A short history of England

Front matter

Westminster Abbey

ALLYN AND BACON'S SERIES OF SCHOOL HISTORIES

A

Chapter II. The Conversion Of England

19. Introduction of Christianity by Roman Missionaries : in Kent. — The Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Britain were pagans, adhering to the worship of Woden, and Thor, and Tin, gods of i I um a photograph.

St. Martin's Church at Canterbury, called the

"Mother Church of England."

It is built on the site of Queen Bertha's Chapel, where her

husband. King JEthelbirht, is said to have been baptized.

war and of the powers of nature. This fact had come to the notice of the great missionary pope, Gregory, when he was a deacon in Rome, and he sent Augustine, the prior of his own monastery, to preach the word of God to the Anglo-Saxon peoples. In 597 Augustine, with nearly forty other monks, landed on the island of Thanet in Kent. He had chosen Kent,

626] IN NORTHUMBRIA AND WESSEX. 15

partly because it was the best known and most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and partly because its king, iEthelbirht, had married a Frankish princess, Bertha, who was a Christian. Immediately on landing, Augustine sent a message to King ^thelbirht telling the object of his coming ; and a few days later the king, who had refused to allow the monks to come into the town, went to the place where they were, and sitting in the open air for fear of magic, listened to the preaching of Augustine. At its close he gave the monks full permission to reside in the chief town of the Kentishmen, Canterbury, and to win as many as they could to Christ. From that day Christianity took root in England, and soon ^thelbirht, his followers, and his people accepted the faith and were baptized. Augustine was made "archbishop of the English nation," and new workers were sent out. But outside of Kent progress was slow. Though the East Saxons and East Anglians, who at that time recognized the overlordship of Kent, outwardly accepted the faith, they did not long retain it, going back to paganism after the death of ^thelbirht in 616.

20. In Northumbria and Wessex. — About thirty years after the arrival of Augustine, Eadwine, king of ISTorthumbria, who had married a daughter of King ^Ethelbirht received Christianity into his kingdom. His wife was a Christian and had brought to her new home a Christian priest, Paulinus. Through the combined efforts of the queen and Paulinus, Eadwine accepted the faith and was baptized with many of his subjects. Paulinus was made bishop of the new region, and York becariie the seat of the new faith in the north.

For a few years the worldly affairs of the Northumbrian king- prospered. Eadwine extended the power of Northumbria and, as Baeda ^ says, " reduced under his dominion all the bor-

•• Bseda, commonly known as the Venerable Bede, was born in 673 and spent his life in the Benedictine monastery of Jarrow, dying in 735. He was a man greatly beloved in his day, of wide learning, and influential as a teacher and flrriter. His reputation chiefly rests on his Ecclesiastical History of Enaland.

THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND.

ders of Britain, a thing that no British king had done before." Through his influence the East Anglians were persuaded " to abandon their idolatrous superstitions," and Paulinus preached the faith through Northumbria. "There was," says Bseda,

From a 'photograph.

Durham Cathedral.

In this cathedral is the tomb of Bseda, with the inscription : ' ' Hac sunt in fossa Baedse venerabilis ossa."

" such perfect peace in Britain that wheresoever the kingdom of Eadwine extended, a woman with her new-born babe might walk through the island from sea to sea without receiving any harm." But in 632 Penda, king of Mercia and champion of the old pagan faith, killed Eadwine in battle, and Paulinus was forced to return to Kent.

This loss to Christianity in the north was balanced by gains

CELTIC MISSIONAEIES.

in the south, where the pope had sent missionaries to work among the West Saxons. As a result the king of the West Saxons was converted and baptized, together with his people.

21. Introduction of Christianity by Celtic Missionaries : in lona, Northumbria, and Mercia. — Owing to the defeat and death of Eadwine of Northumbria, the Eoman missionaries for the time being had to confine their work to the south ; but a new influence was to make itself felt in the north. During the

From a photograph, loNA : A General View of the Church Buildings. It was here that St. Columba began his missionary work in Scotland in 563, but none of the buildings is older than the twelfth century.

