Church History - Early Middle Ages

by
Sisters Notre Dame

Original Copyright 1907

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Table of Contents

Front Matter
Babarians and Monasticism
Conversion of West Europe
The Church in the East
Papacy and Empire
The Church in Britan
The Iron Age
Britain During the Iron Age
Chronological Outline
Short List of Books

The Barbarians and Monasticism

I. The Teutonic Invaders

The great Teutonic, Gothic, or Germanic branch of the human race which, during the fifth and sixth centuries, overran Europe was made up of several distinct peoples. Little by little they divided among them the broad Roman Empire, but not by any friendly arrangement; each tribe seized what it could, and kept possession by force of arms, unless driven off by some more powerful new-comers. As time went on, the different European nations began to be formed, and it is possible to say to which of the tribes each owes its origin, though it must not be thought that the countries had the same boundaries or the same names as they have now, or that the people of to-day are the direct descendants of these old Gothic tribes alone. Indeed, we have only to think of our own English history to learn how sometimes many races go to make up one people.

The principal tribes and the nations they founded are somewhat as follows:

1. The Ostrogoths, or Eastern Goths, who first occupied the North of Italy, and who later on were driven back to Hungary and Turkey.

2. The Visigoths, or Western Goths, who settled in Spain and in the South of France.

3. The Franks, who occupied a tract of country comprising the North of France and Germany as far as the Rhine.

4. The Burgundians, who conquered the South-East of France.

5. The Vandals, who settled first in Spain and then in North Africa.

6. The Angles  and Saxons, who spread over the South of Denmark, that part of North Germany to the east of the Rhine, and into Britain.

7. The Scandinavians, or Danes, the conquerors of Norway, Sweden, and North Denmark; and

8. The Lombards, the last comers, who occupied first Hungary and then advanced into the North of Italy, whence they drove out the former occupants, the Ostrogoths.

With the exception of the Franks, Angles, Saxons, and Scandinavians, who were heathens, all the Teutonic invaders were Arians. It had so happened that the earliest advancing Teutonic tribes settled for a time in the land north of the Danube. This was early in the fourth century, when Arianism was at its height. Ulfilas, Arian patriarch of Constantinople, undertook to convert these Gothic people. He invented the Gothic alphabet, and translated the Bible for their use. All these bold warriors were therefore converted, not to Catholic Christianity, but to Arian Christianity, and wherever they conquered and settled they took their belief with them.

SETTLEMENT OF THE BARBARIANS IN EUROPE.

The fate of the conquered peoples was not everywhere the same. Where the invaders were pagans, or where they met with a fierce resistance, they swept everything before them: the inhabitants were massacred, driven away, or reduced to slavery, churches and homesteads were destroyed, and whole tracts of land were laid desolate. This was notably the case in Britain and in the North of Europe. The Arian invaders generally settled down among the subjugated peoples, leaving them a portion of their goods, and in some cases their form of government also. The new-comers mingled their language with that of the former Roman possessors of the soil, and formed a new nation by the blending of the conquering and conquered races.

Though the Gothic invasions caused much suffering, they were far from being an unmixed evil. The Roman people had lost all their nobler qualities—their bravery, their simplicity of manners, and their devoted love of their country. They had become enslaved to luxury and fine living, and had sunk into a state of sensuality, from which the Church vainly endeavoured to rouse them, and in which virtue and learning alike were neglected. With a rough hand, the Gothic barbarians swept all this corruption from their path, and the way was prepared for a healthier civilization. The vigorous character of the Germanic invaders, especially where not spoiled by the influence of heresy, their fierce contempt for cowardice of any kind, their respect for law, and their reverence for women, produced the happiest results when brought under the influence of the Church. Hardly had the invaders settled down in the conquered land than we find apostles busily at work, living saintly lives among them, preaching to them and winning them to the fold of Christ, though in some cases the Arians succeeded by persecution in imposing for a time their belief on the conquered people. It is a most remarkable thing that these bold Teutons ever respected the courage of the missionaries; a persecution of the faith is hardly to be met with in their history, and the martyrs who suffered at their hands are very few indeed when compared with those put to death under the Roman Empire.

Side by side with the faith, civilization was planted, for the Church has ever acted thus. Her missionaries labour at softening the manners of the wild tribes among whom they settle, and at teaching them all the useful arts of a peaceful life. To turn hordes of savage barbarians into order-loving and civilized nations was, however, in some places, the work of centuries. The influence which wrought this happy change was, according to Sanderson, a Protestant, the monastic institutions and the power of the Popes. The revival of learning which marked the sixth and seventh centuries is attributed by him to the use of the Latin tongue in the liturgy of the Church. Thus, as Hallam says, "Religion made a bridge across the chaos, and linked the periods of ancient and modern culture."

II. The Apostles of the Teutons

The monastic institutes which, after the fall of the Roman Empire, arose in the West were numerous:

1. The Monastery of Condat in the Jura Mountains, with its branch houses;

2. that of Marmoutier, founded by St. Martin of Tours, whose traditions St. Patrick carried into Ireland;

3. that great house of learning and sanctity, Bangor in Wales;

4. the monasteries of St. Columba in Scotland and North England;

5. the widespread though short-lived institute of the Irish St. Columban in Gaul and Germany; besides

6. several others in Spain, all date from this time; but they yield in importance to

7. the Order founded by St. Benedict, whose rule they all adopted as years went on.

The story of St. Benedict is beautifully told by St. Gregory the Great, himself a Benedictine monk. About the year A.D. 480, St. Benedict was born of illustrious parentage, the Anicii, at Nursia in Umbria. While very young he was taken to Rome to attend the public schools. It was not long before the boy saw that the lives of his masters and companions were such as would most likely lead him into evil, and he fled from the danger and hid himself in a desert place about thirty miles from Rome. On the rocky slopes overhanging the little town of Subiaco (Sublacum) was a small lake fed by mountain streams, and somewhat higher up, and almost inaccessible, there was a deep and narrow cavern. This was shown to Benedict by a monk from a neighbouring monastery, named Romanus, who, seeing the fervour of the boy, helped him in his desire of leading a holy and solitary life.

ST. BENEDICT.

For three years the young Saint dwelt alone in this desolate spot, unknown to all but Romanus, spending his time in prayer and fasting and in resisting the attempts of the Evil One to make him give up his holy purpose. At length he was discovered. Numbers of persons of every rank and nation flocked to him for instruction and guidance, and gradually the fame of his sanctity spread to distant lands. After some years he was chosen Abbot by the monks of Vicovaro, a neighbouring monastery. St. Benedict consented with reluctance to undertake the charge; but before long, finding that the monks were not disposed to live according to his views of perfection and sanctity, and that they were even trying to poison him, he left them and returned to his solitude at Subiaco.

Here so many disciples gathered round him that he was obliged to build a monastery to receive them. As time went on, and still more came to follow his Rule, he founded one little monastery after another, till they were twelve in number, all scattered about the heights of Subiaco. The monks themselves laboured at the buildings, which were very poor and simple; they tilled the neighbouring lands and lived on the produce of their toil. Many persons of noble birth brought their sons to St. Benedict, begging him to educate them. This was the beginning of monastic schools for children.

But it was not till A.D. 529 that the most famous part of St. Benedict's career commenced. A cruel and wicked persecution against the holy solitaries of Subiaco by a priest named Florentius, caused St. Benedict to withdraw with all his monks from the first cradle of his Order, and to settle with them in the mountain region of Cassino. After destroying an idol of Apollo that was still venerated by the ignorant people around, St. Benedict built, on the summit of a precipitous hill, the celebrated monastery which, frequently ruined and as often rebuilt, exists to the present day. Already some of his monks had carried the faith afar, but it was only after the foundation of Monte Cassino that the actual spread of the Order commenced. Bands of fervent religious were sent out, who, settling among distant peoples, began the work of conversion and civilization which has rendered their name so famous.

It was here that St. Benedict drew up his Rule, the fruit of long years of sanctity and of experience. Before his death St. Benedict had a remarkable vision, in which the future glory of his Order was shown him, as well as the trials to which it would be exposed.

The last days of the Saint were so filled with Death of deeds of holiness and with miracles that it would St. Benedict be impossible even to name them here. Almost the last event that is told of the life of St. Benedict is his meeting with his sister, St. Scholastica, who, wishing to keep him a little longer with her to talk of holy things, obtained by prayer a miraculous storm of rain that obliged him to remain that night in the little house where they had met.

St. Scholastica died a few days later, and St. Benedict did not long survive his holy sister. Forewarned of his death, he caused all to be in readiness. When the day came, he bade his monks carry him to the church. At the foot of the altar he received the last Sacraments, and, supported by his sorrowing children, he stood praying, until his soul took its flight to heaven, A.D. 543.

The spread of the Benedictine Order was very rapid. Monasteries soon covered the land in Italy, Sicily, France, England, and Germany, especially in places where there were no monasteries founded by the Irish Saint Columban. Spain was rather later in receiving the Benedictines, but when once they were introduced they multiplied extensively. Wherever the monks settled, they drained the marshes, cut down woods, tilled the barren lands, and built a monastery with its church and schools.

The great Benedictine monasteries were all built on the same general plan, which was only that of an ancient Roman villa, much enlarged, and with a church added. Thus, the covered peristyle became the cloisters, round which the principal community rooms were grouped, and into which they all opened. Instead of the magnificent garden of Roman days, with its fountains and statuary, the abbey had its cemetery, with a great central crucifix. The monastic enclosure, like the Roman villa, contained work-shops, where was carried on every trade needed for the support and clothing of the inmates. Thus it was that in the monasteries every useful trade, every art known at the time, was practised, every science—Divine and human—was studied, and all were brought to high perfection.

Villages sprang up on and around the abbey lands, as in those troublous times the dwellers near a monastery enjoyed a peace not known on the estates of the great nobles, who were always at feud with one another. On the monastery lands were reared numerous flocks, whose wool the monks taught the people to weave into cloth, and whose skins furnished the monastery with parchment for books. These were written by hand, the margins of the pages being painted in colours and gold with marvellous skill. Great works, like the Holy Scriptures and the Divine Office, were often bound in covers rich with metal-work, inlaid with enamels and embossed with jewelry. All the monasteries had well-stocked libraries—for instance, that of Rheims alone possessed 6,000 volumes, all written by hand. The great library of York was especially famous.

Other monks kept chronicles, or wrote learned books. Almost all we know of the history of these times is drawn from the writings of these busy monks of old. Much of this literary toil was carried on in a great hall called the scriptorium, where each monk had a little cell to himself to write and study in. The heavier work, such as carving, working in metals, bell-founding, sculpturing, making of glass, was done in the 'Opera,'  or workshop. Here, too, music was practised. Thus, the name used for one kind of musical composition recalls the old days when the monks practised their sacred songs in the great halls of their monastic dwellings.

But this was not all. Every monastery had its school, where the best learning the age could give was to be had by all, and for nothing. Some of the Universities still celebrated in our own days owe their beginning to these schools. It is said that Oxford, Paris, and Fulda, among others, can trace their origin to a Benedictine monastic school.

A guest-house was invariably attached, where travellers of every rank were entertained and lodged, and where the poor were fed. The building called the "Abbot's kitchen" was that where the food for the guests was prepared, apart from that for the community, which was of a more frugal quality.

Monasteries, too, had always their herb-garden, in which were grown the materials for the simple remedies in use in those days. These were freely distributed at the abbey gates, whither the poor flocked for help in every need of soul or body.

The power for good of such an Order as the Benedictine may be guessed when we remember that at the time of its greatest development it numbered 37,000 monasteries and colleges; that during the lapse of ages it has given birth to thousands of canonized Saints and martyrs; that innumerable Bishops have been trained in its cloisters; and that it has given about thirty Popes to the Christian world.

Conversion of Western Europe

I. The Popes and the Conversion of Nations

We have seen what monks did for Europe; it remains to study the work of the Popes. The supremacy of the Popes was recognized by all Catholic peoples, and was of immense influence in bringing order and peace to the nations. The Popes never ceased exhorting Kings to govern justly and to be merciful to the conquered. They made useful laws and regulations to restrain the undue use of power by nobles and other superiors; their voice was ever heard in defence of the weak, the poor, and the suffering. A constant intercourse with Rome was kept up by the several nations of Europe, and the Pope's decrees were received as law by all. If on no other subject there was agreement, yet in faith, and in the language of the Church, Europe was one. It is impossible but that this must have greatly tended to promote the order and peace that are necessary for real progress and civilization.

What the power of a Pope for good was will be best seen by following the career of one of the most celebrated of the early medieval Pontiffs. St. Gregory I., surnamed the Great, was elected Pope in A.D. 590. He was of the same noble and wealthy family as St. Benedict—the Anicii. After a brilliant career as Praetor of Rome, he determined to give up the world. He founded on his estates seven great monasteries, and placed Benedictine monks in each. He entered the last of his foundations, that of St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill. Here he lived as a most saintly religious till Pope Benedict I. made him one of the Cardinal Deacons of Rome, A.D. 575. The next Pope sent him as Ambassador to Constantinople, where he remained six years, after which he gladly returned to his beloved monastery, of which he was soon chosen Abbot. It was at this time that the well-known incident occurred in the slave-market which led to the conversion of England. So much was Gregory touched at the thought of the sad state of the fair Angles that, with the Pope's leave, he started for England with several monks to preach the true faith to those distant islanders But the Roman people raised such an outcry at finding he was gone that the Pope had to send for him to come back.

This Pope, Pelagius II., died in A.D. 590, and to his intense distress Gregory was immediately elected in his place. But his sorrow did not prevent him from working hard for the flock committed to his care. It was in a sad state. Arianism reigned throughout all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. England, Germany, and the lands round the North Sea and Baltic were still pagan. The Franks alone had received the faith, but they were still only half converted. Besides this, the Eastern Emperors continually sought to oppress the Church and harass the Popes in the exercise of their sacred duties.

Pope St. Gregory laboured long and earnestly at the conversion of all the heretical and pagan nations of Europe, sending missionaries or encouraging the clergy already at work, writing numerous letters, and sending instructions to Bishops and exhortations to Sovereigns. He had the happiness of seeing the Lombards, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the English enter the true fold. These glorious gains to the Church were the fruit of his zeal.

But this was only a part of his labours. No kind of need escaped his vigilant care. The ill-used slaves, peasantry, and Jews found in him a protector and a friend. His love for the poor was unbounded; he founded orphanages, schools for the poor, and refuges for the aged—the first establishments of the kind we read of in history.

St. Gregory will always be remembered for his connexion with sacred music. The Church's chant, known as the Gregorian, was arranged by him. From all nations men flocked to the school of music which he founded in Rome, and for ages the study of sacred song was one of the important parts of a lad's education.

This great Pope, the first monk who sat in the chair of St. Peter, promoted the welfare of monastic Orders with all the weight of his authority and sanctity. He solemnly confirmed the Rule of St. Benedict, and watched over the interests of all the monasteries of the East and the West. To the last day of his life, his one regret was that he could no longer enjoy the peaceful life of the cloister which he loved so dearly.

This life of incessant toil and vigilant care for the whole Church was passed in a state of severe and almost constant suffering. After fourteen years of Pontificate, he died in A.D. 604. He is truly Gregory the Great, not only because of the enormous difficulties he overcame, because of the lands he conquered for the Church, the power he won for the Holy See, but "for the renown of his virtue, the candour of his innocence, the humble and inexhaustible tenderness of his heart."

