Fouracre P. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 1: c. 500-c. 700
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Christianity amongst the Britons, Dalriadan Irish and Picts 453
the Picts figures little in the (historically inadequate) Lives of Ninian. Thirdly,
there is surely a deliberate agenda in Bede’s portrayal of these two contrast-
ing missions. His stress on Ninian as a bishop trained at Rome, who preceded
Columba, cannot but remind one of the fact that c.710–715 the Pictish king
turned to Bede’s own monastery of Jarrow for information about the Roman
Easter, and shortly after expelled the Columban clergy, who followed the rival
usage, from Pictland. It would have been very convenient for the king to claim
that his church had an earlier, unimpeachably Roman origin, in contrast to
the Columban church of Iona, where bishops came under the authority of the
priest abbot.
Unfortunately, our sources for Ninian are too poor to enable us to penetrate
behind Bede’s account. Some modern scholars doubt whether he ever visited
the Picts, while others would accept his mission, but not take his training
at Rome in a literal sense. However, Bede seems to have been accurate in
portraying the southern Pictish area as deriving its Christianity in the first
instance from the post-Roman British church to its south (though this should
not exclude an Irish contribution also). The evidence for this is threefold: the
literary evidence about Ninian, just mentioned; that of Eccles place-names;
and, in a subsidiary role, the archaeological evidence of long-cist cemeteries.
The significance of the Eccles place-names is that whereas, for the British,
this word denoted a church, such a usage was not typical either of Gaelic-
speaking Scoti or of English speakers, both of whom left their mark on south-
eastern Scotland. This enables us to identify a British contribution with some
confidence, although we must recognise that not all Eccles churches will belong
to the pre-Columban period; such names might still have been coined up to
c.800.With this qualification, however, the Eccles names provide valuable
evidence for the British contribution to the Christianity of the southern Picts.
They also confirm the accuracy of Bede’s differentiation between the church’s
origins amongst the southern and the northern Picts: there are fifteen Eccles
names between the Forth and the Grampians, with only one outlier further
north.
131
The cemetery evidence tallies with that of the Eccles place-names: the area
containing long-cist cemeteries, with bodies being oriented west/east in stone-
lined graves, spans the area south and north of the Forth.
132
It would be
rash to interpret the long-cist cemeteries as necessarily Christian, rather than
representing a burial rite that began before Christianity, and was compatible
with it.
133
None the less, the distribution of such cemeteries does testify to
131
Barrow (1983); map 13,p.433 above.
132
Alcock (1992); Foster (1996), p. 79;Smith (1996), pp. 27–9.
133
See Alcock (1992), p. 127;Proudfoot (1996), pp. 440–4;Burt(1997); Yeoman (1998), p. 83.
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454 clare stancliffe
common cultural features south and north of the Forth, and thus provides
a context that makes the spread of Christianity from the former to the lat-
ter plausible. Such contact also appears in the Gododdin’s representation of a
Pict amongst the Christian British warriors who were feasted at Edinburgh
before attacking the Anglo-Saxons.
134
We will return to the Picts shortly. First,
however, we need to focus on the work of Bede’s second missionary, Columba.
iona and its outreach
While in the east Christianity was spreading up from the Britons between the
Walls to the Picts north of the Forth, in the west the Irish colony of D
´
al Riada
was gaining a major Christian focus with the foundation of the monastery of
Iona. The indications are that D
´
al Riada was largely Christian already – albeit
with some notable exceptions.
135
Then in 563 Columba, of the royal U
´
ıN
´
eill
dynasty, left Ireland, ostensibly as a peregrinus (‘pilgrim’), perhaps because in
Ireland he was unable entirely to distance himself from the power struggles
of his royal kinsmen.
136
Columba founded the monastery of Iona on the little
island of that name, which lies off the western tip of Mull; and although he
was to return to Ireland on various occasions, it was on Iona that he was to
be based for the rest of his life. Iona thus became the chief monastery of a
federation of Columban churches that spanned Argyll and mainland Ireland,
and it retained its position after Columba’s death in 597.
