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Authors: Geoffrey Hindley
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a king, Oswald wanted results, though systematic missionary campaigning in partnership with the authorities was not the Irish style, in fact was ‘unique as far as the Irish are concerned’. 7 Aidan was followed by Irish monks, some ordained as priests, who could baptize as well as preach. They and their Anglo-Saxon disciples were basically responsible not just for the conversion of Northumbria but also for continuing the work begun by Paulinus south of the Humber.
In general Irish monks undertook pilgrimage for spiritual self-improvement rather than as a missionary vocation. The Latin term peregrinus (pilgrim) is often used in a technical sense for these Irish religious travellers, who combined pilgrimage with missionary activity. One might preach to the locals; he might move on; a group of peregrini might found a monastery, less to work among the surrounding community than as a retreat. Island monasteries like Iona were favoured. When St Wilfrid arrived in pagan Sussex, years later, a small Irish monastery had been established in the woodland wastes by the coast at Bosham for some years, with no discernible effect on the locality. Wilfrid converted the entire kingdom in short order.
Oswald of Northumbria: royal saint or pagan icon
In a reign of eight years Oswald so dominated affairs throughout Britain south of Pictland that, in Bede’s view, he achieved the imperium. He annexed the kingdom of Lindsey, where Mercia also had an interest, and married the daughter of Cynegils of Wessex onthe condition that her father convert to Christianity. Oswald stood godfather and, as we have seen, is named as joint donor when Cynegils confers Dorchester-upon-Thames on Birinus, first bishop of Wessex, as the seat of his diocese: a practical exercise of the kind of authority implicit in the word imperium.
It seems that Oswald’s influence reached even into Kent. Bede tells us that Edwin’s widow sent her children across the Channel to the court of the Merovingian King Dagobert for fear of Oswald. He also claims that the kings of Dál Riata and Pictland recognized Oswald’s supremacy, while another contemporary flatteringly refers to him as ‘ordained by god, imperator of the whole of Britain’ [ totius Britanniae imperator a deo ordinatus]. 8 But, despite Oswald’s victory at Heavenfield, Penda was still a threat and on 5 August 642 the pagan king of Mercia defeated and killed his Christian Northumbrian rival at the battle of Maserfelth. The location of Maserfelth is still disputed, favoured candidates being Oswestry (i.e. ‘Oswald’s tree’) in Shropshire and a site in Lindsey.
Writing a century after the king-saint’s death, Bede retails many miracles attributed to Oswald, both to his relics and even to the blood-soaked ground where he fell. Behind all these anecdotes seems to loom the backdrop of a pagan king cult. After the battle, his dead body was taken up and ritually dismembered under the gaze of the pagan King Penda. The head and the four limbs were then hung from the branches of a tree: ‘In this hanging of parts of the king’s body we can almost detect a ritual offering to Woden the god of war and himself known as the Hanging God.’ 9 For two centuries the head was venerated at Lindisfarne; later, Willibrord’s foundation at Utrecht claimed to hold it in a reliquary and there are numerous other marvels as the cult spread in Europe.
Besides the dismemberment of the body, some of the Oswald stories display other pagan elements. A horse fell into convulsions and was cured after rolling on the very patch of ground where the king fell. That a horse should benefit from the saint’s miraculouspowers seems odd, until we remember the important role of horses in Anglo-Saxon pagan beliefs. Horses were believed to conduct the souls of their masters to paradise after death. 10 A burial excavation at Lakenheath, Suffolk, in 1998 revealed the skeleton of a warrior of the early Anglo-Saxon period, sword in hand, with
In general Irish monks undertook pilgrimage for spiritual self-improvement rather than as a missionary vocation. The Latin term peregrinus (pilgrim) is often used in a technical sense for these Irish religious travellers, who combined pilgrimage with missionary activity. One might preach to the locals; he might move on; a group of peregrini might found a monastery, less to work among the surrounding community than as a retreat. Island monasteries like Iona were favoured. When St Wilfrid arrived in pagan Sussex, years later, a small Irish monastery had been established in the woodland wastes by the coast at Bosham for some years, with no discernible effect on the locality. Wilfrid converted the entire kingdom in short order.
Oswald of Northumbria: royal saint or pagan icon
In a reign of eight years Oswald so dominated affairs throughout Britain south of Pictland that, in Bede’s view, he achieved the imperium. He annexed the kingdom of Lindsey, where Mercia also had an interest, and married the daughter of Cynegils of Wessex onthe condition that her father convert to Christianity. Oswald stood godfather and, as we have seen, is named as joint donor when Cynegils confers Dorchester-upon-Thames on Birinus, first bishop of Wessex, as the seat of his diocese: a practical exercise of the kind of authority implicit in the word imperium.
It seems that Oswald’s influence reached even into Kent. Bede tells us that Edwin’s widow sent her children across the Channel to the court of the Merovingian King Dagobert for fear of Oswald. He also claims that the kings of Dál Riata and Pictland recognized Oswald’s supremacy, while another contemporary flatteringly refers to him as ‘ordained by god, imperator of the whole of Britain’ [ totius Britanniae imperator a deo ordinatus]. 8 But, despite Oswald’s victory at Heavenfield, Penda was still a threat and on 5 August 642 the pagan king of Mercia defeated and killed his Christian Northumbrian rival at the battle of Maserfelth. The location of Maserfelth is still disputed, favoured candidates being Oswestry (i.e. ‘Oswald’s tree’) in Shropshire and a site in Lindsey.
Writing a century after the king-saint’s death, Bede retails many miracles attributed to Oswald, both to his relics and even to the blood-soaked ground where he fell. Behind all these anecdotes seems to loom the backdrop of a pagan king cult. After the battle, his dead body was taken up and ritually dismembered under the gaze of the pagan King Penda. The head and the four limbs were then hung from the branches of a tree: ‘In this hanging of parts of the king’s body we can almost detect a ritual offering to Woden the god of war and himself known as the Hanging God.’ 9 For two centuries the head was venerated at Lindisfarne; later, Willibrord’s foundation at Utrecht claimed to hold it in a reliquary and there are numerous other marvels as the cult spread in Europe.
Besides the dismemberment of the body, some of the Oswald stories display other pagan elements. A horse fell into convulsions and was cured after rolling on the very patch of ground where the king fell. That a horse should benefit from the saint’s miraculouspowers seems odd, until we remember the important role of horses in Anglo-Saxon pagan beliefs. Horses were believed to conduct the souls of their masters to paradise after death. 10 A burial excavation at Lakenheath, Suffolk, in 1998 revealed the skeleton of a warrior of the early Anglo-Saxon period, sword in hand, with
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