crested helmets, although individual characteristics are shared. While other Anglo-Saxon helmets were typically formed with wide perpendicular bands and four infill plates, their Swedish counterparts from Vendel and Valsgärde display similar use of thin iron frameworks. The complicated construction of the Benty Grange boar, which combines garnet, filigree, gold, silver, iron, and bronze, is unique across ornamental Anglo-Saxon objects, but the general boar-crest is paralleled by the Wollaston and Guilden Morden boars. One other helmet exhibits the use of horn, but it is the spangenhelm-type helmet of a high-status child, discovered in Cologne. Iconography The helmet was made during the nascent days of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, and exhibits both Christian and pagan motifs. The boar invoked a pagan tradition and the cross a Christian belief. Roman Britain had been officially converted to Christianity in the fourth century, although Celtic paganism remained strong. In the fifth century Ireland was converted by British missionaries and in 563 Irish missionaries based in the monastery of Iona off the western coast of Scotland embarked on the conversion of the Picts. Christianity almost disappeared in southern Britain after its conquest by the pagan Anglo-Saxons in the fifth and sixth centuries, apart from the surviving Celtic areas of southwest England and Wales. In 597 Pope Gregory the Great sent the Gregorian mission to Kent to embark on the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. It rapidly converted kingdoms as far north as Northumbria, but initial success was often followed by a period of apostasy and in several cases the final conversion was carried out by Irish missionaries from Iona. It is not known whether the Pecsæte were converted by adherents of the Roman or Irish Celtic tradition. The Benty Grange helmet was made during this time of change, as evidenced by its syncretic display. It emphasises the pagan element, a large boar dominating a small cross. The cross may not necessarily be an indication of Christian belief; it may have instead been chosen for its amuletic effect. Whatever the politics behind religious conversion, the battlefield was not a place to discriminate against gods. Notes References Bibliography Old English quotations above use the Klaeber text, published as Includes prefatory essays My Japanese Background and Forty Years with Sutton Hoo by Bruce-Mitford. The latter was republished in . Images on plate XIV 7th-century artifacts 1848 archaeological discoveries Anglo-Saxon archaeology Beowulf History of Derbyshire Individual helmets Medieval helmets Pigs in