940-1035: The Church and Kingship from Edgar to Cnut

The last time we gave detailed consideration to the Church was back in the middle of the Eighth Century. Since Theodore's determination to ensure that the British Church was orthodox and operated well within the Catholic sphere of influence, its position as provider of administrative skills to a succession of warlords and petty kings vying for supremacy over England had borne fruit during the era of the Heathen Danish threat in a close identification between Catholicism and the fate of the English Kings. The identification of the Church, the Kingship and the Nation to this day provides the basis for classical British Country Toryism. The seeds of the modern Conservative Party were sown in the bloody battles of the Ninth Century.

As in the period of Theodore, the age is defined by a man, Dunstan (909-988), successively Abbot of Glastonbury, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London (957) and Archbishop of Canterbury (960). He refounded Glastonbury as a monastic house in 940 in his early thirties but his importance lies in the theatre of Edgar of Wessex's coronation as 'Emperor of Britain' in Bath on May 11th, 973. Zadok the Priest was sung for the first time (an institution that lasts to this day in Royal Coronation ceremonies). The coronation was followed by a second act in which eight sub-kings of Britain and Wales pledged fealty to Edgar at Chester and then symbolically rowed him on the River Dee while Edgar held the rudder.

Edgar, in fact, died the next year but the point was made - English overlordship is pre-sanctified by the Church in a complex set of ceremonies in which religious and political power are merged along Roman lines. The problem for the English Kings is that the Kingship that the Church sanctified need not necessarily be English if an alien King guaranteed Catholic cultural hegemony. The exploitation of this self interest or cynicism or realism (depending on your point of view) by Danes and Normans is part of the story of the next century.

This is also an era of foundations and so of royal patronage (the Church really does not seem to care who the patron is so long as the patronage follows through) - not only Glastonbury but Westminster Abbey (965), Crowland Abbey (c. 966), Oxford Cathedral (begun 1004) under English Kings and Gloucester Abbey (1017), Buckfast Abbey (1020), and Bury St. Edmund's (1032) under Cnut, the Dane. The original binding of Christianity and Kingship was closely linked to the external threat to the English presented by the invading Heathen Danes but the English Kings, in creating a Kingship detached from the people, also created a transferrable property.

In the first half of this period this would not have been an obvious problem. As far as English Kings, People and Church were concerned, there was one common enemy, the Heathen Dane, and the next round of raids played very much to type. From 980 the Danes return to Britain in force. They repeat the savage attacks on Northern Christianity that they perpetrated in the 790s: Iona is raided in 986, with the murder of the Abbot and six monks on the White Sands and, in 993, the Lindisfarne community is forced south to settle in 'a little church of wands and branches' in Durham.

The Danish wars of this period are for a later posting but Canterbury Cathedral was one casualty in 1012 with the then-Archbishop, Alphege captured and held at Greenwich where he was to be murdered by Danes at a drunken feast, apparently because he refused to sanction an attempt to redeem him with gold because (it is said) he did not want the English people burdened with the cost. To be charitable to the Church in its flip-flopping between ethnic Kings, there might have been merit in its intercessionary and protective role although this would have little effect on the Norman pogroms of the English North in the 1060s.

By the end of the Tenth Century, the Danes had become a complex melange of Heathens and Christians. The Danish Kings accepted Christianity, albeit at first superficially, even if their warlords were just as likely to be Pagan as not - at least until they had all smelt the way the wind was blowing. Harald Bluetooth was the first Danish King to be baptised some time in the 960s but it is clear that the raiders of the 980s had not followed his example. Naturally any Catholic acceptance of a Danish King in England would be contingent on the proven acceptance of Catholicism and the Church. By the 1010s the Church is perfectly happy to switch allegiance and give support to a Danish kingship on that basis.

Catholic approval of Cnut's overlordship of England, a valued province, is important enough that, by 1027, Cnut is making a pilgrimage to Rome to demonstrate his allegiance to the Pope in preference to his Heathen roots and those of his homeland. It is interesting in this context that not only are the later monastic foundations under Danish Kings (see above) but the new stone Bury St. Edmund's sponsored by Cnut exists to honour an East Anglian King murdered by the Great Heathen Army. Cnut also arranged in 1033 the transfer of the bones of Alphege (now a Saint) from St. Paul's Cathedral to Canterbury.

