over all Rectors in the
City on this account. 'An apostolic contention oftentimes arose between
the Rectors of the churches of St. Peter, Cornhill, St. Magnus the Martyr,
and St. Nicholas, Cold Abbey, which of them would seem to be the greater
and by reason of such dignity should occupy the last place in the
procession in the week of Pentecost.' The Mayor and Aldermen decided that
the Rector of St. Peter's, 'of right, and for the honour of that most
sacred Basilica of St. Peter (which was the first church founded in
London, namely, in the year of our Lord 199, by King Lucius, and in which
was the metropolitan see for four hundred years and more) shall go alone
after all the other Rectors of the same City ... as being priors or abbots
over them.' [From an account of the Church of St. Peter upon Cornhill, by
the Rev. R. Whittington, now Prebendary of St. Paul's, 1872.]

[26] On this important point we may expect some detailed discussion before
long. The interesting publication, recently commenced, of the _Supplement
aux Bollandistes pour des vies de Saints de l'epoque Merovingienne_
(Dupont, 4 Rue du Bouloi, Paris), will contain a treatise _sur
l'evangelisation de l'Angleterre par les soins du roi Lucius_.

[27] The French ecclesiastics claim the foundation of bishoprics at some
of these places in the first century.

[28] The language of the traditions would suggest that only the holders of
the principal sees went from Britain, there being other bishops who stayed
at home, in smaller places. Bishoprics rapidly increased in number in the
early Anglo-Saxon Church; indeed, the number of bishoprics in England
remained almost stationary from Bede's time to Henry VIII. In the time of
Archbishop Tatwine, who was contemporary with the last years of Bede,
there were seventeen bishoprics, counting Whithorn, and at the beginning
of Henry VIII's reign there were eighteen, counting Man; the Welsh
bishoprics are not included in these numbers. Dunwich and Elmham,
Sherborne, Selsey, Lindisfarne, Lindsey, in Tatwine's time, were
represented respectively by Norwich, Salisbury, Chichester, Durham,
Lincoln, in Henry VIII's time. Leicester, Hexham, Whithorn, had
disappeared, and Bath, Carlisle, Ely, Exeter, Man, had come into
existence.

[29] See page 59.

[30] Any one writing of these early times has to exercise great
self-restraint, if he is not to overload his subject with interesting
illustrations. I cannot refrain from quoting here