Anglo Saxon Britain Christian England

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written document upon which to base our history; fromthe moment of Augustine's landing we have the invaluable works of B ~ d a ,and a host of lesser writings(chiefly lives of saints), besides an immense number ofcharters or royal grants of land to monasteries and private persons. These grants, written at first in Latin, butafterwards in Anglo-Saxon, were preserved in the mon

asteries down to the date of their dissolution, and thenbecame the property of various collectors. They havebeen transcribed and published by Mr. Kemble andMr. Thorpe, and they form some of our most usefulmaterials for the early history of Christian England.

I t was mainly by means of the monasteries that

Christianity became a great civilising and teachingagency in Engiand. Those who judge monasticinstitntions only by their later and worst days, whenthey had, perhaps, ceased to perform any usefulfunction, are apt to forget the benefits which theyconferred upon the people in the earlier stages of

their existence. The state of England during thisfirst Christian period was one of chronic and bloodywarfare. There was no regular army, but every freeman was a soldier, and raids of one English tribeupon another were everyday occurrences; whilepillaging frays on the part of the Welsh, followed by

savage reprisals on the part of the English, were stillmore frequent. During the heathen period, even thePicts seem often to have made piractical expeditionsfar into the south of England. In 597, for example,we read in the Chronicle that Ceolwulf, king of theWest Saxons, constantly fought" either against the


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English, or against the Welsh, or against the Picts."But in 603, the ArgyUshire Scots made a raid againstN orthumbria, and were so completely crushed bylEthelfrith, that "since then no king of Scots durstlead a host against this folk"; while the southernPicts of Galloway became tributaries of the Northum-brian kings. But war between Saxons and English,or between Teutons and Welsh, still remainedchronic; and Christianity did little to prevent theseperpetual border wars and raids. In 633, Cadwallaand Penda wasted Northumbria; in 644, Pendadrove out King Kenwealh, of the West Saxons, fromhis possessions along the Severn; in 67 I , W ulfhere,the Mercian, ravaged Wessex and the south as far asAshdown, and conquered Wight, which he gave to theS0uth Saxons; and so, from time to time, we catchglimpses of the unceasing strife between each folk andits neighbours, besides many hints of intestine strugglesbetween prince and prince, or of rivalries between

. one petty shire and others of the same kingdom, far toonumerous and unimportant to be detailed here in full.

With such a state of affairs as this, it became amatter of deep importance that there should be someone institution where the arts of peace might be car-ried on in safety; where agriculture might be sure of

its reward; where literature and science might bestudied; and where civiJising influences might besafe from interruption or rapine. The monasteriesgave an opportunity for such an ameliorating in-fluence to spring up. They were spared even in warby the reverence of the people for the Church; and


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they became places where peaceful minds might retirefor honest work, and learning, and thinking, awayfrom the fierce turmoil of a still essentially barbaricand predatory community. At the same time, theyencouraged the development of this very type ofmind by turning the reproach of cowardice, which itwould have carried with it in heathen times, into anhonour and a mark of holiness. Every monasterybecame a centre of light and of struggling culturefor the surrounding district. They were at once, tothe early English recluse, universities and refuges,places of education, of retirement, and of peace, inthe midst of a jarring and discordant world.

Hence, almost the first act of every newly-converted prince was to found a monastery in hisdominions. That of Canterbury dates from the arrival of Augustine. In 643, Kenwealh of Wessex"bade timber the old minster at Winchester." In6 54, shortly after the conversion of East Anglia,

"Botulf began to build a monastery at Icanho,"since called after his name Botulf's tun, or Boston.In 657, Peada of :Mercia and Oswiu of Northuml:iria" said that they would rear a monastery to the gloryof Christ and the honour of 8t. Peter; and they didso, and gave it the name of Medeshamstede"; but

it is now known as Peterborough,!Before the battle of Winwidfield, Oswiu had vowedto build twelve minsters in his kingdom, and he re-

