Christianity As a Means of Identification: the Formation of Ethnic and Cultural Identities in the British Isles During the Early Medieval Period, 400-800

Home , Bannaventa, Gildas, Saint Patrick, Theodore of Tarsus, Walter Pohl, Wighard

CHRISTIANITY AS A MEANS OF IDENTIFICATION: THE FORMATION OF ETHNIC AND CULTURAL IDENTITIES IN THE BRITISH ISLES DURING THE EARLY MEDIEVAL PERIOD, 400-800.

A Thesis Presented To The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Masters of Arts

Caitlyn Augusta Brianna Conley December, 2018

CHRISTIANITY AS A MEANS OF IDENTIFICATION: THE FORMATION OF ETHNIC AND CULTURAL IDENTITIES IN THE BRITISH ISLES DURING THE EARLY MEDIEVAL PERIOD, 400-800.

Caitlyn Augusta Brianna Conley

Thesis

Approved: Accepted:

______Advisor Dean of College of Arts and Sciences Dr. Michael Graham Dr. John Green

______Faculty Reader Dean of Graduate School Dr. Constance B. Bouchard Dr. Chand Midha

______Department Chair Date Dr. Martin Wainwright

DEDICATION

To Scott, “Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.” -J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan Words will never express how grateful I am to you for helping to make my dreams come true. Thank you! I love you!

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Constance Bouchard of the Department of History at The University of Akron. Dr. Bouchard never gave up on me. She has believed in this paper since its initial conception when I was an undergraduate and has always encouraged my unique historical perspective. Through her encouragement and dedication not only as my professor, but as my advisor, this paper became my own. She helped to steer me in the right direction when I seemed to get wrapped up in thoughts of perfection, reminding me that history itself is not perfect.

I would also like to thank Dr. Michael Graham of the Department of History at The University of Akron as my reader for this thesis. I am very grateful for his thoughts and insights regarding my paper.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Gary and Laura Conley, and my sister Bridget. Mom and dad, I could not have done this without your unbelievable support. You always told me to follow my dreams and do what I love. It was not always easy to follow your advice, but I found my way with your help. I may have taken a few detours to get to this point, but I could not have done it without you. Thank you and I love you!

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………..1

Sources…………………………………………………………………………...6

What Do I Mean By Ethnic Identity and Ethnicity? ……………………………10

What Do I Mean By Cultural Identity and Culture? ……………………………13

II. HISTORIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………...16

Primary Sources…………………………………………………………………16

Patrick…………………………………………………………………...17

Gildas……………………………………………………………………22

Bede……………………………………………………………………..26

Secondary Sources………………………………………………………………33

Identity…………………………………………………………………..34

'gens Anglorum'? ……………………………………………………….40

III. THE CONSTRUCT OF ETHNICITY IN THE CULTURAL CONTEXT OF CHRISTIANITY: PATRICK AND GILDAS………………………………………….46

Saint Patrick and Identity……...…………………………………………………50

Gildas and Identity……………………………………………………………….61

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….72

IV. THE CONSTRUCT OF ETHNICITY IN THE CULTURAL CONTEXT OF CHRISTIANITY: BEDE……………………………………………………………….75

Bede and Identity………………………………………………………………...76

Bede’s 'gens Anglorum'………………………………………………………….99

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...109

V. CONCLUSION: THE CONTEXT OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE BIRTH OF THE 'GENS ANGLORUM'………………………………………………………………....112

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………118

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Men say that on a certain day, when many merchants newly arriving in Rome had brought into the marketplace divers wares to be sold, and many had flocked hither to buy, amongst others Gregory too came thither, and amongst other things he saw boys set out to be sold, of white skin and comely countenance and hair also of excellent beauty. And beholding them a while he demanded, as they say, out of what region or land they had been brought. And it was answered that they came from the isle of Britain, where such was the appearance of the inhabitants. Again he asked whether the people of that same island were Christian men or were yet intangled in the [pagans’] errors. And the answer was made that they were [pagans]. Then this good man, heavily sighing from the bottom of his heart: ‘Alas!’ quoth he, ‘it is a piteous case, that the author of darkness possesseth such bright beautied people and that men of such gracious outward shew do bear a mind void of inward grace.’ Again therefore he enquired what was the name of that people. Answer was given that they were called Angles. Whereupon he said: ‘well are they so called, for they have too an angel’s face, and it is meet such men were inheritors with the angels in heaven. What is the name of the particular province from which those boys of yours were brought?’ The merchants answered that the people of that same province were called Deirans. ‘Marry!’ quoth he, ‘well are they called Deirans, being plucked from the ire of God and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king of that province called?’ It was answered that his name was Aella, whereupon Gregory playing upon the name saith: ‘Alleluia! the praise of God the Creator must be sounded in those parts.’ And coming to the bishop of the Roman and apostolic see (for himself was not yet chosen bishop thereof), he besought him that he would send to the English people in Britain some ministers of the word, by whom they might be converted unto Christ; saying that he himself was ready to carry out this work with the help of the Lord, yet only if it should please the pope apostolic to permit the same. And while he was not able to accomplish this (for though the bishop would have granted him that he had asked, yet the burghers of Rome could not have suffered him to depart so far from the city), afterward, as soon as himself entered upon the office of bishop, he brought to pass the work he

had before so long desired: sending indeed other preachers, but himself helping to make their preaching fruitful by his exhortations and prayers. This much according to the report which we have heard from the days of old we have thought fitting to put in the History of our Church.1

This quote from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum was a representation of the relationship that existed between identity and religion within the

British Isles from the fifth to the end of the eighth century. It was reflective of how those living within the isles identified themselves, or were identified by others, regionally

1 Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, trans. by J.E. King (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930), 2.1.1:201,203 [Throughout this paper Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum will be cited as follows within the footnotes: Bede, HE, Book Number.Chapter Number.Volume Number:Page Number. All numerical divisions are separated by a period without spaces, except for volume and page number which are separated by a colon and no intervening spaces]; “Dicunt, quia die quadam cum advenientibus nuper mercatoribus multa venalia in forum fuissent conlata, multique ad emendum confluxissent, et ipsum Gregorium inter alois advenisse ac vidisse inter alia pueros venales positos, candidi corporis, ac venusti vultus, capillorum quoque forma egregia. Quos cum aspiceret, interrogavit, ut aiunt, de qua regione vel terra essent adlati. Dictumque est quod de Brittania insula, cuius incolae talis essent aspectus. Rursus interrogavit, utrum iidem insulani Christiani, an paganis adhuc erroribus essent implicati. Dictumque est quod essent pagani. At ille intimo ex corde longa trahens suspiria: ‘Heu, proh dolor’ inquit, ‘quod tam lucidi vultus homines tenebrarum auctor possidet, tantaque gratia frontispicii mentem ab interna gratia vacuam gestat!’ Rursus ergo interrogavit, quod Angli vocarentur. At ille, ‘Bene,’ inquit; ‘nam et angelicam habent faciem, et tales angelorum in caelis decet esse coheredes. Quod habet nomen ipsa provincial de qua isti sunt adlati?’ Responsum est, quod ‘Deiri’ vocarentur iidem provincials. At ille: ‘Bene,’ inquit, ‘Deiri, de ira eruti, et ad misericordiam Christi vocati. Rex provinciae illius quomodo appellatur’ Responsum est, quod ‘Aelli’ diceretur. At ille adludens ad nomen ait: ‘Alleluia! Laudem Dei Creatoris illis in partibus oportet cantari.’ Accedenaque ad pontificem Romanae et apostolicae sedis, nondum enim erat ipse pontifex factus, rogavit ut genti Anglorum in Brittaniam aliquos verbi ministros, per quos ad Christum converteretur, mitteret; seipsum paratum esse in hoc opus Domino cooperante perficiendum, sit amen apostolico papae, hoc ut fieret, placeret. Quod dum perficere non posset; quia, etsi pontifex concedere illi quod petierat voluit, non tamen cives Romani, ut tam longe ab urbe secederet, potuere permittere; mox ut ipse pontificates officio functus est, perfecit opus diu desideratum: alios quidem praedicatores mittens, sed ipse praedicationem ut fructificaret, suis exhortationibus ac precibus adiuvans. Haec iuxta opinionem quam ab antiqus accepimus, Historiae nostrae ecclesiasticae inserere opportunum duximus (Bede, HE, 2.1.1:200,202).

through their loyalties to their kings or universally/collectively via their relationship to the papacy in Rome. During this period of time religion, especially Christianity, was responsible for the creation of sharp cultural boundaries. These sharp cultural boundaries were then reflected in the creation of the ethnic identities of those who lived within the

British Isles. The ethnic and cultural identities created were the result of how the memory of Christianity had been preserved, transmitted, and reconstructed by contemporary authors. The memories used in the creation of these ethnic and cultural identities were chosen for the specific purpose of re-enforcing those same ethnic and cultural identities. The conceptions these memories possessed caused conflict.

This conflict occurred on two levels, the ethnic level and the cultural level. Both existed in tandem, unable to be completely separated from the other, each influenced by the actions of the other and its participants. Through the analysis of contemporary sources, I will show how the preservation, transmission, and reconstruction of memory allowed the authors of these sources to utilize Christianity as the context in which they identified culturally providing them with the foundations of the constructs in which they identified ethnically. By examining ethnic and cultural identity in this way I am showing that identity had to be made into a reality. Christianity was the most significant element in the formation of this identity and its realization for these contemporary authors.

Sources such as Saint Patrick’s Confessio and Epistola and Gildas’ De Excidio

Britonum provide contextual examples of this ethnic and cultural conflict. This conflict arose when the remaining populations struggled to identify themselves and understand their position in the new socio-cultural order within the British Isles after Roman military forces had evacuated. However, it was Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

that solidified the identities of the 'gens Anglorum', the Scots (Irish), the Picts, and the

Britons and made them a reality by the eighth century. Bede accomplished this by defining the relationships of these populations to the 'gens Anglorum', to God, and to

Rome through the narration of a myth of ethnic election; a new history of the 'gens

Anglorum' as remembered and told by Bede. The unity and diversity that these identities created within the populations discussed in this paper co-existed and were dependent on certain levels of social consciousness and political loyalties.2 For example, whereas the differentiation between the 'gens Anglorum' and the Britons was symbolized by ethnic characteristics such as language and religion, the disunity seen between the kingdoms of the 'gens Anglorum' was the result of political loyalties and the hostilities in which those loyalties induced.3 By the end of the eighth century a cultural consensus had been more or less reached between the populations of the British Isles through the acceptance of the

Roman tradition of Christianity that allowed a level of unity between these communities to be reached and certain ethnic conflicts to be regulated.

The culture of Christianity that existed in the British Isles during late antiquity was essential in the understanding of how one formed ethnic identity. It provided a means in which the indigenous and invasive populations tied themselves to the land and its past. This was accomplished by declaring their historic and/or supernatural rights to said land; in this case the isles. This was most evident in the cultural conflict between the populations that occupied the isles, and was exemplified by the conflict of Celtic and

2 Susan Reynolds, “What Do We Mean by ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and ‘Anglo-Saxons’?”, Journal of British Studies 24, no. 4 (October, 1985): 404.

3 Reynolds, “What Do We Mean,” 399, 406.

Roman Christianity. The cultural conflict that existed between the Britons, the Scots, and the 'gens Anglorum' during the seventh century was the result of the missionaries who had been sent from Rome. These missionaries had pressured the pre-existing (Celtic)

Christians of the isles to conform to the religious perspective of Rome, the papacy, and their invaders, the ‘gens Anglorum’.

These invasions drastically altered the social and cultural environment of Britain.

In this changing environment the Britons clung to their pre-existing Christian culture because it allowed them to reaffirm their identity within rapidly changing social and cultural environments. This was an environment in which it slowly became more and more difficult to hold onto their past and their place in it. The 'gens Anglorum', on the other hand, ultimately associated themselves with the papacy and the Roman tradition.

As such, those in positions of power, such as the 'rex Anglorum', gained regional support from bishops and from the Pope himself in times of social and political uncertainty. This was extremely important since power, in the form of ‘imperium’, was constantly shifting regionally and the ‘gens Anglorum’ was still facing resistance from the indigenous populations. The Roman tradition ultimately allowed the 'gens Anglorum' to tie themselves to the land that once belonged to the Romans and gave them dominion over territories which were not their own. This helped them to establish their historic supernatural rights to the lands they had just recently conquered, justifying their acquirement and occupation.

By analyzing the ethnic constructs and cultural contexts that existed in conjunction with the conflict of the Celtic and Roman traditions within the isles between the fifth and eighth centuries an understanding of how and why these ethnic and culture

identities emerged, as well as the significance behind their cultural consensus. Molded by a number of individuals, groups, and institutions, this process of segregation and unification of the peoples of the Isles was influenced by internal (indigenous) and external (Roman and Anglo-Saxon) factors. Emerging from this analysis is an understanding of communities separate in their ethnic character, but unified through a culture; separate in their secular identities, but unified under Christianity and Rome. This paper is an attempt to show that although these populations identified themselves separately on different ethnic levels the Roman tradition of Christianity not only allowed the 'gens Anglorum' to establish themselves as ethnically and culturally superior, but unified their ethnic community and brought the populations of the British Isles back into the fold of Roman influence. In doing such, I hope to show how Medieval authors molded the cultural and ethnic identities of their audiences through the creation of a useful past through the combination of memory studies and the anthropological study of ethnic identity.

The Sources

Through the analysis of primary sources, such as Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica,

Gildas’ De Excidio Britonum, and Saint Patrick’s Confessio and Epistola, conceptions of medieval ethnic and cultural identity will emerge. By examining the manner in which

Gildas, Patrick, and Bede utilized the past I will show how the use of constructed memory allowed them to use the context of Christianity to identify themselves culturally while shaping and reinforcing their own ethnic identities. Throughout each primary source, the authors were careful to position their subjects within three specific

relationships: with God, with Rome, and the ‘others’ with whom they interacted. In recognizing the authors’ own religious orientations and their relationships with God,

Rome, and their contemporaries an understanding of the development of the ethnic and cultural identities of these populations becomes palpable.

The most significant source to this analysis is Bede’s HE. His claim, which was clearly stated in his title, was that a unified 'gens Anglorum' existed in Britain by the late eighth century. His focus on the ethnic identities of the populations living within the isles, which was present throughout the five books, suggested that some ethnic conflict was still ongoing at the time he was writing. Yet, he still titled his book Historia

Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum and included the roles of the Britons, Scots, and Picts within that history. This suggests that he thought there was something other than leadership under a sole political authority that could ethnically unify a population. For

Bede this unifying force was Christianity in the form of the Roman tradition.

In his book, Bede provided a means for remembering the conversion of the 'gens

Anglorum' and the conflict between the Celtic and Roman traditions in a way designed to harmonize the two religious traditions, as well as see the 'gens Anglorum' apart from other populations. Sources, such as Bede, provide insight into the secular and ecclesiastical variables—politics, social structure, and religion—that helped to create differentiation. By determining the points of conflict and unity between the context of culture—the Celtic and Roman traditions—and the construct of ethnicity—social differentiation of indigenous populations—in his construction of memory and understanding it within the wider context of Britain and Western Christendom, these

identities become visible, allowing Bede’s claims of unity and differentiation to be understood contextually.

Of course, Bede’s construction of these identities must be understood in opposition to the ‘other’. This concept of the ‘other’ developed during the Roman occupation of Britannia and the rest of the Empire and changed over time. Sources that helped to define the ‘other’, like those of Gildas and Saint Patrick, were available to

Bede. These sources would have shown how ideas about the ‘other’ developed over the course of time and shaped Bede’s conceptions of the identity of the 'gens Anglorum' and in turn the identities of the Scots, Picts, and Britons. Such sources provide insight into how the populations of the isles constructed and/or viewed their ethnic and cultural identities through their relationships to each other and with Rome. This allowed Bede to formulate a means of justification for the displacement of the indigenous populations of

Britain. Gildas’ work De Excidio Britonum4 was written some hundred years earlier and yielded a slightly different perspective of the Britons than presented in HE. Although his work was not meant to read as a history, it is the only known contemporary source regarding the history of Britain from the Romans to the arrival of the ‘gens Anglorum’ that was written from the British perspective.

Gildas’ DEB included very few dates and only some names throughout the work.

This was a result of the contemporary methods in which information was transferred

4 Gildas, De Excidio Britonum, ed. and trans. by Michael Winterbottom (London: Phillimore & Co. LTD., 1978); [Throughout this paper Gildas’ DEB will be cited as follows within the footnotes: Gildas, DEB, Chapter Number.Subsection as prescribed by Winterbottom.Page Number. The numerical divisions are separated with periods without spaces.]

during this period in time, more specifically the oral tradition of memory. The main purpose of DEB was to warn the Britons, their kings, and their clergy of their sinful acts to prevent falling from the favor of God (this will be further discussed later in this thesis).

Gildas accomplished this through references to the past and the construction of memories in order to help shape and understand the present. Therefore, he compared the contemporary events and the shameful actions of the clergy/Church in Britain to the constructed belief of order during the Roman occupation of Britain. This theme can also be seen in the HE through Bede’s subtle criticisms of the contemporary English Church and his desire to re-establish the ideals of an earlier monastic model. This earlier model encouraged a more traditional Roman monastic ideal, which was reflected in Saint

Patrick’s Confessio5.

Saint Patrick’s Confessio was written a century before the DEB, towards the end of Patrick’s life. Reflecting the Christian literary tradition of confessions, he told the story of his life, his conversion, and his Irish mission.6 Patrick’s construction of his ethnicity and cultural experiences as a young boy is significant in understanding his role as the patron saint of Ireland and his role in converting the Irish to Christianity.

5 Saint Patrick, The Book of Letters of Saint Patrick, ed. and trans. by D.R. Howlett (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1994); [Throughout this paper this source when referencing Patrick’s Confessio will be cited as follows within the footnotes: Patrick, Confessio, Part.Traditional Chapter Number.Line Number as prescribed by Howlett.Page Number. When referencing his Epistola it will be cited as follows within footnotes: Patrick, Epistola, Traditional Chapter Number as employed by modern ed. and trans.Line Number as prescribed by Howlett.Page Number. For both sources the numerical divisions are separated by periods without spaces.]

6 Saint Patrick, The Confession of Saint Patrick and Letter to Coroticus, trans. by John Skinner (New York: Image Books, 1998), viii.

Throughout his Confessio Patrick yielded insight into the social and cultural structures of Ireland during the time of his enslavement, as well as his mission of conversion. His familiarity with both Romano-British culture and Irish culture provided him the means to successfully establish a church in Ireland that reflected the most essential characteristics of the Catholic Church in Rome. Also, Patrick illuminated other ethnic communities that shared the same religious tradition as himself and the Irish—the

Franks and Scotti—as well as those who did not—the Picts. In relation to Bede and

Gildas, Saint Patrick provided a Romano-British, as well as an Irish, perspective to understanding how one associated oneself with ethnic and cultural identity. Patrick and other British missionaries that lived during the Roman occupation of Britain would be held up as exemplars of Christianity when corruption became present within the Church structure, which was why Bede appealed to these former missionaries in the HE.

What do I Mean by Ethnic Identity and Ethnicity?

An understanding of what ethnicity is and how it is connected to culture outside of the study of history can provide a clearer analysis of how memory was used by Bede,

Gildas, and Patrick to formulate their perspectives on the past and why it was necessary for them to do so. By outlining the elementary principles regarding ethnicity and culture that exist within a population as defined by other academics, such as anthropologists and sociologists, I hope to offer a better understanding of how Bede was able to conceive of a unified 'gens Anglorum' by the end of the eighth century. Bede’s HE would place the

'gens Anglorum' as a unified people one hundred years before historians, such as Sarah

Foote7, believe there was a 'gens Anglorum'.8 In order to show how this association of culture and ethnic differentiation occurred, there needs to be an understanding of what I mean by ethnicity/ethnic identity and cultural identity. Defining these terms can be somewhat difficult due to the numerous theories and definitions regarding their origin and creation. Sociologists and anthropologists, such as Max Weber, Frederick Barth,

Anthony Smith and Manning Nash have yielded a number of defining theories and conceptions regarding ethnic and cultural identity.9 Historians, such as Walter Pohl,

Patrick Geary, and Ian Wood have provided great insight into how to approach ethnic identity within Europe, as well as how to define it contextually during late antiquity and the early middle ages. The most important of these historians would be Patrick Geary.

The foundation of ethnicity refers to an idea that a number of people, who share some cultural and/or biological characteristics and who live and act in concert with one another, as well as the ‘other’, belong to some group unlike the first. As suggested later

7 Foote argues that it was not until King Alfred occupied London in 886 that there was a concept of an ‘English’ or Angelcynn people. She states that Alfred’s promotion of a vernacular language, the creation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, and institution of a program of education, among other things, allowed him to unify the ‘English’; Sarah Foote, “The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity Before the Norman Conquest,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1996): 25-49.

8 The definitions and theories regarding ethnic and cultural identity described in the following section were formulated by a number of anthropologists and sociologists, such as those listed above, and summarized in the by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, introduction to Ethnicity, ed. by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 3-14.

9 Max Weber, Economy and Society, ed. and trans. by Günther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1978), 1:389-95; Frederick Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1969), 10-19; Anthony Smith, “Chosen People: Why Ethnic Groups Survive,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 15, no. 3 (1992): 440-9; Manning Nash, The Cauldron of Ethnicity in the Modern World (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), 10-15.

by Ian Wood and Patrick Geary, this need to ethnically define oneself emerged from the

Roman/barbarian binary that can be recognized in our sources, beginning with Patrick and persists through the eighth century with Bede. The dichotomy that developed, that of

‘us’ and the ‘other’, can be recognized in late antique and early medieval sources by the

Latin term ‘natio’. Therefore, ethnic identity refered to the level of identification an individual perceived with a group that was culturally defined. These concepts of identity could be used on a variety of levels, ranging from individual, to regional, to collective, and were by no means static.

There were a number of different ethnic identities and/or communities that were identified in the British Isles from the fifth to the eighth century. Bede identified roughly six ethnic communities at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions. There were the Scots

(Irish), Picts, and Britons who were indigenous (I use this term contextually in reference to the invasions) to the isles at that time, and there were the invading populations of the

Angles, Saxons, and Jutes10. It was these latter communities that eventually became the

'gens Anglorum'.

