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EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY
BRIGHT
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, AN© NEW YORK
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, AN© NEW YORK
o'
£to^ Er^UOK CkureK Sistory.
^^KnCs^PESf
CHAPTERS
OF
EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY,^
BY
WILLIAM BRIGHT/ D.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD
THIRD EDITION
m
REVISED AND ENLARGED
WITH A MAP
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M DCCC XCVII
tjr / XS^O^ /a. 9. ;/
--^<.ucc**^
0;pfor5
PRINT£D AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, U.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
\^
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
•44-
The following Chapters are an expansion of Lectures
which have been delivered to my Class, while we had
Bede's * History ' before us with a view to the Theological
Final SchooL Wishing to connect them, in their present
form, with their original purpose, I have retained a few
colloquial phrases, and a few local allusions, which seemed
natural in addressing a number of Oxford students, of
whom several were personally well known to me.
The first or introductory Chapter is devoted to the
history of the ancient British Church. The general
subject of the rest of the volume is the Age of the
Conversion of the Old-English people to Christianity:
a great, though comparatively a brief period, extending
but little beyond a century, and closing naturally with
the death, in 709, of their greatest native Bishop, him-
self the evangelizer of those among them who, from a
peculiar isolation, were the last to receive the Faith.
My obligations to the 'Councils and Ecclesiastical
Documents,' edited by the late Mr. Haddan and by Pro-
fessor Stubbs, will be apparent throughout these pages.
But I have enjoyed the special advantage of repeatedly
consulting the Professor himself, who, with characteristic
kindness, found time to read through the larger portion
vi Preface to the First Edition.
of what follows before it was offered to the Delegates of
the Clarendon Press ; to whom also my thanks are due
for their ready acceptance of it in order to publication.
It is a pleasure to associate this book with the remem-
brance of those many attendants at my Lectures, on
this and other subjects, who, by their intelligent and
sympathetic interest, have again and again rendered me
assistance at once more welcome and more effective than
at the time they could understand.
Ghbist Chubch:
Dec, 20, 1877.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
"M-
In sending forth tliis enlarged edition during the
' thirteenth centenary ' of the arrival of St. Augustine
in England, and therefore of the foundation of 'the
Church of the English/ I may well congratulate all who
are interested in our national Church history on the
appearance of an edition of Bede's ^ Historia Ecclesiastica/
together with his ^ Historia Abbatum ' and his ' Epistola
ad Ecgbertum/ by the Eev. Charles Plummer, Fellow of
Corpus Christi College. His two volumes will be found
indispensable for the serious study of these 'fontal*
documents; and one may perhaps wish that he could
have included the * Vita Cuthberti ' within the scope of
his most opportune publication.
It is a pleasure to express my obligation to Mr. Charles
Oman, Fellow and Librarian of All Souls College, author
of ^Europe, 476-918,' 'A History of England,' &c., for assis-
tance in the preparation of a map intended to represent
the English dioceses at the close of the seventh century ;
and to my fiiend the Eev. R. G. Fookes, Eector of Lea,
Lincolnshire, a devoted student of Bede, for the recon-
struction of the index, which has been to him, as I well
know, a veritable * labour of love.'
Another word or two by way of tribute to a memory
worthy of all honour. The phrase, * the present Bishop
of St. David's' (p. 35), is now no longer applicable to
viii Preface to the Third Edition.
Bishop Basil Jones. One who was fonnerly associated
with him as a brother-Fellow in Universiiy College may
be permitted to recall, with gratefdl respect, the signal
combination of the anfaiUng kindness of a friend with
the full and exact knowledge of a great archaeological
scholar. Forty-one years have passed since, in co-
operation with Edward Augostos Freeman, he published
a quarto volume on ' The History and Antiquities of
St. David's * — a work which gave abundant promise of
that habitual accuracy in statement and steady balance
of judgement which were inseparable from his deep affec-
tion for the ancient Church of the Cymry. Few men
ever had such aptitude for bringing English and Welsh
Churchmen to understand and sympathize with each
other; and no man ever did more for that good end
than he during his long tenure of the primary "Welsh
bishopric.
Christ Church:
Jlfay 22, 1897.
NOTE TO PREFACK
-M-
SiNCB the following pages were sent to the press, I have
had the advantage of reading some of the proof-sheets of the
volume on ^The Mission of St. Augustine to England/ which,
according to the late Archbishop Benson's desire, is being
edited by Canon Mason. One of the essays contained in it
is on 'The Landing-place of St. Augustine.^ The author.
Professor Hughes of Cambridge, discusses the question from
a geographical and g^logical, as well as from an historical
standpoint; and while admitting that 4f the missionaries
landed at all upon the right-hand side of the main channel of
the Wantsome,^ a spot * west of the promontory of Ebbsfleet
would doubtless be a good place . . . / he adds, * yet the plead-
ings on behalf of Ebbsfleet are not entirely convincing; ' and
he practically adheres to 'the Canterbury tradition' that
Rutupiae, or Kichborough, was in fact the landing-place.
But then comes the difficulty, that according to the * plain
words' of Bede, whose * authority' is 'unexceptionable,'
Augustine and his companions landed in the Isle of Thanet,
whereas Kichborough is not in Thanet. Professor Hughes
would meet this by the suggestion that Thorn, the chronicler
of St. Augustine's Abbey, says expressly, * AppUcuerunt vero
in insula de Taneth in loco qui dicitur Betesbourgh ; ' and that
Bichborough was for many centuries partially insulated, and
might be accounted by Canterbury monks as in fact belong-
ing to Thanet. Here it should be remembered that Thorn
wrote in the latter part of the fourteenth century; and it
does not seem impossible that by that time an incorrect
tradition should have attached itself to a venerable locality.
X Note to Preface.
At any rate^ neither the statement that Augustine landed at
Bichborough nor the statement that he there had the con-
ference with Ethelbert can be easily reconciled with Bedels
language, unless we suppose that in Bedels time the course of
the Wantsome — which, as he says, divides 'Tanatos' from the
mainland — ^had actually run westward of Bichborough, and so,
of course, had included Bichborough within Thanet. In
default of such a supposition it seems safer to acquiesce in
some form of the Ebbsfieet theory for the landing-place, and
to accept Minster as the scene of the ever-memorable meeting.
In the same volume, Mr. H. A. "Wilson, Fellow of Mag-
dalen College, a well-known authority on ritual and liturgical
questions, suggests as a possible account of the baptismal
peculiarities of the British rite that the Britons, at least
^ occasionally,' baptized ' without the invocation of the
Trinity' — an omission which, according to a long-subse-
quent letter of Pope Zacharias to St. Boniface, was pro-
nounced by an ' English synod ^ to make such baptism null.
But I cannot think that this synod is implicitly dated
by Zacharias in the archiepiscopate of Augustine; for the
sentence in question names four of his successors, including
Theodore. And if so grave an omission had come under
discussion at ^ Augustine^s Oak,' we can hardly suppose that
he would have contented himself with requiring conformity
to the 'mos sanctae Bomanae et apostolicae ecclesiae,' when he
could have taken so much stronger ground by exhorting the
British ecclesiastics to adhere to the form expressly pre-
scribed by Christ (Matt, xxviii. 19). Nor would * compleatis '
have been a term appropriate if such a negligence had been
the point requiring correction.
2. I have also seen a paper entitled 'The Abbess Hilda's
First Beligious House,' by the Bev. H. C. Savage, Vicar of
St. Hilda's, South Shields, in which my rendering of 'ad
septentrionalem plagam Viuri fluminis,' in Bede iv. 23, is very
courteously questioned. Mr. Savage would take the words in
a more general sense as referring to 'the district north of the
river Wear,' and he pleads for his own locality as representing
the 'locus unius familiae' where Hilda dwelt *for one year
with a very few companions.' Now, no use of 'plaga' by Bede
otherwise than in connexion with a river can be deemed
Note to Preface. xi
releyant. There are three sach passages: in ii. 5^ 9, the
Hiimber is mentioned as the southern boundary of a great
kingdom, which confessedly stretched &r away to the north ;
inii. I a, some place near the river Idle is clearly indicated as
the scene of Redwald's victory^ and Mr. Savage himself speaks
of 'the battle of Retford.' But the point is^ that if Hilda's
first settlement had not been near the Wear northward^ Bede
woxdd have had no occasion for mentioning that river in con-
nexion with it; especially when we find that he repeatedly
speaks (Vit. Cuthb. 3, 35) of a religious house which had once
been occupied by monks, but had become a nunnery under
Abbess Yerca (and which^ Mr. Savage contends^ is represented
by his own church), as ' not &r from the mouth of the river
Tyne southward.' If the settlement in question had been
ikere^ would not Bede have localized it thus^ and not with
a reference to the north side of another river? And as
it is clear from Bede that Hilda's first 'house,' which she
occupied in 648-9, was not a ' double monastery,' but a very
small nunnery^ whereas the ' house ' not far from Tynemouth
was occupied by ' a distinguished company of monks ' some
time before St. Aidan's death in 651, and not by nuns
until afterwards, the identification proposed appears also
chronologically imtenable.
3. Once more, I have seen^ in a private letter kindly
addressed to me, a plea for the identification of the ' civitas '
of ' Tiovulfingacsestir,' near which Paulinus baptized many
converts 'in fluvio Treenta' (Bede^ ii. 16), not with Little-
borough^ but with Torksey, a few miles further south. Now
it is certain that the formidably polysyllabic name in question
means 'the stronghold of the sons of Tiowulf.' What has
this to do with Torksey^ which evidently means 'Tork's idle'?
There seems to be no evidence for saying that the river Till
was once called the ' Tiovul ' ; and it has no other connexion
with the Trent at Torksey than by the Fossdyke Water —
a canal which, whatever be its age^ would be out of Paulinus'
way. Again, in the Chronicle for a.d. 873 we find Torksey
clearly named as ' Tureces-iege,' whereas in * Alfred's version '
of Bede^ ii. 16^ we have ' Teolfinga-ceastre' plainly enough,
and, as Mr. Plummer points out (vol. ii. p. 109), ' 873 is
a date earlier than that at which the Anglo-Saxon version
xii Note to Preface.
of Bede was made/ On the other hand, Littleborough,
which^ as Mr. James Parker kindly informs me, still bears
traces of a fortification or 'castram,' is identified with Sege-
locum (Mon. H. Brit. pp. cxxxix^ cxliv), which is the only
station between Lindmn and Danum in the fifth Iter of
Antoninus. It was natural that such a 'caester' (or ^cses-
tir^) as the Tiowulf family possessed should^ after it had
fallen into decay^ become known as ^the Little Burh^ or
castle. And it stands to reason that Paulinus would take the
Roman road when going to or returning from Lincoln ; and
the late Precentor Venables of Lincoln^ who was at once a
local antiquary and an historical scholar, wrote to Mr. Parker
in terms which I am permitted to quote : ^ Your identification
of TioYulfingacsester with Littleborough^ I think^ carries con-
viction with it. It is just the place where Paulinus, travel-
ling from York vid Doncaster, would first strike the Trent.'
4. The Rev. P. B. A. Williams, Vicar of Hipswell, Rich-
mond, kindly informs me that the place which Gale calls
' Ackburgh/ and Raine (as referred to below, p. 150) * Ake-
burgh/ is known to the inhabitants only as ^ Akebar'; and
this seems to be confirmed by Whitaker in his account of
Fingall; but in his account of Catterick he apparently
recognizes ^ Aikburgh ' as the older form, though he rejects
peremptorily Gale's derivation of the name for 'Jacobus'
(the deacon), and says that ^Aik is obviously meant for Oak '
(Hist. Richm. ii. ai). Anyhow, 'Aikburgh' or 'Akeburgh'
might easily be corrupted into ' Akebar.' Mr. Williams thinks
that the scene of the baptisms by Paulinus (below, p. 137)
was 'just above Thomborough on the south bank of the
Swale,' where, says Whitaker, ' the Roman trajectus over the
Swale appears.'
CONTENTS.
■♦♦•
CHAPTER I. (Introductory.)
PAOE
The beginning of British Christianity unknown .... i
No proof of an Apostolic visit a
Story of Lucius 3
Tertullian on British Christians 5
First liission probably troun Gaul 5
St. Alban •••«........ 6
British Bishops at Council of Aries 9
Few traces of British Church 11
Its orthodoxy 13
St. Ninlan 14
Pelagianism in Britain 15
Britons appeal to Gallic Church 17
Mission of St. German and Lupus 17
Discussion with Pelagians 90
Gtorman and Lupus at Yerulam 90
The 'Alleluia Victory' ax
Second Visit of German aa
The Saxon Conquest 04
Sufferings of Britons a5
Bally of the Britons a6
Progress and Completion of the Conquest a7-a9
Condition of British Nation and Church a8
* Increpations ' of Gildas a8
British Church Ritual 3a
British Colleges and l^ynods 33
Missionaries and Saints 33
Dubridus and David 36
Flight of British Bishops 38
What opening for a Mission ? 39
CHAPTER II.
St. Gregory the Great 40
The Church and Slavery 41
Gregory and the English boys 43
Gregory becomes Pope 44
plans for an English Mission 45
xiv Contents.
VxWfil^t^ifitABterthz 46
fir 4iijtinHri» ii]i<1 hJi r'W|Miiwiiiii 47
Ki\iit^^inii^nihiUf>AY0j(^Ttiffnj 48
Hm ^»fmnead»U/ry letters 50
TIja MuMiz/narMs in Gaol 51
T>i«y Ufwl in K«oi 5a
Auffawtiatf ^f^ort EtlKlbeit 53
Ziii*:Ufffn'M replj 54
KnfpikMiifyh enien C*nt«rbaTj 55
I>if« '/f Hhm/mMtif in Ctotertmrj 56
BftfHImi /if Etbelbeii 57
&Mih of Hi. CotnmtNi 59
O/OMcrati/m of Angiuiine 60
F'/tindMion <i^ Cftnterborjr CatliedzBl 61
liismusn%tnr% naot to Or^goiy 69
Or^or/ff Aiuiwert to Angottine'* ^piestions 63
liUrtowof the Popedom 70
Que«tion ot IClnielee 7a
Hisheme for Bi«hopfice 75
UriUiTn it) Ethelbert And Bertha 76
Treatment of Pagan Temples 7^
Arrif ai of Mellitua and his companions 82
CHAPTER ni.
First Conference with British Bishops 84
Question of Easter 86
Quefitions of Baptismal Rites and Tonsure 91
Hocond Oonforenoe 94
Advice of the Hermit 95
Augustine's terms rejected 96
His prediction 97
Battle of Chester 98
Bishopric of London 100
Jiisliopric of Rochester xoi
< Church and Realm ' in Kent loa
Liturgical arrangements 103
Monastery of 88. Peter and Paul xo4
l>ato of Augustine's death 105
Cou«<H^ration of Laurence 106
Archbiihopric fixed at Canterbury 107
iihararter of 8t. Augustine zo8
Ov«»rtur«a to the Irisli Church fail 109
St O-olumban zzo
IVUic tenacity zzi
S^H^oud addreM to Britons fkils iia
l>^HlUvitiou of sa Pster and Paul's 113
IVmth of Kth(UU>rt 1x4
KadlHild n\jtH't« the Faith zxs
Mt^lUlus <Mt|H»lUHl fhkm London zi6
Story wf l^aurt'iuVs diiMm zr7
l\uiYtkntum uf Kadlxdd « xz8
Kedwald** \Huu|^nMiU«e 119
Contents.
XV
PAOK
Edwin in exile lao
His mysterious visitant lai
Edwin, King of Korthumbria 193
Mellitus, Archbishop 124
Disappointment of early hopes for the Mission -135
Edwin a suitor for Ethelbniga 126
Paulinus sent to Northumbria 137
CHAPTEK IV.
St. Paulinna at York 198
Attempt on Edwin's life 129
Indecision of Edwin 130
Paulinns prerails with him . 13a
Northumbrian Witenagemot 13a
Christianity adopted 134
Political greatness of Edwin 135
Bishopric of York 136
Kisdon-labours of Paulinus 137
Estimate of his work 138
Paulinus consecrates Honorius at Lincoln 140
Christianity in East-Anglia 141
Sigebert and St. Felix 143
St. Fursey 144
Cadwallon and Penda 145
Edwin slain at Hatfield . 146
The < Hateful Year' ..." 147
Flight of Paulinus 148
Was his work a failure ? 149
James the Deacon 150
Battle of Hearenfield 151
Oswald, King of Korthumbria 159
He sends to Hy for a Bishop 154
Aidan chosen JBishop 155
Question as to his consecration 156
Aidan arriYes in Northumbria 157
He settles at landisfame 158
His position as independent of Rome 159
CHAPTER V.
Character of St. Aidan 160
His work as Bishop 169
His relations with Oswald 163
His charity and boldness 164
His 'error' as to Easter . . 165
Churoh-work under him 166
Mission of St Birinus 168
He preaches in Wessex 169
Baptism of Kynegils 170
Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester . .171
Eroonbert, King of Kent 17a
xvi Contents.
Il^tb'/f Si9»b«rt Um; East- Anglian i73
Ht« Familj «f King Anna X74
Battte of ICaneHkld • X75
iMAth of Si. Oifwald 176
Ii4;r«fr«n«e for bis aanetity X77
Anzi^tjr eatiMtfl tjr bis deatb 178
(HwjfKingfABemidM X79
F<mda invades Horthombria 180
VxiUf and eonrenion of Kenwaleh 181
H4» rei^ism bis erown i8a
Cbar';b of Winebester founded 183
I^^aming in Ireland 183
AgilUrt in Weasex 185
^Mwin, King of Deira 185
Hismnrdar 186
llonrmrs to bis memory 187
Nunneries in Nortbombria 188
Deatb of Ht. Aidan 189
CHAPTEE VL
PrcjiaratioDS for organization of English Churcb .... 190
Flnan, Bishop of Lindisfame 191
I'sNchal Question revived 192
Baptism of Peada 193
Mission to Mid -Angles -194
BaptiMm of Hlgebert the East-Saxon ...... 195
Hooond Mission to the East-Saxons under Cedd .... 196
Foundation of Lastingham 198
DdUMlodit, Archbishop 199
Death of King Anna soo
Tcmda's last invasion of Korthumbria aoi
Battle of Winwidaold aoa
Mvrcian Bishoprio founded 904
Murdvr of tiigobort 905
HU Botulf 906
Wuirhore, King of Meroia 207
('hurrh work under Wulf here 908
Wini, Bishop of Winchester 909
Houth*8nxons still Heathen 910
Colmani Bishop of Lindisfame 911
English Students in Ireland 919
Monasttoism in Korthumbria 913
Cutbbert at Melrose and Ripon 914
Bt'ginnings of WilfVid 916
B«4i(^iot Bisoop 9Z7
WilMd at Lindisftume and at loTons 917
His first visit to Rome 919
Ht^ nt^turns t^^ Northumbria and becomes Abbot of Ripon 991
His alms for his native Church 999
iVnfpronce of Whitby sas
FMchal Question brought to an issue 934
Contents. xvii
PAOK
Pleas for and against Celtic Easter 235
Decision against it 230
Colman leares Lindisfarne 931
Gains and losses in the Latin triumph 233
Character of the Scotic Clergy 233
CHAPTEK VII
Tuda, Bishop of Lindisfarne
The ' Yellow Pest ' .
Apostasy of some East-Saxons
Gnthbert, Prior of Melrose
Wilfnd elected at York .
Consecration of Wilfrid in Gaul
He returns from Gaul
Consecration of Chad for York
Third Mission to East-Saxons
Simony of Wini
Wilfrid in Mercia and Kent
Election and death of Wighard
Pope Vitalian's letter
Theodore chosen for Canterbury
Monothelite Controyersy .
Consecration of Theodore .
Theodore detained in Gaul
His arrival in Canterbury .
His character .
His reception in England^
236
337
238
339
240
241
243
244
247
247
248
249
250
252
253
354
355
256
357
258
CHAPTER VIII.
Theodore and St. Chad 259
Question'of Chad's consecration 261
His episcopate at Lichfield 263
His piety and death 264
Egfrid succeeds Oswy in Northumbria 266
Wilfrid's church-building and pastoral activity .... 267
Grandeur of his position 270
School at Canterbury 971
Monasticism in Kent 272
Lothero, Bishop of Winchester 273
Council of Hertford ; its decrees 274
CHAPTER IX.
East- Anglian diocese divided 285
Queen Etheldred 286
Foundation of Ely 987
Disorders at Coldingham followed by ruin 289
Ethelred succeeds Wulf here 291
Deposition of Winfrid 39a
b
XVlll
Contents.
Erkenwald, Biahop of London 993
Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury 994
Heddiy Bishop of Winoheeter 297
Design for a Monastery at Abingdon 998
Mercian Invasion of Kent 999
Putta at Hereford 300
Cuthbert, Prior of lindisfarne 301
He retires to Fame and lives as a hermit 303
Foniidation of Wearmouth 307
Geolfrid, Easterwine, and Sigfrid . ..... . 308
St. Hilda at Whitby 310
Cttdmon 31a
CHAPTEK X.
Beginning of Wilfrid's troubles •••••.
Egfrid alienated from him «
Division of Northumbrian diooese by Egfrid and Theodore «
Wilfrid's first appeal to Rome : he is deprived of York .
Views of Roman See taken by Wilfrid, and l^ English Church in
general
Wilfrid in Friesland and Lombardy
Council of Rome decides in his favour
He takes part in another Roman Council
Return of Wilfrid
Roman decree rejected by Egfrid
Imprisonment of Wilfrid
His release ....
His stay in Mercia and in Wessex
He withdraws into Sussex
State of the South-Saxons
Wilfrid converts them
His Episcopate at Selsey .
317
319
391
337
330
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
34a
344
346
CHAPTER XI
Mercian diocese divided .
Saxon Monastery at Glastonbury
Mission of John the Precentor
Council of Hatfield . .
Question of Double Procession
Death of John the Precentor
Death of St. Hilda .
Bishopric at Abercorn
Foundation of Jan*ow
Bede . . • . .
Egfrid's attack on Ireland
Assembly at Twyford
Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne
Egfrid attacks the Picts .
Cuthbert at Carlisle .
Battle of Dunneohtan
See of Abercorn abandoned
349
35a
354
356
360
36a
363
364
365
367
371
373
374
375
376
377
37«
Contents.
xix
Aldfrid, King of Korthumbria
St. Cuthbert*8 episcopal work
He reyisits Carlisle . •
He returns to Farne . •
Cuthbert's last days •
His death • • . •
Death of Easterwine : Sigfrid, Abbot
Benedict's last retorn from Rome
Gadwalla and WUfrid
Gadwalla, King of Wessex
Conquest of the Isle of Wight
Conversion of its people •
Theodore reconciled to Wilfrid
Wilfrid restored to York .
The firftt compromise •
John, Bishop of Hexham •
Eadbert, Bishop of Lindis&me
Death of Benedict Biscop .
Gadwalla goes to Rome
His baptism and death at Rome
Ine, King of West-Saxons .
Death of Archbishop Theodore
PAoa
379
381
383
384
38s
387
389
390
391
39a
393
394
395
396
397
398
400
40Z
403
404
405
406
CHAPTER XIL
State of Church and Kingdoms at Theodore's death 409
Laws of King Ine .......... 410
Renewal of Wilfrid's troubles . .4x1
Questions for Wilfrid 413
Wilfrid in Mercia .......... 4:^5
Missions to Friesland 416
Failure of Wictbert's mission 417
St. Willibrord's mission • • « 418
Swidbert, Missionary Bishop 419
Martyrdom of the Hewalds 4ao
Willibrord's nussionary episcopate 431
Bertwald, ArchbiBhop of Canterbury ...... 433
Death of St. Erkenwald . 493
Piety and death of King Sebbl • 434
Egwin, Bishop of Worcester . 434
Laws of King Wihtred . 437
The < Privilege 'of Wihtred 499
Guthlao at Crowland • 431
Foundation of Evesham 435
CHAPTER XIII.
Death of Bishop Eadbert 437
Letter of Pope Seigius 438
Council of Easterfield 439
Wilfrid's second appeal 44^
Wilfrid again in Mercia 443
b2
XX Contents.
PAS*
8i. Aldhelm writes to eneoange 'Wilfrid's eSerks' • . • . 444
A«ca 447
Wilfrid's last joiumej to Rome 448
Pope John YI 449
Council of Rome 450
Decision of the Council 45^
Letter of Pope John 453
Wilfrid at Meaux 454
Wilfrid welcomed bj Ethelred 455
Aldfrid refuses to receive him 456
Death of Aldfrid 457
Council of the Nidd 4S3
Final Compromise in the < Cause of Wilfrid ' 459
CHAPTEK XIV.
Aldhelm'a letter to Geraint on British Easter and Tonsure . 463
Oimdual surrender of Celtic Easter 467
Daniel, Bishop of Winchester 469
Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne 47>
Church work in Wessex 473
Death of St Aldhelm 474
Complaint against Bede 475
Wilfrid's last arrangements 476
His joiumey into Mercia 477
His death 479
Retrospect 480
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
A. Christian adoption of Pagan Sites 485
B. Bede and Gregory of Tours 485
C. Theodore and Chad 489
D. The Council of Hertford 490
E. The Age of St. Aldhelm 493
P. Growth of a Parochial System in England 494
G. Miscellaneous (i-ii) 496
Table of Principal Erents 501
Table of Royal and Episcopal Succession, A. D. 597-709 . 503
Genealogical Tables * . 504
Index 507
CHAPTERS OF
EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY,
CHAPTER I.
(Intboductort.)
When was the Christian Faith first preached in Britain ? The begin-
The question is one which it is impossible not to ask, but known,
which it is also impossible to answer. Answers, no doubt, have
been suggested, with more or less of definiteness and con-
fidence : but they appear to possess no trustworthy founda-
tion^. The pious fancy which led some of our ecclesiastical
antiquaries ^ to think that St. Paul, between his firat and
second imprisonments, had made his way to the great north-
western island, the southern part of which had been recently
* pacified ' by the stem hand of Suetonius Paulinus, appealed
for its chief, if not its only, support to a single sentence -
of St. Clement of Rome '^, in which Paul is said to ' have
comaSHbhe boundary of the west,'-a phrase most naturally
' ' We see the light of the Word shined here, but see not who kindled
it.' Fuller, Oh. Hist. p. 5.
* Soames farours the notion, and cites Bishop Burgess's positive
language in support of it : Angl.-Saz. Oh. p. 2a. But ' our native
documents/ says the enthusiastic author of the ^Ecclesiastical Antiquities
of the Oymry,' < are silent respecting the alleged arrival of St. Paul in
Britain ' (p. 60).
' S. Clem. Ep. ad Cor. 5 : M t6 ripfta rrfi i^trtws i\$ojv,
B
2 No Proof of an Apostolic Visit.
CHAP. L interpreted of Spain ^ Eusebins, it is true, speaks as if some
of the Twelve or of the Seventy had ' crossed the Ocean to
the isles called British ^\' but he is here rhetorically mixing
up the work of all ancient missionaries with that of the
original disciples of Christ ; and when in his ' History ' he
speaks distinctly, in reliance on Origen, of the mission -
fields of the Apostles, he omits Britain altogether *. Some
language of Theodoret, which combines St. Paul with the
other Apostles, speaks of them as having evangelized
the Britons ; but this must be taken along with his after-
statement, that it was ' after the Apostles' death that the
laws of the Crucified penetrated to Persians, Scythians, and
the other barbarous nations*.' The precarious identification
of the Pudens and Claudia of St. Paul's last Epistle with
the Pudens and the British-bom Claudia whose marriage
Martial greeted in verses published some twenty years after
St. Paul's death **, would prove nothing, were it made good,
as to a Church in Britain at that time ; and the like mav
^ Bishop LIghtfoot, St. ClemeDt of Rome, ii. 30 ; but he thinks it ' not
improbable that this western journey of St. Paul included a visit to Gaul
(a Tim. iv. 10).'
^ Euseb. Dem. Ev. ili. 5, p. iia.
' Euseb. H. E. iii. i. See Lingard, Angl.-Sax. Ch. i. 349.
* Theodoret, Gr. Aff. Cur. disp. 9 (Schuize, yol. iv. p. 929). Hilary, in
Tract, in Ps. xiv. 3. says that ' the Apostles prepared very many habitations
for God even in the isles of the ocean ; ' but this implies no more than th<^
wide spread of their teaching and influence. So Yenantius Foi-tiinatus.
in a poem on the Life of St. Martin, b. 3. 1. 494, says that the same
'trumpet' of St. Paul's written teaching 'rung through the lands of the
Briton and of utmost Thule.* See Lingard, i. 355.
' See Martial, Epigr. iv. 13. i, 'Claudia, Rufe, meo nubit peregrina
Pudenti,' &c.; and xi. 53. i, ' Claudia caeruleis cum sit Rufina Britannis
Edita/ &c. This latter epigram refers to the birth of her children. It haft
been observed that the apparent dates of Martial's life are against the
identiflcation in question: lie seems not to have come to Rome before
A. D. 66, and would hardly have kept back such a poem as ir. 13, by accident
or design, till 81. For samples of arguments used by British loTers of
ecolesiastical romance, see Church Quarterly Review, vol. xiii. p. 37, and
Guest, Origines Celticae, p. 130. The latter attempts to meet the objection
from Pudens' intimacy with Martial, and from the gift by Pudens
of a site for a temple at Chichester (attested by the inscribed slab
found in 1733), by the bold suggestion that the Pudens whom St. Paul
mentions among 'the brethren' in a Tim. iv. ai was not as yet
a Christian. On the whole subject see Bishop Lightfoot| St. Clement
of Rome, i. 77.
Story of Lucius. 3
be said aa to the Christianity of Pomponia Graecina, < iiap. t.
whose husband Aulus Plautins left Britain as early as
A. D. 47. In short, we may pass by all attempts at discovery
of an apostolic foundation for the British Church^ : the
theories which modem enthusiasm has created are as
shadowy as the Greek fiction about Aristobulus, ordained
by St. Paul as a bishop for Britain^, — or the Welsh story
of Bran the Blessed, father of Caractacus, who brought
to Britain the faith he had learned in Rome ^,— or that
beautiful mediaeval romance which brought St. Joseph of
Arimathaea with twelve companions to Avalon or Glaston-
bury, and made his staff take root in the earth, and grow
into the famous * Holy Thorn*.'
But what are we to say of the narrative which Bede story of
T *
inserts into his Church History*, and which tells how
Lucius, a British king, sent to Eleutherus, Bishop of Rome,
a letter, entreating ' that by his commission he might be made
a Christian, and presently obtained the fulfilment of his
pious request ; after which the Britons retained the faith,
thus received, inviolate and in tranquil peace, until the times
of the Emperor Diocletian'? This is Bede's statement:
looking at it as it stands, and ignoring the pretended reply
of Eleutherus to Lucius^, and the later embellishments as to
^ It is true that Oildas, after describing the process by which Britain
became Roman, says, ^Inierea, . . .the Sun of righteousness first imparts
His beams, i. e. Christ His precepts, which, although they were languidly
received by the inhabitants,' &c. Hist. 6. But Lingard contends that his
words are as applicable to any year before the fourth century as to the
time of Boadicea's defeat. Angl.-Saz. Gh. i. 347.
' Whom the Welsh legends called Arwystli Hen.
' See Williams, Ecol. Antiq. of the Cymry, p. 54 ff. Archd. Pryce,
Ang.-Brit. Gh. p. 4a.
* Malmesbu ry gives the story of Joseph of Arimathaea wi th an ' ut ferun t ' :
as he knew it, we find that it presupposed an apostolic visit of St. Philip to
the * regie Francorum ' (Prol. de Antiq. Glaston. Eccl.). The legend has
been gracefully versified by Dean Alford in his ' Ballad of Glastonbury '
(Poems, i. 16). But, although Glastonbury was a Ghristian sanctuary
before the Saxons conquered the district, the tale about St. Joseph is not
older than the eleventh century ; see Pryce, p. 35.
^ Bede, i. 4. ^Gildas is significantly silent,* Pryce, p. 4.
* Not cited by Geoffrey of Monmouth : first printed in the twelfth
year of Henry YIII. See Collier (who believes the general statement),
>. 35-
B 2,
4 Story of Lucius.
ciiAi*. f. the employment of Fagan and Dyvan^, and Elvan and
Me<lwin*, and still more, as to the substitution of twenty-
eight bishops for twenty-eight flamens^, and the association
of Winchester, Gloucester, and St. Peter's Comhill, with
the name of Lucius or * Ueuer Mawr V &^^d the varieties of
statement as to the king's latter days, which, by one story,
were spent in a missionary episcopate, and closed by martyr-
dom, in Switzerland^, are we to give any credence to jus
much as we find in Bede ? The answer seems to be, that
Bede derived the account of Lucius' message to Eleutherus,
but not the statement as to its success, from the second of
the two Catalogues, so called, of Roman Bishops, in which
' Eleutherius ' is said to have received a letter from Lucius,
' ut Christianus efficeretur per ejus mandatum*.' The words
' were written in the time and tone^' of Prosper, although
the Catalogue containing them was not framed till about a
century later, in 530. The statement, then, about Lucius'
request is traceable to Rome, and to Rome in the fifth
century : the request, if made, was made in the latter part
of the second, — the accession of Eleutherus being commonly
dated a.d. 177. There would be no intrinsic improbability
in the supposition that a native prince in 'the Roman
island ' had requested instruction from the Roman Church
* See Geoffrey of Monmouth, ii. i. So Malmesbuiy : see Gale, i. 293.
' Named by other Welsh authorities. See the Llandaff account in
Monast. Anglic, vi. part 3, p. 1218, and Chronicles of the Ancient British
Church, p. 45. Williams (p. 67) tells us that the king sent his request by
these two, and the Pope sent his answer by Dyvan and Fagan, who were
probably sprung from *■ royal captives taken to Rome with Caradog/ Of
course there may have been actual persons bearing the names of Fagan
and the rest, who were afterwards mixed up with the Lucius story.
A village near Llandaff is called St. Fagan's ; and four churches within
the jurisdiction of Llandaff are called after him, Lucius, Dyvan, and
Medwin (Williams, p. 72 ; Chron. Brit. Ch. p. 49).
' Geoffrey, I. 0. Elmham, in Hist. Monast. S. Aug. Cant. p. 134, speaks
of the ^ abrogation ' of three flamens and the substitution of three arch-
bishops.
^ That is, * Great Light : ' Kennius, 16. (The book ascribed to ' Nennius *
is of the ninth century.) Williams names him Lleirwg.
* Usher, Ant. 71. Geoffrey says that Lucius died at Gloucester. But
the worth of his authority is nil.
* Liber Pontiflcalis, ed. Duchesne, i. pp. cii» 136.
^ Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i. 25 ; Haddan's Remains, p. 227.
Tertiillian on British Christians. 5
in Christian belief ; but the lack of earlier authority has chap. i.
induced most modem writers to reject the whole story:
even Burton, though habitually moderate in his language,
denounces it as a ' fable ^/ although he adds that ' perhaps
there was some circumstance about that time, which was
favourable to the spreading of the Gospel in Britain : ' and Statement
it is certain that not many years after the accession of l^j^ " '
Eleutherus, — probably, indeed, between A.D. 196 and 201, —
TertuUian* exultingly declares 'that places in Britain not
yet reached by Romans were subjected to Christ/ We
must allow for his fervid readiness to believe any story or
rumour which enhanced the success of Christianity; and
a high authority would explain the word ' inaccessa ' as
referring simply to Roman movements at that time against
a British revolt^, — but this is rather like explaining it
away*. At any rate, there is Tertullian's statement, and
he must have had some reason for making it. Indeed,
although we are informed by Sulpicius Severus* that
Christianity was * somewhat late in crossing the Alps,' and
Irenaeus seems to have known of no Church in Britain,
nor indeed in Northern Gaul®, we cannot reasonably doubt
that some Christians did cross the Channel to our shore
during the second century, if not earlier, and planted here
and there some settlements of the Church. It was 'almost
certainly from GauP' — certainly not, as far as we can
' Burton, Eccl. Hist. ii. flo6. Milman Bays briefly, ' The conversion of
King Lucius is a legend ; ' but he adds that *■ Britain gradually received
the faith during the second and third centuries : ' Lat. Ghr. il. 396.
* Tertull. adv. Jud. 7. According to Bishop Kaye (On Tertullian,
p. 61), the tract ' Against the Jews' was probably written beforo Tertullian
bec:ime a Montanist That event is dated by Dr. Pusey not later than a. d.
aoi. Haddan dates the tract a. d. aoB, the year in which Severus visited
Britain (Remains, p. 933) ; yet see Bishop Kaye, p. 50.
^ Haddan, 1. c, and Councils, i. 9.
* Bishop Kaye, on Tertullian, p. 94, understands the passage as referring
to the farthest extremities of Britain. So Burton, ii. 207, * parts of the
ihland which had not been visited by the Bomans.' So Alb. Butler, for
Sept. 16 ; Robertson, Hist Ch. i. aiS ; Bishop Forbes, Pref. to Arbuthnott
Missal, p. iii.
* Sulp. Sev. ii. 3a. He thus explains the fact that the first martyrdoms
in Gaul were those under M. Aurelius (Euseb. v. i;.
* S. Iren. i. 3 (circ. a.d. 180).
' Haddan's Remains, p. a 16. See Folcard's Life of St. John of Beverley, i.
6 First Missions probably from GauL
CHAP. I. judge, directly from the East' — that these outposts, so to \
^"b* w speak, of the advancing spiritual kingdom were sent forth !
evangel- among the Roman provincials of Britain. Their arrival
GaiiL ^^"^ may with much probability be dated shortly befo^e^ or
more probably shortly after^ the persecution at Lyons and .
Vienne; and the Church thus formed was 'confined mainly'
(in the face of Tertullian's woixis, we can hardly say ' exclu-
sively ') to ' Romanized natives ^ ' and to the Roman residents,
and 'struck, in consequence, but feeble roots in the land^.'
More of this hereafter : at present we pass on, in all but
total dearth of information about the British Church
in the third century ^ to the grand and touching scene
which meets us at the opening of the fourth, and in which
the heroism of generous self-devotedness is so beautifully
blended with that early-ripened faith, which transfigured
a neophyte into a martyr : —
Self-offered victim, for his friend he died,
AndfortheFViith^I
■i— St. Aiban. The story of St. Alban, as given by Bede®, is briefly
1 this. During the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian,
(Raine's Historiana of the Chvreh of York. i. 24a), 'Ut enim fideli
patrum traditum est relatione, jamdudum fide illuminatls finibus totius
Galliae, serins perlatnm est yerbmn Dei in hanc insulam Britanniae.'
^ The popular notion that the British Easter-rule points to such a
directly Eastern origin of the British Church is based on a mistake as to
that rule. Warren argues for an * indirect' Eaatern influence, through
the Gallic Church, on the British and Irish Churches ; Liturgy and Ritual
of Celtic Church, pp. 47-57. But see Engl. Hist. Bey. for July, 1896.
' Pryoe*s Ancient British Church, p. 61 ft He meets the difficulty of
Irenaeus' silence by observing that his argument was oonoerned with
settled churches, whose tradition could be of weight.
' Warren, p. 58. Comp. Acts xi. iql *■ Haddan, 1. c.
^ Origen speaks of converted Biitons in Horn. 6 in Luc 'The pawer
of our Lord and Saviour is both with those who in Britain are divided
from our world,' &c. (ed. Lommatzsch, t. v. p. 106) ; and more rhetorically
of a conversion of Britain^ in Ezech. Hom. 4 (xiv. 59). Yet, in Matt. Com«
ment. s. 39, he says that of the Britons, or the Germans who are near the
ocean, ftc, < plurimi' have not yet heard the word of the Gospel (iv. 971).
These passages were written towards the middle of the third century.
* The story of the British-born St. Mellon, first bishop of Rouen in 956,
represents him as converted from Paganism at Rome. See Usher, Aut.
p. 75 ; Tillemont, Mem. iv. 487.
"^ Wordsworth, Eccl. Sonnets, No. 6.
' Bede, i. 7, and his Martyrology. See Alb. Butler, Lives of Saints,
Si. Alban. 7
Alban, being then a Pagan, gave shelter to a Christian or^p. i.
cleric flying from persecution. He watched his guest's
habits, was struck with his perseverance in prayer * by day
and night,' gradually accepted his instructions, embraced
the faith, and doubtless was baptized. Some days were
spent in this companionship : then the ' wicked prince '
heard that the fugitive was in Alban's cottage, and sent
soldiers to arrest him. Alban put on his teacher's cassock \
met the soldiers, gave himself into their hands, declaring
himself to be a Christian, and was at once carried before
a magistrate, who was then engaged in sacrificing, and who,
indignant at his having thus shielded a ' sacrilegious rebel,'
ordered him to be dragged up to the images of the gods,
and gave him the choice between sacrificing and suffering
the doom which the fugitive would have incurred. Alban
replied that he would not sacrifice. Being asked of what
family he was, he answered, ' What does that matter ? As
for my religion, I am now a Christian, and bound to act as
a Christian.' He was asked his name, and gave it ; was
again ordered to sacrifice ; answered, in the usual tone of
Christian confessors, that the worship of ' demons ' would
lead to eternal perdition ; was scourged by torturers, and,
being still steadfast, was led to execution, across the river'
which ran by the great city of Verulamium^, where his
June aa. In the later middle ages tlie nationality of Alban was foigotten :
he was hailed in a rude hymn (reproducing a famous pun) as *pro£Ao*
martyr Anglorum, mUes Regis Angelomm.'
^ *■ Caracalla ; ' the name of that hooded coat stretching to the feet
which the son and successor of Severus brought into fashion, and from
which he took his nickname (Spart. Vit. Carac 9), and which afterwards
became a dress of clerics or monks. Jerome says that the high-priestly
ephod was like a caracalla without a hood (Ep. 64. 15) ; but the ephod
was a sort of amice, while the caracalla was akin to a * oappa ' ; Du-
cange in y. Geffrey names the cleric ' Amphlbalus ' (de Gest. Reg. Brit,
ii. 3). This is probably a confusion between the man and his gar-
ment ; we find an < amphibalus ' worn by St. Golumba in Adamn. Vit.
Col. i. 5 ; and see GUdas, Epist. a. Later stories made * Amphibalus '
himself suffer martyrdom near Verulam, after baptizing many con-
verts. See Usher, Antiq. pp. 78, 84, on this name, and the legend
of the death, as to which, he says, the martyrologists observe * altum
silentinm/
* The Ver. See Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, i. 5.
' Verulamium is mentioned as a municipium by Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 33.
8 St. Alban.
CHAP. I. trial had taken place. A vast crowd followed the prisoner
and his guards, so that the magistrate was left with none
to wait on him. The bridge being thus thronged, — so the
story proceeds, — Alban by prayer obtained a dry passage
over the river-bed : the executioner himself, astounded, and
inwardly stirred by grace, threw away his sword, and flung
himself at Alban's feet, desiring to suffer with, or, if possible,
instead of him : meantime Alban and the crowd a.scende<l
a beautiful flower-clad eminence*, where at his prayer a
spring of water burst forth to satisfy his thirst. Here he
w^as beheaded : the man who gave the stroke miraculously
lost his eyes, and he whose substitute he was received in
his turn the death-blow, being thus, in the ancient Church
language*, * baptized in his own blood.' The day was the
aand of June ; the magistrate, overawed by what had hap-
pened, ordered the persecution to cease ; but about the same
time there were martyred Aaron and Julius, two citizens
of ' the City of Legions *,' — and many others, men and
women, in divers places, after they had been ' lacerated ' by
hideous torments. This is the tale as it stands : if we put
aside the three marvellous incidents, as probably an after-
growth, and also allow for the inventiveness which, in
default of official records, has described the dialogue be-
tween Alban and his judge, — is the rest to be accepted, or
treated as mythical? There is no evidence that it was
known earlier than the first part of the fifth century ; but
Ounobelin had transferred the Trinobantian capital from Yeralamiiiin to
Camulodunum (Merivale, vi. 325). Under the Bomans it becanK^
* a grand municipal city, the fashionable town of the south-east ' (Wright*s
Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 123), where Hhe chief lines of communication
intersected one another' (Merivale, Ti. 248). See Turner, Angl. Sax.
i. 197. Its site is S.W. of St. Albans.
* Here stands the vast minster, now the cathedral.
' Tertull. de Bapt. 16 ; St. Cyprian, £p. 73. 18, 19, &c Comp. Eusob.
vi. 4.
' Although Chester, the seat of the twentieth legion, was so named, as
in Bede, ii. 2, yet in thia passage Caerleon-on-Uak, or Isca Silunim, the
headquarters of the second legion, is meant (see Merivale, Hist Rom. vi.
248). So in Liber Landavensis, ed. Rees, p. 27, as to these martyrdoms
at *civitatem Legionum super Huisc dictam ;' and (jeoffrey says (vii. 4)
that churches of SS. Aaron and Julius existed there. Bede says that when
persecution ceased, a church was built on tlie spot of Al ban's martyrdom.
British Bishops at Aries. 9
in 429 it was fully believed at Verulamium. In the sixth chap. 1.
century it is narrated by Gildas\ and alluded to in a line
of Venantius Fortunatus^, quoted by Bede. The time is
disputed : Gildas and Bede refer it to the last great persecu-
tion which began in 303, while the Saxon Chronicle dates
it in 283 : if the former date is correct, the difficulty arises
as to the possibility of a persecution in Britain while
Constantius> whom Eusebius eulogizes as most kindly
disposed towards Christianity^ and markedly tolerant of
Christians, held authority as Caesar over the island. But,
previous to the abdication of Maximian in the May of 305,
the benevolent prince who owned the superior authority of
a coarse and merciless tyrant, ' implacably ' hostile * to the
name and religion of the Christians^,' might be unable to
restrain subordinate local persecutors: and on the whole '
we may say with Milman, that ' there seems no reason to
doubt ' the historic reality of the British Protomartyr', nor,
we may add, of those other Christian sufferers whose names
are associated with his, and for whom Gildas is the earliest
authority®.
The restoration of peace to the Christian body was too Council ot
soon followed by the troubles of the Donatist schism, which ^''^***^
led to the meeting of the great Council of Aries, in A. n. 314.
Its records show, among the bishops present, the names
of three from Britain : Eborius of York, Restitutus of
* GUd. Hiat. 8.
' In his poem on Virginity, Misoell. viii. c. 6. He puts Alban after
Vincent.
' Euseb. H. £. yiii. 13 ; Vit. G. i. 16. Sozomen, i. 6, says that under
him *• it was not thought unlawful for . . . Britons ... to profess Chris-
tianity.' Lactantius says that he permitted Christian churches Ho be
pulled down, but preserved unhurt that true temple of God which exists
in men;' Mort. Pers. 15. This corrects Eusebius' assertion that under
him churches were safe, but appears to need some modification as to men.
* Gibbon, ii. 367. Compare Smith, App. 4. to Bede, that Constantius
could not, and did not, prevent all persecution in Gaul and Spain : ' he
dared not refuse to publish the edicts.'
* Lat Chr. ii. 236. That the number of the martyrs of Britain at this
time has been exaggerated (e.g. Bede's Martyrology gives 888) is obvious.
* Martyrologists also name a St. Augulus, bishop, in Augusta, i. e.
London (in Bede's Martyrology, Augustus) : see Haddan and Stubbs, 1.
29. Nothing is known of him. Alb. Butler (Feb. 7) thinks that ho
suffered soon after Alban.
lo British Bishops at Aries.
ciiAi'. I. London, and Adelphius ' de civitate Colonia Londinensium^'
together with Sacerdos, a presbyter, and Arminius, a
deacon. ' Eborius of Eboracum ' is rather suspicious (as
is 'Sacerdos'), but the name may be some British name
misread^. But what was the word which has been cor-
rupted into ' Londinensium ' 1 It has been proposed to read
' Camulodunensium/ — the men of that typical Roman colony
which has given its name to Colchester, — the Colonia of
the fifth ' iter,' whidi has been ranked as the third town
in Britain during the Roman period^ But two other
opinions are now more popular : one is, that the original
reading was ' lindensium*,' and then Adelfius would appear
as bishop of the ' Colony of lindum ' or Lincoln. Another
would read 'LegionensiumV Aiid place his see in 'the
famous city of Caerleon, the camp of the Legion*,' the great
stronghold of Roman power in ' Britannia Secunda,' where
even now the amphitheatre .and the collection of Roman
remains render the little village on the bank of the
Usk one of the most impressive scenes in South Wales.
For this theory it may be said that Caerleon, the traditional
' Mansi, Cone ii. 476.
- Haddan and Stabbs, i. 7. /ror is an old British name ; see Annal.
Camb. a. 501, 'Ebur (^al. Ywor) episcopus pausat.' Geoffrey mentions an
Ivor in his * History/ ix. 6 ; see too Giraldas on ' Ivor the Little ' (,Itin.
Camb. i. 6). Pryee gives Eftrog as the Welsh equivalent to Ebiirius (Brit.
Ch. p. 88). But see also Raine, Fast. Ebor. i. 9. Adelfius and ' Hibemius '
are among the signataries of the synodal letter to Pope Silvester. Is
Hibemius another form of Eborius ?
' York and London being first and second : Guest, Grig. Celt. ii. 384.
Yet see Cutts, * Colchester,' p. 39 : ' Colonia was never . . . even the per-
manent headquarters of a legion,' &c.
* Bingham, b. ix. c. 6. s. ao; Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 6; Routh, Rell.
Sac iv. 996; Lappenberg, Hist. Eng. (E. Tr.) i. 50; Robertson, 1. 218.
Compare ' Lindocolina ' in Bede, ii. 16. See Freeman, Engl. Towns, &c.
p. 192.
* Stillingfieet, Grig. Brit. p. 78 ; Haddan and Stubbs, i. 7. There is no
good evidence for any Archbishopric in Wales ; Pryoe, p. 89.
* Merivale, vi. 948. Geoffrey's imagination endows it, in Arthurian
day5i, with royal palaces, *ita ut aureis tectorum fastigiis Romam imi-
taretur,' vii. 4. Somewhat later, Giraldus wrote, ^Videas hie multa
pristinae nobilitatis adhuc vestigia et palatia immensa, . . . theimas
in&ignes, templorum reliquias, et loca theatralia . . . egregiis muris partim
adhuc exstantibus' (fragments of them are still extant) 'omnia claosa/
&c. Itin. Camb. L c. 5 ^vol. vi. p. 55;. See Palgrave, EngL Comm: p. 323 ;
Lappenberg, 1. 5a.
Few traces of British Church, ii
home of the martyrs Aaron and Jnlius, and the traditional chap. i.
seat of an ancient British bishopric, appears more naturally
to associate itself with the third delegate to Aries than
a town within a short distance of York, and in the
province^ whose capital was London. But the scribe or
the copyist would hardly have turned * Legionensium ' into
' Londinensium,' whereas ' Lindensium ' might easily be thus
misread ; and the objection that Caerleon was not a colony^
is decisive. The choice, then, lies between Colchester and
Lincoln; and probabilities appear to incline towards the ;
latter.
During the rest of the ' Roman period,' the Church of Roman-
Britain shows like a valley wrapt in mists, across which chureh •
some fitful licrhts irregularly erleam. We know nothincr of !»**!«
. . . known of
its episcopal succession, very little of its internal life, or of it
its efforts at self -extension. We read of some of its build-
ings as having been known to exist at Canterbury, Caerleon,
Verulam, and, we may add, on one most interesting spot,
then girdled in by waters and known as Ynys-vitrin, usually
rendered ' the K^rlassy Isle,' or Avallon or Avalon, ' the Isle
of Apples,' our present Glastonbury, where the tall green
peak of the Tor of St. Michael looks down on the stately
rains of the great abbey which succeeded to * the old church *
made originally of twisted wands, the earliest sanctuary
on that venerable ground, ©f which Christianity has held
uninterrupted possession^. Traces of some ecclesiastical
^ I.e. Flaria CaesarienBis. Maxima CaesarienBis stretched from the
Humber to the southern wall, that of Hadrian ; Valentia, from thence to
the wail of Antoninus. Britannia Prima included all south of Thames
and Severn ; Britannia Secunda was our Wales.
* HQbner, Insor. Brit. Chr., praef. p. vii.
' Haddan and Stubbs, i. 37. For Glastonbury or Avalon in particular see
Freeman, Norm. Gonq. i. 439, English Towns and Districts, p. 76 if. He
derives its English name from ' the family of Glsasting,' and suggests that
the interpretation, 'glassy isle,* put upon 'Ynysvitrin/ may have been
a mere play on words. Setting aside mere fables, the church of
Glastonbury might be what Malmesbury calls it, *■ the oldest church, as
far as he knew, in England.' But its * great temporal position ' may prob-
ably date from 601, when a king of Dumnonia (which 'stretched from
Malmesbury to the Land's End ') ' granted the land called Ynysvitrin
to the old church which was situated there, at the request of Worgret
the abbot ' (Malmesb. de Antiq. Glast. Guest identifies this royal founder
12 British Church, Catholic.
CHAP. I. Roman work have been discerned here and there, as at
Canterbury, Lyminge, and Brixworth ; but amid the crowd
of monuments, and other relics of Roman dominion^, —
among which occur not only altars to Roman gods, properly
so called, including Rome herself, the manes of the dead,
and the Genius of Fortune, but also names of barbaric
deities, and tokens of the wide difibsion of the strangely
fascinating worship of Mithras^, — antiquarians have found
but scanty memorials of Roman-British Christianity, — the
cross, or the * Chi-Rho,' here and there, on a ring, a stone,
a vessel, or a tesselated pavement, — or a grave-stone,
alluding to ' peace,' or * rest,' or ^ life', or recording that a
'Christian man' slept below ^. To some extent, this dis-
appointing lack of evidence may be accounted for by the
devastating fury of Saxon heathenism : but it seems im-
possible to doubt that the Church which has left so few
visible marks of its presence and activity was not strong
in numbers, or influence, or wealth*, and that it had not, in
fact, ' inherited the land.' In regard to its relations with
the Churches of Europe, we find it adhering to the orthodox
side in the great Arian struggle : not only does Constantine,
in his extant letter, include the Britons among those who
accepted the ruling of the Nicene Council as to the cal-
culation of Easter *, but St. Athanasius ranks the British
with a king named Gwrgan Varvtrwch, Orig. Celt. 11. 270 : see Bonlfac.
£p. 70, the letter of Wetbert to the monks of ^Glestingabuig.' Freeman,
p. 86).
* See the * Collection of Roman Inscriptions and Sculptures ' in Horsley's
Britannia Romana, p. 199 ff.
' £. g. a large altar 'Sancto Mithrae' at Caerleon ; and two inscrip-
tions * Deo Belatucadro,' given by Horsley.
' See Haddan and Stubbs, i. 39, i6a ; Hubner, nos. 1, 7, 31, 131 ;
Allen's Monumental Hist, of Early British Church, p. 99 if. He says
that * the Christian formula Ywas in Deo occurs on two Roman gold rings
. . . found at Brancaster, in Norfolk, in 1829, and at Silchester in 1786.'
On the list is H. and S., and on inscriptions implying zeal for the
*o]d' gods, see F. Haverfield in the *£ngl. Hist. Review' of July,
1896. A small basilican building discovered at Silchester in 189a is
thought to be a small church. See the 'Guardian' of Sept. 21,
1892.
^ Haddan, Remains, p. 33a.
^ £u8. Yit. Con. ill. 19. No British bishops went to Kicaea. Only one
bishop went from Gaul.
British Churchy Catholic. 13
bishops with prelates of various provinces^ who adhered to chap. r.
the decision of the Sardican Council, against those who had
libelled his character by way of striking at the faith which
he upheld. Hilary of Poitiers, in 358-9, congratulated his
British brethren on their * freedom from all contagion of
the detestable heresy^:' and in the next summer some Council of
British bishops took part in the Council of Ariminum. ^uj^^
Sulpicius Severus^ expressly tells us that three only
from Britain, being unable to pay their own expenses,
would not receive contributions from other prelates, but
accepted an allowance from Constantius, ' thinking it more
consistent with duty to burden the treasury than in-
dividuals *.' No doubt, the British delegates compromised
their brethren at home by being cajoled or harassed into
accepting the uncatholic formulary which made the name
of Ariminum a by- word : but, like the great mass of those
who then showed weakness, they appe€Lr to have returned
to the Nicene position ; for in 363 Athanasius could reckon British
the Britons among those who were loyal to the Catholic 2o^^
faiths It is evident, therefore, that Gildas, and Bede
follo¥ring him, have greatly exaggerated the influence of
Arianism in Britain*. Eminent doctors of unquestioned
^ Ath. Apol. c Ari. i, Hist. Ari. aS fyet see Apol. 50). It has often
been said that British bishops actually sat in the Sardican Council. But
that Council's letter, Apol. c. Ari. 36, reciting the countries there and
then represented, names Spain and Gaul, and omits Britain : and Athan-
asius- himself in the first passage speaks of * more than 300 * bishops,
whereas he reckons the bishops present at Sardica as 170; Hist.
Ari. 15.
* * Dilectissimis et beatissimis patribus et coepiscopis ' of Germany and
of Gaul, 'et provinciarum Britanniarum episcopis/ De Synodis.
' Sulp. ii. 41. See Gibbon, iv. 134. He thinks that the British Church
might have thirty or forty bishops. This seems an over-estimate.
* Sulpicius adds, *• I have often heard Gayidius our bishop mention this
in a tone of censure. But I should rogard it quite otherwise ; and
I praise the bishops for having been so poor as to have nothing of their
own, and for accepting supplies from no others, but only Arom the
treasury, ubi neminem gravabant ; . . . ita in utrisque egregium exem-
plum.' The words in a preceding sentence, Md est Aquitanis, Gallis,
ac Britannis,' which imply that the 'three ' were only a minority of the
British delegates, appear to be a gloss.
* Ath. £p. ad Jovian. 3.
* GUd. Hist 9 ; Bede, i. 8.
14 S/. Ninian.
CHAP. J. orthodoxy, in the period following the Athanasian, speak
aa if the distant islanders were one in faith with themselvea
Chrysostom says that ' even the British isles ' — (observe the
plural)— 'have felt the power of the Word, for there too
churches and altars have been erected : ' there too, as in the
extreme East, or beside the Euxine, or in the South, ' men
may be heard discussing points in Scripture, with differing
voices, but not with differing belief'.' Jerome is not less
emphatic: Britain, he affirms, 'worships the same Christ,
observes the same rule of truth,' with other Christian
countries : more than this, the enthusiasm for pilgrimages
to Palestine had touched even Britons, as well as 'the
Hwarms of the East/ and it seemed opportune to remark
that ' the road to the heavenly hall stood open from Britain
as well as from Jerusalem^.' On one occasion we find
that a discord had arisen among British Christians, the
exact nature of which cannot be learned from the rhetorical
generalities in which Victricius, bishop of Rouen, tells how,
at the request of his 'fellow-bishops' in Britain, he had
gone over thither to restore religious peace ^. Our subject
does not include the history of Christianity in North
Britain: but we hear of Calpumius, a deacon as well as
a ' decurio/ or town-councillor, resident probably at or near
Dunbarton, whose father Potitus was a presbyter, and
whose son Succat became the great St. Patrick* : nor can
we forget how the northern extremity of England must
SLNiniHn. have profited by the homeward journey of Ninian, a native
of the Cumbrian district*, who, having studied at Rome,
and received episcopal consecration from Pope Siricius,
returned to Britain*^, established a missionary bishopric on
* Clirya. Quod Ohr. sit Deus, la ; Horn, in Prinoip. Act. 3. i.
* Jerome, £p. 146. 1 ; £p. 46. 10; Ep. 58. 3. The last of th^se
thrto sentences was written about 395. Cp. Prudeniius, Peristeph.
xiii. X03.
' Viotric de Laude Sanctorum, i (.Galland. Bibl. Patr. vii. aaS . This
journey would be after ▲• d. 39a
* S(>e Diet. Chr. Bio;^*. iv. 903. On Uie ascertained Cftots about Patrick
I m»y rofer to * The Roman See in the Early Church,' &c., p. 370 it
* See Bede, lii. 4 : A.-S. Chrvm.a. 565 ; Bp. Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish
Sainta, p. 433, and Lives of SS. Ninian and Kentigem, p. 957.
* On his way home he became acquainted with, and was profoandly
Pelagianism in Britain. 15
a promontory of Wigtownshire, and built a church, not, as chai-. i.
was usual among Britons, of wood, but, in the Roman
fashion, of stone, — on account of which, as Bede tells us,
the place was called the White House, * Candida Casa^'
otherwise Whithem, — where now a ruined cathedral, crown-
ing a wooded mound, represents what was once emphatically
named * the Great Monastery*,' and "known as a centre of
religious light and strength for all who dwelt along the
Solway and between the two Roman ' walls,' and even for
those * Southern Picts^' whose proper district extended
from the Forth to the great range of hills called the
Mounth, which crosses our present Scotland between Ben
Nevis and Stonehaven. So it was that in after-ages
St. Ninian was commemorated as the instrument by
whom the * Picts and Britons ' had been ' converted to the
knowledge of the faith*.'
Those early years of the fifth century, during which
Ninian was in his prime of work ^, witnessed the origin of
a momentous controversy which went far to impair, in the
eyes of zealous continental theologians, the reputation of
the British Church for simple-hearted orthodoxy. When Pekgiau-
Pelagius became obnoxious by speculations offensive to
Christian piety, he was generally known as ' the Briton ^,'
impressed by, the great missionary bishop of Gaul, St. Martin of Tours, —
and in his memory the * white' church was hallowed ; Bede, 1. o.
* Bede, iii. 4. Comp. v. ai ; Hist. Abb. 5. Whithem, however, was
perhaps the Leucopibia (probably Leukoikidia) of Ptolemy. ' Hwit
fern * ^ 'white cell/ Guest, Orig. Celt. ii. 302. It was also called Futerna
and Rosnat. On the sculptures at Kirkmadrine in Wigtownshire— two
stones with the Christian monogram, one having also the names of ' the
priests Viventius and Mavorius ' (or ' Majorius *\ the other of ' Florentius *
— see Haddan and Stubbs, it 51 ; Hilbner, no. S05 ; Bishop Dowden,
Celtic Church in Scotland, p. 16. They were probably priests under
Ninian. The widespread reverence for Ninian (popularly called Ringan")
extended to Shetland.
' Bp. Forbes, Lives, &c., pp. xlii, 392 ; Haddan and Stubbs, i. 120.
^ Bede, iii. 4. See Skene, Celtic Scotl. i. 23a Haddan and Stubbs,
ii. 105 ; Arbuthnott Missal, p. 369.
* Collect in an o£Bce for his festival. So in a hymn : ' Dat vitam pastor
incolis Plctis junctis Britonibus.'
^ Legend dated his death on Sept. 16, 432. 'Many sainta' were
believed to rest beside him : Bede, iii. 4.
* Augustine, Ep. 186. i. So Bede here calU him, i. loy and cites
ism.
i6 Pelagianism in Britain.
oHAF. I. and was, indeed, characterized by Jerome, in his coarse
way, as ' that big dog of Albion ^' It is right to remember
that he had, in his own way, * a zeal for God,' a grave
indignation against the inertness of many professing
Christians, who pleaded their weakness as an excuse for
not striving after sanctity ^. But he went astray through
an exaggeration of human capacities for moral attainment^;
he over-rated the power of the will, and denied the necessity
of internal grace; and he grounded this denial on the
rejection of that view of the Fall, as a source of inherited
corruption and debasement, which is technically called the
doctrine of 'original sin*/ He had left Britain in early
life, and does not seem to have returned; but a bishop,
Severianus, who adopted his opinions, had a son named
Agricola *, who devoted himself with passionate ardour to
the work of spreading the prescribed theory in the country
of its author, so that, in Prosper's words, * enemies of grace
took possession of the heresiarch's native soil®/ The
British clergy were generally faithful to the received
Prospor's lines, alluding to him as nourished by ' aequorei Britanni '
{,in one of Prosper's Epigrams). Compare his De Ingratis, i. 13 : —
' Dogma quod antiqui satiatum felle draconis
Pestifero vomuit coluber sermone Britannus.'
Comp. Prosper, Chron. a.d. 416, ' Pelagliis Brito;* Orosius, Apol. la,
* Britannicus noster ; ' and Marius Mercator, p. a, 'a Briton.' It is a mere
guess that Pelagius is ^ Morgan ' Grecized.
^ In Jerem. 1. 3. praef. (a J>. 419). The devil, he says, ' latrat per Albinum
(a correction from ** Alpinum") canem grandem et corpulentum, et qui
calcibus magis possit saevire quam dentibus.' The next sentence, * Habet
enim progeniem Scoticae gentis, de Britannorum Ticinia,' naturally
suggests that Jerome supposed Pelagius, although popularly called a
Briton, or native of '• Albion,' to be in fact an Irishman. Comp. Jerome,
prolog, in Jerem. : ' stolidissimus, «< Soatomm pultibus praegravatus,' And
see Tillemont, xiii. 56a. Others suppose Jerome to refer to Goelestius as
Irish, 6. g. Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, ii. 390. There was a con-
siderable Gaelic or Irish element in South Wales until the ' Brythonic '
invasion under Cunedda in the beginning of the fifth century.
' See St. Augustine, de Done Persev. s. 53. Cp. the writer's < Lessons
from Lives of Three Great Fathers,' p. 165.
' See Guizot, Civil, in France, lect. 5 ; Mozley on Doctrine of Pre-
dentination, pp. 58-64, loa; Diet Chr. Biogr. iv. 983.
* See the writer's Introd. to * Select Anti- Pelagian Treatises of St.
Augustine,' pp. vii-xii.
* Bede, i. 17.
* C. Collatorem, s. 58.
Britons appeal to Gallic Church, 17
doctrines, although a severe interpretation might find a chap. i.
Pelagian leaven in a practical treatise written by a British
prelate of this period, named Fastidius^. But some lay-
men of wealth and importance were attracted by a system
which tended to resolve Christianity into a philosophy^,
and to explain away those mysterious announcements, as
•to transmitted sinfulness and the absolute need of grace,
which demanded the humiliation of the soul. Britain, it
seems, had no divines competent to resist it ; and an appeal
was therefore made to the Church, one might say the
mother-Church, in Gaul, — the Church of Hilary and of
Martin, — ^which was both able and ready to assist out
of its abundance the theological poverty of Britain. Two Visit of
Gallic bishops were commissioned to visit the island : but ^^^nd
there is a discrepancy between our authorities as to the Lupus,
circumstances of their appointment. According to Con-
stantius of Lyons ^, who wrote some sixty years later,
with full access to local information, and whose account
is copied by Bede, the prelates, Germanus of Auxerre and
Lupus of Troyes, were sent over by ' a numerous synod * *
to * uphold in Britain the belief in Divine grace.* According
to Prosper of Aquitaine, the admiring defender of St.
Augustine, Celestine bishop of Rome is said to have sent
^ *■ Fastidius, Britannomm episcopus ; ' GenDadius de Yir. Illustr. 56.
See Galland. Bibl. Patr. ix. p. xxx. In the nth chapter of his ' De Vita
Christiana ' Fastidius approves of such a prayer as was made a matter of
complaint against Pelagius (*Thou knowest, Lord, that these hands
which I lift up are holy,* &c. ; comp. Jerome, Dial. c. Pelag.. iii. 14). See
Til lemon t, Mem. xt. 17, who adds that his language on the effect of the
Fall is inadequate: it is, 'omnes suo damnantur exemp2o;' c. 13.
Stillingfleet defends him, Orig. Brit. p. soo.
' Michelet, Hist. Fr. bk. i. c. 3. That, at the same time, Pelagianlsm
waa ' raised on a basis philosophically ' as well as *• religiously false,* see
Mozley, Aug. Doctr. Predest. pp. ioa-xo4.
' See Gonstantius* Yit. S. Gterm., c. 19, in Sxirius, de Probatis Sanctorum
Historiis, vol. iv. p. 416 ; Life of St. German (in Lives of English Saints),
p. laa. GonstanSiuB dedicates this ' Life * to Patiens, bishop of Lyons,
who had often urged him to write it. Bede copies largely from this part
of ity making some verbal alterations, as * magna ' for ' numerosa synodus,'
occasionally adding, but usually abbreviating by the omission of some
mere verbiage, and frequently smoothing out the Latin.
* That the Council was held at Troyes, see Life of St. (German,
p. laa.
C
i8 Mission of German and Lupus.
CHAP. I. German ' as his representative ^,' by which means Celestine
* took pains to keep the Roman island Catholic V Prosper
has the advantage over Constantius in being a contemporary
writer* ; and he visited Rome in 431 to lodge a complaint
before this Pope*. The two statements have been har-
monized by supposing that Celestine recommended German
to the Council * ; or that after the Council had chosen it*
two envoys, German also ' received the Pope's sanction ' for
his journey ^ ; or else, that Constantius' statement is true
only of Lupus, and that German's commission was simply
from Rome*^. But who were German and Lupus 1 The
former was by much the greater personage of the two.
Bede's statement that the Pelagian difficulty in Britain
was 'a few years prior to the coming of the Saxons,'
which he dates about 446-7, must be loosely interpreted
if he is understood as accepting the chronology of Prosper,
* Prosp. Chron. Integr. par. 2, * Florentio et Dionysio Goss. (i. ©. 429; :
Ad actionem Palladii diaconi, papa Coelestinus Germanum vice
sua mittit.' (Migne, Patr. Lat. ii. 594.)
' Prosp. c. CoUat. c. ai, s. 58 : ^ Nee vero segniore cura ab hoc eodt* 111
morbo Britannias liberavit, quando quosdam inimloos gratiae solum
suae originis occupantes etlam ab illo secreto exclusit Oceani, et ordinate
Scotis episcopo (i. e. Palladius), dum Bomanam insulam studet servare
catholicam, fecit etiam barbaram Christianam.' Palladius was sent
in 431 as bishop to the * Scots (Irish) who believed in Christ* (Prosp.
Chron.), the scattered believers among the Irish ; see Todd's St. Patrick,
p. 284. Whether he afterwards visited North Britain is at least very
doubtful ; Skene takes the negative view, Celtic Scotl. ii. 27. Bishop
Bowden thinks that the Scottish tradition may have some truth in it ;
Celt. Ch. in So. p. 41. Cp. Stephen, Hist. Sc. Ch. i. 93.
* He wrote in support of St. Augustine about 428. The Carmen de
Ingratis is dated about 429-430, the Contra Collatorem after 43a ; the
Chronicle comes down to 455.
* His complaint was against Gallic * Semi-Pelagians.* See Tillemont,
zvi. 14, and my Introd. to Anti-Pelagian Treat, p. Iv.
* Life of St. German, p. 122 : cp. Fleury, b. 25. o. 15.
* Tillemont, xv. 15 ; Diet. Chr. Biogr. ii. 655.
' Lingard, Anglo.-Sax. Ch. i. 8. To this Bishop Bowden inclines^
p. 210 ; but it is hardly probable. Coustantius must have had reason for
connecting the mission of his hero with the national episcopate : and
Prosper on his side must have known whether or no Celestine took action
in the matter ; although, from his point of view, he may have over-estimated
such action. Probably the truth lies in a combination of both accounts^
Celestine may have expressed an approval of the selection of German, of
may have given him a special commission ; Tillemont, xv. 15. The Bene*
dictine Life of Gregory the Great simply follows Constantius, bk. iiL 4. ^.
aiiH.
Mission of German and Lupus. 19
from whom he has evidently taken his account of chap. i.
Agricola's propaganda, and who dates the mission in
429, when Qerman had then been eleven years bishop
of his native city. He had seen much of the world ' ; had
studied at Borne, not for the priesthood, but for the bar ;
had held the high place of ' duke ' of a wide district ^ ; and
had been suddenly, and as it were forcibly, ordained a cleric
by Amator bishop of Auxerre ^ and soon afterwards suc-
ceeded him at his death, A. D. 418. He had forthwith
adopted, with all his heart and without reserve, the strictest
standard of episcopal conduct^. Lupus was a few years
younger, — a friend of Sidonius Apollinaris, who addresses
him in a letter ^ as ' bishop of bishops ' : two letters of his
are preserved •.
The Gallic prelates landed in Britain after a stormy Didcomii-
voyage, the perils of which, says Constantius, were averted ^^^i^
by the prayers of German '^. ' They preached in churches,
and even in streets and fields and in the open country ^,' to
^ Constan tills, i. z. He attended the Gallic schools before he went to
Rome. On these schools cp. Jerome, Ep. 195. 6 ; Bede, iil. 18.
^ Armorica and Nervia, 1. e. the first and second Aquitania, the Seno-
nensis, the first and second Lugdunensis. He retained to the last his
' dignity of countenance ' ; Constant, ii. 10.
' See the scene described in the English Life of St. German, p. 37, from
Constantius, i. 4.
^ TUlemont, xv. 13, from Constant, i. 8-ia Austerities did not make
German hard : see the beautiful anecdote in Constantius, ii. 9, that when
he was seventy, on his journey across the Alps, he fell in with an old
lame labourer, on the edge of a torrent crossed by slippery stones, and
carried over first the man's burden, and then the man himself. Hereric,
who wrote a metrical biography of German in the ninth century, after
enumerating various virtues of his, adds, * Quodque est praecipuum, dUedio
j^urima/ratrum,' (In Act. SS., July 31.)
* Sidon. Ep. vi. i. The letter accumulates expressions of reverence.
In another, Ep. vi 4, he speaks to Lupus as ' apostolatui tuo.*
* Sirmond. i. 573 ; Galland. Bibl. ix. 516 ; Migne, Patr. Lat. Iviii. 63.
In one of these letters he says to Sidonius, 'Gaudeo exui, postquam
ecclesiam InduistL' He lived till 479.
"* Constantius, i. aa ; Bede, i. 17. The incident is also referred to by
Adamnan, Vit. Col. ii. 34. Constantius, however, makes German pour
oil on the waves : Bede omits * oleo/ and turns ' levi aspergine ' into ^ levi
aquae spargine.' Dr. Todd thinks it not unlikely that German took with
him Palladius as his archdeacon (St. Patrick, p. 318}.
' ' Per trivia, per rura, per devia ; * Constant, i. 33. Bede omits ' per
devia.'
C 2
20 The Debate at Verulatn.
CHAP. I. the great encouragement of the faithful : their teaching
was generally accepted ^ : at last, however, the Pelagians,
who had previously avoided a debate, took the resolution
to confront the foreign bishops^, apparently at Verulam.
* They came forward in all the pride of wealth, and richly
attired,' amid a circle of dependants or disciples : a multitude
of men, with women and children, assembled to hear the
discussion. 'On one side,' says Constantius, 'was Divine
authority, on the other was human assurance.' ' On one
side/ Bede adds, *was piety, on the other pride V The
Pelagians spoke first, with that fluency * which seems often
to have distinguished the advocates of their system. Then
the bishops replied, with arguments from ' the Apostles
and Evangelists ^' adding their own comments, adducing
authorities in support of ' weighty propositions,' and urging
objections against the whole Pelagian theory. The ad-
versaries, we are told, were reduced to silence : the people
exulted in their defeat®. Then follows an account of
a blind girl who recovered her sight by aid of German's
prayers'', and after the application of a casket of relics
which he always wore suspended from his neck': after
which Bede tells us, still following his Gallic authority,
that the bishops visited the tomb of St Alban, over which,
as he had already said, 'a church of admirable workmanship
had been reared' after the close of the persecution. German
took away with him a mass of the earth, which was imagined
^ * Itaque region is universitas in eorum sententiam prompta transierat ; '
Const., Bede. Thia implies that many had, till then, inclined to Pela-
gianism.
' 'Diutarna meditatione conoepta ;' Const., Bede.
' Bede*8 antithesis, ' inde Pelagius auctor, hinc Christns,' is adopted
from Constantius.
* ' Sola nuditate Terbomm diu inaniter ; * Bede. Comp. S. Au^. c
Julianum, ii. i6, < tanta loquacitate,* and iv. 38.
* Probably Ps. li. 5 ; Rom. v. la ff. ; i Cor. iv. 7, xv. ai ; Eph. ii. 3, 8 :
Phil. ii. 13 ; i John i. 8, &c.
* It is added that the people could hardly keep their hands off them.
^ At first the bishops challenged the Pelagians to ' cure her * ; but
they * joined the parents in praying that the bishops would do so.'
* Constant, i. 24, comp. ib. 10. See Greg. Turon. H. Fr. viii. 15,— dust
from St. Martin*s grave, in a casket, hung round the neck of Wnlfilac
Gregory the Great sent to a Gallic ' patrician * a small cross made from
* St. Peter*s chains,' to be worn round the neck ; £p. iii. 33.
The ^Alleluia Victory.^ 2,1
still to bear traces of the blood of the martyr ^. Passing chap. i.
by another story of German's preservation from fire when
lame through an accident, we come to the grand tale of
the Alleluia Victory ^. A combination of Picts and Saxons The
menaced the British : German and Lupus encouraged them victory,
to resistance, joined them in their march, and in the Lent
of 430 induced the majority, who were still heathens, — the
British clergy having made no impression upon them ^, — to
accept daily instructions, and to ask for baptism. On
Easter Eve the baptisms were administered ^ the great
festival was celebrated, in a ' church ' formed out of boughs
of trees: the British 'host' then advanced, the greater
part of it fresh ' from the laver/ and under the generalship
of the sometime ' duke of Armorica,' who showed his ability
in the disposal of his inferior forces. He drew them up,
as if in ambush, under the rocks of a narrow glen, which
he had ascertained to lie full in the path of the enemy :
as the first ranks of the heathen drew near, expecting
an easy triumph, German bade the Britons repeat after
him the one sacred, joyous word which they had so lately
uttered in their Paschal solemnities ^ Three times he and
Lupus intoned it, 'Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia I' Their
followers, with ' one voice/ made the sound echo through
' This is from Conbtant. i. 25, and it is the first known instance of any
acqnaintanoo with the story of St Alban. Compare, as to the yirtue
ascribed to such ' dust,' Bede, iii. 10, 11. German built a church at Auzeire,
and there deposited the dust. Obserre the strange 'conceit,' that 'a
martyr's sUughter stills keeps red when the persecutor is pale ' (in death '.
' Constant, i. aS; Bede, i. ao; and see Chron. a. 459. The story is
not given in the original text of Nennius. Bede*s silence about Patrick
is less strange than that of Gildas about German, on which see Life of
St. German, p. 159. Possibly he alludes to the Victory' in Hist 18, on
a British victory obtained by trusting in God ; but this he dates after
A.D. 446.
' Pearson, in his Early and Middle Ages of Engl., p. 46, adds that there
is some evidence for a revival of British Paganism in the fifth century.
^ See the form in Forbes*s GhiUican Liturgies, p. 191. The words at the
administration were, 'Baptizo te credentem in nomine Patris, ftc., ut
habeas vitam aetemam in saecula saeculorum.'
* See St Augustine's Easter sermons on Alleluia, 255, 956. 'Et
ipeum Alleluia quotidie dicimus, et quotidle deleotamur ... Si rorcm
sic amatis, fontem ipsum quomodo amabitis I . . . O felix Alleluia in
coelo I ' See Neale, Essays on Liturgiology, p. 65.
22 Second Visit of German to Britain.
CHAT. I.
Second
visit of
German
with
Sovenis.
the valley : it rang from cliff to cliff, it struck the invaders
with panic, — they fled as if the very skies were crashing
over them, and many leapt headlong into the river which
intercepted their retreat: the Britons, successful without
' striking a blow,' exulted in a * victory won by faith and
clear of bloodshed^.' The scene of this flight is laid by
Welsh tradition at Maes-Qarmon, ' Qerman*s Field,' a milo
from Mold, in Flintshire ^. He and Lupus returned home,
after the island, as Constantius expresses it, had thus been
freed from * foes spiritual and corporeal.* A second journey
of German to Britain, in order to complete the overthrow
of heresy, is referred to a. D. 447 : he was attended, this
time, by a disciple of Lupus, Severus bishop of Treves'.
A few, it was found, had relapsed into Pelagianism : they
were reclaimed, and the false teachers expelled from Britain,
but settled in places on the continent where they might
unlearn their misbelief \ A miracle, as usual, is recorded
in connexion with this visit; from that time forth, says
a later writer, the Britons never harboured any heresy*;
and German's name continued to be held in honour among
the people whom he had instructed^, and was attached
* It has been thought that the words of Gregory the Great, ^ Behold,
the tongae of Britain . . . has long ago begun to resound the Hebrew
AUeluia in the praises of Gk>d,' Moral, in Job xzvil. ai, may refer to this
event : so Usher, Antiq. p. 179, who remarks that this work was finished
before the mission of Augustine. Bede, il. a, and Paul. Disc, refer them to
the conversion of Kent ; and they may have been added by Gregory in
a revision of the ' Morals.' But would he have said ' jamdudum ' ?
* Lingard, Anglo-Sax. Ch. i. iz, objects that Saxons would not be likely
to penetrate into North Wales. But the description of the scenery points
to some such scenery as that of Wales or Derbyshire. The river near
Maesgarmon is the Alyn. The next parish to Mold is Llan-ortnofi ; Bees,
Welsh Saints, p. las.
' Constantius, ii. a ; Bede, i. ai ; ' Severo, totius sanctitatis viro.*
* 'That the country might get quit of them, and they of their errors/ —
so we might render the words of Constantius.
' Giraldus Cambrensis, Descr. Camb. L 18.
* See Bp. Jones and Freeman, Hist, of St. David's, p. 357. Kennius'
History has various stories about German's proceedings, e.g. his attempt
to convert a wicked king of Powjrs, 31 ; his Intercessions for the guilty
Tortlgem, 50, &c. Of his anti-Pelagian activities it only says that he
came to preach, and ' multi per eum salvl Husii sunt : inoreduli perierunt ;*
c. 3a Some eminent Welsh bishops are erroneously described as his
disciples.
invasions.
The Saxon Invasion. 23
to various places in Wales and Cornwall ^ It is well to cuap.i.
repeat the summary of his character, as contained in the
Liturgy of his native Church : the ' Missa Saneti Qermani '
for July 31, — the day on which, as Bede expresses it, he
' migrated to Christ ' in 448, — after mentioning his apostolic
activity as extending to Britain, affirmed that ' he so began
as to increase, and so contended as to conquer ^.'
We have heard of his confronting a combination of Picts s»»xoii
with Saxons, That name, for ages so hateful to the repre-
sentatives of the British race, had been a sound of terror
along the island coast even in the third century^. Part
of that coast, from the Wash to Southampton, had been
known as ' the Saxon Shore ^ ' : Claudian had depicted ' the
Saxon ' as wafted by winds towards Britain, and sung of
a defeat of Saxons in distant Orkney^: but after many
^ Life of St. German, p. z. Several ecclesiastical colleges in Wales were
said to have been founded by him ; and although this may be legendary
THaddan and Stubbs, i. ai), he was not unlikely to 'advise the estab-
lishment of such institutions' as might guard the British Church
against heresy in the future ; Pryoe, Anc Br. Gh. p. 134. A ' Missa
S. Qermani,' cited in Bp. Forbes's Fret to the Arbuthnott Missal, p. lii,
and Haddan and Stubbs, i. 696, affirms in its Praeiktlo that German,
' sent by Saint Gregory, shone forth as a lantern and pillar to Cornwall,
and bloomed like roses and lilies in the meadow of the church of Aledh *
( — St. German's). It is possible that in one or other of his Tlsits he did
more for the British Church than had any interest for his Gallic bio-
grapher. Giraldus traces to his influence several Welsh customs, e.g.
giving to the poor the first comer of every loaf, sitting by threes at
dinner, asking the blessing of any religious man ; Descr. Camb. i. 18.
The legend of a Germanus, bishop of Man, has grown out of the dedication
of its cathedral to St. German ; Lanigan, Eccl. Hist. Irel. i. 306. Man
doubtless derived its Christianity from Ireland. The similar dedication
of Selby Abbey was due to the legend of his appearance to a French
monk, who brought one of his relics into Yorkshire.
' Forbes and Neale, Anc. Gall. Liturgies, p. 15a. Among his last
words were, * Well know I what country that is which God promises to
His servants.' This was in reference to a dream in which he seemed to
see the Lord giving him provision for a journey to ' his own country ' ;
Constant, ii. 19^ He died at Bavenna, whither he had gone as an envoy from
the Armorican insurgents to Valentin ian III. See Life of St. German, p. 958.
' The Saxons are first mentioned in the second century. For their early
connexion with Britain, see Gibbon, iv. 388, note ; ii. 70, note ; iii. 963.
* Le. the shore most exposed to Saxon invasion; Freeman, Norm.
Conq. L 11 ; Stubbs, Const. Hist i. 67 ; Green, Making of England,
p. 90.
• Be 4« con& Honor. 31 : * Maduerunt Saxone fuse Oroades.' Gibbon
t
24 The Saxon Conquest.
CHAP. I. raids on their part had harassed Southern Britain and
given them a foothold on its soil, they appear about the
middle of the fifth century as entering on a more regular
plan of conquest. It is one thing to form settlements,
another to found kingdoms. And this ^ series of constant,
systematic, successful' occupations of British soil was, in
the words of the historian of the ' Norman Conquest,' one
of the most * fearful blows ' that ever fell on any nation \
In order to appreciate it, we must remember that it de-
scended on a people whom the indignant rhetoric of Gildas
depicts as divided against themselves ^ incapable of any
noble national life ^, abandoned, within memory, by their
Roman protectors to their Pictish tormentors ^, and rather
weakened than disciplined by their experience of Roman
civilization * : a people, too, described by the same authority
as so prone to cruelty and falsehood that any one who showed
any gentleness or any love of truth was denounced as an
enemy of the country, and became a mark for his neighbours*
darts ®. And the blow was struck, at intervals throughout
admits *■ some degree of truth ' in this poetical tribute to the elder
Theodosius ; iii. 971. For Stilicho^s like achievements, see Claudian, de
laud. Stil. ii. 353 :^
'IfKus effectum curls . . . ne littore tuto
Prospicerem dubiis venturum Saxona ventia.'
(This is put into the mouth of Britain.) See Gibbon, iv. 53. For the
Saxon inroads under Valentinian 1, when Theodosius was employed, see
also Ammianos, xzvi. 4, 5, ' Picti Sazonesque Britannos aerumnis
vezavere continuis.'
^ Freeman, i. 13, ao.
* Gildas, de Exc 19. We have to remember the enmity between the
Goidhelic, Gaedhelic, or Gitelic tribes who had held a large part, especially
the south, of Wales, and the ' Brythcnic ' invaders who prevailed over
them in the early part of the fifth century. Cunedda, the gi'eat 'Brython*
from South-West Scotland, who established the *■ Brythonic ' supremacy,
had assumed the position formerly held by the Roman 'dux Britan-
niarum/ The Welsh explained the denunciations of Gildas by saying
that he had a grudge against Arthur for killing his brother ; Giraldus,
Descr. L a. Guest says that he had 'strong Soman prejudices,' Orig.
Gelt ii. 174 : Rhys, that he was 'a Brython of the Brythons' (Celtic
Britain, p. 358), hostile to the Goidels or Gael of South Wales.
* Gild. freq. ; Gibbon, iv. 390.
* Bede, i. la ; Gibbon, iv. 131, a. d. 409. See too the Saxon Ghron. for 418.
* ' Desidiosorum,' Gild, praef. ; Stubbs, Const. Hist. 1. 68.
* Gild, ai ; followed by Bede, i. 14 : ' Crudelitas praecipue, et odium
yeritatis,' kc.
The Saxon Conquest. 25
a century, by invaders as ferocious as they were energetic, chap. i.
of whom a contemporary Gallic bishop says that the Saxon
pirates were ' the most truculent of all enemies,' and that
they made it a point of religion * to torture their captives
rather than put them to ransom,' and to sacrifice the tenth
part of them to their gods^. An idolatry which had its
centre in the worship of Woden and of Thunor ^ was sure
to render its votaries doubly terrible to a Christian popu-
lation. Hence it is that we have to read of devastations
which Gildas® cannot narrate without being reminded of
the Psalms of the Captivity. In his declamatory verbiage
we see, clearly enough, a grim picture of * flashing swords
and crackling flame,' of ruined walls, fallen towers, altars
shattered, priests and bishops and people slain 'in the
midst of the streets/ and corpses clotted with blood and left
without burial*: of the 'miserable remnant,' slaughtered
in the mountains, or selling themselves as slaves to the
invader, or flying beyond sea, or finding a precarious
shelter in the forests*. He wrote about the middle of
the next century, and at a time when the ' foreign wars '
appeared to have ceased ® : but must have conversed in his
youth with those who had witnessed the devastation in
the south-east of what we now call England: and Bede
almost transcribes him, although simplifying his turgid
phraseology*^. Thus we are enabled to feel, as it were,
* SidoniuB Apollinaris, Ep. viii. 6. So Salvian, De Gubem. Dei, vii.
15 : ' <}en8 Sazonum crudelitate efferi, sed castitate mirandi.' See Milman,
Lat. Chr. i. 332 ; Lingard, Angl.-Sax. Ch. i. 45. Yet they were not cruel in
cold blood.
* See Green's Making of England, p. 164 ; Taylor's Words and Place;),
p. 331, for these gods, and for 'Tiw ' (whence * Tuesday').
* Gild. 04 (Galland. Bibl. zii. 198). He quotes 'Incenderunt igni
sanctnarium tuum,' and ' Deus, veneruni,' &c.
* Welsh legends speak of members of the pious ' family of Brychan '
who were 'martyred' by the Heathen, as Cynog at Merthyr Cynog, and
Tydvyl, a woman, at the better-known Merthyr Xydyil. See Williams,
Eccl. Ant. Cymry, p. 115 ; Rees, Welsh Saint?, p. 151. On the other two
holy * families,' see Pryce, p. 43.
* Gild. 95. Cp. Green, p. 67.
* He speaks of the present tranquillity, the unexpected help given to
Britons, &c., 26.
* Bede, i. 15. Weudoyer adds details about the burning of the Scriptures,
and heaping earth up to conceal the tombs of martyrs ; Flor. Hist. 19.
26 The Rally of the Britons.
CHAP. I. with the British Christians of the age of the conquest^
while their brethren in Kent, after the defeat at Crayford,
' fled in terror to London \' and the native forces, sixteen
years later, * fled from the Angles like fire ^ ; ' while, about
the time of the fall of ' Augnstulus,' Ella was taking
possession of Sussex ; while, Anderida — now Pevensey —
was being taken, and not a Briton left alive'; while the
kingdom which was to absorb all the rest was being formed
by the victories of Cerdic the West-Saxon, in 508 and 519*.
Then came something like a definite rally of the natives * :
the name of Arthur, shining through a golden mist of fable,
may represent a historic West-British prince, who did
much, though in a limited area,
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ*.
That %ht on * Badon Hill,' in which, according to a vivid
Welsh legend, 'Arthur bore the cross of our Lord Jasus
Christ three days and three nights on his shield, and the
Britons were conquerors '^-^ and which the wild exaggera*
' Chron. a. 457 ; Green, Making of England, p. 37.
' Chron. a. 473.
' Chron. a. 491. See Qibbon, iv. 394. Henry of Huntingdon says,
'Locns tantum, quasi nobilissimae urbis, transeuntibus ostenditur
desciatus.' The Boman walls and towers endoee the ruins of a mediaeval
castle, and form a paraUelogram of three sides. See Freeman, iii. 40Z ;
Green, p. 43.
* Chron. a. 491. In 508 Cerdic slew the British king Natanleod. The
second battle was at Cerdicsford or Charford in 5x9. Cerdic appears in
the Chronicle as an ealdorman from 495 to 519, when he is described as
having won the kingdom.
' On the character of the British * resistance/ see Church, Beginning
of Middle Ages, p. 76.
* Tennyson, Poems, p. 463. 'A genuine record of Arthur would be
precious beyond words. . . . Arthur is a real man ; but, whatever were
his actff, they could not have been the acts attributed to him in the
legends;' Freeman, v. 584. 'In our Chronicle there is nothing about
Arthur ; ' Freeman, 01d-£ng. Hist p. 35. Yet the Chron. names Natan-
leod. We may observe Giraldas Cambrensis' phrase, 'Arturi nostri
famosi, ne dicam fabulosi,' Descr. Camb. ii. a. * History only knows him
as the petty prince of a Devonian principality. . . . The modern con-
ception of him appears first in Nennius ; ' Pearson, Early and Middle
Ages of England, p. 57. Cp. Kbys, Celt. Brit. p. 034.
^ Annales Cambriae, a. 516. See pref. p. zziv. A clause of dubious
genuineness In Gildas, a6, ' qui prope Sabrinam ostium habetur,' has led
to the identification of Mens Badonicus with a hill above Bath. But
Freeman (I.e.) and Green (Making of England, p. 89), following Guest
The ^Anglians^ in Britain. 27
tions of the History ascribed to Nennius rank as the ohap. i.
twelfth of his victories ^ has been assigned to 493, to 516, and
to 520 ^ ; and appears to have been ' followed by a general
pause in the English advanced' But while the tide of
Teuton triumph was thus far stayed in the south, a new
body of Saxons was beginning the foundation of the little
realm of Essex, destined to include London^, and other
invaders of properly Anglian race were taking hold of
the eastern district which was to be divided between them
as Northfolk and Southfolk ^, extending their grasp over
Lindsey or North Lincolnshire, and so completing the
conquest of the long coast-line of * the Saxon Shore.' Other
Anglians next invaded Yorkshire ; and the * imperial city '
on the Ouse, which had seen the deaths of Severus and
Constantius, became the prey of the barbarian, probably
about the beginning of the sixth century*. Still the de-
stroying storm rolled northward; and at length, in 547,88
the Chronicler tells us with emphatic simplicity, ' Ida began
to reign, from whom arose the royal race of Northumbria.'
The base of his operations was grandly chosen. High on
(Orig. Celt ii. 189), place it at Badbury in Dorset. Skene places it in
Scotland, Celt. Scot], i. 153.
* * Nennius' says that 840 men, in that one day, fell by the king's
single hand. The Historia Britonum is ascnbed to * Nennius,' a disciple
of Elbod (bishop of Bangor, who died in 809), and is dated in ▲. d. 858.
But this date is only in one MS., and the shorter prologue which names
the author without giving the date is only in five out of thirty. See
Mon. Hist. Brit i. 63. The work is a compilation, of various dates ; see
Stevenson's Nennius, p. xv ; Diet. Chr. Biogr. iv. 17 ; Whitley Stokes on
Tripartite Life of St Patrick, i. p. cxvii.
' The Annales Oambriae say 516. Gildas, c. a6, seems to say that he
is writing in the 44th year from this battle : Bede understood him to
reckon it as the 44th year from the first invasion, i. z6 ; and Rhys so
takes it, placing the battle in 493 ; Celt. Britain, p. 108. Plummer accepts
493, but reckons the <44th year' from it as if Gildas wrote *c. 537.' But
had Bede any reason for 493, other than his own ' forced ' construction ?
The Ann. Cambr. say 516. For the date 590, see Guest, Orig. Celt ii. 187.
Green, Making of England, p. 89 ; Palgrave, EngL Conmionwealth, p. 397.
' Green, I.e. See Gildas, Lc
« Erkenwin, the first East-Sazon king, is dated in 596 or 53a Essex
was never an independent kingdom ; Palgrave, Anglo-Sax. p. 40.
* Green, p. 51. It was then that the great Roman fort of Garianonum
or Burghcastle, near Yarmouth, became a ruin, which afterwards sheltered
an Irish missionary saint, Fursey.
* See Baine, Historians of Church of York, i. p. xvUi ; Green, p. 63.
28 The Angltans.
CHAP. I. the coast of our present Northumberland, towers up a rock
which might seem marked out by nature for the strong-
hold and palace of a conqueror: it had been called
Dingueirin, and took the name of Bamborough, or Bebba's
burgh, from the wife of a later Anglian prince \ some
thirty years after it had been roughly fortified* by King
Ida. The Britons, who trembled ^ as they heard of his
progress through Bryneich, Bemeth, or Bemicia, the region
between the Tees* and the Firth of Forth,— lying north
of that district of Deifyr, Deur, or Deira, which after his
death obeyed the strong rule of another Anglian, ^Ua or
Ella, — would hardly have believed a prophet who should
have told them that within about eighty years from Ida's
arrival, his royal seat would be occupied by a far mightier
prince, devoted heart and soul to Christianity. A fresh
impulse now stirred among the West-Saxons, and Cynric,
son of Cerdic, defeated the Britons at Sarum and Barbury*:
his successor Ceawlin, after defeating at Wimbledon a
young Kentish king named Ethelbert •, acquired our own
' Ethelfrid, according to the ^ appendix ' to Nenniua. See Mon. Hi»t.
Brit. pp. 74, 76. Bede says, ^a regina quondam yocabulo Bebba,' iii. 6 ;
op. 16. Alcuin calls the city Bebba, De Pontif. Ebor. 305. See Freeman,
Engl. Towns and Districts, p. 273.
' A.-S. Chr. a. 547 : ' At first enclosed by a hedge, afterwards by a
wall.' For the later castle, see Marmion, ii. 8.
' PalgraTe, Anglo-Sax. p. 43 ; Green, Making of England, p. 79. Burton
says that he seems to have ruled northwards to the Tay ; Hist. Scotl. i.
378. It is commonly said that the Britons called him the ' Flamebearer.'
But Skene says that it was Theodric, the sixth Bernician king, for whose
name they substituted that epithet ; Cdttic Scotland, i. 159. Prof. Bhys
traces 'Bernicians* up to ^Brigantes,' the old 'Brython' or British in-
habitants of the Korth-country, and 'Deirans' to the British name
*Deivr' ; Celtic Britain, p. iia.
^ Lingard makes the Tees the northern limit of Deira, i. 69. So
Freeman, Old-Engl. Hist. p. 38 ; Eaine, Historians of Oh. of York, i.
p. xvii. Palgrave says that the land between Tees and Tyne, at first neutral,
was ultimately included in Deira ; Anglo-Sax. p. 43. It must be observed
that Reged, a district placed by Palgrave and Freeman on the north of
the Solway, offered fierce resiatanoe to the Angles ; and Elmete, a part of
the West Riding, was not conquered until the reign of Edwin ; Nennias,
63, (66).
* Sax. Chron. a. 55a, 556 ; see Gibbon, iv. 391 ; Green, p. 94. Barbury
Camp is near Swindon.
* 'iEthelbriht,' Chxon. 568.
Completion of the Conquest. 29
Oxfordshire country through his brother's victory at Bed- chap. i.
ford in 571 ^ ; and after slaying three British kings at the
battle of Deorham in 577, became master of their three
cities, Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath ^. Six years later
he penetrated to the borders of Cheshire, and took two
towns belonging to the Mid- Welsh kingdom of Powys^:
and though he sustained a severe check, which forced
him to retire southwards, his name must have represented
to the Britons that force and fury of * Heathen ' aggression
which they might now have come to regard as irresistible.
Large masses of their race had been simply slaughtered ^ :
many had become slaves, or passed into a 'half-servile
condition ' : it seemed to be only a question of time when
the work of conquest should be perfected : but there was
still a large tract, the whole west, independent of the
invader. The kingdom of Cumbria, or, in a widened sense,
Strathclyde *, extending from the Firth of Clyde to the
^ Chron. 571. Outhwulf took Bensington, Aylesbury, Eynsham, and
Leigh ton Buzzard : Green, p. 133.
' Chron. 577. This victoiy cut off British communication between
Wales and the south-west; Green, p. laS. A long strip of territory
extending southward to the Axe became Saxon, the Britons being cooped
up between the forests of Bradon and Selwood. Deorham is a village to
the north of Bath, and west of the Fosse-rgad.
' See Guest, Grig. Gelt. ii. 988 ff., for the destruction of Pengwern
(Shrewsbury) and Uriconium at the base of the Wrekin, by the West
Saxons, and their subsequent defeat at Fethanleagh (Faddiley). The
Welsh elegy on ^ Kyndylan,' Prince of Powys, tells how he was defeated
and slain by the Loegyrwys (Saxons), how his 'hall' at Pengwern (Shrews-
bury) was burnt, and he was buried at 'Bassa's churches,' probably
Baschurch near Shrewsbury. The White Town involyed in this disaster
is supposed to be Uriconium.
* See Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 69; Freeman, 1. 18, and Four Oxford
Lectures, p. 75. The *• extermination/ where it took place, was such as
to be compatible with the continuance of many Britons as slaves or as
'impoverished peasants' (Gneist, Hist. Engl. Constit. i. a), while one
race, as such, ' displaced ' another in possession of the territory. Late in
the seventh century, Ine's laws recognize a number of free as well as of
enthralled 'Welsh.'
^ Freeman, i. 14. The close connexion of Strathclyde with ' Wales *
appears in the Life of St. Kentigem. Persecuted at Glasgow in 540, he
retires into Wales, until recalled in 573 by a ti'uly Christian king of
Strathclyde, Rederech or Rhydderc, ' the Generous ' ; Bishop Forbes, Kal.
p. 369. Palgrave divides the Begnum Cumbrense into Strathclyde proper.
Reged, and Cumberland with Westmoreland and Lancashire, the extent
30
Gildas on the Britons.
CHAP. I.
Gildas
on the
Britons.
Derwent, and the district between the Derwent and the
Dee, sometimes included within Strathclyde, was purely
British: the region which the English gradually came
to look upon as 'Wales/ the land of the 'foreigners*/
and 'West Wales/ or Devon and Cornwall and part of
Somerset, including the sacred 'AvalonV were still, in
British eyes, unpolluted by the barbarian's tread. Corn-
wall had been for many years receiving and honouring
a succession of missionaries from Ireland, including some
women, whose pious toil has dotted the county with places
bearing a saintly name^. But what of the Eymrians
generally ? If we put the date of Gildas' work, the 'History/
so called, and the Epistle, or Admonition, either somewhat
before or somewhat after the middle of this century, we find
the condition of his countrymen at that period described
in lurid colours*. The vague charges against the Britons
of the fifth century reappear as detailed indictments against
those of the sixth. The first shock of invasion had awed
the nation into repentance; but with quieter times the
old sins came back *. The ' kings * or princes of the purely
British districts were ' tyrants ' who acted as if almsgiving
would compensate for any sin. One of them, in contempt
of his solemn oath, had. slain two royal youths whom an
of strathclyde under Rhydderc. The capital of the kingdom was Alcluid,
or Dunbiitton, now Dunbarton. The name of *• Cumbri * was not used by
its inhabitants until the tenth century. In the twelfth the country was
called both * Cumbria ' and < Cambria.' Skene, ap. Bp. Forbes, Lives of
Ninian and Kentigem, p. 331. See Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 143 ; Haddan
and Stubbs, ii. 4.
1 Cp. 'WttUing-ford,' * Walla *-ford in BeTon, and * Corn-wall.'
' The land between the Mendips and the Parret became Saxon in 658.
' E.g. SS. Piran, Sennen, Feock, Oermoc, Rumon or Ruan, and the
virgin saints Breaca, Burian, and la, the last of whom is said to have
been martyred, with her brother Uni and with Gwythian, near St. Ives
Bay. On Piran, see Borlase, Age of the Saints, p. aa.
* See above, p. 24. For Gildas, see Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 356 ; Lappen-
berg, i. 123 ; Haddan and Stubbs, i. 156 ; also Pearson, yindic. Ignat. i.
79. He is called Gildas the Wise, or Gildas Badonicus ; see Alb. Butler,
Jan. 99, and Diet. Chr. Biogr. ii. 671.
^ Gild. 26 ; Bede, i. aa. * Attamen recente adhuc memoria,' &c. Com-
pare St. Patrick's denunciation of Coroticus (Keredig, a son of Cunedda,
who gave his name to Cardigan) ; a Christian by profession, he had
committed unchristian cruelties in Ireland, and might be supposed to
despise Irish Christianity (£p. ad Chiistlanos Corotici tyranni subditos).
Gildas on the Britons. 31
abbot strove to protect by throwing his cloak around chap. i.
them^: another ' thirsted for civil war and spoil ^ ' : a third'*
and a fourth^ were the slaves of sensuality: a fifth,
Maelgwyn, chief among British kings, after overthrowing
his predecessor had in compunction taken the vows of a
monk, and then relapsed into worse than his former
excesses *. The clergy were debased by secular and even
vicious habits*, and neglectful of sacred duties, and of
pastoral exhortation, and even of the decencies of priestly
life; simony was rife among priests and bishops^ (it is
evident that a bishopric was still a well-endowed office ^) ;
and even those who lived respectably were careless or
cowardly in regard to rebuking sin'^. Gildas clearly
carries the vehement * reproaches,' which characterize his
^ Constantine (Oystennyn) of Devon and Cornwall. Gild. aS. Yet
he became 'St. Oonatantine,' having Homed to the Lord' in 589,
i.e. entered a monastery. Ann. Camb., and see Bp. Forbes, Ealendars,
p. 31a ; Guest, Orig. Gelt. ii. 196, 961 ; and Bp. Jones and Freeman,
p. 244.
' AurelioB Conanns, of Powys; Gild. 30. Probably a desoendant of
that Ambrosins Aurelianns whom Gildas and Bede describe as of Roman
family, and who after the Romans' departure had succeeded to the chief
command in south-east Britain with the title of ' Gwledig' (ruler).
' Vortipor of Demetia, or Dyved, the west part of South Wales ; Gild.
31. He was already elderly.
*■ Oaneglas; Gild. 39.
' King of Gywnedd or North Wales, otherwise called Venedot (his
abode being in Anglesey). He was, perhaps, the leader of the Britons
when defeated at Barbury in 556 ; Guest, p. 197 ; a man of great force,
and the head of the house of Cunedda (Rhys, Celt. Brit. p. 123, who
doubts Gildas' charges). He seems to bave combined sensuality and
tyranny with moods of fervid devotion, being recorded among the
benefactors of Llandaif as well as of Bangor. He died of a pestilence in
547.
* Gildas begins this ' increpatio/ ' Britain has priests, but they are
foolish.' See Lingard, A.-8. Gh. i. 13, 359. Gildas owns that there are
a few good pastors, no, and that he prefers their lives 'cunctis mundi
opibus ' ; 65.
' He speaks of bad men attempting to cover their evil reputation by
thus purchasing ecclesiastical dignity. Some, if public opinion condemned
them, would travel abroad, and return in stately array ; 67. Golumban
refers to this language of ' Giltas,' ap. Greg. Ep. ix. 137.
' ' Tos episcopatum .... avaritiae gratia . . . cupitis ; ' Gild. 108 ; see
ib. 67, ' tam pretiosum quaestum.'
* He cites Eli ; ' Quid profuit HeU sacerdoti,' &c., 69.
32 Gildas on the British Church.
(HAP. I. *book of Complaints^/ to a point beyond equitable and
discriminating rebuke; they provoke our incredulity by
their very violence; but they cannot be without some
serious foundation. We learn from him incidentally, not
only that the liierarchy was regularly organized, that the
'priests' claimed power to bind and to loose, and that
bishops were believed to succeed the Apostles ^, and indeed
to sit in the chair of Peter ^ (a significant phrase when
used for any bishop's office), but that the hands of priests
and inferior ministers were anointed *, and certain lessons,
from the Epistles and from the Acts, were read at ordina-
tion''. That the British ritual had a special character,
distinct not only from the Roman, but also from the
Gallican, has been inferred from a curious document of
the eighth century, which traces the *Scotic' Liturgy
through German and Lupus to St. Mark, the Gallic through
St. Irenaeus to St. John ®. But the statement, which has
^ Be Ezcidio Britanniae Liber Querulus. Comp. Bede, i. aa, 'flebilis
sermo/ He says that he had refrained for ten years from writing, but his
indignation at the sins of his countrymen could no longer be suppressed.
It is divided into the *Historia' and the 'Epistola* (Mon. H. Brit.\
which is subdivided into the * Increpatio in reges ' (described by
Gallandius, Bibl. Patr. xii. aoo, as the ^ Epistola ' proper) and that ^ in
clerum.'
' Increp. in Cler. 66, 9a, 108, 109.
* ' Sedem Petri Apostoli immundis pedibus usurpantes ; ' 66. Compare
Lib. LandaT^ p. 18. This way of speaking carries out the old idea that
St Peter was (not the ruler, but) the representative, of the other Apostles,
and in them of their successors the bishops. See Transl. of St. Cyprian,
Lib. Path. vol. 1. p. 150. Gildas also takes Matt. xvi. 18 as * said to the true
priest/
* Gild., 106, ^ initiantur sacerdotum vel ministrorum manus.' See
Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i. 141 ; Warren, Lit. and Bit. p. 70.
^ I Peter i. 3-5, 13-16, aa, a3, ii. 1-3, 9 ; Acts i. 15 ff. ; i Tim. iii. i ff.
* This document affirms that (i) John the Evangelist first sang the
' Cursus Gallorum ' : from him it came to Lyons : in time it was enlarged
and widely diffused : (a) according to St. Jerome, St. Mark fir^t sang the
* cursus ' now called Scotic, — ^and after him Gregory Nazianzen (I), then
Cassian, and Honoratus of Lerins, and German and Lupus, who preached
in Britain and appointed Patrick archbishop in Britain and Ireland, who
sang the Wime course, — ^as did Comgall and Columban ; ' and if you do not
believe us, search in the life of blessed Columban.' See Haddan and
Stubbs, i. 139. Palmer thinks that the writer is not referring to the
BrtftsA Liturgy as such ; that that Liturgy was essentially Gallican ; thai,
before Patrick's time, Irish Christians had a similar use ; that for some
^
British Colleges. 33
some wild errors of detail, really says nothing about the chap. i.
original British use, which was apparently identical with
the Gallican; nor is it probable that German materially
altered the use which he found in Britain. The peculiarities
of the British and Irish — then called Scottish — Churches,
in regard to the calculation of Easter and one or two points
of ceremonial, will come before us hereafter.
Admitting a considerable element of exaggeration in
Gildas' invectives, we still need to remember the incoherencies
of Celtic character in order to understand how there could
be, at the same period, a burst of religious activity in the
Welsh Church, although that activity did not involve any
attempt to evangelize the detested and dreaded Saxons^.
Colleges or monasteries did much for study and devotion, — Welsh
often bearing the name of Bangor^, that is 'high choir ' ^^d^**^*
or ' circle,' or eminent community. One of these was the Saints,
famous Bangor ' Iscoed,' founded by Dunawd, or Dunod,
and his three sons, in the south-east comer of Flintshire,
for a community which was said to contain more than two
thousand monks at the time of its sudden and total
destruction ^ Another was the Bangor still known as
time alter Patrick, the Roman use prerailed in Ireland, but that a different
use was introduced by means of David, Gildas, and Cadoc ; Orig. Lit. i.
178 ff. Bp. Forbes infers from early Irish liturgical remains that, so far
as we can learn, the earliest Liturgy * used in these inlands was Ephesine,'
i. e. Gallican ; Preface to Arbuthnott Missal, p. z. Gp. Warren, Liturgy
and Ritual of Celtic Church, p. 6i ; and Duchesne, Origines du Culte, p.
148, who says that of the ancient liturgical MSS. of Britain only one,
the antiphonary of Bangor, is purely non-Roman ; — the rest exhibit a
Roman rite with Gallican elements.
' Bede, i. aa ; ' addebant . . . ut nunquam genti Saxonum . . . verbum
fidei praedicando committerent.' See Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 352. Arch-
deacon Pryoe pleads that Hhe merciless policy of the invaders' would
have made such an enterprise hopeless; Anc. Brit. Ch. p. 113. Tet see
Green, Making of England, p. 90, on the long ' inaction ' of the West
Saxons after their defeat at Badbury, a.d. 590-559. The point is, not
that much was not done, but that (from whatever motive) nothing was
attempted.
' For the great Irish ' Bangor,' near Carrickfergus, founded by St.
Comgall about 559, see Lanigan, Eccl. Hist. Irel. ii. 69. Glastonbury was
sometimes called Bangor Wydrin ; Williams, Eccl. Ant Cym. p. 919.
' Bede, ii. 9. Iscoed ^ underwood. This house was called also * the great
Bangor in ' (the district of) * Maclor.' See Chron. Anc. Brit. Ch. p. 169 ;
Rees^ Welsh Saints, pp. 906, 956. It was said to be occupied by seven
D
34 British Colleges.
CHAP. I. guch, of which Daniel was the first head *, at once abbot
and bishop, acombination not nnfrequent in Celtic churches \
Another Bangor was our St. Asaph, or Llan Elwy, said to
have been founded under the direction of Kentigem ', the
famous bishop of Glasgow, sumamed Munghu (kind and
dear), the teacher and friend of Asaph *. Another celebrated
house, to which a fabulous antiquity was ascribed ^, flourished
at Caer Worgom, and had for its president lUtyd, who is
said to have taught his scholars ' all the arts ' then current,
and from whom the place takes its present name of
Llantwit Major. Besides these there were St. Cadoc's*^
college at Llancarfan, also a dependency of Llandaff, — ^the
White House, or Whitland, in Carmarthenshire, founded
by Paulinus or Paul H6n "^ ; — and the great college of
Classen of monks, each containing 300 men. See Raine, Fast. Ebor. i. 13 ;
Pryce, Ano. Brit. Gh. pp. 176, 184.
^ He is said to have died in 584 (Annal. Camb.). His house was called
' the great Bangor oyer Conway '. He ranks as * one of the three blessed
youth-trainers of Britain.' See Pryce, p. 146.
' Haddan and Stubbs, i. 14a ; Chron. of Brit. Ch. pp. 83, 127 ; Todd.
St. Patrick, p. 27.
* According to the legend, a North Welsh king, probably Maelgwyn.
gave Kontigern the ground by the Elwy. ' Men of all ages and ranks
pressed into the monastery, to the number of 965 ; ' Bishop Forbes,
Kalendars of Scottish Saints, p. 368. Kentigern, on his way into Wales,
appears to hare ^ turned aside ' to evangelize parts of Cumberland where
heathenism still lingered, and to have erected a cross at ' Crosfeld ' or
Crosthwaite. Bp. Forbes, Lives of SS. Ninian and Kentigern, p. Ixxxiii,
names eight Cumbrian churches as dedicated to him.
^ ' They who withstand God's word,' said Asaph, ' envy man's salvation.'
Like some great Irish monasteries, their house had nearly 1,000 inmates.
Kentigem was favoured by a Cadwallon, king of Gwynedd.
* It was called Cor Tewdws, as founded by Theodosius I or II (\\ See
Bees, p. 198. On Iltutus, * the knight,' ' the excellent master,' see Alb.
Butler, Nov. 6 ; Smith's Bede, p. 734 ; Rees, p. 180 ; Williams, p. 13a ;
Pryce, Anc Brit. Ch. p. 18a. He was a Glamoi^ganshire saint, and
a church at listen in Gower is dedicated to him.
* Rees, p, 149 ; Chron. Ano. Brit. Ch. p. 81 ; Williams, p. 219 ; Pryce,
p. i8a. Cadoc, or Cattwg, called the Wise, is said to have resigned
a princely heritage for the sake of a religious life. Rhys calls him a rival
of David ; Celt. Britain, p. asa
* Bangor y T>'-Qwyn ; * Alba Domus,' Girald. Itin. Camb. L 10 ; Pryce.
p. x8i. David, and Teilo the second bishop of Llanda£^ are said to have
studied under Paulinus. The latter's epitaph exists in Carmarthenshire ;
Haddan and Stubbs, i. 164 ; HUbner, No. 8a ^< Servator fidei . . cnltor
pianUaaimus aequi/ Ac). He was ' a bishop, but without a see/
/
British Synods. 35
Llanbadam-faur, founded by a Breton named Padam, the chap. i.
first of a line of bishops that sat within its precinct ^, where
one of the most venerable churches in the Principality still
attracts English visitors from the neighbouring Aberystwyth.
We also read of Welsh synods; one at Llanddewi-Brefi,
in Cardiganshire, which has been erroneously supposed to
have renewed the defeat of Pelagianism *^ ; another, which
from a similar error was called ' the Synod of Victory */
and is dated by the Cambrian Annak in 569; it was
properly the Synod of the Wood of Victory, being held
on the site of a battle in which Britons had been successful.
Canons ' preserved in the north of France, obviously through
Brittany,' — the old Armorica now acquiring that name as
the refuge of Britons*,— are probably to be assigned to
these assemblies: one of these enactments is suggestive,
for it fixes the penance of ' a Christian who has acted as
guide to the barbarians ^' We find the Welsh Church
^ He sat there for twenty-one years, and afterwards returned to
Ai-morica ; thence went to the Franks, among whom he died. He is said
to have twice excommunicated the king of Gwent ; Pryce, p. 165. See
Haddan and Stubbs, i. 145. One of his disciples was Avan, who was
bishop of Llanafan-faur ; lb. 146, 166. On that church see Girald. Itin.
Camb. 1. I. The last bishop of Llanbadam-faur, Idnerth, was slain by his
people (Bp. Jones and Freeman, p. a66) in the eighth century.
' This is obviously a ^reverberation' of the proceedings of German.
(I owe this expression to the present Bishop of St. David's, formerly its
historian.) The date sometimes given, 519, is much too early : see it in
Hansi, viii. 583, where Giraldus' account is cited — how Daniel and
Dubrieius induced David to attend the synod, when attempts to convert
the Pelagians had failed ; how David, though standing on level ground,
made himself heard by the whole assembly ; how the ground beneath him
rose into a hill, on which afterwards a church was buUt in his honour ;
how the heresy utterly vanished ; how David succeeded Dubrieius as arch-
bishop of all Cambria (having been previously consecrated at Jerusalem^
and removed the archbishopric to Menevia. Giraldus (Roils Series), iii.
399, &c
' Giraldus, De Yit. Da v. 9 (iii. 401), and Itin. Camb. ii. 4 (vi. lao^-.
He calls it a synod of bishops, abbots, and aU the clergy, 'una cum
popula'
* Among the Britons who became saints of Armorica were MadoviuH
or 'St. Male,' the Machutus of our calendar, and Sampson of Dol.
' Haddan and Stubbs, i. ii6~ii8. It was long afterwards assumed that
these synods must have been held by authority of the Roman see, an
' assertion obviously absurd as applied to the Welsh Church of the sixth
century.'
D 2
36 Dubrtcius and David.
CHAP. I. receiving Irish disciples, such as Finnian of Clonard *, and
thus promoting a revival of religious devotion in their
country. Gildas himself crossed the Irish sea in order to
aid in this work, and died in Ireland in 570^: and the
great Irish-bom missionary St. Columba directed a criminal
who professed contrition to spend twelve years in penance
among the Britons ^. Finally, among the eminent Cymric
bishops* of this period, beside those who have been
mentioned, two stand out as typical, Dubricius or Dyfrig,
whom the church of Llandaff, in its renovated beauty,
owns as its first bishop®, — who lived on through twelve
years of the seventh century and died in retirement in
the sacred isle of Bardsey®: and he whose late and
extravagant legend "^ is in such strange contrast to the
little that can be ascertained about his life,— the national
St. i>avid. saint of Wales, Dewi or David. His time, like that of
Dubricius and others, has been antedated, for the sake
^ One of the two Finnians under whom Columba studied. This Finnian
had twelve disciples, *• called the twelve apostles of Erin.' His namesake
was of Moville.
' The Irish saints who had come under the influenoe of David, Oadoc,
and Gildas, were called those of * the second order ' ; Haddan and Stubbs,
i. 115.
' Adamnan, Vit. S. Ck>lumb. i. aa.
* The reverence of the Welsh for their sainted bishops appeared, as
otherwise, so in their regarding an oath on a saint's handbell, or pastoral
staff, as more sacred than on the Gospels ; Girald. Itin. Gamb. i a.
' See Monast. Angl. vi. p. iai7 ff. ; Haddan and Stubbs, i. 158 ; Pryoe,
Ana Brit. Ch. p. 160. The second bishop, after his resignation, was
Teliau or Teilo, who, according to the legend, was the pupil of Dyfrig and
the friend of David, and, after sitting as bishop at Llandaff, spent some
years in Armorica, and then returning, held Menevia with Llandaff
(see Lib. Landav. p. 9a). The third was Oudoceus, said to have excom-
municated King Mouric for perjury and murder, in a synod of all his
clergy, including three abbots; Hon. Ang. vi. laas. Such synods are
repeatedly mentioned in these documents. St. Teilo^s shrine remains near
the sedilia at Llandaff.
* Annal. Camb. a. 6ia. Benedict of Glouoesteri his biographer, dates
his death Nov. 14, 6ia ; Wharton, Ang. Sao. it 661. But the Llandaff
story was that his body was removed to Llandaff in iiao. In Bardsey,
or Tnys Enlli, says Giraldus, * ut fertur, infinita sanctorum sepuita sunt
corpora * ; Itin. Gamb. ii. o. 6. Legend reckoned them as ao,ooo ; Liber
Landav. p. a. It was called the Rome of Wales ; ib. p. i ; cp. Pryco,
p. 181.
^ See it in Bp. Jones and Freeman, p. a4i ; Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 194 ;
Pryce, p. ia9.
Dubricius and David. 37
of connecting him with the days of King Arthur^: he chap. i.
seems to have taken part in the synod of Uanddewi,
and certainly established an episcopal seat at Eilmuine or
Myny w, better known as Menevia, that remotest extremity
of South Wales where now the cathedral that bears his
name presents so unique and pathetic a combination of
indefeasible majesty and irreversible decay. He appears
to have died in 601 *. The stories about a regular Welsh
archbishopric, held at first by Dubricius, and then trans-
ferred by David to Menevia, are without foundation: the
Wekh Church of that age had no metropolitans ^ and
the tale about St. Sampson of Dol in Brittany, which
represented him as having been archbishop at York *, and
then at Menevia, is a myth of yet later date; the fact
being simply that he was consecrated in Wales, and thence
proceeded to Armorica, and sat in a Council of Paris in
' In Gteoffrey^B romance Dubricius addresses Arthur*8 army, crowns him,
resigns the archbishopric of Caerleon. The author of * Chronicles of Anc.
Brit. Church' makes Dyfrig, first, bishop of Llandaff, and secondly,
in 490, archbishop of Caerleon ; p. 115. See too the uncritical account in
Williams, Antiq. of Cymry, p. 130. The Liber Landavensis extends his
life beyond a century and a half. Geoffrey tells how David succeeded
Dubricius at Caerleon, and died at Menevia, viii. i ; the early and
fictitious date for his death is 544. Montalembert in both cases follows
the legend ; see his ' Monks of the West.* The most picturesque story
about him is that of the *■ Evangelium Imperfectum ' ; that he was
copying St. John*s Gospel, left his work on hearing the church bell,
at his return found the page completed in gold letters, and out of
reverence added nothing to the copy ; Girald. Op. iii. 393.
* Annal. Camb. (written some aoo years later). In Giraldus Cam-
brensis' Life of him (Works, iii. 403), he is said to have had, when
dying, a vision of Christ, and to have expired saying, ^ Lord, take me
up after Thee ! ' A yet later date for his death is 64a. He is said to
have been succeeded by Teilo (Girald. Itin. Camb. ii. i), or by Cynog,
or by Ismael (Lib. Landav. p. 109).
' Haddan and Stubbs, i. 148 ; Bp. Jones and Freeman, p. 253. The
story was that Teilo, on becoming archbishop of Menevia, transferred
the primacy to LlandaiT ; cf Rees, p. 343. See, however, his remarks
on p. 991.
* Geofi^y, vii. 3 (ix. 8), makes Arthur see with grief the ruin of religion
at York, after the Saxons had driven out 'blessed Sampson the arch-
bishop.* The fictitious connexion of Sampson with York is ignored by Alb.
Butler (July a8) ; nor does it appear in the Liber Landavensis. GiralduM
makes him twenty-fifth archbishop of St. David's, and tells the story
about his removal of the pall to Dol; Itin. Camb. il. i. Cp. Desor.
Camb. i. 4, where he reckons twenty-three. (Op. vi loa, 170.)
38 Flight of British Bishops.
CHAP. T. 557 \ Setting aside such fancies, it is worth while to
observe how the situation of St. David's illustrates the fact
that these old Celtic bishops valued monastic seclusion even
more than facilities for episcopal administration ^.
One of Geoflfrey's statements as to the prelates of Teuton-
ized Britain may represent a modicum of fact. He says ^
that when the Saxons drove the British fugitives into
Wales and Cornwall, Theon bishop of London, and Thadioc
of York, fled into Wales with the ' archbishop ' of Caerleon
and their surviving clergy. This he dates in the latter
part of the sixth century. But if London fell soon after
the middle of the century, while Deira had been conquered
soon after its commencement, these prelates can hardly
have been companions in flight. However, we know that
in the latter part of the seventh century there was a dear
ti-adition as to the names of ' sacred places abandoned by
the British clergy ' of the North country in general, when
they * fled from the sword ' of the conquering race *. If
this was so, when we think of what the Divine mercy was
preparing at this time for a country bereft of pastors and
even of flocks, we may observe a new verification of the
devout proverb that man's necessity is God's opportunity.
Christi- It did, indeed, seem as if Heathenism had fairly beaten
ruined in down Christianity in the largest portion of South Britain :
mostdf the East-Anglians, and the settlers in the Lichfield and
Britain. Rcpton district who were called Mercians, as dwelling
near the Welsh border or march *, had been forming them-
* Mansi, ix. 747. See Haddan and Sttibbs, i. 149, 159.
' Bp. Jones and Freeman, p. 251. Caerleon, says Giraldus, was 'far
more fitted for a metropolitan see than this angolas remotissimus, terra
saxosa, sterilis, infecunda : it was of set purpose that saints chose such
abodes,— much preferring the eremitic to the pastoral life ; ' Itin. Oamb.
ii. I. For Aidants choice of Lindisfarne, see below.
■ Geoffrey, viii. a. See Stubbs, Begistrum Sac. Ang. p. 15a. The
tviiditional date is 586. For the fall of London, &ee Green, Making of
England, p. no.
* Edditts, Vit. 8. Wilfiridi, 17. See Chaucer, *Tale of the Man of
Lawe ' : —
<To Walys fled the oriatianitee
Of olde Britons, dwelling in this ile.'
* Green, p. 15 : see Palgrave, Anglo-Sax. p. 45 ; Freeman, i. 96 ; Pear-
son, i. 106. The Mid-Anglians, as far as they are distinct from the
Mercians, dwelt eastwards towards Leicester.
What Opening for a Mission? 39
selves into regular kingdoms : the West Saxon Ceawlin's chap. i.
defeat at Wodensburg,or Wanborough, in 591, soon followed
by his death, was indeed the aggrandizement of his re-
volted nephew*. But it was more. It opened the way
to supremacy for a prince who, twenty-three years earlier,
had been checked by Ceawlin in his attempt to extend
his realm. That victory on the Berkshire downs was
momentous, for it helped Ethelbert of Kent, who had
recently espoused a Frankish princess, to become the
overlord of East Saxons and East Angles. North of
Hiunber, indeed, he had no ascendency ; Edwin, the child
of Ella, had been dispossessed, after his father's death,
by the king of Bemicia*, Ethelric, who was succeeded
within five years by his son, a prince of equal energy, and
known by the appellations of 'the Fierce'^' and 'the
Devastator*,' that Ethelfrid, properly iEthelfrith, whom
Bede describes as, like Benjamin, a ravening wolf, and
of whom he says that no other Anglian chief wrought
such havoc among the race of Britons ^. Every one of these
rulers and nations was bound by habit and tradition to
the old Teutonic Paganism ; it might even seem that their
very successes had hardened them in antipathy to the
religion of the Cross : was it to be expected, under these
conditions, that ministers of that religion, foreign to
conquerors and conquered alike, could appeal to such
a people and be heard? Yes, it was the hope and the
faith of the greatest Christian of that time: and to his
action, in the strength of such hope and faith, we owe the
beginnings of our English Christianity.
' Sax. Ohr. and Florence. Hen. Huntingdon's account of the battle of
Wodensbnrg, * God gave the yictory to the Britons,* is explained by
the fact that Britons, and even Scots, were allied with Ceolric (or Oeol)
the ' Hwlocian,* against his uncle Ceawlin. See Palgraye, p. 404 ; Guest's
Orig. Celt, ii 243; Green, Making of Engbind, p. 207. Wanborough
is a little to the east of Swindon.
' Florence, Chron.
' Hen. Hunt. a. 593.
* ' Fleeaurs,' in Nennius, « Devastator.
* Bede, i. 34 ; Palgrave, Engl. Comm. p. 438.
CHAPTER II.
Gregory 'GREGORY our father ^' who 'sent us baptism 2;' such
•^ ^^ were the terms of simple and grateful affection in which
the early English Christians spoke of that greatest and,
on the whole, most lovable' of Roman bishops, whose
pontificate extended from 590 to 604. The fatherly title
was signally appropriate to a character so full of energetic
charity. He who, unlike 'other pontiffs,* spent yet more
on the poor than on the building of churches * ; he who
once debarred himself from celebrating the Eucharist,
because a poor man had been starved to death in a great
scarcity*; he whose correspondence with distant friends
overflows with such vivid consciousness of a oneness which
no distance could affect^; he whose thoughtful and dis-
criminating sympathy gave directions that a sick cleric
^ Council of CloyeshO) ▲. d. 747 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 368.
' A.-S. Ghr. a. 565. Compare Aldhelm, de Laude Virginitatis, 55 :
' GregoriuB . . . paedagogus noster, noster, inquam, qui nostris parentibus
. . . regenerantis gratiae nonnam tfadidit.'
* See Robertson's Growth of the Papal Power, p. 1x5 : ' Gregory stands
in the foremost rank of Popes who have contributed to the exaltation of
their see. . . . He is the only one of those Popes whose memory we can
regard with much affection/ Yet^ says Hodgkin, ^ he was not naturally
a 8weet-temi>ered man' (Italy and her Inyaders, y. 391); there was in
him a strain of the old Roman hardness ; he was * peremptory and stem
in discipline,' and could sometimes be 'harsh' (Church, Misoell. Essays,
p. 390), and often sarcastic in censuring subordinates who took their
duties too easily (e. g. Epist. i. 44). It is the more to his credit that ho
reproached himself 'non leyiter' for being seyere to a monk 'non pro
grayi culpa' (Ep. ii. 39).
* Paul the Deacon's Life of Greg, c 16.
^ John the Deacon's Life of Greg. ii. 99. Paul wrote at the close of the
eighth century : John a century still later. See Gibbon, v. 36a.
* Greg. Ep. i. 66 ; iii. 48, 54 ; vi. 60 ; viii. 9 ; xiL i.
The Church and Slavery. 41
was not to lose his stipend ^ forbade a prelate in bad crap. n.
health to keep fast or vigil ', remitted the Church's claim
on the property of three orphans ^ and provided bedding
for the pilgrims of Mount Sinai ^, and a yearly allowance
of wheat and beans for a man with bad eyesight', — was
just the man to unite this natural and genial kindness
with that Christian love for souls, so fervent as an emotion
and so vigorous as a motive, which betokens and crowns
the genuine pastor.
We all know the immortal story of the origin of his story
interest in our heathen ancestors, and therefore of thatEngil^i^
work which he did for England, and which made Bede say *>oys-
with such loving emphasis, * Though he be not an apostle
to others, yet he is to us, for the seal of his apostleship
are we in the Lord^/ It was probably just before he
went in 578 as the Pope's confidential agent ^ to Con-
stantinople, or else after his return in 585 ®, that Gregory,
then a deacon, passing through the Roman Forum, amid
the din of its multifarious traffic, saw some ® boys exposed
for sale. The slave-trade was rife at this time, and indeed
long afterwards: the spirit of that creed which acknow-
ledged all to be one in God and in Christ had not yet
^ Ep. ii. 8.
' £p. zi. 33. Gregory offered to tend him personally.
' Ep. iii. 91. Compure a remission of money due from an old man, if
found to be poor, £p. xii. 9.
* Ep. xi. I. * Ep. L 67.
* Bede, ii. i. So' in the coronation office of King Ethelred : < Sanctae
Mariae, ac beati Petri apostolorum principis, Sanctique Qregorii Anglorum
apostoli . . . meritis.' Maskell, Hon. Rit. ii. 36.
' 'Apocrisiarius.' Benedict I was Pope 574-578, Pelagius II 578-590.
Or^p>ry was at Constantinople from 578 to 585, under Pelagius.
* Paul, c 19, gives the later date ; ' apostolico Pelagia' John, i. aa,
gives the earlier ; ' ad Benediotum.' So does the earlier Life, by a monk
of Whitby, edited by Ewald fh>m a MS at St Qalleu, Eng. Hist. Beview,
iii. 30Z ; Plummer's Bede, ii. 389. So the Benedictine biographers, b. i. 4,
5 ; and they are followed by Dr. Hodgkin (v. 991). Gregory became a
monk dr. 575, deacon in 577, abbot in 585, Pope on Sept. 3, 590, wA 591,
as Bede implies (L 93). Gregory's predecessor, Pelagius II, died Feb. 8,
590, and the day of his own accession was Sept 3, which fell on a Sunday
in 59a For the year 590 see the Benedictine Life, L'Art de YtSrifier,
iii. 377, fto; It is adopted by modem writers.
* Thorn says tAfiee, but an indefinite number easily becomes a triad.
42 The Church and Slavery.
ruAp. II. undermined the inveterate usage which treated human
beings as capable, under certain circumstances, of becoming
f lawful property : canons of councils had freely owned the
right of Christian laymen, even of clergy or monks, to
^ possess bondsmen ^ : to emancipate one's slave was an act
of beneficence, but beyond that point Church teaching
did not go. Gregory was among those Church teachers
who did much to abate the evils of slavery, and in that
sense to prepare for its extinction * : he, as Pope, sold sacred
vessels to ransom captives ^ and in an act of manumission
declared that, ' since the Redeemer had become incarnate
to set men free, it was a good thing to restore to their
natural freedom those whom the law of nations had
deprived of it */ Let us try to picture him, with his ruddy
face, scanty darkish hair, high brow, and tapering hands ^,
as he stands still, attracted by the sad sight of those
helpless lads, whose white skin^ and golden hair were
proof enough of their Northern parentage, and were
associated with a beauty of face which their unhappy
condition would make all the more touching. He who,
in after-years, used to take pains with the teaching of his
young choristers'^, was moved to the very soul with pity
' E. g. Council of Agde, c. 7, 56 ; first of Orleans, c. 3. Comp. Greg. Ep.
iii I ; V. 34,
' See Milman, Lat Ghr. iL 47, 53 ; Hist. Jews, iii. 48. On the three
ways in which Christianity acted in this direction, see Leckj, Europ.
Morals, ii. 70.
^ See £p. vii. 13, 38. Compare St. Ambrose, de Offic. Ministr. ii aS,
and Acacins in See. vii. ai. See Bingham, y. 6. 6.
^ Ep. tL la. Comp. Greg. Reg. Pastoral, iii. 5 : masters are to be
admonished ^ut naturae suae, qua aequaliter sunt cum servis conditi,
memoriam non amittant.' See the expressions of Old-English feeling on
this point in Pref. to Chron. of Abingdon, vol. ii. p. Iii.
' John the Deacon's Life of Greg. iy. 84. From Ep. zi. 44 he would
seem to haye been stout, until the gout brought him low. See Barmby*s
Gregory the Great, p. 14a.
* Paul, 17 : ^ Laotei corporis, ac yennsti yultus, capillos praeoipui
candoris,* — shining sunny hair. John, i. ai : ^oorpore candidos, forma
pulcherrimos, yultu yenustos, eapillorum quoque nitore peiBpicuoe.'
Bede, earlier than both, has, ^candidi corporis et yenusti yultus,
eapillorum quoque forma egregia ; ' IL i. The St Gallen Life, apparently
earliest of all, < forma et crinibus candidati albis.'
^ Joan. Diac, ii 6.
J
Gregory and the English Boys. 43
for the slave-boys, and asked from what country they chap. n.
came. The slave-owner — probably a Jew^ — answered,
' From Britain : the people there have these fair com-
plexions/ Then came the question, as from Gregory's full
heart, 'Are they heathens or Christians^?* * Heathens/
He sighed, as a servant of Christ might well sigh : ' Alas I
that such bright faces should be in the power of the prince
of darkness — that with outward forms so lovely, the mind
within should be sick ' and empty of grace I How do you
call their nation?' 'Angles.' Then, with that fondness
for playing on the sound of a name, with a serious thought
under the playfulness*^, which we see in Eusebius^, and
also in Bede himself^, he replied, *'Tis well, — they have
Angels' faces; it were meet they should be fellow-heirs
with Angels in heaven. What is their native province ? '
* Deira ;' we might translate, Yorkshire, — for the southern
of the two Northu^mbrian realms may for practical purpose^
be identified with the land between theTees and Humber:
and Gregory's ear, catching its name, suggested the comment,
* They must be rescued de ira Dei.* One more question :
who was their king? 'Aella'^.' 'AUeluia, praise to God
the Maker, ought to be sung in those parts.' He passed
on, and saw the boys no more ; but the thought of their
^ Milman, Hist Jews, iii. 48. Op. Greg. Ep. iz. 36, that Jews bought
ChriBtian slaves from Gaul, and a Jew explained to him that the magis-
trates ordered them to buy slayes. In Ep. ix. no he exhorts Frank kings
not to permit Jews to keep Christian slaves. In Ep. iii. 38 he exhorts
a prefect to set free Christian slaves bought by a *yery wicked ' Jew.
* Ethelwerd, In his Chronicle, ii. i, gives a corrupt version of this
coUoquy, making Gregory address the young Angles, who answer that no
one has opened their ears to Christianity.
' Paul. Disc has ^aegram,' which Bede omits.
^ 'Bhetorice ethimologizans,' Thorn, in X Script. 1757.
* Euseb. V. 94, IrenaeuB ; vi. 41, Macar ; vii. 10, Macrianus ; vii. 31, Manes.
Two of these passages are quotations.
* Bede, ii. 15, FeUx, So in his life of St. Felix of Nola, c. i : * nominis
sol mysteiiom factis exsequens.' So iii. a on < Hefenhelth ' : ' oaelestis
eampQs, quod certo ubique praesagio,' Ac. So Columban in his letter to
Gregory, ' Tua Y igilantia ; ' Greg. Ep. ix. 137. So Columba on Libranus,
Adam nan, ii. 39 ; and St. Augustine on Pelagius in De Grat. Chr. 45 ;
and St. Athanasios on Hosius in Hist. Ari. 49.
^ Ella died in 588. He appears as < AUa' in Chaucer's 'Man of Lawe's
Tale.'
44 Gregory becomes Pope.
CHAP. II. nation's spiritual need impelled him to wring from the
Pope — probably Benedict I — ^a permission to go and preach
to the Angles. But this was not to be : the Romans beset
the Pope with outcries, demanding the recall of Gregory ^ ;
V and Gregory was recalled, and obeyed. Some years —
perhaps thirteen — elapsed, and he himself occupied the see,
being then just fifty years old *. He was at once immersed
in business of all kinds ; troubles caused by Donatism in
Africa, a schism in Istria on the question of the Three
Articles',' heresy vexing Eastern Christendom, practical
corruptions tainting the Gallic Church, pestilence in Rome,
Lombards even encamping before its walls, vexations con-
nected with the see of Ravenna and other churches, a
dispute with the Emperor Maurice *, a more famous
controversy with John bishop of Constantinople as to the
^ title of Oecumenical Patriarch ; he had also literary work,
the composition of his 'Pastoral Rule^,' the compilation
of his Sacramentary, and other such designs to be carried
out, beside his preaching and other episcopal duties. Yet
we may well believe that he never lost the remembrance
of those * bright faces ' of the Yorkshire lads in the slave-
market : and at last, in 596) he took some steps towards an
English mission by ordering the steward of his church's
estates in Gaul to spend some of their proceeds in pur-
chasing boys of seventeen or eighteen, of English birth,
that they might receive a Christian education*. But
immediately afterwards he resolved on more direct
action. He had founded in 575 a monastery, dedicated to
} John puts their outcry into a jingle : ' Petrum offendisti, Romam
destruxiflti, quia Gregorium dimisisti' ; L 23, abridged from Paul.
^ He was probably born in 540 ; Bened. Life, i. i. 6 ; Barmby, p. 99.
* Many Westerns feared that, by accepting the decree of tiie recent
* Fifth Council ' in regard to Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas, they would be
condemning the Fourth Council and the 'tome ' of St. Leo.
* There is no palliating his deplorable exultation at the accession of
Maurice's murderer, Phocas : yet Maurice, who ^ often did the right things
in the wrong way ' (Hodgkin, Italy and her Inyaders, v. 434), had given
him some cause for irritation.
^ On this famous manual, see Licinianus' letter to Gregory ; £p. ii. 54.
* £p. vL 7, to Candidus. Cp. Hardwick, Ch. Hist. M. Ages, p. iii, on
a similar scheme as carried out by St. Anskar.
His Plans for an English Mission. 45
St. Andrew, on his own estate on the Coelian hill, and chap, il
had lived there as monk and as abbot ^. He retained a
special interest in this long-loved home, within whose
precincts he had been so happy, but had also, we must
confess it, on one occasion shown towards a monk who had
broken the rule a relentless severity, the effect of monastic
rigorism prevailing over his natural kindness of heart ^.
In a monastery the officer next to the abbot was called
the * praepositus * or provosts Gregory in one passage
says that an abbot's negligence must be remedied by
means of a vigilant * praepositus * ': we hear of one Pretiosus
as his * praepositus ' at the time just referred to * : and at
the period which we have reached the office was held by
Augustine, who had once been a pupil of Felix bishop of
Messana ^. Gregory selected him '', and several others of Mission of
the house, to undertake a mission to the English. Probably, and his
with his * wonderful capacity for business, his wide, various, fo^P**'^-
lond.
^ John the Deacon, i. 6. The site, described as * ad clivum Scauri,* is
one of the most beautiful in Rome, in full view of the Palatine and the
Ayentine. An Inscription in the yestibule mentions Augustine and his
first successors in the see of Canterbury as among those who 'ex hoc
monasterio prodierunt.' The present church is modern, but its southern
chapel represents the place where Gregory was wont to * refresh his
wearied limbs with moderate rest/ and contains his marble chair. Near
the spot was a public library, founded by Pope Agapetus in a house of
his own : Landani, Ancient Rome, p. 190, and hia Pagan and Christian
Borne, p. aag. Gregory in Ep. viii. 11 confirms an agreement between
Candidus, abbot of St Andrew's, and the * magister militiae.'
* DiaL iv. 55. Milman, Lat. Chr. ii. 104, gives the story as the most
signal case of such austerity, or rather pitiless harshness, on the part of
Gregory. Yet see Barmby, p. 38.
* So in Benedict. Reg. 65. 'Praepositi' appear in the Life of St.
Columba, Adamn. i. 30, 31. In Columban's Rule, c. 10, penance is
assigned to a monk who says to the 'praepositus,' 'Tu non judicabis
causam meam, sed noster abbas,' &c. BoisU was * praepositus ' at Melrose
under Rata as abbot ; Bede, It. 27, v. 9, and Cuthbert at Lindisfarne,
Vit. Cuthb. 16. The word * prior ' would best express *■ praepositus.'
* Ep. Y. 6. Cp. Dial. i. a, 7.
* John, 1. 0.
* See Greg. Ep. xiy. 17, 'alumno tuo.' Felix calls him * consodalis.*
^ Augustine was afterwards (by Leo III) described as holding the
office of tynceUus, or companion in the cell or private room, to Gregory ;
Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 539 ; and cp. can. aa and 33 of fourth Council
of Toledo, Mansi, x. 6a6. See Fleury, b. as, c. 5 (^Oxford ed. vol. iii.
P-I3)-
46
Ethelbert and Bertha.
state of
Kent.
CHAP. n. and minute supervision ^/ which seemed to sweep the
whole area of Christendom, from the internal troubles of
African Churches to a local feud in Jerusalem and the
grievances of a priest of Lycaonia ^, and which caused one
of his biographers to call him an ' Argus full of eyes ^/ he
had procured information as to the state of the English
which showed that the native district of the * angel-faced '
boys was no promising mission-field while Ethelfrid ruled
over it, and on the other hand that the part of Britain
most accessible from the continent was precisely that which
seemed to ofier an 'open door/ For Ethelbert, properly
iEthelberht *, king of the Jutish realm of Kent, who now,
after thirty years of royalty, stood pre-eminent*^ among the
South-Humbrian princes, might be supposed likely to give
a favourable hearing to preachers of the religion professed
by his wife. Bertha, daughter of a former Frankish king,
Charibert of Paris, had been long before espoused by Ethel-
bert on the express condition that she should be free to
worship as a Christian, under the guidance of a Frankish
bishop, Liudhard®. This condition had been observed:
Liudhard resided in Kent, and while ' Bertha had made no
attempt to convert' her Pagan husband^, he had never
disturbed his wife in regard to her Christian duties. This,
probably, the Pope had learned ; and he himself declares
* Robertson, ii. 371; cp. Milman, Lat. Chr. il. iia; Hodgkin, Italy
and her iDvaders, v. 310. In estimating these qualities, it must be
remembered that he had been prefect of the city. Church dwells on
the minuteness of his directions for the benefit of the church tenants
(MiscelL Essays, p. 93a).
* Ep. i. 77 ; vii. 3a j vi. 66.
* John the Deacon, ii. 55.
^ Or ^thelbriht, Ghron. Albert, as Dean Stanley observes (Mem. Cant.
p. 31), is but Ethelbert (-^ Adalbert) abbreviated.
^ Bede, ii. 5. On the leadership or primacy which has been associated
with the title of Bretwalda, cp. the somewhat differing views in Kemble,
Sax. in Engl. ii. it, Freeman, i. 548, and Green, Making of England,
p. 307 ; and see Stubbs, Constit. Hist. i. 190 ; Rhys, Celt. Brit. p. 136.
* ' Quam ea conditione a parentibus acceperat,' &c. ; Bede, i. as. See
Greg. Turon. Hist. Fr. iv. a6, 'filiam quae postea in Cantiam, virum
accipiens, est deducta.' Charibert (or Haribert) was son of Chlotair I
(Carlyle's 'wild Clotaire') and grandson of Clovis. He reigned from 561
to 567. Gregory of Tours gives him a bad character.
^ Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. a3. Perhaps she had tried and failed.
Augustine and his Companions. 47
that he had been informed of a desire on the part of the chap. h.
English for Christian instruction, and reprobates the
neglect of the Gallic bishops to impart it*. He could,
indeed, have had but an imperfect idea of the complexities
of the political condition of Britain, or of the difEculties
which it would offer to a missionary : yet had he known
more, he would still have acted in faith, and sent forth his
agents in the all-sustaining Name.
And so, apparently in the epring of 596, they went Miagivings
forth, obedient and hopeful, and * got through some small siona^rleHf
part of their journey.' So Bede tells us^; in fact, they
had reached Provence, and probably rested in that illustrious
monastery which for nearly two centuries had made the
name of the isle of Lerins' sacred and venerable to all who
«
had heard of its discipline and its devotion, and of the light
of sacred learning there kept alive in a country dark with
spreading ignorance, and darker yet with stormy crime.
Stephen abbot of Lerins, as well as Protasius bishop of Aix
and the ' patrician ' or provincial governor* Arigius, wel-
comed the strangers heartily. But they also heard more
than they had dreamt of as to the hard fierce nature of the
Saxons, and began to realize the obstacle involved in their
ignorance of the Saxon tongue*. With somewhat of the
' Greg. Ep. vi. 58, 59.
* Bede, i. 93. He dates their journey in the fourteenth year of Maurice,
which began August 13, 595. Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 3« Robertson, ii.
387, and Moberly (on Bede, 1. c.) think that they set out in 595. But
Gregory's letter sent back with Augustine is dated on July 33 in that
fourteenth year ; i. e. in 596. It is not likely that the voyage to ProTence,
a short sojourn there, and Augustine's return voyage, would occupy more
time than between the early spring and the middle of July of that year.
The Benedictines date the first journey in 596 : so does Smith, on Bede,
L c : so Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. ai.
' See Tillemont, xii. 473 ; Fleury, b. 24, c. 58 ; Sirmond. Op. i. 1039.
' From the isle of Lerins came forth the gi^eatest saints and scholars of
the time ; ' Kitchin, Hist. France, i. 65. The * Quicunque ' has recently
been agfun attributed to some one of the theologians of Lerins (Bum on
Athan. Creed, in Studia Sacra, iv. p. xcvi).
* See Greg. Op. ii. 493, and Kitchin, i. 85. On the Gonstantinian use of
the title, see Gibbon, ii. 309. It had been borne by Ricimer the ' Em-
peror-maker.' Clovis began his victories by defeating the * patrician '
Syagrius of Soissons. Gregory thanks Arigius for his kindness, Ep. vi. 57.
' Life of St. Augustine (Lives of Engl. Saints), p. 74.
48 Misgivings silenced by Gregory.
CHAP. II.
( i regory
urges
them to
procwni.
weakness shown by St Mark after he landed in Pamphylia^,
they began to think they had undertaken more than they
could compass, and, doubtless, to long for the hallowed
quiet of their old home on the Coelian. ' Struck with
a sluggish timorousness,' so Bede phrases it, ' they thought
of returning home, and after taking counsel together,
determined that this was the safer course ^/ But as Fuller
fairly remarks, their shrinking was not unnatural, al-
though it is ' facile ' to call them cowards^ ; and a modem
historian of the Saxons fully recognizes the extreme
onerousness of their task^. 'No sooner said than done,'
Bede continues : * they send back Augustine, who accord-
ing to Gregory's plan was to be ordained their bishop if
they should be welcomed by the English, and commission
him to induce Gregory by humble supplication to excuse
them from a journey so full of perils, of toils, of un-
certainties'
They might, one would think, have known Gregory
better. When Augustine reached Rome, and presented
their request to the Pope, it was refused: Gregory, on
July 23, 596, sent a letter to them by Augustine^ to this
purpose : — * It were better not to begin a good work than
^ Acts xiii. 13.
* Bede, i. 23.
' Fuller, Ch. Hist. il. 5a : a passage full of oharming irony.
* Kemble, ii. 357. He calls the mission-journey of Augustine and his
companions ' heroic' If this phrase is too strong, Haddan's representation,
of their fears as groundless is far from fair (Remains, p. 305). Gocelin,
in order to save St. Augustine's honour, assumes that he 'was not able to
resist' their urgency ; Vit. Maj. Aug. c. i. s. 6 (cir. 1080).
^ Ep. Ti. 51 ; Bede, 1. c. Here we may remark on the reckoning by
' indictions,' which appears in this and other papal letters given by Bedo*
Early in the fourth century arose the custom of arranging years in periods
of fifteen, in accordance with the rule that property should be revalued
after such periods : each year in such a series was reckoned as 'indictiou
I, a/ &c The oldest or ' Constantinopolitan ' scheme took Sept. i for ita
starting-point. Gregory was the first pope who reckoned by indictions,
and he employed the Constantinopolitan (Bened. Edd. in Ep. i. i). Cf.
Nicolas, Ghron. Hist. p. 6 ; Diet. Chr. Ant. 1. 83a. Thus the Benedictine^
assign b. i of the Gregorian letters to the 9th year of an indiction (abhre*
▼iated into 9th indiction), b. a to the loth, and so on, until b. 8 begins
another indiction, and the concluding b. 14 belongs to its 7th year. On
the rearrangement of the order of the letters, see Hodgkin, v. 333 If.
Misgivings silenced by Gregory. 49
to begin it and turn back from it* : you have undertaken chap. ir.
this work by the Lord's help, — carry it out with activity
and fervour, knowing that much labour wins all the
greater reward/ It is beautiful to see the wise gentleness ^
with which he treats his ' dearest sons ' : an inferior man
would have vented his annoyance in harsh rebukes, which
would have by no means ' upheld the feeble knees,' — but
Gregory knew better. There is something Pauline in the |
delicacy with which he hopes that ' in the eternal Country
he may see the fruit of their labour and share in the
reward, as he had wished to share the work.* Other
evidence of his tact is given by his appointment of
Augustine to be their abbot ; no longer a mere prior, but
the father and director, who would be able in future,
authoritatively and on the spot, to repress any deliberation
or common action such as had ' sent him back ' to Rome.
Gregory also wrote, at the same time, letters in behalf
of the missionaries to the bishops of Tours ^, Marseilles,
Aries, Vienne, Autun, Aix, and to abbot Stephen, who had
sent to him, by Augustine, certain 'spoons and round
dishes*' for the use of poor folks in Rome. The letter to
Etherius of Lyons is given by Bede, but with a mistaken
address, Aries being put for Lyons. The Pope also com- State of
mended the monks to Theoderic II and Theodebert II, the
boy-kings of Burgundy and Austrasia *, and to their grand-
mother, the widow of the Austrasian Sigebert I, famous in
' See Greg. Beg. Past. iii. 34 ; it were more tolerable ' recti viam non
arripere, qnam arrepta post tergum redire.'
' Yet Pearson says that he wrote *• sternly,' Hist. Engl. i. laa ; and Hook,
while blaming Augustine, says that Gregory ' was unable even to under-
stand his feelings,' Archbishops, i. 51. Gocelin remarks beautifully that
the timorous request * might have troubled the high-souled Gregory's
charity, as if his undertaking were frustrated — nisi speraret in nomine
Domini, in quo sua coepta credebat feliciter perfici.'
* See Ep. Ti. ^^-$6.
* ' Cochleares et circulos,' Ep. vi. 56. This reminds us of the old chari-
tiee of the Roman Church administered by St. Laurence.
* Ep. vi. 58. They were the sons of Childebert, under whom the two
realms had been united. For Burgundy see Kitchin, Hist Fr. i. 59, 71,
84 : Church, Beginning of M. Ages, p. 18. * It was in fact the kingdom
of the Bhone,' Hodgkin, v. 900. For Austrasia, Oster-rik, the Eastern
realm, see Kitchin, i. 7a, 81, 84 ; Guizot, Hist Fr. c. 8. Hodgkin, v. aoa.
S
50 His Commendatory Letters.
CHAP. n. early French history alike for royal energy and tyrannous
vindictiveness under the name of Queen Brunehaut, pro-
perly Brunichild *. We must pause here a moment ; for
Gregory's confidential letters to this princess, whom he
once praises for bringing up her son well, and in other
letters exhorts to suppress ecclesiastical abuses* have
formed a difficulty somewhat analogous to his repulsive
laudation of the odious tyrant Phocas \ But Brunichild's
worst deeds, the result of pride and power, were done at
a later time^ : and her vigorous zeal for Roman organiza-
tion' as against barbaric licence, the capacity which she
had shown for wise and beneficent government, and also
her munificence to the Church, might well win the esteem
of the great pontiff who had once himself been Prefect of
Rome.
* Strengthened • ' by these and similar letters, Augustine
resumed his undertaking, and helped his companions to
nerve their wills to the great task. They travelled by
Marseilles to Aix, Aries, Vienne, Lyons, to the Burgundian
court at Chalon"^, ajid thence to Autun. The journey
would be rich in elevating and inspiriting remembrances,
especially when it brought them to the scene of the
martyrdom of Pothinus and of the labours of Irenaeus.
Thence, in the advancing autumn, they proceeded to Reims,
the capital of Austrasia ; visited Tours, where its historian
bishop had died in the year preceding ; and, as we infer
' Ep. yi. 59. Fredegariiis speaks of the evils and bloodshed 'a Bntni-
childis consilio in Francia facta,' Hist. Fr. Epit. 59. He calls her a second
Jezebel, Ohron. 36. But see Ruinart's note to his Ghron. 4a. On Brunichild
see Kitchin, i. 89, and Oman, 'Europe 476-918)' p. 175 ; and on Gregory's
complimentaiy language to her, Barmby's Gregory the Great, p. 109.
Hodgkin, v. 45a ; of. ib. 345.
' Ep. vi. 5 ; iz. II, 109 ; zi. 63, 69 ; xiii. 6.
" Ep. xiii. 31.
* The murder of Gbilperic in 584 is ascribed to her by Fredegariu8i,Hist.
Fr. Epit. 93, but by othera to Fredegond. It was in 607 that she procured
the murder of St. Besiderius of Vienne ; in 6ia she put to death Theode-
bert. Her own terrible death took place by Chlotair's order in 613.
' Guizot, Hist Fmnce, c. 8 ; Kitchin, i. 89.
* ' Roboratus,' Bede, i. a5.
* Chalon on the Saone, the residence of Theoderic of Burgundy. See
Smith's Bede, p. 68a
>/'*
The Missionaries in Gaul. 51
from a later letter of Gregory \ were well received at chap, n
Paris by the ruler of NeuBtria. That ruler was no other
than the atrocious Fredegond, then acting as regent for her
son Chlotair II, and drawing near to the outwardly tranquil
conclusion of a life which had been ' a calendar of crimes^.'
The missionaries wintered in Gaul'; and soon after
Easter — which fell in 597 on April 14 — they crossed the * '
Channel ; and thus, after all these preliminary experiences,
came face to face with their real work.
Where did they land ? we ask. The answer is ready. Landing
About four miles westward from Bamsgate, towards the tino.'*^**
comer of Pegwell Bay, a white comer-house on the road,
standing far within the old line of the coast, retains the
name of Ebb8fleet^the traditional landing-place of Hengest^,
the actual landing-place of Augustine. The river Stour
then expanded into an estuary ; so that the ' Isle of Thanet '
waa reaUy an island «, the stream forming a strait^ from
Richborough, the venerable Roman town of Rutupiae, to
the south, BJid Recidver, the Roman Regulbium, to the
north, on the mouth of the Thames. After thus touching
British ground, Augustine sent a message to King Ethel-
bert to this effect, * that they were come from Rome with
the best of all messages, and that if he would accept it, he
would undoubtedly ensure himself an everlasting kingdom/
Ethelbert answered at once kindly and cautiously; he
^ £p. xi. 6t.
' Kitchin, i. 88. For her utterly evil character see Hodgkin, v. 907.
Neustria, as it soon began to be called, was the land of the Western Franks,
and had its centre at Paris or at Soissons. Chlotair became kii\g in his
infancy, a. d. 584 ; Fredegond died in 597.
' A story current in the eleventh century described them as encoun-
tering, in a town of Anjou, rude insults such as men like them in those
days might easily provoke by their grave aspect and strange attire.
Women, says Gooelin, were foremost in this barbarous inhospitality,
driving them away like so many * wolves,' with wild outcries, and not
allowing them even to sleep under an elm. Vit. Mig. Aug. o. i. s. zo.
,v * See Stanley's Memorials of Canterbury, p. 99. Thorn calls the landing-
place Retesborough, X Script. 1759.
* ' Heopwines fleet/ Sax. Chr. a. 449. ' Fleet '«« harbour.
* See Pearson's Hist. Maps of Engl. p. 9.
' Called 'the river Wantsum ;' Bede, i 95. See the maps in Hasted's
Hiat. of Kent, iv. 98a
E %
52 They land in Kent.
CHAP, f r. would not hastily oommit himself. Let the strangers abide
in the isle of Thanet until he could see what to do with
Meeting them : their wants should be well supplied. ' Some days
Ethelbert. ^^^t be came into the isle/ prepared to give them an
audience: but, as a Teuton, he believed in witch-lore^,
and, after ' using augury,' concluded that the foreign priests
might employ spells^ to mislead him, if he received them
under a roof. He stipulated, therefore, that they should
address him in the open air, and the meeting was thus
arranged^ Ethelbert and his attendant thanes^ took
their seate, and saw some forty men advancing, with a lofty
silver cross ^ borne up in front, and beside this a board, on
which was painted the figure of the Crucified ^ He
must have seen some such emblems of Christianity belong-
ing to his wife or to her chaplain, but he had never perhaps
beheld their faith represented with such ritual solemnity ;
and Gregory's well-known opinion of the value of sacred
paintings '', as impressing religious truths on the mind, was
probably Augustine's reason for displaying one in this
* Kemble, i. 428 ; Turner, iii. 135.
' Bede, i. 25. Cp. iv. 37, * per incantationes ; ' Theodore's Penitential,
i. 15. 4 ; Egbert's, i. 8. i ; Council of Olovesho, c. 3 ; of Celchjth^ c. 3.
' ^ According to tradition, at Richborough;' EnglishLifeof St. Augustine,
p. 93. A cruciform ridge there was long called ' St. Augustine's Cross.'
Another traditional site is the high ground above Minster.
* ^Comitibus,' his personal companions, 'gesiths' (properly, 'fellow-
travellers'), who acted as his Hhanes,' ministri. See Kemble, i. 168;
Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 149 ; Lappenberg, ii. 317 ; Freeman, Growth of
Engl. Oonstit. p. 50. Compare Bede, iii. aa ; iv. aa ; v. 5.
'' In later times, *on donna le nom de CVioix k toutes les processions;'
L'Art de Verifier, ii. 5.
* Qocelin, Vit. Maj. S. Aug. s. 16: Mmaginem Domini Salvatoris,
formose atque aurose in tabula depictam.' < Wise pomp,' remarks Haddan,
Remains, p. 305. Compare Wordsworth, Eocl. Sonnets, No. 14 : —
'The Crora preceding Him who floats in air,
The pictured Saviour.'
' Greg. Ep. ix. 5a, that paintings of Christ are not to be worshipped,
but to be used as stimulants to devout affection. ' Blum adoramus quem
per imagine m aut natum, aut passum, sed et in throne sedentem i^eoorda-
mur.' So in Ep. ix. 105, to a bishop who had broken some pictures which
had been *■ adored ' : * Your duty was et illas servare, et ab earum adoratu
populum prohibere.' And similarly Ep. xi. 13, dwelling on the usefulness
of Racred paintings to those who cannot read, but absolutely forbidding
them to be 'adored.'
Augustine before Ethelbert. 53
momentous conference. A procession, too, was associated chap. n.
with choral supplications, and Gregory had instituted
a 'sevenfold litany,' or procession, to implore the Divine
succour during a pestilence^; on this occasion, therefore,
his emissaries, as they approached, ' sang litanies, entreating
the Lord for their own salvation and that of those to whom
they came.' The chant, although in a strange tongue, must
have brought to the rude listeners a sense of spiritual
power : and Augustine's majestic person, towering up above
all his companions ^, was certain to contribute to the im-
posing effect of the scene. The king bade his visitors sit
down, and Augustine spoke, assisted by a Gallic interpreter ^.
He told, said a Saxon homilist long after, 'how the tender-
hearted Jesus by His own throes,* — and here, doubtless, he
pointed to the cross and the painting, — * had redeemed the
sinful world, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all
believers *.' Bede says simply, that ' he preached to them
the word of life;' and Ethelbert's answer was 'exactly
what a king should have said on such an occasion*.' ' Fair ><
words and promises are these; but seeing they are new ^
and doubtful, I cannot give in to them, and give up what
I, with all the English race, have so long observed. But
since you have come a long way from a strange country, in
order — as I think I clearly see— to make known to us what
you believe to be best and truest, we ® do not mean to do you
any harm, but rather will treat you kindly, and take care
' Joan. Diac. L 49. 'Litany' is here lued as-: procession. 'Let the
litany of clergy start from St John Baptist's,' &c. See Palmer, Orig. Lit.
i. 271, and the note to Greg. Op. iv. 1384. In £p. zi. 51 Gregory exhorts
the Sicilian bishops to have litanies on Wednesdays and Fridays, in order
to obtain protection against barbarian invaders.
' If we can at all rely on the traditional account in Gocelin, Vit. Aug.
49, professing to come from an old man whose grandfather Augustine
had converted and baptized ; ' Staturam proceram et arduam, adeo ut
a scapulis populo superemineret.' In this he resembled St. Oolumba : see
Adamnan, Yit. Col. i. 1.
' He was to procure some such, Greg. £p. vi. 58.
< Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 11 ; Churton's Early Eng. Gh. p. 39.
' Stanley, p. 34. See the rendering in Freeman's Old-Engl. Hist. p. 47.
Malmesbury remarks on the kindness and fairness of the speech ; Gest.
Reg. i. 8. xo.
* Observe the plural, ' Nolumus molesti esse vobis.' The king unites
his thanes with him in this announcement
54 Ethelberfs Reply.
rHAF. II. that you have all that you need ; and we shall not hinder
you from bringing over any of our people to your own
belief/ One thing this royal answer lacked, — a promise to
hear their preaching again : but they had got as much as
at first they could .hope for in what Montalembert^ calls
the ' sincere and truly liberal ' speech of a king evidently
desirous to do justice, and to weigh his words in order fully
to make them good. Such a typical Teuton prince might
well represent that kind of preparedness for Christianity*
which consisted in a sense of the spiritual world, of the
gravity and solemnity of life, of rights as involving
obligations, in a regard for truth and noble manliness, for
liberty in combination with authority, for the purity which
could dignify the home. It was natural for him to be
fair and serious at a crisis of such magnitude. He could
discern the presence of something great in these represent-
atives of an unseen Kingdom : and so he might be trusted
to give them another opportunity of stating their case^.
Meantime, he promised them a house in the ' metropolis,' as
Bede loftily calls it, of his empire, the old Roman town of
Durovemum, which had become * the Burgh of the men of
Kent,' and from which, in the words of an old English
rhythm, were now to come * to Angle-kin Christianity and
bliss, for God and for the world*.'
Entrance Thither let us follow them, as they take the Roman road
terhiiry. &cross the downs to the top of the present St. Martin's hill,
and look forth, first on a little Roman-British chapel on the
slopes below them, and then on the wood-built city further
down, the Canterbury of Ethelbert. That little oratory was
St. Martin's, where Bertha and liudhard had for majiy years
worshipped, and probably prayed for such a day )5is was
now dawning. We, as we look back to its sunrise, may
well enter into Dean Stanley's remark, that the view from
^ In his < Monks of the West.'
* Cp. Ghuroh*8 Gifts of Civilization, &o., p. 390 ff., and Morivale's Con-
version of Northern Nations, p. 88 ff.
' Elmham ascribes it to Bertha's influence that her husband's mind
was favourably disposed towards Augustine's preaching ; Hist. Mon.
S. Aug. p. 309. So Malmesbuiy as to Liudhard, Gest. Reg. i. s. 9.
* Chronicle, a. xoxi.
Augustine enters Canterbury. 55
the present church of St. Martin is in this sense ' one of the crap. ir.
most inspiriting that can be found in all the world ^' Let
any one visit that venerable building, where the lines
of Roman brick * seem to assert its continuity with Bertha's
place of prayer, and then ascend to the brow of the hill,
and recall that day in the Ascension week of 597 when
Augustine first beheld the future seat of his archbishopric.
He would take possession of Canterbury for Christ. The
cross was again uplifted by the cross-bearer, and with it
'the likeness of the great King, our Lord^:' and the
bi'ethren accompanied their abbot in solemn order down
the hill, chanting a pathetic antiphon belonging to the
Bogation days, which they had perhaps heard in the
previous spring on their arrival in Provence*, and which
long remained in the Bogation services of the Church
of Lyons*, uniting the urgent intercession of 'the man
of desires ' for the ruined sanctuary of Judah ® with that
characteristic watchword of Paschal joy to which Gregory
had hoped that 'Angles* might yet listen. *We beseech ^
Thee, O Lord, in Thy great mercy, let Thine anger and
wrath be turned away from this city, and from Thy holy
house, for we have sinned. Alleluia ! ' With such a •
combination of humility^ and thankfulness was inaugurated
the foundation of the English Church properly so called.
If we follow the missionaries, in imagination, into Canter-
bury, and over the ground now called St. Alphage Lane,
* Stanley, p. 54.
' ' Small portions only of the Boman walls remain. Roman bricks are
used as old material in tiie parts rebuilt ' (Parker, Goth. Aroh. p. 10).
* Bede, i 35.
* The institution of Rogations, or processional supplications in time of
distress, had been invested with new solemnity by Mamertus of Vienne
before the Asoension-day of 468 ; see Greg. Turon. H. Fr. ii. 34. Thence
the obseryance spread. Augustine would have heard how St. Oaesarius
had recommended it : and although it had not as yet' been adopted at
Rome, he made it an institution in the English Church (Council of
Clovesho, a. 747). Bede himself died on the Rogation Wednesday of 735.
lu 597 Ascension Day was on May 33.
* Hartene, de Ant. Eccl. Rit. iii. 529.
* Based on an old Latin version of Daniel iz. 16.
^ The verse is also in a hymn composed by a teacher, himself a penitent,
at Whithem ; Bp. Forbes, Lives of Ninian and Kentigem, p. 392.
56 Life in Canterbury.
CHAP. n. almost under the shadow of the vast metropolitan church,
we are near the ' Stable-gate/ where, in close vicinity to
a heathen temple, they were to make their temporary
home^ There they dwelt, as Bede says*, 'after the
Life of the primitive Church model, giving themselves to frequent '
ariesin pr^y^rs, watchings, and fastings; preaching to all who
Canter- were within their reach, disregarding all worldly things
"*^' as matters with which they had nothing to do, accepting
from those whom they taught just what seemed necessary
for livelihood, living themselves altogether in accordance
with what they taught, and with hearts prepared to suffer
every adversity, or even to die, for that truth which
they preached. What need to say more?' he proceeds
significantly : ' some believed and were baptized ', admiring
the simplicity of their blameless life, and the sweetness
of their heavenly teaching.' It is the first of several beauti-
ful summaries, given by the single-minded and thoroughly
pious historian *, of the results produced by * the argument
of a pious life,' the evidence derived from self-devotion and
consistency. Doubtless there were among their hearers not
a few who were ' feeling after God ' : the serene brightness,
the mysterious majesty, the unimaginable tenderness of
the new faith had a fascinating power*, which became
' Elmham, Hist Mon. S. Aug. p. 91 : —
'Mansio signatur, quae Stabelgate notatur.'
Thorn (X Script. 1759) describes the place as * in the parish of St. Alphege.
over against the King's Street, on the north.*
' Bede, i. 96.
' 'You,' wrote Alcuin to the Kentish people, 'are the origin of the
salvation of the English/ &c. ; Ep. 59. (Op. i. 78.)
