The end of Roman rule in Britain was the transition from Roman Britain to post-Roman Britain. Roman rule ended in different parts of Britain at different times, and under different circumstances.
Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages. "Celtic Christianity" has been conceived of with differing levels of specificity: some writers have described a distinct "Celtic Church" uniting the Celtic peoples and distinguishing them from the "Roman" Catholic Church, while others classify it as simply a set of distinctive practices occurring in those areas. Scholars now reject the former notion, but note that there were certain traditions and practices used in both the Irish and British churches but not in the wider Christian world. These include a distinctive system for determining the dating of Easter, a style of monastic tonsure, a unique system of penance, and the popularity of going into "exile for Christ". Additionally, there were other practices that developed in certain parts of Britain or Ireland, but which are not known to have spread beyond a particular region. The term therefore denotes regional practices among the insular churches and their associates, rather than actual theological differences.
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century, and the direct ancestors of the majority of the modern British people. They comprise people from Germanic tribes who migrated to the island from continental Europe, their descendants, and indigenous British groups who adopted many aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture and language; the cultural foundations laid by the Anglo-Saxons are the foundation of the modern English legal system and of many aspects of English society; the modern English language owes over half its words – including the most common words of everyday speech – to the language of the Anglo-Saxons. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their initial settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including regional government of shires and hundreds. During this period, Christianity was established and there was a flowering of literature and language. Charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England and eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. In scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justin Welby, who was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013. Welby is the 105th in a line which goes back more than 1400 years to Augustine of Canterbury, the "Apostle to the English", sent from Rome in the year 597. Welby succeeded Rowan Williams.
Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church.
Æthelberht of Kent's wife Bertha, daughter of Charibert, one of the Merovingian kings of the Franks, had brought a chaplain (Liudhard) with her. Bertha had restored a church from Roman times to the east of Canterbury and dedicated it to Saint Martin of Tours, the patronal saint for the Merovingian royal family. Æthelberht himself, though a pagan, allowed his wife to worship her God. Probably under influence of his wife, Æthelberht asked Pope Gregory I to send missionaries, and in 596 the Pope dispatched Augustine, together with a party of monks.
Æthelberht was King of Kent from about 589 until his death. The eighth-century monk Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, lists him as the third king to hold imperium over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In the late ninth century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he is referred to as a bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler". He was the first English king to convert to Christianity.
Saint Bertha or Saint Aldeberge was the queen of Kent whose influence led to the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England. She was canonized as a saint for her role in its establishment during that period of English history.
The Franks were a collection of Germanic peoples, whose name was first mentioned in 3rd century Roman sources, associated with tribes on the Lower and Middle Rhine, on the edge of the Roman Empire. Later the term was associated with Romanized Germanic dynasties within the collapsing Roman Empire, who eventually commanded the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine. They then imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms and Germanic peoples, and still later they were given recognition by the Catholic Church as successors to the old rulers of the Western Roman Empire.
Augustine had served as praepositus (prior) of the monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome, founded by Gregory. His party lost heart on the way and Augustine went back to Rome from Provence and asked his superiors to abandon the mission project. The pope, however, commanded and encouraged continuation, and Augustine and his followers landed on the Island of Thanet in the spring of 597.
Prior, derived from the Latin for "earlier, first", is an ecclesiastical title for a superior, usually lower in rank than an abbot or abbess. Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior.
Rome is the capital city and a special comune of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region. With 2,872,800 residents in 1,285 km2 (496.1 sq mi), it is also the country's most populated comune. It is the fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4,355,725 residents, thus making it the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber. The Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city: for this reason Rome has been often defined as capital of two states.
Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône River to the west to the Italian border to the east, and is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It largely corresponds with the modern administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, and includes the départements of Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and parts of Alpes-Maritimes and Vaucluse. The largest city of the region is Marseille.
Æthelberht permitted the missionaries to settle and preach in his town of Canterbury. By the end of the year he himself had converted, and Augustine received consecration as a bishop at Arles. At Christmas 10,000 of the king's subjects underwent baptism.
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury, a local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour.
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence.
