The English Church in the Middle Ages Part 9

[Sidenote: Statute of Provisors, 1351.]

These remonstrances had little effect, and at last, in 1351, the statute of Provisors was enacted, on the pet.i.tion of the lords temporal and the commons. By this statute any collation made by the Pope was to escheat to the Crown, and any person acting in virtue of a reservation or provision was, after conviction, to be imprisoned until he had paid such fine as the king might inflict, and had made compensation to the party aggrieved. To this statute the bishops, who were, of course, hampered by their position as regards the Pope, did not a.s.sent. Its immediate effect was rather to strengthen the hold of the king upon the Church than to increase its liberty. Edward connived at its evasion whenever it suited him to do so, and infringed the rights of patrons by a writ called "Quare impedit,"

while the concurrence of the Popes, who took care to keep on good terms with the victorious king, enabled him to do much as he liked. The Popes, moreover, still continued to provide to sees vacant by translation, and accordingly multiplied translations to the hurt of the Church. It was found necessary to re-enact the penalties of the statute fourteen years later, and, as we shall see, fresh efforts were made against the abuse towards the end of the reign.

[Sidenote: Statute of Praemunire, 1353.]

The system of provisions increased the number of appeals to Rome, and matters that were determinable at common law were carried to the Pope's court, much to the inconvenience of the parties concerned, and to the profit of the papal officers. In 1353 a check was given to the appellate jurisdiction of the curia by the Statute of Praemunire, which, without verbal reference to the Pope, made it punishable with imprisonment and forfeiture to draw one of the king's subjects out of the kingdom to answer in a foreign court, the offender being compelled to appear by a writ beginning "Praemunire facias." This statute was re-enacted in 1365, with distinct mention of the Roman court; the prelates protesting, evidently for form's sake, that they would a.s.sent to nothing that was injurious to the Church. Although the Pope still granted dispensations from the canon law, and his jurisdiction might still be invoked in cases for which no remedy was provided at common law, papal interference in legal matters of importance now became rare. New statutes of Provisors and Praemunire were promulgated in the next reign.

[Sidenote: Repudiation of va.s.salage, 1366.]

The victories of Edward and the Prince of Wales rendered the Popes powerless to resent anti-papal legislation. France was no longer able to protect them at Avignon. During their residence in that city the papacy had become French, and had consequently in a large measure lost its hold upon England. Urban V. unwisely provoked a declaration that bore witness to this decline of influence. He wrote to Edward demanding the arrears of the tribute promised by John, and threatened to cite the king if he neglected payment. Edward laid the demand before the parliament that met in May 1366, and requested the advice of the estates. The prelates, speaking for themselves, asked for a day for deliberation. The next day the three estates separately and unanimously declared that John had no power to bring his realm and people under such subjection, and repudiated the va.s.salage and tribute that the Pope demanded. For a short time Edward stopped even the payment of Peter's pence.

[Sidenote: The Church in relation to the State, 1327-1371.]

[Sidenote: Taxation.]

[Sidenote: Legislation.]

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction.]

Early in the reign the Pope granted the king a clerical tenth for four years, and later, during the French war, the clergy taxed themselves heavily. All attempt to induce them to make their grants in parliament was discontinued, and they settled the amount of their contribution in their provincial convocations. In convocation they legislated without interference on spiritual matters, including those which concerned their jurisdiction. Parliament, however, did not allow them to enact anything that should bind the laity without its consent. Accordingly, when Stratford published a const.i.tution on the right to the t.i.the of underwood, a pet.i.tion was the next year presented by the commons, praying that the Crown would not grant any pet.i.tion of the clergy that might prejudice the laity without examination; for, though the clergy legislated on the process for recovery of t.i.thes, parliament claimed to determine their incidence. This distinction found its counterpart in jurisdiction; for the common law courts decided questions of right to t.i.thes, while the spiritual courts enforced payment. In matters affecting temporal interests, parliament legislated for the Church. This legislation was during this period generally of a favourable character, and was founded on pet.i.tions from the clergy. Parliament, for example, declared by statute that the temporalities of bishops were not to be seized except according to the law of the land and after judgment, and that during a vacancy they were to be carefully and honestly administered. Again, as the pestilence raised the price of clerical as well as of all other labour, parliament in 1362 represented that chaplains had become scarce and dear, and prayed that they might be compelled to work for lower pay than they were in the habit of receiving. The king ordered the bishops to find a remedy; and they reported Islip's const.i.tution, which was thus turned into a parliamentary statute, a kind of "Statute of Labourers" for the unbeneficed clergy. Disputes still went on as to rights of jurisdiction, and in 1344, after the grant of a clerical tenth, it was enacted, with the a.s.sent of the lay estates, that the ecclesiastical courts should not be subject to unfair interference either by writs of prohibition or by inquiry by secular judges; the whole statute forming a kind of reading of "Circ.u.mspecte agatis" in the clerical interest.

[Sidenote: Discontent of the laity.]

[Sidenote: Non-residence.]

[Sidenote: Secular employments.]

