeing to Scotland after the death of his father in 616 A.D., he found refuge with the monks of Iona and was converted and baptized through the ministry of these monks. On the death of King Edwin in 633 A.D., he returned to Northumbria and became king. After prayer, he gained a victory over the British King Cadwalla at Heavenfield, near Hexham. Oswald was determined to establish the Christian faith in his kingdom, and sent to Iona for missionaries to come and teach his people the Christian faith. The first monk sent was austere and unsuccessful, but the second monk sent in 634 A.D. was Aidan, who had been consecrated bishop. Aidan chose as his headquarters the small island of Lindisfarne (about three miles long) off the extreme northeastern coast of England, and not far from Oswald's capital at the rock-fortress of Bamburgh. The Island of Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, was five miles north of Bamburgh. Here Aidan founded a monastic community and adapted himself fully to the new situation, identifying himself with the common people and having close links with Oswald. Oswald work with Aidan, sometimes accompanying him on missionary journeys, acting as his interpreter. In 644 A.D. Oswald was killed in a battle with the pagan king Penda of Mercia at Maserfield, which is now identified as Oswestry: "Oswald's Tree or Cross". King Oswald was succeeded by his brother, Oswy.
Aidan displayed the Celtic virtues of simplicity, humility, and gentleness. His success as a missionary was such that the historian J.B. Lightfoot would later say, "Not Augustine, but Aidan, is the true apostle of England." Aidan founded a school for the training of twelve boys, that was sent to him from the English, among whom were Eata, Chad, Cedd, and Wilfrid. Some of these attained great distinction. Eata, who became the Abbot of Melrose by 651 A.D., was later given the rule over Lindisfarne in 664 A.D., when the Scots missionaries withdrew. Chad became that same year the Bishop of York, an Englishman taking, after a break of thirty-one years, the place of Paulinus, the first Roman missionary to the north. Chad was later to become first missionary-bishop of Mercia, with Lichfield for his see (667 A.D.). Chad had three brothers: Cedd, Cynebil, and Celin. Cedd became Bishop of the East Saxons (at Tilbury), Cynebil was founder and Abbot of the monastery of Lastingham, and Celin became chaplain to King Aethelwald of Deira. They all may have belong to the twelve.
Wilfrid (634-709 A.D.) became the bishop of York in 665. He was the son of a Northumbrian nobleman. An unkind stepmother caused him to leave home at the age of thirteen and he found his way to King Oswy's court. The Queen, Eanfled, became interested in this handsome youth and his desire for the Church's service. A friend of King's, who became afflicted with paralysis, decided to retire to Lindisfarne, and the Queen recommended Wilfrid as his attendant. He was educated at Lindisfarne before he went to study the Roman form of religious life at Canterbury. After visiting Rome in 654 A.D. with another young Northumbrian noble, Benedict Biscop, he return to Northumbria in 658 A.D., to become Abbot of Ripon in 661 A.D. At the Synod of Whitby (663/664 A.D.) he was the chief and most vehement advocate of the Roman tradition concerning the dating of Easter. Shortly after the Synod in 665 A.D., he was appointed bishop of Northumbria with his seat at York. He went to Gaul for consecration by Frankish bishops. He stayed there for two years, and in his absence King Oswy had Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, consecrated as bishop of York. On his return in 666 A.D. Wilfrid went to Ripon, but Theodore of Tarsus (archbishop of Canterbury) had him installed at York in 669 A.D. Of his forty-five years as a bishop nearly half of it was spent in exile, from 678 to 686 A.D. and from 691 to 705 A.D. Wilfrid was an ambitious and able man with a forceful personality. He fell foul of both King Egfrid and Theodore, who was concerned about Wilfrid's love of power. In 678 A.D. Theodore divided the diocese of York into four sections and appointed other bishops for the various sections. Wilfrid appealed to Theodore and then to Pope Agatho. The papal synod upheld his case, but on his return to England he was imprisoned by King Egfrid. After his release he went to Sussex, where he had some success evangelizing the heathen South Saxons. After the death of Egfrid in 686 A.D. he was reconciled to Theodore and returned north as bishop of Ripon and abbot of Hexham. In 691 A.D. he was again exiled after a dispute with King Aldfrith. King Ethelred of Mercia invited him become bishop of Leicester. In 703 A.D. the synod called by Archbishop Britwold at Austerfield in Yorkshire decreed that Wilfrid should resign the see of York and retire to Ripon as a monk. He appealed again to Rome and his claims were upheld, but he had to agree to the appointment of John of Beverley as bishop of York and himself as bishop of Hexham. He spent his last years (705-709 A.D.) in the monastery at Ripon until his death at the monastery of Oundle in Northamptonshire. Wilfrid is important because of the large part he played in the Romanization of the Celtic Church and his missionary work in Sussex.
