ECCLESIASTICAL 

 HISTORY 



THE very little that the historian can tell us with regard to the Romano- 

 British church has no special connexion with the Midlands or 

 Northamptonshire.^ But when we come to the Saxon period there 

 is firm historic evidence of the manner in which Christianity 

 was propagated and organized in the districts out of which this county was to 

 be formed. The story of the conversion of the several kingdoms of the Hept- 

 archy, though still somewhat involved, has of late been cleared of a good 

 deal of the mist and myth by which it was surrounded. The same year 

 (597) that witnessed the landing of St. Augustine on the shores of Kent, also 

 witnessed the death of St. Columba, who some thirty-four years previously 

 had left the Isle of Saints for the south of Scotland, there founding the 

 monastery of lona. It was Aidan, a monk of lona, and a band of Irish- 

 Scottish monks who, about 635, founded the monastery of Lindisfarne 

 on this side of the border ; and it was from Lindisfarne that Chris- 

 tianity gradually spread through the north and centre of England. 

 Toward the latter part of his reign, Penda, the ever-warring pagan 

 king of Mercia, associated with himself as ruler his eldest son Peada.' This 

 prince gained the hand of Alfleda, daughter of Oswy, the Christian king of 

 Northumbria, on condition that he and those he ruled should embrace her 

 faith.* Baptized together with his whole retinue by Finan, second bishop of 

 Lindisfarne, Peada turned southwards in 653 with his Christian wife and four 

 priests, Cedd, Adda, Betti (all Angles), and Diuma, to his sub-kingdom of the 

 Middle Angles.^ The missionaries he brought extended their labours also 

 into Mercia proper, without opposition from Penda.* In 656, when Penda 

 was dead, and his whole kingdom subject to Oswy, the aforesaid Diuma, a 

 monk of Lindisfarne, and of Scottish race, was consecrated first bishop of 

 Mercia, and the Middle Angles and Lindsey by Finan.'' This was the 

 beginning of the great Mercian see of Lichfield, the mother of twelve or 

 thirteen other sees. In 658 Diuma was succeeded by Ceollach, also a Scot, 

 and consecrated by Finan ; but in 659 Ceollach ' returned ' to lona and gave 

 place to Trumhere, an Angle of monastic training and consecrated, again, in 



' The authors of this article, while jointly responsible for the accuracy of its statements and its general 

 composition, desire to say that the actual terminology up to the end of page 66 is that of Rev. R. M. Ser- 

 jeantson, and from this point onwards that of Mr. Ryland D. Adkins. 



' Until recently it was common enough in a variety of books of some repute, as well as in popular 

 handbooks, to find reference made to Brixworth church as an example of a Roman basilica, transformed 

 into a Christian church. Precise archaeolog)- however has quite upset this theory, and shows that Brix\vorth 

 is simpU- a remarkable example of the extensive use of Roman materials in a building of later date. 



' liede, E(cl. Hist. lib. iii, cap. 21. * Ibid. ' Ibid. 



* Hunt, Hist, of the Engl. Church a.d. 597-1066, 97. 



' Bede, loc. cit. Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Angt. 2 ; Browne, Conversion of the Heptarchy, 1 13. 



2 I I 



