Act 4
Anglo Saxon Kirkdale
c560 CE to c793 CE
Kirkdale and the Chirchebi
Estate and the birth of the English nation
Kirkdale Minster
only five kilometres south of the place that would come to be called Farndale,
and part of the same estate lands, was at the centre of a stable area for most
of the Anglo Saxon period. There is every reason to suppose that the
agricultural lands around Kirkdale and Kirkbymoorside, were the lands of our
ancestors for centuries.
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This
is a new experiment. Using Google’s Notebook LM, listen to an AI powered
podcast summarising this page. This should only be treated as an
introduction, and the AI generation sometimes gets the nuance a bit wrong
(for instance the link between Kirkdale and Cornu Vallis is more opaque than
the AI summary picks up). However it does provide an introduction to the
themes of this page, which are dealt with in more depth below. |
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As
a scene setter, you might enjoy a burst of Gregorian Chant |
Scene 1 – Order from Chaos
Fifth
Century CE
What
happened to the Roman estates and populations around Kirkdale
in the post Roman period is uncertain, but the interests of some of the
dominant landholders probably continued.
At nearby Beadlam, a large
number of coins date to the later fourth century CE and might reflect locally
secure conditions that may have been sustained for a period after the Romans
had left. The old Roman villa of Beadlam seems to
have continued as an important supplier of grain, evidenced by the presence of
a grain dryer from this time. Beadlam’s material
culture suggests continued post Roman activity. It cannot be said with any
certainty that Kirkdale had any association with Beadlam,
but its proximity might suggest its continued importance during this opaque
period.
It seems
likely that there may have been some religious site at Kirkdale in the late
Roman period, whether pagan or Christian or an amalgam of both. There is
evidence of an early burial, including an infant, to the north east of the
church. The first recognised structural phase at Kirkdale are some foundations
to the north of the church, which used blocks which might have been dated to
the Roman period, or might have been reused. This may have been part of a
detached structure, such as a funerary building or mausoleum.
Further to
the south, the Saxon invaders were given land to settle on the isle of Thanet,
perhaps to secure their help against the threat from the northern Pictish folk. It seems that the native population didn’t
make good their promises to the Saxons who punished them spectacularly in about
440 CE. The chaos of the period was reflected in the monk Gildas’ De Excidio Britanniae, The Ruin of Britain, who
wrote that the barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea throws us back on the
barbarians. Thus two modes of death await us. We are either drowned or
slaughtered.
There was a
tendency of those who had most embraced Roman living to flee northward and
westward, so that Wales and Cornwall became the land of the old Britons as the
pagan cultures of the Anglo-Saxons and the Jutes was planted in the east.
Nevertheless,
the evidence of Anglo Saxon culture in the area around Kirkdale
was slow to arrive. There is an absence of obviously culturally Anglo
Saxon grave goods in the early years of Anglo Saxon influence in eastern
England. In seems likely that the population in the area remained more
indigenous, at least for a while, rather than being immediately overwhelmed by
the Anglo Saxon incomers.
Over time
however, the population was gradually assumed into a new mixed Anglo Saxon
identity.
Inspired by
J G Frazer’s famous book, The Golden
Bough, a local archaeologist felt that the unusual characteristics of Kirkdale make it a likely location
for pre Christian ritual. It has been suggested that it might have been a Druid
site and it may have been a place of Anglo Saxon pagan influence for a while.
The Hodge Beck at Kirkdale dries up in times of hot weather, but continues to
flow under ground, to reappear downstream. The
quietness, beauty and timelessness of the site, and its disappearing water
trick, might explain its likely religious importance even before Christian
times.
The unusual
flow of the stream and the tranquilness of the place was something unusual that
was likely to have promoted an ancient reaction to the landscape, in its
variable physical setting of the beck. The spectacle of the waters of the Hodge
Beck on either side of the site of the later Church, which are periodically
lost to sight, provides a suitable location for pre Christian phenomenological
experience. The Hodge Beck was not the only example of disappearing water, with
similar occurrences at Lastingham.