* See Bede, iii. 5, on Aldan : *■ Quod non alitor quam yivebat cum suis,
ipse docebat.' lb. iii. 17 : ' Industriam faciendi simul et dooendi man-
data caelestia.' Again, Fursey wrought on many souls 'et ezemplo
virtutis et incitamento sermonis,' iii. 19 : Tuda ' et verbo cunctos docebat
et opere,* iii. a6 : so of Oftfor, among the Hwiccas, * rerbum fidei
praedicans, simul et exemplum vivendi exhibens,' iv. 93 : and so of Cuth-
bert in iv. 97, aS, ' verbo praedicationis simul et opere virtutis. . . . £t
quiod moaifiM doctorea juoare solet, ea quae agenda docebat, ipse prius agendo
praemonstrabat.' Cp. Ep. to Egbert, 9, ' et operatione et doctrina . . . Neu-
tra enim haeo virtus sine altera rite potest impleri,* &o. Compare Gregory's
e'pitaph in Bede, ii. i : ' Implebatque actu quicquid sermone docebat,' and
his Pastoral Rule, ii. 3.
^ The Teutonic races . . . found themselves under the spell of the
Baptism of Ethelhert. 57
irresistible in connexion with such signal purity and chap. n.
whole-heartedness as the lives of its preachers displayed.
They were daily to be seen moving to and fro between the
Stable-gate and St. Martin's ^, where they ' sang the Psalms,
prayed, celebrated mass^, preached, baptized.' According Baptism
to the usual story ^, which was a part of the Canterbury ^^^
tradition, the Whitsun-eve which followed on their entrance
into Canterbury, that is, the ist of June, beheld the most
signal of their successes in the baptism of Ethelbert^
Whenever it took place, — and it must have taken place
during this summer, or at least in the next autumn, — it
was an event standing by itself * ; for no royal conversion
that we read of ^ could in all its circumstances, and with
regard both to moral reality or to grandeur of result,
come up to that which led the Kentish monarch to profess
the Christian faith with a triple ' I believe,' and descend as
a proselyte into ' the salutary laver,' that, in the words
actually used, ' he might be bom again into the new infancy
of true innocence,' and be 'strengthened by the clear
mightiest, the tenderest, and most wonderful of religions ; ' Church,
Beginning of M. Ages, p. 257^
' Gk>oelin makes Hhe blessed prelate Lotard' attend at St Martin's
when the Boman teachers, superior to him as gold to silver, *■ ibidem qur^e
Dei sunt agebant ; * Vit. Maj. i. s. 90. In 1035 St. Martin's appears as the
see of a bishop-suffragan for the diocese of Canterbury.
' * Missas facere,' a phrase which, in the singular, appears first in
St. Ambrose, £p. xx. 4, ' Missam facere coepi ; dum oifero,' &c. ; where
the context suggests an extension of meaning from the actual dismissal
of catechumens before the oblation to the service which followed it.
In the 84th canon of the so-called 4th Council of Carthage, heathens
are permitted to remain in church ^ usque ad missam cateohumenorum.*
From the two ^dismissals,' first of the catechumens and afterwards
of the faithful (see ' Ite miasa est '), the former of which was the dividing
line between the two parts of the lituigy, the whole derived a name
convenient from its brevity, and interesting in an antiquarian sense,
but possessing no other merit. (Missa « mlssio.)
' Elmham, Hist. Monast. S. Aug. p. 137 : ' In die Pentecostes . . .
Etbelbertas baptizatus est.' So Thorn. X Script. 1759. Yet from the
verses in Elmham, p. 91, it might be inferred that the king's baptism
was but a month before Augustine's consecration (which is likelier).
' The forms used might be those of the Gregorian Saoramentary,
Muratori, Lit. Rom. ii. 69. See especially the Benedictio Fontis.
' 'Illuzit dies,' exclaims Gk>celin, 'Angliset Angelis solemniasimus;'
a. 39.
* Contrast it, e.g. with that of Clovls.
58 Conversion of Kentishnien.
niAP. II. shining of the Holy Spirit^.' His example told naturally
upon his subjects: 'day after day more people came
together ^ to hear the Word, and, forsaking heathen rites,
to embrace the faith, and so attach themselves to the unity
of Christ's holy Church. It is said that the king so far
encouraged their conversion as on the one hand to compel
no maji to become a Christian ^ and on the other to show
a closer affection to those who believed, as being heirs with
him of the heavenly kingdom. For he had learned from his
teachers that the service of Christ ought to be voluntary,
not compulsory.* They had learned this lesson from their
teacher : Gregory had written, some years before, ' He who
is brought to the font by coercion, instead of persuasion,
is but too likely to relapse *.'
Death of . go ends the first scene of this ereat drama : nor can
Columba. "
we fail to be interested in the coincidence, that on the
Sunday morning next after that Pentecost, i. e. on June 9,
597^, the noblest missionary career ever accomplished in
Britain came to its end in the distant monastery of Icolm*
^ Muratori, Lit. Bom. ii. 157, 65, 89.
' One would like to think that there is some truth in the story which
Gocelin professes to have gained from tradition. A youth mingles in
the throng in order to gratify a scornful curiosity. Augustine gazes
fixedly at him, and says to his attendant, * Bring that young man to me.'
The youth, overawed, clasps the Saint's feet ; all his pride and levity
give place to faith : Augustine embraces, instructs, baptizes, solemnly
blesses him. Vit. Mig. 49.
^ See Freeman, Norm. Conq. i. 39. In this Ethelbert towers above
various royal promoters of Christianity, such as Harold Blaatand of
Denmark, and the two Olafs, and Eric IX of Sweden among the Finns.
Even Stephen of Hungary, who began like him, was provoked by Pagan
rebellion to banish or enslave those who clung to the old worship. The
result, says Hardwick, Ch. Hist, M. Ages, p. 139, was 'a terrible revulsion
at his death in favour of the Pagan creed.' Cp. Maclear, Conversion of
Slavs, p. 58.
* Greg. £p. i. 47. Cp. i. 10, 35, viii. 35, ix. 6, xiii. la, against coercion of
Jews, or interference with their worship. Yet Gregory was not thoroughly
consistent: in £p iv. a6 he suggests that Sardinian church-tenants
obstinate in Paganism should be heavily taxed. In Ep. ix. 65, that slaves
refusing to be converted should be scourged, &o. In Ep. ii. 51, he tells
schismatic bishops that being in error, they get no blessing through the
*■ persecution ' of which they complain, — implying that it is simply a just
infliction. See Dean Church, Miscell. Essays, p. 245.
' See Reeves's Adamnan, p. 310 ; Skene, Celt. Scotl. ii. 139 ; Stephen,
Hist. Scott. Ch. L 75.
Death of Columba. 59
kill \ While Augustine was building up the first Church chap. n.
of Englishmen, Columba was, in his own words, ' entering
on the way of his fathers ^/ and leaving to his disciples the
glory of an apostolic example, and the impulse which was
destined to take up the work of the Augustinian mission
itself in the northern English realms, ajid to succeed where
that mission had seemed to fail, or at any rate where its
energy had been arrested. One can hardly read the history
of the Christianisdng of our forefathers, with its unexpected
disappointments and its unexpected triumphs, — its tale
of lights kindled and then quenched, and again ' relumed '
qtu) viinime reins, of instruments changed with startling
suddenness, and hopes realized in forms far out of calculation,
— and not remember how St. Paul was at one time forbidden
to preach in ' Asia ^,' and how baffling to sanguine hearts
must have been his detention under Felix. These mysterious
' chains and sequences,' to use Origen's phrase ', in the
Divine action upon men or nations, ought assuredly to
teach us two things — an awe of the plan that so far tran-
scends its agents, and a patient assurance that it will fulfil
itself in its time *.
The next step, for Augustine, was to obtain episcopal Oonse^ru-
consecration. For this, ' according to Gregory's directions,' ^^in^. "
he was to apply to that Gallic hierarchy which the Pope
could not but i*egard as having been apathetic and inert
with reference to the evangelization of the heathens of
Britain **. To Gaul, and to the principal church in South
* Bp. Beeves (p. 959) supposes lona to be a corruption of loua, the
adjectival form of lou, la, Hy, *Hii* (Bede) or Y, i.e. 'The island,'
lengthened into l-colm-kill, the Island of < Columba of the Church,' a
name given him for his early piety (p. Izz).
' Adamnan, Yit. Col. iii. 93. Columba was bom in Donegal, Deo. 7,
591 ; founded a monastery at Deny in 546, another at Durrow, cir. 553 ;
came over to Hy in 563 (not, as Bede says, 565 ; Lanigan, ii. 158 ; Reeves,
p. Izzv). He had studied under both the Finnians.
' Acts xvi 6 ; ep. xiz. la * Orig. c. Cels. iv. 8.
' * ' Lord I who Thy thousand years dost wait
To work the thousandth part
Of Thy vast plan, for us create
With zeal a patient heart.'
" Newman's Yerses, p. 156.
• Greg. Ep. vL 58,
6o Consecration of Augustine.
HAP. II. Qaul, that of Aries, — which had made good its precedence
among Gallic bishoprics ^, and could boast of such prelates
as the younger Hilary and as Caesarius, — ^Augustine repaired
in the autumn. He was consecrated by the archbishop
Virgilius ^, and by other Frankish prelates, on the i6th of
November, to be himself 'Archbishop of the English.'
Hastening home, he found, to his joy, a multitude of new
proselytes : and on Christmas Day, as Gregory, in a letter
glowing with thankfulness, informed his brother patriarch
Eulogius of Alexandria ^, more than ten thousand Kentish
men were baptized,— many of whom, no doubt, may be
reckoned as rather conformists to their king's new religion
than genuine believers in its truth ^ Established as bishop
in Canterbury, Augustine received from Ethelbert the gift
of his own palace ^ : and the king, according to tradition,
actually withdrew from his capital to Reculver •. Near the
* See Fleury, b. 33, c. 45, compared with Gregory^e words, referred to
below. Zosimus favoured Aries ; other popes, as Leo, did not, until
Symmachus made its bishop his Ticar ; Bened. Edd: note on Greg. Ep. v.
53, where Gregory, referring to ancient custom, grants a paU to the bishop
of Aries. On the civil grandeur of Aries as the residence of the Gallic
Prefect, see Life of St. Gorman, p. 187. The Benedictine biographers of
Gregory (Vit. Greg. iii. 3. 3), after observing that the city of Aries had
been made the civil capital of Gaul, add, in words which have a far-reach-
ing significance, * Ab ea dignitate politica primatus ecdesiasticus initium
duxisse videtur : ' yet the bishops of the province in 450 had asserted the
primacy of the see on the ground that it was founded by the apostolic
Trophimus ; Leo, Ep. 65. Duchesne says that although the see of Aries
did not acquire an ^ effective * Roman vicariate, and under the Franks had
only a presidency in synods, yet its ecclesiastical importance detracted
from that of Milan ; Origines du Gulte, p. 39.
' Bede mistakenly says, by Etherius, whom, further on, he treats as
predecessor of Virgilius at Aries, i. 97, 98. Etherius was archbishop of
Lyons, contemporary of Virgilius of Aries. Virgilius had been abbot of
Autun ; Greg. Tur. H. Fr. iz. 93. He died an old man, while recUning
on his couch and saying his office ; Habillon, Ann. Bened. i. 319. Bede's
mistake is ingeniously accounted for by Lingard, A.-S. Gh. i. 369 : Nothelm,
who copied Boman documents for Bede, copied one letter (out of a series
of commendatory letters) to Etherius, of 596, another to Virgilius, of 601,
and Bede supposed both to have been written to the bishop of Aries.
' Greg. Ep. viii. 30. Gocelin says they were baptized in the Swale : if
so, it was the passage so called between Sheppey and the mainland,
* See Bede, ii. 5 : * vel favore vel timore regie,' &c.
' See Palgrave, Engl. Comm. p. 156 ; Stanley, p. 39.
* See Stanley, p. 45. The atory has a suspicious look.
Foundation of Canterbury Cathedral. 6i
palace stood a desecrated church, built ' by the old handi- chap. h.
work of Roman Christians ^ : ' Augustine, with the royal ^ounda-
sanction, reclaimed it, and re-dedicated it, in imitation of oanter-
the Lateran basilica at Rome, which he knew so well as Cathedral
Gregory's cathedral, * in the name of the Holy Saviour,
Jesus Christ our God and Lord */ This was the beginning
of our original and metropolitan 'Christ Church,* the
mother-church of English Christianity. In restoring the
old fabric, Augustine enlarged it into stately proportions,
and modelled its arrangements from the Vatican basilica of
St. Peter. The nave had aisles ', and towers on the north
and south : eastward of the ' choir of the singers ' there
was, as in the present church, a lofty ascent, required by
the construction of a crypt 'such as the Romans call a
Confession.' The account extant speaks of two apses, at
the eastern and western ends, each with its altar : in the
western, against the wall, stood the episcopal throne, and
some way to the east of it was an altar which is dis-
tinguished from ' the great altar ' at the east end, but which,
from its nearness to the ' cathedra/ is thought to have been
the original altar, as was the case in St. Peter's \ Augustine
had a general licence from Ethelbert to restore for Christian
use ajiy old British churches : and one such, which had long
^ Bede, 1. 33 : ' antiquo Romanorum fidelium opere factam fuisae
didicerat/ Op. his reference io the Roman fountain at Carlisle, Vit.
Cuthb. 37.
* JSlfiio, on coming to the archbishopric in 995, was told by the oldest
„men whom he could consult that Augustine hallowed the minster in
Christ's name and St. Mary's, on the mass-day of SS. Primus and
Felicianus, i. e. June 9 ; Chronicle, a. 995. King Wihtred's * Privilege
to Churches' describes it as Hhe Church of the Sayiour'; Haddan
and Stubbs, iii. 340. For the service of dedication, see Muratori, Lit.
Rom. 1. 613.
' See the description cited and commented on in Willis's Hist, of Cant.
Cath. p. 9 ff. On the ancient St. Peter's see also Lanciani, Pagan and
Chr. Rome, p. 13a ff. Like the modem, it had its entrance at the east end ;
beyond, a square atrium, five inner doors, a pillared nave with four aisles,
an arch with mosaics, a transept with a northern baptistery, an apse with
the altar, and St. Peter's tomb beneath it, and a throne at the western
extremity. It was half the size of its vast successor.
* Willis, p. 39. At this altar in the western apse the priest when cele-
brating in the ' basilican ' manner, ' having his face turned towards the
people,' would look eastward.
62 The Mission recruited from Rome.
sengers
hent to
(iregory,
CHAP. Q. been Paganized, and which stood between the wall of
Canterbury and St. Martin's, was • hallowed by him in
memory of the Roman boy-martyr St. Pancras, whose
family had once owned the ground on the Coelian, where
St. Andrew's monastery stood ^. Those who visit St.
Augustine's College may see, somewhat eastward of its
precinct, an old brick arch, which has been supposed to be
a relic of this building. While establishing the conventual
life in connexion with ' Christ Church,' Augustine planned
the erection of another monastery^ chiefly in order to
secure holy ground for his own grave ^ which must
necessarily lie outside the city walL The site chosen was
that on which stands the present ' St. Augustine's.'
But now the archbishop found reason to send to Gregory
an account of his proceedings, with a statement of some
points on which he desired instructions from Rome. We
had better consider these matters in connexion with
Gregory's replies to Augustine. The bearers of the letter
were Laurence, a priest, and Peter, a monk*. They set forth,
it would seem, in the spring of 598 : but here comes one of
the difficulties of the narrative. Bede says that the Pope
replied * without delay ' : but the replies are expressly dated
June 22 in 601. If the date is correct, how are we to
explain the delay? Partly, perhaps, by the necessity of
finding recruits for the English mission, partly by the press
of anxiety and business which, coupled with long and
painful illness *, weighed heavily even on such a spirit as
' On St. Pancras, see Alb. Butler, or Baring Gould, for May la.
' Bede, i. 33 : ' in qua et ipsius . . . et omnium episcoporum Domver-
nensium, simul et regum Cantiae, poni corpora poasent.'
' See Stanley, p. 41, and Hard wick's Preface to Elmham, p. iv. The
planning or ' fundatio ' of the monastery was in 598, the ' dotatio * in 605,
says Elmham, p. 81, but on the authority of untrustworthy ' charters.'
Elmham says that Augustine chose there Mocum sepulturae, removed
from the noise of the world, ut sic exiret cum passo Domino extra
portam ; ' p. 83.
* Bede, i. 27. ^ Reversusque Britanniam, misit continue Romam Lauren-
tium. . . . Nee mora . . . responsa recepit.'
' See Greg. £p. x. 35. ' For nearly two years I have bad to keep ray
bed, suffering such pain A'om gout that I could hardly get up even for
three hours, on festivals, to celebrate the rites of the mass. ... I am
compelled to exclaim, *' Bring my soul out of prison t " ' Cp. xL 30^ 44 ;
Gregory* s Answers. 63
the great Pope's, and made his o£Eice a daily burden. If the chap. u.
* swords of the Lombards ^ ' were sheathed in a truce, there
were urgent Church aflTairs in Gaul * to be dealt with, and
Gregory was interested, now in a theological controversy
which grew out of the Eutychian ^, now in the reunion of
Istrian schismatics to the Church ^. These are but specimens
of his cares : ' more than a quarter of ' all his letters are
now assigned to the year 598-9*, yet still it remains some-
what surprising that he did not find the men he wanted
and answer the questions proposed until three years had
passed.
The men selected were four ^-^MeUitus, Justus, Paulinus, Mi««ioii of
and Rufinianus. Of these, the first three became eminent ^nd three
in our Church history; the third being the most eminent of others,
all. Several letters were entrusted to them.
The longest was the reply to Augustine's various queries ''• Letters of
Of these, the first had referred to the division of the contri- ^^^^^'
butions of the faithful for Church purposes, and to the
arrangement of Augustine's own life in relation to his clergy.
Gregory answers : The best scheme of distribution is that Reply to
which the Roman see is wont to recommend, a fourfold ® tinf'"^
question ><.
xiii. 39. Hodgkin quaintly remarks that he was ' tortured by dyspepsia,
gout, and Lombards,' y. 391.
' £p. Tii. 96. In ix. 43 he thanks the Lombard Queen for promoting
this truce. In his last year her son was baptized with Catholic rites.
Hodgkin, ▼. 430. ' Ep. ix. 106-116.
' £p. X. 39, on the Agnoetae : of. Gore, Dissertations, p. 155.
* Ep. ix 93. ^ Hodgkin, v. 494 ; op. ib. 339.
* Thorn says that Nathanael, afterwards abbot of SS. Peter and Paul,
came with them ; X Script. 1769.
^ Ep. xi. 64 ; Bede, i. 97. St. Boniface (Ep. 40) asked Archbishop
Kothelm, in 736, to send him a copy of this letter, because the registrars
of the Roman Church said that it was not to be found In their 'scrinium.'
But it does not therefore follow that this was not one of the documents
copied by Nothelm for Bede at Rome ; or ' the original or a copy may haTe
been preserved at Canterbury.' Plummer's Bede, ii. 45.
' Cp. Greg. Ep. y. 44. So Gelaslus I had ordered ; Ep. 9. 97, in Mansi,
YiiL 45. A Council of Braga, in 563, had made a triple division, not
mentioning the poor, Mansi, ix. 778 ; yet the next Council of Braga forbade
the bishop to receive the third part of the offerings, ib. ix. 839. But this
prohibition is cancelled in 4th Toledo, c. 33. See on the old division,
Bingham, b. v. c. 6. s. 3. That the fourfold division was not imposed by
Gregory on the new EngUsh Church, see Lord Selbome's Anc. Facts and
Fictions conoeming Churches and Tithes, p. 104.
64 Gregory* s Answers
oHAP. iL partition between the Hshop, the clergy, the poor, and the
needful repair of churchy. But this will not apply to the
present case : Augustine, as a monk, will continue to live in
community with his clergy ^, and thus far perpetuate the
life of those early Christians, of whom none said that what
he possessed was his own*. Clerks in minor orders ® might
marry and live outside the bishop's household, receiving their
due stipends; but care must be taken that their lives be spent
under ecclesiastical rule, consecrated by devotional offices,
and kept pure from all things unlawful. The second question
grew out of Augustine's observation of peculiarities in the
Y Gallic ritual * Why, seeing that the faith is one, are there
different customs in different Churches, and one custom
of masses in the holy Roman Church, another in that of
Liturgical Gaul ? ' In Gaul he had evidently noticed the number of
!»ncel collects in the Mass, the frequent variations of the Preface,
the invocation of the Holy Spirit on the elements, the solemn
episcopal blessing pronouncedaf ter the breaking of the Bread,
and before 'the Peace' and the Communion*. Gregory, who
was deeply interested in liturgical questions, and had revised
^ Compare Bede, iv. 97 ; S. Aug. Serm. 353.
' Oomp. Sozomen, vi. 31, on the clergy of the church of Rhinocurura.
' He calls them ^ extra sacros ordines/ meaning the ostiary, lector,
exorcist, acolyth, those below the subdiaconate (of. Muratori, Lit. Rom. ii.
408) ; for this order, although confessedly not of apostolic institution, had
come to be regarded as sacred in a sense in which those of readers or
acolyths were not. In imposing celibacy on subdeacons, £p. i. 44, Gregory
was following Leo the Great ; see his Ep. 14. 4. The loth canon of Ancyra
had allowed deacons to marry, if at their ordination they had stipulated
for it ; but not otherwise. See Routh, Rell. Sac. iv. 189, that there are
no cases ift antiquity of bishops, presbyters, or deacons who married afier
their ordination, * nisi diaooni de hac re prius caylssent.' But at the time
of the Council of Chaloedon (can. 14) the limited permission as to deacons
was obsolete, and subdeacons also were bound to celibacy- The 37th
* Apostolic ' canon must be later than that of Ancyra.
* See Muratori, Lit. Rom. Vet. ii. 517 flf. ; Neale and Forbes, Gallican
Liturgies, p. 3a ff. On the ' Gailican ' missals, and on the characteristics
of the ^ Galilean ' rite, see Duchesne, Origines du Culte, pp. 143 ff., 180 ff.
On the episcopal benedictions in question see Haskell's ' Ancient Liturgy,*
p. 160 ; Warren's Lit. and Ritual of Celtic Ch. p. loi. They are referred
to by Caesarius, Serm. aSi, in app. to Aug. Serm. See a long series of
them in Egbert's Pontifical, ed. Surtees Soc p. 58 ff. That they were
not originally in the Gregorian Sacramentary, see Muratori, Lit. Rom.
L8a
to Augustine^ s Questions. 65
re-edited the 'Sacramentary' of his predecessor Gela- chap. ii.
^ brought the Eucharistic ceremonial to what he
an elaborate perfection, was at the same time far
g a pedant or a bigot on such points : he advised,
ontrary, a wise eclecticism. Let Augustine 'collect
dort of bundle ' the best usages of Some, of Gaul, or
tfAer Churches, whatever he had * found to be most pious,
.eligious, righteous, and most likely -to be pleasing to God,'
and so form a ritual for the English Christians, who were
as yet young in faith, and could become accustomed to what-
ever was given them. There was no need to stick blindly to >
the Roman observ^ances as such. ' For we ought not to love
things for the sake of persons, but persons for the sake of
things*.' Again, Augustine had asked how theft from
a church was to be punished. Distinguish the motives, says
Gregory : make allowance for the temptations of poverty ;
let there be a scale of penalties fairly adjusted ; let charity
be the motive and the regulating principle of your dis-
cipline ^ ; while you punish, still regard the oflFender as
a son. What is thus stolen must be replaced ; but (observe-
his indomitable fair-mindedness *) never let a church receive
more compensation than the amount of the robbery.
The fourth and fifth questions related to marriage. Might
two men marry two sisters not near akin to them ? It was
^ John the Deacon, ii. 17. See Palmer, Orig. Lit. i. 113 ; Muratori, i. 63.
Gregory inserted the sentence, ^ DIesque nostros in tua pace disponas/ &c
(Bede, ii. i), and placed the Lord's Prayer immediately after the canon.
The present text of the ' Gregorian Sacramentary ' contains some post-
Gregorian matter, and Duchesne assigns it to the pontificate of Hadrian I
(ace 773 ; Origines, pp. 114-119).
* See Ep. L 43 : ' Where the faith is one, differences of custom do no
harm to Holy Church.' In ix. la he disclaims the imputation of copying
Constantinople in ritual, but says he is willing to imitate that ' or any
other church, though inferior to his own, in what is good.' This is over-
looked by Duchesne, who positively pronounces (Origines, &0., p. 94) that
no pope, no one imbued with *■ Tesprit remain,' could have given the advice
which is ascribed to Gregory in this ^ answer/ and suggests that all the
queries and answers were invented by Theodore. One may reasonably
think better both of the great pope and the great archbishop.
' He mentions fines and beatings as penalties. An old Irish canon
wrongly ascribed to St. Patrick mentioned, as one among three penalties,
the amputation of hand or foot ; Mansi, vi. 519.
* Cp. Church, Miscell. Essays, p. 399, quoting Ep. i. 36, 44.
F
66 Gregory's Answers
CHAP. u. strange that such a question should have been put. Gregory
despatched it by a brief affirmative. But it was stranger
yet that Augustine should have asked whether a man might
marry his stepmother or his sister-in-law : Gregory's nega-
tive answer alluded to Herod and the Baptist. Converts
must know that for a Christian to contract such unions
is a deadly sin : those who had contracted them while
heathens^ are to treat them as null, and may then be
admitted to the Eucharist. As to the matrimonial de-
grees, the Roman secular law allowed the marriage of
first cousins; but on natural and on religious grounds,
Gregory declared against it^. Persons nearer akin than
the third degree (i. e. that beyond first cousins) ought not
to marry \
y- The sixth and seventh questions recurred to the subject of
Church order. Might one bishop consecrate a bishop-elect
if other prelates were not near enough to ' come together
, easily?' Gregory's answer shows that he thought such
^consecrations spiritually valid*. *In the English Church,
* As Eadbald did afterwards ; see p. 1 15. It was regarded by heathen
Teutons as more than permissible : see Kemble, ii. 407 ; Haddan's Remains,
p. 311. It had been forbidden, together with the marriage of a widower
with his wife's sister, &;c., by the third Council of Paris in 557 ; Mansi,
ix. 745. See also Council of Auzerre, ib. iz. 914 ; Council of Epaon, c 30,
ib. viii. 563.
' It was disapproved, says St. Augustine, by Christian public opinion
(although not forbidden by God's law), and before it was forbidden by
man's ; Civ. Dei, xt. 16. When he wrote it was ordinarily unlawful in
the West, but lawful in the East. The Western Church mind was against
it, but Justinian confirmed its legality. Cf. Bingham, xyL ii. 4.
' In the last year of Gregory's life, a bishop asked him to explain the
rumour that he had thus sanctioned, for the English conyerts, marriages
within the fourth degree. Were not marriages up to the seventh degree
unlawful ? Gregory answered in effect. It is well known in Rome that
my permission referred only to the early days of the English mission :
when its converts are ripened in faith, I intend that they shall not be
allowed to marry within the sixth degree ; Ep. xiv. 17.
* If we compare (i) the varying language of the canons ordering a
plurality of consecrators, e. g. Apostolic can. i, two or three ; ist Aries, aa
seven, or at least three, besides the metropolitan ; Nicene 4, all com pro-
vincials, if possible, — if not, three at least, having the written consent of
the others ; and Aries, 5, the metropolitan or three comprovincials ; with
(s) the cases in which a consecration by two bishops, or even by one only,
was held valid, though irregular, — e. g. the case of Siderius of Palaebisca,
to Augustine^s Questions. 67
while you are its only bishop, you cannot consecrate save
in the absence of other bishops. For you cannot expect
Gallic bishops to come over as witnesses on such occasions ^/
(It is observable that Gregory here ignores the British ' \ X
Celtic bishops, to whom the next question in part refers.)
But it would be well, in planting new sees, to take care
that they were not too far apart ^, so that Augustine might
easily have the benefit of his brethren's attendance at con-
secrations in the future. He alludes to the ordinary social
custom whereby married persons were invited to a wedding,
to sympathize with the parties concerned: similarly, he
says, at a consecration, such persons should meet as might
rejoice in the elevation of the new bishop, or pray to God
for his preservation. Again, Augustine had asked, ' How *
ought I to deal with the bishops of Gaul and Britain?' ;
The question as to the former may seem to show some
recognized as a bishop by St. Atbanasius, «nd of Evagrius, recognized
by Bome and Alexandria — see Bingham, b. ii. c. ii. s. $ — we must infer
that thonsh the role in question was very ancient, and even Noyatian,
in the third century, took care to observe it (Eus. vi. 43% yet it was
intended to guard agninst disorderly and clandestine consecrations, and
its observance was not deemed a ' sine qua non ' for the conferring of the
episcopal character. Gregory's illustration from a wedding-party is signi-
ficant on this point. Cp. Bp. Forbes, SS. Ninian and Kentigern, p. 336.
In the Scotic Churches consecration by one bishop was not unfrequent :
see Lanigan, ii. isS. Pahner, who denies the validity of such consecra-
tions save in absolute necessity, cites Habertus that in ' ancient MSS.' the
reading is, ' Nisi cum episcopis.' instead of * nisi sine episcopis ' ; On the
(Tljurch, ii. 321/ But this would make no sense.
^ So in Bede's text the sense is, ' For when do bishops come from Gaul
to be present at a bi.shop's consecration ?' (' qui . . . adsistant ? '\ In the
Benedictine text it is, ' For when bishops come from Gaul, illi . . .
adsistent.'
' The next sentence in Bede's text (the Benedictine is clearly made up^
is corrupt somehow. 'Quatenus nulla sit necessitas. ut in ordinatione
episcopi pastores quoque alii, quorum praesentia valde est utilis, facile
debesnt convenire.' The 'necessity' cannot be that of summoning
bishops from Gaul to assist at a consecration in Britain, for this had been
ruled out of the question, and ' quorum,' ftc., can hardly mean ' though
their presence would be useful.' Mr. Plummer boldly suggests the
omission of *• nulla sit necessitas ut,' so as to make it mean, ' in order that
other pastors may easily come together.' It would be simpler to take
' quatenus . . . necessitas ' parenthetically, in the sense of ' where there
is no necessity for planting sees for apart.' But in either case we should
have expected ' valeant ' rather than ' debeant.'
F %
CHAP. II.
68 Gregory* s Answers
CHAP. II. ignorance, possibly a touch of self-importance. Gregory
answered decisively, that, as bishop of the English, Augustine
could have no manner of jurisdiction in GauL Should he
visit that country, he might give brotherly counsel to the
bishop of Aries, who had received the * pall ' from Gregory s
predecessor, and must not be interfered with in his (metro-
politan) authority: the Pope had directed him to confer
with Augustine ^, and Augustine might do a good work by
'persuading' the Gallic bishops to correct abuses ^ and
setting them a good example ; but more than this he could
not have a right to do. Here we must ask, What was the
-^ pall, and what did it indicate 1 The ancient garment C€dled
himation, square-shaped and blanket-like, which was worn
over the tunic in ancient Greece, may be identified with
the ' palliimi,' or cloak, which Tertullian commends as more
convenient than the toga ^. Such a garb might be of plain
or of rich materials : the coarse * palliunt* ' of philosophers
was retained by scholars who became Christians, and
adopted by Christian ascetics : Alexandrian bishops in the
fifth century wore a white woollen scarf round the neck,
called an ' omophorion ^,' apparently a diminished pallium
^ Ep. xi. 68 ; Bede, L aS. It is dated on the same day as the rest. It
directs Virgilius to avail himself of the help of * our common brother
Augustine/ if he should visit Aries, for the correction of ' offences of priests
or others.' For, says Gregory significantly, *it often happens that those
who are at a distance are the first to understand what has to be set
right by others.'
* Such as bimony, promotion of laymen to the episcopate, disuse of
synodical action, &c. Virgilius is blamed for negligence, Ep. ix. 114.
' Tertull. de Pallio, 5. It was a loose garment, which might be so worn
as to leave the breast or arm bare, 6r to conceal the whole person (hence
'palliate'). See the catacomb painting found in the cemetery of St.
Callistus, in which a man clad in the pallium, but with shoulder and breast
b.are, extends his hands towards bread and fish on a tripod ; Northcote
and Brownlow, Roma Sotterranea, p. 367, plate 14.
* Also called rpi0<uv^ Soc. iii. i. It was worn by Justin (Euseb. iv. ii>
and Heraclas (Euseb. vi. 19). Nepotian, a presbyter, wore it until his last
moments ; Jerome, Ep. 60. 13. Salvian describes a monk's u^ual appear-
ance by < palliatum' ; Gub. Dei, viii. 4. The first Council of Orleans uses
'pallium aocepisse' as equivalent to monastic profession, c at ; Mansi,
▼"**• 355* Cp. Diet. Chr. Antiq. ii. 1547.
* See the story of Theophilus of Alexandria passionately throwing his
omophorion round Ammonius' neck, as if to throttle him ; Palladius, Vit.
Chrys. p. 54. Symeon of Thessalonica describes the omophorion as en-
to Augustine s Qttestions. 69
(the original shape, that of a cloak, is thought to have chap. n.
survived in the West in the fifth century *). But a rich
form of this garment became part of the Imperial attire,
and was granted by emperors, as a mark of honour, to
patriarchs^: then the popes began, originally in the
emperor's name* or by his desire, to 'allow the use of
the pall ' to certain bishops, —to those who represented the
* Apostolic see,' or to some metropolitans, or to other pre-
lates of influence and distinction*. In Gregory's time it
was thus variously granted : his language shows that it was
rich, and heavy with ornament^ : the wearer was to guard
against self-complacency • ; it was not to be worn except at
mass '^. Although in several cases it was an accompaniment
of metropolitan dignity, it did not become a necessary badge
of that dignity until a later stage in the development of
Papalism^ Now to return to the letter; Gregory says
circUng the shoulders before and behind ; De Templo et Missa, ap. Goar,
Eachol. p. aao. Compare also Liberatus' account of the ' pall of St Mark/
Breviar. 20. All Eastern ^ orthodox ' bishops now wear an omophorion of
silk ; they lay it aside at the gospel, and resume it before oommnnion ;
see Goar, 147, 305. Gp. Neale, Introd. East. Ch. i. 31a. Armenian bishops
assame it before the offertory, and take it off shortly before the anaphora ;
Brightman, Liturgies East, and West. i. 417, 430, 59a. Its ends hang
down before and behind.
^ Life of St. German, p. 344. The word 'va also used for a woman's cloak,
Oreg. Tur. H. Fr. iii. ag, and for a silk cloak for men, Bede, Hist. Abb. 8,
and in Adamn. Vit. CoL iii. i as an equivalent ' for peplum ' and ' sag^m.'
' Collier, i 160 ; Robertson, Hist. Gh. iv. 133, and Growth of Papal
Power, p. lai. Yalentinian III gave a pallium of white wool to the
bishop of Ravenna ; Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, i. 485.
' See Greg. Ep. i. a8, ix. 11. Pope Vigilius would not grant the pall to
the archbishop of Aries until he gained the emperor's consent. See
Duchesne, p. 371.
* Note of Bened. Edit, on Ep. ix. 11. Gregory sends it to the bishop of
Corinth ; Ep. v. 57. See forms in Liber Diumus Pontif. no. 45 ff.
' Ep. iii. 56 ; v. 53 ; vi. 9. His own pall was mediocre ; John Diac iv. 84.
* Ep. iv. I ; V. 11 ; ix. 135.
^ Ep. iii. 56 ; V. 56. Gregory objected to its being worn in penitential
processions. Alcuin exhorts the archbishop of York not to wear his paU
save when attended by deacons ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii 503.
* See Robertson, Hist Ch. iv. 133. Duchesne says that, before being
sent, it was kept for a night ' in the sanctuary of the confession,' dose to
the tomb of St. Peter : from this it was a short step to the idea of a kind
of tninsmission of power, so that the pall ' devenait ainsi le signe natural
d*une jurldietion sup^eure/ but it was not until the alliance between the
"l'"^
/!
w
\ <^^ i-*\ c V
A
70
Gregory* s Answers
K
•\
i^
CHAP. II. of the British bishops, in contrast to the Gallic, that they
X(( are all committed to the care and authority of Augustine,
Herein he was asserting a claim which those bishops, as
we shall see ere long, would not admit. They recognized
the honorary primacy of Some, but did not deem them-
selves under subjection to its supremacy*. Gregory relied
on the * apostolic' prerogatives of the 'see of Peter ' through-
out the West, not to speak of Eastern Christendom. Had
he been reminded that the eighth canon of the Council of
Ephesus had forbidden any bishop to assume power over
any province that had not originally been under his juris-
diction ', and that Britain was properly outside the Boman
patriarchate ^, he would doubtless have fallen back on the
inherent supremacy of his see. Vehement as were his
protests against the adoption by another patriarch, or the
pope and the Carol ingian house that metropolitans were obliged to accept
it, &c. Origines du Gulte, p. 37a.
^ Lingard contests this, and says that Gregory had evidently no expecta-
tion that the British bishops would assert independence ; A.-S. Ch. L 380.
But Gregory, after the manner of Popes, would take for granted that
a claim made in the name of St. Peter would succeed. Lingard puts
a manifest force on some words of Gildas' 'Increpatio' to clergy; and
argues, as to earlier times, as if the burden of proof did not lie with those
who hold that the British Church was from the first subject to- Borne.
He assumes also that the influence of the Boman see over Gaul would
imply a parallel influence over Britain ; p. 375. In the synodal letter of
the Council of Aries, ^ migores dloeceses ' probably means the provincea
nearest to Bome.
* ^ That none of the bishops shall take possession of a province that was
not from the first and originaUy under his hand or that of his predecessors ;
and that if any one has taken possession of such, or has subjected it to
himself by force, he shall restore it, in order that the rules of the fathers
may not be transgressed, and the arrogance of (secular) authority may not
come in unawares under the pretence of priestly action, and we may not
by degrees and unconsciously lose the liberty which our Lord Jesus Christ,
the liberator of all men, gave us by His own blood. Therefore it is the
pleasure of the holy oecumenical synod that to each province be preserved
pure and inviolate the rights belonging to it from the beginning,' &c.
liansi, iii. 1469.
' The Boman patriarchate, properly speaking, included the ten pro-
vinces which were civilly under the Yicarius Urbis, i. e. Italy south of the
' Italic dioecese,' with the three adjacent islands ; the churches of this
region being called Uuburbicary.' Thus Africa, Spain, Gaul, and Britain
were not originally within the Boman 'patriarchate.' See Bingham,
b. ix. c z. s. pff. ; Palmer on the Church, it. 416; and the writer's
' Notes on Canons of First Four Councils,' p. laa.
to Augustine^ s Questions. 71
application to himself, of the title of * Universal Bishop^/ he chap. ir.
always acted on that theory respecting his own office which
had been gradually developing itself from the early part of
the fifth century, and was to develop itself yet more in
aftertimes, Pope after Pope * never retracting, but adopting
and uniformly improving upon the pretensions of their
predecessors *.' This system Gregory inherited, believed in i
it firmly, acted on it persistently^: his virtues, in fact, ufC
recommended and fortified what was in itself, and as judged
by the light of genuine Catholic tradition, nothing better
than a gradual corruption, by excess, of the ecclesiastical
polity of the first ages. It would be most unjust to compare
him to a Gregory VII or Innocent III, to Martin V or to
Pius IX ; yet the line which he took was preparing the | y
way for such successors, and formed an element in the
process by which an indefinite precedency and a limited
patriarchate were, in effect, to be superseded by a claim to
dominion at once oecumenic in its scope and autocratic in its
character. The result to the English Church was, that it
became more and more dependent on Rome. While Gregory
was perfectly in his rights in occupying the ground which
British bishops had abandoned; while gratitude for the
sending of Augustine, and again afterwards for the appoint-
ment of Theodore, — the results of which tended to obscure
the amount of non-Roman mission-work done among the
English, — ^naturally led the English Church, when organized,
to lean to Rome as colonists look to a mother-country, with-
out raising questions as to what the Roman Church might
' Greg. £p. t. iB, 19, 90, 43 ; yil. 31, 33 ; yiii. 30 ; iz. 68. He calls the
title new, foolish, friyolous, proud, perverse, wicked, blasphemous, anti-
christian. His indignation is sharpened by jealousy of the see of Constan-
tinople, a jealousy not unmixed with apprehension as to the advantages
enjoyed by the emperor's own patriarch (cf. Hodgkin, iii. 150) ; and he
strains the title beyond what its use in the East implied, e. g. * Si unus,
at putat, universalis est, restat ut voe episeopi non sitis ; ' iz. 68.
' Hussey's lUse of the Papal Power, p. 149. See Church's Misc. Essays, 1
p. 955, against ' the popular controversial use of Gregory's condemnation { f^
of the tiUe.'
* See e. g. the celebrated letter to Deeiderias of Yienne about his lectur- k
ing on ' grammar,' Ep. zi. 54. In iz. 59 he says broadly that he knows | w
not what bishop, in case of misconduct^ is nU subject to tlie apostolic see. |
See Church, Misc. Essays, p. 356.
t HAP. II.
72 Question of Miracles.
in strictness claim on account of these great 8ervioes^ — a yet
stronger tie to Rome was formed by that current and grow-
ingly dominant exaggeration of a primacy into supremacy,
under the influence of which it seemed a religious duty to
regard the chair of St. Peter as the one centre of unity,
and, more than that, as the permanent seat of decisive
authority, for the universal Church of Christ
^^ We may say of Augustine's questions, taken altogether,
and including some which referred to matters of ceremonial
purity, that they illustrate his monastic inexperience of
pastoral administration, and also, perhaps, indicate a certain
want of elevation of character. They are hardly, at any
rate, the questions which a great mind would have found
it necessary to refer to a distant superior ; in fact, some of
them give the notion of a mind cramped by long seclusion,
and somewhat helpless when set to act in a wide sphere.
Other questions may occur to us, as naturally arising in
presence of spiritual interests and requirements so vast and
so absorbing: but Augustine does not propound them.
One feels a sort of chill, a sensation akin to disappointment,
and even to repulsion, in reading of his * difficulties ^.'
stories of A letter of which Bede^ gives a fragment, and which
miracles. ^^ probably written earlier, though sent at the time*,
was intended, in great part, as a warning against spiritual
elation. It brings us in front of a question which mediaeval
narratives perforce suggest. Gregory had heard from
Augustine's messengers that miracles had been wrought
by his means among the English. Now, of the mediaeval
*■ See Bp. Wordsworth, Theoph. Anglic p. 140.
' In the Benedictine text of Gregory, the questions are broken up into
eleven; and there is also. a request for relics of St. Sixtus, which is
probably an after-addition.
' Bede, i. 31. The entire letter is in Ep. zi. 98. It begins, * Gloria in
exoelsis .... quia granum frumenti mortuum est cadens in terram, ne
solum regnaret in coelo. . . . Who can describe the joy that has arisen in
the hearts of all the faithful here, quod gens Anglonun . . . sanctae fidei
luce perfusa est ? '
^ Both this letter and the *■ Replies ' were probably written, though not
sent, bofore 601 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 39. The order in which <iie
letters (in Bede) should be read is as follows : i. ' Sclo, frater,' &c, i. 31 ;
2. * Quantus sit,' i. a8 ; 3. the ^ Replies ' ; 4* ' Cum certum sit,' i. 99 ;
5. ' Propter hoc,' &o., L 39 ; 6. ' Post discessom,* &c., i. 3a
Question of Miracles. 73
stories of miracles the great bulk may be summarily dis- chap. h.
missed, — not merely, nor indeed mainly, because of the
contrast which so many of them present, by their grotesque-
ness, or puerility, or matter-of-course profusion, to the
'signs' recorded in Scripture^, but because the interval j
between the alleged occurrence and the account of it is j
usually long enough to allow of a rank upgrowth of legend, i
encouraged by the fixed preconception of the age, that \
miracles must always attend upon, and attest, high sanctity.
Such an interval, for instance, is found in the case of the
marvels connected with St. Alban. But in other cases we
have something like contemporary evidence ; yet, even here,
deductions must be made for that craving after wonders ^
which would not think of sifting testimony^, if not also
for that strange mixture of belief and untruthfulness which
tempted men — especially if any selfish end could be served
— to promote a cause by inventing fresh samples of that
supernatural vindication, which they never doubted it to
have received in times and circumstances parallel to their
own. To these considerations must be added the obvious
intrinsic difierence between the miraculous elements in the
' Take, for instance, the legends of St. Teilo and St. Oudooeus, as given
in the Liber Landavensis ; and see Trench on Miracles, p. 47.
' See the judicious remarks of Lingard, A.-S. Gh. ii. loi flf. Sometimes
an ordinary, or at least a clearly natural occurrence, is not embellished
by miraculous adjuncts, but simply assumed to be supernatural : as when
Guthbert, suffering from a swollen knee, and lying in the open air, is
advised by a horseman in white to apply a poultice of wheaten flour
boiled in milk, which proves eifioadous, whereupon ^agnovit angelum
fuisse.' Bede, Vit. Guthb. a. See too the stories about animals, as the
two otters in Vit. Guthb. 10. Gomp. Ghr. Reraembr. Jan. 185a, p. 83 :
'Bede regarded as miraculous, and called a mirade, what we neither
regard nor call so.' Gomp. Hardwick, Gh. Hist, M. Ages, p. 113. See
Barmby, Gregory the Great, p. 117 : *Mo8t of the incidents on record,
sapposed to be miraculous, may now be accounted for by the' then
'prevalent state of feeling and expectancy,' &c. Gregory himself, as
his 'Dialogues' show, 'was predisposed to interpret every marvellous
incident as a special harbinger of the Second Advent ; ' Owen on Dogm.
Theol. p. 31a.
' It must, however, be remembered that Bede is often careful to
mention his informant and attest his credibility ; see Vit. Guthb. 5, 36 ;
H. E. iii. 13, 19 ; iv. as, 3iy 3^ 1 ▼• a? 3? 4» 5> 6, 13. Lingard says, * Bede
relates several wonderful events, but not one on hia 01m knowledge ; '
A.-S. Gh. ii 103.
74 Question of Miracles.
CHAP. II. New Testament narrative, professedly connected, as they
are, with the inauguration of a revelation, and the luxuriant
and often fantastic thaumaturgy which confronts us in
, mediaeval books. At the same time, no serious believer
in Christianity will fail to disentangle the question of
mediaeval miracles from the so-called scientific presup-
position, which would put the ' signs ' or ' mighty works '
of the Gospel itself out of court as ipso fwdo impossible.
It is a question of evidence; a very acute writer on
Christian evidences has said that 'we reject the mass of
later miracles because they want evidence, not because our
argument obliges us to reject all later miracles, whether
> they have evidence or not ^:' and a great Christian historian
has not hesitated to avow his belief that * with regard to
some miracles, there is no strong a priori improbability in
their occurrence, but rather the contrary ; as, for instance,
where the first missionaries of the Gospel in a barbarous
country are said to have been assisted by a manifestation
of the Spirit of power; and if the evidence appears to
warrant ' our * belief,' we may ' readily and gladly yield it,
. . . most thankful to find sufficient grounds for believing
that not only at the beginning of the Gospel, but in ages
long afterwards, believing prayer has received extraordinary
answers ^.' Augustine was not the man, we may well think,
to impose on Gregory by an account which was a fraud.
Some things evidently did happen, in relation to his con-
verts, which he took to be miraculous : what they were, we
know not : but if, at such a time, and amid such a work,
he received some signal answers to prayer, that can be no
difficulty to believers in the Gospel^. Gregory's warning, at
once tender and thoughtful, has the true Gospel mark upon
it. He reminds his * dearest brother ' that Christ bade the
Seventy rejoice, not in their power over the spirits, but
' Mozley, Bamp. Lect p. 399.
' Arnold's Lectures on Mod. Hist. p. 133. He adds, ' If we think that,
supposing the miracle to be true, it gives the seal of God's approbation to
aK the belief of him who performed it, this is manifestly a most hasty
and untenable inference.* Op. Bishop Browne's Lessons from Early
English Ch. Hist. pp. 19-91.
* See Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and Christian Belief, £. Tr. p. 33a.
Scheme for Bishoprics. 75
rather that their names were written in heaven ; that the chap. h.
grace which is open to all is better than the gifts entrusted
to a few, and ought to be the subject of a deeper joy than
could be caused by any individual endowment ^ ; that such
gifts carried with them a special temptation to spiritual
self-confidence, and that their possessor should make them
an occasion for self -scrutiny and deepened penitence, and
regard them as, in effect, bestowed not on himself, but on
those for whose benefit they had been given. *I have
a sure hope,' he proceeds, in a part of the letter which
Bede omits, ' that your sins are already forgiven, and that
you are a chosen instrument for bringing others to the
same mercy */
A third letter, sent with the others', informed Augustine Scheme
that he would receive with it a pall, to be used only in ^j^^ ^ *^'^'
the celebration of mass. This was, for him, a token of
archiepiscopal jurisdiction; but in the exercise of that
jurisdiction, Gregory seems to have thought of him as
seated permanently in London \ For he contemplates, Plan for
with a sanguine hopefulness as to the probable extent of tf^ ^7*
the missionary successes, the formation of twelve dioceses English
to be subject to Augustine as metropolitan, *so that the
bishop of London' — meaning evidently the successor of
Augustine — ' might in future be always consecrated by his
own synod ' of suffragans, over whom he was to preside as
archbishop. Further, Augustine was to consecrate a bishop
for York, — here Gregory's thoughts went back to ' Deira,* —
and if that city and the parts near it should receive the
word of God, that bishop should also consecrate twelve -
sufiragans^, and act as their metropolitan; for Gregory
' Comp. Greg. Dial. i. a, ' Ego virtutem patientiae signis et miraculis
majorem credo;' ib. i. la, < Vitae vera aestimatio in virtute est operum,
non in ostensione signorum ;' and ib. iii. 17, that spiritual miracles
transcend physical.
* 'If,' he concludes, Hhere is joy in heaven over one penitent, what
must there be over a penitent nation I . . . Let us then say, let us all say,
Oloria in exoelsis ! '
* Bede, i. 99 ; Greg. Ep. xL 65.
* Thus it was not Gregory, but the ecclesiastical and civil authorities
of England, who established the southern archbishopric at Canterbury.
* See Bede, Ep. to Egb. 5. < The parts near York ' would, in Gregory's
Scheme for Bishoprics.
CHAP. n. intended, if he lived (he did not then think he should live
much longer ^), to send him also a pall. Augustine, for his
life, was in this ease to be supreme over the northern
metropolitan ; * we will that he should be subject to your
control : ' but after Augustine's death the metropolitans of
London and York were to be independent of each other,
acting in concert^, and taking precedence according to
seniority. Gregory reiterated his intention to place all
the bishops in Britain under Augustine's personal super-
vision; 'that from the tongue and life of your Holiness
\ they may receive the rule of believing rightly and living
I well' The scheme drawn out, symmetrical and theo-
retically satisfactory as it was, remained a paper-scheme
only: the fair vision of twelve bishops under Augustine,
and twelve more under a bishop sent by him to York,
was not realized. Canterbury, of which Gregory took no
account, remained the seat of the archbishopric, for the
sufficient reason that London, as we shall see presently,
could not for long years be regarded as, in any real sense.
Christian. Augustine himself did not succeed in settling
more than two bishoprics ; and it was in the time of his
third successor that York became an English see.
Gregory's Beside the pall, Gregory sent a supply of sacred * vessels ^'
^'' ***• altar-cloths *, and church-furniture, with vestments * for
priests and clerics, relics of the Apostles and martyrs**,
and also a great number of manuscripts. The monastic
mind, include a large part of Scotland. See Freeman, Norm. Gonq.
iv. 349.
^ See Ep. xi. 33, ' Me proxlmum morti yidea'
' *• Gommuni oonsilio et concordi actione qoaeque sunt pro Ghristi zelo
agenda,^ &c. Documents were forged to set this asida
* See Greg. Ep. i. 68, ^ in argento calicos duos.'
* See Ep. i. 68, where < pallia ' is thus used, and Dial. i. 10 for the
< sindon ' on the altar. Gregory of Tours speaks of the altar and the
oblations being covered ' pallio serico ' ; H. Fr. vii. aa. Op. the ' pallium '
and * corporale ' in the Ordo Romanus, Duchesne, p. 443.
' See Ep. yii. 40, <duo oraria:' Dial. i. 9, 'episcopus . . . elevatis
manibus extenso yestimento:' ib. iy. 40 on a deacon's dalmatic. See
Elmham, p. 99, on six ancient copes at St. Augustine's.
* See Ep. iii. 19 ; iv. 30 ; vi. 49, 50 ; ix. 15. The monks of St
Augustine's believed that this gift of relics included a part of ' Aaron's
rod ' ; Elmham, p. loa. Gp. forms in Liber Diurnus, no. 16 ff.
Letters to Ethelhert and Bertha. 77
chronicler ^ recites a long list of these ' first-fruits of the chap. u.
books of the whole Church of England/ including a * Gre-
gorian Bible ' in two volumes, two copies of the Gospels *,
two Psalters, a book on the Apostles' lives and deaths,
a Passionary or Martyrology, an exposition of the Epistles
and Gospels for several Sundays, all adorned with silver
or jewels, and carefully preserved in St. Augustine's abbey.
But we cannot be sure that all these treasured volumes,
four of which were kept above the high altar itself, were
veritable ' libri Gregoriani.'
To the same date belong two letters which Gregory
addressed to Ethelbert and Bertha. He exhorts the former ^
as 'set over the English race,' with 'kings and peoples
subject to him,' to follow the example of the first Christian
Emperor, and to second with royal authority Augustine's
missionary 'efibrts': and he particularly advises him to
put down idolatry, and to destroy its temples*. In the
letter to Bertha*, some gentle rebuke for her apparent ..
tardiness ® in the good work is blended with the assurance
that what she had at last done has made the Romans pray
for her long life, and excited interest even in Constantinople.
Let her take Helena, the mother of Constantine, for a model,
and make up for past neglect by greater zeal in support of
the mission. Commendatory letters were also addressed
^ Elmham, Hist. Monast. S. Aug. pp. 96-99 (see Introd. p. zxt).
' Two MSS. still extant liave been supposed to be these *■ Textus
Evangeliorum.' One is in the Bodleian ; the beginning and end are lost.
It lies open at Mark xy. a8, et adikpleta est sckibtura quae nicrr . . .
But, on the authority of the late Bodleian Librarian, H. O. Goxe, it may
be confidently dated some fifty years later, i. e. 'circ 650-700.' Another,
in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is thought by
Hard wick to be probably a 'veritable relic of St. Gregory's benefac-
tion;' Pref to Elmham, p. xxvi. Mr. M. Rule, the learned editor of the
Corpus MS. Missal, < of St. Augustine's Abbey,' considers it to be based on
a Gregorian missal brought by Augustine from Rome.
' Bede, i. 32 ; Ep. xi. 66. The letter contains an expression of his
belief that ' the end of the world was approaching ' (cp. Ep. iii. 29, 65 ;
ix. 68 ; Dial. iy. 41). If the troubles that are to herald it should occur
in Ethelbert's country, let him not be disturbed by them.
* * Fanorum aedificia.' Comp. Bede, i. 30 ; ii. 13, 15 ; iii. 30.
' Ep. xi. 39 : not in Bede. This letter is not dated, but is eridently
a companion letter to the former.
* 'Jamdudum . . . debuistis . . . Nee tardum . . . debuit esse nee
dilBcile . . • Agite ut . . . possitis quod neglectum est reparare.'
78 Treatment of Pagan Temples.
CHAP. II. to eleven Gallic prelates^, and to Theoderic, Theodebert,
Chlotair, and Brunhild. One of these letters requested
the archbishop of Lyons to see that nothing should delay
the journey of the four monks through that part of Gaul \
Some w^eks passed away : Gregory received no tidings
Tr^tment from them, and became anxious about their safety. He
oi P&ffftn
temples, had also time to reconsider his advice ^ given to Ethelbert
in favour of the destruction of Pagan temples. On this
subject two views were open: in the fourth century
many temples were overthrown by the zeal of individual
Christians, and some acts of this sort in the reign of
Constantius provoked unsparing reprisals in that of
Julian*. As Paganism grew weaker in the latter years
of that century, these attacks were renewed by St. Martin
in Gaul ^ by Marcellus of Apamea in Syria •, by Theophilus
at Alexandria ''. Bishops in Africa petitioned the Emperor
that such temples as were not among the ornamental build-
ings of cities might be utterly destroyed ® : those in Rome
itself, according to Jerome, were 'covered with dust and
cobwebs ' in 403 ® ; but we may allow for his characteristic
exaggeration, and his own words show that these old
fortresses of idolatry had not been levelled to the ground
when the whole system of Pagan worship was put under
the ban of imperial law in 392, several years after the
closing of temples had been enforced in parts of the
empire^®. Gradually the temples fell into ruin, or were
* Ep. xi. 54-5^.
* Ep. xi. 56. This letter has a special interest. Gregory tells the
archbishop that as yet he has searched in vain for the writings of
St. Irenaeus (i.e. the Greek original), or for the record of his death.
' Plummer thinks it not certain. But surely the words ' diu mecum
oogitans,' just after the sentence about his having expected to hear from
them, are decisive.
*■ See the case of Mark of Arethusa, Soz. t. 10 ; Theodoret, iiL 7.
' Sulp. Sev., Vit. Mart. 13, — the story of the ancient temple and its
adjacent pine-tree.
* Theodoret, v. 21. Marcellus had the support of the prefect.
^ Soc. V. 16. Theophilus acted under special orders from Theodosius.
* Cod. Afric. 58 ; Mansi, iii. 766.
* Jerome, Ep. 107. i. He says that the destruction of the great temple
at Gaza was continually expected ; ib. a.
^® See Robertson, Hist. Ch. i. 393 ff.
Treatment of Pagan Temples. 79
pulled down under authority, or converted into Christian chap. h.
churches, as was sometimes the case, St. Augustine tells
us, in Africa^. And to this latter treatment of them
Gregory, on reflection, now decidedly inclined*. 'They
ought by no means,' so he wrote in a letter to Mellitus ^
' to be destroyed : ' Mellitus was to tell Augustine, when he
saw him, that Gregory desired them, if solidly built, to be
cleansed and hallowed for Christian worship. The people
might be the more ready to attend that worship if it were
solemnized in places which they had formerly frequented ;
and as they had also been wont to hold sacrificial feasts ^,
it would be wise to provide them with some other enjoy-
ments by way of compensation. On the day of the
dedication, or on the festivals of those saints whose relics
are there deposited, let the converts make themselves
-'tabernacles' with boughs of trees* around the temples
now turned into churches, and there kill oxen, no longer
in ' sacrifice to devils,' but as the materials of their meal,
and with thanks to the Giver of all things®. For, he
proceeds, with a true insight into the need of patient
* Aug. Ep. 47. 3 : *yel in honorem Dei veri oonverttintur.' See Add.
Notes, A. Bui in Bede iii. 30 we find, * nt relictis sive destructis fanis
. . . aperirent ecolesias.'
* It had been already carried out as to a temple at Novara in the early
part of the sixth century : see Ennodius, Dictio a, and Carm. ii. 11 : —
'Ferdidit antiquum quis relligione saoellum,
Nurainibus pulsis quod bene numen habet?'
So also in the case of the circular temple of Bomulus sen of Maxentius,
(on the north side of the Roman Forum\ dedicated in 527 by Felix III
or rV to SS. Cosmas and Damian. And a few years after Gregory's
death it was carried out in regard to the Pantheon of Agrippa, which
became a church of St. Mary od Martyres^ or, as Bede, who refers to this
act of Boniface FV, describes it, 'Sanctae Dei genetricis et omnium
martyrum Christi ; ' iL 4. For other cases in Rome, see Lanciani, Pagan
and Chr. Rome, p. 160.
* Bede, i. 30. * Gomp. Greg. Turon. Vit. Patr. 6. a.
' Trees were often directly associated with idolatry. See the passage
in Sulpicius, aboTe referred to ; and on the custom of hanging up skulls
of slain animals on a pear*tree in Auxerre, Constantius' Vit. S. Germ. i. a.
Cp. Greg. Ep. viii. 18 ; ix. 11.
* Gregory's kind heart took pleasure in helping the poor to enjoy
ihemselTes. See his Ep. i. 56 : he bids a subdeacon furnish to some poor
people, on the occasion of dedicating a monastic oratory, aoo lambs^ 100
hens, 30 amphorae of wine, &c., — * and charge it in your accounts.'
8o Treatment of Pagan Temples.
HAP. ij. training and much tolerance for such rude proselytes, ' you
cannot cut off everything at once from rough natures : he
who would climb to a height must ascend step by step, he
cannot jump the whole way \' Some pleasures permitted to
the English country folk, in connexion with places familiar
from their earliest remembrances, and now associated with
their new belief, might be really helpful: the 'outward
enjoyment' might open their hearts to a deeper and
a spiritual joy. A wise and a hopeful policy, if the old
scenes and the old usages could be thus effectually cleared
of heathen taint Probably St. Martin, and others who felt
and acted like him^ would have demurred to the possibility
of such a clearing: and the intense tenacity of heathen
customs in mediaeval Europe might be urged in support
of their severer view^. If the old idol-fanes were left,
^ * Quia et is qui summuni locum ascendere nititur, gradibns vel pas-^i-
bus, non autem saltibue, elevatur/ Memorable words, which might be
used in a deeper rense, to represent the momentous principle of a gradual
Divine education of humanity, adapting itself to the fact that Hhe
natural motion of the human understanding is by steps and stagea.'
(Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, p. 344.')
' See Willibald, Vit. S. Bonifac 8, on the destruction of the oak of
Thunor ; and Maclear, Con v. of Slavs, p. T34, on St. Otho of Bambeiig.
' To take sixth-century documents only, — Councils of that age had
forbidden the eating of idol-meats, and the swearing by the heads of
animals (Orleans, in 533 and 541) ; the worshipping or making vows at
rocks or under trees (^Tours, Auxerre) ; the Pagan revelries on New Year's
Day, the use of lots made of wood or bread (Auxerre) : see Mansi, viii.
838 ; ix. 116, 803, 911 ; and sermons 265, 277, 278, apparently by St.
Caesarius, in appendix to S. Aug. Serm. For Gregory's own vigilance on
this subject, see his £p. viii. 18, ^Pervenit ad nos quosdam illic' (at
Terracina) ^ arbores colore ; ' and his Dial. ii. 8, for the story of St.
Benedict destroying the altar of Apollo and erecting an oratory on its
site. Heathen usages as to idol-sacrifices^ eating of such sacrifices,
divinations, auspices, auguries, lots, amulets, spells, eating horseflesh,
cutting of the body (like Baal-priests), vows or worship at fountains or
trees or stones, heathenish observation of dreams, heathen rites on
Thursday or on January i, shouting in order 'to defend oneself during
an eclipse, ' placing a daughter on a roof or above a furnace to euro fever.*
had to be denounced by various English penitentials and canons. See
Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 190, 364, 424, 458 ; Johnson, £. Can. i. 378, 415,
513: compara Bede's own statement in iv. 27. The most compendious
account of such customs as existing in Germany in the eighth century is
the 'indiculus . . . paganiarum' in the * Concilium Liptinense' of St.
Boniface : * De sacrilegio,' &c. ; and see Willibald's Life of him, c. 8 :
' Alii lignis et frontibus clanculo, alii autem aperte sacrificabant.'
Treatment of Pagan Temples. 8i
if any likeness of the old Pagan feastings were tolerated chap. h.
or encouraged, would any Christian benediction prevent
a revival of the heathenish spirit? would not 'the cask
retain its odour/ — would not the ejected fiend return to his
old house ? Experience had proved this to be too possible
in regard to the 'merry-makings^' which African bishops
had endeavoured to Christianize, but which Stb Augustine
had found it necessary, in the interests of Christian morality,
to condemn. Yet the ' condescension,' the ' economy,' which
Gregory here recommended, and which his namesake of
Neocaesarea in the third century had carried out exactly
in the same method ^ and apparently with great success^
might seem, to bold and ardent minds, a natural result of
that Christian considerateness and hopefulness which were
inseparable from the true missionary character. Such
persons would say that children must be fed with milk,
that spiritual education must be gradual, that the ' spoils
of the strong man' might in a true sense be 'divided,'
that the Faith might be trusted to transform whatever it
touched ^. And if in some cases this policy of adaptation
failed, if much of what made up European life was only
superficially Christianized, and religion suffered from the
unguarded borrowing of notions or customs really foreign
to its spirit ^ in other cases the ' deadly pottage ' was made
^ ' Laetitiae.' S. Aug. Ep. 29.
^ Gregory of Neocaesarea allowed the common people after their con-
version 'to enjoy themselves at the memorials of the holy martyrH,
hoping that they would in time advance to a graver and more regular
life, while even the faith was guiding them to that result ; which has. in
fact, been already accomplished in the case of the majority, all their
enjoyment having been transferred from bodily pleasure to the spiritual
kind of joy.' Greg. Nyss. Vit Greg. Thaumat. 37 (Op. iii. 574 ; Galland.
Biblioth. Patr. iii. 466).
' So the Irish believed that St. Patrick, finding three pillar-stones
which were connected with Irish paganism, did not overthrow them, but
inscribed on them the names, Jesus, Soter, Salvator; Stokes, Tripartite
Life, i. 107. A Pictish well, said to have baleful powers, was said to
have been made holy by Columba's blessing and touch ; Adamnan, Vit.
Col. ii. II. One of the boldest acts ever done on this principle is recorded
of St. Barbatus of Benevento, who melted down a golden image of
a viper which the half-heathen inhabitants had venerated, and made
a paten and chalice out of it ; see Baring Gould, Lives of Saints, Feb. 19.
* £. g. the traces of polytheism in the * worship ' of saints ; the tendency
O
82 Treatment of Pagan Temples.
CHAP. n. harmless, the leaven pervaded and assimilated the lump :
forms of beauty, once bound up, inextricably as it might
seem, with idolatry and its attendant sensuality, were
gradually detached, and, so to speak, baptized*: words
once suggestive of Paganism lost by degrees their evil
significance, as we, for instance, may remember whenever
we name the days of the week*: and in ways which
TertuUian, for instance, would never have dreamed of,
Christianity 'inherited the earth' by the boldness with
which it claimed and took possession ^
This letter of Gregory to Mellitus was the last of his
gifts to the English mission*: and the arrival of Mellitus
to an idolatrons use of images ; old heathen spells retained with Christ's
name inserted into them (Kemble, i. 365) ; tlie old divination by lots
disguised as ' sortes sanctorum ' (Council of Agde, c. 42) ; Pagan super-
stitions linked to Christian holy-tides, as the eves of St. John Baptist
and All Saints. See Todd's St. Patrick, pp. laS, 50<x There was
sometimes a temptation to make compromises with heathenism, as in
Norway and Iceland in the tenth century ; see Maclear's Conversion of
Northmen, pp. 57, 185.
' See the noble passage in Abp. Trench's Huls. Lect. p. lai, ed. 3.
* See Taylor's Words and Places, p. 320; Trench, Study of Words,
p. 93. Bede says, De Temponim Batione, 15, * people now call the
Paschal time after the goddess Eostre, oonsueto antiquae observationis
vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitatis vocantes.' So Kemble, i. 376 ; Neale,
Essays on Liturgiology, p. 521 ; Skeat, Etymol. Diet. Compare Tule,
the midwinter feast, turned into a synonym for Christmas ; and on the
change of the midsummer festival of Balder into the holyday of St. John
Baptist, see Thorpe's Glossary, letter W.
' * Christianity, always ready to apply and Jtatlow every Ugacy <^ the pasL*
Lappenberg, i. 53.
* Bede says, ii. i, that Gregory died in 605, having held 'the see of
the Roman and apostolic church thirteen years, six months, ten days.*
According to this, he came to the see in 591 ; but the true year seems to
be 590 (see p. 41), and, adopting the same reckoning of the years of his
pontificate, we gain 604 as that of his death. So L'Art de verifier,
iii. 278, and the Benedictine Life, Greg. Op. iv. 304, and Barmby, p. 141.
John the Deacon says that a story was current in the English Churches
to the effect that Gregory, while walking in ' the forum of Trajan,' and
looking at a marble sculpture which represented an instance of that
emperor's justice and kindness, prayed for the deliverance of his soul
from hell ; ii, 44. He asserts that Gregory did not pray, but only wept ;
and that the result was that Trajan's soul was — not translated to
paradise, but — simply ' ab infemi solummodo cruciatibus liberata.' The
Benedictine ' Life ' sets aside the story, including John's modification of
it, as a fable ; b. 3. c. 10. It appears in the tenth canto of Dante's
* Purgatory.'
A rrival of Mellitus. 83
and his companions in Britain, which probably took place chap. n.
about the end of 601, seems to open a new chapter in the
history of the newly-founded Church. The staff of the
mission was now complete: the next few years would
show what it could effect in the region subject to the
immediate rule, or to the less definite supremacy, of the
king who, after cautious deliberation, had so heartily
adopted at once the hopes and the obligations which were
involved in the reception of its creed.
G 2
CHAPTER III.
One of Augustine's first acts, if not the very first, after
the arrival of the four new missionaries, was to act upon
that sentence in Gregory's answers to his questions, which
encouraged him to form relations with the British bishops
and their Church. Ethelbert could in some ways promote
his wish to confer with them personaUy, and to request
their co-operation for the mission. Bitter as was their
animosity against the Saxon name and race, they would at
all events distinguish between heathen Saxons close to their
First con- ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ distant 'Bretwalda' who had so recently
feience become a convert to the faith ^. By some means or other,
British ^^^7 Were induced to agree to meet Augustine, in 602,
Bishops, or perhaps 603, ' at a place still called Augustine's Oak, on
the confines of the Hwiccians and the West-Saxons *.' The
Hwiccians dwelt along the south bank of the Severn, so a.s
to include Gloucester, Malmesbury, Bath, and Cirencester,
^ Bede's account of the great Anglian kings in it 5 implies that Edwin
was the first who gained a regular supremacy over ' the Britons ' ; and
his language naturally includes in the scope those of Wales as well as of
Strathdyde. On the import of 'Bretwalda' (A.-S. Chron. 8^a\ see
reff. above, p. 46. We may assume that it implies a real but indefinite
supremacy of varying extent, and may set aside, as ' forced, the explana-
tions that aim at dissociating Bi'et from Britons ' (Rhys, Gelt. Brit. 137^.
^ Bede, ii. a. To hold a meeting under an oak was in conformity with
old Gothic usage. 'Very many of the trysting-plaoes of the English
courts were marked in like manner by the oak, the beech, or the elm ; '
Palgrave, Eng. Gomm. pp. 139, clviii. Oaks were taken as boundary-
marks ; see Shireoaks near Worksop, and Seven oaks in Kent See also
Stevenson's Ghron. Abingd. ii. p. xliL In one list of boundaries, Ghr.
Ab. i. 96, the * Foul Oak ' occurs, so called from the Pagan worship once
connected with it. See above, p. 79.
Conference with British Bishops. 85
in their district, as Bede knew it in his time ^ : so that chap. ni.
a border-line between this district and Wessex proper
would run too far to the east to allow of our placing
'Augustine's Oak' at Aust or Austcliff, near the Bristol
Channel. It was probably well within the territory of the
Hwiccians, with whom, eleven years before, Britons had
joined in the rising against Ceawlin^, and perhaps we
may think of it as in the neighbourhood of Cirencester,
which was accessible by a Roman road from the east^
And so we may imagine the feelings with which the Welsh
prelates, doubtless provided with assurances of safety,
left their own country to confer with a 'bishop of the
Saxons' who derived his authority from Rome. We
cannot identify these bishops. David, apparently, had
died a year or two before ; Dubricius seems to have been
already a recluse in Bardsey; Teilo was now bishop of
Uandaff, if he had not been succeeded by Gudoceus ^. If
there was a successor of David at Menevia*, he would
probably accompany the successor of Dubricius. Caerleon
was evidently merged in Uandaff: but there were bishoprics
at Bangor, St. Asaph, and Uanbadam, and also, there is some
' For the province of the Hwicoas see Bede, iv. 13, 23. It included
the counties of ' Gloacester, Worcester, and part of Warwick ' ; Freeman,
OId-£ngl. Hist. pp. 39, Ba. Worcester has been supposed to be a cor-
ruption of Hwic-wara- (dwellers) ceaster, Taylor's Words and Places,
p. 69. See Green, Making of England, pp. 139, 147, 334. < Their country
corresponded in extent with the old diocese of Worcester ; ' Elton, Origins
of Engl. Hist p. 376.
' Malmesb. G. R. i. 17 ; Green, p. 209.
* I. e. via London and Silchester (iter 7), and thence by Speen (iter 13)
to * Durocomovium ' or Corinium =Oirencester.
* Llandaif waa the bishopric for Gwent, which is identified with
Monmouthshire. Dyfed or Demetia is Pembrokeshire with part of
Caermarthenshire, and was under St. David's. In the eighth century,
according to Giraldus, Wales was divided into Yenedotia, Deheubarth
including Demetia or Dyfed, and Powys ; Descr. Camb. i. a. Of these,
Yenedotia or Gwynedd comprised Carnarvonshire, Anglesey, most part
of Merionethshire, part of Denbigh and Flint: its bishopric was at
Bangor. Powys, under St. Asaph, included parts of Flint and Denbigh,
part of Merioneth, and also of Shropshire, all Montgomery, part of Badnor
and Brecknock. Deheubarth comprised the six southern counties. The
Welsh episcopate was now diocesan, Haddan and Stubbs, i. 14a.
' See above, p. 37. The Annal. Camb. date the denth of Bishop Cynog
or Cynauc, who by one account succeeded David, in 606.
B6 Question of Easter.
CHAP. m. reason to think, at Llanafanfaur, at Margam, and perhaps
at Weeg in Herefordshire^. The fresh recollection of a
national synod, holden at Caerleon in the year of David's
death*, would render the prelates specially indisposed to
any compromise of their independence, or any surrender
of their usages. It was probably vrith some amount of
jealous suspicion that they met the Roman strangers at
* the Oak/ Augustine, says Bede, ' began to try to persuade
them by brotherly admonitions to hold Catholic peace with
himself, and to undertake in conjunction with him the
work of preaching the gospel to the heathen, for the
Lord's sake.* This was very well, the Britons might
remark; but what was meant by Catholic peace? It
appeared that there were some matters in which the
Britons were not at one with the rest of the Church.
What were they ?
Paschal The first and chief point of difference was as to the mode
question. ^£ reckoning Easter. The Paschal question is not attractive
to the reader of Eusebius ; it is profoundly wearisome to
the reader of Bede ^ The original form of it was simple.
It being agreed on all hands that there must be a yearly
festival in memorial of the Redemption, as effected by the
Passion and Resurrection of Christ; that a fast of some
undefined duration should precede it; and that this
Christian Passover, thus preceded by a fast, should to
some extent be regulated by the season of the Jewish
Passover; — the question arose*, *To what extent? Shall
> Bp. Jones and Freeman, Hist. St David's, p. 966; Haddan and
Stubbs, i. 148, iii. 41 ; Pryoe, p. 145. If these latter bishoprics existed,
they would be for Glamorganshire and Herefordshire. Llanafanfaur
was in Brecknock. Llanbadam was the see for Central Wales.
' Annal. Oamb. a. 601.
' Especially when one is forced to see the absence of a due sense of
proportion in his treatment of the subject ; when he associates with
these disputes such a phrase as 'spiritalis gratiam lucis,' ii. a; and
again, 'Movit haec quaestio sensus et corda multorum, timentium ne
forte accepto Christianitatis vocabulo, in vacuum currer^t aut cucur-
rissent/ iii. 25 ; and Egbert's success in winning over the monks of Hy
to the *true Easter' just before his own death is described as his * seeing
the day of the Lord/ &c., v. aa.
* See Eus. v. 33, 24. He uses the phrases, ' the closing of the fast,' ' the
festival of the Saviour's Pj«»over,* the celebration of the mystery of the
Question of Easter. 87
we conclude the fast, and begin the festival, on that chap. m.
fourteenth day of the moon on which the Jews were to
kill their Passover, on whatever day of the week it may
fall? or shall we take as our fixed point that first day
of the week on which the Lord rose again ? ' The majority
of Churches took the latter alternative: the Church of
Ephesus, and those dependent on it in the province of
' Asia ' (the western part of Asia Minor ^), took the former,
and were therefore afterwards called Quartodecimans.
Fresh complications arose in the third century, in con-
nexion with a question whether the festival should be
always kept after the vernal equinox^: and difierent
canons or 'cycles' were proposed, in order to ascertain
for a number of years the true beginning of the 'first
lunar ' or the ' Paschal ' month ^ Thus Hippolytus made
such a cycle, or table, for sixteen years*: Dionysius of
Lord's Resurrection/ to describe one and the same thing. Polycrates,
the representative of the Quartodecimans, insists repeatedly on the duty
of adhering to {rripuv) Hhe fourteenth.' See Eus. y. 34. Our English
use of 'Easter' instead of ' Pasch,' — which was the usual term in
Scotland, as in Wales,-— obscures to some extent the bearings of the
question.
^ It is necessary to observe this, because the extent to which Quarto-
decimanism prevailed is exaggerated by ignoring the technical and
restrictive sense of 'Asia.*
» Hefele, Councils, i. 316 fll, E. Tr. *The Jews had always determined
the 14th' as occurring after the equinox, but subsequently they some-
times kept it before the equinox, ' until the fall of Jerusalem/ when their
first month began as early as March 5.
» Hefele, i. 318, E. Tr. Diet. Chr. Antiq. i. 591 : *The use of cycles
arose out of the necessity, when lunar months were in use, of linking
together in some manner the changes of the moon and the sun.* King,
Cb. Hist. Irel. L 195 : ' In order to determine on what days the full
moons will occur in coming years, di£ferent cycles or periods of so many
years have been invented after the expiration of which the new and full
moons were found to fall again on the same days as before.*
* Euseb. yi. aa. See it in Galland. BibL Patr. ii. 516 ff. It was in-
scribed on the marble chair of the statue of Hippolytus, on the right side
of which was a table of Paschal full moons, on the left, of Easter
Sundays, calculated according to a cycle of sixteen years. It began from
the first year of Alexander Severus. Hippolytus would defer the Paschal
festival for a week not only if the fourteenth, but ' also if the fifteenth
moon fell on a Sunday ' (Bucher. in Gall. p. 590). See his canon reduced
to the form of that of Yiotorius, ib. p. 599 ; and see Hefele, i. 318 ; Diet
Chr. Antiq. i. 599 ff.
88 Question of Easter.
CHAP. III. Alexandria for eight * : Anatolius of Laodicea for nineteen *.
It was their principle that Easter must follow the equinox.
The Nicene Council reaffirmed the maxim upheld against
the Quartodecimans, — ^that the festival should alwayB be
on a Sunday ; the terms of the decree are unfortunately-
lost, but we infer from Constantine's circular to the
churches that it laid down as a principle that the Christian
solemnity should never concur with the Jewish ». The
context shows that what was primarily aimed at was the
prevention of the discordance and scandal which would
follow if in any given year, when the Jews might be keep-
ing their Passover btfore the vernal equinox, some churches
did the like as to Easter. It was therefore ordained that
Easter Sunday should always and everywhere be a Sunday
following the equinox : and the principle in question would
also imply that it should similarly follow, and never
coincide with, the fourteenth day of the Pa^ichal month.
Later statements, to the effect that the council adopted the
nineteen years' cycle, and that it commissioned the
Alexandrian see,, by the aid of Alexandrian science, to
ascertain for each year, and to notify to other churches
through the Roman see, the day to be kept as Easter
Sunday, may require considerable deduction: a more or
less general consent of churches on the latter point may
have been insensibly formalized into a synodical resolu-
tion : and the acceptance of the Alexandrian cycle, and of
March 21 as the date of the equinox, would be involved
in such consent. Rome dated the equinox on March 18,
and adhered to her own way in this matter; and the
result was that between a. d. 325 and 343 the Roman
Easter fell six times on a different day from the
Alexandrian*. In 343 the Sardican Council attempted
a settlement, which was not in effect observed. Two
^ Euseb. Tii. 90.
* Euseb. vii. 3a ; Hefele, i. 320, ' the completion of this cycle of nine-
teen years is attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea.' But see Bp. Lightfoot
in Diet. Chr. Biogr. iii. 314, against this, and against the notion that the
council explicitly adopted that cycle. See also Smith's Bede^ p. 696.
« Sacr. I. 9. See Hefele, i. 325-327. Cp, Loo the Great, Ep. 121.
* Hefele, i. 328. See Smith 't» Bede, p. 697.
Question of Easter. 89
successive archbishops of Alexandria, Theophilus and chap. m.
Cyril, framed Paschal tables based on the nineteen years'
cycle : and although Rome for some time used the cycle of
eighty-four years ^ which had superseded that of sixteen,
and was * a little improved by Sulpicius Severus,' ' it has
been conjectured/ says Hefele, that Pope Hilary adopted
the better scheme which had been framed by Victorius of
Aquitaine^ an abbot at Rome, in 456-7; and finally, in
527, one still more accurate, and completely in accordance
with Alexandrian calculations, was proposed by Dionysius
Exiguus, and accepted by Rome and Italy ^ while the
Victorian cycle ' long held its ground in Gaul,' and the old
cycle of eighty-four years was retained by the British and
Irish Churches*. But the mere retention of an old-
fashioned cycle was not the main ground of offence, which
consisted in the circumstance that the insular Celts
departed in fact from the principle of the Nicene resolu-
tion *, by allowing the fourteenth of the moon to be Easter
Day, if it fell on a Sunday • ; whereas in that case they
* Hefele, I.e. ; Diet. Ghr. Ant. i. 59a. See Lanigan, Ecel. Hist. Ireland,
ii. 374. He says that the Roman cyele *" supposed eaeh lunation to be
shorter by two minutes and some seeonds than it really is,' &e. Owing
to these differences the Roman Easter in 387 was on March ai, the
Alexandrian on April 35 ; in 444 the Roman rule would place Easter
on March a6, the Alexandrian on April 33, and Leo adopted for the
time the Alexandrian calculation : so in a.d. 455.
* For Victorius of Aquitaine's cycle of 53a yeai-s, formed by multiplying
the lunar C3'cle of 19 years by the solar of aS, see Prideaux, Connection,
li. a55 ; Smith's Bede, p. 700 ; Lanigan, ii. 377 ; Hefele, i. 330 ; Diet.
Chr. Biogr. iv. 1139. ^® cycle began with a.d. aS.
' Hefele, i. 330 ; Prideaux, ii. 357 ; Smith's Bede, p. 701 ; Haddan and
Stubbs, i. 15a. The revision of the Victorian table by Dionysius ' trans-
ferred to him most of the merit which belonged to Victorius ; ' Diet. Ghr.
Ant. i. 594.
* Diet. Chr. Antiq. 1. c. ; Hefele, i. 330 ; Lanigan, ii. 384. For Gaul
see fourth Council of Orleans, a.d. 541, can. i, Mansi, ix. 113; Greg.
Toron., Hist. Fr. y. 17, implies that most of the Gauls kept Easter in 577
on April 18, according to Victorius, but some with the Spaniards on
March ai ; cp. ib. x. 33 ; and see Columban in Greg. Ep. ix. 137.
* Haddan and Stubbs, i. 153. See Bede, ii. 19, 'quod in Nicaena
synodo,' fto.
* As Bede says, they observed Easter < a quarta decima usque ad vioesi-
mam lunam,' i. e. would include the fourteenth moon among those which
might belong to Easter Sunday, and from it onwards to tbe twentieth.
Cp. Bede, ii. 4, iii. 3, 17, 95, a8. Lanigan says that Sulpicius found
go Question of Easter,
oHAP. m. ought to have deferred Easter till the twenty-first.
According to the orthodox reckoning^, the fifteenth was
the first day of the moon which could be Easter Sunday ;
this method, starting at the fifteenth, and going on to the
twenty-first, kept clear of the Jewish day; whereas the
Celtic did not keep clear of it*. That is, the Celtic
calculation was objectionable as adhering to a discredited
cycle for the Paschal moons, but distinctly ofiensive as
including the fourteenth within the days on which Blaster
I Simday might fall. But, as we see at once, the Britons
were not really Quartodecimans, inasmuch as they made
a point of keeping Easter on a Sunday ® ; and their own
claim to derive their traditional method from the Churches
of ' Asia,' and so from St. John himself, was without f ounda-
: tion. This, it may be added, annihilates an argument
1 which has been often advanced in favour of a directly
j Oriental origin for the ancient British Church*. It
that by a mistake in the Homan reckoning of the days of the moon, the
fourteenth moon was caUed the sixteenth : he restored to it the name
of fourteenth, and directed that as it was really the same day as the
sixteenth of the nnrevised cycle, Easter Sunday might fall on it. This
rale was adopted by the Irish and British (ii 384).
^ In the fifth century, the Latins would not allow even the fifteenth
to be kept as Easter Sunday : their Paschal limits began with the
sixteenth ; Lanigan, ii. 375, 378 ; Diet. Chr. Ant. i. 594. So, when in
590 their fifteenth was a Sunday, Gregory of Tours ^more anti-Judaic
than even Wilfrid or Bede) deferred his Easter until the twenty-second,
so as to keep it wholly outside the Jewish festal period, H. Fr. x. 33. By
one reading, the account of the Hhird order of Irish saints' says that
some of them kept Easter on the fourteenth moon (as did those of the first
and second order), others on the sixteenth. See Todd's St. Patrick, p. 89.
* Prideaux, ii. 358. See Bede, v. ai.
' So says Bede of the Irish, who agreed with the Britons : iii 4,
*■ Quem tamen et antea non semper in luna quarta decima, cum Judaeis,
ut quidam rebantur,' &c lb. iii. 17, 95. So Eddi dearly, 'a quarta
decima luna Dominica die yeniente,' Vit. WiliV. 10. Nor had the earlier
British Christians been Quartodecimans. See Euseb. V. G. lit 9; Soe.
y. 23 ; and the subscriptions of the three British bishops to the Council
of Aries; cp. Hefele, i. 331. Hodgkin remarks that Hhe Irishmen, . . .
by harping continually on . . . '' the 14th day," gare their opponents the
opportunity of fastening upon them the name of Quartodecimans ' (Italy
and her Inyaders, vi. 116), as e.g. Eddi did in a sense, y. 15. See
Plummer's Bede, ii. 1 14.
* Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i 51 ; Lanigan, ii. 385 ; Haddan^s Remains,*
p. 315.
Baptismal Rites. 91
appears also that the Britons rely on the authority of chap. hi.
a Paschal canon ascribed to Anatolius, but now admitted to
be a forgery, and ' perhaps designed to support ' the Celtic
rule\
Another difference, but vaguely alluded to in Bede's Baptismal
account of the conference, consisted in this, that the Britons ^*®*'
did not ' perform the ministry of baptizing fully according
to the Roman manner \* If we ask in what respect they
fell short, we are left without any certain answer. If they
did not use trine immersion ^ this need not have been
a serious difficulty to the 'disciples' of a Pope who not
only admitted that either trine or single immersion might
have an orthodox* significance, but advised the Spanish
Church, under the circumstances of its own position in
regard to Arianism, to retain the latter use^ Still,
Augustine may have been unaware of this exceptional
coimsel, or have ignored it as exceptional, and deemed
himself bound to insist on the method which prevailed
everywhere else on the continent. It has been less
probably supposed that the Britons may have omitted that
unction of the crown of the head which usually came
between the baptism and the confirmation^, or some
other ceremonies which formed part of the Roman rite •.
^ Diet Cbr. Ant. i. 594. See this ' canon ' in Galland. Bibl. Patr. iii.
545. According to it, in nineteen yean Easter Sunday fell three times
on the fourteenth moon ; Vit Wilfr. 10. Cf. Duchesne, Origines, p. 929,
* Des livres apocryphes compost exprte pour soutenir leur usage
national.*
' 'Ck>mpl6atis,' Bede, ii. 9.
' Haddan and Stubbs, i. 153; Haddan's Remains, p. 390. Whitley
Stokes, Tripartite Life of St Patrick, i. p. clzzxiii, says that trine
immersion was the Irish practice : but Warren thinks that the mention
of it in the earliest extant Irish ' baptismal office ' may be due to Boman
influences ; lit. and Ritual of Celtic Ch. p. 65.
* Greg. Ep. i. 43.
* Muratori, Lit Rom. ii. 157. The unction of confirmation was on the
forehead ; ib. L 571 ; Innocent I, Ep. i. 3. The Irish certainly used
chrism in connexion with baptism ; Warren, Lit. and Ritual, 1. c.
* HuBsey's Bede, p. 78. If the British clergy were careless as to
naming each Person of the Holy Trinity at the time of the < immersion,'
Augustine would surely have insisted distinctly on a point so essential
to the sacrament It is obsenrable that St Boniface asked for, and
obtained, the papal approval of an English canon, to the effect that
'quieunque sine inyocatione Trinitatis lotus fttisset, sacramentum re*
92 Tonsure.
CHAP. III. A third peculiarity, not mentioned here by Bede,
Tonsure, although he has enough to tell us about it in other
passages^, related to the visible appearance of the Celtic
clergy. To cut the hair short was an ascetic fashion,
which gradually extended itself to all ecclesiastics ^ ; it was
supposed to carry out St. Paul's hint in i Cor. xi. 14, to
serve as a protest against effeminate luxuriousness, and to
represent * seclusion from worldly pleasure ^' and a special
dedication to the service of God. By degrees, an actual
' tonsure * came into use ; and late in the fifth century * it
took the ' coronal ' form, the top of the head being shaved
close, and a circle or crown of hair left to grow around it.
This fashion obtained in Gaul and in Italy. But the
Celtic clergy exhibited a semicircle of hair on the front of
the head °, so that their continental brethren, on inspecting
them from behind, were scandalized by finding * the seeming
crown lopped off*.' The Roman tonsure, like every other
generationis non haberot ; ' Zach. Ep. iii. But the Pope's words do not
show that this canon was framed under Augustine (^ Warren, p. 66) ; on
the contrary, he calls it a ' capitulum for the synod of that province in
which Boniface was born,' and which Augustine and his successors,
including Theodore, had 'governed.'
^ Bede, iii. a6 ; iv. i ; v. 21, 2a.
' See Bingham, b. vi. 4. 16 ; vii. 3. 6, that anciently the crown of the
head was not shaved, but the hair was kept short. He cites Jerome in
Ezech. 1. 13 to this effect, and Salvian de Gub. Dei, viii. 4, 'recisis
comarum fluentium jubis.' See also Greg. Turon. de Mirac. S. Mart.
iii. T5, 'humiliatis capillis,' and Diet. Ghr. Biogr. ii. 1989. Kabillon owns
that in Benedict's time 'monachi ad cutem resecti fyon erant;' Ann.
Bened. i. 53. Yet some ancient ascetics shaved the head bare ; Soc. iii. z.
' Lingard, A.-S. Oh. i. 54. The famous 'Nestorian' inscription in
China explained the tonsure as signifying that the clergy had *no
inward affections of their own.'
* Smith's Bede, p. 712 ; Lanigan, iii. 68 ff. In 633, the fourth Council
of Toledo, c. 41, ordered all clerics to shave the whole of the top of the
head, and leave below ' solam circuli coronam,' — not like the Mectors' in
Gallicia, who wore long hair like laics, and shaved a smaU circle on the
top of the head only. The portrait of Gregorj' the Great shows the coronal
tonsure.
^ As the Irish themselves expressed it, 'one tonsure from ear to ear ;'
Todd's Life of St. Patrick, p. 487. Patrick was called the Tailcend, or
'Shaven-head' ; ib. p. 411 ; Stokes, Tripartite Life, i. p. clxxxiv.
* ' Decurtatam ; ' Ceolfrid's letter in Bede, v. ai. See this represented
as on the head of St. Mummolinus of Noyon, who had been a monk
of Luxeuil ; Mabillon, Ann. Bened. L 529.
Conference with Britons. 93
Roman usage, was, as a matter of course, traced up to chap. m.
St. Peter ^ ; and its wearers, or at any rate the more zealous
among them, were pleased to attribute the rival fashion to
Simon Magus 2. If these various disputes seem more or
less trivial, let us remember that when the Church was
still fighting against masses of heathenism, such points of
external uniformity might 'well have appeared, even to
the strongest and most spiritual minds, far graver than
charity can allow them to be in our time ^.'
To return to the conference. Bede tells us* that 'after
a long discussion,' in which the British delegates ' refused
to comply with the prayers, or the exhortations, or the
reproaches of Augustine and his companions, but preferred
their own traditions to all the Churches which throughout
the world were at unity with each other in Christ,' Augus-
tine proposed to appeal to Ood for a sign that might
' declare which tradition was to be followed, and by what
path men were to hasten to enter His kingdom.' The
criterion which he proposed was, 'Let a sick man be
brought forward, and let the party whose prayers shall
avail for his cure be accepted as having the right faith and
practice.' The Britons, though reluctantly, agreed : a blind
man of English race was brought forward: 'the British
priests ' failed to cure him, but Augustine prayed, the blind
man received his sight, and the Britons owned that it was
^ Aldhelm supposes St. Peter to have had three reasons for instituting
it; £p. to King Geraint. Gregory of Tours says that Peter < caput
deeuper tonderi instituit ' in order to teach humility ; De Glor. Mart.
i. aS; but see Smith's Bede, p. 705, on the ^improbability' of ascribing
to an apostle < tenacious of Jewish observances * an observance contrary
to Levitt xiz. 37. If, he adds, it was Paul who shaved his head at
Cenchrea, ' capillum postea crescere 8inebat,*&c.
* Bede, v. ai : *Tonsuram earn quam magum /erun< habuisse Simonem,'
&C. Aldhelm gives this as *• the opinion of veiy many.' See Stokes,
Tripartite Life, ii. 509. But it was also traced up to Dubthach, wrongly
described as * the swineherd of Laeghaire, the Pagan king who resisted
Patrick;' Reeves's Adamn. p. 350; Lanigan, iii. 69, 71, who is equally
sarcastic as to the 'Petrine' and the 'Simonian* hypotheses, and Rhys,
Gelt. Britain, p. 75.
' Goldwin Smith, Irish Hist, and Irish Character, p. ag. See Prof.
Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, p. 155, that any approach to
Judaising was ' still a real terror.'
^ Bede, ii. a : ' Qui cum longa disputatione habita/ &c
94 Second Conference.
CHAP. m. the true way of righteousness which Augustine taught, but
added that they could not give up their old customs with-
out the consent of their brethren : they therefore requested
that a second synod might be held, in which a larger
number would be present. This part of the story reads
very like an 'interpolation*' into the original narrative.
Bede, no doubt, reported faithfully what was in his time
the Canterbury tradition > : but the incident of the miracle
might have become embodied in that tradition in the
course of a centuiy or more; and the Britons are repre-
sented as acting with such inconsistency as they would
hardly have shown, especially when we read what follows.
Second The sccond meeting was held : seven British bishops, ' as
ence.^*^' ^^ related^,* — so Bede with his usual caution tells us, —
resolved on attending. This implies that the former
gathering had not included all the prelates. They were
accompanied by * many most learned men, especially ' from
the great monastery of Bangor Iscoed, then under the rule
Advice of Abbot Dunod, whom Bede calls Dinoot. The deputies
Hei-mit. repaired beforehand to a hermit * famed for prudence and
holiness, and asked whether he would advise them to give
up their own traditions at Augustine's request, or not.
The response was, 'If he be a man of God, follow him.*
^ Hook, L 68, treats it as a mere 'Canterbury tale.' It appears that
the delegates to the second conference knew nothing, or else thought
nothing, of the story of the blind man.
' Lingard observes that the abbot Albinus of Canterbury, who was
Bede's informant about Kentish Church affairs, derived his account
partly from documents, partly from ' seniorum traditione * (Bede, Pra>f. ),
and that this ' traditio,' at the distance of more than a hundred years,
< must have received embellishments ;' A.-S. Ch. i. 68.
' * Ut perhibent.' Cp. L is, ' fertur ; * ii. i, * dicunt ; ' ii. 5, ' ut vulgo
fertur;' ii. la, <ut ferunt;' ii. 16, ' perhibetur ; ' iii. 9, 'fertur;' iii. 5,
19, 16, *fenmt;' iii. 14, 16, 94, * fertur;' iv. 13, * ferunt;' iv. 14, 'per-
hibentur ; ' iv. 19, < ferunt/ ' sunt qui dicant ; ' iv. 93, 30, * ferunt,' &c.
^ The hermit-life was much honoured in Wales ; compare the rdtir&-
ment of Dubricius to Bardsey. King Tewdric (see below) gave up his
realm to his son Mouric, ' et vitam heremitalem in rupibus DindYm ooepit
discere ' (i. e. at Tintem) ; Monast Angl. vi. 1999. See Girald. Deser.
Camb. i. iB: 'Heremitas . • . abstinentiae majorlB, magisque spirit-
uales, alibi non videas.' Bede refers to hermit life in iii. 19; iv. 98,
99 ; V. I, 9, 19. For Scotic hermit life see also Adamnan, i. 49 ; iii. 93,
and p. 366 (ed. Beeves).
Advice of the Hermit. 95
'But how shall we ascertain that?' 'Our Lord/ replied chap. m.
the hermit, ' spoke of Himself as meek and lowly in heart.
If Augustine shows that temper, you may believe that he
has learned of Christ, and taken up His yoke, and is offer-
ing it to you. But if he is harsh and proud, it is clear
that he is not from God : we are not to care for his words.'
'But how is ihi^ to be discerned?' The oracle gave
a precise answer: 'Manage^ so that he shall come to the
meeting-place before you. If, when you approach, he rises
to meet you, be sure that he is a servant of Christ, and
listen to him obediently. If he does not rise up, but treats
you contemptuously, — ^you are the more nimierous body,
and can show contempt in your turn ^ ! ' Some grains of
fact may lie in this anecdote; yet the Britons would
hardly 'have made so much depend on so little. But, if
they consulted any such adviser, or agreed to apply so
purely personal a test, it is clear, on Bede's own showing,
as, indeed, it would be clear apart from this incident in the
story, that they did not deem themselves bound to accept
the exhortations of a bishop sent from Rome, and thus far
a representative of Rome'*, as such. They treated the
question as open: Shall we adopt his ways, or shall we
not? They came, as they had resolved, to the meeting,
after Augustine had taken his seat. He continued sitting^ :
* 'Procurate ut ipse prior/ &c.
' ' £t ipee spernatur a vobis.*
' LiDgard argaea that the subjects of Papal authority and British inde-
pendence did not comtf into consideration; Angl.-S. Gh. i. 380. This is
fdtile. The British delegates could not fail to know that Augustine did
come to them as specially empowered from Rome. And their reverence
for Kome did not, in their view, commit them to obedienoe to its
emissary. But it musk have done so, had it included a belief in Papal
supremacy. And the relation of the Celtic Churches to Rome was one of
veneration without subjection, as is manifest from the language of such
a typical Celtic saint as Columban. See e.g. his fifth epistle, to
Boniface IV. Even to Gregory the Great he had written in a peremptory
tone on the Easter question, Ep. i.
^ 'Sederet in sella,' Bede. ' Romano more in sella residens,' Bromton.
Various explanations of 'this apparent discourtesy' are offered in the
English ' Life of St. Augustine,' p. 999. After all, the writer pleads that
at worst it was but ' an excusable negligence,' and blames the British
bishops for ' taking such a trifle so much to heart.' Elmham boldly con-
tends that it would not have been ' decens ut tam feros et erroneos . . .
96 Augustine^s terms rejected.
CHAP. III. he probably thought that he must assert his dignity as
archbishop, and did so in a manner as deficient in tact
as in courtesy. According to Bede, the Britons at once
showed temper, ' charged him with pride, and made a point
of contradicting all that he said.' He intended, no doubt,
to speak with calmness and moderation: 'You go against
our custom, or rather that of the Universal Church, on
many points: but if you are willing to yield on these
three ^, to keep Easter at its right time, to perform baptism
according to the manner of the holy Roman and apostolic^
Church, and to join with us in preaching the word of the
Lord to the Ekiglish, — we will quietly bear with your other
Failure of practices, however contrary to our own.' A speech so
ference." worded would seem magisterial to the sensitive and sus-
picious auditors. We are told that they said to each other,
* If just now he would not rise to greet us, he will be yet
more overbearing if we begin to obey him;' and that
thereupon they gave their decisive answer, *We will do
none of these things which you require, nor will we have
you as our archbishop ^.' Not till this moment, as far as
assiirgendo inflaret,' after having granted them a second conferouee ;
p. 105. A reference to ' sellae plectiles ' is in Greg. Ep. xii. 19.
^ Pearson goes so far as to say that ' fresh from the large-minded con-
cessions of Gregory, Augustine made up his mind to great concessions, but
he felt that three points were too important to be sacrificed ; ' Hist. Engl,
i. 195. One of the points waived was evidently the tonsure. Another,
as evidently, was the use of a peculiar liturgy ; Warren, Lit. and Rit. of
Celtic Gh. p. 76. Such concessions are ignored by those who exaggerate
Augustine's stiffness.
' This phrase (cp. Bede, ii. i, 7, iii. 99) has not the sense of ' the one
Catholic and Apostolic Church ' of the Creed, but refers to the distinctive
claim of Rome among Western Churches to be of apostolic foundation. Cp.
the plirase ^apostolicus papa,' cf. Bede, iv. z, and Lib. Diurn. Pont. n. a.
' The speech ascribed to Dunod, disowning the supremacy of the Pope,
or, as it is expressed, of *■ him whom ye call Pope and Father (Daad) of
fathers,' and describing the British Church as under the government of
the ' Esgob Kaerllion,' is spurious, ' drawn up by some mediaeval Welsh
antiquary, and probably enough suggested by Bede's account of the matter,'
as ' it truly represents the feeling of the then British Church towards
Rome ; ' Haddan and Stubbs, i. 149. It was first edited by Spelman, and
accepted by Stillingfleet, ii. 536, and Bramhall, L i6a, &c See it in
Migue, Patrol. Lat. Ixxx. aa, and, in Welsh and Latin, in Smith's Bede,
p. 716. Geoffrey makes Dunod say that they owed no subjection to
Augustine, for they had an ' archipraesul ' of their own, — and that they
Augustine^s prediction. 97
Bede's tale goes, had the archiepisoopal pretensions of orap. m.
Augustine been mooted ; but the Britons must at any rate
have been aware from the first that he claimed that rank
among the English, and must have presumed that his
proposals would involve their recognition of it, in case they
agreed to work with him. He had not been faultless in
his conduct of the matter : but even in the vehement words
which at last broke from him ^ one sees that, what stirred
him to grief and anger was not so much their defiance of
his authority, as their refusal to aid in his missionary
enterprise. * If you will not accept peace with brethren,
you will have to accept war from enemies : if you will not
preach the way of life to the English, you will be punished
with death by English hands/ These words have met with
very opposite treatment, in consequence of a tragedy which
happened some years after Augustine's death, probably in
A.D. 613 ^ Ethelfrid the * Fierce' or the 'Destroyer,' who,
ten years earlier, had utterly broken the aggressive power
of the Argyllshire Scots at Degsastone^ turned his arms
against the Britons, perhaps because they had sheltered
' would not beetow their preaching on their enemies ; ' viii. 4 (zi. la).
The Llandaff story (see Usher, Antiq. p. 46), that Oudoceus of Llandaff
submitted to the authority of Augustine, is a gross fiction ; see Bees,
Welsh Saints, p. 274. He observes that at the conference there was no
question between the archbishop of the English and a British metro-
politan ; which would show that the archbishopric of Gaerleon was
extinct, '«/ indeed it had ever been firmly established;' ib. p. 991.
' There is no real eyidence of the existence of a real archiepisoopate in
Wales during the Welsh period ; ' Haddan and Stubbs, i. 148.
^ < Fertuir minitans praedixisse,' Bede. ' In the anguish of disappoint-
ment,' Lingard, A.-S. G. i. 71. Milner (Hist. Gh. cent. 6. c. i) charges
him with *■ ambitious encroachment,' but believes also that he was acting
' from charitable views.'
' AnnaL Gamb. a. 613. This date, rather than 605, or 607 (the two
readings of Sax.Ghron.), is adopted in Annals of Engl. p. 30 ; Haddan and
Stubbs, iii. 41 ; Guest, Orig. Gelt. ii. 309 ; Green, Making of England,
p. 340.
' Bede, i. 34 ; S. Ghron. a. 603. The kingdom of the Scots of Dalriada,
then held by Aidan, seventh of the line, had been founded xoo years
before, by Fergus M5r, son of Ere ; but their original immigration into
North Britain cannot be dated. See Skene, Geltic Scotland, i. 140 ;
Haddan and Stubbs, ii 105. 'Degsastan' seems to be Dawston near
Jedbui^ ; Skene, i. 169 ; Green, p. 933 ; l>ut others place it at Balaton,
near Carlisle. On Aidan's 'wars ' see Rhys, Geltic Britain, p. 157.
H
gS Battle of Chester.
CHAP. III. Edwin, the heir of the Deiran realm which he had annexed
to Bemicia ; and in this campaign he besieged the northern
Battle of * City of Legions/ the ancient Roman town of Chester. The
Chester, ujiabitants risked a battle : just before it began, Ethelf rid
saw, ' standing apart in a place of comparative security/
a large body of British priests, including a number of
monks from the neighbouring monastery of Bangor Iscoed,
who, after a three days* fast, had come under the escort of
BrocmaiP, king of Powys, to pray for the success of their
countrymen. * If,* said the stem Northumbrian, ' they are
crying to their God against us, then are . they fighting
against us by curses, though not with arms. Attack
them first \ * It was done, and only fifty escaped ; Broc-
mail having fled without striking a blow for those who
had been entrusted to his protection. Such was 'the
battle of Cair Legion, wherein the holy men were slain,'
as it was described in Irish records*; 'the battle of the
orchard of Bangor^,* as the Welsh sometimes called it,
from the subsequent destruction of that great house with
all its literary treasures: the remains of Bangor Iscoed
exhibited, centuries later, a mass of ruined walls and
cloisters, and the rubbish of two gates of the town, called
Forth Kleis and Forth Wgan, a mile apart*. Chester was
taken, and apparently destroyed^: but the slaughter of
^ Or Brochic«l ; Rees, WelBh Saints, p. 908. According to the Ann.
Cambr., he sunrived till 66a, and so Rhys considers him to have been ' told
off to guard the priests ' on account of his youth. But of the three British
chiefs who fell in the battle, Guest considers one to have been his grandson ;
and therefore describes Broohmael as advanced in life at the time (ii. 3o8\
* Tighernach ; 0'Ck)nnor, Rer. Hib. Scr. ii. iSa. On this battle see
Freeman, Engl. Towns and Districts, p. 378.
' Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 293.
* Halmesb. Gest. Reg. i. 47 ; and Vaughan, ap. Camden, i 666.
' Chester remained desolate until it was restored by iEthelfled, Alfred's
daughter, in 907. See Palgrave, p. 455 : * The capture of the City of
Legions was long lamented by the Britons,* and it seems to have been
followed by the loss of the country between the Dee and the northern
Derwent (Rhys, p. 138). But about the same time, they had a triumph
over Oeolwulf of Wessex in the battle of Tintem, when the royal hermit
Tewdric, once king of Moi^ganwg (Glamorganshire) and ever victorious in
war, left his oeU at ' the cry of his people,' and secured their victory at
the cost of his own life, for one of the foemen turned round in his flight
and wounded him with a spear. According to the legend, the dying
Battle of Chester. 99
the ecclesiastics waa regarded by their countrymen as the chap. iir.
most tragic feature of the event*, by Bede and the Saxon
Chronicler as a fulfilment of Augustine's ' prophecy ' : and
Bede so far forgets his better nature as to apply the word
Tiefandae to the patriotic British host*. On the other
hand, some modems, hostile to Augustine's memory, have
imagined ^ that he himself, in revenge for the obstinacy of
Welsh bishops, had induced the Northumbrian ' Destroyer'
to .slaughter the Welsh priests : whereas the battle took
place, according to Bede, * long ' after his own death, which
was not later than 605 ; — and even if it had been fought
in his lifetime, he had as little interest with the heathen
Ethelfrid* as he had heart for so atrocious a suggestion.
He returned home in bitter disappointment. Whether
he visited any other parts of Saxon Britain, endeavouring
to do what he could for their heathen inhabitants, we
cannot tell: the stories which ascribe to him some such
hermit king was borne in a wain to a place near the Serem, where he
bade his attendants depart, and expired alone ; Mon. Anglic, yi. 1233 ;
Turner, i. 334.
' See Seott's lines, written for an old Welsh air, ' The Monks' March :' —
'Woe to Brocmail's feeble hand,
Woe to Olfrid's bloody brand,
Woe to Saxon cruelty,
0 miserere, Domine!*
' So 'gentis perfidae,' 'perfidi,' which might mean 'untrue to the
obligations of their faith ' (in iii. 7, a refusal to accept the faith is ' per-
fidia'). He reflects bitterly on the Britons in other passages, ii. ao, t. aa.
For this he has been severely blamed : but he was thinking of the repulse
of Aug^tine*s overtures, of the cruelties of a British invader of Northum-
bria, and of the Britons' contempt for English Christianity. That his
feeling was not simply anti-Oeltic, is proved by his cordial language
respecting the Irish as a nation, iii. 97 ; iv. a6. And he does once praise
a ' Briton' for discernment ('sagaci animo'), iii 10.
' A charge ' too absurd to merit any serious notice ; ' Milner, cent. 6.
c. I. 'An abominable calumny of some writers ; ' Lanigan, ii. 379. 'A
crowd of modem writers have re-echoed the calumny ;' Lingard, A.-S.
Oil. i. 7a. ' A preposterous libel ; ' Haddan's Remains, p. 316. To deny
it was, in 1673, and at Oxford, to incur suspicion of Popery I (see Ant.
Wood's Life, p. 191. Writing thirty years later, Inett says, * I willingly
yield to the side of charity ; ' Orig. Angl. i. 35^ Geoffrey of Monmouth
had suggested it, by the absurd fiction that ^ Edelbertus Edelfridum insti-
mulavit ' (viii. 4).
* How could such a < prophecy hardly fail to hasten its own fulfilment ' ?
Milman, Lat. Ghr. ii. a34. See Hook's good remarks, Archbishops, L 73.
H 2
loo Bishopric of London.
CHAP. m. journeys have no sufficient authority ^ But he found
a prospect opening before him among the Elast-Saxons,
whose king, Sigebert I, or Sabert, was Ethelbert's nephew
as well as vassal, being the son of his sister Ricula.
Bishopric Mellitus was sent to London, and converted Sabert: in
^ ^ ^^' consequence, he was made bishop of London in the begin-
ning of 604*, and Ethelbert and Sabert were both con-
cerned in the erection of a cathedral church on the site of
the present St. Paul's, which had been formerly occupied
by a Roman camp. The story that a temple of Diana had
stood there *^ is at least doubtful: but an altar of Diana,
discovered near the spot not very many years since, may
have belonged to the praetorium*. It was afterwards
believed that Sabert had also been the founder of
a monastery of St. Peter which was called 'the West
Minster,' on ' Thomey ' Island, in the ' great marsh ' then
formed by the Thames as it bent south-westward ^ Augus-
^ E. g. Thorn says, X Script. 1760, that he 'sowed the seed of God's
word everywhere throughout the whole land of the English,' always * pedes
sine vehiculo ' : and Gooelin, in his longer Life of Augustine, 37 £E1, makes
him work miracles at York, e. g. on a leper, — inflict a grotesque punish-
ment on some Dorsetshire rustics who had fastened fishes' tails to his and
his brethren's garments (s. 41), — and even visit Colman 'king of Ireland,'
and baptize the future Irish saint Livinus (s. 48 ; cp. Vit. S. Livini, Migne,
Patr. Lat. Ixzxix. 871, B73). These stories grew up out of a desire to make
Augustine apostle of all England in the sense of having preached through-
out it. Cp. the legend in Thomas of Ely (An^. Sac. i. 594 \ that he
founded a church in Cratunden, ' a mile from the present city ' of Ely ;
and the weird story of the ' dead-alive ' excommunicate and excommuni-
cator, told by Bromton with a prefatory reference to Augustine's preach-
ing in Oxfordshire ; X Script. 736.
' Bede, ii. 3.
' In the later Middle Ages the ' festnm Sancti Adelberti * was a festival
of the first class at St. Paul's ; Statutes of St. Paul's, ii 59.
* See Dugdale's Hist of St. Paul's, p. a, on the structure * called Diana's
Chambers, and the ox-heads digged up ' in the time of Edward I ; and
Milman, Annals of St. Paul's, p. 5.
^ Thorn ascribes the foundation of St. Peter's to 'a citizen of London at
the suggestion of Ethelbert ; ' X Script. 176B. This was a tradition which
in Malmesbury became mixed up witli a wild story about a dedication of
the church by St. Peter himself; Gtost. Pont. p. 141. So Ailred of Rievaulx,
in X Script. 385. A ' West Minster ' did exist, as a church of some im-
portance, long before the Confessor's great foundation ; Freeman, Norm.
Conq. ii. 511. See Sir Walter Besant's charming volume on 'Westmin-
ster,' p. 7. He argues convincingly that the spot, instead of being wild or
Bishopric of Rochester. loi
tine, when he consecrated Mellitus, may have indulged in chap. in.
expectations of successful mission-work in the great city
and its neighbourhood: but his hopes were not to be
speedily realized. In no part of England was there so
much tenacity of heathenism, so much resistance to the
new faith, as in the 'emporium of many nations \' and
generally in the East-Saxon realm. More than one effort*
was necessary before the church of London or the parts
adjacent could be considered as firmly restored upon its
Saxon basis: and it might seem that Augustine soon
became conscious of some of the difficulties that lay in
the path of the new bishop.
Matters were easier in regard to that district of Eent^ Bishopric
which was dependent on the little city of Rochester, or^^J^^^®*"
^ Hrof 's Castle,' which in British times had been called
DurobrivfiB, from 'the swift stream' of the Medway. There
Ethelbert built a church, which, in fond remembrance of
his Roman monastery, Augustine dedicated in honour of
St. Andrew. The ' Bretwalda ' was bounteous in his gifts
to this church^, as to that of London; and Justus was
' desolate,' was a ' Roman station, a centre of traffic ' of aU sorts, * bustling,
noisy, frequented ; ' and he thinks it probable that the church founded
early in the ' seventh century ' was in fact an earlier church restored.
Certainly the phrase 4oco terribili,' in the charter ascribed to Offit (and
preserved in the chapter-house), has been quite misunderstood for want' of
remembering that it is borrowed from the Vulgate of Gen. zxiv. 17, and
means simply ' awful * as being sacred. Bede's silence would not disprove
the tradition, for he might not think it necessary to mention a foundation
which was not connected with the bishopric. The traditional tomb of
Sabert is to the south of the altar in the present church.
' Bede, ii. 3. Cp. Tacitus, Ann. ziv. 33, 'Londinium . . . copia negotia-
torum . . . maxime celebre.' ' The commercial fame of London dates from
the early days of Roman dominion ; ' Freeman, i. aSi.
* See Bede, iiL aa, 30 ; cp. ib. 7.
^ It has been thought that there was even then a sub-king of West Kent.
Yet see Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 198. Malmesbury describes Rochester as
a town of narrow area, but, from its high position above a very swift river,
not easily accessible to foes ; Gest. Pontif. p. 133. Bede says that ' Hrof '
was a former 'chief man' of the Angles. Elton thinks 'Hrof an
imaginary person ; Origins of Engl. Hist. i. 368.
* See the ' Charter of Ethelbert to the church of Rochester,' Kemble,
Cod. Diplom. A.-S., i. i. It is subsequent to the death of Augustine. The
King begins by admonishing his son Eadbald, and then addresses the
Apostle : * To thee, Saint Andrew, and to thy church which is established
I02 ' Church and Realm ' in Kent.
c
HAP. HI. consecrated as bishop of the new diocese, which for ages
held a specially close relation of dependence on the arch-
diocese of Canterbury, — the successors of Justus being,
beyond all other suffragans, under the control of, and
expected to do episcopal work for, the successors of
Augustine ^
The grants made by Ethelbert to churches, and his
recognition of the status of bishops and clergy within his
dominions, led naturally to the promulgation of certain
enactments under the sanction of his Witan ; that is, the
assembly of the freemen of his kingdom, — which was
practically the assembly of the great officers and the
* king's thegns,' — bearing the title of the Assembly of the
Church Wise, or Witenagemot^. Thus Bede tells us that Ethel-
by Witan. ^^^t introduced among the Ejiglish, * with the counsel of
the Wise Men, judicial decrees after the Roman model,
which, written out in the English tongue, are extant and
are observed to this day. . . Among which he first laid
down the mode of satisfaction to be made by any one
who should take away by theft anything belonging to the
church, or the bishop, or the other orders ; inasmuch as his
intention was to afford protection to those whose persons
and whose teaching he had accepted "^Z Accordingly, among
the extant Laws of Ethelbert^, and indeed first among
them, stands a brief ordinance fixing a scale of payments
in the city Hrttfibreviy where Justua, bishop, is seen to preside, I deliver
a SDiaU portion of my land.' The exaot limits are stated in Saxon, begin-
ning from ^Southgate,' going northward to * Street,' then eastward towards
* Broadgate.' Kemble does not doubt its authenticity : but there is a
difficulty as to the date ; see below. The Rochester tradition said that
Ethelbert gave to the ohuroh some land thenee called Priestfield, south of
the city, and other land towards the north ; Angl. Sacra, i. 333.
* The archbishop had the appointment to this bishopric until a. d. 1148.
On this * dependent ' position of Rochester, see Freeman, ir. 365. The
bishop of Rochester is the 'eross-bearer' of the province.
' See Freeman, i. 100 ; Kemble, ii. 194 ; Siubbs, Const. Hist. i. 140
(or 119).
' Bede, ii. 5 : ' Qui inter caetera bona,' Ac See Palgrave, En^. Common-
wealth, p. 44 ; Haddan's Remains, p. 306.
* Thorpe, Anc Laws, p. i ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 49. Palgrave, Engl.
Comm. p. 45, doubts the integrity of the text of the compilation made by
bishop Emulf in the twelfth century.
' Church and Realm ' in Kent. 103
— such as the Saxon law called b6t8^ — for wrong done to chap. ni.
ecclesiastical property as such ; in case of property, orfeok,
of God and the Church, the satisfaction to be thus made
was twelve-fold ; for a bishop's property, eleven-fold ; for
•a priest's, nine ; for a deacon's, six ; for an inferior cleric's,
three. For violation of the frithy i.e. the peace or privi-
leges, of a church or of a monastery ^ a two-fold * b6t ' was
exacted. Here, then, we have definite proof of the recog-
nition of Christianity and the Church by the ' Parliament/
so to speak, of the first English Christian king.
Augustine's life was now drawing to a close. In regard Liturgical
to his general arrangements for the new English Church, ^entf ^
he seems to have made but little use of Gregory's sugges-
tion to be eclectic as to liturgical practices. He established
the Roman liturgy on the whole as a matter of course,
but apparently inserted in it the Gallic * benedictio populi '
already mentioned ' ; and also introduced the Gallic ' Roga-
tions,' or processional litanies, before the Ascension*.
^ The word means compensation or atonement {hetUring) due to an
injured party. See Thorpe's Glossary, and his Ancient Laws, pp. 17, aS, 45
fine's laws\ 71, &c ; Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 908.
* Ck)mpare Thorpe, Anc. Laws, p. 9 (Alfred), and his Glossary, ' frith *
and 'grith.' At Beyerley and at Hexham* the seat of him who claimed
the *■ peace ' or privilege of sanctuary was called the Frith-stool. Compare
the ' Peace of St. Oswin ' at Tynemouth. See also Bede, Yit. Cuthb. 37 ;
Stevenson, Pref. to Chron. of Abingdon, p. xlviii ; and Lingard, A.-S. Ch.
i. 973 ff. At Durham <tbe culprit who sought the '^grith" or ''peace"
of St. Cuthbert was safe as soon as he clasped the ring in the north door.'
An to British churches Giraldus says (Descr. Camb. i. 18) that a wide
extent of ground around them was thus privileged, and that fugitives
often abused their * immimity ' by sallying forth on fresh raids ; see too
Haddan and Stubbs, L 295. For Gaul, compare first Council of Orange in
449, c. 5, Mansi, vi. 437, and first of Orleans, in 511, c i, ib. viil. 350;
and Gregory of Tours, Hist. Fr. v. 14, on his own refusal to give up
Meroveus : also ib. ix. 3, 38. See also Gregory the Great, Ep. x. 50 ; and
generally, Bingham, b. viii. c. 1 1 (vol. ii. p. 565^ and Gothofred, Codex
Theodos. t.iii. p. 388, on laws of TheodoslusI, Arcadius, and Theodosius II,
as to ' fugitives to churches.'
* Lingard, A.-8. Ch. i. 995 : comp. Egbert's Pontifical, p. 58 ft. Some
variations remained up to the Council of Clovesho, in 747, can. 13.
* P. 55- Council of Clovesho, c. 16, * secundum morem prierum nostro- ,
mm.' Th^Roman 'litanies' on St. Mark's day was adopted by that Council.
Archd. Freeman (Princ. of Div. Serv. i. 946) conjectures that certain
peculiarities in the Old-English daily offices as compared with the Roman
were originally brought in by Augustine from the South Gallic rites, as
I04 Monastery of SS. Peter and Paul.
CHAP. III. We infer from a letter of Aleuin to Eanbald 11, arch-
bishop of York, in the end of the eighth century, that
there were then in use some ' larger sacramentaries ' repre-
senting * an old use,' which did not entirely agree with the
Roman ^ That Augustine never thought of a vernacular
Liturgy as at least ultimately attainable for the English
was indeed an error, but under the circumstances * natural
Monastery and pardonable */ His interest in the last year of his
Peter and episcopate was much taken up, we may assume, by the
Paul. progress of his new monastery outside the walls of Can-
terbury ^ He saw the walls of the church rise higher and
higher, but was not permitted to witness its completion.
He could, however, make all the essential arrangements
for the foundation and constitution of the house : by his
exhortation, says Bede*, Ethelbert built the church, and
enriched it with divers gifts; and he selected his old
companion Peter to be the first abbot* of this house
probably constructed by Casiiian on an Eastern model. But it is not on
the whole a likely oonjeetnre. The Gouneil of Glovesho,. c. 15, prescribes
adherence to the Boman use for the canonical hours. A few features long
peculiar to the Old-English Ordinal are thought by Haskell to be probably
traceable to the Celtic Church ; Mon. RituaL ii. 909, axz, and see Haddan
and Stubbs, i. 140.
1 Aleuin, Ep. 171 : Op. i. 331. Cp. Ep. 50, 'Non despiciant Bomanos
discere ordines/ ' Freeman, Norm. Conq. i. 33.
^ Elmham, p. iii, says that at Christmas, 605, Ethelbert, in a council
of clergy and laity, confirmed and enlarged the grants to this monastery.
He then gives the so-caUed second charter, reciting the boundaries of the
property. See Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 55. Elmham becomea rhapsodical :
*■ ilja, vere nostra Augustea r^a I '
* Bede, i. 33 : ' Fecit autem ... in quo, ejus hortatu,' ^bo,
* A document called a < buUa,' or *■ privilegium sub buUa plumbea,' pro-
fessing to come from Augustine, and exhorting his successors to ' ordain '
the abbots of this monastery, but not ta claim authority over them, — to
treat them as colleagues in the Lord's work, — is clearly an ' Augustinian '
invention; see it in Eemble, Cod. Dipl. i. 6; Elmham, p. 119. Such
*■ privilegia ' were, at this period and later, often granted by bishops, e. g.
St. Landry's, or Landeric's, to St. Denis (Mansi, xi. 6z) ; but the language
of the Augustinian charter betrays it. Comp. a privilegium of Bertfrid of
Amiens to Corbey (ib. 107), and oneof Marculf (ib. 1x3). On such privilegia
see Guizot, Civil, in Fr., lect. 15. He gives the usual formula. See a
curious letter of Archbisliop Peokham to the convent of St. Augustine's,
' Licet in ipso veetro sancto monasterio, et quibusdam locis aliis et eccleaiia,
a jurisdictione nostra exempti esse credamini,' &c. : Peckham's Begistr.
No. 64 (voL i. p. 74).
Date of Augustine's Death. 105
of SS. Peier and Paul, a choice which, according to the chap. m.
monastic documents, was confirmed by the royal nomina-
tion ^. The last year of Augustine's life must have been
either 604 or 605. For the earlier date — in the absence
of any help from Bede or the Saxon Chronicle — is cited
the alleged charter of Ethelbcrt to the Church of Rochester,
which is dated April a8, 604, and ignores Augustine, refer-
ring to his successor as the bishop of Canterbury : but this
would place Augustine's death earlier than the May of that
year, whereas he died on the a6th of a May* Later
authorities differ : the chronicles of St. Augustine's Abbey
(i.e. SS. Peter and Paul's) give 605, an earlier annalist^
604: and there is a difference as to whether the day of
his death was a Tuesday or a Wednesday, May 26 being
a Tuesday in 604, a Wednesday in 605. Probability would
point to 605, as allowing more time for the arrangements
of Augustine and Ethelbert in regard to London and
Eochester, after the return of the former from his con-
ferences at Augustine's Oak*. One act which the arch-
bishop performed * while yet in health,' but shortly before
his end, — his last public act, — was the consecration of
Laurence to be his future successor ^ It was an act,
strictly speaking, which the ancient canons forbade: his
own great namesake^ had been ill at ease oxi observing
that the text of a Nicene canon ^ seemed to tell against the
consecration of a bishop as coadjutor and future successor
by the actual bishop of the see; — but, fairly interpreted,
^ The (spurious) charter of Ethelbert, ranked as *> third/ uses remark-
able language ; * Com bonsilio . . . Augustini . . . Petrum elegi, eisque . . .
abbatem praeposui.' Elmham,. p. 114.
' See the epitaph in Bede, ii. 3 ; * Septimo Kal. Junii ' (May 96).
' Florence of Worcester. Thorn says, c i. 11 (X Script 1765), that
Augustine's death has been erroneously placed by many in 613, and that
he died in 605. Smith adopts 605, and says that the chronology from which
Thorn took his computation clearly points to a Wednesday as the day of
the week, and to 605 as the year (p. 81). See the ' Ghronologia ' in X
Script. 9329.
* Hussey decides for 605, Haddan and Stubbs for 604.
^ Bede, i}. 4 : ' Suocessit Augustino . . . quern ipse idcirco adhuc yivens
ordinarerat/
* St Augustine, Ep. 913.
^ Nie. Can. 8 : &a fn) |y r^ irdAci 5ik> l«l<r«ovoc ^w.
io6 Consecration of Laurence.
(HAP. III. the words did not condemn such a proceeding) which had
been resorted to in several cases before Augustine of Hippo
was thus raised to the episcopate^. However^ exceptions
were recognized in regard to such rules as were embodied
in a canon of the Council of Antioch in 341, prohibiting
the consecration of a future successor by a living bishop *.
St. Athanasius (who, indeed, did not recognize that coun-
cil) had thus consecrated his friend Peter ^; and, what
seemed more to the purpose, the majority of the ' Latins '
in Jerome's time * held that St. Peter, as bishop of Rome,
had consecrated Clement to succeed him; — so that Bede
expressly describes Augustine as having followed the
Arch- example of the chief of the Apostles. *But why did he not
fixed at"^ pass on the archiepiscopate to Mellitus ? ' The question is
Canter- twofold. Why did he ignore Gregory's evident intention
that the metropolitan see should be fixed in London?
Clearly because, being better acquainted than the Pope
could be with the local circumstances, among which,
probably, the difficulties of mission-work among the
inhabitants of London would hold a chief place, he deemed
himself free to act on his own judgement, which, no doubt,
coincided with his personal feeling ; for his affections had
become closely entwined with the church and the monas-
teries of Canterbury, and he naturally wished the archi-
episcopate to be permanent in that beloved home^ His
resolution has determined the history of the Church of
England as depending on the see of Canterbury. 'But
' Bingham, b. ii. c. 13. 8. 4 (vol. i. p. 180).
* Mansi, ii. 13 17. A later canon, called the 76th Apostolic, had forbid-
den a bishop to consecrate a relative to succeed him.
' Ghronicon Acephalum : ^ Five days before his death he ordained (con-
secrated) Peter.*
* Jerome, de Yir. lUustr. 15 ; comp. Comm. in Isai. h. 14. Rufinus sug-
gested a modified view, that Linus and Clement were both bishops ai
Rome before Peter's death. Cp. Lightfoot's St Clement, i. 173, 974. To
this Bede refers in Hist. Abb. 6. That Rufinus was but inventing a hypo-
thesis, see Duchesne's ed. of Lib. Pontif. i. p. Ixx.
^ See the letter of Kenulf king of Mercia to Leo III, stating that
Gregory had intended London to be metropolitical, but that because
Augustine died and was buried in Canterbury, it seemed good to the
Witan (nostrae gentis sapientibus^ that the * metropolitanus honor ' should
abide there. Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 52a. See above, p. 75.
Archbishopric fixed at Canterbury. 107
why not transfer Mellitus to Canterbury, or else, leaving chap. nr.
him to his London work, summon Justus to the greater
Kentish see % * If the question presented itself to Augustine,
he probably answered it by considering that episcopal
translations were technically, at any rate, discouraged by
Church law ^ ; and that he saw a man well qualified for the
archbishopric among those who had been his original com-
panions,— whose hearts he had comforted and inspirited by
the letter brought from Gregory, who had travelled with
him though Frankish districts, had stood by his side when
he first confronted Ethelbert, and had raised their voices in
the litany along the slope of St. Martin's hill. This friend
was Laurence. On his head the feeble hands of Augustine
were laid, and Augustine's voice uttered the solemn prayers
of benediction with which the prelates of Latin Christendom
were set apart for their work ^. Laurence was now quali-
fied to preside over the 'Church of the English'; and
although Augustine's last days may have been partly
saddened by the thought that this Church had not * broken '
forth, on the right hand and the left,' with anything like
the amplitude and vigour of self-extension which the
joyful Christmastide of 597 had seemed to promise, he
would take comfort in hoping that those who came after
him would 'see the glory of the Lord revealed' in some
richer spiritual conquests, and some stronger and broader
consolidation of the Church's organic unity. It was in
fact the latter work, rather than the former, which was.
reserved for the see of Canterbury, — and that after some
sixty years had passed.
Augustine died, as we have seen, in the last week of The work
May, and probably in 605 ; and his body was temporarily tint."^***
laid ' outside, but close to ^,' the yet unfinished church of
' See Bingham, b. vi. c. 4. s. 6.
' See Muratori, Lit. Rom. ii. 357, for the long ^ eonseoratio ' beginning,
^ Deue honorum omnium.' . . * Comple in saoerdote tuo ministerii tui sum-
mam . . . Abandet in eo constantia fidei, puritas dileotionis, ainceritas
pacia. Tribuaa ei cathedram episcopalem,* &o. Op. Egbert*s Pontif. p. a.
* Bede, ii. 3. See Gocelin's Hist. Minor, 39 : * Begnas, Augustine,
Auguatis saeculi nomine et dignitate aublimior. ... In monasterio . . . recon-
ditur pretioaisaimum corpus ejus festivo cum jabilo.' (Angl.-Sax. ii. 70.)
S^"- Ctwta vc^ l-vC\ L
fti^Qj^^AAA/n^f^
io8
Character of St. Augustine.
CHAP. III.
I
I
his new monastery. The brief period allotted to him for
work as a missionary bishop should modify any unkindly
estimate of the amount of work that was done. He had
at any rate laid the foundation * nobly ^ ' : he had converted
a typical English monarch ; he had baptized multitudes of
Kentish proselytes; he had secured a formal and public
acceptance, by a national assembly, of Christian obligations,
and of the Church as an organized institution; he had
rooted in Canterbury a future centre for any amount of
Church extension ; he had started a mission in Ixmdon ; he
had connected the reviving Christianity in Britain with
the culture and discipline of the ccwitinental Church.
Briefly, he had made the beginning, opened the door,
formed the precedents: later missionaries in England,
who had other opportunities, whose successes covered
a wider area, were, consciously or not, carrying on the
impulse first given by the Gregorian mission, and therein,
by him whom an ancient English Council ^, when appointing
a festival in his honour, described as having brought to the
English people ' tiie knowledge of their heavenly country.'
In this sense, cus the first preacher to men of their race^ he
had been their ' apostle.' So much as to what he did. As
to what he was in himself, it cannot be said that he was
a man of genius, or of signal insight into human nature, or
of any such qualities as exercise a commanding power over
men's admiration, or an attractive influence on generations
of human hearts. He was not a Boniface, not an Anskar,
not a Xavier, not a Martyn. His monastic training, carried
on probably imtil he was past middle life, had tended to
stiflen his mind and narrow his range of thought ; something
of smallness, something of self -consciousness, some want of
consideration for unfamiliar points of view and different
forms of experience, may be discerned in him without injus-
tice, and thus explained without any ungenerous f orgetf ulness
of the better side of the monastic character. Whatever were
his shortcomings, Augustine of Canterbury was a good man,
a devout and laborious Christian worker, who could, and
' Bede, ii. 4, 'nobiliter jacta.'
' Council of Clovesho, c. 17 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 368.
Overtures to Irish Church. 109
did, face threatening difficulties and accept serious risks in ohap. m.
loyalty to a sacred call ; a missionary whose daily conduct
was a recommendation of his preaching, who could impress
and convince men of various classes in a Teutonic people
that had little in common with his Italian antecedents;
who, as archbishop, did his duty, as he read it, with all his
might, if not .without mistakes or failures, such aa we may
be tempted to judge more harshly than they merit ; who,
acting thus, accomplished more than appears at first sight,
in that he originated so much, of the work which was to
make England Christian. X
' Laurence began his archiepiscopate with strenuous Laurence
efforts to extend the foundations of the Church, and took ^^^f;
pains to carry up its fabric to the due height, by the
frequent utterance of holy exhortation, and the continual
example of pious conduct.' Such is Bede's eulogy^. ItOverturen
was part of Laurence's plan to make a fresh attempt in the church,
direction of co-operation and union with the Celtic bishops
and Churches. He had, at first, some hope that the Irish
might be more amenable than the Britons. But he became
in some way aware of the resolute Celticism, in regard to
• Paschal observance, of the great Irish-bom abbot and
missionary Columban, who had now for about fifteen Columban.
years * been presiding over three monasteries in the wild
country of the Vosges, and in spite of the exacting severities
of a rule far more onerous than Benedict's *, had exercised
a strong moral and spiritual fascination over many earnest
souls that recognized in him a true zealot for Christian
^ Bede, ii. 4 : see above, p. 56.
s Columban came into Gaul, in order to preach the Gospel to heathen
tribes on the continent, about 590. He settled at first among the pine-
forests of Burgundy ; disciples gathered round him ; he founded four
monasteries in succession, at Anegray, Luxeuil, Fontenay, and (after his
removal into Italy) at Bobbio. See Lanigan, ii. 961 ; Milman, Lat. Ghr.
ii. 985 ; Maclear, Apostles of Med. Eur. p. 58 ; King, Oh. Irel. i. 349 ;
Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vi. 1 10 H. He died in 615. For his
writings, see Migne, Patrol. Lat. Ixxx. 901 ff.
* See the Rule (in Galland. p. 334), c. 10. The elaborate rules of pen-
ance embodied in * Penitentials ' originated in ' the overstrained and indis-
creet zeal of Cummian and Golumbanus ; ' Haddan's Remains, p. 967 ; see
ib. 978, and Diet. Ohr. Biogr. i. 605, and Columban. Reg. Coen. c. 10.
no Si. Columban.
CHAP. III. strictness, whose passion it was, as the historian of French
civilization expresses it, to * cast the Divine fire abroad on
every side, without troubling himself about the conflagra-
tion ^/ With all his intense Christian devotion ^ the Irish-
man's perfervidum ingenium made itself apparent in his
conduct. He had denounced the GaUican Easter cycle,
that of Victorius, as ridiculous in the eyes of scholarly
Irishmen^, and had upheld the reckoning which included
*the fourteenth of the moon' among the days on which
Easter Sunday could be kept *. This he did in a letter to
Pope Gregory ; and w.oout the time when Mellitus and his
companions were passing through Gaul, he excused himself
from attending a Gallic synod by a letter* in which he
claimed the authority of all the Western Churches for not
extending the Paschal limits beyond the twentieth of the
moon, and upheld the cycle of eighty-four years as repre-
senting the mind of venerated writers, and contrasting
with the * doubtful and indefinite language of Victorius • ; *
while at the same time he was content to deprecate
intolerance, to ask ' leave to dwell quietly in these woods
* Guizot. Civil, in Fr , lect. i6.
^ See his tenth * Instruction ' and second ^ Carmen/
* Columb. £p. I. He says that Victorius transgressed the rule that
Easter could not precede the equinox, and that by admitting the twenty-
first moon within the limits, a Pascha tenebrosum was introduced, hecmist
that moon rises after midnight. He opposes to Victorius the authority
of * Anatolius ' and Jerome (but cf. above, p. 89 ; Jerome referred to the
genuine work of Anatolius). Compare Greg. Turon., H. Fr. x. 33 : ' In
cycle Victor luna decima-quinta Pascha scripsit fieri ; sed ne Christiani, at
Judaei, sub hac luna haec solemnia celebrarent, addidit, Latini autem luna
vigesima-secunda/ &c. There is a strong vein of pedantry in Columban,
together with a curious ignorance on some important points to which
he refers : but he was a genuine classical scholar, and the library
at Bobbio was ' for many centuries probably the richest in Italy '
(Hodgkin).
* He says that the plea for excluding the fourteenth, 'cum Judaeis
Pascha facere non debemus/ was ' once urged by Bishop Victor, but no
one of the Easterns (!) suum recepit commentum.' We must, he insists,
keep Easter from the fourteenth to the twentieth inclusive, not from the
fifteenth to the twenty-first. See abovci p. 89.
* Columb. Ep. 9.
* ' Victorium nuper dubie scribentem, et ubi necesse erat, nihil definien-
tem . . . who wrote under Hilarus, 103 years after the times of . . . Pope
DamasuB.' His chronology is inaccurate. See too £p. 5. 9.
His Celtic tenacity. iii
beside the bones of his seventeen departed brethren/ and chai». nr.
k> * pray that Gaul might find room for all/ of whatever
race, who were on their road to ^ the heavenly kingdom ^.'
But it was obvious that Columban would not depart in
any particular from the Irish usages on this point.
Laurence may have learned from some Gallic bishops, or
from a personal visit to the abbot of Luxeuil, how strong
was his resolve against any conformity to their practice :
and the tenacity of the Irish Churchmen's adherence to
Celtic rules was painfully brought home to the archbishop
when an Irish bishop, named DagLu^, having come to
Britain '^, for the purpose, as we may suppose, of conferring
with the three bishops *, was apparently so much irritated
by what pajssed in the discussion that he flatly refused to
eat with them, or even to eat in the same pla.ce in which
they were taking their meal. Laurence wrote, in his own
name and in those of his two suffragans, to their 'most
dear lords and brothers, the bishops and abbots throughout
all Scotia,' i. e. Ireland. Only part of the letter is given by
Bede ; but he tells us that in the rest Laurence entreated
them to be at one in ' Catholic observance '.with the Church
throughout the world. Another letter to the like eflfect
was sent to the British bishops *, evidently in order that
Laurence might discharge his conscience, and be able to
feel that he had done all he could to promote unity. * How
much good he got from it,' says Bede with something of
condensed bitterness, ' even our present times can show,' —
for he well knew how, in the days of his own elder con-
' 'Ut mihi lioeat ... in his si Iris silere et vivere juxta ossa ... as up
to this time we have been free to live among you twelve years. . . Capiat
nos simul, oro, Gallia quos capiet regnum ooelorum, si boni simus meriti,'
&c. See Milman, ii. 288; Maclear, p. 64 ; King, i. 394.
' Probably the bishop of Inverdaoile (co. Wexford^ of that name.
' Bede, ii. 4. ' Ad nos veniens ' might imply a visit to Canterbury,
although the words ' in eodem hospltio quo vescebamur ' have been under-
stood otherwise. See Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 59.
* See Lanigan, ii. 367. He adds that on this supposition, Dagan could
not have intended all along ' to keep up no sort of communion with them.'
He also quotes the appellation praeplacidum, given to this prelate, who wan
consecrated about 600, and died in 640.
' Bede, ii. 4: 'Misit idem Laurentius . . . etiam Brettonum saoer-
dotibas.'
112 Second address to Britons fails.
.'HAP. in. temporary, Aldhelm biahop of Sherborne, the British priests
beyond the Severn used to cleanse elaborately the plates or
cups from which Saxons had fed, after throwing the
remnants of their food to dogs and swine ^ ; how, at the
time at which his History was written, the Britons
'regarded the Christianity of the English as a thing of
nought^.' In effect, the Southern Irish gave up their
Paschal reckonings in deference to Papal exhortations, to
the opinion of some of their own leading men, e. g.
St. Cummian, and to evidence obtained as to the pre-
valence of the 'Catholic Blaster,' not only at Rome, but
in other leading Churches, — about A. D. 634 ^ : the latter
part of 640, in the north of Ireland, five bishops and other
ecclesiastics consulted the Roman see on the subject, and
received from the Pope elect, John IV, and other Roman
dignitaries a letter implying that the Irish practice was in
effect Quartodeciman^: but the majority, at least, of the
Northern Irish paid more regard to the authority of the
Columban monastery of Hy than to that of Rome itself,
and retained their own * Pasch ' until 704, while Hy stood
out until 716*. The Strathclyde clergy yielded about the^
same time as the North Irish ; the North Welsh, under the
influence of Elbod bishop of Bangor, in 755 or 768; the
South Welsh, under strong pressure, in 777 ^. It was then,
and not until then, that the English Church, which had
been founded and organized without the aid of the British,
absorbed the latter into its own body. It was tlius, and
only thus, that it acquired continuity with the Church
which had been represented at Aries and at Ariminum,
^ Aldhelm, Ep. i. See p. 99.
^ Bede, ii. ao.
' Lanigan, ii. 389 ff. King dates the Synod of the Field of Lone in 630,
and distinguishes it from the Synod of the White Field, held (after tho
return of the Irish delegates from Rome) in 633 or 634 ; Oh. Irel. i. 171.
Another view identifies the two Synods : but Lanigan observes that
Maghlene and ' Whitefield ' are in different counties. He gives the
substance of Cummian's letter in defence of his adoption of the Roman
Easter, so King, i. 154. See the original in Ushers ^Sylloge,' Ep. 11.
*■ Bede, iii. 19. Of. Lanigan, ii. 409 ff.
* Bede, v. aa ; Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 1 14.
* Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 6 ; L 303.
Dedication of SS. Peter and Paulas. 113
which could look back io Alban as its proiomartyr, and to chap. ui.
German as its deliverer from the heresy invented by one
of its own sons.
The ecclesiastical society at Canterbury sustained a loss
at the close of 607, when the abbot Peter, sent by Ethel-
bert as an envoy to Gaul, was drowned in the bay of Amble-
teuse; his body was recovered, and buried in St. Mary's
church at Boulogne \ John, one of 'the Forty,' succeeded
him: and in the same year, 608, bishop Mellitus went to Mellitanat
Borne to consult Pope Boniface IV on the affidrs of the °^^*
English mission, and was honourably received in a Roman
synod held on Feb. 27, 610, the decrees of which he sub-
scribed*. The Pope sent back with him a letter to Ethel-
bert, and others to Laurence and his clergy^ : and after his
return he was probably present at the long-delayed dedica- Dedication
tion of the monastery church of SS. Peter and Paul, outside Peter and
the east wall of Canterbury. Laurence performed the Paul's,
ceremony, and then transferred the remains of Augustine,
with all honour, to a grave in the northern * porch ' of the
church ^ The monastery, as it grew in resources, became
a conspicuous specimen of monastic exemption from dio-
cesan rule ; it was called ^ the Roman Chapel in England,'
as being immediately subject to the Pope^. Its community
' Bede, i. 33. He is still commemorated yearly at Ambleteuse.
^ ' Confirmaret,' ' assent to ;' Bede, ii. 4 ; cp. Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 459.
The decree ascribed to this synod, on the right of monks to officiate as
priests, is an absurd foi^gery.
' Bede, 1. c : ' Una cum epistolis,' &o. But the letter beginning ' Dum
Chiistianitatis vestrae,' Malmesb. G. P. i. 30, Haddan and Stabbs, iii. 65,
professing to grant the king's request that a regular community of monks
might be established in the cathedral monastery, is clearly an ' Augus-
tinian' invention, meant to establish the seniority of that community
over the former. Cf. Elmham, p. 85. Elmham says that Mellitus
brought home this letter after a second journey in 615 ; p. 134. A letter
or bull ascribed to Boniface, in Elmham, p. 129, is spurious. See Hard-
wick's Introduction to Elmham, p. xxyiii.
* Bede, ii. 3 ; ' Mox vero,' &c. ' Porticus' occurs in Bede, iii. 19, v. 90.
It means an adjunct to a church, whether vestibule, apse, or side-chapel.
* 'Life of St. Augustine,' p. 133. See Elmham, pp. 386, 399, 404
(Eugenitts III said that the monastery was ' beati Petri juris,' &c.). An
earlier Pope, Agatho, forbade any < sacerdos ' (bishop) to exercise authority
in the monastery, ' praeter sedem apostolicam,' it being specially under
the jurisdiction of Bome; p. 347. Ouizot says ofthe Prankish monasteries
t I
114
Death of Ethelbert.
CHAP. m.
Death of
Ethelbert.
Eadbald
refaaea
ChriB-
tianity.
carried on a tradition of jealous independence as regards
the archbishop, and a sort of standing feud with their
neighbours of the metropolitan cathedral, and did not
shrink from documentary frauds in support of their pro-
gramme^.
King Ethelbert, when he witnessed the removal of
Berthas corpse, as well as Augustine's, to the minster
newly dedicated, may well have felt that his life's work
was done. Yet he lived three years longer, probably
saddened in his last days by apprehensions as to the
fortunes of the Church under his son Eadbald, who, accord-
ing to the Chronicle, had been baptized, but, according to
the higher authority of Bede, ' had refused to receive the
faith of Christ ^ : ' — if this phrase is to be taken literally,
it implies that Eadbald had resisted the exhortations of
his father's religious guides. Ethelbert's reign of fifty-six
years came to a close on the d4th of February, in 6i6 : but
in assigning to him twenty-one years of Christian life, the
historian ' is inconsistent with his own date of 597 for the
arrival of Augustine. Ethelbert was buried in St. Martin's
* porch/ within the church of SS. Peter and Paul *. * Ead-
bald, on assuming the government, did much harm to the
Church, which was still in its tender growth.' He would
have none of the new lore: he would cleave to the old
worship : and he followed an old Teutonic rule * by uniting
that Fulda was the first to he placed under the direct juriBdiotion of Rome ;
Civil, in Pr. lect. 15.
^ See Hardwick's remains in Introduction to Elmham, p. viii. For the
story of the monk of St. Medard, who on hifi death-bed confessed that he
had forged bulls of exemption in favour of St. Augustine's and other
monasteries, see Palgrave, Eng. Oomm. p^ cezi. See the spurious deeds in
Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 54-59, 67-70 ; and cp. Freeman, iv. 408.
' See Elmham, p. 87, for a sample of animosity on the side of the
cathedral monks ; and cf. ib. 317 for archbishop Cuthberf s suooessfnl
scheme for ensuring his own burial in the cathedral. After Bregwin's
similar burial the Augustinians were on the point of haying reeottrae to
arms ; ib. 328.
' Bede, ii. 5. Elmham corrects this to ' nineteen.'
* In the south part of the church, Elmham, p. 137, where Bertha and
Liudhard were buried. Against the story of his having been buried at
Reculver, see Stanley, Mem. Cant. p. 46.
* See above, p. 66, on this custom, and Robertson's Hist. Essays, p. Izvii.
Xhe Oounoll of Agde, in 506, had included thoae who married their atep*
Eadbald rejects the Faith. 115
himself to his father's widow, the successor of Bertha, chap. m.
We can well understand how, as Bede tells us, those who
under Ethelbert had acquiesced, without conviction, in the
creed which he adopted, — had 'accepted the laws of faith
and chastity ^ either for fear or for the sake of favour '
(although indeed Ethelbert had never imposed Christianity
on any of his subjects), took occasion to resume their
heathenism under a king who, as they would express it,
was not the dupe of the shavelings from Rome. * Eadbald
was troubled with fits of madness, and by the attacks of
an unclean spirit : ' such is Bede's statement, and in these
moods, as they probably were, of wild excitement the
Christian subjects of Eadbald would deem that they beheld
a corrective visitation. But Eadbald appeared obstinate ;
and to add to the anxieties of Laurence, Mellitus was just
now exposed to an equally trying reverse of his former
prosperity. 3abert was just dead : the East-Saxon realm
was left to his three sons, named Sadward, Sexred, and
Sigebert. Although 'in their father's lifetime they had
seemed to give up a little of their idolatry^,' they now
openly resumed it. One day they came into St. Paul's
church, while the bishop was administering the Holy Com-
munion ®. ' Why do you not,* they rudely asked him, * give
us also a share in the white bread*, which you used to give
mothers among the incestuous who were never to be absolved, ' nisi cum
adulterium separatione sanaveriat ; ' c. 6i ; Mansi, viii. 335.
^ Compare St. Boniface's bitter complaints about those whom he had
taken for sheep and who proved to be goats, Ep. aa ; and Ep. 37, on 'false
Christians.'
' ' Aliquantulum intermisisse ; ' Bede, ii. 5.
' Bede says, ' oelebratis missarum sollemniis,' meaning, the mass which
was being celebrated, and which was then considered to be in one sense
finished by the celebrant's communion. ' Censebantur sollemnia missarum
oonsummata priusquam communio, saltem laicis, distribueretur;' Ruinart,
Praef. ad Greg. Turon. s. 46. A single celebration was often called
' miasae ' in recollection of the ancient dismissal, first of catechumens,
finally of ' fideles.' Cp. first Council of Orleans, c. a6 (Mansi, viii. 355),
and Caesarius in App. to Aug. Serm., no. aSi, that the ' missae solennitas '
was * completed' when the bishop gave his benediction (see above, p. 64).
Mellitus might have done this before the princes came in. See also
Cyprian de Lapsis, 35.
* Hook, L 97, ' slips in ' (see Haddan's Remains, p. 301) a mention of
' wine.' Of course, * both kinds ' were administered ; but ' something in
12
Ji6 Mellitus expelled from London.
oHAP. HI. to our father Saba^, and which you still continue to give to
the people in the church ? ' ' If/ answered Mellitus, with
calm dignity, * you are willing to be washed in that font of
salvation ^ in which your father was washed, then you may
also partake of the holy bread of which he used to par-
take; but if you despise the laver of life, you cannot
possibly receive the bread of life/ They answered, *We
will not go into that font, for we know not what need we
have of it : but for all that, we choose to eat of that bread/
It was sheer barbaric curiosity, combined with the self-will
of young princes suddenly left to their own guidance.
They could not brook any curb on their caprices: and
when Mellitus ' repeatedly and earnestly ' set before them
the necessity of baptism as a pre-requisite for * communion
in the most holy oblation ',' they cut him short in senseless
wrath, saying, ' If you will not give us our way in so small
a matter, you shall not remain in our province: ' and * they
commanded him, and all who belonged to him, to leave
their kingdom/ Thus it was that for adhering to the
principle that religious privileges implied religious obliga-
tions, and were not to be had without them, — for refusing
to degrade his religion by imparting its holiest treasures to
outsiders who would not qualify themselves for such recep-
1 tion by the one indispensable initiatory rite,— Mellitus lost
J his church and bishopric, and had perforce to see his work
the bread . . . attracted the eye of the heathen princes.' And they would
naturally look at Mellitus, not at his deacon who would be administering
the chalice.
* A familiar abbreviation of Sabert Citself a familiar * short* name),
as * Ceol ' for * Ceolwulf ' the father of Kynegils, and for Ceolric, king of
the Hwiccas. Comp. Elmham, p. 338 : * It is a Saxon fashion nomina
transformare . . , syncopando, ut pro Thoma Tbrnme . . . pro Johanne . . .
* Gomp. Bede, ii. 14, 'lavacrum sanctae regenerationis ; ' iii ai, *fidei
fonte ;' iii. 23, Mavaori salutaris ;' iv. 16, v. 19, 'fonte Salvatoria;' v. 6,
*■ salutari fonte . . . vital! unda.'
' Comp. Bede, iii. a, < victimam sacrae oblationis ; ' iv. 14, < sacrifieiis
caelestibus . . . de sacrificio Dominicae oblationis particulam ;' iv. aa,
* oblationem hostiae salutaris . . . victimas sacrae oblationis ; ' iv. aS, ▼.
10, 'sacrificium victimae salutaris.' Compare Oildaa, aS, ^sacrificii
caeleetis sedem,' and 67, 'manus . . . sacrosanctis Christi sacrifieiis exten-
Buri ; ' and Adamn. iii. 17, 'sacram oblationem consecrantis.'
Story of Laurence's dream. 117
abruptly arrested : and from that day, for nearly .forty chap. m.
years, London and Essex were lost to Christianity.
The expelled bishop hastened to Canterbury, whither
Laurence had summoned Justus from Rochester; and the
three prelates held a sorrowful consultation, which tended
to increase their despondency as it were by infection, and
ended in the resolution to abandon the mission. It was an
access of such faint-heartedness as was only too natural,
when all around seemed hopelessly dark : but its character
was probably concealed from themselves by the use of
religious phraseology. * Better,' they said, * return to Italy,
and there serve God in freedom, than stay here where no
good is to be done, among barbarians who have revolted
from the faith.' Accordingly, Mellitus and Justus crossed
the Channel, and took up their abode in Gaul, intending to
await events. Laurence was to follow : on the night before
his intended departure, he caused his bed to be prepared
within the church of SS. Peter and Paul. After praying
long, with tears, for his people, he lay down, and slept.
Bede then reports what he had received from his inform-
ants ^, that St. Peter appeared to Laurence, scourged him,
and demanded 'why he was forsaking the flock whom
he himself had entrusted to his care' (a phrase which
obviously refers to the origination of the mission from a
successor of St. Peter) ; and that this rebuke was enforced
by a reference to the apostle's own endurance of suffering
and even martyrdom ' for the little ones of Christ.' Next
morning Laurence hastened to Eadbald, 'drew aside his
garment,' and showed the actual marks of nocturnal casti-
gation. ' Who has dared,' asked the king, ' to inflict such
blows on a man of your rank ? ' Laurence told what had
happened : Eadbald was deeply awed, cast away his idols,
' renounced his unlawful marriage, embraced the faith of
Christ, and after receiving baptism, took pains to promote
in all things, to the utmost of his power, the interests of
^ The story is referred to by Alcuin in his letter of remonstraace to arch-
bishop Ethelheard ; see Haddan and Stnbbs, iii. 519 ; and in Laurence's
epitaph, Elmham, p. 149, —
'Pro populo Christi scapulas dorsomqae dedisti.'
1 18 Conversion of Eadbald.
cHkv. ni. the Charch.' It has been suggested that this story of the
appearance of St. Peter and the scourging is probably the
legendary exaggeration of a dream, in which Laurence
imagined himself to receive such discipline from his
heavenly visitor^, and after which in compunction he
perhaps inflicted it on himself-; that he may have suc-
ceeded in producing a salutary effect on Eadbald by the
mere recital of his dream, — possibly also by the visible
tokens of his penance ; and that there is therefore no
necessity for imputing to him a fraud, such as, doubtless,
a lax casuistry has often miscalled ' pious,' in f orgetfulness
of the condemnation of 'lying for God.' Yet writers so
equitable as Haddan and Hardwick have found it difficult
to dispense with this unfavourable supposition ^ As it
stands, the story belongs to a class of which the first
specimen is given by a writer of the third century, to the
effect that a certain Natalius, who having been a confessor
had afterwards become a 'bishop' among heretics, was
scourged all night long by angels, and showed his bruises
next day to the orthodox Roman bishop and church*.
There is, at any rate, no doubt that an impression was
made on Eadbald, which produced a conversion of the
most genuine and practical kind, such as Bede has de-
scribed in words already quoted, and in a sentence a little
further on: *He gave himself up in good earnest to the
Divine precepts*/ He sent into Gaul to summon home
^ Hook, i. 89 ; Oreen, Making of Engl. p. 247.
' This suggestion is Cburton's ; Early Engl. Church, pp. 53, 54.
* Haddan, Kemains, p. 309, Hardwick, Ch. H. Mid. Ages, p. 9. Cf.
Church, Beginning of M. Ages, p. 85, * sometimes evidently fraudulent
miracles played their part,* &c.
* The author of the Little Labyrinth (Caius ?) in Euseb. v. aS. Com-
pare Tertullian de Idololatria, 15, ' Scio fratrem per visionem . . . castiga-
turn,' &c. ; and Jerome's strange story of his having been rapt * In spirit '
before the Divine Judge (while his body seemed stiffened in death from
the effects of fever), and scoui^ed for his love of heathen literature.
* Liventes fateor me hitbuisse scapulas ; ' Ep. aa. 30. And the story in
Adamn. Vit. S. Columb. iii. 5, that 'quadam nocte in ecstasi mentis*
Columba was * struck with a whip ' by an angel, and retained the mark
through life.
* Bede, il. 6. On * mancipare/ cf. iv. 25. He built a church of St.
Mary to the east of SS. Peter and PauFs, beyond the cemetery of the
monks. See Elmham, p. 144.
Redwald's compromise. 119
the two fugitive bishops ; they however, somewhat unac- chap. m.
eountably, delayed their return for about a year. Eladbald
could uphold Justus, as his father had done, at Rochester :
but he was not, like his father, supreme over Essex. The
yoimg kings who had expelled Mellitus were soon after-
wards ^ slain in battle by the West-Saxons : and whatever
Sigebert the Little, their successor-, may have done or
wished to do in the matter, we are expressly told that * the
Londoners would not receive Mellitus back as their bishop,
preferring to be under their own idolatrous high priests,' —
that * the common people, after having been stirred up to
the crime' of apostasy, 'could not be corrected and re-
claimed to the faith,' — and that 'Eladbald had not power
enough to restore the prelate to his church in the teeth of
heathens saying him nay^.'
The year after Eadbald's accession— the year of thi4
obstinate rejection of the faith by the greatest of English
cities — was marked by an event which, in its ultimate
results, was a momentous gain to English Christianity.
The East-Anelians of Norfolk and Suffolk were now ruled Kedwald
of fast-
by a king named Redwald, grandson of that Uffa from Anglia.
whom the dynasty took the name of Uffingas. He is
reckoned as fourth of the * Bretwaldas ^.' He had visited
Kent in Ethelbert's time, and had even accepted baptism ;
but on his return home, his Pagan wife ' and certain per-
verse teachers,' appealing to his lingering superstitions or
to his political self-interest, drew him into a compromise
which Bede likens to the mixed worship of the old Samari-
tans, who * feared the Lord and served their own gods *.*
He had ' in the same (heathen) fane an altar for Christ's
sacrifice,' and a smaller one for the worship of idols ® : — it
* Bede, ii. 5 : 'Bed non multo tempore,' fte.
* Bede, iii. 2a. He was son of Saeward, and had a long reign.
' Bede, iL 6 : * Mellitum vero Lundoniensesepiscopumreoipere noluerunt '
. . . Non enim tanta erat ei, quanta patri ipsius, regni potestas,' &c And
ib. ii. 5, fin. : 'Nee, lioet auctoribus perditis . . .' &c.
* He ' gave this ascendency to the East-Saxons ' when Ethelbert's ener-
gies had begun to foil ; Bede, ii. 5.
^ a Kings xrii. 33. His wife, though unhappily adverse to Christianity,
was a high-minded woman ; see below.
* ^ In eodem fano et altare ad sacrificium Christi, et arulam ad yictimas
I20 Rdzcin in exue.
'MAr.nt, was a cofc'iioadc^i essicfitially re8enit«aiig the attempt of
mmny in that age to keep tenns with both religkHis by
attending in*iiscriminateiT the churches and the cid heathen
temples '. or the scleeqiaent expeilient ot a Norwegian king
who, while signing the croeB over his cup, tcdd his people
that it meant ' the hammer of Thor V Bedwald had a oon-
ficioasne^s of the claims of Chrisdanitv, but he durst not
admit them without reserve, and in their exclusive abso-
luteness:— he fancie*i that he oould treat his be^tismal
creed as one form of religion with which older forms
might be associated^: or periiaps he persuaded himself
that, in exceptional circumstances, the baptized king of
heathen subjects might reasonably accommodate himself,
to a certain extent, to the religious prejudices of his
people. Be this as it may, Bedwald, in the b^;inning of
617, was still harbouring at his court an exiled Northum-
brian prince, whose name of Edwin * should not be uttered
by any Englishman without grateful respect, although his
early life gave little promise of such a career as in fact
Kurly life awaited him. A son of the Northumbrian Ella whose
name had been played with by Gregory as suggestive of
daemoniomm.' King Aid waif of Eaat-AnglU, when a boj, saw this 'fane/
Bede, ii. 15. Compare Haclear, Cony, of Slavs, p. 136, on a case in
Pomerania of a pagan altar set up within a church.
^ Gregory, £p. is. 11 : see too ib. viii 18. Compare Willibald's Yit S.
Bonifacii, c. 8, that some of the Hessian converts would not receive
Christian teachers 'integre,' but sacrificed to trees or fountains, some
* clanculoy' some openly i^Migne, Patr. Lat. Ixzxix. 619). So the Magyars
who had conformed to Christianity often kept up the worship of their
god Isten within the forests or beside the fountains. See above, p. 80.
' Hacon, son of Harold Haarfager. See the story in Maclear's Conver-
sion of Northmen, p. 57.
' Pearson calls this ' the first authentic mention of a process of develop-
ment which purified and rationalized Odinism during several centuries,'
and * irradiated it with gleams of love and hopefulness from Christianity'
(Hist. Engl. i. 137, 155), as the bright and beloved Baldr was invested
with some attributes of * the White Christ * ; see Kemble, i. 367. Cp.
Haclear, Apott. of Mediaev. Eur. p. 18, * Baldr ..." the restorer of
peace, the maker-up of quarrels." '
* If antiquarian precision gains by adherence to such forms as Eadwine,
Eadward. Alfred, for names which have become part of English speech, the
•onite of rtality loses. It is not a question in which historical truth is
intereNtml, as in the use or disuse of the French < Charlemagne ' for the
graat German king.
His mysterious visitant. 121
Alleluia, Edwin, as a child ^, had been despoiled of his chap. m.
royal inheritance by Ethelric, the father of Ethelfrid —
had been sheltered, according to It Welsh tradition, by
king Cadvan of North Wales ^ — had certainly at some
time fled into Mercia^, and thence into the more remote
East Anglia. Thither, however, Ethelfrid's hate pursued
him: Redwald received message after message, offering
*a large sum of money for the slaughter of Edwin:' at
last, threats of war were combined with the promises, and
Redwald, allured or alarmed, gave consent. It was then,
according to the famous and impressive story*, that
a friend of Edwin entered the exile's bedchamber, called
him out, told him what the king had promised to do with
him, and offered to conduct him, that very night, out of the
province, and out of the reach of Ethelfrid or Redwald ^.
Edwin declined the offer, not thanklessly, but, according to
Bede's representation, partly from a scruple of honour,
partly from moody hopelessness. He would not be the
first to break friendship with Redwald, who as yet had
never wronged him ; if he was to die, let his death come
by Redwald's hand rather than by any less noble. What
new refuge could he find after nearly thirty years of
wandering? His friend retired, leaving him seated on
a stone outside the palace, and distracted by ' many a tide
of thought ' as to what he should do, or whither he should
go. When he had spent a long time in silent distress*
he seemed to see, in the dead stillness of night, a man
approaching him whose face and garb were alike strange,
' £dwin was bom in 585, three yean before his father's death. Then
Ethelric, the Bemician, seized Deira, and Edwin's troubles began, in 588.
* So Lappenberg, i. 145. But would he not, in that caae, have been bred
up a Christian ? See Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 75. The Welsh story was
that Cadvan, who became king in 603, ' hazarded a war with the persecutor
of Edwin, which ended in the battle of Chester ; * Lappenberg, i. 145.
Cadvan was described in his epitaph (found in Anglesey) as ' wisest and
most renowned of kings.' He was fourth in descent from Maelgwyn, and
died about 616 ; Rhys, p. 137.
' He married a Mercian princess, who died before 625.
* See it exquisitely told by Bede, ii la, *• Quod ubi fidissimus quidam,'
he. ; and the rendering in Freeman's 01d-£ngl. Hist. p. 5a.
* ' Si ergo vis, hac ipsa nocte,' &c.
122 Edwin* s promises.
f'UKv. III. and who, after greeting him, asked why he was sitting
there, alone and sorrowful, while every one else was
taking repose. *Whal matters it to you,' asked Edwin
impatiently, recovering from a momentary dread, * whether
I pass the night within doors or here ? ' * Do not think,'
rejoined the stranger, * that I am unaware of the I'eason of
your sleeplessness and anxiety. I know who you are, and
what you are now afraid of. But tell me what you would
give as a reward to any one who could deliver you from
your peril.' * I would give all I could.' ' What if he could
also assure you that you should crush your foes and become
a king, and a mightier king than your forefathers, or even
than all who have been bef oretime kings of the Angles ? '
Again Edwin promised to requite such service as it
merited. 'But,' said the stranger, 'what if he whose
predictions shoxdd have been thus made good were able
to give you better counsel for your life and safety than
any of your kindred ever heard of ? would you then follow
his guidance ? ' Edwin promised that he would do so abso-
lutely. The stranger laid his hand on Edwin's head,
saying, 'When this token is given you, remember our
conversation, and fulfil your promise;' and instantly, as
Bede heard the story, he disappeared. Edwin was still
sitting on the stone seat, gladdened by the encouraging
words, but much perplexed as to their mysterious speaker ',
when his friend returned with a glad countenance. ' Rise
up, and go to rest without fear. The king told his wife of
his resolution against you, and she told him that it was
nowise meet for a great king to sell for gold a good friend
in distress, or rather for love of gain to ruin that which
was more precious than all ornaments, his honour. This
has changed his mind again.' It was true : Redwald had
determined not only to protect Edwin, but to anticipate
Battle of the threatened attack of Ethelfrid. He gathered all
Retford, j^jg forces, marched rapidly northward, and giving the
* Destroyer' no time to make full preparations, met him
' Bede saye he knew him to be a spirit. The St. Gallen ' Life of Gregory *
sayci, 'Quidam cum cnice Christi coronatua,' a supposed 'apparition of
Paulinus' ; who, in fact, may have been visiting Redwald.
Edwin^ King of Northumhria. 123
on the borders of Mercia, on the east bank of the Idle, chap. m.
probably at Idleton near Retford \ and, as we infer from
a calculation of Bede, before the tith of April in 617 ^
Here Ethelfrid was defeated and slain: a popular saying
commemorated
The day when Idle flood
Ran foul with Angle blood';
and Edwin, the hunted and all but betrayed fugitive, Edwin,
became at once the sovereign of the whole Northumbrian No^hum-
region, uniting his hereditary Deira to Bemicia. *He drove *>"«•
out the Ethelings, sons of Ethelfrid*,' says the Saxon
Chronicle; and we must mark three names, — Eanfrid,
Oswald, and Oswy, — one destined to a brief and shameful
elevation, the two others to a high rank among Old-English
monarchs, and one of these to the purest form of royal
glory — but all three at present cast aside into the gloom
of a common ruin. To all appearance, Edwin was simply
another mighty prince of the Northern Angles, with some-
thing of the terrible energy of Ethelfrid, as the Christian
Britons of Loidis* would feel to their cost, when in revenge
for the poisoning of his nephew Hereric, the father of the
future St. Hilda, Edwin expelled their king Cerdic, and
annexed Loidis to Deira ^
^ See Pearson, Hist. Engl. i. 137.
' For the baptism of Edwin, on April 11, 627, took place within the
eleventh year of his reign ; Bede, ii. 14.
' Henry of Huntingdon, ii. 30. As a canon of Lincoln he must often
have heard this saying. On this battle see Palgrave, English Common-
-wealth, p. 428 ; Green, p. 95a.
* 'Eanfrid, Oswald, Osiny, Oslac, Oswudu, Oslaf, Offa,*— all Edwin's
nephews, for Acha his sister had married Ethelfrid ; Bede, iii. 6.
* See Bede, ii. 14, iii. 24, for Loidis ; it was a district dependent on the
Cumbrian British realm, and embracing the lowest portion of the valleys
of the Calder, the Aire, and the Wharf; Whitaker, ^ Loidis and Elmete,'
p. I ; Palgprave, Engl. Comm. p. 435. The name of course survives in Leeds.
Green, Making of England, pp. 64, 954, speaks of the whole territory as
' Elmet.' Rhys distinguishes the two, Celt. Brit. p. 13a The name of
Elmet is still attached to Barwick, N.E. of Leeds. Bede mentions it in
ii. 14.
* Compare the App. to Nennius, and Bede, iv. 93, with Huasey's note.
< Nepotis,' nephew, not (as Florence took it) grandson. Hereric was the
aon of Edwin's elder brother, and probably but little younger than Edwin
himself (Green, p. 948). His other daughter was Hereswid.