This succession of acts of homage to Catholicism must be seen in the context of the legitimacy that Cnut wished to have conferred on him by the Church in order to help rule a Kingdom that extended across a huge area of Scandinavian Europe and in which his homeland Heathens were now outnumbered by Christians. The Empire's pacification (and it is interesting to see how quickly it all fell apart after his death) required considerations not unlike those of Constantine so many centuries before. A lesson for all Early Medieval Kings has to be that the Church is only a very contingent ally: it will go where the power lies so long as power endorses the catholic vision, a strategy that would be followed with more conscious deliberation six centuries later by the Society of Jesus and may be being followed today by Pope Francis in his shift to populism. For Catholicism, the survival of the institution, the Church, is everything because it means the survival of the 'faith'.

Canterbury Cathedral in the Late Saxon Period (c. 1025) - Reconstruction by Canterbury Archaeological Trust [1]

 [1] Imaginative reconstruction of Canterbury Cathedral in the late Anglo-Saxon period (c.1025), based on archaeological and documentary evidence. Drawn by Ivan Lapper. © Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd.

924-955: Athelstan, Edmund I and Edred

The next quarter century sees three Kings of Wessex - Athelstan (924-939), son of Edward the Elder, Edmund I (939-946), half-brother to Athelstan and Edred (946-955), his brother. The Welsh, Scottish and Danish sub-kings' oaths of allegiance to Edward the Elder were renewed in 926, indicating that England was now well established as the overlord of Great Britain. It is already getting close to the imperial multicultural model that is central to the later United Kingdom.

In the following year, England's northern frontier is established at the River Tees with direct rule by the English King over the Danes of York. Clearly the sub-kings are not entirely happy with the overlordship arrangements. Two subordinated kingdoms (the Scots and Strathclyde), directly invaded by the English, combined with the Danes who had founded Dublin to challenge Athelstan only to be defeated at the important battle of Brunanburh in 937.

Overlordship is converting steadily into effective control of the island by the English. There is a Danish rebellion in Mercia and Northumbria in 945 when Edmund works with rather than against the Scots. Edmund, however, is murdered by an outlaw, Leofa, in own hall (Pucklechurch, Gloucerstershire) indicating that this remains a rough and ready and, in some respects, barely civilised society.

Edred continues to be troubled by the Danes. York fell to Eric Bloodaxe in 947. Bloodaxe makes himself King of York before being driven out in 848. Bloodaxe's successor, Anlaf Sihtricson, is then ousted by Bloodaxe in 952. Edred's response is to invade York and Northumbria, driving Bloodaxe out in 954 towards the Solway Forth. Bloodaxe is ambushed and killed in the Stainmore Pass in the Pennines. It is probably from this date that we can start to say that England is unified within the frontiers that we broadly know today.

900-924: Edward the Elder & the Creation of England

Alfred the Great is succeeded by Edward (only called the Elder to distinguish him from a later King Edward) in 900, reigning until 924.  The first quarter of the tenth century is defined by the roll back of the Danes, the creation of a viable idea of England as island-wide and by what amounts to the progressive sanctification and 'orientalisation' by the Church of the Monarchy, seated in a national capital at Winchester.

The first test of the treaties made under Alfred was an attempt by the men of Kent in 902 to oust the Danes from East Anglia which failed, although the Danish ruler of the East Anglians, Eric, was killed at the Battle of the Holme. However, the Anglo-Saxons are now stronger and better organised than the Danes. The reconquest of the Danelaw starts in earnest from 910. The warrior princess Aethelflaed, Edward's sister and wife of the Ealdorman of Mercia, Aethelred, was no shrinking violet but took on the role of 'Lady of the Mercians' when her husband was killed in 911. She not only ruled her husband's domains but expanded them, seizing Derby in 917 and ruling until 920. Thanks to her and the Mercians' efforts, the Northern frontier of England was extended to the Dee-Wash line.

Meanwhile, Edward reconquered East Anglia and the rest of Southen England under Danish independent control in 918 and accepted the submission of the Welsh Kings of Dyfed and Gwynedd. By 919 the Viking Kingdom of Jorvik (York) under its new ruler Ragnald had also acknowledged the overlordship of Edward. By 920 Edward ruled as overlord all Southern Britain as far as the Forth-Clyde line, uniting the area (at least notionally) for the first time since the Romans. In 923 Edward even received the submission of the King of the Scots.  Alfred the Great is rightly regarded as 'Great' for having saved England existentially but the making of England as a sovereign entity that was more than just a large Wessex may be put down to his now less well known successor.

As for the sanctification process which helped to link the fortunes of the Anglo-Saxons as a people to their Kings as divinely sanctioned, this is exemplified  by the transfer of the claimed body of King Edmund of East Anglia (murdered in 870 by the Danes) to be buried with full rites at Beodricsworth (later Bury St. Edmunds).

