Edwin was
convinced
for himself and called his Witan together in
eastern Deira to debate with Paulinus over the new faith.
eastern Deira to debate with Paulinus over the new faith.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
.
.
but that the bishops in their neighbourhood'1—and this
apparently applied to the Franks, not solely at any rate to the Welsh—
"are negligent. " And the Pope (at an uncertain date) had formed
a plan for buying English youths "to be given to God in the mon-
asteries. " This may be taken along with the beautiful tradition current
in Northumbria of Gregory's pity for the English boys in the Roman
slave-market. But at any rate the time was favourable for a mission
owing to the marriage of Aethelberht of Kent, the most powerful
English ruler of the time, with Berhta, daughter of Chariberht of Paris;
and this Christian queen had taken across to her new home the Frankish
bishop Liudhard as her chaplain. But from other indications little seems
to have been known in the Rome of that day about the heathen invaders,
and the English invasion had cut off the British Christians from inter-
course with the Continent.
1 See (Imp. xvii. pp. 548-9.
ch. xvi (b). 33—2
## p. 516 (#548) ############################################
516 Augustine's Mission [596-597
The mission left Rome early in 596: during the journey its members
wished to return from the perils in front of them, but, encouraged by
Gregory's fatherly firmness and knit together by his giving their leader
Augustine the authority of an abbot over them, they went on and
landed, most probablv at Richborough1, 597. Aethelberht received them
kindly, and gave them an interview—in the open air for fear of magic.
Augustine—taller than his comrades—led the procession of 40 men
(possibly including Frankish interpreters), chanting a Litany as they
went, carrying a silver cross and a wooden picture of the crucifixion;
Aethelberht heard them with sympathy, and yet with an open mind.
He gave them a home in Canterbury in the later parish of St Alphege:
here they could worship in St Martin's church, and they were also
allowed to preach freely to the king's subjects. By Whitsuntide the
king himself was so far won over as to be baptised—on Whitsunday or
its eve, probably at St Martin's church (1 or 2 June 597). The king
used no force to lead his subjects after him, but he naturally favoured
those who followed him, and soon many were won by the faithful lives
of the missionaries, shewn so easily by the common life of a brotherhood.
Throughout the story of the Conversion it is indeed to the lives rather
than to the preaching of the missionaries that Bede assigns their success,
and the tolerance of the English kings in Kent and elsewhere gave them
a ready opening. If here and there the missionaries met persecution, it
never rose to martyrdom.
According to the Pope's directions, Augustine ought now to be
consecrated, and for this purpose he went to Aries, where Vergilius
(the usually accurate Bede mistakes the name) consecrated him (16 Nov.
597)*.
Soon after his return to Kent the new bishop sent off to the Pope
by the hands of his presbyter Laurentius and the monk Peter news of
1 See arguments of Professor T. McKenny Hughes (Dissertation in. in Mason's
Mission of St Augustine) in favour of Richborough: the Canterbury tradition also
speaks of Richborough. But other sites, Stonor, or Ebbsfleet, find support. See
e. g. Pref. to 3rd edn. of Bright's Early Eng. Ch. Hist.
2 The dates usually given for Aethelberht's baptism, and the consecration of
Augustine, are connected by Bede. Dates more precise, if less trustworthy, are
given by Thorn (late fourteenth century) and by Thomas of Elmham (R. S. pp. 78
and 137) following the Canterbury tradition that the baptism took place at Whit-
suntide 597: the consecration is placed 16 Nov. 597. This is apparently founded
upon Bede. But Elmham saw the difficulties of these dates. Gregory, Ep. vir. 30—
to Eulogius of Alexandria (? June 598), speaks of the baptism of many English in
the Swale the previous Christmas by Augustine fratre et coepiscopo. In 597,16 Nov.
was not on a Sunday, but in 598 it was. I should therefore prefer to place the
consecration in 598, disregarding the date of this letter. The Canterbury tradition
would hardly be mistaken as to the day, but might be as to the year. Further
there would be a natural inclination to shorten the interval between the arrival of
Augustine and the king's baptism. It might be, therefore, that the baptism should
be placed along with the consecration in 598.
## p. 517 (#549) ############################################
597-601] Augustine's Questions and Gregory s Answers 617
his success, along with a number of questions as to the difficulties he
foresaw. We find Boniface in his day doing the same, and we may
see in it a common and indeed natural custom rather than a sign of
weakness.
The questions and the answers to them only concern us here so far
as they shew the special difficulties of the mission and the character
of St Augustine. Their importance for the character of the Pope has
been shewn elsewhere. But their authenticity has been doubted: some
of them are not what might have been expected, e. g. those on liturgic
selection, and on recognising marriages contracted in heathenism but
against Church law. The preface printed in the Epistles but omitted
by Bede is more doubtful than the reply itself; and seems intended to
explain the chronology of Bede. But the documentary history of the
reply and its absence from the registry in Rome—where Boniface in 736
failed to have it found—have also caused suspicion. Yet, considering the
ways in which the Epistles as a whole have reached us, this is not in
itself sufficient to cause rejection. The arguments that Gregory's answers
are not what we should expect, and that the questions concern points
all raised afterwards, really cut both ways. The correction (by a later
letter sent after the messengers) of a first command (in a letter to
Aethelberht) for the destruction of heathen temples1 would hardly have
occurred to a forger, and it therefore carries weight. But the dates and
the long interval between the questions (597) and the reply (601) are a
little difficult. To heighten the success of Augustine, and to make
the mission appear instantaneously successful would come natural to
later writers. The later tradition which makes Aethelberht as a second
Constantine give up his palace to Augustine as another Sylvester is
one indication of such a tendency. If the baptism really took place
in 598 the difficulties are less.
The first question relates to the division of the offerings of the faith-
ful between the bishop and his clergy: to this the answer was that the
Roman custom was a fourfold division between the bishop, the clergy,
the poor and the repair of the churches. But, since Augustine and his
companions were monks, they would live in common, so that they would
share the offerings in common also. As to the clergy in minor orders
they should receive their stipends separately, might live apart and might
take wives: but they were bound to obey church rule.
The purely monastic type of mission thus brought incidentally
with it a difference between the systems of division first of offerings,
then of systematised tithes, in England, where a fourfold division
found no place, and on the Continent, if indeed we can generalise as to
the custom observed abroad. Later ecclesiastical regulations and orders
1 Idolorum cultus insequere, fanorum aedificia everte. Bede, H. E. I. c. 32
(adding date 22 June 601). But is this intended to be more than rhetoric? For
cases among Franks see Hauck, K. G. D. i. pp. 121-2.
ch. xvi (it).
## p. 518 (#550) ############################################
518 Augustine's Questions and Gregory's Answers
attempted to bring the Frankish system into England, but the English
division remained different from the continental.
The second question was why one custom of saying mass should be
observed in the Roman Church, and another in the Church of Gaul.
The Pope replied that things were not to be loved for the sake of places,
but places for the sake of good things: hence what was good in any-
local custom might be brought into the Church of the English—advice
which has been sometimes held to sanction a liturgic freedom not
likely to commend itself to the somewhat correct mind of Augustine, and
certainly not used by him. Questions as to punishment for thefts from
churches and as to the degrees for marriage were perhaps needful in
a rough society, and one case mentioned—that of a marriage of a man
with his step-mother—presented itself in the case of Aethelberht's suc-
cessor Eadbald, who took to himself his father's second wife. But as the
background to some of these questions there is clearly something of the
same social condition which produced the Penitentials of later dates,
although it is going too far to ascribe the whole to a later day and
to Archbishop Theodore as writer.
The sixth and seventh questions dealt with the Episcopate: when
asked whether one bishop might consecrate by himself in cases of need,
Gregory replied that Augustine, as the only bishop of the Church of
England, could do nothing but consecrate alone unless bishops from
Gaul chanced to be present. Provision for new sees should, however,
be made so that this difficulty should disappear, and then three or four
bishops should be present. The seventh question asked how Augustine
was to deal with the bishops of Gaul and Britain. Here it may be
noted that when elsewhere he spoke of bishops in the neighbourhood of
the English Gregory seems to have meant the bishops in Gaul: the
British bishops he seems to have ignored. But here he commits them
{Brittanniamm omnes episcopos) to the care of Augustine (who is, of
course, to exercise no authority in Gaul, although he is to be on terms
of fellowship with the bishops there), so that "the unlearned may be
taught, the weak made stronger by persuasion, and the perverse cor-
rected by authority. "
These answers were brought to Augustine by a band of new mission-
aries, Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus and others, who carried with them sacred
vessels, vestments and books, as well as a pall for Augustine. He was
to consecrate twelve bishops to be under his jurisdiction as bishop of
London. For the city of York a bishop was also to be consecrated, who
was, as the districts beyond York gradually received the word of God,
also to consecrate twelve bishops under himself as metropolitan. During
Augustine's lifetime the Bishop of York was to be subject to him, but
afterwards the northern metropolitan was to be independent, and the
metropolitan first ordained of the two ruling together was to have
precedence. All these bishops were to act together in councils and
## p. 519 (#551) ############################################
577-601] Gregorys Scheme of Division 619
so on. To Augustine, likewise, Gregory committed all the priests of
Britain.
To Mellitus, after he had started, the Pope also sent a later letter
(22 June), in which he gave directions about the use of heathen temples;
the buildings themselves were not to be destroyed, as he had said before
to Aethelberht, but the idols were to be broken and the places purified,
altars were to be built, and then the temples were to become churches.
Thus the people would keep their old holy places; and rejoicings, like
those on the old heathen festivals, were to be allowed them on days of
dedication or the nativities of holy martyrs. The church of St Martin
at Canterbury had already been given to the mission: on another site,
that of an old church once used by Roman Christians, Augustine had
built Christ Church, which was to become the mother church of England
and the centre of a great monastery: another ruined building—which
had been used as a temple—was purified and dedicated as St Pancras, a
Roman martyr: outside the city walls the king built a church, St Peter
and St Paul, also to be the centre of a monastery, afterwards known,
when Laurentius had consecrated it, as St Augustine's, of which Peter
was the first abbot. Here the kings and the archbishops were to be
buried, and between this monastery and Christ Church a long-lived
jealousy arose, which had sometimes great effects upon ecclesiastical
politics. In this way Augustine made Canterbury a great Christian
centre. If the progress outside Kent was for a long time slow, the
tenacity of the Christian hold upon Canterbury itself is also to be
noted.
