Chapter VIII: Part II (3)

Soon after Waterloo, Baron von Rahden appears to have left the service; for he informs us, that between 1816 and 1830 he made long residences in Russia, Holland, and England. Perhaps he found garrison life an unendurable change from the stir and activity of campaigns, and travelled to seek excitement. Be that as it may, fifteen years’ repose did not extinguish his martial ardour. The echoes awakened by the tramp of a French army marching upon Antwerp, were, to the veteran of Leipzig, like trumpet-sound to trained charger, and he hurried to exchange another shot with his old enemies. Having once more brought hand and hilt acquainted, he grieved to sever them, and when the brief struggle in Belgium terminated, he looked about for a fresh field of action. Spain was the only place where bullets were just then flying, and thither the Baron betook himself, to defend the cause of legitimacy under Cabrera’s blood-stained banner. Concerning his travels, and his later campaigns, he promises his readers a second and a third volume; and the favourable reception the first has met with in Germany, will doubtless encourage him to redeem his pledge.

LAPPENBERG’S ANGLO-SAXONS.

THE HEPTARCHY.

We are willing to acknowledge, without blindly exaggerating, our obligations to the men of learning of Germany, in several branches of art and science. We owe them something in criticism, something in philosophy, and a great deal in philology. But in no department have they deserved better of the commonwealth of letters, than in the important province of antiquarian history, where their erudition, their research, their patience, their impartiality, are invaluable. Whatever subject they select is made their own, and is so thoroughly studied in all its circumstantial details and collateral bearings, that new and original views of the truth are sure to be unfolded, as the fixed gaze of an unwearied eye will at last elicit light and order out of apparent darkness and confusion.

The writer, whose chief work is now before us, cannot and would not, we know, prefer a claim to the foremost place among those who have thus distinguished themselves. That honour is conceded by all to the name of Niebuhr, a master mind who stands unrivalled in his own domain, and whose discoveries, promulgated with no advantage of style or manner, and in opposition to prejudices long and deeply cherished, have wrought a revolution in the study of ancient history to which there is scarcely a parallel. But among those who are next in rank, Dr. Lappenberg is entitled to a high position. His present work is one of the very best of a series of European histories of great merit and utility. He has given fresh interest to a theme that seemed worn out and exhausted. He has brought forward new facts, and evolved new conclusions that had eluded the observation and sagacity of able and industrious predecessors. He has treated the history of a country, not his own, with as much care and correctness, and with as true a feeling of national character and destinies as if he had been a native; while he has brought to his task a calmness of judgment, and freedom from prejudice, as well as a range of illustration from extraneous sources, which a native could scarcely be expected to command. It must now, we think, be granted, that the best history of Saxon England--the most complete, the most judicious, the most unbiassed, and the most profound, is the work of a foreigner. It must, at the same time, be said that Lappenberg’s history could not have exhibited this high degree of excellence, without the ample assistance afforded by the labours of our countrymen who had gone before him, and of which their successor has freely taken the use and frankly acknowledged the value.

The history and character of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, have employed the pen of the most illustrious among our native writers. One of our greatest poets, and one of our greatest masters of prose,--Milton and Burke--have felt the attraction and importance of the subject, at the same time that they have given evidence to its obscurity and difficulty. In later times men of less genius, but of more acquaintance with the times and topics involved in the inquiry, have added greatly to our knowledge of those important events and institutions in which the germs of our present government and national disposition are to be found. But Saxon England can only be thoroughly understood by means of aids and appliances, which have been seldom possessed in any eminent degree by the general run of our antiquarian writers. A thorough familiarity with the Anglo-Saxon language and literature is obviously the first requisite: yet this attainment was scarcely to be met with till within a few years back, and even now, we fear that it is confined to a narrow circle, and that the able men who have made progress in this arduous path, lament that they have so slender and so scattered a train of followers. If we can suppose inquirers studying Roman history, without being able to conjugate a Latin verb, or to gather more than a dim suspicion of a Latin author’s meaning, we shall have a case nearly analogous to the condition and achievements of our Saxon scholars in the last, and even in part of the present century. Another qualification for the successful cultivation of this field of study, is an intimate acquaintance with the analogous customs and traditions of kindred countries, an accomplishment which few Englishmen could till lately pretend to possess, but without which, a great deal of what occurs in our own early history must seem senseless and unintelligible. The key to many apparent mysteries in English antiquities, is often to be found in something which has been more clearly developed elsewhere, and which may even yet survive in a Danish song or saga, or a German proverb or superstition.

In these respects, our kinsmen across the water have undoubtedly the advantage of us; and to most of them the subject of English history cannot be alien in interest or barren of attraction. It is impossible for an enlightened native or neighbour of continental Saxony, to tread the southern shore of the North Sea, and think of the handful of his countrymen who, fourteen centuries ago, embarked for Britain from that very strand, without feeling the great results involved in that simple incident, and owning the sacred sympathies which unite him with men of English blood. He may well remember with wonder that the few exiles or emigrants who thus went forth on an obscure and uncertain enterprise carried in their bark the destinies of a mighty moral empire, which was one day to fill the world with the glory of the Saxon name, and to revive the valour and virtue of Greece and Rome, with a new admixture of Teutonic honour and Christian purity. He may well kindle with pride to admire the eminence to which that adventurous colony has attained from such small beginnings, and to consider how much the old Germanic virtues of truth and honesty, and home-bred kindliness, have conduced to that marvellous result; while perhaps the less pleasing thought may at times overshadow his mind, that his country, great as she is, has in some things been outstripped by her descendant, and that the best excellencies and institutions of ancient Germany may have been less faithfully preserved and less nobly matured in their native soil than in the favoured island to which some shoots of them were then transplanted.

