mmm mM^ ii^!il' mm ^ PRINCETON, N. T. V.I r- /^ t-^ r— BR 749 .C65 1898 Collins, William Edward, 1867-1911. . The beginnings of Englisn r.br i <=^t i ani tv _ — -— — ■ THE CHURCHMAIM'S LIBRARY Edited by J. II. Burn, B.D THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH CHRISTIANITY THE BEGINNINGS OF i i i ENGLISH CHRISTIANITY ] WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE i COMING OF ST. AUGUSTINE I BY ^/ WILLIAM EDWARD COLLINS M.A. PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AT king's COLLEGE LON'DOX METHUEN & CO 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C LONDON 1898 EUTI.ER & TaKNT.R, TiiK Sei-woou Printing V.'gkks, Frome, and Lo:;don. TO ARTHUR JAMES MASON D. D. LADY MARGARET PROFESS DR OF PIVINITY AT CAMBRIDGE AND CANON Or CANTERBURY Contents PAGE Prcjace ........ 9 Introduction 13 Chapter I. The Romano-British Church and Celtic Christianity . . 17 5) II. The Beginnings of English Christianity. ... 50 III. The Welsh Church and the English 82 „ IV. The English Church and the Roman 109 Appendices. A The British Church not a Church of Baptists 157 B Augustine's first Band of Missio?tarics . 159 7 Contents C The Language of the Frankish Inter pretcrs ..... D TJic Date of Ethelberfs Marriage. E The Landing-Place of Angus tine . F The Gift of the Pailium G Saxo/i Christians before Augustine H T/u: Authenticity of Gregory s Answers to Augustine .... I Antioch and Rome . . K The Numbering of Gregory's Letters Index Map 171 174 182 185 1S9 192 193 196 199 at end Preface In the spring of this year I was called upon to deliver three lectures at Liverpool on ' The Begin- nings of English Christianity.' They were not written, but much of their subject-matter was afterwards embodied in a series of articles con- tributed to the Church Times in May, on * The Coming of St. Augustine.' These lectures and articles form the basis of the present volume. The book itself however is in no sense a reprint. It has been re-written throughout, and represents the result of much further study. Considerably more than half of its subject-matter is new, including most of what gives it a claim (if indeed it has any), to be regarded as a fresh study of the original sources. In j^articular, the whole of the appendices now appear for the first time. 10 Preface These appendices are to be looked upon as an integral portion of the book, consisting, as they do for the most part, of the detailed inquiries upon which arc based many statements made without discussion in the text. I had hoped to contribute to Dr. Mason's recently published work. The Mission of St, Augustine according to the Original Documents, a dissertation on The Relations hetiveen the English Church and the Papacy to the Norman Conquest, the preparation of which had been entrusted to me. Ill-health made this impossible. Its subject-matter however is not included here ; since what would have found a natural place amongst the dissertations bearing on such a col- lection of documents could form no proper part of an essay which endeavours to deal, somewhat discursively it is true, with the beginnings of English Christianity. But I hope to make use of it in another form before lone. I have, as a rule, quoted and referred to Gregory's Epistles in the order of the l^cnedlctine Preface 1 1 edition as reprinted by Migne, making use how- ever of the new edition in the Momiuienta Ger- inaniae Historica where necessary. To facihtate reference, the last appendix contains a Hst of the letters referred to, with their numbering according to the two editions. Since these pages were in type the new edition of Duchesne's Origines du Culte Chretien has appeared ; but I have as yet had no opportunity of seeing it. W. E. COLLINS Allh ALLOWS Barking, E.G. St. Simon ami St. Judc, 1897 INTRODUCTION. In the following chapters I propose to treat of the Mission of St Augustine and the beginnings of English Christianity, In connection with the events that went before and that followed after. The subject is one of very wide Interest at the present time, in view of the commemoration in which the members of the Anglican communion have been taking part in the past summer ; of the thirteenth centenary of the landing of Augus- tine and the baptism of Ethelbert of Kent. But it has a wider and more permanent bearing. One cannot read contemporary literature without seeing how differently the events of the year 597 are regarded by people who look at them from different intellectual standpoints. To some it becomes a point of the utmost importance to show that Augus- 14 The Beginnings of English Christianity. tine's mission was simply an Incident In a continuous history which began earlier/ and that our real Inheritance comes to us from 'the British Churches.' To some, on the other hand, the fact that English Chris- tianity begins with the Mission of Augus- tine, a missionary sent by Pope Gregory the Great, has seemed to lead logically to a re- lationship to the Roman Communion which would have been unthinkable in Gregory's own day.^ It may therefore be profitable to endea- vour to present the facts again in their historical setting, allowing them so far as possible to speak for themselves ; although, in view of modern controversies and of present-day interests, it will be necessary in certain cases to point out the bearings of the events in some detail. And the same object being kept In view, it will follow that ^ ' Ecclesiastically, we are as truly descended from [the Celtic Churches] as from St Augustine and Archbishop Theodore.' — The Ancient British Churches^ by the Ven. Archdeacon Sinclair. "^ E.g. Pere Brou S. J., St Aiigustin de Canterbury et scs Com- fagnonSf passim. Introduction, r 5 many doubtful points, or points not bearing dlrectly upon English Christianity, may be treated very slightly or passed over alto- gether. On the other hand, some points which might appear to be of somewhat lesser importance will need fuller considera- tion, either because of their bearing upon later events, or because they seem to be capable of a fuller elucidation than they have hitherto received. For after all, and although we may regard the facts from different points of view, the history of what actually happened cannot simply be a matter of opinion, as the present age is only too ready to assume. The views which we hold in the matter ought surely not to be (though they too frequently are) something purely subjective — the mere result of our prejudices or pre-conceived ideas. It ought to be possible for us to lay aside such hindrances as these, and to endeavour to see things as they really are : to see, in other words, not simply that which was 1 6 The Beginnings of English Chrislianity, transitory and accidental, the result of local and temporary causes, but that which is permanent and real. It is In the hope that the facts may be able to speak for themselves that what follows has been written. CHAPTER I. THE ROMANO-BRITISH CHURCH AND CELTIC CHRISTIANITY. Before entering upon the consideration of the mission of St Augustine there is an important preliminary question to be dealt with. What signs of Christianity, if any, did he find in the country on his arrival ? and how far, if at all, would it be true to say that he was simply following in the foot- steps of others ? What, in a word, was the relation of the Church of the English to the previously existing Church of the Britons ? The question, important in itself, is in- vested with a yet greater importance in view of ideas which are not wholly extinct even in these enlightened days. Uncritical ages were content to base upon the fact of the priority of British Christianity the assump- tion that there was some direct historical con- nection between it and that of the English. 1 8 The Beginnings of English Chrisltanity, And Indeed, it was in effect held that Augustine's mission displaced or swallowed up, an older Christianity. Now although it would hardly be true to say that these views are controversial in origin — dating as they do from long before the Reformation — yet undoubtedly they have been used constantly for purposes of mere controversy, as against Roman claims. As a reply to certain ag- gressive Roman claims of jurisdiction, it has seemed a sufficient answer to say that the Church In England originally derived the faith not from a Pope through St Augustine, but from an older British Church, whose origin Is lost In antiquity. Not only so ; the tendency which was prevalent in every part of Europe to find apostolic founders, and the belief that the Apostles must actually have gone into ' all the world,' presently gave us St Paul as our founder. And by a little further development of the position, contro- versialists have even claimed that the British Church, from which we derived our origin, was a Church from the beginning ' evan- gelical ' in doctrine, free from the power of the Papacy, and therefore from Roman • corruptions.' St Augustine's mission on Celtic Christianity, 19 this theory was little more than the subjec- tion of this Church to the tyranny and the corruptions of Rome. And the Reformation, in which the shackles and fetters were broken off, was practically the undoing of the work which had been inaugurated by Pope Gre- gory when he sent St Augustine to us. This line of argument, which is to be found in its main features as early as the first half of the sixteenth century — it is found, for instance, in Foxes Book of Martyrs^ and in the third edition of Fabyan's Chronicle^ — has continued down to our own day. For although, no doubt, few people would make use of it at the present day in set terms, yet its traces are still to be found not only in the statements put forward by English Churchmen, but even more in the replies of their opponents. Our position is in every way the weaker for it. For, like every other false line of argument. It tells in the long run ao-alnst those on whose behalf it has been used ; whilst the crop of perverted ideas of 1 E.g. in the Preface To the True and Faithful Congregation of Christ's Universal Chtirch (vol. I. p. xx. ed. Pratt & Stoughton). ^ This passage is of some interest from the use which has been made of it subsequently, to prove that the British Church held the principles of the modern Baptists. See Appendix A. ^o The Beginnings of English Christianity, history to which It has given rise in the minds of our own people is very hard to eradicate. For the line of argument itself, and the alleged facts on which it is based, are alike untrue from beginning to end. (a) It is not the case that St Augustine's work displaced an older form of Christianity. There was indeed a Church of British Christians ; but it was something entirely distinct from the English. It is not the land that becomes Christian, but the people ; and the fact that the lands of the Christian Britons afterwards came to be occupied by heathen Angles, Jutes, and Saxons has nothing whatever to do with the Christianity of the latter.^ {b) The Apostolic origin of British Christianity heis not indeed been disproved ; it is rarely possible to disprove an alleged historical event. But It simply stands on the same level as any other assumption which is Itself unlikely, and for which evidence is altogether wanting. (r) Again, to say that British ^ Cf. Duchesne, I'-.gHsas SSparces \^. 7. He points out that we can no more argue any continuity l)ct\vecn the British and Eng- lish Churches than we can between the Hungarian Church of the cleventli century and the Pannonian of the fourth and fifth centuries, because they happened to occupy the same territory. Celtic Christianity, 21 Christianity was ' free from the power of the Papacy ' is ambiguous, and may be mislead- ing. ' The power of the Papacy ' In the sense of later days was, of course, a thing entirely unknown to the early British Church, as It was to the rest of the Church Catholic. But as the Abbe Duchesne has sald,^ the Church of Roman Britain occupied precisely the same position with regard to the Roman See as did the Galilean Church or the Spanish. What then did this mean? It certainly did not mean that they regarded it as the source of their spiritual life, or that they looked to It for direction, or that the word that came from Rome was law to them. But they reverenced it and de- ferred to It as the first see of the West, and indeed of all Christendom. For In the graves of the Apostles Peter and Paul it had memories more sacred for them than any outside the Holy Land. Moreover, the Bishop of Rome shone with the reflected glory of his city, the centre of the world, to which, on account of Its greater pre- eminence, the faithful from every quarter of ' £glises Sej>a>\'cs p. 1 2. 2 2 The Begimiinos of English Chi^istianity. necessity resorted/ And this reverence for the Roman See must have been as truly felt in the Romano- British Church as elsewhere. No doubt, in the latter part of the fifth cen- tury there came a change.^ But it was only by degrees, and even then partially, that the British Church drifted out of relations with the Church at large, and therefore with the Roman Church ; and this in a great measure as the direct result of the fact that Britain itself had ceased to have any very active intercourse with the Continent after * S, Iren. adv. Haer, lib. iii. c. 3. 2 The last recorded intercourse between the British Church and the Roman See was in a.d. 455, when, at the desire of ' Pope Leo, the Bishop of Rome,' they changed the date previously fixed for Easter, according to the Celtic rule {Annales Caudniac s.a. 453 ; wrongly for 455). It was a year in which the divergence between Rome and Alexandria was specially wide : S. Leon. ^L Opp. L p. 1055, ed. Ballerini ; Duchesne, £j^liscs SJparees p. 12). Apparently the change was only made temporarily, and the Britons reverted to their rule. When the cycle of Dionysius Exiguus was adopted at Rome about seventy years later, the Britons knew nothing of it, and continued to use the old cycle. Hence arose the second point at issue in the Paschal Controversy. After this there was no intercourse between Rome and this island till Augustine landed in 597 (Loofs, De Antiqua Britonum SiOtirumqiie Ecclesia p. 12). With regard to Ireland, it was again brought into contact with the Roman Church, as Mr Skene has pointed out by the misi.ion of St Columban to the Continent, at a somewhat earlier date. (Skene, Celtic Scotland so\, II. p. 12.) Celtic Christianity, 23 the withdrawal of the Roman legions. And so far was this from being a source of strength to the British Church that it re- sulted in nothing but stagnation and decay. (d) And lastly, instead of the British Church being especially pure and enlightened, it was in the highest degree weak, wanting in initiative, and debased both in faith and morals. So that we of the English Church have abundant reason to recognise the merci- ful Providence of God in the fact that we received the beginning and the shaping of our national Christianity from the fuller and better ordered life of the mainland. By way of illustrating and substantiating the statements which have just been made, we proceed to gather up shortly what can really be said to be known about pre- Augustinian Christianity in Britain. Much good and careful work has been clone upon the subject in recent years, first and foremost being the first volume of Haddan and Stubbs's great Councils. Then there is an article in Mr A. W. Haddan's Remains, ' The Churches of the British Confession,* originally published in the Christian Re- 24 T/iC Begmnino's of English Christiamfy, viaiibranccr ; an excellent degree-thesis, Dc Antiqua Britonuni Scotorunique Eccksia, by Dr rViedrich Loofs, whose other thesis, Zur Chronologie dcr azif die frlinkischen Synoden des III. Bonifatiits, contains work no less excellent. Since then there has appeared a valuable paper by Dr Bright on 'The Celtic Churches of the British Isles,' in his volume The Roman See in the Early Chur^ch, and an article by Mr V . Haverfield in the English Historical Reviezu for July 1896, entitled * Early British Christianity ' ; not to speak of the Bishop of Bristol's lectures on the same subject. Above all, the early months of the present year have seen the appearance of Mr J. W. Willis Bund's Celtic Church in Wales, which in spite of many drawbacks — a confused and involved method, and a lack of acquaintance with continental Church History, which often leads the author astray — is the first attempt to study Welsh Christi- anity by the comparative method, and has thrown a Hood of light upon the British Churches and Celtic Christianity at large. The idea that Britain owed its Christianity to St Paul, or indeed that St Paul ever Celtic Ch7nstianity, 25 visited Britain, Is a pure surmise. There Is nothing whatever that can be considered real evidence for It. It Is, of course, always open to people to say that he may have been our Apostle : so may St John, or St Bartholomew, or St Peter ^ ; and the one is about as likely as the other. The same thing is true of the story of St Joseph of Arlmath^ea, which dates from the Norman Conquest. Not less legendary, though earlier In date, is the story of King Lucius and Pope Eleutherius ; It is Roman, not British, In origin,^ and may possibly have ^ Oddly enough the idea that St Peter came to Britain has cropped up many times and in widely different places ; probably owing to a misapprehension of the fact of the sending of Augustine to England by the ' successor of St Peter ' (see the quotation from Tliietmar on p. 115). It appears in the Greek Mcnologion [Menolog. 6';-a^i;-. IMart. xvi.) : ^Treira [6 llerpos] . . . eU BpeTTUviav irapa- yiverai, . . . iTnaelvat re Toh eV BpeTTavia '/;,a^/)as tlvus, ical TToWovi ry X6y(p (puTLuas tyjs x^-P'-tos, iKK\r](rias re ava-TrjcrdfxcPo?, iTTiaKOTTovs re ical TrpeajSvrepovs kul oiaKovovs xeLpoTOV7](yas, SudeKarco tT€i Tod Kaiaapos avOis els 'Vu/.t,r]u irapixyiveTai. (Quoted in Kemble, Saxons in EngLxnd vol. II. p. 355). A like view was put forward in 1609 by Dr Richard Smith, afterwards (1625-1655) the second Roman Catholic Vicar-Apostolic in England ; and it has been again asserted by a Roman Catholic clergyman in our own day. — See Cressy, Church History of Brittany p. 16 ; and Bishop of Bristol, Th: Church in these Islands before Augustine p. 40 note. 2 Zimmer, Numius Vindicatus p. 140 f., defends the British origin ; but Mommsen, Die Hist. Brittonum nnd K. Lucius {Neites Archiv vol. XIX. p. 291 f.) shows clearly, by a comparison 26 The Beginnings of English Christianity. been invented, as the Abbe Duchesne sug- gests/ as early as the fifth century. When, then, was Christianity introduced into Britain ? To begin with, it is in the highest degree improbable that it entered Britain until after it entered Gaul ; and a few Christian Churches were first planted in Gaul about 1 50 a.d. Then again, the fact that St Irenaeus does not mention it in a passage where he is speaking of the triumphs of the Gospel ^ would seem to show that he was not aware of its existence in Britain then ; of the three texts in the Liber ronlificalis, Lede, and tlie Hisforia Jirittoiuuii, that the fable, doin 7/ichr ist es siclur nicht, came from Rome to Britain. Cf. Mommsen's edition of the Historia Brit- to)iiiin : M.G.II., CJiron. Minora, vol III. p. 1 15 f. ^ Liber Pon/ifualis vol. I. p. ciii.f, 136. With this agree Mr Iladdan and Bishop Stubbs, who assign it to the time of Prosper {Councils \o\. I. p. 25). Mr llaverfield favours a later date, on the ground that it was not made use of by Wilfrid and others of his time. This can hardly be considered a sufficient reason if it came from Rome. Still, it is first found in a MS. of about 700 A.D. 2 Adv. Hacr. lib. i. c. x. § 2. ' Neither have the churches situated in the regions of Germany believed otherwise, nor in the parts of Spain, nor among the Celts, nor in the East, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor those which are situate in the middle parts of the earth.' The Celts here mean those of Irenaeus's own part of Gaul ; cf. lib. i. pracf. § 3 : ' We who dwell amongst the Celts.' This is dated circ. 176 A.D. by Iladdan and Stubbs; but it was certainly written later. Dr Lipsius thinks that Irenaeus was en- gaged upon the whole work from A.D. iSo to 1S5 {Diet. Chr. Bio:^\ III. 25S), whilst Dr Ilarnack {Altehristliehen Litteratnr vol. II.) dates it between 181 and 189 A.D. Celtic Christianity, 27 and Lyons, which was his see, was so im- portant a centre of communication with northern Gaul, and thence with Britain, that he could hardly have been ignorant of the fact had Christianity been of any standing here. On the other hand Tertullian, writing in a similar strain, does mention it, and in very exultant language.^ We are thus led to think that Christianity may have entered Britain towards the end of the second century. Who were the inhabitants of Britain at this time ? No greater mistake could be made than to think of the people of even southern Britain {i.e. what is now England and Wales) as one homogeneous whole. The old Ivernian Inhabitants of the island, who were non-Aryans,^ had been quickly con- quered, and almost entirely swallowed up by an invasion of the Goidels, a Celtic people who came from the mainland, probably from the mouth of the Rhine. They in turn were * Adv.Jiid. c. vii. ' The haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to tlie Romans, yet subject to Christ.' Dated a.d. 208 by Haddan c\: Stubbs : it was probably written somewhat earlier — before 202 {Did. Chr. Biog. vol. IV. pp. S22, 827). 2 As were also the Picts of the North, in all probability. 2 8 The Beginnings of English Christianity, afterwards Invaded, also from the south-east and probably through Gaul, by another Celtic race, the Brythons or Britons proper, who were the very same people as the bulk of the tribes of northern Gaul in the time of Caesar. These Brythons slowly forced the Goidels before them into the mountains and western parts of the country, dividing them into two parts by a wedge of Brythons which pierced to the Welsh sea, between the Mawddach and the Dovey.^ The two peoples differed not a little in religion and customs. The religion of the Goidels was Druidism, a kind of pantheistic nature worship with much star lore and a great deal of vague philosophy ; and they seem to have adopted from the earlier In- habitants their holy places, customs and rites, including human sacrifices. That of the Brythons on the other hand was the same simple polytheism which was common, in its general elements, to most of the peoples of the mainland of Europe. ^ A traveller who goes to liarmouth from Chester t'Af Ruabonand T)i)]gclly, and returns to Shrewsbury viA Aberdovey and ^[oat Lane, has gone round the territory formerly occupied by this ]>rythonic wedge. Sec the map at the beginning of Rhys, Celtic Bn'ldiii. Celtic Christianity, 29 Now even If there had been no more than this to be said, it Is not to be sup- posed that Christianity would have touched these two peoples in precisely the same way. But this is not all. Upon the land thus occupied and thus divided had come the flood of the Roman Invasions. Litde by little a network of Roman roads, secured by Roman strongholds, spread Itself over the land. By a.d. 61 Suetonius had pierced to Anglesey, and in a.d. 85 Agrlcola com- pleted the conquest. Of course this con- quest made no difference In the distribution of the peoples of Britain, for the Romans had no desire to displace anybody. But by the nature of the case most of their Intercourse lay with the Brythonic tribes of the East. Accordingly these tribes were gradually Romanised ; and their own tribal system and ethnic peculiarities were to some extent sapped and transformed as they themselves acquired something of Roman civilisation. Whilst, to mention a result of another kind, the accounts which we have from Roman writers of the Inhabitants of Britain are for the most part concerned with Brythons, not with Goldels. 30 The Beginmiigs of English Christianity. By the conquest Britain became a sharer in the circulating life of the Empire. More- over, it was dotted over with military stations, whose inhabitants were drawn from all parts of the Empire. And in this, no doubt, is to be found the origin of British Christianity : it spread from Roman soldiers and colonists to the neighbouring Britons, and thence, by gradual growth or through individual mis- sionaries, to the more remote parts of the land. As for ecclesiastical organisation and the like, it would naturally come from the nearest Church already organised — that of Gaul ; and with this agree most of the known facts with regard to early British Christianity. The signs of intercourse between the two Churches are clear and distinct. In the great Arlan controversy the British Church kept pace throughout with that of Gaul. Natives of Britain occupied Galilean sees, as for instance Mello of Rouen and (pro- bably) the famous Faustus of Riez ^ ; some of the best known early British saints are at one time or another to be heard of in Gaul ; and the Galilean Church sent help again and again to her weaker sister — by * Thoii<;li he may have been a I>rcton. Celtic Christianity, 31 VIctrlcIus of Rouen, and by Germanus, Lupus and Severus. It is equally clear from what is known of early Celtic ritual and worship. There was once, indeed, a widespread notion that the Celtic liturgical customs were Eastern in character and origin; but this, based rather upon ignorance of the West than upon any special knowledge of the East, is now abandoned. It is of course true that * the Gallican liturgy, where it differs from the Roman usage, has all the character- istics of the oriental liturgies ' ^ ; but it is certain that the resemblance of the Celtic liturgy is to what is Gallican, and in no case to what is purely Eastern. Our knowledge of the Church in Roman Britain is very scanty. Mr Haverfield gives "" a somewhat longer list of Christian remains than w^as before known ; and most remarkable of all, we have now the ground plan of the wonderful litde church at Sil- chester.^ But more and more doubt seems ^ Duchesne, Origines da Culte Chretien p. 87. He is of opinion p. 88) that Maliturgie gallicane est une liturgie orientale, intro- duite en Occident vers le milieu du quatrieme siecle.' 2 English Historical Review, July 1896, pp. 420 f. ^ This is figured in Mr Haverfield's article, p. 425. 32 The Degmnings of English Christianity, to be felt by those who are best able to judge as to how many other churches, if any, really contaui Roman work in situ ; and at the best we have very little remain- ing.^ Turning to evidence of other kinds, there are certain well-known facts with re- gard to British Christianity ; but most of these, it will be observed, carry us no further than the Church of the Romanised Bry- thons. I. We have, for instance, the martyrdom of St Alban at Verulamium ; and however sceptical we may be as to its having taken place in the persecution of Diocletian, no careful reader of Bede's account of the mar- tyrdom can doubt that it represents the story which was actually current there, and which was based upon a knowledge of local * Mr Ilavcrficld is of opinion, as the result of an examination made in January 1896, that St Martin's at Canterlniry 'contains no Roman work iji situ ' j and that the churches at Lyminge, Rcculvcr, IJrixworth, and Dover Castle • are certainly of Saxon date.' The former opinion would perhaps not lie generally accepted, in the light of the evidence given in Mr Routledge's interesting History oj St Martin's Church Canterbury ; although it is apparently shared by Mr J. T. Micklelhwaile. My own opinion, given with all deference, is that both Ikix worth and Lyminge contain Roman work in situ, Imt that in each case it is the remains of a secular building— a basilica, not a church. Celtic Christianity, 33 topography.^ Aaron and Julius however are little more than names.^ 2. We hear twice over of three British sees. They are all in Roman cities ; and to many, it has seemed not improbable that there were no other sees in Roman Britain. This however, as we shall see, was not the case. Colonia Londinensium is no doubt a diffi- culty, and the conjectural emendation Le- gionensium does not really make it easier, for it seems clear that Caerleon-on-Usk was never a colony ; still, there need be no difficulty as to the fact itself. Again, the name ' Eborius de civitate Eboracensi ' looks suspicious, especially when we find it followed by Sacerdos presbyter two lines lower down. But whatever we may think of the names, the fact remains that there were three British ^ As to the fact of the martyrdom, there is of course the still earlier evidence of Constantine's life of St Germanus, in which we are told that Germanus visited his relics, and was given some of the earth stained with his blood (Const. Vit, S. Germani i. 25). The life was written about fifty years after the first visit of Germanus. See also Gildas, Hist. c. viii. 2 A charter in the Liber Landavensis (p. 215), which, if genuine, belongs to the time of Bishop Nudd of Llandaff (in the middle of the ninth century) shows that their names were honoured at Caerleon then. But the knowledge was probably derived from Gildas only : certainly this is the case with the only other refer- ence to them in the Liber Landavensis (p. 27). C 34 ^-^^^ Beginnings of English Christianity. Bishops present at Aries in 314, together with a presbyter and a deacon. Britain was also represented, and more numerously, at the Council of Ariminium in 359. On this occasion, when the Emperor offered, as usual, to defray the expenses of the Bishops out of the public revenues, it seemed un- fitting to the orthodox Westerns — from Aquitania, Gaul and Britain — to receive them at the hand of an heretical Emperor ^ and they preferred to pay their own. Three of the Britons, however, were too poor ; and they, rejecting the proffered aid of their brethren, chose rather to receive the imperial assistance.