porch. The style was primitive Romanesque, not Norman. At least, this is the case with St. Laurence at Bradford-by-Avon, which William of Malmesbury believed to be the genuine work of Ealdhelm, and whose continued existence to the present day enabled Mr. Freeman to make the assertions I have here derived from him concerning the architecture of the late seventh and eighth centuries. This little building, at Bradford, this ecclesiola (it is less than forty feet long). is as precious as a gem. "It is the one perfect surviving Old-English church in the land. The ground plan is absolutely untouched, and there are no mediæval insertions at all. So perfect a specimen of Primitive Romanesque is certainly unique in England, we should not be surprised if it is unique of its own kind in Europe."1

As to embroidery, it was developed to a high excellence in the female monasteries, not only for the sacred vestments both of altar and priest, but also by the womanly desire to make a show of gorgeous garments. Baeda thought the divine wrath would fall on the nuns of Coldingham, because "Texendis subtilioribus indumentis operam dant"; Boniface denounced this luxury; Ealdhelm warned his sisters against it; the council of Clovesho in 747 prescribed that the nuns should revert to the ancient and simple robes, and the monks give up the fashionable gartering of their legs.2

The art of glass-making, of glazing the windows of churches, the Roman and Gallican arts of gold embroidery and of gold work in lofty rood and chalice, pyx, missal, and crosier, were soon established in England, and added their fresh impulse to that ancient English art of gold web and golden smithery which, influenced by Celtic art as well as by Roman, nevertheless kept its own spirit and worked from its own invention. Gregory's Bible at St. Augustine's, Canterbury, had leaves. inserted in it at the beginning, "some of a purple, others of a rose colour, which, held against the light, showed a wonderful reflection. There is also a Psalter, having on its exterior the

1 See English Towns, E. A. Freeman, pp. 134, etc.

2 This Synod discloses the other side of the monastic life. It was not all glittering gold. Pagan observances still prevailed in the country places; the clergy are warned against obscene conversation and drunkenness; the monasteries were to be looked after lest they become full of ludicrous arts, versifiers, harpers, and buffoons; the nunneries not places of junketing and luxury. Baeda, Alcuin, Wilfrid, all protest to the same tune. In fact, many of the monasteries, with lay priors, were like pleasant country-houses, and ended by becoming mere resorts of idleness and dissipation (Hook's Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. i. p. 276). And no one can read the scattered allusions to the courts of Ethelbald and Offa, which no doubt had many parallels, without knowing how much morality and simplicity suffered at the courts of kings.

figure of Christ in silver, with the four evangelists. Another book, placed on the high altar, has on it a figure of Christ in silver, erect and blessing with His right hand. Another is ornamented with the rays of the Divine Majesty in silver gilt, set round with crystals and beryls. Another has on its cover

a single large beryl, set round on all sides with crystals." This Roman work started work of the same kind in England, and was soon equalled, if not excelled. The binding and illumination of books soon became of national importance. The cover of the Lindisfarne Gospels is entirely English design and work, and it is only one example out of many. Even painting, perhaps mosaic, followed Benedict Biscop from Rome; and Wearmouth, apse and walls, shone with the precise ascetic figures of the Virgin, the apostles and prophets, with the stories of the Gospel and the imagery of the book of Revelation.

This quiet monastic life, with its musical services, its literature, its gold-embroidered work, its rich ecclesiastical furniture, its books, is not quite unrecorded in English literature. There are passages in the poems of Cynewulf which bring portions of it vividly before our eyes. In his riddles on the sacramental paten or the chalice and the pyx, we are placed in the church; we see the priest "turning and changing the golden ring (perhaps the wafer) round and round;" and the people, "wise in spirit, watching it in mind; praying and naming it the saviour of those who do well; also the ring has glorious wounds in it which speak aloud to men" (Riddle lx.). We see the pyx of red gold held up before the congregation, and though tongueless, it spoke well and cried for men, "Save me, helper of souls!" Mysterious was its speech, its charm; let men bethink them of it (Riddle xlix.). Then we are brought into the monastery. There, in the cell, is the book-chest (Riddle 1.) "standing firm on the ground, deaf itself and dumb and witless, that swallows things more costly than gold." We watch the "dark and swarthy-faced thegn (some Celtic noble) stowing away under its lid manuscripts that kings and queens desire." There, too, we see the missal or a Bible codex in the library, and trace the parchment from the skin to its illumination and its binding. It is "dipped in water, set in the sun, stripped of its hairs, cut with a knife, ground down with cinders, folded with fingers. Then the delight of the bird (the wing feather- the pen) wandered o'er my dusky surface when it had sprinkled me with healing water (this refers to the illuminations which preceded the writing). Then the wing swallowed the dye of a tree mixed with water

(the ink) and stepped over me, leaving black marks behind. Afterwards men covered me with protecting boards, drew a skin round me, decked me with gold, adorned me with the fair work of smiths, encased me with (gold and silver) wire; and my ornaments and my red purple, and the glorious possessions in me are famous far and wide. Shield I am to nations, if the children of men will use me. I helpful to men; great is my name; healing to heroes and I myself holy!" And lastly, we see the monk wonder-stricken to find the moth eating his books. ""Tis a marvellous wyrd," he thinks, "that a worm should devour the speech of men, and that this thief in the dark, this robber-guest, should be no whit the wiser for his eating."

