THE CONVERSION OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS

Pedro Lucas Rocha Cabral de Vasconcellos, student number: 100834050

History 2005A: England in the Middle Ages

J. G. Bellamy

October 20th 2010

Part 1 – Pope Gregory I

Part 2 – King Ethelbert of Kent

Part 3 – Paulinus

Part 4 – Saint Wilfrid

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography
 Part 1 – Pope Gregory I

Pope Gregory I (540 – 604) was one of the most important popes

in history1, his achievements were so significant that he is also known

as Gregory the Great. His success is due to his practical nature

associated with a strong Christian belief, he was always concerned with

doing things as efficiently as possible. After he decided to pursue a

monastic life, he founded six monasteries in his family’s propriety, even

turning his own house into a monastery; he was directly responsible for

the expansion of the Benedictine monasticism at that time. He devoted

his life to the monastic Christian way, always looking for a middle path,

despising extremism.

He was concerned about the conversion of the Angles since

before becoming Pope, or at least that is what we can infer from his

first biography. Written at Whitby by an anonymous author, probably

between 704 and 714, tells the famous anecdote of how he

encountered two Angles in the slave market and impressed by their

blonde hair, compared them to Angels, deciding to convert them so that

they could “become fellow heirs with the angels in heaven.” 2. As the

story goes, he even asked the Pope Benedict I for permission to go

immediately to Britain, but the popular claim when he left was so strong

that the Pope called him back to Rome3

 Even if this version of the story is very unlikely, especially because

Pope Benedict was not even his predecessor, it shows Gregory’s

popularity, and his interest in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons for

religious reasons. In 596 AD, six years after becoming the bishop of

Rome, he sent a mission to England with the sole purpose of converting

the Germanic tribes that had settled in the island. Yet the “Gregorian

Mission”, as it has been known, was not only carried for religious

reasons, Pope Gregory also may have wanted to increase the size of

the catholic territory under the Roman’s jurisdiction, since at that time

the Roman papacy was not firmly established because of the

competition from the bishop of Constantinople for the place as Pontifex

Maximus4. Moreover, another objective of his mission was to reform the

Frankish church, that Gregory though not to be in line with some

Christian values, by creating new ties between the Frank church and the

new Anglo-Saxon Church5.

Moved by his will to propagate Christianity6, and those other more

mundane interests, Gregory put in charge of the mission a monk of his

trust that was also the prefect of one oh his monasteries, Augustine,

and sent him with an army of clerks to the kingdom of Kent, to King

Ethelbert.
 Part 2 – King Ethelbert

The Kingdom of Kent was not a random choice to send Augustine

and his party of missionaries, Gregory knew that Kent’s king, Ethelbert,

was the Bretwalda of England, was married to a Frank catholic princess,

Bertha, and knew through the royal brothers Theudebert and Theuderic,

her Frankish relatives, that Ethelbert was close to accept the Christian

faith.7

When Bertha went as a bride to Kent, her kinsfolk managed to

convince Ethelbert to let her keep practicing the Christian faith, therefore

she brought with her a private chaplain, bishop Liudhard. In Canterbury,

Kent’s capital city, her husband put at her disposal an ancient roman

church, possibly St Martin’s or St. Pancras’.8

King Ethelbert, despite already being in contact with the Christian

dogma, feared the magical arts of the Christians, and in order not to

be caught in any trick, decided to meet the party in open air at the

island of Thanet9. He was impressed by Augustine’s speech in said

meeting, thus allocating the clerks in Canterbury and giving them the

right to preach freely in Kent however, he decided not to accept

Christianity right away.

Making use of the free preach right the king gave the

missionaries, Augustine did not completely denied the old Anglo-Saxon

rites, instead he associated them with Christianity, even transforming old

temples in churches10. This association method was very well received by

the people in Kent, and by the Christmas of 597 10.000 people are said

to be converted by him. Also Ethelbert is said to be baptized in 597,

but unfortunately no records of his conversion date were discovered.

Ethelbert is important to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons,

because he was the one who open the doors of England to the Roman

Christian faith (in opposition to the Celtic Christianity already present in

the island), and even if after his death in 616 his son Eadbald led a

pagan reaction in Kent11, his daughter Aedilbergae12 accepted her

parent’s beliefs and when she married the Northumbrian king Edwin, she

brought with her to the north as a personal chaplain Paulinus, a monk

that came to England as a missionary in 601.

 Part 3 - Paulinus

Paulinus arrived in England as one of the leaders of the second

mission Gregory I sent to England in 601 to reinforce Augustine’s

original party13, and in about 619 went with princess Aedilbergae to the

kingdom of Northumbria as a religious advisor.

