The English Church in the Middle Ages Part 1

The English Church in the Middle Ages.

by William Hunt.

PREFACE.

This book is intended to ill.u.s.trate the relations of the English Church with the papacy and with the English State down to the revolt of Wyclif against the abuses which had gathered round the ecclesiastical system of the Middle Ages, and the Great Schism in the papacy which materially affected the ideas of the whole of Western Christendom. It was thought expedient to deal with these subjects in a narrative form, and some gaps have therefore had to be filled up, and some links supplied. This has been done as far as possible by notices of matters which bear on the moral condition of the Church, and serve to show how far it was qualified at various periods to be the example and instructor of the nation. No attempt, however, has been made to write a complete history on a small scale, and I have designedly pa.s.sed by many points, in themselves of interest and importance, in order to give as much s.p.a.ce as might be to my proper subjects. Besides, this volume has been written as one of a series in which the missions to the Teutonic peoples, the various aspects of Monasticism, the question of Invest.i.tures, and the place which the University of Oxford fills in our Church's history have been, or will be, treated separately. Accordingly I have not touched on any of these things further than seemed absolutely necessary.

I wish that, limited as my task has been, I could believe that it has been adequately performed. No one can understand the character, or appreciate the claims, of the English Church who has not studied its history from the beginning, and it is hoped that this little book may do something, however small, towards spreading a correct idea of the part that the Church has borne in the progress of the nation, and of the grounds on which its members maintain that it has from the first been a National Church, as regards its inherent life and independent att.i.tude as well as its intimate and peculiar relations with the State. A firm grasp of the position it held during the Middle Ages is necessary to a right understanding of the final rupture with Rome accomplished in the sixteenth century, and will afford a complete safeguard against the vulgar error of regarding the Church as a creation of the State, an inst.i.tution established by the civil power, and maintained by its bounty. Those who are acquainted with our mediaeval chroniclers will see that I have written from original sources. I have also freely availed myself of the labours of others, and, above all, of the works of Bishop Stubbs, which have been of the greatest a.s.sistance to me.

CHAPTER I.

_ROME AND IONA._

ST. AUGUSTIN'S MISSION--POPE GREGORY'S SCHEME OF ORGANIZATION--CAUSES OF ITS FAILURE--FOUNDATION AND OVERTHROW OF THE SEE OF YORK--INDEPENDENT MISSIONS--THE SEE OF LINDISFARNE--SCOTTISH CHRISTIANITY--THE SCHISM--THE SYNOD OF WHITBY--RESTORATION OF THE SEE OF YORK.

[Sidenote: St. Augustin's landing at Ebbsfleet, 597.]

The Gospel was first brought to the Teutonic conquerors of Britain by Roman missionaries, and was received by the kings of various kingdoms.

From the first the Church that was planted here was national in character, and formed a basis for national union; and when that union was accomplished the English State became coextensive with the English Church, and was closely united with it. The main object of this book is to trace the relations of the Church both with the Papacy and with the State down to the new era that opened with the schism in the Papacy and the Wyclifite movement. Our narrative will begin with the coming of Augustin and his companions in 597 to preach the Gospel to the English people. They landed in the Isle of Thanet. The way had, to some extent, been prepared for them, for aethelberht, king of Kent, whose superiority was acknowledged as far north as the Humber, had married a Christian princess named Bertha, the daughter of a Frankish king, and had allowed her to bring a priest with her and to practise her own religion. He had not, however, learnt much about Christianity from his queen or her priest. Nevertheless, he received the Gospel from Augustin, and was baptized with many of his people. By Gregory's command, Augustin was consecrated "archbishop of the English nation" by the archbishop of Arles. aethelberht gave him his royal city of Canterbury, and built for him there the monastery of Christ Church, the mother-church of our country.

[Sidenote: Gregory's scheme of organization, 601.]

Gregory organized the new Church, in the full belief that it would extend over the whole island. He sent Augustin the "pall," a vestment denoting metropolitan authority, and const.i.tuting the recipient vicar of the Pope.

