‘Why so pale, Humpty? Thinking of your bucket list?’
‘Thank you. No. That’s done and dusted,’
‘But does it include metal-detecting – and Anglo-Saxon treasures?’
I ruminated. Not only did the Anglo-Saxons bequeath to us the English language. They also left more than traces of the Christian civilisation that existed before William the Conqueror began his vandalistic campaign. St Laurence’s chapel, Bradford-on-Avon is one such building. St Mary’s, Stow, Lincolnshire is another. All Saints’ church, Brixworth is a seventh-century building. Earls Barton is a church with an imposing Anglo-Saxon tower.
Hexham Abbey and Ripon Cathedral must be on the bucket list for their crypts. In both churches there is a crypt constructed at the order of Bishop Wilfrid in the seventh century. Hexham also has an Anglo-Saxon bishop’s frith-stool or chair (made from a sandstone block) and a copper-gilt chalice from the same era. Roman stonework with inscriptions can also be seen in the crypt, the stones having been carried off from the nearby Roman fort.
Both churches came under the supervision of Wilfrid (c633-710). As Abbot of Ripon he attended the Synod of Whitby (which concerned itself, as you will remember, about the date of Easter) and became Bishop of Northumbria. His life had its ups and downs. He fell out with the King of Northumbria and appealed to Rome about the dispute. Bede tells us that during his expulsion ‘nothing could deter him from preaching the Gospel.’ In the south of England, a different country from Northumbria. ‘Wilfrid preached the Christian faith there, and administered the baptism of salvation.’
It was during the Anglo-Saxon period that the parochial system began to feature as the basic unit of the English Church. Theodore and Dunstan influenced its development and it came to exist alongside the monastic system.
A surprising entry in the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ tells us that in 883 ‘Sighelm and Athelstan carried to Rome the alms which the king [Alfred] had vowed to send thither, and also to India, to St Thomas and St Bartholomew …’ There is some doubt about the reference to India; it may have been Judaea. But a possible contact with the Mar Thoma Church, said to have been founded by Doubting Thomas, is something to savour.
‘Humpty, you don’t believe the English Church began with Henry the Eighth, do you?’
He looked hard at me. There was something like pity in his eyes. I was forgetting that he knew a thing or two about church history. ‘No,’ came the reply. ‘Any more than I think Irish history began with a pale.’
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