The English Church in the Middle Ages
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Title: The English Church in the Middle Ages
Author: William Hunt
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Epochs of Church History
EDITED BY
PROFESSOR MANDELL CREIGHTON.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
EPOCHS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
Edited by Professor MANDELL CREIGHTON.
Fcp. 8vo, 2s. 6d. each.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN OTHER LANDS. By Rev. H. W. TUCKER.
THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. By Rev. GEORGE G. PERRY.
THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By the Rev. J. H.
OVERTON.
THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. By the Hon. G. C. BRODRICK.
THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. By J. BASS MULLINGER, M.A.
THE CHURCH OF THE EARLY FATHERS. By A. PLUMMER, D.D.
THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE. By the Rev. A. CARR.
THE CHURCH AND THE PURITANS, 1570-1660. By H. OFFLEY WAKEMAN, M.A.
THE CHURCH AND THE EASTERN EMPIRE. By the Rev. H. F. TOZER.
HILDEBRAND AND HIS TIMES. By the Rev. W. R. W. STEPHENS.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES. By Rev. W. HUNT, M.A.
THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. By H. M. GWATKIN, M.A.
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. By A. W. WARD.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH
IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
BY WILLIAM HUNT.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1888.
_All rights reserved_
Ballantyne Press
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
PREFACE.
This book is intended to illustrate the relations of the English Church
with the papacy and with the English State down to the revolt of Wyclif
against the abuses which had gathered round the ecclesiastical system of
the Middle Ages, and the Great Schism in the papacy which materially
affected the ideas of the whole of Western Christendom. It was thought
expedient to deal with these subjects in a narrative form, and some gaps
have therefore had to be filled up, and some links supplied. This has been
done as far as possible by notices of matters which bear on the moral
condition of the Church, and serve to show how far it was qualified at
various periods to be the example and instructor of the nation. No
attempt, however, has been made to write a complete history on a small
scale, and I have designedly passed by many points, in themselves of
interest and importance, in order to give as much space as might be to my
proper subjects. Besides, this volume has been written as one of a series
in which the missions to the Teutonic peoples, the various aspects of
Monasticism, the question of Investitures, and the place which the
University of Oxford fills in our Church's history have been, or will be,
treated separately. Accordingly I have not touched on any of these things
further than seemed absolutely necessary.
I wish that, limited as my task has been, I could believe that it has been
adequately performed. No one can understand the character, or appreciate
the claims, of the English Church who has not studied its history from the
beginning, and it is hoped that this little book may do something, however
small, towards spreading a correct idea of the part that the Church has
borne in the progress of the nation, and of the grounds on which its
members maintain that it has from the first been a National Church, as
regards its inherent life and independent attitude as well as its intimate
and peculiar relations with the State. A firm grasp of the position it
held during the Middle Ages is necessary to a right understanding of the
final rupture with Rome accomplished in the sixteenth century, and will
afford a complete safeguard against the vulgar error of regarding the
Church as a creation of the State, an institution established by the
civil power, and maintained by its bounty. Those who are acquainted with
our mediaeval chroniclers will see that I have written from original
sources. I have also freely availed myself of the labours of others, and,
above all, of the works of Bishop Stubbs, which have been of the greatest
assistance to me.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE v
LISTS OF THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY AND THE BISHOPS AND
ARCHBISHOPS OF YORK TO 1377 xiii
CHAPTER I. ROME AND IONA.
St. Augustin's Mission--Pope Gregory's Scheme of Organization--
Causes of its Failure--Foundation and Overthrow of the See of
York--Independent Missions--The See of Lindisfarne--Scottish
Christianity--The Schism--The Synod of Whitby--Restoration of
the See of York 1
CHAPTER II. ORGANIZATION.
Archbishop Theodore--His Work in Organization--New Dioceses--
Wilfrith's Appeals to Rome--Literary Greatness of Northumbria--
Parishes--Tithes--The Church in Wessex--A Third Archbishopric--
The Church in Relation to the State--to Rome--to Western
Christendom 15
CHAPTER III. RUIN AND REVIVAL.
Ruin of Northumbria--AEthelwulf's Pilgrimage--Danish Invasions
of Southern England; the Peace of Wedmore--Alfred's Work--
Character of the Church in the Tenth Century--Reorganization--
Revival--Oda--Dunstan--Seculars and Regulars--Dunstan's
Ecclesiastical Administration--Coronations--Dunstan's Last
Days--AElfric the Grammarian 34
CHAPTER IV. EXHAUSTION.
Characteristics of the Period--Renewed Scandinavian Invasions--
Legislation--Archbishop AElfheah: his Martyrdom--End of the
Danish War--Cnut and the Church--The King's Clerks--Spiritual
Decadence--Foreigners appointed to English Sees--Effect of these
Appointments--Party Struggles--Earl Harold--Pilgrimages--A
Legatine Visit--A Schismatical Archbishop--The Papacy and the
Conquest--Summary: The National Character of the Church before
the Norman Conquest 55
CHAPTER V. ROYAL SUPREMACY.
The Conqueror and Lanfranc--Canterbury and York--Separate
Ecclesiastical System--Removal of Sees--Extent and Limits of
Papal Influence--The Conqueror's Bishops--Change in the
Character of the Church--An Appeal to Rome--Feudal Tendencies--
St. Anselm--Struggle against Tyranny--Investitures--Henry I.--
Councils--Legates--Independence of the See of York--Summary 77
CHAPTER VI. CLERICAL PRETENSIONS.
Stephen and the English Church--Archbishop Theobald and Henry
of Winchester--Thomas the Chancellor--The Scutage of Toulouse--
Thomas the Archbishop--Clerical Immunity--The Archbishop in
Exile--His Martyrdom--Henry's General Relations to the Church--
Conquest of Ireland--Richard's Crusade--Longchamp--Archbishop
Hubert Walter--Character of the Clergy 105
CHAPTER VII. VASSALAGE.
The Alliance between the Church and the Crown--Coronation of
John--Quarrel between John and the Pope--The Interdict--
Vassalage of England--The Great Charter--Papal Tutelage of
Henry III.--Taxation of Spiritualities--Papal Oppression--
Edmund Rich, Archbishop--Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of
Lincoln--Alienation from Rome--Civil War--Increase of Clerical
Pretensions--The Canon Law 135
CHAPTER VIII. THE CHURCH AND THE NATION.
Character of the Reign of Edward I.--Archbishop Peckham--
Statute of Mortmain--Conquest of Wales--Circumspecte Agatis--
Expulsion of the Jews--Clerical Taxation and Representation
in Parliament--Breach between the Crown and the Papacy--
Confirmation of the Charters--Archbishop Winchelsey and the
Rights of the Crown--The English Parliament and Papal
Exactions--Church and State during the Reign of Edward II.--
Papal Provisions to Bishoprics--The Bishops and Secular
Politics--The Province of York--Parliament and Convocation 161
CHAPTER IX. THE PAPACY AND THE PARLIAMENT.
Ecclesiastical Character of the Reign of Edward III.--
Archbishops and their Ecclesiastical Administration--
Provisions--Statute of Provisors--Statute of Praemunire--
Refusal of Tribute--Relations between the Church and the
State--Causes of Discontent at the Condition of the Church--
Attack on Clerical Ministers and the Wealthy Clergy--Concordat
with the Papacy--The Good Parliament--Conclusion 192
INDEX 219
ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY TO 1377.
+-------------------------------------------+
| | Accession. | Death. |
|-------------------|------------|----------|
|Augustin | 597 | 604 |
|Laurentius | 604 | 619 |
|Mellitus | 619 | 624 |
|Justus | 624 | 627 |
|Honorius | 627 | 653 |
|Deusdedit | 655 | 664 |
|Theodore | 668 | 690 |
|Brihtwald | 693 | 731 |
|Tatwin | 731 | 734 |
|Nothelm | 735 | 739 |
|Cuthberht | 740 | 758 |
|Brecgwin | 759 | 765 |
|Jaenberht | 766 | 791 |
|AEthelheard | 793 | 805 |
|Wulfred | 805 | 832 |
|Feologeld | 832 | 832 |
|Ceolnoth | 833 | 870 |
|AEthelred | 870 | 889 |
|Plegmund | 890 | 914 |
|Athelm | 914 | 923 |
|Wulfhelm | 923 | 942 |
|Oda | 942 | 959 |
|Dunstan | 960 | 988 |
|AEthelgar | 988 | 989 |
|Sigeric | 990 | 994 |
|AElfric | 995 | 1005 |
|AElfheah | 1005 | 1012 |
|Lyfing | 1013 | 1020 |
|AEthelnoth | 1020 | 1038 |
|Eadsige | 1038 | 1050 |
|Robert | 1051 | 1070 |
|Stigand | 1052 | ... |
|Lanfranc | 1070 | 1089 |
|Anselm | 1093 | 1109 |
|Ralph | 1114 | 1122 |
|William of Corbeuil| 1123 | 1136 |
|Theobald | 1139 | 1161 |
|Thomas [Becket] | 1162 | 1170 |
|Richard | 1174 | 1184 |
|Baldwin | 1185 | 1190 |
|Hubert Walter | 1193 | 1205 |
|Stephen Langton | 1207 | 1228 |
|Richard Grant | 1229 | 1231 |
|Edmund Rich | 1234 | 1240 |
|Boniface | 1245 | 1270 |
|Robert Kilwardby | 1273 |res. 1278 |
|John Peckham | 1279 | 1292 |
|Robert Winchelsey | 1294 | 1313 |
|Walter Reynolds | 1313 | 1327 |
|Simon Mepeham | 1328 | 1333 |
|John Stratford | 1333 | 1348 |
|Thomas Bradwardine | 1349 | 1349 |
|Simon Islip | 1349 | 1366 |
|Simon Langham | 1366 |res. 1368 |
|William Whittlesey | 1368 | 1374 |
|Simon Sudbury | 1375 | 1381 |
+-------------------------------------------+
BISHOPS AND ARCHBISHOPS OF YORK TO 1377.
+-------------------------------------------+
| | Accession. | Death. |
|-------------------|------------|----------|
|Paulinus | 625 | ... |
|Wilfrith | 664 | 709 |
|Ceadda | 664 |res. 669 |
|Bosa | 678 | 705 |
|John of Beverley | 705 |res. 718 |
|Wilfrith II. | 718 | 732 |
|Ecgberht | 732 | 766 |
|AEthelberht (Albert)| 766 | 780 |
|Eanbald | 780 | 796 |
|Eanbald II. | 796 | 812 |
|Wulfsige | ... | 831 |
|Wigmund | 837 | ... |
|Wulfhere | 854 | 900 |
|AEthelbald | 900 | ... |
|Redewald |cir. 928 | ... |
|Wulfstan |cir. 931 | 956 |
|Oskytel | 958 | 971 |
|Oswald | 972 | 992 |
|Ealdulf | 992 | 1002 |
|Wulfstan II. | 1003 | 1023 |
|AElfric | 1023 | 1051 |
|Kinesige | 1051 | 1060 |
|Ealdred | 1060 | 1069 |
|Thomas | 1070 | 1100 |
|Gerard | 1101 | 1108 |
|Thomas II. | 1109 | 1114 |
|Thurstan | 1119 | 1140 |
|William | 1143 | 1154 |
|Henry Murdac | 1147 | 1153 |
|Roger | 1154 | 1181 |
|Geoffrey | 1191 | 1212 |
|Walter Gray | 1215 | 1255 |
|Sewal de Bovill | 1256 | 1258 |
|Godfrey | 1258 | 1265 |
|Walter Giffard | 1266 | 1279 |
|William Wickwain | 1279 | 1285 |
|John le Roman | 1286 | 1296 |
|Henry Newark | 1298 | 1299 |
|Thomas Corbridge | 1300 | 1303 |
|William Greenfield | 1306 | 1315 |
|William Melton | 1317 | 1340 |
|William Zouche | 1342 | 1352 |
|John Thoresby | 1352 | 1373 |
|Alexander Neville | 1374 | 1392 |
+-------------------------------------------+
THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHAPTER I.
_ROME AND IONA._
ST. AUGUSTIN'S MISSION--POPE GREGORY'S SCHEME OF ORGANIZATION--CAUSES
OF ITS FAILURE--FOUNDATION AND OVERTHROW OF THE SEE OF
YORK--INDEPENDENT MISSIONS--THE SEE OF LINDISFARNE--SCOTTISH
CHRISTIANITY--THE SCHISM--THE SYNOD OF WHITBY--RESTORATION OF THE SEE
OF YORK.
[Sidenote: St. Augustin's landing at Ebbsfleet, 597.]
The Gospel was first brought to the Teutonic conquerors of Britain by
Roman missionaries, and was received by the kings of various kingdoms.
From the first the Church that was planted here was national in character,
and formed a basis for national union; and when that union was
accomplished the English State became coextensive with the English Church,
and was closely united with it. The main object of this book is to trace
the relations of the Church both with the Papacy and with the State down
to the new era that opened with the schism in the Papacy and the Wyclifite
movement. Our narrative will begin with the coming of Augustin and his
companions in 597 to preach the Gospel to the English people. They landed
in the Isle of Thanet. The way had, to some extent, been prepared for
them, for AEthelberht, king of Kent, whose superiority was acknowledged as
far north as the Humber, had married a Christian princess named Bertha,
the daughter of a Frankish king, and had allowed her to bring a priest
with her and to practise her own religion. He had not, however, learnt
much about Christianity from his queen or her priest. Nevertheless, he
received the Gospel from Augustin, and was baptized with many of his
people. By Gregory's command, Augustin was consecrated "archbishop of the
English nation" by the archbishop of Arles. AEthelberht gave him his royal
city of Canterbury, and built for him there the monastery of Christ
Church, the mother-church of our country.
[Sidenote: Gregory's scheme of organization, 601.]
Gregory organized the new Church, in the full belief that it would extend
over the whole island. He sent Augustin the "pall," a vestment denoting
metropolitan authority, and constituting the recipient vicar of the Pope.
Two metropolitan sees were to be established--the one at London, the
residence of the East Saxon King Saeberct, who reigned as sub-king under
AEthelberht, a crowded mart, and the centre of a system of roads; the other
at York, the capital of the old Roman province north of the Humber. Both
archbishops were to receive the pall, and to be of equal authority. At the
same time, the unity of the Church was ensured, for they were to consult
together and act in unison. Both the provinces were to be divided into
twelve suffragan bishoprics, and as the northern province took in the
country now called Scotland, they were of fairly equal size. This
arrangement was not to be carried out until after Augustin's death. As
long as he lived all the bishops alike were to obey him, and he was, we
may suppose, to continue to reside at Canterbury. Moreover, the clergy of
the Welsh or Britons were to be subject to him and to the future
archbishops of the English Church. Augustin endeavoured to persuade the
Welsh clergy to join him in preaching the Gospel to the Teutonic invaders,
and held a meeting with them at or near Aust, on the Severn. But they
refused to acknowledge his authority, or even to hold communion with him,
and would not give up their peculiar usages with respect to the date of
Easter and the administration of Baptism. At Augustin's request, Gregory
sent him a letter of instructions as to the government of the Church. It
bears witness to the Pope's largeness of mind. While morality and decency
were to be enforced, the archbishop was not bound strictly to follow the
Roman ritual; if he found anything that he thought would be helpful to his
converts in the Gallican or any other use, he might adopt it, and so make
up a use collected from various sources.
[Sidenote: Causes of its failure.]
Excellent as Gregory's scheme would have been had Britain still been under
Roman rule, it was unsuited to a country divided as England then was into
several rival kingdoms. London did not become a metropolitan see, probably
because AEthelberht was unwilling that the seat of ecclesiastical authority
should be transferred from his own kingdom to the chief city of a
dependent people, while Augustin had no wish that the church which he had
founded at Canterbury, and the second monastery, now called after him,
which he had begun to build there for a burying-place for himself and his
successors, should be reduced to a lower rank. Other Roman clergy had been
sent by Gregory to reinforce the mission, and of these Augustin
consecrated Mellitus to be bishop of London, Justus to be bishop over Kent
west of the Medway, with Rochester as the city of his see, an arrangement
that marks an early tribal distinction, and Laurentius to be his own
successor at Canterbury. Thus the metropolitan see remained with Kent.
More generally, Gregory's scheme failed because it was founded on the old
division of Britain as a province of the Roman empire, and was not adapted
to the tribal distinctions of the English. Moreover, political
circumstances determined the development of the Church; for the Roman
mission received a series of checks, and the work of evangelization was
taken up by Scottish missionaries. The kingdoms into which the country was
divided were finally converted by efforts more or less independent of the
Kentish mission; the work of evangelization followed tribal lines, and for
sixty years after Augustin's death the tendency of the Church was towards
disunion.
[Sidenote: Foundation and overthrow of the see of York, 627-633.]
Although the king of the East Angles received baptism in Kent at the
bidding of AEthelberht, he fell back into idolatry on his return to his own
land. And as AEthelberht's son, Eadbald, was a pagan, many of the
Kentishmen and East Saxons also deserted Christianity when he became king.
Eadbald was converted by Laurentius, and did what he could to forward the
cause of Christ. With AEthelberht's death, however, the greatness of Kent
passed away, and Eadbald could not insist on the destruction of idols even
in his own country. While Kent sank into political insignificance the
Kentish mission made one great advance, and then ended in failure. The
Northumbrian king, Eadwine, who reigned over the two Northumbrian
kingdoms, Bernicia and Deira, from the Forth to the Humber, and gradually
established a supremacy over the whole English people except the
Kentishmen, married AEthelburh, the daughter of AEthelberht. She was
accompanied to her new home by Paulinus, who was ordained bishop by
Justus, the successor of Mellitus; and Boniface V. wrote to her exhorting
her to labour for the conversion of her husband, and saying that he would
not cease to pray for her success. His prayers were heard; Eadwine was
baptized, and made his capital, York, the seat of the bishopric of
Paulinus. The people of Deira (Yorkshire) followed their king's example,
while Bernicia, though Paulinus preached and baptized there, remained, on
the whole, heathen; no church was built and no altar was raised. South of
the Humber the authority of Eadwine and the preaching of Paulinus effected
the conversion of Lindsey, and of the king, at least, of the East Angles.
In 633, however, Eadwine was defeated and slain by Penda, the heathen king
of Mercia, and Cadwallon, the Briton. Heathenism was already triumphant in
East Anglia, and on Eadwine's death many of the Northumbrians relapsed
into idolatry. AEthelburh and her children sought shelter in Kent, and
Paulinus fled with them. Only one Roman clergyman, the deacon James,
remained in Northumbria to labour on in faith that God's cause would yet
triumph there. Ignorant of the calamity that had befallen the Church, the
Pope, in pursuance of Gregory's scheme, sent the pall to Paulinus. When
the papal gift arrived in England the Church of York had been overthrown,
and Paulinus had been translated to Rochester.
[Sidenote: Independent missions.]
[Sidenote: Foundation of the see of Lindisfarne, 635.]
After the success of the Kentish mission had received this terrible check,
the work of evangelization was carried on by efforts that were more or
less independent of it. East Anglia was finally converted by a Burgundian
priest named Felix, who was consecrated bishop by Honorius, archbishop of
Canterbury, and fixed his see at Dunwich, once on the Suffolk coast. The
Italian, Birinus, who was consecrated in Italy, brought the Gospel to the
West Saxons, and received Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, for the place of his
see. Northumbria was evangelized by Celtic missionaries who were not in
communion with Rome and Canterbury. About the middle of the sixth century
the Irish Scot, Columba, founded the monastery of Iona. He and his
companions preached the Gospel to the northern Picts and the Scots of the
western isles, and Iona became a centre of Christian light. During the
reign of Eadwine, Oswald and Oswiu, princes of the rival Bernician line,
had found shelter in Iona. Oswald returned to become king of Bernicia
shortly after the death of Eadwine, and before long brought Deira also
under his dominion. As soon as he had gained possession of the kingdom of
Bernicia, he sent to Iona for missionaries to instruct his people. Aidan,
a missionary from Columba's house, came to him, and so it came to pass
that Bernicia received Christianity from Celtic teachers, from Aidan and
his fellow-workers. Oswald warmly seconded their efforts, and fixed the
see of Aidan, who was in bishop's orders, in Lindisfarne, or Holy Isle,
not far from Bamborough, where he resided; for though he ruled over both
the Northumbrian kingdoms, and completed the minster at York, he made his
home in the North, among his own people. Bernicia thus became the
stronghold of Celtic Christianity under the rule of the kings of the house
of Ida, while the Christians of Deira were naturally more inclined to the
Roman usages which had been introduced by Paulinus and practised by
Eadwine and his queen. Aidan built a monastery at Lindisfarne, and peopled
it with monks from Iona. This gave him a good supply of clergy, and the
work of evangelization prospered and took deep root. The greatness of
Oswald provoked Penda to renew his struggle with the northern kingdom, and
the Northumbrian king was defeated and slain at Maserfield. As his foes
closed round him he prayed for their conversion. His words sank deeply
into men's hearts. "'May God have mercy on their souls,' said Oswald, as
he fell to earth," was a line handed down from generation to generation.
