Within Anglo-Saxon England there was a strong and enduring tradition of royal sanctity - of men and women of royal birth who, in an age before the development of papal canonisation, came to be venerated as saints by the regional church. This study, which focuses on some of the best-documented cults of the ancient kingdoms of Wessex and East Anglia, is a contribution towards understanding the growth and continuing importance of England's royal cults. The author examines contemporary and near-contemporary theoretical interpretations of the relationship between royal birth and sanctity, analyses in depth the historical process of cult-creation, and addresses the problem of continuity of cult in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest of 1066. An understanding therefore emerges of the place of the English royal saint not only in Anglo-Saxon society but also in that of the Anglo-Norman realm.

The story of the conversion of the English to Christianity traditionally begins with Augustine's arrival in 597. This text offers a critical re-evaluation of the process of conversion which assesses what the act really meant to new converts, who was responsible for it, and why particular figures both accepted conversion for themselves and threw their influence behind the spread of Christianity. The conversion has often been seen as something which missionaries did to the English. The book restores responsibility to the English and, in particular, King Aethelbert, Edwin, Oswald and Oswin, and it is their religious policies that form the focus of this text.

When Christianity spread from its Mediterranean base into the Germanic and Celtic north, it initiated profound changes, particularly in kinship relations and sexual mores. Joseph H. Lynch traces the introduction and assimilation of the concept of spiritual kinship into Anglo-Saxon England. Covering the years 597 to 1066, he shows how this notion unsettled and in time altered the structures of the society.In early Germanic societies, kinship was a major organizing principle. Spiritual kinship of various kinds began to take hold among the Anglo-Saxons with the arrival of Christian missionaries from Rome in the seventh century. Lynch discusses in detail sponsorship at baptism, confirmation, and other rituals in which an individual other than a biological parent presented someone, often an infant, for initiation into Christianity. After the ceremony, the sponsor was regarded as the child's spiritual parent or godparent, whose role complemented that of the natural mother and father, with whom the sponsor had become a "coparent." He describes the difficulties posed by the incest taboo, which included a ban on marriage between spiritual kin. Lynch's work reveals how Anglo-Saxons, though never accepting the sexual taboos that were so prominent in the Frankish, Roman, and Byzantine churches, did create new forms of spiritual kinship. Unusual in its focus and scope, this book illuminates an integral element in the religious, social, and diplomatic life of Anglo-Saxon England. It also contributes to our understanding of the ways in which Christianization reshaped societal relations and moral attitudes.

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, University of Münster (Anglistik), language: English, abstract: The basic form of society in Anglo-Saxon England was a kingdom. Over the centuries the movement was away from many small units to larger kingdoms controlling greater populations. The first kings were pagan and when Christianity became established the Christian kings kept many of the characteristics of their pagan forebears. The Christian kings continued to be primarily military leaders. A cult of martyrs arose in Anglo-Saxon England which included Christian kings who had died either in battle or in defence of Christianity. Other royal saints followed a different path to sainthood by leading exemplary Christian lives. Many saints’ lives composed in Latin circulated in Anglo-Saxon England but it was the monk and author Ælfric of Eynsham who translated a collection of saints’ lives into Old English. In particular this paper will deal with the lives of St Edmund and St Oswald. After a brief introduction to the lives of these two saints an analysis of the two concepts of vita and passio follows. Then the general and syntactic linguistic structure of both texts is examined. Finally a comparison of the deaths of St Oswald and St Edmund illustrates the difference in approach of these writings.