Roman occupation Christianity had been introduced among the Brythonic Celts, and early in the fifth century it was carried from Gaul by St. Patrick to thei Gaelic Celts of Ireland. In the years that followed the Scots, who then inhabited the northern part of Ireland, became the most zealous advocates of Christianity, and not content to work at home, sought other fields in which to spread their faith. St. Columba, sometimes called the father of the Scottish nation, went from northern Ireland in 563 to the island of lona, where

THE CONVERSION OE ENGLAND.

he established a monastery. From this seat as a centre, the Celtic monks carried Christianity throughout southwestern

Scotland and founded the Christian church of Scotland.

In Mercia after the overthrow of Eadwine, King Penda built up one of the most powerful tribal kingdoms in the land. But Oswald, a Bernician prince, who had been converted to Christianity by the Celtic monks, defeated the Mercians and drove them out of Bci'- nicia and Deira. He then sent to lona for a missionary preacher and gave to the saintly Aidan, who came, the island of Lindisfarne as a place for a monastery. Other monks came into Northumbria and began the task of converting the people. Simple, humble, devoted to their work, they went out into the country places, carrying comfort into the homes of the Northumbrians and preaching the simple doctrine of humility and charity.

But Penda was still powerful and the struggle between Mercia and Northumbria continued for nine years. Oswald fell in 642, but his work was taken up by his brother Oswiu, who threw the weight of his influence on the side of Christianity. He defeated Penda in

From a pliotoijvaph.

St. Martin's Cross, Iona.

This and one other cross, Maclean's, are the only survivors of 360 crosses that the island once possessed.

664] THE SYNOD OF WHITBY. 19

655, in the last great battle between paganism and Christianity, and became in consequence the most powerful king in England.

22. Conflict between the Roman and Ionian Missionaries. — Thus in the south the conversion of the English had been effected by the missionaries from Eome ; in the middle and north by those from lona. The former derived their authority from the bishop of Eome, the pope ; the latter from Columba, the bishop of lona. Both were members of Christian churches, differing from each other in certain matters of ritual, such as the way of calculating Easter and the shaving of the head in the tonsure. The Roman missionaries were fewer in number, but more powerful because they had behind them the growing church of the Continent and because they had sought to convert kings and others politically influential. The Ionian missionaries were more numerous, but they had vvorked more quietly, preaching the word of God among the people. The representatives of the Eoman church had more advanced ideas of the way in which the church should be united under one head and made subject to a single authority than had the Ionian representatives, who with very rudimentary ideas of organization had built up separate churches in each tribe with scarcely more unity than the tribes themselves. As each of the two systems, the Eoman with its centre at Canterbury, the Ionian with York as its most influential city, kept extending its influence, there was bound to come a conflict. This conflict was settled at the synod of Whitby.

23. The Synod of Whitby. — By 664 controversies between the two churches had become so frequent that King Oswiu of Northumbria called a synod in the monastery of Whitby. After elaborate arguments had been presented by Wilfrid for the Eoman party and Colman for the Ionian, Oswiu turned to Colman and said, " Is it true that Peter has received the keys of heaven, as Wilfrid says ? " Colman answered, " It is true, king." Then said Oswiu, " Can you show any such power given to your Columba?" "None." Then said the king, " Peter is the doorkeeper, and him I will not contradict, pglii^

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A Portion of Whitby Abbey as it stands To-day, Whitby, Lindisfarne, and Glastonbury were the three greatest of the 260 Benedictine abbeys in England. 20

750] INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND. 21

lest when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven there should be none to open them, he being my adversary who is proven to have the keys." Thus a momentous decision was made by the king and assented to by his councillors. The English church became henceforth a part of the great Continental church, of which the bishop of Eome was rapidly becoming the recognized head, or pope; and it enjoyed not only all the advantages that came from contact with the more advanced civilization of the Continent, but all the benefits that a more highly organized church system could confer. The Roman system before a century had passed became dominant in England as far north as the region about Edinburgh, and aided greatly in furthering the national unity both of England and of Scotland.

