Each period of the history we have been studying has some special characteristics, and it may be convenient to sum them up briefly. The partial failure of the Kentish mission and the break-down of Gregory's scheme of government left the English Church in a disorganized condition, and Rome had to win a second victory to save it from Celtic customs and separation from the rest of Christendom. The hero of that victory was Wilfrith, its token the restoration of the see of York. A new period opens with the work of Theodore, and extends from the victory of the Roman party at Whitby to the end of the greatness of the Northumbrian Church, and the establishment of the sovereignty of Wessex. The diocesan scheme of Theodore succeeded, and is the basis of our present arrangement. His attempt to bring the whole Church under the rule of a single metropolitan failed, for the northern Church was for a season more advanced than the rest of the land in religion and culture; and its failure is marked by the restoration of the see of York to metropolitan rank. From the first the Church was national in character, independent of the rise and fall of the petty kingdoms into which the land was divided, and it became a powerful agent in the accomplishment of national unity. Nor was it by any means a handmaid of Rome, for the attempt of Wilfrith to regain his position by invoking the papal authority met with derision and defeat. From the first, too, the Church and the civil power worked in complete harmony, and when national unity was attained, the Church bore its own share in every department of the polity it had done so much to create. For a moment, indeed, its work in teaching the lesson of union was threatened by the baleful predominance of Mercia; for the foundation of the Mercian archiepiscopate was an attempt to make the Church minister to the greatness of a single kingdom; its failure saved her from degradation, and probably saved the nation from prolonged division. By Archbishop Ceolnoth's alliance with Ecgberht, the Church adopted the interests of the line of kings under whom the unity of the nation was accomplished.
While the invasion of the Northmen completed the ruin of the northern church, Alfred and his son imparted new vigour to the life of the southern province, and their work was carried further forward by the great churchmen whose names are connected with the monastic revival of the tenth century. This period of recovery may be said to close with the death of Dunstan. Although the relations between England and Rome became more intimate under the immediate successors of Ecgberht, and especially under Alfred, the work of restoration was not due to direct Roman influence; it was effected mainly through intercourse with France, Flanders, and Germany. Throughout the period the unity of action of the Church and State is strongly marked; separate conciliar action became rare, and both spiritual and secular affairs were administered by statesmen-bishops. During the first part of the eleventh century this union became even more intimate, greatly to the loss of the Church; for the bishops were absorbed in worldly matters and party strife. Freedom from Roman interference and a long course of independent and purely national life, however good in themselves, proved dangerous, for the Church had not yet attained any widespread culture.