Thursday 12 December 2024 at 7.30pm

The Bishopric of the Middle Angles: Christianity and Early Medieval Leicester

LAHS Member and University of Leicester PhD Student, Thomas Vare

A fragment from an Anglo-Saxon cross-shaft. ( Photo by Bob Trubshaw)

In the seventh century, Roman and Irish missionaries converted the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. At some point during this process, the bishopric of the Middle Angles was established which encompassed Leicester and the East Midlands. The early history of this diocese is obscure. When was the bishopric established? Where was it based? What authority did it have over the region? How did conversion to Christianity impact the East Midlands? Answering even these basic questions is interminably difficult for the early medieval historian and the evidence gathered to begin to address them forms the basis of this talk.

Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica provides a narrative of the initial conversion of the Middle Angles in 653. Unfortunately, Bede’s interests lay elsewhere, and the ecclesiastical history of the Middle Angles can only be traced faintly throughout the late seventh and early eighth century. Initially, the diocese of the Middle Angles was folded in with the diocese of the Mercians: two peoples under one bishop. The controversial bishop and saint Wilfrid (d. 709) was possibly bishop of the Middle Angles in the 690s, although when and what Wilfrid’s position was is not clear. After Bede’s death in 734, the historical record wanes, nevertheless, divers episcopal lists suggest a radical diocesan reorganisation in the Midlands during the middle of the eighth century. Out of this convulsion, the bishopric of the Middle Angles emerged and was established in Leicester, possibly at St Nicholas’ Church. The diocese and its minsters flourished throughout the eighth and ninth century until they were swept away by the Viking tide in the 870s.

Thomas Vare is a PhD student at the University of Leicester and this talk forms part of his wider research into 'Kinship and Power in Mercia in the Long Eighth Century'.

No booking necessary. Entry to the talk is free of charge.

Doors open from 7.00pm, with tea and coffee available. The lecture will take place at 7.30pm, at the Rattray Lecture Theatre, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester (LE1 7RH)

Parking is available in the Danielle Brown Sports Centre car park which is accessed through the entrance on University Road closest to Welford Road (entrance 1).

If you have mobility problems, please let us know and we can advise on parking closer to the venue.