"OwenMEdwards-AShortHistoryOfWales" - читать интересную книгу автора (Edwards Owen M)

Roman rule, but we do not know who first sounded it. There are many
beautiful legends--that the great apostle of the Gentiles himself
came to Britain; that Joseph of Arimathea, having been placed by the
Jews in an open boat, at the mercy of wind and wave, landed in
Britain; that some of the captives taken to Rome with Caratacus
brought back the tidings of great joy.

We know that the name of Christ, between 200 and 300 years after His
death, was well known in Britain, and that churches had been built
for His worship. Between 300 and 400 we have an organised church and
a settled creed. Between 400 and 500 there was searching of heart
and creed, and heresies--a sure sign that the people were alive to
religion. Between 500 and 600 there was a translation of the Bible
from Hebrew and Greek into the better-known Latin. The whole of
Wales becomes Christian; and probably St David converted the last
pagans, and built his church among them.

Between 450 and 500 a stream of pagan Teutons flowed over the east of
Britain, and the British Church was separated from the Roman Church.
By 664 British and Roman missionaries had converted the English; and
the two Churches of Rome and Britain, once united, were face to face
again. But they had grown in different ways, and refused to know
each other. Their Easter came on different days; they did not
baptize in the same way; the tonsure was different--a crescent on the
forehead of the British monk, and a crown on the pate of the Roman
monk. In the Roman Church there was rigid unity and system; in the
British Church there was much room for self-government. The newly
converted English chose the Roman way, because they were told that St
Peter, whose see Rome was, held the keys of heaven. Between 700 and
800 the Welsh gradually gave up their religious independence, and
joined the Roman Church.

But there was another dispute. Were the four old Welsh bishoprics--
Bangor, St Asaph, St David's, Llandaff--to be subject to the English
archbishop of Canterbury, or to have an archbishopric of their own at
St David's? By 1200 the Welsh bishoprics were subject to the English
archbishop, and Giraldus Cambrensis came too late to save them.

But through all these disputes the Church was gaining strength.
Churches were being built everywhere. Up to 700 they were called
after the name of their founder; between 700 and 1000 they were
generally dedicated to the archangel Michael--there are several
Llanvihangels {1} in Wales; after 1000 new churches were dedicated to
Mary, the Mother of Christ--we have many Llanvairs. {2}

Times of civil strife, or of popular indifference, came over and over
again; and the old paganism tried to reassert itself. And time after
time the name of Christ was sounded again by men who thought they had
seen Him. In the twelfth century the Cistercian monk came to say
that the world was bad, that prayer saved the soul, and that labour