* * * * * When, a hundred and fifty years after the Anglo-Saxon invasion, Gregory the Great undertook the conversion of the islanders, the missionaries whom he despatched under Augustin of course carried with them the views and ideas which then held undisputed sway in Rome. Apparently, however, asceticism found little favor at first with the new converts, rendering it difficult for Augustin to obtain sufficient co-laborers among his disciples, for he applied to Gregory to learn whether he might allow those who could not restrain their passions to marry and yet remain in the ministry. To this Gregory replied evasively, stating, what Augustin already knew, that the lower grades might marry, but making no reference whatever to the higher orders.[382] He apparently did not wish to assume the responsibility of relaxing the rule, while willing perhaps to connive at its suspension in order to encourage the infant Anglican church. If so, the indulgence was but temporary. The attempt has been made to prove that marriage was permitted in the early Saxon church, and support for this supposition has been sought from a clause in the Dooms of King Ina, of which the date is about the year 700, fixing the wer-gild of the son of a bishop. But the rubric of the law shows that it refers rather to a godson;[383] and even if it were not so, we have already seen how often in France, at the same period, the episcopal office was bestowed on eminent or influential laymen, who were obliged on its acceptance to part with their wives. The Magdeburg Centuriators, indeed, describe a council held in London in 712 or 714, by which image-worship was introduced and separation between priests and their wives was decreed,[384] but there is no authority cited, nor is such an assembly elsewhere alluded to, even Cave pronouncing it evidently supposititious.[385]