Wilfrid, Bishop of York, and the Greek Monk Theodore, Primate of England (part 1 of 2)

Colraan founds a half-Saxon, half-Celtic monastic colony in Ireland. —He is succeeded in Northumbria by the Anglo-Saxon Eata as prior of Lindisfarne, and by Tuda, an Irishman converted to the Romish ritual, as bishop. — Dedication of the great Monastery of Peterborough, founded by the Christian descendants of Penda, the last Pagan leader; at which Mercians and Northumbrians, Celts and Romanists, are present together; speech of King Wulphere. — Pestilence of 664; death of Tuda; Wilfrid elected Bishop of Northumbria. — Treating the Anglo-Saxon bishops as schismatics, he goes to be consecrated by the Bishop of Paris at Compiegne, and removes his see from Lindisfarne to York. — On his return he is shipwrecked on the coast of Sussex, and fights with the natives. — Celtic reaction against Wilfrid; King Oswy replaces him during his absence by an Irish abbot, Ceadda. — Sanctity and popularity of Ceadda. — The Northumbrians observe the decree of Whitby as to the celebration of Easter, but refuse to retain Wilfrid as bishop. — He retires to his Monastery of Ripon. — He resides with the Kings of Mercia and of Kent. — He assists the holy Queen Ermenilda in completing the conversion of the Mercians. — He introduces the Gregorian chant and the Benedictine rule into Northumbria. — The Kings of Kent and Northumbria leave to the Pope the choice of the new metropolitan of Canterbury. — The Pope chooses a Greek monk Theodore, and associates with him Adrian, an African, and the Anglo-Saxon Benedict Biscop. — They are all three seized on their way by Ebroln, but released. — The pontificate of St. Theodore, the first metropolitan recognized by all England. — He re-establishes Wilfrid in the see of York, who makes Ceadda bishop of the Mercians. — Holy and peaceful death of Ceadda. — Theodore and Adrian visit all England. —Theodore's ecclesiastical legislation; his book of penance. — He consecrates the Celtic Cathedral of Lindisfarne. — He creates the parochial system as it now exists, and holds the first Anglo-Saxon council at Hertford. — He fails in increasing the number of bishoprics, but introduces the Benedictine order into the monasteries. — Literary development of the English monasteries due to Theodore and Adrian. — The Church of England is constituted, and the English nation becomes a lever in the hands of the Papacy.

coitnan ^^ ^^'^® ^^^ ^^^^ *^^® priests of Celtic origin, Irish founds a or Scotch, who refused to sanction by their presw°onfiu ence the introduction of Roman practices at Lin- Ireland. disfame; Colman was also accompanied by thirty Anglo-Saxon monks, perfectly versed in the study and oflSces of monastic life, who preferred the Celtic observances to those of Rome. After a short sojourn at lona, he led these emigrants to his native country, and established himself with them in a desert island on the west coast of Ireland called Innishowen. or the Isle of the White Heifer, a name it still retains. But when confined in this islet, beaten by the waves of the great ocean, the Anglo-Saxons, whose devotion to Celtic tradition had been strong enough to sever them from their country, were unable to live amicably with the Irish, their former companions at Lindisfarne. They quarrelled about a purely material matter, which manifests even thus early the natural incompatibility of the two races who were destined afterwards upon Irish soil to fight more cruel battles. The Irish monks wandered all the summer through about their favorite spots, probably in many instances their native places; but on their return in winter they expected to share the harvest which their English brethren had painfully cultivated and gathered in.^" Colman was obliged to separate them; leaving the Irish in their island, he installed the Anglo-Saxons in a monastery which, under the name of Mayo, flourished greatly, and which a century later still continued to be occupied by English monks, fervent and laborious, who had, however, returned from Celtic usages to tho orthodox rule, and probably to Benedictine discipline, which Wilfrid had established at the same time as he introduced conformity to the usages of Rome.

Colman, however, while withdrawing from Lin- The new ' disfarne all his Celtic countrymen, and those of the ^""onh^" Anglo-Saxons who sympathized with them, had no ^"^• intention of handing over definitely to the enemy the sacred isle in which his predecessors had delighted to recognize a new lona. Before setting out on his voluntary exile, he begged his friend King Oswy to allow the remaining monks at Lindisfarne to take for their superior that Eata whom A'idan had chosen among his twelve first Northumbrian disciples, and who, out of love to Celtic traditions,

" " Eo quod Scotti tempore aestatis quo fruges erant colligendaD, relicto monasterio, per nota sibi loca dispersi vagarentur; ut vero hieme succedente redirent, et his qua; Angli prajparaverant, communiter uti desiderarent." —Bede, iv. 4. Is not this precisely the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant? and is it not curious to discover, in a hidden corner of monkish history, a fresh proof of the radical difference and fatal incompatibility of tho two races, Celtic and Saxon? This intractable Bishop Colman died in 674 or 676; he is reckoned among the saints of the Irish martyrology. had given up the monastery at Ripon, in which Wilfrid succeeded him, and had again become abbot of Melrose — that is to say, of the novitiate estabb"shment of the Celtic monks in Northumbria. The king consented, and the confidant and friend of Colman became superior of Lindisfarne, with the title of prior, but the full authority of an abbot.

