Its organization like its foundation came from Rome. An
archbishop-designate who was sent to Rome for consecration having died
there, Pope Vitalian in 668 consecrated Theodore of Tarsus as archbishop
of Canterbury. The Scots had no diocesan system, and the English
bishoprics were vast in extent, followed the lines of the kingdoms and
varied with their fortunes. The church had no system of government nor
means of legislation. Theodore united it in obedience to himself,
instituted national synods and subdivided the over-large bishoprics. At
his death, in 690, the English dominions were divided into fourteen
dioceses. Wilfrid, who had become bishop of Northumbria, resisted the
division of his diocese and appealed to the pope. He was imprisoned by
the Northumbrian king and was exiled. While in exile he converted the
South Saxons, and their conversion led to that of the Isle of Wight,
then subject to them, in 686, which completed the evangelization of the
English. After long strife Wilfrid, who was supported by Rome, regained
a part of his former diocese. Theodore also gave the church learning by
establishing a school at Canterbury, where many gained knowledge of the
Scriptures, of Latin and Greek, and other religious and secular
subjects. In the north learning was promoted by Benedict Biscop in the
sister monasteries which he founded at Wearmouth and Jarrow. There Bede
(q.v.) received the learning which he imparted to others. In the year of
Bede's death, 735, one of his disciples, Ecgbert, bishop of York, became
the first archbishop of York, Gregory III. giving him the _pallium_, a
vestment which conferred archiepiscopal authority. He established a
school or university at York, to which scholars came from the continent.
His work as a teacher was carried on by Alcuin, who later brought
learning to the court and Frankish dominions of Charlemagne. The infant
church, following the example of the Irish Scots, showed much missionary
zeal, and English missionaries founded an organized church in Frisia and
laboured on the lower Rhine; two who attempted to preach in the old
Saxon land were martyred. Most famous of all, Winfrid, or St Boniface,
the apostle of Germany, preached to the Frisians, Hessians and
Thuringians, founded bishoprics and monasteries, became the first
archbishop of Mainz, and in 754 was martyred in Frisia. He had many
English helpers, some became bishops, and some were ladies, as Thecla,
abbess of Kitzingen, and Lioba, abbess of Bischofsheim. After his death,
Willehad laboured in Frisia, and later, at the bidding of Charlemagne,
among the Saxons, and became the first bishop of Bremen. Religion,
learning, arts, such as transcription and illumination, flourished in
English monasteries. Yet heathen customs and beliefs lingered on among
the people, and in Bede's time there were many pseudo-monasteries where
men and women made monasticism a cloak for idleness and vice. In the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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