Wilfrid, Bishop of York, and the Greek Monk Theodore, Primate of England (part 2 of 2)

^' " Hominem docibilem et in omnibus ornatum antistiteni, secundum vestrorum scriptorum tonorem, mininie valehimus nunc reperire pro longinquitate itineris.... Festinet vestra celsitudo, ut optamus totani suam insulam Deo Cliristo dicare.... De cujus pio studio cognoscentes, tantum cuncta sedes apostolica una nobiscum laetatur, quantum ejus pia opera coram Deo fragrant et vernant."

After a new and long search the Pope fixed his choice on Adrian, an African by birth, and Abbot of" a monastery near Naples, equally versed in ecclesiastical and monastic discipline, and in the knowledge of Greek and Latin. Adrian made no objection either to the distance or to his ignorance of the Anglo-Saxon language, but he declared himself unworthy of the episcopale, and pointed out to the Pope a monk whose age and qualifications accorded better with this difficult mission. This was a monk named Andrew, attached to a nunnery in Italy, and who was judged worthy to be chosen; but his bodily infirmities obliged him to give up the appointment. Then Adrian, again urged by the Pope, proposed to him another of his friends, a Greek monk named Theodore, born, like St. Paul, at Tarsus, but then living at Rome, of good life and morals, of a knowledge so profound and various, that he was surnamed the Philosopher,^^ and already of a venerable age, being sixty-six years old. This proposition was accepted by the Pope, but with the condition that the Abbot Adrian should accompany his friend to Eng- ^^"^» to watch over his proceedings, that nothing contrary to the orthodox faith might be introduced into the Church, as was too often done by the- Greeks. 'pjjj^ precaution was justified by the cruel and sanguinary dissensions which then disturbed the Eastern Church, occasioned by the heresy of the Monotheists, and the constant interference of the Byzantine emperors in questions of faith. The matter being thus arranged, Theodore, who had his head entirely shaved, after the custom of the Eastern monks, was obliged to defer his journey for four months, that his hair might grow, before ho could receive the crownshaped tonsure of the West. As soon as his hair had been oGthjiarcii, properly shaved, he was consecrated by the Pope, and started with the Abbot Adrian for England. But to the Asiatic and the African, so strangely chosen to rule the Anglo-Saxon Church, and who so well fulfilled their task, the Pope wisely determined to add a third, whose help, especially at the commencement of their mission, would be indispensable to them. This was the young Northumbrian noble, Benedict Biscop, whom we have seen start from England to make his pilgrimage to Rome with Wilfrid, parting ^2 " Saeculari simul et ecclesiastica philosophia praeditum virum, et hoc in utraque lingua, grseca scilicet et latina."— Bede, Hist. Abbatum, c. 3. Cf. Hist. Ecclesiast., iv. 1. from him at Lyons. After his first journey, Benedict returned to England, and gave his countrymen an ecstatic account of all that he had seen at Rome, every recollection of which he cherished. These recollections drew him a second time to Rome, where, after new studies and new enjoyments, he received the tonsure, and embraced a monastic life at the great sanctuary of Lerins, where Abbot Aygulphe had just introduced the Benedictine rule.^^ After remaining two years in this still venerated isle, he was unable to resist his desire of returning to Rome out of devotion to St. Peter. He arrived there for the third time in a tradingvessel, and remained until Pope Vitalien commanded him to give up this pilgrimage in order to accomplish a much more meritorious one by returning to his own country as guide and interpreter to the new archbishop.^* Benedict obeyed, and seventy years after the mission of St. Augustin, the three envoys started for England to take possession of it, as it were, a second time, in the name of the Church of Rome.

