In truth the antiquities of the Celtic churches may fairly be left to be matter of local or of special ecclesiastical inquiry. Their effect on history is slight; their effect on historical geography is still slighter. For our purpose the ecclesiastical geography of Britain may be looked on as beginning with the mission of Augustine. The English Church was formed, and the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish Churches were reconstructed, partly under its authority, altogether after its model. ♦Schemes of Gregory the Great.♦ In the original scheme of Gregory the Great, Britain was clearly meant to be divided into two ecclesiastical provinces nearly equal in extent. ♦Two equal provinces in Britain.♦ The Celtic churches were to be brought under the same ecclesiastical obedience as the heathen English. As Wales was to form part of the lot of the southern metropolitan, so Scotland was to form part of the lot of the northern. This scheme was never fully carried out. Wales was indeed brought into full submission to Canterbury; but Scotland was never brought into the same full submission to York. ♦Relation of the Scottish Bishops to York.♦ The allegiance of the Scottish sees to their Northumbrian metropolis was at all times very precarious, and it was in the end formally thrown off altogether. ♦Suffragan sees of Canterbury and York.♦ Of this came the singular disproportion in the territorial extent of the two English ecclesiastical provinces. Canterbury, since the English Church was thoroughly organized, has had a number of suffragans which would be unusual anywhere on the continent, while York has always had comparatively few, and for a considerable time had practically one only. ♦Foundation of the existing dioceses.♦ The systematic mapping out of Britain for ecclesiastical purposes, as designed by Gregory, was therefore never fully carried out. The actual provinces and dioceses were gradually formed, as the various English existing kingdoms embraced Christianity. As a rule, each kingdom or independent principality became a diocese. ♦Territorial bishoprics♦ And, except in the case of a few sees fixed in cities which kept on something of old Roman memories, the bishops were more commonly called from the people who formed their flock, than from the cities which in some cases contained their chairs. For in many cases the _bishop-settle_, as our forefathers called it, was not placed in a city at all, but in some rural or even solitary spot. It was not till the time of the Norman Conquest that a movement began for systematically placing the ecclesiastical sees in the chief towns; from that time the civic title altogether displaces the territorial. ♦Canterbury.♦