On the whole, it seems, as is natural, that while the British states were in course of formation, the Picts and Scots were able to raid the province with comparative success for some years. About 425 Dathi, Ard-righ (suzerain king) of Ireland, is said, in the Irish annals, to have been slain oversea; and this may have occurred on a raid against the Britons. In 429 Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, who had formerly been ‘Dux’ of Aremorica, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, came to Britain to combat the Pelagian heresy which had sprung up in the island. It is curious that a Church which had so far failed to Christianize the province could produce a heresiarch like Pelagius; but the phenomenon is not by any means unparalleled. Germanus was one of those fine men about whom all that was best of society rallied in those terrible days. One biography of him, written by a Gallic priest, survives; another, probably composed in Britain, is lost, but was known to one of the compilers of the ‘Historia Brittonum.’ Germanus and Lupus met their Pelagian opponents in synod at Verulam. We are told that they worshipped at the tomb of St. Alban; and as this lay outside the walls, it may be considered as certain that the south-east had not been visited by raiders. The sanctity of the spot explains the choice of it as the meeting-place. We might rather have expected London, but it is noteworthy that St. Paul’s is said to have been built on the site, not of a former church, but of a temple of Apollo; and it is possible that London, a great resort of merchants, was rather a stronghold of eclecticism, if not paganism, than of Christianity. The Gallic bishops had other and more mundane work to do before they departed. Some part of the island, probably the north-east, was being wasted by a joint invasion of Picts and ‘Saxons.’ There must have been men in the British levies opposing them who had heard of Germanus as a soldier--officers and men of the old Imperial cohorts--and a message was sent begging the Gallic bishops to join the camp. The point upon which the biographer dwells is naturally the conversion and baptism on the eve of battle of thousands of the pagan peasant soldiers, but we may suspect that the old warrior Germanus was busily engaged as well in drilling and organizing his motley troops. His generalship appears to have been very good; he drew the enemy into a battle on his own chosen ground. The British army was stationed in a valley, the centre in battle array at its head, the wings carefully concealed, thrown forward along both sides. To inspirit the new levies, Germanus gave as the word for the day ‘Alleluia.’