The wanderings of bishops from see to see, the
mingling
of
missionary effort with more strictly local work, had been even more
marked in England than on the Continent.
missionary effort with more strictly local work, had been even more
marked in England than on the Continent.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
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.
With the Synod of Whitby (664) under Finan's successor Colman
and with the coming of Archbishop Theodore (669-690) a new period
begins.
The wanderings of bishops from see to see, the mingling of
missionary effort with more strictly local work, had been even more
marked in England than on the Continent. This was not merely a
result of Scots or Irish influence; indeed the type of Keltic bishop, non-
territorial and with little power, which we know the best, was probably
less an original institution than the work of time. There is reason to
think that territorial bishops were found in Ireland to begin with1, and
that the later type was due to the same social and ecclesiastical causes
which later produced like results in Wales, making the Church pre-
eminently monastic, and raising the power of abbots. There were not
wanting signs that in the early English Church something the same
might have taken place had it not been for the Synod of Whitby and
Theodore1. After them the work of a bishop becomes more fixed, and
its area is limited. But the relative importance of the Synod and of
Theodore's rule is sometimes wrongly presented. The Synod with its
removal of the obstacle to unity—the difference in Easter—was a striking
witness to the need of union and the desire for it. It is not, however,
until Theodore comes that the type of bishop is changed: with that
the danger from monasticism which threatened England as it later on
affected Keltic lands was greatly lessened. What might otherwise have
been we can see from the words of Bede in his letter to Ecgbert; from
the pretended monasteries, really secular in life and under the control of
nobles, great danger threatened and even arose. The Synod of Hertford
(673) indeed confirmed those monastic immunities which were now
growing up (Canon 8). But its reorganisation of episcopal power
prevented this danger being what it would otherwise have been, and
the other canons of Hertford enforced a vigorous discipline. In its
lasting impression upon the English Church the primacy of Theodore
is unique: it summed up the varied past: it was the birthday of a more
vigorous and ordered life.
It has become common to weigh the shares of Roman and Keltic
missions in the great work thus summed up. The tendency has been to
ascribe too much to the charming characters of the northern saints,
and to overlook the quiet persistence of the Roman builders. But in
striving after a balanced judgment it is possible to place the two
parties too distinctly against each other. The generation which came
1 See Bury's St Patrick, Appendix 18, p. 375.
2 For the political effect of church organisation see Chap. xvn.
ch. xvi (b). 34—2
## p. 532 (#564) ############################################
532 The Franks and Christianity [496
just before the Synod of Whitby probably made less of the difference
than we ourselves do: community of field and community of life was
forming a community of type; the English missionaries who later on
converted the Teutonic tribes based their work not only upon their own
burning zeal but upon the life of monasteries and the care of bishops.
These two things were the characteristics of English religious life in the
seventh century, and they no less than the new-born religious zeal were
due to a long history in which Kelt and Roman bore their part and
under which they had grown together.
(2) GERMANY.
The conversion of the Franks to Christianity, and that too in its
orthodox form, has been already dealt with1. According to the most
probable view of evidence, not quite consistent, and not easy to weigh,
Clovis was baptised on Christmas day 496, probably at Rheims*. He
had however been friendly to Christianity even before his conquest of
Syagrius (486), and became naturally more so afterwards. After his
conversion, followed by that of many Franks, he was able as an orthodox
king to reckon on the help or at least the sympathy of Catholic bishops
everywhere: the wars that spread his, power took somewhat the character
of crusades and for three centuries this remained true of Frankish
campaigns against the heathens. Broadly speaking, with the power
of the Frankish kings went the power of the Church, although the
fellowship between the two was sometimes closer, sometimes looser.
As the Frankish power spread into districts less thoroughly Romanised
new sees had to be founded, and even in the more settled lands this
happened also. But a distinction must be made between the new
missionary bishops and the type of bishops already found in the
Romanised cities. Up to the settlement under Boniface (Winfrid,
Bonifatius) or even later we have a time in which both types appear
side by side. As a rule the city bishop owed his appointment to the
State: the missionary bishop to the Church. It is not a. question of
differences between Roman and Keltic clergy, but merely between lands
in which Roman traditions survived, and those where missions started
quite afresh. What Theodore did for England Boniface was to do
for the continental Teyjons.
Local differences were many and strong: in Austrasia heathenism
was more general to begin with and lived on longer. The Frankish
conquests drove together heathens and Christians, and in some places
heathenism gained strength: on the whole, the leading families and
1 See Chaps, iv. v.
1 See Chap. iv. p. 112. For a detailed criticism of the date and references see
Hauck, K. G. D. i. , later edns, pp. 695 f.