As mentioned before, these identities were by no means static. Ethnic groups could experience significant levels of political destruction and/or cultural marginalization while certain individuals could carry on the culture for years to come. As this paper will show it was possible for large numbers of individuals of a diaspora ethnie—Scots, Picts, and Britons—to assimilate and acculturate to the dominant societies—the ‘gens

Anglorum’—through the adoption of their culture, the Roman tradition, and yet leave

10 Bede, HE, 1.1.1:10-21; 1.15.1:71.

their ethnie in question intact.11 This was possible through the ethnie’s association with culture, which can be seen in the cultivation of a myth of ethnic election.

What do I Mean by Cultural Identity and Culture?

Anthropologists and sociologists12 have suggested that specialists, such as Bede,

Gildas, and Patrick, within a specific belief system/religion created myths of ethnic election for their communities through their construction of memory. It was then disseminated throughout their communities, formulating an identity of a chosen people/ethnically elect within that community. To be identified as such would to be recognized as sanctified through the utilization of moral, legal, and ritual codes specific to that belief system. That community was then placed under moral obligations and would only receive the benefits of election if they upheld those obligations. However, if that community was to fall short of their obligations severe punishments were expected.

This threat and fear of punishment gaves rise to a number of prophets, judges, and a variety of other moral critics, such as Bede, Patrick, and Gildas, who warned the members of their community of their faults. In doing so, these prophets and judges reaffirmed the distinctive and unique qualities of their chosen-ness and how their actions could affect the destiny of the community. Thus, the myth of ethnic election created a sense of moral and cultural superiority within a community which helped to mobilize it

11 Hutchinson and Smith, introduction to Ethnicity, 5.

12 Smith, “Chosen People: Why Ethnic Groups Survive,” 440-449; Cynthia Enloe, “Religion and Ethnicity,” in Ethnic Diversity and Conflict in Eastern Europe, ed. by P. Sugar (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1980), 350-360.

for survival. Through the symbolism conferred on the ‘elect,’ the community attempted to unify different classes and regions by spreading culture outwards from urban centers.13

There are four patterns that reflect how the myth of ethnic election helps an ethnic community survive. Bede, Gildas, and Patrick all utilized one, or a number of, these patterns to help shape their identities.

Defined by Clifford Geertz religion as a cultural system is “a system of symbols14 which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in people by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of facility that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”15 The social construction, understanding, and use of symbolic forms can be identified as cultural acts. From these acts cultural patterns—systems or complexes of symbols—emerge that provide extrinsic sources of information16. These systems create cultural patterns that provide answers to the unknown and ultimately form religious perspectives—a specific way of constructing the world or looking at life, a roadmap of sorts. Therefore, religion creates a symbiotic relationship between a certain way of life— the Roman tradition—and a particular mindset—the myth of ethnic election and

13 Anthony D. Smith, “Chosen People,” in Ethnicity, ed. by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 194.

14 A symbol is used for any “object, act, event, quality, or relation, that serves as a vehicle for a conception—the symbols ‘meaning’. Symbols/symbolic elements are such because they are tangible formulations of notions, abstractions from experience fixed in perceptible forms, concrete embodiments of ideas, attitudes, judgments, longings, or beliefs” (Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 91). 15 Geertz, Interpretation, 90.

16 Extrinsic in that it exists beyond the boundaries of the individual organism in the inter-subjective world of common understanding.

corresponding conceptions of ethnic identity—that allows its survival via borrowed authority from each other.

For the purposes of this paper Christianity, in the form of both the Celtic and

Roman traditions, was a cultural system. All three primary sources were written within the context of Christianity and provided insight into the contemporary constructs of ethnicity that existed throughout the communities in the British Isles. They recognized the ethnic and cultural impact Rome, past—the Empire—and present—the Papacy, as a standard of reference when formulating their ethnic and cultural identity, as well as the identities of the ‘other’. Most importantly, Bede, Gildas, and Patrick used Christian culture—Celtic and Roman—to help shape ethnic identities through time. In turn, those ethnic identities helped to maintain the same Christian culture that had shaped them.

Through the analysis of these primary sources, especially Bede’s HE, I will show that in recognizing the significance of their creation these ethnic and cultural identities produced a unified context that allowed not only the continued existence of the ethnic identities that were indigenous to the isles (the Britons, Scots, and Picts), but also the creation of an ethnic community that could see itself as always destined to bring all those living in the

British Isles back to Rome. This ethnic community was the 'gens Anglorum'.

CHAPTER 2

HISTORIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Proper analysis of the works produced by Bede, Gildas, and Patrick requires an understanding of why these authors were writing and the contemporary historical perspectives that surrounded them and their works. Our historical knowledge of these authors can be spotty at best and is still somewhat left up to historical interpretation. Of the three Bede is the only author with a relatively complete personal history. Yet, his works still offer a level of mystery and uncertainty. Historians have been attempting to provide insight into why these sources were written and the context in which their authors lived. This context is important because in order to understand how Bede, Gildas, and

Patrick identified themselves and their contemporaries ethnically and culturally one must understand the context in which these authors lived and their purpose for writing such works in order make sense of how they developed their perspectives on identity.

Patrick

Patrick produced two works, his Confessio and his Epistola ad milites Corotici17.

Each work was written for a specific purpose with specific audiences in mind. Neither work was intended to be utilized as biographical or historical sources regarding his life or mission in Ireland. The Confessio was written towards the end of his life as a means to defend his Christianity, his role as bishop, and as an explanation for his return to Ireland as a missionary. Like most ecclesiastical confessions Patrick’s meant to emphasize the significance of God in his life; it was a confession of God’s power and influence in response to those who questioned his actions and relationship with God.

J.B. Bury suggested that Patrick wrote specifically to two audiences. First, to his former British missionaries who accused Patrick of ecclesiastical misconduct. Bury believed that their indignant disposition towards Patrick and his Irish mission was the cause of the accusations brought against Patrick .18 However, Patrick wrote not only to defend himself against former British missionaries who became aggrieved upon their return to Britain, but also to the literate populations of Britain and Ireland to defend himself and his actions to any and all those who questioned him. Bury described the

Confessio as an “open letter to his brethren in Britain, published in Ireland,”19 which suggested that it was directly intended for those in Britain and Ireland who could read it.

17 Saint Patrick, Liber Epistolarum Sancti Patricii Episcopi [The Book of Letters of Saint Patrick the Bishop], ed. and trans. by D.R. Howlett (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1994).

18 J.B. Bury, St Patrick: The Life and World of Ireland’s Saint (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2010); The Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History (London, 1905).

19 Bury, The Life and World, 164.

However, E.A. Thompson suggested his main focus was the educated, Christian landowners in Britain and those Britons who lived in Ireland.20 Regardless to whom

Patrick directly addressed his work, Thompson suggested Patrick was responding to those who criticized him in addition to those whose opinions he took seriously.

Patrick’s Epistola was composed not as a response to an attack on his ecclesiastical character, but as a response to an attack on a community of Christians. The

British tyrant Coroticus and his Christian troops participated in the capture and murder of a community of newly baptized Scotti (Irish) Christians. Written in the form of an open letter, the Epistola blamed Coroticus for his troop’s actions. The letter demanded the release of those captured and the return of their stolen goods. It chastised those who participated in the killing of Christians and it criticized the sale of those Scotti Christians captured to pagan peoples. Patrick condemned those who acted against their fellow

Christians through a declaration of excommunication. He called upon any who listened to the letter to refuse hospitality to Coroticus and his troops. Although the letter was addressed to Coroticus and composed in Latin, Patrick meant for it to be read aloud to an audience composed of all levels of society. Bury suggested that it was addressed to

Christian communities under the rule of Coroticus in Britain.21 However, Thompson believed that the Epistola was addressed to not only free Britons, but to ‘other’ Christians who had been enslaved and sold as well.22

20 E.A. Thompson, Who Was St Patrick? (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 116-117; 122-123.

21 Bury, The Life and World, 156.

22 Thompson, St Patrick, 139-141.

Along with Bury and Thompson, Ludwig Bieler recognized that there was a level of conflict that existed between the Britons and the Scots throughout Patrick’s sources.

This conflict derived from certain conceptions of identity that existed during Patrick’s lifetime as a reaction to the slow collapse of the Roman Empire. Bury focused on this conflict in two ways. The first was the issue of Patrick’s education, or lack thereof, which was discussed in length throughout the Confessio. His education was representative of this tension because Patrick was from an aristocratic Romano-British family and was expected to have received a full classical education in his youth.

However, his capture and sale into slavery at the age of fifteen or sixteen prevented him from completing his education. In the eyes of those British ecclesiastics whom he had with him in Ireland Patrick was unqualified to hold the office of bishop, regardless if that office was held amongst barbarians outside the boundaries of the Empire. Bury stated that in writing the Confessio Patrick was defending the unique success of his mission in light of his non-traditional classical education and ecclesiastical training. In fact Bury claimed that Patrick’s success in Ireland was a result of his non-traditional education and training and the diffusion of Latin across Ireland.23

The second tension between these communities was the result of the unique nature of the Scots’ conversion and the role Patrick played in that conversion. Bury suggested that Patrick’s description of the social and cultural characteristics of Scotti society were included to show those who doubted the integrity of his mission, as well as emphasize the danger and uncertainty of his everyday life.24 His mission was not for any

23 Bury, The Life and World, 175-177.

24 Bury, The Life and World, 54-64.

sort of personal gain, but was a testament to God for saving his life and soul. The emphasis he placed on the cultural superiority of Britain in comparison to the social environment of Ireland made Britain look like a paradise. Bury suggested that Patrick’s descriptions of the ethnic constructs and cultural context of the Scots shed light on the failure of the traditional metropolitan ecclesiastical structure in Ireland, the same ecclesiastical structure the Britons were desperately trying to hold onto.

The lack of social cohesion between the tribes in Ireland prevented the success of a traditional episcopal structure. Bury stated that the ‘tribal independence’ that existed within Scotti society helped to promote a more monastic model of church structure then had been seen anywhere else in Christendom. The decrease of Roman political control in the western Empire isolated the Scots, which allowed their church to develop its own unique Christian identity.25 This unique Christian identity was what caused tension between Patrick and British ecclesiastics. However, it was the ethnic constructs and cultural context that shaped the Scots’ unique Christian identity that caused conflict between them and the Britons.

Like Bury, Bieler took a close look at the relationship between Patrick and the

Scots. He suggested that there were specific aspects of the Confessio and Epistola that helped to characterize not only the Scots, but Patrick himself. Bieler claimed that

Patrick’s tactics of conversion were tailored to the ethnic constructs of the Scots. He suggested that during his captivity as a young man, Patrick became familiar with the

25 Bury, The Life and World, 171-172.

political, social, and religious conditions of Ireland.26 This was especially apparent in the top down approach Patrick used to convert the Scots, as well as his understanding of the social conflict that existed among the numerous Scotti tribes. Patrick knew that through the act of gift giving he could not only gain the confidence of the kings, but their protection for himself and his missionaries within the boundaries of their territories.27

Although Patrick was familiar with Scotti society and utilized that familiarity to the best of his abilities, he was unsuccessful in the establishment of a metropolitan episcopate.

Like Bury, Bieler suggested that the collapse of the traditional ecclesiastical episcopal structure after Patrick’s death and the subsequent growth and promotion of monasticism was a result of this socio-cultural environment.28

Overall, Thompson was the most critical of Patrick and his sources. He refused to commit to any level of specificity regarding identity and the relationships between

Patrick, the Britons, and the Scots. Although Thompson did provide some insight into how Patrick identified those who were around him, he felt that Patrick did not differentiate between British Christians and Scotti Christians; to Patrick Christians were

Christians. However, Thompson believed Patrick did recognize the difference between

Roman and barbarian, as well as Christian and pagan. Thompson pointed out that there was a difference between a Briton and a Scot. The Scots lived outside the boundaries of the Empire and therefore were considered uncivilized.29 Patrick’s drive to Christianize

26 Ludwig Bieler, “St. Patrick and the Irish People,” Review of Politics 10, no. 3 (July 1948): 291-293.

27 Bieler, Irish People, 291-299.

28 Bieler, Irish People, 303-306.

outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire was solely unique to his person especially at a time when the Empire was slowly crumbling.30 Unlike Bury and Bieler, Thompson suggested that the only success of Patrick was his organization of the first mission of conversion that laid outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire.

Although Patrick’s works were written for different audiences and each for a different purpose, they both yield insight into who Patrick was, the environment in which he lived, and his perspectives on identity. Some historians, such as Bury and Bieler, were more bold in their analyzes of Patrick and his sources, while others, such as Thompson, were much more cautious. Overall, they all contributed to our knowledge of Saint

Patrick. Bury, Bieler, and Thompson provided a better understanding of who Patrick was and the context in which he decided to compose these works.

Gildas

Gildas’ work was written sometime in the mid-sixth century and is the only known source to describe sub-Roman Britain31 from the perspective of a Briton.

Historians have analyzed its content in hopes that it would yield some insight into the ethnic constructs and cultural contexts for this period of time. As seen with Patrick, there had been no other contemporary historical references to Gildas, only those written centuries after his death. Originally composed as a letter to the Britons it contained a

29 Thompson, St Patrick, 109-113.

30 Thompson, St Patrick, 36-37.

31 Sub-Roman Britain refers to the period in time that followed the removal of the last Roman troops in Britain c.410 AD.

providential warning to their secular and ecclesiastical leaders. As such, the DEB was not chronologically accurate; it lacked specific dates, locations, and names throughout its entirety. The focus Gildas placed on the providential salvation of the Britons in place of chronological and historical factuality had caused some modern historians to question the use of the DEB as a primary source. However, more recent analyses of Gildas have shown what the DEB has to offer as an historical source in regards to the British Isles during Gildas’ lifetime. Just as Patrick’s sources provided critical insight into the ethnic constructs and cultural context of the isles during Rome’s collapse, the DEB suggested how Christianity continued to survive and influence cultural and ethnic identities after

Rome was gone. In attempts to better understand Gildas, his purpose for writing, and the context in which he lived historians such as Thompson, Lapidge, Dumville, and Higham, have dissected the DEB in order to demonstrate this work’s significance as a primary source for understanding a sub-Roman Britain.

Thompson was one of those historians that questioned the chronological accuracy of the DEB. Through an analysis of the language used by Gildas he discovered that although Gildas was ultimately wrong in his sequence of events, he used a form of logical reasoning to establish a chronology from a limited number of sources and oral tradition.32

He suggested that the non-traditional historical nature of the DEB had been the result of

Gildas’ purpose for writing and the context in which he wrote. Thompson believed

Gildas lived in the northern region of Britain which helped historians establish a new perspective on the significance of the DEB. In this new historical perspective, Thompson

32 E.A. Thompson, “Gildas and the History of Britain,” Britannia 10 (1979): 207- 208.

suggested that Gildas composed a provincial history in place of a collective historical narrative for the territories once belonging to the Roman Empire. This conclusion was reached through Thompson’s understanding of how Gildas focused on the events of northern Britain and his knowledge of the social and political environment.33

Along with Thompson, David Dumville believed that the DEB was written as a provincial history of northern Britain. In his analysis of the chronology of Gildas’ work he stated that by recognizing the northern region of Britain as Gildas’ context, a clearer understanding of how and why Gildas arranged the historical events of sub-Roman

Britain can be reached. Dumville suggested that Gildas had had some method of relative dating in mind when he composed the DEB, which he then combined with the providential purpose of the work.34

In strong opposition to Thompson and Dumville, N.J. Higham suggested that the

DEB was not a provincial history, but a providential history meant to encompass the entirety of what was once Roman Britain and those Britons who live there. According to

Higham, Gildas was addressing the entire Christian community within the former Roman province, more specifically the Christian Britons, not just those within the northern region. Focused on Gildas’ personification of a ‘Briton’ as a collective noun, he had shown that it was the wide ranging threat of the Saxons in combination with the contextual circumstances of the author’s life that caused Gildas to encourage his fellow

33 Thompson, “Gildas,” 214-220.

34 David Dumville, “The Chronology of De Excidio Britanniae, Book I,” in Gildas: New Approaches (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1984), 61-62.

Britons to repent for their sins.35 Higham also questioned Thompson’s theory of Gildas’ origins. He stated that Gildas’ knowledge of the Saxon threat to travelers in route to the shrines of Saint Alban and others pointed to a lowland perspective. Gildas’ geographical knowledge of Britain was also suggestive of a southern location of origin somewhere south of the middle to upper Thames region.36 Dumville and Higham were persistent in their claim that the DEB was a providential narrative, which was reflective of Gildas’ ecclesiastical background. The author’s focus on the deteriorating circumstances of

Britain in the wake of the Anglo-Saxon invasions suggested that Gildas was concerned for the spiritual wellbeing of the Christian Britons. It was his moral duty to remind the

Britons of their religious superiority in comparison to the pagan barbarians. Their survival depended upon that morality and God’s Grace.

Other historians, such as Neil Wright, have stated that it does not matter what geographical perspective Gildas took when composing the DEB. What should matter is its significance as a source. He suggested that Gildas was composing a work through a narrative that had a purpose other than presenting historical fact.37 Having used a more literary approach, Wright had shown that the entirety of Gildas’ work could be placed firmly in the context of Britain as a whole.38 He suggested that Gildas’ focus on the Pict wars in the north and the war with the Saxons to the south was meant to create a parallel

35 N.J. Higham, The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 90-96.

36 Higham, English Conquest, 99-106.

37 Neil Wright, “Gildas’s Geographical Perspective: Some Problems,” in Gildas: New Approaches (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1984), 85-86.

38 Wright, “Geographical Perspective,” 104-105.

structure within the DEB, which consisted of a military narrative and a providential narrative. The prosperity that followed the Britons’ victory over the Picts brought about moral decline for the whole of Britain. The war with the Saxons was God’s punishment for the immorality of the Britons. Therefore, for the Britons to reassert their authority within their own homeland, they needed to repent in order to regain God’s support.39

In regards to the controversy that surrounded Gildas’ locality, audience, and chronology the majority of historians have agreed that the DEB could yield information regarding the ethnic constructs and cultural contexts of a post-Roman Britain.

Thompson, Dumville, Higham, and Michael Lapidge have suggested that through Gildas’ criticism of the secular and ecclesiastical leaders he provided a glimpse into the cultural context of the time. Although they disagreed on the level in which one can interpret the information given by Gildas to reconstruct that context, each of them mentioned how the

DEB was a valuable source in understanding how the British dealt with the end of Roman culture and authority. They also agreed that Gildas received a strong Latin education which suggested that wherever Gildas was from, there was still some significance placed on a formal Roman education. This all would suggest that there was some level of

Roman civil structure intact within Britain during Gildas’ lifetime, otherwise such an education would be for wont.

39 Wright, “Geographical Perspective,” 101.

Bede

The HE was completed roughly around 732 and was the first history of the 'gens

Anglorum' ever composed. One of the last works written by Bede, it was a representation of his accomplishments not only as an historian, but also as a hagiographer, chronicler, and monk. For centuries historians and ecclesiastics have utilized the HE as a reference to the history and development of the English Church, as well as a source of Anglo-

Saxon history. Unlike Patrick and Gildas, Bede was a well-documented academic and monk who played a major role in Christianity and education during the eighth century.

Even though historians have significantly more information on the life and works of Bede than on Patrick and Gildas he has raised questions in regards to the purpose for which he composed the HE. Charles Plummer, James Campbell, Patrick Wormald, J.M. Wallace-

Hadrill, Walter Goffart, W. Trent Foley, N.J. Higham, and Alan Thacker are just a few of the numerous modern scholars that have commented on Bede and the HE. While their analyses have yielded a vast spectrum of information regarding Bede, some more controversial than others, each historian has contributed to the overall understanding of not just Bede, but the history of the British Isles during the seventh and eighth centuries as well.

One of the most basic issues addressed by historians was Bede’s perspective as an writer. Many have questioned the extent to which this eighth-century monk was familiar with his secular and ecclesiastical environments. Like Patrick and Gildas, Bede’s familiarity with his surroundings influenced his portrayal of people and events within the

HE. One of the oldest assessments of Bede and his understanding of the ethnic constructs and cultural contexts of the British Isles comes from Charles Plummer. Plummer claimed

that Bede lived an “uneventful life, spent in a round of religious service and of quiet study.”40 This perspective of Bede’s interaction with the outside secular and ecclesiastical world was echoed by Wormald.41 Others, such as Campbell, Wallace-

Hadrill, and Goffart, recognized the competitive nature of scholarship in the eighth century in Britain and across the continent, which placed Bede within an ecclesiastical community of learning and interaction.42 Most recently Foley, Higham, and Thacker have taken the issue of Bede’s relationship with his surrounding constructs and contexts to the next level. They suggested that he was fully aware and involved in the secular and ecclesiastical affairs of his day, especially within the kingdom of Northumbria.43 This gave rise to the suggestion that the HE was centered on the re-elevation of Northumbrian power.

40 Charles Plummer, Baedae Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum: Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), x.

41 Patrick Wormald, “Bede, Beowulf, and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy,” in Bede and Anglo-Saxon England, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 46, ed. by R.T. Farrell (Oxford: 1978): 68-69.

42 James Campbell, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London: The Hambledon Press, 1986), 2-3; J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, “Bede and Plummer,” (1973) reprinted in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary, ed. by D.E. Greenway, B.F. Harvey, and M. Lapidge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988): xiv-xvi; Walter Goffart, “Bede and the Ghost of Bishop Wilfrid,” in The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1988): 239.

43 W. Trent Foley and N.J. Higham, “Bede on the Britons,” Early Medieval Europe 17, no. 2 (2009): 158-159; N.J. Higham, An English Empire: Bede and the Early Anglo-Saxon Kings (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 16; Alan Thacker, “Bede and History,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. by Scott DeGregorio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010): 184-185.

Historians also have divergent perspectives on Bede’s motives for having composed the HE. In his preface to the HE Bede provided a general statement regarding his purpose for writing:

For whether an history shall contain good things concerning good men, the careful hearer is thereby stirred up and provoked to follow after well- doing; or whether is shall report evil things concerning forward men, the devout and well-disposed hearer or reader none the less, by flying that us evil and noisome to his soul, is himself moved thereby more earnestly to follow after the things he knoweth to be good and acceptable to God. Which very thing you too, most warily pondering, (out of the respect you have to the common good), desire to have the said history more widely published, both to the instruction of yourself and also to the edifying of such other whom the authority of God hath committed unto your governance.44

Plummer, Wilhelm Levison, and F.M. Stenton took Bede’s words at face value.45

Campbell and Wallace-Hadrill accepted Bede’s claim, but took their analysis one step further having placed Bede’s motives within the context of the eighth century. Both

44 Bede, the preface to HE, 1:3,5; Sive enim historia de bonis bona referat, ad imitandum bonum auditor sollicitus instigatur; seu mala commemoret de pravis, nihilominus religiosus ac pius auditor sive lector devitando quod noxium est ac perversum, ispe sollertius ad exsequenda ea qaue bona ac Deo digna esse cognoverit, accenditur. Quod ipsum tu quoque vigilantissime deprehendens, historiam memoratam in notitian tibi simulque eis quibus te regendis divina praefecti auctoritas, ob generalis curam salutis latis propalari desideras. (Bede, preface to HE, 1:2,4).

