Christianity and Paganism - Christianization During The European Middle Ages - Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon

The Anglo-Saxon conversion was one of the most difficult for Christian missionaries because paganism was so entrenched into the culture. The Saxons were one of the last groups to be converted by Christian missionaries and it was mainly under the threat of death by Charlemagne and with some inclusions of pagan culture and concessions on the part of the Christian missionaries. The Saxon conversion was so difficult for a number of reasons including their distance from Rome and lack of centralized polity until much later than most other peoples; but also, their pagan beliefs were so strongly tied into the culture in every way it made the conversion much rocky transition. Their sophisticated theology was a bulwark against an immediate and complete conversion to Christianity. So the new theology was translated into terms of Northern life.

The conversion of Æthelberht, king of Kent is the first account of any Christian bretwalda conversion and is told by the Venerable Bede in his histories of the conversion of England. In 582 Pope Gregory sent Augustine and 40 companions from Rome to missionize among the Anglo-Saxons. “They had, by order of the blessed Pope Gregory, brought interpreters of the nation of the Franks, and sending to Æthelberht, signified that they were come from Rome, and brought a joyful message, which most undoubtedly assured to all that took advantage of it everlasting joys in heaven, and a kingdom that would never end with the living and true God.” Æthelberht was not unfamiliar with Christianity because he had a Christian wife, and Bede says that there was even a church dedicated to St. Martin nearby. Æthelberht was converted eventually and Augustine remained in Canterbury.

The Anglo-Saxon conversion in particular was a gradual process that necessarily included many compromises and syncretism. A famous letter from Pope Gregory to Mellitus in June 601, for example, is quoted encouraging the appropriation of pagan temples and festivals for Christian use.

The temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God .... And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account .... but kill cattle to the praise of God .... For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds; because he who endeavours to ascend to the highest place, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps. —Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (1.30)