Underground openings might have been used to communicate, using discolouration
by means of dyes, and meetings might have been timed to coincide with water
flow changes.
The location
of Kirkdale is accessible,
whilst not obvious. It could be accessed by long distance routeways, but its
location was aside and at the edge of the more populated vales.
If there
were pre Christian practices at Kirkdale,
then the shift from pre Christian to Christian might have been a more natural
one.
Deira
The Kingdom
of Deira emerged from the mid fifth century
and Bede’s Ecclesiastical
History of England (731 CE) suggested that there was a gradual
consolidation of smaller groups into larger units.
The absence
of hillforts and the non defensive nature of places
like Hovingham is reflective of a period of anarchy in which warlords fought
for dominance in a chaotic world.
By about 560
CE the area of eastern Yorkshire was generally subjugated by a single political
group. The name the Angles gave to the territory was Dewyr,
or Deira. Early rulers of Deira extended
the territory north to the River Wear and King Aelli
ruled Deira in about 569 to 599 CE.
The Anglo
Saxon poem Beowulf
was written between the seventh and tenth centuries CE, and reflects a
fantastical idea of a timbered hall and a ruing giving lord, who provided the
hall’s protection to the free warriors or ceorls, and the folk who
relied on their protection, from a wild and chaotic land which surrounded them.
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The
people who dominated our ancestral lands |
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A
Scandinavian saga which reflects the political structure of the sixth and
seventh centuries |
Scene 2 - Christianity
Conversion
In Rome in
580 CE Pope Gregory saw fair haired slaves in the market and he asked about
them. The historian Procopius (500 to 565 CE) had previously described the
people of Brittia as Angiloi.
Gregory was now told that these slaves were Angles from the Kingdom of Deira,
the lands between the Humber and Tees, the realm of King Aelli.
Gregory was in a humorous mood that day, and he made three famous puns:
He mused
that they were not Angles, but angels, worthy of conversion, defining a
distinct nation that would one day be called England.
He amused
himself that the Deirans were de ira, or of anger, and that they were to be saved
from wrath.
And he
directed that Allelujah, a pun on the Deiran King’s name, Aelli, should
be sung in those parts.
His pun is
sometimes taken to define the origin of the English nation and Gregory
continued to class the Kingdoms of Britain as a single people. The story
represents the origin myth of the English nation.
Bede told
the full story in his Historia
Ecclesia:
Nor must
we pass by in silence the story of the blessed Gregory, handed down to us by
the tradition of our ancestors, which explains his earnest care for the
salvation of our nation. It is said that one day, when some merchants had
lately arrived at Rome, many things were exposed for sale in the market place,
and much people resorted thither to buy: Gregory himself went with the rest,
and saw among other wares some boys put up for sale, of fair complexion, with
pleasing countenances, and very beautiful hair. When he beheld them, he asked,
it is said, from what region or country they were brought? and was told, from
the island of Britain, and that the inhabitants were like that in appearance.
He again inquired whether those islanders were Christians, or still involved in
the errors of paganism, and was informed that they were pagans. Then fetching a
deep sigh from the bottom of his heart, “Alas! what pity,” said he, “that the
author of darkness should own men of such fair countenances; and that with such
grace of outward form, their minds should be void of inward grace.” He
therefore again asked, what was the name of that nation? and was answered, that
they were called Angles. “Right,” said he, “for they have an angelic face, and
it is meet that such should be co-heirs with the Angels in heaven. What is the
name of the province from which they are brought?” It was replied, that the
natives of that province were called Deiri. “Truly
are they De ira,” said he, “saved from wrath, and
called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king of that province called?” They
told him his name was Aelli; and he, playing upon the
name, said, “Allelujah, the praise of God the Creator
must be sung in those parts.”
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The
monk of Jarrow-Monkwearmouth who provides us with the primary source for the
history of Anglo-Saxon England |
Kirkdale, which lay at the centre
of Deiran lands, found itself firmly within the ambit
of England’s origin story, and the place of a church which soon afterwards was
dedicated to Pope Gregory.
