Were Anglo-Saxon Pagans a Threat to Medieval Christian Society?

In the 18th century, the paganism of ancient Britain sparked the interest of trendy society, and modern neo-paganism was born. Many suggested that Anglo-Saxon paganism continued to thrive in England following the widespread conversion to Christianity and threatened the new “civil” society. This is why Ango-Saxon laws had to forbid heretical practices such as burning babies and worshiping cattle. Outsiders who practiced paganism were omnipresent in English folklore and may have contributed to the rise of the witch trials in England. But was this pagan threat real or imagined?

As is the case with so much Dark Age history, England’s understanding of its pagan past has been strongly shaped by the writings of a monk known as the Venerable Bede. Often called the first English historical document, Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, 731 CE, has been the primary source for Ango-Saxon and English folklore for hundreds of years. Bede forms the basis for stories like Geoffrey of Monmouth’s King Arthur.

Bede’s manuscript provides the first written record of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons from a population of pagan “heathens” into Christians during Gregory the Great’s 597 CE mission.

But Bede was much more interested in writing about the triumph of Christianity following this mission than he was in the customs of the pagan population. Nevertheless, the little he wrote has been important in the formation of future understandings of Anglo-Saxon paganism.

Bede presents pre-conversion paganism as an ordered, organized religion. Polytheistic idols were housed in temples, which were presided over by high priests, who were in turn responsible for leading rituals of worship. Decidedly anti-Christian practices, like polygamous marriage, living sacrifice, and idol worship, were supposedly common customs.

Bede’s record of the dramatic conversion of King Edwin of Northumbria in 627 CE demonstrates how powerful and prevalent the pagan religion once was. Edwin’s closest ally was his high priest Coifi, and the king was committed to dedicated and consistent polytheistic pagan worship. After encountering a Christian missionary named Paulinus of York, Edwin chose to embrace the new faith with the endorsement of Coifi. He declared that he must: “destroy [and]… set fire to the idols that I worshiped in ignorance.” In front of a large crowd of the non-converted, Coifi then mounted a stallion and impaled a pagan idol with his sword.

However, Bede ultimately undermines the dedication of the pagan population by highlighting the triumph of the conversion process. By the monk’s own account, the all-encompassing success of the conversion eradicated the existence of the heathen religion. As far as Bede was concerned, by 731 CE, the cult of paganism in Britain was dead.

But Bede’s assertion that paganism all but disappeared with the rise of Christianity is contradicted by English folklore traditions that preserve pagan mythology and suggest that pagans continued to exist outside the dominant societal religion, worshiping nature and engaging in practices such as magic, spells, and charms.

Which image is accurate? Did significant numbers of pagans continue to exist in England on the outskirts of society, and were they considered a threat by the Christian community?

Bede’s portrayal of a grand pagan religion, housed in temples with ornamented idols and priests, was informed by the words of religious elders rather than first-hand. This could explain some inconsistencies in his account. Some historians have argued that Bede purposefully overstated the scale of pre-Conversion religion in order to emphasize the power of Christianity. How impressive that such an established religion was so quickly swept aside when faced with the true Christian faith!

Even without Bede’s word, it can be said for certain that the Anglo-Saxon population took part in non-Christian spiritual traditions in the centuries before conversion. Already during the 4th century, Britain was technically a Chistian kingdom as part of the Roman Empire. However, the migration of Germanic settlers into Britain in the 5th century and the subsequent collapse of the Roman settlement in Britain saw the introduction of new cultural practices. We know that the Roman Britons and Germanic populations assimilated to a degree, and that a new “Anglo-Saxon” society was born, but the details of what this society looked like remain unclear.

Yet archeology has more recently offered us some insight into pre-conversion religion. Cremation was clearly the custom before 597 CE and this markedly changed after the turn of the century. These cremation sites often feature shallow pits with urns or other vessels. One grave good known as “Spong Man” recovered from a burial in Norfolk is dated to the 6th century. The purpose of the little human figure was seemingly to “guard” the deceased in the next life, implying a spiritual tradition of preparation for a next life among the Anglo-Saxons.

Further evidence of Anglo-Saxon pagan customs is revealed by the excavation of extensive burials such as Sutton Hoo. Dating to the 6th or 7th century, archeologists have uncovered the remains of dogs, horses, cattle, red deer, and pigs, confirming the importance of animal sacrifice within pre-conversion ritual. They have also uncovered extensive grave goods, which include silver and bronze weaponry and armory, silver bowls and spoons, gold purses and weaved cloaks. Most famously, an eighty-nine foot long oak ship was uncovered in the burials.

These burial customs stopped almost entirely after the 7th century, implying that they were explicitly tied to religious practice wiped out after the conversion. They also lend themselves to an interpretation of a spiritual, theistic population. The weaponry and ships buried at Sutton Hoo are very reminiscent of traditional Germanic pagan custom. The helmets depict famous scenes from German and Scandinavian mythology, and a Saxon lyre found in the ship implies a continued sense of Germanic heritage.

This image of medieval Germanic religion featuring grand, opulently adorned kings and a rich mythology died out soon after the conversion, but some other more familiar customs soon took its place.

As literacy grew following the spread of Christianity, “magic” became a lot more common in written records. The “Councils of Clovesho” were a series of synods attended by Anglo-Saxon kings in the 7th century. The proceedings were recorded in writing. The “Council of 747” reveals the fear amongst Christian leaders of the continued existence of heretical, pagan practices. Bishops were encouraged to spread amongst their diocesan that the following were forbidden: “diviners, soothsayers, auspices, amulets, enchantments, or any other filth of the ungodly.”

