Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T21:23:56.169Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A background to Augustine's mission to Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Rob Meens
Rob Meens
Affiliation:
University of Nijmegen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As is well known, Bede gives a biased account of the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England. He highlights the role of the Roman mission, initiated by Pope Gregory the Great and led by Augustine, the first bishop of Canterbury. Almost as important in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is the effort made by the Irish to Christianize Northumbria. The Frankish contribution to the missionary process, however, is not mentioned at all, though Frankish clerics certainly played an important role in the conversion of England. This role is attested by later contacts between England and the Frankish church. The letters of Gregory the Great relating to the mission of Augustine, moreover, make it clear that this mission also benefited greatly from help supplied by the Frankish church. The continuity of the British church seems to have been stronger than Bede suggests and his statement that the Britons did nothing to convert the Angles and the Saxons should be regarded as an overstatement. It has been argued recently that Bede left out an account of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons living west and south-west of the Mercians, the Hwicce, the Magonsæte and the Wreocensæte, not because of a lack of information, but because of the part the Britons played in it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 23 , December 1994 , pp. 5 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 A recent study of the biases in Bede's work is Goffart, W., ‘The Historia Ecclesiastica: Bede's Agenda and Ours’, Haskins Soc. Jnl 2 (1990), 29–45.Google Scholar

2 Campbell, J., ‘The First Century of Christianity in England’, in his Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London and Ronceverte, 1986), pp. 49–67Google Scholar (originally ptd Ampleforth Jnl 76 (1971), 12–29), esp. 53–9; Lohaus, A., Die Merowinger und England, Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung 19 (Munich, 1974), 5–39 and 144–51Google Scholar; Prinz, F., ‘Von der Bekehrung der Angelsachsen bis zu ihrer Missionstätigkeit im Frankenreich’, SettSpol 32 (1986), 701–34, esp. 715–25Google Scholar; Wood, I., ‘The Franks at Sutton Hoo’, in People and Places in Northern Europe, 500–1600: Essays in Honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer, ed. Wood, I. and Lund, N. (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 1–14, esp. 6–9Google Scholar; Chadwick, H., ‘Gregory the Great and the Mission to the Anglo-Saxons’, Gregorio Magno e il suo tempo: XIX Incontro di studiosi dell' antichità cristiana in collaborazione con l'École Française de Rome, 9–12 maggio 1990, 2 vols., Studia Ephemeridis ‘Augustinianum’ 33 (Rome, 1991) I, 199–212, esp. 202–5Google Scholar; and Wood, I., The Merovingian Kingdoms 450–751 (London and New York, 1993), pp. 176–80.Google Scholar

3 Wood, I., ‘The Mission of Augustine of Canterbury to the English’, Speculum 69 (1994), 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Campbell, J., ‘Observations on the Conversion of England’, in his Essays in Anglo-Saxon History, pp. 71–3Google Scholar. On the importance of the place-names formed from OE *eccles, see Thomas, C., Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500 (London, 1981), pp. 262–5Google Scholar. Augustine's request for relics of the holy martyr Sixtus, which is left out of Bede's version of the Libellus responsionum but is transmitted in other versions, suggests continuity of British Christianity near Canterbury, as does some archaeological evidence; see Brooks, N., The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066 (Leicester, 1984), pp. 17–21.Google Scholar

5 Basset, S., ‘Church and Diocese in the West Midlands: the Transition from British to Anglo-Saxon Control’, in Pastoral Care before the Parish, ed. Blair, J. and Sharpe, R. (Leicester, 1992), pp. 13–40, esp. 39Google Scholar: ‘It was this [ = British] church which converted the immigrants. It left the missionaries from Canterbury and Iona with little to do here – and Bede with little to report, especially since he notoriously disliked the British churches and wrote them out of his Ecclesiastical History as much as he could.’ Cf. Sims-Williams, P., Religion and Literature in Western England, 600–800, CSASE 3 (Cambridge, 1990), 75–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who, while also mentioning the plausibility of British missionary activity in this region, holds that it was not bias but a lack of information that led Bede to leave out an account of the conversion of the Hwicce and the Magonsæte.

