THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THESE
ISLANDS BEFORE THE COMING
OF AUGUSTINE.
Three Lectures delivered at St. Paul’s in January 1894
BY THE
REV. G. F. BROWNE, B.D., D.C.L.,
CANON OF ST. PAUL’S,
AND FORMERLY DISNEY PROFESSOR OF ARCHÆOLOGY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.
LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.
NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.
1894.
We are approaching an anniversary of the highest interest to all English
people: to English Churchmen first, for it is the thirteen-hundredth
anniversary of the planting of the Church of England; but also to all who
are proud of English civilisation, for the planting of a Christian Church
is the surest means of civilisation, and English civilisation owes
everything to the English Church. In 1897 those who are still here will
celebrate the thirteen-hundredth anniversary of the conversion of
Ethelbert, king of the Kentish people, by Augustine and the band of
missionaries sent by our great benefactor Gregory, the sixty-fourth bishop
of Rome. I am sorry that the limitation of my present subject prevents me
from enlarging upon the merits of that great man, and upon our debt to
him. Englishmen must always remember that it was Gregory
who gave to the
Italian Mission whatever force it had; it was Gregory who gave it courage,
when the dangers of a journey through France were sufficient to keep it
for months shivering with fear under the shadow of the Alps; it was
Gregory who gave it such measure of wisdom and common sense as it had,
qualities which its leader sadly lacked. Coming nearer to the present
year, there will be in 1896 the final departure of Augustine from Rome to
commemorate, on July 23, and his arrival here in the late autumn. In 1895
there will be to commemorate the first departure from Rome of Augustine
and his Mission, by way of Lérins and Marseilles to Aix, and the return of
Augustine to Rome, when his companions, in fear of the dangers of the way,
refused to go further. An ill-omened beginning, prophetic and prolific of
like results. The history of the Italian Mission is a history of failure
to face danger. Mellitus fled from London, and got himself safe to Gaul;
Justus fled from Rochester, and got himself safe to Gaul; Laurentius was
packed up to fly from Canterbury and follow them[1]; Paulinus fled from
York. In 1894 we have, as I believe, to commemorate the final abandonment
of earlier and independent plans for the conversion of the English in
Kent, from which abandonment the Mission of Augustine came to be.
It is a very interesting fact that just when we are preparing to
commemorate the thirteen-hundredth anniversary of the introduction of
Christianity into England, and are drawing special attention to the fact
that Christianity had existed in this island, among the Britons, for at
least four hundred years before its introduction to the English, our
neighbours in France are similarly engaged. They are preparing to
celebrate in 1896 the fourteen-hundredth anniversary of “the introduction
of Christianity into France,” as the newspapers put it. This means that
in 496, Clovis, king of the Franks, became a Christian; as, in 597,
Ethelbert, king of the Kentish-men, became a Christian[2]. As we have to
keep very clear in our minds the distinction between the introduction of
Christianity among the English, from whom the country is called England,
and its introduction long before into Britain; so our continental
neighbours have to keep very clear the difference between the introduction
of Christianity among the Franks, from whom the country is called France,
and its introduction long before into Gaul. The Archbishop of Rheims,
whose predecessor Remigius baptized Clovis in 496, is arranging a solemn
celebration of their great anniversary; and the Pope has accorded a six
months’ jubilee in honour of the occasion. No doubt the Archbishop of
Canterbury, whose predecessor Augustine baptized Ethelbert, will in like
manner make arrangements for a solemn celebration of our great
anniversary. It would be an interesting and fitting thing, to hold a
thanksgiving service within the walls of Richborough, which is generally
accepted as the scene of Augustine’s first interview with King Ethelbert,
and has now been secured and put into the hands of trustees[3]. The two
commemorations, at Rheims and at Canterbury, are linked together in a
special way by the fact that Clotilde, the Christian wife of Clovis, was
the great-grandmother of Bertha, the Christian wife of Ethelbert.
In the year 594, two years before the arrival of Augustine, there was, and
I believe had long been, a Christian queen in pagan Kent; there was, and I
believe had long been, a Christian bishop in pagan Canterbury, sent there
to minister to the Christian queen. An excellent opening this for the
conversion of the king and people, an opening intentionally created by
those who made the marriage on the queen’s side. But, however hopeful the
opening, the immediate result was disappointing. If more of missionary
help had been sent from Gaul, from whence this bishop came, the conversion
of the king and people might have come in the natural way, by an inflow of
Christianity from the neighbouring country. But such help, though
pressingly asked for, was not given; and as I read such signs as there
are, this year 594, of which we now inaugurate the thirteen-hundredth
anniversary, was the year in which it came home to those chiefly concerned
that the conversion was not to be effected by the means adopted. Beyond
some very limited area of Christianity, only the queen and some few of her
people, and the religious services maintained for them, the bishop’s work
was to be barren. The limited work which he did was that for which
ostensibly he had come; but I think we are meant to understand that his
Christian ambition was larger than this, his Christian hope higher. I
shall make no apology for dwelling a little upon the circumstances of this
Christian work, immediately before the coming of Augustine. It may seem a
little discursive; but it forms, I think, a convenient introduction to our
general subject.
