Neither the Italian nor the Scottish monks were acquainted with the language of the people whom they came to evangelize. Augustine was supplied with interpreters from Gaul: Aidan occasionally employed the services of Oswald himself, who was pleased to explain to his ealdormen and thanes the lessons delivered by the bishop. Both, in their missionary excursions, appear to have pursued the same method. They proceeded from home accompanied by their clergy and servants;2 stayed at appointed stations a competent time to preach, administer baptism, and celebrate their accustomed worship; and, when they had completed the circuit, withdrew again to the retirement of their monasteries. Perhaps, in their circumstances, no better plan could be devised: but it must have been evident that, to produce general and permanent benefit, instead of this desultory method, more frequent opportunities should be offered to the distant inhabitants of hearing the doctrines, and practising the rites, of their religion. Hence the establishment of monasteries became an object of the first import(Monast. Ang. vol. ii. p. 368.) This circumstance alone is sufficient to refute the strange notion of some modern Scottish writers, that the Culdees were a kind of presbyterian ministers, who rejected the authority of bishops, and differed in religious principles from the monks. Goodall has demonstrated from original records that they were the clergy of the cathedral churches who chose the bishop, and whose disputes with the monks regarded contested property, not religious opinions. See preface to Keith's Catalogue of Bishops, p. viii.

1 Bed. iii. c. 3.

2 Omnes, qui cum eo incedebant, sive attonsi, seu laici, aut legendis scripturis aut psalmis discendis, operam dare debebant. Bed. iii. c. 5.

ance with all the apostles of the Saxons. Through the influence and liberality of Ethelbert, Augustine was able to erect one at Rochester, and a second in London, in which he placed bishops as heads of their respective missions: and Birinus, who first preached the gospel in Wessex, is particularly praised for his zeal in "founding and dedicating churches;"2 nor can we doubt that Aidan acted in a similar manner, since we find several monasteries existing in Northumbria shortly after his death. These establishments were so many centres round which the knowledge of the gospel was spread by the labours of their inmates: and history has preserved the names of several among these missionaries celebrated for the success which attended their preaching. Thus Aldhelm, the abbot of Malmsbury, availed himself of his skill on the harp to attract crowds on bridges and at the crossings of roads, that he might thus have an opportunity of addressing them on religious subjects;3 and Boisil and Cuthbert, successively provosts of Melrose, were accustomed, the latter especially, to spend weeks together in the instruction of the peasantry in the wildest districts of Northumbria.4

In this respect it was fortunate that the feelings of the kings corresponded with the views of the missionaries. These princes, after their conversion, were naturally wishful to possess the means of attending at the public worship; and for that purpose established churches in those villas where they chiefly resided:5 and we are warranted in the sup2 Bed. iii. c. 7. 3 Ang. Sac. ii. 4. 5 Bed. i. c. 33; ii. 14, 16; iii. 7.

1 Bed. i. c. 32. 4 Bed. iv. 27.

position that their example was frequently copied by the ealdormen and principal thanes, from the casual mention by Beda of the dedication of a church at South Burton in Yorkshire, built by the ealdorman Puch, and of another at North Burton, built by the ealdorman Addi.' Still such erections proved but an inadequate resource compared with the wants of the people; and we find the same writer, at the distance of one hundred years from the arrival of Aidan, lamenting the spiritual destitution of his countrymen in the less populous districts, and exhorting Archbishop Egbert to ordain a competent number of priests, to be his assistants in the discharge of his duty, whose office it should be "to visit every village, preaching the word of God, consecrating the heavenly mysteries, and administering the sacrament of baptism as often as opportunity might serve."2 If this advice, as is probable, was adopted, there can be little doubt that the services of these itinerants would be gradually exchanged for those of resident ministers.

In many parts of the south the establishment of such ministers had already been accomplished. From the enactments of a provincial council, held at Calcuith, under Archbishop Cuthbert, in 747, two things are plain:-1. That the collegiate and conventual bodies had been induced to erect on their

1 Bed. Hist. v. c. 4, 5.

2 Necessarium satis est, ut plures tibi sacri operis adjutores adsciscas, presbyteros scilicet ordinando, atque instituendo doctores, qui in singulis viculis prædicando Dei verbo, et consecrandis cœlestibus mysteriis, ac maxime peragendis sacri baptismatis officiis, ubi opportunitas ingruerit, insistant. Ep. ad Egbert. tom. ii. 210.

lands churches, which were served by priests under the superiors of those bodies; and that moreover the lands of the lay proprietors had been divided into districts by the bishops, and committed by them to the pastoral care of certain priests. It is impossible not to recognize in these enactments the establishment of parishes, as they first grew out of that state of things which has been already described.

There have, indeed, been writers who have sent us to the laws of the Christian emperors for the origin of this institution. They pretend that Theodore of Canterbury, being a Greek by birth, could not have been ignorant of the Novellæ of Justinian; and that, in conformity with the provision in that collection, to encourage the building of churches, he held out the right of patronage as an inducement to the founders.3 But this is nothing better than conjecture, founded on no authority whatsoever. Had the Anglo-Saxon been the only church

That such priests were resident in their districts will follow from their being ordered oratorii domum, et cuncta ad cultum ipsius pertinentia sub sua cura conservare, missarum celebrationi, psalmisque canendis invigilare, &c. Can. 8; Spelm. 247.

2 Ut presbyteri per loca et regiones laicorum, quæ sibi ab episcopis provinciæ insinuata et juncta sunt, evangelicæ et apostolicæ prædicationis officium diligenti cura studeant implere. Can. 9, p. 248. These districts allotted to priests were called priestshires, shriftshires, and kirkshires, from the Anglo-Saxon word scire, a division or district. The word parish denoted at that time the more extensive diocese of the bishop; though in the following pages it is used, in accordance with modern practice, for the district intrusted to the priest.

3 Soames, Anglo-Saxon Church, 2, 4, 85.

in which parishes existed, it might have been allowable to frame a fanciful theory in order to explain a singular phenomenon: but in every missionary country, both in the east and the west, the bishop, in proportion as Christianity penetrated to a distance from the city, considered it his duty to provide the means of instruction and worship for the rural population: and this of necessity led everywhere to the division of the country into small ecclesiastical districts, in each of which, as circumstances would permit, a church has been built and a resident minister appointed. In England it was so before the council of Calcuith, and continued to be so afterwards. Each year added to the number of these sacred edifices: and worldly as well as religious motives concurred to their erection, till at last the existence of a church on the lands of a proprietor became a necessary qualification for elevation to the rank of thane.2

As the first district churches were built on the

1 This is expressly stated by Alcuin in his narrative of the conversions made by St. Willibrord -Cœperunt plurimi fidei fervore incitati, patrimonia sua viro Dei offerre. Quibus ille acceptis, mox ecclesias in illis ædificari jussit, statuitque per eas singulos presbyteros, et verbi Dei sibi cooperatores, quatenus novus Dei populus haberet, quo se diebus festis congregaret, vel salutares audiret admonitiones, vel a quibus sacri baptismatis munera acciperet, et Christianæ religionis regulas edisceret. Alc. Oper. ii. 188. He distinguishes these churches from monasteries: Ecclesias per singula loca construxerat, Deo famulantium congregationes aliquibus adunavit in locis. Id. 186.

2 Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes, i. 190. The authority also mentions a bell-house, which has been taken to mean a belfry, annexed to the church; but, as it comes after the kitchen, I take it to have meant part of the thane's secular establishment.