Early Britain Anglo-Saxon Britain

CHAPTER IX.

THE CON­VER­SION OF THE EN­GLISH.

It was im­pos­si­ble that a coun­try ly­ing with­in sight of the or­tho­dox Frank­ish king­dom, and en­closed be­tween two Chris­tian Church­es on ei­ther side, should long re­main in such a state of iso­lat­ed hea­then­dom. For to be cut off from Chris­ten­dom was to be cut off from the whole so­cial, po­lit­ical, in­tel­lec­tu­al, and com­mer­cial life of the civilised world. In Britain, as dis­tinct­ly as in the Pa­cif­ic Is­lands in our own day, the mis­sion­ary was the pi­oneer of civil­isa­tion. The change which Chris­tian­ity wrought in Eng­land in a few gen­er­ations was al­most as enor­mous as the change which it has wrought in Hawaii at the present time. Be­fore the ar­rival of the mis­sion­ary, there was no writ­ten lit­er­ature, no in­dus­tri­al arts, no peace, no so­cial in­ter­course be­tween dis­trict and dis­trict. The church came as a teach­er and civilis­er, and in a few years the bar­barous hea­then En­glish war­rior had set­tled down in­to a toil­some agri­cul­tur­ist, an ea­ger schol­ar, a peace­ful law-​giv­er, or an earnest priest. The change was not mere­ly a change of re­li­gion, it was a rev­olu­tion from a life of bar­barism to a life of in­cip­ient cul­ture, and slow but pro­gres­sive civil­isa­tion.

So in­evitable was the Chris­tian­isa­tion of Eng­land, that even while the flood of pa­gan­ism was pour­ing west­ward, the east was be­gin­ning to re­ceive the faith of Rome from the Frank­ish king­dom and from Italy. It has been nec­es­sary, in­deed, to an­tic­ipate a lit­tle, in or­der to show the sto­ry of the con­quest in its true light. Ten years be­fore the hea­then Æthel­frith of Northum­bria mas­sa­cred the Welsh monks at Chester, Au­gus­tine had brought Chris­tian­ity to the peo­ple of Kent.

In 596, Gre­go­ry the Great de­ter­mined to send a mis­sion to Eng­land. Even be­fore that time, Kent had been in clos­er union with the Con­ti­nent than any oth­er part of the coun­try. Trade went on with the kin­dred Sax­on coast of the Frank­ish king­dom, and Æthel­ber­ht, the am­bi­tious Ken­tish king, and over-​lord of all Eng­land south of the Hum­ber, had even mar­ried Berc­ta, a daugh­ter of the Frank­ish king of Paris. Berc­ta was of course a Chris­tian, and she brought her own Frank­ish chap­lain, who of­fi­ci­at­ed in the old Ro­man church of St. Mar­tin, at Can­ter­bury. But Gre­go­ry's mis­sion was on a far larg­er scale. Au­gus­tine, pri­or of the monastery on the Cœlian Hill, was sent with forty monks to con­vert the hea­then En­glish. They land­ed in Thanet, in 597, with all the pomp of Ro­man civil­isa­tion and ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal sym­bol­ism. Gre­go­ry had right­ly de­ter­mined to try by rit­ual and show to im­press the bar­bar­ian mind. Æthel­ber­ht, al­ready pre­dis­posed to ac­cept the Con­ti­nen­tal cul­ture, and to as­sim­ilate his rude king­dom to the Ro­man mod­el, met them in the open air at a solemn meet­ing; for he feared, says Bæ­da, to meet them with­in four walls, lest they should prac­tice in­can­ta­tions up­on him. The for­eign monks ad­vanced in pro­ces­sion to the king's pres­ence, chant­ing their lita­nies, and dis­play­ing a sil­ver cross. Æthel­ber­ht yield­ed al­most at once. He and all his court be­came Chris­tians; and the peo­ple, as is usu­al amongst bar­barous tribes, quick­ly con­formed to the faith of their rulers. Æthel­ber­ht gave the mis­sion­ar­ies leave to build new church­es, or to re­pair the old ones erect­ed by the Welsh Chris­tians. Au­gus­tine re­turned to Gaul, where he was con­se­crat­ed as Arch­bish­op of the En­glish na­tion, at Ar­les. Kent be­came thence­forth a part of the great Con­ti­nen­tal sys­tem. Can­ter­bury has ev­er since re­mained the metropo­lis of the En­glish Church; and the mod­ern arch­bish­ops trace back their suc­ces­sion di­rect­ly to St. Au­gus­tine.

