Theodore and Wilfrith, 
 
 Bccfuree iefivcrcb in f. $auf'e 
 in ecm6*r 1800 
 
 I.V I UK 
 
 R.GHT REV. G. F. BROWNE, D.D, D.C.L., 
 
 CANON or ST. PAUL'S, BISHOP OF STEPNEY, 
 
 AND FORMERLY D.SNEY PROFESSOR OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, 
 VICE PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES. 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. ; 4* QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. 
 
 BRIGHTON : 129. NORTH STREET. 
 
 NEW YORK. E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 
 
 1897. 
 
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS little book represents the last of the 
 series of five courses of lectures on the Earliest 
 History of the Church of England, which 
 I have delivered at St. Paul's in accordance 
 with an arrangement made five years ago 
 with the late Archbishop of Canterbury. The 
 subject would have been a thorny one at any 
 time of our history since the commencement 
 of the fight for restored freedom which cul- 
 minated in the Reformation. The modern 
 aggression of the Roman schism makes it 
 a very thorny subject indeed just now. My 
 aim has been to shew that not all the gratitude 
 of the English to the great see which had sent 
 them Augustine and found for them Theodore, 
 and not all their respect for the city which 
 held the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
 led them to recognise the arrogant claims 
 made in the period which our subject covers. 
 Whatever is the opposite of subservience, that 
 we find to be the characteristic of the English 
 attitude. A long list of claims made is of no 
 effect at all in argument against such proofs 
 of sturdy independence as here we find. There 
 is plenty of high-sounding language on the 
 part of Rome. The English will be seen going 
 on their way in rather contemptuous disregard 
 of claims and threats completely futile, not 
 pressed when they were seen to be useless. 
 
 498253 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The hearing of Wilfrith's appeal at Borne. Agatho's full 
 Papal claims. His title of universal bishop. His decision 
 in Wilfrith's case. Reception accorded to his decision 
 in Northumbria. Wilfrith's imprisonment, release, and 
 banishment. Further disregard of the Roman decision, 
 and independent action of Theodore. Net result of 
 Theodore's subdivision of dioceses. The Council of Hat- 
 field ; double Procession of the Holy Ghost. Theodore's 
 reconciliation with Wilfrith. Partial restoration of Wil- 
 frith, but still in violation of Agatho's decree . . .138 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Theodore's death. His organisation of dioceses. His 
 Penitential. His schools. Aldfrith and Wilfrith at vari- 
 ance. Archbishop Brihtwald and the Synod of Quest rae- 
 feld. Wilfrith threatens to appeal to Rome ; is again 
 expelled. The hearing of Wilfrith's second appeal. 
 Decision of the Pope in his favour ... . 175 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Letter of Pope John VI to the kings of Northumbria and 
 Mercia. Its recognition of the autonomy of the English 
 Church in Wilfrith's case. King Aldfrith refuses to act 
 on the Pope's letter or make any change in regard to 
 Wilfrith's expulsion. His successor Eadulf takes the 
 same line. Council of Nidd ; declaration of Aldfrith's 
 deathbed instructions. Lay decision that the papal de- 
 crees of Agatho should, in accordance with Aldfrith's 
 testament, be carried out. Refusal of bishops ; discussion 
 of details. The decrees never carried out ; Wilfrith made 
 bishop of Hexham only. His death ; summary of his 
 episcopal life in Northumbria. Pope Paul I and his 
 letter to king Eadbert of Northumbria in a like case of 
 deprivation. Decision of the Church of England that it is 
 autonomous, having no appeal beyond the Archbishop . 207 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Ancient crosses and other sculptured stones. Ruthwell. 
 Abercorn. Acca's cross. Art in Wessex. Aldhelm. 
 Bradford - on - Avon. Deerhurst. Glastonbury. Dol- 
 ton. Cuthbert's altar. His pectoral cross. Hackness. 
 Ripon. Stapleford. Eadulf. Monkwearmouth. Brit- 
 ford. Ethelwold's cross 235 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITII. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 An-hl.ishop I), The early life of Wilfrith. 
 
 AN-hfrith and his patronage of Wilfrith. The 
 Whitby Conference. Wilfrith's relation to the Petrine 
 rlaims of Rome. The silence of the Anglo-Saxon 
 Chronicle on the Whitby Conference ; a possible ex- 
 planation of it. 
 
 LAST year we carried down the general 
 history of the christianising of six of the seven 
 kingdoms of England to the death of Honorius 
 of Canterbury on September 30, 653, fifty- 
 seven years after the first coming of Augus- 
 tine. For the christianising of the seventh 
 kingdom, Sussex, we had to break far into 
 the succeeding period. We can now return 
 to the year 653. 
 
 At the time when the last of the Italian 
 mission, Archbishop Honorius, died, there were 
 only four bishops in England. Two of these, 
 
.'8 THtfOTXmE A$D WILFRITH. 
 
 Rochester and Dunwich, had the Canterbury 
 consecration ; the other two had not, Agilbert 
 of Dorchester had been consecrated by French 
 bishops, and the Celtic Finan of Lindisfarne 
 by Irish bishops 1 . During the vacancy after 
 Honorius's death, Cedd of London was conse- 
 crated by the Celtic Finan and two bishops 
 called in by him Scotic bishops, no doubt. 
 I may explain again that by " Scotic" I mean 
 " of the Irish Church/' whether in Ireland, 
 whose people were called Scoti, or at lona, or 
 on the mainland of Scotland. The next Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, Deusdedit, was conse- 
 crated by the Bishop of Rochester alone, and he 
 himself consecrated only one bishop. The next 
 nine of the bishops of England, from 655 to 668, 
 were all consecrated either by French or by 
 Scotic or by British bishops, not one of them 
 from Canterbury. Perhaps nothing could 
 more graphically indicate the low ebb to which 
 the Roman mission had sunk, or more clearly 
 emphasise the fact that the English Church, 
 or the Church in England, or the Church of the 
 English, was left to go on its own way, on its 
 own resources, without the intervention of 
 Rome. The independent position of the 
 Church of England may have been very bad 
 
 1 Augustine and his Companions ^S.P.C.K.), p. 189. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 for it, in its very early years ; but of the fact 
 of its independence there can be no manner of 
 doubt. The only alternative view would be, 
 that the Roman Church was supposed to keep 
 its eye and hand upon the English Church, 
 and grossly neglected its self-imposed duty. 
 But that is quite unnecessaiy as an explana- 
 tion. The actual fact of the independence of 
 the English Church, of its self-managing 
 position, is exactly in accordance with the 
 very wise lines on which Pope Gregory drew 
 its national constitution. As Pope Gregory 
 called it in its earliest infancy " the Church of 
 the English," Anglorum Ecclesia 1 , so Bede 
 called it in its fully developed state " the holy 
 Church of the English race," sancta eccle&ia 
 gent is Anglorum 2 . Never did the word or 
 the idea "Rome" come into the name of our 
 national Church. 
 
 From September 30, 653, to March 26, 655, 
 there was no Archbishop of Canterbury. Then 
 Frithona was consecrated Archbishop, a Wes- 
 sex man, the first English-born Archbishop. 
 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has been said to 
 claim that honour for Brihtwald, in 690 ; but 
 that is a misinterpretation of the Chronicle 3 , 
 
 1 Bede, i. 27. a Bede, iii. 29. 
 
 3 See p. 184. 
 
10 THEODORE AND WILFEITH. 
 
 and there can be no doubt of Frithona's right 
 to it. He was named Deusdedit, " God-gave" ; 
 a very singular coincidence, when we remem- 
 ber that his immediate successor of whom 
 we are to hear so much bore the same name 
 in a Greek form, Theodore, " Gift of God.'' 
 Deusdedit was consecrated at Canterbury by 
 Ithamar, the English-born Bishop of Rochester, 
 acting alone. It has been noted as a remark- 
 able evidence of the real hold that Christianity 
 had at last got of the English people, that the 
 consecrations of four bishops are mentioned in 
 the one short chapter of Bede's history which 
 tells us of Deusdedit, and all the four bishops 
 were English-born 1 . 
 
 Of Deusdedit we know almost nothing. He 
 is said by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have 
 consecrated the abbey of Medeshamsted, after- 
 wards called Peterborough. But the passage 
 is so full of anachronisms that we cannot place 
 any reliance upon it. Bede, however, does 
 mention incidentally that it was founded 
 somewhere about this time ; and it is probable 
 that on that incidental mention the imaginary 
 facts of the Chronicle were based. The only 
 certain event of Deusdedit's reign, beyond his 
 consecration of Damian of Rochester, is the 
 
 1 Bede, H. E. iii. 20. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. II 
 
 famous Synod or Conference of Whitby, with 
 which, however, he had nothing to do. Deus- 
 dedit died in July, 664, and therefore the 
 Conference, which took place in that year, and 
 in his time, must have taken place in the early 
 part of the year. I have elsewhere 1 pointed 
 out that 664 was a critical year in the Easter 
 controversy, for the Paschal full moon fell on 
 a Sunday in that year, and thus the question 
 was definitely raised, was the Scotic Church 
 riirht, which King Oswy followed, in saying 
 that the Sunday on which the spring full 
 moon fell was Easter Sunday, or were the 
 Greek and Roman Churches right, whom 
 the Queen Eanfleda and the sub-king Alch- 
 i'rith followed, in saying that if the spring full 
 moon fell on a Sunday, they must wait for 
 Easter Day till the next Sunday? Our own 
 rule for Easter Day is " the first Sunday after 
 the first full moon on or after the 2ist of March," 
 and that of course excludes a Sunday on which 
 the full moon falls. The queen and her party, 
 following this rule, said that the Sunday of 
 the full moon, which the others were keeping 
 with great feastings as Easter Day, was in 
 fact Palm Sunday. We can imagine what an 
 upset that difference between the King's party 
 
 1 The Venerable Bede (S.P.C.K.), p. 53. 
 
12 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 and the Queen's party would make at Court, 
 where feasts were of such magnitude, and of 
 so great importance as royal ceremonies, in 
 the Anglo-Saxon times. It seems to me 
 probable that as the question had taken that 
 practical and drastic form, the royal family 
 would desire to get it settled as soon as pos- 
 sible, before the practical interest died out. 
 It would take some time for the disputants to 
 assemble, and we may with some probability 
 suggest the end of April or the beginning of 
 May as the date of the Conference. 
 
 This famous Conference is well known from 
 many books, and we had the main outline of 
 it last year 1 . I do not propose to deal with 
 it in detail on the present occasion. But it 
 raises a question which must be settled at this 
 point, namely, are we in this course of lectures 
 to deal with Wilfrith and Theodore separately, 
 or are we to look continuously and consecu- 
 tively at the history of the times in which 
 each played so highly important a part ? For 
 many reasons I prefer the latter course ; and it 
 thus becomes necessary now to say something 
 of Wilfrith's early life, down to this year 664. 
 We learn a good deal about him from Bede, 
 but Bede is remarkably silent about some of 
 
 1 The Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), pp. 29, &c. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 13 
 
 the most critical parts of his chequered life, or 
 at most gives us a very discreet and colourless 
 statement. He knew his facts well, and he 
 knew that in places the ice was very thin. 
 Nothing of that kind can be said of Eddi, 
 Wilfrith's choirmaster and chaplain and bio- 
 grapher. From him we have only too much 
 colour and too little discretion ; and his facts 
 want a good deal of looking into. His life of 
 Wilfrith was written, probably, not much more 
 than a year after Wilfrith's death, say in 711, 
 twenty years before Bede's History, and it 
 thus has the special claim of earliness ; indeed, 
 the anonymous life of Cuthbert has been said 
 to be the only earlier piece of historical 
 writing, relating to the English Church, that 
 we possess. Bede's Metrical Life of Outkbert, 
 however, was probably four or five years 
 earlier ; and his History of the Abbats of 
 Wearmouth was at most only as much later. 
 So far as an account of Wilfrith's life and 
 work is concerned, I could not possibly do 
 better than read to you the article on Wilfrith 
 in the Dictionaiy of Christian Biography, 
 written by my much lamented friend Canon 
 Kaine of York, whose death this year has 
 removed from the world a storehouse of know- 
 ledge, kept only far too much to himself and 
 
14 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 dying with him. But as Canon Raine's pur- 
 pose was to give a full biography of Wilfrith, 
 and mine is rather to comment on salient 
 points, we must take an independent course. 
 
 Wilfrith was born in 634, the year of the 
 apostasy of the princes of Northumbria. His 
 father was a person of importance, well known 
 to those about the king. When Wilfrith 
 reached his fourteenth year, his stepmother's 
 unkindness drove him away from his home. 
 He was supplied with a proper outfit for 
 a person of his standing and for his attendants, 
 was blessed by his father, and made his way 
 to Court. Queen Eanfleda befriended this 
 handsome, clever boy, who was favourably 
 introduced to her notice by the nobles who 
 had seen him at his father's house. His wish 
 was to serve the Lord, and the Queen sent him 
 accordingly to the great Scotic monastery of 
 Lindisfarne, to study there. Eddi says this 
 was soon after he first came to Court, so we 
 may put it in 648 or 649, two years, or three, 
 before Aidan of Lindisfarne died leaning on 
 a beam at Bamborough 1 . He was thus for at 
 
 1 In my last year's course of lectures, The Conversion of 
 the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), p. 28, I remarked on the cir- 
 cumstances of Aidan's death, and observed that it was 
 needless to say that the beam on which he leaned as he 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 15 
 
 least some time under Aldan's Scotic influence. 
 He fell heartily into the spirit of the place ; 
 learned the whole of the Psalms by heart ; and 
 even read a book or two besides a remark- 
 able thing, then, it would appear. 
 
 After some few years, the desire entered his 
 mind to visit the threshold of St. Peter the 
 Apostle and chief of the Apostles. That is 
 how Eddi puts it, magnifying as his wont is 
 St. Peter's position, and cutting out St. Paul 
 in a manner much more Roman than that even 
 of many Popes. The ordinary statement of 
 those times was, that men desired to visit the 
 thresholds of the Apostles, St. Peter and St. 
 Paul. The Donation of Constantino itself, 
 all forged as it was in the Papal interest, is so 
 
 died wrought miracles and resisted the violence of fire. 
 A very favourable review in one of the principal Church 
 papers described this as a sneer at ecclesiastical miracles 
 in Gibbon's best manner I It was, on the contrary, 
 a simple recognition of a phenomenon in itself simple 
 and natural. I quite believe that many of the early 
 mediaeval " miracles" are true, though they would be 
 better described as " faith -cures." And in the frequent 
 burnings which marked a time of wooden houses, Aidan's 
 beam may well have escaped and continued to escape in 
 a manner that seemed to simple faith miraculous. I wish 
 we could get back some of that simple faith. We could 
 afford to part with a good many modern jeers in return 
 for it. 
 
16 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 far sound in tone that it makes Constantino 
 declare that at his baptism in Rome he was 
 cleansed by the merits of St. Peter and St. 
 Paul, and makes him give his palaces, &c., &c., 
 to " the holy Apostles my lords the most 
 blessed Peter and Paul/' I am sorry to say 
 that Eddi's open determination to centre 
 everything in St. Peter, and the great advance 
 in Pe trine claims made by two of the Popes 
 with whom he deals, will render necessary 
 a more controversial attitude than I should 
 myself have wished to adopt. Our early 
 English Church history is so exceedingly 
 interesting in itself, and in its sturdy nation- 
 ality, that it is a pity to be driven into 
 controversy over it. However, we could not 
 have a better field. 
 
 The head of the monastery of Lindisfarne, 
 who was now the Scotic Finan, had no narrow 
 objection to Wilfritb/s going to the centre 
 of the other school of thought and practices ; 
 and with his full consent and that of Wilfrith's 
 parents, the Queen sent him by way of Kent, 
 where her brother reigned. There he had 
 given him as his companion Benedict Biscop, 
 or Biscop Baducing, of whose journeys to 
 Rome we said a good deal four years ago 1 . 
 
 1 Lessons from Early English Church History (S.P.C.K.). 
 
THEODORE AND WILFKITH. 17 
 
 At Lyons the Archbishop of that city kept 
 him with him for a considerable time ; pressed 
 upon him important opportunities for a lay 
 life ; and offered him his niece in marriage. 
 Wilfrith declined these offers, and went to 
 Rome the see, as Eddi again describes it, 
 of Peter the Apostle and chief of the Apostles. 
 His first visit, however, so far as we know, 
 was not to St. Peter's or St. Paul's, but to 
 St. Andrew's, now St, Gregory's, of which we 
 said a good deal two years ago 1 . There he 
 saw on the altar a book of the Gospels, no 
 doubt one of the splendid examples of beauti- 
 ful ornamentation and sumptuous binding 
 which, as we shall see, made a lasting mark 
 on his mind. Kneeling before the altar, he 
 prayed the Apostle 2 that through his inter- 
 cession the Lord would grant to him the skill 
 to read and the eloquence to teach the Gospels 
 among the Gentiles. Day by day for many 
 months he visited and prayed at the places of 
 the saints. He found a learned friend, thanks 
 to God and the Apostle, no less a person than 
 Boniface the Archdeacon, who taught him 
 completely the four Gospels of Christ, which 
 
 1 Augustine and his Companions (S.P.C.K.), pp. 141, &c. 
 * The text is confused here. The Apostle seems to be 
 St. Andrew. 
 
 B 
 
1 8 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 he seems not to have known before, and the 
 rule for Easter, which the schismatics of 
 Britain (meaning the Britons who still re- 
 mained in the mountainous parts to the west 
 of England, namely, Cornwall, Wales, and 
 Cumberland) and of Ireland did not know ; 
 these last words are Eddi's, not mine. And 
 many other rules of ecclesiastical discipline 
 did Boniface diligently dictate to him. Finally, 
 Boniface presented him to the Pope, probably 
 Eugenius I, the successor of the martyred 
 Martin, the predecessor of Vitalian of whom 
 we shall have to hear a good deal. It is quite 
 evident that to visit Rome and the holy places 
 there was the fulfilment of Wilfrith's desire, 
 and the personal visit to the Pope was a 
 secondary thing. Rome was vastly greater 
 than the Bishop of Rome. The Pope's position 
 was great because Rome was so supremely 
 great. But the Pope was not the dominant 
 idea in a visit to Rome, otherwise we should 
 have heard of Wilfrith's great regret that there 
 was no Pope to be presented to, Martin being 
 in confinement in the East. If, as seems 
 certain, Eugenius was the Pope to whom Wil- 
 frith was at last presented, he was a doubtful 
 Pope, being consecrated before his predecessor 
 was dead. But that amount of doubtfulness 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 is a mere trifle in the very doubtful history of 
 the Papacy. The Pope laid his hand upon 
 Wilfrith's head, prayed over him, and blessed 
 him. Wilfrith returned to Lyons. 
 
 From the Archbishop of Lyons he received 
 the tonsure, and the Archbishop meant to 
 make him his heir. Eut that was a dangerous 
 time for bishops. Bishops were interfering 
 a great deal in political affairs, not always 
 with a very clean record ; and cruel and licen- 
 tious kings and queens, and unscrupulous 
 mayors of the palace, hated courageous eccle- 
 siastics, whether interfering or not. It was 
 about the time of the political murder of 
 St. Leger, and the Archbishop of Lyons met 
 a like fate. Wilfrith was with him at his 
 execution, and prepared to die with him ; but 
 his appearance caught the attention of those 
 in charge. "Who is that handsome young 
 fellow getting ready to die?" the leading 
 person asked. " He is an Englishman, from 
 Britain across the seas." " Leave him alone 
 then." And so he got safe home to Northum- 
 berland again, probably in the year 658. 
 
 Alchfrith, in whose memory the cross still 
 standing at Bewcastle was erected twelve 
 years after this 1 , was now ruling the southern 
 
 1 See Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), Lecture VII. 
 B 2 
 
20 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 part of the kingdom of Northumbria as sub- 
 king, under Oswy bis fatber. Tbere are some 
 difficulties in that statement which incline me 
 to suspect that it may have been the western 
 rather than the southern part that was subject 
 to his rule, but the other is the universal view. 
 Alchfrithj who had been a supporter of the 
 Scotic Church, had by this time become de- 
 voted to the other side, under the influence of 
 Coinwalch, king of Wessex, as Eddi tells us. 
 It is usually said that it was Wilfrith who 
 brought about his change of view, but Eddi is 
 quite precise in his statement. There is no- 
 thing, so far as I know, in the history of 
 Coinwalch, which we considered last year 1 , to 
 suggest that he held the Petrine view, or, 
 indeed, any Church view, in any determined 
 manner. 
 
 Alchfrith heard, Eddi tells us, that Wilfrith 
 had come from the Apostolic See ; that he 
 preached the true Easter; and that he had 
 learned the manifold discipline of the Church 
 of the holy Peter the Apostle, He sent for 
 him ; and they became devoted friends. Alch- 
 frith had settled a colony of Scotic monks at 
 Ripon, under Eata, Abbat of Melrose. He now 
 gave them their option of joining the side he 
 
 1 T)w Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), pp. 54-61. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 21 
 
 had since adopted, or clearing out of Ripon. 
 They cleared out; and Wilfrith was made 
 abbat 1 . Soon after, Agilbert of Wessex 
 visited Northumbria, and at Alchfrith's request 
 he ordained Wilfrith priest. Thus Wilfrith was 
 brought up by the Scotic Church, tonsured by 
 a Gallican archbishop, and ordained priest by a 
 Galilean bishop who had studied in Ireland. 
 
 Shortly after Wilfrith 's ordination as priest, 
 the great synod or conference of Whitby took 
 
 1 Alchfrith had before this given to Wilfrith land at 
 Stanford, -fiSt-Stanforda, presumably for the purposes 
 of a monastery. It is natural to suppose that Stamford 
 is meant ; but the fashion is to rule that out of court, 
 because Stamford was not in Northumbria. But Alch- 
 fiith's marriage with Cyniberga, sister of the king 
 Wulfhere of Mercia, gave him sufficient opportunity 
 i>r the donation of land in Mercia. We saw last year 
 a case in point, where Cynegils of Wessex and his son- 
 in-law Oswald of Northumbria jointly ("both kings") 
 gave the City of Dorchester to Bishop Birinus. Oswald 
 had no doubt acquired some dowry rights in Dorchester, 
 through his wife, and it may very well have been so 
 in the case of Alchfrith with Stamford, especially as 
 Stamford was so near to the parts with which Alchfrith 
 was specially connected. This view is strengthened by 
 the facts that Wulfhere himself was an active patron of 
 Wilfrith, and that by that and other like means Wilfrith 
 became a large owner of lands in that part of Mercia 
 which is now Northamptonshire. I cannot see any 
 serious difficulty in taking JEt-Stanforda to mean Stam- 
 ford. At page 53 I have made some remarks on the gifts 
 of land to churches and churchmen, in another sense. 
 
22 THEODOKE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 place. It finally determined the line the 
 English Church should take on the points of 
 difference between the Scotic and British 
 Churches on the one side, and the Church 
 universal on the other. Even if the chief 
 king, OsWy, had given his decision in favour 
 of the Scotic view, it could only have put off 
 the right determination for a short time. The 
 English race had far too much of the future in 
 them to rest satisfied with an isolated position. 
 They were to be a world- wide force, and it 
 was certain that they would throw themselves 
 into the general swim of the Christian world, 
 while maintaining their independence of 
 thought and action. Wilfrith was the leading 
 exponent of the broader view at the conference 
 of Whitby, and his argument prevailed. 
 Colman, the leading exponent of the insular 
 view, was defeated. We may smile at the 
 artifice by which the result was, to all outward 
 seeming, obtained; but I suspect that the 
 decision of the kings really went on broader 
 lines than that. 
 
 In view of modern controversy, forced upon 
 us by the Romanist aggression of modern date 
 in England, it is of considerable importance 
 to mark the way in which Wilfrith notes the 
 position of Rome, and the claim of Rome 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 23 
 
 upon the minds of men, in his statement of 
 the case for the true Easter at the Synod of 
 Whitby. His very first sentence goes straight 
 to the point. -"The Easter vihich we keep, 
 we saw kept by all at Rome, where the blessed 
 Apostles Peter and Paul lived, taught, suffered, 
 and were buried." That was the claim which 
 Rome had. That is the true meaning of the 
 phrase "the Apostolic See," the see of the 
 apostles, Peter and Paul ; that is, the Church 
 of the great city in which Paul taught and 
 Peter and Paul died a martyr's death. The 
 phrase " the Apostolic See " does not in itself 
 at all of necessity imply that Paul, or Peter, 
 or either, was bishop of the see. It means 
 originally " the see of the city where the two 
 great apostles met a martyr's death." There 
 is not a word in Wilfrith's statement to 
 suggest that the Bishop of Rome, whom he 
 saw when there, counted for anything special 
 and unique in himself, or that Peter was the 
 one cause of the high position of Rome. And 
 yet if there was a Romaniser then on the face 
 of the earth, it was Wilfrith. Rome had his 
 profound allegiance, and he claimed that 
 allegiance of others too, because he had been 
 taught that there Peter and Paul lived, taught, 
 suffered, and were buried. There is not, at 
 
24 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 this best period of his life, a scrap of suggestion 
 of the Petrine claim. That was developed in 
 him when he was bent upon getting hold of 
 some external power that should avail to 
 over-ride the decrees of the highest English 
 authority, secular and ecclesiastical, in a 
 matter vitally affecting his own property and 
 position ; above all, his property. 
 
 And it must be further noticed that Wilfrith 
 did not rest his claim, that his was the correct 
 Easter, on the practice of Rome. But this he 
 ought to have done, if the present Pope's claim 
 that his predecessors always in all ages- 
 were regarded as the final arbiters, had any 
 substance in it, so far as the year 664 is 
 included in the " always." He proceeds in the 
 same sentence to say that he found it practised 
 in Italy and Gaul wherever he went, and 
 that Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, the whole 
 Christian world, observed it. The authority 
 of Rome was to him in this case one among 
 many, mentioned first because of the two 
 Apostles, Peter and Paul, as he expressly 
 Bays : jrrimw, no doubt, but inter pares ; 
 first, among equals. 
 
 It is true that when he proceeded to speak 
 of the origin of the Roman (and, as he ex- 
 plicitly said, universal) method of calculating 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 25 
 
 Easter, he declared that Peter taught it at 
 Rome. This was secondary. That it was the 
 teaching of Rome, the city of Peter and Paul, 
 was enough for him to mention as his first, 
 and probably most powerful argument. How 
 it came to be the teaching of Rome, he 
 explained as he had been taught in Rome. 
 He described at considerable length what 
 St. Peter thought about it, and why he taught 
 and acted as he did. With regard to the 
 assertion of Paschal teaching by St. Peter in 
 Rome, the pithy statement of the Greek Church 
 in the answer of Anthimus, Patriarch of 
 Constantinople, and his twelve bishops, to the 
 Papal Encyclical on union, is very much in 
 point here : " the Church of Rome was chiefly 
 founded, not by Peter, whose apostolic action 
 at Rome is totally unknown to history, but 
 by the heaven- taught apostle of the Gdntiles, 
 Paul, through his disciples ; his apostolic 
 ministry in Rome is well known to all 1 ." It 
 is a singular thing, considering that the 
 question is one not of faith but of historical 
 fact, that the whole basis of the claims of 
 Rome should be capable of, or exposed to, 
 
 1 See the original Greek and the authorised translation, 
 published by the Archimandrite Metallinos of Manchester 
 ^Fargie, 20 Cross Street, Manchester), pp. 40, 41. 
 
26 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 such absolute denial. My own belief is that 
 St. Peter was martyred at Eome, but was 
 never bishop there ; not even, as has been 
 suggested, over one of the two bodies of 
 Roman Christians, the Jews and the Gentiles. 
 He may, perhaps, have taught there as 
 a prisoner, as Paul did, or may even have 
 gone there to teach and been martyred without 
 delay. If he had as a matter of fact really 
 spent any considerable time in Rome, and 
 had really given any considerable amount of 
 teaching there, it is difficult to believe that 
 the fact would be so questionable as it is. 
 As to his Paschal teaching, the earliest claim 
 in the controversy was that the true Easter 
 was taught by St. Peter and St. Paul. But 
 Polycrates of Ephesus, a man of great learn- 
 ing, claimed that the other, the Asiatic Easter, 
 was taught by St. John and St. Peter, who, 
 he said, laboured in Asia. 
 
 While Bede tells us that Wilfrith made this 
 statement, that St. Peter taught the true 
 Easter at Rome, it is a remarkable fact that 
 Eddi, with all his Petrine bias, does not say 
 a word of it in his account of the discussion. 
 He is very short, giving sixty-eight words 
 to Colman and sixty-six to Wilfrith. In 
 Bede's account, Wilfrith is nearly six times 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 27 
 
 as long as Colman. Eddi does not make 
 Wilfrith say anything at all about St. Peter. 
 His argument, according to Eddi, rested 
 entirely upon the decision of the Council of 
 Nicaea, where the Easter question was not 
 referred to in the Canons of the Council, but 
 was settled in the Decrees. " The most holy 
 and wise fathers, three hundred and eighteen 
 collected together, examined this question 
 carefully. They fixed a cycle of nineteen 
 years, excluding the fourteenth day of the 
 moon. This is the practice [or the reason of 
 the practice] of the Apostolic See and of 
 almost the whole world ; and the fathers 
 anathematised any one who should violate 
 their decrees." That is all that Eddi thought 
 it right to say, after his very long and 
 intimate acquaintance with Wilfrith in his 
 maturer years. It is not unreasonable to 
 suggest that Wilfrith had been told by Arch- 
 deacon Boniface about St. Peter's teaching ; 
 and that in later years he learned the real 
 authority for the practice, the Council of 
 JSicaea, which had examined carefully into all 
 the known history of the controversy. The 
 only reference to the Council in Bede's account 
 is exactly opposite in principle to that which 
 Eddi gives: "that this is the true Easter 
 
28 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 was not newly decreed by the Council of 
 Nicaea, but only confirmed afresh, as eccle- 
 siastical history teaches." We cannot miss 
 the significance of the fundamental change in 
 the argument. I suggest that we may attri- 
 bute it to Wilfrith's maturer judgement and 
 wider and sounder knowledge. 
 
 Though Bede gives a very full account of 
 the synod of Whitby, covering six octavo 
 pages, he does not mention it in the summary 
 of events which he appended to his great 
 work. For the year 664 his summary is 
 longer than for any previous year of the 
 English times. It runs thus : " An eclipse 
 took place ; Earconbert, king of the Kentish- 
 men, died, and Colman and the Scots [Irish] 
 returned to their own people, and a pestilence 
 came ; and Ceadda and Wilfrith are ordained 
 bishops of the Northumbrians." And in the 
 nineteenth chapter of his last book of the 
 Ecclesiastical History, when his mention of 
 Wilfrith's death in 709 leads him to give 
 a sketch of his life from boyhood, covering 
 seven octavo pages, he only parenthetically 
 makes reference to this occasion, which to us 
 seems to be of such primary importance in 
 itself, and to hold such a large place among 
 the acts of Wilfrith. Alchfrith, he says, in 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 29 
 
 concert with Oswy, sent Wilfrith to Gaul to 
 be ordained bishop, "the sect of the Scots 
 having been exposed and expelled, as we 
 have shewn above"; "above" meaning in 
 his third book, and this is at the end of the 
 fifth and last. 
 
 These facts are in themselves sufficiently 
 curious to deserve mention in passing. But 
 they rise into some significance when we 
 find that the Anglo-Saxon version of Bede 
 entirely omits the two consecutive chapters 1 9 
 one of which describes the Synod or conference 
 of Whitby, while the other contains Bede's 
 admirable panegyric on the work of the Scotic 
 Church in England. A further emphasis is 
 given by the complete silence of the Anglo- 
 Saxon Chronicle. It has been well pointed 
 out 2 that this is not strange so far as some 
 of the manuscripts of the Chronicle are con- 
 cerned, inasmuch as they follow closely the 
 summary of Bede, and are evidently not de- 
 rived from a study of his full text. But this 
 is not altogether the case with the Bodleian 
 manuscript (known as E), the compiler of 
 which appears to have used, at least in some 
 places, the full text, not the summary, and 
 
 1 iii. 25, 26. 
 
 * See Mr. Plummer's note, Yen. Bedae Hist. vol. ii, p. 188. 
 
30 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 yet makes no reference to the Synod at 
 Whitby 1 . 
 
 1 It may be useful, as shewing the relation between 
 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Summary of Bede, 
 to give the Chronicle for the year 664, in order that it 
 may be compared with the translation of the Summary 
 given above (see p. 28). It will be seen that the 
 Chronicle gives twelve facts, and the Summary only 
 six. I have placed in square brackets those parts of the 
 Chronicle which are taken from the MS. known as E 
 and are not in the Corpus Christi MS. A. This will serve 
 to shew how freely the compiler of E made insertions 
 from the text of Bede. The existing MS. A was written 
 in one hand down to 891, and the hand then changes. 
 The original hand of E goes down to 1122. 
 
 "Year 664. This year the sun was eclipsed [on the 
 5th of the nones of May], And Arcenbryht king of the 
 Kentishmen fared forth (died). [And Ecgbriht his son 
 succeeded to the kingdom.] And Colman with his com- 
 panions went to his country. The same year was great 
 pestilence [in the island of Britain. And in the pes- 
 tilence Tuda bishop fared forth and was buried at 
 Wagele]. And Ceadda and Wilferth were ordained. 
 And the same year Deusdedit [the Archbishop] fared 
 forth." 
 
 Thus it appears that the purest MS. of the Chronicle, 
 the Corpus Christi MS. A, merely gives the Summary of 
 Bede, and all else is added by E, being picked out of the 
 text of Bede. The date given by E for the eclipse is 
 taken straight from Bede, and is wrong ; the real date 
 was May i. The insertion of the fact that Tuda died 
 in this year, in close conjunction with the consecration 
 of Chad and Wilfrith, is made use of on p. 25. 
 
 The " Wsgele" of the Chronicle, which perhaps means 
 Whalley, is Pegnaleth or Paegnaleach in Bede (iii. 27). 
 I regard this difference as due to a mis-reading of (or for) 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 3! 
 
 I have not seen an explanation of these 
 somewhat remarkable phenomena. And yet 
 it is unsatisfactory to find nothing to say on 
 so interesting and seemingly important a 
 point. I will hazard the remark that when 
 these two chapters are omitted, there is very 
 little left in Bede's History to call attention 
 to the fact that the Scotic Church, which did 
 so very large a part of the whole work of 
 conversion, was, as a matter of fact, hostile 
 to the Italian Church and mission, and did its 
 
 the Anglo-Saxon wen, that is, the letters, which is shaped 
 like a p, though usually with an angular head in place 
 of the semi-circle. It is the rune for w. In the same 
 way the rune for thorn, that is, the letter th, which is 
 shaped like a p with the semi-circle or angle half-way 
 down the upright line, is mistaken for p. William of 
 Malmesbury was, as I think, taken in by both letters. 
 He gives, so far as he could read them, the names 
 inscribed on the two great sepulchral columns at 
 Glastonbury, which were evidently the same kind of 
 thing as the great cross-shafts at Bewcastle, Ruth well, 
 and Sandbach. Among the names are Pidfred and 
 Pinepegn. These no doubt were Wulfred and Wine thegn. 
 One veracious life ofWilfrith informs us that one form 
 of his name was Pulfred. The "learned Dane," who 
 first professed to read the runes on the Ruthwell cross, 
 came to great trouble by reason of the rune for w looking 
 so like a p. He read Crist wees on rodi (Christ was on the 
 cross) as " Cristpason," and said that meant a Christ 
 -bason, or font. And he read (mith strelum} giwundad as " xi 
 punda," the rune for g being x, and so made with missiles 
 wounded into " with ornaments xi pounds in weight." 
 
32 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 great work in entire independence of Rome 
 and of Canterbury. When these chapters are 
 omitted, a reader not greatly- on the alert 
 might well think that the Roman and the 
 Scotic missions were doing one and the same 
 kind of work, under the initiation and con- 
 tinued influence of the Italian mission ; and 
 might naturally assign the credit to that 
 initiation and influence ; regarding the Scotic 
 Church as a useful handmaid, the real centre 
 and spring of the whole work being Canter- 
 bury. Bede knew vastly better than that. 
 We can quite understand, too, that his very 
 generous estimate of the work of the Scotic 
 Church was, in the eyes of the partisans of 
 his own time and of times not very much 
 later, and indeed we may add is in the eyes 
 of some in our own times too, rather a blot 
 upon his History of the Church of the English 
 race. The race differences, and the ecclesi- 
 astical independence, of Britons and of Scots, 
 had by no means died out of Anglo-Saxon 
 memory, or Anglo-Saxon history, at the time 
 when these chapters were excluded from the 
 Anglo-Saxon translation of Bede's History of 
 the Church of the English. So far was this 
 expurgation carried, that in the Anglo-Saxon 
 Chronicle for the year 664, which is given 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 33 
 
 in full in note i on page 30, Bede's words 
 " with the Scots " are in all the MSS. of the 
 Chronicle altered to " with his companions." 
 As far as my search has gone, this leaves the 
 Chronicle completely without mention of the 
 work of the Scotic Church among the English. 
 Even under the year 575, where Bede's sum- 
 mary states that " Coluinba, a presbyter from 
 Scottia, came to teach the Picts," the MS. A 
 has a blank in the original ; and E, which 
 makes a very long insertion about Columba, 
 alters "presbyter from Scottia" into "mass- 
 priest." For ourselves, we may well be 
 thankful that the Conference of Whitby put 
 our Church, the Church of our fathers, the 
 Church of the English in the earliest times, 
 into line with the Church universal in all 
 respects. But we may well be thankful too 
 that Bede penned that noble panegyric of the 
 insular and isolated Scotic Church, which, 
 before it was driven back by Wilfrith's influ- 
 ence to its own home, had won over to Christi- 
 anity by far the largest part of the land of 
 England. The land of England must never 
 cease to be grateful to its memory. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 Colman's retirement ; choice of his successor or suc- 
 cessors. Tuda ; his death. Wilfrith's appointment as 
 bishop ; of what see ? His consecration. Chad takes 
 his place ; disappearance of Alchfrith. Wilfrith's itine- 
 rary work in church building, &c. ; existing remains. 
 Communications between English Kings and Pope 
 Vitalian. Peter and Paul, not Peter alone, claimed by 
 early Rome as the source of Rome's ecclesiastical im- 
 portance. Origin of the Petrine claim. 
 
 THE immediate result of the Conference of 
 Whitby was that Colman retired from the 
 Northumbrian bishopric, and the two kings, 
 Oswy and Alchfrith, father and son, king and 
 sub-king, and their men with wits, had to 
 consider whom they should choose to succeed 
 him. 
 
 I cannot believe that we have got hold of the 
 real story of what followed. If we examine 
 closely the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, and 
 twenty-eighth chapters of Bede's Third Book, 
 we shall see three statements, all, as I think, 
 set out in clear chronological relation one to 
 another, (i) Tuda, educated among the Scoti in 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 35 
 
 the south of Ireland, and having the ecclesias- 
 tical tonsure and the true Easter which that part 
 of Ireland had adopted, succeeded Colman as 
 Bishop of the Northumbrians. He had already 
 been consecrated bishop in the south of 
 Ireland. A great plague came and carried off 
 Tuda. It raged in Ireland also, and carried 
 off a number of English students there. Bede 
 relates the deaths of Tuda, Ethelhun, &c., and 
 then proceeds as follows: (2) Meanwhile, 
 while this was going on (interea not posted), 
 Alchfrith sent Wilfrith the priest to the King 
 of the Galliae, who should cause him to be 
 consecrated bishop for him (Alchfrith) and 
 his subjects ; this was done by the advice and 
 with the consent of his father Oswy (v. 19). 
 The Gallic king sent him to Agilbert, who 
 had become, Bede says, Bishop of Paris. Then 
 we have the third statement. (3) While he, 
 Wilfrith, was still remaining in foreign parts 
 on the business of (corrected by a late hand 
 to after) his consecration, Oswy, imitating 
 the zeal of his son, sent Chad to Kent to be 
 consecrated Bishop of the Church of York. 
 
 There is here no hint of any strife between 
 Alchfrith and his father. I have already said 1 
 that I have a kind of suspicion that Alchfrith's 
 
 1 Lecture I, p. 20. 
 C 2 
 
36 THEODOEE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 sub-kingdom was not Deira as a whole, but 
 only the western part. First-hand evidence 
 that he was sub-king of all Deira does not, 
 I believe, exist. I think that Bede could not 
 have put together, as he does, in close and 
 immediate connection, the facts that Alch- 
 frith sent Wilfrith to be consecrated bishop 
 for him and his, and that Oswy imitated his 
 zeal and sent Chad to be consecrated Bishop 
 of York, if "for him and his " meant for the 
 sub-king and people of all Deira, with the 
 sub-king's seat and his bishop's see at York. 
 Eddi, I know, says that Wilfrith was sent by 
 the Gallican bishops to be bishop of the see 
 of York, but I strongly suspect that Bede 
 knew what the real plan of the two kings 
 was, and that somehow or other Bede's account 
 the,t- r "g r* It seems to me that the con- 
 secration of Wilfrith was in effect the sub- 
 division of the province and the creation of 
 a new bishopric; otherwise the main king 
 and not the sub-king would have sent him 
 to be consecrated. I have in former courses 
 of lectures called particular attention to the 
 probably tragic end of Alchfrith, in the course 
 of some family warfare or treachery on his 
 part, and I suspect that this was the exact 
 period of the event. That would account for 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 37 
 
 Wilfrith's making no claim to enter upon his 
 bishopric when he returned from Gaul. His 
 patron, if my surmise be correct, was dead, 
 under circumstances which caused his friends 
 and allies to hide their heads. The Bewcastle 
 Cross bade special prayer for the high sin 
 of his soul. Oswy would naturally refuse to 
 recognise the subdivision to which he had 
 under very different circumstances agreed. 
 Wilfrith had delayed his return, and when 
 he did come he came too late. With Tuda 
 dead of the plague, and Wilfrith's bishopric 
 come to an abortive birth, Chad was the one 
 bishop of all the Northumbrians, ruling the 
 great province from York ; insular Lindisfarae 
 being now the seat of a monastery only. It 
 was not till the year 670, when Oswy had 
 been dead a few months, and Wilfrith had at 
 last got into the bishopric, that they put up 
 the great monument to Alchfrith which still 
 stands in Bewcastle churchyard. If my view 
 of the cross-slab at Lastingham is correct *, it 
 is remarkable that we should have the sepul- 
 chral monuments of the two relatives and 
 sub-kings of Oswy, whom Bede mentions as 
 having been successively at war with him, 
 his son Alchfrith and his nephew Oidilwald. 
 1 Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), p. 151. 
 
38 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 That Eddi knew that Alchfrith's disappear- 
 ance came at this time may be gathered from 
 his phrases. Up to the moment of Wilfrith's 
 going to Gaul to be consecrated, Eddi speaks 
 throughout of " the kings," that is, Oswy and 
 /Alchfrith. While Wilfrith was in Gaul, Eddi 
 I says that " King Oswy " agreed to have another 
 bishop in his stead. When Wilfrith returned, 
 Eddi mentions no king at all. At the be- 
 ginning of the next chapter he speaks of 
 Oswy as " King of the Deirans and Bernicians." 
 Wilfrith's patron, Alchfrith, as king or sub- 
 king, was a thing of the past. 
 
 Eddi, on the other hand, omits to mention 
 Tuda at all, an indication that he was not 
 completely informed as to the facts of that 
 early part of Wilfrith's history, or else one 
 among the many evidences that he was 
 a partisan and not a historian. On Col- 
 man's withdrawal, he tells us, the kings and 
 wise men, after a space of time, entered into 
 council as to whom they should choose to the 
 vacant see ; some one who would practise 
 and teach the discipline of the apostolic see. 
 We can well understand that to appoint 
 a man of the other school might be to 
 stultify the work of the conference. Very 
 naturally and properly they chose Wilfrith, 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 39 
 
 now just thirty years of age. He at once 
 raised the question, by whom should he be 
 consecrated ? there must be no doubt about 
 the catholicity of his position as bishop. 
 "There are here in Britain," Eddi tells us 
 that he said to the kings (giving, or, at least, 
 professing to give, the exact words used), 
 " many bishops. I do not wish to say any- 
 thing against them, though I know of a surety 
 that they are Quartodecimans, as are the 
 Britons and Scots ordained by them 1 ; whom, 
 as also those who are in agreement with 
 schismatics, the apostolic see does not receive 
 to communion. I beg therefore that you 
 will send me under your protection to Gaul, 
 where are many catholic bishops, that I may 
 be consecrated bishop in a manner with 
 which the apostolic see can find no fault." 
 Wilfrith's statement that there were in these 
 islands many bishops of the British and 
 Scotic Churches, while we know that there 
 were only three in any way connected with 
 the Canterbury school, is a sufficient evidence 
 of the vigorous condition of the native 
 Christian Churches. 
 
