The history of England, from the earliest times to the Norman Conquest

by Thomas Hodgkin

After three years this parenthesis in Wilfrid’s life came to an end, owing to the intervention of the new archbishop, Theodore, to whose history we now turn. We have seen that the Kings of Northumbria and Kent, taking counsel together after the death of Archbishop Deusdedit, sent Wighard to Rome as the bearer of their request that he might be consecrated archbishop, and that after their arrival in Rome Wighard and nearly all of his companions fell victims to the pestilence then raging in the Eternal City. Thereupon the Pope, Vitalian, whose courage and skill had already been displayed on the occasion of the unwelcome visit of the Emperor Constans to Rome, deliberated anxiously with his council on the question whom he should send as archbishop to Canterbury in place of the dead Englishman. After some hesitation and two refusals of the dignity, his choice fell upon Theodore, a learned Greek monk, who was at that time living in Rome and who had possibly come over to Italy in the train of the Emperor Constans. Theodore, who was, like the apostle Paul, a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, was now sixty-six years of age, and dreaded not so much the duties of the office as the hardships of the long journey to a remote and chilly island. However, the abbot, Hadrian, an African, who had himself refused the offered dignity and had recommended Theodore to the Pope, volunteered to accompany his friend, having already twice made the journey through Gaul; and Vitalian, who seems to have entertained some groundless fear as to the perfect orthodoxy of this Greek monk on the great question of the Monothelete controversy, gladly consented to this arrangement. But however free Theodore might be from Greek errors of doctrine, the fashion of his tonsure, which professed to be after the example of St. Paul, and which consisted in the shaving of the whole head, declared but too plainly to the world his Greek origin. He had therefore, after being ordained sub-deacon, to wait four months till his hair had grown sufficiently to enable him to receive the Roman tonsure, which made a crown of baldness on the top of the head. He was then consecrated archbishop by Vitalian, and set forth on May 27, 668, with his friend Hadrian for his distant diocese. His journey through Gaul seems to have been performed in a very leisurely manner, and we are expressly told that he tarried for a long time with Agilbert, by whom he was cordially received, and with whom he doubtless had much conversation concerning affairs on the other side of the channel. Meanwhile Egbert, King of Kent, being informed of the events which had happened at Rome, sent his “prefect” Radfrid to escort Theodore into his kingdom. But notwithstanding this special embassy, we are told—and the information throws a curious light on the European politics of the time—that Ebroin, the all-powerful mayor of the palace, would not permit Hadrian to accompany his friend, because he suspected that he was the bearer of some message from the Emperor to the kings of Britain, which might be adverse to the interests of the Frankish kingdom. It is with some surprise that we learn that a statesman of the seventh century contemplated the possibility of a combination of England and Constantinople against France. After a time Ebroin, having satisfied himself that no secret embassy such as he feared had ever formed part of Hadrian’s instructions, permitted him to follow Theodore, by whom he was made abbot of the great monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul at Canterbury, the Westminster Abbey of the Kentish kingdom.

Theodore of Tarsus arrived at Canterbury and was enthroned there on May 27, 669, thus commencing a memorable career, which lasted for more than twenty-one years. “Soon,” says Bede, “having traversed the whole island wherever the tribes of the English abode, and being heartily welcomed and listened to by all, he spread abroad the right way of living and the canonical rule for the celebration of Easter; Hadrian everywhere appearing as his companion and helper. For he was the first of the archbishops to whom the whole Church of the English agreed to give the hand of fellowship.” We see at once how great a step towards national unity, at least as far as the English people was concerned, was taken under the guidance of this Oriental stranger, who came from under the shadow of Mount Taurus. Unfortunately there is no evidence that he did anything to break down the middle wall of partition which the arrogance of Augustine had raised between the English and the Welsh Churches; while, to the yet unreconciled Celts of Ireland and the Hebrides his very appointment was in the nature of a challenge.