The growth of the mission in new fields and its relations with the
British are henceforth the main threads of the history. A meeting with
the British bishops and teachers was brought about at Augustine's oak
on "the borders of the West Saxons and Hwicce" (either Aust on the
Severn, or, less probably, a place near Malmesbury)—a local definition
which changed between the days of Augustine and those of Bede.
The bishops must have been those of South Wales, and those of Devon
and Nortb Wales may have been with them, but the Britons of the
West country were now separated from those of Wales by the advance
of the West Saxons after Dyrham (577). Augustine urged these bishops
to keep catholic unity and join in preaching the Gospel to the English.
This task they had not attempted of their own accord: they were still
less likely to do it under the new leadership.
There were points of difference between the Roman and British
Christians, breaches of uniformity due to a long separation, rather than
to original differences, but tending towards difference of spirit, at the
very time, moreover, when unity of feeling and of action was most
necessary: standing as their observance of Easter shewed outside the
general trend of European custom, the British held an attitude towards
Rome which had marked an earlier day. But these differences, almost
CH. xvi (b).
## p. 520 (#552) ############################################
520 Kelts and Romans
accidental to begin with, were exaggerated into matters of Christian
liberty on the one side, into matters of heresy upon the other. The
difference in the date of Easter had been caused by the separation
of Britain from the Empire; the British had kept the old cycle of
eighty-four years used generally in the West before the English con-
quest: since the separation Rome—followed gradually by the West—
had twice changed to a better cycle, anfl the last change, moreover, had
brought the West into accord with the East1. Furthermore Romans
and Britons started from a different vernal equinox: 21 March and
25 March respectively; the Britons also kept Easter on the fourteenth
of Nisan if that were a Sunday: but the Romans in that case kept it
on the Sunday following. There were thus ample differences which
would lead to practical discord: but there was no excuse for the charge
of Quartodecimanism against the British, for they did not keep the four-
teenth of Nisan if it fell on a week-day. There were other differences
also; in the tonsure where the Britons (and the Kelts generally)
merely shaved the front of the head, whereas the Romans shaved the
crown in a circle, and in baptism where the precise difference is un-
known. No decision was reached: even the demonstration by Augustine
of his gift of miracles—an account of which had reached Rome and
caused the Pope to write to him advising humility and self-exami-
nation in face of success—was not decisive. The British representatives
went back to consult their fellows, and a second meeting—probably in
the same place—followed. It is here that Bede places the British story
of the way in which upon the advice of a hermit the British discovered
the pride of Augustine. But if there was on his side some pride in the
older civilisation cherished in the Western capital, there was on the other
side the obstinacy of a race long left to itself, and over-jealous of its
independence.
At the second conference Augustine—ready to overlook some par-
ticulars of British use which were contrary to Western customs—laid
down three conditions of union: the same date for Easter; the
observance of Roman custom in baptism; and fellowship in missions
to the English. But to these conditions the British would not agree,
nor would they receive him as their archbishop. It is perhaps well to
observe that the difference on these three conditions would have inter-
fered with the attraction of converts. In the eyes of Augustine the
mission would appear to have ranked above questions of precedence:
the British had not yet overcome their national repugnance to the
English, and they saw, what became plainer in later years, that the
leadership of the Roman missionaries would of necessity result from
fellowship in work. The growth of bitterness between the races was
quickened by the failure of these negotiations.
1 On all these points see the Excursus in Plummer's Bede, II. pp. 348 f.
## p. 521 (#553) ############################################
604-617] Controversies 521
A step forward in organisation was taken when (604) Augustine
consecrated Justus to be bishop of Durobrivae, or Rochester in West
Kent, and Mellitus to be bishop of London for the East Saxons—whose
king Saeberht1 had become a Christian and was now subject to Kent.
Shortly afterwards Augustine died (605), and was followed in his see by
Laurentius, who had been already consecrated in his leader's lifetime.
The character of the founder of the line of papae alteriw orbis has
been often sketched in very different colours, and sometimes perhaps
with outlines too firm for the material we have at hand. It was long
before the enmity between the Britons and English died down, and
until it did so the two sides distorted his words and deeds: Britons
exaggerated his haughtiness and pride: English exaggerated his firmness
in correcting an upstart race. The ordinary view bears marks of both
these exaggerations. Disputes between English independence and Papal
rule have had a like effect, and incidents in his career have been twisted
overmuch to suit a given framework. Our earlier records may not
have drawn him exactly as he was: modern writers have certainly taken
even greater liberty. He did not rise to the dignity of a Boniface or
a Columbanus, but the limits both upwards and downwards of his
personality are shewn us by what he did. Unsympathetic yet patient,
constructive and systematic he had the genius of his race, he had learnt
and could teach the discipline which had trained him, and his person-
ality has been overshadowed by his work.
The rule of Laurentius is known principally for an unsuccessful
attempt to reconcile the Irish. An Irish (Scots) bishop Dagan coming
among the English would not even eat in the same house with
Laurentius and his followers: accordingly Laurentius wrote to "his
dearest brothers, the bishops and abbots through all Scotia," pressing
unity upon them. But nothing came either of this attempt, or from
a like letter to the British, although they may have led to the Canterbury
tradition of Laurentius1 friendly relations with the British.
Even before the death of Aethelberht—after a long reign of
56 years (616)—the power of Kent had been waning. Haedwald of
East Anglia, once a vassal of Kent, who had been baptised at Canter-
bury, had renounced his allegiance and had tried to combine in some
strange way the worship of Christ and of the old gods. In 617 this
Raedwald was strong enough to beat even the victorious Aethelfrith
king of Northumbria, who had himself beaten the Dalriadic Scots in
the North and the Britons at Chester (616)2. This latter victory had
separated the Britons of Wales from their northern kinsmen, just as
the victory of Dyrham (577) had separated them from the south. The
1 Mr W. J. Corbett suggests that Saeberht's name is handed down in Sawbridge-
worth (Herts. ), a corruption of the Domesday Sabrictesweorthig (cf. Domesday, I.
139 b).
2 For the date see Plummer's Bede, n. p. 77. But it is only approximate.
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 522 (#554) ############################################
522 Northumbria [588-625
warfare between Raedwald and Aethelfrith had important consequences,
both for religion and politics. Edwin, son of Aelle of Deira, was in
exile, as his kingdom had been seized on his father's death (588) by
Aethelric of Bernicia. Aethelric's son, Aethelfrith, a great warrior
against the British, now ruled over both Northern kingdoms, and, to
make his dynasty sure, sought the death of his brother-in-law, Edwin,
who as babe and youth found shelter first in Wales and then with
Raedwald of East Anglia. The East Anglian king refused to give up
the fugitive, and in the war which followed he seized Lindsey and then
defeated the Bernicians on the ford of the Idle in North Mercia. Aethel-
frith was slain, and Edwin gained not only his father's kingdom but
also Bernicia.
Aethelberht in Kent had been succeeded by his son Eadbald, who
took to himself his father's second wife, thus separating himself from
the Christians. In Essex, too, the Christian Saeberht was succeeded by
his two sons Saexred and Saeward, who being pagans at heart in the end
drove Mellitus away from London. Laurentius was now left alone, for
Mellitus and Justus fled to the Franks, and even he was preparing for
flight, when a dream delayed him. But before long Eadbald professed
Christianity. Justus returned to Rochester, and, in the end, the deaths
of Laurentius (619) and his successor Mellitus (624) placed him on the
throne of Canterbury (624-627). Mellitus however was not readmitted
to London: Kent alone kept its Christianity, but soon the conversion
of Northumbria, when Honorius (627-653) was archbishop, brought
about a great change.
On Raedwald's death his supremacy passed gradually into the hands
of Edwin of Northumbria.
This prince married as his second wife Aethelburga (or Tata),
daughter of Aethelberht of Kent, and sister to Eadbald, who was now
a Christian. On his marriage he promised his wife liberty for her
religion, and even hinted that he might consider the faith for himself.
Paulinus, one of the second band of Roman missionaries, went with her
to the North, and before he left Canterbury was consecrated bishop
by Justus (21 July 625). A year after the marriage Cuichelm king of
Wessex sent one Eomer to Edwin to assassinate him, but the devotion
of a thegn Lilla, whose name was long remembered, saved Edwin's life;
that same night the queen bore him a daughter, Eanfled, the first
Northumbrian to be baptised. In double gratitude the king vowed to
become a Christian if he defeated his West Saxon foe. When later on
he returned home victorious he therefore submitted himself to instruction
by Paulinus, and slowly pondered over the new faith. A mysterious
vision1, which he had seen long before at the East Anglian court, when
1 Oroma gentilis quae viderat ipse supernum, nocte soporata. (Carmen de Ponti-
ficibus ecclesiae Eboracensis in Raiue: Historians of the Church of York and its
Archbishops, R. S. i. p. 352. ) On the other hand Bede, H. E. n. chap. 12.
## p. 523 (#555) ############################################
625-627] Edwin 523
a stranger promised him safety and future power, giving him a secret
sign for remembrance, was now recalled to him by Paulinus along with
the secret sign which the messenger in the vision had given him.
Edwin was convinced for himself and called his Witan together in
eastern Deira to debate with Paulinus over the new faith. Hitherto
there had been no sign of life or strength in the English heathenism,
and now Coifi, the chief of the king's priests, shewed its weakness by
his speech: he is the first of his class we meet with, for too much stress
must not be laid on Bede's mention (n. chap. 6) of the "idolatrous
high priests" {idolatris pontificibus) who hardened the hearts of the
Londoners against receiving back Mellitus. Bede gives us an account
of the debate, probably from some old tradition, embodying truth but
not to be pressed in detail: Coifi gave his view that the religion they
professed had absolutely no virtue, and no usefulness: he had been its
diligent servant, and had gained no reward. A chieftain spoke next of
more spiritual things: the future life of man seemed dark and mysteri-
ous as the night outside might seem to a bird flying through the fire-lit
space where they sat: perchance this new faith could penetrate the
darkness. Coifi thereupon took the lead in profaning and destroying a
neighbouring temple at Goodmanham, by Market Weighton. After-
wards Edwin (12 April 627, Easter day) was baptised at York in the
little wooden church he had built during his preparation for baptism1.