After this it became necessar}^ to proceed immediately to replace Colman as bishop of all Northumbria. His successor was one of his own countrymen, who resided in the diocese, and, indeed, during the pontificate of Colman, had been famed for his virtues and apostolical activity. This monk, named Tuda, had been educated in the monasteries of southern Ireland; he had already conformed to the Roman ritual in the questions of the celebration of Easter and the form of the tonsure— these customs having been, it is said, adopted thirty years before by the district of Ireland to which he belonged. It was only, therefore, by his Celtic origin, that he was attached to the ancient traditions of the diocese. He died some months afterwards of a terrible pestilence, which in this year, 664, made cruel ravages in the British Isles. He was the last of the Celtic bishops of Northumbria.'*^

Before his death, however, there occurred a great religious and national solemnity, at which he was present, and which was celebrated in this same critical year of 664, so decisive, under more than one aspect, for England. This solemnity seems to have united in sincere and unanimous enthusiasm all the principal personages of the most important states of the Heptarch}^ and it exhibits, in a special degree, the increasing ascendency of that Roman influence of which Wilfrid was henceforward the victorious champion. Its object was the dedication of a new monastery in Mercia, the kingdom which had been so long the stronghold of Saxon paganism and the seat of an obstinate resistance to the missionary spirit of Northumbria.

By one of those transformations so frequent Conversion "^ ., r^ •., i • t /• \i • to Chris- among the Germanic races at the period ot their the'desceud- entrance into the Christian life, all the descendp"uda! ^^^^ °f ^^^® fierce Penda, the most obstinate and invincible of pagans, were destined to become intrepid champions of Christianity, or models of monastic life.

*^ "Famulus Christi Tuda qui erat apud Scottos austrinos eruditus, atque ordinatus episcopus, habens juxta morena provinciae illius coronam tonsurse ecclesiasticae et catliolicam teuiporis paschalis regulam observans." — Bede, iii. 26.

Of his eight children who are known to us, three sons who reigned successively distinguished themselves by their religious zeal, the third becoming a monk after a reign of thirty years; while three daughters, two of whom arc counted among the saints of the English calendar, ended their lives in the cloister. The eldest son, Peada, who was son-in-law of Oswy, brother-in-law and friend of Alchfrid, and the earliest Christian of Mercia, continued to reign over one part of the kingdom, even after the defeat and death of his father, who perished under the avenging sword of Oswy. The father-in-law and son-in-law, united more closely by their faith than the father and son had been by the ties of blood, determined to consecrate their alliance by founding a great monastery in honor of God and St. Peter, and chose for this purpose a retired situation in the east of Mercia.

Such was the origin of the Abbey of Peterbor- poun^ntion ough, the burgh or castle of St. Peter,^^ the most ancient of those famous houses destined to rise successively in the midst of the vast fens which formed a sort of natural frontier between the eastern and central Saxons, between Mercia and East Anglia.

Peada died a violent death when the M'ork was but beginning.'^ But it was taken up, and continued by his young brother Wulphere, whom the Mercians, in revolt from Northumbrian domination, had chosen for their chief, who had been, like his elder brother, baptized by the second Celtic bishop of Lindisfarne,°i and who always showed an ardent zeal for the extension and consolidation of Christianity in his kingdom. His younger brothers and his two sisters, one of them the wife of the young King Alchfrid of Northumbria, the friend of Peada and Wilfrid, and all the witan— that is to say, the wise men and nobles, whether lay or ecclesiastical, of his public council ^^ — encouraged him to the utmost in finishing the first great monastic foundation in their vast territory.

The abbot appointed from the beginning of the work was a monk named Sexwulf, descended from

*^ It was at first called Medehamstede, which means the house in, the meadow.

*" By the treachery of his wife, daughter of Oswy, and sister of his friend Alchfrid, who, having married Peada's sister, was doubly his brother-in-law. — Bede, iii. 24. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ad an. 6G5.

" Act. SS. Bolland., vol. ii. February, p. C89.

