The British Church
Before the 8th century AD there were several Christian rites in Western Europe. Such diversity of practice was often considered unimportant so long as Rome's primacy was accepted. Gradually the diversity tended to lessen so that by the time of the final fusion in the Carolingian period the Roman Rite, its Ambrosian variant, the Romanized Celtic Rite and the Hispano-Gallican Mozarabic Rite were practically all that were left.
We find British bishops at the Council of Arles in 314 and the Council of Rimini in 359. Communication with Gaul may be inferred from dedications to St. Martin at Withern and at Canterbury, from the mission of Victridius of Rouen in 396 and those of Germanus of Auxerre, with St. Lupus in 429 and with St. Severus in 447, directed against the Pelagianism of which the bishops of Britain stood accused.
However some parts of Britain derived much of their religion from later Irish missions. St. Ia of Cornwall and her companions, Saint Piran, St. Sennen, St. Petrock and the rest of the saints who came to Cornwall in the late 5th and early 6th centuries probably brought with them whatever rites they were accustomed to. Cornwall had an ecclesiastical quarrel with Wessex in the days of St. Aldhelm, which appears in Leofric's Missal, though the details of it are not specified.
The certain points of difference between the British Church and the Roman in St. Augustine's time were: (1) The rule of keeping Easter (2) the tonsure (3) the manner of baptizing. Gildas also records elements of a different rite of ordination.
Read more about this topic: Celtic Rite
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