Hello, welcome to History here at Oak National Academy.

My name's Mr. Newton and I will be your teacher today guiding you through the entire lesson.

Right, let's get started.

Over the next few lessons we'll be thinking about our big inquiry question: How different was the English church by 1100? This is the question we will use to investigate the nature of Norman England and the church.

We know that the Anglo-Saxons were deeply religious people, and the church was a powerful institution in people's lives and in England's governments.

The Christian Church was led by the pope in Rome.

However, it was hugely influenced by England and its laws.

The Normans had particular ideas on Christianity and how the church should operate.

Therefore, the Normans wanted to reform the English church.

But the question is how much did the English church change? By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to explain the state of the Anglo-Saxon Church.

Before you begin, there are a few key words that we need to understand.

Hierarchy is a system in which people are put at various levels or ranks according to their importance.

Diocese are areas controlled by bishops.

And a saint is a title given to a person who has received an official honour from the pope, having lived in a good and holy way.

A pilgrim is a person who makes a journey, often a long and difficult one, to a special place for religious reasons.

And finally, a relic is something that belonged to a holy person, often a body part that was believed to be able to help people if prayed to or touched.

Today's lesson is split into three parts.

We'll first look at the organisation of the church before moving on to religious beliefs and practises.

And finally, the problems in the Anglo-Saxon Church.

Right.

Let's start with the organisation of the church.

Anglo-Saxon England had been a Christian society since the end of the seventh century.

And by the time of Edward the Confessor in the early 11th century, the church was very important to all aspects of life in Anglo-Saxon England, including politically.

The church was organised as a hierarchy.

And if you have a look at the diagram on the left, it shows the church hierarchy.

As the bottom of the pyramid is the least powerful, with the most powerful being at the top.

And we can see that the archbishops held the most power and were at the top of the hierarchy.

The most powerful archbishops were the archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York.

Beneath them were bishops and abbots, and beneath them were priests, monks, and nuns.

Each of these people had their own role controlling their own particular area and reporting back to the people above them in the hierarchy.

England was divided up into diocese.

A bishop oversaw a diocese and a diocese was divided into different parishes, and each parish was managed by a priest.

There may have been as many as six or 7,000 churches in Anglo-Saxon, England, most of them in manners held by thanes.

So churches were clearly central to Anglo-Saxon life.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What I want you to do here is complete the names of these positions in the church hierarchy.

Pause the video, have a think, and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back, and let's check those answers.

So for A, at the top of the hierarchy with the archbishops.

And below them in B, bishops and abbots.

At the bottom of the hierarchy were the priests, monks, and nuns.

Monasticism was important too, with many monasteries and nunneries across England.

If you have a look at the illustration on the left, it shows the scale of a monastery.

They could be one large building or a collection of buildings, and they needed to be large enough to house a religious community of monks or nuns.

Monasteries and nunneries were also centres of learning.

Monasteries copied religious texts and produced beautiful illuminated manuscripts like the Lindisfarne Gospels.

On the left is a page from the Lindisfarne Gospels decorated with bright colours or illuminations because they appear to light up the page.

It actually took six years to create these gospels.

Monasteries and convents provided many services to the community.

They played a key role in education, mostly for young people who are going to work for the church.

For example, monastic and cathedral schools taught Latin, theology and other subjects.

Due to the importance of charity, hospitality, and care for the poor and sick in Christianity's teachings, monasteries and nunneries also frequently served as centres of aid and relief for the needy.

If you have a look at the mediaeval illustration on the left, it shows nuns caring for the sick.

The hospitals and schools we have today essentially did not exist back then.

So the church was the closest that mediaeval people could get to accessing these important services.

The men at the top of the church hierarchy were also involved in governing Anglo-Saxon England.

Bishops served as advisors to kings in the Witan, as well as to earls, such as Earl Godwin.

In some other parts of Europe, the church worked hard to keep itself separate from the monarchy.

This was not the case in Anglo-Saxon England where the church and the king worked closely together.

Having just one king for the whole of England was a fairly new development.

The first King of England was in 927 AD, and the kings needed help from the church in getting people across the country to accept them as their ruler.

Have a look at the image.

It's a mediaeval mosaic, and we can see King William II of Sicily in the bottom left, and he's receiving the crown from the hands of Jesus Christ.

This suggests that God has chosen William to be king.

And indeed the church made it clear that God had chosen the king to rule the country and accepted that this meant that the kings should have a role in choosing new archbishops and bishops.

The church would also excommunicate the king's enemies and rivals for him.

Excommunication was a very serious punishment, which cut the offender off from the church.

It expelled them from the church.

In return for supporting their rule, kings gave the church land.

By 1066, the church was a very large landholder in Anglo-Saxon England, which made it very wealthy.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

How did the English church have influence in the government of England? Select three correct answers.

A, bishop served as advisors to kings in the Witan.

B, the church appointed the next pope.

C, the church ensured that the king was seen as legitimate.

D, the church excommunicated the king's enemies.

Pause the video, have a think, and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer was A, C and D.

Okay, let's move on to Task A.

What I want you to do here is provide examples to support each of the following statements.

