By 600 AD, in the wake of the collapse of the Roman empire in the west, England was divided into many small units, under the control of Anglo-Saxon 'kings'. These kings, or their ancestors, had been leaders of war bands, owing their position to the loyalty inspired by their fighting qualities. Within 200 years, by 800 AD, only five, much larger, kingdoms are known to have existed, and 100 years after that England was united under a single king, Christian defenders fighting new groups of pagan invaders in the form of the Vikings. The role of the church in this process of growth and consolidation of kingdoms, and in the expansion of the role of king to one of lawgiver and shepherd of his people, as well as war leader, is one of the major themes of the period.
In the early days of the heroic Saxon age warriors were rewarded with their share of the plunder & loot, the king known as the ring giver. But as the invaders settled down & took over control of the land (and gold became scarce) the aristocratic warriors were given their own estates. There was no system of inheritance of land - sons earned their entitlement by giving military service to the king, though the land so earned may already have been with the family. This was the system known as folcland.
Monks and clergy however were exempt from military service (and taxes) & abbeys and churches needed a more secure form of tenure; thus bookland developed, a kind of ownership in perpetuity with written deeds or charters. This of course reduced the amount of land available for reward (or for contributions to tax revenues), and so played its part in encouraging the consolidation of kingdoms, as the strongest leaders sought for ways to increase the amount of land under their control.
Writing was another innovation, brought by both Roman and Irish traditions of the church, to the illiterate Anglo-Saxons. One of the earliest consequences of the Roman mission to Kent was the production of a written law code, written in the vernacular so that it could be widely promulgated and understood. These laws reveal a social structure which included slaves, free peasants and nobles, and codify a system of wergild, payments in compensation for murder according to the rank of the murdered man. The church played its part in the discouragement of the unnecessary violence of the blood feud, without ever preaching that a good king was one who avoided war on behalf of his people. A good king was one who was successful in war, success being God's reward for his being a good king.
Aspects of sexual morality also concerned the church from the start. Gregory was horrified by the practice of marriage to a step-mother; that Æthelberts son did this was seen as proof of his paganism, and the resultant disagreement almost brought the end of the Roman mission. We do not know why such a practice was common, though there are clear dynastic advantages in not having a 'spare' queen, as it were, possibly with her own sons, as a focus for discontented and ambitious rivals for the kings power. The church, however, was adamant: "in these days the Church corrects some things strictly" wrote Gregory to Augustine [Bede I 27]
The emphasis on Christian marriage obviously had effects on the possibilities for dynastic alliances and on succession. Illegitimacy had not been a bar to Anglo-Saxon kingship, but nor was inheritance necessarily from father to son, or even through the male line. Nor was kingship the same as mon-archy; joint or sub-kingships were common, as with Penda of Mercia and his son Peada. Finally Christian education, provided by the church or monastery, supplied an alternative training for kings, and coronation a new way of legitimisation.
Monasteries also provided a useful escape route for those such as St Guthlac, who wished to avoid the warrior tradition of kings [Stenton,1971,p158], and a role in life for widows and junior members of the kindred. During the 7th and 8th centuries at least six kings opted out in this way [Stancliffe,1983,p157], though both Gregory and Bede promulgated the importance of kings remaining active men of affairs. Other kings opted for pilgrimages to Rome - Alfred visited the Pope at least twice as a child and also stayed at the French court, illustrating the maintenance and expansion of continental links that came with the Gregorian mission and Kentish links with Frankia; and of course, after the Synod of Whitby, "once and for all (at least until the Reformation) England had cast her lot with Rome" rather than with the Celtic inhabitants of Britain [Hanning,1966,p66]
Gregory had encouraged Æthelbert with the promise that the rewards of Christian kingship included the fact that God would "make your own name glorious to posterity" [Bede I 32]. The fame of later kings, such as Oswald of Northumbria, was made more secure by canonisation and the establishment of a cult complete with shrines and relics, a cult which strengthened continental links by being exported to Germany and Italy. Chaney suggests [1960,p76] that such canonisation, after death in battle, "echoes the pagan custom of sacrificing the king for the good of the tribe", which, though extreme, illustrates that the success of the Church stemmed in part from flexibility in adapting pagan customs where useful.
"The strength of early Anglo-Saxon Christianity was based solidly on the great partnerships between king and bishop" [Mayr-Harting, 1991,p249]. Bede recounts the story of Gregorys pun about the angels, and Gregory may have believed that Æthelberts power was such that Augustines mission was, in effect, to a united gens Anglorum. But although bretwaldaship was a vital element in the pattern of early conversions, the Church was the only authority which transcended the political boundaries and provided shared ideals. Later, under Theodores reforms, this view of the Anglo-Saxons as a single people united under God was reinforced, and this vision could only have helped Alfred in his bid to achieve political unity as well as unity of faith.
As the Anglo-Saxon period drew towards its close archbishop Wulfstan described the qualities required of the ruler of England: "he should govern a Christian people justly ... he should be ... the consolation of his people and a good shepherd of a Christian flock. He must extend Christianity, support and protect the Church, bring his people to peace by just laws, and encourage the good while punishing the wicked with severity"
The Germanic war leader had become a Christian king.
Bibliography
Bassett, S (ed) (1989) The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms Leicester Leicester UP
Bede (1968) A History of the English Church & People London Penguin
Blair, PH (1963) Roman Britain & Early England: 55BC - AD871 Edinburgh Nelson
Brooke, C (1961) From Alfred to Henry III: 871-1272 London Nelson
Brooks, N (1989) 'The creation & early structure of the kingdom of Kent' in Bassett (1989)
Chaney, WC (1960) 'Paganism to Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England' in Thrupp (1967)
Dumville, D (1989) 'Essex, Middle Anglia & the expansion of Mercia' in Bassett (1989)
Hanning, RW (1966) The Vision of History in Early Britain New York Colombia UP
Herrin, J (1989) The Formation of Christendom Princeton Princeton UP
Higham, N (1997) The Convert Kings Manchester MUP
McClure, J (1983) 'Bedes Old Testament Kings' in Wormald et al (1983)
Mayr-Harting, H (1991) The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England London Batsford
Page, RI (1970) Life in Anglo-Saxon England London Batsford
Stancliffe, C (1983) 'Kings who opted out' in Wormald et al (1983)
Stenton (1971) Anglo-Saxon England Oxford OUP
Thrupp, S (ed) (1967) Early Medieval Society New York Meredith
Wallace-Hadrill, J (1971) Early Germanic Kingship Oxford OUP
Wormald, P et al (ed) Ideal & Reality in Frankish & Anglo-Saxon Society Oxford Blackwell
Yorke, B (1990) Kings & Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England London Seaby