^ So much for Aries and Arimi- nium. As to Nicaea, I cannot understand how anybody who possessed a familiar know- ledge of the contemporary accounts of the Council (such things for example as the references made to it by St Athanasius, or the description given by Eusebius^) could think that there were British Bishops there. * Such is the plain meaning of Sulpilius Severus {C/iro>i. ii. 41). - ' Sanclius putantes fisciun giavere quam singulos,' says Sulpitius Severus. He himself thought they were piaisewortliy for this ; but lie does not conceal the fact that his informant, the Bishop Gavidius, who had probably been present at the Council, thought that they were actuated by an unfriendly spirit towards their brethren. •'* Kus. Vit. Const, iii. 7-9. Celtic Christianity, 35 3. There is the mission of Victricius of Rouen to Britain,'at the request of the Bishops of North Italy, some time previous to 396 a.d. Beyond the fact that he came to makepeace/ we know nothing about the object of his journey. It has been conjectured that he was sent in order to help the British Church to put down Arianism.^ It is more probable that he went in order to make peace between contending factions. But however this may be the visit only emphasizes the weakness of the Romano- British Church. 4. There is the great outbreak of Pela- gianism early in the fifth century, which could only be stemmed by the teaching of Ger- manus and Lupus in 429, and of Germanus and Severus in 447. And although we cannot accept Mr Willis Bund's dictum, that Pelagianism was Goidelic Christianity,^ — his evidence is inadequate, and the origin and history of the heresy alike fail to bear him out, — yet it must have appealed strongly ^ Victr. de laude Sanctorum c. i : pacis Domini estis auctorcs cuius me sententiae velut interpretem delegistis. 2 Haddan and Stubbs, vol. II. p. xxi. 3 The Celtic Church in Wales p. io8. * The faith of the Goidelic Celts, as above stated, is usually called, from its great exponent, Pelagianism.' 36 The Beginnings of English Christianity. to the Celtic mind. When we consider how little is known about British Christianity, it is certainly remarkable that so much of it, and from so many sources, is concerned with this heresy. Coelestlus was apparently a Scot ; but Pelaglus and Faustus and Fasti- dius,^ and probably also Agrlcola and his father Severian,^ were all of the British race : it is a notable list. 5. Once more, we have St Ninian, also a Brython,^ who studied at Rome under Pope * Fastidius is given in Godwin's list (see Le Neve, Fasti \o\. II. p. 273 f., ed. Duffus Hardy) as fourteenth amongst the Bishops (or rather * Archbishops ') of London, his name being inserted be- tween Guitelinus and Vodinus. But his name is not contained in the original list as compiled by the monk Jocelyn of Furness in the twelftli century. Jocelyn's list is of course entirely valueless, and was rejected by Wharton {Hist, de Episcopis ci Dccanis Loudinen- sibus p. 4 f.) without hesitation. On the other hand he did not entirely reject the claim put forward on behalf of Fastidius. That is to say, it cannot be disproved. On the whole subject of the legendary British bishops see Bp Stubbs, Kegistrum Sacrum Anglicanuni App. vii. (p. 214, new edition.) 2 Iladdan and Stubbs, vol. I. p. 14. 3 ' De natione Brettonum, qui erat Romae rcgulariler fidem et mysteria veritatis edoctus "— Bede iii. 4. His twelfth century biographer, St Ailred of Rievaulx, tells us {Vit. S. Niniaui c. i) that he was born, ut pnta(ur, on the north shore of the Sol way Firth ; i.e. in Strathclytle. * Whether the saint's birthplace was in Cumberland or in Gallow.ay we cannot s.iy for certain. ' — Bp Forbes, Lives of St Ninian and St Kcnti^ern p. 25S. Celtic Christianity, ^"j SIrlcius, and thence started about a.d. 390 to work amongst the heathen Picts of Galloway ; and Palladius, probably deacon to St Ger- manus/ who, according to Prosper's Chron- icle, * was consecrated by Pope Celestlne and sent to the Scots believing in Christ as their Bishop.'^ The Scots of course, pace Pope Leo XI 11.,^ were the people of Ireland ; and An early Irish tradition makes him Celestine's archdeacon : it appears in Muirchu Maccumactheni's Zz)^p/'6'/ Patrick (Documenta de S. Patricio ex Libro Armachano, Aimhcla BoUaiuiiana tom. I. P- 553) • — Palladius archidiaconus pape Cielestini urbis Romce episcopi. Muirchu Maccumactheni lived at the end of the seventh century {ib. p. 543) ; but in its present shape the life is not really earlier than the middle of the ninlh century (Whitley Stokes, Goidclica p. S3 ; Zimmer, Kelt. Bellr. III. pp. 77, 78. I owe the second reference to Plummer's Bedi vol. II. p. 25). 2 Prosperi Chron. s. a. 431 ; cf. contr. Collat. cxxi. Elsewhere {chron. s.a. 429) Prosper tells us that Germanus was sent by Pope Celcstine, at the instigation, or through the agency, of the deacon Palladius (ad actionem Palladii diaconi). This, taken in connection with the statement of the (Gallican) life of Germanus (c. 19) by Constantius, that Germanus and Lupus were sent over by * a numerous synod,' makes it clear that Celestine had been consulted (the messenger being the deacon Palladius), and had given his sanction and approval to the action of the Gallican Church. Cf. riaddan & Slubbs, vol. I. p, 17 note a. ^ * Ut silentio praetereamus quae de antiquioribus in illud regnum [Scoliae] Apostolicis missionibus fert traditio, narrantur S. Ninianus . . . et S. Palladius Ecclesiae Romanae Diaconus . . . ibi Christi fidem praedicasse '— Litterae Apostolicae quibus Ilierarchia Epis- copalis in Scotia restituitur {Acta Lvnis XI II. vol. I. p. 17). The statement may be derived from the fragmentary life of St Kentigern (c. i.) wiilten in the twelfth century (Bp Forbes, Lives of St Niiiian 38 The Beginnings of English Christianity, although there is no reason for thinking that Palladius was a Briton, it is at least possible that he may have imbibed his desire to preach to them whilst in Britain with St Germanus in 429. Whilst probably the greater St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, was a Briton by birth/ and St Kentigern p. 246) ; or from Fordun, Chron. lib. iii. c. 8, 9 (quoted in Skene, Cdtic Scotland \o\. II. p. 26). But in any case it is erroneous. It is true that some early writers (see Iladdan & Stubbs, vol. I. p. 18) say that Palladius, after his labours in Ireland, returned to Britain and died in the territory of the Plots ; but ac- cording to the earliest account he was martyred in Ireland. * The oldest view was that he suffered martyrdom in Ireland. This is followed by the statement that he died in the territory of the Britons on his way back to Rome. The territory of the Picts is then sub- stituted for that of the Britons ; but this evidently points to Gallo- way as the place where he landed and died. . . . Finally ... we are told that ... he reached the extreme part of the Modhail towards the south, where he founded the Church of Fordun,' etc. {i.e. Fordun in the Mearns).— Skene, Celtic Scotland vol. II. p. 28 f. ^ It would take far more space than could be devoted to it here to discuss the question of St Patrick's origin. It must suffice to say that he was the son of a deacon Calpornius and the grandson of a presbyter Potitus, and that his parents dwelt at a village called Banavem Taberniae (Con/cssio S. Patr. c. i). Moreover, liis father was a decurion, i.e. a deputy, a member of the local senate, in a Roman township. (Ep. ad Corot.) So much he tells us himself. According to his ninth century biographers Muirchu Maccumactheni and Tirechan, he was known by three Celtic names, Sochet or Sucat, Magonus {i/ui est clams — Tirechan), and Cothirihiacus or Cothraige [Analecta Bollandiana vol. I. p. 549 ; vol. II. p. 35). All this points clearly to a Romanised Celtic origin. As to his birthplace, the most probable opinion is decidedly that Celtic Christianity. 39 But beyond these facts, and the Intercourse with Rome already referred to/ and the sad picture which is given of his countrymen by the historian Glldas, there is Httle to be said about early Brython Christianity ; and we must allow the justice of the severe words of Mr Haddan :— ' Up to the time of the departure of the Romans, such Christianity as existed among us, weak at best, and scantily spread, appears to have been confined mainly, if not exclu- sively, to Roman settlements and Romanized natives, and to have struck, in consequence, but feeble roots in the land. It was foreign, not native ; it was confined to the Roman provinces of Britain itself ; it had no strength or character of its own, but was a feeble reflection of its Gallic sister across the channel, from whom almost certainly it was derived. Its history is confined almost to the mere fact of its existence, or is, at best, a skeleton of dates, filled up almost by negatives. It was a Church, up to this period, which had produced no one known it was Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton ; i.e. that he was a Briton of what was afterwards called Strathclyde. ^ Ante p. 10 note 2. 40 The Beginnings of English Christianity, writer except Pelaglus and the semi- Pelagian Fastidius ; and of these the first certainly, and almost certainly the second, lived and wrote abroad ; — a Church which had con- tributed nothing beyond a silent vote to any ecclesiastical movement whatever, and had lain open to the subtle machinations of the metaphysical Easterns, through the simplicity of her ignorance ; — a Church, the first utter- ance of whose voice, when she found one, was in the form of the fiercest possible denun- ciations of her own shortcomings and of those of her people, in the well-known com- plaint of Gildas ; — a Church that had hither- to sent no missions ; for even Palladius, Patrick, Ninian, who date also at the very close of the period, were sent by St Martin of Tours, and by the Bishop of Rome ; — a Church, which when assailed by heresy, was compelled to send to her neighbours for a fit champion of the truth ; — a Church that looked to Gaul for the saints whom she should follow and reverence, and by whose names she should call her sacred buildings, Hilary, Martin, Germanus, and whose own almost single saint was only a convert and a martyr in the same day, if his story, indeed can be Celtic C/iristianity, 41 trusted at all ; — a Church that has left a trace Indeed . . . but the very faintest trace of her two centuries and a half of existence, in brick or stone, in sculpture or in inscription : — a Church too poor to endow even her own bishops ; — a Church which, so far (it was different afterwards), had no traceable customs or ritual peculiar to herself ; a Church which, in a perhaps happy obscurity, on the one hand, escaped persecutions with but one probably small exception ; but on the other (omitting, in- deed, the heretic Pelagius), formed no school, threw no new light on the truth, supplied no commentaries on Scripture, devised no re- ligious or charitable institute, added nothing of any kind to the common stock ; — such is the view which a reasonable criticism gives us of the Church of Britain up to the Saxon invasion of her shores.' ^ And Indeed this is a true picture of the Church of the Brythons even beyond that period, until the Saxons drove them into the mountains of Cumberland and Wales and ^ Iladdan's Remains pp. 216-218. 42 The Begimiings of English Christianity. Cornwall, or across the seas Into Armorica or Brittany.^ There may have been a Bishop Thadloc at Eboracum clown to the fall of that city c. 510; and a Bishop Theo- nus at Londlnluni until it In turn fell after the middle of the century.- British Chris- tians remained in Exeter until It was entered by the West Saxons,^ and Ynis YItrIn or Glastonbury, a British monastery, only gradu- ally became an English one.^ Even the proud boast of priority made by St Peter's CornhlU amongst the City churches, on the ground that It occupies the site of a British church, may have some grain of foundation In fact.^ But be this as it may, the evidence all points, and points Irresistibly, to the con- clusion that Christianity In Roman Britain was a weak thing ; that with the withdrawal ^ The Lretons long continued to turn their eyes regretfully towards their old home. * We yet linger in France, exiles and captives,' writes Radbod bishop of Dol, three centuries afterwards. ]]rou, op. cit. p. 8. A good sketch of the relations between the Church of Lrittany and the Gallican Church is given by Loofs, op. cit. p. i8 f. - Green, Making of En^^lanA \i'^. 63, 109. ^ T. Kerslake, Cell and Teuton in Exeler [Anli.Jouni. for 1873 J reprinted 1890); Freeman, ^x^/^;- (Historic Towns) p. 19. ' Bj>. Browne, Church in these Islands before Augustine p. 46 f. ^ For the details of the story see the long and interesting note in l>p. I'rowne's Church in these Islands before Augustine p. 59 f. Celtic Christianity, 43 of the Romans it became yet more effete ; and that the Church which disappeared be- fore the arms of the heathen Saxon could never have been the means of converting the invaders, even had the war been a war of settlement instead of, as it was, a war of extermination. But there is yet something to be said as to the spread of Christianity in Southern Britain outside these limits, and amongst the Goidels. Here our contemporary evidence is scantier than ever ; and the case is made worse by the abundance of untrustworthy surmise of later days, which is really Latin and not Celtic in character. For when there was a demand for information in the Middle Ages upon any conceivable subject, there was always somebody ready to supply it.^ Con- sequently, abundance of legend is only a sign of the scantiness of true evidence. And it is in sifting and weighing this evidence that Mr Willis Bund has done his best work. Christianity appealed in an entirely different way to the Brython and the Goidel. The ^ Willis Bund, Celtic Church hi Wales p. 96 ; cf. p. 5 f. 44 The Beginnings of English Christianity. former found himself confronted with a definite alternative, polytheism or Christi- anity ; and he either renounced his poly- theism or did not. The Goidel on the other hand had nothing- definite to give up, or very little. His pagan equatioti might remain as before. He might accci)t the new re- ligion and still retain his veneration for holy places, his incantations, and so forth. ^ The isolated Christian preacher with whom he came into contact was but such another as his own priests or wise men ; and to accept his religion was but to accept a stronger magician. The place given to the Christian priest in the tribe was analogous to that previously given to the heathen ; and a tribe which had received Christ in name might remain heathen ' with a veneer of Christl- anity. It is, I think, clear that this was the case with the Goidels from some time anterior to the coming of the Saxons, though we cannot say exactly when they first became Chris- tians. And it follows that the Goidellc parts Cr. Bishop DjwJen, Cdtlc Church in ScoilanJ \i'^. 98-103. Willis Bund, o/>. cit. p. 17 ; cf. p. 103 f. Celtic Christianity, 47 unless he was elastic enough to become a member of the tribe. In either case the idea of subjection to any other Church or Bishop would have been quite absurd to them. The name of Holy Jerusalem or Great Rome might be spoken of with high honour, but that w^as all. Anything more would have been forei™ to their whole mode of thought. Such was Goidel Christ- ianity. At the same time, these Goidel Christians, like other Celts, were full of spiritual zeal and fire. It is but seldom that we can trust the details given us of individual saints in the Celtic hagiologies ; but the general picture which they convey is unmistakeable. Celtic missions are doubtless often ascetic rather than evangelistic ; but they are one of the chief features, if not the chief, of Celtic Church history.-^ The period of the Saxon conquest of the Brythons was one of constant strife in the * It is worth noticing that even in the midst of the troublous sixth century a mission was sent fx-om Wales to Ireland ; and that St Columba's mission to Scotland was ' only one, but the greatest, of Irish attempts at this period to Christianize Northern Britain.' — Sec Haddan & Stubbs, vol. I. pp. 115-116. 48 The Beginnings of English Chi-istianity. Goidel districts too ; for the great mass of the Brythons, retiring before their conquer- ors, treated the Goidels not as brethren but as foes to be subdued and enslaved. And moreover there were constant inroads of Picts and Irish, which (and more especially the latter) have left not a few traces of their presence in Wales which survive down to this day. It is therefore exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to estimate at all accur- ately the share which these various elements had in the making of Wales. But the Brythons, retiring before their enemies, un- questionably had the principal share ; and the effect must undoubtedly have been to modify the characteristic features of Goidelic Christianity in many ways. It is probable, for instance, that the beginnings of the great sees of Bangor, St Asaph, St David's, Llanbadarn and Llandaff, for the Princi- palities of Gvvynedd, Powys, Dyfed, Kerc- digion and Gwcnt, are due to purely Brython influences ; seeing that the Brythons had already been accustomed to * city ' bishoprics. But in any case there are signs that ' mon- astic ' episcopacy still existed ; and that Wales continued for centuries to enjoy both Celtic Christianity, 49 the merits and demerits of the ' Celtic' form of Christianity.^ Meanwhile the English remained heathen, and everything points to the conclusion that they would have continued so if they had been left to the tender mercies of the old inhabitants of the land. And when we re- member the amorphous and Isolated character of Celtic Christendom — above all, when we consider its entire seclusion from all that was most vigorous and most fruitful in the life of the world — we can only be thankful that * some better thing ' was in store for us. Once more, in the light of the facts, we have every reason to thank Almighty God that the Faith came to us from the mainland. * See/^j/p. 87 f. CHAPTER II. THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH CHRISTIANITY. We are on well-trodden ground when we pass from British to English Christianity. From the semi-darkness of Gildas to the clear light of Bede is a welcome change ; and the past year has seen the issue of an edition of his historical works by Mr C. Plummer, which (although, by the way, he doubts 'the very existence of St Patrick')^ it is a joy to use. We have also the third volume of Haddan and Stubbs, Mr Green's luminous treatment in his Making of Eng- land, Dr Bright's Early English CJun'ch History, and the Bishop of Bristol's three sets of lectures ; whilst on the continent there have appeared Dr Bassenge's Die Sendnng A2igustins and Pere Brou's Si Angnstin de Canterbury et ses Conipagnons, Moreover, a 1 Vol. 11. p. 35. 50 The Beginnings of English Christianity. 5 1 volume has just been published, edited by Dr Mason, containing the text and trans- lation of the passages from Bede which relate to the Mission, with illustrative essays.^ This is a hand-book of the greatest value. As the Britons were driven westward by the English tribes, Jute and Saxon and Engle, their Christianity left no impression upon their conquerors. A few islands, so to speak, of British Christianity may have long remained, rising out of the sea of heathen- dom about them, as, for instance, in the Andredsweald, the Peak, the forest district called Elmete or Loidis,^ and the Oxford- shire table-land. But there was next to no intermixture. In a long and slow war of conquest the contending parties learn little from one another, and do not easily mix ; whereas when the war is decisive and quickly over, conquerors and conquered soon fraternise and learn one another's ways. ^ The Mission of St Augustine to England according to the Original Documents, being a Handbook for the Thirteenth Cen- tenary. Cambridge : at the University Press. * No doubt at one time Elmete may have extended as far as the Derbyshire Peak (Green, Making of England 2$/^i.) ; but they had been separated long before they were surrounded by the English. 52 The Beginnings of English Christianity. The conquest of the Britons by the English is an example of the former, that of the Gauls by the Franks of the latter. And few things are more instructive than to compare the aloofness of the former peoples as re- corded by Bede with the intermixture of the latter in the pages of Gregory of Tours.'^ As regards the Britons the case is clear. Some were preserved as household slaves, and have left their traces in a few words of household use^; but that is all. So far as they could help themselves, the Britons had no dealings with the English, and vice versa? And if there was practically no oppor- tunity for Christianity to spread to the English through ordinary social intercourse, it is equally clear that the Britons would do nothing of their own accord to conquer their ^ See Freeman's two lectures on Teutonic Conquest in Gaul and Britain in his Four Oxford LechtreSy 18S7. 2 On this subject, than which few have been more unscientifically treated, see Skeat, Principles of English Etymology Series I. chap. xxii. (especially § 412). More words, probably, have been borrowed by the Welsh language from the English than vice versa. * There is a remarkable canon enacted by the Synod of Lucus Victoriae (near Llanddewi Brefi, c. 569 a.d.) that anybody who acts as guide to the barbarians (apparently under any circum- stances) is to do penance for thirteen years. If * a slaughter of Christians' follows the penance is to be life-long.— Haddan and Stubbs, vol. I. p. 118, The Beginnings of English Christianity, 53 conquerors for Christ, but rather left them in heathenism of deliberate purpose. If the Faith was to come to the English, It should not be through them. It came from the mainland. And when It came. It meant something more than the conversion of the English to Christianity. It meant that 'the new England was ad- mitted Into the older commonwealth of the nations.'^ It meant the restoration to southern Britain of that Intercourse with the Roman world which it had lost by the with- drawal of the legions and the inroads of the invaders. We must not forget the impor- tance of this. To the northern ' barbarian,' there was one thing In the world in which was centred all his reverence and all his awe. This was contained in the magic word Rome. By this he meant, not the existing polity of the Empire with Its capital at Con- stantinople, nor yet the enfeebled Western Empire ; the one might have ceased without making much difference, and the other had actually gone out, like an expiring flame, in ^ Green, Making of England ^, 232, 54 The Beginnings of English Christianity. A.D. 476. He did not mean the Papacy, hardly even the city itself (though he meant the latter more than the former^) ; but all of these and something more. To him, Rome and civilisation were convertible terms ; and Christianity was the religion of Rome (in this majestic sense). His ordinary life was far less ' barbarous ' than we, perhaps, are inclined to think ; but, at any rate, to him Rome meant non-ego, everything outside the range of his every-day life. To this he was proud to be affiliated in any way that was possible ; and into this circle all that was strongest and best was drawn sooner or later. We can see something of what it meant in a saying attributed to St Patrick, which, if it is not actually his, is certainly that of some very early Irish missionary. He is exhorting his converts to make use of the Kyric Eleison ; and he exclaims, * As ye are Christians, be ye also Romans ' {ut Christiani ita et Roniani sitis)} Into this ^ Gregory of Toius, who prided himself on the fact that he was not a ' barbarian ' Frank, but a Roman provincial of noble bit th {De vitis Pat rum c. 6), speaks of Rome as urbs iirbiimi et t otitis miindi capiui. — Hist. Fr. lib. v. praef. * See the Dicta Patricii in Fr Ilogan's Documenta dc S. Patricio ex Libra Armachauo {Anahcta Bollandiana torn. I. p. The Beginnings of English Christianity. 55 great stream of civilised life, which, acting on the new Teutonic material, has made the history of the world since then, we of the Western Isles w^ere launched by the mission of St Augustine. Sooner or later, as we have said, all the new peoples came within this influence, and in due course received the Christian faith, the religion of the Roman oiKovpikv)]. But most of them had been converted at a time when they were in contact with Arianism, and Arians they became. And Arianism, however vigorous it might be for the mo- ment, has always proved to be effete and unfruitful In the long run. Accordingly, the peoples which adopted it have either died out, like the Vandals, or else, like the Visi- goths and the Lombards, have tardily re- ceived the Catholic faith. Now the Franks and the Enellsh were Catholic from the 585) ; Tripartite Life of St. Patrick (Rolls Series) p. 301 ; Wright, Writings of St. Patrick (R.T.S.) p. 79 f. I have given what appears to me to be probably the original reading ; but it does not matter for my purpose whether it is ct Romani sitis or ut Romani silis. Dr Wright points out that in the Epistle to Coroticus (§ 7) St Patrick speaks of the Roman and the Gallican Christians as superior in civilization to others. 56 The Beginnings of English Christianity, beginning — an advantage which affected all their after-history. They, and especially the latter, had by far the largest share in the conversion of Germany and the northern nations ; and towards them and their con- verts, as, in effect. Lord Acton has said,^ the centre of gravity of Europe has been shifting ever since. The time of Augustine's coming was cer- tainly very auspicious. The little kingdom of Kent — and Ethelbert's Caint was much smaller than the modern county — was at the zenith of its power. Since the Battle of Wimbledon in 568 its hope of territorial expansion had been cut off, whilst it had no longer a dangerous frontier line to defend. Future greatness was thus commuted for present prosperity ; whilst the other king- doms — Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex — with a hinterland that gave hopes of ex- pansion in the future were for the present entirely handicapped by it. Densely popu- lated, closely connected with the Christian mainland, with an organisation far in ad- * See The SluJy of History p. 24. The Beginnings of English Christianity. 5 7 vance of the other kingdoms, there could have been no better field for the mission than the kingdom which was even then * the garden of England.' And if Kent was ready, not less so was the King of Kent. After Gregory himself Ethelbert is perhaps the most remarkable figure of his day. He had raised his kingdom to a position of supremacy amongst the other kingdoms, or, as Bede puts it, had extended his imperinnt up to the river Humber.^ He had moreover turned his eyes towards the continent and thence taken his wife, Bertha ; and after the example originally set by Justinian, and followed by many Teutonic kings on the mainland, he had given his subjects their old laws in the form of a code.^ In all that we are told of him his prudence, justice and forethought stand out clearly ^ ; and if we were fortunate in our father Gregory, not 1 Bede, //. E. i. 25. 2 Bede, H, E. ii. 5. The laws are given in Had The Beginnings of English Christianity. 65 city, and they advanced, doubtless by the road through Ash and Wingham and St Martin's, still bearing the cross and picture before them. And they are said to have sung this Htany as they entered the city : 'We beseech Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, let Thy wrath and Thine anger be turned away from this city, even from Thy holy house, for we have sinned. Alleluia.'^ We have no means of knowing when it was that they entered the city. The sugges- tion has been made, indeed, that it was on April 25, in Rogationtide r and that Augus- tine was simply keeping the Rogation days with a litany for the fruits of the earth. But this certainly cannot be the case, since the Rogationtide litanies were not of Roman origin ; and ' it was not until the time of Leo IIL (795-816) that [they] were established at Rome.'^ Processional litanies on other occasions were, however, not unknown ; and the litany which they sang as they entered ^ For the origin and history of this anthem see Mr Wilson's dis- sertation in The Mission of St Augustine p. 236 f. It was probably Gallican in origin, and the missionaries may have learned it in their passage through Gaul. 2 Brou, op. cit. p. 62. 2 Mr H. A. Wilson in The Mission of St Augustine p. 236. E 66 The Beginnings of English Christianity, Canterbury may well have recalled to Au- gustine's mind another processional litany in which he himself had probably taken part ; viz. the great 'septiformis litania ' of peni- tence which was organized by Gregory the Great at his accession, when the Tiber had overwhelmed a considerable part of the city and a terrible pestilence had followed in its wake.^ From this time things went rapidly. In the dwelling temporarily assigned to them, and soon exchanged for a more permanent one, they at once began to live by rule, going to St Martin's for their services and preach- ings ; and converts were made from the first. The Baptism of Ethelbert himself, almost persuaded, it may be, before Augustine came, took place on Whitsun Eve,^ June i, 597 ; 1 It is described by Gregory of Tours {Hist. Fr. x. i) from the account of an eye-witness,— a deacon whom he had sent to Rome for relics. And his account is followed by Paul the Deacon {Hist. Langob. iii. 24), and Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages vol. II. p. 32 (Eng. Tr.). 