From his hermit's retreat on Farne Island, Aidan beheld the thick clouds
of smoke rise from the country round Bamborough, and cried, "Behold, Lord,
the evil that Penda doeth!" Still the work of God went on; and when Oswiu
came to the throne the prayer of Oswald received its answer, for a
marriage between his house and the house of Penda led to the
evangelization of the Mercians and Middle Angles by the monks of Iona.
From them too the East Saxons received the Gospel, and Cedd, an English
monk of Lindisfarne, was consecrated to the bishopric that had been held
by the Roman Mellitus.
[Sidenote: Scottish Christianity.]
By the middle of the seventh century only Kent and East Anglia remained in
full and exclusive communion with Rome; for Sussex was still heathen,
Wini, the West Saxon bishop, acted with British bishops, and Scottish
Christianity prevailed in all the rest of England. The Scottish
missionaries were full of zeal and self-devotion, and were masters of a
considerable store of learning. Their nature was impulsive; while they
were loving and tender-hearted, passionate invectives came as readily from
their lips as words of love. Celtic Christianity was a religion of
perpetual miracles, of deep and varying emotions, and of contempt for
worldly things, that, however noble in itself, was sometimes manifested
extravagantly. While its teachers seldom failed to win men's love, they
were not equally successful in influencing their conduct. It was well that
the English Church turned away from them, for their religious system could
never have produced an organized ecclesiastical society. It was monastic
rather than hierarchical, and a Celtic priest-abbot was a far more
important person than a bishop who was not the ruler of an abbey, though
in England the bishops were probably always abbots. In founding their sees
they sought seclusion rather than good administrative centres, and the
bishop's monastery was less a place of diocesan government than the
headquarters of missionary effort. They had no regular diocesan system,
and bishops and clergy ministered where they would. Their monasticism was
of a specially ascetic character. Both Aidan and Cuthberht loved to leave
the society of the monks at Lindisfarne, and to retire to the barren
little Farne Island, where they could only hear the roaring of the
northern ocean and the crying of the sea-birds. Cuthberht, indeed, even
after he joined the Roman Church, kept the characteristics of the Scottish
monk. He left the duties of his bishopric altogether and ended his days in
his island-hermitage. This love of asceticism was fatal to the well-being
of the Church; the individual soul was everything; the Church was nothing;
and though great victories were won over heathenism, the Scottish Church
remained without corporate life. Lastly, it was not in communion with
Rome, and so lay outside Catholic Christendom. And though it had much to
offer the English both in religion and learning, every gift would have
been rendered fruitless by isolation from the progressive life of Western
Christendom.
[Sidenote: The schism.]
It was, indeed, impossible, from the very nature of things, that Celtic
Christianity should long prevail in England, for its arrangements were
based on the loose organization of the sept, and the English needed
arrangements that suited kingship and tended towards political as well as
ecclesiastical union. Its rejection was, however, determined by questions
of Church order. Up to the middle of the fifth century the Celtic
Christians computed Easter by the Roman lunar cycle, which had gradually
diverged from that of Eastern Christendom. When, however, the Romans
adopted a new system of computation, the Welsh and the Irish Scots adhered
to the old cycle; and they further differed from the Roman Church as
regards the shape of the tonsure and the rites observed in the
administration of Baptism. Unimportant as such differences may seem to us,
they were really no light matters; for, as the Church was engaged in a
conflict with paganism, unity with itself was of the first consequence.
The points at issue began to be much debated in Northumbria when the
gentle-spirited Aidan was succeeded at Lindisfarne by Finan, a man of
violent temper. The Bernician court was divided. Oswiu was attached to the
Scottish communion, and his attachment was strengthened by his regard for
Colman, the successor of Finan. On the other hand, his queen, Eanflaed, the
daughter of Eadwine, belonged to the Roman party; and so it came about
that, while the king was keeping his Easter feast, his queen was still in
the Lenten fast. Oswiu's son, Alchfrith, who reigned as under-king in
Deira, left the Scottish communion and eagerly upheld the Roman party. He
was encouraged by Wilfrith, the abbot of Ripon. Wilfrith, who was the
child of wealthy parents, had been led by the unkindness of his stepmother
to desire to become a monk, and had been sent, when a handsome, clever lad
of thirteen, to Queen Eanflaed, that she might decide what he should do.
Eanflaed sent him to Lindisfarne, and he stayed there for some years. Then
she helped him to visit Rome, and he made the journey, which was as yet
unknown to his fellow-countrymen, partly in the company of Benedict
Biscop, who became the founder of Roman monasticism in the north of
England. While he was at Rome Wilfrith studied ecclesiastical matters, and
especially the subject of the computation of Easter. He returned home
fully convinced of the excellence of the Roman Church, and found in
Alchfrith a warm friend and willing disciple. Alchfrith had built a
monastery at Ripon, and peopled it with Scottish monks from Melrose. When
he adopted the Roman customs, these monks, of whom Cuthberht was one,
refused to follow his example, and accordingly he turned them out, and
gave the monastery to Wilfrith.
[Sidenote: The synod of Whitby, 664.]
Before long Wilfrith, who was a good preacher and charitable to the poor,
became exceedingly popular. The ecclesiastical dispute was evidently
closely connected with the rivalry between the two Northumbrian kingdoms;
the Roman cause was upheld in Deira and by the Deiran under-king, while
the Celtic clergy were strong in Bernicia, and trusted in the support of
Oswiu. A visit from Agilberct, a Frank, who had held the West Saxon
bishopric, and had since returned to Gaul, gave Alchfrith an opportunity
of bringing matters to an issue. Agilberct admitted Wilfrith to the
priesthood, and urged on a decision of the dispute. A conference was held
at the abbey of Strenaeshalch, or Whitby. The abbey was ruled by Hild,
great-niece of King Eadwine, who presided over a congregation composed of
monks as well as nuns. Five of Hild's monks became bishops, and the poet
Caedmon was first a herdsman, and then a brother of her house. Hild
belonged to the Scottish party, which was represented at the conference by
Colman, Cedd, and others. The leaders on the Roman side were Agilberct,
Wilfrith, James the deacon of Paulinus, and Eanflaed's chaplain, Romanus.
The question was decided in a synod of the whole Northumbrian kingdom,
presided over by Oswiu and Alchfrith. Oswiu opened the proceedings with a
short speech, in which he urged the necessity of union and the importance
of finding out what the true tradition was. Colman then stated his case,
which he rested on the tradition of his Church and the authority of St.
John. At the request of Agilberct, Oswiu called on Wilfrith to answer him.
Wilfrith spoke in an overbearing tone, for he was of an impatient temper.
He sneered at the obstinacy of "a few Picts and Britons" in setting
themselves in opposition to the whole world, and met Colman's arguments by
declaring that the Celtic Easter was condemned by St. Peter, of whom the
Lord had said, "Thou art Peter," &c. (Matt. xvi. 18). On this, Oswiu asked
Colman whether the Lord had indeed spoken thus, and when he said that He
had done so, further demanded whether his Columba had received any such
power. Colman allowed that he had not. The king then asked whether both
parties were agreed that Peter had received the keys of Heaven. "Even so,"
was the answer. "Then," said he, "I will not go against him who is
doorkeeper, but will do all I know and can to obey him, lest perchance,
when I come to the door of the kingdom of Heaven, I should find none to
open to me, because he who holds the keys is offended with me." The
assembly agreed with the king's decision, and declared for the Roman
usages. James the deacon saw the reward of his long and faithful labour;
he was a skilful singer, and introduced the Roman method of chanting into
Northumbria.
The Synod of Whitby is the turning-point in the history of the schism.
Before many years the Celtic party died out in the north, and though the
Celtic customs lingered a little longer among the Britons of the west, the
decisive blow had been struck; the Church of England was to follow Rome.
The gain was great. The Church was to have a share in the progressive life
of Catholic Christianity; it was to have a stately ritual, and to be
adorned by the arts and strengthened by the learning of the west; it
gained unity and organization for itself, and the power of exercising a
determining influence on the lives of individual men, and on the formation
and history of the future State. Nevertheless, the decision of the synod
was not all gain, for it led to the submission of the Church to papal
authority, and in times of national weakness exposed it to papal
aggression.
[Sidenote: Restoration of the see of York, 664.]
Colman refused to accept the decision of the synod, and left England in
anger, taking several of his monks with him. His departure ruined the
cause of his Church. His successor in the vast Northumbrian diocese died
of the terrible plague that visited England the year of the Synod. Then
the two kings held a meeting of the Northumbrian witan, and Wilfrith was
chosen bishop. The victory of his party was further declared by the
restoration of the see of York. Ever since the flight of Paulinus, York
had remained without a bishop; now, doubtless at the instance of Alchfrith
and the people of Deira, it took the place of Bernician Lindisfarne as
the seat of the Northumbrian bishopric. Wilfrith went to Gaul to receive
consecration, on the ground that there were not three canonically ordained
bishops in England, an assertion which seems to have been hasty and
incorrect. He stayed abroad for three years, and so well-nigh threw away
the victory he had gained, for while he was absent Alchfrith lost his
kingdom, and the rivalry between the two divisions of Northumbria found
expression in a revulsion of feeling in ecclesiastical matters. When he
came back he found that Aidan's disciple, Ceadda (St. Chad), the brother
of Cedd, who had adopted the Roman customs, had been appointed bishop in
his place. He retired to Ripon, acted as bishop in other parts, and helped
forward the introduction of Roman monasticism into monasteries that had
hitherto followed the Columban model.
CHAPTER II.
_ORGANIZATION._
ARCHBISHOP THEODORE--HIS WORK IN ORGANIZATION--NEW
DIOCESES--WILFRITH'S APPEALS TO ROME--LITERARY GREATNESS OF
NORTHUMBRIA--PARISHES--TITHES--THE CHURCH IN WESSEX--A THIRD
ARCHBISHOPRIC--THE CHURCH IN RELATION TO THE STATE--TO ROME--TO
WESTERN CHRISTENDOM.
[Sidenote: Archbishop Theodore, 668-690.]
Among the victims of the plague of 664 was Archbishop Deusdedit, the first
English successor of Augustin. After the see of Canterbury had lain vacant
for three years, Oswiu, who held a kind of supremacy in England, and
Ecgberht of Kent joined in writing to Pope Vitalian, asking him to
consecrate a Kentish priest named Wighard as archbishop. Wighard died of
the plague at Rome before he was consecrated, and the Pope wrote to the
kings that, agreeably to their request, he was looking for a fit man to be
consecrated. As, however, the kings had made no such request, and had
simply asked him to consecrate the man whom they and the English Church
had chosen, his letter was more clever than honest. He made choice of a
Greek monk, a native of Tarsus, named Theodore, who had joined the Roman
Church; and as the Greeks held unorthodox opinions, he sent with him
Hadrian, an African, abbot of the Niridan monastery, near Naples, that he
might prevent him from teaching any wrong doctrines. Theodore was
consecrated by the Pope in 668, and set out for England with Hadrian and
Benedict Biscop, of whom much will be said in the volume of this series on
monasticism. Both Theodore and Hadrian were learned men, and the
archbishop gathered round him a number of students, whom they instructed
in arts and sciences as well as in Biblical knowledge. They also taught
Latin and Greek so thoroughly that some of their scholars spoke both
languages as readily as English, and for the first time England had a
learned native clergy. Many of their scholars became teachers of others,
and in the darkest period of ignorance in Gaul, England, and especially
Northumbria, entered on a period of literary splendour that lasted until
the Danish invasions.
[Sidenote: His ecclesiastical organization.]
As the Church was now rapidly passing from the missionary to the pastoral
stage of its existence, it needed organization as a permanent institution.
This organization was given to it by Theodore. He established his
authority over the whole Church, and, long before any one thought of a
national monarchy, planned a national archiepiscopate. He made a
visitation of every see, and for the first time every bishop owned
obedience to Canterbury; while, as far as the English were concerned, he
virtually brought the schism to an end by enforcing the decision of the
Synod of Whitby. When he came to York he told Ceadda that his consecration
was uncanonical. The saintly bishop declared his readiness to resign; he
had ever, he said, deemed himself unworthy of the episcopal office.
Theodore was touched by his humility, and reordained him; he received the
Mercian bishopric, and lived for a little while in great holiness at
Lichfield. Wilfrith was restored to York, and ruled his diocese with
magnificence. When Theodore had thus established his authority, he
proceeded to give the Church a diocesan system and a means of legislation
in ecclesiastical matters. He called a national council of the Church to
meet at Hertford; it was attended by the bishops and several "masters of
Church," men learned in ecclesiastical affairs, and in it the archbishop
produced a body of canons which were universally accepted. These canons
declared that the Roman Easter was to be observed everywhere; that no
bishop should intrude into another's diocese; that no priest should
minister out of his own diocese without producing letters of
recommendation; that a synod of the whole Church should be held every year
at Clevesho, probably near London; and that more bishops were needed, a
matter which it was decided to defer for the present.
[Sidenote: Creation of new dioceses.]
Instead of the symmetrical arrangement contemplated by Gregory, certain
bishoprics were of immense size, for the diocese in each case was simply
the kingdom looked at from an ecclesiastical point of view, and as the
boundaries of a kingdom were changed by the fortune of war the diocese was
enlarged or diminished. The whole of Central England was included in the
one Mercian diocese, and the whole of Northumbria--for Lindisfarne was now
without a separate bishop--lay in the diocese of Wilfrith. Theodore saw
that it was necessary to subdivide these and other dioceses, and his
intention was approved at Rome. His plan of procedure was first to gain
the approval of the king whose kingdom would be affected by the change he
wished to make, and then to obtain the consent of the witan. Hitherto the
dioceses had been based on political circumstances; the new dioceses were
generally formed on tribal lines. He divided East Anglia into two
dioceses. The North folk and the South folk each had a bishop of their
own, and the new see was placed at Elmham. Mercia was divided into five
dioceses; the Hwiccan, the Hecanan, the Mercians proper, the Middle
Angles, and the Lindsey folk each received a bishop, and the five sees
were respectively at Worcester, Hereford, Lichfield, Leicester, and
Sidnacester. The division of the West Saxon see was put off until the
death of the bishop. In dealing with the Northumbrian diocese King
Ecgfrith and the archbishop seem to have expected opposition from
Wilfrith, for they divided his diocese in a council at which he was not
present. According to the plan then adopted, Theodore consecrated bishops
for Deira, Bernicia, and Lindsey, which, though originally part of the
Mercian diocese, had lately been added to the Northumbrian kingdom and
bishopric by conquest.
[Sidenote: Wilfrith's first appeal to Rome, 678.]
[Sidenote: He is driven from York a second time, 691.]
[Sidenote: Dies bishop of Hexham, 709.]
Wilfrith appeared before the king and the archbishop, and demanded to be
told why he was thus deprived of his rights. No answer was given him, and
he appealed to the judgment of the Apostolic See. This appeal to Rome
against the decision of a king and his witan, and of an archbishop acting
in concert, the first that was ever made by an Englishman, is a notable
event. It was greeted with the jeers of the great men of the court.
Wilfrith went to Rome in person, and Theodore appeared by a proctor. Pope
Agatho and his council decreed that Wilfrith should be reinstated, that
his diocese should be divided, but that he should choose the new bishops,
and that Theodore's bishops should be turned out. Wilfrith returned in
triumph, bringing the papal decrees with their bulls (seals) attached. A
witenagemot was held to hear them, and the king and his nobles decided to
disregard them. Wilfrith was imprisoned, and Theodore made a further
division of his diocese by establishing a see at Abercorn, and appointed
bishops for Lindisfarne, Hexham, and perhaps Ripon without consulting him.
After Wilfrith was released he was forced by the hatred of Ecgfrith to
wander about seeking shelter, until at last he found it among the heathen
South Saxons. He converted them to Christianity, and lived as their bishop
at Selsey. Then he preached to the people of the Isle of Wight, and by
their conversion completed the work that Augustin came to do. The death of
Ecgfrith made it possible for Theodore to come to terms with him. The
archbishop and the injured bishop were reconciled in 686, and at
Theodore's request Ealdfrith, the new king of Northumbria, reinstated
Wilfrith as bishop of York. Nevertheless the division that Theodore had
made was not disturbed, and he only presided over the Deiran diocese.
After some years he and Ealdfrith had a dispute about the rights and
possessions of his see. He was again driven from York, and again appealed
to Rome. Pope Sergius took his part. But Ealdfrith, though a religious
man, was not more inclined to submit to papal interference than his
predecessor. He found an ally in Archbishop Brihtwald, for Theodore was
now dead, and in spite of the Pope's mandates, Wilfrith's claims were
rejected by a national synod of the Church. He again appealed to Rome, and
was excommunicated by the English bishops. Again he journeyed to Rome, and
John VI. pronounced a decree in his favour. Ealdfrith, however, declared
that he would never change his decision for papal writings, and it was not
until after his death that a compromise was effected in a Northumbrian
synod held on the Nidd in 705. The settlement was unfavourable to
Wilfrith, for he was not restored to York, but ended his days as bishop of
Hexham. He was a man of blameless life and indomitable courage. It was
mainly through his efforts that the Church of England was brought into
conformity with the Roman Church. Defeat never made him idle or
despondent, and his noblest triumphs, the conversion of the last heathen
people of English race, were won in exile. At the same time, he was hasty,
impolitic, and perhaps over-jealous for his own honour. In the part that
the two archbishops took against him it is hard not to see some fear lest
the magnificence of the northern prelate should endanger the authority of
Canterbury in Northumbria, though they certainly acted for the good of the
Church in insisting on the division of his vast diocese. He made the first
attempt to control English ecclesiastical affairs by invoking the
appellate jurisdiction of the Pope, and his defeat was the first of the
many checks that papal interference received from Englishmen.
[Sidenote: Literary greatness of Northumbria, 664-782.]
[Sidenote: Caedmon, d. 680.]
[Sidenote: AEddi [Eddius], fl. 710.]
[Sidenote: Baeda, 673-735.]
From the time of its conversion by Aidan to its devastation by the
Scandinavian pirates, Northumbria excelled the rest of England in arts and
literature. Another volume of this series will deal with the famous
monasteries of Lindisfarne, Jarrow, Wearmouth, Whitby, and York, with
their scholar-monks, and with the splendours of Roman and Gallic art with
which their churches were enriched. While Celtic culture was on the point
of yielding to Roman influence, Caedmon, the herdsman, the first of our
sacred poets, began to sing at Whitby. His story illustrates the love of
the English for music; and this national characteristic caused the
introduction of the Roman system of chanting to hold an important place in
the process of bringing the Church into conformity with Rome. This part of
the work of James the deacon was carried on by AEddi, a choirmaster of
Canterbury, whom Wilfrith invited into Northumbria. AEddi became the
bishop's companion, and wrote a "Life of Wilfrith," a work of considerable
value. Shortly afterwards Baeda composed his "Ecclesiastical History." Baeda
was absolutely free from narrowness of mind, and though he held that the
Roman tradition was authoritative, loved and venerated the memory of the
holy men of the Celtic Church. As a story-teller he is unrivalled: full of
piety and tenderness, he preserved through life a simplicity of heart that
invests his narratives with a peculiar grace. At the same time, he did all
in his power to find out the exact truth, and constantly tells his readers
where he derived his information. He was well read in the best Latin
authors, and in patristic divinity; he understood Greek, and had some
acquaintance with Hebrew. Besides his works on the Bible and his
historical and biographical books, he wrote treatises on chronology,
astronomy, mathematics, and music. From boyhood he spent all his life in
the monastery of Jarrow in religious exercises and in literary labours,
that he undertook not for his own sake, but for the sake of others. During
his last sickness he worked hard to finish his translation of the Gospel
of St. John, for he knew that it would be useful to his scholars. His last
day on earth was spent upon it; and when evening came, and the young
scribe said, "There is yet one more sentence, dear master, to be written
out," he answered, "Write quickly." After a while the lad said, "Now the
sentence is written;" and he answered, "Good; thou hast spoken truly. It
is finished." Then he bade him raise his head, for he wished to look on
the spot where he was wont to pray. And so, lying on the pavement of his
cell, he sang the _Gloria Patri_, and as he uttered the name of the Holy
Ghost he passed to the heavenly kingdom.
