PROGRESS OF GRIEVANCES UNDER THE NORMAN PRINCES.--PAPAL
INTERFERENCE.--LEGATES.--COLLISION OF ROMAN AND ENGLISH FORMS OF
LAW.--INCONVENIENCES ATTENDING IT.
It has been already observed that the distance of England from Italy,
which had helped to deliver our borders from the political tyranny of
imperial Rome, served also to protect the liberties of our church from
the spiritual thraldom of papal Rome. The inhabitants of this island,
entirely cut off from the rest of the world, were happily abandoned
to their own devices. They were themselves the best judges of their
own wants, and of the institutions which were suited to their own
habits and circumstances; and though some time might elapse whilst
they were thus groping out their way, which might have been saved by
accepting foreign guidance, and though some rude traces of their slow
and tentative progress towards their end might even afterwards appear
in the results of their labours, still it was most desirable in the
establishment of a church that it should gradually adapt itself in its
growth and formation to the wants, the wishes, and the actual condition
of the country. The least of all seeds was then most likely to become
the greatest of trees, when it was left to thrive alone (_occulto
velut arbor ævo_); when its roots were quietly suffered to feel for
the soil that fed them best, and its branches to stretch out their arms
towards the quarter of the heavens which proved the most genial. The
spirit of Christianity itself, at its first appearance, invited this
forbearance on the part of those amongst whom it came, not meddling
bodily with the civil or political rights of the nations it visited,
and leaving their laws and forms of government, in their letter at
least, just what it found them.
Thus in England the church and state for a long time grew up together,
the pope occasionally interfering, though generally on invitation,
and scarcely ever in a manner to disturb the harmony of the system.
In Saxon times, we find the prelate and the king friends and
fellow-workers together--the one teaching the people, the other taking
an interest in his office, and making provision for its permanent
continuance. The same good understanding which subsisted between the
bishop and the sovereign, subsisted also between the priest and the
noble: here, again, the one communicated a knowledge of God’s laws to
the inhabitants of the manor, the other encouraged the good work, and
secured a similar benefit to his estate for ever by a fixed endowment;
for in those days there was a belief that the foundations of a state
were best laid in religion, and that persons were better subjects and
better citizens in proportion as they were better men. Did difficulties
present themselves in questions ecclesiastical; were obstacles to be
removed, or improvements to be made, or observances to be enforced,
the nation had that within itself which usually supplied the remedy.
Matters were transacted within the four seas. Civil interpositions,
_e. g._ whether of the king or the great council, protected the
persons and estates of the clergy, determined the union or dissolution
of dioceses, directed the recovery of tithes; defined and punished
sacrilege, prescribed and limited the right of sanctuary, insisted
upon the observance of the Sabbath, and fined for the contempt of
it.[87] Were the laws to be administered? Still there was the same
intimate union maintained between clerical and secular interests. The
bishop or his deputy (the _missus episcopi_) presided with the
alderman in the county court, with the cent-grave in the hundred,
with the town-reeve in the borough, with the steward of the manor in
each parish; and judicial decisions which thus proceeded from the
temporal and spiritual authorities combined were received with a
respect which neither party could have secured for them, if acting
alone.[88] Meanwhile all collision of church and state was avoided, and
a wholesome sympathy sprung up between them as they mutually shed an
influence on each other. William, however, was jealous of the clergy,
and it must be confessed that Dunstan had not done much to make them
find favour in the eyes of a high-spirited monarch. Accordingly,
a measure which he had already adopted in his Norman dominions he
extended to England, and separated the civil and ecclesiastical courts.
The remote consequences of this innovation were the reverse of what
was intended; but its direct effect was to withdraw considerable power
from the hands of the bishop; to diminish his income by the fines
which fell to his share; and to withhold from him the opportunity of
appearing to advantage before the people, who could not fail of drawing
a comparison between him and the secular judges who sat with him;
between the man of learning and the men of arms.[89] It was not till
the end of the reign of Henry I. that the change began to make itself
felt. Now, however, the clergy, no longer supported by the crown in
the same degree as before, nor making common cause with the nobles,
were unable to uphold the independence of the national church against
the pope, who was waxing stronger every day; for he was even then no
indifferent spectator of the affairs of nations, but was still on the
watch ready to profit by the mistakes of others. Already he had made
several unsuccessful attempts on the liberties of England. The case
of Bishop Wilfrid was briefly alluded to in the first chapter. He was
ejected from his see by Ecgfrid, king of Northumbria; he carried his
complaints to Rome; it was the judgment of Pope Agatho in council that
he had been unjustly deprived. After a while he returned to England and
resumed his episcopal functions; but it was at _the request_ of
King Aldfrid, who had in the mean time succeeded Ecgfrid. This proves
something; but the sequel of the story proves more. Wilfrid offends
again--is again deprived; again appeals to Rome; and presents himself
together with his accusers before Pope John, the successor of Agatho.
