century, and after that the Roman Easter made its way to acceptance through the
island. Yet still the Irish appear to have used their own Liturgy, and to have shown
1^ little repugnance to the marriage of priests. The organization of the churches re-
mained monastic rather than diocesan or episcopal, in spite of the fact that " bishops,"
apparently with parochial functions, existed in great numbers. Hereditary customs
governed the succession of the great ^bots, as at Armagh, until the time of St. Malachy,
a contemporary of St. Bernard. See St. Bernard's Life of Maiachy, chap, z., Migne
182, ooL 1086, dted by Killen, ox. vol. i. p. 173. The exertions of Gregory VII.
and Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, did much to bring the Irish Churdi into
obedience to Rome. Various Irish synods in the twelfth century completed a proper
>. diocesan system. Cf. Killen, Ecd, Hisi. oflrelamd, vol. i. pp. 162-233 ; also the article
in the Emydopaedia Briianmca on the history of Ireland by Quiggin and Bagwell.

*The works of St. Columbanus or Columban, usually called of Luxeuil, are
printed in Migne's Patrohgia LoHna, 80, coL 309-296. The diief source of know-
ledge of his life is the Viia by Jonas his disdple: "biigat, P<U. Lai, 87, ooL 1009-1046.
It has been translated by D. C. Munro, in voL ii. No. 7 (series of 1895) of Trans-
laHons, ttc., published by University of Penn^lvania (Phila. 1897). See lUso Montalcm-
bert, Monks ttfike Wes$, book vii. (vol. ii. of English translation).



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CHAP. K CONVERSION OF THE NORTH 175

He was bom in Leinster. While yet a boy he felt the
conflict between fleshly lusts and that coimter-ascetic passion
which throughout the Christian world was drawing thousands
into monasteries. Ascetidsm, with desire for knowledge,
won the victory, and the youth entered the monastery of .-
Bangor, in the extreme north-east of Ireland. There he
passed years of labour, study, and self-mortification. At
length the pilgrim mission-passion came upon him {coepit
feregrinoHonem desiderare) and his importunity overcame
the abbot's reluctance to let him depart. Twelve disciples
are said to have followed him across the water to the shores
of Britain. There they hesitated in anxious doubt, till it ^'
was decided to cross to Gaul.

This was about the year 590. Columban's austere and '
commanding form, his fearlessness, his quick and fiery
tongue, impressed the people among whom he came.
Reports of his holiness spread ; multitudes sought his k^
blessing. He traversed the country, preaching and setting
his own stem example, imtil he reached the land of the
Burgundians, where Gontran, a grandson of Clovis, reigned. «
Well received by this ruler, Coliunban established himself in
an old castle. His disdples grew in numbers, and after a
while Gontran granted him an extensive Roman structure
called Luxovium (Luxeuil), situated at the confines of the
Burgundian and Austrasian kingdoms. Columban con- ^
verted this into a monastery, and it soon included many
noble Franks and Burgundians among its monks. For them
he composed a monastic regiday stem and cmel in its penalties
of many stripes imposed for trivial faults. " Whoever may
wish to know his strenuousness (strenuiiatem) will find it in
his precepts," writes the monk Jonas, who had lived under
him.

The strenuousness of this masterful and overbearing
man was displayed in his controversy with the Galilean
clergy, upon whom he tried to impose the Easter day
observed by the Celtic Church in the British Isles. In his
letter to the Galilean synod, he points out their errors, and
lectures them on their Christian duties, asking pardon at the
end for his loquacity and presumption. Years afterwards,
entering upon another controversy, he wrote an extra-



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176 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i

ordinary letter to Pope Boniface IV. The superscription is
Hibernian : 'To the most beautiful head of all the diurches
of entire Europe, the most sweet pope, the most high
president, the most reverent investigator: O marvellous!
mirum dictui nova res! rara avis! — that the lowest to the
loftiest, the down to the polite, the stammerer to the prince
of eloquence, the stranger to the son of the house, the last
to the first, that the Wood-pigeon (Palumbus) should dare
to write to Father Boniface!" Whereupon this Wood-
pigeon writes a long letter in which belligerent expostulation
alternates with self-debasement. He dubs himself ' garrulus,
presiunptuosus, homunculus vilissimae qualitatis," who caps
his impudence by writing imrequested. He implores pardon
for his harsh and too biting speech, while he deplores — to
him who sat thereon — the infamia of Peter's Seat, and shrills
to the Pope to watch : "Vigila itaque, quaeso, papa, vigila ;
et iterum dico: vigila"; and he marvels at the Pope's
lethal sleep.

