When Did England Convert to Christianity? The Long Conversion of the English
The conversion of England took nearly a century, beginning with Augustine's mission to Kent in 597 and ending with the baptism of the last pagan kings around 700.
The conversion of England to Christianity took nearly a century, beginning with the mission of Augustine to Kent in 597 and effectively ending with the baptism of the last pagan kings around 700. It was not a single event but a long, uneven process involving Roman missionaries, Irish monks, native English clergy, and the political decisions of kings. By the end of the seventh century, the English kingdoms were Christian in name, and the framework of the medieval English church was in place.
The first missions: 597-650
The first Christian mission to the Anglo-Saxons was sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 596. The mission, led by the Augustine of Canterbury, landed in Kent in 597 and quickly won the support of King Æthelberht, whose Christian Frankish wife had maintained a small Christian community in the kingdom. Augustine was consecrated as the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and he established bishoprics at Rochester and London. Within a few years, Christianity had spread to Essex, East Anglia, and Northumbria.
The Roman mission was not the only one to reach England. Irish monks from Iona established a parallel mission in the north, and Aidan founded the bishopric of Lindisfarne in 635. The two traditions - Roman and Irish - were not always in harmony, and they came into conflict over the computation of Easter, the form of the tonsure, and the details of monastic observance. The dispute was settled at the Synod of Whitby in 664, where King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled in favor of the Roman tradition.
The first century of English Christianity was marked by a series of political crises that tested the new religion. The pagan reaction of 633, in which the Christian king Edwin of Northumbria was killed at the Battle of Hatfield Chase, was a serious setback. (Oswald, who succeeded Edwin as king, was himself killed at the Battle of Maserfield in 642.) The plague of 664 killed many of the leading clergy, including Bishop Cedd of the East Saxons. The Synod of Hertford in 672, convened by Theodore of Tarsus, the newly arrived Archbishop of Canterbury, was an important step in the organization of the English church.
The consolidation of the church: 650-700
By the middle of the seventh century, the Christianization of England was essentially complete in its political form. The great kingdoms of the south and east - Kent, Essex, East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, and Wessex - had all been evangelized, and the framework of the English church was in place. The Synod of Whitby had unified the church under the Roman tradition, and the Synod of Hertford had established the basic structure of ecclesiastical administration.
The most important figure of this period was Theodore of Tarsus, a Greek monk who was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 668 and who served until 690. Theodore was one of the most able administrators of the early English church, and he did much to organize the English church on the Roman model. He divided the English church into a number of dioceses, he established a system of synods to govern the church, and he encouraged the development of a school of law and theology at Canterbury. The Penitential of Theodore, a handbook of penance that he adapted to English conditions, was one of the most influential texts of the early medieval church.
The late seventh century also saw the conversion of the last pagan kingdoms. The kingdom of Sussex, in the southeast, was evangelized by Wilfrid of York in the 680s, and the Isle of Wight was evangelized by the same Wilfrid shortly afterward. The West Saxons, who had been Christian since the mission of Birinus in 634, were reinforced by the missions of Aldhelm and others. By the end of the seventh century, all of the English kingdoms were nominally Christian, and the framework of the medieval English church was in place.
The Viking interruption
The conversion of England was followed by one of the most serious challenges to the English church: the Viking invasions that began in 793 with the raid on Lindisfarne. The Vikings attacked the great monasteries of Northumbria and eastern England, killing monks, looting treasures, and destroying libraries. The Lindisfarne Gospels may have been carried away by the community when the monastery was attacked. The great monasteries of Jarrow and Whitby were abandoned, and the Northumbrian church was devastated.
The Christianization of the Danelaw, the region of England under Viking control, was a slow process. The Vikings had been nominally pagan, but many of them had accepted Christianity during their campaigns in Frankia and England. The conversion of the Danish settlers in England was achieved largely through the work of English missionaries, and by the mid-tenth century, the Danelaw was Christian. The Christianization of Scandinavia, which was the homeland of the Vikings, was not complete until the eleventh century.
The Anglo-Saxon church recovered from the Viking attacks in the tenth century, and it became one of the most sophisticated in Europe. The monastic revival of the late tenth century, led by figures such as Dunstan of Canterbury, Oswald of Worcester, and Æthelwold of Winchester, reformed the English monasteries along the lines of the continental reforms. The English church also sent missionaries to Scandinavia, and the conversion of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden was largely the work of English missionaries.
The Anglo-Saxon church in perspective
The conversion of England was a long and uneven process, but it was remarkably successful. Within a century of Augustine’s landing in Kent, the English church had been established, organized, and integrated into the wider Latin church. The English church produced some of the greatest scholars of the early Middle Ages, including Bede, Alcuin, and Boniface, and it was a major source of missionaries to the continent. The Anglo-Saxon church also produced some of the most extraordinary works of insular art, including the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Book of Durrow, and the Book of Kells, that are among the most spectacular artistic productions of the early Middle Ages.
The conversion of England was therefore not only a religious event. It was also a political, cultural, and artistic transformation that laid the foundations of medieval England. The framework of the English church, the organization of the English dioceses, the tradition of English monasticism, and the integration of England into the wider Latin Christendom were all products of the long conversion that began with Augustine’s mission in 597.