The Western Developments

The heresy of Arianism may be stated shortly to have consisted in the denial of the complete equality of the Son with the Father in the Holy Trinity, and in maintaining that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father alone. This heresy came to a climax at Alexandria, and was one of the special matters brought before the First General Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325, which condemned it.

Now, in 258, in the course of their raids into Asia Minor and Cappadocia, the Goths had brought back from the latter certain prisoners who were Christians, and who in their exile maintained communication with their native country and spread the Gospel among their new masters. A Mesopotamian monk named Audius, who had been banished, likewise devoted himself to missionary work. Soon after, he was followed by Ulfilas, known as the 'Apostle of the Goths', who had been also carried off in a raid from Cappadocia about 300. These Cappadocians were, however, affected with Arianism.

Whilst holding the Arian heresy, the general form of their Liturgy was of course that of the Churches in the East, from which it had sprung. From this we shall see that after the fall of the Roman Empire we find everywhere traces of these Eastern forms as these barbarians swept through Gaul and Spain and Southern Europe.

The well established trade relations between the South of France and the East brought Christianity thither at an early date. Thus we find that by 177 Polthinius, who was from Ephesus in Asia Minor, had been created first Bishop of Lyons. He brought with him St. Irenaeus from Smyrna, a disciple of Polycarp, who himself had been a disciple of St. John the Divine. This first community at Lyons was almost certainly Greek, though St. Irenaeus mentions the conversion of Celts; the trade at Lyons was in the hands of Greeks and Syrians and other Orientals.

We learn from Bede, who wrote about 700, that England was first converted by a mission sent by Pope Eleutherius (175–189). Though St. Germanus of Auxerre visited England in 429 and again in 447 to put down the heresy of Pelagius, a native of Wales who lived about 380.

It has been noted in Chapter X. that even after the Council of Nicea, Arianism continued to flourish amongst the Goths, and it must also be confessed that it was far from being suppressed in the East. At the Council of Sardica in 341, it has been stated that nearly a quarter of the three and a half hundred Bishops present were Arians. Moreover, the Emperor Constantius—whose capital was at Antioch—was himself an Arian, and he, in 355, appointed Auxentius, a Cappadocian and an Arian, to be Bishop of Milan.

It was, then, this Eastern Ritual as brought to Milan by the Arians, but purged of its Arian taint, which came to be known as The Ambrosian Rite.

Gradually, in this way, as these barbarians forsook their heresy and adopted the Orthodox Catholic faith, the alteration in their religious rites consisted in merely excluding or amending such parts of them as were tainted with the heresy. So we find in the West a Christian religion with many of the essential characteristics of the Eastern Church, gradually adopting Roman forms as it became Catholic, rather than the complete acceptance of such Roman forms, as would have been the case had they been converted from sheer Paganism.

That the Orthodox element in this Gallic Use, which, though Eastern in form, was not Arian in doctrine, prevailed from the outset, is evidenced by the fact that Clovis, who founded the dynasty of the Merovingian Franks in 481, was himself baptized into the Orthodox faith by St. Remy in 496.

Thus the Gallic Use gradually sprang up in Gaul and was not introduced as a whole: for we see the numerous questions which had to be settled at such provincial synods as the Council of Vannes in Brittany for the province of Tours in 465, and that of Agde for the Visigothic kingdom in the south of Gaul in 506.

The earliest record of this Gallic Use is in two important letters written by St. Germain of Paris, 556–576, in which, in order to explain the meaning of the ritual, he sets out a summary of the Use. The most complete Missal is the Missale Gothicum, written about 690 at Autun, now in the Vatican.

As has been mentioned before, this rite bears distinct traces of the Eastern Uses, and is chiefly noticeable for certain distinctive features.

First is its extreme variableness: in the Roman Rite there are only three variable parts, whereas in the Gallic there are no less than nine.