[Sidenote: Parishes.]
[Sidenote: Tithes.]
One of Baeda's friends was Ecgberht, who was made bishop of York in 734,
and obtained the restoration of the metropolitan dignity of his see. A
year after his election Baeda sent him a letter of advice which tells us a
good deal about the state of the Church. While the work of evangelization
was still going on, monasteries were useful as missionary centres, and a
single church served for a large district. Now, however, men no longer
needed missionary preachers so much as resident priests and regular
services. Accordingly, the parochial system came into existence about this
time, not by any formal enactment, but in the natural course of things.
For, when the lord of a township built a church, and had a priest ordained
to minister to his people, his township in most cases became an
ecclesiastical district or parish. Baeda urges the bishop to forward this
change. He points out that it was impossible for him to visit every place
in his diocese even once a year, and exhorts him to ordain priests to
preach, to consecrate the Holy Mysteries, and to baptize in each village.
The parish priest mainly subsisted on land assigned to him by the lord who
built the church and on the offerings of the people, such as church-scot,
which was paid at Martinmas, soul-scot or mortuary dues, and the like.
These payments were obligatory, and were enjoined first by the law of the
Church, and then by the civil power. It is evident from Baeda's letter
that, even before the parochial system was established, a compulsory
payment of some kind was made to the bishop by all the people of his
diocese. From the earliest times, also, the consecration of a tenth, or
tithe, to the service of God was held to be a Christian duty, and the
obligation is recognized in Theodore's Penitential, and was therefore part
of the law of the Church. It became part of the civil law in 787, for it
was then enjoined by a council presided over by two legates, and the
decree was accepted by the kings and the witan of the kingdoms they
visited. It is probable, however, that payment was not enforced till a
later period. Early in the tenth century the obligation was recognized as
an established law, and a penalty was provided for its non-fulfilment. The
appropriation of the payment long remained unsettled, and was generally
decided by the owner of the land, who in most cases naturally assigned the
tithe to the parish priest, though he sometimes gave it to the head church
of the district, or to the bishop's church, or to some monastery. And
although the right of the parochial clergy to the tithe of increase was
declared in 1200 by the Council of Westminster, the constitution was often
evaded.
[Sidenote: Restoration of the archbishopric of York, 734.]
Many monasteries had in Baeda's time fallen into an evil condition, and as
the Church needed an efficient diocesan organization, he advised Ecgberht
to strive for the fulfilment of Pope Gregory's scheme as regards the
Church in the north, which provided that the see of York should be
metropolitan, and that the province should be divided into twelve
bishoprics. The new bishops should, he proposed, be supported out of the
funds of monasteries, which were in some cases to be placed under
episcopal rule. In the same year that this letter was written, Ecgberht
received the pall from Gregory III., and this grant, which had not been
made to any of his predecessors since the time of Paulinus, restored the
see to metropolitan dignity. Thus one part of Theodore's work was
frustrated, and Northumbria was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the see
of Canterbury. The kingdom itself was withdrawing from the contests
between the other English states, and the restoration of the archbishopric
may be regarded as a kind of declaration of its separate national life.
Under Ecgberht and his successor, AEthelberht (Albert), the Northumbrian
Church was famous for learning, and the archbishop's school at York became
the most notable place of education in Western Christendom. AEthelberht's
schoolmaster was Alcuin, who after the archbishop's death resided at the
court of Charles the Great, and helped him to carry out his plans for the
advancement of learning. Alcuin had himself been a scholar at York, and so
the school there became a source of light to other lands. In York itself,
however, the light was quenched before Alcuin's death. Civil disturbances
were followed by the Scandinavian invasions, and the Northumbrian Church
for a long period almost disappears amidst anarchy and ruin.
[Sidenote: Ealdhelm, bishop of Sherborne, died 709.]
In Wessex the work of Theodore was carried on by Ealdhelm, abbot of
Malmesbury, one of his most distinguished scholars. Ini, the West Saxon
king, had conquered the western part of Somerset, and ruled over a mixed
population. The bitter feelings engendered by the schism were an hindrance
to the Church in the west, and Ealdhelm wrote a treatise on the subject in
the form of a letter to Gerent, king of Dyfnaint, which brought a number
of the Welsh within the West Saxon border to conform to the customs of the
Roman Church. This put an end to the schism in the west. In our present
Wales the Roman Easter was universally accepted about a century later.
Ealdhelm, who was a kinsman of Ini, was much honoured by the king, and
used his influence to further the spread of the Gospel. Churches rose
rapidly in Wessex, and he journeyed to Rome to obtain privileges for the
monasteries he had founded, and was received with much kindness by Pope
Sergius. The division of the West Saxon diocese which had been
contemplated by Theodore took place in Ini's reign, and was settled by the
king and an ecclesiastical council. All to the west of Selwood Forest, the
western part of Wiltshire, Dorset, and Somerset formed the new diocese of
Sherborne, and over this Ealdhelm was chosen bishop. The rest of Wessex
remained in the diocese of Winchester, which had now taken the place of
Dorchester as an episcopal see. The labours of Ealdhelm, and the help he
received from his wise and powerful kinsman, brought about the extension
and organization of the Church in the west. After raising Wessex to the
foremost place among the kingdoms south of the Humber, Ini laid down his
crown, made a pilgrimage to Rome, and died there.
[Sidenote: The archbishopric of Lichfield, 786-802.]
In the latter half of the eighth century Offa, king of Mercia, was the
most powerful monarch in England, and, among other conquests, subdued Kent
and added it to his dominions. The course of political events tended to a
threefold division of England into the Northumbrian, Mercian, and West
Saxon kingdoms, and the twofold system of ecclesiastical administration by
the metropolitans of Canterbury and York thwarted the ambition of the
Mercian king. Northumbria had already sealed its policy of separation by
the restoration of the archbishopric of York, and Offa now adopted a
similar course, by persuading Pope Hadrian I. to grant the see of
Lichfield metropolitan dignity. He had a special reason for weakening the
power of Canterbury, for after the extinction of Kentish royalty the
archbishop gained increased political importance, and became the
representative of the national life of the kingdom, which Offa vainly
endeavoured to crush. Accordingly two legates of Hadrian held a synod at
Chelsea in 787, in which Higberht, bishop of Lichfield, was declared an
archbishop. Jaenberht, archbishop of Canterbury, was forced to submit to
the partition of his province, the obedience of the Mercian and East
Anglian bishops being apparently transferred to the new metropolitan.
This arrangement was subversive of a part of Theodore's work that was
specially valuable as regards the development both of the Church and the
nation. Theodore had made ecclesiastical jurisdictions independent of the
fluctuations of political boundaries, and had freed the Church from
provincial influences and from a merely local character. The national
character of the Church was to become a powerful factor in forming the
English nation. In spite of civil divisions, the oneness of the Church was
a strong element of union. Although no lay assembly, no witenagemot, of
the whole nation was as yet possible, the Church met in national councils;
its head, the archbishop of Canterbury, might be a native of any kingdom,
and every one of its clergy, of whatever race he might be, was equally at
home in whatever part of the land he was called to minister. This national
character of the Church and the influence it exercised on national unity
were endangered by creating metropolitan jurisdiction and dignity as mere
appendages to a political division. Happily there was no second archbishop
of Lichfield. Offa's successor, Cenwulf, found AEthelheard, the
archbishop of Canterbury, a useful ally in a revolt of the Kentish nobles,
and joined him in obtaining the restoration of the rights of his see from
Leo III. While the see of York was overwhelmed by political disasters, the
archbishop of Canterbury gained increased importance. Wessex entered on a
career of conquest under Ecgberht, who, in 827, defeated the Mercian king
at Ellandun. This victory led to the conquest of Kent, and in 838
Archbishop Ceolnoth, in a council held at Kingston, made a treaty of
perpetual alliance between his Church and Ecgberht and his son AEthelwulf,
the under-king of Kent. By this alliance the Church pledged itself to
support the line of kings under which the English at last became a united
nation.
[Sidenote: The Church in relation to the State.]
No distinct lines divide the area of the Church's work in legislation or
jurisdiction from that occupied by the State. Bishops, in virtue of their
spiritual dignity, formed part of the witan, first of the several
kingdoms, and then of the united nation. In the witenagemots laws were
enacted concerning religion, morality, and ecclesiastical discipline, as
well as secular matters; for the clergy had no reason to fear lay
interference, and gladly availed themselves of the authority that was
attached to the decrees of the national council. The evangelization of the
people caused some modification of their ancient laws and customs, and
AEthelberht of Kent and other kings published written codes "after the
Roman model," in accordance with the teaching of their bishops. It is
evident that bishops were usually appointed, and often elected, in the
witenagemot. Wilfrith was elected, "by common consent," in a meeting of
the Northumbrian witan, and the election of Ealdhelm by the West Saxon
assembly is said to have been made by the great men, the clergy, and a
multitude of people, though it must not be supposed that the popular voice
was ever heard except in assent. Nor does it seem certain that even the
form of election was always observed; for, to take a single instance,
Ceadda's appointment to Lichfield seems to have been made by Theodore at
the request of the Mercian king. The clergy of the bishop's church,
however, had a right of election, for Alcuin wrote to the clergy of York
reminding them that the election of the archbishop belonged to them.
Episcopal elections were, indeed, the results of amicable arrangement, and
exemplify the undefined condition of the relations between the Church and
the State, and the harmony that existed between them. The Church, however,
had its own councils. These were either national, such as that held by
Theodore at Hatfield, or, after the restoration of the northern
archiepiscopate, provincial, or assemblies of the Church of a single
kingdom, such as the Synod of Whitby. In spite of the canon directing that
national Church councils should meet annually, they were not often held,
owing to the constant strife between the kingdoms. An amendment to one of
Theodore's canons proves the freedom of discussion and voting at these
assemblies. Provincial councils were attended by a few of the principal
clergy of each diocese, who came up to them with their bishop. Kings and
nobles were often present at ecclesiastical councils, and joined in
attesting their proceedings, so that it is sometimes difficult to decide
whether a council was a clerical assembly or a meeting of the witan.
The harmony between Church and State is no less evident in matters of
jurisdiction than it is in legislation. Besides exercising jurisdiction in
his own franchise, the bishop sat with the ealdorman and sheriff in the
local courts, declaring the ecclesiastical law and taking cognizance of
the breach of it. Certain cases touching morality appear to have specially
belonged to his jurisdiction, which was also exercised in the local courts
over criminal clergy. Apart from his work in these courts, he enforced
ecclesiastical discipline, and the rules contained in the Penitentials, or
codes in which a special penance was provided for each sin. These
compilations derived their authority not from any decree, but from their
inherent excellence, or from the character of their authors. Some
Penitentials were drawn up by Scottish teachers, and Theodore, Baeda, and
Ecgberht of York wrote others for the English Church. The bishop had a
court of his own for the correction of clergy not accused of civil crime
and for the administration of penitential discipline. His chief officer,
the archdeacon, first appears under that title, though without territorial
jurisdiction, early in the ninth century. Before that time the bishop was
attended by his deacon, but this office was one of personal service rather
than of administration. No jealousy can be discerned between Church and
State, and though the area within which each worked was not clearly
defined, it is clear that they worked together without clashing.
[Sidenote: The Church and the Papacy.]
While, however, the Church had this strongly national character, it was in
obedience to the Roman see. Archbishops did not consecrate bishops until
they had received the pall from the Pope. At first the pall was sent to
them, but by the beginning of the eighth century they were expected to
fetch it, and this soon became an invariable rule, which strengthened the
idea of the dependence of the Church, and afforded opportunities for
extortion and aggression. No legates landed here from the time of Theodore
until two were sent over by Hadrian in 786. Hadrian's legates held synods
in both the two provinces, and published a body of canons, which the kings
and their thegns, the archbishops, bishops, and all who attended pledged
themselves to obey. By one of these the payment of tithes was, we have
seen, made part of the law of the land. Another illustrates the influence
of the Church on the conception of kingship. Although the crown invested
the king with personal pre-eminence, there was as yet no idea of the
sanctity conferred by the religious rite of anointing, which had taken the
place of the old Teutonic ceremonies. It was now ordained that no one of
illegitimate birth should be chosen king, for none such might enter the
priesthood, and that any one who plotted the king's death should be held
guilty of the sin of Judas, because the king was the Lord's Anointed. The
Church, however, was not to fall into the snare of adulation; bishops were
to speak the word of God to kings without fear, and kings were to obey
them as those who held the keys of Heaven.
For the next three hundred years the Church was almost wholly free from
the direct control of legatine visits. Appeals to the judgment of the
Roman see had for the first time been made by Wilfrith, and the Church, as
we have seen, cordially upheld the resistance offered by kings and nobles
to the Pope's attempts to set aside the decision of national councils.
The compromise that was at last effected was not a papal triumph.
Nevertheless the authority of the Pope was generally acknowledged, and the
most powerful kings thought it needful to obtain the sanction of Rome for
ecclesiastical changes, such as the erection and suppression of the
Mercian archbishopric. Moreover, Englishmen venerated Rome as the
Apostolic See and the mother of Catholic Christendom, and made frequent
pilgrimages thither. First, ecclesiastics journeyed to Rome either for
purposes of business or devotion. Then, towards the end of the seventh
century, Ceadwalla, a West Saxon king, went thither to receive baptism,
praying that he might die as soon as he was cleansed from his sins, and
his prayer was granted. His example was followed by other kings, and among
them by his successor, Ini. Crowds of persons of both sexes and every
condition now went on pilgrimage. In Offa's time there were special
buildings at Rome called the "Saxon School" for the accommodation of
English pilgrims, and the Mercian king obtained a promise from Charles the
Great that they should be free of toll in passing through his dominions.
[Sidenote: The Church and Western Christendom.]
The missionary labours of Willibrord, of Winfrith or Boniface, and other
Englishmen brought our Church into close relationship with other Churches
of Western Europe, for a constant correspondence was kept up between the
missionaries and their brethren at home. The connexion between the English
and Frankish Churches was strengthened by the residence of Alcuin at the
court of Charles the Great, and by the desire of Offa to establish
friendly relations with the Frankish monarch. Alcuin obtained a letter
from the kings and bishops of England, agreeing with the condemnation
which Charles pronounced against the decree of the Second Council of Nice,
re-establishing the worship of images in the Eastern Church, and English
bishops attended the council Charles held at Frankfort, where the action
of the Greeks and the opinions of certain Adoptionist heretics were
condemned. At the close of the eighth century our Church was highly
esteemed throughout Western Christendom, and this was due both to the
noble work accomplished by English missionaries and to the literary
greatness of Northumbria, the home of Alcuin.
CHAPTER III.
_RUIN AND REVIVAL._
RUIN OF NORTHUMBRIA--AETHELWULF'S PILGRIMAGE--DANISH INVASIONS OF
SOUTHERN ENGLAND; THE PEACE OF WEDMORE--ALFRED'S WORK--CHARACTER OF
THE CHURCH IN THE TENTH
CENTURY--REORGANIZATION--REVIVAL--ODA--DUNSTAN--SECULARS AND
REGULARS--DUNSTAN'S ECCLESIASTICAL
ADMINISTRATION--CORONATIONS--DUNSTAN'S LAST DAYS--AELFRIC THE
GRAMMARIAN.
[Sidenote: Ruin of Northumbria.]
Before the end of the eighth century the Northmen laid waste Lindisfarne,
Jarrow, and Wearmouth. Civil disorder, however, was well nigh as fatal to
the Church in the north as the ravages of the heathen. In 808 Archbishop
Eanbald joined the Mercian king, Cenwulf, in dethroning Eardulf of
Northumbria. Eardulf sought help from the Emperor, Charles the Great, and
laid his case before Leo III. A papal legate and an imperial messenger
were sent to England to summon Eanbald to appear either before the Pope or
the Emperor. He defended himself by letter; his defence was pronounced
unsatisfactory, and the Emperor procured the restoration of the king. For
the next sixty years anarchy and violence prevailed in the north. Then the
Scandinavian pirates invaded the country and overthrew York. Nine years
later Halfdene desolated Bernicia, so that not a church was left standing
between the Tweed and the Tyne. The bishop of Lindisfarne and his monks
fled from their home, carrying with them the bones of St. Cuthberht. They
found shelter at Chester-le-Street, which for about a century became the
see of the Bernician bishopric. Northumbria became a Danish province, and
when it was again brought under the dominion of an English king it had
fallen far behind the rest of the country in ecclesiastical and
intellectual matters. The Danish conquest had a marked effect upon the
position of the northern metropolitan. Cut off from communication with the
rest of England, the Northumbrians became almost a distinct nation. The
extinction of the native kingship and a long series of revolutions threw
political power into the hands of the archbishops, and when the Church of
York again emerges from obscurity we find them holding a kind of national
headship. Their position was magnified by isolation. While the sees of
Hexham and Withern had been overthrown, and the Church of Lindisfarne was
in exile, the see of York remained to attract the sympathies and, in more
than one instance, direct the action, of the northern people.
[Sidenote: AEthelwulf's pilgrimage, 855.]
During the attacks of the pirates on the south of England the alliance
between the Church and the West Saxon throne was strengthened by the
common danger, and the bishops appear as patriots and statesmen. AEthelwulf
was supported in his struggles with the Danes by Swithun, bishop of
Winchester, and Ealhstan, bishop of Sherborne. Ealhstan was rich, and used
his wealth for the defence of the kingdom; he equipped armies, joined in
leading them in battle, and in 845, in conjunction with the ealdormen of
Somerset and Dorset, headed the forces of his bishopric, and inflicted a
severe defeat upon the invaders at the mouth of the Parret. The resistance
the Danes met with from the West Saxons, which was largely due to the
exertions of these bishops, delivered Wessex from invasion for twenty
years. Meanwhile Lindsey and East Anglia were ravaged, Canterbury was
twice sacked, and London was taken by storm. Everywhere the heathens
showed special hatred to the monks and clergy; monasteries and churches
were sacked and burnt, and priests were slain with the sword. These
calamities were regarded as Divine judgments, and when AEthelwulf had
checked the invaders he made a pilgrimage to Rome. Before he left, and
after his return, he made a series of donations, which have been described
as conveying a tenth part of his own estates to ecclesiastical bodies, and
to various thegns, as freeing a tenth part of the folcland from all
burdens except the three that fell on all lands alike, and as charging
every ten hides of his land with the support of a poor man. Though these
grants have nothing to do with the institution of tithes, they illustrate
the sacredness that was attached to the tenth portion of property.
AEthelwulf carried rich gifts to Benedict III., and while he was at Rome
rebuilt the "Saxon School." This institution was supported by a yearly
contribution from England, which appears to have been the origin of
Peter's pence. The king probably found his youngest son Alfred at Rome,
for he had sent him to Leo IV. two years before. Leo confirmed the child,
and anointed him as king. The Pope did not, of course, pretend to dispose
of the English crown, and probably only meant to consecrate Alfred to any
kingship to which his father as head-king might appoint him.
[Sidenote: Treaty of Wedmore, 878.]
By 870 the whole of the north and east of England had been conquered by
the Danes. In that year Eadmund, the East Anglian king, went out to battle
against them, and was defeated and taken prisoner. His captors offered to
spare his life and restore his kingdom to him, if he would deny Christ and
reign under their orders. When he refused their offers, they tied him to a
tree, shot at him with arrows, and finally cut off his head. In later days
the Abbey of St. Edmund's Bury was named after the martyred king. Wessex
well nigh shared the fate of the rest of the country; it was saved by the
skill and wisdom of Alfred. Through all the bitter struggle the Church
vigorously upheld the national cause; a bishop of Elmham fell fighting
against the heathen host in East Anglia, and a bishop of Sherborne in
Wessex. At last Alfred inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Danish king,
Guthorm, at Edington, and as the price of peace Guthorm promised to quit
Wessex and accepted Christianity. He was baptized at Wedmore, in Somerset,
and a treaty was made by which England was divided into two parts. Wessex
was freed from the danger of conquest, and Alfred's immediate dominions
were increased, while the north and east remained under the Danes. Guthorm
owned the supremacy of the West Saxon king in East Anglia; his people
became Christians, and in the other Danish districts the invaders for the
most part also accepted Christianity when they became settled in the land.
[Sidenote: Alfred's work.]
