that of Wearmouth or Jarrow. In the monastery of Lindisfarne, Wilfrid studied the Scottish usages, acquired fame for learning, and committed the Psalter to memory in the version of Jerome. But Rome exercised over him an irresistible fascination. His mind was set towards the Papal city, even during his stay at Canterbury, where once more he learnt the Psalter by heart-this time in the old Italic version, which was adopted there and at Rome. The years 652-8 were spent at Lyons and at Rome in studying the usages, ritual, and discipline, which he laboured all his stormy life to establish in Northern England. In his long conflict against Celtic Christianity, he suffered deposition, exile, imprisonment. But his purpose never wavered. Thrown into prison at Dunbar (circa 681), the bishop was deserted by his spiritual chief, separated from friends and adherents, deprived of all that he possessed except his clothing, robbed even of his precious reliquary, which was the companion of his many journeys. Yet his guards heard the fallen prelate chanting the Psalms as cheerfully as if he were in his own monastery of Ripon or Hexham. His banishments were fruitful in labour. During one, he became the apostle of the Frisians; in another, the missionary of Sussex and the Isle of Wight. The last effort of his old age was the visitation of the monasteries which he had founded. Setting out from Hexham, now the centre of his See, and visiting Ripon on his way, he rode to the Mercian houses in turn. In October 709, he came to Oundle, in Northamptonshire. There he was seized with a fatal illness. Round the dying man gathered the whole community, chanting the Psalms which he had loved so well. As they reached the 30th verse of Ps. civ., When thou lettest Thy breath go forth, they shall be made," his breathing ceased, and his stormy life was ended.

Up and down the country, in England as on the Continent, were scattered monastic institutions-links in the national unity, sanctuaries of religious life, centres of education and civilisation, nurseries of arts and industries, agricultural colonies which drained fens or reclaimed forests, treasuries in which were preserved the riches of ancient learning. Gradually the stern severity of the Celtic discipline yielded

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before the more human spirit of its Italian rival, which hallowed not only manual but intellectual labour. With the Danish invasions there came a check and a recoil. In the North, East, and centre of England, the invaders fell with special fury on the religious communities. They devoured the land like locusts. Fire and sword swept away, in a few hours, the fruits of the patient toil of a century. In the South and West, the defenders, though hard-pressed, held their own. With one signal triumph over the Danes, Saxon legend inseparably associated the Psalms in the person of St. Neot, who every morning said the Psalter through, and every midnight chanted a hundred psalms. The saint died, full of years and honour, among his countrymen. No man of equal sanctity had risen to take his place, when, in 878, King Alfred lay in his tent at Iley, on the eve of the battle of Ethendun. To the king appeared St. Neot, "like an angel of God; his hair white as snow, his raiment white, glistering, and fragrant with the scents of heaven." He promised Alfred victory. "The Lord," he said, "shall be with you; even the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, who giveth victory unto kings" (Ps. xxiv., verse 8). As morning broke, the little band of Saxons fell on Guthrun and the sleeping Danes. So sudden was their onset, that at first they carried all before them. But gradually the tide of battle began to sway. It was turned again in favour of King Alfred, when a majestic figure, whom the Saxons recognised as St. Neot himself, seizing the royal banner, marshalled his countrymen to renewed effort, victory, and pursuit. So, for a time, peace came to the land, and Guthrun and his followers became Christians.

During this life-and-death struggle, it was not strange that morals relaxed, monastic fervour cooled, and heathen practices revived. With Dunstan, the statesman who laboured to unite England under King Edgar, the ecclesiastic who, as Archbishop of Canterbury, strove to revive monastic life-a new spirit was breathed into Church and State. As Abbot of Glastonbury, Dunstan had reformed the community which he governed. But the Benedictine Rule was then imperfectly known to him, and it was only after his exile in Flanders and his sojourn in the monastery

of St. Peter at Ghent (956-57) that he realised its strength. A man of learning, he was attracted by its opportunities for education. To his kindly character it commended itself by its humanity. Himself skilled in music, painting, iron work and embroidery, it appealed to his artistic temperament. Keenly sensitive to the immorality of the times, he valued its example of the separation from all sexual relations. In its uniform adoption, he saw a powerful instrument for the moral reform of Church and State, for the unification and intellectual progress of the nation. Before his death, the Rule was practically universal in England. Almost his last public act was the coronation of Ethelred, in 978, at Kingston. Retiring from affairs of state, he passed his remaining years at Canterbury, occupied in business, in teaching, or the practice of handicrafts, constant in prayer by night and day, delighting in the services of the Church and in psalmody. In May 988, his strength failed him. He had received the Viaticum," and died as he was giving thanks in the words, The merciful and gracious Lord hath so done His marvellous works, that they ought to be had in remembrance. He hath given meat unto them that fear Him" (Ps. cxi., verses 4, 5).