The Christianity planted in the north of England by the Celtic Christians soon came in contact with the Roman Catholic Christianity expanding northward from the south of England. These two forms of Christianity differed on many matters, so that King Oswy, who had united most of Anglo-Saxon England under himself, called a meeting at Whitby in 663/664 A.D. to decide which form of Christianity his people would follow. This Synod of Whitby was an important turning point in the history of the church in England. As we have seen Christianity in England had two main streams. One came from Rome via Augustine of Canterbury and Paulinus of York, and the other from the Celtic Church via Iona and Lindisfarne. There were a number of differences between these two streams. The Celtic Christians did not acknowledge the authority of the pope. They did not always have Easter on the same day each year as the Roman church did. Celtic monks might marry; Roman monks were not permitted to do so. Celtic monks had a different type of tonsure or haircut. These differences caused such confusion and rivalry between the two forms of Christianity. The most important of these differences concerned the date on which Easter was to be celebrated. The issue came to a head in 663 A.D. when King Oswy of Northumbria noticed that in the following year he would be celebrating Easter when his wife, who had been brought up in Roman ways, would be observing Lent. A synod was called at Streanshalch (Whitby) in Yorkshire, the site Hilda's abbey.
Hilda or Hild (614-680 A.D.) was the Abbess of Whitby. She was the daughter of Hereic, nephew of King Edwin of Northumbria, who was converted through the preaching of Paulinus and baptized by him in 627 A.D. She served God faithfully in the secular world for a number of years, being influenced by both the Roman and Celtic streams of Christianity. She then decided to become a nun, and was on her way to France to join a monastic community when she was recalled from East Anglia by Aidan in 649 A.D. Aidan appointed her abbess of the convent at Hartlepool in County Durham. In 659 A.D. she became the founder and abbess of the double monastery for men and women set strikingly on the cliff top at Streanshalch (Whitby) in Yorkshire. The community became famous as a school of theology and literature, preparing five future bishops and Caedmon, the earliest known English poet.
At the Synod of Whitby the delegates of the Celtic persuasion were King Oswy, who presided; Cedd, bishop of the East Saxons; Hilda; and Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne. The Roman representatives included Oswy's son Alchfrith; Agilbert, bishop of Dorchester; Wilfrid, abbot of Ripon; and James the Deacon. Colman argued that the Celtic tradition went back through Columba and Polycarp to John the Evangelist. Wilfrid pleaded the near-universality of the observance of a tradition going back to Peter and Paul. The King Oswy judged in favor of the Roman party on the grounds that he would rather be on good terms with "the keeper of heaven's gate" than with Columba. The decision caused some bitterness among the Celtic party and was influential in bringing England within the mainstream of Christendom for the next eight and three-quarter centuries.
Five years after Whitby in 668 A.D. two churchmen were sent to England by the Pope Vitalian to complete the reordering of the church in England. Theodore of Tarsus (c.602-690 A.D.), a Greek who served the pope as Archbishop of Canterbury, and Hadrian, from North Africa, were the real founders of the Roman Catholic Church in England. They built on the foundation laid by Pope Gregory and Archbishop Augustine, and drew on the spiritual and intellectual vigor of Celtic Christianity. Theodore was appointed to the see of Canterbury by Pope Vitalian, upon the recommendation by Hadrian, the monk to whom the post was first offered. Theodore, after touring England when he first arrived in England, worked at establishing the primacy of Canterbury by convoking the first council of the entire English Church at Hertford in 673 A.D. and regulating affairs of dioceses. The new leaders carried out effective administrative and educational work. Theodore wisely followed a policy of reconciliation with Celtic Christianity. He and Hadrian brought Mediterranean Christian culture to Canterbury. They contributed a permanent framework to the Anglo-Saxon church. By establishing a "national" body which transcended local boundaries and local patriotism, Theodore's reorganization of the church helped to develop secular government as well as bringing order out of chaos. The church conveyed the concepts of unity and centralization to the secular leaders. With Hadrian and Benedict Biscop, Theodore promoted conformity with Rome and sent to Pope Agatho a declaration of orthodoxy written at the synod of Hatfield in 680 A.D. Theodore, a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, was educated in Tarsus and Athens, and was among the numerous Christian refugees from the Islamic invasions. He brought to England a high level of culture. Assisted by Hadrian and Benedict Biscop, an Anglo-Saxon churchman deeply interested in Christian learning, Theodore founded at Canterbury a school where the cultures of British and Mediterranean Christianity were fused.
Hadrian the African (d.709 A.D.) was proficient in Greek and Latin learning and adept in canon law. As abbot of SS. Peter and Paul's monastery and head of the school in Canterbury, he introduced a variety of disciplines, taught pagan and patristic literature, founded other schools and educated students from as far away as Ireland and the Continent. The school, enriched by Theodore's manuscripts, became a leading center of education in Roman law and Greek, whence Roman influence spread to Wearmouth and Jarrow monasteries in Northumbria, both founded by Benedict Biscop.
The Venerable Bede (c.672-735 A.D.) is an outstanding example of this intellectual movement. As an almost life-long member of the joint monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow in Northumbria, his learning embraced the full spectrum of knowledge of his age. He wrote on chronology, natural phenomena, the Scriptures, and theology. Above all he is known for his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, a work of great value and the chief source of our information regarding the Christianization of the British Islands.