24. Organization of the Church : Theodore of Tarsus. — The church in England had as yet little organization or unity. Thus far each missionary and bishop had worked more or less by himself, and in his own way. There was need of some leader who should bind together the churches of the several kingdoms into a common whole. Such a man was found in Theodore of Tarsus, who in 669 was sent by the pope to England, where he remained for twenty-three years. " This was the first archbishop," says Bseda, " whom all the English church obeyed." Under Theodore discipline was improved and many instances of faulty management were corrected.

Theodore convoked synods of bishops, at which rules were laid down to be obeyed by all the clergy. He increased the number of dioceses and made the bishops more responsible than before for the management of them. He encouraged the clergy to study, to take good care of their parishes, and to enforce the law and the discipline of the great church of which they were a part. The unity thus effected in the church prepared the way for unity among the different peoples and made easier the formation of an English nation.

25. Influence of the Church in England : the Monasteries. — From 600 to 750, while the tribal peoples in the petty kingdoms

22 THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. [750

were warring against one another, the church stood as the one great uniting force seeking to place the peoples on a common footing as brethren in Christ. While the mass of the English, often only half civilized, clung to many forms of their pagan life, the church slowly and patiently sought to teach them practices that were more humane and methods of life that were more refined, and so became a factor in civilization.

In the monasteries it provided peaceful centres where learning, art, agriculture, and the sciences were encouraged, and where refuge was provided for those who wished to withdraw from the confusion of the world about them. The first monastery was established at Canterbury by King ^thelbirht. By the middle of the eighth century a score or more of monasteries existed in England. In worship and discipline, they followed the Benedictine rule.^ The monks maintained religious services, encouraged learning, and trained men in the practices of self-denial, charity, obedience, and labor. They cleared the forests, drained the marshes, built roads and bridges, and improved the great stretches of land granted to them. They obtained manuscripts which they copied and illustrated, and imported workmen who made glass vessels and iron utensils. In general they brought Roman art, architecture, literature, and ideas to England.

The men trained in the monasteries spread widely the influence of the English church. In less than two centuries after the sending of Augustine to England, England herself was sending missionaries to the Continent. The most noted of these was Boniface, who became archbishop of Mainz. The monasteries trained scholars as well as missionaries, men who had been inspired by Theodore of Tarsus to seek learning. By them schools were established, manuscripts collected, and works

1 St. Benedict in the sixth century applied in his own monastery at Nursia, in Italy, rules of monastic life that were so widely adopted that within two hundred years his rule was in use in many thousand monasteries in western Europe. Every Benedictine took tlie three vows, of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

750] INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH. 23

hitherto little known made accessible to both, clergy and laity. The most famous schools were at Jarrow and York. Among their learned men were Baeda, to whose history of the English church we owe the greater part of our knowledge of the early history of England, and Alcuin, librarian of the school of York, who became the teacher of Charles the Great (Charlemagne). Thus, in the tribal wars, amid the shifting of political power, the church stood as the one great influence, working for the unity and improvement of the people.

Chapter III. The Danes And The Rise Of Wessex

26. The Centre of Power shifts South. — During the rise of the church (Chapter II) the centre of political and militarypower was constantly changing from one tribal kingdom to another. Under Oswiu and his son, Northumhria remained the most powerful kingdom, until in 685 it began to lose its prestige and Mercia again came to the front. Under King OfEa Mercia extended its power to the Thames, gaining control over the East Anglians, East Saxons, Kentishmen, and Welshmen, (See Map, p. 29.) But at this time the greatness of a tribal kingdom depended on the personal ability of the king, and with the death of Offa in 796 the importance of Mercia passed away. The centre of power moved southward and Wessex rose to leadership. Egbert, of the royal family of Wessex, had lived for some years at the court of Charles the Great and had learned there to conquer and to rule. In 800 he returned to England and at once began his career of conquest. During the thirty-seven years of his reign he subjugated first the Kentishmen, then the South Saxons, East Saxons, and Surreymen, and later the East Anglians, South Humbrians, and the Welsh. In 823 he defeated his great Mercian rival, the successor of Offa. Thus he seems to have been the first king of all the English peoples and over-lord of many of the Celts ; but this was not strictly true. His supremacy differed in no way from that of ^thelbirht, Eadwine, Oswiu, and Offa except in its completeness. Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, each in turn, had controlled the lesser kingdoms as long as each had possessed a man strong enough to maintain his lordship ; and

