The notion that a guardian spirit watches over each human enjoys a long history in Judeo-Christian tradition. As the epigraph from the anonymous Old English homily “In Praise of St. Michael” suggests, the concept was firmly established in Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, for the Anglo-Saxons, St. Michael was the preeminent guardian of the bodies and souls of the faithful. Ælfric, in the Euangelium portion of his homily for St. Michael's feast day, September 29, reflects on the doctrine of guardian angels. Commenting on the second clause of Matthew 18:10, Ælfric declares, “By these words is manifested that over every believing man an angel is set as a guardian who shields him against the devil's machinations and supports him in holy virtues.” From a patchwork of quotes on the roles and charges of angels through salvation history, Ælfric reaches the conclusion that “It is now credible that the archangel Michael has care of Christian men, he who was prince of the Hebrew folk when they believed in God.” The inclusion of this material in Ælfric's homily indicates the degree to which St. Michael's role as a guardian spirit was firmly established by the tenth century in England.

According to Christian tradition, St. Michael was also charged with the conveyance of the souls of the faithful to heaven at death. Several additional verse-paragraphs of the Corpus 41 homily suggest that one of the archangel’s most common roles in early medieval England was as psychopomp, or conveyor of the souls of the faithful to heaven at death. Verse-paragraph 14 suggests that it is St. Michael “who leads the soul of each and every true man through the gates of eternal life into the kingdom of heaven.”