And you can see I've provided you with three statements.

The first statement is the church was organised as a hierarchy.

And so for that statement, I want you to provide me with a piece of evidence, an example of the hierarchy in the Anglo-Saxon Church.

And then go on to provide examples for the other two statements.

Pause the video, have a go at the task, and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back.

So your answer may include the following: So for the first statement, it was the church was organised as a hierarchy.

An example or evidence we could have used to back that up was that archbishops and bishops were high up the hierarchy and oversaw diocese, and within each diocese were smaller parishes, each managed by a priest.

For the next statement: Monasticism was important in England.

You could have had monasteries and nunneries provided education, produced manuscripts and cared for the sick.

And the final statement was the church was a powerful institution with influence in the government of England.

And you could have put bishops served as advisors to kings in the Witan.

The church got people across the country to accept the king as their ruler and in return, kings gave the church land.

Okay, great.

Now we have some understanding of the organisation of the Anglo-Saxon Church.

Let's move on to the second part of the lesson where we look at religious beliefs and practises.

So the Anglo-Saxon Church followed the lead of the pope in Rome.

And we can see an illustration of Pope Leo IX on the left, and he was the head of the Christian Church in the early 11th century.

This made him the centre of Christianity in Western Europe.

But the Anglo-Saxon Church was also influenced by local customs and traditions.

For example, religious services, the liturgy, were mainly conducted in Latin, which was what Rome said should happen.

However, for sermons and some prayers, the Anglo-Saxon church often used Old English.

The language that Anglo-Saxon spoke to each other.

This meant that everyone could understand what was being said.

The Anglo-Saxon Church also venerated or honoured and respected local saints, some of whom were not recognised by Rome.

Have a look at image on the left.

It's a painting of a monk healing a youth with hairs from Saint Cuthbert's head.

This is important because Cuthbert was an Anglo-Saxon saint who became very popular across England.

The Normans disapproved of the worship of these saints, favouring the saints from Europe or from the Bible.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What local practises did the Anglo-Saxon Church observe? Select two correct answers.

A, religious services were conducted in Latin.

B, removed shrines such as Saint Swithin.

C, some prayers often used Old English.

D, veneration of local saints.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer was C and D.

As with all Christians of the mediaeval period, Anglo-Saxons believed that saints in heaven could help people.

Most churches had holy relics of at least one saint and places where saints had done a particularly good job of answering people's prayers attracted pilgrims from across the country.

A very popular saint was Saint Swithin, he was buried at Winchester Cathedral.

He had been bishop there in the ninth century.

And if you have a look at the photo on the left, it show Saint Swithin's memorial shrine at Winchester Cathedral.

And it was recorded that so many pilgrims visited his shrine to be healed, that it was difficult for church officials to get through the crowds into the cathedral.

Saints feast days were also important events for Anglo-Saxon communities, often involving processions, special church services and celebrations.

Okay, let's have a check.

Why did many pilgrims visit Saint Swithin's shrine? A, in the hope of meeting the saint in the cathedral.

B, in the hope of meeting the pope.

C, in the hope of being healed with the saint's help.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer was C.

Okay, let's move on to Task B.

What I want you to do here is list three features of beliefs and practises of Anglo-Saxon Church.

And to help you to do that, I want you to consider the following: The language used for services, what was venerated, and visitor attractions.

Pause the video, have a go at the task and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back.

So your answer may include the following: So in your list you might have put that sermons and some prayers were often in the old English, whereas the liturgy were mainly conducted in Latin.

You might have put that the Anglo-Saxon Church venerated local saints such as Saint Swithin.

And the churches had holy relics that attracted pilgrims from across the country as people believe that they could provide them with help.

Okay, great.

So we've got a deeper understanding of the Anglo-Saxon Church, its organisation, and some basic beliefs and practises.

So now let's look at the final part of the lesson where we can look at some of the problems in the Anglo-Saxon Church.

So the Normans were very critical of the Anglo-Saxon Church, but since their criticisms were also used to justify William of Normandy invading England and making himself king by conquest, historians are cautious about how true these criticisms really are.

For example, the Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, in the Bayeux on the left, was criticised for having taken on the role of Archbishop without proper permission from the pope.

He was also criticised for being a pluralist, which meant that he held more than one church office.

He was Archbishop of Canterbury, but also Bishop of Winchester.

Pope Alexander II called Stigand the evil head of the English church and said he had together with the devil, turned the English people from the path of truth.

So that was just one example of the criticisms the pope and the Normans would level against the English church.

But let's use this slide to summarise the wider problems in the Anglo-Saxon Church.

So we've already discussed how pluralism in the case of Stigand was seen by the Normans as a problem in the Anglo-Saxon Church.

But the English church was also criticised for corruption.

Simony involved important posts in the church being sold to wealthy men rather than given to more deserving and spiritual candidates.

And nepotism involved people getting important jobs because of who they were related to or who they were friends with.

It was also claimed that the Anglo-Saxon Church ignored the reforms from Rome.

The Anglo-Saxon Church was said to be old fashioned and cut off from all the new ideas and reforms introduced by the pope.

An English church followed local Anglo-Saxon Saints.

