664.] Conversion of England. 17 near Doncaster, in 633. This defeat threw Northumbria into confusion, and its Christianity perished; but in a short time Oswald, Ethelfrith's son, became King of Northumbria, and united all Edwin's dominions under his rule. Hitherto we have heard only of Roman missionaries to the English, but we now hear of Celtic clergy as well. After Christianity had been destroyed by the English in the east of the Preaching of island, it still flourished among the Celts and made the Celtic misfresh converts. St. David, a member of the ruling sionaries. family among the Brythons of Mid-Wales, converted the Goidels of the south, while St. Patrick preached to the Goidels of Ireland. About the year 500, a body of Scots from Ireland established a new kingdom in Argyle (the Gael land), which they took from the Ivernians. From this kingdom Christianity spread among the Goidels of Scotland, and their missionaries preached to the Ivernians of the north. Among the Celtic Christians monasteries were numerous, and at one of these, situated on Iona, an island off the west coast of Scotland, Oswald took refuge, when driven from Northumbria by Penda, and on his return he sent for missionaries from Iona. St. Aidan was sent to him, and founded the monastery of Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumbria, and thence he made missionary journeys among the Northumbrians. His arrival took place in 634. Oswald, however, was defeated and slain by Penda in the battle of Maserfield, near Oswestry (long spelt Oswald's tree), in Shropshire in 642; but his successor, Oswy, also a Christian, surprised and defeated Penda at the battle of Winwidfield1 in 655. Further After this success the Celtic missionaries pushed on in all directions. Chad converted Mercia, and fixed the bishop's seat at Lichfield. While the north was being won by the Celts, southern England was won by Roman conversions. preachers. Birinus, an Italian, converted the West Saxons; Felix, a Burgundian, drove paganism from East Anglia. Sussex for some time longer remained heathen. Thus Mercia and Northumbria were allied in faith with the Welsh; the rest of England was allied in the faith with the nations of the Continent. There were slight differences between the two faiths. The 1 Site unknown. C Rivalry between the Celtic and Welsh had a different way of cutting the tonsure, or shaving part of their priests' heads, and they kept Easter on a different day from that on which it was celebrated by the Roman forms Church of Rome. These do not seem great matters of Christianity. in themselves, but they really involved a great deal. If England adopted the Celtic method, she would cut herself off from the great body of Christendom, and this isolation would prevent her from sharing in all the treasures of culture, learning, and civilization which had been left by the Romans, and were now being preserved by the Roman clergy. If, on the other hand, she adopted the Roman practice, she would keep all these advantages, and secure for herself a share in any advances which were made by Christendom at large. Synod of The question was settled at the Synod of Whitby, 664. It was dealt with in a very practical way. The Northumbrian king asked Colman, the representative of the Welsh, whether he admitted that the pope was the successor of St. Peter. On his answering "Yes," the king then asked if he admitted that St. Peter held the keys of heaven. "Yes," was the answer. "Then," said the king, "I will never offend the Saint who is the doorkeeper of heaven." England in this way threw in her lot with the Church of Rome; but the Celts of Ireland and Wales remained apart for many years afterwards. Organization of Four years afterwards the English Church was thoroughly set in order by Theodore, a native of Tarsus, in Cilicia, who was sent by the pope to be Archbishop of Canterbury. He the Church by organized the English Church under the two archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, and this acceptance by the English of one form of Christianity was a step in the direction of their union as one nation. Theodore. Northumbrian supremacy. Since the battle of Chester, Northumbria, in spite of some reverses of fortune, had kept its position as the leading kingdom. It had been famous, not only for arms, but also for learning. During its supremacy lived the venerable Bede, who wrote a history of the English Church, which is the earliest history of our race written by an Englishman; Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, a saintly and a learned man; and Caedmon the poet, who wrote a paraphrase of part of the Bible. In the year 685, Egfrith, King of Northumbria, was defeated and killed by the Picts in the disastrous battle of Nectan's Mere, near the Tay, and with him ended the supremacy of Northumbria. Supremacy of Offa Mercia then came to the front. This great kingdom, which originally included all the lands of middle England, was increased by the capture of the West Saxon settlements in the Severn Valley. The most celebrated of the Mercian kings are Penda, Wulfhere, Ethelbald, and Offa; and of these Offa was by far the greatest. He ruled his own kingdom with a strong hand, and set up kings whom he could trust in the smaller kingdoms. As Kent had the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and