These speculations are manifestly groundless. The celebrated Theodore, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690, in his _Liber Pœnitentialis_, forbids the marriage of the clergy under pain of deposition, and all intercourse with such wives was punished by lifelong penance as laymen; not only were digami ineligible to ordination, but also even those who had kept concubines; and the zeal for purity is carried so far that even baptism performed by priests guilty of fornication was pronounced invalid and had to be repeated—an expression of reprobation which it would be hard to parallel elsewhere in the history of the church.[386] When such were the views of the primate, and such were the laws which he prescribed, we cannot imagine that under his vigorous rule these canons were permitted to be inoperative in a church sufficiently enlightened to produce the learning and piety of men like Bede and St. Aldhelm; where the admiration of virginity was as great as that which finds utterance in the writings of these fathers,[387] and the principles of asceticism were so influential as to lead a powerful monarch like Ina to retire with his queen, Ethelberga, from the throne which he had gloriously filled, to the holy restrictions of a monastic life. Ecgberht, who was Archbishop of York from 732 to 766, is almost equally decisive in his condemnation of priestly irregularities, though he returned to the received doctrine of the church that baptism could not be repeated.[388] It is also probable that even the Britons, who derived their Christianity from the older and purer sources of the primitive church, preserved the rule with equal reverence. At the request of a national council, St. Aldhelm addressed an epistle to the Welsh king, Geruntius, to induce him to reform his church so as to bring it within the pale of Catholic unity. To accomplish this, he argues at length upon the points of difference, discussing the various errors of faith and discipline, such as the shape of the tonsure, the date of Easter, &c., but he is silent with regard to marriage or concubinage.[389] Had the Welsh church been schismatic in this respect, so ardent a celibatarian as Aldhelm would certainly not have omitted all reference to a subject of so much interest to him. The inference is therefore justifiable that no difference of this nature existed.