Augustine sent a report of his success to Pope Gregory with certain questions concerning his work. In 601 Mellitus, Justus and others brought the pope's replies, with the pallium for Augustine and a present of sacred vessels, vestments, relics, books, and the like. Gregory directed the new archbishop to ordain as soon as possible twelve suffragan bishops and to send a bishop to York, who should also have twelve suffragans. Augustine did not carry out this papal plan, nor did he establish the primatial see at London as Gregory intended, as the Londoners remained heathen. Augustine did consecrate Mellitus as bishop of London and Justus as bishop of Rochester.
Mellitus was the first Bishop of London in the Saxon period, the third Archbishop of Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Christianity. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergy sent to augment the mission, and was consecrated as Bishop of London in 604. Mellitus was the recipient of a famous letter from Pope Gregory I known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, preserved in a later work by the medieval chronicler Bede, which suggested the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons be undertaken gradually, integrating pagan rituals and customs. In 610, Mellitus returned to Italy to attend a council of bishops, and returned to England bearing papal letters to some of the missionaries.
Justus was the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury. He was sent from Italy to England by Pope Gregory the Great, on a mission to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism, probably arriving with the second group of missionaries despatched in 601. Justus became the first Bishop of Rochester in 604, and attended a church council in Paris in 614.
The pallium is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Roman Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the Pope, but for many centuries bestowed by him on metropolitans and primates as a symbol of the jurisdiction delegated to them by the Holy See. In that context, it has remained connected to the papacy.
Pope Gregory issued more practicable mandates concerning heathen temples and usages: he desired that native temples be Christianized and asked Augustine to Christianize pagan practices, so far as possible, into dedication ceremonies or feasts of martyrs, since "he who would climb to a lofty height must go up by steps, not leaps" (letter of Gregory to Mellitus, in Bede, i, 30).
Augustine reconsecrated and rebuilt an old church at Canterbury as his cathedral and founded a monastery in connection with it. He also restored a church and founded the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul outside the walls. He died before completing the monastery, but now lies buried in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul.
In 616 Æthelberht of Kent died. The kingdom of Kent and the associated Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which Kent had had influence over relapsed into heathenism for several decades.
The Synod of Whitby in 664 forms a significant watershed in that King Oswiu of Northumbria decided to follow Roman rather than Celtic practices. The spokesman of the dominant faction was St. Wilfrid, who had been much impressed by the power and lavish life style of the Roman Church in comparison with the austerity and subservience to local rulers of the Celtic Church. Using subsidiary arguments about Easter and the tonsure, Wilfrid established the model of the Church as not ultimately answerable to the local king but to the Archbishop and to the Pope. It became a tradition for each Archbishop of Canterbury to receive the pallium from the Pope in Rome. This issue was to be frequently revisited until the Reformation.
The Anglo-Saxon mission on the continent took off in the 8th century, assisting the Christianisation of practically all of the Frankish Empire by AD 800.
The Benedictine reform was led by St. Dunstan over the latter half of the 10th century. It sought to revive church piety by replacing secular canons- often under the direct influence of local landowners, and often their relatives- with celibate monks, answerable to the ecclesiastical hierarchy and ultimately to the Pope. This deeply split England, bringing it to the point of civil war, with the East Anglian nobility (such as Athelstan Half-King, Byrhtnoth) supporting Dunstan and the Wessex aristocracy (Ordgar, Æthelmær the Stout) supporting the secularists. These factions mobilised around King Eadwig (anti-Dunstan) and his brother King Edgar (pro). On the death of Edgar, his son Edward the Martyr was assassinated by the anti-Dunstan faction and their candidate, the young king Æthelred was placed on the throne. However this "most terrible deed since the English came from over the sea" provoked such a revulsion that the secularists climbed down, although Dunstan was effectively retired.
This split fatally weakened the country in the face of renewed Viking attacks.
Thomas, Charles (1981) Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500, London: Batsford
Yorke, Barbara (2006) The Conversion of Britain, Harlow: Pearson Education
Further reading
Campbell, James; John, Eric & Wormald, Patrick (1991). The Anglo-Saxons. London: Penguin Books. ISBN0-14-014395-5.