II. The Western States

The first of the Teutonic tribes to submit to the teaching of the Church was that of the Franks, a bold people from Germany who occupied the banks of the Rhine. They were divided into two sections—the Ripuarian Franks, who dwelt on the lowlands of the great delta, the Belgium and Holland of to-day; and the Salic Franks, who settled farther south, and held the north-east of what is now France and that part of Germany on the opposite bank of the Rhine. The rest of France was divided between the Visigoths, who held the south and west, and the Burgundians, who occupied the east. Both these peoples were Arians when they settled in Gaul; but the Franks were pagans, and it was while they were conquering the territory named above that they were converted.

The chief of the Salic Franks was Clovis, a very savage but renowned warrior. His wife, Clotilda of Burgundy, was a Catholic, and her virtuous life had already influenced her pagan husband when the event occurred which led to the conversion of the whole people. In one of the numerous struggles for the mastery among the invading tribes, Clovis took the part of the Ripuarian Franks and marched to their assistance. Clotilda besought him, if in danger, to invoke the Christians' God, and promised him safety and victory if he would do so. The armies engaged at Tolbiac, near Cologne, A.D. 496. The moment foreseen by the pious Queen arrived. The Franks, driven back by the powerful Allemanni, were giving way, when Clovis, in despair, vowed to become a Christian if the tide of battle turned in his favour. His troops immediately rallied and won the day. Clovis kept his vow. On the following Christmas Day he and many of his subjects were baptized.

The Franks gradually conquered and settled in the whole of Gaul north of the Loire, and called it Francia, their capital being transferred from Soissons to Paris. Many regard this as the beginning of the French nation, and Clovis as the first of the Merovingian line of Kings who ruled this people for about 240 years. He was also the first Catholic King in Europe, and is therefore called the "Eldest Son of the Church."

South of the Loire the Franks made other conquests, but they merely governed them, and did not settle there. Through all the Frankish dominions the faith soon spread, but centuries elapsed before these tribes wholly lost their pagan habits and became a thoroughly Christian people. Many a savage deed is told even of Catholic Sovereigns and nobles, and the story of the Merovingian period is one of the darkest pages in history. The lives of many saintly Bishops and Princesses, however, contrast strangely with the horrible tales of the people among whom they dwelt.

The Ripuarian Franks were not converted till two centuries later, St. Livinus, an Irish monk, being their apostle.

The Arian population of Burgundy was won back to the true faith principally by the labours of under St. Irish missionaries, St. Columban and twelve monks from the famous Monastery of Bangor in Ulster. It was nearly a hundred years after the conversion of Clovis that St. Columban and his companions presented themselves at the Court of King Gontram of Burgundy. This good King was a Catholic, and he easily persuaded the missionaries to remain in his dominions and to preach to his people. The monks had many privations to endure, but the example of their patience and holiness soon began to make itself felt. The King gave them some ruined Roman castles, which they turned into monasteries. These were no sooner founded than they were filled with monks, each monastery becoming a centre from which religion, learning, and agriculture spread on all sides. The Rule of St. Columban was very severe, but this seemed to draw the brave-hearted Gothic people rather than to frighten them, and the monasteries and convents founded by the Saint covered the whole land.

St. Columban had many long contests with the Gaulish Bishops about Easter and other matters, in which he sometimes held too strongly to his own opinion. He also suffered great persecutions from the Frankish Sovereigns, who, after Gontram's death, had great influence in Burgundy. St. Columban often endeavoured to check the crimes of these monarchs, whose lives were a disgrace to the Christian name, but he only drew down on himself their anger, and he was forced to flee. This opened to him a new field of labour. For some years he preached to the people of Switzerland, but later on he crossed the Alps, and, till his death in A.D. 615, he helped Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards, in her labours to bring her people into the Church. The disciples of St. Columban continued his work of evangelization. The most famous was St. Gall, Apostle of Switzerland.

The Visigoths of Southern Gaul seem to have been converted by the Catholic people among whom they settled, aided later on by the labours of the Benedictine monks.

Though the first of the European nations to rise from the ruins of the Roman Empire, through the settlement of the Visigoths, which began as early as A.D. 414, Spain was not won to the Catholic faith till the sixth century. The Visigoths were Arians, and fiercely persecuted the Catholic Roman people when they had subdued them. But, as often happens when a pagan or heretic people settles down amid a Catholic population, numbers began to forsake their errors and to embrace the faith. But the conversion of the whole nation of Spain was brought about by the martyrdom of one of its Kings.

Leovigild, King of the Visigoths, had two sons, Hermenegild and Recared. The former had been converted by St. Leander, Bishop of Seville, a great friend of Pope St. Gregory the Great. Up to this time Hermenegild had shared the throne with his father. But on hearing that the Prince had become a Catholic, the old King was furious, dethroned his son, and fought against him. Finally, taking him prisoner by stratagem, he confined him in a lonely dungeon. Every attempt was made to induce the captive Prince to give up his faith, but in vain. On Easter Eve, A.D. 586, because he refused to receive Communion from the hand of an Arian Bishop, he was beheaded in prison by order of his father. St. Leander was exiled for his share in converting Hermenegild. He spent the time of his banishment in multiplying Benedictine monasteries throughout Spain. The Catholics were persecuted as long as Leovigild lived. But Recared, who succeeded, forsook Arianism and induced all the heretic Bishops to do the same. Their example was speedily followed by their flocks, and in a short time the true faith spread throughout Spain. Pope St. Gregory wrote to King Recared to congratulate him on this wonderful conversion of a whole people.

ST. GREGORY THE GREAT.

A few years previously, the Suevi, who had settled in Portugal, also renounced Arianism. From that time to this, Spain and Portugal have never lost the faith.

The Arian Lombards also were received into the Church in the seventh century. They had invaded Italy, A.D. 568, driven out the Ostrogoths, and, settling down on the great fertile northern plain, had given their name to the country. The inhabitants suffered much for their religion from the conquering Arians, but their trial was short. Towards the close of the century, Agilulph succeeded to the throne, and married Theodolinda, a Bavarian Catholic Princess and widow of his predecessor. Assisted by St. Columban and other Irish monks, and encouraged by St. Gregory the Great, the pious Queen did all she could to bring about the conversion of the Lombards. Before her death, A.D. 625, she had the happiness of succeeding in her holy enterprise.

A few years after Spain had embraced the true faith, and about the time that St. Columban commenced his missionary labours in Burgundy, forty Benedictine monks, headed by St. Augustine, their Prior, were sent to preach to the Anglo-Saxon people by St. Gregory the Great, whose zeal for the conversion of our island had been awakened many years previously by the sight of some fair captive English lads offered for sale in the Roman Forum. Favourably received by King Ethelbert of Kent, the missionaries soon converted him and great numbers of his people. Thence the faith was carried into Essex, and perhaps into East Anglia.

Northumbria, Wessex, and Mercia next received the light of truth. Sussex was the last kingdom to become Christian, but in less than ninety years after the landing of St. Augustine the whole island was once more Catholic. Churches and monasteries again covered the land, zealous missionaries went forth to preach the Gospel to other peoples, and the Anglo-Saxon Church became famous throughout the world for the vast numbers of canonized Saints to which it gave birth, and for the renowned scholars it produced.

III. The Central States

The vast countries lying east of the Rhine and north of the Alps remained pagan long after the south and west of Europe had embraced the true faith. Among the Alpine highlands there were tribes who had received Christianity in the days when the Romans were masters. Slowly, however, the faith had lost all hold on them. The attempt at re-converting them made by St. Columban and the Irish monks had produced but little fruit, and up to the close of the seventh century the great mass of the Teutonic people of Central Europe was pagan.

Then it was that their new-born faith filled the English people with zeal for the conversion of the races which they looked upon as their own. kindred, and that bands of noble-hearted young monks went forth to strive to win to the true fold those teeming tribes still buried in the darkness of idolatry. The earliest missionaries started from the Northumbrian monasteries, where St. Wilfrid had established the Benedictine Rule. They first sought Friesland, the original home of their ancestors, the Angles, and laboured hard for many years, with but little success. St. Willibrord, the most famous of these missionaries was consecrated Archbishop of Utrecht, and for fifty years he ceased not to labour earnestly for the people of Friesland and Denmark. He sowed in tears the plentiful harvest which God granted to St. Boniface to reap.

This great Englishman, one of the most beautiful characters among the Apostolic Saints, did for Germany a work so vast and so lasting that it is hard to realize it could have been accomplished by one man.

Winfrid, as St. Boniface was at first called, was born in Devonshire in A.D. 680, and was of princely family. When about five years of age he showed so strong a desire to be a missionary that his parents sent him to a monastic school at Exeter. Later on he went to Nutcell, an abbey famous for its regularity and learning. Winfrid soon became remarkable for his sanctity and the influence for good he exercised on all around him; but his first vocation never left him, and after he was ordained priest he obtained leave to preach to the pagan Teutons. Winfrid began to labour in Friesland, as the earlier missionaries had done, but met with so many obstacles that he returned to his monastery. Next year he started again, and went to Rome. The Pope, St. Gregory II., who is to the Germans what the first St. Gregory is to the English, heartily blessed his mission, and sent him to preach to the pagan Germans. Winfrid's hope was to gain his own people, the Saxons, but finding that he could not yet hope for success amongst them, he began to labour in the neighbouring nations. On his second journey to Rome, the Pope consecrated him Bishop, named him Boniface, and gave him great powers.

Friesland, Hesse, and Thuringia were now the scene of his toils. Many were gained to the true faith, and numerous monasteries were founded to be centres of missionary labours.

The next Pope, St. Gregory III., made Boniface Archbishop, and gave him power to consecrate other Bishops.

A third time Boniface went to Rome. He gained his sainted nephews, Winibald and Willibald, to the great work he had at heart. The former he appointed Abbot of Heidenheim, the latter he consecrated a regionary Bishop at Eichstadt.

Bavaria was then evangelized, and so rapid and thorough was its conversion that in a few years the whole land was covered with churches, and no less than twenty-nine great abbeys became seats of learning, centres of civilization, and homes of sanctity.

About A.D. 740, St. Boniface divided all the newly converted provinces into thirteen dioceses, and the Pope made them subject to the See of Mayence, of which Boniface was then named Archbishop.

But St. Boniface had still another work to do. The Frankish nation, though converted, had never really thrown off pagan ideas and customs. Pope Gregory III. and his successor, Zachary, entrusted to St. Boniface the difficult task of restoring the purity of the Catholic faith and of bringing the clergy and people to a Christian mode of living. After incredible pains, St. Boniface succeeded in introducing some improvement. The real rulers of Francia at this time were the Mayors of the Palace. The most famous of these Mayors, Charles Martel, for a long time, from political motives, hindered the good St. Boniface would have done; but at last, when his own power as ruler was established, he aided and seconded the efforts of the Saint to restore order. Pepin, his son and successor, did still more for the Church, but this work was only completed by the great German monarch, Karl or Charlemagne.

The last years of St. Boniface's life were employed in founding monasteries and convents in his vast arch-diocese. It was to England that he turned for helpers. Besides numerous monks, St. Walburga, the sister of SS. Winibald and Willibald, St. Lioba, and other holy nuns from Wimborne, in Dorset, hastened to respond to his call. They were of the greatest assistance to St. Boniface in teaching and civilizing the people among whom they settled.

Foreknowing the time of his death, St. Boniface made a last visitation of all the dioceses subject to him. Friesland, the first scene of his labours, was also the last. Furious at his success in winning this people to the true faith, a band of pagans fell on the holy Bishop, as he was waiting for the converts whom he was about to confirm, and killed him and fifty of his companions. His body was taken, as he had requested, to the famous Monastery of Fulda. Some years later his faithful fellow-worker, St. Lioba, was laid to rest close to the tomb of St. Boniface.

The work accomplished by this great Saint was so thorough that we hear of no relapse into paganism after his time. The finishing touch was put to his work by Charlemagne, as we shall see later on. The Church in Germany flourished and produced numbers of saintly and learned men up to the unhappy days when a general decay of religion and morality brought on the terrible revolt known as the Protestant Reformation.

The Church in the East

I. The Birthplace of Heresies

During the three hundred years that saw the Western half of the old Roman Empire break up into various States, which, one after another, were won for the true Church, very different scenes were being enacted in the Eastern portion. We have already seen that every heresy but one that had desolated the Church had arisen in the East, and that even the British heresy, Pelagianism itself, had more adherents in the East than in the West. For five hundred years after the formal separation of the two empires, A.D. 586, the East continued to give birth to heresies, false religions, and schisms, some of which endure to the present day. A temporary reunion of the two empires had come about in the following way: The nominal power of the Eastern Emperors over the West had been kept up by their appointing a Consul from time to time, or by their ratifying the nomination of a ruler. Thus, Zeno recognized Odoacer as Patrician of the Romans. Clovis ruled with the same title, and was, moreover, named Consul for the year in A.D. 510. But in A.D. 527 Justinian came to the throne, an Emperor who, not satisfied with nominal power, determined on having the reality.

This monarch therefore, in A.D. 534, sent Belisarius, one of the most famous Generals the world has ever seen, to try to win back some of the lost provinces. The first attempt of Belisarius was in Africa, where the Vandals held sway. A short time sufficed to completely overthrow a dominion which had lasted a hundred years, and the whole southern shore of the Mediterranean was freed from the yoke of the terrible Vandals, the fiercest and most cruel of all the Teutonic Arian tribes. The conquest of Belisarius in this case was the triumph of Catholicity, which again flourished in North Africa. Belisarius then turned his arms against Italy. Twenty years of conflict followed, and at length the whole Peninsula submitted to him. Then for a few years, till the death of Justinian, the East again held sway over a part of the West.

The earlier part of Justinian's reign was full of promise. He built several magnificent churches, the most glorious being the still renowned Sancta Sophia at Constantinople. He is, however, most famous for the code of civil law which he compiled from the old Roman laws. His work is known as the Justinian Code, and is the basis of nearly all European law, even to our day. A French writer says that it is "a Christian work, prepared by ceaseless Christian toil for more than two hundred years, and brought to maturity when Christianity was everything."

Justinian's later years did not fulfill the early promise as far as the Church is concerned. He began to interfere in questions of doctrine, to exercise undue influence in the nomination of Bishops, and to allow his wicked Empress Theodora to carry out her infamous schemes. She was devoted to Eutychianism, and worked with the leaders of her party in favour of that heresy. She even gained over the brave Belisarius, and induced him to stain his glorious reputation by an odious crime. By her command he deposed Pope Sylverius, and set up as Pope Vigilius, a deacon whom Theodora had sent to Rome for the purpose. Then Pope Sylverius was murdered, and Vigilius was called on to pronounce judgment in favour of the Eutychians on a famous question which they had raised some time before.