One who thus berated pope and clergy might be cen-
sorious of princes. Gontran died. After various dynastic
troubles, the Burgundian land came under the rule nominally
of young Theuderic, but actually of his imperious grand-
mother, the famous Brunhilde. In order that no queen-
wife's power should supplant her own, she encouraged her
grandson to content himself with mistresses. The youth
stood in awe of the stem old figure ruling at Luxeuil, who
more than once reproved him for not wedding a lawful
queen. It happened one day when Coliunban was at
Brunhilde's residence that she brought out Theuderic's
various sons for him to bless. "Never shall sceptre be held
by this brothel-brood," said he.

Henceforth it was war between these two: Theuderic
was the pivot of the storm ; the one worked upon his fears,
the other played upon his lusts. Brunhilde prevailed. She
incited the king to insist that Luxeuil be made open to all^
and with his retinue to push his way into the monastery.
The saint withstood him fiercely, and prophesied his ruin.
The king drew back ; the saint followed, heaping reproaches
on him, till the young king said with sonae self-restraint:
"You hope to win the crown of martyrdom through me.



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CHAP. DC. CONVERSION OF THE NORTH 177

But I am not a lunatic, to commit such a crime. I
have a better plan: since you won't fall in with the ways ^^
of men of the world, you shall go back by the road you^
came."

So the king sent his retainers to seize the stubborn saint.
They took him as a prisoner to Besangon. He escaped,
and hurried back to Luxeuil. Again the king sent, this
time a count with soldiers, to drive him from the land.
They feared the sacrilege of laying hands on the old man.
In the church, surrounded by his monks praying and singing
psalms, he awaited them "O man of God," cried the
count, "we beseech thee to obey the royal command, and
take thy way to the place from which thou camest." "Nay,
I will rather please my Creator, by abiding here," returned
the saint. The coimt retired, leaving a few rough soldiers
to carry out the king's will. These, still fearing to use
violence, begged the saint to take pity on them, unjustly
burdened with this evil task — to disobey their orders meant
their death. The saint reiterates his determination to
abide, till they fall on their knees, cling to his robe, and
with groans implore his pardon for the crime they must
execute.

From pity the saint yields at last, and a company of the
king's men make ready and escort him from the kingdom
westward toward Brittany. Many miracles mark the
journey. They reach the Loire, and embark on it. Pro-
ceeding down the river they come to Toms, where the saint
asks to be allowed to land and worship at St. Martin's
shrine. The leader bids the rowers keep the middle of the
stream and row on. But the boat resistlessly made its way
to the landing-place. Columban passed the night at thd
shrine, and the next day was hospitably entertained by the
bishop, who inquired why he was retiuning to his native
land. *'The dog Theuderic has driven me from my
brethren," answered the saint. At last Nantes was reached
near the mouth of the Loire, where the vessel was waiting
to carry the exile back to Ireland. Columban wrote a
letter to his monks, in which he poured forth his love to
them with much advice as to their future conduct. The
letter is filled with grief — suppressed lest it unman his

VOL. I N



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178 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i

beloved children. "While I write, the messenger comes to
say that the ship is ready to bear me, unwilling, to my
country. But there is no guard to prevent my escape, and
these people even seem to wish it."

The letter ends, but not the story. Columban did not

^sail for Ireland. Jonas says that the vessel was miraculously
impeded, and that then Columban was permitted to go
whither he would. So the dauntless old man travelled
back from the sea, and went to the Neustrian Coiul, the
j>eople along the way bringing him their children to bless.
He did not rest in Neustria, for the desire was upon him to
preach to the heathen. Making his way to the Rhine, he
embarked near Mainz, ascended the river, and at last

^established himself, with his disciples, upon the lake of
Constance. There they preached to the heathen, and
threw their idols into the lake. He had the thought to
preach to the Wends, but this was not to be.

The time soon came when all Austrasia fell into the hands
of Brunhilde and Theuderic, and Columbanus decided to
cross over into northern Italy, breaking out in anger at his
disdple Gall, who was too sick to go with him. With other
disciples he made the arduous journey, and reached the
land of the Lombards. King Agilulf made him a gift of
^3Bobbio, lying in a gorge of the Apennines near Genoa, and
there he foimded the monastery which long was to be a
stronghold of letters. For himself, his career was well-nigh
run; he retired to a solitary spot on the banks of the river
Trebbia, where he passed away, being, apparently, some
seventy years of age.