But after his baptism he built there—in the middle of the old Roman
city, where Severus and Chlorus had died, and whence Constantine had
started on his great career—a nobler church of stone, a material which
marked the beginnings of a new civilisation. This, however, was still
left unfinished when he died, but its site is now covered by the present
crypt.
For six years Paulinus preached and taught both in Bernicia and
Deira, though he left most mark in the latter: from Catterick south-
wards as far as Campodunum (possibly Slack, near Huddersfield) he
journeyed and sojourned, catechising and baptising, and a church
afterwards destroyed here by the pagan Mercians marked his work at
the latter place. In Lindsey also—the north of Lincolnshire, a district
at that time tributary to Northumbria—he taught, and at Lincoln he
built a stone church of beautiful workmanship, in which on the death
of Justus of Canterbury (10 Nov. , probably 627) he consecrated as
successor Honorius. In these labours Paulinus was helped by others,
especially by James his deacon, who was not only a man of zeal, but
very skilful in song. When in later days Paulinus fled southwards,
James stayed behind, and around his home near Catterick he taught
1 In Nennius and in the Annates Cambriae we find the baptism of Edwin
ascribed to Rhun, the son of Urbgen, but this seems strange in face of what Bede
says, and of the Roman connexions of Paulinus. Most probably it is only a later
Keltic attempt to claim Edwin as a convert won by British efforts.
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 524 (#556) ############################################
524 Paulinus [627-647
many to sing in " the Roman or the Canterbury way. " This knowledge of
music in Yorkshire, which long afterwards caught the notice of Giraldus
Cambrensis, was kept alive and furthered by Eddius under Wilfrid and
by John (formerly arch-chanter at St Peter's in Rome) under Benedict
Biscop. Outside Northumbria, too, the influence of Paulinus worked
change. In East Anglia Eorpwald, son of Raedwald (627), was now
king, and, by the persuasion of Edwin, was brought, with his territory,
to Christianity.
Before long Eorpwald was, however, assassinated by a pagan, and
for three years the kingdom fell into idolatry until the accession of his
brother Sigebert (630 or 631), who in a time of exile among the Franks
had been baptised and more fully taught religion. In the conversion of
his kingdom he was greatly helped by Felix, a Burgundian, who had
come to Honorius for missionary work in England, and had been sent
by him to Sigebert, and placed in Dunwich as bishop for his kingdom
(631-647): here there was not only a church built, but a school "after
the manner of Kent," in which youths were taught. From quite another
part came a fellow-labourer: Fursey from Ireland, the founder of a
monastery at Cnobheresburg, often but doubtfully taken to be Burgh
Castle near Great Yarmouth, renowned not only for his saintliness but
for his mystic experiences and visions; he wandered, as so many of his
race did, from a wish to lead the pilgrim life, and like Aidan (with
whom Bede instinctively joins him) he was torn in two by the love
of mankind, driving him to active work, and by the love of solitude,
driving him to the hermit's life.
When his East Anglian monastery was well founded, he handed it
over to his brother, Fullan (Faelan), who was a bishop, and the priests
Gobban and Dicul. Later, when Penda of Mercia was restoring
heathenism, he passed to the land of the Franks and there under
Clovis II (638-656) he founded the monastery of Lagny on the
Marne. When he was on the point of leaving this new home for
a visit to his brethren he died (c. 647). His life is significant not only
of Keltic restlessness and devotion, but also of the many influences now
working on missions: in East Anglia as in the larger field beyond im-
pulses from Rome, Burgundy, Gaul and Ireland all worked together:
national and racial antagonisms were overcome by the solvent of
Christianity. A new unity was growing up in the West as formerly
in the East. What happened in East Anglia, and has been recorded,
almost by accident, must have also happened elsewhere.
The energy of Paulinus, backed by the power of Edwin, had
wrought so much that the Pope (now Honorius I) carried out the
plan of Gregory the Great by sending to Paulinus a pall with the title
of archbishop. But the bearers of the gift reached England only to find
that Paulinus had fled from the North. Edwin's rule had been effective
beyond anything known so far among the English: peace for travellers
## p. 525 (#557) ############################################
633-635] Death of Edwin 525
was enforced, and the king's dignity was shewn in a growing pomp:
banners were borne before him not only in war but during peace, and
the tufa carried before him on his progresses seemed a claim to a power
that was either very old or very new. Suddenly this prosperous rule
was interrupted by a league between Penda of Mercia, who had
gradually grown in power since his accession (626), and Cadwallon of
North Wales. In the woodlands of Heathfield, near Doncaster, Edwin
was defeated (12 October 633) and slain. York was taken, Deira laid
waste: Aethelburga fled with Paulinus, and a time of disorder and
paganism "hateful to all good men " began. In Deira Edwin's cousin
Osric, in Bernicia Eanfrid, son of Aethelfrith, ruled, and both of them
fell from the faith. Within a year Osric was slain in battle against
the Welsh who seemed to have been holding the land: Eanfrid too was
slain when he came to sue for peace from Cadwallon. Eanfrid's
brother, Oswald, succeeded, able in war, glorious in peace, and on the
Heavenfield, near Chollerford, just north of Hexham, he defeated
Cadwallon as he advanced against him from York and slew him on
the Deniseburn (635). For a time the northern lands had peace, and
Oswald's influence soon reached beyond his own borders. His nearest
neighbour, Penda of Mercia, however, more than held his own, and even
harried Ecgric, who had succeeded Sigebert in East Anglia: but over
the West Saxons Oswald held some kind of influence, which he used to
further Christianity. Birinus, according to later tradition a Roman,
had gone to Pope Honorius offering himself for missionary service,
and after consecration by Asterius, archbishop of Milan, he was sent to
Wessex (634): he had meant to work in the inland districts, but in the
end stayed near the coast, and so became the apostle of Wessex: the
king Cynegils became a Christian; Birinus was consecrated as bishop of
Dorchester on Thames (Dorcic), but we know little in detail of his work
beyond its results.
When Ecgric was attacked by Penda, Sigebert, recalled from a
monastery to lead his former subjects, went to battle armed only with
a wand: both he and Ecgric were slain, and Anna, nephew of Raedwald,
succeeded. This new king's house was noted for its monastic zeal, and
in the number of its saints rivalled the line of Penda. His step-daughter
Saethryd and his daughter Aethelburga crossed over to the Franks
to the monastery of Brie (Faremoutier-en-Brie): here in a double
monastery for both sexes like Whitby (Streoneshalh), favoured by the
same dynasty afterwards—both became abbesses. Hither also Ercon-
berht of Kent—the first English king to follow Prankish rulers in
destroying idols—sent a daughter. An impulse was thus given by
the foreign connexion to the growth of monasticism in England: by
the middle of the century there were about a dozen houses founded, and
through Aethelthryth (Aethelreda, Audrey) the foundress of Ely, and
others, the East Anglian line was foremost in the movement.
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 526 (#558) ############################################
526 Monastic Houses [633-635
Paulinus, traces of whose work long remained1, had fled southwards
in 633 and there he became, through one of the translations so common
in that day, the bishop of Rochester. After his departure the Christi-
anity of Northumbria passed into another phase. In his long exile
Oswald had been sheltered among the Scots, and had come to know
something of the enthusiasm and learning which made them the best
teachers of the day. He had been baptised at Iona, and thither he now
sent for a bishop. One was sent, whose name the fine reticence of Bede
concealed for a Scots writer some centuries later to supply, but he
despaired of the task and went home again. Then Aidan (Aedan), the
gentle and devoted, was consecrated bishop and sent (635). After the
Scots custom he took his seat on an island, Lindisfarne, or Holy Island,
near to the Bernician capital Bam borough. Here there grew up a
monastery on the Keltic plan like that of Iona: ruled, however, by
Aidan himself, as abbot and bishop, it was also a new and effective
missionary centre for Bernicia. Through it Irish (or Scots) influence
reached north-eastern England, and changed the land much as it had
changed western Scotland. It spread far southwards, but its original
home was Iona.
Keltic monasticism, and the work of Columba around Iona, have
been described in previous chapters of this work. The eremitic tendency
of Keltic monasticism never disappeared, and just as the original
monasteries in Ireland itself were mission stations for the tribes among
which they were placed, so Iona (originally Hii or Ioua, from which
by a mistaken reading Iona has arisen) became a mission station not
only for the Dalriadic Scots but for the Picts. Irish monasteries,
however, underwent some changes outside Ireland: the love of wandering,
the restlessness which Columba "the soldier of the island" shewed by
his inability to be idle even for an hour, drove the monks to travel
{pro Chrisio peregrinari): on the Continent they aimed at living as
strangers: but at Iona Columba and his successors strove to learn the
Pictish tongue, and mission work seems to have been esteemed even more
highly there than the life of quiet devotion. Learning, however, was
never forgotten: not only Columba but his successor Baithene (597-600)
copied manuscripts. And where Iona led Lindisfarne followed. But
more than all other characteristics the enthusiasm and simplicity of the
Irish monks appealed to their hearers and neighbours. Above all it
was in Aidan, the apostle of the north, that these spiritual gifts were
seen, and on his long preaching tours he won the hearts of all. Oswald
himself often went with him as interpreter (from which we may infer
that Aidan did not gain the same mastery of language that Columba
1 Traces of respect for the Roman mission are seen in about thirty dedications to
St Gregory—mainly old and spread nearly evenly over the country. Kirkdale in
Yorkshire and Kirknewton in Northumberland (Plummer's Bede, n. p. 105) are the
most interesting. See Miss Arnold Forster, Studies in Church Dedications, l p. 308.
## p. 527 (#559) ############################################
642-65i] Bede 527
did), and as a king Oswald answered to Aidan's ideal: frequent in
prayer, fruitful in alms, the first English king to have, or indeed to
need, an almoner.
But once again Penda of Mercia broke in: leagued with Cadwalader,
successor to Cadwallon, he defeated Oswald at Maserfield (642).
Oswald's severed head was rescued and carried off first to Lindisfarne;
thence afterwards in St Cuthbert's coffin to Durham, where it was seen
in the present generation1.
In Bernicia Oswald was succeeded by his brother Oswy (Oswiu), but
in Deira the old dynastic jealousy revived, and Edwin's kinsman Oswin
was chosen king. But Oswy joined the rival houses, for he fetched
from Kent Edwin's daughter Eanfled, and made her his queen. Soon
afterwards Oswin, who was like Oswald in his goodness and his friendship
for Aidan, was betrayed to Oswy at Gilling, and slain (651). Eleven
days later Aidan himself died, but his spirit and his work lived on in
the school he had made and the disciples he had trained.