Kirby, D.P. (1992). The Earliest English Kings. London: Routledge. ISBN0-415-09086-5.
Lapidge, Michael (1999). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN0-631-22492-0.
Rollason, D.W. (1982). The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England. Atlantic Highlands: Leicester University Press. ISBN0-7185-1201-4.
Yorke, Barbara (1990). Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Seaby. ISBN1-85264-027-8.
Bede Venerablis (1988). A History of the English Church and People. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics. ISBN0-14-044042-9.
Blair, John P. (2005). The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-921117-5.
Blair, Peter Hunter; Blair, Peter D. (2003). An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (Third ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-53777-0.
Brooks, Nicholas (1984). The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066. London: Leicester University Press. ISBN0-7185-0041-5.
Brown, Peter G. (2003). The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A. D. 200–1000. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN0-631-22138-7.
Campbell, James (1986). "Observations on the Conversion of England". Essays in Anglo-Saxon History. London: Hambledon Press. pp.69–84. ISBN0-907628-32-X.
Chaney, William A. (1967). "Paganism to Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England". In Thrupp, Sylvia L. Early Medieval Society. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. pp.67–83.
Church, S. D. (2008). "Paganism in Conversion-age Anglo-Saxon England: The Evidence of Bede's Ecclesiastical History Reconsidered". History. 93 (310): 162–180. doi:10.1111/j.1468-229X.2008.00420.x.
Coates, Simon (February 1998). "The Construction of Episcopal Sanctity in early Anglo-Saxon England: the Impact of Venantius Fortunatus". Historical Research. 71 (174): 1–13. doi:10.1111/1468-2281.00050.
Colgrave, Bertram (2007). "Introduction". The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great (Paperback reissue of 1968 ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-31384-1.
Collins, Roger (1999). Early Medieval Europe: 300–1000 (Second ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN0-312-21886-9.
Dales, Douglas (2005). ""Apostles of the English": Anglo-Saxon Perceptions". L'eredità spirituale di Gregorio Magno tra Occidente e Oriente. Il Segno Gabrielli Editori. ISBN88-88163-54-9.
Dodwell, C. R. (1985). Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective (Cornell University Press 1985 ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN0-8014-9300-5.
Dodwell, C. R. (1993). The Pictorial Arts of the West: 800–1200. Pellican History of Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN0-300-06493-4.
Foley, W. Trent; Higham, Nicholas. J. (2009). "Bede on the Britons". Early Medieval Europe. 17 (2): 154–185. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0254.2009.00258.x.
Frend, William H. C. (2003). Martin Carver, ed. Roman Britain, a Failed Promise. The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe AD 300–1300. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. pp.79–92. ISBN1-84383-125-2.
Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-56350-X.
Gameson, Richard and Fiona (2006). "From Augustine to Parker: The Changing Face of the First Archbishop of Canterbury". In Smyth, Alfred P.; Keynes, Simon. Anglo-Saxons: Studies Presented to Cyril Roy Hart. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp.13–38. ISBN1-85182-932-6.
Higham, N. J. (1997). The Convert Kings: Power and Religious Affiliation in Early Anglo-Saxon England. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ISBN0-7190-4827-3.
Hindley, Geoffrey (2006). A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons: The Beginnings of the English Nation. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN978-0-7867-1738-5.
Kirby, D. P. (2000). The Earliest English Kings. New York: Routledge. ISBN0-415-24211-8.
Kirby, D. P. (1967). The Making of Early England (Reprint ed.). New York: Schocken Books.
John, Eric (1996). Reassessing Anglo-Saxon England. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN0-7190-5053-7.
Jones, Putnam Fennell (July 1928). "The Gregorian Mission and English Education". Speculum (fee required). 3 (3): 335–348. doi:10.2307/2847433.
Markus, R. A. (1970). "Gregory the Great and a Papal Missionary Strategy". Studies in Church History 6: The Mission of the Church and the Propagation of the Faith. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp.29–38. OCLC94815.
Markus, R. A. (1997). Gregory the Great and His World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-58430-2.
