[19] Isidore was born about 560, became bishop of Seville in 600, and died in 636. He was a voluminous writer and his works were highly esteemed during the middle ages. His name is familiarly connected with the Isidorian, or Spanish, Decretals, of which, however, he was not the author.
[20] October 10th, 732.
[21] An Italian ecclesiastic who died at Monte Casino about the year 800. He is called the first important historian of the middle ages.
[22] “This pastoral letter, addressed to Lewis the Germanic, the grandson of Charlemagne, and most probably composed by the pen of the artful Hincmar, is dated in the year 858, and signed by the bishops of the provinces of Rheims and Rouen.”—Gibbon, chap. lii. note 34.
[23] St. Augustine, the apostle to England, must not be confounded with the great theologian of the same name who was bishop of Hippo, in Africa.
[24] St. Boniface was born at Crediton. The date of his birth is not known. He died in Friesland, June 5, 755, and was known as “the Apostle of Germany.”
[25] Gregory I., surnamed the Great, was born about the year 540, and reigned as pope from 590 to his death in 604. He was famous for his zeal in enforcing ecclesiastical discipline and promoting missionary activity, especially in sending Christian missionaries to England. He is also noted for his arrangement of church music into what are still known as “Gregorian modes” or chants. His claim to being the greatest of the sixteen Gregories can be disputed by Gregory VII. (Hildebrand) alone. But there is a serious stain on his memory in a letter written to Phocas who had acquired the imperial throne at Constantinople by usurpation and murder. “The joyful applause with which” this successor of the apostles “salutes the fortunes of the assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of the saint.” Apart from this one fault, Gregory was meek, kind, sympathetic, and marvellously efficient. It is the more remarkable that such a man could so fawn upon even an emperor.
[26] Diocletian became emperor of Rome in the year 284, and shortly after associated Maximian with himself in the imperial government. In the division of the empire, Diocletian received the eastern portion, including Thrace, Egypt, Syria, and Asia—the territory of which Constantinople was afterwards the capital, though he made his capital in Nicomedia. This emperor is infamous from his severe persecution of the Christians 303–305. In the latter year he abdicated, compelling Maximian to do the same, and spent the remainder of his life in the cultivation of his gardens in Dalmatia. To the successors of this man, the popes as head of the Church that had suffered so signally by the cruelty of the imperial persecution, did abject homage.
[27] Lancashire contains 1,887 square miles.
[28] Silentiary is defined one who is sworn not to divulge the secrets of the state; hence, a privy councillor.