THE P RTAL
December 2013
Page 13
The Popes and
the Ordinariate
by Harry Schnitker
The year
410 was an ominous one in the
history of the Church, both in Rome and in
Britain. In Rome, Pope Innocent I watched helplessly
as the Eternal City was sacked by the Visigoths. From
Jerusalem, St Jerome wrote: “The city which had
taken the whole world itself was taken”. In North
Africa, St Augustine’s reaction was less concise: his
answer was The City of God, hundreds of pages of
closely reasoned argument stating the case that the
Church was more important than the Empire.
Roman rule
If anyone in the British Isles was familiar with the
work, it should have come as a consolation. The year
410 is traditionally seen as the year in which the
legions left Britain, thus ending Roman rule. In fact,
the withdrawal was a longer process.
“Julius and Aaron, after suffering martyrdom, were
buried in this city and each had a church dedicated to
him. After Alban and Amphibalus they were esteemed
the chief proto-martyrs of Britannia Major.
In ancient times, there were three fine churches in
this city, one dedicated to Julius the martyr, graced
with a choir of nuns, another to Aaron, his associate,
and ennobled with an order of canons, and the third
distinguished as the metropolitan see of Wales.
Amphibalus was born in this place … and here also
Archbishop Dubricius ceded his honours to David of
Menevia, the metropolitan see being translated from
this place to Menevia”.
close contact with Rome
We should recall that St David was in close touch
with Rome, as his Vita, the Buchedd Dewi, attests.
In 388, the legions had left the north and west, Here, his denunciation of Pelagianism, a heresy which
accompanying the pretender to the imperial throne, Rome had also condemned, is very important evidence
Magnus Maximus, a man who has gone down in Welsh for the continued ties between the dioceses of postlegend as a great hero.
Roman Britain and the Eternal City.
incessant incursions
Latinised Britons
Hadrian’s Wall was not left without troops, but it
is likely that the great western fortresses at Chester
and Caerleon were left devoid of Romans. Those left
behind must have felt vulnerable, for Maximus had,
only a few years before, managed to quell incessant
incursions into Roman Britain from Ireland, from
across the North Sea and from the north. The Romans
made one return, in 396, with a naval raid on the Picts
and Irish.
Of course, the Anglo-Saxons never managed to
conquer Wales. What about other centres we know to
have been bishoprics? York survived for some time,
and archaeology has shown continued occupation of
Roman villas.
As the Empire crumbled under Germanic incursions,
the final Roman troops left in the wake of yet more
usurpers. The Empire simply fell apart. What of those
left behind? Roman Britain was now a Christian
outpost surrounded on all sides by hostile pagans. It
was not completely defenceless, of course. However,
slowly but surely over the next two centuries, Christian
Britain was driven back west.
Welsh legend makes it the seat of Peredur son of
Efrawg, suggesting a royal presence in the city, of a
dynasty of Latinised Britons. But we have not a word
about a bishop. Perhaps the British bishop at the 455
AD synod in Gaul came from York.
link with Rome
York fell to the Anglians around 500, and it is
obvious that there was no longer an ecclesiastic centre
there. London, the other bishopric, vanished early, too.
Excavations in Covent Garden in 2008 revealed that
the Anglo-Saxons settled here in the late fifth century,
and again we hear nothing from its bishops. So it was
metropolitan see of Wales
only in Wales, and possibly in other Welsh strongholds,
In some places, life continued as before. The great like Devon-Cornwall and Strathclyde, that the link
fortress of Caerleon continued to have a bishop. Gerald with Rome was maintained. It would not be until Pope
St Gregory the Great that this would change.
of Wales reported that: