← Back to the beginning of Book II, Chapter 2. How Augustine admonished the bishops of the Britons on behalf of Catholic peace, and to that end wrought a heavenly miracle in their presence; and of the vengeance that pursued them for their contempt. [Circ. 603 a.d.]

For afterwards the warlike king of the English, Ethelfrid,9 of whom we have spoken, having raised a mighty army, made a very great slaughter of that heretical nation, at the city of Legions,10 which by the English is called Legacaestir, but by the Britons more rightly Carlegion. Being about to give battle, he observed their priests, who were come together to offer up their prayers to God for the combatants, standing apart in a place of greater safety; he inquired who they were, and what they came together to do in that place. Most of them were of the monastery of Bangor,11 in which, it is said, there was so great a number of monks, that the monastery being divided into seven parts, with a superior set over each, none of those parts contained less than three hundred men, who all lived by the labour of their hands. Many of these, having observed a fast of three days, had come together along with others to pray at the aforesaid battle, having one Brocmail12 for their protector, to defend them, whilst they were intent upon their prayers, against the swords of the barbarians. King Ethelfrid being informed of the occasion of their coming, said, “If then they cry to their God against us, in truth, though they do not bear arms, yet they fight against us, because they assail us with their curses.” He, therefore, commanded them to be attacked first, and then destroyed the rest of the impious army, not without great loss of his own forces. About twelve hundred of those that came to pray are said to have been killed, and only fifty to have escaped by flight. Brocmail, turning his back with his men, at the first approach of the enemy, left those whom he ought to have defended unarmed and exposed to the swords of the assailants. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of the holy Bishop Augustine, though he himself had been long before taken up into the heavenly kingdom, that the heretics should feel the vengeance of temporal death also, because they had despised the offer of eternal salvation.

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Footnotes

  1. The date of the synod is uncertain. It was probably about 602 or 603 a.d., after the arrival of Gregory’s “Responsa.” The “nearest province” must mean what we call South Wales, though it is possible that the Britons of Cornwall were also represented. The scene of the conference has been generally supposed to be Aust, on the Severn, opposite Chepstow, and the name may possibly preserve the memory of Augustine, though more probably it is derived from “Trajectus Augusti” (Haddan and Stubbs). Other possible sites are Malmesbury (Green, “Making of England”), and a spot called “the Oak,” near Cricklade, on the Upper Thames, which would be on the borders of the Hwiccas and West Saxons (v. Plummer, ad loc.). ↩

  2. The Hwiccas were in the present Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, north-west of Wessex. ↩

  3. Cf. especially III, 25, and V, 21. (Other references are: II, 4, 19; III, 3, 4, 26, 29; V, 15, 22.) A full discussion of this involved question is beyond our scope. Readers are referred to Plummer (Excursus on Paschal Controversy), Bright, or Hunt. Here, the point at issue may be briefly stated. It was regarded as essential by the Roman Church that Easter Day should be kept on a Sunday, in the third week of the first month, i.e., the month in which the full moon occurred on or after the vernal equinox. The Celts observed the Feast on Sunday, and were, therefore, not rightly called “Quartodecimans” (the name given to those who observed it on the 14th of the month Nisan, the day of the Jewish Passover, without regard to the day of the week). They differed from the Romans in fixing the vernal equinox at March 25th, instead of March 21st, and in their reckoning of the third week, holding it to be from the 14th to the 20th of the moon inclusive. The Roman Church originally reckoned it from the 16th to the 22nd, but ultimately fixed it from the 15th to the 21st (cf. V, 21, p. 365). There was a further divergence in the “cycles” adopted to ascertain the day in each year on which the Paschal moon would fall. The Celts retained an old cycle of eighty-four years, while the Romans had finally adopted one of nineteen. It is obvious that these differences must necessarily lead to great divergence in practice and consequently serious inconvenience. The real importance of this and the other points of difference, settled afterwards at the Synod of Whitby, lay in the question whether England was to conform to the practice of the Catholic Church, or to isolate herself from it by local peculiarities (cf. the reply of the British to Augustine: “They would do none of those things nor receive him as their archbishop”). ↩

  4. E.g., Consecration of bishops by a single bishop, certain differences of ritual (Gregory’s “Responsa” admit of some latitude in these matters), and the tonsure, which was a more controversial point (cf. III, 26, and V, 21). The Romans shaved only the top of the head, letting the hair grow in the form of a crown. The Celts shaved the whole front of the head from ear to ear, leaving the hair at the back. A third method was the Oriental, which consisted in shaving the whole head (cf. IV, 1). ↩

  5. The place of the second conference is not mentioned. It is generally assumed that it was the same as that of the first. All attempts to determine the names and sees of these bishops rest upon the most uncertain evidence. ↩

  6. Probably Bangor-is-Coed, in Flintshire, from which it appears that North Wales was represented at the second conference. The size and importance of the monastery are inferred by William of Malmesbury, writing in the twelfth century, from the extent of the ruins, which were all that was left of it in his time. ↩

  7. Dunawd, or Dunod; Latin: Donatus (Rhŷs). ↩

  8. It is not known in what way the practice of the British Church differed from that of the Romans in the rite of Baptism. It may have been by the neglect of Confirmation as the completion of Baptism (cf. “compleatis” in the text). Other suggestions are: single immersion (but this was permitted in Spain); the omission of chrism, an omission which was affirmed of the Irish at a later period; some defect in the invocation of the Trinity. This conjecture rests on a canon respecting Baptism established in the English Church from the time of Augustine (quoted by Haddan and Stubbs from a letter of Pope Zacharias to Boniface), which enforces the full invocation. ↩

  9. I, 34. ↩

  10. Chester, the seat of the Twentieth legion. “Legionum civitas, quae nunc simpliciter Cestra vocatur.” (William of Malmesbury.) Cf. note on I, 7, p. 18. The date of the battle cannot be accurately fixed. The “Annales Cambriae” give 613, but it may have been a few years later. Bede only tells us that it was a considerable time after Augustine’s death, which was probably in 604 or 605. ↩

  11. Cf. supra p. 86, note 2. ↩

  12. Nothing certain is known of this Welsh prince. ↩

← Back to the beginning of Book II, Chapter 2. How Augustine admonished the bishops of the Britons on behalf of Catholic peace, and to that end wrought a heavenly miracle in their presence; and of the vengeance that pursued them for their contempt. [Circ. 603 a.d.]