The Celtic Church and its Missionaries: in Iona, Northumbria, and Mercia

Owing to the defeat of Eadwine, the Roman missionaries for the time being had to confine their work to the south ; but in the north a new influence was to make itself felt. During the Roman occupation, Christianity had been introduced among the Brythonic Celts, and early in the fifth century appears to have been carried from Gaul by St. Patrick to the Gaelic Celts in Ireland. In the years that followed, the Scots, who inhabited the northern part of that island, became the most zealous advocates of the Christian faith, and not content with work at home, sought other fields of labor. St. Columban (died 615) worked in Gaul among the Franks; another and more famous missionary, St. Columba, sometimes called the father of the Scottish nation, went from northern Ireland in 563 to the island of Hii or Iona and began his work in southwestern Scotland. From Iona, where he established a monastery, as a centre, the Celtic monks carried Christianity to their kinsmen, the Picts, and founded the Christian church of Scotland.

IONA CATHEDRAL.

The cathedral in the background to the right dates from the thirteenth century. St. Orans chapel in the middle distance is much older. In the foreground are the tombs of kings of Scotland.

After the overthrow of Eadwine, King Penda extended his power over the north and the south Humbrians, the Middle Anglians, and the Lindissi, thus making Mercia one of the leading tribal kingdoms in the land. But his rule in the west was not to continue long. Oswald, a prince of the Bernician house, who had been converted to Christianity by the Celtic monks, returned to Bernicia in 633, and with a small army, fighting under a Christian banner, defeated Penda's Welsh ally, Cadwalla, and drove Mercians and Welsh out of Bernicia and Deira. He then sent to Iona for a missionary preacher and gave to the saintly Aidan, who came, the island of Lindisfarne. Many other monks came into Northumbria and began the task of converting the people. Simple, humble, devoted to their work, they went out into the country places, carrying comfort into the homes of the Northumbrians of Bernicia and Deira, and preaching the simple doctrine of humility and charity.

But as Penda was still powerful, the struggle between Mercia and Northumbria continued for nine years, and though Oswald fell in 642, his work was taken up by his brother Oswiu, who threw the weight of his influence on the side of Christianity. He defeated Penda in 665 at Winw d, near Leeds, in the last great battle between paganism and the creed of Christ, and became in consequence the most powerful king in England. His authority extended from the Forth and the Clyde through central England to The Wash. In his overlordship of subject kings and peoples he was the strongest king that England had yet seen. For nine years, under Oswiu's protection, Aidan and his missionaries labored and completed the conversion of the Middle Anglians and Mercians as well as of the Northumbrians.

Europe at the death of Justinian 565 A.D.