Christianity in Britain

More important than the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was the rise and spread of Christianity. The earliest
evidence of British Christianity dates from around 200. The church in Britain grew slowly. There is little record of
persecution, probably because the British church was too small and weak for the Roman government to bother.
There is archaeological evidence of small churches by the 4 th century. As elsewhere in the empire, British Christianity
was originally stronger in the cities. It began to attract rural landowners when Emperor Constantine the Great made
it the official religion of the Roman Empire In the early 4 th century. The church survived the end of Roman power in
Britain. British churchmen continued to study classical writers, the Bible and the major Latin Christian writers.

Roman Britain

Activities

1) Look up in your dictionary the meaning of the following words

people inhabitant hunter weaving craft trade oversea weapons copper (s) tin (s) melt slaughter
subdue ironwork wheat (s) oat (s) aristocracy chief priest skin failure outpost

2) People: People are called a group of people, that is, human beings or a group of individuals in question.

3) Inhabitant: Who lives or usually occupies a place or house.

4) Hunter: a person who hunts for trade or fun.

5) Weaving: union between two or more folds of fabric, leather or other materials that are joined through
stitches.

6) Craft: Person who makes objects by hand with a personal, aesthetic or cultural tradition seal.

7) Trade: exchange of goods and services between various parties in exchange for goods and services of
different or equal value, in exchange for money.

8) Oversea: Country or place that is on the other side of the sea, considered from the point where it is
spoken.

9) Weapons: tool used to harm an individual, or a group of them, as well as to threaten or defend
themselves.

10) copper (s): It is a reddish metal, which has a very high electrical and thermal conductivity.

11) tin (s): White metallic chemical element, with a silvery sheen, poor conductor of electricity.
12) Melt: to dissolve something solid, frozen or pasty by means of heat.

13) Slaughter: give up something valuable or precious, with the intention of achieving a purpose or
objective of greater value.

14) Subdue: Have dominion over something or someone.

15) Ironwork: They are accessories that facilitate the handling of some items such as furniture, doors or
windows.

16) wheat (s): plants with spikes composed of four or more grains, from which, crushed, the flour is
obtained with which bread is made. There are many species, and countless varieties.

17) oat (s): Plant with thin canes, some narrow leaves, and flowers in a ray panicle, longer than the flower,
which is grown for food.

18) Aristocracy: form of government according to which political power is exercised by the best. In certain
times, exercise of political power by a privileged class.

19) Chief: person with imposed authority to direct and give orders to his subordinates.

20) Priest: man ordained to celebrate the sacrifice of the mass and perform other tasks of the pastoral
ministry.

21) Skin: organic tissue that covers the body of vertebrates.

22) Failure: not accept something or be wrong about it.

23) Outpost: that which is advanced, anticipated or appears first.

24) Complete the following sentences with a word from the list above

1 The African ___inhabitant _____ share a common language.

2 Early man was a __hunter______
3 Malvinas Islands are a remote ____trade _____ of the British Empire.
4 The troops were finally able to __outpost_____ the rebel forces after many days of fighting.
5 At one time, only the _____chief ________ could own land in England.
6 He was ordained as a Roman Catholic ___priest ______

25) Say if the following sentences are true or false. Correct the false statements.

1. The Iberians were the first inhabitants in England. False because they were a people that inhabited the
Iberian Peninsula, which today is Spain and Portugal.

2. They were savages. false because Iberians were a people with their own culture, art and skills.

3. In ancient times, the Levant was the centre of civilization. False because the Levant was a center of
 civilization in areas such as current Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Palestine, since it was not in England because it
had its own cultural and civilizational development.

4. The Celts were constantly fighting when the Romans arrived. True

5. The Romans introduced the skills of reading and writing. True

6. The Romans slaughtered the peoples they conquered. True

7. London was a great centre in Celtic civilization. False because it was not the great center of Celtic civilization.
London was inhabited by Celtic tribes, but the great center of Celtic civilization was in the British Isles.