45 Plummer suggests that he had written for the general edification of his audience, so that they know the story of the establishment of the English Church (Baedae Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum: Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, xxii); Levison believes Bede was moved by Albinus to compose such a work through some sense of national pride (“Bede as Historian,” in Bede: His Life, Times, and Writings, ed. A.H. Thompson, 133); Stenton claims that Bede was just taking an opportunity presented to him in his audience with King Ceolwulf to promote the English Church (Anglo-Saxon England, 187).

stated that the HE was an attempt to criticize contemporary problems within the church, as well as promote the proper behavior for both secular and ecclesiastical leaders.46

Others took a closer look at the content contained within the HE. These historians suggested that Bede not only wrote to provide a history of the English Church, but to impart moral guidance for those who had read or were to listen to his work. Goffart claimed that the HE had a political purpose—the promotion of Northumbria. He suggested that Bede composed a work that yielded a picture of unity between the Church in Northumbria and the Archbishopric of Canterbury as an attempt to encourage the fulfillment of the Gregorian mission with the establishment of a second archbishopric in

York.47 Higham and Foley suggested that Bede was promoting a level of prejudice towards the Britons and other marginal populations within the isles. Bede wrote to reinforce the concept of the 'gens Anglorum' as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect as a means of justification for their secular dominance and authority.48 Thacker’s theory selected certain characteristics from the perspectives of Goffart, Foley, and Higham. He proposed that Bede wrote to promote unity between Northumbria and Canterbury through the Roman tradition of Christianity in opposition to the Celtic tradition Christianity and the Britons. Thacker believed Bede was attempting to institute spiritual and moral reform

46 Campbell, Essays, 11-12, 18, 22; Wallace-Hadrill, Historical Commentary, xxi, 21.

47 Goffart, “Bede and the Ghost,” 239, 253, 297.

48 Foley and Higham, “Bede on the Britons,” 156-157; Higham, English Empire, 39.

in the English Church, as well as forgive the failings of the Northumbrian Church of the past.49

Unlike the aforesaid historians, J.N. Stephens proposed that Bede’s HE had a level of originality to it, and that that originality had an original purpose.50 Stephens believed Bede’s HE was “carefully, purposefully, and differently designed.”51 Each chapter in each book was meant to tell the story of not just the church, but also the 'gens

Anglorum'. He emphasized that the HE was meant to provide the 'gens Anglorum' with a new history. Bede wanted to implement new ethnic and cultural standards for the 'gens

Anglorum'. These new standards allowed all Christians who lived within the British Isles to be reintegrated into the new Roman world and ultimately reinforced the cultural superiority of the 'gens Anglorum' as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, as well as established their historical claim to Britain. Unlike Goffart, Stephens did not focus on the historical accuracy of Bede’s work, but the meanings behind the historical memories chosen by Bede.

Most historians questioned the originality and validity of the historical content in the HE, but collectively recognized that Bede’s work must be understood contextually and cannot be held to modern historical standards—Bede wrote during a period in time in which history was intertwined with theology. However, criticism still exists in regards to his inaccuracies and the manner in which the HE was composed and organized. The HE

49 Thacker, “Bede and History,” 176, 183-185, 188.

50 J.N. Stephens, “Bede’s Ecclesiastical History,” History 62, no. 204 (1977): 3.

51 Stephens, “History,” 3.

must be understood as a culmination of all his other works. Some, such as Plummer, labeled Bede as the ‘father of English historiography.’52 Others, such as Goffart, suggested that Bede and his HE had been romanticized, and as a result his role within

English historiography has been overemphasized.53 Overall, historians have agreed that for an eighth-century ecclesiastical writer Bede was relatively accurate in regards to its chronology and content. In the recognition of its historical validity, the HE has become one of the most significant works in the determination of the ethnic constructs and cultural contexts of the populations throughout the British Isles during the late antique and early middle ages.

Although not explicitly stated in the preface, Bede’s description of the ethnic, cultural, political, and religious environments throughout the isles was one of the most dominant themes within the HE. Page after page Bede created a memory of the British

Isles that not only suffered from a lack of Christian unity and political dissent, but also from ethnic conflict. Some historians, such as Robin Fleming, Foley, and Higham, in collaboration with archaeologists have expanded upon the information given within the

HE as a means to make better sense of the secular and ecclesiastical structures that were in place during Bede’s lifetime.54 They utilized the archaeological record to support, supplement, and correct Bede’s choice of historical memories and their chronology

52 Plummer I, Baedae, lxxviii-lxxix.

53 Goffart claims Bede’s greatest works to be his biblical commentaries; Goffart, “Bede and the Ghost,” 237.

54 Robin Fleming, Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise 400-1070 (London: Penguin Books, 2011); Foley and Higham, “Bede on the Britons” (2009); Higham, English Empire (1995).

within the HE. Campbell, Wallace-Hadrill, and Goffart preached caution in regards to the level of interpretation involved in the process of archaeological analysis and have focused their analyses on the written word as a means to describe Bede’s ethnic constructs and cultural context. This does not mean that these historians have not recognized each-others works or find their conclusions helpful and noteworthy.

However, it does represent the levels in which historians have viewed Bede and his HE as an essential source in the understanding of the ethnic constructs and cultural context of the British Isles during the eighth century.

Secondary Sources

A curiosity emerged from this historical literature regarding the ability of these sources to define or provide insight into the ethnic and cultural identities of those populations in which they narrated. Plummer barely hinted at conceptions of identity in the HE, but Campbell, Wallace-Hadrill, Wormald, and others recognized it in their analyses of the secular and ecclesiastical structures contemporary to Bede. Wormald,

Higham, and Sarah Foote took this opportunity to apply that recognition to a better understanding of the formation of identity for that period of time. Generally, historians had written off the possibility of determining the ethnic and cultural identities of those living in late antiquity and early medieval Europe as something that cannot be determined due to its illusive nature as a ‘situational construct’. However, Walter Pohl, Ian Wood, and Patrick Geary have analyzed and explained the formation of identity through the manipulation of memory. This ultimately yielded a better understanding of the sources

which lead to a better understanding of the ethnic constructs and cultural contexts in which these medieval authors lived.

Identity

To Walter Pohl, like many other historians of the ‘Vienna School,’ ethnicity within the British Isles and the rest of early medieval Europe was a literary and historical construction that existed within the field of social practice—shaped by language and communication.55 Having followed thirteen assumptions regarding the characteristics of ethnic process56 Pohl argued that ethnicity was created through a process of ethnogenesis—the belief that ethnic traditions were carried by an aristocratic warrior society from place to place and were available to those who wanted to participate within them. His basic argument focused on the questions of what was social and what was biological in the construction of ethnic identity.

The ethnic identity of a medieval population was not the result of inherent

“national” or biological characteristics; it emerged in the long durée from economic, political and cultural influences, which, according to Pohl, were indiscernible to contemporaries. Although these populations were more heterogeneous then often

55 Walter Pohl, “Ethnic Names and Identities in the British Isles: A Comparative Perspective,” in The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. by John Hines (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1997); “Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity,” in Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800, ed. by Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 1998).

56 For more information on these thirteen characteristics see Walter Pohl, “Ethnic Names and Identities in the British Isles: A Comparative Perspective,” 8-10.

thought, they did share a fundamental belief in a common origin. These origin myths were essential in shaping an ethnic group, their beliefs, and institutions. The myth itself was associated with an ethnic group(s) through a common interpretation of symbols and their meanings.57

Pohl claimed that ethnic groups at this time could not be determined from one another. He believed this was the result of the ability of those living in late antique and early medieval Europe to alter their ethnic identity in order to adapt to changes within their socio-cultural environment; what Patrick Geary identified as a “situational construction.”58 Therefore, the reality of an ethnic group had to continually be reproduced by human activity or reproduced within their ethnic practices. Ethnic practices could include political strategies and/or actions, as well as a variety of cultural objects and habits that would serve as expressions of ethnic identity. This suggested that identity was rooted in smaller local groups, such as clans and villages, and that members of the lower class felt no connection to ‘other’ larger ethnic groups. In his article Pohl argued that in the HE Bede’s ethnic model left no room for the ethnogenesis process, which would have denied the possibility of the Britons, Picts, or Scots to assimilate into

Anglo-Saxon society59. The concept of ethnogenesis has lost support among modern historians. By the eighth century Bede suggested that the Britons, Scots, and Picts who

57 Walter Pohl, “Conceptions of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Studies,” in Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. by Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1998), 7-14.

58 Patrick Geary, “Ethnic Identity as a situational construct in the Early Middle Ages,” Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien 113 (1983): 15-26.

59 Pohl, “Ethnic Names and Identities,” 25.

had converted to the Roman tradition had acculturated and were accepted into a wider community in which the 'gens Anglorum' was very much responsible for creating and were very much a part of.

Expanding upon the Vienna School’s theoretical perspective of ethnicity, Ian

Wood introduced the concept of the contextual ethnic binary of ‘Roman’ and ‘barbarian’ in the construction of ethnic identity during this period of time. He stated that this distinction had specific functions which were determined by the intentions of the author.

Thus, conceptions of ‘Roman’ and ‘barbarian’ changed as the result of shifts in the social and cultural environments over time. Therefore, if someone was ethnically identified as

Roman or barbarian in the fourth century they would not have been identified as such half a century later.60 In determining the patterns of meaning that represented this binary within the British Isles a clearer picture has emerged regarding how Patrick, Gildas, and

Bede viewed ethnic constructs and cultural contexts.

Unlike Pohl, Wood recognized some level, however minute, of biological influence within his theory of ethnic construction—i.e. intermarriage and recruitment.

Like Pohl, Wood placed an emphasis on the ability of a person to change their ethnic identity in response to contextual circumstances or to reflect political affiliations or class implications. These factors became very crucial by the seventh and eighth centuries. He furthered Pohl’s claim that blanket polarities or ethnic labels in general were not in

60 Ian Wood, conclusion to Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800, ed. by Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 298.

themselves meaningful because their actual significance came from a single, precise context.61

Patrick Geary labeled the term ‘ethnicity’ as a modern construct, but recognized the presence of such a construct regardless of what it might have been called in late antique and early medieval sources. He suggested that the construct of early medieval ethnicity should be viewed not as an objective process, but as a subjective one.

Individuals and groups identified themselves and/or others within this process in specific situations and for specific purposes. Characteristics such as origin—gens62, customs— mores63, language64, and law—leges65 were most often identified as markers of ethnicity by medieval authors. These characteristics became important due to the cultural context in which they were a part of, usually regarding lordship in the cultural context of authority. Therefore, ethnicity was dynamic and existed within a combination of various characteristics—origin, customs, language, and law—that were manipulated symbolically

61 Wood, conclusion to Strategies, 300.

62 This could include geographical origin, personal ancestors, and/or common origins of a people.

63 Could include dress, weapons, hairstyle, etc. and was open to change and alteration.

64 Although medieval authors were aware that not all gens had their own language, those who did could belong to a much broader conception of identity, such as culture or religion. Most people in medieval society were bilingual, especially the aristocracy. Therefore, language was a very fluid index of ethnic identity.

65 Law could be used to show whether one identified with the ruling elite—a sense of law was heritage from parents, regardless of where they came from, or if one identified with the conquered—a sense of law was determined from where they came from. Therefore, law was not a very stable category of identification.

to form an identity or community.66 Medieval authors such as Bede, Gildas, and Patrick manipulated symbols that represented the cultural context of Christianity through the inclusion of specific memories within their works that defined and shaped the ethnic communities in which they lived.

Geary looked for distinctions when medieval authors described ethnic identity in regards to both individuals and groups—gens, populous, and natio were terms associated with identifying large groups, while individuals aligned their identity with the royal/ducal families in which they fought with/for. The presence of ethnic identities for both groups and individuals suggested that there was movement between the two identities. This was natural and determined by the context in which the group or individual existed. In agreement with Wood, Geary saw this in the binary construct of Roman and barbarian.

According to Geary, the Romans recognized three models of barbarian ethnic formulation for those who came into contact with the Roman empire: people took their identity from

(1) a leading royal family, (2) charismatic leadership and organization, and (3) a decentralized people.67

Unlike Pohl and Wood, Geary provided new perspectives on how to study the

‘otherness’ of past societies by surpassing medieval statements of value regarding ethnic identity and acknowledging their actions, rituals, and practices which he read as text.68

66 Geary, “Ethnic Identity,” 16.

67 Patrick J. Geary, “Barbarians and Ethnicity,” in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World, ed. by G.W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar (Cambridge: The Bellknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 108-109.

68 Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 4.

This new perspective became the analysis of the construction of memory. Geary had shown that beliefs within Christianity varied due to the complex nature of medieval society and that it was this variation that organized the ethnic constructs and cultural contexts of people in the Middle Ages.

Geary’s inclusion of memory studies in the conceptualization of ethnic identity allowed for the understanding of how Bede, Gildas, and Patrick were able to transmit to their contemporary ideas of ethnic differentiation and cultural unity. He examined how individuals and groups remembered and forgot their pasts, and the ramifications of remembering and/or forgetting certain people, events, places, or objects69 over others.

Bede, Gildas, and Patrick all created a past in order to make sense of the present environment in which they lived. They did this through a complex process of transmission, suppression, and recreation that included visual association, analogy, logic, and labels or names.70 Each author did this for very local and specific reasons that usually followed regional forms, which suggested that the effects of the created past were broad and long lasting. They created this past to tell a story for religious purposes, such as the myth of election, salvation, and unification. Having composed these pasts each author fit their story into what they recognized as an acceptable reflection of the divine order of human activities. The people, events, and traditions that did not fit into this divine order were either forgotten or transformed.71

69 What Clifford Geertz would call symbols or cultural acts; see Geertz, Interpretations (2000) for more detail.

70 Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 8, 20.

71 Geary, Phantoms, 177-178.

'gens Anglorum'?

The contributions of Pohl, Wood, Geary, and others have encouraged historians to take a closer look at the sources to determine if there was a level of ethnic and/or cultural identity for medieval populations. The belief that the Anglo-Saxons shared some level of unity—ethnic and/or cultural—or ‘Englishness’ in Britain during the eighth century has been a controversial subject for most historians who study this period. Patrick Wormald suggested that the concept of a 'gens Anglorum' was an ideal long before it became a reality within Britain. The conception of the ‘gens Anglorum’ held a certain influence throughout the contemporary population.72 He explained that the key to understanding the 'gens Anglorum' was not through the lists of ‘Bretwaldas’ provided or their suggested power of ‘imperium’. These concepts alone concluded that the contemporary political climate of the British Isles would not have allowed for any such unity to exist. However, if historians examined how the ‘gens Anglorum’ viewed their destiny and how their destiny was viewed by others, especially by those who held power and authority in the new world order, such as the Papacy, a common theme would emerge.

The emphasis that Bede placed on the providential role of the 'gens Anglorum' within the HE instilled a sense of community within the population, which linked each disparate Germanic kingdom to the other through their shared faith and accepted authority of the Pope in Rome via the Roman tradition of Christianity.73 It also defined

72 Patrick Wormald, “Bede, Bretwaldas and Origins of Gens Anglorum,” in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J.M. Wallace- Hadrill, ed. by Patrick Wormald, Donald Bullough, and Roger Collins (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publisher Limited, 1983), 105.

73 Wormald, “Bede, Bretwaldas,” 126-127.

the other populations of the British Isles through their role in bringing the destiny of the

'gens Anglorum' to fruition. Wormald stated that in the absence of ‘imperium’ wielding

‘Bretwaldas’ in the seventh and eighth centuries, these diasporic Germanic peoples had a

Church that reinforced the concept of a 'gens Anglorum'.74 To Wormald this suggested that the common identity held by the 'gens Anglorum' during the seventh and eighth centuries was abstract, but no less powerful than if a singular secular authority was instituting it. Does this not suggest that this common identity of a 'gens Anglorum' would not be a reality?

In opposition to Wormald, Higham believed that there was a common identity held among the ‘gens Anglorum’ and that it could be seen through the ‘imperium’ held by their kings in the seventh and eighth centuries. Through an analysis of Bede’s use of the term ‘imperium’ Higham concluded that Bede not only used a providential analogy to define a collective identity, but a secular and militaristic analogy as well. In the HE the term ‘imperium’ was used to create a parallel between the Romans and the 'gens

Anglorum'. Bede assumed that the Roman emperors ruled over a variety of provinces, people, and races before the withdrawal of troops from Britain. Since Roman rule was divinely sanctioned by God, all those in opposition to that rule must suffer punishment.75

Higham stated that by juxtaposing the concept of ‘imperium’ on his contemporary social and cultural environment Bede not only suggested that the 'gens Anglorum' replaced the

Romans in their role as ‘imperator’, but also as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect.

74 Wormald, “Bede, Bretwaldas,” 128-129.

75 Higham, An English Empire, 33-34.

Higham’s analysis of ‘imperium’ allowed for an understanding of the ethnic constructs and cultural context of the 'gens Anglorum', Britons, Picts, and Scots.

Although he recognized that there was no single kingdom that held sole over- kingship/‘imperia’ over the entirety of Britain during the seventh and eighth centuries, there did exist a number of regionalized political systems or kingdoms. Conditions within these kingdoms existed in tandem and moved between active hostility and dynamic harmony.76 Higham pointed out that there was a level of self-awareness among the 'gens Anglorum' regarding their pagan and heathen past, which was also apparent to the ‘others’ who shared the island. Christianity provided them with a means to establish a unified cultural identity—the Roman tradition—that justified their dominance and allowed them to solidify their ethnic identity—the ‘gens Anglorum’—while they asserted their authority over the ‘other’ populations within the British Isles.77

Unlike Wormald and Higham, Sarah Foote claimed that a sense of ‘Englishness’ did not exist before the tenth century. According to her, Bede created a religious community through his application of ‘Englishness’ that allowed Alfred to create the

‘gens Anglorum’ as a political community in the tenth century.78 Focused on language as the main characteristic in defining a population’s identity, Foote stated that Alfred’s promotion of a common language for the ‘gens Anglorum’ helped to set aside their conceptions of differentiation within their political and ancestral natures to create a new

76 Higham, An English Empire, 112-113.

77 Higham, An English Empire, 15-19.

78 Foote, “Angelcynn,” 25.

identity for themselves.79 She claimed that it was not until Alfred’s ‘harnessing’ of three forms of identity that the 'gens Anglorum' ever considered themselves a united population. Having provided the ‘gens Anglorum’ with a common unity through the establishment of a myth of common ancestry, the institution of a common language and literary tradition, and the application of a common law, Alfred had made them into one nation.80 Foote stated that both religious and political communities could separately define a cultural identity, both were not necessary to form an ethnic identity. However, it could be argued that the great influence religion had on politics at this time could have created a common cultural identity that crossed ethnic boundaries.

Foote’s theory suggested that the Germanic populations that migrated to the

British Isles did not share a common language, law, or myth of common descent before

Alfred gave it to them. The works of Gildas and Bede suggest otherwise. Throughout his entire work Bede presented the concept of a 'gens Anglorum' as an identity that existed during his lifetime. The HE provided that disparate group of Germanic people with a myth of common ancestry or myth of ethnic election, a common proper name, one or more common cultural elements, shared historical memories, a link with a homeland, and a sense of solidarity all elements required to identify a people as an ethnic community. As Foote mentioned, Alfred’s English nation did not last after his death, which could suggest that his declaration the ‘gens Anglorum’ was just that, a formal declaration of a conception of identity that already existed. To Pohl, Wood, and Geary concepts of identity were fluid and hard to define. This fluidity was evident in the

79 Foote, “Angelcynn,” 28-29.

80 Foote, “Angelcynn,” 49.

attempts to differentiate between the concepts of ethnic and cultural identity within these populations.

The problem that existed with all these analyses of ethnic identity in the Middle

Ages is that each historian acknowledged the contemporary existence of a shared notion of commonality, but disregarded it due to a lack of political and/or secular unity. Ethnic identity was so much more than the concept of uniting a people under a shared political authority or secular leader. Political unity was just one element within a multitude of characteristics that helped to create and establish ethnic identity. Each of these analyses suggested that ethnic unity emerged through shared language, law, and customs under the leadership of a sole authority and that these elements were evident in the British Isles during the late seventh and early eighth centuries. The 'gens Anglorum' possessed a vernacular—a shared language, followed the canon of Catholicism—a shared law, adhered to the Roman tradition of Christianity—a shared set of customs, and existed under the ultimate authority of the Pope through his proxy the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In order to understand how this dynamic and disparate Germanic people became a unified ethnic force what successfully dominated the indigenous populations/ethnic communities of the British Isles historians need to recognize the shift in how one ethnically identified themselves through their political and/or secular orientation to the manner in which they ethnically identified themselves or were identified by the ‘other’ through their religious orientation as a result of the rise and success of Christianity across a broken empire. This shift in perspective began with the evacuation of Roman military forces from Britain c.410 and would end with the victory of the Roman tradition of

Christianity within the church throughout the British Isles. By analyzing medieval

sources as such, a better understanding of this shift in the medieval outlook of ethnic identity can emerge. This shift can be recognized in the works of Patrick and Gildas. In analyzing their sources in this manner, Bede’s declaration of a 'gens Anglorum' would no longer be seen as an ideal, but a reality

CHAPTER 3

THE CONSTRUCT OF ETHNICITY IN THE CULTURAL CONTEXT OF CHRISTIANITY: PATRICK AND GILDAS

From the fourth through the eighth centuries the indigenous inhabitants of the

British Isles understood their experiences, environment, and how they guided their actions through their memory of and their relationship to the former Roman culture that had existed in the isles centuries earlier. How they remembered their Roman pasts were not identical and created unique memories within their communities. The actions these communities participated in formulated social structures through an ongoing process of social behavior that reflected a network of social relations that ultimately created their ethnie or ethnic community.81 By looking at how these indigenous communities utilized the memory of their Roman pasts to shape their actions historians can understand how the conflict between the Celtic and Roman traditions of Christianity became the context in which ethnic identity was constructed and maintained in the British Isles from the fifth through the eighth century.