But their journey was not without hinderance; rj,^^^^ ^^ it took them more than a year to go from Rome toiio traveito Canterbury. Instead of finding in France, as «[on'ti?li> Augustin had done, the generous assistance of a ^^^P^^[J^^^ queen like Brunehilde, the new missionaries became the prey of the tyrant Ebroin, mayor of the palace, the first of those great statesmen, too numerous in our history, whom posterity has so meanly admired or absolved, and who, to the misfortune of our country, sought the triumph of their personal greatness only in the universal abasement and servitude of others. The presence of these three personages, a Greek, an African, and an Anglo-Saxon, all bearing recommendations from the Pope, appeared suspicious to the allpowerful minister. The I3yzantine emperor, Constantino II., at that time still sovereign of Rome, which he had lately visited and pillaged, but where he talked of re-establishing the seat of empire, had excited the anxiety of Ebroin, who

^^ Alliez, nistoire du Moyiastcre dc Lerins, 18C0, vol. i. p. 371. I am glad to mention, in passing, this monograph as one of the best works of our time on monastic history.

"* " Ad patriam reversus studiosius ea qua) videt ecclesiasticae vitaj instituta diligere et quibus potuit praedicare non desiit.... Non pauca seientiae salutaris quemadmodum et prius hausta dulcedine.... Advenionte nave mercatorio, desiderio satisfecit.... Et quia Benedictum sapiontem, industrium, religiosum ac nobilcni virum fore conspexit (papa) huic... cum comitibus suis commendavit episcopum... cui pariter interprcs existere posset et ductor." — Hist. Abbaium, c. 2, 3. imagined that the Papal messens^ers might be charged with the management of some plot between the Emperor and the Anglo-Saxon kings against the Frankish kingdom of Neustria and Burgundy, of which he regarded himself as chief. The Abbot Adrian appeared to him the most dangerous, and he therefore detained him a prisoner for two years after the release of the others. Meanwhile, thanks to the direct intervention of King Egbert, the Archbishop Theodore was enabled to reach England, and solemnly take possession of his see. His first act was to confide to his pious companion, Benedict Biscop, the government of that great abbey near Canterbury which contained the sepulchres of the archbishops and kings, and which had been dedicated by St. Augustin to St. Peter, though it is now only known by the name of the Apostle of England. Benedict remained there as superior until the arrival of Adrian, to whom it was transferred by the new archbishop, according to the Pope's commands that the African abbot and the monks who accompanied him should be established in his diocese.^^

The arrival of St. Theodore marks a new era in the history of the Anglo-Saxons.^''

Pontificate There must have been, indeed, a stern courage and a holy ambition in this grand old man to induce j^ifjj^ at; sixty-seven years of age, to undertake so laborious a task as that of the spiritual government of England. The history of the Church presents few spectacles more imposing and more comforting than that of this Greek of Asia Minor, a countryman of St. Paul, a mitred philosopher^'' and almost septuagenarian monk, journeying from the shores of the East to train a young nation of the West —disciplining, calming, and guiding all those discordant elements, the different races, rival dynasties, and new-born forces, whose union was destined to constitute one of the greatest nations of the earth.

Thanks to the assistance of the powerful King of Northumbria, the new Archbishop of Canterbury found himself invested, for the first time, with En"i"nd authority recognized by all the Anglo-Saxons. This supremacy, which the intelligent desire of the Bret- ^* Bede, Hist. Eccles., iv. 1; Hist. Abbat., c. 3.

^^ LiNGARD, Anglo-Saxon Church, vol. i. p. 77.

^'' " Cofamulum et coepiscopum nostrum, magnas insulaa Britanniae archiepiscopum et philosophum." — Epist. Agathonis Papcs ad /m^?., ap. Baro- NiuM, an. C80. walda Oswj for union with Rome enabled him to exercise, was solemnly recognized by Pope Vitalien, who renewed in his favor all the prerogatives conferred by Gregory the Great on Augustin and the see of Canterbury, omitting all mention of the second see which Gregory had wished to establish at York.s^ This supreme authority over all the Churches of Great Britain, whatever their antiquity or origin, had been, in the hands of Augustin and his successors, only a title and a right; in those of the venerable Greek monk, it now became, for the first time, a powerful and incontestable reality.

