The Popes and Britain

A History of Rule, Rupture and Reconciliation

Stella Fletcher

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781784534936
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786721563
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

When the British thought of themselves as a Protestant nation their natural enemy was the pope and they adapted their view of history accordingly. In contrast, Rome's perspective was always considerably wider and its view of Britain was almost invariably positive, especially in comparison to medieval emperors, who made and unmade popes, and post-medieval Frenchmen, who treated popes with contempt. As the twenty-first-century papacy looks ever more firmly beyond Europe, this new history examines political, diplomatic and cultural relations between the popes and Britain from their vague origins, through papal overlordship of England, the Reformation and the process of repairing that breach.

CHAPTER 1

I FOLLOW PETER

Othona, the Roman fort near the mouth of the river Blackwater in south-east England, was not built on the firmest of foundations, for much of its site has given way to salt marsh, through which thread so many vein-like watercourses, connecting the land to the wide expanse of the sea. The fort was presumably in military use throughout the fourth century, and its subsequent history is a matter of even greater conjecture, relieved only by Bede's reference to a ‘city called Ythancæstir in the Saxon tongue’.¹ His sources were Northumbrian and his subject is the life of Cedd (Cedda), a monk of Lindisfarne, who was chosen in 654 to be bishop of the East Saxons. At Ythancæstir and Tilaburg (Tilbury) Cedd established Christian communities and introduced as much of the monastic life as his followers were able to appreciate. Bede mentions only one other location in connection with this sphere of Cedd's ministry: Rendlesham, where he baptised Swithhelm, king of the East Saxons (d. 663). Otherwise, he associates Cedd with the foundation of a monastery at Lastingham, in the kingdom of Northumbria, and with the Synod of Whitby in 664. At the synod Cedd's contribution was to mediate between the ‘Ionan’ minority, led by Bishop Colmán of Lindisfarne, and the ‘Roman’ majority, whose position was articulated by Wilfrid, then abbot of Ripon. The principal difference between the two parties concerned detailed computations to determine the date of Easter, though they also differed on the cut of clerical tonsures. According to Bede, Colmán traced the practices of Iona and Lindisfarne back to St John the Evangelist, while Wilfrid argued for the superiority of the Roman tradition deriving from St Peter. Cedd had been educated in the Ionan tradition, but sided with the Romans by the end of the synod: when he made his choice, it was for Rome, St Peter and, by implication, the apostle's papal successors. In doing so his purpose was evidently accomplished, for he died later that year.

Bede provides no dedication for Cedd's church at Ythancæstir, but the only one by which it has been known is that of St Peter-on-the-Wall, from its position on the western wall of the Roman fort. With the fort all but lost, the restored church now stands in serene isolation near the village of Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex. At Rendlesham in Suffolk there are no visible signs of the palace where Cedd baptised Swithhelm, though the parish church, a later building, is dedicated to St Gregory the Great (590–604), the pope who was recognised as the apostle of the English. The Thames estuary at Tilbury may have been the closest that Cedd ever got to Rome, but Bede proved – and later dedications confirm – that his story encapsulates both the the unifying and the polarising contribution of the papacy to the ecclesiastical history of the British Isles.

From the time of St Peter to that of Sylvester I (314–35) Christianity remained a ‘hidden’ religion, so much so that it is not possible to make any firm connections between Christians in the Roman province of Britannia and St Peter's successors in the Eternal City. In this otherwise undocumented void the Liber pontificalis appears to shed a remarkable light by stating that a British king called Lucius wrote to Pope Eleutherius (c. 175–89) requesting acceptance as a Christian.² This statement seemingly gives Britain an exceptionally venerable relationship with the Roman see. The absence of any corroborating evidence of Lucius's very existence was no bar to the story being accepted as fact; it was repeated in numerous subsequent histories and in a wealth of legends. More critical minds may seek satisfaction in the argument that ‘Britium’, a fortress in the kingdom of Edessa, was mistaken for ‘Britannia’, with the unintended consequence that a near-eastern ruler was transformed into one from the far West.³

In one sense Britannia – or, more specifically, Eboracum/York – provided Christendom with its first Christian ruler, for it was there that Constantine was proclaimed emperor in 306, even if he was not baptised until shortly before his death in 337. In the city of Rome Constantine's patronage of the Church meant that what had been hidden suddenly became highly visible, with the foundation of basilical churches in honour of Sts John the Baptist and John the Evangelist (S. Giovanni in Laterano), St Peter (S. Pietro in Vaticano) and St Paul (S. Paolo fuori le Mura), and another to house the relics of the True Cross brought from the Holy Land by the emperor's mother Helena (S. Croce in Gerusalemme). While the popes acquired prominence in Rome, Constantine removed the seat of secular power from that city and founded a second Rome, Constantinople, in the eastern half of his empire.

