The English Parish Church DVD-ROM
Extract from Professor Barbara Yorke on The Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons
The Conversion of the
Anglo-Saxons
Our main narrative of the conversion of the AngloSaxons is that provided in Bede's Ecclesiastical
History of the English People. Bede's view was essentially that of top-down conversion, that is, missions to
Anglo-Saxon royal courts whose rulers then enabled the
establishment of formal church structures and the mass
baptism of their subjects. No doubt matters were in fact
more complex and it has been suggested that Christianity also spread more organically, especially in western
provinces like those of the Hwicce and Magonsaetan,
through contact of non-Christian Anglo-Saxons with
British Christians (see Section 1: The Church in Britain). It is nevertheless the case that a fully functional
Christian church required a complex infrastructure,
which could not have been provided without royal
support. There is little sign of any such structures
surviving in the eastern and south-eastern areas of England where Anglo-Saxons were in control c.600.
Baptism scene on crosshead fragment, Durham
Cathedral chapter house.
Origin/Date: 10th century
© Jane Hawkes
Bede gives the fullest information about the missions
sent from Rome and Iona, and these missions have
therefore tended to be dominant in subsequent secondary literature as well. However, it is also apparent from
Bede's narrative that missionaries came from other
Irish areas besides Iona, and that in southern England
Frankish contacts were of particular significance.
Indeed, the first known mission to an Anglo-Saxon
court may have been that of the Frankish bishop Liudhard who accompanied Bertha, the daughter of King
Charibert of the Franks, to Kent at the time of her marriage to Æthelbert in c.580 (see The Role of the
Franks in the Conversion).
Professor Barbara Yorke
University of Winchester
Gold and garnet inlaid pectoral cross with solidus
of Heraclius (613-632), associated with Sutton Hoo.
Origin/Date: East Anglia || 7th century
© The Trustees of the British Museum
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