Certainly there were enough Christians to inspire Germanus to travel from
Gaul in the mid-fifth century to combat heresy among them. And he was able
to organize a local Christian army to win the "Alleluia" victory.
I don't know what the situation was later but I think Bede should be
seriously questioned about the extent to which he ignores (hides?) the
native church in favor or an "English" church under Roman sponsorship.
Jo Ann
-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Nugent <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: request for research ideas
>Thanks to Karen Jolly for in interesting and helpful reply to FAbrizio's
>question. Along those lines, I'd wonder whether Robert Markus's model in
>"The End of Ancient Christianity" might provide some help in the
>Anglo-Saxon context. Markus argues that Christians drew the boundaries of
>the sacred much more widely, and construed a great number of practices as
>religious when their forebears simply saw them as the way things had always
>been done, with no particular religious commitment involved. By swallowing
>the sacred into the secular, Christians were able to identify a broad
>range of practices as "pagan", because they were not explicitly Christian,
>and then regulate and suppress them.
>
>I'd love to know whether this model works in the Anglo-Saxon context.
>
>
>Jo Ann McNamara wrote, "Britain was a Christian country under the
>Romans." I wonder if that's putting the matter a little to baldly?
>Certainly there were Roman Christians in Britain, but how many of the
>Romans were Christians (and at what point in time), and to what extent did
>they gain converts among the native population? How much Christianity
>survived in Britain as Roman power waned, and in what parts? And what does
>one mean by "Britain" in this context? How many Christians did Augustine
>and his companions find in Britain? Did much of an ecclesiastical
>structure survive? I agree that one cannot assume that there were no
>Christians left at all. These would be important questions to approach as
>one considered the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons.
>
>
>__________________________________
>Patrick J. Nugent
>Earlham College
>Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA
>
>(765) 983-1413
>[log in to unmask]
>__________________________________
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