THE ECCLESIASTICAL GEOGRAPHY OF WESTERN EUROPE.

The ecclesiastical geography of Western Europe was by this time formed. The great ecclesiastical divisions were now almost everywhere mapped out, and from hence they are more permanent than the political divisions. ?Permanence of the ecclesiastical divisions.? The ecclesiastical geography in truth constantly preserves an earlier political geography. ?They represent older civil divisions.? The ecclesiastical divisions were always mapped out according to the political divisions of the time when they were established, and they often remained unaltered while the political divisions went through many revolutions. ?Illustrations from England and France.? Thus in France the dioceses represented the jurisdictions of the Roman cities; in England they represented the ancient English kingdoms and principalities. In both cases they outlived by many ages the political divisions which they represented. While the political map was altered over and over again, the ecclesiastical map remained down to quite modern times, with hardly any change beyond the occasional division of a large diocese or the occasional union of two smaller dioceses. Thus the greater permanence of the ecclesiastical map often makes it useful as a standard for reference in describing political changes. ?Lyons and Rheims.? To take an instance, the city of Lyons has been at different times under Burgundian and under Frankish kings; it has been a free city of the Empire and a city of the modern kingdom of France. But, among all these changes, the Archbishop of Lyons has always remained Primate of all the Gauls, while the Archbishop of Rheims has held a wholly different position alongside of him as first prelate and first peer of the modern kingdom of France. Paris meanwhile, the political capital of the modern kingdom, remained till the seventeenth century the seat of a simple bishoprick.

In this way the ecclesiastical division will be found almost everywhere to keep up the remembrance of an earlier political state of things. ?Patriarchates, Provinces, Dioceses.? As the Empire became Christian, it was mapped out into Patriarchates as well as into Prefectures. Under these were the metropolitan and episcopal districts, which in after-times borrowed, though in a reverse order of dignity, the civil titles of provinces and dioceses. ?Divisions within and without the Empire.? As the Church carried her spiritual conquests beyond the bounds of the Empire, new ecclesiastical districts were of course formed in the newly converted countries. As a rule, every kingdom had at least one archbishopric; the smaller principalities, provinces, or other divisions became the dioceses of bishops. But the different social conditions of southern and northern Europe caused a marked difference in the ecclesiastical arrangements of the two regions. In the South the bishop was bishop of a city; in the North he was bishop of a tribe or a district. Within the Empire each city had its bishop. Thus in Italy and Southern Gaul, where the cities were thickest on the ground, the bishops were most numerous and their dioceses were smallest. ?Bishops of cities and of tribes.? In Northern Gaul the cities are fewer and the dioceses larger, while outside the Empire, the dioceses which represented a tribe or principality were larger again. Also again, within the Empire the bishop, as bishop of a city, always took his title from the city; outside the Empire, especially in the British islands both Celtic and Teutonic, the bishop of a tribe or principality bore a tribal or territorial title.

§ 1. The Great Patriarchates.

