Early in the tenth century an illustration of the position occupied by the English Church in relation to Rome, and of the learning of its clergy and their style of preaching, is afforded by the writings of Aelfric, who described himself in his early years as "a monk and a mass-priest," and was later on abbat of Eynsham. Of his work, besides educational treatises, eighty sermons, chiefly translated from the Latin, remain. In them he shows clearly that the claims of the papacy with regard to S. Peter were not accepted by all in England, and he taught the spiritual, not corporal, presence of the Lord's Body in the Holy Communion. The English Church differed also from Rome in the fact that many of the clergy were married, and though this was not regarded as lawful, they were not separated from their wives. But in all essential matters the English Church remained in union with the foreign Churches and retained her ancient reputation for unbroken orthodoxy. This reputation was increased by the fame of S. Dunstan, whose sojourn abroad had served to link English churchmen again to their brothers over sea.
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The last years of the great archbishop were given to prayer and study, and to the arts of music and handicraft which he had practised in his youth. He set himself to train the young, to succour the needy, and to make peace among all men. He died on May 19th, 988, and with him the new energy he had infused into the Church seemed to pass away. [Sidenote: The Danish invasions.] New Danish invasions turned men's thoughts other ways, but still monasteries made progress. The Benedictine rule was accepted over Southern England, and in the north the see of Durham rose replacing the older northern see, when it became the resting-place of the bones of the great missionary, S. Cuthbert. The Danish invasions were not so barbarous now as in earlier days. Some of the Danes were Christians, and it was at Andover that Olaf Trigvason, King of Norway, was confirmed by Bishop Aelfeah, calling King Aethelred father. He went back to Norway a Christian devoted to the conversion of his people.[4]
The English Church at the beginning of the eleventh century was in full communion with the Western Church, but was practically to a large extent apart from papal influence. Church and State walked hand in hand, and the relations between sovereign and archbishop resembled those of the New rather than the Old Rome. The missionary energy which had in former years sent forth Wilfrith and Winfrith was now for the time exhausted. England needed a new religious revival. It came later, at the time of a political conquest.
Meanwhile the Irish Church was regaining its learning and its missionary zeal: both were expressed in {122} the consuetudo peregrinandi with which the Irish monks were credited in the ninth century. But from the time of the Danish invasions the Irish Church, and the Welsh also, suffered severely. Heathen settlements in Ireland were only gradually converted, as that of Dublin in 943. The disturbed state of their home encouraged Irish monks to cross the seas. Action and reaction led Ireland more close than ever to the Roman papacy.
[1] Bury, Life of S. Patrick, pp. 212-13.
[2] R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, p. 10.
[3] Cf. Roger, L'Enseignement des lettres classiques, p. 236.
[4] See ch. xi.
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