Our earliest source for Columba is a panegyrical lament composed in Irish
shortly after his death. It is the work of a professional poet, written in an
extremely obscure style; but it is valuable both for being so close to Columba
in time, and also for giving us a lay perspective on the saint.
137
In this it differs
from the Life of St Columba, which was written about a century after his death
by Adomn
´
an, abbot of Iona from 679 to 704.Adomn
´
an was able to draw on
material that had been continuously handed on within the community, as well
as on an earlier written Life, which does not survive, and his work contains
much of historical value.
138
This makes Iona the best-recorded Irish monastery
from our period.
The surviving evidence of literary works, manuscripts and stone carving
reveals Iona as one of the major literary and artistic centres of the early Middle
134
Hughes (1970), p. 13.
135
Cf. Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae ii.22 and 24;Sharpe (1979) and (1995), pp. 327–8,n.258;Dumville
et al.(1993), pp. 188–9.
136
Cf. Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae,Second preface (at 4a); Annals of Ulster s.a. 561;Byrne (1973), p. 95;
Herbert (1988), pp. 27–8.See also Stancliffe, chapter 15,p.405 above. The date of his crossing to
Iona is given as 563 in Annals of Ulster, but 565 by Bede, HE iii.4: see Duncan (1981), pp. 4–7 and
10.
137
Clancy and M
´
arkus (1995), pp. 96–128.
138
Herbert (1988), pp. 12–26, 134–48.
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Christianity amongst the Britons, Dalriadan Irish and Picts 455
Ages. The historical notes kept there from its foundation lie at the basis of the
Irish annal collections that have come down to us,
139
while by the seventh cen-
tury Columban monks were producing poetry in Latin and Irish, saints’ Lives,
an account of the Holy Land, and legal texts. It is also likely that Adomn
´
an
was responsible for putting together a commentary on Vergil’s Georgics and
Bucolics, suggesting that at least some classical poetry was studied there.
140
On
the artistic side, Iona and its dependent houses appear to have been at the
heart of the development of insular illuminated manuscripts which begins, in
a simple way, with the ‘Cathach’ (a psalter) and the fragmentary Gospel-book
or New Testament now preserved in Durham, and reaches its first flowering
with the Book of Durrow, which probably belongs to the second half of the
seventh century. This is a magnificent Gospel-book where the groundwork of
Celtic scrolls and spirals is joined on one page by interlaced animal ornament,
betokening a Germanic contribution, and elsewhere by influences from both
the Mediterranean and the Pictish worlds. The chief developments in stone
carving occur after our period, but crosses (probably of wood) were already
being erected, and simple crosses were incised on stones.
141
Underpinning these achievements were impressive leadership, a coherent
organisation, and royal and noble patronage. Columba appears in Adomn
´
an’s
work as a true man of God, who experienced mystical revelations and enjoyed
prophetic foresight, while governing his monastery with discernment and
humanity. He also engaged with kings on matters of political moment. Indeed,
Columba may have been the moving spirit in building an alliance between
D
´
al Riada and his northern U
´
ıN
´
eill kinsmen in Ireland. The Dalriadan king
donated Iona for his monastic foundation, and his successor was rewarded with
Columba’s prayers – even when he entered battle as the aggressor.
142
Adomn
´
an
further depicts Columba ‘ordaining’ him king of D
´
al Riada, although this can
more plausibly be interpreted as reflecting the concerns of Adomn
´
an than of
Columba himself.
143
Columba’s royal connections, coupled with his religious
stature, account for the donation of land for church foundations in southern
and northern U
´
ıN
´
eill areas of Ireland (Durrow and Derry) and in Scottish
D
´
al Riada, where there were subordinate houses on Tiree and other islands, as
well as at Cell Di
´
uin on Loch Awe on the Scottish mainland. Columba himself
139
Smyth (1972); Bannerman (1974), pp. 9–26.