In the mere record of events, mainly wars and revolutions, it is easy
to overlook the gradual work, the change of character, the growth of
civilisation, which had been slowly taking place. The missions from
the Continent had brought with them a larger outlook, a wider know-
ledge of a varied world, and a vision of a vaster unity with an ancient
background: the Irish missions had brought deep devotion, spiritual
intensity, and the traditions of the great Irish schools. In the north
of England these two streams of life were joined, and a rich civilisation
was the outcome. Jarrow and Monkwearmouth reached to Iona on the
west and to Canterbury on the south, and both Canterbury and Iona
stood for a great past. Historic feeling had led Columba to defend the
bards' for their services to history: Canterbury, by instinct and tradition
as well as by training, held to the past, and Bede, like Alcuin later,
inherited something from each. Hence come not only his love for
religion and order, but also his love of history and historic truth. It
was these which helped him to see the growing unity and drove him
to record the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. What he
felt in himself answered to the many-sided history with its growing life.
We owe hiin so much for his preservation of details otherwise unknown,
for his diligent search after truth, that we are likely to forget his sense
of the unity, the common life, which was now growing up out of many
elements and from many local beginnings. Bede is the first prophet
of English unity, and the first to tell its tale.
The English were now taking their place in civilisation and
Christianity. They were soon to be the great missionaries of Europe:
they were now able to care for themselves. In 644 Ithamar, the first
1 See A. Plummer, The Church in Britain before 1000, i. p. 99. For the battle,
see Chap. xvn. in this vol.
2 Fowler, Adamnani vita Columbae, Introd. p. xxi.
cb. xvi (b).
## p. 528 (#560) ############################################
528 A new generation [647-663
Englishman to be "hallowed'" as bishop, took the bishop's stool at
Rochester: in 647 and 652 Englishmen, first Thomas and then Berctgils
(Boniface), became bishops of Dunwich. Honorius at Canterbury died
(30 September 653), and after a long vacancy was succeeded by a West
Saxon, Frithonas, who took the name of Deusdedit. But in spite of
local work and impulses, in spite of gradual change, there was little
real unity even of effort, there was still less of organisation. The
Roman missionaries had a wider background of civilisation, and were
accustomed to larger states with wider interests. They worked for unity,
and against the persistence of little states with many narrow policies:
to secure civilisation it was necessary to reach larger union. There was
already the rich variety of personal character and life: something more
was needed now. It was the perception of this lack on the part of the
English themselves, and not merely the accident of events, that led to
the synod of Whitby and the work of Theodore.
The success of the Scots mission in the north had brought up once
more the old differences between the Keltic and Roman Churches: the same
difficulty had met Augustine, and the crisis would have come earlier had
it not been for the gentle influence of Aidan. When Oswy's bride went
northwards she took with her a chaplain Romanus, who kept Easter
by the general and Roman rule, whereas the Scots had naturally brought
with them their own use. In southern Ireland the Roman Easter had
been already adopted (before 634), but the weight of Iona had been
thrown strongly upon the other side, so that northern Ireland, Iona
and its offshoots, kept to their older usage. Finan, Aidan's successor at
Lindisfame (651-661), had come to Lindisfarne fresh from discussions
between the two parties in the Irish monasteries: he found James the
deacon, and Ronan, a Scot of continental education and sympathies,
urging the Roman use which had now the support of a party at court.
Finan was himself a controversialist but he was also more. It was in
his days that Peada, son of Penda, and under him king of the Middle
Angles (Northamptonshire), married Oswy's daughter, was baptised, and
with his father's tacit leave brought Christianity into his sub-kingdom, so
influencing Mercia as a whole. The band of missionaries who went to his
help from Northumbria was made up of three Northumbrians, including
Chad's brother Cedd, and one Scot, Diuma. Diuma became bishop of
the Middle Angles and the Mercians after the death of Penda, which
took away the last vigorous supporter of heathenism. Under all this
turmoil a new generation, with its own point of view, its own work
and interests, was growing up. Men who differed from each other were
being brought together in peaceful work as well as in controversy.
New openings were also being made for work: there was, as Bede tells
us, such a scarcity of priests that one bishop—like Diuma—had to be
set over two peoples. Diuma was followed by another Scot Ceollach,
who left his diocese to return to Iona: then came Trumhere "brought
## p. 529 (#561) ############################################
655-665] A new generation. The Yellow Pest 629
up in the monastic life, English by nation, but ordained bishop by
the Scots. " Christianity in England was forming a type of its own,
moulded by many forces, and the many-sided life, spiritual and intel-
lectual, of Bede's own monastery enabled him to understand this growth.
In Essex Sigebert II (the Good), although still heathen, was a friend
of Oswy's and a visitor at his court: in the end he and his attendants
were baptised by Finan: the place of baptism was Attewall (? Ad
Murum, near Newcastle), where Peada was also baptised, and the
times of the two baptisms may have been the same1.
Cedd recalled from Mercia went as chaplain to this new royal convert
and after some success in work went home to Lindisfarne for a visit.
Here Finan "calling to himself two other bishops for the ministry
of ordination"—a sign that the English Church was now passing into
more settled life—consecrated him bishop for Essex. As bishop he
went back, ordained priests and deacons, built churches at Tilbury and
elsewhere, teaching "also the discipline of a life of rule. " But his love was
divided between the work of his diocese, and the monastic life. Aethel-
wald of Deira, Oswald's son, who held Deira at some time possibly after
the murder of Oswin, was deeply attached to Cedd and his three brothers,
one of whom, Celin, was his chaplain. As a place of retreat for the
bishop and as a burial-place for the king, a site was chosen "in hills
steep and remote, rather hiding places for robbers and homes of wild
beasts than habitations for men," and here grew up the famous house of
Lastingham', where Cedd and after him Chad were abbots. Keltic
influence was thus strong. But at the same time we have many signs
of a growing unity. Thus we find Oswy of Northumbria and Ecgbert of
Kent joining, on the death of Deusdedit of Canterbury (655-664), to
choose a successor Wighard, a priest at Canterbury, and send him to
Rome for consecration by Vitalian. When part of Essex lapsed into
idolatry, Wulfhere of Mercia, who stood over the East Saxon sub-kings
Sebbi the Christian and Sighere the heathen, sent his own bishop
Iaruman of Mercia to reconvert it (665). Local barriers are thus
everywhere overstepped.
The Yellow Pest with all its horrors had caused widespread terror
and thrown everything out of gear. The roll of its victims was long.
Erconberht king of Kent as well as the archbishop Deusdedit, Tuda
bishop at Lindisfarne, the saintly Cedd at Lastingham (where Chad
succeeded him): at Melrose the prior Boisil, where also his successor the
devoted Cuthbert the missionary of the north all but died. In Essex
1 See Plummer's Bede, note, 11. p. 178: for chronology of Essex, p. 177.
s Bede says of the site quod uocatur Laestingaeu—with some variations in spelling.
This has naturally been taken as Lastingham, but the existence of earlier remains
at Kirkdale, with its old church of St Gregory restored under Tostig as Earl of
Northumbria, has led antiquarians to place the site there. Kirkdale might be
described as in the district, but the evidence is not conclusive.
C MED. II. VOL. II. CH. XVI (b). 34
## p. 530 (#562) ############################################
530 Wilfrid [663-681
to the south, and northwards by the Tweed, men turned again to witch-
craft and heathen charms. In its mortality and its effects upon society
it was somewhat like the later Black Death. Hence the religious and
social reconstruction which follows it is all the more significant.
The South Saxons were the last tribe to be brought to Christianity.
Wilfrid, whose character was moulded by many forces to be typical of
the new age, was chosen, probably through the influence of Alchfrid,
Oswy's son, to succeed Tuda. There were few bishops left, and some
of those were of Scots consecration. Wilfrid, the eager supporter of
continental customs, went to Frankish bishops for consecration. This
he received at Compiegne, under ceremonies of unusual pomp, and
among the prelates who shared in it was Agilbert (Albert) of Wessex.
This bishop, coming originally from the Franks, had worked in Wessex
under Coenwalch, until the king grew weary of his " barbarous'1 speech1,
and invited Wini (also of apparently Frankish ordination) to take the
see. Then Agilbert went (668) to Northumbria for a time, after which
he went home. Wini's story was unhappy: not many years afterwards
he too was driven out of his see, whereupon he " bought" from Wulfhere
"for a price" the see of London, and there remained. In all this moral
disorder thrown by Bede upon a strange background of miracle and
portent can be seen some result of the Pest.
Wilfrid tarried too long among the Franks, for when he reached
Northumbria he found Chad placed in his seat. He then retired to
his old monastery of Kipon. But in his voyage homewards (spring
666) he had been thrown upon the Sussex coast, and narrowly escaped
capture by the barbarians: a wizard standing upon a mound sought
to help the wreckers with his charms: he was slain " like Goliath'" by
a sling, and thus only after a fight did Wilfrid and his company escape.
But later on he was to return to Sussex. Meanwhile from Kipon he
acted at times as bishop both in Mercia, where along with Wulfhere
he founded monasteries such as Oundle, and also in Kent during the
vacancy at Canterbury, where as his biographer Eddius tells us he
studied the Benedictine rule. Thus he gained something for his native
north, and to the south he in turn gave gifts of music, and of crafts,
through the singers and the masons who travelled in his train. Even
before he worked in Sussex Wilfrid a Northerner was in himself a bond of
union between North and South. After 681, when Aethelwalch of Sussex
had already become a Christian through the persuasion of Wulfhere, and
as we may suppose also of his own queen, Ebba, who came from the
Christian district of the Hwicce, Wilfrid began effective work in the
almost untouched Sussex. A Scot Dicul had already founded a small
monastery at Bosham (Bosanham), but the monks probably lived as
1 See Bede, H. E. in. 7, barbarae. loquellae. See Hummer's notes, n. pp. 41
and 146; Bright, Early Eng. Ch. Hist. p. 208 note and Freeman, Life and Letten,
ii. p. 229, who took it to mean Frankish which the king could just understand.
## p. 531 (#563) ############################################
664-673] The Synod of Whitby 531
foreigners apart from the people and at any rate had small success.
