Throughout its history the Kingdom of Mercia was a battleground between conflicting religious ideologies.
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. The name is a Latinisation of the Old English Mierce or Myrce, meaning "border people". Mercia dominated what would later become England for three centuries, subsequently going into a gradual decline while Wessex eventually conquered and united all the kingdoms into the Kingdom of England.
It is likely that the Anglian occupation of Mercia saw the displacement of, or integration with, Sub-Roman British tribes. There is a possibility that some of these British Christian communities survived the Anglo-Saxon occupation: Richard Fletcher mentions Much Wenlock [1] as a possible candidate.
Sub-Roman Britain refers to the period in Late Antiquity in Great Britain, covering the end of Roman rule in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, and its aftermath into the 6th century. The term "sub-Roman" was originally used to describe archaeological remains such as potsherds found in sites of the 5th and 6th centuries, and hinted at the decay of locally-made wares from a previous higher standard that had existed under the Roman Empire. It is now more often used to denote this period of history instead. The term Post-Roman Britain is also used, mainly in non-archaeological contexts.
Much Wenlock is a small town and parish in Shropshire, England, situated on the A458 road between Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth. Nearby, to the northeast, is the Ironbridge Gorge, and the new town of Telford. The civil parish includes the villages of Homer, Wyke, Atterley and Bourton. The population of the civil parish, according to the 2001 census, was 2,605, increasing to 2,877 at the 2011 Census.
The first kings of Mercia were pagans, and they resisted the encroachment of Christianity longer than those of other kingdoms in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. Placenames like Wednesfield and Wednesbury perhaps suggest that the worship of Woden was particularly prominent, and that there was a cluster of late pagan practice near Birmingham: there are no surviving toponyms relating to Thunor, for example, although Tiw may be connected to Tyseley, Tysemere and Tysoe. Similarly the Old English word weoh (altar) is found as a root for several Mercian placenames including Weeford near Lichfield. [2]
The Heptarchy is a collective name applied to the seven kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century until their unification into the Kingdom of England in the early 10th century.
Wednesfield is a historic village and residential area within the city of Wolverhampton, West Midlands. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) east-northeast of Wolverhampton city centre, and is part of the West Midlands conurbation. It is historically within the county of Staffordshire.
Wednesbury is a market town in England's Black Country, part of the Sandwell metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, near the source of the River Tame. Historically part of Staffordshire in the Hundred of Offlow, at the 2011 Census the town has a population of 37,817.
Mercian rulers remained resolutely pagan until the reign of Peada in 656, although this did not prevent them joining coalitions with Christian Welsh rulers to resist Northumbria. The first appearance of Christianity in Mercia, however, had come at least thirty years earlier, following the Battle of Cirencester of 628, when Penda incorporated the largely Christian West Saxon territories of the Hwiccas into his kingdom.
The Battle of Cirencester was fought in 628 at Cirencester in modern-day England. The conflict involved the armies of Mercia, under King Penda, and the Gewisse, under Kings Cynegils and Cwichelm. The Mercians defeated the Gewisse and, according to Bede, "after reaching an agreement", took control of the Severn valley and the minor kingdom of the Hwicce, which had been under the influence of the Gewisse since the Battle of Dyrham in 577.
Penda was a 7th-century King of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the English Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633.
The conversion of Mercia to Christianity occurred in the latter part of the 7th century, and was carried out almost entirely by Northumbrian and Irish monks of the Celtic Rite. Penda remained pagan to the end, but by the time of his defeat and death, Mercia was largely surrounded by Christian states. As such, it was excluded from many of the networks of diplomacy and alliance that extended through Western Europe, as these generally involved dynastic marriages and ecclesiastical negotiation. Christianity gained a foothold in Mercia precisely through these channels. Part of the price of Oswiu's support for Peada as sub-king of the Middle Angles, during the period of Mercian eclipse, was that Peada marry Oswiu's daughter, Alchflaed, and accept her religion. [3] Diuma, an Irish monk and one of Oswiu's missionaries was subsequently ordained a bishop—the first to operate in Mercia. Peada founded an abbey at Medeshamstede, in modern Peterborough, as earnest of his support for the Church. Bede tells us that Penda respected the Christians and even allowed them to operate more widely in Mercia. However, it seems that not much progress was made at converting the nobles and people of Mercia.