 The kings approved Wilfrith's proposal, 
 
 1 The Latin text as it stands cannot be translated in 
 accordance with ordinary rules. 
 
40 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 without, we must suppose, looking closely 
 into the facts. There were bishops, validly 
 consecrated, then in the island. Deusdedit 
 died about this time, but if he was now dead 
 they did not know it, for Chad was sent by 
 Oswy some time after this to be consecrated 
 by him, and it was only then found that he 
 was dead. Wini of Wessex did not come 
 directly under the objection stated by Wil- 
 frith ; he was consecrated, as Wilfrith himself 
 was, by Gallican prelates. He had, however, 
 studied in Ireland, and we learn from Chad's 
 case that he was on terms of brotherly com- 
 munion with at least two British bishops, so 
 it is probable that Wilfrith's second objection, 
 "consenting unto schismatics," was specially 
 meant to cover him. Boniface of Uunwich 
 had been consecrated by Honorius, and 
 Damian of Eochester by Deusdedit. If 
 Wilfrith had stated that there had been 
 irregularity in their consecration by one 
 bishop alone, we could have understood it ; 
 and again we could have understood his 
 passing that objection by in silence, lest he 
 should seem to accuse the Canterbury school 
 of irregularity. But his words as reported 
 by Eddi are quite sweeping ; there were no 
 Catholic bishops in the island, or at least 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 41 
 
 none that were not in communion with 
 schismatics. The only explanation I can 
 offer is, that Eddi's account is incorrect or 
 incomplete. Bede gives no help here 1 . He 
 assigns no reason for the foreign consecration. 
 But, curiously enough, he too makes, in 
 another part of the chapter (iii. 28) and with 
 another purpose, a statement of a like nature 
 at the time when Deusdedit's death became 
 known, that there was not, except Wini, any 
 canonically ordained bishop in the land. 
 Wilfrith, in his sweeping statement, appears 
 to except neither Wini nor Deusdedit from 
 his condemnation. Wilfrith was guided, as 
 I believe, to the desire for foreign consecra- 
 tion, because such consecration was free from 
 all idea of insular taint. Either the reasons 
 given by Eddi were not given at all, or 
 Wilfrith was merely throwing dust in the 
 eyes of the kings, or the dates of the several 
 events have got into a tangle and we are 
 playing at cross purposes. The last, I suspect, 
 is the true explanation. Political differences 
 cannot be invoked to account for a determina- 
 tion not to apply to Canterbury ; for they 
 sent Chad there very soon after. It is true 
 that the death of Earconbert and the accession 
 
 1 H. E. iii. 28. 
 
42 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 of Ecgbert of Kent might have removed some 
 political difficulties ; but as Earconbert died 
 on the same day as Deusdedit, and by the 
 hypothesis neither death had now taken 
 place or at least was now known, that cannot 
 be used as an explanation. 
 
 Wilfrith went to Gaul, and at Compiegne 
 he was consecrated by twelve bishops, of 
 whom Agilbert, late bishop of Wessex, was 
 one 1 . The best MS. of Eddi (twelfth 
 century) says of the twelve bishops that 
 they all consecrated him ; a MS. of the 
 eleventh century, of which Canon Raine says 
 in his preface that it "evidently does not 
 represent so good and so early an original/' 
 omits the word "all." Even without the 
 word the statement is clear enough. The 
 twelve bishops consecrated him. Agilbert 
 was merely one of the twelve. We do not 
 even know that he was the leading bishop. 
 We must hope, for the sake of Wilfrith 's 
 conscience, that Agilbert was not in com- 
 munion with any of the wrong kind of 
 Scots in Ireland, where he had resided for 
 the purpose of study ; that would indeed 
 have been a flaw in Wilfrith's episcopal 
 
 1 Whether he had by this time been made Bishop of 
 Paris is a difficult question. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 43 
 
 pedigree. It is certain that Eddi did not 
 at all suppose that Wilfrith was consecrated 
 as the modern Roman would assert by 
 some one bishop, the eleven others being 
 merely assisting as witnesses. Wilfrith un- 
 doubtedly traced his episcopal order through 
 all of these twelve lines of succession. I need 
 scarcely point out how important this may 
 be in connection with Archbishop Parker's 
 consecration by Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and 
 Hodgkyn. 
 
 It is quite worth while to add here that in 
 this consecration of Wilfrith by all the 
 bishopSj we find an interesting link, both 
 with our earliest English Pontifical 1 , and 
 with Parker's consecration. At Parker's 
 consecration, all the four bishops repeated 
 the words of consecration, instead of one 
 only, as now. In the Pontifical of Ecgbert 
 (734-766), the first rubric orders that all the 
 bishops present shall recite the words of three 
 prayers, while three of the bishops keep 
 their hands on the head of the bishop-elect. 
 
 Wilfrith was consecrated in the body of the 
 church. The bishops then carried him, " as 
 
 1 That is, the collection of all the forms of service, &c. 
 which a bishop (pontijff) had to use. 
 
44 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 their custom was/' in a golden chair into the 
 oratory, no one else touching the chair, 
 singing hymns and canticles in choir, as 
 Eddi says. We do not know of this interest- 
 ing custom from any other source. 
 
 Eddi had before said that Colman was 
 metropolitan bishop of the city of York, and 
 he now says that the Gallican bishops sent 
 Wilfrith forth to the episcopal see of the city 
 of York. The statement about Colman is 
 certainly an error. Colman was not a metro- 
 politan bishop, any more than Wilfrith ever 
 in fact was in Northumbria. Whether Eddi 
 was wrong in saying that Colman was bishop 
 of the city of York, I am not at all sure. My 
 impression is that York was rapidly becoming 
 the great centre of government of the north, 
 and that even in Colman's time the sole 
 bishop may have had an island sedes at 
 Lindisfarne and a mainland sedes at York. 
 This would account for Oswy's sending Chad 
 to be consecrated as Bishop of York. It is 
 just possible that Oswy discovered later that 
 Alchfrith had got Wilfrith, too, consecrated 
 to be Bishop of York, and that this led to the 
 open war in which Alchfrith disappeared for 
 ever. Bede twice 1 relates the consecration 
 
 1 iii. 28 j v. 19. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 45 
 
 of Chad, without any hint of its being in any 
 way in opposition to Wilfrith. In his opinion 
 the selection of Wilfrith by the two kings as 
 Colman's successor made him Bishop of 
 Lindisfarne, that is, of the Bernicians, and 
 the second bishop, Chad, was chosen by Oswy 
 for the southern part of his kingdom. We 
 may perhaps surmise that the opposition was 
 the other way round, and that Oswy found 
 himself tricked or openly opposed in the 
 assignment of York by the Gallican bishops 
 as Wilfrith 's see. 
 
 However that may have been, Eddi tells us 
 distinctly, if he is to be trusted in such 
 a matter, which I am inclined to doubt, that 
 when Wilfrith did not return from Gaul, the 
 Quartodeciman party moved Oswy to appoint 
 another bishop in his place ; and it at least 
 must be allowed that when Wilfrith did 
 return, Oswy, who had become sole king, 
 took no step to find episcopal work for him. 
 Eddi describes Ceadda, the man chosen, as 
 " a most religious servant of God, and an 
 admirable teacher." He lays no blame on 
 him. He only blames the king and his party, 
 who, contrary to the canons, put him into the 
 see of York. When Wilfrith returned, after 
 the episode of shipwreck in Sussex of which 
 
46 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 we spoke last year 1 , Bede, who also describes 
 the excellent work done by Ceadda, uses here 
 a curious phrase. He tells us that Wilfrith, 
 too, brought to the churches of the English 
 very many rules of Catholic practice, and 
 that when Ceadda had ruled the Church 
 excellently for three years, he retired to his 
 monastery, and Wilfrith became bishop of the 
 whole province of the Northumbrians. That 
 is, Bede declines down to the very end to 
 recognise any opposition or hostility to Wil- 
 frith in the attitude of Chad or of those who 
 appointed him. We should certainly not 
 gather from him that Chad ousted Wilfrith. 
 
 Eddi tells us what Wilfrith did in the 
 strange interval between his return and the 
 withdrawal of Chad. He tells us that when 
 Wilfrith returned and found Ceadda placed 
 in the see of York, he retired to his abbat's 
 life at Kipon (apparently knowing nothing 
 of any opening at Lindisfarne), and so lived 
 humbly for three years, except that he was 
 often asked by Wulfhere, the Mercian king, 
 to perform episcopal offices in his kingdom. 
 This is quite consistent with Bede's state- 
 ments, and here, I think, we have solid fact. 
 
 Inasmuch as Jaruman of Mercia only died 
 
 1 Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), pp. 164, 165. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 47 
 
 in 667, it may have been only towards the 
 end of the three years that Wilfrith thus 
 acted as bishop ; or Jaruman may have been 
 incapacitated by illness. It was at this time 
 that Wilfrith acquired so many lands in 
 Mercia on which he founded monasteries. 
 Ecgbert, also, the religious king of the 
 Kentishmen, invited him to Kent on Deus- 
 dedit's death, and there he ordained many 
 priests and deacons. One of those whom he 
 ordained priest was afterwards consecrated 
 bishop, Putta of Rochester, the first bishop 
 consecrated by Theodore. Wilfrith moved 
 about with his church-singers Eddi and Eona, 
 and masons, and men skilled in almost every 
 kind of work ; he took with him the Benedic- 
 tine rule, and put church-work on a better 
 footing. It is interesting to find the Petrine 
 Eddi summing up this part of Wilfrith's life 
 with the comment that to him, as to Paul the 
 Apostle, a great door of the faith was by 
 God's help opened l . 
 
 The description of the workmen who 
 accompanied Wilfrith in his expeditions, 
 during this curious period of his absence 
 from the see to which he was consecrated, 
 has, I think, something to do with the fact 
 
 1 Acts xiv. 27 ; i Cor. xvi. 9. 
 
48 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 that just that part of Mercia in which 
 Wilfrith had so much land, the district now 
 called the county of Northampton, is un- 
 usually rich in the remains of sculptured 
 stone crosses, and has within its area the 
 church which I regard as the most remarkable 
 in the kingdom, Brixworth, as well as the 
 great Saxon tower of Earl's Barton ; and we 
 can scarcely avoid ascribing the tower of 
 Barnack, in some ways more remarkable than 
 Earl's Barton, to the same school of early 
 influence. The Roman part of Brixworth 
 was certainly in existence before Wilfrith's 
 time ; the Saxon part, and the two towers 
 spoken of, and the many beautiful sculptured 
 stones 1 , have, I suppose, nothing to do with his 
 date, but I think that we may safely credit 
 them to his strong and abiding influence in 
 those parts 2 . If All Saints' Church, North- 
 
 1 I do not give any representations of these, though 
 I have many at hand. In my lectures last year (Conversion 
 of the Heptarchy, Lecture VII), I gave illustrations of a great 
 Cross put up in Wilfrith's time, and some account of 
 another will be found in the present Lectures, at p. 237. 
 
 2 My friend Mr. Micklethwaite believes that the part 
 of Brixworth Church which I have called Roman is very 
 early Saxon work, as early as Wilfrith's time. My own 
 feeling is, on the contrary, that the Saxon work at 
 Brixworth began when they cut into the crown of the 
 great western arch, constructed of very fine Roman 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 ampton, were still standing, I suppose we 
 should feel able to add that to the list, for 
 " All Saints " is an early Saxon dedication. 
 
 I cannot pass from this remarkable episode 
 of Wilfrith's life, without calling attention to 
 the striking fact that we have not from first 
 to last the slightest hint that Wilfrith, or any 
 one else, ever made any sort of objection to 
 his place being taken by Chad. This is very 
 mysterious, and I have never seen a reasonable 
 suggestion in the way of explanation. My 
 own guess, as I have said above, is that if we 
 knew all about Alchfrith's offence and dis- 
 appearance, we should know the reason of 
 Wilfrith's most uncharacteristic submission. 
 One element in the story is probably of more 
 importance than it seems to be, that is, his 
 being left in possession of his Ripon property 
 and his abbeys in Mercia. The disturbances 
 he made at intervals, all through his episcopal 
 life, turned upon his being dispossessed of 
 property. He did once declare that he would 
 appeal to the Pope on a spiritual point, 
 namely, the demand that he should cease 
 from episcopal functions ; but when he got 
 
 bricks, which are of course Yery much unlike what we 
 mean by " bricks," and inserted the Saxon triplet with 
 its characteristic baluster shafts. 
 D 
 
50 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 to Rome he said not a word about that, and 
 only complained that he had not got his 
 property back. The explanation of his early 
 submission to the loss of his episcopal position 
 may lie in this fact that he kept his estates. 
 
 And now we come to the event which must 
 be regarded as the most important in the 
 development of the national Church of 
 England. 
 
 Deusdedit, as we have seen, died in July, 
 664, a date which, I think, makes it impossible 
 to agree with those who hold that Chad was 
 consecrated in opposition to Wilfrith, on the 
 ground that Wilfrith long delayed his return ; 
 for Chad went to Kent to be consecrated, 
 thinking that Deusdedit was still alive, and 
 there certainly had not been time between 
 the synod of Whitby and Deusdedit's death 
 for Wilfrith to have shewn any signs of 
 delay. On the very day that Deusdedit died, 
 Earconbert the king of Kent died also. He 
 was succeeded by his son Ecgbert. The 
 influence of the new king was felt at once. 
 He asked Wilfrith to do such episcopal work 
 as had to be done in Kent, and he took part 
 in the first definite step towards the unity of 
 the Church of England. After some consider- 
 able interval, as I think, though some very 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 51 
 
 great authorities hold that what we are now 
 to enter upon must be placed in the latter 
 half of this same year 664, the kings of 
 Northumbria and Kent consulted together as 
 to what was best to be done about the state 
 of the Church of the English. There can be 
 no doubt whatever that "the Church of the 
 English " here means the Church of England 
 in the modern sense, the Church of the 
 Anglo-Saxon people, not the Church of one 
 of the seven English kingdoms. The reason of 
 the consultation was that the archbishopric 
 was vacant, and the time had clearly come 
 for some decided step. England had formally 
 abandoned its connection with the insular 
 Churches, and the appointment to the arch- 
 bishopric had to be made in view of that 
 important and very recent fact. Wilfrith 
 was clearly the man marked out for the 
 office, so far as ecclesiastical considerations 
 went. But he was very young, not half the 
 age of the man who was in the end made 
 archbishop ; he was not, as far as we can 
 judge, on terms with Oswy, and his appoint- 
 ment would have seemed a slight to him. 
 Besides, Ecgbert was almost certain to be 
 unwilling to have a Northumbrian put 
 permanently into the highest position in his 
 D 3 
 
52 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 kingdom, however glad he might be of his 
 temporary help. Oswy was over-lord of 
 England, and that supremacy of Northumbria 
 was probably quite as much as Ecgbert was 
 inclined to stand, without having as his own 
 archbishop a Northumbrian by birth and 
 training and interest. We cannot doubt that 
 the real question discussed by the over-lord of 
 England and the king in whose kingdom 
 Canterbury lay, was, in the main, should 
 Wilfrith succeed ? Damian of Rochester was 
 dead. Wini does not seem to have been taken 
 in earnest by any one. Boniface of Dunwich 
 was the only bishop left, except the rivals 
 Ceadda and Wilfrith. The kings could 
 scarcely consider the possibility of Ceadda's 
 becoming archbishop. Their natural course 
 was to choose some suitable English priest. 
 
 I wonder if it is fanciful to suggest that 
 an over-lord played a primary part in the 
 establishment of bishoprics, and the assign- 
 ment of land for the maintenance of the 
 bishop and his clergy, and even in the 
 appointment of bishops. The bishopric of 
 the East- Saxons wae neither established, nor 
 endowed, nor filled, by the King of the 
 East-Saxons. It was the over-lord, Ethelbert 
 of Kent, to whom the work is assigned by 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 53 
 
 history and by ancient tradition. In Wessex, 
 it was Oswald of Northumbria, and Coin- 
 walch, the King of Wessex, who jointly gave 
 Dorchester as the seat of the first bishop. 
 In former lectures I suggested 1 , as an 
 explanation of this phenomenon, that Oswald 
 might have acquired some dowry rights in 
 Dorchester by his marriage with the king's 
 daughter. I am now disposed to look deeper. 
 Oswy dealt in a masterful way with his own 
 bishopric, and gave consent to the appoint- 
 ment of Wilfrith to (as I believe) a new 
 bishopric, and dealt with the succession to 
 Canterbury, and acted as the correspondent 
 of the Pope in the matter. His successor 
 Ecgfrith, like him over-lord, not only dealt in 
 the most masterful way with his own 
 bishoprics, but had Theodore up from the 
 kingdom of Kent to carry out his desires; 
 and Aldfrith, imitating him, claimed even to 
 deal with Wilfrith's property in Mercia. 
 Wulfhere of Mercia sold the bishopric of the 
 East-Saxons (London) to Wini; and Iiie of 
 Wessex prefaces his laws by a statement that 
 they were made " with the consent of Hsedde, 
 my bishop, and Eorconwold, my bishop," the 
 
 1 Conversion of the Heptarcfiy (S.P.C.K.), p. 49 ; and p. ai 
 of the present volume. 
 
54 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 latter being, as a fact, Bishop of London. The 
 relation of the over-lord for the time being to 
 the several contemporary kings of the English 
 kingdoms is a matter we do not know very 
 much about, and any suggestion towards 
 something definite may be regarded as a gain. 
 It is perhaps worth while to throw out 
 a further suggestion, to the effect that this 
 dealing with the most important parts of the 
 question of the national religion may have 
 come down from the pagan institutions of 
 ancestors, and may thus have its rise far back 
 in the fundamental characteristics of our 
 independent race. Some such idea as that 
 helps us to understand the determined attitude 
 of the English kings, of the period we are now 
 discussing, towards institutions which we are 
 accustomed to regard as in all senses novelties 
 to them. 
 
 The result of the discussion between the 
 King of Kent and the over-lord of England 
 was that one of Deusdedit's priests, Wighard 
 by name, was chosen, " by the election and 
 consent of the holy Church of the race of the 
 English V a very important fact and phrase. 
 We cannot too carefully mark these repeated 
 declarations that our Church was, from the 
 
 1 Bede, iii. 29. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 55 
 
 earliest times, " the Church of the English." 
 We nowhere find any kind of suggestion that 
 we were an appanage of the Church of Rome, 
 that any one had anything to do with our 
 ecclesiastical affairs, in the way of managing 
 them, except our kings and bishops and their, 
 councils of wise men and clerics. We chose 
 our own archbishops and bishops quite 
 freely. 
 
 Who should consecrate Wighard ? By this 
 time, as Bede expressly tells us in special 
 connection with this event, Oswy had come 
 clearly to see that the Roman Church was 
 catholic and apostolic ; as we, too, believe 
 the Roman Church, as one part of the 
 Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, to be, 
 though there have been some very serious 
 breaches in her continuity, and her actions 
 have often been, and are, very uncatholic. 
 Oswy had had some awkward experiences. 
 He would be likely to suggest that they 
 should cut all local knots, of which he had 
 known only too much in his own kingdom 
 and in his own family, by sending Wighard 
 to the continent to be consecrated. We may 
 fairly regard Gaul as out of the question ; for 
 after all the honorific circumstances of the 
 consecration of Wilfrith by twelve Gallican 
 
56 THEODORE AND WILFEITH. 
 
 bishops, and their mission of him to rule the 
 see of York, he had been kept out of all his 
 episcopal rights in Northumbria from the 
 very first day down to the time then present. 
 The Gallican ecclesiastics must have been 
 very forgiving if they would consecrate 
 "VVighard without any awkward stipulations 
 about Wilfrith. There was really only one 
 way out of all the difficulties send him to 
 Rome to be consecrated. That did not at all 
 mean of necessity that the Pope would himself 
 consecrate him. Between 1370 and 1425, in 
 fifty-five years at the height of the papal 
 assumptions in England, eleven of our bishops 
 were consecrated at Rome, and in no case is 
 it said that the Pope was the consecrator. 
 In one case the consecrators' names are given, 
 and they were the bishops of Bologna, 
 Castello, and a see not identified. The reason 
 for sending Wighard out of England to be 
 consecrated was a very sensible one, in view 
 of the great controversy settled a year or two 
 before in England. There would then be no 
 question about those whom he in turn should 
 consecrate bishops being catholically conse- 
 crated. Evidently the kings were determined 
 to have no further worry about the extent to 
 which a Scotic or British strain, or communion 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 57 
 
 with men not in communion with Rome, 
 might make a consecration doubtful from the 
 very strictest point of view. 
 
 The question is not likely ever to be settled, 
 what were the actual terms of the letter which 
 Wighard took from the kings to the Pope ? 
 We can only guess that kind of guess which 
 is in fact the result of careful calculation. 
 Bede says they sent him to be consecrated ; 
 and we have the Pope's letter to them, in 
 which he acknowledges the receipt of their 
 letter. But the Pope's reply makes it certain 
 that the letter of the kings had gone further 
 than that, unless we are to credit him with 
 a very transparent and poor trick. One 
 conceivable solution, which I think has some- 
 thing to be said for it, is that Ecgbert wrote 
 as Bede indicates, while Oswy wrote a further- 
 reaching letter ; and that the Pope preferred 
 to write to Oswy, as being over-lord, and as 
 having given him a freer hand. I think that 
 the letter to which we have the Pope's reply 
 was something of this kind : " We are 
 sending Wighard to be consecrated to the 
 archbishopric of Canterbury ; our choice of 
 fit men is at present small ; we are anxious 
 that there should be no delay, for our eccle- 
 siastical affairs are at a crisis ; the dangers of 
 
58 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 the way are considerable, and if any ill should 
 befall our priest, we ask you to send us 
 a suitable man." It is even possible that 
 Wighard only unwillingly accepted the elec- 
 tion, and the kings, or one of them, went so 
 far as to inform the Pope that so long as they 
 got a really good man, they were not greatly 
 set on Wighard, nor he on the office. It 
 seems clear that they must have written as 
 to a friend who would do the best for them 
 according to his judgement of the circum- 
 stances. And Eede himself 1 describes Theo- 
 dore as the bishop whom they had asked for 
 from him. The suggestion that Vitalian 
 invented the kings-' request, as a cover for 
 some high-handedness in sending Theodore 
 is as far-fetched as is the suggestion that 
 the Pope was exercising supremacy. Neither 
 is historical or history-like. 
 
 One thing seems to me to stand out quite 
 clearly, and it is both interesting and history- 
 like. 
 
 Augustine and his party had come and had 
 gone. Gregory had sent Augustine with 
 a completely free hand, and had studiously 
 avoided the office which Augustine by his 
 
 1 iv. i. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 59 
 
 questions had sought to assign to him, that of 
 guideand practically ruler of the Church 
 of England. He had left the succession of 
 English archbishops and bishops to work 
 itself out without reference to Rome. In the 
 interval that had elapsed since Gregory's 
 time, about sixty years, the relations of Rome 
 with other Churches had been an important 
 question, and now if ever was Rome's oppor- 
 tunity for asserting supremacy in regard to 
 the affairs of the English Church, and the 
 right of continuous supervision and inter- 
 vention. And, if Pope Leo XIII is right in 
 declaring l that " the consent of antiquity ever 
 acknowledged, without the slightest doubt or 
 hesitation, the Bishops of Rome, and revered 
 them, as the legitimate successors of St. Peter," 
 here was the Pope's opportunity to take note 
 of the fact, and mention it as fundamental. 
 The remark made on this point by the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople and his twelve 
 bishops, in their reply to the Papal Ency- 
 clical on union, is worthy of quotation here, 
 as shewing how necessary it was for the 
 Pope to take some forward step at this crisis 
 if he had any idea of the kind in his head. 
 " There is no hint given in any canon, or by 
 1 Letter on Unity. 
 
60 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 any of the Fathers, that the Bishop of Rome 
 is at any time the sole chief of the universal 
 Church and the infallible judge of the bishops 
 of the other independent and self-governing 
 Churches, or successor of the Apostle Peter 
 and vicar of Jesus Christ on earth V And, 
 if Pope Leo XIII is right in declaring that in 
 " the decree of the Vatican Council as to the 
 nature and authority of the primacy of the 
 Roman pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is 
 set forth, but the venerable and constant belief 
 of every age," here again was the Pope's 
 opportunity. For it is certain that these 
 were points on which the young Church of 
 England needed a great deal of information, 
 if it was to take the view which the Pope 
 declares to have been always and everywhere 
 taken. A complete change in its attitude 
 and practice was necessary. It was, in short, 
 an ideal opportunity for Rome to make 
 a fresh start in England, and to make the 
 Church of England a subject, not an inde- 
 pendent Church ; to change the position of 
 the Pope with regard to it from that of giving 
 help and advice on the very rare occasions on 
 which advice and help had been sought, into 
 that of issuing orders from a central bureau. 
 1 See pp. 42, 43, of the publication referred to on p. 25. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 6l 
 
 I venture to say that even at that late stage 
 in the history of Roman claims, late if as the 
 Pope says they were always recognised, there 
 is not a word to lead any Englishman to 
 suppose that any change was contemplated, 
 that any intervention in affairs which cer- 
 tainly had up to this time been left to the 
 independent management or mismanagement 
 of the English waH now to be inaugurated. 
 
 On the contrary, there is not a word which 
 even suggests that the Pope had anything 
 more to do with the matter than to find for 
 the kings of the English a suitable man for 
 the archbishopric of Canterbury, c< according 
 to the tenor of their letters " to him. Skilful 
 as Vitalian was, and well as he knew how to 
 make the most and the best politically out of 
 an opportunity given, he entirely abstained 
 on this occasion from making or suggesting 
 any claim. Oswy had given him an admir- 
 able opportunity. He had sent presents, 
 Vitalian says, " directed to the blessed chief 
 of the Apostles," and all that Vitalian says 
 in reply is that he has received them and 
 returns thanks. Never was so fair an oppor- 
 tunity so completely thrown away, if St. Peter 
 was the patron al saint of England, as Car- 
 dinal Vaughan and bis brother bishops have 
 
62 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 declared. And it is not that the whole claim 
 was so much a matter of course that no 
 reference need be made to it, for the Pope 
 proceeds to refer to St. Peter three times, 
 and each time he names or refers to St. Peter 
 not alone but with St. Paul. Wighard, he 
 says, had died^ at Rome, and was buried " at 
 the threshold of the Apostles." He was 
 sending to Oswy " relics of the blessed 
 Apostles Peter and Paul " ; and to Oswy's 
 queen " a cross with a golden key, made from 
 the most sacred chains of the blessed Apostles 
 Peter and Paul." And before his reference to 
 Oswy's gifts directed to the chief of the 
 Apostles, he had charged him to c< follow 
 always the pious rule of the chief (principis) 
 of the Apostles, whether in celebrating Easter, 
 or in all things which the holy Apostles 
 Peter and Paul have handed down, whose 
 teaching enlightens daily the hearts of men, 
 as the two luminaries of the sky illumine the 
 world/' I noted last year the interesting and 
 important fact that Bede, on the part of the 
 Anglo-Saxon Church, describes Peter and 
 Paul as " the blessed chiefs of the Apostles," 
 and that the Irish Church commemorated on 
 June 29 " Peter, Paul, our leading chiefs V 
 
 1 See Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), p. 177 ; and, 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 63 
 
 Aldhelm, the scholar and contemporary of 
 Theodore, visited Rome that he might see the 
 long- wished- for thresholds of the chiefs of 
 the Apostles l . Benedict Biscop gave up his 
 worldly position at the age of twenty-five, 
 that he might visit the tombs of the Apostles 2 . 
 Ina, king of Wessex, went to Rome that he 
 might visit " the thresholds of the blessed 
 Apostles," which, Bede tells us (v. 8), many of 
 the English did then. I am sorry to have to 
 say that in arguing for the early dedication 
 of England to St. Peter, of which there is no 
 trace, Cardinal Vaughan and his fourteen 
 episcopal brethren in England have stated 
 in a formal document 3 that this was said " of 
 the blessed Apostle," not " of the blessed 
 Apostles." Such is Roman history. 
 
 As such marked prominence was given by 
 Vitalian to the combination of Peter and 
 Paul in the origin of the claim of the Roman 
 Church to general esteem and affection, it 
 will not, I think, be out of place to say 
 a little more upon the subject. Indeed, 
 
 for further examples, pp. 53 and 184 of the same little 
 book. 
 
 1 " Principum Apostolorum " (Aldh. Op. p. 360). 
 
 2 Lessons from Early English Church History (S.P.C.K.), p. 31. 
 8 Tablet, June 3, 1893. 
 
64 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 unless a little more is said, I do not think the 
 force of Vitalian's letter will be appreciated. 
 
 I frequently have the feeling, when I read 
 the words of early Romanisers, that while 
 they knew there was no chance of establishing 
 any realty supreme claim except on St. Peter, 
 they knew also that the New Testament is 
 painfully silent about any connection of Peter 
 with Rome. Thus it was that they were so 
 ready to speak of Peter and Paul as the great 
 co-Apostles, the blessed chiefs or princes of 
 the Apostles. They combined by this means 
 the force of our Lord's words to Peter in the 
 Gospels, and the force of St. Paul's undoubted 
 presence and labours in Rome. The com- 
 bination of St. Paul with St. Peter gave just 
 that flavour of New Testament evidence of 
 work in Rome, which St. Peter's name alone 
 would have sadly lacked. They might say 
 as much as they liked about our Lord's words 
 to St. Peter ; but unless they could really tie 
 St. Peter down to Rome, it did them no good 
 at all so far as their special claims went. 
 Even though every word were sound and 
 true that all the Roman writers put together 
 have ever written about the meaning of our 
 Lord's words to St. Peter, there would still be 
 the tremendous hiatus of New Testament 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 65 
 
 silence between that and any special share 
 in any succession to such powers on the part 
 of Rome as compared with any other epis- 
 copal Church. There is a very strong flavour 
 of Rome in the New Testament account of 
 the later part of St. Paul's life, to say nothing 
 of his great Epistle ; there is no Roman 
 flavour at all about St. Peter's name. 
 
 The historical facts about the Petrine claim 
 can be put very simply. Irenaeus,. in a treatise 
 written about 180, speaks of the Church of 
 Rome as founded by the two most glorious 
 Apostles, Peter and Paul ; and says that they, 
 having founded and builded the Church, 
 committed the ministry of the episcopate to 
 Linus. We may fairly, I think, take this as 
 supplementing the New Testament account, 
 and entitling the Romans to say that St. Peter 
 was as a matter of fact at Rome and did 
 some work there; though, as I personally 
 believe, only for a very short time before his 
 martyrdom. We may certainly take it as 
 declaring that the Apostles jointly made 
 Linus the first Bishop of Rome. There have 
 been alternative explanations ; for instance, 
 that Peter and Paul were both of them bishops 
 of Rome, and that when they were about to 
 die together, they joined in consecrating 
 E 
 
66 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Linus as sole bishop. Even if that was so, 
 and it is mere imagination, St. Peter would 
 be the bishop of the Jewish Church in Rome, 
 St. Paul of the Gentile Church ; and the 
 bishops of the Roman Church a Gentile 
 Church would therefore be practically the 
 successors of St. Paul rather than of St. Peter. 
 The great historical writers of the early 
 Church, Hegesippus, Eusebius, and Epi- 
 phanius, make Linus the first Bishop of Rome. 
 And, perhaps supreme among evidences, tho 
 ancient canon of the Roman Mass, which 
 expresses the earliest traditions of the Roman 
 Church, recites as the first three bishops of 
 Rome, Linus, Anacletus, and Clement. 
 
 Whence then came any other view than 
 that ? How is it possible for the Romans to 
 oust St. Paul; to claim St. Peter as the 
 founder of their Church ; to assert that 
 St. Peter was their first bishop ? 
 
 The answer is very simple, and it is ex- 
 ceedingly serious for the Roman claim. There 
 was a ridiculous forgery in the second century, 
 written by an unknown person in the interests 
 of certain Judaising heretics, the Ebionites. 
 It was a most un-Petrine production. It 
 made the ruler of all the Churches in the 
 Apostles' times, that is, of the Church of 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 67 
 
 Jerusalem, the Hebrew Church, the Gentile 
 Church, to be James the Lord's brother, not 
 Peter. It called James the bishop of bishops, 
 it even called him the archbishop. It 
 describes James as sending for Peter, and, 
 when he obeyed the summons, sending him 
 to Caesarea. The whole thing was and is 
 a bitter pill to the Romans. But there was 
 au<l there is a sweet ingredient. The forger 
 lui'l as one of his aims to belittle St. Paul, 
 as was only natural in one of his Judaising 
 sect. They still do it. You may hear in 
 almost any street, in a good many of the 
 parishes of the East of London, the incessantly 
 repeated story, with unvarying detail, that 
 St r.iul was 1 -ought over from Judaism to 
 Christianity by a bagful of gold, measuring 
 us feet every way. 
 
 In accordance with the never-failing bitter- 
 ness of the Judaiser against St. Paul, that 
 Apostle was in this precious document com- 
 pletely ousted from Rome. St. Peter was 
 made to be bishop there, and was made to 
 appoint Clement (the third Bishop of Rome) 
 as his first successor. That little piece of 
 comfort the ambitious Romans and Romanisers 
 picked out of this mass of Petrine humiliation. 
 That one statement they accepted as gospel 
 E 3 
 
68 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 truth. They have not, so far as I know, ever 
 accepted the rest of the story, that James 
 made Peter send him his discourses and acts 
 year by year, and declared that Apostles and 
 others must accurately compare their teaching 
 with that of James, and are not to be believed 
 unless they have the testimonial of James, or 
 whoever may come after him in Jerusalem. 
 On the same basis as that ridiculous forgery 
 the Roman claim rests. Within twenty 
 years after Irenaeus wrote, Tertullian had got 
 hold of the story and repeats it so far as 
 Clement is concerned. But he entirely refuses 
 to oust St. Paul, and explains that Rome was 
 an Apostolic Church because among other 
 reasons of the martyrdom of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul, and the torture of St. John. When 
 we see how much there is behind the scenes 
 in this question between quoting St. Peter 
 alone as an authority at Rome, or quoting 
 St. Peter and St. Paul, we are able to estimate 
 the very great importance of Vitalian's 
 language. 
 
 The two accounts might be harmonised, 
 but only by a series of imaginary details, and 
 those not acceptable to modern Rome. The 
 Clementine forgery says that Peter made 
 Clement sit in his (Peter's) own chair. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 69 
 
 Irenaeus says that Peter and Paul committed 
 to Linus the bishopric of Rome. Church 
 history says that Clement was the third 
 Bishop of Rome. Peter in this precious forgery 
 is made by the forger to call Paul " the man 
 who is my enemy," the man who leads the 
 Gentiles to reject " my preaching of the law." 
 The whole thing would be harmonised if we 
 supposed that Peter was at enmity with Paul, 
 as the forger declares that he was, and sought 
 by the appointment of Clement to perpetuate 
 his hostility ; but, when death was very near, 
 repented of his error and agreed with Paul to 
 designate and consecrate Linus the first 
 bishop of the whole Church of the city of 
 Rome. In the course of years Clement may 
 well have been forgiven his share in the 
 scheme of Peter, and been elected as the third 
 Bishop of Rome, the lawful successor of 
 Anacletus. 
 
 Other suggestions, less derogatory to St. 
 Peter's sense of Christian fellowship with 
 " the man who is my enemy," will occur to 
 any one who is aware of the unexpectedness 
 of the true solution of an historical difficulty, 
 when some document finally bearing upon it 
 is by chance found. For the present, the most 
 that can be said in support of the origin of 
 
70 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 the story of St. Peter having been Bishop 
 of Rome is that the story appears early, but 
 not so early as the historical statement that 
 Peter and Paul made Linus the first bishop ; 
 and that the origin of the story cannot be 
 with certainty traced to the Ebionite forgery 
 of which I have spoken. As a matter of 
 historical evidence, the enormous claims of 
 the bishops of Rome rest on the very poorest 
 of poor foundations, entirely unequal to the 
 load piled upon them through the Middle 
 Ages, to say nothing .of the supreme additions 
 of the present generation. The knowledge of 
 the uncomfortable weakness of the foundation 
 is a natural cause of the confident assertion 
 of its historical soundness. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 Position and conduct of Pope Vitalian. Monothelitc 
 controversy. Connection of the Popes with the Greek 
 Church. Vitalian's choice of a Greek, Theodore, for the 
 archbishopric of Canterbury. Theodore's slow join M. \ 
 to England. Secular and religious study ; church music. 
 Theodore removes Chad, and puts Wilfrith for the first 
 time into possession of an episcopal see. 
 
 WIGHARD duly arrived in Rome ; but before 
 he could be consecrated, he and almost the 
 whole of his party died of the plague. The 
 Pope inquired carefully for some one whom 
 he could send to be archbishop. At length 
 he sent to a monastery l near Naples 2 for one 
 Hadrian, an abbat, of African nationality, 
 deeply learned in Holy Scripture, familiar 
 with the points of monastic and Church disci- 
 pline, and greatly skilled in the languages of 
 
 1 Niridanum. Smith, the editor of Bede, says it w;:s 
 near Monte Cassino. 
 
 2 For the very interesting connection of this incidental 
 la- t with our beautiful Anglian manuscript known as 
 the Lindisfarne Gospels, see Lcssom from E'.irly English 
 Church History (S.P.C.K.), p. no. 
 
72 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Greece and Rome. He offered to send him as 
 archbishop. Hadrian replied that he was not 
 fit for so great an office, but he knew of one 
 who was, a man whose age and erudition 
 made him more suitable for such a task. 
 This was one Andrew, a monk. Every one 
 who knew him agreed that Andrew was just 
 what was wanted. But he pleaded the burden 
 of a physical infirmity, and then the office was 
 again pressed upon Hadrian. He begged for 
 time, that he might find some one else. He 
 found a Greek, Theodore of Tarsus in Cilicia 5 not 
 yet a subdeacon, a man of sixty-six years of 
 age, and strongly recommended him. Vitalian 
 appointed him. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is 
 brief and simple on these much-discussed pro- 
 ceedings : "An. 667. This year Oswy and 
 Ecgbriht sent Wigheard the priest to Rome, 
 that he might there be consecrated Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury ; but he died soon after 
 he came thither." " An. 668. This year 
 Theodorus was ordained an archbishop and 
 sent to Britain." 
 
 It is clear that we must say something to 
 
 account for the appointment of a Greek, not 
 
 yet in Holy Orders *, and already well past the 
 
 age suitable for such an undertaking. For 
 
 1 Only in minor orders. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 73 
 
 some great favourite of Rome, these objections 
 might naturally have disappeared; but that 
 they were disregarded for a Greek is of the 
 nature of a phenomenon. 
 
 The mere mention of the name of Vitalian, 
 and of the dates 667 and 668, is enough to 
 plunge us into historical and ecclesiastical 
 questions of the greatest complexity. The 
 name of Gregory, and the date 595, intro- 
 duced us to troubles enough, the Lombards 
 beleaguering Rome and sending Roman pri- 
 soners into the city with their hands cut off, 
 while Gregory bitterly complained that the 
 Exarch of Ravenna, who should have been 
 the stay of Rome, was worse than the Lom- 
 bard sword. But now and for many years 
 past the great danger of the bishops of Rome 
 had been and was the Emperor himself. We 
 need not go at any length into the reasons 
 for this state of things ; but on more than 
 one account it is necessary to make a brief 
 statement of the circumstances. Otherwise, 
 we shall certainly not understand Vitalian's 
 eventual action. 
 
 About the time when we in London were 
 turning out our first bishop of English times, 
 and relapsing into the idolatry to which we 
 were so stubbornly attached, that is to say, 
 
74 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 about the year 616, Sergius, the Patriarch of 
 Constantinople, formed an opinion on a new 
 question respecting the union of the Godhead 
 and the Manhood in our Lord. It might have 
 seemed that the long controversy about the 
 fullness of the divine nature and the human 
 nature in Christ had exhausted the last point 
 on which serious question could arise. But 
 now there suddenly appeared the question, 
 had our Lord both a divine will and a human 
 will? Sergius came to believe that He had 
 only the divine will, a will not contradicted 
 by any human will. It remained a mere 
 opinion with him, not a question of ortho- 
 doxy or of communion. But in 634 he took 
 alarm we need not go into the reason why 
 and he wrote an account of the matter to 
 Honorius, Bishop of Rome. Honorius agreed 
 with Sergius, and declared that he too held 
 that the Lord had not the fleshly will, in 
 reference to St. Paul's contrast between the 
 will of the flesh and the will of the mind. 
 This is that famous heresy of Pope Honorius, 
 for which he was condemned among heretics 
 by Pope after Pope ; and by the Sixth General 
 Council, a condemnation afterwards approved 
 by the next Pope, Leo II. It is a terrible trial 
 to our friends the Roman controversialists, 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 75 
 
 though I cannot help thinking that if it had 
 not been for the condemnation by Popes and 
 by at least one Council, the position of Hono- 
 rius in the matter might in these days have 
 been fairly put in a less completely unfavour- 
 able light. I always feel rather sorry for poor 
 Honorius, and have a sort of sense that he is 
 not the only Pope concerned in the matter 
 whose infallibility was of the usual fallible 
 nature. 
 
 To put a stop to the confusion which 
 followed, Sergius persuaded the Emperor 
 Heraclius to order that no one should pursue 
 the controversy any further. There was to 
 be complete silence. The imperial order was 
 not improperly regarded as a party document, 
 favouring the side of those who held the one 
 will, thence called the Monothelites. It was 
 known as the Ecthesis, or Exposition, of the 
 true Faith, and it was the " exposition " part 
 of it that was regarded as favouring the 
 wrong side. This was in 639. Honorius 
 died ; his successor died soon after ; and then 
 Pope John IV and a Roman council rejected 
 the Ecthesis in 640. Heraclius the Emperor 
 died in 641. 
 
 Constans II, practically the next Emperor, 
 was urged to withdraw the document of his 
 
76 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 grandfather. He issued in its stead a docu- 
 ment drawn up by Paul of Constantinople, 
 called the Type, or true form, of Faith. It 
 was an impartial document ; and it repeated 
 the order that the controversy must cease. 
 This was in 648. In October, 649, Pope 
 Martin and 105 other bishops, at the first 
 Lateran Council, condemned the Type be- 
 cause of its impartiality, which placed truth 
 and error on the same level. This condemna- 
 tion was announced to the Emperor Constans 
 by the Pope in very strong language, though 
 he was duly careful to express the utmost 
 respect for the Emperor's person, and to attri- 
 bute the authorship of the document to the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople. The Emperor 
 bided his time. At length, in June, 653, 
 Martin was dragged off from Rome on the 
 way to Constantinople, with all manner of 
 disgraceful cruelty and insult ; and after two 
 and a quarter years of continual ill-treatment, 
 he died at Cherson, a confessor and martyr if 
 ever there was one. The next Pope, Euge- 
 nius, complied with the wishes of the imperial 
 court, while some of the main opponents of 
 the Monothelites had their tongues and right 
 hands cut off. Eugenius had saved himself 
 by compliance, but he died after three years, 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 77 
 
 and then, in 6,57, came Vitalian, to whom our 
 kings sent Wighard to be consecrated arch- 
 hishop. Vitalian on his accession wrote to 
 Constantinople in such a strain that the 
 patriarch declared his letter had filled them 
 with joy; ami In was enrolled on the <li]>- 
 tychs l on the altar at Constantinople, along 
 with his heretical predecessor Honorius, \\h<> 
 had earned his place there by his heresy as 
 a Monothelite. The Emperor and his young 
 son were as much pleased as the patriarch. 
 They sent to Vitalian a book of the Gospels, 
 adorned with gold and precious stones, similar, 
 we may suppose, to that which had made such 
 an impression upon Wilfrith in St. Amliv\v'> 
 ( 1 lurch at Rome about four years before. The 
 art of these beautiful books, which we in Eng- 
 land and the Scots in Ireland carried to the 
 greatest perfection ever achieved by man, 
 came, as this particular manuscript came, from 
 Byzantium. 
 
