The Saxons from Saxony in Germany invaded Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex in 446 AD. They took the south coast of England and started to push the Ancient Britons and Celts westwards into Cornwall and Wales. As this happened, the Saxons founded the Kingdom of Mercia in the Midlands.
The Angles, a Germanic tribe akin to the Saxons invaded East Anglia and the north of England taking Northumbria. This pushed the Picts who were Ancient Britons northwards into Scotland and Cumbria.
The Saxons and Angles were pagans when they arrived in Britain, while the Ancient Britons and Celtic peoples had already been evangelized.
Saint Augustine of Canterbury
In 597 AD Pope Gregory the Great decided to send missionaries to evangelize the Saxons of England. The Gregorian Mission was headed by Saint Augustine of Canterbury. Augustine from Rome evangelized the Saxons of Kent and was the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
Paulinus of York
In 601 Pope Gregory sent Paulinus to York. He established a Christian centre there to evangelize the north of England.
The Angles and the Saxons combined to form the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons officially converted to Christianity in 630 AD.
Hilda of Whitby (614-680)
Paulinus who had been sent from Rome to be bishop of York conducted his mission through the conversion of Angle and Saxon royalty to Christianity. Saint Hilda was one of his converts.
Hilda was born into the royal household of Deira and Bernicia in 614. The northern kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira had been united to become the Kingdom of Northumbria by the pagan king Ethelfrith in 604.
The second king of Northumbria, King Edwin was converted to Christianity through the mission of Paulinus of York. Edwin ruled Northumbria from 616 t0 633 when he died in battle. In 634 Oswald became King of Northumbria. He was the son of Ethelfrith the former pagan king. However, the conversion of Oswald to Christianity was so profound that he was venerated as a saint. King Oswald invited Saint Aidan to conduct the evangelization of Northumbria.
Hilda was the daughter of the nephew of King Edwin who was converted by Paulinus. Hilda was brought up at the court of King Edwin. Hilda became abbess of the monastery of Whitby. At the monastery of Whitby Hilda advised kings on what they should do according to the will of God. She was made a saint.
The Synod of Whitby was convened to negotiate a rapprochement between the traditions and practices of the Saxon Rome-based church and the independent Celtic Church. The synod took place in 664 while Hilda was abbess of Whitby monastery.
Hilda lived at the same time as St Cuthbert. She may have influenced his views. Cuthbert belonged to the Celtic Church at Lindesfarne, but after the Synod of Whitby Cuthbert made concessions to traditions of the Rome-led Saxon church to establish peace between the two churches. Some Celtic Christians did not except the changes and returned to Ireland where the Celtic Church continued as it was.
Saxon Church Expansion and Viking Attacks
In 717 the Celtic clergy at Iona abbey were replaced by Rome-based clergy. This probably changed the language used from Gaelic to Latin for services and English in between times.
The first Viking raids on the western isles of Scotland and the islands off the coast of Ireland started in 795. In 802 the monastery at Iona was burned down by Vikings, and four years later they returned to kill 68 monks still there. Lindesfarne was attacked by Viking raiders in 793.
Vikings established a strong hold in Essex and overtook East Anglia during the 9th century. There is evidence from the Staffordshire Hoard that the Kingdom of Mercia was under attack from Vikings as early as the 7th century or at the beginning of the 8th century.
Staffordshire Hoard and St Guthlac
The Staffordshire Hoard provides a window into the Anglo-Saxon world of around 650 AD. It is an extraordinary find consisting of five kilos of gold, silver and garnet cloisonné objects with exquisite artwork. All the objects belonged to a male warrior – items such as swords and a helmet, as well as two crosses.
A small gold strip which could have been part of a sword or shield bears an inscription from the book of Numbers 10:35: “Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee flee before thee.”
The Life of Saint Guthlac, a Christian hermit living in the Kingdom of Mercia who died in 714 quotes the same passage. (The historian Bede (672-735) wrote the Life of Saint Guthlac).
It seems that Mercia was being attacked by Viking raiders even at this early date. At first Vikings looted churches and abbeys, and returned home to Scandinavia; it was only later that they started to settle in England.
The engraving of this passage of the Old Testament on a sword or shield, and the life of St Guthlac suggests a connection between the Saxon warrior and the saint. St Guthlac may have met Ethelbald King of Mercia and quoted this passage of the Bible to him, telling him to fight against the invaders. The Saxon warrior could have been the king himself.
The hoard had been hidden deliberately. It was discovered in a recently ploughed field in 2009 by a man with a metal detector. As the find was classified as ‘treasure’ it meant it belonged to the nation, and not to the finder. It was valued at £3.2 million. Two museums bought it: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent. The collection has toured various other museums since then.