Wilfrid's foundation of Selsey was to have a wider influence. This
work of peace is a relief to the ecclesiastical quarrels of Wilfrid's later
years. His work in Sussex completed the conversion of the English.
apparently applied to the Franks, not solely at any rate to the Welsh—
"are negligent. " And the Pope (at an uncertain date) had formed
a plan for buying English youths "to be given to God in the mon-
asteries. " This may be taken along with the beautiful tradition current
in Northumbria of Gregory's pity for the English boys in the Roman
slave-market. But at any rate the time was favourable for a mission
owing to the marriage of Aethelberht of Kent, the most powerful
English ruler of the time, with Berhta, daughter of Chariberht of Paris;
and this Christian queen had taken across to her new home the Frankish
bishop Liudhard as her chaplain. But from other indications little seems
to have been known in the Rome of that day about the heathen invaders,
and the English invasion had cut off the British Christians from inter-
course with the Continent.
1 See (Imp. xvii. pp. 548-9.
ch. xvi (b). 33—2
## p. 516 (#548) ############################################
516 Augustine's Mission [596-597
The mission left Rome early in 596: during the journey its members
wished to return from the perils in front of them, but, encouraged by
Gregory's fatherly firmness and knit together by his giving their leader
Augustine the authority of an abbot over them, they went on and
landed, most probablv at Richborough1, 597. Aethelberht received them
kindly, and gave them an interview—in the open air for fear of magic.
Augustine—taller than his comrades—led the procession of 40 men
(possibly including Frankish interpreters), chanting a Litany as they
went, carrying a silver cross and a wooden picture of the crucifixion;
Aethelberht heard them with sympathy, and yet with an open mind.
He gave them a home in Canterbury in the later parish of St Alphege:
here they could worship in St Martin's church, and they were also
allowed to preach freely to the king's subjects. By Whitsuntide the
king himself was so far won over as to be baptised—on Whitsunday or
its eve, probably at St Martin's church (1 or 2 June 597). The king
used no force to lead his subjects after him, but he naturally favoured
those who followed him, and soon many were won by the faithful lives
of the missionaries, shewn so easily by the common life of a brotherhood.
Throughout the story of the Conversion it is indeed to the lives rather
than to the preaching of the missionaries that Bede assigns their success,
and the tolerance of the English kings in Kent and elsewhere gave them
a ready opening. If here and there the missionaries met persecution, it
never rose to martyrdom.
According to the Pope's directions, Augustine ought now to be
consecrated, and for this purpose he went to Aries, where Vergilius
(the usually accurate Bede mistakes the name) consecrated him (16 Nov.
597)*.
Soon after his return to Kent the new bishop sent off to the Pope
by the hands of his presbyter Laurentius and the monk Peter news of
1 See arguments of Professor T. McKenny Hughes (Dissertation in. in Mason's
Mission of St Augustine) in favour of Richborough: the Canterbury tradition also
speaks of Richborough. But other sites, Stonor, or Ebbsfleet, find support. See
e. g. Pref. to 3rd edn. of Bright's Early Eng. Ch. Hist.
2 The dates usually given for Aethelberht's baptism, and the consecration of
Augustine, are connected by Bede. Dates more precise, if less trustworthy, are
given by Thorn (late fourteenth century) and by Thomas of Elmham (R. S. pp. 78
and 137) following the Canterbury tradition that the baptism took place at Whit-
suntide 597: the consecration is placed 16 Nov. 597. This is apparently founded
upon Bede. But Elmham saw the difficulties of these dates. Gregory, Ep. vir. 30—
to Eulogius of Alexandria (? June 598), speaks of the baptism of many English in
the Swale the previous Christmas by Augustine fratre et coepiscopo. In 597,16 Nov.
was not on a Sunday, but in 598 it was. I should therefore prefer to place the
consecration in 598, disregarding the date of this letter. The Canterbury tradition
would hardly be mistaken as to the day, but might be as to the year. Further
there would be a natural inclination to shorten the interval between the arrival of
Augustine and the king's baptism. It might be, therefore, that the baptism should
be placed along with the consecration in 598.
## p. 517 (#549) ############################################
597-601] Augustine's Questions and Gregory s Answers 617
his success, along with a number of questions as to the difficulties he
foresaw. We find Boniface in his day doing the same, and we may
see in it a common and indeed natural custom rather than a sign of
weakness.
The questions and the answers to them only concern us here so far
as they shew the special difficulties of the mission and the character
of St Augustine. Their importance for the character of the Pope has
been shewn elsewhere. But their authenticity has been doubted: some
of them are not what might have been expected, e. g. those on liturgic
selection, and on recognising marriages contracted in heathenism but
against Church law. The preface printed in the Epistles but omitted
by Bede is more doubtful than the reply itself; and seems intended to
explain the chronology of Bede. But the documentary history of the
reply and its absence from the registry in Rome—where Boniface in 736
failed to have it found—have also caused suspicion. Yet, considering the
ways in which the Epistles as a whole have reached us, this is not in
itself sufficient to cause rejection. The arguments that Gregory's answers
are not what we should expect, and that the questions concern points
all raised afterwards, really cut both ways. The correction (by a later
letter sent after the messengers) of a first command (in a letter to
Aethelberht) for the destruction of heathen temples1 would hardly have
occurred to a forger, and it therefore carries weight. But the dates and
the long interval between the questions (597) and the reply (601) are a
little difficult. To heighten the success of Augustine, and to make
the mission appear instantaneously successful would come natural to
later writers. The later tradition which makes Aethelberht as a second
Constantine give up his palace to Augustine as another Sylvester is
one indication of such a tendency. If the baptism really took place
in 598 the difficulties are less.
The first question relates to the division of the offerings of the faith-
ful between the bishop and his clergy: to this the answer was that the
Roman custom was a fourfold division between the bishop, the clergy,
the poor and the repair of the churches. But, since Augustine and his
companions were monks, they would live in common, so that they would
share the offerings in common also. As to the clergy in minor orders
they should receive their stipends separately, might live apart and might
take wives: but they were bound to obey church rule.
The purely monastic type of mission thus brought incidentally
with it a difference between the systems of division first of offerings,
then of systematised tithes, in England, where a fourfold division
found no place, and on the Continent, if indeed we can generalise as to
the custom observed abroad. Later ecclesiastical regulations and orders
1 Idolorum cultus insequere, fanorum aedificia everte. Bede, H. E. I. c. 32
(adding date 22 June 601). But is this intended to be more than rhetoric? For
cases among Franks see Hauck, K. G. D. i. pp. 121-2.
ch. xvi (it).
## p. 518 (#550) ############################################
518 Augustine's Questions and Gregory's Answers
attempted to bring the Frankish system into England, but the English
division remained different from the continental.
The second question was why one custom of saying mass should be
observed in the Roman Church, and another in the Church of Gaul.
The Pope replied that things were not to be loved for the sake of places,
but places for the sake of good things: hence what was good in any-
local custom might be brought into the Church of the English—advice
which has been sometimes held to sanction a liturgic freedom not
likely to commend itself to the somewhat correct mind of Augustine, and
certainly not used by him. Questions as to punishment for thefts from
churches and as to the degrees for marriage were perhaps needful in
a rough society, and one case mentioned—that of a marriage of a man
with his step-mother—presented itself in the case of Aethelberht's suc-
cessor Eadbald, who took to himself his father's second wife. But as the
background to some of these questions there is clearly something of the
same social condition which produced the Penitentials of later dates,
although it is going too far to ascribe the whole to a later day and
to Archbishop Theodore as writer.
The sixth and seventh questions dealt with the Episcopate: when
asked whether one bishop might consecrate by himself in cases of need,
Gregory replied that Augustine, as the only bishop of the Church of
England, could do nothing but consecrate alone unless bishops from
Gaul chanced to be present. Provision for new sees should, however,
be made so that this difficulty should disappear, and then three or four
bishops should be present. The seventh question asked how Augustine
was to deal with the bishops of Gaul and Britain. Here it may be
noted that when elsewhere he spoke of bishops in the neighbourhood of
the English Gregory seems to have meant the bishops in Gaul: the
British bishops he seems to have ignored. But here he commits them
{Brittanniamm omnes episcopos) to the care of Augustine (who is, of
course, to exercise no authority in Gaul, although he is to be on terms
of fellowship with the bishops there), so that "the unlearned may be
taught, the weak made stronger by persuasion, and the perverse cor-
rected by authority. "
These answers were brought to Augustine by a band of new mission-
aries, Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus and others, who carried with them sacred
vessels, vestments and books, as well as a pall for Augustine. He was
to consecrate twelve bishops to be under his jurisdiction as bishop of
London. For the city of York a bishop was also to be consecrated, who
was, as the districts beyond York gradually received the word of God,
also to consecrate twelve bishops under himself as metropolitan. During
Augustine's lifetime the Bishop of York was to be subject to him, but
afterwards the northern metropolitan was to be independent, and the
metropolitan first ordained of the two ruling together was to have
precedence. All these bishops were to act together in councils and
## p. 519 (#551) ############################################
577-601] Gregorys Scheme of Division 619
so on. To Augustine, likewise, Gregory committed all the priests of
Britain.
To Mellitus, after he had started, the Pope also sent a later letter
(22 June), in which he gave directions about the use of heathen temples;
the buildings themselves were not to be destroyed, as he had said before
to Aethelberht, but the idols were to be broken and the places purified,
altars were to be built, and then the temples were to become churches.
Thus the people would keep their old holy places; and rejoicings, like
those on the old heathen festivals, were to be allowed them on days of
dedication or the nativities of holy martyrs. The church of St Martin
at Canterbury had already been given to the mission: on another site,
that of an old church once used by Roman Christians, Augustine had
built Christ Church, which was to become the mother church of England
and the centre of a great monastery: another ruined building—which
had been used as a temple—was purified and dedicated as St Pancras, a
Roman martyr: outside the city walls the king built a church, St Peter
and St Paul, also to be the centre of a monastery, afterwards known,
when Laurentius had consecrated it, as St Augustine's, of which Peter
was the first abbot. Here the kings and the archbishops were to be
buried, and between this monastery and Christ Church a long-lived
jealousy arose, which had sometimes great effects upon ecclesiastical
politics. In this way Augustine made Canterbury a great Christian
centre. If the progress outside Kent was for a long time slow, the
tenacity of the Christian hold upon Canterbury itself is also to be
noted.