If some such feelings prompted or encouraged the writer of these volumes to engage in his work, Dr. Lappenberg had other facilities to aid him in the task. He had been sent to Scotland in early life, and had studied at our metropolitan university where he is still kindly remembered by some who will be among the first to peruse those pages. His residence in this ancient city of the Angles, and his visits to the most interesting portions of the island, must have formed a familiarity and sympathy with our language, manners, and institutions which would afford additional inducements and qualifications to undertake a history of England. He has distinguished himself by other valuable compositions of a historical and antiquarian character, and particularly by some connected with the mediæval jurisprudence and history of his native city of Hamburgh. But his reputation will probably be most widely diffused, and most permanently preserved, by the admirable work which is the subject of our present remarks.

The labours of Mr. Thorpe, so well known as one of the very few accomplished Saxonists of whom we can boast, has now, after much discouragement, placed the Anglo-Saxon portion of Lappenberg’s history within the reach of English readers, and has given it a new value by his own additions and illustrations. The translation ought to be found in the library of every one among us who professes to study the history or to patronize the literature of his country.

The invasion or occupation of England by German tribes is involved in an obscurity, which does not disappear before a rigorous examination of its traditional details. On the contrary, the more we consider it the less certainly we can pronounce as to the truth. That on the departure of the Romans in the fifth century, a full and continuous stream of German population found its way into Britain, and that ere long the invading race gained the ascendant, and planted firmly in the soil their laws, their language, and their institutions, are facts established by a cloud of witnesses, and by that real evidence which lawyers consider superior to testimony. But how, or at what exact date this process commenced, under whose leadership or auspices it was carried on, and with what rapidity, or through what precise channels the tide flowed, are matters of more difficulty, on which, from the want of authentic materials, it is idle to dogmatise, however unpleasant it may be to remain in doubt. There is no want of ancient narratives of these supposed events; but though ancient as to us, they are neither so near the time to which they refer, nor so clear and consistent with probability, and with each other, as to command implicit deference.

Dr. Lappenberg, leaning perhaps too readily to the German theory of mythes, sees little in the history and achievements of Hengist and Horsa which can be considered authentic. Mr. Thorpe, on the other hand, is less sceptical, and while directing our notice to the fact that the northern tribes occasionally submitted to the command of double leaders, he has adduced in evidence the ancient poetical celebrity of Hengist as a Jutish hero. The episode from Beowulf, which he has inserted and ably translated in a note, is interesting and important in this view. But, after all, we confess that our mind remains in a state of suspense. We think the proof sufficient neither to justify a belief in the existence of the two chiefs, nor to authorise us in consigning them to non-entity; and we hold it an important duty in historical criticism to proportion our conclusions precisely to the premises from which they are deduced. Where there is good evidence, we should believe; where the evidence is incoherent or impossible, we should disbelieve. But there are conditions of a historical question where we can legitimately arrive at no opinion either way, and where we must be content to leave the fact in uncertainty, by a verdict of _not proven_.

There is no historian, we think, who mentions Hengist or Horsa, until at an interval of two or three hundred years after their supposed era; and what sort of interval had thus elapsed? A period of pagan obscurity, passed by the invaders in incessant conflicts, for a home and habitation, or for existence itself,--a period of which not a relic even of poetical tradition has survived, and in which the means of recording events, or of calculating time, were wholly different from our modern apparatus, and are too little known to let us judge of their sufficiency. The celebrity of Hengist in the old Saxon epics, but in which he is never, we think, connected with the invasion of England, appears to be a double-edged weapon, and may even account for his name being taken as a convenient stock to bear a graft of later romance. If we add to all this the tendency of the age to fiction and exaggeration, the marks of a fabulous character, so forcibly pointed out by Lappenberg in the recurrence of certain fixed numbers or periods of years, chiefly on an octonary system, as distinguished by conspicuous events, the divine genealogies attributed to the heroes, and the resemblance in incident to similar traditions in other ages or scenes, we shall easily see the unsteady footing on which the question stands, and be obliged to own, that, if our belief must be renounced in Romulus and Remus, we can scarcely go to the stake for Hengist and Horsa. It is remarkable, that while the Roman brothers are said to bear one and the same name in different forms, the appellations of the Anglo-Saxon leaders are also so far identical, as each signifying the warlike animal which is said to have been emblazoned on the Saxon banner.

It should be satisfactory to our West-British brethren, that Lappenberg sees no reason to distrust the existence of the illustrious Arthur, but he admits too readily the questionable discovery of his grave.