140
Kenney (1929), no. 113,pp.286–7; Lapidge and Sharpe (1985), no. 1235,p.327;Stancliffe (1997),
p. 169,n.371.
141
Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae i.45; Argyll IV, pp. 180–92.
142
Annals of Ulster s.a. 574 and 575;Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae i.7–8;Herbert (1988), pp. 28–9.On
Bede’s claim that the Pictish king donated Iona (HE iii.4) see Bullough (1982), pp. 82–3.
143
Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae iii.5, and the note by Sharpe (1995), pp. 355–6;cf. also Adomn
´
an, Vita
Columbae i.9.
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456 clare stancliffe
appointed the heads of all these subordinate houses, normally nominating a
monk of his own family.
144
This family connection continued after his death
in typical Irish style, with six out of eight abbatial successors coming from the
U
´
ıN
´
eill in the course of the seventh century. This, however, did not impair
the quality of abbots selected, who were all celibate monks.
145
Bede’s description of the governmental structure of the Iona federation is
important:
From both [Iona and Durrow] sprang very many monasteries . . . in Britain and Ireland,
over all of which the island monastery in which his body lies held pre-eminence. This
island always has an abbot-priest for its ruler, to whose authority the whole provincia,
including even bishops, are subject, according to an unusual arrangement.
146
Thus the abbot of Iona, albeit in consultation with his senior monks, exercised
overall control; on the Northumbrian evidence this included nominating bish-
ops and laying down the line on major issues, such as the Easter controversy.
147
This would not necessarily prevent bishops exercising effective day-to-day pas-
toral oversight over their dioceses; but it did place the abbot in a position of
authority, which elsewhere in the church belonged to the bishop. How far this
pattern was normal in the early Irish church, and quite what its implications
were for the relative positions of bishop and abbot, is currently the subject of
scholarly debate.
148
Comment is also needed on the geographical extent of Iona’s rule, which
did not cover all of Scottish D
´
al Riada. Some churches were founded quite
independently of Iona, often by monks connected with the D
´
al nAraide, the
neighbouring – and rival – tribe to the D
´
al Riada in north-east Ireland. The
island of Tiree contained both Columban and non-Columban monasteries.
149
The island of Lismore, strategically sited east of Mull in the mouth of the
sea loch leading up to the Great Glen, had an important church founded by
Mo Luag (or Lugaid: d. 592). On the island of Eigg, a monk named Donn
´
an
was martyred with his companions in 617, while further north still, opposite
Skye,Mael Ruba founded the monastery of Applecross in 673 (Map 5). This
was linked to Bangor on the Irish mainland.
150
These foundations, and others
144
MacDonald (1985); Herbert (1988), pp. 34–5.
145
Herbert (1988), p. 310, and cf. pp. 36–56.
146
Bede, HE iii.4.Onomnis provincia,Wallace-Hadrill (1988), pp. 93–4.
147
Cf. Bede, HE iii.5 and 25; v.15 (at pp. 228, 294, 296, 506); but on v.25 see Picard (1984); Charles-
Edwards (1992), pp. 72–3.
148
Cf.Charles-Edwards’succinct note on Bede, HE iii.4,Wallace-Hadrill (1988), p. 230.Sharpe (1984b)
and (1992a), pp. 97–109, and Etchingham (1994) stress the continuing importance of bishops in Irish
prescriptive texts, but do not adequately discuss the Bedan passage nor Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae
i.36.See further Stancliffe, chapter 15 above.
149
Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae i.36 and iii.8;cf. Sharpe (1995), notes 107, 182,pp.279–80, 303.
150
Annals of Ulster s.a. 592, 617, 673; Anderson (1965), esp. pp. 29–30, 32;MacDonald (1974); Mac
Lean (1997), pp. 173–6.
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Christianity amongst the Britons, Dalriadan Irish and Picts 457
which are not reliably recorded, would have lain outside Iona’s jurisdiction.
151
On the other hand, to the south-east Iona’s jurisdiction expanded dramatically,
though not permanently, in the course of the seventh century.