Whether by land or by sea, Britannia was among the most distant provinces from Constantinople, but there is nevertheless evidence of British participation in ecclesiastical assemblies convened by emperors, including the Council of Sardica (modern Sofia, c. 343) and the Synod of Ariminum (Rimini, 359).⁴ In 314 the bishops of York, London and (possibly) Colchester were among thirty prelates who sent a series of canons from their synod at Arles to Pope Sylvester. The meeting was called to examine an appeal by the Donatist schismatics of Numidia in North Africa. Among the heresies of that era, only Pelagianism was said to have a particular connection with Britain, but it is impossible to confirm the opinion – held by Augustine of Hippo and others – that Pelagius himself was born there. Wealthier Romans appear to have been attracted to this ascetic movement and its teachings about man's potential to contribute to his own salvation, which Augustine countered with a string of works about the unequivocal and unavoidable need for divine grace.

By the time of Celestine I (422–32) the heresy du jour was Nestorianism, and the pope was at the forefront of opposition to Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople. However, in distant Britain, from which the Romans had largely withdrawn, a preacher called Agricola sparked a sudden outbreak of Pelagianism in the 420s. The ‘Chronicle’ compiled by Prosper of Aquitaine, an ardent Augustinian, relates that Pope Celestine was persuaded by a deacon called Palladius to dispatch a Gaulish prelate, Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, to Britain to counter the Pelagians. In this version of events Germanus was Celestine's ‘vicar’, the first papal representative ever sent to the British Isles. The year was 429. On the other hand, Celestine makes no appearance in the later fifth-century life of Germanus by Constantius of Lyon, in whose version Germanus is accompanied on his mission by Lupus, bishop of Troyes. Constantius emphasises the miracles performed by his saintly hero during his time in Britain, but demonstrates no interest in its geography, religious organisation or socio-political structures.⁵ It seems safe to assume that the Pelagians, whose theological arguments appear to have been easily refuted, lived exclusively in the south-east of Britain and that Germanus did not travel very extensively during his mission. The only British location with which he can definitely be associated is Verulamium, for Constantius relates that Germanus and Lupus visited the shrine of the early fourth-century martyr Alban. From the mid fourth century onwards the southern part of Britain suffered assaults by raiding parties from mainland Europe, with forts such as Othona providing some sort of defence as long as the Romans retained a military presence there. Without the Romans fifth-century Britons were all the more vulnerable. The otherwise hagiographic account by Constantius provides an angle on those assaults when it tells of Germanus's contribution to a British military victory over some invading Saxons and their Pictish allies. First he fortified the Britons spiritually by means of baptism. Then he encouraged them to conceal themselves and frighten the enemy by leaping from their hiding places with a loud cry of ‘Hallelujah!’ It worked spectacularly well. Germanus may have paid a second visit to Britain in the 440s, but all the essential features of his mission can be traced to 429.

Prosper of Aquitaine also relates that Palladius, the deacon who apparently facilitated the mission of Germanus to Britain, was sent in 431 as bishop to the Christians in Ireland. As with Germanus, Prosper states that Palladius was the envoy of Pope Celestine, making this the earliest formal connection between Ireland and the papacy. The more westerly island had never been part of the Roman Empire, so there were neither Mediterranean-style settlements to act as episcopal bases nor martyrs celebrated at shrines. On the other hand, there were contacts across the Irish Sea between Roman Britain and Leinster, the eastern part of Ireland, so it seems most likely that Palladius ministered in that region. In the literary tradition initiated by Prosper, his mission was a success. That tradition had no role for St Patrick, the British-born missionary who styled himself ‘bishop in Ireland’ at some unidentifiable point in the fifth century and whose later biographers argued that Palladius must have failed, so that Patrick could succeed in bringing Christianity to the Irish.

