While the doctrinal system of the Church was being wrought out in the disputes and councils of Rome and the East, the foundations of the Germanic national churches were being laid in the West. In the British Isles the faith was extended from Britain to Ireland and thence to Scotland ([§ 96]). Among the inmates of the monasteries of these countries were many monks who were moved to undertake missionary journeys to various parts of Western Europe, and among them St. [pg 565] Columbanus. But even more important for the future of Western Christendom was the conversion of the Franks from paganism to Catholic Christianity. At a time when the other Germanic rulers were still Arian, Clovis and the Franks became Catholics and, as a consequence, the champions of the Catholic faith. The Franks rapidly became the dominant power in the West, and soon other Germanic races either were conquered or followed the example of the Franks and became Catholics ([§ 97]). The State churches that thus arose were more under the control of the local royal authority than the Catholic Church had previously been, and the rulers were little disposed to favor outside control of the ecclesiastical affairs of their kingdoms ([§ 98]). Toward the end of the sixth century the greatest pontiff of the ancient Church, Gregory the Great, more than recovered the prestige and influence which had been lost under Vigilius. By his able administration he did much to unite the West, to heal the schism resulting from the Fifth Council, and to overcome the heresies which divided the Arians and the Catholics. At the same time he advanced the authority of the see of Rome in the East as well as in the West ([§ 99]). Of the many statesman-like undertakings of Gregory none had more far-reaching consequences than the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and the establishment in England of a church which would be in close and loyal dependence upon the Roman see, and in consequence of that close connection would be the heir of the best traditions of culture in the West ([§ 100]).
§ 96. The Celtic Church in the British Isles
Christianity was probably planted in the British Isles during the second century; as to its growth in the ante-Nicene period little is definitely known. Representatives of the British Church were at Arles in 314. The Church was in close connection with the Church on the Continent during the fourth century and in the fifth during the Pelagian controversy. The Christianity thus established was completely overthrown or driven into Wales by the invasion of the pagan Angles, Jutes, and Saxons circa 449-500. (For the conversion of the newcomers, v. infra, [§ 100].) Early in the fifth century the conversion of Ireland took place by missionaries from Britain. In this conversion St. Patrick traditionally plays an important part.
Additional source material: Bede, Hist. Ec., Eng. trans. by Giles, London, 1894; by A. M. Sellar, London, 1907 (for Latin text, v. infra, [a]); Adamnani, Vita S. Columbæ, ed. J. T. Fowler, 1894 (with valuable introduction and translation); St. Patrick, Genuine Writings, ed. G. T. Stokes and C. H. H. Wright, Dublin, 1887; J. D. Newport White, The Writings of St. Patrick, 1904. For bibliography of sources, see Gross, The Sources and Literature of English History, 1900, pp. 221 f.
(a) Bede, Hist. Ec. Gentis Anglorum, I, 13. (MSL, 95:40.)
The Venerable Bede (672 or 673-735), monk at Jarrow, the most learned theologian of the Anglo-Saxon Church, was also the first historian of England. For the earliest period he used what written sources were available. His work becomes of independent value with the account of the coming of Augustine of Canterbury, 597 (I, 23). The history extends to A. D. 731. The best critical edition is that of C. Plummer, 1896, which has a valuable introduction, copious historical and critical notes, and careful discrimination of the sources. Wm. Bright's Chapters on Early English Church History is an elaborate commentary on Bede's work as far as 709, the death of Wilfrid. Translation of Bede's History by J. A. Giles, may be found in Bohn's Antiquarian Library, and better by A. M. Sellar, 1907.
In the following passage we have the only reference made by Bede to the conversion of Ireland, and his failure to mention Patrick has given rise to much controversy, see J. B. Bury, The Life of St. Patrick [pg 567] and his Place in History, 1905. This passage, referring to Palladius, is a quotation from the Chronica of Prosper of Aquitaine (403-463) ann. 431 (MSL, 51, critical edition in MGH, Auct. antiquiss, 9:1); from Gildas, De excidio Britanniæ liber querulus (MSL, 69:327, critical edition in MGH, Auct. antiquiss, 13. A translation by J. A. Giles in Six Old English Chronicles, in Bohn's Antiquarian Library), is the reference to the letter written to the Romans; from the Chronica of Marcellinus Comes (MSL, 51:913; critical edition in MGH, Auct. antiquiss, 11) is the reference to Blæda and Attila.
In the year of the Lord's incarnation, 423, Theodosius the younger received the empire after Honorius and, being the forty-fifth from Augustus, retained it twenty-six years. In the eighth year of his reign, Palladius was sent by Celestinus, the pontiff of the Roman Church, to the Scots[212] that believed in Christ to be their first bishop. In the twenty-third year of his reign (446), Aëtius, the illustrious, who was also patrician, discharged his third consulate with Symmachus as his colleague. To him the wretched remnants of the Britons sent a letter beginning: “To Aëtius, thrice consul, the groans of the Britons.” And in the course of the letter they thus express their calamities: “The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea drives us back to the barbarians; between them there have arisen two sorts of death; we are either slain or drowned.” Yet neither could all this procure any assistance from him, as he was then engaged in a most dangerous war with Blæda and Attila, kings of the Huns. And though the year next before this, Blæda had been murdered by the treachery of his brother Attila, yet Attila himself remained so intolerable an enemy to the republic that he ravaged almost all Europe, invading and destroying cities and castles.