The native churches of the west, cut off from direct intercourse6 with the main body of Latin Christendom, had retained certain habits which were now regarded by Rome as schismatical. Chief among these were the date of celebrating Easter, and the uncanonical method of cutting the tonsure8 in a crescent instead of a circle. Augustine, shortly after his arrival, endeavoured to obtain unity9 between the two churches on these matters of discipline, to which great importance was attached as tests of submission10 to the Latin rule. He obtained from ?thelberht a safe-conduct through the heathen West-Saxon territories as far as what is now Worcestershire; and there, "on the borders of the Huiccii and the West-Saxons," says B?da, "he convened11 to a colloquy12 the bishops13 and doctors of the nearest province of the Britons, in the place which, to the present day, is called in the English language, Augustine's Oak." Such open-air meetings by sacred trees or stones were universal in England both before and after its conversion14. "He began to admonish15 them with a brotherly admonition to embrace with him the Catholic faith, and to undertake the common task of evangelising the pagans. For they did not observe Easter at the proper period: moreover, they did many other things contrary to the unity of the Church." But the Welsh were jealous of the intruders, and refused to abandon their old customs. Thereupon, Augustine declared that if they would not help him against the heathen, they would perish by the heathen. A few years later, after Augustine's death, this prediction was verified by ?thelfrith of Northumbria, whose massacre16 of the monks17 of Bangor has already been noticed.
It was in return for the destruction of Chester and the slaughter18 of the monks that Cadwalla joined the heathen Penda against his fellow Christian19 Eadwine. But the death of Eadwine left the throne open for the house of ?thelfrith, whose place Eadwine had taken. After a year of renewed heathendom, however, during part of which the Welsh Cadwalla reigned20 over Northumbria, Oswald, son of ?thelfrith, again united Deira and Bernicia under his own rule. Oswald was a Christian, but he had learnt his Christianity from the Scots, amongst whom he had spent his exile, and he favoured the introduction of Pictish and Scottish missionaries into Northumbria. The Italian monks who had accompanied Augustine were men of foreign speech and manners, representatives of an alien civilisation21, and they attempted to convert whole kingdoms en bloc22 by the previous conversion of their rulers. Their method was political and systematic23. But the Pictish and Irish preachers were men of more Britannic feelings, and they went to work with true missionary earnestness to convert the half Celtic people of Northumbria, man by man, in their own homes. Aidan, the apostle of the north, carried the Pictish faith into the Lothians and Northumberland. He placed his bishop-stool not far from the royal town of Bamborough, at Lindisfarne, the Holy Island of the Northumbrian coast. Other Celtic missionaries penetrated24 further south, even into the heathen realm of Penda and his tributary25 princes. Ceadda or Chad, the patron saint of Lichfield, carried Christianity to the Mercians. Diuma preached to the Middle English of Leicester with much success, Peada, their ealdorman, son of Penda, having himself already embraced the new faith. Penda had slain26 Oswald in a great battle at Maserfeld in 641; but the martyr27 only brought increased glory to the Christians28: and Oswiu, who succeeded him, after an interval29 of anarchy30, as king of Deira (for Bernicia now chose a king of its own), was also a zealous31 adherent32 of the Celtic missionaries. Thus the heterodox Church made rapid strides throughout the whole of the north.
Meanwhile, in the south the Latin missionaries, urged to activity, perhaps, by the Pictish successes, had been making fresh progress. In the very year when Oswald was chosen king by the Northumbrians, Birinus, a priest from northern Italy, went by command of the pope to the West Saxons: and after twelve months he was able to baptise their king, Cynegils, at his capital of Dorchester, on the Thames, his sponsor being Oswald of Northumbria. A year later, Felix, a Burgundian, "preached the faith of Christ to the East Anglians," who had indeed been converted by the Augustinian missionaries, but afterwards relapsed. Only Sussex and Mercia still remained heathen. But, in 655, Penda made a last attempt against Northumbria, which he had harried33 year after year, and was met by Oswiu at Winwidfield, near Leeds; the Christians were successful, and Penda was slain, together with thirty royal persons—petty princes of the tributary Mercian states, no doubt. His son, Peada, the Christian ealdorman of the Middle English, succeeded him, and the Mercians became Christians of the Pictish or Irish type. "Their first bishop," says B?da, "was Diuma, who died and was buried among the Middle English. The second was Cellach, who abandoned his bishopric, and returned during his lifetime to Scotland (perhaps Ireland, but more probably the Scottish kingdom in Argyllshire). Both of these were by birth Irishmen. The third was Trumhere, by race an Englishman, but educated and ordained34 by the Irish." Thus Roman Christianity spread over the whole of England south of the Wash (save only heathen Sussex): while the Irish Church had made its way over all the north, from the Wash to the Firth of Forth. The Roman influence may be partly traced by the Roman alphabet superseding35 the old English runes. Runic inscriptions36 are rare in the south, where they were regarded as heathenish relics37, and so destroyed: but they are comparatively common in the north. Runics appear on the coins of the first Christian kings of Mercia, Peada and ?thelred, but soon die out under their successors.