## p. 533 (#565) ############################################
eoo] The Keltic Monks 633
the towns were more thoroughly Christianised than the country, which
remained mainly heathen. In some places—like Mainz, Cologne, and
Tongres—Christian communities, sometimes chiefly oriental or foreign,
may have lived on since Roman times and sometimes bishops were left:
in others—like Trier—Christianity was just becoming general when the
Frankish conquest brought in new conditions. Everything depended
upon the centres already gained for Christianity, and across the Rhine
these were few and tended to become fewer. Nearer Italy there were
centres to which Christianity had come from the south, such as Augsburg,
which until about the year 600 was connected with Aquileia. But where
such centres of life were few or Christianity had only begun its growth
the Teutonic invaders could be but little affected by it.
The Keltic missions came to give these new centres, and by a
monastic framework to guard their power. There are some indications
—in the letters of Boniface and elsewhere—that Keltic priests, some of
whom caused him trouble, were more widely spread than we might suppose.
And as Keltic monasteries became stages in systematic pilgrimages to
Rome a steady stream of Christianity was brought to bear upon the
Teutons. The Keltic missionaries were for the most part led to travel
by the wish to live amid new surroundings: they lived among their new
neighbours as strangers, but the evils around them forced them to
become missionaries, and, although Keltic monasticism was ascetic and
rigorous, Keltic monks never feared to plunge into the world and to
play a part there when it seemed good. Frankish Christianity, with its
comparative neglect of penance, seemed to the great missionary Colum-
banus merely superficial: he stood outside the ordinary Frankish Church:
his altar at Luxeuil was consecrated by an Irish bishop, and he had no
episcopal licence for his foundations. Hence the Keltic monasteries
besides being centres of learning strengthened the tendency already
shewn to exempt monasteries from episcopal control1. The difference
about Easter did not of necessity lead to lasting strife, and the
monastic foundations of Columbanus, his comrades and followers, kept
alive upon the Continent the Irish love of learning. As regards the
papal power Keltic tradition and habits belonged to an earlier day when
the papal control had been less effective; this tradition Columbanus
kept and shewed in his defence of the Keltic Easter. But it is a
mistake to take these differences as implying either hostility to the
Papacy or a claim to full independence.
The Keltic monks travelled for the most part in bands of twelve,
but there were other single teachers such as Rupert (Rodbert) a Frank
who towards the end of the seventh century came to Regensburg, the
ducal court of Bavaria, and thence passed into the wild Salzkammergut
1 See Gougaud, Let ChrilienU* Celtiques, p. 220; Hauck, K. 0. D. i. pp. 266 and
310. For Columbanus see Chap. v. of this volume. For Sever in us, vol. i. p. 425.
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 534 (#566) ############################################
534 Frisia [613-647
with its Roman memories and remains; here a monastery, a nunnery and
a church were planted. A like work was also wrought at Regensburg
by Emmeran, although his first hope had been to preach to the Avars.
These isolated endeavours gave new centres of Christian civilisation, but
in later years few traces of them were left. Work on a larger and more
considered plan was needed. But the life of St Severinus (died 482) in
Noricum (Bavaria) shews how far the influence of a hermit could reach
and how great it could be.
Frisia, with its unknown coasts and wild heathenism, soon began
to attract missionaries. The growth of Christianity here had been due
to the Franks and varied with the state of their church: simony and
careless appointments of bishops had been somewhat checked: the
influence of Columbanus had reached far, not only in the south but
even northwards to the Marne: a new and differently trained genera-
tion had grown up, and when the union of the kingdoms under
Chlotar II (613) gave the land rest, the church thus strengthened broke
fresh ground among its neighbours to east and north. Chlotar II had
encouraged Amandus, a hermit of Roman descent from Aquitaine. who
felt himself called by St Peter to distant missions: pilgrimages to Rome
deepened the wish, and after Chlotar had procured his consecration he
worked as a missionary bishop from Ghent as a centre. Hitherto Frisian
merchants had come to the Franks, and Frankish rule had gained
ground upon the borders, but even Maestricht and Noyon, although
bishoprics, were yet partly heathen. Quarrels with King Dagobert, and
banishment for a time (629) turned him to other fields. But both
around Ghent and at Maestricht where he was afterwards bishop (647)
he was unhappy in his work: the enforcement of baptism by royal order
under Dagobert may have been due to his suggestion, and at any rate it
explains his lack of success: spells of work on the Danube, in Carinthia,
at the mouth of the Scheldt and among the Basques varied a strange
career marked by restless energy and much wandering. After his death
a little more ground was gained under the direction of Cunibert of
Cologne, a church was built at Utrecht, and under the well-known
Eligius (bishop of Noyon, 64-1, and renowned as a silversmith) a better
foundation was laid. But the task was left unfinished until the following
century. Frisia was affected by the changes of Frankish politics.
Christian missions were both too fitful and too disconnected. A general
plan and organisation was needed.
