gland, correcting the prevalent laxity of
discipline and establishing the control of the metropolitan authority. He
went so far as to interfere with the Archbishopric of York, and with the
help of the king attempted to divide it into three sees. He was,
moreover, an enthusiastic scholar, and first diffused the study of Greek
in England. He had brought a copy of Homer with him, and is said to have
established a school of Greek in Canterbury. He died in 690, and after his
death there was no archbishop for three years. In 693, one #Brethwald#, an
English monk, some time Abbot of Reculver, was appointed to the see. The
Saxon Church shows that it had benefited by Theodore's rigorous
discipline, in that it was henceforth able to supply its own archbishops;
it had now securely established itself all over the country, and the last
home of paganism, which, curiously enough, held its own longest in Sussex,
had been finally converted in Theodore's time. Brethwald ruled till 731,
and was followed by #Tatwin# (731-734) and #Nothelm# (734-740). In 740
#Cuthbert# became archbishop. He seems to have been an interesting
personage with a good deal of zeal for reform; he is recorded to have
assembled a synod at Cliff to discuss measures for the improvement of the
lives and behaviour both of clergy and laity. Probably at his instigation
the synod ordained that the Lord's Prayer and the Creed should be taught in
the vulgar tongue; he was the first archbishop buried in the cathedral. He
was succeeded by #Bregwin#, who held the see from 759 to 765. He was an
exception among the series of English primates, being of German origin.
During the rule of the next archbishop, #Jaenbert#, an attempt was made
to transfer the primacy from Canterbury. Offa, the King of Mercia, had
established himself in a position of commanding power, and wishing that
the seat of the chief ecclesiastical authority should be within his own
dominion, obtained a Bull from Pope Adrian I. by which an Archbishop of
Lichfield was created, with a larger see than that of Canterbury. Jaenbert
seems to have acquiesced, though doubtless most unwillingly, in this
arrangement, but in spite of the central situation of Lichfield, the
traditional claims of Canterbury were too strong, and Adulf was the first
and last Archbishop of Lichfield. #Athelard#, who succeeded Jaenbert in
790, had the primacy restored to him. The Northmen began their raids on the
English coasts at this time, and their