*•* Anglo-Saxon Ohronicle: Gibson's ed., Latin-Saxon text, p. 34; Giles's ed., English text, p. 321. a great and noble family, devoted to the service of God, and much beloved by the Mercian Saxons. King Wulphere enjoined him to spare nothing to complete his brother's work magnificently, promising to be answerable for all the expense. When the building was finished the King of Mercia invited, for the day of consecration, the King of Northumbria, who was his godfather although he had become his political adversary, and whose dignity of Bretwalda entitled him to preside at the grand solemnities of the Saxon people; and with him the two kings of the neighboring states of Essex and East Anglia, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Rochester,^^ wJ^q were the first Anglo- Saxon monks raised to the episcopate; Wini, who had taken the place of Agilbert as Bishop of the Saxons of the West; ^ the two bishops of Mercia and Northumbria,^^ both educated in Celtic monasteries; and, last of all, Wilfrid, on whom all eyes had been turned by his late victories. Around these distinguished guests, both lay and ecclesiastical, were ranged all the earls and thanes, or great landed proprietors of the kingdom.^ It was therefore really a great political assembly as well as a religious one. When the Archbishop had ended the ceremony of dedication, and consecrated the monastery to St. Peter, St. Paul, and St, Andrew, King Wulphere, placing himself in the midst of his family and his nobles, spoke thus: — " Thanks be to the most high and almighty God for the good deed which I do to-day in honor of Christ and St. Peter! All, as many as are here present, be witnesses and sureties of the donation which ¹ make to St. Peter, to the Abbot Sexwulf and his monks, of the land and water, the fens and brooks here mentioned. ... It is a trifling gift; but I will that they hold and possess it so royally and freely that no impost may be levied upon it, and that the monastery may be subject to no other power on earth, except the Holy See of Rome, for it is hither that those of us who cannot go to Rome will come to seek and to visit St. Peter. I implore you, my brother, and you, my sisters, be witnesses *^ Frithona and Ithamar.

*'* He was soon expelled from this usurped diocese; but thanks to the protection of Wulphere, he became Bishop of London, purchasing the see, according to Bede, who does not explain how the King of Mercia could dispose of the bishopric of the East Saxons. — Eccles. Hist., iii. 7, 28. Lappenberg concludes that Wulphere became Bretwalda after the death of Oswy.

^* Jaruman and Tuda.

*^ " Et ibi fuerunt omnes illius thani quotquot essent in suo regno.... Cum comitibus, cum ducibus, et cum thanis." — Ghron. Anglo-Sax., p. 35. Cf. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops, t. i. p. 131. to this for the good of your souls, and sign it with your hands. I implore those who shall succeed me, whether my sons, my brothers, or others, to maintain this donation, as they wish to obtain eternal life, and to escape eternal torment. Whoever shall take away from it, or add to it, may the keeper of the celestial gates take away from, or add to, his part in heaven." The four kings, the five bishops, the two brothers and two sisters of the king, the earls and lords, successively signed the act of donation with the sign of the cross, repeating this formula, " I confirm it by my mouth and by the cross of Christ." ^" The document which contained the donation having been drawn up in accordance with the royal speech, the four kings and two princesses signed it first, then the bishops, and after them Wilfrid, who describes himself on this occasion as a '' priest, servant of the Churches, and bearer of the Gospel among the nations." °^

Immediately following upon these events, came a terrible pestilence, which ravaged England, and chose its most illustrious victims among those prelates of whom we have been speaking. It carried off first Biohop Cedda, who had acted as interpreter at Whitby, and his thirty friends, of whose touching death at Lastingham we have already heard; ^^ and after him the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Northumbria, both of whom had signed the deed of dedication of the new monastery of St. Peter.^*^ It became necessary, therefore, to provide for the see which the death of Tuda had left vacant, that of Northumbria, the largest and most important of all the English bishoprics. The Roman party believed itself so strong as to be able to disregard the tradition, not yet very venerable, which made that great see the right of the Celtic monks. They determined to go further back, to the recol- " All these details are taken from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the most important and most authentic of all the historic monuments of the Anglo- Saxon epoch, after the History of Bede. Kemble, and after him several recent authors, see only modern interpolations in these passages relating to the Abbey of Peterborough, but give no direct proof of this opinion. Kemble, however, describes the consent of the assembly, half lay and half clerical, to the king's donation. (Codex Diplomat., n° 984r.) M. Augustin Thierry has quoted the speech of Wulphore as authentic (Hist, de la Conqucie, t. i.

p. 88, edit, of 1846), and I do not see any reason for not following his example. The most complete version of the deed is in Dugdale's Monasticon (vol. i. p. 63). There will be found in the Appendix some notes on the present condition of this famous abbey.

⁵³ "Ego Wilfridus presbyter, famulus ecclesiarum, et bajulus evangelii Dei in gentes, affectavi."