In Northumbria Paulinus worked similarly to the way Augustine had

worked in Kent 40 years before, he was possibly granted the opportunity

to preach freely14, and King Edwin even said that if the Christian religion

of his wife was proved to be truly holy, he would consider converting

himself to it15. However, despite of this apparent will to become a

Christian, King Edwin took a long time to get baptized, and it was

Paulinus that put an end at this waiting.

When Edwin was a child, King Ethelfrid of Northumbria exiled him,

and during his exile in the kingdom of East Anglia, Ethelfrid offered East

Anglia’s king, Redwald, a massive sum of gold for his assassination, and

the king, tempted by the offer, was planning on accept it. A spirit is

said to have appeared to Edwin then, and promised to save him if in

exchange Edwin would promise to follow the teachings of the man In

the future that would repeat the spirit’s sign, to pose the hand in his

head16.
 One day Paulinus, that possibly knew this anecdote, went to the

king and posed his hand over the king’s head, asking if he knew that

sign17. This was a decisive moment in the conversion of Northumbria,

because Paulinus used of his presence and psychological power to make

clear to the King that “a higher agency (…) had set him up in his

kingdom, and he, Paulinus, was now the representative of that agency” 18.

A royal council was held then, in 627, to decide which religion the

king, hence the kingdom would follow. Paulinus’ managed to convince

even the high priest of the current pagan religion to accept Christianity,

thus after the council mass baptisms commenced 19. From his acceptance

of Christ in 628, King Edwin directly assisted Paulinus in the conversion

of his subjects, he even “persuaded” (Bede’s word) Eorpwald, successor

of Redwald as king of East Anglia, to accept the Christian faith 20.

Paulinus most important contribution to the conversion of the

Anglo Saxons was to convince King Edwin to be baptized, and with him,

another powerful English reign had been converted, Northumbria. After

the death of Edwin in 633, only 5 years after his baptism, Paulinus had

to flee back to Kent, nevertheless his advances in Northumbria were not

lost since the princes Oswald and Oswy claimed the throne and brought

with them an Irish-influenced Christianity from Scotland 21. However, the

presence of the Roman Church was never obliterated from Northumbria,

and Kent “remained a foothold of Roman Christianity in England” 22, so

the achievements of the Gregorian Mission were of decisive importance

in the history of English Christianity23

 Part 4 – Saint Wilfrid

Wilfrid was born from an aristocratic family in about 633, and still

young was introduced to Queen Eanflaed of Northumbria, Oswy wife and

the first member of the royal family to be baptized by Paulinus in 627.

1
Henry Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (University Park,
Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), 51.
2
Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1969), 52.
3
Bede, 58.
4
Bede, 59.
5
Bede, 60.
6
Geoffrey Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy (London: Thames and Hudson, 1968), 31
7
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity (New York: Henry Holt
and Company, 1997), 115
8
Fletcher, 111
9
Mayr-Harting, 62
10
Fletcher, 116
11
Mayr-Harting, 64
12
Since the name of the princess differ in the sources (Bede refers to her as “Ethelberg” in one translation
and “Æthelburh” in another, Hollister calls her “Ethelberga” and Mayr-Harting together with Fletcher
use “Ethelburga”), for the purposes of this essay, in order not to prefer one source to another, the original
Latin name, “Aedilbergae”, was adopted.
13
Bede, 44
14
Fletcher, 120
15
Bede, 61
16
Mayr-Harting, 67
17
Bede, 67
18
Mayr-Harting, 67
19
C. Warren Hollister and Robert C. Stacey and Robin Chapman Stacey, The making of England: To
1399, 8th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001), 48
20
Fletcher, 120
By her means he was also introduced to King Eorcenbert from Kent

when he went south in 652, preparing his trip to Rome.24

He was in search of spiritual enlightenment, and during his period

in Rome he studied and learned the ecclesiastical practices, including

“the rule about Easter, of which the British and the Irish were

ignorant”25. He stayed in Rome for many weeks, gathering knowledge

and relics, and even managed to get an audience with pope, who

blessed him and send him on his way.

Before going back to England however, he stayed 3 years at Lyon,

where he studied with Archbishop Annemundus 26, and during his time in

Lyon he got the St Peter’s, that is the Roman, type of tonsure 27. His

stay in Lyon would be longer if his mentor, Archbishop Annemundus,

had not been killed in a series of religious persecutions in France at the

time. Therefore he was forced to go back to England, where he was

21
Hollister, 49
22
Mayr-Harting,68
23
Mayr-Harting, 68
24
Fletcher, 177

Eddius Stephanus, “Life of Wilfrid,” in Lives of the Saints, tr. J. F. Webb (Harmondsworth: Penguin
25

Books, 1965), chapter 5

introduced by his friend King Coenwalh of Wessex, to King Alchfrid 28 that

ruled over Northumbria with his father Oswy.