Patrick, Gildas, and Bede utilized their knowledge of a Roman past to help them construct memories of their identity and the identities of the ‘other’. This differentiation

81 Clifford Geertz, “Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example,” in The Interpretations of Culture (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 144-146.

was the result of not only how their pasts were remembered, but why they needed to remember this past in the first place. It was the Briton’s, Scot’s, and Pict’s need for ethnic survival in the wake of the Germanic invasions/migrations that fueled the ethnic and cultural chaos that existed in the isles during this period of time. Each author created identities for themselves, their community, and the ‘other’ in order to make sense of that chaos which developed within their contemporary cultural contexts. By the sixth century this chaos manifested itself in the conflict between the Celtic and Roman traditions of

Christianity.

To institute ethnic and cultural peace between the old Rome and the new those who practiced the Celtic tradition needed to be brought back into the fold of the Catholic

Church. The acceptance of the Roman tradition not only reincorporated a fallen Roman province (Britain) back under Roman influence, it also expanded the sphere of Roman influence into Ireland, a feat the former Roman Empire did not accomplish. However, it was the success of the Roman tradition of Christianity that further encouraged this division between ethnic communities while it instilled unity in the creation of the 'gens

Anglorum'. This was accomplished by redefining what it meant to be civilized. In having redefined what it meant to be civilized, they had redefined what it meant to be culturally superior; what it meant to be Roman.

The concept of ethnic identity derives from what can be called ethnie82 or ethnic community.83 There are a number of characteristics that an ethnie or ethnic community can exhibit: (1) a common proper name—this is necessary to identify and express the

‘essence’ of the community; (2) a myth of common ancestry—a myth rather than a fact because a myth can include the idea of common origin in time and place and give an ethnie a sense of fictive kinship; (3) shared historical memories or shared memories of a common past(s)—this includes heroes, events, and their commemoration; (4) one or more elements of common culture—this normally includes religion, custom, and language; (5) a link with a homeland—this does not need to be a physical occupation by the ethnie, only its symbolic attachment to the ancestral land; and (6) a sense of solidarity on the part of at least some sections of the ethnie via the recognition of ‘us’ and ‘them’.84 Each characteristic varies in accordance with each community. The most significant of these characteristics being a community’s shared myths and memories, especially through the subjective identification of certain individuals within said community, and how these communities repositioned their pasts through these myths and memories. Without these characteristics a community could not exist, there would only be a perceived cultural difference between individuals.85

82 Ethnie is a French noun, which derives from the original Greek term ethnos. Ethnos was used as a synonym for gentile—non-Christian or non-Jewish pagan—in New Testament Greek; (John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, introduction to Ethnicity, ed. by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 4).

83 Hutchinson and Smith, introduction to Ethnicity, 6.

84 Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1986), Chapter 2.

85 Hutchinson and Smith, introduction to Ethnicity, 8.

An ethnie or ethnic community can be defined as having a permanent and physical boundary, over and above its political organizations, where the members of this community, who share common interests and organizations, interact regularly as a collective.86 In analyzing all three primary sources it becomes apparent how and why

Patrick, Gildas, and Bede constructed the memories of their Roman pasts in the manner in which they did. They were influenced by the territorial boundaries in which they presided and the connections they felt to their homelands. The relationship each author had with their respective regions and the relationship those regions had to the former

Empire determined how they constructed their memory of a Roman past. Patrick, Gildas, and Bede all experienced levels of Roman acculturation which manifested itself in their beliefs within the constructed memory of their Roman identity and was typified in the creation of their myths of ethnic election.

These characteristics were extremely significant because their structure and organization helped to shape and define culture. Culture is what is born out of the interaction between the members of an ethnic community, but it is also what helps to maintain it; ethnicity is the construct and culture is the context in which the construct exists.87 As the cultural context changes the ethnic construct adapts, and vice versa.

What historians have failed to recognize is that ethnicity and culture are only two of the three elements within a social system. The third element of this system is the individual and how that individual makes sense of their cultural context and ethnic construct.

86 Smith, Ethnic Origins, Chapter 2.

87 Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in The Interpretation of Culture (New York City: Basic Books, 2000), 87-125.

Therefore, instead of examining these sources for scraps of historical fact, historians need to analyze them for the purpose and the context in which they were composed. By combining memory studies with the anthropological study of ethnic identity an understanding of not only how these medieval authors shaped their pasts, but why they did comes into view. These medieval authors chose Christianity as their context and it was the cultural context of Christianity that allowed them to shape the ethnic identities of their audiences, contemporaries, and the ‘other’. By analyzing the internal and external variables of change within this cultural context which were acknowledged by Patrick,

Gildas, and Bede historians can understand how changes to their contexts helped to shape the ethnic identities of not just themselves, but the ethnic identities of the Britons, Scots,

Picts, and the 'gens Anglorum' as well.

Saint Patrick and Identity

Patrick composed his Confessio and Epistola in the mid- to late-fifth century.

This was a period of time in which the British Isles underwent difficult changes within their cultural contexts. It is important to remember that these ethnic communities identified by Patrick existed as a single moment within the long durée of ethnic and cultural development. An analysis of how Patrick identified himself within his cultural context throughout his Confessio and Epistola will provide insight into the ethnic identities of those who lived in the British Isles during his lifetime.

Over the late-third and fourth centuries the robust Roman culture that existed in the British Isles slowly assimilated into a culture of its own as the Romano-British citizens of Britannia adapted to the ebbs and flows of a crumbling empire. The

settlement patterns in Britain began to shift gradually from crowded urban centers to rural communities. By the late fourth and early fifth centuries the people who lived within the former boundaries of the Empire had relocated. Roman towns, cities, and villas were abandoned for ancient British settlements, which were small scale, hierarchical in nature, and politically independent.88 Some settlements in northwest Britain relocated to the Iron

Age hill forts, which provided those who settled there with enclosures for their pastures and a level of security against other British communities. To the north, Roman military forts continued to house descendants of Roman garrisons.89 To the east, there is very little archaeological evidence to suggest that a significant number of British settlements existed. This was most likely due to the fact that areas that had been more heavily influenced by the Romans, such as the east, felt the effects of the collapse of the Empire more so than the regions to the west and north, which were only marginally influenced by the economic and social structures of Roman culture.90

Where these settlements relocated and how they maintained their ethnic constructs and cultural contexts hinged upon how much of that Roman culture remained and could be used.91 The Britons who lived within those settlements attempted to adopt

Roman political and material culture as much as possible in light of how much they really knew about the Roman Britain that existed generations before them. Over time this attempted Roman culture would assimilate and manifest itself as their own culture. It

88 Fleming, Britain, 39.

89 Fleming, Britain, 31-38.

90 Fleming, Britain, 39.

91 Fleming, Britain, 28-32.

created new parameters in how one defined oneself as Roman. This newly assimilated culture included the Roman ethnic binary construct—Roman vs. barbarian—as those who lived in these new settlements desired to differentiate themselves from the ‘other’.

Patrick implemented this ethnic binary, which was instilled in him as a member of the Romanized British elite. This can be seen in the first paragraphs of both his

Confessio and Epistola:

I, Patrick, a sinner, very rustic…had as a father a man called Calpornius, a deacon, son of Potitus, a presbyter, who was in the town Bannaventa Bernaie, for he had a little villa nearby, where I [surrendered myself]…and I was led to Ireland in captivity…and dispersed us among gentiles even as far as the furthest part land, where now my insignificance is seen to be among members of a strange race.92

I, Patrick, a sinner, untaught, to be sure, established in Ireland, profess myself to be bishop…Consequently I dwell among barbarian gentiles as a sojourner and a refugee because of the love of God… for whom I have handed over my fatherland and parents and my soul up to the point of death. If I am worthy I live for my God to teach gentiles … I do not say to my fellow citizens, nor to fellow citizens of the holy Romans, but to fellow citizens of demons because of their evil works.93

92 Patrick, Confessio, 1.1.1;4-8;11;18-19.53; Ego. Patricus. Peccator. Rusticissimus….Patrem habui. Calpornium diaconum. Filium quondam Potíti. Presbyteri. qui fuit uico Bannauenta Berniae. Uillulam enim prope habuit ubieégo capturam dedi….et Hiberione in captiutate adductus sum….et dispersit nos in gentibus’ multis etiam usque ad ultimum terrae ubi nunc paruitas mea esse uidetur inter alienigenas (Patrick, Confessio, 1.1.1;4-8;11;18-29.52).

93 Patrick, Epistola, 1.1-2.1-15.28; Patricus peccator indoctus scilicet Hiberione constitutus episcopum me esse fateor. Certissime reor a deo accepi id quod sum. Inter barbaras itaque gentes habito proselitus et profuga ob amorem dei testis est ille si ita est. Nod quod optabam tam dure et tam aspere aliquid ex ore meo effundere sed cogor zelo dei et ueritas xpisti excitauit pro dilectione proximorum atque filiorum pro quibus tradidi patriam et parentes et animam meam usque ad mortem. Si dingus sum uiuo deo meo docere gentes etsi contempnor aliquibus. Manu mea scripsi atque condidi uerba ista danda et tradenda militibus mittenda Corotici non dico ciuibus meis neque ciuibus sanctorum Romanorum sed ciuibus daemoniorum ob mala opera ipsorum (Patrick, Epistola, 1.1-2.1-15.27).

Patrick was fully aware of the significance in identifying himself in this manner, and by doing so, he simultaneously identified the ‘others’ with whom he interacted with. The fact that he utilized this ethnic differentiation not only in the first words of his works, but throughout both sources suggested that these ethnic constructs possessed a level of significance within the cultural context in which he lived. This binary gave Patrick, his mission, and those whom he converted a unique position within the ethnic and cultural chaos of the British Isles during the late fifth and early sixth centuries.

Linked to Patrick’s conception of this binary construct was the belief that any population that lived outside the territorial boundaries of the Roman Empire was considered barbarian. Some Roman boundaries continued to be used,94 but the shifts within the settlement patterns that occurred during this period altered the contemporary perception of what those territorial boundaries were. This shift was apparent in Patrick’s description of his home, his family, and his capture as a young man. The fact that his family possessed a working villa and most likely owned slaves at a time when the majority of Roman Britain was facing socio-economic collapse suggested that the community in which Patrick lived retained the necessary elements and socio-cultural desire to continue upholding Roman cultural standards.

The identification of Patrick’s father and grandfather as both secular and religious leaders in their community within the Confessio pointed to the continued existence of a

Romanized British elite. He also made a note of their socio-economic status in his

Epistola:

94 Fleming, Britain, 55.

I was freeborn according to the flesh. I am born of a Decurion father. But I have sold my nobility…95

In Roman culture a Decurion was a position of power and wealth within local governance who collected taxes and acted as a local magistrate. This suggested that conceptions of

Roman citizenship and public office still existed in the mid- to late-fifth century. The continued presence of this Roman-style government was also referenced in the description of Britain in the Vitae of Saint Germanus and in Bede’s narrative of

Germanus in the HE. 96 Therefore, even though the archaeological record suggests that

Roman Britain ceased to exist by 420, Romanized Britons were still present and active.97

These Romanized Britons subsisted through these newly perceived boundaries and their memorialized conceptions of what it meant to be ‘Roman’.

Throughout the Confessio and the Epistola other characteristics of ethnic identity remembered by Patrick and members of his community were emphasized. One such characteristic was the continued emphasis on a Latin education. On a number of occasions Patrick referenced his inferior knowledge of Latin and his lack of a formal

95 Patrick, Epistola, 3.10.85-89.31: “Ingenuus fui ‘secumdum carnem’ decurióne patre náscor. Uendidi enim nobílitátem méam…” (Patrick, Epistola, 3.10.85-89.30).

96 Ian Wood, “The End of Roman Britain: Continental Evidence and Parallels,” in Gildas: New Approaches, ed. by Michael Lapidge and David Dumville (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1984), 1-25; Germanus was sent to Britain to eliminate Pelagianism in the year 429, approximately twenty years after Rome fell in the British Isles. Germanus interacted with an active British aristocracy and a proficient Church; Bede, HE, 1.28.1:76-99.

97 Fleming, Britain, 80-84.

classical education as a result of his capture and enslavement by the Scots. He defended his illiteracy in length within the Confessio:

On which account formerly I thought about writing, but even until now I hesitated, for I feared lest I should fall onto the tongue of men, because I did not learn just as the others also, who most excellently, consequently, drank in laws and sacred letters, both in equal measure, and never changed their styles of speech from infancy, but rather added always towards perfection. For our speech and spoken language was translated into a strange tongue, as it can easily be proved from the savor of my writing how I was instructed and brought out from an uncultivated state in styles of speech, because it affirms Through the tongue will the wise man be recognized, also consciousness and knowledge and teaching of the truth…98

To Patrick and his contemporaries’ Latin was the language of the educated, the elite, and ecclesiastics. Therefore, those who utilized it were considered to be Roman by Patrick further reinforcing the continued presence of Roman culture.

At the time Patrick wrote Christianity had long been established as the religion of the Empire and was a necessary element for one to be identified as a member of the

Romanized British elite. Many historians have stated that Christianity in Britain during

Patrick’s lifetime was an urban and upper-class movement having only penetrated a small portion of the British countryside.99 However, the continued presence and dominance of

98 Patrick, Confessio, 1.9.1-13.57; Quapropter olim congitaui scribere sed et usque nunc haesitaui timui enim ne inciderem in linguam hominum quai non didici sicut et cétera qui optime itaque iura et sacras litteras utraque pari modo combiberunt et sermons illorum ex infantia numquam mutarunt sed magis ad perfectum semper addiderunt. Nam sermo et loquela nostra translate est in linguam lienam sicut facile potest probari ex saliua scripturae meae qualiter sum ego in sermonibus instructus atque eruditus quai inquit sapiens per linguam dinoscetur et sensus et scientia et doctrina ueritatis (Patrick, Confessio, 1.9.1-13.56).

99 Thompson, St. Patrick, 3-4, 7; James, Britain, 66; Bury, The Life and World, 19.

Christianity within Western Britain after the evacuation of the Roman military forced suggested that it was more than the urban and upper-class Britons who adhered to this religion. By incorporating archaeology into their analysis some historians have suggested that Christianity had reached all levels of society.100 This does not suggest that all those who considered themselves Christians were practicing Christians.

Patrick claimed that his father was a deacon and his grandfather a presbyter yet he stated:

For I was ignorant of the true God, and I was led to Ireland in captivity with so many thousands of men according to our deserts, because we withdrew from God, and we did not keep watch over His precepts, and we were not obedient to our priests, who kept admonishing our salvation,…101

This suggested that during Patrick’s childhood Christianity was a necessary characteristic in being identified as Roman. Many of those who lived within the British Isles may have acknowledged the power and existence of the Christian God, but lacked the defining qualities that would have made them a member of the Catholic Church; baptism and the renunciation of all other gods.102 Archaeological evidence has suggested that during this period of time those who lived in villas, such as Patrick and his family, used images that appeased both Christians and pagans viewers in order to avoid drawing clear lines of religious dedication. This cultural context was a reality for Patrick. He claimed, “I did

100 Fleming, Britain, 120-151; Lambert, Christians and Pagans, xviii, xix, 21.

101 Patrick, Confessio, 1.1.10-16.53; Deum enim uerum ignorabam et Hiberione in captiuitate adductus sum cum tot milia hominum secundum merita nostra quia ‘a Deo recessimus’ et praecepta eius non custodiuimus et sacerdotibus nostris non obodientes fuimus qui nostram salute admonebant (Patrick, Confessio, 1.1.10-16.52).

102 James, Britain, 78.

not believe in the living God, nor [had I believed] from my infancy.”103 Therefore, those who identified as Christians did so because they identified themselves as members of the

Romanized British elite, not because they actively practiced Christianity.

Not to suggest that this was the belief of all Christians within the British Isles at this time. Christianity was tethered to the same fate as other elements of traditional

Roman culture, such as the collapse of Roman Imperial power after 411, the slow decline of the economy, and the abandonment of Roman settlements. Like other elements within the collapsing cultural context of Roman Britain, Christianity took on characteristics of the dominant cultural context in which it was introduced. This was what allowed the context of Christianity and the construct of being ‘Roman’ it to survive after Roman

Britain was gone.

The Church within Britain remained in contact with the Church on the continent and maintained a level of ecclesiastical organization. There was a governing force that attempted to preserve the Christian culture that had remained in the isles. This suggested that there were members of both the clerical and lay community who lived in the British

Isles and had devoted their lives to God and the Church as more than a means to be identified as Roman. It was at this point that the construct of being a ‘Roman’ became less important as a means of ethnic identification and more of a characteristic of being identified as a Christian within the British Isles. This shift in perspective began with

Patrick.

103 Patrick, Confessio, 3.27.18-19.71; et Deum uiuum non credebam neque ex infantia mea (Patrick, Confessio, 3.27.18-19.70).

As Patrick moved through the religious narrative of the Confessio and expressed discontent within his Epistola he began to reposition his relationship to the past as a result of the contemporary relationships he had forged as a missionary with communities both inside and outside the boundaries of what was considered civilized society.

Dedicated to his missionary work in Ireland, Patrick lived outside the boundaries of the

Empire in a land that was never under the influence of Roman imperial culture. The only identity he possessed in Ireland as a missionary was that of a Christian. When he first arrived in Ireland as a slave he was given a definitive place within the Scots social structure. As such he was not a member of the tribe/family that owned him. He was their property, something that could be sold or bought. There were laws and expectations which applied to his role as slave within the Scotti community. Upon Patrick’s return to

Ireland as a missionary, he did not fit within the constructs of the Scots social hierarchy.

In Ireland he was not a member of the Romanized British elite nor was he a slave.104

Patrick was a Christian who sought to spread the word of God in a pagan land that had just begun to establish an ecclesiastical structure. Having possessed this unique identity there were no laws that could be applied to his person or mission within the communities he reached.

As a Christian in a land that did not recognize the Roman/barbarian binary construct, Patrick utilized Christianity as a new marker of identity. This was evident in the beginning his Epistola, “Consequently I dwell among barbarian gentiles.”105 He

104 Charles-Edwards, Ireland, 124-144; Lambert, Christians and Pagans, 138- 142.

105 Patrick, Epistola, 1.1.3.27; Inter barbaras itaque gentes habito (Patrick, Epistola, 1.1.3.26).

recognized the Scots not just as barbarians, but as barbarian gentiles—a people who do not know God or Jesus, a pagan people. Patrick was suggesting that through the acceptance of Christianity the Scots could reach a level of civilization, they could become part of something that transcended the traditional ethnic constructs and territorial boundaries of the Roman Empire. Conversion to Christianity connected them to a wider culture which allowed them to belong to a larger community that included all Christians and Rome at its center.

In opposition to the construct of the civilized Christian there was the sinful barbarian; “For it is written, Not only those committing bad deeds, but also those agreeing with [them] are to be condemned.”106 In his Epistola he described a group that killed and enslaved a Scottish community of converts, a barbaric act:

On which account let every man fearing God get to know that they are estranged from me and from Christ my God, for whom I perform an embassy. Parricide, fratricide, rapacious wolves devouring the folk of the Lord as a meal of bread. Just as it declares, The unjust have utterly destroyed Your Law, Lord, which in these last times He had propagated in Ireland most excellently, kindly, had it had been built up with God favouring it. 107

He identified Coroticus—a British king, and his men—a group of Britons, Scots, and

Picts, in this new binary construct of Christian and barbarian:

106 Patrick, Epistola, 3.14.138-139.33,35; Scriptum est enim Non solum facientes mala sed etiam consentientes damnandi sunt (Patrick, Epistola, 3.14.138-139.32,34).

107 Patrick, Epistola, 1.5.32-39.27,29; Quapropter resciat omnis homo timens Deum quod a me alieni suntet a Xpisto Deo meo pro quo legationem fungor. Patricida fratricida lupi rapaces deuorantes plebem Domini ut cibum panis. Sicut ait, Iniqui dissipauerunt legem tuam Domine quam in supremis temporibus Hiberione optime benigne plantauerat atque instructa erat fauente Deo (Patrick, Epistola, 1.5.32-39.26,28).

I do not say to my fellow citizens, nor to fellow citizens of the holy Romans, but to fellow citizens of demons because their evil works. By hostile behavior they live in death, comrades of Scots and Picts and apostates, bloody men who are with the blood of innocent Christians, whom I have begotten for God, an innumerable number, and confirmed in Christ.108

This binary construct of civilized Christian and sinful barbarian was also present in

Patrick’s description of the Christian people of Ireland:

The injustice of unjust men has prevailed over us, as if we have been made remote outsiders. Perhaps they do not believe we have received one baptism or we have one God as father. It is scandalous [lit. unworthy] to them that we are Irish. Just as it declares, Do you not have one God? Why have you abandoned, each one of you, his own neighbor?109

Patrick suggested that there was a difference between those whom he had converted (Irish) and the ‘other’; the barbarians—Scotti, Picts, and ‘apostates’. This was significant because Patrick redefined what it meant to be barbarian through his introduction of Christianity as the defining element of civilization. This was a role previously held by those who he ethnically identified as Roman. On a island that existed outside the traditional territorial boundaries of the former Roman Empire Patrick found a way to identify a new community in a land that did not recognize the traditional binary

108 Patrick, Epistola, 1.2.14-19.27; Non dico ciuibus meis neque ciuibus sanctorum Romanorum sed ciuibus daemoniorum ob mala opera ipsorum Ritu hostile in morte uiuunt socii Scottorum atque Pictorum apostatarumque sanguilentos sanguinare de sanguine innocentium Xpistianorum quos ego innumerum numerum deo genuii atque in Xpisto confirmaui (Patrick, Epistola, 1.2.14-19.26).

109 Patrick, Epistola, 3.16.161-167.35; Praeualuit iniquitas iniquorum super nos quasi extranei facti sumus. Forte non credunt unum baptismum percepimus uel unum Deum paterm habemus. Indignum est illis Hiberionaci sumus. Sicut ait, Nonne unum Deum habetis? Quid dereliquistis unusquisque proximum suum? (Patrick, Epistola, 3.16.161-167.34).

construct of Roman and barbarian; an ethnic construct that was accepted and utilized throughout the whole of the civilized, western world. Therefore, Patrick established a new binary construct to make sense of his contemporary cultural context. As the Roman world was changing, so was the construct of Roman identity. Having redefined what it meant to be civilized and what it meant to be barbaric the Scots were brought into the fold of Roman influence. Patrick introduced a completely barbarian community into the civilized Roman world through the cultural context of Christianity.