 I think there is little or no doubt that 
 Vitalian was not a Monothelite ; but he was 
 a courtier to whom it mattered less what he 
 did or said, than that he should keep good 
 friends with the supreme power. And this 
 
 1 The tablets containing the names of those com- 
 memorated in prayer in that particular church. 
 
78 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 brings us to a darker side of his story. Con- 
 stans II had committed all manner of wicked- 
 nesses. He had murdered his own brother 
 Theodosius, whom he had had forcibly or- 
 dained deacon and then poisoned in the holy 
 Eucharist. He had tortured to death Pope 
 Martin, and many other orthodox Catholics, 
 including especially the great and worthy 
 champion of orthodoxy, Maximus, a noble 
 Byzantine who had been Secretary of State 
 under Heraclius. His crimes were so many 
 that Constantinople could not endure him 
 any longer; nor indeed he it. He left his 
 capita] city, spitting out against it in wrath 
 and disgust from the deck of his ship, and 
 went loaded with crimes to Rome. If ever 
 there was a man to whom the sanctuaries of 
 Rome should have been closed, Constans II 
 was the man. The date of his visit is vari- 
 ously stated, so far as the year is concerned, 
 though we know accurately the days of the 
 week and of the month. At latest, it was in 
 the year in which Vitalian chose Theodore for 
 England, and that was but thirteen years 
 after the cruel death practically the murder 
 of Pope Martin himself. But the Emperor 
 was received by Vitalian with the greatest 
 honour, being met by him and his clergy six 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 79 
 
 miles from the city. On Sunday, July 9, he 
 made his great entry into St. Peter's, pomp- 
 fully received by all the clergy carrying wax 
 lights. He attended Mass ; and his offering 
 at the altar was a mantle of cloth of gold. 
 On Saturday, the ijth, he bathed and dined at 
 the Pope's palace. He attended Mass again 
 at St. Peter's on the i6th, and said good-bye 
 to the Pope. That was the reception accorded 
 by Vitalian to an Emperor loaded with ini- 
 ijiiity, stained with the blood of a Pope, of 
 a great champion of orthodoxy. Constans 
 characteristically repaid all this servility to 
 his wickedness by employing his people 
 to strip the brazen tiles off the Pantheon, at 
 that time a church, and ship them to Con- 
 stantinople with all the brass they could get 
 hol<l of from other monuments. The one 
 r\m*e for the Pope is, that he may have 
 seen a chance of bringing the imperial court 
 round to the orthodox side in the matter of 
 the Monothelite controvers} 7 . It is a rather 
 far-fetched excuse, and not good for very 
 much at best. But as a fact the imperial 
 court did before very long come round, about 
 thirteen years after these events, in the time 
 of Pope Agatho and the Emperor Constantine 
 the Bearded. 
 
8o THEODORE AND WILFKITH. 
 
 This was far from being the only special 
 connection of Rome with the Greek Church 
 about that time. We must not forget that we 
 have been dealing with the period of the first 
 great successes of the Mahommedan armies. 
 Mahomet died in 633 ; and in 637, two years 
 before the Ecthesis, Jerusalem was taken by 
 the Khalif Omar. In the years following, 
 Persia was occupied by the Mahommedans, 
 and parts of Asia Minor. Many of the Greek 
 refugees fled to Rome, for Constantinople 
 itself was threatened for many years, and the 
 Mahommedan tents covered the other side of 
 the Bosphorus. In such numbers did the 
 learned Greeks come to Rome, and so im- 
 portant were they, that the twelfth Pope from 
 Vitalian was the seventh Greek refugee in 
 succession who had been made Bishop of 
 Rome 1 . Zacharias, too, the friend of our own 
 Boniface, was a Greek. 
 
 There are thus historical considerations 
 
 1 Muratori, Annali d'JfaUa, A. p. 705 (Milan, 1753, 
 vol. vi. p. 58), expresses the belief that the influence of 
 the exarchs and other imperial officials caused the 
 election to fall on persons of their own nation. These 
 Greeks, he continues, did no injury to the honour of the 
 see of St. Peter, for they maintained the true faith of 
 the Church, and were not driven out of the right way by 
 the threats of the Greek Emperors. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 8l 
 
 quite sufficient to remove the wonder we 
 sometimes sec expressed, that Vitaliau should 
 have had at hand, and should have sent to us 
 as our archbishop, a Greek and a member of 
 the Greek Church. And there was an im- 
 portant negative reason, stated by Vitaliau 
 himself in his letter to Oswy. People in these 
 days, who know nothing of the tremendous 
 burden of work, and above all of responsi- 
 bility, look upon the archbishopric of Can- 
 terbury as one of the greatest prizes in the 
 Empire, as no doubt in itself it is. But 
 Vitalian in his time had to tell the English 
 that no one at Rome would take it ; no one 
 tit for it, that is to say. He put it, of course, 
 on the most polite ground he could think of ; 
 the courtier who communicated with the fratri- 
 cide and pope-killing Emperor was likely to do 
 that. " We have been entirely unable/' he 
 wrote, " to find for you a thoroughly suitable 
 prelate, according to the tenor of your letter, 
 ... by reason of the great length of the 
 journey." Failing we are bound to sup- 
 pose with his best Romans and Africans, he 
 turned to the Greeks, very fortunately for us. 
 Theodore, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, and 
 educated at the University of Athens, was 
 sixty-six years of age when Hadrian named 
 F 
 
82 THEODORE AND WILFEITH, 
 
 him to the Pope ; six years beyond our super- 
 annuation limit for civil servants of the Crown. 
 He was a monk, and had not been ordained 
 even subdeacon. He had left his native land, 
 either under pressure of the Mahommedan 
 invasion or at the request of Constans. He 
 was versed in secular and sacred literature 
 alike, in Greek and in Latin. He was re- 
 spected for the probity of his life. Vitalian 
 accepted him on Hadrian's recommendation, 
 but stipulated that Hadrian should conduct 
 him to Britain ; for Hadrian had twice tra- 
 velled in Gaul, and so knew the way, and he 
 had ready a body of men without whom such 
 a journey could not safely be made. A fur- 
 ther stipulation by the Pope demanded that 
 Hadrian should continue to attend Theodore 
 as a help in doctrinal questions, and to see 
 that he did not, "after the manner of the 
 Greeks," introduce into England anything 
 contrary to the verity of the faith. That is 
 a very curious arid significant stipulation. 
 Vitalian must indeed have exhausted his pos- 
 sibilities before he would send a man who 
 had to be nursed in the most vital of all the 
 kinds of work he would have to do. The idea 
 of sending us a man who would make a useful 
 ruler, but whose orthodoxy of teaching needed 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 83 
 
 a second man to keep guard, is very quaint. 
 Vitalian does not seem to have thought it 
 mattered much what unorthodox views Theo- 
 dore held, so long as he did not teach them to 
 others. But the real significance of the stipu- 
 lation lies in the words, " after the manner of 
 the Greeks 1 .'' There you have the secret 
 of the relative growth of the power of Rome, 
 more than in any fancied inheritance from 
 St. Peter. Rome was solid in the faith, as 
 a rule ; stolid, if you will. The Greeks were 
 fanciful and fly-away, risking rash specula- 
 tions, and exercising their wits in finding 
 out shades of distinctions and differences. 
 The Romans were scarcely clever enough or 
 original enough to invent heresies. Sergius 
 took in Honorius, beguiled him into ac- 
 quiescing in an unorthodox view on a new 
 point, just as Pelagius or his representative 
 took in Zosimus on a new point. But when 
 once a thing had been settled, the Roman 
 stood firm. That firmness the Christian world 
 learned to esteem, and to expect and trust. 
 
 If we are asked whether Vitalian had any 
 special reason to mistrust Theodore's ortho- 
 doxy, beyond the fact of his being a Greek, 
 
 1 Sec pp. 179, 180, for some notes of differences in 
 practice between Greeks and Romans. 
 F 2 
 
84 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 we can only say that history knows of none. 
 He had studied at Athens, as Pope Zacharias 
 himself a Greek tells us, writing fifty or 
 sixty years after his death ; but Athens was 
 very different in Theodore's time from what 
 it was in the time of Basil, who attended the 
 lectures of both Christian and pagan pro- 
 fessors l . Theodore was thirty-seven years of 
 age when the Ecthesis was issued, and forty- 
 six at the time of the Type ; but there is 
 nothing to connect him with either. We do 
 not know, as a fact, anything at all of the 
 cause that brought him to Rome. The Em- 
 peror Constans spent the winter at Athens in 
 66 1, when Theodore was fifty-nine years of 
 age, and he may have had occasion to note 
 the varied ability of the learned monk. It 
 may even have been the fact that Theodore's 
 presence in Rome in the year 667 was due 
 directly or indirectly to the visit of Constans. 
 These suppositions derive force from the fact 
 that the Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Stubbs, allowed 
 them to find a place in his powerful sketch of 
 the life of Theodore 2 . 
 
 1 The chief teachers of Basil and Gregory of Na/.ianzum 
 at Athens were a Christian from Armenia and a heathen 
 from Armenia. 
 
 2 Diet, qf Christian Biography, vol. iv. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 85 
 
 Theodore was ordained subdeacon in Rome. 
 Then he had to wait till his hair grew suf- 
 ficiently to be shorn into the shape of a crown, 
 according to the Western tonsure ; for, as a 
 Greek, he had had the Eastern, or so-called 
 Paulinr toiiMiiv, which clipped the hair very 
 close all over the head. It is almost a wonder 
 that in these advertising days no one has 
 pmtVssed to know the secret of this active 
 growth of hair at his considerable age. The 
 Pope, Vitalian himself, consecrated him, on 
 Sunday, March 26, 668, and on May 27 he 
 set out for England, accompanied of course 
 by Hadrian. He was the first Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, and the first bishop for England, 
 consecrated by a Pope of Rome. The next 
 archbishop so consecrated was Richard, con- 
 secrated at Anagni by Pope Alexander III in 
 1174, after an interval of more than five hun- 
 <ln <1 years. Then, in 1207, Langton was con- 
 secrated at Viterbo by Innocent HI ; Boniface 
 of Savoy at Lyons by Innocent IV in 1245; 
 Peckham at Rome by Nicolas IH in 1279, 
 when the bill for the consecration expenses 
 was described by his chaplain as terrible even 
 to look at, and horrible to read ; five in all in 
 thirteen hundred years, and four of them 
 in one hundred and five years. Since 1279 
 
86 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 no one has been consecrated directly to the 
 archbishopric of Canterbury by a Pope. 
 Archbishop Chicheley was consecrated in 1408 
 to the bishopric of St. David's by Pope 
 Gregory XII Pope or anti-Pope, who can 
 really say? 
 
 We know the main line of the route taken 
 l>y Theodore and Hadrian, who had with 
 them a notable Englishman, Benedict Biscop l . 
 They went by sea to Marseilles, and thence 
 proceeded to Aries. There they presented 
 their letters commendatory to John, the Arch- 
 bishop of Aries. He kept them at Aries for 
 some considerable time, till an order came 
 from the Mayor of the Palace, the permanent 
 Prime Minister as we should say, authorising 
 them to go where they would. This delay 
 drove them into the beginning of winter, and 
 Theodore only got as far as Paris, where our 
 old friend Agilbert gave him a hospitable 
 reception. Hadrian quartered himself for the 
 winter first on the Bishop of Sens and then 
 on the Bishop of Meaux. 
 
 When the spring came, King Ecgbert sent 
 
 his chief officer to conduct to Kent "the 
 
 bishop whom they had asked of the Eoman 
 
 prelate." He and Biscop obtained the per- 
 
 1 See Lessons of Early English Church History, p. 31. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 87 
 
 mission of the Mayor of the Palace to leave 
 the kingdom, and went by way of Staples ; 
 but there Theodore was taken ill, and had to 
 wait some time. At last he reached Canter- 
 l'ii i y, on Sunday, May 27, in the second year 
 of his consecration, 669. He was then sixty- 
 seven years old, and he held the archbishopric 
 twenty-one years, three months, and twenty- 
 si. \ days, as Bede tells us. 
 
 Hadrian had not got on quite so well. 
 Ebroin, the Mayor of the Palace already 
 referred to, suspected that he was sent on 
 a political errand. The Frankish kingdoms 
 would seem to have looked with some mis- 
 givings upon the action of the Emperor Con- 
 stans against the Lombards and his prolonged 
 residence in the West. Constans might be 
 meditating a restoration on a large scale of 
 tin Western Empire; and Hadrian had already 
 more than once travelled in Gaul with an 
 important party of attendants, a suspicious 
 proceeding. The king, Olothaire III, and his 
 minister may have had some ground for their 
 suspicion that he was going to England on 
 the Emperor's part, to make an alliance with 
 the English kings for purposes hostile to the 
 Frank monarchs. Their suspicions were after 
 some time allayed, and Hadrian followed 
 
88 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Theodore. The archbishop had meanwhile 
 entrusted the school at the abbey of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul to the care of Benedict Biscop, 
 who had accompanied Theodore from Rome 
 to England ; he now handed it over to 
 Hadrian, for whom the Pope had bidden him 
 provide in his new diocese. An unnecessary 
 difficulty has been started at this point, the 
 explanation of which is that Hadrian accom- 
 panied Theodore in his first archiepiscopal pro- 
 gress, and thus Benedict Biscop acted as head 
 of the Canterbury school for about two years 
 in all, part of it before Hadrian's arrival, and 
 most part of it after. 
 
 Theodore made it his first business to visit 
 all parts of the island which were occupied 
 by the English. He met with a very favour- 
 able reception, and everywhere taught the 
 right rule of life monastic life, we must 
 understand and the right Easter. He was 
 the first among the archbishops, Bede here 
 remarks, to whom all Churches (or the whole 
 Church) of the English yielded obedience. 
 
 Both Theodore and Hadrian had great stores 
 of learning, secular and sacred, and students 
 flocked to their teaching in swarms. They 
 taught them from the volumes of Holy Writ, 
 blending this teaching with instruction in the 
 
THEODORE AND WILFBITH. 89 
 
 metrical art meaning poetry in astronomy, 
 anl in ecclesiastical arithmetic. Aldhelm 
 gives l a curious account of the conduct of the 
 hi li students who attended Theodore's lec- 
 tnivs, when they seem to have criticised their 
 teacher's views ; and of the vigour with which 
 the elderly philosopher routed them when 
 they badgered him. He treated them as the 
 truculent boar treats the Molossian hounds. 
 He tore them with the tusk of grammar, and 
 shot them with the deep and sharp syllogisms 
 of chronography, till they cast away their 
 weapons and hurriedly fled to the recesses 
 of their dens. 
 
 This description of Scotic students attending 
 Theodore's lectures is unexpected. The general 
 set of migratory study was quite the other 
 way. Ecgbert had to leave Ripon and go to 
 Ireland when he wished for more advanced 
 instruction in the Scriptures in the early part 
 of Wilfrith's career. In the same letter from 
 which I have quoted, Aldhelm speaks in his 
 turgid style of the crowds of students who 
 passed from Britain to Ireland. He charges 
 Eahfrid to let his own countrymen have the 
 benefit of his ambrosial learning. And he 
 
 1 Letter to Eahfrid, a friend who had recently returned 
 from studying in Ireland. 
 
90 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 asks, why should Ireland, by some ineffable 
 privilege, draw these swarms of students, as 
 if there could not be found, on the fertile soil 
 of Britain, teachers, Greek or Roman, qualified 
 to open to students the heavenly library? The 
 fields of Ireland were rich in learners, and 
 green with the " pastural numerosity " of 
 students, as the heavens glitter with the stars ; 
 but Britain had had the great lights, the sun 
 and the moon, Theodore namely, who from 
 early boyhood had grown old in the flower 
 of the philosophic art, and Adrian, ineffably 
 endowed with urbanity. In Bede's time there 
 were still living scholars of Theodore and 
 Hadrian, to whom the Greek and Latin tongues 
 were as familiar as their own. In the case 
 of Aldhelm a little knowledge was a dangerous 
 thing, for he piled his pages with the very 
 longest Latin words he could find, and inter- 
 larded his Latin with bits of Greek and half- 
 Greek in a very affected and unpleasant 
 manner. 
 
 The visitation of Theodore led also to the 
 universal introduction of a proper method of 
 chanting in the churches. Up to this time 
 Kent alone had known the right method, 
 except so far as James the Deacon had made 
 it known in the north. It was at this point 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 9! 
 
 in our history that Wilfrith invited Eddi to 
 leave Kent and teach chanting in Northumbria, 
 a step which led to his becoming Wilfrith's 
 chaplain, and friend, and biographer. 
 
 The Angles and Saxons and Jutes, and 
 indeed, as I think, the Britons, appear to have 
 had a natural taste for church music, and we 
 hear no complaints of their voices as we do 
 in the case of the Germans and Gauls. John 
 the Deacon 1 , in his life of Pope Gregory the 
 Great, declares that when the Germans or 
 Gauls tried to sing the Gregorian chant, with 
 its "delicate modulations," their barbarous 
 and bibulous throats produced a rattle like 
 wagons crashing down steps, so that the 
 feelings of the congregation were rasped and 
 stunned instead of being soothed. His account 
 reminds me forcibly of a funeral service I once 
 attended in the great church at St. Quentin. 
 Gregory himself had to admonish even his 
 Italian singing-school with a whip. In Char- 
 lemagne's time the Franks were great offenders 
 in the roughness of their singing in church. 
 They could not manage to enunciate the 
 words when they came to the inflections and 
 trills and runs ; they broke them up in their 
 
 1 ii. 7, quoted by Robertson, Hist, of the Chr. Ch. ii. 5 
 and by Gibbon. 
 
92 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 throat rather than expressed them 1 . In England 
 we took a good deal of trouble to sing the 
 service properly, and hints were given in the 
 early times which are not without value even 
 at the end of the nineteenth century. Thus 
 a Council 2 of the English Church, held in 747, 
 ordered that priests should not gabble (chatter) 
 the service in church after the fashion of 
 secular poets, lest they destroy or confuse the 
 rhythm and clearness of the sacred words; 
 they must follow a simple and holy melody, 
 after the manner of the Church ; and if any 
 one is not able so to sing, he must read clearly 
 what it is his business to say. 
 
 There is a curious contrast drawn in another 
 matter between the Anglo-Saxons and some 
 of the continental peoples, at this same date 
 747. Six of the German prelates, two at least 
 of them being Englishmen by birth, wrote to 
 the King of Mercia to urge him to live a 
 decent life and enter upon a lawful marriage 3 . 
 ." If the race of the Anglo-Saxons follow the 
 example set them in various parts of Europe, 
 and enter upon unlawful unions, and live 
 impure lives, the race will degenerate and the 
 
 1 Quoted by Robertson, ii. 147. 
 
 2 Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 366. 
 
 3 Ibid., iii. 354. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 93 
 
 faith will be lost, as has already happened 
 and from that cause in Spain and Provence 
 and parts of Burgundy, at the hands of the 
 Saracens." Here again we have a hint 
 for the end of the nineteenth century. We 
 cannot, however, take very much comfort to 
 ourselves as regards the superior purity of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race in the early Christian 
 times. This same Boniface, writing to Arch- 
 bishop Cuthbert of Canterbury, begs that the 
 Council of the Church of England will forbid 
 the pilgrimages to Rome so often made by 
 women and nuns,- " They are mostly ruined 
 on the way, few remaining chaste. There 
 are very few cities in Lombardy, or in France, 
 or in Gaul, in which there is not some English 
 woman leading a life of open sin." 
 
 We must now enter upon the greatest work 
 of Theodore's life here, the arrangement of 
 dioceses. 
 
 We have to bear in mind what the state 
 of things was on his arrival in England. So 
 far as Kent was concerned, Damian of 
 Rochester had been dead for some considerable 
 time, and his place was vacant. The East 
 Saxons had a bishop, of London as we should 
 say, but he was the sirnoniacal Bishop Wini, 
 once of Wessex, who had paid Wulfhere of 
 
94 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Mercia, the overlord of the East Saxons, to 
 make him Bishop of London. Since Wini 
 left Wessex the king there had got on without 
 a bishop. In Mercia Jaruman was dead, and 
 no successor had been appointed. In East 
 Anglia Boniface was dying. In Northumbria 
 Chad was sole bishop, while Wilfrith had 
 occupied himself in helping elsewhere. In 
 Sussex the South Saxons were pagans still. 
 That is a sketch of the state of things, and it 
 could scarcely have been worse. If, as the 
 modem Romans claim, the whole thing was 
 subject to the Church of Rome, the Church 
 of Rome was guilty of very scandalous neglect. 
 But in fact there is not the slightest substance 
 in any such claim. 
 
 To the vacant see of Rochester Theodore 
 ordained Putta 1 9 a man noted for his know- 
 ledge of church discipline and his simplicity 
 of life, rather than for business power: he 
 was specially skilled in the Roman style of 
 intoning, which he had learned from disciples 
 of Gregory. 
 
 In Northumbria Theodore pointed out to 
 
 1 It seems clear that this is Bede's meaning. Some 
 writers understand the passage (iv. 2) to mean that 
 Wilfrith ordained Putta bishop before Theodore's 
 arrival. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 95 
 
 Chad that he had not been rightly 1 con- 
 secrated. Chad replied, in a most humble 
 manner, " If you know that I was not duly 
 consecrated bishop, I gladly withdraw ; I never 
 thought myself tit for the office, and I only 
 consented to it in a spirit of obedience." 
 When Theodore heard the humility of his 
 reply, he declared that he must not give up 
 the office of bishop, and he himself consum- 
 mated his ordination anew in the Catholic 
 manner. That is Bede's account 2 , and it is 
 to be observed that he puts into Theodore's 
 mouth the word consecratus, a rare word 
 with Bede. And the phrase conjBwrn/nuxted his 
 <,,'<l'i iiiit'ton aneiv must also be specially 
 noticed. It seems impossible that Bede 
 could have used that phrase if Theodore had 
 rcordained Chad from the sub-diaconato 
 through all the orders. Lastly, Bede has no 
 hint that Wilfrith was concerned in the 
 matter. 
 
 1 Rite, with proper ritual, it would seem. But it may 
 well be that we have the solution of the whole difficulty, 
 and an explanation of what was actually done, in 
 Theodore's Penitential, II. ix. i : Those who are or- 
 dained by Bishops of the Scots or Britons, who are not 
 C;itli>li< in PiiM-h or tonsure, arc not in the unity of the 
 Church and must be again confirmed by a Catholic 
 Bishop by imposition of hands. 
 
 3 iv. a. 
 
96 THEODORE AND WILFBITH. 
 
 Bede then proceeds to tell us that Wulfhere, 
 the Mercian king, asked Theodore to send 
 him a bishop. Theodore was unwilling to 
 consecrate a new bishop for them, and asked 
 King Oswy that Chad, who was living quietly 
 at Lastingham after his ritually correct 
 consecration, should be given them as bishop, 
 and accordingly he became bishop of the 
 Mercians and the people of Lindsey. 
 
 Now turn to Eddi. This is his story. 
 Theodore the archbishop came out of Kent 
 to the king of the Deirans and Bernicians 
 we must note that one sole king is spoken 
 of, so that Alchfrith had by this time dis- 
 appeared. He brought with him the fixed 
 judgements of the Apostolic see, whence he 
 had been sent forth. As soon as he entered 
 the kingdom he heard from true witnesses 
 of a thing that had been ill done, against 
 the canons, for a bishop had dared to take 
 the see of another bishop, after the manner 
 of a robber. Theodore would not endure 
 that, and he ordered that Chad the bishop 
 should be deposed from another man's see. 
 Eddi's use of the word ordered l is not quite 
 so strong as it sounds to us ; and his phrase 
 seems to mean that he did not himself depose, 
 , cap. xv. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 97 
 
 he advised that Chad must be deposed by the 
 king and Witan. 
 
 That true and most gentle servant of God, 
 Eddi continues, now understanding what the 
 sin was of being consecrated by quarto- 
 decirnans to another man's see, accepted 
 with humble penitence the judgement of the 
 bishops note the introduction of Wilfrith 
 into the judgement, for Theodore was the 
 only bishop of whose presence anything is 
 said, and only Wilfrith's joint action could 
 justify the use of the plural and with his 
 consent put the holy Bishop Wilfrith into 
 his rightful see of the city of York. No 
 doubt the reading is incorrect, and the word 
 Theodore has been omitted, " Theodore put 
 Wilfrith," or Eddi's meaning was, " Wilfrith 
 was put into the see of York." As it stands, 
 the passage is unintelligible. But now we 
 come to the most remarkable part of Eddi's 
 statement. Wilfrith, he says, returned good 
 for evil. For his faithful friend Wulfhere, 
 king of the Mercians, had given him a territory 
 at Lichfield for a bishop's see, and he knew 
 that it was at the service either of himself 
 or of any one to whom he wished to give 
 it. Accordingly a friendly arrangement was 
 made with Chad, who in all things obeyed 
 
98 THEODORE AND WJLFRITH. 
 
 the bishops, and they ordained him fully to 
 the said see through all the ecclesiastical 
 degrees, and, the Mercian king receiving 
 him in an honourable manner, they appointed 
 him to the said place. I said something on 
 -this point last year l . For the present, I will 
 only say that Bede's narrative seems to me 
 by far the more probable in itself, and 
 decidedly more in accordance with ecclesi- 
 astical discipline. 
 
 . Wilfrith was now installed in the bishopric, 
 of the Church of York, and of all the North- 
 umbrians, and of the Picts too, as far as 
 Oswy had succeeded in pushing his power. 
 And Chad lived a delightful life as bishop 
 of the Mercians and the Middle Angles and 
 the men of Lindsey a life that reminded 
 men of the fathers of old times. Short as 
 his time there was, his unwearied labours and 
 his deeply reverential piety made a lasting 
 impression, which has by no means faded 
 away. He died on the 2nd of March, 672, 
 and was succeeded by his deacon Winfrith, 
 whom Theodore consecrated but not long 
 after had to deprive. From the gentle life 
 and peaceful death of Chad, we have to pass 
 to the stormy scenes of the life of Wilfrith. 
 
 1 Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), pp. 118-124. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 99 
 
 It will be no pleasant task to go through his 
 perpetual quarrels ; but from a constitutional 
 point of view, as shewing the determined 
 independence of the English Church in face 
 of the definite claims of Rome to supremacy, 
 they are of the very highest importance, and 
 deserve the closest attention. 
 
 a 2 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 A time of peace and development. Church -building. 
 The First Council of the English Church. Ecgfrith and 
 Wilfrith at variance. Wilfrith expelled from his see 
 and his monasteries. He appeals to Home. 
 
 IN the year 670, Coinwalch of Wessex, who 
 had got on without a bishop since Wini went 
 to London, accepted Agilbert's nephew, Leu- 
 therius, as we saw last year *, and sent him 
 to Theodore to be consecrated. Thus Wessex, 
 which had stood very much alone in its 
 ecclesiastical affairs, gave in its adherence 
 to the new archbishop. But there were 
 losses as well as gains. Oswy, who had 
 come so completely over to the Catholic 
 side that for love of the " Roman and 
 Apostolic institution " he desired to go to 
 Rome and end his life at the holy places, 
 died on the I5th of February in this same 
 
 1 Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), p. 60. 
 
THEODORE AND WILrr.TTlT. IGI 
 
 year, and was succeeded by his son Ecgfrith. 
 Ecgfrith's reign had grave troubles in store 
 for the English Church, and in its end for the 
 Northumbrian kingdom. Though Oswy is 
 distinctly said by Bede to have died in 
 February, 670, it is I think practically 
 certain that we must understand by this 
 February, 671. There are several difficulties 
 in understanding Bede's dates, on account of 
 the uncertainty as to the time at which he 
 takes the year to begin and end. This comes 
 to a head in the case of the Council of Hert- 
 ford, which was held on the very day on 
 which one of the methods of counting years 
 (the Caesarean indiction) made the year end. 
 In 673, again, Theodore's friend, the King of 
 Kent, Ecgbert, died, and his death was the 
 beginning of far-reaching mischief, arising out 
 of the quarrels between his sons. 
 
 But there was now and for some years to 
 come an ecclesiastical peace which allowed 
 solid work to be done. Theodore kept stead- 
 fastly on the watch for opportunities of 
 improving the organisation of the Church, 
 and pressed on the careful teaching of the 
 young. All were to be taught the Creed and 
 the Lord's Prayer in the vulgar tongue. 
 
 This became a marked feature of the 
 
702 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 English Church. Bede, in his Epistle to 
 Ecgbert, specially pressed it on that prelate. 
 " Those who do not understand Latin must 
 be made to learn the Catholic Faith which 
 is contained in the Apostles' Creed, and the 
 Lord's Prayer, in their own tongue, and to 
 repeat them again and again. And that not 
 for laymen out in the world only, but for 
 clergy, too, and monks. I have myself often 
 given to unlearned priests, to many of them, 
 an English translation of the Creed and the 
 Lord's Prayer." 
 
 Wilfrith busily occupied himself in bring- 
 ing his personal influence to bear in all parts 
 of the north, and in setting an example of 
 magnificence in church- building. " Magni- 
 ficence " is of course a relative term, but we 
 can scarcely read the account of two of the 
 churches which he built without realising 
 that they were in themselves striking build- 
 ings, worthy of comparison even with some 
 of the best of the continental churches. 
 Indeed of Hexham it was said, by one who 
 knew, that it was the finest church north of 
 the Alps. Benedict Biscop, too, was building 
 then. Monkwearmouth Church, of which we 
 have the tower and porch of entrance still, 
 with its considerable monastery which has 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 103 
 
 now entirely disappeared, dates from the year 
 672 l . Jarrow Church, which is so full of 
 remains of its first erection, dates from 685 2 ; 
 it also was built by Biscop. The existing 
 chancel is in all reasonable probability in the 
 main the original church. 
 
 Wilfrith began with the cathedral church 
 of York, commenced by Paulinus in 627 and 
 continued by Oswald some ten years later. 
 In 670 it was in a lamentable state of neglect 
 and decay. The roof let in water, the birds 
 flew in and out through the unfenced windows, 
 the walls within were filthy. He covered the 
 roof with lead ; put glass in the windows, 
 which stopped the birds, but, as Eddi thinks 
 it necessary to assure us, let the light pass 
 through ; washed the walls and made them 
 whiter than snow (purists may hope this did 
 not mean white-wash, but I suspect it did) ; 
 provided all necessary furniture for the 
 church and the altar (clearly there was as 
 yet only one altar, but that was soon 
 
 1 For details of Monkwearmouth and its sculptured 
 remains, ee my pamphlet Notes on Monkwearmouth Church, 
 Cambridge University Press, 1886. 
 
 a See its dedication stone, " anno xv Ecgfridi regis," 
 Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), plate 9, p. 209. This 
 may mean the year 686. 
 
TO4 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 changed) ; and richly endowed the church 
 with lands. 
 
 In Alcuin's long poein on the bishops and 
 archbishops of York, we learn that the church 
 which Wilfrith thus restored was not to last 
 very long. Archbishop Albert, a cousin of 
 the king, and formerly head master of the 
 famous school of York, the only school in 
 the kingdom with a continuous life from 
 that time to this, added two altars ; a very 
 splendid one dedicated to St. Paul, " the 
 teacher of the world, whom this teacher 
 loved excessively," and another dedicated to 
 the martyrs and the Cross l . York had been 
 burned, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells 
 us, in 741, and Symeon of Durham tells us 
 further that the Minster was consumed in the 
 flames. Albert set to work to build a great 
 basilica 2 , in its place, or as an additional 
 church, the former, as I think, being on the 
 whole the sounder view. It was very lofty, 
 supported on strong columns with arches 
 above, with many porches or side-chapels, 
 and no less than thirty altars. It was 
 
 1 De Pontificibus et Sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracensis (Raine, 
 Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, Master 
 of the Rolls Series, vol. i), lines 1486-1505. York has a 
 church called by the quaint name of "St. Crux/' 
 
 2 Ib. lines 1506-1515. 
 
1. ST. CUTHBERT'S PORTABLE ALTAR. [p. 105. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 105 
 
 dedicated to fostering wisdom (alniae sophiae). 
 This dedication, and the Greek word in Latin 
 letters, reminds us of the contemporary small 
 altar-slab found 1 on Acca's breast when his 
 grave was opened about A.D. 1000, with the 
 inscription almae trinitati, hagiae sophiae, 
 sanctae mariae. I give a representation 
 (figure i) of the similar altar-slab found on 
 the breast . of St. Cuthbert, an account of 
 which will be found on pages 276-278. 
 
 Albert entrusted the building work to two 
 men of great distinction, Eanbald, who suc- 
 ceeded him as archbishop, and Alcuin, who 
 had been his pupil at the York School and 
 succeeded him as head master, an office which 
 he did not resign even when he went to take 
 charge of the education of Charlemagne's 
 kingdom. Lest it should seem strange that 
 the master of the school should have charge 
 of the building, it may be explained that 
 down to the Norman times, when a dean 
 was created and interposed, the master was 
 the greatest official in the cathedral next to 
 the archbishop. 
 
 Money poured into Wilfrith's coffers, and 
 he spent it with a free hand on all kinds 
 
 1 Symeon of Durham, an. 740. Surtees Society, vol. 51, 
 p. 14. 
 
io6 
 
 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 of church work. 
 
 2. Monkwearmouth ; 
 jamb of doorway. 
 
 At his own favourite Ripon 
 he built a basilica, of 
 dressed stone from the 
 foundations in the earth 
 up to the roof. This 
 church is described as 
 supported by many col- 
 umns and porches ; these 
 were probably side - 
 chapels (though only one 
 altar is spoken of) with 
 baluster-shafts at the 
 entrances through the 
 walls of the church. 
 I found some years ago 
 at Monkwearmouth, 
 which was being built at 
 this time of which we 
 are speaking, that the 
 ancient baluster - shafts, 
 so safely kept in the 
 vestry, would just fit 
 the jamb-spaces left at 
 the entrance from the 
 church into the west 
 porch, two shafts on 
 each side, and that the 
 
 fine pair of stone lions in the vestry would 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 107 
 
 exactly fit as capitals on the top of the pairs 
 of baluster-shafts, carrying the spring of the 
 arch in the west wall. I give a representa- 
 tion of the appearance which each side of the 
 doorway would present as you passed through 
 the thickness of the wall. An explanation, 
 and further remarks and illustration, will be 
 found at pages 290, 291. If we imagine 
 a rectangular church, with a square apse or 
 porticus at the east end, and a square porticus 
 of entrance at the west with a west opening 
 into a small baptistery, and square side-chapels 
 along the north and south sides, the entrances 
 to all being by archways thus supported and 
 ornamented, we shall see in imagination a 
 very rich and varied effect, justifying Eddi's 
 description of the church of Ripon as sup- 
 ported by various columns and porticoes. 
 
 At p. 1 1 2 I give the pattern on a stone which 
 may well have been the capital of the porch 
 of entrance to Wilfrith's church at Ripon. 
 
 This church, Eddi tells us, Wilfrith con- 
 secrated to the Lord, dedicating it to the 
 honour of St. Peter, chief of the Apostles. 
 The altar with its vases he dedicated to the 
 Lord, and vested it in purple woven with 
 gold ; and the people communicating at the 
 time of the consecration fulfilled all in 
 
I08 THEODORE AND 
 
 a canonical manner. He provided also for 
 the church a miracle of beauty, unheard 
 of before in those times. This was a book 
 of the Gospels, written in letters of purest 
 gold on purpled parchment ; the cover or 
 case was made of purest gold, in which the 
 skilled workmen embedded the most precious 
 gems. 
 
 A splendid manuscript, written in letters of 
 gold on purple vellum, sent back to England 
 in 1889 from Berlin, among other MSS. from 
 the Hamilton Library which the German 
 Emperor (who had purchased the collection) 
 thought should remain here, was for some 
 time believed to be this very codex of 
 Wilfrith's. It was the book given by the 
 Pope to Henry VIII ; and as Wolsey was 
 Archbishop of York, and had command of 
 the northern service books and manuscript 
 treasures, it was thought that he had procured 
 it for the Pope. By the kindness of Messrs. 
 Sotheby and Co., I was allowed to examine 
 it on several afternoons. The readings in 
 test passages are not consistent with the 
 theory; and the beautiful codex appears to 
 be constructed of portions of three separate 
 and distinct manuscripts, some parts being 
 less skilful than others and showing dif- 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 ferences of arrangement 1 . In some parts 
 great haste is shown, the leaves having been 
 laid together before they were dry. 
 
 The Inventory a of jewels, &c. in York 
 Minster, compiled soon after 1 500 and revised 
 in 1510, shows that there were at that time 
 five great evangeliaria, two of them known as 
 St. Wilfrith's, in that magnificent collection, 
 any one of which may have been the manu- 
 script of which I am here speaking, while 
 another may have been the actual manuscript 
 prepared for Wilfrith. The Inventory says : 
 
 " Texts of the Gospels. Three texts of the 
 gospels adorned with silver gilt, with great 
 sapphires and other stones embedded in the 
 silver; two of which have representations 
 [only the cover is being described] of the 
 Crucified, of Mary, and of John, and the third 
 has a representation of the Saviour or of his 
 Majesty. Two texts of St. Wilfrid, one of 
 which has a representation of the Crucified, 
 of Mary, and of John, in the lower part, and 
 a representation of the Holy Trinity and two 
 angels in the upper part, in ivory ; the other 
 has a representation of the Crucified in the 
 
 1 I have, so far, been quoting from my Lessons from 
 Early English Church History (S.P.C.K.), p. na. 
 a Surtees Society, vol. 35, p. 223. 
 
IIO THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 lower part, and of the Saviour or of his 
 Majesty, with Peter and Paul } in the upper 
 part." 
 
 The evidence on which it is stated that the 
 manuscript is that given by the Pope to 
 Henry VIII, when he conferred upon him 
 the title of Defender of the Faith, is not 
 very conclusive. It consists solely of the in- 
 scription written in golden letters under the 
 Arms of Henry VIII, 
 
 Fato servatus tibi sum ter maxime Princeps, 
 Te quoque servarunt aurea fata michi, 
 Instaurata nitent per te sacra Dogmata, per te 
 Aureus est author Christus ubique meus. 
 
 The fates have spared me, mighty Prince, for 
 
 thee ; 
 
 The golden fates have spared thee, Prince, for me. 
 The sacred doctrines shine, set firm by thee ; 
 By thee the golden source is Christ throughout 
 
 for me> 
 
 This precious manuscript was sold by 
 auction on May 23, 1889. It was put up at 
 500 and was bought by Mr. Quaritch at 
 1,500. If it could make out its claim to be 
 the manuscript written for Wilfrith, 10,000 
 would be nearer its price. 
 
 The ancient cover has of course disappeared 
 since 1510. It is now bound very handsomely 
 in red morocco, 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. Ill 
 
 Wilfrith arranged and carried out a splendid 
 ceremonial for the consecration of this church, 
 the only existing remnant of which is the 
 confessio, or crypt as it is now called. The 
 new king, Ecgfrith, was present^ and his 
 brother ^Elfwine, with abbats, and royal prae- 
 fects, and governors. Wilfrith stood before 
 the altar, with his face to the people, and 
 read out a list of the lands which in the past 
 and at the date of the consecration the kings 
 had given for the sake of their souls ; the 
 list was subscribed with the consent of the 
 bishops we do not know who the bishops 
 were, or of what sees and of all the princes 
 who gave the lands. There was a further 
 list, of the consecrated places which the British 
 clergy had deserted when they fled before the 
 sword of the invading Angles ; local tradition, 
 no doubt, and the actual ruins, had enabled 
 Wilfrith to identify and recover these sites, 
 about ninety years after the date usually 
 given for the final flight of the British bishop 
 from York. Eddi gives the names of the 
 principal districts bestowed upon the church 
 of Ripon, but we must not stop to enter upon 
 the question of their identification l . 
 
 1 Cap. xviii, 'near Rippel and in Gaedyne and in 
 the region Dunitinga, and Caetlaev.' For ingenious 
 
112 THEODORE AND WILFEITH. 
 
 I have remarked that nothing remains of 
 Wilfrith's church of Kipon except the con- 
 fessio or place where his body was eventually 
 laid. See, however, pages 283 and 284. But 
 there is a stone built into a buttress high up on 
 the outside, on the north, which I have little 
 doubt was the capital of one of the porches 
 of entrance. There is a capital still in situ 
 in the very ancient little church of Kirkby, 
 near Boroughbridge, of much the same char- 
 
 3. Capital at Ripon. 
 
 acter, only with some foliage work. The 
 stone in the buttress at Ripon shews three 
 faces, all of them having skilful patterns in 
 relief, of the earliest Anglian type. I give 
 an illustration of one of these faces. The 
 pattern is decidedly commoner, in the sense 
 of being more usual in early manuscripts and 
 on stones, than the two other patterns, both 
 
 guesses and calculations as to the modern localities thus 
 represented, see Canon Raine's notes to Historians of the 
 Church of York (Master of the Rolls Series), i. 26. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRIIH. 113 
 
 of which are rare and remarkable. I choose 
 this one because it is exactly the pattern 
 which is found on the great ambo with the 
 peacock at S. Salvatore in Brescia ; the one 
 piece of sculpture in the north of Italy which 
 in its flowing pattern comes nearest to the 
 skill of the Anglian work of the time. This 
 ambo is figured in Cattaneo Architettura in 
 Italia (Venice 1888). It is one of the many 
 things which make a visit to Brescia so well 
 worth wliilr. 
 
 We now come to a highly important event 
 in the history of our Church, the First Council 
 of the Church of the English. It was held at 
 Hertford, on September 24, 673. It is of so 
 much importance for us clearly to understand 
 its constitution that I will give Bede's words 
 in full * : " Theodore assembled a Council oi 
 Bishops, together with those who loved and 
 knew the canonical statutes of the fathers, 
 very many masters of the Church." We have 
 the complete record of the Acts of the Council, 
 as subscribed by the hands of those present. 
 The form of subscription was written by the 
 scribe Titillus, from the dictation of Theodore 
 himself; but most unfortunately we have not 
 the list of signatures. If only we had that, 
 
 1 Bede, iv. 5. 
 H 
 
114 THEODOKE AND WI^FRITH. 
 
 we should know at least the names of the 
 masters of the Church who loved and knew 
 the canonical statutes of the fathers. The 
 names of the bishops we do know : they are 
 thus set forth by Theodore: "I, Theodore, 
 though unworthy, destined from the Apostolic 
 see as bishop of the Church of Canterbury, 
 and our fellow-bishop l and very reverend 
 brother Bisi bishop of the East Angles ; with 
 whom our brother and fellow-bishop Wilfrith, 
 bishop of the race of the Northumbrians, was 
 present by his proper representatives 2 . There 
 were present also our brothers and fellow- 
 bishops Putta bishop of the castle of the 
 Kentishmen, which is called Hrofescsestir, 
 
 1 Consacerdos, not co-episcopus. At some early periods of 
 our English Church history, sacerdos usually meant bishop, 
 not priest only. It is, indeed, impossible to say with 
 certainty in some cases of inscriptions whether bishop or 
 priest is meant. See further my remarks on the Yarm 
 stone, at p. 162. 
 
 2 Wilfrith's absence seems to me characteristic, as 
 though he did not get on well with others, especially 
 a superior in rank. His being mentioned after Bisi is 
 remarkable, as he was consecrated before him. He was 
 put into his see for the first time by Theodore, and it is 
 possible that Theodore names him second as though he 
 had only begun to count precedence from that event ; but 
 that is against Canon 8 of this very council. It is 
 conceivable that Wilfrith's absence was due to some 
 controversy on this point. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 1 15 
 
 Leutherius bishop of the West Saxons, Vyn- 
 frid bishop of the province of the Mercians." 
 It will be seen that nothing is said of our 
 simoniacal bishop, Wini, who had not as yet 
 vacated the place which St. Erkenwald filled 
 with so much credit. There is a tradition 
 that he retired from the exercise of his office 
 three years before his death ; Erkenwald was 
 consecrated by Theodore in 675. " And when 
 we were all met together and had sat down 
 each according to his order, * I ask of you/ 
 said I, * my dearly beloved brethren, that all 
 in common we treat of our faith, that what- 
 ever things have been settled by holy and 
 approved fathers may be kept uncorruptedly 
 by all of us/ I went on to say many things 
 pertaining to charity and to the preservation 
 of the unity of the Church. And when I had 
 finished my prefatory remarks, I asked each 
 of them in order if they agreed to keep the 
 things which had been canonically decreed of 
 old by the fathers. To this all our fellow- 
 bishops said in reply : ' It very greatly pleases 
 us all, that whatsoever the canons of the holy 
 fathers have defined, we also all of us should 
 most readily and willingly keep.' Thereupon 
 I produced the said book of canons, and put 
 to them ten heads, which I had marked here 
 H 2 
 
THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 
 
 and there, as specially important to be laid 
 before them and most diligently kept by all." 
 The points which Theodore thought so 
 fundamentally important, considering the 
 state of the English Church, were these : 
 
 1. That East'er be kept on the Sunday after 
 the day of full moon. 
 
 2. That a bishop do not invade another's 
 diocese. 
 
 3. That monasteries be exempt from inter- 
 ference by bishops. 
 
 4. That monks stay in one monastery, un- 
 less their abbat gives them leave to migrate. 
 
 5. That no cleric wander beyond his own 
 diocese, or be received elsewhere without com- 
 mendatory letters from his bishop. If he be 
 received, and refuses to return, he and his 
 receiver shall be excommunicated. 
 
 6. That travelling bishops and clergy do 
 not exercise any priestly office without the 
 permission of the bishop through whose dio- 
 cese they happen to be passing. 
 
 7. That a synod be held twice a year ; but 
 as there are difficulties in the way, that they 
 meet on August i in each year at Clofeshoch. 
 
 8. That no bishop put himself before 
 another for ambition, but each recognise the 
 time and order of their consecration. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 117 
 
 9. That the number of bishops be increased, 
 to meet the increase in the number of the 
 faithful. But for the present we have kept 
 silence about this. 
 