For awhile, the young Church seemed to make vig­or­ous progress. Au­gus­tine built a monastery at Can­ter­bury, where Æthel­ber­ht found­ed a new church to SS. Pe­ter and Paul, to be a sort of West­min­ster Abbey for the tombs of all fu­ture Ken­tish kings and arch­bish­ops. He al­so re­stored an old Ro­man church in the city. The pope sent him sacra­men­tal ves­sels, al­tar cloths, or­na­ments, relics, and, above all, many books. Ten years lat­er, Au­gus­tine en­larged his mis­sion­ary field by or­dain­ing two new bish­ops–Mel­li­tus, to preach to the East Sax­ons, “whose metropo­lis,” says Bæ­da, “is the city of Lon­don, which is the mart of many na­tions, re­sort­ing to it by sea and land;” and Jus­tus to the epis­co­pal see of West Kent, with his bish­op-​stool at Rochester. The East Sax­ons nom­inal­ly ac­cept­ed the faith at the bid­ding of their over-​lord, Æthel­ber­ht; but the peo­ple of Lon­don long re­mained pa­gans at heart. On Au­gus­tine's death, how­ev­er, all life seemed again to die out of the strug­gling mis­sion. Lau­ren­tius, who suc­ceed­ed him, found the labour too great for his weak­er hands. In 613 Æthel­ber­ht died, and his son Ead­bald at once apo­sta­tised, re­turn­ing to the wor­ship of Woden and the an­ces­tral gods. The East Sax­ons drove out Mel­li­tus, who, with Jus­tus, re­tired to Gaul; and Arch­bish­op Lau­ren­tius him­self was mind­ed to fol­low them. Then the Ken­tish king, ad­mon­ished by a dream of the arch­bish­op's, made sub­mis­sion, re­called the tru­ant bish­ops, and re­stored Jus­tus to Rochester. The Lon­don­ers, how­ev­er, would not re­ceive back Mel­li­tus, “choos­ing rather to be un­der their idol­atrous high-​priests.” Soon Lau­ren­tius died too, and Mel­li­tus was called to take his place, and con­se­crat­ed at last a church in Lon­don in the monastery of St. Pe­ter. In 624, the third arch­bish­op was car­ried off by gout, and Jus­tus of Rochester suc­ceed­ed to the pri­ma­cy of the strug­gling church. Up to this point lit­tle had been gained, ex­cept the con­ver­sion of Kent it­self, with its de­pen­dent king­dom of Es­sex–the two parts of Eng­land in clos­est union with the Con­ti­nent, through the mer­can­tile in­ter­course by way of Lon­don and Rich­bor­ough.

Un­der the new pri­mate, how­ev­er, an un­ex­pect­ed open­ing oc­curred for the con­ver­sion of the North. The Northum­bri­an kings had now risen to the first place in Britain. Æthel­frith had done much to es­tab­lish their suprema­cy; un­der Ead­wine it rose to a height of ac­knowl­edged over-​lord­ship. “As an earnest of this king's fu­ture con­ver­sion and trans­la­tion to the king­dom of heav­en,” says Bæ­da, with par­don­able Northum­bri­an pa­tri­ot­ic pride, “even his tem­po­ral pow­er was al­lowed to in­crease great­ly, so that he did what no En­glish­man had done be­fore–that is to say, he unit­ed un­der his own over-​lord­ship all the provinces of Britain, whether in­hab­it­ed by En­glish or by Welsh.” Ead­wine now took in mar­riage Æthel­burh, daugh­ter of Æthel­ber­ht, and sis­ter of the reign­ing Ken­tish king. Jus­tus seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­tro­duce the Church in­to Northum­bria. He or­dained one Pauli­nus as bish­op, to ac­com­pa­ny the Chris­tian la­dy, to watch over her faith, and if pos­si­ble to con­vert her hus­band and his peo­ple.

