which followed it. With the decline of the Roman power, the Britons, weakened by the vices of Roman civilization, and unable to resist the aggressions of the wild Picts and Scots from the North, called Hengist and Horsa, two brother-princes and reputed descendants of Wodan, the god of war, from Germany to their aid, A. D. 449.1

From this time begins the emigration of Saxons, Angles or Anglians, Jutes, and Frisians to Britain. They gave to it a new nationality and a new language, the Anglo-Saxon, which forms the base and trunk of the present people and language of England (Angle-land). They belonged to the great Teutonic race, and came from the Western and Northern parts of Germany, from the districts North of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Eyder, especially from Holstein, Schleswig, and Jutland. They could never be subdued by the Romans, and the emperor Julian pronounced them the most formidable of all the nations that dwelt beyond the Rhine on the shores of the Western ocean. They were tall and handsome, with blue eyes and fair skin, strong and enduring, given to pillage by land, and piracy by sea, leaving the cultivation of the soil, with the care of their flocks, to women and slaves. They were the fiercest among the Germans. They sacrificed a tenth of their chief captives on the altars of their gods. They used the spear, the sword, and the battle-axe with terrible effect. "We have not," says Sidonius, bishop of Clermont," "a more cruel and more dangerous enemy than the Saxons. They overcome all who have the

courage to oppose them. When they pursue, they infallibly overtake; when they are pursued, their escape is certain. They despise danger; they are inured to shipwreck; they are eager to purchase booty with the peril of their lives. Tempests, which to others are so dreadful, to them are subjects of joy. The storm is their protection when they are pressed by the enemy, and a cover for their ope

1 The chronology is somewhat uncertain. See Lappenberg's Geschichte von England, Bd. I., p. 73 sqq.

2 Quoted by Lingard, I. 62. The picture here given corresponds closely with that given in Beowulf's Drapa, from the 9th century.

rations when they meditate an attack." Like the Bedouins in the East, and the Indians of America, they were divided in tribes, each with a chieftain. In times of danger, they selected a supreme commander under the name of Konyng or King, but only for a period.

These strangers from the Continent successfully repelled the Northern invaders; but being well pleased with the fertility and climate of the country, and reinforced by frequent accessions from their countrymen, they turned upon the confederate Britons, drove them to the mountains of Wales and the borders of Scotland, or reduced them to slavery, and within a century and a half they made themselves masters of England. From invaders they became settlers, and established an octarchy or eight independent kingdoms, Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumbria, Mercia, Bernicia, and Deira. The last two were often united under the same head; hence we generally speak of but seven kingdoms or the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy.

From this period of the conflict between the two races dates the Keltic form of the Arthurian legends, which afterwards underwent a radical telescopic transformation in France. They have no historical value except in connection with the romantic poetry of mediæval religion.'

1 King Arthur (or Artus), the hero of Wales, of the Chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the romances of the Round Table, if not entirely mythical, was one of the last Keltic chiefs, who struggled against the Saxon invaders in the sixth century. He resided in great state at Carleon in Wales, surrounded by valorous knights, seated with him at a round table, gained twelve victories over the Saxons, and died in the battle of Mount Badon or Badon Hill near Bath (A. D. 520). The legend was afterwards christianized, transferred to French soil, and blended with the Carlovingian Knights of the Round Table, which never existed. Arthur's name was also connected since the Crusades with the quest of the Holy Grail or Graal (Keltic gréal, old French san gréal or greel), i e. the wonderful bowl-shaped vessel of the Lord's Supper (used for the Paschal Lamb, or, according to another view, for the cup of blessing), in which Joseph of Arimathæa caught the blood of the Saviour at the cross, and which appears in the Arthurian romances as the token of the visible presence of Christ, or the symbolic embodiment of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Hence the derivation of Grail from sanguis realis, real blood, or sang royal, the Lord's blood. Others derive it from the Romanic greal, cup or dish; still others from the

§ 10. The Mission of Gregory and Augustin. Conversion of Kent. A. D. 595-604.

With the conquest of the Anglo-Saxons, who were heathen barbarians, Christianity was nearly extirpated in Britain. Priests were cruelly massacred, churches and monasteries were destroyed, together with the vestiges of a weak Roman civilization. The hatred and weakness of the Britons prevented them from offering the gospel to the conquerors, who in turn would have rejected it from contempt of the conquered.1