The term "Celtic Rite" is applied to the various liturgical rites used in Celtic Christianity in Britain, Ireland and Brittany and the monasteries founded by St. Columbanus and Saint Catald in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy during the early middle ages. The term does not imply homogeneity; the evidence, scanty and fragmentary as it is, is in favour of considerable diversity.
Diuma was the first Bishop of Mercia in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia, during the Early Middle Ages.
Medeshamstede was the name of Peterborough in the Anglo-Saxon period. It was the site of a monastery founded around the middle of the 7th century, which was an important feature in the kingdom of Mercia from the outset. Little is known of its founder and first abbot, Sexwulf, though he was himself an important figure, and later became bishop of Mercia. Medeshamstede soon acquired a string of daughter churches, and was a centre for an Anglo-Saxon sculptural style.
After an inconclusive start, decisive steps to Christianise Mercia were taken by Chad (Latinised by Bede as Ceadda), the fifth [4] bishop to minister to the Mercians. He was a controversial figure, who had been removed from his duties among the Northumbrians by the Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus. [5] Finding his realm without a bishop in 669, King Wulfhere requested Theodore to send one, [6] and Theodore despatched Chad. Wulfhere gave him land to build a monastery at Lichfield which is around 7 miles (11 km) north-west of Tamworth. These early bishops were known as bishops of the Middle Angles and/or the Mercians and, in Chad's case, also of the Lindsey people: bishoprics were still ethnic rather than territorial, according to Celtic tradition. Chad tirelessly evangelised Mercia, and Bede credits him with the conversion of the kingdom, despite the briefness of his episcopate—less than three years.
Chad was a prominent 7th century Anglo-Saxon churchman, who became abbot of several monasteries, Bishop of the Northumbrians and subsequently Bishop of the Mercians and Lindsey People. He was later canonised as a saint. He was the brother of Cedd, also a saint. He features strongly in the work of Bede the Venerable and is credited, together with Cedd, with introducing Christianity to the Mercian kingdom.
Theodore of Tarsus was Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690, best known for his reform of the English Church and establishment of a school in Canterbury.
Lichfield is a cathedral city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly 16 mi (26 km) north of Birmingham, 9 miles (14 km) from Walsall and 13 miles (21 km) from Burton Upon Trent. At the time of the 2011 Census the population was estimated at 32,219 and the wider Lichfield District at 100,700.
The sons of Penda not only supported Christian missionaries but invested heavily in the Church. Wulfhere greatly endowed the family monastery at Medeshamstede. In addition to the gift of land at Lichfield, he also gave Chad land for a monastery at Barwae—probably the modern Barrow upon Humber. Merewalh, sub-king of the Magonsæte, to the west, in modern Shropshire and Herefordshire, and apparently a brother or half-brother of Wulfhere, fathered a dynasty of abbesses, endowing an abbey at Leominster and probably also that at Much Wenlock, which his daughter Mildburh headed. As in other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the many small monasteries allowed the political/military and ecclesiastical leadership to consolidate their unity through bonds of kinship. [7]
However, Mercia did not long survive as an ecclesiastical entity. Chad's successor, Winfrith, was expected to conform more closely to Roman norms but was soon at loggerheads with Archbishop Theodore. Involved in similar problems with Wilfrid of York, from 676 Theodore adopted a policy of appointing bishops to much smaller tribal groups within the kingdoms, thus covering smaller areas—closer in size to those found in Francia and other West European countries. Hence, bishoprics were based at Worcester for the Hwiccas, at Hereford for the Magonsæte, at Lincoln for the Lindsey people, the latter attached to York rather than Canterbury, and at Leicester, perhaps for the Middle Angles. This left the remaining diocese still based at Lichfield and still very large, but much more manageable. For a short time, Offa succeeded in restoring the ecclesiastical unity of Mercia, while adding East Anglia to it. Under his influence, the Synod of Chelsea in 787 established an Archbishopric of Lichfield, headed by Higbert, the existing bishop. This arrangement did not long survive Offa himself, and the various dioceses were returned to their original provinces in 803.