Was this, as some have argued, evidence of a defiant pagan population that refused to die out? Not quite. At this time, it was very difficult to disperse new laws or information to the population because of a lack of literacy. It appears that many of the Anglo-Saxons were simply unaware of the new “ways of Christianity,” and traditional customs like charms and burial rites were not considered heretical or rebellious.

We can see this with the Nine Herbs Charm, an Old English healing spell. Although we may associate witchcraft with paganism, and the spell evokes “wise Wōden,” it also contains a passage stating that: “Christ stood over illness of every kind.”

A recently discovered golden pectoral cross, buried with a young girl in the late 7th century, is further proof that some supposedly “pagan practices” incorporated Christian imagery.

This process was actually working both ways. Theodore of Tarsus, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690 CE, encouraged the use of curing stones and herbs to banish the devil. Rather than Medieval Christianity and paganism being two battling religious communities, it appears that they had instead forged into a new English religion.

An account in a Scottish Chronicle demonstrates the degree to which paganism was not considered a threatening presence in the Medieval period. In the seaport of Inverkeithing in 1282, a priest gathered young girls from neighboring towns and instructed them to dance around a statue of the pagan god Bacchus whilst he carried a wooden image of male genitalia. The chronicler considered this to be a shocking and exciting event, and highly unique. Rather than paganism being seen as an ominous presence, the priest was treated as a madman.

The idea of paganism as a dangerous sect first re-emerged in the 15th and 16th centuries amidst religious turmoil in England. As more and more political and religious figures began advocating for Protestantism over the existing Catholic order, paganism proved a useful tool. Protestant reformist John Calvin was very preoccupied with paganism, drawing comparisons between its mythology and Catholicism. He equated important Catholic practices such as the worship of saints and customs of shrines and indulgences with paganism. Calvin even wrote that: “Catholic religion… is defiled with more and more vnsauorie [unsavory] superstitions than was any Paynime [pagan] wickednesse.”

Indeed, the Reformation revived a general interest with “heresy.” As England zig-zagged between Catholic and Protestant, the English Crown enacted increasingly aggressive policies of religious persecution. This was most famously seen during the reign of “Bloody Mary,” who oversaw the burning at the stake of 287 people accused of religious heresy. Supposed witchcraft was a common accusation leveled against heretics. Between 1400 and 1775 in Christendom around 100,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft.

Yet we should not overestimate the importance of the pagan cult within this panic. Shakespeare commonly incorporated pagan imagery and Germanic folklore into his plays and was not punished for doing so. Critics have even suggested that the pagan elements of plays like King Lear reflected the absorption of Anglo-Saxon pagan mythology by the Christian population. The prevalence of witch trials actually supports this thesis. When Bede was writing, belief in magic was considered heretical; by the 1500s, a Christianised interpretation of magic as the work of the devil had grown out of traditional Anglo-Saxon lore.

The fascination with paganism as a distinct religion separate from the general English populace really emerged in the modern period. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Protestantism in England was increasingly associated with “civility” and “order” in contrast with indigenous populations living in the colonies of the British Empire. Spreading Christianity through “mission projects” and the implementation of British rule was used to justify the continued occupation of land within the Empire.

In England there was a growing fascination with the “exotic” and “heathen” populations of the colonies, through which new disciplines such as Anthropology and Ethnology were formed. The founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875, originally based in Bombay, demonstrated how new interest in religious and cultural alternatives to the dominant Christian order developed out of the colonies.

This was mirrored by an interest in England’s supposedly mystical, heathen past. Margaret Murray was an Egyptologist and member of a Folklore Society. Writing in the 1930s, Murray was originally interested in the spiritual practices of indigenous ancient communities in Egypt. She turned her interest to pagan England and pioneered the “witch-cult hypothesis,” which argued that the witch trials of Medieval Christendom were an organized attempt to extinguish a surviving and passionate pagan population. She argued for the prevalence of fertility cults in Medieval England and detailed the ritual witchcraft, annual festivals and admission ceremonies that survived long after conversion. According to Murray, the death of William II was actually a ritual sacrifice.

Murray was an influential figure in England’s understanding of its pagan past. Her work was taught at universities and used as the basis of future popular writing about paganism. She still holds the nickname of “Grandmother of Wicca.” Yet both the witch-cult hypothesis and Anglican fertility-cult thesis have been largely discredited today. Academics agree that Murray made unsubstantiated claims and used unreliable methods.

Margaret Murray’s work is not the only example of pagan mythology born on shaky ground. The “Cerne Giant” is still popularly associated with pagan worship thanks to various 19th-century historians who claimed that the colossal hill figure represented a Saxon deity. Yet recent historians have pointed out that the earliest appearance of the Cerne Giant in English written records was in the 17th century. They disagree on who is actually represented on the hill, but there is a strong case that the figure could be emulating Hercules or mocking Oliver Cromwell.

Another example is Mummers’ plays, in which amateur actors perform retellings of traditional tales such as Robin Hood and King Arthur. The word “mummer” refers to the Old English word for “silent,” and the plays have long been associated with prehistoric pagan tradition. Yet historians now agree that the Mummers began as a tradition in the 18th century, around the period of revival of interest in England’s pagan past.

Examples like these demonstrate the degree to which modern understandings of paganism are born of misconception and reimagination. From the Historia Ecclesiasica up to the present, the mythology surrounding the religion has always reflected the contemporary writer and society as much as it has reflected any truth about Anglo-Saxon paganism.