English art immediately after the Roman period was marked by the union of Celtic admiration of nature and the influx of Germanic tribes. When the Anglo-Saxons colonized England, they brought magnificent metalworking techniques that famously melded art and armor in examples such as the iconic Sutton Hoo helmet, which was named after a grave site that contained the personal items of an early medieval warlord buried around A.D. 600.
After St. Augustine of Canterbury Christianized England near the end of the sixth century, English monks became famous for developing fantastic illuminated manuscripts. British monks had a distinctive writing style called "Insular Script" that was adorned by heavy use of paint and gold leaf to illustrate religious literature. A surviving example is the Landisfarne Gospels, created in Northumbria in the early eighth century, which is now housed in the British Library.
After manuscript illumination became the purview of French and Flemish artists, English masters developed their own form of artistic expression in embroidery. In fact, medieval Europe called fine embroidery "Opus Anglicanum," or "Work of the English," in respect to England's artistic output of embroidered art. English embroidery developed in the 13th and 14th centuries, and the most famous surviving example is the Syon Cope.
Along with rapidly evolving castle fortresses, England's cathedrals were great architectural achievements of the middle ages. Before the Norman Conquest, English cathedrals featured advanced use of Romanesque vaults that improved upon the continental styles. England had an interesting transition from Romanesque architecture to Gothic in that the Salisbury Cathedral (built from 1220 to 1270) has Gothic spires yet a relatively short stature. However, later cathedrals, such as that in Gloucester, were tall by medieval standards.
Unfortunately, only a fraction of English medieval masterpieces are known to still exist. One of the largest factors in the scarcity of surviving examples was Henry VIII's separation from the Roman Catholic Church. Starting in 1536, Henry VIII dissolved the English monastic system and eventually oversaw the destruction of religious art. Most medieval manuscripts were destroyed along with the statuary found in English churches. Because most medieval art had religious themes, they were destroyed for their association with Roman Catholicism.