The first use which he made of this supremacy Hereeswas to repair the injustice of which Wilfrid had \yn|r|^cfjn been the victim. Oswy seems to have made no tuoseeof opposition; he yielded to the apostolic authority, whose decrees Theodore made known to him.^s He thus crowned his reign by an act of reparation and of repentance, in allowing the man whom he had unjustly expelled ^*^ to be re-established in the episcopal see of the capital of his kingdom. The humble and pious Ceadda, who, by some strange forgetfulness of duty, had consented to replace Wilfrid, made no opposition to the application of canon law, which deprived him of his usurped see. He said to the archbishop, '' If you are certain that my episcopate is not legitimate, I will abdicate it voluntarily; 1 have never thought myself worthy of it, and only accepted it in obedience." Upon which, as Wilfrid, when dispossessed by him, retired to the Monastery of Ripon, he himself returned to that of Lastingham, founded by his brother, from whence he had been taken to be made bishop. He lived for some time peacefully in this retreat. But the generous Wilfrid appreciating the vir-

®^ " Is primus erat in archiopiscopis, cui omnis Anglorum ecclesia manus dare consentiret." — Bede, iv. 2. Cf. Guill. Malmesb., Be Gest. Pontif., Anal., i. 1. "Nobis visum est te exhortari et in praesente comniendare tuaj sagacissimae sanctitati omnes ecclesias in insulas Britannia) positas. Omnia ergo qua) a S. Gregorio praidecessore nostro Augiistino sincello suo statuta sunt atque firmata vel etiam per sacrum usum pallii coneessum, nos tibi in sevum concessimus." — Diploma of Pope Vitalien in Act. SS. Bolland., t. vi. Septembris, p. 59.

^^ " Veniens ad regem... statuta apostolicaa sedis, unde emissus venerat, secum deportans."— Eddius, c. 15.

"" It must be observed that Wilfrid was only bishop, never archbishop, of York. The metropolitan dignity attached by St. Gregory to that see disappeared after the flight of Paulinus, and was restored only in 735 to Egbert, known by the letter addressed to him by the venerable Bede, and by many relics of ecclesiastical legislation published in the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England. tues of the holy intruder, whose diocese he had continued to inhabit, was determined to bring them back again to the light. The bishopric of the kingdom of Mercia ed'^sii'int?'^" having become vacant, he persuaded his faithful fi'isiid Wulphere to summon Ceadda thither, and gavo Up to him for his residence a place called Lichfield, previously bestowed by the king on Wilfrid, that he might establish an episcopal see there, either for himself or for another.^i Theodore and Ceadda both consented to this plan. The only condition made by the archbishop was that the bishop should be consecrated anew, with the assistance of Wilfrid, on account of the irregularity caused by the presence of the two Britons who had assisted at his first consecration.^^ In other respects, Theodore never ceased to do him all the honor which his holy life deserved; and as, from love to his work, and according to the custom of the first Northumbrian bishops of Celtic race, Ceadda persisted in traversing on foot the immense extent of his new diocese, the primate commanded him to use a horse, and himself held the stirrup to oblige the humble bishop to mount.^3 With admirable delicacy, Wilfrid assigned to this innocent usurper the care of continuing the task which had occupied and consoled himself during his disgrace. For three years Ceadda occupied the same position in Mercia which Wilfrid himself had occupied, aiding the noble efforts of the king, and the holy Queen Ermenilda, to destroy the last traces of idolatry. In the intervals of repose left him by his pastoral journeys, he inhabited a little monastery which he had built near his cathedral, that he might there continue his life of prayer and study with seven or eight "^oi^^s, his friends. It was here that he died, leaving behind him a noble example of humility, wisdom, fervor, and voluntary poverty. The narrative ^' " Si me nosti episcopatum non rite suscepisse, libenter ab hoc oflScio discedo: quippe qui neque me unquam hoc esse dignum arbitrabar." — Bede, iv. 2. "lUe servus Dei verus et mitissimus.... Sciebat (Wilfridus) sub Wulfario rege fidehssimo amico suo locum donatum sibi." — Eddius, c. 15. Lichfield, erected into a metropolis some time during the eighth century, and still a bishopric, derived its name from the number of bodies of martyrs killed in the reign of Diocletian which have been discovered there — Lsich or Lichfield.

