older cycle of eighty-four years in opposition to the later Dionysian cycle of ninety-five years,
which came into use on the Continent since the middle of the sixth century.^18 They shaved the
fore-part of their head from ear to ear in the form of a crescent, allowing the hair to grow behind,
in imitation of the aureola, instead of shaving, like the Romans, the crown of the head in a circular
form, and leaving a circle of hair, which was to represent the Saviour’s crown of thorns. They had,
moreover—and this was the most important and most irritating difference—become practically
independent of Rome, and transacted their business in councils without referring to the pope, who
began to be regarded on the Continent as the righteous ruler and judge of all Christendom.
From these facts some historians have inferred the Eastern or Greek origin of the old British
church. But there is no evidence whatever of any such connection, unless it be perhaps through the
medium of the neighboring church of Gaul, which was partly planted or moulded by Irenaeus of
Lyons, a pupil of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, and which always maintained a sort of independence of
Rome.
But in the points of dispute just mentioned, the Gallican church at that time agreed with
Rome. Consequently, the peculiarities of the British Christians must be traced to their insular
isolation and long separation from Rome. The Western church on the Continent passed through
some changes in the development of the authority of the papal see, and in the mode of calculating
Easter, until the computation was finally fixed through Dionysius Exiguus in 525. The British,
unacquainted with these changes, adhered to the older independence and to the older customs. They
continued to keep Easter from the 14th of the moon to the 20th. This difference involved a difference
in all the moveable festivals, and created great confusion in England after the conversion of the
Saxons to the Roman rite.
§ 9. The Anglo-Saxons.
Literature.
I. The sources for the planting of Roman Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons are several Letters
of Pope Gregory I. (Epp., Lib. VI. 7, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59; IX. 11, 108; XI. 28, 29, 64,
65, 66, 76; in Migne’s ed. of Gregory’s Opera, Vol. III.; also in Haddan and Stubbs, III. 5 sqq.);
the first and second books of Bede’s Eccles. Hist.; Goscelin’s Life of St. Augustin, written in
the 11th century, and contained in the Acta Sanctorum of May 26th; and Thorne’s Chronicles
of St. Augustine’s Abbey. See also Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc., the 3d vol., which comes
down to a.d. 840.
II. Of modern lives of St. Augustin, we mention Montalembert, Monks of the West, Vol. III.; Dean
Hook, Archbishops of Canterbury, Vol. I., and Dean Stanley, Memorials of Canterbury, 1st
ed., 1855, 9th ed. 1880. Comp. Lit. in Sec. 7.
British Christianity was always a feeble plant, and suffered greatly, from the Anglo-Saxon
conquest and the devastating wars which followed it. With the decline of the Roman power, the
(^18) The British and Irish Christians were stigmatized by their Roman opponents as heretical Quartodecimans (Bede III.
4); but the Eastern Quartodecimans invariably celebrated Easter on the fourteenth day of the month (hence their designation),
whether it fell on a Sunday or not; while the Britons and Irish celebrated it always on a Sunday between the 14th and the 20th
of the month; the Romans between the 15th and 21st. Comp. Skene, l.c. II. 9 sq.; the elaborate discussion of Ebrard, Die,
iro-schott. Missionskirche, 19-77, and Killen, Eccles. Hist. of Ireland, I. 57 sqq.