Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish World, 690-900 (review)

James T. Palmer's study of the early Anglo-Saxon 'mission' to the Continent is a varied and interesting examination of a range of sources, including hagiographies from the Frankish world, and chronicles from both sides of the English Channel. Palmer's principal focus is the rewriting of Anglo-Saxon missionaries' vitae, and how this reveals changes in attitudes both to the missionary-saints and to the idea of the Continent as a mission field.

The introduction presents us with a very ambitious study in terms of the number of saints and vitae that he intends to cover. The book starts with a brief vignette of the martyrdom and rapid rise to sanctity of St Boniface in 754, but he is only one of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries considered here; also included are Willibrord (d. 739), Willehad (d. 789), Alcuin (d. 804), Leoba (d. 782), Willibald (d. 787), Wynnebald (d. 761), Walburga (d. 779), Burchard (d. 752), and Lull (d. 786). The brief historical outline is useful in placing some of the lesser-known characters alongside the political names which are more familiar, and the reflection on modern historiography is broad-ranging.

The first chapter considers the reasons which hagiographers, in particular, imputed to the various Anglo-Saxon missionaries for leaving England, and the way that these were subtly adjusted over time. The initial concept of peregrinatio, based on an Irish model, is examined in a range of presentations, and the sense of a pan-Germanic identity is discussed in very competent terms.

In Chapter 2, Palmer goes on to consider the interactions of the missionaries with the political leaders of their times. He looks at how vitae written in particular religious houses represented the relationships between saints and the people in power, and compares those representations with those found in chronicles written at the same time. How later groups reworked the vitae to support new figures of power, illustrates the growth in importance of these saints.

The third and fourth chapters focus more closely on the hagiographies' representations of the world within which the missionaries were moving. They investigate the extent to which we can draw conclusions about pre-Christian Frankia, and whether the 'mission work' can be considered primary evangelization. Palmer points out that most of the areas to which the missionaries went had previously been Christianized, and many of the cities had existing churches. The missionaries' role was often more of a call to pure religion than an introduction of a new one. The sense of expansion into unknown territories, of taming the wilderness, within the hagiographies is seen to be one largely of convention and promotion of a particular saint.

Chapter 5 considers the hagiographies in relation to the monastic cultures within which they were produced, and compares the vitae of saints written at different locations, considering the relation of those religious houses with the cult of the saint. The representation of the saints' own interactions with, and opinions on, monasticism are seen to be more reliant on the attitude of the hagiographer or the expected audience than on anything externally known about the saint.

In the sixth chapter, Palmer concentrates on the interactions with Rome, as portrayed in the hagiographies, as a means of locating the relationship between the communities and the ideals of papal authority. In considering the impact which the Anglo-Saxons had on Franko-Roman relations, he first outlines the situation before the missionaries arrived, before making brief studies on individual saints' vitae. He finally concludes that it is 'the development of hagiographical discourse and reimagined pasts which made papal authority central to missionary activity' (p. 247).

The final chapter examines the impact which accounts of Willibald's journey east, to Byzantium and the Holy Land, had on concepts of the Anglo-Saxon mission. Here, Palmer provides a study of Hygeburg's Vita Willibaldi [et Wynnebaldi], considering...