at Hereford; and the Middle English, at Leicester.  But Theodore’s great work was the establishment of the national synod, in which all the clergy of the various English kingdoms met together as a single people.  This was the first step ever taken towards the unification of England; and the ecclesiastical unity thus preceded and paved the way for the political unity which was to follow it.  Theodore’s organisation brought the whole Church into connection with Rome.  The bishops owing their orders to the Scots conformed or withdrew, and henceforward Rome held undisputed sway.  Before Theodore, all the archbishops of Canterbury and all the bishops of the southern kingdoms had been Roman missionaries; those of the north had been Scots or in Scottish orders.  After Theodore they were all Englishmen in Roman orders.  The native church became thenceforward wholly self-supporting.

Theodore was much aided in his projects by Wilfrith of York, a man of fiery energy and a devoted adherent of the Roman see, who had carried the Roman supremacy at the Synod of Whitby, and who spent a large part of his time in journeys between England and Italy.  His life, by AEddi, forms one of the most important documents for early English history.  In 681 he completed the conversion of England by his preaching to the South Saxons, whom he endeavoured to civilise as well as Christianise.  His monastery of Selsey was built on land granted by the under-king (now a tributary of Wessex), and his first act was to emancipate the slaves whom he found upon the soil.  Equally devoted to Rome was the young Northumbrian noble, who took the religious name of Benedict Biscop.  Benedict became at first an inmate of the Abbey of Lerins, near Cannes.  He afterwards founded two regular Benedictine abbeys on the same model at Wearmouth and Jarrow, and made at least four visits to the papal court, whence he returned laden with manuscripts to introduce Roman learning among his wild Northumbrian countrymen.  He likewise carried over silk robes for sale to the kings in exchange for grants of land; and he brought glaziers from Gaul for his churches.  Jarrow alone contained 500 monks, and possessed endowments of 15,000 acres.

It was under the walls of Jarrow that Baeda himself was born, in the year 672.  Only fifty years had passed since his native Northumbria was still a heathen land.  Not more than forty years had gone since the conversion of Wessex, and Sussex was still given over to the worship of Thunor and Woden.  But Baeda’s own life was one which brought him wholly into connection with Christian teachers and Roman culture.  Left an orphan at the age of seven years, he was handed over to the care of Abbot Benedict, after whose death Abbot Ceolfrid took charge of the young aspirant.  “Thenceforth,” says the aged monk, fifty years later, “I passed all my lifetime in the building of that monastery [Jarrow], and gave all my days to meditating on Scripture.  In the intervals of my regular monastic discipline,