The Council of Chalcedon, which had condemned the heresy of Eutyches, had not when doing so named three Bishops who had written in favour of an earlier heresy, Nestorianism, because two of them had recanted and one was dead. The Eutychians imagined that if the Pope could be got to condemn these writings, which are known as the Three Chapters, it would throw discredit on the Council of Chalcedon. They thought if it could be proved that the Council had made a mistake in leaving these writings uncondemned it might look as though it had also been mistaken in condemning Eutychianism. But God was watching over His Church. Vigilius, who had promised while still a deacon to obey the Empress, now that he was Pope refused to do what she wanted. Though he was sent for to Constantinople, and kept prisoner during seven years, he would not yield, till he saw that some began to think that by his refusal he was favouring Nestorianism. Then he had the Three Chapters  examined, and finding them full of errors, he condemned them, while he said that the authority of Chalcedon was to be respected. This decision pleased neither party, and a General Council was called, A.D. 553. This was the Second of Constantinople. The Pope was not present at its sittings. The Council began by recognizing the Four General Councils, and then condemned anew every heresy, including Eutychianism, which had been previously condemned. Finally, the Three Chapters were examined and condemned. Pope Vigilius would not approve the Acts of the Councils, because, as no Western Bishops had been present, he feared a schism. His successor, Pelagius I., however, confirmed the decrees, and thus the Council has come to be regarded as a General Council.

It will be remembered that the Eutychians had said that there is but one nature in Jesus Christ, (they are therefore sometimes called Monophysites—asserters of one nature) and that the Church, in condemning this heresy, had defined that in Jesus Christ there is but one Divine Person, but that He has both the nature of God and the nature of man.

An attempt was made to reconcile the Eutychians to the Church by Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and others. Unfortunately, in trying to gain them, they altered the clear statement of doctrine that had been made by the Council of Chalcedon, and said that though there were two natures in Jesus Christ, our Lord had but one will, namely, the Divine. (These heretics bear the name of Monothelites—assertors of one will.) This was really to fall back into the old error, as our Lord could not have the nature of man if one of the essential powers of the human soul were wanting. The Catechism teaches us that to have the nature of man is to have a body and a soul like ours. Now, the three powers of the soul are the memory, the understanding, and the will. To believe that our Lord had no human will was to believe that our Blessed Lord had not a perfect human nature.

But Sergius did worse than this. He tried to deceive Pope Honorius and to beguile him into saying something that the Monothelites could consider as approving their doctrines. He wrote a misleading account to the Pope of what was going on, pretending that if all debates on the subject could be stopped the trouble would cease. So Pope Honorius wrote forbidding for the present all discussion on the matter of the two wills in Jesus Christ. He evidently did not suspect Sergius, and answered in words that might easily be misunderstood, and unfortunately they were.

The Emperors took great part in this controversy, defending the heresy and persecuting the Popes. Constans II. summoned Pope Martin I. to Constantinople, had him ill-treated, imprisoned and exiled. The holy Pope soon died of hardships and want.

The miserable contest went on for nearly a hundred years. Then Pope Agatho called another General Council. It met at Constantinople in A.D. 680, and condemned the heresy, stating the true doctrine thus: That in Jesus Christ there are two distinct wills and operations, the one Divine, the other human, never conflicting, but the human will always perfectly subject to the Divine.

This Council also censured Pope Honorius, not for any error of doctrine, but for negligence in not doing what he might have done to stop the growth of the evil.

II. Mohammedanism

While the events last recorded were in progress, a still more terrible evil arose in the East. Perhaps it was a chastisement from God on the Eastern people, who seemed as if they could not do without framing new heresies.

This was the false religion known as Mohammedanism, which to this day numbers so many millions of adherents, and still keeps them hostile to the Church.

Mohammed, or Mahomet, was born at Mecca, in Arabia, A.D. 570. He was brought up by his uncle, keeper of the Kaaba, or Great Temple, where three hundred and sixty-five, idols were honoured by the superstitious Arabians. While still young he undertook to manage the affairs of a rich widow, and later on he married her.

In A.D. 609 he announced himself as commissioned by God to do away with paganism, and to reform both Judaism and Christianity. This he endeavoured to do by making one religion out of the three, and by preaching a new creed to his relatives and neighbours. They would not believe in him, and after many a contest with him they drove him out of the town. Mohammed fled to Medina in A.D. 622. This is a memorable date to Mohammedans, as they reckon their chronology from it. The event is known as the Hegira.

From this time Mohammedanism began to spread. Followers gathered and fought under a new standard, the Crescent, and raised a new battle-cry: "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet." Several years of warfare caused Mohammed to be recognized in Arabia as the sole political and religious ruler; but at this point he died, leaving to his successors, the Caliphs, the task of making his new creed, Islam, the religion of the world.

The Caliphs had only too large a measure of success. Sword in hand, they preached the new doctrines. Men must believe it, pay tribute not to believe it, or die. It can be easily understood that under these circumstances there were numerous converts. As the new religion asked of them no sacrifices of evil passions, and only imposed prayers, fasts, pilgrimages, and other outward observances, men found it a comfortable kind of doctrine, and those even who had been forced into it rarely gave it up again. To this day missionaries say no one is so hard to convert as a Mohammedan.

The lands conquered by Mohammed lay between the two great Eastern Powers—the Roman and the Persian Empires.

Both were attacked. The immediate successors of Mohammed, the Caliphs Abu-bekr and Omar, conquered Syria and Egypt. Then it was that Jerusalem was lost to the Christian world, and that pilgrimages to the Holy Land became dangerous, if not impossible. During the seventh century the Moslems gradually advanced westward along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. By its close they were opposite Spain, having settled in great numbers in the province called Mauritania. Every trace of the Roman and Teutonic occupations of North Africa was swept away, and these lands have retained the Moslem faith even to this day.

PALACE OF THE MOORISH KINGS IN GRANADA.

In the first years of the eighth century the Moslems of Mauritania—Moors the Spaniards called them—crossed over the Straits of Gibraltar, and speedily conquered the whole of the peninsula, except a strip near the Pyrenees. Thence they passed into Gaul and made a small settlement. Advancing still further north, they were met at Poictiers, on the plains near Tours, by Charles Martel. One of the most famous battles in history was here fought between that renowned warrior and his brave Teutons and Abderame and the turbaned Moslems. Seven days the armies were face to face; then the attack commenced, and the fight raged for hours. At length the invaders were defeated and driven back into Spain. This was in A.D. 732. Twenty years later the last Moslems north of the Pyrenees were also driven away, and Northern Europe was saved from the power of the Crescent. Spain, however, remained under Moorish dominion for seven hundred years.

While these things were going on in the West, the Mohammedan Arabs had carried the sword eastward into Persia and India, and northward into Turkish lands. They had also attacked Constantinople, but were defeated by sea and land in A.D. 718. As usual, conversions and conquests went on together, so that all these lands embraced Mohammedanism. About this time one Caliph ruled over the vast Saracen Empire, as it was called, and was obeyed from India to Spain. But disputes and schisms arose among the Mohammedans themselves. Two empires, or caliphates, were founded: the Eastern, with Bagdad as its centre; the Western, having its Caliph residing at Cordova, in Spain.

The Saracen Empire in the East lasted till the thirteenth century, when Bagdad was taken by the Tartars in A.D. 1238.

The Western caliphate came to an end in the eleventh century, but the Moorish dominion in Spain went on almost up to the date of the discovery of America, in the fifteenth century. Though the empires gradually broke up into various States, Mohammedanism as a religion continued to hold its ground.

However, very numerous differences arose in the doctrines taught in these various States, so that there are many kinds of Mohammedanism in different parts of the world in the present day.

More than a tenth part of the human race still professes Mohammedanism. Of these, the greatest numbers are found in Southern Asia, from Turkey to Malaysia; and in Northern Africa, where it is spreading among the native populations.

The members of this religion have gone, and still go, by many different names. Mohammedan means, of course, follower of Mohammed. They are also called Moslems, Muslims, or Mussulmans; that is, belonging to the sect of Islam—that is, Resignation. With reference to the land whence they began to fight, they were termed Arabs (people from the West) by the tribes who dwelt farther east, and Saracens (people from the East) by the African and European nations whom they attacked. The Spaniards, as we have seen, called them Moors. We now often name them Turks, from the principal country in Europe where this faith is followed.

From the day that Mohammedanism was imposed on the Eastern peoples, the fairest countries of the earth became a wilderness. Religion is but a name, the peoples are down-trodden, woman is degraded, slavery exists to a fearful degree, civilization has made no advances, sloth paralyses everything, and the only energy the Turk seems to know is hatred of Christianity, which is constantly breaking out into open persecution.

III. The Iconoclast Heresy

The unhappy Eastern Empire was the scene of yet another heresy, which desolated the Church, even to the Western provinces, for upwards of one hundred and fifty years.

Emperors had, up to this time, contented themselves with being patrons of error, but one ascended the throne of Constantine in A.D. 717—Leo III., the Isaurian—who undertook himself to be the founder of heresy. This Prince was a brave barbarian, an ignorant but clever man, who would have been a good Sovereign but for his absurd and wicked attempt to teach the Church what he thought was true doctrine. The point of Catholic teaching attacked by Leo was the veneration given to the pictures and statues of our Lord and His Saints.

From the earliest ages of the Church sacred pictures had been in use. It is a pious tradition that St. Luke painted the portrait of our Lord and His Blessed Mother. These sacred pictures were guarded with jealous care, and are venerated to this day. The Catacombs were full of such holy paintings, many representing our Lord and His Saints directly, others being of a symbolical character—that is, showing the truth by signs or types rather than by actual representations. Later on, as well as statues, representations of the Crucifixion, etc., scenes from the Old and New Testaments, were frequently painted on the walls of churches; thus men learned the truths of faith and the history of God's dealing with man, even when they could not read, for, as St. John Damascene said, "Images are for the untrained what books are for those who can read; they are to sight what words are to the ear." But Mohammedans and Jews would permit no species of image in their mosques and synagogues, saying that all such representations gave rise to idolatry.

Unfortunately, among the Greeks there were some who were not content with giving to these holy objects the honour that the Church allows, but who fell into great extravagance in their mistaken devotion. Leo saw the contrast between their exaggeration and the cold form of worship practised by Saracens and Jews, and he preferred the latter.

The war against holy images, or iconoclasm (image-breaking), began with an edict of Leo III., in A.D. 726, by which he ordered the removal from churches and public places of all crucifixes, statues, and holy pictures. This decree met with great opposition. From all parts of the world, holy and learned men took up the cause of truth, but Leo met all reasoning with still stricter orders and more cruel persecution.

A second edict, A.D. 730, commanded the destruction of all sacred images, and a regular persecution commenced of all who attempted to oppose the Emperor's orders.

The monks were especially objects of the Emperor's anger, because they were often the makers of statues and the painters of pictures; moreover, they taught openly that the Emperor was not justified in acting as he was doing. The destroyed images were replaced by all kinds of profane paintings—the chase, drinking scenes, and even worse subjects, being chosen to decorate the walls of churches. The holy Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Germanus, who refused to sign Leo's edict, was deposed, though eighty years old.

Pope St. Gregory II. resisted the heresiarch Emperor with all the force of his authority. Leo, the Emperor, made every effort to seize the holy Pope, in order to murder him, but all Italy gathered to the defence of the Holy Father, and the Emperor had to withdraw his troops. Pope Gregory III. was equally resolute in withstanding the Emperor and in preventing his orders for the destruction of sacred images from being carried out in Rome and the rest of Italy, for Eastern Emperors still claimed authority in the West, and also attempted to exercise it.

Leo's son, Constantine Copronymus, who succeeded to the Empire, in A.D. 741, was an even more violent partisan of iconoclasm than his father. He held an Assembly at Constantinople, which he meant should rank as a General Council, but at which neither the Pope nor his legates assisted. This meeting condemned the veneration of images as idolatrous, and all makers of images to be excommunicated and punished. These decrees were put into vigorous execution. Martyrdoms were numerous.

The most spirited opponent of the Emperors and their false teaching was St. John Damascene, who, for his vast learning and clear doctrine, is styled the Aquinas of the East. Constantine would gladly have put him to death, but the holy man was preserved from falling into his hands, and continued to uphold the Catholic faith and to encourage the Catholics till his death. The next Emperor, Leo IV., was also an iconoclast, but he reigned so short a time that he did little harm.

The Empress-Regent Irene, mother of the late Emperor and a Catholic, took steps to put an end to this terrible contest. She begged Pope Adrian I. to convoke a General Council. In A.D. 787 the Fathers met at Nicaea, and, after due examination, the Catholic doctrine on the subject of sacred images was declared to be that it is lawful to give relative honour to statues and holy pictures, because they represent our Lord and His Holy Mother and the Saints, and that the honour paid to these representations is not given to them directly, but that it passes on to those who are represented. The Pope confirmed the decision of the Council, but iconoclasm continued in the East for another fifty years. Then another Empress, Theodora by name, restored the holy images and recalled the exiled monks. To commemorate the happy end of so disastrous a division, the Feast of Orthodoxy (Right Doctrine) was instituted. It is still kept by the Greeks.

In the West a wrong translation of the Acts of the Council led to much trouble. No one had doubted that it was right to honour sacred images, but the Western Church would not receive the decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea for many years, because they thought that the Council had really made a mistake in doctrine. When it was at last proved that it was a wrong translation that had done this mischief, things were easily put straight, and the West joined with the East in recognizing the Second Council of Nicaea as the Seventh General Council.

Contests like these, however, leave many sad traces in history. The bad feeling which had sprung up between the East and the West was the cause of the final separation of the two empires—no great misfortune; but it led later on to the schism which still separates the Greek Church from the unity of the true fold of Christ.

The Papacy and the Empire

I. Temporal Power of the Popes

Any sketch of the history of the Church in the centuries succeeding the fall of the Roman Empire would not be complete without a review of the position occupied by the Sovereign Pontiff during these eventful times.

During the days of persecution the spiritual authority of the Holy See had been universally recognized, but from the moment that Christianity triumphed, a new lustre was given to the position of the Head of the Church. Constantine the Great left Rome to the Popes, and built himself a new capital in the East. Missioners were sent forth to all lands. Newly converted nations sent their deputations to Rome. Sovereigns came there to be crowned, or to lay down their sceptres and embrace a monastic life. Valentian III., in A.D. 445, recognized the Papacy as the final court of appeal. Popes saved Rome from invading barbarians when Emperors were powerless. In a word, the power of the Popes waxed as that of the Emperors waned.

Under Justinian I., A.D. 554–565, Italy again formed part of the Roman Empire, and was for a few years administered as such by an Exarch settled at Ravenna. But this shadow of Empire passed away with the Lombard invasion late in the sixth century. This people, after settling in the great Northern plain, threatened even Rome itself. Pope Stephen, feeling it useless to repeat appeals for help to Emperors, who did nothing, and could do nothing, called on Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, to come to his aid against the invaders.

A short retrospect will be necessary to show who Pepin was, and how he alone at that time had the power to free Italy from the barbarian hordes.

The Merovingian line, descended from Clovis, had occupied the throne of Francia for about two hundred and fifty years, and had disgraced the name of Sovereign by their vicious deeds. But the last Princes were weak as well as wicked, and their power was taken from them by the Karlings, a powerful Germanic family. The Prince who ruled in the name of the King was called Mayor of the Palace and Duke of France. The most famous of these Mayors had been:

1. Pepin of Heristal, who had added many German provinces to the Frank kingdom;

2. Charles Martel, whom we have seen conquering the Saracens at Poictiers, and the Allemans, Bavarians, and Frisians in Germany, and first opposing, then helping St. Boniface in his attempts to settle the Church in Francia; and

3. Pepin the Short, the Prince who some years previous to the appeal of Pope Stephen for assistance had been chosen King of Francia by the nobles, instead of the weak Childeric, the last of the Merovingians.