6 Ep. xxxiii in Briefe des Bonifatius, Willibalds Leben des Bonifatius, nebst einigen zeitgenössischen Dokumenten, ed. Rau, R., Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters: Freiherr vom Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe 4B (Darmstadt, 1968), p. 110Google Scholar: ‘Similiter et diligenter obsecro, ut illius epistolae, qua continetur, ut dicunt, interrogationes Augustini pontificis ac praedicatoris primi Anglorum et responsiones sancti Gregorii papae, exemplar mihi dirigere curetis, in qua inter cetera capitula continetur, quod in tertia generatione propinquitatis fidelibus liceat matrimonia copulare, et ut scrupulosa cautella diligenter investigate studeatis, si illa conscriptio supradicti patris nostri sancti Gregorii esse conprobetur an non, quia in scrinio Romanae ecclesiae ut adfirmant scriniarii, cum ceteris exemplaribus supradicti pontificis quaesita non inveniebatur.’

7 Brechter, S., Die Quellen zur Angelsachsenmission Gregors des Grossen: eine historiographische Studie, Beiträge zur Geschichte des alten Mönchtums und des Benediktinerordens 22 (Münster, 1941).Google Scholar

8 Deanesly, M. and Grosjean, P., ‘The Canterbury Edition of the Answers of Pope Gregory I to St Augustine’, JEH 10 (1959), 1–49, esp. 38.Google Scholar

9 Ibid. pp. 38–43.

10 Meyvaert, P., ‘Bede's Text of the Libellus Responsionum of Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury’, in his Benedict, Gregory, Bede and others (London, 1977)Google Scholar, no. X (originally ptd in England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Clemoes, P. and Hughes, K. (Cambridge, 1971)), pp. 15–33Google Scholar. He then knew about 130 manuscripts, by now over 200; see Meyvaert, P., ‘Le Libellus Responsionum à Augustin de Cantorbéry: une oeuvre authentique de Saint Grégoire le Grand’, Grégoire le Grand, ed. Fontaine, J. et al. (Paris, 1986), pp. 543–9, esp. 543, n. 1.Google Scholar

11 Meyvaert, P., ‘Diversity within Unity, a Gregorian Theme’, in his Benedict, Gregory, Bede, no. VI (originally ptd Heythrop Jnl 4 (1963), 141–62)Google Scholar and Chadwick, , ‘Gregory the Great and the Mission’, pp. 207–12.Google Scholar

12 Kottje, R., Studien zum Einfluss des Alten Testamentes auf Recht und Liturgie des früheren Mittelalters (6.–8. Jahrhundert), 2nd ed., Bonner Historische Forschungen (Bonn, 1970), pp. 110–16.Google Scholar

13 A critical edition with a list of manuscripts and a study of the contents of the Libellus is at present being prepared by Paul Meyvaert: see his ‘Le Libellus Responsionum à Augustin de Cantorbéry’, p. 543, n. 1.

14 See, e.g., Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 106–8Google Scholar; Godfrey, J., The Church in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 80–6Google Scholar; Deanesly, M., The Pre-Conquest Church in England, 2nd ed. (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Blair, P. Hunter, The World of Bede, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 64–5Google Scholar; Prinz, , ‘Von der Bekehrung der Angelsachsen’, pp. 707–8Google Scholar, though rather sceptical on the authenticity of the work as a whole; Mayr-Harting, H., The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (London, 1991) does not use it in his account of the Gregorian mission, but treats it on p. 249 as a genuine documentGoogle Scholar; the authenticity is also accepted by Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People: a Historical Commentary (Oxford, 1988), p. 38Google Scholar. Only Jenal, G., ‘Gregor d. Grosse und die Anfänge der Angelsachsenmission (596–604)’, SettSpol 32 (1986), 793–849, at 810Google Scholar, leaves out a discussion of this text because of the doubts raised about its authenticity.

