Early Christianity in Britain

Early Christianity in Britain 

Christianity came at the pagan Anglo-Saxons from two directions. The Celtic Church, pushed back into Wales, Cornwall, and particularly Ireland, made inroads in the north from an early base on Lindisfarne Island. The Roman Catholic Church approached from the south, beginning with the mission of St.Augustine to Aethelbert, King of Kent, in 597.

St. Augustine's Mission.  Augustine of Canterbury (circa first third of the 6th century – probably 26 May 604) was a Benedictine monk who became the firstArchbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church.

Augustine was the prior of a monastery in Rome when Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 to lead a mission, usually known as theGregorian mission, to Britain to Christianize the King Æthelberht of the Kingdom of Kent from his native Anglo-Saxon paganism. In a letter to the patriarch of Alexandria detailing early successes of the mission, Gregory wrote of having sent Augustine and his companions "to the ends of the earth". Kent was probably chosen because it was near the Christian kingdoms in Gaul and because Æthelberht had married a Christian princess, Bertha, daughter of Charibert I the King of Paris who was expected to exert some influence over her husband. Before reaching Kent the missionaries had considered turning back but Gregory urged them on and, in 597, Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanetand proceeded to Æthelberht's main town of Canterbury.

King Æthelberht converted to Christianity and allowed the missionaries to preach freely, giving them land to found a monastery outside the city walls. Augustine was consecrated bishop of the English and converted many of the king's subjects, including thousands during a mass baptism on Christmas Day in 597. Pope Gregory sent more missionaries in 601, along with encouraging letters and gifts for the churches, although attempts to persuade the native Celtic bishops to submit to Augustine's authority failed. Roman bishops were established at London and Rochester in 604, and a school was founded to train Anglo-Saxon priests and missionaries. Augustine also arranged the consecration of his successor, Laurence of Canterbury. The archbishop probably died in 604 and was soon revered as a saint. 

Saxon churches. The Celtic and Roman churches, though not incompatible, certainly enjoyed differences of opinion and practice. The Celtic church was ascetic, fervent, based on monastic life, and more loosely organized. The Roman church was more conscious of structure, discipline, and moderation. They also celebrated Easter on different days. To resolve their differences they met at the Synod of Whitby in 664, where the Roman cause triumphed.

The church was a very important force in society; the only truly national entity tying together the different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The early monasteries of Northumberland were vital centres of learning and the arts until they were scourged by the Viking raids of the 9th century.

Anglo-Saxon art was similar to Celtic art in design and inspiration; at least, it was more like Celtic than Roman art. Patterns of decoration were often abstract, or semiabstract, based on animals and plants. Christianity brought foreign influences with it, in particular the tradition of realistic art inherited from Ancient Rome. In Northumbria the two styles merged to prouce sculpture, like the stone cross at Ruthwell, Dumfries, made in the 7th centuty, which experts once believed to have been made 500 years later. 

The Venerable Bede. Anglo-Saxon England's most famous writer, the monk Bede, lived most of his life at the monastery of Jarrow, in Northumbria.

Bede, who is sometimes called 'the Venerable', though such a dusty title does not suit him, spent all his life in the Northumbrian monastery ofJarrow. He wrote many books, but the most famous is his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, finished in 731. It is the only worthwhile history of England in the earliest period. Bede had a remarkable sense of history - of the passing of time - as well as a rare scholarly attitude to facts. His book, in English translation, still makes good reading.

 
Church education. Churches were almost the only forum for education. Under the auspices of Alfred the Great church schools were encouraged, and many Latin works were translated into English. The higher church officials also played important secular roles; advising the king, witnessing charters, and administering estates of the church, which could be exceedingly large. 
 
Traveling monks. Most of the early work of spreading the Christian gospel was done from monasteries. The early monks were unlike the medieval ideal with which readers of the popular Brother Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters are familiar. The monks of the 7th and 8th centuries were not confined to a closed monastic community, but carried the responsibility of traveling, usually on foot, throughout the surrounding countryside to preach and convert in the villages. This was especially true of monks from the Celtic monasteries. Regional, or district monasteries were established to better serve an area. These were designated "minsters", and the term lives on in many place names, such as Warminster, and Axminster. 
 
Most church buildings were built of stone, but this was not true of domestic buildings. Even in towns, very few buildings would have had even a stone foundation. Most dwellings were wooden, with low, thatched roofs, an open hearth in a floor of earth or gravel, and walls of planks or wattle and daub. Especially in towns, where then, as today, buildings were crowded together, fire was an ever present danger.

(Note: The terms "England", "Scotland", and "Wales" are used purely to indicate geographic location relative to modern boundaries - at this time period, these individual countries did not exist). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

List of books 

1. HistoryMole: King Henry VIII (1491-1547) 

2. Article Fifth of "An Act for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland" 1800

 3. Albright, William F. From the Stone Age to Christianity.

 4. Olson, Roger E., The Mosaic of Christian Belief. InterVarsity Press (2002). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Реферат на тему:

«Christianity in Great Britain» 
 
 

выполнила:

студентка группы УА-09-5

Щека  Т. Н. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ДНУ им. Олеся Гончара

г. Днепропетровск

2011 г.