Gre­go­ry had planned his scheme with sys­tem­at­ic com­plete­ness; he had de­cid­ed that there should be two metropoli­tan provinces, of York and Lon­don (which he knew as the old Ro­man cap­itals of Britain), and that each should con­sist of twelve epis­co­pal sees. Pauli­nus now went to York in fur­ther­ance of this com­pre­hen­sive but abortive scheme. A mirac­ulous es­cape from as­sas­si­na­tion, or what was re­put­ed one, gave the Ro­man monk a hold over Ead­wine's mind; but the king de­cid­ed to put off his con­ver­sion till he had tried the ef­fi­ca­cy of the new faith by a prac­ti­cal ap­peal. He went on an ex­pe­di­tion against the treach­er­ous king of the West Sax­ons, who had en­deav­oured to as­sas­si­nate him, and de­ter­mined to abide by the re­sult. Hav­ing over­thrown his en­emy with great slaugh­ter, he re­turned to his roy­al city of Con­ings­bor­ough (the king's town), and put him­self as a cat­echu­men un­der the care of Pauli­nus. The pope him­self was in­duced to in­ter­est him­self in so promis­ing a con­vert; and he wrote a cou­ple of briefs to Ead­wine and his queen. These let­ters, the orig­inals of which were care­ful­ly pre­served at Rome, are copied out in full by Bæ­da. No doubt, the hon­our of re­ceiv­ing such an epis­tle from the pon­tiff of the Eter­nal City was not with­out its ef­fect up­on the se­mi-​bar­bar­ic mind of Ead­wine, who seems in some re­spects to have in­her­it­ed the old Ro­man tra­di­tions of Ebo­racum.

Still the king held back. To change his own faith was to change the faith of the whole na­tion, and he thought it well to con­sult his wi­tan. The old En­glish as­sem­bly was al­ways aris­to­crat­ic in char­ac­ter, de­spite its os­ten­si­ble democ­ra­cy, for it con­sist­ed on­ly of the heads of fam­ilies; and as the king­doms grew larg­er, their aris­to­crat­ic char­ac­ter nec­es­sar­ily be­came more pro­nounced, as on­ly the wealth­ier per­sons could be in at­ten­dance up­on the king. The folk-​moot had grown in­to the wite­na-​gemot, or as­sem­bly of wise men. Ead­wine as­sem­bled such a meet­ing on the banks of the Der­went–for moots were al­ways held in the open air at some sa­cred spot–and there the priests and theg­ns de­clared their will­ing­ness to ac­cept the new re­li­gion. Coifi, chief priest of the hea­then gods, him­self led the way, and flung a lance in de­ri­sion at the tem­ple of his own deities. To the sur­prise of all, the gods did not avenge the in­sult. There­upon “King Æduin, with all the no­bles and most of the com­mon folk of his na­tion, re­ceived the faith and the font of holy re­gen­er­ation, in the eleventh year of his reign, which is the year of our Lord's in­car­na­tion the six hun­dred and twen­ty-​sev­enth, and about the hun­dred and eight­ieth af­ter the ar­rival of the En­glish in Britain. He was bap­tized at York on East­er-​day, the first be­fore the Ides of April (April 12), in the church of St. Pe­ter the Apos­tle, which he him­self had hasti­ly built of wood, while he was be­ing cat­echised and pre­pared for Bap­tism; and in the same city he gave the bish­opric to his prelate and spon­sor Pauli­nus. But af­ter his Bap­tism he took care, by Pauli­nus's di­rec­tion, to build a larg­er and fin­er church of stone, in the midst where­of his orig­inal chapel should be en­closed.” To this day, York Min­ster, the lin­eal de­scen­dant of Ead­wine's wood­en church, re­mains ded­icat­ed to St. Pe­ter; and the arch­bish­ops still sit in the bish­op-​stool of Pauli­nus. Part of Ead­wine's lat­er stone cathe­dral was dis­cov­ered un­der the ex­ist­ing choir dur­ing the re­pairs ren­dered nec­es­sary by the in­cen­di­ary Mar­tin. As to the hea­then tem­ple, its traces still re­mained even in Bæ­da's day. “That place, for­mer­ly the abode of idols, is now point­ed out not far from York to the west­ward, be­yond the riv­er Dor­nu­en­tio, and is to-​day called God­mundin­ga­ham, where the priest him­self, through the in­spi­ra­tion of the true God, pol­lut­ed and de­stroyed the al­tars which he him­self had con­se­crat­ed.” So close did Bæ­da live to these ear­ly hea­then En­glish times. From the date of St. Au­gus­tine's ar­rival, in­deed, Bæ­da stands up­on the sur­er ground of al­most con­tem­po­rary nar­ra­tive.