^*9 Page 290. «» Bede, iii. 25, 28, &c. lections of the first mission sent from Rome, which, passing by Canterbury, was established at York by the Benedictine Paulinus. Besides this, the young king, Alchfrid, was impatient to see his friend Wilfrid master of spiritual authority in the kingdom which had been brought back by him to unity with Rome. He obtained the consent of his father, the Bretwalda Oswy, and both together reassembled the Witenagemot, to proceed to the election of a bishop, whose determination it should be to make Roman usages the law of his conduct. The Northumbrian thanes, consulted by the two kings, replied with one voice that no one in the whole country could be more worthy of the episcopate than Wilfrid, who was already priest and abbot. He himself was present at the assembly, and wished at first to decline the election. But he was commanded in the name of the Lord, and on the part of the kings and people of Northumbria, to submit his will to their unanimous choice.^^

This was a great victory for the Roman observances. It was never forgiven by the vanquished, and Wilfrid had to bear the penalty during all the remainder of his life. The Northumbrian dissenters submitted to the decision of Whitby, but they retained an implacable antipathy to the conqueror. The great Abbess Hilda, the Celtic monks of Lindisfarne, all those who remained faithful to the sacred memory of St. Aldan, and to that still more venerated, of Columba, appeared to have taken against Wilfrid the oath of Hannibal. Reduced to powerlessness on the Pascal question, in respect to which they could not struggle against Rome with the whole Church at her back, they regained the advantage when only the person of Wilfrid was concerned, who, dear as he was to the king's son, was perhaps for that very reason less liked by Oswy, who, though he adopted the Roman Easter, could not destroy all traces of attachment to the ideas and customs of his youth.

Wilfrid, meantime, chose this occasion to exhibit, yet more He docs *^^^^ at Whitby, the bigoted and exclusive side of not wish to his character. He would not be consecrated by any of the bishops of his own country, not even by the

⁶¹ " Reges concilium cum sapientibus suae gentis... inierunt, quem eligerent in sedem vacantem, qui voluisset sedis apostolicae doctrinam sibi facere et alios docere.... Neminem habemus meliorem et digniorem nostrae gentis quam Wilfridum... consenserunt reges et omnis populus huic electioni, et Wilfridum omnis conventus in nomine Domini accipere gradum episcopalem praecepit."— Eddids, c. 2.

Metropolitan of Canterbury. Although they were a"*EuXh all in communion with the Holy See, and though Wshop! many of them are still venerated as saints,^^ \^q ^qq]^ upon himself, on his own authority, to class them with schismatics. "My lord kings," he said, "I must first of all consider the best means of reaching the episcopate according to your election, without exposing myself to the reproaches of true Catholics. There are in this island many bishops whom it is not my business to accuse, but they have ordained Britons and Scots whom the Apostolic See has not received into communion, because it does not receive those that hold communion with schismatics.^^ I therefore humbly beseech you to send me into Gaul, where there are many Catholic bishops, so that I may receive the episcopal character without opposition to the Holy See." He thus confounded together the whole Celtic clergy of Great Britain and Ireland as schismatics, though his apologists have not left us the least trace of any Papal decision which authorized him in taking this attitude. However, the two kings made no objection, but, on the contrary, gave him a numerous train and enough money to present himself to the Franks with the pomp he loved, and which suited the bishop of a great kingdom. He thus crossed the sea and went to Compiegne to seek his friend Agilbert, formerly Bishop of the West Saxons, who had just been made Bishop of Paris. Agilbert received him with all honor as a confessor of the faith. Wilfrid was consecrated with the greatest solemnity, and with the assistance of twelve other bishops. He was carried through the church, in the midst of the crowd, on a golden throne, by the hands of bishops, who chanted hymns, and who were alone admitted to the honor of supporting his throne. He was instituted Bishop, not of Lindisfarne, like his four predecessors, but of York, like Paulinus, the first bishop sent from Canterbury and from Rome, as if by this means to efface all trace of the Celtic mission in Northumbria.^

«2 Faber, p. 44.

*^ At least this seems to be the meaning of the somewhat obscure language his friend Eddi attributes to him: " O domini venerabiles reges.... Sunt hie in Britannia multi episcopi, quorum nullum meum est accusare: quamvis veraciter sciam quod baud quatuordecim anni sunt, ut Britones et Scoti ab illis sint ordinati, quos ncc apostolica sedes in communionem recepit, neque eos qui scbismaticis consentiunt."— C. 12.