^^ This is the first application of a canon which afterwards became law " Qui ordinati sunt Scotorum vel Britonnum episcopi, qui in pascha vel ton- Suras catholica non sunt ordinati ecclesiae, iterum a catholico episcopo manus impositione confirmentur." — Ap. Thorpe, p. 307.

*^ " Ipse cum sua manu levavit in equura, quia nimirum sanctum esse virum comperit."— Bede, iv. 3. of his last days was transmitted by the monk who attended him to the venerable Bede, always so scrupulous in indicating the sources from which he drew the materials for his religious history of the English nation. " My father," said a disciple to the dying bishop, "dare I ask you a question?" " Ask what thou wilt." " I conjure you to tell me what are those sounds of celestial harmony which just now we heard, and which sometimes descend from heaven, and sometimes return thither; are they not the ineffable strains of angels? " " Thou hast then heard and recognized the voice from on high which must not be spoken of before my death. Yes The angels are come to call me to that heaven which I have always loved and desired; they have promised to return in seven days to take me with them." And when the day of deliverance and recompense arrived, the witness of this happy death saw not only heaven open and the angels he seemed to see also the brother of the dying man, his inseparable companion in former days, and, like him, a bishop and monk, descending from the opening heaven to seek the soul of Ceadda and conduct it to eternal happiness. Many details of this nature, floating on the bosom of an ocean of forgotten ages and races, show us how, among these rude converts, so rapidly transformed into austere monks and saints, natural affection preserved all its empire, and mingled, in sweet and holy union, with the grandeur and beauty of their supernatural vocation.^*

Having thus regulated or re-arranged the govern- The Asiatic ment of souls in the two largest kingdoms of the l^^^il^J"^ Saxon confederation, Northumbria and Mercia, the African venerable archbishop pursued, with an activity in make'a no way relaxed by age, the task which the Holy ofEugiand. See had assigned him. He successively traversed all the provinces of the island already occupied by Anglo- Saxons. With the aid of the former bishops, and of those Avhom he ordained wherever they were wanting, ho applied himself, in all the kingdoms, to pacify the sanguinary feuds of princes and nobles, to re-establish canonical order and ^^ " Voccm suavissimam cantantium atque lajtantium de coelo ad terras usque descendere.... Obsecro ut dicas quoderatcanticum illud laitantium.... Kevera angelorum fuere spiritus qui ine ad coelestia, qua3 semper ainabam ac desiderabam, praemia vocare venerunt.... Scio lioiiiinein in hac insula adliuc in carne manentem qui... vidit aniraara Ceddi t'ratris ipsius cum aijinine angelorum descendere de coelo, et assumpta secum aniaia ejus, ad coelestia regna redire." — Bede, vi. 3. This brother was ^ishop Cedd, who had acted as interpreter at Whitby. ecclesiastical discipline, to correct abuses, to spread good morals, and to regulate, according to Roman custom, the celebration of Easter.^5 He is believed to have originated on this occasion that ecclesiastical law which commanded all fathers of families to repeat daily, and to teach to their children, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed in the vulgar tongue.^s Abbot Adrian accompanied him everywhere, and seconded him in all things. These two aged monks, one Asian and the other African, were received, listened to, and obeyed by the Anglo-Saxons with that affectionate deference which in Christian hearts triumphs so easily over the prejudices and opposition of a narrow nationality. They repaid the popular attachment by their unwearied zeal for the souls and hearts of the people, preaching to them evangelical truth, Avith that intelligent and practical solicitude which makes true apostles.