Contact with Britain and Ireland was not a priority for the popes between Celestine I and Gregory I (590–604). The islands' populations appear to have slumped in the sub-Roman era, while the invasions of eastern and southern Britain by Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other continental tribes created a particularly fluid situation. As can be seen in the story of the ‘Hallelujah!’ victory, the invaders received support from the Picts, who lived to the north and south of the Grampians. To the west of those mountains the kingdom of Dál Riata united the peoples of the western isles and northern Ireland, and never more obviously than in the travels of the missionary Columba (Colum Cille, d. 597), founder of Iona, Durrow and other monasteries. The success or otherwise of Columba's missions into Pictland is impossible to verify. South of the Pictish kingdom was that of Dumbarton. Further south again, the region between the Antonine Wall and that of Hadrian was invaded from the east by Angles in the sixth century. The western side of this region is associated with Ninian, who lived in the fifth or sixth century and is said by Bede to have received instruction in the Christian faith in Rome, before founding his white-painted church (Candida Casa) at Whithorn.⁶ Between Hadrian's Wall and the Humber was Deira, an Anglian kingdom by c. 600; the sparsely-populated lands further west remained British. South of the Humber, Angles settled in Lindsey, as well as to the west and east of the Fens. East, Middle, South and West Saxons occupied much of southern Britain, while Jutes carved out territories for themselves in Kent, the Isle of Wight and the neighbouring mainland. The south-western peninsula remained British and was known as Dumnonia, while at least half a dozen kingdoms existed in Wales and the Marches by 600, all of them British. At Menevia, in the far west of Wales, St David is said to have established the bishopric which now bears his name. He lived in the sixth century, though the earliest accounts of his life date from a later period.

Demographically, sixth-century Rome was also a shadow of its former self. Politically and militarily, it was at the heart of a peninsula-wide struggle between the Ostrogoths, who had dominated the region for more than a century, and the resurgent power of the Empire under Justinian I (527–65). After Justinian's death imperial authority became limited to the coastal areas of Italy, including the administrative capital at Ravenna, while a new wave of northern invaders, the Lombards, swept through the peninsula and assumed authority from Milan in the north to Benevento in the south. At worst the Lombards were pagans, at best Arian heretics, as the Ostrogothic rulers of Italy had been. In 579/80 Rome was besieged by Lombard forces, causing the pope, Pelagius II (579–90), to seek support from the Frankish king of Gaul, whose dynasty had been keen Catholic Christians since the conversion of Clovis in c. 500. By the time Pope Pelagius was succeeded by Gregory I, flooding and plague added to the general woes of Rome's inhabitants.

These multiple disasters were of no concern to Christians in Britain and Ireland, but what did matter to them were the ecclesiastical structures that had developed in Rome before and since the time of Constantine. The popes ostensibly exercised authority over the metropolitans (archbishops) and bishops of Italy, but the bishops most closely associated with them were those of the suburbicarian sees located around the city of Rome: the bishops of Ostia, Albano, Palestrina, Porto and Velletri acquired liturgical functions at S. Giovanni in Laterano, the pope's cathedral church. Similarly, the priests who ministered at Rome's ‘parish’ churches also had liturgical responsibilities at the city's other major basilicas, but were known by the titles (tituli) of the churches where they were based. Both groups were therefore ‘incardinated’ – inserted – into the basilicas and became known as cardinal bishops and cardinal priests respectively. Of particular significance during the natural (and unnatural) disasters of the later sixth century were the diaconiae, through which charity was dispensed to the poor and needy of Rome. In the 570s one of the city's seven deacons was the future Pope Gregory. As a deacon, his charitable responsibilities drew him from the seclusion of the monastic community he had founded in his family home on Rome's Monte Celio and dedicated to St Peter's brother, Andrew. Other distractions followed, principally service as papal envoy to the imperial court at Constantinople and election to the papal office itself.

Within the Empire Gregory inherited a deteriorating relationship between the Roman popes and the ‘ecumenical’ patriarchs in Constantinople who claimed to exercise a spiritual authority over Christendom in parallel to that of the emperor's secular authority. Closer to home was the pope's responsibility to provide the people of Rome with physical sustenance, together with the practicalities of dealing with the Lombard rulers to both north and south. The division of Italy into Lombard and imperial spheres was paralleled by a schism which saw the patriarch of Aquileia and archbishop of Milan break off communications with Rome. Peninsular challenges to papal authority did not end there, for Ravenna's status as the imperial capital in Italy gave it ecclesiastical pretensions which Gregory sought to check. Thankfully, Gaul was comparatively quiet, unquestionably loyal to Rome and offered potential as a base for missionary work to the north and east, but Iberia provided the great missionary success story of the era: in 587 its Visigothic king converted from Arianism to Catholicism and his kingdom duly followed his example. Like the earliest Christians, Gregory was sure that he could see signs that the second coming of Christ was imminent. If the world ended and there were still unconverted pagans, people of whose existence he was well aware, how would he answer for that before the throne of judgement? Time was short, so was it necessary to preach to non-Christians in order to secure their conversion.