Two metropolitan sees were to be established--the one at London, the residence of the East Saxon King Saeberct, who reigned as sub-king under aethelberht, a crowded mart, and the centre of a system of roads; the other at York, the capital of the old Roman province north of the Humber. Both archbishops were to receive the pall, and to be of equal authority. At the same time, the unity of the Church was ensured, for they were to consult together and act in unison. Both the provinces were to be divided into twelve suffragan bishoprics, and as the northern province took in the country now called Scotland, they were of fairly equal size. This arrangement was not to be carried out until after Augustin's death. As long as he lived all the bishops alike were to obey him, and he was, we may suppose, to continue to reside at Canterbury. Moreover, the clergy of the Welsh or Britons were to be subject to him and to the future archbishops of the English Church. Augustin endeavoured to persuade the Welsh clergy to join him in preaching the Gospel to the Teutonic invaders, and held a meeting with them at or near Aust, on the Severn. But they refused to acknowledge his authority, or even to hold communion with him, and would not give up their peculiar usages with respect to the date of Easter and the administration of Baptism. At Augustin's request, Gregory sent him a letter of instructions as to the government of the Church. It bears witness to the Pope's largeness of mind. While morality and decency were to be enforced, the archbishop was not bound strictly to follow the Roman ritual; if he found anything that he thought would be helpful to his converts in the Gallican or any other use, he might adopt it, and so make up a use collected from various sources.

[Sidenote: Causes of its failure.]

Excellent as Gregory's scheme would have been had Britain still been under Roman rule, it was unsuited to a country divided as England then was into several rival kingdoms. London did not become a metropolitan see, probably because aethelberht was unwilling that the seat of ecclesiastical authority should be transferred from his own kingdom to the chief city of a dependent people, while Augustin had no wish that the church which he had founded at Canterbury, and the second monastery, now called after him, which he had begun to build there for a burying-place for himself and his successors, should be reduced to a lower rank. Other Roman clergy had been sent by Gregory to reinforce the mission, and of these Augustin consecrated Mellitus to be bishop of London, Justus to be bishop over Kent west of the Medway, with Rochester as the city of his see, an arrangement that marks an early tribal distinction, and Laurentius to be his own successor at Canterbury. Thus the metropolitan see remained with Kent.

More generally, Gregory's scheme failed because it was founded on the old division of Britain as a province of the Roman empire, and was not adapted to the tribal distinctions of the English. Moreover, political circ.u.mstances determined the development of the Church; for the Roman mission received a series of checks, and the work of evangelization was taken up by Scottish missionaries. The kingdoms into which the country was divided were finally converted by efforts more or less independent of the Kentish mission; the work of evangelization followed tribal lines, and for sixty years after Augustin's death the tendency of the Church was towards disunion.

[Sidenote: Foundation and overthrow of the see of York, 627-633.]

Although the king of the East Angles received baptism in Kent at the bidding of aethelberht, he fell back into idolatry on his return to his own land. And as aethelberht's son, Eadbald, was a pagan, many of the Kentishmen and East Saxons also deserted Christianity when he became king.

Eadbald was converted by Laurentius, and did what he could to forward the cause of Christ. With aethelberht's death, however, the greatness of Kent pa.s.sed away, and Eadbald could not insist on the destruction of idols even in his own country. While Kent sank into political insignificance the Kentish mission made one great advance, and then ended in failure. The Northumbrian king, Eadwine, who reigned over the two Northumbrian kingdoms, Bernicia and Deira, from the Forth to the Humber, and gradually established a supremacy over the whole English people except the Kentishmen, married aethelburh, the daughter of aethelberht. She was accompanied to her new home by Paulinus, who was ordained bishop by Justus, the successor of Mellitus; and Boniface V. wrote to her exhorting her to labour for the conversion of her husband, and saying that he would not cease to pray for her success. His prayers were heard; Eadwine was baptized, and made his capital, York, the seat of the bishopric of Paulinus. The people of Deira (Yorks.h.i.+re) followed their king's example, while Bernicia, though Paulinus preached and baptized there, remained, on the whole, heathen; no church was built and no altar was raised. South of the Humber the authority of Eadwine and the preaching of Paulinus effected the conversion of Lindsey, and of the king, at least, of the East Angles.

