The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon : a history of the early inhabitants of Britain, down to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, illustrated by the ancient remains brought to light by recent research / by Thomas Wright ; with numerous engravings on wood.

  • Thomas Wright
Date:
1902
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon : a history of the early inhabitants of Britain, down to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, illustrated by the ancient remains brought to light by recent research / by Thomas Wright ; with numerous engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    chap, xiv.] CONVERSION OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS. solemn procession to Canterbury, where they established them- selves, and of which city Augustine was subsequently made the first bishop. The new faith was ultimately accepted by king Ethelbert, and soon spread with extraordinary rapidity over Kent, and through the other kingdoms wherever that king’s influence ex- tended. The East-Saxons received baptism in 604; and in 607, the year of the battle near Chester, rendered celebrated by the slaughter of the Welsh monks, the faith of the Gospel must have been established far towards the west. With the mass of the people conversion was at first a mere change of forms, and they easily resumed their old customs; and it naturally took some years to make the change permanent. Thus Augustine had appointed Mellitus bishop of London, and he is said to have selected there the site of a ruined temple of the Homan period to build a church, no doubt because it furnished an un- occupied place and ready materials. The Saxon Chronicle informs us, that after Mellitus became bishop of Canterbury, an event which is generally placed in the year 619, ‘then the men of London, where Mellitus had been formerly, became heathens again.’ The example had already been set them by the East-Saxons, and even by the Kentish men, after the death of their first Christian kings. The progress of the Christian faith among the Anglo-Saxons was, on several occasions, materially assisted by intermarriages among their chiefs. Ethelbert of Kent, before the arrival of the missionaries, had married a Christian lady, the daughter of a Frankish king. The king of Essex, who first received the Gospel, had married a daughter of king Ethelbert, who was also a Christian. Another daughter of Ethelbert, Etlielberga, was married to Edwin, king of the Northumbrians, and she no doubt paved the way for the preaching of Paulinus. The con- version of king Edwin took place in the year 626. The West- Saxons were converted by Birinus in 635 ; the East-Angles had embraced the new faith under their king Earpwald, about the year 632 ; but the Middle-Angles were not converted until the reign of Peada, the son of Penda, about the year 653. This king became a Christian on marrying a daughter of the king of the Northumbrians, and from Lincolnshire, the country of the Middle-Angles, the faith soon spread through the extensive dependencies of Mercia. At this time the faith of Christ had penetrated into every part of the island, except the small and secluded kingdom of the South-Saxons, which was cut off from