Pepin had sent to ask the Pope if he should accept the throne, and the Pope who was then reigning, Zachary by name, had said that it was better for him to be King who had the power of King, and Pepin had been anointed by St. Boniface in A.D. 752. He was master of Western Europe when, at the end of A.D. 753, Pope Stephen III. came to him to beg assistance for Rome against the Lombards. The Pontiff crowned Pepin and his Queen, giving to the former the title of King of the Franks and Patrician of the Romans. Thus began the famous Carlovingian line, the second of the royal dynasties of France.

Pepin assented to the Pope's wishes, and led his armies against the barbarians. He reconquered the Exarchate, with twenty-two towns taken by Luitprand, and compelled the invading Sovereign to content himself with Lombardy. The victorious Karling then offered the regained province and towns to the Holy See. This donation of Pepin, or "Patrimony of St. Peter," as it was called, was the commencement of the temporal sovereignty of the Popes, who, as independent monarchs, were no longer subject to the control of any ruler whatever. The Popes thus acquired that liberty of action which is so essential to the full exercise of their spiritual powers. This donation was confirmed by Pepin's son, the Great Karl (Charlemagne), and by succeeding Emperors. Our own days have seen this time-honoured gift torn from the Holy See, and our Holy Father, Pope Pius X., is even yet a prisoner in his Palace of the Vatican in consequence of this iniquitous spoliation.

NOTE:

Popes claimed the right of supremacy—e.g.,

1. Pope St. Clement settled a dispute in the Church at Corinth during the lifetime of St. John the Evangelist.

2. Pope Victor settled disputed question of Easter; Pope Stephen that about Baptism given by heretics.

The Early Fathers of the Church all testify to the primacy of St. Peter's See:

1. Appeals to the judgment of Rome occur' from earliest times for election of Bishops, both Eastern and western; on disputed questions, decrees of Synods were sent to Rome for confirmation.

2. Popes or their Legates presided over all General Councils.

3. Popes sent the Pallium to eminent Bishops. Now all Metropolitans have to ask it from the Pope.

II. A Catholic Monarch

Every branch of the history of Europe which we have been studying meets and blends into one in the story of the Sovereign known as the Great Karl, Charles the Great, or more familiarly Charlemagne. This German Prince, one of the greatest rulers the world has ever known, was the son of Pepin the Short. In A.D. 771 he reunited the dominion of his father, which had for a short time been divided between himself and his brother Carloman, who afterwards became a monk at Monte Cassino.

As we have seen, the three great Teutonic nations of Northern Europe—Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy—had been gradually brought under the power of the Frankish Merovingians, but the Karlings or Carlovingians had added large territories. The last of the great tribes to hold out against Carlovingian arms was that of the Saxons, and Charlemagne had many a struggle with them during the first eleven years of his reign. At last they yielded and became faithful subjects of the empire, whose eastern frontier they protected against other invaders.

CHARLEMAGNE.

At the accession of Charlemagne all these tribes were separate nations, often at war with one another, and always unfriendly. Charlemagne made them one people. Though he permitted each country to keep its own laws, its hereditary Sovereigns, and free assemblies, he controlled their action by sending round officers to inspect, report, and reform.

Conquests were undertaken by Charlemagne mainly with a view to spreading the blessings of Christianity and of civilization. The conversion of a nation, therefore, speedily followed its conquest. This was notably the case with the Saxons, whom St. Boniface had so yearned to convert. The work of conversion was completed and crowned by the magnificent organization which, under this monarch's administration, was given to the Church. The whole of this vast territory, including North-West Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, North and Central Germany, Austria, and North Italy, was mapped out into dioceses. Churches were built everywhere, the magnificent Cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle, Charlemagne's capital, being one of the most splendid. Assemblies of clergy, monks, and learned men, were held twice a year, to regulate all matters of law and order, both spiritual and temporal. The decrees which were formulated were drawn up in chapters, known as the "Capitularies of Charlemagne." The greater part related to the Church and ecclesiastics.

Charlemagne had not only to administer his widespread dominions, but he had to keep the enemies who still threatened his long frontier-line. On the east, he kept some Teutonic and Hungarian tribes at bay. On the south, he marched against and brought into subjection the Lombards, who had again attacked the States of the Church. After this, Charlemagne was crowned King of Lombardy with the famous Iron Crown. This crown, still in existence, was given by Pope Gregory the Great to Queen Theodolinda. It consists of a golden circlet, inside which is an iron band, said to have been made of one of the nails with which our Lord was crucified.

Some years later Charlemagne marched against the Saracens, and took from them the North of Spain, and added the territory as far as the Ebro to his empire. In spite of a great defeat in the Valley of Roncesvalles, Charlemagne's ascendancy was such that never again did the Moors attempt to cross the Pyrenees.

At the end of A.D. 800 Charlemagne went to Rome. While praying after midnight Mass in St. Peter's, he was crowned by Pope Leo III., who placed on his head the imperial diadem, and saluted him as Charles I., Caesar Augustus, Emperor of the West. It seemed to men as if the old Roman Empire had revived, Christianized and in full vigour. And had not a revolution dethroned the Eastern Empress Irene, it might have been that Charlemagne would have married her, and that thus the Roman Empire would have been once more united under one Sovereign.

Charlemagne had also confirmed anew Pepin's donation to St. Peter, and had pledged himself to assist the Church in fulfilling her Divine mission. This union of Church and State was most beneficial to both as long as it continued on these terms; but in after-years Emperors sought at first to become masters of the Holy See, and, later on, to shake off its yoke altogether. Charlemagne, however, throughout the whole of his reign was remarkable for the affection, esteem, and submission with which he always treated the Sovereign Pontiff. Four times he went to Rome to consult or aid the Pope, and twice he received the Holy Father in Germany. One of the chief glories of Charlemagne is his devotion to the Catholic Church and its Supreme Pastor.

But in spite of his incessant wars, the welfare of his people was ever present to Charlemagne; nothing seemed to escape his vigilance, and every need was met and supplied with an intelligent care that is most remarkable.

He had most at heart the education of both clergy and people. From all countries he gathered round him learned men, to whom he entrusted the work of training the young. One of the most famous was Alcuin, an English monk from York, by whose advice Charlemagne guided himself in all important matters. Numerous libraries of valuable books were formed, and copies were multiplied. Schools were founded in many places. The most renowned was the Palatine College, to which promising youths of good family were admitted. So great was Charlemagne's interest in these scholars that he would assist at their lessons, and when he travelled the whole staff of masters and all the boys followed him wherever he went.

Agriculture and commerce were not forgotten, and all the arts of peace began to flourish.

The grand character of Charlemagne was not without blemish. His early years were marked by some very disgraceful acts, but his sincere penitence in later life amply atoned for them. He died in A.D. 814, after a reign of forty-eight years, during which peace, prosperity, law, order, and religion prevailed, leaving a memory which could not be without effect on the history of after-ages.

Though the Carlovingian Empire fell to pieces after his death, these things were not forgotten. Though renewed barbarian invasions and continued civil wars undid a great deal of what he had done, the principles of law and order had been sown, the love of letters had been fostered, the freedom of the Popes had been recognized, and, when happier days came, there was an attempt to return to what had made Charlemagne's reign so glorious.

The Church in the British Isles

I. England

The story of how the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes took possession of our island, and drove westward the Christian Britons, can be found in full detail in any English History. At the end of a warfare of one hundred and fifty years, which left the new-comers masters of the land, scarcely a trace remained of the once flourishing Church of Britain. The sacred buildings had been destroyed, and the survivors of those who once lived and worshipped in them had carried the faith into the hilly western provinces, where in safety they continued the worship of the true God, though so completely were they cut off from the rest of the Catholic world that we shall find that they knew little of the discipline which the Popes had caused to be observed in all Christian lands during these years of strife with the Teuton invaders.

The new conquerors of Britain, the men under whom the land grew to be England and the people English, were pagans—brave, stubborn, desperate warriors, who worshipped as chief deities Woden, the god of war, and Thor, the god of thunder. Their religion was that of soldiers; they believed in a future state of rewards and punishments, but Valhalla was awarded to bravery and Niflheim to cowardice: for other virtues and vices they cared little.

Seven or eight principal kingdoms, as we know, were gradually formed. The south-east corner of the island was first peopled. There the Jutes founded the kingdom of Kent; further west they also held a little nameless State in Wight and Hampshire. Clustered round Kent were the Saxon States, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex. The Angles took the north-east as their portion, and East Anglia, Bernicia, which reached to the Firth of Forth, and Deira, occupying the greater part of Yorkshire, were established by them. Mercia, the central State, was peopled by a mixture of tribes, mostly Angles, though Britons and Saxons formed some proportion of the subject people.

From Deira came those fair Angle slaves who were exposed in the Roman Forum when the holy deacon Gregory passed, and, touched at seeing such beautiful youths for sale, inquired whence they came. Their name, that of the land which gave them birth, and the name Ella, borne by their King, inspired his famous saying that Angles should become Angels, that this people should be saved from the wrath of God (de iris Dei), and that Alleluia should be sung in their land. The love of the Romans for Gregory would not permit him to go in person to bear the faith to those whom his heart yearned to save; but the time came when as Pope he was able to carry out the wish that had never been forgotten.

From his own monastery of St. Andrew's, on the Caelian Hill, Pope St. Gregory chose the Prior St. Augustine and forty monks, and sent them to preach the faith to our forefathers. The beautiful story of their journey and arrival in our land is too long to be told here. But nowhere do we hear of missionaries receiving so noble a welcome as on the shores of England. Ethelbert, King of Kent and Overlord of England, gave the monks a home and promised them safety, allowing them to preach where they would, while he himself studied the faith and life of those who had come so far to bring him the good tidings.

A few months later Ethelbert became a Catholic. At Christmas of the same year, won by the great holiness of the Roman monks, quite as much as by their preaching, ten thousand Kentish men were baptized in the River Stour. Ethelbert then gave to St. Augustine a little ruined church and a tract of land to build upon. Thus was founded the famous Christ Church, the seat of the Archbishops of Canterbury, Primates of England, and close by was built the first Benedictine monastery in our land.

King Sebert of Essex and his people were soon after converted, St. Mellitus being made Bishop of London, while a second see for the Kentish kingdom was created at Rochester. Pope St. Gregory's joy at the success of St. Augustine was very great. His beautiful letters of congratulation and advice were accompanied by fresh powers granted to St. Augustine, who was soon afterwards consecrated Archbishop. He was to consecrate whatever Bishops should be necessary, and to appoint his successor. New missionaries were also sent to help in the work of conversion. They brought books which formed the first English library.

As soon as the faith was beginning to be established in the east, St. Augustine tried to induce the British Bishops to join him in converting the English. He met them twice in conference, but found their dislike to the Saxon invaders and their arrogant love of their own peculiar customs too strong to be yet overcome, though in matters of faith he did not see any reason to condemn them.

A long missionary journey took St. Augustine through most of the thickly peopled parts of the different kingdoms. He was listened to with reverence everywhere but in Dorsetshire, whose rough inhabitants insulted the monks. Little lasting work seems to have been done; but no doubt the seed was sown which yielded fruit when later missionaries preached to the people. Seven years only did St. Augustine live to carry the Gospel truths among the English. He died in A.D. 604. St. Lawrence, one of his first companions, succeeded him as Archbishop, and the work of converting Kent and Essex continued. It is not unlikely that in East Anglia also converts were made. Kedwald, the King, tried to unite paganism and Christianity in one belief. The two sons who succeeded him on the throne were Catholics, but they were converted later than this.

At Ethelbert's death misfortunes befell the infant Church. Sebert of Essex died about the same time. His sons re-established paganism, and St. Lawrence had great difficulty in keeping Eadbald of Kent from doing the same in his kingdom. But the North of England became Catholic during these sad days for the South.

RUINS AT LINDISFARNE.

Edwin, who had united Deira and Bernicia into one State, Northumbria, wished to marry Ethelburga of Kent. As she was a Christian, he promised to allow her free exercise of her religion, and St. Paulin us was to accompany her as chaplain. Venerable Bede tells us how Edwin and his people became Christians, after consulting the Witan, or Great Council, as to receiving the new religion. St. Paulinus spoke to the assembly, and Coifi, the chief priest, declared he abandoned the worship of the gods, and offered to destroy their temple himself. The people, seeing that the heathen gods did not avenge themselves, followed his example. The King and St. Paulinus laboured together at instructing the people. A church was commenced at York, and the Saint was named first Bishop. Northumbria was ruled over by a succession of saintly Kings—St. Edwin, St. Oswald, St. Oswin, and St. Oswy. The last named, though he obtained the crown by slaying St. Oswin, repaired his crime by a holy penitence.

When St. Oswald, who had spent his youth in of exile among the monks of Iona, began to reign, he called on his old friends to help him in spreading the faith throughout his land. St. Aidan was sent, and he not only assisted Oswald, but his two successors as well. A monastery was founded at Lindisfarne, on the Northumbrian coast, which became very famous both as a bishopric and as an abbey. In those days, especially among the Celtic monks, all Bishops and priests were monks, and dwelt in monasteries, only going abroad to make missionary journeys among the people. New churches, each with its abbey, were founded as time went on, but all were held by monks from Lindisfarne, which was regarded as the capital of the ecclesiastical State of North England.

St. Oswald was the means of East Anglia becoming really a Catholic land. He persuaded Redwald's son, King Eorpwald, to be baptized, and though the pagans murdered the newly converted Prince, his brother and successor, aided by St. Felix, a Burgundian priest, brought all his people to acknowledge Christianity.

Wessex also was evangelized about this time. St. Oswald went thither to ask the hand of the daughter of Cynegils in marriage. St. Birinus, a Bishop from Rome, arrived while he was there, and the two Saints induced the West Saxon Prince to renounce paganism. St. Birinus had considerable success, and before long all the southern part of England, except Sussex, was Catholic.

But during this time great troubles had been befalling Northumbria. For twenty years there was strife between Northumbria and Mercia, during which three of the Anglian Kings met their death. Penda of Mercia, a pagan, but a fierce and brave warrior, hated the northern Angles, and, leaguing himself with Cadwalla of North Wales, he attacked and slew St. Edwin in battle at Hatfield, Yorkshire. St. Oswald, too, met the same fate. During the struggle, whenever Penda triumphed, paganism reappeared. At last, in A.D. 655, Penda was slain in battle by Oswin, and Mercia was subjected to Northumbria. The central kingdom then received the faith at the hands of the conqueror. Wulfhere, son of Penda, who recovered the independence of his country, was the first Christian King of Mercia. His daughter, St. Werburgh, became an Abbess, and the Mercian royal family is renowned as a nursery of Saints.

For more than a hundred years there was peace in England, during which the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex gradually became more powerful, the lesser States losing their importance. During this time the faith was taking firmer hold on the people, monasteries and convents were multiplied, and England was becoming the island of Saints. The list of sainted Bishops, monks, Abbesses, Kings, and Queens, would be too long to give here. Their stories should be read in full, for nowhere in the history of the conversion of nations is there anything more beautiful than the simple faith of these early English Saints, which showed itself by the noble sacrifice of every advantage the world could offer them. Their devotion to our Lady, St. Peter, and the Holy See, was most remarkable. Church after church was dedicated to our Lady and St. Peter, and pilgrimages to Rome seemed to be a matter of course to anyone who wanted to give himself wholly to God; for instance, St. Bennet Biscop went five times to Rome, St. Wilfrid three times, and both were so filled with love for the Holy See and its discipline that they spent their lives in striving to make England one with Rome in everything. Every dispute was carried to the Pope for settlement, and the submission of Kings and Bishops to the Holy Father's decrees is one of the most touching points in the story of our English fore-fathers.