The part taken in the rite by the congregation as a whole, under the direction of the priest, is much greater, e.g. in saying Our Lord's Prayer by the priest each clause is punctuated by an Amen from the congregation. The rejoicing of the faithful is throughout particularly stressed.

There were three Introductory Canticles. First, the Trisagion—first in Greek and then in Latin:

ἄγιος ὁ θεός, ἄγιος ἰσχυρός, ἄγιος ἀθάνατος, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς
Sanctus Deus — Sanctus fortis — Sanctus immortalis — miserere nobis; the Kyrie Eleison, sung by three boys; and the Benedictus (Luke i. 68–79).

One of the Lections was from the Old Testament. The ceremonial which preceded the reading of the Gospel, called the 'Lesser Entrance', was similar to that in the Greek Liturgy. The Homily or Sermon was retained throughout this period. Then followed the Litany, like in the Greek Uses, and the Dismissal of the Catechumens.

It may be of interest to note that the Processional Litany was first adopted in the Orthodox Church by St. Chrysostom at Constantinople about 390, especially to act as an offset against the processions organized by the Arians, who had been excluded from the churches.

Next we have the Procession of the Oblation, or 'Greater Entrance'. The Gallic Church had the same Use of special consecration of the bread and wine in the vestry which obtained in the Greek Church and was called the 'Mass of the Prothesis' or the 'Credence'. During the procession a chant was sung called the Sonus or Laudes or Alleluia, followed by the 'Oratio super sindonem' or Prayer of the Veil, which was the counterpart of the Roman 'Super Oblata'.

The Eucharistic Prayer began with a Preface like the Roman, which was called in the Gaul the 'Contestatio' or 'Immolatio' and in Spain the 'Illatio', and was followed by the 'Ter Sanctus'. The account of the Institution was never written but only indicated by the first words. The Mozarabic text is as follows:

"Adesto adesto Jesus bone pontifex, in medio nostri, sicut fuisti in medio discipulorum tuorum; sanctifica hanc oblationem ut sanctificata sumamus per manus sancti angeli tui, sancte domine ac redemptor aeterne. Dominus noster Jesus Christus in qua nocte tradebatur accepit panem et gratias agens benedixit ac fregit, deditque discipulis suis, dicens: 'Accipite et manducate: hoc est corpus meum quod pro vobis tradetur. Quotiescumque manducaveritis, hoc facite in meam commemorationem.' R̃Amen."

The 'Fraction' was complicated, like in the Greek Prothesis: the Host was arranged in a special manner, at one time to represent the human form, but by the Council of Tours in 567 it was ordered to consist of nine portions in the form of a cross.

The Pater Noster followed, originally said by both priest and congregation together, but in the Mozarabic Rite the congregation say 'Amen' only, but after each petition.

Then came the rite of Commixtio, when the priest dropped some of the consecrated particles into the cup; the part used in the Mozarabic Rite is that called the 'Regnum': he then said a prayer commencing 'Sancta Sanctis'. This phrase, 'Holy things to the Holy', or 'Holy things to holy people', was used during the Mass of the Faithful in all the Greek Eastern Liturgies.

After this came the Communion, when the faithful entered the sanctuary and came up to the altar to communicate. The men received the Host in their bare hands, but the women had their hands covered by a linen cloth called a 'dominical', which they brought with them (cf. Synod of Auxerre, 578).

A chant called the 'Trecanum', according to St. Germain commemorative of the Trinity, was sung during the administration; in the Mozarabic Rite this chant is taken from the 34th Psalm (verses 1, 8, and 22), and is called Accedentes.

Such is the general outline of the Gallic Rite. The Ambrosian Rite at a very early date adopted the scheme of the Roman Canon, whilst the Mozarabic Rite has differed but little from the Gallic Rite, from which it is directly derived.