8. Goods from the continent came to Britain through the River Thames. True

9. The Romans succeeded in Latinizing the British. True

10. The most important legacy the Romans left was the Roman roads, the importance of some cities sites and
Welsh Christianity. False because Welsh Christianity was not a direct legacy of the Romans. this developed
later, influenced by missionaries and religious leaders after the Roman occupation.

11. Druidism was the Celtic religion and their priests had a very important position in society. true

THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD (44O-1066)

The settlement of the Nordic peoples in England is the governing event in British history. The various irruptions of
Angles, Saxons and Jutes begin before 300 AD and end about 1020 when Canute completed the Scandinavian
conquest of England. The sources for the fifth and sixth centuries are few. On the one hand is the archaeological
evidence, mainly objects from graves in pagan cemeteries. On the other hand is a small group of texts and fragments
such as The Ruin of Britain written in the 540s by a British monk named Gildas whose purpose was to denounce the
evils of his day in the most violent possible language. Gildas tells the story of Britons slaughtered and driven from
their homes. He regarded the barbarian invasions as a punishment sent by God because of people’s sins. His writings
had the intention to be a warning to the Britons. Another written source is that of the Venerable Bede, a monk in the
Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow, who completed his great Ecclesiastical History of the English People in 731. The
other narrative sources are fragments of chronicles and a few poems. This is so because the Germanic peoples were
illiterate during the first two centuries in Britain, so their early fortunes can only be known through the eyes of
Britons and foreigners and by their own half-remembered traditions.

Archaeology provides the first clue, for it shows that there were Germanic warriors in Britain some years before
410. Late Roman cemeteries have buried with belts worn by Saxon mercenaries in the Roman army.
 Belt set (410-20) from a grave in Essex Germanic invasions into England

These invaders came from very powerful Germanic tribes, the Saxons, Angles and Jutes. The Anglo-Saxon
migrations gave the larger part of Britain its new name, England, “the land of the Angles”. The British Celts fought
the raiders as well as they could. However, during the next years they were pushed westwards. Finally, most were
driven into the mountains in the far west, which the Saxons called “Weallas”, or “Wales”, meaning “the land of the
foreigners”. Many Celts became slaves of the Saxons. Hardly anything is left of Celtic language or culture in England
except for the names of some rivers, Thames, and two large cities London and Leeds. The Anglo-Saxons spoke what
is known today as Old English, with them English came to the island.
What were these people like? They were tall, big, energetic, vigorous warriors who fought constantly among
themselves; they were plunderers and sailors more than traders. Trade was not important for them as these
communities were self-sufficient, they satisfied their entire needs. They were far less civilized than the Romans, yet
they had their own institutions, the strongest social bonds were those of kinship and lordship. Kin groups were close-
knit in the homeland, and they remained so in England. Society developed but family loyalties remained vital. Safety
lay in knowing that relatives would avenge one’s death, and to neglect such vengeance meant undying shame.
Honour might be satisfied by a wergild, a payment by the slayer to his victim’s kin. The Germanic tribes had a strong
feeling of loyalty to their lords. To defend and protect the lord was the essence of their allegiance. Clearly, loyalty to
lord might sometimes conflict with loyalty to kin.
They were heathen people. Their principal gods were those of later Norse mythology: Tiw, Woden and Thor. They
are remembered in the day-names Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The worship of Odin and Thor was a religion
common to Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian; it was a lay-man´s religion, a warrior’s religion, a religion of men who did
not worry about their souls and which taught people not to be afraid of death. Its ideal was the fellowship of the
hero with the gods in feasting and victory as well as in danger and defeat. Its mythology reflected the virtues of the
race: manliness, generosity, loyalty and a certain rough honesty. Even when converted, the English named one of
the main Church festivals after their old goddess Eostre. At the time of the first contact of the Odin worshippers with
Christianity, the sacrifice of slaves and captives, common to all primitive religions, had not completely died out on
the continent, though there is no evidence of it in Saxon England. The old Saxon and Danish faith was a religion of
barbarism with no elements of progress. It did little for progress or art. It did not preach humility or charity. And it
was not intolerant; no missionary is recorded to have suffered martyrdom while converting the Anglo-Saxons. The
Anglo-Saxons eventually became Christian in the island.
By the end of the sixth century, the invaders were in control of half the island. The main British enclave was Wales.
Refugees from the east had increased its population. Christianity survived and with it some traces of Roman culture.
Some monasteries were founded there during the sixth century. The early Anglo-Saxons were a non-urban people:
their important places were important for hierarchical rather than economic reasons: the Roman towns were not
totally abandoned, but as towns, they died. One of the results of the Anglo-Saxon conquest was the loss of the crafts,
science, and learning of Rome. Surviving Celt and incoming Saxon both were rude barbarians. But, as the Saxons
lived in the lowlands they began to evolve a civilization of their own, which was superior to that of the Welsh
mountaineers. Geography influenced history making the Celt barbarous and the Saxon civilized.

