SAXON AND CELT.

Bruce Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 1933, 17 February 1888, Page 6

SAXON AND CELT.

Aldhelm was a bishop of the apostolic type. He sedulously visited all parts of his diocese, which at the west was ill-defined, but certainly included the greater part of Somerset. At a Council of the Saxon Church, which was held a.d. 700, Aldhelm was commissioned to write a letter to Geraint of Cornwall, to exhort him to adopt the Roman rule for Easter, &c. In this letter he refers to the un-Christiau hatred shown by the Britons of West Wales (as the Saxons called the Western Peninsula) to the Saxons. They would not pray in the same church or eat at the same table with a Saxon ; they would throw the food a Saxon h°d cooked to the dogs, and rinse the cup a Saxon had used with sand oi ashes before they would drink out of it ; if a Saxon went to sojourn among them, they put him to a penance or quarantine of forty days before they would show him any kindness or act of good neighbourhood. Of this Aldhelm complains, as a man of peace and charity might complain. He acknowledges that the Welsh Christians held all the doctrines of the Catholic faith, but tells them that their want of charity will destroy the benefit they would otherwise receive from it. His earnestness and Ina's measures of conciliation seem to have had the deeired effect. — " Somerset Scenes," by C. E. Boger.