2 Our earliest authoiity for the date is the statement of Thorn, who wrote at the end of the fourteenth century. Here however he is doubtless giving the CantCibury tradition, which in such a matter is to be trusted. Thorn gives the date as Whitsun Day ; and in accordance with the old custom of the Church this would doubtless mean that he was baptized at the late Whitsun Eve service, that his The Beginnings of Ejtglish Christianity, Sj and it is a fact of pathetic interest that St Columba, the founder of the Church of lona, which afterwards did so much for the work just inaugurated in England, died eight days later, on June 9, 597. Ethelbert's baptism gave a great impetus to the work. Multi- tudes came to the font of their own free will ; for Ethelbert, unlike most other newly \ baptized kings, compelled no man to be a Christian ; * only he treated believers with a closer affection, as fellow-citizens with him in the kingdom of heaven.' ^ And presently Augustine, following Gregory's direction, proceeded to Gaul, where, perhaps on confirmation followed, and that in all probability he made his first Communion at the Mass at the beginning of Whitsun Day. In case it should appear to be misrepresenting the evidence to place the baptism on Whitsun Eve when Thorn dates it Whitsun Day, it may be worth mentioning that in 626 the baptism of Ethel- bert's granddaughter Eanfled took place on Whitsun Eve according to the Chronicle (in bone halgan cefen Pentecosten) and on Whitsun Day according to Bede {die sancto Pentecostes). It would seem to be simply a different way of reckoning, just as to this day a festival is accounted to begin with its first evensong or with its morn. * Bede, H.E. i. 26. Bede tells us that Ethelbert had learned * from the teachers to whom he owed his own salvation ' that ' the service of Christ must be free, and not of constraint.* This, like so much else that is good, may have come originally from Gregory. For in one of his letters {Epp, lib. i. 45) he praises the Bishops of Marseilles for their zeal in bringing Jews to the font, but blames them for trying to bring them by force, since those who are com- pelled to be baptized will revert to their former superstitions. 6S The Beginnings of English Ch7'istianity, November 16/ he was consecrated by Vergl- lius of Aries to be 'Archbishop for the English people.' On his return he is said to have baptized more than 10,000 people on Christ- mas Day f and he forthwith sent Laurentius and Peter, a priest and a monk, to announce his success to Gregory, to plead for more helpers, and to ask certain questions. It was not till late in 601^ that they re- turned, with a band of additional workers. They bore a number of books, and all that was necessary for the service of the Church, together with a series of letters dated June 22, 601, in which Gregory answers the questions which had been asked. But the letters tell us far more. In them, and above all in one of them,* he recognises in the 1 The year is fixed by the letter of Gregory to Eulogius, which was written in the first indiction; i.e. before September 598. But in the year 597 Nov. 16 was not a Sunday ; so that this date, which is given us by Thorn, is open to suspicion. 2 See the beautiful letter of Gregory to Eulogius of Alexandria (£//. lib. viii. 30 ; Mason, op. cit. p. 44). 3 To make two legations of Lawrence and Peter to Rome, as is done by Brou, op. cit. p. 86, is a purely arbitrary way of account- ing for the long delay in Rome ; and the same thing is true of Bassenge's theory that Augustine was only consecrated in 598 and Lawrence and Peter only dispatched in the beginning 01 599 {op, cit. p. 43 f-). * Ep>p. lib. xi. 65 ; Bede, H.E. i. 22. The Beginnings of English Christianity. 69 fullest way that he is dealing no longer with a private mission of his own, in the experi- mental stage, but with what he calls the new Church of the English. He grants to the English Archbishop a pall,^ and instructs him as to the compilation of a liturgy for the Church. He further gives him directions as to its future organisation ; that two archiepis- copal sees are to be set up at London and York, and so forth. These, being based upon his knowledge of the topography of Roman Britain (Gregory was a Roman to the backbone) were quite useless, and were entirely disregarded. Now we may leave for the present the question of the relations between Gregory and Augustine, in order to emphasize again the fact that the former is dealing, not with a tentative mission, but with an organised Church, side by side with the Gallican or the Roman. The Ecclesia Angloriim may be small as yet, but it has every hope of expansion : at any rate, there it is. Meanwhile this expansion went on steadily. Another ruined church of Roman date had ^ On the value attached by Gregory to the pallium see Ap- pendix F. 70 The Beginnings of English Chdstianity. been given to Augustine by Ethelbert for his cathedral ; he rebuilt It, with a monastery, and dedicated It to the Holy Saviour, Jesus Christ our God and Lord.^ Outside the v/alls he founded the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, afterwards known as St Augus- tine's, to be his own burial place ; whilst just beyond it, if we may trust the St Augustine's tradition recorded for us in the fourteenth century, a pagan building in which the king had worshipped his Idol was cleansed, restored, and consecrated as the church of St Pancras. It Is clear that all this denotes a firm establishment of the faith in what may be called Augustine's own diocese. But his activity did not end here. Passing over for the present his dealings * It is interesting to think that perhaps the actual form of the dedication may have been, in some measure at any rate, suggested by the letters of Gregory, and especially by that to Ethelbert himself. He exhorts him to redouble his efforts for the spread of the faith by telling him of Constantine, who ' recalling the Ro- man State from the worship of idols, submitted it with himself to our Almighty Lord God Jesus Christ * {Epp. lib. xi. 6() ; Bede H. E. i. 32). He trusts that Augustine's sins are already forgiven * by the grace of the Almighty Creator and Redeemer, our God and Lord Jesus Christ ' {Epp. xi. 28). And he tells Augustine that he is to have authority over the bishops of Britain 'by the appointment of our Lord God Jesus Christ ' {Epp. xi. 65 ; Bede H.E, i. 29). The Beginnings of English Christianity. 7 1 with the British Bishops, within the next few years Mellitus was consecrated as Bishop of the East Saxons, and Justus for the most recently conquered part of Kent, with their sees at London and Rochester. And their cathedrals, dedicated to St Paul and St Andrew respectively, seem to have been consecrated by St Augustine before the year 604. Truly when our first Archbishop died, on May 26, 604, he could look back over a marvellous seven years' work. I can find no justification for the low estimate of Augustine's character and work which seems to be not uncommonly held in our day. No doubt, he is not so attractive a personality as Aedan or Boniface ; there is something stilted and constrained about his methods which clearly reflects a lack of ima- ginative insight in the man himself. We in- stinctively compare Augustine, not with those who immediately succeeded him, but with other great missionary leaders, and especially with the great pope who sent him forth. The comparison could hardly fail to be to the disadvantage of our first Archbishop. In particular we are inclined to judge 72 The Beginnings of English Christianity. Augustine by his own words, — by the ques- tions which he addressed to Gregory. These, it is true, sound in some respects paltry enough to our modern ears ; and certainly Gregory's answ^ers bear witness to a far larger mind than Augustine's questions do. But we must remember that the questions were by no means so paltry according to the ideas of the middle ages as they are accord- ing to those of the present day, and that a hundred and forty years later the far greater St Boniface was busy seeking information about questions of something the same character. We must remember above all the circumstances in which Augustine was placed. He was the spiritual leader of thou- sands just baptized or about to be baptized ; and upon the wise settlement of these *' Levitical " questions largely depended, if not the esse at least the bene esse of the infant Christian society. And there are many great missionary bishops of recent days who have had to give prolonged thought and study and prayer, in the interests of their people, to questions which do not differ widely from those which were put by Augus- tine to Gregory. The Beginnings of English Christianity, y^ And when all is said, Augustine must be judged not by the natural capacities which he brought to his work, but by the way in which he utilised the capacities which he had. A saint after all is made not born ; and we must endeavour to estimate the way in which his powers were used if we would know the man. Judged by this standard he must rank high indeed. Like St Dominic, he is the ordinary man doing his work extra- ordinarily well : not the man of genius or of special powers, but one of the men who leave their mark upon the world simply by going forward and doing that work which they are appointed to do. Once more, it is a splendid seven years' record. At his coming in 597 the English people were entirely heathen^: when he died the Church of the English was an accomplished fact. It is necessary to emphasise this. There has been a tendency to speak of the English Church as in some way the result and out- come of three converging and uniting strains * This statement is strictly accurate, though there may have been many Christians of the Saxon race, one or two even in Britain, before the year 597. See Appendix G. ^ 74 The Beginnings of English Christianity. or threads — the Roman, the Celtic of lona, and the British. The idea more or less consciously before the minds of those who use it is, I suppose, that of the threefold cord which is not quickly broken. But it is always a dangerous thing to use history merely to illustrate pre-conceived ideas, or to bolster up a priori theories. That is not the way in which Churches come into being. A threefold cord is made by machinery ; a Church comes into being from life, and in the ways of actual life. Men do not make a Church by uniting together ; they are made members of one which already exists. A Church is not formed by the concourse of individuals, but by the handing on and propagating of the life which was in the Church, and in every part of her, from the first. This we owe, under God, to Augustine, and still more to Gregory. They are the true founders of the English Church, rather than those who followed in their steps. For as it has been well said, * It is not to the mason who raises the walls that we give the name of founder, but to him who has solidly laid the foundation stone and moulded the lower courses of the building : to him above The Beginnings of English Christianity. 75 all whose guiding mind has presided over the whole work/ ^ Again, by a strange perversion of the sense in which the epithet was first used, people often speak of Augustine and his followers as the Italian Mission. The title is an unhappy one for a body whose numbers included, at any rate, Italians and Franks, and whose leader derived his episcopal orders from Southern Gaul. But further, it is used with a sort of assumption that those to whom it is applied were foreigners and outsiders as contrasted with the others who took part in the work ; whilst the matter is further complicated by the application of the same term to the Roman Catholic body in England to-day. We need only point out in reply to this that Fursey and Felix and Birinus, Cuthbert and Aedan, were equally foreigners to the English ; and, indeed, that the first Bishops who were otherwise were Ithamar and Frithonas.^ With all reverent devotion to him who first applied the phrase to the Roman Catholic organisation in England, ^ Brou, op. cit. p. 195. - With Thomas and Beil"ils. "](> The Beginnings of English Christianity. I cannot but think It was undesirable. But at least this should have preserved English Churchmen from applying the same name to Augustine and his companions. A moment's thought will show how wide a gulf separated the two. For whereas they brought the Faith to us when we were hea- then, — and with It, as I have tried to show, much that Briton or Scot could never have brought us, — the modern Roman Catholic body is coming to Christian England, and is offering us for the Faith of our fathers a faith which, in many essential respects, was not yet invented in the days of our fathers. Once more, there has recently been In many quarters a very laudable desire to magnify the share which was taken by the Church of lona, and in particular by Aedan, in the conversion of England ; and also, In other quarters, a less laudable desire to mini- mise our debt to Rome. Of the former tendency the most remarkable instance is to be found in Bishop LIghtfoot's wonderful volume of historical sermons. Leader's of the Norther'n Chnrch ; and perhaps its climax is to be found in his statement that ' not The Beginnings of English ChiHstianity. 77 Augustine, but Aedan, is the true Apostle of England.' ^ It must of course be re- membered that the great Bishop vvas writing from the standpoint of Northumbria ; but even so, I venture to say, speaking with all the reverence that is fitting from the last scholar to be elected in the Bishop's lifetime to the scholarship at Cambridge which he had founded, that the facts do not bear out this view. Even if a far larger part of Eng- land had owed its conversion to him than actually did, the fact would still remain that the converts so made became part of the Church already founded through Augustine. Even if Aedan, or BIrlnus, or any other, had been the means of founding new fully-organ- ised Churches (which can hardly be main- tained), the facts would remain that they have been merged in the pre-existing Ecclesia Anglonim. For Churches do not and can- not simply coalesce. In case of union, either of two may be merged in the other, but one of the two must be. But in truth there has been a tendency to make too much, in proportion, of the noble ^ Leaders of the Northern Church p. 9. 78 The Beginnings of English Christianity, work which was done from the North ; and Dr Bright has done good service by re- stating the plain facts in his essay '* An Appeal to Bede." ^ Referring to that essay for a fuller treatment of the question, it may suffice to point out — (i) So far from it ap- pearing that the results of Paulinus' work in the North died out entirely, there is no single missionary who has left his mark so deeply as he has done. To this day the topo- graphy and traditions of the Yorkshire dales bear witness to his work.^ If Paulinus fled to the south with his charge Queen Ethel- burga, others who were less sought after were able to remain ; and one at least, the deacon James, was still at his post when the tyranny was overpast. We may safely con- clude that the sword did not efface his work in the North ; and to this must be added his work in Lindsey. (2) It is true that Canter- bury did not send forth Birinus of Wessex ; but then certainly neither did Aedan, nor any other Celt. (3) On the other hand, it was Canterbury which sent forth Bishop Felix the Burgundian, with whom Fursey the 1 IVaymarks of Church History pp. 279-322. 2 See Dixon, Lives of the Archbishops of York vol, I, p. 42 f. The Beginnings of English Christianity, 79 Irish monk loyally worked. (4) Again, it is true that Cedd came to London to revive the Christianity of the East Saxons ; but he was sent, not by Celtic Aedan, but by English Oswy. (5) And the like is true of the Mid-Angles and South Saxons ; it was English Peada who brought Cedd, and Eng- lish Oswy who sent Diuma and Chad to the former, and English Wilfrid, to whom more than any other the abolition of Celtic cus- toms is due, who became the apostle of the latter. (6) Nor can it be said that this is after all but Celtic influence working in the second generation of Christians. The fact is that in these cases we have to deal, not with the results of Celtic influence, saintly though it was, but with the beginning of that Eng- lish zeal for souls which, in another genera- tion or two, produced St Willibrord and St Boniface and many more. It is, of course, perfectly true that a very large part of England — possibly the larger part — was converted from the north. And (always remembering how loose a significance must be given to the words italicised) it is the fact that ' the whole of England, except 8o The Beginnings of English Christianity. Kent, East Anglla, Wessex and Sussex, was, at the beginning of a.d. 664, attached to the Scottish Commttnion ^ ; and Wessex was under a Bishop, Wine, ordained in Gaul, and in communion with British Bishops.^ Sussex was still heathen. So that Kent and East Anglia alone remained completely in communion with both Rome and Canterbury.'^ But the very first attempt at common action, in the Synod of Streanaeshalch or Whitby, which took place in that very year 664, was enough to show how little cohesion there was in the * Scottish Com- munion.' And when men looked for something more than this, they found it not at lona, but at Canterbury. In truth, so far as there was a centre of English Christianity, Canterbury was that centre throughout. The English Church begins with Augustine ; and when the time came for the scattered missions to be organised into one, the work was done by Augustine's greater successor Theodore, the second founder of English Christianity.^ ^ The italics are mine. 2 As to these British Bishops see post, p. 84. 3 Haddan & Stubbs, III. p. 106 note a. * See Mason, Mission of St Augustine pp. 203 f. The Beginnings of English Christianity, 8 1 It is ill work disputing over the degrees of thankfulness which we owe, under God, to those who brought us to the Faith ; but here at least, in the interests of the truth, it seems to be necessary to speak plainly. CHAPTER III. THE WELSH CHURCH AND THE ENGLISH. It is probable that Gregory, who thought that the Londinlum and Eboracum of Roman Brltahi were still the two great cities of our land (as indeed long afterwards they again became) was hardly aware that Augustine was likely to come into contact with bishops of British race. But so it was, and to these we must now turn. The Brythons, as we have seen, were gradually forced back upon, and absorbed, the Goidels of the West. The process would seem to have begun even before the English conquests. For about the time of the departure of the Romans from Britain ^ or soon after, the Goidelic territories had ^ Rhys, Celtic Britain chap. iv. * The account which Nennius gives of Cunedda states that he and his sons came to Wales . . . 146 years before the reign of Maelgwn, the most powerful of his descendants. This . . . settles the date as falling somewhere very near the departure of the Romans from Britain.'— p. 119 f. S2 The Welsh Church and the English. Z-i^ been invaded by a great federation of Bry- thons, mainly from the north/ under the name of Cymry or (to give a rough equivalent) comrades. Under the leadership of the famous Cunedda and his sons they advanced into (what is now) Wales, and gradually conquered the Goidels, whom they treated much as the English treated them. By about the middle of the sixth century the conquest was complete. The Cymry gradu- ally absorbed the whole people, and hence- forward everything depended upon the possession of Cymric blood.^ It was about this time that these people began to be known to the English by the general name of Wealas^ or Welshmen. Little by little their territories were en- croached upon. And although by degrees, and especially as the English kings became Christian, the war ceased to be one of ex- termination, yet the circumstances in them- selves are such as fully to account for the * Skene, Celtic Scotland vol. I. p. 238 ; cf. The Four Ancient Books of Wales chap. iv. (vol. I. pp. 42-60). 2 See Seebohm, The Tribal System in Wales chap. VI. ii. ^ * The modern English Wales properly means the people rather than the country, being merely a plural substantive meaning foreigners.' — Skeat, Principles of English Etymology vol. I. p. 202. §4 The Beginnings of English Chrtshanity, long - continued hatred between the two peoples, above all in the Marches, where they were brought closest into contact. Already before the coming of St Augustine the Wealas had been cut in two. The West Saxons had gradually advanced from the Wiltshire downs towards the lower reaches of the Severn; and in 577, by the great victory of Deorham, the rich district between the three great cities of Corinium, Glevum, and Aquae Soils (Ciren ceaster, Gleawan ceaster, and Bathan ceaster, as the English called them ; Cirencester, Gloucester, and Bath, as they are now) fell into their hands, and were occupied by people of West Saxon race, the Hwiccas. These were now almost cut off from their kinsmen by the Forest of Braden and the wooded uplands, and soon became more or less estranged from them. They gradually extended their sway over the conquered people, not attempting to drive them out, until they possessed Glouces- tershire, Worcestershire, and Somerset as far as the Glastonbury marshes.^ From this * i.e. the ancient diocese^ not the county, of Worcester. — Bede. iv. 21. (See the map in Freeman's Norman Conquest vol. II. The Welsh Church and the English. 85 time West Wales as it was called, or the whole promontory to the south-west of the Axe, was separated entirely from Wales proper ; and its boundaries were slowly but surely encroached upon, until at length it dwindled down to the modern Cornwall. And not long afterwards a far more serious breach was made in the North. In 613 iSthelfrith made his way across the pass at the head of Ribblesdale, and advanced in a south-westerly direction against the great city of Deva or Chester. He defeated the Britons with terrible slaughter and took the city ; and with it there fell into his hands the greater part of what is now Cheshire and Lancashire — Teyrnllwg as the Welsh called it. No disaster could have been more ter- rible. The Brythons of Wales were cut off from those of Cumbria ; the unifying work of Cunedda and his sons was undone ; and in Mr Green's words, * From this moment Britain as a country ceased to exist.' ^ This fact is enough to account for, though it facing p. 83.) The land of the Hvvlccas included at first a small part of (what became) Somerset ; but this it had lost before the diocese was founded in 679 or 6S0. ^ Making of England ■^. 243. 86 The Beginnings of English Christianity. may not justify, the despairing fury with which the Christian Britons of North Wales were ready to make an ally of the heathens of Mercia, in the vain hope of wresting their land out of the hands of the now Christian Northumbrians. But it was not to be. Henceforward the fortunes of the Britons were bound up in the mountainous tract between the Severn and the Dee : and strange as It sounds, Cunedda and ^Ethel- frith are jointly the makers of modern Wales. This however Is by way of anticipation ; for the severance of Wales and Cumbria was subsequent to Augustine's Interview with the British bishops. To the consideration of this we must now turn. It is a pity that the actual letter is not preserved to us in which Augustine asked Gregory how he was to deal with the British bishops ; unless indeed the questions were verbal, which is not likely. For It would be interesting to know precisely what he had found out about them. At any rate, no sooner had Gregory answered, committing them to his care, ' that the unlearned may be taught, the weak reassured by persuasion, The Welsh Church and the English, %"] and the perverse corrected by authority,'^ than Augustine set about it. By the influ- ence of Ethelbert, he obtained a conference with the ' bishops or doctors ' of ' the near- est province of the Britons ' at a place ' which is to this day called Augustine's Oak, on the borders of the Hwiccas and the West Saxons.' If we are to accept Bede's statement — and in such a matter it is unim- peachable — there can be no real doubt as to the wdiereabouts of Augustine's Oak. The border of the Hwiccas and the West Saxons coincided more or less with that of Glouces- tershire and Wilts ; and, as the Bishop of Bristol has pointed out,^ the road from Swindon to Cirencester {i,e. the Roman road from Calleva Atrebatum or Silchester to Corinium and Glevum, along which Augustine must have come) cuts the boun- dary just by Cricklade. It is possible, as Mr Moberly has suggested,^ that the very name survives in the spot called The Oak, ^ Bede, H. E. i. 27. It is clear, I think, that Gregory is here referring to the British bishops. Before this he doubtless knew nothing of them. The obvious inference is that Augustine had told him about them in the letter which Gregorj' is now answering. - Aus^Hstine and his Companions p. 98. " rUimmer's Bcdi vol. II. p. 74. 88 The Beginnings of English Christianity, at Down Ampney, some two or three miles from Cricklade ; but whether this is so or not. it was here and not at Aiist ^ that the conference was held. And there is an im- portant conclusion from this which has as yet scarcely been observed ; viz. that the first Bishops whom Augustine met were Cornish or * West Welsh,' not Welsh. For Cricklade was nowhere near the border of Wales. The Bishop of Bristol has met this difficulty by saying that the Bishops would naturally meet Augustine at a half-way house.^ To me this does not seem at all natural ; I should rather have expected them to come to Canterbury, or else to meet him at the frontier. And in spite of the good relations which had grown up between the Hwiccas and the Welsh — in 590 they were actually united in revolt aofainst the West Saxons — I think the Bishop is wrong in saying that, in 60 r, ' through their territories the Welsh would feel no difficulty in travelling.' For in 591 Ceolric, the head of the Hwiccan house of Cutha, defeated Ceawlin at the battle of ^ Aust is undoubtedly Trajectum Angitsti^ not Augimtinf. - Arigiistine and his Companions p. 99. The Welsh Church and the English, 89 Wanborough, and ascended the throne of Wessex, though opposed by a considerable section of his people. This broke up the Hwiccan alliance with the Welsh; and of his brother Ceolwulf, who succeeded him in 597, we are told that 'he fought and strove incessantly with Angle-kin, or with Wealas, or wath Peohtas, or with Scottas.' ^ It Is clear enough, then, that the Welsh would not be especially drawn to ' the borders of the Hwlccas and the West Saxons.'^ But why should the bishops whom Augus- tine met in the first conference have been from Wales at all ? Bede expressly tells us that they were from the nearest province of the Britons ; which would be West Wales. This would explain everything; for Cricklade was not only on the borders of the Hwlccas and West Saxons, but was actually the spot at which West Wales touched them both.^ And thus it seems clear that Augustine's first interview was with men of the Damnonian peninsula. ^ English Chronicle s. aa. 590, 591, 597. 2 The Bishop of Bristol iihi sitpr. ^ See Dr Guest's map, Origiiies Celtkae vol. II. p. 24: less clearly Mr J. R. Green's Making of England \). 215. 90 The Beginnings of English Christianity, The result of the conference Is well known; for Bede's narrative^ fairly represents the main facts, whatever may be thought of some details. The two parties had to out- ward seeming little In common ; baptized as they were Into the same Lord, their whole conceptions of the Christian life were dif- ferent. In any conflict of this kind the actual points In dispute are comparatively insignificant ; and their real importance lies in the fact that they represent more vital differences which cannot so easily be put into words. The superior person, of course, at once begins to speak of * questions of words and names,' or disputes about an iota, or squabbling over trifles ; only showing thereby his own incapacity for understanding the matter. In this case, the questions of the tonsure, and of the Easter cycle, and of trine or single immersion, etc., represented such great differences of view that Augustine, with his somewhat narrow ideas of Church order, could hardly regard the Britons as be- ing in Catholic unity with him, but exhorted them to enter into unity with a view to join- ing In the conversion of the English. After J Bede, H. E. ii. 2. The Welsh Church and the English, 91 much indecisive debate they asked for a second interview, at which more of their number would be present ; and, we gather, from the other provinces of the Britons too/ We are not told where this second inter- view was held, but Bede says that there were present, according to report {jtU perhi- bent), seven Bishops, many wise men or monks (doctissimi — it represents the title ddoeth or dy-oeth, given to Gildas, Rydd- march and others), and especially from their greatest monastery Bangor-is-Coed. But althouofh Auofustine was maofnanimous enough to aim at unity without entire uni- formity, and was willing to waive certain differences, the conference came to nothing. If Bede's account is true, that it failed because Augustine received the Britons seated, we can only regret that they re- garded as a sign of arrogance the somewhat formal reception with which they would probably have met from any Roman in Augustine's position. * According to certain late writers (Sigebert and Henry oi Huntingdon) there were present at .this second conference Picts and Scots in addition to the Britons. But this is ahnost as improbable as the Welsh legends which provide sees for the seven Bishops who * were said to have l^een present.' 