HISTORY

OF THE

DIOCESE OF CANTERBURY.

(Continued from page 283.)

UPWARDS of three-score years had not impaired the bodily activity of Theodore; and the apprehension that seems to have been entertained at Rome, of his leaning towards the eastern churches, which arose from his Asiatic birth, probably rendered him only the more prompt to vindicate his orthodoxy. The first duty which called for his exertions, was the visitation of Northumberland; where the interval that succeeded to the expulsion of Paulinus had not been altogether lost to the work of conversion. It is pleasing to derive, from those who regard the strenuous assertion of the independence of their churches as the stamp of schism upon the clergy of Iona, and their uncanonical observance of Easter as a vital error, the unsuspected testimony to the exemplary lives of Aidan and his followers during the reign of Oswald. The apostolical simplicity of their characters, however, both disqualified and disinclined them to compete with the dextrous controversialists who appeared against them in the synod of Whitby, and before whom they retraced their steps towards Scotland. Of these, Wilfred was immediately appointed to the see of York; but the short absence that was requisite for his consecration, served to prove that he had succeeded rather from the meekness of his competitors than from any preference for the Romish ritual; for, immediately upon his departure, the only disciple of Aidan that lingered behind was called by the Northumbrians to the episcopal office, and Wilfred, instead of returning among them, remained at Canterbury on the arrival of the new primate. The visitatorial censure of Theodore dismissed Ceadda from his see, and reinstated Wilfrid. But the meek spirit of the one was not more favourable to the confirmation of Theodore's jurisdiction than the arrogance of the other. Ceadda submitted, indeed, passively to the assumption; but Wilfred early incensed the king, and

the interference of the Primate was, then, not only sanctioned but solicited, and Wilfrid, in his turn, deposed.

It is probable that many of the primitive British clergy had, by this time, conceded the point of the observance of Easter; at any rate, Theodore thought fit to recognize many of them without too fastidious a scrutiny, and thereby laid the foundation of his jurisdiction in those kingdoms of the heptarchy, from which a less conciliatory measure would for ever have excluded him. Headda was consecrated by him to Winchester, Bosa to York, Thumbert to Hexham, and the amiable Ceadda himself to the Mercian see of Lichfield. Thus submitting to his weakness, however, he contributed to the maturity of his strength; and what he was too prudent to attempt precipitately, he was enabled to effect gradually. The virtuous successor of Ceadda shortly gave place to Saxulf, Abbot of Medhamsted (Peterborough); and Thumbert, who presumed to dispute his jurisdiction, was, for that cause, degraded. Theodore, indeed, was careful to carry with him the royal acquiescence in all his measures. In the latter instance, he conciliated the support of Egfrid by allowing him to command the consecration of Cuthbert to the vacant see of Hexham; and Essex, who would not have admitted the appointment of a creature of his own, was propitiated by that of Erkenwald, one of her princes, to the Bishopric of London.

The progress that was made by Theodore towards the perfect organization of the Anglo-Romish Church, was, indeed, surprising; and he may, with truth, be said to have carried into execution that jurisdiction which the Papal Bulls had idly affected to confer upon his predecessors. Though the boundaries of the several dioceses that were established at this time, were by no means permanent, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were all, without exception, parcelled out among them; and there is no doubt but that he greatly contributed to the subdivision of the country into parishes, by allowing the patronage of churches to those who built and endowed them, and by establishing resident ministers. Indeed, the Kirkscot, which was now first assigned as a legislative provision for the clergy, by connecting every household with a particular church, dictated something similar to the present parochial boundaries.

The Primate had an efficient coadjutor in Adrian, Abbot of St. Augustine's. He arrived from Italy in 673, and immediately the first of Theodore's councils, which provided for the internal discipline of the Church, was called at Hartford. The second, in 680, or, as the Saxon Chronicle calls it, "the general

Wittenmoot which Ethelred commanded Archbishop Theodore to appoint at Hatfield; because he was desirous of rectifying the belief in Christ," adventured even upon the monothelite heresy; but it is not unreasonable to suspect that the metaphysical subtleties of the east were rather calculated to bewilder than enlighten the Mercian council, and that the condemnation which it pronounced, like the Papal judgment itself, implied no very clear comprehension of the points in dispute. It was, probably, the echo of the opinions of Theodore and Adrian, whose learning would have been respectable in any age, and was calculated to command the utmost deference among a people to whom literature was unknown.

Whilst we recognize, in all this, a superior intellect and a master hand, we must not, however, forget how vicious was the system thus established under the prostituted name of Christianity. The pure spirit of the gospel had, indeed, disappeared with the primitive British churches, and that it was not, in succeeding times, altogether extinguished, is to be ascribed, under Providence, to the parochial, or as they came afterwards to be called, the secular clergy. The tendency which, at their first establishment, had escaped the calculation of Theodore was, nevertheless, natural; and, separated from the intellectual society of which the abbeys and cathedral convents were the provincial centres, their deterioration was inevitable. They became rude and unlearned; but they were preserved also, in a degree, unsophisticated; for, unhappily, nothing tended to corrupt the simplicity and dignity of religion more than the learning of the time. The theology of the schools admitted the Scriptures to a very scanty portion of regard. They maintained their place, indeed, by the side of the canons of councils and the opinions of doctors; but they were considered only as illustrating the philosophy of Plato, and furnishing arcana to exercise the ingenuity of commentators.