The highest ecclesiastical divisions, the Patriarchates, though they did not exactly answer to the Prefectures, were clearly suggested by them. And whenever the boundaries of the Patriarchates departed from the boundaries of the Prefectures, they came nearer to the great divisions of race and language. For our purpose, it is enough to take the Patriarchates, as they grew up, after the establishment of Christianity, in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries. The four older ones were seated at the Old and the New Rome, and at the two great Eastern cities of Antioch and Alexandria. Out of the patriarchate of Antioch the small patriarchate of Jerusalem was afterwards taken. This last seems a piece of sentimental geography; the other divisions were eminently practical. ?Rome.? Whether we look on the original jurisdiction of the Bishop of the Old Rome as taking in the whole prefecture of Italy or only the diocese of Italy, it is certain that it was gradually extended over the two prefectures of Italy and Gaul. ?Extended beyond the Empire.? That is, it took in the Latin part of the Empire, and it spread thence over the Teutonic converts in the West, as well as over Hungary and the Western Slaves. ?Constantinople.? The Patriarchate of Constantinople or New Rome took in the Prefecture of Illyricum, and three dioceses in the Prefecture of the East, those of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus. This territory pretty well answers to the extent of the Greek language and influence. The two Illyrian dioceses, possibly through some confusion arising out of the two meanings of the word Illyricum, were claimed by the Popes of Old Rome; but, when the Empires and Churches parted asunder, Macedonia and Greece were not likely to cleave to the Western division. ?Its relation to the Eastern Empire and to the Slaves.? In course of time the Byzantine patriarchate became nearly coextensive with the Byzantine Empire, and it became the centre of conversion to the Slaves of the East, just as the patriarchate of Old Rome was to the Teutons of the West. ?Antioch.
Jerusalem.? The patriarchate of Antioch, before its dismemberment in favour of the tiny patriarchate of Jerusalem, took in the whole diocese of the East, and the churches beyond the limits of the Empire in that direction. ?Alexandria.? The patriarchate of Alexandria answered to the diocese of Egypt, with the churches beyond the Empire on that side, specially the Abyssinian church, which has kept its nationality to our own time. That these Eastern patriarchates have been for ages disputed by claimants belonging to different sects of Christianity is a fact which concerns both theology and history, but does not concern geography. Whether the see was in Orthodox or heretical—that is commonly in national—hands, the see and its diocese, the geographical extent on the map, remained the same.

These then are the five great patriarchates which formed the most ancient geographical divisions of the Church. In later times the name patriarchate has been more loosely applied. As the Roman bishop grew into something more than the Patriarch of the West, the title of Patriarch was given to several metropolitans, sometimes, as far as one can see, without any particular reason. ?Lisbon, Venice, Aquileia.? The title has been borne by the Bishops of Lisbon and Venice, and specially by the Metropolitans of Aquileia. These last assumed the title during a time of separation from the Roman see. But nominal patriarchates of this kind must be carefully distinguished from the five great churches to which the name was anciently attached. ?Patriarchate of Moscow. 1587.? In the East the name was never extended beyond its four original holders, till a new patriarchate of Moscow arose in Russia, to mark the greatest spiritual conquest of the Orthodox Church. Of the four original Eastern patriarchates it is only that of Constantinople which plays much part in later history. The seats of the other three fell into the hands of the Saracens in the very beginning of their conquests.

§ 2. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Italy.

In no part of Christendom do the bishoprics lie so thick upon the ground as in Italy, and especially in the southern part. But from that very fact it follows that the ecclesiastical divisions of Italy are of less historical importance than those of most other Western countries. ?Small size of the provinces.? In southern Italy above all, the bishoprics were so numerous, and the dioceses therefore so small, that the archiepiscopal provinces were hardly so large as the episcopal dioceses in more northern lands. So it is in the islands; Sicily contained four provinces and Sardinia three. ?Effect of the commonwealths on the position of the prelates.? The peculiar characteristics of Italian history also hindered ecclesiastical geography from being of the same importance as elsewhere. Where every city became an independent commonwealth, the Bishop, and even the Metropolitan, sank to a lower rank than they held in the lands where each prelate was a great feudal lord.

It follows then that there are only a few of the archbishoprics and bishoprics of Italy which at all stand out in general history. ?Relation to the Roman See.? The growth of the Roman see also more distinctly overshadowed the Italian bishops than it did those of other lands. ?Rivals of Rome.? The bishoprics which have most historical importance are those which at one time or another stood out in rivalry or opposition to Rome. ?Milan.
Aquileia.? Such was the great see of Milan, whose province took in a crowd of Lombard bishoprics; such was the patriarchal see of Aquileia, whose metropolitan jurisdiction took in Como at one end and the Istrian Pola at the other. The patriarchs of Aquileia, standing as they did on the march of the Italian, Teutonic, and Slavonic lands, grew, unlike most of the Italian prelates, into powerful temporal princes. ?Ravenna.? Ravenna was the head of a smaller province than either Milan or Aquileia; but Ravenna too stands out as one of the churches which kept up for a while an independent position in the face of the growing power of Rome. Milan and Ravenna, in short, never lost the memory of their Imperial days; and Aquileia took advantage, first of a theological difference, and secondly of its temporal position as the great border see.