1 The charter 1S a late forgery, but there is no reason todoubt that i t represents the correct tradition.


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. deem ed his vow by founding six in Bernicia and sixin Deira. In 669, Ecgberht of Kent" gave Reculver

to Bass, the mass-priest, to build a monastery thereon." In 663, iEthelthryth, a lady of royal blood,better known by the Latinised name of St. Etheldreda, "began the monastery at Ely." Before Breda'sdeath, in 735, religious houses already existed atLastingham, Melrose, Lindisfarne, Whithern, Bardney,

Gilling, Bury, Ripon, Chertsey, Barking, Abercorn,Selsey, Redbridge, Coldingham, Towcester, Hackness,and several other places. So the whole of Englandwas soon covered with monastic establishments, eachliberally endowed with land, and each engaged intilling the soil without, and cultivating peaceful arts

within, like little islands of southern civilisation,dotted about in the wide sea of Teutonic barbarism.

In the Roman south, many, if not all, of themonasteries seem to have been planned on theregular models; but in the north, where the IrishmiSSIonaries had borne the largest share in the work

of conversion, the monasteries were irregular bodieson the Irish plan, where an abbot or abbess ruledover a mixed community of monks and nuns.Hild, a member of the Northumbrian princely family,founded such an abbey at Streoneshalch (Whitby),made memorable by numbering amongst its members

the first known English poet, Credmon. St. John ofBeverley, Bishop of Hexhim, set up a similar monastery at the place with which his name is so closelyassociated. The Irish monks themselves foundedothers at Lindisfarne and elsewhere. Even in the


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south, some Irish abbeys existed. An Irish monk hadset up one at Bosham, in Sussex, even before Wilfrith

converted that kingdom; and one of his countrymen, Maidulf (or Maeldubh?) was the original headof Malmesbury. In process of time, however, as theunion with Rome grew stronger, all these housesconformed to the more regular usage, and becamemonasteries of the ordinary Benedictine type.

The civilising value of the monasteries can hardlybe over-rated. Secure in' the peace conferred uponthem by a religious sanction, the monks became thebuilders of schools, the drainers of marshland, theclearers of forest, the tillers of heath. Many of theearliest religious houses rose in the midst of what had

previously been trackless wilds. Peterborough andEly grew up on islands of the Fen country. Crowland gathered round the cell of Guthlac in the midstof a desolate mere. Evesham occupied a glade in thewild forests of the western march. Glastonbury, anold Welsh foundation, stood on a solitary islet, wherethe abrupt knoll of the Tor looks down upon thebroad waste of the Somersetshire marshes. Beverley,as its name imports, had been a haunt of beaversbefore the monks began to till its fruitful dingles. Inevery case agriculture soon turned the wild lands intoorchards and c o r ~ f i e l d s ,or drove drains through thefens which converted their marshes into meadows and 'pastures for the long-horned English cattle. Romanarchitecture, too, came with the Roman church. Wehear nothing before of stone buildings j but Eadwineerected a church of stone at York, under the direction


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- of Paulinus j and Bishop Wilfrith, a generation later,restored and decorated it, covering the roof with lead

and filling the windows with panes of glass. Masonshad already been settled in Kent, though Benedict,the founder of Wearmouth and Jarrow, found itdesirable to bring over others from the Franks. Metalworking had always been a special gift of the English,and their gold jewellery was well made even before

the conversion, but it became still more noticeableafter the monks took the craft into their own hands.-Breda mentions mines of copper, iron, lead, silver, andjet. Abbot Benedict not only brought manuscriptsand pictures from Rome, which were copied andimitated in his monasteries atWeannouth and Jarrow,but he also brought over glass-blowers, who introducedthe art of glass-making into England. Cuthberht,Breda's scholar, writes to Lull, asking for workmenwho can make glass vessels. Bells appear to havebeen equally early introductions. Roman music ofcourse accompanied the Roman liturgy. The connection established with the clergy of the continentfavoured the dispersion of European goods throughoutEngland. \Ve constantly hear of presents, consistingof skilled handicraft, passing from the civilised southto the rude and barbaric north. Wilfrith and Benedict journeyed several times to and from Rome,enlarging their own minds by intercourse with Romansociety, and returning laden with works of art ormanuscripts of value. Breda was acquainted with thewritings of all the chief classical poets and philosophers,whom he often quotes. We can only liken the results


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of such intercourse to those which in our own timehave proceeded from the opening of Japan to western

ideas, or of the Hawaiian Islands to European civilisation and European missionaries. The Englishschool which soon sprang up at Rome, and the Latinschools which soon sprang up at York and Canterbury,are precise equivalents of the educational movementsin both those countries which we see in our own day.The monks were to learn Latin and Greek" as wellas they learned their own tongue," and were so to begiven the key of all the literature and all the sciencethat the world then possessed.