Gildas and Identity

In the late fifth and sixth centuries the cultural context that Patrick alluded to in his Confessio and Epistola, one that clung to the fading reality of a Roman Britain through the remembrance and participation of Roman culture, no longer existed. The

Britain that Gildas described in the DEB, one that embraced an Iron Age/ancient British reality through the constructed memory of the rejection of their Roman Imperial past, faced Anglo-Saxon dominance. In his attempt “to bring to light the ills she [Britain] suffered in the time of the Roman emperors and inflicted on other men, even those far away”110 Gildas repositioned Britain’s relationship to its Roman past. Through his declaration of the ‘ruin of Britain’, Gildas set the Britons apart not just from the barbarians—Scots, Picts, and Anglo-Saxons, but also from the Romans. This was significant because through the act of setting the British population apart Gildas shaped

110 Gildas, DEB, 4.4.17; …illa tantum proferre conobor in medium quae temporibus imperatorum Romanorum et passa est et aliis intulit civibus et longe positis mala (Gildas, DEB, 4.4.90).

new constructs of ethnic identity within the British Isles. It was these new constructs that allowed the Britons to set themselves apart ethnically and culturally from the other populations within the Isles, especially the ‘gens Anglorum’.

Like Patrick, Gildas was faced with a changing cultural context. The British communities that continued to survive during this period exhibited aspects of Roman culture, just as they had during Patrick’s lifetime. However, they had developed their own personality structures, which allowed them to define their ethnic boundaries more clearly. In turn, this permitted the other populations that lived in the isles to define their ethnic boundaries more clearly as well. Unlike Patrick, Gildas did not celebrate the

Roman cultural past of the Britons. He saw that past as a weakness, a weakness the

Britons were once again repeating. To him the increased number of Germanic communities in the British Isles was a result of this weakness.

Throughout the DEB Gildas emphasized the theme of cultural superiority. This concept was extremely important because without it he could not have reconstructed the

Britons’ Roman past through the creation of their myth of ethnic election. This myth created an identity for the Britons as a chosen people or the ethnically elect. To be identified as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect the Britons needed to be recognized as both ethnically and culturally superior through their utilization of moral, legal, and ritual codes (symbols, cultural acts, and cultural patterns) which created a specific system of belief. Thus, the Britons were placed under moral obligations and only continued to receive the benefits of their ethnic election if they upheld those obligations. Falling short of those obligations yielded severe punishment from God.

Gildas composed the DEB as a moral critique of his contemporary ethnic community and their failings within the cultural context of Christianity as the chosen people/the ethnically elect. Their inability to live up to the standards placed on them lead to God’s punishment—the 'gens Anglorum'. For Gildas the DEB was a dramatic restructuring of its Roman past through the creation of the Briton’s myth of ethnic election in order to bring the Britons together for their ethnic survival in the face of assimilation into the rising world of the 'gens Anglorum' that was slowly surrounding them. In the beginning of the DEB Gildas believed that the Romans had the right to conquer the Britons:

The Roman kings, having won the rule of the world and subjugated all the neighboring regions and islands towards the east, were able, thanks to their superior prestige, to impose peace…whereupon wars ceased almost everywhere.111

The cultural superiority of the Romans, or their “superior prestige”112, included not only their methods in war, but also their trustworthiness and desire to spread the “laws of obedience.”113 On the other hand, the Britons were described as sharing none of these superior characteristics. Gildas claimed they were “unwarlike but untrustworthy,”114 superficial, resentful, tyrannical, and rebellious:

111 Gildas, DEB, 5.1.17-18; Etenium reges Romanorum cum orbis imperium obtinuissent subuigatisque finitimis quibusque regionibus vel insulis orientem versus primam Parthorum paceem Indorum confinium, qua peracta in omni paene terra tum cessavere bella (Gildas, DEB, 5.1.90-91).

112 Gildas, DEB, 5.1.17.

113 Gildas, DEB, 5.2.18.

114 Gildas, DEB, 5.2.18.

Ever since it was first inhabited, Britain has been ungratefully rebelling, stiff- necked and haughty, now against God, now against its own countrymen, sometimes even against kings from abroad and their subjects.115

It was the deplorable nature of the Britons that incurred such a punishment from the

Romans.

Unlike Patrick, a Briton who had seen his family and himself as Roman citizens and active participants in Roman Imperial culture, Gildas saw the relationship between the Romans and the Britons as one of master and servant:

…the Romans slaughtered many of the treasonable, keeping a few as slaves so that the land should not be completely deserted…they made for Italy, leaving some of their own people in charge, as whips for the backs of the inhabitants and a yoke for their necks. They were to make the name of Roman servitude cling to the soil…if necessary they were to apply the sword, as one says, clear of its sheath, to their sides: so that the island should not be rated as Britannia but as Romanis, and all its bronze, silver and gold should be stamped with the image of Caesar.116

This concept of cultural superiority was critical in determining which community would be identified as elect. Gildas acknowledged that to be Roman was to be civilized.

However, the collapse of Roman power across Britain and the Continent in combination

115 Gildas, DEB, 4.1.17; Haec erecta cervice et mente, ex quo inhabitata est, nunc deo, interdum civibus, nonnumquam etiam transmarinis regibus et subiectis ingrata consurgit (Gildas, DEB, 4.1.90).

116 Gildas, DEB, 7.1.18; Itaque multis Romani perfidorum caesis, nonnullis ad servitutem, ne, terra penitus in solitudinem redigeretur, mancipalibus reservatis, patria vini oleique expert Italiam petunt, suorum quosdam relinquentes praepositos indigenarum dorsis mastigias, cervicibus iuqum, solo nomen Romanae servitutis haerere facturos ac non tam military manu quam flagris callidam gentem manceraturos et, si res sic postulavisset, ensem, ut dicitur, vagina vacuum lateri eius accomodaturos, ita ut non Britannia, sed Romania censeretur et quicquid habere potuisset aeris argenti vel auri imagine Caesaris notaretur (Gildas, DEB, 7.1.91).

with the spread of Christianity throughout Britain and territories untouched by Roman rule allowed him to redefine what it meant to be the elect. Thus, he facilitated the ethnic survival of the Britons through the declaration of their cultural superiority as the ethnically elect.

Gildas used the binary construct of the civilized Christian and sinful barbarian created by Patrick in the construction of the Britons’ myth of ethnic election. He stated:

What daring of man can, now or in future, be more foul or wicked that to deny fear to God, charity to good fellow-countrymen, honour to those placed in higher authority (for that is their due, granted, of course, that there is no harm to the faith): to break faith with man and God: to cast away fear of heaven and earth, and to be ruled each man by his own contrivances and lusts?117

This suggested that Christianity and cultural superiority had become mutually exclusive within the cultural context of Gildas’ lifetime. Therefore, it did not matter if one identified oneself as Roman, Briton, Scot, or Pict; if they harmed the faith they were considered to be a barbarian.118 By demarcating Christianity as the most significant element of cultural superiority within this new ethnic construct Gildas established the

Britons as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect. He created a link between the contemporary circumstances of the Britons’ cultural context and their shared past, a past that would have been widely recognized and accepted by their community and ‘others’.

117 Gildas, DEB, 4.1.17; Quid enium deformius quidque iniquius potest humanis ausibus vel esse vel intromitti negotium quam deo timorem, bonis civibus caritatem, in altiore dignitate positis absque fidei detriment debitum denegare honorem et frangere divino sensui humanoque fideum, et abiecto caeli terraque metu propriis adinventionibus aliquem et libidinibus regi? (Gildas, DEB, 4.1.90).

118 Rome’s fall from cultural superiority was described by Gildas in his DEB, 9- 11.19-20.

In order for the Britons to be identified as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect Gildas then emphasized Rome’s failure within that role:

…the nine year persecution by the tyrant Diocletian, when churches were razed throughout the world, the holy scriptures, wherever they could be found, were burned in squares, and the chosen priests of the Lord’s flock, together with their harmless sheep, were slaughtered—so that there should, if possible, be no trace of the Christian religion remaining in some provinces.119

The Romans turned their back on God. Therefore, they forfeited their right as the culturally superior ethnic community. Gildas emphasized this point in Britain’s myth of ethnic election for two reasons. First, it suggested how far a community could fall if it did not live up to expected standards—Rome lost everything. And second, now that the

Britons had become the elect they were liable to receive punishment for any immoral actions. Thus, when faced with this persecution the Britons would be saved since they had never been apostates like the Romans;

God therefore increased his pity for us; for he wishes all men to be saved, and calls sinners no less than those who think themselves just. As a free gift to us, in the time (as I conjecture) of this same persecution, he acted to save Britain being plunged deep in the thick darkness of black night; for he lit for us the brilliant lamps of holy martyrs.120

119 Gildas, DEB, 9.1.19; …ad persecutionem Diocletiani tyranny novennem, in qa subversae per totum mundum sunt ecclesiae et cunctae sacrae scripturae, qaue inveniri potuerunt, in plateis exustae et electi sacerdotes gregis domini cum innocentibus ovibus trucidati, ita ut ne vestigium quidem, si fieri potuisset, in nonnullis provinciis Christianae religionis appareret, permansere (Gildas, DEB, 9.1.91-92).

120 Gildas, DEB, 10.1.19; Magnificavit igitur misericordiam suam nobiscum deus volens omnes homines salvos fieri et vocans non minus peccatores quam eos qui se putant iustos. Qui gratuito munere, supra dicto ut conicimus persecutionis tempore, ne penitus crassa atrae noctis caligine Brittania obfuscaretur, clarissimos lampades sanctorum martyrum nobis accendit (Gildas, DEB, 10.1.92).

This myth created something new. It created an identity that existed outside the Roman and barbarian binary construct but existed within the boundaries of the former Roman

Empire in a population that was once Roman. It was an identity that shaped not only a people, but a movement.121 It was the result of the power vacuum left by the Empire after it begun to collapse. The community that endured—the Britons—redefined how they viewed themselves, and the ‘other’ communities in which they interacted with, in what remained throughout the ruins of Roman Britain. The Britons, Scots, Picts, and the

'gens Anglorum' exhibited different cultural characteristics and possessed no history other than that which was given to them by the Roman Empire.122 Unlike the Picts, Scots, and the 'gens Anglorum' the Britons experienced direct contact with Roman culture as former citizens of the Empire. The most significant aspect of this culture was their conversion to

Christianity or at least their introduction to it. Gildas manipulated this Christian culture through his construction of the Britons’ myth of ethnic election.

By the sixth century the visual and tangible socio-cultural structures of Roman

Britain were gone:

…Britain was despoiled of her whole army, her military resources, her governors, as brutal as they were, and her sturdy youth, who had followed in the tyrant’s footsteps, never to return home.123

121 Thompson, “Gildas and the History of Britain,” 208.

122 Geary, “Barbarians,” 107-108.

123 Gildas, DEB, 14.1.21; Exin Britannia omni armato milite, militaribus copiis, rectoribus licet immanibus, ingenti iuventute spoliata, quae cpmitata vestigiis supra dicti tyranny domum nusquam ultra rediit et omnis belli usus ignara penitus… (Gildas, DEB, 14.1.93).

All the major towns were laid low by the repeated battering of enemy rams; laid low, too, all the inhabitants…It was a sad sight. In the middle of the squares the foundation-stones of high walls and towers that had been torn from their lofty base, holy altars…looked as though they had been mixed up in some dreadful wine-press.124

[But] the cities of our land are not as populated even know as they once were; right to the present they are deserted, in ruins and unkept.125

At this point the Britons no longer considered themselves Roman but they were not barbarians, they became something of their own; God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect. This was significant because Gildas placed the Britons within their own ethnic category. The sense of cultural superiority that developed from this myth continued to ethnically separate them from the Picts and Scots, as well as ethnically define themselves from the 'gens Anglorum'.

What separated the Britons from the ‘other’ ethnic communities was the aspects of Roman culture that they made their own. Remnants of Roman administrative tradition continued to exist in nontraditional Roman environments, such as the ancient British settlements of hill forts, former garrisons, and the ruins of former towns and cities. These settlements developed socially stratified communities where an elite utilized certain

124 Gildas, DEB, 24.3.27; …ita ut cunctae coloniae crebris arietibus omnesque coloni cum praepositis ecclesiae, cum sacrerdotibus ac populo, mucronibus undique micantibus ac flammis crepitantibus, simul solo sternerentur, et miserabili visu in medio platearum ima turrium edito cardine evulsarum murorumque celsorum saxa, sacra altaria, cadaverum frusta, crustis ac si gelantibus purpurei cruoris tecta, velut in quodam horrendo torculari mixta viderentur… (Gildas, DEB, 24.3.98).

125 Gildas, DEB, 26.2.28; Sed ne nunc quidem, ut antea, civitates patriae inhabitantur; sed desertae dirutaeque hactenus squalent, cessantibus licet externis bellis, sed non civilibus (Gildas, DEB, 26.2.98).

models of Roman administration to gain and maintain control.126 Gildas hinted towards the lingering presence of this Roman model of civil administration:

…they built a wall quite different from the first…They employed the normal method of construction, drew on private and public funds, and made the wretched inhabitants help them in their work.127

This passage suggested that the contemporary British elite, like the Romans, established a method of taxation within their communities. The public funds mentioned by Gildas were used to perform public works which benefited the community as a whole. The private funds came from the pockets of the elite themselves. They did not just come from whomever was in a position of power, but from the pockets of the elite from which the public works benefited the most. By identifying this practice as a “normal method of construction” Gildas placed it within the context of his contemporary cultural context.128

There were other aspects of Roman culture that continued to linger within Britain.

The DEB as a written work suggested a continued presence of Roman educational standards. Gildas’ utilization of Latin grammar and rhetoric pointed to more than a passing knowledge of the Latin language. Therefore, if Gildas was able to compose a work of this caliber there were also those who could read it. The continued presence of

126 Fleming, Britain, 83.

127 Gildas, DEB, 18.2.22; ...murum non ut alterum, sumptu publico privatoque adiunctis secum miserabilibus indigenis, solito structurae more … (Gildas, DEB, 18.2.94).

128 Fleming, Britain, 80-85.

these educational standards than reinforced the existence of a stratified elite within these settlements.

According to Gildas, the Britons did not acquire any element of Roman military culture, but were equally matched to the Picts and Scots:

Their [the Britons] enemies were no stronger than they, unless Britain chose to relax in laziness and torpor; they should not hold out to them for the chaining hands that held no arms, but hands equipped with shields, swords and lances, ready for the kill.129

He stated that those who had joined the Roman military followed the leadership of

Magnus Maximus to the continent. Although the Britons received help from the Romans twice in their defense against the Picts and the Scots, ultimately Rome felt that “the

British should stand alone, get used to arms, fight bravely, and defend with all their powers their land, property, wives, children, and, more importantly, their life and liberty.”130 Their third request to Rome was denied. It was at this point that “God increased his pity” for the Britons once again. He gave them the strength to defeat the

Picts and Scots, which then confirmed their cultural superiority.

This peace did not last long. Gildas explained:

It was always true of this people (as it is now) that is was weak in beating off the weapons of the enemy but strong in putting up with civil war and the

129 Gildas, DEB, 18.1.22; et gentibus nequaquam sibi fortioribus, nisi segnitia et torpore dissolveretur, inermes vinculis vinciendas nullo modo, sed instructas peltis ensibus hastis et ad caedem promptas protenderet manus, … (Gildas, DEB, 18.1.94).

130 Gildas, DEB, 18.1.22; …sed ut potius sola consusecendo armis ac viriliter dimicando terram substantiolam coniuges liberos et, quod his maius est, libertatem vitamque totis viribus vindicaret, … (Gildas, DEB, 18.1.94).

burden of sin: weak, I repeat, in following the banners of peace and truth but strong for crime and falsehood.131

The Britons indulged in the luxury that this peace had afforded. This luxury lead to sin, civil war, and the return of a barbarian threat. Instead of turning to God for help and forgiveness, the Britons looked to man.

The Britons were unable to uphold the moral obligations ascribed to them as

God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect. Therefore, the Britons were punished. Their punishment came in the form of the 'gens Anglorum'. This was significant because

Gildas established a pattern of sin and redemption for the Britons. He reconstructed how the 'gens Anglorum' were to be remembered by suggesting that if the Britons recognized their sinful nature and reestablished their relationship with God, they could once again ascertain ethnic dominance and cultural superiority throughout the isles.

By reconstructing the memory of the Britons’ Roman past Gildas constructed an identity that solely belonged to the Britons. He successfully separated the Britons from the other indigenous communities of the isles having utilized what little Roman culture that continued to linger throughout the scattered remnants of the former Empire. The fact that Gildas did not recognize these lingering characteristics as Roman, but as unique characteristics that belonged to the Britons, points to a shifting perspective in the contemporary understanding of what cultural superiority was by the sixth century. As the

Roman Empire was shrinking and the traditional characteristics of Roman identity

131 Gildas, DEB, 21.1.24; Moris namque continui erat genti, sicut et nunc est, ut infirma esset ad retundenda hostium tela et fortis esset ad cililia bella et peccatorum onera sustinenda, infirma, inquam, ad exequeda pacis ac veritatis insignia et fortis ad scelera et mendacia (Gildas, DEB, 21.1.95).

became less significant, ‘others’—the barbarians—were becoming more dominant.

Christianity provided ethnic groups with a means to elevate their status within the vacuum left by the crumbling Empire. Those communities who had once been considered barbaric or culturally inferior were now able to reach a level of ethnic validation within the changing world order. The DEB created a foundation of British superiority culturally and ethnically within the British Isles. More importantly, it emphasized their cultural superiority as Christians. Their belief in their cultural superiority was what helped to shape the characteristics of the Celtic Tradition. It was this belief of cultural superiority that shaped Bede’s perception of not only the Britons, but his perception of the Scots and Picts as well in opposition to the 'gens Anglorum' within his HE.

Conclusion

Both Patrick and Gildas used the memory of their Roman pasts to shape how their communities ethnically identified themselves and the ‘other’ within their contemporary contexts. What differentiated them was the reason they needed to remember this past and the cultural context they were each a part of. For Patrick it was a means to defend his missionary work throughout Ireland. Through his own defense he redefined what it meant to be civilized outside the context and boundaries of the Roman Empire. Within his Confessio and Epistola he created the identity of a civilized Christian; an identity that was neither Roman nor barbarian, but an identity that bridged the gap within a complex cultural context that had been dramatically and forever altered by Christianity.

Gildas had remembered his Roman past to promote the Britons’ ethnic survival through the creation of their myth of ethnic election. The DEB emphasized how the

Britons molded their own identity through the remembrance of the past through the rejection of the belief of Roman cultural superiority. Thus, the Britons were left to fill the role of God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect within the isles. Gildas recognized that this shift in the cultural perspective of the Britons correlated with the rise of

Christianity within their ethnic community and across the continent. Where Gildas saw no elements of Roman culture exhibited by the Britons, only their own, he suggested that the Britons utilized the context of Christianity to differentiate themselves from the

‘other’.

Therefore, it was how each author understood the cultural context of the Roman

Empire, its past, and their connection to that past that allowed them to establish new ethnic constructs. Patrick and Gildas chose specific symbols and cultural acts to share with their audiences that reinforced the established perception of ethnic boundaries within their contemporary cultural context. Through their commemoration these symbols and cultural acts reflected the identities they created. However, the identities of these ethnic communities could not manifest their symbolic meaning without Christianity as the foundation of their cultural context. By reinforcing the role of Christianity as the cultural context in which the construct of their ethnic identity thrived Patrick and Gildas identified their communities apart from the ‘other’ (most importantly the 'gens

Anglorum') at a time when the traditional context of Roman culture no longer existed.

Regardless of whether or not the Britons were able to fulfill their role as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, they were still Christians. Their Christianity was

significant because it provided them with a means to culturally unite with ‘other’ ethnic communities, such as the Scots, who shared the same cultural context in the face of a common threat—the Roman tradition of Christianity. The Christian communities of the

Britons and the Scots were linked with those on the continent, but their location of the edge of the known world fostered an insular element within the traditions of their cultural context. It was this unique element that instilled a level of shared cultural unity between these ethnic communities, as well as the widespread conception of the ethnic binary construct of Christian vs. barbarian. This binary construct ensured the ethnic and cultural survival of the Britons and the Scots in the wake of the 'gens Anglorum'. Gildas created the ethnic identity of not only the Britons, but also the Scots, Picts, and the 'gens

Anglorum' through the memories chosen within his DEB.

CHAPTER 4

THE CONSTRUCT OF ETHNICITY IN THE CULTURAL CONTEXT OF CHRISTIANITY: BEDE

There was a recognizable ‘gens Anglorum’ by the late sixth century which existed alongside the Britons, Picts, and Scots in the British Isles. Gildas hinted towards this growing ethnic community in his DEB, but it was Bede who took that illusive concept and molded a people. Unlike Patrick, Gildas, and the ethnic communities they helped to define, Bede knew the ‘gens Anglorum’ had no Roman history. Bede needed to find a way to link the ‘gens Anglorum’ to a Roman past in order to establish them as the culturally and ethnically superior community in the isles. In the HE Bede reshaped their identity through memories of their conversion to Christianity. He used these memories to understand their contemporary cultural context and as a means to guide their actions.

Through the narration of their ecclesiastical journey Bede created a Roman past, memory by memory, through the context of Christianity and the conflict of the Celtic and Roman traditions which existed within that context. Bede utilized the different Christian traditions to differentiate the ‘gens Anglorum’ from the ‘other’. He creatively remembered the relationships the ‘gens Anglorum’ had with Rome, with God, and with the ‘other’ ethnic communities within the British Isles in such a way that emphasized their ecclesiastical destiny.

Through his creation of the ‘gens Anglorum’ and the utilization of their myth of ethnic election as their shared Roman past Bede had clearly shown the ability of the cultural context of Christianity to unite peoples who shared different ethnic constructs.

Christianity had the ability to unite a disparate Germanic people and prove their worthiness to culturally and ethnically dominate the ‘other’ ethnic communities established within the British Isles. Having declared the existence of the ‘gens

Anglorum’ as a unified community the HE stressed the ideal of a single church for a single people within a complex cultural context. It was this constructed memory that gave this community the necessary ideological cohesiveness to ethnically identify themselves as the ‘gens Anglorum’ by the early eighth century.

