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Extending Operations Over All England
the educational institutions he had seen in that country,
set up a school for youth to be instructed in literature
and was assisted therein by Bishop Felix, who came to
him from Kent and who furnished him with masters and
teachers after the manner of the country.
The only schools of any account in France at that
period were the Irish foundations of Columbanus and
his disciples, and it was doubtless in one of these that
Sigebert had studied. Bishop Felix, who presided over
the see of East Anglia for seventeen years, appears to
have been a Burgundian and very probably graduated
from one of Columbanus's Burgundian foundations,
Luxeuil, Annegray, Remiremont or Fontains. Already
the disciples of Columbanus were active in Picardy, estab-
lishing monasteries and schools, and doubtless some of
them crossed the channel into England. From them the
masters and teachers of Felix were very probably drawn.
It was while Sigebert governed the kingdom that Fursey
and his associates came out of Ireland into East Anglia.
His honorable reception by the king and subsequent in-
fluence in the province were, it may be inferred, due in
part to the king's friendship with his Irish instructors in
Gaul. Felixstowe in Suffolk is named after this Felix.
After his death his deacon Thomas was consecrated by
Honorius as bishop. The West Saxons, formerly called
Gewissae, Bede tells us, received the word of God by the
preaching of Bishop Birinus, and of his successors Agilbert
and Eleutherius. Birinus came into Britain in the
reign of Cynegils by the advice of Pope Honorius, hav-
ing promised in his presence that he would sow the holy
faith in the inner parts beyond the dominions of the
English where no other preacher had been before him.
Hereupon he received the episcopal consecration from
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