ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Part I — To 1348 VERY little reliable material exists wherewith to reconstruct the history of Christianity in London during the Roman occupation. The remains which show that a flourishing Roman town existed give but few indications of the profession of Christianity among its inhabitants. The evidence is fully discussed in the articles on Roman London in this volume.^ One fact which is almost beyond dispute, the presence of Restitutus ' episcopus de civitate Londonensi ' at the Council of Aries in 314,' seems to prove the existence of an organized church at that time. Beyond this there is a legendary succession of Archbishops of London, beginning with Theanus in the time of King Lucius, and ending with Theonus who fled into Wales in 586. The list was compiled by Jocelin of Furness, a 1 2th-century monk," who apparently wrote in good faith, but some names appear in it through obvious misapprehension, and for others no further evidence of any kind has been found. It is possible that Pope Gregory was influenced by the tradition of an earlier archbishopric when he suggested that London should be made a metropolitan see.^ The continuous history of the Church in London begins with the con- secration of Mellitus by Augustine in 604 ' to preach to the East Saxons,' whose capital at that time was London. Their ruler Sabert, nephew of Ethelbert of Kent, received Christianity through the teaching of Mellitus, and Ethelbert built for him the church of St. Paul as his episcopal seat. But the conversion of London was perhaps too rapid to be thorough. Ethelbert's death in 616 was followed shortly by that of Sabert, and before January 618 Mellitus was expelled from London by the pagan sons of Sabert. They saw the bishop celebrating solemn mass and distributing the Eucharist to the people, and asked why he did not give them the ' whitebread ' as he had given it to their father. Mellitus replied that if they would be baptized they might partake of it ; this, however, they declined, but again demanded the ' See ante. ' Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i, 7. Fastidius, Bishop of the Britons, has sometimes been reckoned a Bishop of London, but there is no evidence for assigning that see to him. Ibid. 16 ; Wharton, Hist, de Epis. Lond. 6. » Hardy, Cat. of Brit. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), i, 64.
- A list is given in Stubbs, Reg. Sacrum Angl. (ed. 2), 214-5. See also Godwin, De Praesulibus, 169 ;
Usher, Antiquitates, 36 ; Lethaby, Lond. before the Conq. 20 et seq. ; Wharton, op. cit. 5. ' Bede, Hist. Eccl. (ed. Plummer), i, 63. There are frequent references to an archiepiscopal sec in London in the 12th and 13th-century chronicles, but they are nearly all derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth. William of Newburgh especially mentions this archbishopric as one of Geoffrey's fictions ; Chron. Steph., Hen. II, and Ric. I (Rolls Ser.), '1, 1 6. Cf account of claim put forth by Gilbert Foliot below. 171