 10. Of wedlock : that none but lawful mar- 
 riage be allowed ; that no one commit incest ; 
 that no one leave his own wife, except, as the 
 holy Gospel teaches, for the reason of forni- 
 cation. And if any one have driven from him 
 his own wife, joined to him in lawful matri- 
 mony, let him be coupled to no other, if he 
 wishes to be truly a Christian ; but let him so 
 remain, or else be reconciled to his own wife. 
 
 We need not discuss the bearing of these 
 rules. They speak for themselves, and for the 
 times. Number 3 is, as I think, clearly 
 against a view to which I referred last year, 
 that the monastery churches were the begin- 
 nings of the parochial churches. It seems to 
 me to tell exactly the other way, for the 
 bishops certainly had the responsibility for 
 the people outside the monasteries. This 
 curious determination to have the monasteries 
 independent of the episcopal authority led to 
 much trouble. Even as early as Bede's time 
 it had become exceedingly advisable that 
 these institutions should be kept in order by 
 some external power. 
 
Il8 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Number 10 speaks to our own times too. 
 Controversial ingenuity makes it not mean 
 what it plainly does mean, that if a man puts 
 away his wife for any cause, he must not 
 marry another if he desires to be regarded as 
 a Christian. That was the earliest canon of 
 the English Church on the subject, and it for- 
 bade the re-marriage of the " innocent party." 
 But those who hold the view that the " inno- 
 cent party " may marry again, say that that 
 is allowed in the first paragraph, and that the 
 second paragraph refers to some lawless expul- 
 sion of a wife not guilty of fornication. It 
 seems to me that in that case the canon would 
 have said " he must take her back." On this 
 explanation, a man might expel a wife without 
 lawful cause, and all the Church said to him 
 was, " don't marry again if you wish to be 
 truly a Christian." A curious idea of " truly 
 a Christian," to have expelled a wife for any- 
 thing less than a lawful cause. Bede was 
 quite clear what was the force of the Scrip- 
 tures. He says of putting away (Exposition 
 of Mark, ch. x): "There is one carnal cause, 
 fornication ; there is one spiritual cause, to 
 enter a religious body. But there is no cause, 
 in all the law of God, for marrying another 
 woman while the one put away still lives." 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. IIQ 
 
 The sources whence the several canons thus 
 extracted by Theodore came, are known : they 
 will be found set forth in Johnson's English 
 Canons, and in Haddan and Stubbs, vol. iii. 
 Our Roman friends would give the idea that 
 the English Church relied upon Rome for 
 guidance in all such things. Nothing could 
 be more completely out of harmony with the 
 facts. The first nine of the ten canons come 
 from the following collections of canons, the 
 number appended to each name shewing the 
 number of times that source supplies the sub- 
 stance of a canon: Africa (4), Antioch (4), 
 Apostolic Canons (4), Chalcedon (4), Lao- 
 dicea (i), Leonine (i), Nicaea (2), Sardica (3). 
 The tenth canon comes from Neocesarea, 
 Basil, and the Apostolic Canons. There is 
 not much support for any Roman theory in 
 that list. 
 
 And indeed it is a very remarkable thing, 
 if there is any substance at all in modern 
 Roman claims, that throughout the action of 
 this council no reference whatever is made to 
 the opinion of Rome on any matter. Theodore 
 describes himself, truly, as sent by the Apos- 
 tolic See (the see, that is, founded by the 
 Apostles Peter and Paul, who appointed Linus 
 as its first bishop, according to the earliest and 
 
120 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 best account we have, that of Irenaeus), and 
 there the connection with Rome ends. Neither 
 the word " Rome," nor the name of any Pope, 
 is mentioned ; nor is there any hint of any 
 regard to what Rome thought ; nor any hint 
 of any dependence upon Rome or Rome's 
 authority. It was national, self-governing 
 action. 
 
 Nothing is said of the presence of any lay 
 element. In the British times, the lay people 
 were the final judges in the contest between 
 the orthodox and the Pelagians ; but that did 
 not profess to be a synod or a council. The 
 presence of clergy other than bishops is noted, 
 but we do not find that Theodore gave them 
 any opportunity of* expressing their opinion. 
 It was clearly advantageous that learned 
 clerics should be on the spot, to advise on 
 matters of fact. Unless the work of a bishop 
 was very different then from what it is now 
 as no doubt it was the bishops had not the 
 tame opportunities for study as those had who 
 led a more retired life. In the present day, 
 the knowledge possessed by the learned clergy 
 of the Church of England is, fortunately, 
 always at the disposal of the diocesan bishops ; 
 and at the same time it is fortunately tiue, as 
 I hope it always will be, that when the 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 121 
 
 diocesan bishops meet in council, they have 
 among them men second to none in learning. 
 No king is mentioned in connection with the 
 Council of Hertford. At the synod of Hat- 
 field, seven years later, the names of the 
 bishops present are not given, but the regnal 
 years of four of the kings are stated, in the 
 following order: Northumbria, Mercia, East 
 Anglia, Kent. When it came to general busi- 
 ness affecting the kingdoms, the king presided, 
 as at Whitby and Nidd. The Greek sense of 
 the importance of united action as between 
 Church and State was no doubt present in 
 Theodore's mind, as contrasted with the Roman 
 fashion of getting rid of the State as much as 
 possible, and acting as an independent au- 
 thority; an imperium in imperio was not 
 Theodore's idea of good practical organisation. 
 Almost immediately after this council, Bisi's 
 health broke down, and Theodore had an 
 opportunity of appointing two bishops in his 
 place, to Dunwich and Elmham ; thus the 
 increase of the episcopate began much sooner 
 than he had expected. And within two years 
 Wini was dead, and Theodore appointed St. 
 Erkenwald, of whom I wish there were time 
 to tell some at least of the pleasant things 
 which might be told of one whose noble shrine 
 
122 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 was a chief glory of this our Church of 
 St. Paul four hundred years ago. And, still in 
 675, Theodore deposed Winfrid of Mercia, for 
 some unnamed disobedience, and in his place 
 appointed Saxulf. Here at least we might have 
 expected a subdivision, as in East Anglia ; but 
 the time, we must suppose, was not ripe. It 
 has been suggested that Winfrid was deposed 
 because he withstood Theodore's wish to sub- 
 divide the great Mercian bishopric ; but if that 
 had been so, it was surely a very lame con- 
 clusion to put one sole bishop in his place. 
 
 In 675 and 676 political events led to 
 further changes in the arrangement of dioceses. 
 Ecgfrith of Northumbria attacked Wulfhere 
 of Mercia, and took from him the province of 
 Lindsey, say Lincolnshire. Wulfhere died, 
 and his successor, Ethelred, violently invaded 
 Kent and destroyed Rochester. The bishop, 
 Putta, was from home, and hearing that the 
 place of his see was devastated by the Mercian 
 arms, he did not return, and Saxulf of Mercia 
 gave him episcopal charge of a small portion 
 of Mercian territory, which in the course of 
 time grew into the diocese of Hereford. Theo- 
 dore made Cuichelm bishop of Rochester, but 
 he found himself starved out, and Gebmund 
 was made bishop in his stead. The conquest 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 123 
 
 of Lindsey by Ecgfrith led to more serious 
 difficulties, to which we must turn after one 
 more look at Wilfrith at his happiest and best. 
 Eddi's twenty-first chapter is one of the 
 gems of his biography. With Ecgfrith's con- 
 quests, Wilfrith's episcopal rule grew amain. 
 He was diligent in the performance of his 
 duty, and was everywhere beloved. He or- 
 dained large numbers of priests and deacons 
 throughout his wide province. He guided the 
 bark of the Church with discretion through 
 dangerous waves. His own personal life was 
 a life of most careful moderation. In watching 
 and praying, in reading and in fasting, there 
 was no one like him. He kept himself per- 
 fectly pure from boyhood to old age. Every 
 one trusted him. Abbats and abbesses made 
 over to him the ownership of their estates, or 
 left him their heir. Secular princes and 
 noblemen gave him their sons to educate, so 
 that they should when the time of choice 
 came serve God in the ecclesiastical life or 
 serve the king in arms. This admirable prac- 
 tice of bringing them all up in one school, in 
 a way to fit them for either kind of life, may 
 well make those of us who are northerners 
 proud of our earliest school in the north ; 
 especially those of us who belong to the school 
 
124 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 of York, which alone of English schools has 
 lasted from that time to this. 
 
 Ecgfrith the king, and Etheldreda the queen, 
 loved Wilfrith for his own sake, and earnestly 
 supported him in his work. Etheldreda gave 
 him a district of land with Hexham as its 
 centre, and there he built a church more mag- 
 nificent even than that of Ripon. This church 
 he founded in honour of St. Andrew, in whose 
 church at Rome he had prayed, as we have 
 seen. Near the end of his life, the archangel 
 Michael appeared to him, at a time when he 
 thought that he was dying so he told Acca, 
 his successor at Hexham and blamed him 
 because, while he had built churches in honour 
 of St. Peter and St. Andrew, he had built none 
 in honour of the Virgin Mary. This does not 
 look very like early England being " Mary's 
 dowry," as the modern Romans say ; nor does 
 it look like the Blessed Virgin being regarded 
 as so nearly the one necessary mediator be- 
 tween man and God, that, as Pope Leo XIII 
 says, " as no man goeth to the Father but by 
 the Son, so almost no man goeth to Christ but 
 by His Mother 1 ." 
 
 1 Tabkt, Oct. 10, 1891. The Tablet, as a matter of fact, 
 made the Pope say that " no man goeth to Christ, &c. " ; 
 but the translation was corrected in a later number. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 125 
 
 Eddi gives us a careful account of this 
 famous church of St. Andrew at Hexham, 
 which Acca afterwards greatly beautified, Acca 
 being a man fond of symbolism and full of 
 ecclesiastical taste. Deep in the ground itself 
 Wilfrith built crypts with stones wonderfully 
 dressed. One of these crypts is still one of 
 the great sights of the noble Abbey Church 
 of a later date, which still stands wanting its 
 nave, and still is well used for divine service ; 
 and of this crypt, in itself so very remarkable, 
 the massive stones are one of the great sights, 
 with their careful hatching with the Roman 
 axe in times long before Wilfrith, and their 
 Roman inscriptions, one with the Emperor 
 Geta's name erased by Caracalla's orders. 
 Above the ground the church was multifold, 
 meaning, I suppose, that it was divided off 
 into parts, as narthex, nave, and sanctuary, 
 and that it had several chapels with altars. It 
 is described, as Ripon was, as being supported 
 on various columns and porticoes. The walls 
 were wondrous long and high, and there were 
 several intramural galleries, carried now up 
 and now down by spiral stairs. All this 
 Wilfrith thought out, and Eddi affirms that 
 they had never heard of any such church being 
 built on this side the Alps. He adds that- 
 
126 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Bishop Acca of blessed memory, who succeeded 
 Wilfrith in the bishopric of Hexham, and was 
 still living when he wrote, decorated this 
 multiple church with precious ornaments of 
 gold and silver, and adorned the altars with 
 purple and silk. Of Acca, and his beautiful 
 Cross, I shall have more to say in Lecture VIII. 
 Here, as at Ripon, we have something else 
 remaining besides the crypt. I cannot doubt 
 that the stone chair, of which I give an illus- 
 tration (fig. 4), comes down from Wilfrith's 
 time. He saw, of course, when he was in 
 Rome, the great chairs of marble and of stone 
 in the churches, and presumably in the Colos- 
 seum. The noble marble throne in S. Gregorio, 
 in his time St. Andrew's, I have spoken of in 
 a former series of lectures 1 . The stone chair 
 of St. Ambrose in Milan, in the centre of the 
 presbytery in S. Ambrogio, is more probably 
 the type which Wilfrith copied. It has a 
 plain interlacing roll of pattern running down 
 the two sides which correspond with the 
 front legs of a chair. The stone chair at 
 Hexham has a triquetral interlacing pattern 
 running along the horizontal upper surface of 
 the back and arms. It is a better pattern 
 than that on St. Ambrose's chair ; but that is 
 
 1 Augustine and his Companions) (S.P.C.K.), p. 142. 
 
4. WILFRITH'S CHAIR AT UEXHAM. 
 
 5. BEDE'S CHAIR AT JARROVV. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 127 
 
 exactly what we should expect, My readers 
 may like to see at the same time the very 
 ancient wooden chair which is known at 
 Jarrow as the chair of the Venerable Bede 
 
 (% 5)- 
 
 It is a delightful picture, Wilfrith and 
 Ecgfrith and Etheldreda actively engaged in 
 the church work of the great kingdom of the 
 north. But alas ! the peace, and the happiness, 
 and the work, all were to come to an end. 
 Etheldreda had, as we know, never lived as 
 a wife with her husband. Ecgfrith tried to 
 persuade Wilfrith to influence her in the 
 direction of a change in their relations, but 
 the bishop took the queen's part, and after 
 some years Ecgfrith let her go, and married 
 again. There is nothing to shew that 
 Wilfrith made any objection to this second 
 marriage, and we should much like to know 
 by what legal process Ecgfrith was made clear 
 of Etheldreda and could take another wife. 
 The Council of Hertford had not dealt with 
 this case; its canon was of man's making, 
 and regarded the husband as the only one of 
 the married pair who could make a separation, 
 and here they had in a drastic form the 
 Englishwoman emancipating herself. Certainly 
 Wilfrith and Eddi regarded the new wife as 
 
128 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 lawful, so we must presume that all forms 
 then necessary had been duly gone through. 
 Her name was lurmenburg, and for some 
 unexplained reason she hated the bishop, and 
 set to work to poison the king's mind against 
 him 1 . She pointed out to the king the 
 secular pomp in which Wilfrith lived, and his 
 wealth, and the number of his monasteries, 
 and the magnitude of his buildings, and the 
 innumerable army of attendants that he kept, 
 royally clothed and armed. She brought the 
 king over to her side against Wilfrith, and 
 they plotted to destroy him and seize his 
 property. With this end, they bribed 
 Theodore to come up north and deal with him. 
 That is Eddi's tale ; a very unlikely tale. 
 
 It seems to me that a fairly reasonable 
 solution of many of the difficulties in Wilfrith 's 
 story is found, if we suppose that Ecgfrith 
 always grudged the great gift of Ripon to 
 Wilfrith by his brother Alchfrith, and took it 
 away as a gift by a forfeited person ; and that 
 Ecgfrith in the same way grudged the great 
 gift of Hexham to Wilfrith by his queen 
 Etheldreda, and took it away as a gift by 
 
 1 Eddi says, parenthetically, that after Ecgfrith's death 
 in battle she became a lamb of God, a perfect abbess 
 and mother of a community. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 129 
 
 a queen who had of her own accord ceased to 
 have a queen's right to give. 
 
 Theodore came, picked up three men for 
 bishops, not subjects of the province *, and in 
 Wilfrith's absence consecrated them, alone 
 and contrary to all order, into the several 
 parts of Wilfrith's own bishopric. That again 
 is Eddi's tale. 
 
 It is not clear what Eddi can mean by tin 
 statement that these three men were picked 
 up elsewhere, and not from among the subjects 
 of the province. One of them, Bosa, was 
 educated under Hilda at Whitby. Another, 
 Eata, was one of the twelve Anglian boys 
 whom Aidan trained; he had been in the 
 monastery of Ripon, and was abbat of Lindis- 
 farne when Theodore selected him for the 
 bishopric of Bernicia. The third, Eadhed, 
 had accompanied Chad from Northumbria 
 when he went to Kent to seek consecration. 
 They were all of them, by early association 
 at least, of the school opposed by Wilfrith. 
 Eddi says they were put into Wilfrith's 
 diocese. He ought to have said that two of 
 these men, who certainly were Northumbrians, 
 were put into Wilfrith's diocese, now divided 
 
 1 "Tres episcopos aliunde inventos, et non de subiectis 
 illius provinciae." 
 
 1 
 
130 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 into two, Deira and Bernicia : and that the 
 third was put into a new diocese, comprising 
 the province recently won by Ecgfrith from 
 Mercia, namely Lindsey. This was certainly 
 no part of Wilfrith's diocese of Northumbria, 
 nor had he anything to do with it as bishop. 
 
 When Wilfrith heard what had been done, 
 he went to the king nd the archbishop, 
 and asked them why it was that without any 
 fault of his he was defrauded and robbed of 
 property given to him 1>\ kings for God's 
 work. All through, Wilfrith's complaint 
 always was that he had been robbed of 
 property. ' We ascribe to thee no criminal 
 offence," was their infamous reply, Eddi says ; 
 " but our fixed decrees respecting thee we 
 change not." This makes it clear that his 
 expulsion was part of the decree, and that the 
 decree was the joint act of Church and State. 
 The courtiers laughed at him 1 ; on which he 
 turned upon them and said, " This day year 
 you shall weep bitterly over your own 
 confusion." And so it fell out ; for that day 
 year the corpse of their slain king ^Elfwine 2 
 
 1 We may compare the jeers of the courtiers, and the 
 anger of Becket, when that prelate had his famous inter- 
 view with Henry II, 'and declared tint IK \\ould appeal 
 to the Pope. 
 
 2 A younger brother of Ecgfrith, and presumably 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 13! 
 
 was brought into York umi<l hitter lamenta- 
 tions. 
 
 What the exact order of tin- eventfl really 
 was, we shall I suppose never know. As 
 a matter of fact, a subdivision of the enormous 
 bishopric held by Wilfrith lia<l become 
 absolutely necessary, and was carried out. 
 It Beeotfl to me certain that Wilfrith had 
 been informed of the intention of Theodore, 
 and had in some way indicated that he would 
 not consent to the subdivision, and would not 
 accept a diminished diocese ; and he was 
 accordingly left out of the affair altogether. 
 His definite complaint, as Eddi tells us, was 
 not that he was ousted from the bishopric, 
 but that he was roUx <] of property, no doubt 
 Ripon and Hi-xhain. Helr ' says simply, and 
 with an accuracy which is very much wanting 
 in Eddi's ignorant and reckless fulminations, 
 that * in the year 678 ... a dissension broke 
 out between the king himself and the most 
 reverend prelate Wilfrith, and the said prelate 
 was driven from the seat of his bishopric, and 
 
 sub-king in Deira. He was greatly loved both in Deira 
 and Bernicia, and was killed at the age of eighteen in a 
 great battle near the Trent ^Bede, iv. 21). A. S. Chronicle, 
 679, " This year ^Elfwine was slain near the Trent, where 
 Egferth and JEthelred fought/' 
 
132 THEODORE AND WILFBITH. 
 
 two bishops were put in his place to preside 
 over the Northumbrians, Bosa, with his 
 episcopal chair in York, to govern the 
 province of the Deirans, and Eata, with his 
 episcopal chair in the church of Hexham or 
 in the church of Lindisfarne, to govern the 
 province of the Bernicians. Both of them 
 were called to the bishopric from a college of 
 monks. Along with them, Eadhed was made 
 bishop of Lindsey, very recently conquered 
 from Mercia by Ecgfrith. He was the first 
 bishop of that province . . . for Saxulf had up 
 to that time governed it along with the 
 provinces of the Middle-Angles and the 
 Mercians." That simple sentence explodes 
 Eddi's party tale. "These three bishops,' ' 
 Bede continues, "were consecrated at York 
 by Archbishop Theodore ; and three years 
 later he added two more bishops, Tunbert for 
 Hexham, Eata retaining Lindisfarne, and 
 Truinwine for the province of the Picts, which 
 at that time was subject to the English. As 
 to Eadhed, when Ethelred of Mercia recovered 
 Lindsey, he came back and governed the 
 church of Kipon." Whether that means that 
 Ripon became for one turn a bishopric, that 
 is, whether the province of the Deirans was 
 subdivided into two bishoprics, is a disputed 
 
THEODORE AND WILFBITH. 133 
 
 point. Bede, however, in another place (iii. 28) 
 says distinctly that Eadhed was made bishop 
 (pwesul) of the church of Ripon. Even if it 
 was not so, Bernicia was now subdivided into 
 Lindisfarne and Hexham. Thus the north was 
 well supplied with bishops, considering the 
 very important fact that the Britons still 
 occupied considerable parts of the west of 
 what we call the north of England and the 
 south of Scotland, and that Trumwine had 
 charge of the territories north of the Forth. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is dispassionate. 
 "An. 678. Bishop Wilfrith was driven from 
 his bishopric by king Ecgferth : and two 
 bishops were consecrated in his stead, Bosa to 
 Deira, and Eata to Bernicia. And Eadhed 
 was consecrated over the men of Lindsey ; 
 he was the first of the bishops of Lindsey." 
 That at least shews that the compiler of the 
 early part of the Chronicle accepted the 
 statement that the act of expulsion was an 
 act of the secular power, not of ecclesiastical 
 discipline. As I have already remarked, the 
 Chronicle is for the most part a mere copy 
 of the summary which Bede affixed to his 
 history, so far as the summary covers the 
 ground. Bede's statement in the summary 
 is as follows : " Bishop Wilfrith was driven 
 
134 THEODORE AND WILFBITH. 
 
 from his see by King Ecgfrith ; and Bosa, 
 Eata, and Eadhed were consecrated bishops in 
 his stead." In this case the Chronicle is more full 
 and more correct than the summary, shewing 
 that the compiler used his own knowledge. 
 
 It seems quite clear that whatever may 
 have been the cause of Ecgfrith's annoyance 
 with Wilfrith, the bishop was got rid of in 
 a violent manner, for which no valid defence 
 appears on the page of history, nor is any to 
 be read between the lines. But, as I shall 
 point out more than once, the documents 
 shew that there were, as a matter of fact, 
 grave charges against him, though we do not 
 know what they were. 
 
 If Eddi's statement can at all be trusted, 
 Wilfrith had to ask himself, very properly 
 and rightly, what he should do. Here was 
 this Greek, who had been given to England 
 by the discretion of the bishop of Rome, and 
 had been sent with a nurse to keep him from 
 breaking out into irregular doctrine, here he 
 was, breaking out into uncanonical action, 
 getting rid of bishops who could not see as he 
 saw, and consecrating others in their stead 
 without calling any colleagues to assist in the 
 consecration. And of the three bishops as 
 Eddi wrongly says foisted into his place, 
 
THKolM.KI. AND WIU'h'lTH. 135 
 
 not one was quite free from taint. Whitby, 
 whence Bosa came, had been the stronghold 
 of the non-catholic view, whose defeat was 
 represented by WiltVith ; Hilda herself had 
 trained Bosa, and HiMa was one of tin 
 accusns of Wilfrith at Rom.-. Kata had been 
 turned out of Ripon by Alchfrith because lu 
 would not conform to the view held by 
 Alchfrith, and Wilfrith himself had been put 
 into the place thus compulsorily vacated by 
 Eata. Eadhed was actually one of the men 
 who had gone with Chad to Wini of Wessex, 
 when Wini called in two British bishops, 
 schismatics and quartodecimans as Wilfrith 
 < ;illt <1 them, to help him to consecrate Chad. 
 Those were the men whom Theodore now put 
 in Wilfrith's place. It was a quite ideal 
 revenge for the insular party, if not in 
 principle at least in y />/,/?/, and it seems 
 impossible that Wilfrith can have disregarded 
 this rather critical side of the many-sided 
 question he had to face. Even a man of mild 
 disposition must have felt very angry about 
 it. But a man of mild disposition would 
 never have been in such a scrape. 
 
 Eddi says that Wilfrith consulted the other 
 English bishops, and that they supported him 
 m the view he took, It seems to me that 
 
136 THEODORE AND WILFBITH. 
 
 a statement in Wilfrith's petition to Agatho 
 easts doubts upon these statements. See p. 147. 
 My personal belief is that Eddi cannot make 
 a statement of simple fact on such a point. 
 We must have heard of it from other sources 
 if Theodore stood alone among the bishops in 
 England in this highly important matter. 
 The facts point quite the other way. Wil- 
 frith's view was, that he must go to Rome, 
 and let the Pope know what the archbishop 
 he had given was doing in England. There 
 was no other power on earth to whom he 
 could take his case with any sort of propriety. 
 To the Pope, seeing as he saw and feeling as 
 he felt, he could properly take it. While 
 I always have approved of his being roundly 
 punished by the Northumbrian king and 
 Witan for going to a foreign court for justice, 
 I am quite prepared to. think that between 
 that and the alternative of sitting still under 
 his tremendous grievance, a high-spirited man 
 had much to say for himself in going to 
 Rome. It was in this way, by people dis- 
 satisfied with the government at home going 
 elsewhere to stir up opposition, that the 
 Pope's power grew in Europe and in England. 
 Ecgfrith at the height of his power was not 
 very likely to listen to threats from the out- 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 137 
 
 side of any temporal interference ; but a good 
 round curse, imposing eternal damnation, was 
 a very different matter. Besides, it was an 
 ecclesiastical matter, vitally affecting an 
 ecclesiastical person, and the Pope was beyond 
 all question the greatest ecclesiastical person- 
 age in the western world. Anyhow, to Rome 
 Wilfrith went. He did not make much of it, 
 even when the curses were obtained. The 
 date of his expulsion was probably 678. It 
 was 686 before he was again recognised as 
 bishop in any pail of Northumbria, and even 
 when he was recognised it was only partially, 
 and it was in detailed violation of the Pope's 
 detailed injunctions. 
 
 6. Capital at Hackness, see p. 280. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 The hearing of Wilfrith's appeal at Rome. Agatho's 
 full Papal claims. His title of universal bishop. His 
 decision in Wilfrith's case. Reception accorded to his 
 Decision in Northuml'ria. Wilfrith's imprisonment, re- 
 lease, and banishment. Further disregard of the Roman 
 decision, and independent action of Theodore. Net re- 
 sult of Theodore's subdivision of dioceses. The Council 
 of Hatfield ; double Procession of the Holy Ghost. 
 Theodore's reconciliation with Wilfrith. Partial re- 
 storation of Wilfrith. but still in violation of Agatho's 
 deer 
 
 ON Wilfrith's adventures on his way to 
 Rome we must not dwell. He was driven by 
 storm to the coast of Frisia, thus escaping 
 a plot to waylay him at Etaples, where 
 Winfrith, whom Theodore had expelled from 
 Mercia, was plundered in his stead, by reason 
 of the similarity of name. Eddi, who was 
 nothing if not a partisan, rejoices in the 
 mistake. Wilfrith's enemies incited the 
 Mayor of the Palace to seize him at Quentavic 
 
IHKnDORK AND WILFRITH. 139 
 
 and spoil his goods. They seized Winfrith 
 instead, took all his property, slew his 
 attendants, and left him stripped naked. 
 They were misled, K<l<li ivnuirks. *' by 
 a fortunate error in on< Ktt.r.' Wilfrith 
 preached to the Kri>ian pagans, and paved 
 the way for Wilbrord, a Ripon monk, who 
 came to Frisia eleven years later, and became 
 Archbishop of Utrecht. Passing on, he was 
 offered by King Dagobert 1 the bishopric of 
 Strassburg, called Streitburg by Eddi. The 
 see became vacant on July 21, 679, by the 
 death of Arbogast. Florentius succeeded, on 
 the refusal of Wilfrith. who was bent on reach- 
 ing Rome. From Strassburg he went on to 
 l'a\ia, wln'iv the Lorn ban! kin-'. Berchtar, 
 instead of destroying him in continuation of 
 th plot at Etaples, treated him well and sent 
 him on to Rome. At Rome he was received 
 with great kindness. His cause was known 
 already, for Theodore had sent to Pope Agatho 
 an account of what had taken place. The 
 decision of the synod held by Agatho was, 
 
 1 Dagobert was the Merovingian king of Austrasia, the 
 eastern part of the Frank kingdom. Austrasia had no 
 sea-coast available for passengers from England to the 
 Continent ; they must land in Neustria. It was the 
 Neustrian Mayor of the Palace who intended to despoil 
 Wilfrith. 
 
140 THEODORE AND WILFEITH. 
 
 roughly speaking, that the right thing had 
 been done, in the increase of the number of 
 bishops, but done wrongly. Wilfrith was to 
 be restored, and the three inserted bishops 
 were to be sent about their business. 
 A council was to be called, and Wilfrith was 
 to choose with their consent other assistant 
 bishops to help him in the work of the great 
 diocese ; and these Theodore was to conse- 
 crate. As far as I can judge, the principle 
 of the decision apart from the important 
 question which I think it raised, between 
 diocesan and assistant bishops was sound 
 and just. Whether Agatho had the right to 
 give a decision at all, is another question ; 
 and to that question history answers "no/' 
 That he had not the power to enforce it 
 became evident. It was never obeyed. 
 
 Having stated the net result of the appeal 
 to Home, we must now look carefully into the 
 documents, and especially into the petition of 
 Wilfrith to the Apostolic See. The information 
 is given by Eddi in so complete a form that 
 we cannot but understand that he had 
 Wilfrith's own parchments to copy from. 
 There is another professed decision of 
 Agatho about the English Church at this very 
 same time ; but the record comes no one 
 
THEODORE AND WILPRITH. 14! 
 
 knows whence, and it is in most parts a mere 
 slavish copy of the record we are about to 
 consider. I shall pass it by as nut worth 
 attention, at least for our present purpose. 
 So far as controversy is concerned, I think 
 we have Agatho's claim to jurisdiction fully 
 stated in the documents in Eddi. Of the 
 other (professed) council, neither Eddi, nor 
 Bede, nor William of Malmesbury, nor as far 
 as I know any one before Spelman, knows or 
 tells anything at all. 
 
 Agatho summoned certain bishops and 
 presbyters, more than fifty in all, to meet in 
 the Basilica of the Saviour, called of 
 Constantino. This, as we saw two years ago *, 
 was the old home of the magnificent family of 
 the Laterani, which came to Constantine 
 through his wife Fausta in 307, and was given 
 by him to Pope Silvester. On part of the 
 site Constantine and Silvester built the great 
 basilica, hence called Constantiniana, known 
 now to all the world as the Lateran. It still 
 bears on its front the proud inscription, not- 
 withstanding the fact that the later cult of 
 St. Peter has shifted the centre of gravity to 
 the Vatican, Mother and head of all the 
 churches of this city and of the world. From 
 
 1 Aitgusiine and his Companions (S.P.C.K.), pp. 123, 124. 
 
142 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 this church the Cathedral Church of Canter- 
 bury took its dedication under Augustine, to 
 " the Saviour Jesus Christ." 
 
 Agatho informed the assembly that dissen- 
 sions had arisen in the churches of Britain, 
 a report of which had reached him both by 
 word of mouth and by letter. 
 
 Andrew the (Cardinal) bishop of Ostia and 
 John the (Cardinal) bishop of Portus, informed 
 the council that they had examined the 
 documents, including letters from Theodore 
 and others, with the help of a committee 
 appointed by the Pope " on the will of whose 
 apostolic authority hangs the ordering of all 
 churches, who is vice-gerent of the blessed 
 Peter, chief of the Apostles, on whom Christ 
 the Lord conferred the keys of binding and 
 loosing." There is no mistake about that 
 claim, nor about the Pope's own words " by 
 our mouth our author the blessed Peter the 
 Apostle, whose ministry we exercise, provides, 
 &c." Nor, on the other hand, is there any 
 doubt about the fact that not all the Pope's 
 claims made the Northumbrian king and 
 council, or the northern bishops, or Theodore 
 the archbishop, pay any heed to the Pope's 
 decree. It is a useful example of a criticism 
 fatal to many of at least the early Papal 
 
THKoI>',I;| AM) WII.KKITM. 143 
 
 claims. The Popes made tremendous claims, 
 of that there is no manner of doubt. They 
 bore witness manfully to themsrlv* >. in 
 complete default of other witness. And the 
 adherents of the papacy of to-<lay <|iiote their 
 confident expressions as though tin -y had 
 some value a- 'vil>nce. But \\li n you ask 
 of early history the pertiix ni -juestion, -li'l 
 other people bow down before these tremen- 
 dous claims, which would naturally send 
 every one to their knees if they were really 
 believed?" the answer of history here and 
 in plenty of other cases is a very decided 
 "no!" 
 
 We must bear tan fully in mind the fact 
 that it was Pope Agatho and his representa- 
 tives who took the supremely important step 
 of claiming and using the title of Universal 
 Bishop, or Bishop of the whole World, for the 
 Bishop of Rome, at a General Council. Our 
 own great Gregory, as we have seen ] , declared 
 the use of that title to be in itself pestiferous 
 and profane, and its assumption to betoken 
 the approach of antichrist. It now became 
 a usual title. We must read between the 
 lines of the bold assertions of Agatho and his 
 cardinals the fact that they were actively 
 
 (attfk ami his Companions^ pp. 15, 159. 
 
144 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 engaged in creating supreme claims. In 
 a later lecture I propose to shew how very 
 differently a Pope wrote to a king of England 
 fifty years later 1 . Agatho was a main mover, 
 also, in the gradual emancipation of the see 
 of Rome from its severe subjection to the 
 Imperial power. He obtained from Constan- 
 tine Pogonatus a reduction (or possibly 
 a remission) of the large sums of money 
 a new bishop of Rome had to pay to the 
 Emperor. All this must be borne in mind ; 
 it amounts to a very heavy discount on 
 Agatho 's extravagant claims. 
 
 The cardinals reported that the aforesaid 
 most holy Archbishop Theodore had expelled 
 from his see of York Wilfiith, loved of God. 
 That seems to put an end to the important 
 question, was it the king and the Witan, or 
 was it the archbishop, or was it the king and 
 the archbishop, that deposed and expelled 
 Wilfrith, as a matter of legal procedure ? 
 But it is more than possible that the secular 
 power did say the last word, and the Pope 
 and his council preferred to put the responsi- 
 bility on Theodore, a person whom they 
 might hope to touch as being an ecclesiastic. 
 However that might be, they quite passed 
 1 Lecture VII, p. 231. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 145 
 
 over the share of the king in the matter. 
 The cardinals proceeded to say that though 
 Theodore's letters raised a number of points 
 what they were we do not know, except 
 that Wilfrith was described as a fugitive or 
 subterfugeing bishop the committee found 
 that no offence of Wilfrith against the canons 
 was shewn, so that he was not canonically 
 deposed ; nor could the accused prove that he 
 had committed wickednesses for which he 
 could be degraded. I should gath i from this 
 that the case against Wilfrith was based on 
 the latter kind of charge, malpractice of some 
 kind which the secular power could touch, 
 not action contrary to ecclesiastical canons. 
 No offence against canon was shewn; and 
 no crime was proved. They went on to say 
 that Wilfrith had acted with great moderation 
 in not allowing himself to be mixed up with 
 certain seditious disputes. There again we 
 can only guess at the meaning of the com- 
 mittee of enquiry ; but at least we can see 
 that there were complications of which Eddi 
 is careful to say nothing, complications which 
 must have been important to be thus referred 
 to. "Wilfrith," the report concluded, '-when 
 expelled, had informed his fellow-bishops of 
 the merits of the case" it will be seen 
 
146 THEODORE AND WILFRITH, 
 
 shortly that Wilfrith himself told the Romans 
 that Theodore had other bishops with him 
 when he decided upon his action "and had 
 then come to the Apostolic see, in which 
 Christ the omnipotent Lord founded the 
 princedom (principatum) of the chief priest- 
 hood, who bought the Church with His own 
 Blood, and strengthened it with the authority 
 of the chief (or prince) of the Apostles. Let 
 the authority of the Pope's apostleship declare 
 what must be done in the matter." That was 
 the committee's report and recommendation. 
 
 Agatho thereupon informed the assembly 
 that Wilfrith was in the ante-room, and 
 desired to present in person his petition. He 
 was admitted, and begged the Pope to receive 
 his petition and have it read. Agatho replied, 
 " let the petition be read in the presence of 
 all"; and John the notary read it to the 
 holy and Apostolic council. We must go to 
 the pith of the petition. And here again we 
 are met by the difficulty that Wilfrith does 
 not say who were the people against whom 
 he complained. I cannot but think that he 
 and the Romans alike were anxious to stick 
 to two principles, not to name the king and 
 queen and Witan, and not to put Theodore in 
 the position of a culprit. ' : Certain invaders 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 147 
 
 of my bishopric, with unlawful presumption, 
 finding in me no canonical fault, in council 
 with Theodore (in conventn Theodwi) the 
 most holy archbishop of the Church of the 
 Kentish men, and other bishops (antitititwn) 
 then assembled with him he was therefore 
 not alone among the bishops of England, far 
 from that, in his resolve as to the right course 
 to pursue " planned to invade and robber- 
 like take away my see, which for ten years 
 and more I had ruled, and to seat in it not 
 one bishop only but three, their promotion 
 being uncanonical. The fact that the most 
 holy Archbishop Theodore consecrated three 
 bishops to my see J , in my life- time, without 
 my acquiescence, on his own authority, 
 without the consent of any bishop at all " 
 this seems to contradict the earlier statement 
 in the petition " it is more seemly for me to 
 pass by than to make much of: he was sent 
 to Britain by this most exalted Apostolic see ; 
 I dare not accuse him." Very skilful flattery 
 of the man who was building up the claim of 
 supremacy. The petition then proceeded to 
 
 1 This looks as if Wilfrith regarded the conquest of 
 Liiidsey by Ecgfrith as adding that province to his 
 diocese of Northumbria. If that is so, it is an interesting 
 fact. Other indications tell in the same direction. 
 K I 
 
148 THEODORE AND WILFBITH. 
 
 point out that Wilfrith had made no' dis- 
 turbance, had not attempted to get back 
 his see by any secular force or means, but 
 had merely noted the facts to his brother 
 bishops, and come straight to Rome. Who 
 these brother bishops were is a great puzzle, 
 for he has said before that other bishops were 
 with Theodore, and there were only six 
 bishops in all beside Theodore and Wilfrith. 
 Whatever the Pope and the bishops sitting 
 with him might decree, lie would humbly 
 accept. If he was to receive his former 
 bishopric, he venerated that sentence, and 
 begged that by their synodical sanction the 
 invaders might be driven out of their dioceses. 
 And if it was thought right that other bishops 
 should be put in their place in the diocese 
 over which he ruled, let them at least be 
 such as he could work with peacefully and 
 heartily l . And if it seemed good to the 
 Archbishop and Wilfrith's fellow-bishops that 
 the number of bishops should be increased, 
 let the bishops assembled in synod choose 
 men from the clergy of the Church. This 
 last demand, which practically closes the 
 
 1 This, I think, bears out the suggestion on p, 135, that 
 the personnel of the three new bishops was displeasing to 
 Wilfrith on Church grounds. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 149 
 
 petition, throws a very valuable light on the 
 election of bishops in early England. 
 
 The Pope specially praised Wilfrith for 
 having abstained from shewing his resentment 
 <>r ivsorting to secular means, and for having 
 i n -t cad come to receiv tin- canonical assist- 
 ance of the blessed Peter, chief (or prince) of 
 the Apostles. 
 
 The synod decreed that Wilfrith must ha\<- 
 ;ii:,im the bishopric he had lately held, ami 
 that Theodore must ordain to the episcopate 
 such assistant bishops as Wilfrith might select 
 with the consent of a council he was to call : 
 the three bishops whom Theodore had irre- 
 gularly sent into the episcopate being expelled 
 without ' ; if" or "but." There were two 
 -a \iiii; clauses, referring to something that 
 had been " above ordained/' " the rule above 
 fixed/' XV hat the reference is, I do not know. 
 And then came the cursings and the blessings. 
 " If any one tried to resist the decrees of these 
 synodal statutes, or did not obediently receive 
 them, or, after whatsoever length of time, 
 tried to infringe them in whole or in part, 
 him they decreed by the authority of the 
 blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, to be 
 smitten ; if he were a bishop, he should be 
 deprived of his episcopal order, and fall under 
 
150 THEODORE AND WILFBITH. 
 
 an eternal anathema, and similarly if he 
 were a priest, or a deacon, or of an inferior 
 degree of the Church. But if he were clerk, 
 or monk, or laic, even king, let him be cut 
 off from the body and blood of our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, nor held worthy to behold His 
 terrible advent. But may he who receives 
 these decrees with sincere devotion and 
 perfect satisfaction, see the good things of 
 God in this present life, and hear the words, 
 1 Come ye, blessed of my Father, receive the 
 kingdom prepared for you from the beginning 
 of the world/ " 
 
 Wilfrith and his companions got safely 
 back to Northuinbria. Eddi is our only 
 authority for what happened next, as, indeed, 
 he is for the whole of the episode, Bede's only 
 remark being that Wilfrith went to Rome and 
 was declared by the unanimous opinion of 
 Agatho and a large number of bishops to 
 have been accused unjustly and to be worthy 
 of the bishopric. Here, again, it is clear that 
 definite charges of some very grave kind had 
 been made against Wilfrith. How this was 
 received in Northuinbria Bede does not say. 
 But Eddi tells us, and it makes entirely 
 against the Pope's claims. Wilfrith went 
 peacefully to the king, and humbly shewed 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 the written judgement of the Apostolic see, 
 with the consent and subscription of the 
 whole synod, with bulls and seals. The 
 document was afterwards read in the presence 
 of the Witan. When the assembly found 
 that it contained matter unpleasant to tin in. 
 and contrary to their own will, certain of 
 them rejected it with contempt. Nay, more 
 execrable still, Eddi says, they defamed the 
 writing sent from the Apostolic see for the 
 welfare of those who obeyed it, by declaring 
 that it had been obtained by payment. They 
 took it away from him l . Then, by decree of 
 the king and his counsellors, with consent 
 of the bishops who held Wilfrith's bishopric, 
 he was condemned to nine months' imprison- 
 ment as a common person ("without any 
 honour ''). As for Theodore, he does not 
 appear to have been consulted by the North- 
 
 1 I have suggested, on tin- Mn nu r tli <>f;i j.liras*- in Eadrner 
 (a se 2^'ocul abject f). that they threw it away with the 
 kitchen refuse, a leaden bull of Boniface the Archdeacon 
 having been found in the present generation in the ancient 
 kitchen midden of Whitby Abbey. Bonil;i<- \VM* Wil- 
 fri th's friend, and in the vacancy which occurred in tin- 
 papacy at this time, his bclla may have been a nee<-^;n -\ 
 attestation of the document. Lessons of Early Enylis/i C/> n / // 
 History, p. 38, where, however, I make the kitchen midden 
 of Whitby be on the sea side of the Abbey buildings. 
 instead of on the land side, as it was. 
 
152 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 umbrian king and wise men ; and so little 
 did he reck of the Pope's f eliminations, that 
 lie proceeded to yet further subdivision of 
 the diocese in question, making Hexham and 
 Lindisfarne into two bishoprics instead of 
 one, and creating a new bishopric in the 
 extreme north, for the province of the Picts. 
 
 Any more completely contemptuous treat- 
 ment of the whole affair, whether by Theodore, 
 or by the king, or by the Witan, could not 
 well be imagined. The secular power put 
 AVilfrith in prison, instead of restoring him 
 to any particle of his position or property : 
 the ecclesiastical power still further sub- 
 divided the see, instead of driving out the 
 bishops and putting an end to the sub- 
 division. 
 
 It has been supposed that much turns upon 
 the phrase of Eddi, " they defamed the decree 
 of the Pope and his synod by declaring that 
 it had been obtained by money." At a later 
 time Wilfrith had pressure put upon him to 
 declare that the document was not true, 
 that is, or may be, not genuine. Hence, the 
 modern Roman says, Wilfrith was imprisoned 
 for forgery, not for having appealed to the 
 Pope. But if that was so, it was a very 
 simple matter for Wilfrith's friends we are 
 
THEODORE AND WILPRITH. 153 
 
 not told that he had many to write to the 
 Pope for a confirmation of his decree. How 
 in the world the Popes ] and the Roman 
 authorities submitted to the contemptuous 
 treatment served out to them, passes my 
 comprehension, except on the natural ex- 
 planation that they had been. a> people say, 
 t iving it on," giving orders as though they 
 luul the power and right to give them, and 
 taking it quite meekly when they found that 
 no one attended to them. That they would 
 lia\v submitted, if the reason of the treatment 
 was that the decree was said to be forged, is 
 |iiite inconceivable. It will be seen, p. 211, 
 that the letter of Pope John VI makes no 
 reference to any idea that his pivi 
 document was a forgery. We may at least 
 argue that if the Roman explanation is correct, 
 forgery was already a thing calculated upon 
 as likely to have occurred at Rome. We had 
 no English law against forgery, so far as is 
 known, at that time, nor any legal penalty of 
 imprisonment for such an act 2 . Further, 
 
 1 Agath" <ij,.<i that nuneyear. His successor only li\--d 
 'in yrjir. This may account for the silence of the Roman 
 ;mt In-iit i s when they found themselves treated in BO 
 cavalier a fashion. See also pages 226, 227. 
 
 - Bribery was a grave offence under the Roman Empire. 
 A judge who took a bribe was punishable by death. 
 