In 633, however, Eadwine was defeated and slain by Penda, the heathen king of Mercia, and Cadwallon, the Briton. Heathenism was already triumphant in East Anglia, and on Eadwine's death many of the Northumbrians relapsed into idolatry. aethelburh and her children sought shelter in Kent, and Paulinus fled with them. Only one Roman clergyman, the deacon James, remained in Northumbria to labour on in faith that G.o.d's cause would yet triumph there. Ignorant of the calamity that had befallen the Church, the Pope, in pursuance of Gregory's scheme, sent the pall to Paulinus. When the papal gift arrived in England the Church of York had been overthrown, and Paulinus had been translated to Rochester.

[Sidenote: Independent missions.]

[Sidenote: Foundation of the see of Lindisfarne, 635.]

After the success of the Kentish mission had received this terrible check, the work of evangelization was carried on by efforts that were more or less independent of it. East Anglia was finally converted by a Burgundian priest named Felix, who was consecrated bishop by Honorius, archbishop of Canterbury, and fixed his see at Dunwich, once on the Suffolk coast. The Italian, Birinus, who was consecrated in Italy, brought the Gospel to the West Saxons, and received Dorchester, in Oxfords.h.i.+re, for the place of his see. Northumbria was evangelized by Celtic missionaries who were not in communion with Rome and Canterbury. About the middle of the sixth century the Irish Scot, Columba, founded the monastery of Iona. He and his companions preached the Gospel to the northern Picts and the Scots of the western isles, and Iona became a centre of Christian light. During the reign of Eadwine, Oswald and Oswiu, princes of the rival Bernician line, had found shelter in Iona. Oswald returned to become king of Bernicia shortly after the death of Eadwine, and before long brought Deira also under his dominion. As soon as he had gained possession of the kingdom of Bernicia, he sent to Iona for missionaries to instruct his people. Aidan, a missionary from Columba's house, came to him, and so it came to pa.s.s that Bernicia received Christianity from Celtic teachers, from Aidan and his fellow-workers. Oswald warmly seconded their efforts, and fixed the see of Aidan, who was in bishop's orders, in Lindisfarne, or Holy Isle, not far from Bamborough, where he resided; for though he ruled over both the Northumbrian kingdoms, and completed the minster at York, he made his home in the North, among his own people. Bernicia thus became the stronghold of Celtic Christianity under the rule of the kings of the house of Ida, while the Christians of Deira were naturally more inclined to the Roman usages which had been introduced by Paulinus and practised by Eadwine and his queen. Aidan built a monastery at Lindisfarne, and peopled it with monks from Iona. This gave him a good supply of clergy, and the work of evangelization prospered and took deep root. The greatness of Oswald provoked Penda to renew his struggle with the northern kingdom, and the Northumbrian king was defeated and slain at Maserfield. As his foes closed round him he prayed for their conversion. His words sank deeply into men's hearts. "'May G.o.d have mercy on their souls,' said Oswald, as he fell to earth," was a line handed down from generation to generation.

From his hermit's retreat on Farne Island, Aidan beheld the thick clouds of smoke rise from the country round Bamborough, and cried, "Behold, Lord, the evil that Penda doeth!" Still the work of G.o.d went on; and when Oswiu came to the throne the prayer of Oswald received its answer, for a marriage between his house and the house of Penda led to the evangelization of the Mercians and Middle Angles by the monks of Iona.

From them too the East Saxons received the Gospel, and Cedd, an English monk of Lindisfarne, was consecrated to the bishopric that had been held by the Roman Mellitus.

[Sidenote: Scottish Christianity.]