Mayr-Harting, Henry (1991). The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN0-271-00769-9.
McGowan, Joseph P. (2008). "An Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Latin Literature". In Philip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne. A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature (Paperback ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp.11–49. ISBN978-1-4051-7609-5.CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)
Meens, Rob (1994). "A Background to Augustine's Mission to Anglo-Saxon England". In Lapidge, Michael. Anglo-Saxon England 23. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp.5–17. ISBN978-0-521-47200-5.
Ortenberg, Veronica (1965). "The Anglo-Saxon Church and the Papacy". In Lawrence, C. H. The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages (1999 reprint ed.). Stroud: Sutton Publishing. pp.29–62. ISBN0-7509-1947-7.
Rumble, A., ed. (2012). Leaders of the Anglo-Saxon Church: From Bede to Stigand. Boydell and Brewer.
Schapiro, Meyer (1980). "The Decoration of the Leningrad Manuscript of Bede". Selected Papers: Volume 3: Late Antique, Early Christian and Mediaeval Art. London: Chatto & Windus. pp.199 and 212–214. ISBN0-7011-2514-4.
Spiegel, Flora (2007). "The 'tabernacula' of Gregory the Great and the Conversion of Anglo-Saxon England". Anglo-Saxon England 36. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp.1–13. doi:10.1017/S0263675107000014.
Thacker, Alan (1998). "Memorializing Gregory the Great: The Origin and Transmission of a Papal Cult in the 7th and early 8th centuries". Early Medieval Europe. 7 (1): 59–84. doi:10.1111/1468-0254.00018.
Walsh, Michael J. (2007). A New Dictionary of Saints: East and West. London: Burns & Oates. ISBN0-86012-438-X.
Williams, Ann (1999). Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England c. 500–1066. London: MacMillan Press. ISBN0-333-56797-8.
Wilson, David M. (1984). Anglo-Saxon Art: From the Seventh Century to the Norman Conquest. London: Thames and Hudson. OCLC185807396.
Wood, Ian (January 1994). "The Mission of Augustine of Canterbury to the English". Speculum (fee required). 69 (1): 1–17. doi:10.2307/2864782. JSTOR2864782.
Yorke, Barbara (2006). The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c. 600–800. London: Pearson/Longman. ISBN0-582-77292-3.
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Bede, also known as Saint Bede, Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable, was an English Benedictine monk at the monastery of St. Peter and its companion monastery of St. Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles. Born on lands likely belonging to the Monkwearmouth monastery in present-day Sunderland, Bede was sent there at the age of seven and later joined Abbot Ceolfrith at the Jarrow monastery, both of whom survived a plague that struck in 686, an outbreak that killed a majority of the population there. While he spent most of his life in the monastery, Bede travelled to several abbeys and monasteries across the British Isles, even visiting the archbishop of York and King Ceolwulf of Northumbria. He is well known as an author, teacher, and scholar, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gained him the title "The Father of English History". His ecumenical writings were extensive and included a number of Biblical commentaries and other theological works of exegetical erudition. Another important area of study for Bede was the academic discipline of computus, otherwise known to his contemporaries as the science of calculating calendar dates. One of the more important dates Bede tried to compute was Easter, an effort that was mired with controversy. He also helped establish the practice of dating forward from the birth of Christ, a practice which eventually became commonplace in medieval Europe. Bede was one of the greatest teachers and writers of the Early Middle Ages and is considered by many historians to be the single most important scholar of antiquity for the period between the death of Pope Gregory I in 604 and the coronation of Charlemagne in 800.
The kingdom of the East Saxons, today referred to as the Kingdom of Essex, was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was founded in the 6th century and covered the territory later occupied by the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Kent. Kings of Essex were frequently subservient to foreign overlords. The last king of Essex was Sigered and in 825, he ceded the kingdom to Ecgberht, King of Wessex.
