I wish that, limited as my task has been, I could believe that it has been adequately performed. No one can understand the character, or appreciate the claims, of the English Church who has not studied its history from the beginning, and it is hoped that this little book may do something, however small, towards spreading a correct idea of the part that the Church has borne in the progress of the nation, and of the grounds on which its members maintain that it has from the first been a National Church, as regards its inherent life and independent attitude as well as its intimate and peculiar relations with the State. A firm grasp of the position it held during the Middle Ages is necessary to a right understanding of the final rupture with Rome accomplished in the sixteenth century, and will afford a complete safeguard against the vulgar error of regarding the Church as a creation of the State, an institution established by the civil power, and maintained by its bounty. Those who are acquainted with our mediaeval chroniclers will see that I have written from original sources. I have also freely availed myself of the labours of others, and, above all, of the works of Bishop Stubbs, which have been of the greatest assistance to me. CONTENTS. PAGE PREFACE v LISTS OF THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY AND THE BISHOPS AND ARCHBISHOPS OF YORK TO 1377 xiii CHAPTER I. ROME AND IONA. St. Augustin's Mission--Pope Gregory's Scheme of Organization-- Causes of its Failure--Foundation and Overthrow of the See of York--Independent Missions--The See of Lindisfarne--Scottish Christianity--The Schism--The Synod of Whitby--Restoration of the See of York 1 CHAPTER II. ORGANIZATION. Archbishop Theodore--His Work in Organization--New Dioceses-- Wilfrith's Appeals to Rome--Literary Greatness of Northumbria-- Parishes--Tithes--The Church in Wessex--A Third Archbishopric-- The Church in Relation to the State--to Rome--to Western Christendom 15 CHAPTER III. RUIN AND REVIVAL. Ruin of Northumbria--AEthelwulf's Pilgrimage--Danish Invasions of Southern England; the Peace of Wedmore--Alfred's Work-- Character of the Church in the Tenth Century--Reorganization-- Revival--Oda--Dunstan--Seculars and Regulars--Dunstan's Ecclesiastical Administration--Coronations--Dunstan's Last Days--AElfric the Grammarian 34 CHAPTER IV. EXHAUSTION.