"* " Tale consilium bene regibus complacuit, pra?parantes ei navem et auxilia hominum et multitudinem pecunia;. ... In sella aurea sedentem more eorum sursum elevarunt, portantes in manibus soli episcopi intra oratoria, nuUo alio attingente.... Post spatiura temporis ad sedem episcopalem Shipwreck His staj in France was probably too much pro- ^nrf^ombat longed, and his return was not without disaster, coast of While he was crossing the Channel, and the clergy Sussex, ^^j^^ accompanied him, seated on deck, replaced the ordinary songs of the sailors by chanted psalms, a fearful storm arose, by which they were Avrecked on the coast of Sussex — the smallest kingdom of the Heptarchy, inhabited, as its name indicates, by the Southern Saxons. The ebbing tide having left the ship aground, the people in the neighborhood made a rush to avail themselves of that right to wreck and derelict always so dear to maritime populations, and which has been too long maintained even among the most Catholic, as in our own Bretagne. As the Southern Saxons were still pagans, we can scarcely admit, with one of Wilfrid's biographers, that they were excited against him by the malice of Celtic Christianity; but they did not the less manifest their intention of taking possession of the vessel, and giving the shipwrecked strangers their choice between death and slavery. Wilfrid tried to pacify them, offering all he possessed for the liberty of himself and his followers. But the pagans were excited by one of their priests, who, standing on the cliffs, cursed, like Balaam, the people of God, and looked as if he meant to destroy them by sorcery. One of Wilfrid's followers, armed, like David, with a sling, flung a stone at the heathen pontiff, whose skull it shattered; and his corpse fell upon the sands. At this sight the rage of the savages redoubled, and they prepared to take the vessel by storm. Wilfrid's Northumbrians, one hundred and twenty in number, resolved to defend themselves. They swore, according to Saxon custom, not to abandon each other, and to think of no alternative save a glorious death or victory. Wilfrid and his priests, kneeling on the deck, prayed while the others fought. Three times the ferocious wreckers mounted to the assault, and three times they were repulsed. They were preparing for a fourth attack, under the command of their king, who had been attracted by the hope of booty, when the tide suddenly turned, lifted the stranded vessel, and saved the travellers from their enemies. They landed peaceably at Sandwich, on the same Kentish coast where Augustin and his companions had for the first time trodden the coast of England.6^ Ebracae civitatis hunc emiserunt." — Eddius, 1. c. Cf. Bede, iii. 28; Eridegodus, Vita Rhyihmica, c. 11.

" " Canentibus clericis et psallentibus laudem Dei pro celeusmate in choro.... Mare navem et homines relinquens... littora detergens, in abyssi

A painful surprise awaited them. During the Celtic re-

prolonged absence of Wilfrid the mind of Oswy had a^ahfst changed. The victory of Whitby, like all other vie- Kin^oswy tories, was less complete than it at first seemed to j-ep'Sees be. The Celtic party, apparently destroyed by the irlshmau^ unanimous vote of the assembly, had now revived, ^''^^'^'^*- and regained its credit with the Bretwalda. The return of Oswy to his former predilections for the Celtic Church, in which he had been baptized and brought up, may probably be ascribed tc the influence of the holy Abbess Hilda of Whitby, princess' of the Northumbrian blood-royal, to whom the king had confided his daughter when consecrating her to God as the price of his victory over the Mercians and the completed liberation of his country .^*^ As long as she lived Hilda remained faithful to the Celtic traditions, and her opposition to Wilfrid never relaxed.^'' It has also been supposed that Oswy had begun to be jealous of his son Alchfrid, and of the influence procured for him with the Roman party by his close alliance with Wilfrid, although it was Oswy himself who had associated his son with him in the royalty, and although his position as Bretwalda or suzerain of the Anglo- Saxon Confederation might have reassured him on that score.^^ But the confidant and biographer of Wilfrid affirms that the Celts (whom he most unjustly styles quartodecimans), with the aid of the devil, persuaded the king to take advantage of the absence of Wilfrid to appoint one of their party Bishop of York in his place.^^

It is unanimously allowed that the man whom c • *, /-\ 1 • If Ttr-ir- • 1 • TT- Saintly Oswy substituted for W lifrid was a saint. His name character of was Ceadda,'*' a monk of Anglo-Saxon birth, but ^'^'^'^'^"' '^'^

matricem recessit.... Stans princeps sacerdotutn idololatriaj coram paganis in tumulo excelso, sicut Balaam... ut suis magicis artibus manus eorum alligare nitebatur... retrorsiim cadavere cadcnte sicut Goliathus in arenosis locis..,. Inito pactu, ut nullus ab alio in fugam terga verteret, sed aut mortem cum laude, aut vitani cum triumpho habere mererentur." —Eddius, c. 13.

*^ See above, p. 297.

" Varin, account already quoted. AYilliam of Malmesburt, 1. c. ^*** Fabkr, p. 46. A trace of this rivalry between father and son is clearly shown in this passage of Bede: — " Rex Alchfrid misit Wilfridum ad regem Galliarura, qui eum consecrari faceret cpiscopum.... Imitatus industriam filii rex Osviu misit Cantiam, virum sanctum." — iii. 28.

