The Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxons was one of the most significant events in this country's history, the effects of which continue to shape society to this day. When Pope Gregory's emissary Augustine and his entourage landed in Kent in AD 597 — the event traditionally taken to mark the beginning of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons — he was not entering a unified country. In the late sixth century the country's political geography comprised a number of kingdoms of varying size and political allegiance, of which Kent was then among the most powerful. During the first half of the seventh century Christianity began to spread from kingdom to kingdom, radiating from its Kentish bridgehead and percolating from the north as members of the Irish church also became engaged in the conversion process. The people of each kingdom responded to the new religion in different ways, with some readily accepting the new faith and others remaining steadfastly opposed to it, but by c. AD 700 the first stage of the conversion had effectively been completed across all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. This book is the first to use both the surviving historical sources and the eastern region's rich and varied archaeological record to examine the mechanisms by which Christianity was introduced into the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia and to assess the rate at which and extent to which it spread throughout society.

Anglo-Saxon East Anglia

The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia, which comprised most of modern-day Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the fen basin (Fig. 1), appears to have emerged as a political entity in the second half of the sixth century and by the early seventh century the Wuffing kings of south-eastern Suffolk had risen to prominence. Some of the boundaries of the kingdom are relatively easy to identify, others less so. To the north-west, north and east the kingdom was bordered by the North Sea, at once both a natural boundary and a thriving maritime link to Scandinavia and the northern reaches of Germany. The processes of coastal erosion and deposition have greatly altered the shape of the coastline since the Anglo-Saxon period, with deposits having accrued along the central northern coast while at the same time the east coast has suffered erosion, most famously around Dunwich.