“Health of the World”: The Symbolic Associations of Trees in Eleventh-Century England, in the Context of Landscape

Abstract

The Christianization of Anglo-­Saxon England in the seventh century CE was a momentous period of religious change which had many far­‐reaching effects. Anglo-­Saxon paganism had attached a set of sacred and symbolic meanings to various natural features in the English landscape. In this belief system, trees and groves were strongly associated with healing and defensive powers. This paper will argue that due to the persistent presence of once-­sacred trees and groves in the English landscape, combined with a continually widespread demand for health remedies, the pre-Christian associations of trees with healing and defense in England were not easily forgotten after the conversion period and in fact continued throughout the eleventh century. However, these pre-­Christian symbolic associations were effectively subsumed within the hegemony of a Christian ideological framework. A continual, bidirectional alignment of these symbolic associations of trees with elements of Christian symbolism, namely that of Paradise and that of the Cross, served to explain and legitimize their syncretic continuation within this Christian framework. These insights invite us to appreciate some of the complexity of the syncretism that occurred during the period of Christian conversion in Anglo-­‐Saxon England. They also invite us to further contemplate some of the lasting effects of this gradual syncretic process.