Bede and Identity

Just like Patrick and Gildas, Bede had to contend with the Roman past of the

‘gens Anglorum’ in order to understand the contemporary cultural context in which he lived. Except the ‘gens Anglorum’ had no Roman past. The ‘gens Anglorum’ were barbarians; a disparate group of Germanic people who migrated to the British Isles and marginalized the indigenous inhabitants. Their conversion to Christianity was what gave them a Roman past and it was their role within the cultural context of Christianity as

God’s chosen people that provided them with ethnic and cultural superiority. However, by the late seventh century the ‘gens Anglorum’ had begun to stray from their Christian ideals. It was in this cultural context that Bede wrote the HE. If they failed to uphold the moral obligations charged to them as God’s chosen people the ‘gens Anglorum’ would lose their Roman past thus forfeiting their position as the culturally superior ethnic

community within the British Isles. Bede understood that two things needed to occur in order to reestablish and maintain their superiority. First the ‘gens Anglorum’ needed to believe they embodied a single identity beyond that of being Christian within the Roman tradition; they needed to connect to one another as a single ethnic community. The second was the need to justify their worthiness as the culturally superior ethnic community in a cultural context where they had been the most recent population to join.

Therefore, the HE was more than just the story of the conversion of the ‘gens Anglorum’ and historic triumph of the Church and the Roman tradition, it was a myth of ethnic election meant to help solidify the ideal of the ‘gens Anglorum’ into a reality.

The belief in the concept of a ‘gens Anglorum’ was not created by Bede but was a contemporary sentiment that existed throughout their community and various ‘others’.

This ethnic construct was not the result of unification under a sole political authority or adherence to a single secular code of law. The ‘gens Anglorum’ was the product of

God’s providential will. Gildas unknowingly formulated this ideal in his DEB. He identified this foreign and invading community as a single group that had a single purpose. When creating his myth of ethnic election for the Britons Gildas singled out the existence of this barbarian population and their role as punishment from God:

…the ferocious Saxons (name not be spoken!), hated by all man and God, should be let into this island like wolves into the fold, to beat back the people of the north. Nothing more destructive, nothing more bitter has ever befallen the land.132

132 Gildas, DEB, 23.1-2.26; …adinvenientes tale praesidium immo exoidium patriae ut ferocissimi illi nefandi nominis Saxones deo hominibusque invisi, quasi in capulas lupi, insulam ad retundendas aquilonales gentes intomitterentur. Quo utique nihil ei usquam perniciosius nihique amarius factum est (Gildas, DEB, 23.1-2.97).

It was Bede who singled out their barbarian existence to amplify their role as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect.

The entire HE was written to emphasize the myth of ethnic election of the ‘gens

Anglorum’. Book 1 was the foundation in the construction of this ethnic community’s identity. Bede began in a manner that established a link between Britain and the disparate groups of Germanic people. He introduced these communities that immigrated to Britain, which gave them historic roots through their incorporation into the history of the British Isles:

Now the strangers had come from three of the more mighty nations in Germany, that is, the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes. Of the Jutes came the people of Kent and the settlers of Wight, and they which in the province of the West Saxons are called unto this day the nation of the Jutes, right over against the Isle of Wight. Of the Saxons, that is, of that region which now is called of the Old Saxons, descended the East Saxons, the South Saxons and the West Saxons. Further, of the Angles, that is, of that country that is called Angeln and from that time to this is said to stand deserted between the provinces of the Jutes and the Saxons, descendeth the East Angles, the Uplandish Angles, the Mercians and all the progeny of the Northumbrians, that is, of that people that inhabiteth the north side of the flood Humber, and the other nations of the Angles.133

This was significant because Bede created the illusion that Britain always had been their homeland in his manipulation of specific historical memories. Therefore, by coming to

133 Bede, HE, 1.15.1:71; Advenerant autem de tribus Germanaie populis fortioribus, id est, Saxonibus, Anglis, Iutis. De Iutarum origine sunt Cantuari et Victuari, hoc est, ea gens quae Vectam tenet insulam, et ea quae usque hodie in provincia Occidentalium Saxonum Iutarum natio nominator, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectum. De Saxonibus, is est, ea regione quae nunc Antiquorum Saxonum cognominatur, venere Orientales Saxones, Meridiani Saxones, Occidui Saxones. Porro de Anglis, hoc est, de illa patria quae Angulus dicitur et ab eo tempore usque hodie manere desertus inter provincias Iutarum et Saxonum perhibetur, Orientales Angli, Mediterranei Angli, Merci, tota Nordanhymbrorum progenies, id est, illarum gentium quae ad Boream Humbri fluminis inhabitant ceterique Anglorum populi sunt orti (Bede, HE, 1.15.1:70).

the British Isles these communities had begun the process of becoming the ‘gens

Anglorum’ through the fulfillment of their providential destiny. Bede established a new history, one where “they [the ‘gens Anglorum’] belonged to Britain as much as Britain belonged to them.”134

In order to support this claim, Bede continued to manipulate their past through the creation of a fictive kinship between the various Germanic populations that had come to settle in the British Isles. He accomplished this by furthering their connection to each other through common ancestors:

The first captains of the strangers are said to have been two brothers, Hengist and Horsa; of the which, Horsa being slain in battle of the Britons was buried in the east parts of Kent, where his tomb bearing his name is yet to shew. And they were sons of Wictgils, whose father was Witta, whose father was Wetca, whose father was Woden, of whose issue the royal house of many provinces had their original.135

Although these Germanic peoples already shared a very broad set of common cultural characteristic, he definitively linked the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes to a common

Germanic ancestor—the god Woden—as well as through Woden’s descendants Hengist and Horsa. Bede manipulated this link in order to create a stronger bond between them.

Thus, the ‘gens Anglorum’ were linked as a people in Germany through their ancestor

Woden; in their migration to the British Isles through their heroic captains Hengist and

134 Stephens, “History”, 5.

135 Bede, HE, 1.15.1:71,73; Duces fuisse perhibentur eorum primi duo fratres Hengist et Horsa; e quibus Horsa postea occisus in bello a Brettonibus, hactenus in orientalibus Cantiae partibus monumentum habet suo nomine insigne. Erant autem filii Victgilsi,cuius pater Vitta, cuius pater Vecta, cuius pater Voden, de cuius stripe multarum provinciarum regium genus originem duxit (Bede, HE, 1.15.1:70,72).

Horsa; and in their establishment of a homeland in the southeast of Britain through the tomb of Horsa in Kent. This passage linked these communities to a number of common temporal and spatial contexts, which helped to further the bond Bede created between the various Germanic communities. This history set the foundation that solidified Bede’s declaration of Britain as the homeland of God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, the

'gens Anglorum'.

Bede continued to build this myth by sharing a number of historical memories that focused on this barbarian community before their conversion to Christianity. The most significant of these memories was taken from Gildas and the DEB and used by Bede in the HE:

For they [the Britons] devised with themselves what was best to do, and where they might seek rescue to escape or beat off the cruel and continual assaults of the northern nations; and they agreed all with their king Vurtigern to call to their aid the nation of the Saxons beyond the seas…136

In whose time the nation of the English or Saxons, being sent for of the said king into Britain, landed there in three long ships, and by the same king’s commandment is appointed to abide in the east part of the island, as to defend the country like friends, but indeed, as it proved afterward, as minded conquer it as enemies.137

Then suddenly taking league for a season with the Redshanks, whom they [the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes] had by now driven further off by fighting, the strangers began to turn their force upon their allies [the Britons] … the fire once

136 Bede, HE, 1.14.1:69; Initum namque est consilium quid agendum, ubi quaerendum esset praesidium ad evitandas vel repellendas tam feras tamque creberrimas gentium aquilonalium inruptiones: placuitque omnibus cum suo rege Vurtigerno ut Saxonum gentem de transmarinis partibus in auxilium vocarent: … (Bede, HE, 1.14.1:68).

137 Bede, HE, 1.15.1:69; Tunc Anglorum sive Saxonum gens invitata a rege praefato, in Brittaniam tribus longis navibus advehitur, et in orientali parte insulae iubente eodem rege locum manendi, quasi pro patria pugnatura, re autem vera hanc expugnatura, suscipit (Bede, HE, 1.15.1:68).

kindled in the hands of the pagans took God’s just revenge of the wickedness of the people….138

What Bede took from Gildas laid the groundwork for him to construct a myth of ethnic election. His emphasis on these particular historical memories that were chosen by

Gildas allowed Bede to link the history of the Britons to that of the ‘gens Anglorum’. He established how and why these Germanic populations migrated to the British Isles and what that meant for the Britons, Scots, and Picts, as well as the creation of the ‘gens

Anglorum’. This was significant because Bede showed that the HE utilized a past acknowledged by both the Britons and the ‘gens Anglorum’, which in turn solidified the ideology of their providential role. In sharing these specific memories, he introduced the

‘gens Anglorum’ seamlessly into a Roman past through their champion of Christianity.

The historical memories chosen by Bede and included in the HE highlighted specific heroes, events, and the means for their commemoration (via symbols and cultural acts) in order to create a single history for a single people. Gregory the Great was one of the most important heroes mentioned by Bede throughout all five books. For Bede, the story of the ‘gens Anglorum’ began with Gregory the Great in a Roman marketplace.

This memory of Gregory and the slave boys was meant to supplement the traditional

Germanic myth of Woden, Hengist, and Horsa mentioned by Bede in Chapter 15 Book 1 as a means to incorporate Rome into the pagan past of this barbarian community. His emphasis on Gregory’s role in the creation of the ‘gens Anglorum’ provided this

138 Bede, HE, 1.15.1:73; Tumsubito inito ad tempus foedere cum Pictis quos longius iam bellando pepulerant, in socios arma vertere incipient….accensus minibus paganorum ignis, iustas de sceleribus populi Dei ultiones expetiit,… (Bede, HE, 1.15.1:72).

community with a believable connection to a Roman past, one that was ordained by God, and linked the redemption of Britain and those who live there to the redemption of Rome.

Gregory was the catalyst that allowed the barbarian communities of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes to embrace their ecclesiastical destiny.

The middle of Book 1 described the decay of the Western Empire and the refusal of the Britons to spread God’s Word to their barbarian neighbors. Therefore, the Britons failed to fulfill their role as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect:

Among other of their [the Britons] evil deeds not to be spoke of, which their historiographer Gildas doth lamentably set forth in writing, this also is added, that they never took care to preach the word of faith to the folk of the Saxons or English which inhabited the land among them. But yet the goodness of God did not so forsake His people which He foreknew to be saved, but provided for the said folk [the Britons] much more worthy heralds of the truth [the Anglo- Saxons], by whom they might be brought unto His faith.139

Just as Gildas explained in the DEB, the failure of the Britons to convert their barbarian neighbors nullified their covenant with God as his chosen people/the ethnically elect.

Bede expanded on this having stated that the Britons never really were God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, and that that role had always been reserved for the ‘gens

Anglorum’. These Germanic populations had come to Britain as punishment, not because the Britons failed to fulfill their role as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, but because they failed as Christians.

139 Bede, HE, 1.22.1:101; Qui inter alia inenarrabilium scelerum facta, quae historicus eorum Gildus flebili sermone describit, et hoc addebant, ut numquam genti Saxonum sive Anglorum secum Brittaniam incolenti, verbum fidei praedicando committerent. Sed non tamen divina pietas plebem suam, quam praescivit, deseruit, quin multo digniores genti memoratae praecones veritatis, per quos crederet, destinavit (Bede, HE, 1.22.1:100).

Bede concludes Book 1 with Gregory as the champion of the ‘gens Anglorum’ and their church. Gregory had successfully brought Christianity to their barbarian community through the Augustinian Mission, the establishment of the episcopal see in

Canterbury, Ethelbert’s conversion, and Augustine’s ordination as archbishop (at

Canterbury) of Britain. The loose sense of commonality within their Germanic past expressed by Bede in the earlier chapters of Book 1 was solidified through the memory of

Gregory as their hero. Having given them a Roman past, Gregory gave them everything; a common proper name, a myth of common ancestry, shared historical memories, elements of common culture, a new homeland, and, most importantly, a sense of solidarity.

Memory by memory Bede built a congruent history of a united ethnic community.

The HE was so critical in the reaffirmation of the ‘gens Anglorum’ because Bede was able to show them as a single ethnic community without the presence of a sole political authority. Their ethnic unity derived from the church, Rome, and the authority of its leader—the Pope. In their acceptance of Christianity, the ‘gens Anglorum’ evolved from barbarian invaders who shared a loose association to that of a civilized and legitimate ethnic community that exemplified a level of cultural superiority within the British Isles.

Bede reinforced this unity through the expression of specific memories that demonstrated their loyalty to Rome and Canterbury, such as those memories that symbolized their differentiation from the Britons—i.e. their separate names, languages, and especially their different ecclesiastical traditions.140 The conflict between the Celtic and Roman

140 Reynolds, “What Do We Mean”, 404; Felicity Heal, “Approaching History: Catholic and Protestant Polemics and the National Past,” Huntington Library Quarterly 68, no. 1/2 (2005): 122.

traditions of Christianity helped not only to enhance the myth of ethnic election of the

‘gens Anglorum’, but also helped to reestablish a particular set of characteristics that re- conceptualized the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the British Isles.

Bede recognized that with the introduction of Christianity to the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes the cultural context of the British Isles had been dramatically altered. By

Augustine’s arrival in the sixth century a number of large organized territories/kingdoms with established social hierarchies had already been in existence. The elite within these kingdoms engaged in all manners of social and cultural exchange that lead to a level of acculturation between them—Britons, Scots, Picts, and the ‘gens Anglorum’.141 One of the characteristics that had allowed the Britons and the Scots to differentiate themselves from their invaders was the level of cultural superiority granted to them via Christianity.

However, with the conversion of an ‘imperium’ wielding ‘rex Anglorum’, such as

Ethelbert of Kent, Christianity alone could no longer be utilized by the indigenous populations of the British Isles as a means of differentiation from their Germanic invaders. From this moment on the heroes, events, and their commemoration by Bede were all focused on the ‘gens Anglorum’ and the fulfillment of their myth of ethnic election through the unity of the church and through the consensus of the Celtic and

Roman traditions.

It was the need to define oneself ethnically that stimulated the division of

Christian tradition in the British Isles. However, variation within Christianity was the norm throughout the Catholic Church in Europe. Christians identified themselves not as

141 Fleming, Britain, 109-119.

members of a separate Church in opposition to Rome, but their beliefs were a reflection of the diversity of their local/regional practices.142 Bede stated that the dispute between the Celtic and Roman traditions began with Augustine and a number of British bishops at a place known to him and to history as Augustine’s Oak.143 Upon Augustine having received instruction from Pope Gregory on how to incorporate the practices and traditions of the British and Irish churches—Celtic tradition—he asked Ethelbert for help in calling a conference with the British bishops and doctors in order to “persuade them to be at

Catholic peace with him, and to undertake the common labour of preaching the Gospel to the nations for the Lord’s sake.”144 It was this conference and the synod that followed that sparked a dispute that helped to define ethnic identity and empower one’s ethnic community within the complex cultural context of Christianity.

This memory had set the precedent for unity not only amongst the 'gens

Anglorum', but also the Britons, Scots, and Picts:

Now he [Augustine] said that “in many points ye do contrary to our custom, or rather to the custom of the universal Church: yet withstanding, if ye will in these three things obey unto me, that is, to celebrate Easter in due time; to accomplish the ministry of baptism, by which we are born again to God, according to the manner of the holy Roman and apostolic Church; and to preach along with us the word of the Lord to the English nation; all the other things that ye do, though they may be contrary to our customs, we shall be content to bear with.”145

142 Caitlin Corning, The Celtic and Roman Traditions (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006), 1-2

143 Bede, HE, 2.2.1:204-213.

144 Bede, HE, 2.2.1:204-205.

145 Bede, HE, 2.2.1:209,211; Dicebat autem eis, quia “in multis quidem nostrae consuetudini, immo universalis ecclesiae contraria geritis: et tamen si in tribus his mihi obtemperare vultis; ut pascha suo tempore celebretis; ut ministerium baptizandi, quo Deo renascimur, iuxta morem sanctae Romanae et apostolicae ecclesiae compleatis; ut

The refusal of the British bishops was not based on matters of Christian doctrine or practice, but on the sense of betrayal the Britons felt when Augustine, and by proxy the

Pope and Rome, refused to acknowledge their ecclesiastical and cultural authority:

But they answered that they would do none of those things requested, neither would count him for archbishop: saying with themselves: “Nay, if he would not so much as rise to us, how much the more, if we now begin to subject ourselves to him, will he hereafter despise us and set us at nought!”146

Having rejected Augustine and the basic tenents of the Roman tradition Bede definitively stated that the Britons were not God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect and they were to be punished accordingly:

For it happened afterwards that the very same king of the English of whom we have spoken, the mighty Ethelfrith, gathering a large army, made at the City of Legions (which the English nation call Legacaestir, but the Britons better Carlegion) a very great slaughter of this heretical people. … Accordingly he [Ethelfrith] commanded his soldiers to assault these men first, as so he vanquished after the other parts of this detestable host, but yet not without a great loss to his own men. It is reported that there were slain in that battle, of them that had come to pray, about 1200 men, and that only 50 escaped by flight.147

genti Anglorum una nobiscum verbus Domini praedicetis; cetera quae agitis, quamvis moribus nostris contraria, aequanimiter cuncta tolerabimus” (Bede, HE, 2.2.1:208,210).

146 Bede, HE, 2.2.1:211; At illi nil horum se facturos, neque illum pro archiepiscopo habituros esse respondebant; conferentes ad invicem, quia “si modo nobis adsurgere noluit, quanto magis si ei subdi coeperimus, iam nos pro nihilo contemnet” (Bede, HE, 2.2.1:210).

147 Bede, HE, 2.2.1:211,213; Siquidem post haec ipse de quo diximus, rex Anglorum fortissimus Aedilfrid, collecto grandi exercitu, ad Civitatem Legionum, quae a gente Anglorum Legacaestir, a Brettonibus autem rectius Carlegion appellatur, maximam gentis perfidae stragem dedit….Itaque in hos primum arma verti iubet, et sic ceteras nefandae militae copias non sine magno exercitus sui damno delevit. Exstinctos in ea pugna ferunt, de his qui ad orandum venerant, viros circiter mille ducentos, et solum quinquaginta fuga esse lapsos (Bede, HE, 2.2.1:210,212).

If they accepted Augustine and corrected their errors the Britons and Scots would have yielded to the power of Ethelbert, an ‘imperium’ wielding ‘rex Anglorum’, and would have accepted their failure not only in their role as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, but as Christians.

Christianity continued to win converts and grow after the Romans left. By the time Augustine arrived the Britons and the Scots managed to establish a fully functioning ecclesiastical structure where their ecclesiastical leaders played an active role within the cultural context of Christianity at home and on the continent. Gregory’s decision to send

Augustine to Britain and to establish an episcopal seat within the enemy’s territory suggested that the Christianity that they had clung to as a means to ethnically survive as a community was moot. This left them to question their own ethnic identity at a time when they needed their faith the most. Their Christianity was a symbol of ethnic survival.

Therefore, this struggle between these ethnic communities now existed within the same cultural context of Christianity.

The contrary customs practiced by the Britons and the Scots became a means to resist domination by the ‘gens Anglorum’. The Celtic tradition can be defined as “a set of shared practices found both in the Irish and British Churches, not one or the other exclusively.”148 Although variation existed between the practices and ideas of the Irish and British churches, the common practices—i.e. the dating of Easter, the tonsure, and the ritual of baptism—and ideas that these ethnic communities shared were distinctive comparatively to the rest of Western Christendom and the Roman tradition. The Roman

148 Corning, Traditions, 4.

tradition can be defined as the churches “who were united in their acceptance of a set of practices (and ideas) also used in Rome.”149 Christians from both the Celtic tradition and the Roman tradition believed in a universal, or Catholic, Church and recognized the authoritative role of the papacy and Rome within said Church. By continuing to practice the Celtic tradition of Christianity the Britons and the Scots maintained their ethnic and cultural differentiation from their Germanic invaders while those same invaders converted to Christianity themselves.

The HE continued with the ‘gens Anglorum’ struggling to embrace their fate as

God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect. This struggle included not just the deterioration of some kingdoms back into idolatry150 and the conversion of kings and their kingdoms151, but also the struggle for liturgical unity. This last struggle resulted from the conflict between the Celtic and Roman traditions and occupied the last half of Bede’s work. Having created their myth of ethnic election Bede was aware that not all of the important figures in their conversion to Christianity had been adherents to the Roman tradition. Therefore, he needed to include memories that definitively linked the ‘gens

Anglorum’ to the Roman tradition. One such memory was the Synod of Whitby.152

149 Corning, Traditions, 4; Included churches within Rome, Merovingian Gaul, portions of Lombard Italy, the Kingdom of Kent, and eventually other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms within the British Isles.

150 Bede, HE, 2.5.1:224-233; 3.1.1:324-329.

151 Bede, HE, 2.12.1:270-281; 2.14-15.1:288-295; 3.4.1:388-345; 3.7.1:354-361; 3.21.1:430-435; 3.24.1:448-457.

152 Bede, HE, 3.25.1:456-477.

According to Bede, the Synod at Whitby was called c.664 by Oswy, king of

Northumbria, and Alchfrid, his son and sub-king of Deira, in order to settle “the dispute regarding the dating of Easter, and other rules of ecclesiastical life.”153 Leading up to this synod, Oswy had been influential in the conversion of a number of kingdoms that had fallen under his authority.154 However, he was trained in the Celtic tradition having received his faith while in exile at Iona. Thus, the Irish Church had been active in the conversion of those under his influence as an ‘imperium’ wielding ‘rex Anglorum’. This meant that those whom he and the Irish Church converted followed the Celtic tradition.

As the church grew under his authority as ‘rex Anglorum’, it reached a level of development where liturgical unity in regards to the celebration of Easter was necessary for its success, the success of his ‘imperium’, and the success of the 'gens Anglorum'.

Oswy utilized Christianity as a means to unite his kingdoms and increase his power and influence within them which made the need for liturgical unity even more necessary.

These two traditions created chaos for up to eighteen weeks of liturgical feasts and fasts.

