nd Witherne. Theodore had received the pall;
Wilfrid had not. It was therefore contended that Theodore had authority
over him. Wilfrid retired to Rome to claim the support of the Pope. It
was given to him, but when he returned to York, in 680, he was
imprisoned and afterwards banished. Soon after Egfrith died, and
Theodore, again intervening, obtained a reconciliation between Wilfrid
and the new king Alchfrid. Wilfrid again became Bishop of York, but
another quarrel caused him again to resign his see, and this time for
good. During all this period there is no doubt that the Bishops of York
were subordinate to those of Canterbury. The constant disorders to which
the kingdom of Northumbria was subjected for a century, and the quarrels
between bishop and king, lessened the power, both civil and
ecclesiastical, of the kingdom. It was not till 734 that a bishop of
York, Egbert, received the pall, which had been granted only to
Paulinus, and from that time the northern archbishops seem to have been
independent of Canterbury, especially after York fell into the hands of
the Danes in 867. It is possible that Gregory, who directed that York
and Canterbury should each appoint twelve suffragan bishops, intended to
make the sees equal in every respect. The anarchy and divisions of the
northern kingdom prevented this plan from being carried out. The kings
of Northumbria themselves, from time to time, acknowledged the authority
of Canterbury, and during the hundred years between Paulinus and Egbert
that York was without a metropolitan archbishop, the Primate of
Canterbury, without a rival, increased his power. With the advent of the
Danes, however, Northumbria was naturally much isolated from the south,
and the diocese of York, though smaller and poorer than that of
Canterbury, was a rival power. In fact, until the year 1072 the
archbishops of York either held themselves or appointed others to the
diocese of Worcester. It was not until the Conquest that the
independence of the northern bishops was seriously questioned. Under the
Danish rule two of the archbishops were probably of that race--Wolfstan,
appointed in 928, and Oskytel, his successor. The Danish supremacy was
put an end to in 954, when Eadred incorporated Northumbria into the
kingdom of England. From 867 to 1000, or after, York was ruled by an
earl, either under the Danes or the kings of England. The city was
important, not only as a strongly fortified place, but as a centre