Early culture in England. The Venerable Bede. Irish missionaries on the continent. The king of Northumbria, upon opening the Council of Whitby, said "that it was proper that those who served one God should observe one rule of conduct and not depart from one another in the ways of celebrating the holy mysteries, since they all hoped for the same kingdom of heaven." That a remote island of Europe should set up its traditions against the customs sanctioned by the rest of Christendom appeared to him highly unreasonable. This faith in the necessary unity of the Church is one of the secrets of its strength. England became a part of the ever-growing territory embraced in the Catholic Church and remained as faithful to the pope as any other Catholic country, down to the defection of Henry VIII in the early part of the sixteenth century. The consolidation of the rival churches in Great Britain was followed by a period of general enthusiasm for Rome and its literature and culture. Lindisfarne, Wearmouth, and other English monasteries became centers of learning unrivaled perhaps in the rest of Europe. A constant intercourse was maintained with Rome. Masons and glassmakers were brought across the Channel to replace the wooden churches of Britain by stone edifices in the style of the Romans. The young clergy were taught Latin and sometimes Greek. Copies of the ancient classics were brought from the continent and reproduced. The most distinguished man of letters of the seventh and early eighth centuries was the English monk Bæda (often called The Venerable Bede, 673-735), from whose admirable history of the Church in England most of our information about the period is derived.1 23. From England missionaries carried the enthusiasm for the Church back across the Channel. In spite of the conversion of Clovis and the wholesale baptism of his soldiers, the Franks, especially those farthest north, had been very imperfectly Christianized. A few years before Augustine landed in 1 See Readings, Chapter V. Kent, St. Columban, one of the Irish missionaries of whom we have spoken, landed in Gaul. He went from place to place founding monasteries and gaining the respect of the people by his rigid self-denial and by the miracles that he performed. He even penetrated among the still wholly pagan Alemanni about the Lake of Constance. When driven away by their pagan king, he turned his attention to the Lombards in northern Italy, where he died in 615.1 St. Gall, one of his followers, remained near the Lake of Constance and attracted about him so many disciples and companions that a great monastery grew up which was named after him and became one of the most celebrated in central Europe. Other Irish missionaries penetrated into the forests of Thuringia and Bavaria. The German church looks back, however, to an English missionary as its real founder. In 718, about a hundred years after the death of St. Columban, St. Boniface, an English monk, was sent by the pope as an apostle to the Germans. After four years spent in reconnoitering the field of his future labors, he returned to Rome and was made a missionary bishop, taking the same oath of obedience to the pope that the bishops in the immediate vicinity of Rome were accustomed to take. Indeed absolute subordination to the pope was a part of Boniface's religion, and he became a powerful agent in promoting the supremacy of the Roman see. Under the protection of the powerful Frankish mayor of the palace, Charles Martel, Boniface carried on his missionary work with such zeal that he succeeded in bringing all the older Christian communities which had been established by the Irish missionaries under the papal control, as well as in 1 There is a Life of St. Columban, written by one of his companions, which, although short and simple in the extreme, furnishes a better idea of the Christian spirit of the sixth century than the longest treatise by a modern writer. This life may be found in Translations and Reprints, Vol. II, No. 7, translated by Professor Munro. St. Colum ban and St. Gall. st. Boniface, the apostle to the Germans. Boniface reforms the church in Gaul and brings it into subjection to the pope. converting many of the more remote German tribes who still After organizing the German church he turned his attention, with the hearty approval of the pope and the support of the Frankish rulers, to a general reformation of the church in Gaul. Here the clergy were sadly demoralized, and the churches and monasteries had been despoiled of much of their property in the constant turmoil of the time. Boniface succeeded, with the help of Charles Martel, in bettering affairs, and through his efforts the venerable church of Gaul, almost as old as that of Rome itself, was brought under the supremacy of the pope. In 748 the assembled bishops of Gaul bound themselves to maintain the Catholic unity of faith and follow strictly the precepts of the vicar of St. Peter, the pope, so that they might be reckoned among Peter's sheep. General Reading.— The best history of the monks to be had in English is MONTALEMBERT, The Monks of the West from St. Benedict to St. Bernard (Longmans, Green & Co., 6 vols., $15.00). The writer's enthusiasm and his excellent style make his work very attractive. The advanced student will gain much from TAYLOR, Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages (The Macmillan Company, $1.75), Chapter VII, on the origin and spirit of monasticism. See also HARNACK, Monasticism (Scribners, 50 cents). The works on church history referred to at the end of the preceding chapter all contain some account of the monks. CHAPTER VI CHARLES MARTEL AND PIPPIN Martel, mayor of 24. Just as the pope was becoming the acknowledged head Charles of the Western Church, the Frankish realms came successively Frankish under the rule of two great statesmen, Charles Martel and his son Pippin the Short, who laid the foundation of Charlemagne's vast empire. The difficulties which Charles Martel had to face were much the same as those which for centuries to follow confronted the sovereigns of western Europe. The great problem of the mediæval ruler was to make his power felt throughout his whole territory in spite of the many rich and ambitious officials, bishops, and abbots who eagerly took advantage of all the king's weaknesses and embarrassments to make themselves practically supreme in their respective districts. The two classes of officers of which we hear most were the counts (Latin, comites) and the dukes (Latin, duces). A count ordinarily represented the king within the district comprised in an old municipality of the Empire. Over a number of counts the king might place a duke. Both of these titles were borrowed by the Germans from the names of Roman officials. While the king appointed, and might dismiss, these officers when he pleased, there was a growing tendency for them to hold their positions for life. We find Charles fighting the dukes of Aquitaine, Bavaria, and Alemannia, each of whom was endeavoring to make the territory which he was deputed to rule in the king's interest a separate and independent country under his own supremacy. the palace, 714-741. Difficulty of holding together in the early Middle Ages a kingdom origin of counts and dukes. Charles and his bishops. Mohammed, 571-632. By successive campaigns against these rebellious magnates, Charles succeeded in reuniting all those outlying districts that tended to forget or ignore their connection with the Frankish empire. The bishops proved almost, if not quite, as troublesome to the mayor of the palace as the dukes, and later the counts. It is true that Charles kept the choice of the bishops in his own hands and refused to give to the clergy and people of the diocese the privilege of electing their head, as the rules of the Church prescribed. But when a bishop had once got possession of the lands attached to the bishopric and exercised the wide powers and influence which fell to him, he was often tempted, especially if he were a nobleman, to use his privileged position to establish a practically independent principality. The same was true of the heads of powerful monasteries. These dangerous bishops and abbots Charles deposed in wholesale fashion. He substituted his own friends for them with little regard to the rules of the Church—for instance, he bestowed on his nephew the three bishoprics of Paris, Rouen, and Bayeux, besides two monasteries. The new incumbents were, however, no better than the old; they were, indeed, in spite of their clerical robes, only laymen, who continued to fight and hunt in their customary manner. The most famous of Charles' deeds was his decisive defeat of the advancing Mohammedans who were pressing into Gaul from Spain. Before speaking of this a word must be said of the invaders and their religion, for the Saracens, as the followers of Mohammed were commonly called, will come into our story of western Europe now and then, especially during the Crusades. 25. Just as Gregory the Great was dying in Rome, leaving to his successors a great heritage of spiritual and temporal influence, a young Arab in far-off Mecca was meditating upon the mysteries of life and laying the foundation of a religious |