A benefit of the new religion that became increasingly apparent to the second generation of Anglo-Saxon Christians was its provision of an alternative path for young men and women of the warrior class. While Anglo-Saxon paganism had a priesthood, it does not seem to have required many officiants and those came from within priestly families. So far as we know, its priesthood was male too. As a religion, Christianity was open to all, which was true of Anglo-Saxon paganism, but its religious class was much wider. Anyone could become a monk or a nun, whatever their social class.

While it’s clear that the social classes of wider society carried over to some extent into the Church’s abbeys, monasteries and convents, there was still space for all within the new institutions. What is more, for men born into the warrior class, the Church opened up the possibility of a life where they would not die from a sword thrust to their guts. But, as framed by the asceticism of Aidan and Irish monasticism, it was still a life of heroic strife, fighting spiritual battles against the devil and his legions of demons. These were real battles against tangible foes, and ones that the warrior ethos of the aristocratic class inclined them towards.

Biscop and Wilfrid were both members of the aristocratic, warrior class. Wilfrid carried its love of ostentatious display through into his clerical life; Biscop reacted against it. But the fact that both accepted the new religion showed its attraction for the sons of the nobility.