Bede proceeds to describe to us how Theodore’s copious stores of learning, both sacred and secular, were made available for the people. He tells us of the multitude of disciples who flocked to his daily lectures and those of his friend Hadrian; of the knowledge “of the metrical art, of astronomy and of ecclesiastical arithmetic,” which, along with the sacred Scriptures, they imparted to their hearers. “A proof hereof is,” says he, “that to this day there survive some of their disciples, who know the Latin and Greek tongues as well as that wherein they were born. Nor in fact were there ever happier times since the days when the English first landed in Britain, since now, under the leadership of most valiant and Christian kings, they were a terror to all the barbarous nations; the desires of men were strongly directed towards the new-found joys of the heavenly kingdom; and all who desired to be instructed in the sacred Scriptures had teachers near at hand, who could impart to them that knowledge.” There can be no doubt that Theodore possessed a genius for organisation such as had not been displayed by Augustine or any of the subsequent prelates, and that to him more than to any other single person is due the structure of the Anglo-Saxon Church, such as it remained till the Norman conquest. One change which he perceived to be necessary for the good of the Church, but which also inevitably tended towards the augmentation of his own power, was an increase in the number of bishoprics. Hitherto the tendency had been to have one bishopric only for each of the English kingdoms, an arrangement quite unlike that which had generally prevailed throughout the Roman empire, in some parts of which almost every town that was above the rank of a village had its own episcopal ruler. Such great unwieldy bishoprics as Northumbria, Mercia or Wessex, were not likely to be administered efficiently by a single bishop, while, on the other hand, their very magnitude suggested dangerous thoughts of rivalry with a primate whose immediate sway extended only over a part of Kent. Thus Theodore was impelled by every motive, public and private, to strive to break up the existing bishoprics into smaller portions. In that process the wise but masterful old man certainly did not show himself to any undue extent a respecter of persons.

One of the first cases in which Theodore had to exert his archiepiscopal authority was that of the bishopric of York. However aggrieved both king and people might have been by Wilfrid’s long-delayed return, there was no doubt that the intrusion of another bishop into a see already filled was entirely contrary to the canons; and, moreover, from the strict Roman point of view Ceadda’s consecration to the episcopate was not safe from attack, inasmuch as two “Quarto-deciman” bishops had taken part therein. When all these various objections were stated by Theodore to Ceadda, the simple-minded and unambitious old man at once declared his willingness at Theodore’s call to resign a dignity of which he had never deemed himself worthy. “No: not the episcopate,” was Theodore’s answer. “To that I will reordain you with all due formalities; but stand aside for the present from this see, which of right belongs to Wilfrid.” Thus Wilfrid, after three years of suspension, was once again bishop of the great diocese of York, extending from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, or even beyond. For Ceadda meanwhile a place was quickly found, the scarcely less important bishopric of Mercia; and Theodore’s regard for the saintly old man was shown by ordering him no longer to perform his long episcopal journeys on foot, but to ride through his diocese. When Ceadda hesitated, mindful of his beloved Aidan’s example, Theodore insisted, possibly himself provided him with a steed, at any rate with his own archiepiscopal hands lifted him into the saddle. Ceadda’s tenure of the Mercian episcopate was short, as he fell a victim to the plague in 672. He died, however, not only in the odour of sanctity, but, what is better, surrounded by the unfeigned love of his monastic brethren, and able to speak even of the Angel of the Pestilence as “that lovable guest who hath been wont of late to visit our brotherhood”.

All the ecclesiastical events which have been described in this chapter, save the last, took place in the reign of Oswy. In the year 671, as we have seen, a new monarch, Egfrid, ascended the Northumbrian throne. He had already been for some years the nominal husband of one of the saintly members of the East Anglian family, Etheldreda, a daughter of King Anna, but she, though Egfrid was her second husband, was at heart a devoted nun and insisted through life on keeping her virginity unstained. Here was already cause for trouble in the Northumbrian palace, trouble which was aggravated by the interference of Wilfrid, who, in defiance of apostolic precept and the Church’s law, made himself the champion of the cause of the disobedient wife, and at last (probably in the first or second year of Egfrid’s reign) with the hardly won consent of her husband arrayed her in the veil of a “sanctimonialis femina”. She retired first to the monastery of Coldingham, then ruled by Ebba, the aunt of Egfrid. After a year’s residence therein she became abbess of the great convent which she had herself founded in the Isle of Ely on lands devised to her by her first husband. There, after bearing rule for seven years, she died. The signal triumph of religious zeal over worldly ambition and luxury which her life displayed was celebrated in enthusiastic and acrostic verse by her admirer Bede. She was undoubtedly one of the most popular saints of the Anglo-Saxon epoch, and her name in the abbreviated form of Audrey still possesses a certain attraction for Englishmen.