The Danish wars had a disastrous effect on religion, morality, and
learning. The monastic congregations were scattered, and men did not care
to become monks. Pure Benedictinism was as yet unknown in England, and a
laxer system seems to have prevailed. This system, such as it was, now
gave way altogether, and the monasteries that survived the ravages of the
Danes fell into the hands of secular clergy, who enjoyed their estates
without conforming to any rule, and who were generally married. The
collapse of monasticism entailed the decay of learning, for the monastic
schools were generally closed. Nor were the parish priests capable of
supplying the place of the monks as teachers of the people. The drain of
men entailed by the war made it necessary to confer the priesthood on many
who were ignorant and otherwise unfit for full orders. And it is probable
that the losses which the Church sustained during the war were not
confined to monastic bodies, and that the clergy suffered considerably. A
general decline in their character and efficiency naturally followed; and
Alfred records how England had changed in this respect even within his own
memory. He remembered the time when the "sacred orders were zealous in
teaching and learning, and in all the services they owed to God, and how
foreigners hied to this land for wisdom and lore;" but now, he says, "we
should have to get them from abroad." For "there were very few on this
side Humber who could understand their rituals in English, or translate a
letter from Latin into English, and not many beyond Humber."
There was little difference between the priest and his people; the clergy
shared largely in the national habit of excessive drinking, and many
priests were married. Among the laity morality was at a low ebb; the
marriage tie was lightly regarded, and there was a general return to the
laxity and vices of paganism. Heathen customs gathered fresh strength, and
women dealt in enchantments and called up ghostly forms. Alfred determined
to save his people from barbarism; he set himself to be their teacher, and
sought for others to help in his work. From the English part of Mercia,
where learning was more advanced than in Wessex, he brought Plegmund, who
was afterwards chosen archbishop, and other clerks; Bishop Asser came to
him from Wales; from beyond sea, Grimbold, a monk of St. Bertin's, and
John from the old Saxon land. He desired that every youth whose parents
could afford it should be sent to school till he could read English well,
and those who hoped for promotion till they could read Latin. Accordingly,
he set up a school for young nobles in his palace, and made education the
prominent feature in a monastery he founded at Athelney. He translated
into English such books as he thought most needful for his people to read,
and probably began the national record called the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"
in the form we now have it. The care with which he fostered vernacular
literature led to the use of English in religious teaching, and to the
composition of books of homilies in that language. His code of laws,
which consists of a selection from earlier laws and the decrees of synods,
contains many ecclesiastical provisions; it treats religion as the
foundation of civil law, and begins with the Ten Commandments and an
account of the precepts of Moses. As the over-lord of Guthorm, he joined
him in publishing a special code for the people of East Anglia, by which
apostasy was declared a crime, negligent priests were to be fined, the
payment of Peter's pence was commanded, and the practice of heathen rites
was forbidden. Alfred brought his kingdom into renewed relations with
Rome, for year after year he sent thither alms from himself and his
people, probably re-establishing the payment of Peter's pence, which had
been interrupted during the period of invasion.
[Sidenote: Character of the Church in the tenth century.]
An increased spirit of worldliness in the Church was one of the fruits of
the Danish invasions. Alfred endeavoured to check this spirit, and bade
his bishops disengage themselves from secular matters and give themselves
to wisdom. Nevertheless the very work that he and his immediate successors
did for the Church tended to strengthen its connexion with worldly
affairs. When it seemed to have lost the power of spontaneous revival, new
energy was imparted to it by the action of the Crown. Its revival was in
the first instance due to external interference, and this naturally led to
the gradual discontinuance of ecclesiastical councils. No decline in
influence or activity is implied by this change. Legislation was frequent,
but it either took the form of canons put forth by bishops or was part of
the work of the witan. The relations between the Church and the State
grew closer. Some witenagemots almost bore the character of Church
councils, were largely attended by abbots as well as bishops, and were
mainly concerned with ecclesiastical business. During the tenth century
the administration of the kingdom was largely carried on by churchmen; and
though the statesmen-bishops did not, as at a later period, subordinate
their sacred duties to their secular employments, bishoprics came to be
regarded in a secular spirit, and plurality was practised. While it is
evident that the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops was in no degree
diminished, and, indeed, that it must have gained by the exercise of
judicial functions by archdeacons, the clergy, besides being under the
bishop's law, were subject to the general police arrangements of the
kingdom, and were equally with laymen bound to provide sureties for their
orderly behaviour. In every respect the Church had a national character;
its development was closely connected with the national progress; its
bishops were national officers; its laws were decreed in the national
assembly, and it was free from papal interference; for throughout the
tenth century no appeals were carried to Rome, and no legate appears to
have set foot in the country.
[Sidenote: Reorganization.]
Several changes took place in the episcopate of the southern province
during the period of invasion. Dunwich ceased to have a bishop, and
Elmham, though the succession there was broken, became the only East
Anglian see. Little more is heard of the bishopric of Lindsey, and the
bishop of Leicester moved his see to the Oxfordshire Dorchester, so as to
be within reach of West Saxon help. On the other hand, the renewed energy
of the Church in Wessex led to an extension of the episcopate south of the
Thames. In 909 the sees of Winchester, Sherborne, and South Saxon Selsey
all happened to be vacant, and, according to a story that must certainly
be rejected as it stands, Pope Formosus, who was then dead, reproached
King Eadward the Elder for his neglect in the matter. Eadward had a good
adviser in Archbishop Plegmund; with the consent of his witan, he
separated Wiltshire and Berkshire from the see of Winchester, and formed
them into the new diocese of Ramsbury, and further created two other new
bishoprics for Somerset and Devon, placing the sees at Wells and Crediton.
Five West Saxon bishops, together with two for Selsey and Dorchester,
were, it is said, consecrated at once. The extension of the power of the
English king brought with it an extension of the power of the Church.
South Wales owned the supremacy of Alfred, and accordingly South Welsh
bishops received consecration at Canterbury and professed obedience to
Archbishop AEthelred. Eadward's victories in East Anglia were followed by
the republication of the laws of Alfred and Guthorm, and the diocesan
system appears to have been gradually restored in Mercia. Eadward's son,
AEthelstan, annexed Cornwall, the land of the West Welsh, and this addition
to the English kingdom was added to the province of Canterbury; for
Cornwall was made an English diocese, and its see was placed at St.
German's, or Bodmin. Lastly, the conquest of Northumbria by AEthelstan, who
put the Danish prince Guthred to flight and took possession of York, is
marked ecclesiastically by his appointment of Wulfstan to the
archbishopric. Throughout AEthelstan's reign the influence of churchmen is
clearly apparent. His ecclesiastical laws, enacted along with others on
secular matters in a witenagemot at Greatley, near Andover, for the
Mercian shires, and republished elsewhere for other parts of the kingdom,
were made by the advice of Archbishop Wulfhelm and other bishops. Tithes
both of animals and fruits were to be paid from the king's lands, and his
reeves and ealdormen were bidden to charge those subject to them to make
like payments: the part of the Church in secular jurisdiction was
confirmed by the regulation of ordeals by the hallowed bread (or
"housel"), by water, and by hot iron, and fresh enactments were made
against heathen practices.
[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical revival.]
Although Alfred and his immediate successors did much for the Church,
especially as regards its external position, the ecclesiastical revival
that distinguished the latter part of the century was primarily effected
by means of a monastic reformation. This reformation was necessary for the
salvation of society; for as long as monks and nuns remained unworthy of
their vocation, the simple priest could never have been brought to live as
he was bound to do; and as long as his life was no higher or purer than
the lives of his flock, there was no means of elevating the people. While
most of those who were foremost in the work of revival were of purely
English descent, the bracing influence of the Danish colonization extended
to the area of ecclesiastical as well as of civil life. As soon as a Dane
was converted he became a member of the English Church, and the Church
thus became a powerful instrument in promoting the amalgamation of the two
peoples. She reaped her reward in gaining the services of the Danish Oda
and his nephew Oswald. At the same time, the reformers of this age, though
aided in their work by the Crown, would not have attained their measure of
success had it not been for the teaching and encouragement they received
from abroad. This connexion between our Church and the monasteries of the
Continent was largely due to the foreign alliances formed by the house of
Ecgberht. Of late years Alfred had given one of his daughters in marriage
to a count of Flanders, and AEthelstan had married his sisters to Otto of
Germany, to Charles, the king of the West Franks, and other princes.
Accordingly, the monasteries of Northern France and Flanders became the
patterns by which our reformers worked; their congregations took deep
interest in the affairs of our Church, received liberal aid from England,
and held our noblest churchmen in high esteem.
[Sidenote: Archbishop Oda, 942-959.]
Oda, the son of one of the fierce band of Ivar, was converted to
Christianity in early life, and was in consequence driven from his
father's house. He entered the household of an English thegn, who had him
taught Latin, and, it is said, Greek also, persuaded him to be ordained,
and took him to Rome. He became one of King Eadward's clerks, and
AEthelstan made him bishop of Ramsbury and employed him in affairs of
state. In 937 Oda, in company with two other bishops, was present at the
battle of Brunanburh, and did the king good service either by
miraculously obtaining a new sword for him when he had broken his own, or
by handing him a weapon as another warrior might have done. Eadmund, who,
like his brother AEthelstan, chose his ministers among ecclesiastics,
offered him the archbishopric of Canterbury. Like his successor, Thomas,
in later days, Oda was by nature a statesman and a soldier rather than a
priest, but, like him, he determined when he accepted the primacy to act
up to the highest standard of ecclesiastical life. He declared that no one
ought to be archbishop who was not a monk, and accordingly received the
monastic habit from the famous abbey of Fleury. As archbishop, he sought
to bring about a reformation of morals. In a pastoral letter he urged all
spiritual persons to purity of life; he insisted on the sanctity of
marriage, and in a witenagemot held at London in 944 took part in making
laws providing for the protection, maintenance, and dower of wives, and
ordering that all marriages should be solemnized by a priest, and that
care should be taken that there was no bar of consanguinity. He probably
found an efficient ally in AElfheah, or Elphege, the Bald, bishop of
Winchester, who appears to have laboured to bring about a faithful
discharge of monastic vows.
[Sidenote: Dunstan.]
The work of Oda is overshadowed by that of Dunstan, the kinsman and
disciple of Bishop AElfheah. Dunstan was a West Saxon, and was brought up
partly at Glastonbury and partly at the court of AEthelstan, for he was
connected with the royal house. With a highly strung and imaginative
nature he combined much practical wisdom and determination of character.
Full of piety, skilled in music and the other arts, a cunning craftsman,
and endued with the power of winning the love and influencing the conduct
of others, he was at an early age one of the counsellors of Eadmund. When
he was about twenty-one the king made him abbot of Glastonbury. The abbey
had fallen into decay, and he at once began to restore and reform it,
though not on the Benedictine model. During the reign of Eadred he held
the office of royal treasurer. The king was sickly, and the work of
government was carried on mainly by Dunstan and the queen-mother. Eadred
wished him to accept a bishopric, but he refused, for he would not leave
the king's service, and he evidently considered that a bishopric should
not be treated as a mere provision for an officer of state. As the king's
chief minister, he must have been largely concerned in the reduction of
the north, and it may be inferred, from the policy pursued with regard to
the archbishop of York, that he was by no means an asserter of clerical
immunity. Archbishop Wulfstan had been foremost in the revolt of
Northumbria from the West Saxon king. At last Eadred caught him and put
him in prison; and though, after a while, he was released and again acted
as bishop, he was not allowed to return to his province.
[Sidenote: His banishment, 956.]
[Sidenote: Dunstan archbishop, 960-988.]
Soon after the accession of Eadwig, in 956, Dunstan incurred the wrath of
a powerful enemy. At his consecration feast the boy-king left the hall for
the society of a young lady named AElfgifu and her mother, AEthelgifu, who
wished to make a match between him and her daughter. The great men were
wroth at this slight on themselves and on the kingly office, and sent
Dunstan to bring Eadwig back to the hall. Now there was some connexion
between Eadwig and AElfgifu that would have made their marriage unlawful,
and when Dunstan saw them together his zeal for purity was aroused; hot
words passed between him and the girl's mother, and he forced the king to
return to the banquet. In revenge AEthelgifu procured his banishment. He
found shelter in the abbey of St. Peter at Ghent, where for the first time
he saw the rule of St. Benedict fully carried out. While he was there, the
people of the north revolted from Eadwig, and chose his younger brother
Eadgar as king. Oda took advantage of this revolt to separate Eadwig from
AElfgifu, whom he had by this time married, and it is said that either she
or her mother--the story is late and uncertain--was cruelly slain by the
insurgents. This revolt of England north of the Thames and the division of
the kingdom have little or no ecclesiastical significance, for Oda
continued Eadwig's subject until his death. Eadgar, the "king of the
Mercians," called Dunstan back to England, and he was raised to the
episcopate. The circumstances of his elevation illustrate the unsettled
state of the custom as regards episcopal elections. Although no see was
vacant, the witan decreed that he should be made bishop, and he appears to
have been consecrated accordingly. Shortly afterwards the bishop of
Worcester died, and Dunstan was appointed his successor. A few months
later he received the bishopric of London, which he held along with
Worcester. In 959 Eadwig died, and Eadgar became king south of the Thames.
Then Brithelm, bishop of Wells, who had been appointed archbishop by
Eadwig, was sent back to his old diocese, and by the counsel of the witan
Dunstan was chosen archbishop in his stead.
[Sidenote: Seculars and regulars.]
During the reign of Eadgar the secular clergy were driven out of many of
the monasteries south of the Humber, and their places were taken by monks
who lived according to the rule of St. Benedict. The chief movers in this
change were AEthelwold, who, at Dunstan's request, was made bishop of
Winchester; Oswald, bishop of Worcester, who had been a monk of Fleury,
and had learnt the Benedictine rule there; and the king himself. Dunstan,
though he approved of the movement, did not take any active part in it,
and did not disturb the secular canons of his own church. Pope John XIII.
wrote to Eadgar, expressing his pleasure at his zeal and authorising the
proceedings of AEthelwold. In the north no such change was made, and though
Oswald was elected archbishop of York in 972, he did not attempt to turn
out the clerks there. While the seculars who were expelled from the
monastic churches were, as a rule, married men, no general persecution of
the married clergy took place. It was unlawful for a man in the higher
orders to marry, and if a married man took these orders, he was bound to
put away his wife. But the marriage of the clergy prevailed too widely to
be attacked with vigour or success, and though celibacy was the rule of
the Church, no effectual measures were taken to enforce it. The only
penalty pronounced against the married priest in the canons for which
Dunstan is responsible is, that he should lose the privilege of his order;
he ceased to be of "thegn-right worthy," and had no higher legal status
than that of a layman of equal birth.
[Sidenote: Dunstan's ecclesiastical administration.]
The general character of Dunstan's ecclesiastical administration may be
gathered from the laws and canons of Eadgar's reign. The laws mark a step
in the history of tithes, for they contain the first provision for
enforcing payment by legal process, by the joint action of civil and
ecclesiastical officers, and they declare the right of the parish priest
in certain cases to a portion of the payment made by the landowner,
independently of any distribution by the bishop. When a thegn had on his
estate of inheritance a church with a burying-ground, it was ordered that
he should give one-third to the priest; if his church had no
burying-ground, he might give the priest what he pleased. The payment of
Peter's pence is also commanded. It is evident from the canons that
Dunstan endeavoured to make the clergy the educators of the people;
priests were to teach each his own scholars, and not take away the
scholars of others; they were to learn handicrafts and instruct their
people in them, and to preach a sermon every Sunday. The laity were to
avoid concubinage and practise lawful marriage. And both in continence,
and in every other respect, the necessity of raising the clergy to a
higher level of life than that of the society round them was fully
recognized; they were not to hunt, hawk, play at dice, or engage in
drinking-bouts, and greater attention was to be paid to ritual, especially
in celebrating the Eucharist. While they were thus to be brought, as
regards both their lives and the performance of their duties, to a deeper
sense of the dignity of their calling, they were socially to hold a high
place; a priest engaged in a suit with a thegn was not to be called on to
make oath until the thegn had first sworn, and the quarrels of priests
were to be decided by a bishop, and not taken before a secular judge. In
these and other efforts to raise the character and position of the clergy
Dunstan did not desire to make the Church less national, or to separate
her ministers from the life of the nation and subject them to the
authority of Rome. He worked, as the spiritual ruler of the national
Church, for the good both of the Church and the nation, and evidently
maintained an independent attitude towards the Pope. A noble, whom he had
excommunicated for contracting an unlawful marriage, obtained a papal
mandate ordering the archbishop to absolve him. Dunstan flatly refused to
obey the order, declaring that he would rather suffer death than be
unfaithful to his Lord.
[Sidenote: Coronations.]
As Eadgar's chief minister, Dunstan must have had a large share in
establishing the order and good government that form the special glories
of the reign, and the wise policy of non-interference that secured the
loyalty of the Danish districts was probably due as much to him as to the
king. Cnut seems to have recognized what he had done to make the Danish
population part of the English people, for he ordered that St. Dunstan's
mass-day should be kept by all as a solemn feast. Dunstan saw the fruit of
his political labours. It has been asserted that Eadgar's coronation at
Bath was connected with a penance laid upon him by the archbishop. While
it is not improbable that Dunstan imposed a penance on the king for one
of the sins of his youth, the story that he forbade him to wear his crown
for seven years is mere legend. The coronation at Bath, which was
performed by both archbishops, with all the bishops assisting, was the
solemn declaration that all the peoples of England were at last united
under one sovereign. On Eadgar's death a dispute arose as to the
succession. Civil war was on the point of breaking out between the rival
ealdormen of East Anglia and Mercia; the Mercian ealdorman turned the
monks out of the monasteries and brought the seculars back, while the East
Anglian house, which had ever been allied with Dunstan, and had forwarded
the monastic policy of Eadgar, took up the cause of the monks. In this
crisis the two archbishops preserved the peace of the kingdom; for they
declared for Eadward, the elder son of Eadgar, and placed the crown on his
head. His short reign was filled with the strife between the seculars and
regulars. After his murder the two archbishops joined in crowning
AEthelred. Although the increase in the personal power and dignity of the
king that marked the age is to some extent to be connected with the
teaching of the Church concerning the sanctity of his person and the duty
of obedience, still the Church did not favour absolutism. Indeed, in the
rite of coronation, which seems to have been brought into special
prominence during this period, the king bound himself by an oath to govern
well, to defend the Church and all Christian people, to forbid robbery and
unrighteous doings to all orders, and to enjoin justice and mercy in all
judgments. At AEthelred's coronation Dunstan, after administering this
oath, set forth in solemn terms the responsibilities of a "hallowed" king.
[Sidenote: Dunstan's last days.]
Dunstan's pre-eminent position in the State magnified the political
importance of his see. In his time Kent and Sussex ceased to be ruled by
their own ealdormen, and these shires, together with Surrey, were ruled by
the archbishop with the authority of an ealdorman. With the accession of
AEthelred, Dunstan's influence in the State seems to have ended. During the
early years of his reign the king was led by unworthy favourites to seize
on some of the possessions of the Church, and among them on some lands of
the see of Rochester. The see was in a special manner dependent on
Canterbury, and the archbishop may almost be said to have been the lord of
the bishopric, an arrangement that evidently sprang from the early
dependence of the people of West Kent on the king of the Eastern people.
Dunstan threatened to excommunicate the king. AEthelred, however, paid no
heed to his threats, and sent his troops to ravage the lands of the see
until the archbishop was forced to bribe him to recall them from the siege
of Rochester.
Although he was no longer engaged in political matters, Dunstan's last
days were not idly spent. As a ruler and judge he was diligent and able.
He took much delight in the services of the Church. He corrected and
illuminated manuscripts, and practised the crafts in which he excelled,
and all who came to him for knowledge found him a patient and gentle
teacher. On Ascension Day 988, two days before his death, he celebrated
the Holy Mysteries and preached three times. Then he fell sick, and on
the following Saturday, after commending his soul to the prayers of the
monks of his house, he received the Sacrament, and when he had done so he
gave thanks to God and sang, "The merciful and gracious Lord hath so done
His marvellous acts that they ought to be had in remembrance. He hath
given meat unto them that fear Him"--and with these words he fell asleep.
[Sidenote: AElfric the Grammarian.]
