For a while, the people of that time had pagan beliefs, worshipping gods and believing in fate. Soon, though, Christian influences started becoming more and more common. The London Bishop attended a church council in France, and later St. Augustine established the Canterbury monastery. Christianity also had a big influence on their writing, because nothing religious had ever been written before. Caedmon was the first English religious poet, and was said to work at Whitney Abbey, where a synod (religious meeting) was held. Though some of their writing is easy enough to read now, they had written in Germanic and Old English for a long time, which is very different from the way we speak and write today.