THE COMING OF THE DANES.

the supremacy of each kingdom disappeared as soon as a weaker man succeeded to the kingdom or a stronger man arose elsewhere.

27. Conditions before the Danish Invasion. — The period from 450 through Egbert's reign was one in which tribal conditions prevailed. The great divisions into Saxons, East Anglians, Mercians, and the like were essentially tribal in character. There was no national unity in England at this time, there was little united action of any kind ; peoples warred with each other, and the constant struggle for supremacy, first of Kent, then of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex in turn, left the land an easy prey to invaders. And the invaders were at hand — the Danes.

28. The Coming of the Danes. — The invaders of England in the eighth and ninth centuries were hardy hunters and fishermen, neighbors and cousins of the Anglo-Saxons, barbarians in government and manner of life. Bred of a venturesome spirit in the fiords of Scandinavia and Denmark, — those retreats which gave them the name of Vikings, or fiorddwellers, — they were always ready to start on f reebooting expeditions toward the shores which lay nearest. Their success was due to their swiftness which caught their victims unawares, whether on the water or on the land. On the water, in their long shallow boats, manned by thirty or forty warriors, they swept up the rivers ; on the land they formed as a swiftly moving army, throwing up temporary fortifications, and using horses in order to move more rapidly, outwitted the clumsy tribal levies, plundered villages and monasteries, and were gone before the slow and badly equipped men of the shires could gather to defend themselves.

The Viking host was not a national body in the sense that

A Viking Ship.

Found at Gokstad, Norway.

THE RISE OF WESSEX.

it represented a single people coming from a single kingdom. It was rather a collection of war-bands, each under its own

LiNDISFAKNE AbBET.

The original abbey (seventh century) was famous for its connection, with the two great monks, St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert. The abbey shown in the photograph was built in tlie eleventh centuiy on the site of the old abbey, from which the monks had been driven by the Danes in 883.

individual chieftain. The invasion was, in fact, the last phase of the movement known as the Wandering of the Nations, of which the migration of the Anglo-Saxons themselves had been a part.

29. The Danes as Plunderers. — The Anglo-Saxons, divided among themselves and helpless to cope with their skilful and reckless adversaries, were unable to resist the Danish advance.

871] RESISTANCE OF WESSEX. 27

In 793 the marauders attacked ISTorthumbria and destroyed the monastery of Lindisfarne ; then they pushed on toward the west, occupied Ireland, and in 802 burned the buildings at lona. These acts completel}'' crippled Northumbria. Meanwhile, they invaded Kent and Wessex also, and their attacks were frequent and persistent. At first their object was merely plunder, and for half a century they burned and despoiled, returning home each year with their booty. But in 851 we find in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the ominous record, " This year the heathen men remained over winter at Thanet," The era of settlement had begun.

30. Settlement and Conquest. — During this second stage of the invasion large bodies of plunderers remained permanently in England and lived by ravaging. They formed a military force whose business was fighting, quite different from the native country folk who took to arms only when attacked. The Chronicle always calls the Danish force the "army," the Anglo-Saxon the " militia," or levy of able-bodied men of each shire. In successive summers the "army" pillaged Kent, East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia, the last three of which passed under the Danish yoke before the close of the ninth century. Thus the Daiies coming originally as adventurers remained as settlers. A new people, kindred of the old, became tillers and ploiighers of the lands it had conquered.