“The contemporary who records the victory at Bath gained by his
countrymen in the first year of his life, and who bears witness
of its consequences after a lapse of forty-four years, Gildas,
surnamed the Wise, considers it superfluous to mention the name
of the far-famed victor; but his wide-spread work, and the yet
more wide-spread extracts from it in Beda, have reached no
region in which the fame of King Arthur had not outstript them,
the noble champion who defended the liberty, usages, and
language of the ancient country from destruction by savage
enemies; who protected the cross against the Pagans, and gained
security to the churches most distinguished for their antiquity
and various knowledge, to which a considerable portion of Europe
owes both its Christianity and some of its most celebrated
monasteries. Called to such high-famed deeds, he needed not the
historian to live through all ages more brilliantly than the
heroes of the chronicles, among whom he is counted from the time
of Jeffrey of Monmouth; but, not to mention the works which,
about the year 720, Eremita Britannus is said to have composed
on the Holy Graal, and on the deeds of King Arthur, the rapid
spread of Jeffrey’s work over the greater part of Europe, proves
that the belief in the hero of it was deeply rooted. In the
twelfth century a Greek poem, recently restored to light, was
composed in celebration of Arthur and the heroes of the round
table. Still more manifestly, however, do the numerous local
memorials, which throughout the whole of the then Christian part
of Europe, from the Scottish hills to Mount Etna, bear allusion
to the name of Arthur; while on the other hand, the more
measured veneration of the Welsh poets for that prince, who
esteem his general, Geraint, more highly than the king himself,
and even relate that the latter, far from being always
victorious, surrendered Hampshire and Somersetshire to the
Saxons, may be adduced as no worthless testimony for the
historic existence of King Arthur. Even those traditions
concerning him, which at the first glance seem composed in
determined defiance of all historic truth,--those which recount
the expedition against the Romans on their demand of subjection
from him,--appear not totally void of foundation, when we call
to mind that a similar expedition actually took place in Gaul;
and are, moreover, informed, on the most unquestionable
authority, of another undertaking in the year 468, on the demand
of Anthemius, by the British general Riothamus, who led twelve
thousand Britons across the ocean against the Visigoths in Gaul,
and of his battles on the Loire. This very valuable narrative
gives us some insight into the connexions and resources of those
parts of Britain which had not yet been afflicted with the Saxon
pirates.

“Arthur fell in a conflict on the river Camel, in Cornwall,
against his nephew, Medrawd; his death was, however, long kept
secret, and his countrymen waited many years for his return, and
his protection against the Saxons. The discovery of his
long-concealed grave in the abbey of Glastonbury, is mentioned
by credible contemporaries, and excited at the time no suspicion
of any religious or political deception. Had the king of
England, Henry the Second, who caused the exhumation of the
coffin in the year 1189, wished merely, through an artifice, to
convince the Welsh of the death of their national hero, he would
hardly himself have acted so conspicuous a part on the occasion.
Poem and tradition bear witness to the spirit and his ashes, and
the gravestone to the life and name of Arthur. Faith in the
existence of this Christian Celtic Hector cannot be shaken by
short-sighted doubt, though much must yet be done for British
story, to render the sense latent in the poems of inspired
bards, which have in many cases reached us only in spiritless
paraphrases, into the sober language of historic criticism.”

It appears not unlikely, that the period fixed by the traditions for the arrival of the Saxons does not truly indicate the first settlement of their countrymen on our shores. In East Anglia, (Norfolk and Suffolk) as well as in Northumbria, and perhaps indefinitely to the north-east, successive colonies of German immigrants had probably found a home on islands at the mouths of rivers, or on barren tracts of sea-beach, along a thinly peopled and ill cultivated country. The cautious and tentative occupation of the shore thus taken, may have ultimately suggested the invitation of the Saxons, or facilitated their invasion of Britain in the deserted and distracted state in which the Romanised inhabitants were left, when their masters and protectors withdrew.

The introduction of Christianity among the English Saxons, is the first great event in their annals, that stands brightly out in the light of history. To whom we are indebted for this mighty and merciful revolution, does not, we think, admit of controversy. Though no friends to the corruptions or ambition of Rome, we cannot withhold from the Roman see the honour that here belongs to it, and for the service thus rendered to England, to Europe, and to mankind, the name of Gregory the Great deserves a place in a nobler calendar than that in which the saints of his own church are enrolled. The liberal spirit in which the mission was in some respects organized, deserves high praise. “It is my wish,” writes Gregory, “that you sedulously select what you may think most acceptable to Almighty God, be it in the Roman, or in the Gallican, or in any other church, and introduce into the church of the Angles that which you shall have so collected; for things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things.” The intervention of the Pope was the more meritorious and seasonable from the conduct of the British clergy, in leaving their Saxon conquerors without an attempt to convert them. Such a course may have been natural and excusable, but it was not prompted either by Christian love or by enlightened policy; and we cannot altogether refrain from reading in the subsequent massacre of the monks of Bangor by the Pagan sword of Ethelfrid, the retribution which Augustine had denounced as awaiting the Celtic Church, for not preaching to the Angles the way of life.

The Irish clergy, useful as they afterwards were, had not then advanced so far in their progress, as to reach the Anglican border. It was in the year 563 that St. Columba passed over from Ireland to the Northern Picts, in whose conversion he was occupied about thirty years. And it was in 597 that Ethelbert of Kent was baptized, and was followed soon after to the font by ten thousand of his subjects. Whether there was any connexion between these simultaneous movements, beyond the ripening of events for so desirable a result, has not, so far, as we know, been traced by any inquirer.

The rapidity with which Christianity was then accepted implies a remarkable condition of the public mind. The bigotry, and even the confiding belief of the old religion, must in a great measure have passed away, and a certain dissatisfaction have come to be felt with its creed and its consolations. This is peculiarly visible in the course which the conversion took in Northumbria, where, if we can trust the traditionary accounts, a spirit of philosophical inquiry had pervaded the nobility, and even the priesthood, implying a high degree of intellectual advancement, and an earnest sense of the religious necessities of our nature. Let us take the well-known incidents of this event as they are given in the poetry of Wordsworth, rather than in any prose narrative.

