This book is more than a general account of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. It is a probing study of the way in which Christianity was fashioned in England, giving full weight to the vareity and wealth of the traditions that contributed to early Anglo-Saxon Christianity. It is also a study in the process of christianization, as it was carried out by churchmen who, according to Mayr-Harting, prepared themselves by prayer and study and travel as well as by social awareness to christianize their world.
For this edition, the author has added a new preface in which he reconsiders some of his earlier conclusions and addresses recent developments in the scholarship. In a completely new chapter, Mayr-Harting appraises the work of Boniface of Devon, the greatest missionary of the early Middle Ages whom he calls the 'Mirror of English History.' Mayr-Harting thereby extends his account of early Anglo-Saxon Christianity from the Gregorian mission of the late sixth century up to the eighth-century English mission to the Continent, perhaps the crowning achievement of early English history.