In England, as the letter of Daniel bishop of Winchester to Boniface
(Ep. 23) shews, the methods of missions had been carefully thought out,
since the local conditions not only aroused enthusiasm to call forth
missionaries but gave them a training ground for their work. English-
men were learning at this very time what careful organisation and
ordered work could do. They had felt the benefit of fellowship with
Rome and its traditions while they had still the fresh energy of
## p. 535 (#567) ############################################
678-695] WilMbrord 535
younger tribes and growing states. This is the reason why in the
eighth century English missionaries take the place of the earlier Kelts.
And the field of labour seemed already fixed for them: they had
not forgotten the land from which they had come. Wilfrid landed in
Frisia (678) on his way to Rome—in order to avoid the enmity of
Ebroin, mayor of the palace—and stayed there a winter because of the
friendly welcome by Adelgis the king (who refused to sell his guest)
and his people. This was only an episode. Ecgbert, a Northumbrian
who was afterwards to go to Iona, who had lived long in Ireland and
pledged himself to pilgrimage, was hindered by visions and by storms
from a long desired journey to Frisia: in his place he sent a pupil
Wicbert who only stayed two years and then went home again. This
failure only caused Ecgbert to send another mission of twelve monks.
The leader of it, Willibrord, was a Northumbrian whose father Wilgils
in old age became a hermit at the Humber's mouth. He had been
educated up to the age of twenty at Ripon—Wilfrid's old monastic
home—and afterwards in Ireland (c. 678). He landed and went to
Utrecht, now held by Radbod the Frisian king, who must have regained
territory, for Utrecht had formerly been a Frankish town. But Frisia
beyond it was lost to the Franks as the result of a war which was just
ended and had naturally left ill-will behind it. The defeated Radbod
was little likely to favour the faith of his Frankish enemies, and
Willibrord saw a chance of securer work under Frankish protection.
He therefore journeyed to Pepin, who promised him help for a work
which was of interest to both of them. Willibrord shared the enthusiasm
of Wilfrid and Boniface for Rome—and indeed others, the Irish
Adamnan and Ecgbert for instance, were turning towards Rome and
unity. Accordingly Willibrord went to Rome to get consent for his
mission, thus beginning the policy which Winfrid afterwards carried out
on a larger scale.
Success soon made organisation desirable: the monks elected one
Suidbert as their future bishop and he passed across to England to
be consecrated there by Wilfrid. But after his return difficulties seem
to have arisen and the new bishop left Frisia in order to preach to
the Bructeri: a little later we find Pepin, like the earlier kings, taking
the organisation into his own hands and sending Willibrord to Rome
for consecration (22 Nov. 695) as archbishop of a province to include
both Frankish and independent Frisia. Willibrord, who at his con-
secration took the name of Clement, received the pall at Rome, and
from Pepin as his seat Utrecht, where he built a cathedral and
a monastery. A native church began, and soon he felt able to devote
himself to the Frisians in Radbod's territory since Radbod himself
was now friendly to the Franks, and his daughter Theutsind had
married Pepin's son Grimoald. But here Willibrord's success was
small: Radbod was indifferent although not hostile and Willibrord
CH. XVI (b).
## p. 536 (#568) ############################################
536 Winfrid [714-719
went on further to preach to the Danes. Their country too he left and
on his return to Frisia landed on the coast: by venturing to baptise
some converts in a holy well he awoke the anger of the heathen and
they sought to have him put to death by Radbod. The king however
spared his life, but as the hopes of any work among the free Frisians
now seemed hopeless he went back to Utrecht. After Pepin's death
(16 Dec. 714) the quarrel between his sons enabled Radbod to regain
the part of Frisia held by the Franks. The church had gained no real
hold among the natives: Willibrord had left, the priests were put to
flight, and the land once more under the sway of a heathen king
became heathen too. It was now that Winfrid came.
Winfrid was born near Crediton (c. 680) of a noble English family:
after education first in a monastery at Exeter and then at Nutshall
(Nutsall, Netley or Nursling ? ) he was ordained, and employed in
important affairs. But above the claims of learning and the chance of
a great career at home he felt the missionary's call to the wild. From
London he sailed to Frisia (716): here he stayed for part of a year
until on the outbreak of a Frankish war he went back to his West-
Saxon monastery. On the death of his old master Winbert the monks
wished to make him abbot, but his future work lay plain before him
and he refused. He sought letters of commendation from Daniel,
bishop of Winchester—a man of much learning and experience to
whom Bede owed much information—and with these (718) he went
abroad again. But this time passing through Frankland he went to
Rome, to visit the threshold of the Apostles. Here he saw Gregory II,
and from him he received as "Bonifatius1 the religious priest1''—the
name by which he was henceforth known—a letter of commendation
(15 May 719). The journey was a common one for an Englishman of
the day, but Boniface with his strong wish for missionary work reached
Rome when the Papacy was turning towards plans of organisation.
