•Bede gives us of the state of a convent (consisting as was not uncommon both of monks and nuns), at a period not much later than Madoc, there is a sad falling off. The case is indeed spoken of as a flagrant one, and the facts are to be gathered out of a fabulous story of a warning sent by an angel to a monk of that house, signifying that a judgment was coming upon it; for that of its inmates none (save one only) were occupied with the good of their souls; all were asleep, or only awake to sin, both men and women; the cells intended for study and prayer had been converted into chambers of revelry and excess; the virgins who had dedicated themselves to God, having no respect unto their vows, employed all their leisure hours in adorning their persons, as though they were brides, or wished to be. Indeed, on one occasion about the same time, when a panic prevailed through the country by reason of the plague, it was actually attempted in one quarter of the island where Christianity had been received, to repair the temples and restore idolatry.2 Whatever, therefore, the wheat might be that had been sown by Augustin and his companions, the tares, it seems, were growing about it apace, and were ready to choke it. The truth, however, appears to be, that as yet there was no well-organised church in England. There was wanted a system in matters ecclesiastical; what was done was done chiefly by good and zealous individuals. Rome might have supplied the defect; but the relation in which

1 Bede, 339.

2 Bede, 250.

INTERCOURSE WITH ROME.

7

England stood to Rome is not easily determined from the history of Bede; it was probably ill defined, fluctuating, and uncertain, depending in a great measure upon the accident of the day. Pope Gregory is indeed represented as speaking with some authority in the answers which he returns to Augustin, who consults him on the regulations of the infant church;-he may furnish him with sacred vessels, ornaments, robes, relics, books, and give him power to consecrate bishops in Britain, and directions for using it. Reference may be made to the pope from time to time, in any crisis of difficulty, or doubt, or hardship; wholesome decrees with regard to the method of filling up the sees in case of death may be received from him; his influence may be asked to protect the liberties of a religious house; but distance and the turbulence of the times rendered the intercourse difficult, and subjected it to much interruption. Rome was in those days pestilential; the Alps were formidable, often fatal to travellers; the seas were full of danger in the actual state of navigation; it was a weary way from Calais to Marseilles (one of the usual routes), and if the political aspect of things rendered a mayor of the palace suspicious, it might be worse than a weary way;-a journey to Rome for the sake of gaining religious knowledge was reckoned in the middle of the seventh century a labour of uncommon merit.2 The church of England, therefore, was left for a while pretty much to itself; and though great good came of this, it 2 Bede, 322.

1 Bede, 254.

was not without its mixture of evil. On the one hand, the liberties of the rising church were fostered by this non-intercourse with Rome; it threw the nation very much upon its own resources, and gave to the king, and above all, to synods of the clergy, an authority in ecclesiastical affairs, to which they might not otherwise have attained. Perhaps, too, it cultivated a better understanding between the princes and prelates, who seem to have gone hand in hand in these early times; the former inviting, welcoming, and establishing by grants of land for ever the residence of these Christian pastors amongst their own people, a measure of which they might not have thought the advantages so obvious, had they thereby subjected themselves and their conduct to the perpetual animadversion of a third party at Rome; for it is curious to observe that, within 200 years after the foundation of the Anglo-Saxon church, Aldfrid, a king of Northumbria, feels himself called upon to resist the interference of the pope in a case of appeal, and actually refuses to listen to his recommendation.1 On the other hand, a want of combination and cooperation (a defect so injurious to every great undertaking, and not the least so to the successful preaching of the word of God,) made itself sensibly felt in the religious establishment of England. Canons seem to have been published, but not to have been rigidly observed. The order of episcopal succession appears to have proceeded upon no very settled or intelligible plan; not that it was vitiated by any incom1 Bede, 446.

ARCHBISHOP THEODORE.

9

petency of the parties to administer the rite; but that the exercise of the episcopal office was desultory, a synod, or an individual, or a king soliciting it; a native bishop, or a foreigner, as it might happen, conferring it;- so that, shortly before Bede's time1, there was only one canonical bishop throughout all England. All this worked confusion in the church; it impaired its efficiency; it gave the ancient prejudices of Paganism, and other causes of corruption, time to rally, and to debase the Gospel, if they could not destroy it. Accordingly Oswi, king of Northumbria, and Ecbert, king of Kent, thought it high time to bestir themselves. They consulted together on the actual condition of the church, and came to a determination, in which the church itself concurred, to send a priest of their common choosing to Rome, to be there consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, who might thenceforth supply the sees of England canonically, and set in order its ecclesiastical rites. The office, however, of reforming the Anglo-Saxon church was not destined to the man of their choice, - he, and all his, died, probably of the malaria; and Theodore, a monk" of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia," was finally fixed upon by the pope, consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, and despatched to England. He seems to have been one of those persons whose spirit and talents give a character to the times in which they live. He made a visitation of all England, correcting abuses, establishing discipline, ordaining bishops, re-ordaining those whose commission was irregular, introducing

1 Bede, 247.

music generally into the churches, the use of it having been as yet confined to Kent, and encouraging the study of Greek and Latin, of which the effects were felt in the days of Bede. Thus did he reduce to order a very disorderly state of things; and, in spite of the various independent kingdoms into which the island was divided, and by which misrule had been perpetuated, was an archbishop (and he was the first) to whom the universal church of England submitted. That he might consolidate his acts, and render the unity of his church lasting, he convoked a synod of the bishops and clergy at Heorutford (Hereford) about the year 673, and proposed for their adoption several canons, which, as they throw considerable light on the state of ecclesiastical affairs at that period, are here inserted:1. That all persons should keep Easter in common, on the Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox. 2. That no bishop should interfere with the diocese of another, but be content

with governing his own. 3. That no bishop should be at liberty to disturb a religious house in any wise, nor to take from it any portion of its property by force. 4. That monks should not migrate from one monastery to another without the certificate of their own abbot, but should continue under the rule to which they at first professed obedience. 5. That the clergy should not withdraw themselves from their own proper bishop to wander about at large; nor should be received elsewhere unless provided with letters 2 Bede, 271.

1 Bede, 258.