ANST - About me - Rowan

[Tim McDaniel]

On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Kendall Johnson <avalon at netjava.com>
wrote:
> [Daniel de Lincolia wrote:]
> >All I'm saying is that, if you want to be an authentically
> >historical person of a Celtic race after 600 AD or so, you'd
> >say you were Christian.  Before that, it depends where,
> >when, and how.
>
> This is a very argueable date because Charlemagne didn't
> start forcing christianity upon the Northwestern parts of
> europe until the early 800's

Um, I wrote "Celtic race".  The only people we'd call Celts
that Charlemagne may have ruled was Brittany, and I don't
recall offhand if he ever got there.  (I dimly recall some
anomaly about its status vis a vis the kingdom of France.)
Not Galicia in northern Spain, and he certainly didn't rule
Ireland, Wales, or Scotland!

> and there is considerable evidence to show that after the
> Romans left the Brittish Isles religion was pretty much a
> whatever you believe.

The Romans left Britain after "600 AD or so"?

> Even after William the BASTARD (no hostility toward him)
> conquered "England" the christian religion was not
> strictly enforced on all parts of the isle for several
> more decades.

(To be picky: England is not an isle, and he didn't rule all
of the isle of Britain.)

I have the book _William the Conqueror_ (that's the name on
the spine; you may call him what you will), David C. Douglas
(Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, 1964).  I don't have
time to re-read it, but Chapter 13 starts with "William, as
king, showed himself resolute not only to retain his royal
rights in the Church, but also to discharge what he
conceived to be his ecclesiatical duties. ... [he] and all
his subjects both Norman and English, lived in a world in
which the Church was recognized as an all-embracing unit
..."  The monastaries of Normandy were famous, and they
spread the revival to England (not by founding many more,
but by reforming the ones there).  William moved
ecclesiastical pleas from the hundred courts to the bishops'
courts.  He had many ecclesiastical councils held to reform
the church.  There is dispute reported there about whether
the English Church needed outside reform, but measures were
taken against married priests and bishops.

I find nothing about paganism or heresy in the index, but I
do find a mention of Jews.

Peter Hunter Blair, _An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England_
(2nd ed., Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1977), has
several sections on the conversion of England.  I gather
that paganism had a hold on the courtry "through much of the
seventh century", but I see no references after that.

I would therefore like to ask how you know "the christian
religion was not strictly enforced on all parts of the
isle".  I suspect it wasn't strictly enforced because
well-nigh everyone was Christian or thought themselves so;
you don't have to enforce a universal.

> It must still be remembered that many people practiced
> whatever religion they wanted to, even throuh the Spanish
> Inquisition and the Reformation.

I have mostly read about England.  It would be odd that
Thomas More, noted for burning anti-Catholic heretics, never
burned a pagan.  I have seen no mention of paganism in
England post-Conquest, and I've mentioned some pre-Conquest
analysis above.

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com; if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com
is work address.  tmcd at tmcd.austin.tx.us is wrong tool.  Never use this.
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