Furthermore between him and the Pope a friendship and even a fellow-
ship began.
Taking this new line of organisation under papal guidance Boniface
went to Thuringia, where the natives, in new seats, and pressed upon by
Franks and Saxons, had partly received and then soon lost Christianity.
To win back their leaders was Boniface's new task: the land was
disordered in politics and religion alike: heathenism was found side by
side with Christianity of strange types. From Thuringia Boniface
started for the Frankish court, but on the way he heard of Rad bod's
death, which might make Frisia a more fruitful field. Already Willi-
brord, working like Boniface himself under papal sanction, had been
consecrated Archbishop of Utrecht, and to his help Boniface now went.
When after a three years' stay Willibrord would have had him as
1 For the name see Loofs, Der Beiname rfe* Apostels der Deuttchen, Z. K. 6. (18ifi),
pp. 623-31, and Hauck, K. G. D. I. p. 458 n. 1.
## p. 537 (#569) ############################################
722] Boniface 537
coadjutor he pleaded the papal command: he sought leave to depart
and passed to Hesse. This was ground more unworked than Thuringia,
for the people had kept their older seats and with them their old
customs, but it might link Saxony to the Frankish Church. So great
was his success—thousands being baptised—that he could soon think of
organising a bishopric. He sent a report to Rome and in reply was
called thither himself. On his way he probably met1 Charles Martel,
and at Rome he was consecrated (St Andrew's day, 722 or less probably
723). At his consecration he took an oath much like that taken by
the suburbicarian bishops, and thus pledged himself to work as a
bishop under papal direction. But by a significant change the promise
of fidelity to the Eastern Emperor was left out and its place taken by
a promise to hold no intercourse with bishops who disobeyed the canons,
to work against them and to denounce them to the Pope. The new
bishop received letters of commendation to all who could help his work
in Germany and especially to Charles Martel. Henceforth Boniface
could depend even more than before upon papal direction, help and
sympathy: we find him, like St Augustine of Canterbury, sending
difficulties to Rome for decision. As he was to build up a church
which was suffering from Keltic disorder and Frankish negligence, a
collection of canons was a natural papal gift to him.
Boniface now begins a new stage of his work, no longer as a mere
missionary pioneer but rather as a missionary statesman in the service
of Rome. For his new plans and his new office state support was
needed. Backed by a letter from Charles Martel, Boniface went to
Hesse to weld together the scattered links of his earlier work. Some
twenty years later he wrote to Daniel of Winchester: "Without the
patronage of the Prince of the Franks I am able neither to rule the
people of the church nor to defend" the priests or deacons, the monks
or nuns: and I am not powerful enough to hinder the very rites of the
pagans and the sacrileges of idols in Germany without his order and the
dread of him. " The boldness he shewed in felling the sacred oak at
Geismar led the heathen to think their gods had lost their power, and
from these successes in Hesse Boniface passed to Thuringia. In each
district he founded schools of learning and of training for his converts:
Amanaburg and Fritzlar in Hesse, Ohrdruff in Thuringia: for women,
Tauberbischofsheim, Kitzingen and Ochsenfurt, three foundations near
the Main. These were founded before his organisation of Bavaria, and
his favourite house Fulda was specially planned to foster Christian
civilisation and to be a monastic model. This side of Boniface's work is
sometimes overlooked in comparison with his ordering of dioceses, but
1 Hauck, i. pp. 463 n. 3 and 464 n. 1.
* Ep. 63, p. 329 (Diimmler). The omission of defendere in one MS. would
make the passage even more emphatic as to the need of state support (as suggested
by Browne, Boniface of Urediton, p. 62).
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 538 (#570) ############################################
538 Organisation of Sees [731-741
the two were really complementary: on the monastic side he entered
into the heritage of the Keltic monks to whom, when there was no
question of disorder or irregularity, he was by no means an enemy.
At Fulda Sturm, a Bavarian of his own training, ruled: there and else-
where helpers from England, some of them bound to Boniface by ties of
blood, and all by kinship in devotion, made new homes for themselves:
Burchard, Lul, Denehard, Willibald, Wicbert among the men: Lioba
and Walpurgis among the women. With England a lively interchange
of letters was kept up: some of his English friends came out to him as
they gradually lost their kinsfolk by death, and others came because of
their love for him. But in either case they helped to strengthen associa-
tions which were of political as well as religious power. Boniface
himself was strong enough to award praise and blame to English kings;
he himself, his comrades and his work gave England some hold upon
continental life.
On the death of Gregory II (11 Feb. 731) Gregory III succeeded,
a true successor in his care for Germany. When Boniface declared to
him that the burden of his growing work was becoming too heavy, the
papal answer was (732) to make him Archbishop, although with no
defined province, so that he could the better call fellow-labourers to his
help. In the few following years we must probably place much of
Boniface's work in furthering his foundations, and some of his letters
of the time shew him turned to reading and study of questions raised
by his pastoral work.