The monasteries thus became real manufacturing,agricultural, and literary centres on a small scale.The monks boiled down the salt of the brine-pits;they copied and illuminated manuscripts in thelibrary; they painted pictures not without rude meritof their own; they ran rhines through the marshymoorland; they tilled the soil with vigour and success. A new culture began to occupy the l and- theculture whose fully-developed form we now see aroundus. But it must never be forgotten that in its originit is wholly Roman, and not at all Anglo-Sa..xon. Ourpeople showed themselves singularly apt at embracingit, like the modern Polynesians, and unlike theAmerican Indians; but they did not invent it for themselves. Our existing culture is not home-bred at all ;it is simply the i n h ~ r i t e dand widened culture ofGreece and Italy.

The most perfect picture of the monastic life andof early English Christianity which we possess is that


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drawn for us in the life and works of B::eda. Beforegiving any account, however, of the sketch which he

has left us, it will be necessary to follow briefly thecourse of events in the English church during thefew intervening years.

The Church of England in its exi sting form owes itsorganisation to a Greek monk. In 667, Oswiu ofNorthumbria and Ecgberht of Kent, in order tobring their dominions into closer connection withRome, united in sending Wigheard the priest to thepope, that he might be hallowed Archbishop of Canterbury. No Englishman had yet held that office, andthe choice may be regarded as a symptom of growthin the native Church. But Wigheard died at Rome,and the pope seized the opportunity to consecrate anarchbishop in the Roman interest. His choice fellupon one Theodore, a monk of Tarsus in Cilicia,who was in the orders of the Eastern church. Thepope was particular, however, that Theodore shouldnot" introduce anything contrary to the verity of thefaith into the Church over which he was to preside."Theodore accepted Roman orders and the Romantonsure, and set out for his province, where he arrivedafter various adventures on the way. His re-organisation of the young Church was thorough and systematic. Originally England had been divided intoseven great dioceses, corresponding to the principalkingdoms (save only still heathen Sussex), and havingtheir sees in their chief towns-East and West Kent,at Canterbury and Rochester; Essex, at London jWessex, at Dorchester or Winchester; Northumbria,


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at .York; East Anglia, at Dunwich; and Mercia, atLichfield. The Scottish bishopric of Lindisfarnecoincided with Bemicia. Theodore divided thesegreat dioceses into smaller ones; East Anglia hadtwo, for its north and south folk, atElmham and Dunwich; Bernicia was divided between Lindisfarne andHexham; Lincolnshire had its see placed at Sidnacester; arid the sub-kingdoms of Mercia were also madeinto dioceses, the Huiccii having their bishop-stool atWorcester; the Hecans, at Hereford; and theMiddle English, at Leicester. But Theodore's greatwork was the establishment of the national synod, inwhich all the clergy of the various English kingdomsmet together as a single people. This was the firststep ever taken towards the unification of England;and the ecclesiastical unity thus preceded and pavedthe way for the political unity which was to follow it.Theodore's organisation brought the whole Churchinto connection with Rome_ The bishops owing theirorders to the Scots conformed or withdrew, and henceforward Rome held undisputed sway_ Before Theodore, all the archbishops of Canterbury and all thebishops of the southern kingdoms had been Romanmissionaries; those of the north had been Scots orin Scottish orders. After Theodore they were allEnglishmen in Roman orders. The native churchbecame thenceforward wholly self-supporting.