It may seem surprising that this strenuous ascetic should
occasionally have occupied a leisure hour writing Latin
poems in imitation of die antique. There still exists such
an effusion to a friend:

"Accipc, quaesOy
Nunc bipcdali
Condita versa
CarmiDulorum
Munera parva."

The verses consist mainly of classic allusions and advice
of an antique rather than a Christian flavour : the wise will



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CHAP. IX CONVERSION OF THE NORTH



179



cease to add coin to coin, and will despise wealth, but not
the pastime of such verse as the

" Indyta Vates
Nomine Sappho "

was wont to make. ' Now, dear Fedolius, quit learned
numbers and accept our squibs— frivola nostra. I have
dictated them oppressed with pain and old age : Vive, vale,
laetus, tristisque memento senectae." The last is a pagan
reminiscence, which the saint's Christian soul may not have
deeply felt. But the poem shows the saint's classic training, y^
which probably was exceptional. For there is no evidence 1
of like knowl^ge in any Irishman before him ; and after .
his time, in the seventh century, or the eighth, Latin educa-^
tion in Ireland Was confined to a few monastic centres. A
small minority studied the profanities, sometimes because
they liked them, but oftener as the means of proficiency in
sacred learning.

The Irish had cleverness, facility, ardour, and energy.!
They did much for the dissemination of Christianity andjj
letters. Their deficiency was lack of organization; and
they had but little capacity for ordered discipline humbly
and obediently accepted from others. Consequently, when
the period of evangelization was past in western Europe,
and organization was needed with united and persistent
effort for order, the Irish ceased to lead or even to keep pace
with those to whom once they had brought the Gospel. In
Anglo-Saxon England and on the Carolingian continent
they became strains of influence handed on. This was the
fortune which overtook them as illuminators of manuscripts
and preservers of knowledge. Their emotional traits, more-
over, entered the larger currents of mediaeval feeling and
imagination. Strains of the Irish, or a kindred Celtic
temperament, passed on into such ^'Breton" matters as the
Tristan story, wherein love is passion unrestrained, and is
more distinctly out of relationship with ethical considera-
tions than, for example, the equally adulterous tale of
Lancelot and Guinevere.*

> The ardde of H. Zimmer» " Uber die Bedeutung des irisdien Elements fOr
db mittdalterliche Cultur," Preussiseke JakrhUcker, Bd. 59, 1887* presents an in-
tcreMmg ntmrnuy of the Irish influence. His views, and still more those of



^

^'^'



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i8o THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i



n

The Saxon invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries
^ drove Christianity and letters from the land where the
'^semi-Romanized Britons and their church had flourished.
>To reconvert and instruct anew a relapsed heathen country
was the task which Gregory the Great laid on the willing
Augustine. The story of that famous mission (a.d. 507)
need not be told ; * but we may note the manner of the
presentation of Christianity to the heathen Saxons, and the
temper of its reception. Most impressive was this bringing
of the Faith. Augustine and his band of monks came as
a stately embassy from Rome, the traditionary centre of
imperial and spiritual power. Their coming was a solemn
call to the English to associate themselves with all that was
most august and authoritative in heaven and earth. Accord-
ing to Bede, Augustine sent a messenger to Ethelbert, the
Kentish king, to annoimce that he had come from Rome
bearing the best of messages, and would assure to such as
hearkened eternal joys in heaven and dominion without
end with the living and true God. To Ethelbert, whose
/ kingdom lay at the edge of the great world, the message
. came from this world's sovereign pontiff, who in some awful
way represented its mighty God, and had authority to
admit to His kingdom. He was not ignorant of what lay
within the hand of Rome to give. His wife was a Catholic
Christian, daughter of a Prankish king, and had her own
ministering bishop. Doubtless the queen had spoken with
her lord. Still Ethelbert feared the spell-craft of this awe-
inspiring embassy, and would meet Augustine only under

Ozaniun in CivUisaHon ckritiemne ekes les Francs, chap, v., should be controlled by
the detailed discussion in Roger's VEnseignement des leUres classigues iPAusone
d Akuin (Paris, 1905), chaps, vi. vii. and viii. See also G. T. Stokes, Ireland and
ike CdUc Church, Lect. XI. (London, 1892, 3rd ed.); D'Arbois de Jubainville, In-
iroduclion d Piiude dc la lUtirahire ceUique, livre ii. chap. ix. ; F. J. H. Jenkinson, The
Hisperica Famina (Cambridge and New York, 1909). Obviously it is unjustifiable
(though it has been done) to regard the scholarship of gifted Irishmen who lived
on the Continent in the ninth century (Sedulius Sootua, Eriugena, etc) as evidence
of scholarship in Ireland in the sixth, seventh, or eighth century. We do not know
where these later men obtained their knowledge; there is little reason to suppose
that they got it in Ireland.

1 See the narrative in Green's History 0/ the English People.



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CHAP. DC CONVERSION OF THE NORTH i8i

the open sky. Augustine came to the meeting, a silver
cross borne before him as a banner, and the pictured image
of Christ, his monks singing litanies and loudly supplicating
their Lord for the king's and their own salvation. Know-
ledge, authority, supernatural power, were represented here.
And how could the king fail to be struck by the nobility i
of Augustine's Gospel message, by its dear assurance, its!
love and terror,^ so overwhelming and convincing, so far out-
soaring Ethelbert's heathen religion? To be sure, in :
Christian love and forgiveness lay some reversal of Saxon t
morality, for instance of the duty of revenge. But this was 1
not prominent in the Christianity of the day ; and e}q>erience
was to show that only in isolatal instances did this teaching
impede the acceptance of the Gospel.*

Ethelbert spoke these missionaries fair; accorded them
a habitation in Canterbury with the privilege of celebrating
their Christian rites and preaching to his people. There
they abode, zealous in vigils and fastings, and preaching
the word of life. Certain heath^i men were converted,
then the king, and then his folk in multitudes — the usual
way. Under the direction of Gregory, Augustine proceeded
with that combination of insistence, dignity, and tolerance,
so well imderstood in the Roman Church. There was in-
sistence upon the mairi doctrines and requirements of the
Faith — ^upon the Roman Easter day and baptism, as against
the practices of the British Church. Tolerance was shown |
respecting heathen fanes and sacrificial feastings; the fanes
should be reconsecrated as Christian churches; the feasts
should be continued in honour of the true God.'

Besides zeal * and knowledge and authority, nuracles
advanced Augustine's enterprise. To eliminate by any
sweeping negation the miraculous element from the causes

> There is no /positive evidence that Augustine painted the terrors of the Day
of Judgment in his first preaching. But it was a chief part of the mediaeval Gos-
pel, and never abftent from the soul of Augustine's master, Gregory. The latter
set it forth vividly /in his letter to Ethelbert after his baptism (Bede» EisL Ecc. i. 32).

* Bede, Hist. Ecc. iii. 22, tells how a certain noble gesith slew his king from
exasperation with /the tatter's practice of forgiving his enemies, instead of requiting
them, according 40 the principles of heathen morality.

*Bede, Hiist. Eec. i. 30. Well known are the picturesque scoies surrounding
the long contro-'versy as to Easter between the Roman clergy and the British and Irish.
The matter bu^i hugely in Bede's book, as it did in his mind.



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Il'



182 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i

\ of success of such a mission is to dose our eyes to the

' situation. All men expected miracles; Gregory who sent

Augustine was infatuated with them. Augustine performed
j^them, or believed he did, and others believed it too.
Throughout these centuries, and indeed late into the
mediaeval period, the power and habit of working miracles
constituted sainthood in the hermit or the monk, thereby
singled out as the special instrument of God's will or the
Virgin's kindness. Of course miracles were ascribed to the
great missionary apostles like Augustine or Boniface; and
this conviction brought many conversions.

Among the heathen English about to be converted, there
was diversity of view and mood as to the Faith. They
stood in awe of these newcomers from Rome, fearing their
spell-craft. From their old religion they had sought earthly
I victory and prosperity ; and some had found it of imcertain
aid. ''See, king, how this matter stands," says Coifi, at
the Noithumbrian^JVitenagemot held by Edwin to decide
as to the new religion: "I have learned of a certainty
that there is no virtue or utility whatever in that religion
which we have been following. None of your thanes has
slaved in the worship of our gods more zealously than I.
Yet many have had greater rewards and dignities from you,
and in every way have prospered more. Were the gods
worth anything, they would wish rather to aid me, who
have been so zealous in serving them. So if these new
teachings are better and stronger, let us accept them at
once." ^ Coifi expressed the common motives of converts
>of all nations from the time of Constantine. No better
thought of Christian expediency had inspired Gregory of
Tours's story of Clovis's career; and Bede in no way con-
demns Coifi's verba prudetUiae, as he terms them. Naturally
in times of adversity such converts were quick to abandon
^ their new religion, proved ineflfectual.*