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.
With the Synod of Whitby (664) under Finan's successor Colman
and with the coming of Archbishop Theodore (669-690) a new period
begins.
The wanderings of bishops from see to see, the mingling of
missionary effort with more strictly local work, had been even more
marked in England than on the Continent. This was not merely a
result of Scots or Irish influence; indeed the type of Keltic bishop, non-
territorial and with little power, which we know the best, was probably
less an original institution than the work of time. There is reason to
think that territorial bishops were found in Ireland to begin with1, and
that the later type was due to the same social and ecclesiastical causes
which later produced like results in Wales, making the Church pre-
eminently monastic, and raising the power of abbots. There were not
wanting signs that in the early English Church something the same
might have taken place had it not been for the Synod of Whitby and
Theodore1. After them the work of a bishop becomes more fixed, and
its area is limited. But the relative importance of the Synod and of
Theodore's rule is sometimes wrongly presented. The Synod with its
removal of the obstacle to unity—the difference in Easter—was a striking
witness to the need of union and the desire for it. It is not, however,
until Theodore comes that the type of bishop is changed: with that
the danger from monasticism which threatened England as it later on
affected Keltic lands was greatly lessened. What might otherwise have
been we can see from the words of Bede in his letter to Ecgbert; from
the pretended monasteries, really secular in life and under the control of
nobles, great danger threatened and even arose. The Synod of Hertford
(673) indeed confirmed those monastic immunities which were now
growing up (Canon 8). But its reorganisation of episcopal power
prevented this danger being what it would otherwise have been, and
the other canons of Hertford enforced a vigorous discipline. In its
lasting impression upon the English Church the primacy of Theodore
is unique: it summed up the varied past: it was the birthday of a more
vigorous and ordered life.
It has become common to weigh the shares of Roman and Keltic
missions in the great work thus summed up. The tendency has been to
ascribe too much to the charming characters of the northern saints,
and to overlook the quiet persistence of the Roman builders. But in
striving after a balanced judgment it is possible to place the two
parties too distinctly against each other. The generation which came
1 See Bury's St Patrick, Appendix 18, p. 375.
2 For the political effect of church organisation see Chap. xvn.
ch. xvi (b). 34—2
## p. 532 (#564) ############################################
532 The Franks and Christianity [496
just before the Synod of Whitby probably made less of the difference
than we ourselves do: community of field and community of life was
forming a community of type; the English missionaries who later on
converted the Teutonic tribes based their work not only upon their own
burning zeal but upon the life of monasteries and the care of bishops.
These two things were the characteristics of English religious life in the
seventh century, and they no less than the new-born religious zeal were
due to a long history in which Kelt and Roman bore their part and
under which they had grown together.
(2) GERMANY.
The conversion of the Franks to Christianity, and that too in its
orthodox form, has been already dealt with1. According to the most
probable view of evidence, not quite consistent, and not easy to weigh,
Clovis was baptised on Christmas day 496, probably at Rheims*. He
had however been friendly to Christianity even before his conquest of
Syagrius (486), and became naturally more so afterwards. After his
conversion, followed by that of many Franks, he was able as an orthodox
king to reckon on the help or at least the sympathy of Catholic bishops
everywhere: the wars that spread his, power took somewhat the character
of crusades and for three centuries this remained true of Frankish
campaigns against the heathens. Broadly speaking, with the power
of the Frankish kings went the power of the Church, although the
fellowship between the two was sometimes closer, sometimes looser.
As the Frankish power spread into districts less thoroughly Romanised
new sees had to be founded, and even in the more settled lands this
happened also. But a distinction must be made between the new
missionary bishops and the type of bishops already found in the
Romanised cities. Up to the settlement under Boniface (Winfrid,
Bonifatius) or even later we have a time in which both types appear
side by side. As a rule the city bishop owed his appointment to the
State: the missionary bishop to the Church. It is not a. question of
differences between Roman and Keltic clergy, but merely between lands
in which Roman traditions survived, and those where missions started
quite afresh. What Theodore did for England Boniface was to do
for the continental Teyjons.
Local differences were many and strong: in Austrasia heathenism
was more general to begin with and lived on longer. The Frankish
conquests drove together heathens and Christians, and in some places
heathenism gained strength: on the whole, the leading families and
1 See Chaps, iv. v.
1 See Chap. iv. p. 112. For a detailed criticism of the date and references see
Hauck, K. G. D. i. , later edns, pp. 695 f.