By the middle of the seventh century only Kent and East Anglia remained in full and exclusive communion with Rome; for Suss.e.x was still heathen, Wini, the West Saxon bishop, acted with British bishops, and Scottish Christianity prevailed in all the rest of England. The Scottish missionaries were full of zeal and self-devotion, and were masters of a considerable store of learning. Their nature was impulsive; while they were loving and tender-hearted, pa.s.sionate invectives came as readily from their lips as words of love. Celtic Christianity was a religion of perpetual miracles, of deep and varying emotions, and of contempt for worldly things, that, however n.o.ble in itself, was sometimes manifested extravagantly. While its teachers seldom failed to win men's love, they were not equally successful in influencing their conduct. It was well that the English Church turned away from them, for their religious system could never have produced an organized ecclesiastical society. It was monastic rather than hierarchical, and a Celtic priest-abbot was a far more important person than a bishop who was not the ruler of an abbey, though in England the bishops were probably always abbots. In founding their sees they sought seclusion rather than good administrative centres, and the bishop's monastery was less a place of diocesan government than the headquarters of missionary effort. They had no regular diocesan system, and bishops and clergy ministered where they would. Their monasticism was of a specially ascetic character. Both Aidan and Cuthberht loved to leave the society of the monks at Lindisfarne, and to retire to the barren little Farne Island, where they could only hear the roaring of the northern ocean and the crying of the sea-birds. Cuthberht, indeed, even after he joined the Roman Church, kept the characteristics of the Scottish monk. He left the duties of his bishopric altogether and ended his days in his island-hermitage. This love of asceticism was fatal to the well-being of the Church; the individual soul was everything; the Church was nothing; and though great victories were won over heathenism, the Scottish Church remained without corporate life. Lastly, it was not in communion with Rome, and so lay outside Catholic Christendom. And though it had much to offer the English both in religion and learning, every gift would have been rendered fruitless by isolation from the progressive life of Western Christendom.

[Sidenote: The schism.]

It was, indeed, impossible, from the very nature of things, that Celtic Christianity should long prevail in England, for its arrangements were based on the loose organization of the sept, and the English needed arrangements that suited kings.h.i.+p and tended towards political as well as ecclesiastical union. Its rejection was, however, determined by questions of Church order. Up to the middle of the fifth century the Celtic Christians computed Easter by the Roman lunar cycle, which had gradually diverged from that of Eastern Christendom. When, however, the Romans adopted a new system of computation, the Welsh and the Irish Scots adhered to the old cycle; and they further differed from the Roman Church as regards the shape of the tonsure and the rites observed in the administration of Baptism. Unimportant as such differences may seem to us, they were really no light matters; for, as the Church was engaged in a conflict with paganism, unity with itself was of the first consequence.

The points at issue began to be much debated in Northumbria when the gentle-spirited Aidan was succeeded at Lindisfarne by Finan, a man of violent temper. The Bernician court was divided. Oswiu was attached to the Scottish communion, and his attachment was strengthened by his regard for Colman, the successor of Finan. On the other hand, his queen, Eanflaed, the daughter of Eadwine, belonged to the Roman party; and so it came about that, while the king was keeping his Easter feast, his queen was still in the Lenten fast. Oswiu's son, Alchfrith, who reigned as under-king in Deira, left the Scottish communion and eagerly upheld the Roman party. He was encouraged by Wilfrith, the abbot of Ripon. Wilfrith, who was the child of wealthy parents, had been led by the unkindness of his stepmother to desire to become a monk, and had been sent, when a handsome, clever lad of thirteen, to Queen Eanflaed, that she might decide what he should do.

Eanflaed sent him to Lindisfarne, and he stayed there for some years. Then she helped him to visit Rome, and he made the journey, which was as yet unknown to his fellow-countrymen, partly in the company of Benedict Biscop, who became the founder of Roman monasticism in the north of England. While he was at Rome Wilfrith studied ecclesiastical matters, and especially the subject of the computation of Easter. He returned home fully convinced of the excellence of the Roman Church, and found in Alchfrith a warm friend and willing disciple. Alchfrith had built a monastery at Ripon, and peopled it with Scottish monks from Melrose. When he adopted the Roman customs, these monks, of whom Cuthberht was one, refused to follow his example, and accordingly he turned them out, and gave the monastery to Wilfrith.

