Eoforwic (York)
The Anglian York Helmet, eighth
century
Deirian and Northumbrian York, a political,
cultural and educational Hub on the European stage
There is an
accompanying York chronology, with references
to source material.
Germanic
invasion
The end of
the Roman imperial period was likely to have seen a dispersal of settlement
into rural areas. It is possible that some centralised government by local
leaders from the old city of Eboracum continued.
The Germanic
invasions may not have impacted on the region of the Vale of York at first and
little is known of the old Roman city in the fifth and sixth centuries.
Cemeteries dating from this period suggest that Germanic people may have
settled in the area as early as the fifth century.
The Middle
Saxon Period in the rest of Britian is generally referred to as the Anglian
Period (600 to 850 CE) in the area around York.
By the first
decade of the seventh century, and perhaps earlier, the old city lay within the
Anglian kingdom of Deira. From about 600
CE, York became capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Deira. Reclamation of parts of the town was
initiated in the seventh century under King Edwin of Northumbria, and York
became his chief city.
Its
Anglo-Saxon name, Eoforwic, suggests that it was an important
commercial centre. Towns ending in ‘-wic’
were important trading centres. By the early seventh century, it was also a
royal base for the Northumbrian kings.
Christianity
When Gregory
the Great sent Augustine’s mission to convert the Angles, he planned to divide
Britain into two sees, one of which was to have its centre at Eoforwic. His intention was that the Bishop of York,
like Augustine in the southern province centred on London, was to ordain twelve
bishops and enjoy the rank of metropolitan. This apparently sudden reappearance
of Eoforwic in the role of an internationally
recognized metropolis was likely to have reflected its place as a population
and commercial centre. The Roman roads would have continued to focus
Northumbrian communications and commerce to reestablish Eoforwic
as the largest urban settlement in the north. Gregory was no doubt also aware
of the city’s status in Roman times and, in particular, he may have been
reminded by his advisers that the city had been the centre of a bishopric in
the fourth century.
It was here
that King Edwin was baptised in 627 CE. In his Ecclesiastical History, Bede wrote So King Edwin, with all the nobles
of his race and a vast number of the common people, received the faith and
regeneration by holy baptism in the eleventh year of his reign, that is in the
year of our Lord 627 and about 180 years after the coming of the English to
Britain. He was baptised at York on Easter Day, 12 April, in the church of St
Peter the Apostle, which he had hastily built from wood while he was a
catechumen and under instruction before he received baptism. He established an
episcopal see for Paulinus, his instructor and bishop, in the same city.
Paulinus was
established as bishop as the first wooden minster church was built in Eoforwic.
Edwin
ordered the small wooden church be rebuilt in stone. However, he was killed in
633 CE, and the task of completing the stone minster fell to his successor, the
Bernician Oswald. It was dedicated to St Peter. The
original stone church was likely to have been constructed adjacent to the
modern minster in the modern Dean’s Park.
Oswald’s
focus shifted back to the Bernician royal seat at
Bamburgh and he established a new monastic and religious focus on the island of
Lindisfarne. Eoforwic’s fortunes might have
declined once again. However one of Paulinus’ companions, James
the Deacon remained at Eoforwic and the Synod of Whitby called by
Oswald’s successor Oswy in 664 CE established the Roman form of Christianity
and a bishopric was reestablished in Rome, as Gregory had intended.
By 735 CE
the status of Eoforwic was elevated to an archbishopric and
Archbishop Aethelberht (766 to 779 CE) built a new church dedicated to Holy
Wisdom, which might have been part of the wider cathedral complex.
Intellectual
powerhouse
By the end
of the eighth century an extraordinary library and school at Eoforwic continued the more isolated, monastic
intellectual traditions of Bede and
Jarrow-Monkwearmouth. James the Deacon taught music. Wilfred contributed books
to the library. Aethelberht was a prolific collector of books from across
Europe and his pupil Alcuin became master there in 767 CE. Alcuin of York honed his intellect in the
cathedral school. He had a long career as a teacher and scholar, first at the
school at York, and later as Charlemagne's leading advisor on ecclesiastical
and educational affairs.
Alcuin’s
poem On
the Bishops, Kings and Saints of the Church of York provided a description
of eighth century York and a somewhat politically influenced account of its
history.
York,
with its high walls and lofty towers, was first built by Roman hands, that
summoned only the native Britons as comrades and partners in the labour, for at
that time, the Romans, rightly supreme throughout the world, held fertile
Britain in their sway, to be a general seat of commerce by land and sea alike,
both a powerful dominion, secure for its masters, and an ornament to the
empire, a dread bastion against enemy attack …
After the
Roman troops, their empire in turmoil, had withdrawn, intending to rout their
savage foe and to defend Italy, their native realm, the slothful race of
Britons then held sway over York. Overwhelmed by almost unending struggle
against the Picts, finally vanquished, they yielded to burdensome slavery…
Between the
peoples of Germany and the outlying realms there is an ancient race, powerful
in war, of splendid physique, called by the name of the rock because of its
toughness. This people the Britons’ leaders tried to enlist by sending bribes
to protect their fatherland and ward off their foe….
Alcuin went
on to describe Bede’s account of how the indigenous British people paid the
Germanic armies to protect them until the Germanic demands were too steep.
Somewhat dismissively of the indigenous folk, Alcuin went on:
In His
goodness God determined that the wicked race should lose its fathers’ kingdoms
for its wrongdoing and that a more fortunate people should enter its cities …
He then went
on to recount how Edwin, the descendant of ancient kings, a native of York
and future lord of all the land converted to Christianity.
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