Two men had a great share in thoroughly establishing Catholicity in England, and in uniting her firmly to the Holy See. These were St. Wilfrid of York and St. Theodore of Canterbury. St. Wilfrid was a Northumbrian, a monk of Lindisfarne, whose burning desire for perfection made him beg to be sent to Rome, where he spent many years in strengthening himself in prayer, and in studying all the lore that the treasures of the Church there could afford. Filled with zeal to introduce to his countrymen all that he had learned to love and cherish in Rome, Wilfrid returned to Northumbria, where King Alchfrid gave him lands at Ripon on which to build a monastery. Here he established the Benedictine Rule, and devoted himself to spreading everywhere the knowledge of Roman discipline. It was needed, for just at this time there were great difficulties in Northern England about the observance of Easter. Lindisfarne (which had received the traditions from Iona, where St. Columba had established the Irish custom), with all its dependent Bishops and Abbots, defended the old mistaken calculation. Others, with St. Wilfrid at their head, laboured to bring about the acceptance of the revised Roman Calendar. A Council was held, where each side had full liberty to defend its practice. Veneration for St. Columba made the Lindisfarne party reluctant to yield. St. Wilfrid based his arguments on our Lord's promise of infallibility to St. Peter. King Oswy then asked the Celtic monks if St. Columba had the keys of heaven as well as St. Peter. They answered that no such power had been given him. "Then," said Oswy, "I would rather side with heaven's doorkeeper, since, if I oppose him, who will open to me the gates of Paradise?" His simple remark struck a right chord, and all followed his example.

About A.D. 668 Pope Vitalian appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury, a Greek monk named Theodore. The new Archbishop found that the Church in England was getting such a hold on the people that it was time to treat the land as a Catholic country. He therefore set to work to consecrate Bishops, for a plague had lately carried off a great number of people, among whom were many priests and nearly all the Bishops. He also fixed the limits of the sees, and permitted priests to settle in parishes; for up to this time Bishops and priests had been like missionaries, preaching where they could, and going from one part of the country to another as they found people willing to profit by their labours. Theodore had many difficulties to settle, for on some points even the holiest men sometimes did not know which was the right way to act. For instance, St. Wilfrid had been named Bishop of Lindisfarne. As it was before St. Theodore came, there were few Bishops in the land, and St. Wilfrid, always zealous for unity with Rome, went for consecration to an Archbishop who had received the pallium from the Holy See. He was long absent, and the old Lindisfarne party persuaded the King to let one. of their number be chosen instead. They selected Chad, a holy, simple monk, who did not know there was anything wrong in accepting the office already given to another, and he was consecrated. Then, too, he shortly after transferred his see from Lindisfarne to York. St. Wilfrid came back and represented the evil that had been done, but he did not insist on receiving his rights. He returned to his monastery of Ripon, and soon after undertook a long journey throughout Mercia and Wessex, everywhere striving to bring about greater union with Rome.

When St. Theodore came, he soon heard of the mistake about St. Chad's consecration, and sent St. Wilfrid to take the see. St. Chad's humble obedience in at once yielding it up so struck St. Theodore that he soon after made him Bishop of Lichfield. But St. Theodore himself committed a grave mistake. Ermenberga, Queen of Egfrid, who had succeeded Alchfrid, hated St. Wilfrid, and she persuaded St. Theodore to divide his vast diocese into four, and to place some of the Lindisfarne monks in his stead. St. Wilfrid knew this was wrong, and went to Rome to consult the Pope. After a long examination of the whole matter, the Pope said that what had been done was illegal, but that the diocese was too large, and that St. Wilfrid himself ought to divide it, and name Bishops to take the parts which he did not keep for his own see. As soon as St. Wilfrid returned and showed the King and Queen the Pope's letters, they cast him into prison, and it was only when great miracles were worked, and the Queen herself was attacked with a dreadful illness, that the Saint was set free. Even then he was driven out of the kingdom.

As the neighbouring Kings feared Egfrid's anger, St. Wilfrid was forced to wander about from place to place for many years. But good came out of evil, and all the people of the Sussex kingdom were converted by the preaching of the Saint. He won their hearts by showing them how to fish at a time when they were suffering from a famine. Wessex also profited by his preaching.

Whilst St. Wilfrid was thus drawing great numbers into the Church, St. Theodore was bringing all into order and regularity. He founded a famous monastic school at Canterbury, where monks from all parts of the land came to study. As soon as they had mastered all the sciences taught in those days, they returned to their own monasteries to teach what they had learned to others. The famous St. Bennet Biscop, the first master of the Canterbury school, founded others at Monks-Wearmouth and Jarrow. As in all Benedictine monasteries, every art was practised—among others, that of church-building, which attained great perfection in England.

In A.D. 690 Theodore died. When attacked by his last illness, he sent for St. Wilfrid and the Bishop of London, and made to them his general confession, saying that what troubled him most was the injustice he had committed in dividing St. Wilfrid's diocese contrary to canon law. He begged St. Wilfrid's forgiveness and friendship, and did all he could to repair the evil, writing to the King and Queen of Northumbria, as well as to the Bishops, begging them to give St. Wilfrid his see, with all its possessions.

After Egfrid's death, St. Wilfrid was restored to his see, and the Bishops retired as the Pope had directed. St. Wilfrid then divided the diocese, and consecrated other Bishops for the new sees. But a few years later he was exiled again. This time he went to Mercia, whose King, Ethelred, received him readily, and St. Chad being just dead, he accepted the See of Lichfield; thus, in a fourth kingdom he established the Roman discipline and brought all the monasteries under Benedictine rule. The new King of Northumbria, for Egfrid was dead, was determined to ruin St. Wilfrid, and succeeded in getting him condemned on false charges. Again Wilfrid appealed to Rome, and though seventy years old, he went thither himself, the greater part of the way on foot. His case was carefully weighed, and judgment pronounced in his favour, but it was long before he was restored to his see. The last four years of his life were spent in constantly visiting every place in his diocese, and in exhorting all to the fervent service of God.

St. Wilfrid felt his death-stroke as he was riding to one of his abbeys. He immediately made his general confession on horseback, and had settled the affairs of his diocese before they reached the monastery. By nightfall he was dead, A.D. 709.

In those days it was no rare thing to see Kings and Queens lay down their crowns to enter religion. Among others, Ethelred of Mercia; Cenred, who succeeded him; Offa of East Anglia; Cadwalla, who went to Rome as a pilgrim, but died a few days after his baptism in Rome; Ina of Wessex, and his Queen—all entered monasteries and lived as holy religious. The convents and monasteries of England soon became renowned for the learned monks and nuns they produced. Greek and Latin were studied, as well as arithmetic, geography, and music. The Scriptures, however, had the place of honour. While the monks followed the arts of sculpture, carving, church-building, and everything that could add to the beauty of God's house, the nuns excelled in the art of illuminating the Scriptures and Office-books, and in embroidery.

DEATH OF ST. BEDE.
"THE LAST CHAPTER"

One of the most famous scholars and monks of early Saxon times was Venerable Bede, a monk of St. Bennet Biscop's monastery of Jarrow. His learning was very vast for those days. In one of his books he has told us of forty-five works which he had written, but the most interesting to us is his "Ecclesiastical History." It is to this that we owe nearly all that we know of the Anglo-Saxon Church. He was as holy as he was learned, and his beautiful life of deep piety and keen love of letters is still a bright example to all Catholic scholars.

Caedmon, the monk-poet, is another whose name must not be omitted. An unlearned swine-herd in St. Hilda's Monastery at Whitby, he was taught by an angel how to sing, the subject of the Creation being given him to write on. This is the first poem certainly written on English soil, much of the earlier poetry that has come down to us having probably been brought from the original home of our Teutonic forefathers.

Alcuin, monk of York, carried the rich stores of English learning into the Court of Charlemagne. The confidence of the great monarch, and the honours with which he was surrounded, never made him forget his beloved monastic home in England. As he could not obtain permission to return to it, he claimed the right of retiring to a monastery in France, some time before his holy death, A.D. 804.

Thus, in little over a hundred years from the landing of St. Augustine, pagan England had once more become a Catholic land, and the faith was developing all its most beautiful features. No persecution had met the missionaries who had brought the good tidings, and the simple, straight-forward, earnest Anglo-Saxons had become the noblest of Bishops, Abbots, and Sovereigns, while from the ranks of the people crowds embraced religious life, and all working together at their own sanctification, and going forth to preach the Gospel to foreign lands, earned for England the beautiful titles of the Island of Saints and the Dowry of Mary.

II. Ireland and Scotland

The pagan Saxons did not find their way to Ireland, where the faith planted by St. Patrick ever continued to take stronger root among the people. Hence, during the centuries when England was being won back again to the Church, the sister isle had but to multiply her churches and monasteries. These last became so famous that they were thronged by scholars from every land, and it often happened that the inhabitants of a monastery could be counted by thousands. Thus, it is said that Clonard, and Bangor in Ulster, had each over three thousand monks, with a still larger number of scholars.

Perhaps the most wonderful work done by the Irish monks was the multiplication of copies of the Holy Scripture and of other valuable books, in which many of them passed their lives. Their chronicles, too, are of great value, many being written in fine old Celtic verse. Their marvellous skill in ornamenting the sacred volumes they had transcribed excites admiration to this day. The most famous of these manuscripts still in existence is the Book of Kells, now in Trinity College, Dublin.

RUINS AT IONA.

Sanctity and learning produced their usual fruit, a great zeal for souls. From Irish monasteries, for more than two hundred years, there poured a continual stream of missionary monks. There is hardly a nation of Western Europe that does not venerate among its first apostles the memory of Irish Saints. Central Scotland owes to them its faith; Northern England its restoration to the Church. We have seen St. Columba and his monks at work among the Burgundians, while Belgians, Lombards, Swiss, and the people of the neighbouring countries, all owe to them their entrance into the Church.

Still greater works of zeal would have been possible had it not been for civil warfare among the Irish chieftains. It was in consequence of one of these disputes that the famous St. Columba was exiled to Scotland. Monk though he was, Columba was still a soldier at heart. He had excited his kinsfolk to fight desperately, many had been killed, and Columba was excommunicated. The sentence, however, was shortly after raised; but Columba was torn with remorse. The monk to whom he confessed his crime laid on him as penance perpetual exile from his beloved Ireland. With twelve companions he set out, and at last settled in the tiny island of Iona—a rocky, barren spot off the coast of the great island of Mull. Here he established a monastery, and received those who came to him for instruction or relief.

St. Columba's monks went forth into all the neighbouring countries, preaching and winning the people to the faith. None was so successful as the Saint himself in drawing numbers into the Church. The fierce, hot spirit of a warrior was softened and sweetened into the unconquerable zeal of an apostle whom no danger could appall. The monks built numbers of small coracles or boats, in which they crossed all the numerous straits and firths of the rugged Scottish coast. They ventured far out to sea, visiting the Hebrides, Orkneys, and Shetlands. Even the Faroe Isles must have been reached by them, for Irish crosses, bells, and other remains, have been found there. In every important place St. Columba built a church, and, of course, a monastery. In each a fervent band of missionaries would settle, and gradually win the neighbouring peoples to the faith. It is said that nearly a hundred old churches can trace their foundation to St. Columba or his monks.

In many of his churches St. Columba established Bishops. Over all the dioceses founded by him the Abbot of Iona was supreme. This form of Church government was set up in nearly all Celtic or Irish sees. Until the end of the seventh century, even in England as well as in Scotland and Ireland, the Abbot of Iona was the Superior, not only of all monasteries, but also of the bishoprics. This was because every Bishop was a monk, and they clung so firmly to religious obedience that even when at the head of a diocese they still owned the sway of a religious Superior.

ST. COLUMBA'S CROSS AT KELLS.

For the good of the monks left in Ireland, St. Columba consented to return to his land whenever his presence was needed. All the northern Irish monasteries acknowledged his supremacy. On one occasion he was the means of establishing peace between Ireland and Scotland. One of the northern Irish kings claimed the right of headship over the Scottish chieftains. St. Columba induced him to give up his demand, and to acknowledge the independence of King Aidan the Scot. He also interceded for the Bards, who were exciting disturbances in Ireland, and, though he could not save their whole Order from destruction, he succeeded in getting a certain limited number recognized. To this fact may be attributed the numerous famous Irish poems in praise of St. Columba. The story of Ireland in the next century can be told in a few words. Times of peace are not rich in events, and so, though this part of Church history is the most glorious in the pages of Irish records, there is little to tell beyond the constant multiplication of Irish monasteries and of Irish scholars, while the bare list of her Saints would fill several pages.

King Aidan, named above, was the first King who received consecration in Scotland. The stone on which Aidan was consecrated in the Isle of Iona has become famous. It was placed in Scone Abbey, and here all Scottish Kings were crowned till Edward I. carried it off in A.D. 1296. It now forms part of the coronation chair of the English Sovereigns, and is kept in Westminster Abbey. Aidan ruled over the central tribes, and was a devoted helper of St. Columba.

CORONATION CHAIR.

Towards the close of his life St. Columba made a state visit to St. Kentigern at Glasgow. This great man had been making many converts among the mixed tribes of Scots and Britons who inhabited the country lying between Clydemouth and the Alersey. His labours in this part of the land had been interrupted by his exile to Wales. A tyrannous chieftain had driven him from the scene of his missionary zeal. While in Wales he had founded a monastery and a diocese, called after one of his disciples, St. Asaph, and after twenty years he had been recalled by Prince Roderick and reinstated at Glasgow, whose Archbishop he became. A fine monastery sprang up, and from it St. Kentigern's monks went forth to convert the people. Like St. Columba's missionaries, the disciples of St. Kentigern were to be found in all the islands lining the coast. Then St. Columba, desirous to see a man who had done so much for Scotland, went, attended by a train of monks. St. Kentigern advanced to meet him with all his community. Both sets were divided into three bands, the youthful, the middle-aged, and the aged, among whose ranks the two Saints took their places. After discussing together the best way of spreading the faith and establishing it solidly among the Scottish people, the two apostles parted.

St. Columba did not long survive. He foretold the time of his death, and was found lying before the altar, giving up his soul in peace. It was in A.D. 596, just before St. Augustine landed in England. The Saint's work was continued by his disciples, but hardly a record of their labour remains. The terrible affliction which befell the Church in England and Scotland at the end of this period—the invasion of the Danes—swept away every trace of the work of St. Columba in Scotland.

The Iron Age

I. Evils of the Age

The three hundred years which followed the brilliant reign of Charlemagne were some of the saddest the Catholic Church has ever seen. This was owing chiefly to the quarrels among the successors of Charlemagne, to foreign invasions, to ecclesiastical disputes between the Eastern and Western sections of the Church, and to the interference of temporal rulers in the affairs of the Church.

