History of England, Part I For the use of Middle Forms of Schools
Tout, T. F. --Powell, F. York
1898
CHAPTER IV: The English become Christian. Overlordship of Northumberland and Marchland Kings. 597
1. The next two hundred years are taken up on one hand by the conversion of the English, first begun by Roman, but chiefly carried out by Scottish missionaries, the settlement of the English Church, and the changes it brought about; and on the other hand by the struggles of the great kings of and the to bring all the smaller kingdoms under their rule, and so become overlords of England. | |
[1] It is told that while was yet a simple priest he chanced to see some young English boys at the slave-market in Rome. Struck by their white skins, light hair, and fair faces, he asked who they were, of what faith and nation. When he was told that they were heathen Angles from Britain, and their king's name Ælla, playing on the words he answered, Then touched with pity he went to the Pope and asked leave to go to England and preach the Gospel there, but the Roman people loved him so well they would not let him go. Still he never forgot the sight of the poor children, and when | |
21 22 | he became Pope he sent his friend the monk and a company of forty priests and monks with him to King of , who had married a Christian wife, Bertha, daughter of the King of Paris. received them kindly, gave them an old Roman church, , at , and after a while, persuaded by their good words and godly lives, was baptized with many of his people. The East Saxons and their king also became Christians, and was hallowed Archbishop of , and two of his followers made bishops of London and Rochester. |
tried to get the Welsh clergy to take him as their archbishop and join him in preaching to the heathen English; but they would not, whereupon he told them that since they did not choose to live in peace with their Christian brethren and share their work, they should meet a punishment from heathen foes. Now the first king that became Overlord of England was of , who having beaten the Scots at Catterick in , now in gained the great victory of Chester (which was spoken of above) over the Welsh princes. To that battle there came from Bangor a congregation of Welsh priests and monks to pray for their countrymen's success; but , having routed the princes, took and slew 1200 of these monks, saying that they had done their best to overthrow him by their prayers. Thus 's words were fulfilled to the letter. | |
2.[2] 's successor, , married Æthelberg, daughter of of , who brought with her to a priest named , a companion of 's. He tried to turn king and people to the New Faith, but vainly, till in , on the first day of Easter, the West Saxon king sent his henchman Eomer with a two-edged poisoned dagger to slay . Eomer came to the king as if to give a message, and, watching his time, struck at him; but Lilla, one of his men, threw himself before the blow and was killed, the king escaping by the faithfulness. That very night the queen bore a daughter, Eanfled, and , thinking that the Christian's God had saved him on his holy day, gave her to to be baptized, vowing that if he came back safe and victorious over the West Saxons he would become a Christian himself. Coming back in triumph, he accordingly called his wise men together and asked them what they thought of the New Faith; they said that it seemed to them a good one, because the gods they | |
23 | used to worship were neither able to help them at need, nor could give them everlasting life in heaven as the Christian's God could. Then the temples were pulled down and the idols burnt, and the king and most of his people baptized. Long after, the historian, who tells of these things, met a man who could remember the tall thin form, dark hair, piercing eyes, and roman nose of as he stood over him in the water of the river christening him. |
3. [3] But the Marchmen were still heathen, and their king, , the greatest warrior of his age, banded himself with the Welsh king, and they fell upon and slew him and many noblemen with him at in the north (). | |
They also laid waste the land so fearfully that the people from wretchedness forsook the New Faith for a time. then went to his own land, but reigned at for a year ( it was called long afterwards), till 's son came against him with a small army, setting up the cross as his standard with his own hands, and overthrew him, near the Wall, in . | |
had lived in exile with the Scottish monks at , and now that he was king he sent there for teachers to bring back his people to Christendom and preach the Gospel to the other heathen kingdoms. They sent him Aidan in whom was both Finan, and others, by whose help and zeal not only was made Christian again, but the West Saxons, East English, and at last the Marchmen were brought to the New Faith. For though revenged 's death on and slew the at Maserfield, near Oswestry, in , this was his last victory.
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, the next King of , offered to pay a heavy tribute if he would but make peace with him; but refused, and marched against him with a great host led by thirty kings' sons. Then said, and vowed to give up his daughter to serve God for ever as a nun, and to settle twelve estates on the monasteries, if he won the day. And fled before him and perished with all his host, more being drowned in their flight across the swollen river than were slain by the sword.
