Christians and Pagans: The Conversion of Britain from Alban to Bede, by Malcolm Lambert

Abstract

Conversion to Christianity has been, and continues to be, a central component in medieval British history university courses. Until recently, the textbook of choice for teachers has been Henry Mayr-Harting’s classic, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, first published in 1972 (rev. ante, lxxxix [1974], 146–7), and subsequently re-issued twice with revisions (in 1977 and 1991). In 2005 the medieval British history shelf received an important addition with the publication of Barbara Yorke’s The Conversion of Britain, which was enthusiastically received by reviewers and hailed as the rightful successor to Mayr-Harting’s influential work. The appearance of Yorke’s book coincided with a period of revival in conversion-related studies in both Britain and Ireland, following a number of years of relative stagnation. A large proportion of the new work to have emerged in this period was archaeological, often stimulated by rescue archaeology, especially in Ireland. Ireland has also seen the appearance of a number of collaborative initiatives over the last three years, such as Mapping Death and the Early Medieval Archaeology Project, both of which seek to draw together many recent findings (as well as older ones), analyse the data, and publish comprehensive web-based reports and databases, aimed at specialists and non-specialists alike. Although not entirely devoted to conversion, these projects nevertheless address the topic extensively. No comparable collaborative projects exist in Britain, where the principal publications to appear in recent years in the area of conversion have been two single-authored works: Marilyn Dunn’s Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons c.597–c.700: Discourses of Life, Death and Afterlife (2009; rev. ante, cxxvi [2011], 1492–3), and the volume under review.