42 FOUKTH PEKIOD. A.D. 540 TO 1049.
church was due chiefly to her superior organization, her direct apostolic descent, and the prestige of the Roman empire. It made the Christianity of England independent of politics and court-intrigues, and kept it in close contact with the Christianity of the Continent. The advantages of this connection were greater than the dangers and evils of insular isolation. Among all the Teutonic tribes, the English became the most devoted subjects of the Pope. They sent more pilgrims to Rome and more money into the papal treasury than any other nation. They invented the Peter's Pence. At least thirty of their kings and queens, and an innumerable army of nobles ended their days in cloistral retreats. Nearly all of the public lands were deeded to churches and monasteries. But the exuberance of monasticism weakened the military and physical force of the nation, and facilitated the Danish and the Norman conquests. The power and riches of the church secularized the clergy, and necessitated in due time a reformation. Wealth always tends to vice, and vice to decay. The Norman conquest did not change the ecclesiastical relations of England, but infused new blood and vigor into the Saxon race, which is all the better for its mixed character.
We add a list of the early archbishops and bishops of the four principal English sees, in the order of their foundation : 1
Canterbury. London. Rochester. York.
Augustin 597 Mellitus 604 Justus 604 Paulinus 625
Laurentius 604 [Cedd in Essex 654] Komanus 624 Chad 665
Mellitus 619 Wini 666 Paulinus 633 Wilfrid, — conse-
Justus 624 Erconwald 675 Ithamar 644 crated 665, in
Honorius 627 Waldhere 693 Damian 655 possession 669
Deusdedit 655 Ingwald 704 Putta 669 Bosa 678
Theodore 668 Cwichelm 676 Wilfrid again 686
Brihtwald 693 Gebmund 678 Bosa again 691
Tatwin 731 Tobias 693 John 706
1 From Bright, p. 449, compared with the dates in Haddan and Stubbs, Vol. III.
2 14. THE CONVERSION OF IRELAND. 43
§ 14. The Conversion of Ireland. St. Patrick and St. Bridget. LITERATURE.
I. The writings of ST. PATRICK are printed in the Vitcc Sanctorum of
the Bollandists, sub March 17th ; in PATUICII Opuscula, cd. Warseus (Sir James Ware, Lond., 1656); in Migne's Patrolog., Tom. LIII. 790-839, and with critical notes in Iladdan and Stubbs, Councils, etc., Vol. II, Part II, (1878), pp. 296-323.
II. The Life of St. Patrick in the Ada /Sanctorum, Mart., Torn. II.
517 sqq.
TILLEMONT: Memoires, Tom. XVI. 452, 781. USSIIEII: Brit. Eccl. Antiqu.
J. H. TODD: St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland. Dublin, 1864. C. Jon. GIIEITH (11. C.) : Gcschichte dcr altirischen Kirche und Hirer Vcr-
bindung mit Rom., Gallicn und Alcmannicn, ah Einleitung in die Ge-
schichte des Stiff* St. Gallen. Freiburg i. B. 1867. DANIEL BE VINNE: History of the Irish Primitive Church, together with
the Life of St. Patrick. N. York, 1870. J. FRANCIS SHERMAN (R. C.): Loca Patriciana: an Identification of
Localities, chiefly in Lcinster, visited by St. Patrick. Dublin, 1879. F. E. WARREN (Episc.): The Manuscript Irish Missal at Corpus Christi
College, Oxford. London, l%1§. Ritual of the Celtic Church. Oxf. 1881. Comp. also the works of TODD, McLAUCHLAN, EBRARD, KILLEX,
and SKENE, quoted in \ 7, and FORBES, Kalendars of Scottish Saints,
p. 431.
The church-history of Ireland is peculiar. It began with an independent catholicity (or a sort of semi-Protestantism), and ended with Romanism, while other Western countries passed through the reverse order. Lying outside of the bounds of the Roman empire, and never invaded by Roman legions,1 that vir gin island was Christianized without bloodshed and independently of Rome and of the canons of the recumeiiical synods. The early Irish church differed from the Continental churches in minor points of polity and worship, and yet excelled them all during the sixth and seventh centuries in spiritual purity and missionary zeal. After the Norman conquest, it became closely allied to Rome. In the sixteenth century the light of the Reformation
1 Agricola thought cf invading Ireland, and holding it by a single legion, in order to remove from Britain the dangerous sight of freedom. Tacitus, Ayric., c. 24.