Churches in Worcester Before and After the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons

Abstract

The Anglo-Saxon see of Worcester was probably not established until 679 or 680, over eighty years after the arrival of the Augustinian mission. It has usually been taken for granted that the Hwicce, for whom the new see was set up, had until then been subject to the see of the Mercians, but there is no evidence to show this. The latter see, moreover, had itself not been created untilc. 656. Are we, therefore, to assume that the Hwicce remained non-Christian until the later seventh century? If they did, we have signally failed in our efforts to find their burials; and our historical sources are strangely silent about the eventual conversion to Christianity of a people who held out against it for so long.

Rapid laminated clastic alluviation associated with increased Little Ice Age flooding co-driven by climate variability and historic land-use in the middle Severn catchment, UK

“…Analysis of archaeological and historical data reveals changing fortunes and settlement focus of the adjacent village of Kempsey. These records reveal the importance and expansion of Kempsey at the end of the eighth and ninth centuries CE with the founding of a minster church (Bassett, 1989; Finberg, 1972), a second church with burials (McGurk, 1995; Vaughan and Webster, 2016, 2017) and an episcopal manor (Bond, 1988; Sims-Williams, 1990) all within the confines of the small gravel terrace promontory at the floodplain edge. By the late 11th century CE the economic success of the village waned as the Domesday survey demonstrates a devaluation (£16–£8) of the village, alongside an increase in the ‘number of tax paying hides in waste’ (Morris, 1982).…”