92 The Beginnings of English Christianity, But the whole circumstances and the sub- sequent events are enough to show that the conference was doomed to failure from the first. The discovery of their singularity had no effect upon the Britons but to draw them into closer relations with other Celtic Chris- tians ; indeed, only about this time does it become possible to speak of Celtic Christen- dom as a whole in any real sense. And their general position towards the Christian world at large is perhaps not inaptly ex- pressed by the words ironically put into their mouth a little while afterwards by one of themselves, the Irish St Cummlan, * Rome is wrong, Jerusalem is wrong, Antioch is wrong, the whole w^orld is wrong ; only the Scots and Britons know what Is right.' ^ Meanwhile, as has been said already, they would do nothing whatever towards the con- version of the English. It would not be fair to lay too much stress upon the alliance of Cadwallon, the Christian King of Gwy- nedd, with the heathen Penda, against the Christian enemies of his race ; for, as we have seen, they had but recently rent his ^ S. Cummiani, Ep. ad Segiennm de controversia Paschali ; ap. Migne, P, L. torn. Ixxxvii. col. 974. The Welsh Church and the English, 93 country asunder. But Bede tells us that the Britons would not attempt to convert the English, and that down to his own day they held their faith and religion as nought, and would have no more to do with them than with pagans/ And further, we learn from a letter of Archbishop Laurentius ^ that the Irish were as bad as the Britons ; for the Irish bishop Dagan on his way through Britain would not eat with the Christian English, nor even dwell under the same roof.^ And a letter of St Aldhelm* to King Geraint of Damnonia tells us that more than a hundred years afterwards the Britons beyond the Severn would neither worship nor sit at meat with them, and ^ Bede, H. E. v. 22, ii. 20. 2 Bede, H. E. ii. 4. 3 Dagan in all probability to be identified with the Bishop of Inbher Daoile of that name. He is said to have been restored to life, as a boy, by SS. Kainnich and Mochoemoc {Acta SS. Boll, Mar. xii. vol. II. p. 282). He made a pilgrimage to Rome, taking with him the rule of his friend St Lugidius (also known as Luanus and Molua) abbat of Cluainfert or Clonfert, which is said to have been approved by Pope Gregory I. (K//. S. Liigidii c. vi. § 43 ; Acta SS. Boll, Aug. iv. vol. I. p. 352 ; see also Sept. xiii. vol. IV. p. 50). It was probably on this occasion that he passed through Britain. * S. Aldhelmi Ep. ad Geruntium. (Migne, P. L. vol. Ixxxix col. 87 f. ; Giles, Pat res Eccles, Anglic, vol. I. p. S^ f-) 94 The Begmnings of English Christianity, purified, after such pollution, the vessels from which they had eaten and drunk. Whilst even more convincing is the evidence of such stories as that of St Beino, legendary as it is in much of its setting.^ * On a certain day, as Beino was travelling near the river Severn, where was a ford, lo, he heard a voice on the other side of the river, inciting the dogs to hunt a hare, being that of an Englishman, who spoke as loud as he could, *' Cergia," which in that language incited the dogs. And when Beino heard the voice of the Englishman, he immediately returned, and coming to his disciples said, " My sons, put on your clothes and your shoes, and let us leave this place, for the nation of this man has a strange language, and is abomin- able, and I heard his voice, on the other side of the river, inciting the dogs after a hare : they have invaded this place, and it will be theirs, and they will keep it in their posses- sion." , , . And Beino and his disciples came away as far as Meivod, etc' ^ ^ W. J. Rees, Cauibro-British Saints p. 299 f ; Green, Making of England p. 198 f. - Other examples might easily be given. I owe the following to the kindness of the Rev. R. W. Dixon, Hon. Canon of Newcastle : 'Bishop Davies of St David's (1561-1581) told Abp Parker that The Welsh Church and the English. 95 Nor ouoht we to conclude that the blame o in this matter is entirely due to the Britons. Situated as they were it is little wonder that they would not give up their customs at the bidding of their conquerors ; and it must be borne in mind that later on Theodore re- garded their Bishops as excommunicate, and their acts as invalid or at least irregular/ But further, so entirely was their Christianity there was a MS. Chronicle in his diocese which contained the remarkable relation, that so long as the Saxons etc. continued pagans, whenever they and the Britons met together to treat of peace the Britons would eat and drink with them : but that after they wei"e converted by St Augustine the Britons refused longer to do it, accusing them of having corrupted the Christian religion by superstition, images and idolatry. — Nasmyth's Catalogue of C.C.C.C. Library p. 154.' One would be glad to know more about this MS. Chronicle. 1 Bede, H. E. iv. 2 ; Poenit, Theod. 11. ix. 1. The * non rite con- secratum " of Bede does not necessarily imply that the consecration was null and void from the beginning ; and the statement that Theo- dore 'ordinationem eius denuo catholica ratione consummavit ' would seem to show that it was not so regarded. With this agrees the words of the Penitential, ' iterum a catholico Episcopo manus impositione confirmentur.' No doubt however rigorists might take another view ; for Eddi informs us (certainly wrongly) that Chad was ordained from the lowest grade (Eddi, vit. Wilfr. c. 15 : per omnes gradus ecclesiasticos plene eum ordinaverunt). Probably in such a case as this, as in the case of confirmation, men were content not to ask too curiously whether the manus impositio was a new ordination, or simply ' a removal of the guilt of schism, and all its attendant consequences, by the laying on of hands. See Mason, Relation of Coiifirmation to Baptism pp. 67, 180. 96 The Beginnings of English Christianity, knit up in their tribal system, that they would hardly have known how to make a man a Christian without at the same time making him a member of a Celtic tribe, which was impossible. With the monks of lona it was different ; they had given up their tribal life when they became exiles for Christ at lona ; and to the younger genera- tion loyalty to the monastery and its head had taken the place of tribe and fatherland too. Yet even so, although Aedan and others, to their lasting honour, had thrown in their lot with the English, we must re- member that some of the missionaries from the North never really succeeded in doing so, including that Corman who was sent in the first instance, and Colman in later days. Even the case of the two British Bishops who assisted Wine of Wessex in the conse- cration of St Chad ^ is somewhat different. They were doubdess from the Damnonian peninsula, and probably from that great wedge of British territory extending from the Parret, by Bradford, to Malmesbury and Cricklade, and covered by the Forest of Braden. If so they were the direct repre- 1 Bede, H, E. iii. 38. The Welsh Church and the English. 97 sentatives of the British Bishops whom Augustine met in his first conference. This district had just fallen Into West Saxon hands at the battles of Bradford and the Pens^ ; so that by 664 they were probably West Saxon subjects. That the British Christians left the English people severely alone was then as much the result of a narrow conception of their faith as of any deliberate malice. But the fact must be clearly recognised. The English-speaking race (as It has become) derived from the first many of its strongest and richest elements from the gradual intermixture of Celtic blood — Welsh and Scottish and Irish ; some of us would say, indeed, that wherever it produces its noblest sons you may always find the volatile Celtic element acting upon the soberer, more stolid English. The English Church derived from the first much of her best life from the spiritual sons of the abbats of lona. But to trace back the origin of that Church to the older British Christianity, or to derive her life from it in any degree what- ever, is to falsify history. They had for a long * Eng. Chron. s. aa. 652, 658 : see Green, Making of England PP- 338-340. G 98 The Beginnings of English Christianity, time nothing whatever to do with one another. The ' British ' Church is not the mother of the EngHsh, but an elder sister ; and at first, it must be confessed, a very unfriendly one.^ The real connection between them is not a thing of the sixth century, or the seventh, or eighth, but of later days ; of the centuries from the eleventh to the thirteenth. They are indeed knit together into one, but by the bonds of union, not of birth ; for the older British Church was by degrees merged in the English, as the older British kingdoms were. With the advance of the English con- querors, as we have seen, Britain as a whole ceased to exist ; and henceforward the Churches of Cumbria (or Strathclyde), Wales, and West Wales (or Cornwall) stood apart. Immediately, it made little or no difference to them ; for the not infrequent intercourse of former days, by letter or pilgrimage, could still take place across the sea ; and they had never known anything of a real common ^ Duchesne, Eglises Separees p, 7. * L'eglise bretonne n'est pas la mere de l'eglise anglaise ; elle n'en est qu'une soeur plus ancienne, et encore une sceur ennemie. ' . The Welsh Church a7id the English. 99 organization. But in ultimate consequences it altered everything. Cumbria and Corn- wall were at once brought into closer rela- tions with one or another of the English kingdoms. Little by little they adopted the Catholic Easter, and gave up the other Celtic customs ; and then at length came the formal union with the larger body. To take them separately, the Church of Cumbria received the Catholic Easter in 704, but was not finally merged, partly in the Scottish Church, partly in the English, for centuries after. Turning to West Wales, the Britons who had become subject to Wessex ^ adopted the Catholic Easter in 705 ; but Cornwall re- mained independent under its bishop (or possibly bishops)^ till 870, and then again till early in the tenth century, from which time all Cornish Bishops were subject to Canter- bury. The case of Wales must be treated a litde more in detail, in view of the opinions which have been held as to the organization of its * See ante p.'.84. 2 There is no direct evidence for more than one ; but it would make clear much that is puzzling about the Cornish bishops if we might think that at one time there were bishops both at Bodmin and St Germans. 100 The Beginnings of English Christianity, Church. According to the current ideas of the middle ages, the Welsh Church had been organised in early days with an Arch- bishop at St David's, and under him six or seven diocesan bishops. The origin of this belief is not far to seek. As one or other of the Welsh princes rose to supremacy or superiority amongst the rest, it was not unnatural that the bishop of his principality should aspire to a like pre-eminence. This was yet more natural after Latin ideas of ecclesiastical order had begun to spread in Wales, owing to intercourse with England and the continent. Now these two condi- tions coincided in a remarkable degree at the beginning of the tenth century, in the days of Hywel Dda, the Prince of Dehen- barth or South Wales. In the year 922^ he had become tributary to Edward the Elder, with the other Welsh princes ; and a few years afterwards, according to the Gwen- tian Brut y Tywysogion,^ he made a pil- grimage to Rome as Cyngen of Powys had done before him.^ Not only so, he had ^ Eng. Chron. s.a. 922. * s.a. 926 {^Arch. Cambr. Series III. vol. x. p. 21 ; Haddanand Stubbs, vol. I. p. 209). ' Ann. Cambr, s.a. 854. The Welsh Church and the English. loi become Brenin Cymry oil, King of all Wales. And thus the Bishop of Menevia shone with a reflected dignity that no other could equal ; and the concrete position of dignity began to give shape to the floating ideas of ecclesias- tical precedence which were already in the air. Of course after Hywel's death united Wales broke up ; but the shadow of de- parted glory still hung about the see of St David's. And in later days this vague tradition was a sufficient basis for the legend that Wales had once been an ecclesiastical province. The twelfth century was the great period of the fabrication of Welsh history. It was then that everything Celtic began to be * Latinised.' ^ It was then that the lives of the Welsh saints were written (or re- written) on Latin models. It was then that Geoffrey of Monmouth concocted his great romance, weaving into it indeed such fragments of Welsh history and tradition and legend as he conveniently could, but else- where drawing upon a very fertile imagination. And at the close of the same century Giraldus Cambrensis adopted and expanded such parts * Willis Bund, Celtic Church in Wales pp. 6, 9 f. 102 The Beginnings of English Christianity. of this compilation as would serve the pur- poses of his turbulence and ambition, giving to them the currency which none but he could have given, and retracting as false much of what he had said when it was too late to undo the evil that he had done. Amongst other things, then, this century * discovered ' the province of St David's. Of course, as I have said, Geoffrey and GIraldus did not actually Invent the Idea. In his Life of St David, Ryddmarch declares that his see had once had jurisdiction over the whole of Britain.^ And a claim to the metropolltanship is said to have been put forward by the Chap- ter of St David's, on behalf of their Bishop, in 1125.^ But however this may be, there is no question that now for the first time it was put forward In a formal way. It is certainly a myth. Careful examination shows conclu- sively that Wales was never organized as an ecclesiastical Province. It Is true that there * W. J. Rees, Canibro- British Saints p. 140. St David is called Archbishop on p. 139 and elsewhere. 2 So Giraldus declared some seventy-five years afterwards (0//. vol. III. p. 187) ; and he produced a letter of the Chapter to the Pope, genuine or forged, to that effect. {0pp. III. 59, 60 : see Haddan and Stubbs, I. 317). But it is hard to believe anything whatever on the unsupported assertion of Giraldus. The Welsh Church and the English. 103 is early mention of archbishops ; but Arch- bishop is after all but a title of honour, and not necessarily anything more/ It does not mean, like Metropolitan, that its holder is at the head of an ecclesiastical Pro- vince ; nor even like Primate, that he has a certain definite precedence over other bishops. In early days it is often used simply as a personal mark of honour ; and in the Roman communion something of the same kind still exists in the custom of creat- ing distinguished prelates archbishops in partihts. Moreover there have been, and I believe still are, several archiepiscopal sees in Italy which have no suffragans.^ In Wales the title was formerly given in this ancient way, simply as a mark of honour and nothing more, now to one bishop, now to another. And the following passage from the Gwentian Brut y Tywysogion will both show that there was nothing of the nature * Hinschius, Kinhenrccht ii. § 6, 9 ; cf. Du Catige s.v. 2 Such apparently are Camerino, Ferrara, Spoleto, Lucca and Catania (Gams, Series Episcoporum). Gams calls Ferrara sedes metropolitan a sine snffraganeis, whatever that may mean (p. 695). I have read that Bari was an archiepiscopal see without suffragans in 1378, when its Archbishop, Bartolommeo Prignano, became Pope Urban VI. j but I cannot find the reference. I04 The Beginnings of English Christianity. of a Province of Wales, and also illustrate Celtic Ideas of organization: — 'A.D. 809 Elvod, Archbishop of Gwynedd [Bangor] died . . . and there was a great tumult among Churchmen on account of Easter ; for the Bishops of Llandaff and Menevia would not succumb to the Archbishop of Gwynedd, being themselves Archbishops of older privilege." ^ Many similar examples might be given. ^ If then there was no Welsh Province, was the Welsh Church organised under dio- cesan Bishops "^ There is no question, I think, that there were * kingdom bishoprics ' not unlike those of the early English Church from the end of the sixth century. But at the same time there are many things which point to a more widespread * monastic ' epis- copate, of the kind that was to be found elsewhere in Celtic Christendom. Such for example are the references in the Lives of the Cambro-British Saints to Bishops who had no sees,^ and the seven Bishop-houses in ^ Arch. Cainbr. Series III. vol. X. p. 9 : Haddan and Stubbs, vol. I. p. 204. 5* See Asser, Gest. Aelfridl s.a. 885 ; Liber Landavensis p. 92, in the title to the Life of St Teilo. * Rees, Lives of Cambro-British Saints pp. 183, 407, 41 1. The Welsh Church and the English. 105 Dyfed, ^ and above all the immense numbers of Bishops who are said to have been present at certain Councils. To give instances, one hundred and eighteen Bishops are said to have taken part in the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi about 569 A.D. ^ ; and 'seven score croziers, Bishops, and Archbishops, and Abbats, and good teachers ' took part in the preparation of the laws of Hywel Dda.^ Things of this kind, inconclusive if taken singly, become very strong evidence when taken cumula- tively, and above all when we find the monas- tery occupying the same sort of position in Wales as it did in regions where the system of monastic Bishops was in full force. And Prof. Rees {Essay on the Welsh Saints p. 195) thought that St David had at first been consecrated without a see ; and this certainly seems probable from the three Lives. In the Life of St 7 ah the names are given of eight suffragan Bishops said to have been actually living in his diocese. — Liber Landavensis p. 624. The Life several times speaks of his suffragan Bishops : e.g. pp. 102, 109. This is evidence of late date, but since there was nothing of the kind at the time when the life was written, it becomes the more clear that we have here true vestiges of the past. ^ Haddan and Stubbs, vol. I. p. 281. 2 Ryddmarch's Life of St David {Cainbro- British Saints 136). The numbers may very well be exaggerated and untrustworthy ; but five, or six, or seven, is not easily exaggerated into one hundred and eighteen. ^ Haddan and Stubbs, vol. I. p. 217. 1 06 The Beginnings of English Christianity, on the whole therefore it seems probable that side by side with a system of diocesan or kingdom-bishoprics which was only grow- ing into completeness, there still existed the remains of an older and more strictly Celtic system ; and that matters were not more orderly in consequence. Other features of Celtic Church life, the prominence of monas- teries, the tendency to hereditary rule in them, are likewise clearly traceable ; and, it must be added, the Celtic laxity of morals. We need not describe how the Celtic pecu- liarities gradually gave way before the customs of the Western Church, and the influence of Canterbury increased. The story has been well told in Mr Ne well's learned History of the Welsh Church, a book which improves as It goes on, and gives an unrivalled picture of GIraldus and his times. Little by little the English Influence increased ; one by one Bishops were placed in the Welsh sees who had been consecrated by, or had made profes- " sions of obedience to, the Archbishops of Canterbury; until at length in 1187 Arch- bishop Baldwin preached a crusade in Wales as Papal Legate, and in 1284 Archbishop The Welsh Church and the English. 107 Peckham made a visitation of the Welsh dioceses as part of his province. From that time onward the Welsh and English Churches have been one. If the last stages of the process were not always carried out in the most regular and canonical way, at least they seem to have been received readily enough by the clergy and people as a whole. Certainly they were not merely the result of secular causes. The union preceded, rather than followed, the conquest of Wales ; and the rigours of Edward I.'s wars were greatly lightened for the Welsh by Arch- bishop Peckham's exertions.^ And in spite of much neglect in later days, and much hardship In the appointment of Bishops ignorant of Welsh and non-resident, surely nobody who is conversant with the facts can doubt that the state of the Welsh dioceses was greatly improved, on the whole, by the union. If they have suffered much from neglect since then, it must also be borne in mind how much has been done in recent years for them. At the present day they are as integral a part of the Province of Canter- ^ See the documents in Haddan and Stubbs, vol. I. pp. 526, 533-54S» 547, S48, 554, 555-5^2, 567-569. lo8 The Beginnings of English Christianity, bury as any other four dioceses, and at least as dear to the heart of all members of the Church. And probably nothing in recent years has roused the spirit of Churchmen in anything like the same degree as the attack made not long ago upon the dioceses which to this day represent the ancient Church which has seen the birth of the whole Anglican Communion. CHAPTER IV. THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND THE ROMAN. We have now to consider the bearing of what has already been said upon our rela- tions with the Roman Communion. There is, or has been, a widespread reluctance to recognise the facts which have been set forth, based upon a vague idea that they weaken the position of the English Church in the face of Roman claims. To those who have been accustomed to rebut those claims by saying that we derive our origin from a Church which in no sense acknowledged the authority of the Roman, it naturally seems like a surrender to admit that the plea is based upon a total misapprehension of the facts. That it should be so is simply part of the Nemesis which must sooner or later overtake those who have been making use, however unintentionally, of a false argument. It ought hardly to be necessary to point 109 no The Begiii7imgs of English Christianity, out that such considerations should have no weight whatever with followers of Him who is the Truth. We are bound to seek for the truth, however it may affect us, and at what- ever cost. If our position were thereby- broken down, it would only be so much the worse for a position which could no longer be ours ; and we should have gained, not lost, by the exposure of its hollowness. As to this there can be no doubt. It is not our primary business to make a scientific frontier for ourselves, or to take up a good fighting position against opponents, but to * prove all things' and 'hold fast that which is good.'^ Of course, the natural man loves a praescriptio, an argument which puts his opponents out of court altogether, as much as Tertulllan did ; but sooner or later It will always appear that such an argument Involves the surrender of one side or other of the truth, a thing which the Catholic Christian dare not make. And the method In Itself Is, as Frederick Denlson Maurice said,^ an outrage upon the truth Itself. 1 I Thess. V. 21. 2 Ecclesiastical History of the First and Second Centuries p. 279 (second edition). The Engrlish Chitrch and the Roman, 1 1 1 %i> Whatever the consequences might be, then, we should look to St Augustine as our apostle, and above all to the noble- hearted Pope who sent him forth and lived to see his successes, Gregory the Great. We are not surprised to learn that their festivals were ordered to be kept as days of universal obligation, by the great Council of Clovesho.^ For with Bede we say ' though he [Gregory] be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless he is unto us ; for we are the seal of his aposdeship in the Lord.' ^ And with Arch- bishop Bramhall : ^ ' We do, with all thank- fulness to God, and honourable respect to his memory, acknowledge, that that blessed Saint was the chief instrument, under God, to hold forth the first light of saving truth to the English nation, who did formerly " sit in darkness and in the shadow of death " ; whereby he did more truly merit the name of Great, than by possessing the chair of St Peter. And therefore whilst the sometimes flourishing, now poor persecuted/ Church of ^ Haddan and Stubbs, vol. III. p. 368. 2 Bede, H.E. ii. i. » Works vol. I. p. 266 (ed. Haddan). * Bramhall was writing under the Commonwealth ; and the dis- course from which this passage is taken, A Just Vindication of tin Church of England^ was first printed in 1654. 1 1 2 The Beginnings of English Christianity, England, shall have any being : "Semper honor nomenque suum laudesque mane- bunt." '^ But we may boldly say that the strength of our position Is In no way touched by the fact that we have St Gregory to our father. Even If there had been no mission from Rome, and the British Church had done her duty in the conversion of the English, it would have been none the stronger : even If the Church of lona had done none of her magnificent work in the north, — Indeed, even If there had been no pre-Augustlnlan Chris- tianity In Britain, — it would have been none the weaker. There is of course a vast debt of gratitude due from a Church to her spiri- tual founders, and the fact has always been recognised, certainly not least by us ; but the canonical rights of the Church in question are in no wise thereby affected. Paul may plant, Apollos may water ; but it is God that giveth the increase. ^ And it Is from God that the Church derives all her rights and privi- leges, by whatever channel they may come. With this subject I now proceed to deal. ^ Verg., Aai. i. 609, 2 i Cor. iii, 6. The English Church and the Roman. 1 1 3 I. When a new mission to the heathen is begun there are two distinct stages through which it must pass, {a) In the first instance, one or more persons go forth or are sent forth, ordinarily of course under the authority of one to whom has been committed the function and the duty of sending them forth — viz., a Bishop or Bishops of the Catholic Church. The persons thus sent may be led by a Bishop, as BIrinus of Wessex, or Bishop Corfe in our own day ; or by a priest, as St Boniface and William Broughton when they became missionaries ; or even conceivably by a deacon or a layman. In either of the latter cases, however, it will probably be- come necessary before long that the leader should be consecrated Bishop (as St Boniface was) In order that he may be able to confirm and ordain.^ And thus, as the work goes on * We may compare the mission of St Philip the Deacon to Samaria. After a time it became necessary for the Apostles to send members of their ^own body to Samaria to give his converts Confirmation : * who when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost. . . . Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost ' (Acts viii. 5-17). H 1 1 4 The Beginnings of English Christianity. and converts are made, we have what may be called a missionary jurisdiction. The name indeed is modern ; but the thing itself is as old as the Apostles. A Bishop is there, and his people are there ; but as yet they are, so to speak, in leading strings. They are or should be under the pastoral care of some other Bishop or Synod of Bishops, {b) The newly-formed body grows and increases, and by degrees acquires a stable position. At length another step is taken ; and the mission, with the concurrence of those under whose pastoral charge it has hitherto been, is formed into a diocese or dioceses, having the full machinery of the Catholic Church. Hence- forward it makes its own fortunes ; it * has its seed in itself.' In other words, the mis- sionary jurisdiction has become a Church. Of course, many questions would yet re- main which might be settled now in this way, now in that, by synodical authority. And it would be easy to point out how many variations have taken place from this simple procedure at different times, and to ask many questions which it would be hard to answer in accordance with old precedents. For the Church did not start, as some people seem to The English Chtcrch and the Roman, 1 1 5 imagine, with a ready-made system of canon law which she forthwith proceeded to carry out. With her, practice precedes theory, and it is only by a very gradual process, which can never be said to have reached finality, that she has shaped her procedure. When brought face to face v/ith new needs and new conditions, it may always be necessary for her to adapt herself to them, and take what- ever measures may be necessary to enable her to deal with them ; such measures, of course, being always in accordance with the fundamental principles of her being. How- ever, for our purpose it is unnecessary to consider any one of these questions ; for the two stages are to be seen normally and clearly enough in the case of Augustine's mission, (a) He is sent forth, first as prior and then as abbat, under the authority of Gregory ; using, no doubt, the services of his own Roman Church,^ and acting in all things under the authority of Gregory as his Bishop. (J)) The other stage is not less clearly set forth in Gregory's letters to Augustine in 601. And although the genuine- ^ As a rule. See ante p. 53, note i. 1 1 6 The Beginnings of English Christianity. ness of one of these — that which contains Gregory's answers to Augustine's questions — has been impugned by no less a person than the Abbe Duchesne,^ it is quite im- possible to doubt that it is Gregory's. In- deed, in spite of the great names which are ranged on the other side,^ I find it hard to take the attack seriously, for to me the an- swers seem to bear witness to Gregory as their author throughout ; and even a generation afterwards a forger would have ascribed very different language to him.^ Whilst with regard to the passage ' Non enim pro locis res, sed ^ Origines du Culte Chretien p. 93 f. The Abbe, however, no longer holds this view. See Appendix H. 2 Hinschins and Scherer have declared against the genuineness. See Dr Lowenfeld's additions to Jaffe-Ewald, Regesta Pontijicuni vol. II. p. 698 (ed, 2). Ewald himself accepts them, but doubt- fully.— Jaffe-Ewald, Reg. Fontif. No. 1843. Dr Grisar thinks that the answers were put into writing in England by Lawrence himself, or by some other person soon afterwards, from the verbal instructions given by Gregory to Lawrence. — Civiltct CattoUca 1892, vol. II. p. 46 n : * Noi pure seguiamo I'opinione di alcuni critici moderni, che tale documento, cosi com' e, non sia genuino, cioe non sia stato scritto da Gregorio ; crediamo pero che tutto il suo contento si riferisca ad instruzioni che Lorenzo, legato di Agostino, recevette a viva voce da Gregorio. Lorenzo stesso, forse piii tardi qualche altro, le avra messe per iscritto in Inghilterra.' 