Vision and Image in Early Christian England

Professor Henderson's highly illustrated 1999 book investigates the ways in which the English, in the two centuries following their conversion to Christianity, expressed their new convictions about this world, and the next, and identifies the positive role of art in a society constantly afflicted by wars and epidemics.

Nothing in Anglo-Saxon pagan culture could withstand the impact of Christianity after the arrival of the disciples of Pope Gregory I in England. Originally published in 1999, Professor Henderson''s book investigates the ways in which the English, in the two centuries following their conversion, expressed their new convictions about this world, and the next. It deals with the impact of books and travel on the Anglo-Saxons, discusses personal sanctity and the manipulation of belief by the state, and identifies the positive role of art in a society constantly afflicted by wars and epidemics. Henderson combines new fragmentary visual and literary evidence in this carefully illustrated book to bring out the peculiar character, both sophisticated and naive, of the new Christian civilisation which began to flourish and, to a surprising degree, recreate that of sixth-century Italy in seventh- and eighth-century England.