In the rest of Italy the case is different. Rome herself was the immediate head of a large province stretching from sea to sea. Within this the suburbicarian sees, those close around Rome, stood in a special and closer relation to the patriarchal see itself. ?Metropolitan sees of central Italy.? The famous cities of Genoa, Bologna, Pisa, Florence, and Sienna, were also metropolitan sees, though their ecclesiastical dignity is quite overshadowed by their civic greatness. Lucca has been added to the same list in modern times. ?Pisa and Genoa.? The provinces of Pisa and Genoa are notable as having been extended into the island of Corsica after its recovery from the Saracens. The history and extent of the Italian dioceses is, with these few exceptions, a matter almost wholly of local ecclesiastical concern. ?The southern province.? In the south and in Sicily the endless archiepiscopal sees preserve the names of some famous cities, as Capua—the later Capua on the site of Casilinum—Tarentum, Bari, and others. But some even of the metropolitan churches are fixed in places of quite secondary importance, and the simple bishoprics are endless.

§ 3. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Gaul and Germany.

By taking a single view of the ecclesiastical arrangements of the whole of the Western Empire on this side of the Alps and the Pyrenees, some instructive lessons may be learned. Such a way of looking at the map will bring out more strongly the differences between bishoprics of earlier and later foundation. ?Gaulish and German dioceses.? And, if we take the name of Gaul in the old geographical sense, taking in the German lands west of the Rhine which formed part of the older Empire, we shall find that several ecclesiastical provinces may be called either Gaulish or German. With the boundaries of the French kingdom we have no concern, except so far as the boundary between the Eastern and Western kingdoms of the Franks did to some extent follow ecclesiastical lines. Modern annexations of course have had no regard to them.

On first crossing the Alps from Italy, we find the ecclesiastical phÆnomena of Italy continued in the lands nearest to it. The two provinces of Tarantaise (answering to the civil division of Alpes PenninÆ) and Embrun (Alpes MaritimÆ) which take in the mountain region between Italy and Gaul, are of small size, though of course in the actual mountain lands the bishoprics are less thick on the ground. ?Tarantaise.? The Tarantasian province contained only three suffragan sees, Sitten, Aosta, and St. John of Maurienne, three bishoprics which now belong to three distinct political powers. ?Embrun.? But in the southern part of the province of Embrun, which reaches to the sea, the bishops’ sees are thick on the ground, just as they are in Italy. ?Aix and Arles.? So they are in the small provinces of Aix (Narbonensis Secunda) and Arles. But, as soon as we get out of Provence into the parts of Gaul which were less thoroughly Romanized, and where cities, and consequently bishoprics, lay less close together, the phÆnomena of the ecclesiastical map begin to change. ?Vienne.
Narbonne.? The ProvenÇal provinces of Aix and Aries are bounded to the north and west by those of Vienne (which with Arles answers nearly to the civil Viennensis) and Narbonne (answering nearly to Narbonensis Secunda). These provinces are of much greater size, and the suffragan sees are much further apart. ?Auch.? To the west lies Auch, answering to the oldest Aquitaine or Novempopulana, and to the north of these, in the remainder of Gaul, the original provinces are of still greater size. Most of them answer very nearly to the older civil divisions. ?Bourges, Bourdeaux, Lyons, Rouen, Tours, and Sens.? Aquitania Prima is the province of Bourges, Aquitania Secunda that of Bourdeaux. Lugdunensis Prima, Secunda, Tertia, and Quarta, answer to Lyons, Rouen, Tours, and Sens. Of these Lyons, as having been the temporal capital, became the seat of the Primate of all the Gauls. The province of Rouen too answers very nearly to the duchy of which that metropolis became the capital; its Archbishop still bears the title of Primate of Normandy.