PAULINUS.

But to remote Northumbria’s royal hall,
Where thoughtful Edwin, tutor’d in the school
Of sorrow, still maintains a Heathen rule,
Who comes with functions apostolical?
Mark him, of shoulders curved, and stature tall,
Black hair, and vivid eye, and meagre cheek,
His prominent feature like an eagle’s beak;
A man whose aspect doth at once appal
And strike with reverence. The monarch leans
Tow’rd the pure truths this delegate propounds;
Repeatedly his own deep mind he sounds
With careful hesitation,--then convenes
A synod of his counsellors:--give ear,
And what a pensive sage doth utter, hear!

PERSUASION.

“Man’s life is like a sparrow, mighty king!
That, stealing in while by the fire you sit
Housed with rejoicing friends, is seen to flit
Safe from the storm, in comfort tarrying.
Here did it enter--there, on hasty wing
Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold;
But whence it came we know not, nor behold
Whither it goes. Even such that transient thing,
The human soul, not utterly unknown
While in the body lodged, her warm abode;
But from what world she came, what wo or weal
On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown;
This mystery, if the stranger can reveal,
His be a welcome cordially bestowed!”

The Christian doctrine once planted in the hearts of Englishmen was never eradicated, but a storm passing over Northumbria levelled, for a while, the ripening harvest with the soil. Penda of Mercia, a man of remarkable character and fortune, “the last unshaken and powerful adherent of Paganisim among the Anglo-Saxons,” swept like a tempest over the scene, and seemed to blast the growing hopes of the Christian husbandman, while the native princes, in whom, from a national respect for royal lineage, the government was nominally left, relapsed into the errors of the old faith. The deliverance, however, was at hand, from a quarter then beginning to send forth its beneficial influences. Oswald, a Bernician prince, educated among the Scots, or converted Picts, assembled a few followers under the banner of the cross, and restored to his country independence and Christianity.

“History informs us that Oswald’s cross decided the fate of
Britain for ever. Oswald obtained the sovereignty of Bernicia,
and also of Deira, being entitled to the latter country by his
maternal descent, his mother ‘Acha,’ the sister of Eadwine,
being descended from Aelle. He was acknowledged as Bretwalda the
sixth who held that dignity, and is said to have reigned over
the four tongues of Britain, of the Angles, the Britons, the
Picts, and the Scots. Oswald combined great vigour with much
mildness and religious enthusiasm. By him Christianity was
introduced anew into his kingdom, but it was that of his
teachers, the Scots, by whom Aidan was sent to him from the isle
of St. Columba, (Hii or Icolmkill,) and to whom as an Episcopal
seat, he granted the isle of Lindisfarne, now Holy Island, the
hallowed abode of many heroes of the Christian faith. Severity
towards himself and the powerful, humility and benevolence
towards the poor and lowly, activity in the cause of religion,
zeal for learning, were the admirable qualities that were
praised in Aidan, and shed the purest lustre on the old Scottish
Church to which he belonged; and few will feel disposed to doubt
that the general impression which the lives of such men made on
the minds of people disgusted with Paganism, together with the
internal truth of the Christian doctrines, has ever, and in a
greater degree, contributed to their first conversion, than even
the most convincing and solid arguments. How else could the
so-often, vainly attempted conversion of the Northumbrians have
been effected by Aidan, who, sprung from a hostile race, sent
from a hostile school, strove to propagate the doctrines of the
defeated Scots and Picts, the former oppressors of the Britons,
in a tongue for which Oswald himself was compelled to act as the
interpreter?

“Of Aidan’s fitness for the pious work committed to him, a
judgment may be formed from the following anecdote related by
Beda. At the solicitation of Oswald, a priest had been sent by
the Scots to preach the word to the Pagans of Northumbria, who,
proving unqualified for the task, and unwelcome to the people,
through the austerity of his character, returned to his country,
where, in an assembly of his brethren, he declared his inability
to effect any good among a people so ungovernable and barbarous.
On hearing this declaration, Aidan, who was present at the
meeting, said to him, ‘Brother, it seems to me that you have
been harsher than was fitting towards such uninstructed hearers,
and have not, in conformity with apostolic usage, first offered
the milk of milder instruction, until, gradually nourished by
the divine word, they might become capable both of receiving the
more perfect, and of executing the higher precepts of God.’ A
discussion, to which these words gave rise, terminated in the
unanimous declaration, that Aidan was worthy of the Episcopal
dignity, and that he ought to be sent back to the ignorant
unbelievers.

“In such, and in every other manner possible, Oswald promoted
the religion of the Cross, planted by him, not in his own
kingdom only, but in the states encircling the British empire.
In this he followed the impressions of his youth, and the
conviction which had steeled his arm to victory. He might also
have cherished the hope that in a British Christian church, the
surest spiritual support would be found to consist in the union
of all the tongues of Britain.”

