CHAPTER IV THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH Preaching of Augustine and of the Celtic Missionaries-Synod of WhitbyOrganisation of the Church of Theodoric --Influence of the ChurchSupremacy of the Northumbrians, then of the Mercians, then of the West Saxons under Egbert. Roman MEANWHILE, in the old and long settled kingdom of Kent a change had been taking place which, in a certain sense, was undoing the work of those who had broken down the civilisation of Rome and replaced it by Teutonic barbarism; for between the battles of Dyrham and Chester the introduction of Christianity by Roman missionaries began the process of restoring Britain to a place in the civilised world. Christianity had been introduced into Britain during the Roman occupation; but Christianity. it is not known how far it had been accepted by the mass of the people, and it is singular that no Christian emblems have been found in excavating among Roman remains. However, on the retirement of the Romans and the flight of the Britons, Christianity vanished from southern Britain, and the crumbling ruins of a few churches alone remained to show that it had ever existed. So complete was the severance between the Britons and the English that no attempt was made by the former to preach the Gospel to the invaders. Their missionary activity was confined to spreading the faith among the more backward sections of their own countrymen. David, said to have been a relation of the Welsh chief Cunedda, preached to the Goidels of South Wales; Ninias, the founder of the monastery of Whithern, converted the rude tribes of Galloway; and Patrick, a native of Dunbarton (Brythons-town) at the mouth of the Clyde, won the Goidels of Ireland to the Christian faith. Before the close of the sixth century all the Britons who lived either in Ireland or south of the Firth of Clyde were nominally converted to Christianity. The Scots of Argyll, however, and the other inhabitants of northern Scotland were still heathen. However, in 563, St. Columba, David. Ninias. Patrick. Columba. an Irishman from Ulster, the greatest of the Celtic missionaries, attempted their conversion, and, having persuaded their king to give him the island of Iona, built upon it a monastery which for several centuries was a home of missionary effort. In his immediate neighbourhood Columba converted the Celts, and then passed on to address himself to the Picts of the north, to whom he could speak only through an interpreter. But though Columba went so far afield in search of converts, it does not appear that he made any advances to the English conquerors; and two other great Irishmen, St. Columban and St. Gall, passed England by for the field of Continental labour. Gregory the Mission of However, according to the well-known tale, the little slave boys, captives in a civil war between the Anglian kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira, attracted the pity of Gregory, a Roman priest, the greatest ecclesiastic of the time; and in the very year of Great. Columba's death, Gregory (now pope) despatched the monk Augustine and his followers to win back to Christendom the lost isle of Britain. So ignorant were the Italians, and so credulous Augustine. were the missionaries of Gallic stories of English barbarity, that for a time Augustine hung back, and only the positive orders of Gregory compelled him to proceed. The mission was directed to Ethelbert, king of Kent. That sovereign was by no means ignorant of Christianity, for he had married Bertha, a Christian lady, the daughter of Charibert the Frank, king of Paris, and she was allowed by her husband to practise her religion. In 597, Augustine and his forty followers, all monks like himself, landed in the island of Thanet. For fear of magic Ethelbert received them sitting in the open air; and, having heard Augustine's sermon, and seen the image of the Saviour painted upon a board, and listened to the harmonious chanting of the monks, he made, as reported by Bede, who learned the tradition of it from successors of Augustine, the following wise speech: 'Your words and promises are very fair, but as they are new to us and of uncertain import, I cannot approve of them so far as to forsake what I have so long followed with the whole English nation. But because you are come from far unto my kingdom, and, as I conceive, are desirous to impart unto us those things which you believe to be true, and most beneficial, we will not molest you, but give you favourable entertainment, and take care to supply you with your necessary sustenance; nor do we forbid you to preach and gain as many as you can to your religion.' The monastic simplicity of the apostles of the new faith, and their manifest of the Kentintention of practising in their own persons the virtues they prescribed to others, won many converts. Before long Ethelbert Conversion ishmen. himself accepted the new religion, and Kent was reckoned to be the firstfruits of the conversion of the English. On hearing of their success, Gregory wrote to the missionaries a series of very politic directions for their future conduct, and also sent a letter of advice to Ethelbert himself. He counselled the missionGregory's Instructions. aries to utilise as far as possible not only the fabrics of the Pagan temples but also the habit of attending them at certain times for religious purposes. The buildings, he directed, were to be purified and a Christian turn given to the old ceremonial; for, wrote Gregory, 'it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds; because he who endeavours to ascend to the highest place rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps. To the king, however, he enjoins the duty of putting down the worship of idols with a stern hand, coupling it, however, with that of setting to his subjects the example of a Christian life. Having apparently no clear notion of the political divisions of the English, Gregory was in expectation that the conversion of the whole race would follow immediately on that of the Kentishmen, and accordingly he devised a constitution for the English Church based on that supposition. There were to be two archbishoprics, York and London, of which the primacy was to be enjoyed by the senior of the two archbishops for the time being. Together they were to direct the affairs of the English Church, and each was to consecrate twelve suffragan bishops who were to act as his synod. This