The decisive step here occurred in 634 when King Oswald of Northumbria
turned to Iona for missionaries to convert his newly won kingdom – Oswald
having previously been baptised on Iona while in exile. From Oswald’s initiative
stemmed the mission of Aidan, a monk from Iona who was consecrated bishop
for the Northumbrians, and established his monastery on Holy Island (Lind-
isfarne). With the active support of King Oswald, Aidan and his companions
were able to establish Christianity in Northumbria, and indeed Ionan monks
were also instrumental in converting Mercia further south. Up to the Synod of
Whitby in 664, this extensive mission-field formed part of the area under the
abbot of Iona.
152
Something similar may also have occurred amongst the Picts;
but here, the picture is more uncertain, and requires separate consideration.
christianity and the picts
Written sources for the Picts are so poor that one scholar, Kathleen Hughes,
concluded that Christianity, with its close association with literacy, can have
made but slow headway there during the seventh century, and did not win
full royal support until the early eighth.
153
Her handling of the evidence has,
however, been criticised.
154
In reaching her conclusions she was influenced by
the fact that seventh-century incised symbol stones from Pictland, depicting
Pictish symbols like the crescent and V rod or the ‘Pictish elephant’, show
no sign of accommodation with Christianity (‘Class i’ stones). In the eighth
century, however, we see finely executed cross-slabs carved on dressed stone;
these have a cross on one side, and on the other secular scenes such as hunts
and battles, together with Pictish symbols (‘Class ii’ stones). Certainly, the
Class ii stones do show an accommodation between Christianity and a warrior
aristocracy. We should, however, be wary of concluding that the absence of the
cross from Class i stones shows these to have been pagan, rather than secular.
Indeed, it has been pointed out that the superb Class ii stones stem from a
deeply Christianised milieu which cannot have sprung up overnight; the impli-
cation is, therefore, that Christianity was already becoming well established in
Pictish society in the seventh century. The upshot of this is that we cannot use
the distribution of Class i and Class ii stones to map Pictish conversion.
Archaeologyis unfortunately of limited value for illuminating the conversion
of the Picts. We cannot use the evidence of burial rites in any but a subordinate
151
Cf. below, p. 459 and note 163.
152
Bede, HE iii; Thacker, chapter 17 below.
153
Hughes (1970).
154
Henderson (1987), esp. p. 48;Forsyth (1998), pp. 39–42.
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458 clare stancliffe
capacity;
155
and although we may hazard the view that both Burghead in
the north-east and Abernethy in the south were pagan sites before becom-
ing Christian ones, we lack any means of dating the changeover (Map 5).
156
We are therefore forced to rely on the distribution of Eccles place-names and
on such literary evidence as we have. We saw above that the southern Pictish
area appears to have derived its Christianity from the Britons to its south,
presumably in the fifth and/or sixth centuries. In addition, we have strictly
contemporary evidence for Columba converting some of ‘the tribes of the Tay’
in the late sixth century.
157
By the early seventh century we have evidence that
Christianity was well established in the upper echelons of Pictish (or at least,
southern Pictish) society, for Bede implies that a Northumbrian prince could
be converted to Christianity in the 620s when staying amongst the Picts as
well as amongst the Dalriadan Irish.
158
Further, Northumbria’s dealings with
southern Pictland later in the seventh century presuppose that it was already
Christian.
159
Northern Pictland, focussed around the Moray Firth, presents a different
picture. Adomn
´
an shows Columba operating in a pagan society in this area.
When he visited the Pictish king Brideiat his fortress in the vicinity of Inverness,
he was opposed by the king’s foster-father, a pagan priest (magus); and although
Columba’s miraculous powers reputedly won him the king’s respect, there is
no reference to Bridei accepting Christianity.
160
We do not know which Pictish
king was the first to be baptised, but Northumbrian sources would probably
have remarked on Pictish paganism if it had still persisted at the highest level
of society in the second half of the seventh century. Columba did convert some
individual Pictish nobles and their households on Skye and around Inverness,
and a monastery may have been founded at Deer (west of Peterhead) by the
early seventh century.