15 Hunter, Blair, The World of Bede, p. 64Google Scholar. Cf. Godfrey, , The Church in Anglo-Saxon England, p. 86Google Scholar: ‘Both of these questions [ = nos. 8 and 9] are concerned with the subject of ritual defilement, and though the answers are of considerable length, they are of no importance to the modern reader.’ See also the superficial treatment of these questions in Deanesly, M., Augustine of Canterbury (London, 1964), pp. 71–2, compared to the detailed analysis of the other topics raised by this document on pp. 63–71Google Scholar. Cf., however, the detailed treatment of these questions in Weiler, A. G., Willibrords missie: Christendom en cultuur in de zevende en acbtste eeuw (met eenvertaling van de voornaamste literaire bronnen door P. Bange) (Hilversum, 1989), pp. 35–42.Google Scholar

16 Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B., rev. ed. (Oxford, 1992), pp. 88–103.Google Scholar

17 Brechter, , Die Quellen zur Angelsacbsenmission, pp. 98, 100–3 and 289Google Scholar; Deanesly, and Grosjean, , ‘The Canterbury Edition’, pp. 10–12 and 43Google Scholar. On Theodore, see Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 130–42Google Scholar; Mayr-Harting, , The Coming of Christianity, pp. 121–2 and passimGoogle Scholar; Lapidge, M., ‘The School of Theodore and Hadrian’, ASE 15 (1986), 45–72Google Scholar; and Brooks, , Early History, pp. 71–6 and 94–9.Google Scholar

18 Kottje, , Studien zum Einfluss, pp. 112–14Google Scholar. On the Excerpta quedam de libro Davidis, see The Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler, L., 2nd ed., Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 5 (Dublin, 1975), 3Google Scholar; for the penitentials of Finnian and Cummean, see ibid. pp. 2–7. Körntgen recently discovered that the P. Ambrosianum, formerly thought to be a continental work based on Irish texts, is in fact a very old penitential written in the Irish or British church that was the main source for Cummean's penitential: Körntgen, L., Studien zu den Quellen der frühmittelalterlichen Buβbücher, Quellen und Forschungen zum Recht im Mittelalter 7 (Sigmaringen, 1993), 7–86Google Scholar. The Irish origin of Finnian and his penitential has lately been called into question, and both a Breton and a Brittonic origin have been suggested: see Meens, R., ‘The Penitential of Finnian and the Textual Witness of the Paenitentiale Vindobonense B’, MS 55 (1993), 243–55, esp. 245–7Google Scholar. On the Liber ex lege Moysis, see Kottje, R., ‘Der Liber ex lege Moysis’, Irland und die Christenheit: Bibelstudien und Mission /Ireland and Christendom: The Bible and the Missions, ed. Cháthain, P. Ní and Richter, M. (Stuttgart, 1987), pp. 59–69Google Scholar. For the Collectio Hibernensis, see Enright, M., Iona, Tara and Soissons: the Origin of the Royal Anointing Ritual, Arbeiten zur Frühmitterlalterforschung 17 (Berlin and New York, 1985), 44–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Paenitentiale Vinniani, ch. 46 (Irish Penitentials,:, ed. Bieler, , p. 92)Google Scholar: ‘et in nocte dominica uel sabbati abstineant se ab inuicem … Si autem perficerent secundum istarn sententiam, tunc digni sunt Domini corpore.’

20 P. Cummeani II.30 (Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler, , p. 116)Google Scholar; for the Liber ex lege Moysis, see Kottje, , Studien zum Einfluss, p. 78.Google Scholar

21 P. Cummeani II.31 (Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler, , p. 116)Google Scholar; Collectio Hibernensis XLVI. 11 (Die iriscbe Kanonensammlung, ed. Wasserschleben, F. W. H., 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1885), pp. 187–8)Google Scholar. For the liber ex lege Moysis, see Kottje, , Studien zum Einfluss, p. 78.Google Scholar