Theodore was much aided in his projects by Wil-frith of York, a man of fiery energy and a devotedadherent of the Roman see, who had carried the Romansupremacy at the Synod of Whitby, and who spent a


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. large part of his time in journeys between Englandand Italy. His life, by LEddi, forms one of the most

important documents for early English history. In681 he completed the conversion of England by hispreaching to the South Saxons, whom he endeavouredto civilise as well as Christianise. His monasteryof Selsey was built on land granted by the under-king (now a tributary of Wessex), and his first act

was to emancipate the slaves whom he found uponthe soil. Equally devoted to Rome was the youngNorthumbrian noble, who took the religious name ofBenedict Biscop. Benedict became at first an inmateof the Abbey of Lerins, near Cannes. He afterwardsfounded two regular Benedictine abbeys on the same

model at IV'earmouth and J arrow, and made at least fourvisits to the papal court, whence he returned ladenwith manuscripts to introduce Roman learning amonghis wild N orthumbrian countrymen. He likewisecarried over silk robes for sale to the kings in exchangefor grants of land; and he brought glaziers from Gaul

for his churches. Jarrow aione contained 5 0 0 monksand possessed endowments of 1 5 , 0 0 0 acres.

It was under the walls of J arrow that B


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years, h e was handed over to the car e of AbbotBenedict, after whose death Abbot Ceolfrid took

charge of the young aspirant. " Thenceforth," saysthe aged monk, fifty years later, " I passed all my lifetime in the building of that monastery [J arrow], andgave all my days to meditating on Scripture. In theintervals of my regular monastic discipline, and of mydaily task of chanting in chapel, I have always amused

myself either by learning, teaching, or writing. Inthe nineteenth year of my life I received ordinationas deacon; in my thirtieth year I attained to thepriesthood j both functions being administered bythe most reverend bishop John [afterwards known asSt. John of Beverley], at the request of Abbot Ceol

frid. From the time of my ordination as priest to thefifty-ninth year of 111y life, I have occupied myself inbriefly commenting upon Holy Scripture, for theuse of myself and my brethren, from the works ofthe venerable fathers, and in some cases I haveadded interpretations of my own to aid in theircomprehension."

The variety of Bseda's works, the large knowledgeof science and of classical literature which he displays (when judged by the continental standard of thee i ~ t hcentury), and his familiar acquaintance withthe Latin language, which he writes easily and correctly, show that the library of J arrow must have beenextensive and valuable. Besides his Scriptural commentaries, he wrote a treatise De Natura Rerum,Letters on the Reason of Leap-Year, a Life of St.Anastasius, and a History of his Own Abbey, all in


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.Latin. In verse, he co mposed many pieces, bothin hexameters and elegiacs, together with a treatise

on prosody. But his greatest work is his "Ecclesi-astical History o f the English People," the aUlhorityfrom which we derive almost all our knowledge ofearly Christian En gland. I t was doubtless sug-gested by the Frankish hi story of Gregory of Tours,and it consists of five books, divided into short

chapters, making up about 4 0 0 pages of a modernoctavo. Five manuscripts, one of them transcribedonly two years after Breda's death, and now depositedin the Cambridge library, preserve for us the text ofthis priceless document. The work itself should beread in the originai, or in one of the many excellent

translations, by every person who takes any intelligentintere5t in our early history.

Breda's accomplishments included even a know-ledge of Greek- then a rare acquisition in the w e s twhich he probably derived from Archbishop Theodore'sschool at Canterbury. He was likewise an Englishauthor, for he translated the Gospel of St. John intohis native Northumbrian; and the task proved thelast of his useful life. Several manuscripts have pre-served to us the letter of Cuthberht, afterwards Abbotof Jarrow, to his friend Cuthwine, giving us the verydate of his death, May 27, A.D. 735, and also narratingthe pathetic but somewhat overdrawn picture, withwhich we are all familiar, of how he died just as hehad completed his translation of the last chapter"Thus saying, he passed the day in peace till even-tide. The boy [his scribe 1 said to him, 'Still one


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sentence, beloved master, is yet unwritten.' Heanswered, 'Write it quickly.' After a while the boy

said, 'Now the sentence is written.' Then he replied,,

I t is well,' quoth he, ' thou hast said the t ruth: it isfinished.' And so he passed away to thekingdom of heaven."

