Its Connection with Church and State. 107 



Aaron and Julius had been martyred for tlieir belief about 

 A.D. 300 ; representatives from the three Roman-divided pro- 

 vinces of Maxima Csesarensis, Britannia Prima, and Britannia 

 Secunda had taken part in the French Council of Aries, a.d. 

 314, and the religion still held ground in Cumberland, Wales, 

 Devon, and Cornwall, even in these turbulent days of the 

 Saxon invasion. But in the year 597 a.d. the Roman mis- 

 sion headed by St. Augustine landed on Kentish shores. Ethel- 

 bert, the most important of the Saxon chiefs, was converted, 

 and the first bishops of London and Rochester were con- 

 secrated in 604 A.D. This religious expedition from Rome had 

 as beneficial effects on the native manners and customs of 

 Great Britain as any of its warlike precursors. The doctrines 

 of the new faith gradually but surely tamed the savage Saxon 

 blood, which, true to the tribal instincts of race, was con- 

 stantly boiling up into internecine warfare betwixt the various 

 princes of the Heptarchy. At last, Egbert, king of the West 

 Saxons, obtained the mastery; and the new- formed monarchy 

 was able to direct its undivided opposition to the Danish 

 invasion. But this fresh disturbance tended to prolong a 

 condition of savagery which would otherwise have yielded far 

 sooner to the soothing influences of the foreign Christians ; and, 

 as we have already said, it was not till the reign of the Con- 

 fessor that the country settled down into a peaceful condition. 

 But from the outset Church and State were so closely con- 

 nected that it is difficult at first sight to distinguish between 

 the edict of a Witangemote and the canon of a Synod. We 

 have already stated that the Church's dignitaries possessed, 

 ex-officio, seats in the former, and that her abbots owned large 

 allodial properties, which, like other king's Thanes, entitled 

 them to preside over their own courts, from whose judgments 

 there was no appeal, and whose jurisdiction extended even over 

 the life or death of all connected with the property. At first 

 the moneys needed for the erection and repairs of churches, 

 the endowment of bishoprics, the maintenance of the clergy, 

 and the support of the poor, had been collected from voluntary 

 donors. The free gifts and donations of an earlier period 

 gradually grew into a more or less compulsory charge under 