154 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Theodore's personal messenger, the monk 
 Coenred, without doubt knew what had 
 occurred at Rome, and he could have been 
 appealed to. I am inclined to think that 
 Eddi gives the exact fact when he says some 
 of the Witan rejected it with contempt 1 
 when they heard its contents, and that that 
 settled the whole question of attending to the 
 instructions given in the document or not. 
 Then, in further scorn, they said that Wilfrith, 
 whose great wealth had been one of the 
 moving causes against him, had bribed the 
 people in Rome and so got the decree. The 
 later attempt to get a confession from Wilfrith 
 did not, in that case, turn upon the question 
 of forgery or genuineness, but upon the 
 question was it honestly come by, was it 
 a true judgement? If Eddi's story is true, 
 that Theodore was bribed by these very 
 people to turn out Wilfrith and subdivide 
 his diocese, it was the most natural thing iri 
 the world for them to suggest that Wilfrith 
 
 Forgery, too, was very heavily punished ; but the church 
 laws against the forgery of ecclesiastical documents are 
 much later than the period at which we have arrived. 
 The technical words for this offence cannot be detected 
 in the phrase used by Eddi, while the offence of bribery 
 seems to be clearly stated in the phrase. 
 1 Respuerunt. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 155 
 
 in his turn had got a judgement by bribery. 
 Eddi's closing words on the subject appear to 
 ine entirely to do away with the supposition 
 that Wilfrith was charged with forgery. The 
 king, he says in his 34th chapter, with his 
 courtiers, after the letter from the Apostolic 
 see had been opened and read, despised the 
 judgement of the Apostle Peter, put Wilfrith 
 into solitary confinement, with only his 
 vestment, and allowed none of his friend > to 
 see him 1 . It seems impossible that Eddi of 
 all men could have written this if, as the 
 modern Roman asserts, Wilfrith was only 
 punished for alleged forgery. There was no 
 contempt of St. Peter in that charge. 
 
 The metrical life of Wilfrith, written at 
 Canterbury about the year 950 by Frithegode, 
 has a reference to the charge against Wilfrith 
 that there was something wrong with the 
 documents 2 . " His opponents took it ill that 
 they must restore their stolen booty. They 
 were driven on by bitter bile. They persuade 
 the king with a false report that the document 
 was obtained by underhand means (furtivis 
 
 1 The queen, he adds, took possession of his reliquary 
 the reliquary of a bishop is the origin of the pectoral 
 cross and wore it round her neck, in the house and 
 when driving out. 
 
 2 Lines 811-815 ; Raine, i. 137. 
 
156 THEODORE AND WJLFRITH. 
 
 rebus) ". Here, again, I do not see that 
 forgery is meant. To go 150 years later, 
 without treating Eadmer as an authority on 
 the facts of Wilfrith 's life, we may turn to 
 his life of Wilfrith to see what the view 
 taken in his time was, as to the real meaning 
 of the act of the Council of the North. His 
 expansions of Eddi are sometimes significant. 
 He says l " the king was blinded by his own 
 anger, and distracted from the truth by the 
 flattery of his courtiers : he despised the 
 letters of the Apostolic Pope with swelling 
 pride, scoffed at them, contemptuously flung 
 them away, and declared Wilfrith guilty as 
 a base informer.'' He attributes the im- 
 prisonment to a general and popular feeling, 
 and to a desire on the part of courtiers and 
 nobles to curry favour with the king. I think 
 we may say that the idea of forgery is a 
 modern invention in connection with this case. 
 Whatever the offence was, there was no 
 mistake about the punishment. Wilfrith 
 was taken first to the royal city of Bromnis, 
 a place we have not identified, and was put 
 under the charge of the prefect Osfrith. Here 
 he was kept in a dungeon which the sun 
 rarely reached by day, and where no lamp was 
 
 1 Ch. 34 ; Kainc, i. 195. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFEITH. 157 
 
 lighted at night. In the course of time he 
 received from the king a promise of restoration 
 to a part of his old bishopric, and of large 
 gifts, if he would submit to his sentence, and 
 would elect to declare that the canonical 
 decrees from the Apostolic see were not true 1 . 
 He replied, humbly, l>ut with Confidence in 
 the Apostolical authority, that h< v, mild rather 
 lose his head than confess that. The wife of 
 the prefect was taken ill, and >r<>mr<l to hr 
 dying. Osfrith flow to the bishop and en- 
 treated his help. The wife wa> at once 
 restored to life and Osfrith U'-'-v.l the king 
 to relieve him of hi> task of jailor. Ecgfrith 
 in wrath sent \\ illrith to Dunbar, a very 
 Btipong fortivsson the coast of Northmuhria. 
 now reckoned in Scotland. It wa- here that 
 th widow of King Arthur, Vannora, as the 
 Scottish records call her, was imprisoned on 
 Arthur's death, till she was taken to the seat 
 of the Pictish sovereigns at Meigle 2 . The 
 
 1 Dewgaret esse vera. See p. 152. 
 
 2 Eddi uses the form Dynbaer. whirli closely rein i in U 
 one of the pronunciation of the local porters at the Dun- 
 bar station. That spelling takes us into British times. 
 Arthur's nephew Mordred was the son of a Pictish prin- 
 cess, and that gives some colour to the story or fable of 
 <-u mover's residence at Meigle. The very noble sculp- 
 tured stone called "Vannora's stone," which Is one 
 
158 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 prefect at Dunbar was Tydlin, a more ferocious 
 person than Osfrith. By the king's orders, 
 fetters and handcuffs were made for the 
 bishop ; but though they were made time 
 after time they were always either too small 
 to go on, or so large that they fell off. 
 Clearly the blacksmith, or the jailor, or 
 some one specially concerned, was anxious to 
 avoid the fate of Osfrith's wife. 
 
 At last the queen, who was residing at 
 Coldingham with Abbess Ebbe, Ecgfrith's 
 aunt, was visited by a demon in the night 
 and terribly flogged. Ebbe found her in the 
 morning all gathered up into a knot, and 
 evidently dying. They begged the king to 
 release Wilfrith and let him go. This he did, 
 and the queen recovered. 
 
 The king released the bishop under this 
 pressure, but he and his wife gave him no 
 peace. Wilfrith retired into Mercia, and 
 was well received by Berhtwald, nephew 
 of Ethelred of Mercia and sub-king; but 
 
 among the countless sculptured treasures of Pictish and 
 early Scottish times stored up at Meigle, has on one side 
 a figure in a shortish kilt with two very fine Byzantine 
 lions on each side attacking it. This is said to represent 
 Guinever being done to death by wild beasts, "for na 
 glide that she did." As a matter of fact it is a very 
 Striking representation of Daniel in the den of lions. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 159 
 
 EthelrecTs queen was a sister of Ecgfrith, and 
 the bishop was soon expelled. He then went 
 to Centwine, King of Wessex ; but Centwine's 
 queen was a sister of lurmenburg, Ecgfrith's 
 queen, so there again he was turned out. 
 Finally, he got beyond the reach of Christian 
 persecution by retiring to the one English 
 kingdom that remained still pagan. That 
 was of course the South Saxon kingdom. 
 We saw last year 1 how he converted Sussex 
 and the Isle of Wight, and spent there five 
 useful years, from 68 1 to 686. That was all 
 that the Pope's decrees did for him, and no 
 one took the slightest trouble to assert their 
 force. They had indeed proved to be Danaan 
 gifts. 
 
 Ecgfrith and Theodore meanwhile did as 
 they liked with the Northumbrian bishoprics, 
 exactly as thouglf Pope Agatho had never 
 been heard of. In 68 1, two bishops were 
 added by Theodore. Eata remained at Lin- 
 disfarne, and Tunbercht or Trumbercht was 
 made bishop of Hexham, Bernicia thus being 
 subdivided into two bishoprics. Further, 
 Ecgfrith's successes against the Picts north 
 of the Forth, in the present counties of Fife 
 and Perth, had put him in command of large 
 1 Conversion oftfw Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), Lecture VI. 
 
l6o THEODORE AND WILFKITH. 
 
 districts occupied by Scotic Christians. An 
 Anglian bishop was appointed to have charge 
 of these districts, and he placed his see on 
 the safe side of the Forth, at Abercorn. 
 Trumwine was selected for this post, and he 
 remained there till Ecgfrith's disastrous defeat 
 and death on the confines of Perthshire and 
 Forfarshire put an end to the Anglian su- 
 premacy. Trumwine retired to Whitby, and 
 died there 1 . 
 
 In 685, Tunbercht, or Trumbercht, was, 
 for some reason not named, deposed from 
 Hexham, and at a great synod under Theodore 
 at Alnmouth, at which Ecgfrith was present, 
 < uthbert of Lindisfarne was elected bishop in 
 his place. Cuthbert preferred, however, to 
 remain at Lindisfarne ; so they moved Eata 
 to Hexham, and Cuthbert was consecrated at 
 York on March 26, 685, by seven bishops, of 
 whom Theodore was the chief. This does not 
 look like the bishops being on Wilfrith's side 
 in his appeal to Rome. 
 
 I have already given an illustration of a 
 
 1 In my Conversion of the Heptarchy S.P.C.K.\ at page 37, 
 I have made a very unnecessary blunder in a matter on 
 which I really knew all the facts, giving the foundation 
 of Whithorn to this date. Bede clearly puts it to his 
 own later time ; see H. E. v. 23. 
 
7. PECTORAL CROSS OF ST. CUTHBERT. [p. 161. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. l6l 
 
 relic of this period, connected with one of 
 the three bishops here mentioned, St. Cuth- 
 bert ; namely, the small altar-table found on 
 his breast when his coffin was opened in the 
 early part of this century. I now add an 
 illustration of another of his personal relics, 
 his pectoral cross (figure 7). Some descrip- 
 tion of it will be found on page 279. 
 
 Of another of the three bishops, Tunbercht, 
 or Trumbercht, it seems very likely that we 
 have the actual tombstone. Last year I gave 
 an example 1 of an Anglian tombstone with 
 the inscription in runes. I now give one 
 with the inscription in English minuscules 
 (figure 8). The stone was found some years 
 ago at Yarm, employed as the weight of a 
 mangle, and was bought for the sum which 
 would re-load the mangle with large stones, 
 namely five shillings. It is now one of the 
 ornaments of the doiter of Durham. The first 
 letter no doubt looks very much like ni, but 
 as a fact it is ra. Even if it were ni it would 
 still suit for our bishop. The inscription runs 
 clearly enough in the six lines which remain. 
 In a line above can be seen portions of letters, 
 almost certainly a p and certainly an r, and 
 I suppose that line was originally pro Tru. 
 
 1 Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), p. 205, fig. 6. 
 L 
 
j62 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 In that case, the top line of all would run 
 f Orate. On the other hand, it may have 
 been in an English form, such as Gebid fore ; 
 we have several examples left of forms of 
 that kind. The remaining inscription runs, 
 as will be seen, 
 
 m b e r e h c 
 t f sac f 
 
 allafsign 
 
 um Aefter 
 
 his breodera 
 
 y s e t a e f 
 
 .... mberehct f sac f alia signuni aefter his 
 breodora ysetaef [Pray for Trujmberhct 
 f sacerdos f Alia set a monument for (after) 
 his brother. In those early times sacerdos 
 no doubt meant bishop ; if not invariably, still 
 so generally that it would be difficult to claim 
 that here it means priest and not bishop. If 
 it means bishop, no bishop except this one 
 Trumbercht, ex-bishop of Hexham, had a 
 name ending with these letters. The language 
 is said to suit the date of our Trumbercht. 
 
 The amount of illustrative material re- 
 maining from those times and relating to 
 these three bishops is not exhausted. There 
 is at Abercorn a considerable fragment of the 
 

 8. THE TOMBSTONE OF BISHOP TRCMBERCHT. [p. 162. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 163 
 
 9. Abercorn. 
 
 10. Abercorn. 
 
 L 2 
 
164 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 shaft of a cross, which must have been on 
 a scale as important as those at Bewcastle 
 and Ruthwell, that is, a great shaft fifteen to 
 eighteen feet high or more. Trumwine was 
 for a few years bishop there. He no doubt 
 planted a great stone cross at this the 
 northernmost part of Angle-land, further 
 north even than Edwin's own burgh, Dun 
 Edin. I feel no doubt that the noble frag- 
 ment which is now placed in great safety 
 in a gallery of the kirk at Abercorn, a part 
 of Lord Hopetoun's gallery, is a piece of 
 Truniwine's cross. I give in figures 9 and 10 
 & representation of the patterns on two of 
 its sides, from my own drawings. Another 
 side will be found shewn at page 255 ; where 
 also there are some further remarks on the 
 fragment. 
 
 In order to make our view of the episode 
 of Wilfrith's appeal continuous, I have passed 
 over an important fact of Theodore's ad- 
 ministration. In 680 he held a second council 
 in England, at Heathfield, now Hatfield. The 
 reason was that he had heard of the disturb- 
 ances at Constantinople on account of the 
 heresy of Eutyches, as the Monothelite heresy 
 of which I spoke in my third lecture was now 
 called, and he desired to keep the Churches 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 165 
 
 of the English free from taint. He gathered 
 together a very large number of venerable 
 priests and doctors, and found on enquiry 
 that every one of them was sound in the 
 Catholic faith. The proceedings of the council 
 were duly recorded, and Bede gives us con- 
 siderable extracts from the official document. 
 One great interest of this council is, that it 
 was held in preparation for the Oecumenical 
 Council of Constantinople, held in this same 
 year, 680, the Sixth General Council. Just 
 six months before, in March, 680, Agatho had 
 held a council of 125 bishops in Rome with 
 a like purpose, and as Wilfrith was then in 
 Rome on the matter of his appeal, he was 
 present at the council and signed among the 
 other bishops, stating in his subscription that 
 he spoke in the name of all the northern part 
 of Britain and Ireland, and for the islands 
 occupied by Angles, Britons, Scots, and Picts. 
 This Roman council informed the Emperors 
 that they had delayed the communication of 
 their views, because they had expected the 
 presence of Theodore the philosopher, the 
 archbishop of the great island of Britain, and 
 others from that land. Possibly that was 
 why Wilfrith signed for the north part of 
 Britain only. Agatho, in his letter to the 
 
l66 THEODORE AND WJLFRITH. 
 
 Council of Constantinople, expressed regret 
 that the unquiet circumstances of Italy 
 rendered any deep theological study im- 
 possible. 
 
 Theodore's council was attended by John, 
 the precentor of St. Peter's at Rome. He 
 brought with him the decrees of the synod 
 held in Rome against the Monothelites by 
 Pope Martin in 649, which, as we have 
 seen in a former lecture *, led to Martin's 
 martyrdom. John was charged by Agatho 
 to inform him what the view of the English 
 Church was, and the report was satisfactory. 
 The Council of Hertford declared its accept- 
 ance of the complete doctrine of the Trinity 
 in Unity and the Unity in Trinity, and all 
 else that was of the true faith. It accepted 
 the decrees of the five holy and universal 
 synods Nicaea against Arius, Constantinople 
 against Macedonius, Ephesus against Nes- 
 torius, Chalcedon against Eutyches, and Con- 
 stantinople against Theodorus and the letters 
 of Theodoret and Ibas against Cyril. It 
 accepted, further, the synod held in Rome 
 under Pope Martin. And then, after all these 
 confessions of a true faith, it wound up in 
 this manner: " We glorify God the Father, 
 1 Page 76. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 167 
 
 without beginning; and His only-begotten 
 Son, begotten of the Father before the worlds ; 
 and the Holy Ghost, piweeding from the 
 Father and the Son in an ineffable manner; 
 as the holy Apostles, and prophets, and 
 doctors, whom we mentioned, above, have 
 taught." There, in the baldest way, was the 
 procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father 
 and from the Son, held by Theodore the 
 Greek, and by all the English Church, and 
 declared to be an Apostolic doctrine, in the 
 year 680 ; and Bede does not call special 
 attention to it, he merely states the fact. It 
 is sufficient to say that the Council of Hatfield 
 was not reciting the Nicene Creed and adding 
 the famous clause "and from the Son." The 
 assembled fathers declared their belief in the 
 procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father 
 and from the Son, and that declaration was 
 in accordance with the general belief of the 
 Western Church. To hold the belief was one 
 thing, to insert the clause in the Nicene Creed 
 was another and a very different thing. In 
 Charlemagne's time, Pope Leo determinedly 
 held and declared the belief, and at the same 
 time determinedly forbade the insertion in 
 the Creed. There is, however, a real difference 
 between the Churches of the West and the 
 
l68 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 East, beyond the question of the insertion 
 of the clause in the Creed. The phrase 
 " proceedeth from the Son " is not used in the 
 New Testament, while the phrase "is sent 
 from the Son" is scriptural. Thus the two 
 Churches could combine on the phrase " pro- 
 ceedeth from the Father through the Son." 
 
 One more episode of Theodore's life, and in 
 some ways the most pleasing. Whether we 
 are to see in it the amiable desire of a kindly 
 old man to die at peace with those whom he had 
 opposed, sinking all questions of difference of 
 principle, or are to regard it as an evidence 
 of senile decay, or are to believe that it was 
 an endeavour to repair an injustice, however 
 late, I do not feel quite sure. When a man 
 is very ill, is dying, it is sometimes difficult 
 to say whether he loses the sense of proportion 
 or acquires a clear and keen insight. It is 
 certain that not infrequently a man in those 
 circumstances earnestly desires to feel person- 
 ally at peace with some from whom he has 
 differed on what he has considered vital 
 points. We have to be on our guard against 
 assuming that this is an indication that with 
 clearer light he sees the points are small, or 
 Bees that he was wrong. Whatever the motive 
 was in Theodore's case, he made peace with 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 169 
 
 Wilfrith, and did what he could to have him 
 restored. Here in London, in the presence of 
 our sainted bishop Erkenwald, he met the 
 man he had so resolutely opposed ; to oppose 
 whom he had gone clean against the Pope. 
 It was eight years since he had consecrated 
 the three bishops into Wilfrith's place. Eight 
 years had Wilfrith been in prison or in exile. 
 There were now several bishops occupying 
 Wilfrith's one enormous see. Theodore was 
 eighty-four years old, Wilfrith was fifty-two. 
 The old man, according to Eddi, humbled 
 himself before the younger. We may well 
 hesitate to receive Eddi's account in its 
 fullness ; but it is certain that Theodore set 
 himself actively to work to recover for Wilfrith 
 at least some part of his former position. My 
 own reading of the tangle is, that in 678 
 Theodore had acted in a masterful way, and 
 had used to the full the opportunity given 
 him by the personal hostility of Ecgfrith 
 against Wilfrith. He had done what he 
 thought necessary and right in the subdivision 
 of Northumbria, and as Wilfrith opposed his 
 scheme, he had to go under. Besides, there 
 were civil charges against Wilfrith which 
 enabled him to give no heed to him. Wilfrith 
 had endeavoured to get Theodore in turn 
 
I7O THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 overridden by the Pope. The attempt had 
 proved a ludicrous failure, and Wilfrith had 
 faced the failure in a manly way and betaken 
 himself to the admirable work of converting 
 the one remaining pagan kingdom of England. 
 Theodore had noted his excellent work, and 
 had seen no signs of renewed attempts or at 
 least no sign of successful attempt to bring 
 about the interference of a foreign ecclesiastic. 
 Wilfrith had obtained from Pope Benedict II, 
 towards the end of his time in Sussex, a 
 document keeping alive his claims upon the 
 north, but he had remained quiescent and the 
 document was practically dormant. Theo- 
 dore's own schemes had been very successful ; 
 he could afford to forget and forgive, even to 
 ask to be forgiven as a man, while his policy 
 as an administrator was to stand. Just at 
 that convenient point, Ecgfrith was slain by 
 the Picts. That untied Theodore's hand and 
 tongue. He could now speak quite frankly 
 to Wilfrith, and for the first time. Further, 
 the Northumbrian power was shaken to its 
 foundations by Ecgfrith' s great disaster, and 
 as far as man could see never again would 
 the power of a Northumbrian king be what 
 it had been. And so, at the very first oppor- 
 tunity, as I think the facts recited fairly 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 1 7! 
 
 shew, he called Wilfrith to him, and they 
 met ; met in London, the natural meeting- 
 place of the rulers of the Church from the 
 north and from the south. 
 
 " Of all things," Eddi makes Theodore say 
 to Wilfrith, " this most weighs upon my con- 
 science, that I consented to the kings when 
 without delinquency on your part they spoiled 
 you of your own substance, and, to the grief 
 of your people, drove you into exile." Here 
 it is quite clear to me that a secular forfeiture 
 for some alleged offence against the constitu- 
 tion was what in fact happened. He went 
 on to say that he knew he was dying, and he 
 begged Wilfrith to let him declare him his 
 heir, and his successor as archbishop. 
 
 Wilfrith took all this like a brisk man of 
 business with an eye to the main chance, 
 determined to take the very full of what the 
 dying man could give, and careful not to use 
 one generous word. I will translate Eddi's 
 words, which he puts into Wilfrith's mouth : 
 I suppose Wilfrith had more than once de- 
 scribed the scene in his hearing. " May the 
 Lord and St. Peter give thee remission of 
 what thou hast done against me ; and as 
 thou hast made confession, I will be to thee 
 a friend praying for thee always. And now 
 
172 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 first of all send messengers with letters to 
 thy friends in all parts, that they may know 
 that we are reconciled and that I was an 
 innocent victim of spoliation ; and adjure 
 them in the Lord that they restore to me 
 some part of my substance *, according to the 
 precept of the Apostolic see. Afterwards, if 
 God will, we can discuss in larger numbers 
 who is worthy, with thy consent, to succeed 
 to thine episcopal seat." 
 
 The archbishop accordingly wrote to Aid- 
 frith, the new King of Northumbria, to 
 Ethelred, King of Mercia, the abbess Elfleda, 
 and others. Eddi makes him adjure Aldfrith 
 to come to terms with Wilfrith, " for the fear 
 of the Lord, and by reason of the precepts of 
 the prelates of the Apostolic see, and for the 
 remission of the soul of Ecgfrith his father." 
 The letter to Ethelred is given in full by Eddi, 
 and he tells us of the practical response made 
 by the two kings. Ethelred, he says, "on 
 account of the authority of the most blessed 
 pontiffs Agatho, Benedict, and Sergius " (Ser- 
 gius was not yet Pope), "canonically and 
 freely received Wilfrith, restored to him many 
 monasteries and lands belonging personally 
 
 1 Here again, at this most critical point, the old griev- 
 ance comes up ; his property had been taken. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 173 
 
 to him *, held him in the highest honour, and 
 persevered in his friendship to the end of his 
 life." As to King Aldfrith, he, by the advice 
 of the archbishop, invited Wilfrith to go north. 
 He gave him Hexham, which Eata had just 
 then vacated by death, and this he held for 
 a year. John of Beverley then became Bishop 
 of Hexham, and Aldfrith put Wilfrith into 
 the Deiran bishopric, and gave him the 
 monastery of Ripon with its property, accord- 
 ing, as Eddi insists, to the judgement of Agatho 
 and the synod at Rome. The two bishops 
 Bosa of York and Eadhed of Ripon if indeed 
 he was bishop there were driven out, Bosa 
 only to come back again when Wilfrith was 
 again expelled. As a fact, Agatho's judgement 
 was neither now nor at any time carried out, 
 Wilfrith only at most got the bishopric of 
 York as Theodore had limited it in 678. 
 Hexham and Lindisfarne, that is, Bernicia, 
 continued to be separate bishoprics. Eddi 
 keeps on declaring that everything was done 
 in obedience to Agatho's decree. The simple 
 fact is that from first to last it was a mere 
 dead letter, and Aldfrith acted with regard to 
 
 1 Here again we are puzzled to know how Wilfrith had 
 been deprived of property in Mercia against the will 
 of the Mercian king. 
 
174 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 it as his father had done. He put Wilfrith 
 into one portion, not the whole, and he turned 
 him out of even that as soon as he saw reason 
 to do so ; just as if no such document had ever 
 existed as this much-vaunted and much- 
 despised papal decree. It may all have been, 
 as Mr. Bivington calls it, "lying and brutal 
 tyranny" ; but at least it was not recognition 
 of the papal claims to supremacy in England. 
 That Mr. Rivington thinks it was recognition 
 makes one wonder what form he imagines 
 that rejection of those claims could have 
 taken. The expulsion of Bosa was the only 
 detail ever carried out that agreed with 
 Agatho's decree, and, as compared with the 
 whole order, that detail was ridiculously 
 small. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 Theodore's death. His organisation of dioceses. His 
 Penitential. His schools. Aldfrith and Wilfrith at 
 variance. Archbishop Brihtwald and the Synod of 
 Ouestraefeld. Wilfrith threatens to appeal to Rome ; is 
 again expelled. The hearing of Wilfrith's second 
 appeal. Decision of the Pope in his favour. 
 
 THEODORE died on September 19, 690, at 
 the age of eighty-eight, after twenty-two years' 
 work as archbishop. In those twenty-two 
 years he developed the English Church, or- 
 ganised it, and brought its general arrange- 
 ments into a working form which it retained 
 for a long time. He had found, nomin- 
 ally, seven bishoprics in England, but only 
 three bishops. The result of his work was 
 that Northumbria from one had been five, 
 Mercia from one had become five, and East 
 Anglia had become two. He had arranged for 
 the subdivision of Wessex, which took place 
 
176 THEODOKE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 after his death. There were thus seventeen 
 sees in his time or according to his arrange- 
 ment; and when Henry VIII came to the 
 throne eight hundred and twenty years later, 
 there were only seventeen sees in England 1 . 
 And all this great work of his was done 
 during a time when he and all England were 
 resolutely not carrying out the instructions 
 of the Pope, risking all his curses rather than 
 recognise his interference in English affairs. 
 From fir-st to last, no consultation with the 
 Pope, nor any reference of any question to 
 him, on Theodore's part. 
 
 It may be well to print in parallel columns 
 the two lists of diocesan sees, including in 
 the earlier list the see of Sherborne, which, 
 according to his arrangement, was to be split 
 off from Wessex when Haedde should die ; this 
 occurred in 705, when Aldhelm became Bishop 
 of Sherborne and Daniel Bishop of Winchester. 
 
 THEODORE. HENRY VIII, 
 
 1. Canterbury. i. Canterbury. 
 
 2. London. 2. London. 
 
 3. Rochester. 3. Rochester. 
 
 1 For details, see Conversion of the Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), 
 under the several kingdoms. 
 
'DOKE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 177 
 
 
 THEODORE. 
 
 HENRY VIII. 
 
 4,o. 
 
 Wessex, 
 Sherborne. 
 
 4-6. Winchester. 
 Salisbury. 
 Bath and Wells. 
 
 6-io. 
 
 Lichfield. 
 
 7-11. Lichfield. 
 
 
 Lindsey. 
 Leicester. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 Hereford. 
 
 
 Hereford. 
 
 Worcester. 
 
 11,12. 
 
 Worcester. 
 
 Ihimvicli. 
 
 Ely. 
 12. Norwich. 
 
 
 Elmham. 
 
 
 
 
 13. Chichester. 
 14. Exeter. 
 
 I3-I7- 
 
 York. 
 Lindisfarne. 
 
 15-17. York. 
 Durham. 
 
 
 Hexham. 
 
 Carlisle. 
 
 Ripon (one bishop). 
 Abercom (one bishop). 
 It may be added that while Chichester, like 
 Exeter, has no representative in the list of 
 sees of Theodore's time, the kingdom of 
 Sussex was Christianised by Wilfrith during 
 Theodore's archiepiscopate, and the foundation 
 of the see of Selsey in 709 might almost be 
 credited to his list. 
 
 Theodore made another, and in some ways 
 a larger, mark upon the Church of England 
 and the Church of the West. His Penitential, 
 M 
 
178 THEODORE AND WILFEITH. 
 
 or rules for cases of discipline, carried his 
 influence far and wide. It appears that from 
 time to time, as occasion arose, he gave 
 decisions as to what the true practice was 
 in doubtful cases, and as to the amount of 
 penalty to be imposed by the clergy on dis- 
 covery of offences. This latter branch of his 
 work makes exceedingly unpleasant reading ; 
 it amounts to raking in the vilest filth of 
 depraved human nature. The other branch 
 of the work is of real interest in connection 
 with the earliest stages of church practice ; 
 and it is rendered more interesting -by the 
 fact that Theodore frequently makes a com- 
 parison between the practice of the Komans 
 and the practice of the Greeks. His position 
 enabled him to do this with unusual know- 
 ledge ; and in this way the English Church 
 became familiar with Greek practices, from 
 a favourable point of view, and was able to 
 take a larger view than the narrower Romans 
 took To this day there is that advantage on 
 our side, and it is becoming daily more marked. 
 We hold as a Church a position between the 
 Greek and the Latin Churches, not unlike 
 that which the experience of Theodore stamped 
 upon the English Church within a century 
 of its coming into existence. When Con- 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 179 
 
 stantinople becomes Christian again we shall 
 hold a balance of even greater importance 
 than now. From a doctrinal point of view, 
 our agreement with the Orthodox Greek 
 Church on a large number of points on which 
 we differ from the modern and mediaeval 
 Roman, is very striking l . 
 
 One or two examples will shew how the 
 comparison between Greeks and Romans 
 comes out in Theodore's decisions. Under the 
 head of " Those who cannot be ordained " we 
 find this 2 : " If any one has been, through 
 ignorance, ordained before being baptized, 
 those whom that pagan has baptized must 
 be baptized, and he must not be ordained." 
 Theodore gives that as his rule. He appends 
 a note to the effect that it was said a "Roman 
 Pontiff of the apostolic see " had decided other- 
 wise, to the effect that it is not the person 
 who baptizes, but the Holy Spirit, that sup- 
 plies the grace of baptism, and that the sup- 
 posed priest must be baptized and ordained. 
 Or again 3 , " The Greeks, cleric and lay, com- 
 
 1 See one of the Church Historical Society's publica- 
 tions, What is the Catholic Church in England ? (S.P.C.K., 
 no. 28) p. 178. 
 
 2 I. ix. 12 ; Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 185. 
 
 3 I. xii. i, 2. 
 
 M 2 
 
l8o THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 municate every Lord's Day. Let those who 
 for three Lord's Days have not communicated 
 be put out of communion. The Romans, in 
 like manner, communicate those who wish ; 
 but those who do not wish are riot excom- 
 municated." Or again 1 , <; The Romans recon- 
 cile a penitent within the apse ; but the Greeks 
 will not do so." Or again 2 , "The Greeks 
 bless a widow along with a virgin, and elect 
 each an abbess. But the Romans do not veil 
 a widow along with a virgin." "According to 
 the Greeks a presbyter can consecrate a virgin 
 with the holy veil and reconcile a penitent 
 and make the oil for exorcism and the chrism 
 for the sick, if necessary. But according to 
 the Romans only a bishop can do so." Or 
 again 3 , "A woman can make oblations, ac- 
 cording to the Greeks ; according to the 
 Romans not." And once more 4 , "Persons 
 may marry in the third degree of relationship, 
 ac ording to the Greeks, as it is written in 
 the law, in the fifth according to the Romans ; 
 but they do not dissolve a marriage in the 
 fourth degree if it is an accomplished fact. 
 Therefore, let them marry in the fifth degree ; 
 
 1 I. xiii. i. 3 II. iii. 7, 8. 
 
 8 II. vii. 4. II. xii. 23. 
 
THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. l8l 
 
 in the fourth, if they are married, let them 
 not be separated." This last is an example 
 of Theodore's declared intention to fall in 
 with the Western view in his decisions for the 
 Church of England. 
 
 Another respect in which Theodore made 
 a mark upon the Church of England must be 
 definitely mentioned, though it has already 
 been referred to. It was owing to his influence 
 that the Anglo-Saxon Church was a learned 
 Church. His school at Canterbury was of 
 the nature of a University, and we trace its 
 influence direct to Jarrow and to York. The 
 school of Canterbury died out in the course 
 of time, but the great school of York went 
 unbroken on, and flourishes still 1 . In this 
 great work of stamping upon the Church of 
 England the love and the character of learn- 
 ing, he was in the main helped by Hadrian, 
 the African who had accompanied him from 
 Rome in the first instance and died in peace 
 and honour forty-one years after his appoint- 
 ment by Pope Vitalian to be Theodore's com- 
 panion. To Theodore the Greek and Hadrian 
 the African the English Church owed its 
 
 1 See an article entitled " Our Oldest School," by A. F. 
 Leach, F.S.A., an assistant Charity Commissioner, in the 
 Fortnightly Review for November, 1892. 
 
182 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 learning, which culminated in such men as 
 Bede and Alcuin. I do not know that we 
 trace any of our learning to the Italians, 
 except the art of church song. 
 
 Theodore is the third and last of the three 
 men who founded and built the Church of 
 Christ among the English folk. The three 
 were Augustine, Aidan, and Theodore ; an 
 Italian, a Scot, and a Greek. To Augustine 
 must be accorded the credit of having con- 
 verted the first English king who became 
 a Christian, and the first English kingdom to 
 come over to Christ. In this thirteen hun- 
 dredth year from the great event, it is natural 
 to make as much as possible of Augustine's 
 work. But still it is necessary to remind 
 ourselves that his royal convert, Ethelbert, 
 had long had a Christian wife, and that 
 Christian ministrations had long been exercised 
 in the capital of Kent, hard by his own palace ; 
 and that Kent was the smallest of the king- 
 doms. But if Augustine's work covered only 
 a very limited area, as is the fact, it must be 
 borne in mind that he had only a very limited 
 time in which to work, say at most eight 
 years. If he had had Theodore's twenty-one 
 years he would have had larger fruit of his 
 labours, so far as man can see. As it was, 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 183 
 
 his time was short, and the area of his work 
 was small. But he set the whole thing going. 
 
 Aidan's work and influence covered a vastly 
 larger area. In one way and another a very 
 large proportion of the whole of the English 
 territory was won and taught by the Scotic 
 school. And the work was most timely. It 
 came exactly at the critical point, and it did 
 exactly what was wanted. As between Augus- 
 tine and Aidan, the partisans of the two schools 
 may each maintain the superior claims of his 
 own hero ; but even partisans cannot disregard 
 the claim to honour and gratitude which the 
 saint of the other side unquestionably has 
 upon all English people. Augustine's work 
 has stood from his day to ours ; Canterbury 
 is still Canterbury. Aidan's work has not in 
 that material sense stood ; it made way for 
 other men to enter into his labours, and to 
 make their own permanent impress where his 
 personal mark was fleeting. 
 
 Theodore is in a category quite separate 
 from that in which history places Augustine 
 and Aidan. His function was quite unlike 
 theirs. His area of work was larger than that 
 of either, larger than that of both put together. 
 And the mark he made was in full proportion 
 deeper. The organisation, the learning, and 
 
384 THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 
 
 the discipline, of the English Church were due 
 to him. Its independence of a foreign yoke 
 for such the fatherly care and interest of Rome 
 was becoming in his time, or had become, in 
 other Churches was due to him. The Anglo- 
 Saxon Chronicle says of his death " This 
 year Archbishop Theodore died. Before this 
 the bishops had been Romanish; henceforth 
 they were English. ^Er wearun Rsnianisce 
 biscepas siththan wearun Englisce." If we 
 are asked the question, to which did and does 
 the permanent Church of the English owe the 
 greatest debt? I should reply with some confi- 
 dence, "A very large debt, a debt beyond 
 words, to each of the three ; the largest debt 
 to Theodore, the next largest to Augustine, 
 and the next to Aidan." Others may assign 
 equal honours to Augustine and Aidan, as 
 I have myself done elsewhere 1 . 
 
 We left Wilfrith acting once more as bishop 
 in Northumbria, Bishop of York ; bishop, that 
 is, of the southern part of Northumbria ; not 
 bishop of the diocese he had once held, that 
 is, not restored to his diocese as the Pope had 
 vainly ordered. Probably the southern part 
 was by that time the more important part, for 
 we gather that York was more and more the 
 
 1 National Church, June ; 1897. 
 
THEODORE AND WILF1UTU. 185 
 
 place of .residence of the kings, and was 
 the place for great ecclesiastical, and perhaps 
 also political, functions for Deira and Bernicia 
 alike. However that might be, York was at 
 least much more important than Hexham, into 
 which Wilfrith had been put temporarily until 
 it was wanted for Eata's successor. Aldfrith 
 had by no means risen with effusion to Theo- 
 dore's proposals for Wilfrith's restoration. 
 He was, by early education and training, of 
 the Scotic school of thought, having been 
 brought up in Ireland according to one ac- 
 count, at lona according to another. He was 
 a patron of churchmen and of learning. Wil- 
 frith surely ought to have been able to get on 
 with a king who gave to Benedict Biscop a con- 
 siderable estate for two silk robes brought from 
 Rome, and another considerable estate for a 
 book on geography l . But I think it is clear 
 that the northerners did not like the man who 
 had dragged in the threats of a foreign church- 
 man, Ecgfrith was dead, but his national policy 
 lived still, and Aldfrith, Biscop, Cuthbert, 
 Bosa, and Eata, were all of one way of think- 
 ing in respect of it ; they preferred Theodore's 
 
 1 The Venerable Bede (S.P.C.K.), p. 90. It was Aldfrith to 
 whom, under the name Acircius, Aldhelm addressed his 
 elaborate treatise on the metrical art. 
 
1 86 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 independent and masterful ways in ecclesias- 
 tical arrangements to the claims of servility 
 which the popes so loudly made. 
 
 Wilfrith certainly saw much of King Aldfrith 
 while he was Bishop of Deira and resided at 
 York and Ripon. It might perhaps have been 
 better if he had seen less of the king, for Eddi 
 tells us that they were continually falling out, 
 friends for a time, and then at daggers drawn. 
 This uncomfortable state of things lasted for 
 six or seven years. At last the king could 
 stand it no longer, and he expelled Wilfrith 
 from North umbria. This would seem to have 
 been an informal expulsion, without spoliation, 
 needing a final ratification and a statement of 
 conditions. Otherwise, we cannot account for 
 the Council of Ouestraefeld, nor for Wilfrith's 
 omission to appeal to Rome. It looks more 
 like a separation for incompatibility of temper 
 than anything more drastic. 
 
 Eddi names three principal causes of the 
 frequent quarrels between Wilfrith and Aid- 
 frith ; they all came from the bishop's side. 
 First, the old original offence of the spoliation 
 of the Church of St. Peter, either Ripon or 
 York, he does not say which, but I think the 
 context points clearly to Ripon. Lands had 
 been taken away, and not given back; I should 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 187 
 
 suppose that means that Ecgfrith resumed, and 
 Oswy and Aldfrith retained, possession of the 
 lands which Ecgfrith and Alchfrith and ^Elf- 
 wine had given to Ripon in the heyday of 
 Wilfrith's career. The next cause was that 
 the monastery given to Wilfrith as his own 
 property was made into a bishop's see. Eddi 
 says, in a rather bewildering way, " the above- 
 mentioned monastery." Canon Raine and 
 other persons of great j udgement and insight 
 make this again refer to Ripon, and regard it 
 as clear evidence that Eadhed had in fact 
 been Bishop of Ripon l . But how that, which 
 had certainly ceased within a year of Wilfrith's 
 return in peace in 686, can have been a run- 
 ning sore for six or seven years, it is very 
 difficult to see. And it seems to me very 
 lame to make two out of the three clearly 
 separate and distinct causes of quarrel, set out 
 by Eddi, refer to one and the same monastery. 
 I feel myself fairly clear that the reference is 
 to Hexham. That was a complete piece of 
 property, like some other parts of the north 
 a separate " shire," with many rights for the 
 owner ; and it was given in its entirety by 
 Queen Etheldreda to Wilfrith. It was used 
 
 1 I do not think clearer evidence than that of Bede is 
 needed, see p. 133. 
 
1 88 THEODORE AND WILFJRITH 
 
 for the bishopric in connection with the 
 spoliation of Wilfrith in 678. It was put 
 under his charge on his return in 686, till he 
 was put into York ; when that event took 
 place, instead of Hexham remaining with him, 
 the separate bishopric of Hexham was con- 
 tinued in the person of John of Beverley. If, 
 as I believe, this was the second sore between 
 Aldfrith and Wilfrith, that Wilfrith was 
 always worrying to get back Hexham as 
 a property and to have the bishopric brought 
 to an end, it is very quaint that this particu- 
 lar bishopric was the only one left for him 
 when they once more let him return to. North- 
 umbria. The third cause was that Wilfrith 
 was compelled ("kept being compelled") to 
 obey the decrees of Theodore, "meaning by 
 that," Eddi says, " not the canonical decrees of 
 his early time amongst us, nor those of his 
 latest times, when he brought all our churches 
 into harmony, but those of his middle time, 
 when discord had arisen amongst us in 
 Britain/' That is, Wilfrith kept worrying 
 the king to upset the whole arrangement for 
 the north, made in 678 and extended in 68 r, 
 and to revert to the state of things which 
 prevailed when Theodore and Ecgfrith dis- 
 placed Chad, and Wilfrith was sole bishop of the 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 whole of the North. It is quite clear, therefore, 
 that Wilfrith and all persons concerned knew 
 that the instructions of Agatho had not in any 
 sense been carried out, and that Wilfrith kept 
 on trying to get the king to recognise them, 
 quite without success. That was the English 
 regard for what is now claimed as Papal 
 Supremacy in England in the early Anglo- 
 Saxon times. 
 
 Eddi tells us that Wilfrith in the end 
 entirely refused to accept the present arrange- 
 ment in any of these respects 1 . When he was 
 expelled, he went to his firm friend, Ethelred 
 of Mercia ; and when Saxulf of Lichfield and 
 Cuthwin of Leicester died in 691, Wilfrith 
 succeeded as Bishop of Leicester. Not a word 
 of reference to Rome about any of these fre- 
 quent translations, nor any hint of yet another 
 appeal to Rome. This see of Leicester he held 
 till 705, when he became once more Bishop of 
 Hexham ; and Leicester was re-united for 
 thirty-two years to Lichfield. 
 
 Theodore having died on September 19, 690, 
 there was an interregnum for some time. At 
 length, on July i, 692, Brihtwald, Abbat ot 
 Reculver, was chosen archbishop. A long delay 
 took place before his consecration, which was 
 
 1 Eddi, c. 45 (ed. Raine). 
 
IQO THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 only effected on June 29, 693, and Briht- 
 wald was enthroned on the last day of August, 
 three years all but nineteen days after the 
 death of his predecessor. During this vacancy 
 Wilfrith consecrated Oftfor, a Whitby student, 
 to the bishopric of Worcester, and Suidbert to 
 a missionary bishopric in Frisia. It may be 
 worthy of notice that a year or two before the 
 time when the Ripon Wilbrord, trained under 
 Wilfrith, went to Rome to be consecrated for 
 work in Germany, Suidbert was sent to Eng- 
 land for a similar purpose, and, there being no 
 archbishop, Wilfrith himself consecrated him. 
 What other bishops, if any, Wilfrith called in 
 to his help, and by what right he consecrated 
 these persons, history does not tell. 
 
 We have not, so far as I know, any hint of 
 the reasons for the delay in choosing an arch- 
 bishop and then in consecrating him. I feel 
 sure that there were reasons, and that Wilfrith 
 had a good deal to do with them, and was 
 defeated in his aims and policy. He had cer- 
 tainly not been unwilling to be named as 
 Theodore's successor l . What communications, 
 if any, he may have made to Rome, we can 
 only guess. Anyhow, neither Bede nor any 
 one else suggests that Rome had anything to 
 
 1 See p. 172. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 191 
 
 do with the choice of Brihtwald, or with his 
 consecration. In the matter of his consecra- 
 tion I am inclined to think that Wilfrith was 
 ready to interfere. Any local knot of that 
 kind was cut by Brihtwald's going to Lyons, 
 and being consecrated there by Archbishop 
 Godwin, the metropolitan bishop of Gaul 
 (Galliarum), as Bede describes him. It was 
 thirty-eight years before next an Archbishop 
 of Canterbury had to be consecrated, and the 
 office was then properly performed by four 
 English bishops Daniel of Winchester, Ing- 
 wald of London, Aldwin of Lichfield, and 
 Eadulf of Rochester, to name them in the order 
 of their own consecration, as Bede is careful 
 to do. 
 
 As soon as there was an Archbishop of 
 Canterbury again to take the lead, a great 
 council was held on Wilfrith's affairs at Oues- 
 traefeld, probably Austerfield *, near Bawtry, 
 on the border between Northumbria and the 
 present Nottinghamshire. A considerable 
 amount of territory hereabouts usually counted 
 with Northumbria, one ecclesiastical relic of 
 which is found in the connection between the 
 great minster of Southwell and the still greater 
 minster of York. This great council was held 
 1 Spelled Ouestrefdd in Domesday (Raine). 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 spontaneously, by the act of the English 
 Church ; not even Eddi suggests that it was 
 held in any recognition of any external sug- 
 gestion. Eddi tells us that the bishops of 
 nearly all Britain were present. Aldfrith the 
 king was there too. Wilfrith, now Bishop of 
 Leicester in Mercia, was invited to attend 
 under safe conduct, and he came. Eddi, as 
 usual defeating his own partisan end by over- 
 doing the strength of his assertions, tells us 
 that the council sent humbly to beg Wilfrith 
 to deign to be present, promising that if he 
 would not refuse to come they would deal 
 rightly by him in the matter of the old spolia- 
 tion. As soon as he got there, he found that 
 almost everybody was against him. That is 
 valuable testimony from an out-and-out par- 
 tisan to the unpopularity of Wilfrith's anti- 
 national and Komanising policy. They charged 
 him with things they could not prove, and 
 they pressed him with the decrees of Theodore, 
 of which he had already heard far too much. 
 Eddi declares that he answered them with 
 humility, and said he would entirely accept 
 the canonical decrees [of the synod?]. But 
 they shewed their hand further, and he saw 
 that they were impugning the authority of the 
 apostolic see. On that, he reproached his 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. TQ3 
 
 opponents for having resisted through two 
 and twenty years the papal decrees. This is 
 a very valuable statement ; it shews beyond 
 all manner of question that we are right in 
 our contention of the national assertion of 
 independence, and that the partial restoration 
 of Wilfrith was not in any sense a compliance 
 with the decrees of Rome. He went on to 
 ask, Eddi says, with what face they could dare 
 to put into a second place the apostolic statutes 
 sent to Britain by Pope Agatho, Benedict Pope 
 elect, and Pope Sergius 1 , and prefer the decrees 
 of Theodore made at a time of discord. So 
 Eddi tells us. 
 
