Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bristol. 277 



call Welsh, that is, the Britons in Wales. It is a very unhistorical 

 supposition. When Aldhelm, in Bede's life time, addressed the 

 Britons, he addressed the Britons of the south-west of our modern 

 England, the very Britons who still occupied considerable parts of 

 that "nearest province of the Britons," whose ecclesiastics Augustine 

 invited to a conference. It was probably not till the first conference 

 had taken place that the Britons of the further or west-central 

 province were called into council by the Britons of the south-west. 

 The Welsh Britons are not referred to in connection with the first 

 of the two conferences, and the reference to them in connection 

 with the second conference seems to me to suggest that they were 

 only then called in. The Britons at the first conference pleaded 

 that they must not come to terms with Augustine without the 

 special license and consent of their people, and they begged for a 

 second conference at which more might be present. Accordingly, 

 there came seven British bishops and a large number of most 

 learned men, chiefly from that very noble monastery called by the 

 English Bancornaburgh, Bangor in Flintshire. My impression is 

 clearly that these had not been present on the former occasion, 

 and that the great point of the second conference was that the 

 Britons of the south-west called in the help and counsel of the 

 Britons of the west, whom we call the Welsh. This is emphasised 

 by the fact that this new body did not know what manner of man 

 Augustine was, and the advice given to them was that they should 

 watch him, to see if he was haughty to them ; whereas it is certain 

 that those who were present at the first interview had taken his 

 measure and formed an estimate of his character. 



I am not at all anxious to tie down the place of the conference 

 to any known locality. It took place at "Augustine's Oak,'"' Bede 

 tells us, a clear indication that it was an open air conference, and 

 not at what we should call a town or village : it was a place 

 without a previous name, just as we should have expected under 

 the conditions. 



As we are in these parts, and as I have endeavoured to bring 

 home to you a sense of the close interest Malmesbury has in the 

 meeting at Augustine's Oak, it is as well to ask if there are still 