In 596 Gregory dispatched his party of missionary monks from his own community at Monte Celio with letters of recommendation to the Frankish monarchs who were related by marriage to King Æthelberht of Kent.⁷ It was only in the winter of 596/7, when Gregory felt obliged to urge on his somewhat reluctant agents, that Augustine emerged as leader of this group. The pope's next direct involvement in the mission was not until 601, by which time Augustine could report Æthelberht's conversion and Gregory delightedly conveyed news of the mission's apparently miraculous success to his correspondent in Alexandria. A clutch of papal letters was sent northwards in the summer of that year, to King Æthelberht, his consort Bertha, Augustine and others.⁸ Bede relates that Augustine had sent Gregory nine questions on organisational and pastoral matters, to each of which the pope made reply.⁹ A postscript set out Gregory's blueprint for the episcopal structure of the Church in the Anglo-Saxon lands: the major Roman settlements of London and York were to be the seats of metropolitans, with a dozen suffragan bishops in each province. Augustine's personal authority was confirmed by Gregory's gift of a pallium – a white woollen band worn round the shoulders to signify papal or metropolitical authority – and the mission was augmented by another contingent of monks, including Justus, Mellitus and Paulinus.¹⁰ In 604 Augustine began to enact Gregory's plan by consecrating Justus as bishop of Rochester, also in the kingdom of Kent, and Mellitus as bishop of the East Saxons, with his cathedral in London, but Æthelberht ensured that the metropolitan see remained at Canterbury. By the time of Augustine's death later that year the mission could boast a further set of connections with papal Rome: the dedications of its principal churches. The cathedral in Canterbury was named for Christ, the Church's one true foundation, while Gregory's monks lived in the monastery of Sts Peter and Paul, where the first abbot happened to be called Petrus. Gregory's own monastery was recalled when St Andrew received his first insular dedication, at Rochester, and St Paul was chosen for the church in London.

Among the missionaries known personally to Pope Gregory, seven served as bishops: Augustine, Laurence and Mellitus successively at Canterbury, Romanus at Rochester from 624, when Justus was translated to Canterbury, Paulinus as bishop of the Northumbrians in 625 with his see fixed at York in 627, Honorius at Canterbury in 628/31. The last survivors, Paulinus and Honorius, died in 644 and 653 respectively. Of the seven only Mellitus returned to Rome, to attend a papal synod in 610. When Kent and Essex temporarily reverted to paganism a few years later Justus and Mellitus fled to Gaul, but it was the Roman connection that kept Archbishop Laurence at his post, St Peter chastising him ‘with apostolic severity’ in a dream.¹¹ After dedicating his church in York to St Peter and petitioning Pope Honorius I (625–38) to raise his see to metropolitan status, Paulinus suffered a similar reversal when Northumbria reverted to paganism after the death in 633 of its first Christian king. By the time Honorius offered some support by sending a pallium, Paulinus had fled south and been made bishop of Rochester. However, this general reversal was short-lived: before long the rulers of Kent, Essex and Northumbria all returned to the Christian fold.

The fortunes of those various members of the Gregorian mission are vividly related by Bede, whose relatively sketchy information about the south and west of Britain has served to obscure the wider contribution of Pope Honorius to the evangelisation of the Anglo-Saxons. This pontiff sought to develop the mission beyond the Canterbury–York axis by sending another Italian missionary, Birinus, to the Gewisse (West Saxons), though the latter's breakthrough – the baptism of King Cynegils in 635 – was facilitated by King Oswald of Northumbria, who acted as godfather. From his cathedral at Dorchester, in a bend of the Thames, Birinus's mission remained independent from that of the surviving Gregorians. When the faith was introduced into the Mercian heartland in the 650s it was by Northumbrian missionaries from the tradition of Iona and Lindisfarne. The Mercian bishops eventually settled at Lichfield. In the absence of any new influx of missionaries from Rome, it fell to a Burgundian monk, Felix, to serve as bishop of the East Angles from 630/1 to 647/8.

Pope Honorius's interest in this far corner of Christendom extended to Ireland. An Irish delegation travelled to Rome in 631, after which some Irish prelates abandoned their minori...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. I Follow Peter
• 2. Papal Monarchs and their Subjects
• 3. Rome, Capital of the World?
• 4. Of Swords and Roses
• 5. Converging Interests
• 6. ‘God Bless our Pope, the Great, the Good’
• 7. From Hard Choices to Soft Power
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates
• Back Cover