Part 36 (1/2)

THE COUNCIL OF WHITBY (A.D. 664).--With a view to settling the quarrel Oswy, king of Northumbria, called a synod composed of representatives of both parties, at the monastery of Whitby. The chief question of debate, which was argued before the king by the ablest advocates of both Churches, was the proper time for the observance of Easter. Finally Wilfred, the speaker for the Roman party, happening to quote the words of Christ to Peter, ”To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” the king asked the Celtic monks if these words were really spoken by Christ to that apostle, and upon their admitting that they were, Oswy said, ”He being the door-keeper,... I will in all things obey his decrees, lest when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven, there should be none to open them.”

[Footnote: Bede's _Eccl. Hist._ III. 25.]

The decision of the prudent Oswy gave the British Isles to Rome; for not only was all England quickly won to the Roman side, but the Celtic churches and monasteries of Wales and Ireland and Scotland soon came to conform to the Roman standard and custom. ”By the a.s.sistance of our Lord,”

says the pious Latin chronicler, ”the monks were brought to the canonical observation of Easter, and the right mode of the tonsure.”

THE ROMAN VICTORY FORTUNATE FOR ENGLAND.--There is no doubt but that it was very fortunate for England that the controversy turned as it did. For one of the most important of the consequences of the conversion of Britain was the re-establishment of that connection of the island with Roman civilization which had been severed by the calamities of the fifth century. As Green says,--he is speaking of the emba.s.sy of St. Augustine,-- ”The march of the monks as they chanted their solemn litany was in one sense a return of the Roman legions who withdrew at the trumpet call of Alaric.... Practically Augustine's landing renewed that union with the western world which the landing of Hengest had destroyed. The new England was admitted into the older Commonwealth of nations. The civilization, art, letters, which had fled before the sword of the English conquerors returned with the Christian faith.”

Now all this advantage would have been lost had Iona instead of Rome won at Whitby. England would have been isolated from the world, and would have had no part or lot in that rich common life which was destined to the European peoples as co-heirs of the heritage bequeathed to them by the dying empire.

A second valuable result of the Roman victory was the hastening of the political unity of England through its ecclesiastical unity. The Celtic Church, in marked contrast with the Latin, was utterly devoid of capacity for organization. It could have done nothing in the way of developing among the several Anglo-Saxon states the sentiment of nationality. On the other hand, the Roman Church, through the exercise of a central authority, through national synods and general legislation, overcame the isolation of the different kingdoms, and helped powerfully to draw them together into a common political life.

THE CONVERSION OF GERMANY.--The conversion of the tribes of Germany was effected by Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Frankish missionaries,--and the sword of Charlemagne (see p. 406). The great apostle of Germany was the Saxon Winfred, or Winifred, better known as St. Boniface. During a long and intensely active life he founded schools and monasteries, organized churches, preached and baptized; and at last died a martyr's death (A.D.

753).

The christianizing of the tribes of Germany relieved the Teutonic states of Western Europe from the constant peril of ma.s.sacre by their heathen kinsmen, and erected a strong barrier in Central Europe against the advance of the waves of Turanian paganism and Mohammedanism which for centuries beat so threateningly against the eastern frontiers of Germany.

[Footnote: The conversion of Russia dates from about the close of the tenth century. Its evangelization was effected by the missionaries of Constantinople, that is, of the Greek, or Eastern Church. Of the Turanian tribes, only the Hungarians, or Magyars, embraced Christianity. All the other Turanian peoples that appeared on the eastern edge of Europe during the Middle Ages, came as pagan or Moslem enemies.]

CHRISTIANITY IN THE NORTH.--The progress of Christianity in the North was slow: but gradually, during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, the missionaries of the Church won over all the Scandinavian peoples. One important effect of their conversion was the checking of their piratical expeditions, which previously had vexed almost every sh.o.r.e to the south.

By the opening of the fourteenth century all Europe was claimed by Christianity, save a limited district in Southern Spain held by the Moors, and another in the Baltic regions possessed by the still pagan Finns and Lapps.

