The milk of the Word (Aidan missionary to the English, 500s CE)

After the Romans withdrew from Britain in the 400s, Germanic settlers came over from what is now Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. While the native Britons had been partially Christianised, the incoming settlers were pagan. The Britons were pushed to the margins of the British isles, particularly to Wales.

It was the Irish monks originally led by Columba from Derry, who had settled off the west coast of Scotland, who undertook the evangelisation of the Picts and later the Germanic settlers. This took place in the 500s and 600s CE.

The church historian Bede tells how the first missionary to the kingdom of Northumbria was rather harsh, and unable to teach the Germanic Barbarians the Christian faith. Rather, it was Aidan (d.651) who took a gentler approach, teaching first the "milk" of the Word before proceeding to more "solid" food. Bede records this in his History of the English Church and People, Book 3, Chapter 5.

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