For some time the Catholic and Columban clergy lived and laboured together in the common cause of true religion, with mutual charity and increasing usefulness. But the desire for external unity, so attractive in theory, so unattainable in practice, disturbed this pleasing repose; and, in the struggle that ensued, the victory was on the side of the Romish system, aided perhaps by superior learning and experience, and perhaps by the great advantage which dictatorial intolerance often possesses, in religious matters, over an enlarged liberality. On weak or ill-instructed minds, the bold assertion of an exclusive access to salvation, so dogmatically claimed by bigots of all churches, will generally prevail over opposing doctrines, which invest the choice of a sect with a less hazardous responsibility. The scene at the Synod of Whitby reveals a part of the truth, but perhaps a part only; and views of deeper policy may have been concealed under the somewhat slender pretext which led to this momentous change.

“An important measure, both for the benefit of the church and
the closer union of the Anglo-Saxons, was reserved for King
Oswiu. The Anglo-Saxons, according as they had been converted by
Augustine and his followers, or by those of Columba, were
attached to the Roman Catholic, or to the British Church. The
majority of the ecclesiastics, at least of the more
distinguished, belonged to the latter; hence arose a difference
in religious views and worship, not only in the several
kingdoms, but in the several provinces, which threatened to
become extremely dangerous to the new faith. We see this
religious discussion introduced through marriages even among the
royal families, and that Oswiu himself celebrated the Easter
festival, according to the Scottish practice, on a different day
from that observed by his queen, Eanflœd, a daughter of the King
of Kent. Ealhfrith also, the son, and co-regent with Oswiu, was,
through the persuasion of his friend Cenwealh, favourable to the
Roman church. Differences of this kind, though affecting
externals only, greatly endangered the Christian faith among a
people scarcely weaned from the worship of their forefathers,
and acquainted with Christianity only in the closest connexion
with the new external observances. Colman, a Scot, the third
bishop of Lindisfarne, after the death of Finan, zealously
strove to establish the principles of his sect. A synod was
called at Streoneshealh, (Whitby) in which, under the presidency
of Oswiu, the most distinguished ecclesiastics of each church
defended their respective doctrines. Among the partisans of Rome
were Agilbert, bishop of Wessex, and Wilfrith, (Wilferth) the
future celebrated bishop of York. The disputation was maintained
on both sides with learning and acuteness, and the Scottish
clergy might have succeeded in settling for ever a strong
barrier against the Catholic pretensions of the Roman church, if
the king, wavering under the weight of so many conflicting
arguments, had not remarked, that the Scots appealed to St.
Columba, but the Catholics to the Apostle Peter; for Wilfrith
had not forgotten to adduce, in support of the Roman tenets,
that Peter was the rock on which the Lord had founded his
Church, and that to him were committed the keys of Heaven. ‘Has
Columba also received such power?’ demanded the king. Colman
could not answer in the affirmative. ‘Do you both agree, that to
Peter the Lord has given the keys of Heaven?’ Both affirmed it.
‘Then,’ said the king, ‘I will not oppose the Heavenly porter,
but to my utmost ability will follow all his commands and
precepts, lest, when I come to the gates of Heaven, there be no
one to open to me, should he, who is shown to have the key in
his custody, turn his back upon me.’ Those sitting in the
council, as well as those standing around, noble and vulgar,
alike anxious for their eternal salvation, approved of this
determination, and were thus, in the usual spirit of large
assemblies, and without further investigation of the arguments
adduced, impelled to a decision by the excited feelings of the
moment. The Scots either returned to their friends, or yielded
to the opinion of the majority, and thus, by the learning of
their school, became useful to the Anglo-Saxons; but, together
with these apparently trivial externals, the great latent
influence was sacrificed, which their church would probably have
acquired in opposition to the then less firmly established one
of Rome.”

The arrival of Theodore, an able and accomplished Asiatic, appointed to the primacy by the Pope, and the co-operation of Wilfrith, just mentioned, an Anglo-Saxon of transcendant talents and unconquerable zeal, confirmed throughout England the ascendency of Romish influence, which had thus been established in Northumbria, and which, from the first, had been recognised in Kent.

We may speculate, with Lappenberg, on the results to be expected if this controversy had terminated differently. A victory of opinion, gained in England by the followers of Columba, might have laid the foundation of a United Church, comprehending all the races that inhabited the island, and sufficiently powerful to contest with Italy the guidance of Christian principles over the rest of Europe, and to confine the Roman Bishoprick within narrower and safer bounds.

“The British Church, established probably on the oldest direct
traditions from Judea, in closest connexion with conversions of
the highest importance in the history of mankind, appeared, no
less by its geographical position than by its exalted spiritual
endowments, fitted to become the foundation of a northern
patriarchate, which, by its counterpoise to Rome and the rest of
the south, its guardianship over a Celtic and Germanic
population, sanctified by the doctrine of Christ, might have
been the instrument to impart to those within its pale, that
which both meditative and ambitious men in the middle-age
sometimes ventured to think on, but which, in comparatively
modern times, Martin Luther first strove to extort for Romanized
Europe.”