Political and religious leaders knew a decision had to be made regarding which ecclesiastical tradition was to be followed:

But after the death of Finan which came after Aidan, when Colman succeeded to the bishopric, who also himself was sent from Scotland, there arose a sharper disputation about the observance of Easter as well as upon other rules of ecclesiastical life: by occasion whereof this inquiry rightly stirred the minds and hearts of many from fear, lest, having gained the name of Christians, they did run or had run in vain.155

153 Referencing the debate on the dating of Easter and the proper tonsure; Bede, HE, 3.25.1:460-61.

154 Bede, HE, 3.21-22.1:430-441; 3.24.1:448-457; Oswy was the last ‘imperium’ wielding king to be included in Bede’s list of ‘Bretwaldas’ in 5.23.2:366-375.

There were a number of political and ecclesiastical factors that went into the calling of the Synod of Whitby, but Bede’s focus was to emphasize the necessity of unity.

Oswy’s choice to utilize Christianity, and by extension the conflict between the Celtic and Roman traditions to solidify his authority and power throughout his kingdoms reinforced Bede’s myth of ethnic election. By the mid-seventh century, the Celtic tradition had begun to be seen as a heretical practice by a number of church authorities at home and abroad. Having been “brought up and baptized of the Scots”156 Oswy was risking his power and authority by upholding the Celtic tradition at a point in time when he needed the support of the Church and key political figures to reaffirm unity across his vast territory. Through Oswy’s role as an ‘imperium’ wielding king and arbiter of the

Synod Bede was able to portray him as the defender of the ‘gens Anglorum’ and their heritage, having protected them from corruption and the external control of the Scots and their Church in his choice of the Roman tradition.

What made this conflict so significant in matters of ethnic differentiation was the symbolism associated with these traditions and what that meant for the communities that practiced them. To the Britons and the Scots, the Celtic tradition symbolized their cultural superiority as Christians, which reaffirmed their ethnic identities through their relationship to their Roman past. It symbolized their ecclesiastical heritage, their success in Ireland and on the continent, and their authority and prestige as a center for learning.

155 Bede, HE, 3.25.1:461; Defuncto autem Finano qui post illum fuit, cum Colmanus in episcopatum succederet, et ipse missus a Scottia, gravior de observatione paschae necnon et de aliis ecclesiasticae vitae disciplinis controversia nata est: unde merito movit haec quaestio sensus et corda multorum, timentium ne forte accepto Christianitatis vocabulo, in vacuum currerent, aut cucurrissent (Bede, HE, 3.25.1:460).

156 Bede, HE, 3.25.1:460-461.

Lastly, it symbolized the importance of all who came before them and everything they had done and accomplished in the face of adversity. To Colman those in the distant past who had maintained Christianity in the wake of the Empire’s collapse and those who more recently managed to encourage faith and hope with the rise of the ‘gens Anglorum’ were well known ecclesiastical authorities. To accept the belief that the Celtic tradition was heretical would be to dishonor, discredit, and denounce everything his elders and his people had done and stood for.

On the other hand, to the ‘gens Anglorum’, the Roman tradition symbolized their ethnic and cultural identity via their future and destiny as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect. It symbolized their link to Britain. More importantly, it symbolized their link to Rome and the power and authority that came with it. Having rejected

Oswy’s decision Bede had shown that Colman and those in Pictland, Dál Riáta, Iona, and the British kingdoms who continued to follow the Celtic tradition were reinforcing the concept of differentiation not only between their own ethnic communities, but that of the

‘gens Anglorum’ as well:

Colman, seeing his doctrine contemned and sect reproved, taking those who which would follow him, that is, which refused to accept the catholic Easter and the bearing of the shaven crown (for of this matter also there was no small disputation), returned to Scotland [Ireland], minding to deliberate there with his countrymen, what he ought to do concerning these matters.157

157 Bede, HE, 3.26.1:479; Colman videns spretam suam doctrinam, sectamque esse despectam, adsumptis his qui se sequi voluerunt, id est, qui pascha catholicum, et tonsuram coronae (nam et de hoc quaestio non minima erat), recipere nolebant, in Scottiam regressus est, tractaturus cum suis, quid de his facere deberet (Bede, HE, 3.26.1:478); Other ecclesiastical authorities from the gens Anglorum include Egbert, Ethelwin, Wilfrid, Chad, and Wighard (Bede, HE, 3.26-29.1:478-501; 4.1.2:2-9).

This ethnic differentiation was also implemented by the ‘gens Anglorum’ through

Oswy’s decision to replace those who rejected his ruling at the Synod of Whitby with ecclesiastics from their own Church:

Furthermore, at the departure of the Scots [Irish], Eata, a most reverend and meek person, was set over the brethren which chose to remain in the church at Lindisfarne, with authority of abbot…: and this it is said was obtained of king Oswy by the suit of Colman at the point of his departure, because that the same Eata was one of the twelve scholars of Aidan, which at his first coming of bishop he took out of the English nation to be brought up in Christ….This Eata is he which not long after was made bishop of the same church at Lindisfarne.158

Bede ended Book 3 with the ‘gens Anglorum’ having achieved ecclesiastical independence from the Scots:

Now this controversy [between the Celtic tradition and Roman tradition] was moved in the 664th year of the Lord’s incarnation, which was the 22nd year of King Oswy; but the 30th year after the Scots had been made bishops in the province of the English.159

By including the memories that highlighted this independence from the ‘other’—i.e. the

Scots and their ecclesiastical institutions, as well as the Britons—Bede reinforced the concept that the 'gens Anglorum' had become the culturally superior ethnic community.

They accepted the Roman tradition of Christianity and consecrated ecclesiastics from

158 Bede, HE, 3.26.1:481; Porro fratribus, qui in Lindisfarnensi ecclesia, Scottis abeuntibus, remanere maluerunt, praepositus est abbatis iure vir reverentissimus ac mansuetissimus Eata, qui erat abbas in monasteria quod dicitur Mailros: quo aiunt Colmanum abiturum petiisse et impetrasse a rege Osuiu, eo quod esset idem Eata unus de duodecim pueris Aidani, quos primo episcopatus sui tempore de natione Anglorum erudiendos in Christo accepit….Ipse est Eata, qui non multo post eidem ecclesiae Lindisfarnensi episcopus factus est (Bede, HE, 3.26.1:480).

159 Bede, HE, 3.26.1:479; Facta est autem haec quaestio anno Dominicae incarnationis sexcentesimo sexagesimo quarto, qui fuit annus Osuiu regis vicesimus secundus; episopatus Anglorum, annus tricesimus (Bede, HE, 3.26.1:478).

their own ethnic community to positions of power within the church. Bede’s theme of cultural superiority continued and was solidified in Book 4 with some unexpected help from Rome.

By this time Oswy and other kings possessed the ability to select those whom they wished to be ordained as ecclesiastical leaders within their territories. This ability suggested that the power and authority of the 'gens Anglorum' had achieved a certain symmetry with Christianity and the Church. This symmetry was seen when the candidate chosen by Oswy and Egbert, king of Kent, for the archbishopric of Canterbury died upon his arrival in Rome:

At that time, the bishopric being vacant a great while, Wighard, priest, a man well learned in the disciplines of the Church, an Englishman born, was sent to Rome by Egbert as well as by Oswy king of the Northumbrians (as we have briefly mentioned in the foregoing book), they being desirous for him to be ordained archbishop of the Church of the English…160

His death once again threatened the ‘gens Anglorum’ and their Church with the possibility that the seat of their ecclesiastical authority would remain vacant. This made them vulnerable to the possibility that the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ would once again fall under the authority of a foreign ecclesiastic. With the urgency for leadership within their church Pope Vitalian ordained Theodore of Tarsus. Although Theodore was foreign he adhered to the Roman tradition and helped to unify the ‘gens Anglorum’ and their

160 Bede, HE, 4.1.2:2; Tunc cessante non pauco tempore episcopate, missus est Romam ab ipso simul et a rege Nordanhymbrorum Osuio, ut praecedente libro paucis diximus, Vighard presbyter, vir in ecclesiasticis disciplinis doctissimus, de genere Anglorum, petentibus hunc ecclesiae Anglorum archiepiscopum ordinary:… (Bede, HE, 4.1.2:3).

Church. Ultimately, he played a vital role in the development of the cultural superiority of their ethnic community during the mid- to late-seventh century.

For Bede Book 4 chronicled the accomplishments of the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’, accomplishments that largely occurred during Theodore’s “twenty-one years, 3 months and 26 days”161 as the Archbishop of Canterbury. During his tenure, Theodore brought the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ closer to their destiny as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect. Bede described this period of time as the pinnacle of the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’;

“Neither was there ever since the English came to Britain, any time more happy than at the present.”162 Theodore utilized the new found sense of cultural superiority that developed after Oswy’s decision at the Synod of Whitby to unify their Church and show the continent what the ‘gens Anglorum’ had to offer.

By the time Theodore arrived in Britain the ‘gens Anglorum’ had almost completely come into their own, ecclesiastically. They created a large Christian context that practiced the Roman tradition which spanned the majority of the regions they held, their church hierarchy was almost completely comprised of members from their own ethnic community, and those within this hierarchy were in the process of transitioning to the Roman tradition, if they had not already done so.163 Although the ‘ecclesiis

Anglorum’ achieved this success in such a short time they required assistance from Rome in the wake of the Synod of Whitby in order to continue towards fulfilling their myth of

161 Bede, HE, 4.2.2:10-11.

162 Bede, HE, 4.2.2:11; Neque unquam prorsus ex quo Brittaniam petierunt Angli, feliciora fuere tempora… (Bede, HE, 4.2.2:10).

163 Lambert, Christians and Pagans, 236.

ethnic election.164 Bede believed that, like Augustine, under the leadership and patronage of Theodore as the Archbishop of Canterbury the ‘gens Anglorum’ would attain the next ecclesiastical element in this process. This allowed them to defend their claim as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect and reinforced their cultural superiority amongst the other ethnic communities within the British Isles.

The ecclesiastical reforms instituted by Theodore brought the ‘gens Anglorum’ closer to Gregory the Great’s vision of the Church in Britain and, therefore, were critical in the success of this church. Bede stated that when he reached the British Isles Theodore went right to work:

And soon he [Theodore] travelled over all the island, wheresoever the English tribes dwelled, for all men did most gladly receive him and hear him; and having with him the company and help of Hadrian in all things, did sow abroad the right rule of living and the canonical manner of celebrating Easter.165

The influence of these reforms and others were reinforced by a number of articles/canons that were the focus of discussion at the Synod of Hertford in 671. The articles presented by Theodore at Hertford directly correlated to the ethnic and cultural tensions that emerged between the ‘gens Anglorum’ and the ecclesiastical ideals of the Church and of

164 The Archibishopric of Canterbury had been left vacant for five years, from July 664 to May of 669 (4.1.2:2-3). The ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ had been left without an ecclesiastical leader and desperately required direction due to its rapid growth and success throughout the kingdoms of the ‘gens Anglorum’.

165 Bede, HE, 4.2.2:10; Moxque peragrata insula tota, quaquaversum Anglorum gentes morabantur, nam et libentissime ab omnibus suscipiebatur atque audiebatur, rectum vivendi ordinem, ritum paschae celebrandi canonicum, per Omnia comitate et cooperante Hadriano disseminabat (Bede, HE, 4.2.2:11).

Rome. It was necessary for the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ to further assimilate Roman

Christian culture in order for them to fulfill their myth of ethnic election.

Articles one, seven, and ten referenced some basic tenents of liturgy and canon law that were necessary for the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ to uphold in order for them to maintain their position within the Catholic Church, as well as their developing sense of

Roman cultural identity and superiority.166 Each of these articles specifically addressed elements of social and cultural tension that existed since Augustine. Article one reaffirmed Oswy’s decision at Whitby (664) and definitively established the Roman tradition as the only ecclesiastical tradition of the ‘gens Anglorum’, the Pope, and of

Rome. Article seven supported the significance of synods as a principle element within the organization and maintenance of ecclesiastical structure and survival.167 The tenth article was meant to further clarify matters of marriage within the ‘gens Anglorum’, clearly defined what marriage was in a civilized, Christian community. The assimilation

166 “[First article,] ‘That we all in common do keep the holy day of Easter on the Sunday after the fourteenth moon of the first month.’ “[Seventh], ‘That the synod be assembled twice in the year; yet because of divers inconveniences it seemed good to all in common that we should assemble once in he year n the first day of August in the place which is called Clofeshoch.’ “[The tenth article concerning marriages,] ‘That no one be allowed to have any but a lawful marriage. Let no one commit incest, let no one forsake his own wife, except, as the holy Gospel teacheth, for the cause of fornication. But if any man put away his own wife being lawfully united to him in wedlock, if he will be a right Christian man, let him be joined to none other; but let him so continue as he is, or else be reconciled to his own wife.’; Bede, HE, 4.5.2:36-41.

167 Provincial synods were to meet twice a year to settle all disputes and matters regarding the province, the church within the province, and its unity; William Bright, Chapters of Early English Church History, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1878), 240.

of the cultural tenents provided in these articles were crucial for the continued growth of both the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ and ‘gens Anglorum’.

The remaining seven articles addressed bishops, their roles, responsibilities, and boundaries, as well as other matters of a territorial episcopate, within the ‘ecclesiis

Anglorum’.168 The auspicious nature of the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ at the time of

Theodore’s arrival left those within the ecclesiastical hierarchy struggling to successfully maintain their independent authority from secular leaders and fulfill their duties as the ecclesiastical authorities throughout the British Isles. Articles two, three, six, and eight clearly defined a bishop’s role, responsibilities, and boundaries while articles four, five, and nine firmly established them within the context of a territorial episcopate, outlining the structure of the ecclesiastical hierarchy within the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’. The

168 “[Second,] ‘That no bishop shall intrude into another’s diocese, but be contented with the charge of the people committed unto him.’ “[Third,] ‘That whatever monasteries have been consecrated to God, it shall be lawful for no bishop to trouble them in any wise, nor violently take from them aught that is theirs.’ “[Fourth,] ‘That the monks themselves shall not pass from place to place, that is to say, from monastery to monastery, unless by the leave of their own abbot: but shall continue in the obedience which each did promise at the time of their conversion.’ “[Fifth,] ‘That none of the clergy forsaking his own bishop shall run up and down where he list, nor, when he come anywhither, shall he be received without letters of commendation of his prelate. And he be once received and refuse to return being summoned, both the receiver and he that is received shall incur excommunication.’ “[Sixth,] ‘That bishops and clerks when travelling abroad be content with such hospitality as is freely offered to them; and that it be lawful for none of them to execute any office of a priest without the permission of the bishop in whose diocese they are known to be.’… “[Eighth,] ‘That no bishop shall set himself above another out of ambition; but that all shall acknowledge the time and order of their consecration.’ “[In the ninth article it was generally entreated,] ‘That the number of bishops should be increased as the number of believing folk waxeth greater,’ but hereof at this point we said nothing.”; Bede, HE, 4.5.2:36-9.

appointment of bishops not only to vacant bishoprics, but to territories that never had episcopal authority and that required ecclesiastical leadership reflected Theodore’s perception of Roman liturgy.169 This was significant because in order for Theodore to create the type of ecclesiastical metropolitan authority Gregory the Great desired for the

Church and the community of the ‘gens Anglorum’ he needed to guarantee liturgical, canonical, and doctrinal unity within the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’.

Unlike the Augustinian Mission, where Augustine introduced a whole new ethos to a disparate barbarian population and a conflicting religious tradition to a disjointed

Christian people, Theodore had his own hurdles to champion. He needed to inspire unity and loyalty to Canterbury amongst bishops who were dependent upon the patronage of regional secular leaders for their success and safety. To do this, Theodore utilized well established church canons to provoke reform within an established religious structure and to a population that was almost completely Christian and, therefore, subject to these canons. By reinforcing established canon law within the contemporary context of the

‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ those who would have resisted Theodore and his reforms would have no grounds to do so. This was significant because Theodore fostered and encouraged growth and accomplishment through episcopal unity within the developing church of the ‘gens Anglorum’. Bede’s inclusion of the memory of Hertford was both strategic and significant. Not only was it the first synod to legislate over the entire church of the ‘gens Anglorum’, it also created a unification of custom that established the

169 Lambert, Christians and Pagans, 239; Throughout the Roman Church bishops directly participated with baptism, made regular episcopal visitations within their dioceses necessary and in turn these dioceses were manageable so better pastoral care was possible (Lambert, Christians and Pagans, 239).

foundation for a stronger church throughout the British Isles. The concept of a stronger unity amongst bishops and church custom leading to a stronger faith throughout the ‘gens

Anglorum’, that in turn created unity throughout their kingdoms, was one that Theodore fostered as archbishop and Bede believed in.

Bede’s 'gens Anglorum'

Within the cultural context of Christianity Bede unequivocally proclaimed the cultural and ethnic unity of the ‘gens Anglorum’ through their identification as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, having creatively remembered their myth of ethnic election to reinforce his claim. The first four books of the HE told the tale of how this ethnic community came into existence, their trials and tribulations, and how they came to accept their destiny. However, Book 5 definitively expressed what it meant to be a member of the ‘gens Anglorum’ culturally and ethnically, something Bede felt his audience was forgetting and desperately needed to remember. Every memory chosen was done so to show the ‘gens Anglorum’ actively fulfilling their destiny.

Unlike Books 1-4, where both the ‘ethos’ and ‘world-view’ of the Church within the British Isles was in chaos, threatening the fundamental conceptions of Christianity,

Book 5 was different. It represented the establishment and implementation of a ‘general order of existence’ with the Roman tradition—ethos—and the ‘gens Anglorum’—world- view—clearly defined.170 This harmony suggested that by the mid- to late-seventh

170 The terms and phrase ‘ethos’, ‘world-view’, and ‘general order of existence’ derive from Geertz’s theory of religion as a culture. ‘Ethos’ refers to the tone, character, and quality of life; its moral and/or aesthetic style and mood; the ideal. ‘World-view’ to the picture of the way things in sheer actuality are; the reality. ‘General order of

century the conversion of the ‘gens Anglorum’ to Christianity was complete and they were ready to take on the other responsibilities tasked to God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect. However, by the time Bede composed the HE the ‘gens Anglorum’ had begun to fall short of the standards that were required of the ethnically elect. Book 5 was meant to help Bede’s audience and his contemporaries fulfill their destiny. Through the remembrance of and participation in specific cultural acts and through the recognition of the symbols those specific cultural acts represented the ‘gens Anglorum’ would continue to maintain the cultural superiority of the Roman tradition, which would reflect their unity as an ethnic community.

To accomplish this, Bede needed to re-establish the cultural patterns that these specific symbols171 and cultural acts172 represented. The threats faced by both his audience and contemporaries could greatly alter the fate of both the ‘gens Anglorum’ and the ‘other’ ethnic communities in which they interacted with. As the Celtic tradition continued to hold influence within the majority of the communities of Britons, Scots, and

Picts, it continued to provide them with a sense of unity. That cultural unity felt between the Britons, Scots, and Picts was problematic for the ‘gens Anglorum’ for a few reasons.

First, the Celtic tradition promoted moods of defiance towards the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’, the ‘gens Anglorum’, and their ethnic and cultural superiority. Secondly, its continued

existence’ can be defined as the cosmic framework created and reinforced by symbols and rituals; Geertz, Interpretations, 89-125.

171 Symbols such as Gregory the Great, the date of Easter, and the archbishopric of Canterbury.

172 Cultural acts such as the Synod of Whitby, the Synod of Hertford, and the Augustinian Mission.

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practice disrupted the general order of existence by creating chaos within church liturgy.

Lastly, the inability to eliminate the Celtic tradition implied the failure of the ‘gens

Anglorum’ as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, which would throw the British

Isles once again into a state of cultural chaos. Although the extension of cultural values to the ‘other’ was a major requirement of the ‘gens Anglorum’ as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, it was not the only requirement that needed to be fulfilled. In order to manage all threats in which they faced, the ‘gens Anglorum’ had to adhere to strict moral standards. It was the threat of failure, of backsliding into corrupt morals and values that would incur God’s wrath and throw their world into chaos, just as it happened to the Britons and the Romans before them.

The threat of God’s punishment weighed heavily on Bede. He expressed his concern for the level of morality shown by both members of the ‘gens Anglorum’ and their ecclesiastical leaders. This apprehension was apparent in his description of The contemporary state of the gentis Anglorum173 as a somewhat troublesome period of time.

The reign of Ceolwulf, the king of Northumbria to whom the HE was dedicated, was defined as:

And both the beginning and the course thereafter of Ceolwulf’s reign have been full of so many grievous commotions of withstanding troubles, that it may not yet be known what should be written of them, or what end they will severally have.174

173 Bede, HE, 5.23.2:366-373.

174 Bede, HE, 5.23.2:369; …cuius regni et principia et processus tot ac tantis redundavere rerum adversantium motibus, ut quid de his scribe debeat, quemve habitura sint finem singular, necdum sciri valeat (Bede, HE, 5.23.2:368).

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Bede’s dedication of the HE to Ceolwulf and subsequent comment on his turbulent reign in Book 5 would suggest that Bede was not so much concerned with the morality of

Ceolwulf as a king, but with the socio-cultural context in which he existed and the threat it posed to Ceolwulf’s reign.175

There had also been some disturbing portents:

The 729th year of the Lord’s incarnation there appeared two comets about the sun and struck great terror into the beholders thereof. For one went before the sun at his rising in the morning; the other followed the setting of the sun in the evening, both presaging as it were terrible destruction to the east as well as the west…176

A number of secular and ecclesiastical deaths also occurred. Those who died consisted of men of great influence, such as Tobias, bishop of Rochester (d. 726), the priest Egbert in Ireland (d. 729)177, King Osric of Northumbria (d. 729), and Bertwald, archbishop of

Canterbury (d. 731). This compounded Bede’s fear that some of those who had replaced these great men were failing in their religious duties. Their failures could ultimately lead the ‘gens Anglorum’ to backslide into chaos if not dealt with accordingly.

175 For further reading on Bede and Ceolwulf please see: D.P. Kirby, “King Ceolwulf of Northumbria and the Historia Ecclesiastica,” Studia Celtica 14 (January 1979): 168-173; N.J. Higham, “Bede’s Agenda in Book IV of the ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’: A Tricky Matter of Advising the King,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 64, no. 3 (July 2013): 476-493.

176 Bede, HE, 5.23.2:367; Anno Dominicae incarnationis septingentesimo vicesimo nono, apparuerunt cometae duae circa solem, multum intuentibus terrorem incutientes. Una quipped solem praecedebat, mane orientem; altera vespere sequebatur occidentem, quasi orienti simul et occidenti dirae cladis praesagae… (Bede, HE, 5.23.2:366).

