A classified list of locations (and some history!)

This page is an alternative base page, designed for those who want to know about a particular type of artefact. This page lists the monuments in sections according to the cultural group presumed to have created them, or according to the type of object that each artefact is, and tells in outline the historical story of Britain from the start of the Christian era down to the Norman Conquest.

This site is concerned with the memorials that have survived to bear witness to the Christian commitment of the people who produced them. Although it is historically possible that Christian people could have come to Britain before the Romans settled here (and there is an old but unlikely legend about Joseph of Arimathea having come to Glastonbury, for example), effectively, the story of Christianity in the British Isles must begin with the Romans.

Julius Caesar was the first Roman leader to contemplate seriously the invasion of the British Isles. His foray across the English Channel in 55BC was short-lived, and it would be almost exactly another century before the invading forces of the emperor Claudius would set foot on British soil in 43 AD.

In the event, the legions sent by Claudius were triumphant, despite stiff opposition from some of the tribes in the southern part of England. Those tribal people were basically of Celtic extraction. The Celts had come to prominence in the middle-European area several centuries previously, and had gradually spread across Europe - leaving the evidence of their presence in the place-names (Gaul, Galatia, etc.), and by the time the Romans came to stay, the Celtic people may have already been here for five hundred years. (As to the nature of the people of Britain before that time, one can only conjecture. Celtic legends speak of there being giants in these islands who needed to be subdued by their pioneers, but reliable history really starts with the Romans, who were the first literate people on the scene.)

Within a few years of the Roman invasion, the choice for the early Britons was clear - either they could submit to Roman rule and law, or else they could flee to the hills. The Romans gradually consolidated their hold on the island of Great Britain, The British folk (or in their language, the cymru - pronounced 'cum-ree') who took to the hills also left evidence of their presence in the place names - Cymru is still the Welsh language name of Wales (which the Romans called Cambria), but in England, there is Cumbria, and before it Northumbria and so on. The Romans never did subdue Scotland, and decided to build a wall to keep them out of the Roman Empire (and in the opinion of some historians, to regulate commerce with them). Hadrian's wall ran from the east cost of England to the west, with the modern cities of Carlisle and Newcastle being near to the ends of it, and a large part of the wall running along the edge of a geological feature known as the Whin Sill.

The Romans were the dominant group in Britain until the year 410, when trouble at the heart of the Empire caused the legions to be withdrawn. Some people have thought of this as "the Romans going home", but in truth, many of the non-military personnel remained in Britain, and over time the distinctions between who was Roman and who was British became very blurred indeed.

The Romans brought their faith systems with them. The pantheon that the Romans inherited from the Greeks (Jupiter (=Zeus), Juno (=Hera), Diana (=Artemis), Mercury (=Hermes) and so on) was one of the first imports. It may well be that the Rotary Club today has the motto "adopt, adapt, improve", but the Romans were masters of that idea, and even applied it to their deities. The Celts who were here before them had their own deities, whom they often worshipped in particular locations. One example of this was the Celtic deity Sul, whom they associated with Bath. When the Romans came, they too liked Bath, and settled there because of the hot mineral spring; they named the place Aquae Sulis (the waters of Sul") but rededicated the Celtic shrine to "Sulis-Minerva" - a conflation of Sul and their own deity Minerva. As time progressed, so other Roman deities and belief systems were imported. Among these were the Emperors themselves, who had decreed that they personally were divine - though whether that fooled the ordinary Roman in the street is another matter. Soldiers and administrators who had been elsewhere in the Empire also brought with them the beliefs they had adopted while serving in those far-flung locations. Thus Mithraism reached Britain, having made the trip from Persia via Rome. And of course, over time, more and more people arriving on British soil did so as committed followers of Jesus Christ.

Details of Christianity in Britain from the first century AD are non-existent. The second century sees a Welsh local leader at Llandaff allegedly writing to the Pope to ask if he could become a Christian, to which the Pope readily agreed, of course. The early years of the third century AD see the first recognised British Christian martyr, Alban, killed by the Roman authorities at Verulamium after having sheltered a couple of Christian priests who were being hunted; Verulamium was later renamed to commemorate him. Although there were a few well-attested Christians in Britian during the Roman period, Britain was not targeted for evangelism until after the Roman occupation came to an end. There are no Stone crosses from this period, but there are a few mosaics and carved inscriptions in various places that show Christian symbolism. Most prominent, though are the grave markers, which name individual people and indicate their commitment to Christ.

When the Roman soldiers left Britain, things began to return to what they had been before the Roman era. The Celtic people who had, generations earlier, moved to the margins of the land were able to expand once again, and in the later fifth and early sixth centuries, there was a brief renaissance of Celtic culture in various parts of the British Isles. It was during this period that missionaries brought afresh the message of the Gospel to the British mainland. Although there was a distant connection with Rome, these missionaries were actually working out of Ireland. At first their mission was to areas around the Scottish and Welsh coastlines. A base was established on the Scottish island of Iona, and after a period of consolidation, missionaries went out to Northern England and North Wales. Meanwhile, things had been changing in England.

The departure of the Roman was only an occasion for muted rejoicing in England. On the one hand, no longer was the Roman administration backed by military force, but on the other, the lack of trained soldiers or any real military organisation meant that England was more vulnerable to attack than it had been for four centuries. People began to worry. In the short term, they solved the problem by inviting Saxon fighting men to serve as mercenaries. It did not take long before the mercenaries realised that they could take over. There are different accounts of how it happened in various different parts of England, but after a few decades, the Saxons were in power. Gradually the culture changed. The Saxons were pagans, and Christianity had not really taken hold.

The following are lists of the locations of monuments (other than crosses) classified by type of monument

This page is a part of Chris Tolley's web-site.                                             Latest update: Friday, November 22, 2002 21:30
Links on my pages can point to other web-sites. If you find that the administrators of those web-sites have made changes which mean you can't access them, please let me know, so I can update or remove the links. As far as I know, none of my links point to sites likely to contain offensive material - but if you discover otherwise, please let me know, as I would like to remove such links from my pages.
return to my home page.	Frequently asked Questions	send me an e-mail
©1996 to 2002: Christopher J. Tolley