It was mainly by means of the monasteries that Christianity became a great civilising and teaching agency in England.  Those who judge monastic institutions only by their later and worst days, when they had, perhaps, ceased to perform any useful function, are apt to forget the benefits which they conferred upon the people in the earlier stages of their existence.  The state of England during this first Christian period was one of chronic and bloody warfare.  There was no regular army, but every freeman was a soldier, and raids of one English tribe upon another were everyday occurrences; while pillaging frays on the part of the Welsh, followed by savage reprisals on the part of the English, were still more frequent.  During the heathen period, even the Picts seem often to have made piractical expeditions far into the south of England.  In 597, for example, we read in the Chronicle that Ceolwulf, king of the West Saxons, constantly fought “either against the English, or against the Welsh, or against the Picts.”  But in 603, the Argyllshire Scots made a raid against Northumbria, and were so completely crushed by AEthelfrith, that “since then no king of Scots durst lead a host against this folk”; while the southern Picts of Galloway became tributaries of the Northumbrian kings.  But war between Saxons and English, or between Teutons and Welsh, still remained chronic; and Christianity did little to prevent these perpetual border wars and raids.  In 633, Cadwalla and Penda wasted Northumbria; in 644, Penda drove out King Kenwealh, of the West Saxons, from his possessions along the Severn; in 671, Wulfhere, the Mercian, ravaged Wessex and the south as far as Ashdown, and conquered Wight, which he gave to the South Saxons; and so, from time to time, we catch glimpses of the unceasing strife between each folk and its neighbours, besides many hints of intestine struggles between prince and prince, or of rivalries between one petty shire and others of the same kingdom, far too numerous and unimportant to be detailed here in full.

With such a state of affairs as this, it became a matter of deep importance that there should be some one institution where the arts of peace might be carried on in safety; where agriculture might be sure of its reward; where literature and science might be studied; and where civilising influences might be safe from interruption or rapine.  The monasteries gave an opportunity for such an ameliorating influence to spring up.  They were spared even in war by the reverence of the people for the Church; and they became places where peaceful minds might retire for honest work, and learning, and thinking, away from the fierce turmoil of a still essentially barbaric and predatory community.  At the same time, they encouraged the development of this very type of mind by turning the reproach of cowardice, which it would have carried with it in heathen times, into an honour and a mark of holiness.  Every monastery became a centre of light and of struggling culture for the surrounding district.  They were at once, to the early English recluse, universities and refuges, places of education, of retirement, and of peace, in the midst of a jarring and discordant world.