## p. 533 (#565) ############################################
eoo] The Keltic Monks 633
the towns were more thoroughly Christianised than the country, which
remained mainly heathen. In some places—like Mainz, Cologne, and
Tongres—Christian communities, sometimes chiefly oriental or foreign,
may have lived on since Roman times and sometimes bishops were left:
in others—like Trier—Christianity was just becoming general when the
Frankish conquest brought in new conditions. Everything depended
upon the centres already gained for Christianity, and across the Rhine
these were few and tended to become fewer. Nearer Italy there were
centres to which Christianity had come from the south, such as Augsburg,
which until about the year 600 was connected with Aquileia. But where
such centres of life were few or Christianity had only begun its growth
the Teutonic invaders could be but little affected by it.
The Keltic missions came to give these new centres, and by a
monastic framework to guard their power. There are some indications
—in the letters of Boniface and elsewhere—that Keltic priests, some of
whom caused him trouble, were more widely spread than we might suppose.
And as Keltic monasteries became stages in systematic pilgrimages to
Rome a steady stream of Christianity was brought to bear upon the
Teutons. The Keltic missionaries were for the most part led to travel
by the wish to live amid new surroundings: they lived among their new
neighbours as strangers, but the evils around them forced them to
become missionaries, and, although Keltic monasticism was ascetic and
rigorous, Keltic monks never feared to plunge into the world and to
play a part there when it seemed good. Frankish Christianity, with its
comparative neglect of penance, seemed to the great missionary Colum-
banus merely superficial: he stood outside the ordinary Frankish Church:
his altar at Luxeuil was consecrated by an Irish bishop, and he had no
episcopal licence for his foundations. Hence the Keltic monasteries
besides being centres of learning strengthened the tendency already
shewn to exempt monasteries from episcopal control1. The difference
about Easter did not of necessity lead to lasting strife, and the
monastic foundations of Columbanus, his comrades and followers, kept
alive upon the Continent the Irish love of learning. As regards the
papal power Keltic tradition and habits belonged to an earlier day when
the papal control had been less effective; this tradition Columbanus
kept and shewed in his defence of the Keltic Easter. But it is a
mistake to take these differences as implying either hostility to the
Papacy or a claim to full independence.
The Keltic monks travelled for the most part in bands of twelve,
but there were other single teachers such as Rupert (Rodbert) a Frank
who towards the end of the seventh century came to Regensburg, the
ducal court of Bavaria, and thence passed into the wild Salzkammergut
1 See Gougaud, Let ChrilienU* Celtiques, p. 220; Hauck, K. 0. D. i. pp. 266 and
310. For Columbanus see Chap. v. of this volume. For Sever in us, vol. i. p. 425.
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 534 (#566) ############################################
534 Frisia [613-647
with its Roman memories and remains; here a monastery, a nunnery and
a church were planted. A like work was also wrought at Regensburg
by Emmeran, although his first hope had been to preach to the Avars.
These isolated endeavours gave new centres of Christian civilisation, but
in later years few traces of them were left. Work on a larger and more
considered plan was needed. But the life of St Severinus (died 482) in
Noricum (Bavaria) shews how far the influence of a hermit could reach
and how great it could be.
Frisia, with its unknown coasts and wild heathenism, soon began
to attract missionaries. The growth of Christianity here had been due
to the Franks and varied with the state of their church: simony and
careless appointments of bishops had been somewhat checked: the
influence of Columbanus had reached far, not only in the south but
even northwards to the Marne: a new and differently trained genera-
tion had grown up, and when the union of the kingdoms under
Chlotar II (613) gave the land rest, the church thus strengthened broke
fresh ground among its neighbours to east and north. Chlotar II had
encouraged Amandus, a hermit of Roman descent from Aquitaine. who
felt himself called by St Peter to distant missions: pilgrimages to Rome
deepened the wish, and after Chlotar had procured his consecration he
worked as a missionary bishop from Ghent as a centre. Hitherto Frisian
merchants had come to the Franks, and Frankish rule had gained
ground upon the borders, but even Maestricht and Noyon, although
bishoprics, were yet partly heathen. Quarrels with King Dagobert, and
banishment for a time (629) turned him to other fields. But both
around Ghent and at Maestricht where he was afterwards bishop (647)
he was unhappy in his work: the enforcement of baptism by royal order
under Dagobert may have been due to his suggestion, and at any rate it
explains his lack of success: spells of work on the Danube, in Carinthia,
at the mouth of the Scheldt and among the Basques varied a strange
career marked by restless energy and much wandering. After his death
a little more ground was gained under the direction of Cunibert of
Cologne, a church was built at Utrecht, and under the well-known
Eligius (bishop of Noyon, 64-1, and renowned as a silversmith) a better
foundation was laid. But the task was left unfinished until the following
century. Frisia was affected by the changes of Frankish politics.
Christian missions were both too fitful and too disconnected. A general
plan and organisation was needed.