124 Mellitus^ Archbishop.
<^AF. in. Two years after the battle of the Idle, Lanienoe died, on
the 2nd of Febmaiy, 619, having added, as it would seem,
to the chorches of Canterboiy a ' martyriom ' on the sooth
of the cathedral, in honour of ' the Foor Crowned Brothers,'
Roman martyrs in the time of Diocletian ^. He was suc-
ceeded by Mellitus, whose character, as we have already
seen, was that of a man faithfol in his stewardship of
sacred ordinances, although in a great trial of patience he
despaired of the English mission. He exhibited, as arch-
bishop, a truly pastoral zeal ; which, as in Gregory s case,
overcame the painful infirmity of the gout from which
he suffered. As Bede expresses it ^ his mind, if not his
feet, 'could walk healthily, leaping over all earthly con-
siderations, ever winging its way upward, to love and
follow after things heavenly: noble in birth, nobler still
in loftiness of spirit, — a true man of God, enkindled with
the fire of Divine love,' which, says Bede, was manifest
in him when he caused himself to be carried towards
a confiagration that was laying waste a large part of
Canterbury, and occupied himself in prayer while a num-
ber of strong men were vainly struggling to quench it ;
whereupon the wind shifted round to the north, and the
rest of the city — including the cathedral and the episcopal
house — was saved. This incident, and the dedication of
the chapel of St. Mary, built by Ektdbald within the precinct
of SS. Peter and Paul, are all that we know of the archi-
episcopate of Mellitus. He died on the 24th of April, 624,
and Justus of Rochester was removed to Canterbury, the
circumstances requiring this technical departure from old
canons. Boniface V speedily sent him a pall, and authorized
him to consecrate, single-handed*, a new bishop for
Rochester— the person selected being Romanus. This
letter contains an allusion to the disappointment of those
more brilliant hopes which had been centred in the Gre-
* Bede, ii. 7. For these martyrs see Alb. Butler, Not. 8. Their
church on the Caelian was founded by Honorius I in 6aa.
* lb. : < Erat autem Mellitus corporis quidem infirmitate, id est, podagra
gravatus, sed mentis gressibus sanis ' (qu. sanus ?).
' The permission, indeed, was general : ' Ezigente opportunitate.'
Abovci p. 67. This pope sat from 6x8 or 619 to 625.
Disappointment of early hopes. 125
gorian mission. The Pope consoled Justus by observing chap. ni.
that what had been done was a pledge that in due time all
would be done. The slow progress was a trial of ' patience
and endurance^:' let it be borne in faith, and with
a humble confidence that the actual consolidation of
Christianity in Kent would promote its extension among
the neighbouring realms. Justus may well have needed
this encouragement at the end of those twenty-three years
of experience ; the programme drawn out by Gregory, in
one of the letters brought by himself and his companions,
appe€kred still to be so far from fulfilment : outside Kent,
not a single kingdom had been secured for Christianity,
and one had been lost. If hopes had been entertained as
to East-Anglia, they had been blighted. The Celtic bishops
and clergy had repelled successive overtures. One bright
spot there was, which of itself suggested a coming revival
of prosperity ; for Eadbald, who had once been such a cause
of despondency, was now, as it were, a second Ethelbert.
He who had refused baptism, and emphasized his opposition
to Christianity by contracting a marriage which it abhorred,
was now, as Boniface had written after reading a letter
from him* on the occasion of the accession of Justus,
a signal example of ' a real conversion and of an unques-
tionable faith.' With him the archbishops and their clergy
could work cordially : at his bidding churches rose up ; —
one such has already been mentioned, and another may
substantially exist in that venerable church of St. Mary,
which, attached to a far older Roman lighthouse, and
^ ' Laudabili patientia redemptionem gentis illius expectntis . . . Salvati
ergo estis spe patientiae et tolerantiae virtute . . . quatenua . . . conaum-
mati opens vobia merces . . . tribuatur,' &c. He quotes Matt. z. aa,
zrviii. aa Compare a despondent letter of St. Boniface, Ep. aa, asking
some nuns to pray for him that he might not die 'omnino sine fnictu
evangelii sterilis,' and receive *uUionem infructuosi laboris.' Other
great missionaries had their faith and patience sorely tried by apparent
failure. When St. Anskar, amid the 'angustiae' of his work, asked Ebbo
of Reims for comfort, the answer was, ' I am assured that what we have
begun to work out for the name of Christ fructificare hoMt in Domino.
. . . Veraciter scio quia etsi aliquando propter peccata quodammodo
impeditum fnerit . . . non tamen unquam penitus exstingnetur,' &c.
Vit. Ansk. 34 (Pertz, Hon. O. H. ii. 717).
' The pope, by some mistake, calls him ^<fu?wald ; Bede, ii. 8.
126 Edwin a suitor for Ethelburga.
rHAP. m. 'partly built out of Roman materials,' crovms the southern
cliff within the limits of the castle of Dover ^. Eadbald
also built a church at Folkestone, and his daughter
Eanswith, who founded there a religious society, is still
remembered as the local saint ^. But it is with the king's
sister ^thelburh or Ethelburga, whom her family called by
the fond name of Tata, ' the darling,' that our history is
now concerned.
It must have been very soon after the receipt of the
Pope's letter that envoys from Edwin of Northumbria
presented themselves to Eladbald. In the name of their
master they asked for Ethelburga's hand^ Eadbald
answered like a Christian, and more uncompromisingly
than his own Franldsh grandfather had replied to Ethel-
beri ' I cannot give my sister to a heathen : my religion
forbids it */ The answer thus returned produced a second
request from Edwin : if only he might obtain the Kentish
princess, he would give to her and her attendants full
liberty of worship, — and, more than that, he would himself
be willing to adopt her faith, if wise men, after examining
it, should pronounce it better than his own. We can easily
Marriage
of Ethel-
burga to
Edwin,
' Freeman, iii. 535 ; J. H. Parker, Introd. Goth. Archit. p. 10 ; Allen,
Monum. Hist, of Brit. Oh. p. 28.
^ See Dugdale, Hon. Anglic i. 45 1, that Eanswith chose this place as
' a vulgi frequentatione remotum,' and her father built there a church
of St. Peter, about a.d. 630. See also Alb. Bntler, Sept. la. This church
was washed away by the sea in the tenth century. In 1885 some
workmen employed in the present church found behind the alt«r a
reliquary containing a skull and some bones, which had evidently been
hidden there at the Reformation. These relics of the foundress are
preserved in a dosed recess, on the north side of the sanctuary.
' Bede, ii. 9. He writes her name ' uSEdilbeigae.'
* Bede amplifies the refusal : ^ Ne fides et sacramenta caelestis Regis
consortio profanarentur regis qui veri Dei cultus esset prorsus ignarus.'
' Sacramenta ' is with Bede an elastic term ; cp. ii. 15, ' fidem et sacra-
menta Christi,' iii. 7, 'fidem et sacramenta regni caelestis,' and iii. 23,
< verbum et sacramenta fidei . . . ministrare.' Here one naturally thinks
of 'sacred rites' or 'ordinances': as in iii. 3, 'baptismatis sacramenta,*
and iii. 95, ' celebratione sacramentorum caelestium.' But elsewhere
' sacramenta fidei ' seems to mean the mysterious truths of the faith, with
a knowledge of which persons can be 'imbued/ iv. 16, 37, which they
caa 'keep,' iv. 44, 3, or can 'abandon,' iii. 30; and so 'fidem et saora>
menta' must be explained in iv. 93, and 'sacramenta fidei' in ii. 9, 15 ;
iii. I, 30 ; iv. 14, z6, 37.
Paulinus sent to Northumbria. 12^
see how Justus would exhort Eadbald to accept this offer, chap. m.
What if this were the opening of a door, the first beginning
of new successes which should verify the assurances of
Boniface, the long-expected opportunity which might fulfil
Gregory's aspirations by setting Deira free from * the ire
of God?' Eadbald took his resolution: Edwin's terms
wei*e accepted, and Paulinus, one of the three companions OonBccra-
of Justus in 601, was consecrated by him to the episcopate, p^^jl^nus.
on the 2i8t of July, 625, in order that he might be to
Ethelburga in her Northern home what Liudhard had
been to her mother in the still heathen Kent. We have
now reached another landmark: the mission of Paulinus
was the first onward step that had been taken since
Mellitus addressed the East-Saxons; and it soon proved
to be, what that attempt was not, a great event for
Christianity.
CHAPTER IV.
Paulinas It was, then, in the late snnuner of 625 that Edwin of
Northombria received his bride from Kent. He had been
previously married to Cwenburga, ' the daughter of Ceari
king of the Mercians^/ and she had left him two sons,
Osfrid and Eladfrid. He himself was just forty years old^.
He treated his new wife's chaplain with respect, and never
interfered with their religious practices ; but he showed no
disposition to fulfil the second part of his promise by insti^
tuting an examination of their creed. Paulinus lived in
the Northumbrian court for some months, without any
apparent prospect of doing anything as a missionary. His
personal appearance must have given an impression of
grave dignity : a few words of Bede have pictured it from
the description transmitted by one who had reason to
remember it well. He was * tall, with a slight stoop, black
hair, a thin face, an aquiline nose, an aspect at once vener-
able and awe-striking*.' He had with him as his con-
fidential attendant a deacon named James, who was alive
in Bede's own childhood, and whom he justly describes as
'a man of great zeal and fame in Christ's Chiuxsh^.'
Paulinus made some attempts to win over the heathens of
Deira ; but in all these he failed. As Fuller in his quaint
way words it, * Seeing he could not be happy to gain, he
^ Bede, ii. 14.
' For he was forty-eight when he died in ^3 ; Bede, ii. ao.
' 'Venerabilis simul et terribilis,' Bede, ii. 16. An old man whom
Paulinus had baptized in the Trent gave this account to Deda abbot
of Partney, who related it to Bede. See Wordsworth's EocL Sonnets,
No. 15 : —
'Hark him, of shoulders curved, and stature taU,
Black hair, and vivid eye, and meagre cheek,' &c.
* See Bede, ii. 16, ao ; iii. as ; iv. a.
Attempt on Edwin's life. 129
would be careful to save ^' If * the god of this world had chap. it.
blinded the eyes ' of the Yorkshire folk, he could at least,
by daily exhortations, do his best to guard the queen's
attendants from the contagion of Yorkshire heathenism.
So passed the winter: on the 19th of April, E^ter-eve in
626, Eldwin, then living at a royal country-house near
Stamford-bridge, had a narrow escape from sudden death^ :
a West-Saxon named Eumer, sent as an envoy by the
West-Saxon prince Cwichelm, who was then reigning
under his father Kynegils ^, struck at Eld win with a two-
edged and poisoned dagger ; Lilla, the king's most trusted
personal retainer *, rushed forward to receive the blow, but
E/lwin himself was wounded through the body of this
devoted servant. On that same ' most holy night of the
Lord's Passover,' Ethelburga bore a daughter; Edwin
thanked his gods in the hearing of Paulinus^ who there-
upon assured him that he had been praying for this happy
event. The king, well pleased, promised that if he should Baptism of
succeed in his meditated vengeance on Wessex, he would
^ Fuller, Gh. Hist. p. 7a. Compare Bede, ii. 9, * Laboravit multum/ &e.
He cites a Cor. iy. 4.
* Bede, ii. 9 : 'juxta amnem Deruventionem ' (Derwent, the white or
clear water, a tributary of the Ouse). The 'villa regalis' w&s probably
at Aldby. 'There stood a royal house of the Northumbrian kings, the
apparent site of which ... a mound surrounded by a fosse, still looks
down on a picturesque point of the course of the river ; ' Freeman, iii.
355. For other ' villae ' see Bede, ii. 14 ; iii. 17, aa ; v. 4. Compare ib.
iii. ai, *vico regia'
' Kynegils began to reign in 611 : he and his son Cwichelm fought
against the Britons at Bampton in 614, and slew 2065 : see the Chronicle.
* ' Minister,' here used as equivalent to ' miles ' : ' alium de militibus/
Imma is a 'miles' and 'minister* of Alfwin, iv. aa. We have 'ministri*
in ii. 13 : ' ministri ' attend Edwin on his progresses, ii. 16 : Oswald has
a 'minister' charged to look after the poor, iii. 6. Oswin sits at the
hearth 'cum ministris,' iii. 14. Owin is 'primus ministrorum' for Ethel-
dred, iv. 3. Sebbi is attended on his deathbed by two 'ministri,' iv. 11.
Benedict Biscop was a 'minister' of Oswy, Hist. Abb. i, and Easterwin
of Egfrid, ib. 7. Alfred and the Chronicle call Lilla a thegn or thane, a title
variously explained as 'servant,' ' freeman,' and 'warrior.' See Kemble,
Saxons, i. 168; Freeman, i. 87; Bp. Stubbs, Const. Hist, i. 181, &c. In
'Codmon'n' paraphrase the angels are called thanes of €h>d. Compare
the offices of 'bower-thane' (cubicularius), dish-thane, rede-thane.
'Ministri' often subscribe royal charters; see Cod. Dipl. ii. 13, 39, 74 ,
ftc One, by Egbert, is signed by eight ' ministri ' ; ib. i. 39<>
K
igo Indecision of Edwin s mind.
CHAP. nr. take Christ for his Lord : in earnest of which, he at once
gave over the in&nt to Panlinns 'to be dedicated to Christ*
Accordingly, at Pentecost % she was brought to baptism,
being the first of the Northombrian race who received it,
with eleven * others of her household The little Eanfled
was reserved for a high place among the Christian princesses
of England ^ Her father, when his wound was cured,
descended like a 'Destroyer' on Wessex, slew five of its
sub-kings^, and returned triumphant: but he still deferred
full performance of his promise, although he absented
himself from idolatrous observances. A man of thoughtful ^
cautious temperament, trained by his early misfortunes in
reticence and vigilance, with nothing of the enthusiast
about him, — a man of middle life, whose impulsiveness, if
he had ever had any, was extinct, — hating the notion of
taking a false step, determined not to be hurried in any
grave matter, — can we not easily imagine what Edwin
was in those eventful months, during which, no doubt,
Ethelburga felt the sore sickness of hope deferred ? She
was urged by a letter from the Pope® to use all her
influence in behalf of her husband's conversion : the letter
^ ' On the holy day of Pentecost/ Bede : but he means, of course, the
eve, a solemn time for baptisms : so S. Ghron. Whitsun-eve, that year,
fell on June 7. Compare the Qregorian ' prayers at mass' after Whitsun-
eve baptisms, Huratori, ii. 88 ; the collect prays ' ut . . . lux tuae lueis
corda eorum, qui per gratiam tuam renati sunt, Sancti Spiritus lllus-
tratione confirmet. ' See above, p. 57.
' One form of the Chron., Hwelve,' includes Eanfled.
' See Bede, ii. ao ; iii. 15, 24, 35 ; iv. a6 ; v. 19.
* On these five sub-kings, as indicating the lack of unity in Weesev, see
Freeman, L 97. Yet they were apparently * princes of the line of Cerdic ; '
lb. and 99. A king had often a prince of his house associated with him
as sub-king of a district : as were Gwichelm in Wessex, Egric (for a time)
in East Anglia, Ethelwald, Alchfrid, Alfwin in Northumbria, Peada,
Herewald, and Osric in Hercia.
* * Thoughtful Edwin;' Wordsworth, EccL Sonnets, No. 15.
* Bede, ii. 11. Boniface says in this letter that he has heard with
grief that Edwin ' up to that time has delayed to listen to the pi-eachers : '
and this suggests a difficulty, in that Ethelburga could not have reached
York until the end of July, and the tidings of Edwin's 'delays* oould
hardly have reached Rome before the end of October, when Boniface was
dead. Could ^ Boniface,* in the address of the letters, be a scribe's error
for *■ Honor! us ' ?
His slow progress towards conversion. 131
had been delayed, if we are to take Bede's words literally *, chap. iv.
on its journey to Britain, for Boniface V had died in the
October of 625, and was therefore near the end of his life
when he thus wrote, reminding Ethelburga of the text
about ' the unbelieving husband/ and in a companion letter
exhorting Edwin to forsake the senseless worship of idols,
the ^follies of Pagan temples, the deceitful flatteries of
auguries ' (such, for instance, as Ethelbert had employed),
and to secure eternal life by confessing the undivided
Trinity. The latter epistle expressly suggests the breaking
to pieces of idols as a demonstration of their impotence.
* You, who have received a living spirit from the Lord, are
assuredly superior ' to things * framed by your own subjects*/
These arguments were perhaps no longer apposite ; Edwin
was in an untenable half-way position, neither an idolater
nor a believer ; his difficulty consisted in the humiliation
demanded by Christianity ; it was hard for the self-reliant
Teuton * to bow down and receive the mystery of the life-
giving Cross ^ Paulinus, whenever he had opportunity,
argued, pleaded, exhorted: still the king was undetermined,
and used ' often to sit for hours in silence ^* pondering the
great alternative. At last, during one of these moods,
Paulinus drew near, laid his right hand on his head, and
asked, * Do you recognize this sign ? ' The allusion to
words and gestures which had either formed part of a
dream, and had as such been commimicated, in some way
1 < Quo tempore . . . aocepit/ Bede, ii. lo. The pope's reference to * the
preachers ' implies that Paulinus had some attendant clergy. He sends
Ethelburga a silver mirror and a gilt ivorj comb, and to Edwin a soldier's
shirt (so Jerome, Epist. 64. 11, uses 'camisia') ornamented with gold,
and a camp-cloak of Ancyran fashion, — all these as ' blessings (i. e. gifts) of
their protector St. Peter.'
s For ^constructioni' we must read ' constructione.' In the corrupt
passage, '£|jas ergo/ for 'dilatandi subdi' we might read ' dilatanda (sc
misericordia) subsidio/ to be extended far and wide for the assistance of
His whole creation. The letter is interesting as dwelling on the attain-
ableness, through revelation, of a knowledge of God which is real, though
it does not amount to ' comprehension,' and also on the interior unity
(s 'coinherence*) of the Holy Trinity.
' Bede, ii. la.
* Bede, ii. 9, ' aaepe diu solus residens : ' and ib. la, ' horis competen-
tibus solitarius.'
K 1
1^2 Paulinus prevails with Edimn.
CBAF. IT. unexplained, to Paulinus '. or had been really employed by
an unknown visitant with whom Paulinus was acquainted ^
or who may have be^i Paulinus himself \ struck home at
onoe, and told on Edwin decisively. Trembling with awe.
as if in the presence of one who could read his secret
history, he was about to throw himself at the bishop's feet.
Gonver- Paulinus was master of the situation; he raised him up,
Edwin. ^^^ ^^ ^ ^^^ ^^ friendly confidence referred to what had
been done for him, and what he was pledged to do in
return. *See, you have escaped those perils; — see, you
have been elevated to this kingship: delay no longer to
embrace the faith and the precepts of Him who wrought
that deliverance, and who granted that exaltation.' ' I will
do so,' said Edwin : ' but I will first confer with my chief
friends and counsellors, so that, if they are willing, they
may become Christians also.' Paulinus assented: Edwin
assembled his ' Witan ^ ' near ' Godmundingaham,' now
Ooodmanham, some twenty-three miles from York ; it was
probably about the close of 626, or very early in 627.
Witena- At this memorable gathering he asked his ' wise men '
G^mMi- in<iividually what they thought of the new faith, which
ham. now for more than a year had been impersonated in
Paulinus, the bishop, there present. The chief Pagan
priest, whom Bede calls Coifi^ answered with a frank
avowal of self-interest which showed a nature of coarse
* Lingard (Hist. E. i. 83) and Turner (Angl.-Sax. i. 356) suppose thai
Edwin had had a dream, and that Paulinus had heard of it.
' Churton thinks that the strange visitor was a Christian who had
accompanied Bedwald from Kent ; £. E. Ch. p. 56.
' Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 75 ; Hook, i. 103 ; Raine, Fast. Ebor. i. 38.
* See Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 148. Godmundingaham has been explained
as the place under the mimd or protection of the gods ; Taylor's Words
and Places, p. 335 ; but also (Mnrray's Yorkshire, p. 131) as the home of the
sons of Godmund. It is near Weighton, which means ' sacred enclosure.'
This Witan certainly did not include the people as such, see Bede, ii. 13.
* This has been called a CMic name for a pontiff; and Palgrave infers
that Druidism had won its way in Deira ; Engl. Commonw. p. 155. But
it is answered that Coifi is an equivalent to the Saxon Coefig, and means
' the active one.' Collier's version of this speech is a curious specimen of
his humour, and also of his utter want of the sense of congruity ; i. 196.
Coifi puts bluntly the argument used by a Swedish 'elder,' Vit S.
Anskar. 97 : ' Nubiscum quando nostros propitios habere non possumus
deos, bonum est hnjtu dei gratiam habere.'
The IVitan and the Thane* s speech. 133
mould: 'The old worship seems to me worth nothing: no chap. rv.
man has practised it more than I, and yet many fare better,
and have more favour at your hand. If the gods had any
power, they would rather help t?16, who have served them
more than others. Let us then see what this new lore is
good for ; if it is better than the old, let us straightway
follow it.* Far different, and indescribably suggestive and
pathetic, was the speech of a thane ^, who expressed in
a vivid simile that bewilderment as to the mystery of life
which weighed heaviest on the worthiest of the heathen :
^ I will tell you, O king, what methinks man's life is like.
Sometimes, when your hall is lit up for supper on a wild
winter's evening, and warmed by a fire in the midst 2,
a sparrow^ flies in by one door, takes shelter for a moment
in the warmth, and then flies out again by another door,
and is lost in the stormy darkness. No one in the hall sees
the bird before it enters, nor after it has gone forth ; it is
only seen while it hovers near the fire. So it is, I ween,
with this brief span of our life in this world ^ ; what has
gone before it, what will come after it, — of this we know
nothing. If the strange teacher can tell us, by all means
' The speech is yersified simply and touchingly in Professor Palgrave's
Visions of England, p. 97 ; and compare Wordsworth's Eccl. Sonnets,
No. 16 : —
'Han's life is like a sparrow, mighty king,' &c.
Cp. Lingard, A.-S. Oh. L 39 ; Milman, ii. 238 ; Freeman's 01d-£ngl.
History, p. 57 ; Green, Making of Engl, pi 363. The speaker is called by
Bede one of the * optimates * : Alfred renders, ' Ealdorman.' We find
' optimatibus ' in iii 30. As to the winter banquets, see Bede's ' Oucu-
lus ; ' — Hiems says,
'Sunt mihi divitiae, sunt et convivia laeta,
Est requies duleis, calidus est ignis in aede.'
' 'While you are sitting at supper cum ducibus ac ministris tuis.' The
' dux' appears in Bede, iii. 34 ^^ three Mercian duces}, iv. 13. 15 (of Sussex).
It seems to be here equivalent to ealdorman. So Alfred, 'with thine
ealdormen and thanes.' See Kemble, ii. 135 If.
' Cp. M. Aurelius' 'Ad Seipsum,' vi. 11, that 'to set one's heart on what
is in continual flux is as if one were to begin to love rt twv vapaw€TOfUyw¥
cTpov$iary, while it has already passed away out of sight.'
* ' The Northern nations . . . demanded immortality,' and hence ' they
took Christianity to their hearts ; ' Merivale, Conversion of Northern
Nations, p. 130. He gives a free rendering of this speech, and proceeds
to dwell on the ' intense realization of another life,' which characterized
the converted Teutons.
134 National adoption of Christianity,
CHAP. IT. let him be heard.' The words strack home to the listeners'
hearts, as fraught with a solemn and urgent reality ; they
felt, with the speaker, that they must not miss such an
opportunity of learning more about the ' whence ' and the
'whither' of their existence, of obtaining some sure
warrant for the hopes which struggled with dark un-
certainties as they thought of death and of the Beyond ;
and just then, at the right mom^it, the chief priest
proposed that Paulinus should set forth his doctrine.
Paulinus, of course, welcomed and used the opportunity:
and Coifi, as if lifted up by the power of the discourse into
a higher strain of feeling, spoke out : ' Now I understand
what the truth is : I have long known that it was not with
us ; but now I see it shining out clearly in this teaching.
Let us destroy those useless temples and altars, and give
them up to the curse and the flame!' Then, at last,
Edwin, as king, publicly accepted the Gospel, and aske<l
Coifi who should begin the work of desecrating the altars
and temples of idolatry. * That will I do,' was the prompt
answer: 'who could more fittingly destroy, as a lesson
for all, what once I reverenced in my folly?' It was
unlawful for a high priest to bear arms, or to ride except
on a mare; therefore Coifi emphasized his resolution by
calling for arms and a horse, and, thus equipped, he rode
straight at the venerated temple of Goodmanham, hurled
his spear against it, and bade his companions set fire to
the building together with its surrounding sacred pre-
cinct ^ Thus did Northumbria, by a national act, accept
Baptism Christianity. The king caused a little wooden chapel
** ^'"' to be hastily reared at York, on part of the ground now
covered by the glorious Minster; and within its walls
he went through the training of a catechumen*, and
received baptism on Easter-eve ^, April 1 1, 627. His nobles
were baptized with him; and among the neophytes was
* 'Cum omnibus septis suis' — the whole rifieyof or * frith-goard ' ;
Thorpe's Glossary ; also called < healli-tun/ Chron. Abingd. ii. 483. Here
Bede shows his fondness for Yirgilian quotation : ' Quas ipse sacraTorai
aras.* Gp. Aen. ii. 509. See too Bede, iL 19 ; iv. 96.
■ * Cum oateohizaretur.' Bede, ii. 14 ; see below, p. 137.
' 'Die sancto Paschae' means here the eve. The Cambrian Annals
Great power of Edwin. 135
his grandniece Hild, the future St. Hilda, abbess of chap. it.
Whitby ^ Many of the people followed his example. It
was the birthday of the Northumbrian Church.
The realm of Edwin, stretching from the Humber to
the Forth, and including * Eldwin's burgh ^ ' on its northern
frontier, — the widespread supremacy which he exercised
throughout all the kingdoms save that of Kent, and also
over the Britons of the Isle of Man, over * British ' territory
between the Dee and the Cumbri?in Derwent ^, and that of
Mona *, which after his conquest of it was called * Anglesey,'
may represent to us the great political importance of the
baptism of the fifth 'Bretwalda.' So eflPective was the
* peace * ' established under his government that, according
to a proverb still current in Bede's time : —
When Edwin ruled in Angle-land,
Mother and babe from strand to strand
Might pass unscathed by Angle hand*.
say, 'Run filius Urbgen baptizavit eum.' So the * Appendix' to
'Nennius,' *Si quis scire voluerit quis eos baptizaverit, Rum map
Urbgen baptizavit eos, et per quadraginta dies non cessavit baptizare
omne genus Ambronum.' This is plainly a Welsh fiction (possibly based
on some confusion between Paulinus and Paul Hdn, the Welsh founder
of Whitland^ in which Bede's account of Paulinus' baptizing Northum-
brians during thirty-six days is simply transferred to ' Rum.' Urbgen, or
Urien, had fought against Theoderic some forty years before this event :
even if his son were then alive and were a priest, Paulinus would never
have yielded to him the privilege of baptizing Edwin. Two MSS. of
' Nennius,' appealing to the authority of two Welsh bishops, read *• Run
... id est, Paulinus.' This identification is to me incredible, although
Bp. Browne inclines to think that Paulinus may have been a Briton
trained in Rome, Lessons from E. Engl. Ch. Hist. p. 53. See Haddan
and Stubbs, Councils, i. 913.
^ Bede, iv. 33.
* Freeman, i. 35 ; Burton, Hist. Soot. i. 98 1 ; Green, p. 953. Its old
name was (not Eiddin, but) Agned.
* Rhys, Celt. Brit. p. 138. He uses the form ' Brythons' as more distinctive.
* ' Mevanias insulas/ Bede, ii. 5, 9. See Lappenberg, i. 149. Aberfraw
in Anglesey was the capital of Owynedd or North Wales.
B Bede, ii. 16 ; Malmesb. G. R. i. 48. See Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. aoB :
'The peace, as it was called, the primitive alliance for mutual good
behaviour . . . was from the beginning of monarchy under the protection
of the king,' and it was in later days that the ' national peace of which
he was the guardian ' became, in a personal sense, hU peace. For Edwin's
overlordship see Freeman, i. 553, and Engl. Towns and Districts, p. 976.
* Compare the Irish saying about the reign of Malachy ^ of the Collar of
Gold.'
ij^ Amgiuim Bishopric of York.
^MM9.m. At ercvj Sear spris^ ^^ciBg (Ik ^^ nmia^ he set op poats
whli fjffazen drinkiiig'Caps : and bo Bna doiai lae them fen:
anj other parpaae— ao gptmily was he ficued or knred. He
ki^ed state sod kin^y dia|4aT: not onhr m hattle, l^
of peaee, whenrTcr fiiwin was od a prqgrcBB, a banner-staff
with a tuft of f eathoa^-' the standard,' says Bede, 'called
by the Bcouns tu/a^' — was borne bef«e him and gave
wamii^ of his approach. Such was Edwin as a monarch
and sozerain: as a conTert, he was thoroughly tme to his
VmnMnnn tardily-foTmed eonviction& He established Paulinas as
yl^L^ bishc^ of York, and 'began to build a larger and more
august chnrdi of stone, square in foiin,in a qmoe enclosing'
the wooden ooe * in which he had kept his first Easter, and
listened to the 'Alleluias' then at last poured forth by
' Anglian ' worshippers in the realm and royal city of
' Ella.' This new chnreh was to be dedicated to St Peter ;
bat Edwin did not live to see its walls nused to iheir full
height, — ^and its ncm-eompletion daring his reign was
symbolic of much that he saw b^un and not finished in
the work of Christianizing his kingdom.
There was, indeed, a great impulse given, a great ardour
excited : not only were royal baptisms solemnized, as when
Exlwin's sons by his former wife entered the ' laver '/ and
when children of Ethelburga followed, — of whom two died
while still clad in their white christening-garments *, — but
' Cp. Duoange in y; a standard 'ex oonsertis plumaram globis.'
' Bede, ii. 14 : < Moz autem ut baptisma,' kc See Chron. of Anc Brit.
Church, p. T37. This wooden sanctuary was carefully preserved, and
enriched with splendid altars and vessels, by archbishop Albert ; Raine,
i. 104. See the plan of the ancient Eboracnm in Freeman, iv. aoa. Some
stones of Edwin's church may still exist in the crypt of York Minster;
Freeman, Norm. Gonq. v. 610; Omsby, Dioc. Hist. York, p. 19; Raine,
Historians of Church of York, i p. xxiii ; but they have been assigned to
the time of archbishop Albert (▲.d. 767-781}. Edwin now restored the
temporal glory of the city which had been imperial ; Freeman, EngL
Towns and Districts, p. 979.
' Bede, il. 14. Osfrid and Eadfrid ; also Osfrid's chUd Yffi, and Osric
(he nophow of Ella and first-cousin of Edwin ; cp. ib. iii. i ; Oreen, p. 248.
* < Alliati.' Cp. Bede, v. 7, Cadwalla fell sick <in albis adhuc positus.'
On tlio white garments or 'ohrisoms' of the new baptized, see Bingham,
xii. 4* <-3* Gregory I alludes to a <birrus albus* as put on just after
baptism; Kp. ix. 6, See too ib. viii. i and 93, on his supplying such
Mission-labours of Paulinus. 137
the people crowded eagerly to hear the bishop, and to chap. it.
present themselves as candidates for reception into his
fold. In one of his missionary journeys, he waa occupied BapUams
for thirty-six days, from morning to night, at the royal JJei- '
'vill' of Yevering imder the Cheviots, in the work of
' catechi2dng ^ and baptizing,' in other words, 'instructing
the people, who flocked to him from all the villages and
places, in the word of Christ's salvation, and washing them,
when instructed *, with the laver of remission, in the river
Glen ^ which flowed close by.' Another place in the same
Bemician district, not mentioned by Bede, preserves the
tradition of a similar visit in its name of Pallinsbum,
where a lake, probably used for baptism, lies some three
miles off" the Tweed. But, as bishop of York, Paulinus and in
naturally spent most of his time in Deira : the scenes of ^®*™'
the Glen were reproduced, to some extent, at that tranquil
and beautiful spot where the Swale glides, soft and shallow,
beside the high wooded bank that represents the Boman
camp of Caractonium, just above the existing Catterick-
bridge. In these general baptisms, as in other ministrations,
Paulinus would be 'served' by his deacon James*, who
afterwards laboured many years in the neighbourhood
garments for poor converts. For the death, * in albis,' of the infant son
of Clovis, see Greg. Tur. H. Fi*. 11. 29 ; and St. Patrick's letter to the men
of Oorotlcus, mentioning ' neophyti In veste Candida,* and on the death of
some converts while 'albati,' Vit. Anskar. 24. Compare the Baptismal
Office of 1549.
^ See Bingham, b. x. c. i. s. 5.
' In utter defiance of this expression Whitaker says, * There were no
opportunities of previous instruction;' Loidis and El mete, p. 300.
Compere, on the combination of instruction and baptism, Bede, ill. i,
' cateehlzati, et baptismatis gratia recreati;* lil. 7, 'rex ipse catechl-
zatus ; ' ill. aa, ' In verbo fidei et minlsterio baptlzandl ; ' ill. a6, ' praedi-
candi, baptlzandl ; ' Iv. 16, * instructos . . . ao . . . ablutos.' See also v. 6.
' The Glen appears in the Arthurian legend, in connexion with the
first of the Hwelve' battles; Nennius, 64. But this transference of
Arthur's activities to the North is an addition to the genuine story ;
Freeman, Eng. Towns and Districts, p. 438. See above, p. a6.
^ Cp. Bede, lil. ao^ on Thomas, Hhe deacon of Felix. For the ancient
close relation of the deacon to his bishop see S. Athan. de Foga, 34 ; and
the story of St. Laurence. So Const. Apost. li. 44 : * Let the deacon be
the ear, eye, and mouth of the bishdp.* Cp. Bingham, b. IL c. ao. s. 16-18
(1. 30a;.
138 Character of Paulinus^ work.
CHAP. rv". of Catterick. Yorkshire traditions bring Paulinus to
Dewsbury and to Easingwold: but if we ask whether
he raised any permanent memorials of these circuits, the
answer might be that neither church nor altar, nor even
a cross such as might mark a service-station, was erected
during his episcopate in Bemicia^; while as to Deira,
not only were there no baptisteries, but Bede mentions
as exceptional a (wooden) 'basilica,' with a stone altar,
near a royal ' vill ' at Campodonum, a place which Alfred's
version names Donafeld, and which may be probably
identified with Doncaster *, and in that case must be dis-
tinguished from the Roman station of Camftodwnum, which
has been variously placed at Slack near Huddersfield, and
Tanfield near Ripon ^. Paulinus had not time to consolidate
his work in Bemicia ; and even in Deira he could only lay
a foundation, on which another saint was destined to build.
Such, for the six years of his Northumbrian episcopate,
was the work, of Paulinus,— a work of foundation, not
properly of construction. He had, it seems, but few
clergy : he could do little else than travel about, planting
wherever he best could, in the hope that he might after-
wards be enabled to water: and we may best judge of
his capacity for organizing a church by what he did in
the way of preparing for its organization. 'The labours
of this great missionary must have been prodigious *.' He
Paulinus*
work.
^ Bede, iii. a ; ii. 14. The cross which Camden heard of as having
onoe existed at Dewsbury, with the inscription * Hie Paulinus praedicavit
et celebravit,' must have been of later date : an imitation of it, in form
of a Saxon wheel-cross, was accidentally destroyed in 18 19 ; Whitaker's
Loidis and Elmete, p. 399. There was another cross near Easingwold in
the reign of Edward I ; Raine, i. 43. Near Easingwold, too, is Brafferton,
where local tradition says that Paulinus baptissed ; Murray's Yorkshire,
p. 330. The erection of crosses at preaching-stations is said to have been
a practice of St. Kentigern : see aboye, p. 34.
* See Whitaker's Loidis, p. 153, and Hunter's Deanery of Doncastor,
i. 5. One argument for Doncaster (the Roman Danum) is that this
church was burned after Penda had slain Edwin at Hatfield, a few miles
east of Doncaster. See also 0msby*s Dioc. Hist. York, p. sa
* For these two views see Whitaker, Loidis and Elmete, p. 374, and
Raine, Fast. Ebor. i 43. Gambodunum is in the second ' Iter,' between
Tadcaster and Manchester.
^ Raine, Fast Ebor. i. 43.
Character of Paultnus' work. 139
has been blamed for appealing to temporal motives, by chap. iv.
promising earthly prosperity as the reward of conversion ;
but it is remarkable that in his recorded words to Edwin,
when he reminded him of 'the token,' his assurances as
to the future take a purely spiritual form^. Within
certain limits, he might not unreasonably believe that ' the
promise of the life that now is ' might be included among
the topics of a missionary sermon: but to say that his
converts were 'encouraged' by him to test 'the merits
of a religious scheme by the temporal advantages which
followed its reception*' is a grave unfairness to his memory,
and to the evidence furnished by Bede. That solemn
setting forth of ' the way of salvation ' through the Cross,
that emphatic warning as to a choice made in time for
all eternity, that assiduous indefatigable 'catechizing' and
' preaching of the word of God,' came, we must needs think,
from the heart of a man 'whose whole mind was set on
bringing the Northumbrian people to the recognition of
the truth ^,' and characterized an episcopate which, though
short in itself, endeared his name for ages to their memory.
But he was not content to work for them alone. Very Paulinus
soon after the baptism of Edwin, he had not only thought,
but acted, in behalf of their neighbours in the district
of Lindsey*, just south of the Humber. He preached
in the old Roman hill-town of Lincoln^; and its reeve,
or * prefect ' as Bede calls him *, BlsBCCa by name, became
^ Bede, ii. la: 'A perpetuis malorum tormentis te liberabit, et aetemi
aecum regni in caelis faciet esse participem.'
* Hook, i. 107, 117. Correct this by Baine, i. 44. Hook owns that, when
he went about Norihumbria, Uhe Spirit of God blessed the preached
word;' p. iia.
' Bede, ii. 9 : ^ Ipse potius toto animo intendens.'
* lindsey occurs in Bede, Praef. ; ii. 16; iii. 11, 37; iv. 3, la. Its
name is obviously derived from Lindum; see Green, Making of Engl,
p. 5a It was then subject to Korthumbria, but was soon annexed to
Hercia. This ancient connexion of Lincolnshire with York led arch-
bishop Thomas I of York to claim jurisdiction over it when a Mercian
bishopric had been removed to Lincoln : but the claim was overruled,
Baine, Fast. Ebor. p. 150.
* Bede, ii. it. See Freeman, iv. aia ; EngL Tovtms and Districts, pp.
199-aoi.
* On the burgh-reeve see Stobbs, Const. Hist i. 106 (or 93).
140 Paulmus at Lincoln,
CHAP. IV. a convert, and began to build ^ a stone church of noble
workmanship/ the roofless walls of which were standing
in Bede's own day. In this church, represented now by
one that is corruptly named St. PavVa^ and stands at some
distance to the north-west of the cathedral on the platform
of that ' sovereign hilP/ an important ceremony took place,
probably at some time in 628 ^ Justus had died in the
preceding November ®, his last days cheered by the happy
tidings from the North. His successor-elect was Honorius,
whom Bede caUs one of the * disciples of Pope Gregory*' —
a phrase which naturally means that he belonged in some
sense to the same class as Augustine and his three
successors, as having personally received instruction from
the great Pope, so that he was, as Bede further tells us,
'a man who had received the highest training in things
ecclesiastical^.' But who was to consecrate Honorius?
Bomanus of Rochester, sent by Justus on Church business
to Rome, had met with the same death by drowning, in
the Mediterranean^, as befell the abbot Peter of Canter-
He conse- bury in the British Channel To Paulinus, therefore, as
^**^ . the only Elnglish bishop, Honorius repaired : they met at
Lincoln, and here the fifth archbishop of Canterbury was
consecrated by the sole ministry of the first of a new line
Baptisms of bishops of York. It may here be mentioned that at
Trent! some time during his episcopate, Paulinus, accompanied
by Edwin, visited Nottinghamshire, and baptized a multi-
tude of people, at midday, in the Trent, near a town whose
uncouth Saxon najne of * Tiovulfingacaestir ',' or castle of
^ Wordsworth. * Urbs situ splendida,' Hen. Hunt.
' So Haddan and Stubbs, iu. 73, 8a. We want twenty-two yean for
two East-Anglian episcopates, the first of which began some time after
Honorius' consecration, while the third began before his death, which
took place in 653. His consecration, therefore, must be prior to ^30^ and
may probably be dated in 6a8.
^ Nov. 10; Bede, iL 18. For the date of 697, see Chronicle. It is
interesting to find his name preserved in the remote Cornish Tillage of
St Just-iu-Penwith. See Qilbert's Paroch. Hist, of Cornwall, ii. aSa.
* Bede, iL ao ; y. 19, ao ; Hi8t<. Abb. 3.
' Bede, v. 19. He may haye been one of Gregoiy's choir-boys ; Hook,
i. iia.
* Bede, ii. ao. ^ Bede, ii. 16. See aboye, p. xaB.
Christianity in East-Anglia. 141
the Tiovulfing family, has otherwise entirely perished, but chap. iv.
which may be conjecturally identified with Littleborough,
where the river was crossed by the Roman road from
Lincoln northwards I It seems also that he visited the
southern Cumbria, and left a tradition of his having
preached and officiated at Whalley *.
His royal convert was also active in extending Christianity Conver-
beyond the Northumbrian border. Edwin's old protector, ^^.^
Bedwald of East-Anglia, had been succeeded by a son Anglia.
named Eorpwald ; and Edwin made the best return for old
kindness by 'persuading Eorpwald, with his province, to
embrace the faith ^/ This conversion, traceable through
Edwin to Paulinus, and so to the ' Gregorian mission,' may
probably be assigned to the year 628^. But the Pagan
antipathy of the Elast-Anglian nobles, which had con-
tributed to produce the 'Samaritan' policy of Redwald,
was fiercely aroused against a new king who was far more
resolute in his new religion. One of these men, named
Ricbert, inflicted on him a death which was virtually
a martyrdom, in the very year of his conversion. For
three years afterwards, East- Anglia was again for the
most part ' heathen ' * ; and Edwin must have grieved over
* I am indebted for this suggestion to Mr. James Parker, who has
pointed out that Littleborough is the Segelocum of Antoninus' fifth Iter,
and was a station between Lindum and Danum, so that Paulinus, coming
to, or returning from Lindum, would naturally cross the Trent there.
Torksey, to the south, on the Lincolnshire side, has also been thought
of, but it was not on that road. Southwell would hardly have been
proposed but for the local tradition that its venerable church, now
a cathedral, was originally founded by Paulinus, — a tradition which
probably grew out of the fact that from Saxon times St. Mary's of
South weU was subject to St. Peter's of York.
* Baine, i. 4a ; Whitaker, Hist, of Whalley, p. 33.
' Bede, ii. 15. This, then, was a fruit of Puulinus* mission.
* There is a difficulty here as to dates. The Chronicle dates Eorpwald's
baptism in 639, and the coming of Felix in 636. So Florence of Worcester.
But (see above) by tracing back twenty-two years before the year 653, in
which Honorius died, we roach 631 at latest for the coming of Felix
(which followed the accession of Sigebert), and must go back some three
years further for Eorpwald's baptism and death which Haddan and
Stubbs place in 698 (iii. 89).
* Not wholly : it was the ' whole province ' which Sigebert took pains
to make Christian, Bede, ii. 15 : cp. iii. 3, as to Northumbria.
142
Stgebert and Felix.
Sigebert
the
Learned.
CHAP. IV. this failure of hia eflforts in behalf of the land where he
had once found refuge. But again, unexpectedly, ' the day
broke.' Eorpwald's half-brother*, Sigebert, had formerly
been driven by his step-father Bedwald into GauL The
family quarrel and the exile were overruled for good of
the truest kind. During his sojourn among the Franks,
Sigebert was * instructed in the mysteries of the faith/
and moreover, in some of the Church schools of the country^,
acquired whatever learning they could impart, and a
genuine intelligent sense of its value. He now returned
to be king of the East-Anglians : and as a man ^ thoroughly
Christian and very learned, a good man and religious,' — so
Bede sketches his character^, — he made it his first object
to carry out the work which his brother had begun at the
cost of his life : and just then, by one of these coincidences
which betoken a far-reaching providential order, there
arrived at Canterbury a bishop named Felix, from that
Burgundian territory, bounded by the Rhone and Saone
and the Alps*, which had now for nearly a century
^ Florence, Append. : < Frater ex parte matria.* For him see Bede,
11. 15 ; 111. 18.
' The ancient fame of the Gallo-Roman schools, as of Lyons, Autun,
Marseilles, had been to some extent revived by the Frankish ecclesiastical
and monastic schools, in which the literature of the age was studied
together with theology, as at Vieiine, where Bishop Desiderius, to the
disgust of Gregory the Great, gave lessons in 'grammar,' i.e. profane
literature, and also at Treves, Troyes, and Poitiers, where youths were
trained in liberal' and * secular' studies of all kinds. See Smith's
Bede, p. 723. Guizot, Civil, in Fr. lect. 16, mentions as the most
flourishing cathedral schools in France, from the sixth to the middle of
the eighth century, those of Poitiers, Paris, Le Mans, Bourges, Clermont,
Vienne, Chalons, Aries, Gap. These schools, he says, superseded the
great civil schools. Monastic schools were also numerous. Sigebert was
in Gaul during the brilliant opening of the reign of Dagobert I as sole
king of the Franks ; see Fredegar. Chr. 58.
> Bede, ii. 15 ; iii. 18.
* See Freeman, Hist. Essays, pp. 173, aoi ; Gibbon, iv. 356. The name
was derived from the burgs or castles built by this race; Fredegar,
Fragm. 9. Clovis took his wife Clotilda from Buzgimdy ; his sona
conquered it in 534 ; Greg. Tur. Hist. -Fr. iii. 11. It accepted the
Catholic &ith, having been previously Arian, and became one of the
Merovingian kingdoms ; but in 6a8 it was united to the others under
Dagobert I. See Kitchin, Hist. Fr. i. 59, 85 ; Guizot^ Hist Fr. i. c 7 ;
Church, Beginning of M. Ages, p. 18.
Episcopate of Felix. 143
been subject to the Franks. Felix had been strongly chap. iv.
moved to preach the Gospel to English heathens, and ^?i^^
Honorius, after hearing his wish, recommended him to go Dunwich.
into East-Anglia. Sigebert at once recognized him as the
very man he needed for his object. King and bishop
accepted each other : Felix, settled at Dunwich, then a city
on the Suffolk coast, now annihilated by the ocean ^, began
in 631 an episcopate of seventeen years, so full of 'happi-
ness ' for the cause of Christianity that Bede might well
describe his work with an allusion to the good omen of
his name ^, * He delivered all that province,' adds Bede,
' from longstanding unrighteousness and infelicity : ' as ' a
pious cultivator of the spiritual field,' he ' found abundant
fruit in a believing people:' and an important feature
of this mission, as it was of the Kentish, was the com-
bination of education with religion by means of a school
such as Sigebert had seen abroad, and as by this time
existed at Canterbury in connexion with the house of
SS. Peter and Paul. This school, for which Felix provided
teachers ' after the model of Kent,' was probably attached
to the primitive East- Anglian cathedral^. It must have
been about two years after the coming of Felix that
Sigebert * honourably received*' an Irish monk famous
for learning and holiness, named Fursey (or, more properly,
^ Under the Conqueror, Dunwich, though it had long ceased to be an
episcopal city, had 336 burgesses and 100 poor ; and it was prosperous
under Henry III. Spelman heard that it was reported to have had
fifty churches. When Camden published his 'Britannia' (vol. i. p. 448)
in 1607, it lay 'in solitude and desolation,' the greater part being
submerged by the effect of the sea on the soft cliff on which it stood.
One local tradition places the first preaching of Felix at Saham.
' 'Sacramentum sui nominis.' So in Bede's Life of St. Felix of Nola,
c. I, 'Felix, nominis sui mysterium factis exsequens.' This most
successful mission was in direct connexion with the (often disparaged)
Gregorian mission at Canterbury. Bede says that Honorius ' misit eum,'
ii. 15. The date 631 for his coming seems on the whole more probable
because more consistent with earlier time-marks than 630.
' See Churton, p. 63. Smith, as against 'Oxonian' zealots, argues
that this school mighi have been at Cambridge, but concludes that, if it
was not, it was most probably at Dunwich, or else at Saham ; App. to
Bede, No. 14.
* Bede, iii. 19. For St. Fursa's life see Lanigan, ii. 449.
144 Fursey in East-Anglia.
CHAP. IV. Fursa), who had come over with two brothers of his, and
two priests ^ into East-Anglia, and there 'taking up his
accustomed work of preaching the Gospel, did much, by
example and by exhortation for the conversion of un-
believers, and the confirmation of believers in faith and
love.' Receiving a piece of ground within a * camp ' called
Cnobheresburg, previously Qarianonum, now Burgh-castle,
in Suffolk, which still exhibits huge masses of Roman
fortress- work*, he built what Bede calls a ' noble monastery,*
where he used to tell how, years before, during his early
life in Ireland, he had seemed, in a trance, to see visions
of the punishments of the wicked in the other world ^, such
as the weird imagination of the author of the ' Apocalypse
of Peter' and his imitators, fed rather from Pagan than
from Jewish or Christian sources, had popularized among the
simpler Christians of the early period ; such, also, as were
reproduced after Fursey's time in the dream of Drythelm
of Melrose *, and in the story told by the monk of Wenlock
to St. Boniface^; such, again, as received their fullest
development in the sterner parts of the * Divine Comedy.'
It was probably under Fursey's influence that Sigebert ere
long set the bad precedent of abandoning his royal duties
while in full vigour of life, and retiring into a cell which
he had made for himself, and in which, according to Bede's
' His brothers Fullan and Ultan (of whom the latter liyed as a hermit
in East-Anglia), and two priests, Oobban and Dicul. For the other
Dieul of Bosham, see Bede, iv. 13.
* * Rock-rampart huge, work worthy Boman hands,
Indurate flint and brick in ruddy tiers,' &c.
Palgrave, Visions of England, p. 90.
It is five miles from Yaimouth ; the walls enclose a large area, 640 feet
long and 370 broad. It was the station of a 'praepositus equitum.'
' When Bede wrote, an old monk was still living at Jarrow, who
had heard from a ^ very veracious ' monk that he had heard Fursey, in
East-Anglia, tell his marvellous tale, and that while he told it, though
it was in a hard frost and he was sitting in a thin garment, ' quasi in
media aestatis caumate sudaverit.' Fiusey died in Gaul, in 654. On the
severe asceticism of the Irish saints, see Whitley Stokes, Tripartite Life,
Introd. p. cxcv.
* Bede, v. la. See Card. Newman's Verses on Various Oocasions, p. aoi.
Compare Gregory's Dialogues, iv. 36.
^ Bonif. Ep. 90.
Cadwallon and Penda. 145
estimate, he might ' play the soldier rather for the sake of o^^- ^•
a heavenly kingdom ^.'
But while the Church was being quietly built up in
East-Anglia, it was on the verge of a terrible catastrophe
in the North. Cadwallon, or Cadwalla, king of Gwynedd ^
or North Wales, had, some years before, invaded Northum-
bria, in requital of the ' devastating ' fury of Ethelf rid. Edwin
had defeated him near Morpeth, driven him into Wales,
fought battles with him, and besieged him in the isle of
Priestholm ^ near Anglesey. He found refuge in Ireland,
and thence returned, and in his thirst for vengeance allied
himself, Briton and Christian as he was, with a Saxon
prince who combined in his own person the fiercest energy
of a Teuton warrior with the sternest resistance to the
progress of the new creed : who, succeeding to power at
fifty years old *, was for thirty years the prop and the
sword of Heathenism, and also came near to reducing the
various kingdoms to a monarchy centred in the youngest
of them all *. This was Penda, ' the strenuous • ' king of
the Mercians, ' the first ruler of the united Midland kingdom,'
whose name was long a terror to the inmates of cell and
minster in every Christianized district. There is a sort of
weird grandeur in the career of one who in his time slew
five kings, and might seem as irresistible as destiny. He
' Bede, iii. i8 : perhaps at Bury St. Edmunds. The example was fol-
lowed by Kenred of Mercia and Oflk of Essex, and others not in their
prime, as Ceolwulf and Ethelred.
' 'Catgublaun, king of Guenedotia/ App. Nenn. ; OatguoIIaaun^ al.
Catwallaun, Ann. Camb. p. 7, Rolls Series. He was son of Cadvan
(Angl. Sac. ii. p. xzxii) ; see above, p. 121. Hhys, Celt. Brit. p. 128.
' Ann. Camb. a. 629, calling the island Glannauc. In Glraldus' time
it was inhabited by hermits, Itin. Camb. ii. 7. See Rhys, Celt. Brit.
p. 131. *The British Triads characterize Edwin as one of the three
plagues which befell the isle of Anglesey ; ' Turner, i. 364. Reginald,
Vit. S. Osw. c. 9, says that Edwin chased ' Cadwallon into Armorica ' :
this seems to be a confusion with the fictitious retirement of his son
Cadwalader into Armorica ; see Ann. Camb. p. 8.
* So the Chronicle, a. 626.
' Freeman, i. 36 ; Lappenberg, i. 164.
* So Hen. Hunt, calls him, from Bede's ^ viro strenuissimo/ ii. 90, and
adapts Lucan, Phars. il. 439,
' Kullas nisi sanguine fuso
. Gaudet habere vias.'
146
Edwin slain at Hatfield.
Battle of
Hatfield.
CHAP. IV. had begun to reign in 626, on the death of Edwin's father-
in-law Ceorl : in 628 he had encountered at Cirencester the
West-Saxon king Kynegils with his son and sub-king
Cwichelm (the prince who had sought Edwin's life), and
after a day of exhausting but indecisive conflict, had made
a treaty with them, implying a cession of West-Saxon
land ^ : and now, in order to humble Northumbria, he
joined forces with Cadwallon, and attacked Edwin at
Heathfield or Hatfield ^ in south-east Yorkshire, on the
12th of October, 633. Here ended the glorious course of
the great Edwin. After seeing his son Osfrid fall^ he
was himself slain, and * his whole army destroyed or dis-
persed *.' The victorious confederates made ' a very great
slaughter throughout the church and nation of the North-
umbrians,' one of them, as Bede remarks, being a Pagan,
and the other, because a barbarian (i. e. a Briton), ' more
cruel than a Pagan.' The Mercians burned the royal
mansion and church at ' Campodonum ' : but its altar, being
of stone, escaped the fire, and was preserved in Bede's time
at a monastery in the wood of Elmet *. But it is of the
Welsh king that we read, ' He spared neither women nor
children, but put them to torturing deaths, raging for a
long time through all the country, and resolving that he
would be the man to exterminate the whole English race
within the bounds of Britain ® : nor did he, though a Chris-
^ Ghron. a. 6a8 ; Hen. Hunt. ii. 31 ; Green, Making of England, p. 267.
Wessex was just then weak, after Edwin's invasion.
' See Hunter's Deanery of Doncaster, i. 15a. The scene of the battle
was probably west of Hatfield church. The country is flat for miles, and
in those days was a fen. The Welsh called the place Meiceren, or
Meicen ; Ann. Camb. and Nennius. Alb. Butler places * St. Edwin, king
and martyr,' on Oct. 4.
' * Juvenis bellicosus,' son of Gwenburga, and father of the child Tffi.
His brother Eadfrid threw himself on Penda's mercy, and was afterwards
put to death by him * in spite of his oath.' But Bede, ii. 90, does not say
that this was done *at the pressure of Oswald,' Green, p. 991.
* Bede, ii. 20. The Annales Gambriae patriotically ignore Penda, and
ascribe the victory to ' Gatguollaaun.'
* Bede, ii. 14. This monastery of abbot Thrydwulf was * probably on
the site of the existing parish church of Leeds ' ; Murray's Yorkshire,
P- 345-
* 'Erasunim se esse.' So iii. i, Hragica caede dilaceraret/ &c. His
idea was to purge ' Uoegra,' our present England, of its foreign invaders.
Devasta-
tion of
Korthum
bria.
The 'Hateful Year/ 147
tian in profession, show any respect to the Christian chap. it.
religion which had grown up among them V However,
two princes of the Northumbrian line secured for a while
a precarious and shameful royalty: Edwin's cousin Osric* Eanfrid
was regarded as king in Deira ; and the sons of Ethelf rid "^
returned from their exile, and the eldest, Eanfrid, became
king in Bemicia. Both kings had been baptized, the
former by Paulinus •*, the latter among the ' Scots * ' : but
both, in order to gain Penda's favour, and the support of
those Northumbrians who clung to Paganism, disowned
their Christian belief ^ : and both were slain by the Chris-
tian Cadwallon. Osric, while 'rashly' besieging the Britons
in York® during the summer of 634, was cut off by an
unexpected sally: and in the autumn, Eanfrid, with still
greater folly, came to Cadwallon 'to sue for peace, and
met with a similar doom.' Flushed with these successes,
Cadwallon vaunted himself as irresistible"^, and ravaged
Northumbria 'not like a conquering king, but like a
raging tyrant.' This year which followed the battle of
Hatfield was even in Bede's time ' hateful to all good men*.'
It was the year of foreign tyranny, exercised by a fierce
conqueror who deemed himself irresistible ; it was also the
Lloegrians originally meant a supposed invading force from Gaul : they
were said to have united with the Saxons. Elton, Origins of Engl. Hist
p. I a.
^ Bede adds that even in his own day the Britons were wont to regard
English Christianity as no better than Paganism. See above, p. iia.
* Son of Elfric the brother of Ella, and father of St. Oswin.
* Bede, iii. i.
* Eanfrid had become, during his exile, the father of Talorgan, after-
wards king of the Picts; Robertson, Scotl. under Early Kings, i. la;
ii. 185. This, together with Bede's phrase, *apud Scottos sive Pictos'
(iii. i), and with the legend of Columba's appearance to Oswald before
bis victory, would favour the current opinion that he had taken refuge in
Dalriada, not, as Lanigan thinks, in Northern Ireland (L 418). See also
Haddan and Stubbs, iL 106.
^ * Anathematizando prodldit' is Bede's phrase.
* *In oppido municipio;' Bede means York. Roman York was a
* colonia.' See Raine's * York ' (Historic Towns), p. 1 1.
* Bede, iii. i : ' Copiis quibus nihil resistere pcsse jactabat.'
* Bede, iii. i : ' Infaustus . . . exosus usque hodie permanet.' It was
not reckoned by the reigns of the two apostates, but of their saintly
successor. Op. iii 9, 'adnumerato etiam illo anno, quem feralie impietas
. . . et apostasia . . . detestabilem fec<>runt.'
L 2
148 Flight of Paulinus.
CHAP. IV. year of two kings' apostasy, and, it must be added, the year
in which the Northumbrian Church was abandoned by its
chief pastor. Paulinus may well have been bowed down
by the shock of seeing Edwin's head brought to York ^, and
of knowing the misery which had come on the whole
kingdom. He thought that it was a case for ' flying from
persecution ' ; and this, as it would seem, without any such
sufficiency of clergy in the bishop's absence, as, in St. Augus-
tine's carefully formed opinion, would alone justify a chief
pastor's flight ^ But he persuaded himself that he had
a primary duty to the widowed queen whom he had
escorted to Northumbria, although a brave thane ^ named
Plight of Bass was at hand to guard her return. He set sail with
au inus. j^^^^ ^^^ with her younger son and daughter, Wuscfrea and
Elanfled, and Yffi, the infant son of her stepson Osfrid * :
*he took with him a large golden cross*, and a golden
chalice hallowed for the service of the altar ®,' which were
long shown in the church of Canterbury ; and the fugitive
party, under the care of Bass, arrived safely in Kent, where
Paulinus accepted from Honorius and Eadbald the long
vacant see of Rochester. It was not till the following
autumn that he received a pall, intended for him as
archbishop of York''; it came too late for him, but with
a similar one for archbishop Honorius from his namesake,
^ Bede, ii. 20 : ' Adiatum est autem caput,' &c. The body was also re-
covered, and afterwards buried at Whitby ; iii. 24.
* S. Aug. Ep. 228. See Fleury, b. 25. c. 25 ; Newman, Ch. of the
Fathers, p. 23B. Augustine also allowed a bishop to fly if his flock fled,
or if he had no flock left. Malmesbury describes Paulinus as expelled
from his see by foes ; Gest. Pont. i. 72, p. 134 (^Rolls Series).
* He is called ^ miles.' See above, p. 129.
* He and Wuscfrea were afterwards, says Bede, sent by Ethelburga, for
fear of her brother Eadbald and of Oswald, to the court of her friend the
Prankish king, Dagobert, where they died in their childhood.
" St. Willibrord used to carry with him on his journeys a golden cross ;
Vit. 30.
* See the prayer *■ ad calicem benedioendum ' in St Gregory's Sacra-
mentary ; Murat. Lit. Rom. ii. 186, and Egbert's Pontif. p. 4a
^ So that he was never really archbishop. Egbert, who was bishop of
York in Bede's last days, became the first archbishop in 735. Wilfrid
has often been called * art^hbishop/ but quite erroneously : so too Bede's
epitaph in Durham cathedral gives the title to St. John of Beverley.
IVas his work a failure ? 149
the first Pope of that name, whose letter to the archbishop chap. rv.
of Canterbury, evidently the duplicate of one addressed to
Paulinus, and dated on June 11, 634, empowered the sur-
viving metropolitan in case of a vacancy to consecrate
a successor, ' so that their churches might suffer no loss ^
through the necessity of a long journey.' Another letter
then received must have been read with mournful interest :
it exhorted the Pope's * most excellent son, Edwin king of
the Angles,' to persevere in the pious course which he had
begun ^. We may here observe that when Paulinus settled
down to his tranquil work at Rochester, Ethelburga founded
a convent at Ljoninge, where to the west of the existing
church, which contains much Roman brick-work, are the
excavated remains of an original ' basilica of St. Mary,'
belonging to the Roman period » ; where the place of her
burial is marked by a modem tablet on the south wall of
the church ^, and her name of endearment is still perpetuated
in a neighbouring common called * Tatta's Leas *.'
It has been too much the fashion to speak of the work of •
Paulinus as utterly ruined by the catastrophe of Hatfield,
as if all the impressions left by it had in a single year been
clean effaced, so that the next missionary bishop had
simply to begin over again. This would be antecedently
very improbable ; and it is contradicted by the language of
our only real authority. The Northumbrian Christians were
^ Bede^ ii. i8. The pope here quietly assumes that, but for this per-
mission, an archbishop elect would have to travel to Rome for con-
secration ; as if he could not, like Augustine, seek it in Gaul. In the
same letter he speaks of the 'advance' made by archbishops oh 'the
beginnings ' due to Gregory. The so-called second letter of Honorius I to
Honorius is one of the ten spurious documents which were forged in the
interest of the see of Canterbury ; see Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 65.
* Bede, ii. 17. He advises Edwin to have the writings of pope Gregory
frequently read to him, and to realize his own kingship by loyalty to the
Divine King. Edwin, it seems, had asked for a pall for Paulinus as well
as for Honorius : ' £a quae a nobis pro vestris sacerdotibus,' &c.
' Haddan and Stubbs, i. 38 ; Murray's Kent and Sussex, p. 154.
* ^The burial-place of St. Ethelburga the queen, foundress of this
church and first abbess of Lyminge/
' I owe this information to the kindness of the late Canon Jenkins,
rector of Lyminge. *St. Ethelburga's weir is to the east of the
church.
I50
James the Deacon.
CHAP. IV. * cast down, but not destroyed/ They had lost their bishop,
but they had still with them one who, though not even
a priest, did a true pastor's work among them, keeping the
fire of faith alive in those dark days, and, as Bede expresses
it ^ ' taking away great spoil from the old enemy by teach-
James the jing and baptizing/ This was James the Deacon, otherwise
^ {known as the Chanter, from his skill in Roman church
I music*; a really noble instance, in the third rank of the
ministry, of courageous steadfastness under exceptional
trial, and simple fidelity to a sacred trust. His name was
attached in Bede's time to the ' township ' near Catterick,
which was his centre of operations ^ It was within Deira,
but near the Bemician frontier: and after the renegade
kings of Deira and Bemicia had fallen in the summer and
autumn, James would hear with wonder and thankfulness
that a younger brother of Eanfrid was preparing, in the
character of a Christian prince, to make a stand for the
independence of Northumbria. This was he who for ages
was honoured throughout the North-country, and far
beyond it, as Saint Oswald. When the Christians for
whom he was to fight remembered that he was the heir of
the * fierce ' Pagan Ethelfrid *, they would also hail him as
the nephew of Edwin, whose sister had been the wife of her
Battle of brother's early foe *. ' With an army small in number, but
field. fortified by faith in Christ,' he took up his position within
Oswnld.
' Bede, ii. 20: *Reliquerat autem in ecclesia sua,' && In the same
context Bede goes on to speak of Oswald's reign as a period in which
* the number of the faithful increaaetL*
' On the ecclesiastical chant as brought from Rome, see Smith's Bede,
p. 719. We must connect with James's name those of Eddi Stephen,
John the archchanter (Bede, iv. 18), and Maban the chanter of Hexham
(v. flo).
' Akeburgh, a farm not far from Catterick, — on the site of a village, —
is supposed to be ' Jacobsburgh.' See Ghurton, p. 63 ; Raine, i. 44
(although the place is not mentioned in Domesday ; Murray's Yorkshire,
p. 284). At the neighbouring church of Hauxwell is a cross, on which
the inscription could once be read, ^ Haec est crux Sti Gacobi ; ' Hubner,
p. 68.
* * lUe ut rosa de spinis eifloruit ; ' Simeon of Durham, de Dunelm. Eccl.
i. I (Op. i. 18, Rolls Series). He came with twelve companions ; Adamnan,
Vit. Col. i. I.
* See p. 133.
Battle of Heavenfield, 151
a few miles of Hagulstad or Hexham \ on a rising ground ^ ^'"^p-
to the north of the Roman wall ^, where now stands the
humble chapel of * St. Oswald's/ commanding a wide view.
The time was apparently at the close of 634 *. The winter
morning had just dawned* when Oswald caused a cross ^ of
wood to be hastily made, and a hole to be dug for it in the
earth, and held it up with his own hands while his men
heaped the soil aroimd it. Then, when the symbol of their
faith stood firmly fixed, and pointing heavenwards, he
raised his voice, and bade his soldiers kneel with him, and
' entreat the true and living God, who knew how just was
their cause, to defend them from the proud and fierce
enemy.' They charged Cadwallon's greatly superior force ;
and their onset was overpowering. Far away he fled, down
' Also called Hestaldesige, Sim. Hist. Keg. c. 58 ; or Hestoldesham, from
the brook Hestild, Bichard of Hexh. in X Script, p. 289.
' ' Ad locum ejusdem sanctae crucis ascendere ; ' Bede, iii. a.
' On the great Roman 'Wall' from theTyne to the Sol way, see Burton,
Hist. Scotl. i. 21 ; Fi-eeman, Engl. Towns and Districts, p. 435 ; Bishop
Creighton, ^Carlisle,' (Historic Towns), p. 8. Near St. Oswald's the track
of the wall clearly exhibits the northern foss, the line of the stations and
forts, and the southern vallum-line. A fragment of the wall, some thirty
yards long, stands not far off. It is curious that Bede, i. la, post-dates
this * mums ' by more than two centuries, attributing it to the Romans in
the last days of their occupancy of Britain, whereas ' after a long debate
the opinion now prevails that the wall and its parallel earthworks, its .
camps, roads, and stations, were designed and constructed by Hadrian
alone ;' Elton, Origins of Engl. Hist. p. 37a.
* See Bede, iii. i, a. There is some difficulty about the date. Cad-
wallon, according to Bede, tyrannized over Northumbria for an entire
year fi-om October, 633. * After this,' Osric having been slain in the
summer of 634, Ut length ' Eanfrid met a like fate. The year from Oct.
633, to Oct. 634, was * the year abhorred,' afterwards reckoned as a regnal
year of Oswald. His victory cannot well havo taken place h^ore Decem-
ber, 634 : Bede does not say how soon it followed on ' the slaughter of his
brother Eanfrid ' ; iii. i. He reigned eight years, without counting the
< annus infaustus * ; Bede, iii. 9 ; A.-S. Chr. a. 634 ; and he was slain
August 7, 64a ; therefore the eight years must begin within a. d. 634.
The Chron. dates his accession in that year, but modem writers have
usually dated it in 635 (e. g. Lingard, A.-S. Ch. 1. 3a).
* The day before, Oswald dreamed that Golumba appeared to him and
promised him victory. This he afterwards told to abbot Seghine ; Adamn.
V. Col. i. I.
* This was the only cross, as far as Bede could learn, thai had been set
up in Bernicia. He tells us that splinters of it had a healing virtue on
men and cattle. See Alculn's apostrophe to it, de Pontif. Ebor. 437.
IV.
152 Oswald, King of Northumbrta.
Oswald,
King of
Northum-
bria.
CHAP. IV. the slope into the valley, till he reached the Denisbum, as
Bede calls it, probably a brook near Dilston^, eastward
of Hexham; and there he fell, amid carnage long-
remembered, —
The slaughter of Cadwalla*s men
That stayed the Denis' flow.
This was the battle of ' Heavenfield *,' for that significant
name had already belonged to the place : the Welsh called
it, in their accounts, ' Catisgual,' the battle below the wall '.
Few fields of conflict should be more interesting to English-
men than this which witnessed not only the death-blow to
Welsh schemes of reconquest, but the definitive triumph of
the Christian cause in Northumbria. Heavenfield had
fully made up for Hatfield : for Oswald, as not only the
son of the Bernician Ethelfrid, but nephew of the Deiran
Edwin, could 'weld together the two provinces into one
people,' and at once became to Northumbrian Christians all
that Edwin had been, and more : in reading of him, we
think instinctively of Alfred. Strength and sweetness
were united in a character which almost represents the ideal
^ ' Gaedes Cedwalensium Denisi cursus coercult ; ' ap. Hen. Hunt.
Smith, p. 790, supposes the Denisbum to be the £rringbum, north of
St. Oswald's and of the Wail, and places the scene of the battle in that
neighbourhood, e. g. near Hallington or Bingfield. But see Bnioe's Hist,
of the Wall, p. 142, that a charter of the thirteenth century describes
twenty acres of land as between DenL^burn and Divelin (Dilston). Oswald
would cross the WalMine.
' Not so called by *■ after times ' (Green, Making of Engl. p. 375). Bede
expressly says that the name was earlier.
' Ann. Camb. (dating it wrongly in 631) ' Cantscaul ' ; App. Nenn.
' Catscaul, cum magna clade exercitus sui.' On the death of Cadwallon,
see Lappenberg, i. 156. He had fought, it was said, in fourteen battles
and sixty skirmishes : he was succeeded by his son Gadwalader, called
^ the Blessed,' who died of ^ the plague ' in 664 ^Catgualart, in App. to
Nennius), or later according to other accounts. See Rees, Welsh Saints,
p. 301 ; Haddan and Stubbs, i. 165, aoa. Skene, on the authority of
Welsh records, would prolong Cad wal Ion's life to 659, supposing his
father Gadvan to have been the 'Catgublaun' who fell 'in bello
Gatscaul ' ; Four Ancient Books of Wales, i. 71 ; comp. Reginald^ Yit.
Osw. i. c. 9, in Sim. Op. i. 345. But the Ann. Gamb. clearly identify
the victor of ' Meiceren ' (Hatfield) with him who *fell ' in * Gantscaul ' ;
and Bede's Mnfandus Brettonum dux,' who fell at the Denisbum, is
clearly his ' rex Brettonum Gad valla.' * GatguoUaun,' in Nennius, seems
to be only another form of * Gatgublaun.'
His character. 153
of Christian royalty. He was now about thirty years old ^ chap. nr.
in the prime and glow of a pure and noble manhood ; he
was granted to his country in her extreme need for some
eight years, in which he signally 'fulfilled a long time.'
On the one hand, so able a captain and ruler that he
extended the area of an overlord's supremacy until it
included not only the * Britons ' of Wales and * Strathclyde/
but the southern Picts, and the ' Scots ' of western Scotland ^
— on the other hand, as devout as if he lived in a cloister,
thinking little of half a night spent in devotion®, and
accustomed from such habits to keep his palms instinctively
turned upward, even while sitting on his throne; thus
'wont, while guiding a temporal kingdom, to labour aaid
pray rather for an eternal one * ; * withal, as generous and
affectionate as he was pious, ' kind and beneficent to the
poor and to strangers,' humble of mind and tender of heart,
amid all that might have * lifted him up to arrogance *,'
Oswald was altogether a prince of men, one bom to
attract a general enthusiasm of admiration, reverence, and
love.
His first object was to restore the national Christianity ;
not to inaugurate, but to carry on the work which the death
of Edwin had interrupted ; as Bede expresses it, to bring * the
whole of the nation over which he had begun to reign' under
^ Bede, iii. 9. Tradition describes him as taU, with a rather long faoe,
bright glancing eyes, yellow hair, and a very thin beard ; Hist. Transl.
S. Cuthb. 6, in Bed. Op. yi. 409 ; Reginald, Vit. Oow. c. 50.
' Bede, iii. 6 : ^Deniqiie omnes nationes,' &c. So that Oswald antici-
pated the OTer-lordship of such a/ Basileus' of Britain as Athelstan or
Edgar. See Freeman, i. 554. ^Totius Britanniae imperator,' Adamnan,
i. I. Elsewhere Bede attributes this extension of Northumbrian overlord-
ship to Oswy ; ii 5. Probably he consolidated it.
' Bede, iii. la : ' Denique ferunt quia a tempore matutinae laudis
saepius ad diem usque in orationibus perstiterit.' Comp. ^matutinae
laudis,' iv. 7.
^ Bede, 1. c. : ' Nee mirandum,' &c.
' Bede, iii. 6 : ' Quo regni culmine sublimatus, nihilominus, quod
miiiim est . . . semper humilis,' &c. See Alcuin de Pontif. Ebor. 369 :
' parens sibi, dives in omnes, Excelsus meritis, submissus mente sed ipsa.'
Reginald says, ^ Neminem fidelem esse pauperem publico pertulit,' c. 10.
See the story of the silver dish of food at the forenoon meal of Easter-day,
Bede, iii. 6. On Oswald's character see Lightfoot, Leaders of the Northern
Church, p. 33, that he was at once a true saint and a true king.
154 t{^ sends to Hy for a Bishop.
CHAP. IV. the influences of the faith ^ ; and for this, he needed a
icoimkill. bishop. He naturally applied to the 'elders' of that
Northern Celtic Church which had been for years his
religious home. Of these elders the principal^ were the
community of Hy or Icoimkill, where Seghine was then
ruling, as fifth abbot *, and, although only a presbyter, was
exercising, by what Bede calls * an unusual arrangement,'
a supreme jurisdiction over all that province, the bishops
not excepted *. The explanation of this anomaly lay in the
exti^aordinary reverence * paid to the great Founder- Abbot
and missionary saint, in whom the Church of * Alban * felt
herself, as it were, impersonated, and who was in some
sense regarded aa still living in his successors. There were
in ' Alban ' no diocesan limits ® ; the centre of unity was the
monastery of Hy, and the idea of local authority was con-
centrated in its abbot, the *coarb' or 'heir* of 'Columbcille"^.'
^ Bede, iii. 3. Cp. ii. 20, ' recuperata . . . pace in provincia, et creaeente
numero fidelium ; * and iii. 5, */ideleSj in ipsa eos fide confortare ' (Aidan).
' Bede's phrase, 'majores natu Scottorum,' seems to include others
besides the monks of H7.
' Baithen succeeded Columba ; after him came Laisrean ; then Yirgnous
or Fergna ; then, in 633, Seghine. Bede warmly praises the successors of
Columba for their strict, pure, and holy lives ; iii. 4. For ^ Segenus,' see
also Bede, ii. 19. See a list of abbots of Hy in Reeves's Adamnan,
p. 370 if.
* Bede, iii. 4 : 'Cujus juri et omnis provincia, et ipsi etiam qiHsoopi,
ordine inusUaiOj debeant esse subjecti, juxta exemplum primi doctoris illis,
qui non episcopus, sed presbyter exstitit et monachus.' So A-S. Chr. a.
565. See Skene, Celtic Scotl. ii. 44.
' See Lanigan, ii. 249 ff, ; Grub, L 69, 137 ; Todd, Life of St. Patrick,
p. 10 ft The primacy passed, in effect, from Hy to Dunkeld, and then to
Abernethy, in the middle of the ninth century ; Reeves's Adamnan,
p. 297 ; Skene, ii. 307, 310.
• See The Book of Deer, ed. Stuart, pp. cii, cxxvi. The old British
episcopate was diocesan, the old Irish might rather be called monastic.
Hen were often made bishops in recognition of their learning or piety,
and employed to consecrate or to ordain.
^ See Reeves's Adamnan, p. 364 ; Todd's St. Patrick, p. 156 ; Book of
Deer, p. evil ; Skene, ii. 148 ; Grub, Eccl. Hist Sc. i. 138 ; Haddan and
Stubbs, ii. 106, 115. The Scotic colony, in fact, was ruled by Irish church
customs, and in Ireland there was then, and for centuries afterwards, no
diocesan system ; the ecclesiastical centres were the great tribal monas-
teries, and the abbots, revered as ' coarbs ' of the respective founders,
exercised such jurisdiction as was possible in an unorganized Church,
without prejudice to the bishop's exclusive right to perform certain
functions.
Aidan chosen Bishop. 155
From ' lona/ then, we are told, a bishop ^, whom Scotch chap. iv.
tradition has called Gorman, was sent into Northum-
bria, but his first experience of its rude indocile heathens
drove him home again in hopeless disgust *. * It is of no
use,' he told the assembled monks, 'to attempt to convert
such people as they are/ A voice was raised in gentle
remonstrance : ' Did you not, then, forget the Apostle's
maxim about milk for babes? Did you not deal too
rigidly with those untaught minds, and expect too much,
and too soon, as the fruit of teaching too high for them to
follow ^ ? ' All eyes were fixed on the speaker, a monk
named Aidan * : all said at once that he was the right man *.
* And so,' says Bede, 'ordaining him, they sent him forth Mission of
to preach ' to the Northumbrians ; a phrase which, taken in Northum-
eonnexion with the ' unusual arrangement,' has raised a *>"*•
question on which we must for a moment pause. These |
monks and their abbot were simple presbyters ; did they, !
then, profess to 'ordain' Aidan as bishop? We may
answer with certainty that they did not. First, the phrase
' ordaining ' is used elsewhere for ' causing to be ordained ®.*
^ See Bede, iii. 5 : * Cum . . . rex . . . postulasset arUistitem . . . missus
fuerit prime alius,' &c.
' The communitj had had two * Saxon ' members, Qenereus and Pilu,
in Columba's time ; Adamn. iii. 10, aa. On this see Grub, i. 60, that in
them, as far as we know, * Ck>lumba offered the first-fruits of the English
nation to God ;' and Lanigan, ii. 174.
' Among the many writers who give this speech after Bede, see Bishop
Lightfoot, Leaders of the Northern Church, p. 43.
* We find this name borne by a monk of Hy in Columba's time,
Adamn. iii. 6, and by the Scottish king whom Ethelfrid defeated, Bede,
i. 34. So too Adamnan speaks of Columba's ' ordaining ' Aidan to be
king, Vit. Col. iii. 5. This Aidan died in 606. The * Chronicon Scotorum '
mentions two abbots named * Aedhan,' a. 663, 887.
' ' That he was worthy of the episcopate, because he had in an eminent
degree the grace of discrimination, which is the mother of virtues;' i.e.
he could adapt his teaching to the capacities of various hearers.
* Compare Greg. Turon. H. F. iii. 17, 'episcopi . . . ordinante Ohrote-
childe regina . . . rexerunt ecclesiam :* and viii. aa, king Childebert II
had promised ' senunquam ex laicis episcopumordinaturum*; and Bud*
borne, Hist. Mig. Winton. c. 3 (Wharton, Angl. Sac i. 191), that
Kenwalch, king of the West-Saxons, * ordinavlt in episcopum Agilbertum.'
So Marcellinus and Faustinus, that the Catholic people of Oxyrinchos
'episcopum sibi per tunc temporis episcopos catholioos ordinavit,'
Sirmond, Op. i. 15a : and Capit. Carol! M. a. 80a, ' ut nidlus ex laicis
156 Question as to his consecration.
CHAP. IV. Secondly, Bede's language about Aidan's ecclesiastical
position shows that he, a Latin monk, accustomed to
a strict system of episcopal administration, never doubted
that Aidan had validly 'received the rank or degree of
a bishop ^ : ' he speaks of him just as he speaks of other
prelates indisputably consecrated; he tells us that Aidan
was revered by archbishop Honorius and by bishop Felix ^
Thirdly, the very point of the anomalous ' arrangement,' in
Bede*s view, is that * even bishops ' were subject to the
abbot of Hy ; and these bishops would of course perform
the functions of their order, such as the consecration of
new bishops ^ Fourthly, Columba himself is recorded to
have honoured bishops as invested with peculiar preroga-
tives: on one occasion, when a bishop came to Hy, and
attempted in his hiunility to pass himself off as a simple
presbyter, Columba discovered his episcopal character when
they were just about to join in consecrating the Eucharist,
and desired him, for the honour of the episcopate, to ' break
the bread alone in the manner of a bishop V On the whole,
presbitenun . . . praesumat ad ecclesias mias ordinare absque lieentia . . .
episcopi 8ui,' Pertz, Monum. Hist. Germ. Leg. i. 106. Gp. Tillemont,
Mem. iv. 95, as to Cyprian, £p. 5a ; *■ Novatus . . . diaoonum eonstituit '
And Benaudot, Lit. Orient, i. 381, that Eutychius once uses * ordained'
for 'caused to be ordained/ See Reeves, p. 340, that the consecration
was performed by a bishop or bishops ' in the name of the oommunity.'
* * Accepto gradu episcopatus," Bedo, iii. 5. Moreover, Bede calls him
a ' pontifex ' in iii. 3, 6, 17, an 'antistes' in iii. 14, 15, 16, 17. See too
Bede*s language about his successor Finan, iii. 17, 21, 95 ; and Cedd who
was consecrated by Finan, 'accepto gradu episoopatus,' iii. aa ; and
Golman who ' succeeded Finan in the bishopric,' iii. 25, and ' held the
pontificate,' iii. a6. See Bp. Russell, Hist. Oh. Scotl. i. 3a. Bedo has
no doubt that those whom they ordained were really ' sacerdotea,' iii. 5,
96. See Skene, ii. 157. ^ Bede, iii. 95.
> More than one bishop, then, — probably, according to Irish usage,
many more,— ^Iwelt in the ' province ' of Alban ; Lanigan, ii. 253. Reeves
says that there were at all times bishops resident at Hy or some dependent
church, subject to the abbot's monastic jurisdiction (Adamnan, p. 340) ;
and see Skene, ii. 133, on the bishops at Lismore and Kingarth.
* The stranger being asked by Columba * Christi Corpus ex more con-
ficere,' called Columba to him, ' ut simul, quasi duo presbyteri, Domini-
cumpanem frangerent ' (Maskell, Mon. Kit. iii. 915). Columba approached
the altar, looked in his face, and said, * Benedicat te Christus, frater ;
hunc solus epuiccpodi ritu frange panem ; nunc scimus quod sis episcopus.
Quare hucusque te occultare conatus es, ut tibi a nobis debita non red-
deretur veneratio ? ' Adamn. Yit. Col. i. 44. The stranger's name was
Aldan arrives in Northumbria. 157
therefore, if there was not at that time a resident bishop in chap. rv.
Hy \ as in St. Brigid's convent at Kildare, in St. Martin's
at Tours, and in St. Denis' near Paris 2, we may be sure that
the ministrations of one or more of the non-diocesan Scotic
prelates would be employed by abbot Seghine when a
* bishop ' was to be sent to king Oswald.
So it was that in the summer of 635 '\ just ten years Arrival of
after Paulinus came to Northumbria, his successor arrived
from a quarter which he himself would have regarded with
no friendly feeling, — with something of mistrust, and even
of resentment, on 8UXK)unt of the obstinacy, as he would call
it, with which, in his own experience, the Irish Church, —
the mother Church of Colmnba's monastery and its de-
pendencies,— had rejected the ' Catholic ' Easter-rules, and
adhered to their own 'erroneous observance*.' Aidan,
however, though a true son of his national Church *, was
Cronan, from Munster. Lanigan, ii. 179, thinks that the ^episoopalis
ritus ' was the henediction given hy bishops only, ' after the breaking of
the Host,' in Gallican and other Churches. But it was clearly the prero-
gative of a Celtic bishop to consecrate alone, whereas priests used to *■ con-
celebrate,' or repeat the words and acts of cdnsecration together ; Warren,
Lit. and Rit. of Celt. Ch. p. laS, and Reeves, p. 86 (as the priests of ' titles *
at Rome did with the pope, Duchesne, Origines du Culte, p. 167). See
also the story of the ordination of Columba, indicating ' that the distinc-
tion between bishops and priests was well understood in Ireland ; '
Lanigan, ii. 130 ; and that of the ordination of Aedh the Black, see Todd*s
Life of St. Patrick, p. 8, and Reeves, p. 69. Cp. Tripart. Life, i. p. clxxx.
' Lanigan, ii. 253 ; Grub, i. 139.
* Lanigan, ii. 254 ; Russell, i. a6 ; Grant, Bamp. Lect. p. 330 ; Todd's
Life of St Patrick, pp. 12, 29. Todd also refers to the bishop of Aquino
as under the abbot of Monte Cassino, and to the position of a bishop as
resident in the monastery of Mount Sinai ; p. 67. But these cases are not
properly parallel to that of Hy ; Grub, i. 137.
' Some time must be allowed for (i) Oswald's first request to the Scots,
{q) the unsuccessful experiment, (3) the second request. Aidan could
hardly arrive before the middle of 635. He died Aug. 31, 651, after the
seventeenth year of his episcopate had begun ; see Bede, iii. 17. The
statement in Bede, iii. a6, that the year of the Whitby conference, i. e.
664, was the thii*tieth year of the Scotic mission in Northumbria, may be
a lax reckoning from the accession of Oswald at the end of 634. Simeon
of Durham gives the date 635 ; de Dun. Eccl. i. a (Op. i. 19).
^ See Bede, ii. 19, as to Pope Honorius' letter to the Irish : < Quos in
observatione sancti Paachae errare compererat.'
' * He was son of Lugair, and of the same lineage as St Brigid ;' Reeves's
Adamnan, p. 374 ; see Bp. Forbes, Kalendars, p. 269.
fame.
158 He settles at Lindisfarne.
CHAP. IV. of very different temper from Dagan, and even, on this
pointy from Columban : and we shall see that, although he
retained his own usages, he disarmed the suspicion or the
hostility which Celtic fashions too commonly aroused. In
another respect he indicated, at the very outset of his
Northumbrian work, a love for Celtic ways as distinct
from Roman. He did not establish himself in the capital
of the kingdom, although York had been the seat, not only
of PauUnus in Edwin s time, but of an ancient British
episcopate *. It was not the mode of Celtic bishops to
regard practical and administrative convenience in the
selection of their seats: we have already observed how
David chose the remote and lonely Menevia, doubtless for
Lindi8- the Sake of ascetic seclusion *. Aidan carried with him the
perpetual remembrance of his old home in what was
emphatically termed *■ The Island ' : and he found an irre-
sistible attraction in the resemblance between Hy and
Lindisfarne ^ a place which Bede describes as * twice a day
contiguous to the mainland of Northumbria, and twice a
day like an island enclosed in the sea, according to the
ebb and flow of the tide * : ' a description which is now
somewhat less accurate, for the path which can be traversed
* See Raine, Historians of Church of York, i. p. xxv, for the preference
felt by king and bishop alike for Bernicia, though Oswald completed the
church which Edwin had begun to build at York.
' Bp. Jones and Freeman, Hist. St David's, pp. 237, 251. And see
Freeman, Norm. Conq. i. 352 : *• that remote bishopric whither St. David
had fled from the face of man.' Above, p. 37.
' That is, the recess formed by the river Lindis. The Britons called
it Medcaut ; the Irish, Metgoet. The App. to Nennius says that Urien
of Reged was treacherously slain while besieging some Anglian princes
in the island.
* Bede, iii. 3. See Camden, Brit. ii. 1502, that the western point is
joined to the main part ^ by a very small strip of land ; towards the south
it has a small town, with a church and castle,' &c. Comp. Marmion,
ii. 9 : —
*For, with the flow and ebb, its style
Varies from continent to isle.'
See Raine, i. 19 : ' Twice a day did a belt of living water encircle that
little sanctuary ; and when it was ungirt, there were the quicksand and
the shoal.' The river Lindis, says Simeon, 'ezcurrit in mare,' and is
visible at low tide ; the isle is eight rnile^, or more, round ; Hist. Reg.
a. 56 (Op. i. 54).
Aidan independent of Rome. 159
about low water from Beal is over sands * at best very wet chap. iv.
and plashy^' No sacred spot in Britain is worthier of
a reverential visit than this ' Holy Island ' of Aidan and
his successors ^. As you stand on its beach, or look around
from the little eminence that seems to guard the ruins of its
monastery ^, you see that beside its general likeness to Hy,
and its facilities for devotional retirement, it had a more
material advantage in its nearness to the royal f ortress-i'ock
of Bamborough, which rises up majestically to the south.
Here, then, the new bishop established his head-quarters ;
here was all that he could call his own, — the ground on
which he built his humble church, and a few adjacent
fields *. In entering on his episcopate, he neither sought
nor received aaiy sanction from Bome or Canterbury; he
was a missionary bishop sent from the neighbouring Scotic
Church, at the request of the Northumbrian king : this was
his position, and he would never have admitted the principle
that all episcopal jurisdiction must be derived from Bome *,
or that a Pope had a right to make an English archbishop
supreme over 'all the bishops of Britain •.' Yet Bome
acknowledges him as a canonized bishop '^.
Our next period, then, will be characterized by another
great missionary effort, carried on in the north by St. Aidan
of Lindisfame.
^ Murray^s Durham and Northumberland, p. 996 ; Pearson, Hist.
Haps, p. 9.
> < Locus cunctis in Britannia Tenerabilior ; ' Alcuin to Ethelred, Ep.
19 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 493.
' This little hill must have reminded Aidan of the eminences in Hy
called ' the Great Fort ' and * the Angels' Mount,' favourite seats of
Columba ; Adamn. i. 30, ii. 4, iii. 16.
* Bede, iii. 17 : * XJtpote nil propriae possessionis,' &c.
* Collier, i. 303. • See above, p. 70.
^ See Alb. Butler, Aug. 31.
CHAPTER V.
Character The Scotic mission to King Oswald's people would engage
Aidan. historical interest by the wide area of its operation, affecting,
as it did, not only the Northumbrian realm extending from
Edinburgh to the Humber, or, during its first seven years,
to the Trent, but also, ultimately, the great midland district,
and even the country of the East-Saxons. But it has also
a yet stronger and more personal attractiveness in the won-
derful beauty of character which made * the path ' of its
chief *a shining light,* — which acted like a spell on the
rough Northcountry-men whose language he had to learn
after his arrival, — which made him so effective a converter
of souls, because so potent a winner of hearts, — which
proved too much for anti-Scotic prejudices, national or
ecclesiastical, and through various lines of testimony *
impressed itself on the English-bom Church-historian as
virtually a model of Christian excellence. His relation to
English Christianity as a whole has indeed been somewhat
seriously overrated, whether on account of his own rare
merits or from the controversial instinct of underrating our
religious obligation to Italy. A prelate whose personal
energies found full occupation within his own great diocese,
and who had no opportunity of promoting any mission
I beyond its limits, cannot with anything like historical
exactness be called * the apostle of England ' : he was not
even, in a proper sense, the apostle of Northumbria \ But
F.such exaggeration cannot in the least affect his claim on
khe reverence of all who appreciate true sanctity. Let us
put together what Bede takes such evident delight® in
^ ' Quantum ab eia qui ilium novere didicimus ; ' Bedfii, iii. 17.
' I may refer, on this point, to my * Waymarks in Church History,'
p. 307.
' * His virtues,' says Hook, ' were such as compel the rductant admiration
Aldan as Bishop. i6i
telling us as to what Aidan was, and how he lived and chap. v.
worked in Northumbria.
* A man/ he begins, * of the utmost gentleness, piety, and
moderation ^ : * and in subsequent passages he tells us that
Aidan was earnest in promoting peace and charity, purity
and humility, was superior to anger and avarice, despised
pride and vainglory, and was a conspicuous example of
entire unworldliness, strictly temperate in all his habits,
sedulous in study and devotion, full of tenderness for all
sufferers, and of righteous sternness towards powerful
oflTenders^: that he 'took pains to fulfil diligently the
works of faith, piety, and love, according to the usual
manner of all holy men ^,' and, in a word, to * omit not one
of all the duties prescribed in the evangelical, apostolical,
or prophetical Scriptures, but to perform them to the
utmost of his power*/ No wonder, then, that his doctrine
was thus recommended by the absolute consistency of what
he did with what he taught ^ As for his daily life in
lindisfame, it was that of a monk®, governed by rules and
habits which he brought with him from Hy. He obtained
fellow-workers from his old country '^, whose spirit was as
his spirit : he formed a school of English boys, twelve ^
in number ®, who were trained up in holy ways under his
own eye, that they might in due time preach to their own
countrymen ®, — and among whom* one was afterwards
of the candid Bede' (i. lao). This is not candid towards Bede, whose
tribute of admiration for Aidants character, recurring in several chapters,
is unequivocally hearty : on its ' earnestness and eloquence,* as expressive
of a *• thorough veneration,' see Burton, Hist. Scotl. i. 269.
' Bede, iii. 3. ' Comp. Bede, iii. 5, 17.
* Bede, iii. 25 : * Opera tamen fidei . . . diligenter ezsequi curavit.'
^ Bede, iii. 17 : * Qui, ut breviter multa comprehendam,' &c.
' Bede, iii. 5 : ' Gujus doctrinam,' &c. Compare i. a6, on Augustine
and his companions ; see above, p. 56. It is significant that Bede inti-
mates the same combination as to Willrid, iv. 13.
* Bede, iii. 3 ; iv. 27. All the bishops of the line which began with
him were monks, until 1072 ; Simeon of Durham, de Dunelm. Eccl. i. 2.
^ Bede, iii. 3. Ireland is meant.
' Twelve was regarded as a sacred number. See instances in Reeves's
Adamnan, pp. 299*303 : and Tripart. Life, ii. 447. See above, p. 150, on
Oswald's twelve attendants.
* Bede, iii. 26. So when St. Anskar began his work in Denmark, he
M
i52 Aldan as Bishop.
CHAP. T. I famous as St. Chad ^. Occasionally Aidan would retire
for devotional solitude to the chief islet of the Fame group,
lying off Bamborough, on which, in Bede's time, ' it wius
usual to point out the spot where he was wont to sit
alone ^.* We find also that he brought in the practice of
fasting on all Wednesdays and Fridays until 3 p.m. except
during * the fifty days of Easter ^' In his actual mission
work, he travelled on foot, unless compelled by necessity to
ride : we shall see ere long what he did with a horse, which
was a royal gift intended to facilitate these journeys*.
This habit of walking enabled him easily to turn aside and
endeavour to enter into conversation with any one whom
he met, rich or poor, — if a heathen, to invite him ' to receive
the mystery of the faith ^ ; ' if a believer, ' to confirm him in
that faith, and to stir him up by words and example to the
performance of almsdeeds and good works,' — language which
indicates clearly enough that many of Paulinus* converts had
held fast their Christianity, and needed from Aidan nothing
but the ordinary pastoral exhortations to persevere in it
and live up to it. While he and his companions travelled,
they used to * meditate* on texts of Scripture, or recite
psalms : * this was ' their * daily work *.' Aidan was happy
began to form such a school of twelve or more Danish boys ' who might
be educated for God's service ;' Yit. S. Anskar. 8 (Pertz, Hon. Germ. H.
ii. 696V It is needless to refer to the practice of Bishops G. Selwyn and
Patteson.
* Bedo, iii. aS. Another was Fata, iii. a6.
^ Bede, iii. 16. This is called the *• House Island,' about a mile and
a half from the shore. See it described in Bede, iv. 98; Vit. Cuthb. 17.
Gomp. Adamnan, iii. 8, that Oolumba one day, in Hy, ' remotiorem . . •
locum aptumque ad orationem in saltibus quaesivit.' A similar practice
was attributed to Ninian ; lives of Ninian and Keniigem, ed. Forbe«,
p. 384 ; and Anskar had a cell made for such purposes, which he called
Mocum quietum,' Yit. Ansk. 35.
' Bede, iii. 5. Gp. Adamn. i. 26 ; Warren, Lit. and Ritual, &c., p. 146.
*■ Bede, iii. 5, 14. Gn his preaching-circuits, see also Bede, iii. 17.
While travelling, Aidan, as a monk, wore sandals ; his garments consisted
of a thick woollen ' cuculla ' or ^ cape/ or in winter an ' amphibalus,' and
below it a shirt, ' tunica.' See Reeves's Adamnan, p. 356. The front of
liis head showed the Irish tonsure ; behind, the long hair flowed down ;
see Reeves, p. 350, and Maclear, Apost. Mediaev. Eur. p. 57.
^ * Ad fidei suscipiendae sacramentum,' for ' ad fidei suscipiendum,' &c.
* Bede, iii. 5 : ' In tantum autem,' &c. Bede contrasts this with ' the
sluggishness of his own Hime.' So Adamnan says, Golumba 'never
Aldan and Oswald. 163
indeed in having an Oswald for his king : and in the early chap, v,
days of his episcopate, Oswald was often to be seen employ-
ing that knowledge of the ' Scottish ' or Irish tongue which
he owed to his exile in interpreting the missionary addresses
of the bishop, — a sight which Bede might well call * timly
beautiful ^' In this, as in other matters, Oswald showed
a depth and fervour of personal piety which we do not find
in Edwin, and which reminds us of Alfred or St. Louis.
He and Aidan worked together as Sigebert did with Felix.
But knowing Aidan's ascetic habits, Oswald did not often
invite him to the royal table : when the bishop appeared
there, it was with one or two attendant clerics ; * and when
he had taken a little refreshment, he would make haste to
go out in order to read with his brethren, or to pray ^,' for
he had ' a church and a bedchamber' near the * royal city '
of Bamborough ^. We hear of his sharing the king's fore-
noon meal on a certain Easter Sunday, when * a silver dish
full of royal dainties was set before them on the board, and
they were just about to stretch out their hands to bless the
bread * : ' then enters a thane, * whose charge it was to
relieve the poor, and informs Oswald that a great crowd of
poor folk, assembled from all the country-side, were sitting
in the streets begging some alms from the king: Oswald
orders the contents of the dish to be carried to them, and
could pass a single hour without employing himself in prayer, or reading,
or writing, or some other work ; ' Vit. Col. praef. a. On the frequent
recitation of psalms, see Bede, iii. 27, iv. 33, y. 14, 19, H. Abb. 16.
^ Bede, iii. 3: 'Ubi pulcherrimo,' &c. He implies that Aidan could
speak English, though imperfectly. See iii. 14 for his conversation with
King Oswin. Gomp. Rich. Hexham, X Script. 990 : *• The race of the
Bemicians was converted in 634 by the preaching of the saints Oswald . . 1
and Aidan.' So Simeon, Dun. £ccl. i. i : * Rex, utique Regis aeterni
minister devotus, adaistere, et fidus interpres fidei, ducibus suis et minis-
tris ministrare solebat verba salutis.' As Ghurton says, E. E. Gh. p. 7a,
it is ' a striking instance of the care of Providence turning the misfortunes
of his youth to a means of blessing.' A much later case of a king inter-
preting a missionary's sermons was that of Qottschalk, king of the Wends
in the eleventh century ; Hardwick, Gh. Hist M. Ages, p. laS.
' Bede, iii. 5 : ' Et si forte evenisset,' &c.
' Bede, iii. 17 : * In hac enim habens ecclesiam,' &c.
* Literally, this implies that the king was to join with the prelate in
this * grace before meat.' The passage is another illustration of the fact
that the Gelts were not properly Quartodecimans.
M %
164 Aidants charity and boldness.
CHAP. V. the dish itself to be broken and divided for their benefit.'
On this Aidan seizes the king's right hand, and says, * May
this hand never decay ^ 1 ' In his dealings with the rich,
Aidan showed his superiority to ' fear or favour ' : he never
withheld a rebuke deserved by misdoings of theirs, but
always administered it with the authority befitting a
bishop*. If a thane came to Lindisfame, he was hos-
pitably entertained, but got none of those money-presents
which, in the Eastern Church, had been euphemistically
called * blessings ^/ and being professedly tokens of good-
will from ecclesiastics, were often little else than bribes to
secure the interest of a powerful layman, or even payments
regarded as his due. On the other hand, if a rich man
offered money to Aidan, it went promptly to the poor*,
whose sufferings were ever in the thought of this true
' cherisher of the needy and father of the wretched * : ' or
else it was disposed of, as Gregory himself might have
disposed of such gifts, in ransoming those who had been
unjustly sold into slavery, many of whom, when thus
delivered, became Aidan's pupils, and were ultimately pro-
moted by him to the priesthood ®. One thing alone Bede
could not approve in Aidan, — the inevitable Celtic error
about the Paschal reckoning. On this point Aidan's * zeal
^ Tho hand, Bede adds, was preserved in the royal city of Bamborough,
and remained there, to his days, undecayed ; iii. 6. Simeon of Durham
(twelfth century) says that Swartebrand, a monk of that church, who
had ' recently ' died, declared that he had often seen this * right hand,'
undecayed ; Dun. Ecc. i. a. See Malmesbury's remarks on this marrel ;
Gest. Reg. i. 49. Oswald is called in Nennius * Oswald Lamnguin,' the
' white hand.' See Green, Hist. Eng. People, p. 93 ; Ijappenberg, i. 162,
* the fair or free of hand.'
'*■ Bede, iii. 5, 17. So Anskar seemed ' terribilis ' to ' potentes et divites '
if * contumaces,' while ' mediocres ' regarded him as a brother, and the
poor as a father ; Vit. 35.
' * Eulogiae,' Fleury, b. 27. c. 12. The word passed over into Western
u$ie for any presents, as in Greg. £p. xiii. 42 (cp. ' benedictionom,' Bede,
ii. 10, 11); and (like 'benevolence') gradually lost the sense of a^rvs
gift
* Bede, iii. 5 : ' Sed ea potius quae sibi a divitibus,' &c. Comp. iii. 26 :
' Si quid enim pecuniae,' &c.
^ Bede, iii. 14 : ' Erat enim multum misericora,' &c. : ib. 5, 17. Com-
pare Adamn. Vit. Ool. i. 46.
* Bede, iii. 5 : ^ Denique multos,' &c.
His ^ error ^ as to Easter. 165
not fully acconUng to knowledge ^ : ' so Bede expresses chap. v.
f , but takes off the edge of this gentle censure by
rsting in one passage that Aidan might be ignorant of
uHie reckoning 2, and by telling us in another that
^ in Northumbria who knew it were tolerant of his
/Servance, because they understood ' that he was unable
o deviate from the custom of those who had sent him ; so
hat he was deservedly loved by those who differed from
him about the Pasch/ and respected even by such dignified
representatives of * Catholic observance ' as archbishop
3onorius and bishop Felix* And after all, says Bede,
he did noty as some have thought, keep the feast, in
/ewish fashion, on the fourteenth moon on any week-day *,
out always on a Sunday, from the fourteenth to the
twentieth ; ' that is, if the fourteenth were on a Sunday,
he would make that his Easter Sunday, and so on until the
twentieth * ; whereas, according to Catholic rules, he should
in that case have deferred the festival until the next Sunday,
the twenty-first. He would always, says Bede, * celebrate '
the ' Pasch ' on a Sunday, ' because, with the Holy Church,
he believed the Lord's resurrection to have taken place on
the first day of the week, and hoped that our resurrection
would in truth take place on the same day of the week ®,
now called the Lord's day.' * His keeping the Pasch out of
^ Bede, iii. 3 : 'Zelum Dei, quamTis non plene secundum scientiam,' for
he kept Easter Sunday ' from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon.'
' Bede, iii. 17 : 'Quod autem Pascha,' &c. Cp. iii. 4, 'Sciebant enim,'
&c.
^ Bede, iiL 25 : *■ Haec autem dissonantia,' &c. * Pascha contra morem
eorum qui Ipsum miserant fkcere yioniw^tt' Gp. iii 17, * vel suae gent is,'
&c
* ' In qualibet feria,' Bede, iii. 17. See above, p. 90.
' So that the seven days on one of which, if it were a Sunday, Easter
might be celebrated, were, for Aidan and the Celtic churches, ' fourteenth
moon — twentieth ; ' for the Roman and other churches, *■ fifteenth moon
— twenty-first.'
* Bede, iii. 17 : 'propter fidem videlicet,' &c. The British Christians
thought that the X<ast Day would be a Sunday ; Williams, Eccl. Ant. Cym.
Pb 399. Some early Christians believed that the Lord would return in
the night of the great Easter vigil. So Lactantius, Div. Instit. vii. 19 :
' Haec est noz quae nobis propter adventum Begis ac Dei nostri pervigilio
celebratur ; cujus noctis duplex ratio est, quod in ea et vitam tum recepit
cum passns est, et postea orbis terrae regnum reoepturus est.'
i66 Church-work under Atdan.
<jiiAp. V. its time I do not approve of nor commend. But this I do
approve of, that what he kept in thought, reverenced, and
preached, in the celebration of his Paschal festival; was just
what u-e do, that is, the redemption of mankind through
the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven of the
Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.'
In other words, the root of the matter was found in him.
Such was he whom a reqent historian with no eccle-
siastical prepossessions frankly calls the * illustrious * '
St. Aidan. Being such as he was, he did great things
for the good cause in Northumbria, as a planter or a
restorer of corporate Christian life. Churches, doubtless
mostly of wood '^, * were built in various places : the people
flocked together with gladness to hear the Word : posses-
sions and pieces of ground for founding monasteries were
bestowed by the king's gift : English children were taught,
by Irish preceptors, the rudiments of learning, together
with more advanced studies and the observance of regular
discipline ^/ To some extent, assuredly, Aidan was entering /
* Burton^ Hist. Seotl. i. 269, 397.
' See below on the wooden church of bishop Finan at Lindis&me. The
* old church ' of wicker and timber at Glastonbury on the site now oocu-
pied by the misnamed ' chapel of St. Joseph/ was Celtic ; see Freeman,
Engl. Towns and Districts, p. 98. For notices of primitire Irish churches
built of wood or earth, see Reeves's Adamnan,p. 177, and Whitley Stokes's
Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, i. p. clvi. When, in the twelfth century,
Halachy archbishop of Armagh began to build at Bangor a church of stone,
tlie natives wondered, ^ quod in terra ilia necdum ejusmodi aedificia
invenirentur.' An opponent exclaimed against the innovation : * Scoti
Bumus, non Galli . . . Quid opus erat opere tarn superfluo, tarn superbo ? '
S. Bernard, de Yit. Malach. a8. St-e Lanigan, Eccl. H. Irel. iv. 137, 393.
But several primitive Irit>h churches were of stone (Petrie, Eccl. Arch,
p. 137 ff. ; Anderson's Scotl. in Early Christian Times, p. 80 ff.), while
most of the smaller * Saxon ' ones were of wood, such as that of Bam-
borough, Bede, iii. 17 ; that of Dulting, where St. Aldhelm died ; that at
Wilton, superseded in 1065 by a stone church (Freeman, ii. 520) ; and the
wooden chapel, built before the Conquest, outside the east gate at Shrews-
bury, in which, in 1080, Orderic Vitalis as a boy served mass, and instead
of which his father began to build a church of stone, the nucleus of a gn^at
abbey (Ord. Vit. v. 14 xiii. 45 ; Freeman, iv. 494). The little old wooden
church of Greensted, in Essex, is the sole representative of this class of
churches. Its nave is composed of *■ the tiTinks of lai*ge oak trees, split or
sawn asunder.'
' Bede, iii. 3: * Construebsntur ergo,' ftc; Stubbs, Constitutional
History, i. 258.
Church-work under Aidan. 167
into another man's labours, having found the soil prepared c^^p* v.
by Paulinufl. But he left behind him a stronger impression
of spirituality and saintliness than we are led to associate
with his predecessor : we find that men believed his prayers
to have special efficacy ^, and resorted to him, as to a second
Columba, for such intercessory help. And he was mani-
festly happier than Paulinus, in that he was able to obtain
a large supply of * devoted * ' clergy ; and although he had
his own heavy sorrows and serious anxieties ^ his work,
in an episcopate of sixteen years*, encountered no such
shock as that which followed the day of Hatfield. The
religion which he taught was essentially identical with
that which prevailed at Canterbury or Dunwich, where
his name was held in honour. Mass was celebrated at
Lindisf ame on Sundays and holy-days '"•, certainly with no
splendour of visible surroundings, and probably with rites
differing in some measure (not, of course, as to the essentials
of the service) from those of the Gregorian liturgy which
Augustine had brought into Kent, and cognate to the
Galilean use which Felix, perhaps, had introduced into
East- Anglia : but the usual language about * the mysteries
of the sacred Eucharist^' was as familiar to a disciple
of Hy or of Lindisfame as to the churchmen of Gaul or
Italy. Much importance was attached by Celtic monks
to acts of benediction*^: and we find that Aidan was
wont to consecrate land designed for sacred purposes by
an elaborate process of fastings and prayers, performed
•
I Bede, iii. 15. Comp. Adamn. Vit. Col. ii. 13, ' sociis ut pro eis
Dominum Saoctus exoraret, inclamitantibus,' and ib. i. 50.
> < Magna devotione,' Bede, iii. 3. ' Bede, iii. 9, 14, 16.
* Bede, iii. 17.
' In Columba's time iliere was not a daily celebration at Hy ; Adamnan,
iii. 1 1, 12. It seems also that at Lindisfame, at the close of the seventh
i-entury, mass was said only on Sundays; Bede, Vit Guthb. 44. So,
according to the Chronicle of Abingdon, it was on Sundays and chief
festivals that the monks of its first raonasteiy assembled for mass ; Chron.
Ab. ii. 373.
* See the description of Coluniba * standing before the altar, and con-
secrating tlie sacred oblation,' Adamn. iii. 17 ; and ib. i. 40, Hhe pure
mysteries of the sacred oblation.' Cp. iiL 19. See above, p. iid
^ See Adamnan frequently ; especially the simple and touching anec-
dotes in i. 3, 9 ; ii. 31 ; and iii. 23. Cp. Tripart. Life, i. 37, 71, 163.
i68 Mission of BirintiS.
CHAP. V. for days beforehand on the spot ^. The Scotic conventual
rule was severer than that of Benedict^: and heinous
offences were visited with prolonged penances like those
of antiquity \ The whole system had a rude and homely
simplicity : it took no heed of sacred art, was untouched
by the influence of the continental Church atmosphere,
and kept its followers aloof from what might be called
ecclesiastical civilization.
Birinusin From a very different quarter, and in the year before
Aidan's arrival*, came another great awakening, with
which we in Oxfordshire are specially concerned : for this
district was then * West-Saxon, and the apostle of Wessex
was Birinus. His origin is not ascertained ^ ; the statement
that he was a Roman monk is probably a conjecture^.
He went to Pope Honorius, and solemnly promised before
him®* that he' would scatter the seeds of the holy faith
in those furthest inland territories of the English, which
no teacher as yet had visited.' Honorius sent him for
episcopal consecration to Asterius archbishop of Milan,
who, like his predecessors from 568, avoided contact with
the dominant Arian Lombards by residing within the
imperial territory at Genoa ^ Thus it was that, in 634,
* This is implied in Bede, iii. 23, ' Dicebat enim,' &c., whera lie describes
Cedd's dedication of Lastingham.
^ This may be inferred from the rule of Columban ; Columba's was
probably milder, Beeves's Adamn. p. 355 : but see Adamnan, i. 31, ii. 4,
on the strict obedience required by Columba, and Reeves's Adamnan,
p. 343. And on the ' exceedingly severe discipline ' of St. Fintan at
Cloneuagh, Lanigan, ii. 928.
' See Adamnan, i. aa ; ii. 39.
* The Chronicle dates it in 634.
' And on the whole, until the Mercian king OfiEft won the battle of
Bensington in 777 ; A.-S. Chron. See Freeman, Old-EngL Hist. p. 89.
^ Malmesb. G. Pont. ii. 57 ; p. 157. Baring-Gould, Lives of Saints,
Dec. 3, thinks that his name indicates a Teutonic origin.
^ Bromton says that ' fama suavissimae opinionis sancti Birini presby-
t«ri, de civitate Romana nati,' reached pope Honorius ; X Script. 755.
* ' lUo praesente,' Bede, iii 7.
* Gibbon, iv. 558 : Duchesne, Origines du Culte, p. 84. It was
a natural mistake on Bede's part to call him bishop of Genoa. He held
the see of Milan from 628 to 638. He died at Genoa on the 4th of June,
and was buried *• in the church of St. Syrus' (a bishop of Genoa, cp. Webb's
Gontin. Ecclesiology, p. 409) ; Ughelli, Italia Sacra, iv. 99. Birinus waa
made a ' regionary ' or missionary bitfhop, and left free to choose his own
He preaches in IVessex. 169
Birinus landed in Hampshire ^ and soon found that the chap. v.
West-Saxon districts contained heathenism so dark and
intense ^ as to call for the immediate help of a missionary.
These people were as truly sitting ' in the shadow of death '
as any in parts more distant : why should he neglect them,
and go further in search of others ? Taking his discovery
as a call to alter his original purpose, Birinus went about
Wessex, preaching with such persuasive energy that he
soon won a royal convert. Kynegils ^ had reigned for Conver-
twenty-four years : he was probably weary of strife and Kynegils
bloodshed : he had, in his time, slain thousands of Britons,
had seen his realm overrun by Edwin, had made terms,
at some cost, with Penda. He listened to the foreign
teacher*: Woden and Thunor and Tiu, the gods of war
and storm and death, lost their hold upon him: he felt
the strong 'drawing' of the Gospel, and asked to be
prepared for admission into the Church. Birinus had
succeeded speedily in a work which had kept Paulinus
under suspense: Kynegils was more prompt than Edwin,
and seemingly not less sincere. And observe another
coincidence. The successor of Edwin, now *Bretwalda,'
was desirous of an alliance with the West-Saxon princes ;
Kynegils was asked to give his daughter* in marriage
as wife to Oswald. He consented : and, according to our
chronology^ it was at some time^ — probably late — in 635,
centre of operations, — as had been Ninian's case, and as was the case with
Swidbert, Boniface (at any rate at first), Amandus, &c. (Maclear, Ajk
Hed. Eur. p. 77, &;c). Milner suggests that at Genoa Birinus could learn
Saxon from ' Franks who frequented that mart ' ; Hist. Winch, i. 67.
' Bromton gives a story of a miracle connected with a pallula or cor-
poral, 'Corpusque Dominicum in eadem involutum,' which, he says,
Honorius had given to Birinus, and which he carried * collo suspensum.'
See Milner, 1. c.
' ' Paganissimos.' See Chron. Abingd. vol. iL p. v.. On his landing,
said the legend given by Bromton, he preached the faith for three days ;
among his audience were many who had been converted by Augustine.
' See Chron. a. 611. In 614 he had defeated the Britons at Bampton.
In 6a8 the Mercians had defeated him near Cirencester.
* Chum Knob, a hill near Chilton in Berkshire, is *■ traditionally said
to be the spot where Birinus ' preached to Kynegils. See Murray's Hand-
book to Berks, A^., p. 74.
' Beginald calls her Kyneburg, Yit. Osw. c. iz.
1 70 Baptism of Kynegils.
riiAP. V. towards the end of Oswald's first year of royalty, that he
himself came into Wessex to take home his bride. Her
father was just ready for baptism; and it was agreed
that he should then become a Christian, before the Christian
Jiaptisinof Oswald became his son-in-law. And now we are brought
> negi s. ygjy nosix home ; for the place selected ^ was that same
Dorchester, so familiar to us at Oxford, where the venerable
abbey church of SS. Peter and Paul now occupies the
traditional spot that witnessed the Christianizing of the
dynasty which grew into the royal line of England. It
is easy to realize the scene : the Saxon ' Dorcic ^,' retaining
traces of the Roman Dorocina, and guarded, southwards,
by the embankment still called the Dykes, and beyond
them by the twin clumps of ' the mighty hill fort of
Sinodum ^' perhaps the scene of a dislodgement of Britons
by Aulus Plautius* in A. D, 43. Briton and Roman have
passed away from the Thames valley: there are kings
here now, representing Ida the conqueror, and Cerdie
the founder of a realm which is to absorb the rest : but the
Kingdom here ' evidently set forth ' is that which * is not
from this world.' There, in white pontificals, with atten-
dant clergy on either side, stands its foreign representative,
deriving his commission from the mighty Roman Church,
and his episcopate from the great see of St. Ambrose:
a font, large enough for immersion, is solemnly hallowed ;
the war-worn royal convert steps into it, and is baptized :
and ' as he comes forth from the laver/ he is * lifted up,'
according to the usual rite *, by the future son-in-law who
^ Bede does not say so, but the Chronicle does, a. 635.
* So Bede caUs it, iii. 7. *• The old home of Birinus by the winding
Thames ; ' Freeman, iv. 419 : once * Caer Dauri.' It must have been at
that time within the West-Saxon border : Kynegils could not have thus
dealt with a town actually Mercian. Oxfordshire, therefore, was not
included in the territory gained by Mercia after the battle of Cirencester :
see Gi*een, Making of Engl. p. 367.
' Freeman, 1. c. : comp. iii. 543,
' See Mr. James Parker's paper in the Proceedings of the Oxford
Architect, and Hist. Soc. for Mich. Term, i86a.
' ' Enmque de lavacro exeuntem suscepisse ; ' oomp. Bede, iii. aa, iv. 13 ;
and Greg. Turon. H. Fr. vii. aa : ' Eo quod filium ejus de sacro lATacro
suscepissem.' So ib. v. 19 : ' Filio meo . . . quern de lavacro regenera-
tionis exoepi/ and 93 ; vi. 97 ; x. 98, where a king says that no Christian
Birinus Bishop of Dorchester. 171 '
now acts as his sponsor ^, and who invests, for us, that chap. v.
river-side with the noble associations that attend the name
of our truest royal saint.
It is natural, especially in Oxford, to dwell thus on an
event only second in interest — when one considers the
destinies of Wessex — to the baptism of Ethelbert himself.
Its immediate consequence was the first oi^anization of
a West-Saxon Church. Oswald and Kynegils, united in Birinus
a triple relation, political, domestic, and religious, con- theater.
curred in establishing Birinus as bishop of Dorchester.
From this act may be said to have proceeded in difierent
senses the three episcopates of Winchester, of Lincoln, and
of Oxford. The village which we can so easily visit,
and which has so long a history to redeem its present
insignificance, thus holds a real place in the annals of the
Church of England. From * Dorcic ' Birinus went up and
down among the West-Saxons, that is, from Dorset to
Buckinghamshire, from Surrey to the Severn, preaching,
catechizing, baptizing, 'calling many people to the Lord
by his pious labours,' and ' building and dedicating churches
which would probably be mission-stations ^.' This is Bede's
summary of a work as to which he could get no detailed
information, but which must have had its own incidents
and characteristics, its own experiences of hope and
anxiety, of partial failure compensated by general advance,
which, if preserved to us, might have made the conversion
of Wessex as living a fact to us as that of Northumbria.
As it is, we cannot recover a single feature in those mis-
sionary journeys of Birinus : but it is reasonable to think
that although Oxford as yet was not, he would come up
the valley to the junction of our two rivers, find there
ought to refuse a request to perform this office, and 'etiam domlni proprlos
famulos de saoro fonte suscipiunt.' So in Greg. Sacrament, ap. Muratori,
Lit. Rom. ii. 157: '£0 tenente infantem a quo suscipiendus est.' The
phrase is as old as TertuUian : *Ter mergitamur . . . inde susoepti,' &c. ;
De Gor. Mil. 3. Cp. St. Boniface, Ep. 40 : ' Homo . . . alterius filium de
fonte . . . elevans/ &c.
^ ' Pulcherrimo prorsus et Deo digno oonsortio ; ' Bede, ill. 7. ' Satis
perpulchro spectaculo ; ' Reginald, Yit. Osw; 3.
* See Add. Notes, F.
172 Erconbert King of Kent.
CHAP. V. some few * eeorls ' ready to hear the name of Christ, and
perhaps deposit 'seeds' which, a century later, produced
in St. Frideswide's humble foundation the nucleus of the
priory and the cathedral, and, in another sense, of the
city and probably of its earliest theological schools \
But one success Birinus had, which must have been speci-
ally welcome; Cwichelm, the son of Kynegils, followed his
father's example within the year: it was just ten years
since he had sent Eumer with the poisoned dagger to slay
Edwin. He was baptized at Dorchester in 636; 'and
that same year he died^' His name is perpetuated in
'Cwichelm's hlsew,' or 'hill/ now Cuckhamsley, a height
crowned by trees at the summit of the Berkshire range,
which we may see from Foxcombe hill, or from the Wantage
road, beyond the turn to Cumnor^ His son Cuthred,
who like him was a sub-king under Kynegils, was baptized
in 639 by Birinus, who took him for his godson *.
We do not hear of any relations being as yet formed
between the mission in Wessex and the see of Canterbury.
The archbishop does not seem to have had any com-
munication with Birinus, who was doing so effectively
the work which Canterbury had never essayed. In Kent
Erconbert all was tranquil and hopeful. Eadbald, whose genuine
Kent conversion had suffered no relapse, was succeeded in 640 by
his son Erconbert, whose Christianity was more definitely
aggressive upon heathenism®. He was the first English
king who used his royal authority for the utter destruction
* See Parker's Early Hist, of Oxford, pp. 106, 119. The university grew
into life subsequently to such unorganized schools. Op. Rashdall, Univer-
sities of Europe in K. Ages, ii. 327-339.
^ Chron. a. 636. Malmesbury says he was 'admonished by illness,'
Gest. Reg. i. aa.
> Parker, p. 149. It is near West Ilsley. In 1006, says the Chronicle,
the Danes made good their boast that they would reach Cwichelm*8
*■ hlsBw/ and get to their ships again. See Freeman, i. 33a. A ' hltew '
(see Taylor's Words and Places, p. aia) frequently perpetuated the
memory of celebrated personages ; Chron. Abingd. ii. 483, and ' Osla*
feshlau ' in Kemble's Cod. Dipl. i. 283.
* Chron. a. 639. Another case in which the bishop who baptized acted
also as godfather is Cadwalla's in 689 ; Bede, v. 7 ; and see Greg. Tur.
H. Fr. V. a3, vi. 27.
^ Bede, iii. 8 : ' Hie primus r^gum Anglorum,' &c.
Death of Stgebert. 173
of idols ^, and the enforcement of the Lenten fast ; and he chap. v.
appointed fitting penalties for disobedience to this law.
He married Sexburga, the eldest daughter of Anna king
of the East-Anglians ^, who had succeeded to that throne
in 635 under strangely tragical circumstances*. Egric,
who having been a sub-king in East-Anglia, had become
sole king on his kinsman Sigebert's abdication, was menaced
with invasion by Penda. His people, knowing themselves
to be no match for the Mercians, and remembering the
ex-king's former renown as a leader, besought him to come
forth from his cell and aid them in the fight. He refused ;
whereupon, hoping that his mere presence might inspirit
the national forces*, they actually dragged him to the
battle-field. There he stood, but, 'not unmindful of his
profession^,* or as we may think, in his overstrained
scrupulosity, he would hold nothing but a wand. He and
Egric were both slain, and the East-Anglians utterly
routed, and Fursey, who had adopted the hermit life, was
scared by ' the invasion of the heathen ' into leaving East-
Anglia for Gaul *. Anna, now chosen king, was son of Anna
Eni and nephew of Bedwald, and ' a very good man,' says the'^last-
Bede, * and the parent of very good children,' and ' happy Anglians.
in a good and holy progeny ; ' ' a man,' as he elsewhere
says, * truly religious, and altogether excellent in mind and
conduct ''.' In fact, he is chiefly remarkable on account
of the zeal for monasticism shown personally by princesses
^ Gregory had urged it ; but Ethelbert and Eadbald had not ventured
on such a method.
* Bede, 1. c : ' Cujus regis filia major,' Ac. Properly, Sexbnrh.
' Bede, iii i8.
*■ *■ Sperantea minus animos militum trepidure ; ' Bede, I. c
* Tet, in the preceding century, Irish ecclesiastics had repeatedly
taken part in warfare ; Beeves's Adam nan, p. Ixxvii. Gregory of Tours
censures two Prankish bishops, Balonius and Sagittarius, for doing so ;
H. Pr. iY. 43 : and ib. t. ai, ' tanquam unus ex laicis accincti anna,' &c.
For two warrior bishops of Sherborne, see Chron. a. 845, 871 (in the Danish
wars).
* He was well received by Clovis II of Neustria, or Erchinwald his
'patrician' (-* mayor of the palace), built another monastery at Lagny,
and died soon afterwards in 65a
^ Bede, iii. 18 and 7 ; iv. 19. He enlarged and enriched the monastery
of Burghcastle ; iiL 19.
174 The Family of King Anna.
< HAP. V. of his house. * At that time there were not many mon-
asteries among the English ; and therefore many used
to go over from Britain to the monasteries of the Franks
or Gaul ^ for the sake of monastic life, — and also to send
their daughters to the same to be instructed and united to
their Heavenly Bridegroom, especially at Brige/ or Brie,
near Meaux, where an abbess, of noble Burgundian birth,
named Fara had built a convent, and at Gale, or Chelles,
near Paris, and Andilegum, or Andely, near Rouen. Such
is Bede's statement*. Anna's sister-in-law Hereswid^
herself became a nun at Chelles: her sister, the famous
Si Hilda, spent a year in East-Anglia with the hope of
* imitating her example.' Anna's step-daughter, Saethryd *,
actually did so. Anna himself had four daughters : Sex-
burga, wife of Erconbert, who after surviving her husband,
and even acting as regent, became abbess of a convent
which she had founded in the Isle of Sheppey, and after-
wards first a simple nun and then abbess at Ely*;
Ethelberga, who became abbess of Brie^; a third whose
enthusiasm for conventual life had important results in
Northumbrian Church history, and whose name still stands
in our calendar aa St. Etheldred'', the foundress of the
^ For monasteries founded in Gaiil early in the sixth century, see
MabiUon, Ann. Bened. i. 993, 995, 304, 310. Among those who resorted
to them was St. Botulf.
' Bede, iii. 8 : ' Nam eo tempore,' Ac. Fara, or Burgundofara, had
been ' dedicated ' in her infancy by Columban, against her father's wish.
The impetuous Irishman would think little of parental authority in such
a case. She persisted in refusing to be married : she fled to a church,
and said she would rather die on its floor than consent. Her father
yielded : she founded a monastery ^famous as Faremoustier) on some
land of his in Brie, near Meaux. One of her nuns, Wilsinda, was a Saxon.
She died about 655 (Mabillon, Ann. Bened. i. 304, 356).
' Compare Bede, iv. 93. Hereswid, says Bede, was mother of king
Aldwulf ; and in the appendix to Florence she accordingly appears as
wife of Anna's brother and successor Ethelhere, father of Aldwulf (Flor.
i. 949). She was grand niece of Edwin. Thomas of Ely is wrong in
calling Aldwulf son of Anna ; Hist. £1. (Angl. Sac. i. 595).
^ Bede, iii. 8. ' Ssetrudis/ Ann. Bened. i. 434. She preceded Ethel-
berga as abbe8&
^ See Bede, iv. 19. ' Sancta Sexburga,' Florence, a. 64a
* Anna's '• filia natural is/ step-daughter.
^ Bede, iv. 79. Tho. £1. Hist. Eliens. (Angl. Sac i. 597% The name
means *■ noble troop ' ; Skeat, Etym. Diet.
Battle of Maserfield. 175
famous church of Ely ; and a fourth, Witberga, who lived chap. v.
as a recluse at Dereham ^. Ercongota, daughter of Ercon-
bert and Sexburga, became a nun at Brie, and is named
in the Chronicle as a ' wondrous person/ because of a vision
related by Bede, in which she was described as 'that
golden coin which liad come thither out of Kent */ Her
sister Ermenild, after being queen of the Mercians, followed
the family custom, received the veil under her mother
at Sheppey, and succeeded her at Ely ^.
Erconbert had been reigning two years in Kent, and
Anna six years in East-Anglia, when a dire calamity
befell the Northumbrian realm and Church. Like that
'tender-hearted' and blameless king of Judah, of whom
his life reminds us, Oswald fell in battle with the heathen.
He was involved in a war with Penda and ' the South- Battle of
humbrians*, to whom it was naturally of importance to re- fieui.
cover the advantage temporarily gained at Hatfield. He had,
it appears, reconquered the district of Lindsey from the
Mercian : but on the 5th of August, 642, he was surprised
by his enemy at a place named Maserfield ^, which the *
Cambrian Annals call Cocboy, and which may be Coedway,
near the Shropshire town which still commemorates Oswald
in its name of Oswestry*. It was, in a certain sense,
* Act. SS. Bened. iL 740 ; Chron. a. 797.
' Bede, iii 8 : * Aureum illud numisma quod eo de Cantia venerat.*
' Act. SS. Ben. ii. 756. It may be well to remember that Erconbert
had a brother, Ermeni-ed, as well as a sister, St. Eanswith. Ermenred,
who was a sub-king, had two sons, Ethelred and Ethelbert (both cruelly
murdered), and four daughters, Ermenburg or Domneva, wife of Merewald
sub-king of the West-Mercians, another Ermenburg, Etheldrith, and
Ermengith (Florence, App. Chron. i. 959'.
^ Chron. a. 64a. Tighemach wrongly dates it in 639, just as he dates
the defeat of Edwin in 631, and Oswald's victory over ' Cathlon* in 63a.
' Bede, iii. 9. Reginald fixes it at half-a-mile from Offa's Dyke, and
seven miles from Shrewsbury ; and says that a church called * White
Church ' (as being of stone) was afterwards erected there. Yit. Osw. c. 14
(Sim. Op. i. 35a). For Offa's Dyke, which ran 'from the mouth of the
Wye to the estuary of the Dee,* see Guest, Orig. Celt. ii. 973.
' ' Id est, Oswaldi arborem ; ' Giraldus, Itin. Camb. ii. la. In Welsh,
Cross-Oswald. Reginald tells how a large bird cairied off the slain king's
right arm from the stake (see below) to an old ash-tree, which thereafter
put forth fresh leaves, and was still revered as 'St Oswald's tree ' ; Yit.
Osw. c. 17. Coed— wood; cp. Cotawold.
176 Death of Oswald.
CHAP. V. another Hatfield. Bede tells us how the saintly successor
of Edwin, seeing death inevitable, * ended his life with
prayer for the souls of his men ^ ; ' and he quotes a saying,
the point of which may be best given in a paraphrase: —
'For bodies whatsoe'er betide,
On souls, O Gk)d, have mercy ! ' cried
King Oswald, as he fell and died.
Another saying, probably a fragment of a ballad, is pre-
served in a later chronicle, to the efiect that 'Maserfield
was whitened o'er with bones of holy men ^.' Oswald was
only in his thirty-eighth year. The ferocious Mercian who
had thus added his name to a growing list of princely
victims exposed the head and arms of the slain monarch
on wooden stakes ^ : but they were rescued the next year,
and carried into Northumbria. The hands were kept in
a silver box, at St. Peter's church on the summit of the
rock of Bamborough * : the head on which the death-blow
had descended was interred by Aidan — one can well
imagine with what intensity of sorrow — at Lindisfame, —
and removed in 875 within the coffin of St. Cuthbert*:-
hence the common representation of that saint, — visible,
for instance, in a window of Oxford cathedral, and on the
north side of the steeple of St. Mary's, — as holding the head
of St. Oswald in his hands. About thirty years after the
battle of Maserfield, his niece Osthryd*, then wife to
^ Bede, iii. 12 ; cp. \y, 14. See Churton, E. E. Ch. p. 75. Green
mistakes this, as if he had been praying for his slayers ; Making of Engl,
p. 394.
^ Hen. Hunt. iii. 39.
' Bede, iii. la : * Porro caput et manus,' &jc Bede tells this as if by an
after-thought.
* Bede, iiL 6 ; Sim. Dunelm. Hist. Reg. c. 48 (Op. i. 45).
' Malmesb. Gest. Pontif. iii. 134, says that when (in 1104) the tomb of
Cuthbert was opened in Durham cathedral, ' the head of Oswald, king
and martyr, was found between his arms.' See Reginald's minute de-
scription of the head, as it was preserved in a purple bag * beside the head
of Cuthbert,' c. 51. He was told that it had for a time been taken away
to Bamborough, and thence, by a stratagem, brought back to Lindisfame ;
c. 49. A similar discovery was made in 1837 ; Handbook to North.
Cathedrals, ii. 301.
* She imbibed her brother Egfrid's hostility to Wilfrid. She was
killed by Mercian nobles, a. 697 ; Bede, v. 34.
Reverence for his sanctity. 177
a son and successor of Penda, removed ' the bones of her chap. v.
unde' to the great lincohishire monastery of Bardney;
where the Mercian monks afterwards told^ how in their
' long-standing animosity ' against the Northumbrian who
had ^gained the dominion over tiiem/ they refused to
harbour his remains, 'although they knew him to be a
saint/ and so left the wain which had arrived with them
in the evening to stand outside their doors, with a covering
spread over it: how, all that night, they saw a pillar of
light blazing heavenward above the wain, conspicuous to
nearly all the province of Lindsey*: how in the morning
they eagerly threw open the gate, carried in the bones-
with all reverence, washed them, placed them in a chest,
and hung up over it the gold and purple banner which had
waved in battle before the holy king ^. We cannot wonder
that, in such an age, the very spot where he had fallen
seemed ' greener and fairer ' than the ground adjacent, or
that wondrous virtues were ascribed to its dust, to that
of the floor on which had been poured out the water used ,
in washing the relics, or to a splinter of the stake to which
the head had been affixed ^ ; that a little boy in Bardney
monastery was said to have been cured of the fen-country
ague by sitting close to the saint's tomb ^ ; that a North-
^ Bede, iit ii. Florence says that Ethelred, king of the MercianR,
Odthiyd's husband, 'had himself built' this monastery, in which he
afterwardd became monk and abbot (on a. 716). Tradition said that it
contained 300 monks ; Mon. Anglic, i. 6a8. When the house, after long
desolation, was restored in the eleventh century, it was dedicated to
SS. Peter and Paul, and ' St. Oswald, king and martyr' ; ib.
* An abbess, Ethelhild, surriving when Bede wrote, told queen Osthryd
that she had seen this light, 'adcaelum usque alt^m.' Alcuin de Pontif.
Ebor. 364, ' ad fastigia caeli.' Malmesbury, * lucernam de caelo.'
' In 909, says the Chronicle, St. Oswald's body was removed from
Bardney into Mercia (properly so called). So Florence, a. 910. It was
interred at Gloucester. See Alb. Butler, Aug. 5 ; Monast. Angl. vi. Sa.
Only three smaU bones remained at Bardney ; Reginald, c 43.
* Bede, iii. 10, 11, 13. The last anecdote was told by Willibrord, who,
while staying in Ireland, had put the splinter into water which he gave to
a plague-stricken Irish scholar. It is ptiinful to observe that the terrified
sinner's hope of divine pardon is based on physical contact with any relio
of Oswald.
' Bede, iii. la. This was told to Bede by a monk, when the boy had
grown up into a youth, and was still dwelling in (he monastery.
N
178 Anxiety caused by his death.
CHAP. V. umbrian community of monks in Sussex believed an
epidemic to have been stayed by the intercession of that
'king, beloved of God/ whose dying prayer might be
available for men of his race, though dwelling far from
home ^ ; or that a great missionary, Willibrord archbishop
of the Frisians, spoke of miracles wrought, even in that
distant province, in presence of some relics of St. Oswald ^
The collect prescribed, in the Sarum rite, for the 5th of
August, referred to 'the joyous and blessed gladness'
which had been associated with that day by his ' passion ' :
and when we remember the issues at stake in his contest
with Penda, we may think it not too much to say with
a foreign historian of ancient England ^ that as 'his life
was distinguished ' at once by * activity ' and by a ' spirit
of fervent Christian beneficence/ so ' his Christian merits
and his TnaHyrdom made him a hero of the Christian world/
Impor- The history of the Church in Northumbria during the
Nortlium- l*i*g®'^ P***^ of *'^® seventh century is conspicuously the
bria. backbone of the history of the Church in England. It is
striking to see how the region which was first to come
before St. Gregory's thoughts in regard to an English
mission, and yet, for some thirty years, was inaccessible to
missionary attempts, no sooner in any sense accepted Chris-
tianity than it concentrated into itself the chief interest of
the great drama of national conversion ; this being due, no
doubt, in part, to the relative scantiness of our information
as to other districts, but also largely to the force and im-
pressiveness of the characters that walk the Northumbrian
stage. We cannot help making Northumbria the main line
of our subject, towards which any record of Church life in
Kent, or Wessex, or elsewhere, may naturally radiate. And
thus, the tragedy of Maserfield must have sent a thrill of
grief and alarm through every Christian realm, whatever
might be its political bearing towards the kingdom which
^ * Pro suae gentis adveniB ; ' Bede, iv. 14. There is a vision of SS. Peter
and Paul in this story, and an order to celebrate St. Oswald's anniversary
by mass and communion. Acca, bishop of Hexham, is Bede's authority
here. The monastery was Wilfrid's, at Selsey.
' Bede, iii. 13 : ' Denique reverentissimus,' &o.
' Lappenberg, i. 161. * Sancti sanguinis effusionem,' Miss. Ebor., Aug. 5.
Oswy^ King of Bernicia. 179
had lost Oswald. We can imagine how the tidings would cha^- ▼•
be received in Kent ; how Paulinus, safe in Rochester, and
Ethelbnrga in her minster at Lyminge^, would think of
Hatfield, and pray for the soul of another Eldwin ; how in
£^t-Anglia, both king and bishop would feel renewed mis-
givings at a fresh victory of the arms that had struck down
Sigebert and Egric; how among our own Oxfordshire
valleys, as yet outside the Mercian limits, priests and
converts would tremble for new-built churches, and mourn
for the generous over-lord who had come among them as
sponsor for their king. Why was such a prop of the cause
removed ? Did it mean that, after all, the work would be
undone, that a heathen tempest would spread from Hhe
Wall ' to the Channel, and root out the worship of Christ
wherever it had been planted ? Such questions might be
a trial to faith in many a South-countiy Church settle-
ment : what must the blow have been to Christians in
Bemicia and Deira ?
We may say, in Bemicia and in Deira ; for, to add to Oswy,
the difficulties and perils of the crisis, the two realms, gemicia.
so thoroughly welded together by a hero who united the
royal blood of both, were soon again to be shaken apart ;
Oswiu, or Oswy, the younger brother of Oswald, now about
thirty years old, succeeding to the royalty of Bemicia, but
failing to establish his hold on Deira, which had a strong
leaning to .the house of Ella, and in 643, according to Bede's
reckoning ^, acknowledged the royal claims of Oswin, son of
the unhappy Osric \ Oswy was fain to agree to this parti-
tion : indeed, he had for some time enough work in keeping
^ It is interesting to observe that the little church of Paddlesworth,
occupying the highest ground in Kent, 64a feet above the sea, was of old
» dependency of Lyminge, and is dedicated to St. Oswald. In Yorkshire
he was specially honoured at Oswaldkirk near Helmsley, at Nostel Priory
near "Wakefield, at Methley, Filey, and Flamborough ; in Westmoreland
at Grasmere ; at Chester, the south transept of St. Werburga's (the pre-
bent cathedral), was long used as St. Oswald's parish church.
' Bede says, iii. 14, that Oswin reigned between eight and nine years ;
and he died in August, 651. The date of 644, given by the Chronicler for
his accession, is therefore a year too late.
' A desire to strengthen his interest in Deira led him to marry Eanfied,
the daughter of Edwin ; Bede, iii. 15.
K 2
i8o Penda invades Northumbria.
cfRAP. V. the lands beyond the Tees, whither Penda, now more than
sixty, but as energetic and as' ruthless as after the battle of
Hatfield, had penetrated as if he meant to destroy Northum-
brian independence by the one stroke of taking Bam-
borough ^. We seem to see the grim invader first trying
to storm the city, then pulling down the wooden huta of
neighbouring hamlets, piling the materials ' in a huge mass
close to the wall, and finally taking advantage of a south-
Aidan and west wind to set the timber on fire. And then Bede shows
us the figure of Aidan in his place of ' retreat ' on the Fame
island, nearly two miles off: he looks up, and sees fire and
smoke carried by the wind high above the city waU,
which was evidently of timber : he lifts up his eyes and
hands in supplication ^ : ^ See, Lord, what harm Penda is
doing ! ' Immediately the wind shifts, drives back the
flames, scorching some of Penda's men and scaring all of
them, * so that they gave up attacking a city which they
understood to be divinely protected/ In effect, Penda did
suspend, soon afterwards, the attempt to conquer Northum-
bria : he re-annexed lindsey to Mercia, and Church history
is concerned in his next attack on Wessex, where the eldest
of the three royal proseljrtes of Birinus survived his sponsor
and son-in-law about a year, dying in 643, the thirty-second
year of his reign ^. Cwichelm, as we have seen, had died
before his father; and the crown passed, not to his son
Cuthred, but, as was often the case in Old-English kingdoms,
Kenwalch. to his brother ^ Eenwalch or Coinwalch, the second son of
Kynegils, probably a man of ripe years and full strength,
but firmly set against the creed of his father and his
nephew ®. Naturally he would speak with bitter scorn of
the new lore that the foreign priests had brought in to turn
the sons of Woden into weaklings : he would have nought
^ Bede, iii 16: 'Penrenit ad orbem regiam, quae ex Bebbae qaondam
reginae Tocabnlo cognominatur.' Oswy, howeYer, must have gained some
advantiige over Penda in Mercia during his first year; see Bede, iiL la.
* ' Tnibtum, tignorum, parietum virgeonim, et teeti fenei,* &c.
> < Fertur,' says Bode, on this. \ A.-S. Ohron. a. 6^ cp. 611.
* See Freeman, i. 108, that minors were often passed by in £aToor of
uncles.
' Bede, iii. 7 : ' Defuneto autem et rege,' Ac
Exile and conversion of Kenwalch. i8i
to do with Birinus, who had wrought scathe enough to the chap. ▼.
house of Cerdic by womanish words and outlandish rites-
Those must have been anxious days at Dorchester. But
ere long Kenwalch, in the pride of newly-acquired kingship,
was bold enough to divorce the sister of Penda, whom he
had wedded, no doubt from political considerations, and to
take another wife*. Penda seized the occasion, marched
straight into Wessex, and drove out Kenwalch in 645. So
it was, as Bede comments, that the prince ' who had refused
to receive the faith and mysteries of the heavenly kingdom,
not long afterwards lost the power even of the earthly
kingdom ^ ; ' but he was to furnish another instance of the
old rhyming Greek proverb, * Tribulation, education ^.' He
found shelter in Elast-Anglia ; and while living ' for three
years in exile, he acknowledged and accepted the true
belief^.' He saw in Anna's household a royal family
simply and thoroughly Christian, believing absolutely in
the new faith, and leading pure and worthy lives under its
influence. Felix, no doubt, found opportunities of touching
and opening the heart of the discrowned fugitive : and no
episcopal work that he had done since he came to Sigebert
would be more utterly 'happy' than the baptizing of
Kenwalch in 646*. The convert may have been present, l>eath of
with Anna, at the deathbed of the bishop, whose labours as
an evangelizer, an educator, and a Church ruler, were closed
on the 8th of March, 647 •. St. Felix, as he was fittingly
called in after-ages, was buried in his own city of Dunwich ^ :
and it is interesting to find the memory of the apostle of
East-Ang]ia preserved in the name not only of Felixstowe
to the south-east of Ipswich, but also of a Yorkshire village,
far away in the north, Feliskirk, near Thirsk. His deacon
Thomas, a native of the 'Gyrvian' or *Fen' district®, was
^ Seaxburh or Sezburga, who reigned after him ; Chron. a. 67a.
* ( Qui et fidem et aacramenta/ &c ; Bede, iiL 7. See p. ia6.
' na^/iara, /la^fiara, Herod, i. 307. Cp. Malmesb. G. R i. 19.
* Bede, iii. 7 : ' Apud quern triennio ezsulans,' &c.
* Chronicle, and Florence a. 646.
' See Bede, ii. 15 ; iii. ao ; Maskell, Hon. Bit. iii. ai4.
^ He was ultimately transferred to Bamsey ; Malm. O. Pontit iii. 74.
* The northern Oyrvii held South Linoolnshlre, and parts of Cam-
i82 Kenwalch regains his crown.
iMMT, Y. chosen to fill his place, and was consecrated by Honorius,
of Canterbury : he ranks second of native English bishops,
the first being the Rentishman ^ Ithamar, whom Honorins
had consecrated in 644 to succeed Paulinus, when the latter
had been laid to rest in the church of St. Andrew, ' which
king Ethelbert had built from its foundation in the city of
Hrof V
Restora- In 648, Kenwalch was enabled, mainly by the help of his
Kenwalch. nephew Cuthred, to return into Wessex. Once more a king,
he did not fall back from the promises made at his Elast-
Anglian baptism. He showed his gratitude to Cuthred by
giving him three thousand hydes' — each hyde being, in
idea, an amount of land sufficient for one family — about
Ashdown in Berkshire, east of * Cwichelm's-law,' the scene
of the defeat of the Danes by Ethelred and Alfred in 871.
He showed his religious thankfulness by forthwith ordering
the erection of a church in the royal city of Winchester * :
bridgesfaire and Northamptonshire. The southern Gyrvii dwelt in South
Cambridgeshire.
' ' But,' says Bede, 'equal to his predecessors in conduct and learning ; '
iii. 14. This is paraphrased by Malmesbury, Gest. Pontif. i. 79, * in quo
nihil perfoctae sanctitatis . . . nihil degantiae Romanae . . . minus deside-
rares.'
* Bede, iii. 14. ' Secretarium * usually means a room or building used
for ecclesiastical business ; here, and in ii. i, iii. 96, it has the sense of
* sacristy.' Paulinus had been a bishop rather more than nineteen years.
According to tlie Glastonbury traditions, he had visited that sacred place,
and it was he who covered the church of wreathed osiers (above, p. 11)
with wood and lead ; Malmesb. de Antiq. Glaston. in Gale, i. 300. But
this is probably a legend. Churches are dedicated to his memory at
Crayford and Paul's Cray in Kent. Compare p. 136. Rochester Cathedral
contains his grave. See Cod. Diplom. i. 183 (No. 15a) : ' Hrofesoester ubi
beatus Paulinus pausat'
* Chron. a. 648. See Kemble, i. 9a, 487 ff., Stubbs, Const Hist i. 83
(or 74, ed. i) on ' the vexed question of its extent.' Bede uses ' £unilia '
to express it : e. g. Thanet is of 600 familiae, i. 35 ; Hilda's land at Whitby
is of 10 familiae, iii. 34; her former property on the Wear had been of
one, iv. 93 ; Sussex contains 7,000, Iv. 13 ; Selsey, 87, ib. ; the Isle of
Wight, i,90o, iv. 16 ; Wilfrid's land at Stamford, 10, v. 19 ; at Bipon, 30,
ib. ; the abbey-land at Wearmouth, 70, Hist. Abbi, 4 ; at Jarrow, 40^ ib. 6.
Another Latin equivalent is 'cassatus,' a 'housed' or married man;
Kemble, i. 99.
* According to a Winchester story of later date, this foundation had
been designed by Kynegils. See Rudborne, Hist Maj. Wint. o. i (Angl.
Sac. i. 189). In Annal. Winton. (Ann. Monast. ii. 5) Kynegils is said to
have made Kenwalch swear by his soul, before St. Birinus, that he would
Learning in Ireland. 183
it was hallowed, says the Chronicler, by Birinus, in honour chap. v.
of St. Peter. This event, setting aside the legendary notices ^
of a British church at Winchester, profaned by the West-
Saxons under Cerdic, is the opening of the history of one
of the most venerable of English cathedrals. Birinus lived
two years longer, and died peacefully at Dorchester*, on
the 3rd of December, 650 ; and his body lay in his own
church until it was removed to Winchester by his fourth
successor Heddi. His first successor was a Frank named
Agilbert, who had been consecrated, apparently, in Gaul ',
' but had lived some time in Ireland for the sake of study-
ing the Scriptures*.' Ireland was then pre-eminently a Irish
land of contrasts : amid a series of ' battles, burnings, ^^"*^®^*-
slaughters *,* which darken year after year in its native
records, there flourished a passionate love of learning •, and
build a church for the bishopric in Winchester. The oldest property of
the church of Winchester is the estate at Chilcombe, which it has lield
from the sixth century ; the gift is ascribed to Kynegils. But these tradi-
tions are more than questionable. Malmesbury says quaintly that
Kenwalch was ' primus antecessorum suorum ' to build a ' temple ' to God
at Winchester ; Gest. Reg. i. 19.
' See Rudbome (a Winchester monk of the fifteenth century) : he begins
with king Lucius, as founder of the church : tells how, after the Diocletian
jiersecution, a second but smaller church was built in honour of * St. Am-
phibalus,' and took the name of the Vetus Goenobium ; how Oerdic turned
it into a temple of Dagon ; how Kynegils destroyed the temple, and
a.s8igned lands for a third church. So Geoffrey speaks of the British
church of Amphibalus ^ intra Gayntoniam/ ii. 5. That there had been
a church at ' Caeiigwent ' may be taken as certain.
^ Bede, iii. 7 : ' Ubi . . . migravit ad Dominum/ This phrase and its
equivalents are frequent with Bede for a holy death : cf. L ai ; ii. i ; iv.
33, 30. Gregory of Tours has 'migravit ad Christum/ Vit. Patr. 7. 3.
Cp. Boniface, Ep. 12. Birinus' name is retained in *a spur of the
Chiltorns, in Ipsden parish, called Berin's Hiir (Short Ace. of Dorch., by
Rev. W. C. Macfarlane, p. 17).
' He was probably a * vacant ' bishop (o'xoXdfa;!'). Three such signed
the acts of the Council of Macon in 585 ; Mansi, iz. 959). Those Irish
bishops who never had sees were not properly * vacant,' though Todd so
regards them (St. Patrick, p. 45). See Bingham, b. iv. a. 14.
^ Bede, iii. 7. About this time, we are told, Gauls and Teutons flocked
to Lismore to attend the lectures of Catald ; Lanigan, iii. ia6.
* See Tighernach (in 0*Conor's Rer. Hibem. Script, vol. ii) for recur-
ring entries of 'proelium,' 'caedes,' 'jugulatio,' *combustio,' between, e.g.,
A.D. 618 and 650. Compare also the Chronicon Scotorum. There had
also been much religious declension early in the century ; Todd, p. 109.
* On the educational work ascribed to St. Patrick, see Todd, p. 506 ff.
184 Learning in Ireland.
CHAP. V. a generous e«agemess to impai't its benefits, * without money
and without price/ to foreigners who came in search of
them. What Bede says of English-bom stndents in Ireland
at a slightly later time * is probably true of all who, during
this period, resorted to Irish teachers ; * they went the round
of the cells of different masters, and the Irish readily gave
them daily food without charge, books to read, and free
instruction/ Camin of Iniskeltra was at work with numerous
pupils in his monastery on an island of Loughderg : he * wrote
a commentary on the Psalms collated with the Hebrew text*.'
The great school which Carthagh had founded at lismore
was in its glory * Bangor in Ulster ' was one of the most
learned monasteries of the time^.' Patristic learning had
been brought to bear on the Easter question by Cummian,
in his letter to Seghine of Hy and others *, who disapproved
of his departure from the Scotic system, and of his successful
advocacy of the * Catholic ' Easter in South Ireland •. At
Clonard a theological college flourished, in which Aileran
the Wise, whose tract on the names of Chiist's ancestors is
still extant, was chief professor''. After making use of
' Bede, iii. 37 ; cp. i. i ; y. 9. See Goldwin Smith, Irish HUt. and Irish
Character, p. aS : * The Irish Church . . . received with eager hoepitality
all who desired to be instructed in the Word of life.' Among the English-
men who studied in Ireland during the century were Egbert, Ethelhun,
Chad, Willibrord, Aldfrid (afterwards king), and Witbert. See too the
striking story of the Irish scholar who, while keenly interested in sacred
studies, had been utterly neglectful of his soul's welfare, and, in fact, had
persisted in Ticious habits, &c. ; Bede, iii 13.
' Lanigan, iii. 11. For Irish students cp. Adamn. i. a. Cp. Reeresy
p. 196.
' Lanigan, ii 353, says that after Carthagh died in 637, his * school, or
univerdty, was for a very long time equal at least to any other in Ireland.'
' Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vi. iii.
* See above, p. iia ; Lanigan, ii. 395, thinks Cummian somewhat
pedantic, but observes that ' this tract shows how well stocked with books,
considering the times, the Irish libraries were,' &c The date is about
634. Cummian was also, *in all appearance, author of. . .a very learned
abridgement of the ancient penitential canons.'
* At tho Councils of Maghlene and of White-field, 630 and 634 ; pi iia.
^ Lanigan, iii 54. Zeal for the Catholic doctrine of grace was stirred
up in Ireland by some revival of Pelagianiztng ideas, which were
denounced in the letter of John IV, pope-fleet, and other Roman olRcials,
referred to above, p. 1 la. The school of Clonard, according to a hymn
quoted in Todd's Life of St Patrick, p. 98, 'produced 3,000 diaciplea '—
Oswifiy King of Deira. 185
such opportunities, Agilbert came over into Wessex, and chap. v.
oflFered his aid, as a bishop, to the West-Saxon king, who ^8^^
' seeing him to be learned and energetic/ was glad enough
to establish him at Dorchester.
We must now return to the North. While Kenwalch
was passing through the phases of headstrong pride and
salutary humiliation, the Christians of Deira had before
them a royal example of singular loveliness. The character St. Oswin.
of King Oswin is one of Bede's best portraits. In personal
appearance tall and handsome, kindly in address, open-
handed to gentle and simple ^ and withal eminent for
piety, he won the love of all by * the royal dignity of his
mind, his countenance, his conduct/ so that from almost
every province men of noblest birth flocked together to
be * thanes ' in the hall of Oswin of Deira. Among all the
graces of character which marked him out as under 'a
special benediction,' Bede selects his humility as the chief,
and illustrates it by one sufficient example. The bishop of
Lindisfame, while visiting the southern part of his huge
diocese, became naturally intimate with a prince who would
recall to him his beloved Oswald. As we have seen, he had
been accustomed to make his circuits on foot ; but Oswin,
thinking of the rough paths and streams that had to be
encountered *, gave him a horse * fit for a king.' But soon
afterwards, a poor man begged alms of Aidan, wHo, under
a compassionate impulse, at once dismounted, and gave him
the hoVse with all its goodly trappings. Oswin heard of
this; and the next time they were going in to dinner,
he said to Aidan, ^What did you mean, lord bishop, by
giving away the horse that was to be all your own V Had
not I many other horses of less value, or other things that
probably an exaggeration. The founder was St. Finnian ; see Reeves's
Adamnan* p. Ixxii. St. Golumba is said to have studied there ; on this
see Lanigan, ii. 117. The point is of some interest, because St. Finnian
(probably before Columba's birth) had studied in Wales; ib. i. 464.
Compare Maclear's Ap. of Mediaer. Eur. p. 58, on the ancient school of
Oluain-inis ; and for other monastic schools, Lanigan, i. 40a.
^ * Nobilibus simul atque ignobilibus,' Bede, iii. 14 ; i.e. eorl-kin and
oeorl-kin, Freeman, i. 8a.
' On the wild parts of Yorkshire, see Bede, iii. ^3 ; and cp. Ep. ad
Egb. 4, ' montibus inaooessis et saltibua dumosia.'
i86 Murder of Oswin.
CHAP. V. would have served as almsgifts?' Aidan answered with
something of Irish hastiness : * What say you, O king 1 Is
that son of a mare worth more in your eyes than that son
of God ^ ? ' They entered the hall : Aidan took his usual
seat, attended, as usual, by a presbyter : the king, who was
fresh from the chase, stood with his thanes by the fire,
thinking : suddenly he took off his sword, gave it to a thane,
and threw himself at Aidan's feet, entreating him not to be
angry : ' Never again will I say a word about this, or judge
as to what or how much of our money you bestow on sons
of God.' Aidan was astonished, even awe -struck : he rose,
and lifted up the sensitive prince, assuring him that he was
not at all angry, that all would be right if he would but sit
down to his meal and cease to distress himself. Oswin's
face brightened, and he obeyed * : but then it was Aidan's
turn to be sad, and his tears began to flow. The priest who
sat by him, a ' Scot ' like himself, asked him in Irish, so that
no one else understood, what was the matter. ' The matter
is,' replied Aidan, 'that I am sure the king will not live
long. I never till now saw a king humble ^,' or perhaps,
* so humble. It is in my mind that he will soon be hurried
out of this life; for this people does not deserve to have
such a ruler.'
Murder of The forebodiuff was soon verified : Deira did lose Oswin.
Occasions of jealousy between two princes, situated as he
and Oswy were *, could not be wanting ; it was inevitable
that Oswy should be bent on reigning over all Northumbria
without a rival, as his brother had done; at last, under
what circumstances we know not, the smouldering fires
blazed out into war. But before the two hosts had met,
Oswin ascertained that the Bemician king, who was by this
time growing into greatness, had more * auxiliaries ' than he
•
^ Higden, miBunderstanding this 'filius Dei,' tums it into 'Filius
Mariae' ; PolychroDicon, b. 5 (^vol. vi. p. 71).
^ The story, which appears quite genuine, shows a want of good sense
on tlie one side, and an excess of docility on the other. Oswin's objection
to the disproportionateness of the gift was not really met by a rejoinder
which would make a virtue of indiscriminate generosity.
^ * Nunquam enim ante haec vidi humilem regem,' or, ^ tarn humUem.'
' Bede, iii. 14 : *■ Scd nee cum eo,' &c. Above, p. 179.
Honours to his memory. 187
could muster. He therefore resolved ' to give up his inten- chap. v.
tion of fighting, and to reserve himself for better times.
He broke up his army ' at Wilfaresdun, a hill about twelve
miles north-west of Catterick, and, accompanied by one
faithful thane ^ named Tondhere, ' turned aside ' to seek
refuge in the house of a * count ^ named Hunwald,' whom he
believed to be most friendly to him : ' but, alas I it was far
otherwise.' Hunwald betrayed the fugitives to Oswy, who
sent his * reeve ^ ' Ethelwin to put Oswin and his companion
to death, at Gilling, on the 20th of August, 651. This was
the one crime of Oswy 's life ; he gave some token of speedy
repentance by granting the request * of his wife Eanfled,
the daughter of Ekiwin and * kinswoman ' of Oswin, that he
would give to Trumhere, a Northumbrian priest akin to
Oswin in blood, but of Scotic training and ordination, land
for a convent on the spot of the murder, where ' prayers ^
might be offered for the souls both of the slain man and
of him who ordered him to be slain.' The corpse of the
former was buried at Tynemouth, where a chapel of
St. Mary had already been built, and where, soon after-
wards, one monastery, if not two, arose*. In later days,
* * Cum uno iantuin milite : ' Alfred rondel's, ' thegn.' Gp. Bede, ii. 9,
' alium de militibus,' used as equivalent to ^ ministris ' ; also iii. i, Eanfrid's
twelve chosen * milites ' ; and iv. 93, ' timuit se militem . . . confiteri ; '
V. 13, 'in officio militari;' and iv. 13, H. Abb. i, £p. £gb. 6. Above,
p. 199.
* 'Comitis,' a 'gesith'; so Alfred renders. Cp. Bede, i. 25, Ethelbort
with his comites ; iii. 99, the two comites who slew Sigebert ; iv. 29,
* comitem Aedilredi ;' v. 4, 5, the comites Puch and Addi.
' ' Praefectum suum ; ' probably the manager of the royal property, the
officer who was to do justice between the king's tenant-s : see Kemble,
ii 169, on the king's reeve. The legend of St Oswin calls Ethelwin the
steward of Oswy's household. Cp. Ep. Egb. 7 ; Vit. Guthb. 15.
* Bede, iii. 94 : *■ Nam regina,' &c. Oswy's private life was not spot-
less ; he had an illegitimate son, Aldfrid, afterwards king.
^ Bede, 1. c, ' orationes . . . pro . . . salute ;* and iii. 14, ' pro . . .
animae redemptione.' Op. Bede, Vit. Guthb. 7, and the charter of Ethel-
ward, Kemble's God. Diplom. i. 64 ; of Forthere, ib. i. 73 ; of Ethelbald,
ib. 1. 89 ; and Wilfrid in Eddi's Life, c. 6a. After Trumhere the house of
Gilling seems to have had for superiors Kynefrid and Tunbert ; Anon.
Hist of Abbots of Jarrow, in Bede's Works, vi. 416 (Giles).
* Cp. Bede, v. 6, for Herebald, abbot of the monastery near the mouth
of the Tyne when Bede wrote. See Vit. Guthb. 3, 35, for the house firet
of monks, then of nuns, ' non longe ab ostio Tini,' but * ad meridiem/ and
i88 Nunneries in Northumhria.
CRAP. V. after the desolation caused by the Northmen had been
repaired, and the bones of the 'humble king' had been
opportunely discovered \ a Norman monastery rose up on
the cliff, where the ruins of a later church, in the delicate
grace of ' First- Pointed ' architecture, overlook the ocean,
and witness to the days when *the Peace of St. Oswin'
gave security to fugitives who came within a mile of hia
tomb*.
This tragedy had some effect in shortening the days of
Aidan. He had continued to be on good terms with Oswy :
he had held communications with Utta, the head of a
monastery at Gateshead, who was charged to ask in
Oswy's name for the hand of Edwin's daughter, then
in Kent ^ ; and he had invited Edwin's grand-niece Hilda
from East-Anglia ^ into Northumbria, where, after * dwelling
for a year, with a very few companions, on the north bank
of the Wear, she became in 649 the superior of a nunneiy
near Hartlepool ^, from whence the abbess Heiu, the first
of all Northumbrian women to receive the monastic habit
from Aidan's own hand, had retired to another ' abode ' at
Tadcaster *. Hilda's rule at Hartlepool was formed by the
best lessons that she could gain from ' learned men ' ; and it
was one of Aidan's special pleasures to visit her, and to give
instructions that met with full response from a mind natur-
ally thoughtful, and a will devoted to the service of God '.
But earthly sorrows and earthly solaces were soon to be
distinct from Herehald's. Smith places it on the Scottish Tjnew For
legends as to the first foundation at Tynemouth, see Honast. Angl. iii. 30a ;
Gibson, Monast. of Tynemouth, i. la.
' The discovery took place in 1065 (Florence), and a monastery was
founded soon afterwards. The bones were for a time kept at Jarrow.
* Gibson, i. 34. See above, p. IQ3.
' See Bede, iii. 15, 95. Gateshead, * Ad caprae caput,' is Goatshead.
* Bede, iy. 33.
* <Heruteu, id est, Insula Gervi,' Bede, iiL 24 (as if * Hart-ey '). Hie
cemetery of the nunnery was discovered in 1833, under a field ; see
Murray's Durh. and Korthamb. p. 115.
* Bede, iv. 23 : * Deinde ab Aidano/ &c. < Calcaria,' a Roman station
on the Wharfe, called by the English * Kjslcaoeaster ' (Tadcaster \ Heiu's
nunnery was probably at Healaugh (Heiu's Ing, or territory), three miles
north of Calcaria.
^ Bede, iv. 33 : * Praelata autem . . . nam et episcopua Aidan,' Ae.
Death of St. Atdan. 189
over for the holy bishop. It was about twelve days from chap. v.
the murder of Oswin ^ that he Was staying at a royal * viD ^^^.?^
near Bamborough, from whence he had often made preach-
ing circuits ^ An attack of illness, it seems, came on so
suddenly that he could not be taken into his bedroom, but
was laid on the ground, screened by an awning, and sup-
ported by a wooden buttress that propped the church's
western end ^. In this position, significant of his habitual
detachment from worldly interests *, he breathed his last on
the 31st of August, 651. The little village which now
represents 'the burgh of queen Bebba* is less really
ennobled by its grand castle, and its associations with
Northumbrian royalty and with a modem prince-bishop's
munificence, than by the fact that, in visiting its interesting
church*, we stand upon the ground where Aidan died
' Bede, iii. 14 : ' Sed et ipse antisies,' &c.
' Bede, iii. 17 : ' Hunc cum dies mortis,' &c
' This buttress escaped unhurt in two fires (one caused by Penda's
invasion) ; on the second occasion the holes by which it was fixed to the
church were burnt through ; Bede, iiL 17. The church itself was
evidently of wood.
* See Kingsley's Hermits, p. 391. The touching phrase of the Irish
annals is very appropriate in this case : *■ Quies Adani episcopi Saxonum ;'
Tighernach. See too the story of Outhbert*s vision in Bede, Vit Outhb. 4.
^ It is dedicated in honour of St. Aidan.
CHAPTER VI.
Prepara-
tions for
organiza-
tion.
Finnn at
Lindis-
fame.
As yet we have not been able to speak of one organized
Church for Saxons and Angles. The period now imme-
diately before us exhibits a threefold process of preparation
for such an unity. We shall see missions extending over
a wider extent of country : we shall see the resisting force
of Paganism gathering itself up, and sinking back paralyzed :
we shall see the removal of the difference which practically
kept Christians of one class from coalescing with Christians
of the other.
Let us begin by looking at the several bishoprics, as they
were occupied at the close of 651. Honorius was still at
Canterbury, connecting the Kentish Church in his own
person with the generation that had sat at Gregory's feet.
He had seen much more than he had taken part in : he had
had little to do, personally, in the extension of the Church,
beyond the consecration of Ithamar for Rochester and of
I'homas for Dunwich. The East- Anglian mission might,
in one sense, be traced to his suggestion of that sphere for
the activities of Felix: with the work in Wessex he had
had nothing to do, although Kent lay near to the eastern
line of that kingdom. Agilbert was carrying on the work
of Birinus in entire independence of Canterbury. The
archbishop could not regard him as a suffragan ; the only
two bishops with whom Honorius had any close relations
were Ithamar and Thomas. As we have seen, he had
heartily respected Aidan ; but they did not come near each
otlier in any effective sense. And now, in Aidan's place,
there was come from Hy ^ a bishop named Finan, who was
1 Bede, iii. 17, * et ipse . . . ab Hii . . . destinatus ; ' ib. iiL 25, ' a Soottis
ordlnatua ac missus.' The consecration of Finan must have been per-
Finafiy Bishop of Lindisfarne. 191
destined to be in one respect more closely connected with chap. vi.
* South-country ' Church life than Aidan had ever been, but
who, although a good man, did not possess those rare
qualities which made all men acknowledge in Aidan a
living saint. We gain some notion of the extremely humble
aspect of Aidan's own church at Lindisfarne by observing
that when Finan arrived, he found it desirable to build
a church * suitable to the episcopal see ^, and constructed it,
in the Scotic fashion, not of stone, but entirely of hewn
oak, with a covering of reeds,' for which a later bishop,
named Eadbert, substituted sheets of lead. Soon after
Finan's arrival, the Paschal question was again revived,
by the anti-Scotic zeal of some who came from Gaul or
from Kent. Among these was one whose Irish birth must 1
have rendered him very obnoxious to the Scotic clergy,
* a very ardent upholder of the true Elaster,' named Ronan'^,
who had studied in Gaul or Italy, and would appear to his
own countrymen as little better than an apostate. He hesi-
tated not to enter into controversy with Finan. The debate,
says Bede, ' brought many to right views, or impelled them
to a more diligent inquiry as to the truth. But Bonan
could by no means convert Finan : on the contrary, as he
was a man of rough temper^, by sharp language he em-
bittered him further, and made him an open adversary of
the truth.' If Finan had such a temper, it must be allowed
that he was somewhat severely tried by such objurgations
on the part of an inferior, especially when he found that
formed by a Scotic bishop, or bishope, at Uy, as Aidan's had been.
Tighemach calls him son of Rimed (a. 660). We meet with an Irish
monk named Finan in Adamn. L 49 ; and we know of the Finnians of
Clonard and Moville, both of whom were teachers of Columba.
* Bede, iii. 25 : ' Qui in insula Lindisfarnensi fecit ecclesiam,' &c. See
Lingard, A.-S. Oh. ii. 369; and Reeves's Adamnan, p. 177, 'The walls
were made of wooden sheeting, which was protected from the weather
outside by a coat of rush thatch.' See above, p. 166.
"* Bede, iii. 95 : ' Krat in his acerrimus veri Paschae defensor/ &c
' ' Quod esset ferocis animi.' Lanigan, from the use of ' acerrimus '
and 'castigando/ inclines to refer ' ferocis animi ' to Ronan, although he
admits that the context seems to favour an allusion to Finan ; ii 437.
See Grub, Eccl. Hist. Sc i. 83 : * Finan was deficient in the gentle and
winning temi>er ' which Aidan had shown, but 4n other respects was an
admirable prelate.'
192 Paschal Question revived.
CHAP. VI. James the Deacon, now venerable from years as well as
from self-devotion, had made proselytes to the foreign
system, and that the queen Eanfled and her Kentish
chaplain Bomanus were using influence on the same side.
Was it come to this, Finan might ask, that Bonan was to
be in Northumbria what Cummian had been in Munster,
the means of discrediting the usages of his native Church ?
As yet, Oswy was faithful to his own training among the
Scots ; but how long would he resist domestic pressure, and
an array of Gallic or Roman authorities? Tlie inconveni-
ence of the discordant reckonings came practically to the
front when, on one occasion, Oswy was keeping his Easter-
day with Finan, while Eanfled and her attendants were
observing their ' day of Palms ^' It was a visible dis-
crepancy such as had occurred when some Gallic churches
in 577 differed from the rest by a whole month as to the
reckoning of Easter ^ or when some Irish visitors to Rome
found that their fellow-lodgers, a Jew, a Greek, a * Scythian,'
and an Egyptian, went to St Peter's for the Easter service
while they were keeping a Lenten Sunday at home '. In
effect, this curious duplication of Easters in one royiJ
household might illustrate the unseemliness of such a want
of Paschal uniformity as was deprecated, after the Nicene
Council, in a letter professing to be from Constantine
himself ^ Doubtless, it prepared the way for a decisive
contest between the Scotic and ' Catholic ' parties ; but
Finan succeeded in preventing any open breach, as long as
he occupied the see.
