had incurred by some offence; or they might be born in slavery.

6. Government.-The King was not absolute (that is, he did not rule wholly according to his own will), but was bound to observe the laws and customs of his people. He was moreover guided by a council or assembly, called the Witena-gemót, that is, the Meeting of the Wise, its members being the Witan, the Wise Men. It is probable that all freemen might take part in the Meeting, but if so, when the kingdoms grew fewer in number, and larger in extent, the mass of the people soon ceased to attend, because they had not the time or could not travel the distance. So the Meeting shrank on ordinary occasions into something more like our House of Lords, attended only by the great men-the Ealdormen, who were something like Viceroys or Lords-Lieutenant; the King's thanes; and, after the country became Christian, by the Bishops and Abbots. Sometimes, on great occasions, large bodies of people were present; and in the eleventh century we hear of the citizens of London taking part in Meetings for the election of a King. The powers of the Witan were large; they elected the King; and they and he together made laws and treaties, and appointed or removed the officers of the State. In small matters the people governed themselves. The township had its own little meeting, still continued in part under the name of" parish vestry," for making its by-laws and settling its affairs. The township was sometimes independent, that is to say, the freemen owned the land; sometimes it was dependent on a lord, whose tenants the townsmen were. So the hundred, called in some parts of the country the wapentake, a union of townships, had a court and meeting for trying criminals and settling disputes; and so too the shire, a cluster of hundreds, had its court and meeting, presided over by the Ealdorman, the Sheriff (that is, shire-reeve, magistrate of the shire), and the Bishop.

CHAPTER III.

CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH TO CHRISTIANITY.

The conversion of Kent (1)—the conversion of the North (2)—the Scottish mission (3)—the Synod of Whitby (4) -the Church of England (5).

1. Conversion of Kent.-The heathen English had learned nothing from the Christian Welsh, and their conversion was first undertaken by a mission from Rome, which was still considered the greatest city of the Western world, and whose Bishop, commonly called Pope, that is, Father, was held to be chief of all Bishops. Gregory the Great, who was made Pope in 590, was said to have become interested in the English from seeing some beautiful fair-skinned and long-haired boys from Deira standing in the market at Rome for sale as slaves. Well were they called Angles, he said, for they had the faces of angels; and sorrowing that those who were so fair of form should be in heathen darkness, he at once conceived a wish for the conversion of the English. So after he had become Pope, he sent to Britain a band of priests and monks having at their head Augustine, afterwards styled Saint, who landed in 597 at Ebbsfleet. Ethelbert, King of Kent, who was the most powerful prince in Southern England, had married Bertha, daughter of Charibert, one of the Frankish kings in Northern Gaul. The Franks, a Teutonic people, were Christians; and Æthelbert, though himself a heathen, had agreed to allow his wife free exercise of her religion. He now consented to listen to Augustine and his Companions. The meeting took place in the Isle

of Thanet, and, by Æthelbert's wish, in the open air, because spells and charms, which he feared the strangers might use, were supposed to have less power out of doors. After hearing what they had to say, he gave them a house in the royal city of Canterbury, where they worshipped in the little Roman church of Saint Martin, in which Bertha was wont to pray. Ere long they converted Æthelbert himself, whose example was freely followed by large numbers. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and his cathedral church of the Saviour, which has been many times rebuilt, still remains the metropolitan or mother church of England. In 604 he ordained two Bishops, of whom one had his see at Rochester, and the other at London, where King Æthelbert built for him the church of St. Paul. The Church services, introduced by the missionaries, were in Latin, which, though an unknown tongue to the English, was still the literary and official language in other parts of Western Christendom.

2. Conversion of the North. Eadwine, or as we now write the name, Edwin, of Deira, ascended the Northumbrian throne in 617, and became the greatest King in Britain. On the northern frontier of his dominions his name lives in that of Edinburgh, which he founded as a fortress. So strong and good was his government that, as the popular saying went," a woman with her babe might walk unharmed through the land from sea to sea ;" and it was told how, for the benefit of the thirsty wayfarer, he had brass cups hung up by the water-springs near the roads, and no man durst steal them. His wife Ethelburh, daughter of Ethelbert of Kent, was a Christian; and to the Bishop Paulinus, whom she brought with her, the conversion of her husband was due. When the King was himself convinced, he gathered his Witan to debate whether they also should adopt Christianity. The assembled nobles

decided for the new creed, and the heathen HighPriest Coifi himself undertook to profane the idol temple of Godmanham. Riding up, he hurled a spear into it, and bade his followers set it on fire. The Minster of York, at first a simple wooden church, was founded by Edwin, who was there baptized in 627. But after Edwin in 633 had fallen fighting against the heathen Penda, King of the Mercians, and the Welsh King Cadwalla, Paulinus fled with the widowed Queen to Kent, and Northumbrian Christianity seemed about to perish, when a deliverer arose in Oswald, since styled Saint, a son of Æthelfrith. At a place called Heavenfield, near Hexham, Oswald set up a wooden cross-the first Christian sign reared in Bernicia― and there, with his little army, knelt and prayed for aid. The Welsh King fell in the ensuing fight, and thenceforward Oswald reigned over Northumberland till in 642 he too fell in battle with Penda.

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3. The Scottish Mission. - The Ireland had been converted to Christianity in the fifth century, chiefly, as tradition says, by the famous missionary St. Patrick, who was most probably born near Dumbarton. Christianity quickly took root and flourished in Ireland; learning was there cultivated at a time when it had almost died out elsewhere; foreigners resorted to the Irish schools, and Irish missionaries went out to foreign lands. In the sixth century, St. Columba, an Irishman, had founded the renowned monastery of Iona, and had converted the Picts of the Highlands. King Oswald, having in his youth been baptized by the Scots of Britain, applied to them for a Bishop for his people. Aidan, a monk

of Iona, was sent, and fixed his episcopal see in Lindisfarn, since called Holy Island. Through his own and his countrymen's labours, the Northumbrians soon became Christians; but the faith of the common people was often mixed with heathenism. In time of pestilence they had recourse to their heathen

charms and amulets, and many looked with no friendly eye on the monks who "took away the old worship." Cuthbert, a Northumbrian monk of Melrose who had been a shepherd in his boyhood, devoted himself to teaching and preaching throughout the villages, choosing particularly those among the hills which were so difficult to get at and so rude and wild that other missionaries passed them by. He was made Bishop of Lindisfarn in 685, and was afterwards revered as the great Saint of the North.

The other English kingdoms were gradually converted during the seventh century, partly by missionaries from abroad, partly by men trained at Lindisfarn. One of the early Mercian Bishops, Ceadda, who had his see at Lichfield, is still remembered under the name of "St. Chad."

4. The Synod of Whitby.-The Church of the Irish Scots had ways of its own, notably as to the time for keeping Easter, which differed from those of Rome and the other Western Churches. Hence arose a controversy between the disciples of Iona and those of Rome and Canterbury, till in 664 a synod was held in the monastery of Streoneshalh (now Whitby), where Hild, commonly called St. Hilda, a woman of royal race, bore rule as Abbess over both monks and nuns. There the Northumbrian King Oswy, after hearing both sides, decided for the Roman customs; upon which the Scottish Bishop of Lindisfarn, Colman, with many of his monks, withdrew to Iona. Trifling as the points at issue seem, in its result the Synod was not unimportant, as it brought all the English Churches into agreement.

5. The Church of England.-The work of organizing and uniting the English Churches was mainly carried out by Theodore of Tarsus, a man of Eastern birth and training, who was sent from Rome in 668 to be Archbishop of Canterbury. Each kingdom as it was converted had become a diocese,

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