The literature of Anglo-Saxon Christianity dominates the surviving Old English corpus in the sheer volume of texts – and all of them, whether targeted at monks and clergy or at the laity, have ultimately a single aim: to encourage the faithful. They do this through example and exhortation, and through the clear exposition of Christian doctrine and practice in relation to life here on earth. Implicitly, and often explicitly, the theme of ‘end things’ (a subject known as eschatology) is at the heart of such writings. At the end of human time, according to St Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (14.10), ‘we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ’, and there all shall be judged according to how they lived their earthly life. Christian writers thus urge the faithful to conduct that life in the clear knowledge of its transitoriness and in the expectation of better things to come. It is Paul also, in his Epistle to the Ephesians (6.10–17), who defines for us the ideal Christian hero – the miles Christi (‘soldier of Christ’), whose weapons are spiritual and include the ‘sword of truth’ and the ‘breastplate of righteousness’.

Prose is the medium most favoured by militant Anglo-Saxon Christian writers, and three modes of discourse feature prominently: homily, sermon and hagiography. ‘Homily’ and ‘sermon’ are useful ways to describe two different sorts of address, both designed to be read out at church services, though in practice the terms have always been used loosely and indiscriminately.