The Conversion of Britain

Religion, Politics and Society in Britain
Series Editor: Keith Robbins

Throughout the history of Britain religion has been a potent and influential force, permeating social and political life at many different levels. Yet it has often been written about in restricted institutional terms without accounting for the ways in which religious belief and practice have been bound up with wider social and political developments. Religion, Politics and Society in Britain shifts the focus on this complex and fluctuating relationship and investigates the changing role of religion in British life from 600 AD to the present.

The Britain of 600-800 AD was populated by four distinct peoples: the British, Picts, Irish and Anglo-Saxons. It was a period of cultural diversity within Britain in which the languages of Gaelic, Britonnic and Latin were spoken. In 600 the British and the Irish were already Christians. In contrast the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and Picts had only just begun, and continued to gather momentum during the 7th century. Religion was one of the ways through which cultural difference was expressed, and in different areas of Britain the nature of the dominant religion might be strongly influenced by the concerns of kings and their entourages.

In the past, the early medieval history of England, Wales and Scotland has been considered separately for each province and the religion of each area has been studied in isolation from its society and politics. By contrast, in this new book. Barbara Yorke uses the Christian conversion of the different peoples of Britain as a framework through which to explore the workings of their political systems and the structures of their social systems. Because Christianity adapted to and affected existing religious beliefs and social norms wherever it was introduced, it proves the ideal medium through which to study these interrelated aspects of human society.

Barbara Yorke is Professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Winchester. She is author of Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses (2003), The Anglo-Saxons (1999), Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (1995) and Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (1990).