In England, as the letter of Daniel bishop of Winchester to Boniface
(Ep. 23) shews, the methods of missions had been carefully thought out,
since the local conditions not only aroused enthusiasm to call forth
missionaries but gave them a training ground for their work. English-
men were learning at this very time what careful organisation and
ordered work could do. They had felt the benefit of fellowship with
Rome and its traditions while they had still the fresh energy of
## p. 535 (#567) ############################################
678-695] WilMbrord 535
younger tribes and growing states. This is the reason why in the
eighth century English missionaries take the place of the earlier Kelts.
And the field of labour seemed already fixed for them: they had
not forgotten the land from which they had come. Wilfrid landed in
Frisia (678) on his way to Rome—in order to avoid the enmity of
Ebroin, mayor of the palace—and stayed there a winter because of the
friendly welcome by Adelgis the king (who refused to sell his guest)
and his people. This was only an episode. Ecgbert, a Northumbrian
who was afterwards to go to Iona, who had lived long in Ireland and
pledged himself to pilgrimage, was hindered by visions and by storms
from a long desired journey to Frisia: in his place he sent a pupil
Wicbert who only stayed two years and then went home again. This
failure only caused Ecgbert to send another mission of twelve monks.
The leader of it, Willibrord, was a Northumbrian whose father Wilgils
in old age became a hermit at the Humber's mouth. He had been
educated up to the age of twenty at Ripon—Wilfrid's old monastic
home—and afterwards in Ireland (c. 678). He landed and went to
Utrecht, now held by Radbod the Frisian king, who must have regained
territory, for Utrecht had formerly been a Frankish town. But Frisia
beyond it was lost to the Franks as the result of a war which was just
ended and had naturally left ill-will behind it. The defeated Radbod
was little likely to favour the faith of his Frankish enemies, and
Willibrord saw a chance of securer work under Frankish protection.
He therefore journeyed to Pepin, who promised him help for a work
which was of interest to both of them. Willibrord shared the enthusiasm
of Wilfrid and Boniface for Rome—and indeed others, the Irish
Adamnan and Ecgbert for instance, were turning towards Rome and
unity. Accordingly Willibrord went to Rome to get consent for his
mission, thus beginning the policy which Winfrid afterwards carried out
on a larger scale.
Success soon made organisation desirable: the monks elected one
Suidbert as their future bishop and he passed across to England to
be consecrated there by Wilfrid. But after his return difficulties seem
to have arisen and the new bishop left Frisia in order to preach to
the Bructeri: a little later we find Pepin, like the earlier kings, taking
the organisation into his own hands and sending Willibrord to Rome
for consecration (22 Nov. 695) as archbishop of a province to include
both Frankish and independent Frisia. Willibrord, who at his con-
secration took the name of Clement, received the pall at Rome, and
from Pepin as his seat Utrecht, where he built a cathedral and
a monastery. A native church began, and soon he felt able to devote
himself to the Frisians in Radbod's territory since Radbod himself
was now friendly to the Franks, and his daughter Theutsind had
married Pepin's son Grimoald. But here Willibrord's success was
small: Radbod was indifferent although not hostile and Willibrord
CH. XVI (b).
## p. 536 (#568) ############################################
536 Winfrid [714-719
went on further to preach to the Danes. Their country too he left and
on his return to Frisia landed on the coast: by venturing to baptise
some converts in a holy well he awoke the anger of the heathen and
they sought to have him put to death by Radbod. The king however
spared his life, but as the hopes of any work among the free Frisians
now seemed hopeless he went back to Utrecht. After Pepin's death
(16 Dec. 714) the quarrel between his sons enabled Radbod to regain
the part of Frisia held by the Franks. The church had gained no real
hold among the natives: Willibrord had left, the priests were put to
flight, and the land once more under the sway of a heathen king
became heathen too. It was now that Winfrid came.
Winfrid was born near Crediton (c. 680) of a noble English family:
after education first in a monastery at Exeter and then at Nutshall
(Nutsall, Netley or Nursling ? ) he was ordained, and employed in
important affairs. But above the claims of learning and the chance of
a great career at home he felt the missionary's call to the wild. From
London he sailed to Frisia (716): here he stayed for part of a year
until on the outbreak of a Frankish war he went back to his West-
Saxon monastery. On the death of his old master Winbert the monks
wished to make him abbot, but his future work lay plain before him
and he refused. He sought letters of commendation from Daniel,
bishop of Winchester—a man of much learning and experience to
whom Bede owed much information—and with these (718) he went
abroad again. But this time passing through Frankland he went to
Rome, to visit the threshold of the Apostles. Here he saw Gregory II,
and from him he received as "Bonifatius1 the religious priest1''—the
name by which he was henceforth known—a letter of commendation
(15 May 719). The journey was a common one for an Englishman of
the day, but Boniface with his strong wish for missionary work reached
Rome when the Papacy was turning towards plans of organisation.
Furthermore between him and the Pope a friendship and even a fellow-
ship began.
