Back to the Anglo-Saxons calendar
With the sudden and pretty quick rise in Christianity, monasteries were springing up all over England. A monastery is a place
where monks live and monks are people who devote their lives to God. They all live together and spend hours in prayer each day. They were also practical and
would have cattle and sheep and grow food, some of which they would sell in order to have funds to keep the monastery going.
Parents wanted their sons to become monks because there were no schools and in a monastery these young men could be educated as well as learning
to write as the monks had brought writing back to the land, or to be more precise back to sheets of parchment, which is what they wrote on. The monks would
religiously write out stories from the bible, spending all their time on this when they weren't sleeping, eating or praying. Some girls would also follow
this lifestyle by becoming nuns and living in a nunnery.
Edwin, King of Northumbria, became the first Christian king in
the north of England when he was baptised by a man called Paulinus who was actually the last missionary sent by Pope Gregory. A missionary is a person sent
out to promote a particular religion, at this time Christianity.
After the death of Edwin (oops nearly a normal name) of
Northumbria, his successor, Oswald, the new king, asked for a new missionary as Paulinus was no longer around. The abbot of a small Scottish island called
Iona sent a man called Aidan who arrived at Oswald’s castle at Bamburgh, which still exists today and I have visited a couple of times. Aidan then founded a
monastery on the island of Lindisfarne (been there too). It was at this monastery that many missionaries who went off to convert the rest of the country were
trained. It is really amazing to me how with no real transport, they walked a lot, messages and requests could get around the country. Get your atlas out and
see how close to Bamburgh the isle of Iona is.
Later Aidan was made a saint and this monastery would appear, in sadder circumstances, at the end of this section. Sadly, in 642AD, Oswald was
killed in a battle with Penda, the King of Mercia. Penda was a pagan and had not been converted to Christianity. Oswald then became known as a Christian martyr.
A martyr is someone who is killed or dies for their religious or other beliefs. His relics were said to work miracles if you worshipped or touched them. Another
two quick explanations here. A miracle, as you may know, is an amazing or wonderful happening that is difficult to believe. In the Christian world, people would
say it had happened through God. A relic is an object from an earlier time, especially one of historical interest. It can also be a part of a dead person's
body or possession. Just found another definition which says it is a person or thing that has survived from an earlier time but is now out-of-date. No, I am not a
relic.
Forward to 650AD