Once more the decision is in favour of the bishop; and the pope on this
occasion writes to the two kings, Ethelred and Aldfrid, to reinstall
him in his see, from which it was his opinion, he had been unlawfully
expelled. Ethelred (who had now abdicated in favour of Cœnred and had
retired to a monastery) stood his friend, and advised compliance with
the wishes of the pope; but _Aldfrid scorned to receive him_[90],
and if we are to believe the bishop’s biographer, expressed in no very
measured terms his contempt for papal rescripts.[91] But it cost him
dear, his death following shortly after, which Bede insinuates was a
judgment upon him for this act of contumacy.[92] This was about the
year 704. Again, there exists a letter addressed to Pope Leo III. by
the bishops and clergy of England, protesting against the necessity
of their metropolitan spending his labour in travelling to Rome for
the pall, or his money in purchasing it, when the early records of
the church went to prove that some archbishops had not received it at
all, and that none had bought it at a price; happy times, they add, in
which the apostolic see did not expose itself to the reproach which
St. Peter cast on Simon, “Thy money perish with thee.”[93] This was
about the year 798. The pope, therefore, was ready to rush in with
the first opportunity, and at length, one presented itself. William
requested the assistance of Rome to remodel the English church after
the great Norman revolution; his request, we may be sure, was readily
complied with. Certain cardinal priests are despatched, who endeavour
to approximate Rome and Canterbury, by preaching on behalf of the
pope, the pall, personal homage to the apostolic see, and the right
of investiture to bishoprics; and though efforts are made to saddle
upon England a permanent representative of the pope, under the title
of Legate (a name perhaps derived from the military officer whom the
Roman emperors used to send out to govern a province), this latter
proposal is for the present abortive. In some of the other measures
they appear to have sped better; for we may observe that on the demise
of each archbishop successively (with few exceptions) there now occurs
a memorandum of a vacancy in the see of twelve months or more, during
which it is reasonable to suppose that the metropolitan elect was
making application to Rome personally, or by proxy, for confirmation of
his appointment and peaceable possession of the mitre.[94] Sometimes
this interval is protracted to several years, the right of investiture
being in such cases most likely a bone of contention between the
king and the pope, and the subject not admitting of a more speedy
adjustment. Indeed, this was a question of great intricacy; one, in
which the most dispassionate lookers on must have found it difficult
to strike a balance between the evil and the good. If, on the one hand,
the pope was permitted to present to the sees and abbeys of England,
he would fill the country, perhaps with foreigners, certainly with
creatures of his own, and then what was to become of the independence
of the national church? On the other hand, if the king presented,
rapacious as the early Norman monarchs were, he might make a profit
of his privilege, put up the sacred offices to auction, as King Rufus
actually did;[95] or retain in his own hands, as that same tyrant
was found to have done at the day of his death, an archbishopric of
Canterbury, the bishoprics of Winchester and Salisbury, together with
a dozen good abbeys, and then what was to become of the very existence
of the national church?[96] It was probably these latter considerations
that induced Archbishop Anselm, a sincere friend and well-wisher, as it
should seem, to his church, to throw it more effectually into the hands
of the pope, by procuring from him an injunction that no prelate, abbot
or priest, should receive investiture of any dignity ecclesiastical
whatsoever from a layman. King Henry, perhaps unwilling to risk a
rupture at one and the same time with his church at home, with a strong
faction of his nobles who supported it, and gave evidence of their
intention to do so with spirit by the oath they subsequently imposed
upon Stephen[97], and with the papal power now grown formidable, gave
way, and granted to the cathedrals and collegiate churches of his realm
license to elect any of their own body into abbey or bishopric, thereby
waiving a right which by an act of usurpation the kings had assumed
since _the conquest_, of conferring mitres and monasteries on whom
they would.[98] Thus the authority of the Saxon synod, in which the
bishops and clergy combined with the king for ecclesiastical elections,
was in some measure restored, and though certainly less independent
and absolute than formerly,[99] it was something that it had again a
voice: at present, it should appear, that the theory of ecclesiastical
appointments was this, the chapters elected, the king approved,
the pope confirmed the choice.[100] But there were here too many
parties having too many conflicting interests to admit of perpetual
harmony. Accordingly the struggle begins; and now the pope has his
right of investiture; and now the king cripples it by suspending the
temporalities of the see during its vacancy, and leaving his holiness
nothing to present unto but the bare episcopal office;[101] and now he
accepts the king’s candidate to the rejection of him whom the chapter
had unanimously chosen;[102] and now again he seems to take upon
himself the sole responsibility of the appointment on the principle
that “my name is Leo.”[103] On the whole, the strife issued out as it
was natural it should, in the despot; the pope prevailed; his legate
(for by the end of the reign of Henry I. a legate had established a
right of road into England) was ever upon the watch; and the opposition
of the national clergy, which was considerable, to the advances of
this active emissary, was taken off by identifying the legate with the
Archbishop of Canterbury himself. This was a masterstroke of policy;
it at once removed the leader of the insurgents, and grafting the
unfounded pretensions of the legate on the acknowledged rights of the
archbishop, made him in his latter character the best of stalking
horses for papal encroachments. When the high spirit of the clergy
would have tempted them to resist him in one capacity, their sense
of what was due to him in his other capacity kept them in check; to
abstract the legate from the metropolitan was impossible; the functions
of the two were in constant conflict; and it must have been felt that
there was a drag on the church which was pulling it in pieces. He,
however, as the pope’s representative, continued to convene provincial
synods and preside in them; to exercise all manner of jurisdiction; to
withdraw from the cognisance of parliament ecclesiastical grievances;
to interfere with the diocesan courts, and excite the just jealousy
of the bishops by supplanting them in some of their most ancient
and indisputable rights. Questions touching the probate of wills,
administrations, appeals, visitations, and the like, afforded but too
much opportunity for collision, and the church was scandalised by a
contest, rather for the fees than for the faith.[104] Thus did the
establishment suffer both from within and from without: from within,
by the decay of all discipline; from without, by the forfeiture of all
respect.
