Under these circumstances, in the year 596, at the very moment when the ancient metropolis of the world seemed on the point of falling under the yoke of the Langobards, Augustine and his forty companions set out to carry the faith to the extreme islands of the West,—a deed as heroic as when Scipio marched for Zama, and left the terrible Carthaginian thundering at the gates of the city. Furnished with letters of introduction to facilitate their passage through Gaul, where they were to provide themselves with interpreters, and where, in the event of success, Augustine was to receive episcopal consecration, the adventurers finally landed in Kent, experienced a gentle reception from Æðelberht, and obtained permission to preach the faith among his subjects. In an incredibly short space of time—if we may credit the earliest historian of the Anglosaxon church—their efforts were crowned with success in the more important districts of the island; Canterbury, Rochester and London received the distinction of episcopal sees; swarms of energetic missionaries from Rome, from Gaul, from Burgundy, followed on their track, eager to aid their labours, and share their triumph; and at length the Keltic Scots themselves, emulous of their successes, or awakened, though late, to a sense of their own culpable neglect, entered vigorously upon the vacant field, and preached the Gospel to the pagan tribes north of the Humber, and in the central provinces of England. The progress of the new creed was not, however, one unchequered triumph: in Wales and Scotland the embittered Kelts refused not only canonical submission to the missionary archbishop, but even Catholic communion with his neophytes[[850]]. In Eastanglia, Essex, nay Kent itself, apostacy followed upon the death of the first converted kings; while Wessex remained true to its ancient paganism; and Penda of Mercia, tolerant of Christianity although himself no Christian, was dangerous through his very indifference, his ambition, and the triumphs of his arms over successive Northumbrian princes. Still the great aim of Gregory was not to be vain, and despite kings and peoples, nay even despite the faintheartedness and “little faith” of the missionaries, the work of conversion did go on and prosper, until it embraced every portion of the island, and every part of England made at least an outward profession of Christianity.

No sooner had the new creed found a reception among the Saxons than the establishment of bishoprics followed in every separate kingdom. The intention of Gregory had been to appoint two metropolitans, each with twelve suffragan bishops, one having his cathedral in London, the other in York. But political events prevented the execution of this plan: Canterbury retained the primacy of the greater part of England, and (except during a very few years) the rule over all the bishops on this side the Humber; while York, after receiving an archbishop in the person of Paulinus, remained for nearly a century after his death under a bishop only; and never succeeded in establishing more than four suffragan sees, which were finally reduced to two. This state of things naturally sprang from the circumstances under which the conversion took place. Had England been subject to one central power, or had the relinquishment of paganism taken place simultaneously in the several districts, a general system might have been introduced whose leading features might have been in accordance with Gregory’s desire; but this was not the case. The work of conversion was subject to many difficulties which could not have been appreciated at Rome. The pope had probably but sparing knowledge of the relations which existed between the Anglosaxon kingdoms, and how little concert could be expected from their scattered and hostile rulers. Nor could he have anticipated a jealous and sullen resistance on the part of the Keltic Christians, which was perhaps not altogether unprovoked by the indiscreet pretensions of Augustine[[851]]. But the first bishops were in fact strictly missionaries,—as much so as the bishop of New Zealand among the Maori,—heads of various bodies of voluntary adventurers, who at their own great peril bore the tidings of salvation to the pagan inhabitants of distant and separate localities. Prudence indeed dictated the propriety of commencing with those whose authority might tend to secure their own safety, and whose example would be a useful confirmation of their arguments; whose own religious convictions also were less likely to be of a settled and bigotted character than those of the villagers in the Marks. Christianity, which in its outset commenced with the lowest and poorest classes of society, and slowly widened its circuit till it embraced the highest, thus reversed the process in England, and commenced with the courts and households of the kings.

Accordingly the conversion of a king was generally followed by the establishment of a see, the princes being apparently desirous of attaching a Christian prelate to their comitatus, in place of the Pagan high-priest who had probably occupied a similar position. Considerations of personal dignity, not less than policy, may have led to this result: the lurking remains of heathen superstition may not have been without their weight: whatever were the cause, we find at first a bishopric co-extensive with a kingdom[[852]]. But this was obviously an insufficient provision in the larger districts, as Christianity continued its triumphant course, and towards the close of the seventh century, Theodore, the first archbishop who succeeded in uniting all the English church under his authority, finally accomplished the division of the larger sees. From this period till the ninth century, when the invasions of the Northmen threw all the established institutions into confusion, the English sees appear to have ranked in the following order[[853]]:—

Province of Canterbury.—1. Lichfield. 2. Leicester. 3. Lincoln. 4. Worcester. 5. Hereford. 6. Sherborne. 7. Winchester. 8. Elmham. 9. Dummoc. 10. London. 11. Rochester. 12. Selsey.

Province of York.—1. Hexham. 2. Lindisfarn. 3. Whiterne.

Thus, inclusive of Canterbury and York, there were seventeen sees. At a later period some of these perished altogether, as Lindisfarn, Hexham, Whiterne and Dummoc; while others were formed, as Durham for Northumberland, Dorchester for Lincoln; and in Wessex, Ramsbury (Hræfnesbyrig, Ecclesia Corvinensis) for Wilts, Wells for Somerset, Crediton for Devonshire, and during some time, St. Petroc’s or Padstow for Cornwall.

