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Holy Island Priory on Lindisfarne
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The Irish mission to Northumbria |
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Migrating peoples, migrating religions
Originally, Christianity spread largely within the Roman Empire. By the time the last Roman soldiers were withdrawn from Britain c.410, Christianity was sufficiently well established to remain. Indeed, it continued to spread amongst the native British population north of Hadrian's Wall and was also taken by St Patrick and others to Ireland. This was of great significance since some of the Christian Irish then migrated from north-east Ireland to Argyll in western Scotland, bringing their religion with them.
The most famous of these immigrants was St Columba, a monk of royal birth who founded a monastery on Iona (off the western tip of Mull) in 563. By the time of Columba's death in 597 Iona headed an important federation of monasteries located both in mainland Ireland and in western Scotland. 
Holy Island cause |
That same year, 597, the first Christian missionaries to the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Kent, sent from Rome by Pope Gregory I. The Anglo-Saxons were to be converted principally from these two directions: from Iona in the north, and from the Continent in the south. These Anglo-Saxons, or English, were different from the British population in origin although in time there was assimilation between the two.
The Anglo-Saxons originated as groups of pagan peoples from the east side of the North Sea who migrated to eastern England around the 5th Century. In Northumberland they should probably be thought of as a pagan warrior aristocracy fighting to establish their rule over the Britons, who were then forced to pay them tribute. The king, who was remembered as the greatest foe of the Britons, was Aethelfrith (died 616). The heartland of his kingdom, Bernicia, corresponds approximately to modern Northumberland, with Bamburgh (on the coast north of Seahouses) as one of his main strongholds.
Words: Dr Clare Stancliffe
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