бол. 5. The massacre of the British clergy: this ascribed to Augustin: the grounds of that charge. Augustin said by some writers to go to York, and baptize some of the northern English: the grounds of that and other mistakes concerning Augustin. 6. Augustin consecrates three new bishops. The death of Augustin: the difference about the time thereof. Part of the kingdom of Kent only converted by him. The state of the church at his death. 7. Laurentius succeeds Augustin; follows his steps; attempts to bring the Scots and Britons to own his authority; is unsuccessful. The Scottish clergy refuse all conversation with the Romish missionaries. 8. The people of Essex and Middlesex converted by Mellitus. His see fixed at London. A cathedral church dedicated to St. Paul there built. Boniface bishop of Roine obtains the title of universal bishop. The gospel makes no progress in England. 9. Ethelbert dies, and paganism revives in Kent. Mellitus driven from his see. The people of Essex and Middlesex cast off their Christianity. The missionaries despair of preserving the new church, and agree to leave England and return to Rome. The bishops of London and Rochester fly to France. 10. Laurentius archbishop of Canterbury prepares to leave England; is prevented by a pretended vision; converts the new king of Kent, and brings back part of the people of that kingdom to the Christian faith. The bishops of London and Rochester are recalled from France. The people of London return to their idolatry; refuse to receive their bishop. The sad state of the church at the death of Laurentius archbishop of Canterbury. Paulinus made a 11. Mellitus made archbishop of Canterbury. bishop, and sent to the court of the king of Northumberland: the occasion thereof. He baptizes the daughter of that prince. 12. Edwin king of the Northumbrians converted: the means and consequences thereof. The people of York and a great part of the north follow his example. An episcopal see founded at York: Paulinus made bishop thereof. Honorius bishop of Rome sends him a pall, and pretended to make him an archbishop. 13. The king of the East-Angles is converted; and with him part of Norfolk and Suffolk. Some parts of Lincolnshire converted by Paulinus. Honorius archbishop of Canterbury consecrated at Lincoln. 14. The people of the north return to idolatry. Paulinus their bishop flies to Kent, and is made bishop of Rochester. 15. The people of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Lincolnshire, relapse to paganism. 1. AUGUSTIN having received the aforesaid powers and instructions from Gregory presently applied himself to put them into practice. And the Britons were the first subject of his care whether it was that the enlarging of his own authority, and of the authority of him that sent him, by the submission of the British church, being thought of greater moment than the enlarging the kingdom of Christ by the conversion of the pagan English, gave beginning to this zeal of Augustin; or whether it was the interest of the prince who had received him into his dominions, and would doubtless have found his account in it had the Britons submitted to the archbishop of his kingdom. These are questions which the conduct of Augustin would very naturally lead one to: and the ambition and vanity of the man, and the authority of the bishops of Rome, had so visible an interest in the zeal of that prelate, as would almost tempt one to think it was some such consideration gave beginning to it. But, whatever his views were, having the favour and interest of Ethelbert, he made use of them to obtain a conference with the Britons in the year 6011. Their meeting-place was from thence in after-times called Augustinsac, or Augustin'sOak, in the confines of the Wiccii and West-Saxons 2. The council being assembled, Augustin proposed, first, that the Britons should embrace the unity of the catholic church, and then join with them in preaching to the English. Bede saith of the Britons, they did many things contrary to the unity of the church, besides their not observing the feast of Easter in a due manner3: so that, however reasonable the first proposition of Augustin may appear at first sight, upon a just consideration thereof it appears a very artful and comprehensive article, and such as must necessarily draw after it consequences of the first moment to the British church; and therefore, after all the persuasions, the arts, and reproaches of Augustin, and, as Bede saith, a miraculous curing of a blind man to prove the authority of his traditions, this meet 1 [The date of this conference is uncertain. Dr. Smith argues from the order of events in Bede, that it could not have taken place before the year 603, and that is the date under which it is related by Roger Wendover.] 2["In loco qui usque hodie lingua Anglorum 'Augustinaes ác', id est, robur Augustini, in confinio Huic ciorum et Occidentalium Saxonum, 3 Bed. ibid. 601. 601. ing came to no other issue but this, that the Britons would advise upon what had passed, and give Augustin a second meeting. 2. The Britons being returned, and having considered the importance of the matter with the application it deserved, they could not but be sensible, that the honour and interest of king Ethelbert were concerned in the success of it, and that their refusal might possibly draw the resentment of that prince upon them; and this consideration, together with the guilt of schism, which the consequence of Augustin's arguments charged upon them, did deserve their serious deliberation. Nor were they wanting therein; but, as Bede observes, after the matter had been well considered amongst themselves, they applied themselves to an anchoret of great reputation among them for his holiness and wisdom, and inquired of him whether they ought to quit the customs of their ancestors, and submit to Augustin. To which he answered, that, if Augustin was a man of God, they ought to follow him. And when the Britons replied, how should they know whether he was a man of God? he answered, they should judge of his character by the temper and conduct of the man that supported it; if he was meek and humble, he was the disciple of him who had taught men to know his yoke by the meekness and humility of those that bore it: and further added, that by the condescension and gentleness with which he treated them they should judge of his temper and spirit. After some time thus spent, seven of the British bishops, together with Dinoth abbot of Bangor and many other very learned men, came at the time and place appointed to give Augustin a second meeting 2. 