ARCHITECTURAL STYLES IN FORDINGTON CHURCH. 171 



came over here in A.D. 429 to oppose the Pelagian heresy, they 

 preached, we are told, in churches, as well as in fields and 

 highways. 



It is said that not a single building originally designed as a 

 Christian Church in the Anglo-Roman period remains in 

 England, unless the multangular tower at Dover called the 

 Pharos be an exception, or could in reality be called a part of a 

 church. 



In the year 407 the army of the Romans left Britain. The 

 Saxons were called in, in A.D. 447, to repel the Picts and Scots, 

 and they in their turn became formidable enemies, "and after 

 many fluctuating battles and much devastation (according to 

 accounts containing a great deal of mythical history) eventually 

 conquered the country. The Saxons settled down and erected 

 in many places heathen temples to their gods, so that when 

 Augustine came to Britain in 597 he found the remains of a 

 British race and of a Christian people, but the churches were 

 few, and the worshippers in proportion fewer. 



Ethelbert, King of Kent, through his Christian wife Bertha 

 and her tutor Bishop Luidhard, favourably received him and 

 made the way easy, in consequence, for the re-introduction of 

 Christianity under Papal auspices. 



Pope Gregory, who sent Augustine, however, seems to have 

 been a very practical prelate, for, writing to Mellitus (whom he 

 sent with Justus, Paulinus, and Rufinianus), he says : " When 

 "Almighty God shall bring you to the most Reverend Bishop 

 " Augustine, our brother, tell him what I have, upon mature 

 " deliberation on the affair of the English, determined upon, 

 " viz., that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to 

 " be destroyed, but let the idols that are in them be destroyed ; 

 " let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let 

 " altars be erected and relics placed in them. For, if those 

 " temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted 

 " from the worship of devils to the service of the true God," 

 &c. These instructions, no doubt, were carried out in many 

 instances. 