 The council then adjourned. During the 
 adjournment, one of the king's attendants, 
 a devoted friend of Wilfrith from his earliest 
 years, slipped out of the king's tent in dis- 
 guise, and mingling with the crowd got 
 unperceived to the place where Wilfrith was. 
 He told Wil frith there was a plot to take him 
 in. " They would ask him to sign a declara- 
 tion of assent, and would make it cover all 
 they might do ; they would deprive him of 
 all his property in Northumbria and in 
 
 1 There are two questionable letters of Sergius in 
 William of Malmesbury, professing to commend Brihtwald 
 to England ^H. and S. iii. 229, 230). 
 
 N 
 
J94 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Mercia, and put it at the disposal of Briht- 
 wald; they would practically make him 
 degrade himself from the episcopal office." 
 Then he slipped away again unperceived. 
 
 Wilfrith naturally became very cautious 
 about his signature. We might almost think 
 we were speaking of Becket. He desired to 
 hear the judgement of the archbishop before 
 he signed anything. " That judgement, being 
 in conformity with the rules of the Fathers, he 
 held himself bound to accept." 
 
 At length Wilfrith's opponents said straight 
 out that they would so completely despoil 
 him, that not a fraction of a cottage should 
 remain to him in Northumbria or Mercia. 
 The king and the archbishop pointed out 
 that this was ruthless, and at last it was 
 agreed to leave him Bipon, clearly as an 
 abbey only, not a bishop's seat, on condition 
 that he signed an undertaking (i) to stay 
 quietly there ; (2) not to pass beyond the 
 bounds of the property without the king's 
 leave ; and (3) not to exercise in any way the 
 episcopal office, from which he was to cut 
 himself off. I regard it as certain that if we 
 had a statement on the other side, we should 
 find very strong practical grounds for these 
 very drastic conditions. We may remember, 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 195 
 
 as a kind of illustration, that William of 
 Normandy and his successors did not allow 
 a bishop to leave the island without their 
 consent, and that the French Republic does 
 not allow bishops to go from one diocese to 
 another for ecclesiastical functions. It was 
 on this ground that the Cardinal Archbishop 
 Lan^nieux of Rheims was served with 
 
 o 
 
 a notice, in 1896, that he must not issue 
 his letters of invitation to all the French 
 prelates to come to Rheims at Christmas of 
 the present year to observe the i4Ooth anni- 
 versary of the baptism of Clovis. Of this at 
 least we may be quite certain, that Eddi took 
 the Council of Ouestraefeld to be entirely 
 regardless of the Pope and all his decrees and 
 all his threats. No ingenuity can obscure that. 
 Papal Supremacy in England at that time is 
 all nonsense. 
 
 WilMth, thus hard pressed, raised his voice 
 and spoke out boldly. " Why do you bid me 
 turn the sword against myself, and deprive 
 myself of the episcopal honour I have worn 
 for all but forty years ? Was it not I that 
 converted the Northumbrians to the true 
 Easter and the true tonsure ? I that intro- 
 duced the practice of a double choir, 
 with reciprocal responsories and antiphons ? 
 N 2 
 
196 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 I that first taught here the Benedictine 
 rule? And now you would make me pass 
 a hurried sentence against myself, all ignorant 
 as my conscience is of any misdeed. On this 
 question that you have newly sprung upon 
 me, namely, the violation of my sacred office, 
 I confidently appeal to the apostolic see ; 
 and let any one who presumes to disregard 
 ray episcopal dignity go with me to judgement 
 there. For the wise Romans ought carefully 
 to know for what fault you wish to degrade 
 me, before I carry out the orders of you in 
 your isolation." 
 
 When the archbishop and the king heard 
 this, they said, " Now he is guilty. We must 
 condemn him because he elects their judge- 
 ment rather than ours." This at least, 
 whatever may have been the case with 
 Ecgfrith and his imprisonment of Wilfrith, 
 is condemnation for an appeal to a foreign 
 court, quite apart from the merits of the case. 
 I regard it as completely settling the question 
 so unhistorically raised as to the reason of 
 Wilfrith's punishment by Ecgfrith and his 
 Witan. Aldfrith spoke up as sturdily as 
 Ecgfrith did. The power of the king and 
 his council of great churchmen and great 
 laymen was supreme in England. The king 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 197 
 
 added, addressing the archbishop, " If you 
 wish, I will, without the slightest hesitation, 
 bring force to bear upon him. My soldiers 
 shall make him declare himself ready now 
 to submit to our judgement." The bishops 
 present said it ought to be borne in mind 
 that he had come under safe conduct. The 
 council then broke up, and Wilfrith returned 
 to Ethelred, who said he would certainly not 
 disturb him in such possessions as he had 
 given him : he would learn from Rome what 
 ought to be done. It is a matter of some 
 surprise that this Northumbrian Council even 
 claimed to deprive Wilfrith of property in 
 Mercia. 
 
 The dominant party declared Wilfrith and 
 his supporters excommunicate. If one of his 
 abbats or priests was invited to eat with one 
 of the faithful, and blessed the food set before 
 him with the sign of the Cross, it was thrown 
 out of doors as though offered to idols. And 
 if any of them used any vessel, it was washed, 
 as though polluted, before any one else used 
 it. The severity of this latter proceeding does 
 not strike us very forcibly ; but it seems to 
 have meant a good deal in those days. The 
 Britons of whom Aldhelm complained to 
 Geraint were much more thorough-going. 
 
198 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 If any of the Catholic party had used a glass 
 or a mug, the Britons scoured it with sand or 
 ashes to purify it. 
 
 Wilfribh went to Rome, and was well 
 received by the Pope, who was now John VI. 
 Inasmuch as he had given public notice of his 
 appeal to Rome, Archbishop Brihtwald sent 
 representatives with a statement of the charges 
 against him. It is amusing to note the 
 pleasant and easy terms on which Eddi tells 
 us Wilfrith and his party were at Rome, as 
 compared with the suppliant request of Briht- 
 wald's legates that the most glorious see 
 would accord them a hearing. Brihtwald's 
 messengers were not very important people. 
 Only one of them was even a deacon ; the 
 others had no ecclesiastical position. Had 
 Brihtwald taken the trouble to send one or 
 two ecclesiastics of some rank and experience, 
 they would probably not have been outwitted 
 as his messengers were. It would seem that 
 Brihtwald was quite clear as to the merits of 
 the case, and believed that it only had to be 
 fully stated in a written document to ensure 
 the failure of Wilfrith's appeal. He was not 
 careful to send men of any mark as his 
 messengers to the Bishop of Rome. To have 
 done that might have seemed like allowing 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. IQQ 
 
 that there was properly an appeal to Rome. 
 To send such unimportant people was barely 
 civil. 
 
 The whole course of the proceedings at 
 Rome has been preserved for us by Eddi, 
 who was present and speaks of Wilfrith's 
 party as " we." 
 
 First, Wilfrith's petition was read. Eddi 
 preserves it for us. It says not a single word 
 about the one point on which Wilfrith had 
 declared that he would appeal to Rome. It 
 did not even hint at any demand that he 
 should lay aside the episcopal office. It asked 
 that no one should be allowed to interfere with 
 the monasteries and lands which Ethelred of 
 Mercia, and his brother Wulfhere, had given 
 to Wilfrith. It asked, further, that Aldfrith 
 should be required to carry out the decrees of 
 Agatho, the first of which, we remember, was 
 to the effect that Wilfrith was to be reinstated 
 in full episcopal possession of the whole Nor- 
 thumbrian see, without partition. But, the 
 petition skilfully proceeded, if that seemed 
 hard to King Aldfrith, let the Pope say who 
 best would govern the Church of York. But 
 at least the two monasteries of Ripon and 
 Hexham, with all their lands and possessions, 
 ought to be restored to Wilfrith. Those were 
 
20O THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 the three prayers of the petition. It ended 
 with a declaration that Wilfrith always 
 shewed, in accordance with the canons, due 
 respect and brotherly charity for Archbishop 
 Brihtwald, and a promise that he would con- 
 tinue to do so ; only let him fulfil towards 
 Wilfrith the well-founded decrees of the most 
 blessed Agatho and his successors. That was 
 what it always came to. We might think 
 we were reading of Becket, who whatever 
 advances the king made, and whatever ar- 
 rangements were proposed, was always ready 
 to say yes, with the perpetually recurring 
 saving clause which neutralised his acqui- 
 escence, " saving our order." 
 
 Then the charges of Brihtwald were read, 
 that is, I suppose, the statement of the grounds . 
 on which the king and the English bishops at 
 the Council of Austerfield had acted. Eddi 
 describes the accusations as manifold and 
 great. This is quite in accordance with the 
 view I have more than once expressed, that 
 charges of some very serious kind were, as 
 a matter of fact, preferred against Wilfrith, 
 and treated by the English authorities as 
 proved and as completely justifying the 
 deprivation and banishment of the uneasy 
 and un-English prelate. Unfortunately we 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 2OI 
 
 have not from any one a hint of what they 
 were, with the exception of one of them. 
 With regard to that one, the investigation 
 took a dramatic form. Wilfrith the bishop, 
 with his venerable presbyters and his deacons, 
 came into the honourable presence of the 
 Roman Council, and declared they would 
 obey whatever the apostolic see decreed. 
 The messengers of the holy archbishop came 
 in according to the instruction of the most 
 holy Fathers, and stood there. They were 
 bidden choose one head of their accusation, 
 and state it. They took the first, apparently, 
 which is not usually the strongest, expecting 
 to proceed by degrees. " This is the first head 
 of our accusation, that this present Bishop 
 Wilfrith contumaciously refused and despised, 
 in the face of a synod, the statute decrees of 
 the holy Archbishop Brihtwald of the Church 
 of the Kentishmen and of all Britain, sent 
 forth from the apostolic see." What Eddi 
 means by saying that they said Brihtwald was 
 sent forth from the apostolic see, I cannot 
 imagine. Perhaps he was so much accustomed 
 to write that of Theodore that it slipped un- 
 awares into what professes to be an accurate 
 statement of the words used. 
 
 Wilfrith replied. " He was present at the 
 
202 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 council," he said, " with his abbats and pres- 
 byters, and his deacons too. One of the 
 bishops came to him and asked, directly from 
 the king and the archbishop, whether he was 
 willing to agree to the decision of the arch- 
 bishop acting alone. To that he replied, 
 * What is the archbishop's decision ? I ought 
 to know that before I promise ; I may not be 
 able to carry it out.' The bishop who had 
 come to him said he didn't know, and the 
 archbishop would not let any of Wilfrith's 
 party know, until Wilfrith had subscribed 
 with his own hand, in presence of the council, 
 a promise to observe the decree. On this Wil- 
 fiith said, 'I never heard of such a thing 
 tying a man down to carry out a decree before 
 he knows what it is, when it may be abso- 
 lutely impossible for him to do what he has 
 undertaken in ignorance of its nature.' But 
 he did undertake, in the presence of the Witan" 
 (the senate, Eddi says, which I suppose means 
 the complete assembly of the Council of the 
 North), "to carry out to the uttermost the 
 archbishop's decree, in all things in which it 
 should be consonant with the statutes, rules, 
 and canonical definitions of the holy Fathers, 
 and" here we have it again, " not in any 
 way conflicting with the decrees of Agatho 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 203 
 
 and bis successors." Then he was silent. The 
 synod said : " Wilfrith, bishop beloved of 
 God, hath expounded the force of his defence." 
 Then they took to whispering among them- 
 selves, not letting the parties hear what they 
 said, talking Greek to one another, and seem- 
 ing amused. After a time they addressed the 
 accusers thus : " You are not ignorant, our 
 very dear brethren, of our practice, in accord- 
 ance with our canons, when many charges 
 are brought against clerical persons. If the 
 accusers are not able to prove the first of 
 their charges, we do not allow them to proceed 
 to the others. But because of the honour of 
 the holy archbishop sent by the monarchy 
 of the apostolic see" here again we are 
 quite at loss to conceive on what ground this 
 assumption is made " and from reverence for 
 this most blessed bishop Wilfrith, so long 
 fraudulently despoiled, as it is asserted, God 
 and the holy Peter, chief of the Apostles, 
 revealing and opening the matter to us, we 
 will fully ventilate all the charges for days 
 and months, and carefully and finally settle 
 the whole matter." 
 
 The synod was then adjourned, and Eddi's 
 confused language leaves us without any clear 
 knowledge that Brihtwald's messengers had 
 
204 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 any further chance given them. He seems to 
 say that the matter was investigated at seventy 
 committee meetings, spread over four months, 
 and that the more it was investigated the 
 clearer became Wilfrith's innocence. The 
 Pope, too, in giving his decision, declared that 
 many meetings had been held to look into 
 the affair, and that those who looked into it 
 had failed to find anything criminal against 
 Wilfrith. There must have been a large mass 
 of subjects under dispute ; charges of some 
 grave constitutional kind. At least no one 
 can say that the reasons which the king and 
 almost all the bishops of England had for 
 their action were of a trumpery nature, dissi- 
 pated the moment an impartial authority or 
 arbitrator looked into them. It cost the very 
 willing Pope and his very willing council 
 seventy committee meetings to get rid of the 
 charges against Wilfrith. 
 
 The final exculpation of Wilfrith came about 
 in a dramatic manner. It chanced that the 
 decrees of the Roman Council of 125 bishops 
 under Agatho, held against the Monothelites 
 in 680, and signed as we have seen l by Wil- 
 frith, who was then in Rome on his first appeal, 
 were being read in public. When the signa- 
 
 1 Lecture V, p. 165. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 205 
 
 tures were read out, Wilfrith's name and de- 
 scription was read among the rest, and people 
 asked in surprise, was that this same Wilfrith, 
 some twenty-four years ago ? Yes. his old 
 friend Boniface testified, it was the very same. 
 Then it came out that Agatho had sent him 
 to be reinstated in his bishopric, and here, 
 after all those years, he was again in Rome, 
 never in any real sense reinstated, and now 
 again expelled by the same old enmity. 
 A decision in his favour was at once given, 
 and a letter to that effect was written to the 
 kings of Northumbria and Mercia. 
 
 This dramatic discovery that Wilfrith was 
 the very man who had signed the decree of 
 Agatho's Council, and that Agatho had tried 
 his case and sent him back to England to 
 be reinstated, is in rather ridiculous conflict 
 with what Eddi has told us in the next pre- 
 vious chapter. There he tells us that before 
 entering at all upon the matters in dispute, 
 before the interview of Wilfrith with the 
 synod of bishops, and before the seventy com- 
 mittee meetings, the Pope had thus addressed 
 his brother bishops : " O holy synod, we must 
 first examine the canons of our predecessors, 
 and consider the documents which were before 
 them when this matter was appealed to Rome 
 
206 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 in past time, and what were the decrees of the 
 thrice-blessed Agatho, and after him of Bene- 
 dict elect, and of my predecessor Sergius. We 
 shall then be better able to judge the present 
 case." Thus they had carefully looked into 
 the whole matter, and the dramatic discovery 
 and final decision looks like a mere coup de 
 theatre. Wilfrith, too, had openly quoted the 
 decree of Agatho. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 Letter of Pope John VI to the kings of Northumbria 
 and Mercia. Its recognition of the autonomy of the 
 English Church in Wilfrith's case. King Aldfrith re- 
 fuses to act on the Pope's letter or make any change 
 in regard to Wilfrith's expulsion. His successor Eadulf 
 takes the same line. Council of Nidd ; declaration of 
 Aldfrith's deathbed instructions. Lay decision that 
 the papal decrees of Agatho should, in accordance with 
 Aldfrith's testament, be carried out. Refusal of bishops ; 
 discussion of details. The decrees never carried out ; 
 Wilfrith made bishop of Hex ham only. His death ; 
 summary of his episcopal life in Northumbria. Pope 
 Paul I and his letter to king Eadbert of Northumbria 
 in a like case of deprivation. Decision of the Church of 
 England that it is autonomous, having no appeal beyond 
 the Archbishop. 
 
 THE following was the substance of the 
 letter of Pope John to Ethelred of Mercia and 
 Aldfrith of the Deirans and Bernicians. 
 After a compliment to their faith, which he 
 says they received from the preaching of the 
 
2O8 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 chief x of the Apostles, the Pope declares that 
 the inextricable tangle of dissension into 
 which affairs had got themselves was an 
 affliction to himself and the whole church. 
 He sets forth the action of Agatho (he says 
 nothing of Benedict and Sergius) in the matter 
 of Wilfrith's appeal, and from this part of 
 his letter we learn that the Abbess Hilda 
 was one of the most important of Wilfrith's 
 accusers on that occasion. With a hardihood 
 curiously characteristic of Papal utterances, 
 he declares that Archbishop Theodore, by his 
 pontifical acts, obeyed the decree of Rome. 
 We have seen what the decree of Rome was, 
 and we have seen, and to the end shall see, 
 that it was never carried out at all, by 
 Theodore or by any one else. Even in Wil- 
 frith's own complaint it was asserted and 
 truly that for twenty-two years the Pope's 
 decree had been disobeyed. Thus Wilfrith, 
 who of all men knew, directly contradicted 
 the Pope on a matter of fact. So much for 
 the past. Now for the present. The Pope 
 and his council of bishops and priests had 
 exhaustively enquired into the whole matter, 
 and a final conclusion had been come to. The 
 result was that he monished Berchtwald, the 
 
 1 Principis. 
 
11. CROSS-SHAFT OF ETHELWOLD. 
 
 [p. 209. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 209 
 
 prelate of the holy church of the Kentishmen, 
 whom by the authority of the chief of the 
 Apostles he had confirmed as archbishop 
 there, his most reverend brother, to call a synod 
 with Bishop Wilfrith ; and, a council having 
 been regularly constituted l , to cause Bishops 
 Bosa and John to come to the synod, and 
 then to hear what both sides have to say, 
 and to consider what the outcome is. Bosa, 
 I may say, was now once again bishop of 
 York, that is, of Deira. John of Beverley 
 was bishop of Hexham. The Pope says 
 nothing about Eadfrith, who had been bishop 
 of Lindisfarne since 698, when he succeeded 
 Cuthbert's successor : why he omits to men- 
 tion him we cannot say. It was Eadfrith 
 who wrote and ornamented the wonderful 
 manuscript known as the Lindisfarne Gospels, 
 and his successor Ethel wold gave the cover, 
 which Bilfrith decorated with gold and silver 
 and precious stones. The shaft of a cross shewn 
 in figure 1 1 claims a special connection with 
 Ethelwold, of which an account is given at p. 293. 
 The council having been called and con- 
 stituted, and Bosa and John being present, if 
 in Archbishop Berchtwald's opinion a con- 
 clusion can be come to, the Pope and all will 
 
 1 Celebrato. 
 
210 THEODORE AND WJLFRITH. 
 
 rejoice. But if no such result follows, he is 
 to give synodical warning that all present 
 themselves before the Apostolic see, that there 
 the matter may have a final end and all may 
 return in peace. There we have a sur- 
 prisingly simple and moderate statement of 
 the Roman position. The National Church 
 was to settle the matter for itself, on full 
 evidence. The Pope leaves it to be clearly 
 understood, as I think, that so long as a con- 
 clusion is arrived at by the national synod, 
 he will be satisfied ; not satisfied only, but 
 glad ; it will be pleasing to him. But if the 
 national synod, in the opinion of the arch- 
 bishop, cannot bring out a clear result, then 
 the whole thing is to go to Rome to be settled ; 
 for settled it must be. If Rome had always 
 kept to that attitude towards England, though 
 it went beyond the rights of Rome to claim 
 that any English case should be taken to 
 Rome, Rome would not be now unavailingly 
 regretting the foolish loss of England. 
 
 It should be specially noticed that the Pope 
 is very careful to make no demand upon the 
 kings. He treats it as completely an eccle- 
 siastical affair, and Brihtwald is throughout 
 the only person whom he claims directly to 
 affect. He entreats the kings in the name 
 
THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 211 
 
 of God to help the business through, and that 
 is all. He urges them to bear in mind what 
 Agatho had decreed, and declares that who- 
 soever, of whatever degree, should despise 
 that, would not escape without the punish- 
 ment of heaven. 
 
 This closing reference to Agatho's decree is 
 the only hint the Pope gives of the manner 
 in which the tangled dispute should be settled. 
 But for that, if Brihtwald's opinion was that 
 it clearly emerged from the evidence that 
 the case against Wilfrith was sound, Wilfritb 
 must go to the wall. And after all, the 
 reference to Agatho is at best rather obscure. 
 We shall see, later, that the obscurity of Pope 
 John's meaning was the one thing that struck 
 the shrewd men of the north ; and the arch- 
 bishop had to say frankly that the Pope's 
 letter was a maze of words. It is probably 
 unnecessary to point out that neither here, 
 nor in any of the documents I have quoted or 
 summarised, nor indeed anywhere else, is 
 there the faintest hint of any need for as- 
 serting the genuineness of Agatho's decree. 
 The silly suggestion of a charge of forgery is 
 repudiated by this universal and eloquent 
 silence. 
 
 With the letter of Pope John, duly bulled 
 
212 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 and sealed, Wilfrith came home. He nearly 
 died on the way, and the Archangel Michael 
 appeared to him, and pointed out to him that 
 he had built churches in honour of St. Peter 
 and St. Andrew, but had built none in honour 
 of the holy Mary, ever Virgiu ; he must live 
 to rectify that omission. Arrived in England, 
 he sent his messengers to Archbishop Briht- 
 wald, who offered to mitigate the severity of 
 the former synodal decrees. Eddi says he 
 was compelled by the Apostolical authority, 
 terrified by the writings brought to him, and, 
 trembling, was reconciled to Wilfrith. It is 
 a quaint comment on this, that Agatho's 
 curses had been much more definite and 
 terrible, and those had been faced for years 
 without any one feeling frightened ; and that 
 John was not obeyed, any more than Agatho 
 had been, if it was part of John's instruction 
 that Agatho's decrees were to be carried out. 
 If it was, as I believe it was, his instruction 
 that the English people must do exactly what 
 they thought right in the matter, that instruc- 
 tion they completely fulfilled, and Brihtwald 
 did not need to be terrorised into that sturdy 
 national course. On Ethelred of Mercia the 
 effect of the letters was very striking, accord- 
 ing to Eddi. When he read them, he 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 213 
 
 prostrated himself on the ground, and 
 obediently vowed that not one single bit of 
 a letter of all that writing should be by him 
 disobeyed ; nor would he agree with those 
 who should disobey. I have never been able 
 to understand by what right the Northum- 
 brians claimed to interfere with Wilfrith's 
 property in Mercia. That they did so claim 
 was enough in itself to set Ethelred against 
 their action ; and, besides, he had a very 
 high regard for Wilfrith. We have now to 
 consider how King Aldfrith, who was vitally 
 concerned in the matter as no one else was, 
 took the Pope's communication. 
 
 Wilfrith sent to King Aldfrith two well- 
 known men, Badwin, the presbyter and 
 abbat, and Master Alfrith 1 , with this mes- 
 sage: "Our holy pontiff [Wilfrith] salutes 
 thee with peaceful words, and asks of thee 
 licence to come to thy presence, with letters 
 of salutation of the Apostolic see, and judge- 
 ments concerning his case made by Apostolic 
 authority." The king in reply said nothing 
 harsh or severe, and named a day on which 
 he would give his answer. On the day ap- 
 
 1 Magister meant probably one of the subordinate officers 
 of a monastery. The Benedictine Rule gave each monk 
 a Magister. 
 
214 THEODOKE AND WILFKITH. 
 
 pointed they came, and he made the following 
 reply, in accordance with the advice of his 
 counsellors : " My brothers, both of you held 
 in respect by me, ask for yourselves anything 
 you want, and out of regard to you I will 
 give it. But as to the case of Wilfrith, your 
 lord, from this day forth worry me no more 
 about it. The decision at which the kings, 
 my predecessors, arrived, and afterwards I 
 myself with the archbishop sent by the 
 Apostolic see, and with almost the whole of 
 the English prelates, that decision, I say, as 
 long as I live I will not change, at the bidding 
 of writings from the Apostolic see, as you 
 call them V This determination he fully 
 changed later on, Eddi says, and he very 
 truly grieved over it. No doubt Eddi refers 
 to what Aldfrith was reported to have said 
 on his deathbed, of which we shall hear a 
 good deal. It is quite untrue to suggest that 
 Aldfrith did alter the decision arrived at by 
 his predecessors. It stood, as he said it should, 
 as long as he lived. That was the treatment 
 accorded to Pope John VI and to the re- 
 newed demand for obedience to Pope Agatho. 
 
 1 Ut dicitis. I almost wonder that no one has found 
 here again a charge of forgery, and explained Aldfrith's 
 action so. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 215 
 
 According to the prophecy of the Pope, 
 Eddi goes on, Aldfrith was struck with a 
 fatal illness. Faithful witnesses testified to 
 what he said on his deathbed. He sent for 
 Elfleda to Driffield, where he lay dying, to 
 give her some final instructions as to his 
 wishes on matters affecting the kingdom. 
 Eddi tells us what he said in the matter of 
 Wilfrith, and we shall have to note it when 
 we speak of the synod at Nidd. Aldfrith 
 died, and* was succeeded by Eadulf, whose 
 claim to the kingdom is not known 1 . Aldfrith, 
 who was himself illegitimate, evidently did 
 not know who would succeed him, and seems 
 to have abstained from naming any one, even 
 his own son. He spoke of his heir, in ad- 
 dressing Elfleda, as " whosoever shall succeed 
 me." That clever lady in her report to the 
 Council at Nidd altered the phrase from " my 
 heir, whosoever shall succeed me," to "my 
 heir, my son." By that time the intermediate 
 heir, Eadulf, had been got rid of, and Ald- 
 fritb/s boy son was king. 
 
 On the death of Aldfrith, Wilfrith sent from 
 his exile messengers to the new king, Eadulf, 
 and with the messengers his, Wilfrith's, own 
 son *, whatever that may mean. A few lines 
 
 1 See page 289. * Cum flio suo proprio. 
 
2l6 THEODORE AND WILFR1TH. 
 
 later, Eddi speaks of some one else as Eddi's 
 adoptive son. He sent his messengers to the 
 new king as to a friend. The answer must 
 have surprised him. " Persuaded by his 
 counsellors/' Eddi says, "the king austerely 
 and dourly replied, ' By my salvation I swear 
 that if he has not left my kingdom within 
 six days, I will put to death any of his com- 
 panions whom I find/ " Within two months 
 Eadulf himself had been expelled by a con- 
 spiracy, and Osred, the young son of Aldfrith, 
 reigned in his stead, and became the adoptive 
 son of Wilfrith. He was only eight years old. 
 In the first year of Osred 1 s reign, which 
 was still 705, these two vacancies in the 
 throne falling in one and the same year, 
 Brihtwald, whom Eddi here describes as 
 archbishop of the church of the Kentishmen 
 and of nearly all Britain, came from the south, 
 and went, "according to the precept of the 
 Apostolic see," with the king of the northern 
 parts, with all his bishops and abbats and the 
 chief men of all his kingdom, to the synodal 
 place, to inquire into the case of the blessed 
 bishop Wilfrith. They met near the river 
 Nidd, on the east side *, the river that runs by 
 
 1 The present village of Nidd is no doubt the site of 
 this synod. It is quite near Ripon, a considerable 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 217 
 
 Ripon and Knaresbro' and falls into the Ouse 
 at Nun Monkton. The king was there with 
 his chief men and his three bishops 1 , and the 
 abbats ; Elfleda of Whitby, too, was there, 
 Oswy's daughter, " always the comforter and 
 best adviser of the whole province." Briht- 
 wald the archbishop and Wilfrith the bishop 
 arrived on the same day. The king and the 
 bishops and the chief men took their seats, 
 and the archbishop opened the proceedings. 
 " Let us pray the Lord Jesus Christ to grant 
 us the concord of peace in our hearts through 
 the Holy Ghost. Both I and the blessed 
 Wilfrith have writings of the Apostolic see. 
 We humbly ask that these may be read in 
 your reverend presence." The venerable lords 
 gave permission, and both documents were 
 read from beginning to end. 
 
 When the reading was finished, there was 
 
 distance to the west of York, and very far from Heiham 
 and Lindisfarne. That it is described as the synodal 
 place is a further proof that the centre of gravity of im- 
 portance had passed into Deira ; and it is, I think, an 
 evidence of what I have before suggested, that Deira 
 itself had a western division with some constitutional 
 position of its own. 
 
 1 The bishopric of the Picts had come to an end, and 
 Lindsey was no longer a Northumbrian province. The 
 three bishops were Bosa of York, John of Hexham, and 
 Eadfrith of Lindisfarne. 
 
21 8 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 silence. Then the layman next in rank to 
 the king, Berechtfrith by name, said to the 
 archbishop, " We need an interpretation : we 
 should like to know what the words we have 
 heard mean." The archbishop replied : " The 
 judgements of the Apostolic see are expressed 
 in a long round of doubtful words. But 
 there is the same meaning in both documents, 
 and what that is I will briefly explain. The 
 Apostolic power, which first to Peter the 
 Apostle was given, that of binding and 
 loosing, hath of its own authority decreed 
 that in the presence of myself, however un- 
 worthy, and of this assembly, the prelates 
 of the churches of this province, leaving their 
 old enmity, be reconciled for good with the 
 blessed bishop Wilfrith. For to these, my 
 fellow bishops, an option is given by the two 
 Apostolic judgements. Either they make 
 perfect peace with Wilfrith, and restore- to 
 him [such] parts of the churches which he 
 formerly ruled, as the wise men shall have 
 settled with me ; or, if they are unwilling to 
 take this, the best course, all must go together 
 to the Apostolic see, and there have the 
 matter settled. But if any one will do neither, 
 he must know that if he be king or layman 
 he is cut off from the body and blood of 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 2ig 
 
 Christ; and if he be a bishop or a priest 
 that so acts, which is worse still and horrible 
 even to speak of, he is degraded from his 
 Orders. That, in brief, is the judgement of 
 the Apostolic see." 
 
 That was the net effect. They must agree 
 to some restoration of property to Wilfrith ; 
 to what extent, the archbishop and they 
 would settle. The amount of restoration was 
 not the real point ; there must be some. If 
 they met that with a blank refusal, they 
 would all have to go to Rome. The arch- 
 bishop is not saying what he himself regarded 
 as the alternative; he is only stating what 
 the Pope claimed. It seems to me certain 
 that but for Elfleda's management they would 
 have met it with a blank refusal, and would 
 have stayed quietly at home. Anyhow, not 
 even the most ardent Romaniser can venture 
 to say that there was the slightest idea of 
 attending to the decree of Agatho. It was, as 
 it always had been, a dead letter. And it, 
 not anything else, is the testing point of the 
 claim to supremacy. 
 
 The bishops resisted. They said, "That 
 which our predecessors long ago, Theodore the 
 archbishop and Ecgfrith the king, determined ; 
 and afterwards at Austerfield we, and almost 
 
22O THEODORE AND WILFR1TH. 
 
 the whole of the bishops of Britain, in thy 
 most excellent presence, archbishop, decreed ; 
 how can any one alter?" There spoke the 
 unanswerable voice of northern England. 
 And it was final so far as the argument was 
 concerned. The whole thing had been settled 
 long ago; this new papal document had no 
 sort of validity in the presence of the will and 
 decision of two great English moots. Nothing 
 could now do anything for Wilfrith, except 
 some new English evidence which the Council 
 could regard as valid. Such evidence was at 
 once produced, in the form to which the 
 English attached a sacrosanct importance. 
 They could lightly despise the foolish claims 
 of a foreign bishop ; they must bow before 
 the dying words, the most solemn form of 
 testament then known, of their late king. 
 
 It was from the most blessed Elfleda the 
 abbess that the overpowering evidence came. 
 " Truly in Christ I speak the testament of 
 Aldfrith the king . in the illness of which he 
 died. He vowed a vow to God and St. Peter, 
 saying, c If I live, all the decrees of the Apos- 
 tolic see, which I have refused to obey, I will 
 fulfil towards the blessed Wilfrith the bishop. 
 But if I die, tell my heir, my son, in the name 
 of the Lord, that for the remedy of my soul he 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 221 
 
 fulfil the Apostolic judgement concerning 
 Wilfrith the bishop." This is the regular 
 mediaeval proceeding for a death-bed. 
 
 When she spoke thus, Berechtfrith, who has 
 already been mentioned, pronounced the lay 
 judgement, the king being only about eight 
 years old : " This is the will of the king and 
 his chief men, that in all things we obey the 
 mandates of the Apostolic see and the precepts 
 of Aldfrith the king. For [here we have 
 another proceeding of the mediaeval type] 
 when we were closely besieged at Bamborough, 
 and were sheltering in a narrow place in the 
 rock, we vowed that if God gave to our royal 
 boy l the kingdom of his father, we would fulfil 
 
 1 This royal boy, Oared, who nominally presided at the 
 Council of Nidd, and for whose safety this vow, so im- 
 portant to Wilfrith, was taken, became in the end a 
 spoiler of the Church. When Boniface of Mentz (our 
 countryman Winfrid) and five other German bishops 
 and archbishops wrote to Ethelbald of Mercia to entreat 
 him to reform his life which from their statements very 
 much needed reform they declared that the privileges 
 of the churches in England had remained undisturbed 
 and inviolate until the times of Ceolred king of the 
 Mercians and Osred king of the Deirans and Bernicians. 
 Boniface and his colleagues named a second sin of which 
 Ceolred and Osred had been the first to set an example, 
 stupratio et adulterium nonnarum. In another part of their 
 letter they speak of meretrices, sive monasteriaLes sive 
 saeculares (JHaddan and Stubbs, iii. 355). See also 
 
222 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 the Apostolic mandates. As soon as our vow 
 was taken, the hostile forces came over to us ; 
 the gates were opened ; we were free ; and the 
 kingdom was restored." 
 
 Hereupon the bishops discussed the matter 
 apart. Sometimes they had the archbishop in 
 consultation with them, sometimes Elfleda. The 
 judgement pronounced by the lay men had been 
 that the Apostolic decrees should be fulfilled. 
 Those decrees were, so far as Agatho was con- 
 cerned, that all the bishops should be turned out, 
 and Wilfrith should become bishop of the whole 
 of the Deirans and Bernicians, and then should 
 hold a synod and consider what should be 
 done in the way of subdivision of diocese or 
 appointment of assistant bishops. I suspect 
 that no one concerned had the slightest inten- 
 tion of doing anything like carrying out that 
 decree in any one of its three definite in- 
 j unctions. Brihtwald had given a hint, in his 
 explanation of the Pope's meaning, that the 
 wise men and he would put their gloss upon 
 John's restoration clause, and would say how 
 much must be restored. The discussion apart 
 had, as I suspect, for its sole purpose to assess, 
 
 Lecture III, p. 93. Bede in his letter to Ecgbert of 
 York speaks of the evil lives of men of position in his 
 day, neque ab ipsis sacratis Deo virginibus abstineant. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 223 
 
 as we should say, the damages. The claim 
 was, the whole of Northumbria in its very 
 largest sense, and the expulsion of all the 
 bishops. There was a direct command from 
 Rome to give the whole to Wilfrith. They 
 compromised it for the best abbey in Deira 
 and the best abbey in Bernicia, Ripon and 
 Hexham, with no bishopric at all. Wilfrith 
 took the abbeys like a lamb. That was the 
 ridiculously small outcome of all the papal 
 decrees and threats. That was the way in 
 which the men of Yorkshire and Northumber- 
 land were clever enough to seem to do what 
 the Pope enjoined, while really they did as 
 from the first they had done just what they 
 thought fit ; that, and no more. And there 
 was a good opportunity for a much fuller 
 obedience to the papal decree than at most 
 they seemed to shew. York was Wilfrith's 
 original see. From York he had ruled all the 
 northern land. To York they were bound to 
 restore him, if they were to do as they were 
 told, even though it 'should be only a truncated 
 York they gave him. It may be said that it 
 would have been harsh to turn the Bishop of 
 York out of his place in order to put Wilfrith 
 there. But, if harsh, it was exactly what they 
 had been told to do ; and once had done, as 
 
224 THEODORE AND WILFEITH. 
 
 I do not doubt, though some do. They did 
 not do it. But, in this very year, death made 
 a vacancy for them at York. Here was an 
 ideal chance for meeting their own convenience 
 and in appearance going much nearer to obe- 
 dience to the Pope. They did not take it. 
 They filled the see of York by translating 
 John of Beverley from Hex ham ; and then at 
 last Wilfrith got the little bishopric of Hex- 
 ham, having already had restored to him the 
 abbey, which had been, many years before, his 
 own private property. In this position, after 
 four more years of life, he died. 
 
 We have thus this strange record of his 
 episcopal connection with Northumbria l . In 
 
 1 The following table will probably be found useful in 
 appreciating the proportion of time spent by Wilfrith 
 in episcopal work in Northumbria. I have in each case 
 stated the amount in years only. It would have been 
 possible to state it in some cases in years and months. 
 A.I>. 664-669. Five years. Bishop, but excluded from 
 
 episcopal work in Northumbria. 
 669-678. Nine years. Bishop of all Northumbria. 
 678-686. Eight years. Under expulsion. 
 686-691. Five years. Bishop of York ; brief ad- 
 ministration of (i) Hexham, (2) Lindis- 
 farne. 
 
 691-705. Fourteen years. Under expulsion. 
 705-709. Four years. Bishop of Hexham, till his 
 
 death in 709. 
 That is, he was doing episcopal work in Northumbria for 
 
THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 225 
 
 664 he was consecrated to the bishopric of the 
 whole northern kingdom, both Deira and 
 Bernicia, with his seat at York. So, in spite 
 of difficulties, we must interpret the state- 
 ments. For four years he was kept out of it 
 entirely, till in 669 Theodore put him for the 
 first time into possession of his bishopric, 
 which certainly then included the whole of the 
 great province. He held it for nine years, 
 and then was expelled by or under this same 
 Theodore and the same King Ecgfrith. For 
 eight years his only connection with Northum- 
 bria was to be in prison there for nine months, 
 on account of his appeal to Rome. Then, in 
 686, he was made Bishop of Deira, with his 
 seat at York, having first administered, but 
 only for about a year each, one part and 
 another of Bernicia. The bishopric of Deira 
 he held for about five years, and then he was 
 again expelled, in 691. In 705, after an ex- 
 pulsion lasting fourteen years, he was given 
 the bishopric of Hexham, and Bishop of Hex- 
 ham only he died, in 709. That is, out of 
 forty-five years of episcopal life, he was for 
 nine years Bishop of Northumbria, for five 
 
 three periods of nine, five, and four years, eighteen in all. 
 He was excluded from such work for three periods of 
 five, eight, and fourteen years, twenty-seven in all. 
 P 
 
226 THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 
 
 years Bishop of Deira, and for four years 
 Bishop of Hexham a rapidly diminishing 
 scale of importance. For eighteen years out 
 of forty-five he acted as bishop in the northern 
 kingdom, for twenty-seven years he was under 
 banishment. The only completely successful 
 part of his life in the north was the nine years 
 from 669 to 678, before he invoked the help of 
 the Pope. From the moment of his invoking 
 that help down to the last moment of his life, 
 he never recovered his position. That is the 
 net teaching which history has for us as to 
 the value of the papal attempts to interfere 
 with the autonomy of the English Church in 
 the years between 678 and 709. 
 
 But a feature even still more remarkable in 
 some ways is the complete submission of the 
 Popes and of the Papal Court to the very 
 cavalier treatment accorded to their fulmina- 
 tions by the kings and archbishops and 
 bishops. As I have already pointed out, it 
 is of great importance that we should look 
 rather to the manner in which papal claims 
 were treated than to the nature of the claims. 
 " I can call spirits from the vasty deep " 
 " but will they come if I do call them ? " 
 A glance at the succession of the Popes 
 during Wilfrith's episcopal life supplies some 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 227 
 
 manner of explanation. There were twelve 
 Popes and two anti-popes during Wilfrith's 
 forty-five years 1 . This no doubt greatly 
 interfered with the carrying out of a con- 
 sistent and watchful policy of encroachment. 
 But we must discount that fact. In those 
 times 2 , as more markedly in the middle 
 
 1 The list is as follows : 
 
 Vitalian . . 
 
 . 657-672 
 
 John VI ... 701-705 
 
 Adeodatus . . 
 
 . 672-676 
 
 John VII . . . 705-708 
 
 Domnus . 
 
 . 676-678 
 
 Sisinnius . . . 708 
 
 Agatho . . . 
 
 . 678-681 
 
 Constantino . . 708-715 
 
 Leo 11 . . . 
 
 . 683-683 
 
 
 Benedict II . 
 
 . 684-685 
 
 Antipopea 
 
 John V ... 
 
 . 685 686 
 
 
 Conon . . . 
 
 . 686-687 
 
 Theodore . Sep.-Dec. 687 
 
 Sergius I . . 
 
 . 687-701 
 
 Paschal. . . . 687-693 
 
 2 The permanent officials of the see of Rome not un- 
 frequently appear in history. Boniface of Mentz applied 
 to the Roman chancellery for some of Gregory's letters to 
 England, which the officials could not find. On another 
 occasion he sent to England some of Gregory's letters 
 which he had got from the chancellery, and believed not 
 to have been sent to England before (Haddan and 
 Stubbs, iii. 336, 359). Boniface's desire for information 
 gives us a hint which explains the spread of Bede's 
 writings on the continent of Europe. On two occasions, 
 when writing to Archbishop Ecgbert of York, who was 
 a friend and correspondent of Bede, he begs Ecgbert to 
 send him copies of some of Bede's works. " I beseech 
 you to copy and send me some tractates from among 
 the lesser works of the Lector Beda, whom, as we hear, 
 the Divine Grace has gifted with spiritual intellect and 
 P 2 
 
228 THEODOEE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 ages, and as very clearly now even in the 
 case of a man so independent as Leo XIII, 
 the permanent officials, rather than the Pope, 
 made the policy of Rome. It was the Roman 
 Curia, more even than such men as Roderic 
 Borgia, that wrecked the Papacy in the 
 sixteenth century, and gave the English 
 Church a lesson it cannot forget. And after 
 all allowance is made for the element of dis- 
 
 has granted as a light in your province ; that we too 
 may enjoy the candle which the Lord has bestowed upon 
 you" (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 359). In another letter 
 he passionately begs the archbishop to give him the joy 
 he lias already given him, by sending some more of 
 Bede's writings ; especially, if he can, those on a 
 lectionary for the year and on the Proverbs of Solomon 
 (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 389). When we find such 
 MSS. in foreign libraries, we find them attributed to 
 Irish scribes, and the hand in which they are written 
 is called Irish. I claim here, as in the case of our 
 abundant sculptured stones in the north of England and 
 south of (modern) Scotland, that the work is Anglo- 
 Saxon or Anglian, not Irish, both in its execution and 
 in its origination in England. When Boniface wrote to 
 Daniel, Bishop of Winchester, to ask his advice on certain 
 points, he told him his eyes were getting weak, and he 
 could not easily read letters which were small and run 
 together. He entreated Daniel to send to him a MS. 
 of six of the prophets, written out by Abbat Winbert in 
 clear and separate letters (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 345)- 
 I feel sure that if this MS. were found at St. Gallen, 
 or had been found at Reichenau or at Mayence, it woulcl 
 be called an Irish MS., written by an Irish scribe. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 229 
 
 continuity, I think the fact stands out with 
 remarkable clearness that Rome did not 
 regard it as its business to manage the affairs 
 of the Church of England. When those 
 affairs were brought to Rome by an injured 
 or dissatisfied person, Rome, always very 
 human, would have been more than human 
 if it had declined to accept the position and 
 pronounce its opinion and judgement. But 
 when it had performed that function, it seems 
 to have washed its hands of the whole affair, 
 and left the islanders to fight it out among 
 themselves ; not even caring or daring to 
 make any disturbance when its decision was 
 treated at most as so much waste paper, and 
 on occasion as ground for the imprisonment 
 of the ecclesiastic over whom its unavailing 
 aegis had been cast. 
 
