48 English and Continental Backgrounds
vasions and settlements of the ninth century, most of
Northumbria and half of Mercia becoming the Danelaw.
Such unity as England attained in the Anglo-Saxon
period did not come from a union of kingdoms, but from
an expansion of West Saxon rule, under Alfred and his
powerful descendants, over some southern and eastern
shires that had once been kingdoms, and through con-
quest in the tenth century of the lands that had been
seized and settled by Danes and Norwegians.
It was during the period of struggle among the early
kingdoms that Christianity spread throughout England;
and Christianity had much to add to the Teutonic con-
ception of king, as well ideas derived from the Old Testa-
ment as those of a strictly Christian origin. Kingship
was strengthened, made more grand and inviolable; for
the missionaries and other clergy understood, from the
start, that the central power was their natural ally against
the forces of disorder and division. The consecration of
the king, which included the anointing and the coronation,
became a religious ceremony, almost a sacrament, per-
formed by the clergy. Although the crown existed in
heathen times, yet there was nothing that could properly
be called coronation; the custom of lifting the accepted
king upon the shields of the assembled warriors differed
widely from the solemn and dignified procedure after the
church had invested kingship with its sanction and
glamour. Probably the Anglo-Saxon king owed less to
this sanction and to any semi-religious or priestly char-
acter which he might derive from the consecration than
was the case in many countries, France for instance. He
kept much of his old character of the accepted lord or
war-chief of his people. But the gift of Christianity was
substantial and the content of the word king was broaden-
ing.
With the Christian religion, there came into England
some Roman ideas of government, probably in not very
distinct form or in very large numbers. But in Ethelbert
of Kent's written laws we see beginning to work the idea