In 597 CE
Gregory followed up on his direction at the slave market when he sent Augustine
to convert the Angli.
Augustine,
Prior of a Roman monastery, initially travelled to Kent on an ambassadorial and
religious mission, and he was welcomed by King Aethelberht.
English
identity began in a religious ambition. The English church would come to own a
quarter of cultivated land in England and reintroduce literacy at least amongst
the Church. Over the next few centuries, there grew a single and distinct
English church. After the Synod
of Whitby in 663 CE, it adopted Roman practices in its dogma and liturgy,
but it venerated English saints and developed its own character.
St Gregory
died on 12 March 604. He had been the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to
his death. The Gregorian mission was an ambitious project to convert the then
largely pagan Anglo-Saxons. Gregory was a prolific writer and the mainstream
form of Western plainchant, standardised in the late ninth century, was
attributed to Pope Gregory I and so took the name of Gregorian
Chant.
By the early
seventh century CE, there was a political structure across the area of modern
Ryedale, under King Edwin of Deira’s
peripatetic government, which held gatherings on estates where food was
consumed. Eoforwic,
the next of the many historic designations of modern York, was at its centre. Edwin converted to the
Christian religion, along with his nobles and many of his subjects in 627 CE
and was baptised at Eoforwic
in the first wooden church amidst the Roman ruins which was later replaced by a
larger stone church. The site of this first church was probably beside the old
Roman principia or military headquarters, to the north of the current
minster, in the current Dean’s Park.
When Edwin
died overall control of the Kingdom of Northumbria passed to the northern
Kingdom of Bernicia. Edwin’s successor King Oswald dominated the northern
region from Bamburgh. He gave Lindisfarne to his Bishop Aidan who built a
monastery there in 635 CE in the Iona tradition.
The Battle
of the Winwead was fought on 15 November 655 between
King Penda of Mercia and Oswiu of Bernicia, ending in the Mercians' defeat and
Penda's death. According to Bede, the battle marked the effective demise of
Anglo-Saxon paganism. It marked a temporary Northumbrian ascendency.
There
followed religious foundations in Eoforwic after the Battle of Winwead
in the Vale of Pickering and in the area
between Eoforwic
and Whitby, which included Lastingham, Kirkdale, Coxwold, Hovingham and
Kirby Misperton.
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Deirian and Northumbrian York, a political,
cultural and educational Hub on the European stage |
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The
founding of a Celtic Christian monastery by Cedd, close to the entrance to
Farndale |
Whitby was an important port. The first
monastery was founded in 657 CE by the Anglo-Saxon King of Northumbria, Oswiu,
sometimes called Oswy.
In 659 CE, Cedd, the elder brother of Chad, brought the
Celtic Christian traditions of Iona and Lindisfarne to found a monastery at Lastingham, at the site of an old Roman
nymphaeum. So Celtic Christianity had arrived only two kilometres from the
entrance to Farndale’s valley.
Bede, in his
Historia
Ecclesia recorded a small monastic community was founded at Lastingham under royal patronage, to
prepare an eventual burial place for Æthelwald,
Christian king of Deira, and to tame trackless moorland wilderness haunted by
wild beasts and outlaws.
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A place of wild beasts and men
who lived like wild beasts Bede’s description of the wilderness of Farndale as a
place of dragons and wild beasts |
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The founder of Lastingham |
Bede, wrote
of how Oidilwald, the son of King Oswald,
who reigned among the Deiri, finding Cedd to be a
holy, wise, and good man, desired him to accept some land whereon to build a
monastery, to which the king himself might frequently resort, to pray, and
where he might be buried when he died. So then, complying with the king's desires,
the Bishop chose himself a place whereon to build a
monastery among steep and distant mountains, which looked more like
lurking-places for robbers and dens of wild beasts, than dwellings of men; to
the end that, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, “In the habitation of
dragons, might be grass with reeds and rushes;” that is, that the fruits of
good works should spring up, where before beasts were wont to dwell, or men to
live after the manner of beasts.
So in this
place Cedd built his monastery, near to the
entrance to Farndale, vel bestiae commorari vel hommines
bestialiter vivere conserverant,
a land fit only for wild beasts, and men who live like wild beasts.