Conver- There was, indeed, matter of interest far worthier to
Peada. ^'^g*?® ^^® attention of Northumbrian Churchmen. The
Mid- Angles*, as Eede calls them, who dwelt between
' Bede, iii. 25 : ^ £t cum rex Pascha IXominicuiii aolutis jejuniia
faoeret,' fto.
' See above, p. 89. Later, in 633, the fourth Toledan Coaneil refers,
o. 5 (Mansi, x. 618), to the mistakes eaused in S|Mtin, as to Easter, by
' diyersa observantia latereulorum.'
* Gammian's Fp. to Segenius,' fte. in Usher, SjIIoge, p. 93 ; King's
Hist. Ch. Ireland, i. 163. * Ens. Yit Con. iii. 18 ; Soc i. 9.
* Bede, t 15 ; iii. ar ; iv. la. He distinguishes them as ' Hidland
Angles ' from the Heix^ians of the Welsh. See Green, Making of Engl,
p. 998 : * The Middle English or Leioester-men.'
Conversion of Peada. 193
the Trent and the Bedford district, had been placed by the chap. vi.
Mercian king under the government of his son Peada, * an
excellent youth/ says Bede, * most worthy of the title and
character of a king^.' His father allowed him to visit
Northumbria on a peaceful errand, during some cessation
of his own frequent inroads on its border^. Peada re-
quested the hand of Alchfled, the daughter of Oswy and
Eanfled. Oswy replied as Eadbald had replied to Edwin's
suit for her grandmother Ethelburga : * I cannot give my
child to a heathen. If you would , wed her, you must
accept the faith of Christ, and baptism, — you and the
people under your rule/ Peada was disposed to listen to
Christian teaching : he had been impressed by the conver-
sation of Alchfrid son of Oswy, a prince who, though he
became disloyal as a son, had a deep sense of religion and
a strong love of learning, and who had married Peada's
sister Kyniburga, one of those five children of the fierce
old heathen conqueror who were afterwards canonized as
saints ^ The promise of ' a resurrection, of a heavenly
kingdom, of future immortality,' spoke to the heart of the
young Mercian *. * I will be a Christian,' he said emphati-
cally, * whether I obtain the maiden or not.' Once more, as
in the case of Oswald the son of Ethelfrid, 'out of the
strong came forth sweetness;' and the heir of Penda's
realm was baptized by Finan ^ ' in the well-known royal
^ Bede, iii. ai : ^ Qui cum esset juvenis optimus,' &c. Malmesbury calls
him Weda ; O. R. i 75.
* Bede, iii. 24 : ' Acerbas atque intolerabiles . . . irruptiones . . . regis
Merciorum.' Cp. iii. 16, 17.
' Ethelred (who however, as king, destroyed Kentish monasteries in
his invasion of Kent), Merewald (himself the father. of four ^saints'),
Merchelm, Kyniburga, Slineswith. Kyniburga, in her widowhood, ruled
a religious house at Oaistor (Kyniburgacaster) ; see Alb. Butler, March 6.
'Nearly all Penda's children and grandchildren died in the odour of
sanctity;' Stubbs on Foundation of Peterborough, p. 7. Gp. Florence,
App. and a. 675. Wilburga, another daughter of Penda, was the mother
of St. Osyth. For St. Werburga see below, p. 207.
* ' At ille audita/ &c. ; Bede, iii. az. Compare the speech of the thane
in Bede, ii. 13, and ' promissis eorum suavissimis/ i. a6; and 'caelestia
sperare,' iv. 13 : see too St. Boniface's fifteenth sermon, ' Ibi est vita cum
Deo sine morte, lux sine tenebris,' &c.
^ The renunciations made at baptism (see Bede, iii. 19) are here referred
to : ^ abreuuntiata sorde idololatriae ' (cp. iii. i).
0
194 Mission to Mid-Angles.
CHAP. VI. town called At-the-Wall/ which has been identified vari-
ously with Walton, Walbottle, and again with Pandon,
a place of immemorial antiquity, now included within
Newcastle ^. Finan then commissioned four priests, three
of whom, Cedd, Adda*, and Betti, were Northumbrians,
and the fourth, Diuma, was an Irishman, to accompany
Peada home, and to evangelize his Mid-Angles. Thus
was formed the first mission to the Midlands, in 653.
The priests, 'being well qualified fOr their work by
learning and by character, were willingly heard ; and day
by day many of the nobles and of the lowest people
renounced the filth ^ of idolatry, and were washed in the
fountain of faith*.' But they also ventured into Mercia
proper ; and its old king, while for himself he held fast to
his old gods, was yet so far softened by age as to ofier no
opposition to their preaching, and also shrewd enough to
note some cases of Christian profession discredited by
inconsistent practice, and honest enough to fling at them
a few words of contemptuous disgust. * The mean wretches,
who have put their faith in this new God, and then will
not trouble themselves to obey him * ! ' This speech,
the only one recorded of Penda, betokens a healthy vein of
thoroughness, which would incline him to respect Christian
belief when represented by men who lived up to their
creed.
Second Another very important step taken by the Northumbrian
the East- Church at this time was the second mission to the East-
Saxons, Saxons. It was thirty-seven years after the expulsion of
Mellitus when Sigebert the Good ^, as he is called, successor
^ Bede says it was 'twelve miles from the eastern (i.e. the "north")
sea ' ; iii. aa. Bat Newcastle is nine-and-a-half miles from the mouth of
the Tyne, and Pandon is still nearer to it.
' He was the brother of Utta (see p. 188), who, acting on Aidan's
advice, poured oil on waves in a storm, with a success which Bede thought
supernatural ; iii. 15. Gp. above, p. 73.
' Op. Bede, iii. i ; and iii. 30, 'in perfidiae sordibus.'
* Bede, iii. ai ; cp. iv. 16, 'fonte Salvatoris ablutos.' Aliove, p. 116.
* Bede, iii. ai : ' Quin potius odio habebat,' &c These men were con>
foi mists to the faith of his heir as such.
Bede, iii. aa : ' Erat enim rex,' &c. Florence surely inrarts too many
generations between him and Sabert's brother (tom. i. pw 350),
Conversion of Sigebert of Essex. 195
of that Sigebert the Little who had succeeded his father chap. vi.
and uncles in 617, paid one of his * frequent * visits to his
friend King Oswy, and profited by his host's exhortations
as Sabert had done by those of Ethelbert, as Eorpwald by
those of Ekiwin. The passage in which Bede summarizes
the Northumbrian king's pleading against idolatry is one
of the finest in his book : it reads like a combination of the
arguments of prophets and psalmists with those grand
words in which Tacitus compresses the case for Mono-
theism ^. Surely, said Oswy, Sigebert would understand
that a God could not be made out of wood and stone, the
remnants of which were burned, or fashioned into household
vessels, or even thrown away, tix)dden under foot, and turned
into earth ^. Surely ' He alone could be thought of as God,
who was incomprehensible in majesty, invisible to human
eyes, almighty, eternal, the Creator and Ruler and righteous
Judge of the universe, whose eternal abode was not in poor
perishable metal, but in heaven, where eternal rewards were
in store for all those who would learn and do their Maker s
will/ Such ideas, * frequently inculcated with the earnest-
ness of a friend or even a brother,' told fully upon Sigebert :
he consulted with the ' friends ' who had accompanied him
to the north, took his own resolution, advised them to join
with him ; and after they had all ' assented to the faith,' he
and they were baptized at the same place and by the same
hands as Peada, and apparently in the autumn of the same
year 653. lake Peada, Sigebert asked for a supply of
Christian teachers, to convert and baptize his people : and
Oswy summoned ^ Cedd from his work among the Mid-
Angles, and sent him to preach to the East-Saxons, in
company with another priest. They traversed that king-
^ Gp. Tac Hist. v. 5 : ' Judaei mente sola onumque niunen intelUgunt,'
* Boniface y also assumes the identification of the image with the god ;
Bede, iL 10. Oswy, indeed, — or Finan speaking through Oswy, — reverses
the taunt of Isa. xliv. 17. It is not that * the residue ' of the wood used for
household purposes is ' made a god,' but that when enough material has
been used for the image, the ' bits remaining over' would be burned, or
thrown away, or ' formed into vessels of any sort.'
' * Clamavit ad se ; ' Bc^de, iii. aa ; so in iiL 93, iv. 8, 14, 19, and v. 3.
O 2
196 Cedd^ Bishop of East-Saxons^
.HAP. vL dom, and * gathered together a large Church ' : and ere
long, probably in 654, Cedd ' happened to return home and
visit Lindisfame to converse with Bishop Finan, who, on
learning how the work of the Gospel had prospered with
him, made him bishop for the race of the East-Saxons,
having called in two other bishops to assist him in the
ordination.' These two prelates must have been Scoto-
Celtic — a fact which gives special significance to Bede s
I'tdd, next words: 'Cedd, having received the degree of the
th^E^t-^ episcopate, returned to his province, and, fulfilling with
Saxous. greater authority the work which he had begun, made
churches in difierent places/ It would have been impos-
sible for Bede to write thus, had he suspected that there
was the slightest real flaw in the episcopal chai*acter of
Finan or of the two other Scotic consecrators, although he
knew the two latter to be subject to the authority of the
abbot of Hy, as primate of the Scottish Church; and from this
one passage ^ we might confidently infer that actual bishops
had been employed, in Scotland, to confer the episcopate on
Aidan and Finan. Let us now follow Cedd in his mission-
cireuits amongst the East-Saxons. ' He built churches, and
ordained presbyters and deacons to assist him in preaching
and in baptizing, especially in that city which in the Saxon
tongue is called Ythancaestir, but also in that which is called
Tilaburg ; the former of these places is on the bank of the
river Pent, the latter on that of the Thames.' In this
sentence of Bede's we observe, first, a foreshadowing of the
parochial system, — wliich, however, grew up very gradually
in England, and was by no means thoroughly established
in Northumbria in the last years of Bede's own life ^ : and
secondly, the absence of the name of London, which is
* Bishop Russell uses it ' to expose the absurdity of those writers who
imagine that the monks of lona were hostile to episcopacy,' and to
warrant ' the conclusion that Aidan, Finan, and Golman were consecrated
by bishops ; ' Hist. Ch. Sc. i. 34. So Grub, Eocl. Hist. Sc. i. 155. See above,
p. 156. Observe also the presence of three consecrators.
' Bede, Ep. ad £gb. 3 : ' Necessarium satis est, ut plures tibi sacri
operis adjutores adsciscas, presbyteros videlicet ordinando . . . qui in sin-
gulis viculis praedicando . . . adsistant.' That the system had no founder,
but grew up naturally out of the relation of the priests to townships, see
Bp. Stabbs, Const. Hist. L a6a See Add. Notes, F.
reclaims them to Christianity. 197
probably to be explained by the ffiwit that the great city was chap. vi.
' fluctuating between the condition of an independent com-
monwealth and that of a dependency of the Mercian kings ^!
Strictly speaking, therefore, Cedd seems not to have been
bishop of London ^ : and of the two places named by Bede
as centres of his mission work, ' Ythancsestir ' appears to have
a precedence over Tilbury. It has been placed near Brad-
well-on-the-sea, at the mouth of the Blackwater, formerly
called the Pent, and has also been identified with the Roman
station of Othona ^. Tilbury, which is familiarly associated
with the Spanish Armada, would have the advantage of
being near the mouth of the Thames. At each of these
two places Cedd established not only a body of clergy, but
also a * swarm of servants of Christ */ or monks : whom he
taught to observe * the discipline of the regular life,' — that
is, the monastic system of the Scotic Church, — ' as far as
their untrained minds could receive it,' — a phrase which is
suggestive of some such austerity as we know to have
characterized the rule of Columban. Yet, stem as this dis-
cipline may have been, the East-Saxon monks heartily
loved their bishop: witness the touching story* of thirty
brethren of * his monastery,' — probably that of Ythancester,
— who, on hearing of his death and burial in Northumbria,
came all the way into Yorkshire in order either to live
or die beside his grave, and in fact did all die there of
the then raging pestilence, save one little boy, long after-
wards ' useful ' as a priest ^. Thus, for some years, all went
well in Essex : Christianity regained its hold on the people,
or, as Bede phrases it, ' the teaching of the heavenly life
received a daily increase, to the joy of the king and amid
the- sympathy of his subjects ^.' But Cedd could not be
satisfied without periodical visits to his native North-
^ Freeman, i. 94. Palgrave, £. C. p. 414 : ^ Strictly speaking, we have
no proof that London ever formed part of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.'
' Florence, indeed, calls him so, a. 6ai.
' Camden, Britannia, i. 411 ; Horsley, Brit. Rom. p. 487.
* Bede, iii 92 : ^ fkmulorum Ghristi,' used technically.
* Bede, iii. 23 : ^ Cum ergo episcopum defunctum,' &c
* See below, p. 201, on children in monasteries.
' Bede, iii. 22 : *■ Camque tempore non pauco,' &c.
198 Foundation of Lastingham.
ruAp. VI. country, in order to preach to his own folk * : and one of
his three brothers, a priest named Caelin, comes before us
as chaplain to Ethel wald ^ the son of Oswald, whom his
uncle Oswy permitted to act as sub-king in Deira. This
prince exhibits a strange combination of his father's devout
habits with a mean jealousy which impelled him into a
shameful treason ^ ; but the religious side of his nature
comes out in his relations with Cedd, who was introduced
to him by Caelin, and to whom, * seeing him to be a holy
and wise man, and approved in conduct/ he offered a piece
of land for the building of a monastery, whither he himself
might come * to pray and to hear the Word, and where he
might eventually be buried. For,' says Bede *, * he sincerely
believed that he would be greatly helped by the daily
prayers of those who would serve the Lord in that place.'
I'ouiida- Tlie site being left to Cedd's choice, he fixed upon a wild
Lasting- spot Under the Pickering hills *, where, says Bede, ^ there
liam. seemed to have been haunts of robbers and lairs of wild
beasts rather than dwellings of men/ This place was Last-
ingham, where Cedd, after the custom of Lindisfame, began
by hallowing the ground on which the building was to be
erected ^ : he asked leave of Ethelwald to spend a whole
^ Bede, iii. 23 : ' Solebat autem idem vir Domini/ ^.
^ Bede gives the name its rough North-country form, Oidilwald (ep.
V. i). CsBlin 'used to minister the word and the '^ sacramenta fidei*"
to him and to his household (familiae). The next words, ' for he was
a presbyter,' show that ^ sacramenta fidei ' means here the saoramenta or
other sacred rites of Christianity as connected with, and involring, the
faith, as in the Roman oonsecratlon-form the chalice is called ' mysterium
fidei.' On ' sacramentum ' see above, p. 126.
' This union of a certain kind or amount of piety with an utter want of
nobleness of character reminds us, in some measure, of Henry III. Some
such inconsistency may have existed in Alchfrid.
* ^ Nam et seipsum,' &c. Cp. iii. 24, * supplicandum pro pace gentia^'
' ' In montibus arduia ac remotis ; ' Bede, iii. 23. He applies the words
of Isaiah xxxv. 7, ^ In the habitation of dragons . . . shall be grass with
reeds and rushes,' — * that is, the fruit of good works should spring up in
the place where formerly beasts had their haunts, or men lived like
beasts.' Gomp. Bede, iv. 3, and Praef. Lastingham lies in an amphi-
theatre of hills. See Waymarks in Church History, p. 287.
* See above, p. 167. Bede mentions the dedication of churches in iiL
7, 8, and v. 24: but these passages refer to the Roman rite which had
grown up (out of the ' deposition ' of relics) in the latter part of the sixth
Death of Archbishop Honorius. 199
Lent there, * fasting on all week days until evening, when ^iap. vi.
he took an egg, a morsel of bread, and a little milk and
water. For he said that this was the usage of those from
whom he had learned the rule of regular discipline/ When
ten days of this Lent still remained, he was summoned to
the king; but his brother Kynibil, who was also 'his
presbyter *,' completed the series of prayers and fasts, and
a monastery after the Scotic type^ was founded at
Lastingham, — the first church being built of wood.
Such was the tenor of Cedd's episcopal life. It began
when the see of Canterbury was vacant by the death of
Honorius, which is dated by Bede on the 30th of September,
653 ^ : and the vacancy continued until the 26th of March,
655, when a signal testimony was borne by King Erconbert
and his advisers, and by the clergy and monks of Canter-
bury, to the reality of that Church-work of Birinus with
which Canterbury had had no concern whatever. A Wessex
man called Frithona, the first * Saxon ' successor of Augus-
tine, was consecrated* by Ithamar of Rochester alone,
without the assistance of Bertgils, or Boniface as he called
himself, who had succeeded Thomas at Dunwich in 652,
and who, as a bom Kentishman, would feel a special
interest in the consecration of an archbishop ^ ; but
perhaps the journey from the distant sea-port in Suffolk
was too inconvenient at that time. Frithona imitated
Bertgils by adopting the name of Deusdedit *, which had
been borne by a Pope from 6i5to6i8'^, and w'hich, while
intended as an equivalent for ' Theodore,' somewhat reminds
century (Duchesne, Origines du Gulte, &c., p. 39a). The long fast before
a Sootie dedication was oharacteristic.
^ Compare 'presbyter suus' in iii. 14. Above, p. 186.
' * He regulated it . . . according to the usages of Lindisfame,' Bede.
^ Bede, iii. ao : * Et ipse quoque Honorius/ &c.
* Bede, iii. ao : < Electus est . . . Deusdedit, de gente Occidentalium
Sazonum.' Elmhazn gives his original Saxon name ; H. Men. S. Aug.
p. 19a.
' Bede, iii. ao, ' de provincia Gantuariorum.' Cp. iv. 5.
* An Irish missionary in Picardy, named Fricor, * changed his name
into Adrian, as more pleasing to his auditors;' Lanigan, ii. 44a. So
Succat became *Patricius,' Willibrord 'Clement,' Winfrid 'Boniface,'
Eddi < Stephen,' Biscop * Benedict.'
* Also by an archbiahop of Milan in Gregory's time ; Greg. Ep. xiii. 30.
200 Death of King Anna.
CHAP. VI. US, by its very awkwardness, of that singular anticipation
of Puritanic names which we find in the ancient African
Church ^. Under Deusdedit, as under Honorius, the arch-
bishopric continued to be little else than a high dignity
shut up within a narrow area: except for its hold upon
East-Anglia, it had no practical eflFect on the general life
and work of the Church : it was like a great force lying
dormant until the epoch that was to wake it into
energy.
Death of The year of Cedd's consecration, also distinguished by the
vacancy at Canterbury, was tragically marked by another,
and the last, of Penda's fatal victories. Anna had mortaJly
oflFended him by sheltering Kenwalch : and he now fell on
the East> Anglians ' like a wolf on timorous sheep, so that
Anna and his host were devoured by his sword in a moment,
and scarcely a man of them survived.' Such is the vivid
account of Henry of Huntingdon *. The conqueror allowed
Ethelhere, Anna's brother, to reign as his vassal, and
employed him, in some way unexplained, to give occasion
for another Mercian invasion of Northumbria in the follow-
ing year, 655 ^. Oswy had done his utmost to propitiate
Penda: beside the double alliance between their houses*,
* he had placed another son, Egfrid, as a hostage in the
hands of the Mercian queen Kynwise * ; ' he now offered to
purchase peace with a gift of royal ornaments, 'greater
than can be believed ^.' All was in vain : Penda was
resolved, this time, to * make sure ' work : having again
' Adeodatus, son of St. Augustine ; AdeodatuR, Habetdeus, and Quod-
vultdeus, in the oonferenoe of Carthage ; Deogratias, bishop of Garthiige.
We also meet with a deacon Donadeus in Numidia in the time of
Gregory the Great ; £p. zii. 8.
' Hen. Hunt. ii. 33. See Bede, iii. 18 : * Anna . . . qui et ipse,' &c.
Thomas of Ely says that Anna's body was in later days transferred to
Beodricsworth, now Bury St. Edmunds (Angl. Sacr. i. 595^
' Bede, iii. 24 : 'In quibus ^dilheri, . . . auctor ipse belli,' &a
* Thus—
Penda Oswy
I I
^ -I
I Peada -» Alchfled |
Kyniburga « Alohfrid
' Bede, iii. 24 : ' Nam alius Alius ejus Ecgfrid/ &e.
* ^ Innumera et majora quam oredi potest ornamenta regia,' ftc.
Pendas last attack on Northnmbria. 201
crossed the Northumbrian border, he would not turn back, chap. vr.
as in 633 or 642, until he had annihilated Northumbria as
a kingdom, or, a.s Bede says, had * exterminated the whole
people, small and great.' His host is described in terms Battle of
which remind us of the Syrian Benhadad's : thirty chiefs fieid.^*
of princely rank ^, including, it seems, the East-Anglian
king, were serving under his banner ; and Oswy's much
smaller force was diminished by the deaei-tion of Ethel wald,
who, through some personal grudge, was alienated from * his
uncle and his country/ and stained his father's memory by
' acting as guide to the invaders/ although, at the last
moment, either compunction or cowardice restrained him
from giving them his aid^. Thus the odds which Oswy
had to face appeared indeed desperate. He had recourse to
his religion : * If the Pagan will not accept our gifts, let as
oflFer them to Him who will — the Lord our God^:' and
vowed that if he should be victorious, he would dedicate
his daughter Elfled, a babe of a year old, to the monastic
life '*, and give twelve pieces of land for building as many
^ *Triginta legiones ducibus nobilissimia instnictafl . . . Duces regii
triginta qui ad auxilium venerant,' Bede, I. c. ' Cynebearna,' Ghron. See
8tubbs, Const. Hist. i. i86, 198 ; Grten, Making of Engl. p. 301.
' See Lingard, H. £. i. 96. Bede takes the unfavourable view, ' even-
tum . . . tuto in loco exspectabat.'
* * Si Paganus, inquit, nescit aecipere nostra donaria, offeramus ei qui
novit, Domino Deo nostra/ Bede, 1. e.
^ The special case of Samuel's dedication had come to be deemed a pre-
cedent The second council of Toledo in 531 had so far guarded the free
agency of persons devoted in childhood to * clerical service,' as to excuse
them from proceeding to holy orders if at eighteen they expressed a desire
to marry. But the Benedictine movement encoui*aged parents to offer
their young children for monastic life, wrapping their little hands 'in
paUa altaris' (Beg. Bened. 59); and a feeling grew up which gained
expression in c. 49 of the fourth council of Toledo, ▲.!>. 633, ' Monitchum
aut patema devotio aut propria professio facit : quidquid horum fuerit,
alligatum tenebit,' no regard being had to the impossibility of ascertaining
in childhood any real aptitudes for an avowedly exceptional life. Thus
in Cedd's East- Saxon monastery there was a little boy who, on growing
up, found that he had never been baptized ; Bede, iiL 93 : .£sioa, a boy
of three, was bred up in the religious house of Barking (Bede, iv. 8) ;
and the sick boy at Selsey (iv. 14). Bede was ' given to abbot Benedict '
at seven (v. 94) ; Boniface entered a monastery about the same age ;
Willibrord, as an infant, was placed in Sipon monastery ; and Odelirius
so dedicated his son Ordericns Yitalis at ten (Ord. Vital, xiii. 45).
202 Battle of Winwidfield ;
<!if Ap. VI. religious houses. * Reljdng on Christ as their Leader ^/ he
and his son Alehfrid awaited the great crisis at a place
described by Bede as 'in the region of Loidis, near the
river Winwaed/ by Florence of Worcester as Winwidfield,
and by ' Nennius ' * as the Field of Gai. This last transfers
the scene to Scotland, and represents Oswy as taking refuge
in * a city called Judeu ' (which has been assumed to be the
* city of Giudi ' or Inchkeith) ^ and giving up his treasures
there to Penda, before he resolves to risk a battle. Hence
it has been supposed^ that Bede's ' Loidis' means Lothian,
as if Penda had pursued Oswy to the northern extremity of
the Northumbrian realm : and that the ' Winwaed ' means
the Avon in Linlithgowshire. We cannot reconcile this
with Bede's account ; we must assume that by ' Loidis,'
here as in the other passage in which he mentions it ^, he
means the Leeds district : and, as in regard to Edwin's
baptism, we have to choose between the great Northumbrian
historian and a W^elsh writer of the next century and of far
inferior authority, with a strong turn for patriotic romance ^.
Whatever was the spot, the armies met on the 15th of
November ; and the many were scattered before the few.
The terrible old man, who had slain so many, was himself
smitten down at last : and the same fate befell nearly all
' 'Perparvum . . . habens exercitum, sed Ghristo duce confisus.'
' G. 64 (ed. Stev.^ ; also the Annales Cambriae.
' Compare Bedo, i. la, placing * Giudi ' in the midst of the Firth of
Forth. Rhys, however, rejects the identification of Judeu with Giudi,
and thinks it may be a form of Edinburgh, Celt. Brit. pp. 133, 151.
^ Skene, Celtic Scotland, i. 954. Cp. Florence, < in Bemiciam.' See
too Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 133. He tries to reconcile Bede and the other
authorities by laying stress on Bede's * hoc helium rex . . . confecitj' as if it
meant that ajter the battle (in Scotland) * Oswin ended the war ' (in York-
ahire). But this is to strain Bede's language ; he is eyidently, in this
Kontence, referring again to the victory which he had already des^eribed
as an answer to the king's vow.
^ Bede, ii. 14. See above, p. 138. The Winwsed has been supposed to
be the Aire, or the Went. See Whitaker, Loidis and Elmete, p. 3.
* See Whitley Stokes, Tripart. Life, i. p. cxvii, on Nennius. What we
are told of Ethelwald and of Ethelhere suits better with a battle field in
Yorkshire ; so does Bede's expression that Oswy *■ met' the ' thirty legions
of Penda*8 host.' The tale which transforms their thirty commanders into
British kings, and makes them sbare in Oswy's surrendered treasazesy
way well have grown out of Welsh ^ nationalism.'
its historical importance. 203
his auxiliaries ^, including Ethelhere the Elast- Anglian *. chap. vt.
Again we recall the story of Hebrew warfare : the Winwaed,
swollen by autumnal rains, was to Penda's host what the
Kishon of old was to Sisera's ; it swept away * many more
in their flight than the sword had destroyed while fighting/
Hence came the saying which handed down the names of
the five kings whom Penda had slain, in connexion with his
own final overthrow : * In Winwaed stream were avenged the
slaughter of Anna, the slaughter of the kings Sigebert and
Egric, the slaughter of the kings Oswald and Edwin ^/ It
was a great day : it saved the independence of Northum-
bria, although it only arrested for some four years the
advance of Mercia to primacy among the kingdoms ; but
it was far more eventful in regard to higher interests, for
* with Penda fell Paganism as an organized secular force */ I ^
Since the battle of Winwidfield, no English ruling power
has formally disowned the faith of Christ.
Oswy lost no time in advancing the cause of that faith, Diuma,
not only by the punctual fulfilment of his vow as to the JjJ*^^^ ^^
twelve monasteries, and the consignment of the infant
Elfled to the care of Hilda at Hartlepool *, but by effectually
promoting the extension of Christianity throughout Mercia.
He retained in his own hands the government of Mercia
proper*: but the South Mercians, whom Bede describes as
^ Nennius says that <m$ of the British kings, Oatgabail, or Oadavael,
escaped, and so got the discreditable name of Catguommed, or ' Would-
not-fight.' Rhys thinks he was a rival of king Gadwalader, son of Gad-
wallon. Celt. Brit. p. 134.
' He was succeeded by his brother Ethelwald (Florence).
* Hen. Hunt ii. 34.
^ Milman, Lat. Chr. ii. 044. Compare Freeman, i. 37 ; and the some-
what less decided language of Kemble, i. 150.
* Bede, iii. 94 : *■ Tunc rex Osuiu, juxta quod Domino yoyerat/ &c.
The monastic communities then founded were to ' practise the heavenly
warfare instead of the earthly, and to pray for the eternal peace of that
nation.' On this use of ' warfare,' as if monastic life were (through its
continuous intercessory prayers) a specially thorough mode of ' fighting
the good fight,' see Bede, iii. 18, 19, 23 ; iv. 29.
* Bede, iii. ax : ' Ipso autem occiso/ &o., and iii. 24 : ' Idem autem rex
. . . Merciorum genti . . . praefuit.' Tliis is implied in Bede's words,
iii. 91, 'Cum Osuiu . . . regnum ejus acciperet,' &c., and iii. 94, *Quo
tempore donavit,' ftc. The Chronicle says, Peada became king of the
204 Mercian Bishopric founded.
<'HAP. VI. separated by the Trent from the North Mercians, and who*
were the same as those elsewhere called the Mid- Angles \
were placed as before under the viceroyalty of Peada ^ who
obtained a bishop for all the Mercians ^ in the * Scot ' Diuma,
already mentioned as one of the four priests sent home
with him by Finan in 653. The consecration of Diuma
must be dated at the beginning of 656 ; and immediately
afterwards, according to tradition, Peada * began to build
a monastery to the glory of Christ and St. Peter** at
a place called Medeshamstede, ' the dwelling-place in the
meadows/ where in the tenth century the town that had
grown up around this * first resting-place of Christianity in
central England * acquired the name of St. Peter's Borough.
But Peada, if, as is probable, he had a * share in the act ^,'
could do no more than plan this foundation, and select its
first abbot in the person of a monk named Saxulf, rich,
high-bom, devout, and widely esteemed, whom Bede calls
ivath of the builder of the monastery ®. A mysterious crime soon
blighted the hopes associated with the noble-spirited Peada.
He was murdered, * as they say, by the treachery of his own
wife,' the Northumbrian princess Alchfled "^j in the Blaster-
Mercians ; but this must lAean, of the South Mercians. See Palgrave,
p. cclxxvii.
^ See above, p. 192. Compare Bede, iii. 91, *■ Mediterraneorum Anglo-
rum/ and iii. 34, 'Austntlium Merciorum;' and Cod. Diplom. i. 96,
Ethel bald ' king not only of the Mercians, but of all the provinces which
are named generaUy South' Angles.' Qreen says that the old division of
Mercians into Northern and Southern ^ reappeared ' after ' the great
defeat ' ; p. 303.
^ Bede, iii. 34 : *Quo tempore donavit praefato Peadae,' &c. It was a
grant from his father's conqueror.
* For, says Bede, iii. 91, the paucity of bishops rendered it necessary
that one prelate should be set over ' duobus populis.' Diuma probably
fixed his seat at Bepton, an old seat of Mercian royalty.
* This is from a later addition to the Chronicle. A good deal of sach
matter was inserted for the honour of the abbey of Peterborough. See
Bede, iv. 6, for ^ Medeshamstedi in the country of the Gyrvians' (Pen-
men). See above, p. 181. See Smith's note in loc. and Mona^it. Angl.
i* 344 f Oreen, Making of England, p. 8a
* Stubbs on Foundation of Peterborough, p. 7 ; Haddan and Stnbbs,
iii. 100.
* * Constructor et abbas/ &e. ; Bede, iv. 6. He became bishop of Lich-
field in 675.
^ Bede, iii. 34 : ^ Sed idem Peada . . . proditione, ut dicunt, conjugis
Peada.
Murder of Sigebert the Good. 205
tide of 656 ^, or, according to the Chronicle, in 657. The chap. vr.
event was one of the nnmerouB tragedies which had warned
the Saxon and Anglian converts that neither the adoption
of Christianity as a creed, nor the most consistent Christian
goodness, were any security against misfortune and violent
death ^. And one more warning: of this sort was given Murder of
some time later in Essex. Bishop Cedd had excommuni- the Gowi.
cated a retainer and kinsman of Sigebert for obstinately
adhering to an unlawful marriage. The king, disregarding
the sentence ^, accepted an invitation to the offender's house,
but met witli Cedd on his return. Trembling, he leapt
from his horse, and knelt to the bishop for pardon: but
Cedd exhibited all the austerity of Columban. Touching
the king with a wand which he held, he predicted that
Sigebert would die in the very house where he had been
feasting with a reprobate man. And, in effect, this man
and his brother murdered Sigebert, and when questioned,
gave no other reason for the deed than that he had become
too ready to pardon and spare his enemies * ; a significant
indication of the irreconcilable opposition between the
Christian and the heathen- Saxon character. *The new
lore,' it would be said, * has made the king womanish, too
mild to rule over men.' Sigebert the Good was succeeded
by his brother Swidhelm*, who was baptized by Cedd
himself at Rendlesham in Suffolk. This royal baptism
exhibited the bishops of Essex and of East-Anglia as on
suae.' Bede was not likely to have a prejudice against Alchfled. Florence
adopts the story.
^ So it is usually dated. It happened, says Bede, ' proximo vere ' after
Oswy had given Peada *regnum australium Merciorum' ; which he did,
it seems, upon the death of Penda in November, 655.
> Compare Edwin, Oswald, Eorpwald, Sigebert the Learned, Oswin,
Anna.
* Ko one was to visit him or eat with him ; Bede, iiL 99. Cp. Diet.
Chr. Antiq. i. 640. For Oolumba's excommunication of some ' persecu-
tors of churches/ cp. Adamn. ii. 94.
* Bede, 1. c. : ' Quod ille nimium suis parcere soleret inimicis, et factas
ab eis injurias mox obsecrantibus placida mente demitteret' They were
' comites.' See above, p. 187. Perhaps the fierce propagandism of * St.
Olaf ' may have been connected with a resolution to show his people that
Christianity had not abated his vigour.
* After Swidhelm Essex became subject to Mercia.
2o6
St. Botulf.
CHAP. VI.
Cellach,
Bishop of
the Mer-
cians.
Revolt of
Mercians :
Wulfhere
king.
brotherly terms ; and Ethelwold, the East- Anglian king,
brother and successor of Ethelhere, acted as sponsor to the
East-Saxon, and ' received him as he came up out of the
holy font \' It was about two years since the East- Anglian
Christians had heard with interest of the foundation of
a monastery on the Gallic model among their neighbours
the northern 'Gyrvians* of South Lincolnshire. The
founder was Botulf; the place, Ikanho, is usually identi-
fied with ' Botulf s town ' or Boston, or with the neighbour-
ing village of Kirton. The foundation is dated in 654 ^
and King Anna's successor Ethelhere is said to have used
influence in its favour with a certain * South- Anglian ' king,
or rather sub-king, called Ethelmund, whose sisters Botulf
had met in Gaul, and who had some of Botulf s kinsmen in
his service. Botulf asked simply to have a piece of un-
occupied land given to him : his request was granted, and
he chose Ikanho because it was desolate. Monks gathereil
around him, to whom he gave a Rule compiled from ' old
and new ' authorities : the fame of his learning and piety
was wide-spread when, about 670, Ceolfrid, afterwards
abbot of Jarrow, paid him a visit ^.
The death of Peada did not arrest the mission-work in
South Mercia : Diuma ' in a short time won not a few to
the Lord, and died among the Mid- Angles in the country
called Inf eppingum '— a district which cannot now be
identified. He was succeeded by another ' Scottish ' or
Irish priest, named Cellach, who, like Diuma and like
Cedd, was consecrated by Finan. But * when three years
had elapsed from the slaughter of King Penda ^,' that is, at
earliest, at the close of 658, three Mercian chiefs revolted
against the direct government exercised by Oswy over
their country. Observe the irrepressible and manful
sympathy which the Northumbrian Bede here indicates
' See above, p. 170.
' Chronicle, and Florence. See the Life of St. Botulf in Act. SS. Bened.
aaec iii i. 4, and Alb. Butler, June 17.
' Anon. Hist, of Abbots of Jarrow, ap. Bed. ' Singularis vitae et
doctriuae virum,' &c. Cambridge has a church of St. Botulf.
* < Completis autem tribua annis,' &c. ; Bede, iii. 94. But the Chronicle
dates Wulfhere's accession in 657, Florence in 659,
Wulfhere^ King of Mercians. 207
for a patriotic movement against Northumbrian supremacy, ch^p- ▼»-
* They drove out the ealdormen of a king who was none of
theirs, and bravely regained at once their boundaries and
their freedom: they lifted up, as king, Wulfhere, son of
Penda, a young man whom they had been guarding in con-
cealment : and thus being free, with a king of their own,
they rejoiced to serve Christ the tnie King */ This is one
of the noblest sentences in Bede's History, and is the more
impressive because we have no evidence that Oswy had
played the tyrant over Mercia ; what was done, and what
Bede thus describes, was done pui'ely for the sake of
national independence. Thus chosen as a national monarch,
Wulfhere reigned vigorously ^ for seventeen years : he is
described as * the first king of the Mercians who received
the faith and the laver of holy regeneration ^l Peada having
been only under-king of part of Mercia. Wulfhere estab-
lished his supremacy over the East-Saxons, and reconquered
lindsey f ram Northumbria. He married Ermenild, daughter
of Erconbert of Kent; their daughter Werburga became
a directress of Mercian nunneries, and the minster of
Chester grew up around her shrine *. One of Wulf here's
brothers, named Merewald, ruled Hecana or Herefordshire *
^ Bede, iii. 24: 'Fines suos fortiter,' &c. Mark the word Mevato';
and see Kcmble, i. 154. Compare the lifting-up of Alario on a shield,
Qibbon, iy. 31. So the Neustrians proclaimed Sigebert in 575, < impositum
super clypeo ; ' Greg. Tur. iv. 5a. So the Spanish Visi-goths inaugurated
the leader of their host; Palgraye, Eng. Comm. p. 129.
' He * inherited his father's courage ' (virtutis) ; Hen. Hunt. ii. 34.
His reign finally put a stop to Northumbrian overlordship ; Green's
Making of Engl. p. 306.
' Florence, a. 675.
* For St. Werburh, or Werbuiiga, see Diet. Chr. Biogr. iv. 11 74, Feb. 3.
She died about 700. Seven of the churches dedicated to her are within
the old Mercian realm (one, for instance, at Derby) : tho other six have
been supposed to record ^strategic movements ' of the great Mercian king
Ethelbald in the next centui7, one being as remote as Plymouth Sound
(Kerslake, Vestiges of Supremacy of Mercia, reprinted from Transact, of
Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society). She was at first v
K nun at Ely. Her relics were probably carried to Chester during the \
Danish troubles.
' Kemble, i. 150 ; Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 198. Florence identifies the
Hecanas with the Magesetas, or Mffigsetan ^H. M. B. 631), whom Kemble
treats as a portion of them, i 8a
2o8 Church work under Wulfhere,
(HAP. vL as under-king, married Ermenburga the niece of Ereonbert,
and became the father of St. Mildred and two other
daughters, and of Merewin, a boy of remarkable piety ^.
Mcdes- The king: is credited with carrying: out the intentions of
* his brother as to Medeshamstede ; though the details of the
consecration of the minster and the speeches ascribed to
Wulfhere ^ are hardly more trustworthy than the later and
calumnious legend which represented him as killing his two
sons for turning Christians, and then, in penitence, building
the abbey of * Burgh ^' We do know that, in 659, he estab-
lished Trumhere, abbot of Gilling, in the Mercian bishopric,
when Cellach, probably in disgust at the separation of
Mercia from Northumbria, had 'abandoned the episcopal
office,* and returned to Hy, and thence to Ireland*.
Trumhere, though an Englishman, was of Scotic conse-
cration like his predecessors^; and so apparently was
Jaruman, who succeeded him in 662.
Agiibert Another abandonment of a bishopric took place in 660,
Wissex. under circumstances which give it considerable importance.
Agiibert had been successful as bishop of the West-Saxona
in all respects but one. It was from him probably that
Kenwalch learned to be zealous for the * Catholic Easter ^.'
But Agiibert had not acquired the Saxon tongue ; and
Kenwalch, who knew no other, became * weary of his
foreign dialect"^, and clandestinely introduced into the
^ Above, p. 193. Ermenburga, or Domneva, was daughter of the Kentish
sub* king Ermenred, a son of Eadbald, and sister of the princes Ethelred
and Ethelbert, slain by Thunor. Of her daughters. Mildred became
abbess of Minster, Milburga of Wenlock : a third was Mildgith.
'"* See them as insertions in Chron. a. 657. Cp. Kemble, it 343, and
Bp. Stubbs, Foundation of Peterborough, p. 7.
' This myth was set forth in stained glass along the western cloister of
Peterborough abbey ; Mon. Anglic i. 377. See the strange descriptive
verses, one couplet being,
'Wulfhere in woodiMSi his sword out drew,
And both his sons anon he slew.'
^ Bede, iii. ai : ' Beversus est ad insulam Hii, ubi plurimorum caput et
arcem Scotti habuere coenobium ; ' and iii. 24, ' vlvens ad Scottiam rediit.*
' Bede, iii. 94 : ' de natione quidem Anglorum,' &c.
• See Eddi, Vit. Wilfr. 7.
^ Bede, iii. 7 : * Tand^ m rex, qui Saxonum tantum linguam uoverat.
Agtlbert leaves IVessex. 209
province another bishop who spoke Saxon, named Wini, — chap. vi.
who himself also had been ordained in Gaul : and dividing
the province into two dioceses ' — here, as in other passages,
Bede uses * parochia ' in this its older sense ^ — * he assigned
to Wini an episcopal seat in the city of Winchester/ where
a minster had been hallowed twelve years before by
Birinus. ' Whereupon Agilbert, being highly olTended that
the king should do this without consulting him, returned
into Gaul, and having accepted the bishopric of the city
of Paris, died there an old man and full of days.' This
sentence gives an inaccurate impression; for we find
Agilbert four years afterwards in Northumbria, and Bede
speaks of him on that occasion as bishop of the West-
Saxons * ; and, moreover, the see of Paris in 660 and for
some time afterwards was filled by Chrodobert ^, and two
bishops intervened between him and Agilbert ^ ; so that the
latter's accession must be referred to a later period. The
inconsiderate arbitrariness of Kenwalch, in this transaction,
is what might be expected in a prince whose impatient
temper had not been subdued by his sufierings or his con-
pertaesus barbarae loquelae,* &c. Milner understands this of a mere
foreign pronunciation, Hist. Winch, i. 73 ; but Bede implies more.
* ' In duas parochias.' Comp. Bede, v. 18 : * in duas parochias ... ad
civitatis Ventanae parochiam.' See the second decree of the Council of
Hertford, Bede, iv. 5 ; and Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 29, 34, Ep. Egb. 8 ; and
Boniface, Ep. 63, *ut . . . epi^copus parochiam suam . . . circumeat;'
and * Si quod in sua dioeoesi corrigere . . . nequiverit.' For wapoiKta as the
aggregate of Christians dwelling in one place or district under the care of
a single chief pastor, see Euseb. i. i, ii. 94, iii. 14, &c. ; Bingham, b. ix.
2. I ; Diet. Chr. Antiq. ii. 1554. See below on Council of Hertford.
' Bede, iii. 25, v. 19. Eddi calls him at that time Hransmarinua
episcopus/ but this may mean only a bishop of foreign birth and conse-
cration ; Vit Wilfr. 9.
* Mabillon, Ann. Bened. i. 470, on a document signed by him in 663 .-
and he had been bishop when Chlodwig II died in 659 ; ib. i. 459.
* Sigebrand and Importunus ; Mabillon, i. 478. The former was mur-
dered in 664. The latter witnessed a * privilegium ' for a nunnery at
Soissons, June a6, 666 ; ib. 48a. Dubois, therefore, must be wrong in
dating Agilbert's accession to the see of Paris in 664, immediately on his
return to Gaul after the conference of Whitby ; Hist. Eccl. Paris, i. 204.
We are told that, in 680, he and the bishop of Reims were employed by
Ebroin to lure a rival into his power ; Fredeg. Chron. continuat. 97. He
is said to have died on Oct. 1 1 (on which day he was venerated), in 680.
P
210 South-Saxons still Heathen.
CHAP. VL version, and whose sense of royal power had been enhanced
by his recent military snccess in driving the Britons beyond
the river Parret ^. It will appear that his choice of Wini
was less fortunate than his former choice of Agilbert ; and
though Winchester may have been a more desirable seat
for a West-Saxon bishopric than a little town so near the
Mercian frontier as Dorchester then was, it cannot be said
that the old home of West-Saxon royalty has reason to be
proud of its first bishop. Kenwalch had soon enough
on his hands to make him forget ecclesiastical compli-
cations; for in 66 1 * Wulfhere invaded Wessex, and laid
waste the Berkshire country as far as Ashdown ; and the
death of Cuthred, the lord of that territory, which is
assigned to the same year, probably took place in this
Mercian border-war. Wulfhere also got possession of a
Hampshire district occupied by the Meonwaras ^ and made
Conquest the important conquest of the Isle of Wight* which had
by Wuif- belonged to Wessex ever since Cerdic subdued it in 530.
here. Both these acquisitions he handed over to Ethelwalch,
king of the South-Saxons*, who had been baptized in
Mercia, *by the persuasion and in the presence of Wulf-
here,' and had then become Wulf here's godson. His wife
Eaba was already a Christian : she came from the Hwiocian
country, which consisted chiefly of Worcestershire and
Gloucestershire * : and its rulers, Eanhere and his brother
Eanf rid, Eaba's father, had become ' Christians with their
people.' But the king and queen of the South-Saxons
^ Ghron. a. 658 on the battle of Pen. See Freeman, i. 385.
' See Ghron. a. 661 , and Florence. Henry of Huntingdon says that
Wulfhere ' traversed his enemy's land with a great host,' and conquered
Wight ; ii. 35. Ethelwerd, ii. 7, transfers the victory at Ashdown to
Kenwalch.
' The Meonwaras' district ran from Southampton Water to the South
Downs. See Camden, Britan. i. 146 : ' Their country is now divided into
three hundreds . . . Meansborow, Eastmean, Weastmean.' They were
Jutes ; Pearson, Hist. Engl. i. 106 ; Green, p. 385.
* Chron. 1. c. ; Lappenbei'g, i. 248.
' See Bede, iv. 13 : ' Erat autem rex/ &c. ' His policy was to establish
a counterpoise to the West-Saxon kingdom ; * Milner, Hist. Winch. L 74*
' See above, p. 85, and Freeman, i* 35 ; anct comp. Stubbs, Const. Hist,
i. 186, and Kemble, i. 149, on the long continuance of a special kingship
of the Hwiccaa. Cp. Bede, iv. 93.
Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne. 211
could produce no effect on the Paganism of their kingdom ^, chap. vi.
which had never been evangelized from Kent or from
Wessex, and was detained by marshes and by the * Andred '
forest in a peculiarly barbaric isolation * One man of its
race, named Damian, had indeed not only become a Christian,
but had succeeded Ithamar as bishop of Rochester in 656 ^:
but, speaking generally of the realm of Sussex, its time,
in a Christian sense, was yet to come ; and to come from
that distant North-country to which our story now
returns.
Finan died, after a ten years' episcopate, in this year Colman of
661 ; and was succeeded by Colman *, also of Irish extraction ^^^'
and Scotic ordination ^ and also a man of simple and
austere piety, and of an 'innate prudence' which won
Oswy's regard • ; but not destined to a peaceful and suc-
cessful episcopate, such as Finan's on the whole had been.
A change, in fact, was coming over the mind of the great
ecclesiastical province which looked to lindisfarne as its
centre. Deliverance from the terrors and anxieties which
Penda's name had aroused, and which passed away at
his death, had given the Northumbrian Church a time
of 'refreshing' and of spiritual revival There was, all
^ Bede, iy. 13 : *• Gaetenim tota proyincia Australium Saxonum dlyini
nominis et fidei erat ignara.'
' Rocks and woods had made it ' inexpugnabilis ' ; Eddi, Vit. Wilfr. 41 ;
Lappenberg, i. 106. The Chronicle says (a. 893) that in the reign of
Alfred, the ' Andread-weald ' was more than a hundred miles long, and
thirty broad ; but in this statement, says Guest, ii. 4a, there is ^ some
exaggeration.' The name of Andred is significant — ' the land without
dwellings.' The Weald of Kent and Sussex is the remains of this forest ;
Taylor's Words and Places, p. 360. It extended from the neighbourhood
of Winchester to the border of Romney Marsh. See a map in Guest,
ii. 147. For other forests, as Wyre, Arden, Sherwood, see Green, Mak.
of Engl. pp. II, 75-
* Bede, iii. 20. Damian was consecrated by archbishop Deusdedit.
^ Bede, iii. 35 : ' Defuncto autem Finano,' &c. The name was common
among Irishmen of that period ; Lanigan, ii. 916, iii. a. Several instances
occur in Tighernach. A St. Colman was the first bishop of Cloyne, the
rural South -Ii'ish see which Berkeley has made illustrious.
* Bede says that Colman had been appointed (destinatus) from Hy ;
iy. 4. But he also indicates that he had come originally from Ireland ;
iii. 36.
* Bede, iii. 36 : < Multum namque eumdem,' Ac.
P %
212 English Students in Ireland.
CHAP. VI. around, a stirring of ecclesiastical life, which, however,
in its more vigorous growths, was not likely to be content
with the somewhat narrow and homely tj^e represented
by the Scotic traditions of lindisfame. True, there was
a strong attachment in many minds to those traditions;
and many persons of high as well as of low birth actually
went over to settle in Ireland, for the sake of monastic
self-devotion, or of theological study ^. Among these
English students were two young men of 'eorl-kin,'
Ethelhun and Egbert, the latter of whom, having edified
the Irish by his teaching and his example, and persuaded
the monks of Hy to adopt the Catholic Easter, died a few
years before Bede wrote his work^ Colman might think
that such an appreciation of Irish learning and sanctity
promised well. Moreover, there were in Northumbria
monasteries newly founded, in which the rules and
practices of Aidan were held sacred and all-sufficient ; the
six in Bemicia and the six in Deira which commemorated
the day of Winwidfield, the house at Gilling, a monument
of royal penitence, — another at Tynemouth, where the
monks had to contend with the doggedness of half-
Christianized rustics, who complained that ' old rites had
been taken away, and that no one knew how to observe
the new ones^;' the community established by Cedd at
Lastingham; Heiu's religious house near Tadcaster, and
Founda- her earlier foundation at Hartlepool*; and, more famous
Whitby, ^y f^r> ^^^^ community which Hilda had planted in 657-8
on an estate of ten hydes or * f amiliae * ' at Streanseshalch,
^ See aboTe, p. 184. Northumbrians would probably resort first to
St. ComgaU's great monastery at Bangor in Ulster (then a century old),
and to the saored city of Armagh, a third part of which was occupied by
'Saxon' students; M^Gee, Hist. Irel. i. 49. Irish monasteries were sets
of huts of beehive shape, centering in a chui*ch and other buildings (includ-
ing a hospice), and having an earthen ' rath ' or a stone *• cashel ' by way
of fortification and enclosure. The greater monasteries had 1,500 or even
3,000 monks. ' Bede, iii. 4, 27 ; iv. 3 ; v. 9, 2a.
' Bede, Yit. Cuthb. 3. See Stevenson's Chron. of Abingdon, vol. iL
p. xxxiv.
^ See above, p. 188. The cemetery of this ancient monastery was dis-
covered in a field called Gross Close in 1833 ; Hiibner, Inscr. Brit. p. 69.
* Bede, iii. 24 : ^ Quae post biennium comparata possessionem &c. lb.
Monasticism in Northumbria. 213
or, as the Chronicler writes it, ' Streoneshalh \' which we chap. vi.
had better designate by its familiar Danish name of Whitby.
In this house, as, according to some, at Kildare ^, and after-
wards at Coldingham, Ely, Barking, Wimbome, Reptouj
and in some great houses on the Continent ^ the nuns and
monks formed a * double foundation, a lady abbess being
set over both, the former always taking precedence * ' : and
Hilda, whom all that knew her called * Mother,' taught
the inmates *to practise thoroughly all virtues, but especially
peace and love;, so that after the pattern of the primitive
Church, no one there was rich and no one was poor, but all
had all things in common,, for nothing seemed to be the
property of any individual*.' Further north, a: little
nunnery was established about this time, on the banks
of the Derwent, at a place which takes its name of Ebchester
from, the foundress, a half-sister of Oswald and of Oswy*,
well known to us in Oxford from the title of one of our
churches, — that *Ebbe' who afterwards founded a. double
convent at Coldingham, close to the promontory still called
St. Abb's Head. If we look beyond the present Border
into a country then strictly English''^; we are attracted
by a religious house organized on the Lindisfame models
and situated in a valley which the genius of Scott has
made peerless throughout Britain. On the upper road Melrose.
iy. 33: 'Cum ergo aliquot annos . . . huic monasterio praeeset, contigit
earn suscipere etiam construendum . . . monasterium,' &o.
^ Bede's interpretation (ill. a5\ ' Sinus Fari,' has been called ' unac*
countable.' See, however, Atkinson's Memorials of Old Whitby, p. 78 ff.
Possibly * 8treon,''a8 used for ' strong ' or 'strength/ might be applied to
a watch tower (which might also be described as a pharos, Bede, i. a),
and ' halch ' or ' halh ' might mean a ' hollow ' running down to a har-
bour-mouth. If so, the name would be very apposite to the locality.
' Haddan's Remains, p. 977 ; Todd's St. Patrick, p. la. But see Lanigan,
i. 410, 414. He thinks that the 'monks' of Kildare were clerics.
' At Autun, Brie, R^miremont, Laudun, Fonteyrault,&c. See Mabillon,
Ann. Bened. i. pp. 315, 38a, &c. ; Lingard, A.-S. Oh. i. 214 ; Stubbs,
Const Hist. i. 358. See Theodore's Penitential, b. ii. c. 6. s. 8, disapprov-
ing of any extension of this ' custom ' ; and cp. and Nic. Syn. can. 90.
* Kitchin, Hist. Fr. i. 353.
' Bede, iv. 33 (^the chapter on St. Hilda). At Whitby she was long
spoken of as ' the Lady Hilda.' See Atkinson, p. 15.
* Bede, iv. 19 ; Vit. Cuthb. 10.
^ See Freeman, i. 36, 133, on Lothian.
214 Early life of Cuthhert.
CHAP. VI. from Dryburgh to Melrose there is a point where one looks
down on a wooded projection of land, almost encircled by
the Tweed ^ This is Old Melrose, to the east of its younger
and world-renowned namesake ; but it is memorable as the
site of a humble monastery where, in 66i, holy men prayed
and taught, and one young monk was unconsciously pre-
paring for a life which made him the great popular saint
of Northern England. Eata, of whom we shall hear much,
was abbot: he had been one of those twelve boys whom
Aidan, in the early days of his episcopate, had received
from their parents to be * instructed in Christ ^l and through
life he was true to his old training, being, as Bede de-
scribes him, * the gentlest and simplest man in the world ^.'
Under him, acting as * praepositus ' or prior, was Boisil,
whom Bede calls *■ a priest of great virtues and of a pro-
phetic spirit,' and whose name is still perpetuated in the
Cuthbert little town of St. Boswell's. About ten years before, in
the beginning of the winter of 651*, there had come to
Melrose a robust youth*, with a servant who held his
horse and spear* when he had dismounted in order to
pray in the church. His name was Cuthbert From his
eighth year he had lived in the house of a widow named
^ * Quod Tuidi fluminis circumflexu maxima ex parte clauditur ; ' Bede,
v. 19. Scott's description of the western site in * The Ere of St. John,'
^ Where fair Tweed flows round holy Melrose,'
might apply still better to the eastern.
' Bede, iii a6. Above, p. 161.
' Bede, iv. 97.
* Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 5. Tliis ' Life ' was compiled with special care, and
before publication submitted to friends of St. Cuthbert, and finally read
and examined for two days by the Lindisfarne community, under bishop
Eadfrid. The Anon. Vit Cuthb. in Bede's Works, vi. 357 ff., was also
written under Eadfrid but earlier. The author had known Cuthbert
at Meli-ose, and had received some information as to his boyhood from
bitthop ^ Tuma ' (probably Tuda). The legend of his Irish birth, as the son
of an Irish king's daughter, is Irish, and is confuted by Bede's words in
the prologue to his poem 'De miraculis S. Cuthberti' (Works, i. 3)
describing him as bom in Britain. See Lanigan, iii. 88, and Plummer's
note on Bede, iv. 97.
^ ' Adolescens/ Bede, V. C. 4; 'robustus corpore,' 6; *of full age/
Vit. An.
* Bede, V. C. 6. The Anon. Vit. says he had once served ' in eastris,'
apparently in the Northumbrian defensive war against Penda.
Melrose and Ripon. 215
Kenspid, whom he used to call 'mother' ^. As a younger chap. ti.
boy, he had been remarkable for high spirits, and had
excelled in all bodily exercises ^ : the solitary hoars spent
in tending sheep, on the hills beside the Leader, had opened
his mind to serious thought ; and a dream, which he took
to be a vision, occurring on the night of Aidan's death, had
determined him to enter a monastery ^. The fame of Boisil
drew him to Melrose: and Boisil, standing at the gate
as he came near, said to others who were present, * Behold
a servant of the Lord*!' He soon surpassed all the
brethren in studies, vigils, prayers, still more in manual
work: only, we are told, he 'could not endure so much
abstinence from food,' lest the strength required for labour
should be diminished ^ When Eata received from Alchf rid,
who had succeeded the traitor Ethelwald as sub-king
of Deira, an estate of thirty or forty hydes at Ripon, for
the erection of a monastery, Cuthbert was among the
brethren sent to form the new settlement, and appointed
to act as hospitaller ® ; but at the time of Colman's arrival
the monks had just given up their abode, rather than
accept, at Alchfrid's bidding, the continental Easter rule
' She was alive when the Anon. Vit. was written.
' ' He took pleanure in jokes and noisiness . . . delighted to sliare in the
sports of other boys . . . Sometimes, when the rest were tired out, he,
unwearied, would ack in the joyous tone of a conqueror, whether any
others had a mind to contend further with him.' He excelled his equals
in age, and even some of his seniors, in leaping, running, wrestling, ' sou
quolibet alio membrorum sinuamine.' Yet even in those days, a little
boy of about three once burst out crying, and, calling Cuthbert ' bishop,'
told him that he ought not to play among children. Cuthbert, as ^ bonae
indolis puer,' was struck with tliis strange warning, and, caressing the
child affectionately, went home, and became from that day ' steadier,
animoque adolescentior.' Bede, V. C. i. (Some boys, according to the
Anon. Vit., were playing at 'standing on their heads.') Both 'Lives'
tell of his lameness and its cure. On the prescription for it by a stranger,
see above, p. 73.
* Bede, Vit Cuthb. 4 ; Sim. Hist. Dun. Ecd. i. 3, and Auct. Hist, de
S. Cuthb. a. It was August 31, 651. He thought he saw angels carrying
a holy soul into heaven ' as in a globe of fire ' ; Anon. Vit. ' Next morn-
ing he gave over the sheep to their owners ' ; Sim. Dun. Eccl. i. 3.
* Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 6.
* lb.: * Non autem tantam oscarum valebat subire continent iam.'
* lb. 7. In his last moments he enjoined hospitality to strangers,
ib. 39.
2i6 Early life of Wilfrid.
CHAP. Ti. and other Roman usages ^ : and Cuthbert was again at
Melrose, 'attending to the precepts and the example of
Boisil V
Wilfrid. And this brings us to the name of him who concentrated
and intensified, by his energy and influence, the preference
for ' Catholic ' over ' Scotic ' usages, — to the splendid name
of Wilfrid. The son of a Northumbrian thane, and bom in
634^, — * the year of the kings* apostasy,' he began at thirteen
or fourteen * * to think of forsaking his paternal fields, and
to seek for heavenly gifts.' In spite of a step-mothers
unkindness, he was well equipped with all that could enable
him to make a good appearance at the court of Oswy ^, and
his father bade him God-speed. He stood in the presence
of Queen Eanfled, — a handsome boy of quick intellect and
graceful bearing, — introduced to her by nobles on whom he
had waited at his father's table; and besought her to
promote his desire of * serving God/ — the phrase then used,
with an unhappy restriction of meaning, for monastic life ^
One of the king's ' companions ^l seized with paralysis, was
preparing to become a monk at Lindisfame : and under his
care, and as his attendant, Wilfrid entered that monastery,
where, although he did not receive the Scotic tonsure *, he
^ Bede, iii. 95 ; and v. 19, ' optione data maluemut looo oedere.' Vit.
Cuthb. 8 : ' Eaia cum Guthberto . . . domum repulsus est.' But the
Anon. Vit. says that Cuthbert received the Roman tonsure at Ripon.
' Vit Cuthb. 8 ; comp. H. £. iv. 37, ' quod ipsum etiam Boisil,' &e.
■ Florence, a. 634 : * Sanctus Wilfridus nascitur.'
* £ddi, Vit. Wilfr. 9 : ' In his fourteenth year, in corde suo cogitabat,'
&c. So Bede says, v. 19. Fridegod and Eadmer say he had passed hia
fourteenth year. £ddi, or H<edde, eocloHiastically called Stephen, was
his attendant in after years. Fridegod (or Frithegod) wrote a metrical
Life of him in the middle of the tenth century by desire of archbishop
Odo; Eadmer, a prose Life in St Anselm's time. Of course neither of
these * Lives' has any independent authority. See Act SS. Bened.
saec. iii. 1. 169 ff. Fridegod's * euphuism ' of style is portentous, and often
unintelligible. Eadmer alludes to him, and mentions Bede, but does not
mention Eddi ; see Historians of Ch. of York, i. 163.
* See Turner, Angl.-Sax. iii. 16.
* See above, p. 197, and comp. Bede, iv. 9, 24 ; Hist Abb. i, 15 ; Ep. to
Egb. 7.
^ A gesith, or comes, named Cudda ; see above, p. 187. Eddiua calls
him Wilfrid's * dominus.'
' * Adhuc laicus capite,' Edd. a. Above, p. 9a.
Benedict Biscop. 217
acquired all that he could learn of the Scotic discipline, chap. vi.
learned by heart the Psalter in Jerome's more correct or
'Qallican recension^,' and was 'loved by the other boys
as a brother, by the seniors/ and doubtless by Aidan, ' as
a son*/ Some three years afterwards, having a strong
desire to visit Rome, to gain the blessing of the ^ successor
of St. Peter,' and to study monastic rules of a better type
than the Scotic •\ Wilfrid, by his father's advice, and with
the frank assent of the bishop and monks of Lindisfame *,
obtained a letter of commendation from Eanfled to her
cousin Eang Erconbert, who was just the man to appreciate
the brilliant gifts, the intent studiousness, and the religious
fervour of the young Northumbrian. After about a year's
delay, which Wilfrid employed in studying the Church
usages of Canterbury, Erconbert found a suitable fellow- Benedict
traveller for him in one whose name is as closely bound
up as Wilfrid's with Northumbrian Church history, and
who was to make himself a name as an ecclesiastical
traveller^, a founder of monasteries, and a promoter of
religious art This was Biscop, also called, as a patronymic,
* Baducing *,' and ecclesiastically Benedict, a nobly-born
^ ' Citissime,' says Bede. ' Secundum Hlercuymi emendationem/
Edd. 3. This translation was made at Bethlehem, from the Septuagint
version according to the ^ Hexaplar ' text, in 389. It became current in
Gaul and elsewhere before it was accepted in Italy. The ' Roman Psalter '
was Jerome's earlier and cursory revision of the old Italic version, made
in 383. It was used at Canterbury after the * Gallic Psalter ' was received
in other English churches ; and is still in use in St. Peter's at Rome.
See Waterland on Ath. Greed, c. 4 ; Vallarsi, Vit. Hieron. c. ao. Jerome's
version from the Hebrew was never in public use, and has been very
unfortunately neglected. Wilfrid afterwards, at Canterbury, learned
the * Roman' Psalter by heart. * Edd. a.
' Bede says nothing of his desire for the pope's blessing. Nor are we
told how, at Lindisfame, he learned to think that there were better rules
abroad. Bede perhaps thought Wilfrid's ' Romanizing ' somewhat exces-
sive, and may have traced to it later troubles.
* Bede, v. 19 : * Quod cum fratribus,' &c. This speaks well for Finan's
generosity, if the lad's somewhat premature discontent with Lindisfame
customs were made known to him : and Wilfrid, at seventeen or eighteen,
was not likely to be too modest in such a matter.
* He made six visits to Rome,— five of them being directly from Britain,
— in 653, 665, 667, 671, 678, 684. See Diet. Chr. Biogr. L 308.
* Edd. 3 ; Fridegod, 96. See Moberly's Bede, p. 370. For Benedict
Biscop, see Bede, iv. 18, v. 19 j Hist Abb. i (tte passage). See Alb. Butler,
2i8 Wilfrid at Lyons
CHAP. n. Northumbrian of twenty-five, who had given up his rank
as a 'king's thane/ and the goodly estate which he had
received from Oswy, in order, says Bede, * to take service
under the true King.' The two companions set out for
Rome towards the end of 653, soon after the death of arch-
bishop Honorius : and Eddi gives a winning picture of the
youth of nineteen, 'pleasant in address to all, sagacious
in mind, strong in body, swift of foot, ready for every good
work, with a face that in its unclouded cheerfulness be-
tokened a blessed mind^.' Such was Wilfrid when he
reached Lyons, and was introduced to ' Dalfinus,' as both
our writers call its archbishop, confusing the prelate Aune-
mund with his brother Dalfinus, count of Lyons *. Biscop,
impatient to be at Borne, left Wilfrid at Lyons, where he
spent some little time with the archbishop, who was
* charmed with his beautiful countenance, his prudence in
speech, his quickness in action, his steadiness and maturity
of thought ',* loaded him with presents, and offered, if he
would remain, to give him the government of a district
and the hand of his niece ^ and to treat him always as
an adopted son. Wilfrid appears to have accepted the
adoption *, but he gratefully declined the other proposals,
urging the purpose for which he had left his native land.
The prelate could not but acquiesce, and sent him on to
Rome with a guide and all necessaries, only entreating
Jan. 19, and Bp. Browne, Lessons from Early Engl. Gh. Hist. p. 30 ff. We
find ^ Beda' and ^ Biscop ' ranking sixth and seventh from Woden in the
genealogy of the kings of the Lindisfari ; Mon. H. Brit. p. 431. Moberly
suggests that Beda in equivalent to Badoc ; Introd. p. xii.
^ £dd. 3, 4 : ' . . . tristia ora nunquam contraxit.' The archbishop saw
' in facie serona quod benedicta mente gerebat' (al. benedictam mentem).
' See Mabillon, Ann. Bened. i. 495, 443 : * Nullus in vetustis Lugdu>
nensium antistitum indicibus Dalfino locus est,' and cp. Gallia Christiana,
iv. 43. Aunemund had signed a royal diploma for the immunity of the
abbey of St. Denis from episcopal control in 653. Under the Merovingians
the governors of cities were called * counts ' ; e. g. at Poitiers (Greg. Turon.
H. F. iv. 4a), Tours (ib. v. 48), and Lyons ^Greg. Yit. Patr. 8).
' Bede, v. 19.
* That is, the daughter of count Dalfinus.
' Eddi calls the archbishop ^ his father,' 5 ; so Fridegod, 168. The
kings Cadwalla and Osred afterwards became Wilfrid's adopted sons ;
Eddi, 4a, 59.
and at Rome. 219
that he would * remember to travel home by way of Lyons.' chap. vi.
Wilfrid reached Rome probably in the spring of 654, and
spent several months in daily visits to the sacred places ^,
and in study of the Qospels, and of the received Paschal
calculations, and of other Church rules which he could not
have learned in Britain, under the tuition of the archdeacon
Boniface ^ who, before his departure, presented him to the
newly-elected Pope Eugenius I. Wilfrid, in his later
career, must often have remembered how the pontiff ' laid
his hand on his head, and blessed him with a prayer ^'
Returning, with a store of relics, to Lyons, he stayed three
years with his kind host the archbishop, studied under
learned ecclesiastics, and received the crown-like Roman
tonsure^. The prelate's wish to make him his heir was
defeated in the September of 658 by his own tragical
death *, which Eddi, and Bede simply following him *, lay
at the door of Queen Bathildis, properly Baldechild, the
^ Eddi sayB that ho entered an ' oratory of St. Andrew,' saw a manu-
script of the Gospels placed on the top of an altar, and invoked the apostle's
intereeteion in order to obtain for the task of preaching the Gospel
Megendi ingenium et docendi . . . eloquentiam.' 'There was such an
oratory tinder St Peter's (Vit. Pontif. i. 156), and another in the Via
Labicana was rebuilt by Sergius I : but one naturally thinks of Wilfrid
as crossing Rome to St. Andrew's on the Coelian, < a most sacred place/
as Raine has truly said, to any pilgrim from England (Hist. Oh. York, i. 8).
So Eadmer, 6 ; and Rich, of Hexham, X Script. 990, says that he prayed
to be set ft-ee ' de ingenii sui tarditate et linguae suae rusticitate.'
' Eddi calls him th« first of the pope's counaellors, and says that he
treated WilMd like a son. For the discovery of a lee len * bulla/ with
Boniface's name on it, at Whitby, see Raine, Historians of Ch. of York,
i.8.
^ Eddi, 5. Eugenius, a weak but kindly prelate, was elected under
imperial pressure, while pope St. Martin was still alive in exile, Sept. 8,
654 ; in the following summer Martin mentioned him as * pastorem qui
eis nunc praeesse monstratur,' a sort of sanction of Eugemus' pontificate
(Ep. 17). Eugenius survived Martin, dying in June, 657.
^ ' Crines, summo de vertice passoa . . . recidit ; ' Frideg. 177.
' Mabillon, in Ann. Bened. i. 443, quotes a statement that Coimt
Dalfinus was executed on a false charge of treason brought against him
by the nobles, and Aunemund was afterwards arrested by three * duces '
sent fh>m the palace, who refused him a hearing and put him to death.
This he thinks not improbable. The ' breviarium camerae Lugdunensis,'
as quoted in Gall. Christ. 1. 0., ascribes his death to aristocratic jealousy.
Aunemund was honoured by his church on Sept. 99.
* See Raine, Historians of Ch. of York, i. p. xxxiii.
220 Bathildis and Ebroin.
CHAP. VI. widow of Chlodwig or Clovis II, the * do-nothing ' king of
Neustria and Burgundy ^ Here is a difficulty; for while
Eddi compares her to Jezebel ^, the Church has canonized
her for recorded acts of piety, charity, and humility ^ ; and
her character has suggested that the execution of the
archbishop on a charge of disaffection may have been
ordered by Ebroin, at the beginning of his career as
* Mayor of the Palace ' for her infant son Chlotair III *•
Wilfrid attended his benefactor to the scene of death, and
even stripped off' his cloak in order to suffer with him.
* Who is that fair youth ? ' asked the royal officers charged
* He came to the throne in 63B (L'Art de Verifier, &c., v. 408),
married her in 649, and died in 656.
* ' Malevola reglna . . . sicut . . . Jezebel ; ' Edd. 6. He adds that nine
bishops were slaughtered. So Fridegod, who compares her to an infernal
caldron, 186, as if he had been writing of Fredegond ; and Eadmer follows
suit ; * fired with demoniacal fury.' Six years later, Segebrand, a bishop
of Paris, her adviser, was put to death by the nobles.
' See the Parisian Braviary, Jan. 30. During her husband's life, she
' commended to him the poor and the churches ' ; while regent, she
^ annulled simoniacal ordinations,' forbade the selling of Christians as
slaves, ransomed many at her own cost, restored monastic discipline ;
and, after she retired in weariness and despondency to the nunnery
which she had virtually refounded at Ghelles, she there exhibited great
humility and tenderness. See Alb. Butler, Jan. 30 ; Mabillon, i. 438.
It is interesting to remember that she hei-self came to Gaul as a * Saxon '
slave-girl from Britain, probably from Wessex. She was said to be nobly
born. She died in 680. Cp. Oman, Europ. Hist. 476-918, p. 257.
* See Mabillon, Ann. Bened. i. 443. He traces the accusation made by
Eddi to his ignorance, as a ' foreigner' who was not then a companion of
Wilfrid, and he infers from certain documents that Ebroin became mayor
of the palace immediately afterwards, if not a little before. Others date
his accession to office, on the death of his predecessor Erchinoald (for whom
see Bede, iii. 19), as late as 659 (L'Art de Verifier, v. 411) ; which would
overthrow Mabi lion's theory. But the Gontinuator of Fredegarius makes
the deaths of the king and Erchinoald take place *• eodem tempore ;' c. 9a.
Erchinoald himself was incapable of any ciiielty to bishops ; Fredegar. 84.
On the office of 'major palatii* ('major domus,' Bede, iv. i), see ]>e
Goulanges, Monarchic Franque. p. 166 ff. ; that ' palace,' like * house,' was
used for the king's household (as at Gonstantinople the office was called
< cura palatii '), and that ' les rois merovingiens n'out dans leurs mairee
du palais que ce que existait avant eux, autour d'eux. partout,' under
varying titles. The ' major ' was ' the king*8 first servant, ' charged with
the overseeing of the rest of the household officials' (Oman, p. 123'. So
the high steward of the Hebrew kings was called *the governor ' or ' over*
seer of the house' (i Kings xviii. 3 ; 9 Kings xix. a ; a Ghron. xxviil. 7 :
cp. Isa. xxii. 15 ff.).
IVilfrid at Ripon. 221
with the execution. * A foreigner/ they were told, * from chap. vi.
the Angles in Britain:' whereupon they commanded their
men to spare his life. Wilfrid then returned to Northum-
bria, apparently at the end of 658. He soon became
intimate with Alchfrid, who had learned from his friend
Kenwalch of Wessex to love and follow the Roman
Church-rules ^. He treated Wilfrid with profound respect^ ,
and asked him, *for God's sake and St. Peter's/ to stay
with him in Deira. They became, we are told, as closely
united as David and Jonathan : and Alchfrid gave Wilfrid Founda-
land for building a monastery at Stanford, perhaps Stam- ^p^^f
ford bridge near York, and not long afterwards put him in
possession of the house at Ripon ^, lately vacated by the
monks of Melrose. This may be dated in the same year,
661, in which Colman succeeded Finan. Thus began
Wilfrid's connexion with a place which for so many years
he loved better than any other, and within which at last
he found a grave.
His life at Ripon was happy. His charities endeared him
to the poor, whose needs, at all times, moved his generous
heart. He won the respect and affection of all classes.
Men spoke of the abbot of Ripon as humble and tranquil,
occupied in devotion and in almsgiving, benignant, sober,
modest, merciful. His discourses were ' clear and lucid *.'
But he was not yet a presbyter. He received priest's orders *
^ Edd. 7. Bede, t. 19 : < At ille Brittaniam Yeniens,' &c. Birinus had
brought these rules into Wessex.
* The hero-worshipping Eddi says that he prostrated himself before
Wilfrid and asked a blessing from him, fw he seemed to him to speak
like an angel of God ; 7.
» Eddi, 8 ; Bede, v. 19. * Eddi, 9.
' Fridegod's phrase, 'ordinis. . . in honore secundi,' 341, shows that
the theory which made the presbyterate the Iiighest order was not domi-
nant in the English Church in the tenth century, although it appears in
i&lfric's canons. Theodore's Penitential (ii. a) recognizes three principal
*• gradus,' those of bishop, priest, and deacon. Bede speaks of the ^ gradus
episcopatus' (iii. 5, aa) or the ^summi sacerdotii gradus' (iii. as), as he
does of the ^ sacerdotalis gradus* (iii. 5), or ' sacerdotii gradus' (iii. a7), or
< presbyteratus gradus * (v. la : cf. 34, of his own ordination), or ' presby-
terii gradus ' (H. Abb. 16) ; and somewhat later, archbishop Egbert makes
the episcopate the highest of the seven ^ gradus,' omitting that of acolyths,
Pontif. p. II. On this subject cp. Bp. Pearson, Minor Works, i. 375.
CHAP. VI.
Wilftid.
222 Wilfrtd^s Church-programme.
at Alchfrid's request, from Agilbert the ex-bishop of
Dorchester, who was then visiting Northumbria, and who
scrupled not to ordain in the diocese of lindisfame
without consulting Colman, because, although he had
long studied under Irish Church-teachers, he practically
regarded the Scotic hierarchy as contumacious, or even
schismaticaL
Aims of This, at least, was Wilfrid's view, as we may infer from
his subsequent conduct. In fact, he looked down on the
old Northumbrian Churchmanship, and on that North-
umbrian episcopate which had fostered his boyish aspira-
tions, and given him the best training that it could, as if
the latter had no claim on his reverence, or even on his
forbearance, and as if the former needed a thoroughgoing
renovation. The Scotic error on the Paschal question did
but represent, and did not exhaust, the defects of Scotic
Christianity. It seemed to him generally a poor, coarse,
unsightly plant, such as might be expected to grow up in
a comer, apart from all genial and expansive influences. It
was his mission to^ educate his native Church, — ^to refine,
enrich, develop it, by contact with the culture and the
stateliness of Canterbury, of Lyons, — above all, of majestic
Rome. He was right on the general merits of that
question which appears to have occupied so inordinate
a share of his thoughts; and right also, beyond doubt,
in thinking that Scotic ways were too rude and too narrow
to be permanently the ways for an English Church, with
its continental associations and its great prospects of future
self -extension. He had a real work to do for his coimtry-
men ; but in his way of rushing into it, and of going through
with it, he exhibited the two faults of imperiousness and
egoism. It seems as if his stay in Bome had infected h\rx\
with the Roman love of domination, already too congenial
to its bishops; and with all his high qualities and many
virtues was blended a self-complacent consciousness not
only of abilities and force of character, but of exertions
and sacrifices made for religion or the Church.
So stood matters in Northumbria when the disputes
between the Scotic and anti-Scotie parties came inevitably
Conference of Whitby. 223
to a head, in the early weeks of 664. Colman had the chap. vi.
advantage, as he would consider it, of the presence of
Bishop Cedd, then on a visit to Lastingham: and Hilda,
already looked up to as a wise woman who could give
' good rede ' to princes as to common folk ^, would be but
the most prominent of several heads of convents who were
prepared to stand by the customs of londisfame. King
Oswy inclined to the same side : his queen, as we know;
supported the other, which was represented by Alchfrid,
Romanus, James the Deacon, Bishop Agilbert and his priest
Agatho,— above all, by Abbot Wilfrid. Bonan, the vehe-
ment Irish opponent of Irish traditions in Finan's time,
seems to have been absent; but Colman^ must have
grieved to see another Irishman of higher dignity and more
impressive character included in the same ranks. This was
Tuda, who had been consecrated a bishop in South Ireland,
and * according to the custom ' which now obtained in those
parts, conformed to the ' Catholic ' usages. He had lately
come into Northumbria, and had been helpful in setting
forth Christianity, as Bede says emphatically, 'both by
word and work ^.' To end the strife, a regular conference
was arranged, — Bede calls it a * synod,' but it was a gather-
ing of ' all the ranks in the Church system,' as Eddi phrases
it*. The place chosen was Hilda's new monastery, elevated Confer-
on that proud sea- ward height which is now crowned by wMtby
thfe ruined church of an abbey founded two centuries
after her minster had been laid desolate. The time was
in the first half of 664; most likely in Lent, for the
promoters might wish to secure uniformity of observance
in regard to the coming Easter, which, by Catholic rules,
fell on April 21. Moreover, some time is required for
^ Bede, iy. 23 : < Tantae autem erat ipsa pnidentiae,' &c.
' On« specimen of Eddi's heedJessneas is his caliing Colman * metropolitan
bishop of the city of Tork ; ' Vit Wilf. 10.
' Bede, iii. 26 : * Venerat autem,' &c. See above, p. 56.
* Eddi, 10. See the 'Synodus Pharensis' in Mansi, xi. 67. Kemble
treats it as a witenagemot, ii. 24^ It was one of those condUa miacia in
which laymen were as truly 'constituent members' as bishops or other
ecclesiastics, see Hefele, Councils, E. Tr. i. 5, 25. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i.
265. Cp. Bede, iv. 28, ▼. 19, for other cases ; and Wilkins, i. 173, 285.
224 ^^^ Paschal Question.
CHAP. vL events which happened between the conference and the
autumn.
King Oswy opened the proceedings by urging the benefits
of uniformity of custom among those who were united in
faith, and stating tersely the question for discussion : Of
the two difierent traditions, which was the truer? He
called on Colman to describe his usage and its origin.
Paschal Before Colman answers, let us remember that the Paschal
question, as it then stood, was twofold, (i) How many
years must elapse before the Paschal full moon, and Easter
Day as the Sunday after it, will recur on the same day ?
How can we settle for any given year the day on which
that moon should fall, and therefore the right day of
Easter ^ ? This question was answered by the adoption of
' cycles ' : and the Scotic and British Churches retained an
old cycle of eighty-four years which Rome had used, but
which she had cast oflF^, adopting, finally, that of Dionysius
fixiguus ^, according to which the lunar cycle for nineteen
years*, multiplied by the solar cycle for twenty-eight
years *, showed on what day in each year, during succes-
sive periods of five hundred and thirty-two years, the
Paschal full moon would fall, and therefore what day
would be Easter Sunday. (2) On what day of the Paschal
month, or as it was expressed, * on which moon,' being a
Sunday (for on that point all were agreed), may Easter be
kept ? That is, if the Sunday after the full moon should
^ See Hefele, i. p. 326 ; Pluinmer's Bede, ii. 350.
' Prideaux, IL 255, 256 ; Diet Chr. Ant. i. 592, 594 ; above, p. 89.
• See Bede, v. 21.
* In the nineteen years* cjcle, the number of any given year was called
the ^golden number,* because marked with letters of gold in ancient
calendars. At the end of the nineteen years * the various aspects of tho
moon are within an hour the same as they were on the same days of the
month nineteen years before ; ' Nicolas, Chron. of Hist. p. 24.
' At the expiration of the twenty-eight years *■ the days of the months
return again to the same days of the week . . . and the same order of leap-
years and of Dominical letters returns' (i.e. there being seven letters,
A-G, used to mark the seven days of the week, and January i being
reckoned as A, — if the year begins on Sunday, then A is the Sunday
letter, — if on Monday, G, &c.). ' The cycles of the sun and moon, multi-
plied together, form a third, which is called the Paschal cycle ; ' Nicolas,
I.e.
Plea for the Celtic Easter. 225
be ' the fourteenth moon/ may that be Easter Sunday, or chap. vi.
must Easter in that case be on the Simday following, the
twenty-first, so that * the fifteenth moon' must be treated as
the first possible day for Easter ? Here, as we have seen,
lay the point which called out the strongest feeling. The
Celtic Churches included ' the fourteenth moon ' within the
number of possible Easter Sundays : the other Churches
insisted on excluding it, urging the authority of the Nicene
Council on the duty of keeping clear of the Jewish day ^.
In other words, Easter Sunday among the Scots might fall
on any * moon ' from the fourteenth to the twentieth inclu-
sive : at Rome, or in Gallic Churches, or at Canterbury or
Dunwich, it might fall on any moon from the fifteenth to
the twenty-first but not earlier ; and to keep this rule was
to observe the ' Catholic Easter.'
Now let us hear Colman, to whom Eddi gives credit for
intrepidity. * My usage is that which I learned from the
elders who sent me hither, and which, we read 2, is traced
up to St. John. I dare not change it, and I have no mind
to change it. We hold it as an inspired tradition that the
day of the fourteenth moon, if a Sunday, is to be kept as
Easter Day. Let the other side state their opinion.' Cedd
translated his speech into ' Anglian ' ; and Oswy then called
on Agilbert, who desired that his * disciple ' Wilfrid might
state their case on his behalf. ' He can better explain in
the Anglian tongue what we hold than I can by an inter-
preter,' meaning by Cedd, who acted *as a very careful
interpreter for both parties ^'
Thereupon Oswy ordered Wilfrid to speak; and the
young abbot desired nothing better. He rose, confident
in his cause, and in his power to do it justice. He began by
dilating on the wide prevalence of the Catholic Easter,
^ CoiiBiantine's letter after the Council shows that the Council had
decided that Easter should never be kept at the time at which the Jews
were keeping their Passover. On this principle^ if the fourteenth should
fall on a Sunday, Easter would not be celebrated on that Sunday, but
a week later ; Hefele, Councils, E. Tr. i. 395 ; above, p. 88.
' ' Legitur,' Bede. Fridegod (whose metrical version of the conference is
incredibly abject in point of taste) makes Colman claim Polycarp, 256.
* * Interpres in eo concilio vigilantissimus ; ' Bede, iii. 25.
Q
226 Reply of Wilfrid
cHAr. VI. which he had found in Gaul, in Italy, and at Eome, where
Peter and Paul had taught and suffered ; and which he had
ascertained to be observed in Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, —
in fact throughout Christendom \ * save only ' — and here
flashed out his scornful intolerance for what, to him, was
, mere local perversity — * save only among these persons ' —
pointing to the bishop of Lindisfarne and his clergy — * and
their partners in obstinacy, the Picts and Britons; who,
belonging to some parts only of two remote islands ^, are
making these foolish efforts to fight against the whole
; world/
If Bede gives the sense of Wilfrid's speech, his last words
had been rather insulting than conciliatory : and Colman is
represented as answering with quiet dignity, though with
very inaccurate knowledge, ' I wonder that you should call
us foolish for following the rule of the Apostle who reclined
on the Lord's breast ^.'
Wilfrid's answer was a combination of good sense, unhis-
toric assumptions, and a decisive home-thrust. ' Granting
for a moment,' he said in effect, *that your custom does
come from St. John ; it was far from being folly on his
part to adhere to Mosaic observances, while St. Paul him-
self found it necessary to avoid giving scandal to Jewish
Christians*. Thus it was that John began his Paschal
celebration on the evening of the fourteenth of Nisan,
whether that was a Saturday evening or no. Peter,
however, acted differently. Taking the Lord's Day as his
^ Cummian Bimilarly nrgues, How can we say, * Roma eirat, Hieroso-
lyma errat, Alexandria errat, Antiochla errat ' (he refers to iliese again as
*■ Apostolic Sees,' and ignores Constantinople), Hotus mundus errat, — soli
tan turn Scoti et Britones rectum sapiunt ? ' Usher, Sylloge, p. ai.
* ^ Britonum Scotorumque particula, qui sunt paone extremi,' &c. ;
Cummian, 1. c. See below.
' Comp. the Pseudo-Anatolius, Can. Pasch. lo (Galland. iii. 548' : 'The
bis^hops of Asia received their rule from a teacher not to be gainsaid,
John . . . who lay on the Lord's breast.'
* Bede makes Wilfrid cite St. Paul's conduct in circumcising Timothy,
sacrificing in the Temple, and shaving his head at Corinth. (On this
last point, Wilfrid departs from the Vulgate of Acts xviii. 18.) The
parenthesis, 'quomodo,' &c, means that concession on such points,
in view of the circumstances of the time, was a very different thing from
any compliance with heathen idolati^.
for the Catholic Easter. 227
fixed point, on account of the Resurrection, he agreed with chap. vi.
John in not celebrating the Lord's Pasch before the rising
of the fourteenth moon at evening, and if that were on
a Saturday, would then begin his Easter, as we do now ^ :
but if the Lord's Day were to fall not on the morrow of the
fourteenth moon, but on the sixteenth or seventeenth, or
any other day up to the twenty-first, he waited for that
day^/ Wilfrid spoke, evidently with the Roman arch-
deacon's lessons full in his mind, and with a confidence as
to St. Peter's Paschal practice which showed that he could be
as credulous on one side as his opponents on the other ; —
but he was on stronger ground when he pointed out that
the Scotic practice could not claim the beloved Apostle's
authority. \% differed from Johannean or Quartodeciman
usage, because it restricted the Paschal festival to the
Lord's Day^. It differed not only from general usage,
but even, in principle, from the Mosaic rules, because
it allowed the thirteenth moon to be Easter Eve, and the
morning of the fourteenth to be Easter Sunday morning :
whereas Easter Eve ought not to be earlier than the
fourteenth evening, nor therefore Easter morning than the
morning of the fifteenth. The Scots, he urged, began their
reckoning too early, and ended it a day too early : they let
in, at the outset, the ' thirteenth moon ' ; they left out, at
the close, the twenty-first *. They agreed, — said Wilfrid, \
^ Meaning that such a Saturday evening would correspond to that of
Holy Saturday, as observed by the Church's commencement of Easter
rites towai-ds the close of that day.
' Wilfrid argues that this is really in accordance with Ezod. xii. i8.
' As Bede says of Aidan, the Scots and Britons had neither the right
to claim St. John, nor the discredit of adhering to ' Quartodecimanism/
St. John took no account of the first day of the week ; but the Celtic
Churches would not celebrate Pasch on any other day. But Wilfrid,
though *■ crammed ' with Roman assumptions as to what St. Peter did,
imagined that ' John's successors in Asia ' were not Quartodecimans.
* ' Ita ut tertia decima luna ad vesperam saepius Pascha incipiatis,
cnjus ne4}ue lex uUam fecit mentionem, neque auctor et dator Evangelii
Dominus in ea, sed in quarta decima %d yetus pascha manducavit ad
Tesperam, vtl Novi Testamenti sacramenta . . . tradidit.' Here yel -• et.
Wilfrid, we see, adopts, as a matter of course, the then current opinion,
not held by the earliest fathers, that the actual day of our Lord's death
was the fifteenth of Nisan. He goes on, ' Item lunam yicesimam
CHAP. VI.
228 Reply of Wilfrid
in a pithy summary of his case, — ^neither with John nor
Peter, neither with Law nor Gospel. Colman replied by
appealing to 'Anatolius' Paschal canon ^/ in which it was
ruled that the Paschal limits should be ' the fourteenth and
twentieth moons ' : so that a * fourteenth moon/ if a Sunday,
might be Easter Sunday, and a ' twenty-first moon ' might
not. He also asked whether it were credible that Columba
and his successora, men eminent for sanctity and for mira-
cles, had been allowed to go wrong in such a matter. To
this Wilfrid replied, 'Anatolius was indeed a holy and
learned man; but why quote him, if you do not really
follow him ? He framed the cycle of nineteen years : the
whole Church keeps to it, except yovj I And as to the
fourteenth and twentieth moons, you do not observe that
he used the Egyptian reckoning, and treated the fourteenth
moon at evening as really the fifteenth just begun * : and if
primam, quam lex maxime eelebrandam commendayit, a celebratione
vestri paschae fundi tus eliminatis,' &c Op. v. ai.
* See the canon, erroneously said to be a Latin version of that of
Anatolius, in GaUand. Bibl. iii. 545 if. Cp. Diet. Chr. Ant. i. 593. It con-
tains, says Bucherius, several ^ paradoxes ' or errors, e. g. ' Paschae
Dominicam luna xiv. nullo scrupulo indicit, in quo cum Quartadecimanis
. . . facit, etsi id till perpetuum non sit : ' in its nineteen years, Easter
falls thrice on the ^ fourteenth moon,' on April i, March 29, April 4.
*• Praeterea, eamdem paschatis Dominicam a xiii. luna saltem exeunte in
XX. duntaxat diffundit : tametsi Scriptura et cum ea Alexandrini ... in
xxi. aperte propagent,' &c. ; ib. 55T. As to the necessity of keeping Easter
always on a Sunday, this canon is emphatic ; ' Better to put off Easter,
on account t>f the Lord's Day, until the twentieth moon, than to keep it
before the Lord's Day on account of the fourteenth ; ' c. 11. It distinctly
denies that Easter can be kept so late as the 'twenty-first moon,' c 8,
i. e. later than a day of which the evening only is assigned to the twenty-
firat. Petavius (Animadv. in Epiphan. p. 193) censures Ruffinus for
so abbreviating a sentence of Anatolius' Greek (preserved by Euseb.)
as to make him allow Easter to be kept in the ' beginning of the first
month/ i. e. on the fourteenth moon ; and traces the Celtic error to this
mistranslation.
^ ' Ille sic in Pascha Dominico,' &c. Wilfrid means, ' In principle Ana-
tolius was with us ; an evening which you would reckon as the fourteenth
he would include in the first hours of the fifteenth, and so on.' In the
' Anatolian ' canon, c. 8, we find, ' Omnis dies in lunae computatione, non
eodem numero quo mane initiatur, ad vesperam finitur : quia dies quae
mane in luna . . . xiiL annumeratur, eadem ad vesperum xiv. invenitur.'
Petavius says that WUfrid ascribes to Anatolius 'opinionem quam ne
somniavit quidem unquam/ as if Anatolius would have called that day
for the Catholic Easter. 2,21^
he assigned the twentieth as an Easter Sunday, he did so chap. vi.
as considering that its evening began the twenty-first.
You do not apprehend this peculiarity of reckoning : that
is the reason why you sometimes keep your Easter even on
the thirteenth moon, before the full moon. As for C!olumba
and his successors, and the signs which, according to you,
attested their holiness — I will not quote the text, " Many
shall say to Me in that day," &c., for I doubt not that they
were beloved by Him whom they served with pious inten-
tion, although with rustic simplicity. If they kept Easter
wrongly, it was because they knew no better; therefore
they took little harm by it ^ If a " Catholic reckoner " had
shown them the right way, I feel sure that they would have
taken it ; for in other matters they lived up to their know-
ledge. But you have not the excuse of ignorance in your
resistance to the decrees made, under Scriptural warrant *,
by the Apostolic see, — I might say by the Universal Church,
whose authority must needs outweigh that of a few men,
however holy, in a comer of a remote island ^ If your
Columba — let me say ovi/r% too, if he was Christ's — was
a saint and a wonder-worker, ought he to be preferred
to the blessed chief of Apostles ? ' — and here, with what
a look and in what a tone we can well imagine, Wilfrid
thundered out the text, * Thou art Peter,' and left its echoes
undisturbed by further speech.
only ' the fourteenth ' which had a full moon before its sunset, — otherwise
he would call it the thirteenth ; whereas the Irish called ihat the four-
teenth and kept it as Paschal, which was followed by a ftiU moon in the
ensuing night *• The spurious canon of Anatoliua, given in Bucherius,
was perhaps designed to support the cause of the British Christians ; '
Diet Chr. Ant 1. c
I < Our elders,' says Ciimmian, < simply and faithfully observed quod
optimum in diebus suis esse noverunt ; ' Usher, Sylloge, p. 19.
^ < Wilfrid here assumes grounds which he had no claim to. . . Wilfrid
maintains that the fifteenth was the first regular day for the solemnity of
Easter, and insists upon it as if it were a rule of faith . . . Yet the fact is
that, were Easter day to be fixed according to the Gospel history, the six-
teenth should have been waited for ;' Lanigan, iii. 66.
' ' Uno de angulo extremae insulae ;' so v. 19, ' extremo mundi angulo ;'
a play on the name Angles. Cp. Jerome, Ep. 46. 10, quoting Yirg. Eel. i. 67.
The ancient insularity of the inhabitants of Britain had been intensified
by the Teutonic conquest : see Freeman, Hist Essays, iv. 234.
230 Decision of King Oswy
<HAP. yi. His argument had been, on the whole, well adapted to
the audience. True, he had treated the bishop of the
Northumbrian Church with a dictatorial roughness which
must have been highly offensive, especially to those Lindis-
fame ecclesiastics who remembered him as a precocious
boy, and might think that, as such, he had been but too
kindly treated. True also, he had spoken of the glorious
saint of Hy with a superb indulgence which could hardly
be less irritating *. True, again, that he had, in good faith,
disparaged the ancient extent of Quartodeciman observance,
had said far more than could be verified as to St. Peter's
own practice, and had spoken as if Rome's existing Paschal
system had been her tradition from the first, — which ' was
a great mistake ^,' for she had altered her cycle, and had
also altered her Paschal limits, which once began with the
' sixteenth ' of the moon ^ But there was no one present
who could expose the weak points of his pleading : it had
one strong point, — the utter inability of the Scotic Church
to prove itself heir to the Ephesine tradition * : and the
appeal to the majesty of the 'first' Apostle was more
impressive to King Oswy than any array of proofs and
authorities. He asked Colman whether those words were
really spoken by Christ to St. Peter? 'Certainly.' 'Did
He ever give the like power to your Columba ? ' ' Never.'
'You both agree, then, that this was said principally to
Peter, and that to him our Lord* gave the keys of the
kingdom of heaven? ' * Yes ^,' they both said, ' assuredly.*
Then said the king, with a quiet smile ®, but with an under-
lying seriousness which we might smile at, if the perver-
sion of faith which it indicated were less deplorable,
^ ^ Throughout his life he was far too careless of the opinions and
feelings of others.' Raine, Historians of Ch. of York, i. p. xxviii.
' Lanigan, iii. 64.
» lb. ii. 375, 384, 390.
^ lb. ii. 386 : ' On this point Wilfrid had greatly the advantage of
Colman.'
• * Etiam : ' so y. a, 6.
* Eddi, 10. Oswy's question to Colman must be understood to mean,
* Do 70U admit that Wilfrid has quoted correctly ? ' Fridegod anticipates
the ^Renaissance' affectations by making Oswy talk of Hhe pains of
Acheron,' and asks * Numquid Olympiaca Petro quis major in aula ?'
for Continental Easter. 231
' And I say to you both, that this is that door-keeper chai-. m.
whom I do not choose to gainsay; but as far as I know
and am able, I desire in all things to obey his rulings,
lest haply when I come to the doors of the kingdom,
I may find none to unbar them, if he is adverse to me
who is proved to hold the keys/
Such was the close of the Whitby conference. Bede Close of
intimates that 'there was also no small debate on the l^^f ^"^****'
question of the tonsure ^ ; ' but he has spared us its details.
Enough that on the points of difierence between the Scotic
and non-Scotic systems, the king and the majority of the
assembly pronounced against the former. Cedd himself,
who had listened to both sides with so much attention,
abandoned the usages of Lindisfame. To Colman the Colman's
mortification must needs have been intense. He himself ®^' "***
had no thought of adopting the foreign customs : he would
be true to Hy and to North Ireland. His Irish monks
stood by him, and so did some thirty Northumbrians who
had become members of the same community ^. The bishop
announced his intention of going to consult with his own
people in Ireland as to his future course. This would be
well understood to be an abdication. But he made a
parting request to Oswy ^, which touchingly indicates the
generosity and tenderness of his nature. There were some
brethren in his monastery who had no mind to leave their
homes for his sake, or for the sake of old customs. Be it
so, — let them remain ; but would the king set over them, as
abbot, a Lindisfame man who had been among bishop
Aidan's first pupils, and was now abbot of Melrose, — Eata?
He would be to the remnant of the Lindisfame monks
a gentle and congenial superior. Oswy readily granted
this request : and Eata became abbot of Lindisfame, with-
out resigning the charge of Melrose *. C!olman quitted the
Holy Island with his little company, and took with him
> Bede, iii. 96 : ' Nam et de hoc quaestio non minima erat.'
* Bede, iv. 4. The ' Petrine ' argument did not oyerawe them.
' Bede, iii. a6 : ' Quod aiunt Colmanum abiturum petiisse/ &c
* Bede, Yit. Cuthb. 16. Richard of Hexham, de statu Hagust. Eccl.
c. 9. This ' pluralism ' was irregular.
232 Gains and losses
CHAP. VI. some of the bones of Aidan, ordering the rest to be buried
in the sacristy ^. He paid a visit to Hy, where the tale he
had to tell must have been sorely trying to the then abbot,
Cumine the White ^ : and thence he went to the island of
Inisboffin ^, off the coast of Mayo, where he built a monas-
tery. But after a while, as Bede tells us with a touch of
satirical humour, ' the brethren could not agree, inasmuch
as the Irishmen used to leave the monastery when harvest-
work had to be done, and roam about in places well known
to them, but would return with the winter, and propose to
share with the Englishmen what the latter had gathered
in^' So Colman removed his Northumbrian monks to
a small property which he purchased in Mayo itself : and
the house thus founded was in Bede's time a large monastery,
exclusively occupied by Englishmen, who lived under
* canonical rules,' and observed those very usages against
which their founder had vainly striven in 664. Colman
himself spent the rest "of his life on his distant isle, and
died in 676 ^
Review of %v His departure from Northumbria marks an epoch, which
Minion. ^^ we may pause to take note of in its manifold significance.
It was the end of the Scotic ascendency, the triumph of the
' Catholic Easter ' and of other Continental Church usages,
the opening of a freer communication with Latin Chris-
1 tianity properly so called. It brought new facilities and
opportunities, made room for new precedents, held up new
models of excellence. There was good in this, and also
some evil. A Church moulded on the Celtic type could
never have sufficed for the needs of England. The Irish
Church was too intensely monastic, too closely bound up
with the tribal divisions of its people, and too widely
separated from the general area of ecclesiastical civiliza-
* Bede, iii. a6, * in secretario ' ; cf. above, p. i8a.
* He sat from 657 to 669 ; Lanigan, iii. 36. See Adamn. iii. 5.
' * Inisboufinde, id est, insula vitulae albae ; ' Bede, iv. 4. Cf. Tigher-
nach : ' Navigatio Colmani episcopi, cum reliquis Scotorum, ad insulam
Vaccae Albae, in qua fuudavit ecclesiam.' See Lanigan, iii. 79.
* Bede, iv. 4. The ' nota sibi loca ' would be in Gonnaught.
* Tighernach : 'Colmannus' (Columbanus, Ulster Ann.) 'epiBCOpua
insulae Vac<iae Albae . . . obiit' See Reeves's Adamnan, p. 376.
in the Latin triumph. 233
j tion ^. The Latinizing process gave system and order, and chap. vi.
\ organized and concentrated force, and a certain magnifi-
cence which could symbolize devotion, and teach great
' lessons through the imagination, and overawe rough
j natures as by the visible presence of a Kingdom supreme
i over lord and ceorl alike. In its train came all that in that
age could educate, or soften, or form taste, or train the
sense of beauty: it founded schools as well as convents,
enlisted painting and architecture, though still of a rude
and stem type, in the service of religion, and in various
ways acted as an elevating and civilizing power. But that
the Latin temper also fostered superstition and spiritual
despotism, and that the tightening of links to Rome had
some ill effects on English Church freedom, are positions
which mediaeval history sets far above all doubt. Yet the
reader of Bede can hardly look forward, at this point,
without soon looking backward, under the spell of that
noble and lo\ang testimony which the Northumbrian his-
torian records in honour of the first three bishops of Lindia-
fame, and of the clergy or monks who imbibed their spirit
of single-hearted goodness, of pure unworldliness, of devo-
tion to sacred duty 2. * The very place which they governed *
spoke of these virtues by its appearance : there were, beside
the wooden church, only just so many buildings as were
absolutely necessary for the community life. The monastery
had no money, but only cattle. Gifts of money glided
through the hands of Finan or Colman, as through Aidan's^,
straight into the hands of the poor. No need was there for
guest-houses to entertain noble visitors: such persons, if
they did visit Lindisfame, came but for prayer and sermon,
and were content with the brethren's simple and daily food *.
This was the case with Oswy himself, as with Oswald : *he
' See Skene, Celtic Scotland, ii. 63 ff., 366 ; Green, Making of England,
pp. 284, 31 7, 324. Professor G. T. Stokes owns that, in the twelfth century,
* the Celtic Christian organization had utterly broken down,' had failed
to * rule and tame the wild Celt ' ; Ireland and Celtic Ch. p. 341. It thus
actually contributed to the chaos which gave an opportunity to Strongbow.
' * Quantae autem parsimoniae,' &o. ; Bede, iii a6.
' See Bede, iii. 5 : ' £a potius quae sibi a divitlbus,' &c. ; and iii. 14.
* Bede, iii. a6 : * Nam neque ad susceptionem potentium saeculi,' &c.
234 The Scottc Clergy in contrast
iHAi'. VI. would come with five or six thanes, and depart when prayer
in the church was over/ The effect produced on the people
of Northumbria might be seen in the glad welcome given
to any cleric or monk : if he were on a journey, people ran
up to him and ' bent their heads in joyful expectation of
being "signed" by his hand or blessed by his lips, — and
then listened earnestly to his words of exhortation. And
on Sundays they vied with each other in hastening to
church, or to monasteries, not for the sake of getting a
meal, but to hear God's word : and if a priest happened to
come into a township, the inhabitants would speedily
assemble, and beg to hear from him the word of life/ For
* well they knew that he was come for the sake of souls, to
preach, to baptize, and visit the sick,' — that is, on one of
those mission circuits which supplied to some extent the
lack of parochial organization. They knew that the thing
farthest from a priest's thoughts was, what he could get out
of them \ Indeed, the bishops and clergy of that genera-
tion were so clear of all suspicion of self-seeking, so free
from * that pest of avarice,' that except under compulsion
they could not be got to receive lands for building monas-
teries. ' But enough of this,' Bede concludes : and we can
' read between the lines ' of his panegyric a mournful and
indignant reflexion on the contrast presented by the monks
or clergy of his own time. Here lies the point of his
emphasis ^ ' For then the whole anxiety of those teachers
was, not how to serve the world, but how to serve God :
their whole care was to provide, not for the belly, but for
the heart. This was the reason why, at that time, the
religious habit w^as held in such veneration/ ' The custom
of not willingly accepting endowments was preserved in
* Compare the title of 'the three blessed visitors ' given to St David,
St. Padarn, St. Teilo, because they taught without accepting any reward;
even in food, Rees* Welsh Saints, p. 197 ; Williams, Eocl. Antiq. of Cymry,
P- 133.
- * Tota enim fuit tunc solicitudo . . . tempore illo . . . aliquanto poet haec
tempore;' Bede, iii. a6. Compare another pas&age, iii. 5, ^nostri tern-
poris segnitia ; ' iv. 27, * Erat quippe moris eo temporef' Ac. ; and iv. 3,
^ Non enim ad otium, ut quidam, sed ad laborem, se mouasterium intrare
signat>at/
with Bede's younger contemporaries, 235
Northumbrian churches for some time afterwards \' He chap. vr.
means to say, ' We are living in a changed world : the fine
gold is become dim : secularity has tainted and enfeebled
the Church/ It was the last effort of Bede for his Church
when he wrote the memorable letter to Egbert, then a young
bishop of York, afterwards its first archbishop, entreating
him to correct abuses which had crept into monasteries, to
raise the tone of the clergy, to restore pious habits among
the people ^.
And so we bid farewell to that old Scotic Church of
Northumbria. It could not but pass away, for it could not
provide what Northumbria then needed : it had but a tem-
porary mission, but that mission it fulfilled with a rare
simplicity of purpose. It brought religion straight home
to men's hearts by sheer power of love and self-sacrifice :
it held up before them, in the unconscious goodness and
nobleness of its representatives, the moral evidence for
Christianity. It made them feel what it was to be taught
and cared for, in the life spiritual, by pastors who before
all things were the disciples and ministers of Christ, —
whose chief and type was a St. Aidan. ^^
^ A like custom existed in the old Irish Church, and was traced up to
St. Patrick ; see Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 310 : < but the munificence of
tribes and princes was not to be restrained ; * M*^Gee, Hist. Irel. i. 134.
* £p. ad Egbert, a, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, &c. There is a melancholy emphasis
in the concluding words of the letter. Bede had urged Egbert to contend
against the preyalence of avarice : ' Caeterum si de ebrietute, . . . et caeteris
hujusmodi oontagionibus, pari ratione tractare voluerimus, epistolae modus
in immensum eztenderetur.' His was the bitter experience of one who,
persoually loyal to a high and pure standard, lives to see it ignored by a
generation which has succumbed to degrading influences, by a Church
that has fallen from its first love. But it is right to remember that this
decadence was largely due to the wild disorder which filled Northumbria
during the reigns of Oared, Kenred, Osric, and Coolwulf. After Bede's
death, Egbert's pious energy must have told for good on his Church. See
the account of his illustrious archiepiscopate in Raine's Fast. Ebor. p. 96.
CHAPTER VII.
Tada at TaE vacant see of Lindiafame was filled up, probably in
farne.^ the early summer of 664, by the appointment of Tuda ^ It
was the obvious choice to make ; and Northumbrian church-
men might look forward hopefully, in the phrase afterwards
used at consecrations, to 'many years ^' under one who
had been virtually acting as coadjutor-bishop, who would
be welcome to many as of the same race with the three
former bishops, and also unexceptionable to the most
fastidious orthodoxy on the questions of * Catholic Pasch '
and * crown-like tonsure/ But, as often befell in the
chequered history of newly-planted Churches, these hopes
were soon disappointed by an event which justifies us in
placing our survey of the Celtic episcopate of lindisfame
after the retirement of his predecessor. The bishop,
' a good man and a religious, governed the Church but
The a very short time ^.' There swept over the island, in this
Pest ^ year, one of those fierce pestilences which gave to the word
* mortality ' so terrible a significance in the records of that
age. It was about a century since the plague which we
connect with Justinian's reign had slain its thousands all
over Europe, had raged in Britain and in Ireland *, and had
^ Bede, iii. 26 : ' Suscepit pro illo pontificatum,' kc
* The custom may hare been older thau the office lyhich embodies it
in Muratori, Lit. Rom. ii. 443.
' Bede, 1. c. : * Vir quidem bonus/ &c. Eddi wholly ignores Tuda, and
describes Wilfred as elected to succeed Colman.
* Gibbon, v. 253. Comp. Ann. Gamb. a. 537, < Mortalitas in Brittannla et
in Hibemia fuit.' lb. a. 547, ' Mortalitas magna.' Tighernach mentions
three pestilences in the sixth century. See Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 243.
King Maelg^ivyn died of this plague. It returned in Teilo's time, where-
upon he retired into Armorica : and it carried off a Cornish king, Geraint.
It is referred to in Gregory the Great's Dialogues, iv. 38.
Ravages of the * Yellow Pest. ' 237
repeatedly, in the days of the devout Prankish king chap. vir.
Gontran, been made an occasion for * Rogations ' and
public fasts ^ In our islands it was known as the
* Yellow Pest,' from the ghastly yellow hi^e of its victims*
bodies ^ : and now, before reappearing in Ireland, it visited
Britain soon after a solar eclipse in May ^. Its coming was
unexpected * : it smote down high and low, not sparing the
king of the Kentishmen, nor the archbishop of Canterbury
himself. Both died on the same day, July 14 *. Erconbert
was succeeded by his son Egbert : but the seat of Augustine
remained vacant for four years. It seems that Damian
bishop of Rochester succumbed at the same time to the
epidemic: and his seat was long unfilled®. When in its
onward sweep the pest entered the North-country, it
* hurried Tuda out of this world,' and he was buried in a
monastery called P»gnai8Bch "', — supposed to be Finchale, —
or in the Chronicle, Wa^ele, — perhaps Whalley. It seems
also that we must refer to the October of this year the
death of Bishop Cedd, who, after returning home from
* Greg. Turon. H. Fr. ix. 21, aa ; x. 30.
' 'FlavoB et exsangues,' Lib. Landav. p. iot. It is there added, in
legendary style, that the pest seemed to float along like a pillar of watery
cloud, or like showers traversing a glen. Those who tried to cure patients
died themselves. See Pryce's Anc. Brit. Ch. p. 163, that its worst
symptoms were inflamed tumours. See Ann. Cambr. p. lai, ' laUwelen'
(* Y vail valen'', the yellow plague.
* See Bede, iii. 27 : ' Facta erat/ &c. He dates the eclipse on May 3 :
but it was on May i ; see Usher, Antiq. p. 491. So the Irish annalists. They
also say that ^ the mortality came to Ireland ' on Aug. i. Tighernach gives
the right year, 664 ; see O'Gonor, Rer. Hib. Scr. ii. ao3-4 ; the Ulster Annals
say 663 (ib. iv. 55) ; and the Chronicon Scotorum, 660, — but the latter is
' four years in arrear ' at this period ^Introd. p. xlv). The pest broke out
in Fothairt, co. Wexford. It carried off Ethelhun, but spared his com-
panion Egbert, for whose prayer, and vow * peregrinus vivere,' see Bede,
iii. 97. ' Innumerabiles mortui sunt,' Ulster Ann. Adamnan ascribes
the immunity of the 'plebs Pictorum et Scotorum Britanniae' to
St. Golumba's intercession ; Vit. Col. ii. 46.
* * Subita,' Bede ; see v. 34, * Et pestilentia venit.'
* Bede, iv. i: ^Eodem menae ao die.' Tighernach names five Irish
kings, and several prelates, including four abbots of (^Irish) Bangor, as
its victims.
* Bede, iv. a. end.
^ Bede, iii. a? : * Qua plaga,' &c. See B[addan and Stubbs, iii. 444.
238 Relapse of some East-Saxons.
CHAP. VII. Whitby aa a conformist to the ' Catholic Easter/ had re-
• visited Lastingham * in the time of the mortality \' and there
died. He was buried outside the wooden church which he
had raised on the ground that he and his brother had
hallowed : another brother, Chad, succeeded him as abbot.
His East-Saxons were differently affected by the scourge
of the Yellow Pest. Some who were ruled, under the over-
lordship of Wulfhere, then extending over all Essex, by
Sebbi, brother of Sigebert the Little, stood the trial of their
faith and patience, and ' clung with great devotion to the
iJeiapse creed which they had received ^J In the other division of
East"^^ the small kingdom, where Sebbi's nephew Sighere reigned,
Saxons, the sudden affliction (as was often the case in those ages)
had the effect of throwing the people back on their old
worship, as if they were smitten for having deserted it, or
as if they had expected the Cross to be a safeguard against
suffering ^. * Sighere, and very many of the people or the
earls, loving this life, and not seeking another, or even not
believing it to exist, began to restore the Pagan temples
which had been forsaken, and to worship images, as if by
means of these they could be shielded from the mortality *.*
In the valley of the Tweed also, some, in whose minds * the
seed had no deepness of earth,' ' neglected the mysteries of
faith which they had received/ and tried to obtain relief
from the disease by heathenish ' spells or amulets */ At
* Bede, iii. 23 : * Qui cum annis multis/ &c., and Stubbs, Registrum, p. 2.
See Bede's touching story of the thirty Essex monks who came to live or
die beside his grave.
^ Bede, iii. 30. Sighere had a sou and successor, Oifa.
' See Robertson, Hist. Ch. iii. 477. Compare Adam nan, Vit. Col. ii. 3a ;
the Pictiah ^ magi,' seeing a newly-baptized boy dying of sudden illness,
began to mock at his parents, and * Christianorum, tanquam infirmiori,
Deo derogare.'
* Bede, iii. 30 : ' Nam et ipse rex,' &c. These relapses were common
enough, especially among the Frisians : e. g. see the anonymous Life of
St. Boniface, ii. 20, 'dim . . . conversos sed . . . iterum quosdam eorum
ad pristinum gentilitatis errorem devolutos.' Councils take cognizance of
such cases ; e. g. second of Orleans, c. 20, *■ qui ad idolorum cultum rever-
tuntur ;' Mansi, viii. 838. See also Greg. Ep. viii. i, as to Corsicans. Comp.
Maclear, Ap. of Med. Europe, p. 146, and Conversion of Northmen, p. 199,
on heathen reactions ; and Alb. Butler, Nov. 21.
^ Bede, iv. 27, and Yit. Cuthb. 9, ' per incantationes vel alligaturas,' or
' fylacteria.' Comp. the prohibition of phylacteries and ligatures by a
Cuthbert's work at Melrose. 239
Melrose Cuthbert himself caught the infection: he recovered, chap. vn.
although for the rest of his life he felt some effects of his
illness : but Boisil, his beloved prior, died, after tranquilly
spending the last week of his life in reading St. John's
Gospel with Cuthbert \ who succeeded to his office, and
added to its duties, after Boisil's example, the work of an
evangelist throughout the adjacent country. To sustain Cuthbert,
the rude people in their faith, or reclaim them to it, he Mdrost*.
would go out, on foot or on horseback ^ and sometimes be
absent from the monastery for weeks together, penetrating
into the wildest valleys, climbing steep hill-sides, and thus
finding access to poor hamlets which other teachers had
shrunk from visiting, through 'horror' of their dreary
situation, or distaste for their 'poverty and rusticity ^'
Not such was this ' true man of God,' as Bede repeatedly
calls him. He attracted those ' shepherdless sheep ' by the
Gtorman Council in 745, Migne, Patr. Lat. Izxxiz. 8ia ; and on the rumour
that they were used even in Rome, St. Boniface, Ep. 49, 63, and cf. ib. Ep.
63. At Constantinople the Trullan synod had occasion to threaten dealers
in amulets (whom it calls <f>vKaKrrjpiovs) with excommunication, can. 61.
Compare theBeport of the Central African Mission for 1876, p. 10 : ' One
old chief . . . could not bring himself at the last moment to abandon
his amulets, in which, he said^his fathers had trusted from time imme-
morial ; and so, for a time, his admission was deferred.'
^ Bede, * quo tempore,' Vit. Cuthb. 8, would strictly refer to 661, when
Eata and his monks returned from Ripon to Melrose. But the following
words clearly point to the great epidemic of 664, 'morbo . . . quo tunc
plurimi per Britanniam . . . deliciebant.' For Boisil's last days see the
beautiful account in Bede, 1. c. ^ As I have but seven days to live,' said
Boisil, ' learn all you can from me.' ' What can we get through in seven
days ? ' 'St. John's Gospel : I have a codex in seven quarto sheets : w^e
can take one each day.' They read it through in that time, ' quia solum
in ea {lectione) fidei quae per dilectionem operatur simplicitatem, non
aatem quaestionum profunda, tractabant.' (Bede's own death-bed was to
exhibit a scene somewhat like this, and quite as touching.) Simeon of
Durham says (Hist. Dun. Eccl. i. 3, Op. i aa) that a ' codex ' in which
Cothbert used to read under Boisil's teaching was still extant in Durham
monastery, * prisca novitate ae decore mirabilis.' See also Bede, V. C. aa.
' So Bede, iv. a7, Vit Cuthb. 9 ; (identical passages on the whole). See
the story in Vit. Cuthb. la : ^ Cum praedicaturus . . . de monasterio exiret,
uno comite puero.' See above, p. 334, on the serious interest with which
the people then listened to preaching.
' Bede, iv. a? : ' In viculis qui in arduis asperisque montibus,' &c. Cp.
Scott,
' Where . . . Eildon slopes to the plain.'
240 Wilfrid, Bishop-elect.
CHAP. VII. fascination of his presence and his words. ' So great was
his skill in speaking, so intense his eagerness to make his
words persuasive, such a glow lighted up his angelic face \
that no one of those present dared to hide from Cuthbert
the secrets of his heart : all revealed openly *^, by confession,
what they had done, for in truth they supposed that he
must needs be aware of those very deeds of theirs ; and
after confession they wiped away their sins at his bidding,
by worthy fruits of repentance ^,' finding the best enforce-
ment of his exhortations in the generous charity which
brought him among them rather than into more attractive
places ^ in the untiring energy with which he 'devoted
himself to this pious labour,' above all in his personal
example, — in himself*. Such was his life at Melrose for
several years ®.
Wilfrid But we must return from the work of a young saint to
bishop of *^® ecclesiastical politics of a kingdom. Who was to be the
York. bishop of Northumbria? It seems that the Witan were
assembled to decide the point, which, as may be inferred
from later instances'^, fell within the province of the
national assembly, including, as it did, the leading eccle-
siastics. Alchfrid, as sub-king of Deira, would contribute
much to the decision arrived at in favour of Wilfrid. Eddi
says that ' all answered with one consent, " There is no one
of our race better and worthier than Wilfrid the presbyter
and abbot."' He was then about thirty years old: his
^ ' Tale vultus angelic! lumen,' Bede. ' Erat aspectu angelicus,' Anon.
Vit. The beauty was probably in the expression ; for at the exhumation
of his skeleton in 1827 he was found to have had a prominent upper jaw,
a turned'Up nose, and a deeply- indented chin (cp. Reginald, Libellus de S.O.
c. 41). The skeleton measured 5 ft. 8 in. ; Baine's St. Cuthbert, p. 213 ft
He had black hair, Sim. Op. i. 204.
' * Falam,' in the sense of hiding nothing from him,
' ' Et confessa dignis, ut imperabat, poenitentiae fructibus abstergerent.'
* / Solebat autem ea maxime loca peragrare,' &c
* * Verbo praedicationis simul et opere virtutis.' Compare Ztede, i. a6;
iii. 5, &c. See also above, p. 56.
* * Multos annos,' Bede, iv. 27, Vit. Cuthb. 16 ; * aliquot annos,' V. C. 9.
Even if he had become prior in 661, this would hardly allow us to date his
removal to Lindisfame in 664, as Simeon does, Dun. £ccl. i. c. 6.
^ See Kemble. ii. 221, referring to cases in the Chronicle and in Florence ;
e. g. Oskytel was made archbishop of York by the favour of King Eadred
Consecration of Wilfrid. 241
biographer dwells fondly on his ability in preaching, his chap, vil
discriminating treatment of different characters, his ^ mar-
vellous memory/ his devotion, his beneficence to the
afflicted ^. Wilfrid, then, was to be bishop : but, probably
at his desire, and certainly with good reason, it was re-
solved to replace the bishopric at York. He was to preside
in the minster ' that Edwin and Oswald had erected ^! But
who was to consecrate him? Deusdedit, and probably
Damian, were dead : Cedd was still alive at the time, but he
would have the disadvantage, in Wilfrid's eye, of Scotic
consecration : and the same drawback existed in regard to
Jaruman of Mercia. Wini would be objectionable as the
supplanter, in effect, of Agilbert. There remained Boniface
of Dunwich, who had been consecrated by Archbishop
Honorius ^ ; but Wilfrid would wish to have the canonical
* three consecrators ' ; and his own strong predilection for
the country where he had spent some years, and learned so
much, would be an additional motive for requesting to be
consecrated in Gaul. It was so arranged : he went over
to that country, and was consecrated at Compifegne, in
Neustria, at the end of 664 or the beginning of 665 ^
and all his Witan ; Ghron. a. 971. See Stubbs, Const. Hist i. 157. Comp.
Gr^. Turon. H. Fr. ix. ai, *Charimerem referendariuni cum consensu
oivium regalis decrerit auctoritad fieri sacerdotem.' Plummer thinks it
probable that Wilfrid was elected during Tuda's lifetime to be bishop of
Deira only. But, as he himself admits, Tuda was * bishop of the Northum-
brians' in general : and as we should certainly infer from Bede that Wilfrid's
election was subsequent to the death of Tuda, who had held the * pontifi-
eatus Nordanhymbroi-um,' so we are expressly informed by £ddi that
the election to the *• vacant see ' took place in a full Northumbrian Witan.
Bede might dwell on Alchfrid's peculiar interest in the matter (' sibi suis-
que,' iii. aS), because the Northumbrian episcopate was again to be stationed
in Deira.
^ Eddi, c. II. ' Raine, Fast. Ebor. i. 6a.
' Eddi makes Wilfrid say to the kings, * It is not my place to accuse
any one ; but there are many bishops in Britain who are either Quarto-
decimansy as the Britons and Scots, or haye been ordained by them.'
According to Bede, he had yirtually ui^ed, at Whitby, that the Britons
and Scots were wA really Quartodecimans. Eddi is simply using the term
loosely, in the temper of a partisan, as in c. 14, 15. Malmesbury does the
same, Gest. Fontif. iii. 100.
* So Mabillon, Ann. Benedict, i. 478. Bede says that he died afivt foi'ty-
five years of episcopate ; y. 19. Eddi assigns him forty-six years, meaning,
doubtless, that he died in the forty-sixth, o. 65. He died, we know, in 709 :
R
242 Consecration of Wilfrid.
CHAP. viL The place was a royal * villa/ where ' the wild Chlotair ^ '
had died, and where the treasures of Dagobert I had been
kept : it now belonged to the young * Faineant ' king,
Consecra- Chlotair III. The ceremony was performed with unusual
Wilfrid in magnificence, as if the Prankish hierarchy wished to do
Gaul. special honour to the disciple of Aunemund and the
champion of the Catholic Easter. Twelve prelates offici-
ated, including Agilbert, who had returned to his native
country after the conference ^ : and ' after their custom
they lifted Wilfrid up in a golden seat, and carried him
with their own hands, assisted by no one else,' in a choral
procession, to the church where he was to be consecrated '.
This singular custom was known to Gregory the Great, who
presented to Gregory of Tours * a golden chair ' for use in
his church *. Wilfrid was thoroughly at home amid such
if the day was in October (see Baine, i. 76), the literal construction of the
reckoning places the consecration in the early autumn of 664 ; but as this
crowds a good deal into that seasoti, and causes soine difficulty in regnrd
to after events, we may perhaps suppose Bede to reckon from Wilfrid's
^tdtwfi. The fixed points are, that he cannot well have been elected before
the atitumn of 664 : that iti some sense he had full forty- five years of epis-
copate : thai he returned to Northumbria three years before the late summer
of 669, and that Chad, during that period, held the see of iTork : comp.
^de, V. 19 ; Fddi, 14. If Wilfrid went into Gaul towards the close of
664, he must have stayed there until the spring of 666. llie conseci'ation
would be deferred until a large ntlmber of bishops could assemble : and
some other circumstances, notv unknowb, may have contributed to keep
Wilfrid Jn Gaul for more than a year. It is true, as t^Iummer says, that
in V. 94, Bede ' distinctly places Wilfrid's consecration in 664' : but in the
satne sentence he does the like as to Chad's. And Chad was not conse-
crated until Oswy had become weary of waiting for Wilfrid'n return from
Gaul, ivhither he can hardly haVe gone before the September of 664 at
earliest. We must therefore allow a ' considerable ' interval between his
joumey and Chad's consecration (Ilaine in l)ict. Chr. Biogr. iv. 1180).
* Carlyle, Fr. Rev. i. 96 ; see Greg. Turon. H. Fr. iv. at.
' J^e was not yet, aa Bede thought (iii. aS ; v. 19), bishop of Paris. See
above, p. otig,
' Eddi, la. ' Gemmata YehitUr archontum more curuli;' Frid. 351.
Cp. Martetie, de Ant. Eecl. Kit. ii. 33a, that by ancient custom in Gallic
churches (long kept up at Orleans) a newly-consecrated bishop, on arriving
at the city, was t)laoed in a chair and carried ' humeris religiosorum ' or
' nobilium' into his cathedral for enthronement : a Soissons ritual is quoted,
according to which the new prelate ' elevatur cum cathedra ' to be carried
' ad majorem eoclesiam ' by the count of Soissons, and three other *■ lords.'
* Bencd. Vit. Greg. M. iii. 3. 8. Compare the ' sella gestatoria ' of the
popeSb
His return from Gaul. 243
splendour and such observance ; and he was tempted to <jhap. vit.
protract his enjoyment of Frankish church life ^, or other-
wise detained by circumstances in Gaul, long after the
time at which he was expected to appear in Northumbria.
At last, in the spring of 666, he sailed for Britain, with
a hundred and twenty attendants. A wind drove them on
the Sussex coast ; and then came a scene of excitement and
peril to be remembered for the sake of a later chapter in
his history, perhaps the best chapter of all. The Sussex
barbarians rushed down to seize on the distressed vessel,
and to despoil and capture all on board Wilfrid tried to
buy them off: they answered, like true * wreckers *,' * All is
ours that the sea throws up I ' A pagan priest, standing on
a high mound, tried to 'bind the strangers' hands' by
magic "": one of Wilfrid's company slew him with a stone
from a sling ^ : in the fight that followed, the bishop and
his clerks prayed, while their companions did valiantly,
losing only five men : at last the tide floated the vessel off,
and it made Sandwich in safety.
Wilfrid was soon again at home, but found that he had Wilfrid's
been far too long absent ^ The defeated party, while con-
forming to the CathoUc Eaater, disliked his general line,
and thought, perhaps, that his rule would be too high-
handed. While he lingered in Gaul, they rallied, and
represented to Oswy that the Church could not await the
leisure of a bishop who did not come home to begin his
work *. They had thought of one who would be fitter for
^ Malmesb. p. an : 'Moras nectente.'
' Oa this barbarous * right of wreck,' which on many a coast long sur-
yived the introduction of Christianity, see Freeman, Norm. Conq. iii. 293,
and compare Scott's Pirate, i. 113, 399, ed. A. Lang.
' Comp. Bede, iv. aa, for * litteras wAutorias de qualibus fabulae ferunt'
The South-Saxons were still immersed in paganism.
* < He fell back a corpse, like Ooliath;' Eddi, 13.
* Bede excuses him, as if he ' tarried ' no longer than the ' ordination '
required, in iii. aS ; in v. 19 he omits ' propter ordinationem.' It does not
seem possible to reconcile the former statement with other marks of time.
Three years elapsed between the return of Wilfrid and the retirement of
Chad after Theodore*s arrival in 669.
* See Baine, i. 48 : ' They commented . . . upon the injury that North-
umbria was sustaining by Wilfrid's prolonged and unaccountable
absence.'
B 2
244 Consecration of Chad
oHAp. vn. the bishopric : * a holy man, grave in character, sufficiently
instructed in Scripture, diligent in acting up to Scripture
precepts ^ : ' a man of prayer, study, humility, purity,
voluntary poverty ^ : who had been one of Aidan's original
* twelve boys ^,* and then, as a youth, had lived in Ireland
under monastic discipline*. This was Chad, abbot of
Laatingham, and brother of the East-Saxon bishop. Was
not such a man the fittest occupant of Aidan's seat ? Oswy
assented to this view : Alchfrid would doubtless have stood
out against it on behalf of his absent friend, but that just
at this time he fell under his father's displeasure, who com-
pelled him to give up his intention of accompanying
Benedict Biscop on his second journey to Rome * ; and it
would seem that Bede's brief unexplained statement,
naming Alchfrid with Ethelwald and the Mercians among
the various enemies of Oswy®, refers to some rebellious
movement of Alchfrid after this time, which led to his
Chad con- being disinherited and 'disappearing from history^/ So
for York. ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ Chad was elected bishop, and went into the
south for consecration, attended by the king's chaplain,
Eadhed, afterwards bishop of Lindsey, and ultimately of
Ripon ®. They had expected to find a successor appointed
to Deusdedit®, but were disappointed. Whatever may
have been the case with Wilfrid, Chad seems to have
forgotten that Boniface of Dunwich was available ^^, for
' Bede, iii. a8 : * Virum sanctum, modestum moribus,' &o.
' Bede, iv. 3 : ' Namque inter plura continentiae/ &c.
' Bede, iii. 28 : * Erat enim de discipulis,' &c. above, p. 161.
* Bede, iv. 3. Chad and Egbert bad been 'adolescentes ' in Ireland
together. Now Egbert was born in 639 ; see Bede, iii. 37. If Chad was
about his age, he would be only twenty-six at this time, — below the age
for a bishop. Probably he was some years older than Egbert.
' Bede, Hist, Abb. a : * Quern cum pater ejus,' &o.
* Bede, iii. 14 : ' Et a filio quoque suo Alchfrido.'
^ See Bishop Stubbs on Cathedral of Worcester, p. a. The inscription
on the Bewcastle crosfl, erected in the first year of Egfrid, commemorates
' Alchfrith,' asks prayer * for his soul ' (this, Professor Earle informs me,
is clearly the sense of the clause), and names also Kyniburga (his widow),
Kyneswith (her sister), and Wulfhere ' Icing of Mercians.'
* Com p. Bede, iii. aS ; iv. la.
' Bede does not imply that they were unaware of Beusdedit's death
simply ; * invenerunt iam migrasse . . ,et nccdum alium,' &c
^® And so does Bede himself, when he says, iv. aS, that there was thea
by a Saxon and two British bishops. 245
he repaired to Wini of Winchester, who thereupon took the chap. vn.
first step towards effecting a union of the British and Eng-
lish Churches, while at the same time he showed himself
careful to observe the requirement of the 'three' oonse-
crators, by obtaining the co-operation ^ of 'two bishops of
British race/ most probably from Cornwall *, who, it need
not be said, were maintainers of the Celtic Easter, — and
who therefore, by laying their hands on the head of the
new Northumbrian bishop, unintentionally supplied the
party which resented his appointment with an argument
against the 'regularity' of his consecration ^ In other
respects, the combination of agents in the scene then wit-
nessed by the Church-people of Winchester was specially
interesting and appropriate. A prelate consecrated in Gaul
joins with himself two prelates of a different rite, repre-
senting the old Church of Alban and Restitutus, of
Dubricius and Daxdd, in the consecration of one who had sat
as a boy at Aidan's feet, and had but very lately, it would
seem, given up the British and Scotic observances, — and
no canonically ordained bishop in Britain except Win! : yet Boniface 8at
from 65a to 669 ; iii. ao ; iy. 5.
^ * Adsumptis in societatem ordinationis ; ' Bede, iii. 98. The words
ignore that artificial theory which would make the presiding bishop the
sde agent in the conveyance of the episcopal character so that the assistant
bishops were simply approving witnesses, and had no more to do with
the ' collation ' of the episcopal character than the ' priests present ' with
that of the presbyterate. The dominance of this theory in the Roman
schools accounts for the strange fact that in 1720 and 1731 one or more
priests had been employed to lay on hands with the bishop or bishops,
at the consecration of Roman bishops for Scotland (Stephen, Hist. Soot.
Ch. iL 496, 515). Against this view see Martene, that the assistant
bishops are undoubtedly ' non tantum testes, sed etiam cooperatores,' De
Ant. £ccl. Rit. ii. 331 : Lee on English Ordinations, p. 330 ; Denny and
Lacey de Hierarch. Anglic, p. 3 ff. ; Ch. Qu. Review zli. 385. Comp.
Hincmar, Op. ii. 408, Ep. to Hincmar of Laon : ' Tuum est autem cum
aliis meenm ordinare episcopum, et litteiis canonicis, quas ordinatus ab
ordinatoribus suis jubetur accipere, post me in tuo loco subscribere.'
See also Vit S. Anskar. la, ' pariter consecrantibus ; ' and Goar's Eucho-
logion Qraecorum, p. 303, r£r ovyxftporoyovyrwy dpx^p^t although the
presiding prelate is called specifically 6 x«poroM^aas. Yet it must be
owned that the ' witness ' theory is favoured by some language in Gre-
gory's replies to Augustine's questions.
' Haddan and Stnbbs, 1. 124.
' ' Ceaddam . . . inordinate ordinavit ; ' Eadmer, Yit. Wilf. c la.
246 Chad, bisfiop of York.
oHAP. Til. who was to shine forth, in a brief but beautiful episcopate,
as one of the truest and purest saints of ancient England.
Chad, This event may probably be dated about the middle of
York^ ^ 665^, and Chad, on returning to Northumbria, was installed
as bishop of York ^. ' He began at once® to devote himself
to the maintenance of ecclesiastical truth and purity; to
practise humility and continence; to give attention to read-
ing ; to go about among towns, country districts, cottages,
townships, " fortified places," in order to preach the Gospel,
not on horseback, but, after the manner of the Apostles,
on foot. For he was one of the pupils of Aidan, and took
pains to train his hearers to the same conduct and character,
after Aidan's example and that of his own brother Cedd ^.'
Meantime Wilfrid bore the trial of finding the see thus
filled with a moderation which could hardly have been
expected even from a less high-spirited man. It was his
best policy to accept facts, and to bide his time ^. He did
so, and resumed his place as abbot of Ripon*, where among
his monks was Ceolfrid, whose name was to be so closely
linked to those of Benedict Biscop and of Bede.
If Wilfrid could not fully appreciate the work which
bishops of Scotic consecration had done for Christianity in
> Eddi says that for three years from his return Wilfrid made the
monastery of Ripon his headquarters (c 14), while Chad acted as bishop
of York. The three years ended in August, 669. But Ohad was already
at York when WilMd returned.
' Bede, ▼. 19 : 'Quo adhuc in transmarinis partibus,' &c.
' Bede, iii. aS : ' Consecratus ergo,' &c. In this chapter, as in one sen-
tence of i. 99, in ii. 8, 16, iii. 7, &e., we haye ' consecrari/ Bede's more
usual phrase is the general term ' ordinari ' ; i. 97, 99 ; ii. 3, 9 ; iii. 5, ao,
21, &c.
* Comp. Bede, iii. 5 : ' Discurrere .... pedum incessu vectus/ &c.
' Fridegod expresses this in a better-sounding line than usual :
*■ Spe meliore manet latebris contectus in illis.'
See Richard of Hexham, 'placido Yultu et hilari pectore/ De statu Hagust.
Eccl. 6 ; Eddi and Malmesbury, ' humiliter.'
* There is no sort of authority for saying that he might and ought to
have ' entered on the duties of his bishopric at Lindisfarne,' leaving Chad
to be bishop of York (Diet. Ohr. Biogr. i. 499^. He was himself conse-
crated for York (see above, p. 941 ; and Diet. Chr. B. i. 497, * Wilfrid was
thereupon raised to the see of York ') ; there was then no thought of divid-
ing the diocese of Northumbria. Chad was placed in the see to which
Wilfrid had been elected, and had all Northumbria under his jurisdiction.
See above.
Third Mission to East-Saxons. 247
South Britain, he must at least have rejoiced to hear, in the chap. vii.
course of this year 665, that a bishop of that class had once
more been the instrument in a reconversion of East-Saxons.
It was doubtless Sebbi, faithful himself, with his own Third
subjects, to Christianity, who induced his over-lord Wulfhere ^'^^^
to send Jaruman to preach to Sighere and his people. This Saxons.
was the third mission to Essex. Jaruman, attended by
priests, one of whom lived to tell the story to Bede ^, ' went
about the whole district,' and brought back the wanderers
into the right way : ' so that they abandoned or destroyed
their fanes and altars ', reopened the churches, and gladly
acknowledged that Name of Christ which tliey had dis-
owned, desiring rather to die with the assurance of rising
again in EUm than to live amid idols in the filth of dis-
belief;' words which intimate that the deadly sickness
which had scared them back to idolatry was stjU raging,
and therefore that Jaruman and his priests had faced its
perils while winning back souls to Christ with equal pru-
dence ^ and energy. London is not mentioned in this
account, but its citizens had either retained their faith —
which may have been acquired through Cedd's work, even
if he did not establish himself among them -or were among
those who now regained it: and we hear of the see of
London as associated, in $66 or thereabout, with a grave
scandal. Eenwalch of Wessex, with all his sincerity and
zeal, his admiration for men of learning, his orthodoxy on
the Paschal question, and his helpful kindness to such a man
as Benedict Biscop *, waa not, apparently, an -easy prince
for bishops to deal with. He had quarrelled with Agilbert
about dialect ; he now, for what cause we know not, con-
strained Wini to leave his kingdom. The bishop took
refuge in Mercia, and, as Bede says, with stem laconic
plainness, 'bought with a price the see of the city of
* Bede, iii. 30: ' Jitxta quod mihi presbyter, qui comes itineris illi et
oooperator yerbi ezaititerat, referebat ; erat enim religiosus et bonus yir.'
* * Arisque : ' oomp. ' arulam,' contrasted with the Christian 'aitare,'
in Bede, ii. 15.
* ' Multa agens sollertia,' Bede.
' Bede, Hist. Abb. 4, says that Benedict ' had more than once eigoyod
his friendship and been assisted by his kindnesses.'
248 Wilfrid in Mercia and Kent.
CHAP. VII. London from King Wulfhere ^/ who had established his
supremacy over the East-Saxons. Simony had long been
a sore and a disgrace in the Gallic Church *, within whose
limits Wini had been consecrated ; but we know no more
than what Bede thus tells us of the circumstances under
which Wini got possession of the see of Mellitus.
Wilfrid in If Jaruman was, as doubtless he was, like-minded to the
^'^^'*' bishops of Lindisfame, any such unhallowed trafficking
between the king and Wini must have grieved him to the
heart. He survived his good work in Essex for about two
years, dying in 667. Wulfhere did not appoint a successor,
but requested Wilfrid from time to time to discharge
episcopal functions in Mercia ^ and gave him several pieces
of land for the foundation of monasteries — one of which,
that at Oundle, happened to be long afterwards the scene
of its founder's death. Wulfhere ultimately gave him
a ' place ' at Lichfield, where he might establish himself as
bishop ; but Wilfrid's heart dung to Northumbria, and he
would not permanently bind himself to a Midland diocese.
He would only administer it during the vacancy, a position
which he was destined more than once to occupy in later
Wilfrid in life. Another such sphere of duty provided for him during
these years was Kent. Livited by Egbert, he ordained in
that kingdom many priests and not a few deacons^. It is
interesting to combine the facts, that one of these priests
was Putta, a man who had a special skill in chanting,
' ' Emit pretio ; ' Bedo, ill. 7.
' Gregory of Tours says of the first part of the sixth century, ' Jam tunc
germen illud iniquum coeperat fructificare, ut sacerdotium aut venderetur
a regibus, aut compararetur a cloricis ; ' Vit. Patr. 6. 3. See second
Council of Orleans, a. 533, o. 3. And, very late in his own life, in 591, he
tells us that one Easebius procured the see of Paris 'datis multis muneri-
bus ' ; H. Fr. x. a6. Compare Gregory the Great, £p. v. 53, 55 ; ix. 106,
109 ; XL 55, 59. Much later, in 650, the council of Ohalon-on-Saone had
had to forbid taking money for ordinations ; Mansi, x. 119a.
' Eddi, 14, 15. Bede does not seem to be aware of this ; see iv. 3.
^ Eddi, 14 ; Bede, iv. a, ' Ipse etiam in Cantia,' &c ' Ekbertus vero . . .
poscit, Ordinet ut sacros . . . ministros,' &c. ; Frideg. 418. When Bede
says that Wilfrid was the first English-born bishop who ' catholioum
viveiidi morem ecdesiis Anglorum tradere didicii * (iv. a), we must appar*
ently lay stress on the last word, and suppose a reference to what he had
' learned ' at Rome.
Election of IVighard. 249
acquired from ' disciples of Pope Gregory ^ ' ; and that in chap. vn.
Kent Wilfrid found, and closely attached to himself, Haedde,
or Eddi, ecclesiastically named Stephen, who afterwards
became a noted choir-master in Northumbria, and the
enthusiastic follower and biographer of Wilfrid^, — with
another well-trained chanter, called i£ona ^. His brilliant
attractiveness and lively versatile intelligence drew round
him men of all classes, including ' masons, and artificers of
nearly every sort *, who afterwards accompanied him into
Northumbria. He made use of all opportunities : he could
throw himself into various interests, and, in a sense, be ^ all
things to all men.' Within the precincts of the cathedral
monastery at Canterbury, or at SS. Peter and Paul's, which
lost its abbot Nathanael by death in 667, he studied minutely
the Benedictine rule, which he was afterwards the first to
propagate throughout the North-country *.
It might have been expected that the Kentish king
would think him the very man for the vacant arch-
bishopric. But policy, perhaps, prevented such a step,
which might have been distasteful to some in Kent, and
also to some in Northumbria. Egbert consulted with Wighai-d
Oswy the * Bretwalda,' and in some way or other the canter- '^
opinion of * the Church of the English race ' in general was *>"»'y«
ascertained. The result was the election of Wighard, ' one
of Deusdedit's clergy,'—* a good man and fit for the
episcopate, very well instructed in ecclesiastical discipline
and learning by Roman disciples of Pope Gregory ®,' still
surviving in Kent. It was resolved that he should go to
Rome, and be consecrated at that fountain-head, ' that he
' Bede, iv. a, ond. Compare the phrase as used in y. 20 ; Maban the
chanter ' had been taught in Kent by sueoessors of the disciples of Pope
Gregory.*
' Bede, iv. a : * Sed et sonos cantandi,' &c. Raine thinks the ' Life ' was
written soon after 710. ' Like so many biographers, he is an enthusiastic
partisan ; ' Historians of Ch. York, i. pp. zzzii-xxxv.
' Eddi says simply, ' Cum cantoribus iEdde et Eonan ; ' 14.
* Eddi, 14 : ' Gaementariis, omnisque paene artis institoribus.'
^ Eddl's words are, ' In regionem suam reyertens cum regula Sancti
Benedicti ; ' 14. So in 47, Wilfrid says that ' nuXLva prior ibi (in Northum-
bria) iwoexit' the Benedictine rule ; Lingard, A.-S. Gh. i. ao$.
* Comp. Bede, iii. 39, iv. i ; Hist. Abb. 3. Above, p. 140.
1
250 Pope Vitalian endeavours to find
CHAP. vn. might be able to ordain Catholic prelates for the Churches
of the English throughout all Britain.' Wighard set forth
in 667, and arrived safely in Borne, with royal letters, and
liis death gifts, and gold and silyer vessels not a few ^. But after his
"™^' interview with Pope Vitalian, ' he and nearly all of his
companions were cut off by an outbreak of pestilence,'
apparently a recrudescence of the epidemic which had
killed St. Gregory's predecessor in 690.
Vitaiian's Thereupon Vitalian wrote to Oswy a letter 2, which Bede
letter. . .
for the most part transcribes, and which has led to some
different opinions as to his relations with the English kings
and Churches. He returned thanks for the gifts sent, as
for offerings to St. Peter, and repaid them, in the Roman
fashion, by relics ®. He exhorted Oswy to follow the rule
of St. Peter as to Easter and all other matters^. He
expressed his great sorrow for the removal of Wighard
from ' the light of this world,' and intimated that he had
been honourably buried ' at the threshold of the Apostles.'
He informed Oswy that he had not as yet been able to find
a fit man for the archbishopric ' ctccording to the tenor of
your letter,' owing to the great distance of Canterbury from
Borne, which, it seems, deterred some from accepting the
office: but when he could find such a person, he would
^ Bede, iv. i : 'Missis pariter apostolico papae donariis,' &c. So v. 19 ;
sometimes *■ apostolicus ' (« representative of St. Peter) simply was used,
as in Paul's Life of Gregory, c. 19, 23 ; Lib. Dium. 2 ; also ' dominus
apostolicus,' cf. Willibald's Life of Boniface, s. ao^ and a sufi^tige in the
Roman Litany. O^wy understood, says Bede, that the Roman church was
catholic and apostolic ; iiL 29. The Chronicle gives the date.
' Bede, iii. 29. Ho uses * Saxon um ' as equivalent to ' Anglorum,' and
he seems to think that Oswy had but lately been ' converted to the true
faith.'
' Including relics of St. Pancras, with a ci^oas, and a < golden ' key which
had touched the chains of SS. Peter and Paul, for queen Eanfled, the report
of whose piety had caused * the whole apostolic see ' (here used for the
Roman church) to rejoice with Vitalian.
* He combines St. Paul with St. Peter. A passage belonging to this
letter, omitted by Bede, but discovered by Usher, insists on the duty of
keeping Easter according to the apostolical rule of the 318 fathers (of
Nicaea) and the reckoning of the holy Cyril and Dionysius : and adds that
the apostolic see has not received the ' rule of Victor,' i. e. Vietorius of
Aquitaine ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. ti2. See above, p. 89. Gregory of
Tours calls Vietorius * Victor * in H. Fr. x. 23.
a fit man for the Archbishopric. 251
send him with due instructions, in order that by his oral chap. vn.
teaching and by the Divine oracles he ^ might eradicate all
tares from the whole of the island ' ; alluding, of course, to
the Celtic Elaster. What is meant by ' the tenor of Oswy's
letter'? Yitalian's phrase would imply that it had con-
tained, first, a request to consecrate Wighard, the recognized
archbishop elect, and then a distinct commission to find
some other person, if anything should happen to Wighard ^
But such further provision is not likely to have been made
by Oswy or by Egbert * : Bede, in his two references to the
royal letter ', does not say that it was actually made : he
says that the pope described Theodore as 'the teacher'
whom Benedict Biscop's ' native land had earnestly sought
for ^ ' ; and when the archbishop who was at last sent was
passing through Qaul, his messengers described him to
Egbert as the bishop who had been ' asked for ^.' It is not
unfair to suspect that, in the first instance, a Pope who heul
had ten years' experience • would know how to infer the
commission from the request, with no other warrant than
the pretensions of his see. The subsequent words of the
messengers just referred to might be simply an echo of this
characteristic papal inference^.
It must be owned that Yitalian took great pains, and Hndrian.
ultimately made a very wise choice ^. At first he thought
of Hadrian, an African by race, and abbot of a monastery
not far from Naples, a man equally * active and prudent,
conversant with Scripture and all ecclesiastical rules,' and,
' Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 75, treats this as ' cortain/
* Kemble, ii. 366.
' Bede, iii. 99, iy. i.
* ' Quem aodula quaesierat ; ' Hist. Abb. 3, i. e. AieA a teacher.
* ' Quern petierant ; * iv. i. Bede describes Vitalian as taking oounsel,
'ne legatariis obeuntibus, legatio religiosa fidelium fruotu oompetente
oareret ; ' Hist Abb. 3.
* Yitalian become pope July 30, 657.
^ Kemble, ii. 366, and Martineau, Ch. Hist. p. 85, suggest that Oswy
and Egbert may have written again, leavijag the case absolutely in the
pope's hands. Churton, £. E. Ch. p. 75, assumes it. But for this, accord-
ing to the Chronicle, there would hardly be time. See Haddan and
Stubbs, iii. iia.
' Haddan's Remains, p. 319. ' Habito de hisconsilio, qoaesiyit sedalus/
Bede, y. i. ' Inito oonsilio,' Hist. Abb. 3.
252 Theodore chosen for Canterbury.
<HAP. vii. which was then a rare attainment, *a Greek as well as
a Latin scholar \' ' Yitalian sent for him, and bade him
accept the appointment and go to Britain.' * I am unworthy
of it/ said Hadrian * ; ' but I can point out another better
qualified by age and by learning.' He named Andrew,
a monk from a neighbouring nunnery, where he apparently
acted as chaplain. But Andrew, though 'deemed by all
his friends to be worthy of the episcopate, was weighed
down by feeble health': and Vitalian again pressed
Hadrian to consent, but he ' begged a respite/ saying, * If
I had time, I might find a suitable person.'
Theodore. « There was at that time in Rome a monk, whom Hadrian
knew, and whose name was Theodore.' Hadrian might be
called a fellow-countryman of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine.
Theodore was, in the same sense, a fellow-townsman of
St. Paul, 'born at Tarsus, a city in Cilicia/ *weU trained
alike in secular and in sacred learning, familiar both with
Latin and Greek literature', of high character and of
venerable age, being sixty-six years old.' It was in the
November of 667 that Hadrian presented him to Vitalian,
as one able and willing, despite his years, to undertake the
momentous charge of the see (rf Canterbury. Vitalian
consented to send him to Britain, but on condition that
Hadrian should accompany him— partly because he had
already for several causes visited Gaul, and therefore knew
most of the journey which Theodore would have to take,
and had 'men of his own' sufficient to form an escort;
partly *in order that, by acting as his fellow-labourer in
teaching, he might keep careful watch to prevent Theodore
from introducing anything contrary to faith, after the
manner of the Greeks, into the Church over which he was
^ ' Qraecae pariter et Latinae linguae peritiasimas ; ' Bede, iv. i. Comp.
iv. 9, * Latinam Graecamque linguam,' &c. ; t. 33, how Tobias, as a pupil of
Hadrian, became as ' familiar ' with Greek and Latin as with English, &c
For Hadrian see also Hist. Abb. 3.
* *How edifying,' sajrs Alban Butler (Life of Theodore, Sept 19), ^was
this contention, not to obtain, but to shun such a dignity ! '
' Bede, iv. i. So Hist. Abb. 3, &c. So pope Zacharias called him * ex
Graeco Latinus ante philosophus, et Athenis eruditus,' £p. ^ii. He was
bom about 60a. The schools of Athens had been suppressed in 539 ; but
see Diet. Chr. Biogr. iv. 906.
Monothelite Controversy. 253
to preside.' This somewhat mysterious allusion is cleared chap. vu.
up when we remember that the Monothelite controversy,
which Archbishop Trench has described as often underrated
by modem students, but as really a contest ^ for life and
death ' to the Church ^, because it involved the reality of
our Lord's voluntary self-sacrifice, had been troubling
Christendom for more than thirty years: that Pope
Martin I, nearly twenty years before, had affirmed the
doctrine of Two Wills in the One Christ, corresponding to
His Two Natures 2, and four or five years later had suffered,
in that cause, the most brutal injustice, ending in exile and
death ^, at the hands of a heterodox Eastern Emperor, who
had quite recently inflicted his presence upon Rome, con-
strained Yitalian to do him all outward honour, and
complied with imperial usage by offering gifts at the
principal altars, but meanly recouped himself by carrying
off the bronze tiles of the Pantheon, which within living
memory had been hallowed as a church ^. Yitalian had no
mind to be a confessor or martyr ; but he wished to bar
out the imperial heresy wherever he could do so without
personal risk*. He had no reason, however, to be ap-
prehensive of such tendencies in Hadrian's nominee®.
Learned and aged as he was, Theodore had never taken
holy orders, among which Rome had begun unduly to
reckon the subdiaconate. To this office, then, he was pro-
moted : but as his head was shaven bald, after the fashion
styled Pauline '', he had, as Bede gravely tells us, to
^ Trench's Hals. Lect. p. 914. For an account of Honothelitism (pro-
perly Monotheletism) see Robertson, Hist Cb. ii. 491 ; Hefele, t. 9 ff. £. T.;
Liddon, Bamp. Lect. p. 965 ; Ottley, Doctr. of Incam. ii. 197.
' First Lateran council, October, 649. Hefele, y. 98 fit
' See the account in Mansi, x. 860, and Alb. Butler for Nov. 19.
* Cf. Gibbon, yiii. 975. Bury, Later Roman Empire, ii. 303, judges
Constans II more favourably.
* See Mansi, xi. 195 fif., and Le Quien, Oriens Christ, i. 939. Vital ian had
refused to accept letters from Monothelite patriarchs of Constantinople ;
and one of them, after his death, urged that his name shotdd be erased
from the * diptychs' of their church.
* Theodore's Orientalism was shown, not on dogmatic points, but in tha
seyerity of some of the rules in his * Penitential ' (see Stevenson's Chron. of
Abingdon, ii. p. Iviii) ; and in its references to * Greeks,' &c.
^ ' The Greek monks,' says Mabillon, Ann. Bened. i. 493, * were at that
254 Consecration of Theodore.
CHAP. vn. ' wait four months, until his hair should be grown again,
and be fit to receive the coronal tonsure^.' The four
months came to an end about the middle of March, 668,
and Theodore's head could then assume the aspect to which
the zealots for Roman ceremonial, — Bede himself, we must
say, included, — attached some importance: he was presented,
(^onsecra- at last, to Vitalian, who consecrated him with his own
Theodore hands, praying, in the Roman form *, that • whatever of
for Canter- excellence had of old time been symbolized by the gold and
bury. ^ . ,
gems and varied colours of the Aaronic vestments might
shine forth,' in this new member of the Christian high
priesthood, 'through brightness of character and of action : '
that in him ' might abound constancy of faith, purity of
love, sincerity in following after peace': that the Most
High * Author of all dignities might give him the episcopal
chair to rule His church and people,' and 'might be Himself
his authority, his firmness, and his power.' This memor-
able consecration, which was apparently the ultimate stock
of the episcopate of the Church of Elngland, took place on
the 26th of March, the fifth Sunday in Lent, 668.
Yet two months more were spent by Theodore in Rome.
At length, on the 27th of May, he set forth with Hadrian,
and with an Englishman signally fitted to assist him on
his journey. This was Benedict Biscop, who, having made
his second visit to Rome in 665, and after a few months
retired to the isle of Lerins, and taken the tonsure and
vows of a monk, had revisited Rome in 667, and was now
requested by Vitalian, who appreciated his religious earnest-
ness and energy, * to lay aside the pilgrimage which he had
time entirely shaven, in imitation, aa they tliought, of St James, the
IiOrd*s brother, and of the apostle Paul.' See Smith's Bede, pp. 705, 715,
on Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople at a later date, who had the
whole of his head shaven.
^ Bede, iv. i : ' Donee ei coma cresceret, quo in coronam tonderi posset.'
' Greg. Sacram., Muratori, Lit. Rom. Yet. ii. 357. The preceding words
are very remarkable : ' Illius namque saoerdotii anterioris habitos nostrae
mentis ornatus est ; et pontificalem gloriam turn jam nobis honor commendat
vestium, sed splendor animarum.' This is among the Roman elements of
the ' Gelasian ' saoramentary (ed. Wilson, p. 151), and is found also in the
' Leonine,' which Duchesne considers to be a purely Roman compilation
of about A. D. 508. Murat. 1. 422, 625.
His prolonged stay in GauL 255
undertaken for Christ's sake ' to the tombs of the Apostles, chap. vn.
and, ' with an eye to a yet higher advantage,' return home-
wards as guide and interpreter to his country's long-desired
archbishop ^ ' Benedict did as he was commanded/ But
further delays had to be endured when the party arrived
at Aries. Ebroin, ' the last great mayor of the palace of
Neustria and Burgundy ^,' to whom, as we have seen, has
been attributed the execution of Archbishop Aunemund ^
and who scrupled at no extremities in support of the weak
royalty as against 'the wild anarchy of the chiefs*,'
imagined apparently that the travellers were politically
dangerous, and obliged Archbishop John of Aries to detain*
them until his pleasure should be known. When in the
autumn they were allowed to depart, Theodore proceeded
to Paris, where Agilbert, now settled there as bishop,
entertained him 'kindly and for a considerable time.'
Meanwhile Hadrian paid visits to old friends, Emmo arch-
bishop of Sens, and Faro the aged bishop of Meaux: as
monk and abbot, he would be specially attracted towards
prelates one of whom had given charters to monasteries •,
and the other had built a * suburban monastery' where any
foreigners were welcome guests ^. These long visits were
not causeless loiterings ; * winter was at hand, and obliged
them to remain quiet wherever they could *.' But when
King Egbert was informed by trusty messengers that his
archbishop was now in the realm of the Franks, he sent his
reeve • Redf rid to bring him home. Ebroin gave his licence
in regard to Theodore, but detained Hadrian for some time
longer, suspecting that he was an envoy from the new
Emperor Constantine IV to * the kings of Britain,' hostile
^ Bede, HUt. Abb. 3.
' Ouizot, Hist. Ft. o. 9. See aboTe, p. aao.
' See his after- proceedings in regard to bishop Leodegar or St. Leger,
October, 678. We shall see farther on how he acted in regard to Wilfrid.
* Kitchin, Hist. Fr. i. 95.
* Bede, iy. z.
* Kabillon, Ann. Bened. i. 448, 450.
^ Mabillon, i. 343. Faro, or Burgundofaro, died about 67a ; ib. 509.
' Bede, iv. i : * Coegerat enim eos imminens hiems,' &c.
* < Praefecinm.' Gomp. iii. 14. ^praefectum suum Ediluinum,' the
slayer of St. Oswin ; and £p. £gb. 7 ; Vit Cuthb. 15. Cp. above, p. 139.
256 Theodore*s arrival in Canterbury.
CHAP. vn. to the dynasty which he both served and ruled ^. When
Theodore, escorted by Redfrid, arrived at Quentavic, or
Etaples, in Ponthieu, a further brief delay was caused by
an illness which attacked him : ' but as soon as he had
begun to get better/ he crossed the Channel, and so * arrived
at his church/ as Bede says with reference to these long
trials of English patience, 'in the second year of his
consecration,'
Arrival of That was a great day in Canterbury, the second Sunday
after Pentecost, May 27, 669^, when Theodore took his
seat on the throne of Augustine, at the western end of the
' basilica of the Holy Saviour Christ ^/ It was seventy-two
years after the arrival of the first archbishop : and now the
seventh, though far on in life, had twenty-one years
reserved for his wonderful energies as a ruler and organizer,
which brought, says Bede, ' such an amount of spiritual
benefit to the Churches of the English as they had never
before received */ One of his first acts was to commit the
vacant abbacy of SS. Peter and Paul to Benedict Bisoop *,
who held it for two years, until Hadrian, who had arrived
in Britain soon after Theodore, was made abbot, and so
provided, according to the special directions of * the
apostolic lord ^ ' at Theodore's departure, * with a place in
the diocese of Canterbury where he could live conveniently
with his own attendants,' and keep an unsuspected watch
over the ' Greek ' archbishop's orthodoxy.
Visitation As soon as Hadrian arrived, Theodore took him afi his
dore. ^** companion and * fellow-labourer ' in a general visitation of
^ Bede, iv. i : ' Legatiobem aliquam imperatoris,' &c. ' When he had
ascertained that Hadrian did not hold, and never had held, any such com-
mission he let him go free,' &c. Constantino IV, 'the Bearded' (see
Gibbon, yi. 76), had succeeded his father * Gonstans ' in September, 668.
' Bede, iv. a : ' Pervenit autem Theodorus,' &c. See Hook» Archbishops,
i. 151 : ' The grandi old man,' &c.
* See above, p. 61.
* Bede, v. 8 : ' Ut enim breviter dicam,' &c
' Bede, Hist. Abb. 3. Elmham ignores this passage, when he sa3rB that
Benedict Biscop was not abbot of St. Augustine's : tit. 8. He adds that
Hadrian received the abbacy from Theodore, not as archbishop, but as
legate of the pope ; a very ' Augustinian ' touch. On the relation between
Hadrian and Biscop see Bp. Browne, Lessons, &c., p. no.
* Bede, iv. i.
His Character. 257
what was now to be deemed his province, in order ' to ohap. vii.
consecrate bishops in fitting places/ and ^ disseminate the
rule of right living and the Catholic mode of celebrating
Easter^.' The archbishop was thoroughly bent on doing
his work, and, for that end, putting in force his authority.
He had, it must be owned, something of the autocrat about
him ^ : but he had been specially appointed to a task which
would require the energies of a resolute and commanding
will. He had to make himself felt as the rightful chief
pastor of the several English Churches, and to mould and
compress them into unity under a more than merely
nominal head. He probably felt that, at his years, he
must work hard at his task, during what might remain to
him of the 'twelve hours' of his day; he had less time
than a younger man for gently feeling his way and
gradually developing his plans; and the sudden rise to great
favour while he was elderly, but still vigorous, had made
him impatient of anything like opposition. He was con-
scious of the gifts of a bom ruler : one does not think of
him as of a saint, or a man who, because he * loved,' in
St. Augustine's exquisite phrase, could 'do whatever he
liked ^' — whose administrative success was the fruit of
a genial nature, that gained obedience by the mere fact
of evoking sympathy. This man of Tarsus was not like
him whose heart was so tenderly ' enlarged * ' towards all
who were under his authority : and the idea of discipline
and obedience had received in the continental Church-
system so ample a development, the hierarchy was so much
regarded as an organ of governmental action, and so little,
comparatively, as a presentation to mankind of a Divine
Pastor in His various operations of love, — that one expects
to find in the character of a bishop brought up in it a certain
hard authoritativeness, which reminds one of the old Roman
magistracy rather than of St. Chrysostom or St. Paul. But
whatever Theodore was, whether we think him deficient
> Bede, iv. a : ' Ritum paschae . . . disseminabat . . . ordinabat locis op-
port unis epiflcopos,' &c. " See Bede, iv. 6, aS.
* ' Dilige, et quod yis fac ; ' In Epist. Joan. Tract. 7. 8.
* 9 Cor. vi. II.
8
258 Reception of Theodore.
CHAP. VII. or not in some characteristics of a shepherd of souls, we
must recognize in him a man of vast practical ability, and
sincere determination to do his best for the Church. And
not only can we appreciate what he did for England during
an unexpectedly long episcopate, but we can understand
how at its commencement he 'was received as a public
blessing by the kings and people, and was the first arch-
bishop/ Bede says, 'to whom all England submitted ^'
Great stress was naturally laid on his having been sent
directly from Bome, and consecrated by the Pope's own
hands and voice '^: but this advantage was enhanced by
the force of his own personality, so that, on all accounts,
his arrival forms an epoch •*.
^ Johnson, Engl. Can. i. 86; comp. Bede, iy. 2 : 'Isque primus erat in
archiepiscopis cui omnis Anglorum ecclesia nutnus dare consentiret.*
^ See Gone. Herutf., in Bede, iv. 5 : ' ab apoetolica sede destinatus.'
So Eddi, 15. ^ undf emi^sus venerat ; ' ib. 39, ' illiic ab apostolica sede olim
directi; ' ib. 30, 'ab hac apostolicae summitatis sede directus est ; ' ib. 45,
*■ ab apostolica sede missi.' ' Dirigo ' is frequently used in ecclesiastical
Latin for * mitto ' : e.g. by Leo the Great, Ep. 28. 6 ; cp. Ep. 30. 2.
' Lingard. A.-S. Oh. i. 77. Bede says of his first years, 'Never were
there happier times since the Angles came to Britain,' and characteris-
tically associates with the power wielded by ^Christian kings' and the
religious earnestness of the people a fact which to him, as a typical
student, would be no small constituent of national happiness : ' All who
wished for instruction in sacred studies had masters at hand to teach
them ; ' and cp. Bede, v. 8.
CHAPTER VIIL
When Theodore began his visitation, probably about
midsummer in 669, there were but two English bishoprics
not vacant ; and of these, one, that of Dunwich, was vacated
by the death of Boniface in that same year ^ In his place
Theodore consecrated Bisi, ' a man,' says Bede, ' of much
holiness and piety/ The see of Rochester was filled by
Putta*, whom Wilfrid had ordained priest ; but this appoint-
ment was not altogether successful, for Putta, though a
skilful Church musician, had no aptitude for affairs, and,
as we shall see, could not stand up against difficulties.
Proceeding to the North-country, he found that * for Theodore
three years ' Chad had been ' ruling the Church of York '
in a manner which Bede calls 'sublimed' But nothing
escaped the keen eye of the archbishop * : from his rigidly
Roman point of view, he noted a flaw in Chad s episcopal
position. 'You have not been consecrated in a regular
manner*;' — he referred, apparently, to what might be
represented as the intrusion of Chad into a see for which
provision had been already made by Wilfrid's Frankish
consecration, and also to the fact that two of Chad's conse-
crators were Britons, observers of the non-Catholic Easter,
and as such condemned by ' the statutes of the Apostolic
see,' which Theodore carried with him. Wilfrid's bio-
grapher cannot but admire Chad as ' an admirable teacher,'
and more as 'a true servant of God, and a very meek
man •/ although he probably exaggerates his self-humilia-
' For Boniface sat aeventeen years from 652 ; Bede, iv. 5.
* Theodore probably did not invite Wini's assistance ; above, p. 947.
' Bede, ▼. 19, in sense of 'excellent.'
* * Perlustrans omnia,' Bede, iv. a.
* ' Non fuisse rite ordinatum,' ib.
* £ddi| 14, 15. A writer in Diet. Chr. Biogr. (art. * Ceadda ') thinks
S 2
26o Theodore and Chad.
CHAP. viir. tion. According to Bede's simple account, Chad answered
in a very humble voice ^, 'If you are persuaded that I
received the episcopate in an irregular manner, I willingly
retire from the office ; for I never thought myself worthy
of it ^ : indeed, it was only for obedience' sake, when com-
manded to undertake it, that I consented, though unworthy.'
The command that he referred to must have been that of
Oswy and the other authorities concerned. It is to be
observed that according to this representation of his words,
he did not confess, as a matter of personal conviction, that
he had done wrong ^, or allowed himself to be wrongly con-
secrated ; he simply announced that if Theodore felt sure
of this, he would not defend his position. Theodore was
touched and softened * by this utter absence of self-asser-
tion. ' No,' he said ; ' you are not bound to lay aside the
episcopate.' But Chad, it seems, insisted on retiring to his
monastery at Lastingham^, and left York accordingly,
whereupon Wilfrid naturally took possession of the see. But
very shortly afterwards an arrangement suggested itself,
which might secure for the Church the episcopal services
of Chad as well as of Wilfrid. The Mercian king desired
Theodore to supply him and his people with a bishop*.
that the objection was a mere ' pretext,' devised to get rid of Chad and
make room for Wilfrid. This is not at all required by the facts.
* ' Voce humillima,' Bede, iv. 2.
' This partly reminds us of the famous speech ascribed by a *• legend ' to
St. Wulstan of Worcester, which was possibly modelled upon it. See
Freeman, iv. 376.
' As Eddi would represent it, ' Peccatum, . . . poenitentia humili secun-
dum judicium episooporum confessus emondavit.' There were no other
bishops in the North, at the time, beside Theodore, and, doubtless,
Wilfrid, who would have returned from Kent to Northumbria.
* Malmesbury wrongly ascribes this feeling, not to Theodore, but to
Wilfrid.
' Bede, iv. 3, ▼. 19. I follow Raine's order of events : it seems most
likely that the 'consummating' of Chad's consecration took place, not, as
Eadmer says, before his retirement to Lastingham, but when he was sum-
moned back to be bishop of the Mercians. See Fast. Ebor. i. 51. All
happened, evidently, within a few weeks. Richard of Hexham says that
*■ Chad was deposed, and returned to Lastingham ' ; X Script. 293.
* Bede, iv. 3. Eddi says that Wulfhere had previously given Wilfrid
a sort of commission to find another bishop for Mercia ; 15. This does
not agree with Bede ; and we cannot rely on Eddi's accuracy.
Question of Chad's consecration. 261
Theodore instantly saw his way. * He refused to conse- chap. vni.
crate a new bishop for the Mercians, but asked King Oswy
to give them Chad : ' — ^an expression which implies that the
Northumbrian king's consent was necessary for the settle-
ment of one of his subjects as bishop of a * South-humbrian'
Church. Chad had so many associations with former
Church-work in Mercia, as the brother of Cedd, and as
connected with Lindisfame, that he would be specially
fitted to succeed Jaruman : and any irregularities in his
consecration might be . corrected by Theodore himself.
This was done : ' Theodore completed his consecration
afresh, in the Catholic manner.' What does this imply?
Eddi tells us that the bishops 'fully ordained Chad
through all the ecclesiastical grades \' If the latter state-
ment were literally accepted, it would imply that not only
Chad's consecration, but his previous ordination, must
have been regarded as null on the ground of the
' schismatic ' character of the prelates who performed them.
Undoubtedly great authorities had pronounced such con-
secration or ordination to be void ^. But this was not
universally ruled ^ and Wini at least was no schismatic * ;
so that a real reiteration of Chad's orders, including the
episcopate, would have constituted one of those peremptory
judgements which ignored the distinction, so obvious to all
^ Eddi, 15. Eadmer (c. 17) follows Bede, Malmesbury follows Eddi.