3. The Britons having so contrived it that Augustin should be seated in the place of meeting before they entered, Augustin did not so much as rise from his seat to receive them; which, as Bede adds, raised the resentment of the Britons so far, that they set themselves to oppose the arguments of Au [This was the famous monastery of Bangor Iscoed on the Dee. The name of the abbot, who seems to have been likewise its founder, is variously spelt: Dunod, in Gunn's Preface to Nennius, p. xxiv; Du- gustin and his followers. However, after some time spent to no purpose, Augustin thus addressed himself to the Britons. "In many things," saith he, "you act contrary to our customs, and indeed to the usages of the universal church: notwithstanding if ye will obey me in these three things, viz. in observing the Easter festival after our manner; 2. using the same rites and ceremonies in baptism which are used by the holy Roman church and by the apostolic church; 3. and join with us in preaching to the English; in other things, which ye do contrary to our customs, we will bear with you." To all which the Britons answered, That they would not comply with him in any one of these particulars, nor own him for their archbishop. To whom Augustin replied with threats, That, if they would not accept of peace from their brethren, they must expect war from their enemies; and if they would not preach the word of life to the English, they should suffer death by their hands. 66 This is the account that Bede gives of this affair 2. is well observed by a late learned and judicious prelate from. Leland, "that the British writers give a more ample account of this matter than is extant in Bede,' who is" thought to be very sparing in what concerns the British affairs: but from" the British writers Leland observes, "that Dinoth did at large dispute with great learning and gravity against" the receiving the authority of the pope or of Augustin, and defended the power of the archbishop of St. David's, and affirmed it not [to be] for the British interest to own either 1 ["Ut ministerium baptizandi, quo Deo renascimur, juxta morem sanctæ Romanæ et apostolicæ ecclesiæ compleatis." The defect in the British administration of baptism here intended by Augustin is probably the same that Lanfranc, in his letter to Tirlagh king of Ireland nearly five centuries afterwards, complained of as still existing in the Irish church, "quod infantes baptismo sine chrismate consecrato bap tizantur." Lanfr. Epist. 38; Ussher, Vet. Epist. Hib. Syll., Epist. 27. For post-baptismal unction, whether reserved, as in some churches, to be administered by none but bishops, or allowed, as in others, to be given by presbyters, 2 Bed. ibid. 3 Stillingfleet, Orig. Brit. Ch. V, p. 359. [Leland de Script. Brit. c.44.] 601. 601. the Roman pride or the Saxon tyranny'"; and that they knew of no obedience due to him that Augustin called the pope, but what they owed to every Christian; for the British bishops had no superior but the bishop of Caerleon upon Usk1. And Giraldus Cambrensis, though a wonderful zealot for the authority of the bishops of Rome, has not only observed that Bede has nowhere mentioned any submission of the British churches to Augustin or his successors, though constituted metropolitans thereof by the bishops of Rome, but has given such proof that the British church was for several ages after the coming of Augustin governed by its own metropolitans without so much as owning the primacy of the archbishops of Canterbury 5, and his proofs are so well ascertained by matters of fact, that there seems no ground to doubt, but that church continued its freedom and independence till a change in the affairs of the British nation did in after ages bring both their church and state to submit to the English establishment. 4. These accounts lie so cross to the sentiments of those men who have formed a judgment of the ancient rights of the bishops of Rome from the power they have of late possessed or pretended to, that, as the aforesaid learned and judicious prelate has observed', great pains have been taken to obscure or pervert them. Sometimes they pretend, that Gregory did not give Augustin power over the British church; sometimes, that he did not insist upon it: sometimes they quarrel the manuscript from whence part of this account is 4 [Stillingfleet, ibid. p. 361. The last part of this sentence, and that they" &c., is not cited by him from Leland, but is the substance of Dinoth's answer as given from a Welsh MS. in] Concil. Britan. Spelman I, 108, [Wilkins I, 26. Dewi, better known to us as St. David, having succeeded Dyvrig or Dubricius in the ancient see of Caer Lleon upon Usk, removed it to Mynyw or Menevia, since called St. David's. But there is reason to think that his successors continued to style themselves by the ancient title, bishops or archbishops of Caer Lleon. For in the argument which Giraldus Cambrensis addressed to pope Innocent III in behalf of the Welsh church, after mentioning the removal of the see from Urbs Legionum (Caer Lleon) to Menevia, he says, "Habuimus autem apud Meneviam Urbis Legionum archiepiscopos successive XXV, quorum primus fuit Sanctus David." Angl. Sacr. II, 542. See also Bingham, Orig. Eccles. IX, i, 12. The Annales Cambria place the death of St. David in the year 601. See Lappenberg's Hist. Engl. tr. Thorpe, vol. I, p. 133, n. 2.] Grald. Cambrens. in Angl. Sacr. II, 542, 543. 1 Stillingfleet, ibid. pp. 357, 358. |