22 Kottje, , ‘Der Liber ex lege Moysis’, pp. 60–1.Google Scholar

23 Excerpta quedam de libro Davidis, chs. 8–9 (Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler, , p. 70).Google Scholar

24 Excerpta ex libro Davidis chs. 8–9. Cf. Praefatio Gildae de paenitentia ch. 22; Synodus Anquilonalis Britaniae ch. 2 (ibid. pp. 70, 62 and 66); and P. Cummeani(XI) 10(ibid. p. 130): ‘et qui acciperit sacrificium pollutus nocturno somno, sic peniteat [ = superponat]’. See also Kottje, , Studien zum Einfluss, pp. 77–8 and 112–13.Google Scholar

25 See above, n. 21.

26 Mayr-Harting, , Coming of Christianity, p. 249.Google Scholar

27 Hollis, S., Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church: Sharing a Common Fate (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 21–2Google Scholar. A similar suggestion, though by implication, is made by Chadwick, , ‘Gregory the Great and the Mission’, p. 207.Google Scholar

28 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , p. 91.Google Scholar

29 Mayr-Harting, , Coming of Christianity, p. 51.Google Scholar

30 Wood, ‘The Mission of Augustine’.

31 Cf. Schieffer, T., Winfrid-Bonifatius und die christliche Grundlegung Europas, 2nd ed. (Darmstadt, 1980), p. 153Google Scholar, writing about Boniface's letter: ‘Urn ein Vorbild zu suchen müßten wir bis auf den Angelsachsenmissionar Augustinus und Gregor den Großen zurückgreifen.’

32 Ep. xxvi, in Briefe des Bonifatius, ed. Rau, , pp. 88–94, esp. 92Google Scholar: ‘adulteris et indignis presbiteris’ and ‘quidam presbiteri seu episcopi in multis vitiis inretiti, quorum vita in se ipsis sacerdotium maculat’. We know Boniface's letter only from the surviving answer given by Gregory II. Cf. Ep. xxviii, 1 and lxxxvii (ibid. pp. 96–102, 140–8 and 292–300).

33 See, e.g., ch. 106 (ed. Perels, E., MGH, Epist. 4, 599)Google Scholar: ‘quod in patriam vestram multi ex diversis locis Christiani advenerint, qui prout voluntas eorum existit, multa et varia loquantur, id est Graeci, Armeni et ex ceteris locis’. On this text, see Heiser, L., Die Responsa ad consulta Bulgarorum des Papsles Nikolaus (858–867) (Trier, 1979)Google Scholar; Heiser points to the fact that around the middle of the ninth century Frankish missionaries were also active among the Bulgars: ibid. p. 37.

34 Campbell, , ‘Observations on the Conversion of England’, p. 71.Google Scholar

35 See Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, p. 102Google Scholar: ‘there is no trace of any Irish missionary in England at a date earlier than the coming of Augustine’.

36 See above, n. 2.

37 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , pp. 72–4Google Scholar; Lohaus, , Die Merowinger und England, pp. 11–12Google Scholar and Prinz, , ‘Von der Bekehrung der Angelsachsen’, p. 717.Google Scholar

38 See Caesarius, , Sermo xliv, in Césaire d'Arles: Sermons au peuple, ed. Delage, M.-J., Sources Chrétiennes 243 (Paris, 1978), 326–43Google Scholar. Cf. Brundage, J., Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago and London, 1987), pp. 91–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Payer, P., ‘Early Medieval Regulations concerning Marital Sexual Relations’, JMH 6 (1980), 353–76, at 363Google Scholar; and Demyttenaere, A., ‘The Cleric, Women and the Stain: some Beliefs and Ritual Practices Concerning Women in the early Middle Ages’, in Frauen in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter: Lebensbedingungen-Lebensnormen-Lebensformen, ed. Affeldt, W. (Sigmaringen, 1990), pp. 141– 65, at 154–5.Google Scholar