* As to schismatics, the natural sense of the Nicene Council's decisions
respecting Novatians (can. 8) and Meletians (Ep. Synod, in Soc. i. 9)
points in this direction. See Morinus, De Sacr. Ordin. par. 3. p. lao ;
Routh, Scr. Op. i. 416. Bingham, indeed, interprets the two decisions
diversely, b. iv. c. 7. s. 7, and s. 8 ; and Tillemont, vi. 678, 814, under-
stands both as referring, not to reordination, but to a reconoillatory and
confirmatory benediction.
' See Bingham, iv. 7. 7, 8, that there was no uniform rule in the ancient
Church as to this question ; e. g. the Donatist bishops were not recon-
secrated, nor were those who had been consecrated by the heretical
Bonosus, nor who came over from Macedonianism. He suggests that the
'benedictio impositae manus,' ordered by the first Council of Orleans in
511 (Mansi, Tiii. 353^ in case of converted Arian clerics, 'perhaps does not
mean a new ordination, but only a reconciliatory imposition of hands.'
But see Hefele on the other side, Councils, iv. 90, E. T. Theodore's
' Penitential ' orders that ' one who has been ordained by heretics should
be ordained over again, if blameless/
* Consecration by one bishop was deemed valid. Above, p. 66.
262 Chad resumes work
CHAP. VIII. modem churchmen, between what is irregular and what is
invalid ^ If, however, we simply follow Bede's account,
and iUustrate it by an extant decision aacribed to
Theodore ^, we may suppose that the archbishop intended
simply to add whatever forms might have been omitted, to
supply canonical defects, and then to rehabilitate Chad for
all purposes of episcopal jurisdiction. If Theodore was
over-punctilious in this matter, his next act exhibits him
in a very pleasing and kindly light. He had evidently
taken a strong liking to Chad ; and hearing that it had
been the latter's habit ^ to go about his diocese on foot,
* he ordered him to ride whenever he had a longer circuit
than usual before him.' Chad objected, out of 'zealous
love of pious labour,' and probably with remembrances of
his old master Aidan. But the archbishop, in this as in
graver matters, was masterful when he met with any
resistance; and he saw that Chad's notions of humility
and mortification were imperilling his practical efficiency.
* You Bhxdl ride,' he said ; and with his own aged hands
he lifted Chad bodily on horseback, 'because,' says Bede
with charming simplicity, ' he had ascertained him to be
a holy man.'
Chad, It must have been in the September of 669 * that Chad
Lichfield. ^^^® resumed episcopal work, and settled himself in that
same Lichfield where Wulf here had once desired to establish
^ Cp. Hefele, ii. 359, £. T. See the case of FormoBus' ordinations,
I'Bi-klessly 'annulled' by Stephen VL
' Theodore's Penitential, ii. 9. i (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 197') : 'Those
who have been ordained by bishops of Scots or Britons, who are not
catholic in the matter of Fasch or tonsure, have not been united to the
Church, Bed iterum a catholico episcopo manus impositione conflrmentur.'
But these words describe a case beyond Chad's. Bede evidently regards
Chad as having been a real bishop during his government of the church
of York. Compare the Roman legend about Kentigem, that the pope
supplied ' quae deerant consecration i ejus,' Vit. Kent. c. 27, cp. c. 11. See
Hook, i. 155 ; Warren, Lit. Rit. Celt. Ch. p. 68. It has been ruled by
Boman authorities that, if the final imposition of hands, with ' Accipe
Spiritum Sanctum,' has been omitted at a priest's ordination, it must be
supplied later : Ch. Qu. Review, x. 199.
' Bede, iv. 9 ; compare iii. 28, ' non equitando,' &c.
* For Chad held the Mercian see two and a half years ; and he died in
March, 67a.
as bishop of Lichfield. 263
Wilfrid, but where no Mercian bishop, as yet, had ' held his «hap. vm.
see.' There he found, or built, a church of St. Mary, to the
east of the site now occupied by * the fair cathedral ^ ' ; and
also, near it, erected a house to be his dwelling ' when he
was not at work in the ministry of the Word ^/ Seven or
eight brethren used to share at such times his studies and
devotions ; but outside the walls was to be seen, engaged in
manual labour, a man who had a remarkable history of his
own. This was Ouini, or Owin, who had been bom and
bred in East-Anglia, and had come thence to Northumbria,
in 660, as steward of the household to the princess Ethel-
dred, when after the death of her first husband, Tonbert
the * Gyrvian,' she was given in marriage to Egf rid son of
Oswy^ The enthusiastic devotion of the East- Anglian
court had taken hold of its trusted servant. One day he
had appeared in a rustic dress, with axe and hatchet, like
a common woodman, at the door of Lastingham. He had
quitted his high ofiice, ' left all that he had ^l and begged
for admission into the monastery. Study was not in his
line, but he offered to devote himself to field-work : and he
ultimately followed his abbot and bishop to Lichfield.
Wulf here also endowed the bishopric with fifty * hydes '
of land for a monastery ' in a place called Ad BarvsB, that
is, At the Grove, in the province of Lindsey,' supposed to
l?e Barrow in Lincolnshire, where ' traces ' of Chad's dis-
cipline existed when Bede wrote *. The work of so large
a diocese, even with the aid of a horse, must have tasked
all his energies. Bede tells us much of his profound
^ Mannion, vi. 36.
* At ' Chadsiowe,' now Stowe, at the end of * the Pool.'
' The date is gi^en by Florence, and agrees with Thomas of Ely's account
of St. Etheldred. ' Owin ' may possibly have had the administration of
the Isle of Ely ; Vit. Etheldr. c 8, in Act. SS. Benedict, ii. 745. Thomas
ealls Owin a worthy ' onstos et provisor ' to Etheldred. He is said to have
lived at Winford, near Hadenham ; Bentham, Hist, of Ely, p. 51. The
monumental inscription upon the tomb, ' »{i Luoem tuam Ovino da, Deus,
et requiem, Amen,' is ' perhaps one of the most venerable monuments of
Saxon antiquity ' ; Palgrave, p. cciii. ' It long served aa a horse-block,'
but 18 now in tho south aisle of Ely cathedral.
* ' Pura intentlone supernae retributionis,' says Bede, iv. 3.
' Bede, L 0. He was thus bishop ' Merciorum simul et Lindisfarorum.'
264 Chad's piety
CHAP. vm. religious awe, on the authority of Trumbert, a monk ' who
had been brought up in his monastery and under his rule/
and who was 'one of those who instructed* the future
historian ' in the Scriptures ^/ According to his account,
Chad represented, very markedly, that type of piety which
distinguished the great ascetics, and the most earnest of the
early Teutonic Christians, and fixed their thoughts with
such intensity on the awful side of their religion. * He was
ever subject to the fear of the Lord, and in all his actions
mindful of his end^/ Everything which seemed to him
a voice from Qod was taken as a loud call to self-scrutiny
and contrition, a warning to prepare for the stroke that
was still withheld 3. If a high wind swept across the
moors at Lastingham, — or, we may add, around the little
cathedral at Lichfield, — he at once gave up his reading, and
implored the Divine mercy for mankind. If it increased,
he would shut his book, and prostrate himself in prayer.
If it rose to a storm, with rain or thunder and lightning,
he would repair to the church, and give himself 'with
a fixed mind ' to prayer and the recitation of psalms, until
the weather cleared up. If questioned about this, he
would quote the Psalmist's words, 'The Lord thundered
out of heaven,' and urge the duty of preparing by a serious
repentance for 'that tremendous time when the heavens
and earth should be on fire *, and the Lord would come in
the clouds with great power and majesty, to judge the
quick and the dead.' Yet with all this dread of Divine
judgements, Chad, in his own words, had ' a continual love
and desire of the heavenly rewards*': and 'it was no
wonder,' says Bede, 'if he rejoiced to behold the day of
death, or rather the day of the Lord, seeing he had so
^ Bede, I.e.: * Namque inter plura,' &c.
' ' NoTistimorum suorum.' Ecclus. vii. 36 (40, Vulg.).
' * Discussis penetralibus cordis nostri . . . soUiciti ne unquam percuti
mereamur.'
* * Coelis ac terris ardentibus,' alluding to a Peter iii. la.
' To him, as to Bede, there was no difficulty in harmonizing such texts
as Heb. x. 31 and z John iv. 8. Compare the account of Bede's own
death : *He sang the sentence, *'Horrendum est incidere in manus Dei
viventis," but also quoted St. Ambrose, " Kec mori timeo, quia bonum
Pominum habemus." '
and death, 265
anxiously prepared for it until it actually came ^/ It came chap. vm.
by an access of the often-recurring pestilence, which had
proved fatal to many members of the church of Lichfield
before it attacked the bishop himself ^. It was said that
Owin *, at his work in the fields near the * mansion/ heard
a sweet sound, as of angelic melody, come from the south-
east and gradually reach and fill the oratory where Chad
was, until after half an hour it rose again heavenward.
While pondering what it might mean, he saw Chad open
the window of the oratory, and clap his hands, as he was
wont to do by way of summoning any one who was outside.
He entered : the bishop bade him call ' the seven,' his special
companions, and come with them. All came : he bade them
' cherish love and peace among each other, and towards all
the faithful,' and adhere to all 'the rules of discipline which
they had learned of him or seen him observe, or found in
the acts or sayings of the fathers who preceded him.' ' My
time is very near : that lovable guest * who used to visit
our brethren has come to me to-day. Go back to the
church, and bid the brethren commend to the Lord my
departure, and also remember to prepare for their own *, —
the hour of which they know not.' And then, the story
proceeds, after they had received his blessing and departed
in great sorrow, he told Owin privately that the voices
which he had heard were those of ' angels come to summon
him to those heavenly rewards which he had ever loved
and longed for, and that they would return in seven days
and take him thither with them.' He was speedily taken
ill, and on the seventh day, Tuesday the 2nd of March, 672,
after receiving his last Communion, he closed an episcopate
which, alike in Northumbria and in Mercia, deserved the
^ Bede, iv. 3: 'Non autem mirum si diem mortis, vel potius diem
Domini,' &c. Gomp. Bede, iv. 24, on Giedmon, and iv. aS, on Cuthbert.
' Bede, !▼. 3 : ' Supervenit namque clades,' &c.
' Bede does not say through whom this came to him. He considers
Owin to have been ' dignus cni Dominus specialiter sua revelaret arcana,
dignus cui fidem narranti audtentes accommodarent.'
* Meaning, the angei of death. Op. a story in Bede, iv. 9.
* ^ Vigils ' are here mentioned : Aidan had been diligent alike ' in study
and in vigils,* Bede, ill. 17 ; and cp. iv. 35, ' vigiliis Sanctis . . . salutaribus.'
266 Egfrtdf king of Northumhria.
CHAP. vxn. epithet of ' most glorious \' and procured for the name of
St. Chad of Lichfield a high place among the saints of his
country. He was buried in St. Mary's church, but after-
wards removed to the later church of St. Peter * : and he
was succeeded by one who had long served him as deacon,
a * good and modest man ' named Winf rid ^
The desirableness of treating his Mercian life as a unity
has led us to anticipate the order of events. Changes had
taken place in Northumbria, in Wessex, and in Kent, while
i>eath of Chad was at work in Mercia and in Lindsey. Oswy's reign,
which Bede significantly characterizes as ' most laborious */
was drawing near its end when he 'gave' Chad to Wulfhere.
He was then in his fifty-eighth year, ' weighed down,' says
Bede, 'by illness,' but not thinking it fatal, and making
plans, in case he should get better, for gratifying his late-
grown admiration for Roman usages by going to Rome,
and ending his days among its 'sacred places': he even
begged Wilfrid to be ready to act as his guide, and promised
him * no small gift of money *.' This was not to be. He died
on the 15th of February, 670, according to Bede's text, but
apparently we should read 671 •, and was buried in the
minster of Whitby, where also the bones of Iklwin were
deposited. His crown passed to his son Egfrid, who was
now twenty-five ^, and whom Bede in one passage describes
as ' most pious * ' on account of his friendship for Benedict
Biscop, while Eddi dilates on his religious excellence, his
gentleness among his own people, his bravery and success
in war, — for instance, in his suppression of a Pictish revolt,
when he * filled two rivers with the corpses of the dead • ' >
' ' Gloriosiasime/ npplied to his Mercian episcopate ; Bede, iv. 3.
' Bede describee his shrine as ' a wooden structure in the form of
a small house, with a hole through which part of hi^ ^' dust " could be
taken out.'
' Bede, 1. c. : 'In oujus locum,' &c.
* Bede, iii. 14. » Bede, ir. 5.
* See Plummer on Bede, iv. 5. For his burial see Elmham, Hist. Hon.
S. Ang. p. 188.
^ See Bede, iv. 96, that in 685 he was in his fortieth year.
« Hist. Abb. I.
' Eddi, 19 ; adding that the pursuers thus actually crossed the river
' siccis pedibus.' The riven were probably the Forth and Teith, or the
IVilfnd^s church-building. 267
and, we may add, in another campaign with Wulfhere, by chap. vrn.
which he recovered Idndsey^. At the beginning of his
reign he lived on friendly terms with Wilfrid, who was
then at the height of his prosperity and popularity. We Wilfrid,
seem to see him going about his diocese with the energy of York.
one bom to ' repair the breaches ' and ' build the old waste
places^': at York he 'shuddered^' to see his cathedral
fallen into a miserable dilapidation, which implies some
negligence on the part of Chad; for otherwise Wilfrid
would not have found the roofs decaying, the windows
devoid of glass, and the inner walls blotched with rain and
haunted by birds. He repaired the roofs, covered them
with lead, glazed the windows, cleaned the walls with lime,
decked the altar with new furniture^, and obtained new
property for the church. At his beloved Ripon he reared
'a basilica of polished stone, towering to a great height,
with pillars of varied form, and arched vaults, and winding
cloisters * ' ; and invited the king, his brother Alfwin, and
a number of sub-kings, reeves, and abbots to attend the
dedication 'in honour of the chief of the Apostles.' On
Tay and Earn ; Skene, Celt Scot!, i. 261. The Pictiah leader was named
Bemhacth.
^ Eddi, ao; Bede, it. la : 'superato . . . et fagato Wulfhere/ Malmes-
bury, < partem provinciarum Northanimbrorum regi oessent ; ' G. P. iii.
1 00. See above, pp. 177, 307.
' This was a duty prescribed to bishops ; e. g. 4th C. of Toledo, c. 36
(a. d, 633^ ; < Episcopum per cunctas dioeoeses parochiasque suas per
singuloe annos ire oportet, ut exquirat quo una quaeque basilica in
reparatione sui indigeat ; ' Mansi, x. 639. Here both ' dioeceses ' and
* parochiae ' are used for districts within a diocese in our sense of the
word ; cf. Diet. Chr. Antiq. i. 559.
' * Horroit spiritus ejus,' Eddi, 15. The windows, says Malmesbury,
had been covered with thin linen or trellis-work. Fridegod says,
' Humida contrito stillabant assere tecta ;
pluviae quacunque vagantur,
Pendula discisbis fluitant laquearia tignia.'
See lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 263 ; Freeman, v. 609.
* 'Lymph is perfunditur absis,
Albanturque suis iustrata altaria peplis/ Frideg. 451.
* Eddi, J 6 ; and Malmesbury, G. Pontif. 1. c, 'porticuum infiexu.' This
church stood some 900 yards from the site of the present cathedral ; and
the crypt under the latter must belong to another church, built either by
Wilfrid, or by Eadhed, bishop in 679. An opening in it, communicating
with a passage, is called * St. Wilfrid's Needle.'
268 Wilfrid's church-building
CHAP. vni. such a day he was truly in his element; and we may
imagine the interest with which the function of which he
was the centre would be watched by a little boy then
being trained up in the monastery, afterwards the great
missionary archbishop Willibrord *. The altar, was elabor-
ately blessed, vested in purple and cloth of gold, the paten
and chalice hallowed^, the Eucharist celebrated : then Wilfrid,
in front of the altar, with his face towards the people^,
recited a list of the lands recently or previously bestowed
upon him, and also of the sanctuaries once held by the
British Church *. Then came a public feast, kept up with
barbaric extravagance for three days and nights, — a strange
concession, we may think, to the coarse tastes of the
Yorkshiremen. Wilfrid added to his other 'gifts for
the adornment of God's house ' a large golden cross ^, and
a copy of the Gospels in four volumes, written in letters
of gold on purple vellum, all contained in a case ® made of
gold and jewels, — a treasure without parallel in Ekldi's
experience, which was long preserved in Ripon minster.
At Hexham, also, on land given by the pious Queen Ethel-
dred '^^ he built, in honour of St. Andrew, a church of great
length and height, with 'manifold columns and porches,
^ Act. SS. Bened. saec iii. i. 603.
' The Gallic rite of dedicating an altar was elaborate. In the next
century, according to the use of York, holy water and oil were poured
on the new altar, with several prayers : its slab was blessed, its cover-
ings put on, and the vessels, placed on it, were hallowed. £gb. Pontif.
p. 39 ff. Cp. Duchesne, Origines, p. 391 ff.
' ' Stans . . . ante altare, conversus ad populum,' Eddi, 16.
* ' Quas reges . . . illi dederunt.' Eddi names four districts, one being
liear the Ribble. Raine suggests that the other three, ' Gssdyne, Dunu-
tinga, Gsstlffivum,' are Gilling, the vale of the Duddon, and Gartmel
(Hist. Oh. York, i. 26). Au extract from Peter of Blois* lost Life of
Wilfrid, in Hon. Anglic. iL 133, names three districts, Bible, Hasmun-
desham (Amounderness), Marchesiss (the Mersey district^ all in Lanca-
shire. For the claim on old British Church-property, see Raine in Diet.
Ch. Biogr. iv. 1180.
' See his epitaph at Ripon, Bede, v. 19 : * Sublime crucis radiante
metallo . . . trophaeum.' See Bishop Browne, Lessons from E. E. Ch.
Hist. p. 119, and cp. above, p. 52.
" ' Bibliothecam,' Eddi. So the epitaph, Bede, 1. c, 'Ac thecam,' &c.
^ The property had come to Etheldred as a marriage gift ; Rich. Hexh.
de statu Hagust. EocL c. 7, X Script. 294.
and pastoral activity. 269
a complication of ascending and descending passages*/ chap. vm.
And at this day, the visitor who looks round the exquisite
minster of Hexham will find nothing worthier of his
attention than the small crypt of Roman masonry, with
two Roman inscriptions built up in its walls, on the western
side of the transept : descending into it, he enters the only
remaining part of Wilfrid's church, 'the building deep
under ground formed of admirably carved stone,' which
Ekldi includes in his description of a structure that, as far
as he knew, had no equal * on this side of the Alps.* The
bishop also exerted himself for the improvement of Divine
service: he set Eddi and ^Eona to carry on the special
work of teaching Church-song, or, as Eddi makes him
express it ^, of ' training choirs to sing responsively, accord-
ing to the custom of the primitive Church/ But if Wilfrid
was munificent as a church-builder, and active as a promoter
of choral worship, he was also indefatigable as a chief pastor :
he is depicted as riding about incessantly to baptize and
confirm ^, holding ordinations *, forming new church settle-
ments, and amid all this whirl of activities retaining his
habits of ascetic devotion. Of these we are told that
^ Eddi, aa. Richard of Hexham expands this description : ' Parietes . . .
eolumnls suffuUus, et tribus tabulatis distinctos, . . . erexit. Ipsos . . . et
capitella columnarum . . . et arcum sanctuarii, historiis et imaginibus, et
Tariis caelaturarum figuris ex lapide prominentibus, et picturarum et
oolorum grata varietate . . . decoravit. Ipsum quoque corpus ecclesiae
appenticiis et porticibus undique circiimcinxit.' In the stone staircases
and ' deambulatoria ' and winding passages up and down, many men
could stand without being seen by any one in the church. The cloisters
had oratories and altars of their own. The minster was enriched with
splendid ' ornaments,' -vestments, and books : and the ' court ' (atrium)
was surrounded by a strong thick wall. Altogether, this minster ' sur-
passed all the nine monasteries' of which Wilfrid was ^ father and patron/
and ^ all others in England ' ; X Script. 290.
' Eddi, 47. See Benedict. Greg. Op. iii. 650. Comp. Joan. Diac. Vit.
Greg. ii. 6, on Gregory's compilation of antiphons, and his ' schola can-
iorum.' Above, p. 140.
' Eddi, t8. See the story of the Ripon monk surnamed * Bishop's son,*
whom he had baptized and claimed for ^ God's service.'
* ' In omnibus locis presby teres et diacones sibi adjuvantes abundanter
ordinabat ;' Eddi, ai. Here we see the germ of a parochial system : so in
Bede, iiL aa, we find bishop Cedd ordaining clergy * per loca.' Yet in 734
Bede had to exhort bishop Egbert to ordain priests for the several villages ;
£p. to Egb. 3.
270 Grandeur of IVtlfrtd's position.
CHAP. Tin. neither in summer nor in winter did he drink more at his
meal than the contents of one small cup, and that he
persisted in washing his whole body in cold water before
going to bed, until, when he was quite an old man, the
Pope directed him to abstain from so severe a discipline ^.
At the same time, no austerity of manner was discernible
in him: he made himself 'dear and lovable' to people
of all races ^ and his gracious geniality, the outcome of
a genuinely kind heart, was like sunshine to all who felt
its presence. * Abstinence,' in him, did not generate * pride,'
—so says his biographer with much significance. He was
the typical man of Church and realm ; the king admired
and relied on him ; the queen confided to him her longings
for a monastic life, which her husband at last reluctantly
permitted her to gratify by taking the veil from Wilfrid's
hands in Ebba's convent at Coldingham; abbots and
abbesses made him their heir or their trustee, and nobles
committed their sons to the great prelate who had been
a thane's firstborn, that under his eye they might be
prepared for ' Goal's service, if they chose it,' or if, when
grown up, they preferred a secular life, might be ' presented
as soldiers to the king ^.' He played an important part in
Frankish politics by inviting Dagobert, the young heir of
Austrasia, from his place of exile in Ireland, and sending
him over in princely state, to ascend the throne of his
father *. This is the picture of Wilfrid in the splendours
of a well-deserved ascendency ^ : we shall see ere long how
the unique brilliancy of his position contributed to provoke
a great vicissitude, which did but bring into fuller light
the real nobleness of a princely and Christian soul.
Benedict The companion of his first journey in Gaul had, as we
iscop- j^ave seen, made three visits to Rome, before the year 671,
when he resigned the abbacy of Canterbury, again re-
* Eddi, fli.
' Eddi, I. c. ' luflatur duIIo, Jesu moderamtne, typho ; ' Frideg. 476.
' They were his gesiths or retiiinen ; Stubbs, Const. Hist i. 176.
^ Eddi, 28. Dagobert II was son of Sigebert II. He was born in 659,
and sent into Ireland on his father's death. He reigned from 674 to 679,
when he was murdered.
" See Baine, Historians of Church of York, i. p. xxvii.
School at Canterbury. 271
pairing to the * threshold of the Apostles/ and * brought chap. vm.
back not a few books of sacred learning of all kinds, which
he had either bought or received as gifts from friends^.'
Returning by Vienne, he there took possession of other
books which friends in that district had at his request
procured for him. When he was again in Northumbria,
he conversed with the king, went through the whole story
of his life, ^did not conceal ' his monastic fervour, explained
all that he had learned at Rome or elsewhere on matters
monastic or ecclesiastical, and exhibited his store of manu-
scripts and of relics; altogether impressing Egfrid so
strongly that he received a royal grant of seventy * hydes,'
in order to found a monastery in honour of 'the first
pastor of the Church/ — a design executed, some time later,
at Wearmouth.
Such a zeal for ecclesiastical literature as Benedict Biscop School at
had was united in his successor Hadrian, and in Theodore ^^^ ^
himself, who was popularly called ' the Philosopher/ with
a love of learning much wider in its range, and kindred
to that spirit which had made the great Alexandrian
teachers employ the existing curriculum of secular studies
as distinctly capable of serving the cause of Divine truth 2.
Hadrian, with the archbishop's hearty approval, founded
at Canterbury a school in which religious training was
combined with all other learning accessible at the time. As
we have seen, Canterbury had a school in the early days of
the archbishopric, which served as a model for that of Felix
at Dunwich ^ : but now * a crowd of pupils was assembled*,'
and 'streams of sound learning' of all sorts, sacred and
secular, 'flowed daily for the watering of their minds;'
so that Hadrian, and even the archbishop in person, — so
marvellous was the old man's versatility and energy, —
' delivered to their hearers the rules of ecclesiastical arith-
metic' (i. e. for the calculation of Church seasons), of
astronomy, of music, and even of medicine*, side by
^ Bede, Hist. Abb. 4.
* Euseb. Ti. 18 ; Greg. Thanmat. Panegyr. in Origenem. Comp. S. Aug.
de Doctr. Chr. ii. 40 ; Socrates, H. £. iii. 16.
» Bede, iii. 17 ; above, p. 143. * Bede, iv. 9.
* See Bede, t, 3, for Theodore's opinion on bleeding. And the
272 Monasticism in Kent.
CHAP. vm. side with * the volumes of sacred letters ^/ Among these
hearers were John, famous as 'St. John of Beverley/ bishop
successively of Hexham and York; Aldhelm, afterwards
abbot of Malmesbury and bishop of Sherborne; Oftfor,
bishop of Worcester 2, Tobias of Rochester ' ; Albinus, the
successor of Hadrian, who understood Greek fairly, and
Latin thoroughly, and to whom we mainly owe it that
Bede undertook his great work * : and, when Bede wrote,
there were others living who had studied under Hadrian,
and who *knew Greek and Latin as well as they knew
their own tongue wherein they were bom*.' This great
school became the prototype of the yet more famous school
of York in the next century, which, when presided over by
Albert, afterwards archbishop, dealt with grammar, rhetoric,
metre, astronomy, physics, — and out of which arose the
illustrious Alcuin ^.
Monasti- Monasticism, also, received some impulse in Kent at this
Kent. time. Egbert, in the year of Theodore's arrival, had given
the royal abode at Reculver, whither Ethelbert is said to
have retired when he settled Augustine at Canterbury,
* to Bass, the mass-priest, to build a minster,* — so says the
Chronicle. And in or about the next year, a tragedy of
royal jealousy and suspicion produced a remarkable peni-
tential foundation : Egbert, we are told'', was so far swayed
by a thane bearing the ominous name of Thunor as not
effectively to forbid the murder of his young cousins
Ethelred and Ethelbert, sons of his uncle Ermenred, and
brothers of Ermenburga or Domneva, the pious wife of the
pious Merewald, son of Penda and sub-king of the West-
' Penitential of Theodore ' contains a curious medical dictum: Ueporem
comedere . . . bonum est pro desinteria/ ii. 11. 5. Cf. Aldhelm, Ep. 3, for
a quaint picture of Theodore showing some conceited Irish pupils how
superficial was their knowledge of grammar and chronologj, until they
retired in confusion.
^ ' Apicum.' Cp. Bede, £p. ad Egb. i, and iii. 8.
' Bede, iv. 23, ' De medio nunc dicamus.' * Bede, y. 93.
* Bede, v. ao ; and Praef., ' Auctor ante omnes,' &o.
' Bede, iv. a ; Green, Making of Engl. p. 335.
* See Alcuin, de Pontif. Ebor. 1431 if. ; Raine, Fast Ebor. i. loi.
^ For the legend, ' to which,' says Lappenberg, i. 946, ' history will not
refuse a space/ see Simoon of Durham, Hist. Beg. 2-5 ; Elmham, tit. 7.
Lot here of Winchester. 273
Mercians. Legend was diffuse on the circumstances which chap. vin.
struck Egbert with compunction : the result was visible in
the erection of the nunnery of Minster, in Thanet, on land *
given by the king to Ermenburga as a ' wer-gild ' or satisfac-
tion for her brothers' innocent blood. Theodore consecrated
her as abbess ■, and she was succeeded by her daughter
Mildred, who became conspicuous among the female saints
of the Old-English calendar ^.
It was in the same year 670 that Theodore went, for a l^there,
much more important function, to the West-Sa^xon capital, orwin-
There had been no bishop of Winchester or Dorchester <^**®**®''-
since the departure of Wini in 666 ; and Kenwalch, regret-
ting his breach with Agilbert, sent messengers to request
him to return. But Agilbert, now bishop of Paris, naturally
answered that he was bound to his present charge*. 'How-
ever,' said he, ' there is my nephew Lothere, a presbyter,
whom I think very well fitted to be a bishop : if the king
will receive him to my old place, I am willing that he
should go.' The proposal was accepted : a West-Saxon
' gemot,' which Bede, with a lax use of the term, refers to
as a ' synod *,' received Lothere with all honour ; and the
archbishop consecrated him in his own church of Winchester®,
which five years before had been the scene of Chad's very
different consecration. Kenwalch closed his chequered,
but on the whole very honourable life, two years after-
wards ; and his widow Sexburga, a woman of remarkable
talents, succeeded in maintaining herself as queen regnant
^ As much land, said the story, as ' cerva quam nutrierat una die per-
agraret ' (Sim.). The king followed the hind ; Thunor sneered, and the
earth swallowed him I The spot was called * Thunor's '* law " ' or
' Thunor's mound ' (cf. p. 175). Bede alludes to wer-gilds in It. ai.
' Thorn says that Mildred was the first abbess ; X Script. 1907.
' Every one, for instance, who passes up ' Brasenose-lane ' traverses
ground belonging of old to a church named after the canonized grand-
daughter of Penda, and three columns of its crypt remain under the
common-room of Lincoln College. For St. Mildred see Alban Butler,
Feb. 90. Her father Merewald founded a convent at Leominster ; her
sister Milburga became abbess of Wenlock. He had another sister,
Mildgith, and a brother Merewine. * Bede, iii. 7.
* ' Ex synodica sanctione.' Gp. Murat. Lit. Rom. ii. 189.
* According to canons, e. g. fourth Council of Orleans, c. 5.
T
274 Council of Hertford.
CHAP. VIII. for a yea^^ until in 674, Escwin, according to the Chronicle,
became king of Wessex, or, properly speaking, became
chief among those petty kings whom Bede represents as
dividing Wessex between them for * about ten years ' after
the death of Kenwalch *.
Death of Another change of rulers took place in Kent, when
Egbert. Egbert died in the July of 673 =^ and was succeeded by his
brother Lothere, the third month of whose reign was
distinguished by an event which forms a landmark; for
Theodore, already secure in his majestic supremacy, and prac-
Council of tically independent of royal support, held the first English
Hertford. ppQyiucial Council, on the 24th of September, at *Herutford'
or Hertford^, a place probably chosen as fairly accessible,
being on the border of South-east Mercia and of Essex-
Provincial The synod of a province, according to Nicene rules',
expressing, as they did, the mind of the whole Church
upon the subject, was a necessary part of its organization.
It was to meet twice a year, and to settle all disputes, and
generally all matters, which affected the province as a unity.
A similar provision was made by one of the ' Apostolical '
canons, which referred to the synods thus held 'the doctrines
of religion, and the ecclesiastical disputes which may arise^';
and * the Council of the Dedication ' at Antioch, in 341
repeatedly enforces the supreme judicial authority of
a provincial synod, when fully constituted under the
presidency of the metropolitan ''. The Council of Chalce-
don® found that the holding of *the provincial synods
^ Ghron. a. 67a ; Malmesbury, O. Reg. i. 3a.
' Bede, iv. la : ' Acceperunt sub-reguli regnum gentis/ftc. See Stubba,
Const Hist. i. 171. The Chronicler, Florence, and Ethel werd call Escwin
king of the West-Saxon s. He was of a nother bra neh of the house of Cerdic.
On the extension of West-Saxon territory through Kenwalch's victorieSy
see Freeman, Engl. Towns and Distr. pp. 83, 137.
* Bede, iv. 5. * In Alf red's ^version, 'Heortford/
' Nicene can. 5. Compare Euseb. Tit. Const, i. 51, as to Licinius' sup-
pression of synods : "KWms fkp oh dwarbw rd fityiXa rSfv trier fi/tdroay i) |$«d
cw6Za» KOTop^aaaOai, Comparo Bingham, b. ii. c. 16. s. 16, 17. These
assemblies began to be held in the latter part of the second century.
* Apost. can. 38 ; but this is supposed to be more recent than the Nicene
and Antiochene synods (see Hefele, Hist, cf Councils, i. 474, E.T.).
' Antioch. can. ao, ordering it to meet twice a year ; cp. can. 3,4, 6, la.
* Chaloed. 19.
Provincial Synods. 275
prescribed by rules ' had been neglected, and ordered that chap. viti.
they should be duly held twice a year, for the purpose of
setting right whatever needed correction. Since the date
of that Council, Western synods had frequently upheld the
institution : a bishop duly cited, said the second Council of
Aries, must attend the synod, or if too ill to come, must
send a deputy ^ : the last canon of Agde in 506 ordered
that synods should be duly held according to the constitu-
tions of the fathers * : the second Council of Lyons ordered
that bishops of the same province should settle their
differences before their metropolitan and comprovincials '.
The British Church, as we have seen, had kept up its
synods even when driven within the Welsh border* : the
Frankish bishops were duly convened according to prece-
dent * : the Church of Spain was equally observant of the
rule^ It was simply necessary that the new English
Church, as soon as it could be organized and consolidated,
should have its provincial synods: Gregory had, long before
this time, taken for granted that, as soon as possible, there
would be this system at work, in the southern parts of
Teutonic Britain, and also, in due time, in the northern.
He had spoken of a ' sjmod ' of the province of London "',
and virtually of a synod of the province of York. As yet
there was but one province, which included north and
south under Canterbury. And Wini did not appear at the
Council : one would fain accept the story that he resigned
his see in penitence in 672 ®. At any rate, Theodore had
only four suffragans present in person, with delegates sent
to represent Wilfrid. One knows not why Wilfrid, a ready
^ G. 18 ; Mansi, vii. 880. Compare Council of Tarragona, a. 516, c. 6,
ib. vili. 54a ; Council of Epaon, in Burgundy, c. i, ib. viii. 559 ; second of
Tours, c. i, ib. ix. 79a ; second of Macon, a ao, ib. iz. 957. One Spanish
council (Emerita) in 666 recognizes ' the king's order ' to hold a synod.
■ c 71 ; Mansi, viii. 336. • Mansi, ix, 787.
* Above, p. 35.
* See fifth C. of Paris, c ix ; Mansi, z. 54a.
* See fourth C. of Toledo, c. 3 ; Mansi, z. 617.
^ Bede, 1. a9 : ' Quatenus Lundoniensis civitatis episcopua semper in
posterum a synodo propria debeat consecrari.' See above, p. 75.
' Rudbome, Hist Maj. Wint. (Angl. Sac. i. 19a). Erkenwald, the next
biahop of London, was consecrated in 675.
T a •
276 Council of Hertford.
CHAP. VIII. and active traveller, did not make the journey ^ : and there
is also something not easy to explain in the order in which
the prelates are named, — Bisi, Wilfrid by his own delegates,
Putta ^, Lothere (called Leutherius), and Winfrid. Wilfrid
was considerably senior in consecration to all, Theodore
included ; but Bisi may have been older than his fellow-
suffragans \ Bede makes it clear that the prelates alone
formed the synod : it was a ' Council of bishops/ and no
other persons were constituent members of it: this was
the ancient Catholic constitution of synods *. But it was
quite in accordance with that constitution that ^many
Church-teachers ' who were not bishops, but who ' both
loved and understood the canonical statutes of the fathers/
should be present, — as Malchion, a priest of signal ability,
had been present at the first Council of Antioch*, and
Athanasius, as a deacon, at the Council of Nicaea.
Theodore would be sure to observe whatever solemn
forms were in use on the Continent at the opening of
a synod®. We may presume that the bishops and 'teachers'
prayed silently for a while, and that then one bishop
prayed aloud. The members then sat down, two on each
side the archbishop, together with the representatives of
Wilfrid. Our account of the proceedings was drawn up
by Theodore, and written out, as in his name, by ' Titillus
the notary ' or secretary. The solemn commencement, ' In
the Name of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ,' was
a usual one ^, and we find bishops sometimes appending ' in
^ It is probable that Wilfrid, knowing what Gregory had contemplated,
did not wish to appear simply as one of Theodore's suffragans.
' He is the only one of the sufifragans who is named after his see, which
is called ' the castle of the Kentish-men which is named Hrofesceestir.'
The rest take national titles, such as ' of the East- Angles, of the Northum-
brians.' See, on this, Freeman, ii. 605 ft Compare the territorial titles,
Argyll, Orkney, Moray, Heath, &c.
' See Bede, iv. 5, fin., on his incapacitating ' infirmity.' And Wilfrid
ranked, it is supposed, as bishop de facto of York from 669.
^ Potter on Ch. Government, p. 225 ; Pusey on Councils, pp. 34, 51 ;
Hefele, i. 17-25, E.T.
• Euseb. vii. 29.
" See fourth 0. of Toledo, c. 4, for an account of the forms prescribed by
that Council in 633 ; Mansi, z. 617. * None of the laity attended the
Council of Herudford ; ' Palgraye, Engl. Comm. p. 171.
^ Council of Osca or Huesca, 598, begins, ' In nomine D. n. J. C. ; *
Council of Hertford. 277
the name of Christ ' to their own signatures \ The next chap. vjh.
words, ' The same our Lord Jesus Christ reigning for ever
and governing His Church,' were an amplification of a form
used in the third Council of Braga in 572 *, and contrast
strikingly with the date from a regnal year found in
canons of King Reccared's reign and in others of the
Spanish s}mods *. Theodore began, as he himself says, by
requesting his beloved brethren, for the fear and love of
the common Redeemer, to join him in taking counsel
together * on behalf of their faith, that ' whatever had been
decreed and defined by holy and approved fathers * might
be inviolably observed by all.' One might have expected
that here, as in the case of other Councils®, would have
followed some dogmatic statement of faith : but Theodore
goes on to say that he added ' other observations tending
to the preservation of charity and of the unity of the
Church.' After this prefatory address, he asked each of
the members of the synod, in order, whether he agreed to
keep the ancient and canonical decrees of the fathers.
They all answered in the affirmative ; they would do so
*by all means/ 'most willingly,' *with all their hearts/
Thereupon Theodore at once produced the book of canons
referred to ; it was the collection of ancient canons made
by Dionysius Exiguus in the opening of the sixth century ^,
beginning with the ' Apostolic canons,' and then exhibiting
those of Nicaea, Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Qangra, Antioch,
Mansi, z. 481. Comp. Goancil of BaroeloDA, ib., 'Cum daoe D.J. C. ;'
and of Seville, 619, 'In nomine Domini et Salvatoris nostri J.C.,' ib.
557. ist of Lateran, 649, < In nomine Domini Dei SalTatoris nostri J. G.,'
ib. 863.
^ E. g. Mansi, viii. 6aa, at Valencia, and x. 478, at Toledo.
' Mansi, iz. 836. Compare Council of Cloveaho in 747, ' Regnante in
perpetuum Domino nostro J. C. ;' and Kemble, Cod. DipL i. 146, &c.
> Mansi, x. 471. 477, 481, 531, 614, 661.
^ ' Traetemns,' i. e. treat of, consider. See Mansi, iii. 892 : ' Quoniam
igitar aniversa fuiase arbitror tractata,' ftc.
* ' Probabilibus.' So in ist Lateran, o. 18, * probabiles eocleaiae patres/
* £. g. 4th of Toledo^ c i, Mansi, x. 615 ; 6th of Toledo, c. x, ib. 661.
* See the Ballerini, de Antiq. Collect. Can. part 3. c. i. s. 9. 9. This
collection, they say, ib. s. 9. 6, excels in the translation of the Greek canons,
in its order, in its titles, ' necnon ipsa omnium documentorum sinoeritate.'
Theodore would naturally bring it with him from Borne.
278 Canons of Hertford.
CHAP. Tin. Laodicea, Constantinople, Chalcedon, Sardica, and the
African code. In this series Theodore ' had marked ' ten
points, occurring *in different places/ as specially necessary
to be observed by the English Church. These were taken
up and considered, in the following form : Theodore calls
them 'capitula/ heads, or as it is sometimes rendered,
articles.
(i) * That we all keep the holy day of Easter together,
on the Sunday after the fourteenth moon of the first month '
(i. e. so as to exclude the fourteenth moon from the list of
possible Easter Sundays). This was the Antiochene Council's
rule, can. i, referring to the Nicene resolution ^.
(2) *That no bishop shall invade the "parish*" (or
diocese) of another, but shall be content with governing
the people entrusted to himself.' This was from the four-
teenth and thirty-sixth ' Apostolic ' canons, the thirteenth
of Antioch, the second of Constantinople, the forty-eighth
of the African code *. (The fifteenth Nicene, adduced by
Johnson, refers to the removal of a bishop from one see to
another.)
(3) ' That whatever monasteries have been consecrated
to God, it shall not be lawful for any bishop to disturb
them in any matter, nor to take away by force any part of
their property.' This is an amplification of the twenty-
fourth of Chalcedon, which does not expressly refer to
^ See above, pp. 88, 165, 335.
' The ancient or * Eusebian ' sense of wapoudoj ' the body of Christians
dweUing within a certain area under one bishop ' (see aboYe, p. ao9\
naturally passed into that of ' the area within which they dwelt,' i. e. what
we caU a diocese ; see Suioer in v. and Solater's Orig. Draught of Prim.
Church, p. 3a. We find this use also in Wihtred's Privilege to Kentish
churches, H»ddan and Stubbs, iii. 939 ; in can. 95 of Council of Cloyesho,
ib. 371 ; in the legatine synod of 787, ib. 449 ; in king Kenulf s letter to
Leo III, ib. 539 ; in Gregory Ill's Ep. 10, to St. Boniface, Mansi, xii. 385 ;
in Boniface's to archbishop Cuthbert, c. i ; frequently in Hincmar ; in
a grant of king Ethelred, in loia, to ^Hrofenis parrochiae episcopus,'
Palgrave, Engl. Com. p. cczxiv, &e. In the ' Life of St. Anskar ' * parochia '
and ' dioeoesis ' are synonymous. Yet *• parochia ' is used for onr * parish '
by Council of Agde, c. ai ; of Epaon, c. 95 ; 3rd (or and) of Vaison, i ; 3rd of
Orleans, o. 5 ; 4th of Toledo, c. 74 ; Chalon, c. 5, and of. Gregory the Great's
Dialogues, iii. 38 and the Anon. Life of Cuthbert, 6. 4. In Theodulfa
Capitula it has both senses : Mansi, ziii. 995, 998.
' So in inferior Councils, as 3rd of Orleans, a. 538, 0. 15.
Canons of Hertford, 279
such encroachments on the part of a bishop, but only places crap. vm.
under censure those who permit the secularization of
monasteries once dedicated by the consent of the bishop.
That Council indeed strongly asserted the jurisdiction of
bishops over monasteries^, which during the last two
centuries, through the growth of the monastic system, had
been restrained by canons^ on the Continent, and often
ceded by * exemptions ' or charters of privilege.
(4) * That the monks themselves^ do not roam from place
to place, that is, from monastery to monastery, except by
the permission of their own abbot^ but remain in that
obedience which at the time of their conversion they
promised.' This is based on the fourth and twenty-third
canons of Chalcedon, which were framed to guard against
disorderly interference in public affairs, ecclesiastical and
civil, on the part of monks, such as those violent Eutychian
partisans who had behaved like a 'gang of robbers' at
the second Council of Ephesus. ' Conversion ' here means
forsaking of the secular life for the monastic^.
(5) * That no cleric shall leave his own bishop and roam
about anywhere at his pleasure, nor, if he comes anywhere,
be received without the commendatory letters of his prelate.
And if, when once received, he refuses to return^ when
* Can. 4. See the writer's ' Notes on Canons of first four General
Councils,' p. 141.
' See 4th of Toledo, ^51, Mansi, x. 631, rebuking bisthops who set monks
to work for them like slaves, and almost turn the monasteries into pos-
sessions of their own. The council limits a bishop's right in a monastery
to (i) exhorting monks to holy living, (a) instituting abbots, &c., (3) cor-
recting breaches of the rule. See, too, Gregory the Great's Roman council
forbidding episcopal encroachments ; e. g. no bishop shall take away any
of the revenue, property, or documents of a monastery or of the cells and
' vnis' which belong to it ; Mansi, x. 486. Cp. Guizot, Civil, in Fr. lect.
15. The Council of Souen distinctly recognizes the bishop's duty of
inquiring into the internal state of monasteries and nunneries; ib. x. laoi.
' ' Ipsi.' The other reading is ' episcopi.' This is defended by Todd,
Life of St. Patrick, p. 49. But * it is impossible ' ^Plummer) : see Haddan
and Stubbs, iri. 121.
' Cp. Reg. S. Bened. i. So Gregory the Gi^eat used the term, ep. lit 65.
In Council of Gerona, c. 6, it is used for the entrance into clerical life ;
Mansi, viii. 549. So in 4th of Aries, c. i, a ; ib. viii. 696. Compare Greg.
Turon. de Mirac. S. Mart. iii. 15 : ' converti decrevit, scilicet, ut humiliatis
capillis . . . deserviret antistiti.'
28o Canons of Hertford.
CHAP. vm. Bummoned, both the receiver and the person who has been
received shall incur excommunication.' This is made up
from the fifteenth and thirty-fourth Apostolic canons, the
third and seventh Antiochene, the forty-first and forty-
second Laodicene, twenty-third of Chalcedon, and hundred-
and-fif th African ^. Commendatory letters of this sort, called
^ systaticae/ were natural and befitting guarantees of the
cleric's character ^
(6) * That foreign bishops and clei^y be content with
the hospitality freely offered them, and that no one of them
be allowed to perform any sacerdotal office without per-
mission of the bishop in whose diocese (parochia) he is
known to be/ This is based on the thirteenth Antiochene
and eleventh Sardican.
(7) ' That the synod be assembled twice in the year/ This
was altered in discussion, on account of ^ divers hindrances'
to two meetings, exactly as the Nicene provision for two
such meetings, before Lent and in the autumn, or the
Antiochene specifying the third week after Easter and
October, had been altered for Africa by the Council of
Hippo into a yearly meeting K The resolution stood thus,
' That we meet once a year on the ist of August, in the
place which is called Clofeshoch/ — a place most probably
to be identified with Cliff-at-Hoe near Rochester, — the
peninsula of Hoe or Hoo being a convenient basis for the
Mercian supremacy in Eent^, and also near at band for
' Compare Council of Reims, a. 6a$, c. la : ' Quod si sine epistolis (sui
pontificis) profectus fuerit manifestis, nullo modo recipiatur ; ' Mansi, z.
596. So Council of Agde, c. 38, ib. viii. 331 ; and of Epaon» c. 6, ib. vili.
560. Theodulf, a deacon of Paris, was often excommunicated by his
bishop, because he delayed to return ' ad ecclesiam suam in qua . . .
ordinatus fuerat'; Greg. Turon. H. Fr. x. 14.
^ See Bingham, b. ii. c. 4. s. 5 (vol. i. p. 100). He distinguishes the
^ commendatoriae ' given to clergy when about to travel (among others)
from the ' dimissoriae ' given to clergy who wished to settle in another
diocese. See ' Notes on Canons of first four General Councils,' p. 163.
' Mansi, iil. 919 : comp. another form of it, Cod. Afr. 18, ib. 719. So
the second of Orleans in 533, and three others following it, prescribe one
meeting ; the third of Toledo allows one to suffice because of distance and
poverty ; Mansi, ix. 997. The fourth of Toledo names May 18 as the day.
* See T. Kerslake's * Vestiges of the Supremacy of Mercia ' (reprinted
from Transact, of Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological So<uety)|
Canons of Hertford. 281
Theodore. Councils did meet there in 716, 742, and — the chap. vm.
most important — ^in 747.
(8) ' That no bishop shall set himself above another out
of ambition, but all shall acknowledge the time and the
order of their consecration/ This is based on the eighty-
sixth of the African code ^
(9) This was one of Theodore's favourite points, ' That as
the number of the faithful increases, the bishops be increased
in number.* Theodore did not extract this literally from
his book: he inferred from certain African canons ^
restraining an irregular multiplication of bishoprics, and
also from the sixth Sardican canon of like purport, that an
increase, made regularly and for good reasons, was desir-
able ^. In his native Cilicia, there were seventeen dioceses,
mostly large * ; and his provincial visitation had convinced
him of the necessity of dividing the too large diocese of
Lichfield and the enormous diocese of York. But although
his proposition seems to us undeniably right, and Bede in
his later years urged the same idea on Bishop Egbert*
long after the Northumbrian diocese of 673 had been
divided, Theodore could not carry his suffragans with
him*; it may be that Wilfrid's deputies spoke out what
they knew that their master would feel ; and this opposi-
tion, successful at the time, though overborne afterwards,
p. 97 if. He obeervas with much force thai this Kentish peninsula would
be very accessible from Tilbury on the other side of the Thames. He
identifies the Cealohythe of six later councils with Chalk in the same
district, S.W. of Cliff, Hatfield with CUff itself, and would even place
Herutford in the neighbourhood.
' See Hansi, iii. 789.
' Afric. 53, 56, 98 ; Man»i, iii. 744, 749, 803.
' It is suggested with great probability by Haddan and Stubbs, iii. laa,
that this plan for dividing the * parochiae ' or dioceses was mistaken for
an introduction of the *■ parochial system,' such as Elmham attributes to
Theodore. Hist. Mon. 8. Aug., tit. 8. s. 115. See also Lord Selbome's
Ancient Facts and Fictions, &c., p. 116 ff.
^ Bingham, b. iz. c. 3. s. 16.
* ' Quis non videat quanto sit melius tarn enorme pondus ecolesiastici
regiminis in plures . . . dividi, quam unum sub fasce quem portare non
possit opprimi ? ' £p. to Egb. 5. He cites Gregory's programme as to
twelve bishops for the North, under a metropolitan of York. Above, p. 75.
* Lingai^, A.-& Ck i. 86.
282 Canons of Hertford.
CHAP. viii. accounts for much of the diflSculties that followed. The
Council-record intimates a purpose only deferred, not
abandoned : ' On this point, for the time, we said nothing/
(10) 'As to marriages, that no one be allowed to have
any but a lawful marriage. Let no one commit incest ^ ;
let no one leave his own wife, except, as the holy Gospel
teaches, because of fornication. But if any one shall have
expelled his own wife who has been united to him in lawful
matrimony, if he is minded to be rightly a Christian, let
him not join himself to any other, but remain in that state,
or else be reconciled to his own wife.' Now, in Theodore's
Penitential ^ penance is even imposed on a husband who,
having found his wife to be unfaithful, 'refuses to put
her away ; ' as if the exception in Matt. v. 3a, xix. 9, con-
stituted an obligation to divorce, which is more than
can be said. Far severer penance is assigned to one who
marries another woman after putting away his wife ; but
this refers to the case of divorce not justified by that
exception. There is a passage in the Penitential which
allows^ the husband of a faithless wife not only to
put her away, but to marry another, the permission to
divorce in that one case being reasonably held to involve
a permission to re-marry. This illustrates the sense of
the Hertford ' capitulum/ which makes it at least lawful
for the injured husband to abandon the faithless wife,
^ For canons of that period againdt incest, see Council of Reims, 8. a.
634, Mansi, x. 595 ; and 5th of Paris, c. 14, ib. x. 54a (which forbids, inier
alia, marriage of first cousins).
' Poenit. i. 14, 4 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 188. The Penitential pro-
fesses to represent Theodore's answers to questions about penance and
other points of discipline, as they came to the knowledge of a ' disciple of
the Humbrians ' (Northumbrians ?) mainly through the medium of a priest
named Eoda. See tlie remarks in Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 173.
' Poenit. ii. la. 5 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii 199. In this answer the
divorced adulteress herself, if penitent, is allowed aft«r five years to marry
another man. The question of re-marrying in the excepted case of the
wife's adultery was undecided in the ancient Church. St. Augustine per-
sonally held it wrong for an injured husband, who had put away his
faithless wife, to marry again ; but did not think the act plainly for-
bidden by Scripture, nor punishable by the Church. It was in effect
tolerated, though some great authorities dissuaded from it. See Bingham,
b. xxii. c. 9. 8. la, and Pasey in Lib. Fathers, TertuUian, p. 443 ff.
'AvoXvcai in Matt. xix. 3 implies aohUio vinculi.
Canons of Hetiford. 283
and in the next words clearly contemplates a different chap. yiti.
case, that of one who, without such warrant, has driven
away a wife who has never forfeited her rights; he is
thereupon reminded that, as a Christian, he is bound to
remain single or to be reconciled to her ^
Nine resolutions, then, were passed, — one having been
for the time withdrawn. Theodore was a thorough man of
business : he would not go by understandings and vaguely
expressed agreements : he would have everything set down
definitely, and accepted formally: there should be no
mistake as to what was or was not passed, — no loophole
left whereby, in after days, any ' occasion of contention '
should be caused by any one who had sat in the synod.
There stood the record, fairly written out by the secretary:
according to the orderly continental usage, each member
must sign it with his own hand. They did so, probably
in such words as, * I, — , bishop of the church of — , have
subscribed ^ : ' and Wilfrid's delegates would each sign as
'in the place of my lord Wilfrid ^' And, as a final
guarantee of the stability of the resolutions, it was enacted,
as was often the case in continental synods ^ that any
bishop who should ever 'attempt to contravene or infringe'
the decrees then subscribed, should incur ' separation from
all sacerdotal office, and from the fellowship of his brethren.'
' May the grace of God,' Theodore concluded, ' keep us in
safety, living in the unity of His holy Church.'
So ended the Council of Hertford, a memorable assembly
in the annals of the English Church, — hardly less so in
^ Theodore perhaps had in his mind St. Basil's dictum in Ep. 217, can.
77, that he who left t^v vofxifMs alr^ awcupBuff€» yvytuita, and married
another, was, according to the Lord's judgement, an adulterer.
* E.g. 4th of Toledo, Mansi, x. 641. Sometimes the form was, 'Haec
statuta definiens subscripei ; ' 7th of Toledo, ib. x. 770. We find the
form, ' Belegi et subscripsi,' in Council of Epaon, ib. viii. 564 ; or < Consensi
et subscripei,' 4th of Orleans, ib. ix. lao.
* E.g. in the third council of Toledo, a. 589 : < Gaianus . . . agens vicem
domini mei Fructuosi episcopi subscripsi;' Mansi, Ix. looa. So 5th of
Toledo, ib. t, 657, ke. Or < presbyter ' or < diaconus episcopi,' 8th of Toledo,
ib. X. 1393. See Hefele, L ai, E. T.
* K g. 3rd of Orleans, c. 33, denounces any (bishops) who negkd to
observe the decrees; Mansi, ix. ao: 4th of Orleans, *Si quia . . . transgredi
tentaverit ;' ib. ix. 119 ; 3rd of Braga, 'transgressus ;' ib. ix. 841.
284 Council of Hertford.
CHAP. vin. those of the English people. For while it gave expression
and consolidation to the idea of ecclesiastical unity, it was
also ' the first of all national gatherings^' for such legisla-
tion as should affect the whole land of the English, the
precursor of the Witenagemots and the Parliaments of
the one indivisible imperial realm. Theodore may thus
far take no mean place among the men who helped to
make England ^
' Qreen, Hist. Engl. People, p. 30, and Making of England, pp. 333, 382.
Comp. Stubbs, in Diet. Biogr. iv. gaS, 930. It has been truly said that
' under the masterly hand of Theodore the unity of the English Church
afforded a model of unity for the nascent English State.'
' Freeman (Hist. Essays, !▼. 239) has said of the mission of Augustine
that it began the process by which the aUer orbia of Britain was to be taken
out of its isolation. Another step in that process was the archiepisoopate
of Theodore ; but the process was very gradual until the Norman Con-
quest completed it.
CHAPTER IX.
It might well seem that in the ease of Archbishop East-
Theodore, even a temporary check was to be followed by ^uwe^"
an advance, with hardly sufficient interval to allow of divided.
a sense of disappointment. As we have seen, he had not
carried his point about the partition of dioceses, when
he proposed it to the Council : it was considered, but the
decision was deferred. Yet Bisi of Dunwich, on his
return home, began to feel the pressure of infirmities^,
incre€ised by the exertion of a double journey, and deter-
mined to resign his office. Theodore seized the opportunity ;
and, doubtless with the consent of the East- Anglian king
Aldwulf , the son of Ethelhere and the nephew of Anna ^,
he divided the diocese by forming a new see at Elmham,
about the centre of our present Norfolk ^ Badwin became
its first prelate, while Acci was placed in the chair of
St. Felix. It was the terrible irruption of the Northmen,
two centuries later, which in its results annulled this
partition; so that after Dunwich had been permanently
abandoned, and the line of bishops of Elmham had continued
until after the Conquest *, the single East- Anglian bishopric
was transferred to Thetford in 1075, and fixed at Norwich
in 1094,
* Bede, iy. 5 : ' Quo adhuc superstite,' &c.
' Not his son, as Thomas of Ely thought, Vit. Etheldr. o. 7, Act. SS.
Bened. iL 744. Aldwulf s mother was Hereswid, Bede, iv. 23 ; so that on
her side he was the nephew of Hilda. He succeeded his uncle Ethelwold
in 663, and reigned until 713. For his personal recollection of king
Redwald's * fanum/ see Bede, ii. 15. His daughter Redburge, or Edburge
(or Egburge, Act. SS. Bened. iii. 379), became abbess of Bepton ; Tho.
Eli. L c Two others, Ethelburga and Hwsetburga, became abbesses of
Hackneas.
' He was adhering to ' tribal demarcations ' within the kingdom ;
Oreen, Making of Engl. p. 343.
* See Jessopp's Diocesan History of Norwich, pp. 28, 39.
286 Queen Etheldred
CHAP. IX. But the attention of East- Anglian Churchmen was pro-
bably attracted, in this year 673, with at least equal live-
liness of interest, by an event which had all the charm
of ecclesiastical romance, while it inaugurated an important
monastic undertaking, and had the effect, early in the
twelfth century, of restoring another episcopate to the
Etheldred eastern part of England. We must remember that Ethel-
*^' dred^, the daughter of the devout king Anna, and the
sister and aunt of several royal nuns, had become the
reluctant wife, first of Tonbert the chief of the Southern
Gyrvians or * fen-land men,' who inhabited South Cam-
bridgeshire, and afterwards of Egf rid of Northumbria. The
jointure or * morning-gift ^ ' which she had received from
her first husband was no other than the isle of Ely, which
Bede describes as a district of * six hundred hydes *, like an
island, surrounded either by marshes or waters, whence
it took its name from the abimdance of eels which are
caught in those marshes': which the historian of the
Conquest describes as * strictly an island * in the ages before
^ See Bede, iv. 19, and Thomas of Ely's Life of St. Etheldred in Act.
SS. Bened. ii. 740, and epitomized in Angl. Sac. i. 597. Etheldred wan
born about 630 at Ermynge, now Ixning, in Suffolk, and married to
Tonbert in 65a, two years before her father's death. Tonbert died in 655 :
and her relations married her to Egfrid in 660. Bishop Stubbs has
observed that the connexion of the Gyrvii with East Anglia accounts for
the fact that they were Christianized much earlier than their Mercian
neighbours : for Thomas, a Gyrvian, was consecrated bishop of Dunwich
six years before the mission to the Mid-Angles.
^ Lappenberg, ii. 338 ; Turner, iii. 71. Hexham, as we have seen, was
her jointure from Egfrid.
' As usual, he calls them ' familiae.' See above, p. 182. Kemble, Cod.
Dipl. iii. p. XXX, connects it with the root of ' higan, familla.' Bede, iv.
19: *Est autem Elge,' &c. He had previously described the isle as
'undique aquis ac paludibus circumdata.' See Bentham's Hist, of Ch. of
Ely, pp. 47, 79. Thomas of Ely describes it as *• locus difficultate adeundi
et arboribus hinc inde circumdatus, habens aquas de supercilio oollis
tenues, sed irriguas ' ; Vit. S. Etlieldr. c. 8, in Act. SS. Ben. ii. 745 : and
in his prefatory account of Ely, quoted by Wharton, AngL Sac L xli, this
twelfth-century chronicler celebrates the quietness and security of the
' famous isle,' its rich soil, its pleasant gardens and woods, its facilities
for sport (^ ferarum venatione '), its abundance of cattle and fish : * Sunt
in gremio insulae duodecim ecclesiae cum villis campestribus et modicis
insulanis.' Malmesbury says (G. P. iv. 183) that the surprise of visitors
at the abundance of fish was an amusement to the natives.
founds a Monastery at Ely. 287
those drainage works * which have changed the course of chap. ix.
the rivers and altered the face of the country \' Here she
led a devout life during the five years of her widowhood :
and after her second marriage, she lived twelve years in
£gf rid's house before she succeeded in extorting his consent
to her retirement to the monastery of his aunt Ebba at
Coldingham. At last, in 672, she was permitted to take the
veil there from the hands of Wilfrid, to whom this un-
healthy aversion for her wedded life as such, — for against
Egfrid personally she had no complaint, — appeared a token
of high sanctity '^. After she had spent about a year in
the house which reared its lofty buildings near the pro-
montory which still bears the name of its foundress ^, her
husband's longing to regain her, stimulated by the advice
of his thanes, who doubtless regarded his previous con-
cession as a weakness, brought him within a short distance
of Coldingham. Etheldred had but just time to fly south-
wards : and legends grew up as to the marvels which had
secured her escape and waited on her journey *. At last
she found herself safe amid the fens and streams of her
own domain ; and there, after some deliberation as to the
choice of a site, she fixed upon ' an elevation which in that
part of Britain passes for a considerable hill ^' and there
founded a double monastery after the model of Whitby and
' Freeman, iv. 469 : see his map there.
■ Bede, iv. 19, quite agrees with Wilfrid. See too Thomas of Ely, c. 9.
Contrast St. Columba forbidding a wife to think of going into a nunnery,
and citing Rom. vii. a, Matt. xiz. 6; Adamnan, ii. 41. Gregory himself
declared that * the dissolution of marriage religionis causa, though
allowed by human law, was forbidden by Divine,' quoting Matt. xix. 6 ;
£p. xi. 45. See the story of Berthegundia in Greg. Tur. ix. 33.
' ' Aedificia sublimiter erecta,' Bede, iv. 35.
* See Thomas of Ely, c. z i . Etheldred appears in these tales as sheltered
for a week by waters miraculously rising up around a hill called Coldbert's
Head; and as halting near the Humber, where her staff, fixed in the
ground while she slept, grew into the largest ash-tree in the neighbourhood
of ' Etheldredstowe.' See Bentham, Ch. of Ely, p. 59 ; Handbook to Eastern
Cathedrals, pp. 195, 329, on the sculptures representing the life of Ethel-
dred, in the octagon of Ely cathedral.
* Freeman, L 975. She at firt^t thought of a place called Cratunden,
where, according to an Ely legend, a church had been built by St. Augus-
tine and destroyed by Penda; comp. Thomas's preface in Angl. Sac.
i. p. xlii, and his * Yita/ c. 15, in Act. SS. Bened. it 754.
288 Etheldred at Ely.
CHAP. IX. Coldingham ^, the precursor of the great abbey which has
left us *the most stately and varied 2* of our cathedral
churches. At last she was happy, in the life which repre-
sented her ideal, and she enjoyed the support of her cousin
King Aldwulf, and the counsel and spiritual aid of her
chaplain Huna ^, — and, ere long, the companionship of her
elder sister Sexburga, the ex-queen of Kent *. ' It is said ' that
during her six years' abbacy 'she never wore linen, but
always wool': that she seldom used a warm bath except on
the eves of the three great festivals, among which it is curious
to find the Epiphany taking the place of Christmas ^ : and
that on those occasions she would first wash, or cause her
attendants to wash, the feet of the nuns. Moreover, it was
reported that she seldom took more than one meal a day,
except on the greater solemnities, or under some pressing
necessity : and that she never failed, when in fair health,
to stay in the church, intent on prayer, from the matin
service^, which was then said soon after midnight, until
dawn. One vivid little touch in Bede's picture ^ combines
^ ' Viros et mulieres in eodem simul monasterio . . . et in eoclesia diutiua
Bervatum;' Tho. Eli. in Angl. Sacr. i. 599. The whole isle was devoted
to the purposes of the community ; ib. See above, p. 213.
' So Freeman esteemed it, i. 276.
' Tho. Eli. c 15. After her death Huna became a hermit on an islet
afterwards called Hun-ey. According to Thomas, Wilfrid alond exercised
episcopal authority in Ely, and hallowed Etheldred as abbess. See
Bentham, p. 56, that Ely was exempted from the jurisdiction of the East-
Anglian bishop.
* Tho. Eli. c. 18 : ' Sed et sanctorum genetrix Sexburga,' &c.
* ' Paschae, Pentecostes, Epiphaniae ; ' Bede, iv. 19. In Bede's Ep. to
Egbert, c. 9, the chief days are named as the Nativity, the Epiphany, and
Easter, Pentecost being omitted. The Epiphany occurs as a pre*emtnent
holy-day in his Life of Cuthbert, c. 11.
* * Synaxeos.' Tliis word, originally used for (i) a church-meeting for
worship (compare coffacto), and specifically (9) for the Eucharistic celebra-
tion, had come to mean (3) the divine office for the canonical hours ; see
Suicer and Ducange in v. ; Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 10. Cp. Columban, Reg.
Coen. 7 ; Bonif. Ep. 39. ^ Septem igitur sinaxes sancti patres. canendas
constituerunt,' Thorpe's Anc Laws, p. 338. For references to the matin
office, see Bede, iii. la ; iv. 7 ; v. 9. Thomas of Ely says that all the
inmates of the monastery were taught Ho love Divine worship, et decorem
domus Dei tota observantla custodire ' ; Vit. Etheldr. 15.
^ Bede, iv. 19 : * Ferunt autem quia cum praefato tumore,' &;c. He tella
the story of the operation performed by her physician Eynifrid : she died
Disorders at Coldingham. 289
the early habits of the young East- Anglian princess with chap. ix.
the last illness of the abbess-queen, which was caused by
the recurring pestilence, but was also accompanied by a huge
and painful tumour under the jaw. * This ailment pleases
me well,' she would say : ' in my young days, I wore heavy
necklaces of gold and pearls ; — now, in their place, I have
to carry this hot red swelling : fit penance for my former
vanity, if it may but avail ! ' She died in 679 ^, and was
succeeded as abbess by Sexburga.
Her stay at Coldingham had probably been subsequent Colding-
to that visit which Cuthbert, we are told, paid to Ebba,
when, ' staying there some days, he exhibited, both in action
and in word, that way of righteousness which he preached^ : '
and it was, to all appearance, prior to that grave moral
deterioration of this community, which by degrees infected
all the officials except the abbess; beginning with mere
frivolity and a passion for 'fine garments,' — a frequent
with the incision still 'gaping.' Thomas of Ely says that she used to
tell the postulants for admission^ Milam esse veram vitam quae prae-
sentis vitae emerotur incommodo ; ' c. 15. See Alculn, de Pontil Ebor.
p. 770 if., Mn corpore vulnus . . . Apparet sanum,' ftc.
^ See Alb. Butler, June 33. Florence gives the same date, ' 9 Oal. July.'
There is apparently a mistake in the text of Tho. Eli. *9 Cal. JuniV (May
34). Sexburga in 695 caused her sister's remains to be re-interred in
' a white marble coffin of beautiful workmanship brought from the desolate
little city of Grantchester ' (near Cambridge); Bede, iy. 19; cp. Clark's
Cambridge, p. 9. The abbacy was held in succession, after Etheldred,
by Sexburga, her daughter Ermenild, late queen of Mercia, and her
granddaughter Werburga. It was in Edgar's time that the whole jurisdic-
tion within the bounds of the isle of Ely was granted to ' St. Etheldred/
that is, to her church ; Palgrave, p. 165. Comp. Hist. Eli. i. 4 (Gale,
Script, i. 465), and see Freeman, i. 293. Her name became popularized
as 'Audrey' (cp. As You Like It, iii. i ; whence * tawdry/ used of cheap
lace mementoes of Ely, cp. Winter's Tale, iv. 3, * you promised me a tawdry
laoe *), and a place near Ely was called Aldreth ; see Freeman, iv. 463.
* Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 10. It was during this visit that he went down
one night to the sea, went into it up to his neck, and continued singing
psalms till daybreak, then came out, knelt down, and said his prayers,
whereupon * two quadrupeds which are commonly called otters ' came up
out of the water, fawned upon him, warmed his feet with their breath,
and dried them with their hair, — then, when he had blessed them,
*patrias relapsa sunt sub undas.' A monk, watching the scene from
a cliff, was so awed that he could scarcely totter home, and implored
Cuthbert's pardoii. ' Did you, then, act the spy on me ? Well, I forgiye
you, if you will tell no one of it while I live.'
U
290 Disorders at Coldtngham.
CHAP. IX. infirmity among the inmates of Saxon cloisters ^, — but pro-
ceeding, as Bede intimates, in other cases, to * wickedness '
sufficient to discredit the system of double convents *. It
is the first instance of monastic corruption which Bede has
to record: in his later life he knew of much deflection
from the received conventual standard ^, but he mentions
none which can match the degeneracy at Coldingham.
A priest named iEdgils *, then a monk of the house, lived
to tell him how an Irish-bom inmate ^, devoted to peni-
tential asceticism, was one day returning to Coldingham,
after an excursion, with a brother-monk, when, looking
at the monastery from afar, he predicted that a fire would
consume it, and on being afterwards questioned by the
abbess, reluctantly told her that he had learned this from
a vision ^, but that the doom would not be accomplished in
her days ; how, after the community was informed of this
^ On this see Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 450, 473, 509 ; Lingard, A.-S.
Gh. i. 230 ; also ib. iii. 965, for St. Editl/s defence of her splendid
clothing ; Turner, iii. 47. See Aldhelm^ de Laud. Vii^ginitatis, 55-58 ;
Boniface's Ep. to Cuthbert, c. 9 ; and Ohrodegang's Begula Ganonicorum,
<^- 54» 'cayeant canonici ne per immoderatum cultum vestium dehonestent
religionis dignitatem.'
' Bede, iv. 25, ' a malitia inhabitantlum,' referring to Vulg. Pa. cvi. 34.
' Bede, Ep. to Egbert, 6. * Bede, iv. 35 : ' Quae mihi cuncta,' &c.
^ His name was Adamnan. He had committed ^sceleris aliquid' in
his youth, and when he came to himself had consulted a priest of his own
race, asking for penance : * he was strong, and could even fast a whole
week.' ' Do so for three days/ said the adviser, * and then I will return
and tell you what more to da' He never returned, being called away into
Ireland. Adamnan, left to himself, took to fasting on all but two days in
the week, Sunday and Thursday ; Bede, iv. 25. So, it was afterwards
believed, did St. Adamnan of Hy ; Reeves's Adamn. p. Ivii. Bede mentions
a priest named Hasmgils, who, when he wrote, was an old man living on
bread and water, as a hermit in Ireland ; v. 12. In the Life of St. Guthlac
by Felix, c. 32, an English attendant on bishop Heddi says 'inter
Scottorum se populos habitasse et illic pseudo-anachoretas . . . vidisse,'
together with truly devout men ; Act. SS. Bened. iii. 278. On Irish
penances, see above, p. 168.
* An unknown person, he said, stood by him during his nightly
devotions, and told him that he alone in the whole community was in
earnest about his soul. * The cells made for prayer or study were turned
into pluces for revelry, idle conversation, or other allurements.' Monks and
nuns alike * aut somno torpent inerti aut ad peocata vigilant.' Nuns, in
particular, spent their time in weaving delicate garments in which to
adorn themselves ' like brides,' &c.
Death of Wulfhere. 291
strange prophecy, some amendment was observable, which, chap. ix.
when Ebba was gone, gave place to the old sins, and worse.
And so, Bede tells us, with his habitual awe-struck recog-
nition of Divine judgements ^, 'while they said, "Peace and
safety," the convent was burnt to the ground through some
person's carelessness, but,' as ' all who knew the case could
well perceive,' by ' a heavy vengeance from heaven V
And now let us turn southward, and place ourselves, in Mercia.
imagination, among the Churchmen of Kent attached more
or less closely to the archbishop, and thus informed as to
ecclesiastical affairs in the southern and central kingdoms.
They would hear a good deal about the state of the Church
in Mercia King Wulfhere, after losing lindsey in his
war with Egfrid^ and gaining some dearly-bought ad-
vantage over Escwin, then king of a part of Wessex, in the
battle of Beadanhead or Bedwin ^, ended his noble life in
675 ^ leaving the Church firmly settled in the Midlands :
and his son Kenred, being a boy, was passed over in favour
of his father's brother Ethelred ^, another of those sons of
the great Pagan whom Christianity had made so effectually
^ < Lest, while we are yielding to the allurements of the fleah, repentina
ejus ira nos oorripiat.' Comp. Bede, iv. 3, v. 13, 14, and Epist. 15.
' It is said that on account of these scandals at Coldingham, Outhbert,
when bishop of Lindisfame, with full 'consent of men and women,'
excluded all women ' from the threshold ' of his monastic cathedral (see
Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 215), and that a separate church was built on the
island ' in campi viyentis planitie,' thence called the Green Kirk. Be
Dun. £ccl. ii. 7 ; cp. Ann. SS. Ben. ii. 878 ; Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 215.
In Durham cathedral women could not go further up the nave than
a cruciform line of blue stone west of the north door.
' Bede, iy. 12 ; see above, p. 267. Lindsey was a ' debatable land '
between Mercia and Northumbria, but finally became Mercian.
^ Ghron. 675. For Escwin, see above, p. 273. On the result of the
battle, cp. Hen. Hunt. ii. 37.
* On his reign see Smith's Bede, p. 746 ; Lappenberg, i. 178. His chief
foult was the unworthy transaction with bishop Wini ; but against this
are to be set his exertions for Christianity, not only within his own
realm, but in regard to the South-Saxon king. ' Christi nomen ubique
locorum regni sui praedicare jussit ; ' Florence, a. 675. 'Christianitatem
Tix in recpno suo palpi tan tem . . . enixissime juvit ;' Malmesb. G. Reg. i.
76. He was buried at Lichfield. After his death his wife Ermenild took
the veil at Sheppey, and his daughter Werburga (above, p. 207^ at Ely.
* See above, p. 180. So among the Picts, ' the law of primogeniture was
only partially recognized ; ' Robertson, Scotland under Early Eings, i. 34.
U %
292 Erkenwaldj bishop of London^
CHAP. IX. its own. The vacancy of the Mercian throne was con-
temporaneous with the vacancy of the Mercian bishopric :
Winfrid was deposed by Theodore for some 'disobedience^,'
which is not explained by Bede, but has been supposed
to mean resistance to a partition of the great diocese of
Lichfield. Gentle as Winfrid was by nature, he may
perhaps have thought himself bound by reverence for
Chad's memory to retain Chad's diocese as he had received
it. Whether Theodore went through the form of a synodical
trial and sentence, we know not ; he would be somewhat
too likely to disregard such restrictions on his authority*:
but Winfrid made no resistance, uttered no appeal. He
retired to the monastery of Barrow, which seems to have
been under his own personal jurisdiction : and after some
experiences on the continent, which, as we shall see, were
almost grotesquely unfortunate, he ended his life, under
the peaceful roof of his own convent, *in all holy
conduct^.' He was succeeded by Saxulf, the abbot, and,
in a sense, the founder of Medeshamstede *, who, after
having, as Jthe monastic chronicler, Hugh the White,
assures us, 'given birth to several dependent monas-
teries,' left the parent house in the care of a monk named
Cuthbald ».
Erken- * At that time also,' writes Bede, ' Theodore appointed
bishop of Erkenwald to "be bishop, in the city of London, for the
Loudon.
^ Bede, iy. 6: 'Per meritum cujuBdam inobedientiae/ Malmesbuiy
says that he was expelled from Lichfield by king Ethelred, ' quia Egfridi
partium fuerat ' (G. Pont. iii. 100) ; but this would place the expulsion in
679, whereas Saxulf succeeded to Lichfield ' not long after * the council of
Hertford (Bode, iv. 6), and probably in 675 (Stubbs, Registr. p. 3"^. * He
was unbuxum (disobedient) in som poynt ; ' Trevisa's transl. of Polychron.
b. I. c. 5-.
' He acted ' pro placito ' ; "Malmesb. Qest. Pontif. i. i. See Collier, L
239. Bingham says that even if a metropolitan could depose a suffragan
by his sole authority, the act was subject to revision by the synod ; b. IL
c. 16. s. 16. ^ Occasionally he (Theodore) ventui'ed to transgress the strict
letter of the canons ; ' Lingurd, A.-S. Oh. i. 78.
• Bede, iv. 6 : * Depositus vero Vynfrid/ &o.
^ ' Constructor et abbas,' Bede, 1. c. Above, p. 304.
* He had founded a monastery 'cum heremitlcis cellulis' at a place
called Ancarig, afterwards Thomey, in Cambridgeshire. See Hugo Cand.
in Sparke, Scr. Yarii, pp. 6-8 ; Sprott's Chron. ed. Hearne, p. 17a.
a founder of Convents. 293
EastrSaxons ^.' In after days, when this prelate was chap. ix.
honoured as a saint, it was said that, when a little boy, he
had heard Mellitus preach in London ^. Bede has much to
tell us of the 'two noble monasteries' that he founded,
before his episcopate, for himself and for his sister Ethel-
burga ^,— one at Chertsey in Surrey, the other at Barking
in Essex. The former was raised by the help of Frith wold,
a Mercian sub-king*: the latter, like Whitby and others,
was a double foundation, having a separate area for the
monks apart from the nuns' buSding, and even a separate
chapel, or oratory, for each order*. Of Barking Bede
gives us, on the authority of a memoir of contemporary
date, a series of anecdotes^ several of which refer to the
ravages of the Yellow Pest, and some belong to the class
of instances of mysterious consciousness, or prevision, shortly
preceding death ®. When Bede wrote, men believed that
the horse-litter^ in which, when infirm, Erkenwald used
' Bede, L o. (he writes ' Erconyald.*) Alb. Butler, April 30. Op.
Milman, Ann. of St. Paul's, p. 11 ; Simpson, Chapters in Hist, of Old
St. Paul's, p. 13. Loffcie says that his ' career was an uninterrupted course
of good, useful, and fnrsighted measures,' &c., and < his festival was the great
day of all the year at St. Paul's' ; London (Historic Towns), pp. 150, 157.
' Dugdale, Hist. St. Paul's, p. 289.
' For 'iEidilburge,' as Bede writes her name, see Alb. Butler, Oct. 11.
« Malmesb. G. Pontif. ii. 73. See Monast. Angl. i. 426 ; Frith wald is
called 'Surrianorum subregulus regis Wlfarii.' A description of the
boundaries of Chertsey abbey- land traces them from ' the mouth of the
Way to the eels' ditch, the old military way, . . . the great willow, . . . the
head of the pool, the old spinney, the holm-oak, the three hills, . . . the
march-brook, the three trees,' &c. Another form is in Eemble, iii. p. 401.
Ethelburga was succeeded by Hildilith, a friend of Aldhelm ; comp. Bede,
iy. 10 ; Aldh. de Laud. Virgin, i. Tanner, in * Notitia Monastica,' dates
the foundation of Chertsey, from its register, in 666.
* Bede, iv. 7 : ' C^jus radius lucis,' &c. Comp. Mabillon, Ann. Bene-
dict, i. 397.
* One story is of a vision, at dawn, of a radiant human body wrapt in
linen, and borne up by cords brighter than gold out of the 'house'
reserved for dying sisters,— shortly before the death of Ethelburga ; Bede,
iv. 9. In tills passage we find the word 'pausare,' Ho go to rest' in
death ; comp. Bede, v. 8. In Adamn. Vit. Co), iii. 23 the word is applied
to the remains of the dead, 4n quo . . . sanoti pausant ossa.' Comp.
Reeves's Adamnan, p. 378, 'Adomnanus . . . pausat,' and 'pausavit'
as » ' quievit ' in Chron. Scot. Bede mentions the ' cottage ' of the sick and
dying in the monastic precinct of Whitby, iv. 24.
^ Bede, iv. 6 : ' Etenim usque hodie,' fto. Cjk. Halmesb. 6. P. ii. 73<
294 Aldhelntj
CHAP. IX. to go about his diocese, was invested with wonder-working
efficacy ; a belief which could not have grown up unless
the bishop had endeared himself to his people by true
pastoral and self-sacrificing activity, such as would go far
to consolidate the fabric of Church-life on ground that had
once seemed to offer no sure foundation.
Aldhelm. Another event of 675 would call .forth eager interest in
the precincts of the ecclesiastical school in Canterbury.
One of the students, Aldhelm \ a youth of princely West-
Saxon blood *, who had shown a pre-eminent faculty for
acquiring all the lore of the time, — Greek as well as Latin,
and even Hebrew, — together with music and metrical
rules ^ and had astonished even such a teacher as Hadrian
by his aptitudes and attainments^, had returned into
Wessex, and become a member of a small community under
the teaching and government of an Irish monk named
Mailduf *,— probably Moeldubh, — 'in erudition a philo-
sopher,' who had been attracted by the woodland beauty
of a peninsular hill named Ingelbome, had obtained leave
^ Alb. Butler, May 95 ; Turner, Angl.-Saz. iii. 400.
' FariciuB, abbot of Abingdon (iioo), who wrote his Life (Migne, Patr.
Lat. Ixzxix. 65), makes faim the nephew of king Ine; a manifest
anachronism, as Malmeebury obseryes, — who adds that Aldhelm's father
Kenten was a kinsman, not a brother, of Ine ; Gest. Pontif. v. 88. See
Elmham, s. 84: 'Aldhelm needs not to have his lineage supported by
falsehoods.' Kemble (ii. 373) describes him aa 'closely connected with
the royal family of Wessex.'
^ Bede calls him a man most learned 'all round, ... a wonder of
erudition in liberal as well as in sacred literature ' ; y. 18. See his Epist.
4, to bishop Heddi, on the study of metre and of calculations ; his work
' De Septenario, et de Metris,' &c ; his frequent quotations from Latin
poets. Fariciua says that he could speak and write Greek ; Yit. Aldh.
c I. See Milner, Hist. Winch, i 8a. His reading, in fact, exceeded his
literary discretion and good taste. We must not wonder at his belieying
that St. Clement of Rome wrote the 'Itinerarium Petri,' that pope
Sylyester boiud a pestilent serpent, or that Constantino was healed of
leprosy by being baptized ; De Laud. Yirg. c. 05.
4 Malmesb. 1. 0. Aldhelm refers to Theodore as haying personally giyen
instructions ; Ep. 3.
* Bede, y. 18 ; Malmesb. y. 189 ; Lanigan, iii. 100. An Irishman
' ignoti nominis ' reminded Aldhelm, ' You were bred up under a certain
holy man of our race ; ' Ep. 5. See Newman on Uniyersity Education,
p. 31 : ' Blessed days of peace and confidence (between England and
Ireland), when Mailduf penetrated to Malmesbur}',* &c.
abbot of Malmesbury. 295
to build a hut beneath the walls of its old castle ^, and chap- ix.
had there lived by monastic rule, and taken pupils for his
subsistence. He brought with him all the culture for which
Irish scholars were then famous : a little society grew up
around him ; aud his name has been thought to survive in
* Malmesbury */ Aldhelm had returned to Canterbury, but
his second sojourn there was broken off by bad health, as
we learn from his own letter to Hadrian, *the revered
preceptor of his childhood^/ He returned to his studies
under Mailduf , was ordained priest by Bishop Lothere *, and
in 675 was regularly appointed abbot. Better days now
dawned on the poor and hard-working community. They
had hardly been able to secure daily bread : but the re-
nown of their new superior put an end to these straits ^,
and a crowd of new brethren bore witness to his attractive-
ness as an instructor and a spiritual guide. It is probable
enough that one or another great landowner came forward
to assist the brotherhood •. The lowly chapel of Mailduf
was superseded by ' a more august church in honour of the
Lord and Saviour, and of the chief apostles Peter and PauP.*
One incident of his earlier days at Malmesbury brings
*
^ ' Nemoris amoenitate . . . captiis ; ' Malm. 1. c. ; Mon. Angl. i. 253,
357.
' Bede, v. 18 : 'Maildufi urbem.* Mr. James Parker, referring to * Mel*
dunonsbiirg' in Ine's charter of 701 (Cod. Dipl. i. 56), suggests 'MsbI-
dun,' hill of the cross (properly, mark), as * Cristes msele,' Ohron. Ablngd.
1 65, 338 (in lists of boundaries).
' Aldh. Ep. 7 : * corporeae fragilitatis,' &c. In Ep. 3 he alludes to
Hadrian as <urbanliate enucleata ineffabiliter praedito.'
* Fariciua, c. i. The grant of land at Malmesbury by Lothere is a
manifest forgery ; Cod. Dipl. i. 14.
^ Malmesb. G. P. ▼. 197 : * Correzit nobilitas Aldelmi Tictualium in-
opiam.'
' Malmesb. G. P. v. aco. The charter ascribed to Kenfrith is very
grandiloquent, and bespeaks a later time. That of king Ethelred is
much simpler (God. Dipl. i. 27). But both may be spurious, and yet the
tradition of some such grants may be trustworthy. One in which
Baldred, in August 688, gives ' some land to abbot Aldhelm/ is referred
by Kemble to Oadwalla's reign ; Cod. Dipl. i. 39.
* Malmesb. G. P. v. 197. He afterwards buUt two other churches
within the precinct, St. Mary's and St Michael's ; ib. v. 216. He adds
that 'tota majoris ecclesiae fabrioa ' subsisted to his own time, surpassing
all other ancient English churches in size and beauty. He was writing
in I 125.
296 Aldhelm as a minstrel.
CHAP. IX. him more lovingly before us than all the panegyrics on his
sanctity or his manifold acquirements, or on that style which
to us appears so full of turgid affectations^, although to
William of Malmesbury it seems to combine the several
excellences of English, Greek, and Latin *. The anecdote
was derived from no less an authority than Alfred the
Great ^ It seems that the rude West-Saxons of the district
were wont to hasten home after hearing mass, without
waiting for the sermon, — ^sometimes, perhaps, to neglect
church altogether*. Aldhelm, who had learned to sing, and
to compose ballads, while a student at Canterbury, saw his
way to making use of that talent. He took his station on
the bridge which crossed the Avon southwards, and con-
fronted the passers-by ^, who were intent on their market-
ings, but, like all Saxons, were fascinated by music •, and
stopped when he began a lively song ^. ' Having done this
more than once, and gathered a crowd of listeners,' he
glided from such minstrelsy into a strain that brought in
sacred words, and brought home serious thoughts. This
'blameless guile ^' proved effective, where ecclesiastical
' E.g. Ep. 3, or the De liiudibus Virginitatis, c. a, la, 33. Of that
work Malmesbury says, ' Nihil dulcius, nihil splendidiuB ; ' G. Reg. i. 3.
His pedantry frequently takes a classical form : he talks, e. g. of the
' dura Parcarum quies/ and calls St. Athanasius a * sacred flamen.' He
is fond of Greek words, as doxa, sophia, kata, — and of alliteration ; Ep.
3. ' Language that rivals Armado, or Holofemes, or Euphues ; ' Haddan's
Remains, p. 267. See Turner, Angl.-Sax. iii. 403, 'a series of bombastic
amplifications;' and Lingard, A.-S. Ch. ii. 15a. A similar 'Grecizlng*
affectation characterizes many of the Chartae Anglo>Saxonicae in Kemble,
e. g. ^ Kyrius, archon, tauraate, agie, catascopus,' &a See also the
pomposities of Odo's preface to Fridegod's Life of Wilfrid.
' Malmesb. G. P. v. 196 ; and Gest. Reg. i. s. 31. Bede calls Aldhelm
' sermone nitidus,' v. 18 ; praise to which he himself is far better entitled.
See Lingard, ii. 153.
' Malmesbury, v. 190, referring to Alfred's Handbook, ib. 188. Comp.
Faricius, c. i : he gives it with some variations.
* So Faricius : ' eoclesiam non frequentabat.'
' According to Faricius, he met them as they were flocking into the
town ; according to Malmesbury (or rather, Alfred), when they were
hastening home ' statim cantatis missis.' See above, p. 115.
* See the story of OsBdmon, below. Gp. Lingard, A.-S. Ch. ii. 155.
* This song was long afterwards popularly current ; Malmesb. 1. c.
' Christian Year^ Fifth Sunday after Trinity.
Heddty bishop of Winchester. 297
•
censures ' would have done no good whatever ^ ; ' and his chap. ix.
Pauline versatility was rewarded by a manifest increase
of religious earnestness in his congregations.
His bishop Lothere died in the year following his own Wesscx.
appointment to the abbacy * ; aad Theodore, in London, and
doubtless with Erkenwald's assistance, consecrated Heddi,
who, says Bede, was qualified for episcopal duties rather by
an innate love of goodness than by any book-learning ^, but
who evidently appreciated the abilities and the character
of the scholar-abbot, for we find Aldhelm writing to him as
to his ' peculiar patron,' and dilating on the difficulties of
Roman law, of prosody, arithmetical calculations, astro-
nomy and astrology *. The West-Saxon realm was just now
in a * somewhat ' chaotic state : there seem to have been
several sub-kings, — one of them, Escwin \ more potent than
the rest, but no one acknowledged by all, until by degrees
Kentwin^, a brother of Kenwalch, established his sove-
' *• Profecto profecisset nihil,' Malmesb. 1. c.
' See Kemble, Cod. Dipl. i. i6, for a charter dated on Nov. 6 in this
year 676, and ascribed to ' Osric, king,' i. e. sub-king, of the Hwiocas. He
is made to say that when fir^t the Gospel doctrines were brought home
to him after his baptism, he had confined himself to the erection of
a 'pontifical chair': but that he has 'now' resolved to found ' coenobialia
loca ' for men and for women, and grants to abbess Bertana land near the
city caUed HAt Bathu (i. e. Bath, called Hata-Bathum in Chron. a. 97a'.
But the document exhibits the signatures of both Lothere and his successor
Heddi, whereas Heddi was not consecrated in Lothere's lifetime ; Bede,
iv. 19. Osric might be sub-king as early as 676 : he was so, apparently,
in 681, when he is said to have founded the monastery of Gloucester ; and
see Bede, iv. 23. The difficulty caused by Florence's mention of Oshere
as sub-king in 679 might be got over : he probably antedated Oshere.
But the matter of the document would seem to show that, if genuine, it
must be ascribed to a later year. Bishop Stubbs thinks Osric may
haye been the son of Alchfrid son of Oswy, and the uncle of Oshere ; Diet.
Chr. Biog^. iy. 760, 16a.
' Bede, y. 18 : ' Bonus quippe erat,' ftc On this Malmesbury says,
' Kon paryo moyeor scrupulo, quippe qui legerim ejus formales epistolas
non nimia indocte compositas ;' G. P. ii. 75. See the lines addressed to
him, and ascribed to Theodore, *Te nunc, sancte speculator,' &c., in
Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 903.
* Aldh. £p. 4. On the study of Roman law at this period, see Kemble,
Cod. Dipl. i. p. viii. Gp. £ddi, 43, on Wilfrid's proficiency in it.
' ' Nearest to the royal stock,' says Malmesbury, G. Reg. i. 9. For
a number of sub-kings in Wessex fifty years earlier, see p. 130.
* Comp. Bede, iv. 19, with Chron. 676, which makes Kentwin succeed
2g8 Foundation of Abingdon.
uHAP. IX. reignty, and, although an elderly man, displayed on one
occasion the warlike energy of his house by ' driving the
Britons to the sea ^/ His name is of some interest to us in
this Thames valley, in connexion with the original founda-
tion of the great abbey of St. Mary of Abingdon. For it
was in the first year of his reign that Hean ^ the nephew
of the &ub-king Cissa, obtained from his uncle a grant of
land for a monastery amid the * Bagley-wood ' of that
period, on a spot called Abba's hill^, a name transferred
some twenty years later to Seukesham *, when, after many
delays ^, the design was carried out on that ground near
to Escwin. Some verses wrongly ascribed to Aldhelm describe a church
founded by Bugge, daughter of Kentwin (prob. lect.) during the reign
of Ine.
^ Chron. 68a. 'Victoriosus et yehemens,' Hen. Hunt Hist. iL 38.
' Chron. Abingd. vol. ii. pp. vii. 269. Hean is said to have been stirred
by a sermon on ^ the camel and the needle's eye.' This seems an imitation
of the story about St. Antony. The land granted by Cissa was a piece of
the public ^folcland' ; ib. pp. xii. 497. Hean's sister Ceol8with,or Cilia,
actually founded a nunnery in honour of St. Helen at a place called
Helenstow : it waa afterwards removed to Wytham ; vol. i. 8, ii. 269.
• ' A little beyond the vill called Sunningwell, between two very lovely
streams which enclose the spot quasi quemdam sinum ;' Chron. Ab.
vol. i. p. 3. In other words, * near Bayworth ; * ib, ii. a68. See Tanner,
Not. Hon. p. 10, 'two miles nearer Oxford than the present' Abingdon,
' near Bayworth, or Chilswell,' where Chilsweil farm now stands, on old
property of the abbey, below Hen- wood (qu. Hean's?). The tale of
an Irish (or British) monk ^Abben,' who dwelt on the 'mount' as an
abbot, is a mere legend: 'Abingdon' is derived from Abba, an early
settler in Berkshire ; Chron. Ab. ii. p. v. The story mentions ' a hermit
who dwelt in Cumnor wood * ; ib. p. 270.
^ Or ' Sheovesham.' The Chronicle describes Seuekesham as 'civitas
famosa, . . . divitiis plena,' surrounded by broad green meadows, where
were found traces of British Christianity, and among them a black cross,
which no one could profane by perjury 'sine periculo vitae,' &c. ; i. 6, 7 ;
and which became the palladium of the abbey. A more modest account,
tracing it to Cilia, is in ii. 269.
' See Stevenson's Chron. Abingd. i. 9, for the alleged charter of king
Ine, dated 699, marked as spurious by Kemble, Cod. Dipl. i. 53, but
supposed by Stevenson to be reducible into component parts, which,
taken separately, present no difficulties ; Chr. Ab. ii. 496. The transac-
tions, in his view, were as follows : Cissa grants some lands to Hean for
monastic purposes ; Cadwalla, when king of Wessex, grants some twenty
' hydes ' (including ' Cumnor wood '), which, according to the fragment
of his charter (ib. i. 8), he had measured 'partim equitando, parti m
navigando ' : Ine finds that Hean has not complied with the conditions
of Cissa's grant, revokes it, and * restores the land to the commonwealth' :
Mercian Invasion of Kent. 299
the river where we still see some scanty remains of the ohap. ix.
once stately monastery which made the new * Abbendun/
our Abingdon, ecclesiastically and historically important.
Heddi must have come into the valley, — at what time, we
know not, but probably soon after his consecration, — when
he removed the bones of St. Birinus from Dorchester to
Winchester ^, in token that the West-Saxon capital was now
the one seat of the West-Saxon prelacy, — and withal
deprived Dorchester of cathedral rank.
Kent itself was now to feel the sharp edge of an invader's Ethelred
sword. King Lothere had given some offence to Ethelred * ; kJ^**
or, perhaps, Penda's son was fired with the passion of a
conqueror. He came down on the weaker kingdom at the
head of a hostile force, and laid waste not only towns or
villages, but * churches and monasteries, without respect to
piety or the fear of God *.* Even in Canterbury some alarm
may well have been felt for the archiepiscopal church, and
for the abbey of SS. Peter and Paul, which had recently
obtained a 'privilege' from Pope Adeodatus, denouncing
spiritual censures against all who should disturb it \ But
Rochester was actually destroyed. Its bishop, Putta, was
just then absent ; but on hearing of the disaster, he lost all
heart. * His church had been stripped of all its property,
and laid desolate.' The simple-minded, inactive man had
no spirit or energy for such a crisis. He withdrew into
Mercia, — into the very country whence the ravagers had
come, — ^attracted, perhaps, by the known kindness and
munificence of Bishop Saxulf, who gave him a church,
Hean then promises that there shall be no farther delay, takes the vows
of a monk, and appoints an unnamed person as his abbot : thereupon Ine
renews the grant But within five years, Hean, with his abbot's consent,
cancels this arrangement, and is absolved from his vows, a.d. 699. The
actual establishment of the monastery took place some years later, during
Aldhelm*8 episcopate. The Abingdon Chronicler did iigustioe to Ine's
motires, vol. i. p. 9 ; see ii. p. zL
' Bede;, iii. 7.
' See Malmesb. G. P. i. 35. < Nam Ethelredus,' &o.
' Bede, iy. 19. He dates this in 676. Compare Hen. Hunt. IL 38.
* Elmham, p. 945. Another privilege, professing to come from pope
Agatho, May 15, 675, is * of questionable authenticity ' ; Haddan and
Stubbs, iii. 124. See above, p. 113 ; and cp. Freeman, iy. 407.
300 Putta in Herefordshire.
CHAP. IX. and a small piece of land ^, where he dwelt, exercising
his ministry in quietness, and, according to Bede, going
about, when invited, to give lessons in his own art of
choir-music. This does not point to the regular for-
mation of a bishopric; yet Putta's name heads the list
of bishops of Hereford ^. We may assume that he would
not refuse to perform episcopal functions in the surrounding
district of Hecana, as a deputy for Saxulf ' ; he .would thus
be regarded as its acting chief pastor, and in later traditions
as actually its first bishop. In that tranqtdl home beside the
Wye, perhaps where now the venerable cathedral and its
dependent buildings give a special charm to the Hereford
* precinct*,' Putta spent the rest of his life, 'never thinking at
all ' of a return to Rochester, where his successor Cwichelm
found it impossible, for letck of means, to maintain himself,
and resigned in 678, when Theodore consecrated Qebmund ^.
Cuthbort, Once more let us look northwards. The year of Ethelred's
Kndis-^ raid in Kent, and Putta's settlement in Hecana, was marked
fame. in Northumbria by an event of importance in the life of
one who was gradually becoming the typical saint of that
realm. Cuthbert had been removed by his abbot Eata from
Melrose to lindisfame, 'that he might there also teach
the rule of monastic perfection with the authority of a prior,
and set it forth by a virtuous example ^. He improved the
* ' Agelli non g^andis,' Bede, iv. la.
' Florence, append. See above, p. 359. The name of Hereford, * the
ford of the army/ records the passing of Saxon forces over the river
to attack the Welsh borders ; Taylor's Words and Places, p. a68.
' See Haddan and Stubbs, iii 130. It is true that *■ Bede says nothing
about Putta as a bishop of Hereford ' (Phillott, Dioc. Hist. Herel p. 9),
and that, so far as his narrative goes, Putta lived in Saxulfs dioceee * as
a simple priest ' (Plummer). Florence dates his death in 688, and names
as his first successors, Tyrhtel, Torthere, and Wahlstod ; the last of these is
mentioned by Bede, v. 23, as 'bishop (in 731) of the people who dwell
beyond the Severn westward.'
* Near the city is a hamlet named ' Putstone,' which gives a title to
two prebends in the cathedral.
^ Bede, iv. la.
* Bede, iv. 37 ; Vit. Cuthb. 16 ; De Mirac. S. Cuthb. 14 ; Vit. Anon.
1. 9 (Bede, vol. vi. p. 367). This cannot have been as early as 664,
as Raine supposes ;St. Cuthbert| p. 17 ft.), following Simeon. See above,
p. 916.
Cuthberty prior of Lindisfarne. 301
discipline of the monastery by a compilation of new rules \ chap. «.
drawn up at Eata's desire : and it was now his task to over-
come the repugnance with which the monks regarded what
they deemed an additional burden. Thus he had to face
an opposition, on the part of daily and hourly associates,
which, as Bede hints, extended to some bodily ill-treatment ^ ;
which would have certainly worn out one less firm, or
exasperated one less loving, but which could not even ruffle
his brow or sharpen his tones, and gradually yielded to
the sweet power of his * modest patience.' ' When, in dis-
cussions, he was harassed by insulting language, he would
suddenly rise, break up the meeting, and go out with a
calm face ^ and a quiet mind : on the very next day, as if
he had met with no gainsaying whatever, he would repeat
again the same exhortations, until, by degrees, he brought
them round to what he desired.' His daily conduct was a
lesson of devotion : sometimes he spent three or four nights
together in vigil and prayer, without ever lying down : he
was either alone in some retired place, or making something
with his hands *, while he recited psalms *, by way of keep-
* The author of the Anonymous Life says, * Et nobis regularem vitam
primum componens constiiuit, quam usque hodie cum regula Benedict!
observamus.' Bed. Op. vi. 369. See Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 217.
* < Quae Tel animo yel corpori adversa ingerehantur ; ' Bede, V. G. 16.
' * Placido Yultu.' Further on, ' inter tristia . . . faciem praetendena
hilarem.' *■ His gentleness and firmness . . . proved too much for the
malcontents ... A difficult antagonist : he would not dispute ; he would
not quarrel ; but he would be obeyed ; ' Christ. Remembr. toI. xxiii.
p. 69. The Anon. Vit. omits these troubles.
* His hands were ' large and broad ' ; Bede, iy. 31. Compare the ancient
monks' habit of *■ twisting ropes ' (Coteler. Eccl.Gr. Mon. i. 340) or weaving
palm-leaves into baskets ; Sozomen, vi. 29.
^ References to the devotional use of the Psalter are frequent in Bede.
Thus, the monks of Hexham used to keep vigil with ' plurima psalmorum
laude,' at ' Heavenfleld,' on the night before the anniversary of St. Oswald's
death ; Bede, iii. a. Psalms were said for the soul of Hilda, iv. 23 : cp.
v. 14. The Hewalds wore ' constantly occupied in psalms and prayers ' ;
V. 10. For Cuthbert's psalmody see Vit. Outhb. 5, 34. Psalms were sung
in Benedict Bisoop's cell during his last illness ; Hist. Abb. 9. Bede spent
a large part of his last days ' in psalmorum cantu ' ; see Cuthbert's letter
to Cuthwin. The custom was carried to excess when. e.g. Ceolfrid and
his companions recited the whole psalter twice a day, beside the psalms
of the hours, on their Romeward journey ; Hist. Abb. 16 : or when the
English-born Willehad almost always sang 'one psalter' a day, sometimes
302 Cuthbert, prior of Ltndisfarne.
CHAP. IX. ing off sleepiness, or going about the island to see that all
was well. If any of the monks complained of being dis-
turbed in their nightly or noonday slumber, he would
say pleasantly, '/ am never annoyed by being aroused to do
or think of something useful *.' When he celebrated, 'it was
rather his heart than his voice that was uplifted ' at the
' Sursum corda ' : nor could he ever complete the service
without tears '. As an administrator of discipline, his zeal
for what was right became sternness towards all who were
doing wrong : but honest confession awakened all his
sympathy, and the penitent would be drawn into better
ways by a renewed experience of such tenderness united to
such holiness ^ He used garments neither too smart nor
slovenly; and his proscription of rich colours became a
tradition among the lindisfame monks ^. As at Melrose, he
found work to do among the country people, and * by his
frequent visits, as his custom was, he stirred up many to
seek after a heavenly reward.' Stories were told, as in his
earlier life, about wonderful effects from his prayers*.
Altogether, he seemed to be eminently the man for the place :
yet after several years thus spent, he took a step which must
seem strange to us, though to the men of his time it appeared
to be the very crown of contemplative and ascetic perfection.
In 676 ®, when he was about forty-five, he gave up his duties
even two or three ; Vit. S. Will. 9. Compare Bede, iii. 97, on the amoant
of Egbert's psalmody.
* Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 16 : ' Nemo . . . mihi molestiam facit me excitando
de Bomno,' &c. It was usual for monlss to sleep for awhile before or after
the matin service ; comp. Bede, v. 9. St. liudger used to sleep, after the
' psalmody ' of noctums, in a ^ solar ' of the church of Utrecht ; Vit. Liudg.
16. See too Benedict's Beg. Hon. c aa, 48.
' Bede, V. G. x6. The celebration was still, as in Aidan's time, con-
fined to Sundays ; ib. 44. See above, p. 167.
' Bede, 1. c. : ' Erat zelo justitiae fervidus,' &c.
* Bede, 1. c : ' Vestimentis utebatur communibua,' &c. Above, p. 269.
» Bede, V. C. 15.
* Simeon, de Dun. Eccl. i. 7, gives this date. It appears, indeed, that
Simeon antedates his coming to Lindisfame by some years ; but he may
be right as to the time of his resignation, as having taken place in 676,
and in the third year before the consecration of Eata, which was late
in 678. Bede assigns to him, vaguely, ' many ' years of priorship both
at Kelrose and at Lindisfame ; V. C. 16, 17.
He retires to Fame. 303
aa prior of Lindisf ame, in order to live as a * recluse ' on chap. ix.
the neiffhbourinff islet of Fame, which Aidan had used for Cuthbert,
o c» ... T -I • hermit on
his periodical retreats \ His biographers regarded him as Fame.
' having thus chosen the better part * ' ; — as if he had not
proved his own signal capacities for that union of service
and of devotion which he had enjoyed while dwelling in a
community. The unhealthy extravagance into which the
ecclesiastical mind of that age was led, on such subjects, by
the accumulating influences of its hagiology, mingles with
the good sense which such a writer as Bede exhibits on
other matters. No one, apparently, remonstrated with
Cuthbert : every one thought he was doing the very thing
which would make him still more pleasing to God. He
himself, however, was accustomed after his retirement to
warn his friends against an exaggerated estimate of his
hermit-life, and to extol as truly admirable the life of
obedient monks in a community ^ It was for his own
special profit, as he viewed it, that he determined to live
in solitude : and accordingly, he took up his abode in an
island which had jnever before been regularly inhabited *,
and constructed for himself a round hut roofed with logs
' See above, p. i6a.
* So Sim. Dunelm. : ' O pater dulcissime . . . sedebas cum Maria secus
pedes Domini, optimam partem eligens.' (Oomp. Life of St. Dcicoluf<, i6,
Act. SS. Ben. ii. io8, much to the same purport.) Bede (Vit. Cuth. 17)
oonsiders tliat he was tliereby advancing ' de virtute in virtutem.' Before
retiring to Fame he spent some time in *• a secluded place in the outskirts
of the monastery (*< cellae ") of Lindisfame ' ; Bede, 1. c. ; evidently this, his
first essay at hermit-life was made in a cave bearing his name near
Howbum ; Baine's St. Cuthbert, p. 90. Probably it was in some remote
part of Holy Islund, such as that to which his successor retired for
Lenten devotions ; Bede, Y. C. 4a : Skene says, in the S. W. comer, Celt.
Sc. ii. 911. Irish monasteries sometimes had ^diserts' or places for
solitary devotion : there was one such at Derry, and near the shore
in Hy ; Reeves's Adamnan, p. 366. Op. Stokes, Irel.and Celt. Ch. p. 178.
Fiacc is said to have spent the time from ' Shrove Saturday ' ' to Easter
Saturday ' (i. e. Easter Eve) in a cave ; Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, i. 343.
' ' Ne conversationem ejus quasi singulariter excelsam mirarentur . . .
" Sed jure/' inquit, '^ est ooenobitarum vita mirabilis . . . quorum pluri-
moB novi meam parvitatem longe . . . anteire ; " ' Bede, Y. C. aa.
* See Baine's St. Cuthbert, p. ao ff. ; Murray's Durham and Northum-
berland, p. aia. It is ' a little island of basaltic rock ' ; Qreen, Making of
EngL p. 378 ; see Bede, iv. a8. It is referred to in several passages of
Reginald of Durham's ' libellus de S. Cuthberto.' (^Surtees Soc.)
• 3^4 Hermit'life of Cuthbert.
CHAP. IX. and straw : its wall, made of huge stones and turf, rose
externally above a man's height, but internally was sunk
much deeper, ' so that the pious inhabitant might see nothing
but the sky^' The cottage, as Bede once calls it*, had
two compartments, one of which served as an oratory^:
and one window, which looked to the west. In the centre,
with the help of Lindisfame monks, he diig a pit, which
next morning appeared like a well full of water,— of water,
it was thought, miraculously produced from the hard rock *.
A larger hut, for visitors *, was built at the landing-place,
looking towards Lindisfame, with a spring of water near
at hand. Cuthbert, at first, used to leave his cell in order
to greet his brethren, and wash their feet with warm water *,
a service which they sedulously returned. They used to
supply him with bread, until, in order not to burden the
monastery, he made them bring him some instruments of
husbandry, and some grain: — wheat, when sown, did not
come up, but in the next year barley answered better^.
* Bede, V. C. i6 : * Quatenus . . . plus incola nil . . . praeter coelum
poi^set intueri.' Or, as in iv. a8, * coelum tantum . . . cujas introitum
sitiebat,' &c.
' *• Casula/ Bede, Vit. Outhb. 27. In c 18, ^ tuguriunculum/ ' mansio,'
or ' monasterium ' ; cp. iv. 28, ' mansionem angustam.' On this cell, see
Anderson, Scotland in Early Christian Times, p. 125.
' In Vit. Outhb. 46, Bede speaks of its walls as *■ tahulis minus diligenter
coaptatis compositi.' It looked southwards : he afterwards erected a cross
outside it, and placed under the turf, to the north of it, a sarcophagus given
him by the abbot Cudda, ib. 37. On the site stands a chapel of St. Cuthbert,
probably 700 years old, fitted up for service, which is performed ' about
twice a year'; Murray's Durham and Northumberland, p. 213.
^ The water never failed, and never * flooded the pavement ' ; Yit.
Cuthb. 18 ; cp. iv. 28.
'^ ' Major domus,' Vit. Cuthb. 17. He had himself been hospitaller at
Ripon. See above, p. 215. There was such an office at Lindisfame;
Bede, iv. 31 : cp. Vit. Cuthb. 39, 44. There were * guest-houses' in Irish
monasteries, as at Armagh ; see Reeves's Adamnan, pp. 157. 345, 361.
See, too, the rule of St. Benedict, c. 53, that guests who arrive * tanquam
Christus suscipiantur.'
* Cp. Adamnan, Vit. Col. i. 4. He very seldom took off his leather
buskins. Bede says that he kept them one year, from Easter to Easter,
save for the solemn feet'Washing on Maundy Thursday ; Vit. Cuthb. 18.
^ 'Adferte, rogo, hordeuni, si forte vel illud fructum facere possit.'
Vit. Cuthb. 19. He had promised them that if he could not grow com
for his own food, he would return to Lindisfame : Bede, iv. 28, ' Si mihi
Divina gratia,' &c.
Cuthhert's hermiUlife. 305
To his brethren these visits must have been landmarks in ohap. ix.
their life ^ : but other friends came to see him, as Herbert,
a hermit on an isle in Derwentwater, who paid him
a yearly visit to enjoy his ' salutary instructions V And
beside these, from distant parts of Britain came strangers
to tell him of their private troubles, ' and no man took home
with him the sorrow that he brought.' Cuthbert knew well
how to cheer the afflicted with thoughts of heaven, or of
the fleetingness of earthly evil or good : he could ' describe
to the tempted the various lures which might ensnare a soul
destitute of love for God or for the brethren, but which
a soul strong in perfect faith could pass through like a
spider's web ^ ' : ' his speech, seasoned with salt, was wont
to instruct the ignorant, reconcile those who were at variance,
and make all feel that nothing was to be preferred to the
love of Christ ^/ True it is, that the account of those nine
years in Fame cannot stop here : solitude acted on Cuthbert's
nerves and imagination as it had done on those of other
^ According to Bede, Yit Cuthb. 8, he used to tell them that if he were
on a rock in the midst of the ocean, hidden from all men's view, he should
still not think himself free from the snares of the world and the love
of money. And Bede ^Vit. Cuthb. 27) gives a striking story, which Guthbei*t
had told in a sermon at Carlisle. One Christmas day, some Lindisfarne
monks came over to Fame, and begged him to leave his cell, and spend
the * solemn and joyful day ' with them in the guest-house. He con-
sented ; and they all sat down to their Christmas dinner, in the midst of
which, as if stirred by an inward impulse, be began to talk of watchftil-
ness against trials. The monks thought there was a time for all things :
' T>o let us spend this day in gladness ; it is our Lord's birthday.' < Well,'
said he, ' we will do so.' Presently, while they were enjoying themselves
' epulis et fabulis,' he was again moved to speak of preparing for trials.
The poor monks became a little impatient ; they thought the advice good,
but inopportune : ' We have more than enough days for fast and vigil ;
to-day let us rejoice in the Lord, in memory of the great joy for all
people.' ' Very weU,' he said. But when, once more, the irrepressible
warning broke from his lips, they felt that it meant something, and said,
< Let us do as you say.' He declared afterwards that he knew no more
than they did of any approaching trouble ; but when they returned home,
they found one of their brethren dead of the pestilence, which raged for
nearly a year afterwards, carrying off the majority of that ' noble society.'
*• And now, brethren,' Cuthbert concluded, < do jgfAk also be watchful in
prayer, that if any tribulation should come upon you, it may find you
ready to meet it.'
• Bede, V. C. aS ; cp. Bede, iv. 29. » Bede, V. C. aa.
* Anon. Vit. Bed. Op. vi. 37a.
X
3o6 Cuthherfs hermit4ife.
CHAP. n. hermits^, and conjured up phantoms of visible fiendish
assault ; and as time went on in that wild and grim retreat ^,
the morbid element in his devotion became stronger; he
would not come forth on the arrival of visitors, he would but
look at them through the window; at last he even kept
this closed, save when his blessing was expressly besought ^
Enough of this : yet let us remember, in order to do justice
to a phenomenon which to us may bear a fanatical aspect,
that the hermit-life of Cuthbert was to the rude minds
around him an impressive representation of spiritual
power*, and was largely overruled for the comfort of
many a sore heart which would not otherwise have come
under his ministry. Nor did it impair his gentleness,
his lowliness, his habitual brightness of countenance and
temper *. Still, when all this is said, we must still think
that he was less truly a saint while dwelling in Fame
than when, at Lindisf ame or at Melrase, he ' lived according
to Holy Scripture, leading the contemplative within the
active life *.'
Wear- Passing on, in imagination, further south, we reach that
domain, situated on the north bank of the Wear ''j which
King Egfrid had granted to Benedict Biscop on his return
from his fourth visit to Rome. The grant was made out of
the king's private property® : the land was simply transferred
^ See the Life of Antotiy, ascribed to St. Athanadus, c. 9 : i)k d r^rot
(h9lhs v€9\Tfpa>fi4vos ^airraffias \t6ytesy Apitroav . . . , and for St. Guthlac, below,
c. zii
* Compare Bede, y. i, for the sounds which a dweller on Fame would
often hear, ' fragore procellaraiji ac ferventis oceani ; ' and Reginald,
Libell. 31.
» B€de, V. C. 18, end.
* See Kingsley, The Roman and the Teuton, p. 180.
• Anon. Vit. C. : * Omni hora hilaris et laetus ; ' Bed. Op. vi. 37a. See
Reginald on Cuthbert's taming the eider-ducks until they allowed him to
stroke them, and nestled trustfully in his bosom, Libell. 37. Raine describes
the dalmatic in which hif* bones were found wrapt as haying eider-ducks
embroidered on it; St. Cuthbert, p. 194. On his fondness for these
creatures cf. Kingsley, Hermits, p. 295 ; and compare Guthlao, below, and
Columba bidding farewell to his white horse, and Columban fondling
squirrels, &c. AboTe, p. 389.
• Anon. Vit, C. Bed. Op. vi. 369.
^ See Surtees, Hist, and Antiq. of Durham, ii. 3.
' ' De 8U0 largitus ; ' Bede, Hist. Abb. 4.
Foundation of Wearmouth. 307
as * booklajtid/ or land held under charter ^, to Benedict, with chap. ix.
the injunction to raise on it a monastery in honour of
St. Peter. The foundation is dated in 674 * : a year later,
Benedict made a special journey to Gaul in order to obtain
skilled masons, such as he could not find nearer home, for
the erection of the abbey church. In this he was aided by
a friend, an abbot named Torthelm ^ ; the church, * built of
stone after the Roman fashion, which the founder always
loved *,' rose with great rapidity : when it was nearly
finished, he sent for Frankish glaziers, who not only glazed
the windows of the church *, cloisters, and refectory, and
made lamps and vessels for the church, but taught their
craft to the Northumbrians ^ and so far contributed to
English civilization. All the furniture and vestments
* which Benedict could not procure at home, he took care to
purchase abroad^.' It must have been a stirring time at
Wearmouth while the works were in progress, and new
products of foreign art were continually coming in. So
energetic, and so well served, was Benedict, that he foimd it
possible to roof in the church, and to use it for mass within
one year from the foundation ®. The rule for the brethren
was framed by Benedict, probably from that of Lerins, but
certainly with reference to whatever seemed best in the
customs of all those seventeen ' very ancient ' monasteries
which he had visited during his travels *. The system of
* As opposed to 'folkland/ which is now understood to mean (not
national property, but) ' land held by custom under the old common law/
as distinct from land held under writing or deed.
* Bede, Hist. Abb. 4.
' Anon. Hist. Abb. ; Bed. Op. vi. 418.
^ ' Lapideam . . . juxta Romanorum quem semper amabat morem ;'
Bede. Hist Abb. 5. Op. Bede, iii. 4 ; t. 91. See Reeves's Adamnan,
p. 177 ; and above, p. 15.
' Above, p. 967 ; cp. Greg. Tur. de Glor. Mart. i. 59.
* Bede, Hist. Abb. 7. See Malmesb. G. Pontif. iv. 186.
'^ ' De tranamarinis regionibus advectare,' &c. Bede, 1. o.
' Bede, 1. c. Freeman considers the porch of Monk wearmouth church
to be ' plainly a piece of the work of the seventh century,' v. 899.
' Anon. Hist. Abb., Bed. Op. vi. 418 ; Bede, Hist. Abb. 9 ; lingard,
A.-S. Ch. i. ao8. So St. Boniface sent Sturmi to visit the great monasteries
of Italy, in order to study their rules and *• traditions,' with a view to the
new foundation of Fulda ; Vit. S. Sturmi, 14 ; Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist.
ii37i.
X %
3o8 Ceolfrid.
CHAP. IX. his great namesake, as we infer from words of his own,
was highly esteemed by him, but was not adopted indis-
criminately or in the lump. In these and all his labours
Ceolfrid. he had a 'most active coadjutor' in Ceolfrid ^ whose
history was only less interesting than his own. It was
in some sense like his own : for Ceolfrid also was nobly
bom, and had been piotisly trained ^ and at eighteen
had entered the monastery of Gilling ^ then ruled by his
kinsman Tunbert, afterwards for a short time bishop of
Hexham. With him Ceolfrid afterwards went to Ripon,
and entered the monastery of Wilfrid, who ordained him
priest, at the age of twenty-seven, in 669^ He then
travelled into Kent, in order to study the monastic discipline
of the great Gregorian houses : and also visited the abbot
Botulf at Ikanho, by way of enlarging and varying his
experience of such institutions. Yet, when he returned
to Ripon, he undertook the homely office of baker to the
monastery * ; and, while heating the oven and preparing the
loaves, used mentally to go over, and perfect himself in,
'the ceremonial acts of the priesthood.' He was soon,
however, elevated to the priorship, and Benedict obtained
Wilfrid's leave to transfer him to the same office at
' Anon. Hist. Abb., Bed. Op. yL 416; Bede, Hist. Abb. 6. See
Lingard, A.-S. Cb. ii. 39a ; Alb. Butler, Sept. 95 ; Church Quart. Bev.
XXV. 437.
' His father, a ' comes,* had one day prepared a rich banquet for Oswy ;
a caU to arms prevented the royal visit, and then ^ ille, gratias divinae
dispensationi referens/ assembled all the poor, sick, and wayfarers within
reach, set them down to the meal which had awaited * the earthly king,*
and with his wife waited on * the heavenly King in His lowly ones ' ;
Anon. Hist. Abb.
' Above, p. 187. The former superior, Kynefrid, went to Ireland ^for
the purpose of studying the Scriptures and seeing the Lord more freely in
tears and prayers*; Anon. Hist. L c; see above, pp. 184, si a.
^ Anon. Hist. : * Siquidem tempore non pauoo pistons ofBcium tenons,'
&c. Different handicrafts were practised by the monks ; see Bede, t. 14,
on the wicked monk who was skilful as a carpenter. St. Columba had
a Saxon as baker at Hy, Adamn. Vit. Col. iiL 10 ; and see ib. iii. la, on
'diversa opera.' Cp. St. Boniface, £p. 69: 'Stirme in coquina sit-,
Bernardus . . . aedificet domunculas vestras.* St. Sturmi, remembering
the rule that 'artes diveraae' should be practised in a monastery, set
some of his monks to make a new channel for the river Fulda; Vit«
Sturm, ao. Cp. St. Benedict, Beg. c 57, ' Artifices si sunt,* &c
Easterwine and Sigfrid. 309
WearmoutlL At first he had some trouble with high-bom chap. ix.
monks, who had been attracted to the new house by the
secular rank once belonging to its founder, or by the royal
patronage lavished on his undertaking, but who 'could not
endure regular discipline \' So vexatious was their bearing,
that Ceolfrid even threw up a task which they seemed to
render hopeless, and went back to Bipon as to a home. But
he was induced by Benedict to return, and thenceforward
his character developed a steadfast energy and soundn^s of
judgement which through a long period of monastic rule
were united with a simplicity and affectionateness, a ready
sympathy, and a fervour of devotion, which commanded
the love of the whole society ^. Another of the first inmates
of Wearmouth stands out in Bede's pages as a very attrac-
tive figure : we see a young man of twenty-four, strong and Easter-
handsome, with * a sweet voice and a cheerful temper,* ^*^®*
taking pleasure in sharing the commonest labours with his
feUow-monks, at work in kitchen or garden or bakehouse,
threshing or winnowing, or milking the cattle ^ — who yet,
like his cousin the founder-abbot, had been a 'king's
thane ^ ' : his name was Easterwine. A third brother, who, Sigfrid.
like these two, attained to the highest dignity in the house,
was a deacon named Sigfrid, who is described as 'pre-
eminently intent on Scriptural studies,' but amid them
had to bear the burden of weak health, so that, as Bede
quaintly expresses it, ' his efforts to keep innocency of heart
^ Anon. Hist.: ^Nam et invidias qnonundam nobilium,' &c. Op.
Bede, Hist. Abb. 9^ where Benedict warns his monks against choosing an
abbot for the sake of his noble blood. Comp. Green, Making of Engl.
p. 346.
' Bede, Hist. Abb. 19, 13 : ' Industrius per omnia . . . acutus ingenio,
acta impiger, matoros animo, religionis zelo fervens . . . Incomparabilem
orandi psallendiqae sollertiam . . . mirabilem et coeroendi improbos
fervorem, et modestiam consolandi infirmos ' (here ^ modestiam ' seems to
mean gentleness), Ac ; and ib. 14, < nutritoris tutorisque . . . spiritoalis
. . . libertatis et pacis.* The Anon. Hist. Abb. speaks of him as ' aoer
ingenio, strenuas aetu . . . flagrans amore simul et timore divino,' &c.
See Bp. Browne, Lessons troxa £. E. Gh. Hist., p. 6a.
> Bede, Hist. Abb. 7 : 'Ventilare cum eis et tritnrare, otcs yitulasqne
mulgere, in pistrino, in cbquino, in cunctis monasterii oparibus, jocundus
et obediens gauderet ezerceri,' Ac. Gp. Benedict, Beg. c 46.
* ' Minister.' See above, p. 109.
3IO Hilda at Whitby.
CHAP. ». weie carried on under pressure of an incurable affection of
the lungs V
Hilda at Let US go Southward aerain, and observe the condition of
^' that already famous convent which had been the scene
of the Conference, and which looked down in its pride of
place over the German Ocean. In Hilda, the royal grand-
niece of the great Edwin, we see the old Teutonic type
of a woman of wise * rede ' and mighty influence, a Veleda ^
or an Alioruna, softened and transfigured into ' the Mother '
whose advice was sought by princes, and who 'held out
to many ' at a distance ' an example of the works of light ^*
Hers had been a career signally conspicuous and widely
effective. Bom three years before the fall of Ethelfrid, —
baptized at York by Paulinus, at thirteen, — bent on joining
her sister. Queen Hereswid, in a Frankish convent, and
only recalled, by Aidan's express summons, to Northumbria,
— for one year a nun in a small cell on the north of the
Wear, — then abbess of Hartlepool * in succession to Heiu, —
then foundress and abbess of Whitby in 657, she was sixty
years old when, in 674, she began to suffer from recurring
attacks of fever, and * for six years ceased not to labour
under the same disease, but in all that time never omitted
to give thanks in her own person to her Maker, and
publicly as well as privately to teach the flock committed
to her charge to serve the Lord obediently while they had
health, and under adversity or bodily infirmity to be
faithful in rendering thanks to Him */ A noble woman,
' Hist Abb. 8 : *■ irremediabili pulmonum Titio.' Cp. Anon. Hist. Abb.
' Tacitus, Oerm. 6. <The name of Hild was that of a Saxon war-
goddess; also nearly sjmonymous with Fate;' Stevenson, Chron. of
Abingdon, ii. p. zzxviii. Cp. Merivale, Conyersion of Northern Nations,
p. 150. So Wilson, Prehistoric Ann. of Scotl. ii. 387 : ^ In an ancient
poem in the Icelandic Saga, Hilda, the Scandinayian goddess of war and
victory, is introduced with her weird sisters, the Valkyries,' &c.
' Bede, iv. 23 : *Tantae autem erat ipsa prudentiae/ &c. For Hilda's
career see above, pp. 135, 188, 219.
* Bede mentions several Northumbrian religious houses of lower rank,
as Abercorn, Carlisle, Tynemouth, Hartlepool, Gilling, Hackness, Coquet
Island, Watton, Derawood or Beverley, a place near the Dacre, and one
in Elmete.
^ Bede, iv. 93 : < Pereussa etenim febribus,' Ac. The discipline of bodily
affliction is a favourite theme with Bede : cp. ii. 17 ; iv. 9, 19, 31 ; Vit
Eminent monks of Whitby. 311
we may well say, — strong and wise, true-hearted and firm ohap. ix.
of purpose, with warm affections and clear discernment,
using her great capacities for rule and guidance in the
true spirit of * a mother in Israel/ — in some sense a medi-
aeval JSkre AngSique: one sees how she had largely
succeeded where Ebba had ultimately failed, impressing
her own mind on the double community which bowed
to her as its head, establishing a tradition of unanimity
and unselfishness \ and, as Bede says, ' making her monks
give so much time to the study of Scripture, and so much
heed to the practice of good works ^,' that bishops came
to think of her house as the best place for supplying
competent 'ordinands,' and five of the brethren^, whom
Bede enumerates, 'all of them persons of signal worth
and holiness/ attained the episcopal dignity. But there Ciedmon.
was one inhabitant of the monastery whom his brethren
venerated for a gift which they ascribed to special inspira-
tion; although they could not have imagined the unique
place which he was to hold, through all generations of
their race, as the father of English poetry. Rude warlike
ballads were doubtless current among the Angles who
came with Ida, and the Saxons who came with Cerdic, —
songs of the great deeds of ancestors, such as might form,
when mingled with lays of lighter mood, ' the salt of the
feast ^' alike to eorl and ceorl: but something greater
Cuthb. aS, 37; Hist. Abb. 9; where also he says that Benedict Biscop
during a long illness took care ' in dolore semper AuctoH gratias referre/
&c. He repeatedly refers to medical treatment, e. g. iv. 19 ; v. 3 ;
v. 0. 23, 30) 37, 45. He mentions yarious kinds of ordinary disease,
as fever, paralysis, tumour, affection of lungs, pleurisy, dysentery,
diarrhoea.
' Bede, It. 33 : *■ Maxime paois et caritatis custodiam docuit, ita ut, in
ezemplum primitiyae ecclesiae, nullus ibi dives, nullus esset egens,
omnibus esaent omnia communia,' &c.
' Bede, 1. c. : < Tantum lectioni divinarum Scripturarum,' &c. Higden,
Polychron. b. 5. c 19, calls her ' sancta, prudens, litterata/
' Boea bishop of York, £tla of Dorchester, Oftfor of Worcester, John
of Hexham and York, WUfrid II of York.
* Lord Lytton's * Harold,' p. 29. See Turner, iii. 58 ; Palgrave, Engl.
Gomm. p. 390 ; and Freeman, y. 587, who more than once remarks (i. 399,
iii. 733) that there are fragments of old ballads in Henry of Huntingdon :
see the sayings recorded by him as to great battles (above, pp. 123, 152,
3T2 Ccedmon.
CHAP. EC. announced its presence, perhaps before Oswy's death,
certainly during Hilda's abbacy, under circumstances as
unpromising as ever attended a literary epoch. To know
what it was, we must glance at the life of Anglian
herdsmen ^ employed on a farmstead, which stood on
part of the abbey property. One of these, a man well
on in years, bore the name of Caedmon. He was behind-
hand with his fellows through inability to sing*: and
whenever he made one of a * beer-party */ at which it
was expected that 'for mirth-sake' each in turn should
play the * gleeman,' he could not see the harp being passed
round towards him without starting up from the unfinished
meal, and going home shamefa8t^ One evening he had
thus left his mates, and gone, not to his own dwelling,
but to the cattle-shed which for that night was under
his charge. There he lay down and slept, and in his
dream some person stood by him, and greeted him by
name. 'Caedmon, sing me something.' He thought that
he answered, 'I cannot sing: that is why I came away
from the party.' ' However, you have got to sing to me * 1 '
* What must I sing?' 'Sing of the creation.' And so, in
his sleep, these verses came to him : ' he sang, in praise
of God the Maker ^,' —
176, 303). Compare the story of the Frisian Bemlef, who was mneh loTed
because . . . 'antiquorum actus regumque certamina bene noverat psallendo
promere ' ; Vit. S. Liudg. ii. i,
' For an Old-English description of their duties, see Turner, ii. 546.
Dr. Atkinson indeed thinks that C»dmon was probably a *gebfkr/
< villanus,' a tenant under the monastery, and of ' British ' birth ; Memorisls
of Old Whitby, p. 13 ff. But he seems to underrate the intelligence of
Anglian ' folk ' at this period.
' See Lingard, A.-S. Gh. ii. 154 : 'To chant the songs of gleemen to the
harp was an acquirement common even to the lowest classes.' This
Atkinson questions.
^ So king Alfred translates 'conyivium.' Cp. Turner, iii. 31.
* Bede, iy. 34 : ' Surgebat a media coena, et egressus/ &o.
^ ' Attamen mihi cantare habes.' Gp. Bede, iii. aa, < in ipsa dome mori
habes ; ' and also iy. 14, ' exspectare habes ; ' iy. 24, ' neque onim mori
adhuc habes.' So in the Quicunque, 38 ; ' homines resurgere habent.*
This use of ' habeo ' oocurs in the writings of African fathers.
* See the original Northumbrian text in Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader,
p. 195, and Plummer, ii. 951. Bede's Latin professedly giyes the sense,
rather than the exact order of the words. See Lingard's yersion of
His gift of poetry. 313
Now should we praise the Guardian of the heaven-realm, chap. ix.
The Maker's might and His mind-thought,
(And the) works of the glorious Father, as He of each wonder.
Eternal Lord, created the beginning ^
He erst shaped for children of men
Heayen as a roof, — the holy Creator :
Then the middle world did mankind's Gucrdian,
Eternal Lord, afterwards create,
Earth for men, — (the) Lord Almighty.
On wakiBg. he retained in memory what he had seemed
to sing in his dream, and presently added other words
to the same purport He then told the bailiff, or ' tun-
reeve ^,' what had happened, or, as Bede says, * what a gift
he had received : ' and was by him straightway conducted
to the abbess, who, ' in the presence of many learned men,'
heard his story. All agreed that it was a Divine boon
bestowed on the herdsman : they then read to him a portion
of Scripture, and bade him turn it into poetry if he could.
He went off with his task, and 'next morning produced
the passage excellently versified' : whereupon * the Mother^'
persuaded him to become a monk, solemnly received him
into the community, and ordered that he should be in-
structed in the whole course of sacred history. He listened
attentively to all that he was thus taught, and ' ruminating
it over, like a clean animal, turned it into most sweet
verse ' : and then his teachers were his hearers while * he
sang to them of the creation of the world, the origin of
mankind, the whole history of Genesis, the Ebcodus, the
entrance into Canaan, other events of Scripture history,
the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, the coming of the
Holy Spirit, the teaching of the Apostles *. Many a poem
Alfred's text, ii. 408 ; and Tomer, ill 966. Compare the verses on death,
repeated by Bede when dying.
^ Bede renders, < cnm sit aetemus Dens, omnium miraculorom auctor
ezstitit.'
> Kemble, ii. 176 ; a 'tun, enclosure, farm, vill, or manor.' See Oreen,
Making of England, p. 180, Stubbs, Const. Hist. 1. 93, for the history of the
word. Cflsdmon would be under the orders of the tun-reeve.
' Bede, iy. 34 : ' Undo mox abbatissa/ ^.
* On the 'Metrical Paraphrase,' now extant under the name of CsBdmon,
see Diet, of Chr. Biography, i. 370^ Thorpe, in his edition of it (,1833),
inclined to regard it as generally authentic It has, howeyer, character-
314 Ccedmon.
CHAP. iz. also did he make about the awful future judgement, the
terrible punishment in hell, the sweetness of the heavenly
kingdom, the blessings and the judgements of God ; in all
which, his aim was to draw men away from the love of
wickedness, and to stir them up to the love and diligent
practice of well-doing. For he was a man very religious,
and humbly obedient to the discipline of the rules, but
kindled with fervent and zealous indignation against those
who chose to be disobedient/ As to * frivolous ' songs, we
are assured that Csedmon covld Twt compose any such.
All his works were the outflow of a pious mind, and were
often found effective as stimulants to piety, to ' contempt
for the world, and craving for heavenly life/
How long he lived as a monk in Whitby, we know not.
But it is natural to connect this account of the outburst
of his poetic powers with the exquisite narrative of his
happy death, which probably happened not long afterwards.
With all his own vividness and pathos, Bede makes us see
the old man in the fortnight of his last illness, which
does not confine him to his bed. One evening he asks
the attendant to prepare for his reception' in the out-
building assigned to the sick and dying * : the man wonders,
but takes Csedmon thither before midnight. After some
istics which do not suifc a Whitby herdBman. ETidently it is a compilation
from several writers, one of whom must have really known war, when
* men saw the grim war-inofe, the hard hand-play/ There are very noble
passages in the poem ; in Adam and Eve, while unfallen, ' was burning
love of the Lord ; ' * Mickle wonder that God eternal would ever bear
that so many a '^ thane" was misled by the lies' of Satan ; 'Let us turn
thither where He sits . . . the Saviour Lord, in that dear home,' &c.
The poem begins with words in the same tone as the undoubted fragment,
but not identical with it: and ends with the fiends' words to Satan,
'Thus be now in evil : good erst thou wouldest not.* It is curious that
Satan is described as sending an inferior fiend to beguile Adam and Eve :
this tempter twines himself, in form of a * worm/ round the tree of
knowledge, and announces himself as God's angel, &;c The ' harrowing
of hell ' takes place on the dawn of Easter-day ; Eve and Adam plead
with Christ, and are released. Green ascribes to Ceddmon himself the
Genesis poem, minus a long series of verses, ' which include the famous
passage about Satan.' Making of Engl. p. 37a But Plummer thinks
' there is no evidence ... to connect these poems with O»dmon.'
^ Cp. Bede, iii. 27, iv. 14, for the cells set apart for the sick, and iv. 9,
that of the dying in monasteries.
His death. 315
pleasant talk to the other patients, he asks, ' Have you ch^p. ix.
the HouseP within V meaning the Holy Eucharist, reserved
(in one kind only) for the sick. They answer, * What need
have you of the Housel? you have not got to die just
yet^ — you talk too cheerily for that/ 'However,' he
rejoins, ' bring me the Housel/ He takes it into his hand ^,
and asks whether they all feel kindly towards him*.
They reply, 'Surely, and we pray you to feel so towards
us.' 'Dear children,' such is the sweet answer, *I feel
kindly towards all God's servants^.' He then 'fortifies
himself with the heavenly viaticum ®,' and asks how soon
the brethren would be * awakened for nocturnal lauds''.'
' It will not be long,' they say. ' Good ; then let us wait
for that hour.' He signs himself with the cross, lies back
on the pillow, falls asleep, and so ' in stillness ' passes away :
his last words harmonizing with all that he had uttered
'in praise of his Creator.' Such was the death of the
poet-monk of Whitby: read the account of Bede's own
' Alfred's renderiDg of Bede's ' eucharistiam,' husie from *hostia.' The
chalice was not in this case reserved. Compare the story of Serapion in
Euseb. vi. 44 ; and Bede, iv. 14, * oblationis particulam.'
' Above, p. 31a.
' The ancient practice of receiving the Eucharist into the hands (e. g.
Cyril Hier.j Cat. Myst. 5. ai ; and see Bingham, b. xv. c. 5. s. 6) was still
retained in the case of men, Cp. Greg. Turon. H. Fr. z. 8.
* * Had they all a mUd mood towards him ? ' ' Yes, they were all blithe
of mood,' kc. Cp. Hist. Abb. 13, on Ceolfrid's farewell.
^ ' Ood's merij' Alfred. On the Old-English custom of choosing a lord,
or becoming the ' man ' of a superior or lord who was to give protection
in return for fealty, see Freeman, L 119 ; Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 90.
* Cp. Bede, iv. 14 : * viatico Dominici corporis et sanguinis ; ' iv. as,
' viatico sacrosanctae communionis ; ' and v. 14, 'sine viatico salutis.'
^ Alfred inserts, <to teach God's folk.' 'Nootum lauds' mean matins :
cp. Yit. Cuthb. 40, * noctumae psalmodiae ; * and Hist. Trans. Cuthb.,
Bed. Op. vi. 414. So Bede refers to the time ' matutinae laudis,' iii. la ;
and to the * psalmody matutinae laudis,' iv. 7. By a coincidence the
phrase is translated in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, < midnight lauds.'
So Hist. Abb. 7. See Benedict, Reg. Mon. 10. So in the * Excerptions '
ascribed to Egbert, but of later date (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 415), no
service intervenes between the nocturnal 'synaxis' (matins or matin
lauds) and prime (No. aS, Johnson, Engl. Can. i. 189). In the sixth
century to say Ps. 50 (our 5iBt), the Benedictio (sBenedicite), the Alle-
luia ticus (Ps. 148-150), with a 4ittle chapter/ was to finish matins, Greg.
Tur. Yit Patr. vL 7. Gradually this concluding part of matins became
a distinct office of lauds.
3i6 Ccedmon^s death.
CHAP. IX. last moments, written by an eye-witness and prefixed to
his History, and you will find the two scenes very similar
in form, and altogether identical in spirit. Of Bede also
it might be said, as he has said in express words of
Csedmon, and also implicitly of Aidan, Hilda, Chad, Sebbi,
and Egbert, that ' he closed his life with a beautiful and
tranquil end '.'
^ Bede, iv. 34 : ' Unde et pulchro yitam 8uam fine ooncluslt • . . tran-
qullla morte mundum relinquens.'
CHAPTER X.
To pass from the convent-life of Wearmouth or ofWilfnd'a
Whitby to the personal troubles and public dissensions ^^
which constitute the great 'cause of Bishop Wilfrid/ is
as if one were suddenly transported from the margin
of a land-locked harbour to a rough coast lashed by
a rising sea. That the sea, so to speak, would rise, —
that, sooner or later, Wilfrid's splendid prosperity would
be interrupted, must have been evident to him, one would
think, ever since he placed the veil on the head of Queen
Etheldred. Her husband knew well, and could not be
expected to forget, who it was that had upheld her, with Alienation
the whole force of his spiritual influence, in a resolution ^ ^" '
the reverse of wife-like \ and at whose feet she had sealed
it by pronouncing those new vows which were to nullify
the old in her estimation. To that step, indeed, a consent
had been wrung from him by what he would regard as
her impracticable and unnatural obstinacy^: the marriage
^ Thomas of Ely imiiitentionally makes the case worse for Wilfrid,
saying that he ' dissimulayit, provide atque prudenter,' as if agreeing with
the king, and promised to persuade the queen to abandon her purpose ;
' yeritus ne, siout contigit, oh rem hujuscemodi offensum ilium haberet.
£t dum circa talis, ut aestimahatur, sanctus pontifex reginam alioqui
intenderet . . . egit ylr beatus sua industria, ut potius divortium
quaereret,' &c, ; Vit. Etheldr. 9 ; Act. SS. Bened. ii. 747. Neither Bede
(lY. 19) nor Eadmer (Vit. Wilf. 95) knows of any such insincere promise.
' Thomas represents him as objecting strongly to a separation from
a beloved wife, but at last yielding to her importunities, ' licet invitus,
tamen eam dimisit invincibilem ; ' Act. SS. Ben. ii. 747. A maiden
espoused to Sigebert II of Austrasia, on arriving at his court, ' concealed
her purpose ' for a week, and then took the veil 'within closed doors' :
the king (afterwards canonized, but a * Fain^nt ') * gave her over to the
Lord.* She had acted, we are expressly told, ' by the advice * of St Gall ;
Vit. S. Oalli, i. (Pertz, Hon. Germ. Hist. ii. 19). Trickeries devised for
a monastic interest were not then deemed unworthy of religion.
3i8 Beginning of Wilfrid's troubles.
CHAP. X. had, under the peculiar circumstance8, been declared void,
and Egfrid had been allowed to contract another; but
he was not the less alienated from the prelate who had
so systematically thwarted him in regard to his domestic
comfort. He would utter that complaint, often enough
heard afterwards, and in his case at any rate not unjust,
that the Church had come between wife and husband:
and his new queen, Ermenburga, from a personal dislike ^
to her predecessor's confidential guide, appears to have
stimulated the irritation of Egfrid by appealing to his
susceptibilities as a prince. Wilfrid's magnificent position,
his ' secular glory and riches,' the number of monasteries
under his obedience ^ the stately buildings which he had
reared, the ' host ' of attendants, nobly bom and nurtured,
who appeared in his halls, arrayed like the king's thanes
in the palace ^ — ^these things were easily represented as
unbefitting any one ecclesiastic, and as proving that
he ought not to hold a bishopric coextensive with the
kingdom.
Scheme of We seem to hear the first mutterings of a storm that
partftion. afterwards assailed the proud elevation of a mitred
^ Eddi compares her to Jezebel, c 24 ; but we know that he had applied
that name to Bathildis, and we must not expect fairness of judgement or
moderation in language from so pronounced a partisan. See Fridegod,
' ceu garrula perdiz Culpabat justum coUatis rebus abuti/ 606 : and
Eadmer, 26, ^Per hanc igitur diabolus,' &c. : and Richard of Hexham,
'in ci:gus corde Sathanas contra . . . episcopum odiorum et invidiae
fomenta con flans ;' De stat. Hagust. Eccl. c. 7, X Script. 294. Etheldred
was still living at Ely.
' Richard of Hexham, ib. c. 5, calls him Hhe father of nine monasteries,'
and says that many abbots and abbesses ' commended their houses to his
keeping, others named him their successor/
* Eddi, 24 : ' Enumerans ei . . . WiLfridi . . . omnem gloriam saecu-
larem et divitias, necnon coenobiorum multitudinem et aedificiorum
magnitudinem . . . exercitum sodalium regalibus vestimentis et armis
omatum.' Eadmer, 26, makes her say to Egfrid, ' Your whole kingdom
is his bishopric. What if,' in time of war, ' he should keep back his 'men
from fighting on your side?' Malmesb. G. P. iii. 100, p. 219 : *Conflavit
ergo pontifici regina invidiam, quod tot abbates, tot abbatias, haberet,
quod aureis et argenteis vasis sibi ministrari faceret, quod *'clientum
turba," nitore vestium superbiens, illius latus obambularet.' He had just
before intimated that some jealousy of this sort had existed earlier, and
had been allayed by Etheldred, 'sanitate consili!.' See Stubbs, Const.
Hist, i 176.
Scheme for dividing his diocese. 319
chancellor or a prince-bishop : and it so happened that chap. x.
these royal jealousies were excited just when Theodore
was bent on carrying out his scheme of diocesan partition.
That scheme he pursued from motives of a public character;
in regard to Northumbria, it involved the abatement
of Wilfrid's ecclesiastical greatness ^ : but Theodore's mis-
fortune and fault consisted not simply in aiming at this
as a step necessary for the general good of the Church,
but in associating himself with the animosities of a court
as instrumental towards his object, and in neglecting such
considerations of order and justice as would have checked
the march of his own high-handed^ absolutism. We
are in some diflSculty as to the facts, between the open
partisanship of the biographer and the disappointing
reticence of the historian: Bede had evidently a strong
reluctance to go into the subject^, and it is one of the
very few cases in which he has laid himself open to the
charge of keeping back what he must have known. He
says so little in the way of explanation, that he does
not help us to know whether or when Eddi says too
much, — although we may be sure that he does say too
much when he imputes to Theodore the coarse guilt of
^ Lappenberg suggests that he may have feared that Wilfrid was laying
the foundations of an independent archbishopric (such as St. Gregory
had contemplated) ; i. 189. Halmesbury says, the queen prejudiced him.
' ' He carried it with a high hand towards the bishops ; ' Johnson,
Engl. Can. i. 87. See Omsby, Dioc. Hist, of York, p. 62. 'He was . . .
even inclined to subordinate strict justice to politic expediency ; ' Bp.
Stubbs, Diet. Chr. Biogr. iv. 931.
' See Raine, Fast. Ebor. i. 81. He mentions but does not explain the
'dissensdo' in iv. 12, and in the long chapter which 'professes' to
summarize Wilfrid*s life, v. 19, refers to the 'charges' brought against
him, and the two ' expulsions.' In his last work^ Bede lets fall words
which might suggest that he supposed selfish motives to have prompted
Wilfrid. 'Gum antistes, dictante amore pecuniae, majorem populi
partem ... in nomen sui praesulatus assumpserit ; * Ep. to Egb. 4 ; but
his reserve is probably accounted for by strong personal ties to one of the
bishops who were more or less opposed to Wilfirid, * St. John of Beverley ; *
his fervent admiration for others, as Bosa, Eata, and St. Guthbert ; and
his high esteem for the scholarly king Aldfrid. That he knew Wilfrid
personally appears from iv. 19. He calls him ' most learned,' iii. 25,
'beatae memoriae,' iv. 19, 23, v. 18; and does justice to his missionary
zeal, iv. 13.
320 Division of diocese of York.
CHAP. X. taking a bribe from Egfrid ^. However, as far as we can
7n N^rt^ make out anything, it seems that in 678 Egfrid invited
umbria. Theodore to revisit Northumbria ; that they discussed
the division of the Northumbrian diocese, and Theodore
allowed himself to be persuaded that Wilfrid's co-operation
or assent was not to be hoped for, and must be dispensed
with ; and that, acting on this assumption, he sununoned
more than one bishop ^ to support him in the proceedings
which he meditated, but did not communicate with the
Division bishop most directly concerned. An assembly, partly secu-
of YoiSf^ lar and partly ecclesiastical, was convened ; and in Wilfrid's
absence it was resolved to form, out of his over-large
diocese, two other bishoprics for Bemicia and Deira, and
another for the district of lindsey, lately recovered from
Mercia. But this plan would have left Wilfrid in pos-
session of the see of York, and the charge of part, probably
the larger part, of Deira ^ According to the combined
statements of Wilfrid and Eddi, the suffiragan bishops did
not concur in the consecration*; and Theodore, without
their assistance, consecrated Bosa, a monk of Whitby,
a man, says Bede, ' of great holiness and humility '^,' Eata,
the devout and gentle-hearted abbot of Lindisfame, and
Eadhed, who had accompanied Chad on his journey to
the south for consecration ^. The elevation of these three
^ Eddi refers to Balak and Balaam, 34. Halmeebary, G. Pontif. p. 990^
follows him in this imputation, *xeniorum obtentu;' which naturally
excites Elmham's wrath, Hon. 8. Aug. p. 976. Malmesbury, however,
elsewhere ranks Theodore and Wilfrid together as * those two ejes of
Britain '; G. Pontif. i. r. Fridegod says that the king and queen deceived
Theodore, ' veri doctorem, justi quoquepeMn^ sequacem : ' 614.
' Wilfrid sajs, ' in conventu Theodori . . . aliorumque tunc temporis
cum eo convenientium antistitum ; ' in Eddi, 30. Who these prelates
were we know not. For *■ mixed councils ' see above, p. 993.
' So Malmesbury says that Theodore maintained 'sufBoere taiTtos
Bumptus tantaeque dloecesis circuitum quaUuor episcopls ' ; G. P. p. 990.
^ Wilfrid says, 'absque consensu ci:guslibet episcopi . . . ordinaret ;' in
Eddi, 30 : and Eddi, * inordinate solus ordinavit ; ' 94. Can it be that
the suffragans, whoever they were, declined, when it came to the point,
to follow Theodore ? Or did they merely abstain from taking part in the
new consecrations ? ' Bede, v. 3 ; iv. 93.
* He had been Oswy's chaplain ; Bede, iv. 98. Eddi permits himself
to describe these three Northumbrian eocleeiastics as ^non de subjeotis
illiuft parochiae '; 94.
Absolutism of Theodore. 321
to the episcopate took place in Wilfrid's own cathedral chap. x.
at York^: he could not but receive tidings of such an
event, and could not but repair to the court ^, and ask
why his diocese was to be thus cut up against his will.
The answer of the king and the archbishop was, ' We find
no fault in you, but we have thought good to do this,
and we shall abide by it V Theodore, not to say Egf rid,
had committed himself by thus acting without Wilfrid's
knowledge. It could not be said that the division of
the diocese had been proposed to Wilfrid, and he had
deliberately set himself against it. Theodore had taken
for granted that he would do so ; and by this premature
judgement had damaged his own case, and e]diibited that
fatal indifference to equity which so often besets a rigid
disciplinarian invested with hierarchical supremacy, and
resolute to ignore the rights of subordinates, and even
the requirements of fair dealing, for the aake of a policy
beneficial to the Church *.
Thus hardly used, — we must needs say, thus unjustly Wilfrid
treated, — Wilfrid took a step which, in Britain, was new, j^^e.
and which has not always been equitably judged. He \
could neither condone this violation of his diocesan rights, .
nor hope for a reconsideration of the case from a provincial | '
synod under the presidency of Theodore *. He looked, *'
as if by instinct, to that great Church for which from
early years he had entertained so profound a reverence:
^ Bede, iv. ai, ' Eboraci.' Wilfrid was absent ; Eddi, 34.
' Eddi, 34 : ' Begem et archiepiscopum . . . cum omni populo.' Eadmer
says he came to the palace ■' hilari corde, alacri Tultu ' ; 37. iFridegod
makes him ask, 'Gurlaedor, pater?'
* Malmesbury quotes Juyexud's- *• Sit pro ratione voluntas.'
* The partition, says Martineau, though ' desirable, could only be
lawfully and canonically effected with the consent of Wilfrid; and
it is a serious charge against Theodore ... that, under the pretence of
effecting what was unquestionably a good thing for the Church, he
stooped to gratify the enmity of Egfrid and'Ermenburga against Wilfrid
by assisting in the persecution of that prelate ; ' ' Ch. Hist. Engl. p. 93.
So Halmesbury says, < Et haec quidem recte dicta possent yideri, si
eum . . . vel non omnino spoliatum dejiceret, vel saltem cum consensu
ejus ageret;' G. P. iii. 100, p. aao. His 'consent' had been made
impossible.
' See Raine in Fast. Ebor. p. 78, and in Diet. Chr. Biog. iv. 1181.
Y
322 Wilfrid deprived of the see of York
CHAP. X. he recalled his own visit to Rome, which had been
crowned by the special blessing of the then Pope; it
occurred to him that wrongs done at home could be
set right by means of an appeal to that ' Apostolic See/
from which Theodore himself had derived his mission:
and 'after taking counsel/ says Eddi, *with his fellow-
bishops/ he declared in their presence that he did thus
make appeal^ The announcement which he had made
required his instant departure for Italy, and seems to
have been treated, at once, as involving the forfeiture
Hie entire of all hi's rights in the see of York. The design of
from setting up three prelates to work in Northumbria along
North- ^ith him, and of reserving to him the* first place and the
church of the royal city, was now altered into a plan for
superseding him altogether. Thus Bbsa was appointed to
preside* over the whole of Deira, ae^ bishop of York : Eata
was to superintend all Bemicia from his own church of
Lihdisfame, or from Wilfrid's minster of Hexham : while
Eadhed ^ became the* first bisHop of lihdsey as such, then
once more attached to Northumbrian. It was at this
time that Theodore hallowed Finan's church at Lindisfame
* Eddi,- 24: *Cum consilio coepisooporum suorum/ Wilfrid, in Eddi,
30 : * Gonsacordotes meos . . . episcopos tantummodo protestatus.' Ac-
cording to Eddi, — who compares the appeal to St. Paul's appeal from the
Jews to Caesar {Vs — it was then that Wilfrid, ** taming away from the
royal tribunal, said' to the flatterers who were laughing merrily, ^'On
the anniversary of this day on which* you are now spitefully laughing at
my condemnation, you will be weeping bitterly amid your own con-
fusion/" which was fulfilled at the burial of prince Alfwin in 679. It
is probable that Eddi, an enthusiastic partisan, wrongly inferred, from
the fact of the protestation in presence of the suffragan bishops, that they
had encouraged Wilfrid to appeal. If they did encourage it, they seem
to have repented of having done so ; for we do not find that any bishop
supported Wilfrid's cause between his expulsion and his restoration.
' Bede. iv. la : ^ Et hunc primum eadem provincia proprium accepit
praesulem.' Chad had' held it with ttercia.
' Lindsey was Northumbrian under Ed'win and Oswald, was conquered
by Penda, regained- by Oswy, re-conquered by Wulfhere, recovered by
Egfrid at latest in 675, and again conquered by Ethelred in 679. Then
Lincolnshire was finally separated from Northumbria ; but even in
109a the archbishop of York claimed Lincoln sm belonging to his own
' parochia ' or diocese : Florence, Ghron. ii. p. 30. He was obliged to give
up the claim for a supposed equivalent ; see Raine, Fast. Ebor. i. 151.
in consequence of his appeal to Rome. 323
in honour of St. Peter ^, with a view, no doubt, to the chap. x.
exhibition of his metropolitical authority within the
former stronghold of 'schismatic' Celticism, as well as
to the due performance of such dedication-ceremonies as
would probably have been omitted by a Celtic bishop ^.
Such were the circumstances under which took place Aapocts of
the first appeal to Rome against the action of English ^®^^^P^"-
Church authority. What are we to say of this appeal ?
No doubt, it contrasts very pointedly with the action
taken by the African hierarchy in the latter years of the
great Augustine's life, when, ignoring the 'Sardican
Council's ' resolutions ® which empow^:^ the Boman bishop
in certain cases to appoint a new trial, and relying on the
genuine Nicene canon * which ordered ecclesiastical causes
to be terminated in the respective provincial synods, they
declined to acknowledge a 'transmarine' sentence pro-
nounced by Rome, in regard to cases which had arisen in
Africa*. At the same time, it must be remembered, first,
that the principle of appeal from a provincial episcopate
to a patriarch or quasi-patriarch had been admitted, as
to the East, by the (Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon^:
* Bede, iii. 25 : see Lingard, A.-S. Ch» ii. 3^5.
' Walafrid Strabo, in his Life of St» Gall, speaks f>f Columban an
dedicating a church, with holy water and chrism and processional
psalmody; Act. SS. Bened. ii. 233. The older ' Life ** omits the chrism.
See aboTe, pp. 113, 167, 198.
' Sardic. can. 3-5 ; Mansi, iii. 7. The bishop of Rome was to order
a fresh hearing before (z) the bishops of the next province to that in which
the case had arisen, and then, if the complainant should be stilt dissatisfied,
(9> before those bishops with presbyters delegated from Rome. These
provisions were qaoted by the agents of Rome as Kicene» The African
bishops had never heard of them, and ascertained that they were not
in the genuine text of the Nicene canons ; and the only *• council of
Sardica ' which they knew of was the Arian rival assembly at Philip-
popolis, which had usurped the name of the true couneil. A traditional
confusion of this sort might have caused the canons to be first
neglected, then forgotten, in Africa. There is nothing in their provisions
about appeals which is inconsistent with Western feeling in 343. They
grant to Julius of Rome a strictly limited power in such cases : see ^ The
Boman See in the Early Church/ &c., p. 89.
' Nic. can. 5.
' See their final letter, Mansi, iv. 515 ; PuUer, Prim. Saints, p. 197.
' Chalc. can. 9, directing a bishop or cleric who had a complaint against
Y 2
324 IVtl/nd's appeal to Rome.
CHAP. X. and next, that the relations in which the African Church
stood towards Borne in 426 were not those in which the
English Church stood towards Borne in 678. During that
interval, the first see in Christendom, the one 'Apostolic
see ' in the West, had grown mightily in all the elements
of command : and even if Wilfrid had admitted the prin-
ciple of the African Council, he would have pleaded that
a Church so recently founded as the English^ and so
recently consolidated by a metropolitan sent from Borne
direct, the successor of that first English archbishop whom
Bome, in the person of the sainted Gregory, had sent to
plant the faith among English heathens, might naturally and
rightly look to Bome for guidance in cases of emergency,
and that guidance implied supervision, to be exercised
on appeal ; and further, that whereas causes were decided
in Africa with all due ecclesiastical forms, the very rudi-
ments of ecclesiastical justice were ignored by the recent
partition of a diocese in the bishop's absence, and without
his consent^, and his actual deprivation after he had
spoken of applying to Bome for remedy. But Wilfrid
would not have admitted the African principle. It is true
that he had not thought out as formulated a theory which
would assign to Bome an ordinary right of intervention
in all the domestic afiairs of his native Church^; it was
in a case which he fairly regarded as extreme that he
looked to Bome for the justice denied him in England.
But he had a feeling for Bome which was fed and sustained
by cherished personal recollections, and he was ready to
yield more to her, in practical Church action, than the
bishops who wrote in such plain terms to Celestine I.
And whatever respect he may have felt for the great
names of the Oallican Church, he would probably have
disapproved of the conduct of Hilary of Aries in reference
to the appeal of Celidonius from a Gallic Council* and
his metropolitan to appeal to the exarch of the 'diocese* (aggregate of
provinces), or to the see of Constantinople.
^ Theodore might have remembered Cod. Afric. 0. 56, 98, whioh ex*
pressly forbade this. Mansi, iii. 749, 803.
' This is well put in Wakeman's Hist, of the Church of England, p. 38.
' See PuUer, Prim. Saints, &c. p. ao6.
General English feeling not with him. 325
would have regarded the conduct of Leo the Great as chap. x.
simply a just assertion of authority ; inhering in the chief
bishop of the West.
But his ideas on this point were not shared by the great
body of English clergy and laity. They stood, indeed,
in different degrees of obligation to the Roman Church.
She was directly a mother-Church to Kent, and also to
Wessex; indirectly and originally to East-Anglia; in a
limited sense, considering the retreat of Paulinus, to North-
umbria; in a technical but ineffective sense, considering
the failure of Mellitus, to Essex, including London; not
at all, Lindsey excepted, to Mercia. In so far as the
several dioceses had been welded together in subordination
to Canterbury, they were debtors through Canterbury
to its spiritual parent; and they had all concurred in
accepting Theodore as a special gift from the hands of
Rome. They all, though probably not all with equal
definiteness of conception, acknowledged in Rome a peculiar
pre-eminence, a special heritage of apostolic grace; to all
of them 'the See of Peter' was a title of august and
sacred import, and they were too simple to analyze its
significance, or to test its grounds. But, with all this,
they had not, as a body, in 678, any clear notion that
gratitude or reverence on their part meant a definite
control on Rome's^, and perhaps the more far sighted
among them apprehended with good reason that if a
foreign appellate jurisdiction were admitted in one case,
the precedent was sure to have consequences in others.
The aversion to * outlandish ' authority, keen and strong
in the insular mind even through the later Middle
Ages, was now, in Northumbria, even scornfully incre-
dulous as to any practical exercise of such authority;
' See FreemaD, L 32 : ' The English Church, reyerencmg Borne, hut not
slaylshly bowing down to her,' &c. Gomp. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 246, 280.
It would be a great mistake to assume that the language of Wilfrid or of
Eddi about the Roman see would have been accepted by all their con-
temporary churchmen ; and the most ' Roman ' minds of that age would
have been astounded at any such claim of universal 'ordinary and
immediate jurisdiction ' as the Vatican decree of 1870 affected to have been,
from the first, acknowledged as a papal prerogative.
326 IVilfrid's Romeward journey
I \
CHAP. X. and, as far as we know, Benedict Biscop, with all that
enthusiasm for Roman sanctities which repeated visits
to Rome had fostered, never thought, on his return from
the fifth of those visits, or afterwards, of taking Wilfrid's
part in this quarrel. As for Theodore himself, he was
duly conscious of the value of his Papal appointment,
but he was not minded to be a mere Roman legate, nor
willing to let his administration be overruled by Papal
intervention on appeal. The increased stringency of his
acts after that appeal is one of the most significant facts
in this portion of the story '.
Kbroin. And now let us follow the dauntless and indefatigable
appellant. His biographer assures us* that his foes, in
their eagerness to arrest his course, had requested Ebroin,
as mayor of the palace for the Frankish king of Neustria
and Burgundy, — the feeble Theoderic III, — to seize on
Wilfrid if he passed through that kingdom, and either
send him into exile, or kill his attendants and strip him
of his property. It is curious that the same formidable
minister should have checked Theodore s journey through
Gaul, and set men in wait to fall upon Wilfrid. But,
in fact, Ebroin had his own reasons, quite independent
of English disputes, for hostility towards the man who,
in the days of his splendour and wealth at York, had
materially contributed to the elevation of the young king
of Austrasia, Dagobert II, lately at war with Theoderic
about frontiers. And Ebroin's hatred was deadly : it was
in the October of this very year 678 that he put to death
his old rival Leodegar, or *St. Leger,' bishop of Autun^.
Seizure of But on this occasion he missed his blow: his emissaries
*" ^^ • did catch and despoil an English bishop, whose name
^ Nor did he, as we shall see, take any steps towards conforming to the
papal judgement in favour of Wilfrid until six years after it was made
known to him.
' Eddi, 95 : * Praemiserunt nuntioe ... ad Eadefyrwine impium daoem.
' See Alb. Butler, Oct. 2 ; Fredegar. Contin. 96 ; Kitchin, Hist Fr.
i. 94. The tyranny of Ebroin had been interrupted for a time by his
forced withdrawal into a monastery. But he had speedily emerged, set
up a rival king, and in 675 obliged Theoderic to * come to terms with
him' (L'Art de Verifier, v. 415). He held supreme power until he was
murdered * by a private enemy ' in 681 (Oman, Europ. Hist. p. aoo).
broken by mission work in Friesland. 327
was identical with Wilfrid's except in a single letter,— chap. x.
Win-frid, the deposed prelate of Lichfield, then travelling,
for his misfortune, in Neustria. He was cruelly maltreated
and some of his attendants were actually slain'. Wilfrid Wilfrid in
had not landed in Gaul : he had proceeded to Friesland, Friesland.
the land beyond the Zuyder Zee, the inhabitants of which
dw^elt nearer to Britain than Saxons or Angles or Jutes
liad dwelt while still on the mainland, and are named
by Bede as first among six nations akin to the English,
and ' corruptly called Garmans ' by the Britons ^. Adalgis,
the Frisian king, received the English prelate with all
honour ^ and was rewarded by hearing the Gospel from
his lips. And here, more brightly than at any earlier >^
period of his life, shone out the true Chi istian greatness
of ' St. Wilfrid.' He was far too earnest in the cause of
I'eligion not to make every other purpose give way to .
a good^opportunity of missionary work, such as he found !
among the Frisians. He preached, with the king's licence, Conver-
every day *, expounding .the main doctrines of Christianity, ^^^ ^^
— the Holy Trinity, ' the one baptism for remission of sins, Frisians,
and eternal life, after death, in resurrection*.' As the
year's fishing was unusually successful, and the autumn
brought an abundant harvest, the simple-hearted people
ascribed these blessings to the God whom Wilfrid served ;
and before winter set in he had, after due instruction,
l)aptized many of the commonalty, and most of their
' Cp. Eddi, 95, on his misfortune : ' Omni pecunia spoliatus, multisque
ex sociis suis occisis, misere ad extremum sanctum episcopum nudum
reliquemnt . . . errore hoftso unius syllab«e seducti.' So Malmesbury :
*Luit ei^go ille ambiguitatem vocabuli ;' G. P. p. aai. Fridegod, ^tantum
raonogrammate lusus.'
' Bede, v. 9. See Freeman, i. 2a. ' In mythical genealogies, Saxo and
Friso are brothers ;' Pearson, Hist. Engl. i. 105. We road of a joung
Northumbrian being sold as a slave to a Frisian in London, Bede, iv. aa.
' Malmesb. 1. c. : ' Ejeotus a patria, dilectus in Frisia.'
* Eddi, a6. On the great historical importance, to a large portion of the
continent, of this sojourn of Wilfrid in Friesland, see Lappenberg, i. 181.
^ Eddi, 1. c. A definite instruction in Christian doctrine, a systematic
' dellTery of the creed,* was in ancient times held essential to all Christian
proselytism. Compare St. Augustine, de Catechizandls Rudibus, s. 5a ;
and Alcuin, Ep. aS (a. d. 796), on such orderly teaching before baptism.
See Neale*8 Essays on Liturgiology, p. 146 ; and above, p. 137.
328 Wilfrid in Friesland
CHAP. X. chiefs. Then a striking scene followed. Ebroin sent to
Adalgis, promising with an oath, in written words, to
give him 'a bushel full of golden solidi' for Wilfrid's
person or for Wilfrid's head ^. The letter was re€ui to the
king at a feast, probably the great midwinter feast, in the
presence of Wilfrid and his companions. He heard it read
through, took the scroll into his hands, tore it deliberately
to pieces, and flung them into the fire burning before him.
Then, turning to the startled messengers of the powerful
Frank, he spoke out his indignation 2. *Tell your lord
what I now say : So may the Maker of all things tear
in pieces and utterly consume the life and kingdom of
one who is forsworn to his God, and keeps not the covenant
into which he has entered I ' * It was thus decreed ' to
Wilfrid to be the first of the long line of English mission-
aries \ He ' spent the winter happily,' as Bede expresses
it, *with the new people of God*;' but the impression
then made on the Frisian mind must have been to a great
extent superficial, for about ten years later w^e find that
a devoted missionary * preached for two years to the same
nation without seeing any fruit of all his toil among
his barbarian hearers * ' ; when, shortly afterwards, Willi-
brord and Wulframn began to work among them, they
found a great ignorance of the first principles of Chris-
tianity; and to the close of the century. Pagan reaction
was periodical in Frisia®. As was often the case in these
' Eddi, 37. A golden ' solidus ' was then « forty silver denarii ; in the
next century it was lowered to the value of twelve. See Ducange.
' See the words in Eddi a^^: 'Sic renun Creator regnum et vitam
in Deo suo perjurantis, pactumque initum non custodientis, soindens
destruat, et consumens in favillam divellat.' Comp. Oman, Europ. Hist.
476--918, p. 284, * the Frisians of the Klune-mouth, a race which the
Merovings had never subdued.'
' Lappenbeig, i. 181. Among the English missionaries of the succeeding
period were Willibrord, the Hewalds, Boniface, Lull, Albert, Lebwin,
Maroheim, Willehad.
* Bede, v. 19: 'Cum nova Dei plebe feliciter ezigens.' Comp. Eddi,
a6 : * Populum multum Domino lucratus/ So Frid^god, 665.
^ See the touching account of Wictbert in Bede, v. g,
• Alcuin, Vit. S. WilHbr. i. 6 ; Vit. S. Wulfr. 3 ; Vit. S. laudgeri, i. 3 :
' In diebus Radbodi . . . gens ilia ... in errore infidelltatis erat excaecata.'
Alb. Butler says (Nov. 7) that ' the seeds sown by Wilfrid must have
and in Lomhardy. 329
wholesale conversions, the seed had at first sprung up chap. x.
rapidly, ' becav^e it had no depth of earth/
In the spring of 679 Wilfrid resumed his journey,
and was warmly welcomed in Austrasia by his former
client Dagobert, who in gratitude urged him to accept the
see of Strasburg^, and, failing in this, did his best for
his benefactor by loading him with presents, and sending
him on southwards under the guidance of a Frankish
bishop named Deodatus. Crossing the Alps, he descended Wilfrid
into Lombardy, and was kindly received at Pavia byjj^j^™'
King Perctarit^ a pious prince, a devout Catholic, and
altogether a very different personage from the Lombards
who had kept St. Gregory in such alarm. He had had
many troublous experiences, extending from his exile in 662
to his restoration in 671. He told Wilfrid that he had
received overtures from Britain to the effect that if he
would detain *the runaway bishop' on his journey, he
should receive 'very great gifts'; and had answered by
referring to those early days when he, too, was a fugitive
from the usurper Grimoald, and found shelter in Pannonia
with the Khan of the Avars. * He, a Pagan, swore by his
idol to befriend me, and answered Grimoald's offers of
a bushel of golden solidi by saying, " May the gods cut my
been almost rooted out before St. Willibrord*B arrival in 690 or 691.'
St. Boniface worked under him for three years, and long afterwards
met his death in ' the still Pagan portion of Friesland ' (Maolear), where
he had to' drive away Pagan rites,' and baptized 'multa millia hominum '
before he was martyred ; Willibald, Vit. S. Bonif. 0. 11. Comp. Bonif.