The growth of the mission in new fields and its relations with the
British are henceforth the main threads of the history. A meeting with
the British bishops and teachers was brought about at Augustine's oak
on "the borders of the West Saxons and Hwicce" (either Aust on the
Severn, or, less probably, a place near Malmesbury)—a local definition
which changed between the days of Augustine and those of Bede.
The bishops must have been those of South Wales, and those of Devon
and Nortb Wales may have been with them, but the Britons of the
West country were now separated from those of Wales by the advance
of the West Saxons after Dyrham (577). Augustine urged these bishops
to keep catholic unity and join in preaching the Gospel to the English.
This task they had not attempted of their own accord: they were still
less likely to do it under the new leadership.
There were points of difference between the Roman and British
Christians, breaches of uniformity due to a long separation, rather than
to original differences, but tending towards difference of spirit, at the
very time, moreover, when unity of feeling and of action was most
necessary: standing as their observance of Easter shewed outside the
general trend of European custom, the British held an attitude towards
Rome which had marked an earlier day. But these differences, almost
CH. xvi (b).
## p. 520 (#552) ############################################
520 Kelts and Romans
accidental to begin with, were exaggerated into matters of Christian
liberty on the one side, into matters of heresy upon the other. The
difference in the date of Easter had been caused by the separation
of Britain from the Empire; the British had kept the old cycle of
eighty-four years used generally in the West before the English con-
quest: since the separation Rome—followed gradually by the West—
had twice changed to a better cycle, anfl the last change, moreover, had
brought the West into accord with the East1. Furthermore Romans
and Britons started from a different vernal equinox: 21 March and
25 March respectively; the Britons also kept Easter on the fourteenth
of Nisan if that were a Sunday: but the Romans in that case kept it
on the Sunday following. There were thus ample differences which
would lead to practical discord: but there was no excuse for the charge
of Quartodecimanism against the British, for they did not keep the four-
teenth of Nisan if it fell on a week-day. There were other differences
also; in the tonsure where the Britons (and the Kelts generally)
merely shaved the front of the head, whereas the Romans shaved the
crown in a circle, and in baptism where the precise difference is un-
known. No decision was reached: even the demonstration by Augustine
of his gift of miracles—an account of which had reached Rome and
caused the Pope to write to him advising humility and self-exami-
nation in face of success—was not decisive. The British representatives
went back to consult their fellows, and a second meeting—probably in
the same place—followed. It is here that Bede places the British story
of the way in which upon the advice of a hermit the British discovered
the pride of Augustine. But if there was on his side some pride in the
older civilisation cherished in the Western capital, there was on the other
side the obstinacy of a race long left to itself, and over-jealous of its
independence.
At the second conference Augustine—ready to overlook some par-
ticulars of British use which were contrary to Western customs—laid
down three conditions of union: the same date for Easter; the
observance of Roman custom in baptism; and fellowship in missions
to the English. But to these conditions the British would not agree,
nor would they receive him as their archbishop. It is perhaps well to
observe that the difference on these three conditions would have inter-
fered with the attraction of converts. In the eyes of Augustine the
mission would appear to have ranked above questions of precedence:
the British had not yet overcome their national repugnance to the
English, and they saw, what became plainer in later years, that the
leadership of the Roman missionaries would of necessity result from
fellowship in work. The growth of bitterness between the races was
quickened by the failure of these negotiations.
1 On all these points see the Excursus in Plummer's Bede, II. pp. 348 f.
## p. 521 (#553) ############################################
604-617] Controversies 521
A step forward in organisation was taken when (604) Augustine
consecrated Justus to be bishop of Durobrivae, or Rochester in West
Kent, and Mellitus to be bishop of London for the East Saxons—whose
king Saeberht1 had become a Christian and was now subject to Kent.
Shortly afterwards Augustine died (605), and was followed in his see by
Laurentius, who had been already consecrated in his leader's lifetime.
The character of the founder of the line of papae alteriw orbis has
been often sketched in very different colours, and sometimes perhaps
with outlines too firm for the material we have at hand. It was long
before the enmity between the Britons and English died down, and
until it did so the two sides distorted his words and deeds: Britons
exaggerated his haughtiness and pride: English exaggerated his firmness
in correcting an upstart race. The ordinary view bears marks of both
these exaggerations. Disputes between English independence and Papal
rule have had a like effect, and incidents in his career have been twisted
overmuch to suit a given framework. Our earlier records may not
have drawn him exactly as he was: modern writers have certainly taken
even greater liberty. He did not rise to the dignity of a Boniface or
a Columbanus, but the limits both upwards and downwards of his
personality are shewn us by what he did. Unsympathetic yet patient,
constructive and systematic he had the genius of his race, he had learnt
and could teach the discipline which had trained him, and his person-
ality has been overshadowed by his work.
The rule of Laurentius is known principally for an unsuccessful
attempt to reconcile the Irish. An Irish (Scots) bishop Dagan coming
among the English would not even eat in the same house with
Laurentius and his followers: accordingly Laurentius wrote to "his
dearest brothers, the bishops and abbots through all Scotia," pressing
unity upon them. But nothing came either of this attempt, or from
a like letter to the British, although they may have led to the Canterbury
tradition of Laurentius1 friendly relations with the British.
Even before the death of Aethelberht—after a long reign of
56 years (616)—the power of Kent had been waning. Haedwald of
East Anglia, once a vassal of Kent, who had been baptised at Canter-
bury, had renounced his allegiance and had tried to combine in some
strange way the worship of Christ and of the old gods. In 617 this
Raedwald was strong enough to beat even the victorious Aethelfrith
king of Northumbria, who had himself beaten the Dalriadic Scots in
the North and the Britons at Chester (616)2. This latter victory had
separated the Britons of Wales from their northern kinsmen, just as
the victory of Dyrham (577) had separated them from the south. The
1 Mr W. J. Corbett suggests that Saeberht's name is handed down in Sawbridge-
worth (Herts. ), a corruption of the Domesday Sabrictesweorthig (cf. Domesday, I.
139 b).
2 For the date see Plummer's Bede, n. p. 77. But it is only approximate.
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 522 (#554) ############################################
522 Northumbria [588-625
warfare between Raedwald and Aethelfrith had important consequences,
both for religion and politics. Edwin, son of Aelle of Deira, was in
exile, as his kingdom had been seized on his father's death (588) by
Aethelric of Bernicia. Aethelric's son, Aethelfrith, a great warrior
against the British, now ruled over both Northern kingdoms, and, to
make his dynasty sure, sought the death of his brother-in-law, Edwin,
who as babe and youth found shelter first in Wales and then with
Raedwald of East Anglia. The East Anglian king refused to give up
the fugitive, and in the war which followed he seized Lindsey and then
defeated the Bernicians on the ford of the Idle in North Mercia. Aethel-
frith was slain, and Edwin gained not only his father's kingdom but
also Bernicia.
Aethelberht in Kent had been succeeded by his son Eadbald, who
took to himself his father's second wife, thus separating himself from
the Christians. In Essex, too, the Christian Saeberht was succeeded by
his two sons Saexred and Saeward, who being pagans at heart in the end
drove Mellitus away from London. Laurentius was now left alone, for
Mellitus and Justus fled to the Franks, and even he was preparing for
flight, when a dream delayed him. But before long Eadbald professed
Christianity. Justus returned to Rochester, and, in the end, the deaths
of Laurentius (619) and his successor Mellitus (624) placed him on the
throne of Canterbury (624-627). Mellitus however was not readmitted
to London: Kent alone kept its Christianity, but soon the conversion
of Northumbria, when Honorius (627-653) was archbishop, brought
about a great change.
On Raedwald's death his supremacy passed gradually into the hands
of Edwin of Northumbria.
This prince married as his second wife Aethelburga (or Tata),
daughter of Aethelberht of Kent, and sister to Eadbald, who was now
a Christian. On his marriage he promised his wife liberty for her
religion, and even hinted that he might consider the faith for himself.
Paulinus, one of the second band of Roman missionaries, went with her
to the North, and before he left Canterbury was consecrated bishop
by Justus (21 July 625). A year after the marriage Cuichelm king of
Wessex sent one Eomer to Edwin to assassinate him, but the devotion
of a thegn Lilla, whose name was long remembered, saved Edwin's life;
that same night the queen bore him a daughter, Eanfled, the first
Northumbrian to be baptised. In double gratitude the king vowed to
become a Christian if he defeated his West Saxon foe. When later on
he returned home victorious he therefore submitted himself to instruction
by Paulinus, and slowly pondered over the new faith. A mysterious
vision1, which he had seen long before at the East Anglian court, when
1 Oroma gentilis quae viderat ipse supernum, nocte soporata. (Carmen de Ponti-
ficibus ecclesiae Eboracensis in Raiue: Historians of the Church of York and its
Archbishops, R. S. i. p. 352. ) On the other hand Bede, H. E. n. chap. 12.
## p. 523 (#555) ############################################
625-627] Edwin 523
a stranger promised him safety and future power, giving him a secret
sign for remembrance, was now recalled to him by Paulinus along with
the secret sign which the messenger in the vision had given him.
Edwin was convinced for himself and called his Witan together in
eastern Deira to debate with Paulinus over the new faith. Hitherto
there had been no sign of life or strength in the English heathenism,
and now Coifi, the chief of the king's priests, shewed its weakness by
his speech: he is the first of his class we meet with, for too much stress
must not be laid on Bede's mention (n. chap. 6) of the "idolatrous
high priests" {idolatris pontificibus) who hardened the hearts of the
Londoners against receiving back Mellitus. Bede gives us an account
of the debate, probably from some old tradition, embodying truth but
not to be pressed in detail: Coifi gave his view that the religion they
professed had absolutely no virtue, and no usefulness: he had been its
diligent servant, and had gained no reward. A chieftain spoke next of
more spiritual things: the future life of man seemed dark and mysteri-
ous as the night outside might seem to a bird flying through the fire-lit
space where they sat: perchance this new faith could penetrate the
darkness. Coifi thereupon took the lead in profaning and destroying a
neighbouring temple at Goodmanham, by Market Weighton. After-
wards Edwin (12 April 627, Easter day) was baptised at York in the
little wooden church he had built during his preparation for baptism1.
But after his baptism he built there—in the middle of the old Roman
city, where Severus and Chlorus had died, and whence Constantine had
started on his great career—a nobler church of stone, a material which
marked the beginnings of a new civilisation. This, however, was still
left unfinished when he died, but its site is now covered by the present
crypt.