Alfred's attempt to revive learning had met with little success, for no
priest, we are told, wrote or understood Latin before the days of
AEthelwold and Dunstan. Now, however, along with the rule of St. Benedict,
the monastic reformers brought into England the learning of the
Benedictine houses of the Continent, and famous schools were established
at Winchester, Ramsey, and other monasteries. Nor was the work of teaching
confined to the monks; for all parish priests were also schoolmasters, and
though few of them had much learning, what they taught was enough to show
a boy what he could do; and if he wanted to learn more, he would seek
admission into some monastic school. Alfred had taught men that the
education of the people should be carried on in their own tongue, and this
lesson was learnt and enforced by AElfric, abbot first of Cerne about 1005,
and later of Ensham. AElfric took much interest in education, and among his
other works compiled a Grammar, which he dedicated to the boys of England,
and from which he is generally called the "Grammarian." He saw that the
people needed religious teaching, and he therefore abridged and translated
some of the books of the Old Testament, and compiled two books of
homilies, in which, as he says, he used "no obscure words, but plain
English, that might come to the hearts of readers and hearers to their
souls' good." These homilies and some of his other writings, which must be
held to express the doctrines of the English Church in his day and on to
the time of the Norman Conquest, differ in some respects from the teaching
of the Church of Rome. They contain many declarations against
transubstantiation. "The holy housel," AElfric writes, "is by nature
corruptible bread and wine, and is by the power of the divine word truly
Christ's body and blood; not, however, bodily but spiritually." He does
not give St. Peter the pre-eminence among the apostles that is ascribed to
him by Rome, and he refuses to recognize bishops as a distinct order in
the Church. He wrote canons for the bishop of Sherborne, and a kind of
charge for the archbishop of York. These direct that, according to the
ancient custom, tithes should be divided between the repair of the church,
the poor, and the parish priest; and they also show that, while priests
were strongly urged to put away their wives, no means were taken to compel
them to do so. The renewed vigour imparted to the Church by the monastic
revival was further manifested by a fresh outburst of missionary zeal; and
Sigeferth of York and other priests went forth to preach the Gospel in
Norway and Sweden.
CHAPTER IV.
_EXHAUSTION._
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PERIOD--RENEWED SCANDINAVIAN
INVASIONS--LEGISLATION--ARCHBISHOP AELFHEAH: HIS MARTYRDOM--END OF THE
DANISH WAR--CNUT AND THE CHURCH--THE KING'S CLERKS--SPIRITUAL
DECADENCE--FOREIGNERS APPOINTED TO ENGLISH SEES--EFFECT OF THESE
APPOINTMENTS--PARTY STRUGGLES--EARL HAROLD--PILGRIMAGES--A LEGATINE
VISIT--A SCHISMATICAL ARCHBISHOP--THE PAPACY AND THE
CONQUEST--SUMMARY: THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH BEFORE THE
NORMAN CONQUEST.
[Sidenote: Characteristics of the period, 980-1066.]
From the renewal of the Danish invasions to the conquest of England by the
Normans the Church threw itself unreservedly into the affairs of the
State, and almost lost all separate life. While churchmen directed the
councils of the nation, the conciliar action of the Church ceased
altogether. Bishops took a leading part in politics, and the ablest of the
clergy were employed in secular administration. The Church did the nation
good service during the period of invasion, and finally converted a savage
conqueror into a beneficent king. Nevertheless it became worldly, and
though it exercised vast power, its own life dwindled and sank with the
life of the nation to a lower level. The close union between the Church
and the nation strongly affected the history of both alike. The struggle
against the foreigners who were promoted by Eadward the Confessor to
offices both in Church and State has a strongly marked ecclesiastical
side. Foreign bishops brought the Church into new relations with the
papacy, and impaired its independence and national character. Still, its
close connexion with the State was preserved, and the foreign element
which had been imported into it was for a time forcibly crushed by the
national party in the kingdom. In the hope of bringing the Church into
subjection, Rome blessed the invasion of England, and Church and State
alike were prostrated at the feet of the Conqueror. Yet the English Church
survived the Conquest, and became a powerful agent in preserving the
national life, which before long made the conquerors and the conquered one
people.
[Sidenote: Renewed Scandinavian invasions.]
Dunstan's retirement was soon followed by renewed Scandinavian invasions.
After his death he was succeeded at Canterbury by Sigeric, who in 991 took
a prominent part in purchasing peace from the Norwegian host. Although
this was the beginning of a fatal policy, his action, taken by itself,
seems capable of defence. It was a moment of pressing danger, and there
was no force ready to meet the invader. Sigeric probably hoped that if the
Norwegian fleet received payment it would defend the land from other
piratical attacks. The invaders of England found shelter in the harbours
of Normandy, and this led to a dispute between AEthelred and the Norman
duke. War was prevented by the intervention of the Pope, the proper
mediator between Christian princes. John XV. sent an envoy to England,
and at his request a treaty was made between the king and the duke.
Unfortunately, the peace with the Norwegians was broken. A fleet was
fitted out for the defence of the coast; two bishops and two lay nobles
were entrusted with the command, and, in spite of treachery, it gained one
of the few successes of the reign. Two years later an invasion was made by
the combined forces of Olaf of Norway, who, it is said, had already
received Christianity from English missionaries, and of Swend, the
apostate king of Denmark. After a time, AElfheah (St. Alphege), bishop of
Winchester, was sent to treat for peace with Olaf, who was with his fleet
at Southampton. The king listened to the bishop's exhortations, and fully
accepted the faith into which he had been baptized. He met AEthelred at
Andover, and there received confirmation, and promised never to return to
England as an enemy. He kept his word, sailed away to evangelize his own
dominions, and became one of the most heroic figures in early Scandinavian
history. This bloodless victory won by the Church gave the land rest for
three years, during which the Bernician see at last found an
abiding-place. Fear of the Northmen drove Bishop Ealdhun and his monks to
flee from Chester-le-Street. Taking the body of their patron with them,
they sought shelter at Ripon, and in 995, when the immediate danger had
passed, settled at Durham. There Ealdhun raised his church on the height
above the Wear, in that strong place that has had so great an influence on
the history of the see. Even in his time the bishopric began to assume
its special character as a march against the Scots.
[Sidenote: The Church and the witan.]
On AElfric's death AElfheah was translated to Canterbury. The new archbishop
appears to have laboured to bring about a national reformation. Two
meetings of the witan were held, in which the ecclesiastical element was
evidently strong. During one of these the bishops and abbots met each day
for prayer and consultation, arranging probably the part they would take
in the discussions of the assembly. Decrees were made enjoining acts of
penitence and the observance of the day of the new saint, Eadward the
Martyr. All were to live righteously, were to love one God, uphold one
Christendom, and be true to one lord, the king. Measures were also taken
for the defence of the kingdom. Thus even a strictly ecclesiastical matter
like the observance of a "mass-day" was made a subject of legislation by
the national Council. At the same time the assembly was largely
ecclesiastical in character, and in its efforts after better things,
whether with regard to national unity and defence, or repentance and faith
towards God, seems to have followed the guidance of the rulers of the
Church.
[Sidenote: Martyrdom of Archbishop AElfheah, 1012.]
Efforts such as this, however, were rendered of no avail by the folly of
the king, the treachery of the nobles, and the disorganization of the
country. In 1011 Thurkill, who was then in command of a Danish fleet, was
promised a large sum of money if he would cease from his ravages. Payment
was delayed, and the Danes attacked Canterbury, sacked the city, burned
the cathedral, and carried off many captives, and among them the
archbishop. For seven months they kept AElfheah in their ships in chains,
hunger, and misery. At first he promised to ransom himself; but he
repented of this, for he thought of the sufferings of the people from whom
the money must be raised. While in captivity he spoke of Christ to those
who guarded him, and his words did not fall to the ground. The fleet lay
at Greenwich, and no money came either as tribute or for the ransom of the
archbishop. On 19th May 1012, the day on which the ransom was due, the
Danes made a feast, and drank deeply of some wine they had brought from
southern lands. Then they brought the archbishop forth and demanded the
ransom. He replied that he would pay nothing, that he was ready to suffer,
and that he commended his soul to God. Thurkill saw his danger, and tried
to save him, offering all he possessed, except his ship, for his life. But
they would not hearken, and pelted AElfheah with stones and the bones of
the oxen which they had eaten, until at last one who had been converted by
the archbishop, and whom he had confirmed the day before, put him out of
his agony by cleaving his head with his battle-axe. AElfheah did not die in
vain. Soon after his martyrdom Thurkill, whom we may believe he had
converted, declared himself a Christian, and brought his ships and their
crews to serve the English king. AElfheah laid down his life for the sake
of the poor, and his death gave England an ally who, during the remainder
of AEthelred's reign, defended her to the utmost of his power against the
attacks of his own countrymen.
[Sidenote: End of the Danish war.]
At last AEthelred was forced to flee from his kingdom, and Swend was
chosen king. His reign was short. He had a special hatred for the memory
of Eadmund, the martyred king of East Anglia, and threatened to destroy
his church and put its priests to death by torture. As he was on his way
thither he was struck by death, and men said that he cried out that the
armed figure of the martyred king appeared to him and smote him with his
weapon. AEthelred returned to his kingdom after Swend's death, and soon
after his return held a witenagemot, by the advice of Archbishop Lyfing.
In the decrees of this assembly the influence of the Church is again
strongly marked; they are mainly expressions of desires for national
repentance, reformation, and unity. One resolution is especially
noteworthy. It seems as if some assemblies had been held which had treated
of secular, or perhaps of ecclesiastical, matters exclusively. This was
declared to be wrong; Christ's law and the king's law were to be declared
together, as in old time. In the struggle between Eadmund and Cnut, which
soon followed, churchmen gave their lives for the national cause; for
after Eadmund's last battle at Assandun the bishop of Dorchester and other
clergy were found among the slain. Some late writers say that they came to
pray, and not to fight.
[Sidenote: Cnut and the Church, 1017-1035.]
In the change that came over the character of Cnut, soon after he ascended
the throne, we may discern that the Church won a spiritual victory of much
the same kind as the conversions of Olaf and Thurkill. The fierce
barbarian became a wise and just ruler. This change was, it may be
gathered, largely due to the influence of AEthelnoth, called the Good,
whom Cnut made archbishop after the death of Lyfing. Cnut's ecclesiastical
laws consist mainly of repetitions from earlier codes: the "mass-days" of
King Eadward and Archbishop Dunstan were to be observed by all, men were
to go to "housel" three times a year at least, and the clergy were to
instruct their flocks diligently. One law declares the liability of the
laity to maintain churches--"all people ought of right to help to repair
the church." Cnut gave largely to monasteries, and, moreover, built at
Assandun, in commemoration of his victory, a secular, or non-monastic,
church which was served by a priest named Stigand. He made a pilgrimage to
Rome in 1026-7, and while he was there wrote a letter addressed to the two
archbishops and all the English people, telling them how honourably he had
been received by the Pope and the Emperor Conrad; how he had spoken to
them of the wants of his people, and Conrad had promised that the
merchants and pilgrims of England and Denmark should not be oppressed with
tolls when they crossed the Alps. To the Pope he said that he was much
annoyed to find that his archbishops had to pay vast sums when they
fetched their palls, and it was decreed that this should be so no longer.
He told his people how anxious he was to rule well, and, among other
matters, charged the bishops and reeves to see that all tithes, Peter's
pence, and church dues were paid up by the time he came back.
This letter was addressed to the archbishops by name, for they were, in
virtue of their office, the recognized heads of the people of England.
The authority of the archbishop of Canterbury was, no doubt, strengthened
by the influence that AEthelnoth exercised over the king. Its extent is
illustrated by the story that after Cnut's death AEthelnoth refused to
crown Harold, declaring that the sons of Emma had a prior claim. Although
this story may not be true, it at least shows that it was held not to be
impossible that the archbishop should have acted thus. The see of
Canterbury gained special splendour from Cnut's policy with regard to the
different kingdoms under his dominion. He treated England as the head of
his northern empire, and carried this policy out in ecclesiastical as well
as in civil matters; for he appointed certain English priests to Danish
sees, and caused AEthelnoth to consecrate them. They must, therefore, have
professed obedience to Canterbury. This roused the anger of the archbishop
of Hamburg, the metropolitan of the North, and Cnut promised that it
should not happen again.
[Sidenote: The king's clerks.]
[Sidenote: Spiritual decadence.]
Although the archbishop of Canterbury, and indeed the bishops generally,
had considerable political influence at this period, Cnut's chief minister
was a layman, and this had an important bearing on the progress of a
change in the administrative machinery of the kingdom that deeply affected
the Church. As long as the chief minister of the king was an ecclesiastic,
the clergy who carried on the routine of government under his direction
naturally had no distinct position. Now, however, the king's clerks or
chaplains begin to appear as a recognized body of officials discharging
the ordinary business of the administration. When Cnut visited different
parts of the kingdom he took four of these clerks with him; for his
journeys were really judicial circuits, and he needed clerks to register
his decrees and other acts. Deeds and charters drawn up by these clerical
secretaries were, when necessary, kept in the royal chapel, of which they
were the priests. In the Confessor's reign it became customary for the
king to signify his will by sealed writs, and an officer was appointed to
keep the king's seal. He was called the chancellor, from the screen
(_cancelli_) behind which the secretaries worked. He was chief of the
royal clerks, and the institution of his office gave further distinctness
to the body over which he presided. The king's clerks were generally
rewarded with bishoprics or other ecclesiastical preferments; and thus,
while the State gained the services of a body of trained officials, the
Church lost much; for the surest path to preferment lay in the discharge
of secular rather than of religious duties, and many of its chief
ministers were servants of an earthly rather than of a Heavenly King.
Indeed, from the death of Cnut to the Norman Conquest, the life of the
Church is marked by increasing worldliness. Bishops played a large part in
the affairs of the nation, but, for the most part, had little regard for
their spiritual duties. Bishoprics were sought after as sources of wealth
and power, and were often obtained by simony and held in plurality. While
Wulfstan of Worcester was a man of holy life, Leofric of Exeter an
ecclesiastical reformer, and Ealdred of York a prelate of conspicuous
energy, most of the bishops of this period were simply greedy, second-rate
men. Nor do the inferior clergy appear to have been better than their
rulers; for baptism is said to have been much neglected, because the
clergy refused to administer it without a fee.
[Sidenote: Eadward the Confessor, 1042-1066.]
[Sidenote: Foreigners appointed to English sees.]
On the death of Harthacnut, in 1042, the line of Danish kings ended, and
Eadward the Confessor, a representative of the old English royal house,
was chosen king, mainly through the influence of Earl Godwine. In spite of
his saintly reputation, Eadward did no good to the Church; for he did not
strive to appoint faithful bishops. He might have done so; for, though the
clergy had a right of election, and appointments were made in the
witenagemot, the king certainly at this time generally gave bishoprics to
whom he would. It rested with him to issue the writ for consecration, and
he invested the new prelate with the temporalities of the see by the gift
of the ring and staff. Eadward, even if guiltless of simony himself, took
no pains to ensure the purity of episcopal appointments, and treated them
simply as a means of gratifying his favourites. His long residence in
Normandy had made him more of a Frenchman than an Englishman. He loved to
have foreigners about him, and promoted Normans to English bishoprics
without any regard for their fitness, giving London to Robert of Jumieges,
a meddlesome politician, who had unbounded influence with him, and setting
Ulf, one of his Norman clerks, who was grossly ignorant of ecclesiastical
things, over the diocese of Dorchester. The Norman party of the court was
opposed by Earl Godwine, the king's chief minister, and it is probable
that the appointment of certain Lotharingians to English sees was due to
his desire to counterbalance the influence of the Norman bishops. That
even Godwine, the head of the national party, should, in the hope of
strengthening his position, have procured English bishoprics for
foreigners seems to prove that native churchmen of learning and high
character were scarce.
[Sidenote: Effect of these appointments.]
All the foreign bishops, Normans and Lotharingians alike, were accustomed
to greater dependence on Rome than had ever been owned in England, and the
effect of their appointment was to weaken the national character of the
Church. We now for the first time find bishops, after they had been
nominated by the king, going to Rome for confirmation, and the Roman court
claiming to have the right to reject a royal nomination. Various matters,
too, were now referred to the Pope for decision, contrary to the custom of
the English Church. Other foreign fashions were also introduced. In
England, any place was chosen for a bishop's see that was a convenient
centre for diocesan work; on the Continent, bishops always had their sees
in cities. Leofric, bishop of Crediton, a Lotharingian by education though
not by birth, naturally had foreign ideas, and wished to transfer his see
from the village of Crediton to the city of Exeter. He did not first apply
to the king for leave to make this change, as any of his predecessors
would have done, but asked Pope Leo IX. for his sanction. Leo wrote to
Eadward expressing his surprise that Leofric should have "a see without a
city," and requesting that the change should be made. At the same time,
the removal was actually effected in virtue of a charter granted by the
king in 1050 with the consent of the witan. When, after the Conquest,
foreigners were dominant in the Church, the translation of sees from
villages to cities was, as we shall see, widely carried out. Leofric also
made the clergy of his cathedral conform to a rule observed by canons in
Lotharingia, called the rule of Chrodegang of Metz; he would not allow
them to live in their own houses, and forced them to sleep in a common
dormitory and eat at a common table. This gave his chapter a character
that was half monastic and half secular, and, of course, prevented the
clergy from living as married men. The system was introduced at Wells by
the Lotharingian bishop Gisa, and, with some modifications, at York by
Ealdred; but it never took root in England. The influence of the foreign
prelates may also be traced in the presence of English bishops at papal
councils. Several attended the council which Leo held at Rheims in 1049,
and also his council at Vercelli the next year. At Vercelli, Ulf sought
the papal confirmation of his appointment to the bishopric of Dorchester,
and, we are told, "they were very nigh breaking his staff," because he
could not perform the Service of the Church. Nevertheless, ignorant as he
was, he was allowed to keep his office; for he spent a large sum in
bribery.
[Sidenote: Party struggles.]
In 1050 a trial of strength took place between the national and foreign
parties at the court with reference to an election to the see of
Canterbury. The monks of Christ Church chose one of their number, named
AElfric, a kinsman of Earl Godwine, and their choice was approved by the
clergy. Godwine begged the king to accept AElfric, but he refused, and
appointed his Norman favourite, Robert of Jumieges, to the primacy, and
Spearhafoc, abbot of Abingdon, an Englishman and a skilful goldsmith, who
was making a crown for him, to the bishopric of London. When Robert came
back from Rome with his pall he refused to obey the king's order that he
should consecrate Spearhafoc, declaring that the Pope had forbidden him to
do so. Spearhafoc, however, though he was not consecrated, kept the
bishopric for some months. Archbishop Robert succeeded in undermining
Godwine's influence with the king, and a quarrel became imminent. Some
attempt at mediation was made by Stigand, bishop of Winchester, originally
the priest of Cnut's church at Assandun, who had been appointed by
Harthacnut to the see of Elmham. He lost this see because some one offered
the king money for it, and regained it probably by giving a larger sum. He
was not consecrated until 1043; then he was deprived by Eadward for
political reasons, but made his peace with the king, and again regained
his bishopric. He belonged to Godwine's party, and was translated to
Winchester while the earl was in power. His attempt at mediation failed;
Godwine and his sons were outlawed by the witan, and the foreigners became
dominant in Church and State. Spearhafoc was now ousted, and the bishopric
of London was given to one of the king's Norman clerks, named William. The
next year Godwine anchored at Southwark with an armed force. When the
Frenchmen found that his restoration was certain they fled. Robert and Ulf
cut their way through the streets of London, and the archbishop "betook
himself over sea, and left his pall and all Christendom here on land, so
as God willed it, as he had before gotten his worship as God willed it
not." He and all his countrymen were outlawed, and Stigand was appointed
archbishop in his stead. William of London was, however, allowed to return
to his see, because he had made himself acceptable to the people.
[Sidenote: Earl Harold.]
The English clergy generally were on the side of Godwine, as the champion
of the national cause; and when his son Harold succeeded to his earldom
and power, they seem to have upheld him also. Harold was a more religious
man than his father, who was greedy and unscrupulous, and laid hands on
some of the possessions of the Church. Unlike the other chief nobles of
England at this time, Godwine was not a benefactor to any religious house.
His son, however, founded a church at Waltham in honour of the Holy Rood.
Contrary to the fashion of the day, he made his foundation collegiate, not
monastic; he did not build his church for monks, whose special aim was to
secure their own salvation, but made it a college of secular clergy or
canons, whose duty it was to do good to others. He intended his college to
be a place of education; for the chancellor of the church was to deliver
lectures, and, as learning was scarce in England, he gave the office of
chancellor to a foreigner, Adelard of Liege. Two Lotharingians were
appointed to bishoprics after Harold became the king's chief minister, so
that in this respect he seems to have followed the ecclesiastical policy
of his father.
[Sidenote: Pilgrimages.]