Ep. 90. Yet later, in 77a, Willehad the Northumbrian (Vit. Will. c. i)
heard that the Frisians, 'hactenus pagani,' began to desire baptism ;
and on arriving in Frisia, was well received by St. Boniface's converts,
but narrowly escaped with life from their Pagan countrymen. Again,
Liudger had to destroy ' various idolatries ' in Frisia ; Vit. Liudg. i. 14 :
but his work had to stand the test of two Pagan persecutions.
' *The greatest see in his realm,' at * Streithbyrg * ; Eddi, aS.
' Or Bertarid. Eddi calls him *Berhther king of Campania,' by
a mistake. When he died in 688, he * carried with him the regrets
of his subjects, whose hearts he had won by his gentle and wise rule.'
See L*Art de Verifier, iv. 385; and Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders,
vi. 24a ff. ^Justitiae tenax, mil is per omnia et suavis;' Paul. Diac.
Gest. Lang. v. 33, 37. In 673, he built a monastery on the scene of
a former escape. Fridegod, 719, makes him talk to Wilfrid 'post epulas,
et post grati carchesia Bacchi I '
33P
The Roman Council
CHAP. X.
and at
Rome.
(Joimcil
of fifty
bishops.
life asunder, if I thus forswear myself to them." How
much more am I, who know the true God, bound not to
ruin my soul, were it to gain the whole world^!' The
good king sent Wilfrid on, with honour and due guidance,
to Eome, where he arrived about the middle of 679.
Twenty-five years had passed since he visited the ' Eternal
City ' in the buoyancy of his enthusiastic youth, studied its
ecclesiastical rules under Boniface, prayed habituaUy in its
sanctuaries, and bowed his head for the benediction of
Eugenius I. The present Pope was Agatho, who had come
to the see in the summer of 678 : a prelate much loved for
his kind-heartedness and geniality '. To him Theodore had
sent a monk named Kenwald, with documents stating his
view of Wilfrid 8 case : so that * the dissension/ as Eddi
says, 'was not unknown to Agatho.* Wilfrid had an
audience of the Pope, and placed a written statement of
the case in his hands : and some time afterwards, a Council
of fifty bishops, with presbyters in attendance, was held by
Agatho for the formal consideration of the matter ^ The
scene was that illustrious ' basilica of Our Saviour in the
i Lateran,' the true cathedral church of Rome, the * mother
and head,' in its own proud though inaccurate estimation,
* of all churches,* the prototype of the metropolitan church
of Canterbury. It was distinguished among Roman churches
by the name of * the Constantinian,' and had been originally
^ Eddl, a8. He had been once on the point of taking shelter in Britain.
The wife of his son Cuniucpert was an Englishwoman, probably a Kentish
princess (Hodgkin, vi. 305).
' Anastas. Vit. Pontif. i. 135 ; Mansi, xi. 165. He was a Sicilian. He
died Jan. 10, 683. By one account, he came to the see, not in 678, but
in 679. Capgrave says of him, ' He kissed a misel ' (leper) 'and mad him
hool ; ' Chronicle, p. 97.
' In Mansi, xi. 179, is an account of a Roman council of sixteen bishops,
held in October, 679, on episcopal dissensions in Britain, but without
express reference to Wilfrid,— on the number of the Bishoprics, which
were to be twelve with the archbishopric,—- on the conduct of the dei^gy, —
and for a council of bishops, kings, princes, &c. in * all Saxony,' to be
held by Theodore. But ' Eddius, Bede, and William of Malmesbury, all
know nothing of this council ' (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 135), which pro-
fesses to have sent John the Precentor to Britain, with the canons of the
council of 649. It rests on one MS. of Spelman's ; it suits neither the
time before nor after Wilfrid's arrival ; and it reads (like too much else)
as if concocted in the interest of Canterbury.
I
k
on W^il/rid's case. 331
erected by the great imperial convert in the latter part chap. x.
of his reign ^ like his other and grander basilica of St.
Peter, it had five aisles: but the baptistery of St. John,
from which it popularly acquired the name that erelong
superseded its august dedication ^, was a work of the fifth
century ^ The church, for all its unique dignity, had
associations which to a thoughtful prelate would speak as
forcibly of ecclesiastical troubles as of ecclesiastical majesty
and strength. For the chapel of St. John the Evangelist *
was a memorial of Pope Hilary's narrow escape from the
' Robbers* Council ' at Ephesus * : and only twenty-six years
had elapsed since Pope Martin had been dragged out of the
basilica by the imperial 'exarch,' and carried away from
Rome for maintaining, at a Council held on that same spot,
the Catholic doctrine which an emperor had silenced®.
The present Council, like the former, met in the 'secretarium*
of the church, the chamber which served as the place for
meetings of the bishop and clergy, and the transaction
of ecclesiastical business*^. Wilfrid, at first, was kept
* Fergusson, Hist Archit. i. 369; cp. 369. Martin I describes the
Constantinian church as ' juxta episcopium,* Ep. 15, Mausi, x. 851. See
Alb. Butler, Nov. 9, 'Dedication of the Church of Our Saviour.' The
present church has been sadly modernized by various popes ; but Leo XIII
has done much to restore its beauty. The mosaic head of our Lord IooJls
down from the sanctuary arch as it did in Wilfrid's time, and long
before.
' The re-dedication as 'St. John Baptist's,' is thought to have taken
place soon afterwards ; Hodgkin, vi. 960.
' Hemans, Hist, and Monum. Borne, p. 658.
^ In the Lateran baptistery, made ' ex argento et lapidibus pretiosis,*
Anastas. Yit. Pont. i. 76. It has lost its antique beauty : but over its
door * Diligite alterutrum ' recalls the touching tradition about St. John's
brief sermon in his old age.
' Hemans, 1. c. Hay, Walks in Bome, ii. 61.
* Mansi, x. 85a ; Hefele, Hist. Councils, b. 16. 0. i. s. 309 ; Milman, ii.
335; Diet Chr. Biogr. iii. 854.
^ ' Secretarium ' was a Boman law-term for the justice-room of a magis-
trate (compare the ' secretum ' which Paul of Samoeata made for himself,
Euseb. viL 30^, as in Act. Scill. Mart., ' in secretario Carthaginis ; ' comp.
Act. Procons. S. Cypr., 'Carthagiue in secretario.' Ecclesiastically, the
word has two senses : (i) a room where bishops received the greetings of
their people ('salutatorium,* Greg. Ep. v. 56), transacted business, held
meetings of clergy, or sat in synod : the second council of Aries forbade
deacons to tU in the secretarium with the priests. So the council of
Hippo in 393 met ' in secretario basilicae Pacis,* Mansi, iii. 73a ; other
332 Wtlfrid^s Memorial
CHAP. X. waiting outside the doors, as was usual in regard to
petitioners or appellants. Agatho began by stating the
business : they were met to consider a dissension which had
arisen in the Churches of Britain. The bishops of Ostia
and of Portus Bomanus then said ^ that they had read the
memorials presented on both sides, — those which had come
from Theodore and others ^ * against a certain bishop who,
as they assert, has fled privily away, and, as they suppose,
has come hither,' and the counter-memorial embodying the
appeal of the ' bishop of the holy church of York ' : and
that they found Wilfrid to have committed no ofience
which would canonically require his degradation, and to
have 'observed moderation by not mixing himself up in
any factious strife^.* Agatho then ordered that Wilfrid
should be admitted into the ' secretarium,' with the petition
which he was said to have brought. He entered accordingly,
and desired that his petition should be read. ' John, the
Notary, read it to the Council.' Its purport was as follows.
Wilfrid, a humble and unworthy bishop of * Saxony * *, had
councils, at Carthage, in the secretariam of the basilica Bestituta, ib. ;
or of that of Faustus, ib. 699 ; the seoond of Seville, in that of the Holy
Jerusalem Church, ib. x. 557 : and so the council of Constantinople, a.d.
448, in Flavian's secretarium, ib. vi 651. Hence, the sittings of the first
Lateran council are called ^ secretarii ' ; and see pope Zacharias, ' praste-
rito secretario,' Migne, Patr. Lat. Ixxxix. 833. Compare Greg. Ep. 1. 19,
and Benedict, note there, and £p. iii. 56. The * lesser secretarium ' was
(a) a vestry or sacristy, ' which the Greeks call Diaconicon ; ' Council of
Agde, c 66, Mansi, viii. 336 : so in Bede, ii. i. Gregory is buried 'ante
seci-etarium ' ; and iii. 14, 26 on the * secretaria ' of Rochester and Lindi^
fame. Above, p. iSa. In old St. Peter's the secretarium or vestry was
'between the middle doorway of the nave and the southwest comer:'
Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, p. aaa.
^ Malmesbury, G. P. p. 396, abbreviates their speech, as given by Eddi,
39. It begins with an assertion of papal supremacy.
' Including, apparently, Hilda; Eddi, 54. Malmesbury reckons her
among the bitter enemies of Wilfrid ; G. Pontif. iii. 107. It must be
remembered that several saintly persons in Northumbria took the same
line, and Bede apparently thought that they were right
' 'Neque secundum sanctorum canonum subtilitatem convictum cum
de aliquibus facinoribus, et ideo non canonice dejectum, reperimus . . .
}>otius autem et modestiam hunc tenuisse perpendimus,' &c., Eddi, 99.
* ' Sazonia ' was sometimes used for what we should call England. So
Adamnan, Vit. Col. i. i, 9, ii. 46 ; cp. Reeves's Adamnan, p. zlv, and ' Four
Masters," a. 684. So Husetbert of Wearmouth, writing to Gregory II ;
Bede's Hist Abb. 14. Bonifooe speaks of 'Saxony- beyond-Sea' ; £p. 49:
read to the Council. 333
by divine guidance come to this ' apostolical summit ^/ as chap. x.
to a fortified place and tower of strength, from whence the
rule of the canons was communicated to all the Churches.
The Pope would know, from his private interview with
Wilfrid, and from the memorial already presented 2, that
' certain invaders of his bishopric, not one only, but three,'
had, ' at a meeting of Archbishop Theodore and other pre-
lates,' presumed to take away the see which he had held
for more than ten years, and uncanonically to promote
themselves to be bishops ' in his own church ' during his
lifetime ; and that Theodore had consecrated them without
his assent, and even *■ without the assent of any bishop.'
It was not for him to ask why this was done : he would
refrain from accusing one who had been sent ^ from that
apostolical see. It would appear that he had been expelled
without having been convicted of any canonical fault:
yet, after such treatment, *he had raised no seditious
contention, but had invoked the assistance of Borne, and
* simply called the comprovincial bishops to bear witness *
to the proceeding. He would accept any decision from the
CJouncil. If he were placed in his old see, let the invaders
be synodically ejected **. If, again, it was resolved to have
more bishops in Northumbria, let them at least be chosen
from the clergy of his church by a provincial synod *, so
that he, Wilfrid, might ' serve God with them in peaceful
unity.' We must pause a moment to observe that this :
statement suppresses what, no doubt, was prominent in
Theodore's, — the fact that the subject of a division of
cp. S. Greg. Ep. zi. 64. Kenulf of Mercia says that Augustine 'ecclesiis
praefuit Saxoniae ' ; Haddan and Stubbs, lit 539.
^ * Apostolatus Tester ' was a common form of address to the pope as
' apostolicns,' successor of St. Peter : Liber Diumus, No. a fL
' ' Quae yiva voce praesentialiter intimavi, et per satisfactionem peti-
tionis scriptis narrantibns obtuli ; ' £ddi, 30.
' ' Directus.' So in Andrew's speech. See above, p. 358.
* ' De pristinis parochiis ecclesiae.' Here ' parochiae ' is used somewhat
laxly, as if to mean, ' from those uewly-erected bishoprics which originally
and properly formed parts of the diocese of York.'
' '£t si rursos in eadem parochia, cui praefui, praesules adhibere
provident, saltem tales jubeat praevidere promovendos . . . .' Again,
'Si itaplacuerit archiepisoopo et ooepiscopis meis ut augeatur numerus
episeoporum,' &c.
Decision
in favour
334 The Council decides in favour of Wilfrid.
CHAP. X. / dioceses had been mooted years before at the synod of
.Hertford, and had been acted upon in East-Anglia. It
might also be inferred from Wilfrid's paper that Theodore's
first notion had been to take from him even York itself ;
and, certainly, that Bosa, Eata, and Eadhed were strangers
to the Northumbrian diocese, — which was the reverse of
the fact. After a few eulogistic words from Agatho on
ofWilfrid. the moderation of the appellant's conduct, the Council
pronounced its decision. Let us carefully observe what
this came to. Wilfrid was to be reinstated in his original
diocese, that is, the diocese as it stood before the division '.
The bishops who had been irregularly promoted were, * as
a matter of course,' to be expelled. But, when this was
done, he was, with consent of a council to be assembled
at York, ' to choose bishops as assistants '^, with whom he
could live peaceably,' and who were to be consecrated by
Theodore. The a<ivantages of diocesan subdivision were
thus to be secured, but without the sacrifice of due order :
Theodore's work was to be undone, that it might be done
over again in a better way. The usual penalties were then
denounced against all who should * attempt to resist this
sentence, or not receive it obediently, or, after a time,
attempt to infringe it in whole or part.' Such a person,
if bishop, priest, or deacon, waa to be deprived and put
urder anathema: if clerk (i.e. in any order below the
diaconate) or monk, or layman of any rank, or hing^ he
was to be excluded from the Holy Communion. On the other
hand, whosoever should sincerely accept and help to carry
out the decision, might well hope to ' be Divinely rewarded
for that obedience which God prefers to all sacrifices.'
Such was the issue of the Roman Council. Wilfrid
indulged himself by staying in Some until the spring of
680. To him it was doubtless a time of intense refresh-
ment ; and on the following Easter Tuesday, March 27, 680,
the Pope gave him a token of support which must have
yet further inspirited so devoted a client of Bome. A large
' ' Decernimus ut episcopatum, quern nuper habuerat, recipiat/ Eddi, 39.
^ ' Adjutores.' This is not to be understood of mere coadjutors or
assistant bishops in an u?idivided diocese. Compare Bede, £p. to Egb. 5.
He takes part in a larger Council. 335
Council of a hundred and twenty-five prelates met on chap. x.
that day to provide materials for the expected Council ^^ j"!''^
at Constantinople on the question of Monothelitism \ bishops.
Wilfrid 'having been acquitted/ as the Council-record
says, 'on matters certain and uncertain/ i.e. on charges
definite and indefinite, sat in this assembly as bishop
of York, and professed the orthodox doctrine of the * two
wills and activities ' of the one Christ in behalf of ' all the
northern part of Britain and Ireland, and the islands,
which were inhabited by the nations of the Angles and
Britons, and €dso of the Scots and Picts'^*: and was even
described in the catalogue as representative of the ' synod '
or episcopal college of Britain^: the secretary of the
Council having mistakenly imagined that his testimony
to the orthodoxy of the insular Churches was given in
the character of their accredited 'delegate.' He signed
the synodal letter addressed to the Emperor Constantine IV,
and his two brothers*, and containing a long dogmatic
statement : and he thus committed himself to the assertion,
that the Council had * expected that Theodore, archbishop
of the great island of Britain, and philosopher, would
attend, with others who still tarried in Britain^'. But
they came not.
At last Wilfrid tore himself away from the holy places
of Rome. He had spent many days in farewell visits to
churches, and had obtained many relics, with an exact
register of the saints to whom they were ascribed, —
together with many other things 'for the adornment of
^ Mansi, zi. 185 ; Hefele, v. 141, £. T. Compare tbe council of Milan
held in 679 against Monothelitism ; Mansi, xi. 173. See above, p. 953.
' Eddi, 53 ; Bede, v. 19 ; as Haddan and Stubbs read (ill. 140), omitting
the eomma placed after ' parte ' by Smith and Hussey, and inserting ^ que '
after 'insulis.*
' Mansi, xi. 306. What Wilfrid really meant to say was, * I can assure
you that in those countries there is no heresy on this point'
* Herac)ius and Tiberius. Mansi, zi. 385. See Bury, Later Rom. £mp.
ii. 309.
* Mansi, zi. 394 ; Hefele, y. 147. This ezpectntlon shows that Wilfrid
was not formally accepted by the council as delegate for his own Church ;
Haddan and Stubbs, ill. 141. So Bury, ii. 315. Did he wait at Rome to
meet Theodore ?
336 Wilfrid returns home.
CHAP. X. the house of God^/ His passage through Italy waa like
GauL*^ "^ * triu™pli • t>ut on entering the Frankish territory he
experienced a painful shock. Dagobert of Austrasia had
been murdered at the preceding Christmas by a conspiracy
of 'dukes/ and of some prelates whom Ebroin had in-
truded into sees, and whose position was menaced by
the young king ^. Eddi tells us that one of these bishops
endeavoured to intercept Wilfrid, and represented the
slain prince as having played the part of Rehoboam, by
despising the bishops and laying burdens on his people.
WUfrid appears to have given a aofter answer than the
case merited ^ but one which had the effect of shaming
the Frankish prelate by its very gentleness. ' Woe to me,
a sinner I ' he rejoined : ' thou art more righteous than I.'
Betum to Wilfrid pursued his journey until he once more found
bril*^^""' WiJ^elf at home. And then came the shock of a supreme
disappointment. He had, in fact, been too much elated by
his success at the Roman Council to estimate the situation
as it would present itself in Northumbria. To begin
with, it is not eaay for brilliant and fervid natures to
understand the resting force inherent in those who are
strangers to their enthusiasm. Wilfrid fancied, it seems,
that 'the Apostolic See' would be practically as potent
a name to his countrymen as it had been through long
years to himself. Again, he forgot, or did not sufficiently
consider, that the settlement against which he could now
use that name with all distinctness and authority was
one in which many interests were now bound up, to
which the king of the Northumbrians and the archbishop
of ' all Britain ' were cdike committed, and which, if now
assailed, would call out national feeling, both civil and
t <More suo,' says Eddi, 33. Thomas of Ely says that he brought
a priyilegium for the monastery of Ely, according to Etheldred's request ;
Vit. S. Eth. 19. He bought one for Ripon and Hexham ; Eddi, 51.
' Mabillon, Ann. SS. Bened. iv. praef. p. cxlv. ' Plusieurs pretendent
qu'il est le mdme que S. Dagobert qu*on honore & Stenai.' A Gallic
*■ duke * was superior to a *■ count,' having several cities under him, cp.
Greg. Turon. viii. 18.
' * It was for your good, not your harm, that I exalted him ; ' Eddi, 33.
Fridegod and Eadmer amplify this, as if the chief of the regicides had
drawn his sword against Wilfrid and menaced him with death.
Eg/rid rejects the Roman decree. 337
ecclesiastical, in its defence. The Roman decree, duly chap. x.
drawn up, with its leaden * bullae ^ * and its ' apostolic ' seal,
was in his eyes ' a banner of victory ' : he never reflected
that to others it might be a provocation and an insult.
The first step which he took was to show himself to his
monks who had been wearying for his return, and, as
Eddi expresses it, 'crying out to the Lord with tears;'
the next was to visit King Egfrid, offer him a greeting
of peace, and exhibit his treasured document, which he
afterwards showed to the assembled Witan^. It is not
difficult to imagine his amazement when the reading
of the decree was interrupted by angry dissent on the
part of ' some persons present,' and then by an anticipation
of that bitter complaint which recurred so often in later
days: 'The writings have been bought, — the "doom" was 1
corruptly obtained^ I ' The line taken by Egfrid * and his '
counsellors,' if we may believe Eddi, — and we have no
other informant, — was signally unworthy, yet not im-
politic as an expedient for the time. They did not touch
the broad question of Rome's right to receive the appeal :
they avoided a long discussion by a short cut, assumed
that Wilfrid had got a verdict by bribing the tribunal,
and dealt with him accordingly, — but never took any
measures for ascertiuning at Rome what would be its
decision apart from such influence as he, by hypothesis,
had used. Eddi affirms that the prelates ' who held *
possession of his bishopric' acquiesced in the resolution
to 'imprison him for nine months without any token
of respect.' Accordingly, everything was taken from
liim save the clothes which he wore. Ermenburga, firmly
believing in the virtue of his reliquary*, appropriated it
^ On the discovery jiear Whitby of a leaden *■ buUa,' bearing the name
of ^Boniface archdeacon' of Rome, see Bishop Browne, Lessons from
E. £. Gh. Hist. p. 38. Bishops also used these * bullae.'
' Eddi, 34 : ' Omnibus principibus . . . necnon servis Dei.'
' Eddi, ' Diffamaverunt . . . ut pretio redempta essent scripta.' Hook's
omission of the reason given for non-compliance is most unfortunate ;
Archbishops, i. 161. But the allegation shows that Rome had already
a bad reputation for venality, which afterwards grew worse.
* ' Chrismarium,' properly a vessel containing the hallowed chrism,
Z
338 Wilfrid imprisoned
CHAP. X. to herself, hung it up beside her in her carriage when
she drove out, and kept it in her bedroom like a talisman.
Egf rid swore ' by his own salvation ' that none of Wilfrid's
friends should visit him in his captivity: they were
allowed one parting interview, in which the undaunted
bishop reminded them of Israel's thraldom in Egypt,
of the trials of Moses and the prophets, of the sufferings
of the Divine Chief Shepherd, of the great 'teachers'
exhortations in Heb. xii. i, 5^ He then passed into the
custody of Osfrid, the reeve ^ or governor of a place
which Eddi calls Bromnis, and which * may, perhaps,' be
identified with Broomridge in Northumberland ^ There,
at the setting in of the winter, the bishop was immured
in a cell which was seldom lighted by sunshine, and
V never by a lamp. Darkness, however, had no terrors
for Wilfrid : he sang his psalms as regularly as if he had
been in one of his own minsters, and the guards are
said to have been awestruck by an appearance of light
within the dungeon*. The imprisonment was meant as
a menace: Egf rid offered to give him back part of his
old bishopric, and some other gifts, if he would submit
to royal authority, and disclaim the genuineness of the
document brought from Bome. ' I would rather lose my
head,' was the answer. But Osfrid, believing that his
had colne to be used for a ' theca raliquianim ' ; see Ducange. He cites
Greg. Turon. de Mirac. S. Ifart. ir. 3a, where the name is applied to
a small case or box containing dust from St. Martin's tomb. Gregory's
parents carried relics about their persons ; de GL Mart. i. 84. St. Gall
carried with him a ' little case ' of relics, and made his prayers before it ;
Vlt. S« Gall. When a pagan attempted to behead St. Willehad, the blow
swerved aside on the leather band of the case of relics which ' in colio
suspensam habebat ' ; Yit. S. Will. 4. The fashion became very generaL
William the Conqueror (who knew how to utilize relics for his own
purpose) Wore a reliquary round his neck on the day of his great Tictoiy ;
Freeman, N. G. iii« 464.
^ Eddij 35. The speech begins, ' Be mindful, and tell my brethren, of
the days of old, how we read,* &c.
' Above, p. 139. The burghrceve or burhgerefa 'was essentially a
royal officer, charged with the maintenance and defence of a fortress.'
Kemble, Sax. in Engl. ii. 173.
^ See Kaine, Historians of Gh. of York, i. 51.
* Eddi, 36. < Absentem diem lux agebat aemula,' Malmesb. G. P. iii-
zoi.
r
and released. 339
wife's recovery from a death-like stupor was due to chap. x.
some holy water dropped by Wilfrid into her mouth ^,
entreated Egfrid, with adjurations, 'not to compel him
any longer to afflict the holy and innocent bishop to
his own perdition:* and the king transferred Wilfrid to
Dunbar, where the reeve Tidlin was a man of 'sterner
stuflF^/ But while the king and queen were visiting
Coldingham, Ermenburga fell ill one night, and in the
morning seemed to be dying of convulsions '*. The abbess
Ebba*, remembering how Wilfrid had officiated in her
church at Etheldred's profession, took advantage of her
nephew's anxiety to reprove him for his injustice. If
he wished his wife to recover, he must either restore
Wilfrid to his bishopric, — which would be best,— or let
him go whither he would. Egfrid yielded to his aunt's
exhortations, released Wilfrid, gave him back his reliquary,
allowed him to depart with his friends, when they had
been re-assembled : ' and the queen was healed.'
This is the tale as told by Eddi. We know him well
enough by this time to be mistrustful of his details,
even when they do not assume a miraculous form. If he
persuaded himself, also, that Egfrid repented of what he
had done, the facts hardly bear out such a view. But
his diiluseness is only the exaggeration of facts which
Bede .astonishes us by all but passing over ; he ignores
altogether this visit of Wilfrid to Northumbria, in his
professed account of Wilfrid's life*; while in the course
^ Eddi, 37. Fridegod, 86i : ' conjunx . . . Praesidis infaustas, ha ! ha !
proeurantis habenas.'
' Eddi has another marvel to teU : Tidlin caused iron chains to be
made ; they were tried on Wilfrid*8 hands, but proved to be either too
tight or too loose, 38.
* Eddi, 39: 'Gontractis membris simul in unum stricte alligatam.'
Halmesbury says, 'Coepit aliena facere, insana dicere.'
* She is said to have died August 25, 683 (Alb. Butler). The Chronicle's
date of 679 for the burning of Goldingham is too early ; for it was burnt
after her death (Bede, iv. 25^ and this account of Eddi represents her
as alive in 681, — let alone the received date of her death. Eadmer
carelessly caUs her the king's mother, c. 37, from a mistake as to ' mater '
in Eddi.
' Bede, v. 19 : ' Post haec reversus Brittaniam, provinciam Australium
Bazonum . . • convertit.' ' There was but Uttle sympathy between Wilfrid
Z %
340 Wilfrid in Mercia^
CHAP. X. of his History he just says that ' on account of the
king's enmity he could not be received in his country
or diocese^/ Nor does he say anything about the next
event in Wilfrid's story, — his second sojourn in Mercia,
which apparently began early in 68 1. Berth wald, the
nephew of King Ethelred, an ealdorman or sub-king,
whom Eddi calls a prefect, asked Wilfrid to accept some
of his own land for the building of a monastery. * Abide
with me, for the Lord's sake I ' Wilfrid was only too glad
to comply: a sojourn in Mercia was for him a renewal
of pleasant memories, centering in the kindly beneficence
of Wulfhere^: he 'thanked God, who had given him
some solace of rest'; and set to work to build 'a little
monastery, which monks of his still held' when Eddi
wrote ^ But again his troubles returned. The old feud
had again broken out between Mercian and Northumbrian
royalties. An invfitsion by Ejgfrid had been defeated by
Ethelred, in 679, near the Trent; and Alfwin, Egfrid's
brother, a youth of eighteen, apparently sub-king of Deira,
and much loved in both kingdoms, had fallen ^ It was
exactly a year after Wilfrid's expulsion when the corpse
of Alfwin was brought into York amid the wild wailings
of the people, who ' wept bitterly, and tore their garments
and their hair*.' This victory of Ethelred had reunited
Lindsey to Mercia^; and Bishop Eadhed had been fain
and the great scholar ; ' Raine, Historians of Oh. of York, p. zxxiv. See
above, p. 319.
^ Bede, iy. 13 : Mn patria sive parochia/ ' Eddi, 14. ' Eddi, 40.
* Bede, iv. ai. Malmesbury says quaintly, that Ethelred attacked
Egirid in battle, *■ and admonished him to return home ; ' G. Beg. L 77.
The scene of the battle is said to have been at Elford on the Trent, in
Staffordshire; Coxe's Wendover, i. 170. Tighernach calls Alfwin ' Almuine.'
See above, p. 267.
' Eddi, 34. He adds that Egfrid thenceforward ' usque ad mortem sine
victoria regnabat.' For the adventures of a young noble named Imma,
who had been a 'gesith' of Alfwin, see Bede, iv. aa. He was taken
prisoner, but his brother Tunna, an abbot, deeming him to be dead, took
care to say mass often for his soul. Bede was told by some who heard
it, — so he tells us, — from Imma himself, that his chains repeatedly fell
off, — most frequently (as he ascertained by subsequent conversation with
Tunna) at the time when the masses were said. The chapter indicates,
moreover, the current belief in purgatory ; compare Bede, v. la : Hom. 49.
' * Integritate regni recepta,' says Malmesbury of the Mercian king ;
in IVessex, and in Sussex. 341
to flee into Deira, where he ' became bishop of the church chap. x.
of Ripon/ that is, if we take the words literally, had
a diocese made for him out of York, with Ripon, as at
present, for its see*. Peace had been made, when a
protracted war seemed inevitable, by the 'salutary ex-
hortations of Theodore, which wholly quenched the fire
of a great peril \' and induced the Northumbrian king to
be content with a wer-gild, or pecuniary satisfaction ^, for
his brother's blood. But one of the fruits of this peace *
waa Wilfrid's compulsory removal from Mercia : Ethelred,
and his wife Osthryd *, Egf rid's sister, commanded Berth-
wald to send him away at a day's notice. Leaving his
monks behind him, and taking with him several priests, as
Eappa, Padda, Burghelm, and Oiddi, together with other
attendants who were in his service «, Wilfrid travelled
across the border into Wessex: but soon the vindictive
hatred of Ermenburga dispossessed him, for her sister,
being Eentwin's wife, persuaded the king to banish him
from the realm ^. And then, as Bede says, tranquilly
resuming his story, * Wilfrid turned aside to the province
of the South-Saxons^,' whose king Ethelwalch gave him
a solemn assurance of protection K
6. P. p. aao; Bede, iv. la, * recepisset.' See above, p. 323. Lindsey never
again became Northumbrian.
' Bede, iii. aS : * Hrypenais eoclesiae praesul factus est ; ' more express
than iy. za, < Hrypensi ecclesiae praefecit.' So Florence, App. in M. H.
B. p. 625. <The possible see of Ripon/ Haddan and Stubbs, iL 6.
' Bede, iv. ai. Compare Oregory of Tours, Hist. Fr. iz. ao.
* 'Multa.' See Stubbs, Const Hist i. 188; Thorpe's Anc. Laws,
p. 79, Glossary, in v. Compare, on the principle of such compensation,
or ^ satisfactio,' Tacitus, Germ. ai. See Gibbon, iv. 367 ; and Robertson,
Scotl. under Early Kings, ii. a86. He refers to this intervention of
Theodore, and gives various scales of 'wer-gilds,' English and foreign.
See also Kemble, i. 370 : and above, p. 373.
* It lasted apparently until Ethelbald of Mercia invaded Northumbria
in 737.
* See Bede, iii. 11 ; iv. 91. She was murdered, long afterwards, by
Mercian nobles ; Bede, v. 34 ; Chronicle, a. 697.
* Bede, iv. 13. The Chronicler erroneously says that * Eoppa ' («c) was
sent by Wilfrid and Wulfhere to preach in the Isle of Wight in 661.
' Eddi, 40.
' Bede, iv. 13 : < Siquidem divertens ad provinclam,' &c
* Eddi, 41 : *That none of his enemies should terrify him by the threat
of the sword, nor make void the promise by greatness of gifts.'
342 The South-Saxons isolated
CHAP. X. And now we come to the most beautiful chapter in his f *
Wilfrid lif^ lihat which fumishes the best example of the remark,
tbeapoBtle , • i i
of Sussex, that his character was ever noblest in adversity^, — the
strongest title which it can show to the aureole of pure
saintship.
*" That little South-Saxon realm, traditionally one of the
oldest of the kingdoms, was by far the most insignificant.
It is simply omitted in Florence of Worcester's dynastic
tables, as if, after the great things which Ella and his
three sons had done from their landing at Kynor in 477 «
to the destruction of Anderida in 491, a spell had stiff-
ened the South-Saxons into the utter negation of all
stirring nationcd life. Fenced in by the huge dim forest
of the Andred-weald, which extended its arms into Kent
and Hampshire ^, and into which the first Saxon invaders
drove 'some of the Welsh*/ or by Romney Marsh east-
ward, the people seemed to be inaccessible to the influences
which were swaying their neighbours hither and thither,
and, in particular, were unconscious of the great spiritual
movement which had formed Kent and Wessex into
districts of Christendom. Twenty years before, their king
Ethelwalch, who, as we have seen, had become a Christian
and married the .Hwiccian Eaba, increased his dominion
by receiving the Isle of Wight, and a strip of Hampshire
called Meon, as a grant from his godfather Wulfhere*.
He seems to have invited into his realm some six Irish
monks, Dicul being their abbot®, who built themselves
a very small monastery at Bosham '', near ' Cissa's-caster,'
the Saxon town, called after one of Ellla's sons, on the
^ Raine, i. 61. But Ghuiion is not warranted in suggesting that his
' prosperity had gone near to quench ' his * zeal for the cause of God ' ;
E. K Oh. p. 91.
' Cymenes-ora (Chronicle, a. 477) is Kynor on Bracklesham Bay, near
Wittering.
' See Green, Mak. of Engl. pp. iz, 8S. Above, p. an.
* Chronicle, a. 477. ' See above, p. aza
' Bede, iv. 13. See Murray's Handbook for Kent and Sussex, p. 339;
and Stephens's Memorials of See of Chichester, p. 7. But Dicul's little
monastery was not ' one of the waifs and strays of the early BriHah Church.'
We meet with a Dicul, an Irish priest, in Bede, iii. 19.
^ See Freeman, iii. aaa, for Godwin and Harold as dwelling there.
and still Pagan. 343
site of the Roman Regnum. They dwelt there, unregarded chap. x.
by the heathens around them, holding their ' little Christian
fortress/ but gaining no ground whatever. ' Not one of
the country people cared to imitate their humble and poor
life ' of devout service, * nor so much as to listen to their
preaching^/ It seemed a hopeless case; Irish zeal had
done wonderful things in other mission-fields, on the Con-
tinent^ and in Britain; — it fell flat and dead on the as
yet unimpressible barbarians of Sussex. Dicul and his
brethren had to live on amid the woods, bearing the
burden of apparent failure, and keeping up by their
presence and their devotions what seemed a fruitless
testimony for God. Theirs was the position assigned in
various ages to faithful labourers^, who have worked
and waited, not really in vain, just before the time
appointed for other men's success. This was the condition
of Sussex, ' wholly ignorant of the name of God, and of
the faith,' when Wilfrid found refuge within its frontier
in 681.
With what thoughts must he have entered its wood-
lands, or looked forth on the sea from its coast ! Fifteen
years before, he had narrowly escaped with his life, and
the lives of nearly all his companion^, from the ferocity
of Sussex 'wreckers,' urged on by their Pagan priest*.
He now came once more among the people, shielded from
actual peril by their king's patronage, but otherwise
devoid of adventitious claims on their respect. Some of
them may have heard that he was an exile, under the
* Bede, iv. 13 : ' Sed proTlncialium nullus/ &c.
' See Haddan's Remains, p. 968; Ch>ldwin Smith, Irish Hist. p. 27.
Bishop Forbes says that 'all the west of Europe, from Iceland to Tarentum,
felt the power' of the Irish Church ; Kalendars, p. 341. See aboYe, p.
109, for Golumban, the typical Irish missionary to the Continent; cp.
the phrase ' pro Domino peregrinam ducere yitam ' used of Fursey in
iii. 19.
* Palladlus in Ireland ; livin, an Irish missionary who, after meeting
with great opposition, was martyred in Belgium in 656 (Lanigan, ii.
468) ; Wictbert, who preached in Frisia for two years, and ' found no fruit
of all his labour,' Bede, v. 9 ; Hans Egede in Greenland ; Henry Martyn.
Cp. Lightfoot, Hist. Essays, p. 87.
* Aboye, p. a43.
344 IVilfrid^s help in temporal needs
cHAP.z. ban of his own king and Witan. If he was to do them
any good, to bring any light into their darkness, he must
do so by his own missionary capacities : and we have seen
how he put oflF the prosecution of his appeal in order to
be a missionary among the Frisians. As Bede well says,
although he was shut out from his own diocese, ' he could
not be restrained from the ministry of evangelizing */ He
began in a fashion which may be called Pauline : he seized
a temporal emergency as a spiritual opportimity. A long
drought had produced sore famine: so great was the
despair produced by exhaustion, that men would go by
forties and fifties to some clifF or beach, and with joined
hands leap or rush into the sea^. The people were so
truly barbaric that they were ignorant of fishing except
for eels, although the sea and rivers abounded with fish.
Wilfrid's versatility was equal to the occasion. He had
always, it seems, taken interest in handicrafts: he bade
his attendants collect nets used in eel-fishing, and cast
them into the sea ^ : presently they hauled in three hundred
fish of different sorts, which they divided into three parts,
— for the poor, for the lenders of the nets, and for them-
selves. * By which good service,' writes Bede, ' the prelate
turned their hearts powerfully to love him, — and they
were the readier to listen hopefully to his preaching about
heavenly benefits, after they had through his agency
received temporal good*.' *The hour' was indeed *eome,
and the man.' * The dull hard stone ' of their hearts was
melted : they gathered round the stranger who had lifted
them out of their physical misery, and gratitude and con-
fidence towards Wilfrid became faith-^however rudimen-
tary— in his Lord. He spent some months in a regular
* Bede, iy. 13 : * Non tamen ab evangelizandi potuit ministerio cohiberL'
In this part of Wilfrid's life, Bede far exceeds Eddi in vividness and
fullness.
' This Bede tells as a report, — ' ferunt'
' St. Oall, on the lake of Constance, was wont 'squamigero gregi
insidias componere ' : see the legend about the water-spirit who tried to
damage his nets, Vit. S. Galli ; Pertz, Mon. Qerm. Hist. ii. 7.
* Quo beneficio multum antistes cor omnium in suum conyertit amorem,'
&o. Bede, iv. 13. 'To supply bodily needs voXXAtcn tU ^x^v ^ip^i^ 81'
titvwas hav\ovii*vw* St. Greg. Naz. Orat. 43, c. 34, on St. BasiL
results in South-Saxon conversion. 345
course of instruction ^ ; and with such effect that ealdormen chap. x.
and thanes set the example of receiving baptism from
his hand, and his four priests, then or afterwards, baptized
the rest of the people. No doubt, as in other multitudin-
ous conversions, there were some which were conversions
only in name: and if we can rely on Eddi, the delight
with which the king surveyed the good work led him
to use direct pressure on those who would otherwise have
held aloof ^. " On the day of the great general baptism,
we are told that the long-delayed rain 'fell gently and
copiously, the parched earth began to recover its freshness
and verdure, the year came round again, glad and fruit-
ful '.' ' And so, having cast off their old superstition and
renounced their idolatry^, the heart and the flesh of the
people rejoiced in turning to the living God, understanding
that He who is the true God had enriched them by His
heavenly grace with both inward and outward blessings ^/
Thus, at last, the dew came upon that 'fleece' which
had been dry in the midst of the watered ground. It
came with the beginnings of civilization®, to accompany
* Above, p. 137. Cp. Bede, ii. 14 ; iii. 7; iv. 16 ; v. 6w
' Eddi, 41 : * Alii vero coacti regis imperio.' Contrast Ethelbert, above,
p. 58.
' Bede becomes poetical : ' Bediit viridantibus arvis annus laetus et
fmgifer.* Alcuin imitates him in de Pont. Eccl. Ebor. 595.
* * Exsufflata ; ' alluding to the old custom of spitting as if in abhorrence
of the Evil One, at the time of renouncing him and his works. See
Bingham, b. zi. c. 7. & 5 ; Palmer, Orig. Lit. ii. 177. In the Eastern
Church this custom still continues ; in the oiBce for making a catechumen
we find, 'Hast thou renounced Satan?' 'I have renounced him.'
'Breathe out, then {}tt^i<niaov\ and spit at him.' Gear, Euchologion,
p. 358. In Bede, v. 6, is a reference to the similar custom of breathing
on the catechumen's face at the first exorcism : ' ExsuiBante illo in faciem
meam.' So the Gelasian Sacramentarj, p. 1 13, ed. Wilson : * Exsufflas in
faciem ejus ' (of a convert from paganism).
' Bede, iv. la : 'Sioque abjecta,' &c. Cpi Ps. Ixxxiv. 2. Alcuin, de
Pont. Eccl. Ebor. 601, refers to the same text, and adds,
'Certius aetemis inhiantes pectore donis,
Quo sumpsere prius siblmet terrena per ilium/
' See Baine, i. 70. Meinhard won over some Lieflanders by teaching
them to build a fortress for defence of their trade ; Maclear, Conv. of
Slavs, p. 158. John Eliot 'found it absolutely necessary to do what he
called carrying on civility with religion'; Miss Tonge, Pioneers and
Founders, p. 16. J. Price ' wisely qualified himself to aot as a physician '
346 Wilfrid settled at Selsey
(HAP. X. and recommend it : some ' promise of ihe life that now
is/ some initiation into the arts which improve its con-
dition, assisted the announcement of 'that which was to
come/ Wilfrid was now 'the Apostle of the South-
Saxons ' : and he became their first resident bishop. Ethel-
walch made over to him a royal *vill/ his own place of
abode ^, and added to it a domain of eighty-seven hydes
consisting of Selsey, 'the Isle of the Sea-calf/ as Bede
calls the seal : it was, in fact, a peninsula joined on the
west to the mainland by a strip of ground about a sling's
throw across ^. Here the bishop was to establish a home
for himself and his fellow-exiles, and a centre for mission-
ary and episcopfid work. The minster arose — doubtless,
amid many pensive recollections of Ripon and Hexham —
on a spot which has since then been submerged by the
encroachments of the Channel, and is supposed to have
been about a n3file eastward of the present church^. He
began his episcopate with a characteristic act of Christian
kindness. The king had given him two hundred and
fifty persons, living on the estate, *as bondsmen and
bondswomen : he saved them all, by baptizing them, from
slavery to the devil, and by granting them their liberty,
set them free from the yoke of slavery to man*.' He
set his faithful priest Eappa over the monastery ; ' and
Bede tells us how the pestilence made its way into the
Selsey peninsula^, and carried away many of Wilfrids
attendants, and also of his new converts; one of these
before going to Kangoon ; ib. 14a. Comp. Memoir of Bp. Steere, pp.
154, 168.
^ Eddiy 41. Compare Ethelbert at Canterbury ; above, p. 60.
« See Bede, iv. 13 : ' Quo tempore/ &o. • Such a place is called, by the
Latins, a peninsula; by the Greeks, a cherronesoa.' See Stephens's
Memorials of See of Chichester, p. 15.
' In Camden's time it was visible at low water ; Britann. i. 199. See
Murray's Kent and Sussex, p. 337.
^ Bede, iv. 13: ^£t quoniam ill! rex/ ftc Kemble, Sax. Engl. L 911.
On such manumission of slaves, see Lecky, Europ. Morals, ii. 74, and
above, p. 43. Cp. Council of Celohyth (^Chalk ?) in B16, c. 10 ; Haddan
and Stubbs, iii. 583.
^ It largely infected communities, as at Lastingham, Bede, iii. 93 ;
Lichfield, ib. iv. 3 ; Barking, ib. iv. 7, 8 ; Ely, ib. iv. 19 ; Wearmouth,
Hist Abb. 8 ; Lindisfame and Carlisle, Yit. Cuthb. 37.
as South-Saxon Bishop. 347
being a boy who, on the 5th of August, had a dream chap. x.
which shortly preceded his death, and in consequence
of which that day was thenceforward observed by masses
in memory of King Oswald in this Northumbrian colony
at Selsey, — no other member of which, beside the boy,.
was at that time 'hurried out of the world/ — 'and also
in many other places ^.'
And here let us leave Wilfrid among his South-Saxons.
The strange restraint which had checked Bede's hand in
that part of his narrative which should have described
Wilfrid's suflferings is removed when he haa to write, not
of the magnificent prelate who seemed rather the first than
the second man in Northumbria, but of the exile who knew
so well how to make his own misfortunes * turn out for the
■
furtherance of the Gospel/ * For five years he exercised in
those parts the office of the episcopate, both by words and
by deeds, deservedly honoured by €dP;'*Vith the little |'
cathedral of Selsey instead of York, with the poor simple ; ^
neophytes of Sussex instead of the Northumbrian Church
in its stately organization, with Ethelwalch and Ebba — '
a happy exchange — instead of Egfrid and Ermenburga;
^ Bede, iv. 14. This 'puemlus/ an inmate of the monastery, and a boy
of great simplicity, gentleness, piety, was taken ill of the plague, and was
lying in bed alone, at 7 a. m. on the second of thi-ee days which had been
appointed for a ' triduanum jejunium,' when he seemed to see *■ the blessed
di^fa of the apostles,' Peter and Paul, who, as Bede heard the story, told
him that he would die in grace on that very day, but * had to wait ' until
mass (missae) had been celebrated, that he might receive the viaticum :
and that all the other patients would recover. This had been granted to
the prayers of the king Oswald, beloved of Gk>d, who, in dying, prayed for
aU his nation, and therefore for them. The boy described the two ap-
pearances as having faces ^most pleasant and fair'; Peter was shorn like
a cleric, Paul had a long beard. Eappa, on hearing the tale, consulted his
' annalis codex,' or calendar, ascertained that it was the anniversary of
Maserfield (p. 175), and gave orders that masses should be celebrated ' in
all the oratories of the monastery,' that then all the brethren should
communicate at a mass in the church, and that ' a particle of the oblation *
should be carried to the sick lad, who soon afterwards expired. It is easy
to see how the story grew out of a dream and a ooincidenoe. As it speaks
of the ' viaticum dominioi corporis et sanguinis,' it would seem that here
(if not in CsBdmon's case) the * particle ' was first steeped in the chalice ;
see Book of Beer, p. 90, ^ Corpus cum sanguine ... sit tibl/ &c
' Bede, iv. 13 : * Nam ipse illis in partibus/ &c
348 Wilfrid in Sussex.
CHAP. X. his troubles settling down into the quietness of aiK
' apostleship/ which might for a while seclude the man
whose name had been heard through Europe, but which,
in the general estimate of his life, may be truly said to
constitute its crown. ^^
CHAPTER XI.
It has been natural to treat the first series of Wilfrid's
troubles as one subject, and to pursue it without interrup-
tion ; it is time now to look at the progress of the Church
in various kingdoms since the division of his diocese
in 678.
We meet, in the first instance, with a statement by
Florence of Worcester^, which assigns to 679 a fivefold
partition of the Mercian diocese, the efiect of which was to
establish Bosel as bishop of Worcester, Cuthwin of Lich-
field, Saxulf of Leicester, Ethelwin of ' Siddenacester,' and
i£tla of Dorchester. This, it is said, was done by Theodore
at the request of Ethelred, who was himself prompted by
Oshere, ' king ' of the Hwiccas. But the statement requires
'analysis and criticism^/ Let us see what can be made
good. As to Worcester, Bede tells us ^ that several years
^ In the appendix to his Chronicle : * Cui Hwicciorum,' &c. Oshere,
the alleged promoter of the partition, is referred to in a charter of 734-737
as haying induced Ethelred to give lands to two nuns ; Cod. Dipl. i. 98.
If Florence is correct, Osric must be dated after Oshere, for Osric was in
o£Bce about 690 ; Bede^ iv. 93. On the other hand, the evidence pre-
ponderates in favour of assigning the earlier date to Osric (see above,
p. 397), and placing the accession of Oshere shortly before 693, when he
granted land at * Penitanham ' to abbess Cutswid ; Kemble, Cod. Dipl. i.
41. Bp. Stubbe supposes him to have been succeeded by his tliree sons,
as ' comitesy' about 704 : Cath. of Wore. p. 5.
* Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 198. Florence, says Sir T. D. Hardy, ' is
very good original authority as far as the see of Worcester is concerned ; '
Hon. H. Brit. p. 199. Still, the date of his death is 11 18.
' Bede, iv. 93 : ' De medio nunc dicamus.' He implies, by 'paulo ante'
ftirther on, that Bosel had not a long episcopate. Florence dates its
termination (when, as Bede says, he resigned on account of illness) in 691.
Probably, while bishop, he lived with monks around him, even if his
cathedral ' fiunily ' was not composed entirely of monks; Stubbs, Cath. of
Wore. p. 7. His church was called St. Peter^s ; Kemble, Cod. Dipl. i. 35 ;
Oreen, Hist. Wore. p. 16.
350 Mercian Diocese divided.
CHAP. zi. after this, when Osric was 'king/ or sub-king, of the
Hwiceian district, of which Worcester was the capital,
Bosel was the bishop of that province, having been ap-
pointed when Tatfrid, once a monk of Whitby, had been
elected, and then had died before he could receive consecra-
tion^,— a circumstance which appears in the narrative of
Florence. This enables us to believe that the bishopric of
Worcester — a city which had a British name as Cair
Guilagor ^, and which, says Florence, ' exceeded many other
cities in the height and stateliness of its walls ' — may be
traced back to a time somewhat near 679. Leicester was
also made a bishopric for the Mid- Angles ; but Cuthwin',
not Saxulf, was its first prelate, as Florence himself inti-
mates in his catalogue of bishops : Saxulf retained his seat
at Lichfield. We have heard how Eadhed was sent from
Northumbria to preside over Lindsey: when Lindsey
became again Mercian, Ethelwin, who had spent some
time in Ireland as a student of theology ^, was established
as bishop of Sidnacester, commonly identified with Stow,
• a village between Gainsborough and Lincoln*. Florence
does not mention Hereford: Putta had probably settled
there, and his presence, as that of a bishop who had been
* Bede, iv. 33.
' Nennius, p. 6a. Also written ' Guoeirangon.' Ethelred's charter of
691-a speaks of ' Weogoma' ; Ethelbald's charter of 716 of ^Uigranceastre' ;
another of his, of ' Wigoma' ; bishop Milred's, in 774, of * Weogemaoestre '
(Kemble, Cod. Dipl. i. 35, 80, 108, 15a) ; the Chronicle of 99a, of
' Wigemaceastre.' ' The chieftain of " Hwleoas" had as much authority
in his good city of Worcester as the king of Essex in London ; ' Palgrave,
Angl.-Sax. p. 46. The Mercian capital was Tamworth.
* 'Yirum religiosum ac modeetum,' Flor. There was no regular
succession at Leicester until 737 ; Stubbs, Registr. i6a.
^ Bede, iii. v\\ 'Erant inter hos,' &c. Ethelwin was of noble 'Anglian'
blood, and had come home from Ireland ' bene instructns ' ; his brother
Ethelhun had died there of the pestilence. Ethelwin ruled the church of
Lindsey ' multo tempore nobilissime,' and was succeeded by Edgar ;
Bede, iv. la.
' * Stow, the ancient Sidnacester ; ' Freeman, iL 49. See Camden,
Britan. L 57a : he observes that Eadnoth II, bishop of Doroheeter,
Leicester, and Sidnacester, in the eleventh century, built Hhe church of
Cur Iiady in Stow ' ; and that it was commonly believed * in those parts
that Stow was the mother church to Lincoln.' See, however, Haddan
and Stubbs, iii. ia9, 547. On Stow church as 'eurious and interest-
ing,' cp. Parker, Goth. Arch. p. a5.
IVas Oxfordshire then Mercian? 351
obliged to quit Rochester, would prepare for the erection of chap. xi.
a regular bishopric. The chief difficulty is about Dor-
chester. Florence evidently got his account of iEtla from
a brief statement of Bede S that iiEtla, a monk of Whitby,
became bishop of Dorchester, — to which statement he added
one of his own, that Dorchester was treated in 679 as a
Mercian bishopric for * South Anglia *.' Now, in no other
passage does Bede tell us of a see of Dorchester, distinct
from that of Winchester, while Heddi presided over the
latter church ; and, beside this, we do not know that the
district ecclesiastically dependent on Dorchester was then
in any sense Mercian ^, if it ever did become so before the
battle of Bensington in 777 *. It has been suggested that
the statement of Florence is incorrect, and that Bede's is to
be explained by identifying iBtla with Heddi*. Against
this latter suggestion it is to be urged that Bede could not
have confounded one of the scholarly disciples of Hilda
with a prelate whom he repeatedly names Heddi, and
expressly describes as not learned •. On the whole it seems
not unlikely that, in the weakened and distracted condition
of Wessex, Ethelred might have repeated the policy of
Wulfhere by invading Wessex on the north, annexing
Oxfordshire for the time to Mercia, and installing jiEtla in
the church of St. Birinus''. Very likely Florence erred
in assigning all these arrangements to one time, and to
Oshere what was rather due to a predecessor in the
^ Bede, It. 23 : ' De secundo (£tla> breviter intimandum/ &e.
' Kemble, i. 80. The term ' South-Anglian ' had, however, a wider
application. Thus in Kemble, Cod. Dipl. 1. 96, 100 : < Ethelbald, king not
only of the Mercians, but of all the provinces which are called by the
general name of South-Angles ; ' where the lands referred to are in
Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire ; Pearson, Hist. Maps, p. 4a
' It was certainly West-Saxon under Kynegils in 635. See above, p. 17a
Wulfhere's invasion of Wessex might be merely a raid.
^ When Offa defeated Kynewulf ; Chronicle, a. 777. See Freeman, Old-
Engl. Hist. p. 89 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 130 ; Green, Making of Engl.
P-4I9-
* Mabillon, Ann. Bened. i. 595, distinguishes them.
• Bede, iii. 7 ; iv. la ; v. i8.
^ Dorchester reappears as a Mercian bishopric in 869 : so that the see
of Lincoln, as transferred ftom Dorchester by Bemigius, is thus akin
rather to Lichfield than to Winchester.
352 Saxon Monastery at Glastonbury.
Saxou
monks
settled at
Glaston-
bury.
CHAP. XI. Hwiccian sub-kingship ^, Osric, the nephew of Ethelred,
and apparently the son of Alchfrid of Northumbria. But
it is probable that Theodore, encouraged by his success in
Northumbria, would be eager to carry out his scheme in the
Midlands. It was contemporaneously with these movements
of Church extension in Mercia that the monastery of St. Peter
at Gloucester ^, apparently, like Whitby, a community in-
cluding monks and nuns, was founded, or completed, under
the patronage of Ethelred, and by the munificence of Osric,
the sub-king.
A more illustrious place than any of those now mentioned,
in a purely ecclesiastical sense, received a new endowment
which formed an era in its history. From 658, when Ken-
walch drove the Britons beyond the Parret *, their oldest
sanctuary, ' the isle of Avalon,' had come into Saxon hands.
' The one famous holy place of the conquered Briton which
had lived through the storm of English conquest*/ — ^with
its * Old Church ' originally of woven rods, then covered
with wood and lead ^, was inevitably abandoned by the one
^ See above, p. 397.
' See Monast. Angl. i. 531 ; Hist. Hon. Glouc. i. pp. xiii. Ixxii. 3 ff. (ed.
Hai*t) ; where the date in the so-called charter of Ethelred, 671, is corrected
to 681. Osric is said to have been Ethelred's nephew, although in this
charter he and his brother Oswald, the reputed founder of the monastery
of Pershore, are described only as ' zninistri of noble race * ; a description
fatal to the genuineness of the charter. He is also usually identified with
the Osric who reigned over Northumbria from 718 to 729, for whom see
Bede, v. 23. Now, this king Osric, according to Simeon of Durham. (Dun.
Eccl. i. 13), was son of Aldfrid the Wise, the successor of Egfrid; but, as
bishop Stubbs thinks, he may rather have been the son of Alchfrid their
brother, ' the Disinherited,' who might have placed his children under
the protection of his brother-in-law Ethelred ; see above, p. 193. The
first abbess of Gloucester, according to the local documents, was Kyniburga,
the sister of Osric, apparently named after her mother, Alchfrid's wife,
afterwards abbess of Caistor. She was consecrated, we are told, by bishop
Bosel, and died in 710. Dean Spence's discovery of Osric's remains in
Gloucester cathedral, is described In Good Words for 1892, p. 388 ff.
' Above, p. 2ZO.
* Freeman, 1. 436 ; cp. his Engl. Towns and Districts, p. 82 ff.
" Malmesb. de Antiq. Glaston. Eccl. and Gest. Beg. i. 20. The English
learned to call it ^ Ealdcyrc ' : ^ St. Joseph's chapel ' afterwards rose on its
site, west of the great church. Compare the ' virgae ' used for making
a ' hospitium ' in Hy, Adamn. Vit. Col. ii. 3, and Reeves's note, that Irish
churches were sometimes so constructed, e. g. one at Glendalough. See
above, p. 11.
Saxon Monastery at Glastonbury. 353
race, and reverentially occupied by the other. Saxon eccle- chap. xi.
siastics walked at will over the time-hallowed ground,
ascended the ' Tor of the Archangel ' on the east, looked
northward towards the Mendips, southward towards the
fen called Allermoor^ and all around on similar marshes
with fair green islands rising out of them, as Bekerey or
Little Ireland, and meadowy Ferramere, and Andredesey
* more beautiful than all the rest */ A Saxon community
of monks took possession of ' the wooden basilica ' of the
Virgin, consecrated by the memory of so many real and
legendary saints ^ : the Ynys-vitryn of Celtic speech, after-
wards called Avalon, settled down into its Saxon name of
Glastonbury * : and Bishop Heddi, on July 6, 680, granted
lands in the district, at Lantocal and in the isle of Ferra-
mere, to Hemgils the abbot «, by a deed which in its
business-like brevity puts to shame not a few pompous
pseudo-charters, while its solemn opening formula has
a special emphasis as contrasting the ' change ' of ' the old
order* with the changeless 'reign of our Lord Jesus Christ®.'
We must also apparently assign, to this period the founda-
tion of a West-Saxon monastery within the limits of the
British kingdom of Dumnonia at Exeter '', the ancient Caer
' See the plan in Monast. Angl. vol. i, before p.ii.
' Honast. Angl. i. aa. Yet Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. ii. 91) describes
' Glastonia ' as ' in quodam recessu palustri posita . . . nee situ nee
amoenitate delectabilis.'
' Cp. Malmef>b. Gest. Reg. i. 30.
* Halmesbury's account is, that one Glasting from North Wales followed
his lost BOW until he found her under an apple-tree, near the old chur<rh
in * Yniswytrin,* whence he called the iftle Avallon (Apples' Isle), — unless
it was so called from one Avalloc who dwelt there for seclusion ; Gale, i.- 395.
Glastonbury is in fact *the burgh of the Gl»stings/ a Saxon patronymic ;
Freeman, i. 573. See *Glestingaburg' in Bonif. Ep. 70. Above, p. 11.
* Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 164 ; Kemble, God. Dipl. i. 94 ; Churton,
E. £. Church, p. 113. Afterwards a charter was forged ascribing the
grant of Ferramere, together with 'two smail islands,' toKenwaleh in
670 ; Cod. DipL i. 10.
* ' Begnante et gubemante nos D. n. J. C. . . . Nihil intulimus in hunc
mundum,' &c. These are common formulas : as to the latter, cp. charters
of Ethelbald, Cod. Dipl. i 107, laa. For the foimer, see p. 377.
^ L e. if ' Adestancastre ' in Willibald's Life of St. Boniface, or * Adescan-
eastre ' in Othlon's, is equivalent to *at Eaxancester' or Exeter, as is usually
said : see Pertz, Hon. Germ. Hist. ii. 355. Cp. Mabillon, Act. SS. Ben. iii. a,
A a
/'
/
354 Mission of John the Precentor.
CHAP. XI. Wise For we find that about seven years after 680, this
house, then ruled by an abbot named Wulfard, opened its
doors to receive a boy from the neighbouring Crediton,
whose name of Winfrid was to be lost in the glory of
' St. Boniface, Apostle of Germany and martyr/
To return to Northumbrian affairs. The fifth Bomeward
journey of Benedict Biscop — the fourth, as Bede prefers to
reckon it, taken directly from Britain' — was probably
made five years after the foundation of Wearmouth, and
in the year of Wilfrid's arrival at Rome. He was accom-
panied by ' his fellow-worker ' Ceolf rid, who wished, as
Bede expresses it, ' to learn what was needful ' as to Roman
rules of discipline ^, and to offer up his prayers in Roman
sanctuaries ^ : and Agatho received the pilgrim-abbot with
all honour, and granted him a letter of 'privilege' for
Wearmouth*. Another boon was craved by Benedict,
which in its results affected the whole Church of Eng-
land. Would the Pope send back w^ith him the abbot of
St. Martinis ^, who was also * arch-chanter ' or precentor of
St. Peter's, that he might teach the Weannouth monks
' the system of chanting and reading ' established in the
Apostle's basilica ® ? Benedict's whole heart was absorbed
p. 6 ; Alb. Butler, June 5; Maclear, Ap. Med. Eur. p. no. On the early
history of Exeter, ree freeman's 'Exeter/ p. 5 ff. Winfrid was bom about
680, for he was about seventy-five when martyred in 755. Tradition
names Crediton as his birthplace ; Camden, Britan. i. 39. Fireman
suggests that West- Saxons may have advanced into this part of Doxnnonia
through Dorset, while North Devon was still British. When the boy
prevailed on his father to let him enter a monastery, he was, according
to Mabillon (Ann. Ord. Ben. ii. i5\ about seven years old.
^ Bede, Hist. Abb. 5 ; see too iv. 18. Gp. Haddan and Stubbs, iii. ia6.
^ In Anon. H. Abb. ' desiring to learn the duty of his degree more fully
at Rome than he could in Britain.' Cp. Diet. Chr. B. i. 439.
' Bede, Hist. Abb. 6. ' Adorandi ' seems to have the sense of ' viaiting
with religious reverence ' ; cp. lb. a, 14.
* Bede, iv. 18 : ^ In munimentum libertatis monaaterii, . . . juxta quod
Ecgfridum/ &c. ; Hist Abb. 5, 12. See above, p. 113.
* ' On the Mount,' i. e. the Esquiline : it was founded by pope
Symmachus in honour of SS. Sylvester and Martin.
* ' For a thousand years,' says D^^llinger, ' after the fall of the Western
empire, Rome possessed no school of importance, nor any seat of learning
whose influence was widely spread. A famous singing school existed,
and that was all.' Studies in Europ. Hist., EL T., i. 70.
Mission of John the Precentor. 355
in the welfare of his new foundation ; but Agatho saw that chap. xi.
a much wider purpose might be served by compliance with
this rather bold request. It was, no doubt, a good thing to
establish the Boman ' course ' in a North-English monas-
tery; but it was more important to secure the English
Church, even by superabundant precautions, against the
heresy of the Monoth^lites, which, after long troubling the
East, was soon, as he hoped, to receive its death-blow at
Constantinople ^. Now, if John the Precentor were to go
to Britain, he might carry a copy of the decrees of Pope
Martin's Lateran synod, and communicate them formally
to the English bishops, so as to be able to report on their
theological position, and thus promote the triumph of
orthodoxy *. So it was that, in 680, Benedict and Ceolf rid
escorted John to Gaul, and halted at Tours, where the
monks of St. Martin's own church received them with
kindly hospitality, entreated the abbot of the Roman
'St. Martin's' to visit them on his return-journey, and
furnished him with ' assistants for the work ' which he had
undertaken. It is easy to picture the joyous welcome with
which the party were received at Wearmouth ; the solemn
reading of the ' privilege ' which, as the brethren would be
reminded, had been granted by the Pope at the express
desire of King Egfrid: the delight with which the un-
tra veiled monks would turn over a goodly store of books
of all kinds, brought from Bome to enrich their library ^
and, still more, the fair paintings which were to beautify
their church, — here, those of the Virgin Mother and the
^ See GonsUniine Pogonatus' oyerturee to pope I>onus I (676-678), and
pope Agatho ; Hefele, t. 137 ff., E. T.
' Bede, iy. 18 : ' Unde volens Agatho,' Ac If Agatho had hoped, up
to Easter of 680, to see Theodore in Rome (aee ahove, p. 335), he would
hardly haye made these arrangements at an earlier date.
' One of the books was a 'pandecta' or complete Bible 'of the old
translation (i. e. prior to the Vulgate) ' ; Bede, Hist. Abb. la. Ceolfrid after-
wards caused three 'pandectae' of the Vulgate to be made (perhaps by
copyists brought from Italy). Two of these, acoordiug to his anonymous
biographer (whose work Bede used), he left in his two monasteries ; the
third, which he took with him on his last Homeward journey, intending
to present it to Gregory II, has been identified with the great Codex
Amiatinus at Florence ; cf. Studia Biblica, ii. 973 ff. Gp. Alcuin, Ep. 13,
to the monks of Wearmouth and Jarrow : * Videte librorum thesauros.'
A a 2
356 Council of Hatfield.
CHAP. XI. Apostles, which were to be fixed to a board running across
from wall to wall, — there, scenes from Gospel history to be
hung along the southern wall of the minster, and there,
again, representations of Apocalyptic visions to confront
them on the north \ ' So that,* as Bede says, in a passage
truly ' Gregorian * in tone, ' all who came into the church,
however ignorant of letters, might be able, whichever way
they looked, to contemplate, albeit only in painting, the
ever-lovable countenances of Christ and His saints, or
to dwell with quickened intelligence on the grace of His
Incarnation, or by having as if before their eyes the trial
of the Last Judgement, might remember to be stricter in
examining themselves V The monks, too, would highly
value the privilege of learning the orthodox mode of chant*
ing and reading, under their own roof, from the most
eminent of all choir-masters ^ who, beside his oral lessons,
took the pains to write out for them the whole Roman
scheme of yearly festivals, which was long preserved at
Wearmouth, and copied out for neighbouring monasteries
from time to time *. Nor did the kindly Roman limit his
good offices to Benedict's monks : from ' almost all ' the
religious houses in Northumbria those who had studied
chanting, — probably the elder of them under James the
Chanter, the younger under Eddi Stephen,~came to listen
to John, and many besought him to come and give lessons
in different places in the neighbourhood ^ He also per-
^ Bede, 1. c. : ' Quintum, picturas imaginum sanctarum/ &c. See lingard,
A.-S. Ch. iL 107 ; Qreen, Making of Engl. p. 373. Above, p. 52.
' Bede, I.e.: ' Quatenus intranies ecclesiam,' &c. Observe Bede's ever-
recurring thought of the Last Judgement. See Bede, iv. 34 ; v. la, 13, 14;
Vit. Cuthb. 14 ; Ep. to Egb. i ; and the account of bis last hours.
' The monk who wrote the Anonymous History of the Abbots records
this gratefuUy : ' Qui nos abundnnter ordinem oantandi per ordinem et
viva voce simul et litteris edoouit.' See Bed. Hom. 35. Probably the
youngi^st of all those who heard John chant in the choir of Wearmouth
was Bede himself. The most accomplished chanter among the clergy of
Rome in those days, next to John, was the Syrian Sergtus, who beoame
pope seven years later, and, as pope, introduced into the mass the singing
of the ' Agnus Dei.' Lib. Pontif. ed. Duchesne, i. 376.
* Bede, iv. 18 : ' Ordinem . . . ritumque canendi et legendi,' ftc See
Llngard, A.>S. Ch. ii. 197, on the Roman course of services as observed at
Wearmouth and Jarrow. Op. Duchesne, Origines, p. ^37.
^ John the Deacon says (Vit. Greg. ii. 7, 8) that the Germans or Gauls,
Council of Hatfield. 357
mitted the copyist of the monastery of Wearmouth to ohap. «.
transcribe the Lateran Council's decrees, before he was
called away, in the autumn, to attend the second provincial
synod of the English Church *.
This assembly was called by Theodore in order to certify
the Pope as to the orthodoxy of the Church under his rule^,
and so to add to the testimony of the Western Churches,
now to be brought to bear on the East. It was hardly
likely that the modification of Monophysitism which had
so long disturbed the East should have found supporters in
distant Britain ^ : but Agatho wished to make assurance
doubly sure. The place of the Council was Heathfield or
Hatfield*, which may perhaps be identified withCliff-at-Hoe,
the * Cloveshoch' selected in 673, The day was the 17th
of September, in a year described by the record of the
Council as the tenth of Egfrid, the sixth of Ethelred, the
seventeenth of Aldwulf of East-Anglia, the seventh of
Lothere of Kent, and the eighth indiction*. There is
a slight error in these regnal reckonings, for the September
of 680 was in Lothere*s eighth year and Egf rid s eleventh •.
The other dates point to Sept. 17, 680. Precise as the
record is on other points, it omits the names of the bishops
who attended; but beside them, as at Hertford, other
'teachers* appear to have been present, although not as
partly from * levity of mind,' partly from natural roughness of yoice, could
not retain ' the sweetness of the Gregorian melody,' and that to remedy
this defect, John the Roman chanter was sent by Vitalian through Gaul
into Britain, ' qui circumquaque posit<arum ecclesiarum filios ad pristinam
cantilenae dulcedinem revocans, tam per se quam per suos discipulos
multis annis Romanae doctrinae regulam consenravit.'
' Bede, iy. i8 : ^ Nam et synodum ... in prae&to . . . monasterio trans-
scribendam oommodavit.'
' Bede, L c : ' Unde Yolens Agatho,' &c.
' It had, indeed, been brought into Gaul, and promptly condemned,
forty years before ; Hefele, Councils, ▼. 69, E. T. ; Mansi, x. 759.
* For this council, see Bede, iv. 17 ; Mansi, xi. 175 ; Wilkins, i. 51 ;
Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 141. Collier calls it * the council at Hatfield or
Clyif near Rochester,' i. 249. Above, p. 980.
* See L'Art de Verifier, i. 14a ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii 144 ; above,
p. 48.
* The latter came to the throne in February, 670; the former in
July, 673.
r
358 Council of Hatfield.
HAP. XI. constituent members of the synod ^ According to the
symbolic precedent of other and grander Councils^, the
book of the Gospels was displayed, apparently on a raised
seat or desk, in the centre of the assembly. John the
Precentor attended as commissary from the Pope, and pro-
duced the Lateran dogmatic decrees, which were read.
They began by a statement of the Incarnation, adopted
from the Chalcedonian exposition of faith, but enlarged
by an assertion of * two natural wills ' and ' two natural
energies ' or activities ^, Divine and human, existing har-
moniously in the one Christ, who, being both God and Man,
must have spheres of will and action corresponding to His
two Natures, without prejudice to the indivisible unity
of His Person ^ Then followed sixteen anathematisms
whereby Pope Martin had endeavoured to guard this faith
in detaiP: and four others explicitly enforcing the theology
of the Five Oecumenical Councils which had then been
^ Toled. IV. c. 4. See Smith's Bede, p. 744 : ^ Non ideo . . . ut sua
auvtoritate decreta yel facerent yel firmarent/ &o.
* As the council of Ephesus (Cyril, Apolog.)» &nd that of Ghalcedon
;Kansi, vi. 580). Also Martin I's Lateran council ; Mansi, x. 866.
^ The controversy arose out of an attempt by Sergius, patriarch of Con-
stantinople, to reconcile the Honophysites to the Church by the formula
of 'one MpTftia* or kind of action, in the God-Han (Hefele, y. 5 ff., E. T.).
This began somewhat before a. d. 619. See above, p. 953.
* It was urged that will is the property of a person. It is rather the
property of a nature, but exercised by a person on that nature. Herein
consists the original mystery of the Incarnation, that the one Divine Son
of God could, as incarnate, live in two spheres of being — that what we
call manhood could exist in the Christ without the basis of a human
personality. Cp. Liddon, Bamp. Lect. p. 96a.
* E. g. NestorianiBm was excluded by a repeated description of the
Blessed Virgin as * Dei genitrix,' and by the assertion thot God the Word,
one of the Holy Trinity, had come down from heaven and been incarnate.
The Cyrilline phrase, * One tf^vtrts incarnate of God the Word,' though it
might seem prima facie to favour Monophysitism, was adopted with an
explanation which did not, however, bring out its true * Cyrilline ' sense,
as equivalent, in effect, to * One Person,' &c. The two wills were affirmed,
because Christ willed in both His natures to save us ; and similarly the
two * activities.' Martin meant to say, 'If He did not, in His human
sphere of being, really desire to work out our salvation, and really give
Himself up for that purpose,— if such willing and acting took place
merdy in the sphere of His Godhead, — then He is not our Saviour as God
and Man.' He also guards the sense of 'theandric activity ' : it must be
acknowledged to be ' twofold,' not single : see Robertson, H. Ch. ii. 493.
Council of Hatfield. 359
holden, and condemning by name twenty-six ' heretics,' chap, xr,
among whom Origen was included ^ but the authors of the
Monothelite theory, Theodore of Pharan, Cyrus of Alexan-
dria, Sergius* and Pyrrhus and Paul of Constantinople,
together with the * impious ' Ecthesis of Heraclius and the
* wicked ' Type of Constans ^ were branded with specially
emphatic condemnation. The record of the Council pf
Hatfield tells us that its members, firmly adhering to the
teaching delivered by Christ to His original disciples, to
* the Creed of the holy (Nicene) fathers,' to * all the holy and
universal synods,' and to 'the whole choir of approved
doctors of the Catholic Church,' confessed the Holy Trinity,
that is, ' the One Qod in three consubstantial Subsistences ^
or Persons, of equal glory and honour ' (words taken from
the Lateran document^); and after some similar affirma-
tions omitted by Bede, the statement of faith went on to
acknowledge the Five Councils, and the Lateran Council
held ' in the time of the blessed Pope Martin ^.' * And we
^ He had been anathematized in a council at Constantinople (in 543 ?).
See Robertson, ii. 2198 ; Hefele, b. 13. s. 257.
' Pope Honorius' letters to him were passed oyer.
' The ' Ecthesis ' was promulgated, at the uigency of Sergins, who him-
self composed it, in the latter part of 638 : it acknowledges the two
natures in the one Person of Christ ; but it condemns the phrase ' two
activities,' as if inconsistent with the truth that the Energizer was One,
and as appearing to many to imply two wills acHng against Mch other : and
on this account it affirms * one will.' It also prohibits the phrase * one
actiyity,* as appearing to some to deny ' the two natures personally united
in Christ our God.' The *• Type ' was promulgated ten years later, in 648,
by the advice of the Monothelite patriarch Paul. Jt endeavoured to
quench the whole controversy, without reflecting on the orthodoxy of
either side : it proscribed, for peace' sake, the phrases * two wUls,* * one
will,* * two activities,' ' one activity,' and all explanations of received
language in the sense of any of these formulaa ' This supposed impar-
tiality,' says Hefele, v. 97, Ms the principal difference between the
"Typus and the Ecthesis.* See them in Mansi, x. 99a, 1099. Next year,
Martin held his synod. His sufferings, and those of Maximus, which,
like his, amounted to martyrdom, followed in 653-669.
* ^ Subsistentiis,' for the Greek bwoffTdatci, * vel personis.' The Roman
council of 680 also used subsistentia for h3rposta8is or person ; Mansi,
xi. 990.
* See it in Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 146 : ' Omnes sanctae . . . synodi,
et omnia probabilium oatholioae ecclesiae doctorum chorus.' 'Tribus
subsistentiis,' Ac
* It is added, 'imperante Constantino piissimo.* So in the Lateran
360 Question of the Double Procession.
CHAP. n. glorify our Lord Jesus even as they glorified Him, neither
adding nor taking away anything. And we anathematize,
with heart imd mouth, those whom they imathematized,
and receive those whom they received ; glorifying Grod the
Father without an origin *, and His only-begotten Son,
begotten of the Father before the ages, and the Holy Spirit
proceeding ineffably from the Father wnd the Son * ; even
as the above-mentioned holy apostles, prophets, and doctors
have proclaimed. And we all subscribe, who with Theodore
the archbishop have expounded the Catholic faith.'
These words suggest an important question. Theodore
and his brethren here include in their ' exposition ' a plain
assertion of the Double Procession of the Holy Spirit. To
refer the words, 'and the Son,' to the -mission of the Holy
Spirit as Paraclete, would be to ignore the phrase ' ineff-
ably *,* which clearly points to an eternal relation within
the life of the Godhead. Now, the Council of a hundred
and twenty-five bishops, held by Agatho in the spring of
this same year, had omitted all reference to the Double
Procession in its solemn exposition of the 'limits' of the
Catholic Faith ^. How came the English Council to act
differently? It has been suggested that the adoption of
' et Filio,' by a * philosophical ' archbishop of Eastern birth
and Eastern Church training, tends to show that the
Eastern Church of his time was not averse to this addition
to that ' Constantinopolitan ' recension of the Creed, which
had been solemnly accepted, together with its original
synod, Ck>ncttan8 is called Con»tantine. Bury 'suspects' that this was
really his name ; ii. 385.
' 'Sine initio : * alluding to the distinction of the Father as the Unbe-
gotten, as * a nullo.' In the formulas of the third, sixth, and oleyenth
councils of Toledo, the phrase is applied to the Son, meaning 'without
beginning,' ' existing from eternity/ as in Rufinus in Symb. 6. See
Treatises of St. AthanasiuSj Lib. Fatfa., ii. 513, on.<Spx4*
* ' Prooedentem ex Patre et FUio inenarrabiliter.'
' On this confessed inadequacy of human language to the full expreeeion
of Divine truth, compare S. Aug. de Trin. v. s. xo; vii. s. 7, 9, 11 ; and
eleventh council of Toled., praef. : ' Pater . . . qui de ineffabili substantia
Filium ineifabiliter genuit;' Mansi, xi. 133. Compare 'the ineffable
union/ in seventh anath. of the fifth general council, Mausi, ix. 381.
* Mansi, xi. 99a
Question of the Double Procession. 361
Nicene form, by the Council of Chalcedon. But a much chap. xi.
more probable explanation lies ready at hand^. Abbot
Hadrian was, as we have seen, sent to Britain with
Theodore in the capacity of his theological adviser; and
he, aj9 an African, would have a natural predilection for
the theological language of St. Augustine, which contains
explicit assertions to the same effect ^ ; and would desire
the English Council to follow the precedent of Spanish
Councils, as the great Council called the third of Toledo
in 589 ^ the fourth in 633 *, the sixth in 638 *, the eighth
ill 653 *, the eleventh in 675 "^ — a precedent largely due to
the ignorance of Spanish prelates as to the true text of the
Creed, and to the 'firm footing® ' already obtained in that
Church for what was originally a gloss intended to strike
at Visigothic Arianism by emphasizing the doctrine of
a coequal and consubstantial Son.
So ended the Council of Hatfield, without any reference
to the case of the great prelate who a few months before
had answered at Rome: for the orthodoxy of the English
bishops, and who in this very autumn was experiencing in
Northumbria the full bitterness of an aggravated wrong.
' SweU), Doctrine of the Pfocession, p. 190. As he ohserves, it does not
follow that the council receiyed the ^ interpolation ' as part of the creed.
^ S. Aug. de Trin. xv. s. 29 : ^ Ideo enim addidi ' (as to the Spirit's pro-
ceeding from the Father) * prindpalitery quia et de Filio Spiritus Sanctus
procedere reperitur . . . Sic ergo eum genuit, ut etiam de illo Donum com-
mune procederet, et Spiritus Sanctus Spiritus esset amborum.* Compare
ib. XY. s. 47 ; and ib. iv. s. 39, * Nee posstimus dicere quod Spiritus
Sanctus et a Filio non procedat, neque enim frustra idem Spiritus et
Patris et Filii Spiritus dicitur.' This is in a passage in which the Father
is owned to be the * principium ' of the Godhead. So ib. y. s. 15 : ' Patrem
et Filium principium esse Spiritus Sancti* So, a century later, Ferrandus
of Carthage, £p. 4 (Galland. Bibl. xi 355), ' Catholici . . • de Patre et
Filio Spiritum Sanctum procedere sentiunt;' and Ep. 7, *Proprium
Spiritus Sancti de utroque procedere.' Cp. Greg. Tur. H. £. Fr. prol.
' Mansi, ix. 978, ' et a Filio/ in the ' tome '; ib. 98a, in the text of the
creed ; ib. 985, * et Filio/ in the 3rd canon.
* Ib. X. 615, ^et Filio ;' in a dogmatic statement.
* Ib. X. 669, * Filioque ; ' in a dogmatic statement.
* Ib. X. 1 210, 'et Filio ; * in the text of the creed.
^ Ib. xi. 133, * ab utrisque/ in a dogmatic statement; but a later sentence
appears to explain 'procesaiase ' by 'missus.'
* Swete, p. 170.
362 Death of John the Precentor.
CHAP. XI. At Hatfield, every one seems to have ignored his name,
though no one can have forgotten it^. The Roman Pre-
centor must have heard of the story ; one would think that
he must have been at Rome when judgement was given on
the appeal. But it did not lie in his commission to enter
on such matters: and if any suffragan bishop had been
minded to pronounce the name of Wilfrid, he would have
lieen summarily put down by the autocratic president.
Shortly after the Council, John set forth on his return,
duly provided with an authenticated copy of the proceed-
ings *. But he never again saw his abbey of St. Martin ;
he never again 'ruled the choir' above the grave of the
chief Apostle. He fell sick in Gaul, and died; and his
promise to the good monks of Tours that he would stay
with them on his homeward journey was fulfilled in
strangely mournful fashion by their solemn reception and
interment of his corpse ^ The document in his charge was
forwarded to Rome, and gave much content to the Pope
and ' to all who heard it read,* as a proof of * the Catholic
belief of the English peopled' Agatho was at this time
engaged in watching, by correspondence, the proceedings
of the great Council, reckoned as the Sixth Oecumenical **,
which had assembled under the personal presidency of the
Emperor on the 7th of November, and continued its sessions
until the September of 681.
Death of During those November days a life was ebbing out,
which had for years represented in Northumbria the unity
of the Church of Egfrid and Wilfrid with the Church of
Edwin and Paulinus. A long and weaary illness had broken
down the strength of the great abbess of Whitby; yet she
^ The Peterborough forger, who^e account of the proceedings occurs in
the Chronicle for 675, makes the Witan assemble at Hatfield to receiye
from Wilfrid a * privilege* sent by Agatho in favour of the abbey of
Medeshamstede, whereupon king Ethelred ratifies and enlarges all former
grants, and the act is attestc d by Theodore, and by Wilfrid, ' archbishop
of York.'
' Bedc, iv. x8 : ' Datumque illi exemplar.*
' Bede, I.e.: * Verum ille patriam revertens/ &c.
* Bede, 1. c : ^ Exemplum catholicae fidei Anglorum . . « gratantiasime
exceptum.'
^ See Mansi, zi. 207.
Death of Hilda. 363
persisted in doing what work she could ^ until, in the chap. xi.
seventh year of her infirmity, in the night of the 17th of
November, 680, 'when her pain had struck inward/ as
Bede expresses it, she felt that her hour was at last come.
It was 'about the cock-crowing' when she sent for 'the
viaticum of the most Holy Communion,' received it with
the 'handmaids of Christ' belonging to the monastery,
uttered her last admonitions to ' live in evangelical peace
with each other, and indeed with all, and while uttering
them looked cheerfully on death, or rather, if I may use
the Lord's words, passed from death unto life*.' Bede
then describes a 'beautiful harmony of events, whereby,
while some were beholding her departure from this life*"*,
others were being made cognizant of her entrance into the
perpetual life of souls.' Thirteen miles from Whitby, and
three miles to the west of Scarborough, lies Hackness,
where in that very year Hilda had founded a dependent
house, under the government of Frigyd. Among its in-
mates was Begu*, a nun of more than thirty years'
standing, who in her dream that night saw Hilda's soul
'guided by angels to the threshold of eternal light,' and
thereupon aroused the prioress, who assembled the other
nuns in the church, and bade them 'say prayers and
psalms^ for the soul of the Mother.' In the morning
arrived some monks from Whitby to announce the great
bereavement. ' We know it already,' said the inmates of
Hackness : and they then, on inquiry, ascertained that the
hour of Begu's dream had been the hour of Hilda's death ^.
^ Bede, iv. 93 : < In quo toto tempore nunquam . . . gregem . . . docere
praetermittebat,' &o. He quotes 9 Cor. xii. 9.
' lb. * Septimo ergo,' Ac. See John v. 94. Op. Bede, iv. 38, Hist. Abb. 11.
' lb. * Pulchraque rerum concordia,' &c
* There is no ground for identifying this Yorkshire nun with the Bega
who came l^rom Irehind, and founded a religious house on the coast of
Cumberland, and whose name clings to the noble church, the little
adjacent town, and the ' towering headlands * of St. Bees. It is yet more
futile to see in Begu the Heiu who preceded Hilda at Hartlepool.
* Compare Bede, iii. a, on the psalms said at Heavenfield for the soul of
St. Oswald ; cp. v. 14. Above, p. 301. It appears from Bede's story that
the passing-bell was usually tolled immediately afier a death : op. Lingard,
A.-S. Ch. ii. 48.
* Bede adds that at Whitby one of the younger sLsters, who loved the
364 Bishopric at Abercorn.
CHAP. XI. Hilda was succeeded in the abbacy by the princess-nun
Elfled, who had been given into her charge as a mere
infant before the foundation of Whitby, and just after the
victory of Winwidfield^.
We do not find in the account of the synod of Hatfield
any mention of the subject which was adjourned from that
of Hertford, but had been to a considerable extent pre-
sented during the interval in the form of an accomplished
fact In the year after the Council, however, a fresh
opportunity for diocesan subdivision presented itself to
Theodore. Eata gave up Hexham to Tunbert, — whom we
have met with as the kinsman, and for a time the monastic
superior, of Ceolfrid, — and retained for himself his own
Bishopric Lindisfame*. And a new see was established on the
lorn. northern frontier of the realm> in a monastery at Abercorn
on the Firth of Forth, west of the- present Queensferry.
The place is described by Bede, in his first book, as ' about
two miles' to the east of 'a spot called in the Pictish
language Peanfahel,' whence the last wall built by the
Britons * took its course westwards '^ * ; in the fourth book,
as within the territory of the English, but near the arm of
the sea which divides their lands from those of the Picts ^.
Egfrid's previous successes over the Picts had seemed to
Mother ' with intense affection,' being in a. distant part of the convent
reserved for novices, had a similar dream at the same hour, and told
it to her companions before the rest of the community knew of the
death. But this seems inconsistent with Bede's account of Hilda^s last
Communion and farewell address.
^ Bede, iii. 94. See a letter of hers, Bonifac. Ep. iia. Her mother
Eanfled, Oswy's widow, was in some way associated with her in the abbacy.
^ Bede, iv. 19 : ' Qui etiam post tres abscessionis Vilfridi annos,' &c.
' Bede, i. 19 : ' Incipit autem duorum ferme millium spatio a mona-
hterlo Aebbercurnig/ &c. On ' Peanfahel * see Robertson, ScotL under
Early Kings, iL 380, and Skene, Celtic Scotl. i. 918; also Rhys, Celt
Brit p. 153, that the name is ' Brythonic,' itto ' Goidelic ' (Oaelic) form
being Kennail. The two former writers consider the Picts to have been
Gaelic Celts, akin to the Irish Picts or Cruithnigh, otherwise Cruithne,
on whom see Skene, i. 131. The third considers that the name Picts
' probably mobt strictly applied to the non-Celtic natives,' but was
' never perhaps distinctive of race,* p. 159.
* Bede, iv. 96 : cp. 19. In the App. to Florence, Trumwine is named as
bishop of Candida Casa. This is a strange error. That see (cp. p. 15)
was not revived until shortly before 731 ; Bede, v. 33.
Foundation of J arrow. 365
confirm the Northumbrian supremacy; and it wajs natural chap. xz.
to employ a religious house within a short distance of their
own territory^ as a base of missionary operations among
them, and perhaps as a centre of episcopal supervision for
part of Lothian ^ ; and Trumwine was consecrated for this
outpost of the English Church.
And while that Church was thus * lengthening her cords ' Founda-
northwards, the great monastic work of Benedict Biscop ja^ow.
was developing itself into a ivbw foundation on the south
bank of the Tyne. There lay a domain of forty hydes,
situate on the 'Gyrwy/ literally a marsh (as we see in
the name of the Gyrvians of Cambridgeshire^), but here
denoting the 'Slake* or smooth* bay, where the king's
ships were wont to ride at anchor. The old word lives
in that name of Jarrow which is for ever illustrious from
its association with Bede. This estate was given to
Benedict by Egfrid shortly after his return home with
John the Precentor, that is, apparently, in the autumn of
680*. The king 'saw that his former grants had been
well and profitably bestowed ® ' : he could reasonably hope
^ The proper ' Pictland ' included at least the whole of Eastern Scotland
from the Firth of Forth northwards, and by far the larger portion
of the Highlands ; it bordered westward on the territory of the Dalriads
or Soots from Ireland; Burton, i. Z83: cp. Robertson, ii. 371, Skene,
L aaS ff. But the name *Picts' was applied to tribes settled south
of the Forth ; Skene, i. 131, 938. The great Northumbrian kings deprived
them of independence : they regained it in 685. Robertson explains the
'terram Pictorum qui Niduari vocantur' in Bede*s Yit. Guthb. ii, as
the neighbourhood of Abemethy, ii. 383, where a Pictish king Nechtan,
probably the Nechtan of Bede, v. ai, dedicated a church ; but Skene
understands it of the district of the river Nith, i. 133 ; with reference
to the Picts of Galloway : so Rhys, Ce^t Brit. p. 2ao.
' It seems probable that advantage would be taken of this new founda-
tion to relieve Lindisfame of part of its charge in Lothian. The ' Historia
de S. Cuthberto/ after narrating the appointment of Cuthbert to the see
of Lindisfame, marks the northern boundary of the diocese as a line from
Lammermoor to Eskmouth ; Sim. Op. i. 199.
' See above, p. a86.
* I.e. the < sleek' bay. <Wira . . . qui . . . naves serena inveetas
aura plaeidi ostii exoipit gremio ; ' Malmesb. G. Reg. i. 3.
* * Eight years/ says the Anon. Hist. (Bed. Op. vi. 419), < after they had
begun to found ' Wearmouth this reckoning begins from Benedict's return
home in 67a. Above, p. 306.
* Bede Hist. Abb. 6 : * Quia bene se ao fructuose donasM oonspexit.'
366 Foundation of Jarrow.
(HAP. zi. that the new endowment would be equally satisfactory, but
could never have foreseen the glory which was to rest upon
it. Visit the place as it is, and on your way to the ancient
church ^ (now excellently cared for), you see only a crowd
of mean cottages occupied by pitmen, and enveloped in
a murky atmosphere : a strange contrast to the appearance
which it must have presented when, 'a year after*' the
land had been obtained, that is, in the autumn of 681, the
buildings actually necessary for conventual life^ were so
far completed that twenty-two inmates of Wearmouth,
* ten of them being already tonsured, and twelve still
awaiting the privilege of the tonsure*,' were conducted
by Ceolfrid as their abbot to take possession of their new
home at Jarrow. This house 'of St. Paul' was to be united
with St. Peter's at Wearmouth in * the brotherly fellowship
of the first Apostles,' so that the two should be virtually
'one monastery* of SS. Peter and Paul situated in two
places,' the inmates of both being bound together by
'a common and perpetual affection and intimacy,' and
rendered as inseparable as the body and the head of
a living man. The building of the abbey church was not
taken in hand immediately •, as in the case of Wearmouth,
but in the third year from the foundation of the monastery;
yet, in spite of the small number of workmen employed, it
^ Its chancel contains some portions of the original structure ; but on
this point J. H. Parker (Introd. Goth. Archit. p. 36) speaks less unre-
servedly than Fi^eeman (N. Gonq. y. 899). < Bede's chair/ in the sanctuary,
is not authentic
' So Bede, 1. c. In Anon. Hist. Abb., 'locum primis autumni absoes-
sum ' may be corrected to ' locum priore autumno concessum.'
' Anon. Hist. Abb.
* * Tonsurae adhuo gratiam exspectantibus ; ' Anon. Hist. Abb. Bede
is less exact : ' Monks in number about seventeen.' ' By no means all of
them were able to chant, still less to read in church, or to recite antiplions
or responsories ; but they made rapid progress, through their monastic
zeal, and the example of their ruler's assiduity ; ' Anon. Hist.
3 Bede, Hist. Abb. la : * Sicut rectius dicere po&sumus, in duobus lods
posito uni monasterio beatorum . . . Petri et Pauli.' See ib. 6, ' ut sicut
corpus a capite/ &c. ; and y. 24, * monasterii . . . Petri et Pauli quod est
ad Yiuraemuda et Ingyruum.' ' Alcuin, in 793, writes ' fratribus Wirensis
ecclesiae et Gyrvensis/ as forming one 'oongregatio ' ; Ep. 13.
* See Anon. Hist. Abb. The work began at the spot 'where Egfrid
himself had fixed on the site for the altar.'
Bede. 367
was finished in the second year from the commencement ; chap. xi.
so that, according to an ancient inscription once visible on
the wall of Jarrow church, on the 9th of the Calends of
May, i. e. the 23rd, in the fifteenth year of Egfrid's reign,
and the fourth of Ceolfrid's abbacy, — that is, on April 23,
684 \ — the 'dedication of the basilica of St. Paul was
solemnized.' Among the twelve untonsured monastic Bed®,
colonists was a little boy of about eight, who had been
bom, in 673 ^, on the lands which very shortly afterwards
were granted to Benedict Biscop for the foundation of
Wearmouth abbey. The child Baeda (a namesake of an
ancient prince of lindsey ^, and also of a priest accustomed
to attend upon Cuthbert*, was ' given '^ by the care of his
kinsfolk to abbot Benedict,' when he was ' seven years old,
to be educated.' From that day forward he lived under
monastic rule as a member of the community, being taken
by Ceolfrid to Jarrow about a year after he had been
received at Wearmouth. There lay before him, at that
date, some fifty-four years*, which were to be almost
eventless in regard to his personal history, and unmarked
^ Bgfrid's fourteenth year ended in the February of 684. A copy of the
inscription is in the north porch of the church. See it in Bp. Browne's
Conversion of the Heptarchy, p. 209.
* Bede was in his fifty*ninth year (so he teUs us) when he wrote the
precious little autobiography which follows the epitome of events in v. 24.
Now that epitome, like the History proper (see v. 23, end), ends in a. n.
731. And there is no reason to think that the autobiography was written
a year later. If, then, he had completed fifty-eight years in 731, he was
bom in 673. So Mabillon in his ' Elogium,' in Smith's Bede, p. 799.
So langard, A.-S. Oh. ii. 189. Plummer says 672 or 673. The 'anonymous
pre8b3rter's ' Life of Bede wrongly assigns the year 677. So Simeon, Dun.
Eccl. i. 8.
' Florence, App. See Moberly, p. xii, on this * Beda,' father of < Biscop,'
and on Benedict Biscop as called 'Baducing' by Eddi. It has been
suggested that Bede was not an Angle, but a Celt, perhaps a ' Pict of
Oalloway.' But no writer not of English blood could exhibit so thoroughly
English a tone. H's sympathy with the Picts f iv. 26^, like his sympathy
with the insurgent Mercians (iii. 24^, shows merely that his love of justice
was stronger than his Northumbrian patriotism.
* ' Major Beda ; ' Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 37.
* < Datus sum ; ' Bede, y. 24. See above, p. 201. For the routine
of a boy's life in a monastery, see Turner, iii. 18.
* He died on the afternoon of Wednesday, the eve of the Ascension,
1^7 95, 735, and after the feast had ritually begun.
368 Bede.
CHAP. XT. by anything which could associate him with what may be
called the political history of his Church. We seem to be
looking, not on a landscape of grand and varied outline,
but on some rich level land watered by soft streams and
reposing in broad sunlight. There is monotony, but it is
the monotony of tranquil, regular, and nobly fruitful work.
Ever since the lad began his Scriptural studies under the
care of Trumbert, a monk who had been trained by Chad ',
and other such instructors, he showed the true spirit of
a Christian scholar. He studied with unremitting industry,
and with the dutiful single-heartedness of one who knew
that he had to form himself into a teacher, — that this was
the path in which he was appointed to walk, the sphere in
which he was to work for the glory of God and the good
of his fellow-men. He has no literary ambition, although
he enjoys his work as keenly as a poet or an original
thinker might rejoice in the outpouring of verse or the
construction of theory: 'I ever found it sweet,* he says,
looking back upon those years of happy labour, * to learn,
or to teach, or to write ^.' In one sense, it is true, he ' is
original in nothing^'; but looking at him as a literary
phenomenon rising up all at once in a remote comer of
the England of his time, he is one of the most original
personages in history. And he is more, — he is one of
the most admirable and lovable. Our first truly national
scholar and author, the father of our history, the man in
whom our ' literature strikes its roots, in whom,' although
he never saw foreign countries, ' the whole learning of his
age seemed to be summed up *,* the ' adapter of the sacred
^ Bede, iv. 3 : ' Sicut mihi frater quidam de eis qui me in Scripturis
erudiebant,' kc. During these boyish studies, he fell in with the work
of a ' ohronographus haeresiarches ' of the fourth century ; £p. 3, to
Plegwin, Op. i. 151.
^ Bede, v. 24 : ^ Amid ' monastic dutie?, ' semper aut discere, aut docere,
aut scribere, dulce habui.' See Alcuin, Ep. T3 : * Becogitate nobilissimum
nostri temporis magistrum Bedam . . . quale habuit in juventute disoendi
studium.*
' Chr. Remembrancer, No. 52, p. 344 (April, 1846).
^ See Turner, iii. 408, and the worthy estimate in Green's Making of
EDgl. pp. 399-404. Aldhelm, of course, preceded him as a scholar, but
he has no permanent connexion with English literature. See the minute
Bede. 369
lore of the ' ancient ' Church to the peculiar wants of his chap. xr.
nation ^/ conspicuous, as a narrator, for honest carefulness^,
and by the vivid sympathy which makes incident or story
so luminous under his touch ^, Bede is throughout the man
of patriotic feeling, who loves old English songs*, and hates
whatever enfeebles his country or degrades the national
life * ; — ^the man of warm heart, whose affections go out to
friends and pupils, who is spoken of as a ' dear father ' and
a 'most beloved master*,* — and the man of thoroughly pious
soul, 'who shudders * when ignorantly charged with heresy*^,
calls sin by its right name in monks or prelates ^, and lives
in the thought of Divine judgement and Divine mercy ^;
references to classical writers in Bede's ' De Orthographia,' where also it
appears that he had studied Greek : compare the " De Retract. Act./ And
the ' Be Arte Metrica,' and the * De Tropis,' &c. Chronological points had
a great attraction for him, especially as bearing on the question of Easter.
His erudition did not, indeed, preserve liim from some errors then
current His style -is remarkably free from the pedantic affectations
which disfigure that of Aldhelm. On his learning, cf. Hodgkin, vi. 429.
^ Chr. Remembr. 1. c.
' 'An extremely honest narrator, with a strong sagacity for finding
historical truth ;' Burton, Hist. Scot!, i. 68. Cp. Diet. Chr. Biogr., i. 301 ;
Green, p. 403; Skene, ii. 44. Goldwin Smith, in his collected 'Lectures
and Essays,' calls Bede's work < the highest product of that memorable
burst of Saxon intellect which followed the conversion, — a work not
untainted by miracle and legend, but most remarkable for its historical
qualities, as well as for its mild and liberal Christianity.' For his honesty
as to Biblical difficulties, e. g. that of the *' second Cainan,' see his comment
on Luke iii. 36, Prolog, in Exp. Act., Praef. de Retract. Act., and Ep. to
Plegwin« On his regard for ' textual criticism ' cp. Plummer, i. p. liv.
' It cannot indeed be denied that he is not infrequently wrong in his
dates (e. g. i. 6 ; ii 5 ; iii. 4, &c.) and involved in his way of telling a story
(^e. g. as to SS. Aldan, Oswald, Fursey, Cuthbert). His credulity as to
wonders connected with saints, &c., belongs to the ecclesiastical mind of
his age ; but he is oarefiil to specify his evideuce, as in iii. 9, la, 16, 27 ;
iv. 7, 14, as, as, 3a ; v. i, a, 6, la ; V. C. 30, 31, 36. The * Excerpta ' which
cite a prediction about the ' Colysaeus ' (Colosseum) are iiot his.
* * Erat doctus in nostris carminibus ; ' Cuthbert's account of his death.
Bed. Op. i. p. clxiy. He knew the hymns of Ambrose, Sedulius, &c. ; De
Art. Metr. 11, &c. But his own hymns are rather poor ; one is in iv. ao.
' Ep. to Egbert, 6, 7.
* See Cuthbert, as above. Cp. De Arte Metrica, fin. ; Ep. 13. 13.
^ £p. 3, to Plegwin (a-d. 707). This charge meant that he had denied
the Incarnation to have taken place in the sixth age of the world. Cp.
Ep. 14. He is vehement against Julian the Pelagian ; In Cant. i.
* Bede, iv. as ; v. 14. Ep. to Egb. a, 3, &c., and De Temp. Ratione, c. 68.
* See above, p. 356. Afflictions, in Bede*8 eyes, were often ^grace-tokens.'
Bb
370 Bede.
CHAP. XI. who describes himself through life as ' rejoicing to serve
the Supreme Loving-kindness*/ and, student as he is,
comes regularly to the daily offices ^ and is supposed to
have said in his sweet way that the angels must not find
him absent * ; who closes his History with a thanksgiving
to the 'good Jesus' for the 'sweet draught' of Divine
knowledge, and a prayer to be brought safe to the Divine
' Fountain of all wisdom * ' ; who in his last hours combines
a loving trust in God and a ' desire to be with Christ ' with
a sense of the awfulness of the * need-fare ' and the Doom *;
who spends his last minutes of working power in dictating
an English version of St. John's Gospel*, calls his tasks
'finished' when the last sentence has been written, and
See Hist. Abb. 9, ' Divtna utnimque pietas temponJi aegritadine proetravit
in lectuxn ; ' cp. iv. 9, 33 (quoting 2 Cor. xii. 9"^, 99, 31 ; and Ep. 6, that
'adversa' are to be 'endured quasi a justo judice et pio patre irrogata
flagella,' &e. In one striking passage he speaks of ' godly fear' as passing
on into * godly love,' iv. 25.
^ 'Supernae pietati deservire gaudeo,' v. 24. Among his last words
were, ' Bene mihi pius Judex vitam meam praevidit.' ' I never saw or
heard of any one who was so diligent in rendering thanks to the living
God ;' Outhbert. See his * Psalter,' and Plummer, i. p. Izv fL
' * Quotidianam cantandi in ecclesia curam ; ' Bede, v. 24. See above,
p. 288. Cp. Bede, iv. 19 ; Hist. Abb. 13 ; Horn. 8 fin., and 40 fin.
' See Alcuin, Ep. 219 (Op. ed. Froben. i. 282) : 'Fertur dixisse Bedam,
" Scio angelos visitare oanonicas horas . . . quid si ibi me non inveniunt
inter fratres ? Nonne dicere habent, Ubi est Beda ? " ' Quoted in Haddan
and Stubbs, iii. 471. See above, p. 315.
^ ' Teque deprecor, bone Jesu,' &c. ; Bede, v. 24. Cp. the verses in I>e
Loc. Sanct. 19, and Vit. Cuthb. 42 ; Hom. 34 and 42, fin. Even when
treating of the changes of the moon, he cannot help alluding to 'illam
vitam . . . beatissimam, quando erit lux lunae sicut lux solis ' (Isa. xxx.
26) ; De Temp. Rat. 43.
' Cuthbert, as above. He ' recited verses in our tongue,' which may
be thus rendered : —
'Man, that needs from hence must go,
Too much thought can ne'er bestow,
Pondering, ere he pass away,
Whether, after life's last day.
Good or ill, in righteous meed,
' For bis soul shall be decreed.'
He repeated both Heb. x. 31 and Phil. i. 23. Cp. Bede, iil. 19 ; iv. 25 ;
V. 13, 14. Plummer thinks ' Bede's Penitential ' noi genuine.
* Cp. £p. to Egb. 3, on his English versions of the creed and the JLord^s
prayer given to ' many unlearned priests.' On one oooasion he says he has
been his own ' secretary, scribe, and copyist ' ; Ep. 9.
Invasion of Ireland. 371
passes away with his head resting on a pupil's hands, with chai-. xi.
his eyes fixed on his wonted place of devotion, with the
* Gloria ' to the Trinity as the last utterance of his lips \
*A truly blessed man/ we may well say with the eye-
witness to whom we owe this record ; a man ' venerable '
and. dear to all generations of English Christianity, a
'candle,' in the words of the great St. Boniface ^ 'which
the Lord lighted up' in Northumbria, and which has
burned with a calm lustre through the centuries that have
canonized his name ^
The year of the completion of the minster of Jarrow Inja^jo",
was marked by trouble and anxiety among Northumbrian °"""*"'-
Churchmen. Their king, from motives of policy, resolved
to make an expedition against Ireland^, a country, says
Bede, which had ever been 'friendly to the English*,'
and had furnished homes of study and devotion to many
of all ranks among the Northumbrian people ^. The most
eminent of these English residents was Egbert, whom Bede
describes with such admiration as a ' priest beloved of God'
and ' to be named with all honour V one who Uved in great
' 'Cum Spiritum Sanctum nominasset, spiritum e corpore exhalavii
ultimum ; ' Guthbert. Gp. Anon. Vit. B. fin. ; Plummer, i. Izzviii.
' Ep. 38 to archbishop Egbert. He is speaking of Bede's ' treatises.'
' Although he is in the calendar (from which Alfred, the noblest
example of old English Christianity, is excluded), his title of ' Venerable '
has almost superseded that of ' Saint.*
* Bede, iv. 96, calling it both * Hibemiam ' and ' Scottiam ' ; cp. ii. 4,
and iii. 19, on Fursey's life 'in Scottia.' So Adamnan, Vit. Col. i. a,
' Colnmba . . . de Scotia ad Britanniam . . . enavigavit,' and in many other
passages. Until the tenth centuiy ' Scotia ' meant simply Ireland.
* Bede, 1. c. : ' gentem innoxiam et nationi Anglomm semper amicissi-
xnam.' Lanigan (iii. 90) thinks that Egfrid might have been jealous of
' the shelter granted by the Irish to his brother Aldfrid ' ; see below. He
probably meant to prevent them from aiding the Picts and the Scots of
Dalriada to shake off his supremacy (see Skene, i. 965). Bede, we see,
has no feeling against Celts as such — only against Welshmen.
* Bede, iii. 37 : ' Erant ibidem eo tempore multi,' &c. See above, pp.
184, 9ia, 394: and Bede, i. i, on 'codices' from Ireland. Cp. Aldhelm,
Ep. 3, that English students flocked to Ireland like swarms of bees
gathering honey.
^ Bede, v. 9, * Eo tempore venerabilis,' &c., and v. 22. See also iii. 4,
< At tunc veniente,' &c., and iv. 3, ' Convenit autem.' On this ' favourite
of Bede,' see Burton, Hist. Sc. i. 275.
B b 2
372 Invasion of Ireland.
CHAP. XI. humility, gentleness, continence, simplicity, righteousness,
and did much good both by his persuasive teaching and
the consistency of his life ^ This eminent man earnestly
dissuaded Egf rid from his unrighteous design of ' attacking
Ireland, which was doing him no hurt': but the king
was not to be moved, and sent one of his ealdormen
Beret or Bert^ with a strong force, into Ireland, in
June, 684. ' Miserably,' says Bede, was the land wajsted ;
*not even churches or monasteries' were spared The
scene of these unprovoked and sacrilegious ravages is
laid by the Irish chronicles in the rich ' plain of Bregh ^,'
the present East Meath. The natives, failing to repel
the invasion, had recourse to a weapon which suited the
wilder side of Celtic religion : they ' called down vengeance
from Heaven ' on the invaders * by long-continued impre-
cations*.' *And although,' continues Bede, 'those who
curse cannot possess the kingdom of God, yet it has been
believed that those who were thus cursed in requital of
their impiety did quickly pay the penalty of their guilt
under the avenging hand of the Lord.' We shall presently
understand this allusion.
In the early part of the year, Theodore, for some reason
unexplained, had thought fit to depose Tunbert from the
see of Hexham ^. Who was to succeed him ? The question
^ Op. Bede, iii. 27 : * Duxit autem viiam in magna humilitate,' &c., and
y. aa, ^ Qui quoniam et doctor Buayissimus.' &o.
* Bede, iv. a6 ; in v. 24, Berctred (or Brectrid, Ulster Ann.). Cp. Chron.
a. 684, * and Briht his ealdorman.' This < dux' was slain by the Picts in
699, perhaps in an attempt to reconquer their country.
' Chron. Scotorum, p. 107 ; but the date, 681, is wrong. The Ulster
Annals giye the right year (Chron. Scots and Picts, p. 351). Tighemach
(giving a wrong date, 685") says, * The Saxons wasted the field of Bregh
and many churches, in mense Junii.' The Four Masters say, * And they
took away many captives and much spoil ; * (O'Conor, Rer. Hib. Sor. iv,
63). For this *' plain/ see Adamnan, Vit. Col. i 38, ii. 39, and Beeves,
p. xlv.
* Imprecation was freely employed against enemies by Irish saints, as
by Columba himself; Adamnan, Vit. Col. ii. aa. See Reeves's remarks^
App. to Pref. p. Ixxvii. It was freely attributed by legend to St. Patrick
(in the Tripartite Life, i. 109, 11 1, &;c), and it appears in the story of
St. Ruadan cursing the royal hill of Tara for the crime of the aroh-king
Dermid ; M^Gee, Hist Irel. i. 30. Cp. Reeves, p. liv, on ' ffisting against
enemies.' * Bede only mentions this incidentally ; iv. aS.
Assembly at Twyford. 373
was speedily answered by Egfrid : he thought of Cuthbert, chap. xi.
still an anchorite on Fame. After this intetition had
become notorious, Cuthbert met the royal abbess of Whitby,
by appointment, on an island at the mouth of the river
Coquet, which was occupied by a large monastic com-
munity \ During their conversation, he was said to have
predicted to Elfled ^ that her brother would have but one
more year of life ^, and that his successor would be found
amid the isles of the sea : alluding, as it was thought, to
' Aldf rid, who was said to be a son of her father, and was
then dwelling far from home, in the isles of the Irish, for
the sake of learning/ Cuthbert then returned to Fame ;
and in the autumn a numerous assembly, or, as Bede calls
it, a synod* — clearly a mixed body of ecclesiastics and
laics — met at * Twyford,' — perhaps where the Aln is crossed Synod of
by two fords near Whittingham, — under the presidency ^^^^
of the archbishop*, as representing the Church, and of
Egfrid as the head of the nation. Cuthbert was unani-
mously chosen bishop: many envoys were sent to Fame
to announce the election, but the hermit sat secure and
inaccessible in his cell ' At last the king himself ^/ with
Bishop Trumwine of Abercorn, and a number of monks
and ' powerful men/ proceeded to Bajnborough, crossed the
'Fairway' strait, and landed on Fame, where they were
met by many of the Lindisfame brethren. Cuthbert could
no longer keep himself in seclusion. His visitors, we are
told, even knelt at his feet, * adjuring him by the Lord,
with tears,' to accept the election. At last, with tears in
his own eyes, he yielded, went with them to Twyford, and,
although very reluctantly, 'bowed his neck to the yoke
' Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 24. Elfled beUeved that she had been cured of an
infirmity in the limbs by putting on a linen girdle sent by Cuthbert ;
ib. 23.
' Believing in his prophetic powers, she adjured him, says Bede.
' by that awful and adorable name of the Heavenly King and His
angels.'
' He quoted Eccles. xi. 8, and Ps. xc. 9, in proof of the short duration
of even a long life.
' See above, p. 223, on the council of Whitby.
' Bede, iv. aS ; Vit. Cuthb. 94 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 165.
* Bede, iv. aS. The Anon. Vit. calls the bishop 'Tumma.'
374 Cuthbertj bishop of Lindisfarne.
CHAP. XI. of the episcopate ^/ The consecration was deferred until
the spring; but during the interval Cuthbert spent some
time with Eata at Melrose, and on his return visited a thane
of Egfrid, and was believed to have cured the deathlike
illness of his servant '.
Cuthbert, So it was, that on Easter-day, March 26, 685, Theodore,
Lhidis-^ with six other bishops, consecrated Cuthbert in St. Peter's
fftrne. minster at York ^. He had been elected for Hexham : but
out of deference to his love for Lindisfarne, the gentle
Elata, his old superior, returned to Hexham, and Cuthbert
was now not only, as Boisil had predicted^, a bishop,
but bishop of that revered church in which he had been
so active a prior. Before he quitted York, the king, in
Theodore's presence, gave to Cuthbert the land ' from the
wall of St. Peter's to the great gate westwards ^ and to
the city wall southwards,' together with the village of
Crayke as a halting-place in his journeys to and from
York ®, and the far more valuable possession — one which
seemed to herald the future princedom of his successors
in lordly Durham — of the old Roman city of ' Lugubalia '
or Carlisle ''j which had been conquered f I'om the Britons
of Cumbria, together with a territory of fifteen miles
^ * Ad suflcipiendum . . . offieium collum submittere eompellitur ;' Bede,
iv. a8 ; Vit. Outhb. 94 ; De Mirac. Guthb. c. 21.
^ Bede, Vit. Guthb. 35 ; Anon. Vit. calls the thane < Sibba.'
^ Bede, iv. aS : 'In ipsa solemnitate paschali,' &c. Gp. Rich, of Hexh.,
Hagulst Eccl. 10 ; X Script. 995.
* Bede, Vit. Guthb. 8.
^ This gate was on the site of Bootham Bar.
* Sim. Hist. Dun. Eccl. L 9. Grayke would be a convenient halting-
place to one travelling from the north, before entering the forest of
Galtres, which lay between it and York, and covered neai'ly icx>,ooo
acres. Guthbert is said to have established an abbot and monks at
Grayke, which within this century continued to be part of the diooese
of Durham. St. Guthbert's remains, in their 'wanderings,' halted for
four months * in sua quondam villa . . . Greca ' ; Bed. Op. vi. 39a. Gp.
De Mirac. et Transl. in Sim. Op. i. 337.
^ Sim. 1. c A charter as to these grants (Wilkins, i. 55; Smith's
Bede, p. 789) is clearly spurious ; it exhibits the names of Gedd and Ghad.
Lugubalia (Bede, iv. 99, the Roman form of Gaer Lywelydd), Ligualid,
or Lualid (Nennius, 76), was otherwise called 'Gaer-luel' or 'Luel/ and
in the ninth century ' Lulohester ' ; Freeman, Engl. Towns and Districts,
p. 437 ; Bishop Grexghton's * Garlisle,' p. 3.
Egfrtd attacks the Picts. 375
around,— and afterwards the district of Gartmel in Lanca- chap. xi.
shire, with the Britons belonging to it aa serfs 1. And
BO the shepherd youth of Lammermoor, the scholar of
Boisil, the evangelist of Tweedside, the prior of Meltose
and Lindisfame, the hermit of Fame, began his short
career as a bishop.
The first weeks of his episcopate were clouded by a
public ajixiety, which was soon to be justified by a national
disaster. Egfrid, remembering how, fifteen years before,
he had crushed the Picts* revolt, determined to invade
their country, still governed by the same king, Bruide*.
His 'friends,* and Cuthbert with them, urgently remon-
strated ^, but in viLin. As when the Irish expedition was
in question, so in this more perilous venture^ in which
he was personally to take the chief part, he was deaf
to the best counsels. He would go, and he went *. Then
fell on many a thoughtful Northumbrian the shadow of
a great dread. Was the king judicially blinded ? Were
the curses of the wronged Irish working their efiect
by leading him to his destruction ? It was just then that Cuthbert
ir i- 1 f T • J* i* J • J. !-• atCarlisle.
the bishop of Lindisiame made a journey to his new
domain of Carlisle, whither Ermenburga had repaired
to pass the time of suspense in a nunnery governed by
her sister *. The day after Cuthbert's arrival was Saturday,
' The Hist, de S. Outhb. 6 (Sim. Op. i aoo) says that Cuthbert entrusted
this property to abbot Kineferth. Carham near Coldstream was also said
to have been given to him, Hist, de S. Cuthb. 7.
' This was Bruide, or Bruidi, Moe Bili, who had become king in 67a,
and died in 693 (Skene, i. 962). Nennius calls him Birdei, the cousin
of EgfHd ; Mon. H. Br. p. 74. He had established himself as king of
*• Fortrenn,' in a stronghold east of Loch Earn. The name was common
among Pictiah kings ; another Bruide had died in 641 ; the more famous
Bruide Mac Malcon, St. Columba's convert (Bede, iii. 4; Adamn. Vit.
CoL i. 37, ii. 35, 4a), had reigned (one of his strongholds being probably
near Inverness) from 554 to 584 (Reeves's Adamnan, p. 151). Egfrid
himself was akin to the Piotish royal house : his uncle Eanfrid (the
'apostate,' see p. 147) had married one of its daughters, and their son
Taloroanwasking of the Picts, 653-657. After hisdeath Oswy subjugated the
Picts ; they revolted against Egfrid, and were defeated (Skene, i. 357, 963).
' Bede, iv. a6 : ' Siquidem anno post hunc proximo.'
« <Bellum Ecfridi,' Adamn. Vit CoL ii. 46.
« Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 37 ; Anon. Vit. Cuthb., Bed. Op. vL 377. When
Bede wrote, there was a monastery near the little river Dacre, near
V
376 Cuthbert at Carlisle.
HAP. XI. the 2oth of May : at 3 p.m. the townsfolk, headed by Paga ^
their reeve, and delighted to receive the saintly bishop
as their lord, were showing him their walls, on which,
just then, 'the sun shone fair*,' and conducting him to
a fountain within the city, * the wondrous work of Roman
hands */ Cuthbert was attended by several of his clergy.
Suddenly, while leaning on his staff, he seemed to go
through strong mental agitation. His face, usually so
bright and sweet, became sad and downcast ; after a while
he looked up, gazed on the sky, which had rapidly
darkened, groaned deeply, and muttered as to himself,
* Perhaps even now the contest is decided * T A presbyter,
standing close beside him, asked whdt he meant ^ He
answered evasively by a general reference to the changing
weather, ajid then to the inscrutable judgements of God.
But he straightway returned to the convent, saw the queen
in private, and said to her, * Set off early on Monday for
York®, lest haply the king may have fallen:— it is not
lawful to drive on the Lord's day '. I have to go to-morrow
Penrith ; Bede, iv. 3a. Egfrid had established Northumbrian clergy in
Cumberland, and his sister Elfled had founded monasteries : Creighton^
p. la
^ The anonymous biographer gives this name, and the hour.
^ Lay of the Last Minstrel, yi. 11.
' Gomp. Malmesb. G. Pontif. p. 208, on the Roman ' triclinium lapideis
fomicibus concameratum/ existing in his time at Carlisle. See Freeman,
Engl. Towns and Districts, p. 439.
* So Bede. The anonymous Life, less probably, makes him refer
explicitly to the war. ^O, o, o! existimo enim perpetratum esse
helium.'
^ Anon. Vit., ' Quid factum esset ; ' Bede, * Unde scis? *
• *The royal city,' Bede.
^ ' Dominioorum die a labore terrene cessandum est ;' Greg. £p. xiii. i.
Various Prankish canons of the sixth century forbade all Sunday labour :
e.g. council of Auxerre, c. 16, ' Non licet die dominico boves jungere/
Mac si, ix. 913 : so council of Chalons as to rural work, ib. x. 1193. The
council of Karbonue allowed for cases of necessity; c. 4. The third
council of Orleans condemned Sabbatarian notions aa to the unlawfulness of
Sunday travelling, but forbade rural work on Sundays, as detaining men
from church ; Mansi, ix. 19. Gregory of Tours tells us that some men at
Limoges were killed by lightning for doing ' public work ' on Sunday ;
H. Fr. X. 30. For a story about St. Patrick warning some heathens not
to build a ' rath ' or earth-work on the Lord's day, ^e Stokes, Tripartite
Life, ii« 989. Theodore's Penitential says, ' Greeks and Bomans do not go
Battle of Dunnechtan. 377
to a neighbouring monastery, in order to dedicate its chap. xi.
church; and will follow you after the service is com-
pleted/ His Sunday sermon was on the necessity of being
prepared for any tribulation, and was understood to refer
to a return of the pestilence^. On the Monday there
arrived a man *who had escaped from the war/ and
brought tidings such as filled Edinburgh with terror and
anguish after the day of Flodden. Egfrid and his host
had crossed the Firth, had even crossed the Tay, and
destroyed two forts, one of which probably stood at the
mouth of the Almond^: the native forces, by feigned
retreats ^ had lured them into a defile at Dunnechtan ^, Battle
or Nechtansmere ^ identified as Dunnichen near Forfar, nechtan.
There the king had fallen, with nearly all his men, on
the very day, and at the very hour, when Cuthbert was
standing by the Carlisle fountain like one who saw what
he durst not reveal ®.
This battle of Dunnechtan may well rank in our
''in curru" on the Lord's day, except to church ;* ii. 8. i ; Haddan and
Stubbs, iii. 196; cp. ib. 9a6 (Willibrord ?), 33a (Bede?). The council of
Clovesho forbade Sunday travelling save in necessity, c. 14 ; ib. 367 : and
the Laws of Northumbrian Priests, no. 55, forbid it whether in a wain, or
on a horse, or with a burden ; Thorpe, Anc. Laws, p. 420; Johnson, Engl.
Can. i. 380. St. Anskar, preaching on a Sunday, forbade his hearers to do
' opus servile in die festo,' Vit. 37 : and compare the story of St. Olaf
scorching his hand in penance for having done some wood-cutting on
Sunday.
' He told the story of the monks visiting him on Christmas day, — of
his forebodings, — of the outbreak of the pest. Above, p. 305.
' Bobertson, Scot!, under Early Kings, i. la.
' Bede, iv. 36 : ' simulantibus fugam hostibus in angustias inacces-
sorum montium.' The Chronicle says the place was near 'the North
sea.'
* Tighemach. He gives the day of week and month, but a wrong year,
686. The Ulster Annals are again right as to the date.
^ Reeves's Adamnan, p. 186. Sim. Dunelm. calls it 'Nechtansmere,
quod est stagnum Nechtani,' de Dun. Eccl. i. 9 : Nennius, Lin-garan,
' the lake of the heron,' Mon. H. Brit. p. 74. ' This lake formerly occupied
the place of Dunnichen Moss ;' Beeves, p. 187. Dunnichen lies under the
Sidlaw hills, somewhat east of Forfar. More than one Piotish king had
been called Nechtan : one had died in 6a i ; Beeves, p. 373. For the
adoption of the Catholic usages by a later king Nechtan, see below.
* Eadmer exhibits monastic bitterness of an extreme type in his story
of the vision of Egfrid's perdition seen by Wilfrid while saying mass at
this same hour ; Vit. S. Wilfr. 43.
378 See of Ahercorn abandoned.
CHAP. XI. memories with such decisive conflicts as those of the Idle,
of Heavenfield, and of Winwidfield ^ It marks an epoch,
it closes a period, — the period of the great Northumbrian
kings. It was long ere the crown of Ekiwin and Oswald
resumed the majesty of their wide over-lordship. From
that fatal afternoon in the May of 685, ' the hope and force
of the Anglian kingdom ' — so Bede says, recurring to his
favourite poet — 'began to retreat like an ebbing tide*.*
The Picts not only shook off the Northumbrian supremacy,
but regained some hold upon Lothian*: the Dalriad
Scots, and * some of the Britons, recovered their indepen-
dence*,' which they still enjoyed when Bede wrote thus,
about 731. The old Northumbrian glory returned for
a while after his death, when Eadbert made himself lord
of Picts and Scots, and was attended by his Pictish vassal-
king, Unnust or Angus, when he received the submission
of the capital of Strathclyde *. This was seventy-one
years after the overthrow of Egfrid's host. Many of his
followers were made captives, or had to flee for their
lives: and flight was the only course for a small band
of nims whom Cuthbert afterwards settled in an English
township ®, and for Bishop Trumwine and his monks, who
abandoned Abercom, and with it their hopes of mission-
^ See Wilson, Prehistoric Ann. of Scotl. ii. 180 ; Burton, Hist. ScotL i.
382; Robertson, Scotl. under Early Kings, 1. la. Nennius says, the
English never again took tribute from the Picts.
' Bede, iy. a6 : ' Ex quo tempore spes coepit et virtus regni Anglorum
fluere, ac retro sublapsa referri' (Aen. ii. 169). Cp. Bede, ii. xa (Aen. iv.
a), ii. 13 (Aon. ii. 50a), and de Temp« Rat. 7 (Aen. ii. 350).
' We may infer as much from the break-up of the establishment at
Abercom, and the peril and confusion which spread south of the Firth.
Bede's sentence, 'Nam et Pieti terram,' &c., clearly means that Hhe
PIcls regained their land which the English had held, and the Scots in
Britain and some of the British regained freedom, i. e. independence, —
the Scots being those of Dalriada, and the 'Britons' being those of
Strathclyde. See Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 3, 5, and above, p. 29.
^ Rhys says, not the Picts of Galloway ; Gelt. Brit. p. 149.
' I. e. of Alcluid or Dunbarton ; Sim. Dunelm. de Gest. Beg. 4a. See
Palgrave, pp. 437, 470 ; Robertson, 1. 18. Before this, the Northumbrians
had been strong enough to re-establish, in an English form, St. Ninian's
see of Whithorn ; Bede, v. 33 ; cp. Haddan and Stubbs, ii 7, Skene, L
371, ii. 334.
" Bede, Vit Cuthb. 30.
Aldfridy King of Northumbria. 379
work in ' Pictland/ ' He commended them to his friends chap. xi.
in different monasteries, wherever he best could; and he
chose his own abode ' in the great house of Whitby, where,
' with a few of his companions, he spent many years in
monastic strictness, leading a life useful not to himself
only, but to many others *.' The corpse of the self-willed
king received honourable burial in Hy^ at the hands
of Abbot Adamnan, the biographer of St. Columba ^ who
would remember how Egfrid's saintly uncle had sent to
the island community for a bishop. Egfrid's widow was \
driven by the shock of her bereavement into monastic
life, and Eddi accordingly describes her as having been 1
changed from a 'Jezebel into a perfect abbess, from a ',
she- wolf into a lamb^'
The anticipations of Cuthbert were fulfilled. Egfrid, Aidfrid
the Wise
says Bede, ^had neither sons nor brothers.' His elder i^i^g '
brother, Alchf rid, whom their father Oswy had disinherited, ^^ North-
uznDnfl.
was now dead : but Aidfrid, supposed to be a natural son
of Oswy •, was called to the vacant throne. He had been
living as a recluse student in the ' islands ' or ^ regions of
the Scots,* — as Bede expresses it *^ ; a phrase which would
include, with Ireland itself, some of the smaller isles
occupied by men of Irish nwie. and known as seats of learn-
ing and piety '^. Bede calls him a man ^ most learned in the
^ Bede, It. 96 : ' Eosque ubicunque poterat,' &e.
' Sim. Dunelzn., Dun. EccL L 9. See Reeves's Adamnan, p. 939.
* Adamnan was born abont 694, became abbot in 679, and died in 704
or 705. See Reeves, pp. xl, zliv, Ivii ; Haddan and Stubbs, ii 135, iii. 999.
« Eddi, 94.
* Bede, iv. 96 : < Qui frater ejus, et Alius Osulu regis, ease dioebatur.'
De Mirao. S. Cuthb. 91 : —
'Et nothus in regni fhiter suocessit honorem.'
And so, Vit. Cuthb. 94 : < Ferebatur Alius fuisse patris illius . . . frater ejus
nothus.'
* Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 94 ; De Mirao. S. Cuthb. 9i. The Irish said that
Aldfrid's mother was Fina, or Fiona, a princess of Meath, and called him
Flann Fina ; Tighemaoh, a. 704 ; InisfaUen Ann. Bede says that a love
of sacred learning was the cause of his sojourn among the Irish. Malmes-
bmy, Gest Beg. i. 3, says confidently that a party of nobles having
deemed Aldfiid, though the elder son, unworthy to reign, he retired to
Ireland.
^ So Lanigan, iii. 96. Among these island-sanctuaries were Arranmore
380 CuthberVs episcopate.
CHAP. XL Scriptures and in knowledge of all sorts ^ ' : and tells us
that he agreed with Benedict Biscop to give him eight
hydes of land for the monastery of Jarrow, in exchange
for a splendid manuscript of ^ The Cosmographers/ which
Benedict had bought in Rome ^ We know that Adamnan
himself calls him his 'friend/ and visited him in 686 in
order to regain the sixty Irish captives carried away by
Bert, — ^all of whom were given up by Aldf rid ^ : and that,
two years later, he received a second visit from Adamnan,
accepted from him the work * On the Holy Places/ which
he had compiled from the accounts of the pilgrim-bishop
Arculf , and with royal munificence distributed copies of it
to men of lower degree *. He repeatedly listened to Dry-
thelm*s account of his ' visions ' of the unseen world, and
procured his admission into the monastery of Melrose'^.
Aldfrid seems also to have had a taste for rich attire ; for
we find him, * in conjunction with his counsellors,' buying
of Benedict Biscop ^ two cloaks, all of silk, and of exquisite
workmanship,' for an estate of three hydes on the south
(* Isles of Saints '), in Qalway Bay, Inisboffin, Iniscattery in the mouth of
the Shannon, &c. But the Anon. Vit. Cuthb. says that Aldfrid was then
at Hy, b. 3.
^ Bede, iy. 96 ; ▼. 19. He was, in effect, called * The Wise/ Aldhelm
inscribes one of his works to him under the name of Acircius, after
a friendship of twenty years (Lib. de Septenario). See Green, Making of
Engl. p. 397
' Bede, Hist. Abb. la. Aldfrld's grant of land was *• near the river
Fresh.* Benedict had ' settled the terms ' of this purchase, but he died
before it could be carried out : it was Ceolfrid who placed the coveted
manuscript in the hands of the scholar-king.
' See Vit. Col. ii. 46, and Reeves, pp. xlv, 187 ; Lanigan, iii. 96 ; Haddan
and Stubbs, iL 109. Tighernach dates this (captives reduxit) in 687 ;
Ulster Ann. rightly, in 686. See Skene, ii. 171.
* On this ' legatio ' see Bede, v. 15. One of these copies was used by
Bede. His own *■ De Locis Sanctis ' is an epitome. It was during this
second visit that Adamnan became a convert to ' Catholic * usages, Bede, v.
15, az. Ceolfrid was edilied by his behaviour at Wearmouth, but
remonstrated with him on his incomplete semicircular ' Simoniacal '
tonsure. He excused himself: 'If I follow my country's fashion,
I detest the simoniacal faithlessness, and desire to follow the chief of
apostles.' * If so,' rejoined Ceolfrid, ^ show it by wearing what A« wore I '
The alignment was quite gravely put, and it told.
' Bede, v. la : ' Narrabat autem,' &c. Drythelm was supposed to have
actually died and returned to life.
Cuthbert's episcopate. 381
bank of the Wear, — a purchase effected soon after his chap. xi.
accession ^ This prince, the first of our literary kings, was
a man of practical vigour, and well able to * restore, though
within narrower limits, the humbled state of the realm ^.'
The northern part of that realm, on which the blow fell Cuthbert
heaviest, might well seem to have received m its necessity
an opportune gift in the ministry of such a bishop as Cuth-
bert, 'great in his humility, glorious in the reality of his
faith and the ardour of his charity ^/ His personal habits of
asceticism were unaltered : he ' continued steadfastly,' says
his anonymous biographer, 'to be the same man that he had
been before *,' with the same lowliness of heart, the same in-
tensity of devotion. His voice while celebrating was still
low, still broken by tears ; the grace of * compunction,' as
Bede calls it,* kept his mind fixed on things heavenly ; above
all things there glowed within him the fire of Divine love */
His tenacious memory ' supplied the place of books • '; the
canons of the Church, the lives of the Saints, were habit-
ually present to his mind. As a preacher he was * clear
and plain, full of dignity and of gentleness ; he used to
dwell on the providential oflSce of the law ^/ the doctrines
of the Gospel, the obligations of the Christian life ; ' address-
ing to different minds the exhortations which they severally
needed^, as knowing beforehand what to say, and to whom,
and when, and how to say it.' He had, says Bede with
characteristic emphasis, * that qualification which is above
all others helpful to a teacher, for whenever he bade any
' Bede, Hist. Abb. 8: ' duo pallia holoserica.'
' Bede, iv. 96 : ' destructumque regni statum,' &c
' Chr. Remembr., Jan. 185a, p. 78.
* ' Idem etiam constantissime perseverat, qui prius f^erot ; ' Anon.
Yit. b. 4. See above, p. 301. He still retained his ordinary plain dress.
* Bede, iv. 98. <The holy corporox cloth, wherewith he covered the
chalice when he used to say mass,* was preserved, and long afterwards
inserted into the banner which hung over his shrine. This corporal was
actually displayed on the top of a spear, at the battle of Neville*s-cro8s, in
1346. Eiheldred was said to have given Cuthbert some vestments.
* Anon. Yit. ' ' Ministerio legis,* ib.
* * Unumquemque diversa admonens exhortatione,' ib. Bede's * Life '
tells us how on one occasion, while prior of Melrose, he urged his hearers
to be 'attentive and watchful while the mysteries of the heavenly
kingdom were being preached ' ; c. 13. Cp. Bede, Hom. 33.
382 Cuthbert's visitations.
CHAP. ». person to do a thing, he showed the way by doing it him-
self \' Always genial and friendlike to all who came to
pour out to him their troubles, as he had been during his
hermit-life, he * deemed ' — ^the words are very memorable —
*■ that to advise and comfort the weak was equivalent to an
act of prayer V for he had in full measure *that most
excellent gift of charity, without which,' says the anony-
mous writer in words which anticipate our Quinquagesima
collect, *all virtue is nothing V But in these private
interviews he was strict in * recalling to godly sorrow all
who indulged in any unholy joy *.' It need not be said
that he exhibited all active beneficence, giving food to the
hungry and clothes to those who were shivering with cold :
welcoming strangers, ransoming captives — doubtless out of
the hands of the Picts, — ^protecting widows and orphans,
rescuing the poor from the oppressor ^ and showing how
little his habits as a recluse had unfitted him for the work
of a bishop in the face of the world. He went about his
diocese with the energy of a younger man, reviving, doubt-
less, many of his old remembrances while he traversed the
wild moor or penetrated the outlying glen. In one wood-
land place the inhabitants of neighbouring hamlets had
assembled to receive confirmation at his hands, had spread
tents, in default of a church, for the bishop and his clergy,
and cut down boughs of trees for their own shelter •. For
two days they all remained on the spot, until Cuthbert had
finished his ministrations '^. It was told afterwards that on
* Bede, Vit. Ciithb. a6 ; iy. aS, ' Et quod mazime doctores javare solet,'
&c. See above, p. 56. Oomp. Vit. S. Stnrmi, 14 : < In omni diBciplina
. . . prius semetipsum ezercere curavit.'
' Bede, iv. a8 : *• Hoc ipsum quoque orationis looo duoens,' &o.
' Anon. Vit : ' Et illam supereminentem caritatem, sine qua cmnis
virtus nihil est.' Oomp. Eddi, ii, copying this, and applying it (some-
what boldly) to Wilfrid.
* 'Hale gaudentes,' Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 9/^
» Gomp. Bede, Vit. Cuthb. iv. a6; Anon. Vit.
* CompL Willib. Vit. S. Bonifac. s. 36 : < Suorum tantum stipatua clien-
turn numero, erexit tentoria.' The confirmands had been recently
baptized.
^ Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 39. The Anon. Vit. says that this was while he was
going from Hexham to *Vel.' But he had no episcopal relations to
Hexham. Perhaps he had been on a visit to Eata.
Cuthbert^s visitations. 383
this very occasion some women carried ^ a youth wasted <^»^^- *^'
with illness, on a rade pallet, to the entrance of the wood,
and Cuthbert, being asked to bestow his blessing, caused
him to be brought near, prayed over him, and blessed him,
— ^whereupon the lad arose, took food, thanked God, and
returned to the women who were waiting for him. The
pestilence had nearly depopulated some parts of the
country; Cuthbert did his best to console the survivors,
and in one place on asking whether there were any one else
whom he could visit, had his attention directed to a poor
woman who was weeping bitterly ; she had lost one son,
and held in her arms another who seemed to be dying.
Cuthbert went up to her, kissed and blessed the boy, and
assured the mother that he would recover, and that no one
else of her household would die of the plague. He did
recover, and long afterwards with his mother bore witness
to the fulfilment of the prediction *. Cuthbert made
another journey to Carlisle, partly to ordain priests, and
partly to give the monastic habit to Ermenburga and to
other women, — and also, if we may trust a later writer,
to establish schools ^ It was then that his dear friend
Herbert, the hermit-priest of Derwentwater, came to meet
jbim, and asked him to pray that they might both die at
the same time, which, we are told, came to pass*. This
visit took place in 686, when Cuthbert was looking forward
to his end, which, he felt sure, could not be far off* : it is
probable that his excessive austerities had prematurely
worn out his once robust frame, and entailed a propor-
^ ' In grabato ; ' Bede, 1. o. ; Anon. Vit.
' Bede, Vit. Cutfab. 33. The author of the Anon. Vit. says that this
story was told him by Tidi, the presbyter to whom Cuthbert put the
question, and that the place was 'Medilpong.' The plague-struck boy
was ' swollen all over.' Cp. Adamn. ii. 46.
» Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 98 ; Hist. S. Cuthb., X Script. 69.
* Bede, Vit. Cuthb. aS, iv. 29 ; see Wordsworth's ' Inscriptions,' No. xv,
' for the spot where the hermitage stood on St. Herbert's island, Derwent-
water : *
'. . . Though here the hermit numbered his last day
Far from St. Cuthbert his beloved friend,
Those holy men both died in the same hour.'
' ' Divino admonitus oraculo ; ' Bede, iv. aS ; so Vit. Cuthb. 35.
384
Cuthbert returns to Fame,
CHAP. XI. tionate loss upon his Church. In order to prepare for the
Cuthbert j^^^ howx by an interval of undisturbed devotion ^ he
retires to •' • <• t
Fame. resolved to return to Fame, to ' devote himself, undisturbed,
to prayer and psalmody/ and to ' bum away the thorns of
worldly care*.' He made one farewell circuit of the
diocese, visiting the dwellings of the faithful, and giving
them needful exhortations. He also went to see Elfled at
one of the dependencies of her convent, and, although it
was not in his diocese, consecrated a newly-finished church.
It is specially said of him, on this occasion, that he was
physically wearied by his functions, — but also that he
retained his playful humour '. We also find him at * the
mouth of the Tyne,' where the abbess Verca entertained
him ' magnificently *.' It was almost immediately after
the Christmas of 686 that he returned to his solitary islet ;
and at the end of February his last illness came on.
Herefrid, abbot of Lindisfarne ^ — who was probably
appointed to the office when Cuthbert ceased to reside
there, — had been visiting the bishop for three days*; on
^ A sample of the morbid pietism fostered bj the monastic spirit is in
the Anonymous Life, where Cuthbert's retirement from episcopal work is
described as a ' forsaking of secular honour * (Op. vi. 379 ; comp. Alcuin, de
Pontif. Ebor. 673). Yet Cuthbert's object, apart from the means which
he took to attain it, was the same which bishop Zachary Pearce of
Rochester had in view, when he vainly sought permission to resign his
see in 1763. Some pious bisliops before Cuthbert's time, as Dubricius,
Magloire of I>ol, and Amulf of Metz, had resigned their sees in advanced
life for the sake of religious retirement, and Licinius of Angers had been
restrained by his colleagues from doing so : but Cuthbert, to the last, was
regarded as bishop of Lindisfame.
' Bede, Yit. Cuthb. 34, 36. The allusion, of course, is to Matt. xiiL 22.
^ lb. 34. He is at table, a good deal tired ; his face changes colour, his
knife drops on the board. Elfled asks him what he has seen. He tries to
turn it off : ' Did you think I could go on eating all day ? I was bound
to leave off some time.' Then comes an instance of a vision coincident
with the death of a lay- brother, Hadwald.
* lb. 35. After rising from his noonday repose, he said he was thirsty,
and asked for drink. They asked whether he would have wine or beer :
he chose water ; then comes a story of the water being afterwards found
to taste like very good wine. In Raine's St. Cuthbert, p. 16, her monastery
is placed at Tiningham, on the Scottish * Tine,' north of Dunbar. But
the ' Tina' of Bede, v. ai, is the < Tyne.' See p. 187.
' See Yit. Cuthb. praef. and o. 8, 33.
'^ lb. 37. other monks were with him.
His last days. 3^5
a Thursday morning he gave the usual signal of his okap. xr.
presence near the cell, and Cuthbert came to the window,
received his greeting m silence with a ' sigh/ and on being
asked whether his indisposition — an old familiar ailment —
had come upon him in the night, replied quietly, *Yes,
I have been ill ^.' * Give us your blessing,* said Herefrid ;
' it is time to put to sea.' Cuthbert bade him go, but added
precise instructions as to his own burial \ Herefrid asked
whether some of the monks who had accompanied him
from Lindisf ame might not stay behind to take care of the
bishop ^. Cuthbert refused to allow it : they departed, and
the wild winds of the first week of March prevented them
for five days from revisiting Fame \ When they could do
so, they saw a sad sight. In the hospice, instead of in his
cell, they found Cuthbert sitting on a couch, his face
ghastly with exhaustion. Herefrid warmed some wine
which he had brought, induced him to taste it, applied
warm water to his foot, which had a bad ulcer of long
standing ; and then sat down beside him, and uttered some
words of sympathy. ' Lord bishop, I see you have sufiered
much : why did you forbid any one to attend upon you ? '
'It was God's will,' said Cuthbert simply, *that I should
suffer some distress without human help at hand. I became
worse as soon as you had departed ; and so I left my cell in
order that any of you, when coming to see me, might find
me here ; and here for five days and nights I have con-
tinued without moving.' Turning up his couch, he showed
five onions, one of them nearly half eaten: he had had
* ' Etiam, languor me tetigit noote hac' Gp. * Etiam ' in Bede, v. 6, 9.
The ' ailment ' was an internal pain, the result of an attack of the pesti-
lence ; Vit. Cuthb. 8.
' His body was to be wrapt in linen, which had been sent by abbess
Verca : he would not wear it while alive, but had kept it for his shroud.
A ' sarcophagus ' given by abbot Gudda would be found under the turf,
north of the oratory : he was to be buried in it, &c. On the use of the
'sindon' or linen shroud, compare Bede, iv. 9, and the account of
Wilfrid's burial, Eddi, 65, and of Golumba's, Adamn. iii 23. St. Boniface
gave special directions about the * linteum ' which was to be his shroud ;
Willib. Vit. Bonif. s. 33. On Etheldred's ' locellus' see p. 289.
' Several of the Lindisfame monks were * skilful physicians ' ; Bede,
Vit. Guthb. 45, cp. 37 ; so Anon. Vit. in Bed. Op. vi. 381. Cp. Bede, iv. 19.
* Gp. Bede, v. i, for a vivid picture of a storm on the sea near Fame^
0 C
386 Cuthhert's last days.
CHAP. XI. nothing else *. He dropped some mysterious allusions to
the attack of ghostly enemies^. Herefrid durst not say
more than * Will you not now have some attendants ? ' He
consented ; some of the monks who had had occasion to go
over to Bamborough, and had returned, were appointed to
nurse him ; among them were ' Bede the elder/ who had
always attended on his person, and Walstod, who, though
himself suffering from ailment, was deemed specially fit to
hear his last words. Herefrid came and went ; and, after
consulting with the community, reported to Cuthbert their
earnest wish to bury him in Lindisfame. He answered,
with a strange disparagement of his * active life,' that he
had wished to rest on the islet * where he had fought his
poor fight for the Lord ' ; and he feared that if he were to
be buried in Lindisfame, the monastery would be troubled
by fugitives, or criminals seeking sanctuary beside his
grave*. At last, however, he yielded, on condition that
he might be. interred in ' the inmost part of the church:'
They ' thanked him on bended knees for this permission
and counsel,' and then went home, but paid him other
visits. At last, on the morning of Tuesday the 19th of
March, Herefrid and others carried him — for he was now
too feeble to walk — back to his cell. Walstod went in with
him * ; no one else for years had done so. Six hours passed
away : at three in the afternoon Herefrid found him lying
down in a comer of the oratory, opposite to the altar ; and
sitting down beside him, begged for his farewell message
as a • legacy' to the brethren*. Very faintly, and *at
intervals,' the voice which had held such sway over its
hearers uttered a few sentences inculcating 'Divine
^ < As often as my mouth became very dry and parched, haec gustando
me refrigerare ao recreare curavL'
* He had never^ he said, been so much 'persecuted' as in those five days.
' On the privilege of sanctuary, see above, p. 103.
* They asked him to let one of them go in to wait on him. He gazed
round on all, and fixed his eyes on the invalid brother, saying, 'Let
Walstod come in with me;' Bede, Vit Guthb. 38. It is added that,
from that moment, Walstod (Pallistod, Anon. Vit.) was free of his
infirmity.
* 'Quem haereditarium sermonem, quod ultimum ''Vale," fratribus
relinqueret ; ' V. 0. 39.
Death of Cuthbert. 387
charity/ unanimity, agreement with 'other servants of chap. xi.
Christ/ hospitality to strangers, avoidance of self -righteous-
ness, strictness in abstaining from communion with those
who 'swerved from Catholic unity, either by observing
E^ter out of its time, or by living perversely/ ' Remember
that I had rather you took up my bones, and left your
home to dwell wherever God may provide, than put a yoke
on your own necks by consenting to schismatics in their
iniquity ^ I ' They were to study and observe the rules of
the monastic fathers, and those which they had received
through his ministry: *for I know that although in my
lifetime some have despised me *, after my death it will be
seen that my teaching is not to be despised/ So, according
to Bede, the abbot reported these last words of Cuthbert :
but doubtless he received them with some amplification of
the original *. Cuthbert passed the evening in * tranquil Death of
expectation of future bliss/ and continued his prayers until ^ ^
past midnight. Then, 'when the usual time of noctum-
prayer was come/ he received from Herefrid 'the com-
munion of the Lord's Body and Blood, to strengthen him
for his departure: and with eyes and hands lifted up
heavenward* he commended his soul to the Lord, in
a sitting posture, and passed away, without a groan, into
the life of the fathers *,' in the first hours of Wednesday,
^ Bede, Vit. Guthb. 39. It would seem from this that there was some
remnant of a Scotic party still existing in Northumbria. The words, it is
said, were remembered by bishop Eardulf when he resolved on removing
the body ; Hist. Transl. S. Guthb. c a (Bed. Op. vi. 36) ; Sim. Bun. de
Dun. Ecol. ii. 6. There was clearly a ' hard ' vein in Guthbert.
' Probably an allusion to those in Northumbria whose ideal of ecclesi-
astical excellence was Wilfrid. ' *■ Haec et his similia.'
* It is certain that he received Gommunion in both kinds, and clearly
not during mass. So Bede, V. G. 39, and de liirac. S. Guthb. c. 36 :
'Besidens antistes ad altar*
Pocula degustat vitae, Ghristique supinum
Sanguine munit iter.'
So Guthlac 'munivit se communione corporis et sanguinis Ghristi,' both
kinds being kept ready on the altar ; Act. SS. Bened. iii. aSi. For
another usage see p. 347.
* Bede, Vit. Guthb. 39 ; Anon. Vit. Gp. Bede, iv. a8 : ' mortis, vel vitae
magis,' &c He was probably only about fifty-six, for he was just grown
up when he came to Melrose in 651. See above, p. 914.
OC 2
388 Death of Cuthbert.
riRAP. XL the 2oth of March, 687. The corpse was carried to Lindis-
fame, duly washed ^, and arrayed in priestly vestments
and shoes; the head was wrapped in a handkerchief;
* oblates/ or bread, as if prepared for the Eucharist ^, were
placed upon the breast, and a linen sheet ^, rubbed with
wax, was folded round the body, which was then laid in
a stone coffin on the right hand of the altar in St Peter's
church, — there to remain (although in 698 removed into
a new oaken coffin) until the terror of the Northmen's
invasion impelled the monks of lindisfame, in 875, to
begin that series of ' the wanderings of St. Cuthbert ' which
■ ended, in 999, with his final interment
'Where his cathedral, huge and irast,
Looks down upon the We&r^'
So lived, so died, the great popular saint of the North-
country *. It is next to impossible to abridge the story of
his death ; and as in the case of St. Chad, it has seemed
desirable to preserve unbroken the continuity of his last two
^ Anon. Vit. : ' Toto corpore lavato, capite sudarlo circumdato,' &c.
' ' Offletes ; ' see Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 29a.
^ When the inner coffin of Cuthbert (that of 698) was opened at Diurham
in 1 104, he was found wrapped in a 'sindon subtilissima,' with face-cloth,
*sudarium,' vestments, ' pallia,' and three sheets (Reginald, Lihellus, c. 40).
At the destruction of the shrine in 1538, what seemed to be an ' entire
body' was reinterred beneath it. At the examination of the grave in
1827 three coffins were found, the inmost being that of 698, which held
a skeleton wrapped in five silken robes, with a skull, doubtless St.
Oswald's.
* * liarmion/ ii. 14. See Hist. Transl. S. C. c. 2, in Bed. Op. ri. 387.
' Bede's Life of Cuthbert was written after very careful inyestigation and
* accurate examination ' of surviving eye-witnesses. When finished, it was
submitted to the cnticism of Herefrid and others ; and, thus amended,
was pi'esented to the bishops and monks of Lindisfame, and read during
two days by the elders of the community, who found nothing to correct,
but mentioned to Bede ' alia multa, nee minora his quae scripsimus.'
These incidents^ however, he refrained from inserting in his book ;
Praef. V. C. The anonymous Life, written earlier, during Aldfrid's reign,
has very little about Cuthbert's death. Bede devotes a chapter, v. i, to
his successor in the hermit life, Ethelwald, a priest bred up at Ripon,
who dwelt on Fame for twelve years, and died in 699. The third occupant
of Fame was Felgeld, who lived there many years; Yit Cuthb. 46.
Tokens of the widespread reverence for Cuthbert's memory are found in
dedication of churches, not only throughout his ovm Northumbria, and
at Carlisle, or in Scottish towns like Kirkcudbright (' bright ' — ^ bert ')
and Edinburgh, but at Wells, and at Cubert in Cornwall.
Sigfrid succeeds Easterwtne. 3^9
years. But we must now again take up the thread of events chap. xi.
preceding the year 687.
Benedict Biscop had made a sizth and last journey to Easter-
Borne in 684 ^ The kindly and single-hearted Easterwine wear*
had been appointed by him coadjutor-abbot of Wearmouth mouth.
in the ninth year from its foundation — i. e. in 682 ^. ' When
thus made a ruler/ according to the advice of ' the Wise
ManV he 'did not lift himself up': he still shared the
common meals, and slept in the common dormitory: he
was as ready as ever to take part in manual work with the
monks, to handle plough or hammer or winnowing-fan.
If he had to rebuke, he did not shrink from his duty : but*
' from his inborn affectionateness he preferred to admonish
his brethren not to do wrong,' — an admonition the more
telling because it was felt that to break rule was to sadden
the bright face of the good abbot *. His death, caused by
the pestilence, partook of his life's serenity. He was ill
for just a week, but did not remove into a private sleeping-
room until the third day : on the seventh he came out, sat
down in the open air, sent for all the monks, and ' in his
loving fashion* ' gave to each the kiss of peace, while they
were weeping and mourning for the loss of ' such a father.'
He died in the course of the next night, March 7, 686,
aged only thirty-six, and having spent twelve years in the
monastery.
Benedict had not yet returned. When he arrived at Ceoifrid
Wearmouth, he found* that Sigfrid had been elected,"*
according to the right of choice secured to the community ''j
to succeed Easterwine. At Jarrow the deadly epidelnic
swept away ' all who could read, or preach, or chant anti-
phons and responsories, except the abbot Ceoifrid and one
^ See above, p. 217. ^ Bede, Hist Abb. 6, 7.
* Ecclus. xzxii. i. Bede adds that he waa *■ mitis, a£fabili8, benignus
omnibus/ After deBcrlbing him bishop Browne asks, ' How can we help
loving those whose ideal this was of a lovable man ?' Lessons, &c., p. 64.
* ' Ne qui peccare vellet, et limpidissimam vultus ejus lucem nubilo sibi
suae inquietudinis abscondere ; ' Hist. Abb. 7.
' *• More naturae misericordis.'
* Hist. Abb. 8 : ' Verum inter laeta,' &c. Sigfrid seems never to have
been ordained priest. Anon. Hist Abb., ' abbas et diaconus.'
' Hist Abb. 9. See Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 908.
390 Benedict's last return from Rome.
CHAP. XI. little boy, who had been bred up and taught by him ^.'
In his distress, the abbot told his young companion that
they would now go through the psalmody without anti-
phons-, at all the hours except vespers and matins. They
did so for a week, and then, after Ceolfrid's tears had often
interrupted the 'maimed rite,' resumed the use of anti-
phons ; and the services were thenceforward recited in full
by the two voices, ' until Ceolf rid could train up or procure
competent associates in the Divine work.' The boy here
referred to, and described as having grown up to be a priest
in the house, and written an account of Ceolfrid's adminis-
tration, could be no other than Bede himself, then about
thirteen years old^. He would take a keen interest in
Benedict's new store of gifts from Rome, especially a series
of paintings for Jarrow, representing types and Sputitypes,
which were ranged on opposite sides of the church*, so
that the scenes of the journey to Moriah and of the Brazen
Serpent confronted those of the Way of Sorrows and the
Crucifixion, and * the harmony of the Old and New Testa-
ments ' was vividly represented to those who entered the
church. Other paintings from the Gospel history were
hung round the chapel of the Virgin in *the greater
monastery' at Wearmouth^
We csmnot but remark that not only Benedict, but
Cuthbert also, a typical saint, was content to ignore the
claims of Wilfrid. The consecration and the episcopate of
Cuthbert were totally inconsistent with the expressed will
of Rome ; yet Cuthbert never seems to have given a thought
^ fiist. Anon. Abb., Bed. Op. yi. 421.
' See the Benedictine rule, as to prime, terce, &c. : *■ Si major oongre-
gatio fderit, cum antiphonis ; si yero minor, in directum (i. e. without
interruption) psallantur,' c. 57. Bede, in his last illness, ' cantabat
antiphonas,' as, * O Rex gloriae.' ' An antiphon, in the original sense of
the word, was the intercalation of some fragment or yerse between the
yerses of the psalms which were being then sung ; ' cp. Neale, Comm. on
Psalms, i. 35 fll A ' double ' feast, as is well known, means one in which
the antiphons are said entire both before and after the psalms. Also
aboye, p. 334, and cp. Greg. Tur. yiii. 31, and the Breyiary of Quinonee,
ed. Wickham. Legg, p. xxi, ' omissia antiphonis,* &c
* See Lingard, A.-S. Gh. ii. 19a
* Bede, Hist. Abb. 8 : < Prozlma super inyicem regione.*
' Bede, 1. c.
Cadwalla and Wilfrid. 391
to that part of the question. Perhaps he assumed what chap, xl
Northumbrian authorities had thought fit to assert, that Wilfrid
the decree produced by Wilfrid was unfairly obtained ^. church of
But, anyhow, the Northumbrian Church went on its way, Northum-
doing its work, as if Wilfrid had never appealed, or as if
his appeal was a nullity^. Cuthbert was installed at
Idndisfame; Eata resumed bis throne in Wilfrid's own
Hexham; Eadhed appeared as bishop in his still dearer
church of Ripon. And no one said a word for him who
had once had all Northumbria at' his feet, and who was
now completing in Sussex the conversion of the kingdoms.
He did not neglect his own cause ; he obtained from Pope
Benedict II, who held the see for ten months from the
June of 684, a recognition of his innocence and his rights ^;
and he procured for himself the friendship of a princely
exile who might well seem destined to become a power,
and whose story reads like a startling romance. This Cadwaiia
was Cadwalla, the descendant of a younger branch of the ^ Sussex.
West-Saxon dynasty *, but apparently coimected by blood
with the British race ^, and at this period leading a wild
outlaw life amid the forests of Sussex, in consequence of
the jealousy of the West-Saxon king Eentwin. Wilfrid
befriended him by gifts, and gained a certain hold on his
* Above, p. 337. ■ Above, p. 325.
' Eddi, 51, *et electo Benedicto;* ib. 5s, 53, 'electus Benedictus.'
Probably he wrote while stlU *• elect/ as in a letter in Mansi, xi. 1085.
* He was the son of Kenbert, great-grandson of the warlike West- Saxon
king Ceawlin ; see Sax. Chron., and Florence, a. 685. Malmesbury says
he was * expelled from Wessex by a faction of the chief men ' ; G. Pontic
iii. I09.
' His name, clearly British, led the Welsh writers to claim him as
a British king, and identify him with Cadwahider *■ the Blessed,' son of
that Gadwallon who was slain at Heavenfield. See Brut y Tywysogion,
or Chronicle of Princes of Wales, Mon. Brit. Hist p. 841. So QeofiErey
says (b. 9) that *■ Gadwalader,' in consequence of famine and pestilence,
went over to Armorica, was miraculously forbidden to return, went to
Rome, and there died (the link between this myth and the real history of
Gadwalhi), having sent his son Ivor and nephew Ini to attack the English
in Britain, &c. And see Angl. Sac. ii. p. xxxi ; and Elmham, pu 254. See
Bees, Welsh Saints, p. 300, on this confusion. In fact, Gadwalader, whom
the Welsh regarded as a saint, died of the plague of 664. Above, p. 152.
' It is pretty certain that he did not die at Rome : ' Haddan and Stubbe,
L ao3. Cp. Rhys, Gelt. Brit. p. 134.
392 Cadwalla, King of Wessex.
CHAP. XI. affections. The connexion thus formed was probably less
confidential and intimate than Eddi wonld represent it^;
but Wilfrid thought he saw in the young untamed barbarian
the rough material of future nobleness, — a force that might
be guided, and a heart that might be won. He hoped to
train, soften, and Christianize this strong ardent nature ^ ;
but one would think he must have felt a shock when
CadwaUa, ' beginning to contend for the realm ' of Wessex ^
not only gathered around him a band of ' broken men '
resembling in some sort the garrison of Adullam, but
attacked and slew the bishop's own royal patron Ethel walch,
as an ally of Kentwin, and therefore an obstacle in his
path. He then wasted Sussex * with cruel ravages,' until
two ealdormen whom Wilfrid had converted, Berchtun and
CadwaUa, Andhun, combined to drive him out *. In 685 ^, the death
West^ <5^ Kentwin was immediately followed by Cadwalla's
Saxons, accession to the throne : he used his new power to avenge
himself on Sussex, which he conquered ®, slaying Berchtun :
and one cannot but ask whether the apostle of Sussex was
passive in such a crisis, or whether his influence was used
in vain. Cadwalla sent his brother, who was called Mul,
*the half-breed,' and who is described as a bnive and
spirited youth ', to make a raid on Kent, which was in an
* He says that they became to each other as father and son ; Eddi, 4a.
See above, p. 269. Malmesbury says that Wilfrid gave him both horses
and money ; Gest Pontif. I. c.
' To * the new nations the ministry of Christianity was * mainly ' to lay
hold on fresh and impetuous natures ... to train and educate and apply
to high ends the force of powerful wills and masculine characters ; ' Dean
Church, Gifts of Civilization, &c. p. 317.
' Chronicle, a. 685.
* Bede, iv. 15 : ' Saeva caede . . . mox ezpulsus est a ducibos regis,' &c.
For this use of ' dux ' see Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 186.
' So Florence. It has been said that Kentwin resigned the crown and
became a monk (see a poem, not by Alcuin, in Alcuin. Op. ii. 549), and
that he named Cadwalla his heir (Malm. G. P. v. 205). The poem,
referred to, 'On the basilica built by Bugge, daughter of a king of
England' (Kentwin), is ascribed to Aldhelm. It was written in Ine's
days. It describes the ' sacellum ' which Bugge erected, its dedication-
day, its rich altar-cloths, &c. The *■ Bugge * who was also called ' Heabuig '
was perhaps the same person.
* Bede, 1. c. Hence, in Thorn (X Script. 1770), he is called king of
Sussex.
* Hen. Hunt. iv. 5, calls him ' fortiasimus,' and says that the invasion
His conquest of the Isle, of Wight. 393
unsettled condition, owing to the recent death of King chap. xi.
Lothere^ while under treatment for wounds received in
battle with South-Saxon auxiliaries of his revolted nephew
Eadric, who then reigned a year and a half, and on dying ^
left the realm in confusion. But the third campaign of
Cadwalla had more important results. He resolved to Conquest
recover the Isle of Wight, which, as we have seen, had wight^
been conquered by Wulfhere and given to Ethelwalch^.
He would again people it with West-Saxons ; and, although
he was not yet baptized ^, and must therefore have been
a cause of anxiety to the West-Saxon clergy who looked
back to the days of Kenwalch, he vowed that if he were
victorious, he would devote a fourth part of the isle and of
the spoils to the God of his friend Wilfrid ®. The conquest The
was marked by a pathetic tragedy : two young brothers ^f ^^^w
of the island sub-king Arwald had tied to the mainland,
hidden themselves ~at Stoneham^ on the Itchen, and had
there been betrayed to Cadwalla, who doomed them, as
a matter of course, to death. A West-Saxon abbot,
Kynibert, living in a monastery at the neighbouring
was by his own request. Bromton calls him ' Wolf,' X Script. 741. See
Lappenberg, i. a6o.
^ Bede, iv. 26 : ' Quo videlicet anno,' &c Lothere died Feb. 6, 685.
Among the 'Dooms' ascribed to him and to Eadric is a reference
to the practice of giving evidence at the altar ; Thorpe, Anc. Laws,
p. 15.
'^ Elmham says, he fell in battle with Cadwalla and Mul ; Hist. Mon.
Aug. p. 353. He had long harassed his uncle by ' civil war,* Malmesb. G.
Reg. i. X. He reigned ' without the love and respect of the Kentishmen ' ;
Bromton, X Script. 741 : but in 686 he gave some land to SS. Peter and
Paul's in Canterbury, 'adjoining that which king Lotharius of holy
memory is known to have given to blessed Peter ; ' Cod. Dipl. i. 31.
' See above, p. sio.
* ' Necdum regeneratus, ut ferunt, in Christo ; ' Bede, iv. 16.
^ Bede, iv. 16. On this see Malmesb. G. Reg. i. s. 34, ' Etsi approbamus
affectum, improbamus ezemplum ; ' and Elmham, p. 253 : both quote
Ecclus. xxxiv. 24, Vulg. The chronicle says that he gave to Medeshamstede
* H(^e, which is in an island called Heabur-eahg,' in the times of abbot
Egbald. But he was not abbot until about 709 ; Monast. Angl. i. 346.
Cadwalla appears to have witnessed a grant of land to Malmesbury, made
in 688 ; Cod. Dipl. i. 39. See above, p. 295.
* ' Ad lApidem,' Bede, 1. c These princes were the last of the line of
Wihtgar, Cerdic's nephew.
394 Conversion of the people of Wight.
CHAF. XI. Reedford or Redbridge ^, took courage to ' repair to his
king, who was then being cured of wounds inflicted on him
while fighting in the island/ and begged that if the youths
must die, they might first be instructed in Christianity and
baptized^. Cadwalla made no objection to this request;
and the abbot, ' after teaching them the word of truth, and
washing them in the font of salvation, assured them of being
received into the heavenly kingdom; so that when the
slaughterer came, they gladly underwent temporal death,
as a passage to life eternal ^/ These ^ martyred brothers of
King Arwald, crowned by the special grace of God/ and
long commemorated on the 21st of August \ on which day
in 686 they were put to death, should be remembered as
' the fiirst fruits of all people of that isle who were saved
through faith/ Christianity made its way into the Isle
by means of Cadwalla's promise: Wilfrid received three
hundred hydes of its land, and assigned them to Bemwin,
his nephew and one of his clergy, giving him also a priest
named Hiddila, ' who might administer the word and the
laver of life to all who wished to be saved */ So passed
away the old Teutonic idolatry, so came in the new faith
of the world's ' Healer,' as the professed religion of the last
English district that had remained in the darkness which
had begun to retreat before Augustine, and which was now
expelled from its insular haunts by Wilfrid •.
Theodore And when this work of his had been done in the far
r^^fi^^ south, his severance from the north came to an end.
to Wilfrid. '
Theodore was too great and good a man to be untouched
by admiration for the mission-work which Wilfrid had
* See Lappenberg, i. 960 ; Freeman, Engl. Towns and DiBtr. p. 174.
Redbridge is a station between Southampton and Lyndhurst-road.
^ < Fidel sacramentis imbui,* Bede, 1. c. In this phrase (see it also in
Bede, ii. 15, iii. i, iv. 97) 'sacramenta' means sacred truths. For
^ imbuo' in this connexion cp. Bede, ii. 14, 15 ; iii. 3.
' Bede, iv. 16 : ' Ubi silentio praetereundum/ &c.
* Lappenberg, i. a6o. The term * martyr' was thus laxly applied to
Etbelred and Ethelbert (above, p. 97a), Kenelm of Mercia, Ethelbert of
East-Anglia, *■ Edward the Martjr,' and earl Magnus of Orknej.
^ These two, it is said, lived at Brading and St. Helens.
* Thus, says Henry of Huntingdon, ^universae regionum partes Christ i
lumine et gratia fruebantur ; ' it 39.
Theodore reconciled to Wilfrid, 395
done in exile ; and as he was now a very old man, his chap. xi.
rigorous and imperious nature had naturally been softened
by years. Nor could he, we may well think, be wholly
free from compunction when he recalled the events of
678 K He made overtures for a reconciliation ; and Wilfrid
met him by appointment in London, in the house of Bishop
Erkenwald. Eddi puts into the archbishop's mouth ^ words
of self-humiliation which cannot be literally accepted ; but
it is clear that he said what was equivalent to regret for
Wilfrid's sufferings, and to a desire to promote his restora-
tion. We are even told that he proposed to recommend him
for the succession to his own see ^, which in the course of
nature would soon be vacant ; and that Wilfrid, naturally
enough, preferred to return, if possible, to Northumbria.
Theodore then wrote to King Aldfrid, referring, says Eddi,
to the decision of Pope Agatho, and the later declaration of
Pope Benedict in Wilfrid's behalf, and exhorting him, ' for
the redemption of his brother Egfrid's soul,' to come to
terms with Wilfrid. He wrote similarly to the abbess
Elfled, who probably inherited Hilda's feelings against
Wilfrid * : and Eddi preserves for us a letter in which the
aged archbishop, in a tone of pathetic pleading, entreated
Ethelred of Mercia to be the ' patron ' of an oppressed
^ See Smith's Bede, p. 754 : also Raine, i. 71 ; and by him correct Hook's
characteristic dogmatism, to the effect that Theodore 'had nothing to
regret/ and therefore did regret nothing, but thought that V^ilfrid had
been punished enough, &c.; i 175.
' Eddi, 43. ' O holy bishop, I have sinned against thee, by consenting
to the act of the kings 'who, without any sin on thy part, despoiled thee
of thine own property ... I confess to the Lord and to St. Peter the
apoetle.' It is curious to see how Eddi speaks of the spoliation, when we
should expect him rather to speak of the uncanonical encroachment and
deprivation. Fridegod puts into Theodore's mouth three lines of regret
and sympathy : ' Poenitet, en, fill,' &c., 1005. Malmesbuiy says, G.
Pontif. iii. 103, that Theodore confessed all his sins to the two bishops (I).
' As Eddi words it, < ut in sedem meam . . . superstitem et haeredem
yivens te constituam.' Malmesbury, ' Rogo te . . . ut . . . sedem archi-
episcopatus mei subeas,' &c. (G. Pontif. p. 933). Eadmer puts into Wilfrid's
mouth a grotesquely insincere compliment : * I think you treated me in
that way with the intention that I should be exercised in patience . . .
and thus reach perfection ; ' Vit. Wilf. 44.
^ This seems to be implied in Eddi's words, * Nam ad iEHfledam,' &c.
Later, we find Elfled taking part with Wilfrid ; Eddi, 60.
396 Wilfrid restored to York.
CHAP. XI. bishop who, * deprived for a long time of his own property,
had laboured much in the Lord among the heathen ^'
* Do therefore, my son, my son, in regard to that holy man,
as I have besought thee ; and if thou wilt obey thy father,
who is not long for this world, it will greatly avail for
thy salvation/ The letter contained also a request that,
although such a journey might seem too long, Ethelred
would visit Theodore ; * let mine eyes see thy pleasant face,
and my soul bless thee before I die^Z Ethelred, we are
then assured, 'received Wilfrid willingly' into his kingdom,
while he was on his way homewards, and restored to him
the ■ monasteries and lands which he had possessed in
Mercia ; and Aldfrid himself * invited Wilfrid to his court,
according to the archbishop's injunction *.'
Wilfrid Once more, therefore, Wilfrid returned to his native
North-* country, probably in the autumn of 686 *. But on what
nmbria. terms did he return? Let us remember that, according to
the Roman decree, the subdivision of the original diocese of
York was to be annulled, and Wilfrid was to be reinstated
in that diocese, as it had existed before 678 : that done,
a new Council was to be held in Northumbria, with the
assent of which he was to choose new bishops, who were
thereupon to be consecrated by Theodore. What was
actually done appears to be this : — Wilfrid, on arriving in
the North-country, found the new see of Hexham vacant
by the recent death of Eata *. He was thereupon put in
possession of that church; and after a certain interval,
Bosa being compelled or induced to retire from York, and
Eadhed to give up Ripon, Wilfrid regained both the cathe-
dral church for which he had been consecrated, and the
minster which he had ruled as abbot*. Thus, as Bede
' Theodore was sure to appreciate Wilfrid's work among Frisians and
South Saxons,
a Eddi, 43. » Eddi, 44.
* Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 17a.
^ Eata died, says Bede, v. 2, in the beginning of the reign of Aldfrid.
He had been (i) abbot of Melrose, (a) of Melrose and Lindisfame, (3)
bishop of Hexham and Lindisfame, (4) of Lindisfame only when Tunbert
became bishop of Hexham in 681, (5', again of Hexham only in 685.
