Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish World, 690-900

The Anglo-Saxon mission to early medieval Germany and the Netherlands has long been seen as a major contribution to the foundation of Christian Europe. Encouraged by the activities of prominent Anglo-Saxons such as St Willibrord (d. 739) and St Boniface (d. 754), pious men and women left their homes in England to reform and reinvigorate the culture and politics of the Church in Northern Europe, while greatly expanding the frontiers of Christendom. Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish World, 690-900 provides the first major reassessment of the Anglo-Saxons’ influence on the Frankish world for fifty years. It argues that, because figures like Boniface were so important to the cult of saints east of the Rhine, stories about them became central to the ways in which different groups responded to the rapidly changing landscape of Carolingian culture and politics. The study draws on letters, charters, and other evidence to recontextualize the numerous hagiographies written about the Anglo-Saxons on the European mainland, while providing fresh perspectives on attitudes to mission, monasticism, authority, and the secular world in East Frankish society.