Still the greater part of En­glish Britain re­mained hea­then. Kent, Es­sex, and Northum­bria were con­vert­ed, or at least their kings and no­bles had been bap­tised: but East An­glia, Mer­cia, Sus­sex, Wes­sex, and the mi­nor in­te­ri­or prin­ci­pal­ities were as yet whol­ly hea­then. In­deed, the var­ious Teu­ton­ic colonies seemed to have re­ceived Chris­tian­ity in the ex­act or­der of their set­tle­ment: the old­er and more civilised first, the new­er and rud­er last. Pauli­nus, how­ev­er, made an­oth­er con­quest for the church in Lind­sey (Lin­colnshire), “where the first who be­lieved,” says the Chron­icle, “was a cer­tain great man who hight Blec­ca, with all his clan.” In the very same year with these suc­cess­es, Jus­tus died, and Hon­orius re­ceived the See of Can­ter­bury from Pauli­nus at the old Ro­man city of Lin­coln. So far the Ro­man mis­sion­ar­ies re­mained the on­ly Chris­tian teach­ers in Eng­land: no En­glish con­vert seems as yet to have tak­en holy or­ders.

Again, how­ev­er, the church re­ceived a se­vere check. Mer­cia, the youngest and rough­est prin­ci­pal­ity, stood out for hea­then­dom. The west­ern colony was be­gin­ning to raise it­self in­to a great pow­er, un­der its fierce and strong old king Pen­da, who seems to have con­sol­idat­ed all the pet­ty chief­tain­ships of the Mid­lands in­to a sin­gle fair­ly co­her­ent king­dom. Pen­da hat­ed Northum­bria, which, un­der Ead­wine, had made it­self the chief En­glish state: and he al­so hat­ed Chris­tian­ity, which he knew on­ly as a re­li­gion fit for Welsh slaves, not for En­glish war­riors. For twen­ty-​two years, there­fore, the old hea­then king waged an un­tir­ing war against Chris­tian Northum­bria. In 633, he al­lied him­self with Cad­wal­la, the Chris­tian Welsh king of Gwynedd, or North Wales, in a war against Ead­wine; an al­liance which sup­plies one more proof that the gulf be­tween Welsh and En­glish was not so wide as it is some­times rep­re­sent­ed to be. The Welsh and Mer­cian host met the Northum­bri­ans at Heath­field (per­haps Hat­field Chase) and ut­ter­ly de­stroyed them. Ead­wine him­self and his son Os­frith were slain. Pen­da and Cad­wal­la “fared thence, and un­did all Northum­bria.” The coun­try was once more di­vid­ed in­to Deira and Ber­ni­cia, and two hea­then rulers suc­ceed­ed to the north­ern king­dom. Pauli­nus, tak­ing Æthel­burh, the wid­ow of Ead­wine, went by sea to Kent, where Hon­orius, whom he had him­self con­se­crat­ed, re­ceived him cor­dial­ly, and gave him the va­cant see of Rochester. There he re­mained till his death, and so for a time end­ed the Chris­tian mis­sion to York. Pen­da made the best of his vic­to­ry by an­nex­ing the Southum­bri­ans, the Mid­dle En­glish, and the Lindis­waras, as well as by con­quer­ing the Sev­ern Val­ley from the West Sax­ons. Hence­forth, Mer­cia stands forth as one of the three lead­ing Teu­ton­ic states in Britain.