European
Union, Brentrance
There was
now a problem. There were two forms of Christianity competing in the same
lands, Celtic from Ireland via Iona and Lindisfarne and Roman from the papal
tradition in Rome. In a spirit that was to define English history for the next
thousand years, petty religious differences were enough to cause turmoil.
Different views on such things as the computes, the calculation of the
date of Easter, and the cut of the tonsure, the practice of shaving hair on the
scalp as a sign of religious humility, were issues of extreme aggravation.
However on
this occasion, a compromise was reached at the Synod at Whitby in 664 CE, only thirty kilometres
northeast of Kirkdale, when the
two traditions agreed to a reconciliation between the Celtic and Roman
Christian traditions, agreeing to adopt the Roman approach.
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The
momentous agreement at Whitby, not so far from Farndale, which resolved
incompatibilities between Roman and Celtic Christian traditions, and placed
Britain onto the European stage |
As always, the
Europeans won the negotiation. The nation had chosen to join the European world
in the first days of its conception.
This was all
firmly within the sphere of Kirkdale’s experience, and
the people there likely lived in the same world where these momentous events
were unfolding. One day, far in the distant future, Whitby would become the home of several significant Farndale
families, including many seventeenth and eighteenth century mariners.
Scene 3 – Ancestral Lands
Saxon
Ghosts
At this time
in about 650 CE a Saxon princess was
laid to rest at the place now called Street House near Loftus and Carlin How in Cleveland.
This was a
period of transition from paganism to Christianity in England. This location
would have been just within the northern border of Deira.
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The
burial ground of a Saxon princess who lay for thirteenth centuries
overlooking the Hill of Witches where the Craggs line of Farndales would
later make their home |
The cemetery
was superimposed on an old prehistoric monument and there lay a high ranking
woman on a bed surrounded by 109 graves. The royal princess watched over Carlin
How, the hill of witches, for thirteen centuries until she was excavated in
2005. In Victorian times, the Craggs
line of Farndales would make Craggs Farm at Carlin How, their home, in this
place of Saxon ghosts.
Kirkdale
In about 685
CE, a minster was first built at Kirkdale,
possibly with close associations with Lastingham
and Kirkbymoorside.
It was
probably at this time that it was dedicated to St Gregory, the same Pope
Gregory who had put the land of the Angles onto the European political map, and
the dedication to the Roman pope, reaffirmed the new association with Rome and
the Pope recently agreed at the
Synod of Whitby. The Deiran monarchs became
closely associated with Rome, and with Gregory in particular. As did Kirkdale
itself.
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Kirkdale
from its founding in about 685 CE to the beginning of the Scandinavian period
in about 800 CE |
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Ornate sarcophagus lids and Saxon artefacts to be
found in Kirkdale Minster and embedded into its walls which will transport
you to the Eighth century CE |
Kirkdale became a religious and
political focal point of the relatively stable and prosperous lands in its
vicinity. So the distant ancestors of modern Farndales likely lived in this
place of profound influence on the future evolution of a nation.
There’s a
suggestion that Kirkdale may
have been the place known as Cornu Vallis, the horn of the valley. Cornu
Vallis was referred to as a place where Abbot Ceolfrith
of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow visited, and this might suggests links between Kirkdale
and the Tyne valley and Jarrow, where Bede
wrote his histories.
Kirkdale and Lastingham are about six kilometres apart
and have long been closely associated. It is likely that Kirkdale also had a close
relationship with the growing secular town of Kirkbymoorside.
The Kirkdale
archaeologists have found evidence of symbolism and the burial of special
dead, so in the middle Anglo Saxon period, Kirkdale likely had a special
significance to the local hierarchy of that time. Kirkdale might have been
attached to a local estate and the presence of the church at Kirkdale must have been a spiritual
force which consolidated local hierarchies, providing social cohesion. It must
have been an important expression of Christianity which would have created
local identity.
