Category: Christianity

Ketton: St Mary the Virgin Church and War Memorials! (2.8.2025)

8/11/2025

A Large Church Constructed on a Narrow Medieval Street!

We got up early on Saturday August 2nd - as it was the last day of our holiday. We had to pack-up, clean, and clear the area for the required departure of 10:00 am. Having achieved this, we said good-bye to our holiday cottage (situated in Easton-on-the-Hill) and heeded up the road to the village of Ketton. As we ended-up driving the long-wat around - I was surprised how big the place actually is - and wondered if it is still a villlage? Still, we had briefly visited probabky around 2009, and found the Church locked - whilst today it was open!

The Neat Gravestones Meet the Path!

Outside, is an elongated stone-cross - originally constructed just after WWI - with inscriptions added after WWII. As with many places containing old War Memorials - "The Great War" (1914-1918) is usually presented as the major confrontation of the 20th century - with WWII being an unfinished consequence of it. However, as the post-war education system consolidated and a new set of political imperatives became dominate - the idea of WWII being more important was slowly but surely propagated.

Interestingly, we have digitalised all the names on this monument and uploaded this data elsewhere on this site. Within the entrance of the Church are two Rolls of Honour which record the names of the men (and women) who fought in both World Wars - with Ketton seeming to supply about a hundred recruits for both conflicts (women fighting is recorded quite extensively in the Northants area - although it is interesting that there are no "Home Guard" Memorials despite that unit being very well staffed according to the history books.

Whilst reading the names of the Ketton-people who served in WWII we located the name of "GH Wyles". This person turns-out to be the son of Jeremiah and Eliza Wyles of Uppingham. Jeremiah is the brother of John Thomas Wyles - both born in Duddington. John Thomas Wyles is my Great Great Grandfather - and father of Archibald Brittain Wyles (my Great Grandfather). We have discovered that John Thomas Wyles is buried in the graveyard of St Pete & St Paul Church in Uppingham (although we have not yet located the exact grave) - but according to the same Church Records - there are no other Wyles people buried there - despite a substantial population. We have not been able to ascertain what exactly was the connection between "Gerald Henry Wyles" and Ketton.

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Email: History of the Jutes in England! (6.7.2025)

7/7/2025

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Wyles as Jutes Theory!

Research By Diane Wyles:

This map shows the early Jutish foothold in post-Roman Britain, around the year 575.

Long before England was England, the Jutes, a Germanic tribe who sailed over from the Jutland Peninsula, had settled pockets of what is now Kent, the Isle of Wight, and parts of Hampshire.

Unlike their Saxon and Angle cousins who carved out massive kingdoms like Mercia and Northumbria, the Jutes preferred a smaller, tidier conquest.

Kent became their stronghold, with its own kings and customs, often at the forefront of early Christianity in England.

The Isle of Wight, meanwhile, remained a Jutish redoubt well into the 7th century — long enough to be a problem for Christian missionaries!

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Emails: Duddington Ecclesiastical (20.11.2021)

11/20/2021

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Peterborough Cathedral

Dear Adrian (from Gillian)

Well written as ever. Can't comment really on your history of letters of the alphabet. It is something I know nothing about but it seems to all fit together logically. But because I am me, I will pass comment on Pagan Wyles and his assimilation into Christianity. In the 7th Century both Leicester and Peterboough (Medeshamstede) were centres of Christianity, and Duddington lies nearly half way between the two. I wonder if there was a road there before the A47? It's position in the Heptarchy would also suggest an Angle settlement not a Saxon one. The arrival of the Danes is interesting. Leicester certainly submitted to the Danelaw and most of the religious foundations in the area were plundered, but there is evidence for the monastery at Peterborough surviving. Personally I don't see the total destruction of Christianity by the Danes, a bit like the Mongols, they plundered for the gold and jewels but didn't really give a thought to 'religion' as such. The thing is, the ordinary working Danes who came over to trade and work the land, in their Paganism recognised the geometry of Christianity (as it was then, before it was turned into a linear chronology and weapon during the Renaissance). Where Christianity survived, and where the genuine Christian spirit of fraternity existed, I can see Danes being attracted and seeing their own essence in the Christian symbolism and narrative. The surviving Icelandic sagas seamlessly progress from pagan to Christian, but this may not be the whole story. Obviously, Vikings would have had centres of non Viking power in their sites and would have treated them mercilessly like Lindesfarne, but where the church existed not as a threat, I am sure an assimilation occurred.

What people forget is that the god of the Christians claimed something that none of the other gods dared claim. That is absolute sovereignty over everything, material and immaterial. A most high god who is a loving father of all. All the other gods had problems with other gods, had spirits they couldn't tame, had weaknesses as well as superpowers. You could invoke them for help, but you never claimed they had total sovereignty. The 'most high god' of the Christian and Jewish tradition was the god who ruled over all the other gods. The narrative that Christianity and Judaism are monotheistic is quite modern and doesn't actually fit scripture. Any pagan with a pantheon of gods, might indeed be attracted to a most high god who was without hang-ups and who needed no tribute, only love.

Dear Gillian (from Adrian)

When we drive to Duddington, we pass Peterborough which seems to sit more or less exactly in a valley. A monastery is a good idea. I suppose it was Peter Burgh or Peter's Fort? The Anglo-Saxon King was known as Burgred or 'Red Fort'. In the back of my mind I think 'Peter' means 'stone' so we are looking at a 'Stone Fort'. Having just checked wiki you are right - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medeshamstede - perhaps St Mary's was related to this monastery. There is talk of a deadly Viking attack in 864 CE - ten years before the Duddington Hoard was hidden in 874 CE. Perhaps it took ten years to head in land or they were distracted. What kind of Christians were the Anglo-Saxons? I am assuming different from the earlier Celts and the later Normans? The Vikings did what they were told so if a Jarl took on Christianity then his entire army did!

Dear Adrian (from Gillian)

Interesting question regarding the church in England around 860CE...
I include an extract from a book showing the structure of the church system a century or so earlier. There is no reason to think it had changed much in the intervening period. Later reforms to secular and monastic clergy, (driven by the French church) probably didn't reach England till late Saxon times shortly before the Norman conquest (and accelerated by it). It was these reforms which led to the all powerful grand monasteries of the Middle Ages. Monasteries in England in the 9th Century would look very different to what we think of as a medieval monastery.

The Irish church (Celtic) church had been heavily influenced by Egyptian monasticism (evidence of strong trade links between Ireland and North Africa) and was entirely based around monasteries of monks living much like the desert fathers. England developed another model more influenced by continental Europe, where there were parallel groupings of secular and monastic clergy. It is this which the text I have scanned talks about.

The worship in Duddington at the time would more closely resemble the worship in an Orthodox church today, than a Tridentine rite Catholic church. It was before the cult of Purgatory set-in which radically changed the devotional life of Western church, everyone would be standing, there would be a roodscreen and the sacred mysteries would take place behind that. There would be no pulpit as we know them today. The priest would be among the people for the Gospel and any homily. People would come and go during services, zoning in and out, taking in as much as they could, it was not a performance to be watched. The question is: was Duddington a church run by secular or monastic clergy?

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Ketton: St Mary the Virgin Church and War Memorials! (2.8.2025)

Email: History of the Jutes in England! (6.7.2025)

Emails: Duddington Ecclesiastical (20.11.2021)

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