Who Bishop Luidhard was, is a difficult question. That he came from Gaul
is certain, but his name is clearly Teutonic; whence, perhaps, his
acceptability as a visitor to the English. He has been described as Bishop
of Soissons; but the lists of bishops there make no mention of him, nor do
the learned authors and compilers of Gallia Christiana. This assignment
of Luidhard to the bishopric of Soissons may perhaps be explained by an
interesting story.
The Bishop of Soissons, a full generation earlier than the time of which
we are speaking, was Bandaridus. He was charged before King Clotaire, that
one of the four sons of the first Clovis who succeeded to the kingdom
called “of Soissons,” with many offences of many kinds; and he was
banished. He crossed over to England–for so Britain is described in the
old account–and there lived in a monastery for seven years, performing
the humble functions of a kitchen-gardener. Whether the story is
sufficiently historical to enable us to claim the continuance of Christian
monasteries of the British among the barbarian Saxons so late as 540, I am
not clear. There was a little Irish monastery at Bosham, among the pagan
South-Saxons, a hundred and forty years later. It is easy, I think, to
overrate the hostility of the early English to Christianity. Penda of
Mercia has the character of being murderously hostile; but it was land,
not creed, that he cared for. He was quite broad and undenominational in
his slaughters.
There is one very interesting fact, which deserves to be noted in
connection with this mysterious Gallican bishop. The Italian Mission paid
very special honour to his memory and his remains. There is in the first
volume of Dugdale’s Monasticon[5] a copy of an ancient drawing of St.
Augustine’s, Canterbury. This is not, of course, the Cathedral Church,
which was an old church of the British times restored by Augustine and
dedicated to the Saviour; “Christ Church” it still remains. St.
Augustine’s was the church and monastery begun in Augustine’s lifetime,
and dedicated soon after his death to St. Peter and St. Paul, as Bede (i.
33) and various documents tell us precisely. This fact, that the church
was dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, was represented last June, when
“the renewal of the dedication of England to St. Mary and St. Peter” took
place[6], by the statement that “the first great abbey church of
Canterbury was dedicated to St. Peter.” In the preparatory pastoral,
signed by Cardinal Vaughan and fourteen other Roman Catholic Bishops,
dated May 20, 1893, the statement took this form[7]:–“The second
monastery of Canterbury was dedicated to St. Peter himself.” Not only is
that not so, but I cannot find evidence that Augustine dedicated any
church anywhere “to St. Peter himself.” Of the two Apostles, St. Peter and
St. Paul, who were united in the earliest of all Saints’ days, and still
are so united in the Calendar of the Roman Church, though we have given to
them two separate days, of the two, if we must choose one of them, St.
Paul, not St. Peter, was made by Augustine the Apostle of England. To St.
Paul was dedicated the first church in England dedicated to either of the
two “himself,” that is, alone; and that, too, this church, the first and
cathedral church of the greater of the two places assigned by Gregory as
the two Metropolitical sees of England, London and York.
THE PAPAL AGGRESSION! CREATION OF
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC HIERARCHY
IN ENGLAND, 1850
APPROVED!
Major professor ^
J?, / / / ?
Minor Professor
ItfCp&ctor of the Departflfejalf of History
Dean”of the Graduate School
THE PAPAL AGGRESSION 8 CREATION OP
THE SOMAN CATHOLIC HIERARCHY
IN ENGLAND, 1850
THESIS
Presented to the Graduate Council of the
North Texas State University in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
For she Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
By
Denis George Paz, B. A,
Denton, Texas
January, 1969
PREFACE
Pope Plus IX, on September 29» 1850, published the
letters apostolic Universalis Sccleslae. creating a terri-
torial hierarchy for English Roman Catholics. For the
first time since 1559» bishops obedient to Rome ruled over
dioceses styled after English place names rather than over
districts named for points of the compass# and bore titles
derived from their sees rather than from extinct Levantine
cities« The decree meant, moreover, that6 in the Vati-
can ks opinionc England had ceased to be a missionary area
and was ready to take its place as a full member of the
Roman Catholic communion.
When news of the hierarchy reached London in the mid-
dle of October, Englishmen protested against it with
unexpected zeal. Irate protestants held public meetings
to condemn the new prelates» newspapers cried for penal
legislation* and the prime minister, hoping to strengthen
his position, issued a public letter in which he charac-
terized the letters apostolic as an “insolent and
insidious”1 attack on the queen’s prerogative to appoint
bishops„ In 1851» Parliament, despite the determined op-
position of a few Catholic and Peellte members, enacted
the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, which imposed a ilOO fine
on any bishop who used an unauthorized territorial title,
ill
and permitted oommon informers to sue a prelate alleged to
have violated the act. But no bishop ever was found
guilty under this law, and it was repealed twenty years
later.