60 WESSEX MINSTERS. 



recollection that the system and rules by which this expansion 

 had been worked out in Gaul must have been well known 

 and understood by Augustine of Canterbury and the 

 Missionary Bishops who worked in succeeding years for the 

 conversion of Southern Britain. 



Now the leading feature of this system is that in the large 

 towns, which had been the centres of Roman life and 

 civilisation, a centre was naturally found for the establish- 

 ment of a Christian Bishop with a body of assistant Priests 

 round him. This was in accord with the design of S. Paul, 

 who clearly seems to have aimed at founding the Church 

 firmly in all the great cities, e.g., Ephesus, Corinth, and 

 Thessalonica. From these centres the missionary agent 

 was sent forth from the Bishop's staff to preach and subse- 

 quently to conduct acts of worship in the neighbouring 

 " vici " which were attached to the central " municipium " 

 and also in the " Oratoria " or chapels which were gradually 

 allowed on the estates where the owners had become 

 Christian. 



Now the point which seems specially to arrest our attention 

 is the great care with which the Ministration of the Sacraments 

 of Baptism and Eucharist was always guarded. Properly 

 speaking the Bishop in both cases celebrated them himself 

 and made periodic visits for the purpose, usually at the time 

 of the great Festivals. The places at which these celebra- 

 tions took place were strictly fixed and duly licensed by the 

 Bishop, and his place could only be taken by a Priest 

 authorised and commissioned by him. A further point of 

 much importance is that the technical term used for such 

 appointment of a locality is, that it had the " Ministerium." 

 An idea therefore naturally occurred to one's mind that the 

 towns and villages which bear the suffix of " Minster " were 

 the places where the " Ministerium " was allowed, and that 

 this was the easy derivation of the name. It is of course 

 remarkable that in Britain the old Roman towns, for various 

 reasons, only in a few cases became Christian centres ; but 

 the fact of a centre being established in a town like Sher borne, 