[Sidenote: The synod of Whitby, 664.]

Before long Wilfrith, who was a good preacher and charitable to the poor, became exceedingly popular. The ecclesiastical dispute was evidently closely connected with the rivalry between the two Northumbrian kingdoms; the Roman cause was upheld in Deira and by the Deiran under-king, while the Celtic clergy were strong in Bernicia, and trusted in the support of Oswiu. A visit from Agilberct, a Frank, who had held the West Saxon bishopric, and had since returned to Gaul, gave Alchfrith an opportunity of bringing matters to an issue. Agilberct admitted Wilfrith to the priesthood, and urged on a decision of the dispute. A conference was held at the abbey of Strenaeshalch, or Whitby. The abbey was ruled by Hild, great-niece of King Eadwine, who presided over a congregation composed of monks as well as nuns. Five of Hild's monks became bishops, and the poet Caedmon was first a herdsman, and then a brother of her house. Hild belonged to the Scottish party, which was represented at the conference by Colman, Cedd, and others. The leaders on the Roman side were Agilberct, Wilfrith, James the deacon of Paulinus, and Eanflaed's chaplain, Roma.n.u.s.

The question was decided in a synod of the whole Northumbrian kingdom, presided over by Oswiu and Alchfrith. Oswiu opened the proceedings with a short speech, in which he urged the necessity of union and the importance of finding out what the true tradition was. Colman then stated his case, which he rested on the tradition of his Church and the authority of St.

John. At the request of Agilberct, Oswiu called on Wilfrith to answer him.

Wilfrith spoke in an overbearing tone, for he was of an impatient temper.

He sneered at the obstinacy of "a few Picts and Britons" in setting themselves in opposition to the whole world, and met Colman's arguments by declaring that the Celtic Easter was condemned by St. Peter, of whom the Lord had said, "Thou art Peter," &c. (Matt. xvi. 18). On this, Oswiu asked Colman whether the Lord had indeed spoken thus, and when he said that He had done so, further demanded whether his Columba had received any such power. Colman allowed that he had not. The king then asked whether both parties were agreed that Peter had received the keys of Heaven. "Even so,"

was the answer. "Then," said he, "I will not go against him who is doorkeeper, but will do all I know and can to obey him, lest perchance, when I come to the door of the kingdom of Heaven, I should find none to open to me, because he who holds the keys is offended with me." The a.s.sembly agreed with the king's decision, and declared for the Roman usages. James the deacon saw the reward of his long and faithful labour; he was a skilful singer, and introduced the Roman method of chanting into Northumbria.

The Synod of Whitby is the turning-point in the history of the schism.

Before many years the Celtic party died out in the north, and though the Celtic customs lingered a little longer among the Britons of the west, the decisive blow had been struck; the Church of England was to follow Rome.

The gain was great. The Church was to have a share in the progressive life of Catholic Christianity; it was to have a stately ritual, and to be adorned by the arts and strengthened by the learning of the west; it gained unity and organization for itself, and the power of exercising a determining influence on the lives of individual men, and on the formation and history of the future State. Nevertheless, the decision of the synod was not all gain, for it led to the submission of the Church to papal authority, and in times of national weakness exposed it to papal aggression.

[Sidenote: Restoration of the see of York, 664.]

Colman refused to accept the decision of the synod, and left England in anger, taking several of his monks with him. His departure ruined the cause of his Church. His successor in the vast Northumbrian diocese died of the terrible plague that visited England the year of the Synod. Then the two kings held a meeting of the Northumbrian witan, and Wilfrith was chosen bishop. The victory of his party was further declared by the restoration of the see of York. Ever since the flight of Paulinus, York had remained without a bishop; now, doubtless at the instance of Alchfrith and the people of Deira, it took the place of Bernician Lindisfarne as the seat of the Northumbrian bishopric. Wilfrith went to Gaul to receive consecration, on the ground that there were not three canonically ordained bishops in England, an a.s.sertion which seems to have been hasty and incorrect. He stayed abroad for three years, and so well-nigh threw away the victory he had gained, for while he was absent Alchfrith lost his kingdom, and the rivalry between the two divisions of Northumbria found expression in a revulsion of feeling in ecclesiastical matters. When he came back he found that Aidan's disciple, Ceadda (St. Chad), the brother of Cedd, who had adopted the Roman customs, had been appointed bishop in his place. He retired to Ripon, acted as bishop in other parts, and helped forward the introduction of Roman monasticism into monasteries that had hitherto followed the Columban model.