In addition to the Romanizing influence exercised on the Church during
this reign by foreign prelates, the revival of the custom of making
pilgrimages, due perhaps to the example of Cnut, perhaps to increased
communication with the Normans, with whom this form of devotion was
exceedingly popular, tended to magnify the papal authority in England.
Eadward himself vowed to go on pilgrimage to Rome. The witan, however,
told him that he ought not to leave the country, and, it is said, advised
him to pray the Pope to remit his vow. At all events he sent Ealdred, then
bishop of Worcester, and the bishop of Ramsbury for that purpose to Rome.
Leo granted the king's request, and by his direction Eadward built
Westminster Abbey instead of making the pilgrimage. Harold and his
brothers, Tostig and Gyrth, all visited Rome. Tostig was accompanied by
Ealdred, who in 1061 went to fetch his pall after he had received the see
of York. Ealdred was a notable pluralist; he had administered three
dioceses at once, and was now holding the diocese of Worcester, which he
intended to keep along with York, as had been the custom almost ever since
Oswald's time. Nicolas II. refused to grant him the pall, accused him of
ignorance, simony, and plurality, and of having accepted translation
without his permission, and actually declared him degraded from the
episcopal order. As he and Tostig were on their way home they were robbed
by brigands at Sutri. This was lucky for Ealdred. They returned to Rome,
and the fierce earl rated the Pope soundly. If this, he said, was the
treatment English pilgrims were to expect, he would find that he would get
no more money from England; the king should be told of the whole affair.
The Pope was frightened; he was reconciled to Ealdred, and granted him
the pall on his agreeing to give up Worcester. Besides those who journeyed
to Rome, some English people went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and among
them Ealdred, before he was made archbishop, had journeyed thither, "with
such worshipfulness as none had ever shown before."
[Sidenote: A legatine visit, 1062.]
Soon after Ealdred returned from Rome with his pall two legates landed in
England. This was an unusual event, for the Church had been virtually free
from legatine interference for nearly three centuries, and this visit
marks the change that had been effected in her relations with the Papacy
during the reign of Eadward. By the advice of these legates, Wulfstan was
chosen bishop of Worcester by the "clergy and people" of the city, and his
election was approved by the witan. No better choice could have been made.
[Sidenote: A schismatical archbishop.]
Although the independence of the Church had been impaired, its national
character was still strong. No better proof can be given of this than the
ecclesiastical changes consequent on Earl Godwine's return. Robert and Ulf
were deprived of their sees simply by a decree of the witan, and Stigand
received the archbishopric as a reward for political services. As far as
regards character, he was certainly no better fitted for the office than
his Norman predecessor; for he was worldly and grasping, and retained the
see of Winchester along with the archbishopric. It was obvious that as
long as Robert lived no one could canonically hold his office; and though
Stigand enjoyed the revenues of Canterbury, he was not looked on as a
canonical archbishop, and he had not received the pall. Robert carried his
wrongs to Rome, and his deprivation was pronounced unlawful; so Stigand
could not hope that the pall would be granted him. For some years he wore
the pall which Robert left behind him, but bishops-elect would not receive
consecration at his hands; at last he obtained a pall from Benedict X. As,
however, Benedict failed to make his position good, and was reckoned an
anti-pope, Stigand was involved in the guilt of his schism. Indeed, though
the gift of this pall enabled him to consecrate two bishops, his claims
were still looked on with suspicion, and it is said that when the legates
were in England they pronounced the papal condemnation of his pretensions.
Wulfstan would not be consecrated by him, and he was not allowed to hallow
Harold's church at Waltham, or Eadward's new minister, or to place the
crown on Harold's head. England was held to be involved in his schism.
Robert was not the man to let his wrongs be forgotten, and they were
reckoned among the causes that were alleged in justification of the Norman
invasion.
[Sidenote: The Papacy and the Conquest.]
When, on Eadward's death, Harold was chosen king, the Norman duke,
William, determined to enforce his claim to the throne. He was careful to
enlist the sympathy of Christendom; he appealed to the religious feelings
of the age by declaring that Harold had forsworn himself on the relics of
saints, and he sent an ambassador to lay his claim before Pope Alexander
II. and ask his approval. He thus constituted the Pope the arbiter of his
claim to the English throne; and he did so at a time when the Roman see
was under the guidance of the mastermind of the Archdeacon Hildebrand,
afterwards Gregory VII. William's ambassador, no doubt, insisted strongly
on his master's declaration that if he was successful he would reform the
ecclesiastical condition of the country. We may gather from later events
that the duke promised that Peter's pence should be paid regularly, and we
are told that he even declared that he would consider the kingdom a grant
from St. Peter. Harold sent no one to plead his cause; nevertheless many
of the cardinals urged that the Holy See ought not to sanction bloodshed.
Hildebrand, however, upheld the duke's request. With him the greatness of
the papacy outweighed all other considerations. England was held to be an
undutiful daughter of Rome. Her king, Harold, had visited Rome in
Benedict's time, and had acknowledged the schismatical Pope, and her chief
bishop had received the pall from him; political interests governed the
affairs of the English Church; the papal authority was lightly regarded,
and prelates whose appointments had been confirmed at Rome were deprived
of their sees by the national assembly. Hildebrand's arguments prevailed;
and in after-days the cardinals blamed him for thus making the Holy See a
party to the destruction of so many lives. Alexander sent the duke a ring
and a consecrated banner, and the conquest of England was undertaken as a
Holy War. This gives special significance to the night spent in prayer by
the invading host, to the presence of many clergy in William's army, and
to the early mass at which he received the Holy Elements. In the battle
the duke wore hanging from his neck the relics to which Harold is said to
have done despite. The Dragon of Wessex sank before the papal banner, and
the standard of Harold was sent to the Pope in exchange for his gift.
[Sidenote: Summary: the national character of the Church before the Norman
Conquest.]
Although the close union of the Church with the State during the period
before the Conquest had some ill effects on the character of the clergy,
it gave the Church a firm hold on the people. The use that it made of its
influence on society lies apart from the main purpose of this book; yet
some notices have been given of its efforts for social reformation. From
it came all that there was of purity, gentleness, and humanity in the life
of the people. By example and precept it taught the rich their duty
towards the poor, it educated all who cared to learn, it purified domestic
life, it exalted the position of woman and protected her weakness, it
shielded the helpless from oppression, and proclaimed that the slave was
precious in the sight of God. The clergy recommended the manumission of
slaves as a meritorious deed; the ceremony was often performed at the
altar of a church, and records of such acts are recorded in the
missal-books of minsters. When a king or noble visited some church, it was
held that the visitor paid a high compliment to the clergy if he freed a
slave or a captive before their altar. The national character of the
Church deeply affected the life of the State. Its unity in a large measure
gave unity to the people, and created the nation. Its ministers held each
his recognized place in the national organization; the parish priest, as
the head of the parish, attended the hundred-court with the reeve of the
lord; the bishop was a member of the national council, and sat with the
ealdorman in the local courts. Great as the political power of the bishops
was, they made no attempt to strengthen their temporal position at the
expense of the national system; they did not seek to become territorial
princes, like the bishops of the Continent, who held a position derived
from the arrangements of the Roman Empire. This is true even of the two
archbishops, though the high degree of temporal power attached to their
sees is signified by the right they exercised of coining money. For, while
the archbishops of Canterbury succeeded to much of the power once held by
the under-kings of the Kentish kingdom, they did not use it in attempts to
build up a subordinate princedom; and if the archbishops of York appear
for a season as independent political leaders of the Northern people, they
cease to do so when their province is thoroughly united to the dominions
of the English king. In the midst of the struggles of contending parties
and the treason of ambitious nobles, the English prelates continued
faithfully to fulfil their duties to the State, and the clergy at large
supplied it with a succession of able administrative officials. Churchmen
bore their share of the national burdens. The fleets with which the king
and the witan sought to guard the coasts were raised by levies from every
shire. To these levies the lands of the Church were liable equally with
those of laymen. Accordingly we find that Archbishop AElfric, at his death
in 1005, was possessed of ships and their equipments, the quota, no doubt,
that he was bound to furnish when the witan decided on gathering a fleet.
His best ship together with armour for sixty men he left to the king, and,
besides this, he gave a ship to the people of Kent, and another to the
people of Wiltshire--probably to help them to bear the burden that the war
laid upon them. Moreover, the Danegeld, which was originally raised for
the purpose of buying peace of the Danes, and was continued as a permanent
tax on every hide of cultivated land until it was abolished by the
Confessor, to be reimposed in a more oppressive form by the Norman
Conqueror, was paid, except in cases of special exemption, on the lands of
ecclesiastics as well as of laymen.
The freedom of the Church kept alive the national spirit in the evil days
that followed the Conquest; it was used to restrain oppression, and the
Church became the bond that united conquerors and conquered in one people.
As regards the Church itself, its national character gave it independence,
and in many ways it acted by itself apart from the rest of Western
Christendom. From the reign of the Mercian Cenwulf to the reign of the
Confessor it was virtually free from papal interference, and the Popes
took little heed of what passed in England. It made saints of those who
were venerated by the English people, and observed their mass-days in
accordance with the decrees of the national council; it constantly used
the tongue of the people in prayers and homilies; its doctrines were held
and advanced with little reference to papal authority, and its rights were
laid down by kings and enforced by civil officers. Isolated from the rest
of Europe, England seemed to men like another world, of which the
archbishop of Canterbury was pope. The isolation and strongly national
character of the Church were not without danger to its well-being. To be
cut off from Rome was to lose all share in the manifold and progressive
life of Western Christendom. Had the Church of England retained its purely
insular character, it would never have risen much above the level of the
nation, nor have been able to elevate society. During the years
immediately preceding the Conquest it sank with the nation. It was a
period of exhaustion both in Church and State; and the time might have
come when the isolation of the Church of England would have ended in a
decay as complete as that of the Celtic Church. From such a danger the
Church was saved by the Norman Conquest. It rested with the Conqueror and
his successors to determine how far the Conquest was to lead to the
fulfilment of Hildebrand's expectations, to decide whether England should
become the submissive handmaid of Rome.
CHAPTER V.
_ROYAL SUPREMACY._
THE CONQUEROR AND LANFRANC--CANTERBURY AND YORK--SEPARATE
ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM--REMOVAL OF SEES--EXTENT AND LIMITS OF PAPAL
INFLUENCE--THE CONQUEROR'S BISHOPS--CHANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF THE
CHURCH--AN APPEAL TO ROME--FEUDAL TENDENCIES--ST. ANSELM--STRUGGLE
AGAINST TYRANNY--INVESTITURES--HENRY
I.--COUNCILS--LEGATES--INDEPENDENCE OF THE SEE OF YORK--SUMMARY.
[Sidenote: Deposition of English prelates.]
[Sidenote: Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, 1070-1089.]
In order to ensure the success of his invasion, William had given the Pope
a strong claim on his obedience, at a time when the papal power was
advancing rapidly under the guidance of Hildebrand, who in 1073 became
Pope with the title of Gregory VII. Nevertheless William succeeded in
using the papal pretensions to strengthen his hold on England, and in
disregarding them when they threatened to weaken his absolute sovereignty
in Church and State. In 1070, when he had completed the conquest of the
land, he set about securing the submission of the Church, and invited
Alexander II. to send legates to his court. Accordingly certain legates
visited this country, and deposed Stigand and other bishops and abbots.
Thus the Pope was gratified by the deposition of the uncanonical
archbishop, while the Conqueror, by ousting the native prelates, crushed
the strongest element of national resistance. York, which was vacant by
the death of Ealdred, was given to Thomas of Bayeux, one of the king's
clerks; other Normans were appointed to different sees; and shortly
afterwards Lanfranc was appointed to Canterbury. Lanfranc, a native of
Pavia, a man of great learning and ability, and especially skilled in
civil law, first came to Normandy as a teacher. He suddenly gave up this
work, entered the newly founded monastery of Bec, and devoted himself to
the monastic life. He became prior, and his talents attracted the notice
of the duke, who made him his counsellor, and gave him the abbacy of his
new monastery, St. Stephen's, at Caen. At Rome, Lanfranc was honoured as
the defender of transubstantiation, and his appointment to Canterbury was
warmly approved by the Pope. He was a man on whom the Conqueror could
safely rely for the furtherance of his ecclesiastical policy. Hitherto
there had virtually been only one system of administration for both Church
and State. William's work was to create a separate ecclesiastical system,
carried on by clerical officers. Yet the Church no less than the State was
to be under his own absolute control; and so, while he needed a strong
archbishop, he needed one who would exert his strength to maintain and
increase the royal power. In Lanfranc he found an archbishop after his own
heart, in exalting whose position he strengthened his own.
[Sidenote: Canterbury and York.]
No writ was issued for the consecration of Thomas of York until Lanfranc
had received consecration, and this delay was perhaps intentional; for
when Thomas brought the writ to Lanfranc he was bidden to profess
obedience to the see of Canterbury. He refused to do so, on the ground
that Gregory had instituted two co-ordinate archbishoprics. On the other
hand, the bishops of York, from Paulinus to Ecgberht, had not enjoyed
metropolitan dignity, and even since Ecgberht's time the see had occupied
an inferior position to Canterbury. Lanfranc had papal decrees and other
evidences on his side, and gained the king's support by representing that
an independent metropolitan at York might crown an independent king of
Northumbria. William compelled Thomas to profess obedience to Lanfranc
personally, and, with respect to the future, ordered that the question
should be decided by the Pope. When the two archbishops went to Rome for
their palls, Alexander was about to degrade Thomas and Remigius, bishop of
Dorchester, who went with them, on account of canonical irregularity, and
only forbore to do so at Lanfranc's request. Thomas brought forward the
matter of the profession, and further claimed Dorchester, Lichfield, and
Worcester as subject to York. Alexander referred these matters to the
decision of an English synod, and the case seems to have been heard before
a mixed assembly of clergy and laity, which pronounced against Thomas; he
was forced to make a general profession of obedience, the Humber was
declared the boundary between the provinces, and he was left with only one
suffragan, the bishop of Durham. This disproportion between the
archbishoprics had not been contemplated by Gregory, for his division,
which was based on the assumption that the whole island was under one
rule, included Scotland in the province of York. Under William and
Lanfranc the English Church made its power felt in yet unconquered Celtic
lands. The claim of York was asserted over Scotland. As that country had
no metropolitan and no organized episcopal system, the assertion was
plausible, and a bishop of the Orkneys was certainly consecrated by
Thomas. It is extremely doubtful whether the authority of Canterbury was
in any instance acknowledged in Wales during this reign, though a few
years later it was, as we shall see, successfully asserted. In Ireland the
irregular condition of the episcopacy naturally led kings and bishops to
look up to Lanfranc; he consecrated two archbishops of Dublin, who made
profession to him, and he wrote with authority to two kings on matters of
discipline. An approach was thus made to the ecclesiastical submission of
Ireland, and the primate of Britain was not unreasonably held by Latin
Christendom to be "Patriarch of the nations beyond the sea."
[Sidenote: National synods and ecclesiastical courts.]
Under William and Lanfranc synods were again held frequently, and, in
accordance with the king's policy, ecclesiastical legislation, which had
in the preceding age been provided for in the national assembly, was
confined to them. They were councils of the whole Church; for the
archbishop of Canterbury was acknowledged as primate of all Britain: they
consisted of one house, and such of the inferior clergy as attended them
were little more than spectators, for no one might speak without special
permission save bishops and abbots. Their action was controlled by the
king, and we find them held at the same place as, and immediately after
the close of, one or other of the yearly meetings of the great council.
Episcopal elections seem to have been made in these synods instead of in
the national assembly, though in these, as in all else, the king was
supreme. While the Church thus regained separate synodical activity, the
bishops did not lose their places in the national assembly. Their right,
however, no longer rested simply on the wisdom supposed to be inherent in
their office; they now held their temporalities as baronies, and sat in
the council as barons; for the old witenagemot had been transformed into a
feudal council. A separation was also effected in the judicial system. The
Conqueror declared the union of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction to
be mischievous, and provided that henceforth no bishop or archdeacon
should sit in the hundred court; that all spiritual causes should be tried
by the bishop in his own court and be determined according to the canons,
and that if any one disobeyed the bishop's summons and remained
contumacious after excommunication, he should be brought to obedience by
the king or the sheriff. This establishment of ecclesiastical courts, with
their own system of law, was doubtless pleasing to the Pope, for the old
English practice was contrary to the spirit of Hildebrand's work. Its
ultimate tendency was to lead men to look to Rome as the supreme court of
appeal in spiritual causes, and to set churchmen in opposition to the
Crown. For some time after the Conqueror's death the separation of the
courts was not fully effected, and this tendency was scarcely apparent.
Nevertheless, his policy raised up a power in England that in later days
greatly hampered the exercise of the royal authority and brought some
troubles on the country.
[Sidenote: Removal of sees.]
Among the more important synodical decrees of this reign is that of the
council held at London in 1075, which ordered that bishops' sees should be
removed from villages to cities. The change begun by Leofric was carried
fully out now that nearly every bishop was a foreigner. The see of
Sherborne was moved by Hermann to Salisbury (Old Sarum), to be moved again
when the present church of the new Salisbury was built in the reign of
Henry III.; the see of Selsey was moved to Chichester; that of Lichfield
to Chester, and a few years later to Coventry, where the bishop seized on
the abbey by force; the see of Elmham was moved first to Thetford, and
then to Norwich; and in the reign of Rufus, the bishop of Wells left his
little city for Bath. While the decrees of ancient Popes and councils were
cited as authorities for this measure, the act of the council, like all
the conciliar acts of the reign, derived its force from the king's
approval.
[Sidenote: Extent of papal influence.]
Gregory had reason to congratulate himself on the part he had taken in
forwarding the Conquest. The uncanonical archbishop was deposed, and his
place taken by one who was especially pleasing to the Holy See; insular
peculiarities were removed, the new foreign bishops were far more amenable
to papal influence than the native bishops had been, and the changes
effected in the government of the Church were generally such as he
approved. In these and some other matters his desires were in accord with
the policy of the Conqueror. Where it was otherwise he found that the king
and his archbishop would act according to their own judgment. While
Lanfranc cordially sympathized in Gregory's attempt to root out the custom
of clerical marriage, his action was governed by the circumstances of the
Church over which he presided. In England the custom obtained too widely
to be attacked without discrimination. Accordingly the Council of
Winchester, in 1076, only partially followed the example of the council
which Gregory had held in Rome two years before. It decreed that no canon
should have a wife, that the marriage of priests was for the future
forbidden, and that no bishop should ordain a married man deacon or
priest. On the other hand, priests who were already married were not
called upon to leave their wives. Other decrees of this council insisted
on the sanctity of marriage, and the necessity of obtaining the Church's
blessing in matrimony.
[Sidenote: Its limits.]
The absolute supremacy of the Conqueror in ecclesiastical matters is
expressed in three rules which he is said to have laid down, and which
define his rights in relation to the papacy. He would have no Pope
acknowledged as apostolic without his bidding, and no papal letters
brought into his kingdom unless he approved them. Synodical decrees were
to have no force unless he had first ordained them; and none of his barons
or officers of state were to be excommunicated or subjected to
ecclesiastical rigour without his precept. Nor did he hesitate to return a
flat refusal to a papal demand; for when Gregory sent a legate to
admonish him to be more punctual in forwarding Peter's pence, and to
demand a profession of fealty to the Holy See, he wrote that he admitted
the one claim and not the other. Fealty he would not do, for he had not
promised it, nor did he find that earlier kings had done it. He took his
stand on his position as king of England; that which his predecessors had
done he would do, but he would not grant the Pope any authority over his
kingdom that they had not granted. Even Gregory was forced to suffer this;
he seems to have blamed Lanfranc for the king's independent answer, bade
him come to Rome, and urged him to bring William to obedience. Lanfranc
defended himself in becoming terms, but stayed where he was, and at last
the Pope threatened to suspend him if he did not obey his summons.
Gregory, however, had powerful enemies nearer home, and did not care to
quarrel with a king who steadily refused to take part against him. His
struggle with Henry IV. gave occasion for the exercise, perhaps for the
enunciation, of the first of the Conqueror's rules, and Lanfranc writes
that "our island" had not yet decided between Gregory and the antipope
Clement. Lanfranc's own sympathies, of course, were with Gregory, but he
would not condemn the action of the Emperor; he thought that the proper
attitude for England was one of neutrality.
[Sidenote: Norman bishops.]