31. Resistance of Wessex. — In the centre and north of England the Danes succeeded in their conquest. Wessex alone among the kingdoms was able to resist; and upon its king, JSthelred, and his brother Alfred, fell the heavy burden of saving England from becoming a Daneland. The year 870- 871 was critical in the history of the struggle, for it was in that year that the Danish army, hurling itself on Wessex, struggled stubbornly for the victory. For four months ^thelred and Alfred fought the Danes among the hills and marshes of Berkshire. First one side, then the other, was successful, till finally, in the spring of 871, ^thelred was wounded and died. He was succeeded by his brother Alfred, who had so loyally helped him and upheld the cause of Wessex during these eventful months.

32. Alfred the Great. — Alfred the Great, by common repute the noblest of the early English kings, became king of the

West Saxons in their hour of greatest peril.

From his boyhood he had been considered by all who knew him as the most promising of the royal princes; in battle he had shown himself resourceful in command and a braye fighter on the field. He was comely in person, aristocratic in sympathies, and superior to all the men of his time in his love of learning and desire for the improvement of his semi-barbarous people. In 871, when twenty-three years old, he succeeded to the throne of the only kingdom of England which possessed any

real national life or made any pretence to an efBcient political

organization.

33. Alfred and the Danes. — The first outlook was discouraging. With only a small force King Alfred could not dislodge the Danes from northern Wessex. So he sued for peace, and after paying a heavy tribute obtained a respite for a few years.

Alfreb the Great.

Engraved from an imaginary portrait in

J. A. Froude's "Portraits."

ALFRED AND THE DANES.

30 THE RISE OE WESSEX. [885

The Danes, being bought off, turned aside from Wessex, but in 877 they renewed their assault. They overran the eastern portion of the kingdom, captured London and Winchester, and occupied a fortified camp at Chippenham. Alfred built a fleet of " long ships " in 877, manned them with experienced sailors from abroad, and endeavored to guard the coast from attack. But twice he was obliged to pay additional money to the Danes to withdraw. Finally, with a small band of followers, Alfred made his way to Somerset, to an island called Athelney, surrounded by marshes and rivers into which no one could enter without boats. Here he made a fort, and laid his plans for victory.^ Gradually in the spring of 878 he gathered more men about him, and when he felt that his force was strong enough, he fell upon the whole Danish army at Edington, and defeated it with great slaughter. He drove back the Danes to their retreat at Chippenham, laid siege to the place, and by threatening them with starvation, compelled them to sue for peace (878). This was the peace of Chippenham.

34. Alfred and Guthrum's Peace. — Guthrum, the Danish king, entered into friendly relations with Alfred, was baptized with thirty of his followers, and during the following years settled down in East Anglia as the peaceful subject of the king. In 885 Alfred seized London, and the next year made a second treaty with Guthrum.^ By this treaty the boundary between the English and Danes was defined, giving the Danes the north and east, the West Saxons the south and west. The English and the Danes on the northeast obeyed the Danelaw; the West Saxons, Mercians, Surreymen, South

1 At Athelney, in 1693, was found the famous enamelled jewel of Alfred's, bearing the inscription, "Mitred mec hehgewyrcan" ("Alfred ordered me to be made ").

2 This treaty has often been confused with that of Chippenham, 878, but as the boundary between Wessex and the Danelaw left London in Alfred's hands, the terms of that boundary must have been arranged after Alfred's capture of that city in 885.

EFFECTS OF THE DANISH INVASION.

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The consequences of this arrangement were of vast importance for England. Alfred had emerged from the struggle strengthened rather than weakened, for he now ruled over a territory nearly twice as large as that which his brother ^thelred had controlled, and the opportunity was at last offered of establishing a powerful English kingdom in the south, the growth of which was to mean an English state and an English nation. At the same time a new racial element, the Danes, had been introduced into England, strengthening and invigorating the Anglo- Saxon stock.