The son and immediate successor of Charlemagne, Louis the Mild, was a good man, but a weak Prince. He divided his vast Empire among his three sons during his own lifetime. The various nations of which it was composed took advantage of the incessant quarrels among these Princes to try to recover their independence. After thirty years of civil strife the Treaty of Verdun, A D. 843, divided the Empire into three parts, which corresponded roughly to France, Germany, and Italy; but peace did not follow. Sometimes one of the Kings and sometimes another claimed the title of Emperor, with jurisdiction over the others. The Princes who ruled were nearly all of the same royal family, the German Karlings, and once, for the short space of three years, the kingdoms were reunited under one Sovereign, Charles the Fat. In A.D 887, however, he was deposed, and the three chief States each chose a separate Prince.

Exactly one hundred years later France passed out of the hands of the Karling family by the accession of Hugh Capet. This, the commencement of the, Capetian dynasty, marks the real beginning of the kingdom of France. which from this time never again formed a province of the Empire. But Italy, which had been an independent kingdom for one hundred and fifty years, was reunited to Germany under Otho I., or Otto the Great, a Saxon Prince, who raised his country once more to the power and rank of an Empire, but with more limited possessions than that of Charlemagne.

While these civil strifes were desolating the great kingdoms, hordes of barbarians were attacking Europe on every side. The last wave of Teutonic invasion was breaking over the land. On the north it was composed of Scandinavians, better known as Normans and Danes; and on the east of Slavonians and Lithuanians. But these were not all. Two Asiatic peoples strove with the occupants of the southern provinces for possession of these fertile lands.

From the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic fleets of small war crafts, or "keels," commanded by daring Vikings, covered all the neighbouring seas and mounted the great river mouths at flood-tides. Thence they made sudden descents on the coast countries, even passing the Straits of Gibraltar and attacking Italy, harrying the land, burning, destroying towns and churches, carrying off captives and goods, and turning fertile plains into deserts. From the ninth to the eleventh century these piratical incursions continued to be the terror of maritime countries. In many places permanent settlements were made. Thus, the Northmen became peaceful subjects of the French King in A.D. 911, by the grant of Charles the Simple to Rollo the Ganger of a large tract of land round Rouen, later on known as Normandy. In England the Danes obtained such power that they ruled as Sovereigns for a quarter of a century, A.D. 1016–1042.

The last band of Teutonic invaders were the Slavs, a brave and warlike people descended from the Scythians and Sarmatians of Roman times. They had long occupied the extensive plains which form the Russia of to-day, but in the tenth century, without abandoning their old home, they pressed west and south, and added to their extensive territory all land up to the frontier provinces of the Germanic Empire.

The kingdoms of Bohemia and Poland were founded at this time, the latter by a particular tribe called Lithuanians. The Slavs also occupied some of the northern provinces of the Greek Empire, Servia and Dalmatia being settled. A tribe from the Volga advanced into the plain of the Lower Danube, took possession without driving out the original people, and gave their name to the land—Vulgaria, now Bulgaria.

Constant warfare was kept up on the borders between the Germanic and Slavonic peoples, and so great was the number of the latter who were taken captive and sold to Western masters that the name Slav, which in their tongue meant "speaker," has given us the word slave, the proper title of one who is sold into bondage as the property of another.

On the Mediterranean shores the Saracens still endeavoured to extend their conquests. They repeatedly attacked Italy without any permanent results, but in Spain they were losing ground. The Christians there had regained several districts, and the kingdoms of Navarre, Aragon, and Castile were founded about the middle of the eleventh century. At this time also the Western caliphate came to an end; but the Moorish dominion in Spain, though not so extensive in territories as formerly, lasted yet five centuries longer. About this time occurred a terrible persecution of the Catholics in Spain by the Moors.

But by far the fiercest of all these invaders were the Magyars, a Turanian people, akin to the Tartars, which from the plains of Asia crossed over into Central Europe, and in A.D. 896 first settled on the plains of Hungary. They were heathens, and until A.D. 1033 were the terror of the Western States; but they were kept from further incursions westward by the establishment of a border State, or Mark, as it was called. As this was the most easterly of the provinces of the German kingdom, it was called the Eastern Mark, in Old German Oesterreich—a name which has become the modern Austria.

During the centuries of constant warfare we have been studying, it is not surprising that a military system of holding lands should have been prevalent. Every Sovereign must have felt the need of as many helpers as he could get. Therefore, when he granted a tract of the conquered land to one of his followers, it was on condition that the tenant should pay for it by military service, while the lord engaged to protect his subject. When the tenant, who with regard to his chief lord or suzerain was called a "vassal," gave lesser grants to his own followers, he did so on the same conditions. Lands so held were called "fiefs," or "feuds." Hence, this way of holding property is called the "feudal system."

This system was at first of great benefit to both rulers and people. By attaching the invading bands to the conquered soil, it helped to put a stop to their roving life and thieving expeditions; by binding lord and vassal together with mutual obligations, it established ideas of law and responsibility. The right of ownership and the love of home and family brought a taste for peaceful pursuits, and made men unwilling to risk their little all by continuing a life of warfare.

As time went on, however, the system fostered a continual succession of petty wars between neighbouring lords, for the love of fighting in which these men had been nurtured was not so easily got rid of. Every noble, entrenched in his own feudal castle, issued at will from within its fortifications to wage war against some neighbouring lord, devastate his lands, plunder his tenants, and return laden with booty. Harmless travellers were often waylaid and carried off to the castle dungeons, from which they emerged only when torture had wrung from them all their possessions, or at least a promise of heavy ransom which was always sternly exacted. To avenge such injuries was considered a matter of honour. Human laws were powerless to check the thirst of these fierce combatants for revenge and so-called glory, and the wretched peasantry, who were the chief sufferers, pleaded in vain for peace.

A NORMAN KEEP: DUNGEONS UNDER GROUND.

But this was not all. When lands were granted to the Church, it was on the same terms as when given to lay lords. The Bishop or the Abbot Vassal had to pay homage for his possessions, receive investiture from and become the "man" of his suzerain, and provide soldiers for his lord. Sometimes, even, we find that prelates headed these troops themselves. But, worse still, the lords came to interfere in the election of ecclesiastical superiors, and too often chose some member of their own family for the post, whether they had any religious vocation or not. At times the Bishop or Abbot named was not even a priest or a monk. Then he simply kept the title and money, and named some one in his stead as Bishop or Abbot, paying him a small sum for his services. It can easily be imagined what kind of care such people would take of the souls committed to their charge. Thus, the feudal system led to another evil, the decay of monastic fervour. The rich gifts made in feudal times to monasteries also became a source of danger. Monks and nuns lost the love and practice of poverty which had kept them so holy and hard-working in the earlier days. Learning, too, was neglected, and this is regarded by some good authorities as one of the principal causes of loss of fervour. Little by little, all kinds of relaxation crept into many religious houses, and destroyed their power for good.

The state of the Church in the East was at least as sad as that in the West. A new difficulty arose towards the end of the ninth century, which had the most disastrous results—the complete severance of the faithful of the Greek Empire from the unity of the Catholic Church. As at first no point of doctrine was attacked, the disputes did not end in producing a heresy, but a schism—that is, a breaking away from Catholic unity, not on a matter of faith, but of Church government.

Many causes prepared the sad event. During the repeated heresies to which the East gave birth, great ill-feeling grew up in the Greeks against the Holy See. This was because in these contests the Popes always opposed the error, whatever it was, while the Eastern prelates too often defended it. Then several of the Patriarchs of Constantinople thought it hard to have to regard the Bishop of Rome as Head of the Church. They said that, since Constantinople was the chief city of the Empire (as it was until the separation of the Eastern and Western Empires), the chief Pastor of the Church ought to preside over it rather than over Rome. Or they asked that at least Constantinople might be equal or second only to Rome. The Popes, with great foresight, opposed all these pretensions, and the jealousy of the Greeks grew stronger. When the Western Empire was restored by the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III., another cause of animosity was added to those already existing. Finally, both Rome and Constantinople claimed jurisdiction over Bulgaria, which had recently received the faith. This was a very difficult question to settle, as the Bulgarian Prince, Bogoris, changed his mind on the subject more than once, sometimes wanting to be subject to Rome and sometimes to the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The actual cause of the schism was the question, Who was the lawful Patriarch of Constantinople? The dispute arose in the following manner:

The court of Michael III. ( A.D. 856–867) was the scene of most shocking misconduct; every evil was practised with the approbation of the Emperor, the principal leader in iniquity being the young Sovereign's uncle, Bardas. In order to have more freedom for wickedness, this man persuaded Michael to force his mother, the Empress, and his own sister into a convent. The Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Ignatius, son of a deposed Emperor, refused to receive the vows of these ladies, saying that they were not free in the matter; and he excommunicated Bardas, publicly refusing him Holy Communion. Bardas determined on revenge. He induced the weak Emperor to imprison Ignatius, and to name Photius, a clever but wicked layman, in his place. This man consented to the crime and received Orders, each degree on a successive day, the sixth seeing him consecrated Patriarch. This in itself was contrary to the laws of the Church, which does not allow of such hasty proceedings. Photius, though Patriarch, was afraid that St. Ignatius would tell the Pope how things had gone, and in order to force him to resign his see, he caused the old man to be shamefully ill-treated in his prison, but in vain. Ignatius escaped, and both parties appealed to Pope Nicholas I. Photius said he was lawfully elected, Ignatius having voluntarily resigned, and he sent a forged document to this effect. Ignatius, on his side, explained the violence he had under-gone. The Pope sent Legates to Constantinople to see who was in the right. Photius bribed the Legates, who declared for him. As soon as the Pope learned what had passed, he excommunicated the Legates, condemned Photius, and commanded that Ignatius should be restored.

On this Photius called a Synod, and declared himself against the Pope. Ignatius was not allowed to come back, and the wrongful Patriarch was supported by the Emperor and by some of the Greek Bishops. Then Photius framed a list of accusations against the Holy See and the Western Church, and entered with bitterness into the Bulgarian dispute. The charges which he made against the Latin Church were most insignificant. They could only have been made by one who was determined to raise a quarrel on any pretext. For example, he objected to the practice of fasting on Saturdays, of using milk on fasting days, complained that priests were not allowed to give the Sacrament of Confirmation, and revived an old ground of dispute—namely, that the Latin Church had added the word Filioque to the Nicene Creed. The Orientals supported Photius in this open opposition to the Holy See, not because they really attached much importance to his charges against the Latin Church, but because of the bitter feeling against the supremacy of the Pope. The schism was spreading rapidly, when the career of Photius was stopped for a time. Michael III. died, and was succeeded by a man, not of the royal family, named Basil the Macedonian, who from political motives turned out Photius and brought back St. Ignatius.

The new Emperor asked the Pope for a General Council to terminate the disputes and settle the differences between Greeks and Latins. Pope Hadrian II. gladly consented, and Constantinople was chosen as the place of meeting. The prelates assembled in A.D. 869. It was the fourth and last General Council held in that city. The principal points settled were—That Ignatius was lawful Patriarch, Photius was to be deprived and degraded, and Constantinople was recognized as second in rank after Rome. Eight years later St. Ignatius died.

Photius, meanwhile, had been working at gaining the favour of the Emperor, and succeeded. On the death of St. Ignatius, Basil raised Photius to the patriarchate, and wrote begging the Pope (John VIII.) to agree to his nomination. Rather than risk fresh troubles and reopen the schism, the Pope said that, provided certain conditions were observed—one of which was that Photius should in Synod ask pardon for his misdeeds and acknowledge the authority of the Holy See, especially in the still unfinished Bulgarian dispute—he would acknowledge him. Photius, deceitful as ever, knowing that the Legates did not understand Greek, had the Pope's letters mistranslated, the conditions put to him being carefully omitted. He then took possession of the patriarchate. The Pope, informed of what had happened, excommunicated all concerned. For a few years Photius continued to occupy the See of Constantinople, doing his utmost to increase ill-feeling towards Rome. But when Leo the Wise succeeded to the throne, he was deposed and exiled, dying impenitent about two years later.

No fresh disturbances arose for one hundred and fifty years; but the old jealousy of the Holy See and of the Latin Church subsisted. In the middle of the eleventh century, Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, revived the old charges against Rome and renewed the schism. The attempt made by Pope St. Leo IX. to settle the dispute

failed, and the schism has continued till the present day, nearly all the Russian and Greek provinces still remaining severed from the unity of the Church and the jurisdiction of the Holy See.

The worst evil of this sad period was the state of servitude to which the Sovereign Pontiffs were reduced. Charlemagne and his immediate successors called themselves, and acted as, Protectors of the Holy See. But it was not long before the rulers of Italy came to regard themselves as masters instead of subjects of the Popes. The Treaty of Verdun, A.D. 843, made Italy an independent kingdom. After the death of its second Sovereign, Italy, like the rest of Europe, was a scene of constant warfare for upwards of one hundred years. She was attacked by invaders from without and torn by contending factions within. The chief Italian nobles struggled amongst themselves for the crown. Rome fell into the hands of first one party and then another. It happened more than once that the section which held Rome named one of its members Pope, in hopes of rendering its hold on the city more secure. As often as not the opposing party caused the election of an Antipope, and Rome was the scene of constant strife between the rival powers. At last the Counts of Tusculum triumphed over the other nobles, and for fifty years held Rome in captivity and determined the choice of each Pope.

The supremacy of Germany in Italy was restored about A.D. 950. Adelaide, widow of the murdered Lothaire, King of Italy, appealed to Otho I., of Germany, against Berengarius, who had usurped the throne and was besieging her at Canossa. The German monarch went to her assistance and overthrew Berengarius. He afterwards married Adelaide, and in A.D. 961 was crowned King of Italy. The great duchies were bestowed on German nobles. The position of the Popes was hardly improved. Though the Sovereign Pontiff was no longer chosen from one princely family only, Papal elections were not free; the Emperors claimed and exercised considerable power in Rome, so that many of the Popes were named through their influence, and it came to be considered necessary that the election of a Pope should be confirmed by the German Emperor. But the Roman nobles opposed the jurisdiction claimed by the Emperor over Roman affairs, and the clergy and people of the city also asserted their rights, saying that it was by them that the Popes should be elected. Many violent quarrels resulted.

After forty years of struggle respecting the papacy between the German Emperor and the Romans, two Italian noble families again came into power—first the Crescentii, and once again the Counts of Tusculum. Their dominion lasted from A.D. 1002–1048, during which time every Papal election was determined by them. Some historians have spoken strongly against the character of two or three of the Popes named during this period, especially of Benedict IX., son of one of the Tusculum Counts, but all agree that even this Pontiff was orthodox in his teaching.

It may readily be imagined that Popes who were forced into the Holy See by political influence would not be loyally obeyed—at least, by their opponents' party. Thus it happened that the state of the clergy grew daily worse, and a general decline of religion was the result. This time of the degradation of the Papacy was one of the greatest trials to which the Church of God has been exposed. But the infallible promise of our Lord was to have one verification the more. Neither persecution nor heresy had prevailed against the Church, and from the greatest danger of all, the servitude of the Popes to temporal rulers and the presence of bad men in the Chair of St. Peter, the Church was to come out victorious. When the storm was over, the Holy See was enabled, by the remembrance of the very evils through which it had passed, to attain to a power and independence unknown before.