The picture is pleasing if we contemplate these possibilities merely on “the side that’s next the sun.” We fancy a church system extending over Northern Europe, pure in its doctrines and peaceable in its policy, free from foreign influence and intrigue, and in harmony with the frank and earnest character of the nations it embraces within its bosom. We imagine, too, that Rome herself, uninjured by the intoxication of a wealth and power too great for any clerical rulers to bear meekly and innocently, would have retained something more of apostolical truth and simplicity; and that the two rivals might have run a friendly race of Christian zeal and diligence. But there are also opposite contingencies which may reconcile us to the course, in which events have been directed by a wisdom greater than our own. We might have seen perhaps in our own region the establishment of a church at variance with that of Rome, in some essential articles of faith in which we now agree with her. We might have been born under a great Arian or Pelagian heresiarchy, enervating or polluting all our best elements of action; or, if _we_ had remained pure, the unaided energy of the Roman See might have sunk under the formidable errors with which she was at one time threatened, and the limits of orthodox Christendom might have been fearfully abridged. As it is, by the unity that for a time was attained even at a serious sacrifice, the preservation and extension of the apostolic faith may have been secured until the fulness of time arrived, when the Reformation set men free from a bondage that had ceased to be necessary, and had begun to be pernicious.

The ascendency of the Romish church brought with it another compensation, in the influx of southern art and classical learning. It cannot be doubted that our religious connexion with Christian Rome, was mainly instrumental in rendering us familiar with Roman and even with Grecian antiquity: and who shall say what might have been our mental condition if we had wanted all the ennobling and ameliorating influences which have thence been derived? A Saxon or a Celtic tendency predominating in our literature, and in our habits of thought and action, and excluding perhaps benigner elements of sentiment and reflection, might have made us a rude and rugged people, brave and impetuous, ardent and impassioned, but without either the refinement of taste, the soundness of judgment, or the depth of philosophy, which have been the fruits of that ingrafted instruction which has softened and subdued our native character. On the whole, then, let us be grateful for what we are: not repining at having learned our religion from Rome, and not regretting that we are now emancipated from our schoolmistress, and at liberty to judge and to act for ourselves.

With other arts and knowledge, as Lappenberg observes,

“Architecture also came in the suite of the Roman Church. The
Scottish clergy, from the preference, perhaps, of the northern
nations for that material, had built their churches of wood,
thatching them with reeds, an example of which existed in the
new Cathedral at Lindisfarne. It was at a later period only that
reeds were exchanged for sheets of lead, with which the walls
also were sometimes covered. Wilfrith sent for masons from
Kent, and the abbot Benedict for workmen from Gaul. The stone
basilica, erected by Paulinus, at York, which had fallen into a
disgraceful state of dilapidation, was restored by Wilfrith, the
roof covered with lead, the windows filled with glass, till then
unknown among his countrymen. At Ripon, he caused a new basilica
of polished stone to be erected, supported by pillars with a
portico. The consecration--at which the Kings Ecgfrith and
Ælfwine were present--was concluded by a feasting reminding us
of Pagan times, which lasted during three days and nights. The
four gospels, written with golden letters on purple vellum,
adorned with paintings, in a case of pure gold set with precious
stones, enables us to judge both of the wealth and munificence
of the patrons of Wilfrith.

An edifice still more remarkable was erected by the bishop at
Hexham, which, it is said, had not its like on this side of the
Alps. Benedict’s structure, too, at Wearmouth was the work of
masters from Gaul, after the Roman model. Thus, we perceive, in
the instance of the most memorable buildings of which mention is
found in the history of the Anglo-Saxons, how their architecture
sprang from that of ancient Rome, however it may have been
modified in England, to suit a difference of circumstances and
climate.”

The details we possess of the exertions of Benedict, mentioned in the preceding extract, and generally distinguished by the name of Benedict Biscop, are especially interesting, and present a remarkable view of the actual importation and progress of those arts of civilization, to which the Saxons but a century before were utter strangers. He was the builder, and first abbot of St. Peter’s monastery at Weremouth:--“A man,” as Bede tells us in his Lives of the Abbots of that locality, “of a venerable life, (we use Dr. Giles’ translation,) blessed (benedictus) both in grace and in name; having the mind of an adult even from his childhood, surpassing his age by his manners, and with a soul addicted to no false pleasures. He was descended from a noble lineage of the Angles, and by corresponding dignity of mind, worthy to be exalted into the company of the angels. Lastly, he was the minister of King Oswy, and by his gift enjoyed an estate suitable to his rank; but at the age of twenty-five years he despised a transitory wealth, that he might obtain that which is eternal.” He visited Rome five times, and never returned with empty hands. After being settled at Weremouth in the year 674, Benedict visited Gaul, and brought with him masons and glass artificers, to build his church in the Roman style. He then made his fourth voyage to Rome, (we quote again from Bede,)

“And returned loaded with more abundant spiritual merchandise
than before. In the first place, he brought back a large
quantity of books of all kinds; secondly, a great number of
relics of Christ’s Apostles and Martyrs, all likely to bring a
blessing on many an English church; thirdly, he introduced the
Roman mode of chanting, singing, and ministering in the church,
by obtaining permission from Pope Agatho to take back with him
John, the arch chanter of the church of St. Peter, and Abbot of
the Monastery of St. Martin, to teach the English.”--Further,
“he brought with him pictures of sacred representations to adorn
the church of St. Peter, which he had built; namely, a likeness
of the Virgin Mary, and of the twelve Apostles, with which he
intended to adorn the central nave, on boarding placed from one
wall to the other; also some figures from ecclesiastical history
for the south wall, and others from the Revelation of St. John
for the north wall; so that every one who entered the church,
even if they could not read, whereever they turned their eyes,
might have before them the amiable countenance of Christ and his
Saints, though it were but in a picture, and with watchful minds
might revolve on the benefits of our Lord’s incarnation, and
having before their eyes the perils of the last judgment, might
examine their hearts the more strictly on that account.”

