Nothing in Anglo-Saxon pagan culture could withstand the impact of Christianity after the arrival of the disciples of Pope Gregory I in England. Professor Henderson's book investigates the ways in, which the English in the two centuries following their conversion, expressed their new convictions about this world, and the next. It deals with the impact on the Anglo-Saxons of books and travel, discusses personal sanctity and the manipulation of belief by the state, and identifies the positive role of art in a society constantly afflicted by wars and epidemics.