These are the oldest ecclesiastical arrangements, closely following the civil divisions of the Empire. These divisions lived through the Teutonic conquests; and, though here and there a see was translated from one city to another, they were not seriously interfered with till the fourteenth century. ?Foundation of the provinces of Toulouse and Alby, 1322.? Pope John the Twenty-second raised the see of Toulouse in the province of Narbonne and that of Alby in the province of Bourges to metropolitan rank, thus forming two new provinces. He also founded new bishoprics in several towns in these two new provinces and in that of Narbonne. ?Avignon, 1475.? In the next century Sixtus the Fourth made the church of Avignon metropolitan. These changes help to give this whole district more of the character of Italy and Provence than originally belonged to it. ?Paris, 1622.? Lastly, in the seventeenth century the province of Sens was also divided, and the church of Paris became metropolitan. Some of these changes show how closely the ecclesiastical divisions followed the oldest civil divisions, and how slowly they were affected by changes in the civil divisions. When Gaul was first mapped out, Tolosa was of less account than Narbo; the Parisii and their city were of less account than the great nation of the Senones. Tolosa became the royal city of the Goth; but it did not rise to the highest ecclesiastical rank till ages after the Gothic kingdom had passed away. Paris, after having been several times a momentary seat of dominion, became the birthplace of the modern French kingdom. But it had been the continuous seat of kings for more than six hundred years before it became the seat of an archbishop.

As we draw nearer to German ground, the ecclesiastical boundaries are found to have been somewhat more strongly affected by political changes. ?BesanÇon.? The ecclesiastical province of BesanÇon answers to Maxima Sequanorum; but it is not quite of the same extent; the boundary of the German and Burgundian kingdoms passed through the Roman province: its eastern part is therefore found in a German diocese. ?Rheims.? The province of Rheims answers nearly, but not quite, to Belgica Secunda: for the ecclesiastical province took in some territory to the east of the Scheld. Here again the boundary of the Eastern and Western kingdoms passed through the province. The metropolitan city lay within the region which became the kingdom of France, and it became the ecclesiastical head of the kingdom. Yet one of its suffragan sees, that of Cambray, was a city of the Empire. ?Trier, 785.? The province of Trier took in no part of the Western kingdom; but, besides the old province of Belgica Prima, it stretched away over the German lands even beyond the Rhine. ?KÖln, 785.? When the old Gaulish bishoprick of Colonia Agrippina became metropolitan under Charles the Great, its province took in nearly all the old Gaulish province of Germania Secunda; but it too came to stretch beyond the Rhine and beyond the Weser. These two metropolitan sees, Trier and KÖln, were old Gaulish bishopricks of the frontier land. ?Mainz, 747.? The see of Mainz has no certain historical being before Boniface in the eighth century. It too was founded on what was geographically Gaulish soil; but the greater part of its vast extent was strictly German. Three only of its suffragans, Worms, Speyer, and Argentoratum or Strassburg, were even geographically Gaulish. No province has had more fluctuating boundaries: the elevation of KÖln to metropolitan rank cut it short to the west, while it grew indefinitely to the north, south, and east, as its boundaries were enlarged by conversion and conquest. ?Prag, 1344.? To the east it was cut short in the fourteenth century when the kingdom of Bohemia and its dependencies were formed into the ecclesiastical province of Prag. ?Bamberg, 1007.? The famous bishoprick of Bamberg, locally in the province of Mainz, was from the beginning immediately dependent on the see of Rome.