The authentic monuments of their zeal are all cauegisia- preserved in the imposing collection of moral and Theodore, penal institutes known as the Liber Poenitentialis nitentiaus °^ Archbishop Theodore,^" which has served as the model of so many other analogous collections. It is there apparent that if great excesses and shameful disorders had already appeared among the new Christians of England, these were kept in check by all the resources of spiritual fatherhood and priestly vigilance. It is surprising to find among these Germanic populations the traces of refined corruption mingled with the brutal vices of barbarians; but the art and authority which could inflict lor every sin, even when confessed and pardoned, a penalty either public or secret, according to the circumstances, is all the more admirable. The punishments are generally of excessive severity, induced, it would seem, by the rudeness of barbarous manners, on which it was necessary first to act by means of intimidation. No doubt they were soon practically evaded by the equivalents of alms and other good works. At the same time, in this code set forth by a Greek prelate sent from Rome, there appears no trace of Roman or Byzantine law. On

®^ " Peragrata insula tota.... Libentissime ab omnibus suscipiebatur atque audiebatur... per omnia comitante et co-operante Adriano.... Gratiosi ad pacificandum invicem inimicos." — Bede, iv. 2.

^^ Hook, i. 152. I have not been able to find this rule among the Acts of Theodore, but it is several times repeated in the Monunienia Ecclesiastica of the following century. See Thorpe, passim.

*'' The mo#t complete version is found in the great collection of Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England. Cf. Hook, op. cit., vol. i. p. 169. the contrary, it embodies the entire penal system of the Germanic laws, founded on the principle which required a punishment for every offence, or a compensation for every punishment.s^ And as it is always pleasant to find a loving and tender heart among the masters and teachers of the people, it is delightful to read, at the end of one of the most ancient manuscripts of this formidable code, a few lines, in which the archbishop thus commends his work and his soul to a prelate, one of his friends: " I beseech thee, noble and pious bishop, to pour out at the feet of God the abundance of thy prayers for Theodore, the poor stranger whom thou lovest."^^

In the course of this apostolic journey, Theodore naturally visited Lindisfarne, as well as the chief seats of the other dioceses. The metropolis of Celtic resistance was obliged to acknowledge the authority of the Roman metropolitan, who imprinted upon it the seal of subordination and union by dedicating, under the name and in honor of St. Peter, the monastic cathedral of the Celtic bishops which Bishop A'idan had commenced to build, in the Scottish mode, and entirely in wood, many years before.^*^*^

It is to these pastoral visits of Archbishop Theo- Heordore that all agree in tracing back the commence- farochlai'^ ment of parochial organization,— above all, in the system, south of England. Until then, the monasteries had been almost the only permanent centres of faith and religious instruction. The bishops issued from their monasteries to preach and to baptize; they were constantly wayfaring.^^^i The monks, especially those of the Celtic monasteries,

'® See some curious details in Elmham, p. 206, on the foundation of a monastery due to the application of this system of compensation.

*^ " Te nam, sancte speculator,
Verbi Dei digne dator,
Pontificum ditum decor,
Haeddi, pie presul, prccor,
Pro me tuo peregrino
Preces funde Tlieodoro."

This was addressed to Iledda, Bishop of the West Saxons at Winchester, in 67G, much praised by Bede, v. 18. A distinction must be made between the singer Ilcdd or Eddi, biographer of Wilfrid; Bishop Hedda, his contemporary and colleague at Winchester; Bishop Ceadda, who supplanted him at York; and Bishop Cedd, brother of Ceadda. The narrator condemned to open a way through this forest of obscure names, so easily confounded, and so subject to infinite alteration from the pens of more recent annalists, may well claim the sympathy of his readers.

""> Bede, iii. 25.

