town to another-so much so that fifty-two places have been enumerated in England and Wales which have at some time or other been the see of a bishop. It requires a very good knowledge of ancient topography to trace the site of some of these cities. The greater part of one has been washed away by the ocean; and it is possible that the fisherman may now cast his nets where East Anglian priests once chanted the services of their Church ; over others the shepherd and the ploughman unconsciously pursue their calling. In East Anglia were once the sees of Dunmoc (Dunwick) and Elmham; in Wiltshire and Dorset of Sherburn, Wilton and Ramsbury; of Leicester, in the county of that name; in Oxfordshire of Dorchester; in Lincolnshire of Sidnacester; in Sussex of Silsey; in Devon of Crediton; and in Cornwall of Bodmin. The most curious history of Episcopal migration is to be found in the most northern diocese of England. Aidan, a Christian missionary from Iona, selected Lindisfarne for his see. Finan, who succeeded him, built a Church of timber on that island and thatched it with reeds. He was succeeded by Cuthbert, who, dying in the odour of sanctity, was canonized. of Lindisfarne fled from their island home, on account of the incursions of the Danes, bearing with them the body of their sainted Bishop Cuthbert. For seven long years they wandered, seeking a place of safety; then for a time they settled at Chester-le-Street. Another invasion of the Danes drove them to Ripon and, lastly, they gained their permanent resting place at Dunholme, on the banks of the Wear.* "Seven years St. Cuthbert's corpse they bore.

Chester-le-Street and Ripon saw
His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw

After a time the monks

Hailed him with joy and fear;
And, after many wanderings past,
He chose his lordly seat at last,
Where his Cathedral, huge and vast,
Looks down upon the Wear."

* Winkle's Cathedrals, vol. III,p. 68.

The manner in which the Northmen vexed and harried England left its impress on the Saxon Church. To pass a life time in a round of quiet duties was preferred by many to engaging in the turmoils of the camp. The sanctity of hallowed ground was sometimes respected even by semi-barbarous foes. Kings and queens had been the nursing fathers and nursing mothers of the Christian faith: they fled to its precincts for shelter in the hour of danger. Ealdormen and thanes had given so freely of their possessions to support its services, that the strength of the country was consumed in the maintenance of religion rather than in the protection of the bulwarks of the land. This imparted a feebleness to the Church, which was converted into a refuge for the craven and faint-hearted from their barbarous foes. The Norman conquest, which made the life-blood of the whole nation beat more vigorously, added vastly to the importance of the Church. The fear of foreign invasion was removed, the dimness and lethargy of Saxondom was replaced by the energy and mental vigour of the Norman race; England no longer sat solitarya remote and unknown island; her relations with the other countries of Europe were increased; diplomacy may be said to have been introduced. It is true the Church was brought more fully under the subjection of the Roman Pontiff, but the loss of liberty was in a great measure repaid by increased intercourse with cities and universities where learning had long flourished. The laws became more complicated; the great bulk of the nobles were simply men of war, illiterate, destitute of tact or legal knowledge. The administration of the law, therefore, very generally fell to those who had been educated in the schools of the Abbeys and who had assumed the tonsure of a monastic order. Before the Reformation, half the Keepers of the Great Seal were Bishops: amongst the number were Thomas à Becket, William of Wykeham, Cardinal Beaufort, Waynflete and Cardinal Wolsey - the most distinguished statesmen of their times.

The Normans were great builders; and they gave permanence to their religious institutions by the erection of splendid Churches and Abbeys. The migratory character of the Episcopal sees very soon ceased; after the conquest the changes were few and unimportant.

