This thesis gives an overreaching, detailed analysis of how the Anglo-Saxon cult of St Guthlac of Crowland developed from its modest origins in the eighth century to its summit in the early thirteenth century. It attempts to elucidate the reasons why and how an isolated fenland hermit became the object of widespread veneration instead of drifting into obscurity. In order to consider these reasons, fourteen materials have been chosen from the substantial and varied dossier of surviving Guthlacian materials, to elucidate particular phases or stages in this cult’s development. Ultimately, this thesis considers the function, dissemination, interaction and reception of materials indicative of each author’s adaptation of their subject matter for their patron(s) and audience, and in response to a changing ecclesiastical context. Its central argument is that the adaptability and popular appeal of the Guthlac narrative enabled this cult to benefit from lay support prior to the foundation of a monastic community at Crowland, possibly as late as three hundred years after the saint’s death. This thesis is organized into seven chapters which respectively contribute to a holistic analysis of cult development. Following the introduction, chapter two seeks to draw attention to the variety and import of the Guthlac dossier through an analysis of the historiography relating to their dating, origins and provenance. The purpose of this chapter is to establish a chronology and identify fourteen materials which will be used to define different developmental stages; the Origins, Vernacular Variations, Norman Developments and Longchamp Revival, in subsequent chapters. The third chapter uses a variety of sources to reconstruct Crowland’s historical geography and landscape in order to determine how this context initially and over time affected the development of the cult. It argues that there is no evidence to support that Crowland was chosen as anything other than a site for ascetic retreat within borderlands, both perceived and actual, and that this choice provided substantial challenges to our perception of a cult’s requirements, though none that were insurmountable. Chapter four will proceed onwards to the dossier itself in order to consider how the Guthlac narrative was adapted in response to the changing ecclesiastical contexts defined in chapter three. An analysis of the sources used by these authors and the alterations which they made indicate that there were elements to these texts that were best understood and appreciated by a literate audience, that was likely exclusively monastic. In fact, the authors who were creating new Latin compositions for abbots of Crowland in the years following the Norman Conquest were less and less concerned with creating a text which could be easily comprehended by those with sparse Latin abilities and source knowledge, than they were with meeting the changing needs of successive abbots at Crowland and their progressive designs for the cult. There were nevertheless, other atypical elements found within the origins and vernacular variations phases which are not resolved by this interpretation. Subsequently, chapters five and six explain the social relevance of the heroic and visionary aspects of the Guthlac legend according to contemporary attitudes and accounts. Overall, it will be shown that the cult of St Guthlac of Crowland benefitted from the popular appeal this legend garnered early on, for this enabled it to remain adaptable and relevant until Crowland could take over, with variable results, the propagation of the cult.

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This thesis studies ritual interactions between saints and the landscape, animals and elements during a three-hundred year period from 410 AD. Such interactions include negotiations about and with birds and other animals, exorcism of the sea, lakes and rivers, and immersion in these natural bodies of water for devotional purposes. Although writers of the period lacked a term such as 'nature' to describe this sphere of activity, it is demonstrated that the natural world was regarded as a dimension of creation distinctively responsive to Christian ritual. Systematic study of the context in which these rituals were performed finds close connection with missionary negotiations aimed at lay people. It further reveals that three British writers borrowed from Sulpicius Severus' accounts of eastern hermits, reworking older narratives to suggest that non-human aspects of creation were not only attracted to saints but were changed by and participated in Christian ritual and worship. Natural bodies of water attracted particularly intense interaction in the form of exorcism and bathing, sufficiently widely documented to indicate a number of discrete families of ritual were developed. In northern Britain, acute anxieties can be detected about the cultural and spiritual associations of open water, requiring missionary intervention to challenge pre-Christian narratives through biblical and liturgical resources, most notably baptism. Such a cosmological stretch appears to have informed a 'Celtic' deviation in baptismal practice that emphasised exorcism and bodily sacrifice. Nature rituals were a systematic response to the challenges of the British intellectual and physical landscapes, revealing the shape of an underlying missionary strategy based on mainstream patristic theology about the marred relationship between humans and the rest of creation. St Ambrose emerges as the most influential theologian at the time when the early church was shaping its British inculturation, most notably led by St Germanus' mission in 429.