He managed to make a very strong impression in Alchfrid with his

impressive oratory, so much that the King is said to have thought that

was “an angel of God who spoke”29. King Alchfrid had Wilfrid in such

high regard that he expelled the monks from the monastery at Ripon,

gave it to Wilfrid and had him ordered priest30.

One of the most important contributions of Wilfrid to the

conversion of the Anglo-Saxons was not a conversion from paganism to

Christianity, instead was a change from the Irish-influenced Christianity

of the Kings Oswald and Oswy, to the Roman Catholic dogma. A synod

was arranged at Whitby in 664 by King Alchfrid, officially to discuss the

matter of the Easter date that was calculated in different ways by Celtic

Christians of Northumbria and by the Roman Catholic church.

Wilfrid spoke in favor of the Roman way against traditional figures

of the Northumbrian church, and Bishop Colman of Lindisfarne and

26
Bede in the “Ecclesiastical History of the English People” uses as a source Eddius’ Life of Wilfrid, and
like him confuses Annemundus, Archbishop of Lyons, with his brother Dalfinus, count of Lyons.
Because of this confusion in the most antique sources, the correct name was used.
27
Stephanus, chapter 6
28
Another name discrepancy, Alhfrith in St. Wilfrid’s translated biography, Aldfrith in Fletcher and
Alfrith in Mayr-Harting, the name in the Latin version of Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History of the English
People” was used.
29
Stephanus, chapter 7
30
Mayr-Harting, 107
Hilda, abbess of the monastery at Whitby, in favor of the status quo.

The argument was settled by King Oswy after hearing both discourses

and, as the story tells, he decided that the roman way was the correct

one, because it came from St. Peter, against the Scottish and Irish way

that came from St. Columba31.

After the King’s decision, Colman and all the other Irish monks left

Northumbria, yet Hilda just accepted the new order. Following the synod

Wilfrid became bishop of York, having a jurisdiction over half

Northumbria for over nine years32. During his episcopate, he rebuilt the

Cathedral of York, and founded a monastery in Northumberland.

Wilfrid was “notable for might and magnificence” 33, he reflected in

his life as a bishop the values of the Northumbrian nobility which he

was a part of, and his strong presence was seen as a threat in various

occasions. He was exiled three times during his life by kings who had

embraced him originally, and “many of his contemporaries, including

Archbishop Theodore, regarded him as a menace”34.

Despite his strong, and sometimes ironic, personality, Wilfrid was a

very important figure in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, helping to

31
Stephanus, chapter 10
32
Fletcher, 175
33
Fletcher, 177
34
Hollister, 53
firmly establish the Roman Catholic Church in Northumbrian soil,

facilitating the work of the bishops and archbishops that came after him.
 Conclusion

Pope Gregory I was the one who envisioned the conversion of the

Anglo-Saxons and with his mission created a strong basis in Kent from

which the Roman Christianity would spread into England.

King Ethelbert, by accepting the missionaries led by Augustine,

allowed Gregory’s vision of a Christian England to start becoming true

and, when he accepted the Christian faith, took the process one step

further by making his kingdom mostly Christian.

Paulinus was a key element in the conversion of the second

English kingdom, Northumbria, by accompanying princess Aedilbergae to

her new court he put himself in a strategic position from which he

managed to convert the king and a massive part of the population.

Wilfrid with his grand seigneur style reconverted the Northumbrians

to the Roman Christianity, and preached all over England what he

learned in his travels to Italy and France. He helped to secure the

conversion process started by Gregory 100 years before him.

All these characters were of crucial importance in shaping the

England of the 500s and 600s, transforming it from a divided pagan

region with some sprouts of Celtic Christianity, into a region ready to be

unified under the banner of the Roman Catholic Church. The Christian

England we know from the late middle ages would not exist if were not

for their actions, efforts and achievements.

 Bibliography

Barraclough, Geoffrey. The Medieval Papacy. London: Thames and

Hudson, 1968.

Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Edited by

Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1969.

Fletcher, Richard. The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to

Christianity. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.

Hollister, C. Warren, Robert C. Stacey, and Robin Champman

Stacey. The making of England: to 1399. 8th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 2001

Mayr-Harting, Henry. The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon

England. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1991.

Saul, Nigel, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England .

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997

Stephanus, Eddius. “Life of Wilfrid.” In Lives of the Saints,

translated by J. F. Webb. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965.
Notes