 The Popes seem at least to have learned 
 wisdom by experience. Pope Paul I, just fifty 
 years after the event we have been discussing, 
 wrote a letter to Eadbert, King of North- 
 umbria, curiously enough on this same question 
 of taking away monastic lands, but in a very 
 different tone and with very different claims. 
 The Romans in England announced four years 
 ago that St. Peter was the primary patron 
 of England. Paul I stands seriously in their 
 
230 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 way, giving to the Apostle Paul an equal 
 share with Peter in the protectorate of 
 England, moved, it may be, by the fact that 
 his own name as Pope was Paul. Agatho 
 and his successors had spoken of Rome as 
 deriving from St. Peter ; Pope Paul states the 
 simple historical fact that its importance 
 rested on Peter and Paul. We have seen 
 that in the times of Ecgfrith and Aid frith 
 Rome was described only as "the see of 
 Peter " ; Pope Paul, having claimed both 
 Peter and Paul, and claimed them without 
 distinction or difference so far as his use of 
 their names went, is careful to speak of " the 
 Apostolic see," that is, as the context shews, 
 the see of the Apostles, Peter and Paul. The 
 earlier Popes, in trying to frighten or awe the 
 English into attending to them, spoke time 
 after time of the prince or chief of the 
 Apostles, Peter. But Pope Paul uses the true 
 phrase, which alone really expresses the view 
 of Catholic times, " the princes (or chiefs) of the 
 Apostles, Peter and Paul." " Abbat Forthred," 
 he writes, " has come to the threshold of your 
 protectors, the blessed princes or chiefs of the 
 Apostles, Peter and Paul. He has told us 
 that a certain abbess had granted to him 
 three monasteries, Stonegrave, Coxwold, and 
 
12. FRAGMENTS OF CROSSES AT BTONEGRAVE. [p. 231. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFBITH. 23! 
 
 Donemouth 1 , and that your excellency has 
 taken them from him and given them to 
 a patrician, your own brother, 'Moll' by 
 name/' This, the Pope said, had greatly 
 troubled him, fcr the king was a good and 
 well-meaning king. He exhorted him, and 
 through the Apostolic see warned him, to 
 obey his own better feelings, and for love 
 of his protector (here in the singular) to 
 restore the monasteries. If he did so, he 
 would prevail against the wiles of his fierce 
 foe, and without doubt obtain eternal life. 
 There was no curse in the alternative case. 
 If Popes had confined themselves to that 
 kind of letter, they would not have lost the 
 Church for which of all Churches they had 
 in mediaeval times the highest regard, the 
 national Church of the English race. I give 
 in Fig. 12 a representation of fragments of 
 
 1 Staningagrave, Cuchawalda, Donaemuthe (Haddan 
 and Stubbs, iii. 395). Stonegrave (near Malton) is re- 
 markable for fine and abundant remains of early Anglian 
 sculpture, especially a large stone cross quite unique. 
 Coxwold is very near Stonegrave. Jarrow lies at the 
 mouth of a little river called the Done, and Jarrow was 
 on some early occasions called Donamuth. The only 
 objection to this last identification is that Jarrow was 
 too important in the middle of the eighth century to 
 have fallen into the hands of an abbess and to have been 
 bandied about in the way described. 
 
232 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 early Anglian crosses which are preserved in 
 the Church of Stonegrave, one of the places 
 named by the Pope. See also page 234. 
 
 There came a time, less than forty years 
 after Wilfrith's death in 709, when it was 
 definitely proposed that the relations of the 
 English Church to Rome should be changed. 
 It was proposed that the reference of difficult 
 and disputed matters to Rome, which up to 
 that time had been made by a disappointed 
 individual only, and had been actively re- 
 sented by all in authority, should for the 
 future be made by the chief authorities 
 themselves 1 . Boniface of Mentz, our own 
 countryman Winfrid of Crediton, the Apostle 
 and martyr of Germany, sent to Archbishop 
 Cuthbert a letter describing the acts of a 
 council he had held, and suggesting reforms 
 in the English Church. He was an ardent 
 Romaniser, as a matter of organisation, and 
 at the same time a very frank critic of Popes 
 when he thought they needed or deserved 
 criticism. He brought his German council 
 to declare their complete submission to the 
 Roman Church and their full recognition of 
 the supremacy of St. Peter and his vicar. 
 They agreed to keep the Catholic faith and 
 1 See also Continuity of Possession (S.P.C.K.), p. 31. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH, 233 
 
 unity and the submission to the Roman 
 Church ; to be subject to St. Peter and his 
 vicar ; to follow canonically all the precepts 
 of St. Peter, that they might be numbered 
 among the sheep committed to him. And 
 this declaration they sent to the body of 
 St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles. Further, 
 they decreed that if any bishop was unable 
 to amend or correct a matter in his own 
 diocese, he should bring it before the arch- 
 bishop in synod ; and if the archbishop could 
 not correct it, he should always send it 
 faithfully to the Apostolic see and the vicar 
 of St. Peter to be amended. For thus, 
 Boniface wrote, "I think all bishops ere 
 bound to act with regard to their metropolitan, 
 and he to the Roman Pontiff." 
 
 Such was the example set and the advice 
 suggested to Cuthbert the archbishop and 
 the Church of England. They would have 
 nothing to do with it. On the contrary, they 
 met in synod, and, with this proposal before 
 them \ resolved that if a diocesan bishop had 
 a matter too hard for him, he should bring it 
 
 1 That is one view. The other is that the letter came 
 later. If this other view is correct, the fact remains 
 that the English Church would have no appeal beycmcl 
 its Archbishop. 
 
234 
 
 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 before the archbishop in synod, and there 
 
 the archbishop should 
 
 settle ' li ' The words 
 with which Boniface 
 
 concluded the resolu- 
 tion were completely 
 omitted. 
 
 Such is the tale 
 our early history has 
 to tell of the sturdy 
 national independ- 
 ence of the Church 
 of the English, in 
 its first great fight 
 against the encroach- 
 ments of the Papacy, 
 
 12 a. Cross at Stonegrave. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Ancient crosses and other sculptured atones. Ruth- 
 well. Abercorn. Acca's cross. Art in Wessex. Aid- 
 helm. Bradford-on-Avon. Deerhurst Glastonbury. 
 Dolton. Cuthbert's altar. His pectoral cross. 
 Hack ness. Ripon. Stapleford. Eadulf. Monk wear- 
 mouth. Britford. Ethelwold's cross. 
 
 LAST year I described at some length the 
 great shaft of Alchfrith's cross at Bewcastle, 
 and gave several illustrations of its ornamenta- 
 tion and runic inscriptions l . I must now say 
 something of the great cross at Ruthwell, in 
 Dumfriesshire, a brief account of which I gave 
 four or five years ago 2 . The south-western 
 part of Scotland was conquered by Ecgfrith, 
 of whom we have heard much in these lectures, 
 and for a few years it was under Anglian 
 rule. After his disastrous defeat and death 
 
 1 See Conversion of Oie Heptarchy (S.P.C.K.), pp. 188-213. 
 * Lessons from Early English Church History (S.P.C.K.\ 
 pp. 104-109. 
 
236 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 in 685, the Britons and Picts in that corner 
 of what is now Scotland, as also the Picts in 
 Fife, resumed the native sway, and the Angles 
 were known there no more. There has been 
 no other period in history when a great 
 Anglian cross, covered with Anglian runes, 
 could have been set up in that south-western 
 district of Scotland. 
 
 Tradition points to its being regarded by 
 the inhabitants as of foreign origin, not native. 
 It was brought, they say, by sea, from distant 
 parts, and was for a time at Priestwood-side, 
 near the sea. It was being brought inland ; 
 but the hauling-gear failed, and the people 
 took that as an indication that it must remain 
 on the spot which it had reached. They put 
 a shed over it, and the place became known 
 as Rood- well. 
 
 However that may have been, this great 
 monument stood in the ancient church of 
 Ruthwell, and was the object of much local 
 veneration, so that it was not defaced at the 
 Reformation. But at length, on July 21, 1642, 
 the General Assembly of the Church in Scot- 
 land ordered the destruction of the cross, as 
 tending to idolatry. It was thrown down in 
 the church and broken into three or four 
 pieces, and there it remained lying for eighty 
 
13. THE RUTH WELL CROSS. 
 
 [p. 237. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 237 
 
 years or more, when it was turned out into 
 the churchyard. In course of time one large 
 piece of it was lost, but it was found in 
 digging a grave a hundred years ago. The 
 horizontal arms of the cross-head have not as 
 yet been found, but there is practically no 
 doubt what they were like, for the topmost 
 key of the cross-head remains, as also the 
 lower portion. The stone that now does duty 
 for the horizontal arms and the centre was 
 made in 1823, and is of the right shape. 
 There its correctness ends. 
 
 The ornamentation of two of the sides of 
 the Kuthwell cross is practically identical 
 with that of one side of the Bewcastle cross, 
 as will be seen by comparing the narrower 
 side in Fig. 13 with the east side of the 
 Bewcastle cross in Fig. 3 in last year's 
 lectures (p. 191 of the little book referred to). 
 It is a beautiful piece of ornamentation, repre- 
 senting a conventional trunk or branch of 
 a tree running in graceful curves from bottom 
 to top, passing across and across many times, 
 and each time throwing off a spiral tendril 
 to occupy the semi-ellipse, ending in fruit at 
 which a beast or a bird is nibbling. The 
 whole is drawn and sculptured in a very bold 
 and skilful manner, and the animals and birds 
 
238 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 are full of life. Leaves and seeds and tendrils 
 are thrown off freely in alternate directions, 
 so as completely to occupy the field with 
 ornament. There are inscriptions down the 
 sides, and also across the shaft at one place. 
 There are no examples of interlacing patterns 
 on this cross ; at Bewcastle, as we saw last 
 year, some panels on the shaft are filled with 
 ornament of that character. This is, I think, 
 an evidence that the cross was set up by 
 artists who desired to shake themselves free 
 from the local associations of Anglian and 
 Scotic interlacements, and to look to more 
 classical decoration. We shall see this carried 
 yet further when we come to speak of Acca's 
 cross, pages 257-261. 
 
 The two other sides of the shaft are divided 
 into panels, as in the Bewcastle example, and 
 there are inscriptions on the borders of the 
 panels, both across the face of the shaft and 
 down the sides. 
 
 The cross is in two pieces a lower shaft 
 about 12 feet high, very massive, 20 inches 
 by 17 seven feet from the base ; and an upper 
 shaft with a cross-head in one piece, about 
 5 feet 6 inches high, dowelled into the lower 
 shaft. The main inscriptions are on the lower 
 shaft, but the upper part is covered with 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH, 239 
 
 inscriptions too. This upper part has suffered 
 more from time and accident than the lower, 
 and the inscriptions are much more illegible. 
 I have, however, read enough of the runes 
 to convince me that we have on the upper 
 shaft portions of the second stanza of the 
 poem to which reference will be made later. 
 Also, I have ascertained that the name of 
 Caedmon is actually on the remaining frag- 
 ment of the head of the cross, the topmost 
 key, a point very much disputed until recent 
 times. I dare say it is disputed still by some 
 people. I read the runes which form Csed- 
 mon's name in a manner different from that 
 of earlier investigators; the cross has now 
 been put with great care into the parish kirk, 
 in an annex specially built, and it can be 
 examined very completely and conveniently. 
 My reading of the passage with Ctedmon's 
 name is -|- Kedrtwn mae fauodho, which is 
 said to mean " Caedmon made me." It should 
 be noted that the horizontal arms and the 
 centre of the cross-head are a modern manu- 
 facture, very badly done, the topmost key 
 being the only part that remains of the old 
 head. 
 
 The inscriptions on those sides of the shaft 
 which are divided into panels, with figure 
 
240 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 subjects in relief on the sunk field, are in 
 Latin, and relate to the subjects represented 
 in sculpture. The inscriptions on the other 
 sides of the shaft, where the foliage scrolls 
 are, consist of runes. 
 
 In Figs. 14 and 15 I give reproductions of 
 certain parts of the Latin and the English 
 inscriptions. The method of reproduction is 
 as follows : I tied a long piece of paper on 
 the face of the shaft, and rubbed the surface 
 of the paper with a bit of old leather. This 
 marked out the edges of the incised Roman 
 capitals and Anglian runes. I then pencilled 
 the outlines thus marked out, continually 
 referring to the actual letters when anything 
 unusual had to be attended to. When I got 
 home the letters were filled in with ink, and 
 the whole was then photographed on the scale 
 of (roughly) an inch to the foot. Thus all 
 pains have been taken to make the repro- 
 duction at once clear and trustworthy ; the 
 ordinary reader would make out very little 
 from a photograph of the stone itself. This 
 is the method by which all of my outline 
 illustrations are produced, as for instance the 
 intricate piece of interlacing work on the pillar 
 at Stapleford (Fig. 22, page 285). 
 
 The runic letters vary from z\ to 3 inches 
 
tATTVllTRIABA 
 
 g S 
 
 ^3=4 
 
 
 14. The Ruthwell Cross. 
 Q 
 
1242 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 in length, and the Latin letters from ij to 
 2 inches. I have not corrected anything. 
 Thus it will be noticed that the ninth letter 
 across the top of Fig. 14 should be L, not I, 
 and the first word down the left side should 
 be EIVS, not EVS. In the case of the I for 
 L, it may be that the horizontal line has 
 perished ; for it will be seen in other cased 
 that the bottom of the L is very small. This 
 no doubt is due to the passion for orderliness 
 of spacing which shows so remarkably in 
 the shapes of the capitals in the Lindisfarne 
 Gospels, and for a balance between the space 
 occupied by the top and the bottom of a letter. 
 The square C is a case in point here ; in the 
 Gospels, D also is made square. The line across 
 the top of the A has the same purpose. Exam- 
 ples of letters which have partially perished 
 will be found in PEDES and at the bottom 
 of both sides. The eye that is accustomed to 
 runes will easily detect two cases of a partly 
 perished H and N at the bottom of Fig. 15. 
 
 Taking the Latin inscription first (Fig. 14), 
 it runs as follows, reading across the top, down 
 the right side to the cross-bar, then down the 
 left to the same point, and then across the 
 bottom of the panel: ^Attulit alabastrum 
 unguenti et stuns retro secus pedes eius lacri* 
 
THEODORE AND WILFR1TH. 243 
 
 mis coepit rigare pedes eius et capillis capitie 
 sui tergebat (St. Luke vii. 37, 38). The funny 
 little T slipped into the lower part of the 
 A will be noticed, as also the liberal spacing 
 in some of the earlier parts, which drove the 
 cutter to crowd his letters at the end. Even 
 so he had not room for the final T. 
 
 The remainder of the Latin inscription reads 
 down the left side and then down the right : 
 ^Et praeteriens vidit [hominem caecum] 
 a na-tibitate et sa7i[avit eum ab infirmitate] 
 (St. John ix. i). The B for V will be noticed 
 in natibitate. 
 
 These texts illustrate the subjects sculptured 
 in relief on the panels, which are shewn on the 
 face of the cross in Fig. 13. Of the four 
 panels on that face, these are the second and 
 third from the top. In the upper of the two, 
 the sculpture of which is quite complete, 
 except that, as at Bewcastle, the projecting 
 right hand of the Lord has gone, the long 
 stream of hair will be seen with which the 
 woman is wiping the feet. " She brought an 
 alabaster box of ointment, and stood at His 
 feet behind weeping, and began to wash His 
 feet with tears> and did wipe them with the 
 hairs of her head." 
 
 The panel below this is broken away in ita 
 Q 2 
 
244 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 lower part, about the place where my illus- 
 tration ends, but the words ab infirmitate can 
 be made out at the bottom of the right side, 
 leaving exactly space for seven letters, which 
 therefore are avit eum. " And as Jesus passed 
 by, He saw a man which was blind from 
 birth." The remaining words, " and He healed 
 him of his infirmity," do not occur in the 
 text. 
 
 The uppermost panel represents the Salu- 
 tation of Mary and Elisabeth ; the lowest the 
 Annunciation, ingressus angelus being still 
 legible. 
 
 On the opposite side the subjects are : 
 (i) St. John with the Lamb. (2) Our Lord with 
 His feet on the heads of animals, and the 
 inscription -J- IH2 XPS index aequitatis 
 bestiae et dracones cognoverunt in deserto Sal- 
 valorem rtiundi (" Jesus Christ the righteous 
 J udge. Beasts and dragons knew in the desert 
 the Saviour of the world"). (3) Two figures 
 breaking a circular cake of bread between 
 them, representing Paul and Anthony (the 
 first hermit and the first monk) with the bread 
 which the raven brought, each too humble to 
 break bread for the other ; and the inscription 
 see Paulus et -4(ntonius) freger\\m\t panem 
 in deserto (" Paul and Antony broke bread in 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 245 
 
 the desert "). (4) The flight into Egypt, with 
 Maria et 7o(seph.). (5) At the bottom it is 
 possible to see the Crucifixion. 
 
 Turning now to the runes (Fig. 15), and as 
 before reading across the top and down the 
 right side, we have : 
 
 Krist wees on rodi hivethrce ther fusee 
 fearran kwomu ceththilce til anurti ic thwt 
 al bih[eald]. 
 
 Beginning at the top of the left side and 
 reading down, we have : 
 
 Mith strdu^i giwundad alegdun hice hince 
 limwoerignce gistoddun him [cet his licces 
 heafdum]. 
 
 " Christ was on the Cross, and there hasten- 
 ing from far came they to the noble prince. 
 I that all beheld." 
 
 " With missiles wounded they laid Him 
 down limb-weary, they stood at His body's 
 head." 
 
 When the runic inscriptions were first inter- 
 preted by a learned Dane, he read the whole 
 correctly for the most part, but he misunder- 
 stood throughout one letter, the sixth from 
 the beginning on the cross-bar, and the thir- 
 teenth down the left side *. It is the rune for 
 W, and he read it as if it meant P. This 
 
 1 See also the notes on p. 31. 
 
H 
 
 inn 
 
 rn 
 fix 
 
 iw 
 
 HFH 
 
 fan 
 
 XI 
 
 tfXI 
 
 MF 
 
 IliF 
 HI 
 
 W 
 
 n 
 
 K 
 HI 
 H 
 
 W 
 
 Iff 
 
 HI 
 
 Ml 
 
 M 
 
 15. The Ruthwell Cross. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH, 247 
 
 threw him entirely off the scent. He read 
 the beginning as Kristpason, instead of K rist 
 wees on, and he argued that a Christ-bason 
 must mean a font. In the other case he read 
 giwunda as xi punda, and thus ascertained 
 the weight to be eleven pounds I 
 
 In 1840 Mr. J. M. Kemble read the runes 
 aright, and shewed that they represented about 
 twenty lines of an old Northumbrian sacred 
 poem, whose existence had not been suspected. 
 In 1842 Mr. Kemble came across a copy of 
 a Report on Anglo-Saxon poems and hymns 
 found in the conventual library at Vercelli in 
 a manuscript of about the year 950, in the 
 Wessex dialect. Embedded in one of these 
 poems, containing 314 lines, he found all the 
 lines which he had read on the Ruthwell cross. 
 They were expanded, and the dialect was 
 a good deal later, but they were all there. By 
 the kindness of my friend Mr. Gollancz, of 
 Christ's College, Cambridge, who has recently 
 been appointed the first University Lecturer 
 in English there, and has done so much work 
 in publishing Anglo-Saxon texts with modern 
 English renderings, I am able to give a free 
 but close rendering of the whole poem. The 
 lines which are represented on the lower shaft 
 of the cross are printed in italics. If I ever 
 
248 THEODORE AND WILFR1TH. 
 
 again have time to work at the upper shaft, 
 I hope to establish the claim of the cross to 
 parts of another stanza of the beautiful poem. 
 Whether the "Caedmon made me" refers to 
 the poem in its original form as given on the 
 shaft, or to the actual cross itself, that * is, 
 whether Csedmon was the poet or the sculptor, 
 no one can say. The poet Csedmon was 
 singing inspired songs at the time when this 
 cross must have been erected, but we have no 
 information of his having sung such a song as 
 this. I think it will be felt that the simplicity 
 of the earlier part of the poem, down to about 
 line 70, points that as the part most near to 
 the original poem ; and it is from this part 
 alone that the inscriptions on the Cross are 
 taken. 
 
 THE DREAM OF THE CROSS. 
 
 List ! a dream of dreams is now my theme. 
 'Twas midnight when the vision met my gaze ; 
 hushed was the speech of men in silent rest. 
 Methought I there beheld a wondrous tree, 
 borne aloft, all wrapt about with light; 
 never was tree so bright; it was a beacon 
 of molten gold, and gems shone forth therefrom, 
 four below, nigh earth, and five above 
 on the spreading arms ; God's angels, ever-fair, 
 
THEODORE AND WILFR1TH. 249 
 
 gazed on 't, a gallows-tree, but not of shame ; 10 
 
 angels and holy spirits gazed thereon, 
 
 and men on earth, yea, all this mighty world, 
 
 a wondrous tree of triumph ! and sin-stained I, 
 
 wounded with guilt, I saw that glorious tree 
 
 shining so brightly in its golden gear, 
 
 its rich adornments ; the staff of sovran might 
 
 right fittingly was all bedight with gems. 
 
 But yet, e'en through the gold might I discern 
 
 the pangs they felt, those sufferers of old, 
 
 when first the blood o'er its right side streamed 
 
 forth. 20 
 
 I, too, was sore perturbed; the wondrous sight 
 thrilled me with fear: I saw the hastening beacon 
 changing in garb and hue, now damped with wet, 
 and soiled with running blood, now decked with 
 
 gold. 
 
 Long lay I there, and long I gazed thereat, 
 and, sad in soul, beheld the Saviour's tree, 
 until I heard how it gave forth a voice ; 
 and these words spake to me that holiest wood : 
 " 'Twas long ago, yet I remember well, 
 how I was hewn adown at the forest's edge, 30 
 cut from my stem, and strong foes took me thence ; 
 made me a spectacle ; bade me bear their outcasts ; 
 bore me on their shoulders ; set me on a hill ; 
 foes fixed me there. Then saw I mankind's Lord 
 hastening in His might to ascend me there : 
 I dared not then oppose the word of God, 
 
250 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 or bend or break asunder, though I saw 
 
 earth's bosom quake ; yea, all His foes might I 
 
 have laid full low, yet stood I firm. 
 
 Then the young warrior prepared himself 40 
 
 'twas God Almighty, resolute and strong ; 
 
 brave, in the sight of many, He went up 
 
 U2>on the lofty cross, to save mankind. 
 
 I trembled in His clasp, yet dared not bow, 
 
 or fall to earth ; I had to stand tliere firm. 
 
 A cross they stood me there; I uplifted the great 
 
 King, 
 
 tJie Lord of Heaven, and yet I dared not stoop. 
 They pierced me with dark nails : you see the 
 
 wounds, 
 
 the open gashes ; I durst harm none of them. 
 They scorned us both together. Stained was I 50 
 with the blood that streamed forth from His side, 
 
 when He, 
 
 as man, had sent His spirit on its way. 
 Many a bitter pang endured I there, 
 upon that mount ; I saw the Lord of Hosts 
 cruelly bestead ; I saw the darkness shroud 
 with covering of clouds the Ruler's corse; 
 day's splendour fled before the shades of night, 
 wan 'neath the welkin. All creation wept ; 
 their King's fall mourned they; Christ was on 
 
 the Cross. 
 
 Then men came thither, hastening from afar 60 
 unto their noble Prince. All this saw I. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 251 
 
 Sore pained, I bowed me to the hands of men, 
 humbly, with all my strength. Then took they 
 
 thence 
 
 Almighty God, and raised Him from the rack; 
 but me the warriors left, standing forlorn, 
 bespattered all with blood, wounded with s/uifts. 
 Him they laid down, limb-weary ; stood by Ilia 
 
 head; 
 tfiey looked upon the Lord of Heaven ; and there 
 
 awhile 
 
 He rested, harassed by that mighty toil. 
 Then 'gan they make an earthy grave for Him> 70 
 in the sight of His foes; they wrought it of 
 
 bright stone; 
 
 and laid therein the Lord of Victory; 
 then over Him they sang a mournful dirge, 
 sadly, at eventide, when they must leave, 
 with heavy hearts, the Great King resting there, 
 with no great retinue to guard His rest. 
 We, crosses, stood there in our place awhile, 
 weeping, until anon fierce warriors came 
 (the body, life's fair dwelling, was then cold) 
 and therewithal they felled us to the earth, 80 
 and (dreadful fate!) in a deep pit they hid us; 
 but me the servants of the Lord found there ; 
 with silver and with gold they decked me o'er. 
 Now mayst thou hear, thou dear beloved friend, 
 what deeds of baleful men, what direful griefs, 
 I once endured; but now the time is come, 
 
252 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 and, far and wide, all men throughout the earth, 
 
 yea, all this great creation, honour me, 
 
 and pray unto this sign. On me God's Son 
 
 suffered awhile ; wherefore I firmly now 9 
 
 tower high 'neath Heaven, and it is mine to heal 
 
 each of mankind who stands in awe of me. 
 
 Of yore was I the cruellest punishment, 
 
 most loathsome unto men, ere I made clear 
 
 the way of Life for all who speak the word. 
 
 Lo, me the Prince of glory, Heaven's Lord, 
 
 hath glorified above all forest-trees, 
 
 as He, Almighty God, hath glorified 
 
 His mother, Mary, above womankind. 
 
 Now bid I thee, thou dear beloved friend, 100 
 
 to tell aright this Vision unto men ; 
 
 reveal in words, that 'tis tlie Tree of Glory, 
 
 whereon Almighty God endured dire pangs 
 
 for mortals' pins, and Adam's old offence. 
 
 The death He tasted there ; yet in His might 
 
 the Lord arose again to help mankind ; 
 
 He thence ascended into Heaven ; He comes 
 
 into the world again to visit folk ; 
 
 at Doomsday will He come, the Lord Himself, 
 
 Almighty God, and angel-hosts with Him, no 
 
 wielding the power of doom ; He then will judge 
 
 each man, as he erewhile hath merited, 
 
 during the fading days of life on earth. 
 
 Not any one may then be free from fear, 
 
 when the All-wielding Lord shall speak the word, 
 
THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 253 
 
 when He will ask before that multitude, 
 
 where is the man who in God's name would taste 
 
 of bitter death, as He did, on the Cross. 
 
 They then will dread, and little will they know 
 
 wherewith to make reply to Christ's request. 120 
 
 Yet none need there know any touch of fear, 
 
 who bears within his breast the best of signs : 
 
 yea, by the Cross, the soul of every man, 
 
 leaving the track of earth, finds Heaven's realm, 
 
 if he but yearn to dwell there with the Lord." 
 
 With blithesome mood, with all my spirit's might, 
 
 I prayed then to the Cross ; I was alone ; 
 
 no men were with me there ; my veiy soul 
 
 was eager for departure ; I had endured 
 
 too many hours of longing. Life's hope is now 130 
 
 that I may seek that Tree of Victory, 
 
 and, all alone, and oftenest of men, 
 
 may worthily adore it ; my will is set thereon ; 
 
 'tis strong within my heart : for my defence 
 
 I look but to the Rood. Few mighty friends 
 
 have I on earth; they have departed hence 
 
 from the world's joys; they sought the King of 
 
 Glory ; 
 
 with the High Father live they now in Heaven ; 
 they dwell in glory; and I, too, day by day, 
 await the hour when this, the Prince's Cross, 140 
 once seen by me on earth, shall fetch me forth 
 from this poor life, and bring me to that place, 
 where bliss abounds, and all the heavenly joys, 
 
254 THEODORE AND WlLFRITH. 
 
 where at the feast the Sovran's folk doth sit, 
 where bliss is everlasting. May He then 
 appoint a place, where I may thenceforth dwell 
 in glory, sharing with the Just their joys ! 
 The Lord befriend me. He that suffered once 
 on earth upon the Cross for mankind's sins! 
 He then redeemed us, and gave life to us, 150 
 a home in Heaven. Hope was then renewed, 
 and bliss and joy, to those who burnt before. 
 The Son came back as Victor from the fight, 
 with mighty triumph ; with Him a multitude, 
 a troop of souls, the mighty Sovran brought 
 into God's kingdom. Joy to angels, joy 
 to all the Saints then dwelling there in glory, 
 in Heaven's heights, when He, their Ruler, came, 
 the Lord Almighty, back unto His realm, 
 
 We have seen that for one turn there was 
 a bishop at Abercorn, on the south side of the 
 Forth, to minister among the Picts of Fife and 
 the parts between the walls. It is interesting 
 to notice that Bede settles a modern question 
 of pronunciation, the a in Aber. Some Scots 
 pronounce it broad, like ah ; others like the ay 
 in hay. Bede spells it phonetically, Ebber- 
 curnig* 
 
 We should find it difficult to assign any other 
 period than this for the erection of the cross 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 255 
 
 of which FigB.9,io, 
 1 6, shew a frag- 
 ment 1 . Itmusthave 
 been a monument 
 of great importance, 
 quite ranking with 
 Bewcastle and 
 Ruthwell, for the 
 pattern shews that 
 the one surviving 
 portion is no t nearly 
 the lowest part, and 
 it is eighteen inches 
 across at the base. 
 The stone was 
 taken out of a wall 
 after the publica- 
 tion of Dr. John 
 Stuart's great vol- 
 umes, The Sculp- 
 tured Stones of 
 Scotland, and thus 
 two of the sides 
 not known to him 
 have been revealed, 
 and large part of a 
 fourth side. The 
 
 16. Abercorn* 
 
 1 See also pp. 162-164. 
 
256 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 shaft is well cared for now, being placed in the 
 ante-room to Lord Hopetoun's pew in the 
 gallery of the kirk of Abercorn. The back of 
 the stone, which I do not shew, is much 
 injured ; it is covered with a two-fold scroll, 
 that is, two scrolls start from the opposite 
 sides and cross and re-cross up the shaft, form- 
 ing ovals as on the face of Acca's cross (Fig. 17). 
 The scroll in Fig. 10 is unlike any other 
 scroll which I know, so much of the effect 
 being produced by large single leaves of very 
 graceful shape and attitude. It reproduces, 
 also, more than the Anglian scrolls usually do, 
 the idea of the various off-shoots being tied on 
 to the main stem, as scrolls in modern metal- 
 work are tied on with stout wire wrapped 
 round them and the main stem. With our 
 early Anglian artists the scroll usually swelled 
 out into the shape of a cornu copiae, from 
 which issued the continuance of the main 
 stem and the off-shoot to form the circular 
 curve ; this latter method is universal in 
 Fig. 9, which shews another edge of this 
 beautiful stone, and is well worth study even 
 in my rough reproduction in bare outline. 
 It will be seen that in Fig. 10 the com- 
 mencement of an upper panel is shewn, with 
 a pattern of diagonal fretwork. This startling 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 257 
 
 combination of a purely classical scroll with 
 a pattern which used to be thought purely 
 Celtic is exceedingly unusual. A striking 
 example of it will be found at page 271. 
 
 The broad face shewn in Fig. 16 has a 
 panel of good rectangular fretwork, a panel of 
 good interlacement of two bands, and a dragon 
 panel. By an unfortunate mistake the dragon 
 is very unworthily represented. The panel 
 when complete had two dragons with their 
 aerpentine bodies involved, the lower half of 
 the panel being no doubt exactly like the 
 upper, the lower dragon being shewn head 
 downwards. 
 
 Fig. 17 shews one of the three remaining 
 portions of the most beautiful of all the great 
 crosses of Northumbria which still remain to 
 us in whole or in part. It is a portion of the 
 cross which stood at the head of Bishop Acca's 
 grave at Hexham, Acca the intimate com- 
 panion of Wilirith, and his successor in the 
 bishopric which was all that was left to him 
 of the whole vast province once ruled by 
 him. Acca died in 740, and there were set 
 up at the head and foot of his grave two stone 
 crosses of marvellous sculpture 1 , on one of 
 
 1 'Duae ciuces lapideae mirabili caelatura decoratae/ 
 Simeon of Durham, an. DCCXL. 
 
 B 
 
258 
 
 THEODORE AND WILFR1TH. 
 
 which, that which stood at the head, an 
 inscription was cut, stating that he was 
 buried there. The massive fragment shewn 
 
 17. Acca's cross. 
 
 in Fig. 17 was found in excavating in the 
 churchyard at Hexham, along with another 
 piece of a shaft of a cross with a portion of 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 259 
 
 the head remaining. At Dilston, near Hex- 
 ham, there was long known to be a stone used 
 as the lintel of a doorway, with sculpture 
 resembling that in Fig. 17. In the course of 
 time these three pieces of Anglian sculpture 
 were brought to Durham by the Reverend W. 
 Greenwell, to whom the archaeological world 
 owes so much, and were placed in the dorter 
 there. The quick eye of my friend Mr. C. C. 
 Hodges, an architect at Hexham, who has 
 photographed all or almost all of the remark- 
 able stones of the North of England l , and has 
 done much else for the archaeology of Hex- 
 ham, discovered that resemblance of ornament 
 meant identity, and saw that the mass shewn 
 in Fig. 1 7 exactly fitted on to the still more 
 massive piece which had served as a lintel. 
 All that is now missing of the shaft of the 
 cross is a piece about four feet long, and this 
 has been made in wood, with the top of the 
 shaft and the portion of the head of the cross set 
 on the top. Thus we have now the cross once 
 more set up, just as it was, wanting the pieces 
 that have not as yet been found. It was, when 
 complete, a monument on the same scale as the 
 other great crosses I have described. One 
 
 1 Mr. Hodges will supply copies at moderate prices. 
 His address is Tynedale House, Hexham. 
 R 2 
 
260 THEODORE AND WILFEITH. 
 
 thing pleased me very much when I saw it 
 all set up. It will be seen that in the lowest 
 of the three great ovals shewn on the left face 
 in Fig. 17, the tendrils interlace so as to 
 form an equal-armed cross. On a former visit 
 I had suggested the theory that this foliage 
 cross was once at the height at which a man's 
 eye would look straight at it, and hazarded 
 the guess that if ever the lower part of the 
 shaft was found, it would prove to be so. 
 The centre of the foliage cross, now that this 
 piece is superposed on the other, is just at the 
 level of my eye. 
 
 The face and two sides are covered from 
 top to bottom with the beautiful scrolls and 
 bunches of grapes and tendrils shewn in 
 Fig. 17. On the back, it was supposed, 
 the sculpture had all been chiselled off; it 
 was left bare and battered in appearance. 
 But when we came to examine it in all kinds 
 of lights, at all hours of the day, and even, by 
 the very kind permission of Dean Lake, by 
 very powerful lights at night, shewing very 
 deep shades on the battered side, we found to 
 our delight that this was the side on which 
 the inscription had been. Here and there we 
 could read words, in letters i\ inches long. 
 Across the very top of the shaft, A . . A, fol- 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 261 
 
 lowed by sanctus huius ecclesiae, evidently 
 "Acca, holy, of this church [bishop]." Two 
 or three feet lower down we read unigeniti 
 fill Dei, as though some profession of Acca's 
 faith was inscribed on his head-cross, con- 
 ceivably in connection with the record that 
 for some unexplained reason he was driven 
 out of his bishopric, and was only received 
 again shortly before his death. If the missing 
 piece is founol in some future excavation, pre- 
 served by centuries of burial in the earth, we 
 may confidently hope to have the key to the 
 whole inscription. The cross which stood at 
 the feet is also, I believe, in existence, under 
 certain secular foundations. When a lease 
 falls in, some of us are prepared to buy the 
 building and pull it down and recover the 
 cross. It is said to be in a continuous piece 
 at least fourteen feet long. That would 
 indeed be a treasure. 
 
 In Wessex we have evidence, from the first 
 commencement of Christianity, of a special 
 connection with that part of Italy in which 
 we find so much sculptured interlacement on 
 marble slabs, of kin with our earliest Christian 
 art in England ; I mean Lombardy. The 
 West Saxons were not converted by or through 
 the Augustinian mission, but by a separate 
 
262 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 mission, by the ministry of Birinus. This 
 Birinus was consecrated Bishop at Genoa, by 
 the Pope's advice, in 634 ; not, as is usually 
 said, by the Bishop o"f Genoa, but by the 
 Archbishop of Milan, who at that time was 
 living in the city of his southernmost suf- 
 fragan, at Genoa. Birinus, then, with this 
 Lombardic connection, baptised the King of 
 Wessex at the Oxford Dorchester in 635, our 
 Northumbrian Oswald being by chance at the 
 court at the time, fetching his bride, the King's 
 daughter. 
 
 I do not see why we should have any hesi- 
 tation in supposing that a man like Birinus, 
 treated with special favour at the King's 
 court, would naturally establish at once a cer- 
 tain amount of religious pomp and apparatus ; 
 and that it would be like in style to that to 
 which he had been accustomed in his Italian 
 home, presumably with some blending of the 
 kind of ornament which he found in popular 
 acceptance among his new flock. Indeed, we 
 should be surprised if we learned that he took 
 any other course than this. Thus, without 
 saying that we have in Wessex any actual 
 work done under the order of Birinus, I think 
 we may fairly say that he would give the 
 lirst impulse to Christian art there, that it 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 263 
 
 naturally continued for some time at least on 
 the lines on which he started it, and that 
 those lines were such as I have indicated. 
 
 But we have a significant hint that there 
 may have been also a very different influence 
 at work in Wessex. The West Saxon Kings 
 had still a great deal of hard fighting to do 
 after they became Christian, and it was not 
 for nearly twenty years that they succeeded 
 in dislodging the Britons from the forest land 
 to their west, and occupying up to the Severn. 
 It was the battle of Bradford-on-Avon, in 652, 
 which gave them this additional territory, and 
 it was almost immediately entered upon by 
 one Meildulf, who founded the Monastery of 
 Meldun, or Malmesbury. And this Meildulf 
 was what we should call an Irish monk. Thus 
 we should not be surprised if in some of the 
 earliest decorative work to be found in the 
 dependencies of Malmesbury, there were signs 
 of Hibernian influence. 
 
 Meildulf was succeeded as Abbat of Malmes- 
 bury by a relative of the West Saxon Kings, 
 Aldhelm, who made such a mark on the 
 studies and the buildings of the West as it 
 was the lot of few to make in any part of 
 England. He built at once, besides the church 
 or churches at Malmesbury, the well-known 
 
264 THEODORE AND WILFEITH. 
 
 churches of Bradford-on-Avon, Frome, Sher- 
 borne, and Wareham ; superior, as Mr. Green 
 says, quoting Mr. Freeman, to the famous 
 churches Benet Biscop was rearing at this 
 time by the Wear : not superior, the Northum- 
 brian may rejoin, to the churches which 
 Wilfrith was then rearing at Ripon and Hex- 
 ham. Mr. Green adds that Malmesbury and 
 Sherborne were the only churches of that very 
 early time meaning, no doubt, the only large 
 and important churches which the Norman 
 architects spared when the great rebuilding 
 set in. 
 
 We have two interesting notices of the 
 taste of Aldhelm for artistic decoration, 
 and in each case it is Italian art that is in 
 question. The first concerns an ecclesiastical 
 robe. Aldhelm was visiting Rome as the 
 guest of Pope Sergius I (687-701) ; he had 
 sung the Mass, as was his daily custom ; and 
 in taking off his vestment [William of Malmes- 
 bury says, somewhat to my surprise, " the 
 garment which they call a chasuble " ; it 
 would have seemed more natural to say, 
 "in taking off his chasuble 1 '], thinking that 
 the attendant was ready, he threw it off 
 behind his back. The minister, however, was 
 attending to something at another part of 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 265 
 
 the altar, and was not there to receive the 
 chasuble as it went back over Aldhelm's 
 head. There was no one and nothing to catch 
 it. But lo! a ray of the sun, shining clear 
 through the transparent glass of a window, 
 caught the chasuble and held it miraculously 
 suspended in the empty air. " Now this vest- 
 im-nt," William adds, "whether he had taken 
 it with him from England or had only pro- 
 cured it for the occasion we do not know, is 
 with us still " [he finished this work, by the 
 way, the Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, in 
 1 1 25]. " It is of most delicate material," he 
 continues, " dyed scarlet ; and has black scrolls 
 containing the representations of peacocks." 
 Its length shewed that the Saint was a tall 
 man, and would naturally increase the diffi- 
 culty of throwing it over his head. Here we 
 have at once the birds in scrolls of which 
 we see so much on Anglian stones, and seo 
 something on stones in Lombardy. 
 
 The other is a case more in point. When 
 Aldhelm returned from Italy, he brought 
 with him a white marble altar, a beautiful 
 piece of stone, 4 ft. long, 2^ ft. broad, ij ft. 
 thick, with a projecting rim, beautifully 
 wrought all round with crosses. The animal 
 which was carrying it up the Alps it 
 
266 THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 
 
 must have been a camel, William thinks, for 
 no beast of our regions could carry such a 
 weight, the animal fell, and broke the marble 
 slab in two. Aldhelm, it is unnecessary to 
 say, infused vigour into the animal, so that it 
 picked itself up again, and he miraculously 
 mended the altar, leaving only an irregular 
 mark or cicatrice where the fracture had been. 
 Aldhelm eventually got the altar safe back 
 to England, and gave it to Ina, King of the 
 West Saxons, who bestowed it upon the church 
 of St. Mary at Bruton in Somerset, where it 
 was still to be seen in William's days, a lively 
 proof, as he says, of the holiness of Aldhelm. 
 I suppose there was an irregular seam in the 
 marble, as to the origin of which this story 
 was told. 
 
 As to the weight which the camel would 
 have to carry, the dimensions I have given, 
 4 ft. by 2* ft. by ij ft., mean 13^ cubic feet. 
 I asked a practical friend how many cubic 
 feet of marble go to a ton, and he replied " of 
 statuary marble, 13^ ft." So the altar weighed 
 just a ton. 
 
 It is very interesting to find that the two 
 points relating to Christian art which we are 
 able to connect specially with Aldhelm are 
 scrolls with peacocks, and a slab of white 
 
THEODORE AND W1LFR1TH. 267 
 
 marble sculptured all round with crosses. 
 This pours a flood of light upon the character 
 of the art of the time, both that in Italy and 
 that introduced into England. The white 
 marble altar, sculptured all round with crosses, 
 given to Bruton church, is a description which 
 applies to the altar of St. Satiro at Milan, the 
 screens composing which I suppose Aldhelm 
 and Birinus both had seen. There is fortu- 
 nately a third point connected with Christian 
 art of the time, which William's life of Ald- 
 helm brings out When Aldhelm died, he 
 was at Doulting in Somerset, some fifty miles 
 from Malmesbury. His body was brought 
 with great pomp to be buried at Malmesbury, 
 and at all the places where the body halted on 
 the way which was every seven miles they 
 put up, immediately after the burial was over, 
 a stone cross, by order of the Bishop of Wor- 
 cester, Ecguin, who buried him. All of these 
 crosses remained perfect in William's time, 
 without any sign of decay in the 416 years 
 which had elapsed. The last of the series of 
 crosses was set in the cloisters of Malmesbury 
 itself. They were called in William's time 
 Biscepstane, Bishop's stones. Here we have 
 an early evidence of the spread of the practice 
 of setting up stone crosses. In speaking of 
 
268 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Aldhelm's death, it is interesting to note that 
 two ecclesiastics whom we thus associate with 
 the introduction and spread of Christian 
 artistic feeling and work, Wilfrith and Aid- 
 helm, died in the same year, 709. 
 
 And we have not even yet exhausted the 
 hints on early Christian art which we get 
 from Aldhelm's history. King Ethelwulf, 
 about 837, made a shrine for Aldhelm's bones. 
 On the front he placed images of solid silver. 
 On the back he represented the miracles of 
 the saint in raised metalwork. Another 
 account adds that the metalwork was com- 
 posed of sheets of gold. The inscription was 
 in letters of gold, on a crystal pediment. We 
 learn at a later period, in the Danish invasion 
 in the next century, that the shrine was 
 adorned with precious stones. We might 
 almost think we were reading an account of 
 the great altar of Wolvinus at Milan. 
 
 A massive sculptured slab was found in 
 some restorations of the parish church at 
 Bradford-on-Avon, and has no doubt at one 
 time been the reveal of a doorway. It is now 
 placed, with two or three other stones, in the 
 little Saxon church which stands over against 
 the parish church, and which I should think 
 the large majority of those who can form an 
 
THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 269 
 
 opinion believe to be the ecclesiola, the little 
 church, which Aldhelm built here, besides 
 the monastery and larger church, and of 
 which William of Malmesbury says that it 
 was dedicated to St. Laurence and stood in 
 his time. This slab is exactly the right width 
 for the doorway into the north porch, or out 
 of the north porch into the nave ; it is not 
 wide enough for the thickness of the wall at 
 the chancel arch. There is, however, no sign 
 of any such stone being missing in either 
 doorway in the north porch, nor in the door- 
 way on the south side of the nave ; so if it 
 ever belonged to this " little church " it must, 
 I think, have been in the doorway of the 
 south porch, now destroyed. The proper con- 
 clusion, I think, is that it served as the reveal 
 of a doorway in the original Saxon church of 
 Aldhelm's monastery at Bradford, represented 
 now by the parish church, in whose walls it 
 was found, and had nothing to do with the 
 ecclesiola. I shew in figure 1 8 the ornament 
 on the stone, and in figure 19 the ecclesiola 
 itself. 
 
