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Y301: The Early Anglo-Saxons c.400–800

Depth study: Augustine and the process of Christianisation — short and long-term impact

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Overview

Recall questions on the short and long-term impact of Augustine’s mission of 597, apostasy and pagan reaction, the role of the Celtic Church and Columba.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Who and when

What part did the Frankish connection play in the conversion of Kent?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is the central debate about the mission of 597?

    Model answer

    Whether Augustine's mission was the decisive beginning of English Christianity, or one strand among several whose importance was magnified by Bede because it came from Rome.

  2. 2

    How much did the 597 mission actually change at the time, and what proved to be its lasting legacy?

    Model answer

    It made Canterbury the permanent centre of the English Church and tied England to Rome, but its immediate reach was small, the northern conversion owed more to Irish missionaries, and effective national organisation waited until Theodore came in 669.

  3. 3

    Why do historians argue that Bede's account of the mission needs handling with care?

    Model answer

    Bede was a Roman-trained Northumbrian writing more than a century later who wanted to show a providential and Roman origin for a single English Church, so he foregrounds Canterbury, uses Canterbury's own archive, and gives less weight to Frankish and Irish contributions.

  4. 4

    What part did the Frankish connection play in the conversion of Kent?

    Model answer

    Aethelberht's queen Bertha was a Christian Frank who brought her own bishop, Frankish interpreters accompanied the mission, and Frankish rulers had political and religious interests in Kent, so Christianity was already present at court before Augustine arrived.

  5. 5

    Explain what apostasy meant in this period and why pagan reaction was so closely tied to the death of a king.

    Model answer

    Apostasy is a return to paganism after conversion, and it followed the deaths of Christian kings because conversion had been a royal decision imposed from the top, so the new religion had few roots outside the court and a new king could reject it to reassert traditional authority or to satisfy nobles who had lost by the change.

  6. 6

    What does Raedwald's behaviour illustrate about early conversion?

    Model answer

    He is said to have kept a Christian altar and a pagan one in the same building, which shows that many rulers added the new god to the old rather than choosing between them.

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