3 Cf. Mason, Mission of St Augustine pp. viii. f, 67 n. The letter is accepted as genuine by E. Hartmann, the editor of Gregory's later letters in the Moniimenta Germaniae Historica, and by P^re Brou, St Augustine etc pp. 99 f. The Engiish Church and the Roman, 1 1 7 pro rebus loca nobis amanda sunt,' ^ which the Abbe thought not natural In the mouth of a Roman, still less In that of a Pope,^ It Is, as Mr W. J. Birkbeck long ago pointed out,^ only an adaptation of 2 Mace. v. 19 according to the Vulgate,^ and as natural from Gregory as from anybody. Moreover the sentiment, so far from being unnatural In Gregory's mouth, corresponds remarkably with a letter written on another occasion. In this letter, after de- claring emphatically that the Church of Con- stantinople Is subject to the Apostolic See,^ he goes on to say that he Is willing to accept and follow the custom of even this rival Church In anything that Is good.^ * In the answer to the second question. * * Ce n'est pas un Romain, ni surtout un pape, qui eCit pu ecrire la phrase : Non enim pro locis res, etc. ' op. cit. p. 94. ^ In an unpublished lecture at Oxford. * ' Verum non propter locum, gentem ; sed propter gentem locum Deus elegit.' — 2 Mace. v. 19. ^ See post, p. 117. * ' Tamen si quid boai vel ipsa vel altera ecclesia habet, ego et minores meos quos ab illicitis prohibeo in bono imitari paratus sum. Stultus est enim qui in eo se primum existimat, ut bona quae viderit discere contemnat.' — S. Greg. Epp. lib. ix. 12. The whole letter is to the same effect. It is quoted in the Life of Gregory by John the deacon (lib. ii. c. 21). With it may be compared the letter to Leander of Hispalis on single and trine immersion. — Epp. lib. i. 43- 1 1 8 The Beginnings of English Christianity, The internal evidence then is so clearly and decisively in favour of the genuineness of the letter that we could hardly refuse to recognise it even were there a great lack of external evidence. But as a matter of fact the external evidence is by no means incon- siderable, {a) The answers, as we have seen, are given by Bede,^ writing about a century and a quarter afterwards. He had derived many of his materials from the Abbat Albinus of St Augustine's at Canter- bury,^ who had transmitted, through Nothelm the presbyter of St. Paul's, afterwards Arch- bishop of Canterbury, whatever seemed worthy of narration. Nothelm afterwards visited Rome, and there, with the permission of Pope Gregory II. (715-731) 'found a num- ber of epistles of the blessed Pope Gregory and of other pontiffs,' which he placed at Bede's disposal on his return.^ Now Bede is so careful an historian that we may feel certain that he received Gregory's answers through Nothelm, either from Canterbury or from Rome ; otherwise he would have given 1 Bede, H. E. i. 27. 2 He became abbat in 710 -Be:le, H. E. v. 20, 2 Bede, H, E. praef. The English Church and the Roman. 119 us his authority. {b) In the year 736^ St Boniface wrote to Nothehn, now Archbishop of Canterbury, asking for a copy of the letter which contained the questions of Augustine with the answers of Gregory. And he goes 1 This is fixed by the relation of the letter (S. Bonifacii Epist. 30 ; Jafife Monumenta Mogitntina p. 95) to that which precedes it. In the former Boniface is asking Pecthelm Bishop of Whithern for advice : the Frankish and Gallican priests affirm, he says, that a man who marries a widow to whose son he is godfather has committed the worst of crimes. Boniface knows of nothing in the old canons, nor in the decrees of popes, to this effect ; and accordingly he begs Pecthelm to send him anything that he can find upon the subject, and to give him his own advice. In the letter to Nothelm (whom he speaks of as having received the pall), after asking for Gregory's answers (perhaps with a dim remembrance that this is the sort of case with which many of them deal) he goes on to ask for his advice, and incidentally tells us that it is an actual case : a certain man, he says, has done this. Meantime, too, he has written to Rome on the matter, for * the Romans assert this to be a sin, in fact a deadly sin, so that they must be divorced ' ; and he now asks Nothelm whether he finds this written in the decrees of the fathers, or the canons, or in Holy Writ, that he may know upon what authority such a judgment rests. * For I cannot by any means understand how in this one matter spiritual kinship in connection with marriage can be so great a sin, seeing that all we, sons and daughters of Christ and of His Church in Holy Baptism, are thereby made brothers and sisters.' (The next letter to the English abbat Duddo deals with the same subject). Now it is clear that these two letters were written within a short time of one another. Pecthelm died in 735 (Flor. Wigorn. s. a.), and Nothelm received his pall in 736 (Flor. Wigorn. s. a.). The conclusion is obvious that Boniface wrote to Pecthelm at the very end of his life (possibly he may have received no answer owing to his death), and to Nothelm directly after he had received the pall, i.e. in 736. 120 The Beginnings of English Christianity, on to beg Nothelm to examine carefully whether the letter is really St Gregory's or not, since the registraries say that it could not be found in the registry of the Roman Church, when search was made for it. Now it must be noticed that the very fact that Boniface in this letter asks for the answers of Augustine proves that he was already aware of their existence. St Boniface was, after Bede himself, unquestionably the most learned Englishman of his day. It is pos- sible that he only knew of the answers of Gregory through Nothelm; on the other hand, as in this very letter he asks to be informed of the exact date of Augustine's coming, it is not unlikely that he may have known of their existence before he left England in 715. (c) But there remains the fact that the Papal registraries, to whom Boniface had written on the subject, declared that the letter could not be found in the registers of the Roman Church. And certainly it is not contained in the three collections of letters ^ ^ Viz. the so-called Hadrianic Register, the Two Hundred Letters, and the Collectio Pauli : see P. Ewald's article in the third volume of the Neiies Archiv. It is carefully summarised, with an admirable analysis, in Ilodgkin, Italy and her Invaders vol. V. pp. 333-343- The Enolish CInirch and the Roman. 1 2 i '. v. § 10 ; Migne, F.L. vol. Ixxx. p. 601. Compare Pearson, Minor Theological Works vol. I. p. 327 f. ; and the authors there cited. The English Church and the Roman. 127 but to the Church of Rome. How then does this fact touch the position of the EngHsh Church ? Now it is evident that we have here to deal with two distinct questions which can only be regarded as one by a confusion of thought of a kind which is, however, far too common. Our obligation to Gregory for sending Augustine to us is none the greater because he happened to be Bishop of Rome, and not of Milan or Aries. And our canon- ical position with regard to the Papacy is assuredly not affected by the fact that Pope Gregory sent Augustine to our shores. If the Pope is the source of spiritual jurisdic- tion, he is not more so to us because Gregory sent Augustine to us : if on the other hand he is not, the same fact will never make him so. The two things, as we have said, are fre- quendy confused, as when Thietmar Bishop of Merseburg, writing early in the eleventh century, calls us ' tribntaries of Peter the Prince of the Apostles and spiritual sons of the Holy Father Gregory'^; but they are * Chvon. lib. viii. §36; p. 215 {Script. Rer. Genu., Han- nover). With this may be compared Gest. Abb. Fonlanellens.^ ap. Pertz, vol. II. p. 289: '. . . Anglorum, qui maxime familiares Apostolicae sedis semper existunt.' 128 The Beginnings of English Christianity, in reality quite distinct. The former we have already considered ; with the latter, the claims of the Papacy in general, we shall now deal. (i) It is clear, to begin with, that the Papacy in Gregory's time, even according to his own theory of his position, differed widely from that of later days. Let us try to see what it was. He claimed, as the successor of St Peter — a title given in earlier days to other Bishops too — a real primacy amongst the Bishops of the world, not only of honour but also of power. By virtue of his Apos- tolical authority he held it to be his right and duty to intervene wherever and whenever things were going wrong. He did so, be it said, with the utmost personal humility and deference, but yet with the most unflinching resolve not to forego what he considered to be the rights of his see. * I would rather die,' he says, 'than that the Church of blessed Peter should degenerate in my days.' ^ Ac- cordingly we find him asserting his authority on every occasion most unflinchingly. * I know not,' he declares, * what Bishop is not 1 Epp. lib. iv. 47. The English Church and the Roman, 129 subject to the Apostolic See, if they are to blame ' ^ ; and more particularly, with regard to the great rival Church of Constantinople, * Who will doubt that it is subject to the Apostolic See ? ' ^ But a particular case will serve our purpose better than general statements. It happened that two presbyters, John of Chalcedon and Athanasius 'one of the monks of Isauria,'^ had been tried for heresy by judges appointed by the patriarch of Constantinople, the famous John the Faster. They were condemned, and one of them appears to have been beaten with rods. Thereupon they came to Rome to complain of their treatment, and Gregory espoused their cause, writing to Constanti- nople on their behalf. John seems to have made some demur ; for in July 593 Gregory wrote again rebuking him, and strongly urging that justice should be done.^ The matter dragged on for years ; but Gregory was resolute that the case should be re-heard, 1 Epp. lib. ix. 59. 2 lb, lib. ix. 12. ^ He was of the monastery of St Mila, called Tamnacus, in Lycaonia. — Epp. lib. vi. 66, * Epp, lib. iii. 53. The date is given in Ewald's edition (iii. 52, M. G. H.). 1 130 The Beginnings of English Christianity, and wrote, in a letter to his friend the Patrician Narses, * God do so to me and more also, if I do not see to it that the canons of the Apostolic See are observed.' ^ At length, late in 595 or early in 596, Gregory so far prevailed that the Patriarch sent a statement of the case against them ; and the two presbyters were tried before a Roman synod. John was acquitted, but Athanasius still remained under suspicion. Upon this Gregory wrote to the Patriarch informing him of the fact that ' we disapproving of the sentence of the said judges ... do pronounce [John] catholic and free from all heresy,' and requesting him to receive and defend him.^ Here unfortunately our infor- mation fails ; we have no means of knowing for certain what John did. Some time later Athanasius made some explanation or re- cantation, and he also was sent back to Con- stantinople, in the days of John's successor Cyriacus.^ Once more we have no means 1 Epp. lib. iv. 32. 2 Epp. lib. vi. 15. In Gregory's usual fashion, he writes to the Emperor and others at Constantinople to secure their aid in the furtherance of his aims. The tone of the letters is such as to show that he was very doubtful whether John would accede to his request. 3 Epp. lib. vi. 66 ; vii. 5. The English Church and the Roman. 131 of knowing what happened, or how the whole matter struck the patriarchs of Constanti- nople. It is possible that the proceedings did not end here/ But at least Gregory was satisfied. And in a letter written not long afterwards to the Bishop of Ravenna, he refers to the case in the following somewhat exaggerated terms : — * Nay, do not you your- self know that the suit of John the presbyter against John of Constantinople, our brother and fellow-bishop, came before the Apostolic See, and was settled by our sentence 1 ' ^ Such, then, is the position occupied in his own estimation by Pope Gregory. It would have been recognised in general terms, though perhaps not in any particular case, by most of his contemporaries, at any rate in the West. The Irishman St Columban in writing to Pope Boniface IV. a few years after Gregory's death addresses his letter as follows : * To the most beautiful Head of all the Churches of Europe, to the sweetest Pope, to the lofty Chief, to the Shepherd of Shepherds, to the most reverend Sentinel, the humblest to the ^ They are again mentioned in a letter to the patriarchs of Alex- andria and Antioch, Epp. lib. vii. 34. * Epp, lib. vi. 24. 1 3 2 The Beginnings of English Christianity, highest, the least to the greatest, the rustic to the citizen, the mean speaker to the very eloquent, the last to the first, the foreigner to the native, the beggar to the very powerful. Oh, the new and strange marvel ! a rare bird, even a dove,^ dares to write to his father Boniface."^ The superscription, as Dr Hodgkin has sald^ (not so the letter itself^), can only be described by * an epithet un- known to the dignity of history,' viz. blarney. But Gregory would have been the first to say that It only described his actual position. And yet Dean Church's statement that ' to be all that the tide of universal Bishop practically and really signified, Gregory cer- tainly made no hesitating claim '^ cannot be * i.e. Columha. The Saint frequently calls himself by the Hebrew and Greek equivalents — * Peristera in Greek, Jonah in Hebrew.' ^ S. Columbani, Epp. no. v. {tit sjip:). 3 Italy and her Invaders vol. VI. p. 139. * He tells the Pope that he has incurred suspicion of heresy, and warns him to be vigilant ; since it was his predecessor Vigilius who, by his lack of vigilance, has brought confusion upon the Church. (Vigilius was the Pope who, in the course of the * dismal controversy of the Three Chapters,' as Dr Hodgkin calls it, pro- nounced judgments ' at least four times directly contradictory to one another.' — Hutton, Church in the Sixth Century p. 121). s The Letters of Pope Gregory I. {.Miscellaneous Essays p. 256). The English Church and the Roman. 133 unreservedly accepted as true. For a care- ful perusal of Gregory's letters will show, I think, that his dealings with the West are of a somewhat different order from those with the East. Gregory no more rules the East than any of his successors, or indeed of his predecessors either. No doubt he unhesitat- ingly intervened in the East if anything was broufjht to his notice which seemed to call for it ; but his intervention was of the nature of remonstrance rather than of actual exercise of power. In the West on the other hand (and for Gregory the West extends as far as Jus- tiniana Prima and Thessalonica), he governs, or rather supervises, of his own initiative. In the one case his action is exceptional and remedial ; in the other it is of the nature of ordinary executive. In the East he will intervene from without if things go wrong ; in the West he would like everything to be done under his direct supervision, even when everything is going on properly. In the West he acts as a ruler ; in the East his action, however authoritative, is hardly to be looked upon as part of an ordinary pro- cedure.^ Moreover the right of intervention ^ This will at once appear, as we have said, from a study of 134 ^^^ Begimmigs of English Christianity. which he himself asserted he was willing to recognise in others ; in fact we shall see presently that he was sometimes glad to welcome it, and to ask for it. Nor is this all. He himself certainly claimed to occupy a position which was unique ; but unique in degree, so to speak, not in kind. Gregory never forgets that he is writing to his * fellow-bishops.' The word is constantly used, and the thought is never absent from his mind when he is wTltIng to them. He is one of them : superior it may be by virtue of the see which he occupies, but in no sense regarding himself as the source of their power. In fact, remembering that in the seventh century Constantinople was re- garded as being Asiatic rather than Euro- pean, Columban's^ form of address, ''head of all the Churches of Europe,"^ would perhaps Gregory's correspondence. A convenient summary is given in Langen, Geschichte der romischen Kirche vol. II. pp. 418-486, or in the Regesta Potitijiaim. ^ Columban's blarney is not laid on carelessly, and his choice of the word Etirope was probably deliberate. In a letter to Gregory himself, he calls him, amongst many other fine things, * the most august flower, so to speak, of all this languishing Europe.' — S. Columbani Epp. No. i. {lU siipr. ). * We may compare the claim made by Pope Paschal II. in his famous letter to King Plenry I. and the English Bishops more than five hundred years afterwards: — 'Universum siquidem terrarum The English Chztrch and the Roman, 135 express Gregory's position better than any- other — especially if to Europe we add Numidia and Carthage.^ After all the best idea of Gregory's claims is that obtained from his repudiation of the title Universal Bishop. The facts are well known. In 587 a council was held at Con- stantinople, and in its acts the Patriarch John the Faster is called oiKovjueviKog iTria-Koirog, or, as the Latins rendered it, universalis Episcopus? There was nothing new in the title ; it or a like title had frequently been used before, both of the Patriarch of Con- stantinople and of others. It had its origin in the East, where reverent forms of ad- dress were common ; and as at first used it was generally given by persons whose orbem Dominus et Magister noster suis discipulis dispertivit, sed Eiiropae fines Petro singulariter comiiiisit et Paulo J* — Eadmeri Hist, Nov. p. 232 (Rolls Series). * Where Gregory's influence, largely owing to his friend Gen- nadius the Exarch, was even greater than in Gaul. — Bury, Later Roman Empire vol. II. p. 153 f. 2 There is an interesting series of articles by Dr H. Grisar S.J. in the Civiltii Cattolica, entitled // Pontificato di S. Gregorio Magna nella storia dclla civilth cristiana. Of these No. 40 {Civ. Cattol. Feb. 1892, vol. I. p. 143 f.) deals with this subject ; and to it (as to others of the series) I am much indebted. It is well treated also in Thomassin, Vdus et Nova Disciplina pars I. lib. i. cap. ii. 136 The Beginnings of English Christianity, Interest It was to flatter. Thus the title Ecumenical Patriarch was given to DIos- corus of Alexandria at the Robber Synod of Ephesus In 449/ and to Pope Leo In the letter of Theodore the Alexandrian deacon against DIoscorus, read at the Council of Chalcedon In 451.^ The earliest recorded Instance of Its application to the Patriarch of Constantinople Is by a Syrian Synod held to condemn the Monophysite Severus of An- tloch in 518 or 519. On this occasion the Synod, in its epistle^ to John II. of Constan- tinople calls him Ecumenical Patriarch.^ 1 Mansi, vol. VI. col. 855. * lb. vol. VI. col. 1005 f. It was not offered by the Council itself to Leo, as Gregory wrongly said {Epp. lib. v. 18,20, etc.). 3 It was read in the fifth session of the Council of Constantinople in 536 (Mansi, vol. VIII. col. 1093 f.). ■* Gedeon, Ilar/atdpxoi TriVaxej (Constantinople [1885]) p. 220. The ascription of the title to John II. is specially noted as remark- able on the ground that it was not synodically conferred till seventy years afterwards, Grisar (p. 145 note i) throws doubt upon the ascription of the title to the Patriarch of Constantinople at this date, but without sufficient reason. It is true that the Acts of the Council of Con- stantinople in 518, in the form given by Baronius {^s,a.) and referred to by Thomassin (I. i. II § 6), are, as Baronius himself says, in- terpolated. But there is no reason whatever to think that this is the case with the synodical epistle of the Syrian Council. Indeed, it was probably the fact that the title occurred here that suggested it to the interpolator that he should add the words Ecumenical Patriarch to the name of John II. wherever it occurred. Bp Hefele . The English Church and the Ro7nan, 137 After this it is given to the patriarchs of Con- stantinople many times over by the Emperor Justinian^ ; and became especially though by no means exclusively appropriated to them. But as used at Constantinople^ it was not intended to apply to the whole world ; and, indeed in the Acts of the Council held there in 536 it is used both of the Patriarch and of the Pope.^ It is true, however, that what had hap- pened recently had involved more than this. In a great council of Eastern bishops held {Councils \o\. IV. p. 1 19. Eng. tr.) does not doubt that the words are genuine in the synodic epistle of the Syrian Council. ^ Cod. Just. lib. I. tit. i. cap. 7 ; Novell. 7, 16, 42, etc. A still more exalted title is given to his Church in Cod. Just. lib. I. tit. ii. c. 24 :— Constantinopolilana ecclesia omnium aliarum est caput. 2 ' Dove per consuetudine di corte soprabbondavano i titole di onore.' — Grisar p. 153. Anastasius the Librarian tells us, in his preface to the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea, that when he complained to the GreeKs of their use of the word, ' they replied that by Ecu?nenical they did not mean Universal as that he held a presidency over the whole world, but as presiding over a certain part of the world which is inhabited by Christians.' — Mansi, vol. XII. col. 987. So Raoul Glaber tells us in his Hist. lib. iv. c. i. (§2), that about 1024 A. D. the Greeks claimed that ' liceret ecclesiam Constantinopolitanam in suo orbe, sicutiRoma in universo, universalem dici et haberi.' Cf. Langen op. cit. II. 412; he explains that okumenischer Bisc/iofox\\y meant, to the Easterns, Reichshischof. 2 Mansi, vol. VIII. col. S95, 926. 138 The Beginnings of English Christianity, at Constantinople in 587, the patriarch John himself made use of the title in his subscrip- tion, and it was given to him throughout in the Acts of the Council. This was a dis- tinct step in advance^ ; and indeed the Greek Church reckons the title to have been formally given to the patriarchs of Constanti- nople by this Council.^ It is therefore not altogether to be wondered at that Pelaglus of Rome took offence at the title and re- fused to recognise the Acts of the Council.'^ ^ Grisar, ubi siipr. p. 144 : John * fu il primo ad arrogarselo da se medisimo e ci6 in una circostanza solennissima, vale a dire in un sinodo generale della Chiesa greca.' 2 Gedeon, op. cit, p. 234. The next patriarch, Cyriacus, is called 6 iierb. rov ^\ijia.vvt\v '^rjarevrTju irpQTOS olKov/xeviKbi TraTpidpxrji.-^ P- 235- ^ So we know from S. Greg. Epp. lib. v. 18, 43. The so-called letter of Pelagius (No. vi [viii], Migne, P.L. Ixxii. 738; Baron. Ann. EccL s.a. 587 § 5) is one of the Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries (Hinschius, Deer. Ps.-Isid. p. 720). Here as elsewhere it is inter- esting to compare the genuine with the spurious, what Gregory actually said with what people two centuries or more afterwards thought Pelagius ought to have said. The forged letter declares that John has taken the title, and has by its means presumed to sum- mon a general Council, * cum generalium synodorum convocandi auctoritas apostolicae sedi beati Petri singulari privilegio sit tradita.' It goes on to adjure the bishops on no account to meet in synod * absque auctoritate sedis apostolicae.' And they are invited to pray that the Roman See, which by the Lord's appointment is head of all the chinxhes ^ may never lack or be spoiled of its privileges. The words italicised seem to be an echo of the title granted by the usurper Phocas to Pope Boniface IV. ' Hie rogante papa The English Chicrch a^ici the Roman, 139 Gregory the Great, like his predecessor, regarded the title seriously, and was greatly scandalized by it. He wrote in 595 to the Patriarch of Constantinople, to the Emperor and Empress, and to the Patriarchs of Alex- andria and Antioch, protesting against the assumption of a name which would have belonged to himself if to anybody, but which he entirely repudiated, condemned and ana- thematized. P'urther, of his own authority he declared the Synod in which the title had been given to be null and void. He would not listen to those, like the Patriarch of Antioch, who tried to make him see how little the tide meant in the East, and that it might be unwise to inflame the whole Church on such a small matter. To him the word was enough. However it might be understood at first, sooner or later it was sure to result in evll.^ However, Gregory's remonstrances came to nothing. The Patriarch of Constantinople Bonifacio statuit sedem Romanae et apostolicae ecclesiae caput esse omnium ecclesiarum, quia ecclesia Constantinopolitana prima se omnium ecclesiarum scribebat.' — Paulas, Hist. Langob. iv. 36; Agnell. Vit.Joan. c. 2. ^ This I take to be the gist of Epp. lib. vii. 27. 140 The Beginnings of English Christianity, continued to use the title^ without in any way encroaching upon the rights of other patriarchs,- and before the end of the century Gregory's own successors had taken the same title, and not without encroachment.^ Now for our purpose It will be enough to notice three things: {a) the tone of Gregory's letters to the Patriarchs of Antloch and Alexandria ; (b) their position and rights as recognised by him ; and [c] what it is that he repudiates in the ' blasphemous title ' of Universal or Ecumenical Bishop (or Patri- arch, for the two titles are used Indifferently). (a) The whole tone of Gregory's letters — to both Patriarchs,^ or to Anastasius of An- tIoch,°or to Euloglus of Alexandria,^ — is that of one who is addressing equals, not inferiors. 1 Thomassin, I. i. 11. § 18. He is so styled many limes over in the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (Sessio ii.), and often subsequently. 2 It is no doubt true that at this time the Patriarchs of Constan- tinople were putting forward a claim to precedence over the Pope, by virtue of the civil status of new Rome. (Bury, Later Roman Empire vol. II. p. 85 f.). But they put forward no claim to authority over other patriarchs by virtue of this title, or in any other way. » 2 S)ee post p. 146. * Epp. lib. v. 43 ; vii. 34 ; etc. ^ Jb. lib. v. 39 ; vii. 27 ; viii. 2 ; etc. ^ lb. lib. vi. 60 ; vii. 40 ; viii, 29, 30 ; ix. 78 ; x. 35 ; etc. The English Church and the Roman, 141 * No one of my predecessors,' he says, 'has ever consented to use so profane a title; since, if one Patriarch is called Universal, the name is deroQfated In the case of the others ' ^ ; or again, ' that, by regarding the honour of all the bishops of the world they might so preserve their own before God Almighty.'^ Eulogius, then in the throes of the Mono- thelite struggle, had tried to appease Gre- gory by giving the obnoxious title to him, and by promising to do as he had com- manded, and never to address the Patriarch of Constantinople by it. The Pope replies, ' I beg you will not speak of coimnandingy since I know who I am and who you are. In dignity you are my brothers, in character my fathers. I never commanded, but only wished to indicate what seemed to be useful. . . . You have thought fit to make use of the proud title, calling me Uni- versal Bishop. I beg your most sweet Holi- ness to do so no more, ... I do not regard that as an honour whereby I know that my brethren's honour is taken away. P'or the honour of the universal Church is my honour ; the solid welfare of my brethren » Epp, lib. V. 43. 2 /^, viii. 30. 142 The Beginnmgs of English Christianity, is my honour. I am truly honoured when the honour due to each and all is not denied them. And when your Holiness calls me Universal Pope, you deny that you are your- self what you call me universally. Far be this from us.' ^ {b) But this is by no means all. Gregory recognises clearly that the Patriarch of Antioch'- also sits in the chair of St Peter, and that Eulogius of Alexandria shares the same succession by virtue of the (supposed) foundation of his see by St Mark the disciple of St Peter. * There is that which binds us,' he says, * in a special way to the Church of Alexandria, and constrains us, as by a special law, to be more devoted to it. For as it is known to all that the blessed Mark the evangelist was sent by St Peter the apostle to Alexandria, so we are bound together in the unity of the master and the disciple. It is as if I presided over the chair of St Mark the disciple, because of St Peter the master ; and you over that of the master because of the disciple.'^ * You have spoken to me about Peter's chair,' he writes to Eulogius again, * who yourself occupy Peter's chair.' And again, * Though there be many ^ Epp, lib. viii. 30. - See Appendix I. ^ Epp. lib. vi. 60. The English Church and the Roman. 143 apostles, yet the see of the prince of the apostles alone has waxed strong, as regards the principality itself ; and this see, although in three places, is yet the see of one. For he himself exalted the see in which he both dwelt and laid down this life [Rome]. He himself adorned the see to which he sent his disciple the Evangelist [Alexandria]. And he likewise stablished the see in which, though he afterwards left it, he sat for seven years [Antioch]. Since therefore it is the See of one, and one See, over which three bishops by divine authority now rule, what- ever good I hear of you, this I reckon as mine own.'^ Other passages to the same effect might be given, but these are enough to make it quite clear that Gregory did not regard his position as absolutely unique, but rather claimed for his see a conjoint authority ^ Epp, lib. vii. 40. * Itaque cum multi sint apostoli, pro ipso tamen principatu sola apostoloium priiicipis sedes in auctoritate convaluit, quae in tribus locis unius est. Ipse enim sublimavit sedes, in qua etiam quiescere et praesentem vitam finere dignatus est. Ipse decoravit sedem, in qua evangelistam discipulum misit. Ipse firmavit sedem, in qua septem annis, quamvis decessurus, sedet. Cum ergo unius atque una est sedes, cui ex auctoritate divina tres nunc episcopi praesident, quicquid ergo de vobis boni audio, hoc mihi imputo.' 1 44 The Beginnings of English Christianity, with the sees of Antloch and Alexandria.