161
It is likely that Columban monks carried on this work
in the course of the seventh century: referring to the plague years in the 660s
and 680s, Adomn
´
an comments that the Irish living in Britain and the Picts
were the only two peoples to be spared – an escape he attributed to St Columba,
whose monasteries, ‘placed within the boundaries of both peoples, are down
to the present time held in great honour by both’.
162
Alongside this passage we
may set Bede’s reference to Iona as ‘for a long time chief amongst almost all the
155
Contra Smith (1996), pp. 27–9;cf. note 133 above.
156
Ritchie (1989), pp. 12–16;Proudfoot (1997), esp. pp. 58, 61.
157
Amra i and viii: Clancy and M
´
arkus (1995), pp. 104–5, 112–13, and cf. 118–19.
158
Bede HE iii.1; and, for Eanfrith’s Pictish links, Kirby (1976), p. 289;Miller (1978), p. 47.
159
Bede HE iii.25; iv.3; Kirby (1973), pp. 10–11.
160
Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae ii.33–5 (and i.37). Cf. Anderson (1973), p. 100 and n. 95, and p. 248;
Bede, HE iii.4;Duncan (1981), pp. 7–10, 27.
161
Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae i.33; ii.32; iii.14. O’Rahilly (1946), p. 373.
162
Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae ii.46.
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Christianity amongst the Britons, Dalriadan Irish and Picts 459
monasteries of the northern Irish and of all the Picts, ruling over both peoples’.
The precision of Bede’s language here implies that, regardless of their seemingly
diverse Christian origins, by c.700 Iona was regarded as the head church for all
the Picts.
163
A major Pictish monastery has recently been identified at Tarbat
(Portmahomack), on the south side of the Dornoch Firth, and is currently
under excavation.
164
In addition to preaching to individual households and engaging with kings,
Irish monks are also likely to have spread Christianity through their custom
of peregrinatio, ascetic exile. Adomn
´
an tells of monks setting out in boats ‘to
seek a desert in the ocean’; and Columba enlisted King Bridei’s influence over
a sub-king of the Orkneys to obtain protection for such ascetics if any should
land on Orkney, which they duly did.
165
Hermitages are found on remote
islands like Rona, 70 kilometres north-east of the Butt of Lewis, or the less
isolated Eileach an Naoimh, south of Mull.
166
Other ascetics voyaged as far
afield as the Faroes and Iceland in the pre-Viking period.
167
The latter were
uninhabited, but Orkney was not, and its inhabitants may well have first
encountered Christianity through such voyagers. It is therefore important for
us to realise that the distinction between a withdrawn monk and a pastor engag-
ing with society was less clear in the early Middle Ages than it seems today:
well-documented Irish peregrini were frequently both,
168
and hermitages could
evolve into major monasteries.
169
In addition to the archaeological evidence of
ruined chapels and early cross-slabs, the distribution of Papar place-names indi-
cates pre-Scandinavian church sites, whether of hermitages (cf. Farne Island)
or of monasteries (cf. Lindisfarne). There are twenty-seven Papar names in
Scotland, predominantly in the Hebrides, Orkneys and Shetlands.
170
northumbria, the picts and iona after the
synod of whitby (664)
At the Synod of Whitby in 664, King Oswiu of Northumbria decided to
adopt the Roman Easter and tonsure in place of those favoured by Iona.
This was a highly political act: he was simultaneously aligning himself with
163
Bede, HE iii.3;Henderson (1967), p. 79.
164
Harden (1995); Carver (1999); cf. Higgitt (1982).
165
Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae ii.42; see also i.6 and 20.
166
Nisbet and Gailey (1960); Argyll v,pp.170–82;cf. also Lamb (1974) and (1975–6).
167
Radford (1983), pp. 14–21.
168
E.g. Columbanus and Fursey: Stancliffe (1989), pp. 39–40;cf. Charles-Edwards (1976), pp. 54–8.