But fortunately Christianity was re-introduced from a remote country, and by persons who had nothing to do with the quarrels of the two races. To Rome, aided by the influence of France, belongs the credit of reclaiming England to Christianity and civilization. In England the first, and, we may say, the only purely national church in the West was founded, but in close union with the papacy. "The English church," says Freeman, "reverencing Rome, but not slavishly bowing down to her, grew up with a distinctly national character, and gradually infused its influence into all the feelings and habits of the English people. By the end of the seventh century, the independent, insular, Teutonic church had become one of the brightest lights of the Christian firmament. In short, the introduction Latin graduale. See GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, Chronicon sive Historia Britonum (1130 and 1147, translated into English by Aaron Thomson, London, 1718); Sir T. MALORY, History of Prince Arthur (1480-1485, new ed. by Southey, 1817); WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH, Parcival and Titurel (about 1205, transl. by K. Simrock, Stuttg., 1842); LACHMANN, Wolfram von Eschenbach (Berlin, 1833, 2nd ed., 1854); GöSCHEL, Die Sage von Parcival und vom Gral nach Wolfram von Eschenbach (Berlin, 1858); PAULIN PARIS, Les Romans de la Table Ronde (Paris, 1860); TENNYSON, The Idylls of the King (1859), and The Holy Grail (1869); SKENE, Four Ancient Books of Wales (1868); STUARTGLENNIE, Arthurian Localities (1869); BIRCH-HIRSCHFELD, Die Sage vom Gral, (Leipz., 1877); and an article of GöSCHEL, Gral, in the first ed. of Herzog's Encykl. V. 312 (omitted in the second ed.).

1 Bede (I. 22) counts it among the most wicked acts or neglects, rather, of the Britons mentioned even by their own historian Gildas, that they never preached the faith to the Saxons who dwelt among them.

of Christianity completely changed the position of the English nation, both within its own island and towards the rest of the world."

The origin of the Anglo-Saxon mission reads like a beautiful romance. Pope Gregory I., when abbot of a Benedictine convent, saw in the slave-market of Rome three Anglo-Saxon boys offered for sale. He was impressed with their fine appearance, fair complexion, sweet faces and light flaxen hair; and learning, to his grief, that they were idolaters, he asked the name of their nation, their country, and their king. When he heard that they were Angles, he said: "Right, for they have angelic faces, and are worthy to be fellow-heirs with angels in heaven." They were from the province Deira. "Truly," he replied, "are they Deira-ns, that is, plucked from the ire of God, and called to the mercy of Christ." He asked the name of their king, which was Ælla or Ella (who reigned from 559 to 588). "Hallelujah," he exclaimed, "the praise of God the Creator must be sung in those parts." He proceeded at once from the slave market to the pope, and entreated him to send missionaries to England, offering himself for this noble work. He actually started for the spiritual conquest of the distant island. But the Romans would not part with him, called him back, and shortly afterwards elected him pope (590). What he could not do in person, he carried out through others.'

In the year 596, Gregory, remembering his interview with the sweet-faced and fair-haired Anglo-Saxon slave-boys, and hearing of a favorable opportunity for a mission, sent the Benedictine abbot AUGUSTIN (Austin), thirty other monks, and a priest, Laurentius, with instructions, letters of recommendation to the Frank

1 History of the Norman conquest of England, Vol. I., p. 22 (Oxford ed. of 1873). * Beda (B. II., ch. 1 at the close) received this account "from the ancients" (ab antiquis, or traditione majorum), but gives it as an episode, not as a part of the English mission (which is related I. 53). The elaborate play on words excites critical suspicion of the truth of the story, which, though well told, is probably invented or embellished, like so many legends about Gregory. "Se non vero, e ben trovato."

kings and several bishops of Gaul, and a few books, to England.' The missionaries, accompanied by some interpreters from France, landed on the isle of Thanet in Kent, near the mouth of the Thames. King Ethelbert, by his marriage to Bertha, a Christian princess from Paris, who had brought a bishop with her, was already prepared for a change of religion. He went to meet the strangers and received them in the open air; being afraid of some magic if he were to see them under roof. They bore a silver cross for their banner, and the image of Christ painted on a board; and after singing the litany and offering prayers for themselves and the people whom they had come to convert, they preached the gospel through their Frank interpreters. The king was pleased with the ritualistic and oratorical display of the new religion from distant, mighty Rome, and said: "Your words and promises are very fair; but as they are new to us and of uncertain import, I cannot forsake the religion I have so long followed with the whole English nation. Yet as you are come from far, and are desirous to benefit us, I will supply you with the necessary sustenance, and not forbid you to preach and to convert as many as you can to your religion." Accordingly, he allowed them to reside in the City of Canterbury (Dorovern, Durovernum), which was the metropolis of his kingdom, and was soon to become the metropolis of the Church of England. They preached and led a severe monastic life. Several believed and were baptized, "admiring," as Bede says, "the simplicity of their innocent life, and the sweetness of their heavenly doctrine." He also mentions miracles. Gregory warned Augustin not to be puffed up by miracles, but to rejoice with fear, and to tremble

1 Among these books were a Bible in 2 vols., a Psalter, a book of the Gospels, a Martyrology, Apocryphal Lives of the Apostles, and some Commentaries. "These are the foundation or beginning of the library of the whole English church."

2 The first journey of Augustin, in 595, was a failure. He started finally for England July 23d, 596, wintered in Gaul, and landed in England the following year with about forty persons, including Gallic priests and interpreters. Haddan and Stubbs, III. 4.

8 Bede I. 25.