plan, however, was too comprehensive and far-seeing to square with the actual possibilities of the case; and Augustine found it better to make Canterbury, Ethelbert's capital, the metropolitan see, and during his own lifetime he was only able to place suffragans at Rochester and London. Augustine was soon called upon to face the difficulty created by the existence in the island of a British church. This church had no connection with that of Gregory, from which it had been separated Christians. for nearly two centuries by a gulf of barbarian heathenism. In their isolation the British Christians had retained several practices which had been discarded at Rome. They did not keep Easter according to the newest calculation, and they shaved the heads of their clergy in an unusual pattern. According to Bede, St. Augustine met the leaders of the British clergy at a place which was called Augustine's Oak, now Aust, and began by brotherly admonitions to persuade them that, preserving Catholic unity with him, they should undertake the common labour of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. However, his advances were not favourably received; and after a second failure the division between the two churches became even more marked-so much so that when the monks of Bangor were slain by Ethelfrith at the battle of Celtic Chester, the Roman missionaries regarded their fate as a judgment of God. A similar advance to the Irish church was equally unavailing, so the Welsh and Irish continued for many years to work on different lines from the Anglican churches. Death of In the year 616 Ethelbert died. As Bede quaintly puts it, 'He was the third of the English kings that had the rule of all the southern provinces that are divided from the northern by the river Humber; but the first of the kings that ascended to the heavenly kingdom.' A pagan reaction followed his death, and spread to the neighbouring kingdom of Essex. Augustine was Pagan dead; the bishops of London and Rochester fled to the Continent, and Lawrence of Canterbury was on the point of departure when he was stayed by the appearance of a vision. His decision was justified by the event, and the church, though not so prosperous as it had been in the days of Ethelbert, succeeded in holding its ground. Reaction. Meanwhile, political events were bringing about a new opportunity for missionary enterprise. From the earliest landing of the English the wars for supremacy among themselves had been as frequent as those with the Britons, and now one king and now another had gained authority over the neighbouring states. The king who for the time being exercised supreme authority, styled himself Bretwalda-a The Bretword of doubtful meaning, sometimes interpreted as ruler walda. of Britain, sometimes as broad-ruler. Among those who exercised such a leadership south of the Humber, Bede names Ella, king of the SouthSaxons, Ceawlin, king of the West-Saxons, Ethelbert of Kent, and Redwald of East-Anglia. A still more extensive sway was exercised by the great Edwin of Northumbria, who 'commanded all the nations as well of the English as of the Britons, except only the people of Kent. However, between Northumbria and Kent an alliance was made. Paulinus. A marriage was arranged between Edwin and Ethelburga, daughter of Ethelbert, but it was stipulated that she should follow her own faith; and in the year 625 she set out, taking with her as her chaplain a follower of Augustine, named Paulinus, who had been consecrated bishop. Edwin, who is represented as being a man of most honourable feeling, and of an original and independent turn of mind, reserved his opinion on the new faith; and though he listened to the eager arguments of Paulinus, 'being a man of extraordinary sagacity, he often sat alone by himself a long time, silent as to his tongue, but deliberating in heart how he should proceed, and to which religion he should adhere.' No efforts were spared to gain so valuable a convert. The pope himself addressed long and excellent Coifi's letters both to the king and to the queen, and sent to Edwin some clothes and a gold ornament, and to Ethelburga a silver looking-glass and a gilt ivory comb. An escape from assassination, the birth of a daughter, and a decisive victory over the West-Saxons also influenced the king; and at length he took council with his wise men, who seem to have been as shrewd and serious as their master. One of Speech. them, Coifi the high priest, declared he could see little value in the old faith, or he, the most diligent of its votaries, would be in greater prosperity than he was; and another of finer mould pronounced a parable which will never be forgotten for its beauty: 'The present life of man seems to me, O king, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your captains and ministers of state, and a good fire in the midst, while the storms of wind and snow rage abroad: the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from which he had escaped. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before or what is to follow we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.' Paulinus was then called in to state his views, and after hearing them Coifi was the first man to desecrate the of the North- temples of the heathen deities. Edwin himself accepted umbrians. the new creed, and his subjects by the thousand presented themselves for baptism. A friend of Bede had actually spoken to one Conversion of these converts, who described Paulinus 'as tall of stature, a little stooping, his hair black, his visage meagre, his nose slender and aquiline, his aspect both venerable and majestic.' One advantage of the introduction of Christianity was that from that period we can rely upon documentary evidence, which is both truthful and well-informed, and so leave behind us the period of conjecture and myth. At the time when Edwin received Christianity, his authority was acknowledged as paramount by all the kingdoms of the English except Revolt of that of Kent, and also by the Britous; but about seven Penda. years afterwards a coalition was made against him by Cadwallon. Penda, king of the Mercians, and the British king Cad wallon (Cadwalla). They fought against the Northumbrians at Hatfield, on the Roman road between Doncaster and Lincoln. Edwin was defeated and killed; and Cadwallon, who, according to Bede, was more cruel to the English Christians than if he had been a heathen, ravaged |