^ Doubtless he ranked his own see first of the three, but it is the three together which share the authority of St Peter. {c) A third point, but the most important of all, can be stated shortly. John, he says, is really by this title * coveting to be named the only bishop,' "" for, as he declares to the Bishops of Illyricum, ' if one be Universal Bishop, it follows that you are not truly bishops at all.' ^ It follows, and to him the very idea is impious, that * if one bishop is named universal, and he falls, the Universal Church is shattered [in his fall].'* Gregory, in other words, is fighting against the very evil which the Papacy has set up in later 1 Epp. V. 39, to Anastasius, — * Remember that thou rulest an Apostolic See ' ; viii. 29 to Eulogius, — ' We have received with the lovingkindness with which it was sent the blessing of St Mark the Evangelist, nay rather of St Peter the Apostle ; ' x. 35, — ' sit ergo illi laus, . . . cuius dona adhuc in sede Petri clamat vox Marci ' ; xiii. 41, — 'sanctissima sedes vestra, quae nostra est.' 2 lb. V. 18. Cf. v. 21, to Constantina Augusta, in which he de- plores that 'my aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop, despising all others, should desire to be called sole bishop.' And vii. 33, to the Emperor Maurice : * He who covets to be called sole bishop is ex- tolling himself above all bishops.' 3 lb. ix. 68: 'si unus, ut putat, universalis est, restat ut vos episcopi non sitis.' * lb. vii. 29. The English Church and the Roman. 145 days, and might almost have had the future of his own see in mind, instead of a title which was harmless as given to the patriarch of Constantinople. And his vehement words to the patriarch John might not unjustly be turned against his own successors. * Cer- tainly Paul the Apostle, when he heard cer- tain saying, *' I am of Paul, I of Apollos, and I of Cephas " regarded with vehement horror such tearing asunder of the Body of the Lord, by which the members in a manner were joining themselves to other heads ; and he exclaimed, saying " Was Paul crucified for you, or were ye baptized Into the name of Paul }'' If then he scouted the idea that members of the Lord's body should be partially joined to other heads, as it were in addition to Christ, and they even the apostles themselves, what wilt thou say to Christ, the sole Head of the Universal Church, in the scrutiny of the last judgment ? thou who art attempting to subject all His members to thyself by the name Universal ? Peter, forsooth, the first of the Apostles, is but a member of the holy and universal Church ; and Paul, Andrew, John, what are they other than heads of single K 146 The Begmnings of English Christiaftity, societies ? and yet they are all members under the One only Head.'^ The real enemies against whom Gregory the Great fought are those of his own house- hold, viz. the popes v/ho came after him. It is a small thing, by comparison, that from about 682 A.D. onwards^ the title Ecumenical ^ Epp. V. 18. This is one of the many passages which has been altered because it does not say enough. The true reading of the last sentence is * Certe Petius apostolorum primus membrum sanctae et universalis ecclesiae est,' etc. In some editions apostolus lakes the place of apostolorum and primus becomes prz'mum : thus read- ing that Peter is the ' first member ' of the Church. And some- times apostolorum becomes apostolus and membrtim is left out ; by which device St Peter is made head of the Church and the sense of the whole epistle perverted. 2 Pope Leo II. is called papa oecumenicus by the Emperor Con- stantine IV. (Pogonatus) in 682 (Mansi, XI. 713) ; and the title episcopus universalis appears soon afterwards. According to Gieseler (^Church History vol. II. p. 184), the latter title is first found in the Liber Diurnus, cap. iii. tit. 6, in the Promissio fidei Episcopi [Romae] ; this, which he dates between 682 and 685, is probably somewhat later. And Pope Stephen IV. is called epis- copis universalis by the Lateran Council of 769 (Mansi, XII. 625). I know of no grounds for the statement commonly made {e.g. by Bramhall, Works vol. I. p. 131, ed. Haddan ; and Milman, Latin Christiatiity \o\. II. p. 311) that Boniface IV. (A.D. 607) assumed the title. And the first set of Acts of the Council of fifty bishops and presbyters at Rome in 679, under Pope Agatho (Mansi, XI. 179 f. ; Haddan and Stubbs, III. 131), in which the Pope is called universalis papa^ is not contemporary. They are based upon the Acts given by Eddi and William of Malmesbury, in which the title does not appear. (Eddi., Vit, Wilfr, c. xxix. ; W. Malmesb. The English Chtirch and the Roman 147 Bishop or Pope, which Gregory had con- sidered anti- Christian, is commonly used by his successors. But it is far more really significant that all the later development of the Papacy has been obtained by means of that practical annihilation of the episcopate against which Gregory so strongly and so persis- tently protested. In one way after another these encroachments have been carried out, though the subject need not be followed out in detail here. It may suffice to say that, as the result of medieval theories of Papal mon- archy, of the support derived from the forged decretals, of the oath of fealty imposed on bishops, of encroachments on episcopal elec- tions, of the new meaning gradually given to the pallium, of the multiplication of legations and appeals, the later Papacy became an entirely different thing from what it was in Gregory's days. Above all, in the interests of the Papacy was invented the extraordinary theory that bishops derive only the power of order from their ordination, and need a grant of G. Pontif. iii. § loo; Haddan and Stubbs, III. p. 136. The best text is that given in Hamilton's edition of the Gesta Fontijicum, Rolls Series p. 222, note b, from a MS. of the eleventh century.) 148 The Beginnings of English Christianity, jurisdiction from the Pope before they can exercise their functions. And thus the apostolic ministry is practically abolished, and the whole meaning of Church authority is altered. Experience has only shown more and more clearly the profound truth of Bramhall's words, that * Episcopal rights and papal claims are inconsistent' ^ For it is even more true than when he wrote that * the Bishop and Court of Rome have swerved from those certain and true prin- ciples of Catholic religion. . . . have abused that power which was committed to their trust by Christ, or by His Church . . . have usurped more authority than did belong unto them . . . have en- grossed all Episcopal jurisdiction to them- selves, leaving the bishops of the land but ciphers in their own dioceses.' ^ Nor is the growth of the Papacy itself the only thing to be taken into account. For as the Papacy grew in its pretensions, so too Its influence In England grew wider and ever wider. The Pope, once more to quote Bramhall,^ ' winded himself into England by 1 Works vol. III. p. 529 (ed. Haddan). ' lb, vol. I. p. 166. * Jb. vol. I. p. 131. The English Chicrck and the Ro7?ian. 149 degrees ' ; and the relation of the later pre- Reformatlon popes to the English Church is something that Gregory himself never con- templated and could hardly have believed possible. So that even if the English Church had owed canonical obedience to the Papacy as it was in Gregory's time, it assuredly owed none to the novel erections of them that came after. But another conclusion will be seen to follow quite clearly from what has been said. Gregory's Papacy falls under the same con- demnation which he himself, by anticipation, hurls against his successors. For Gregory's Papacy is an innovation against the whole spirit and constitution of the Catholic Church quite as much as that of later days. And it is equally wanting in all authority save that of the Popes themselves — an authority which begs the whole question. We meet it by the ancient principle of law : Qtiod ab initio fuit invaliduvt tradu tenipoiHs non con- valescit. The error may have waxen old, but older still Is the truth of which It Is the perversion. The further we go back, the less of this error there is ; and hardly a single 150 The Beginnings of English Christianity, stage in its growth can point to canonical sanction, or the consent of those upon whose rights it had encroached. So well moreover has this fact been re- cognised by advocates of the Papacy that every nerve has been strained to prove that the most modern inventions were there from the beginning/ Accordingly, vague rhetorical expressions have been interpreted as if they were mathematical formulae. Complimentary language which is passed over in the case of other bishops is rigorously pressed in the case of popes. The words of ancient canons are enlarged and transferred so as to apply to cases and things which their authors never dreamed of; and where this has proved insufficient, there has been a con- tinual tendency to fill up the measure with forged documents and citations. One by one these have been torn away, often by the hands of distinguished Roman Catholic scholars ; one by one they have been renounced and * * The misfortune of Rome is not only that her constnictiveness has been inconsequent and has incorporated usages subversive of the original theory, but that she does practically repudiate schemes of " development " erected in her behalf. Her scholars are re- quired to prove her most modern inventions to be primitive.' — Archbishop Benson, Cyprian p. 98. The English Church and the Roman, 151 discredited on all hands. But they have done their work, and the fabric which they were brought forward to bolster up now stands, as we cannot but think, by nothing but a prae- scriptio of its own. That it should do excellent work in its own sphere we can well believe ; but that an erection so supported can have no locus standi as against the English Church we are cer- tain. As against such claims her position is perfectly clear, and her rights can be sub- stantiated at every point. As against the territorial claim, it is certain that Britain was outside the limits of the Roman patriarchate strictly so called ^ ; much more therefore was pagan England. As against claims arising from the fact of Augustine's mission, we have already shown that spiritual parentage does not involve canonical rights. As against the Roman theory of jurisdiction mentioned above, that Bishops derive their jurisdiction solely from the Pope ^ — a theory which even ^ See Bingham, Antiquities book IX. c. i. §§ 9 f. ' Manning, Petri Privilegiiim i. 17, iii. 55 ; and Palmieri, Tvac- tatus de Romano Pontifice p. 440, ' Consequitur iurisdictionem huiusmodi esse vere episcopalem in universam ecclesiam, ideoque Romanum Pontificem in ipsos Episcopos iurisdictionem episco« palem habere ' ; p. 447, Thesis xix., * . , . ideoque Episcopi 1 52 The Beginnings of English Christianity. in the Roman communion has only become dominant within the last two centuries^ — we assert the doctrine of ancient days, that order and jurisdiction are alike given in ordina- tion. Every Bishop by virtue of his con- secration has in himself all that belongs by Divine appointment to the ministry of Christ; and the Episcopal body is at once the mouth- piece of the Church and the organ of its authority. In one sense every Bishop is a iurisdictionem ordinariam in suis Ecclesiis non a Chrlsto immediate habent sed immediate a Vicario Christi, cui praeterea lure divino potestas competit eligendi Episcopos modumque electionis eorum determinandi.' 1 In illustration of the statement in the text it may suffice to say : (i) The great theologians of the fifteenth century — Thomas of Walden, Gerson, Nicholas of Cusa, Tostatus of Avila — held the older Catholic doctrine, not the modern Roman. (2) The question was hotly discussed at the Council of Trent in October 1562, most of the non-Italian Bishops repudiating the theory that episcopal jurisdiction came from the Pope. (Paleolti, Acta Concilii Tridentiiii p. 293 f. ; Le Plat, Monum. ad hist. Cone. Trid. torn. v. pp. 576 f. ; Pallavacini, Sloria del Concilia di Trento lib. xviii. CO. 14, 15). (3) The older view was still held by the great Gallican divines throughout the seventeenth century. See Bossuet, Dej, Decl. Cler, Gallic, lib. viii. passim, especially cc. 11, 14, 15 » Thomassin, Vetus ct Nova Disciplina pars I. lib. i. c. S^* § ^ » ^^' pars II. lib. i. c. 47, § 3. (4) It is affirmed in all its force by the great Portuguese theologian Pereira in his Tentativa Theologica^ first published in 1 766. The modern Roman doctrine grew gradually, like most modern Roman doctrines. At the Council of Trent the view was put for- ward by the Abbat of the Canons Regular * Episcopatus quidem The English Church and the Roman, 153 Bishop of the Universal Church^; and in case of need, by virtue of the commission given by our Lord to His apostles, he can perform all the functions of the Episcopate anywhere and everywhere. Ordinarily of course he may not do this without a grievous breach of Church discipline ; for clearly if it were done it would lead to nothing but confusion and discord.^ And so at his con- secration a Bishop's hands are tied, so to speak, by his Episcopal brethren, so that he may not exercise his office within the diocese of another Bishop. His action is canonically restricted to a particular sphere — a diocese or the like. But this tying of his hands is of an altogether different order from the Com- mission itself which he has received. The one is a matter of ecclesiastical order ; the other of divine grace. His full powers are esse Juris divini, sicut et Papatus ; sed applicatlonem Papatus esse Juris ecclesiastici.' (Paleotti, Acta p. 300). A similar view was held by Vasquez and other Spanish Jesuits half a century later. Even in the present century it is instructive to compare Liebermann (Tnstiintiones Theologicae lib. 11. art. iv. § 185), with Perrone (Praclectiones Theologicae, vol. II. p. 267 l—De Locis Theologicisy pars. i. sect. I. cap. 3), and Palmieri {ubi suj)r.). ^ See Bingham, Antiquities book II. chap. v. § I. ' Yet even so, be it observed, his act is not ipso facto null and void. 154 T^^ Beginnings of English Christianity. there, though they may be restrained for reasons of practical usefulness. And if the good of the Church demands it, the restraint may be removed by the same power which imposed it. Nay more : seeing that the necessity for the free exercise of his powers will probably arise, if at all, from some default in the episcopal body, it may in urgent cases be necessary for him to act on his own initiative. Thus for instance when the world was over- run with heresy, so that it was difficult for Catholics to secure ordination, the great Athanasius made no scruple to ordain in the cities which he passed through, on his way back to Alexandria from exile ^ : and the same thing was done by Eusebius of Samo- sata, and Epiphanius.^ It was no doubt not strictly regular ; but neither were the circumstances which made it necessary. And Epiphanius ' vindicated his practice upon the strength of this principle ; that in cases of pressing necessity, such as this was, where the interest of God was to be served, every ^ Socrates, H. E. ii. 24. We are specially told that his action was objected to by the sticklers for strict regularity of that day, as being contrary to ecclesiastical order. 2 See Bingham, Antiquities book II. chap. v. § 3. The English Church and the Roman. 155 Bishop had power to act in any part of the Church : for though all Bishops had their particular churches to officiate in, and were not ordinarily to exceed their own bounds ; yet the love of Christ was a rule above all ; and therefore men were not barely to con- sider the thing that was done, but the cir- cumstances of the action, the time, the manner, the persons for whose sake, and the end for which It was done.' ^ It is thus clear that none but canonical impediments exist to restrain a Bishop from exercising his functions universally. He may not canonically act in the diocese of any other Bishop or contrary to the mind of his brethren of the Episcopate. But out- side these limits he is free to act, whether in his own diocese or in heathen lands. Indeed, he has received his share in the Apostolical commission to ' all nations ' ; and this being so, not only has he the fullest liberty to preach to the heathen, but it is his bounden duty to do it, so far as he can. It is in the free exercise of these functions of the Christian ministry that the English ^ Bingham, ubi supr. 156 The Beginnings of English Christianity. Church has lived and grown. And none of the bondage of papal restrictions could take away the liberty wherewith our Saviour Christ hath made His people free. APPENDIX A (p. 19). THE BRITISH CHURCH NOT A CHURCH OF BAPTISTS. It is worth while giving the facts with regard to this strange fable in some detail. Fabyan himself died in 1511 or 1512; and his Chronicle was pub- lished after his death. Four editions appeared during the sixteenth century: in 1516, 1533, 1542, and 1559. In his account of the interview of Augustine with the British bishops, Fabyan mentions the three stipulations made by Augustine, and gives the second of them as follows : — ' The second, y* y* geve christendome to y* children in y*" maner y' is vsed in y*^ chyrche of Rome.' (Bede ii. 2 : ' Ut ministerium baptizandi . . . iuxta morem sanctae Romanae et apostolicae ecclesiae com- pleatis.') But in the third and fourth editions the passage stands : * The second that ye give christen- dome TO CHILDREN.' There can be little doubt that the alteration was made deliberately, since in the edition of 1542 a number of other changes were made; e.g. Bishop of Rome is substituted for Pope, Becket becomes a traiterous Bishop instead of a glorious martyr^ and so on. And even if it were an accidental blunder in the third edition, it could hardly be so in the fourth, which in the address 'The Printer to the Reader' is said »57 158 The Beginnings of English Christianity, to have been compared with the original. The alteration thus appears to have been made by some unscrupulous foe of infant baptism, and is no more in agreement with the original than it is with the words of Bede ; which clearly relate to some ritual point, the precise nature of which can hardly be determined with certainty in our day. (See Mr H. A. Wilson's dissertation in Mason, Mission of St Augustine "^y^. 248 f) But here comes the importance of the point. The mutilated passage in the later editions of Fabyan is quoted by Mr Ivimey in his History of British Baptists (vol. I. p. 42 f) as authority for the statement that Augustine found adult Baptism the rule in the British Church. Mr Ivimey was aware that Calamy and others had (rightly) explained that the difference was merely one of ritual, but he himself rejected this explanation. He knew also (p. 53) that the reading of Fabyan which he adopted was not to be found in every edition ; but he was content to assume, without inquiry as to dates, that the additional words were an interpolation; whereas they are part of the original text. On the authority of Mr Ivimey the statement has fre- quently been repeated, and down to this day many of our Baptist brethren have asserted (of course in all good faith) that Augustine found and displaced a British Church of Baptists. APPENDIX B. (p. 6i). AUGUSTINE'S FIRST BAND OF MISSIONARIES, We have little evidence to enable us to determine how Augustine's first missionary band was composed. Of those who landed in 597, said to have been about forty in number (viri^ ut ferunt, ferme XL. : — Bede, H.E. i. 25) some were Frankish interpreters ; and these were to be presbyters according to Gregory's directions.^ There is nothing in Bede's language to tell us what proportion the Franks bore to the Romans, but judging by the analogy of many earlier and later monastic * missions,' - it is not improbable that the Romans may * See the letter to Theoderic and Theodebert, and that to Brune- childa. 2 To mention two examples :— (i) In the Dialogues of Gregory the Great himself we are told that St Benedict of Nursia, whilst he was dwelling in his cave (' il sagro Speco ') above Subiaco, founded twelve monasteries, each consisting of twelve monks with an abbat at its head. (S. Greg. Magn., Dial. ii. 3). (2) When, in 11 15, the abbey of Citeaux sent forth St Bernard to found Clair vaux, and thus to be the real founder of the Cistercian order, he was sent forth with twelve brethren. (BoUandist Life of St Bernard in Acta Sanctorum^ Aug. torn. IV. die 20° § 5 : duodecim monachi loco xii. apostolorum cum tertiodecimo abbate qui loco Christi eis prae- ponitur). 159 1 60 The Beginnings of English Christianity, have been twelve in number, in addition to their leader.^ But we cannot identify even this smaller number 01 Roman missionaries. And indeed when we set aside Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus and Rufinianus, of whom we are expressly informed that they were amongst those sent with Lawrence and Peter in 601,2 there seem only to remain six, amongst those whose names are known to us, who can have been old enough to have accompanied St Augustine in 596. These are Lawrence the pres- byter, Peter and John, both monks, James the deacon, Honorius afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and Romanus afterwards Bishop of Rochester. ^ * Bassenge (p. 21) rejecting the suggestion of Pagi that most of Augustine's band were Franks, holds that there cannot well have been more than one Frankish interpreter to each Roman missionary. But there is nothing to prevent our thinking that Frankish clergy might be willing to come to England for other purposes than simply to interpret, more especially when we consider the relations of Kent with the mainland and Gregory's implied rebuke of their neglect in the past. The Bishop of London describes the mission party as consisting of "one or two teachers and a regularly organised choir." — Guar' dian, July 14, 1897, p. 1 121 (Report of a sermon in Canterbury Cathedral). * Bede, H.E. i. 29. These four were all monks, and Mellitus, it seems, was already an abbat, — probably simply as leader of a new mission. See Gregoiy's letter to the bishops of Gaul, Epp. lib. xi. 58 : * aliquantos monachos cum dilectissimis et communibus filiis Laurentio presby tero et Mellito abbate. * 3 Three other possible names are given by the chroniclers Thorn and Elmham : they are those of Gratiosus, Petronius and Nathanael, said to have been the fourth, fifth and sixth abbats of Canterbury. The first is said to hare been a Roman by birth, and the third to have accompanied Mellitus and Paulinus to England. Appendix. 1 6 [ All of these accordingly, with the exception of the last, are named by Pere Brou^ as members of Augus- tine's first band of missionaries. It is worth considcrins: the names in detail. (i) Lau7-eniius. Laurentius was consecrated by Augustine before his death, to be his own successor. There can be no ques- tion that he was a member of the first band of mis- sionaries, since he was sent by Augustine to Gregory to announce their success in 597, and returned with Mellitus and the second band in 601. But a further question suggests itself with regard to him. Augustine, we are told, sent to Rome ' Lauretitium preshyterum et Petruni inonachiun ; ' ^ and Gregory speaks of the monks whom he has sent to England ' cum Lmirentio preshytero et Mellito abbate. ' '^ Does this imply that Lawrence was not a monk ? And, if so, since Gregory is said to have sent Augustine ' and with him a number of other monks ' {et alios plures cum eo mouachos)^ * and since, as we have seen above, the Frankish interpreters were to be priests, must we not conclude that Lawrence was one of their number ? Such was the opinion of the Oratorian Le Cointe in It is of course possible that lists of the early abbats were preserved at St Augustine's ; but Bede mentions none of these names, and there is so much that is clearly legendary in the narratives of Thorn and Elmham that the very existence of these three men must be considered doubtful. ^ St August in etc. p. 40. 2 Bede, H.E. i. 27. 3 E/^p. lib. xi. 54 ; cf. lib. xi. 58. * Bede, H.E. i. 23. L 1 62 The Beginnings of English Christianity, the seventeenth century.^ He further supports it by pointing out that Lawrence did not flee when Mellitus and Justus did, and explains the fact by supposing that he had less to fear from King Eadbald, himself half a Frank, than the Italians had. But the theory, tempting as it is, must be given up. As Bassenge points out, it was the vision of St Peter ^ which restrained him from flight. Further, the biographers of Gregory, and especially the monk of Streaneeshalch, ^ expressly declare that Laurentius v;as sent by St Gregory ; and an inscription ^ ^ AiDiales ccclesiastici Fraiicontni II. 691 ; ap. Bassenge, op. cit. p. 20. 2 ' verstehe, seines Gewissens.' ^ c. 10. ^ The inscription is printed in Montalembert's Monks of the West (vol. III. p. 334, Eng. Tr.), as ' transcribed by the friendly hand of an eloquent monk of our time and country, Father Hyacinth, of the Barefooted Carmelites ' [M. Hyacinthe Loyson]. It is reprinted less exactly in a letter in the Gttardian for June 30, 1S97. It is given by Montalembert as follows : — EX HOC MONASTERIO PRODIERVNT S . GREGORIVS . M . FVNDATOR . ET . PARENS.— S . ELV- THERIVS . AB .— S . HILARION . AB . — S . AVGVSTINVS . ANGLOR.APOST .— S . LAVRENTIVS . CANTUAR . ARCH- lEP .— S . MELLITVS.LONDINEN. EP.MOX. ARCHIEP. CANTVAR.— S. TVSTVS EP. ROFFENSIS.— S.PAVLINVS. EP . EBORAC .— S . MAXIMIANVS . SYRACVSAN . EP .— SS . ANTONIVS . MERVLVS . ET. JOANNES . MONACHI . S . PETRVS . AB . CANTVAR . HONORIVS . ARCHIEP . CANTVAR .— MARINIANVS ARCHIEP . RAVEN.— PROBVS . XENODOCHI . lEROSO- LYMIT.CURATOR . A. S. GREGORIO . ELECT.— SABINVS . CALLIPOLIT . EP .—FELIX . MESSANEN . EP .—GRE- GORIVS . DIAC . CARD . S . EUSTACH. Appendix, 1 6 o in the cloister of St Andrew (now St Gregory) at Rome expressly mentions Lawrence as having gone forth from it. ^ But a sufficiently convincing argument against Lawrence's having been a Frank is that from the silence of Bede and other early writers. It is hardly conceivable that so important a fact, profoundly modifying the whole conception of the mission, could have been passed over by everybody ; and on this ground alone it seems certain that he must have been a Roman. The question yet remains, however, whether he was a monk : for whilst the language of both Gregory and Bede would lead us to think that he was not, it is hard to see how a secular priest could have any place in a body of monks ; and such is the description given to Gregory's band many times over. Many writers, includ- ing Le Cointe and Bishop Stubbs, consider him to have been a secular priest ; on the other hand, the Canterbury writers insist upon it that he was a monk, and they are followed by Mabillon.^ On the strength of the inscrip- tion on the Church of S. Gregorio, Dr Bassenge takes the same view, and appears to think that the ascription of the title presbyter to Laurentius is to be accounted for by the supposition that he may have been the only priest, besides Augustine, in the little band of Italians : or indeed that he may have been ordained by Augustine HIC . ETIAM . DIU . VIXIT '. M . GREGORII . MATER . S . SILVIA. HOC . MAXIME . COLENDA.QVOD . TANTVxM. PIETATIS . SAPIENTIAE . ET . DOCTRINAE . LV.AIEN . TEPERERIT. * See Bassenge p. 20. 2 See Bishop Stubbs in Did. Chr. Biog. vol. III. p. 631. Pere Brou thinks that he was probably of the secular clergy, Oj), cit, p. 40. 164 The Beginnings of English ChiHstianity. after his own consecration.^ This can hardly have been the case. For although it was an exceptional thing in Gregory's day for monks to be in Holy Orders, yet it is incredible that the Pope who directed that a priest should accompany heathen boys on a journey into Italy, to baptize any who might fall sick by the way, should have sent forth a band of missionaries in which there was only one priest, or two. The question whether Laurentius was a monk would seem really to turn upon the genuineness and early date of the inscription mentioned above. Nothing less than this could suffice to prove him a monk in the face of Gregory's and Augustine's language ; on the other hand, if this be genuine and of early date, it must be con- clusive, and we must explain his being called/ presbyter in some other way. The monastery of St Andrew has passed through many vicissitudes, and the church itself has been rebuilt more than once.^ But whatever may be the date of the inscription as it stands, it would seem clearly to be a reproduction of one of early date, probably not long after the restoration of the monastery by Gregory II. This is shown by the list ot names : the latest, with the possible exception of Gregory the cardinal deacon, being ^ Op. cit. p. 20 n. 2 Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages vol. II. p. 102; Lanciaai, Pagan and Christian Rome p. 229 f.j Hare, Walks in Rome vol. I. pp. 200-203. It was deserted during the Lombard troubles, like Monte Cassino, and was restored in the time of Gregory II. (a.d. 715-731). Then again it was destroyed in the later middle ages, and restored as a Camaldolese convent in 1573; whilst further restorations were made by Cardinal Scipio Borghese in 1633-4, and by Francesco Ferrari in 1734. Appendix, 1 6 Archbishop Honorius of Canterbury, who died in 653. All the rest, with the same exception, are well known to us from the writings of Gregory the Great. And al- though the list certainly could not have been compiled from these writings (for in some cases they do not tell us that the persons named were monks), yet the un- designed coincidences with them are such as clearly to point to the genuineness and early date of the docu- ment.