who was sent to england to convert the pagan anglo-saxons
Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England In 595, when Pope Gregory I decided to send a mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity,[1] the Kingdom of Kent was ruled by Æthelberht. He had married a Christian princess named Bertha before 588,[2] and perhaps earlier than 560.[3] Bertha was the daughter of Charibert I, one of the Merovingian kings of the Franks. As one of the conditions of her marriage she had brought a bishop named Liudhard with her to Kent as her chaplain.[4] They restored a church in Canterbury that dated to Roman times,[5] possibly the present-day St Martin's Church. Æthelberht was at that time a pagan, but he allowed his wife freedom of worship.[4] Liudhard does not appear to have made many converts among the Anglo-Saxons,[6] and if not for the discovery of a gold coin bearing the inscription Leudardus Eps (Eps is an abbreviation of Episcopus, the Latin word for bishop) his existence may have been doubted.[7] One of Bertha's biographers states that, influenced by his wife, Æthelberht requested Pope Gregory to send missionaries.[4] The historian Ian Wood feels that the initiative came from the Kentish court as well as the queen.[8]
Beowulf The events in the poem take place over most of the sixth century, after the Anglo-Saxons had started their journey to England and before the beginning of the seventh century, a time when the Anglo-Saxons were either newly arrived or were still in close contact with their Germanic kinsmen in Northern Germany. The poem may have been brought to England by people of Geatish origins.[6] Many suggest that Beowulf was first composed in the 7th century at Rendlesham in East Anglia, that the Sutton Hoo ship-burial also shows close connections with Scandinavia, and that the East Anglian royal dynasty, the Wuffingas, may have been descendants of the Geatish Wulfings.[7][8] Others have associated this poem with the court of King Alfred the Great or with the court of King Cnut the Great.[9]