ABSTRACT
Bede's mind was dominated by the Christian religion - the Roman past and pagan superstitions were unimportant memories. His world contrasted with that of Nennius, his contemporary. He lived in Northumbria, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which together covered an area roughly corresponding with present-day England excluding the Cornish peninsula. Northumbria itself was hilly and sparsely populated in Bede's day, but it was not isolated. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were united by rivers and, in most areas, by valleys and plains, while the Britons were cut off from outsiders by mountains and moorlands. Geographically the Anglo-Saxons were closer to the centres of European civilization; only a narrow sea divided them from Gaul and the Rhenish route to Italy. From the sixth century they were in close touch with Gaul (Ethelbert king of Kent, 560 to 616, married a Frankish princess) and in the late seventh and eighth centuries they sent missionaries to the Low Countries, to convert the Frisians and Old Saxons, men of their race, to Christianity. The Anglo-Saxon church established by Augustine who had been sent by Pope Gregory the Great and accepted papal surveillance, was closely connected with Rome. However, Northumbria itself also came under another influence, that of the Celtic missionaries from Iona.