See also Stancliffe, chapter 15 above, pp. 405–7.
169
E.g. Jonas, Vita Columbani i.6 and 10.
170
MacDonald (1977); Crawford (1987), pp. 164–7;Pringle (1994), p. 21.
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460 clare stancliffe
the Christian tradition of southern England which he sought to dominate,
seizing back the initiative from his son, the sub-king of Deira, and declaring
effective independence from the Columban church. Equally important, he
was also embracing a Christian tradition that assigned the ruler an important
place in the church, after the manner of the emperor Constantine. Hitherto,
Northumbria’s bishops had been Irish monks, sent from Iona; now they were
to be Anglo-Saxons, nominated by the king. A remarkable letter from the pope
urged the king to play an active role in dedicating ‘the whole of your island
to Christ’, and Oswiu responded.
171
Northumbrian overlordship was extended
over the Britons, Picts and D
´
al Riada in the north, and this was accompanied
by ecclesiastical overlordship.
172
A short-lived bishopric for the Picts was set
up at Abercorn, on the south side of the Firth of Forth, and Cuthbert visited
the church further north while prior of Melrose.
173
Northumbria’s military superiority in northern Britain was overthrown by
the Picts in 685, and this ended its attempt to dominate the Pictish church;
the bishopric of Abercorn collapsed. Close relationships between the different
peoples continued, however, though now on a more equal footing. The new
Northumbrian king, Aldfrith, was half-Irish, had studied on Iona, and prob-
ably owed his successful bid for the Northumbrian throne to the Pictish/Irish
alliance which had overthrown his predecessor.
174
He was a friend of Adomn
´
an,
abbot of Iona 679–704, and the political stability of his reign enabled contacts
to flow in all directions between the churches of Iona, Pictland and Northum-
bria. Disagreement over the correct system of calculating the date of Easter still
existed, but it ceased to be a matter of national antagonism: Adomn
´
an himself
adopted the Roman system, and persuaded many to do likewise – though not
his own community on Iona.
175
His Life of Columba has been seen amongst
other things as a tribute demonstrating that a pro-Roman position on the
Easter question did not preclude a glowing regard for Columba as a man of
God, comparable to the greatest followers of Christ – not excluding Saints Peter
and Paul – wherever in the church they might be found.
176
Under Adomn
´
an
Iona was at its height, a position symbolised by his success in persuading some
forty churchmen and fifty kings to subscribe to a law exempting churchmen,
women and clerics from the violence of warfare (697). The signatories, headed
171
Bede, HE iii.29 (pp. 320–1).
172
Bede, HE iv.3;Stephanus, Life of Wilfrid, cc.21 and 53; Kirby (1976), pp. 289–91;Moisl (1983),
pp. 117–20; Charles-Edwards (1992), p. 66,n.19.
173
Bede, HE iv.26;Bede, Vita Cuthberti, ch. 11; Kirby (1973), pp. 9–12.
174
Moisl (1983), pp. 120–4.
175
Bede, HE v.15;Picard (1984), pp. 60–70;Herbert (1988), pp. 48–50; Charles-Edwards (1992),
pp. 72–3.
176
Adomn
´
an, Vita Columbae ii.32;Herbert (1988), pp. 142–4.
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Christianity amongst the Britons, Dalriadan Irish and Picts 461
by the bishop of Armagh, were mostly Irish, but also included the king of the
Picts and their bishop, Curet
´
an.
177
The second decade of the eighth century saw significant changes. First,
Bede tells us that Nechtan, king of the Picts, resolved to follow Roman usage
as regards Easter and the tonsure, and applied to Bede’s own abbot at Wear-
mouth/Jarrow for information to confute the traditionalists, as also for archi-
tects to build him a stone church to be dedicated to St Peter.
178
Secondly, the
Irish annals record that in 716 Iona adopted the Roman Easter, that in 717
King Nechtan expelled Columban monks and clerics, and that in 718 Iona
adopted the Roman tonsure. They also reveal some confusion over the suc-
cession of abbots on Iona.