Britain, as we know, was abandoned by the Romans about 410 in consequence of the pressure on the Empire induced by the barbarians on the Continent: it then fell an easy prey to the Northmen, who were Pagans, and Christianity was practically exterminated. Such Christians as were left were concentrated under the kings of Damnonia (Devon and Cornwall), most of whom were Christian.

After this, the first effort towards the conversion of the country to Christianity seems to have been made by St. Ninian, who was sent by Pope Siricius (384–399). He landed in Galloway and founded a mission in that part of what was then known as Strathclyde, which, roughly, extended from the Clyde to the Derwent in Cumberland.

According to Prosper of Aquitaine (402–463), who was secretary for some time to Pope Leo the Great (440–461), Palladius was consecrated by Pope Celestine (422–432) as first Bishop of Ireland. The Great St. Patrick, born in Ayrshire in Strathclyde, was first sent to Ireland by St. Martin of Tours (371–391); he became Bishop of Ireland in 437 and died in 461. St. Patrick, coming from Tours and having studied at Lerins, undoubtedly introduced the Gallic Use into Ireland, from whence it was spread through the Irish missionaries to Iona in Scotland, founded by St. Columba (521–597).

Though having no direct bearing upon our subject, space must be found for a short reference to the Mozarabic Rite in Spain, as it is the only surviving example of the Gallic Use.

We have seen that at a very early date the Ambrosian Rite adopted so many Roman innovations that at present the Use at Milan is very different from the original Gallic Use, if it ever completely employed it.

On the other hand, the Mozarabic Rite has varied but little in the form, which is still used in the Mozarabic Chapel in the Cathedral at Toledo near Madrid, from the most primitive forms of the Gallic Church. Moreover, several of the particular local customs of the Roman Church in Spain display the influence which the Mozarabic Rite has had upon them.

There were Christians in Spain at a very early date, in the Epistle to the Romans, xv. 24, we find St. Paul writing from Corinth about 60, referring to a journey which he proposed to take into Spain.

In 305 there was a Council at Elvira, the Iliberris of the Iberians, and the Municipium Florentinum Iliberritum of the Romans, about five miles west of Granada, and in 300 there was a Council at Saragossa.

It was by the former Council that ‘superposition’ fasts (see p. 31) were restricted to once a month, except in July and August, when they were prohibited altogether.

In 409 the Vandals, Alans, and Suevi, followed in 415 by the Visigoths, overran Spain; but both the Suevi and Visigoths at any rate were Arians. Between 463 and 469 Euric the king of the Visigoths defeated the Suevi and captured most of the peninsula, ousting the last of the Romans; and in 569–586, Leovigild, King of the Visigoths, ruled over the whole peninsula. His successor, Reccared (586–601), renounced Arianism and became the first Catholic king of Spain. In 711 the Moors conquered all Spain, except Galicia and Asturias, but they were gradually driven back south until Toledo was recovered in 1085, though they were not finally expelled until 1502.

The Moors, when they conquered Spain, allowed the Christians to follow their religion under certain restrictions, and they, being cut off from outside influence, continued to use the old Gallic Use employed by their forefathers; for there is no doubt that this was what Reccared and his successors had observed. These people were called half-Arabs, ‘Mozarabs’—hence the term Mozarabic.¹

We have, in fact, the record of the fourth Council of Toledo, 633, in the time of St. Isidore (596–636), the chief founder of the orthodox faith amongst the Arian Suevi and Visigoths; afterwards there were dissensions which were referred to Pope John X. in 924 and again to Pope Alexander II. in 1065, to whom copies of their Use were sent, and to which he found no reason for objection, but gave his approval. However, in 1089, Alfonso VI. of Spain abolished the National Rite in favour of the Roman Rite, but on the protest of Toledo it was made alternative there. Cardinal Ximénes, the great Spanish patriot, after the defeat of the Moors, sought to revive this Mozarabic Rite and rescue it from oblivion, and a Missal and complete Breviary of the Use were printed at Toledo in 1500–1502.

