consider “Englishness,” therefore, it is best to understand from what sources it springs.
The traffic was not in one direction only. It has been said that Boniface, a native of Credition in Devon, “had a deeper influence on the history of Europe than any other Englishman who ever lived.” 6 His missionary work in Hesse and Thuringia led to his veneration as the “Apostle of Germany”; his was a cultural as well as a spiritual enterprise, and Anglo-Saxon texts or illuminations were deposited in the cathedrals and monastic foundations that he established in Germany. There was a common culture. When the founder of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, Benedict Biscop, traveled back to Northumbria after a period in Rome he brought with him many rare books as well as silks and panel paintings from Italy; he created a library at Wearmouth which became the most important centre of learning in northern England. Bede could not have undertaken the tasks of his scholarship without the early benefactions of Biscop. Bede himself, in his
Lives of the Abbots
, describes the “great mass of books of every sort” with which Biscop returned, as well as sacred relics, “many holy pictures of the saints” and illustrations from the gospels which were placed around the basilica at Wearmouth. Biscop also brought back glaziers and masons from the continent and a “chief cantor” or singing master who taught the monks of England the rules of Roman plainchant. So at the same time as Bede was composing his ecclesiastical history of England, the joint monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow were being furnished and ornamented in the most modern European style.
At the celebrated Synod of Whitby in 664 when the Celtic and Roman variants of Christianity were engaged in fierce debate, particularly over the dating of Easter and the nature of the “tonsure” or shaved head of the monk, the proponents of the Roman dispensation were successful; among them Wilfrid, a nobleman from Northumbria who had travelled extensively through the regions of the late Roman Empire, delivered the following rebuke to the old Celtic or British cause. “Do you think,” he said, “that a handful of people in one corner of the remotest of islands is to be preferred to the universal Church of Christ which is spread throughout the world?” 7 It was a defining moment and, under the aegis of the Abbess Hilda, the convocation of Whitby turned England firmly in the direction of Rome. Wilfrid’s message was in fact characteristic of English Catholicism, and its sentiments were repeated by Sir Thomas More during his trial for treason in Westminster Hall. “This realme, being but one member and smale parte of the Church, might not make a particuler lawe disagreable with the generall lawe of Christes Universall Catholike Churche.” Wilfrid and More, separated by almost nine hundred years, represent an authentic English sensibility. Both men were identified with a local area—Wilfrid was a native of Northumbria whose ministry was attended by “the goodwill of the whole Northumbrian people, high and low” 8 while More was a quintessential Londoner admired and honoured by his fellow citizens—and yet both men considered their national identity within a larger force. Both men, incidentally, were beatified and canonised.
The
history of cross-fertilisation
is a long one, and further examples may be adduced. In the eighth century “books actually made in the British Isles appear to have been taken to the continent in quite large quantities, and they were copied locally as far afield as Italy and Spain”; 9 the same may be said of Anglo-Saxon sculpture. In Rome there was a special Saxon quarter, known as the
Schola Saxonum
. In the ninth century King Alfred imported both crafts-men and scholars from the continent of Europe, and his successors continued his example. The monastic reforms of the tenth century, springing from the Benedictine foundations of France and enjoining clear
The traffic was not in one direction only. It has been said that Boniface, a native of Credition in Devon, “had a deeper influence on the history of Europe than any other Englishman who ever lived.” 6 His missionary work in Hesse and Thuringia led to his veneration as the “Apostle of Germany”; his was a cultural as well as a spiritual enterprise, and Anglo-Saxon texts or illuminations were deposited in the cathedrals and monastic foundations that he established in Germany. There was a common culture. When the founder of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, Benedict Biscop, traveled back to Northumbria after a period in Rome he brought with him many rare books as well as silks and panel paintings from Italy; he created a library at Wearmouth which became the most important centre of learning in northern England. Bede could not have undertaken the tasks of his scholarship without the early benefactions of Biscop. Bede himself, in his
Lives of the Abbots
, describes the “great mass of books of every sort” with which Biscop returned, as well as sacred relics, “many holy pictures of the saints” and illustrations from the gospels which were placed around the basilica at Wearmouth. Biscop also brought back glaziers and masons from the continent and a “chief cantor” or singing master who taught the monks of England the rules of Roman plainchant. So at the same time as Bede was composing his ecclesiastical history of England, the joint monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow were being furnished and ornamented in the most modern European style.
At the celebrated Synod of Whitby in 664 when the Celtic and Roman variants of Christianity were engaged in fierce debate, particularly over the dating of Easter and the nature of the “tonsure” or shaved head of the monk, the proponents of the Roman dispensation were successful; among them Wilfrid, a nobleman from Northumbria who had travelled extensively through the regions of the late Roman Empire, delivered the following rebuke to the old Celtic or British cause. “Do you think,” he said, “that a handful of people in one corner of the remotest of islands is to be preferred to the universal Church of Christ which is spread throughout the world?” 7 It was a defining moment and, under the aegis of the Abbess Hilda, the convocation of Whitby turned England firmly in the direction of Rome. Wilfrid’s message was in fact characteristic of English Catholicism, and its sentiments were repeated by Sir Thomas More during his trial for treason in Westminster Hall. “This realme, being but one member and smale parte of the Church, might not make a particuler lawe disagreable with the generall lawe of Christes Universall Catholike Churche.” Wilfrid and More, separated by almost nine hundred years, represent an authentic English sensibility. Both men were identified with a local area—Wilfrid was a native of Northumbria whose ministry was attended by “the goodwill of the whole Northumbrian people, high and low” 8 while More was a quintessential Londoner admired and honoured by his fellow citizens—and yet both men considered their national identity within a larger force. Both men, incidentally, were beatified and canonised.
The
history of cross-fertilisation
is a long one, and further examples may be adduced. In the eighth century “books actually made in the British Isles appear to have been taken to the continent in quite large quantities, and they were copied locally as far afield as Italy and Spain”; 9 the same may be said of Anglo-Saxon sculpture. In Rome there was a special Saxon quarter, known as the
Schola Saxonum
. In the ninth century King Alfred imported both crafts-men and scholars from the continent of Europe, and his successors continued his example. The monastic reforms of the tenth century, springing from the Benedictine foundations of France and enjoining clear
Similar Books