"" " Longe lateque omnia pervagatus." This is the eulogy which falls perpetually from the pen of Bede. traversed the country, stopping at different stations previously indicated to administer the sacraments, just as is now done in lands under the charge of missionaries, and in certain districts of Ireland. ^"^^ ^^t churches, regularly served by monks or secular j^nests, were speedily built on the continually increasing estates of the great abbeys and monastic cathedrals. The kings and nobles obtained from bishops and abbots the right of choosing in the monastery, or among the cathedral clergy, some priests who might, for the good of their souls, accompany them on their expeditions, or live with them in their rural residences. Theodore availed himself of this custom to lay the foundations of a parochial system, by persuading the princes and great proprietors to build churches on their domains, and to attach to them a resident jDriest, with an endowment in land or in fixed rents; in return for which they should have the right of choosing their priests. From this right has grown the system of church patronage, such as it now subsists in England, with the special impost, not yet abolished, called church-rate, levied on all the proprietors of a parish for the keeping of the church in repair: so true is it that everything bears the trace of solidit}'^ and permanence in the country which twelve centuries ago was constituted as a nation by that union of the Church with the Anglo-Saxon race, of which Italian and Greek monks such as Theodore and Augustin were the plenipotentiaries.^^^ Nearly all the present names of counties date from this epoch. All the dioceses of that time exist still; everything has remained so unchanged, that a map of the country in the tenth century might serve for to-day; while there remains not one single trace of the ancient territorial divisions of France and Germany.

After having thus laid the foundation of parishes, isaiixious it was Theodorc's desire to proceed to a new episthin^um-^^ copal division. Hitherto, except in Kent, each dfocesos kJtigdom of the Heptarchy had formed a diocese, each king choosing to have one bishop of his own,

^°^ See above, pages 237 to 240, the first missions in Northumbria. loj u jjjg excitavit fideliura voluntatem ut in civitatibus et viliis ecclesias fabricarentur, parochias distinguerent, et assensus regios his procuravit; ut si qui sufHcientes essent super proprium fundum construere ecclesias earumdem perpetuo patronato gauderent; si inter limites alterius alicujus dominii ecclesias facerent, ejusdem fundi domini notarentur pro patronis." Thos. DE Elmham, Hist. Monast. S. Augustini, p. 289; Hook, i. 159. Cf. Lap- PENBEKG, p. 190; Kemble, c. 9; and, above all, Lingard, Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, vol. i. pp. 156-197. The secular priests placed in these parishes took afterwards the name of mass-priests. and only one. Northumbria, long divided into two kingdoms, had never formed more than one diocese, of which the seat was sometimes in the ancient Roman metropolis of York, sometimes in the sacred isle of Lindisfarne; and this diocese, even after a partial division, remained so vast that the venerable Bede mentions a large number of districts which had never yet been visited by their bishop.

The extreme inequality of extent and population in the different Saxon kingdoms, which a single glance at the map will make apparent, had thus led to a similar difference between the dioceses; those of the north and the centre being far too large for the administration of one man. But Theodore here met with the resistance which is almost always produced in similar oases. He convoked a council council of at Hertford in the fourth year of his pontificate, the ^tus/pt, first ever held in the Anglo-Saxon Church; but was 0-3. obliged to adjourn his proposition, as he himself relates in the official report of the deliberations of this assembly, dictated by himself to his notary.^^^ At the same time, he reserved to himself the means of returning to the charge by decreeing that the national council should meet once a year at a place called Cloveshoe, according to Saxon fashion, in the open air. He was happier, however, in the two canons regarding monasteries which he proposed, and which were unanimously adopted by the bishops and numerous abbots attached to the Roman ritual who composed the council.i''^ Of these canons, naturally marked by the Benedictine spirit, since the greater part of the bishops in the council were sons of St. Benedict, the first forbade bishops to disturb monasteries in any way, or to despoil them of their goods; the second forbade monks to pass from one monastery to another without the permission of the abbot. This was a consecration of the vow of stability, which, though often neglected, was not the less an essential distinction of the order of St. Bene-

'"' "Nonum capitulum in commune tractatum est, ut plures cpiscopi, crescente numero fidelium, augcrentur: scd de hac ad praesens siluimus.— Bede, iv. 5. This notary Titillo, whose presence is proved by Theodore and Bede, seems to us to answer the objection raised by Kemble to the authenticity of Ethelbert's donation to Augustin on account of the mention of a referendary in that document.