^ The same inference is to be drawn from the fact that Paulinus is spoken of as bishop, not archbishop, of York : for had the inscription been drawn up much after the time of Archbishop Egbert (a.d. 734) he would probably have received the latter title. On the other hand many things combine to forbid our dating it too early : {a) Honorius is mentioned as Archbishop of Canterbury, which dignity he did not receive till a.d. 627. {b) Paulinus, once more, is called Saint; he did not die till 644, and the title is not likely to have been ^ Thus Eleutherius, abbat of St Mark's at Spoleto, was a great personal friend of Gregory {Dial. iii. 33), but we are not told that he was a monk of St Andrew's. Hilarion and Maximian had actually trained Gregory himself (Joan. Diac. Vit. S. Greg. i. 6). Antony, Merulus and John are mentioned as three blameless monks of St Andrew's who had died there {Dial. iv. 47). Probus is several times spoken of as Abbat of St Andrew's, and once {Epp. xiii. 29) in connection with the xenodochitivi at Jerusalem (see ihe Description of ferusalein by Antoninus Martyr, cc. xxiii. , viii. — Palestine Pilgrim's Text Society, vol. II.), which was a constant object of Gregory's care (Joan. Diac. Vii. S. Greg. ii. 7 ; Williams, Holy City vol. I. p. 334). Mariniauus (wrongly called Martini- anus by Gams, Series Episcoporuni) is mentioned in Epp. v. 51, etc., as having been sent by Gregory to Ravenna. And both Felix and Sabinus occur frequently, the latter however as Sabinianus. lie is omitted altogether by Gams.) 1 66 The Beginnings of English Christianity, given to him until some time after his death, ic) The in- formation which it displays is imperfect ; the compiler apparently thinks that Justus died at Rochester, and knows nothing of his three years at Canterbury, {d) His information is actually erroneous in one case ; for it certainly is not the fact that Eleutherius was brought up at St Andrew's, though he died there in Gregory's arms, probably about 585 a.d.^ {e) Lastly, the description of Gregory the deacon is such as could hardly have been given before the beginning of the eighth century ; for although the office which he held — deacon in charge of the oratory of St Eustachius — doubtless existed in the time of the great pope,^ yet he would hardly have been described as cardinal deacon of St Eustachius until con- siderably later. ^ Still, the fact remains that we have here a genuine inscription of about one hundred years after the event, i.e. of the time of Bede himself. And this being so it is impossible to doubt that Lawrence had really been a monk of St Andrew's. But it does not therefore follow that he continued to be a monk : and the language of Gregory and Bede is probably to be accounted for by the fact that Laurentius had been released from the cloister by Augustine. For an examination of Gregory's letters will show that he 1 See Diet. Chr, Bio-, vol. II. p. 79. 2 St Eustachius was one of the oldest diaconks in Rome. -De jNIas Latrie, Tresor de Chronologie p. 1 175. ^ It is true that in Ciregory's own time the title diaconus cardi- nalis was given to the deacon in charge of a diaconia, whether in Rome or elsewhere (S. Greg. I. Epp. lib. i. 15, vi. 11 ; cf. Du Cange s.v.). And in the form for the ordination of a deacon in the Sacramentary which bears his name, the candidate is declared to have been elected deacon of such-and-such a Church (Migne, P. L. vol. Ixxviii. col. 221 ; cf. col. 484). Appendix, 167 probably does not mean simply that the monk Laurentius was in priest's orders. When he is speaking of a monk who is also in holy orders, Gregory's custom is to give, or at least to imply, both descriptions. He calls his namesake Gregory, for instance, presbyter et abbas {Epp, Hb. i. 9) ; Senator is the same (lib. xiii. 8), and Martin is diaconus et abbas (lib. vii. 18); whilst a certain Paulinus is described as presbyter monasterii S. Erasnii (lib. i. 24 ; cf. lib. ix. 37) Moreover, whilst monks might be ordained in their monasteries in order to say mass for the brethren (lib. vi. 42, vii. 43), if ordained for that purpose they must remain there and not exercise their office outside (lib. ix. 92). And so strictly was this rule kept that when in 594 the Church of St Pancras at Rome was taken from the clergy who formerly served it and handed over to a monastery, Gregory directed Maurus the abbat to secure a [secular] priest who should say mass there, dwelling in the mon- astery and receiving his sustenance thence.^ On the other hand, if they were found fit for holy orders monks might be ordained for outside work.^ Such was the case with one Cosmas, who from being a monk had been made subdeacon and then priest ; ^ and many other instances might be given. In such a case how- ^ Epp. lib. iv. 18 : praecipimus ut peiegrinum illic non desina3 adhibere presbytcrum, qui sacra missaium possit solemnia celebrare. Quern tamen et in monasterio tuo liabitare, et inde vitac subsidia habere necesse est. 2 Epp. lib. i. 18 ; cf. vi. 28, to Bisliop Candidus of Orvicto { vobis licentiam damns monachos de monasteriis in tua parochia positis cum consensu abbatis sui toUere et presbyteros ordinare* ^ Epp. lib. xiii. 28 : qui ex monacho monasterii S. Luciae , . • factus subdiaconus atque postea . . . presbyter dicitur ordinatus. 1 68 The Beginnings of English Christianity. ever he no longer had any power in the monastery ; ^ the two things were to be kept entirely distinct. A man might not be at once a beneficed priest and an abbat ; ^ and again, an abbat who was elected to be bishop must forthwith cease to be abbat. ^ A monk was one who lived in a monastery according to rule ; it followed that one who was no longer a sharer in the common life and subject to the rule was no longer a monk.* In all probability this was the case with Laurentius the presbyter. (2) Other Members of the Mission, (a) Peter, There is no question that he also was of St Andrew's at Rome, and that he was a member of the original mission. He became the first abbat of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul (afterwards St Augus- tine) at Canterbury, w\is sent to Gaul as legate of the English Church (kgatus Galliani missus) probably in 606, but was drowned off the coast of France at a place called Amfleat, probably close to Boulogne. ^ (J)) John. It is somewhat more doubtful whether he was a member of the first mission. He is not the same John who is mentioned in the inscription given above ; and his coming to England is only known to us by a 1 Epp. lib. vii. 43 ; cf. lib. viii. 15. 2 Epp. lib. iv. II, V. I. ^ Epp. lib. xiii. 8. Canterbury was an exception to this rule, and there were others. * Of course the vows which he had taken Avere still binding. Gregory never overlooked the fault of his friend Venantius, who left his monastery and married a wife. They continued friends, but to the end of his life Gregory was afraid that his friend had committed a mortal sin. See Diet. Chr. Biog. vol. IV. p. 1105. ^ Bede, //. E» i. n. Appendix, 1 69 passage in Bede's Chronicle, in which, following the Liber Pontificalis, he says that Gregory sent to Britain Augustine, Mellitus and John.^ Perhaps on the whole it is more probable that he came with Augustine ; but the fact cannot be considered certain. According to the late Canterbury writers he succeeded Peter as abbat in 607 and died in 618 : he is mentioned in a spurious Bull of Pope Boniface IV., ^ which however may not improbably have taken the place of a genuine one now lost. {c) James {ox Jacob) the Deacon.^ In him we have to do with a very well-known person ; viz., the heroic deacon who accompanied Paulinus to the north in 626, remained there on the flight of Paulinus in 633, took part in the Council of Whitby in 664, and survived, as Bede tells us, 'even to our own days.'^ This, one would suppose, must at least mean that Bede could re- member the time when he was alive. Now if he died (say) about 585, when Bede was twelve years old, he could not have been alive at the time of Augustine's coming unless he died at the age of ninety. And if he came with Augustine even as a boy of fifteen, this would bring his age at his death up to one hundred and five. It is therefore very unlikely that he can have been a member of Augustine's band. ^ Bede, Chronicon sub regno ISIaurlcii ; Liber Fontir. vol. I. p. 312. ^ Haddan and Stubbs, vol. III. p. (>1, ^ Bede gives both Jacobus and Jacob ; and it is hard to sec why in his case the Old Testament form of the name should not be pre- served, more especially as his name is probably preserved in Aik- burgh. * Bede, II, E. i. i6 : n:»stra usque tempora permansit. 1 /O lite Beginnings of English Christianity, {d) Honorius. We are told in the Roman inscrip- tion that he was of the monastery of St Andrew : and this is confirmed by the statement of Pope Zacharias to St Boniface that Honorius had been sent to England from the Holy See.^ Bede further says that he was * one of the disciples of the blessed Pope Gregory.' ^ As he became archbishop in 627 and died in 653, it is by no means impossible that he may have been one of the original companions of Augustine ; but we have no knowledge on the subject. {e) Roma7ius. Little is known of him but that he became the second bishop of Rochester in 624, and that shortly afterwards he v*^as sent by archbishop Justus as his legate to the Pope.^ He travelled safely as far as Provence, but was drowned in the Italic sea. Bishop Stubbs thinks that ' he was probably one of the mission- aries sent by St Gregory to Britain with Augustine.'^ As far as the dates are concerned it is by no means improbable. In a word then, Augustine's first band included Laurentius and Peter, probably Romanus, and perhaps also John and Honorius. But beyond these we have no knowledsre whatever. ' S. Bonif. Epp. No. 65 (Jaffe, Monummta Mogunlina p. 1S5). 2 //. E. lib. V. c. 19 (Plummer, vol. I. p. 323). 3 Bede, H. E. lib. ii. c. 20 : ad Hoaorium papain a lusto aichi- episcopo legatarius missus. 4 Did. Chron. Bio^. vol. IV. p. 553. APPENDIX C (p. 6i). THE LANGUAGE OF THE PRANKISH INTER- PRETERS, I INFER that the Frankish interpreters could understand and be understood by the EngHsh peoples from what is told us in the life of St Gregory of Utrecht by St Liudger.^ According to this, when St Boniface was on his way to Hesse from Frisia (in the fall of 721), he came to the convent of Palatiolum on the banks of the Moselle, near Treves, over which the pious widow Addula (or Adela) presided as abbess. The charter by which this convent was endowed is extant, and makes it clear that Addula was not only the abbess of Palatiolum, but its foundress, and that she was the daughter of Dagobert II. of Austrasia (674-679), and therefore a Frank of the Franks.^ The following day after Mass, which Boniface was accustomed to say almost daily, -^ they were sitting at 1 In :Mabillon, Acta SS. Oni. Bened. vol. III. part ii. pp. 319 f. ; Peitz, M. G. Script, vol. XV. part i. pp. 66 f. It is certainly genuine, being referred to in the life of Liudger by Altfrid, his successor in the see of Miinster. — Vit. Liudgeri lib. ii. c. 6. 2 Hontheim, Historia Treviremis vol. I. p. 88 f. ; reprinted in Migne, I^.L. vol. Ixxxvii. col. I3i2t. The date of the charter is kal. Apr. [690]. » Vit. Greg. Traject. c. iii. 172 The Beginnings of English Christianity, meat ; and it so happened that Adela's grandson Gregory, a boy of fourteen or fifteen, the son of her son Alberic, was chosen to read the appointed portion of Scripture. He read very well, we are told, for his age. When he had finished, the saint asked him if he understood what he had been reading (evidently in Latin). He replied that he did, and proceeded to repeat it. ' I did not ask you, my son, to read it over again,' said Boniface, ' but to give me the meaning of it in your mother-tongue.' ^ This he could not do. ' Would you like me to do it for you ? ' ' Yes.' Then said the blessed Boniface, ' Now read it over again from the beginning, and read care- fully.' And whilst he did so, the holy teacher arose, and began in a clear voice to expound it to the Mother and all who were present. Thereupon, with a boy's enthusiastic devotion for the great missionary, Gregory begged to be allowed to accompany him on his journey, much to the dismay of his grandmother, who tried in vain to hold him back. However, being a wise woman,^ she at length gave way. Gregory went with Boniface, and ulti- mately, not long after the death of St Willibrord in 739, became abbat of Trajectum or Utrecht. Now doubtless it does not certainly follow from what has been narrated that St Boniface's own language was much the same as the mother-tongue of Gregory. He might conceivably have learned to speak the Frankish tongue before this time. Nevertheless, I believe that it was not so, and that tlie West Saxon Winfrith and the Frankish Gregory could understand one another. For ^ ' Secundum proprietatem linguae tuae, et secundum naturalem parentum tuorum loquelam.' 2 'Quia prudens erat femina.' Appendix. 1 7 3 as yet the former had only Hved (for any length of time) amongst the Frisians, whose language was certainly closely akin to that of the Engle and Saxon. And more- over, full as are our records of St Boniface's times, there are, so far as I am aware, no signs whatever which would point to a wide difference between the Frankish and English languages, whilst there are many which point to a fairly close resemblance between Frankish and Frisian. Of course, in the southern half of Gaul this Teutonic speech very rapidly died out ; but in the northern half (excluding Armorica) it must have been general until long after the time of Augustine's mission. Whilst further east it never really died out at all. APPENDIX D (p. 62). THE DATE OF ETHELBERTS MARRIAGE, The indications given us on this subject by contem- porary chroniclers are somewhat confused, and the most contradictory conclusions have been arrived at by modern writers. In view of the fact that of two writers, whose works have appeared during the present year, one dates it before 560 and the other after 589, a detailed investi- gation may not be considered superfluous. To state first the ' fixed points ' of the inquiry : — {a) Clotaire I. was the youngest son of Clovis, and received a share in the kingdom on his father's death. In 524 his brother Clodomir died, fight- ing against the Burgundians, and Clotaire straight- way married his widow Guntheuca {nee mora : Greg. Turon. Hist. Fr. iii. 6). (^) Charibert was his second son and succeeded to part of his dominions, with Paris as his capital, on his death in 561. He married Ingoberga (Charibertiis rex Ingobergam accepit uxorem : Greg. Turon. iv. 26. It is recorded after the invasions of the Avars in 562 ; but we may find reason to think that the marriage took place earlier). They had one daughter Bertha^ or ^ Berthafledis and Chrodechildis, both daughters of Charibert, were only half-sisters of Bertha. 174 Appendix, 175 Adelbiirga (Greg. Turon. iv. 26 ; ix. 26, where she is calledyf//rt/;/ luiicam of Ingoberga). Chari- bert died at tli^ end of 567 ^ (Richter, Annakn d. deiitscJien Geschichte I. p. 68 s.a. ; Martin, Hist, de France II. 43 ; and especially Greg. Turon. Q^A P- 759 i"iote 2, M. G. H.). {c) Ingoberga lived on for many years, and died at length in 589 (Greg. Turon. ix. 26 : anno quarto decimo Childeberthi regis). At the close of her life she sent for Gregory, and through him left gifts to the churches of Tours and Le Mans. Then after a few months {post pauciis imnsis) she died, being then, as he thought, in her seventieth year {septuagesiino, tit arbitrary vitae afino). (d) As to Ethelbert, he died on February 24, 616 ; and Bede tells that he had reigned fifty and six years (H. E. ii. 5), which would bring his acces- sion to the beginning of 560, or even a few months earlier. The Chronicle is inconsistent with itself; it says {s.a. 565) that he ascended the throne in 565, and reigned fifty-three years, whilst (s.a. 616) it copies Bede's statement that he died in 616. Here Bede is evidently the better authority, and we may conclude that he cam.e to the throne in or about 560. In one MS. of the Chronicle (F, s.a.) it is stated that Ethelbert was born in 552 a.d. If so, he was eight years old when he succeeded his father, and fought against the West Saxons at Wimbledon (Eng. Chron. s.a. 568; Qi^q,u^ Making of England ^ Many other dates have been given ; but this is certainly riijht. 1/6 The Beginnings of English Christianity. p. Ill n.) as a boy of sixteen. The manuscript in question is late in date (twelfth century), and in places abbreviates the text ; but it has many additions peculiar to it, relating to Kentish affairs, and especially ecclesiastical affairs. (M. H. B., Iiitrod. p. 76 ; A. S. Chron., R. S., vol. I. p. xix.). In other words, it clearly comes from Canterbury : and in this case its authority is enough to denote that Ethelbert was still a boy when he became king.^ (e) As to the marriage itself our indications are of the slightest character. Bede (i. 25) tells us in- deed that Ethelbert had received Bertha a pareiit- ibiis on the condition that she should maintain her faith. This might seem to show that Bertha was married before the death of Charibert ; but a pa7'e?itibus may only mean ' from her kindred.'^ Gregory of Tours tells us in one passage {Hist. Fr. iv. 26) that Bertha ' in Ganthia virum accipiens est deducta,' and in another (ix. 26) that Ingo- berga died 'reUnquens filiam unicam, quam in Canthia regis cuiusdam filius matrimonio copula- vit.' But Gregory's Latinity is such that no con- * The very fact that minors were so rarely called to rule over English kingdoms is in favour of the genuineness of this instance. And if, as seems probable, he was the only survivor of the royal race, it would be a good reason for an early marriage. 2 I am aware that Dr Bassenge has rejected this as eine gekiinst- elte Detitung {pp. cit. p. 38 f.) ; but it seems to me an eminently natural expression for Bicda to use if he did not know anything definitely about her father and mother, but simply desired to say that she was married from her own people. For parens see Du Cange s.v. Appendix. 177 elusion can safely be drawn from his use of the perfect tense. One thing however is very clear : Gregory is very ill-informed on the subject. And considering his relations with the royal race in the latter part of his life, and especially with Ingoberga, this is a strong argument for an early date.^ And another is supplied by the other Gregory. The great Pope could hardly blame Bertha as he cer- tainly does {^Epp. xi. 29) for her remissness in not bringing her husband to Christ long ago (jamdu- dum) unless their married life was already of considerable length. (/) Lastly, as to Bertha's children. They were Ead- bald and Ethelburga, known by the pet name of Tata. 2 (i.) Eadbald, who was unbaptized, succeeded his father in 616, and at once, in accordance with the heathen English custom, married Ethelbert's widow. -^ So he was then a man of some age.'^ Moreover, the fact that he ^ Gregory became Bishop of Tours in 573 : if the marriage had taken place after this, he must surely have known the name of the bridegroom. 2 Such pet names were common amongst the English j but this one may point to the fact that Ethelburga was considerably younger than her brother. * A second wife, otherwise unknown. It was evidently a com- mon custom amongst the English, although both Bede and Asser speak of it as unknown. See Kemble, Saxons in England vol. II. p. 407. ^ As is also shown by the fact that Ethelbert mentions his name in his donation to Rochester Cathedral on April 28, 604. See Haddan and Stubbs, vol. III. p. 52. M 178 The Beginnings of English Christianity, was not baptized is inexplicable but on one of two grounds : either Bertha must have died whilst he was still an infant, or else he must have come to years of discretion before 597 ; in the latter case we know that Ethelbert would allow no force to be used to bring him to baptism.^ The former supposition is impossible, for we know that Bertha was alive till after 601, from Gregory's letter already referred to,^ which was written in July of that year. He was therefore of age in 597. In course of time Eadbald was converted to Christianity. So when Eadwine of Northumbria asked his sister Ethelburga in marriage, Eadbald refused to allow him to marry her until he promised her the privilege of free Christian worship. King Eadbald died in the year 640, leaving two sons, Eormenred and Earcombert, of whom the latter succeeded him (Bede iii. 8, Eng. Chron. s.a, 640). The relations between the two sons are variously recorded by later writers^; but the accounts are such as to make it clear that the two sons were adults at the death of their father, and that in all probability the former was already dead, leaving two sons. (ii.) As to Ethelburga, she married Eadwine in 625 and bore him a daughter in the early summer of the following year. (Bede ii. 14, Eng. Chron. : Paulinus was consecrated July 21, 625, and Eanfled baptized on Whitsun Eve, June 8, 626.) 1 Bede i. 26. 2 ^pp^ x^\^^ ^i. 29. « See Bishop Stubbs in Did, Chr, Biog. vol. II. pp. 17, 134. Appendix. 1 79 Eadwine ^Yas then 'a middle-aged widower/ but that docs not quite decide for us what sort of age he was h'kely to look for in a second wife.'^ Ethelburga bore him two ' sons and one other daughter : Wuscfrea, Ethelhun, and Etheldreda. The two latter died soon after baptism, and were buried at York : and when the widowed Queen fled southwards under the escort of Paulinus in 633, she bore with her Eanfled and Wuscfrea (Bede ii. 20). Taking these facts into account, it is clear that she cannot have been more than thirty-five or forty at the time of her marriage. From these data it follows that we cannot build upon the actual words used by any one chronicler, (i) If regis cuiusdani filius means that Ethelbert had not ascended the throne at the time of his marriage, he must have been married before he was in his teens. Or even rejecting altogether the statement as to his birth in 552, we must conclude that Ethelburga, a daughter of this marriage of 560 (or earlier), herself married in 625 and bore four children. (2) If ' Charibertus rex uxorem recepit' is to be taken literally, we must conclude that some time after 561 the Frankish king Charibert, himself some six years younger, married a lady of forty-two ^ or more (and it was not a political match), who bore him a daughter. Further, it will follow that Ethelbert, a boy-king ^ Coenburga, daughter of the Mercian king Ccail, had borne him two sons. Eede ii. 14. - Bishop Browne, Church in these Islands before Augustine p. 21. ^ With Gregory's opportunities of knowing, his statement {ant^ p. 163) cannot be taken to mean tliat she /t't'/tv^ seventy in 5894 1 80 The Beginnings of English Christianity. in 560, married a wife who was born after 562, and that two great-grandchildren had been born of their race before 540 {ante p. 166). (3) If a parentibtis means from her father and mother, it will follow that Ethel- bert's marriage took place before Ingoberga left her husband on account of his infidelity, i.e. before c. 564 ; and we are landed in much the same difficulties as before. (4) Above all, those who think that Ethelbert married Bertha after the death of Ingoberga have to face the fact that great-grandchildren of this marriage were alive in 640. The following statement seems to meet all the essen- tial facts of the case: (i) Charibert was born about 527 ; certainly not earlier than 526, probably not much later. (2) He married Ingoberga in 550 or 551, she being then thirty-one or thirty-two years of age. After the birth of their child Bertha he neglected her and took to evil courses.^ (3) Bertha was married between 571 and 573 to the young Ethelbert of Kent, she her- self being then twenty or twenty-two years of age. The facts of his position will account for an early marriage on the part of Ethelbert ; whilst if the marriage took place before 573 (when Gregory became Bishop of Tours), the paucity of Gregory's information is accounted for (4) Eadbald may thus have been already of age before the baptism of Ethelbert, and the fact that he was unbap- tized at his accession is accounted for. Again, if he was born about 575 he may easily have had two grand- ^ Greg. Turon. iv. 26. The exact date does not matter for our purposes, but it was probably not long after 555. It may be pointed out that Ingoberga was some seven years older than her husband ; but a Frankish king of the sixth century needed no excuse for evil-doinir. Appendix, 1 8 1 children living in 640. (5) On the other hand, Ethel- burga may have been born fifteen or sixteen years later, — as late as 590 ^ ; we have already noticed that her name of Tata may point to her being much younger. In that case she was about thirty-five years of age when Eadwine married her in 625. I think then that no date for Ethelbert's marriage suits the known facts so well as 571-573. ^ There may well have been other children between Eadbald and Elhelburija, who died young. And as Elhelbeit had no par- ticular interest for Bede before his conversion, the fact that he speaks of none is no difficulty, APPENDIX E (p. 64). THE LANDING PLACE OF AUGUSTLNE. As I have said, Professor McKenny Plughes's general conclusion seems to me to be clearly established, viz., that Augustine landed at Richborough itself, which was then an island, and was accounted to be part of Thanet. For ' Richborough stood in a somewhat similar relation as regards the Isle of Thanet to that in which Elmley or Harty Island stand to the Isle of Sheppey. Elmley and Harty Island are separated by tidal water from Sheppey, and yet they are always accounted to belong to it. It would seem, from the straightforward expressions of Thorn, that in his time Richborough Island was in like manner accounted to belong to Thanet ' (p. 231). I am unable to follow him, however, on one or tv/o minor points. I. I am not convinced that when Bede says that the Wantsum was transmeabilis in two places he means that 'it could be crossed in two places only' (p. 219), i.e. by means of a boat. No doubt the word tra?isnieahiUs in itself means no more; and Professor Hughes is able to show that there are many places where, at the present day, it is hardly possible to cross with a boat. But Bede must surely mean that it could be forded in 182 Appendix, 183 two places. The man shown off Wall-end in Hasted's map (reproduced in Prof. Montagu Burrows's Cinqu Ports p. 20), may not actually be crossing to Thanet; but it seems to me that there can be no question as to the two monks shown as crossing to Thanet ^ in the map at present in the library of Trinity Hall, and reproduced by Mr Elton in his Origins of English History (map IX.). If this is so, the river could be waded at one place, and probably also at the other. The name of the one place where the river could be crossed on foot is preserved for us in St Nicholas-at-Wade ^ ; the other, I believe, was not far from Richborough. 2. The distinction drawn by Prof. Hughes, following lylr Sharpe's paper, between the po?-t and the military station of Richborough (p. 233; cf. p. 227, 'Rich- borough, or, to be quite exact, the Port of Rich- borough'), seems to me to be overdrav/n. Po7'tits Ritupis (or the like) is used in the Antonine Itinerary in precisely the same way as Fortus Diibris or Portus Lenianis; and in neither case can we infer that the anchorage and the military station were distinct. No doubt the anchorage must be w^here there is vrater ; and in this case therefore it must have been to the south- east of the Castle, towards the modern Sandwich. But it can hardly be supposed that they were two distinct places, separated by a mile or more of impassable swamp. ^ There is a boat shown in the same map, and it has been sug- gested that it is the ferry boat, to which they are wading. But as the boat is pointing down the river, not across, this does not seem very likely. 2 I am not aware of any evidence whatever for the suggestion that in Old or Middle English wadiiig xxu^xt possibly mean crossing in a boat ! 184 The Beginnings of English Christianity, 3. No doubt the course of the Roman road from Canterbury is directly towards the modern Sandwich ; but still it may have gone to Richborough Castle. It may simply have followed the dryer ground, and diverted its course at length, through Cooper Street^ to Rich- borough. At any rate it is hard to believe that ' the only safe and sure route to [Richborough Castle] in those days was to get to the shore lower down the Wantsum, and go up with the tide in a boat' (p. 233). And it is simply impossible that this can have been the case in Roman days. The very first necessity for a military station on an island amongst marshes would be to make a safe and trustworthy causeway ; and the Romans would not have rested content without this for a day. These however are subsidiary points, and in no case bear upon the main contention of Prof. Hughes's disser- tation APPENDIX F (p. 69). THE GIFT OF THE PALLIUM. The history of the PalHum has been dealt with by the following writers amongst others : — De Marca, De Con- cordia Sacerdotii ct Imperii., especially lib. vi. cc. 6, 7 (from whom all later writers have borrowed) ; Thomassin, Vetits et Nova Discipliiia^ pars I. lib. ii. capp. 53-58 ; J. G. Pertsch, De Origine et Usu Pallii Archiepiscopalis ; Ruinart, Dissertatio de Pallii s Archiepiscoporuiii-, Du Cange, s.v. Pallium ; Vespasiani, P>e Sacri Pallii Origine Marriott, Vestiarium CJmstiamim ; Duchesne, Origines du Culte Chretien p. 370 f. ; and in a note, based upon Duchesne, in the Bishop of Stepney's Augustine and his Companions ^. 