"3 " Oswiu rex, male suadente invidia, liostis antiqui instinctu, alium praearripere inordinate sedem suam edoctus, consensit ab his qui quartadecimanam partem contra apostolicse sedis regulam sibi elegerunt."— Eddics, c. 14.

° He is venerated in England under the name of St. Chad. " Rcligiosissimum admirabilem doctorem, de insula Hibernia vunientcm." — Eddius, c.

14. Bede, iii. 21, 23; iv. 2. lucwisor ^^'^° ^^^ been a disciple of St. Aidan. He was a of Wilfrid, brother of Bishop Cedd or Cedda, who had acted as interpreter at Whitby, and whose death, followed by that of his thirty friends, we have already mentioned. Ceadda had succeeded his brother as Abbot of Lastingham, the monastery which was, after Lindisfarne, the principal seat of the Celtic spirit in Northumbria. It was Oswy's desire, however, that the new bishop should be consecrated, not by the prelates of the Celtic ritual, but at Canterbury by the Saxon metropolitan,'i who had always preserved a good understanding with the people of the north. But when Ceadda arrived at Canterbury he found that the terrible pestilence of 664 had carried off the archbishop, whose successor was not yet appointed. He then went to the land of the Eastern Saxons to obtain consecration from Wini, of whom we have heard at Whitby and Peterborough, but who also appears to have been moved by a reactionary impulse against the vote of the Council, since he called to his aid, in the consecration of Ceadda, two British bishops who had remained faithful to the Pascal usage of the Celts.'^ On his return to Northumbria, Ceadda peaceably took possession of his diocese, and displayed there the virtues which have for so long made his name popular among the English. Well versed in Holy Scripture, he drew from it rules of conduct which he never disregarded. His humility, his sincerity, the purity of his life, his love for study, excited the admiration of the Northumbrian people, to whose evangelization he devoted himself, visiting the cities, villages, and castles, nay, even the most retired hamlets, not on horseback, according to the favorite custom of the Saxons, but on foot, like the apostles, and like his master and predecessor St. Aidan-'^

It does not appear, however, that Ceadda or any other of the Celtic adversaries of Wilfrid attempted to reverse the decision of the Council of Whitby, or to maintain or re-establish either the Celtic 'observance of Easter or the tonsure from ear to ear. It is probable that the opposition which arose against Wilfrid, continually increasing in violence, was directed less against Roman doctrines or practices than against himself personally. His precocious influence, and ''^ Frithona, also called Deusdedit.

" " Absumptis in societatcm ordinationis duobus de Britonum gente episcopis, qui dominicum pascha diem... secus moretn canonicuni, a quarta decima usque ad vigesimam lunam celebrant." — Bede, iii. 28.

" " Oppida, rura, casas, vicos, castella propter evangelizandum, non equitando... peragrare." — Bede, iii. 28. still more his violent proceedings against the Irish and their disciples, roused the popular dislike; for it is proved that, wherever he had the power, he allowed the Celts only the choice of giving up their own customs or returning to their native country.'*

Thus dispossessed of his see, Wilfrid regained all wilfrid reins influence by the moderation and dignity of his conduct. He was only thirty years of age. His youth might have excused some irritation, some warmth easy to be understood in the presence of so manifest an injustice. But far from yielding to this, he displayed the prudence and mature mind of a statesman, together with the humility and charity of a saint. He, so rigid an observer of the canon law, so scrupulous with regard to liturgical irregularities, had here to oppose an inexcusable abuse of power, a direct violation of the laws of the Church — he had to vindicate an evident right, solemnly conferred by the Northumbrian king and nation, and solemnly consecrated by the Church. And yet he preferred to be silent, to withdraw himself, and to trust to the justice of God and of the future. Thus the saint begins to be visible in his character; and it must not be forgotten, as an additional claim upon our interest, that the pious usurper of the see was himself already accounted a saint, and placed by public veneration in the high rank which he has for nine hundred years maintained in the regard of English Catholics.

Wilfrid, whose episcopal character no one could despise, but who had no longer a diocese, retired calmly, and even joyfully, to the Monastery of Ripon, which he held by the generosity of the young King Alchfrid, and there lived in study and seclusion.'^ It may be supposed that his friend Alchfrid went thither to console him — if, indeed, he were living at the time of Wilfrid's return; for from that moment he disappears from history, though there is no record of his death. But Wilfrid was not long permitted to remain in his monastery. Wulphere, King

''* " Ipse perplura catholicae observationis moderamina ecclesiis Anglorum sua doctrina contulit. Unde factum est, ut, crescente per dies institutione catholica, Scotti omnes qui inter Anglos morabantur aut his nianus durent, aut suam redirent ad patriam." — Bede, iii. 28. " Hie primus verum paseha, ejectis Scottis, in Northumbria docuit." — Thom. db Elmham., Hist. Monast. S, Augustini, p. 198.