About 1904 there was discovered the MS. of a ‘Liber Ordinum’ of 1052 at Silos near Borgos, which is thought to be identical with that to which Pope Alexander II. gave his approval in 1065.

It is quite clear that derived from this Rite are those special customs which are observed at Seville and elsewhere in Spain, e.g. the special processions during Holy Week, the rending of the veil on the Saturday before Easter, and the dance of the boys before the High Altar on Corpus Christi Day.

In the examination of the Gallic Use the Mozarabic variations have been noted; as a matter of interest, however, an outline of the exact service as at present used at Toledo may not be amiss.

The only up-to-date document procurable is one published in 1926 in Spanish at Toledo by Dr. Aparicio y Gutierrez, with the approval of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo. In the general outline which follows, some trace of North African influence is thought to be indicated by the fact that St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Carthage, 500–600, is mentioned in the Diptychs.

It has been necessary to deal with the origin and structure of the Gallic Use at length in consequence of its influence, not only in England, but also in Rome, without a knowledge of which subsequent innovations are meaningless.

When St. Augustine arrived at Canterbury in 597 on his mission, sent by St. Gregory the Great, it was not an entirely pagan Court with which he found himself confronted.

Ethelbert the Jute, King of Kent, had married Bertha, the daughter of Caribert, King of Paris, who was himself not a pagan but an Arian. It had been agreed that she should be accompanied to her husband’s Court by her chaplain, Luidhard, a Frankish bishop.

St. Augustine soon found himself in touch with the Christian Celts in the north and west, and wrote to Rome for instructions as to what attitude he should adopt. The following is the reply of St. Gregory to one of the questions which he put forward:

“Cum una sit fides, cur sunt ecclesiarum consuetudines tam diversae, et altera consuetudo missarum est in Romana ecclesia atque altera in Galliarum ecclesiis tenetur?”

“Novit fraternitas tua Romanae ecclesiae consuetudinem in qua se meminit enutritam. Sed mihi placet, ut sive in Romana sive in Galliarum sive in qualibet ecclesia aliquid invenisti, quod plus omnipotenti Deo possit placere, sollicite eligas, et in Anglorum ecclesia, quae adhuc in fide nova est, institutione praecipua quae de multis ecclesiis colligere potuisti, infundas. Non enim, pro locis res sed pro rebus loca nobis amanda sunt. Ex singulis ergo quibusque ecclesiis quae pia, quae religiosa, quae recta sunt, elige, et haec quasi in fasciculum collecta apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem depone”. (Greg. Mag. Epist. lib. xi. 64. 3. Migne, vol. 77, p. 1187.)

Question of Augustine: When the faith is one and the same, why are there different customs in different Churches, and why does one custom of Masses obtain in the Holy Roman and another in the Gallican Church?

Pope Gregory responds: Your Brotherhood knows the custom of the Roman Church in which it remembers being brought up. But I am of opinion that if you have found anything either in the Roman or the Gallican or any other Church which may be more acceptable to Almighty God you must carefully choose it, and with special diligence teach the Church of the English, which as yet is new to the faith, whatsoever you can gather from the several Churches. For things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things. Choose, therefore, from every Church those things which are pious, religious, and which are upright, and when you have, as it were, made them up into a body, instil it as a custom into the minds of the English.

According to the plan formulated by St. Gregory, England was to be divided into two provinces of London and York, each of which was to comprise twelve bishoprics, but this scheme was never brought to fruition. Augustine himself chose to remain at Canterbury rather than fix his See in London, where paganism remained rife for a considerable time after his death.

He was successful enough to be able to consecrate Melitus, Bishop of Essex, and Justus, Bishop of Rochester; he also consecrated Paulinus, Bishop of York.