For six years Paulinus preached and taught both in Bernicia and
Deira, though he left most mark in the latter: from Catterick south-
wards as far as Campodunum (possibly Slack, near Huddersfield) he
journeyed and sojourned, catechising and baptising, and a church
afterwards destroyed here by the pagan Mercians marked his work at
the latter place. In Lindsey also—the north of Lincolnshire, a district
at that time tributary to Northumbria—he taught, and at Lincoln he
built a stone church of beautiful workmanship, in which on the death
of Justus of Canterbury (10 Nov. , probably 627) he consecrated as
successor Honorius. In these labours Paulinus was helped by others,
especially by James his deacon, who was not only a man of zeal, but
very skilful in song. When in later days Paulinus fled southwards,
James stayed behind, and around his home near Catterick he taught
1 In Nennius and in the Annates Cambriae we find the baptism of Edwin
ascribed to Rhun, the son of Urbgen, but this seems strange in face of what Bede
says, and of the Roman connexions of Paulinus. Most probably it is only a later
Keltic attempt to claim Edwin as a convert won by British efforts.
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 524 (#556) ############################################
524 Paulinus [627-647
many to sing in " the Roman or the Canterbury way. " This knowledge of
music in Yorkshire, which long afterwards caught the notice of Giraldus
Cambrensis, was kept alive and furthered by Eddius under Wilfrid and
by John (formerly arch-chanter at St Peter's in Rome) under Benedict
Biscop. Outside Northumbria, too, the influence of Paulinus worked
change. In East Anglia Eorpwald, son of Raedwald (627), was now
king, and, by the persuasion of Edwin, was brought, with his territory,
to Christianity.
Before long Eorpwald was, however, assassinated by a pagan, and
for three years the kingdom fell into idolatry until the accession of his
brother Sigebert (630 or 631), who in a time of exile among the Franks
had been baptised and more fully taught religion. In the conversion of
his kingdom he was greatly helped by Felix, a Burgundian, who had
come to Honorius for missionary work in England, and had been sent
by him to Sigebert, and placed in Dunwich as bishop for his kingdom
(631-647): here there was not only a church built, but a school "after
the manner of Kent," in which youths were taught. From quite another
part came a fellow-labourer: Fursey from Ireland, the founder of a
monastery at Cnobheresburg, often but doubtfully taken to be Burgh
Castle near Great Yarmouth, renowned not only for his saintliness but
for his mystic experiences and visions; he wandered, as so many of his
race did, from a wish to lead the pilgrim life, and like Aidan (with
whom Bede instinctively joins him) he was torn in two by the love
of mankind, driving him to active work, and by the love of solitude,
driving him to the hermit's life.
When his East Anglian monastery was well founded, he handed it
over to his brother, Fullan (Faelan), who was a bishop, and the priests
Gobban and Dicul. Later, when Penda of Mercia was restoring
heathenism, he passed to the land of the Franks and there under
Clovis II (638-656) he founded the monastery of Lagny on the
Marne. When he was on the point of leaving this new home for
a visit to his brethren he died (c. 647). His life is significant not only
of Keltic restlessness and devotion, but also of the many influences now
working on missions: in East Anglia as in the larger field beyond im-
pulses from Rome, Burgundy, Gaul and Ireland all worked together:
national and racial antagonisms were overcome by the solvent of
Christianity. A new unity was growing up in the West as formerly
in the East. What happened in East Anglia, and has been recorded,
almost by accident, must have also happened elsewhere.
The energy of Paulinus, backed by the power of Edwin, had
wrought so much that the Pope (now Honorius I) carried out the
plan of Gregory the Great by sending to Paulinus a pall with the title
of archbishop. But the bearers of the gift reached England only to find
that Paulinus had fled from the North. Edwin's rule had been effective
beyond anything known so far among the English: peace for travellers
## p. 525 (#557) ############################################
633-635] Death of Edwin 525
was enforced, and the king's dignity was shewn in a growing pomp:
banners were borne before him not only in war but during peace, and
the tufa carried before him on his progresses seemed a claim to a power
that was either very old or very new. Suddenly this prosperous rule
was interrupted by a league between Penda of Mercia, who had
gradually grown in power since his accession (626), and Cadwallon of
North Wales. In the woodlands of Heathfield, near Doncaster, Edwin
was defeated (12 October 633) and slain. York was taken, Deira laid
waste: Aethelburga fled with Paulinus, and a time of disorder and
paganism "hateful to all good men " began. In Deira Edwin's cousin
Osric, in Bernicia Eanfrid, son of Aethelfrith, ruled, and both of them
fell from the faith. Within a year Osric was slain in battle against
the Welsh who seemed to have been holding the land: Eanfrid too was
slain when he came to sue for peace from Cadwallon. Eanfrid's
brother, Oswald, succeeded, able in war, glorious in peace, and on the
Heavenfield, near Chollerford, just north of Hexham, he defeated
Cadwallon as he advanced against him from York and slew him on
the Deniseburn (635). For a time the northern lands had peace, and
Oswald's influence soon reached beyond his own borders. His nearest
neighbour, Penda of Mercia, however, more than held his own, and even
harried Ecgric, who had succeeded Sigebert in East Anglia: but over
the West Saxons Oswald held some kind of influence, which he used to
further Christianity. Birinus, according to later tradition a Roman,
had gone to Pope Honorius offering himself for missionary service,
and after consecration by Asterius, archbishop of Milan, he was sent to
Wessex (634): he had meant to work in the inland districts, but in the
end stayed near the coast, and so became the apostle of Wessex: the
king Cynegils became a Christian; Birinus was consecrated as bishop of
Dorchester on Thames (Dorcic), but we know little in detail of his work
beyond its results.
When Ecgric was attacked by Penda, Sigebert, recalled from a
monastery to lead his former subjects, went to battle armed only with
a wand: both he and Ecgric were slain, and Anna, nephew of Raedwald,
succeeded. This new king's house was noted for its monastic zeal, and
in the number of its saints rivalled the line of Penda. His step-daughter
Saethryd and his daughter Aethelburga crossed over to the Franks
to the monastery of Brie (Faremoutier-en-Brie): here in a double
monastery for both sexes like Whitby (Streoneshalh), favoured by the
same dynasty afterwards—both became abbesses. Hither also Ercon-
berht of Kent—the first English king to follow Prankish rulers in
destroying idols—sent a daughter. An impulse was thus given by
the foreign connexion to the growth of monasticism in England: by
the middle of the century there were about a dozen houses founded, and
through Aethelthryth (Aethelreda, Audrey) the foundress of Ely, and
others, the East Anglian line was foremost in the movement.
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 526 (#558) ############################################
526 Monastic Houses [633-635
Paulinus, traces of whose work long remained1, had fled southwards
in 633 and there he became, through one of the translations so common
in that day, the bishop of Rochester. After his departure the Christi-
anity of Northumbria passed into another phase. In his long exile
Oswald had been sheltered among the Scots, and had come to know
something of the enthusiasm and learning which made them the best
teachers of the day. He had been baptised at Iona, and thither he now
sent for a bishop. One was sent, whose name the fine reticence of Bede
concealed for a Scots writer some centuries later to supply, but he
despaired of the task and went home again. Then Aidan (Aedan), the
gentle and devoted, was consecrated bishop and sent (635). After the
Scots custom he took his seat on an island, Lindisfarne, or Holy Island,
near to the Bernician capital Bam borough. Here there grew up a
monastery on the Keltic plan like that of Iona: ruled, however, by
Aidan himself, as abbot and bishop, it was also a new and effective
missionary centre for Bernicia. Through it Irish (or Scots) influence
reached north-eastern England, and changed the land much as it had
changed western Scotland. It spread far southwards, but its original
home was Iona.
Keltic monasticism, and the work of Columba around Iona, have
been described in previous chapters of this work. The eremitic tendency
of Keltic monasticism never disappeared, and just as the original
monasteries in Ireland itself were mission stations for the tribes among
which they were placed, so Iona (originally Hii or Ioua, from which
by a mistaken reading Iona has arisen) became a mission station not
only for the Dalriadic Scots but for the Picts. Irish monasteries,
however, underwent some changes outside Ireland: the love of wandering,
the restlessness which Columba "the soldier of the island" shewed by
his inability to be idle even for an hour, drove the monks to travel
{pro Chrisio peregrinari): on the Continent they aimed at living as
strangers: but at Iona Columba and his successors strove to learn the
Pictish tongue, and mission work seems to have been esteemed even more
highly there than the life of quiet devotion. Learning, however, was
never forgotten: not only Columba but his successor Baithene (597-600)
copied manuscripts. And where Iona led Lindisfarne followed. But
more than all other characteristics the enthusiasm and simplicity of the
Irish monks appealed to their hearers and neighbours. Above all it
was in Aidan, the apostle of the north, that these spiritual gifts were
seen, and on his long preaching tours he won the hearts of all. Oswald
himself often went with him as interpreter (from which we may infer
that Aidan did not gain the same mastery of language that Columba
1 Traces of respect for the Roman mission are seen in about thirty dedications to
St Gregory—mainly old and spread nearly evenly over the country. Kirkdale in
Yorkshire and Kirknewton in Northumberland (Plummer's Bede, n. p. 105) are the
most interesting. See Miss Arnold Forster, Studies in Church Dedications, l p. 308.
## p. 527 (#559) ############################################
642-65i] Bede 527
did), and as a king Oswald answered to Aidan's ideal: frequent in
prayer, fruitful in alms, the first English king to have, or indeed to
need, an almoner.
But once again Penda of Mercia broke in: leagued with Cadwalader,
successor to Cadwallon, he defeated Oswald at Maserfield (642).
Oswald's severed head was rescued and carried off first to Lindisfarne;
thence afterwards in St Cuthbert's coffin to Durham, where it was seen
in the present generation1.
In Bernicia Oswald was succeeded by his brother Oswy (Oswiu), but
in Deira the old dynastic jealousy revived, and Edwin's kinsman Oswin
was chosen king. But Oswy joined the rival houses, for he fetched
from Kent Edwin's daughter Eanfled, and made her his queen. Soon
afterwards Oswin, who was like Oswald in his goodness and his friendship
for Aidan, was betrayed to Oswy at Gilling, and slain (651). Eleven
days later Aidan himself died, but his spirit and his work lived on in
the school he had made and the disciples he had trained.