These three great archbishopricks of the frontier land, all of whose sees were on the Gaulish side of the Rhine, remained distinguished by their temporal rank during the whole life of the German kingdom. All the German prelates became princes; but only these three were Electors. The prelates of these three were the Arch-chancellors of the three Imperial kingdoms, Mainz of Germany, KÖln of Italy, Trier of Gaul. But, as the Frankish or German kingdom spread to the north-east, new ecclesiastical provinces were formed. ?Salzburg, 798.? The bishoprick of Salzburg became metropolitan under Charles the Great, with a province stretching away to the East towards his conquests from the Avars. ?Bremen or Hamburg, 788.? The bishoprick of Bremen, another foundation of Charles the Great, was transferred under his son to Hamburg, as a metropolitan see which was designed to be a missionary centre for the Scandinavian nations. ?1223.? After some fluctuations, the see was finally settled at Bremen, as the metropolis of a province, which had now become in no way Scandinavian, but partly Old-Saxon, partly Wendish. ?Magdeburg, 968.? Lastly, Otto the Great founded the metropolitan see of Magdeburg on the Slavonic march. Thus the German kingdom formed six ecclesiastical provinces, all of vast extent as compared with those of Southern Europe, and with their suffragan sees few and far apart. The difference is here clearly marked between the earlier sees which arose from the very beginning in the Roman cities, and the sees of later foundation which were gradually founded as new lands were brought under the dominion of the Empire and the Church. Still the old tradition went on so far that each Bishop had his see in a city, and took his name from that city. Though the German dioceses were of large extent, yet none of the German bishoprics were in strictness territorial.

In no part of Christendom have the ecclesiastical divisions been more completely upset in modern times than they have been in Germany. In France the number of dioceses was greatly lessened by the Concordat under the first Buonaparte; but the main ecclesiastical landmarks were to a great extent respected. In Germany, on the other hand, no trace of them is left. The country has been mapped out afresh to suit the boundaries of patched-up modern kingdoms. Mainz and Trier are no longer metropolitan sees, while the modern map shows such novelties as an Archbishop of MÜnchen and an Archbishop of Freiburg. ?Changes of Philip the Second in the Netherlands.? Long before, under Philip the Second of Spain, those parts of the German kingdom which had become practically detached under the Dukes of Burgundy underwent a complete change in their ecclesiastical divisions. ?Cambray, Mechlin, Utrecht.? Cambray and Mechlin in the province of Rheims, and Utrecht in the province of KÖln, became metropolitan sees. Modern political changes have made these three cities members of three distinct political powers.

§ 4. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Spain.

The ecclesiastical history of the Spanish peninsula presents phÆnomena of a different kind from those of Italy, Gaul, or Germany. In Italy and Gaul the ecclesiastical divisions go on uninterruptedly from the earliest days of Christianity. Western Germany must count for these purposes as part of Gaul. In eastern Germany the ecclesiastical divisions were formed in later times, as Christianity was spread over the country. In Spain the country must have been mapped out for ecclesiastical purposes at least as early as Gaul. ?Old divisions lost, and mapped out afresh after the recovery from the Saracens.? But the Mahometan conquest of the greater part of the country, followed by the Christian reconquest, caused the old ecclesiastical lines to be wiped out, and new divisions had to be traced out afresh as the land was gradually won back. ?Ecclesiastical divisions under the West-Goths.? The ecclesiastical divisions of Spain in the time of the Gothic kingdom simply reproduce the civil divisions of the period, as those civil divisions are only a slight modification of the Roman provinces. Lusitania and BÆtica survived, with a slight change of frontier, both as civil and as ecclesiastical divisions. Tarraconensis was for both purposes divided into three, Tarraconensis, Carthagenensis, and GallÆcia. As the land was won back, and as new ecclesiastical provinces were formed, the number was greatly increased, and some of them found their way to new sites. ?Tarragona, Zaragoza, Valencia.? Thus the Tarraconensian province was again divided into three, those of Tarragona, Zaragoza, and Valencia, answering nearly to the kingdom of Aragon. ?Toledo.? New Carthage lost its metropolitan rank in favour of the great metropolis of Toledo, which numbered Cordova and Valladolid among its suffragans. ?Compostella, Burgos, Seville, and Granada.
Braga, Evora, Lisbon.? Leaving out some anomalous districts, the rest of the peninsula formed the provinces of St. James of Compostella, Burgos, Seville, Granada, with Braga, Evora, and the patriarchal see of Lisbon, the last three answering to the kingdom of Portugal. And it must be remembered that the Pyrenees did not form an eternal boundary in ecclesiastical, any more than in civil geography. ?Dioceses of Pampeluna and Bayonne.? As the kingdom of Navarre stretched on both sides of the mountains, so did the diocese of Pampeluna; and to the west of it the Gaulish diocese of Bayonne stretched on what is now Spanish ground. All these are survivals of a time when, to use the phrase of a later day, there were no Pyrenees, or when at least the same rulers, first Gothic and then Saracen, reigned on both sides of them.