MONASTICISM.--It was during this very conflict with the barbarians that the Church developed the remarkable inst.i.tution known as Monasticism, which denotes a life of seclusion from the world, with the object of promoting the interests of the soul. The central idea of the system is, that the body is a weight upon the spirit, and that to ”mortify the flesh”

is a prime duty.

The monastic system embraced two prominent cla.s.ses of ascetics: 1.

Hermits, or anchorites, persons who, retiring from the world, lived solitary lives in desolate places; 2. Cen.o.bites, or monks, who formed communities and lived under a common roof.

St. Antony, an Egyptian ascetic, who by his example and influence gave a tremendous impulse to the strange enthusiasm, is called the ”father of the hermits.” The persecutions that arose under the Roman emperors, driving thousands into the deserts, contributed vastly to the movement. The cities of Egypt became almost emptied of their Christian population.

About the close of the fourth century the cen.o.bite system was introduced into Europe, and in an astonis.h.i.+ngly short s.p.a.ce of time spread throughout all the western countries where Christianity had gained a foothold.

Monasteries arose on every side, in the wilds of the desert and in the midst of the crowded city. The number that fled to these retreats was vastly augmented by the disorder and terror attending the invasion of the barbarians and the overthrow of the empire in the West.

With the view of introducing some sort of system and uniformity among the numerous communities, fraternities or a.s.sociations were early organized and spread rapidly. The three essential vows required of their members were poverty, chast.i.ty, and obedience. The most celebrated of these fraternities was the Order of the Benedictines, so called from its founder St. Benedict (A.D. 480-543). This order became immensely popular. At one time it embraced about 40,000 abbeys.

ADVANTAGES OF THE MONASTIC SYSTEM.--The early establishment of the monastic system in the Church resulted in great advantages to the new world that was shaping itself out of the ruins of the old.

The monks became missionaries, and it was largely to their zeal and devotion that the Church owed her speedy and signal victory over the barbarians; they also became teachers, and under the shelter of the monasteries established schools which were the nurseries of learning during the Middle Ages; they became copyists, and with great care and industry gathered and multiplied ancient ma.n.u.scripts, and thus preserved and transmitted to the modern world much cla.s.sical learning and literature that would otherwise have been lost; they became agriculturists, especially the Benedictines, and by skilful labor converted the wilderness about their retreats into fair gardens, thus redeeming from barrenness some of the most desolate districts of Europe; they became further the almoners of the pious and the wealthy, and distributed alms to the poor and needy. Everywhere the monasteries opened their hospitable doors to the weary, the sick, and the discouraged. In a word, these retreats were the inns, the asylums, and the hospitals, mediaeval Europe. Nor should we fail to mention how the asceticism of the monks checked those flagrant social evils that had sapped the strength of the Roman race, and which uncounteracted would have contaminated and weakened the purer peoples of the North; nor how, through its requirements of self-control and self- sacrifice, it gave prominence to the inner life of the spirit.

CONCLUSION.--With a single word or two respecting the general consequences of the conversion to Christianity of the Teutonic tribes, we will close the present chapter.

The adoption of a common faith by the European peoples drew them together into a sort of religious brotherhood, and rendered it possible for the continent to employ its undivided strength, during the succeeding centuries, in staying the threatening progress toward the West of the colossal Mohammedan power of the East. The Christian Church set in the midst of the seething, martial nations and races of Europe an influence that fostered the gentler virtues, and a power that was always to be found on the side of order, and usually of mercy. It taught the brotherhood of man, the essential equality in the sight of G.o.d of the high and the low, and thus pleaded powerfully and at last effectually for the freedom of the slave and the serf. It prepared the way for the introduction among the barbarians of the arts, the literature, and the culture of Rome, and contributed powerfully to hasten the fusion into a single people of the Latins and Teutons, of which important matter we shall treat in the following chapter.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

FUSION OF THE LATIN AND TEUTONIC PEOPLES.