In the middle of the eleventh century a heresy arose in the Western Church, which, for a short time, attracted much attention, though it made but few converts. The doctrine attacked was the Real Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. This truth, the central doctrine of Catholic worship, so clearly taught by our Divine Master Himself at the Last Supper, had escaped attack for the thousand years following its promulgation In A.D. 1050, Berengarius, Archdeacon of Angers, Master in the Ecclesiastical School of Tours, publicly maintained that our Lord is present only in figure in the Holy Eucharist, and that the Sacrament produces its effects only in virtue of the faith of the receiver, and not from the real, true, and substantial presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Such an impious novelty raised an outburst of indignation. Bishops and theologians, among whom the most celebrated was Lanfranc, at that time Abbot of Bee, wrote against the heresy, and proved to Berengarius that his doctrine was contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Catholic Doctors. Several Synods were held, in which the tenets of Berengarius were examined and condemned The King of France (Henry I.), the nobles, and the people, all opposed him, as well as the clergy; but Berengarius was too proud to yield. He was then summoned to Rome, where a Council was held. The error was condemned, and Berengarius recanted and signed an orthodox declaration of faith. But no sooner had he returned to France than he began to teach as of old. Twice again called to Rome, he repeated the same conduct, recanting when condemned, and yet directly he found himself at home beginning anew to defend his impious heresy. However, in A.D. 1078 he abjured his errors, and, retiring to an island monastery in the Loire, he spent the ten remaining years of his life, it is believed, in sincere penitence.

We hear of no spread of this false teaching. It appears to have died out with its author, and would not have been mentioned had it not been that this long-forgotten heresy was revived by the pretended Reformers of the sixteenth century, and honoured with a place in the catalogue of errors out of which they compiled their creed.

II. Religious and Social Reforms

We have seen the dark side of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. There is a brighter one, which we have now to study—the efforts of the Church to combat the various evils of the day, and the measure of success with which God blessed her labours. The first attempt at bringing about a better state of things began in the monasteries, which themselves in many cases needed reform.

Up to the time of which we are speaking there was but one great monastic Rule observed in Europe, the Benedictine. Even those Orders which had been founded by other Saints gradually adopted St. Benedict's laws for religious life. But as each abbey was independent of all others, many differences had grown up in their various observances. This did not tend to lessen the abuses spoken of already.

Louis the Mild, Emperor of the West, saw the necessity of putting an end to these troubles, and begged St. Benedict of Aniane to try and remedy them in A.D. 817.

St. Benedict of Aniane was a monk of extraordinary holiness. He had distinguished himself by his bravery as a soldier in the armies of Charlemagne. One day, in saving his brother from drowning, he almost perished himself. The danger he had run made him conceive so grand an idea of the duty of saving his soul that he gave up everything the world could offer to lead a life of humble penitence. He became a monk, and his example led many others to follow him. Later on he became Superior, and the fervour which reigned in his monastery caused King Louis to form the project of putting all the abbeys in his dominions under the government of St. Benedict of Aniane. The Saint undertook the work. He made incessant journeys from one end of the Empire to the other, and succeeded by his gentle firmness in introducing a thorough change in the way. of living of the monks, and in establishing the same observances in all the monasteries.

But a still greater service was done to the Church by the foundation of the Congregation of Cluny, about one hundred years later, by St. Bernon, Abbot of the famous monastery of La Baume, near Marseilles, in which the reformed Rule of St. Benedict of Aniane was observed in all its strictness. Some officers of the pious Duke William of Aquitaine had received hospitality in this monastery, and had told their lord of the wonderful holiness of the monks. The nobleman at once made up his mind to have a community in his domains, and begged St. Bernon to come and choose a site for the monastery. The Abbot selected the magnificent wooded valley of Cluny; but it was the favourite hunting-ground of the Duke, who said that the noise of the dogs would disturb the monks at their prayers. "Well, my lord," answered St. Bernon, "turn out the dogs and bring in the monks!" The Duke agreed to the sacrifice, and the abbey and church which were raised on the spot became renowned alike for the magnificence of their buildings and for the sanctity of the religious. Many who could not entirely forsake the world retired there for a time to escape from the turmoil of business. Nobles, Sovereigns, and Popes, even, could be named among such guests, and the monastery became a centre of religious fervour whose holy influence spread far and wide. Most of the abbeys of France, Italy, and Spain submitted themselves to the rule of the Abbots of Cluny, of whom the first six were afterwards raised to the altar as canonized Saints. A large proportion of the Bishops of France and Italy in the succeeding century were Cluniac monks, who laboured with great zeal at the general renovation of society.

One of the greatest benefits conferred upon Europe was the "Peace of God," that wonderful institution which was the means of putting an end to the continual strife between the feudal nobles, the cause of so much misery. The Bishops and Abbots of Aquitaine, Burgundy, and France united under the leadership of Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, and Richard, Abbot of Verdun, and succeeded in inducing many of the nobles to promise under oath not to strike a blow in a merely private quarrel, or to attack an unarmed person, or to permit violence or injustice. This attempt at putting an end to warfare was not, however, very successful. Some years later, by asking less from the war-loving knights, the prelates gained much more in the end. They promulgated the "Truce of God," which only permitted fighting on certain days and under certain conditions. By the provisions of the truce the nobles were bound, under pain of excommunication, not to fight in private quarrels, or on any festival, nor during the whole of Lent and Advent, nor from the Wednesday night until the Monday morning of every week during the year. Moreover, all persons were declared sacred from attack whose condition or profession forbade them to carry arms—namely, priests, pilgrims, the aged, and women and children; besides which, churches, burial-grounds, and monasteries were regarded as sanctuaries, which it was sacrilege to violate, for all who took refuge therein were under the protection of the Church.

When the free exercise of fighting was thus limited, the taste for it slowly diminished, and men had time to feel how much better was a state of peace and security than that of continual warfare. Thus, by the wise action of the Church, the scourge of the early Middle Ages ceased, and respect for law prevailed. More humane feelings gained ground, the weak and unfortunate were protected against the strong hand of injustice, and the institution of chivalry, one of the greatest glories of medieval Europe, grew out of the combined influence of a chastened love of military glory and of Christian charity. Though chivalry did not attain its full development till the twelfth and succeeding centuries, its origin can be traced back to the beneficial influence of the "Truce of God."

During the Teuton invasions, slavery, that worst evil of pagan times, which had begun to die out under Christian Roman rulers, reappeared with many of its horrors. Slave-markets existed in almost all great maritime cities. Captives taken in war were nearly always sold into bondage, while in some places the peasantry, at least, were reduced to slavery by the conquering race. The feudal system tended to diminish the number of slaves, and the Church worked steadily against the crying evil, and by framing laws in favour of slaves gradually raised their condition, until the peasant, who had been the absolute property of his master, became a serf, tied, it is true, to the land on which he was born, but secured in possession of his little holding of cottage and land. He had his flock, his poultry, his harvest, all his own, out of which, however, a small rent in kind had to be paid to the lord in return for his protection. On certain days in the year he was also bound to bring his tools, or his ox and cart, and labour on the estate of his lord. His children might attend the neighbouring abbey school, and he himself, in sickness or in want, was sure of assistance from the friendly monks.

In some lands, household servants continued to be slaves, even when all living outside the castle were serfs. Italy and Spain were the last European nations to give up slavery, which they did in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

III. Conversion of Invaders

Nothing contributed so much to the establishment of peace and order in Europe as the conversion of the pagan nations which had been settling down within her borders.

The conversion of the Teutons, already far advanced by the labours of St. Boniface and the conquests of Charlemagne, was carried out by the zealous prelates of the frontier dioceses, who, aided by fresh bands of English missionaries, worked long and earnestly, but with very varying success, to win to the faith the pagans of tnie eastward-lying States. The Benedictine monastery of New Corvey, on the Weser, was the principal centre from which, in the ninth and tenth centuries, went forth those intrepid missionary monks who were to win the North Teutons to the faith.

The most famous of these was St. Anschar, the Boniface of Scandinavia, who worked from A.D. 826 to 865 at the conversion of these people. The piratical habits of the Scandinavians made them most difficult to gain to Christianity. Every summer was spent in predatory excursions, and each winter was passed in living on the spoils of former raids and in preparing for new. But St. Anschar, undismayed, toiled unceasingly at softening the barbarism of these fierce pirates, and at implanting the true faith among them. His first field of labour was in Denmark, where SS. Willibrord, Willehad, and Wilfrid had striven with scant success to convert the people.

The Danish Sovereign, Harold Klak, driven out of his kingdom by the Northmen, had become a Christian at the court of Louis the Mild of France. When he was able to return and claim his kingdom he desired to take some missionaries with him. St. Anschar and another monk were named to accompany him ( A.D. 829). Conversions were very numerous. In order to provide a supply of priests and missionaries, St. Anschar formed a school for ecclesiastics, who became the first Bishops of Denmark and Sweden. But he was soon called to another field of labour.

Biorn of Sweden asked for preachers, and St. Anschar was placed at the head of the missionary band. Again wonderful success attended hi3 efforts, so much so that the monks could not suffice to instruct all who presented themselves. Those, however, who did not embrace the faith persecuted those who did, so that the work of conversion was frequently interrupted both in Sweden and Denmark by revolutions against Christian Sovereigns, and by persecutions when pagans were in power. The converts were so fervent that they remained firm in their new faith in spite of all the obstacles they met with.

After some years passed in Sweden, St. Anschar was named Archbishop of Hamburg. He then went to Rome to give Pope Gregory IV. an account of the state of religion among the Scandinavians. The Holy Father made him Papal Legate, not only for all the lands round and in the Baltic, but also for the Faroe Isles, Iceland, and other lands discovered about this time. St. Anschar was indefatigable in establishing churches throughout all the lands over which his legatine authority extended. At this time immense numbers of young slaves captured by the Danes during their piratical excursions used to be exposed for sale. It was a favourite act of charity of St. Anschar to purchase as many as he could, to teach them Christianity, and either to send them to their own lands or to train for the priesthood such as were fit for it.

The important seaport town of Bremen was added to the diocese of St. Anschar, which hereafter bore the name of Bremen-Hamburg. The Saint thus became the first pastor of these two important towns, which were afterwards to become so famous in the commercial history of Europe.

A second time St. Anschar went throughout Denmark and Sweden, encouraging his converts and and receiving many new members into the Church. Denmark, however, only became a really Catholic land under the renowned King Canute the Great, whom we shall meet in the history of England. It was long, too, before the opposition of the pagan Swedes was overcome. Three centuries of patient toil did the work, and early in the eleventh century Olaf the Saint ruled over a Catholic people.

After a life of extraordinary holiness, heroic charity, and continual toil, borne with intrepid courage, St. Anschar died in A.D. 865. He was honoured through North Germany and Scandinavia as the principal patron until the Protestant revolt withdrew these peoples from their allegiance to the true faith.

Piratical incursions from Norway into England were not infrequent during the ninth and tenth centuries. To two, at least, of the Norwegian chieftains these invasions brought the blessing of conversion to the Catholic faith. Harold Haarfager and his son, Hakon the Good, who was brought up at the Court of Athelstan, were both baptized in England, and, returning to Norway, sought to win their people to their own new-found faith. They met with a certain measure of success, and were aided by monks both from England and Germany. But when Harold Haarfager conquered the neighbouring chieftains and endeavoured to introduce the feudal system and make them his vassals, the independent spirit of the Norwegians would not brook his superiority, and though they had accepted the true faith at his hands, they would not submit to his government. Large numbers preferred to emigrate. They directed their ships northwards and settled in the newly discovered Iceland. There they founded several flourishing colonies, which became the home of some of the most famous of the Scandinavian poets and historians. In A.D. 1000, missionaries followed the emigrants, and by the middle of the eleventh century that desolate land had two important bishoprics and several monasteries of Augustinian and Benedictine monks.

The Icelanders pushed further north and discovered Greenland, where a Catholic settlement was founded with sixteen churches and two monasteries. An old tradition claims for these adventurous mariners the glory of the discovery of America and the establishment on its north eastern shores of a bishopric in A.D. 1121.

The Scandinavian pirates who settled in Catholic lands very speedily gave up paganism. Thus, we find Guthrum the Dane accepting the terms offered to him by Alfred the Great, and being baptized with all his followers. In France the Northmen had acquired many small tracts of land on the Loire before A.D. 911, when Charles the Simple granted a vast territory round Rouen to Rollo and his pirates on condition of their becoming Catholics. The offer was accepted, and Normandy, as the newly settled country came to be called, was celebrated for its fervent Church and learned clergy.

The nations of Slavonic origin, who to-day are the most numerous section of the European peoples, were converted partly by missionaries from the Western States and partly by Eastern monks.

Two Macedonian brothers, SS. Cyril and Methodius both religious, and later on Bishops, in the latter half of the ninth century converted nearly all the Slavonic tribes of South-Eastern Europe. Starting from Constantinople, they first evangelized the Chazars of the South of Russia, then they passed into Bulgaria, where they were invited by Prince Bogoris, whose sister had become a Catholic at the Court of Constantinople, whither she had been carried prisoner in her childhood. She had been sent back to her brother, had spoken to him of the Christian faith, and the Prince had listened with attention to the instructions of the two missionaries, but his conversion was brought about in a singular way. He was building a magnificent palace, and having it decorated with pictures He asked St. Methodius, who, like many a Greek monk in those days, was a good artist, to paint him a subject that should inspire terror. The Saint complied, and drew the Last Judgment. When the picture was shown to Bogoris and its meaning explained, the Prince was seized with awe, and declared he must be a Christian. He was baptized, and though his people at first revolted, he soon reduced them to order, and they followed him into the Church.

We have seen that Bulgaria became a subject of dispute between Constantinople and Rome. Many attribute the blame to the shifty conduct of Bogoris, who appealed to Rome against Constantinople, and then to Constantinople against Rome.

The saintly brothers, in their great missionary tour, passed on into Moravia, where conversions were numerous. Western priests had been preaching zealously for some time, but were almost ignorant of the language of the people, which SS. Cyril and Methodius knew thoroughly. This knowledge was the reason of their success. The two monks invented an alphabet for the Slavonic tongue, and translated the Bible and other books for the use of the people. About this time the brothers went to Rome, where St. Cyril died, A.D. 869. St. Methodius met with considerable opposition in his labours, especially from those who misunderstood the use he made of the Slavonic language in the Office of the Church, but the Pope supported him. On his return to Moravia, an incident occurred which led to the conversion of Bohemia.

The young Duke Borzivoy of Bohemia came to the Moravian Court, and was graciously received. But at a banquet given by the Sovereign, St. Methodius noticed that the Duke was not admitted to the table with the Christian nobles, but that he sat on the floor, as the pagans were wont to do, all by himself. The monk was touched with compassion at the slight put on the young Prince, and took the opportunity of speaking to him about Christianity. The gentle kindness of the Saint won Borzivoy, and he and his consort Ludmilla became Christians. They and their son and grandson (afterwards known as St. Wenceslas) zealously strove to introduce the true faith among their subjects. But the heathen party was strong, and had the support of Drahomira, mother of St. Wenceslas, and of his younger brother, Boleslas. When St. Wenceslas came to the ducal throne, the opposition was at its height, and the holy Duke and his grandmother St. Ludmilla were both assassinated by order of Drahomira and Boleslas. The Emperor, Otto I. of Germany, overthrew the heathen party, and kept Boleslas, who succeeded his brother, from open violence against the Catholics. Succeeding Sovereigns were Catholics, and forty years later heathenism was banished from the land. Bohemia was instrumental in converting the Lithuanians of Poland, but Russia received the faith from Constantinople, Vladimir the Saint being the first Christian ruler, A.D. 988.

