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to secure his ends.1 The best proof of his capacity is that he should have remained in power for such a long time in that turbulent age. As we have already seen in a previous page (ante, p. 166), he was probably responsible for the murder of Annemundus, the Archbishop of Lyons (ante, p. 167).

In the earlier part of his career he was somewhat restrained by the Queen-Mother Bathildis, who is described as a Jezebel by the biographer of St. Wilfrid, but who was placed in the Calendar by the Church. She founded the famous Abbey of Corbie, and ended her days in the Nunnery of Chelles. Her son, the young Chlothaire II., deprived of her guidance and probably encouraged by Ebroin (who had his own game to play), became exceedingly dissipated, vicious, weak-minded, and eventually insane. In the Gesta Francorum it is reported that he was the first of his race to be driven in an ox wagon, and stories were told of his having broken off the arm of St. Denis and having carried off some silver ornaments from his monastery. On the other hand, he released that monastery from the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Paris, and was a benefactor to several other Brotherhoods." Meanwhile Ebroin dominated the position, and it must be said that in his rough way he protected the interests of the Frank realm.

1" Pro levi offensâ sanguinem nobilium multorum fundebat innoxium."—Vit. Leodegarii (i.e. St. Leger, Bishop of Autun), ch. ii. * See T. R. Buchanan, Dict. of Chr. Biog., i. 583.

CHAPTER V

ST. THEODORE AND THE ENGLISH EPISCOPATE THE COUNCIL OF HERUTFORD AND THE RESULTS OF KING EDWY'S DEATH

We must now revert to Archbishop Theodore, who, after his consecration, departed for England with his companions. They set out from Rome on the 27th of May 668. In his History of the Abbots, written before his greater work, Bede tells us it was Benedict Biscop, who knew English ways and the Anglian language well, who escorted Theodore through France. He says the Pope had persuaded Biscop to give up a contemplated visit to Palestine in order to give the new Archbishop the benefit of his help and guidance, and to act as his interpreter. In his Ecclesiastical History he assigns this office to Hadrian (who would be useless as an interpreter, and knew nothing of Britain), and says nothing of Biscop. The former view seems in every way the more rational. Bede, moreover, adds that Hadrian had already travelled twice in France, which looks as if in his later work Bede had, in fact, mixed the rôles of the two men. He tells us that Hadrian was, moreover, provided with a sufficiency of men of

his own (sufficientesque esset in possessione hominum propriorum). He also more than hints that the Pope had doubts about the orthodoxy of the Eastern monk Theodore, and was afraid he might introduce some Greek notions contrary to the Faith as held at Rome, and that he relied on Hadrian to keep him right in the matter. These doubts were possibly shared by Bede himself. Hadrian, being an African, was no doubt strongly imbued with the views of St. Augustine. Pope Vitalian armed Theodore with letters of commendation. Bede expressly says the party travelled by sea as far as Marseilles and then overland to Arles, where they delivered letters from the Pope to Archbishop John. They were detained by the latter till the major-domo Ebroin gave his permission for them to proceed. Ebroin was then supreme in the Frank realm. He seems to have greatly suspected the motives of the Emperor Constans in his voyage to Italy and his attempt to recover a part of that peninsula, if not the whole of it, from the Lombards. He doubtless thought that the turn of the Franks would come next, and seems to have also seen a sinister purpose in the mission of Theodore, to the prejudice of the kingdom, which at that time was under his especial care (adversus regnum, cujus tunc ipse maximam curam gerebat). It would seem that Theodore with Benedict Biscop now went on to Paris, where they were very kindly received by 1 Bede, op. cit. iv. 1.

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its Bishop, Agilbert, who had himself, as we have seen, been a bishop in England, and knew the country well.

Agilbert entertained Theodore for some time. Hadrian, meanwhile, went first to Sens to pay a visit to its bishop,' and then to Meaux to see Faro or Burgundofaro, Bishop of Meaux (626– 672). Bede explains these delays by the extreme severity of the winter, which compelled the travellers to rest wherever they could.

King Ecgberht of Kent, having heard that the Archbishop whom he had so long expected (nothing is here said of Oswy) was actually in France, sent his præfect Rædfrid to conduct him to England. With Ebroin's leave the latter accompanied him to Quentavic, now called Etaples. There he was for a while indisposed. Having recovered, he sailed for Britain, where he arrived in 669.

2

3

It will be well to realise the condition of the Church in England at the time of Theodore's arrival. The kingdom of Kent was then limited to the modern counties of Kent and perhaps Surrey. The wide extent of country which had been dominated by Æthelberht as over-chief, on the arrival of Augustine had passed out of the control of his family. Sussex, which was still pagan, had a king of its own, and was apparently dominated by Mercia, while the great state of Mercia itself, which had been founded since thelberht's time,

1 Emme or Emmo, Bede, iv. 1 (658–675); Gall. Chris., xii. 9. 2 Vicus ad Quantiam, i.e. the Cauche.

3

Bede, H.E., iv. I.

was now ruled by a Christian king, Wulfhere, who claimed to control the whole country as far as the Thames, including the overlordship of Essex. This included London, which, as we have seen, had reverted to paganism. Cedde, who had been Bishop of the East Saxons for some years, had died of the plague in 664. His death was apparently followed by a short interregnum in the see, during which Essex was conquered by Wulfhere, who proceeded to appoint Wini, the expelled Bishop of Wessex, as Bishop of London. We shall have more to say about Wini presently. The See of Wessex was vacant when Theodore arrived.

In East Anglia, Boniface was still living, although doubtless a very old man, while Wulfhere's bishop in Mercia was Jaruman, already named.1 Northumbria under its "Imperator" Oswy was, of course, by far the most important kingdom in Britain at this period, and overshadowed all the other states there. Oswy's bishop was Chad (Ceadda), who had succeeded Tuda as Bishop of the Northumbrians, and who apparently fixed his seat at York, while Wilfrid, who was Abbot of the two monasteries of Ripon and Hexham, and had been consecrated as a bishop in France, was a prelate without a regular see.

It has been re

Let us now return to Theodore. marked by some that he missed a great opportunity when he did not revert to the great scheme of Pope

1
1 Ante, pp. 223 and 224.

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