Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton.
- George Gordon Coulton
- Date:
- 1947
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
54/842 (page 34)
![Yet, as we shall see, papal power was very great here in our islands, in spite of its basis in custom rather than in law, and the fitful incidence of its claims. We can best see this if we go back here, for a while, to earlier times. The original British Church was comparatively independent of Rome. Its origins are lost in the mists of antiquity: but, when it first comes into the light of history, it differs strongly from the Roman upon two points which to us seem trifling, but to which contemporaries attached so much importance that, sometimes, quite good Christians of the opposing parties refused to sit down to table together or to use each other’s dishes. One was, the precise shape of the clerical tonsure, and the other, the date of Easter. On this latter point Rome herself had been as inconsistent as in the matter of papal elections. In the earliest times, there were con¬ siderable differences in calculation between the Roman and the Eastern Church; the latter calculating Easter on the same prin¬ ciples on which the Jews had calculated for their Passover, while Rome reckoned differently. In 460, however, Rome adopted one of the Eastern principles, though without thus obtaining complete uniformity. In about 530 she made another concession; and this was the state of things when Augustine came to England as missionary from Gregory I. He thus found himself, naturally enough, at variance with the English, Irish and Scottish Churches, which were still calculating by the earlier Roman cycle, and had also introduced a change of their own. The great Celtic missionaries, St Columba, St Columban, St Aidan, and their whole school of Iona, were thus at variance with the Roman use; and Bede notes how, when St Chad was consecrated bishop, “there was but one canonically ordained bishop in the whole of Britain”: only one, that is, whose ordination came from those who followed the orthodox Roman use. Thus, at the court of King Oswy, the bishop was of the Celtic Church, while the queen had brought “a priest of Catholic observance” from her native Kent; “whence it is said to have befallen sometimes that Easter was twice celebrated in one year; for, while the king had dissolved his [Lenten] fast and was celebrating Christ’s Paschal feast, the queen and her followers](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29978579_0054.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