177 Bede, HE, 3.27.1:484-491.

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Bede hinted towards trouble in Book 5 of the HE, but he blatantly stated his fear in a letter to his dear friend Egbert, bishop of York:

The which form of piety and devout sanctification to God is, through the neglect of their teachers, so far out of use and as it were foreign to almost all laymen of our province, that those among them which seem more religious do not presume to communicate in the holy mysteries…178

This letter was written to Egbert who was not just an influential ecclesiastical leader, but also a friend to Bede and cousin to King Ceolwulf of Northumbria. It contained a list of grievances Bede felt needed to be addressed immediately by Egbert and other men of virtuous standing, such as Ceolwulf, in order to “rescue our people from former errors and bring them back to a surer and more direct way of life.”179 Just as Gildas felt it was his moral duty to warn the Britons of their sinful actions, Bede encouraged caution and reform to the ‘gens Anglorum’ and all ‘other’ Christians for their actions:

Nor have I written what I have, as though I were going to make you assured of such things as you did not know before, but in order to warn you by a friendly

178 Bede, “The Venerable Bede’s Epistle to Bishop Egbert,” in HE, trans. by J.E. King, vol.2, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930), 479. [Throughout this paper Bede’s letter to Egbert will be cited as follows within the footnotes: Bede, Epistle to Bishop Egbert, Chapter Number.Volume Number:Page Number. All numerical divisions are separated by a period without spaces, except for volume number and page number which are separated by a colon and no intervening spaces]; Quod videlicet genus religionis, ac Deo devotae sanctificationis tam longe a cunctis pene nostrae provinciae laicis per incuriam docentium quasi prope peregrinum abest, ut hi qui inter illos religiosiores esse videntur, non nisi in natali Domini et epiphania et pascha sacrosanctis mysteriis communicare praesumant…(Bede, Epistle to Bishop Egbert, 15.2:478).

179 Bede, Epistle to Bishop Egbert, 16.2:481; Haec tibi, sanctissime antistes, et tuae dilectionis intuit et generalis gratia utilitatis breviter adnotare studui, multum desiderans multumque exhortans, ut gentem nostram a vetustis abstrahere cures erroribus, et ad certiorem et directiorem vitae callem reducere satagas:…(Bede, Epistle to Bishop Egbert, 16.2:480).

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exhortation to amend, with all the zeal and care you can command, the misdeeds of which you very well know.180

His list was all inclusive. It addressed men and women, secular and regular ecclesiastics, and laymen from all ranks of society. The negligence of pastoral duties, the abuse of monasteries and monastic privilege, and the participation in sinful and adverse behavior were the main concerns expressed throughout his letter. Completed after the HE, this letter can be seen as its companion through its reinforcement of Bede’s call to reform and his overall role as a moral crusader181 for his people.

The HE was a road map for the identification of the ‘gens Anglorum’ as well as the ‘other’ Christian communities that directed them towards the fulfillment of their myth of ethnic election. Book 5 accomplished this because it contained specific memories chosen by Bede which represented certain symbols and symbolic forms182. These symbols acted to establish and trigger “powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in the 'gens Anglorum' by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”183 The symbols chosen and utilized by Bede in

180 Bede, Epistle to Bishop Egbert, 14.2:475; Nam neque haec ita scripsi, quasi certissime te ea quae antea nescires essem docturus, sed ut tea mica exhortatione commonerem, ea que optime noveras errata diligenti prout vales instantia corrigere (Bede, Epistle to Bishop Egbert, 14.2:474).

181 Smith, “Chosen People,” 191.

182 A symbol or symbolic form can be identified as “ any object, act, event, quality, or relation which acts as a vehicle for a conception (a symbol’s meaning). They are concrete embodiments of ideas, attitudes, judgments, longings, and beliefs; Geertz, Interpretations, 91.

183 Geertz, Interpretations, 90.

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the HE were constructed, understood, and expressed through cultural acts that were performed solely by members of the 'gens Anglorum'. The cultural acts used were witnessed by the public, or remembered as such by Bede, and described within each chapter of Book 5. This was significant because by concentrating these symbols within a work such as the HE Bede was making a statement.

The Augustinian Mission, the Synod at Whitby, and the Synod at Hertford were all cultural acts chosen by Bede that created, understood, and reinforced symbols that recognized the 'gens Anglorum' as the ethnically elect and the Roman tradition as the culturally superior Christian tradition. Each act was representative of a quality that was required of the ‘gens Anglorum’ as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect. Bede used these symbols and cultural acts to establish the predisposition (motivations) towards reform and ethnic unity. He wanted to rouse feelings (moods) of nostalgia, cultural superiority—of the 'ecclesiis Anglorum' and the Roman tradition, ethnic unity—of the

'gens Anglorum', and religious conviction.

These moods and motivations were present in all five books of the HE and helped to reinforce pre-existing symbols and create new ones. Bede knew that the expression of these symbols and cultural acts shaped and reinforced public behavior through the development and implementation of cultural patterns.184 He placed the 'gens Anglorum' within the disposition of their myth of ethnic election. Thus, through the creation of, their belief in, and subsequent reinforcement of this general order not only was the cultural context of the Roman tradition of Christianity presented as the culturally superior

184 Cultural patterns can be defined as ‘systems or complexes of symbols; a set of instructions’.

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ecclesiastical tradition, it created a context that promoted the ethnic unity of the 'gens

Anglorum' within a complex and diverse ethnic environment. Bede’s utilization of these moods and motivations as a means to rekindle and fortify the general order of existence was recognized and accepted not only by himself and his audience. This allowed him to manage this general order, the authority of the ‘gens Anglorum’ within this order, and provided a defense against the Celtic tradition and God’s wrath.

Therefore, the symbols and cultural acts expressed in Books 1-4 lead to the definitive foundation of the Roman tradition of Christianity as the culture185 and context of the British Isles. This cultural context allowed the 'gens Anglorum' to fully develop their church and embrace their myth of ethnic election. These acts reaffirmed the authority of the Pope and the Roman Church, but more importantly, it clearly identified the Archbishop of Canterbury as their authoritative proxy within the boundaries of the

British Isles. This made him the ecclesiastical leader throughout the isles. The acceptance of the Archbishop of Canterbury as an authority was crucial in the establishment and success of the ‘gens Anglorum’ as well as the continuation of the

Roman tradition as the cultural context of the British Isles. The power and authority granted to Theodore in the late-seventh century was essential in ascertaining the acceptance and respect of the ecclesiastical and secular leaders across the isles and was essential in the unification of the ‘gens Anglorum’ and their church. It instituted

Canterbury and the archbishop as the head of not only the Church in Britain, but also the

185 Culture is defined as ‘an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic form by means of which humans communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life.

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'gens Anglorum'. This was significant because it gave conception to the symbols and corresponding cultural acts Bede included in Book 5.

If Books 1-4 told the story of how the 'gens Anglorum' came to exist through their faith in Christianity, Book 5 told the story of how they existed as Christians through their faith. The symbols and cultural acts shared in Book 5 represented the 'gens Anglorum' having reached ecclesiastical success. They were examples of popular piety—“a system of religious practices and beliefs which are accepted by the people, as distinct from theories and doctrines, laws and institutions.”186 Each chapter told the story of how the members of the 'gens Anglorum' kept the ethos and world-view of their ethnic and cultural community alive after the story of their conversion had been completed. Stories of miracles, the creation of holy sites, martyrdom, pilgrimages, the conversion of foreign barbarian peoples, the division and creation of bishoprics, and kings taking monastic habits made up the narrative of Book 5 and were meant to express what the faith should be.

The miracles performed by Ethelwald, bishop of Lindisfarne, and John, bishop of

Beverley, represented of the Grace bestowed upon members of the ‘gens Anglorum’.

Ethelwald’s ability to calm the storm through prayer reflected similar miracles performed by Mellitus and Aidan;

…so great a tempest and terrible storm came upon us that neither with sail or oar could we prevail, nor look for anything else than death….For, as soon as he [Ethelwald] heard the blustering of the storm and the rage of the ocean, he had come fourth to see what was happening to us; and when he saw us laboring hard and in desperate case, he fell upon his knees to pray… And as he ended his prayer

186 Stephens, “Bede’s Ecclesiastical History,” 4.

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he therewith appeased the swelling waters; in such sort, that, the violence of the storm altogether ceasing…187

While the miracles of healing performed by John mirrored those performed by Germanus and Augustine;

Now there was in a township not that far off a certain young man that was dumb,…which was never able to speak so much as one word; besides, too, he had so much scab on his head, that in the crown of the head there could not a hair take root… the bishop willed the poor man to come in to him, and when he was come he bid him put out his tongue…taking him by the chin he made the sign of the holy cross upon his tongue, and when he had so signed and blessed it, he commanded him to pluck it in again and speak…he answered orderly…188

In choosing these cultural acts Bede not only linked these bishops of the ‘ecclesiis

Anglorum’ to the great holy men of the past, which further emphasized a connection with

Rome, he hinted towards the lack of such miracles within his contemporary society.

Other cultural acts, such as the Frisian Mission, strengthened their claim as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect;

187 Bede, HE, 5.1.2:201; …et tanta ingurit tamque fera tempestatis hiems, ut neque velo neque Remigio quicquam proficere, neque aliud quam mortem sperare valeremus (Bede, HE, 5.1.2:200).

188 Bede, HE, 5.2.2:205; Erat autem in villa non longe posita quidam adolescens mutus, episcopo notus, nam saepius ante illum percipiendae eleemosynae gratia venire consueverat, qui ne unum quidem sermonem unquam profari poterat; sed et scabiem tantam ac furfures habebat in captie, ut nil unquam capillorum ei in superior parte capitis nasci valeret, tantum in circuiti horridi crines stare videbantur. Hune ergo adduci praecipit episcopus, et ei in conseptis eiusdem mansionis parvum tugurium fiere in quo manens quotidianam ab eis stipem acciperet. Cumque una quadragesimae esset impleta septimana, sequente Dominica iussit ad se intrare pauperem, ingresso eo linguam proferre ex ore ac sibi ostendere iussit; et adprehendens eum de mento, signum sanctae crucis linguae eius impressit, quam signatam revocare in os, et loqui illum praecepit:…(Bede, HE, 5.2.2:204).

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…Pippin, with the common consent of all, sent the venerable man Wilbrord to Rome,… desiring that he might be ordained archbishop of the said people of the Frisons…the most reverend prelate preaching the word of faith far and wide called back many from error, and erected many churches throughout those parts, and, moreover, some monasteries. For within a short time after, he himself made other bishops also in those parts, out of the number of brethren who had come thither to preach either with him or after him…189

This was also seen in the conversion of ‘a great many churches of the Scots’ to the

Roman tradition; “…a great part of the Scots in Ireland, and some also of the Britons in

Britain, adopted by the gift of the Lord the true ecclesiastical time in keeping Easter.”190

Both stories were examples of cultural acts that promoted symbols that were representative of the Roman tradition. The cultural act of extending their values of the

Roman tradition to pagans and those who continued to practice the Celtic tradition symbolized their role as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect, a role they must perpetually participate in. Bede’s remark that the Britons “set themselves wrongfully and in lewd manner against the appointed Easter of the whole catholic Church”191 suggested that their work as God’s chosen people/the ethnically elect had never been completed.

189 Bede, HE, 5.10.2:251; Postquam vero per annos aliquot in Fresia qui advenerant docuerunt, misit Pippin, favente omnium consensu, virum venerabilem Vilbrordum Romam, cuius adhuc pontificatum Sergius habebat, postulans ut eidem Fresonum genti archiepiscopus ordinaretur…. Reverentissimus pontifex longe lateque verbum fidei praedicans, multosque ab errore revocans, plures per illas regiones ecclesias, sed et monasteria nonnulla construxit. Nam non multo post alios quoque illis in regionibus ipse constituit antistites ex eorum numero fratrum qui vel secum, vel post se illo ad praedicandum venerant;…(Bede, HE, 5.10.2:250).

190 Bede, HE, 5.15.2:281; Quo tempore plurima pars Scottorum in Hibernia, et non nulla etiam de Brettonibus in Brittania rationabile et ecclesiasticum paschalis observantiae tempus Domino donante suscepit (Bede, HE, 5.15.2:280).

191 Bede, HE, 5.23.2:373; Brettones, quamvis et maxima ex parte domestico sibi odio gentem Anglorum, et totius catholicae ecclesiae statum pascha minus recte moribusque improbis impugnent;… (Bede, HE, 5.23.2:372).

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Conclusion

Through his selection of specific memories for each of the ethnic communities in the British Isles Bede had shown how the Britons and the Celtic tradition represented a failed Rome. For him the ‘gens Anglorum’ and the Roman tradition represented a new conception of what it meant to be Roman and a hope for Britain’s redemption. The ‘gens

Anglorum’ had been brought into the context of the civilized Roman world through their conversion to Christianity and it was in this context that the ethnic communities of the

British Isles would seek to identify between ‘us’ and ‘them’ for their ethnic survival. It embodied both political and ecclesiastical struggles that sought to establish and maintain authority within Britain. This conflict was not only representative but was reflective of the ethnic communities who lived in the isles from the fifth to eighth centuries and their quest to acquire unity through the church. Bede made sense of the tension and instability that existed within his contemporary ethnic constructs and cultural contexts through the remembrance of this conflict.

As an historian it is important to acknowledge that Bede was remembering this conflict of tradition for a specific purpose—to encourage the ‘gens Anglorum’ to fulfill their myth of ethnic election at a time when he felt that they were failing their destiny.

Book 4 of the HE resolved the last struggles in the establishment of the ‘ecclesiis

Anglorum’. Canterbury was thriving as a strong metropolitan seat and center for learning. A definitive understanding of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and territorial episcopate was in place. The entire ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ had adhered to the Roman tradition. Lastly, with the exception of a very few, the ecclesiastical leaders of the ‘gens

Anglorum’ all shared the same myth of ethnic election. By bringing a level of resolution

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to the situation, Bede was preparing to solidify the authority of the ‘gens Anglorum’ as

God’s chosen people/ethnically elect which made them the culturally superior and dominant ethnic community throughout the British Isles in Book 5.

Bede chose the stories narrated in Book 5 because of the moods and motivations that these miracles, pilgrimages, holy sites, and stories of successful missions of the

Roman tradition—symbols and cultural acts—expressed. This collection of memories provided the ‘gens Anglorum’ with ecclesiastical examples to strive for. He gave them a set of directions as a means to lead them away from the chaos he felt his contemporary cultural context was experiencing. He creatively remembered the ‘gens Anglorum’ as the crusaders of the Roman tradition not only in the British Isles, but throughout their communities on the continent as well. It was these symbols and cultural acts that were meant to combat the growing arrogance and disrespect of Bede’s audience and ‘other’ contemporaries towards their ecclesiastical destinies and whatever roles they were to play. By providing examples of cultural acts that represented moral and ecclesiastical greatness, specifically carried out by members of the ‘gens Anglorum’ Bede incited moods of reform and unity simultaneously. These memories illuminated and emphasized the unique characteristics of the ‘gens Anglorum’ which separated them from their barbaric past, the Britons, and the ‘other’ Germanic populations on the continent and created a unified ethnic community that deserved to rule Britain.

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CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION: THE CONTEXT OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE BIRTH OF THE 'GENS ANGLORUM'

To understand the HE as a roadmap that lead its audience to the destination of the

‘gens Anglorum’, Patrick’s Confessio and Epistola and Gildas’ DEB need to be viewed as its compass. Both Patrick and Gildas provided contemporary contextual examples of the ethnic and cultural chaos that existed in the vacuum left by the Roman Empire. They had shown how the communities in the British Isles struggled to identify themselves from the ‘other’ and how they understood their new ethnic and cultural order. Their works help to explain how and why these ethnic constructs and cultural contexts emerged within the isles, as well as how significant a consensus between the conflicting cultural contexts could be for those communities.

Through my analysis of Patrick, Gildas, and Bede the significance of the role

Christianity played in the formation of ethnic identity in the British Isles during the Late

Antique and Early Middle Ages becomes very apparent. The aspects of Roman culture that remained in the wake of its collapse were not enough for those communities in

Britain, which had once identified themselves as ‘Roman’, to continue to do so. And, why would they want to? Ethnically or culturally identifying as Roman no longer held the same weight it once did. As the context of Roman culture crumbled those

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communities that once existed within the boundaries of the Empire looked for a new context that would provide them with the same cultural superiority they once possessed as citizens of Rome. Christianity became that context.

Even though each of these primary sources were composed for different purposes an analysis of the memories Patrick and Gildas chose reveals how they positioned themselves and their ethnic communities within three specific relationships: to God, to

Rome, and to the ‘other’. By following the development of these relationships in each source historians can begin to understand how the act of creatively remembering one’s past allowed medieval authors to identify the ethnic constructs of their communities and the ‘other’ communities which inhabited the British Isles within the developing cultural context of Christianity. Thus, for one to understand how and why Bede felt the ‘gens

Anglorum’ existed one needs to understand how the concept of the binary construct of

Roman and barbarian evolved to Christian and barbarian and then again to the conflicting traditions of Christianity within the British Isles. This was what Patrick and Gildas did for Bede and the ‘gens Anglorum’. They provided insight into how the communities within the British Isles modified the binary construct of Roman and barbarian through the manipulation of the cultural context of Christianity after the collapse of the context of

Roman culture.

Patrick ethnically identified within this crumbling context through this binary construct of Roman and barbarian. It was his missionary work in Ireland, at a time when the influence and superiority of the context of Roman culture was waning, that triggered a shift in his ethnic perspective. He established a new binary construct through his expansion of the cultural context of Christianity beyond the territorial boundaries of the

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Roman Empire. Through their conversion the Scots were granted an extension into the civilized world. However, they were ultimately unable to identify with the ethnic construct and the cultural context of Rome because they existed outside its territorial boundaries. In order for this new community of Christians to differentiate themselves from the ‘other’ within the boundaries of their homeland (Ireland) and with whom they interacted with on a daily basis, a new binary construct emerged; that of Christian and barbarian.

Gildas identified in this binary construct of Christian and barbarian within his

DEB. He no longer identified the ethnic construct of cultural context of the Britons as

Roman, but as their own civilized community that existed within the ruins of a Roman

Britain. This identity was extended to the ‘other’ communities of Christians who existed beyond the boundaries of Roman Britain, such as the Scots in Ireland. However, as more and more communities converted there became a need to not only differentiate the

Britons from ‘other’ barbarian communities, but from the ‘other’ Christian communities in which they interacted with. Gildas did this by suggesting that the Britons possessed a level of cultural superiority that no ‘other’ community possessed, Christian or barbarian, through the creation of the Briton’s myth of ethnic election.

By creatively remembering their Roman past in their myth of ethnic election

Gildas separated the Britons from the ‘other’ Christian communities that emerged while simultaneously having united them in opposition to their barbarian neighbors. This then allowed him to identify the various ‘other’ barbarian communities in opposition to their

Christian neighbors through the roles they played within this myth. Not only did this myth show how one Christian community can differentiate itself from another within the

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same cultural context, it pointed to the identification of a disparate group of Germanic invaders/migrants as a single ethnic community through their relationship with this cultural context. Therefore, the cultural context of Christianity provided the Britons with the means to ethnically and culturally differentiate themselves from the ‘other’, regardless of whether that ‘other’ community was Christian or barbarian.

As Christianity spread, so did the conception of being civilized. Through their acceptance of and conversion to Christianity those ‘other’ communities that had once been identified as barbarian now joined the community of civilized Christians. This required Christian communities to not only identify themselves separately from one another through the traditions in which they practiced, but also from the shrinking barbarian population. This was why the symbols and cultural acts expressed in the memories chosen by Bede were so significant. They represented how foreign and barbarian Germanic people utilized the cultural context of Christianity to unite themselves ethnically, successfully established their ethnic community as superior against

‘other’ Christian communities that existed for significantly longer, and declared Britain as their homeland through their declaration as the ‘gens Anglorum’.

By recognizing and understanding the criteria these medieval authors used to identify their ethnic constructs and the ethnic constructs of the ‘other’ in which they interacted with, it is apparent how their choice of specific memories made these identities relevant. By the eighth century Bede was able to declare the existence of a ‘gens

Anglorum’ as an ethnic construct in opposition to the ethnic constructs of the Britons,

Scots, and Picts through their myth of ethnic election and its role within the cultural context of Christianity. What made the HE so unique was the memories Bede shared.

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He had shown how the Britons, Scots, Picts, and the ‘gens Anglorum’ all strived for cultural unity; they all wanted to share certain characteristics that ultimately would have brought their ethnic communities together. However, it was this quest for cultural unity which was expressed through the pages of the HE that sharpened each community’s ethnic constructs.

Bede’s HE was a roadmap with Patrick and Gildas as the compass that led the ethnic communities of the British Isles through the chaos of the collapse of the Roman

Empire, the Germanic invasions/migrations, and the rise of Christianity to the reincorporation of Britain into the empire of Roman Christianity through the fulfillment of the ‘gens Anglorum’ and their myth of ethnic election. Book 1 linked the ‘gens

Anglorum’ with the fate of the Britons and Britain through their role as God’s punishment, established Britain as their homeland, and provided them with a myth of common ancestry. Book 2 provided them with a common proper name through the shared historical memories of Gregory the Great and their struggle to convert to

Christianity, as well as the introduction of the Celtic tradition as an obstacle to unity.

Book 3 represented the conflict between the Roman and Celtic traditions, and the desire of the ‘gens Anglorum’ to unite under the Roman tradition in opposition to the Britons,

Scots, and Picts. Book 4 united the ‘ecclesiis Anglorum’ under the authority of the

Archbishop of Canterbury through the Roman tradition. Book 5 unified the ‘gens

Anglorum’ through their sense of solidarity expressed in the acts of popular piety which were performed by members of their ethnic community.

In combining memory studies and the anthropological study of ethnic identity I have shown how these three medieval authors shaped the manner in which their audience

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viewed and understood their pasts. Patrick, Gildas, and Bede chose specific memories that referenced specific individuals, groups, and institutions in order to mold the ethnic constructs and cultural contexts of their contemporary societies. Each author chose

Christianity as the cultural context in which they remembered the binary construct of

Roman and barbarian within their Roman pasts which was required to create their identities and the identities of their contemporaries as it adapted to the cultural contexts of each author. Having chosen memories which reflected the fulfillment of the myth of ethnic election of the ‘gens Anglorum’ Bede conceptualized a foreign, invasive, disparate, and barbarian peoples as a unified, Christian, civilized, and legitimate ethnic community worthy to rule Britain into a reality.

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