§ 5. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of the British Islands.

The historical phÆnomena of the British islands have points in common with more than one of the continental countries. In a very rough and general view of things, Britain has some analogies with Spain. It is not altogether without reason that in some legendary stories the names of Saxons and Saracens get confounded. In both cases a land which had been Christian was overrun by conquerors of another creed; in both a Christian people held their ground in a part of the country; and in both the whole land was won back to Christianity, though by different and even opposite processes in the two cases. ?The Celtic episcopate.? But there is no reason to believe that the Celtic churches in Britain and Ireland had anything like the same complete ecclesiastical organization as the Spanish churches under the Goths. ?Tribal episcopacy.? The Celtic episcopate was of an irregular and anomalous kind, and, in its most intelligible shape, it was, as was natural under the circumstances of the country, not a city episcopate, hardly a territorial episcopate, but one strictly tribal. This is nearly the only fact in the history of the early Celtic churches which is of any importance for our purpose. It might be too much to say that traces of this peculiarity were handed on from the Celtic to the English Church. The little likeness that there is between them is rather due to the fact that in Northern Europe generally, whether Celtic or Teutonic, a strictly city episcopate like that of Italy and Gaul was something which in the nature of things could not be.

In truth the antiquities of the Celtic churches may fairly be left to be matter of local or of special ecclesiastical inquiry. Their effect on history is slight; their effect on historical geography is still slighter. For our purpose the ecclesiastical geography of Britain may be looked on as beginning with the mission of Augustine. The English Church was formed, and the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish Churches were reconstructed, partly under its authority, altogether after its model. ?Schemes of Gregory the Great.? In the original scheme of Gregory the Great, Britain was clearly meant to be divided into two ecclesiastical provinces nearly equal in extent. ?Two equal provinces in Britain.? The Celtic churches were to be brought under the same ecclesiastical obedience as the heathen English. As Wales was to form part of the lot of the southern metropolitan, so Scotland was to form part of the lot of the northern. This scheme was never fully carried out. Wales was indeed brought into full submission to Canterbury; but Scotland was never brought into the same full submission to York. ?Relation of the Scottish Bishops to York.? The allegiance of the Scottish sees to their Northumbrian metropolis was at all times very precarious, and it was in the end formally thrown off altogether. ?Suffragan sees of Canterbury and York.? Of this came the singular disproportion in the territorial extent of the two English ecclesiastical provinces. Canterbury, since the English Church was thoroughly organized, has had a number of suffragans which would be unusual anywhere on the continent, while York has always had comparatively few, and for a considerable time had practically one only.

The systematic mapping out of Britain for ecclesiastical purposes, as designed by Gregory, was therefore never fully carried out. The actual provinces and dioceses were gradually formed, as the various English existing kingdoms embraced Christianity. As a rule, each kingdom or independent principality became a diocese. ?Territorial bishoprics? And, except in the case of a few sees fixed in cities which kept on something of old Roman memories, the bishops were more commonly called from the people who formed their flock, than from the cities which in some cases contained their chairs. For in many cases the bishop-settle, as our forefathers called it, was not placed in a city at all, but in some rural or even solitary spot. It was not till the time of the Norman Conquest that a movement began for systematically placing the ecclesiastical sees in the chief towns; from that time the civic title altogether displaces the territorial.