Some years afterwards, he made his fifth voyage

“From Britain to Rome, and returned (as usual) with an immense
number of proper ecclesiastical relics. There were many sacred
books and pictures of the saints, as numerous as before. He also
brought with him pictures out of our Lord’s history, which he
hung round the Chapel of Our Lady in the larger monastery; and
others to adorn St. Paul’s church and monastery, ably describing
the connexion of the Old and New Testament; as, for instance,
Isaac bearing the wood for his own sacrifice, and Christ
carrying the cross on which he was about to suffer, were placed
side by side. Again, the serpent raised up by Moses in the
desert, was illustrated by the Son of Man exalted on the cross.
Among other things, he brought two cloaks, all of silk, and of
incomparable workmanship, for which he received an estate of
three hides, on the south bank of the river Were, near its
mouth, from King Alfred.”

A glimpse of the pictures thus imported into England, in the seventh century, and of the gazing multitudes who would crowd around them, would carry us back almost to the childhood of modern art, and to the infancy of English taste.

The establishment, however, of Roman influence in England was partial after all, and ecclesiastical authority was not independent of the State. The Anglo-Saxon clergy, as Lappenberg observes, were not so free as their brethren on the continent, and many are the complaints that their subjection to secular power seems to have called forth, particularly as to their liability to the _trinoda necessitas_ of fortress and bridge money, and contributions for military levies. The weaker hold maintained by the Papal power helped to promote the use of the vernacular tongue in their church service, and the diffusion of vernacular versions of Scripture, as well as other benefits of which we are still reaping the good fruits.

The permanent importance of the struggles then maintained for ecclesiastical ascendency, and the profession and pursuits of the only men by whom history could be written, have necessarily given an undue prominence to those actors on the scene who belonged to the church, and have left the laymen and even the royal personages of the period in comparative obscurity. As illustrating the workings of Roman influence on the minds of men, we may select two examples of distinguished churchmen of Northumbria, the one representing the secular, and the other the monastic portion of the clergy, and in whom the different elements entering into the spirit of the times were very variously exhibited.

“Wilfrith, though not of noble birth, was endowed with all those
natural advantages, the influence of which over rugged,
uncivilized people appears almost fabulous. In his thirteenth
year, the period at which an Anglo-Saxon youth was considered of
age, he resolved to leave his parents and renounce the world.
Equipped suitably to his station, he was sent to the court of
Oswiu, and, through the influence of the Queen Eanflœd, was
received into the monastery of Lindisfarne by the chamberlain
Cudda, who had exchanged earthly joys and sorrows for the
retirement and observances of a cloister. There he was as
remarkable for humility as for mental endowments. Besides other
books, he had read the entire Psalter, according to the
emendation of St. Jerome, as in use among the Scots. His anxious
desire to behold and pray in the church of the apostle Peter
must have been the more grateful to the queen and her Roman
Catholic friends, from the novelty and singularity of such a
wish among his countrymen. In furtherance of his object, she
sent him to her brother Earconberht, King of Kent, where he made
himself familiar with the doctrines of the Roman Church,
including the Psalms according to the fifth edition. He was
attached as travelling companion to Benedict, surnamed Biscop, a
distinguished man, who, at a later period, exerted himself so
beneficially in the cause of the Church, and in the civilization
and instruction of the Northumbrians. Benedict died abbot of the
monastery founded by him at Wearmouth, an establishment not less
famed for arts and scientific treasures, than ennobled through
its celebrated priest, the venerable Beda. On Wilfrith’s arrival
at Lyons, Dalfinus, the Archbishop, was so struck by his
judicious discourse, comely countenance, and mature
understanding, that he retained him long with him, offered to
adopt him for his son, to give him the hand of his brother’s
daughter, and to procure for him the government of a part of
Gaul.

“But Wilfrith hastened to Rome, acquired there a thorough
knowledge of the four Gospels, also the Roman computation of
Easter, which, as we have already seen, he afterwards so
triumphantly employed, and at the same time made himself
familiar with many rules of ecclesiastical discipline, and
whatever else was proper for a minister of the Roman Church. On
his return, he passed three years at Lyons, with his friend
Dalfinus, and extended his knowledge by attending the most
learned teachers. He now declared himself wholly devoted to the
Church of Rome, and received from Dalfinus the tonsure of St.
Peter, consisting of a circle of hair in imitation of the crown
of thorns, while the Scots shaved the entire front, leaving the
hair only on the hinder part of the head. Here he nearly shared
the fate of his unfortunate friend, the archbishop, in the
persecution raised against him by the Queen Baldhild, the widow
of Clovis the Second, and the mayor of the palace, Ebruin; but
the comely young stranger, through the extraordinary compassion
of his persecutors, was saved from the death of a martyr. He now
hastened back to his country, where he was honourably received
by King Ealhfrith, consecrated abbot of the monastery of Ripon,
and regarded as a prophet by high and low. After the disputation
with Bishop Colman at Whitby, Oswiu and his son, with their
witan, chose the abbot Wilfrith for Bishop of York, who passed
over to Paris to be consecrated by Agilbreht. On his return to
Northumbria, he was driven by a storm on the coast among the
Pagan south Saxons, who proceeded vigorously to exercise the
right of wreck on the strangers. The chief priest of the
idolaters stood on an eminence for the purpose of depriving them
of power by his maledictions and magic, when one of their
number, with David’s courage and success, hurled a stone at him,
from a sling, which struck him to the brain. At the fall of
their priest, the fury of the people was excited against the
little band, who succeeded however, after a conflict, four times
renewed, in re-embarking with the return of the tide, and
reached Sandwich in safety.”

