The Angle, Saxon, and Jute tribes, who invaded Britain in the 5th and 6th

Centuries, are known as the Anglo-Saxons. They left their homelands in

northern Germany, Denmark and northern Holland and rowed across the North
Sea in wooden boats.

The Anglo-Saxons were originally pagans. The names of their main gods
survive in the days of the week. Wednesday was originally Woden’s Day,
Tuesday comes from Tiw. Thursday was originally the day of Thor. Friday was
dedicated to Frig(g), goddess of beauty.

The Christian church had been well-established in Roman Britain by the early
fifth century, and it suffered greatly from the invasions.

But it did survive in those parts of Roman Britain that escaped the Anglo-Saxon
invasions. From that church came two missionaries who started to bring
Christianity beyond the former imperial frontiers in Britain.

St Nynia (or Ninian) was the first missionary in Scotland. Almost the only thing
we know about him was that he founded a church at Whithorn (Dumfries and
Galloway).

St Patrick was the first known missionary in Ireland. He had been captured as a
boy by Irish raiders, but managed to escape from his slavery. At some point he
decided to go back to Ireland.

We do not know his dates or anything about where he worked, but he seems to
have been buried at Downpatrick (County Down) in the late fifth century,
although later on it was the church in Armagh that claimed him as its own.

Numerous churches and monasteries were founded in the generations after St

Patrick's death. Probably the most important founder was St Columba, who
founded Derry and Durrow in Ireland and, after deciding to leave Ireland in 565
AD, founded the monastery of Iona on an island west of the Isle of Mull in
Scotland.

However, as not all inhabitants of Great Britain were Christians, Pope

Gregory the Great (Pope from 590 to 604 AD) decided to send a
missionary called Augustine to England to found major churches in
London and York. When Augustine arrived in the south east of
England in 597 AD, he found that Æthelberht, king of Kent, was the
most powerful king in the south east. Æthelberht gave him land in
Canterbury to build a church, and thus by accident Canterbury, rather
than London, became the main centre for English Christianity.

Æthelberht and his court converted, and several neighbouring kings as

well. The last surviving member of Gregory's mission was Paulinus,
who baptised Edwin, king of Northumbria, in York in 627 AD.

There were 7 kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England: in the south

there were the kingdoms of Kent, of the South Saxons
(Sussex), and the West Saxons (Wessex); to the east were the
kingdoms of the East Angles (East Anglia) and the East
Saxons (Essex); in the Midlands was the kingdom of the
Mercians; and north of the Humber there was Northumbria.
Some British kingdoms remained independent, including
Cornwall and Devon in the south west, Gwynedd and Powys
in modern Wales, and Strathclyde, in what is now the region
of Glasgow.

In Ireland there were numerous small kingdoms.

By 878 the Vikings had conquered all of England except
Wessex. Wessex remained Anglo-Saxon as King Alfred of
Wessex defeated the Vikings in battle. Gradually, the areas of
England under Viking rule were reconquered by Alfred's
descendants.
Alfred (also Ælfred from the Old English: Ælfrēd /'æl.fred/) (c. 849 – 26 October 899) was
king of the southern Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex from 871 to 899. Alfred is noted for
his defence of the kingdom against the Danish Vikings, becoming the only English King to be
awarded the epithet 'the Great'. Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself
'King of the Anglo-Saxons'. A learned man, Alfred encouraged education and improved the
kingdom's law system.