" " Placido vultu ct hilari pectore coenobium suum in Ripon repetiit, ibique cum magna mentis stabilitate." — Ricard. Haghlstad., Hist- Eccles. Hagust., c. 6. of Mercia, the founder of Peterborough, invited him to his kingdom, where at that time there was no bishop.'^^

Ahhough this kingdom had been converted and governed by Celtic monks, Wulphere was naturally drawn to favor the champion of the Roman ritual, by his marriage with Ermenilda, daughter of the King of Kent, and, consequently, sprung from that race which first received the teachings of Rome from the lips of St. Augustin. She was fidaf olieon nioce of Eanfleda, Queen of Northumbria, who had aftowards ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^'^^ protcctrcss of Wilfrid, and who had abbess of carried back from her exile and education at Can- ^' terbury so faithful an attachment to the Roman customs. King Wulphere, Queen Ermenilda, and the Abbot Wilfrid, therefore labored together to extend and consolidate the Christian faith, in that vast kingdom of Mercia, which already began to rival Northumbria in importance.

Thanks to the great territorial donations made to him by the king, Wilfrid was able to found several monasteries, in one of which he was destined to end his life. He thus lent powerful aid in achieving the happy results which were chiefly due to Queen Ermenilda. This gentle and noble woman, who, like so many other princesses of the race of Hengist, ended her days in the cloister, and is inscribed in the list of saints, had been chosen by God to complete the transformation into Christians of those terrible Mercians, who, more than all the other Anglo-Saxons, had remained faithful to their national paganism, and had been so long the terror of the new-born Christianity of England. She succeeded as much by her bounties and good example, as by her energetic perseverance. The unwearied activity of her self-devotion 658 ⁶⁷⁵ ^'^^ ^^^y equalled by her angelic sweetness. She

never ceased her exertions until, after a reign of seventeen years with Wulphere, idolatry had completely disappeared from Mercia. Then, on the death of her husband, she entered the monastery, where her mother awaited her, and which had been founded by her aunt.'^

'^ Bishop Jaruman had been sent by Wulphere to lead back to the true faith the Eastern Saxons, who, since the great pestilence of 664, had fallen into idolatry. See above, p. 291.

'' " Sua dulcedine, blandifluis hortamentis, moribus ac beneficiis indomita raulcens pectora, ad suave Christi jugura rudes populos et indoctos excitabat.... Nee requievit invicta, donee idola et ritus diiemoniacos extirparet.... Act. SS. Holland., vol. ii. Feb., p. 691. The history of the Monastery of Ely, founded by St. Etheldreda, and of which Ermenilda succeeded her mother, Sexburga, as abbess, will be found further on.

AND THE BENEDICTINE ORDER. 34:1

In order to understand clearly the aspect of these earliest ages of the political and religious history of England, it is needful to remember the ties of blood which united all the kings and princesses of different dynasties who governed the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and claimed their descent from Odin. This relationship frequently serves to guide us through the maze of incidents which favored or retarded the preaching of the Gospel. Thus the gentle and noble Ermenilda Avas the sister of Egbert, King of Kent, who, faithful, like her, to the traditions of his family, always showed himself full of zeal for religion such as Augustin had preached it to his ancestor Ethelbert, and full of affection for Wilfrid. Accordingly, after the death of Augastin's fifth successor, the metroj)olitan see having remained vacant for some years, Egbei't invited the Abbot of Ripon to preside over the spiritual government of his kingdom, and to provide for the ordinations.

Wilfrid exercised this provisional authority for three years; dividing his time between his Northumbrian monastery, and the diocese of Canter bury, where he made many friends, whose aid he secured for the benefit of his Abbey of Ripon. One of his first acts was to bring to wilfrid Ripon two monks of the monastery of St. Augustin, good musicians, who introduced among the Anglo- Saxons the Gregorian chant, always used at Canterbury; and it is to one of these, named Hedd, or fnto noI-"^*' Eddi, that we owe the extremely valuable and curious biography of his bishop. With these singers Wilfrid brought also masons, or rather architects, ccenientarii, and other artists or workmen, all, no doubt, monks of the same monastery, whose talents he proposed to employ in the great building of which he already dreamed. Finally, he brought from the first sanctuary created by the Benedictines in England, a gift yet more precious and more fruitful than music or architecture, the rule of St. Benedict, which no one had hitherto attempted to introduce into the Northumbrian monasteries.''^ Wilfrid constituted himself its ardent and zealous missionary, advancing its adoption side by side with that

'^ "Cum cantatoribus ^dde et iEona et caemcntariis omnisque pasne artis ministerio in regionem suara revertens cum rcgula Benedicti, instituta ecclesiaruni bene melioravit." — Eddius, e. li. *' Nonne ego curavi... quomodo vitam raonachorum secundum regulam S. Benedicti patris, quamnullus ibi prius invexit, constituerem? " — Ibid., c. 45. Cf. Mabillon, Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. V. p. G33, puis Annales Benedidini, lib. xv. n. 64.