Laurence was the second Archbishop of Canterbury from about 604 to 619. He was a member of the Gregorian mission sent from Italy to England to Christianise the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism, although the date of his arrival is disputed. He was consecrated archbishop by his predecessor, Augustine of Canterbury, during Augustine's lifetime, to ensure continuity in the office. While archbishop, he attempted unsuccessfully to resolve differences with the native British bishops by corresponding with them about points of dispute. Laurence faced a crisis following the death of King Æthelberht of Kent, when the king's successor abandoned Christianity; he eventually reconverted. Laurence was revered as a saint after his death in 619.
Paulinus was a Roman missionary and the first Bishop of York. A member of the Gregorian mission sent in 601 by Pope Gregory I to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism, Paulinus arrived in England by 604 with the second missionary group. Little is known of Paulinus' activities in the following two decades.
Sæberht, Saberht or Sæbert was a King of Essex, in succession of his father King Sledd. He is known as the first East Saxon king to have been converted to Christianity. The principal source for his reign is the early 8th-century Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum by Bede, who claims to have derived his information about the missionary work of Mellitus among the East Saxons from Abbot Albinus of Canterbury through the London priest Nothhelm, later Archbishop of Canterbury. Other sources include the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, an East Saxon genealogy possibly of the late 9th century, and a handful of genealogies and regnal lists written down by Anglo-Norman historians.
Honorius was a member of the Gregorian mission to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism in 597 AD who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. During his archiepiscopate, he consecrated the first native English bishop of Rochester as well as helping the missionary efforts of Felix among the East Anglians. Honorius was the last to die among the Gregorian missionaries.
Deusdedit was a medieval Archbishop of Canterbury, the first native-born holder of the see of Canterbury. By birth an Anglo-Saxon, he became archbishop in 655 and held the office for more than nine years until his death, probably from plague. Deusdedit's successor as archbishop was one of his priests at Canterbury. There is some controversy over the exact date of Deusdedit's death, owing to discrepancies in the medieval written work that records his life. Little is known about his episcopate, but he was considered to be a saint after his demise. A saint's life was written after his relics were moved from their original burial place in 1091.
Nothhelm was a medieval Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury. A correspondent of both Bede and Boniface, it was Nothhelm who gathered materials from Canterbury for Bede's historical works. After his appointment to the archbishopric in 735, he attended to ecclesiastical matters, including holding church councils. Although later antiquaries felt that Nothhelm was the author of a number of works, later research has shown them to be authored by others. After his death he was considered a saint.
Berhtwald was the ninth Archbishop of Canterbury in England. Documentary evidence names Berhtwald as abbot at Reculver before his election as archbishop. Berhtwald begins the first continuous series of native-born Archbishops of Canterbury, although there had been previous Anglo-Saxon archbishops, they had not succeeded each other until Berhtwald's reign.
Tatwine was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was a monk and abbot of a Benedictine monastery. Besides his ecclesiastical career, Tatwine was a writer, and riddles he composed survive. Another work he composed was on the grammar of the Latin language, which was aimed at advanced students of that language. He was subsequently considered a saint.
Romanus was the second bishop of Rochester and presumably was a member of the Gregorian mission sent to Kent to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism. Romanus was consecrated bishop around 624 and died before 627 by drowning. Little is known of his life beyond these facts.
Peter of Canterbury or Petrus was the first abbot of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul in Canterbury and a companion of Augustine in the Gregorian mission to Kent. Augustine sent Peter as an emissary to Rome around 600 to convey news of the mission to Pope Gregory I. Peter's death has traditionally been dated to around 607, but evidence suggests that he was present at a church council in Paris in 614, so he probably died after that date.
The Gregorian mission or Augustinian mission was a Christian mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 596 to convert Britain's Anglo-Saxons. The mission was headed by Augustine of Canterbury. By the time of the death of the last missionary in 653, the mission had established Christianity in southern Britain. Along with the Irish and Frankish missions it converted other parts of Britain as well and influenced the Hiberno-Scottish missions to Continental Europe.
The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England was a process spanning the 7th century.
It was essentially the result of the Gregorian mission of 597, which was joined by the efforts of the Hiberno-Scottish mission from the 630s. From the 8th century, the Anglo-Saxon mission was, in turn, instrumental in the conversion of the population of the Frankish Empire.