35. Effects of the Danish Invasion. — The evil effects of the Danish conquest were, in the beginning, everywhere apparent.

Monasteries were sacked, towns destroyed, harvests ruined, and hundreds of prisoners taken and sold into slavery. Whole districts were devastated, the English driven out or made subject, and the monastic centres of learning and Christian influence ceased to exist. The effects of this destruction were startling. Alfred says in his preface to the translation of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care : " So clean was learning fallen away among the English, that there were very few on this side of the Humber who knew how to render their daily prayers in English, or so much as translate an epistle out of Latin into English. I ween that there were not so many beyond the Humber. They were so few that I cannot think of a single one south of the Thames when I took the kingdom."

On the other hand, the good effects of the Danish invasion were many. By forcing political unity upon Wessex, the kingdom in which lay the future of England, it prepared the way for the unity of all Christian England. Hereafter the Celts in Devon and Somerset, the Saxons in Mercia, and the Jutes in Kent were to become Englishmen. Then, too, the Danes brought a fresh supply of Teutonic blood into England, and strengthened the institutions which the Angles and Saxons had already established. In law and language, in habits and customs of life, the two peoples had so much in common that for their union into one nation only a reasonable period of time was necessary.

36. Alfred's Work in Wessex. — Though King Alfred continued his war against the Danes until the year 896, his military work had been largely accomplished by 881, and he was able to turn to matters of internal reorganization and reform.

His first consideration was for the defences of his kingdom. Already, in 877, he had commanded "long ships" to be built for the protection of the coast, and equipped them with experienced sailors hired from among the Frisians. Twice he met the Danes on their own element, defeated them, and captured their ships. In 897 he enlarged the navy by the construction of ships twice as large as the others, and propelled by sixty oars or more. In the army his changes were even

897] ALFRED'S WORK IN WESSEX. , 33

more radical. He increased the number of thanes, and required of them a more regular military service. He divided them into three groups, one of which was always to be with him. In this way he provided for a permanent body of heavy-armed men. The freemen of the shires, who fought on foot, he divided into two parts, one of which remained at home, while the other accompanied the king and the thanes in war. To meet the Danes he mounted many of his men on horseback for greater rapidity of movement. To others he intrusted the erection of fortified camps, and the strengthening and defence of the burghs. It is a noteworthy evidence of the success of these changes that for nearly a century after this time, his successors were almost continuously successful in all conflicts with the Danes.

Alfred strengthened also the organization of the church, and brought it into closer contact with the Continental church of which it was a part. He constantly sent alms and letters to Rome and received gifts of manuscripts and relics in return. He erected two new monasteries in Wessex, and in one of these he placed his own daughter as abbess, and to each he gave an ample endowment. He strengthened neighboring monasteries in Mercia, and gave freely not only to churches in England, but also to those in Brittany and Ireland.

For learning and literature his work is especially famous. He organized schools both at his court and at the monasteries, demanding the attendance of his own children, as well as those of the nobility, that they might read Latin and Saxon books and learn to write. About him he gathered men of learning : priests and scholars, who aided him in his work. He read books and had others read to him. For the instruction of the clergy, he translated, from the Latin, Gregory's Pastoral Care, and other Latin works on philosophy and history. Either he or one of his Mercian scholars made a version of Bseda's Ecclesiastical History ; and a group of monks, probably at Winchester, the capital of the West Saxons, gave a splendid impetus to Anglo-Saxon prose by gathering together, under

Alfred's inspiration, the annals kept in the monasteries and continuing them in the form of a history called the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle. The translation of Baeda and the writing

A Portion of B^da's Ecclesiastical History. From an eighth century copy in the British Museum. In the year already mentioned of the aforesaid eclipse and the plague that followed, when also Colman the bishop returned to his own people after suffering defeat [at the Synod of Whitby] through the united efforts of the catholics [the Roman party under Wilfrid], [Archbishop Deusdedit died]. A.D. 664.