 The interlacing pattern round the edge 
 of the stone is simple, though I do not know 
 it elsewhere. The sculptured slabs at St. Ab- 
 bondio, Como, have several of them an inter- 
 
270 
 
 THEODOKE AND WILFKITH. 
 
 lacing border as this has. The pattern in the 
 lower half of the stone is, I believe, always 
 
 ' , 
 
 1 8. Bradford-on-Avon. 
 
 considered to be intensely Irish ; in the east 
 of Scotland it occurs frequently on the so- 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 271 
 
 called Pictish stones; I only remember one 
 other example of it in England, and that is 
 on the font at Deerhurst, figure 20. The 
 puzzle at Deerhurst is that you have this 
 " Irish " pattern enclosed within a border of 
 classical scrolls, with flowers and fruit. Now 
 
 20. Deerhurst font. 
 
 if you look at the map, you will see that 
 Deerhurst is on the Severn, about thirty miles 
 to the north-west of Malmesbury, while Brad- 
 ford is about twenty miles to the south of 
 Malmesbury ; and Bruton, to which Ina gave 
 Aldhelm's altar, is about twenty miles further 
 
272 THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 
 
 still from Malmesbury. Thus the influence 
 which gave Italian and Irish work to the 
 district south of Malmesbury , may conceivably 
 have extended across the border to a distance 
 not so great. If that is not the explanation 
 of the Deerhurst font, it remains a coincidence 
 which demands an explanation, that tfre two 
 examples on a considerable scale of this most 
 un-English pattern, are found on either side 
 of the great Wessex monastery of Aldhelm, 
 founded by an Irishman. 
 
 The panel filled with Latin crosses is very 
 pretty. It reminds one at once of the great 
 page in the Durham Cassiodorus, written, as 
 an entry in their early catalogue says, manu 
 Bedae, without authority and probably in 
 error. There is a slab something like it at 
 Clonmacnois. It reminds us, too, that Aid- 
 helm's altar was sculptured all round with 
 crosses. 
 
 I mentioned that Aldhelm died in Somer- 
 setshire, fifty miles from Malmesbury, and 
 that crosses were put up at each seven miles, 
 remaining complete to William of Malmes- 
 bury 's time. Now Bradford-on-Avon is about 
 17^ miles from Malmesbury on the map, on 
 the main road into Somersetshire, and, as the 
 line of country lies, that might come to about 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 273 
 
 21 miles by road. Thus we 'should expect 
 that one of the crosses would come very 
 near Bradford, at least ; and considering the 
 ecclesiastical importance of the place, we may, 
 I think, fairly make sure that Bradford was 
 one of the resting-places of the Saint's body, 
 and that a cross was set up there. We have 
 at Bradford the fragments of an early cross, 
 both shaft and head. There are curious com- 
 plications in the work, simple as it looks 
 at first. As a fact, I only know one other 
 example of this kind of difficulty and this 
 kind of pattern, and that is on two fragments 
 of crosses now in the Bath Museum, brought 
 there from some country church long ago. 
 Thus here again we have the localisation of 
 types, if we have nothing more. 
 
 In considering how the Christian art, which 
 I suppose to have been originally Lombardic l , 
 changed its style, and became Dragonesque, 
 like a good deal of the Northumbrian art, 
 we have a very interesting piece of evidence, 
 I think beyond dispute. William of Malmes- 
 bury, writing, say, about the year noo, 
 describes the antiquities of the great church 
 of Glastonbury. He tells us especially of 
 one of the Abbats, Tica, who had fled from 
 
 1 See Conversion of the Heptarchy, Lecture VII. 
 S 
 
274 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 Northumbria before the Danes in 754, and 
 brought with him relics of many of the 
 Northumbrian saints, of Bishop Aidan, of 
 Hild, of five Abbats of Wearmouth, and so 
 on. Tica was eventually buried in a tomb 
 which William describes as arte celaturae 
 non ignobilis, with an epitaph which he read, 
 setting forth that the tomb was constructed 
 with marvellous beauty ; as though this 
 Northumbrian Abbat, Tica, had been honoured 
 with a tomb ornamented in the intricate 
 Northumbrian manner, though the place of 
 his burial was Glastonbury. William goes 
 on to say that in the cemetery King Arthur 
 and his wife were buried, between two pyra- 
 mids or obelisks, and that Kenwin was buried 
 with one pyramid ; this last he describes in 
 a later chapter as nobiliter exsculpta. Ani 
 then he comes to this interesting statement : - 
 I would gladly explain what almost no one 
 knows anything about, if I could but make 
 out what is the meaning of those two pyra- 
 mids which stand a few feet from the ancient 
 church. The one which is the loftier and the 
 nearer the church is 26 feet high and has 
 five tiers, or tablets, or storeys tabulatus. 
 It is very ancient, but it has on it things 
 which can be clearly read, though not clearly 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 275 
 
 understood 1 . On the upper tablet or storey 
 is a representation imago in pontifical 
 dress ; on the next a representation imago 
 with the pomp of a king, and certain 
 letters. In the third there are names. In 
 the fourth names. In the fifth and lowest 
 an imago, and an inscription. The other 
 pyramid is 18 feet high, and has four tabus- 
 latus, with inscriptions. I would not rashly 
 say what these signify, but I suspect that 
 the bones are contained within, in hollowed 
 stones, of the persons whose names are in- 
 scribed on the outside. 
 
 Leland saw these pyramids or obelisks. He 
 describes them as greatly perished in his time 
 (about 1545), so that even with the aid of a 
 magnifying glass he could barely make out 
 enough to follow the description of William 
 of Malmesbury. I have traced a portion of 
 one of them down to the end of last century, 
 but I fear it is now wholly lost. 
 
 The description of these obelisks is very 
 
 much like some of the great Northumbrian 
 
 pillars of the early Anglian period, and it 
 
 seems not very unreasonable to suppose that 
 
 the Abbat Tica, who had so great a reverence 
 
 for relics, introduced this method of perpetu- 
 
 1 See the note on page 31. 
 
 S 2 
 
276 THEODORE AND WILFR1TH. 
 
 ating the memory of those whose relics he 
 very probably placed there, introducing at 
 the same time the Northumbrian style of 
 interlacing ornament, in place of such remains 
 of Aldhelm's style as may have survived in 
 the district. I shew in Fig. 21 a remarkable 
 piece of dragonesque and interlacing work 
 which is used as a font at Dolton, in North 
 Devon, a region which we may connect with 
 that of which we have been speaking. It is 
 in fact nothing but two portions of a very 
 massive shaft of a cross, one of which is 
 hollowed and turned upside down. 
 
 But we must leave Wessex and return to the 
 north. The altar-slab shewn in Fig. i (page 
 105) was found on the breast of St. Cuthbert 
 when his coffin was opened in 1 827. It is about 
 6 in. by 5* in. in size, and consists of a piece of 
 oak one-third of an inch thick, covered all 
 over with a silver plate. A considerable part 
 of the silver has been lost, on both sides. In 
 all probability the piece of oak had been used 
 by itself before St. Cuthbert's time for the 
 purpose of a portable altar, for it bears the 
 inscription 
 
 INHONOR . . SPETRV 
 t t 
 
21. FRAGMENTS USED AS A FOXT AT DOLTON*, NORTH DEVON. 
 
 . 270. 
 
THEODORE AND WlUKITH. 277 
 
 across the top of one sid-, tin- OTOtsei l>cing 
 im dult two of the five found on altars. 
 The letter! are of a very early type, corre- 
 
 .-pnndingwith tho.se in the I/mdisfarno Gospels; 
 the N has it nember much linger than 
 
 the other, the O IH diamond-shaped, and tin 
 8 is like a Z turned round. The Pet must 
 
 I..- tin- ( heel i'H i'." of i' trofl. 
 
 On tin- idr which I do not shew th-io is 
 an in-eription on tin- M!V<T face in raised 
 1'it.i , In-ah-h out from licliiml, of lh- 
 character M th- l.-n. i in Pig, i. It reads 
 
 P . . Os s 
 
 that is, Petroa Apodolos or Pauloa Apo*l<>/< 
 Tin- iiiM-ription on the wood iii;tke.s it 
 practically certain that the word was Petros ; 
 11 those happier da\ was not tin- 
 
 rivalry caune.l }>y tin- fonlisli cJaims of 
 mediaeval and modern Romans, and it is 
 o^iite unnecessary to imagine that a change 
 of o\vnei>hij, would lead to a change of 
 dedication. 
 
 The letters on the face shewn in Fig. i 
 have never, f L-li-ve, been read to any one's 
 satisfaction. Mr. .];. whoso very 
 
 intere t mi/ book ] contains all we know of the 
 
 1 Saint Cuthbeti. Durham, 1828. 
 
278 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 opening of the coffin, believed the letters to 
 be part of a Greek phrase in Latin capitals 
 (as no doubt they are), and suggested 
 O HAGIA ET ERASTE . . . . O holy and 
 beloved" [" Trinity/' or "Wisdom," or "Mary," 
 having regard to the inscription on Acca's 
 altar 1 ], I feel no doubt that we must not do 
 violence to the lettering as we find it, and 
 there is no question that the middle word is 
 EC, the Greek preposition for " of," or " out of," 
 or " from." Nor, I think, can Mr. Raine's G 
 or S be maintained. The curved lines like an 
 S are only marks of divisions between words. 
 
 Of the whole altar and its details it may be 
 said that it is full of Greek feeling and we 
 cannot assign it to western influence. 
 
 The eye that is not accustomed to pick out 
 the intention of the artist in work distorted 
 or blurred by accident or ill-usage, may need 
 the explanation that the ornament in the 
 central circle within the band of inscription 
 is an equal-armed cross, with a circular centre 
 and semi-circular or horse-shoe extremities to 
 the arms ; and that in the four angles formed 
 by the arms there are pretty patterns of 
 Anglian interlacements of a continuous line. 
 A cross with arms of this shape is the main 
 1 See page 105. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 279 
 
 motive in one of the magnificent pages of the 
 Lindisfarne Gospels. 
 
 The cross shewn 1 in Fig. 7 was found 
 attached, by a silken thread twisted with gold, 
 to the neck of St. Cuthbert's body. No doubt 
 the thread had originally been completely 
 covered with the golden tape wrapped round 
 it, that being the method in those times of 
 making gold thread. The cross is made of 
 gold, hollow ; the loop at the top is of very 
 pure gold. It is 2 inches across each way, 
 and weighed when it was found fifteen penny- 
 weights and twelve grains. There is a large 
 garnet in the centre and one at each angle ; 
 and there are twelve small garnets on each 
 arm. 
 
 When King Aldfrith, of whom we have 
 heard something in these lectures, was dying 
 at Driffield, he sent for Elfleda to receive his 
 last instructions. She was his aunt, abbess of 
 Whitby. Hilda had founded a daughter abbey 
 at Hakanes, the modern Hackness, about thir- 
 teen miles south of Whitby. Here Ethelburga 
 was abtess. If you draw a line on the map 
 from Whitby to Driffield, it passes through 
 Hackness. We can scarcely doubt that Elfleda 
 went first to Hackness, and thence made her 
 1 Page 161. 
 
280 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 way to Driffield. Eddi informs us that, along 
 with her, the abbess Ethelburga heard what 
 Aldfrith had to say. We know enough of the 
 names of that time to know that this must 
 have been the abbess of Hackness. 
 
 I have given on page 137 an outline of the 
 ornament on the north capital of the chancel 
 arch in the present church at Hackness. It 
 is clearly a very ancient stone, dating I do 
 not doubt from the times with which we are 
 concerned. But there is at Hackness a much 
 more remarkable relic of those times, namely, 
 three portions of the shaft of one or more 
 crosses, which must have been noble monu- 
 ments, quite comparable with the groat crosses 
 of which I have already spoken. This is very 
 badly placed in the church, in a poor light, 
 and with one of the most important sides 
 almost close to the wall. Thus I am not able 
 to give a representation of it. It is in some 
 ways the most remarkable monument of this 
 character which we have, for it has inscrip- 
 tions not only in Roman capitals and Anglian 
 runes, but also in tree-runes, of which I believe 
 we have no other example in England. The 
 tree-rune is so named because it consists of 
 an upright stroke, like a tree trunk, with one, 
 two, or three branches on the left-hand side, 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 281 
 
 and from one to seven or eight on the right. 
 Tree-runes with one branch on the left side, 
 were of the /family ; those with two branches, 
 the h family ; those with three, the t family. 
 The runic alphabet began with /, and seven 
 letters followed, down to but not including h ; 
 these were Frey's family, and one branch on 
 tin- ri^lit slu'wrd the first of them, two the 
 set-nit. 1. tlnvr tin- thinl, and so on. In the 
 same way there were eight in the family of 
 Hagl, h ; and eight in the family of Tyr, t. 
 Thus twenty-four letters were very simply 
 represented by tree-runes. The idea has much 
 in common with that of ogams. Neither 
 tree-runes nor ogams are letters of an alpha- 
 bet ; they are only signs of letters. One piece 
 of the Hackness cross has had Latin inscrip- 
 tions on two opposite sides, and interlacing 
 and foliage work on the other sides. The 
 inscription with which we are most concerned, 
 as belonging to our period, is as follows : 
 OedilLurga beata ad semper te recolant 
 amantes pie deposcant requiem vernantem 
 sempiternam sanctorum pia mater Aposto- 
 lica. The inscription on the opposite face 
 is as follows : . . . etb . . ga semper te ament 
 memores domus tuae te mater amantissima. 
 On another stone, a lower portion of the 
 
282 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 shaft, there are the remains of bird-monsters, 
 and on two opposite faces the inscription in 
 tree-runes and portions of Latin inscriptions : 
 Trecea, ora . . . abbatissa Oedilburga orate 
 pro . . . On another stone are runes and 
 tree-runes and the word ora, and on another 
 side Bugga virgo. 
 
 Thus it seems clear that in the cemetery at 
 Hackness there was a monument, or there 
 were monuments, of very great interest, com- 
 memorating much-loved abbesses and other 
 ladies. Ladies of these names are well known 
 from the letters of Boniface and Lul, the two 
 Wessex men who played so large a part in 
 the conversion and settlement of the regions 
 of Germany. The language of the inscriptions 
 is very tender and loving : " Blessed Oedil- 
 burga, may they that love ever bear thee 
 in mind, dutifully beg for thee the verdant 
 everlasting repose of the saints pious 
 mother apostolic." " Huaetburga " [for so we 
 may fill the blank, the name being that of 
 Oedilburga's successor] "may thy houses 
 mindful ever love thee, thee O most loving 
 mother/' The words may be taken in various 
 combinations, but the general sense is clear. 
 
 I have shewn in Fig. 3, page 1 12, a capital 
 which may well have belonged to Wilfrith's 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 283 
 
 church at Ripon, and have remarked that 
 nothing else remains except the confessio or 
 crypt. But it may be well to add something 
 to that remark. 
 
 In Leland's time (about 1545), he saw at 
 Ripon "one- thing" which he "much notid, 
 that was, 3 crossis standing in row at the 
 este end of the chapelle gaith. They were 
 things antiquissimi operis, and monumentes 
 of some notable men buried there, so that of 
 al the old monasterie of Ripon and the toun 
 I saw no likely tokens left after the depopula- 
 tion of the Danes in that place, but only the 
 waulles of our Lady chapelle and the crossis." 
 There is in the vault which was once the 
 famous "Ripon bone-house" the head of an 
 Anglian cross, certainly early, but of such 
 poorly designed and executed sculpture that 
 I feel sure it is not of anything like Wilfrith's 
 date. In the very interesting collection of 
 early sculptured stones in the Hospitium of 
 St. Mary's Abbey, in the Museum grounds 
 at York, there are two inscribed stones from 
 Ripon. One is the circular boss of a very 
 small cross, with the touching little inscrip- 
 tion, salve pro meritis presbyter alme tuis ; 
 the other is a short shaft of a cross, with 
 Adhuse presbyter on it. The name of Adhuse 
 
284 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 is found in the Durham Book of Life ; whether 
 he is the " gentle priest " addressed on the 
 other fragment, we cannot say. Some years 
 ago the then Dean of Ripon sent to me in 
 Cambridge a small fragment of stone which 
 they had found in digging in ^he church- 
 yard. It was the centre and part of the arm 
 of a very small stone cross, beautifully cut, 
 and ornamented in the Anglian style. I saw 
 no reason to doubt its being of the period 
 of Acca. These very small stone crosses 
 I believe to have been inserted in a dowel- 
 hole sunk in the large and prominent body- 
 stone which was laid over the grave of an 
 important man. We have many of the 
 Anglian body- stones still remaining. In 
 some of the very remarkable Scottish or Pict- 
 ish examples in the great collection at Meigle 
 in Forfarshire, the socket-holes for some such 
 purpose as that described are very evident. 
 
 I give in Fig. 22, as an example of the 
 intricacy upon which our Anglian ancestors 
 ventured, one of the bands of sculpture on the 
 important cylindrical pillar at Stapleford in 
 Nottinghamshire. I call it cylindrical, but it 
 is not quite circular in section, having rather 
 the effect of a square shaft very nearly 
 rounded off into a cylinder. This will 
 
I 
 I 
 
286 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 explain the insertion of an area of orna- 
 ment unlike the rest, that, namely, at the 
 left of Fig. 22: it occupies one of the 
 rounded sides. I have put letters to shew 
 which are the corresponding ends of the 
 several interlacing bands, so that the reader 
 may trace the convolutions of each from its 
 beginning to its end. If any one will try 
 to fill a space with this pattern, not copying 
 it but designing it afresh, he will begin to 
 realise the wonderful skill of the early 
 designer. One of the early fragments recently 
 found at St. Saba, in Borne, has this same 
 arrangement of a line alternately acting as 
 diameter and circumference ; but being in 
 Rome, where I know of no example of con- 
 tinuity of line such as we have in so much 
 abundance in England, it is of course super- 
 posed upon a pattern formed of isolated 
 patterns linked together, chiefly quatrefoils 
 with re-entering curvilinear sides. 
 
 A fact in connection with this Stapleford 
 pillar is so interesting, and, I think, important, 
 that I will mention it. At the upper part 
 of the shaft, where it is cut into four faces 
 (from which the cross head sprang) each filled 
 with ornament, there is on one of the faces 
 a well - sculptured bird. The late Bishop 
 
THEODORE AND W1LFRITH. 287 
 
 Trollope, who was the antiquary of the 
 county, described this as a Danish bird. 
 I knew that it was not a Danish piece of 
 work, and I got a ladder and examined it. 
 The head of the bird is an ox's or calf s head, 
 and there are horns. There is no doubt at all 
 that it is the emblem of St. Luke. The 
 dedication of the Church is St. Helen, an 
 early dedication, so St. Luke seemed to have 
 no business there. An elderly man, over 
 seventy, had been watching my proceedings, 
 and I called down to him " When is Staple- 
 ford Wake?" "Wake-Sunday," he replied, 
 " is t' last Sunday in October, less that be 
 t' last day, then it's t' last but one." Now 
 that clear definition shews that the village 
 feast is fixed by St. Luke's day. Old 
 St. Luke's day is the 3Oth, and thus " Wake- 
 Sunday " could not be the 3ist, for that week 
 would not include St. Luke's day at all. 
 I then explained to him that the " Danish 
 bird " was St. Luke. " My old father telled 
 me when I were a lad, odd St. Luke's day 
 governs Stapleford Wake." That, I think, 
 throws us back to a time when the early 
 Christian teachers, going there in the autumn, 
 took possession of the place in the name of 
 St. Luke. Although the church came to be 
 
288 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 dedicated to St. Helen, the tradition of St. 
 Luke has never died out. He still governs 
 Stapleford Wake. 
 
 On pages 215, 21 6, we have seen that Eadulf 
 was King of Northumbria at a crisis in the 
 life of Wilfrith, but only for a very short time. 
 As he is never heard of again, he was no 
 doubt killed very soon after the event de- 
 scribed on pages 221, 222. 
 
 There is a highly interesting monument still 
 in existence, bearing the name of Eadulf. It 
 was found in 1789 in the ruins of St. Woden's 
 Church, at Alnmouth. It is now in very safe 
 keeping at Alnwick Castle. Alnmouth is 
 fifteen miles from Bamborough, as the crows 
 fly. If Eadulf fled southwards, he must cross 
 the Aln, and it is the first river which would 
 cause any delay. Here, more probably than 
 anywhere else, he would be overtaken and 
 slain. The stone, in its ornamentation, its 
 Koman lettering, its Anglian uncials, and its 
 partial use of runes, is eloquent of the date 
 at which Eadulf died. The letters which can 
 be well made out are . adulfes dh . . . myredah 
 meh wo . . . udwyg meh feg. " The grave of 
 Eadulf . . . Myredah wrought me Hludwig 
 made me," the former probably being the 
 mason and sculptor, the latter the lettercr. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 289 
 
 We have, curiously enough, another monu- 
 ment connected with this unknown Eadulf. 
 The continuator of Bede says of the year 740, 
 Aruuine et Eatberctus interempti, " Aruuine 
 and Eatberct were slain." Symeon of Durham, 
 under the same year, says, Arwine filius 
 Eadulfi, ocdsus est. Mr. Plummer reads the 
 continuator's word as Arnuuini, with various 
 spellings in other MSS. ; and Thorpe sug- 
 gested that the mention of Eatberct by the 
 continuator was a mere slip, as Symeon was 
 silent about him, and the Eadbert who is 
 known was king till 758. It is certainly a 
 remarkable comment on these two points that 
 there is at Wensley a portion of a sepulchral 
 slab bearing a cross of very early form, and 
 having in the angles of the cross and below 
 the head, in three lines, in letters unquestion- 
 ably of that early date 
 
 EAT BER 
 EHT ET 
 AR UINI 
 
 11 Eatbert and Aruini." The head of the 
 slab is lost ; no doubt it bore the words 
 Orate pro. It is difficult to resist the con- 
 viction that the continuator was right in 
 naming Eatberct as - well as Aruini; that 
 T 
 
290 THEODORE AND WILFE1TH. 
 
 some copier of manuscripts has at some early 
 period misread a u as an n\ and that the 
 Wensley stone records the slaughter of two 
 sons of this intruding Eadulf. 
 
 At page 1 06 I made a suggestion as to the 
 arrangement of baluster shafts at the entrances 
 to the side chapels, or porches, in Wilfrith's 
 churches, and gave a representation (Fig. 2) 
 of the appearance it would present. The ser- 
 pents shewn in that figure are sculptured on 
 two large slabs which are still in situ, one 
 on each side of the doorway as you pass 
 through the thickness of the wall into the 
 church of Monkwear mouth. I much fear that 
 they have now perished, the chemicals in the 
 air having disintegrated the surface of the 
 stone. My drawings and rubbings were made 
 fifteen years ago, when we discussed the pos- 
 sibility of covering them with glass to preserve 
 them. 
 
 Above this great slab on each side there is 
 a recess. Into this I have fitted, in imagina- 
 tion, two of the baluster shafts the columnae, 
 as I suppose, of Eddi which are preserved 
 in the vestry: there are many like them at 
 Jarrow. They just fit the place. Resting on 
 them, as a capital which they carried, from 
 which the simple semi -circular arch may be 
 
23. DECORATED JAMB OF ARCH, BRITFORD CHURCH. [p. 291. 
 
THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 29! 
 
 supposed to have sprung, I have fitted one of 
 a very remarkable pair of stones of rectan- 
 gular shape in the vestry. They exactly fit 
 the place. Each of them represents a lion of 
 a Romanesque type, in a stone cage as it were ; 
 its body shewing on the broad side, and the 
 head looking out from the narrower end of 
 the cage. I wish some one would have the 
 courage to build a doorway into some small 
 oratory or side chapel on this principle, and 
 with these* details, to let us see what it is like 
 in actual fact. 
 
 That the jambs of openings in the thickness 
 of a wall were ornamented, is certain. The 
 slab shewn on page 270 must, I think, have 
 been so used. When they built walls of con- 
 crete they would naturally face the openings 
 with dressed stone, and we may take it that 
 the Anglo-Saxon eye craved for the occupation 
 of the surface of stone by raised ornament. 
 There is a beautiful example of a jamb thus 
 ornamented at Britford Church, near Salis- 
 bury, a church of very great interest. In 
 Fig. 23 I reproduce a photograph of the 
 ornamented face of the arch, and in Fig. 24 
 I shew its details, by the method described on 
 page 240. 
 
 On page 209 1 mentioned the cross of Ethel- 
 T 2 
 
292 
 
 THEODORE AND WILFRITH. 
 
 wold, and shewed (Fig. n) a shaft which is 
 supposed to have been part of that cross. 
 
 24. Ornament on jamb, Britford. 
 
 Ethel wold was the ninth Bishop of Lindisfarne 
 
THEODORE AND W1LFR1TH. 293 
 
 (A.D. 724-740), and had been an official under 
 Cuthbert at Melrose. He caused to be made 
 a cross of so much beauty that it was one of 
 the treasures which the monks carried about 
 with them in their wanderings with Cuthbert - 
 body and his book of the Gospels. It event- 
 ually went with them to Durham, and there 
 it was still standing in the cemetery in the 
 time of Symeon of Durham, soon after 1100. 
 Some years ago the delicate and carefully 
 sculptured shaft shewn in Fig. 1 1 was taken 
 out of the walls of St. Oswald's Church in 
 Durham. There is no reason of date or style 
 why it should not be, as tradition makes it, 
 the shaft of Ethelwold's cross. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abercorn, the seat of the bishopric of the Picta, 132, 160 ; 
 sculptured stone at, 162, 164, 255. 
 
 Acca, bishop, beautifies Heiham Church, 126; his altar, 
 105 ; his memorial crasset, 258. 
 
 Aelfwine, sub-king, at the dedication of Ripon Church, n I ; 
 killed in battle, 1 30. 
 
 Agatho, pope, receives Wilfrith's appeal, 139; summons 
 bishops and presbyters to consider it, 141 ; uses title of 
 " universal bishop," 143 ; advances the independence 
 of the papacy, 144; claims Petrine authority over all 
 churches, 142 ; his committee report Wilfrith guiltless, 
 H5 J gives decision in Wilfrith's favour, 149; the 
 decision said to have been obtained by money, 151 ; his 
 decree rejected with scorn in North umbria, t'6. ; his 
 Council at Rome, Wilfrith present, 1 65 ; declares deep 
 theological study impossible in Italy, 106 ; dies, 153 n. ; 
 continued disregard of his decree, 173, 224. 
 
 Aidan's work, 183. 
 
 Albert, archbishop of York, head master of the School, 104. 
 
 Alchfrith, sub-king, his patronage of Wilfrith, 20 ; his dis- 
 appearance, 44. 
 
 Alcuin, master of the School of York, in charge of the re- 
 building of the Church of York, 105. 
 
 Aldfrith, king, gives back to Wilfrith Hexham and Ripon, 
 and makes him bishop of part of his old diocese, 1 73 ; 
 he and Wilfrith quarrel, the grounds stated, 186 ; 
 presides at a great Council at Ouestraefeld, 192; con- 
 demns Wilfrith for threatening to appeal to Rome, 196 ; 
 
296 INDEX. 
 
 proposes violence, 197 ; courteous reception of Wilfrith's 
 messengers, 213 ; his death-bed words, 215, 220. 
 
 Aldhelm, bishop, visits Rome that he may see the tombs of 
 Peter and Paul, 63 ; on Irish students, 89 ; his chasuble, 
 264 ; his altar, 265 ; church building, 263 ; memorial 
 crosses, 272 ; shrine, 268. 
 
 Alfrith, master, Wilfrith's messenger to Aldfrith. 213. 
 
 Andrew, abbat, offered the archbishopric of Canterbury, 72. 
 
 cardinal bishop of Ostia, 142. 
 
 saint, 17. 
 
 Anglian (or Anglo-Saxon) manuscripts called Irish, 228 n. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon translation of Bede, omits the chapters on the 
 Scotic Church, 29. 
 
 Archbishops of Canterbury consecrated by Popes, 85. 
 
 Augustine's work, 182. 
 
 Austerfield, see Ouestraefeld. 
 
 Badwin, abbat, Wilfrith's messenger to Aldfrith, 213. 
 
 Baptism by a person not baptised, 1 79. 
 
 Barnack, early church at, 48. 
 
 Bede, presbyter, his account of the Whitby Conference, 23 ; 
 silence of his summary, 28 ; silences in his account of 
 Wilfrith, 44 ; spread of his writings on the Continent, 
 227 n. 
 
 Benedict, abbat, Biscop, visits Rome that he may see the 
 tombs of Peter and Paul, 63 ; accompanies Theodore to 
 England, 86 ; in temporary charge of the School of 
 Canterbury, 88 ; builds Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, 
 
 102. 
 
 pope, said to have supported Agatho's decree, 193. 
 
 Berechtfrith, the leading layman at the Council of Nidd, 
 218 ; his vow, 221. 
 
 Bewcastle Cross, 37, 235. 
 
 Bishops, in England at the death of Honorius, 7 ; in Wigr- 
 hard's time, 52 ; English-born, 10 ; consecrated in 
 England A. D. 655-668, 8 ; consecrated at Rome, 56 ; 
 at the Council of 'Hertford, 114. 
 
 Boniface, archbishop of Mentz, a strong papist, advises the 
 English Church, 232 ; remarks on immorality of the 
 times, 221 n. ; asks for Bede's writings, 227 n.\ asks for 
 \Vinbert's clear copy of the prophets, 228 n. 
 archdeacon of Rome, 17. 
 
 Bosa, bishop, made bishop of York, 1 29 ; his expulsion 
 
INDEX. 297 
 
 decreed by the pope, 149; not expelled, 159; expelled, 
 
 173; later events, 185, 209. 
 Bradford -on -A von, battle at, 263 ; church, 269 ; sculptured 
 
 stones, 270. 
 Brihtwald, archbishop, 189; delay in appointment, 189; 
 
 consecrated at Lyons, 191 ; at the Council of Oues- 
 
 traefeld, ib. ; sends insignificant messengers to pope 
 
 John VI, 198; receives Wilfrith on his return, 212 ; at 
 
 Nid.l. 216. 
 
 Britford, ornamental jamb, 292. 
 British Church, sacred sites recovered by Wilfrith, in ; it>i 
 
 excommunication of the English, 197. 
 Brix worth, early church at, 48. 
 Bromnis, one of the places of Wilfrith's imprisonment, 156. 
 
 Chad (Ceadda), bishop, consecrated to the (or a) North- 
 umbrian see, 40 ; said by Eddi (but not by Bede) to be 
 in opposition to Wilfiith, 45; retires, 95; his consecra- 
 tion completed, ib. ; appointed to Lichtield, 96. 
 
 Clementine Homance, a Judaising forgery, 67 ; makes Jamen 
 supreme over Peter and the rest, 68; makes Peter 
 l>i>hop of Rome, 67. 
 
 Coinwalch, king, 20. 
 
 Colman, bishop, called by Eddi metropolitan of York, 44. 
 
 Communion, frequent, 179; excommunication for neglecting, 
 1 80. 
 
 Confessio (crypt), at Ripon, in ; at Hexham, 125. 
 
 Constans II, emperor, received by Vitalian, 78. 
 
 Constantino, donation of, 15. 
 
 Constantinople, Sixth General Council, 165. 
 
 Council, at Hertford, 113; at Hatfield, 164, 165 ; at Oues- 
 traefeld, i$i ; at Nidd, 216; at Constantinople, 165; 
 at Rome, ib. 
 
 Coxwold, monastery of, 230. 
 
 Cross, the Dream of, 248-254. 
 
 Crosses, see Sculptured stones. 
 
 Crypts, at Ripon, in ; at Hexham, 125. 
 
 Cuthbert, archbishop, his correspondence with Boniface of 
 Mentz, 232. 
 
 bishop, elected to Lindisfarne, 160; his altar, 105, 
 
 276; his pectoral cross, 279. 
 
 Deerhurst, font, 271. 
 
 Deusdedit, the first English-born archbishop, 9. 
 
298 INDEX. 
 
 Divorce, the first declaration of the English Church re- 
 specting, 117, 1 1 8. 
 Dolt on, font, 276. 
 
 Donamuth, monastery of, 231 ; Jarrow so named, 231 n. 
 Dunbar, one of the places of Wilfrith's imprisonment, 156. 
 
 Eadbert, king, letter of Paul I to, 229. 
 
 Eadhed, made bishop of Lindsey, 130; of Bipon, 133, 187 ; 
 
 expelled, 173. 
 Eadulf, king, his stern reception of Wilfrith's message, 216 ; 
 
 deposed, ib. ; his memorial, 288. 
 Eanbald, archbishop, in charge of the rebuilding of York 
 
 Minster, 105. 
 
 Earl's Barton, early church at, 48. 
 Easter controversy, 1 1 . 
 
 Eata, made bishop of Limlisfarne or Hexham, 132. 
 Ecgbert, king, joins Oswy in sending Wighard to Rome, 57 ; 
 
 dies, 101. 
 Ecgfrith, king, 101 ; at the dedication of Ripon, in ; loves 
 
 Wilfrith, 124; hates Wilfrith, 128; invites Theodore to 
 
 expel Wilfrith, ib.; imprisons Wilfrith, 151; offers 
 
 terms to Wilfrith, 157 ; releases Wilfrith but persecutes 
 
 him, 158 ; is killed in battle, 160. 
 Eddi, singer, his Life of Wilfrith, 13; his Petrine attitude, 
 
 X 5- 
 
 Elfleda, at the Nidd Council, 217; her important share in 
 
 the decision, 220. 
 Erkenwald, bishop, 115 ; Theodore and Wilfrith meet at his 
 
 house, 169. 
 Etaples (Quoentavic), 
 Etheldreda, queen, gives Hexham to Wilfrith, 124; leaves 
 
 Ecgfrith, 127. 
 
 Ethelred, king, his reception of John VFs letter, 212. 
 Eugenius, pope, 18 ; his compliance with the Emperor, 76. 
 
 Forgery, Wilfrith said to be accused of, 152 (see Wilfrith). 
 Forthred, abbat, complains to the pope, 230. 
 Frilhona, the English name of Archbishop Deusdedit. 
 
 Glastonbury, Saxon memorials at, 274; Tica, abbat of, 273. 
 Gollancz, Mr., his translation of the Dream of the Cross, 248. 
 Gospels, Book of, at St. Andrew's, Rome, 17; at Ripon, 108. 
 Greek inscriptions, 105, 277, 278. 
 
INDEX. 299 
 
 Greek Church, reply to Leo XIII, 25, 59; understood by 
 
 England, 178. 
 Greeks, many became popes, 80; tendency to innovation, 
 
 82 \ differ from Romans in practice, 178, 180. 
 
 Hackness, capital at, 137 ; memorials at, 280. 
 
 Hadrian, abbat, offered the archhi.-hpric of Canterbury, 71 ; 
 
 appointed to accompany Theodore, 82 ; detained in 
 
 France, 87 ; master of the School of Canterbury, 88 ; 
 
 his learning, ib. ; his influence on schools of learning, 
 
 181. 
 
 Id, Council at, 164, 165. 
 1 1 reford, first bishop of, 122. 
 < ouncil at, 1 1 3. 
 
 ict given to Wilfrith by Etheldreda, 1 24 ; 
 
 a great church built there, ih. ; becomes a bishopric, 
 
 132 ; an offence to Wilfrith, 187 ; Wilfrith made bishop 
 
 of, 224. 
 Honorius, pope, condemned as a heretic, 74. 
 
 Immorality, 92; 221 n. 
 
 lurmenburg, queen of Ecgfrith, jealous of Wilfrith, 128. 
 
 James, St., of Jerusalem, made by the Clementine Romance 
 supreme over Peter and the rest, 67. 
 
 . I arrow, the church built, 103; culled Donamuth, 231 . 
 
 John VI, pope, receives Wilfrith's appeal, 198; details of 
 the hearing, 199; gives the decision, 204; his letter to 
 the English kings, 207 ; its obscurity, 211, 218. 
 
 cardinal bishop of Portus, 142. 
 
 John of Beverley, bishop of Hexham, 173. 
 
 Leo XIII, pope, 25, 59. 
 Lindsey, made a bishopric, 132. 
 Linus, the first bishop of Rome, 65. 
 Lyons, archbishop of, 19, 191. 
 
 Mahommedans, their influence on church history, 80. 
 Marriage, 117, 180. 
 
 Martin, pope, his martyrdom, 76. 
 
 Moll, brother of Eadbert, 231. 
 
 Monkwearmouth, the church built, 102 ; its porticup, 106, 
 291. 
 
3OO INDEX. 
 
 Monoth elite controversy, 74, 164, 165. 
 
 Nicaea, Council of, quoted by Wilfrith, 27. 
 Nidd, Council at, 216. 
 
 Oft for, bishop, consecrated by Wilfrith, 190. 
 
 Ordination of a person not baptised, 1 79. 
 
 Osfrith. one of Wilfrith's jailors, 156. 
 
 Oered, king:, succeeds when a boy, 216 ; nominally presides 
 
 at the Nidd Council, ib. ; his evil life, 221 n. 
 Oswy, king, at the Whitby Conference, 22 ; sends Chad to 
 
 be consecrated, 40 ; he and Ecgbert send Wighard to 
 
 Rome, 57; dies, 100. 
 Ouestraefeld, Council at, despoils Wilfrith, 194. 
 
 Paul, Saint, a chief source of Rome's importance, 23, 62. 
 
 I, pope, his letter to Eadbert, 229. 
 
 Penitential, Theodore's, 177. 
 
 Peter, Saint, asserted to have taught the true Easter in 
 
 Rome, 23 ; not bishop of Rome, 65. 
 Peter and Paul, Saints, joint sources of the importance of 
 
 Rome, 22, 62, 230. 
 Petrine claims, see Clementine Romance, Saints Peter and 
 
 Paul, Rome. 
 
 Popes, many were Greeks, 80; rapid succession of, 227. 
 Presbyters, Greek, performed some episcopal functions, 180. 
 Procession of the Holy Ghost, 167. 
 
 Quoentavic (Staples, on the Canche), the usual port of 
 embarkation for England, 138. 
 
 Raine, Canon, 13. 
 
 Reconciliation of penitents, 180. 
 
 Ripon, a great church built there, 106 ; its splendid evan- 
 geliarium, 108 ; its confessio, in; its dedication, ib. ; 
 for one turn a bishop's see, 187 ; the only property left 
 to Wilfrith by the Council of Oustraefeld, 194; crosses 
 at, 283; capital at, 112. 
 
 Rome, left the Church of England to itself, 8, 58 ; did not 
 claim supremacy in England, 58 ; Peter and Paul the 
 joint source of its position, 22, 62, 230; origin of 
 Petrine claims, 65 ; steadily opposed by laymen and 
 ecclesiastics in England, 226. 
 
 Runes on the Ruthwell Cross, 246 ; tree-runes, 280. 
 
INDEX. 3OI 
 
 Kuthwell Cross, description of, 235-248; Latin inscriptions 
 on, 241. 
 
 Schools of learning, fee Hadrian, Theodore, York. 
 Sculptured stones, in Northamptonshire, 48; at Bewcastle, 
 
 37i Monegrave, 231 ; at Monk \veannouth, 290; 
 
 at Hexham, 258 ; at Yann, 161 ; at Ruthwell, 235 ; at 
 
 orn, 162, 164, 255 ; wrongly called Irish, 228 . 
 Sergius IV, pope, 193. 
 Singing the Chnrch Services, 47, 91. 
 Stapleford, sculptured pillar at, 284; persistence of early 
 
 dedication, 287. 
 Stonegrave, monastery of, 230; sculptured stones at, 231, 
 
 234- 
 
 Peter's School, York, 104, 123, 181. 
 Stnhbe, Dr., Bishop of Oxford, 84. 
 Suidbert, bishop, consecrated by Wilfrith, 190. 
 Sussex, the South Saxon kingdom, converted by Wilfrith, 
 
 '59- 
 
 Theodore, archbishop, appointed to Canterbury, 72 ; his 
 possible innovations guarded against, 82 ; his earlier 
 life, 84 ; his journey to England, 86 ; his tonsure, 85 ; 
 his learning, 88 ; Irish students, 89 ; his first visitation, 
 88 ; state of the Church of England on his arrival, 93 ; 
 < 'iiipletes Chad's consecration, 95; puts Wilfrith into 
 the Northumbrian see, 97 ; holds the first Council of 
 the English Church, 113; subdivision of East Anglia, 
 121 ; deposes Winfrid of Mercia, 122; subdivides 
 Northumbria and excludes Wilfrith, 129; presides at 
 a great Council at Alnmouth, 160; consecrates Cuth- 
 bert, ib. ; amount of subdivision effected by him, 159, 
 175 ; holds the second Council of the English Church, 
 164; expected at Rome, 165; reconciled to Wilfrith, 
 169; writes to Aldfrith and Ethelred in Wilfrith's 
 favour, 172; dies, 175; his organisation, ib. ; his Peni- 
 tential, 177 ; his schools, 181. 
 
 Tree- runes, 280. 
 
 Trumberht (or Tunbert), bishop of Hexham, 132 ; deposed, 
 1 60; his tombstone, 161. 
 
 Trumwine, bishop of the Picts, at Abercorn, 132. 
 
 Tuda, bishop of Northumbria, 34. 
 
 Universal Bishop, title applied to Agatho, 143. 
 
302 INDEX. 
 
 Vitalian, pope, his letter to the English kings, 57 ; speaks 
 of " Peter and Paul," 62 ; offers th archbishopric of 
 Canterbury to Hadrian, 71 ; to Andrew, 72 ; appoints 
 Theodore, ib. ; his relations with the Greek Church, 
 77 ; sends Hadrian to take care of Theodore, 82. 
 
 Wessex, early art in, 261. 
 
 Whitby, conference at, n, 21; not mentioned in Bede's 
 summary or in the Saxon Chronicle, or in the Anglo- 
 Saxon translation of Bede, 28-30. 
 
 Wighard, archbishop elect, 54; sent to Rome, 56; dies, 71. 
 
 "Wilfrith, early life, 14; states the reason for the importance 
 of Rome, 23 ; pleads the practice of Africa, Greece, &c., 
 24; chosen to be bishop of Northumbria, 35 ; desires to 
 be catholically consecrated, 39 ; consecrated at Com- 
 piegne to the see of York, 42, 44; finds Chad bishop, 
 retires quietly, 46 ; his episcopal work in Mercia, ib. ; 
 early churches and sculptures, 47 ; his love of property, 
 49 ; put into the Northumbricin see, 98 ; his magnifi- 
 cence, 128; his wealth, 105; restores the Cathedral 
 Church of York, 103 ; builds a church at Ripon, 106 ; 
 dedication ceremony at Ripon, in ; his beautiful life, 
 123; his school of York, ib. ; builds a church at 
 Hexham, 124; in disfavour with Ecgfrith, 128 ; expelled 
 from Northumbria, 1 29 ; three bishops put in his place, 
 ib., 135 ; appeals to Rome, 136 ; in Frisia, 138 ; offered 
 the archbishopric of Strassburg, 139; at Pavia, ib. ; in 
 Rome, ib. ; charges against him, 145 ; presents his 
 petition and it is read, 146 ; suggests the decision which 
 will satisfy him, 148 ; signs the Acts of Agatho's 
 Council, 165; takes the decision to Northumbria, 150; 
 and is imprisoned for nine months, 151 ; charged with 
 bribery or forgery, 151, 153; at Bromnis, 156; refuses 
 terms offered by Ecgfrith, 157; at Dunbar, ib. ; re- 
 leased, but persecuted, 158; evangelises Sussex, 159; 
 reconciled with Theodore, his conduct, 168; partially 
 restored, 173; he and Aid frith quarrel and he is 
 expelled, 186 ; becomes bishop of Leicester, 189 ; 
 consecrates Oftfor and Suidbert, 190 ; despoiled at Oues- 
 traefeld, 194 ; required to lay down his episcopal office, 
 ib. ; threatens to appeal to Rome again, 196 ; con- 
 demned for threatening to appeal, ib. ; excommunicated, 
 197 ; appeals to Rome, 198 ; his petition and personal 
 statement, 199; decision in his favour, 204; sends 
 
INDEX. 303 
 
 letters and messengers to Brihtwald, Ethelrecl, Aldfrith, 
 Eadulf, 212 ; <K i>i..n at Council of Nidd, 221 ; becomes 
 bishop of Hexham, and so dies, 224; summary of his 
 episcopal connection with Northumbria, t'6. 
 
 York, rail .1 a metropolitan see by Eddi, 44; the Cathedral 
 < hurch restored, 103, rebuilt, 104; see much reduced in 
 area, 173; ita School, see St. Peter's School. 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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 OCT 24 1947 
 
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