CHAPTER II.

_ORGANIZATION._

ARCHBISHOP THEODORE--HIS WORK IN ORGANIZATION--NEW DIOCESES--WILFRITH'S APPEALS TO ROME--LITERARY GREATNESS OF NORTHUMBRIA--PARISHES--t.i.tHES--THE CHURCH IN WESs.e.x--A THIRD ARCHBISHOPRIC--THE CHURCH IN RELATION TO THE STATE--TO ROME--TO WESTERN CHRISTENDOM.

[Sidenote: Archbishop Theodore, 668-690.]

Among the victims of the plague of 664 was Archbishop Deusdedit, the first English successor of Augustin. After the see of Canterbury had lain vacant for three years, Oswiu, who held a kind of supremacy in England, and Ecgberht of Kent joined in writing to Pope Vitalian, asking him to consecrate a Kentish priest named Wighard as archbishop. Wighard died of the plague at Rome before he was consecrated, and the Pope wrote to the kings that, agreeably to their request, he was looking for a fit man to be consecrated. As, however, the kings had made no such request, and had simply asked him to consecrate the man whom they and the English Church had chosen, his letter was more clever than honest. He made choice of a Greek monk, a native of Tarsus, named Theodore, who had joined the Roman Church; and as the Greeks held unorthodox opinions, he sent with him Hadrian, an African, abbot of the Niridan monastery, near Naples, that he might prevent him from teaching any wrong doctrines. Theodore was consecrated by the Pope in 668, and set out for England with Hadrian and Benedict Biscop, of whom much will be said in the volume of this series on monasticism. Both Theodore and Hadrian were learned men, and the archbishop gathered round him a number of students, whom they instructed in arts and sciences as well as in Biblical knowledge. They also taught Latin and Greek so thoroughly that some of their scholars spoke both languages as readily as English, and for the first time England had a learned native clergy. Many of their scholars became teachers of others, and in the darkest period of ignorance in Gaul, England, and especially Northumbria, entered on a period of literary splendour that lasted until the Danish invasions.

[Sidenote: His ecclesiastical organization.]

As the Church was now rapidly pa.s.sing from the missionary to the pastoral stage of its existence, it needed organization as a permanent inst.i.tution.

This organization was given to it by Theodore. He established his authority over the whole Church, and, long before any one thought of a national monarchy, planned a national archiepiscopate. He made a visitation of every see, and for the first time every bishop owned obedience to Canterbury; while, as far as the English were concerned, he virtually brought the schism to an end by enforcing the decision of the Synod of Whitby. When he came to York he told Ceadda that his consecration was uncanonical. The saintly bishop declared his readiness to resign; he had ever, he said, deemed himself unworthy of the episcopal office.

Theodore was touched by his humility, and reordained him; he received the Mercian bishopric, and lived for a little while in great holiness at Lichfield. Wilfrith was restored to York, and ruled his diocese with magnificence. When Theodore had thus established his authority, he proceeded to give the Church a diocesan system and a means of legislation in ecclesiastical matters. He called a national council of the Church to meet at Hertford; it was attended by the bishops and several "masters of Church," men learned in ecclesiastical affairs, and in it the archbishop produced a body of canons which were universally accepted. These canons declared that the Roman Easter was to be observed everywhere; that no bishop should intrude into another's diocese; that no priest should minister out of his own diocese without producing letters of recommendation; that a synod of the whole Church should be held every year at Clevesho, probably near London; and that more bishops were needed, a matter which it was decided to defer for the present.

[Sidenote: Creation of new dioceses.]