whiche contencion continued a longe season, betwixt these ii. churches, & was often renued in þ^e dayes of diuers kinges after this: as in the reign of Henry the first, betwixt Thurstinus of York, & Radolph⁹ of Cāterbury. And again in þ^e xxvii yeare of the said kinge, at his second coronation for Radolphus wold not suffer the first coronation to stand, because it was doon by the bishop of Yorke, without his assent. Also in the reygne of henry the secōd, where Alexander Pope made a letter decretall betwixte these two metropolites, for bearing the cros, An. M. CLix. Also an other time, in the reigne of the said king, betwixt Richard of Canterbury, & Roger of york: againe about the yeare of the Lord, MClxx. when Thomas Becket, hearing the kinge to be crouned of Roger bishop of Yorke, complained therof greuously to Pope Alexander the third. Item an other time An. M. Clxxvi. Betwixt Richard, and the said Roger, whether of them shuld sit on the right hand of the Cardinal Hugo, in his councel at London. Moreouer in the beginning of the reign of king Richard An. M. Cxc. betwixt Baldwinus of Canterbury, & Godfridus of York. &c.

So this vayne contention beginning first betwixt Lanfrank, and Thomas thus long continued and yet longer, in these ii. churches. Nowe what allegations & priuileges were brought on both sides it shal not be out of the history (þ^e lord so permitting) brefly to touch. But first to make þ^e matter more plain, we will declare þ^e originall of these ii. churches howe they came to be metropolitane: & then what order was set betwixt thē.

MarginaliaLucius the first king of Britanny ChristenedTHe Britanes firste possessioners of this kingdō of Britane, whiche endured frō Brutus to Cadwalader, 2076. yeares vnder an hūdreth &. ii. kings, at length reccaued the christian faith An. Clxii. in the time of Lucius their king. Eleutherius bishop of Rome, sending Faganus & Dumanus, prechers vnto thē, at which time after their conuersion,MarginaliaTheonus first archebishop of London.they assigned & ordeined in the realm. xxviii. bishops with ii. archbishops Theonus the archbishop of London, & thadeoceus archbishop of Yorke, vnder those bishops & archbishops þ^e church of Britain was gouerned, after their conuersiō, almost. 300 yeares, til at length MarginaliaEx Chronico. Sigeber.the Saxones being then infidels, with Hengistus their kinge, subdued the Britans by fraudulent murder, & inuaded their land: which was about the yere of the lorde. 440 After this the Britans being driuen into Cambria (whiche we now call Wales) the Saxones ouerrunning the lande, deuided them selues into v. or. vi. kingdoms, of Kent, Estsaxe, south Saxe west Saxe, Mercia, and Northumbria. And so being infidels and pagans continued, till the time that Gregory bishop of Rome, sent Augustinus,to preach vnto them, which Austen cōming first to MarginaliaDouer the head citie of kent.Douer, being then the head citie of Kent, and there planting him self, conuerted first the kinge of Kent, called Edilbertus who had then subdued certayne other kings vnto humber, by reason wherof MarginaliaThis was about 150 yeres after the cōming in of Saxones.Augustine was made archbishop of Douer, by the apoyntment of Gregorius, who sent him certaine Palles, with this letter frō Rome.

¶ The copi of the epistle of Gregory sent to Augustinus in England.  

Commentary     Close

Gregory the Great and his epistle

On the issue of the papal title, Foxe's arguments were sharpened by the observation which he had found in Erasmus' letters, to the effect that the papal title 'Summis orbis pontifex' was not to be found in any of the writings from the church before 608AD. In 1570, he also concentrated his attention on one of the famous epistles of Gregory the Great to John, Archbishop of Constantinople, and how the allusion in it to being 'universal bishop' had been misconstrued. Further work is needed on Foxe's use of the epistles of Gregory in this book, including the one that he initially included in the section of the narrative in the 1563 edition (pp. 18-20) on 'The first originall of the ii. metropolitane churches of Canterbury & York. And the vaine contention betwixte the same'. Most of this section was, in fact, abandoned in the 1570 edition, although the letter from Gregory the Great to Augustine which it contains was reworked into a later section of book III.

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Mark Greengrass and Matthew Phillpott
University of Sheffield

REuerendissimo et sanctissi. fratri Augustino coepiscopo, Gregorius seruus seruorū Dei. Cū certū sit, pro omnipotente deo laborantibus ineffabilia ætetni regis præmia reseruari: nobis tamen, eis necesse est bonorū beneficia tribuere, vt in spiritualis operis studio ex remuneratione valeāt multiplicius insudare. Et quia noua Anglorū ecclesia ad omnipotētis Dei gratiā, eodē Domino largiente, et te laborāte, per ducta est: vsū pallii in ea, ad sola missarū solennia agenda, concedimus, ita vt per loca singula. 12. episcopos ordines, qui tuæ subiaceant ditioni. Londoniensis ciuitatis episcop⁹ semper inposterum a synodo ppria debeat consecrari, atq honoris pallium a sancta & aplica, cuideo autore, deseruio, sede percipiat. Ad Eboracensem ciuitatem volumus episcopum mittere, quem ipse indicaueris ordinare. Ita dumtaxat vt se eadem ciuitas, cū finitimis locis, verbū Dei receperit, ipse quoq duodecim episcopos ordinet, et Metropolitani perfruatur honore. Cui quoq si vita comes fuerit, palliū tribuere, Domino fauēte, disponimus: quētamē tuæ fraternitatis dispositioni volumus subiacere. Post obitū verotuū, ita episcopis quos ordinauerit, præsit, vt Lōdoniēsis episcopi nullo modo subiaceat ditioni, Sit vero inter Lōdoniæ, et Eboracæ ciuitatis episcopos inposterū honoris ista distinctio, vtipse prior habeatur, qui prius fuerit ordinat⁹. Comuni cōsilio, et cordis actione, quæcūq sunt p Christi zelo agenda, disponāt vnanimiter. Rectè sētiāt, et ea, quæ sēserint, nō sibimet discrepādo, perficiāt. Tua vero fraternitas nō solū episcopos, quos ordinaueris, neq hostātūmodo, qui per Eboracensē episcopū fuerint ordinati, sed etiam omnes Brytaniæ sacerdotes habeat Domino nostro Iesu Christo subiectos, quatenus ex lingua, & uitæ tuæ sanctitatè, et recte credendi, et benè viuendi formam percipiant: atque officium suum fide et moribus exequentes, ad cœlestia, cum Dominus vo-