Holy kings – the bane of seventh-century society

Abstract

In his recent and excellent book The Coming of Christianity Henry Mayr-Harting has some interesting things to say about lay society and the monastic ideal. Taking as his sources those two fundamental guides to seventh-century history, Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and the Penitential of Theodore of Tarsus, he shows how the Christian pattern of holiness, as demonstrated especially in the monastic life, could be observed also in the lives of Bede’s heroic kings. ‘The King’ he says, ‘was a kind of Christ, and his life should show forth the virtues of his prototype as they were cultivated in monastic circles. Oswald demonstrated his generosity and charity, . . . Sigbert of the East Saxons demonstrated his meekness, . . . Oswin of Deira demonstrated his humility . . . The Ecclesiastical History presents a gallery of exemplary kings, each of whom had many virtues, but each of whom is brought forward in a narrative of great care and skill to illustrate the particular virtue in which Bede regarded him as pre-eminent.’

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