[22] Pertz, ii. 334.
[23] Bede, iii. 26.
[24] Bede, iv. 27.
[25] In the life of St. Willibald, we read that “it was the ancient custom of the Saxon nation, on the estates of some of their nobles and great men, to erect not a church, but the sign of the Holy Cross, dedicated to God, beautifully and honourably adorned, and exalted on high for the common use of daily prayer” (Acta SS. Ord. Benedict, sect. iii., part 2). So it was a custom with “St. Kentigern to erect a cross in any place where he had converted the people, and where he had been staying for a time” (“Vita Kentigerni,” by Joscelin, the Monk of Furness). Adalbert, a Gallic bishop, in the time of St. Boniface, preached in fields and at wells, and set up little crosses and oratories in various places.
[26] The church at Bradfield-on-Avon, recently discovered, unaltered and uninjured, was probably the church of one of these monasteries.
[27] Of the early monasteries of the East Saxons, the East Anglians, the South Saxons, and of the Dioceses of Rochester and Hereford, little is known.
[28] “Historical Church Atlas,” E. McClure.
[29] Secular monasteries are alluded to in the fifth canon of Clovesho (A.D. 747), and eighth canon of Calchythe (816). A canon of Clovesho (803) forbad laymen to be abbots.
[30] Bishop of Oxford, “Const. Hist.,” i. 251.
[31] The Bishop of Oxford, however, says, “Occasional traces of Ecclesiastical assemblies of single kingdoms occur, but they are scarcely distinguishable from the separate Witenagemots” (“Const. Hist.,” i. 264).