Part II The Middle Ages.
(The Norman Conquest. William the Conqueror. Feudalism.
The coming of christianity
In 597, with considerable trepidation, but urged on by his formidable and demanding superior in Rome, an Italian bishop, Augustine, landed in Kent with a small party of fellow-missionaries. His task, set by Pope Gregory the Great, was to convert the inhabitants to the Christian religion, and to establish a church within the ambit of Roman control. The Franks were already Christian, and Bertha, wife of the Kentish king, Ethelbert, was a Frankish princess; diplomacy had already ensured that Augustine would not be turned away or martyred. At this time, too, the Kentish king was the most powerful monarch in the country. Ethelbert accepted the new faith and Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. But he failed to accomplish Gregory's desire to establish London and York as twin metropolises of the church. To many of the Anglo-Saxons, the religion that preached peace and universal brotherhood was a contemptible thing.
Relations between the Canterbury mission and the long-established Celtic church were uncertain or hostile; an early meeting between Augustine and a group of Welsh bishops was wrecked when the archbishop received his visitors sitting down. For a time the candle of Christianity flickered perilously. In 625, Paulinus, one of Augustine's first companions, accompanied a Kentish princess to Northumbria, where she was to marry the king, Edwin. He had killed Aethelfrith and exiled that ruler's sons. Edwin converted to Christianity, but in 632 he was killed in battle. Under Oswald, a son of Aethelfrith, who had learned his Christianity in exile on Iona, the Northumbrian forces were regrouped. Oswald sent to Iona for a bishop to teach Christianity to his pagan kingdom, and the saintly Aidan came and established his base on Lindisfarne. The example of the bishop and the energy of the king established the new religion with great success, and missionary monks of the Celtic church spread far and wide across England while the Roman settlement at Canterbury was still struggling to expand its work. Irish and Northumbrian monks established Christianity in East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex, and finally, around the mid-seventh century, in the great heathen kingdom of Mercia.
Baptism and the acceptance of the Creed were the necessary conditions for conversion to Christianity. When a king took the new religion it was politic or compulsory for his people to do so too. For Anglo-Saxon kings, the church offered valuable support. It had to do so, in order to induce men who considered themselves god-descended to forsake their lofty pedigrees and join the human ranks of sinners. Instead it offered them the consecration of Christian kingship, a special role under God. Perhaps more important, it brought them into an international context in which they shared the prestige of greater kings like the Frankish monarchs and even that of the far-off emperor in Constantinople. The people did not forget their ancient beliefs or superstitions and there is no doubt that pagan traditions persisted for many centuries, and indeed some have never died out. Churchmen would fight a constant battle against charms, omen-reading, nature-worship, and rituals aimed at promoting fertility, witchcraft and sorcery. But through the latter half of the seventh century an internal struggle went on in the church itself. The Northumbrian church, from its first base on Lindisfarne, was established on the Celtic model by its first bishop, St Aidan. But by the middle of the seventh century it had shaken off its Celtic aspects and conformed to the rule and doctrines of Rome.
The spread of Christianity brought about important changes in the life of the Anglo-Saxons. Many new churches and monasteries were built all over the country. The kings and nobles granted much land to the bishops and monasteries, and that promoted the growth of the big landed estates. The kings also granted them the right to collect dues from the population and to administer justice on their estates. Thus alongside with the lay landlords the churchmen became great landowners too.
Besides, the spread of Christianity was of great importance for the growth of culture in Britain. The Roman monks who were converting the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity helped to spread Roman culture in the country again. The Roman monks brought many books to Britain. Most of them were religious books and they were all written in Latin and Greek. The church services were also conducted in Latin.
The Latin language was again heard in Britain. Latin was of international importance at that time, as it was used by learned men in all countries. They wrote their books in Latin so that they could be understood by the learned men of other countries.
The Anglo-Saxons spoke quite a different language of Germanic origin and did not understand Latin. The Anglo-Saxon nobles were ignorant, many of them were quite illiterate and could not even sign their own names. No one except the monks knew Latin and the monasteries became centers of knowledge and of learning in those early times. The first libraries and schools for the clergy were set up in monasteries. The monks copied out many handwritten books and even translated some books from Latin and Greek into Anglo-Saxon. Some monks were chroniclers – they kept a record of the important events of each year. Psalters, chronicles and other manuscripts written by the medieval monks are very important historical documents today. Monks often illuminated their manuscripts with miniatures and drawings which are also of great interest for they portray many scenes of contemporary life.
The learned men lived and wrote their books in monasteries. They wrote in Latin and some of their books were well known in Europe. The most famous writer was the monk named Bede who lived from 673 to 735. The Venerable Bede3, as he was known in Europe, was brought up and educated in the monasteries of Northumbria where he lived all his life. He wrote Ecclesiastical History of the English People which was studied carefully by educated people in Europe as it was the only book on Anglo-Saxon history. From this book we learn much of what happened in Britain thirteen centuries ago. A copy of Bede's book can be found at the British Museum in London.
Another early-medieval scholar Alcuin4, who lived from 735 to 804, was also an Anglo-Saxon monk from the kingdom of Northumbria. He got his education in the monastic school of York where later on he himself began to teach. As a teacher he became famous all over England. Many young monks would come to the school in York from faraway places to be taught by Alcuin. He was the author of the school text-books that were very popular in the 8th-9th centuries not only in England but on the Continent too. For more than twenty years Alcuin lived on the Continent where he organized monastic schools and many pupils of his became well-known teachers.