The English Church was on the best of relations with the various kingdoms with which its dioceses coincided. The bishop sat with the sheriff and alderman in the shire-moot, and was a member of the witena-gemot. The kings and aldermen in the same way took part in the ecclesiastical councils which were convened after the organisation of the ecclesiastical system by Theodore of Tarsus. According to his scheme of reform, a general council of the whole Church was to assemble every August, and he himself presided over two great councils at Hertford and Hatfield. The idea was not carried out after his death with perfect regularity, especially after Archbishop Egbert had successfully asserted the independence of the see of York; still such assemblies were occasionally held, and were of the greatest assistance in developing the idea of national unity. They met at some border town such as Clovesho, an unknown spot near London, where the hostile kings of Mercia, Wessex, Kent, and Essex associating with the bishops, abbots, and occasionally diocesan clergy, learnt to sink their differences, and to realise the greatness of their common interests. Even after the national assemblies had practically resolved themselves into the two provincial synods of Canterbury and York, the comparative unimportance of the northern province frequently invested the proceedings of the southern with a national character. Assemblies of each diocese were also occasionally summoned, which were largely attended by the parish priests, the parish coinciding with the townships in the same way that the diocese coincided with the kingdom or subkingdom. [Illustration: _Typo. Etchin. Co. del. et. sc._ MAP OF ENGLAND SHOWING THE ANGLO-SAXON KINGDOMS AND DANISH DISTRICTS.]