With the exception of Worcester, no English see was left in the hands of a
native bishop. They were held either by Normans or by the Lotharingians
who had been appointed in the Confessor's reign. At Worcester, Wulfstan,
though not a man of learning, was allowed to retain his bishopric on
account of his holiness. Among his other good works, he preached in
Bristol against the slave-trade with Ireland that was largely carried on
there, and persuaded the townsmen to give it up. Most of William's bishops
were men of high character, for his appointments were free from simony,
and were, no doubt, suggested by Lanfranc; and the king himself had no
liking for evil men. Some of them were learned; nearly all were
magnificent. They did not play a great part in State affairs, and stand in
some contrast both to the old native bishops, who were leaders of the
witan, and, though several of them had been the king's clerks, to the
bishops of a later period, who were before all things royal ministers.
They generally rebuilt their churches in the Norman style, of which the
Confessor's church at Westminster was the earliest example in England. At
York, Archbishop Thomas did away with the discipline introduced by
Ealdred, and assigned separate prebends to each of the canons, an
arrangement which was gradually adopted in all cathedral churches with
secular chapters. That the chapter of a cathedral church should consist of
monks was extremely rare except in England, but as the Normans generally
were strong supporters of monasticism, this was a peculiarity of which
they approved, and in some churches secular canons were displaced by
monks. Some of the bishops, however, who were not monks, with Walchelin,
bishop of Winchester, at their head, saw that monastic chapters were a
hindrance to the bishop, and were unfitted for their duties. They
conceived the idea of replacing the monks by secular canons even in the
metropolitan church. William is said to have approved of the scheme; but
it was highly distasteful to Lanfranc, "the father of the monks," and he
obtained a letter from Alexander II. indignantly forbidding it. The scheme
was defeated, and Walchelin, who had forty clerks with their tonsure cut
and their dress prepared as canons, ready to take the place of the monks
of St. Swithun's, and to divide the monastic estates into prebends, had to
send them about their business. Although William's Norman bishops were
generally good specimens of continental churchmen, they had no sympathy
with the thoughts and feelings of their clergy and people. Of one only,
Osbern of Exeter, it is said that he adopted the English mode of life.
Lanfranc despised the national saints, and doubted the right of his
predecessor, AElfheah, to the title of martyr, until he was taught better
by Anselm, abbot of Bec. The admiration of the Normans for monasticism
caused a considerable increase in the practice of endowing monasteries
with tithes and parish churches, and thus in many cases tithes were paid
to abbeys both here and abroad.
[Sidenote: The national character of the Church.]
In every respect our Church lost much of its insular, and something also
of its national, character by the Conquest. Its prelates were foreigners;
it was drawn more closely to Rome, and legates came over, and judged and
deposed her native bishops, not always justly; its councils and courts
were separated from the councils and courts of the nation. There seems to
have been a change made even in doctrine; for the dogma of
transubstantiation, of which Lanfranc was the special champion, was now
universally accepted, and the archbishop's eagerness in this matter is
reflected in the many stories of miracles connected with the Holy Elements
which appear in contemporary literature. Yet the Church remained the
representative of English nationality; her influence at once began to turn
Normans into Englishmen; and it is interesting to find Lanfranc using the
terms "our island" and "we English," and describing himself to Alexander
II. as a "new Englishman." As primate of the English Church, he was the
spiritual head of the nation, of English villeins as well as of Norman
barons. All were Englishmen to him, and all soon became in truth one
people. And while the establishment of a separate system of ecclesiastical
administration tended to destroy the national character of the Church,
this tendency was neutralized by the exercise of the king's supremacy. The
new system worked well; but its success was due to the fact that it was
carried out by a king and a primate at once so strong and so united in
policy as the Conqueror and Lanfranc.
[Sidenote: William Rufus, 1087-1100.]
The first William, if an austere man, was a mighty ruler, who loved order
and valued the services of good men: the second was a braggart and a
blasphemer, whose life was unspeakably evil and whose greediness knew no
shame. In his hands the royal supremacy became a hateful tyranny, and the
relations between the Church and the Crown were disturbed. Early in the
reign the change in these relations was illustrated by an appeal to Rome.
William of Saint-Calais, bishop of Durham, an ambitious and crafty
intriguer, was cited to appear before the king's court on a charge of
treason, and his lands were seized. He complained that his bishopric had
been seized, and Lanfranc, who upheld the king's action, answered that his
fiefs were not his bishopric. Next he pleaded the privilege of his order,
and refused to be judged by the lay barons. "If I may not judge you and
your order to-day," said Robert of Meulan, "you and your order shall never
judge me." If bishops refused the jurisdiction of the king's court, they
should cease to be members of it, they should no longer hold fiefs of the
Crown. Finally, William appealed to Rome. Archbishop Robert had in exile
appealed to the Pope against a decree of the national assembly; Bishop
William, for the first time since the days of Wilfrith, made a like appeal
in the presence of the king and his council. The sole object of Rufus was
to obtain Durham Castle; the bishop surrendered it, and was allowed to go
abroad, but he does not appear to have prosecuted his appeal.
[Sidenote: Feudal tyranny.]
The special danger which threatened the Church in this reign arose from
the attempt to treat it as a feudal society. Ralph Flambard, the minister
of Rufus, raised money for his master chiefly by exaggerating and
systematizing the feudal elements already existing in civil life. The
practice of granting the temporalities by investiture shows that, even
before the Conquest, Church lands were to some extent regarded in a feudal
light, and since then this idea had gained strength. Rufus treated them as
mere lay fiefs, and dealt with the prelates simply as his
tenants-in-chief. No profits could, of course, accrue to the Crown from
Church lands, such as were gathered from lay fiefs in the form of reliefs,
a payment made by the heir on entering on his estate, or from other
feudal burdens of a like kind. When, therefore, a bishopric or royal abbey
fell vacant, the king, to compensate himself for the disparity, instead of
causing the property to be administered for the benefit of the Church,
entered on the lands and treated them as his own. It thus became his
interest to keep sees vacant until he received a large sum for them.
Simony grew prevalent and the character of the clergy declined; they
engaged in secular pursuits, farmed the taxes, and sought in all ways to
make money. After the death of Lanfranc in 1089, the king kept the
archbishopric vacant, and granted the lands of the see to be held by his
friends or by the highest bidder. This was a different matter from his
dealings with other sees; for the archbishop was the spiritual head of the
nation, and constitutionally the chief adviser of the king and the
foremost member of his court, as he had been of the witenagemot.
Accordingly the barons saw the king's conduct with displeasure. Rufus was
not moved by greediness alone. While Lanfranc lived he had been forced to
listen to his remonstrances with respect, and as he hated reproof, he
determined not to appoint another archbishop as long as he could avoid
doing so. He would, he declared to one of his earls, be archbishop
himself. Neither the suffragan bishops nor the monks of Christ Church
dreamed of electing without his order, and each year the state of the
Church grew worse. At last Rufus fell sick and was like to die. Then the
bishops and nobles entreated him, for his soul's sake, to appoint a
primate and do other works meet for repentance. He consented willingly,
and they sent for Abbot Anselm, who chanced to be in England.
[Sidenote: S. Anselm, archbishop, 1093-1109.]
Anselm was a native of Aosta. Born and brought up amid the cloud-capt
Alps, he longed when a child to climb the mountains and find God's house,
which, he had been told, was in the clouds. One night he dreamed that he
had done so and had found the palace of the Great King: he sat at the
Lord's feet and told Him how grieved he was that His handmaids were idling
in the harvest-fields below. Then, at the Lord's bidding, the steward of
the palace gave him bread of the purest whiteness, and he ate and was
refreshed. The dream is told us by his friend and biographer, Eadmer, who
no doubt heard it from his own lips. It was prophetic of his life and
character. He grew up studious and holy; his learning was renowned through
Europe, and by Lanfranc's advice he entered the monastery of Bec, and
became abbot there. He visited England more than once, and men marvelled
to see how the stern Conqueror became gentle when he was by. When he was
brought to the sick-bed of Rufus he received his confession and urged him
to amend his life. The king, who thought that he was dying, promised to do
so, and his lords begged him to begin by naming an archbishop. He raised
himself in his bed, and pointing to Anselm, said, "I name yonder holy
man." There seems to have been no form of election; the king's word was
held a sufficient appointment. Anselm was sorely unwilling to accept the
office; he believed that the king would recover, and he knew his evil
heart. To make him archbishop was, he said, "to yoke an untamed bull and
an old and feeble sheep together." He told Rufus that if he consented, the
grants made during the vacancy of the lands of the see must be revoked,
and that he must take him as "his spiritual father and counsellor;" for
such was the constitutional position of the primate with respect to the
king. Lastly, he reminded the king that he had already acknowledged Urban
II. as Pope; for Rufus had not yet decided between the two claimants for
the papacy.
[Sidenote: The untamed bull and the feeble sheep.]
Before Anselm's consecration the king recovered, and turned back to his
evil ways. He tried to make Anselm promise that he would not reclaim the
lands of the see which he had granted out as knights' fees. To this Anselm
could not agree, for he would not lessen the property of his church.
Nevertheless he was consecrated, and did homage to the king, as the custom
was. Before long Rufus wanted money for an expedition against Normandy.
The archbishop offered L500. Rufus was advised to demand a larger sum, and
sent the money back. His demand was evidently based on the idea that
Anselm owed him much for making him archbishop; and Anselm, though willing
to contribute to the king's need, rejoiced that now no one could assert
that he had made a simoniacal payment, and gave the money to the poor.
When Rufus was about to sail, Anselm asked to be allowed to hold a synod,
and the wrathful king answered him with jeers: "What will you talk about
in your council?" Anselm fearlessly replied that he would speak of the
foul vices that infected the land, and named the special vice of the king
and his court. "What good will that do you?" asked the king. "If it does
me no good," was the answer, "I hope it will do something for God and for
you." He prayed him to fill the vacant abbacies. "Tush!" said the king,
"you do as you will with your manors, and may I not do what I will with my
abbeys?" In his eyes the rights of a patron were merely the rights of a
lord over his lands. He left England in wrath with the archbishop. Anselm
had not yet received the pall, and when the king came back he asked leave
to go and fetch it. "From which Pope?" demanded the king; and Anselm
answered, "From Urban." Now, though Rufus had no objection to acknowledge
Urban, he did not choose that any one should decide the matter save
himself. He took his stand upon his father's rule, and the rule was a good
one, for the acknowledgment of a Pope was a matter of national policy. His
fault lay in refusing to make his choice out of a sheer love of tyranny. A
meeting of the great council was held at Rockingham to decide whether
Anselm could maintain "his obedience to the Holy See without violating his
allegiance to his earthly king." The king most unfairly treated him as
though the question had been decided against him and he was contumacious.
The bishops took part against him, and their conduct shows how deeply the
feudal idea had sunk: they were the "king's bishops," and their counsel
was due to him and not to their metropolitan. William of Saint-Calais, now
in favour again, even advised the king to take away the archbishop's staff
and ring, and at the king's bidding the bishops renounced their obedience
to him. The nobles, however, would not become instruments of a tyranny
that might strike next at themselves. "He is our archbishop," they said,
"and the rule of Christianity in this land is his; and therefore we as
Christians cannot, as long as we live, renounce his authority." The matter
was adjourned; yet it was something that the tyrant had been shown that
men recognized higher laws of action than the feudal principles by which
he sought to make Church and State alike subservient to his caprices.
[Sidenote: Council of Bari, 1098.]
As evil ever strives to master good, so the Red King was set on mastering
Anselm. To this end he acknowledged Urban, persuaded him in return to send
the pall to him, and then offered the legate who brought it a large sum
for the Pope if he would depose Anselm. When the legate refused his offer,
he tried to make Anselm give him money for the pall. In this, of course,
he failed, and the pall was placed by the legate on the high altar of
Canterbury Minster, whence Anselm took it. The next year the king found a
new cause of quarrel; the military tenants of the archbishopric serving in
the Welsh war were badly equipped, and he bade Anselm be ready to answer
for it in his court. Anselm then petitioned to be allowed to go to Rome,
and urged his request in spite of the king's repeated refusals. His case
was discussed at a meeting of the great council at Winchester. In
persisting in his demand against the will of the king he was certainly
acting contrary to the customs of the kingdom, and he was, if not in
words, at least in fact, appealing to the Pope against the king. At the
same time, it must be remembered that he had none to help him, and that he
naturally turned to Rome as the place of strength and refreshment in his
troubles. The bishops plainly told him: "We know that you are a holy man,
and that your conversation is in Heaven; but we confess that we are
hampered by our relations whom we support, and by our love of the manifold
affairs of the world, and cannot rise to the height of your life." Would
he descend to their level? "Ye have said well," he answered; "go, then, to
your lord. I will hold me to God." Nor were the nobles on his side. At
Rockingham his demand was in accordance with the customs of the realm;
here the case was different. Rufus declared that he might go, but that if
he went he would seize the archbishopric. He went, and the king did as he
had said. Urban received the archbishop magnificently, styling him the
"pope and patriarch of another world," and promising to help him. At the
Council of Bari the Pope called on him to defend the Catholic faith
against the Greek heresy. His speech delighted the council; the conduct of
Rufus was discussed, and it was decided that he ought to be
excommunicated. Anselm, however, interceded for him, and his intercession
availed. Although Urban in public spoke severely enough to a bishop whom
Rufus sent to plead his cause, he talked more mildly in private; money was
freely spent among the papal counsellors, and a day of grace was given to
the king. It is scarcely too much to say that Anselm's cause was sold. He
was present at the Lateran Council in 1099, where he heard sentence of
excommunication decreed against all who conferred or received investiture;
his wrongs were spoken of with indignation, but nothing was done to
redress them. He left Rome convinced that he could never return to
England while Rufus lived, and was dwelling at Lyons when he heard of the
king's death.
[Sidenote: Investitures.]
In the first clause of the charter in which Henry I. declared the
abolition of the abuses introduced by Rufus we read that he made "God's
holy Church free;" he would "not sell it nor put it to farm," and he would
take nothing from the demesne of bishopric or abbacy during a vacancy. He
invited Anselm to return, and welcomed him joyfully. When, however, he
called on him to do him homage on the restoration of his lands which Rufus
had seized, Anselm refused; for he had laid to heart what he had heard at
the Lateran council. It is evident that personally he had no objection to
perform these acts, which he had already done to Rufus. His objection
arose from the fact that they were now forbidden. Rome had spoken, and he
felt bound to obey. As the question of Investitures forms the subject of a
separate volume of this series, it will be enough to say here that the
conveyance of the temporalities of a see was regarded in the feudal state
as the chief thing in the appointment of a bishop, who received
investiture of his office by taking the ring and crozier from the hands of
the king--a ceremony which encouraged the feudalization of the Church and
gave occasion for many abuses. At the same time, it was by no means
desirable that a prelate should hold wide lands and jurisdictions without
entering into the pledge of personal loyalty required of other lords. With
the abstract side of the question, however, Anselm was not concerned. With
him it was a matter of obedience, and he held that he was bound to obey
the Pope rather than the law of the land. For the king's demand was
justified by the custom of England, and it was on this that he took his
stand. "What," he said, "has the Pope to do with my rights? Those that my
predecessors possessed in this realm are mine." Anselm would neither do
homage nor consecrate the bishops elect who had received investiture. Yet
the dispute was conducted with moderation on both sides. The archbishop in
person brought his men to defend the king against the invasion of Robert;
he forwarded Henry's marriage and crowned his queen; while Henry, even
during the progress of the dispute, authorized him to hold a synod and
sanctioned its decrees. Stern as the king was, he loved order and justice,
and his conduct presents a striking contrast to the conduct of his
brother.
The closer relations with Rome introduced by the Conquest compelled the
king to attempt to gain the Pope's agreement to the English law. Paschal
II., while bound to abide by the decision of the Lateran council, was
evidently unwilling to alienate the king, and seems to have temporized. At
last Anselm went to Rome, at the request of the king and the nobles, who
no doubt hoped that he would learn there that the Pope was scarcely
whole-hearted in the matter. His presence, however, seems to have stirred
Paschal to give the king's envoy a flat refusal. Henry then took the
archbishopric into his hands, and Anselm remained abroad. During his
absence the king embarked on a piece of ecclesiastical administration. His
constant want of money led him to levy a fine on all the clergy who had
disobeyed the decree of Anselm's council by neglecting to put away their
wives; and, finding the sum less than he calculated, he demanded a payment
from every parish church. About two hundred priests, in their robes,
waited on him barefoot, and prayed him to release them from this demand
without success. At last, in 1107, the question of investitures was
arranged between the king and the Pope, and the arrangement was sanctioned
by a great council at London. The king gave up the investiture, and in
return his right to homage was acknowledged. He may be said to have
surrendered the shadow and to have secured the substance. While the
chapters were allowed to choose the bishops, they were to exercise their
right at the king's court, where, of course, they were subject to his
influence. Anselm again received the temporalities, and the vacant
bishoprics were filled up. Throughout the dispute the clergy remained
loyal to the king in his struggle with the feudal lords, and the affairs
of the Church went on as usual. The speedy and satisfactory settlement of
a question that agitated the Empire for half a century, and the moderate
spirit in which it was debated, were mainly due to the character of the
king; for Henry was a statesman of fertile genius, and, unlike Rufus,
acted on well-defined principles. He was willing to grant the exact amount
of freedom of action that seemed necessary to orderly development, while,
at the same time, he kept that freedom in strict subordination to his own
supremacy.
[Sidenote: Synodical activity under Henry I.]
Acting on these principles, he allowed councils to be held, though, like
his father, he made ecclesiastical legislation dependent on his sanction.
At Anselm's synod, held at Westminster in 1102, a return was made to the
old English custom of the joint action of the clergy and laity; for the
nobles took part in it along with the bishops and abbots. The suspension
of synodical action during the reign of Rufus had weakened the authority
of the Church, and it was thought advisable that both orders should act
together in legislation. The first canon marks the growth of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction consequent on the separation of the courts.
Archdeacons had now become judicial officers over distinct territorial
divisions, and as the profits of their courts were considerable, it became
necessary to decree that they should not be farmed. An advance was made on
Lanfranc's legislation on clerical marriage; married priests and deacons
were now ordered to put away their wives, an order which, as we have seen,
was widely disregarded; no married man was to be admitted to the
subdiaconate; tithes were not to be paid except to churches, and several
decrees were made for the maintenance, dress, and general conduct of the
clergy. Another national council, held in 1127, sat in the church of
Westminster while the king held his court in the palace; just as now the
Convocation of the Province of Canterbury and the High Court of Parliament
are summoned to meet at the same time at Westminster.
[Sidenote: Legates.]
Henry, like his father, aimed at establishing perfect harmony between
Church and State, keeping both alike in absolute dependence upon himself.
Accordingly he resisted any unauthorized interference on the part of the
Pope with the affairs of the Church. Early in the reign a Burgundian
archbishop landed here without invitation, claiming legatine authority
over the whole kingdom. His claim was pronounced "unheard of." Although
the Conqueror had invited the Pope to send him legates for a specified
purpose, the archbishop of Canterbury was held to be the permanent
representative of the Holy See in England, a _legatus natus_, whose
authority was not to be superseded by a special legate, or _legatus a
latere_. No one acknowledged the legate's authority, and "he went back,"
Eadmer remarks, "as he came." A more serious attempt to override the
rights of the Church was made in the time of Anselm's successor, Ralph.
The king was in Normandy, and when it became known that a legate, Anselm's
nephew and namesake, was on his way hither, the bishops and nobles of the
kingdom met in council, and sent Ralph over to Henry to request that he
"would bring the innovation to nought," and the king prevented the legate
Anselm from landing. In the time of the next archbishop, William of
Corbeuil, Henry was, for political reasons, anxious to stand well with
Rome, and accordingly admitted into the kingdom a legate from Honorius
II., named John of Crema. Men saw with indignation that this legate sat in
the highest seat in the metropolitan church, and said mass in the
archbishop's stead, clad in episcopal vestments, though he was only a
priest; "for both England and other countries knew that, from St. Augustin
onwards, the archbishops were held to be primates and patriarchs, and were
never made subject to a Roman legate." At the same time, though John
occupied the seat of honour at the council of 1125, the summons ran in
the name of the archbishop and the decrees were confirmed by the king.
While, then, the Crown, the English Church, and the papal representative
acted concurrently, the royal authority was saved. It was not so with the
see of Canterbury or with the national interests it represented, and the
archbishop went to Rome to complain of the injury done to his see.
Honorius silenced his complaints by giving him a legatine commission, a
measure which, while gratifying William personally, lessened the inherent
dignity of his see and the independence of the Church.
[Sidenote: Thurstan, archbishop of York, 1119-1140.]
