Tales of English Minsters: St. Paul's

by Elizabeth W. Grierson

KING JOHN SIGNING MAGNA CHARTA. PAGE 18.
AFTER THE PAINTING BY ERNEST NORMAND IN THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, LONDON
By permission of the artist.

Now, although their King had been baptized, and had built two churches in their midst, the people of London did not want to become Christians; they were pagans, and were quite content to worship Thor and Odin, the gods of the tribes of the North. So for a long time the good Bishop Milletus preached to them in vain; and far away in Rome, Pope Gregory, who had hoped that the new Cathedral in London would become what we call the ‘Metropolitan Church’ of England—that is, the church where the Archbishop has his throne—was sadly disappointed, and had to become accustomed to the idea of Canterbury, which was a far less important place than London, having that honour.

Indeed, for a time it seemed as though, in spite of Church and Bishops, the new religion would be driven out. Ethelbert died, and so did his nephew Siebert, and the Kings who succeeded them either went back altogether to their pagan worship, or tried, as an East Anglian King did, to worship Thor and Odin and Christ all at the same time. I will tell you just one story about those troubled days, and it will show you what a terrible struggle went on between Paganism and Christianity, and how much we owe to these brave men, priests, and Abbots, and Bishops, whose names are almost unknown to us, on whom rested the responsibility of maintaining the Faith in England, and of whom, to their honour be it said, hardly one failed.

One day Bishop Milletus was administering the Holy Communion in his church to the little congregation of Christians who still remained true to what he had taught them. It is probable that the altar stood then just where the high-altar in St. Paul’s stands to-day. Only the church would be much smaller and plainer, and the door would be locked to prevent unbelieving pagans entering and disturbing the service by irreverent jeering and laughter. Suddenly a loud knocking was heard, then the crash of falling wood. The young King and his friends had chanced to be passing, and, in a moment of heedless excitement, had determined to visit the Christian’s church, and see what amusement they could get there. Angry at finding the door locked against them, they had broken it down without further delay. Up the aisle strode the King, followed by his mocking companions, to where the old Bishop was engaged in distributing the consecrated Bread to the kneeling communicants. In those days white bread was a rarity, most of it being dark-coloured and unwholesome; and this white bread that was used for the Holy Communion was the whitest and purest of all; for, in order that it should be so, pious people, even the clergy themselves, used to grind the meal carefully with their own hands, and bake it into loaves, and bring it to the church as their offering.

‘Give me some of that white bread,’ cried the young King, stretching out his hand. ‘You gave it to my father Siebert; give it also to me.’

Perhaps he thought in his reckless insolence that the Bishop would obey. But King Siebert had been a baptized Christian, his son was a pagan and an unbeliever; so, King though he was, he could not be allowed to join with the Christians in their solemn Feast. And the brave old Bishop told him so, knowing full well that the refusal might cost him his life. The young King did not put him to death, however, though he was very angry—perhaps he was ashamed to do so—but it cost him his Bishopric, for he was driven out of the Kingdom, and had to leave to seeming ruin all the work that was so dear to his heart.

But it was only seeming ruin. He had done his work faithfully; he had laid the foundations, as it were; and, as has ever happened in the history of the Church, God saw to it that there were other men ready to step in, and build upon these foundations. Other Bishops were appointed—Bishop Cedd and Bishop Erkenwald—and in their days the Christian Faith began to take root again, and spread among the citizens of London, and they improved and beautified their Cathedral until it became famed for its riches and grandeur. Indeed, Bishop Erkenwald was such a famous preacher, and did so much for his church, that when he died he was buried in a golden shrine which people came to see, just as they visited the shrine of St. Cuthbert at Durham, and St. Thomas at Canterbury. As for stout old Bishop Milletus, although he was driven into exile for a time, he became in after-years Archbishop of Canterbury, and his bones lie in the Cathedral there.

Now, it is a curious thing how often those old churches that we are talking about were destroyed, either wholly or in part, by fire. And if there was one church that was fated to suffer more than another in this way, it was St. Paul’s. It was partly burned down in A.D. 951. By that time the Normans were in the country, and they set to work at once to rebuild it. When it was finished, it was a very splendid church indeed; but once more it suffered severely from a fire which broke out in the City, and destroyed everything from London Bridge to the Church of St. Clement Danes, which stands in the Strand.

Let us see what this Cathedral of the Middle Ages was like. It was the largest church in England, and was shaped like a cross, and, instead of having a dome, as the present Cathedral has, it had a great square tower in the centre, with a wooden spire, four hundred and sixty feet high. It stood in the middle of a churchyard, which was surrounded by a high wall. We still talk about ‘St. Paul’s Churchyard,’ although it is long years since anyone was buried there; but if we are in London, and take a bus along the crowded Strand, and up Ludgate Hill, we shall arrive at this old churchyard, and then we shall see the ‘St. Paul’s’ of to-day, and shall be better able to picture to ourselves the ‘St. Paul’s’ of the Middle Ages.

When we leave our bus, we find ourselves in an open space bounded on all sides by busy streets and fine shops. In the centre of this open space stands an immense church, with a huge dome rising from its centre, and on the top of the dome, standing clearly out against the sky, so far up that it can be seen from nearly all parts of London, is an immense gilded cross. In front of the church there are two great flights of steps, which lead down into a broad paved space, only separated from the street by a row of low stone pillars, while round at the sides lie pleasant gardens, with flagged walks, where pigeons flutter about, and where, in summer, hundreds of busy clerks, and shop-girls, and message-boys, come and sit in their lunch-hour, and get a breath of fresh air and a little sunshine.