Taking this new line of organisation under papal guidance Boniface
went to Thuringia, where the natives, in new seats, and pressed upon by
Franks and Saxons, had partly received and then soon lost Christianity.
To win back their leaders was Boniface's new task: the land was
disordered in politics and religion alike: heathenism was found side by
side with Christianity of strange types. From Thuringia Boniface
started for the Frankish court, but on the way he heard of Rad bod's
death, which might make Frisia a more fruitful field. Already Willi-
brord, working like Boniface himself under papal sanction, had been
consecrated Archbishop of Utrecht, and to his help Boniface now went.
When after a three years' stay Willibrord would have had him as
1 For the name see Loofs, Der Beiname rfe* Apostels der Deuttchen, Z. K. 6. (18ifi),
pp. 623-31, and Hauck, K. G. D. I. p. 458 n. 1.
## p. 537 (#569) ############################################
722] Boniface 537
coadjutor he pleaded the papal command: he sought leave to depart
and passed to Hesse. This was ground more unworked than Thuringia,
for the people had kept their older seats and with them their old
customs, but it might link Saxony to the Frankish Church. So great
was his success—thousands being baptised—that he could soon think of
organising a bishopric. He sent a report to Rome and in reply was
called thither himself. On his way he probably met1 Charles Martel,
and at Rome he was consecrated (St Andrew's day, 722 or less probably
723). At his consecration he took an oath much like that taken by
the suburbicarian bishops, and thus pledged himself to work as a
bishop under papal direction. But by a significant change the promise
of fidelity to the Eastern Emperor was left out and its place taken by
a promise to hold no intercourse with bishops who disobeyed the canons,
to work against them and to denounce them to the Pope. The new
bishop received letters of commendation to all who could help his work
in Germany and especially to Charles Martel. Henceforth Boniface
could depend even more than before upon papal direction, help and
sympathy: we find him, like St Augustine of Canterbury, sending
difficulties to Rome for decision. As he was to build up a church
which was suffering from Keltic disorder and Frankish negligence, a
collection of canons was a natural papal gift to him.
Boniface now begins a new stage of his work, no longer as a mere
missionary pioneer but rather as a missionary statesman in the service
of Rome. For his new plans and his new office state support was
needed. Backed by a letter from Charles Martel, Boniface went to
Hesse to weld together the scattered links of his earlier work. Some
twenty years later he wrote to Daniel of Winchester: "Without the
patronage of the Prince of the Franks I am able neither to rule the
people of the church nor to defend" the priests or deacons, the monks
or nuns: and I am not powerful enough to hinder the very rites of the
pagans and the sacrileges of idols in Germany without his order and the
dread of him. " The boldness he shewed in felling the sacred oak at
Geismar led the heathen to think their gods had lost their power, and
from these successes in Hesse Boniface passed to Thuringia. In each
district he founded schools of learning and of training for his converts:
Amanaburg and Fritzlar in Hesse, Ohrdruff in Thuringia: for women,
Tauberbischofsheim, Kitzingen and Ochsenfurt, three foundations near
the Main. These were founded before his organisation of Bavaria, and
his favourite house Fulda was specially planned to foster Christian
civilisation and to be a monastic model. This side of Boniface's work is
sometimes overlooked in comparison with his ordering of dioceses, but
1 Hauck, i. pp. 463 n. 3 and 464 n. 1.
* Ep. 63, p. 329 (Diimmler). The omission of defendere in one MS. would
make the passage even more emphatic as to the need of state support (as suggested
by Browne, Boniface of Urediton, p. 62).
ch. xvi (b).
## p. 538 (#570) ############################################
538 Organisation of Sees [731-741
the two were really complementary: on the monastic side he entered
into the heritage of the Keltic monks to whom, when there was no
question of disorder or irregularity, he was by no means an enemy.
At Fulda Sturm, a Bavarian of his own training, ruled: there and else-
where helpers from England, some of them bound to Boniface by ties of
blood, and all by kinship in devotion, made new homes for themselves:
Burchard, Lul, Denehard, Willibald, Wicbert among the men: Lioba
and Walpurgis among the women. With England a lively interchange
of letters was kept up: some of his English friends came out to him as
they gradually lost their kinsfolk by death, and others came because of
their love for him. But in either case they helped to strengthen associa-
tions which were of political as well as religious power. Boniface
himself was strong enough to award praise and blame to English kings;
he himself, his comrades and his work gave England some hold upon
continental life.
On the death of Gregory II (11 Feb. 731) Gregory III succeeded,
a true successor in his care for Germany. When Boniface declared to
him that the burden of his growing work was becoming too heavy, the
papal answer was (732) to make him Archbishop, although with no
defined province, so that he could the better call fellow-labourers to his
help. In the few following years we must probably place much of
Boniface's work in furthering his foundations, and some of his letters
of the time shew him turned to reading and study of questions raised
by his pastoral work.