Wilfrith in his absence had been deprived of the See of York, and on his return retired with real or affected submission to his cloister at Ripon; but the see was restored to him by the influence of Theodore. Various events hastened an outbreak of dissensions among the higher clergy, and of the jealousy of the secular towards the ecclesiastical power.

In order partly to curtail the dimensions of Wilfrith’s power, the See of York was divided into two dioceses; and the influence and remonstrances of the bishop were unavailing to avert the blow. He set out, therefore, on a journey to Rome, to appeal to the Papal authority; but he had enemies abroad as well as at home, and was only saved from their hostility by a storm, which drove his vessel to the coast of Friesland, and secured for him the honour of being the first of the numerous English missionaries who bore the tidings of the Gospel to the continental Pagans of the North.

Resuming his journey, after a year, he laid his complaints before the Roman See, and was here also the first in a less honourable path,--no previous appeal to the Papal protection having ever been attempted by Anglo-Saxon churchmen. The thunders of the Vatican sounded, as yet, but faintly in British ears; and Wilfrith, on his return, was consigned to a prison, instead of obtaining that restoration of his honours which Pope Agatho had ventured to decree.

Driven from Northumbria a homeless exile, Wilfrith fled to the shores of Sussex, the scene of his former peril and preservation, and, renewing his efforts against the remains of Pagan barbarism still lingering in that quarter, he taught the natives the lore of a better life, both in worldly and in spiritual things, and established a bishopric, to the charge of which he was himself elevated.

Again reconciled to Theodore, he was appointed to the See of Litchfield, the fourth that had fallen to him, and he afterwards had the glory of declining an offer of the archiepiscopate of Canterbury. After recovering the bishopric of York, he once more lost it by becoming involved in new disputes and contests for the superiority of the Romish discipline, and, in his seventieth year, carried another appeal to the Papal Chair, which, on this occasion, had the satisfaction of finding that both Wilfrith and his enemies pleaded to its jurisdiction. Wilfrith was exculpated by the Pope, but could only obtain from the Anglo-Saxon Prince of Northumbria the See of Hexham and the monastery of Ripon. “After a few years passed in almsgiving and the improvement of church discipline, Wilfrith died in his seventy-sixth year, a man whose fortunes and activity in the European relations of England were long without a parallel.” He completed what Augustine began, and united the English Church to that of Rome in matters of discipline. Even his influence, however, could not destroy the independence of his countrymen, who, as Lappenberg observes, “even after they were no longer Anti-Catholic, continued always Anti-Papistical.”

The two achievements which occur as episodes in this singular biography, the commencement of a Christian mission in Germany, and the conversion of the last remnants of Paganism in England, would have been enough to immortalise their author, independently of his influence on the outward discipline of the Church.

To the chequered and restless career of Wilfrith, thus divided between clerical ambition, and Christian usefulness, a striking contrast is presented in the peaceful life of one who is the honour of Saxon England, and the brightest, or the only bright name in European literature during the centuries that intervened between Theodoric and Charlemagne.

“But no one imparts to the age of the ‘Wisest King’ greater
brilliancy than the man just named, whom the epithet of ‘The
Venerable’ adorns, whose knowledge was profound and almost
universal. Born in the neighbourhood of Wearmouth, he enjoyed in
that abbey the instructions of Benedict, its first abbot, of
whom we have already had occasion to make honourable mention, as
well as those of his successor, Ceolfrith, equally distinguished
for his zeal in the promotion of learning. In the neighbouring
cloister of Jarrow, Beda passed his life in exercises of piety
and in varied study; and gave life and form to almost all the
knowledge which the age could offer him. If, on a consideration
of his works, it must appear manifest that that age possessed
more means of knowledge, both in manuscripts and learned
ecclesiastics, than we are wont to ascribe to it; and even if we
must recognise in Beda the high culture of the Roman church,
rather than Anglo-Saxon nationality, yet the acknowledgment
which his merits found in Rome during his life, and shortly
after his death, whereever learning could penetrate, proves that
in him we justly venerate a wonder of the time. His numerous
theological writings, his illustrations of the books of the Old
and New Testaments, have throughout many ages, until the total
revolution in that branch of learning, found readers and
transcribers in every cloister of Europe. His knowledge of
Greek, of medicine, of astronomy, of prosody, he made
subservient to the instruction of his contemporaries; his work
“De sex hujus seculi ætatibus,” though less used than it
deserves to be, is the basis of most of the universal chronicles
of the middle age. But his greatest merit, which will preserve
his name through all future generations, consists in his
historic works, as far as they concern his own native land. If a
second man like himself had arisen in his days, who with the
same clear, circumspect glance, the same honest and pious
purpose, had recorded the secular transactions of his
forefathers, as Beda has transmitted to us those chiefly of the
church, then would the history of England have been to posterity
almost like revelation for Germanic antiquity.”

It seems like a miracle to witness within a century of their country’s conversion, two native names so remarkable as these. Under the influence thus exerted, which in the one man was purely good, and in the other had more good in it than evil, an active spirit of religion was necessarily introduced, and the national character underwent a mighty change. The condition of public feeling at this period is strongly illustrated in the concluding chapter of Bede’s History.