Kirkdale probably had an important
relationship by the eighth century with what was by then already perceived as
the past. This can be seen in its use of earlier Roman materials and as a
symbol of its close associations with Christian Rome, including through its
dedication to St Gregory. The archaeologists found blown glass, an object they
referred to as GL2, in the Roman fashion which might suggest a continuation of
techniques from the Roman period. There may have been an importance of Romanitas, a Latin word, coined in the third
century, meaning Roman-ness a link with things Roman, the collection of
political and cultural concepts and practices by which the Romans defined
themselves. Another artefact, called ST42, of the early ninth century may have
been imported from a significant, possibly Italian centre and was perhaps a
relic fragment.
There are
significant above ground grave structures, ST 7, ST8 and OM 3, likely
associated with elite members of society. Their position in the building might
have been focused with vibrant paint and possibly the play of light. The
symbolism of these finds was likely understood by an informed audience. One
design was probably reference to a chalice. There were probable theological
messages and symbolism of these finds has been linked to Bedean end of the
world millenarianism.
Our
ancestors lived amongst a rich cultural group near the centre of political
influence.
Cultural
and Educational powerhouse
In the 750s,
a young man called Alcuin came to the
cathedral church of York during the golden age
of Archbishop Ecgbert. Ecgbert had been a disciple of the Venerable Bede. The York school was known by
then as a centre of learning in the seven liberal arts, literature, and
science, as well as in religious matters and Alcuin
revived the school. In 781 CE, Alcuin was sent to Rome to petition the pope for
official confirmation of York's status as an archbishopric. On his way home, he
met Charlemagne in the Italian city of Parma. At the invitation of Charlemagne,
Alcuin became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court, where he
remained a figure in the 780s and 790s.
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Alcuin
and the birth of modern education The
world of Ecgbert and Aethelbert, successors to Bede, and their pupil Alcuin,
who took York’s powerhouse of knowledge to the court of Charlemagne to
pioneer the European educational system |
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So nearby York
was a centre of learning by the eighth century, with links to the court of the
Frankish King Charlemagne, soon to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
At the
northwest corner of the great agricultural lands of Pickering and York,
Kirkdale, our ancestral home, was firmly on the European stage in the eighth
century.
Anglo
Saxon Farming Community
The
overwhelming majority of the English population of Anglo-Saxon England lived in
the countryside, grew crops, herded livestock and were self-sufficient.
The land had
been worked intensively during the Roman era. The villa owners grew rich by
exporting wheat to feed the armies across the Empire. Intensive cereal
production collapsed after the decline of Roman influence. Evidence of pollen
samples nevertheless suggests that secondary woodland did not expand
dramatically over the land where wheat had been grown. There may have been a
period during which sheep, cattle and pig rearing allowed the indigenous
population to draw their protein from secondary products including milk, butter
and cheese. Early Anglo-Saxon settlers may have focused their efforts on lush
meadows to provide winter fodder and herds may have grazed over wide tracts of land. The human population may have
been increasingly dispersed and often mobile, driving herds between summer and
winter grazing.
By the Middle Anglo-Saxon
period of the seventh to early ninth centuries, Anglo-Saxon farmers turned back
from pastoralism to rely increasingly on arable farming, growing wheat and
barley. This was probably the period when the open-field system materialised.
There is mixed evidence of the timing of the transition and no doubt it varied
across different regions.
Kirkdaleland
seems to have been a stable region, and the individuals who are the subject of
the Farndale Story, were likely to have been amongst the pioneers who ploughed
the land and reestablished arable crops in the Middle Anglo Saxon period.
Go Straight to Act 5 –
Scandinavian Kirkdale
or
If your interest is in Kirkdale then I suggest you visit the
following pages of the website.
· The church in Anglo Saxon Times
· The Kirkdale
Anglo Saxon artefacts
· The church in Anglo Saxon
Scandinavian Times
· The community in Anglo Saxon
Scandinavian Times
You might also like to read more
about:
· The Deira, Bernicia and
Northumberland
· Alcuin and the birth of modern
education
· Carlin How and Saxon witches
You will
also find a chronology, together with source material at the Kirkdale Page.