Christianity
Ine was a Christian king, who ruled as a patron and protector of the church. The introduction to his laws names his advisors, among whom are Eorcenwald, Bishop of London and Hædde, Bishop of Winchester; Ine says that the laws were also made with the advice and instruction of "all my ealdormen, and chief councillors of my people, and also a great assembly of the servants of God". The laws themselves demonstrate Ine's Christian convictions, though the need for a fine for failing to baptise a child or to tithe suggests that some Christian practices had yet to take firm root with the people. Ine supported the church by patronising religious houses, especially in the new diocese of Sherborne, which had been divided from the diocese of Winchester in 705. Ine had opposed this division, ignoring threats of excommunication from Canterbury, but he agreed to it when Bishop Haedde died.
The first West Saxon nunneries were founded in Ine's reign by Ine's kinswoman, Bugga, the daughter of King Centwine, and by Ine's sister Cuthburh, who founded the abbey of Wimborne at some point after she separated from her husband, King Aldfrith of Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also records that Ine built a minster at Glastonbury. This must refer to additional building or re-building since there was already a British monastery at Glastonbury.
Ine has been credited with supporting the establishment of an organized church in Wessex, though it is not clear that this was his initiative. He is also connected with the oldest known West Saxon synods, presiding at one himself and apparently addressing the assembled clerics.
Read more about this topic: Ine Of Wessex
Famous quotes containing the word christianity:
“Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears—that’s what soma is.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“But, with whatever exception, it is still true that tradition characterizes the preaching of this country; that it comes out of the memory, and not out of the soul; that it aims at what is usual, and not at what is necessary and eternal; that thus historical Christianity destroys the power of preaching, by withdrawing it from the exploration of the moral nature of man; where the sublime is, where are the resources of astonishment and power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)