871-899: Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great, already a highly experienced warrior, comes to the throne with the Danes on a roll as they push their advantage. The year after his accession in 871, they occupy London. In response to their puppet, Ecgberht I, being expelled in Northumbria and replaced by Ricsige in 873, they occupied the bulk of North East England. This left Ricsige and the Anglo-Saxons only with Bernicia - the northern portion between the Tees and the Forth. The Danes now held Deira between the Humber and the Tees. Ricsige was said to have died in 876 of a broken heart as a result, to be replaced by Ecgbehrt II, last recorded King of Northumbria dead only two years later.

The onslaught continued - Burgred of Mercia was driven out (he died in exile in Rome to be succeeded by Ceolwulf II) and Mercia taken by the Danes in 874. From there, in 874, they renewed their attacks on the East of England. The Danes (led now by Guthrum, Oscytel and Anund) moved south to attack Wessex in 875, leaving behind a Kingdom in York (Jorvik) founded by Haldan Ragnarsson. The aim is obvious - to bring all of England under a network of Viking Kingdoms and displace the Anglo-Saxon monarchies as once the Anglo-Saxons displaced the post-Roman Cymri.

The momentum for the Danes, however, is beginning to be lost. A Danish fleet of 120 ships was wrecked off Peveril Point (Swanage, Dorset) in 877. In 878, the Danes appeared to agree to quit Exeter and Wareham (Dorset). This latter, however, was a ruse. Guthram made a surprise attack on Alfred at Chippenham (Wiltshire) and the King was forced to hide out at Athelney Abbey (Somerset). He recovered to lead an Anglo-Saxon army drawn from all over Southern England which defeated Guthrum at the Battle of Edington. The Treaty of Wedmore (879) resulted in the baptism of Guthrum - an important symbolic act. In return, Alfred ceded all England north of Watling Street to the invader. In essence, he had saved (in theory) Southern England at the expense of Northern England and East Anglia.

Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Danes was seen in Christian terms. It is not accidental that the peace treaty that recognised the Danish 'right to remain' required the symbolic baptism of Guthrum the invader and his adoption of an English name, Athelstan, in order to rule East Anglia as a Danish Kingdom. The implication is that Wessex was too tough a nut to crack for the Vikings but that Wessex in itself was not strong enough to expel the Danes as settlers from England as a whole. The Danish Army settled in East Anglia in 880, creating what would become the Danelaw under ultimate English suzerainty.

By this 'deal', Mercia south of Watling Street returned to Anglo-Saxon rule but under changed conditions - it is now ruled by an Ealdorman (Ethelred) who acknowledges the overlordship of Wessex. Alfred re-takes and occupies London in 886. A second treaty with Guthrum (who dies in 890 without an effect on the settlement) formally recognised the Danelaw between Thames and Tees, with Watling Street between Chester and London as the frontier. Sacrificing the North seems to have strengthened Wessex to the point that, with all rival Kingdoms now destroyed by the invaders, what is left can be called England for the first time with some credibility.

We have scarcely mentioned the Church for some time for the very simple reason that its alliance with the Anglo-Saxon monarchies was firm by necessity. The Danish invasion was a Heathen invasion, perfectly willing to extirpate Roman ways. Northumbrian Christianity is effectively exiled. The Lindisfarne monks took their sacred relics (the bones of St. Aidan and the head of St. Oswald), place them in St. Cuthbert's Coffin and, with the Lindisfarne Gospels, went on walkabout in Northumbria and Galloway, seeking to evade the Viking horde from 875. Only in 883 do they find a more permanent home at Chester-le-Street in County Durham.

In the south, of course, the Church is not merely preserved but prospers. Shaftesbury Abbey was founded in 880, for example. The King himself started to learn Latin after the second treaty with Guthrum. The identification of Church and English State was complete. Interestingly, Rome seemed around this time to have been concerned about a revival of paganism in Britain and that this was not simply a matter of Heathen invasion. The history is obscure but Pope Formosus was threatening to excommunicate England in the 890s if it did not deal with the problem. The Papacy was in some disarray at the time so this may have had more to do with the stance of the English Church in relation to Papal ambitions than any serious surge in pagan belief but it is possible that tensions over monarchical rule and the successes of the Heathens might have drawn many back towards ancient traditions. Conversely, Alfred's determined allegiance to the Church may equally have been a weapon in ensuring cohesion for an English people under siege from without.

The two treaties with Guthrum were, however, only treaties with Guthrum and not with all possible Danish invaders. Another large Viking force (under Haesten) attempted an invasion of England by way of the Thames Estuary but it does not get very far. The momentum had been lost. Alfred has unified the resources of the relatively wealthy Southern English in a way that was not possible only half a century before. Haesten's force arrived in 892 but had dispersed by 896. Alfred died in 899 to be succeeeded by his son, Edward the Elder.