• Eddi, 44, says that Aldfrid (i) bestowed on Wilfrid the monastery
The Compromise. 397
says, in his curt reference to these events, ' he recovered chap. xi.
his own see ' : ' but was it the centre, as before, of a diocese ^?^^^\.
coextensive with the kingdom ? It was not, for the diocese former
of lindisf ame retained its distinct existence : Cuthbert was ^^is^op""**-
regarded as legitimate bishop of Lindisfame, in flat dis-
regard of the Roman decree, until his death in the March
of 687, some months after the return of Wilfrid, who then
took charge, as we should say, of that diocese, and ' kept '
it until, a year afterwards, Eadbert was consecrated, as
Bede expressly says, ' in place of Cuthbert V This occu-
pancy or administration of the most northern of the
bishoprics appears to have had a parallel in Wilfrid's
relation to Hexham until the consecration of John for that
bishopric; an event which, if the Chronicler's reckoning
of the duration of his episcopate be accepted, together
with the date of his death ^ must be placed on the 25th of
of Hexham, and (a) ' post intervallum temporis,' according to the decree
of pope Agatho and his synod, * his own see in York, and the monastery
at Ripon, expulsis de eo alienis episeopis.' ' Pelluntur moecAt,' says
Fridegod.
^ Bede, v. 19 : ' £t secimdo anno Aldfridi (i. e. between May, 686, and
May, 687) . . . sedem suam . . . recepit.* The Chronicler and Florence
appear to confound Wilfrid's first restoration in 686 -with his second in
705 : that is, they ignore the latter, and thus are led to say that he
received the see of Hexham in 686. There is inconsistency in their
statements as to the length of John's episcopate, which they make to
begin in 685 (see below). Florence says that Bosa died in 686, and John
succeeded him at York. This ante-dating of Bosa's death arose from
a misapprehension of Bede's words in y. 3, which refer in fact to a. d. 705.
Bosa was alive in 704 ; Eddi, 54 ; Smith's Bede, p. 759 ; Stubbs, Registr.
Sacr. Angl. p. 4.
' Bede, iv. 99 : ' Episcopatum . . . uno anno servabat . . . Yilfrid,
donee eligeretur qui pro Oudberdo antistes ordinari deberet.' This one
phrase shows clearly that the Roman decree was not really obeyed.
' Bede himself says, v. 6, that he * continued in episcopatu ' thirty-three
years, and that he died in 721. This might be understood to mean that
he retired to his monastery after thirty-three years of active episcopal
work. But the Chronicle is more precise : ' In 721 the holy bishop John
died ; he was bishop thirty-three years, eight months, thirteen days.'
Florence says that he died on May 7, 721. Therefore he was con-
secrated on August 25, 687 (see Stubbs, Registr. p. 4 ; Raine, i. 86), and
not in 685. In other words, John was not bishop of Hexham when
Wilfrid returned, and did not retire to make room for him, as Richard
of Hexham (X Script. 296) and Elmham (Hist. Mon. Aug. p. 280) say,
and as Smith supposed, p. 754, and Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 140. Smith
398 John^ bishop of Hexham.
CHAP. XI. August, 687, about five months after the death of Cuthbert,
Certainly, during that interval, Wilfrid must be regarded
as the one chief pastor of Northumbria ; but while he was
undoubtedly bishop of York, and, as such, * ordinary ' of
the Church in Deira, it appears that he was only the
* administrator ' of Hexham and lindisf ame, probably with
the understanding that he should approve of the selection
of prelates for those two churches, but without any pros-
pect of a provincial Council to be held for their appoint-
ment. Lindsey was treated as out of the question, being
no longer within the Northumbrian realm ^. Thus, on the
whole, we see that Wilfrid was content to accept an
arrangement which fell short of the strict requirements of
Rome.
Those months during which he discharged episcopal
functions in the diocese of Aidan and of Cuthbert were
marked by some distress or peril to the lindisfame com-
munity, which, in Bede's prose Life of Cuthbert, is described
mysteriously as a 'breeze of trial' under which many
of the brethren were minded to * leave their home rather
than dwell there at such risk of expulsion*': — in his
metrical work on the Miracles of St. Cuthbert he gives
a little more information, or at least helps us to infer
that what he there refers to as a 'north wind shaking
the roofs of Lindisfame ^ ' may have been some threatened
. descent of the Picts, now free to harry the Border.
John, Wilfrid, as we have seen, parted with the charge of
Hexham. Hexham in the late summer of the year after his return.
On Sunday the 25th of August, 687, a bishop was con-
adds the suggestion that Cuthbert retired to make room for Wilfrid;
Bede*8 account of the matter disposes of this entirely, iv. 98. See Haddan
and Stubbs, iii. 171.
^ On the principle here involved, that the ecclesiastical divisions should
be conformed to the political, see the writer's ^ Notes on Canons of First
Four Councils,' p. 176.
* Bede, Yit. Cuthb. 40 : ' Tentationis aura,' &c., and ' repellendl ac
destruendi essent.' It was, he says, foreshown by the circumstance, that
at the moment of Outhbert's death the monks then in Fame, and also
the Lindisfame community, were singing in their nootums the peaim,
' DeuSf repulisti nos.'
* 0e Mirac. Cuthb. s. 37 : ' aqoilo niveis conflsus in armis.'
Johfiy bishop of Hexham. 399
secrated for that 'goodliest of Transalpine churches/ who chap. xi.
was to become the object of greater reverence than any
northern saint except Cuthbert^, and to be invoked as
a patron by * the glorious Athelstane ' on his way to the
field of Brunanburgh ^. This was John, famous as ' St. John
of Beverley' from *the monastery which he founded in
Deira-wood ^/ and to which he at last retired to die. He
was sent, while a youth, to the ecclesiastical school of
Canterbury, where he received from Theodore himself
instructions in theology*, and also some maxims in
medicine, which, when a bishop, he remembered and
applied*. He afterwards entered the monastery of
Whitby ® : and Bede reckons him among the five monks
of that house whose merits raised them to the episcopate.
Some traits of character which Bede mentions give us
a very pleasing impression of his genial kindness towards
young men under his authority'^; while, as bishop of
Hexham, he showed his love for devotional retirement
after the fashion of Aidan and Cuthbert, by providing
himself with a house, surrounded by a belt of wood and an
earthwork, and adjoining a cemetery of St. Michael, a mile
^ See Baine, i. 90, and Scott's ' Gray Brother.'
' Ailred, in X Script. 357: 'Audiens . . . haec . . . rex, '^Magnus
est," inquit, ^Uste Johannes/" He prayed at the shrine, and gave the
priyilege of sanctuary to the minster of Beverley. See above, p. 103.
^ Bede, v. a : * Monasterii quod vocatur Inderauuda, id est, In Silva
Derorum/ The present name is derived from ' a colony of beavers in the
Hull river.'
^ Bromton, in X Scriptores, 794.
^ Bede, v. 3 : < I remember that archbishop Theodore used to say that
it was very dangerous to bleed a person when both the moon is waxing
and the tide is rising.' Op. Bede, ^ de Hinutione Sanguinis.'
• Bede, iv. 23.
^ See the beautiful story of Herebald in Bede, v. 6. The young cleric
is riding with some young laymen in attendance on the bishop, but
persists, against the tatter's wish, to join them in a gallop ; he overheara
the bishop say, 'What pain you are giving me I'; he is thrown, and
fractures his skull : the bishop spends the night alone in prayer for him,
visits him in the morning, and asks, * Do you know who is speaking to
you ? ' ' Yee, you are my beloved bishop.' Herebald quickly recovered,
was re-baptized (his former baptizer having been * too dull to learn the
rite'), and lived to become abbot of Tynemouth. Two other stories
represent John as dedicating ^ churches' on private estates (v. 4, 5).
400 Eadberty bishop of Lindisfame.
CHAP. XT. and a half from Hexham, and on the north bank of the
Tyne*. Here he used to spend such time, especially in
Lent, as he could secure for prayer and study, and would
* keep with him, for charity, some poor man afflicted by
special sickness or need.' The fervent affection which
Bede shows for his memory is explained by the fact that
he received deacon's and priest's orders from his hands,
in the years 691-2 and 702-3 ^.
Eadbert And the succcssor of Cuthbert was a man of the same
fame? *^ pious simplicity. Eadbert, says Bede, was consecrated
a year after Cuthbert's death, i. e. about Easter in 688 ^ ,
' a man remarkable for his knowledge of Scripture and his
observance of Divine precepts, and particularly for alms-
giving ; insomuch that, according to the law (i. e. of Moses),
he gave to the poor a tenth part not only of animals,
but of all fruits of the earth, and even of his clothes*/
He restored tranquillity to the agitated community of his
island '^l and improved the cathedral church of thatched
oak which Finan had reared, and Theodore had dedicated
to St. Peter, by removing the reeds from the roof, and
covering both it and the walls with lead °. He too, like
John and like Aidan, was wont to retire for devotion
to a secluded projection of land 'enclosed by the waves
* Bede, v. a : ' Est mansio quaedam 8ecretior/&c. Richard of Hexham
calls the place Erneshow (Eagles' hill), and believes the * oratory * of
St. Michael to have been begun by Wilfrid ; X Script. 991. Bede got his
information from Berctiin, abbot of Inderawood. For Aidan's habit, see
above, p. i6a.
' Bede, v. 34. He was ordained deacon at the early age of nineteen.
' Bede, iv. 89 : ^ Ordinatus est autem.'
* The ' tithe ' thus set apart was not Hithe in its modern sense,' in that
it went to the poor; Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. a6i. In Theodore's Peniten-
tial we find, * Presbitero (for this, rather than ^presbiter,* must surely be
the reading) decimas dare non cogitur/ b. 11. c. 9. s. 8 ; and 'Decimas non
est legitimum dare, nisi pauperibus et peregrinis, sive laici suas ad
ecclesias/ b. ii. c. 14. s. 10. See Lord Selbome, Anc. Facts and Fictions,
p. 107, on the purport of this, as placing the payment of tithes on *• the
footing of customs,' &c Cp. Diet. Chr. Ant. ii. 1965. Later, Bode
speaks of a ' tribute ' to the bishop as generally enforced ; Ep. to £gb. 4.
See Lingard, A.-S. Oh. i. 183.
* Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 40. To this relief from perils, Herefrid (quoted by
Bede) applies the words of Ps. cxivii. a, 3.
* Bede, iii. 95 : ^ Sed episcopus loci ipsius Eadberct.' &c. Op. p. 191.
End of Benedict Biscop. 401
of the sea^/ and there pass Lent, and the forty days before chap. xi.
Christmas. We seem to get a glimpse of his inward life
when we read that he used to pray against a sudden death,
and desired to pass away after a long illness ; — and such an
end, says Bede, was granted to him \
Such an end too was appointed, in the first year of his End of
episcopate, first to the acting abbot of Wearmouth, and Biscop!^
then to its venerable founder. Sigfrid was a chronic
invalid; and Benedict, the indefatigable traveller, was
for three years aiSected by what we call a creeping palsy ^.
Yet while his lower limbs were motionless, he ceased
not to 'praise God and exhort the brethren.' He bade
them observe the rule which he had compiled with such
care and after such varied experience ; urged them to keep
entire the library which he had brought from Bome ; but
above all things insisted on the duty of choosing an abbot
not for the sake of high birth, but purely for personal
merits. ' I tell you of a truth,' he said, * that of two evils
I should much prefer that this monastery should become
a wilderness for ever, than that my brother by blood,
who, we know, does not walk in the way of truth *, should
succeed me here as abbot.' He exhorted them always
to choose out the fittest man from their own community,
according to the rule of *the great abbot Benedict,' and
according to the provisions of the letter of privilege
belonging to their house; and to 'present the person so
chosen to the bishop for benediction ^' Very touching is
Bede's account of this long decline of Benedict Biscop.
' Bede, Vit Outhb. 49. It had been so used bj Cuthbert
' Bede, V. G. 43 : ' Ut non repentina morte, sed longa excoctns aegri-
tudine, transiret e corpore.' Gp. Bede, Hist. Abb. 11.
' Bede, Hist. Abb. 9, and Horn. 95, ' infirmitatis martifrio*
^ *■ Fratrem . . . inopia cordis a se longissime distantem ; ' Anon. Hist.
Abb. Benedict was thus strongly opposed to the notion of treating
abbacies as ' family benefices ' ; see Stubbs, Gonst. Hist. i. 957. In the
old Sootic monasteries ' the abbatial succession came to be confined to
members of the clan of the founder'; Stuart, Pref. to 'Book of Deer,'
p. cviii ; Beeves, Adamn. p. 335 ; Skene, ii. 68, 338.
* Gomp. Faridus, Vita S. Aldhelmi, c 9, speaking of Aldhelm's care to
secure free and worthy elections : ^ Jam tunc enim ambitio monachorum
inoleverat : jam non ut pastor per ostium, eed ut for aliunde, volebat
mercenarius inti-are,' &c. Gp. Theodore's Penit., b. 9. c. 6. s. 1-5.
Dd
402 End of Benedict Biscop.
CHAP. XI. His nights were often wearisome from sleeplessness ; he
would then 'caU to him a reader, and desire to hear the
account of Job's patience, or some other pa.ssage of
Scripture, which might alleviate his depression'; and at
each canonical hour he summoned some monks, and joined
his voice to theirs in the antiphonal psalmody. He and
.Sigfrid had a farewell meeting, the latter being carried
on a couch into Benedict's cell: the old friends were
assisted to take a tender embrace of efiu*h other ^ ; Sigfrid
was laid down beside Benedict with his head on the same
pillow, and their attendants had to bring their faces
together for the last kiss. 'After taking counsel with
Sigfrid and the whole brotherhood,' Benedict sent for
Ceolfrid the abbot of Jarrow, and, with the approval
of all, made him head of both houses, on the 12th of May,
688 '^. Sigfrid died on the 22nd of August : Benedict lived
on into the next year, and passed away early in the
morning of the 12th of January, 689, while the monks
assembled in church were singing 'Deus, quis similis'?'
and those who kept watch in his chamber, after hearing
the Gospels read by a priest throughout the long wintry
night, looked at his face for the last time in life, shortly
after his last Communion. He was not more than sixty
years old.
Cadwalia That year of Ceolf rid's accession to the abbacy of both
f^^ houses, or of the one twofold house, was marked in Wessex
by the strange end of a brief reign, which had blazed
'like a meteor in the troubled air' of the south. Cad-
walla's brother Mul, in the course of a fierce raid in Kent,
had fallen with twelve adherents into the hands of foes
whom he despised as womanish*. They suddenly beset
^ ' Nee tantum habuere virium ut propius posita ora ad oscalandmn ae
alierutrum co^jungere posaent, sed et hoc fratemo compleverunt officio.'
Bede calls it ^ a lamentable sight ' ; Hist. Abb. 10.
* The Anon. Hist, gives this date, * the third year of king Aldfrid, the
eighth from the foundation of St Paul's monastery.' The third year of
Aldfrid began May 90, 687, — reckoning from Egfrid's death.
' In our reckoning, the 83rd. See Bede's 25th homily for a sketch
of the life of Benedict. He urges his brother-monks to be ' worthy of so
good a father/ to *■ follow his example and precepts.'
* ' Nam cum hostes effoeminatoe duceret/ &c. ; Hen. Hunt iv. 5.
I
L
Cadwalla goes to Rome. 403
the house wherein he was, and burned it with all whom chap. xi.
it contained ^ Cadwalla avenged him by another irruption
into Kent^; but this was the last of his wars. He had
now, at last, resolved to be baptized; and the intensity
of his nature, combined with that extreme form of local
religiousness which he may well have imbibed from
Wilfrid, made him resolve on going a long way for the
cleansing ' laver/ even to the shrine of the chief Apostle.
According to Bede's conjecture, he had a hope that he
should die soon after his baptism, and so secure his salva-
tion*. So it was that Pope Sergius I, who had come
to the see on December 15, 687, saw in the following year
this remarkable catechumen at his feet*. He who, for
all his admiration of a missionary bishop, had in his own
person, and beyond all other English princes of his time,
represented the wild Teutonic thirst for slaughter and
conquest, who had borne the banner of Wessex through
so many battles against the defenders of their own soil,
who had dipped his hands in the blood of a Christian king
and earl, of crowds of Christians in Kent and Sussex, and
of the two royal boys whom he allowed to be christened
before he slew them, — who, himself as yet unpledged
^ Chronicle, a. 687 ; Florence, a. 687 ; Bromton, X Script. 741. Elmham
says that Mul has been erroneously ranked by * some persons' in the list
of Kentish kings, and that his ashes were buried in St. Augustine's,
' juxta reges Cantiae praeoedentes.' According to Henry of Huntingdon
he had ' deserved and brought down on himself the curses ' of Kentish
monks. ' Chronicle, 1. c.
* Bede, y. 7 : ' Simul etiam sperans,' &c Elmham imagined that both
' Cadwalader king of the Britons * and Cadwalla king of the West-Saxons
went to Rome, and died there, on the same day ! p. 970. The Abingdon
Chronicler (i. 4) puts into Cadwalla's mouth a penitential confession,
' Creator ereaturarum Deus, miserere mei super omnes homines miseri,'
&c., and adds that he resolved to be baptized ' cum major! solemnitate,
although the sacrament has not the less efficacy in itself propter personas
baptizantium/
* The Chronicle dates Cadwalla's journey in 688 : compare Bede's date,
* the third year of Aldfrid/ Cadwalla, then, stayed at Rome some months,
for he died there in the spring of 689. He doubtless went through
a course of instruction before baptism. Sergius, says Hodgkin, was
' a strong man ' (vi. 354). The chief event of his pontificate was his
successful resistance to Justinian IFs demand that he should accept the
oanons of the councU ' in TruUo.' He died in 701. Above, p. 356.
404 Baptism and Death of Cadwalla.
CHAP. XI. to Chriflt, had thought to secure His favour for invasion
by promising to give part of its spoils to Wilfrid, — ^this
prince got the benefit of a corrupt tone of thought among
contemporary Christians, and bought, far too cheaply, even
at such hands as Bede's ^, the honours of Christian piety
by receiving baptism under the name of Peter, and from
the hands and under the sponsorship of * Peter's successor ^'
His death, on Easter Eve, April 10, 689. His own anticipation was
fulfilled: he was taken ill during Easter- week, while he
still wore his white baptismal garment ^ and died on the
20th of April. A convert of such rank and renown, — the
first of six English kings* who worshipped as pilgrims
at the tomb of St. Peter, on the spot now occupied by
the shrine of the lamp-lit 'Confession,' — was naturally
honoured with a burial in his church®: and Bede pre-
serves the tumid verses in which the writer of Cadwalla's
epitaph celebrated his abandonment of his kingdom, his
* wondrous faith,' his reverence ' for Peter and for Peter's
see,' and his speedy removal to a heavenly kingdom, and
to the fellowship of 'the sheep of Christ,' after the
'cleansing grace' had renewed his soul, and he had
partaken of light at the source of its world-wide diffusion.
According to the few words in prose which the visitor
to St. Peter's would read immediately below this intensely
Roman panegyric, Cadwalla was about thirty years of age.
^ Bede, y. 7: 'Devotiouis ipsius . . . stadium religionis.' It never
occurred to Bede (and that it did not, is a fact of painful significance)
that Gadwalla's manifest duty was to receive baptism from his own West-
Saxon bishop, and then to remain at home and govern his people like
a just man and a Christian.
* The epitaph calls Sergius 'ipse pater Fonte renasoentis.* We may
assume that the Chronicle is right in saying, * He received baptism from
the pope.' So St. Biriuus was both the baptizer and the godfather of
Cuthred ; see above, p. 179.
' * In albis adhuc positus.* Although the metrical epitaph says, ' quern
. . . gratia . . . Protinus albatum vexit in arce poli,' and again, ^ Candidas/
he cannot have strictly retained the * whites ' until the day of his death,
which was outside the Paschal octave. The poem, ' de Templo Baggae,*
says he was taken ill ^poat albas.' See above, p. 136.
* One of these, Ethelwolf, brought his boy Alfred with him.
' His tomb (in the atrium, near the original grave of St. Gregory) was
discovered while the new church was being built, but disappeared after^
wards : Lanciani, Pagan and Chr. Rome, p. 932.
Ine^ king of West-Saxons. 405
He was succeeded on his abdication — for his journey to chap, xl
Rome, as Bede says, was equivalent to an abdication — by
Ine, or Ini, often called Ina, descended from a younger ine, king
son of Cadwalla's ancestor Ceawlin ^ : whose accession saxons."
suggests to Bede the mention, not of his ' laws ' or of his
ecclesiastical benefactions, but of his abdication and
departure to 'the Apostles' threshold,' in the hope, as
a dominant superstition taught even Bede to say, Hhat
the saints might give him all the friendlier welcome in
heaven.' But, in 688, according to Bede's reckoning^,
thirty-seven years lay between the accession of Ine and
that journey which he undertook when his wife, by a
strange symbolic lesson, had taught him that this world's
glory would pass away ^
His first act, it seems *, was to renew the war against
Kent; it lasted until the people, weakened by previous
invasions and intestine divisions, were glad to make terms
with him by a * wer-gild ' for the death of Mul. There
is a difference of reckoning as to the accession of their
next king Wihtred, the legitimate representative of the
' iSscingas ' or descendants of iEsc son of Hengist ^ He
was the brother of the slain Eadric; but he did not for
some few years succeed in making good his claim to the
whole realm of Kent •. And while the secular affairs of
^ See the Genealogies in App. to Florence. Ine there appears as son of
Kenred the ' sub-regulus,' and great-grandson of Gutha, who was son of
Guthwine, the younger brother of Gad walla's great-grandfather Gatha.
He had a brother Ingels, and two sisters reputed as saints, Gathburga,
the foundress of the abbey of Wimborne, and Gwenburga. The fiction
that he was Gadwalla's nephew is connected with the Welsh tale about
' Gadwalader ' and his nephew * Ini.' See above, p. 391.
* Bede, t. 7, dates Ine's abdication in 795 : the Ghroniole dates it in 738.
* Malm. G. Beg. i. 35.
* According to some MSS. of Malm. 1. c. : see Elmham, p. 364. Bromton
dates this later, X Script 758 ; as the Ghronicle dates the peace in 694.
The wer-gild in this case is variously described ; see Palgrave, p. 408.
^ He was son of Egbert, and great-grandson of Eadbald.
* According to the Ghronicle, a. 694, he succeeded in 694, and reigned
thirty-three winters, having been joint king with Webheard (Swebhard)
in 693. But his death is dated in 735, as if he had only reigned thirty-
one years. Bede says, iv. 96, that after Lothere's death, Eadric reigned
for a year and a half, i e. until August, 686 : < quo defuncto, rages dtc&ti
vel extern! ' ravaged Kent for some time, ' donee legitimus rex Yiotiied, id
4o6 Death of Theodore.
CHAP. XI. the ancient realm were in this confusion, it was bereft of
Death of its great ecclesiastical head. Theodore was eighty-eight
Theodore. ^^^ ^jj j^^ ^j^^ ^^^^ ^^^ Cadwalla's baptism. He had
already, it seems, approved of the publication, by some
South-English cleric, of certain answers given by himself,
mostly to a presbyter called Eoda, to questions on points of
penitential discipline^. Hence the collection of these
answers is called Theodore's Penitential. But it contains
some statements of opinion which cannot well have come
from Theodore ^. On the whole, and with some exceptions,
it is characterized by austerity, and a disposition to provide
by express and detailed rule for all varieties of cases. It
exhibits that knowledge of Qreek customs as differing more
or less from Roman, which we should expect from a native
of Tarsus \ It also shows, here and there, a certain lofti-
ness and insight which well become the character of the
great primate ^. And it points to something like a settled
est filius Ecgherti, being established in the kingdom, delivered his people,
by his piety and his actiyity, from external invasion.' Bede says that
Wihtred and Swebhard were reigning in Kent in 69a (v. 8) : and that in
795 Wihtred died after a reign of thirty-four and a half years (v. 93) —
reckoned, of course, so as to begin before his sole kingship. Hen. Hunt.
says, * he held the kingdom of Kent thirty- two years, nobiliter et pacifioe.
He went to meet Ine with pacific entreaty, and persuaded him to accept
a ''fine" for Mul's death.' Later, he assigns to Wihtred nearly thirty-four
years ; Hist. Angl. iv. 619. Malmesbury celebrates the king's piety and
prosperity, Gest. Reg. 1 35.
^ Above, p. 983. Op. Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 173 ff. The compiler
describes himself as a *• discipulus Umbrensium/ and says that Eoda is
' reported ' to have obtained the greater number of these rules, or atate-
ments of opinion, from Theodore himself^ in answer to his inquiries.
From the 'Dialogue of Egbert' we learn that Theodore established the
observance of a fast during the twelve days before Christmas ; Haddan
and Stubbs, iiL 413. The Greeks now fast Nov. is-Bec. 94.
' £. g. b. I. c. 5. s. 6, — the opinion that a person baptized by a heretic
who did not beliave rightly in the Trinity ought to be baptized again.
The compiler says, ' Hoc Theodorum dizisse non credimus contra Nioenae '
{aic) 'concilium/ a mistake for the council of Aries. See too b. i. c. 9^ s. 19
as to one ordained while unbaptized. In b. 9. c. 19. 6. 5 a husband who
has put away his faithless 'first wife' is allowed to marry another.
See above, p. 989.
' See b. I. c II. s. I ; c. 19. s. i, 3 ; b. 9. c 9. s. 14 ; c. 3. s. 9, 7, 8 ; c 4.
8. 4 ; c. 8 ; c. 19. s. 6, 8.
* £. g. ' True conversion can take place at the last hour, quia Dominus
non solum temporis, sed et cordis inspector est;' b. i. c. 8. s. 5. ' Con-
Death of Theodore. 407
system of district church life ^, as if Theodore had endea- chap. xr.
voured to establish such a system in the Kentish church,
and had largely succeeded.
Theodore died on the 19th of September, 690 2. It was
said that he had long before foretold the age — eighty-eight
— at which he would die, as having had it impressed on
him in a dream. He was buried in the monastery of
SS. Peter and Paul, and within the church itself, because
the northern ' porch,' the burial-place of his predecessors,
was now full \ On his tomb was engraven an epitaph of
thirty-four verses *, of which Bede gives us, as sufficient
specimens, the first four and the last four, and surpasses
all that they may have said by the simple testimony, ' In
his episcopate the English Churches received more spiritual
benefit than they could ever gain before his time *.'
feBsio aatem aoli Deo agatur licebit, fd necesse est : (Et hoc nacMMrium in
qaibusdam oodicibus non est') ; b. i. o. la. s. 7. ' Foolish and Impraoticable
TOWS are to be broken ; ' b. i. c. 14. s. 6. ' I>e mortuo autem Dei solius
est notitia ; ' b. 9. c. 14. s. 9. * The sick maj take food and drink at any
hour ; ' b. 9. c. 14. s. 13.
' K g. b. I. c. 9. s. 7, ' presbiter in propria proyincia ; ' b. 9. c i. s. i,
' ecclesiam licet ponere in alium locum ; ' c. 9. s. 7, ' presbitero licet . . .
populum benedicere in Parasceue ; ' and on laics paying tithe ' suas ad
ecclesias,' c. 14. s. 10. Cp. Bede, v. 4, 19. Willibrord planted this system
in Frisia ; Alcuin, Vit. Willibr. i. 1 1. See above, pp. 196, 969, and Lord
Selbome, Anc Facts and Fictions, &c., p. 118.
» Bede, v. 8.
' Bede, ii. 3. Elmham, p. 986.
^ For ' pausare ' as used in the first line see above, p. 993.
' For a summary of Theodore's archiepiacopal work see Wakeman, Hist.
Gh. Engl. p. 47. But it is beyond question that he had a despotic temper.
CHAPTER XII.
Burial of The burial-day of such a prelate as Theodore must
always be an epoch in the history of a Church. It is not
hard to enter into the thoughts of the high ecclesiastics
who preceded the corpse, as it was borne, for the first time
at the interment of any archbishop, through the northern
porch, now full of sacred remains, into the actual church of
St. Peter ; — ^who looked down, at the close of the rite, into
that open grave, dug where the inner wall of the nave just
ran between it and the sepulchre of Augustine. There
stood the venerable Hadrian, in his place as abbot of the
minster which thus asserted its high privilege ; he who had
escaped the burden of the archbishopric by recommending
the stronger man who had just laid it down ; he who, as
companion, adviser, and fellow-teacher, had not a little
aided him to bear it. And near the grave there would be
a few prelates who had been sui&agans to the first effective
metropolitan : Gebmimd of Rochester, we may be sure,
attended, and probably Erkenwald of London, infirm as he
was, and Heddi of the great West-Saxon diocese, unless the
war between Kent and Wessex had prevented his coming.
Since Wilfrid had returned to York, there had been no
bishop in Sussex. By one account, Tyrhtel was now bishop
of Hereford * ; Cuthwin of Leicester was apparently dead :
Saxulf was probably failing: Bosel of Worcester was
doubtless detained at home by infirmities which disabled
him for his work. Acci and Badwin would hardly travel
^ Mon. H. Brit. p. 538.
State of the Kingdoms. 409
from Dunwich and Elmham, nor Ethelwin from Sidnacester, chap. xh.
nor Wilfrid, John, and Eadbert from the North. The
bishops actually present at these memorable obsequies
would feel that * a prince and a great man ' was indeed
gone from them : they might occasionally have fretted
under his absolutism, but they could not fail to appreciate
the blank caused by his departure. All would have a sense
of a void which could not be filled ; the Church was
inevitably the weaker and poorer for the loss of that
majestic character, with its dominating will and its rare
faculties for government. Whenever any difficulty or
emergency might arise, it would be the harder to confront
without Archbishop Theodore.
For the present, the bark of the Church appeared to
be in smooth waters. The kings were friendly, on the
whole, to the episcopate: if uncertainty still hung over
the future of the throne of Ethelbert, Sebbi of Essex was
a man of exceptional piety, of whom it was even said
that he would have been fitter for a bishopric than for
a kingdom^: Aldwulf of East-Anglia was he who had
aided in the foundation of Ely: Ethelred of Mercia
possessed a large measure of that personal religiousness
which distinguished so remarkably the oSspring of the
'strenuous' Pagan Penda: and Wessex and Sussex had
exctag^l C^S.. with hi, aer» passion, »d inco.-
sistent impulses, for a king who deserves the name of
great*, and who in one of the early years of his reign ^
^ Bede, iy. ii. For his influence in keeping his people from apostasy,
see above, p. 238.
' Freeman, 01d-£ngl. Hist. p. 69. 'As a warrior Ina was equal, as
a legislator he was superior, to the most celebrated of his predecessors ; '
langard, H. R i. 135. ' Whether he came to the throne by Cadwalla's
adoption or by election of the great men, ... is imknown to us ; ' Schmid,
Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, p. zxxyL ' From the time when he first
appears on the stage of history imtil in the fullness of his prosperity he
put on the pilgrim*s dress, and died in obscurity and poverty at Rome, his
conduct is everywhere pure, noble, disinterested ; ' Stevenson, Pl^f. to
Abingd. Chron. ii. p. zi.
' See Johnson, Engl. Canons, i. 199. He would date these laws in 693 :
see too his editor's note. Lingard, H. £. i. 135, adopts this date. Haddan
and Stubbs, iii. 214, say, 'probably a. n. 69a' Erkenwald seems to have
died in 693 (ib. ai8) : and it is hardly probable that he would be able,
4IO Laws of King Ine.
CHAP. xn. convened a West-Saxon Witenagemot which enacted what
ine'sLawB. are Called the 'Dooms ' or Laws * of Ine ^' At this assembly
not only Heddi of Winchester, but Erkenwald of London
was present ; both are spoken of similarly as Ine*s bishops,
and this would suggest that Ine had succeeded, for the
time, in establishing his supremacy over London, which
was generally connected by some such ties with Mercia
rather than with Wessex *. ' A great number of ' monastic
* servants of God ' were present at this gathering : among
them, we may be tolerably sure, Aldhelm of Malmesbury
had his place. The 'right laws' there enacted had
reference to * the health of souls ' as well as to the stability
of the realm, and thus illustrate the peculiarly close union
of * Church and State ' in the Old-English Christian king-
doms *, in which it was natural to describe the Witenagemot
as a * Synod,' and its secular decrees were sometimes blended
with ordinances of a directly religious character*. This
interpenetration of the spiritual and temporal societies
was exhibited on an inferior stage when bishop and
ealdorman appeared, sitting side by side, at the shire-mote,
'to expound God's law and the world's law*.' Of the
from his infirmities, to come into Wessex for a laborious session of the
Witan, in the last year or two of his life. On the other hand, a year
or two at least must have elapsed between Ine's accession and this
assembly.
^ Johnson, i. 131 ; Thorpe, Anc. Laws, p. 45 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii.
214. One remarkable point in these laws is that Ine legislates in the life-
time and ' with the counsel and teaching of his father Kenred,' who never
reigned.
* Lingard, H. E. i. 136 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. ai8.
* Freeman, i. 369, *■ The nation was deeply religious ; the Church was
deeply national ; ' and in Hist. Essays, iv. 340, ' Nowhere was the Church
BO truly the nation in one of its aspects;' but see also Stubbs, Const.
Hist i. a6S, < The relation of the Church to the State was thus oloee,
although there was fiat ihe least oon/usion as to the organization of functions,
or uncertainty as to the limits of the powers of each.'
* See the Laws of Cnut, made in a Gemot at Winchester. They begin
by ordaining Hhat men above all other things should ever love and
worship one Qod.' Alfred's 'Dooms' begin with the Decalogue, and
include the decree of the council of Jerusalem. For a lax use of ' synodus '
see above, p. 933.
* Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. loi ; Kemble, ii. 385 ; Robertson, Hist. Ch. iii.
187. The Boman legates who held a synod in 787 forbade bishops ' in
conciliis suis saecularia jadicare ' ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 45a.
Renewal of Wilfrid's troubles. 411
seventy-nine laws of Ine, those which relate to the Church ch^^- »"•
deal with various points of Church-life and Church-rights.
Thus, they enforce, under penalty of * b6t * ' or pecuniary
satisfaction, the baptism of infants within thirty nights
from birth *, — ^the abstinence from work on Sunday '*, — ^the
observance of * right rule ' by all God's * theowes ' or bond-
servants, i.e. the monastic bodies^, — the due payment of
* Church-scot * ' every Martinmas for the roof and hearth
owned at the preceding mid-winter. They recognize the
position of a communicant, or one who ' goes to housel V
as making his oath of higher value. They refer to the
institution of sponsorship, and define the 'b6t' for the
slaughter of a ' bishopson,' or godson in confirmation '', as
half that for a godson properly so called. They presuppose
the special solemnity of an oath taken before a bishop.
They guard the privilege of sanctuary ^, as sheltering even
capital offendera They order that he who buys a slave
or freeman of his own race, and sends him over sea, shall
pay his wer-gild, and ' make deep satisfaction to God,' i. e.
submit to severe penance infiicted by the bishop *.
It would have been difficult under any circumstances
to find a successor to Theodore; and the election was
apparently yet further delayed by the troubles of the
kingdom of Kent. And during this interval, the question
^ See Thorpe, Ano. Laws, p. 393, for a liBt of eoclesiastical ' bdts.'
* See canons under king Edgar, no. 15, Thorpe, p. 396, that every child
18 to be baptized within thirty-seven nights. Laws of North. Priests,
no. 10, ib. 417, say, within nine nights.
* See above, p. 376.
^ < Servus,' ' famulus,' ' fiimula,' or ' anoilla Dei,' being used in
a specific sense: e.g. Bede, Praef., i. 93 ; iii. 8^ aa ; iv. 8, as.
* On Church-soot, a church-due consisting principally of com, see
langard, A.-S. Ch. i. 190 ; Kemble, ii. 559 ; Stevenson's Chron. of
Abingdon, ii. 437 ; Thorpe's Glossary to Ancient Laws.
* ' Husl-gengea,' Laws, 15, 19. Bede lamented the infirequency of Com-
munion among Northumbrian churchmen, Ep. to Egb. a. See council of
Clovesho, 747, c. a3, urging more frequent Communion. See ^firic in
Johnson's £. EngL Canons, i. 404, where to ' go to housel ' is to receive
the Host ; and ib. 487, < to go to housel thrice a year at least' Compare
Hamlet, i. 5, ' unhousel'd ' (without communion).
^ ' To be bishopped ' was an old phrase for being confirmed ; see Donne's
Poems, p. 173. On a ' bishopson ' see above, p. 369.
' See above, p. 103. * Johnson, i. 134.
412 Questions for Wilfrid.
CHAP. XII. between Wilfrid and his adversaries was again stirred in
Northumbria. For some time after his return in 686, we
learn from his biographer that 'peace and quietness
abounded between him and the most wise king, with the
enjoyment of nearly every form of good/ But, by degrees,
disagreement began to alternate with concord: and Eddi
tells us, with a rapid variation of metaphors, that those
who had caused the former enmity succeeded in rekindling
the torch of dissension, and stirring the sea until they
wrecked the bark *. Three grounds of difference, we are
told, came definitely to the front * after five years' had
elapsed from Wilfrid's restoration — that is, in the latter
part of 691.
The first was a grievance of long standing: certain
property belonging to the church of York was unjustly
detained in other hands ^.
The second matter was of broader significance : it seems
that ever since Eadhed had returned from Lindsey and
established himself as bishop at Bipon, there had been
a desire on the part of the Northumbrian government to
make that church a permanent see. The prospect was
specially galling to Wilfrid. To take from him Bipon,
the home of his presbyterate and of his first years in the
episcopate, was to touch him in the tenderest point : this
minster was dearer to him than Hexham, dearer in one
sense than York itself^. There was doubtless no day
in his past life to which he looked back with greater
pleasure than to the day on which, in the presence of all
the magnates of Northumbria, he had solemnly dedicated
the basilica, and, standing before its altar, with his face
to the assembly, had recited a list of all the lands secured
to him by royal grant, and of all the sacred places which
the British clergy had held and forsaken*. When he
resumed the see of York, he had also recovered Bipon,
Eadhed having made way for him. But now it seemed
that he was himself to make way for the return of
» Eddi, 45.
^ Eddi, ' territoriis et possessionibus suis injuste privatur.*
* See Lingard, A.-S. Gh. i. 139. *• Above, p. a68.
Questions for Wilfrid. 413
Eadhed, and the minster of St. Peter was to be changed c**^- 3^"'
for good into a cathedral church. Never again, if this
plan were carried out, would he be able to call Bipon his
own: the church with its stately columns and cloisters,
the special treasure which it boasted in a superbly jewelled
and richly coloured Gospel-book, the very ground associated
with early plans and hopes, and with not a little of self-
restraining patience, would pass into other keeping *.
But, thirdly, this requirement, to him personally so
grievous, was but part of a wider demand. He must
accept, it was said, ' the decrees of Archbishop Theodore *.'
What decrees ? Not the canons of the Council of Hertford,
to which he had by his deputies assented at the time.
Nor, again, those arrangements which Theodore had made
' in his last days, when he invited all the Churches to
canonical peace and unanimity ' : that is, apparently, the
arragements by virtue of which Wilfrid had returned to
York in 686. The decrees now pressed upon his acceptance
were * those which Theodore ordained in the middle part
of his time, when discord had arisen ' in Northumbria * :
in other words, the partition of the old Northumbrian
diocese, without Wilfrid's consent, into several dioceses,
according to the original plan of Egfrid and Theodore,
which would not have ousted Wilfrid from the church of
York, but would have made him one of four bishops of the
Northumbrian kingdom, then including lindsey ; against
^ About forty-three years later. Bede complained that owing to the
' very foolish grants of preceding kings' to monastic communities, * it was
not easy to find a place where a new episcopal see might be erected ; '
i. e. the most desirable places were monopolized by monasteries. He
advised that some monastic church should, by proper authority, be
turned into a cathedral, and the community be permitted to choose the
bishop,— one of themselves, if possible,— at any rate from within the
diocese ; Epw to Egb. 5.
' See £ddi, 45.
* Malmesbury calls them 'decrees which, when pronounced in the
middle period, are known to have stirred up discord ' ; G. P. iii. 104.
Eadmer, ever loyal to Canterbury, says that whereas no English bishop
could safely gainsay, ' vel leviter,' the decrees of the primate, those decrees
which Wilfrid resisted were * ea quae . . . ut fertur, pro libitu, non pro
ratione statuerat ' ; c 46. See Smith's Bede, p. 754, * of which decrees,
however, they were not ignorant that Theodore had repented.'
414 Questions for Wilfrid.
CHAP. ziL which partition he had signified his intention to appeal,
and had been thereupon deprived of York itself. He was
now, in effect, called upon to acknowledge that this mode
of increasing the episcopate in Northumbria had not been
matter for protest, still less for appeal; and to give up,
once for all, those safeguards under which, according to
the Pope's synodical judgement, such an increase might be
canonically secured. After his return in 686, he had
accepted what he could get, the full possession of the
diminished diocese of York, including his minster at Bipon,
and also the temporary government of Hexham and of
Lindisfame, considered as existing dioceses. He had not
been recognized, in the first instance, as the one legitimate
bishop of all Northumbria, nor enabled to meet his brethren
in provincial synod in order to choose bishops for new
dioceses, to be then formed out of his own. And now,
most probably in consequence of something that he had
done or said, the king required him to surrender definitely
his claims asserted in 678, and affirmed and guarded by
Rome in 679, to a control over the diocesan subdivision of
Northumbria. The question was immediately connected
with the proposed severance of Bipon from York : but it
really brought out the entire difierence between the
Northumbrian authorities and the Boman Council. Wilfrid
held himself free, when Aldfrid proffered a reconciUation,
to waive for the time a part of his full rights; but not
to abandon them wholly and in perpetuity. Beverence for
Bome, as he would say, of itself forbade such a surrender :
and he said so in plain words, which became an occasion
for depriving him once more of York. Bosa, no doubt,
returned to York as bishop ; and Eadhed, perhaps, resumed
possession of Bipon. It is not to be supposed that Wilfrid
on this occasion, any more than when he stood before the
Boman Council, denied the expediency of a plurality of
bishops for the North : he had, on the contrary, admitted
that it might be desirable to appoint more bishops, and the
dispute was as to the terms of their appointment, and the
questions of order and justice involved in Theodore's decrees.
* Above, p. 333.
Wilfrid in Mercia. 415
If we had only Bede's narrative, we should indeed know chap. xn.
little of many events in Wilfrid's story. He says nothing
of the exiled bishop's attempts, after his release from
imprisonment at Dunbar, to find a home in Mercia or in
Wessex. He says nothing of that imprisonment itself ^
So on this occasion, it ia but incidentally, in the coarse of
chapters on the monastery of Whitby and on missions ^, Wilfrid in
that he alludes to the sojourn of Wilfrid in Mercia after ^^^^^'
his second * expulsion ' from York. That sojourn is briefly
described by Eddi as following immediately on his refusal
to accept the terms proposed by Aldf rid. * He went to his
faithful friend, Ethelred king of the Mercians, who, out of
reverence for the Apostolic see, received him with all
honour:' it was not now as in 681, when Ethelred com-
pelled Berth waJd, for political reasons, to send Wilfrid out
of his district. Every piece of property — and there were
many such — which Wilfrid held in the Midlands, had, as
we have seen, been restored to him at Theodore's request :
and now, when he entered the Mercian realm, episcopal
work was at once found for him. While Saxulf of Lich-
field^ was succeeded by Hedda, the see of Leicester*,
formerly held by Cuthwin, was placed in Wilfrid's keeping ;
and he ranks, accordingly, in Florence's catalogue, as the
second of twenty-three bishops of * Mid-Anglia *.' One of
his first episcopal acts must have been specially interesting
to him as a Northumbrian. Bosel, bishop of Worcester,
was no longer able to discharge his duties ^ : age or illness
had broken him down. It was arranged, therefore, that
he should resign, and that another bishop should take his
place. By an unanimous resolution, a priest named Oftfor
was elected : he had been a inonk of Whitby under Hilda,
* Bede, iv. 13 ; y. 19. See above, p. 338.
* See Bede, iv. 93, ' per Yllfridum beatae memoriae antistitem,' &c ;
and y. 11, 'Yilfrid qui tunc ... in Mercioram regionibus exulabat.'
' Eddi makes Saxulf s death precede Wilfrid's Mercian episcopate. The
Chronicle is wrong in dating it a. d. 705. The true date is 691.
* Not that he was regularly settled there as bishop of the place ; see
Smith's Bede, p. 755, who, however, thinks that it was Lichfield which
was entrusted to him, between Saxulf s death and Hedda's consecration.
* Saxulf had for a time held both sees.
* See Bede, iv. 23.
4i6
Missions to Friesland.
Gonsecra
tion of
Oftfor.
Missions
to Frisia.
CRAP. zii. and, in his desire of some ' more perfect ' system of disci-
pline, as Bede expresses it, had gone to study at Canterboxy
under Theodore. After some time thus spent, he had
visited Rome, and on his return had settled among the
Hwiccians in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, still
governed by the sub-king Osric In that district Oftfor
preached, and, as Bede is careful to add, lived in consistency
with his preaching : and after he had for some time com-
mended himself to the estimation of the Hwiccian Church,
he was, at Ethelred's bidding, consecrated by Wilfrid in
692, ' because no one as yet was ordained bishop in place
of Theodore ^'
Wilfrid's troubles again bring us into the circle of
missionary activities. We must go back a little, and
observe that the priest Egbert, whom we last heard of
as remonstrating against Egfrid's invasion of Ireland,
had soon afterwards conceived the idea of going as
a missionary ^ to some of the German tribes ' from which
the Angles and Saxons of Britain were known to be
sprung^.' Mysterious intimations, however, were said to
have warned him that he was not to go to the Continent,
but to ' the monasteries of Columba, because their ploughs
did not go straight, and it was his duty to recall them
to the straight path*': he at first neglected the aUeged
* See Ethelred's grant of lands Ho my venerable bishop Oftfor' for the
church of St. Peter in Worcester, Kemble, Cod. Dlpl. i. 35.
' < Well-descended men ' among the English of this period 'cannot rest
till they have wandered forth to carry the tidings of redemption into
distant and barbarous lands; a life of abstinence and hardship, to be
crowned by a martyr's death, seems to have been hungered and thirsted
after by the wealthy and noble ; ' Kemble, ii. 363. See above, p. 338.
' Bede, v. 9 : < a quibus Angli,' ftc
* 'Aratra eorum non recte incedunt.' The story is remarkable.
A brother who had formerly attended on Boisil of Melrose told Egbert
that Boisil, *■ once his most loving teacher and nourisher,* had appeared
to him in a dream, and given him this message. Egbert bade the monk
say nothing about it, ' ne forte illusoria esset visio ; ' an indication that
stories of this kind were scrutinized. ' But while silently pondering the
matter, he feared it was true : yet still he would not abandon his purpoee
of going to teach the heathen.' The * brother ' again came, and said that
Boisil had rebuked him for having given the message negligently. Again
Egbert replied as before ; and * though thus assured of the vision, he
nevertheless attempted to begin his journey.'
Failure of Wtcibert's mission. 417
oracle, and had actually prepared to embark, when a storm chap. xn.
destroyed no small part of the ship's cargo. Egbert then
abandoned his hopes : a friend of his named Wictbert, who Wictbert.
had been a hermit for many years in Ireland, attempted to
make some impression on the Frisians to whom Wilfrid
had preached with such success about ten years before. In
this good work he laboured, but in vain. The Frisian chief *
Radbod was not like Adalgis : he did not, indeed, prohibit
the preaching of Christianity, and in after-days he yielded
so far to the exhortations of bishop Wulf ramn of Sens as
to come to the very edge of the baptismal font, and only
drew back when, in reply to his sudden question, the bishop
told him that his ancestors were undoubtedly among the
lost 2 : — but still he did not hearken to Wictbert, who had
to accept disappointment, return to Ireland, and confine
himself to the work of 'edifying his neighbours by his
example, since he had failed to win strangers to the faith V
Two years having been spent in the effort thus abandoned,
Egbert looked about for other instruments, and found a
mighty one in Willibrord, a pupil of his own, and like him WilH-
of Northumbrian birth *, who had spent some time as a boy ^^ '
' Bede calls him a king ; v. 9. So Alcuin, Tit. Willibr. i. 6. Alcuin
Bays that he roceiyed Willibrord kindly, bat was hardened against his
preaching, until, after a bold warning from the bishop, he said frankly,
* I see that you do not fear my threats, and you speak as you act ; ' Vit.
Will. i. 9, 10 (Op. ii. 188). Boniface in 753 told pope Stephen III that
the bishop of Cologne had not fulfilled his duty of preaching to the
Frisians, and that 'pagana mansit gens Frlsonum' until Willibrord
came ; Ep. 90.
' Yit. S. Wulfr. : 'Gertum est damnationis accepisse sententiam.'
Whereupon Radbod ^ pedem a fonte retraxit/ saying, ' he could not go
without the company of his predecessors, and sit down with a few poor
folk in that heavenly kingdom ; ' see Maclear, Apostlos of Med. Eur. p. 106.
' Bede, y. 9 : ' Tunc reyersus,' &c. See above, p. 328. For other cases
of missionary failure, see p. 343, and Hardwick, Gh. Hist. M. Ages, p. 118,
Friedrioh in Iceland ; pw 129, Gottschalk king of the Wends, who after
twenty years of labour was murdered by his subjects ; p. 229, Meinhard
in Livonia. Olga fiEdled with her son, but succeeded with her grandson ;
p. 130.
* His father Wilgis became a hermit on a promontory in the Humber.
While yet an infant, Willibrord was given over by his pious mother to
the brethren at Ripon. See Alcuin, Vit. Willibr. i. i, 3. See above,
p. 201.
E e
4i8 Mission of Willibrord
CMAP. m. in Wilfrid's abbey at Ripon, and had gone to Ireland at the
age of twenty, partly from desire of * a still stricter life,'
and partly in order to profit by Irish learning. He now,
in his thirty-third year *, accepted the call to go to Frisia,
and set forth with twelve companions in 690 \ One seems
to see him, tall and dignified in person, with signal attrac-
tions in the grave beauty of his face, and the cheerful
kindness of his speech and manner^. The party landed
at the mouth of the Rhine, in the harbour of Catwic*
visited the old Roman town of Trajectum, 'the Passage/
Trecht or Utrecht, where six years later Willibrord was
to fix his archbishopric, and then finding Radbod and his
Frisians, as Wictbert had left them, in the ' foulness of
Pagan customs*,' 'turned aside to Pippin duke of the
Franks,' called Pippin of Heristal, the great Austrasian
who, four years previously, had virtually put an end to
the Merovingian period of ' chaos,' and was ' ruling unques-
tioned over the whole Frankish race ^' He, the true founder
of the new sovereignty which became imperial in the person
of his great-grandson, anticipated Charles himself in his
readiness to promote Christian and ecclesiastical activity.
Even as Boniface, many years later, found * the patronage '
' Alcuis, Yit. WilL i. 5. See Frobenitis on Tit i. 23 ; Bede, v. 10.
' Frobenius (Alciiin, ii. 185) and Lingard (A.-S. Gh. ii. 330) give this
date. On the fondness shown by saints for the apostolic number of
twelve, see Reeves's Adamnan, p. 999, and above, p. z6i.
' Alculn, Yit. Will, i 23 : < statura decens^'&c. His courage waa of the
heroic type ; see the story of the Fositeland weU, and that of his assault
on the idol ; ib. i. 10, 13. See Maclear, p. loi. But he gently restrained
his attendants from punishing an insult offered to him (ib. i. 14), and
'ut erat mitissimus,' gave wine from his flask to poor men asking
alms (16 ^
• Alb. Butler. Nov. 7.
' Alcuin, Yit. Will. i. 6^ 9. Op. Bede, iii. ai, 'sorde idololatriae.'
Badbod's ' heart' proved ' stony.* He died in 720.
* Kitchin, Hist. Fr. i. 95, 99. < He had two weapons, the sword and
then the monkish missionaries.' The victory of Pippin over the
Neustrians, at Testry, was in 687. Distinguish (i) Pippin the elder,
Austrasian 'mayor of the palace': (2) his grandson Pippin of Heristal,
who held the same office, rose to be ' duke of the Franks,' and became
father of Charles Martel : (3) this Pippin's grandson. Pippin the Short
or the Little, brother of Carloman, father of Charles the Great, and king
(consecrated as such by St. Boniface) in 752.
and of Swidbert. 419
of another 'prince of the Franks 'indispensable for his chap, xn,
episcopal success^, Willibrord received a glad welcome
from Pippin, who 'sent him to preach to the heathen
people of Hither Frisia^' the land of the Meuse, and
supported his work 'with sovereign authority, conferring
great favours on those who were willing to receive the
faith, insomuch that by aid of Divine grace, the mission-
aries in a short space converted many from idolatry®/
Willibrord lost no time in repairing to Rome, to obtain the
• licence and blessing ' of Pope Sergius for his missionary
enterprise ; and during his absence ' the brethren who were
in Frisia chose one of their own number to be ordained for
them as bishop V His name was Swidbert*, 'a man of Swidbeii;
virtuous life and humble in heart ; ' and at the request of
the missionaries, there being still no archbishop at Canter-
bury, Wilfrid performed the consecration in 693. The
new bishop returned to the Continent, and laboured with
much success among the Boructuarians or Bructerians in
Rhenish Prussia : but after that people had been expelled
by the Saxons, he took refuge with Pippin, who, at his
wife's request, gave Swidbert land for a monastery on the
isle of Kaiserwerth, then called 'On-the-shore®,' where he
led a very ascetic life, and died in 713. Bede also dwells Martyr-
on the touching story ^ of two Anglian priests, caUedf^^'^
respectively the Black and the Fair Hewald. They had Hewalds.
spent years of study and devotion in Ireland ^, when the
examples of Willibrord and his companions led them, with
some others *, into Saxony. They were admitted into the
^ Bonif. Ep. I a. Cp. Ep. ii, Charles Martel's letter of protection for
Boniface.
* He had recently won this land from Radbod ; Bede, y. la
' Bede, ▼. lo. * Bede, y. 1 1 : * Qao tempore fratres,* &c.
' Ann. SS. Bened. iii. 939 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 995; Lingard, A.-S.
Ch. ii. 334. Alcuin (de Pontif. Ebor. 1073) associates a priest called Vira
with Swidbert.
* Bede, y. xz. His ' heirs' owned the monastery in 731.
^ Bede, y. 10 : ' Horum secuti ezempia.' Neither Bede nor Alcuin (Pont.
Ebor. T043> hints that they were brothers, as Alban Butler and Lingard
infer. Of the two, he of the black hair was the more scholarly.
' ' In Hi bemia multo tempore pro aetema patria exulaYerant/ 1 ike Egbert.
* One of their * socii ' was Tilmon, a man of noble English birth, who
had been a thane (' miles '), and had become a monk ; Bede, y. 10.
E e 9
420 Martyrdom of the Hewalds.
CHAP. xiL house of a village headman ^, who promised to send them
on to the ealdorman* of the district;— in the meantime
they 'devoted themselves to prayer and psalmody, and
daily offered to God the sacrifice of the salutary Victim,
having with them sacred vessels, and a hallowed table to
serve as an altar V These mystic rites aroused suspicion* :
if the Angles were allowed to have speech with the ealdor-
man, * they might draw him away from the gods to their
newfangled Christian religion, and so the whole province
might ere long, perforce, be turned from the old ways to
the new/ So they suddenly 'fell upon' the two priests,
'and slew Fair Hewald with a rapid sword-stroke, but
Black Hewald with long tortures and horrible dismember-
ment ;' then cast the martyrs' corpses into the Rhine. Their
blood was promptly avenged by the ealdorman, who put to
death all the inhabitants of the township, and burned their
houses to the ground. The bodies were recovered, and
buried by Pippin's orders at Cologne. The day of their
martyrdom was the 3rd of October; the year, probably,
695*, It may be added here that Willibrord was conse-
crated archbishop of the Frisians by the hands of Pope
Sergius, in St. Caecilia's ® at Rome, on the festival of that
saint, November 22, 696 : his name being changed by the
* Villicufl, the * town-reeve,' or governor, of a * vicua.* See Stubbe,
Conflt. Hist. i. 47, 93. See above« p. 313.
' Bede says that these ' Old Saxons ' had no king, but a number of
' satraps ' (.or governors of districts) who, in war time, oast lots which
should lead the army. These were ' dukes or ealdormen ' ; Freeman,
Growth of Engl. Constit. p. 34. See Stubbs, 1. c. The biographer of
St. Lebuin says (Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist. ii. 361) that every Saxon
'pagus' (or * hundred,' Stubbs, i. 96^ had its 'princeps' (see ib. 99). We
find ' satraps ' mentioned after ' dukes ' in Wihtred's Privilege ; Haddan
and Stubbs, iii. 24a.
' Bede, v. 10: ' Victimae salutaris.' See above, pp. 116, 167.
* Probably the celebration of the Eucharist seemed to them a ' magicalis
Boena ' : see Vit. S. Lebuini, where the Suxons are made to ask, ' Quidnam
est illud phantasma vagabundum, quod suis praestigiis alienat mentes?'
&c. ; and forthwith bum Lebuin 's * little oratory.'
' lingard, A.-S. Ch. ii. 334. So Alb. Butler, * most probably.' He adds,
' They are honoured through all Westphalia ; ' Lives of Saints, Oct. 3.
* So Bede, v. 11 : 'Ordinatus est autem,' &c Alouin says, at St. Peters
(Vit. i. 7) ; a not unnatural mistake. St Caecilia's in the Trastevere
was founded by Urban I in the third century.
Wtlltbrord, missionary Archbishop. 421
Pope to Clement \ He stayed only a fortnight in Rome, chap. in.
and then returned to his mission-field, where he received
from Pippin *a place for his episcopal chair' at Utrecht,
which Bede, here referring to it, calls Wiltaburg^ Near
this royal fortress he built a cathedreJ church and monastery,
called that of Our Saviour*, in imitation of the Lateran
basilica. His episcopate, which included among its energetic
onslaughts on heathenism a desecration of the fountain and
cattle belonging to the idol Fosite in Heligoland*, had
lasted thirty-five years when Bede wrote *, and was closed
by his death in his eighty-second year®, a.d. 739. It was
a grand career of 'manifold contests in the heavenly
warfare'',' during the whole of which, says his illustrious
biographer, ' so long as he lived with us, he ceased not to
labour in the love of Christ ®.'
Such was the missionary spirit in these typical English
^ For other such casoB, see p. 199.
* Cp. Yit. S. Lebuini, Pertz, Hon. Germ. Hist ii. 361 : ' Castrum
Wiltenbui^g antiquitus dictum, modo vero Trajeotum.' A/terwards the
monastery at Utrecht, under its abbot Gregory, included a flourishing
'school,' whence missionaries went forth. See Vit. S. Lludgeri, L g;
Pertz, it 407.
* Boniface, Ep. 90 : < In honore Sancti Salvatoris.' Above, p. 6z.
* Alcuin, Yit. Will. i. 10. No one might touch the cattle, nor, save in
silence, drink of the well. Willibrord bade his companions kill some of
the cattle for food, and baptized three men in the well * cum invocatione
Sanctae Trinitatis.' He thus drew down on his party the fury of the
heathen islanders : one of his band was marked by lot for slaughter, and
killed. Cp. Yit. S. Liudg. 19. See above, p. 78.
^ Bede, v. 11, says, * he is still sighing after his heavenly reward.' In
Yit. Outhb. 44, he speaks of a * clericus Wilbrordi ' who paid a visit to
Lindisfame.
* Alcuin, Yit Will. ii. 24. St Boniface says that he preached fifty
years (a roimd number) in Frisia ; Ep. 90.
' Bede, v. 11.
* Alcuin, Yit Will. i. 93. See the Judicium dementis, a series of
twenty rules, in Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 296. It has some remarkable
points : it forbids any one to fast and take another man*s sins on him,
for hire. Offerings 'de praeda' cannot be received. He who, by
negligence, works or shaves himself, &c. on Sunday, and he who com-
municates after eating, must do penance for a week. He who ' denies
God without compulsion' must do penance ten years. Prayer may be
made for the soul of a demoniac suicide. But a man who cannot recover
his wife fix>m the enemy may, after a year, marry another ; and the
wife, if afterwards set free, may do the like.
422 Bertwald, archbishop of Canterbury.
CHAP. XII, Christians towards the close of the first century of the
Bcrtwald, English Church. It is now time to see how the chief seat
of Canter- in that Church was filled, after the vacancy which had
bury/ caused the application to Wilfrid on behalf of Swidbert.
As we have seen, Wihtred, *the legitimate king of Kent */
Avas obliged for a while to share the kingdom with Sweb-
hard ^ : and these two princes are mentioned by Bede * as
concurring in the election, on the ist of July, 692, of
Bertwald, otherwise Brihtwald, abbot of the monastery in
that old Roman town of Beculver whither Ethelbert had
retired from Canterbury in 597, and where Egbert had
enabled ' Bass the mass-priest ' to build a minster in 669 ^.
Bertwald was 'learned in the Scriptures, and thoroughly
conversant with ecclesiastical and monastic rules, although,'
as Bede adds, 'he could not be compared to his predecessor/
What we first hear of as to liis conduct is not much in his
favour. It seems that he declined to be consecrated by any
of his future suffragans ^ ; and this led to a year's further
delay. It was not until St. Peter's festival in the following
year, 693, that he received consecration from Godwin, arch-
bishop of Lyons, whom Bede calls ' metropolitan bishop of
Gaul ' ; and in fact, although it was not until the eleventh
century that the church of Lyons ' obtained the primacy '
over three other metropolitan churches ®, we find its bishop
signing before those of Vienne, Rouen, and Sens, at the
^ So Hen. Hunt, calls him ; Hist. iv. 6. See above, pu 405.
' Elmham says that Swebhard was the son of * Sebba ' king of East-
Saxons (p. 935), made himself king of Kent by violence (p. 931 ^ and gave
a charter to Minster (ib.). But the charter is dubious.
' Bede, v. 8.
* Ghron. a. 669. See Kemble, God. Dipl. i. 91 : king Lothere gnnta
land in Tlianet, called 'Westaney,' <to thee, Bercuald, and to thy
monastery,' with consent of Theodore and Edric, at Beculver, in May,
679. Bertwald was sometimes confounded with Beorwald abbot of
Glastonbury, as by Malmesbury in his De Antiq. Glaston. EccL (Qale,
Script, i. 308) : * Iste Beorwald, transactis decem annis in regimine
Glastoniae, Cantuariensis archiepiscopus fuit.' But Beorwald was abbot
while Bertwald was archbishop; Bon if. £p. 104.
^ On this, see Haddan and Stubbs, iil. 999.
• Neale, Essays on Liturgiology, p. 996. Gregory of Tours calls
Nioetius of Lyons a patriarch ; H. Fr. v. ai. For Godwin, op. GalL
Christ iv. 50.
Death of Bishop Erkenwald. 423
council of Chalon, about 650 ^. It is interesting to observe o^ap. xii.
that our episcopal succession, inaugurated at Aries, and
renewed at Rome, was now reinforced from the illustrious
see of St. Irenaeus^. On Sunday the 31st of August, the
throne which had been nearly three years vacant in the
basilica of Canterbury received its new occupant ^. Work
for him was not wanting, and we find him joining with
King Ethelred and several bishops, including those of
Worcester, Lichfield, Hereford, Elmham, Rochester, and —
which is observable — Wilfrid, now of Leicester, together
with Alric, probably of Dunwich, and another whose name
is lost, in witnessing a grant of land for a nunnery by
Oshere, the new Hwiccian under-king, the date of which is
693 \ This proves that Of tfor*s short episcopate extended
at least to the latter part of this year : and Gebmund, whose
death is referred to the same year by the Chronicle, appears
from better evidence to have survived until 696 *.
It is not quite certain, but it is probable, that the year of Death of
Bertwald's arrival was the year of the death of the saintly ^'^^^ ^^'
bishop Erkenwald. He had held the see of London from
675 : he is commonly supposed to have died on the 30th of
' Mansi, x. 1193. Hefele, iv. 463, E. T.
' When Bertwald arrived, he found at least three bishops in office who
had been consecrated by Theodore, — Heddi, Bosa, and John : and Heddi,
as bishop of Winchester, must surely have taken part in the consecration
of Tobias of Rochester, who would naturally be associated with the arch-
bishop in the consecration of Daniel, from which the line descends to
archbishop Jaenbert in 766. Cp. Bp. Stubbs, Registr. Angl. pp. 4-1 1. Else-
where he suggests that John may have assisted in Daniel's consecration :
Apost. Succ in Oh. Engl. p. ai. See above, pp. 245, 354.
' The betters of Sergius' to kings Ethelred, Aldfrid, and Aldwulf, and
to < the bishops throughout Britain,' exhorting them to receive Bertwald,
are, like others given by Malmesbury, very questionable. The tone of
this series of letters suggests that they were written at Canterbury in
order to magnify the archbishopric in connexion with Rome. The letter
to the king is suspicious even in its address : it omits the West-Saxon
king and names the East- Anglian.
* Cod. Dipl. i. 41 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 332. Oshere's son Ethel-
ward, < subregulus,' with king Kenred's consent, granted land at
Omberaley to bishop Egwin for Evesham in 706. See Cod. Dipl. i. 64 ;
Above, p. 349.
^ See Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 941. Gebmund appears at the Witena-
gemot of Berghamstede in 696.
424
Piety and death
Death of
King
Sebbi.
CHAP. xn. April, 693 '. * He was regarded in London as an eminent
saint/ — so says Malmesbury, who adds that his successors
for several generations * lie under the cloud of obscurity, ao
that even their tombs are not known' : it is thought a great
thing, he adds, among the inhabitants to know even their
names ^. The first of these undistinguished prelates was
Waldhere, who received in 694 no less a postulant for the
monastic habit than his own East-Saxon king, SebbL This
prince, the son of Seward ^ one of the Pagan sons of King
Sabert, must have been far advanced in life when, after
thirty years of kingship, he was attacked by an illness
which seemed the signal of approaching death. He had
been through all those years a devout Christicoi: at the
beginning of his reign, he and those East-Saxons who were
under him, in contrast with his nephew and colleague
Sighere, had held fast the faith under the trial of pesti-
lence*: ever since, he had been a man of prayer and
almsdeeds, and would even have followed the perilous
example of Sigebert the Learned, and given up his crown
in order to become a monk, had not his wife steadily
^ Stubbs, Registr. p. 3. Another account would give him onlj eleven
years ; Alb. Butler, April 30. Another prolongs his life to 697 ; see
Dugdale, Hist. St. Paul's, p. 315. It was said that the clergy of St. Paul's
and the monks of Chertsey contended as to the place of his burial. The
mediaeval account (Dugdale, Hist. St Paul's, p. 390) which commits the
blunder of calling London a * metropolitan ' church, gives a lively picture
of the quari'el : the Londoners forcibly carry off the corpse from Barking,
despite the cry of the Chertsey monks, ' He was our abbot I ' The rain
having swollen the river which they must pass, the monks interpret it as
a Divine warning. The Londoners doggedly answer, ' We will go through
an armed host, we will besiege strong cities, ere we lose our patron ! '
A disciple of Erkenwald preaches charity, and suggests prayer for a sign :
the waters divide, the weather clears up, the corpse is borne in triumph
to St. Paul's. He was buried at first in the nave of his church ; in the
later cathedral his shrine was in the Lady-chapel. See Dugdale, p. 74 ;
Milman, Annals of St. Paul's, p. 11 ; and Dr. Sparrow Simpson's Chapters
in the History of Old St. Paul's, pp. 20, 89.
' Malmesb. G. Ponti£ ii. 73.
' Florence, app. He was therefore the brother of Sigebert the Little,
and a kinsman of Sigebert the Good. See a grant, by ' Hodilredus parens
Sebbi,' to the abbess of * Beddanhaam,' witnessed by Sebbi, Erkenwald,
and Wilfrid, in Kemble, Cod. Dipl. i. 39.
* See above, pp. 338, 347.
of King Sebbi. 425
refused her consent to such a separation ^. But now, at chap, xil
last, when he said to her, ' Let us even at this close of our
wedded life devote ourselves to God's service^, when we
can no longer enjoy, or rather serve, the world,' she yielded
reluctantly to his desire. He ' took the habit ' accordingly
before the bishop, and brought with him a large sum to be
spent on the poor, reserving nothing for himself. His
sickness increased, and brought with it that dread of the
last enemy which has often been permitted to burden the
spirit of a faithful servant of God. But, as it was with
Johnson, with the Mere Ang61ique, with Maria Theresa,
with Charles Wesley, so it was with Sebbi when the
supreme moment really drew near. He had begged W aid-
here to visit him at his palace in London. * What if he
were to say, or even by gesture express, in the agony of
death, something unworthy of his character^ '? Would the
bishop promise to come, when the hour had arrived, and
assist him in his last struggle, allowing no one else, save
two of his attendant thanes, to be present?' Waldhere
willingly undertook to do so : soon afterwards, the old man
had a dream which persuaded him that he should have
a quiet departure * ; and he died at 3 p.m. on the third day
afterwards, 'as if gently falling asleep.' He was buried
in the chiurch of St. Paul *, and succeeded by his two sons
Sighard and Swef red ®.
^ Bede, iv. ii : *Erat enim religiosis actibus,' &c. In Ireland, Aodh
king of Leinster had died as abbot and bishop of Kildare in 638 : and
Finnachta the Festiye, arch-king, 'became a cleric' for a year in 688
(Four Mast., Tighemach).
' Again we observe the unhealthy restriction of this phrase, see p. 197.
' *' Personae,' meaning, of his character as a king.
* He seemed to see three men in bright clothing approach him. One
sat down before his bed, and said to the others who were still standing,
and who asked as to Sebbi's condition, that his soul ' would depart on the
third day, without any pain, and amid a great splendour of light.'
^ He had learned from St. Paul, says Bede, ' caelestia sperare.'
* Swefred, or, properly, Swebred, united with ' P»ogthath cum licentia
iESdelredi regis comis (comes)' in giving lands at Twickenham to
bishop Waldhere, June 13, 704 ; Cod. Dipl. i. 59. The charter begins
'Quamvis solus sermo snfficeret ad testimonium, attamen pro cautella'
(jsk) ' futurorum temporum,* &c It is witnessed by Kenred, who had
just succeeded Ethelred as ' king of Mercians.'
426 Egwifiy bishop of Worcester.
CHAP. xn. A few months, perhaps, before the death of the 'bishoplike
Egwin, king/ Oftfor of Worcester died about the end of 693 ', and
w **^^ te ^*® succeeded by a prelate whom Bede, to the surprise of
William of Malmesbury ^, passes by in silence, but who was
afterwards venerated as St. Egwin. He was of princely
birth ^, and, like Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop, had at an early
age renounced all secular prospects, and in due time entered
the priesthood. His biographer tells us that he had much
work to do in reclaiming the people of his diocese from
heathenish observances and heathenish license. They would
retain some practices which were essentially idolatrous^;
and they would not conform to Christian rules of purity.
He 'spoke to them repeatedly,' and usually in tones of
stem rebuke *. The obstinate natures which his admoni-
tions could not bend were the more embittered against him:
we are told that he was accused ® before King Ethelred, and
deprived of his bishopric, and also denounced to the Pope,
and that he thereupon repaired to Rome'', was received with
^ HaddAD and Stubbs, iii. a^a.
' Malmesb. O. Pontif. iv. i6o. He could not account for it.
' See his ^ Life ' in Ann. SS. Benod. iii. 331, and in Chix>n. Abbatiae de
Evesham (Rolls Series), p. 3 ffi Cp. Alb. Butler, Jan. 11.
* See above, pp. 80, 938. Qi. Elton, Origins of Engl. Hist p. 390.
'Many Old- English popular ceremonies were evidently survivals fh>m
heathen times, altered in some cases to adapt them to the seasone of the
Church ' (e. g. the boar's head at the Yule feast) 'and in others bearing
more openly the marks of their original paganism ' (e. g. dances with
invocation of Woden and Fricge, ' the Aphrodite of the North, the
female form of Frte;' Kemble, Saxons, i. 36a).
^ Usually, we infer from his ' Life,' c 13, he was ' pleasant in speech.'
* The common people, 'eum paullatim conjecturis et adinventionibus
et rumoribus malis diffamans . . . ab episoopatu eum expulit. Permisit
potestas primatis, et admisit hoc excitatus contra eum livor regius ; '
Ghron. Evesh. p. 5.
^ Here comes in the wild legend of his having loaded his feet as in
penitence (' because he did not deny that he was a sinner in God's sight')
with chains, the key of which he flung into the Avon : when he reached
Rome, his servants bought a large fish for food, and within it the key
appeared. The pope heard of this, and, when he saw Egwin^ asked
absolution and blessing from him, instead of imparting them to him^ &c.
The pope is called Constantino ; but Constantino was not pope until
708, when Egwin went to Rome with king Kenred. Of the story of the
chains Malmesbury asks, ' Crcdendumne putatur quod tradit antiquitas ? *
G. Pontif. 1. 0.
Laws of King Wihtred. 427
special honour, acquitted of all blame, and sent home with chap. xn.
the apostolic benediction ; after which he was restored to
his see, and became godfather to the king's children. This
story seems to have grown out of his journey to Rome at
a later period.
The war between Wessex and Kent was concluded, as we
have seen, by an agreement on the part of the Kentish-men
to make pecuniary satisfaction for the death of Mul ^. This
is dated in the year after Bertwald's arrival ; and two years
later, on the 6th of August*, in 'the fifth year of King Wihtred,
and the ninth indiction,' that is, in 696, — Wihtred's r^nal
year being reckoned from an earlier date than the death
or fall of Swebhard, — a Kentish Witenagemot was held at Laws of
a * place called Berghamstyde, — not the Berkhampstead in w^***^"*^^'
Hertfordshire, which would be Mercian, but Bearsted near
Maidstone \ Bertwald, ' high bishop of Britain,' as he is
loftily styled, was present, with Gebmund of Rochester,
^ and every degree of the province spoke in accord with the
obedient people/ Among the ' Dooms ' then enacted were
several affecting the Church. It was to be * free of im-
post^' : but it is probable that alreaxiy its lands were not
excused from contributing to the repairs of roads and forti-
fications, and to the military service of the realm *. Tlie
' See abore, p. 405.
' So ^ Rugem ' in the record is explained, Johnson, Engl. Can. i. 141.
' Johnson, 1. c. ; Haddan and Stubbs, iiL 238. The vicar of Bearsted
informs me that sessions were formerly held on a moated mound, which
has tiers of seats above it, near this village.
^ 'Impost' would here mean the land-tax, estimated in produce or
stock ; Ghurton, E. E. Ch. p. laa. Another reading, however, would mean
< freedom in jurisdiction and revenue ' ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 233.
* The * trinoda neoessitas,' or *■ onus inevitabile,* consisted of the ' bryg-
bot,' the * burh-bot,* and the * fyrd * (fyrd or flrd =army, and is here used
for service in the ai-my) ; Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 941 ff. ; Kemble, i. 301 ;
Freeman, i. 93 ; Stubbs, Const. Hist. L 86. It was imposed, apparently, on all
church lands in Kent ; and Oi!a of Mercia says of it expressly *■ ab eo opere
nullum excusatum esse ' ; cp. Cod. I>ipl. i. 99, 904. At first, in North-
umbria (and generally, Lingard thinks\ lands devoted 'to pious purposes
were most likely relieved from all burdens whatsoever ' ; Kemble, 1. 309.
Whitby was thus exempt from ' militia terrestris ' ; so some chwnih lands
in ancient Scotland were to be free for ever from tribute or custom, or
military service, ftc. ; Stuart, Book of Deer, p. Ixxxvii ; Skene, Celt. So.
iii. 998. It was immunity of this ftort which led to the scandal of
4^8 Laws of King Wihtred.
CHAP. xn. clergy were to pray for the king, and to * revere him without
command, of their free will,' i.e. pray for him, as a matter of
course, in the ordinary Church service^. The 'mundbyrd*,'
or penalty for violating the Church's protection, was to be
the same as that for violating the king's. Unchastity was
to be ecclesiastically punished. A priest who allowed of it,
or ' neglected to baptize a sick person, or was so drunk that
he could not do it' — a significant provision' — ^was to desist
from his ministry until the bishop should judge his case.
A tonsiured man seeking for hospitality here or there was to
have it once ; not oftener, unless his rovings were licensed*.
Emancipation of slaves' at the altar was recognized. Servile
labour between sunset on Saturday and sunset on Sunday •
was prohibited. ' OflTerings to devils ' were to be punished
by forfeiture of goods, and such a fine as would have been
required to save a man from the pillory ^, had it been in use,
or, on another theory, to loosen the grasp of the avenger of
blood ^ To eat flesh on a fast-day, or to give it to depen-
pseudo-monasteries held by laymen pretending to be abbots; Bede,
Ep. to Egb. 7. His indignant censure of this abuse was written at
a time when a reaction was setting in against oyer-induigenee
to monasteries ; not only was care taken not to free them from the
'necessitas,' but St. Boniface found reason to complain of the 'forced
service in royal building works,' required from English monks in his
time ; Ep. to Cuthb. c. 11. Such senrlces or burdens, together with
' vectigalia,' were remitted by charters of the eighth century (Cod.
Dipl. i 119, 144, 151). See Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 341. The legates in 787
were content to provide against unjust or excessive exactions from 'God'a
churches ' ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 455.
' Stubbs, Const Hist. i. 903 (or 175).
' Properly, the ' holding out of the hand,' as of a patron in defence of
a client; see Robertson, Scotl. under Early Kings, ii. 45a. Cpw Stubbs,
Const. Hist. i. aio. Here it is used for the penalty of violating this
protection. On the privilege of sanctuary, cp. Ine's Laws, 5, and see
above, p. 103.
' Cp. Theodore's Penitential, i. i ; Boniface, Ep. to Cuthb. 10. Drunken-
ness was already a national vice. Cp. C. of Clovesho, c. ai.
* See fifth canon of Hertford, above, p. 379.
* See above, p. 346.
* Literally, Sunday eve and Monday eve. So Ine's Laws, 3. Comp.
Malmesbury, G. Pontif. v. 976, for a story of a woman blamed by her
neighbours for spinning after sunset on Saturday. See above, p. 3761
^ Heals-fang : Johnson, i. 147 ; Thorpe, Glossary to Ancient Lawn
* Robertson, Scotl. under Early Kings, ii. a86.
The 'Privilege^ of Wihtred. 429
dents, was penal. A bishop, like the king, was excused from chap. xu.
oath in giving evidence *. A priest, if accused, was to clear
himself by saying, in his sa>cred vestments, before the altar,
*I say the truth in Christ, I lie not' ; a deacon might do the
same. Inferior clerics, and laymen, were to clear them-
selves by oath at the altar. The privileges of a * housel-
ganger ^ ' or communicant were recognized, as in the laws
of Ine.
It would seem that soon after this assembly bishop Tobias,
Gebmund of Rochester died ^ and was succeeded by Tobias, R^^hester.
one of the many prelates^ whom Bertwald consecrated, and
one of the scholarly ecclesiastics who had been trained in
the great school of Canterbury; 'a man,' says Bede, *of
multifarious learning, in the Latin, Greek, and Saxon
tonguea' He held the see of Rochester until 726. He was Privilege
present at another Kentish Witenagemot held at Baccan-
celd * or Bapchild, near Sittingboume, when Wihtred for-
bade ^ any layman to usurp or appropriate what had been
given to the Lord and confirmed with the cross of Christ,
and dedicated': sacrilege of this sort was described as
a * stripping of the Living God, or rending of His coat and
His heritage.' In the name of God Almighty, and all
Saints, the king commanded all his successors and all laics
of his realm not to take possession of any monastery which
he or his predecessors had given over to Christ, the Holy
Apostles, and the Virgin Mother. Whenever an abbacy ®
' ' His word, or testimony, like that of the king, was conclusive in
itself, and did not require to be supported by the oaths of compurgators ; '
Palgrave, p. 164. To be excused from oaths was a privilege, which was
claimed for bishops at the inquiry as to the minutes of the council held at
Constantinople in 448 ; Mansi, vi. 764.
' See above, p. 411.
' See above, p. 433.
* Bede, v. 8. For Tobias, see also Bede, v. 33.
' Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 338.
* In this genuine form of the charter (see Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 341)
nothing is here said about the vacancy of a bishopric, as if that was also
to be filled up by free election. But this is found in the version given
by Wilkins, i. 57, ^ Ut quando . . . defungitur, epiacapvAy &c. Cp. Chron.
694. Lingard says, ^ Under Theodore and his immediate successors the
appointment of bishops was generally made in the national synods ; '
Angl.-Sax. Ch. 1. 91.
430 IVthtred^s Privilege.
CHAP. m. should become vacant, it was for the bishop of the diocese *
to give ' counsel and consent ' for a good election, and to
bless the person elected. In the archiepiscopal diocese, the
archbishop's sanction was to be necessary for any abhatial
appointment. All these matters were to be exempt from
secular authority, and subjected to the metropolitan's
control. For greater security, a list of the monasteries was
appended : St Peter's or Upminster, i. e. SS. Peter and Paul
in Canterbury, Reculver, Southminster, Dover, Folkestone,
Lyminge*, Sheppey, and Hoe. By Southminster waa
meant Minster in Thanet, where the royal abbess Mil-
dred was still presiding^: she signed the document first
among five abbesses. * A further liberty, so the king was
made to say, was added ^,' by a grant of entire immunity
from all burdens greater and lesser ^, and all exactions on
the part of kings or earls, to Christ Church in Canterbury,
and to the church of Rochester, and to ' the other above-
named churches of Ood ' ; but with a salvo that such ex-
emption should not be turned into a bad precedent. Any
violator of this grant, whether king or bishop, or abbot, or
thane, or any human power, was to be excommunicated,
and to forfeit pardon in this world and the next, unless he
should have made full satisfaction to the bishop ^ : and the
charter itself was to be carefully preserved in the ' Church
of the Saviour,' the metropolitan church of Canterbury, as
a record and a safeguard for all churches * in this Kent'
The date of this Privilege of Wihtred seems to fall within
the last years of the seventh century.
^ ' Parochiae.' So in Bede, iii. 7 ; t. i8 ; Ep. to Egb. 8.
' See Wihtred's grants to the baailica of St. Mary at Lyminge, Cod«
Dipl. i. 50, 54. On Dover and Folkestone see above, p. 1261
' See above, p. 373. She ^died towards the close of the seventh
century ' ; Alban Butler, Feb. 90.
* ' Adhuc addimus msgorem libertatem.'
* ^Ab omnibus difBcultatibus saecularium servitutum . . . ab operibaS|
majoribus minoribusve gravitatibus,' &c. See above, p. 497.
* Menaces of spiritual punishment were often — not always — added as
« sanctions to charters. Sometimes what is denounced is * separation from
communion of the Body and Blood of Christ,' e. g. Cod. Dipl. i. 90.
Another form is, ' Let him know that he will answer for it to Christ,' ib.
L 95 ; cp. i 89, 84, 90.
Guthlac at Crowland. 431
Of these years there is not much more to be said. Wil- ohap. xii.
frid continued at Leicester; he did not neglect his own
cause, for we find that he made application to Pope Sergius,
and received from him a letter confirmatory of the previous
Roman decrees ^ ; but for any practical efiect of such
a document he could scarcely hope until some change had
passed over the mind of King Aldfrid. He was safe and
tranquil under the shadow of the throne of Ethelred ; but
he must have sorrowed deeply with that prince when the
fierce Mercian nobles in 697 put to death his Northumbrian ^
queen Osthryd *. In that same year there began that ^athlac of
strange and intensely mediaeval saintship which made the
name of Guthlac of Crowland as fascinating to Mercian
piety as Cuthbert's had been to Northumbrian. We hear '
of the boy as bom to a Mercian earl of royal descent,
named Penwald, and his wife Tette, baptized after a 'tribe*
called Outhlacings, — the original name, as borne by him,
signifying Battle-sport*: he is described as growing out of
childhood without any taint of childish perversity, gentle,
sweet-tempered, dutiful, as if * irradiated by spiritual
light': in early youth the warlike temper wakes up in
him, — he is fired with emulation at the thought of ' ancient
heroes,' — he becomes the captain of a fierce band, carrying
fire and sword through the lands of hia enemies, but even
then restoring to the plundered a third part of the spoil.
Nine years of this foraying life suffice him * : he begins to
see what life and what death means: he thinks of 'the
woeful ends' of mighty princes, estimates the vanity of
earthly glory, trembles at the thought of * the inevitable end.'
These musings come into his mind by night ^, and in the
morning he bids his comrades find another leader. Their
^ Eddi, 46^ 51. ' Bede, v. 94 ; Chron. a. 697.
' Act. SS. Bened. iiL 265 ; Life of St. Guthlac by Felix of Jarrow,
writt-en in the middle of the eighth century, and evidently after the
model of Aldhelm's grandiloquent periods, and with much of the oon-
Teniionalism of hagiology.
* Kingsley's Hermits, p. 304. 'Laking' is an old North-country word
for ' plajring.'
* He spent some time Mn exile' among the Welsh ; Felix, ao.
* Felix says, ' He remembered to have heard the words, Ne in hieme
vel sabbato fuga vestra fiat ;' c 11 (Matt. xxiv. ao).
432 Guthlac
CHAP. xu. remonstrances are vain : he enters the monastery of men
and women, — ruled, like Whitby, by an abbess, named
Elfrida, — which had for some time existed in the royal
town of Repton^. This took place in 697, when he was
only twenty-four years old. He at first offended his
brother monks by never tasting any strong drink « ' save
in time of CJommunion ' ; but his frank, modest, and affec-
tionate disposition disarmed all animosity ; and he on his
part set himself to imitate the several excellences of the
other inmates of the house, and, as his biographer touch-
ingly says, ' the gentleness of all/ After two years spent
at Bepton ^ he resolved to adopt the hermit-life ; and for
that purpose, ' with the leave of his elders,' took his journey
towards the vast fens which, ' beginning from the banks of
the Granta * * or Cam, spread northwards in a dreary suc-
cession of ponds and marshes and ^ black wandering
streams *,' amid which, here and there, islets uplifted their
dark masses of wood, ' forests of fir and oak, ash and poplar,
hazel and yew/ Arriving in this desolate region, Guthlac
&sked some of the inhabitants whether they knew of any
islet which was uninhabited. One of them, Tatwin by name,
' ' Ripadum,' Felix, — ' Hreopandun, Repandune,' &c It was the burial-
* place of Mercian royalty. Elfrida was succeeded by * Egburga,' daughter
of the East-Anglian king Aldwulf, who sent to Guthlac a leaden sai'oo*
phagus and a shroud, Ann. Ord. Ben. ii. 39 ; Angl. Sao. 1. 595.
' See above, p. 428. He took up this rule of ^ total abstinence ' from the
day on which he received * the apostolic (l e. Roman) tonsure.'
' *' Psalmis, canticls, hymnis, orationibus, moribusque ecclesiasticis per
biennium imbutus ; ' Felix, 13.
* Felix, 14 : ^ Est in mediterraneonim Aoglorum Britanniae partibus
immensae magnitudinia acerrima palus,' &c. See this copied by Orderic,
v^ iv. 16. Compare Malmesb. G. Pontif. iv. iSa, that the fens were more
than a hundred miles in length. See Turner, i. 32a ff. ; Green, Making of
Engl. p. 351.
^ Kingsley's Hermits, p. 301, a very vivid description : and for another
see Clark's ' Cambridge,' p. 3 it Compare Felix : * Nigris fusis vaporibua
et laticibufi,' 'umbrosa solitudinis nemora,' 'nubilosos. . . eremi lucos,'
*■ loca spinosa,' *■ stagnosa paludis ligustria,' ' densas arundinum com-
pagines.' Henry of Huntingdon describes the fens more pleasantly:
^ Palus ilia latissima et visu decora, multis fluviis . . . irrigata, multis
lacubus . . . depicta, multis etiam silvis et insulis florida et amoena ;' Hist.
V. 35, followed by Bromton, X Seiipt. 868. This was * after the industry
and wisdom of the monks . . . had been at work to . . . cultivate the
wilderness ' ; Kingaley, p. 30a.
at Crowland. 433
said that he knew of one in the remoter parts of the fen, chap. xn.
which many had endeavoured to occupy, but had been
driven away by * monsters of the wilderness, and awesome
shapes of divers kinds.' Outhlac begged Tatwin to show
him the spot, and thereupon was conducted in a fishing-
boat to an islet in the marshlands crossed by the Welland
and the Nen. This was Crowland ^, a name which Guthlac
has made famous, for he took it as his abode, on a summer
day when probably it wore its least repulsive aspect, — on
the feast of St. Bartholomew ^ in 699. He practised all the
austerities which belonged, as of course, to the life of an
anchorite ; and they combined with the wisp-fires, and wild
sounds of winter nights among the fens, and probably with
intermittent attacks of marsh fever ^, to call up those
hideous fancies of fiendish visitation and onslaught which
read in Guthlac's life like an exaggeration of the ' trials of
St. Antony *.' Whatever were his illusions, he preserved
his faith, courage, and cheerfulness : the hagiologist indi-
cates that he could repel with promptness, perhaps with
humour, fantastic temptations to impossible feats of absti-
^ CroyUnd is a corruption. It is properly Cruland (' Crudeland, caenosa
terra,* Felix, 41), and hence Crowland. See Freeman, iv. 596. It is
described in one spurious charter as enclosed within four, in another
within Ave * waters ' ; Rer. Angl. Script, i. 3, 9. ' In sanctuary of the
four rivers;' ELingaley, p. 306. The stone church built there in 716 had
to be supported on oak piles and a mass of hard soil from a distance.
* After his first visit to the isle, he retcmed to Repton to say fiirewell
to his companions, for he had left them 'inealutatos.' He repaired to Crow-
land after a short sojourn with them, taking two boys with him. Felix
is not quite distinct as to the St. Bartholomew's day in question, whether
it was the occasion of his first visit, or of his regular occupation of
Crowland. His sister Pega took up her abode ' as a recluse in another
part of the fens, four leagues off to the west'; Alb. Butler, April 11.
Bishop Hedda (of Lichfield) visited Crowland, and ordained Guthlac
priest ; Felix, 3a.
' Kingsley, Hermits, p. 303. See Churton, E. E. Ch. p. 140.
* ' Erant enim adspectu truces, forma terribiles, . . . dentibus equinis
. . . trucibufl oculis . . . gutture flammivomo . . . immensis vagitibus,' &c. ;
Felix, 19; comp. aa. The fiends, we are told, tossed him into the
muddy streams, dragged him through thorny thickets, &e. On one
oocanon^ says Felix gravely (c 90), they came in the form and with the
speech of Britons (Welshmen). ' Great numbers of Britons seem to have
taken refdge in the *' wild fens'' ;' Elton, Origins of Engl. Hist. p. 379.
See above, p. 99.
Ff
434 Guthlac at Crowland.
cukB. XII. nence ^ : like Cuthbert, he was ' in leagae ' with the fowls
of the air ; the wild birds, and even the fishes of the marsh,
would eat from his hand ; swallows came to sit on his arms
and his bosom, and it was when his friend, an abbot named
Wilfrid \ who often visited him, expressed surprise at this
familiarity, that Guthlac uttered the memorably beautiful
answer, * Have you not read that he who is joined to God
with a pure spirit finds all things uniting themselves to
him in God ® 1 * We cannot wonder that, as in Cuthbert's
case, the solitude of the devout hermit was broken by
crowds of visitors of all kinds*, 'abbots, brethren, earls,
the rich, the sick, the poor, not only from the neighbouring
districts of Mercia, but from the remoter parts of Britain,*
— who came to tell him of their troubles, and never came
without finding relief *. So that, like Cuthbert on Fame,
the inmate of Crowland was exercising a true ministry of
consolation, and doing a work of wide effect, which showed
that the superstitious form impressed by circumstances
upon his devotion had not dulled his moral insight, nor
chilled his discriminating sympathy. But it must be
remembered that what we, perhaps, should look upon as
the redeeming point in a grave mistake was to Guthlac
a mere incident in a life which, in its physical conditions,
was far more terrible than that of the old Egyptian
solitaries*, and which in fact could not be protracted
beyond fifteen years'^. But so to live, and so to die,
^ The suggestion was to fast rigidly for six days. Guthlac rose and
sang out, * Let mine enemies be turned backward 1 ' and then quietly ate
his daily meal of barley-bread ; Felix, i8.
■ Felix, 1 6, 35.
' * Nonne legist! quia qui Deo pure spiritu copulabitur, omnia sibi in
Deo oonjunguntur ? ' Felix, 35. Comp. Bede, Vit. Guthb. 91.
* Felix, 31.
' E. g. ' Nullum taedium sine exhortatione, nulla maestitia sine oonao-
latione, nulla anximonia sine consilio ab illo reversa est.' Felix had
evidently been reading Bede (Vit. Cuthb. aa), whose memory he nature Uy
cherished. He tells us that Guthlac supported all that he said by-
authority of Scripture ; 3a : and calls him ^alacer, efficax, in discemendis
causis.' ^ Nothing stayed in his mind but charity, peace, pity, forgiveness.
No one ever saw him angry . . . excited . . . sorrowful,' &o. ; 38. Cp.
S. Athan. Vit. Ant. 14. * See Kingsley's Hermits, pp. 130-134.
^ See Kingsley, p. 306; and on Hhe vast longevity of many of the.
Foundation of Evesham, 435
appeared to the men of his time, under the influence of ohaf. zn.
a false ideal, to be the summit of Christian attainment.
And while in that southernmost comer of Lincolnshire
a Mercian hermit was thus attracting the homage which in
after days expressed itself by the foundation of a great bounda-
monastery, described by its inmates as ' the holy sanctuary Evesham,
of St. Guthlac' under the protection of St. Mary and
St. Bartholomew \ a Mercian bishop was designing and
establishing a religious house which became one of the,
greatest in the Midlands, at a place which was to be[
associated with a crisis in English secular history^. It
was a wild and lonely spot rising abruptly above the Avon,
and covered with thorny thickets, but marked by a small
church of ancient, probably of British, construction ^. Here
Eoves, one of Bishop Egwin's herdsmen, professed to have
seen an appearance of the Virgin^; and accordingly at
' Eoves-ham ^ ' arose a minster in her honour. Although
fathers of the desert, p. 134. Paul is said to have lived 113 years,
Antony 105, Elias of Antinous no (Soz. vi. 98), &c. Guthlac died, aged
forty^seven, on April 11, 714, and was succeeded in his solitude by Cissa,
a convert from paganism ; Florence, a. 714. One of the strangest things
in the stoiy is that a cleric named Beccelin, having come to live as
Guthlac's servant, and being about to shave him as usual, was sorely
tempted to cut his throat, * nt . . . locum ipsius postea cum magna regum
principnmque venerantia habiturus foret.' Guthlac bade him *• spit out
the venom ' of his wicked thought ; he fell on his knees and confessed all ;
Felix, ai.
^ See the aUeged charter of Bertulf, in the false Ingulf, Ber. Angl.
Script. L 14 ; Cod. Dipl. ii. 41. See Kiugsley, Hermits, p. 307.
* The battle of Evesham was fought on August 4, I965.>
* Malmesbury, G. Pontif. iv. 160.
* Ann. SS. Bened. iii. 335 ; Ghron. Evesh. p. 9 ; Monast. Angl. ii. i.
She was said to have appeared to Eoves as brighter than the sun, holding
a book and singing heavenly songs with two other virgins ; he told his
master what he had seen ; and Egwin on a subsequent momiug, attended
by three companions, went barefoot to the place and saw a similar vision.
E^EpFvin was said to have first obtained an old monastery at Fladbury, and
to have exchanged it for Stratford. But the documents are marked as
spurioua ; Cod. Dipl. i. 36.
* Originally ' Eoves-holm,' heilm being any ground surrounded or washed
by a river. The British name was Hethbo. See Tindal's History of
Evesham, p. a. The Mercians had called it Hethomme (Athamne,
Mabillon) and Cronuchomme : Egwin, according to the legend, had there
flung the key of his chains into the river, and afterwards obtained the
place from the king, as pasture-ground for monks. Florence dates the
F f a
436 Foundation of Evesham.
CHAP. rii. its early history is marred by fiction and forged documents,
one interesting detail may probably be received as au-
thentic. Some eight miles from Evesham, at Alcester, was
a royal estate ^, inhabited by persons who disliked Egwin
and his preaching, and devised an ingenious expedient for
ridding themselves of both*. In the neighbouring wood
many 'blacksmiths' carried on their trade. One day, while
Egwin was pleading with his untoward audience, there rose
up such a din of hammers ^ and anvils that he was ' fain to
depart with tingling ears.' Passing over a story of the
miraculous removal of this hindrance, we may see a not
improbable intimation of the resistance which still, in out-
Ijdng parts, was offered to Christianity by the adherents of
the defeated Paganism.
And now we must resume consideration of the case of
Wilfrid, the last stage of which commences with the second
year of the eighth century.
foundation a few years after Egwin's consecration ; Tanner dates it 701.
See Cod. Dipl. i. 64.
^ ' Regale mansum . . . nemoribus oonsitum, fluminibus . . . et rivalis
circumdatum, necnon muris et turribus yallatum.' A council had been,
held there, ' non multo prius/ which had confirmed the immunities of
Evesham ; Chron. Evesh. p. 95. But the story of this council of 709 is
very doubtful. See Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 379-983 : cp. Llngard, A.-S.
Ch. i. 909.
' Ann. SS. Bened. iii. 336 ; Chron. Evesh. p. 95.
' ' Prae concussione, immo confusione, malleorum et incudum adhnc
iinniebant ambae aures ejus,' &c ; Chron. Evesh. p. 96. See Green,
Making of Engl. p. 351.
CHAPTER XITI.
Ever since the second expulsion of Wilfrid, a monotonous
tranquillity had reigned in the Church of Northumbria.
Ecclesiastical interests were sedulously cared for by King
Aldf rid : ecclesiastical life was surrounded with all that could
give it security and honour. Bishop Eadbert of Lindisf ame
had died, after some weeks* illness, on the 6th of May, 698 ^ Death of
having caused the tomb of Cuthbert to be opened on the 20th Eadbert
of March, when the saint's body was found ' entire as if he
were still living, and his joints still flexible as if he were
but asleep'/ Part of the grave-clothes were brought to
Eadbert, who * kissed them as if they still covered the
father's body,' and ordered others to be put in their place.
He himself was ere long laid in the same grave, but under
the saint's coffin*. He was succeeded by Eadfrid, the
prelate to whom, along with his monks, Bede, many years
later^ inscribed his Life of St. Cuthbert *. The community
to which Bede himself belonged flourished under the pre-
*■ Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 4a, 43.
• Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 4a ; Vit. Anon., Bed. Op. vi. 380.
' ' Relies ' of Eadbert and others, with the head of Oswald (see above,
p. 176), were found beside Cuthbert's body in 1104.
* In the dedication prefaoe Bede reminds Eadfrid that he had promised
to enrol his name, after his death, among those of persons to be prayed
for at Lindisfame ; and in pledge of such future enrolment had ordered
Quthfrid, the ' mansionarius ' or sacristan, to place his name, during his
Ufe, in the ' white book ' of the community. This prelate had written
out with his own hand, 'for the sake of St Cuthbert' (i. e. for Cuthbert's
use), a copy of the Gospels, which was afterwards, by his successor
Sthelwald's order, adorned with gold and jewels, and ultimately
preserved at Durham ; Simeon, Dunelm. Eccl. ii. la. Cp. Anderson,
Seotl. in Early Ghr. Times, p. 149; Bp. Browne, £. Engl. Ch. Hist,
pp. 7a, no. He also, early in his episcopate, repaired the time-worn
oratory of Cuthbert in Fame ; Bede, Vit. Cuthb. 46.
43? Letter of Pope Sergius.
CHAP. xm. sidency of Ceolfrid, who, as we have seen, had united the
abbacy of Wearmouth to that of Jarrow : and we find him
sending some monks to Rome in the year 700 ^, with a gift
or * blessing ' for Pope Sergius, intended, no doubt, to recom-
mend the petition which they were to make for a new letter
of privilege, like that which had been received from Pope
PopeSer- Agatho. Sergius complied with the request of Ceolfrid:
Ceoifr?d. ^"^"^ ^^ entrusted to one of the messengers a letter ^ in
which he informed the abbot that certain questions of an
ecclesiastical kind ^ had arisen, which could not be settled
without a long inquiry; that therefore he must needs
confer with men of literary acquirements; and that he
desired Ceolfrid to send to Rome, at once, 'the religious
servant of God,' — here, in a manuscript exhibiting the
letter, ' N.' occurs instead of a name, — ' belonging to his
monastery,' in full confidence that, after the matters in
hand should have been settled, he would return home in
safety, by the Lord's favour and Ceolf rid's prayers. Malmes-
bury's version of this letter contains the name of Bede,
and adds the designation of ' presbyterum.' But Bede the
historian never did visit Rome, — never, indeed, went beyond
Northumbria*: nor was he ordained priest until 701-2*.
* See Lingard, A.-S. Gh. ii. 4x9, referring to Bede, De Temp. Batione,
c. 47, which shows that the monks, on Christmas day of 700, reckoned then
as the first day of 701, were in St. Mary Major's, and there saw a waxen
tablet recording, ^ From the Passion of our Lord there are 668 years.'
' Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 348.
' ' Ecclesiastioarum causarum capitulis.'
* Comp. Bede, t. 04 : ^ Qui natus . . . suscepi/ ' His Epitome seems
to show that he never left England ; * see Smith's Bede, p. 799. He adds
that it might be rejoined that a very short stay in Bome would not
necessarily be inconsistent with the Epitome.
' The MS. Cotton in the British Museum, referred to the tenth century,
gives the passage thus : ' Beligiosum famulum Dei N. venerabilis mona-
sterii tui . . . dirigere.' Bede's name ' is inserted in the margin ' (Giles's
Bede, i. p. Ixix). < N./ for ' nomen/ shows that the copyist had before
him an accidental blank where the name should have been. Malmesbury,
G. Begum, i. 58, quotes the letter thus : 'Beligiosum Dei famulum Bedam,
venerabilis monasterii tui presbyterum.' Giles suggests that this last
word might have been ' innocently ' inserted by Malmesbury, since Bede
afterwards became a priest ; or it might be ' a mistake on the part of the
pope/ Diet. Chr. Biogr. i. 301. Lingard's suggestion that 'the elder
Bede/ not the historian, was meant, seems very improbable ; A.-S.
Oh. iL 4x3.
Council of Easterfield. 439
Yet he may, nevertheless, have been recommended to chap. xm.
Sergius by the Wearmouth monks, as an eminently
promising scholar: the title of 'presbyter' may have
been a mistake or a gloss: the invitation was not im-
probably sent for him, and his non-compliance may have
been simply caused by the Pope's speedy death. The privi-
lege was duly exhibited before the Northumbrian Witan,
and confirmed by the signatures of the king and the
bishopa Whatever the questions were to which the Pope's
letter alludes, it is evident that about the beginning of the
eighth century an uneasy feeling was stirring in the minds
of Northumbrian Churchmen, and of others in other dis-
tricts, as to the position of Wilfrid; accordingly, Aldfrid
resolved to assemble a general ' synod ' at which the whole Council of
English Church should be represented. It was held, in 702, * ® *
at a place which Eddi calls by the two names of ' Ouestrae-
f elda ' or Estref eld, and ' iEtswinapathe V This ' Easter-
field ' must have been somewhere in Yorkshire, perhaps at
Austerfield near Bawtry*, which would be a convenient
place for persons arriving from the south. Among the
latter was Archbishop Bertwald; and nearly all his
suffragans are said to have attended him. Wilfrid was
' respectfully ' invited to appear, in order that ' according to
the canonical statutes ' whatever had been wrong might be
set right. He came accordingly, attended by several abbots
of his monasteries. On his arrival, Eddi tells us, there was
' much altercation,' mainly caused by prelates, and by abbots
who from ' avaricious motives ' were opposed to any scheme
of agreement. The king himself, we are assured, was prac-
tically on that side. Accusations were brought up against
Wilfrid, which Eddi declares to be false. At last the point
at issue was clearly raised. Would Wilfrid comply with
the regulations of Theodore ? According to such light as
we have on the matter, this demand meant, Would he
submit to such a partition of the old diocese of York as
^ Eddi, 46, 60. Compare 'EdwinsclifT' in Chronicle, a. 761; Baine,
Hist, of Ch. of York, L 65. He suggests, however, that the second name
may mean only ' At the swine's path,' Near Austerfield is * Swine-car ' (car
or oarr in southern Yorkshire, e. g. near Doncaster, » marsh).
' Haddan and Stnbbs, iii. 354.
44© Council of Easterfield.
OHAP. ziu. had been devised by Theodore in despite of his remon-
strances ? To yield to this demand, absolutely, would have
been to give up the position in which he had been placed
by the Roman Council, — a position of manifest advantage
from his point of view. He therefore answered with a
qualification : ' Yes, I am willing to comply with those
regulations — according to the rule of the canons ; ' meaning,
virtually, so far as they could be brought into harmony
with the decree of the Council ^. This saving clause, like
Thomas of Canterbury's * Saving my order ^,* was clearly
calculated to exasperate his opponents : they would regard
it as nullifying any verbal concession. Axid Wilfrid further
damaged his case by indulging in what his panegyrist
acknowledges to have been an outburst of sharp reproaches ;
* Here you have been for two and twenty years contenti-
ously standing out against the Apostolic authority. With
what front can you still prefer any ordinances of Arch-
bishop Theodore, framed in time of discord between prelates,
to the salutary decrees of Pope Agatho, Pope Benedict, and
Pope Sergius*?' The Council, apparently, adjourned at
this point; and Wilfrid retired to take counsel with his
friends. He then received two visitors in succession. One
of the king's thanes, who when a boy had, like other ' earl-
bom ' lads, been bred up in the house of the great bishop of
York, and was warmly attached to him *, emerged in dis-
guise from the king's tent, and ' mingling like an unknown
person with the soldiers who surrounded it,' found his way
to his old patron, and said, * They want to induce you to
promise in writing that you will submit to whatever they
^ Eadmer makes him say, ^ You accuse me because I do not receive those
decrees of Theodore, quas ipse non auctoritate canonica, sed discordia
dictante composuit ; ' c. 46.
' See Mil man, Lat. Chr. v. 47.
' 'Wllfridus igitur non ideo sibi injuriam illatam existimabat, quod
episcopatus suus in plures divideretur/ but that bishops had been exercising
jurisdiction in it In virtue of Theodore's arbitrary decree. * Pontifices enim
Romani decemebant dioeoeaim illam tarn longe lateque eztensam in plures
esse partiendam, non tamen mera apostolioa auctoritate, sed concilio rite
congregate, depositis iis qui in Vilfridi absentia in episcopoa contra
oanones ordinarentur ; ' Smith's Bede, p. 755.
* ' Unns ex ministris,' £ddi ; * juvenis quidam ourialis,' Eadmer*
Council of Easterfield. 441
shall determine. And what they determine will be this ; chap. xin.
that you shall resign into the archbishop's hands whatever
you have held, — bishopric or monastery, in Northumbria
or in Merda, — to be disposed of at his will/ Having given
this information, the friendly thane departed as secretly as
he had come*. Presently afterwards a bishop entered,
commissioned by Aldfrid and Bertwald to urge Wilfrid
to promise, beforehand, that he would adhere to any
decision of the archbishop. Wilfrid answered as any one
in his position would have answered : ' / must first know
what that decision will be like.' * I do not know, for my
part,' said the envoy: *nor will the archbishop give any
information until he is assured under your hand that you
will abide by what he says.' * I never before heard,' said
Wilfrid, ' of any attempt to bind a man to obey a judge-
ment not yet given, before he knew what it would be. He
might find that it ordered what was impossible.' But he
came to the Council when it again assembled, and promised
that he would heartily accept the archbishop's decision, i/it
were found to be agreeable to the canons and statutes of
the Fathers, and not inconsistent with the judgements
of the three Popes who had pronounced their decisions in
the cause ^. Again the qualification seems to have stirred
up fresh bitterness : it was proposed by the king and the
archbishop, — so, at least, Elddi informs us ^, — that Wilfrid
should give up all his houses, so that he would not, in that
case, have had ' even a little bit of a single dwelling ' in
Northumbria or in Mercia. But others, hearing this, were
disgusted at such relentless severity ; it would be ' impious'
to strip a person of such well-known eminence, ' famous
through all the nations around,' of aU his property, * without
convicting him of any capital crime.' At last his adver-
saries modified their proposal, but in terms which showed
not only the jealousy, but the alarm which Wilfrid's mani-
fold ability and energy had inspired : — Let him have his
^ This we learn from Eddi, 47.
' See Wilfrid's speech at Borne, Eddi, 53. Eadmer says thai they
eanght up his words and said, ' One eanonicai role of Theodore's is, that
disobedient persons shoold be pat down.'
* Eddi, 47.
44^ Wilfrid^s second appeal.
CHAP. xin. monastery of St Peter at Ripon, with all that pertained to
it, — but on this condition, to which his written assent was
required, that he should not without the king's leave go
beyond the precincts of the monastery, nor perform any
episcopal^ act, — a condition which, as Eddi expresses it,
would amount to a self -deprivation. The spirit of Wilfrid
took fire at such a suggestion. He broke forth into an
indignant recital of his services to religion in Northumbrian.
* Was it not I who laboured, before any one else took the
work in hand, to root out the evil plant of Scotic usages ?
Was it not I who converted all Northumbria to the true
Easter and the crown-shaped tonsure, who established
antiphonal chanting, who organized the monastic life
according to the rule of the holy father Benedict, which
no one before me had brought in * ? And now, after nearly
forty years spent in the episcopate ^ you ask me, in effect,
to condemn myself, when I know of no crime that can be
charged against me ; I am to resign my office, on account
of this question that has but lately come up. No, indeed !
Wilfrid's \ appeal to the Apostolic see: whosoever would wish to
socond
appeal. depose me, let him meet me, as I this day challenge him to
meet me, at tJvat tribunal.' One seems to hear the raised
tone ^, to see the proud and wrathful look, with which the
indomitable man, at sixty-eight, confronted and defied his
opponents, secular and hierarchical. They were, however,
neither abashed nor overawed. The new appeal was a new
offence : ' He is all the more blamable,' said the king and
the archbishop, ' in that he has chosen to be judged at Borne
^ ' Sacerdotalis officii ' must have this sense. Eadmer says that he was
advised to accept these terms, and use the opportunity for a contemplative
life. But he weU knew the source whence this counsel emanated, and
answered that the < gift of counsel ' had in it nothing of duplicity. All
this is Eadmer's invention ; it is what he thought likely to have been said.
' Lingard, A.>S. Gh. 1. 141 ; Milman, ii. 369 ; Baine, i. 73.
' ' Of his noble apostolic labours, his conversion of the heathen, his
cultivation of arts and letters, his stately buildings, his monasteries, he
said nothing ; * Milman, ii. 969. On his relation to the Benedictine rule
see above, p. 349.
* If he was consecrated early in 665, he had been a bishop, by this time,
for thirty-seven years. Eddi, 47 ; Fridegod, 1096. See above, p. 941.
* ' Intrepida voce elevata ; ' Eddi. < Fecit Ule quod erat constantissimi
praesulis;' Smith's Bede, p. 756.
Wilfrid again in Mercia. 443
rather than by us.' Aldf rid even added a proposal to have chap. xiii.
Wilfrid put under arrest ^, that he might be eflFectually com-
pelled to be content with home-authorities * for one while.'
But this was too much for the other bishops : they agreed
to the sentence of deposition from episcopal dignity, but
they would not violate the safe-conduct without which, as
they said, Wilfrid would not have ventured to come to
Easterfield. Let him go without hindrance; 'and let us,
too, go quietly to our own homes.' 'After this conversation
the fruitless Council * was dissolved.'
Wilfrid returned into Mercia, and reported to Ethelred Wilfrid in
what the bishops had said at Easterfield, ' against Ethelred's
own directions,' as Eddi tells us, alluding to some letter
which the Mercian king had apparently written on his
behalf. 'And what do you mean to do,' asked Wilfrid, * as
to the lands which I hold in your kingdom ' ? ' * I mean,'
said Ethelred, ' to add no new trouble to your trouble. I
will keep those lands for you until I can send messengers,
or a letter, with you to Rome, to ask for instructions as
to my conduct' Far different was the conduct of some
who, as Eddi says *, ' usurped possession of Wilfrid's inheri-
tanca' One is loth to think that Bosa or John would
personally go to such extremities as are described ; but we
are told that the usurpers treated Wilfrid and the members
of his monastic communities as excommunicate. If any of
them, at the request of a layman, were to bless food with
the sign of the cross, it was to be flung away as if it had
been an offering to idols : even the vessels used by them at
meals^ were to be washed, before others might handle them
without incurring ceremonial pollution.
In this state of public opinion, when a deep and per-
sistent antipathy ^ was making itself felt against the exile
* ' Si praeeipis, pater, opprimam earn per Tiolentiam ;' Ifalmeab. O. P.
ill. 104-
* < Inutile concilium ; ' Eddi^ 4S.
' He said nothing, Smith observes, about any bishopric as belonging to
him in Mercia. He regarded himself as there a locum teneng.
* Eddi, 49.
' ' Vaaa de quibus noetri Teseebantur.'
* The existence of saeh a feeling is sufficient proof that, in Nortbombrla
444 Aldhelm.
CHAP. Mil. and the appellant, there was some reason to expect that the
pressure might be too great for the fidelity of some of his
monks or clerics, — ^that they might be scared into forsaking
as hopeless the cause of ' a man forbid.' It was therefore
Aidheim. an act of opportune generosity when the man who stood
highest in ecclesiastical reputation throughout the English
Churches, the unrivalled scholar, — the admired writer, —
the popular and venerated abbot, Aldhelm of Malmesbury*
interposed to inspirit and exhort the adherents of Wilfrid.
We have already seen how Aldhelm had succeeded to the
abbacy at Malmesbury ; his administration was brilliantly
successful ; the community which had grown out of a little
knot of scholars gathering round a foreign teacher beneath
the walls of an old fortress had ' broken forth on the right
hand and on the left,' for Aldhelm had been enabled to
found another monastery at Frome, and another yet at
Bradford-on-Avon ^, and the very ancient little church
remaining at the latter place has been thought to be
actually of his building. King Ine had given several lands
for the augmentation of the parent monastery ^ : there had
been ' a rush along all roads,' as William of Malmesbury
expresses it, 'to Aldhelm^:' and among his disciples was
Pecthelm, who afterwards held the restored bishopric of
St. Ninian at Whithem or Candida Casa*. He was a
at any rate, tliere was a powerful mass of opinion which, in a practical
sense, might be called anti-papal. lu other districts the feeling was
different.
^ Faricius, Vit. Aldh. c. a; Malmesb. G. Pontif. y. 198. When he
wrote the church of Frome was still standing, and so, he says, was the
*' ecclesiola ' of St. Laurence at Bradford ; but the monasteries had
perished. On the church at Bradford see Freeman, Engl. Towns and
Distr.y p. 140 ; Parker, Intr. Goth. Arch., p. 15. Aldhelm also (ib. ▼. 917)
built a church near Wareham in Dorset, which in the twelfth century
still existed, unroofed, save for a prominence just above the altar : within
its precinct, it was said, rain never fell.
' Kemble admits this charter, which belongs to 701 ; God. Bipl. i. 55.
The Mercian sub-king Berthwald, who had been so friendly to Wilfrid,
gave a piece of land on the Teme to Aldhelm's monastery ; and Ethelred
attested the grant in a ' synod ' held at Burford, July 30, 685 ; God.
Dipl. i. 30.
' ' Currebatur ad Aldelmum totis semitis ; ' Malmesb. G. Pontiff, v. 3<x>.
* Malmesb. iii. 115. Haddan and Stubbs. ii. 7. Bede knew Pecthelm :
see V. I3« zBj 23. He lived as *• deacon or monk ' under Aldhelm as biahop.
Aldheltn. 445
friend and correspondent of the scholarly king of Northum- ohap. xui.
bria ; and Artwil, the scholarly son of an Irish king, sub-
mitted to Aldhelm all his literary compositions, which were
not few in number ^. The fame of the learned West-Saxon
abbot had reached the ears of Pope Sergius, who invited
him to Bome^, allowed him to celebrate in the Lateran
basilica ^, and sent him home with a letter of privilege for/
his monasteries ^, a store of relics, and a massive altar on
white marble, which he gave to Eling Ine, who placed it
in the royal * vicus ' of Bruton *. Traditions spoke of the
rapturous joy with which Aldhelm's return was welcomed,
when monks met him with cross and thurible and pro-
cessional chant, and laymen expressed their delight by
dancing or by other * gestures of the body •/ He was, we
cannot doubt, the most popular of monks or priests : his
scholars loved him passionately, as their 'most loving
teacher of pure learning ''; and he well deserved their
affection by the tender thoughtful interest with which he
watched over their progress *, and after they had left him
still exhorted them, in extant letters, to avoid youthful
follies, such as daily drinking-bouts, protracted feastings,
or any excess in amusements®, — to prefer the study of
^ Malmebb. O. P. t. 191.
' So flays Faricius : 'Hone . . . Sergius asciverat, quia . . . de eo persuepe
audierat ; ' c. 9. Malmesbury says he went in order to get ' privileges '
for his monasteries, but before setting out, built a church at Wareham,
the roofless walls of which still existed. Among Aldhelm*s verses are
some in honour of SS. Peter and Paul, composed while he ' was entering
their church at Rome ' (i. e. St. Peter's). He invokes them both.
* Faricius has a tale of wonder about his chasuble being supported on
a sunbeam. Then comes another, about his clearing the pope, by miracle,
from a calumny. Compc Malmesb. y. ax8, that this red chasuble, pre-
served in the abbey, showed 'the saint to have been a tall man,' as
did his relics.
^ Faricius and Ifalm. v. aao.
* Malmesb. v. aaa. He inclines to think that a camel bore this 'moles'
to the foot of the Alps; but there the beast of burden, camel or not,
' stumbled ' ; the altar was broken, but miraculously put together again,
Ac. It was extant ' ad hanc diem.'
* Malmesb. 1. c.
^ ' Mi amantissime purae institutionis praeceptor ; ' Epist. 6, Ethelwald
to Aldhelm.
* ' Ab ipsis tenerrimae cunabulis infantiae fovendo, amando/ &c. ; £p. 6.
* Ep. 10^ Aldh. to Ethelwald. He mentions 'equitandi vagatione
446 Aldhelm writes to * Wilfrid* s clerks*
CHAP. xin. Scripture to immoral specimens of heathen poetry, — ^to
keep clear of all sensuality, and to be simple in dress and
habits, — and in all secular studies to keep in view sacred
knowledge as the end to which all other lore should
minister ^ He himself had practised, in this matter, what
he taught* : his literary activity never chilled or suspended
his devotions : when he concludes his book on Metres with
a pious aspiration 'that abundance of things perishable
may not prove to be poverty in the world to come,' one
seems to see into his mind ^, and to understand the moral
and spiritual force exercised by one who is enthusiastically
described in his capacity as a scholar, and as a teacher and
controversialist, in the words of his Malmesbury biographer,
— 'wonderful in each of his qualities, and peerless in
them all *.'
Such was the man who now wrote *to the clerks of
Bishop Wilfrid ^l entreating them not to be ' scandalized '
by the raging storm that had broken over the Church, even
if some of them had to share their prelate's lot in expulsion
from home and compulsory wanderings abroad. Let them
not be thankless to one who had lovingly trained them up
from early childhood to opening manhood ; let them cling to
him, as bees cling to their monarch • through all weathers ;
let them remember the scorn and derision which would be
poured out on laymen who forsook a kind lord in his
adversity ; * and what, then,' he proceeds, * will be said of
you, if you leave a bishop who nourished and brought you
up, alone in his exile ) '
The persons addressed appear to have responded to the
exhortation ^. Solemn prayers and fasts, on the part of all
culpabili ' (cp. Bede, v. 6), with ' conyiviis usu frequentiore ac prolixiore
inhoneste superfluis,' the latter a coarse Saxon habit : see above, p. 968.
On the ' commessationes ' and ' potationes ' in the cells at Goldingham,
see Bede, iv. 95 ; above, p. 990.
^ £p. 13, to a Wilfrid, going to study in Ireland.
' So Malmesbury says generally of him, ▼. 913. Cp. Lingard, ii. 187.
' See too the pious little Epist. 9.
* Malmesb. v. 900. He says that Aldhelm was like lightning in con-
futing adversaries, but soft as nectar in his instructions to pupils.
* Epist. II ; Malmesb. v. 199 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 954.
* A /ftn^-bee, according to Aldhelm : ' Bex earum spissis sodalium
agminibus vaUatus,' &o. ^ Eddi, 50.
Acca. 447
Wilfrid's monastic communities, preceded his departure, chap. xni.
Among those who accompanied him was a man in several Acca.
respects like-minded to himself, and who lived to do good
service to the Northumbrian Church, and, indirectly at
least, to the ecclesiastical literature of England. This was
Acca, afterwards for some twenty-three years bishop of
Hexham. He had been ' trained up from boyhood among
the clergy of Bosa \' but attached himself to Wilfrid * in
the hope of a better plan of life*.' He was thoroughly
imbued with Wilfrid's love of ecclesiastical magnificence;
and when he had the opportunity, he distinguished himself
in the adornment and enrichment of churches, in the coUec*
tion of theological books, in the organization of a school of
Church music, — * for he himself was a very skilful chanter.'
His own leannng was considemble. his or^odoxy exact, his
observance of all ecclesiastical rules punctilious. But our
chief reason for gratitude to his memory is his practical
encouragement of the labours of Bede, who loved him much.
We find that he requested Bede to collect, as from * a flower-
ing paradise,' the best thoughts of the Fathers on the begin-
ning of Genesis, for the sake of those who had not access to
the originals ^. To him also Bede addressed a tract on the
Temple of Solomon, which seems to have been written
when Acca had some troubles to endure ^ ; and an allegori-
cal exposition of the First Book of Samuel, which Acca had
requested him to undertake ^. Some questions which Acca
propounded as to the ' stations ' of the Israelites in their
wanderings, and as to the mysterious text, * They shall be
^ See Bede's account of him, v. 20 : ^ Strenuisaiinus, et coram Deo et
hominibus magnificos . • . cantator peritiasimus ... in litteris aanctis
doctiasimus, in cathollcae fidei confessione castissimus, in ecclesiasticae
quoque institutionis regulis BollertisaimuB.' 'Utpote qui a pueritia in
dero . . . Bosa . . . nutritus atque eruditus erat,' &o. Cp. Eddi, aa. He
succeeded Wilfrid as bishop of Hexham, but was expelled in 733 ; Sim.
Dur. Hist. Beg. 31 : and Skene conjectures that he may have brought
* St. Andrew's relics ' from Hexham to ' Kiliymont,' or St. Andrews ;
Celtic Sootl. ii 373.
* He may have accompanied Wilfrid into Sussex: but this is not proved
by the reference to him in iv. 14, and he is not mentioned in iv. 13.
* Bed. Op. L 169 and yii. i (Giles). Mr. Plummer points out that the
true reading in the latter reference is ^ antistiti/ not ' abbati/
* lb. i. 171 ; viii. 863. • lb. i. 195 ; vii. 369.
448 IVtlfrid^s last journey to Rome.
CHAP. zni. shut up in prison, and after many days shall be visited/
diverted Bede for a while from the work on the book of
Samuel ^ And Acea's influence was effectual in regard to
Bede's writings on the New Testament ; we find that Bede
sent him, for transcription, a work on the Apocalypse ; and
he then wrote to Bede, exhorting him to compile a Patristic
commentary on St. Luke. Bede sent him, by way of instal-
ment, a work on the Acts* : after reading which, as we learn
from a very interesting letter of Acca, prefixed to the
' Exposition of St. Luke's Gospel ^,' Acca, both in conversa-
tion and by letters, urged him to comment on that Qospel,
and replied, not without playfulness^, and with several
allusions to great Fathers, to his excuses for not attempting
such a task. The urgency, so affectionate and so delicate
in its tone, was irresistible : and Bede at once set to work,
'dictating,' 88 he says, 'to himself, and writing from his
own dictation *.' Acca, with many other brethren, pressed
him further to write on the Qospel of St. Mark, — a work
not accomplished until after a long interval *. It is worth
while to glance at these occasions on which Bede, as com-
mentator on Scripture, introduces his readers to Acca as to
' the dearest and most loving of prelates that live on the
earth,' his ' most beloved and truly blessed lord "'.'
Such a companion as this — so loyal, sympathetic, and
intelligent — ^must have been indeed a solace to Wilfrid, on
this his third journey to * the Apostles' threshold.' Twenty-
five® years had passed since his former appeal; and now,
1 Bede, Op. i. 198 ff.
' lb. L 184 ; xii. i.
' lb. X. 965. The bishop begins, ' Beverendissimo in Ghristo fratri et
consaoerdoti Bedae presbytero.'
*■ Bede had quoted the proverb, ' Why put fish into the sea ? ' Aoca
replies, *■ Juxta comicum, Nihil sit dictum quod non sit dictum prius ; '
and urges the claim of charity. He desires Bede to prefix his letter to
the Exposition when completed, in order to show that he had written it
' non ob aliam quam condescensionis ftratemae gratiam.'
* Bede, Op. i. 179; x. a68 : 'Mox leotis tuae dulcissimae sanctitatis
paginulis, injuncti me operis labor! supposui, in quo . . . ipse mihi dictator
simul notarius et librarius existerem.' ' Librarius '«= copyist.
* lb. i. 177 (Ep. 8) ; X. a.
^ Bede, vii. 369, Introd. to Samuel ; and i. 184, Ep^ la
* He probably set forth late in 703, and wintered in Frisia.
His reception by Pope John VL 449
after many disappointments and troubles, and after a period obap. xui.
of tranquillity which had seemed likely to be permanent,
the work had to be done all over again ; — although the prece-
dent of Agatho's decision would be morally certain to sway
the councils of Rome, yet the treatment of that decision by
English authorities might easily be repeated in regard to
a new sentence. But Wilfrid's heart did not fail him : Wilfrid's
he went forth, to all appearance, with the same cheerful ^^^^J
courage as on the previous occasion : his journey across the
continent was made on foot ^, in spite of his seventy years,
and included a visit, which must have been full of interest,
to Archbishop Willibrord, in Frisia, when the conversation
often turned on the wonderful things which, according to
Willibrord, had been wrought in that province by contact
with relics of the holy king Oswald. The archbishop also
told a story of his own sojourn in Ireland, about the
recovery of an. Irish student from the pestilence, after \
drinking water into which Willibrord had dipped a splinter I
of the oaken stake on which Oswald's head had been fixed : |
the sick man, he assured his hearers, not only regained
health, but passed from his former irreligiousness to a
thoroughness of Christian devotion *.
In due time Wilfrid and his companions found themselves Pope John
once more at Rome, probably in the early part of 704.
The existing Pope was John VI, who had been consecrated
in the October of 701 *. He gave Wilfrid a speedy
audience. The bishop presented to him, as he had presented
to Agatho, a written memorial ; and said that he had come
to ' that most glorious see, as to a mother's bosom ^,' and not
for the purpose of accusing any one, but in order to meet
any charges that might be brought against him in the
presence of the Roman Council. If they were true, he
would confess them to be true ; if they were false, he was
ready to refute them. The Pope received the petitioners
^ * Pedestri gressu ; ' Eddi, 50.
' Bede, iii. 13. See above, p. 177.
' Od the virtues of this pope, as a peace-maker and a ransomer of
captives, see Milman, ii. 336 ; Hodgkin, vi. 363. He died Jan. 9, 705.
* Eddi, 50. Cp. Bede, v. 19, ' venieusque Bomam/ &c.
OK
450 Council of Rome.
CHAP. nil. kindly, — the account unites Wilfrid closely with his
attendant priests and deacons; and they enjoyed some
days of repose in a lodging freely provided for them.
Meanwhile certain envoys from the archbishop of Canter-
bury arrived with written charges against Wilfrid. It is
surprising to find that only one of them was even in
deacon's orders *• They, like Wilfrid, formally craved
Roman a hearing ; and John assembled a synod of the neighbour-
Synod, jjjg bishops together with their attendant clergy. Wilfrid's
memorial was read. It addressed Pope John by that
epithet of ' universal ' which, a little more than a century
before, had been rejected and reprobated by the greatest of
his predecessors \ In substance it was to this effect : * Once
more, I invoke your see. I doubt not that you will adhere
to the decisions of your predecessors ; for myself, I accept
whatever you may ordain. I come hither, because disturb-
ances have arisen in Britain on the part of those who, con-
trary to the decree of Pope Agatho, took possession of my
bishopric, my monasteries, my lands. I now ask that what
was ordered by Agatho, by Benedict, and by Sei^us, may
be confirmed. But I am ready to meet any charges against
me : let me have my accusers face to face. I also ask that
Ethelred king of the Mercians may be commanded, for the
comfort of my life ', to protect my monasteries in his realm
from disturbance, — as indeed he desires to do, — ^in accord-
ance with the directions of former Popea And I earnestly
beg that King Aldfrid may be adjured* to comply with
the decisions of Pope Agatho and his Council ; or, if that
should seem too much, let the see of York be disposed of as
you will, — but at least let me have Bipon and Hexham.
And I promise to show all brotherly charity, and all due
reverence, to Archbishop Bertwald, if he will treat me
according to the decrees of your predecessors ^'
^ 'Unus diaoonuB, et alii omnea sine aliquo ecdesiaatioae dignitatis
gradu ; ' Eddi, 53. Ckimpare ib. 50, 53, on these ' legati' and * nuntii«'
* See above, p. 71.
' < De yitae nostrae solatio imperare dignemini ; ' Eddi, 51.
* 'Obeeeretis.'
* tfalmesbury, G. P. iii. 104, abbreTiates this.
Council of Rome. 451
The memorial having been read, Wilfrid and his com- chap. xm.
panions were allowed to return to their lodging. Bertwald's
envoys were then admitted, and their paper of accusations
was read. They also were bidden to retire, with a promise
of a regular hearing at a future time. Pope John then told
the Coimcil that it was necessary to go through the docu-
ments on both sides. This was agreed to : a second sitting
took place, in which the accused and the accusers met, and
each charge was taken separately. The first was, * Wilfrid
contumaciously refused to comply with the synodical decree
of Bertwald, who was sent from this Apostolic see *,' a clause
in which one of Theodore's strong points was ingeniously
transferred to Bertwald. Wilfrid then rose, and gave his
account of what had passed at Easterfield : it was accepted
by the CoundL * And then,' says Eddi, ' they began to talk
in Greek among themselves^, with subdued smiles, and
keeping us in the dark ; ' ' and afterwards said to the
accusers,' — one can imagine the smooth Italian politeness
barely hiding a quiet sneer, — *You are well aware, dear
brethren, that according to the canons, when the accusers
of a cleric fail to prove the first point of their charge, they
are not allowed to go on to the rest. However, out of
respect to the archbishop sent from this Apostolic see, and
to Bishop Wilfrid here present, we will go thoroughly into
the whole case, spending days or months, if need be, in
bringing it to a conclusion.' The Council again adjourned :
and, strange as it seems, devoted no less than seventy
sittings, during four months, to a full investigation. At
last, the record of Wilfrid's presence and testimony at the
Roman Council of Easter Tuesday in 680 on the subject of
Monothelitism was publicly read, 'in the Roman fashion,
before all the people ' who were present at the last of the
seventy sittings, and we are told that * all the wise citizens
of Rome were astonished when they heard it read.' When
the reader's voice stopped, all began to ask each other,
*Who is this Bishop Wilfrid*?' And then Boniface,
^ Eddi, 53 : ' Hoc est primam oapitulum,' &o.
' < Inter se Graecizantea,' &c. ; EddL The pope was himself a Greek.
' Bede, y. 19 : ' Quod ubi leetum est,' &e.
Gga
453 Decision of the Council.
CHAP. xiu. ' a counsellor of the Pope/ and Sisinnius ^, with others, who
had seen Wilfrid at Rome in 679-680, declared that the
appellant now present was the same Wilfrid whom * Agatho
had acquitted and sent home, and who now, unhappily, had
been again compelled to leave his own see after an episco-
pate of about forty years ; what was to be said of the men
who had dared to present false documents, as containing
accusations against him, in that venerable presence % Did
not they deserve to wear out their lives in a dungeon?
' And the Romans affirmed, " You say the truth." ' Here,
perhaps, we may suppose Eddi to have indulged in amplifi-
cation : but the next words, in which Pope John declared
Wilfrid to be innocent, must be substantially genuine.
Decision * We find^ after full inquiry, that no crime is proved
Syn^. against Bishop Wilfrid. Let him be acquitted by authority
of the Prince of the Apostles, who has power to bind and
loose from hidden offences. What Agatho, Benedict, and
Sergius decreed concerning him, our humililJy, with consent
of the synod, has resolved to affirm, by writings sent to the
kings and the archbishop.' Accordingly John wrote a letter
to Ethelred and Aldfrid. Pope Agatho, he said, had con-
sidered the charges against Wilfrid, and had rejected them.
His successors had followed his judgement : Theodore him-
self had not, to all appearance, resisted, — had sent no new
accusation, — had rather, according to his own statements,
rendered obedience. So much for the past. As to the
present, the accusers had not proved their case against
How modi- Wilfrid ; rather, he had refuted them. The CouncU had
Pope John, gone minutely into the question. But the Archbishop of
Canterbury and Bishop Wilfrid ought to meet face to face :
^ They are named in that account of a smaller council which does not
mention Wilfrid, and ia probably an invention. See above, p. 330.
' Eddi. Ab Bede puts it, 'who after a thorough investigation and
hearing of both sides was found by pope Agatho to have been unrighteously
expelled from his see, and was held by him in such esteem that he ordered
him to take his seat in a Council of bishops ... as a man of pure faith
and upright character.' Bede corrects Eddi's ' forty years and more ' to
* nearly forty years.'
' Eddi, 53. ' They all said, together with the pontiff, that a man of such
high position . • . ought by no means to be condemned, but to return
home with honour, entirely acquitted of all charges ; ' Bede.
Letter of Pope John. 453
the former therefore was now ordered to assemble a synod chap. mii.
together with Wilfrid, and then to summon the Bishops
Bosa and John, and hear both sides. If the result should
be a synodical settlement, that would be best for both sides ;
failing this^, let the parties be admonished to repair to-
gether to Rome, that the case might be finally settled in
a larger Council. Whosoever should delay to come, or
(* which is to be abhorred ') refuse to come, would incur
deprivation. The kings were then exhorted to promote
peace, and to remember the decision which several Popes
had given as with one mouth ; and so they were commended
to the Divine keeping.
Truly a characteristic document, one is disposed to say,
was this letter of Pope John. He felt himself to be in
a difficulty. On the one hand, he and his Council had
come to the same conclusion with former Popes, and that
was a conclusion in favour of Wilfrid. On the other hand,
experience had shown that a Roman decree was by no
means sure to be all-powerful with English kings and their
ecclesiastical advisers. It would not be wise to issue too
stringent a mandate; yet it would be scandalous to sacrifice
Wilfrid, or compromise Papal consistency and authority.
Therefore, while the kings' attention is solemnly called to
the Papal judgements, and Theodore's tardy reconciliation
with Wilfrid is magnified into a dutiful acceptance of those
judgements, the Pope's letter does not imperatively demand
the canyihg-out of the decree by a reinstatement of Wilfrid.
The dignity of Rome is saved, yet a loophole is provided
for something short of simple obedience. That policy of
delay, in which the Roman court became afterwards so
skilful, is resorted to: on the pretext that Bertwald and
Wilfrid ought personally to confront each other, the matter
is referred to a synod in England, and Bertwald is soothed
by the commission to hold such a synod. It is hoped that
by this means the quarrel may be made up : if not, another
^ HeraEddi's text, as given in Raine, is not clear ; as in Haddan and
Stiibbs, it is unintelligible. Smith reads, ' moneat at commonitionibus
suis quaeque [quae ?] prodesse sols partibus possunt unaquaeque (sc. pars)
coBbidereti et ad banc sedem,' &c Smith's Bede, p. 758.
/
454 Wilfrid at Meaux.
CHAP. xin. and ' a larger Council ' at Borne can be sammoned to effect
that settlement which, by hypothesis, a four months' inquiry
at Rome and a national CSouncil in Britain would have failed
to effect : thus time is gained, and the English authorities
are not alienated by severity^.
By this time, not only had John VI found it desirable
to write cautiously to Aldfrid, but Wilfrid himself had
become weary, and perhaps for the first time despondent.
He wished to give up the cause, and to end his days beside
the throne of St. Peter ^ But its occupant, and the other
bishops, urged him to return home and finish the business,
which could not be left in its present condition. He set
forth accordingly, taking a last farewell of the sacred city,
and carrying with him, ' as his custom was,' a store of
relics duly catalogued, and vestments of silk and purple
\Eor churches, — ^together with the letters for the kings and
the metropolitan ; and also, probably, a letter, still extant ^
in which Pope John informed the English clergy that those
of their body who had lately visited Rome had, after due
deliberation, on the vigil of St. Gregory, laid aside the
'flowing laic garb,' and adopted dose cassocks^ after the
Roman fashion,— an example -which they were exhorted,
* by apostolic authority,' to imitate.
Wilfrid at The homeward journey was very trying to the aged
Menux. bishop*. He became very ill, and after travelling on
horseback as long as he could, was carried on a litter
into Meaux, amid the wailing prayers * of his attendants,
who thought that they were about to lose him while yet
in a strange land. For four days and nights he lay as in
a stupor, never tasting food or drink, and giving no token
of life save by a faint breathing and by the animal warmth
in his worn-out frame''. At last, on the fifth morning,
^ John VT showed diplomatic ability when a visit of the Greek < exarch '
had nearly provoked a < sedition* (Vit. Pontif.).
« Eddi, 55.
' Haddan and Stnbbs, iii. 964.
* ' Talares tunicas.' See above, p. 7.
> Eddi, 56.
' * Maerentium, ad Dominumque clamantiom ; ' Eddi.
^ Eddi ; Bede, v. 19, says, 'halitu pertenui.'
Wilfrid welcomed by Ethelred. 455
while the watchers around his bed were weeping and chap. xm.
reciting peahns, he raised himself up like one waking from
sleep, and asked, 'Where is Acca the presbyter?' Acca
came in, found him better and able to sit up, thanked God,
and afterwards ^, when the rest were gone out, heeurd from
Wilfrid that he had in his trance seen St. Michael, who had
told him that he should live four years longer*. The
story of the apparition is one of those imaginations which
degrade the sacred names introduced ; the prolongation of
Wilfirid's life is not only ascribed to the intercession of the
Blessed Virgin, but the Archangel is made to remind the
great church-builder that he had 'never reared any house
for St. Mary/ and that 'he had to amend this' defects
That some such dream was described by Wilfrid to Acca,
who told it to Ekldi, is not to be doubted : it would fall in
with Wilfrid's conceptions on such a subject. * The bishop,
Eddi then adds, washed his face and hands in the sight of
his delighted followers, and, ' like Jonathan, felt his eyes to
be enlightened after taking some food ; ' after a few days
he resumed his journey, landed in Kent, and sent some of
his clerks to confer with Bertwald. We are informed that
the archbishop was overawed by the Pope's letter to him *,
which is not extant ; and that he ' promised to mitigate the
harsh decrees formerly passed in the synod.' Attended by
a number of 'his abbots,' Wilfrid passed by London, and
entered Mercia, meaning to present himself to King
Ethelred. But Ethelred was king no longer. He was Ethelred
the abbot of Bardney; he had resigned his crown «^f ter ^^^^'^^^^^
reigning twenty-nine years ^, and had retired to the
monastery in Lindsey which he and his murdered North-
^ Bede charaeteristically adds, *■ Thej sat down together for a space, ae
(2e mtgperwia judidia trtpidi, hegan to talk a little,' &o.
* Bede reckons these * four years' from his restoration.
' Eddi, 56. Bede omits this.
* Eddi says, 57, 'per nuntios scriptis directis,' as if the pope's letter
had been entrusted to Bertwald's envoys ; while it appears from Eddi,
53* 55f that it was entrusted to Wilfrid. But from c. 60 we learn that the
envoys had one copy, and Wilfrid brought another.
* See Chronicle, a. 704 ; Florence, a. 716. Ethelred had resigned before
June 13, 704 ; Ck>d. DipL i. 6o.
456 Aldfrid refuses to receive him.
m
CHAP. xm. lunbrian wife had 'greatly loved, reverenced, and adorned^.'
One thinks of the ex-king, the son of Fenda, gazing at the
tomb of his father's sainted victim, where the banner of
gold and purple, or the shreds that might remain of it, still
bore witness to Oswald's majesty. And here, under the
roof of this royal abbey, Wilfrid was fain to meet Ethelred.
The old men embraced, and wept for joy: Ethelred, on
seeing the papal letter, — a duplicate, of course, of the one
addressed to Aldfrid conjointly with himself, — Igoked on
its 'bulls' and seals very differently from Egfrid on a former
occasion. He bowed to the very ground after hearing the
letter read, and promised that he would do his best to
Kenred procure compliance with its directions. He kept his word
Mereuf "^y summoning his nephew Kenred*, who had succeeded
him on his abdication, and who assured him that he also
would 'obey the precepts of the Apostolic see.' During
a short stay in the Mercian realm, Wilfrid probably met
Edgar, then bishop of Lindsey^ and would hear that in
the neighbouring realm of East-Anglia the see of Elmham
was held by Nothbert*, and tiiat of Dunwich perhaps by
Aldbert^, while the foundation of his friend Queen Etheldred
was under the care of Ermenild, the widow of Wulfhere, or
* possibly of her daughter Werburga, who had been active
durmg her uncle Ethelred's reign in founding nunneries
at Trentham, Hanbury, and Weedon*. Before leaving
* Bede, iii. 11 : ' Ut monasterium nobile/ &c See above, p. 177, on the
burial of St Oswald there.
' He was son of Wulfhere, and brother of St. Werburga. He confirmed
a grant of land at Twickenham to bishop Waldhere ; Kemble, Cod. DipL
i. 6a Bede tells a terrible story (▼. 13, told him by bishop Pecthelm)
respecting a thane in Keured's service whom the young king often
admonished to amend his conduct, but who always answered that he had
time enough before him. He died in despair, and Malmesbury sees in
this a main cause of Kenred's resolution to go to Borne and turn monk ;
G. Beg. i. 4.
* See Bede, iv. 19. He signs, as bishop, a ^charter of Ethelward, ' sub-
regulus ' of the Hwiccas, in favour of Egwin's new monastery, in 706 ;
Cod. DipL i 65.
* Florence, App., Mon. H. Brit. p. 618. He signs the same charter.
' He was bishop when Bede wrote ; ▼. 93 : the date of his accession ia
unknown. Florence caUs him .£scalf.
* Cp. Alb. Butler, Feb. 3. See above, p. 907.
Death of Aldfrid. 457
lindeey, Wilfrid, by Ethelred's advice, sent an abbot chap. xm.
named Badwin and a 'teacher^' called Alfrid to apprise
the Northumbrian king of his return, and to ask leave
for Wilfrid to come to him with the Apostolic letter of
greeting, and with the Apostolic decisions in the cause.
Aldfrid gave them a courteous reception, and appointed
a day for his definite answer. But when, on that day, they Obstinacy
again appeared before him, he, by advice of his counsellors, ^* *
spoke thus : ' Venerable brothers both, ask of me whatever
you want for yourselves, and I will give it you. But,
from this day forth, never ask of me anjrthing for Wilfrid
your lord. For what my predecessors ^ and the arch-
bishop, with their advisers, determined, and what I myself
with the archbishop^ and nearly all the bishops of the
nation have decided upon, this I am resolved never,
while I live, to alter for any alleged writings from the
Apostolic see*.'
It was afterwards said that Aldfrid, on his death-bed,
regretted his treatment of Wilfrid, and exhorted his future
successor to obey the Pope's decree. His sister Elfled is
cited by Eddi* as an authority, among other 'eye-wit-
nesses,' for the king's 'repentance,' and for this speech,
which included a promise on his own part, if his life
should be spared. Eddi presumes that Aldfrid * the Wise \
knew his illness to be * a stroke of the Apostle's power.'
He did not recover : for some days he was speechless, and Death of
on the 14th of December, 705®, he died at DriflSeld, 'the
field of Deira,' an ancient town in the East Riding. For
eight weeks the kingdom was in the hands of Eadwulf,
who is ignored by the Chronicle : and his usurpation was
the first specimen of several feeble and ignoble kingships,
' Gomp. Bede, iy. 5 : * Magistris eodesiae pluribus.'
^ So Eddi, 58, by a slip for ' predeceabor.'
' Again, aa in Eddi, 53, the phrase, 'ab apoetolica sede emiaso,' is
applied without propriety to Bertwald.
* ^ Propter apostolicae sedis, tU dieiiis, scripta/ Hook's mistranslation,
' from the apostolie see, as you caU Uj i. 191, is a serious misrepresen-
tation.
^ Together with 'Ethelburga, abbess ;' Eddi, 59.
* Bede and the Chronicle give the year ; the Chronicle gives the day
and place.
458 Council of the Ntdd.
CHAP. XIII. which caused men to l<x)k upon the close of Aldfrid's
nineteen years as a disastrous epoch for Northumbria ^.
Wilfrid had ventured to return to Ripon ^ before he sent
messengers to Eadwulf, who repelled them with an 'austere'
reply, swearing by his salvation that unless Wilfrid left
his realm within six days, any of his companions found in
Osredking it «hould be put to death. But in February, a successful
umbria " Conspiracy overthrew Eadwulf and enthroned Osred, son of
Aldf rid, a boy of eight, in the first year of whose reign ^
another Council was called to settle the ' cause of Wilfrid *
'. in the manner suggested by Pope John. The place of this
assembly was somewhere on the river Nidd *, which flows
from the north-west by Knaresborough, and is invested with
remarkable associations of later date.
CouncU of This Council of the Nidd was not, like that of Easterfield,
a representation of all the English Churches. Bertwald was
the only Southern prelate present : he and Wilfrid arrived
on the same day. The boy-king and his earls appeared with
the three Northumbrian bishops, Bosa, John, and Eadf rid,
and certain abbots, and the abbess Elfled, 'ever the comforter
and best counsellor of the whole province*.* The arch-
bishop was in a different mood from that in which he had
seconded Aldf rid's rigorous line of conduct towards Wilfrid.
^He rose, and at once took the line of a peacemaker: 'Let
us pray to our Lord, that He would by His Holy Spirit
^ Bede, £p. to Egbert| 7. Boniface, Ep. 6a, tells king Ethelbald of
Mercia that the priyileges of Northumbrian churches remained inviolate
until the time of king Osred.
' Eddi says, * cum filio sue proprio veniens de Hrypis ; ' 59. On this it
has been asked, Was Wilfrid ever married? Kemble supposes that he
had been ; ii. 444. But this would be inconsistent with Eddi's account of
his early life, and with his own affirmation, Eddi, 91. Raine thinks that
the relationship was a spiritual one, Hist Ch. York, i. 89 ; and although
the word 'proprio' is remarkable, as followed by the statement that
Osred became his ' filius adoptivus,* it may be used to indicate a ' sonship '
more sacred and intimate than would be constituted by simple * adoption.'
See Eddi, 18, for the story of the boy (Eodbald), stimamed * Bishop's son.'
AboTe, p. 969.
' It was a bad reign ; see Boniface, £p. 69. He was a profligate youth,
and was killed in battle, when only nineteen, Ghron. a. 716 ; Hen. Hunt,
iv. 8 ; cp. Malm. G. R i. 53. Bede records his violent death, v. 99.
^ Bede, v. 19, < juxta fluvium Nidd.* Eddi adds, *ab oriente,* 6a
* * Consolatrix optimaque consUiatriz.'
Final Compromise. 459
infaae into our hearts the spirit of concord.' Then, speaking ci'ap. \nu
as Theodore would never have condescended to speak, in
the deferential style of one who was not certain of his
own authority in Northumbria, Bertwald said that he and
Bishop Wilfrid had certain letters directed to him from the
Apostolic see, which they wished the Council to hear; and
the document, of which, it appeaors, there were two copies,
was read accordingly. Bertfrid, the chief ealdorman, said
to the archbishop, 'We should like to hear it translated
into our own language.' Bertwald answered by remarking
— a true remark for many an age— on the periphrastic
lengthiness of the Papal style ^ and added that he could
give the sense of the letter in few words. The Apostolic
see, which had power to bind and to loose, had ordered
that in his presence the bishops of Northumbria should
be reconciled to Bishop Wilfrid. They must choose one
of two courses. Either let them make peace with Wilfrid,
and restore, as the Witan should decide together with the
archbishop, 'those parts of the churches which Wilfrid
himself once ruled;' or else let all the parties concerned
meet at Rome, to have the affair settled by a greater
Council. To refuse both these courses would be to incur
deposition : a layman so offending would incur excommuni-
cation 'from the Body and Blood of Christ.' The three
bishops, who evidently deemed their chief a weak deserter,
boldly asked, 'How can any one have power to change
what our predecessors, and Theodore, and King Egfrid,
ordained, and what afterwards, in the field called Easter-
field, we and nearly all the bishops of Britain decreed, with
King Aldfrid, and in your presence, O Archbishop ? ' The
tide, however, had turned against them. Elfied declared
that Aldfrid had in his last days expressed his intentions
in favour of Wilfrid with the solemnity of a vow as to
himself, of an injunction as to his heir; and Bertfrid,
speaking for the king and the ealdormen, announced their
mind to the same purpose. He told what had lately
happened: when besieged in Bamborough^ by Eadwulf,
^ ' Iiongo oircaitu et ambagibus Terborum ; ' Eddi.
* ' Bebbanburg.* See above, p. aS.
460 End of the ' Cause of Wilfrid. '
CHAP. XIII. and shut up within the limits of a rocky fortress, he and
his fellow-earls had vowed that if ' their royal boy ' should
gain his father's kingdom, they would adhere to the decisions
of Rome about Wilfrid; straightway the besiegers had come
over to their side, and sworn friendship towards them, —
the gates of the city had been thrown open, they had been
delivered from their distress,— their royal boy was king.
The three bishops saw that it was a time for peaceful
settlement, on such terms as could be accepted. They
Final com- conferred with Bertwald, and then with Elfled; and the
promise, ^^^^j}^^ — ^^ ^^^j ^f ^^e whole weary controversy— was
another compromise. For all the big words about obedi-
ence to Papal mandates, the mandates of Agatho, of
Benedict, and of Sergius were not obeyed: the liberty
of decision conceded by John VI to a Northumbrian synod
was used in such a manner as Wilfrid himself had in some
sense foreseen, when he intimated that his full claim might
be more than Northumbrian authorities would grant. Bede
says indeed, in one place, that he was 'received again to
the prelacy of his own church' '; but in another he explains
that this church was Hexham, and that when Wilfrid 'after
his long exile ' was restored to this bishopric ^, John, on the
death of Bosa^ was placed in the see of York*. So that,
in fact, the second compromise was less favourable than the
first : Wilfrid, in 686, became bishop of York, though with
a diminished diocese ; in 706 he had to be content with the
see of Hexham and the minster of Ripon, — clearly, in the
first instance, with Ripon only, until Bosa's death, which
soon followed, opened the way for an arrangement. Wilfrid
^ Bede, v. 19. So Eadmer, who wishes to make it appear that Wilfrid
simply triumphed, 51.
^ Bede, ▼. 3. He plainly refers to the second exile.
' Bosa's death, as we have seen, was erroneously ante-dated hy Florence.
See Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 171 ; Stubbs, Begistr. Angl. p. 4 ; and Smith's
S^^f P* 759* ' Bosa ante annum 705 non obiit.*
* It was as bishop of York that Jolin visited the nunnery of * Wetadun,'
and prayed over a sick nun, Bede, y. 3 ; and dedicated a church on the
estate of an earl named Puch, two miles from Beverley (v. 4), and another
church founded by earl Addi in the neighbourhood (y. 5) — indications of
the growth of that parochial system which ' needed no foundation ' ;
Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 260 : see above, p. 196.
End of the * Cause of IVilfrid/ 461
had thus to abandon his claim on the ancient see of the chap. xui.
royal city, the mother-church of Northumbria ; he had to
acquiesce in the translation of John from Hexham to York,
and to take possession of Hexham as John's successor. He
recovered, however, all his domains and monasteries, in
Northumbria and in Mercia. The arrangements made in
the Council were sealed by a solemn Eucharist, at which
the four prelates of Northumbria exchanged the kiss of
peace, and shared in the Bread of unity. And so, writes
Eddi, ' they returned to their own homes in the peace of
Christ ; ' and the once fiery and imperial spirit of Wilfrid,
bent and chastened by age and troubles, was content with
the prospect of quiet and peace in exchange for the hope of
triumphant ascendency. But, from a purely Roman point
of view, the settlement was somewhat of an impotent
conclusion : an ardent supporter of Roman claims would be
disappointed at such a result of reiterated Papal decisions
although he might console himself by the reflection that
if Wilfrid had not, in effect, secured all that he had once
hoped for, his protracted cause had at least familiarized
his fellow-Churchmen with the thought of appeals to the
'Apostolic see.' His pertinacity had not led to any imme-
diate and brilliant success ; but it had formed a precedent
which might, under favourable auspices, be productive of
greater things hereafter \
^ On the 'system of appeals to Borne,* as having begun with Anselm,
see Dean Church's Life of St. Anselm, p. 993 ; aboYe, p. 335.
CHAPTER XIV.
We must now, once more, turn back from the continuous
story of Wilfrid's contests and troubles to the quiet develop-
ment of Church life and work in the southern districts, and
particulariy among the West-Saxons. We have seen some-
thing of Aldhelm's unrivalled celebrity and influence ; and
the interest of ecclesiastical annals, as regards the ordinary
progress of the English Church, centres at this point in
him. Of him probably Bertwald thought, when he urged
on the Wessex authorities the partition of their great
diocese, — a step which Heddi seems to have regarded
with disfavour, and to have hindered during his own
lifetime. The difficulty was so serious that in 704, the
year of Wilfrid's sojourn at Rome, a provincial Coimcil in
its yearly meeting threatened to suspend communion with
Wessex, if there were further delay in the appointment of
another bishop, at least, for that kingdom \ But in the
following year, 705 ^ we find a number of English bishops '
taking part in a synod which was held, apparently, within
the bounds of Wessex, and which resolved to remonstrate
with the neighbouring British clergy and laity on their
obnoxious Easter-rule. Who so fit as the abbot of Malmes-
1 Haddan and StubbB, iii. 367, 975: the letter of bishop Waldhere.
This throws a doubt on a quotation by Rudborne of a ' decree of Theodore,'
to the effect that the diocese was not to be divided in Heddi's lifetime ;
Angl. Sac. i. 193 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. ia6.
* Faricius says, indeed, in 706 ; but this would not suit the notes of
time for the episcopate of Aldhelm. Probably he was misled by a record
connecting this synod with the first year of the Northumbrian Osred,
whose right to his father's crown would in some sense be traced to the
end of 705. See Haddan and Stubbs, iii. a68.
' Aldhelm, Ep. z : * Ez tota paene Britannia innumerabilis Dei sacer-
dotum eaterva confluxit.' It was not, then, as Faricius says, a mere
West-Saxon synod.
Aldhelm^s letter to Geraint. 463
bnry, the foremost scholar in all the English Churches, to chap. sit.
undertake such a task ? To him, accordingly, it was com- Aidhelm*s
mitted ^ ; and he wrote, at once, what is reckoned as the Qeraint
first of his letters ^ and is addressed, in highly respectful
terms, to ' the most glorious lord, swaying the sceptre of
the Western realm, whom the writer embraces with
brotherly charity, — to Eling Geruntius, and at the same
time to all God's priests' dwelling in Domnonia.' This
potentate was the British king Geraint, who appears in the
Chronicle for 710 as defeated by Ine : his realm was nearly
the whole of Dyfnaint *, that is, of Devonshire and Corn-
wall, the ' West Wales ' of English speech, which still main-
tained its Celtic independence, and only by degrees gave
place to the advance of the Saxon. Geraint, indeed, held
part of Somersetshire, imtil Ine built Taunt(»i as a frontier-
fortress *. To this prince, then, Aldhelm wrote, in effect as
follows. ' I am commissioned by a large Council of bishops
to call your attention to four points which are faulty in
regard to the clergy of your nation. First, your priests
are said to be contentious : they do not live in harmony
with each other. They ought to remember the sayings of
Scripture in praise of concord. Secondly, there has been
a rumour, widely spread, to the effect that certain priests
and clerics in your province obstinately refuse the tonsure
of St. Peter, on the ground of adherence to the tradition of
their predecessors. As for the tonsure which they use, it
is, according to the opinion of most persons •, traceable to
Simon, the inventor of art-magic ; and this I take to be the
^ ' Jubente synodo,' Bede, y. i8. Aldhelm refers, in De Laud. Vir-
ginit. a, to a 'pontificale conciliabulum ' which he had attended.
' See it in Migne, Patr. Lat. Ixzxix. 87 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. a68.
' As we have seen (p. 945) two of Ghad*s consecrators were probably
from this part of the British Church. See Haddan and Stubbs, i. 150.
* Probably 'the deep valleys,' e.g. of Dartmoor. Strictly, Dyfhaint
would be distinguished from Cemau, or Cornwall. For this king Geraint,
and for an earlier who has left his name at * St. Gerrans/ in Cornwall,
see Diet. Chr. Biogr. ii. 664, 666. Also Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 109;
Guest, Orig. Celt. ii. 971. Dumnonia or Damnonia was then the most
important of < British ' kingdoms.
' Soon after his victory, Chron. 716. Wessex had stretched to the
Parret since the victory of Kenwalch at ' Peonna ' (Pen) in 658.
* ' Secundum plurimorum opinionem.' See above, p. 93.
4^ ^ l^ks testify to his machina-
i^use f^^^J^^xjr^t P^^^' We, bearing testi-
ioos, MS « ^'^sc^^^^' concerning our tonsure, assert
^oDV, according ^ j^ for several reasons ^ ; — but we
tioos,
joooy, acc^'-"-^ rx^inted it tOT several reasons * ; — but we
^^t St re r p^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^ ancient Nazarites, and it seems
^^ *° flvmboi both of royalty and priesthood, so that the
*V|_ ^f elericB illustrate St. Peter's own saying, " Ye are
a royal priesthood I" But, thirdly, there is another and
more cruel mischief to souls, in that your priests do not
follow the rule of the Nicene Council as to Easter. That
fuJe prescribed the use of a cycle of nineteen years ^ and
jDade the fifteenth moon the beginning of the Paschal
<< calculation," and the twenty-first moon the end of it'
/i.a the possible Easter Sundays were those from the
fifteenth to the twenty-first moon inclusive). * But your
priests, following the canon of Anatolius *, or rather that of
Sulpicius Severus, keep Easter with the Jews on the
fourteenth moon: whereas the Roman pontiffs have not
sanctioned either canon, nor that of Victorius, which em-
braces five hundred and thirty-two years. For there
was ajQL old sect of heretics called Tessareskaidecaditae,
who were excommimicated for keeping the fourteenth
moon with the Jews as the time for the Paschal festival.
^ Three are then given : (i) to represent the crown of thoma; (a") to
distinguish the old from the new priesthood ; (3) ' that Peter and his
successors might bear ridioulosum gannaturae ludibrium in populo
Bomano, quia et eorum barones et hostes ezerdtu superatos sub corona
vendere solebant.'
' It would almost seem as if Aldhelm thought that i Pet. ii. 9 was
addressed to the clergy as such.
* He adds, ' composed of an ogdoad and a hendecadas ; ' see Bede, De
Temporibus, c 11 : ' Gyclum decennovenalem propter ziv. lunas paschales
Nicaena synodus instituit, eo quod ad eundem anni Solaris diem unaqnae-
que luna per xix. annos . . . redeat . . ; ' ' Octo enim anni lunares totidem
annos solares duobus tantum diebus transcend unt, quorum alter ad
ezplementum occurrit hendecadis/ &c ; and his verses ' De Batione
Temporum.' On the nineteen years' cycle, see also Ceolfrid (in effect,
Bede) in Bede, ▼. ar.
« See Bede, iiL 3, 'aestimans, &c . . . Anatolii soripta secutam ;' and
iii. 95, where Colman argues that Anatolius reckoned from 'the four-
teenth,' and Wilfrid replies that A« framed a cycle of nineteen years which
Colman ignored, and that he regarded the fourteenth evening as the
beginning of the fifteenth moon. See above, p. aaS.
on British Easter and Tonsure. 465
Fourthly, the priests of the Demetians^ (i.e. the people chap. xiv.
of our present South Wales), who dwell beyond the
Severn, will not even pray with a Saxon in church,
nor eat with him at table. On the contrary, they throw
to dogs and swine the remains of his meal, and insist
on cleansing with sand or ashes ^ the dishes or bowls from
which he has eaten and drunk. They refuse us the kiss of \
peace ; they even refuse us an ordinary greeting. If any
of our people, that is, of Catholics, go to dwell among
them ', they put them under penance for forty days. This
is like those heretics who called themselves " the Pure *."
Alas! it is like the Pharisees who incurred the ''woe" for
cleansing the outside of cup and platter, and for indulging
in a spirit of self-righteous intolerance. I entreat you,
''do not superciliously and doggedly refuse to obey the
decrees of St. Peter, nor in tyrannous pertinacity spurn the
tradition of the Roman Church for the sake of the statutes
of your own forefathers." It was to Peter that the keys
were given : who then can hope to enter the gate of para-
dise, if in this world he despises the statutes of Peter's
Church ? But perhaps some one, proud of his knowledge
of Scripture, will say, " I sincerely believe both Testaments,
and will freely proclaim to the people the true faith as to
the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Passion, the Resurrection;"
But " faith without works is dead "; faith, if it is Catholic,
is inseparable from charity, or else it profits nothing ; good
works are profitless outside the Catholic Church, even if
they include strict observance of coenobitic discipline, or
^ Demetia is hera used for Deheubarth or South Wales; Palgraye,
p. 457 ; Pearson's Hist. Maps, p. aa ; although in a stricter sense it meant
the south-western part, Pembrokeshire and the parts next to it, otherwise
called Djfed ; see Lappenberg, i. lao ; Haddan and Stubbs, i. 144 : Jones
and Freeman's Hist. St. David's, p. 337. Giraldus, in Descr. Gamb. i. 9,
calls Demetia a portion of Deheubarth containing seven ^cantrevs' or
hundreds.
' 'Aut harenosis sabulorum glareis, aut fulvis favillarum cineribus.'
See above, p. it 9.
* The West-Sazons who gradually settled beyond our present Somerset,
amid a British population, called themselves Defnsietas, dwellers in
Dyfhaint, — whence *■ men of Devon.'
* Novatians, the * Cathari ' ; Nieene can. 8.
Hh
464 Aldhelm's letter to Geraint
CHAP. XIV. case, because the Clementine books testify to his machina-
tions, as a wizard, against St. Peter. We, bearing testi-
mony, according to Scripture, concerning our tonsure, assert
that St. Peter appointed it for several reasons ^ ; — but we
see an indication of it in the ancient Nazarites, and it seems
to be a symbol both of royalty and priesthood, so that the
heads of clerics illustrate St. Peter's own saying, " Ye are
... a royal priesthood 2." But, thirdly, there is another and
a more cruel mischief to souls, in that your priests do not
follow the rule of the Nicene Council as to Easter. That
rule prescribed the use of a cycle of nineteen years ^ and
made the fifteenth moon the beginning of the Paschal
'' calculation," and the twenty-first moon the end of it'
(i.e. the possible Easter Sundays were those from the
fifteenth to the twenty-first moon inclusive). * But your
priests, following the canon of Anatolius *, or rather that of
Sulpicius Severus, keep Easter with the Jews on the
fourteenth moon: whereas the Roman pontifis have not
sanctioned either canon, nor that of Victorius, which em-
braces five hundred and thirty-two years. For there
was an old sect of heretics called Tessareskaidecaditae,
who were excommunicated for keeping the fourteenth
moon with the Jews as the time for the Paschal festival
^ Three are then given : (i) to represent the cro^n of thorns; (a^ to
distinguish the old from the new priesthood ; (3) ' that Peter and his
successors might bear ridioulosum gannaturae ludibrium in populo
Bomano, quia et eorum barones et hostes ezercitu superatos sub corona
vendere solebant.'
" It would almost seem as if Aldhelm thought that i Pet. ii. 9 was
addressed to the clergy as such.
' He adds, ' composed of an ogdoad and a hendecadas ; ' see Bede, De
Temporibus, c 11 : ' Gyclum deoennovenalem propter xiv. lunas paschales
Nicaena synodus instituit, eo quod ad eundem anni Solaris diem unaquae-
que luna per xix. annos . • . redeat . . ; ' ' Ooto enim anni lunares totidem
annos solares duobus tantum diebus transoendunt, quorum alter ad
explementum occurrit hendecadis/ k^ ; and his verses ' De Batione
Temporum.' On the nineteen years' cycle, see also GeoUrid (in effect,
Bede) in Bede, ▼. ar.
« See Bede, iii. 3, 'aestimans, &c . . . Anatolii soripta secutam ;' and
iii. 35, where Golman argues that Anatolius reckoned from Hhe four-
teenth,' and Wilfrid replies that hi framed a cycle of nineteen years which
Golman ignored, and that he regarded the fourteenth evening as the
beginning of the fifteenth moon. See above, p. aad.
on British Easter and Tonsure. 465
Fourthly, the priests of the Demetians^ (i.e. the people chap. xiv.
of our present South Wales), who dwell beyond the
Severn, will not even pray with a Saxon in church,
nor eat with him at tabla On the contrary, they throw
* to dogs and swine the remains of his meal, and insist
on cleansing with sand or ashes ^ the dishes or bowls from
which he has eaten and drunk. They refuse us the kiss of
peace ; they even refuse us an ordinary greeting. If any
of our people, that is, of Catholics, go to dwell among
them ^ they put them under penance for forty days. This
is like those heretics who called themselves " the Pure *."
Alas 1 it is like the Pharisees who incurred the " woe " for
cleansing the outside of cup and platter, and for indulging
in a spirit of self-righteous intolerance. I entreat you,
''do not superciliously and doggedly refuse to obey the
decrees of St. Peter, nor in tyrannous pertinacity spurn the
tradition of the Roman Church for the sake of the statutes
of your own forefathers." It was to Peter that the keys
were given : who then can hope to enter the gate of para-
dise, if in this world he despises the statutes of Peter's
Church ? But perhaps some one, proud of his knowledge
of Scripture, will say, " I sincerely believe both Testaments,
and will freely proclaim to the people the true faith as to
the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Passion, the Resurrection;"
But ** faith without works is dead"; faith, if it is Catholic,
is inseparable from charity, or else it profits nothing ; good
works are profitless outside the Catholic Church, even if
they include strict observance of coenobitic discipline, or
^ Bemetia is here used for Deheubarth or South Wales; Palgrave,
P* 457 t Pearson's Hist. Maps, p. aa ; although in a stricter sense it meant
the south- west em part, Pembrokeshire and the parts next to it, otherwise
called Djfed; see Lappenberg, 1. lao ; Haddan and Stubbs, i. 144 ; Jones
and Fieeman's Hist. St. David's, p. 337. Giraldus, in Descr. Camb. i. 9,
calls Demetia a portion of Deheubarth containing seven 'cantrevs' or
hundreds.
* *Ant harenosis sabulorum glareis, aut fulvis favillarum cineribus.'
See above, p. iia.
> The West-Sazons who gradually settled beyond our present Somerset,
amid a British population, called themselves Defnsietas, dwellers in
Dyfhaint, — whence ^ men of Devon.'
* Novatians, the * Gathari * ; Nicene can. 8.
Hh
466 Aldhelm's letter to Geraint.
oHAP. xiT. even the severest asceticism of the anchorite : in one word,
it is idle to Tx>a8t of true belief, unless one follows the role
of St. Peter.'
It must be owned that this letter does not raise our
opinion of Aldhelm. It is superior to many of his remains
in point of style, that is, it is comparatively free from the
extravagant and often ludicrous grandiloquence^ which,
being a characteristic of one so greatly admired and
honoured, did much to pervert the taste of those who
looked to him as a model, especially of the charter-
writers of the ninth century*. We have more serious
matter in this letter to King Geraint. The absurdity of
Aldhelm's remarks on the tonsure is disappointing; but
the unfairness of describing the Britons as Quartodecimans
without indicating, as even Eddi does, that the term is
being used in a lax sense, — the virtual identification of
faith like St. Peter's with conformity to all the decrees or
observances of Borne ', the conspicuous lack of a sense of
proportion in matters ecclesiastical or religious, — these
things awaken a stronger feeling than that of mere
disappointment. If so good a man and so well-read
a student could sink into such petty narrowness, what
must have been the effect of Latin rigorism on the rank
and file of Latinized clergy ? The calm assumption that
the British Church was not Catholic is in full accord
with the apparent unconsciousness of any provocations of
the * Saxon' side which had stirred the resentful Celtic
nature to such coarse demonstrations as are here denounced,
or as, in the Irish bishop Dagan's case, had shocked the first
successor of Augustine*. The intense antipathy of the
British to the English Church, described by Bede as a
> See above, p. 996.
' Lingard, A.-S. Gh. ii. 15a, 404, says that Boniface showed traces of
this bad habit, but that it hardly reappears afterwards until in the ninth
oentury it was ^ revived in all its extravagance ' by charter-writers.
* Aldhelm undoubtedly treats Rome as the centre of unity and the
standard of doctrine and discipline. He puts into sonorous form the
argument with which Oswy closed the Whitby conference.
* Above, p. III. Giraldus says that the Welsh are 'ready to avenge
not only new and fresh injuries, verum etiam veteres et antiquas velut
instanies' (Descr. Gamb. i. 17).
Gradual surrender of Celtic Easter. 467
virtual non-recognition of its Christianity ^, was of course chap. mt.
connected with the bitter recollections of the English
conquest, the humiliating experiences of English ascendency.
With all such allowances, it was doubtless excessive and
unchristian-like; it must have been fostered by the con-
tinuous neglect or refusal of all responsibility in regard to.
the evangelization of the ' Saxons ' while yet heathen ; but
we have Aldhelm's word for the existence, among these
remoter Welsh, of the theological learning and the monastic
self-devotion which had distinguished the Church of Padam
and mtyd, of Dubricius and David. The effect of Aldhelm's
exhortations was confined, says Bede, to those Britons who
were * subject to the West-Saxons ^/ that is, who dwelt in
parts of Devon and Somerset which were no longer British.
