Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/509

Rh EPISCOPACY 489 It will be a more important task to examine the history of the episcopate in those countries of Europe which re tained that form of church government after renouncing the papal authority, as well as in America and the de pendencies of Great Britain, with the view of testing its claims in each instance to what is known as &quot; apostolical succession,&quot; i.e., an uninterrupted line of episcopally con secrated prelates reaching up to the first ages of the church. In England the primitive church, by whomsoever founded (the Eastern theory is certainly baseless), was undoubtedly Episcopal. The names of three British bishops, those of York, London, and Caerleon, 1 are found vmong those who attended the Council of Aries in 311. With the ancient British church, however, the later Epis copacy of England has no connection. The existing Church of England is the lineal descendant of that planted in Kent by St Augustine at the end of the 6th century. The descent of her bishops is traced continuously by one of the most honest and accurate of her living historians, Professor Stubbs, in his -Episcopal Succession in England. The separation from the see of Rome caused no breach in the continuity Archbishop Parker, from whom the pre sent Episcopacy descends, was consecrated December 17, 1 559. by Bishop Barlow of Clnchester (himself consecrated by Archbishop Cranmer June J 1, 1536), Scory of Hereford, Coverdale of Exeter, and Hodgkins of Bedford. The ridiculous &quot; Nag s Head Fable,&quot; by which some unscrupu lous partisans have endeavoured to discredit the Anglican succession, was Jong since repudiated by the Roman Catholic historian Dr Lingard, and is now universally regarded with the contempt it deserves.- See ENGLAND CHURCH OF, p. 370 of the present volume. The episcopate of the Church of Scotland was at its commencement rather missionary than diocesan, The first bishops, St Ninian (died 432), St Palladius (died c. -135), and St Serf and Sfc Ternan, the disciples of the latter, were missionaries among a heathen population, with no defined dioceses. Each had his centre of operations in a monastic establishment of which he had been founder, St Ninian at Candida Casa, i.e., Whithorn in Galloway, St Palladius at Pordun in the Mearns. St Serf at Calross. St Ternan probably at Upper Banchory but it would be an anti cipation of a later organization to speak of these places as in any sense their episcopal sees The first diocese of which we have any knowledge was that founded by St Kentigern (died 012), which embraced the field of labour of St Ninian, and revived his decayed but scarcely extinct church. At one time St Kentigern fixed his see at Hoddam in Dumfriesshire, but it eventually became established at Glasgow. The missionary character of his episcopate is evident from the enormous size of his diocese. This, coextensive with the kingdom of Rydderch, king of Strathclyde, stretched from the Clyde to the Mersey, and in breadth probably reached from sea to sea. In 729 Galloway was severed from it and became a separate diocese, with its see at Candida Casa, Pecthelm, a deacon of Aldhelm of Sherborne, and a friend of Bede, being the first bishop. The Anglian succession of bishops at Candida Casa lasted till the beginning of the 9th century, when the ravages of the Northmen and the generally disturbed state of the country put an end to it. In Celtic Scotland, to the north of the Clyde, Episcopacy had still less of a diocesan character. In the Celtic church, among the 1 The latest and most trustworthy authority, the lamented Mr A. W. Haddan, decides against the claim of Lincoln as the see of the third bishop. that of his consecrators will be found in the Ordinum Sacrorum in Ecdesia Anglicana, Drfcnsin, by the Rev. T. J. Bailey, which contains Photozincographic copies of the actual documents relating to the transaction. &quot; Scoti &quot; both of Ireland and Scotland, the organization was distinctly monastic, not episcopal. The chief govern ment of the church was vested in the abbots of the principal monasteries, to whom the bishops, necessary for the perpetuation of the ministry, were subordinate. In fact, in Celtic Scotland diocesan Episcopacy was non-existent, and the church was under the government of the primatial presbyter-abbot of lona. The bishops residing in that and other monasteries, though superior to their abbots in ecclesiastical order, were their inferiors in official rank, and were subject to their primatial authority. Nor had these bishops any territorial jurisdiction. &quot;An episcopal succes sion,&quot; writes Mr Grub, &quot; was kept up, but it was not iit connection with any fixed seat or territory ; it was a succession of order alone, not of jurisdiction. Thera was no diocesan Episcopacy, properly speaking, no episcopal rule at all. Each abbot was the head of his own monastery, and over all was the successor of St Columba, the primate of the Picts and Scots (Ecdes. Hist, of Scot land, vol. i. p. 139). On the union of the Picts and Scots under one sovereign, the centre of ecclesiastical authority was transferred, together with the relics of St Columba, from lona to Dunkeld by Kenneth MacAlpine in 849, and again to St Andrews about 906. The bishop of St Andrews continued the only diocesan prelate, as bishop of the Scots, till the reign of Alexander I., when, before 1115, the sees of Moray and Dunkeld were founded. About the same time, the Cumbrian see of Glasgow, which had become extinct during a long period of semi-barbarism, the result of perpetual invasions, was revived by David earl of Cumbria, in the person of John, consecrated at Rome by Pope Paschal II., probably in 1117. It was also under David, alter his accession to the Scottish crown, 1129, that the episcopate received its most marked extension in the foundation of the sees of Aberdeen, Ross, Caithness, Brechin, and Dunblane, and the restoration of that of Candida Casa. in Galloway. The date of the foundation of the see of Argyll is doubtful. It has been placed not improbably c. 1200. The claims of the archbishops of York to the primacy of Scotland, at no time very well grounded nor willingly allowed, were the source of continual dissensions; and in 1188, William king of the Scots obtained a bull from Pope Clement III. declaring the independence of the Scotch Church and its bishops of any see but that of Rome. Three cerrturies, however, elapsed before Scotland secured a metropolitan of her own, after several ineffectual attempts to obtain the pall. In 1 172 St Andrews was erected into an archiepiscopal and metropolitan see ; and a few years later, 1489, Glasgow also attained the same rank. The episcopate having been thus completely organized, the succession continued unbroken till the Reformation of the 16th century, when the canonical prelates were generally superseded. Protestant bishops were, however, continued after a fashion, 1571-1574, although the canonical validity of their consecration was in most cases exceedingly ques tionable, it being very doubtful whether the consecrators themselves had been consecrated, and even whether some of the new bishops had been episcopally ordained. ^The thirteen dioceses of the ancient church continued in 1578 to exist in name, and most of them were filled by Protestant ministers bearing the style of bishops, although hardly one of them ventured to exercise episcopal jurisdiction &quot; (Grub, EccL Hist, of Scotland, ii. p. 203). This shadow of the episcopate speedily received a fatal blow. Titular Episcopacy was declared abolished in 15S1 by royal proclamation ; and though the base covetousness of some of the leading nobles prolonged its nominal existence for a while in the scandalous system of &quot; tulchan bishops,&quot; by which men were appointed to sees on the express under VIII. 62
 * The fullest account of Archbishop Parker s own consecration and