Perhaps I cannot give a better idea of the early Norman Church than by briefly relating the acts and character of Sampson, Abbot of St. Edmundsbury, an able prelate of the latter part of the twelfth century, as I find it portrayed in the quaint and loving words of one who had been his pupil and who took pride in the growing importance of his house. Abbot Sampson was appointed to the rule of the Abbey of St. Edmund's after a long period of neglect and misrule. He at once proceeded to grapple with the debts and disorders of the monastery, to build barns and suitable offices and to survey his manors and the amount of their rent-roll. He obtained from the Pope the right to give Episcopal benediction, also exemption from visitations by the Archbishops of Canterbury. He granted an endowment to a grammar school. He brought home valuable robes and ornaments for the Church, including a copy of the Gospels, which had cost the enormous sum of fourscore marks. He maintained his feudal rights over the fifty-two knights who held the lands of St. Edmund, and he seized the cattle of one who refused to perform his military service. At the siege of Windsor he appeared in armour with his knights and the standard of St. Edmund. By force of arms he broke up the market of Lakenheath, which had been established by the monks of Ely, sending his bailiffs and six hundred armed men for the purpose. He maintained the right of the Abbey to levy toll on those frequenting the fair of St. Edmund. He forbade meetings and wrestlings and shows in the churchyard. He showed hospitality towards travellers and distinguished guests; and at Christmas it was his custom to entertain some of the

burgesses at his own table. He maintained parks, replenished with beasts of chase-keeping a huntsman and dogs; and he made the king a present both of dogs and horses. He quelled a mutiny among the monks-binding the most refractory hand and foot and putting the others on bread and water. He rebuilt part of the Church in a substantial manner and he replaced the shrine of the saint with great magnificence.

His character is thus described by his pupil, Jocelyn of Brakelond" Abbot Sampson was a man remarkably temperate, never slothful, well able and willing to ride or walk, "till old age gained upon him. On hearing the news of the cross being captive and the loss of Jerusalem, he began to use under garments of horse-hair and a horse-hair shirt and to abstain from flesh and flesh meats.

. He abhorred "liars, drunkards and talkative folks. He also much con"demned persons given to murmur at their meat or drink, "particularly monks who were dissatisfied therewith, himself adhering to the uniform course he had practised when a 66 monk. An eloquent man was he, both in French "and Latin, but intent more upon the substance and method "of what was to be said than the style of the words. He "could read English manuscript very critically, and was wont

to preach to the people in English, as well as in the dialect "of Norfolk, where he was born and bred. Wherefore ho "caused a pulpit to be set in the Church, for the use of the "hearers and for the ornament of the Church. The Abbot "also seemed to prefer an active life to one of contemplation "and rather commanded good officials than good monks; "and very seldom approved of any one on account of his "literary acquirements, unless he also possessed sufficient "knowledge of secular matters; and whenever he chanced to "hear that any prelate had resigned his pastoral care and "become an anchorite, he did not praise him for it. He never applauded men of too complying a disposition-saying,

"He who endeavours to please all, ought to please none." "* This portrait gives one the idea that Churchmen in those days were generally much engrossed in secular matters. From the chronicle we learn that the Abbey exercised a very lordly rule over the inhabitants of the town. The sacrist had the control of the prison of the borough. The cellarer (bursar) demanded a penny for every cow sent to pasture on the common and impounded those for which no payment was made. He sent the men of the town to fish for eels; and his licence was required before they could dig for chalk or clay.

It may here be well to point out the difference between the Cathedral and the Abbey. The former was originally served by secular canons, with a bishop at their head, who were allowed to hold private property, and who before the conquest, and, indeed, for some time after, were generally married men; whilst the Abbey was in the hands of the monks of some regular order, who were bound by vows of celibacy and could only hold property for the good of the whole body. Looking back through the vista of several centuries, the difference seems but slight, but then it was looked upon as all im. portant and was the cause of the bitterest rivalry, and of a long continued struggle on the part of the monks and their adherents to obtain possession of the Cathedrals and their ample revenues. At the time of the conquest there were sixteen Cathedrals in England, exclusive of the four in Wales. Of these sixteen, two Cathedrals, Winchester and Worcester, had been in the hands of Benedictine monks since the times of St. Dunstan. Shortly after the conquest monks were substituted for secular canons in Canterbury, Durham and Rochester. The same change was also made in Norwich. Two sees were founded in the twelfth century at Ely and Carlisle, which were both of them associated with monasteries. No further change was made till * Chronicle of Jocelyn of Brakelond.