No inhabitants of Wales adopted the 'Catholic Easter'
^^"^*il 755~777> when 'their Easter was altered' first in
North Wales, then, after much resistance, in South Wales,
by the counsel 'of Elbod, a man of God,' who is also
described as 'archbishop of Gwynedd',' and after whose
death the contest was renewed; while, so far as 'West
Wales' was concerned, there was no surrender of the
national 'Pasc' until after the foundation of the Saxon
bishopric of Crediton in the early part of the tenth cen-
tury *, although a Cornish bishop, some fifty years before,
* Bede, ii. aa See Lingard, A.-S. Gh. i. 6i : ' In their estimation the
Saxons were . . . the children of robbers . . . possessing the fruit of their
fathers' crimes, and therefore stiU lying under the maledictions formerly
pronounced by the British bishops against the invaders.'
' Bede, v. iB. Were these the ' nonnulla pars de Brettonibus * to whom
Bede refers in y. 15 ? The reference to Adamnan there might seem to
point to Britons of Strathelyde. The laws of Ine treat Britons as subjects,
though of a lower class ; s. 23, 94, 39, 46 : see Freeman, i. 34, and Hist.
Cath. Ch. of Wells, p. 18.
' See Ann. Oamb., and Brut, in Mon. Hist. Brit. pp. 834, 843, and
another form in Haddan and Stubbs, i. 904, and Ann. Menev. in Angl.
Sac. ii. 648. See Lingard, A.-S. Oh. i. 69. According to Bees, Welsh
Saints, p. 66, North Wales adopted the Catholic Easter soon after Elbod
became bishop of Bangor in 755. The South Welsh resisted until 777 :
and when Elbod died in 809 they returned for a time to their old rule.
For Elbod or Elfod, as probably bishop of Bangor, and as not proved to'
be a metropolitan, although clearly not imder a metropolitan, see Jones
and Freeman, Hist. St. David's, p. 958.
* Haddan and Stubbs, i. 676. See Napier and Stevenson, Early Charters,
p. I if., for the probable foundation of a monastery at Crediton in 739.
t H h a
468 Gradual surrender of Celtic Easter.
CHAP. XIV. had submitted to Canterbury. However, it pleased Malmes-
bury to say, * The Britons even to this day owe their cor-
rection to Aldhelm^.' The Celtic persistency had given
way in more than one quarter when Aldhelm was thus
employed against its south-western strongholds. The
Northern Irish had followed, about 704, the example ^set
by the Southern Irish after the Council of the White Field
in 634: they had yielded to the influence of Adamnan^,
who had candidly examined the subject, and come to the
conclusion that the Roman system was correct, but, abbot
of Hy as he was, had failed to carry his own monks along
with him, and even in North Ireland those who were
specially under the sway of Hy stood out against the
arguments of its head^ But after several years, they
were ' brought round ' by his influence * from their ancestral
errora' The Pictish Church, its 'Columban' monasteries
excepted^, was persuaded or constrained by its king
Nechtan or Naiton (himself convinced by a missionary
named Boniface)^ to yield to the representations of Abbot
Ceolfrid in a letter which Bede himself may well have
penned •, five years after the letter of Aldhelm to Qeraint :
^ Malmesb. Gest. Pontif. y. 215. He adds, 'Although, in their in-
grained wickedness, they ignore the man and set at nought the book.*
' See Bede, v. 15 : 'Navigayit Hibemiam,* &c. Above, p. 112.
' Adamnan was in Ireland in 686; on his return to Hy, he vainly
endeavoured to establish there the ^Catholic' Easter. He revisited
Ireland in 69a, and again in 697 ; then remained there seven years, and
' taught nearly all of those who were free from the dominion of the monks
of Hy to observe the legitimate time of Easter * ; Bede, v. 15. Whether
the English-bom St. Gerald of Mayo lived thus early, and was his host,
is uncertain. He had the satisfaction of celebrating the < true ' Easter
of 704 in Ireland, returned to Hy, and died on Sept. 23, 704 ; so that, as
Bede expresses it, he was spared ' a more serious contest, at the return of
Easter, with those who would not follow him to the truth.' See Lanigan,
iii. 150 ; Reeves's Adamnan, p. Ivi ; Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 1 10 ; Skene,
Celt. Sc. ii. Z74.
* Nechtan afterwards, as Reeves says, p. 184, 'drove the non-conforming
Columbian ' {tic) * monks past his frontier ' (L e. monks dependent on
Hy). Cp. Skene, i. 284. * Skene, Celt. Sc ii. 231.
* Bede, v. 21. The letter is a repository of the Roman topics of argu-
ment as to ' Pasch ' and tonsure. On the former point, Ceolfrid lays down
three principles : (i) In settling Easter, observe the first month ; (2) in
it, the third week ; (3) in that week, a Sunday. The true import of ^ the
fourteenth day ai even' (Ezod. zii. 18) must be insisted on, so that the
Daniely bishop of Winchester. 469
and even the stubbornness of St. Columba's own monastery ohap. xiv.
was for the most part broken down by the persuasions of
the priest Egbert, six years later yet, in 716^. But a
section of the monks set up a new abbot, and this schism
lasted for nearly sixty years.
The obstacle to the partition of the West-Saxon diocese was
removed in 705, on the 7th of July*, or more probably earlier,
by the death of Heddi, after an episcopate of nearly thirty
yeara Then, at last, the partition took place ; but it was west-
not an equal one ^ for Winchester retained only Hampshire ^^^^
and Surrey, while the other parts of Wessex — Wiltshire, divided.
Dorsetshire, Berkshire, and part if not the whole of
Somerset— were annexed to the new see, which was estab-
lished at Sherborne. For Winchester a bishop was found
who is best known to us through his correspondence with
the great St. Boniface. This was Daniel, who was still Daniel,
living when Bede wrote*: it was he who overcame ^^^^^^^^
ter.
reckoning may not begin earlier than the close of that day. If that even-
ing is a Saturday, let it be Easter Eve ; let the fifteenth day be Easter
Sunday. Avoid the mistakes either of taking the thirteenth or the six*
teenth evening as the tBrminus a quo, or the twentieth or the twenty-second
as the terminus ad quern ; in other words, do not include days ignored in the
Law and exclude days expressly mentioned. And as for the month, let
the equinox be the guide ; it falls on March ai ; a full moon, then, which is
earlier than that day, cannot be the paschal Aill moon. (Here comes a
mystical explanation of the rule of keeping Easter c^fter the equinox.)
Ceolfrid adds an account of the nineteen years' cycle, with the remark
that even in Britain there are reckoners who, by help of Alexandrian rules,
can calculate Easters for the whole period of 539 years, after which the
solar and lunar, the monthly and weekly, sequences would recommence.
As to tonsure, it is admitted that there has been no uniformity, and that
variety of usage does no harm where faith and charity are present ; but
among all modes surely that is the best which is traceable to St. Peter,
and reminds us of the crown of thorns, and of the duty of suffering
reproaches for Christ's sake. Then comes a criticism on the Celtic tonsure.
^ Bede, v. 99. Haddan and Stubbe, ii. Z14. Skene, ii. 177, 978.
' See Alb. Butler. But this day is too late, if Aldhelm died in the fifth
year of his episcopate ; Malmesb. v. 931. It is probable that after the
threat of suspension of communion at a synod of 704, there was an agree-
ment that the division should take place as soon as the now aged bishop
had passed away.
' See Malmesb. Gest Pontif. v. 993. The Chronicle says that Aldhelm
' was bishop on the west of Selwood.'
* Bede, V. 18. He supplied Bede with some documents, and survived
him ten years, having resigned his see in 744.
470 Daniely bishop of IVtnchester.
CHAP. XIV. the repugnance of the Ide of Wight to West-Saxon
dominion sufficiently for the regular annexation of its
church to his bishopric, and who promoted the revival of
the South-Saxon bishopric of Selsey^. He gave most
opportune encouragement to the mission -schemes of
Winf rid, afterwards known as Boniface, who at the time
of his consecration for Winchester was living as a young
monk of twenty-five in a Hampshire monastery called
Nutscelle ^, where under the abbot Winbert he studied the
'tripartite' sense' of Scriptui*. together with grammar
and metres, and, while he attended diligently to his portion
of manual labour and to all the details of Benedictine
observance, was miaking himself eminent as a teacher,
kindling enthusiasm for sacred knowledge in the minds of
his auditors, every day learning by heart something from
the Scriptures, or from the ' acts ' of those martyrs whom
he was one day gloriously to join, and was uniformly
cordial and helpful to all who came under his influence,
Boniface whether poor or rich, whether thrall or free *. Daniel dis-
land"*^' c®"^®^ ^^ ^i^ * ' vessel for honour,' and gave him, on his
second journey into Frisia, a letter of commendation to any
kings, dukes, bishops, abbots, presbyters, and 'spiritual
sons,' asking them to show hospitality, after the manner
of the patriarchs, to the religious presbyter Winfrid *.
A letter written long afterwards by Boniface to Daniel
informs us that the latter in old age became blind ^ ; and
two letters from Daniel "^ give us an insight into his mind
and character, showing how he could advise and comfort.
He urged Boniface not to be disheartened by his difficulties,
not to attempt an impracticable separation of all the bad
^ Bede, iy. z6 ; y. i8. Stephens, Hemor. of See of Chich. p. a2.
^ Willibald, Vit. S. Bonifao. e. a. See aboye, p. 354, and Maclear,
Apostles of Med. Eur. p. 1 10. Winbert * left behind him ' a MS. of the
Prophets in 'clear and distinct letters' ; Bonif. Ep. is.
' The threefold spiritual sense, moral, allegorical, and ' anagogical.'
* WiUibald, c. 3.
" Boni£ Ep. i. This was in 718.
* Bonif. Ep. 19. He retired to Halmesbury (his old home ?) in 744.
^ Bonif. Ep. 13, 14. Of these letters, Ep. 13 was written seyeral years
after Ep. 14, i. e. when Boniface was archbishop.
Daniel f bishop of Winchester. 471
from all the good, a complete avoidance of all contact with chap. xnr.
false teachers ; but here he carries his principle to tolera-
tion to the point of sanctioning, or imagining Scripture to
sanction^ a temporary simulation^. More interesting,—-
indeed, specially interesting,— is the other letter, in which
Daniel suggests topics for missionary argument against
polytheism, intended to draw the polytheist by a Socratic
process into difficulties \ and at the same time insists that
these points are to be advanced with all gentleness, and to
be followed up by indirect contrasts between Christianity
and Pagan ' superstition.' But, it must be owned, Daniel
again provokes criticism by recommending Boniface not
only to insist on the argument, as we now call it, from
ChristeTidom, — from the world-wide spread of the (Jospel, —
but to point out that Christians enjoy the temporal blessing
of ' lands fruitful in com, wine, and oil,' while Heathenism
is confined to climates of * perpetual winter ',* — a perilous
exaggeration of * the promise of the life that now is.'
This was the prelate, then, who in the autumn of 705
succeeded Heddi at Winchester. For Sherborne there could Aidiieim,
be but one choice; all orders, including a multitude of theg^Q^^^ne.
people ^, turned at once to Aldhelm, ' who was specially
recommended by the very fact that he showed reluctance
to accept the promotion *.' He was, of course, present at
the Witenagemot ; we picture him according to a pupil's
description, as a tall man with white hair and sparkling
* FoUonving Jerome, and thereby forsaking St. Augustine, he treats
St. Peter's conduct in Gal. ii. la as right, and compares it to the conduct
of St. Paul in Acts xzi. 96, &c« He seems not to see the difference
between any kind of * simulation,' or even of pretending (fingendi), and
such an ' economy ' as is free of insincerity.
' R g. * Since the gods had a beginning, what of the world ? If it had
a beginning, who made it ? Not the gods, who were confessedly not
eternal. If it was eternal, who ruled it before the gods ? How was the
first god produced? Will any more come into being? How do they
know what god is the mightiest? Valde cavendum est ne in potiorem
qvoB offendat. Do they expect temporal or eternal happiness ? Do the
gods need their sacrifices ? ' &c.
' ' Frigore semper rigentes terras.' Cp. above, p. 139.
* Fariciua, c. 3. ' Omnis aetatis et ordinis conflatur sententia ; '
ICalmesb. G. P. ▼. 933. Tlie ' people * or laity were active in this election.
' FariciuB, c. 3. Op. Bingham, b. iv. c. 7. s. i.
472 Aldhelnty bishop of Sherborne.
CHAP. XIV. eyes ^. He endeavoured to decline the great oflS.ce. * I am
too old, I need rest/ Instantly, and by acclamation, came
the reply : * The older, the wiser and the titter * I ' He still
held out as long as he could without unseemliness ; but ' as
he had not been drawn on by ambition, so neither did he
draw back in disobedience : in each respect he observed the
mean '.' He yielded, and was conducted to Canterbury for
consecration. With what recollections must he have trod
the precinct of Christ Church, and visited his old master
Hadrian, still living and ofliciating as abbot in St. Peter's I
After his consecration, the archbishop detained him for
some time in order to get the benefit of his counsels* When
he took possession of his new bishopric, he built a church
at Sherborne, which Malmesbury teUs us that he himself
had seen ^ The little town, he says elsewhere, was ' not an
agreeable place ; it had neither a good situation nor a large
population; it was surprising, it was almost disgraceful,
that it should have retained an episcopal see for so many
ages *,' — in fact, through twenty-seven episcopates, of which
the most noteworthy was that of Asser, the Welsh coun-
sellor and biographer of Alfred, and the last was Herman's,
who after uniti^ Sherborne to the younger bishopric of
Bamsbury '', removed his see to Old Sarum, in obedience to
the Council of 1075. Aldhelm wished to resign the head-
ship of Malmesbury and its dependent monasteries; but
his monks could not brook such a loss ®. They rejected the
* See Ethelwald's ' carmen ' in Higne, Izxxix. 308.
' Malmesbury, y. 933. ' ' ServaTit modiim,' Farioins.
* Malmesbury ; who brings in here a story of Aldhelm's visiting DoYer,
and finding some sailors at work in landing a store of books. Attracted
by one, which includes both Testaments, he turns over the leaves and
begins to bargain for it : they abuse him for trying to beat down the
price of their property. He only smiles ; they row off, are caught in
a storm, and cry out to him for pardon ; he signs the cross and rows to
their vessel ; they make the shore safely, and offer to give him the book :
he insists on paying for it, — and it is preserved at Malmesbury as a speci-
men of antiquity ; v. 294. Faricius telk this tale rather difibrently, and
dates it earlier.
^ ' Ecclesiam quam ego quoque vidi mirifioe oonstruxit.*
* Malmesb. G. P. ii. 79. Cp. Stubbs, Registr. Sacr. Anglic, p. 165.
^ Founded for Wiltshire, to relieve Sherborne, in 909.
' Faricius, c 3 ; Malmesbury, G. P. v. 995.
Church work in IVessex. 473
notion of having any other * president ^ ' in his lifetime, chap. xiv.
His object had been to secure desirable appointments ; and Church
when he yielded to his monks' affectionate resistance, he ^/^^^
took care to guard their right of free election by a docu-
ment which is said to have been duly signed and attested
at Wimbome in the presence of Ine and Daniel, and
afterwards confirmed by a Council on the Nodder. But
this deed is at least of doubtful authenticity ^. That he
possessed a great influence, in things ecclesiastical, over Ine,
may be taken for granted. It was probably through his
influence that the foundation of the monastery of Abingdon,
long interrupted by the delays and inconsistencies of Hean,
was finally accomplished^, by the renewed co-operation
between him and his sovereign. . And although the docu-
ment which represents Ine as granting endowments to
abbot Hemgils and his monks, in 'the old city which is
called Glastingea,' and which professes to have been exe-
cuted in the ancient * wooden church ' of that sacred isle,
has been condemned as spurious, — being dated in 704, yet
referring to the counsel of Aldhelm as bishop*, — and
although the Glastonbury tradition cannot convince us that
Ine gave splendid gifts to that church, such as a chapel
enriched with gold and silver*, yet we may believe that
he bestowed upon it some gifts which were afterwards
exaggerated, and raised to the east of it a new minster, the
predecessor of the mighty abbey church ®. Whether he did
* ' Patronum.'
' Kemble rejects it, Cod. Dipl. i. 6i. See Haddan and Stubbs, iiL 276.
Another 'charter of Ine,' exempting West-Saxon monasteries from taxation,
is dated in 704, and therefore is inconsistent with the date of Aldhelm's
episcopate, while it refers to him as a prelate ; Cod. Dipl. i. 57.
* See Stevenson, Chron. Abingd. ii. p. xiii. He adds, 'Aldhelm must
have been conscious that, in promoting this object, he was promoting the
interests of civilization as well as those of Christianity,' &c. Above,
p. 398.
* See this Parvum Privilegium Regis Inae in Malmesb. de Antiq. Glast.
Eccl. (XV Script, p. 309) and Cod. Dipl. i. 58. The Magnum Privilegium,
which is clearly spurious, is in Malmesb. (Oest. Reg. i. s. 36) and Cod.
DipL i. 85 : it is dated in 725. A grant of lands at Brent (Cod. Dipl. i. 83)
is at least very questionable (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 307).
* XV Script, p. 310.
* Freeman, Engl. Towns and Districts, p. 98.
474 Death of Aldhelm.
CHAP. XIV. anything in the way of founding a church at Wells must
be, at least, extremely uncertain : that he planted a bishopric
at Congresbury, afterwards removed to WeUs, is a story
without real groundwork \
Activity of Aldhelm's ascetic habits had probably made him prema-
® ^' turely old. But he abated none of them, while he discharged
his new duties indefatigably, visiting every part of his
diocese, and preaching by night as well as by day ^. This
labour wore him out in four years : the spring of 709 was
the last of his life. He was at Dulting in Somerset, when
His death, his last hour drew nigh. He assembled a number of clei^gy,
monks, and laics, enforced on them the observance of the
bond of charity, and after commending his flock to the
Divine care, desired to be carried into the little wooden
church^ of the village, and there, seated on a stone, breathed
his last, on the 25th of May, 709 ^. He was buried, by his
own desire, in St. Michael's church at Malmesbury*, and
succeeded by Forthere, a man of much theological learning,
who was still living when Bede wrote •.
We draw towards the end : this year is the last of the
great period which we are reviewing. Wilfrid had passed
some quiet years — between three and four — in the bishopric
of Hexham, with leisure for looking back, as from a well-
loved home and refuge, on the storms and the splendours of
the past It was during this interval, in 707 "^y that some
^ See Freeman, Hist Gath. Ch. WeUs, p. 13.
' Halmesb. G. P. v. 397 : he uses ' dioeceses ' for parts of the diocese.
* Afterwardsrebuiltef stone by a monk of Glastonbury. Gomp. pp. 54-5.
* See Faricius, c. 3 ; Malmesb. ▼. 998.
' The distance was fifty miles : a great crowd attended the corpse, each
thinking himself < beatiorem qui propior esset,' and glad to see, if not to
touch, the bier on which the form and face, undefisced by decay, were
visible. Stone crosses were afterwards set up at every seven miles of
the road, which long stood uninjured, and were called ' Bishopstones ' ;
Malmesb. v. 930. He tells us that bishop Egwin came to Dulting to
conduct the funeral.
* Bede, v. 18 : < Quo defdncto/ &c. See a grant of his in Cod. Dipl. i. 73.
^ Bede, £p. 3, to Plegwin ; cp. Giles's Bede, i. p. cxxxv, for this date.
In the letter Bede refers to his Opusculum de Temporibus, as published
five years before. This tract ends in the fifth year of Tiberius III
(Apsimar), i. e. 709-3 (if his accession was in 698, L'Art de Verifier, &c.
iv. 984, not 697, as others). Hence we infer that the Wilfrid referred to
Complaint against Bede. 475
monks of the countryside ^, in his presence and over their chap. xiv.
cups, spoke of Bede as * a heretic' Plegwin, one of the Complaint
monks of Hexham, hearing this, sent a messenger to inform ^"^
Bede, who at first * turned pale with horror,' then, on
inquiring, found that the reason was ' that he had denied
that the Saviour had come in the sixth age of the world.'
On reflection, he concluded ^ that this was a misapprehen-
sion of what he had said, five years before, in his tract -
'On Times,' wherein he had preferred the shorter or Hebrew
chronology of Genesis, according to which Christ must have
come when five thousand years were not completed \ He
desired Plegwin to cause this letter to be read * before their
'most reverend father and lord Wilfrid, that as he was
present when I was senselessly assailed, he may hear, and
judge for himself, how little I deserved it.' The incident is
curious, as a proof of the extent of interest in questions of
Scriptural chronology which was felt at this time even by
the ' rustic ' monks of the North. Often, no doubt, with
Acca by his side, the bishop would ' walk about ' the pre-
cinct of that basilica which Eddi has called superior to all
churches north of Wilfrid's beloved Italy. Once, when
going out of Hexham on some occasion, he was struck with
an illness of the same kind as that which had prostrated
him on his approach to Meaux. The tidings brought
a number of his abbots, and of the hermits dependent on
his monasteries, to pray with his monks as he lay uncon-
scious ; the aim of their prayers being that he might at
least have a return of consciousness, which would enable
him to dispose of his monasteries and his property ^ He
in the letter was *St. WUfrid/ not Wilfrid II (bishop of York, 7i8-73a),
as Smith (App. to Bede, p. 802) and Kaine (i. 93) assert.
* ' Rusticis.' See his Life of St. Felix, c. 8 : * Rusticus, non rustice, sed
docte ac fideliter agens.'
* * Ck>gitare sedolns coepi, unde haec in me calumnia devolveretur.'
» Nor, indeed, four thousand ; De Temper, aa. Bede solemnly professes
his belief that Christ came in the sixth age, but says that an age has not
a fixed number of years. He cites Jerome in behalf of the Hebrew text ;
£p. 3.
< By a certain David, who on the occasion referred to, when some other
* brother' ▼ilified Bede, spoke in his fiivour, but could not explain what
he had meant. ^
* Eddi, 61 : * Ne nos quasi orbatos sine abbatibus relinqueret
476 Wtlfrid^s last arrangements.
CHAP. XIV. (lid recover, not only consciousness, but a measure of health,
and lived a year and a half longer, — the illness having
happened, it would appear, in the spring of 708. In the
Wilfrid's following year, when at Ripon, he caused his * hoard ' to be
j^n^ opened in the presence of two abbots and six monks of
ments. proved fidelity *. They gazed on the shining store of gold
and silver and jewels : he bade his treasurer divide it into
• four parts. Then said the bishop, * Dearest brothers, you
know that I have long thought of making yet another
visit to the see of St. Peter, where I have so often been
delivered from troubles, and there, if God so willed, to end
my life. I meant to offer gifts, from the best part of this
treasure, at the churches of St. Mary and St. Paul at Rome *.
But should God provide for me otherwise, — as often hap-
pens to old men, — and my last day should come sooner,
then I charge you to send my gifts to those churches. Of
the three other parts, give one to the poor of my flock,
* for the redemption of my soul • ; ' let the abbots of Hex-
ham and Ripon share another between them, so that they
may purchase the favour of kings and bishops *. But as
to the last part,' — one may imagine the old man's eyes
bedimmed as he proceeded, — 'distribute it, according to
each man's proportion, among those who have suffered long
exiles with me, and to whom I have given no lands ; let it
go to maintaining them when I am gone.' The tender and
noble heart, unchilled by age, felt warmly for the possible
needs of adherents so loyal and loving as those who had
* Eddi, 6a. See Lingard, A.-S. Ch. i. 370.
* That is, the Liberian basilica of ' St. Mary Major,' rebuilt about 43a
by Sixtus III, and the glorious ehureh of St. Paul-witbout-the-walls,
erected in 386, and now rebuilt in its old form after the fire of 1823. The
mosaics of the great arch at the end of its vast nave are those which
WilfHd must often have admired, haviAg been set there in 440.
' A common phrase in ancient charters ; see Kemble, Cod. Dipl. i. 73,
8a, 90, Z08. Bede, in his preface to his Life of Cuthbert, asks that
prayers may be made for him at Llndisfame after his death, 'for the
redemption of his soul.' * Redemption/ in such phrases, was not used in
its strict sense ; the phrase is equivalent to *■ pro remedio animae ' ; Cod.
Dipl. i. I, 16, a6, 41, 55, ftc, ' remedium '« relief from penalty. See
above, p. 187.
* Contrast Aidan in Bede, iii. 5 : < Nullam potentibus saeouli pecuniam
. . . unquam dare solebat.' But 'old times were changed/ Above, p. 834.
Wilfrid's journey into Mercia. 477
stood by him through all troubles : he could not bear to chap. xiv.
think that they should want when they had no longer the
comfort of his presence and protection. Soon afterwards
he announced that he had appointed one of these true com-
panions, his own kinsman Tatbert, to preside over the
minster of Ripon after his death. This was spoken to his
confidants : he then ordered the bell ^ to be rung, and ^ the
whole family^ of Ripon' obeyed its summons. He entered
the chapter-house, sat down, and said : ' Our brother Celin,
sometime prior, wishes to adopt the hermit-life ; and I will
not detain him. Do you all keep to your rule, until, if
Grod wills, I return to you. But these two abbots of ours,
Tibba and Ebba, have come hither from the Mercian king
Ceolred, with an invitation for me to speak to him on the
affairs of our houses in Mercia, and have persuaded me to
go. When I return, I will bring with me the person fittest
for the presidency of this house ; but if anything else should
happen to me through my infirmities, then I bid you all to
accept as abbot whomsoever these who sit by me, Tibba
and Ebba, Tatbert, Hadufrid, and Aluhfrid, shall present
to you,' — meaning, of course, that Tatbert himself should be
so presented. All the monks bowed to the ground, pro-
mised obedience, received his benison, ' and, as a body, saw
his face no more.' He proceeded into Mercia : King Ken- Wilfrid in
red had, in the spring of that same year, imitated, in part, ^®''*''*"
the example of Cadwalla by resigning his crown and going
to Rome, accompanied by Offa, the young, handsome, and
1 Comp. Adamn. Vit. Ck>I. i. 8, 'Cloccam pulsa;' and iii. 23, 'media
nocte polsata personante clocca.' See too Miss Stokes, Early Chr. Art
in Ireland, p. 58 if. In Vit. Anskar. 39 we hear of a concession, ' quod antea
nefandtun paganis videbatur,' that a church might have a 'clocca.' So
Vit. Sturm. 94 : Sturmi, dying, orders ' omnes ffioggas pariter mover!.'
Eddi calls it ' signum.'
' Eddi, 6^ So again, 65, ' familia tota ; ' and 23, on the * familia ' of
H«xham. So Bede, v. 9, on the ' familia ' of bishop John. So the com-
munity of Hy was regarded as a 'familia' ; Reeves's Adamnan, p. 342 :
comp. ib. 304 : the term was also applied to all the Columban com-
munities as forming one body; ib. 162. It meant a society of 'Gk>d's
servants,' just as a king's household is called his 'fiimilia,' Bede, iii. 23.
Comp. 'Thy family' in the first collect for Gk>od Friday. See above,
p. ai6.
478 IVilfrtd's journey into Mercia.
CHAP. XIV. popular East-Saxon king, son of Sighere ^, — and, according
to an inferior authority, by Egwin of Worcester, who
wished to procure from Pope Constantine a * privilege ' for
Evesham *. Kenred had been succeeded by Ceolred, son of
Ethelred, a prince who appears in history as warring with
Ine ^ in the legend of St. Outhlac as persecuting the future
King Ethelbald ^, and in the wild and hideous ' vision ' of
a Wenlock recluse as a lost reprobate^. In his realm
Wilfrid found all honourable reception: the monasteries
which he was anxious to visit were all in good order : he
went about among them, 'increasing their livelihood by
domains, or gladdening their hearts with money ^' Once,
^ Chronicle, a. 709 ; Lappenbei^g, i. 323. Bede, ▼. 19, calls Offa ' juvenis
amantisaimae aetatis et venustatis, totaeque suae genii ad tenenda
Henrandaque regni 8oe|>ira ezoptatissimus . . . Qui . . . reliquit uxorem . • .
et patriam propter GhriBtum*' &o. Eyen Bede could not see that Offa, in
the prime of strength, would have more truly acted *• propter Christum '
by doing the royal daty laid upon him. (Aboye, pp. 144, 404-) See
the striking anecdote of the Emperor Henry II being received by an
abbot at Verdun into his community, and then commanded, in virtue of
monastic obedience, to return to the goveiTiment confided to him by God ;
Dunham's Germ. Empire, ii. 138. Hen. Hunt, is enthusiastic : *• O Deus
bone, quae et qualia diademata eis reddes I ' Ceolwulf, Bede's royal friend,
who became king of Northumbria in 799, became a monk in Lindisfarne
in 737 (see Marmion, c. a). A similar retirement by his successor
Eadbert, the last of the great Northumbrian kings, in 758, was the occasion
of disastrous anarchy. Elmham, p. 336, says that Oi& acted by advice of
Ethelred's sister Kineswith, or Kyneswide, a nun in the convent founded
at Caistor for her sister Kyniburga, the widow of Alchfrid. He was
Hucceeded by Selred, son of Sigebert the Good.
* Ann. SS. Bened. iiL 334 ; Chron. Evesh. p. 10. The extant ' privilege
of Constantino' is called by Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 981, 'spurious.'
Egwin could not have set off before June if he buried Aldhelm. Constantine
bat from 708 to 715 ; that he probably mado some concessions as to the
canons of the Greek council Mn Trullo,' see Hodgkin, vi. 378.
' Chronicle, a. 715. He is mentioned as a benefactor to the church of
St. Mary at Evesham ; Chron. Evesh. p. 7a.
* Ann. SS. Bened. iii. 279.
' Bonifiice, Ep. aa In Ep. 6a Boniface denounces him and king Osred
of Northumbria for 'adulterium nonnarum/ and adds, with a terrible
positiveness, that he died at a feast, mad, and impenitent. See Lappen-
berg, i. 334. Henry of Huntingdon calls him ' patriae et avitae virtutis
haeres,' iv. 7.
* Eddi, 64. The legend of St. Egwin (Chron. Evesh. p. ix) makes
Wilfrid take port in the dedication of the minster of Evesham in this
very year, after the return of Egwin, and by order of a synod ; but this
is incredible. He may have become acquainted, then or in 704-5) with
His Death. 479
while riding along with Tatbert, he recounted from memory chap. xiv.
all the events of his past life. Nothing was forgotten:
every bit of property which he had given, or now willed
to give, to his abbots, was duly specified : he named his
beloved Acca as the future abbot of Hexham. That ride
must have been a memorable one to the future abbot of
Ripon: he must have listened to an autobiography of
almost matchless interest,— the whole splendid exciting
story, beginning with the boy's presentation to Queen
Eanfied, and passing through scenes so varied and so event-
ful as no other prelate of that age could have claimed as
portions of his experience. At last Wilfrid reached his
minster of St. Andrew at Oundle, where another illness
ere long warned him that the hour was at last come ; he Death of
uttered a few parting admonitions, 'leaned back his head * " '
upon the pillow, and went to his rest without groan or
murmur,' just at the moment when the monks in choir,
who were keeping up on his behalf a ceaseless round of
psalmody, had reached the sublime inspiriting verse, ' Thou
shalt send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and
Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.' It was probably
on a Thursday ', in October, — ^the year being doubtless 709.
He was buried in his best-loved church, the minster of
Bipon, after an elaborate and solemn preparation of the
corpse *, and a processional funeral-journey. Hardly any
the Mercian ealdorman Friodored, ' a man fall of the missionary spirit '
(Stabbs, on Found, of Peterborough, p. lo), the founder of a church at
Bredon.
^ Tatbert used to keep all Thursdays, in memorial of his death, as if
they were Sundays, with a feast, ' in epulis ; ' Eddi, 64. October la was
the day always kept in his honour ; but it could hardly be the day of his
death, for in 709 it fell on a Saturday. Probably the true day was
October 3 (a Thursday in 709), for ' the obituary of the church of Durham
fixes' his 'depositio' on that day; see Raine, i. 81. To date his death
earlier than the autumn of that year would disturb our notes of time, for
he could not be said to have completed forty-five years of episcopate
in April of 709, Dor would this give time for Geolred*s message after
his accession and for the Mercian sojourn : and yet the Martyrologium
Poeticum of Bede dates his death April 94, and so Smith's Bede, p. 759,
and Alb. Butler on Oct. 12. The abbot of Oundle at this time was
Cuthbald.
' An abbot named Bacula spread a linen cloth (sindonem suam) on the
480 Death of Wilfrid.
cuAP^xiY. one refrained from weeping while, amid the loud chant of
the monastic choir, the great bishop was borne to his grave
on the south side of the altar. He was ^ in his seventy-
sixth year, and had been forty-five years a bishop S'
reckoning, probably, from his election in the early autumn
of 664.
Close of So passed away the ' St. Wilfrid ' of our forefathers * ;
period. ^ ™*^ ^y ^^ means free from faults or weaknesses, — a man
whose public conduct had some results prejudicial to his
native Church, and who does not rise entirely superior to
the influences of power and high state, — but after all one
who worthily concludes the most ' brilliant period ^ ' of our
ancient ecclesiastical history. After his death, a generation
of lesser men succeeds: there is hardly any striking or
impressive character among those who appear in the public
life of the Church ^, until Egbert of York establishes and
adorns the Northern archbishopric, and his successor Albert
carries on the glory of its theological school Corruptions
of various kinds become rife in monasteries : the vivid
intensity of religious faith, the fresh enthusiasm of devo-
tion, which marked the earlier time, die out piteously
among clerks and laics : a lofty and holy soul like Bede's
finds itself left to look on a deteriorated clergy, and a
people practically relapsing towards indifference ^ : one can
conceive of him as taking refuge from contemporaiy deca-
dence amid the noble forms which he perpetuates in his
History. A great age, in short, expires with Wilfrid ; and
ground, and upon it the corpse was washed and arrayed. Gomp. Lingard,
A.-S. Gh. ii. 48. On the question whether his bones (aU but a small
portion ") were translated to Canterbury, see Raine's preface to Hist. Ch.
York, i. p. xliii. His shrine stood in the north choir aisle of Ripon.
^ Eddi, 63, says forty-six; Bede, y. 19, ' poet quadraginta et quinque
annos accept! episcopatus.' Eadmer says, c. 6t, in the seventy-fifth year
of his life and forty-fifth of his episcopate. Eadmer begins by dating his
birth in 634 ; c. i. See above, p. 941.
' ' In many respects the star of the Anglo-Saxon Church ;' Raine, i. 77.
' See Freeman, i. 30.
* For St. Boniface does not count as one of the great churchmen living
and working in England ; and Bede hardly ever left his cloister.
* See his £p. to Egbert ; and on the general apathy as to learning, his
Explan. Apocal. praef. ' Anglorum gentis inertiae ... ad lectionem.'
Retrospect. 481
it is but fitting that the death of the Apostle of Sussex and chap. xtv.
of Wight should terminate the stoiy of the extension of
' the Vine ' through the land, as, amid many vicissitudes,
* room was made for it,* — ^the story of a work more solidly
and healthily accomplished ^ than in other lands and by
other agents, the work of our national conversion. That
conversion, it is obvious to remark, involves the formation
of a new * Church of the English,' not the development or
extension of the 'ancient British Church/ The English
Church did not grow out of the British ; the missionaries
who brought the Saxon or Anglian tribes into the fellow-
ship of Christ's Kingdom were men from the Continent, or
men of Irish race, or Englishmen like Cedd or Wilfrid ;
they were in no instance * Britons ' or ' Welshmen ^' Long
after the conversion was completed, the ' British ' Christians
held aloof from the 'Saxon' Christians*; it was but by
degrees during the next centuries that they conformed to
the ' Catholic Easter,' and entered into fellowship with the
younger and stronger Church. It is necessary to state this
in plain words, because of the inaccurate language which
has often obscured the facts under the influence, perhaps, of
a strong preconception, controversial or 'patriotic' And
these facts, for history's sake, must be kept distinctly in
view.
^ ' In no part of the world did Christianity make its way in a more
honourable manner;' Freeman, i. 39. 'Nowhere else did Christianity
make a deeper or more lasting impression ; ' Kemble, ii. 363, — and see the
whole striking passage. * In a single century England became known to
Christendom as a fountain of light . . . Scarcely was Christianity pre-
sented to the Anglo-Saxons . . . when they embraced it with singular
fidelity and singleness of heart ;' Bp. Stubbs, Const Hist. i. 351. See
also Gardiner, Student's Hist of Engl. p. 49, and Dean Church, quoted
below.
' Bp. Browne insists strongly on this fact. *" The British Church had
nothing whatever to do with the conversion of England or of the English ;
nothing to do with the origin or early work of the Church of England.'
Conversion of the Heptarchy, p. 181.
' See Bp. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 952, on this 'attitude of the Britons.'
Of course it is likely enough that, here and there, Britons, ' living on,
as^ Useful theows' (Freeman, Four Lectures, p. 109, under Saxons or
Angles, used influence in favour of the faith to which they clung.
But of such 'Witnessing for Christ/ however effective, history can know
nothing. ,
I 1
sion.
482 Retrospect.
CHAP. XIV. But whatever else we remember or forget as to this great
Conclu- religious movement to which our own debt is so incal-
culable, let us bear in mind two things that shine out in
those who responded most readily to its touch, whose lives
were the best monuments of its power. One is, the simple
loyal thoroughness, the unreserved *perfectness of heart/
with which, having accepted the Faith as the explanation
of man's destiny, they accepted withal the practical obliga-
tions which were proposed to them as arising out of it, or
even seemed to think only of how they could do most in
order to attain holiness and salvation. The other is that
passion for 'winning souls;' for spreading the new-found
light among their heathen countrymen or their Teutonic
kinsmen abroad, which passed on through those first
generations of English Christians the 'fiery torch' of
missionary ardour. It is the typical laymen of the several
kingdoms who most conspicuously illustrate these true con-
ditions of Church life. We think not only of the noble
earnestness of Ethelbert, of the heroic sanctity of Oswald,
of the sweet humility of Oswin, but of the genuine conver-
sions of Eadbald and Kenwalch, of the thoughtful co-
operation of Edwin and Sigebert the Learned with Paulinus
and with Felix, of the family piety of the court of Anna,
of Edwin 'persuading' Eorpwald, of Oswy discoursing to
Sigebert the Good, of Sebbi sustaining his people's faith
under ' a great trial of affliction,' of the wonderful outburst
of Christian enthusiasm among the children and grand-
children of Penda. Nor can we forget how impressive and
attractive was the manifest consistency of the preachers*
conduct with their Gospel ' ; nor how effectively the repre-
sentatives of religion in Kent and East Anglia, in Northum-
bria and in Wessex, maintained its alliance with the learning
and education of their time. To say this is not to idealize,
to ignore any tokens of superstition or of * zeal not accord-
ing to knowledge,' or to think lightly of some accretions on
primitive Christianity which our fathers received along
with it, and which grew in bulk and tenacity after their
time. All these allowed for, the Conversion is among the
' Soe above, p. 56,
Retrospect. 483
magTiolia Dei. Its records, moreover, abound in illustra- chap. xiv.
tions of a Divine discipline administered through reverses
and disappointments, through seemingly premature deaths,
and seemingly fruitless labours; and then, again, of an
' excellency of power ' put forth in ways unexpected, when
need was sorest and hearts were like to fail ^ It is this
which gives to the whole period so pathetic and solenm a
charm for the Christian student. He feels that the years of
the Conversion were emphatically ' years of the Right Hand.'
No words could be more appropriate for the close of such
a survey than those which conclude one of the most admir-
able of Dean Church's many admirable contributions to
European history, — his lecture on 'Christianity and the
Teutonic Races.' ' Those ancient and far distant ages ... we
may, we ought to leave far behind,in what we hope to achieve.
But, in our eagerness for improvement, it concerns us to be on
our guard against the temptation of thinking that we can
have the fruit or the flower, and yet destroy the root ; that
we may retain the high view of human nature which has
grown with the growth of Christian nations, and discard
that revelation of Divine love and human destiny of which
that view forms a part or a consequence; that we may
retain the moral energy, and yet make light of the faith
that produced it. . . . It concerns us that we do not despise
our birthright, and cast away our heritage of gifts and of
powers, which we may lose, but not recover V
* See above, pp. 13a, T50.
s Dean Church, Gifts of Civilization, &c. p. 343. See also h^s Beginning
of the Middle Ages, p. 85, that the main causes of the Conversion were
'the breadth and greatness of Christian ideas, and the purity, courage,
enthusiasm, and indefatigable self-devotion, though not always innocent
of superstition, of the Christian teachers,' &c. The whole passage should
be read — and remembered. See also Gardiner, Student's Hist, of Engl,
p. 49 : ' Missionaries spread over the country. In their mouths, and still
more in their lives, Christianity taught what the fierce English warrior
most wanted to learn, the duty of restraining his evil passions, and above
all, his cruelty. . . . Nowhere but in England were to be found kings like
Oswald and Oswin, who bowed their souls to the lesson of the Cross, and
learned that they were not their own, but were placed in power that they
might use their strength in helping the poor and needy,* &c. Oswald,
however, was not a convert of the missionaries referred to.
I i 2
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
■♦♦■
NOTE A.
Chbistian adoption of Pagan Sites.
To the illustrations of this suhject in the text may be added the
following passage in one of Mr. Tozer's notes to his edition of
Dr. Finlay's ' History of Greece/ It occurs in vol. i. p. 424 : —
' The adaptation of Pagan beliefs and ceremonies to Christian use
most not wholly be attributed to superstition and piiestcrafl. £ven
in the Catacombs we find numerous Pagan emblems used as a means
of symbolizing Christian truth. Nor was it unjustifiable at a later
period to facilitate in this manner the transition from an old to
}i new religion — for instance, in building Christian churches on the
sites of Pagan temples. The extent to which this took place is
shown by M. Petit de Julleville in a paper entitled, Sv/r VemjUace-
merU et le vocable des J&glises Chretiennes en Grkce, in the Archives
dcs Missions, deuxi^me s^rie, vol. v. According to this writer
(p. 525) more than eighty churches in Attica were built on sites
of ancient temples, and the names of their dedication usually
recall the names of those temples. . . . Athena becomes Haghia
Sophia,' &c.
NOTE B.
Bede and Grboobt of Toubs.
A comparison between the 'Ecclesiastical Histories* of Bede
and Gregory of Tours would illustrate what has been said as to the
first age of English Christianity. The books have naturally not
a little in common. Gregory's * faculty of stor^'-telling ' (see Fi'eernaD,
486 Bede and Gregory of Tours.
Four Lectures, p. 64) is not far infeiior to Bede's: take, for
instance, the escape of young Attains and the faithful cook Leo
(H. Fr. iii. 15), the adventures of a priest buried alive amid
a 'foetor letalis' (iv. 12), the murder of Chlodomir's two boys by
their fierce uncle (iii. 18), and of bishop Praetextatus 'while he
leaned upon a form ' during the Easter service in Houen cathedral,
and none of his clergy durst answer his cry for aid (viii. 31), We
seem almost to see the townsmen of beleaguered Orleans, alternately
praying and looking out for relief (ii. 7) ; or to hear the terrible
*Vua!' ofChlotair in his death-agony (iv. 21). Some beautiful
and solemn touches occur at intervals in the narrative : the descrip-
tion of Nicetius of Lyons as showing such love to all men ' ut in
ejus pectore ipse Dominus, qui est vera caritas, cemeretur ' (iv. 36),
and the expansion of Ps. xlix. 17 in regard to the man of ill-gotteu
gains who died with an outside show of penitence, ' nihil exiude
secum al'ud portans nisi animae detrimenturo ' (vi. 28), are just
what might have come from Bede himself. When we read that
bishop Salvius, if constrained to accept money, 'forthwith made it
over to the poor ' (vii. i ), we cannot but think of St Aidan : when
we hear of ' the common saying, " If a man has to pass between
Pagan altars and God's church, there is no harm in his paying
respect to both"' (v. 44), we are reminded of the compromise of
Eedwald of East-Anglia. Both writers give us much information
about ecclesiastical usages, such as the cleiical tonsure (Gregory
even mentions the British tonsure, x. 9), the nocturnal or ' matin '
service, the frequent psalmody, the 'reception' of the neophyte
'from the font' by his god&ther; about the estates or other
property of churches, the infliction of spiritual censures, the ap-
pointment of bishops, the holding of synods, the life of ' recluses,'
the veneration of relics, and so on. Both narrate 'miracles'
wrought at saintly shrines (compare, e.g. Greg. iv. 19 with his Vit.
Patr. c. 2, where he tells us that he himself, when a youth, had
been cured of a fever at the tomb of St. Illidius), and dreams
which are accepted as visions (e.g. Greg. v. 14, vi. 29). The
description of Heaven in the ' vision ' of Greg. vii. i surpasses that
of Paradise in the story of Drythelm (Bede, v. 1 2). Both writers
seem prone to treat ordinary events as supernatural (cp. Greg. x.
25). The Paschal question, on which the later historian is so
exuberant, is not unnoticed by the earlier (Greg. v. 17, x. 23).
Each records a case of episcopal appeal to Bome; but that in
Greg. V. 21 is made with royal permission. Other resemblances
Bede and Gregory of Tours. 487
might be mentioned ; but, in spite of all, the moral difference
between the two books is even startling. The atmosphere, so to
speak, of Qregory's is as heavy and lurid as that of Bede's is
luminous and pure. The contrast lies net merely, — it may be said,
not mainly, — in the exceptional wickedness of Frankish royalty in
the sixth century, and the remarkable excellence of English royalty
in the seventh. No doubt the kings who promoted the Christian cause
in our country were, on the whole, men whose lives would ennoble
the ideas of their office. No doubt, also, the ' Merovingians ' were
the worst dynasty that ever reigned in Christian Europe. ' There
is nothing that can be compared to their stoiy for horror in the
records of any nation on 'this side of the Mediterranean ; ' Oman,
Europ. Hist. p. 159. But what strikes one most is the fact that
the ecclesiastics of the two neighbour countries were so unlike each
other. Bede has to tell us of one prelate who ' purchased * a see
(iii. 7); in Gregory's pages we meet with two bishops who rush
into wild orgies of crime (v. 21) ; another who assaults his arch-
deacon, on suspicion of fraud, in church on a Christmas morning
(iv. 44) ; another who persecutes, even to death, the friends of his
holy predecessor (iv. 36) ; another who asks, ' Because I have taken
orders, am I therefore to forego my revenge ] ' (viii. 39) ; another
who drinks himself into epilepsy, and orders a priest to be shut up
in a tomb in order to extract from him his own title-deeds (iv. 12);
an abbot, 'in adulteriis nimium dissolutus,' who is slain by an
injured husband (viii. 19); together with clerics who plot against
the reputation or the life of a bishop (v. 50, vi. 36), or are chosen
by the worst of all queens to despatch a young king with poisoned
daggers, and are only afraid that the task will be found ' difficult '
(viii. 29). Allowing for inevitable exaggerations, — although we
may believe Gregory's protest that he has set down nothing in
malice (iv. 13), and that be suppresses some episcopal misdeeds lest
he should seem a 'detractor' (v. 5) — and bearing in mind the
multitude of office-bearers necessarily belonging to a long-settled
Chui*ch in a wide region, we must suppose that ' the Gallo-Boman
bishops who crowded round' the proselyte of St. Kemigius
(Kitchin, Hist. Fr. i. 74), condoning his brutality for the sake of
his orthodoxy, and hoping to train him into Christian kingliness,
became gradually infected by the barbarism which made tljein
potentates, and bequeathed to their successoi-s a tradition of
violence, greed, and laxity. As Dean Church has said, the Church
hud deteriorated by its contact with the Franks : * The power which
488 Bede and Gregory of Tours.
it had received from its coarse and brutal patrons, had lured its
chief pastors into worldliness and license' (Beginning of the Middle
Ages, pp. 61, 158). And so we can understand how the pedantic
t3'rant Ghilperic, who shocked Gregory (v. 45) by Sabellianizing,
and made episcopal faults the chief topics of his sarcasm, ' would
frequently say' that the churches had impoverished the 'fiscua/
and that Hhe bishops alone really reigned' (ib. vi. 46); and
this, although some of them could incur reproach for abandoning
a colleague to his enmity (ib. v. 19). A hierarchy thus secularized
might well be apathetic about missions, and indififerent to the dis-
grace of simony. Perhaps the saddest indication of its lowei-ed
moral tone is given by Gregory himself, who, good man as he was,
hating the bloody feuds of princes, and ready to withstand a king
in the cause of justice (ib. v. prol. and 19), could pause in his
recital of the crimes of * Clovis ' to observe that ' God increased
his dominion, because he walked before him with an upright
heart' (ii. 40). So in the seventh century we meet with very
unworthy bishops ; a bishop of Sion is implicated in the murder
of a good governor of the Jura country under Chlotair II ;
a bishop of Poitiers *is not ashamed to undertake the infamous
task ' of carrying the heir of Austrasia into exile ; others join the
conspiracy which killed him ; the bishops of Chalon and Valence,
'deposed for their crimes,^ support a pretender against Theo-
donc III (L'Art de Verifier, n. v. 401-414); and even Leodegar
of Autun is said to have been party to the murder of Childeric II,
who, indeed, had planned his ruin (Diet. Chr. Biogr. iii. 685). Of
course, tlie greater the corporate deterioration, the more honour
is due to those individual prelates or clerics whose genuine piety
was the salt of the Fraukish Church, and who, doubtless, made
a better use of such a memory as St. Martin's than by representing
him as a formidable tiitelaiy power, to be propitiated by savage
warriors who did not, in any practical sense, know or fear God
(cp. Greg. iii. 28, iv. 2, 16, vii. 42, &c. on the 'virtus consueta
beati Martini'). It is matter of thankfulness that the English
Church and nation have had no such period in their history.
After the age of the Conversion, when missionary ardour had no
more scope, religion in England — Bede himself being the witness —
lost much of its fruitfulness and its power. But it never fell so
low as in Gaul under the ' Merovingians ' ; and that, because, when
addressing our fathers, it escaped the suare of such evil support,
and relied, in the main, on its own Divine vitality.
Tluodore and Chad. 489
NOTE C.
Theodore and Chad.
Th£BE is a remarkable coincidence between Theodore's ])hra8e
* confirmentur/ quoted on p. 262, and the language of the Nicene
Council as to bishops and priests ordained by the schismatic bishop
MeletiuB (Socrates, i. 9). * Those who have been appointed by
him are to be admitted to communion' (on their return to the
Church) 'after having been confirmed (/9f/3ata>^cVraf) with a more
sacred ordination (jiwrnKwri^ ;(Ciporoy(f )/ This sentence has been
sometimes intei-preted as Theodore's sentence is interpreted in the
text; and the word /3c/9a(0)^cVraf, of itself, might mean only
an act of bene<liction, rehabilitating the recipients for the
canonical exercise of their ministry. But, even if we take it
as referring more naturally to an act ejusdem generis with their
former schismatical 'appointment/ i.e. to an ordination 'more
sacred ' because performed by a Catholic bisliop (as Yalesius says,
' Cam praeter consensum ipsius ordinati fuissent, vult synodus ut
ante omnia ab episcopo Alexandrino ordinentur '), still it does not
seem strictly necessary to impose this sense on Theodore's ' con-
firmentur ' ; the preceding clause, ' adunati ecclesiae uon sunt,' may
be taken as referring it to an act which would 'establish' the
persons in question as thenceforth legitimate ministers of the
Church. And the next rule in the Penitential employs the same
verb in a somewhat similar sense : churches hallowed by Scotic
or British bishops are to be sprinkled with holy water, ' et aliqua
collectione (some prayer) confii mentur : ' words which point to
a supplying of what was lacking to their previous consecration
(see above, p. 323), and do not imply that it was treated as
nimply null. (Compare the rule as to a removed church, Penit.
b. 2. I. I.) Theodore adds signifii-nntly, ^ And if any one of their
race . . . has doubts as to liis own baptism, let him be baptized : '
he does not say, 'ci.nditionaliy,' as St. Boniface aftei*ward8 said
(Concil. Liptin. c. 28). About a year after Theodore's death, the
Council in TruUo, can. 84, ordered baptism to be administered
in such doubtful cases, as it seems, unconditionally, according to
Cod. Afric. 72. Compare the story of Herebald in Bede, v. 6.
The question of the so-called 'completion' by Theodore of
Chad's consecration may be illustrated by a view which appears
490 The Council of Hertford.
to have obtained for a time in the Roman communion. If by some
accident the delivery of the paten and chalice (' porrectio instru-
mentoram ') had been omitted at a priest's ordination, it was held
that it might be 'supplied' afterwards without any conditional
re- ordination such as has been the rule, at any rafe, since a Soman
decision of the time of Benedict XIV, if not earlier. In March,
1554, Queen Mary issued regulations to the bishops, one of which
directed that as penons 'promoted to any orders after the new
%Q\\ and fashion of orders ' (i. e. the Edwardian ordinal) ' were not
ordered in very deed, the bishop, if he found them otherwise
competent, might 8uj>ply that thing which wanted in them before.*
Dixon understands this not to enjoin re-ordiuation, but the addition
of ceremonies that were omitted in the English ordinal (Hist.
Ch. Engl. iv. 135): and so Denny and Lacey (de Hierarch. Anglic,
p. 148) and Fi-ere (Marian Reaction, p. 131) treat the word 'supply '
as overriding the natural sense of ' not ordered in very deed ' ; but
either construction leaves a difficulty. Pilkington, who became
bishop of Durham in 1561, had written shortly before, in a com-
mentary on Haggai (Works, p. 163), that 'in the late days of
popery . . . bishops called befoi-e them all such ns were made
ministers without gretising ' (unction) ' and anointed them,' on the
ground that ' oil ' was necessary for priesthood.
NOTE D.
The Council of Hkstfobd.
It is interesting to compare the third canon of Hertford, as to
monasteries, with canons of the Council of Clovesho in 747. In
the interval there had grown up — in consequence of the privileges
attached to monastic property — the gross abuse denounced in
Bede's letter to Egbert, c. 7. A king's thane or reeve would
procure lands chaiiered as for monastic uses, build on them a
so-called monastery, fill it with worthless monks (of whom Bede
says, ' Wasps can make combs, but not honey '), and preside over
it as 'abbot,' without abandoning his secular habits: his wife
would often do the like, and figure as 'abbess' of a mock nunnery.
The Council of Clovesho did not venture absolutely to proscribe
this flagrant perversion of the conventual idea, but ordered tiie
bishops to mitigate its evils by visiting these houses and exhorting
the inmates (can. 5). The same Council also deplores the decay of
The Council of Hertford, 491
studiousness in real monasteries (c. 7); and intimates that some
abbots were wont to treat their monks as slaves, not as sons (c. 4).
Worldliness had evidently infected many convents: there had
sprung up (as previonsly at Coldingham) a love of ' pompous ' and
'parti-coloured' dress: gleeuien* and harpers were entertained
within the precincts: monks would drink fieely before Terce,
and even constrain others ' intemperanter bibere.'
It may be observed that while Theodore was proposing that
bishops should not ' disturb monasteries in any respect/ he forgot
the danger of such disturbance on the port of kings: compare
Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 394, on the seizure of three Northumbrian
monasteries, one of them at Cox wold, by king Eadbert, in 757 ;
and see Clovesh. c. 29.
The fourth canon of Hertford undoubtedly refers to monks:
the reading * episcopi ' is, as Smith calls it, ' most absurd/ Compare
Clovesh. c. 29, that no monks or nuns shall live in the houses of
laymen, ' sed repetant monasteria,' &c.
The sixteenth Nicene canon is not named by Johnson, nor by
Haddan and Stubbs, among the sources of the fifth canon of Hertford.
But although it does not refer to cases of aimless wandering
(' passim quolibet,' Hertf.) it may have been in Theodore's thoughts,
ais forbidding clerics to 'depart from their church in a random
way, without regard to the fear of God or to ecclesiastical rule.'
There is no discrepancy, such as Johnson supposed (Engl.
Canons, i. 94), between the tenth canon of Hertford and a passage
in Theodore's Penitential, if we take 'Quod si,' &c., in the
former, as relating not to divorce, but to the 'expulsion' of a
wife who has not forfeited her rights by adultery.
One omission in these canons may surprise us. Provisions are
made as to episcopal jurisdiction, precedency, and unity of action :
a proposal is made, but deferred, as to increase of the episcopate :
but nothing is said as to episcopal election. Yet Theodore could
not be Ignorant of the standing law of the Church on this matter ;
and it might have been thought desirable to take the first opportu-
nity of formally incorporating it in the legislation of the English
Church. The Cyprianic requirement of the * suflFragium plebia '
or ' populi ' (Cypr. Ep. 55. 7 ; 59. 7) and the Nicene sanction of ' the
people's choice ' (Soc. i. 9) had received iu the Western Church a
terse and pointed expression from Pope Celestine I in his letter to
the bishops of the provinces of Vienne and Narbonne. ' I^ullua
'N
492 The Council of Hertford.
invitis deiur ejpiscojms: cleii, plebis, et ordinis ' (i. e. the magistracy)
' consensus et desiderium requiratur ' (Celest. Ep. 2. 5 ; Mansi,
iv. 466, A. D. 428). This maxim took hold of the ecclesiastical
mind, and is cited by Gallic Councils, as Orleans V. A.D. 549,
can. II, which also guards against any forcing of the consent of
' the citizens or clerics ' on the part of ' powerful persons,' and (can.
10) recognizes three conditions of a legitimate accession to the
episcopate: (i) the king's will, (2) election by clergy and people,
according to ' ancient canons,' (3) consecration by the metropolitan,
or his deputy, with the comprovincials (Mansi, ix. 131); and Paris
III. circ. A. D. 557, can. 8, which amplifies the formula thus, * Nul-
lus civihus invitis ovdinetur episcopus ; * and after reciting the fact
that in some resi>ectfi the old custom has been neglected and the
decrees of canons have been violated, orders that no 'command
of the sovereign, nor any other condition,' shall ' bring in ' a bishop
without (i) an election by people and clergy, expressing their
* fullest will,' (2) the * will * of the metropolitan and compro-
vincials; and further, that any one who 'shall have presumed
to enter upon this high office in virtue of a royal appointment'
shall be disowned by the comprovincials as a person 'unduly
ordained' (Mansi, ix. 746). Cp. Greg. Tur. ix. 23. Bede does
not give us veiy full infoiination as to the several appoint-
ments of bishops. In some of the earlier caees, it is probable that
the affair was left in the hands of the king and the archbishop,
as when Honorius consecrated Thomas for Dunwich, or Deusdedit
consecmted Damian for Boche&ter. Kenwalch was likely enough
to dispense with canoLical forms in regard to Agilbert., and he
must have done so in regard to Wini (Bede, iii. 7). Bede attributes
the appointment of Wilfrid to Alchfrid, and that of Chad to Oswy,
whom he describes on that occasion as ' imitating the activity of
his son'; yet we know from Eddi (Vit. Wilf 11) that Wilfrid
was elected by the Northumbrian Witan, and may infer that this
was also the case with Chad, as with the three prelates consecrated
in 678 for parts of the diocese which Wilfrid had ruled, and,
according to Bede's plain statement, with Cuthbert (iv. 28) and
Oftfor (iv. 23). The same plan would be followed in other districts.
Faricius, as we have seen, emphasises the point in regard to Aid-
helm. In such elections the clerical voice was represented by
that of the high ecclesiastics present among the ' Witan,' who acted
together with those of the ' freemen ' who attended that assembly
(see Freeman, Norm. Conq. i. 102).
The Age of St. Aldhelm. 493
It need hardly be said that Bede's application of the term
'synodus' to a Witenagemot (iv. 28, v. 19; cp. iii. 7, end) proves
nothing against the essentially episcopal character of the synods of
Hertford and Hatfield. They were composed of bishops: the
'magistii' or Moctores' who also attended them were simply
advisers, and their ' votum ' was merely * consultativam/ not ' decisi-
vum/ They were no more constituent members of the synod than
Athanasius was of tlie Kicene Council, or than Thomas Aquinas
would have been of the Council of Lyons, had he lived to attend it.
(See Hefele, Councils, In trod. s. 11.) No laymen appear to have
had anything to do with the synods of Hertford and Hatfield :
although we find king Ethelbald of Mercia ' presiding,' like a Con-
stantino Pogonatus, at the Council of Clovesho in 742, and present
with his earldormen and ' duces ' at the greater Council of Clovesho
in 747, at which many clerics were present, and were consulted.
It should be remembered that laymen might even be asked to
sign the doctrinal canons of a Council, in token of their assent,
without being at all regarded as members of the Council, or authors
of its decrees; — ^as at the second Council of Orange, A. d. 529
(Mansi, viii. 718). The * synod ' of Whitby was rather a conference
than a regular ecclesiastical council; but the persons named by
Bede as present were all clerical, except Oswy, Alchfrid, and the
abbess Hilda (iii. 25).
It may be observed, that the African rule as to one yearly synod
referred, not to a provincial synod^ but to the ' general council for
Africa*'
NOTE E.
The Age of St. Aldhelm.
In p. 294, I have given the received date of 675 for Aldhelm's
appointment as abbot of Malmesbury. It may not improbably
rest on some better basis than the forged charter of bishop Lothere :
there may have been an old tradition in the monastery that Aldhelm
had ruled it thirty-three years when he died in 709 (Malmesb. Gest.
Pont. V. 231). William of Malmesbury cannot have been unaware
of the difficulties attaching to this date: for he cites Aldhelm's
letter, describing Hadrian as the preceptor of his 'simple child-
hood' {'rudis tnfantiae*). Now Hadrian became abbot of Canter-
bury in 671 (Bede, Hist. Abb. 3). On Malmesbury's showing,
494 Growth of a Parochial System in England.
therefore, ' infantiae ' must have been used very laxly, and with a
sort of exaggerative modesty, by Aldhelm : and if he was, in fact,
a youth of sixteen or seventeen in 671, he must have been ordained
priest by Lothere, according to Malme&bury's date, when he was
much below the canonical age, although Malmesbury rejects that
supposition. The bishop might think the case exceptional. The
difficulty, in fact, is one which reappears on a comparison of
Aldhelra's language about his ^ infantia ' with Ethelwald's allusion
to his ' white hair/ in vei*ses written before he became a bishop :
for these verses (see Lingard, A.-S. Ch. ii. 164, 188) were appended
to a letter addressed ' sacrosancto abbati Aldhelmo ' : and although
Aldhelm retained the abbacy until his death, he would have been
addressed, after 705, as bishop. That his ordination to the pres-
byterate preceded his appointment to the abbacy, is affirmed both
by Fancius (c. i) and Malmesbury (v. 198).
NOTE F.
Growth of a Pasoghial System in England.
Bede tells us that Paulinus built no church in Bemicia, and in
Deira only those of York and Campodonum ; but that he built one
at Lincoln, doubtless through the munificence of Blaecca. (Op.
Bede, ii. 14, 16; iii. 2.) Under Aidan 'churches were reared in
different places ' (iii. 3) : some of these were adjacent to the royal
' villae,' as at Bamborough (iii. 1 7). Birinus ' built and dedicated '
churches in Wessex (iii. 7) : Cedd ' made churches in different parts '
of Essex (iii. 22). This latter passage is the first which associates
chui ch-building with anything like a settled local ministry, for
Bede adds, 'presbytero3 et diaconos ordinavit.' But Aidan and
Birinus may have done the like. The lack of district churches
was largely supplied by the missionary activity of monks, as we
learn from the early life of St. Cuthbert (iv. 27). We are not told
whether Chad left any churches behind him as the result of his
evangelical journeys through towns, country-sides, townships, and
casteUa^ in Yorkshire (Bede, iii. 28), but Wilfrid 'ordained
presbyters and deacons in all places to assist him in his work'
(Eddi, 21), and doubtless supplied them with churches for their
ministrations. His energy as a founder of basilicas would not
^ Fortified towns.
Growth of a Parochial System in England. 495
exhaust itself m great works, like that at Hexham or Eipon. The
sites of his smaller charches would usually be the central points of
the several ' vici * or townships (Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 260). Bede
expressly observes that 'among the mountains' no church could
be found to receive Guthbert when he was making his rounds of
'visitation' (Vit. Cuthb. 32). In two instances 'comites' build
churches, and ask bishop John to dedicate them (Bede, v. 4, 5 ; at
' South Burton and North Burton ' ; liugard, A.-S. Ch. i. 157) : and
if any such chapels or private estates had cure of souls attached to
them, a rule would be observed like that which wus laid down in
541 by the fourth Council of Orleans, c. 33 : 'Si quis in agro sno
aut habet aut postulat habere dioecesim ' (here ' dioecesis ' means
a district church, — comp. Council of Epaon, c. 8, 'presbyter qui
dioeceBim tenet,' and Greg. Tur. v. 5, ' dioeceses et villas/ and vi.
38) ' primum et terras ei deputet sufficienter, et clericos qui
ibidem sua ofiicia impleant' (Mansi, ix. 119). In other words,
something like an endowment was necessary. On this class of
churches, with or without districts attached, see Hatch in Diet.
Chr. Antiq. ii. 1556. Once more, when Drythelm awakes out of
his trance (or, as Bede would say, returns to life), he goes at onc^
'ad villulae oratorium' (Bede, v. 12). GaUican synods indicate
a disposition to watch with some jealousy the use made of these
outlying hamlet churches; we find them forbidding any citizen to
keep the great festivals in a ' villa ' unless he is known to be in
bad health (ist Orleans, c. 25, a. 512), and ordering every cleric
who officiates in the ' oratorium ' of a ' villula * to keep the great
feasts with his bishop in the city (ist Auvergne, c. 15). Compare
Council of Agde, c. 2 1 , which also distinguishes these ' oratoria '
as external both to 'civitates' and to 'parochiae.' Gregory of
Tours says of himself, ' In multis locis . . . et ecclesias et oratoria
dedicavi,' Hist. Fr. x. 31. In Bede's last days, as we learn from an
often-quoted passage, Ep. to Egb. 3, many of the smaller townships
of Yorkshire were still without any resident clergy. But, as has
been already observed, Theodore's Penitential, irrespectively of any
' capitula ' wrongly ascribed to him, supposes such a ministry to be
at work. Compare St. Boniface's activity in providing each of his
few churches ' in Hessis et Thuringia ' with ' custodes ' ; Willibald,
Vit. Bonif. c. 9.
The late Lord Selborne has discussed the question minutely in
his ' Ancient Facts and Fictions concerning Churches and Tithes.'
I venture to think that he has a little understated the extent
496 Miscellaneous.
to which the elements of a parochial system, as distinct from
that system in full-formed development, were present in Eng-
land in the latter part of the seventh and in the eighth
centuries. Bede's words about Cedd, naturally taken, imply
a certain amount of localized pastoral care, and need not be
restricted to two central or 'baptismal' churches, such as are
referred to in the Life of St. Anskar, c. 22, where a diocese is
reckoned ' small * if it has only ' four baptismal churches ' (Sidonius
ApoUinaris, late in the fifth century, uses ' baptisterium ' in the
same sense, Epist. iv. 15). The use of * propria provincia' in
Theodore's Penitential points also in the direction of localization ;
for the * provincia,' though not called a * parish,' is clearly a define<l
sphere of clerical duty. What Bede says of the remoter districts
in Northumbria suggests that there were stationary pastors
where population was less sparse. Ine's laws (56) distinguish
a ' church ' from a ' minster ' ; Wihtred's also contemplate some
public 'church -altars': the canons of Clovesho distinguish
' monasteries ' from ' ecclesiae,' and after providing for Sunday
observance in the former, proceed (' sed et hoc quoque ') to order
that 'the priests of God shall invite the people to frequent the
church.' If this synod contemplated no non-monastic clergy, the
establishment of rural churches or oratories on estates must have
come to an end, which is hardly conceivable.
NOTE G.
Miscellaneous.
1. The tradition about a great number of Roman-British
martyrs during the 'great persecution' has had a legendary
connexion with Lichfield, being represented in the sixteenth-
century seal and modern arms of that city, and supported by
the popular derivation of its name from 'lie' in the sense of a
corpse (comprtre 'lich-gate,' * lyke-wake '). But the 'Licetfelda'
of the Chronicle (a.d. 716, 731), the 'Licitfelda' of a marginal
statement in the * Gospels of St. Chad/ an Irish MS. preserved
in the cathedral library, is much more naturally explained to
mean the 'watered field' (from 'leccian,* to irrigate), in allusion
to the streams which feed its twin ^ pools.'
2. Archdeacon Bevan, who is second to no living writer in
knowledge of Welsh history and archaeology, has suggested to me
Miscellaneous. 497
some farther reasons againsl identifying Caerleon with the third
see mentioned in the list of the Council of Aries, (i) The name
'Castra Legionum' was shared with Chester and Leicester;
Caerleon would naturally in a formal record have been desig-
nated by its name of Isca. (2) The hagiological traditions of
South Wales do not start from Caerleon westward, but come (as it
were) to Caerleon from the west.
3. Beference has already been made (p. 160) to a statement
which has been popularised by the great name of its author, by
the charm of a pointed antithesis, and, one must also suppose, by
its seeming usefulness in anti-Boman controversy. 'Apostle of
England' is an ambiguous phrase. But, taking 'England' for
'South-Britain as occupied by the English people,' if 'apostle'
means the first missionary to the English, the title belongs
exclasiyely to Augustine: if it means the missionary who
personally or by deputy evangelized the largest number of
English, it still cannot be claimed for Aidan : it was Finan who,
in compliance with a request, sent missionaries into the Midlands,
and who consecrated a bishop for the East-Saxons.
4. It should have been observed that the opinion which places
Augustine's Oak at Aust or Austcliff is supported by a chai*ter
of Ethelred of Mercia, which names together Henbury (north of
Brisiol) and a place called 'Aet Austin' (Cod. Dip!, i. 35). But
if Augustine's Oak was in that district, Bede*s information would
seem to be inaccurate ; for he understood the spot to be between
the Hwiccian and West-Saxon territorieB: and, in his view, all
Gloucestershire would be Hwiccian.
5. The general character and position of the original stone
'basilica' which Edwin began to build 'per quadrum,' so as to
enclose the wooden 'oratory' in which he had been catechized
and baptized, and which was completed by Oswald and repaired
by Wilfrid, have been described, and illustrated by plans, in Browne's
' History of the Metropolitan Church of York.' I have also had
the advantage of visiting the present crypt under the guidance of
Dean Purey-Cust. On descending from the north aisle of the
choir, one reaches a platform with steps on the left leading into
the newer portion of the crypt, and, on the right, a well, which
is exactly under the ancient site of the high altar. This platform
Kk
49B Miscellaneous.
appears to represent the site of tlie ' oratory.' Browne (p. 7) under-
stands ' per qnadrom ' in the general sense of ' rectangular/ and
considers that the seventh-century cathedral had quasi-transepts
very near the east end, and that its internal length, as extended
westward, was about 106 feet.
6. The ^ancient British Church' has been credited with 'a
considerable indirect share' in the conversion of Northumbrians
and of Mercians, because it had contributed, in the preceding
century, to a revival of Irish piety and learning. But although
this revival would stimulate religious activities in a missionary
direction as well as in others, we can hardly trace Columba's
great enterprise in any special way to a Welsh impulse. His
birth in 521 was probably subsequent to the return of one of
his future teachers, Finnian of Clonard, from Wales. Between
546 and 562 he was founding monasteries in Ireland. He went
to Hy two years before that visit of Gildas to Ireland which is
mentioned by Haddan and Stubbs (i. 45, 115); and he died 38
years before the mission of St. Aidan, who seems never to have
looked to 'Britons' for assistance in his own work. But it is
curious to observe the tenacity with which unhistorical notions
survive refutation when they serve a controversial interest. Some
Anglican writers have little right to be severe on Boman Catholics
for &ults in this direction. A small anonymous work, 'The
English Church and the Bomish Schism,' published at Edinburgh
in 1896, contains on the 84th page the following sentences : ' The
indebtedness of England to Bome is the ^rest fiction, . . . The Saxons
were evangelized almost entirely through the ffforts of the British
Churches.' The italics are mine. Criticism would here be super-
fluous for any one who knows the facts and has read Bede. As for
Man, its church is an offshoot, not of the British, but of the Irish.
7. It is a somewhat ungracious task to note eri*ors in Dean
Hook's ' Lives of the Archbishops.' Haddan has complained of his
deficiency in research, and also of his 'frequent inadvei^tencies.'
(Bemains, p. 300.) Not only does he repeat the old mistake about
the foundation of the parochial system by Theodore, but his animfis
against what is Boman appears in the extraordinary statement,
that whereas both Augustine and Theodore 'had to confer with
bishops jealous of any encroachment upon their rights, when
Augustine laid down the law, Theodorus invited discussion'
Miscellaneous. 499
(i. 157); as if Augustine bad not held two discussions with the
British bishops, and used, according to Bede, ' entreaties ' as well
as 'fraternal admonition/ 'exhortations/ and 'rebukes'; ultimately
he waived some of the points in debate. The remark in one of
Hook's notes, that Theodore ' had so far condescended as to employ
an agent at Home to explain to the Roman court the real state
of affairs/ indicates the same bias. The mistranslation in his
report of Aldfrid's ' refusal of all concession ' has been noticed in
the text. See also above, p. 139*
8. ' If we consider how difficult, fatiguing, disagreeable, and even
dangerous, a journey between the British islands and Italy must
baye been in those days of anarchy and barbarism, we can appre-
ciate the intensity of Benedict (Biscopys passion for beautiful and
costly volumes . . . His last words wer^ of earnest entreaty to his
successor to preserve and enlarge his copiosissima et nobilisaima
hibUoiheca, of which the chef (Ttjeuvre seems to have been a codex
of geography, mirandi operis, . . . bought, like the others, in Rome.'
Lanciani, Ancient Borne, p. 201. Cf. Hist. Abb. 11, 15.
9. A curious pictorial representation of the popular stories
about St. Outhbert will be found behind the northern stalls of
Carlisle Cathedral. One scene exhibits him as forbidden 'layks'
(i.e. games) ' and plays, As S. Bede i' hys story says.' ' Her saw he
Aydn' sowl up go To hevyn blysse w* angels two.' * Her bosile
teld hym yt he must de, And after y^ he (prior) suld be.' In
the death-scene, Cuthbert rests, with hands clasped, in the arms *
of an attendant (Herefrid), while another monk kneels in front of
him: 'When bishop two yerys he had beyn. On Farne he died
both holy and clone.'
10. An interesting paper on 'St. Wilfrith in Sussex/ by Mr.
F. E. Sawyer, has been reprinted from the ' Sussex Archaeological
Collections.' The author thinks it not improbable that the king
of the South-Saxon heathen, mentioned by Eddi in his account
of Wilfrid's penl in 666, was Ethelwalch, as yet unconverted.
He suggests that the grant of Fagham to Wilfrid, set forth in
a charter of Cadwalla, which Kemble marks as spurious, and of
which the date is earlier than Wilfrid's arrival, may have been
made ' shortly before he came into the country ' ; but this is surely
very improbable. He quotes the eloquent tribute to Wilfrid's
K k 2
500 Miscellaneous.
memory rendered by the late Archdeacon Hannah in a sermon
at St. Wilfrid's church, Hay ward's Heath, in 1881 : 'The happy
work of first preaching the Gospel to the heathen worshipper
of Woden in Sussex is the fairest passage in that troubled life,
the purest of the rays of glory that have gathered round tliat
great historic name. . . . Qreat as an administrator, as a ruler,
as a founder of churches and monasteries, as a zealous promoter
both of art and learning, he was greater by far in our regard as
a missionary,' &c. Mr. Sawyer follows Dean Stephens (Dioc.
Hist. Chich. p. 13) in accepting the story of St Lewinna as a
convert of Wilfrid, martyred by a heathen Saxon before 690.
11. la regard to Ine's connexion with Glastonbury, it may be
well to refer to Mr. James Parker's published lecture on
' Glastonbury Abbey,' together with the late Professor Freeman's
' English Towns and Districts,' p. 98. Ine may be regarded as
' the first founder,' and Dunstan as the restorer, of the church of
SS. Peter and Paul, built eastward of the 'lignea' or Wetusta
ecclesia ' of St. Mary, which was superseded in the twelfth century
by the Moyely' building misnamed the 'chapel of St. Joseph.'
* There is no saying what Ine's church was like : ' it ' may well . . .
have been raised and enlai'ged some 200 years after.' It was
succeeded by ' the church of Norman Herlwin, as that before long
gave way to the mighty pile which still stands in ruins/ The spot,
and the adjacent ground, are rich in manifold historical interest ;
but their incomparable charm consists in this — ^that they represent
with a vividness which, as Freeman says, is ' unique,' the union of
the British and English Churches.
TABLE OF PRINCIPAL EVENTS.
A. D.
Martyrdom of St Alban. ...... 304
British bishops at Aries . . ' . . . . . 314
British bishops at Ariminum ...... 359
First Mission of St. German . . . . .429
Second Mission of St. German ...... 447
Arrival of St. Augustine ; baptism of £thelbert . . . 597
Arrival of Mellitus ; death of St. David . . . .601
Conferences at Augustine's Oak . . . . 609-3
Sees of London and Rochester founded * . . . . 604
Death of St. Augustine . . . . . . 605
Battle of Chester ....... 613
Mellitus driven from London ; Eadbald of Rent converted . 616
Edwin king of Northumbria • . . . . .617
St. Paulinus sent to Northumbria ..... 6a$
Edwin baptized. Christianity in East^-Anglia . . . 627
St. Felix bishop of East- An glians . . .631
Battle of Hatfield ; death of Edwin . . . .633
Battle of Heavenfield ; St. Oswald king ; St. Birinus in Wessex . 634
St. Aidan at Lindisfame ; baptism of Kynegils . . . 635
Battle of Maserfield ; Oswy king of Bernicia .... 64a
Conversion of Kenwalch ...... 646
Agilbert bishop of Dorchester ; deaths of Oswin and Aidan . .651
Peada baptized ; Mission to Mid- Angles ; second Mission to Essex . 653
Cedd bishop of East-Saxons ; Wilfrid at Rome . . 654
Battle of Winwidfield ....... 655
Diuma bishop of Mercia ; foundation of Peterborough 656
Agilbert's quarrel with Kenwalch ..... 660
Colman succeeds Finan at Lindisfarne ; Wilfrid at Ripon .661
Conference of Whitby ; pestilence ; Wilfrid elected bishop . . 664
Consecrations of Wilfrid and Chad ; third Mission to Essex . . 665
Theodore consecrated for Canterbury ..... 668
Arrival of Theodore ; Wilfrid bishop of York ; Chad at Lichfield . 669
Hadrian refounds the School of Canterbury . . . .671
Death of St. Chad ....... 672
Council of Hertford ; division of East-Anglian diocese ; St. Etheldred
at Ely ; birth of Bede ...... 673
Benedict Biscop founds Weai-mouth monastery . . . 674
Aldhelm abbot of Malmesbury .... . . 675
First troubles of Wilfrid ; division of his diocese ; his appeal ; his
mission-work in Fiisia ...•.• 678
502 Table of Royal and Episcopal Succession.
A.D.
Council at Borne pronounces in his fayour .... 679
Diyision of Mercian diocese ..... about 679
Return and sufferings of Wilfrid ; Council of Hatfield ; death of Hilda 680
Wilfrid evangelizes Sussex ; monasteries of Jarrow and Gloucester
and see of Aberoom founded ..... 68z
Cuthbert consecrated ; battle of Dunnechtan .... 685
Mission to Isle of Wight ; restoration of Wilfrid . . .686
]>eath of St. Cuthbert . . . . . . .687
Cadwalla's journey to Borne ...... 688
Death of Benedict Biscop . . ' . . . . 689
Death of Theodore ; Willibrord goes to Frisia . . . 690
Renewed troubles of Wilfrid; he is expelled; acts as bishop at
Leicester ........ 691
Bertwald archbishop ; death of St Erkenwald . . . 693
Witenagemot of Berghamstyde ...... 696
Guthlac at Crowland ....... 699
Cotincil of Easterfield ; Wilfrid's second appeal . . . 70a
Second Council at Rome on his case ..... 704
West-Saxon diocese divided ; Aldhelm bishop of Sherborne . . 705
Council of the Nidd ; close of Wilfrid's case .... 706
Deaths of Aldhelm and Wilfrid . . , , . 709
TABLE OF ROYAL AND EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION.
A.D. 597-709.
I.
I. Kent \-^
Ethelbert
Eadbald
Erconbert
Egbert
Lothere
Eadric
Wihtred
a. Sussex: —
Ethelwalch
A.i>.
[560?]
616
640
664
673
685
690-1
Essex : —
Sabert
Sffiwardy Sexred, Sigebert 616
Sigebert the Little about 617
Sigebert the Good before 653
Swidhelm . . about 657
Sebbi and Sighere . 664
Sighard and Swefred . 694
O^ . . • before 709
4. XSast^Anglia: —
Redwald
Eorpwald
Sigebert the Learned
Egric .
Anna .
Ethelhere .
Ethelwold .
Aldwulf
5. Northumbria: —
Ethelfrid .
Edwin
[Eanfrid in Bemicia
Osrio in Deira ,
Oswald
Oswy in Bemicia ; Os
win in Deira .
Oswy sole king .
Egfrid .
Aldfrid
[Eadwulf .
Osred .
A.D.
?
617
631
634
636
654
655
663
[593]
617
633]
^4
649
651
670
685
705]
706
Table of Royal and Episcopal Succession. 503
A.D.
A.D.
6. Weaaex : —
7. Meroia: —
Ceolwnlf
• •
597
Gearl. .
?
Kynegils
• ■
611
Penda . . . ,
696
Kenwaloh .
• •
643
[Mercia under Oswy ,
. 655]
Sexburga .
• •
67a
Wulfhere .
658-9
Escwin (part of Wessex)
674
Eihelred
675
Kentwin •
• •
676
Kenred
. 704
Gadwalla
• •
685
Geolred
709
Ine
• •
688
IL •
[Sees in order of foundation as English bishoprics.]
1. Canterbury : —
Augustine . . . 597
Laurence . . . 605
Hellitus . . .619
Justus .... 694
Honorius . . . 637
Deusdedit . . • 655
Theodore ... 668
Bertwald . . . 693
2. Ijondon: —
Mellitus . . 604
[Cedd, in Essex . . 654]
Wini .... 666
Erkenwald . . . 675
Waldhere . . 693
Ingwald • . . 704?
3. Rochester: —
Justus .... 604
Romanus . . . 624
Paulinus • . . 633
Ithamar . . . 644
Damian . . . 655
Futta .... 669
Cwichelm . . . 676
Gebmund . . . 678
Tobias. . . . ^93
4. York: —
Paulinus . . 625
Chad .... 665-6
Wilfrid, consecrated
665, in possession . 669
Rosa .... 678
Wilfrid again . 686
Bosa again . . 691
John .... 7^
5. Dunwioh : —
Felix .... 631
Thomas . . . 647
Boniface
Bisi
Acci
Astwulf
6. Iiindisfame: —
Aidan .
Finan .
Colman
Tuda .
Eata .
Cuthbert
Eadbert
Eadfrid
65a
669
673
? »
635
651
661
664
678
685
688
698
7. Dorchester or Winchester : —
Birinus (Dorchester) . 635
Agilbert (Dorchester) . 651
Wini (Winchester) . 66a
Lothere (Winchester) . 670
Heddi (Winchester) . 676
^tla (Dorchester) about 679? '
Daniel (Winchester) . 705
8. IjichfLeld [the seat of the first
four Mercian bishops not ascer-
tained] : —
Diuma . . . 656
Cellach
Trumhere
Jaruman
Chad .
Winfrid
Saxulf
Hedda.
9. Slmham :->-
Badwin
Nothbert
658
659
66a
669
679
675
691
673
693 + 706
la Hexham:—
Eata (also holding Lin-
disfame) .
678
> The date of his accession is unknown.
709. See Stubbs, Registr. Sacr. p. 5.
* See p. 351.
He may haye been bishop in
504 Genealogical Tables.
A. D. A. D.
13. Iieioeflter : —
Trumbert
. 681
Cuthwin
•
680
£ata again .
. 685
[Wilfrid administers
• ^i-a]
- JTohn .
. 687
Wilfrid
706
14. Belaex :—
II. 8idxuu)e8t6r (for
Lindaey) : —
Wilfrid
Eadbert
•
#
. 68i-a
70Q
Eadhed
. 678
• » ^
Ethelwin
680
W^P ^ V
Edgar .
. before 706
15. Hereford: —
.^^^^%
Tyrhtel
•
688
I a. Woroecter: —
Bosel .
680
16. Sherborne : —
Oftfor .
• 699
Aldhelm
•
. 705
Egwin .
. 693-4
Forthere
•
. 709
This list excludes the ephemeral and extinct see of Aberoom, and —
if it can be regarded as constituted in 679 for Eadhed — that of Ripon,
and also passes over the brief administration, by Wilfrid (while holding
York), of Hexham in 686, and of Lindls&me in 687. On Hereford see
p. 300.
GENEALOGICAL TABLES.
I.
KEliT.
Ermenric
1
Ethelbert Bicula
Eadbald Ethelburga
m, Edwin
I i ^1
Ermenred Eanswith Eroonbert tn. Sexburga
Ermenburga Ethelred Ethelbert Egbert Ermenild Eroongota Lot^ere
(Domneva) 1 m. Wulfhere
m. Merewald |
Eadric Wihtred
Genealogical Tables.
505
II.
ESSEX,
Sledda m. Ricula
Sabert
I
Sfldward Sexred Sigebert
I
Sigebert the Little Sebbi
1
Sighere Sighard Swefred
I
Ofla
Sigebald
Sigebert the Good Swidhelm
III.
Bedwald
Eorpwald
EAST'AKGLIA.
Tytla
Anna
Sigebert
Eni
Etheihere
m. Hereswid
Ethelwold
Alf^old
Sezburga Ethelburga Etheldred Witburga? Aldwulf
m. Erconbert m. i. Timbert
a. Egfrid
IV.
BERNICIA,
Etbelfrid m. i. Bebba
'2. Acha
Eanfrid
Oswald
Ethelwald
Oswy
Alclifrid Alchfled Ostliryd Egfrid
m. Kyniburga m. Peada m. Ethelred
Ebbe
Alf^-in ElAed Aldfrid
theWise
Osric Oswald Kynio
I
Oshere?
urga, junior
Osred
5o6
Genealogical Tables.
V.
DEIRA.
Yffi
I
Ella
i
Unnamed Acha
Hereric
m. Beorhtswith
I
I I
Hilda Hereswid
I
Edwin m. z. Cwenborga
'9. Ethelbux*ga
Osfrid
Eadkd
Wuscfirea Eanfled
m. Oswy
Elfne
I
Osric
Oswin
Yffi
VL
WESSEJT.
From Cerdic
Ceawlin
I
Catha
I
Ceadda
Eenbert
I
Cadwalla
Cutha
I
Ceolwulf
I
Kynegils
Cwichelm
Cufchred
Eenwalch
nt, Sezburga
Kentwin
Ceolwulf
I
CuthgUs
I
Kenferth
I
Eenfus
I
Eacwin
Cuthwin
I
Ceolwald
Eenred
A datL
m, Oswald
Ine
.i,
Ingild Cwenborga Cuthburga
ancestor of
Egbert
It should be added that Florence, after mentioning Sexburga*s reign,
adds, ' Beinde Eenfus duobus annis, secundum dicta regis JELfrtdi ; juzta vero
Chronicam Anglicam, filius ejus ^scwinus : ' (App. to Chron.)
VIT.
MEB.CIA.
Penda m. Eynwise (Eyneswith)
I
Peada
. Alchfled
Wulfhere
m, Ermenild
I
Ethelred
fit. Osthryd
Merewald
m. Domneva
Merchelm
i i I
Ken red Werburga Berth wald Ceolred
Mildred Milburga Mildgith Here^vin
Eyneswith,
junior
Some insignificant names have been omitted.
Ejniburga Wilburga ?
m. Alchfrid m. Frithwald
I
Osyth
INDEX.
A.
Aaron, martyr, 8, ii.
Abandonment of royal daty, 144.
Abbots, election of, 430, 473.
Aberoom, see of, 364, 373, 378.
Aberystwyth, 35.
Abingdon, monastery of, 42, 298, 299,
473.
Absolutism in Theodore, 321.
Acca, bishop, 447, 455, 475, 479.
Acci (JSod, iEoca, Acoe), bishop of
Dunwich, 285, 408.
Adalgis, king, 327, 328, 417.
Adamnan, abbot of Hy, 7, 19, 36,
43. 53, 59, 69, 81, 290, 379, 468.
Adamnan, monk, 290.
* Ad £ar78,' 263.
Adda, mission-priest, 194.
Addi, earl, 460.
AdelphiuB (Adelfias), British bishop,
10.
Adeodatns, pope, 299.
Advent, the season, 401.
.^Vigils, monk, 290.
.£lfric, 61.
.^^na (.^k>nan), 249, 269.
JEeOf and .^scingas, 405.
^tla, bishop of Dorchester, 349, 351.
' ^tswinapathe,' see Easterfield.
African Chnrch, 44, 46, 70, 78, 79, 81,
278, 280, 281; against 'trana-
nuuine' appeals, 323, 324.
Agapetus, pope, 45.
Agatho, pope. 354, 355, 357, 360, 362,
438 ; on Wilfrid's case, 330-335, 395f
440» 449. 450» 453, 460.
Agatho, priest, 223.
Agde, council of, 42, 82, 275.
Agilbert, bishop of Dorchester, 183,
185, 190, 208, 209, 222, 223, 241,
242, 247, 255, 273.
Agricola, Pelagian, 16, 19.
Aidan, St. (^3an), bishop of lindis-
• fame, mission of, 155 ff. ; character
and work of, 160-166, 214, 235,
244-246, 303, 310, 497; death,
189, 316.
Aileran of Clonard, 184.
Aix, 47, 49, 50.
' Alban,* name of Northern Scotland,
154-
Alban, St., 6, 8, 20, 21, 73, 113, 245.
Albert, archbishop of York, 272, 480.
Albinns, abbot, 94, 272.
Albion, 16.
Alcester, pagans at, 436.
Alchfled, wife of Peada, 193, 204.
Alchfrid (Alchfrith), sub-king, 193,
202, 215, 321, 223, 240; rel^ions,
344. 353-
Alduid, see Dnnbarton.
Alcuin, 28, 56, 69, 104, 272.
Aldbert, bishop of Dunwich, 456.
Aldfrid, king, 373, 379, 395, 39^, 4M,
415, 43', 437> 439, 44^, 443, 45©,
452, 456-459.
Aldhelm, St. (Ealdhelm), 40, 112, 272,
294, 410, 444-446, 46a ; his style.
466; bishop of Sherborne, 471;
death, 474; his age, 493.
Aldwulf, kinff, 285, 288, 357, 409.
Alexandria, 60, 67, 68, 88, 89, 359.
Alfred the Great, 152, 163, 182, 296,
371, 473.
Alfrid, teacher, 457.
Alfwin (iBlfuini, ^Ifwine), sub-king,
367, 333, 340.
Alleluia, use of the, 21, 43.
Allermoor, 353.
Almsgiving, 30, 63, 163,185, 221. 382,
424.
Almond, the, 377.
Aln, the, 373.
AlpB, 5. 19, 142, 329.
Alrioy bishop, 423.
Altars, Chrutian, 114 ; of stone, 146;
marble, 445.
5o8
Index.
AlternfttioiiB of snooesB a&d check, 59,
483.
Aluh&idy 477.
Amator, bishop, 19.
Ambletease, 113.
Ambrose, St., 42, 57, 170.
AmbroaloB Aurelianus, 31.
Anatolius, 88, 464; canon falsely
his, 91, 238, 464.
Anoyra, canons of, 64, 277.
Andely (Andilegum), 174.
Anderida, 26, 342.
Andhun, earl, 392.
Andredesey, 353.
Amiredsweald, 211, 342, 391.
Andrew, Italian monk, 252.
Andrew, St., veneration for, 45, 62,
100, 182, 479.
Angles, 26-28.43,44, 72.84, 119, 311.
Anglesey, 31, 85, 135, 145.
Animals, fondness of saints for, 289,
306, 434-
Anna, king, 173 ff., 181, 200. 285, 482.
Anskar, St., 44, 108, 161, 496.
Antioch, councils of, 106, 274, 276^
278, 280.
Antiphons, 55, 390.
Antoninus, wall of, 11.
Antony, St.. 433.
Apamea, 78.
Apocalypse, the, 356 ; * of Peter,' 144.
Apocrisiarius, the, 41.
'Apostle of £nghuid,* 160. 497.
Apostolic canons, 277, 280.
Appeals to Rome^ 321 ff.
Apse, a double, 61, 256.
Aquitania, 13, 17, 19, 89.
Architecture, elaborate. 267.
Aroulf, bishop, 380.
Argyll, Scots in, 97, 153.
Arianism, 12, 13, 91.
Arigius, patrician, 47.
Ariminum, oouDcil of. 13, 112.
Aristobulus, 3.
Arithmetic, ecclesiastical, 271, 297.
Aries, 50; councils of. 9, 66, 70, 11 a,
275 ; see of, 60, 68, 255, 423.
Armagh, 212.
Arminius, deacon, 10.
Armorica, 19, 21, 23, 35-37»
Art, religious, 52, 217, 233, 268,
355, 390-
Arthur, king, 24, 26, 37.
Artwil, Irish prince, 445.
Arwald, sub-king, 393.
Asaph, St., 34, 85.
Ascension-tide, 55, 367.
Ascetic habits, 162, 199, 215, 370,
288. 383. 432, 474.
Ashdown, i8a, 210.
Asia (western part of Asia Minor),
87,90.
Asser, 47a.
Asterius, archbishop of Milan, 168.
Astrolpgy, 297.
Astronomy, 271, 297.
Athana8ius,St., 12, 13, 43,67, 106, 276.
Athelstane, 399.
Attains, 486.
At-the-Wall, 194.
Augralus, St., 9.
Augusta B London, 9.
Augustine, St., of Canterbujnr, 45-109 ;
work and character of, 68, 72, 96,
107-109; date of death, 105 ; grave,
113-
Augustine, St., of Hippo, 15-17, 20, 21,
43, 64, 66, 79, 81, 106, 148, 252,
257, 323, 361.
Aulus PJautius, 3, 170.
Aunemund, archbishop of Lyons, 218,
34a, 255-
AurelioB Conanus, 31.
Aust or Austcliff, 85, 497.
Austerfield, 439.
Austrasia, 49, 50, 270. 326, 329, 336,
418.
Autun, 49, 50, 60, 326.
Auxerre, 17, 19, 21, 66, 79, 80.
Avalon (Avallon), isle of, 3, 11, 30,
352, 353*
Avars, 329.
Avon, the, 296, 435.
Avon, the (in LinlithgowBhire), 202.
Awe, ih Teutonic Christians, 264.
Axe, the, 29.
Aylesbury, 29.
B.
Baccanceld (Bapchild), 429.
Badon Hill (Badbury), battle of, 26,
33-
Baducing, see Benedict Biscop.
Bad win, abbot, 457.
Bad win (Badwini, Bedwin), bishop of
Elmham, 285, 406.
Balder, 82.
Ballads. 296, 312 ; fragments of, 123,
152, 176, 203.
Bamborough, 28, 162. 176, 180, 189,
373, 386. 459-
Bangors. the, 33, 34, 85, 94, 98, 112,
184.
Baptism, grace of, 139, 327, 394, 403.
Baptismal rites, x, 21, 57,9ij 136, 170,
345, 404, 428 ; churches, 490.
Barbury, 28, 31.
Bardney, monastery of, 177, 455.
Bardsey, isle of, 36, 85.
Barking, convent of, 213, 293, 424.
Barrow, monastery of, 263, 293.
Baschurch (Bassa's churches), 29.
Bass, Kentish priest, 272, 422.
Index.
509
£a88, thane, 148.
Bath, a6, 29, 84, 297.
BathildiSy queen (Baldechild), 219,
220.
Bawtry, 439.
Bebba, 28, 189.
Bede (Beeda), general snrvey of his
life, 367-371 ; childhood at Jarrow,
390; occasional mistakes and pre-
jndioe8,4i,49,59, 60, 99, 209, 303,
369, 405 ; caution, 94, 369 ; oon-
nezion with Ceolfrid, 246 ; reticent
concerning Wilfrid, 319, 415; obser-
vant of divine judgements, 291, 369;
quotes Virgil, 378 ; a model student,
368; never went to Rome, 438 ; en-
couraged by Acca, 447, 448 ; helped
by Daniel, 469; compared with
Gregory of Tours, 485 C; Life of
Cuthbot, 388, 398, 437 ; Epistle to
Egbert, 281 ; works on Soripture,
447, 448.
Bede, * the elder,* 386.
Bedford, 29, 193.
Bedwin, see Badwin.
Bedwin (Beadanhead\ battle of, 291,
Begu (St. Bega), 363.'
Bekerey, 353.
BeUs in monasteries, 477.
Benedict Bisoop, journeys of, to Rome,
217, 244, 254, 270, 306, 3M, 388,
499; abbot, 256; founder of monas-
teries, 307, 305 ; death, 402.
Benedict I, pope, 41, 44.
Benedict II, pope, 391, 395, 440, 450,
453. 4^.
Benedict, St., 80.
Benedictine Rule, 168, 249, 307, 401,
442.
Benedietiun, acts of, 167, 219, 234;
episcopal, in the mass, 64, 103, 156.
Ben Nevis, 1 5.
Bensington, battle of, 29, 351.
BeorwiJd, 422.
Berchtun, 392.
Berghamstyde (Bearsted, Berkhamp-
stead), 427.
Berkshire, 39, 172, 182, 469.
Bemhaeth, Pictish leader, 267.
Bemicia (Bryneich, Berneth), king-
dom of, 28, 39 ; united with Deira,
123, 186; Paulinus baptizes in,
137 ; Eanind, king of, 147 ; Oswy,
king of, 179; a separate diocese,
332.
Bemwin, 394.
Bert (Beret, Briht), 372.
Bertfrid (Berhtfrith), 459.
Bertgils, see Boniface.
Bertha, queen, 46, 54, 55, 77. 114.
Berthwald, sub-king, 340, 34T, 415.
Bertwald (Berctwald, Biihtwald),
archbishop, 422, 427, 420, 439, 441,
450 fl^, 455. 458-4^, 462.
Betti, mission-priest, 194.
Beverley, 399.
Birinus, St., 168-172, 183, 199, 299.
Bishops, election of, 491 ; consecra-
tions, 60, 66, 67, 107, 1 55, 156, 196.
241, 254, 261 ; Roman theory as
to 'astdstants,' 245; resident in
monasteries, 157.
Bisi, bishop of Dun wich, 259, 276, 285.
Blackwator, river, 197.
Blmoca of lincoln, 139.
Boadicea, 3.
Bodleian library, MS. in, 77.
Boisil, prior, 45, 214, 215, 239, 374,
375-
Bouifaoe, archdeacon of Rome, 219,
330.
Boniface (Bertgils), bishop of Dun-
wich, 199, 241, 244, 259.
Boniface, missionary to Picts, 468.
Boniface IV, pope, 79, 113.
Boniface V, pope, 124, 131.
BonifisMM, Roman counsellor, 451.
Bonifinoe, St., 12, 63, 108, 144, 354,
371, 418, 469, 471.
* Bookland,' 307.
Books, <the first-fruits of English
Church's,* 77; procured by Bisoop,
271, 355> 4^.
Boructarians (Bructerians), 419.
Boea, Wshop of York, 320, 322, 334,
396, 414, 443, 447, 453, 458, 460.
Bosel, bishop of Worcester, 349, 350,
408,415.
Bosham, (rish monks at, 342.
Boston, 206.
'Bdts,' 103, 411.
Botulf, St., 174, 206, 308.
Boulogne, 113.
Bradford-on-Avon, monastery at, 444.
Bradon, 28.
Bradw€d1-on-the-Sea, 197.
Braga, councils of, 63, 277.
Bran the Blessed, legend of, 3.
Brancaster, 12.
Breaca, St., 3a
Brecknock, 85, 86.
Bregh, plain of, 372.
Bretons, j5, 37.
'Bretwalda,* the, 46, 84, loi, 119, 135,
169, 249.
Bribery, 164, 320, 337.
Brie (Brige), convent at, 174.
Bristol Channel, the, 85.
Britannia, Prima and Secnnda, 10, x i .
British bishops, 36 ff.
British Churoh, 1-39, 112, 275, 465,
467 ; did not grow into, but became
part of, English, 112, 481, 498.
BriUsh martyrs, 7, 25, 30.
5IO
Index.
Britons, 35. 36, 38, 39, 70, 84, 89, 90,
III, 112; their saffiaring from
heathen 'Saxons,* 25; hatred of
Christian 'Saxons,* 112, 147, 465.
Brixworth, 12.
Brocmail (Brocmael), Welsh king, 98.
Broomridge, 338.
Broide, Pictish king, 375.
Bnmanbuigh, 399.
Brunichild (or Brunehaut), queen, 50,
78.
Brychan, ' family of,' 25.
Brythonic invadon of Wales, 16, 24,
28.
Backinghamshire, 171.
Buighcastle (Cnobheresborg), 27, 144.
Borghelm, priest, 341.
Bnigondy, Bargundians, 49, 50, 142,
1^4, 230, 255, 326.
Bunan, St., 30.
C.
Cadoc, St., 33, 3^, 36.
Cadvan, Wdsh king, 121.
Gadwalader, the 'Blessed,* 152, 391.
Cadwalla, king of Wessex, 391 £r. , 402-
404, 409, 477.
CadwaUon (Cadwalla), WeLuh king,
Caecilia's, St., at Borne, 420.
CsBdmon, 312.
Cselin, priest, 198.
Caerleon, 8, 10-12,37, 38> 85,86,497.
Caer Worgom, 34.
Caesarios, St., 55, 60, 64, 80.
Calamity, overruled for g^od, 181 ;
misused by apostasy, 238.
Calpumius, deacon, 14.
Cam, the, 432.
Cambodunum, 138.
Cambridgeshire, 286, 365.
Campodonum, 138, 146.
Camulodunum, 8, 10.
Candida Casa (Whithem), 15, 444.
Candidus, 44, 45.
Canonical hours, offices of, 288, 315,
370j 387* 390, 398, 40a-
Canons, a oollection of, 277 ; know-
ledge of, 381, 441.
Canterbury, 11, 12, 54-57, 124; arch-
bishopric of, 60, 76, 256, 423, 468 ;
its influence long limiled, 107, 200 ;
cathedral, 61, 217, 256, 423, 430,
472 ; abbey of SS. Peter and Paul,
104, 113, 249, 299; school, 143, 271,
294, 296, 399» 4i^» 4«9-
Captives, ransomed, 382.
CaractacuB, 3.
Caractonium, 137.
Cardigan, 30, 35.
Carlisle, 61, 374, 375, 383, 499.
Carthagh, Irish teacher, 184.
Cartmel, 375.
Cassocks, 7, 454.
Catechumenate, the, 134.
Catisgual, see Heavenfield.
Catterick, 137, 138, 150, 187.
Catwic, harbour, 418.
Cearl (Ceorl), Mercian king, 128, 146.
Ceawlin, West-Saxon king, 28, 39,
85. 405.
Cedd, East-Saxon bishop, 194-197,
305, a37» 241, 481.
Celchyth, council of, 52.
Celestine I, pope, 17, 18, 324, 491.
Celibacy, 64 ; overvalued, 287.
Celidonius, case of, 324.
Celin, prior, 477.
Cellach (Ceollach), Mercian bishop,
206, 208.
Celtic Church, 34, 38, 86-92, 167,
196; no model for English, 222,
332.
Ceolfrid, abbot, 206, 246, 308, 354*
364, 367, 389* 40a, 438, 468.
Ceolred, kiig of Mercia, 477, 478.
Ceolric (Ceol), 39.
Cerdic, king of Loidis, 123.
Cerdic, West-Saxon king, 26, 28, 170,
181, 183, 210, 311.
Chad, St. (Ceadda), 162; abbot of
Lastingham, 238; bishop of York,
244 ff. ; relations with Theodore,
259 ff., 489 ; retires to Lastingham,
260 ; bishop of Lichfield, 262 ;
deaUi and burial, 265, 266; 316,
330, 368, 388.
Chalcedon, council of, 64, 274, 278,
280, 323, 358.
Chalon, 50, 423.
Chanting, 53, 240, 249, 269, 354, 402,
^442, 447-
Charibert, Prankish king, 46.
Charles the Great, 418.
Chelles, convent at, 174.
Chertsey, monastery of, 293, 424.
Cheshire, 29.
Chester, 8, 98, 207.
Cheviots, the, 137.
Chichester (Cissascssster), a, 34a.
Childebert, 49.
Children in monasteries, 201, 347.
*ChiRho,* 12.
Chlodwig (Clovis) I, 57, 487.
Chlodwig (Clovis) II, 220.
Chlotair I, 46, 50, 242.
Chlotair II, 51. 78.
Chlotair III, 220, 242.
Christmas, 82, 288, 305.
Chrodobert, bishop of Paris, 209.
Chrysostom, St., 14, 257.
Church and State, 102, 103, 410.
Church-building materials, ai, 136,
Index.
511
138, 166. 189, 191, 199, 333, 238,
267, 307. 353, 353» 40o» 433, 473-
Chmvh endowments, 31, 103, 363, 3o8|
27a, 394, 429.
ChuTcheB, English, moulded into one,
257-
Church furniture, 76, 367, 268, 307,
355. 454^ 473.
Church revenues, distnbution of, 63.
Church-scot, 411.
Cilida^ 353, 381.
Cirencester, 39, 84, 85, 146.
Cissa, sub-king, 398.
CiTilization and Christianity, 345.
Claudia^ 2.
Claudian, 33, 34.
Clement (Willibrord), 431.
Clement, St., of Rome, I, 106.
' Clementines,* the ^edse, 464.
Clerical dress, 7, 454.
Clerics, inferior, 64.
Cloisters, 107,
Clonard, school of, 36, 184.
Clovesho (aofeehoch, Cliff-at-Hoe),
councils of, 40, 53, 55, 380, 357, 496.
Clyde, the, 39.
'Coarb'-» successor, 154.
Cocboy or Coed way, 175.
Coelestius, 15.
Coelian hill, monastery on, 45, 48, 63.
Coifi, 133, 134.
Colchester, 10, 1 1.
Coldingham, convent of, 313, 370,
387-390, 339, 491.
Colman^ bishop of lindisfame, 3ii,
315, 231-333.
Cologne, 430.
Columba, St., ^, 36, 43, 45, 53, 59,
81, 154, 150, 167, 339, 379, 416,
468, 409.
* Columbau monks ' banished, 468.
Columban, St., 31, 33, 43, 45, 109-
III, 158, 197, 305.
Comgall, 33, 33.
* Comites,' 53, 187.
Conmiendatory letters, 379.
Communicants, status of, 411, 439.
Communion, 315, 347, 387.
Community life, 64, 313, 333.
Compibgne, 341.
'Complaints' of Gildas, 33.
Compromises with Paganism, 1 19, 486.
Compulsion not to be used in the
cause of faith, 58.
Confession, 340.
Confirmation, 91, 369, 383, 411.
Congresbury, 474.
Consistency of conduct with teaching,
56, 57, 161, 373, 381, 383, 483.
Constans II, emperor, 353, 359.
Constantino (Cystennyn), British
king, 31.
Constantino the Great, I3, 77, 88, 330.
Constantino IV, emperor, 255, 335.
Constantino, pope, 478.
Constantinople, 41, 44, 48, 65, 77,
278, 335, 355 ; councU at, 363.
Constantius I, emperor, 9, 37, 78.
ConstantiuB IE, emperor, 13.
Constantius of Lyons, 17-23, 79.
Conversion, technical monastic sense
of, 279.
Conway, 34.
Coquet, river, 373.
Coiinium, 85.
Corinth, 69.
Corman, 155.
Cornwall, missions to, 30; Britons*
flight to, 38 ; bishops in, 345.
Coroticus, 30.
' Cosmographers, the,* 380.
Councils, genend, 359; provincial,
274 ff-. 333, 334-
Crayford, 36.
Crayke, 374.
Crediton, 354, 467.
Cross, sign of the, 334, 315, 439, 443.
Crosses, 34, 53, 55, 138, 148, 445,
474.
Crosthwaite, 34.
Crowland, 431.
Cuckhamsley (Cwichelm'shlsew), 173,
182.
Cumberland, 39, 34.
Cumbria, 14, 39, 30, 34, 35, 141, 374.
Cumine, abbot of Hy, 333.
Cummian, Irish teacher, 1 13, 184, 193.
Cunedda, 16, 34, 30, 31.
Cuneglas, 31.
Cunobelin, 8.
Cursing, by Celts, 373.
Cuthb^d, monk, 393.
Cuthbert, St. (Cuthberht), 176, 314-
316; prior of Melrose, 339, 340;
visits Coldingham, 389 ; prior of
Lindisfarne, 300 ff. ; hermit on
Fame, 303, 367, 373; bishop of
Lindisfame, 374; his episcopate,
380 ff. ; retires to Fame, 384 ; last
days and death, 385 ff., 397, 398,
434, 499 J 1*>* ^^y found, 437.
Cnthred, sub-king, 172, 183, 210.
Cuthwin, bishop of Leicester, 349, 350,
408, 415.
Cuthwulf, 39.
Cwenburga (Cwenburh), first wife of
Edwin, 138.
Cwichelm, bishop of Bochester, 300.
Cwichelro, sub-king, 139, 146, 173.
Cycles, 87, 324, 464.
Cynric, West-Saxon, 38.
Cyprian, St., 8, 32, 252.
Cyril, St., of Alexandria, 89.
Cyrus of Alexandria, 359.
512
Index.
D.
Dagan, Irish bishop, ii i, 158, 466.
Ds^bert I, king, 343.
Dagobert II, king, 270, 336, 329, 336.
Dalfinus, oount» 3 18.
Dahiada, Scottish kingdom of, 9 7, 378.
Damian, bishop of Bochester, 3 1 1, 337 ,
341, 492.
Danes, 182.
Daniel, St., bishop of Bangor, 34, 35.
Daniel, bishop of Winchester, 469-
471.
Dante, 83, 144.
David, St., 33-37, 85, 86, 1 58, 245, 467.
David's, St., 33, 37, 38, 85.
Deacons, 137, 366.
Dead, prayers for the, 187, 340, 363.
Death, sadden, deprecated, 401 ; cases
of happy, 189, 365, 316, 363, 371,
387. 425, 474, 479-
Decurions, the, 14.
Deda, abbot of Partney, 1 38.
Dedication of churches, 61, 79, 309,
367.323,333.377,4"-
Dee, the river, 30, 135.
Degsastone (D8^;8a8tan, Dawston),
battle of, 97.
Deheabarth or South Wales, 85, 465.
Deira (Deifyr, Deur), conquest of, 38,
38 ; slave-boys from, 43, 75 ; Edwin,
heir of, 1 33 ; Paulinus resident in,
137; Osric, king of, 147; Oswin,
king of, 179, 185 ; Ethedwald, sub-
king in, 198 ; Alchfrid, sub-king in,
315, 321, 340; Alfwin, sub-king in,
340 ; a separate diocese, 322.
Demetia, 31, 85, 465.
Denbigh, 85.
Denisbum, 152.
Denis, St., abbey of, 157.
Deodatus, Frankish bi&op, 329.
Deorham, battle of, 29.
Derbyshire, 22.
Dereham, 175.
Derry, 59.
Derwent^ the, 30, 135.
Derwentwater, 305, 383.
Deterioration in &iglish Church, 234,
235, 480, 487, 488.
Deusdedit (Frithona), archbishop, 199,
241,244,492.
Devon, 30, 31, 465, 467.
Dewsbury, 138.
Diana, altar of, 100.
Dicul, Irish abboty 342, 343.
Dilston, Z52.
Dinoot, abbot, 33, 94-96.
Dioceses, Gregory's scheme for, 75 ;
Theodore's plan of multiplying,
281, 285, 318; Scotic church with-
out, 154.
Diocletian, 36, 124.
Dionysius, St., of Alexandria, 87.
Dionydus Eziguus, 89, 224, 277.
Disappointments, 59, 99, 1 78, 1 79, 483.
Discrimination in teaching, 241, 305,
381.
Diseases, various, 310, 311.
Diuma, Mercian bidiop, 194, 204, 206.
Divorce and re-maniage, 282, 491.
I>ol, 35. 37-
Domneva, see Ermenburga.
' Donatism, 9, 44, 261.
Doncaster, 138.
Dorchester (Dorodna, Dorcio), 170,
171, 181, 183, 210, 299, 349, 351.
Dorset, 27, 171, 469.
Double monasteries, 213, 390, 293,
3", 353.
Double procession of the Holy Ghost,
360.
Dover, 126, 430.
Dress, love of rich, 289, 302, 380, 491.
Driffield, 457.
Drinking habiU, 428, 432, 445, 491.
Drybuigh, 314.
Drythelm, 144, 380, 495.
DubriciuB, St. (Dyfrig), 35-37, 85,
345, 467-
* Duke,' title of, 19, 133, 336.
Dulting, church at, 474.
Dumnonia or Damnonia, 11, 353, 463.
Dunawd, 33.
Dunbar, 339, 415.
Dunbarton (Dunbritton, Alduid), 14,
30. 378.
Dunnichen (Dunnechtan), battle of,
377.
Dunod, see Dinoot.
Dunwich, see of, 143, 181, 190, 241.
Durham, 374, 388.
Durobrivs, see Rochester.
Durooomovium, see Cirencester.
Durovemum, see Canterbury.
Durrow, 59.
Dyfed, see Demetia.
I^fnaint, kingdom of, 463.
Dyfng, see DubriduB.
Dyvan, St, 4.
£.
Eaba, South-Saxon queen, 210, 342.
Eadbald, king of Kent, 66, 114-119,
124, 172, 193,483.
Eadbert, bishop of Lindisfame, 191,
397,400,409,437.. ,. ^
Eadfrid, bishop of Lindis&me, 437,
458.
Eadfrid, son of Edwin, 128.
Eadhed (Eadhsed), bishop of Lindsay
and of Bipon, 244, 320, 322, 334,
340,34^350,391,396,413.
Index.
513
Eadric, Q8arper/393, 405.
Eadwalf, usurper, 457-459.
* £a1donnen/ 133, 307, 340, 345, 39a,
410, 459.
Eanfled, queen of NoriHumbria, 129,
130, 148, 187, 19a, 193, ai6, a 17,
479.
Sanfrid, king of Bemioia, ia3, 147.
Eanfrid, of Hwiccia, a 10.
Eanhere, of Hwiooda, a 10.
Eanswith, St., 126.
Eappa, abbot of Selsey, 341, 346.
EarU, 458, 460.
Kasingwold, 138.
East-Anglia, 38, 39 ; Christianity in,
»4^-»44» i8i, 190, aoo, 205, 363,
285, 334» 357» 409* 456, 482.
East-Saxons, 27, 39 ; first mission to,
lOO, loi, 117 ff.; second, 195-197,
ac5 ; relapse among, and third mis-
sion to, 238-347.
Easter day, 163 ; question of caloula-
Uon of, la, 86-90, no, 157, 165,
184, loi, 19a, aia, ai5, 224 if.,
378, 46a ff.
Easter eve, ai, 129, 134, 404.
Easterfield (Estrefeld;, council of,
439 ff» 451, 459-
Eastern Church, the, 5, 6, 44, 69, 70,
90, 164.
Easterwiiie (Eosterwini), abbot, 309,
Eata, abbot and bishop, 214, 215,
33^, 330, 333, 334» 3^» 374. 39',
39^-
Ebba, abbot, 477.
£bba, St. (^bbe), 313, 370, 387, 289,
3", 339*347.
Ebbefleet, iz, 51.
Ebohester, 213.
Eboraoom, see York.
Kborius^ bishop of York, 9, 10.
Ebroin, aao, 355, 336, 328, 336.
Eclectidsm in ritual, 65.
' Ecthesis,* the, 359.
Eddi (iEdde, Hsedde, St^hen), ai8,
ai9, 340, a66, 319, 356.
Edgar, btshup of Lindsey, 456.
Edinburgh, 135, 160, 377.
Education combined with religion, 143.
Edwin (Eadwine), king of North-
umbria, a8, 39, 84, 98, lao if.;
character of, 130 ; baptism of, 134;
power of, 135, 169, 193, 195, 241,
310, 48a ; iieath, 146.
Egbert (Ecgbert, Ecgbriht), arcli-
bishop of York, 335, a8i, 316, 480.
Egbert, king of Kent, 337, 248, 355,
373, 374.
Egbert^ priest, aia, 371, 416, 417,
469.
Egfnd (Ecgfrid, Egferth), king of
Northambria, aooession of, a(S6;
grants to church, 371, 306, 361 ;
quarrel with Wilfiid, 317, 330,
337 ; wars with Merchms, 391, 340;
with Picts, 360, 364, 373 ; attacks
Irish, 371 ; defeat and death, 375-
377.
Egric (Ecgric), king of East- Angles,
173.
Egwin, St. (Ecgwin), 436, 435, 436.
478.
Elbod, bishop of Bangor, 37, 1 13, 467.
Eleutherus, 3 ff.
Eifled (ifilfled), princess and abbess,
30I, 303, 364, 373. 384, 395, 457,
458-460.
Elfirida, abbess of Repton, 433.
Ella (iEUe), king of Deira, 38, 39,
43» "o-
Ella, South-Sazon king, 36, 343.
Elmete, 38, 133, 146.
Elmham, see of, 285, 409, 433, 456.
EWan, St., 4.
Ely, convent of, 174, 313, a86, 409.
Emmo, archbishop of Sens, 255.
English kings visiting Rome, 404.
Eni, 173.
Eoda, priest, 406.
Eonan, 349.
Eoi-pwald, king of East- Angles, 141,
195, 483.
Ephesus, councils of, 70, 379, 331.
Episcopacy, in British church, 33;
recognized at Hy, I55-I57-
Episcopate, English, descent of, 354,
433.
Eroonbert ^Earoonberct, Erconberht),
king of Kent, 173, 175, 199, 317,
237.
Eruongota (Earoongotn), nun, 175.
Erkenwald, St. (Earconwald), 393 ff.,
395, 408, 410, 433.
Ermenbut^ (Domneva), wife of
Merewald, 175, ao8, 373.
Ermenburga (Irminburg, Eomien-
burh), queen of Northumbria, 318,
337, 3.^9, 341. 375, 383.
Ermeiigith, 175.
Ermenild (Eormengilda), queen and
abbess, 175, 308, 456.
Ermenred (Eormenreid), sub-king, 175,
308, 27a.
Escwin (.i'Escwine), king in Wessez,
374, 391, 297.
Staples (Queiitavic\ 256.
Ethelbald, king, 478.
Ethelberga (ifidilberg), abbess, 1 74.
Etiielbert (iEthelberlit, iEihe1hriht\
king of Kent, 28, 39, 46, 51;
baptism of, 57, 100, 113 ; deaUi of,
114; 195, 482.
Ethelbert, prince, 27a, 291.
Ll
5H
Index.
Ethelburga (^thelburh, Tftia), wife
of Edwin, 126, 131, 136, 149, 193,
Ethelbargs, abbeiis, 293.
Etheldred, St. (ifidilthryd, ^tbel-
drybt). 174, 263, 268, 270, 28^ 317,
339, 45^-
Etheldritb, 175.
Eihelfrid (.CdiLfrid, JSthelfrith). king
of Beraicia, 28, 39, 46, 97-99, 121,
I93» 310.
Ethelhere (iEdilberi), EastnAnglian
king, 200, 203, 206, 285.
< Ethelhun' (Edilliun), student, 912.
Ethelings, 123.
Ethelmund, sub-king, 206.
Etbelred (^thelred, JBdibred), king
of Mercia, accession, 291 ; religi-
ousness of, 409; invades Kent,
29^; defeats Egfrid, 340; expels
Wilfrid, 341 ; promotes Church
interests in Merda, 349-352, 416;
befriends Wilfrid, 396, 415, 431,
443 ; becomes a inonk, 455.
Ethelred, prince, 272.
Ethelric, king of Bemicia, 39, 121.
Ethelwalch, king of Sussex, 210,341,
343. 346. 39a-
Ethel wald (Oidilwald), sub-king in
Deira, 198, 201, 215, 244.
Ethelwin (JBdilwini), bishop of Sidnii-
cester, 349, 350. 409.
Ethelwin, reeve, 187.
Ethelwold, king of East- Angles, 206.
Etherius (iEtherius), archbishop of
Lyons, 49, 60.
Eucharist, the Holy, 40 ; celebrated
weekly, 167 ; daily, 420 ; as a
sacrifice, 116, 420.
Eugenius I, pope, 219, 330.
Eulogius of Alexandria, 60.
Eumer, murderous attempt by, 1 29.
Eusebius, on Britain, 2.
Evesham, monastery of, 435, 436, 478.
Excommunication, 205, 208, 443 459.
Exemptions of monasteries, 104, 113,
279. 299. 334» 354-
Exeter (Caer Wise), monasteiy of,
353-
Eynsham, 29.
P.
Fagan, St., 4.
Failure, a sense of, 343, 417.
Fall, doctrine of the, 16.
'Familia,' used for inhabitants of a
hyde, 182 ; for a monastic society,
477-
Family benefices, 401.
Family piety, 181, 482.
Famine, 344.
Fan», abbess, 1 74.
Fame island, 162, 180, 303, 373-375»
384. 434-
Faro, biiihop of Meaux, 255.
Fastidius, bishop, 17.
Fasting, usages as to, 98, 162, 167,
i99» 290, 421, 428.
Feliskirk, 181.
Felix of Jarrow, 431.
Felix, bishop of Messana, 45.
Felix, 8t„ bishop in East-Anglia, 142-
156, 163, 181, 285,482.
Felix III or IV, pope, 79.
Felixstowe, 181.
F^n countiy, the, 177, 181, 286, 432.
* Feoh ' or property, 103.
Ferramere, 353.
Festivals, the chief, 288; Reman
scheme of, 356,
Fictiiious miracles, 73.
• Filioque,' the, 360, 361.
Finnn, bishop of Lindisfame, 190-2 1 1 ,
221, 322, 400-
Finchale, 237.
Finnian of Glonard, 36, 59, 185.
Finnian of Moville, 59.
Firth of Forth, 364, 377,
Flavia Caesariensis, 11.
Flintshire, 22, 33, 85.
FloreAce of Worcester, 342, 349 ff.
Folkestone, 126, 430.
« Folkland,' 307,
Forfar, 377.
Forth, the, 15, |8, 135.
Forthere, bishop of Sherborne, 474.
Fotite, an idol, 421.
Frankish race, 39 ; artificers, 307 ;
bishops and clergy, 46, 49, 69, 183,
24»» 275, 329, 487 ; kings, Ac., 46,
49} 370> 418; monasticism, 174;
schools, 142,
Fredegond, Frankish queen, 51.
Friesland CFrisia), 178, 327, 417, 418,
449* 470-
Pngydi abbess of Haokness, 303.
< Frith,* sense of, 103.
Frithona, see Deusdedit.
Frithwold, sub-king, 293.
Frome, monastery at, 444.
Funeral rites, 177, 362, 388, 407, 474,
^79-
Fursey, St. (Fursa), 27, 56, 143, 173.
G,
Gaelic Celts, 24.
' Gai, field of,' 202.
Gainsborough, 350.
Gangra, council of, 277.
Garianonum, 27, 144.
Index.
515
'GarmAns,' 337.
Gateshead, monastery at, 188.
Gunl, Britons evangelized from, 5;
missions from, 17, 22 ; coia-nptions
in church of, 44, 248 ; hierarchy of,
46t 59} 68, 209, 422 ; Easter rule
of. So, 192 ; liturgy and usages of,
32, 64, 92, 242.
Gftvidius, 13.
G«bmund, bishop of Rochester, 300,
408, 423, 427, 429.
Gelasius I, pope, 63, 65.
Genesis, cUfficulties as to, 447, 475.
Genoa, 168.
Gentleness, Ghri8tian,hated by pagans,
305.
Geography, study of, 499.
Geraint (Geruntius), king of Dy fnaint,
463-466.'
German, St., 17-23, 32, 35, 60, 69,
"3-
Germany, 13, 80, 354.
' Gesiths,' see * Comites.'
Gildas, 9, 13, 24.
Gilling, 187, 208, 212, 308.
Giudi, 202.
Glamorganshire, 34, 86.
Glasgow, 29, 34.
Glass in churches, 267, 307.
' Glassy isle,' see Avaion.
Glastingea, 473.
Glastonbury, 3. 11, 33, 352, 353»473.
500.
Gleemen, 312.
Glen, river, 137.
* Gloria Patri,^ the, 37 1.
Gloucester, 4, 28, 84, 85, 210, 352,
416.
Gods of Saxons, 25, 169.
Godwin, archbishop of Lyons, 422.
Gontram, 237.
Goodmanham (Godmundingaham),
133.
Gospels, copies of the, 268, 413, 437 ;
reading of the, 217, 370, 402.
Grace, doctrine of, 17, 75.
Gradual training of converts, 80.
Grammar, study o( 470.
Granta, Grantdiester, 289, 433.
Greek, knowledge of, 252, 272, 294,
429.
Greensted, 166.
Gregorian mission, seeming failure of,
124.
Gregory the Great, St, 18-20, 22, 23,
40-46, 52-82, 242 ; powers claimed
by, 70; 'disciples' of, 141, 190,
249.
Gregory VII, 71.
Gregory, St., of Neocaesaiea, 81.
Gregory of Tours, 242, 485.
Grimoald, 3 29b.
L
Guthlac, St, 431 ff., 487.
Gwent, 35, 85.
Gwrgan Varvtruch, 12.
Gwynedd, 85, 145, 157, 467.
Gyrvians, 181, 206, 263, 286, 365.
Hackness (Hacauos), 363.
Hadrian's Wall, 11, 194.
Hadrian, abbot, 251, 255, 256, 271,
a94» a95> 361, 408, 473, 493.
Hadufiid, 477.
Hampshire, 169, 210, 342, 469, 470.
Hanbury, nunnery at, 456.
Hartlepool (Heruten), nunnery at,
188, 203, 212, 310.
' Hateful year,' the, 147.
HatBeld (Hiethfelth), in Yorkshire,
battle at, Z46.
Hatfield, council of, 357 ff.
Healaugh, 188.
Hean, 298, 473,
Heavenneld, battle of, 151, 378.
Hecana, 207, 300.
Hedda, bishop of Lichfield, 415.
Heddi (Hseddi), bishop of Winchester,
183, 397, 299, 351, 353, 408, 410,
462, 469, 471.
Hein, abbess, i38, 312, 310.
Helena, St, 77.
Heligoland, 421.
Hen^rilB, abbot, 353, 473.
Hengist, 51, 405.
HeracUuB, 359.
Herbert, St (Hereberht), 305, 383.
Hereford, 300, 350, 408, 423.
Herefrid, abbot, 384 ff.
Hereric, 123.
Hereswid, 123, 174, 310.
Heresv, Bedels hoiTor of, 369.
Hermit life, 94, 290, 303-306, 388,
432-434-
Hertford (Herutford), council and
canons of, 274-283, 334, 413, 490.
Hewalds, the| martyrs, 419.
Hexham (Hagulstad), church of, 151,
268, 269, 272, 308. 322, 346, 364,
373, 374. 39'» 396. 4"» 447> 450*
460, 474-476, 479-
Hiddila, priest in Isle of Wight»
394
Hilary of Aries, 60, 324.
Hilary, St, 2, 13, 17.
Hilary, pope, 89, 331.
Hilda, St. (Hild), abbess, 123, 135,
174, 188, 203, 212, 223, 310, 395,
415 ; death of, 363.
' Himation,' the, 68.
Hippo, council of, 280.
HippolytuB, 87.
Hoe (Hoo), 380, 430.
12
5^6
Index.
HonoratoB, 5a.
Honorius, archbishop, 140, 143, 156,
182, 190, 199, 341.
Honorins I, pope, 148, 149, 168.
Hope of saooew de'erred, 1 30.
Hospitality in monastic Ufe, 315, 304.
* Hoasel/ the, 411, 439.
* Hrofs castle,' loi, 182.
Humber, the, 11, 43, 135. 139, 160.
Humility, in kings, 153, 186.
Huna, priest, 388.
Hunwald, count, 187.
Hwiccians, .39, 56, 84, 85, 210, 34a,
349» 3nO. 352. 4i^» 433.
Hy (loolmkill, lona), monastery of,
59, 86, 109, iia, 143, 154, 157, 166,
186, 190, 193, 194, 206, 211, 331,
333, 390, 394, 343, 379, 467, 468.
' Hyde ' (hid), extent of the, 183.
I.
Ida, king, 27, a8, 170, 311.
Idle, battle of the, xi, 133, 37S.
Idnerth, 35.
Idolatry, forbidden, 81, 173, x 73, 438 ;
argument against, 133, X33, 195.
Ikanno, 306, 308.
Illtyd, St., 34, 467.
Imma, thane, 340.
Immortality, Teutonic craving fur,
133, 193-
Inconsistencies in character, 193, 198.
Indictions, the, 48 357.
Ine (Ini), king, 39. 405, 409-41 1,
444-
Infants, baptism of, 41 1.
Infeppingum, 306.
Ingelbome, 394.
Inisboffin (Initfboufinde), 233.
Iniskeltra, 184.
Innocent III, 71.
Instruction before baptism, 137, 139,
3^7. 394-
Interpreting, 53, 163, 335, 355.
Introduction of Christiavnity into
Britain, i.
lona, see Hy.
Ipswich, 181.
Irenaeus, St., 5, 50.
Irish, early Cbri&tianity of, 18;
Church, monastic and tribal, 332,
394, 417; nussionaries, 3c, 109,
343; learning and study among,
183, 313, 350, 371, 418; contrasts
in character, 1 S3, 232, 371 ; Easter
rule of, 89, I X I ; adopt ' Catholic
Easter,' 11 3, 468; Northumbrian
attack on, 371.
Ii»tria, schism in, 44, 63.
Ithaniar, bishop of Koohester, 183,
190, 199, an.
J.
James the Deacon, 138, 137, 156,.
192, 233» 356.
Jarrow, monastery of, 306, 365-367,
380, 389, 403, 438.
Jaruman, Mercian bishop, 3oS, 341,
347, 348.
Jerome, St., 7, 14, 16, 17, 19, 33, 68,
78, 106, 317.
Jerusalem, 35 1 46, 87.
Jews, 43. 87.
John, abbot, 113.
John, archbishop of Aries, 355.
John, biographer of Gregory, 40.
John, patriarch of Constantinople, 44.
John, Roman notary, 333.
John TV, pope, II3.
John VI, po|>e, 449 ff., 460.
John, the Prectntor, 354, 355, 358,
362. 365.
John, St., the Apostle, 32, 90, 225,
339. 370-
John, St., the Baptist, 82.
John, St., of Beverley, 53, 73, 397-
399, 409, 443, 453, 458, 460.
Joseph of Arimaihaea, legend of, 3.
Jndeu, see Giudi.
Judgement, the Lant, 351, 356, 370.
J udgements, the Divine, 391 , 369, 376.
Julian, emperor, 78.
Jnlius, martyr, 8, 11.
Justinian, reign of, 336.
Justus, archbiwhop, 63, loi, 102, 107,.
117, 119, 134 ff. ; death of, 140.
Jutes, 46.
K.
Kaiserwerih, 419.
Kenred, king of Mercia, 291, 456,.
477, 478.
Kenspid, widow, 314.
Kent, Augustine lands in, 51 ; con-
versions in, 58 ff. ; invasion of, 40a;
kingdom of, 36, 39, 46, 135, 405.
411 ; monastidsm in, 373, 308.
Kentigem, St., 14, 39, 34.
Kentwin, king of WebSex, 397, 341,
391 » 39a.
Kenwaldi (Coinwalch,Cenwa1h), king
of Wessex, 180-183, 300, 308-210,.
331, 347, 373, 397, 353, 393, 483.
Kenwald, monk, 330.
Kildare, convent at, 157, 313.
Kilmuine, see Menevia.
Kiueswith, nun, daughter of Penda,
193, 478. .
Kings, genuine religiousness of, 483 ;
prayed for, 438.
Kirkmadrine, sculptures at, 15.
Kirton in Lincolnshire, 3o6.
Index.
517
KymrimiM or Cymrj, 30.
KynegilS) king of WeiBex, 139, 146,
169.
Kynibert, abbot, 393.
Kynibil, priest, 199.
Kynibnrga (Cyneburh), daughter of
Penda, 193.
Kyniborga the younger, 35a.
Kyaiirid, phyueiaa, 288.
Kyuor, 34a.
Kynwise, queen of Meroia, aoa
L.
Lammermoor, 375.
Lancashire, 29, 375.
Land's End, 11.
Lands of British clergy, 41 a.
Laatocal, 353.
Laodioea, councdl of, 278, a8o.
IrfMtingham, monastery of, 198, si a,
a33t 238, a63, 364.
Lateran, church of the, 61, 330;
council of the, 355.
Latin Church, spirit and influence of,
aaa, 33a, 466.
Latrocinium, the, see Epheeus.
Laurenoe, archbishop, 6a, 105-107,
109-1 1 1, 113, 115; dream of, 117;
death of, 1 34.
Laurence, St., deacon, 49.
Laws, Ethelbert'ft, 102; Ine*s, 410;
Wihtred's, 437.
Laymen, active in the conversion,
48a.
Leicester, see of, 349, 350^ 408, 415,
423, 431-
Lenten fast, enforcement of, 173;
observance of, 19a, 199, 401.
Leo the Great, 44, 60, ($4, 88, 325.
Leo III, pope, 45.
Leodegar (St Leger), 326.
Leominster, convent of, 273.
Lerins, isle of, 32, 47, 254, 307.
Leuoopibia, see Candida Casa.
Lichfield, 38, 248, 263 ff., a8i, 337,
349. 350. 415. 49^-
Lilia, self-devotion of, 129.
Uncoln, xii, 10, 11, 139, 17 t, 350.
Lindisfame, see of, 158, 191, 196,
316, 336, 300, 320, 32a, 364, 373-
375i 384 ff-. 39^ 397. 400. 437-
Liiid;tfey, 37; evangelised, 139; then
Northumbrian, 175 ; becomes Mer-
cian, 180; Northumbrian, 303;
Mercian, 307 ; Northumbrian, 267,
291; finally Merotao, 33a, 340,
398 ; Wilfrid's visit to, 455-457»
Ldsmore, school of, 184.
litanies, 53.
Literature, 77, 371, 355, 380, 446.
LitUeborough, zii, 141.
Liturgical matters, 31, 23, 3a, 33, 41.
44, 53, 55, 57, 6». ^4. 65, 69, 91,
103, 104, 167, 317, 323-
Liudhard, bivhop, 46, 54.
Llanafanfaur, bishopric at, 35, 86.
Llanbndarnfaur, 35, 85, 86.
Llancarfan, college at, 34.
Llandaff, bishopric at, 4, 31, 34, 36,
37, 85-
Llanddewi-Brefi, 35, 37.
Llan Elwy, 34.
Llanwit Major, 34.
Local religiousness, 319, a66, 403.
Loe^rwys (Saxons), 39.
Loidis, 133, aoa.
Lombards, Lombardy, 44,63, 168, 329.
'Londinensium,' a corrupt leading, 10,
11.
London, 37, 197, 410; British see of,
10, 38 ; Saxon see of, 100, 197, 347,
293, 423 ; paganism strong in, 101.
Lothere, bishop of Winchenter, 273,
376, 395, 397.
Lothere, king of Kent, 274, 399, 357,
393-
Lothian, aoa, 365, 378.
Loughdeig, 184.
Lucius, kmg, legend of, 3, 4.
Lugubalia, see Carlisle.
Luke, St., commentaries on, 448.
Lupus, bishop of Troyes, 17-19, 3f ,
33, 33.
Luxeuil, III.
Lyminge, 13, 149, 179, 43a
Lyons, 6, 1 7, 33 ; see of, 49, 50, 55, 60,
78, 318, 433 ; councils of, 375, 493.
Maban, chanter, 150.
Maohutus, 35.
Maclovius or Malo, 35.
Maelgwyn, British king, 31, 34-
Maes-Garmon, 33.
Magic, belief in, 5a, 338, 343.
Mailduf (Moeldubh), 394.
Majorius, 15.
Malchion, priest, 376.
Malmesbury, 84, 37a, 395, 410, 444,
46a, 473, 474,
Mamertus, 55.
Man, isle of, 33, 135. 498.
Manual labour of monks, 215, 263,
308, 309, 389, 470.
Manuscripts, 76, 339, 371, 355, 380.
Maroellus of Apamea, 78.
Marcus Aurelius, 5.
Maigam, bishopric at, 86.
Mark, St., 3a, 48.
Marriage, diMspline as to, 65, 305,
a8a.
5i8
Index.
Mftrseilles, 49, 50.
Martud, 2.
Martin I, pope, 253, 331, 355, 358,
359-
Martin V, pope, 71.
Martin, St., 2, 15, 17, ao, 78, 80, 157,
488.
Martinis, St., Canterbury, 54, 55, 57,
62, 78, 80 ; at Rome^ 355 ; at Tours,
m> 355-
Martyrdom, records of, 470; viewed
as a baptism, 8.
Martyrs, British, 8, 25, 30, 496 ;
English, 420, 500.
Mary, queen, 490.
Mary, St., churches named after, 149,
ao3f 439? 435. 455» 47^.
Maserfield, battle of, 175, 176.
Matins, office o^ 315.
Maurice, emperor, 44, 47.
Mavorins, 15.
Maxima Caesariensis, 11.
Mazimian, emperor, 6, 9.
Mayo, 232.
Meatb, East, 372.
Meaux, 174, 255, 454, 475.
Medeshamstede (Peterborough)i 204,
208, 292.
Medicine, study of, 371, 399.
Medway, the, loi.
Medwin, St., 4.
Mellitus, archbishop, 63, 79) 82, 100,
loi, 106, 107, 113, 115, 119, 124,
I94» 393. ^
Mellor. St., 6.
Melrose (Old), 45, 144, 214, 221, 238,
300, 374, 375. 380.
Mendips, the, 30, 353.
Menevia (St. David's), 35, 36, 85,
158.
Meon, 342.
Meonwaras, the, 210, 342.
Merchelm, 193.
Mercda, kingdom of, 38, 145, 180, 200,
291 ; divisions of, 203 ; frontier,
210 ; predominant, 140, 175, 207;
temporarily subject to Northumbria,
203 ; evangelized, 194 ; bishops of,
204, 208, 261, 292 ; diocese divided,
349-
Merewald, sub-king, 193, 207, 272.
Merewin, 208.
MerionethjBhire, 85.
Merovingian dynasty, 418.
Metres, study of, 446, 470.
Metropolitans, Welsh Church with-
out, 37.
Meuse, the, 419.
Michael, St., reverence for, 11, 353,
399i 455* 474-
Mid- Angles, 38, 192-194, 303, 204.
Milan, see of, 168.
Milburga, 208, 273.
Mildred, St., 208, 273, 43a
' Minister,* a, 1 29.
Minor orders, 64.
Minors often passed over, 180, 291.
Minster, oonvent of, 52, 373, 430.
Miracles, stones o^ 20-23, 7^~74* 93»
177, 180, 383.
Misfortune, a means of conversion,
181.
* Missa/ meaning of, 57.
Missionary character, 81 ; zeal, 44,
»09. 343» 4»^. 4i9» 482.
Missions, arguments for, 471 ; and
civilization, 344 ff. ; making for
unity, 190.
Mithras, worship of, 12.
Monasteries, Sootic, 109, 168, 197 ;
in Northumbria, 31 a, 213, 307 ; in
Kent, 272 ; Erkenwald*s, 293 ; dis-
orders in, 278, 290, 480, 490;
Hertford canon on, 278; not to be
secularized, 278,430; kings abdicat-
ing to enter, 424, 455 ; pretended,
428, 490.
Monmouthshire, 85.
Monophysitism, 357.
Monothelite controversy, 253, 335,
^ 356>359»45i-
Montgomery, 85.
Morpeth, 145.
Mounth, the, 15.
Mul, West-Saxon prince, 392, 403,
¥>hi 437-
' Mundbyrd,' the, 438.
Munghu, see Kentigern.
Munster, 192.
Music, 150, 248, 249, 269, 271, 394,
296* 354-356, 369, 447-
Mynyw, see Menevia.
N.
Names, a religious change of, 199,
249,404,420,421.
Natalius, 118.
Natanleod, 26.
Nathaniel, abbot, 63, 249.
Native English bishops, 182.
Nazarites, 464.
■Nechtan (Naiton), Pictish king, 468.
Nechtansmere, 377.
Nen, river, 433.
Nennius, 4, 21, 22, 26-28, 39, 202.
Neocaeearea, canons of, 277.
Neustria, 51, 220, 241, 255, 326,
337-
Newcastle, 194.
Nicene council, the, 12, 66, 88. 89,
105, 192, 225, 274, 276-278, 323,
359. 36»-
Index.
519
Nidd, canncil of the, 458.
Niniwi, St., 14, 15, 169, 444.
Nocturnal oflSce, 315.
Nodder, council of the, 473.
Norfolk, I a, J 7, 119, 385.
Northumberland, 28, 33S1
Northumbria, two kingdoms in> 28,
179; united, 39, 123, 152, 186;
national acceptance of Christianity
^Jt 134 i political greatness of) 123,
1 35) 303; ecclesiastical) 178; in-
vaded by Mercians, 146, i80j 200 ;
political decline of, 378 ; attitude of
church of, in Wilfrid's case^ 391 %
religious decline of, 234, 48<k
Norway, 82, 120.
Norwich, 285.
Nothbert, bishop of Elmham, 456.
Notbelm, 60, 63.
Nottinghamshire, 140.
Novatianism, 67, 261, 465.
Nans' habit, the, 188, 287, 383.
Nutscelles, monastery of, 470.
O.
Oak, St. Augustine's, 84, 497.
Oaths, 36, 329, 458; men in holy
orders excused from, 429.
'Oblate8,*388.
Offa, East-Saxon king, 477.
Oftfor, bishop of Worcester, 56) 272,
415, 416, 423, 426.
Oiddi, priest, 341.
Old Sarum, 472.
Old Testament, questions on the, 447.
Omophorion, the, 68.
Ordinations, 32, 196,^ 221, 253, 254^
269, 311.
Origen, 2, 6, 59, 359.
* Original sin,' 16.
Orkney, 23.
Orleans, councils of, 43, 68, 80.
Orthodoxy of English Church, 335.
Osfrid, reeve, 338.
Osfrid, son of Edwin, 128, 146, 148.
Oshere, Hwiccian sub-king, 297, 349,
351, 433-
Osred, king of Northumbria, 458%
Osric, king of Deira, 147, 179.
Osric, Hwiccian sub-king, 297, 350,
352, 416-
Osthryd, Mercian queen, 176, 341,
431.
Ostia, bishop of, 332.
Oswald, Mercian prince, 35 a.
Oswald, St., 123, i5off. ; character of,
153, 163; marriage of, 16^; death
of, i75» i76» 347» 449» 450, 482.
Oswestry, 175.
Oswin, St., 179, 185, 186,482.
Oswy (Oswiu\ king, 123, 179-186,
1 88, 193 ff., 243, 250; death, 266,
379-
Othona, 197.
OndocbuS) bishop of Llandaff, 36, 73,
Oundle, monastery of, 248, 479.
Oute, the, 27.
Owin (Ouini). 263 ff.
Oxford, 171, 176.
Oxfordshire, 29, 179, 351.
P.
Padam> St., 34^ 467.
Padda^ priest, 34 1.
Psegnaliech, 137^
Paga, reeve, 376.
Paganism, Teutonic, 25, 39, 131, 169 ;
concessions to, 119; rtaction to-
wards, 58, 116, S38) 328 ; survival
of, 78-82, 120, 426, 428, 436;
adaptation of customs of, 81. See
Idolatry.
Paintings^ sacred, 52^ 355, 390,
Palestine, 14.
Pall, the, 68) 14^.
Palladius, St., 19.
Pallinsbum, 137.
Palm Sunday> 19a.
Pancras, St., 62, 250^
Pandon, 194.
Pannonia, 329^
Pantheon at Home, 73 > 253.
Papal claim? and influence, 35, 70-
7a, J59» 233, 250, 251, 3"-335»
337» 39^, 397» 461.
Paris, 37, 46, 51, 66, 157, 174, 2C9,
355- ,
' Parish/ used for diooese, 209, 278,
280.
Parochial system, germs of> 196, 269,
407, 460, 494.
Parret, river, 30, 210, 352V
Paschal question) see ^tster.
' Pastoral Rule' of St. Gregory, 44, 49,
Patience, trials of, 125, 128-, 483.
Patiens, bishop, 17.
Patriarchate, the original Roman, 70.
< Patrician,' title of, 47.
Patrick, St., 14, 21, 3a, 32, 33, 65,
8iv
Patriotic feeling, 369.
Paul, biographer of Gregory, 22, 40.
Paul M£n, 34.
Paul) St., I, 3, 49) 59, 9a, 252, 257,
297, 359-
PnuVs, St., London, ico, 293, 424.
Paul's, St., Rome, 476.
520
Index.
Paulinug, St., 63, 127-150, 162, 167,
182, 310, 482; character and real
effect of his work, 138, 149.
Pavia, 329.
Peada, sub-king in Mercia, 193-204,
206.
Peanfahel, 364
Pecthelm, bisliop of 'Whithem, 444.
Pega, Mster of Guthlac, 433.
PegwcllBay, 51,
PelBgianiFni, 15-22, 35 ; texts in the
controversy, 20.
PelaciuB II, pope, 41, 43, 113.
Pembrokeshire, 85.
Penance, 35, 36, 168, 290, 411.
Penda, king of Mercia, 145, 169, 173,
175. 180, 181, 193, 194, 200-202.
27a. 409* 456 ; » Baying of, 194 ;
slew five kingf , 203 ; death of, 202 ;
his Christian children, 193.
Ptnfahel, 364.
Penitential, see Theodore.
Pent, river, 196, 197.
Penwald, earl, 431.
People, right of, in episcopal elections,
491.
Perctarit (Bertarid), Lombard king,
339- , ,
Pestilence, 'the yellow, 236, 237,
265, 293, 305, 346, 383, 389.
Peter, abbot. 62, 104, 113, Z40.
Peter, St., 32, 69, 93, 117, 183, 464,
465 ; chains of, 20.
Peters, St., at Rome, 61, 331, 354.
Peter of Alexandria, 106.
Pevensey (Anderida), 26.
Philip, St.. 3.
Phocas, 44, 50.
Pickering hills, 198.
Picts, 15, 21, 23, 24, 81, 153, 266,
335» 3^4. 375. 378, 4^8.
Pilgrimage, 14, 266, 380, 403.
Pilkington, bishop, 490.
Pippin. Prankish doke, 418, 420.
Piran, St., 30.
Pins IX, pope, 71.
Playing on names, 43, 143.
Plegwin, monk, 475.
Poly crates, 87.
Pompcnia Graecina, 3.
Ponthieu, 256.
Pontificnl catalogues, 4.
Poor, charity to the, 221, 233, 400,
425-
Popes, 3, 10, 14, 17, 18, 40, 41, 44,
45» 60, 63, 65,69, 71, 79. 124, 148,
I49» '99, 219, 253, 299, 324, 325,
330. 33" » 354» 39^ 403» 449» 478.
Popular saying quoted, 203 ; verses
quoted, see Ballads.
Portus Romanus, bishop of, 332.
Pothinusy bishop, 50.
Potitua, 14.
Powys, kingdom of, 22, 29, 31, 98.
' Praepositus,' oflSoe of, 45, 214.
Preaching, 195, 305, 377, 381, 474.
Precedency, as distinct from supre^
macy of Borne, 70.
Pretiosus, 45.
Priestholro, isle of, 145.
' Privilegia,' see Exemptions.
Processions, 52, 53, 445.
Property of churches, 65, 103.
Prosper, 4, 16-18.
Protasius, bishop, 47.
Provence. 47, 55.
Provincial synodi>, see Councils.
Psalter, devotional use of the, 162, 301,
302, 390, 479 ; versions of the, 217.
Puch, earl, 460.
Pudens, 2.
Purgatory, belief in, 340.
Putta, bishop, 248, 259, 276, 299, 300^
350-
Pyrrhus, 359.
Quartodedmans, 87-90, 112, 227, 464,
466.
Qaeensfeny, 364.
R.
Fadbod, Frisian king, 417, 418.
Radnor, 85.
Raids, 392, 431.
Ramsbury, 472.
Ramsgate, 51.
Ravenna, 23, 44, 69.
Reader, office uf, 4c 2.
Reocared, Spanish king, 277.
Reculver (Regulburh), 51, 60, 272,
422, 430.
Redbridge, 394.
' Redemption of souls, for.' 395, 476.
Rederech (Rhydderc), king, 29, 30.
Redfrid, reeve, 255, 256.
Redwald, king of Eaet-Anglia, 1 19 AT.
Reedford, 394.
Reeves, 58, 59, 187, 255.
Reged, 28, 29.
Regionary bishops. 168.
Regnnm, the town, 343.
Reims. 50.
Relics, 20, 21, 177, 250, 335, 337, 445,
449, 454-
Remains of Bridsh-Christian times,
few, 12, 54.
Rendiesham, 205.
Renunciations, baptismal, 345.
Reordination, question of, 261. 489.
Repton, 38, 213, 432.
Reservation of the Eucharist. 315.
Index.
521
RestitutiM, bishop of London, 9, 245.
Retford, 123.
Retreat, places of devotional, 16a, 303,
400, 401.
Retro«pect of oar national con version,
481-483.
Rhenish Prussia, 419.
Rhine, the, 418, 420.
Khone, the, 49, 142.
Ricbert, 141.
Richborough (Ratupute), ix, 51, 52.
Rioiiner, 47.
Ricola, sister of Ethelbert, 100.
Ripon, 138, 215, 221, 244, 246, 267,
268, 308, 341, 346, 391, 396, 412,
418, 442, 450, 458, 476, 477, 479-
Ritual, see Litargical matters.
Rochester, lox, 1x9, 124, 14S, 190,
199, 272, 280, 299, 351, 423, 427,
429. 430.
Rogations, 55, 103, 237.
Romanns, bishop of Rochester, 124,
140, 192, 223.
Rome, 41, 48, 49, 51, 55, 61, 66, 70,
79, 88, 89, 192, 249, 321 ff., 330.
420, 426, 449, 450 if., 476 ; rule of,
in Britain, traces of, 61, 125, 144,
149? 37^; Ia'^) ^> 397; position
of bishops of, see Papal claims;
Easter rule of, 88, 89, 192 ; visitsi to,
318, 330. 403, 426; not obeyed in
Wilfrid's case, 460; England's in-
debtedness to, 498.
Romney Marsh, 342.
Ronan, 191, 223.
Rosnat, 15.
Rooen, 6, 14, 174, 422.
Rufinianus, 63.
Rum, son of Urbgen, 135.
Rustics, work among, 212, 239, 296.
S.
Sabert (Sigebert), East-Sazon king,
100,115, 195,434.
Sacerdos, a presbyter, 10.
Saoramentaries, 44, 57, 64, 65, 104.
^^acrilege, 65,429*
Sethryd, abbeus, 174.
Snward (Seward), East-Saxon king,
115, 119, 424.
Saints, Irish * orders ' of, 36.
Saints, lives of, 303, 381.
Salvian, 35, 68.
Samaritans, 119, 141.
Sampson, St., of Dol, 35, 37.
Sanctuary, privilege of, 103, 18S, 386,
411, 428.
Sandwich, 243.
Saone, river, 50, 142.
SiArdica, canons of, 13, 88, 278, 280,
a8i» 323.
Sardinia, 58.
Saruin, 28.
Saxon Chronicle, 9, 14, 24, 26, 28, 39,
40.
Saxons, harass Britons, 21-33 ; fierce-
ness of, 24, 25, 47; conquest by, 25-
39, 38, 84; Welsh hatred of, 465-
467. See East, South, West-Saxons.
' Saxon Shore,* Uie, 23, 27.
Saxony, 419.
Saxulf, bishop of Lichfield, 204, 392,
299, 300. 350. 408, 415.
Scarborough, 363.
Scaurus, 45.
Schools, 142, 143, 271, 272, 294, 429,
480.
' Soot,* a due, 411.
Scotic episcopacy, 155-157; Hturgy,
32 ; mission reviewed, 232 ; monastic
and penitential rules, severity of,
168.
Scotland, 18, 24, 76, 303.
Scots, 39, 67, 97.
Scripture, study of , 161, 162, 183, 212,
219, 251, 264, 309, 311, 368, 380,
400. 422, 447, 470.
Sebbi, East-Saxon king, 238, 247, 316,
409. 424, 425, 482.
Seclusion, Celtic saints' love of, 38,
158,162.
' Secretarium,' a, 182, 331.
Seghine, abbot of Hy, 154, 157, 184.
Selby, 23.
Seisey, see of, 346, 470.
Seiwuod, 29.
Sens, 255,417,422.
Sergius 1, pi»pe, 359, 403, 419, 420,
43i» 438, 440, 445» 450» 453» 4^0.
Sermons after service, 396.
' Service of God,' monastic life called,
197, 316,411.
Senkesham, 298.
Severianus, 16.
Severn, ii, 84, 112, 171, 465.
SeveruB, bishop of Treves, 22.
Severus, emperor, 7, 27.
Sexburga (Sexburb), Kentish queen,
173-175* ^89.
Sexburga, West-Saxon queen, 373,
288.
Sexred, East-Saxon, 115, 119.
Sheppey, convent at, 60, 174, 175,
430.
Sherborne, see of, 112, 272, 469, 471,
47>.
Slietland, 15.
Shire-mote, the, 410.
Shrewsbury (Pengwem), 39.
Shropshire, 85, 175.
Sicilian bishops, 53.
Sicic, baptism of the, 438.
Sickness, triahi of, 310, 31 1 , 385.
522
Index.
SiddeiUMsester (Sidnacester), bishopric
of Lindsey at, 349, 350.
Sidoxdns ApoUinioii, 19, 47, 496.
Sigebert I, see Sabert.
Sigebert I, of Austrasia, 49.
Sigebert, son of Sabert, 115, 119.
Sigebert the Good, East-Saxon king,
»94> I95» ao5» 48a.
Si&(ebert the Learned, East-Anglian
king, 142, 163, 173, 424, 48a.
Sigebert the little, KasUSazon king,
"9» I95» 238.
Sigfrid, abbot of Weannoath, 309,
389, 402.
Sighard, East-Sazon king, 425.
Sighere, EasUSaxon king, 238, 424,
478.
Silchester, 12, 85.
Simon Magos, 93, 463.
Simony, 31, 68, 247, 248.
Sinodun, 170.
Sirictus, pope, 14.
Stsinnias, 452.
Sister-in-law, marriage with a, 66.
Sittingboame, 429.
Slack, near Huddersfield, 138.
Slake bay, the, 365.
Slavery, 29, 41, 42, 58, 164, 346, 411,
428.
Slavs, 58.
Socratic process in missionary teach-
ing, 471.
Soiasons, 47, 51.
Solway, the, 15, 28.
Somerset, 30, 463, 467, 469, 474.
Song, love of, 296, 312.
Southampton, 23.
< South Anglia,' 351.
South-Saxons, kingdom of, 26, 178,
210 ; isolation and barbarism of,
a"i H3, 343; evangelized, 344 ff»
391 ; bishopric of, see Selsey.
Southwell, 141.
Spain, 9, 13, 70, 91, 275, 361.
Sparrow, simile of the, 133.
Speen, 85.
Spiritual sonship, 458.
Sponsorship, 170, 206, 411.
Stable-gate, Canterbury, 55-57.
Stamfoni Bridge, 129, 221.
Stately ceremonial, use of, 52.
Stephen, abbot of Lerins, 47, 49.
Step-mother, marriage with a, 114,
115-
Stilicho, 24.
Stoneham, 393.
Stour, river, 51.
Stow, 350, 409.
Strasburg, 329.
Strathclyde, 29,153,378. See Cumbria.
Streansshaloh, see Whitby.
Snbdiaoonate, the, 253.
Subnstenoes or Persons, 359.
Suocat, see Patrick.
Suetonius Pauliuus, i.
Suffolk, 27, 119, 143, 144, 199, 205.
Snlpicins SSevems, 5, 13, 78, 79, 89,
464.
Sunday, observance of, 166, 234, 376,
411, 428.
Superficial conversion, 141, 238, 328.
Superstitions, current, 177, 405, 434*
466.
Supplying omitted ceremonies, 190.
Surrey, 171, 293,469.
Swale, rivers, xii, 60, 137.
Swebhard, usurper in Kent, 424, 427.
Swefred, East-Saxon king, 425.
Swidbert, missionary bishop, 419.
Swidhelm, king of East-Anglia, 186.
Swindon, 28, 39.
Switzerland, 4.
Syagrius, 47.
Symmachus, pope, 60.
' Syncellus,' a, 45.
Synods, British, 35, 275; English
provincial, of bishops only, 493;
laymen present at, not members of,
493; Ux use of term, 223, 273,
410.
T.
Tables, of principal events, 501 ; of
royal and episcopal succession, 502 ;
of genealogies, 504.
Tacitus, 7, 195.
Tadcaster, gunnery at, 188, 212.
Tanfield, 138.
Tarsus, 252, 257, 406.
' Tata,' the name, 126, 149.
Tatbert, abbot, 477, 478.
Tattrid, 350.
Tatwin, 432, 433.
Taunton, 463.
Tay, river, 28, 377.
Tees, river, 28, 43, 180.
Teilo, bishop of liandaff, 37, 73, 85.
Teilian, St., 36.
Temples, pagan, treatment of, 78.
Temporal help instrumental towards
conversion, 344.
Temporal motives, appeal to, 139,
47»-
Temptation, varieties of, 305.
Terracina, 80.
Tertullian, 5, 8, 68, 82.
Tette, 431.
Teutons, 52, 54, 56, 66, 264, 310,
483 ; how far attracted or repelled
by Christianity, 54, 131, 134.
Tewdric, Welsh king, 98.
Thadioc, bishop of York, 38.
Index.
523
Thames, rirer, 11, 51, 100, 170, 196,
197, 398.
Thaneg (thegng), 129, 133, 163, 185,
187. 216, ai8, 334, 345, 440.
Tbanet, ide of, ix, 51, 52, 373, 430.
Theodebert II, king of Aaatrasia, 49,
Theoderic (or Theodoric) II, king of
Boxgundy, 49, 50, 78.
Theoderic III, 326.
Theodore, arohbishop, 53, 65, 7 if 251,
252; arrival at Canterbury, 256;
character, 257, 319, 321,409; his
relations with Chad, 259 ff. ; holds
cooncil of Hertford, 274; divides
]Sast- Anglian diocese, 285 ; con-
secrates fleddi, 297 ; consecrates
Gebmund, 300 ; his scheme for
diocesan divisions, 319; in North-
nmbria, 320 ; divides York diocese,
ibid, ; as political peacemaker, 341 ;
divides Mercian diocese, 349, 352 ;
holds council of Hatfield, 357 ;
deposes Winfrid, 292 ; and Ton-
bert, 372 ; consecrates X/othbeft,
374; reconciled to Wilfrid, 395 ft. ;
teaches in school of Canterbury,
271, 399; his penitential, 52, 282,
406 ; his death, 406, 407 ; burial,
408, 417.
Theodore of Mopsnestia, 44.
Theodore of Pharan, 359.
Theodoret, 2, 44, 78.
Theodosius I, 24, 34, 78.
Theodric, 'the Flame-bearer,' 28.
Theon, bishop of London, 38.
Theopbilus of Alexandria, 68, 78) 89.
Thetford, 285.
Thirsk, 181.
Thomas, bishop of Danwich, 181, 190,
Thor, T20.
Thomey island, 100.
' TThree Articles,* the, 44.
' Threshold of Apostles,' the, 250.
Thonor, thane, 25, 80, 272.
Tibba, 477.
Tidlin, reeve, 339.
Tilbury ("niaburg), 196, 197.
Hovulfingacsestir, xi, 140, 141.
Tithes, to the poor, 63, 400.
Titillus, notary, 276.
•Tiu'CKw), 25.
Tobias, bishop of Rochester, 272, 429.
Toledo, councils of, 45, 63, 361.
Tonbert, husband of Ethdred, 263,
286.
Tondhere, 187.
Tonsure, question as to^ 92, 219, 231,
253f 463. 466.
Tor of St. Michael, ii, 353.
Torksey, xi, 141.
Torthelm, abbot, 307.
Tours, 49, 50, 80, 355, 363.
Trajan, 82.
Travelling, difficulty of, 499.
Trees, idolatry connected with, 79.
Trent, river, 140, 160, 193, 204,
340.
Trentham, nunnery at, 456.
Treves or Trier, 22.
Trine immersion, 91.
Trinity, doctrine of the, 359.
'Trinoda necessitas,* the, 437.
Tripartite sense of Scripture, 470.
Trophimus, 60,
Troyee, 17.
Trumbert, monk, 264, 368.
Tmmhere, priest, 187, 208.
Trumwine, bishop of Abercom, 365^
373. 378.
Tuda, bishop of Lindis&me, 56, 223,
336, 237.
* Tufa,' the banner, 1 36.
Tunbert, bishop of Hexham, 308, 364,
373-
Tweed, river. 137, 314, 238, 375.
'Twelve boys,* Aidan's, 161, 244.
Twyford, 'synod* of, 373.
Tyne, river, 28, 384, 400.
Tynemouth, xi, 187, 312.
' Type * of Constans, the, 359.
Types and antitypes, 390.
Tyrhtel) bishop uf Hereford, 408.
U.
Uffa, 119.
Uffingas, 119.
Unction, 33, 91.
Union, the Personal, in Christ, 35S.
Unity, influences making for, 190.
Unity, national, promoted by Church
progress, Z90, 384.
Universal bishop, title of, 71* 450<
Unnust, vassal-king, 378.
'Unusual arrangement,' the, 154.
Unworldliness of ScoUc clergy, 333.
Uriconiuin, 39.
Usk, river, 8, 10, ii.
Utrecht (I'rajectum), 418, 421.
Utta, abbot, 188, 194.
V.
'Vacant' bishops, 183.
Valentia, 11.
Valentinian I, 24.
Yalentinian III, 33, 69.
Various agencies in the English con<
version, 481.
Veleda, 310.
5^4
Index.
Venftntius FortanAtos, t, 9.
Venedotift, S5.
Ver, river, 7.
Verca, abbess, zi, 584.
VtiruUiuiQXD, 7-^, II, 20.
VesBels, sacred, 148, a68, 42a
Vestments, 307, 388, 429.
Viaticum, the, 315, 363.
VictoriuB, cyde of, 87, 89, 110, 250,
464.
Victridiis, bishop, visit of, 14.
Vieime, 6, 49, 50, 55, 71, 271, 422.
Vi}pliu8, pope, 69.
Vigils, 215, 301.
Virgilius, archbishop of Axles, 60, 68.
Visigothic Ari^mism, 361.
Vision*, 144,433.
VisitationB, diocesan, 246, 267, 382;
provincial, 256.
Vitalian, pope, 250 ff.
Viventins, 15.
Vortigem, 22.
Vortipor, 31.
Vosges, 109.
W.
Wagele, 237.
Walbottle, 194.
Waldhere, bishop of London, 424,
435-
Walen, 10, 23, 24, 31, 34-38, 84, 85,
112,121,153,467,472; North, 22,
31 ; South, 16,465 ; West, 30,467.
Wallingford, 30.
* Walls,* the, 11, 15, 151.
Walstod, monk, 386.
Walton, 194.
WanborougU (Wodensborg), battle of,
39-
Wantage, 172.
Want«um, or Wantsome, the, vii, 51.
Wareham, church at, 444.
Warwick, 85.
Wash, the, 23.
Wear, river, 188, 306, 310, 381, 388.
Wearmouth, iiionacttery of, 306, 317,
354, 355, 366, 367, 389, 390, 438-
Weedon, nunnery ai, 456.
Weej?, bishopric at, 86.
Welland, the, 433.
Wells, 474.
Wekh, the, 3, 4, 22, 24-26, 29, 30,
33; did nothing for conversion of
English, 33, 112, 467, 481, 498.
Wendover, 25.
Wenlock, nunnery at, 144, 478.
Werburga, St. (Werburh), 207, 456.
'Wergild; 273, 341,411.
West-Saxons, kingdom of, 26, 84, 171,
469 ; hostile to, afterwards allied
with, Northumbrian 1 29, 169 ; hostile
to Meroia, 180; internal divisiGiis
of, 130, 274, 297, 350; predominant
in the south, 392, 393, 403 ; legisla-
tion in, 4 1 o ; evangelized, 1 68~i 7 2 ,
190, 199; bishops of, 171, 183, 209,
373. 297f 4<>9-
Westminster, 100.
Westmoreland, 29.
West-Riding, the, 28.
Wlialley, 141, 237.
Whitby (StreansBjhalcb, Streonea-
halh), 41, 213; conference, 223-
23i> 338, 266, 287, 293, 310, 317,
320, 350, 362, 363, 373, 379, 399.
4'5»43a-
White Field, council of, 468.
White garments of the new-bapticed,
136, 404.
Whithem, see Candida Casa.
Whitland, Welsh college at, 34.
Whitfiontide baptism, 37, 130.
Whittingham, 373.
Wictbert, mitibionary, 417, 418.
Wighard, archbishop, 249.
Wight, Isle of, conquered by West
&ucons, afterwards by MercianK,
and annexed to Sussex, 210, 342 ;
reoovered by Wessex, 393; evan-
gelized, 394.
Wigtonshire, 15.
Wihtred, king of Kent, 61, 405;
laws of, 427.
Wilfaresdun, 187.
Wilfrid, abbot, 434.
Wilfrid, St. (WiUrith\ early life, 216 ;
at Lyons and Rome, 218, 219; at
Ripon, 221 ; his aims, 222 ; bishop
of York, 240 ; in Mercia and Kent,
248, 259 if.; at York, 267; his
charch-building, 267, 455 ; hu dele-
gates at Hertu>rd, 275, 276, 287;
troubles with Egfrid, 317, 318 ; his
grandeur, 318; i^ipeals to Rome,
331 ) 323; excluded from North-
umbria, 322 ; miasionary ardour of,
327, 344; in Friesland, 327; in
Lombardy, 329 ; at Rome, 330 ff. ;
return home, 336 ff. ; imprisoned,
338 ; released, 339 ; second sojourn
in Meroia, 340 ; apostle of Sussex,
342 ff., 499 ; St. Lewinna his oonven,
500; claims ignored by Cuthbert,
390; reconciliation with Theodore,
395 ; restored to York, 396 ff., 409 ;
administers two other dioceses, 397 ;
tronbles renewed, 412-414; in
Mercia, 41 5 ; consecrated Oftfor,
416 ; consecrated Swidbert, 419 ;
at Leicester, 423, 431, 437; nt
Easterfield, 439 ; his seoond appeal
to Uouie, 442 ; in Mereia, ^3 ;
helped by Aldhelm, 446; ttiJjNl
Index.
525
Journey to Rome, 448 ; %i Rome,
449 if.; ill at Meauz, 4*14; met
Ethelred At Bardney, 456 ; claim
refnsed again by Aldfrid, 457 ;
returned to Ripon, 458 ; at council
of the Nidd, 458, 459 ; end of
*caaie/ 460, 461 ; last arrange-
ments, 476 ; in Mercia, 477, 478 ;
death, 479 ; burial at Ripon, 470 ;
character, 269, 317, 337, 342, 461,
480.
WilUbald, 80.
Willibrord, St., 178, 268, 328. 417 if.,
420,421,449.
Wiltaburg, 421.
Wiltshire, 469.
Wimbledon, battle of, 28.
Wimbome, 213, 473.
Winbert, abbot, 470.
Winchester, cathedral of, 183; see
of, founded) 209.
Winfriil, see St. Boniface.
Winfrid, bishop of Lichiield, 266. 276,
292, 327.
Wini, bishop of Winchester and
London, 209, 210, 241, 245, 247,
27'*.
Winwidfield, battle of, 202, 212, 364,
378.
Witburga, St., 175.
Witenagemot, the, 102, 132, 2 40, 273,
337. 4io» 427. 429» 459*
Woden, 25.
Wodensbuig, 39.
Wooden churches, see Chnroh build-
ing.
Worcester, 85, 210, 272, 349, 350,
408, 4«5, 4»6» 423> 426, 478.
Worksop, 84.
Wreckers in Sussex, 243, 343.
Wrekin, the, 29.
Wulfard, 354.
Wulfhere, king of Merda, wars oP,
207, 211, 29] ; supreme over Esfiez,
307} 338, 247 ; beneficent to Church,
248, 263; death, 291.
Wnlfilac, 2a
Wulframn, bishop of Sens, 32S,
417-
Wuscfrea, son of Edwin, 184.
Wye, river, 300.
Y.
Yarmouth, 27.
Yevering, 137.
Yffi, son of Oxfrid, 148.
Ynys-vitrin, see Avalon.
York, city of, 27, 132, 147, 310, .^o,
376 ; British bishopric of, 9 if., 37,
158 ; English bishopric of. 73, 136,
246, 272 ; design of an archbishopric
long unfulfilled, 76, 275. 480 : over-
large diocese of, 281, 330 ; divided,
332, 439; cathedral, 134, 136, 267,
374,412,497.
Yorkshire, 23, 27, 43, 44, 129, 146,
181, 197, 268, 439. 457.
YthancKstir, 196, 197.
Yule, 82.
Ziioharias, pope, x.
Zuyder Zee, 327.
ERRATA.
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