Ebook: Conversion and Christianity in the North Sea World: The Proceedings of a Day Conference Held on 21st February 1998

The Fourth St Andrews Day Conference focussed on a theme which was rather different from the previous three ("Scotland in Dark Age Europe", 1994; "Scotland in Dark Age Britain", 1996: "The Uses of Place-Names", 1998): it was the processes involved in the change to Christianity which occurred throughout the North Sea world in the centuries from c.500 AD to c. 1100 AD, with particular respect to the the eastern seaboard of Britain. The aim was once again to attempt a better understanding of a significant development in the history of Scotland by embracing the wider geographical background, and this time the specific maritime world of the North Sea. Contacts along the eastern seaboard and across the southern North Sea were basic to the development of Christian beliefs and the structure of Christian worship in Pictland. This southern and eastern focus was deliberately chosen in contrast to the western, Irish and Columban element in Scotland's Christianity, which had been centre stage in historians’ thinking in the past year's Columban commemoration celebrations. The western element becomes of course a very important strand in Scotland's Christian development, but before the ninth-century spread of Gaelic culture eastwards the links with post-Roman culture and the Northumbrian world to the south were very relevant to the Picts' change of religion.