VII. How the West Saxons received the Word of God by the preaching of Birinus;
and of his successors, Agilbert and Leutherius. [635-670 A. D.]
CHAP. VI. Of King Oswald’s wonderful piety and religion. [635-642 A.D.]
KING OSWALD, with the English nation which he governed, being instructed by the
teaching of this bishop, not only learned to hope for a heavenly kingdom unknown
to his fathers, but also obtained of the one God, Who made heaven and earth, a
greater earthly kingdom than any of his ancestors. In brief, he brought under
his dominion all the nations and provinces of Britain, which are divided into
four languages, to wit, those of the Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the
English. Though raised to that height of regal power, wonderful to relate, he
was always humble, kind, and generous to the poor and to strangers.
To give one instance, it is told, that when he was once sitting at dinner, on
the holy day of Easter, with the aforesaid bishop, and a silver dish full of
royal dainties was set before him, and they were just about to put forth their
hands to bless the bread, the servant, whom he had appointed to relieve the
needy, came in on a sudden, and told the king, that a great multitude of poor
folk from all parts was sitting in the streets begging alms of the king; he
immediately ordered the meat set before him to be carried to the poor, and the
dish to be broken in pieces and divided among them. At which sight, the bishop
who sat by him, greatly rejoicing at such an act of piety, clasped his right
hand and said, "May this hand never decay." This fell out according to his
prayer, for his hands with the arms being cut off from his body, when he was
slain in battle, remain uncorrupted to this day, and are kept in a silver
shrine, as revered relics, in St. Peter’s church in the royal city, which has
taken its name from Bebba, one of its former queens. Through this king’s
exertions the provinces of the Deiri and the Bernicians, which till then had
been at variance, were peacefully united and moulded into one people. He was
nephew to King Edwin through his sister Acha; and it was fit that so great a
predecessor should have in his own family such an one to succeed him in his
religion and sovereignty.
CHAP. VII. How the West Saxons received the Word of God by the preaching of
Birinus; and of his successors, Agilbert and Leutherius. [635-670 A. D.]
AT that time, the West Saxons, formerly called Gewissae,in the reign of
Cynegils,received the faith of Christ, through the preaching of Bishop
Birinus,who came into Britain by the counsel of Pope Honorius ; having promised
in his presence that he would sow the seed of the holy faith in the farthest
inland regions of the English, where no other teacher hadbeen before him.
Hereupon at the bidding of the Pope he received episcopal consecration from
Asterius, bishop of Genoa, but on his arrival in Britain, he first came to the
nation of the Gewissae, and finding all in that place confirmed pagans, he
thought it better to preach the Word there, than to proceed further to seek for
other hearers of his preaching.
Now, as he was spreading the Gospel in the aforesaid province, it happened that
when the king himself, having received instruction as a catechumen, was being
baptized together with his people, Oswald, the most holy and victorious king of
the Northumbrians, being present, received him as he came forth from baptism,
and by an honourable alliance most acceptable to God, first adopted as his son,
thus born again and dedicated to God, the man whose daughterhe was about to
receive in marriage. The two kings gave to the bishop the city called
Dorcic,there to establish his episcopal see; where having built and consecrated
churches, and by his pious labours called many to the Lord, he departed to the
Lord, and was buried in the same city; but many years after, when Haedde was
bishop," he was translated thence to the city of Venta,and laid in the church of
the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul.
When the king died, his son Coinwalch succeeded him on the throne, but refused
to receive the faith and the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom; and not long
after he lost also the dominion of his earthly kingdom; for he put away the
sister of Penda, king of the Mercians, whom he had married, and took another
wife; whereupon a war ensuing, he was by him deprived of his kingdom, and
withdrew to Anna, king of the East Angles, where he lived three years in
banishment, and learned and received the true faith; for the king, with whom he
lived in his banishment, was a good man, and happy in a good and saintly
offspring, as we shall show hereafter.
But when Coinwalch was restored to his kingdom, there came into that province
out of Ireland, a certain bishop called Agilbert, a native of Gaul, but who had
then lived a long time in Ireland, for the purpose of reading the Scriptures. He
attached himself to the king, and voluntarily undertook the ministry of
preaching. The king, observing his learning and industry, desired him to accept
an episcopal see there and remain as the bishop of his people. Agilbert complied
with the request. And presided over that nation as their bishop for many years.
At length the king, who understood only the language of the Saxons, weary of his
barbarous tongue, privately brought into the province another bishop, speaking
his own language, by name Wini,who had also been ordained in Gaul; and dividing
his province into two dioceses, appointed this last his episcopal see in the
city of Venta, by the Saxons called Wintancaestir. (Winchester) Agilbert, being
highly offended, that the king should do this without consulting him, returned
into Gaul, and being made bishop of the city of Paris, died there, being old and
full of days. Not many years after his departure out of Britain, Wini was also
expelled from his bishopric by the same king, and took refuge with Wulfhere,
king of the Mercians, of whom he purchased for money the see of the city of
London,and remained bishop thereof till his death. Thus the province of the West
Saxons continued no small time without a bishop.
During which time, the aforesaid king of that nation, sustaining repeatedly very
great losses in his kingdom from his enemies, at length bethought himself, that
as he had been before expelled from the throne for his unbelief, he had been
restored when he acknowledged the faith of Christ; and he perceived that his
kingdom, being deprived of a bishop, was justly deprived also of the Divine
protection. He, therefore, sent messengers into Gaul to Agilbert, with humble
apologies entreating him to return to the bishopric of his nation. But he
excused himself, and protested that he could not go, because he was bound to the
bishopric of his own city and diocese; notwithstanding, in order to give him
some help in answer to his earnest request, he sent thither in his stead the
priest Leutherius,his nephew, to be ordained as his bishop, if he thought fit,
saying that he thought him worthy of a bishopric. The king and the people
received him honourably, and asked Theodore, then Archbishop of Canterbury, to
consecrate him as their bishop. He was accordingly consecrated in the same city,
and many years diligently governed the whole bishopric of the West Saxons by
synodical authority.