Norman religious experts doubted whether the local saints of England were all reliable and suspected that some might not be proper saints at all.

And the Normans were also concerned about the relaxed rules, which included the issue of clerical marriage.

Monasteries were criticised for not following their religious rules strictly enough, and there was great concern about clerical marriage, and this was because they believed that priests were supposed to be celibate, but many English priests had wives or lived with women.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

Which term describes the act of holding more than one position within the church? A, nepotism.

B, pluralism.

C, Simony.

Pause the video, have a thing, and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer was B, pluralism.

Okay.

So which term describes the act of important posts being sold to wealthy men rather than given to more deserving candidates? A, nepotism.

B, pluralism.

C, simony.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back and well done if you need the C, simony.

Okay, let's continue.

So should be noted here that there are reasons to be sceptical about Norman criticisms of the English church.

The things that the Normans criticised the English church for, for example, pluralism, simony, nepotism, and clerical marriage, were just as common in France.

Although Stigand probably was a problematic Archbishop, other English bishops were highly respected, such as Wulfstan of Worcester.

English bishops attended church councils in Rome and elsewhere in which reforms were discussed, the English church was not out of touch with these developments.

Furthermore, Edward the Confessor was a famously pious king, deeply interested in religion and had good relations with the pope.

We can see Edward in the Bayeux tapestry on the left and the tapestry, which was commissioned by a Norman, had depicted him with great importance being the rightful King of England, appointed by God.

So it's likely therefore, that Norman's exaggerated the problems of the Anglo-Saxon Church as part of their justifications for the conquest.

What reason is there to be sceptical about Norman criticisms of the English church? A, they were used to ban monasteries.

B, they were used to justify the invasion of England.

C, they were used to promote Edward the Confessor.

Pause the video, have a think, and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer was B.

Okay, let's move on to Task C.

How convincing do you find this criticism of the state of the Anglo-Saxon Church? Write your answer as one paragraph, use your contextual knowledge in your answer.

So let's read the criticism first.

"The Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, is the evil head of the English church, and together with the devil, they have turned English people from the path of truth." Pope Alexander II.

So is this a convincing criticism of the state of the Anglo-Saxon Church? Does it chime with reality based on the contextual knowledge that you know and what you've learned so far in the lesson? There's definitely examples and evidence that we could use to suggest that this is a convincing statement, but equally there are examples and evidence we could use which would support an argument with states that this criticism is not convincing at all.

So decide which way you want to go.

Make sure you use lots of contextual knowledge, the background history that we've been looking at to back up your answer.

And for this task, we only need to write one paragraph.

Pause the video, have a go at the task, and then come right back.

Okay.

Welcome back, and well done for having a go at that task.

So as I said before, there's many ways you could have written an answer to this question.

So let's look at an example answer if you believe the criticism was convincing.

The criticism is convincing because the Anglo-Saxon church had not followed all of the new reforms set up by the pope in Rome, "the path of truth." For example, the English church continued to use old English for some of their prayers and venerated local saints.

So we're seeing some great contextual knowledge there to back up our point in the statement which suggested that the Anglo church had veered away from "the path of the truth." Furthermore, there was concern that English priests were ignoring celibacy rules.

Finally, Stigand had taken on the role of Archbishop without the Pope's permission and was also accused of pluralism.

And you can see in the final sentence here, we are gonna deliver a judgement on how convincing we found the criticism.

These examples show that the English church was not following "the path of truth," and therefore Pope Alexander II's criticism of the Anglo-Saxon Church is convincing.

So we can see there, this is a great example of an answer because it's given lots of contextual knowledge to back up our points and delivered a judgement of how convincing the criticism was of the state of the Ang Saxon Church.

However, if you believe the criticism was not convincing, you may have an answer that looked something like this: The criticism is not convincing because pluralism, simony, nepotism, and clerical marriage were just as common in France as they were with Anglo-Saxon England.

While it is true, that Stigand was not respected as Archbishop, plenty of English bishops were highly respected and they attended church councils in Rome.

Similarly, Edward the Confessor had had good relations with the pope, and so England had not been ignoring the pope's reforms completely.

It is likely therefore that Pope Alexander II exaggerated the problems of the Anglo-Saxon Church, likely in support of Duke William of Normand's invasion of England.

Okay, great.

Let's summarise today's lesson on the Anglo-Saxon Church.

The Anglo-Saxon Church was a powerful institution which was organised as a hierarchy.

Archbishops and bishops were high up the hierarchy and oversaw diocese.

Within each diocese were smaller parishes, each managed by a priest.

The English church continued with local practises, prayers often used Old English and local saints such as Saint Swithin were venerated.

Churches also have holy relics that attracted pilgrims from across the country.

The Normans criticised the Anglo-Saxon Church for not following the new reforms set out by Rome.

However, there are reasons to be sceptical of Norman criticisms as they were used to justify the invasion of England.

Well done on a brilliant lesson and I hope you've learned a lot about the Anglo-Saxon Church.

And this puts you in a great position to understand the extent of change the church will go through under the Normans.

I'll see you next time when we continue our inquiry.

See you in the next lesson.