ABSTRACT
Formal schooling emerged in Anglo-Saxon England as during some ninety years starting in 597 the “Seven Kingdoms of the Heptarchy” accepted Christianity. The creation of a centralized episcopal system and of national synods fostered religious and political unity over the latter third of the seventh century. The distinction between priests and monks was sufficiently ill-defined over the first two or three centuries of English Christianity that pastoral responsibility accrued to “monastic or quasi-monastic bodies.” English schooling declined dramatically during the ninth century, as Danish invaders destroyed three kingdoms, disrupted episcopal sees, and plundered “innumerable” monasteries. Later, the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would over the long run have profound educational impact. Selected as the transition point for this survey, however, is the onset of the Englii “Reformation,” a movement that would fundamentally alter prevailing school sponsorship and organization.