Nor was this all. Nothing contributes so much to disgust the public
mind with the existing order of things as the faulty administration
of justice. Let the people have justice purely, unexpensively, and
expeditiously administered, and what chiefly concerns them in the
government of a country is obtained. “I crave the law,” is the demand
of any stout-hearted nation, and having gained this object, they are
at peace. Now the ancient county-court was simple and satisfactory in
its practice--it was the natural growth of the soil; suited to the
wants of Englishmen, and consecrated by immemorial usage. The judiciary
system introduced by the pope, on the other hand, into the diocesan
courts, of which rescripts from Rome and (subsequently when the books
of the civil law had been discovered) the old Roman jurisprudence were
the basis, was tedious, costly, and what was perhaps worse than all,
novel.[105] Even of those who had to administer it, there were some who
did it reluctantly, strove to evade it, and adopted the trial by jury
instead of the subtleties of the Roman law; but these innovations were
accounted heretical, and prohibitions were issued against Grosthead,
Bishop of Lincoln, and others, who had the courage or temerity to
attempt them.[106] Still it was one thing to silence, and another to
satisfy. Much inconvenience was felt by the people in consequence
of “the law’s delay,” and a proportionate desire was created for a
reformation of the system. The rolls of parliament, from Edward III.
to Henry VIII., present numerous complaints to the Commons on the
difficulties attending the probate of wills; and such there well might
be, when, in addition to the parties already mentioned, the bishop and
the legate, each of whom asserted his own exclusive right of probate,
and referred his cause to the pope, a third party stepped in, under the
title of _legatus e latere_, or special legate, who in his turn,
contested the privileges of the _legatus natus_, and urged his
own superior claim to the cognisance of all testamentary matters.[107]
Nor were the grievances touching property more onerous than those
which regarded domestic relationship. The regulations of marriage were
intricate and vexatious: whilst it was maintained to be in itself a
sacrament, and so indissoluble, the prohibited degrees were studiously
multiplied, and thereby a pretence was furnished for a dissolution
whenever it should be the pope’s pleasure to pronounce it. Thus did
he hold in his hands, and determine by his legate, or by the dean of
the arches, the legate’s deputy, the legitimacy of children, and the
succession of families, separating those whom no man had a right to put
asunder, and giving his sanction to unions which nature and Scripture
forbade.
The progress of a cause, slow, of necessity by reason of the forms of
the court, and the contradictions of the canons, was still further and
more seriously impeded by appeals. By these, episcopal decisions were
set at nought; and the more effectually as the court of the arches was
invested with the power of suspending the process of the ordinary till
the pope’s answer should be received, and often no doubt, till one or
both of the litigants would be ready to exclaim with King Henry, whose
divorce presents, in its seven years’ details, a splendid example of
the grievances under which numbers of his subjects were suffering, with
more right on their side--
----“I abhor
This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome.”
It would be a long labour, and one, perhaps of no great interest to
the majority of our readers after all, to follow out this branch
of our subject in all its extent. Suffice it, however, not to have
passed over in silence so fruitful a source of popular discontent as
abuses in the administration of the law--abuses which could fail of
alienating multitudes from a church with which they were identified.
It is not, perhaps, a circumstance less worthy of notice from being
often overlooked, and whilst the more obvious evils which clamorously
demanded redress are set forth to the full, one which touched men in
their property, their affections--which met them in the affairs of
“this working-day world” at every turn--is noticed casually, or not at
all.
There may be those, indeed, who think that to dwell at so much length
on the secondary and more disgraceful causes of the Reformation, is
to detract from the character of that great event, and to tarnish its
lustre; but they who regard God’s enemies as his instruments will not
so account of it. They will see in the course given to those beggarly
elements the same superintending hand that wrought the nourishment
of Jacob’s household out of the sin of Jacob’s sons; so that whilst
they wickedly sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites, God mercifully made it
for good, sending him before them, by this means, to preserve them a
posterity in the earth, and to save their lives by a great deliverance.
They will see in it the same power at work that shaped the cruel
decree of Pharaoh for the children to be cast into the river into an
easy provision for bringing up Moses in the royal household, and thus
fitting him to be the teacher and leader of Israel, by introducing him
into all the wisdom of the Egyptians. They will see in it the same that
achieved the salvation of the world itself, by Caiphas who declared
that it was expedient for one man to die for the people, and by the
wretches that cried, “Crucify him! crucify him!”