But his dealings with the existing Celtic Christians in the West do not seem to have been imbued with the spirit of toleration indicated in the reply of St. Gregory to his questions. At any rate, at a conference which he held with them at St. Augustine’s oak, somewhere in Worcestershire or Gloucestershire, the exact site of which can no longer be identified, the Christian Celts, under Abbot Dinooth, refused to recognize his jurisdiction. He died in 604, the same year.

In 625 Paulinus was forced to retire from York; but in 631 St. Felix was successful in converting the East Anglians, and became Bishop of Dunwich, and in 634 St. Birinus converted Kynegils, King of Wessex, and founded the Bishopric of Dorchester, near Oxford, which in later years was transferred to Winchester.

As we have seen, after the flight of Paulinus from York, St. Aidan came from Iona and converted King Oswald in 634 (cf. p. 60).

In 664 there was a great conference at Whitby, held under King Oswi, when it was decided to adopt the Roman method of keeping Easter and the Roman mode of tonsure; the Celtic mode, as far as can be ascertained, was to shave all that part of the hair of the head which was in front of a line drawn over the head from one ear to the other. Wilfred, 635–708, who had taken a leading part in this controversy, was shortly afterwards appointed Bishop of York, or rather Lindisfarne, which was then the See in Northumbria; Colman retiring to Iona. Cedd, the Bishop of the East Saxons, and Chad, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield, were likewise convinced by the arguments of Wilfred. The doubt which existed as to the efficacy of the Celtic Orders is evidenced by the fact that Wilfred insisted on going to Paris to be consecrated by Agilbert, who had followed St. Birinus as Bishop of Dorchester, and who, in fact, had been present at the Conference of Whitby.

Likewise, later, Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, insisted on reconsecrating St. Chad, Bishop of York, as Bishop of Lichfield, though he had been originally consecrated by St. Wini and two Celtic Bishops.

This involved a great step towards the adoption, throughout England, of the Roman in preference to the Celtic Use. Moreover, Wilfred, taking umbrage at Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, 668–690, creating three new bishoprics in the north, where he had been the sole Bishop from the Forth to the Humber, appealed to the Pope and went to Rome to prosecute his appeal; in fact, he went twice, having in the meantime succeeded in converting the South Saxons, but on each occasion he brought back with him books and manuscripts, and did much to spread Roman Uses and learning. In this he was ably assisted by Benet Biscop, 629–689, his companion, who not only founded the monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth, but also induced Pope Agatho to allow him to bring over to England Abbot John, the Cantor, a superior of one of the monasteries of the Vatican, and arch-Cantor in Rome, in order to introduce the Roman method of singing (cf. Book II. Ch. I.).

What Wilfred was doing for the extension of the Roman Rites, Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, did for organization. He was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 668 by Pope Vitalian at the request of the Kings of Kent and Northumbria. He was a native of Tarsus in Cilicia; after a general visitation throughout the whole of England he held the Council of Hertford in 673, the first provincial Council in England, thereby establishing the authority of the See of Canterbury throughout England. It was there decided that the province of Canterbury should have thirteen bishoprics and that of York three.

It is necessary to observe that at this period there were monasteries of different kinds. Some grew up round the Cathedral or Minster, and were composed of those who served its services. Of the others, some were mixed foundations like that of St. Hilda at Whitby, the head of which might be either a man or a woman; in fact, the headship of such foundations in many cases became hereditable and descended through a series of generations. As Bishop Stubbs has pointed out, either clerical celibacy in such cases was unknown, or the heads of such monasteries must have delayed ordination until they had become fathers and mothers of families large enough to continue the succession. This practice seems to have lasted until about 800.

In 732 Egbert became Archbishop of York, 732–766, and the Archbishopric provided for under the Council of Hertford was revived; and he obtained the pallium from Pope Gregory III. in 736. He was the patron of Alcuin, who was afterwards to fulfil such an important place at the Court of Charlemagne the Great, when he sought to introduce the Gregorian Liturgy into the Gallic Church, as we have seen in Chapter XII.

