[82] For later changes in this part of the coast line, see [p. 70, note 1].
[83] This was possible because the Franks and Saxons, being both German, as yet spoke languages so much alike that either people could understand the other without much difficulty.
[84] Bertha was a daughter of the Frankish king Charibert. The Franks had been nominally a Christian people since the conversion of Clovis in 496 [see [p. 53]]—just a hundred years before Augustine started on his mission to the Angles and Saxons.
[85] Luidhard had been bishop of Senlis; a town not many miles northeast of Paris. Probably Augustine and his companions profited not a little by the influence which Luidhard had already exerted at the Kentish court.
[86] "The present church of St. Martin near Canterbury is not the old one spoken of by Bede, as it is generally thought to be, but is a structure of the thirteenth century, though it is probable that the materials of the original church were worked up in the masonry in its reconstruction, the walls being still composed in part of Roman bricks."—J. A. Giles, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, p. 39.
[87] Thus was established the "primacy," or ecclesiastical leadership, of Canterbury, which has continued to this day.
[88] John Alzog. Manual of Universal Church History (trans, by F. J. Pabisch and T. S. Byrne), Cincinnati, 1899, Vol. I., p. 668.
[89] That is, the passage of Scripture read just before the sermon.
[90] "See" is a term employed to designate a bishop's jurisdiction. According to common belief Peter had been bishop of Rome; his see was therefore that which Leo now held.
[91] The anniversary of Leo's elevation to the papal office.