In 867, under Ivar the Boneless, the Danes captured Nottingham. Despite attempts by King Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, Alfred, the Danes remained, establishing Nottingham as one of the five Burghs of the Danelaw. Marching from Lindsey to Repton in 874, Ivar drove Burgred from his kingdom, bringing Norse paganism with him. The north of Mercia remained under pagan influence until Ivar’s successor, Guthrum, converted to Christianity at the Treaty of Wedmore in 878.
Oswiu, also known as Oswy or Oswig, was King of Bernicia from 642 until his death. One of the sons of Æthelfrith of Bernicia, he became king following the death of his brother Oswald in 642. Unlike Oswald, Oswiu struggled to exert authority over Deira, the other constituent kingdom of medieval Northumbria, for much of his reign.
Æthelred was King of Mercia from 675 until 704. He was the son of Penda of Mercia and came to the throne in 675, when his brother, Wulfhere of Mercia, died. Within a year of his accession he invaded Kent, where his armies destroyed the city of Rochester. In 679 he defeated his brother-in-law, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, at the Battle of the Trent: the battle was a major setback for the Northumbrians, and effectively ended their military involvement in English affairs south of the Humber. It also permanently returned the kingdom of Lindsey to Mercia's possession. However, Æthelred was unable to re-establish his predecessors' domination of southern Britain.
Wulfhere or Wulfar was King of Mercia from 658 until 675 AD. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of Northumbria's overlordship of southern England, and Wulfhere extended his influence over much of that region. His campaigns against the West Saxons led to Mercian control of much of the Thames valley. He conquered the Isle of Wight and the Meon valley and gave them to King Æthelwealh of the South Saxons. He also had influence in Surrey, Essex, and Kent. He married Eormenhild, the daughter of King Eorcenberht of Kent.
Peada, a son of Penda, was briefly King of southern Mercia after his father's death in November 655 until his own death in the spring of the next year.
The Battle of the Winwaed was fought on 15 November 655 between King Penda of Mercia and Oswiu of Bernicia, ending in the Mercians' defeat and Penda's death. The battle marked the effective demise of Anglo-Saxon paganism.
Cenwalh, also Cenwealh or Coenwalh, was King of Wessex from c. 642 to c. 645 and from c. 648 until his death, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in c. 672.
Æthelwealh was the first historical king of Sussex. Æthelwealh became the first Christian king of Sussex and was king when Sussex was converted to Christianity in 681. In 661, Æthelwealh received the territories of the Meon Valley in modern-day Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight from his godfather, Wulfhere, king of Mercia. Æthelwealh was killed in around 685 by Cædwalla, at the time a prince of the Gewisse tribe of modern-day Oxfordshire, who had been operating as bandit in Sussex.
Cedd was an Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop from the Kingdom of Northumbria. He was an evangelist of the Middle Angles and East Saxons in England and a significant participant in the Synod of Whitby, a meeting which resolved important differences within the Church in England. He is venerated in Anglicanism, the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Alhfrith or Ealhfrith was King of Deira under his father Oswiu, King of Bernicia, from 655 until sometime after 664. Appointed by Oswiu as a subordinate ruler, Alhfrith apparently clashed with his father over religious policy, which came to a head at the Synod of Whitby in 664. After this, Alhfrith disappears from the historical record.
Æthelwold, also known as Æthelwald or Æþelwald, was a 7th-century king of East Anglia, the long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. He was a member of the Wuffingas dynasty, which ruled East Anglia from their regio at Rendlesham. The two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries at Sutton Hoo, the monastery at Iken, the East Anglian see at Dommoc and the emerging port of Ipswich were all in the vicinity of Rendlesham.
The Middle Angles were an important ethnic or cultural group within the larger kingdom of Mercia in England in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Seaxwulf was the founding abbot of the Mercian monastery of Medeshamstede, and an early medieval bishop of Mercia. Very little is known of him beyond these details, drawn from sources such as Bede's Ecclesiastical History. Some further information was written down in the 12th century at Peterborough Abbey, as Medeshamstede was known by that time. This suggests that he began his career as a nobleman, and that he may have had royal connections outside Mercia.
Events from the 7th century in England.
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.
Urbs Iudeu was a city besieged in 655AD by Penda, King of Mercia and Cadafael, King of Gwynedd. This was an important episode in a long-running war between Mercia and Northumbria in the years from 616 and 679.