Out of the desolation caused by the destruction of all books by the invading Danes in the course of the next century, we have left to us the Pontifical of this Archbishop. The actual MS. is a copy written about 950 and is now in Paris.

In the Pontifical we should not expect to find much trace of the Celtic influence, but we certainly find the Gallic element indicated at Ordinations by the anointing of the hands, which was a Gallic (or according to Warren, a Celtic) Use, not yet adopted at Rome, and instead of the blessing of the new grapes we have the blessing of the apples.

The form of ordination of the Minor Orders is likewise Gallic. It may not be amiss here to refer to the learned disquisition of Mgr. Duchesne on the Roman Canon, in which he points out that a hiatus occurs before the clause ‘per quem haec omnia bona creas sanctificas benedicis et praestas nobis’, in which he suggests that formerly there must have existed at this point a mention of the fruits of the earth, as was common in the Eastern Liturgies and as, in fact, existed at the blessing of the new beans on Ascension Day, the new grapes on St. Sixtus Day (August 6), and still exists at the blessing of the Holy Oils on Maundy Thursday.

It is curious to note in confirmation of this that in the MS. circa 1425 of the York Use, now in the Minster at York, there is a space left blank before the ‘per quem’ clause just mentioned.

Now Pontificals, as we know, are those books containing the ritual of the services proper to a bishop, but with the exception of the Services for Ordination and Confirmation they are not included in the Book of Common Prayer, and have been left untouched by the Reformation. It is therefore open now, as it was then, for each Bishop to compose his own Pontifical, though, for the most part, it will be found that Bishops have employed the Pontificals of their predecessors in their own individual Sees. It is of some importance to observe what this earliest of English Pontificals contained, and though it may be as well to give a rough outline of its contents, which are as follows:

This may seem a digression, but it is of importance to combine a knowledge of these early records with some impression of the events with which they were environed.

It was, then, in the time of this Egbert that the great Council of Cloveshoo or Clyff, near Rochester, was held in 747, when it was agreed that the same observance of feasts, rite of baptism, and of celebrating the Mass, and also of singing, should obtain throughout the whole of England according to the Roman Usage as they had it in writing.

The Celtic Rite had already come to an end in South Ireland, 625–628, North Ireland, 692, and Scotland in 716, also in Somerset and Devon under Aldham, Abbot of Malmesbury, 671, and Bishop of Sherborne, 705. It lingered on until 768 in North Wales and 777 in South Wales, but survived in Cornwall until the time of King Athelstan, 925–940. Thus, after at least 150 years’ controversy, this question of the different rites was settled; nevertheless, it was the Gelasian or Gallic form of the Roman Rite rather than the Gregorian which was probably adopted.

Whatever merits there may have been in the Celtic Rite, it was of far greater importance that the Church in England should conform with the rest of the Christian Church in the West.

During this period two great missionaries to the Continent from England arose, to whom reference has been made in Chapter XIV. Willibrord, brought up in Wilfred’s monastery at Ripon, who in 690 went to Frisia, of which he became Archbishop; and in 719 Winifred, better known as Boniface, joined Willibrord, and afterwards became Bishop of Mainz.

In consequence of the rise of the kingdom of Mercia to that of paramount importance, King Offa applied to the Pope Adrian to raise Lichfield to the rank of an archiepiscopal See, which was done in 787 at a council at Chelsea to which Pope Adrian sent two legates, and Higbert, Bishop of Lichfield, became Archbishop and Metropolitan, with precedence over the Archbishop of Canterbury. If this policy had been persisted in, the Church of England would have become completely dependent upon the royal power of that king who, under the heptarchy, happened for the moment to be in the ascendant, and would in such case have become purely provincial instead of national in character. Fortunately Kenwulf, the successor of Offa, was wise enough to appreciate the mistake in his father’s policy, and applied to Pope Leo III. for a reversal of the arrangement, which was eventually done at the Council of Cloveshoo in 803. It is well to note that these arrangements, though made with the consent of the Pope, were, in fact, carried out by national synods of the English Church.

