conceptions, made great impreffion on the people c HA P. during feveral ages; and has not even at prefent loft all influence in the catholic countries. HAD this abject fuperftition produced general peace and tranquillity, it had made fome atonement for the ills attending it; but, befides the ufual avidity of men for power and riches, frivolous controverfies in theology, were engendered by it, which were fo much the more fatal, as they admitted not, like the others, of any final determination from established poffeffion. The difputes, excited in Britain, were of the most ridiculous kind, and entirely worthy of thofe ignorant and barbarous ages. There were some intricacies, obferved by all the Chriftian churches, in adjuflting the day of keeping Eafter; which depended on a complicated confideration of the course of the fun and moon: And it happened that the miffionaries, who had converted the Scots and Britons, had followed a different calendar from that which was obferved at Rome, in the age when Auguftine converted the Saxons. The priests also of all the Chriftian churches were accuf tomed to fhave part of their head; but the form given to this tonfure, was different in the former from what was practifed in the latter. The Scots and Britons pleaded the antiquity of their ufages: The Romans, and their difciples, the Saxons, infifted on the univerfality of theirs. That Easter muft neceffarily be kept by a rule, which comprehended both the day of the year and age of the moon, was agreed by all; that the tonfure i. I. 143 CHA P. of a prieft could not be omitted without the utmost impiety, was a point undifputed: But the Romans and Saxons called their antagonists fchifmatics; because they celebrated Eafter on the very day of the full moon in March, if that day fell on a Sunday, instead of waiting till the Sunday following; and because they fhaved the forehead from ear to ear, instead of making that tonfure on the crown of the head, and in a circular form. In order to render their antagonists odious, they affirmed, that, once in seven years, they concurred with the Jews in the time of celebrating that festival "*: And that they might recommend their own form of tonfure, they maintain ed, that it imitated fymbolically the crown of thorns worn by Chrift in his paffion; whereas the other form was invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that reprefentation Thefe controverfies had, from the beginning, excited fuch animofity between the British and Romish priests, that, inftead of concurring in their endeavours to convert the idolatrous Saxons, they refused all communion together, and each regarded his opponent as no better than a Pagan '*. The difpute lafted more than a century; and was at last finished, not by men's discovering the folly of it, which would have been too great an effort for human reafon to accomplish, but by the entire 143 Bede, lib. 2. cap. 19. 344 Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 21. Eddius, § 24. 245 Bede, lib. 2. cap. 2.. 4. 20. Eddius, § 12. 144 145 I. prevalence of the Romish ritual over the Scotch and CHA P. British". Wilfrid, bifhop of Lindisferne, acquired great merit, both with the court of Rome and with all the fouthern Saxons, by expelling the quartodeciman fchifm, as it was called, from the Northumbrian kingdom, into which the neighbourhood of the Scots had formerly introduced it 147 148 THEODORE, archbishop of Canterbury, called, in the year 680, a fynod at Hatfield, confifting of all the bishops in Britain ; where was accepted and ratified the decree of the Lateran council, fummoned by Martin, against the heresy of the Monothelites. The council and fynod maintained, in opposition to these heretics, that, though the divine and human nature in Chrift made but one perfon; yet had they different inclinations, wills, acts, and fentiments, and that the unity of the perfon implied not any unity in the confcioufnefs "". This opinion it feems fomewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with the ecclefiaftical history of thofe ages, could imagine the height of zeal and violence, with which it was then inculcated. The decree of the Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked, abominable. 149 CHAP. and even diabolical, and curfes and anathematizes them to all eternity. I. 150 THE Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them, had admitted the ufe of images; and perhaps, that religion, without fome of those exterior ornaments, had not made fo quick a progrefs with thefe idolaters: But they had not paid any fpecies of worfhip or addrefs to images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians, till it received the fanction of the fecond council of Nice. CHA P. II. 87 Egbert-Ethelwolf - Ethelbald and Ethelbert-Ethered EGBER T. THE Kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though united c H a p. by fo recent a conqueft, feemed to be firmly cemented into one ftate under Egbert; and the inhabitants of the feveral provinces had loft all defire of revolting from that conqueror, or of reftoring their former independent governments. Their language was every where nearly the fame, their customs, laws, inftitutions civil and religious; and as the race of the ancient kings was totally extinct in all the subjected states, the people readily transferred their allegiance to a prince, who feemed to merit it, by the fplendour of his victories, the vigour of his administration, and the fuperior nobility of his birth. An union alfo in government opened to them the agreeable profpect of future tranquillity; and it appeared more probable, that they would thenceforth become formidable to their neighbours, than be expofed to their inroads and devaftations. But thefe flattering views were foon overcast by the appearance of the Danes, II. 827. { |