The Seventh Century

 In the seventh century, England was divided into seven large kingdoms called the Heptarchy: Kent, Sussex, Wessex,
East Anglia, Essex, Mercia and Northumbria. It was possible for kings to gain great power but difficult to keep it for
long. Why did kings rise and fall so quickly? One reason is that power and conquest depended on military forces;
forces were attracted by gift-giving; gift-giving depended on wealth; and wealth was gained by power and conquest.
A century later, one of these kings, King Offa of Mercia (757-96), claimed “kingship of the English”. He had good
reason to do so. He was powerful enough to employ thousands of men to build a huge dyke, or earth wall, the length
of the Welsh border to keep out the troublesome Celts. But although he was the most powerful king of his time, he
did not control all of England. The power of Mercia did not survive after Offa’s death. At that time, a king’s power
depended on the personal loyalty of his followers. After his death, the next king had to work hard to rebuild these
personal feelings of loyalty. Most people still believed, as the Celts had done, that a man’s first duty was to his own
family. However, things were changing. The Saxon kings began to replace loyalty to family with loyalty to lord and
king, i.e. tribalism was giving way to feudalism: individual ties were becoming more important, a man to man
relationship between the warrior and the lord which is the basis of aristocracy and feudalism.

The Heptarchy

From its beginnings, English society included a military aristocracy, probably with some kind of territorial base. But
in the early centuries the king’s followers or “thegns” were tied less to their states than to the king himself. The
thengs had to accompany the king, witness his public actions, live in his hall, and if necessary to fight and die for him.
Aristocratic life was strongly communal. The nobles were also the audience for a literature, which mirrored the age:
the surviving fragments include one major epic, Beowulf. It is a sophisticated work, perhaps written for a clerical
audience. It lays before us the heroic, essentially pagan world of the seventh-century aristocracy. Its hero, Beowulf,
is an exile who takes service with Hrothgar, king of the Danes. A generous giver of treasure and splendid weapons,
Hrothgar attracts to his court noble warriors who make him powerful. But the political world of the poem is violent
and unstable: a king who loses support will quickly perish, and his kingdom with him. The ethos is one of loyalty and
feud: “It is better for everyone that he avenge his friend, rather than mourn him long… let he who can win glory
before death”. Beowulf fights with monsters and dragons, inhabitants of a pre-Christian mental world. When he is
killed, his followers lay him with rich treasures in a mound overlooking the sea.
They said that he was of all the world’s kings
The gentlest of men, and the most gracious,
The kindest to his people, the keenest for fame.

The principal virtues praised in the Saxon epics were the loyalty of the warrior to his lord, the readiness of men to
meet death in battle, the courage, courtesy, and magnanimity of the lord himself. For it is the poetry of the hall, sung
before kings and thegns. The typical hero of these poems is a man unrestrained by tribal customs or religious
observance, a man to whom the love of adventure is the breath of life, generous but passionate. In many respects
the life resembles that of Homer’s days. Even when Christianity and territorial feudalism were beginning to lay new
restrains on the individual, Anglo-Saxon society had in it much that was disordered, fierce, noble and tragic.
Beowulf