When we pass from the arts as ministers of literature in the monasteries, and return to the influence of monasticism upon literature, we find that its indirect influence was very great on the variety and the development of letters. The great extension of the seventh and eighth century monachism and its corporate union spread the literature of each monastery to the others. Books and unique manuscripts were naturally exchanged between connected monasteries, and the copying of these was part of the employment of the monks and of the literary hacks at the court of kings. That which belonged to one, it was felt, ought to belong to all. Irish monks borrow books from Ealdhelm; he himself sends his treatise on Versification to Aldfrith, the King of Northumbria, and dedicates his Praise of Virginity to the learned nuns of Barking. Baeda and Acca, Boniface and Ecgberht interchanged books, and these are only two instances out of a multitude which might be given. Even between the nunneries and scholars there was, as we have seen, an interchange of literature, of manuscripts, of criticism.

Baeda's friendship with Trumbert and Sigfrid, with Acca and Benedict Biscop, with the men of Canterbury, enabled him to master the learning of the Irish, the Roman, the Gallican, and the Canterbury Schools. The account he gives of the authorities he used for his Ecclesiastical History illustrates this literary interchange still further. It was Albinus the abbot, educated by Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury, who persuaded him to write the book, and who sent him through Nothelm (who also gathered materials for him in the archives of Rome) all his information about the Church in Kent and the adjacent parts. He speaks of consulting all the writings of his predecessors. Daniel, Bishop of the West Saxons, sent

him materials for the history of the West and South Saxons and of the Isle of Wight. His story of Christianity in the province of Mercia and among the East Saxons was gained from the brethren of Lastingham. The writings and traditions of " our ancestors," and the relation of Abbot Esius informed him concerning the East Angles, and letters from Cunibert, Bishop of Sidnacester in Lincoln, told him of the sacerdotal succession in the province of Lindsey. All he wrote about Cuthbert was taken from the records kept at Lindisfarne. It is plain there was a literary intercommunion over the whole of England at the time of Baeda, and this was due to the corporate brotherhood of the monasteries.

Nor did this interchange of learning and discussion exist only within the bounds of England. One of the chief advantages which Roman monasticism brought to literature was that it opened out communication with the Continent, and increased thereby the means of literature. England extended its arms beyond itself. Every one has heard of the incessant movement to and fro of English and Irish scholars in the seventh century, and I need not dwell upon it. In the first half of the same century we know from Baeda that the intercommunion between Gaul and England was frequent; "Many fared, since few monasteries were as yet established among the Angles, to the monasteries of the Gauls, and they also sent their daughters to be there instructed;" and the story of the schools set up by Sigeberht of East Anglia on the model of those he had seen in Gaul, goes to prove this intercommunion. This was still further developed when the voyaging to Rome through Gaul began. Ireland then and Gaul, two different nations of distinct types, added at least some of their elements to the rise of literature in England, and did this through monasticism. Then also, through the same channel, the mighty influence of Rome-so many traces of whose ancient greatness the English saw in their own land with awe and curiosity-bore not only on the bishops who felt themselves in union with a greater tradition than that of their own nation, and members of a universal power; but also on the whole crowd of English clergy, secular and regular; on the women of rank and the nuns who cared for letters; on the kings and nobles, who, weary of war and turmoil, sought the monastic shades in England or in Rome.

This communication with the Continent, with the new ideas it brought into all the spheres of intellectual labour, was largely increased by the craze for pilgrimage which seized on England.

Kings shared in it; Caedwalla, Coenred, the East Saxon Offa, Ine and others took their journey to Rome. "Noble and ignoble," says Baeda, "laymen and clerics, men and women, outdid one another" in eagerness. Through Gaul, over the Alps, down through Italy, and over divers paths and provinces, the pilgrims went, enlarging that knowledge and quickness of reception which give men interest in literature and desire to make it; seeing men and cities different from their own, having adventures, touching many divers peoples and manners, becoming conscious of a larger world- things which add new materials to the feelings and thoughts, which are the roots of literature. The English missionaries, on the other hand, under Willibrord at the end of the seventh century, and under Boniface in the beginning of the eighth, converted Friesland and Germany, brought Englishmen into touch with folk related to themselves, re-animated and strengthened in this way their original temper of soul; and carried the fresh rough impulse and the new interests of the Franks into England.

The conversion of Friesland and the Saxon realms by Englishmen had, it is believed, a much larger influence on our literature than was till lately suspected, and there are theories which connect portions of the "Caedmon poems" with old Saxony. The closer bond with the Franks which arose from Charles Martel's sympathy with the mission work of Boniface continued after his death, and the literary connections between England and the great kingdom which was growing into the empire became extensive and important. This was one reason of the far-reaching influence of the School of York. Nor must we forget, though it is not directly connected with monasticism, that Charles the Great was in constant correspondence with English kings and with the seat of learning in York, at a time when he was collecting into a series, now unfortunately lost, the old war-sagas and the adventurous tales of the Germanic nations.

Monasticism, out of which many of these missions grew, and in extending which many of them ended, was thus one of the roots of the closer connection of England with Rome, Germany, and Gaul; and this connection added no slight impulse in various ways to the literary development of England in the eighth century. It was unfortunate that this impulse tended to weaken or to destroy vernacular literature, and to replace it by Latin; and it was characteristic of the national genius of Elfred that he felt this misfortune, and strove to remedy it. It was still more unfortunate, if anything