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With heathendom passed away. His son was a Christian, and the whole of the gladly listened to the Irish and Scottish missionaries sent among them. So that, save and the Isle of , which the archbishop converted a few years later, all England was now christened. | |
4.[4] When found that the Scottish and Roman missionaries could not agree in many matters of church-teaching he called a meeting of bishops and priests at Streoneshalch () in , and bade them choose which form they would follow, for it was needful that the English Church should be of one mind in all things. They agreed to keep the Roman way, accordingly sent a priest to the Pope to be made Archbishop of and set the Church in order; but he died at Rome, so the Pope chose Theodore of Tarsus and sent him to England. Theodore made rules for government of the Church, marked out the bishops' sees, set priests in every village as far as he could, and looked after the training of priests and the good order of the church in every way, so that it is on his foundations that the Church of England has built ever since. | |
5. [5] The last Northumbrian overlord was 's son , who, not content with conquering the Welsh of Cumbria and ravaging the Irish coast, , at last crossed the Forth into Fife to fight against his cousin Brude, the King of the Picts in spite of the warning of his bishop, . But being drawn into an ambush at Dunnichen or Nectan's Fort, north of Tay, he and his men were cut off and slain. The enemies of now rose against her, and she was never able to hold the overlordship again, the March kings seizing and holding it for nearly a century, though there were several powerful West Saxon kings during that time. Such was , who conquered Essex, built Taunton as a border fort against the Cornish king, and at last, like many other kings of this age, bethought him that all worldly glory must pass, and so, seeking a kingdom that | |
25 | should be everlasting, gave up the crown he had worn thirty-seven years, and went with his wife to Rome, where they died. |
(), the last great king of the Marchmen, was the most powerful ruler yet seen in England. He made all the under-kings obey him, built the Great Dyke (called after him) from Chester to Chepstow, forcing the Welsh to keep behind it. He was also a law-giver and a friend of learned men. It was he that sent Alcwine and other teachers to , for England was now famous for learning; and the poet , whose sweet verses we have still, lived in his time. He made friends with the Pope, and promised him Peter's pence or Rome-scot, obtaining from him leave to have an archbishop of his own at Lichfield (as the other two great kingdoms, and , had theirs at and Canterbury), because Jænberht of had tried to bring in an army of Franks to overthrow him. Only one Archbishop of Lichfield ever sat, however, for 's son made peace with - and gave up his father's plan. It was that built the first Abbey of S. Albans. After 's death his kingdom grew weak and left place for the rising power of . | |
6. [6] In the seventh and eighth centuries there were many great Churchmen in England. , the single-hearted bishop and hermit, who preached peace and watchfulness and humility; Chad, never weary in labouring for the Lord; , founder and builder of churches and schools, parts of which are still standing; the princess, abbess of , where dwelt , the poor monk who was said to have received the gift of poetry from an angel, and sung the Bible history in poems, parts of which have come down to us; and many other holy men and women of all ranks, kings and queens and slaves alike, who laboured for the Church and the poor, some in their places in the world, others in the more peaceful labours of the minsters. Nor were the English, any more than the Irish, content, now that they themselves were Christians, till they had spread the Gospel abroad in lands still heathen, especially among their kinsmen on the mainland. Famous among their missionaries are , sometime Archbishop of , who being wrecked on his way to Rome to appeal to the Pope on a dispute between him and Theodore of Tarsus, preached the Gospel to the Frisians among whom he was cast, as he also did in England to the men of and , whose apostle he was; Willebrord, missionary archbishop | |
26 | of the old Saxons; and above all (whose English name was Winfrith): he took up in Middle and South Germany the work S. Gall and his Irish had begun, and by the help of the Franks and the Pope, who loved and honoured him exceedingly, evangelized great part of those lands and was made Archbishop of Mainz. He died a martyr in Friesland, . |
7. [7] In becoming Christians under one great church system the English were brought together more than they had ever been before, for the Church paid no respect to persons, and a Mercian might be made archbishop in , or a West Saxon become monk in Northumberland; so that all Englishmen began to look upon themselves as of one great nation, though the separate kingdoms still existed. The bishops also did their best to keep these different kingdoms at peace with one another, and even with the Scots and Welsh, so that we hear of no more massacres like those at and Chester; and when a piece of country was now won from the Welsh, the conquered people were suffered to dwell beside their conquerors and protected by law, not as before, slain or thrust down into slavery to till the lands their fathers had owned and dwelt upon. | |
The clergy became a great power among the English, for by the side of every lay officer or magistrate there was a clerical one. Besides the head-kings, the archbishops; by the folk-kings, the folk-bishops or diocesans; and in the village moot, the parish priest. These clergymen took part in all courts and moots, had were-gilds like laymen, and received fines and gave punishments for spiritual offences, such as evil-living, breach of church rules, and the like. | |
The monasteries, large establishments to which men retired under vows to live strictly for the love of God, were numerous and rich; and the monks did a great deal of good, caring for the poor, tending the sick and helpless, guesting travellers on their way through the country, tilling the waste lands in which their minsters stood, often reading, writing and copying books, and keeping schools. In their gardens were first grown many useful shrubs and plants never before seen in England, and in their libraries books were preserved and stored which otherwise would have perished. Life in a well-ordered monastery was not idle: poorly and thinly clad and faring badly, the monk was obliged to attend the church offices, which came at frequent intervals throughout the day and night, and to sit in the chapter meeting, where were settled the business, discipline, and order of the house, and | |
27 | to do his share of the common work, however menial it might be, submitting without a murmur to the absolute rule of the abbot, however harshly exercised. |
8. Learning in England. .Now that the English belonged to a Church which prevailed over West Europe, they naturally mixed more with other neighbouring nations, especially the Franks of and Germany, and so came to learn many fresh arts, such as glass-making and masonry, and much knowledge, such as the Roman alphabet, which soon took the place of their old Rune-Row. Writing was now used for books, and Englishmen learned Latin and Greek and set books out of these tongues into their own. They also began to write books themselves, chiefly sermons, Bible comments, histories, geographies, and calendars, just such kind of works as are most read in England now. The greatest writer of these days was the (died ), a monk of Jarrow. He fixed the year of the Lord by which we all reckon now, and wrote the famous History of the English Church, which though in Latin is the first history-book made in England, and tells us most of what is known of our early forefathers. He also Englished the Gospel of John, wrote a life of , and many more pious and learned works. His English hymns, one of which he sung on his deathbed, were popular long after his days. | |
Footnotes: [1] The christening of Kent and Essex, 597. [2] First christening of Northumberland and East England. [3] Penda and the kings of Northumberland, 626-654. [4] Settlement of the English church, c. 670. [5] Overlordship of Marchland kings in the eighth century. [6] The first great Churchmen of England. [] [733-787.] [7] Results of the change of faith. |