29^ of the Roman tonsure, the exact observance of Easter, and the harmonious and alternate chanting of the liturgy. He succeeded thoroughly; for it is to him and to him alone that we must attribute the gradual but rapid substitution of the Benedictine rule for Celtic traditions in the great and numerous communities which the sons of St. Columbahad created in the north of England. It has been already made apparent of St. Columba, that there was no fundamental difference between monastic life as regulated by the groat legislator of Monte Cassino, and that practised at lona and in the other communities of Ireland and Great Britain. The only difference that can be indicated as distinctly characteristic of monastic life among the Celts, is a certain increased austerity in fasts and other mortifications, and a more decided application to the copying of manuscripts."^ But in the opinion of Wilfrid, as in the general interest of the Church, it was of great consequence that the powerful regular army of Saxon Christianity should march under the same flag, and answer to the same watchword. The watchword and the flag had been brought from Rome by the Benedictine missionaries of Mont-Coelius, and confided to the two great monastic foundations of Canterbury, from whence Wilfrid brought them to make of them the supreme, and henceforward ineffaceable, characteristics of English ecclesiastical organization.

Howevor, the aspect of affairs was about to metropou- Undergo another change. It was needful to find successor for Archbishop Deusdedit. For this purpose, the King of Northumbria, Oswy, made use of the superior authority in ecclesiastical affairs which seems to have been accorded to the Bretwalda; he showed, at the same time, that though the Celtic party, by appealing to the recollections of his youth, had been able to persuade him to make Wilfrid the victim of an unjust exclusion, he remained, nevertheless, sincerely submissive to the primacy of the Holy See, which he had so solemnly recognized at Whitby, xifter consulting with the young King Egbert of Kent and the chiefs of the Anglo-Saxon clergy, he appointed a monk of Canterbury, named Wighard, universally known to be worthy of the episcopate, a Saxon by birth, but trained in the school of the first missionaries sent from Rome by St.

'^ As to the election of abbots, which was one of the most essential bases of the Benedictine rule, it appears that Wilfrid himself departed from it without hesitation by naming to his monks the successor they were to give him. — Eddius, c. 61.

Gregory ,^^ and thus uniting all the conditions necessary to satisfy at once the exigencies of the national spirit and those of the most severe orthodoxy. Then, still acting in conjunction with the King of Kent, he did what had never before been done by an English king, nor, indeed, so far as I know, by the king of any newly converted nation; he sent the archbishop-elect to Rome to be consecrated by the Pope, so that he might be able to ordain perfectly orthodox bishops in all the churches of England.

Wighard had but just arrived at Rome, when he died there with nearly all his attendants. The two kings then resolved to leave to the Pope the choice of the new metropolitan of England.

But great as was Oswy's zeal and humility in yielding to Roman supremacy, the want of eagerness displayed by Vitalien, who was then Pope, in using the power thus given up to him, was equally remarkable. He replied to Oswy that he had not yet been able to find a person suited for so distant a mission, but promised to make further attempts to find one, and in the mean time congratulated the king on his faith, exhorting him to continue to conform, whether with regard to Easter, or to any other question, to the traditions of the Apostles Peter and Paul, whom God had given to the world as two great lights, to enlighten every day the hearts of the faithful by their doctrine; and exhorted him to complete the work of the conversion and union of the whole island in the same apostolic faith. He sent him, at the same time, some relics of different martyrs, and a cross containing a portion of the chains of St. Peter for Queen Eanfleda, the friend of Wilfrid. "Your wife," said the Pope, "is our spiritual daughter; her virtues and good works are our joy, and that of all the Roman Church, and they bloom before God like the perfumed flowers of spring." ^^

*° " Intellexerat cnim veraciter quamvis educatus a Scottis, quia Roraana esset catholica et apostolica ecclesia.... Cum electione ct consensu sanctae ecclosiaj gentis Anglorum.... Viruni nomine Vigherduin qui a Romanis B. Gregorii papaj discipulis in Cantia fuerat omni ecclesiastica institutione sufficienter edoctus." — Beue, Ilisi. Eccles., iii. 29; Hist. Ahbaticm in Wiramiii/ia et Girvum, n. 3.