The place which Etheldreda had vacated by the side of Egfrid was at once filled by a second wife named Ermenburga, who was persistently hostile to Wilfrid, and is accordingly likened to Jezebel by his enthusiastic biographer. There was, however, much in Wilfrid’s position at this, the most glorious period of his career, which might well rouse the jealousy of the secular rulers of the nation. Between 671 and 678 he was probably the foremost man in all Northumbria. He built great basilicas, the marvels of the age, at Hexham[77] and at Ripon.[78] At the dedication of the basilica at Ripon, Wilfrid stood before the altar, which was draped in purple and marvellously enriched with gold and silver, and there rehearsed, in the presence of the Northumbrian kings, the great gifts of landed property which the royal house had bestowed upon the Church, and also enumerated the places which had belonged in old time to the British Church and to which, though then desolate, it was evident that the English Church meant to assert her claim. When his sermon was ended a great feast was spread, to which the kings and all their followers were invited, and which lasted amid great rejoicings for three days and nights.

Of Wilfrid’s wonderful churches no trace now remains above ground. We are told that the church of Hexham was “supported by various columns” (perhaps taken from Roman temples) “and many porches, adorned with walls of wondrous length and height, and with variously winding passages, leading now up, now down, by stately staircases”. Both at Ripon and Hexham the crypt “carried deep down into the earth with marvellously smoothed stones” still remains; and at Hexham inscriptions, bas-reliefs and the shape of the stones employed show us all too plainly that the Roman camps along the line of the wall were the quarry from whence Wilfrid’s marvellously smoothed stones were obtained. But the great bishop was not giving all his time to his architectural labours. He rode from end to end of his diocese, ordaining priests and deacons in great numbers, and attracting to himself the love and devotion of the powerful abbots and abbesses, who very generally, either by present transfer or by testamentary disposition, arranged that he should become lord of the lands of their monasteries. Many Anglian nobles also sent their sons to be brought up in the bishop’s house, in order that they might either by his introduction enter the life of religion, or if they preferred the profession of arms, might by him be recommended to the king. In everything that Wilfrid touched the same note of sumptuous magnificence might be discerned. Thus, on the day of the dedication of the church at Ripon, he presented to it “the four illuminated Gospels traced in purest gold on purple parchment, which he had caused to be transcribed for the welfare of his soul, also a bookcase for these books, all made of the purest gold and adorned with the most precious jewels”. But all this pomp and splendour (though coupled with personal abstinence and the practice of monastic austerities) was rearing up for Wilfrid a host of lifelong enemies; at their head Queen Ermenburga, who ceased not to remind her husband of “all the worldly pomp of Bishop Wilfrid, his riches, the multitude of his abbeys, the grandeur of his buildings, and the numberless host of his followers adorned with royal raiment and equipped with arms”.

The jealousy which the royal pair felt at the greatness of the Bishop of York was powerfully aided by their alliance with Archbishop Theodore. For the formation of this alliance it is quite unnecessary to accept the biographer’s story of bribes out of ecclesiastical property offered by the king and accepted by the archbishop. On the contrary, it might almost have been foretold by any one who was acquainted with the two men, Wilfrid and Theodore, that they must necessarily sooner or later come into collision. They were both men of great intellectual stature, both devoted to the Roman obedience and intent on bringing the English Church fully into that obedience, but they would do it in different ways. Theodore, as Metropolitan of the whole land, would enforce Church order, subdivide the unwieldy dioceses, and make his strong hand felt by every bishop and abbot in every corner of the English kingdoms. Wilfrid had no thought of resigning any part of his power over his vast diocese, in which he was virtually independent. Nay more, faint as are the traces of such a scheme in history, it is difficult not to suppose that Wilfrid was cognisant of Gregory’s original plan for the establishment of two independent archbishoprics in Britain, one at London and the other at York, and hoped to convert—as was actually done half a century later—his bishopric into an archbishopric. Such an arrangement would be far more in accordance with ecclesiastical precedent throughout the Roman empire than that which actually prevailed, since the general usage had been to place the Metropolitan in the chief city of the province. All the venerable associations which now cluster round the name of Canterbury should not cause us to forget the fact that it is merely owing to a series of accidents (foremost among them the relapse of the East Saxons into idolatry) that the chief pastor of the English Church now bears the title of Archbishop of Canterbury. Either Londinium or Eburacum, pre-eminently the latter, had better right to give an archbishop to England than the little insignificant city of Durovernis.