Saint Edmund the Martyr
Edmund was king of the East Angles, a kingdom consisting of North Folk and South Folk east of The Fens, Devil’s Dyke and the River Stour. The Kingdom of East Anglia had seven Christian monasteries in the 9th century.
The all-out invasion of the Kingdom of East Anglia by the Great Heathen Army was led by a coalition of Scandinavian leaders in 865 AD. The Angle King Edmund went into battle against the Vikings and was killed in battle by beheading in 869.
Edmund’s relics were taken to a place that became known as Bury Saint Edmunds. A popular cult quickly grew up to honour Edmund the martyr. St Edmund, the martyr, became one of two patron saints of England before the days of St George.
Saint Edward the Confessor
King Edward, king of England did not spend all his time in the confessional box, but he confessed the Christian Faith and died childless. King Edward was the husband of Edith of Wessex, Queen of England. Edith came from the Saxon royal family of the former Kingdom of Wessex. She promoted the cause of her husband’s sainthood after he died early in 1066.
The situation was difficult as King Canute, another unwelcome Danish Viking had become King of England a bit before this time. The Saxon royals had called upon the Normans to help them keep the Vikings out once and for all. The Normans obliged and took over.
King Edward was the son of the Saxon king Ethelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, thus he was half Saxon and half Norman. A Norman-sympathizing Saxon saint was what was needed in 1066 to quell unrest among the English.
Thus, to make St Edmund the Martyr and St Edward the Confessor joint patron saints of England was a bit of Saxon PR and promotion in the face of Norman takeover. The Normans let the people have their home-bred patron saints. Thus, the two patron saints of England were Saxon promotion in a Norman world.
Walsingham pilgrimage
The pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham in East Anglia was set in place only five years prior to the Norman conquest.
In 1061 a Saxon noble woman, Richeldis de Faverches, had a vision of the Virgin who requested that she have a replica house built of the house in Nazareth of the Holy Family. The little house shrine was constructed over a spring of healing waters at Walsingham. The shrine has a statue of the enthroned Virgin Mary and child Jesus. It quickly became a place of pilgrimage for the English.
King Harold II of England, who confronted William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings came from Walsingham manor house.
Orthodoxy
It should be noted that the English Saxon Church headed by Archbishop Augustine in Canterbury under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome was, at this stage, still an Orthodox church. The Orthodox Church was led by the five patriarchs, of which the bishop of Rome was only one until 1054. This was noted for the Celtic Church which was also an Orthodox church, but one which had much less direct contact with Rome.
Up to the 11th century the bishop of Rome or Latin patriarch held the keys to the tomb of St Peter located underneath St Peter’s basilica in Vatican City – as the Apostle Peter had come from Jerusalem to be crucified in Rome. However, at this stage these were only physical keys. When disputes broke out between the bishop of Rome and other heads of the church, the keys were used to lock out pilgrims visiting the shrine from Constantinople, Ephesus, Antioch and Alexandria. They were denied access and rupture occurred.
After the rupture between east and west in 1054, the Roman Catholic Church took its own path. It was from then on governed solely by the Pope who claimed succession from the Apostle Peter, head of the early church. The Apostle Peter was given authority to bind and unbind on earth – this authority became the authority of the Pope. He could excommunicate if he saw fit, and define what was and wasn’t heresy. The keys to the tomb of St Peter became the symbolic keys of power, and the authority to lock out and lock in.
The Saxon church under the See of Rome did not come under this type of authority, but the Norman church that came with conquest did.
For the first thousand years of Christianity the five heads who governed the churches of the known world met regularly at ecumenical councils. One such council was the Council of Nicaea when the Nicene Creed was set out as a declaration of what Christians believe. The five patriarchs were: the bishop of Jerusalem (Jewish Church of Judea); the bishop of Antioch (Syriac Church); the bishop of Alexandria (Coptic Church of Egypt); the bishop of Constantinople (Greek Church); and the bishop of Rome (Latin Church of Europe).
After the East-West Schism of 1054, there were no further ecumenical councils. Doctrine or dogma was determined in the West by Vatican councils overseen by the Pope. This brought in new church practices such as celibacy for priests and new doctrines imposed upon Catholic Christians, but not on Orthodox Christians.
Therefore, the Saxon Church, although receiving its instructions from Rome and using Latin for its training in theology and for mass, was in fact an Orthodox church rather than a Roman Catholic church. The Roman Catholic Church came into existence in the 11th century and was brought to England by the Normans. The Normans were the castle and cathedral builders of the 12th century.
One long-forgotten benefit of the Norman conquest is that the Normans put a stop to Viking raiding parties on monasteries and settlements in Britain, so finally the diverse populations of Britain could settle down and coexist in peace., while monasteries at last had relief from constant attack.
Merry and True 