(II.) Middle Age: Era of Submission to the Papacy (6th to 16th century). Up to the 6th century British Christianitj' had been independent of Rome. But at that time Gregorj' the Great determined to seek the fionversion of the English Saxons to Christianity. Ethelbert, king of Kent, had married a Christian wife, Bertha, daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks. She induced her husband to favor Christianity, and thus prepared the way for the mission of Augustine (sent by Gregory), who, with a number of monks, landed in 596. They converted Ethelbert, who was not onlj' king of Kent, but Braitwalda, or chief of the Saxon monarchs. His example was soon followed b}' the kings of Essex and East Anglia, and graduallj' by the other chieftains of England. It is said that 10,000 English were baptized within the year of Augustine's arrival. In 597 Augustine went over to Aries, in France, where he was consecrated by bishop Virgilius, and on his return he became the first bishop of Can- terbury. His see was immediately endowed bj' king Ethelbert, who likewise established the dioceses of Rochester and London. Another portion of the Anglo- Saxons were converted by Aidan and other Scottish missionaries. But the ecclesiastical sj'stem set up by the Roman missionaries was entirely of the Roman t3'pe, which differed from that of the Irish and of the old British Cliurch in various points, e. g. the reckon- ing of Easter, the clerical tonsure, chrism, etc. More important were the questions of the marriage of the clergy and of the papal jurisdiction. Wherever the Romish influence prevailed, the Roman view, of course, was adopted. But Scottish and Irish missionaries were also at work in the kingdom, and up to the 7th century the converts of the latter were probably in the majority. In 664, king Oswy of Northumberland held a conference at Whitby, where Colnian (q. v.) of Lindisfarnc maintained the olil British and Irish views, and Wilfrid (q. v.) took the Boman side. The king was persuaded by Wilfrid (or perhaps by his queen, who was a Romanist), and went over to the Roman party. Colman and all his clergy then went to Ire- land. In 668 the pope sent over Theodore to be pri- mate of England, and under his administration (668- 689) the Roman and British Christians (what remained of them) were fused into one body. See Theodore. But for many ages we hear little of any exercise of jurisdiction by the popes in England : the English bishops and kings did not permit appeals to Rome. When Wilfrid, bishop of Yt)rk, appealed, A.D. 680, against an English synod which had deposed him from his diocese, and obtained a decree in his favor
from the pope, that decree was disregarded in Eng- land, even Theodore himself refusing to obey it. From this ])eriod England was in formal connection with the see of Rome up to the time of the Reformation. A few great names shine amid the general gloom, e. g. Bede (t 735), Alcuin (f 804), king Alfred (f 900). The An- glo-Sa.xon Church, from the time of Alfred, grew more and more Romisii. "At length, from the time of Gregory VII (A.D. 1073), the papal jurisdiction was pushed into England, as it was into other countries ; legates made frequent visits, held councils, exacted subsidies. Appeals, dispensations, mandates, reserves, annates, bulks, and all the other inconveniences of papal usurpation, followed each other in rapid succes- sion ; and for four centuries no country in Europe suf- fered more, and with greater reluctance, than Eng- land. But the popes and the kings of England had, after much disputation, made their agreement, and the Church was their prey" (Palmer, (7A. Jlisfon/, ch. xxii). The Norman Conquest took place A.D. lOGO. From this period, for several centuries, the historj' of Eng- land is full of struggles between the ecclesiastical and roj'al power for supremacy. William the Conqueror refused to acknowledge the pope as his feudal supe- rior, and declared his right to retain in his own hand the investiture of bishops and abbots which the early Saxon kings had possessed. He prohibited the pub- lishing of papal bulls and letters of advice till they had been submitted to and approved of by him ; and, further, he deprived the clergy of the right of excom- municating any of his nobles except with his express permission. On the other hand, "he confirmed by charter a law of Edward the Confessor, granting to the clergy tithe of cattle and profits, in addition to the ancient tithe of produce," and committed a still great- er eiTor in establishing ecclesiastical courts, to which alone clerical persons were thenceforth to be amena- ble. The "spiritual courts" became an enormous power in supporting the Roman domination. In 1076 celibacy was first made imperative on the English clerg3\ "Under Henry Beauclerc a synod met at Westminster, 1102, which passed various reforming measures, the nature of which attests the existing de- pravity and degradation of the Church. This sj'nod prohibited simony, and the pope ruled that lay inves- titure was simony, and on this question a rupture be- tween the pope and the king soon occurred. After a struggle to maintain the rights of investiture, which he had received with the crown, Henry felt himself compelled to relinquish them to the pope, and only got permission from the pope for bishops to do hf.mage to him, if they chose, without being on that account re- moved from their sees. None of the proposed meas- ures of reform accomplished any result. The morals of the clergy were thoroughly relaxed; murder by a person in holy orders was quite a usual occurrence ; against such offenders there was no resort to common law, and ecclesiastical courts rareh^ interfered with them. A case of this kind gave rise to the protracted struggle between Thomas h Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, on the side of the pope, and Henry II. for himself and people" (Eadie, C'/clopa'dia, s. v.). The '-Constitutions of Clarendon" (see Clarendon) were intended to secure the rights of the civil against the ecclesiastical power ; but the resistance of Becket (q. v.), his nnirder, and the repentant fears of the king, caused their spcedj"^ revocation in all the points to which the pope objected. " It was not, however, till the reign of John, when England was laid under an interdict, and the king resigned his crown to the pope, that the i)a])al encroachments rose to their height; and tlic weak reign of Henry III, which followed, did nothing to abate them. Edward I gave a check to the power of the clergy, subjected them to taxation, and passed the statute of mortmain (1279), which pro- hibited the transfer of land without the king's consent. There is little to be said as to innovations in doctrine