It was about this time that the relics of St. Alban, the first English Martyr, were discovered. Ina, King of Wessex in 738, on a journey to Rome had founded an English school there to perpetuate the memory of their discovery, but it was King Offa in 793, who, also on a journey to Rome, originated Peter’s Pence, that is, a tax of one penny from every hearth throughout England, as an endowment of this school.

This tax of Peter’s Pence was paid on 1st August, the day of St. Peter ad Vincula. In course of time the Papacy was assumed to have taken charge of this school and to be entitled to receive the tax, regardless of the purpose for which it was originally granted. The payment or not of this tax remained a constant source of controversy until the Reformation.

In connection with the tax of Peter’s Pence for religious purposes, it may here be observed that tithe was first instituted by Charlemagne in 779 and made imperative, and not optional, in England at the Legative Council of Chelsea, held in 787, and confirmed by the kings and ealdormen.

Further, in 854, King Ethelwulf granted one-tenth of his whole kingdom to the Church. This is known as the Donation of Ethelwulf.

It was Alcuin, the pupil of Archbishop Egbert, who, when Abbot of Canterbury, was sent by King Offa as ambassador to Charlemagne, at whose court he remained. He was entrusted with the founding of the University of Paris, and appointed his fellow-countryman, Johannes Scotus, as professor there. Scotus subsequently founded the University of Pavia when it was created by Charlemagne.

In addition, it was to Alcuin that Charlemagne submitted the Gregorian Sacramentary which he received from Pope Adrian in 784, as we have seen in Chapter XII., and he made such adaptations as seemed suitable for its use in the Gallic Church.

Upon this well-ordered state of affairs, wherein the whole of England had become Christian, and were united in one form of liturgical Use and under one central authority, a wave of desolation broke.

From 827–871 successive invasions of pagan Danes and Northmen laid waste the whole of England, until the Treaty of Wedmore in 878, when King Alfred agreed with King Guthrum to peace on a division of territory and identity of religion; under this treaty Guthrum obtained all Northumbria and East Anglia, together with the eastern half of Mercia.

Such had been the destruction by the Danes and the set-back in religious life and learning, that King Alfred is stated at the beginning of his reign to have said that there was not a priest south of the Humber who could write a letter in Latin or translate any portion of the Liturgy; though shortly before this time, the monasteries of England were busy supplying the eager demands from the Continent, so great a reputation had they achieved for their MSS.

Alfred at once set about restoring learning, and gathered to his court such men as Grimbald¹ from St. Omer and John of Germany and Asser of Wales, whilst the great monastery of St. Benoît-sur-Loire at Fleury, near Auxerre, under Abbot Hugh, supplied half the MSS. for the monasteries which were being rebuilt. It was to Fleury we find that one hundred years later Odo, the celebrated Archbishop of Canterbury, went in 942, when he wished to become a Benedictine monk, and later it was from Fleury that St. Grimbald of Winchester came; he was the first Abbot after the monks of Winchester removed from Hyde in 1100.

Edward the Confessor, a Norman in speech, education and sympathy, brought many Norman clerics into the country, amongst whom was the Archbishop Robert of Jumièges. There still exists in Paris the MSS. given by him to Jumièges when he was Bishop of London, 1044–1050, before he became Archbishop.

In the Canon between the clauses ‘Supplices te rogamus’ and ‘Memento etiam’ we find the following, which appears to be unique (the exact spelling is reproduced):

“Memento mei queso domine et miserere licet haec sancta indignae tibi sanctae pater omnipotens aeternae deus meis manibus offeruntur sacrificia qui nec inocare sanctum ac venerabile nomen tuum dignus sum; sed quoniam in honore laudis et memoria glorissimi dilectique filii tui domini dei nostri jesu christi offerantur sicut incensum in conspectu divinae majestatis tuae cum odore suavitatis accendantur per christum dominum nostrum.”

