E. 1.—Few questions have been more keenly debated than the extent to which Roman civilization in Britain survived the English Conquest. On the one hand we have such high authorities as Professor Freeman assuring us that our forefathers swept it away as ruthlessly and as thoroughly as the Saracens in Africa; on the other, those who consider that little more disturbance was wrought than by the Danish invasions. The truth probably lies between the two, but much nearer to the former than the latter. The substitution of an English for the Roman name of almost every Roman site in the country[[381]] could scarcely have taken place had there been anything like continuity in their inhabitants. Even the Roman roads, as we have seen,[[382]] received English designations. We may well believe that most Romano-British towns shared the fate of Anderida (the one recorded instance of destruction),[[383]] and that the word "chester" was only applied to the Roman ruins by their destroyers.[[384]] But such places as London, York, and Lincoln may well have lived on through the first generation of mere savage onslaught, after which the English gradually began to tolerate even for themselves a town life.

E. 2.—And though in the country districts the agricultural population were swept away pitilessly to [251] make room for the invaders,[[385]] till the fens of Ely[[386]] and the caves of Ribblesdale[[387]] became the only refuge of the vanquished, yet, undoubtedly, many must have been retained as slaves, especially amongst the women, to leaven the language of the conquerors with many a Latin word, and their ferocity with many a recollection of the gentler Roman past.

E. 3.—And there was one link with that past which not all the massacres and fire-raisings of the Conquest availed to break. The Romano-British populations might be slaughtered, the Romano-British towns destroyed, but the Romano-British Church lived on; the most precious and most abiding legacy bestowed by Rome upon our island.

E. 4.—The origin of that Church has been assigned by tradition to directly Apostolic sources. The often-quoted passage from Theodoret,[[388]] of St. Paul having "brought help" to "the isles of the sea" (ταῖς ἐν τῷ πελάγει διακειμέναις νήσοις) [tais en to pelagei diakeimenais nêsois], can scarcely, however, refer to this island. No classical author ever uses the word πέλαγος [pelagos] of the Oceanic waters; and the epithet diakeime/nais [diakeimenais], coming, as it does, in connection with the Apostle's preaching in Italy and Spain, seems rather to point to the islands between these peninsulas—Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Islands. But the well-known [252] words of St. Clement of Rome,[[389]] that St. Paul's missionary journeys extended to "the End of the West" τό τέρμα τῆς δύσεως [to terma tês duseôs], were, as early as the 6th century, held to imply a visit to Britain (for our island was popularly supposed by the ancients to lie west of Spain).[[390]] The lines of Venantius (A.D. 580) even seem to contain a reference to the tradition that he landed at Portsmouth:

"Transit et Oceanum, vel qua facit insula portum,
Quasque Britannus habet terras atque ultima Thule."
["Yea, through the ocean he passed,
where the Port is made by an island,
And through each British realm,
and where the world endeth at Thule.">[

E. 5.—The Menology of the Greek Church (6th century) ascribes the organization of the British Church to the visitation, not of St. Paul, but of St. Peter in person.

Ο Πέτρος ... εἰς Βρεταννίαν παραγίνεται. Ενθα δὴ
χειροτριβήσας [sic] καὶ πολλὰ τῶν ἀκατανομάτων ἐθνῶν
εὶς τὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ πίστιν έπισπασάμενος ... καί πολούς
τῷ λόγῳ φωτίσας τῆς χάριτος, ἐκκλησιάς τε συστησάμενος,
ἐπισκοπούς τε καὶ πρεσβυτέρους καὶ διακόνους
χειροτονησας, δωδεκάτῳ ἔτει τοῦ Καίσαρος αὖθις Πώμην
παραγίνεται.
[O Petros ... ehis Bretannian paraginetai. Entha dô
cheirotribôsas [sic] kai polla tôn hakatanomatôn hethnôn
eis tôn tou Christou pistin epispasamenos ... kai pollous
toi logoi photisas tôs charitos, ekklaesias te sustêsamenos,
episkopous te kai presbuterous kai diakonous
cheipotonhêsas, dôdekatôi etei tou Kaisaros authis eis Rômên
paraginetai.][[391]]
[253] ["Peter ... cometh even unto Britain. Yea,
there abode he long, and many of the lawless folk did
he draw to the Faith of Christ ... and many did he
enlighten with the Word of Grace. Churches, too,
did he set up, and ordained bishops and priests and
deacons. And in the twelfth year of Caesar[[392]] came he
again unto Rome.">[

The 'Acta Sanctorum' also mentions this tradition (filtered through Simeon Metaphrastes), and adds that St. Peter was in Britain during Boadicea's rebellion, when he incurred great danger.

E. 6—The 'Synopsis Apostolorum,' ascribed to Dorotheus (A.D. 180), but really a 6th-century compilation, gives us yet another Apostolic preacher, St. Simon Zelotes. This is probably due to a mere confusion between Μαβριτανία [Mabritania] [Mauretania] and Βρεταννία [Bretannia]. But it is impossible to deny that the Princes of the Apostles may both have visited Britain, nor indeed is there anything essentially improbable in their doing so. We know that Britain was an object of special interest at Rome during the period of the Conquest, and it would be quite likely that the idea of simultaneously conquering this new Roman dominion for Christ should suggest itself to the two Apostles so specially connected with the Roman Church.[[393]]

E. 7.—But while we may possibly accept this legend, it is otherwise with the famous and beautiful story which ascribes the foundation of our earliest church [254] at Glastonbury to the pilgrimage of St. Joseph of Arimathaea, whose staff, while he rested on Weary-all Hill, took root, and became the famous winter thorn, which