Hungary also was converted by its Sovereigns. Duke Geisa and his wife became Christians about A.D. 972. They laboured until their death at this good work, which, however, was only completed by their son, St. Stephen. In order to have full leisure to attend to the conversion of his subjects, Stephen made peace with all the neighbouring Princes. He had also to put down a revolt of his pagan subjects, but his government was so wise and firm that peace prevailed through all his reign. It is said that the Pope sent him a royal crown, and gave him the privilege of having the cross borne before him. He was crowned King in A.D. 1000. When he died, in A.D. 1038, his kingdom was entirely Catholic.

The middle of the eleventh century thus found Europe Catholic from Spain to Russia, from Greenland to Italy and Greece. But the same epoch saw the severance of the Eastern patriarchates from the unity of the true Church. The northern plain of the Baltic was yet in pagan darkness, while Western Asia, Northern Africa, and part of Spain, were still in Moslem hands.

Such were the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, a period of disorder in Church and State, not unmixed with the beginnings of better things. The most hopeful sign of brighter days was given by the change that towards the end of the period took place in the position of the Sovereign Pontiff. Two eminent Popes, Sylvester II. and St. Leo IX., laboured earnestly to restore order. The latter made a visitation for this end throughout Germany and France, as well as in Italy, and was received with the greatest reverence by the people. Succeeding Popes had the able assistance and strong support of SS. Peter Damian and Hildebrand, both filled with zeal for the restoration of virtuous living in clergy and people. During the last twenty years of this period another point was gained: the Popes declared that Papal elections must be reserved to the Cardinals only, though the right of the German Emperor to confirm the nomination was still admitted. These centuries are sometimes called the "Iron Age," because the power of the sword was dominant; but there have been historians whose attention had been so closely drawn to the study of the evil features of these times that they have called them the "Dark Ages." It would perhaps be more just to regard them as a time of struggle between the powers of good and of evil, of faith and of force, in which the former conquered, and from which broke, as from a dark and cloudy dawn, the glorious days of the "Ages of Faith."

The British Isles During the Iron Age

I. The Danish Invasions

The British Isles did not escape the calamities which befell Europe during the three iron centuries. The fierce Scandinavian pirates, the Norwegians and Danes, whose ravages on other shores we have already noticed, did not spare our islands. So terrible was the devastation they committed in Scotland that nothing was left to tell of all the first missionaries had done in the land. Iona seems to have suffered greatly. Three or four times at least the Danes swept down on the island monastery and massacred its inhabitants. The body of St. Columba was carried to the mainland to save it from the barbarous invaders. Later on it was placed in the same tomb with those of St. Patrick and St. Bridget. Churches and schools, with their libraries, were all destroyed, so that, except for terrible memories of slaughter and desolation, this part of the history of the Church in Scotland is a blank.

Ireland, too, was visited by these dauntless marauders. For two centuries they renewed their attacks, repeating everywhere the same cruel scenes The history of these disastrous days contains little but repetitions of the same words—slaughter, fire, harrying—and to add to their misfortunes the Irish chieftains were as often as not at variance among themselves. Hence the strong defence needed to keep off the Danes was wanting to save Ireland. As they could not depend on their chiefs, in many cases the monks took up arms and fought against the invaders. So, too, when it was found that the Danes always made their first descent on church and monastery, to keep what they could from the spoilers, the monks placed their goods in the hands of laymen, who were not always willing to give up the charge when the need for their protection was over. Thus the abuse arose of Church lands being administered and often appropriated by laymen, who, in Irish history, go by the name of "corbes." A still stranger abuse arose in the same way. Kings who had become protectors of Church property were sometimes elected Bishops. In some cases it was the Bishop who was elected King. At any rate, there were certainly a considerable number of King-Bishops, who ruled both kingdom and diocese at once, and engaged in war both against neighbouring chiefs and against the Danes.

The power of the Danes in Ireland was broken by Brian Boru, a famous King of Cashel, who made himself master of nearly the whole of Ireland, and who in his twenty-fifth battle against the Danes at Clontarf, A.D. 1014, completely routed them, but died during the fight. The Danes who had settled in the land gradually became Christians, and no further invasions took place in Ireland.

England did not suffer less than the neighbouring countries; but there were three periods during which the Danes were specially active in pouring their hordes on to our shores. The first was about the end of the eighth century. A long spell of tranquillity had followed the deaths of SS. Theodore and Wilfrid, during which their labours began to bear good fruits. But a time of peace is often a time of spiritual danger. So it was now. Priests and monks and nuns had lost a good deal of their first fervour, and St. Boniface, from the heart of Germany, where he was then preaching, wrote a strong exhortation to his countrymen to return to a simpler and holier way of living. The Pope, too, added his injunctions, and called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to remedy the evils complained of. A Council was held at Cloveshoe, in A.D. 747, to carry the Holy Father's recommendations into effect. It was just forty years later when the Danes made their first descent on English shores.

Tidings of the doings of the dreaded pirates had been terrifying the coast people for some time. The evil day came only too soon. Black sails appeared on the horizon and fierce marauders were in the land. At first they would make a bold dash inland, plunder the nearest church or monastery, and speed back to their keels. Experience taught them that there was little to fear from the terrified people, and that monks and nuns were an easy prey. Massacres of religious marked every descent of the pirates. The rich spoil of the abbeys, their jewelled shrines and altar vessels, were borne off to Danish homes, while of the churches and monasteries nothing was left but blackened piles of ruins, often covering the remains of the slaughtered inhabitants.

The second Danish invasion occurred in the middle of the ninth century. It was marked by extraordinary cruelty on the part of the pirates. They commenced their depredations in the north. Lindisfarne Abbey was destroyed, the monks escaping with their most precious treasure, the incorrupt body of St. Cuthbert. Bardney, Croydon, Peterborough, and Ely, were among the most famous of the monasteries burnt by the Danes. St. Edmund, King of the East Anglians, was taken prisoner. He preferred to be shot to death by arrows rather than to give up his faith or risk his people's lives in open fight with the merciless Danes.

STATUE OF ALFRED AT WINCHESTER.

One bright page breaks the dark record of the second Danish invasion. The story of Alfred, the accounts of his consecration as King of England by Pope Leo IV. in Rome, whither he had gone with his father, Ethelwulf; of his studious boyhood; of a youth spent in gallant struggles with the Danes under the banners of his three brothers, successively Kings of England, are too well known to need repeating. So, too, is the history of his kingly life; of his triumph over the Danes and his treaty with them, by which Guthrum and his warriors undertook to occupy only that part of the country north of the Thames and to embrace Christianity; of his wise government; and of his provision for the defence of his country by army and navy.

But of what Alfred did for the Church and for the education of the people—for these two interests are ever closely linked in Catholic hearts—a word must be said. His own books show how bitterly he grieved over the miseries caused by the Danish invasions and by the sad ignorance of the clergy, one consequence of the disastrous times through which the country had passed. But Alfred was not a man to grieve only. He set to work to remedy the evil as far ag he could. Learned men were invited to England to teach the clergy. Churches and monasteries were rebuilt, and communities gathered together as of old, with saintly men set over them to guide them in the ways of holiness and learning. But Alfred loved his people too dearly to let learning belong to the ecclesiastical class only. Monks and priests were taught Latin, so all the lore of earlier days was open to them; but for the people there must be English books, and Alfred set himself to make them. He translated several valuable works into Anglo-Saxon for them, adding passages containing information which he felt would be useful and interesting to them. He also caused the monks to keep regular Chronicles. Thus, to King Alfred we owe the first history of our land in our own tongue.

But Alfred's private life gives as perfect an example of practical holiness as can be found anywhere. His time always well regulated and well spent, his expenditure kept within due bounds, and his religious duties always thoroughly attended to, would be lesson enough. But his blameless life is still more striking when we remember that all this activity and intelligent zeal for the welfare of his people, his country, and the Church, was carried out by a man whose bodily sufferings were keen and constant. No wonder that the memory of Good King Alfred was so cherished by Catholic England, and that the brightness of his fame is undimmed to our own days.

Alfred's wise government secured peace for Southern England for a long time. But though Danes and Englishmen were becoming one people, the civil results of the invasion were too many and too great to be easily swept away. Alfred's successors had many difficulties to contend with, but they found one strong hand to check or to aid them as need arose. This was St. Dunstan, a monk of Glastonbury, the one old abbey which escaped destruction by Saxon or Dane. He was made Abbot of his monastery by Edmund I., and became the friend and counsellor of his Sovereign and of Edred, the next King. Order and learning began again to flourish under his influence. The useful career of St. Dunstan was interrupted by exile at the hands of the young King Edwy, whom he had endeavoured to restrain in his evil habits, and who resented his strong but well-meant measures. King Edgar, who succeeded, recalled St. Dunstan, made him Archbishop of Canterbury, and governed almost entirely by his advice. The King and Archbishop began by restoring monasteries, and recalling to their religious homes the monks who had been driven abroad by the Danes. Many of these refused, and excited fierce opposition against the Primate. Other abuses had crept in during the dark days when the Danes overran the land. Married men and ignorant persons had been made priests to fill the places of those slain by the invaders. Now St. Dunstan began to enforce the laws of the Church as to the celibacy of the clergy. Here, again, he met with great resistance, but by firmness he succeeded in causing the ordinances of the Church to be observed. Learning, too, acquired new lustre under his wise patronage.

Edgar's peaceful reign of twenty-six years was followed by the third period of Danish invasion, during which St. Dunstan died. As before, desolation and disaster followed the inroads of the marauders, who, in consequence of the cowardly massacre of Danes on St. Brice's Day, 1002, and in spite of repeated payments of Dane-gelt (money wrung from the people to buy off the invaders), came in such numbers that they took possession of the whole land, and set up their own Sovereigns as Kings in England. It was during one of the Danish descents on the South of England that St. Elphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, was martyred. He had refused to ransom himself, saying that the goods of the Church and the people should not be spent to save the life of an old man like himself. He was pelted to death with bones ( A.D. 1012).

From A.D. 1016 to 1042 Danes ruled in our land, but Canute, the first of the line, was a wise and good monarch, under whom order and prosperity reappeared. It was otherwise under the sway of his two sons. The sufferings of the people made them rejoice to see the Saxon line restored in the person of Edward, afterwards known as the Confessor, who had been brought up in Normandy.

II. Restoration of the Saxon Line

Virtuous and gentle, though unwise in his marked fondness for Normans, who in learning and manners were far in advance of the homely Anglo-Saxons, Edward made himself beloved by the people. The twenty-four years that his reign lasted was a time of peace, such as England had been long unaccustomed to. The Danes are no more heard of as invaders, and had Edward been as wise and strong as he was good and gentle, English history would probably have been very different from what it is. The Saxon nobles were much angered by Edward's love for foreigners, and by his placing Normans in positions of trust in Church and State. But the great Earls were not united among themselves, and their quarrels and jealousy so weakened the land that when William the Norman came there was no one to make a real stand for freedom. All the events of Edward's reign seem a long preparation for the conquest of England by the last of the great races which was to contend for possession of her.

Edward had, like most Englishmen of the time, a great devotion to St. Peter and the Holy See. He had made a vow to go to Rome on a pilgrimage, but his counsellors thought it would not be wise for him to leave England, and the Pope changed the matter of his obligation, giving him the choice of certain works of piety. Edward determined to erect a great church in honour of St. Peter, on the site of the older church built by Edgar and St. Dunstan. This was Westminster Abbey. It was planned with great magnificence, and the building went on speedily. Before it was consecrated, in A.D. 1065, Edward had been seized with his mortal sickness. He died shortly after, leaving his country a prey to contending parties. The land had never wholly recovered from the effects of the Danish invasions. The old vigour of religious spirit was gone, and though England had not sunk to the depth of misery we see in other European nations, a time of renovation was needed both in Church and State. It came with the Normans.

Chronological Outline

Date

Events

SIXTH CENTURY

543

† Death of St. Benedict.

553

Fifth General Council—Second Constantinople—Three Chapters.

583

Conversion of Burgundy.

586

Conversion of Spain.

597

St. Augustine lands in England. † St. Columba.

SEVENTH CENTURY

604

St. Gregory the Great—St. Augustine of Canterbury.

622

Hegira, or Flight of Mohammed.

632

Death of Mohammed—Spread of Islamism—Jerusalem taken.

680

Sixth General Council—Third Constantinople—Monothelites, Assertors of One Will.

EIGHTH CENTURY

709

† St. Wilfrid.

710

Spain conquered by the Saracens.

732

Defeat of the Saracens by Charles Martel.

755

Martyrdom of St. Boniface, Apostle of Germany.

756

Patrimony of St. Peter given by Pepin to the Pope.

768

Accession of Charlemagne.

787

Seventh General Council—Second Nicaea—Iconoclasts or Image-breakers.

NINTH CENTURY

800

Charlemagne, Emperor of the West

817

Reform of Monastic Orders.

826

Mission of St. Anschar to Denmark, Sweden, and North Germany.

850

Completion of Photian Schism in the Eastern Church.

869

Eighth General Council—Fourth Constantinople—Photian Schism.

871

Alfred and the Danes.

TENTH CENTURY

910

Order of Cluny founded.

910

Popes under the power of Italian Nobles and German Emperor.

910

Russia and Poland evangelized.

972

Conversion of Hungary commenced.

987

Hugh Capet, King of France.

988

† St. Dunstan.

ELEVENTH CENTURY

1000

Christianity in Iceland and Greenland.

1016

Danish dynasty in England.

1038

† St. Stephen of Hungary.

1041

"Truce of God."

1050

Heresy of Berengarius broached.

1055

Greek Schism completed.

1066

William the Norman conquers England.

1073

Accession of Hildebrand as Gregory VII.

Short List of Books

From Which More Detailed Information Can be Obtained

GENERAL CHURCH HISTORY

Robrbacher.

Darras.

Brueck.

Guggenberger.

Birkhauser.

Gilmartin.

Alzog.

Shahan.

CONVERSION OF EUROPE AND MONASTICISM

Montalembert: Monks of the West.

Mrs. Hope: Conversion of Teutonic Nations.

T. W. Allies: The Monastic Life.

Newman: Historical Sketches.

St. Gregory the Great: Dialogues.

CHURCH IN THE BRITISH ISLES

Miss Allies: Church in England.

Miss Allies: Short History of Church in England.

Archbishop Eyre: Life of St. Cuthbert.

Knight, S. J.: Life of Alfred the Great.

Drane: Christian Schools and Scholars.

Bede: Ecclesiastical History.

Lingard: Ecclesiastical History of Anglo-Saxon.

MOHAMMEDANISM

T. W. Allies: Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood..

Newman: Historical Sketches.

SLAVERY

Bishop Brownlow: Lectures on Slavery and Serfdom..

Allard: Les Esclaves Chretians..

LIVES OF SAINTS

Mann: Lives of Popes in Early Middle Ages.

Bollandists: Vies des Saints.

Alban Butler: Lives of Saints.

Stanton: Menology.

Chisholm: Series for Children.

All of the books mentioned above can be obtained from R. and T. Washbourne, Ltd., Paternoster Row, London; 248, Buchanan Street, Glasgow; 74, Bridge Street, Manchester; and 39, John Bright Street, Birmingham.