Among these Angles of Northimiberland, however, finer
souls were looking for light and certitude. Such a one was
that thane who followed Coifi with the wonderful illustration
of man's mortal need of enlightenment, the thane for whom
life was as the swallow flying through the wirmed and

< Bede ii. 13. s E.g. is In Bede ^- 1*



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CHAP. DC CONVERSION OF THE NORTH 183

lifted hall, from the dark cold into the dark cold : '' So r
this life of men comes into sight for a little ; we are ignorant \
of what shall follow or what may have preceded. If this |
new doctrine o£fers anything more certain, I think we should ■ w/^
follow it." The heathen poetry had given varied voice % *
to this contiemplative melancholy so wont to dwell on life's |
untoward changes; and there was ghostly evidence of the
other world before the coming of the Roman monks. Now,
as those monks came with authority from the traditionary
home of ghostly lor^, why question their knowledge of the
life beyond the grave? Many Anglo-Saxons were prepared
to fix their gaze upon a life to come and to let their fancies
fill with visions of the great last severance imto heaven
and hell. When once impressed by the monastic Christi-
anity^ of the Roman, or the LMl, mission, they were
qmdL to throw themselves into the ascetic life which ;
most surely opened heaven's doors. So many a noble |
thane became an anchorite or a monk, many a noble
dame became a nun; and Saxon kings forsook their
kingdoms for the cloister : ''Cenred, ^who for some time
had reigned most nobly in Merda, still more nobly aban-
doned his sceptre. For he came to Rome, and there was
tonsured and made a monk at the church of the Apostles,
and continued in prayers and fastings and almsgiving imtil
his last day."*

As might be expected, the re-expression of Christianity^
in Anglo-Saxon writings was martial and emotional. A
martial tone pervades the epic paraphrases of Scripture, the
Anglo-Saxon Genesis for example. On the other hand,
adaptations of devotional Latin compositions^ evince a
realization of Christian feeling and prevalent ascetic senti-
ments. The ''elegiac" Anglo-Saxon feeling seems to reach 1
its height in a more original composition, the Chrisi of
Cynewulf, while the emotional fervoiu* coming with Christi-^
anity is disclosed in Bede's account of the inspiration which
fell upon the cowherd Caedmon, in St. Hilda's monastery

I One may beu in mind that practically all active proielytizing Christianity
of the period was of a monatrif type.

* AJ>. 709* Bisi, Eu, V. 19, where another inttance is abo given; andsee ibid.
V. 7.

s See the pieces in Thorpe's Coitx Excmmuis, e^. the "Supplication," p. 45s.



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i84 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i

of Whitby, to sing the story of creation.^ A pervasive
^monastic atmosphere also surrounds the visions of hell and
' purgatory, which were to continue so typically characteristic
of monastic Christianity.*

What knowledge, sacred and profane, came to the Anglo-
Saxons with Christianity? Quite properly learned were
Augustine and the other organizers of the English Church.
Two generations, after him, the Greek monk Theodore was
sent by the Pope to become Archbishop of Canterbury,
complete Augustine's work and instruct the English monks
and clergy. Theodore was accompanied by his friend
I Hadrian, as learned as himself. Their labours finally estab-

flished Roman Christianity in England. The two drew
vjtbout them a band of students, and formed at Canterbury
a school of sacred learning, where liberal studies were con-
! ducted by these foreigners with a knowledge and intelligence
1, novel in Great Britain. In the north, Benedict Biscop, a
I Northiunbrian, promoted the ends of Roman Catholicism
,and learning by establishing the monasteries of Wearmouth
land Jarrow under the monastic regula of St, Benedict of
Nursia, as modified by the practices of continental monas-
teries in the seventh century. He had been in Italy, and
brought thence many books. It was among these books
that -Bede grew up at Jarrow.

Thus strong currents of Roman ecclesiastidsm and
liberal knowledge reached England. On the other hand,
Irish monastic Christianity had already made its entry in
the south-western part of Great Britain, and with greater
strength established itself in the north, converting multi-
tudes to the Faith and instructing such as would learn. The
'Irish teaching had been eagerly received by those groups
of Anglo-Saxons who henceforth were to prosecute their
studies with the aid of the further knowledge and discipline
brought from the Continent by Theodore. Some of them