In the mere record of events, mainly wars and revolutions, it is easy
to overlook the gradual work, the change of character, the growth of
civilisation, which had been slowly taking place. The missions from
the Continent had brought with them a larger outlook, a wider know-
ledge of a varied world, and a vision of a vaster unity with an ancient
background: the Irish missions had brought deep devotion, spiritual
intensity, and the traditions of the great Irish schools. In the north
of England these two streams of life were joined, and a rich civilisation
was the outcome. Jarrow and Monkwearmouth reached to Iona on the
west and to Canterbury on the south, and both Canterbury and Iona
stood for a great past. Historic feeling had led Columba to defend the
bards' for their services to history: Canterbury, by instinct and tradition
as well as by training, held to the past, and Bede, like Alcuin later,
inherited something from each. Hence come not only his love for
religion and order, but also his love of history and historic truth. It
was these which helped him to see the growing unity and drove him
to record the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. What he
felt in himself answered to the many-sided history with its growing life.
We owe hiin so much for his preservation of details otherwise unknown,
for his diligent search after truth, that we are likely to forget his sense
of the unity, the common life, which was now growing up out of many
elements and from many local beginnings. Bede is the first prophet
of English unity, and the first to tell its tale.
The English were now taking their place in civilisation and
Christianity. They were soon to be the great missionaries of Europe:
they were now able to care for themselves. In 644 Ithamar, the first
1 See A. Plummer, The Church in Britain before 1000, i. p. 99. For the battle,
see Chap. xvn. in this vol.
2 Fowler, Adamnani vita Columbae, Introd. p. xxi.
cb. xvi (b).
## p. 528 (#560) ############################################
528 A new generation [647-663
Englishman to be "hallowed'" as bishop, took the bishop's stool at
Rochester: in 647 and 652 Englishmen, first Thomas and then Berctgils
(Boniface), became bishops of Dunwich. Honorius at Canterbury died
(30 September 653), and after a long vacancy was succeeded by a West
Saxon, Frithonas, who took the name of Deusdedit. But in spite of
local work and impulses, in spite of gradual change, there was little
real unity even of effort, there was still less of organisation. The
Roman missionaries had a wider background of civilisation, and were
accustomed to larger states with wider interests. They worked for unity,
and against the persistence of little states with many narrow policies:
to secure civilisation it was necessary to reach larger union. There was
already the rich variety of personal character and life: something more
was needed now. It was the perception of this lack on the part of the
English themselves, and not merely the accident of events, that led to
the synod of Whitby and the work of Theodore.
The success of the Scots mission in the north had brought up once
more the old differences between the Keltic and Roman Churches: the same
difficulty had met Augustine, and the crisis would have come earlier had
it not been for the gentle influence of Aidan. When Oswy's bride went
northwards she took with her a chaplain Romanus, who kept Easter
by the general and Roman rule, whereas the Scots had naturally brought
with them their own use. In southern Ireland the Roman Easter had
been already adopted (before 634), but the weight of Iona had been
thrown strongly upon the other side, so that northern Ireland, Iona
and its offshoots, kept to their older usage. Finan, Aidan's successor at
Lindisfame (651-661), had come to Lindisfarne fresh from discussions
between the two parties in the Irish monasteries: he found James the
deacon, and Ronan, a Scot of continental education and sympathies,
urging the Roman use which had now the support of a party at court.
Finan was himself a controversialist but he was also more. It was in
his days that Peada, son of Penda, and under him king of the Middle
Angles (Northamptonshire), married Oswy's daughter, was baptised, and
with his father's tacit leave brought Christianity into his sub-kingdom, so
influencing Mercia as a whole. The band of missionaries who went to his
help from Northumbria was made up of three Northumbrians, including
Chad's brother Cedd, and one Scot, Diuma. Diuma became bishop of
the Middle Angles and the Mercians after the death of Penda, which
took away the last vigorous supporter of heathenism. Under all this
turmoil a new generation, with its own point of view, its own work
and interests, was growing up. Men who differed from each other were
being brought together in peaceful work as well as in controversy.
New openings were also being made for work: there was, as Bede tells
us, such a scarcity of priests that one bishop—like Diuma—had to be
set over two peoples. Diuma was followed by another Scot Ceollach,
who left his diocese to return to Iona: then came Trumhere "brought
## p. 529 (#561) ############################################
655-665] A new generation. The Yellow Pest 629
up in the monastic life, English by nation, but ordained bishop by
the Scots. " Christianity in England was forming a type of its own,
moulded by many forces, and the many-sided life, spiritual and intel-
lectual, of Bede's own monastery enabled him to understand this growth.
In Essex Sigebert II (the Good), although still heathen, was a friend
of Oswy's and a visitor at his court: in the end he and his attendants
were baptised by Finan: the place of baptism was Attewall (? Ad
Murum, near Newcastle), where Peada was also baptised, and the
times of the two baptisms may have been the same1.
Cedd recalled from Mercia went as chaplain to this new royal convert
and after some success in work went home to Lindisfarne for a visit.
Here Finan "calling to himself two other bishops for the ministry
of ordination"—a sign that the English Church was now passing into
more settled life—consecrated him bishop for Essex. As bishop he
went back, ordained priests and deacons, built churches at Tilbury and
elsewhere, teaching "also the discipline of a life of rule. " But his love was
divided between the work of his diocese, and the monastic life. Aethel-
wald of Deira, Oswald's son, who held Deira at some time possibly after
the murder of Oswin, was deeply attached to Cedd and his three brothers,
one of whom, Celin, was his chaplain. As a place of retreat for the
bishop and as a burial-place for the king, a site was chosen "in hills
steep and remote, rather hiding places for robbers and homes of wild
beasts than habitations for men," and here grew up the famous house of
Lastingham', where Cedd and after him Chad were abbots. Keltic
influence was thus strong. But at the same time we have many signs
of a growing unity. Thus we find Oswy of Northumbria and Ecgbert of
Kent joining, on the death of Deusdedit of Canterbury (655-664), to
choose a successor Wighard, a priest at Canterbury, and send him to
Rome for consecration by Vitalian. When part of Essex lapsed into
idolatry, Wulfhere of Mercia, who stood over the East Saxon sub-kings
Sebbi the Christian and Sighere the heathen, sent his own bishop
Iaruman of Mercia to reconvert it (665). Local barriers are thus
everywhere overstepped.
The Yellow Pest with all its horrors had caused widespread terror
and thrown everything out of gear. The roll of its victims was long.
Erconberht king of Kent as well as the archbishop Deusdedit, Tuda
bishop at Lindisfarne, the saintly Cedd at Lastingham (where Chad
succeeded him): at Melrose the prior Boisil, where also his successor the
devoted Cuthbert the missionary of the north all but died. In Essex
1 See Plummer's Bede, note, 11. p. 178: for chronology of Essex, p. 177.
s Bede says of the site quod uocatur Laestingaeu—with some variations in spelling.
This has naturally been taken as Lastingham, but the existence of earlier remains
at Kirkdale, with its old church of St Gregory restored under Tostig as Earl of
Northumbria, has led antiquarians to place the site there. Kirkdale might be
described as in the district, but the evidence is not conclusive.
C MED. II. VOL. II. CH. XVI (b). 34
## p. 530 (#562) ############################################
530 Wilfrid [663-681
to the south, and northwards by the Tweed, men turned again to witch-
craft and heathen charms. In its mortality and its effects upon society
it was somewhat like the later Black Death. Hence the religious and
social reconstruction which follows it is all the more significant.
The South Saxons were the last tribe to be brought to Christianity.
Wilfrid, whose character was moulded by many forces to be typical of
the new age, was chosen, probably through the influence of Alchfrid,
Oswy's son, to succeed Tuda. There were few bishops left, and some
of those were of Scots consecration. Wilfrid, the eager supporter of
continental customs, went to Frankish bishops for consecration. This
he received at Compiegne, under ceremonies of unusual pomp, and
among the prelates who shared in it was Agilbert (Albert) of Wessex.
This bishop, coming originally from the Franks, had worked in Wessex
under Coenwalch, until the king grew weary of his " barbarous'1 speech1,
and invited Wini (also of apparently Frankish ordination) to take the
see. Then Agilbert went (668) to Northumbria for a time, after which
he went home. Wini's story was unhappy: not many years afterwards
he too was driven out of his see, whereupon he " bought" from Wulfhere
"for a price" the see of London, and there remained. In all this moral
disorder thrown by Bede upon a strange background of miracle and
portent can be seen some result of the Pest.
Wilfrid tarried too long among the Franks, for when he reached
Northumbria he found Chad placed in his seat. He then retired to
his old monastery of Kipon. But in his voyage homewards (spring
666) he had been thrown upon the Sussex coast, and narrowly escaped
capture by the barbarians: a wizard standing upon a mound sought
to help the wreckers with his charms: he was slain " like Goliath'" by
a sling, and thus only after a fight did Wilfrid and his company escape.
But later on he was to return to Sussex. Meanwhile from Kipon he
acted at times as bishop both in Mercia, where along with Wulfhere
he founded monasteries such as Oundle, and also in Kent during the
vacancy at Canterbury, where as his biographer Eddius tells us he
studied the Benedictine rule. Thus he gained something for his native
north, and to the south he in turn gave gifts of music, and of crafts,
through the singers and the masons who travelled in his train. Even
before he worked in Sussex Wilfrid a Northerner was in himself a bond of
union between North and South. After 681, when Aethelwalch of Sussex
had already become a Christian through the persuasion of Wulfhere, and
as we may suppose also of his own queen, Ebba, who came from the
Christian district of the Hwicce, Wilfrid began effective work in the
almost untouched Sussex. A Scot Dicul had already founded a small
monastery at Bosham (Bosanham), but the monks probably lived as
1 See Bede, H. E. in. 7, barbarae. loquellae. See Hummer's notes, n. pp. 41
and 146; Bright, Early Eng. Ch. Hist. p. 208 note and Freeman, Life and Letten,
ii. p. 229, who took it to mean Frankish which the king could just understand.
## p. 531 (#563) ############################################
664-673] The Synod of Whitby 531
foreigners apart from the people and at any rate had small success.
Wilfrid's foundation of Selsey was to have a wider influence. This
work of peace is a relief to the ecclesiastical quarrels of Wilfrid's later
years. His work in Sussex completed the conversion of the English.