Heathendom was now fairly vanquished38. It survived only in Sussex, cut off from the rest of England by the forest belt of the Weald. The next trial of strength must clearly lie between Rome and Iona.
The northern bishops and abbots traced their succession, not to Augustine, but to Columba. Cuthberht, the English apostle of the north, who really converted the people of Northumbria, as earlier missionaries had converted its kings, derived39 his orders from Iona. Rome or Ireland, was now the practical question of the English Church. As might be expected, Rome conquered. To allay40 the discord41, King Oswiu summoned a synod at Streoneshalch (now known by its later Danish name of Whitby) in 664, to settle the vexed42 question as to the date of Easter. The Irish priests claimed the authority of St. John for their crescent tonsure; the Romans, headed by Wilfrith, a most vigorous priest, appealed to the authority of St. Peter for the canonical7 circle. "I will never offend the saint who holds the keys of heaven," said Oswiu, with the frank, half-heathendom of a recent convert; and the meeting shortly decided43 as the king would have it. The Irish party acquiesced44 or else returned to Scotland; and thenceforth the new English Church remained in close communion with Rome and the Continent. Whatever may be our ecclesiastical judgment45 of this decision, there can be little doubt that its material effects were most excellent. By bringing England into connection with Rome, it brought her into connection with the centre of all then-existing civilisation, and endowed her with arts and manufactures which she could never otherwise have attained46. The connection with Ireland and the north would have been as fatal, from a purely47 secular48 point of view, to early English culture as was the later connection with half-barbaric Scandinavia. Rome gave England the Roman letters, arts, and organisation49: Ireland could only have given her a more insular50 form of Celtic civilisation.
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1 missionary | |
adj.教会的,传教(士)的;n.传教士 | |
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2 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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3 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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4 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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5 missionaries | |
n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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6 intercourse | |
n.性交;交流,交往,交际 | |
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7 canonical | |
n.权威的;典型的 | |
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8 tonsure | |
n.削发;v.剃 | |
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9 unity | |
n.团结,联合,统一;和睦,协调 | |
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10 submission | |
n.服从,投降;温顺,谦虚;提出 | |
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11 convened | |
召开( convene的过去式 ); 召集; (为正式会议而)聚集; 集合 | |
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12 colloquy | |
n.谈话,自由讨论 | |
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13 bishops | |
(基督教某些教派管辖大教区的)主教( bishop的名词复数 ); (国际象棋的)象 | |
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14 conversion | |
n.转化,转换,转变 | |
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15 admonish | |
v.训戒;警告;劝告 | |
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16 massacre | |
n.残杀,大屠杀;v.残杀,集体屠杀 | |
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17 monks | |
n.修道士,僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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18 slaughter | |
n.屠杀,屠宰;vt.屠杀,宰杀 | |
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19 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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20 reigned | |
vi.当政,统治(reign的过去式形式) | |
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21 civilisation | |
n.文明,文化,开化,教化 | |
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22 bloc | |
n.集团;联盟 | |
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23 systematic | |
adj.有系统的,有计划的,有方法的 | |
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24 penetrated | |
adj. 击穿的,鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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25 tributary | |
n.支流;纳贡国;adj.附庸的;辅助的;支流的 | |
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26 slain | |
杀死,宰杀,杀戮( slay的过去分词 ); (slay的过去分词) | |
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27 martyr | |
n.烈士,殉难者;vt.杀害,折磨,牺牲 | |
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28 Christians | |
n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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29 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
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30 anarchy | |
n.无政府状态;社会秩序混乱,无秩序 | |
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31 zealous | |
adj.狂热的,热心的 | |
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32 adherent | |
n.信徒,追随者,拥护者 | |
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33 harried | |
v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 );不断烦扰;一再袭击;侵扰 | |
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34 ordained | |
v.任命(某人)为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 );授予(某人)圣职;(上帝、法律等)命令;判定 | |
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35 superseding | |
取代,接替( supersede的现在分词 ) | |
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36 inscriptions | |
(作者)题词( inscription的名词复数 ); 献词; 碑文; 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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37 relics | |
[pl.]n.遗物,遗迹,遗产;遗体,尸骸 | |
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38 vanquished | |
v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 );战胜;克服;抑制 | |
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39 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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40 allay | |
v.消除,减轻(恐惧、怀疑等) | |
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41 discord | |
n.不和,意见不合,争论,(音乐)不和谐 | |
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42 vexed | |
adj.争论不休的;(指问题等)棘手的;争论不休的问题;烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 );使苦恼;使生气;详细讨论 | |
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43 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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44 acquiesced | |
v.默认,默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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46 attained | |
(通常经过努力)实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 ); 达到; 获得; 达到(某年龄、水平、状况) | |
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47 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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48 secular | |
n.牧师,凡人;adj.世俗的,现世的,不朽的 | |
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49 organisation | |
n.组织,安排,团体,有机休 | |
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50 insular | |
adj.岛屿的,心胸狭窄的 | |
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