)(i5 li Concilium episcoporum, una cum eis qui canonice patrum statuta et deligcrent et nossent, magistris ecclesiaj pluribus." — Bede, iv. 5. Of the eight bishops then in England, five assisted in person at tiie council, and Wilfrid was represented there by his envoys.

30^- diet from the great monastic communities of the East or of Celtic countries.i*^'^ The literary ^ho monasteries having been thus placed under thelin^ush ^^^ most imposing safeguard by the Greek metropolitan of England, there yet remained for him, as Well as for his African assistant, Adrian, an inteland Adrian, igctuai ^^^kJ literary development as worthy of the admiration as of the gratitude of posterity. Both were profoundly attached to and imbued with, not only ecclesiastical knowledge, but secular learning, that double intellectual current of which the middle ages never ceased to give examples. Theodore had brought with him a copy of Homer, which he read perpetually, and which was long preserved and admired by his ecclesiastical descendants.^''^ They gathered round them, in the monasteries where they lived or which they visited, a crowd of young and ardent disciples, whom they led daily to the fountain of knowledge. While explaining Holy Scripture to them with particular care, they taught their scholars also ecclesiastical astronomy and arithmetic, which served to establish the Pascal computation, and afterwards the art of composing Latin verses. But it was chiefly the study of the two classic tongues which flourished under their care. These became so general that, sixty years after, there were still monks trained in the school of Adrian and Theodore who spoke Greek and Latin as readily as Anglo-Saxon. At the same time, music and chanting, hitherto cultivated only in the monasteries of Canterbury and by the deacon James at York, spread all over England. ^os Monasteries thus transformed into schools and homes of scientific study could not but spread a taste and respect for intellectual life, not only among the clergy, but also among their lay-protectors,

106 ({ Tertium. Ut quaeque monasteria Deo consecrata sunt, nulli episcoporum liceat ea in aliquo inquietare, nee quicquam de eorum rebus violenter abstrahere. Quartum. Ut ipsi monachi non niigrent de loco ad locum, hoc est, de monasterio ad monasterium, nisi per demissionem proprii abbatis, sed in ea permaneant obedientia quam tempore suae conversionis promiserunt." — Bede, iv. 5. That Theodore did not intend to permit the monasteries to absorb all religious life, to the detriment of the secular clergy, is proved by this article of the panitcntialis: "Nee libertas monasterii est poenitentiam sajcularibus judicare, quia propria clericorum est." — Thorpe, p. 307.

'°' Godwin, De Prasulihus Anglics, p. 4L '°' " Literis sacris simul et sascularibus abundanter ambo instructi, congregata discipulorura caterva, scientice salutaris quotidie fluminia irrigandis eorum cordibus emanabant.... Sed et sonos cantandi in ecclesia.... Ab hoc tempore per omnes Anglorum ecclesias discere coeperunt." —Bede, iv. 2.

AND THE BENEDICTINE OEDER. 355

the friends and neighbors of each community. Under the powerful impulse given to it by the two Roman monks, England became almost as important a literary centre as Ireland or Italy.109

While recalling this peaceful and luminous period of which Theodore and Adrian were the stars, the enthusiasm of the venerable Bede breaks out into a kind of dithyramb: " Never," he says, " since the Anglo-Saxons landed in Britain, had more happy days been known. We had Christian kings, at whose bravery the barbarous nations trembled. All hearts were inflamed by the hope of those celestial joys which had just been preached to them; and whosoever wished to be instructed in sacred learning found the masters that he needed close at hand." i^*^

Let us add, to characterize with more precision this pontificate of Theodore, that he was the last foreign missionary called to occupy the metropolitan dignity in England, and that the Greek monk succeeded, as has been justly remarked, in transforming into an indigenous and national establishment, into a public and social institution, that which had hitherto been only a missionary church. This transformation could only have been made by that special and supreme authority with which, at the demand of the Anglo-Saxons themselves, the Oriental archbishop had been invested by the Holy See, and the result was to give to the popes a whole nation as a lever for their future action both upon nations already Christian and upon those which still remained to be converted.