apparently Becket's crown now stands. Afterwards the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, now St. Augustine's, was erected "in fundo Templi"—whatever that may mean—but at that time St. Augustine seems to have accepted the Pagan temples as perfectly appropriate to Christian rites.
In like manner when King Redwald, after his conversion to Christianity was persuaded by his wife not rashly to forsake the faith of his forefathers, he set up two altars side by side in his temple (in fano), and dedicated the one to Christ, the other to the "victims of the dæmons."[1] The temple, apparently, was equally appropriate to either.
A still more instructive example is the description of the destruction of the church at Godmundingham by Coifi—the heathen priest—on his conversion to Christianity. He first desecrated it by throwing a spear into it—whether by the door or window we are not told—and then ordered his people to burn it to the ground with all its enclosures. These, therefore, must all have been in wood or some equally combustible material.[2]
All this is not much nor very distinct, but by these passages, and every hint we have on the subject, it would appear that the temples of the Pagans, between the departure of the Romans and the time of Alfred, were at least very similar to those of the Christians. Both were derived from the same model, which was the temple or basilica of the Romans, and both were apparently very rude, and generally, we may infer, constructed of wood. The word circular does not occur in any description of any Pagan temple yet brought to light, nor the word stone; nothing, in fact, that would in the remotest degree lead us to suppose that Bede, or any one else, was speaking or thinking of the megalithic monuments with which we are now concerned.
Although the classical authorities are silent regarding these rude stone monuments, and contemporary records help us very little in trying to understand the form of the temples in which our forefathers worshipped, till they were converted to Christianity, still the Decrees of the Councils render it quite certain that Rude