Intent on his schemes of Church reform and full of the paramount authority symbolised by his archiepiscopal pallium, Theodore visited Northumbria and found there in the royal palace a ready acquiescence in his grand project for the division of the diocese. He at once, in Wilfrid’s absence, ordained three new bishops who were to divide among themselves a large part of his diocese, leaving him probably the city of York and a certain part of Deira as his portion.[79] It was a strong measure to adopt, certainly, not courteous nor perhaps canonically correct in the absence of the bishop whose diocese was thus invaded; and it is no wonder that Wilfrid sought an interview with the king and archbishop, and demanded by what right they, without any cause of offence alleged against him, thus defrauded him in robber-fashion of property given him by the king for God’s service. They answered, says his biographer, in the presence of all the people with the memorable words: “No accusation is made against thee of having done injury to any man, but the decision which we have come to in thy case we will not change”. Hereat Wilfrid signified his intention of appealing to Rome (678) against this unjust act of spoliation. The flatterers who surrounded the king laughed aloud at his words, but he turned round and rebuked them sternly, saying: “You laugh now, evidently rejoicing at my condemnation, but on the anniversary of this day bitterly shall ye weep to your own confusion”. And in fact men noted with awe that it was on the exact anniversary of Wilfrid’s interview with the king that the body of the beloved under-king, Alfwin, was brought back to York from the battlefield on the banks of the Trent, and was received by all the people with tears and rent garments and passionate lamentations.

And now began that long duel between prelate and king, with visits to Rome, confiscations, imprisonments, reconciliations, repentances, which lasted with some intermissions and some changes in the person of the royal disputant, for nearly thirty years, and which in some of its vicissitudes reminds us of the contention between Henry Plantagenet and Thomas Becket. It is a history with much intrinsic interest, and rendered additionally interesting to us by the fact that the Life of Wilfrid by Eddius, in which it is recorded, was written some years before the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, and is probably the earliest extant piece of Latin writing that has proceeded from an Anglo-Saxon pen. Skilfully escaping from the toils of his enemies (whose emissaries by a laughable mistake attacked and plundered a harmless bishop named Winfrid instead of him), Wilfrid landed in Friesland, made friends with the king of the Frisians, and began that career of missionary enterprise in Germany which was continued by his disciple, Willibrord, and in later years by the West Saxon, Boniface, with vast results on European history. He then travelled through Gaul, visiting King Dagobert II., whom, when an exile in Ireland, he had sped on his way to France, and thus had helped to recover his father’s throne. Dagobert’s gratitude now showed itself by assisting Wilfrid on his journey to Rome. In Italy he was befriended in a similar way by the Lombard King Perctarit, who had himself once led the life of a hunted fugitive, and refused to surrender him to his foes. Arriving at Rome, where he spent the winter of 679–80, he laid his complaint before the recently consecrated Pope, Agatho the Sicilian, and claimed his protection. A council was held in the Lateran basilica, where Theodore’s representative, a monk named Coenred, stated the case for Canterbury. Wilfrid’s petition was read, setting forth that he did not refuse to consent to the division of his bishopric, but claiming that he should be consulted as to the persons intruded upon him as colleagues; and the synod having listened to the representations of “the most holy Archbishop Theodore” and “the God-beloved Bishop Wilfrid” decided in favour of the latter.