CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS--The seven kingdoms, in the ninth century (828), were united under _Egbert_, who became king of Wessex in 802. He was called the king of England. Towards the Celtic Christians the heathen Saxons were hostile. The conversion of the Saxons was due to the labors of _Augustine_ and forty monks, whom _Gregory the Great_ (Gregory I.) sent to the island as missionaries in 597. Their first conversions were in Kent, whose king, _Ethelbert_, had married _Bertha_, the daughter of a Frankish king. Augustine, who had great success, became the first archbishop of _Canterbury_, and he consecrated a bishop of London. During the seventh century the other Saxon kingdoms were gradually converted. _York_ became a seat of a second archbishopric. While Britain had been cut off from close relations with the continent, the Celtic Church there had failed to keep pace with the changes of rite and polity which had taken place among Christians beyond the channel. The consequence was a strife on these points between the converted Saxons, who were devoted to the holy see, and the "Culdees" or Old British Christians. CONVERSION OF THE IRISH.--About the middle of the fifth century the gospel had been planted in Ireland, mainly by the labors of _Patrick_, who had been carried to that country from Scotland by pirates when he was a boy, and had returned to it as a missionary. The cloisters, and the schools connected with them, which he founded, flourished, became nurseries of study as well as of piety, and sent out missionaries to other countries of Western Europe. CHARACTER OF THE TEUTONIC KINGDOMS.--The Teutonic tribe was made up of freemen and of their dependents. The rights of freemen, such as the right to vote, continued; but these were modified as differences of rank and wealth arose. Their leaders in peace and war were the duke (_dux_), the count (_comes_, or _graf_), and the _herzog_ (duke of higher grade) over larger provinces. The companions of the king and the local chiefs grew into a nobility. Once or twice in the year there was a gathering of the freemen in assemblies, to decree war or to sanction laws. Land was partly held in common, partly by individuals either as tenants of the community, or as individual owners. The soil was shared in proportions by the conquerors and the conquered.