As Kent was the first part of Teutonic Britain to accept Christianity, the metropolitan see of the south was fixed at Canterbury, the capital of that kingdom. It was thus fixed in a city which has at no time held that temporal preeminence which has in different ages belonged to York, Winchester, and London. ?Rochester.
London.? After Canterbury the earliest formed sees were Rochester for the West-Kentish kingdom, and London for the East-Saxons. ?Dorchester or Winchester. Sherborne, Wells, Ramsbury.? The conversion of the West-Saxons led to the foundation of the great diocese whose see was first at Dorchester on the Thames and then at Winchester, and from which the sees of Sherborne, Wells, and Ramsbury were gradually parted off. ?Elmham.
Dorchester or Lincoln.? The East-Angles formed a diocese with its see at Elmham; the Middle-Angles settled down, after some shiftings, into the vast diocese stretching from the Thames to the Humber, whose see, first at Dorchester, was afterwards translated to Lincoln. ?Worcester, Hereford, Lichfield.? The West-Mercian lands formed the dioceses of the Hwiccas at Worcester, of the MagesÆtas at Hereford, and the great diocese of Lichfield, stretching northward to the Ribble. The South-Saxons, whose see kept its tribal name down to the Norman Conquest, had their see first at Selsey, and then at Chichester. ?Exeter.? Devonshire and Cornwall, after forming two dioceses, were, just before the Norman Conquest, united under the single see of Exeter. ?The Welsh Sees.? The Conquest too brought about the more complete submission of the four Welsh sees, Saint David’s, Llandaff, Bangor, and Saint Asaph. ?Salisbury, 1078.
Ely, 1109.? To the times just before and just after the Conquest belong the union of Sherborne and Ramsbury to form the diocese of Salisbury, and the dismemberment of the huge diocese of Lincoln by the foundation of an episcopal see at Ely. Thus the province of Canterbury with its suffragan sees was gradually organized in the form which it kept from the reign of Henry the First to that of Henry the Eighth.

Meanwhile in the northern province things never reached the same regular organization. ?York.
Lindisfarn
or Durham,
Carlisle, 1133.? York, after some changes, took the position of a metropolitan see, with one suffragan, first at Lindisfarn and afterwards at Durham, and another at Carlisle. ?Saint Andrews, 1471.
Glasgow. 1492.? As the Scottish dioceses broke off from York, they first acknowledged a kind of precedence in the Bishop of St. Andrews; but it was not till a far later time that Scotland was divided into two regular ecclesiastical provinces with their sees at St. Andrews and Glasgow. ?Edinburgh. 1634.? Several of the Scottish dioceses always kept their territorial titles; their sees were mostly fixed in small places; and of the chief seats of Scottish royalty, Dunfermline and Stirling never attained episcopal rank at all, and Edinburgh only attained it in quite modern times. ?The four Irish provinces.? The endless and fluctuating bishoprics of Ireland were in the twelfth century gathered into the four provinces of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, answering to the temporal divisions of Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connaught. It is to be noticed that, in marked contradiction to continental practice, the chief see in all the three British kingdoms has been placed in a city which has never held the first temporal rank. Canterbury, St. Andrews, Armagh, were never the temporal heads of England, Scotland, and Ireland. York, Dublin, Glasgow, though metropolitan sees, were of secondary rank, and London and Winchester were ordinary bishoprics.

§ 6. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Northern and Eastern Europe.

In the other parts of Europe which formed part of the communion of the Latin Church, the ecclesiastical divisions mark the steps by which Christianity was spread either by conversion or conquest. They continued the process of which the ecclesiastical organization of Eastern Germany was the beginning. As a rule, they strictly follow the political divisions of the age in which they were founded. ?The Scandinavian provinces.? As the Church in the Scandinavian kingdoms became more settled, its bishoprics parted off from their allegiance to Hamburg or Bremen, and each of the three kingdoms formed an ecclesiastical province, whose boundaries exactly answered to the earlier boundaries of the kingdoms. ?Lund, 1151.? Denmark had its metropolitan see at Lund, in that part of the Danish kingdom which geographically forms part of the greater Scandinavian peninsula, and which is now Swedish territory. Its boundary to the south was the Eider, the old frontier of Denmark and the Empire. The suffragan sees of this province, among which the specially royal bishopric of Roeskild is the most famous, naturally lie thicker on the ground than they do in the wilder regions of the two more northern kingdoms. But the Baltic conquests of Denmark also placed part of the isle of RÜgen in the province of Lund and the diocese of Roeskild, and also gave the Danish metropolitan a far more distant suffragan in the Bishop of Revel on the Finnish gulf. ?Upsala.? The metropolitan see of Sweden was placed at Upsala, and the province was carried by Swedish conquest to the east of the Gulf of Bothnia, where the single bishopric of Abo took in the whole of the Swedish territory in that region. ?Trondhjem.? In the like sort, the Norwegian province of Nidaros or Trondhjem stretched far over the Ocean to the distant Colonies and dependencies of Norway in Iceland, Greenland, and Man.