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At the close of the tenth century, the Benedictine Rule had conquered France; it had won Germany and Spain; it was established in England. The vision of Benedict was realised, and the monastic world gathered together under one beam of the sun.

CHAPTER IV

THE MIDDLE AGES

The battle of Vouglé; the Psalms in ecclesiastical or semi-ecclesiastical history (1) the Papacy and the Empire-Charlemagne, Gregory VII. and Henry IV., Anselm and William Rufus, Henry II. and Thomas à Becket, Alexander III. and Frederick Barbarossa; (2) pilgrimages; (3) crusades, Abp. Baldwin, Richard I., Henry V.Abbot Adelme at the Tagus, Cardinal Ximenes, Demetrius of the Don; (4) the religious revival; St. Bernard; Stephen Harding and the Cistercian reform-Citeaux and Fountains Abbey; St. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscans; the Psalms in secular history-William the Conqueror, Vladimir Monomachus, David I. of Scotland, Abelard and Heloïse, St. Louis of France, William Wallace; in mediæval science; in medieval literature-De Imitatione Christi, Divina Commedia, Piers Plowman, The Golden Legend.

As the centuries advance, the Psalms touch human life at points which grow more and more numerous, till the whole circle of thought and action seems to be embraced. Mediæval literature and science, as well as secular and ecclesiastical history, are permeated by their influence.

The strongest of the monarchies which rose on the ruins of the Western Empire was the Frankish Kingdom. Hitherto the youthful nations, whose vigour had scourged the effeminacy of the older world, if Christians at all, had been Arians. But the baptism of Clovis had for the first time arrayed force on the side of orthodox Christianity; alike against heretics, heathen, and Saracens, the Franks were its zealous champions. It was this fact that gave significance to the victory which Clovis won at Vouglé (507) over Alaric II. and his Arian Visigoths.

Blessed by Remy at Rheims, Clovis had marched towards the Loire. Encamping close to Tours, he sent to the church, in which rested the bones of St. Martin, to inquire whether any presage of victory would be vouchsafed to him. As his messengers entered the church, the choir were chanting the

words, “Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle; Thou shalt throw down mine enemies under me. Thou hast made mine enemies also to turn their backs upon me; and I shall destroy them that hate me " (Ps. xviii., verses 39, 40). Encouraged by the omen, Clovis pressed on. A ford over the Vienne was revealed by a deer, and, as he advanced towards Poitiers, a bright gleam, shining from the church of St. Hilary as from a lighthouse, guided the movements of his troops. In the battle of Vouglé, Alaric was killed by the hand of Clovis; the Visigoths fled, and southern Gaul, from the Loire to the Garonne, fell into the hands of the Franks.

From the time of Clovis onwards, the growing power of the Frankish Kingdom had attracted the eyes of successive Popes, who saw in its rulers the destined heirs of the Roman Emperors of the West. The idea of an universal church, whose centre was Rome, rapidly approached its realisation. With it grew up the conception of its necessary counterpart, a conception which was bred partly of memory, partly of hope. The establishment of an universal monarchy in close alliance with the world-wide dominion of the Church, was the vision which fascinated the imagination of the noblest minds. At the head of this Christian commonwealth of nations, in its temporal character, was to stand the emperor; at its head, in its spiritual character, was to stand the Pope. For the realisation of such a vision the ground was already prepared. The spell of the old Empire lay upon the barbarians themselves. Not only were they awe-struck by the stately ceremonial of the Christian religion; they were also impressed with a sense of the sanctity of the emperor, eager to preserve imperial institutions, anxious to perpetuate imperial methods of administration. Decrepit though the Eastern Empire might be, the West was familiarised with. the idea of universal monarchy by the shadowy claims, waning powers, and insecure ascendency of the Byzantine Emperors.

In the eighth century the policy of the Papacy rapidly assumed a definite shape, and the first steps were taken to break the link which still bound the Popes to Byzantium. Already the aid of Pepin had been invoked against invaders; already the Papacy had lent a special sanctity to the corona