To this source is to be traced the doctrine of purgatory and an inundation of attendant errors; the foolish and irreverent fictions which led the way for the more profane fabrication of "the Lives of Saints," legends of fanatics, unredeemed, through all their lying pages, by one solitary model of rational piety, A pure respect for Christ and his Apostles, for the martyrs to their faith, and the founders of their several churches, dictated, perhaps, the veneration in which their remains, the dust on which they trod, and the images which represented them, were originally held; but the virtues which were now ascribed to relics and pilgrimages were utterly foreign to the spirit of

Christianity; and the worship which was addressed to the visible representations, not only of the Saviour, but of a whole host of subsidiary mediators, was, at once, so contrary to the religion of Jesus, and tended so palpably to lower the idea of the Godhead, that it can only be traced to a cherished fondness for expiring Paganism. The history of corruptions does not invite a needless digression, and that of auricular confession, which grew up to so gigantic an abuse, might well be overpassed, but that Theodore distinguished himself by drawing up a "penitential" for the use of those of his clergy who were to receive confession, in which sins were classed and penances apportioned, and forms prescribed of consolation, of exhortation, and of absolution; a work which passed from Britain, and became, for many ages, the model of penitential discipline to all the western churches. The expiation, however, of most approved efficacy, was the foundation and endowment of religious houses, whereby the church contrived to gather a harvest from the vices it failed to eradicate. Christianity, indeed, such as theirs, was far from having snatched the Anglo-Saxons from barbarism.

Subsequent periods, perhaps, illustrate this even more forcibly; but the circumstance of his having been educated under the eye of the Roman missionaries, deeply implicates their system in the guilt of Egbert, who, at this time, succeeded Ercombert in the kingdom of Kent. Though he was not restrained by any deep sense of religion, from assassinating those of his kindred, from whom he apprehended competition, Theodore, nevertheless, contrived to make him pay dearly for his reconciliation to the Church. One half of the Isle of Thanet endowed the Abbey of Minster, over which he placed the sister of the murdered princes; another grant enabled Sexburga, his mother, to found a similar convent in that of Shepey; and the palace of Reculver, following that of Canterbury into the hands of the Church, filled up the measure of the price of blood.

The religious houses of this period, however, must not be confounded with later monastic institutions.

The precincts of the convent were the welcome refuge rather than the weary prison-house of females, and to men they afforded a school, not only of divinity, but of all the arts and sciences then cultivated. Under Theodore, that of Canterbury rose rapidly to celebrity, and he had the satisfaction of living to see a race of natives educated, not only in the principles of the Romish Church, but in those acquirements which constituted its ascendancy. He had, indeed, the lot which is destined to

few men, of perfecting the work which he had undertaken; and when, at length, he died, in the year 690, may be said to have left nothing for his successor, but to maintain the system he had established, in due subservience to the court of Rome.

Whilst the Romish Church was acquiring stability, the kingdom in which she first found refuge was far from participating in her triumph. Empoverished by repeated grants to religious houses, the descendants of Ethelbert were, in effect, subject to the West Saxons, at the death of the primate. Berthwald had been set, by them, over the Abbey of Reculver, on the decline of Theodore, and, after some hesitation at Rome, to appoint a native to so responsible a post, was, at length, consecrated his successor, and the shadow of royalty immediately afterwards restored, by Ina, to Wihtred, the son of Egbert. Nothing can more strikingly evince the degradation of Wihtred than the council which he called the following year, (694) at Bapchilde, in which the king's appointment of earls and aldermen, sheriffs and judges, does not appear less a matter of concession than the jurisdiction of the archbishop, and the immunities of the church. The most important of its immunities, however, namely the cognisance of every cause in which a clergyman should be prosecuted, was conceded, in 697, at the council of Berhamstede. Spelman calls this place in Kent, and the present obscurity of Parmested, in Kingston, is not very reasonably urged by Hasted, the Kentish historian, against the supposition of that place having been appointed for a synod. Far fewer centuries than have lapsed were sufficient to give the character of retirement to the most populous scenes; and its vicinity to Canterbury, and its position in the direct line between the royal fortresses of Chilham and Dover, which alone remained to Wihtred, render it, on the contrary, most probable that Parmested was the place appointed. Ample, however, as were the strides by which the Church advanced towards its preeminence during the long primacy of Berthwald, his fame is eclipsed in monkish annals, by that of Wilfrid, who, having found his way back to his see upon the death of Egfrid and Theodore, was again deposed by Berthwald, in council, at Onestrefeld. He appealed, indeed, to Rome, and obtained a reversal of his deposition, as he had done in the former instance; but Egfrid's successor was now incensed against him, and the papal letter was disregarded. The triumphant plea of Wilfrid throws some light upon the spirit of the Anglo-Romish Church, and sufficiently accounts for the barbarism which long survived its establishment. It is not known, he urges, "ut