The earliest bishops among the Saxons were necessarily strangers. Romans occupied the cathedral thrones of Canterbury, Rochester and London, and for a while that of York also. Northumberland next passed for a short time under the direction of Keltic prelates,—Scots as they were then called,—who held no communion with the Romish missionaries. Felix, a Burgundian, but not an Arian, evangelized Eastanglia; Birinus, a Frank, carried the faith to Wessex. But as these men gradually left the scene of their labours, which must have been much increased by the difficulty of teaching populations who spoke a strange language, by means of interpreters, their Saxon pupils addressed themselves to the work with exemplary zeal and earnestness; it was very soon found that the island could supply itself with prelates fully equal to all the duties of their position; and to a mere accident was the English church indebted at the end of the seventh century for a foreign metropolitan, in the person of Theodore of Tarsus. Although we may reasonably suppose the traditions of the heathen priesthood not to have been without some weight, we must not conclude that these alone will account for the number of noble Anglosaxons whom, from the earliest period, we find devoting themselves to the service of the church, and clothed with its highest dignities. It must be admitted that nowhere else did Christianity make a deeper or more lasting impression than in England. Not only do we see the high nobles and the near relatives of kings among the bishops and archbishops, but kings themselves—warlike and fortunate kings—suddenly and voluntarily renouncing their temporal advantages, retiring into monasteries, and abdicating their crowns, that they may wander as pilgrims to the shrines of the Apostles in Rome. We find princesses and other high-born ladies devoting themselves to a life of celibacy, or separating from their husbands to preside over congregations of nuns: well descended men cannot rest till they have wandered forth to carry the tidings of redemption into distant and barbarous lands; a life of abstinence and hardship, to be crowned by a martyr’s death, seems to have been hungered and thirsted after by the wealthy and the noble,—assuredly an extraordinary and an edifying spectacle among a race not at all adverse to the pomps and pleasures of worldly life, a spectacle which compels us to believe in the deep, earnest, conscientious spirit of self-sacrifice and love of truth which characterized the nation.

The complete organization of the ecclesiastical power in England appears to have been effected by Theodore, who is distinctly affirmed to have been the first prelate whose authority the whole church of the Angles consented to admit[[854]]. There is reason to suppose that this was not accomplished without some difficulty, for it involved the division of previously existing dioceses, and the consequent diminution of previously existing power and influence. Theodore, like Augustine, had been despatched from Rome to England, under very peculiar circumstances. After the death of Deusdedit, archbishop of Canterbury, a difficulty appears to have arisen about the election of a successor, in consequence of which the see remained for some time without an occupant[[855]]. At length however Oswiú of Northumberland and Ecgberht of Kent undertook to put a period to a state of affairs which must have caused grave inconveniences[[856]], and accordingly they took, with the election and consent of the church, a presbyter of the late archbishop, named Wigheard, and sent him to Rome for consecration. It is most remarkable that we hear nothing of any co-operation on the part of Wessex in this step, or of the powerful king of Mercia, Wulfhere, who had succeeded in establishing the independence of his country against all the efforts of Oswiú himself. Shortly after his arrival in Rome Wigheard died, and after some correspondence with the English kings, Vitalian undertook to provide a prelate for the vacant see[[857]]. Various difficulties being finally overcome, his choice fell upon Theodore of Tarsus, who accordingly was despatched to England with the power of an archbishop, and solemnly enthroned at Canterbury in 668.

Hitherto there had been churches in England; henceforward there was a church,—and a body of clergy existing as a central institution, in spite of the separation and frequent hostility of the states to which the clergy themselves belonged. No doubt the common rank and interests of the bishops, as well as the necessity for canonical consecration had from the first produced some sort of union among them. But from the time of Theodore we find at least the southern prelates assembling in provincial synods, under the direction of the metropolitan, to declare the faith as it was found among them, establish canons of discipline and rules of ecclesiastical government, and generally to make such arrangements as appeared likely to conduce to the well-being of the church, without regard to the severance of the kingdoms. To these synods, which though not holden twice a year in accordance with Theodore’s plan, and indeed with the ancient canons of the church, were yet of frequent occurrence, the bishops repaired, accompanied by some of their co-presbyters and monks, and when the business before them was completed, returned to promulgate in their dioceses the regulations of the council, and spread among their clergy the news of what was doing in other lands for the furtherance of the Gospel.

The respectful deference paid to the Roman See was thus naturally converted into a much closer and more intimate relation. Saxon England was essentially the child of Rome; whatever obligations any of her kingdoms may have been under to the Keltic missionaries,—and I cannot persuade myself that these were at all considerable,—she certainly had entirely lost sight of them at the close of the seventh and the commencement of the eighth centuries. Her national bishops, as the Kelts and disciples of the Kelts have been unjustifiably called, had either retired in disgust, like Colman, or been deposed like Winfrið, or apostatized like Cedd. It was to Rome that her nobles and prelates wandered as pilgrims; it was the interests of Rome that her missionaries preached in Germany[[858]] and Friesland; it was to her that the archbishops elect looked for their pall[[859]]—the sign of their dignity: to the Pope her prelates appealed for redress, or for authority: in the eighth century we find one pope sanctioning the formation of a third archiepiscopal see, in defiance of the metropolitan of Canterbury; and in the first year of the ninth century we find this new arrangement abrogated by the same authority. Lastly it was England that gave to Rome Wilfrið and Willibrord and Adelberht, Boniface and Willibald, Anselm and Becket and Robert of Winchelsea.