I t is impossible to overrate the importance of thechange which made such a life of earnest study and

intellectual labour as Breda's possible amongst therough and barbaric English. Nor was it only in producing thinkers and readers from a people who couldnot spell a word half a century before, that themonastic system did good to England. The monasteries owned large tracts of land which they could

cultivate on a co-operative plan, as cultivation wasimpossible elsewhere. Laborare est orare was thetrue monastic motto: and the documents of thereligious houses, relating to lands and leases, show usthe other or material side of the picture, which was notless important in its way than the spiritual and intellectual side. Everywhere the monks settled in thewoodland by the rivers, cut down the forests, droveout the wolves and the beavers, cultivated the soilwith the aid of their tenants and serfs, and becamecolonisers and civilisers at the same time that they wereteachers and preachers. The reclamation of wasteland throughout the marshes of England was duealmost entirely to the monastic bodies.

The value of the civilising influence thus exertedis seen especially in the written Jaws, and it affectedeven the actions of the fierce English princes. The


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dooms of .tEthelberht of Kent are the earliest Englishdocuments which we possess, and they were reduced to

writing shortly after the conversion of the first EnglishChristian king: while Breda expressly mentions thatthey were compiled after Roman models. TheChurch was not able to hold the warlike princesreally in check; but it imposed penances, and encouraged many of them to make pilgrimages to Rome,

and to end their days in a cloister. The importanc.eof such pilgrimages was doubtless immense. Theyinduced the rude insular nobility to pay a visit towhat was still, after all, the most civilised country ofthe world, and so to gain some knowledge of a foreignculture, which they afterwards endeavoured to intro

duce into their own homes. In 688, Ceadwalla, theferocIOus king of the West Saxons, whose brotherMul had been burnt alive by the men of Kent, andwho harried the Jutish kingdom in return, and whoalso murdered two princes of Wight, with all theirpeople, in cold blood, went on a pilgrimage to Rome,

where he was baptised, and died immediately after.lIne, who succeeded him, re-endowed the old Britishmonastery of Glastonbury, in territory just conqueredfrom the West Welsh, and reduced the laws of theWest Saxons to writing. He, too, retired to Rome,

1 He was buried at St. Peter's, and his tomb still exists OJthe remodelled building. Breda quotes the inscription in full,and quotes it correctly; a fact which may be taken as an excellent test of his historical accuracy, and the care with whichhe collected his materials.


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where he died . In 704, iEthelred, son of Penda,king of the Mercians, "assumed monkhood." In

709, Cenred, his successor, and Offa of Essex, wentto Rome. And so on for many years, king afterking resigned his kingship, and submitted, in hislatter days, to the Church. Within two centuries, noless than thirty kings and queens are recorded tohave embraced a conventual life: and far more pro

bably did ~ o ,but were passed over in silence. Bredatells us that many Englishmen went into monasteriesin Gaul.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that whileChristianity made great progress, many marks oflaeathendom were still left among the people. Well

worship and stone-worship, devil-craft and sacrificesto idols, are mentioned in every Anglo-Saxon code oflaws, and had to be provided against even as late asthe time of Eadgar. The belief in elves and othersemiheathen beings, and the reverence for heathenmemorials, was rife, and shows itself in such names

as JElfred, elf-counsel; JElfstan, elf-stone; JElfgifu,e l f : ~ i v e n ;iEthelstan, noble-stone; and Wulfstan,wolf-stone. Heathendom was banished from highplaces, but it lingered on among the lower classes,and affected the nomenclature even of the later WestSaxon kings themselves. Indeed, it was closely

interwoven with all the life and thought of the people,and entered, in altered forms, even into the conceptions of Christianity current amongst them. TheChristian poem of Credmon is tinctured on everypage with ideas derived from the legends of the old


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heathen mythology. And it will probably surprisemany to learn that even at this late date, tattooing

continued to be practised bv the English chier..tains.

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Anglo Saxon Britain Christian England