In 410 A.D. - the city od Rome had fallen to the Visigoths - Emperor Honorius wrote a letter to the British, explaining that he had to withdraw
the Roman legions from Britain; from now on they had to defend their country on their own.
Britain soon broke up in petty kingdoms which fought each other. A king driven out of his kingdom, VORTIGERN, brought in foreign mercenaries
- the pagan Germanic ANGLES, SAXONS and JUTES. They liked the country, defeated the Britons, dropped Vortigern and began to settle the
country. Where they settled, they killed, expelled or enslaved the British population. Christianity and Romanized British civilisation were
extinguished wherever they settled. The towns were abandoned. Over time the Anglo-Saxons conquered the best parts of the island - the
low-lying areas; the country, ENGLAND, was named after them. Neither the Anglo-Saxons nor the Britons were united; all of them were split
in many rival kingdoms.
B.) The Iro-Scottish Church
It is believed that one christian community survived the Anglo-Saxon conquest, located in southeastern Wales. From here, Wales (where, as
in Cornwall, Ireland and Caledonia Britons had held out) was converted to christianity, and, by SAINT PATRICK, christianity was brought to
Ireland.
The Iro-Scottish church developed with little to no contact to Rome. Thus it developed a peculiar character. In Irish church hierarchy, the
ABBOTS of monasteries were the leading figures. As celibacy was not universally practiced, they are often referred to as LAY ABBOTS; various
districts of Ireland were practically ruled by dynasties of lay abbots. A CELTIC LITERATURE emerged.
From Ireland, missionaries crossed over to Scotland, where they converted the local population. Ireland, Scotland and later England produced
many missionaries which went to the continent to spread christianity (the Iro-Scottish Mission).
C.) The Christianization of England
Anglo-Saxon England in the late 6th and early 7th century became the mission field both of Irish and of Roman Catholic missionaries. In 597
ST. AUGUSTINE arrived in Kent, southern England; in 651 ST. AIDAN established the monastery of LINDISFARNE in Northumberland, northern
England. The SYNOD OF WHITBY in 664 decided that England should follow the Catholic (Roman) calendar and rite, a decision which disgusted
the Irish missionaries.
England soon developed into a center of christianity in western Europe, producing writers such as BEDA VENERABILIS and missionaries such
as ST. BONIFACE, ST. WILLIBRORD etc.
This page is part of World History at KMLA Last revised on September 18th 2001