It is scarcely pertinent to our theme to deal with the question of celibacy, but St. Dunstan, 940–988, did his utmost to spread the Benedictine rule throughout the monasteries in England, and secular clergy, though often married before ordination, were debarred from doing so afterwards; later, by the Council of Winchester in 1076 under Lanfranc, all canons were obliged to put away their wives, the unmarried clergy were forbidden to marry, and the bishops expressly enjoined not to ordain married men. But the practice continued throughout the Middle Ages, and it was by no means uncommon for the parochial clergy to form unions which were recognized by society in general, being regarded as a sort of voidable marriage. This action of Lanfranc was in conformity with the policy of Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII., who looked upon the enforcement of celibacy among the clergy as one of the main levers by which to raise the standard of spiritual life, then at a very low ebb, and as one of the strongest ties with which to bind the clergy to their profession.

Under Theodore provincial councils, such as those of Hertford and Cloveshoo, were established to form a legislative body for the Church, and there was but little attempt at ecclesiastical intervention in civil legislation. The Bishops were not affected with Court life or secularism, in an endeavour to advance the interests of the Church, though they sat in the Councils of the realm and in their local folkmoot with ‘higher wergild and oath incontrovertible’. The laws of Ina, King of Wessex, in 692 and of Alfred in 870, however, comprised religious as well as civil punishments for offences. With the invasion of the Danes, the Councils were less and less frequently held, and the Bishops obtained such legislation as they desired, even in matters purely ecclesiastical, as state law passed by the king and the Witan.

Though in important matters the Pope was consulted, yet the appeal of Wilfred from the decision of the King of Northumbria, though given in his favour, was given but scant attention. Pope Leo III. at the request of Kenwulf, King of Mercia, gave his consent to the abolition of the Archbishopric of Lichfield in 803; but it was, in fact, carried out, not by a Papal Bull, but by the national synod of the English Church.

Gregory VII. never ventured to question the right of William the Conqueror to appoint his own bishops; he did once venture to demand homage and payment of arrears of Peter’s Pence, to which William replied: “One demand I have allowed; the other I have not allowed. To do homage I refuse, because I never promised to do it, nor do I find that my predecessors have ever done it. The money shall be more regularly paid.” Probably it was in consequence of this demand that William issued his ‘Consuetudines’ under the pretext of declaring the ancient customs of the English Church. Therein it was declared that no Pope was to be acknowledged without the consent of the Crown, nor any Bulls or Letters of the Pope were to be enforced within the kingdom without its consent. No Canons were to be promulgated without the confirmation of the King, or debated without his licence. No baron or royal minister was to be subjected to ecclesiastical censure without the King’s permission.

With regard to the MSS. which have survived, in addition to the Pontifical of Egbert and the Missal of Robert of Jumièges, we have the Book of Cerne; this is a book of private devotions of Bishop Aethelwold written in the Mercian dialect. Who he was remains in doubt; there was a Bishop of that name at Lindisfarne in 721 and another in Dorset in 930. Together with this book are bound up the early title-deeds of the Benedictine Monastery of Cerne in Dorset; the MS. was probably written between 800 and 900, and it is thought that it may have been a copy of one written a century earlier; but no bishop in Mercia of that name can be traced. Cerne itself, of course, must have been in Wessex.

Missal of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury. This was written about 1100, at a time when the original MS. of 597 was still in existence, as those Masses added since the time of St. Augustine are marked with an ‘obelus’. This Missal contains the Psalms and portions of Scripture in the old Italic version which was in use before St. Jerome made the Vulgate Version. Wilfred was the first to introduce the Vulgate Version into England. The Ambrosian Rite has always continued the use of the old Italic Version, and in St. Peter’s at Rome itself this version of the Psalms has continued to be used up to the present time.