An introduction to the study of the Middle Ages (375-814) / by Ephraim Emerton.

  • Emerton, Ephraim, 1851-1935.
Date:
[1888], ©1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to the study of the Middle Ages (375-814) / by Ephraim Emerton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    144/320 (page 110)
    of reaching an end which we should try to reach by other means. One event of Gregory's papacy is especially impor- „ . . tantforus, — the conversion of England. To Conversion of ° the Anglo- understand this we shall have to go back pretty far and see how things were in Eng- land before Gregory's time. You will remember that the earliest inhabitants of Great Britain about whom ■o we know anything were Kelts, a race differ- Roman occn- J o pation of ent from any of those with which we have thus far had to do. These Kelts had been partially conquered about fifty years before Christ by the Romans under Julius Caesar, and a Roman govern- ment had been set up over a great part of England. But Romans had never gone to England in any great num- bers, and the great body of the population had remained Keltic or British, living under a Roman military gov- ernment but not very much changed in any way by it. This Roman occupation went on until the 411. year after Alaric had sacked the city of Rome, when the legions had been called away from England to defend Italy, and the British Kelts had been left to themselves. Long, long before this time, no one knows exactly Beginnings of wneu or exactly how, Christianity had taken the British a strong hold in Britain. It may have come through Roman soldiers or Roman traders, but the one thing that is fairly clear about it is, that it did not come from the city of Rome itself. It orew especially in the western part of England, in Ireland, and in Scotland. The greatest progress was made here during the fifth century. The famous St. Patrick is