194 f. There are in my opinion some points in the history and use of the pallium which still call for study, and on which fuller light may yet be thrown. But it would carry us too far afield to enter at length into the history of the pallium here ; and it does not really concern our purpose. Whatever Gregory may have meant by it, it is quite clear that he meant something different from what Paschal II. or Leo XIII. would mean by it, and that the thing itself was in his day (so far as the West was concerned) a novelty of little more than a century in age. Reserving the fuller treatment of the subject, 185 1 86 The Beginnings of English Christianity, therefore, for another occasion, and referring for details to the works cited above, especially Do Marca and Duchesne, it may suffice here to say :— (i) The giving of the pallium had its origin in a grant of insignia to great people, ecclesiastics or others, by the civil power. (2) This existed in the East, at any rate as an occa- sional thing, long before it did in the West. (3) The pallium itself corresponds very closely with the otnophorioti {wjjLocfiopioy), which has always been worn by bishops in the East, and is found as early as the beginning of the fourth century. (4) Thence it passed to certain bishops in the West who v\'ere closely related to the East, such as those of Rome, Ravenna, and Ostia. These in all probability received it from the Emperor himself. But at any rate, whereas the oifiocfiopLov in the East vras regarded as directing the Bishop's episcopal character, the pallium in the West was always regarded as a mark of personal dignity — perhaps owing to a slight resemblance v^'hich it bore to the consular scarf. (5) Gradually the Bishops of Rome began to give it to certain other bishops, as a mark of honour. At first, and indeed down to the time of Gregory the Great himself, popes used to obtain the permission of the emperors before making a gift of the pallium. (6) In Gregory's own day it was given to quite dis- tinct classes of persons, and with a different signification. For instance, (a) it was worn by certain bishops habitu- ally as a matter of old custom, and probably originally by imperial grant : such were the bishops of Ravenna, Tarentum, Portus and Ostia ; (d) it was given to certain great bishops who had been definitely appointed by the Appendix, 187 pope to be his ' vicars,' i.e. to represent his interests in different places : such were the archbishops of Aries, Thessalonica, and Justiniana Prima; (<:) it was also given, as a mark of special favour, to certain other great bishops, as to Augustine of Canterbury and Synesius of Autun. (7) It was not by any means customary as yet for popes to make a present of the pallium to all metropolitans. It v\'a3 a purely personal thing ; and metropolitans who had not received it exercised their metropolitical functions just as those who had. It is now recognised by Roman Catholic writers, for instance, that Laurentius and Mellitus ^ of Canterbury had not received it ^ ; and it is certain that not until the time of St Boniface did all the metropolitans of Gaul receive it. In the face of these facts it would be absurd to suppose that an arch- bishop was held by the Church at large not to be a metropolitan till he had received it ; yet more so to sup- pose that he could not consecrate suffragans. (8) Still there are signs that already some idea of this kind was beginning to be attached to the pallium. Gregory himself seems to connect his grant of the ^ Both of wliom arc expressly called archbishops by Bede (ii. 6, 7) ; and the former apparently by Pope Boniface (ii. 4). 2 Brou, op. cit. p. 158 note 2. The reason which he gives for the pallium not having been sent to them, and for its being sent to Justus, is curious : * Sans doute, on songeait, a Rome, que les es- perances concues par saint Grcgoire etaient lentes a se realiser, que les eglises ne se multipliaient pas assez pour justifier I'envoi du pallium. Sous Justus, avec I'apostolat de saint Paulin, les choscs changerent.' But unfortunately Justus received his pall in 624; Paulinus was not consecrated till July 625 ; Eadwine was not baptized till April 627. 1 88 The Beginnings of English Christianity. pallium to Augustine with the power to consecrate suffragans/ and Boniface does the same thing in the case of Justus^; whilst it happens that the two arch- bishops who had not received it never had occasion to consecrate suffragans. Here as elsewhere the papal theory prevailed by degrees. (9) For instance, it is for the first time definitely stated, so far as I have observed, in the reply of Pope Nicholas I. to the questions of the Bulgarians, that it is not lawful for a metropolitan to be enthroned or to con- secrate before he has received the pallium, 'as is the custom of the archbishops of all the Gauls and Germany and other regions.'^ This 'custom' only very gradually came into being — in fact was not universally observed in the West till the end of the eleventh century. And yet later still it came to be held that with the pallium was given \^\^ plenitiido pontificalls officii. It will be seen that many points are hardly touched upon in this sketch ; but as I have said, they do not fall under my subject, and I hope to deal with them more fully elsewhere. * Bede, H. E. lib. i. c. 29 : usum tibi palliL . . concedimus, ita lit per loca singula XII. episcopos ordines etc. - Bede, H. E. lib. ii. c. 8 : pallium praeteiea per latorem prae- sentium . . direximus . . concedente etiam tibi ordinationes episcoporum celebrare. ^ Deer. Nich.I. ad Bulg. c. 'j:^ (Mansi, vol. XV. col. 401 : the date is Nov. 13, 866). APPENDIX G (p. 73). SAXON CHRISTIANS BEFORE AUGUSTINE. There were probably many Christians of the Saxon race before Augustine came to Kent : but this in no way touches the conversion of the English people. Thus, for instance, {a) in 568 a.d. over 20,000 Saxons, with their wives and children, came by land to help the Lombard king Alboin in the subjugation of Italy,^ and remained in Italy some four years. The Lombards were at this time Arians ; and as we are specially told that these Saxons were compelled to give up their own laws, and were in fact ' Lombardised,' ^ it is hardly to be supposed that none of them received Christianity, either from their heretical allies or from the Catholic people of Italy. They migrated to Gaul about 572-3, and thence to their old home, where they were cut to pieces by the Suabians.^ {b) Probably about the time of the invasion of Britain by the West Saxons, some of the same people landed in the North of Gaul (just as the Danes did afterwards), ^ Paul. Diac. Hist. Langob. lib. ii. c. 6. - Paul. Diac. op. cit. lib. iii. 6 ; Ilodgkin, Italy and her Inva- ders vol. V. p. 156. "'' Greg. Turon. Hist. I'r. lib. iv. c. 42 ; Ilodgkin, oJ> cit. vol. V. p. 189. 189 IQO The Beginnings of English Christianity, and settled in the neighbourhood of Bayeux. And we are told* that about 570 these Saxones Baiocassint adopted the British tonsure and customs. The tonsure is of course the lay tonsure; and the meaning is that they were adopted into the Breton tribes. But it is hardly possible that they can have been so adopted without becoming Christians. ic) Many of the Teutonic invaders sailed far to the North; they were probably Frisians at first, and from them the Firth of Forth may have received the name of the Frisian Sea.^ Then followed the Angles, who wedged themselves more than half-way across the narrow neck of land between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. ^ And it would seem that two of these, Genere the baker and Pilu, were brethren of Columba's monas- tery at lona.^ I say that Pilu and Genere were probably Angles ; it can hardly be considered certain. For the fourth abbat of lona was Fergna Britt,^ whom Adamnan calls Virg- nous.^ Britt should naturally denote that he was a Briton : but there is no possible question that he was 1 Greg. Turon. lib. x. c. 9 ; Sidon. Apoll. Epp. lib. viii. 9 ; see Iladdan and Stubbs, vol. II. p. ^'^. 2 Hist. BrUtontini c. xxxviii. But the original reading would appear to be Marc Frcnessicuin ; it is only Mar^ Fyesicuni in Nen- nius's redaction. See Mommsen's edition (jNI. G. H.). 3 See the map in Skene, Celtic Scotland vol. II. p. 178, or Bp. Dowden, Celtic Church in Scotland. * Adamn. Vit. S. Coluinb. lib. iii. cc. 11, 23. They are called Saxones \ but this is Adamnan's way; e.g. i. i, where Oswald is Saxonicus regnator and the whole land is Saxonia ; cf. i. 8, ii. 47- ^ Reeves, Adamnan pp. cxlvii. 297. ® Vit. S. Colunih, lib. iii. c. 20. Appendix. 191 ' founder's kin,' and succeeded as abbat in due course \ in consequence. Colgan suggests that he derived his 1 name 'a Britanniae incolatu ' : whilst Dr Reeves con- i eludes that 'there is, probably, more implied in the ; epithet than is recorded.' In the same way, it \s possible that Pilu and Genere derived their name of Saxo *a ■ Saxoniae incolatu,' or that ' there is more implied in the ; epithet than is recorded.' J APPENDIX H (p. 1 1 6). THE AUTHENTICITY OF GREGORY'S ANSWERS TO AUGUSTINE. Since this was written I have received a letter from the Abbe Duchesne, part of which is given below. It will be seen that he now holds that Gregory's answers to Augustine's questions are authentic : — 'Je suis maintenant d'avis que la lettre en question est authentique. Deja sont imprimes les feuilles de ma 2^ edition ou j'ai fait le changement. Un article du Neues Archiv, ou Mommsen avait etudie la tradition de ce document m'avait completement determine. Je vols, par votre lettre, que les raisons intrinsiques se joignent aux raisons extrinsiques pour favoriser ce jugement.' The article of Mommsen referred to, which I had not previously seen, is entitled Die Papstbriefe bei Beda {A^eues Archiv vol. XVII. pp. 387-396). 193 APPENDIX I (p. 142). ANTIOCH AND ROME, It is interesting to find Gregory's theory of the rela- tions between Antioch and Rome reappearing more than five hundred years afterwards, in the time of the Crusades. The circumstances were as follows : — When the Crusaders had conquered Antioch and made it a principality, they established a Latin patri- archate there, the first patriarch being Bernard, formerly bishop of Arethusa. On his death in 1134^ he was succeeded by Ralph, a Norman by birth, who had been archbishop of T^Iopsuestia {Radu/fus Maniista?ius archiepiscopus). This we are told by William of Tyre,^ who is also the authority for all that happened after- wards. Ralph at once proceeded, according to the recognised Eastern custom, to assume his predecessor's pallium {943)' Appendix, 195 idem patriarcha de altari Antiochenae ecclesiae, sua sibi sumpserat auctoritate, in iniuriam, ut dicebatur, sedis apostolicae, et cardinalibus tradito ; aliud ei, sumptum de corpore beati Petri more solemni per priorem dia- conorum traditur '). APPENDIX K THE NUMBERING OF GREGORY'S LETTERS I have given below the numbering of the letters of Pope Gregory which are referred to above : in the first column according to the Benedictine edition, and the reprint in Migne's Patrologia Latina ) and in the second according to the edition of Ewald and Hartmann in the Monumenta Germaniae Historka. ed. Bened. ed. M.G.H. ed. Bened. ed. M.G.H. i. 9 i. 9 vi. 7 vi. 10 i. 15 i. 15 vi. II vi. II i. 18 i. 18 vi. 15 vi. 15 i. 24 i. 23 vi. 24 vi. 24 i. 43 i. 41 vi. 28 vi. 27 i. 45 i. 43 vi. 42 vi. 39 vi. 53 vi. 51 "i- 53 iii. 52 vi 54 vi. 52 vi. 55 vi. 53 iv. II iv. II vi 57 vi. 56 iv. 18 iv. 18 vi. 58 vi. 49 iv. 32 iii. dT, vi. 59 vi. 57 iv. 47 V. 6 vi. 60 vi. 58 vi. 66 vi. 62 v. I V. I V. 18 V. 44 vii 5 vii. 4 v. 20 V. 37 vii. 18 vii. 18 V. 21 V. 39 vii. 27 vii. 24 V. 39 V. 42 vii. 29 vii. 26 V. 43 V. 41 vii. 33 vii. 30 196 Appendix, ed. Bened. vii. 34 vii. 40 vii. 43 viii. 2 viii. 15 viii. 29 viii. 30 ix. 12 ix. 37 ix. 59 ix. 68 ix. 78 ed. M.G.H. vii. 31 vii. 37 vii. 40 viii. 2 viii. 17 viii. 28 viii. 29 ix. 26 ix. 107 ix. 27 ix. 156 ix. 175 ed. Bened. ix. 92 X. 35 197 ed. M.G.H. ix. 18 x. 14 xi 28 xi. 36 xi. 29 xi. 35 xi. 54 xi. 34 xi. 58 xi. 41 xi. 65 xi. 39 xi. 66 xi. 37 xiii. 8 xiii. II xiii. 28 xiii. 32 xiii. 40 xiii. 43 xiii. 41 xiii. 44 INDEX. Aaron and Julius 33. Abyssinia 124. Acton, Lord 56. Adamnan quoted 190 and note. Addula OK Adela 1 71. Aedan, St 71, 96; not the apostle of England, 72 f. --Ethelfrith conquers Teyrnllwg 85. Agatho, Pope 146 n. Agricola, Conquests of 29. Agricola the Pelagian 36. Ailred of Rievaulx 36 n. Alban, St, his martyrdom 32, 33 n. Albinus, abbat of St Augus- tine's 118. Alboin, King 189. Aldhelm, St, his letter to King Geraint 93. Alexandria, Patriarchate of 140. Anastasius the Librarian, on the word Ecuineiiical 137 n. Anastasius Patriarch of Antioch 140 f. Andredsvveald 51. Andrew's, St, at Rome, its history 164 and note ; monks of Gregory's monastery at 165 n. ; inscription in the cloister of 162 n. Antioch, Patriarchate of 140 ; claim to share the sedes Petri 193- Archbishop, meaning of the woi^d 103 f. Arianism 30, 35 ; its lack of vitality 55. Ariminium, Council of 36. Aries, Council of 36. Asaph, St, See of 48. Athanasius, St 154. Augustine, St, mistaken views as to his mission 14, 19 ; his origin 162 n. ; his mission 59 ; came at an auspicious time 56 ; his landing-place 61, 182 f. ; interview with King Ethelbert 64 ; entrance into Canterbury 65 ; its date ib. ; his consecration 68 ; sends Lawrence and Peter to Rome ib.^ 160; his confer- ence with the bishops of West Wales '^Z, 90; the second conference 91, 157; his death 71 ; his character 72 f. ; his festival ordered to be ob- served III. , companions of 159 f. Augustine's, St, Monastery of 70; its abbats 118, 160 n. 139 200 Index, Augustine's Oak Z^ f. ; the con- ference at 88, 90. Aust=Trajectum August! %'i. Baiocassini Saxones 190. Baldwin, Archbishop 106. Bangor, See of 48. Bangor-is-Coed 91. Baptists, the British Church not a church of 19, 157. Baronius, quoted or referred to 136 n., 138 n. Basil, St 123 n. Bassenge, Dr, quoted or re- ferred to 50, 58 n., 68 n., 160 n., 162, 163, 176 n. Bede, the Venerable, on St Ninian 36 n. ; on Ethelbert's kingdom 57 ; on the Ang- lian slave-boys 58 n. ; on Ethelbert's toleration 67 and note ; on Celtic exclusive- ness 93 ; on St Gregory 1 1 1 ; his authorities 118 ; on Ethel- bert's age 175; on Bertha's origin 1 76 ; calls Lawrence and Mellitus archbishops 1 87 n. Beino, St, legend of 94. Benedict, St 159 n. ; his Rule 59 f. Benson, Archbishop 150 n. Bernard, St 159 n. Latin Patriarch of Antioch 193- Bertha or Adelburga 57, 61 ; daughter of Charibert and Ingoberga 174 ; date of her marriage with Ethelbert 62 n., 1 74 ff. ; blamed by Gregory 177; her children 177 f.; still alive in July 601, 178. Bingham's Aniiquities, quoted 155- Birinus of Wessex 78. Birkbeck, Mr W. J. 117. Bishoprics, city or kingdom, in Wales 48, 104 f. Bishops, jurisdiction of 147 f., 151 f., 152 n., 153. monastic, among tlie Goi- dels 46, 48 ; in Wales 104 f. Boniface, St 61, 72, 79 ; his letter to Nothelm 119 and note ; his visit to Palatiolum 171 f. IV, Pope 131, I38n.,i46n., 169, 187 f. Bossuet quoted 152 n. Braden, Forest of 84, 96. Bradford, Battle of 97. Bramhall, Archbishop 146 n. ; on St Gregory 11 1 ; on epis- copal rights and papal claims 148. Breton Christianity 42. Bright, Dr, quoted or referred to 24, 50, 78. British Church, mistaken ideas with regard to 14, 18 f. See Romano - British Church, Welsh Church, Celtic Chris- tendom. Brou, Pere, quoted or referred to 14, 50, 68 n., 74, 116 n., 161, 187 n. Browne, Bishop G. F., quoted or referred to 24, 25 n., 42 n., 50, 61 n., Z7 f., 179. Index, 20I Bntt y Tywysogion quoted lOO, 104. Brythons, their territories 28 ; gradually Romanised 29 f. ; conquered by the English 51 f. ; would not convert the English 53 ; gradually forced back upon the Goidels 48, 82. Bury, Professor 135 n., 140 n. Cadwallon, his alliance with Penda 92. Caerleon-on-Usk 33 and note. Cambro- British Saints, Lives of 94 n., 102, 104 n. Candidus 58 n., 60. Canterbury, Ethelbert's capital 61 ; cathedral and churches built at 70 ; from the first the centre of English Christianity 80. Cardzjialis 166 n. Cedd, St 79. Celestine, Pope 37 and note. Celtic Christendom, its liturgical customs 31 ; how far tainted with Pelaglanism 35 ; its general character 45 f., 49, 96 ; its monasteries 45 f. ; its mis- sions 47 ; its isolation 92 ; its intolerance 93, 94 n. ; treated by Theodore as schismatic 95 ; its gradual decay 98 f. See Romano-British Church, Welsh Church. Celts of Gaul 26 n. Ceolric defeats Ceawlin at Wau- borough 88. Ceolwulf 89. Chad, St, his mission 79; his con- secration by Wine 96 ; ' con- summated ' by Theodore 95 n. Charibert King of Paris 174 ; marries Ingoberga ib., 179; his death 175. Chester, fall of 85. Church, formation of a new 114; relation to the mother- church 122 f. Church, Dean 132. Civil til Cattolica 60 n., 116 n., 135 n- Clotaire I, King, marries Gun- theuca 174. Clovesho, Council of iii. Codex JustiniamiSt quoted 137 n. Coelestius 36. Colgan quoted 191. Colonia Londinensium 33. Columba, St 47 n., 67. Columban, St22n.; quoted 131, 134 n. Conference at Augustine's Oak 90 ; the second Conference 91. Constantine's Life of St GeV' mantis 33 n., 37 n. Constantinople, Church of 117, 129 f. Cooper Street 184. Cornwall, bishops of 99. Cosmas a monk, made sub- deacon and priest 167. Cressy's Church History of Brit- tany 25 n. Cricklade %T. Cumbria, separated from Wales 85 ; accepts the Catholic Easter 99. 202 Index, Cummian, St, quoted 92. Cunedda and his sons 82 n., ^'i,. Cymry invade Wales Zt^. Cyriacus Patriarch of Constanti- nople 130, 138 n. Dagan, Bp, his churlishness 93 ; his pilgi-image to Rome 93 n. Dagobert II, King 171. David's, St, See of 48 ; never an ecclesiastical province 102 f. Davies, Bishop 94 n. Ddoeth 91. Decretals, the Forged 138 n. Deorham, Battle of 84. Dionysius Exiguus, his Easter Cycle 22 n. Diuma 79. Dixon, Canon 94 n. Dominic, St 'Jl- Druidism 28, Duchesne, Abbe, on the rela- tion between the English and "Welsh Churches 20 n., 98 n. ; on the Romano-British Church and the Papacy 21 ; on the fable of King Lucius 26 ; on the Galilean liturgy 31 ; on the authenticity of Gregoiy's answers to Augustine 116, 192. Eadbald King 162, 177 f.; his sons 178. Eadwine King of Northumbria, marries Ethelburga 178 ; their children 179. Eanfled, baptism of 67 n. Easter, the Celtic rule of 22 n. ; its gradual abolition 99. Ebbsfleet, not the place of Au- gustine's landing d^^ f. Eborius 33. Ecclesia Anglorum 69, 122. Ecumenical Patriarch, see Uni- versal Bishop. Eddi's Life of Wilfrid quoted 95 f., 146 n. Edward I, King 107. Egbert Archbishop of York 165. Eleutherius abbat of St Mark's Spoleto 162 n., 165 n., 166. Pope, sec Lucius, King. Elmete 51. Elvod, Bishop 104. England, the making of 51, 53. English Chronicle quoted 67 n., 89 n., 124, 175 f. English Church, foundation of 66; growth of 69 f., 115; not the result of three con- verging strains T^t f* > begins with Augustine 74, 80 ; filial relation to the Roman Church 124, 127 f. Ethelbert, King 57, 87 ; date of his marriage with Bertha 62 n., 174 ff; his interview with Augustine 64 ; his baptism 66 f. ; Gregory's letter to 70 n. ; his children 177 f. Ethelburga or Tata, Queen 78, 177 f. ; her marriage with Ead- wine 178 f. Eulogius Patriarch of Alexan- dria 140 f. Index, 203 Eusebius's Life of Constantinc 34". Eustachius, St, diacony of 166 and note. Ewald, Paul 116 n., 120 n. ; his edition of Gregory's Let- ters 196 f. Exeter, British Christians in 42. Fabre, Paul 60 n. Fabyan's Chronicle 19, 157. Fastidius 36, 40. Faustus of Riez 30, 36. Felix, Bishop 78. Fergna Britt, abbat of lona 190. Forbes, Bishop, quoted or re- ferred to 36 n., ■^'j n. Fordun 38 n. Foxe's Book of Martyrs 19. Frankish conquest of Gaul 52. interpreters with Augus- tine 61, 159, 160 n. ; their language 171. Freeman, Professor, quoted or referred to 42 n., 52 n., 84 n., 124. Frisians, the 173, 190. Fulcher Archbishop of Tyre 194 n. Fursey, St 78. Gaul, church of, its origin 26 ; intercourse with Britain 30 f. ; origin of its liturgy 31. Gavidius, Bishop 34 n. Gedeon, quoted 136 n., 138 n. Genere and Pilu, ' Saxon ' Chris- tians of lona 190. Gennadius the Exarch 135 n. Geoffrey of Monmouth loi. Geraint, King 93, Germanus, St 31, 33 n., 35, z"]. Gildas 33 n., 39, Giraldus Cambrensis 10 1 f. Glaber, Raoul 137 n. Glastonbury 42. Goidels, their origin 27 ; their heathen religion 28 ; their Christianity 43 f., subdued by the Brythons 48, 82. Goths, the 123. Gratiosus, perhaps abbat of St Augustine's 160 n. Green, ]\Ir J. R., quoted or re- ferred to 50, 53, 85. Gregorovius, quoted or referred to 66 n., 164 n. Gregory I, Pope, his early mis- sionary efforts 58 ; sends Au- gustine 59 ; his replies to Augustine's questions 69 ; their authenticity discussed 116 f., 192; sends Augustine a pall 69 ; and recognises the Ecclesia Angloriun ib. ; his directions to Augustine 87 ; his festival to be observed III ; Bede and Bramhall on ib. His septifonnis litania 66 ; his claims on behalf of his see 128 ff. ; his repudiation of universa/is episcopus 135 f. ; his view of the sedes Petri 142 f, 193 ; his care for the Holy City 165 n. , his Letters, quoted or re- 204 Index, ferred to 58 n., 62 n., (t^ n,, 68 n., 70 n., 116, 117 n., 120, 128 ff., 160 ff. ; their num- bering 196 f. Gregory II, Pope 118, 164. Gregory of Tours 52 ; on Rome 54 n. ; on the septifoi'mis litaiiia 66 n. ; on Frankish history 174 ff. Gregory of Utrecht, St 61, 172. Gregoiy the cardinal deacon 162 n,, 166. Grisar, Dr, quoted or referred to 60 n., 116 n., 135 n., 136 n., 137 n., 138 n. Guest, Dr 89 n. Haddan and Stubbs's Coimcils, quoted or referred to 23, 26 n., 27 n., 35 n., 38n., 47n., 50, 52 n., 57 n., 79 f., 107. Haddan's JRemains 23 ; on Romano-British Christianity 39 f. Harnack, Dr 26 n. Hartmann, E. 116 n. Hasted's map 183. Haverfield, Mr, quoted or re- ferred to 24, 26 n., 31, 32 n. Historia Britlomivt 2$ n., 190 n. Hodgkin, Dr, quoted or re- ferred to 120 n., 123 n., 132, 189. Honorius Archbishop of Can- terbury 162 n., 165, 170, Hughes, Prof. 63 f., 182 ff. Hwiccas, their territories 84 f, 87 f. Hywel Dda 100, 105. Ingoberga marries Charibert 174; her death 175. Innocent II, Pope 194'n. Inscription in St Andrew's at Rome 162 n. lona, Church of 67, 76, 96, 190. Ireland brought into contact again with the Roman See 22 n. Irenaeus, St, on the triumphs of the Gospel 26. Italian Mission, the 75. Iverni, the 27. Ivimey's History oj British Baptists 158. James {or Jacob) the Deacon 78 ; his history 169. Jerusalem, Church of, its pre- rogatives 126 ; the Xenodo- chium at 165 n. Jews, treatment of 67 n. Jocelyn of Furness, his list of Celtic bishops 36 n. John a monk of St Andrew's 162 n., 165 n. John another monk, probably of Augustine's band 168; probably Abbat of St Augus- tine's 169. John and Athanasius 129 f. John of Salisbmy 125. John the Faster 129 f., 138. Joseph of Arimathaea, his legendary visit to Britain 25. Jurisdiction of Bishops 151 f.; Index, 205 the Roman theory of 147 f., 152 n. Justus, Archbishop 71, 162 n., 166, 187 n. Kemble, Mr J. M., quoted or referred to 25 n., 124, 177 n. Kent, Kingdom of 56. Kentigern, St 'i'j n. Langen, Dr, referred to 134 n., 137 n. Lawrence, Archbishop, sent by Augustine to Rome 68, 1 16 n. ; on Irish exchisiveness 93 ; a member of Augustine's first band 161 ; not a Frank 162; always czW-t.^ presbyter idi ff.; undoubtedly a monk of St Andrew's 166; but probably released from his rule 168. Le Cointe, quoted 161, 163. Leo I, Pope 22 n., 136, Leo XI [I, Pope, quoted 37 n. Liber Diiirnus 146 n. Liber Landavensis 33 n., 104 n., 105 n. Lightfoot, Bishop, on St Aedan 76. Lipsius, Dr 26 n. Liudger, his Life of St Gregory of Utrecht 171 and note. Liudhard, Bishop 61 f. Llanbadarn, See of 48, Llandaff, See of 33 n., 48. Lombard conquest of Italy 189. London, Bishop of, quoted 160 n. London, chosen by Gregory for archiepiscopal see 69 ; Melli- tus consecrated to 71 ; Bishops of II, 36 n., 42. Loofs, Dr, quoted or referred to 22 n., 24, 42 n. Loyson, M. Hyacinthe 162 n. Lucius, King, legend of 25 f. Lucus Victoriae, Synod of 52 n. Lugidius, St 93 n. Lupus, St 31, 35. Lyons and Vienna, Churches of ZO, 122. Mabillon, Dom, referred to 163, 171 n. Mare Fj-esiaim 190. Marinianus Bishop of Ravenna 162 n., 165 n. Mark, St, Chair of 142 f. Martiloge, the 61 and note. Martin's, St, Canterbury 32 n., 61. Mason, Dr, quoted or referred to 51, 80, 95 n., 116 n,, 121. Maurice, Frederick Denison 1 10. Maurus, Abbat 167. Mellitus, St 71, 160 and note. Mello Bishop of Rouen 30. Menevia see St David's. Menologion, the, on St. Peter's visit to Britain 25. Micklethwaite, Mr J. T. 32 n. Mission, its nature and ordinary method 1 13. * Missionary Jurisdiction ' 1 14. Moberly, Mr G. H. Zt. I^Iommsen, Dr 190 n, ; on the legend of King Lucius 25 n.; on the authenticity of Gre- 206 l7idex. gory's answers to Augustine 192, INIonasteries, Celtic 45 f. Monasteries in Gregory's time 167. Monastic bishops 46, 48. Montalembert's Monks of the West 162 n. Muirchu Maccumactheni 37 n., 38 n. Narses the Patrician 130. Nathanael, said to have been abbat of St. Augustine's 160 n. Nennius 25 n., 190 n. ISleties Archiv n., 120 n., 192. Newell, Mr E. J. 106. Nicaea, Second Council of 137 n., 140 n. Ninian, St 36 and note. Nothelm, Archbishop 118. Noverca, the Roman Church called 125. Nudd Bishop of Llandaff 33 n. Omophorion, the 186, 193. Oswy, King 79. Pachomii Regiila 59. Palatiolum, monastery of 171. Paleotti 152 n. Palladius, St, his origin and history 37 and note. Pallium, the, authorities on 185 its history and meaning 185 its use in Gregory's day 186 sent by Gregory to Augustine 69, 187; in what sense 188 j not received by Archbishops Lawrence and Mellitus 187; Pope Nicholas I on 188; Ralph of Antioch assumes it 193. Palmieri, quoted 151 n. Pancras, St, Church of 70. Papacy, claims of, in Gregory's day 128 ff., 138 n,, unknown in earlier days 149 ; encroach- ments on the episcopate 147 f. See Gregory I, Rome. Sedes Petri. Paschal II, Pope 134 n. Patrick, St 37 n. ; probably a Briton 38 ; his life 38 n. ; sayings attributed to 54. Patriniojiiiun Petri 60 and note. Paul, St, his legendary visit to Britain 24 f. the Deacon 66 n., 139 n., 189 n. Paulinus, St, his work did not die out 78; called Bishop of York 165. Peada, King 79. Peckham, Archbishop 107. Pecthelm, Bishop 119 n. Pelagianism 35 f. Pelagius, Pope 138; spurious letter of 138 n. Pelagius the heretic 35 f. Penda, his alliance with Cad- wallon 92. Penitejitial of Theodore 95 n. Pereira 152 n. Peter, St, his legendary visit to Britain 25 and note j ' tribu- taries of 127; successors of 128. StQ Sedes Petri. Index, 207 Peter and Paul, SS., monastery of 70. Peter's Cornhill, St 42. Peter the monk, sent with Law- rence to Rome 68 ; becomes abbat of St. Augustine's and dies 168. Petronius, perhaps abbat of St Augustine's 160 n. Philip the Deacon, St 113 n. Picts, probably non- Aryans 27 n. ; St Ninian's mission to 37. Plummer's Bede^ referred to 37 n., 50, 87 n. Praescriptio no, 151. Probus, head of the hospice at Jerusalem 162 n. , 165 n. ; ab- bat of St Andrew's 165 n. Processions 65 f. Prosper of Aquitaine quoted 37 and note. Radbod Bishop of Dol 42 n. Raimund Prince of Antioch 193- Ralph, Latin Patriarch of An- tioch, assumes his predeces- sor's pallium 193. Rees, Professor 104 n. Reeves, Dr, quoted 191. Rhys, Professor, quoted or re- ferred to 28 n., 92 n. Richborough, place of Augus- tine's landing ^i^ 182 ; the port of 183. Rochester, Ethelbert's charter to 57 n. ; Justus consecrated to 71. Rogationtide litanies 65. Roman invasions 29. Romano - British Church, its origin 30 ; closely connected with the Gallican Church ib.\ not connected with the East 31 ; buildings yet remaining 32 n. ; sent bishops to Aries and Ariminium 34 ; Mr Had- dan on 39 f.; last recorded in- tercourse with Rome 22 n. ; its character 42. Romanus Bishop of Rochester, probably one of Augustine's band 170 ; drowned at sea ib. Rome, how regarded by the bar- barians 53 f. See of, how regarded in early days 21, 126. Routledge, Mr, his History of St Martin'' s Canterbury 32 n. Ryddmarch quoted 102, 105 n. Sabas, St 123 n. Sabinus or Sabinianus Bishop of Gallipolis 162 n., 165 n. ^^iQ.txd.o'i presbyter 33. * Saint, Tribe of the ' 45. Saints, families of 46. Saxon Christians before Augus- tine 189 f. Saxons help the Lombards to conquer Italy 189. Scots, the, of Ireland 37. 'Scottish Communion,' the 80. Sedes Petri, Gregory's theoiy of 142 f. ; re-appears 500 years afterwards 193. Seebohm, Mr, quoted "^l. Sevenis, St 31, 35. 208 Index. Silchester, Church at 31. Sinclah', Archdeacon, his charge 1411. Siricius, Pope 37. Skeat, Professor, quoted or re- ferred to 52 n., 83 n. Skene, Dr, quoted 22 n., 38 n., 83. Smith, Dr Richard 25 n. Stokes, Dr Whitley 37 n. Streanceshalch, Synod of 80. Stubbs, Bishop, quoted or re- ferred to z^ n., 163, 170. Suetonius, Conquests of 29. Sulpitius Severus, quoted 34 n. Tertullian on the triumphs of the Gospel 27. Teyrnllwg 85. Thadioc Bishop of York 42. Thanet, Isle of 182 f. Theodore, Archbishop 80, 95. Theonus Bishop of London 42. Thietmar, Bishop, quoted 127. Thomassin, referred to 135 n., 136 n., 140 n., 152 n. Thorn, William, quoted 64 n., 66 n., 68 n., 160 n. Transmeabilis 182. Trent, Council of 152 n. Tribal System, the Celtic 45 f. * Tribe of the Saint ' 45. Tyre, Church of, subjected to the Latin Patriarch of Jeru- salem 194 n. Universal Bishop (or Patriarch) the controversy on 135 fF.; the title given to Dioscorus 136; to Pope Leo ib. ; to the Patri- archs of Constantinople 136 f. ; its meaning as used in the East 137 n.; formally con- ferred on John of Constanti- nople 138 ; repudiated by Gregory 139 ; adopted by his successors 146 and note. Venantius 168 n. Verulamium, the place of St. Alban's martyrdom 32. Vicars, Papal 187. Victricius Bishop of Rouen 31, 35- Vigilius, Pope 132 n. Wade, St. Nicholas at 183. Wales, the making of 48 ; meaning of the word d>'^ n.; cut off from West W'ales and Cumbria 84, 85 ; conquered by Edward I 107. Wanborough, Battle of 89. Wantsum, the river 182 f. Wealas, the ^t,. Welsh Church, its mixed Bry- thon and Goidel features 48 ; its early organization 100; never organized as an eccle- siastical province 100-104; gradual growth of Latin ideas in loi ; monastic bishops in 105. West Saxon conquests 84 f., 97. West Wales, separated from Wales proper 85 ; bishops from, at Augustine's Oak ZS ; bishops from, assist at Chad's Index, 209 consecration 80, 96 ; accepts the Catholic Easter 99. Wharton 36 n. Wilfrid, St 79. William of Malmesbury 146 n, William of Tyre, quoted 193 f. Willibrord, St 79, 172. Willis Bund, Mr J. W., quoted or referred to 24, 35, 43 f. Wilson, Mr H. A., quoted or referred to 65 n., 158. Wimbledon, Battle of 56, 175. Wine Bishop of Wessex 80, 96. Wright, Dr C. H. H. 55 n. Xenodochium, the, at Jerusalem 162 n., 165 n. Ynis Vitrin 42. York, Bishops of 33, 42 ; chosen by Gregory for archiepiscopal See 69. Zimmer, Dr, on the legend of King Lucius 25 n. ; on the date of Muirchu Maccumac- theni 37 n. Butler & takner. The Selwood printing works, Frome, and London. o m 697 THE ENGLISH CONQUESTS ARE COLOURED RED. Date Due ^... -4 __^T^ -* « 'TIi JAN 4 7- 1 .jijyUMu. JliiMMMM * m PRINTED IN V. S. A.