HISTORY The next great event was the coming of Christianity. Isolated Christians may have been scattered here and there among the Roman legions, but as a Church British Christianity doubtless took root from Gaul. The growth at first was very slender. It is certain that Cornwall icnew little of the faith till the late fifth and early sixth centuries, when an invasion of saints took place. These came chiefly from Ireland and Wales ; East Britain, apparently, did nothing to convert the West. But East Britain was now in a bad way itself, with its civilisation and Christianity stamped out by hordes of marauding Teutons, bringing a fierce paganism to confront a Romanised and partly Christianised culture. It will be best to deal more particularly with the Cornish saints when mentioning the spots with which their memories are chiefly connected. The arrival of those whom we loosely call Saxons took place about the year 450 ; it was not till 658 that the Wessex frontier reached as far W. as the river Parret, and cut off " West Wales " from Wales proper. Early in the ninth century we find the Danes allying with the West Eritons against the Saxons ; and the allies were defeated by Egbert at Kingston Down in 835. Athelstan completed the conquest though not the Saxonising of Cornwall and the Scillies about a century later. Men of Devon and Cornwall gathered side by side to defend Exeter from the Norman ; but it was in vain. Britain was fated to become one 27