Northumbria that of York, Offa determined to have an archbishop at his capital too, and for a short time Lichfield was raised to the dignity of an archiepiscopal see. Offa made war on the Welsh, and took from them Shrewsbury and its district of Powysland. To protect these conquests, he made an earthwork from Chester to Chepstow, which. is still called Offa's Dyke. In his time, Mercia, Northumbria, and: Wessex completely overshadowed the smaller kingdoms, which had lost all prospect of gaining the supremacy. The power of Mercia depended upon the strength of its king, and when Offa died, the struggle for supremacy began again. His death happened in 796, and in the year 802 Rise of Wessex. Egbert, who had lived in exile at the court of Egbert. Charles the Great in Germany, was made King of Wessex. Egbert was bent on making Wessex the leading kingdom. His aim naturally brought about war with Mercia, and in 825, at the battle of Ellandun,1 the Mercians were defeated with great slaughter. At once the smaller kingdoms, which had been under the sway of Mercia, passed under the rule of Wessex. In 826 Kent, Sussex,. Essex and East Anglia submitted. The next year, 827, Mercia was conquered, and the Northumbrians received Egbert as their overlord. Egbert was now king over his own kingdom of Wessex, and overlord of the whole English-speaking race from the Channel to the Firth of Forth. 1 Site unknown. CHAPTER III. GOVERNMENT OF THE ENGLISH. WE have brought the English to England, seen them converted to Christianity, and united under one king; we must now inquire how they were governed. We saw that in all probability the English kingdoms were formed gradually by the union of a number of small settlements, just as the kingdom of England was formed, in How the Eng lish were governed. its turn, by the union of the smaller kingdoms themselves. The larger kingdoms, such as Wessex and Mercia, were divided into shires; the smaller, such as Essex and Sussex, also became shires after they lost their own kings and were made part of one of the larger kingdoms. Each shire was divided into smaller districts called hundreds, which were larger or smaller in different parts of England. Each hundred contained a number of townships. The officer of the township was the town-reeve. He called The reeve. the grown men of the township to meet in the town-moot; there they settled matters which concerned the township. If the town was defended by a mound, it was called a burgh, a borough, or bury, which are only different ways of spelling the same word, which means defence. The head officer of a borough was called a borough-reeve. If the town was a place of trade he was not unfrequently called a port-reeve. The men of the township had to keep in repair the bridges and fortifications which the township contained, and, if need were, they had to fight. The hundred- The hundred was presided over by the hundred-man, or hundred-elder. Its meeting was the hundredmoot, and this dealt with the business of the hundred. The head man. The ealdorman. The bishop. The sheriff. The shire moot. of the shire was the ealdorman, elderman, or alderman, who was placed over it by the king and wise men of the whole kingdom. Beside him, in Christian times, was the bishop; and the king was represented by the shire-reeve, or, as we now call him, sheriff. The meeting of the men of the shire was called the shire-moot. There they settled all quarrels. If a man was accused of theft or murder, he had to get his relations to swear that he was innocent. If they did not do this, he was put to the ordeal; i.e. he had to plunge his hand into boiling water, carry a bar of red-hot iron, or walk over red-hot ploughshares, and if he was not healed in the course of a fixed time, he was held guilty and punished. Punishment usually consisted of a fine paid to the sufferers, or to the family of the slaughtered man, and an extra fine was paid to the king. The army of monly called the Fyrd. When war was to be made, or the country was invaded, word was sent to the ealdormen, each of whom sent notice to the hundred-men of his shire to meet at an appointed place. Each hundred-man called on the town-reeves of his hun- the shire, comdred. They assembled the men of each township. Every man between sixteen and sixty had to come; they ranged themselves in families, and marched, under the command of the reeve and the parish priest, to the meeting-place of the hundred. There they met the men of other townships, and, forming one body, they marched under the hundred-man to the meeting-place of the shire, where the whole force of the shire was united under the lead of the ealdorman and the bishop; and then marched against the enemy, or joined the men of other shires, as the case might be. The whole force collected in this way was called the Fyrd. In this way the shire managed its own affairs, its own justice, and was able to fight its own battles. The kingdom and witena A group of shires made the kingdom. This was governed by the king and his witena-gemot, which means "meeting of the wise men." Every man could not come to the witenagemot. It was made up of the king and the members of his family, the ealdormen, the archbishops and bishops, and the king's thegns. The king's thegns were originally the king's servants. The bishops and ealdormen also gemot. |