The conversion of Poland and the conquest of Prussia and Livonia brought other lands within the pale of the Latin Church and her ecclesiastical organization. ?Gnezna.? The original kingdom of Poland formed the province of Gnezna, a province whose boundaries were for some centuries very fluctuating, according as Poland or the Empire was stronger in the Slavonic lands on the Baltic. Each change of temporal dominion caused the ecclesiastical frontiers of Gnezna and Magdeburg to advance or fall back. The Silesian bishopric of Breslau always kept its old relation to the Polish metropolis, except so far as it was held to be placed under the immediate superiority of Rome. The later union of Lithuania to the Polish kingdom added a Lithuanian and a Samogitian bishopric to the original Polish province. ?Riga.
Leopol.? The earlier Polish conquests from Russia formed a new province, the Latin province of Leopol or Lemberg, a province whose southern boundaries advanced and fell back along with the boundary of the kingdom of which it formed a part. The conquests of the Teutonic knights in Prussia and Livonia formed the ecclesiastical province of Riga, which was divided into two parts by the province of Gnezna in its greater extent.

It will be seen that some of the ecclesiastical divisions last mentioned belong to a later stage of European history than the point which we have reached in our general narrative. But it seemed better to continue the survey over the whole of the Latin Church in Europe, as the later foundations are a mere carrying out of the same process which began in the earlier. The ecclesiastical divisions represent the political divisions of the time, whether those political divisions are Roman provinces or independent Teutonic or Slavonic kingdoms. But the ecclesiastical divisions, when once fixed, were more lasting than the temporal divisions, and many disputes have arisen out of political changes which transferred one part of a province or diocese from one political allegiance to another. Since the splitting-up of the Western Church, the old ecclesiastical organization has altogether vanished from some countries, and has been greatly modified in others, in Germany most of all.

It seems hardly needful for the understanding of European history to carry our ecclesiastical survey beyond the limits of the Latin Church. One of the Polish provinces, that of Leopol, has carried us to the borderland of the Eastern and Western Churches, and, if we pass southwards into the Magyar and South-Slavonic lands, we find ourselves still more distinctly on an ecclesiastical march. ?Hungary.
Strigonium.
Kolocza.? The Kingdom of Hungary formed two Latin provinces, those of Strigonium or Gran, and of Kolocza; the latter has a very fluctuating boundary to the south. ?Dalmatia.? The Dalmatian coast, the borderland of all powers and of all religions, formed three Latin provinces. ?Zara.? Jadera or Zara, on her peninsula, was the head of a small province chiefly made up of islands. ?Spalato.? Another metropolitan had his throne in the very mausoleum of Diocletian, and the province of Spalato stretched some way inland over the lands which have so often changed masters. ?Ragusa.? To the south, the see of Ragusa, the furthest outpost of Latin Christendom properly so called, had, besides its own coasts and islands, an indefinite frontier inland. This marks the furthest extent to which it is needful to trace our ecclesiastical map. It is the furthest point at which Latin Christianity can be said to be in any sense at home. The ecclesiastical organization of the crusading and Venetian conquests further to the south and east have but little bearing on historical geography. But, within the bounds of Latin Christendom, the ecclesiastical divisions both of the provinces and dioceses within the older Empire and what we may call the missionary provinces beyond it, are of the highest importance, and they should always be kept in mind alongside of the political geography.