39 On the transmission of the Irish penitentials on the Continent, see Kottje, R., ‘Überlieferung und Rezeption der irischen Buβbücher auf dem Kontinent’, Die Iren und Europe im früheren Mittelatter, ed. Löwe, H., 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1982) I, 511–24Google Scholar. The earliest evidence of acquaintance with Irish penitentials on the Continent is provided by the Excarpsus Cummeani, dating from the first half of the eighth century and probably composed in northern parts of Gaul, a text which makes use of the penitential of Cummean; see Asbach, F. B., Das Poenltentiale Remense und der sogen. Excarpsus Cummeani: Überlieferung, Quellen und Entwicklung zweier kontinentaler Bußbücher aus der 1. Hälfte des 8. Jahrbunderts (Regensburg, 1975), pp. 125–30Google Scholar. Asbach takes the P. Remense, which also uses Cummean's work, to be even slightly older, but this view is not generally accepted. The oldest manuscript of the Excarpsus Cummeani, Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, Ny. Kgl. S. 58 8°, written in the first half of the eighth century, perhaps in the southern part of France, also contains excerpts from the Collectio Hibernensis, and is thus the oldest manuscript with this text (ibid. pp. 43–4). On the manuscripts of the Collectio Hibernensis, see Mordek, H., Kirchenrecht und Reform im Frankenreich: die Collectio Vetus Gallica, die älteste systematische Kanonessammlung des fränkischen Gallien: Studien und Edition, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters 1 (Berlin, New York, 1975), 255–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Liber ex lege Moysis has come down to us in only four manuscripts from the ninth and tenth centuries: see Kottje, , ‘Der Liber ex lege Moysis’, p. 62.Google Scholar

40 Prinz, , ‘Von der Bekehrung’, pp. 718–22Google Scholar, and Campbell, , ‘The First Century’, pp. 53–9Google Scholar. for a critical assessment of the notion ‘Iro-Frankish’, see Dierkens, A., ‘Prolégomènes à une histoire des relations culturelles entre les îles britanniques et le continent pendant le Haut Moyen Age: la diffusion du monachisme dit colombanien ou iro-franc dans quelques monastères de la région parisienne au VIIe siècle et la politique religieuse de la reine Bathilde’, La Neustrie: les pays au nord de la Loire de 650 à 850, ed. Atsma, H., 2 vols., Beihefte der Francia 16 (Sigmaringen, 1989) II, 371–94.Google Scholar

41 Dumville, D., ‘Gildas and Uinniau’, in Gildas: New Approaches, ed. Lapidge, M. and Dumville, D., Stud. in Celtic Hist. 5 (Woodbridge, 1984), 207–14Google Scholar. Other contacts between British and Irish churchmen are discussed in Dumville, D., ‘British Missionary Activity in Ireland’, in his Saint Patrick, A.D. 493–1993, Stud. in Celtic Hist. 13 (Woodbridge, 1993), 133–45.Google Scholar

42 See Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler, , p. 3.Google Scholar

43 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , p. 146.Google Scholar

44 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , p. 136Google Scholar: ‘sed et alia plurima unitati ecclesiasticae contraria faciebant’.

45 Wallace-Hadrill, , Commentary, p. 52.Google Scholar

46 A connection between the Libellus and Augustine's problems with the British bishops is also suggested by Lamb, J. W., The Archbishopric of Canterbury: from its Foundation to the Norman Conquest (London, 1971), p. 25.Google Scholar

47 Interrogatio 7: ‘Brittanniarum uero omnes episcopos tuae fraternitati committimus, ut indocti doceantur, infirmi persuasione roborentur, peruersi auctoritate corrigantur’ (Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , p. 88).Google Scholar

48 Bede, HE I.27: ‘Quae omnia rudi Anglorum genti oportet habere conperta’ (Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave, and Mynors, , p. 88).Google Scholar

49 See above, n. 5.

50 Research for this paper was made possible by a generous grant from the Niels Stensen Stichting. I should like to thank Mayke de Jong and Ian Wood for their helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. The latter also kindly sent me the text of his article on the mission of Augustine before publication (see above, n. 3).