In spite of various efforts, the archbishops of York had hitherto been
unable to evade the profession of obedience to Canterbury. Thurstan, the
fourth since the Conquest, was a man of different mould from his
predecessors, and refused to make the profession. Archbishop Ralph
accordingly refused to consecrate him, and the king upheld the right of
the primatial see, bidding Thurstan do what was due according to ancient
usage. Thurstan was encouraged in his revolt by Popes Paschal II. and
Calixtus II., who treated it as a good opportunity for a covert attack on
the greatness of the English primate. The see of York remained vacant for
about five years. At last Thurstan obtained leave from the king to attend
the council held by Calixtus at Rheims, promising that he would not accept
consecration from the Pope, while Calixtus undertook that he would do
nothing to the prejudice of the see of Canterbury. Nevertheless Thurstan
received consecration from Calixtus, and so escaped making the
profession. Henry refused to allow him to return to England; and the next
Pope, Honorius II., seems to have actually declared the kingdom under an
interdict, though the sentence was not published here. The dispute went on
for some years, and the old question appears even now to excite the local
patriotism of some of the clergy of York. Yet it can scarcely be denied
that Thurstan sacrificed the interests of the national Church to the
aggrandizement of his see, and that both he and Calixtus got the better of
the king by a somewhat discreditable trick. York was freed for ever from
the obligation of obedience by a bull of Calixtus.
[Sidenote: Scottish and Welsh bishoprics.]
One phase of the quarrel between Canterbury and York concerned the
Scottish bishops. On a vacancy of the see of St. Andrews, Alexander, king
of Scots, was induced to write to Ralph of Canterbury, asking him to
recommend a new bishop, and reminding him that the bishops of St. Andrews
were always consecrated by the Pope or the archbishop of Canterbury, which
was, of course, the reverse of the truth, for they were suffragans of
York. Ralph highly approved of this new doctrine, and in course of time
Eadmer, the historian, a monk of Canterbury, was duly elected. Meanwhile,
however, Alexander had changed his mind, and commanded Eadmer to receive
consecration from Thurstan. This he refused to do, for he was heart and
soul a Canterbury man, and after much disputing, he was forced to return
to his convent unconsecrated. The dispute between Canterbury and York
encouraged some of the Scottish bishops to revolt against Thurstan, whose
authority was upheld by Calixtus. This quarrel is memorable because the
Pope accepted Thurstan's theory that the king of Scots was the man of the
king of England for Scotland, and not, as the Scots held, merely for
Lothian or any other fief: in other words, he declared Scotland a vassal
kingdom, a decision that became of importance later on. The question of
canonical subjection was debated between St. Andrews and York, until, in
1188, Clement III. declared the Scottish Church immediately dependent on
the Holy See. The upshot of these disputes was, that the archbishops of
Canterbury ceased to be the "primates and patriarchs of Britain," for York
was freed from dependence upon them, and their attempt to extend their
jurisdiction over Scotland utterly failed. On the other hand, the
authority of Canterbury was established in Wales by the election to the
see of St. David's of the Norman Bernard, who received consecration from
Archbishop Ralph, and made profession to him.
[Sidenote: Summary.]
The ecclesiastical system of the Norman kings may be summed up as a
generally successful attempt to give the Church power of action apart from
the State, so far as was consistent with the supremacy of the Crown. Under
Rufus this system became a mere means of tyranny; and among the many
glories that attend the memory of St. Anselm, not the least is that he
delivered the Church from the domination of the feudal idea, which would
have destroyed her spirituality and left her helpless before the royal
power. By the Conqueror and Henry I. the supremacy was used to establish
harmony of action between Church and State, and to preserve the national
character of the Church. Nevertheless the new relations with Rome
introduced by the Conquest began to bear fruit in Henry's time, for on all
occasions, both by the grant of legatine commissions and by upholding the
pretensions of York, the Popes strove to depress the primatial see and to
increase their own authority in England.
Although Henry had none of the brutal contempt for law that distinguished
his brother, he was not less despotic, and his policy towards the Church
differed from that pursued by his father in that, while the Conqueror made
her co-ordinate under himself with the State, he degraded her to the
position of a servant. He kept the see of Canterbury vacant for five years
after the death of Anselm; all ecclesiastical matters were governed by
political or personal considerations rather than with an eye to the true
interests of the Church, and Henry was not above making money from
ecclesiastical appointments. His chief adviser was Roger, bishop of
Salisbury, an able minister and a magnificent noble, who owed his
preferment to his administrative talents; for Henry employed clerical
ministers, partly because he was thus enabled to secure men who had
received a regular official training as royal clerks, and partly, no
doubt, because their celibacy made it less likely that they would put
their authority to a dangerous use. He rewarded them with bishoprics and
other preferments, and thus secularized the Church in order to make her
serve the State. At the same time, his reign saw the beginning of a
movement that was destined to revive her spiritual character, and by that
revival to increase her power and dignity. This quickened influence was
due to the higher life that followed the introduction of the Cistercian
rule.
CHAPTER VI.
_CLERICAL PRETENSIONS._
STEPHEN AND THE ENGLISH CHURCH--ARCHBISHOP THEOBALD AND HENRY OF
WINCHESTER--THOMAS THE CHANCELLOR--THE SCUTAGE OF TOULOUSE--THOMAS THE
ARCHBISHOP--CLERICAL IMMUNITY--THE ARCHBISHOP IN EXILE--HIS
MARTYRDOM--HENRY'S GENERAL RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH--CONQUEST OF
IRELAND--RICHARD'S CRUSADE--LONGCHAMP--ARCHBISHOP HUBERT
WALTER--CHARACTER OF THE CLERGY.
[Sidenote: Stephen's accession, 1135.]
Under the Norman dynasty the natural results of the Conqueror's
ecclesiastical policy were controlled by the power of the Crown. Appeals
to Rome were almost unknown; the principles which the Conqueror had laid
down as defining the relations between the Crown and the papacy were
maintained, and the establishment of ecclesiastical courts had not as yet
proved mischievous; for in all serious cases the criminous clerk, after
having been degraded by the spiritual judge, was handed over to the
secular authority. Under a weak king, and then during a period of anarchy,
the Church became invested with extraordinary power; her relations with
Rome were increased, and new privileges were asserted which became
dangerous to civil order. The weakness in Stephen's title was a moral
one, for he and the nobles of the kingdom were pledged by oath to Matilda.
His right then depended on a question that especially concerned the
Church; and though he had received civil election, Archbishop William
hesitated to crown him. His scruples were overcome, and the approval of
the Church was secured by Henry, bishop of Winchester, Stephen's brother.
Stephen was crowned, after swearing to maintain the liberty of the Church,
and put forth a charter promising good government in general terms. The
next year, at Oxford, the bishops swore fealty to him "as long as he
should maintain the liberty and discipline of the Church," a ceremony that
may be described as a separate election by the Church, dependent on the
king's conduct towards her. Stephen, who had received a letter of
congratulation from Innocent II., now put forth a charter in which he
recited his claims. As king by the grace of God, elected by the clergy and
people, hallowed by William, archbishop and legate, and "confirmed by
Innocent, pontiff of the Holy Roman See," he promised that he would avoid
simony, and that the persons and property of clerks should be under the
jurisdiction of their bishops. Thus, in order to strengthen his position,
he not only gave prominence to the assent of the Church, but even cited
the approval of the Pope, as though it conferred some special validity on
the national election. This was, under the circumstances, the natural
result of Duke William's petition that Rome would sanction his invasion,
and justified Hildebrand's policy in espousing his cause.
[Sidenote: The Battle of the Standard, 1138.]
For a while the Church remained faithful to Stephen. The
statesmen-bishops, Roger, the justiciar, and his nephews, the bishop of
Ely, the treasurer, and the bishop of Lincoln, together with Bishop
Roger's son, also called Roger, the chancellor, continued to carry on the
administration. In the north a Scottish invasion was checked by the energy
of the aged Archbishop Thurstan, who from his sick-bed stirred the
Yorkshire men to meet the invaders. He was represented in the camp by his
suffragan, the bishop of the Orkneys. The standard of the English army
bore aloft the Host, and the figures of the patron saints of the three
great Yorkshire churches, and the "Battle of the Standard," in which the
Yorkshire men were completely victorious, had something of the character
of a Holy War, in which the archbishop acted, as of old, as the natural
head of the northern people.
[Sidenote: Stephen's quarrel with the Church.]
The mischievous results of the appointment of Archbishop William as legate
were apparent at his death; for Innocent granted a legatine commission,
not to his successor, Theobald, but to Henry of Winchester. The authority
of the see of Canterbury was thus grievously diminished, and the
archbishop was made second to a resident representative of the Pope, one
of his own suffragans. The abasement of Canterbury naturally drew the
Church into greater dependence on Rome, and appeals, which had hitherto
been almost unknown, became of constant occurrence. Equally unlike the
justiciar, Roger of Salisbury, who devoted himself to secular
administration and ambitions, and the churchmen who, full of the new
fervour of the Cistercian movement, sought to raise the spiritual dignity
of the Church, Henry of Winchester used his vast powers to exalt her
temporal greatness. His jealousy for the privileges of the clergy brought
him into collision with the king, who now by an act of extreme folly
provoked a quarrel with the clerical order. Stephen suspected the loyalty
of the bishop of Salisbury and his house, and caused him and the bishop of
Lincoln to be arrested at Oxford. They were powerful lords and had reared
several mighty castles. These they were forced to surrender by threats and
ill-treatment. Stephen acted with the violence of a weak man; he had
already lost the obedience of the barons, and the people must have learnt
that his promises were not to be relied on; now he ensured his fall by
offending the clergy. The legate summoned him to appear before a synod at
Winchester, and the king of England actually appeared by his counsellor,
Alberic de Vere, who made his defence. When he refused to restore the
bishops' castles there was some talk of laying the case before the Pope.
This he forbade, and yet appealed to Rome himself. At last he appeared
before the legate stripped of his royal robes, and humbly received his
censure "for having stretched out his hand against the Lord's anointed
ones." Nevertheless the Church was alienated from him, and after his
defeat at Lincoln the legate held another council at Winchester, and
announced as its result that the majority of the clergy, "to whom the
right of electing a prince chiefly belonged," had decided to transfer
their allegiance to the Empress. The legate found that Matilda had little
respect for the rights of the Church, and after a while turned against
her. The result of these rapid changes was to destroy the unity of the
clerical party.
[Sidenote: The dispute about the archbishopric of York.]
Hitherto Archbishop Theobald had generally followed the legate's lead, and
had played a secondary part in the affairs of the Church. In 1141,
however, a cause of difference arose between them. The York chapter
elected Stephen's nephew, William, to succeed Archbishop Thurstan. A
minority of the chapter declared that simony and undue influence had been
practised, and Theobald took their part, while Henry consecrated his
nephew in spite of him. Anxious to put his power beyond the reach of
fortune, the bishop of Winchester petitioned the Pope to make his see a
third archbishopric. His request was refused, and his legatine commission
expired in 1143, with the death of Innocent, the Pope who had granted it.
Chief among the opponents of the new archbishop of York were the
Cistercian abbeys of the north; and Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, the head
of the order, who was the guiding spirit of the papacy at this time, threw
all his weight on their side. He disapproved of the diminution of the
rights of Canterbury, and held that, in securing the see of York for their
nephew, Stephen and Henry were injuring the Church to serve their own
ends. Eugenius III. accordingly gave the legatine commission to Theobald.
Enraged at the opposition offered to Archbishop William by Henry Murdac,
abbot of Fountains, his partizans sacked and burnt the abbey. As an answer
to this outrage, Eugenius deprived William, and Murdac was elected
archbishop by his authority, and received consecration from him. Stephen
and Henry made a fatal mistake in matching themselves against the papacy,
with Bernard and the whole Cistercian order at its back. They did not
yield without a further struggle. Stephen forbade Theobald to attend the
Pope's Council at Rheims in 1148. In spite of this prohibition he went to
Rheims. Stephen banished him and seized his temporalities, until an
interdict was laid upon the royal lands, and he was forced to be
reconciled to him. Murdac made his position good at York. His rival,
William, outlived him, was re-elected, and died a month after he had
received the pall. During his retirement he led a holy and humble life,
and after his death became the special saint of his church. Stephen had
one more quarrel with Archbishop Theobald. He desired to have his son
Eustace, an evil and violent man, crowned as his successor. This was
forbidden by the Pope, and the primate and his suffragans refused the
king's request. He tried to frighten them by shutting them in the house
where they were consulting. The archbishop escaped across the Thames in a
boat, and went abroad, and the king again seized the temporalities of the
see.
[Sidenote: Theobald, Archbishop, 1139-1161.]
[Sidenote: Study of civil law.]
Unlike Henry of Winchester, Theobald was guided by the new ideas which
were born of the Cistercian revival. While desire for the secular
greatness of the Church, her splendour and her wealth, led Henry to scheme
and change sides according as he found Stephen or the Empress acting
against her interests, Theobald sought a higher power for her, and
attached himself to Bernard, who ruled Christendom by his sanctity and his
intellectual gifts. Theobald's household was the home of a little society
of men of like mind with himself. One of them was a young clerk of London,
named Thomas, who soon became his chief adviser; another was John of
Salisbury, who held a new office, that of the archbishop's secretary, or,
as he would be called now, his chancellor; for Theobald saw that the
archdeacons were by no means trustworthy officers, and appointed a
secretary to control the administration of ecclesiastical law. This was a
matter in which he took a deep interest, and the frequent appeals that
were now made to Rome gave it a special importance. In 1149 he brought
over from Italy a doctor named Vacarius, and set him to give lectures at
Oxford on the civil law, which supplied the method of procedure in
ecclesiastical cases. In the next reign the study of the canon law, which
was first systematized by Gratian of Bologna, was introduced into England,
and then the clergy had a code as well as a method of procedure of their
own. Stephen sent Vacarius out of the country, probably because he hated
new things; but the study of the civil law could not be stopped so easily.
With aims and interests such as these, Theobald had no desire to see the
anarchy which is generally called Stephen's reign prolonged. How terrible
in some parts that anarchy was, when men "said openly that Christ and His
saints slept," need not be described here. Some of the bishops rode to war
and behaved like lay barons; others were held back by fear from censuring
the ungodly. Nevertheless the Church still exhibited a pattern of order,
and strove to restore peace to the kingdom. Although Theobald entered into
no schemes for dethroning Stephen, he was fully convinced of the
importance of securing the succession for Henry of Anjou. His counsellor,
Thomas, now archdeacon of Canterbury, was urgent on the same side, and
they were at last joined in their efforts after peace by Henry of
Winchester. The chief obstacle was removed by the death of Eustace, and
the Treaty of Wallingford soon followed. Henry II. owed his throne in no
small degree to the support of the clergy.
[Sidenote: Thomas the Chancellor.]
[Sidenote: Taxation of ecclesiastical knights' fees.]
The young king chose for his chancellor Thomas, the archdeacon, to whose
good offices he was much indebted. Thomas's father, Gilbert Becket, a
wealthy trader, had been port-reeve of London. Thomas was sent to school
at Merton priory, and was taken away from the school there while still
young because his parents suffered serious losses. Nevertheless he was
able to study at Paris, and after his return to England was often the
companion of a rich noble named Richer de l'Aigle, who took him out
hunting and hawking. As his father was now badly off, he became clerk to a
merchant, whose name in English was Eightpenny, and after a while was
introduced to the archbishop, entered his household, and soon became his
most trusted adviser. He took orders, and received many rich preferments.
As chancellor, he held one of the most important offices in the kingdom,
and his duties brought him into constant companionship with the king, who
treated him as an intimate friend. He was diligent in his secular work;
he loved magnificence, and lived with grace and splendour. No chancellor
had been so great a man before. He probably had a large share in the
reorganization of the administrative machinery. One change was certainly
due to him--the commutation of military service for a money payment. A
step in this direction was made in 1156, when Henry laid a tax called
scutage on Church lands held by knight's service. Theobald objected to
this imposition, but his objections were fruitless. Three years later,
when the king was undertaking a war in Toulouse, the chancellor advised
him to take money from all who owed him military service, instead of
calling upon them to go to the war. The general importance of this measure
does not belong to our subject; the scutage of Toulouse concerns us here
simply because it was levied on church-lands. It excited far more
indignation among the clergy than the earlier tax, because they saw that
it was the beginning of a system, not an isolated expedient. The
chancellor was held to have done the Church a grievous injury, and even
his friends traced his later troubles to his sin against her.
[Sidenote: Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, 1162-1170.]
When, in 1162, Henry bade his chancellor accept the primacy, he hoped to
find him a powerful ally in carrying out the reforms he contemplated.
Thomas assented unwillingly, for he was resolved, if he took the office,
to maintain the claims of the Church to the utmost, and he knew that this
would bring him into collision with the king. Although his life had been
pure, it had not been clerical, and he had not even taken priest's orders
when he was elected archbishop. He now entered on a new life. Everything
that was then held becoming in a churchman and an archbishop he practised
to the utmost. With the whole-heartedness with which he had thrown himself
into his work as chancellor, he now, in a post that must have been less
congenial to his nature, set himself to live up to the highest ideal then
current of what an archbishop ought to be as regards both life and policy.
He had enemies, for some were jealous of him, and some were honestly
scandalized at his appointment. Ever regardless of the fear or favour of
men, he added to their number by prosecuting the rights of his see to
lands that had been alienated from it. In acting thus, his conduct, though
perhaps injudicious, certainly became his office. His position as the head
of the nation first brought him into opposition to the Crown. Henry wished
that a certain tax, probably a survival of the Danegeld, which was paid to
the sheriffs, should be brought into the royal revenue. The archbishop
objected, no doubt because he thought that this would revive the old tax.
"Saving your pleasure, lord king, we will not give it as revenue; but if
the sheriffs and officers of the counties do their duty by us, we will
never refuse it them by way of aid." The king was wroth. "By the eyes of
God!" he cried, "it shall be given as revenue, and entered in the king's
books; and you ought not to oppose me, for I am not oppressing any man of
yours against your will." The archbishop answered, "By the eyes you have
sworn by, my lord king, it shall not be levied from any of my lands, and
from the lands of the Church not a penny!" He seems to have carried his
point, and thus the first successful opposition to the will of the Crown
in a financial matter proceeded from the Church of England. Nor was the
archbishop slack in asserting the spiritual rights of his office; for he
excommunicated one of the king's tenants-in-chief, and when Henry bade him
absolve him, answered that it was not the king's business to say who
should be bound and who unbound. In this matter the king demanded no more
than the observance of one of the Conqueror's rules; the archbishop
asserted no more than one of the eternal rights of the Church, which she
had now become strong enough to claim.
[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical discipline.]
A greater conflict between the claims of the Crown and of the Church was
at hand. The Conqueror had strengthened himself by increasing the power of
the clergy; Henry could only establish the strong and orderly government
he aimed at by lessening it. We have seen how rapidly clerical influence
had grown during the anarchy owing to the suspension of the royal
authority, the multiplication of appeals, the attention paid by Theobald
to ecclesiastical law, and other causes. Clergy guilty of secular offences
were tried solely by ecclesiastical courts; and as the spiritual judges,
after inflicting an ecclesiastical penalty, refused to give up the
clerical offender to a secular court, many gross crimes met with wholly
inadequate punishments. For the number of persons in orders of different
degrees was very large, and all alike claimed immunity from civil
jurisdiction; and it is evident, though this was a matter of less
consequence, that all offences against the clergy were also claimed as
belonging to the province of the ecclesiastical courts.
[Sidenote: Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164.]
At a great council, held at Westminster in 1163, Henry asked if the
bishops would obey the "customs of his grandfather," if they would agree
that clerks convicted of secular crimes should, after degradation, be
punished as laymen. The primate declared that clerks were not subject to
the jurisdiction of an earthly king, and would only agree that a clerk
already degraded should for another offence be punished by a lay judge.
Henry asked the bishops if they would obey the "customs," and their reply,
"Saving our order," was virtually a refusal. At a later interview he
persuaded Archbishop Thomas to promise obedience to the customs
unreservedly. He then summoned a council at Clarendon, and there, under
strong pressure, the primate and his suffragans took the required pledge.
The council then proceeded to inquire what the customs were, and a body of
rules was drawn up called the "Constitutions of Clarendon." By these
Constitutions all cases touching advowsons and presentations were to be
tried in the king's court. The convicted clerk was no longer to be
protected by the Church. Appeals from the archbishop were to be heard by
the king, and were not to be carried further without his leave. Bishops
and all who held of the Crown as by barony were to take part in the
proceedings of the king's court until it came to sentence touching life or
limb. Elections to bishoprics and royal abbeys were to be made by
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