Visigoths in 587, the Lombards, the last stronghold of Arianism in the West, in the eighth century.
The unparalleled missionary activity of the Roman Church was due of course primarily to religious enthusiasm, but other causes must also be taken into account. As a matter of self-preservation to protect herself from the inveterate paganism of the ancient world, on the one hand, and from the torrent of barbaric invaders, on the other, the conflict was thrust upon Rome and she must conquer or perish. Again the development of the hierarchy along the lines of the Petrine theory made it imperative that Rome should win and rule the West. The wise policy of winning kings first and nations afterwards was simply adopted from Roman imperial practice but it was eminently successful. It likewise enabled the Pope of Rome to control all missionary enterprise from his ecclesiastical capital, and to employ it for the further extension of the papal prerogative.
The results of the spread of Christianity over the Græco-Roman world have already been considered. That conquest decidedly modified the Apostolic Church in organisation, in ceremony, and in doctrine, and laid the foundations for the Roman and Greek Churches. The Romanised, monasticised Christian Church over which Gregory the Great ruled reveals the product of all these early influences. The conversion of the Teutons to Roman Christianity marks another new epoch not only in the history of the Church, but also in the history of the world. Just as from the Apostolic Church emerged the Roman Church with its pronounced differences, so from the Roman Church evolved the Teutonic-Roman Church, which in turn was strikingly unlike its prototype in several particulars. The
Germanised Roman Church declared its absolute independence of the Eastern Emperor and launched out on a new world career. The product of all these elements was the mediæval Church which stood for primitive Christianity modified first by a growth covering five centuries through a stratum of Roman civilisation, and secondly for seven centuries through a superimposed stratum of Germanic civilisation.
When the pagan Franks began their conquest of Gaul (486), they encountered a civilisation that was nominally Christian. Their king, Clovis, married Clotilda, a Christian princess, the daughter of the Burgundian king[234:1] (493). She no doubt laboured with her lord and master to induce him to embrace her faith. He permitted his child to be baptised in accordance with the Christian rite and tolerated Christian priests and monks as a matter of policy, but that was all. At length in a battle with the stubborn Alemanni, Clovis, hard-pressed, prayed to the Christian God and promised to turn Christian himself in exchange for victory. His foes fled and left him conqueror. True to his vow, Clovis, after receiving instruction from Bishop Remigius of Rheims, was baptised on Christmas day 496 and with him 3000 warriors. This important event, "the first step toward the world-historical union of Teutonic civilisation with the Roman Church,"[234:2] paved the way for Charles the Great, and made possible a Christian France. This event was a significant victory for the Nicene Creed and for the Pope of Rome. Orthodoxy and Roman dominion now advanced side by side with Frankish conquests until both became
absolutely independent of the imperial power in the East.[235:1]
The Romans abandoned the island of Britain in 409 for ever. About 450 the pagan kinsmen of the Franks, namely the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians, crossed to Britain and there found the Christian Church already planted.[235:2] They drove it back to Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, or crushed it out altogether. The Christian Celts, who were thus treated, made no effort at first to convert their heathen conquerors.[235:3] That was left to missionaries from Rome under the leadership of the monk Augustine. Bede, the venerable Church historian, tells the pious tale of how Gregory the Great, before being made Pope, saw in the slave market of Rome some boys "of a white body and fair countenance" and forthwith became so deeply interested in them and their land that he begged the Pope to send him as missionary to Britain.[235:4] The Romans, it is said, refused to allow him to go, and soon honoured him with the tiara of St. Peter. As Pope, however, he carried out his intention by sending Augustine, a Benedictine abbot, with forty monks and Gallic interpreters and with letters and a library of sacred literature, to England in 596 to begin the work.[235:5]
Now it happened that Ethelbert, the King of Kent, had married Bertha, a Christian princess from Paris, who had been permitted to take a Gallic bishop with her to England. Thus the way had been already opened for the favourable reception of the monks under the guidance of Augustine, which led in 597 to the conversion of Ethelbert at Canterbury, and with him nominally the whole kingdom of Kent. At the first Christmas festival Ethelbert and 10,000 of his subjects were baptised. Thus Roman Christianity became at once the established state Church and "everywhere the bishop's throne was set up side by side with the king's."[236:1] Augustine, as a reward for his successful services, was soon made the first archbishop of England[236:2] and proceeded to organise the Church by sending to Rome for more helpers, by appointing bishops and priests to particular fields of labour, by purifying pagan temples and dedicating them to Christian services, and by repairing and building Christian churches and monasteries. As a result of the sincere, practical measures adopted by Augustine, thousands were soon won to the new faith and Christianity was permanently replanted in the British Islands. The work, so well begun, was continued until Sussex, the last kingdom of the heptarchy, in 604, embraced the popular religion. Pope Gregory the Great took a keen interest in this grand triumph and made it contribute to the glory of the Roman Church.[236:3]
The monks sent to England by Pope Gregory the
Great soon came to see that the Celtic Church differed from theirs in many respects. Augustine himself, having concluded an alliance between Ethelbert and the Roman See, held several conferences with the Christian Celts in order to accomplish the most difficult task of their subjugation to Roman authority. These differences were largely ritualistic and disciplinary. The Celtic Christians celebrated Easter according to the calculation of Sulpicius Severus, while the Romans had another mode of computing the proper day.[237:1] The Celts appealed to St. John, the Romans to St. Peter.[237:2] The Celtic Church might be called a monastic Church, since the abbot ruled over the bishop.[237:3] The Celts shaved the front of the head from ear to ear as a tonsure, while the Romans shaved the top of the head leaving a "crown of thorns."[237:4] The Celts permitted their priests to marry, the Romans forbade it. The Celts used a different mode of baptism from that of the Romans, namely, single instead of trine immersion. The calendar for all movable festivals was not the same. The Celts held their own councils and enacted their own laws, independent of Rome. The Celts used a Latin Bible unlike the Vulgate, and kept Saturday as a day of rest, with special religious services on Sunday.[237:5] Notwithstanding these variances, which