179
The traditional interpretation of this evidence
would see Nechtan between 710 and 715 acting in a way comparable to Oswiu
in 664:hewas in all likelihood won over to Roman customs both by the
teaching of a Northumbrian peregrinus called Ecgberht and also by the oppor-
tunity which this gave him to take control of the Pictish church himself, rather
than remain beholden to the abbot of Iona. Hereafter the king and his nobles
would exercise effective patronage and influence on the Pictish church.
180
This
interpretation has recently been challenged by scholars who emphasise that
Nechtan was probably acting in accordance with the more progressive ele-
ments among the Iona community, who, like Adomn
´
an, favoured the Roman
Easter.On this view,Nechtan’s expulsion of a rump of non-conforming Colum-
ban clerics was a minor, short-lived affair, which did not break the substantial
continuity of Columban influence within Pictland, while the approach to
Jarrow/Wearmouth was made primarily for political reasons: the Picts had
been defeated by the Northumbrians in 711, and so sought allies within the
Northumbrian church.
181
We may adopt the latter view as regards Nechtan’s
need to secure Northumbrian allies and to end those ecclesiastical practices
that might offer a pretext for Northumbrian intervention, and also recognise
that the progressives within the Iona community might well have prepared the
ground. But the reality of a shift from Iona’s control to an independent Pictish
church under the king, in accordance with the traditional interpretation, is
borne out by close examination of another passage of Bede, where he uses the
past tense when describing Iona’s role as head of the Pictish church.
182
This
implies that at the time of writing in 731,Iona no longer held that position.
King Nechtan was thus not the first Pictish king to support the church, but
rather the first to assert royal control over the church.
177
N
´
ıDhonnchadha (1982), esp. pp. 191, 214.
178
Bede, HE v.21.
179
Annals of Ulster, s.a. 716, 717; Annals of Tigernach i,pp.185–6;Herbert (1988), pp. 57–62.
180
Henderson (1967), pp. 82–4; Kirby (1973), pp. 19–20;Foster (1996), p. 90; for Ecgberht’s role,
Duncan (1981), pp. 20–3, 26–7, 34–5.
181
Veitch (1997), pp. 635–42;cf. also Smyth (1984), pp. 137–9.
182
Bede, HE iii.3.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
chapter 17
ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTH
CENTURY
Alan Thacker
introduction: the influence of bede
Our picture of England in the seventh century is inescapably dominated by
a single source: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in
734. That at once lends it vividness and makes it problematic. For Bede was
avery skilful and intelligent writer with his own agendas; we know only what
he chose to tell us and we have few other written records against which to
assess his interpretation of events. Bede’s narrative focusses on what was for
him the only significant issue: the progress of Christianity among the English.
He constructed it from a very distinctive perspective: to show that his peo-
ple, the English, the gens Anglorum, and above all his own particular branch
of that people, the Northumbrians, had been called by God to a special role
in the history of salvation. They were a new Israel, charged with mission –
to spread true faith and observance among their insular and continental neigh-
bours. In Bede’s view, in his own day they had fallen away from that vocation
and had to be recalled to the right path. The Ecclesiastical History was over-
whelmingly coloured by these concerns. It avoided difficult contemporary
events and focussed on the glorious and exemplary recent past – the seventh-
century past – of the English (and especially the Northumbrians), showing
how they received and spread the Christian faith under the leadership of kings
and pastors who lived up to their high calling.
1
Although politically aware, Bede was thus not primarily interested in polit-
ical or material culture. He simply sets his Christian narrative in a political
context as far as is necessary and as far as he could reconstruct it from his
mainly ecclesiastical sources. Inevitably, therefore, he was much better informed
about long-Christian Kent than late-converted Mercia. Bede’s concern with
the church, moreover, gave him a distinctive ethnic perspective. For him, the
1
Thacker (1983); Wormald (1983); Campbell (1986), pp. 1–48.
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