Nevertheless the nation regarded the condition of the Church with growing discontent. The papal interference with the rights of patrons, besides grievously wronging the bishops and chapters, irritated the people at large, for they saw ecclesiastical offices and revenues held by foreigners who never set foot in England, and were in many cases their enemies. Of this perhaps enough has been said. Non-residence and plurality, however, were not confined to foreigners. All the great offices of State were, as a rule, held by bishops and other dignified clergy, who neglected their ecclesiastical for their civil duties; and the inferior clergy followed their example, and engaged in secular employments of all kinds.

Non-residence was increased by the pestilence. Much land fell out of cultivation, and so ceased to yield t.i.thes, and parsons left their parishes whenever they could obtain some profitable work to do elsewhere.

So the poet of Piers Ploughman records how--

Parsons and parisshe preestes That hire parisshes weren povere To have a licence and leve And syngen ther for symonie;

Somme serven the kyng In cheker and in chauncelrie Of wardes and of wardmotes And somme serven as servauntz And in stede of stywardes

Pleyned hem to the bisshope, Sith the pestilence tyme, At London to dwelle, For silver is swete.

And his silver tellen Chalangan his dettes Weyves and streyves.

Lordes and ladies, Sitten and demen.

In the absence of the parish priests, or while they were immersed in worldly affairs, the churches fell into decay, and the people were neglected. Wyclif tells us that secular employment was the only road to ecclesiastical preferment. "Lords," he says, "wolen not present a clerk able of kunning of G.o.d's law, but a kitchen clerk, or a peny clerk, or wise in building castles or worldly doing, though he kunne not reade wel his sauter." Clergy such as these held a vast number of preferments, for the Pope readily granted dispensations for plurality. William of Wykeham, the king's architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, held at one time, while Keeper of the Privy Seal, the archdeaconry of Lincoln and eleven prebends in various churches.

[Sidenote: Lack of discipline.]

[Sidenote: Oppression of the spiritual courts.]

[Sidenote: Decline in the general character of the clergy.]

[Sidenote: Efforts to raise their character.]

The spiritual jurisdiction for which churchmen contended so jealously had altogether failed to preserve discipline. The secularization of the clergy rendered this failure specially disastrous; for a clerk, who had laid aside everything clerical except the tonsure, and had perhaps concealed that, if accused of any crime, however grave, was immediately claimed by his order, and was only amenable to a law that was powerless to inflict an adequate punishment for the worst offences. Nor were clerical offenders rare, for the number of those in orders of one kind or another was very large. Many of them had little to do, their duties merely consisting in the performance of anniversary services, and so, being idle, they were p.r.o.ne to self-indulgence and mischief. Several of the archbishops of Canterbury endeavoured, as we have seen, to restore discipline, but the spiritual courts were corrupt, and their efforts were of little avail.

Yet, while the laity saw discipline utterly broken down, they found the spiritual courts strong enough to oppress them with heavy fees, especially in testamentary cases, and in various other ways, and the cost and vexation entailed by ecclesiastical processes were a constant source of irritation. At the same time, high as the pretensions of the clergy were, there can be no doubt that the clerical standard was lowered by the pestilence. Many benefices were suddenly vacated, and there were few to fill them. The ranks of the clergy must have been recruited with men of inferior education, and it was by them that the vacant cures were supplied. Some efforts were made to remedy the ignorance of those who should have been the teachers of the people. Islip's foundation at Oxford has already been noticed; it was soon to be followed by the more magnificent foundations of William of Wykeham. Meanwhile, in the north, the most backward part of the kingdom, Archbishop Th.o.r.esby, a prelate of n.o.ble character, laboured to bring about a better state of things. He constantly visited different parts of his diocese, teaching, and correcting abuses, and in order that his people might know the elements of Christianity, he published a kind of catechism in two versions, one in Latin for the clergy, whose ignorance and carelessness he severely reprehended, and the other in English verse for the laity.

[Sidenote: Attack on the clerical ministers and the wealthy clergy, 1371.]

Discontent at the condition of the Church grew bitter as the people at large felt the burden of a war that had ceased to be glorious, and the general decline in prosperity aggravated the religious disaffection. Men saw with anger that, while the nation groaned under heavy taxation, the greater ecclesiastics held all the richest offices in the State as well as in the Church, and that, large as their revenues were, the country was misgoverned and the war mismanaged. An anti-clerical party arose, and an attack was made on ecclesiastical ministers and the wealthier churchmen.

When the Prince of Wales returned from Aquitaine, in January 1371, fresh supplies were demanded of parliament. In reply, the lay estates presented a pet.i.tion complaining that the government had too long been in the hands of the clergy, who could not be called to account, and requesting that the king would consider that laymen were fit to be employed in offices of state. In consequence of this pet.i.tion, the chancellor, William of Wykeham, and the treasurer, the bishop of Exeter, resigned, and their places were taken by laymen. An attempt of the monastic orders to claim exemption from the payment of subsidies led to some bitter words concerning the wealth of the greater churchmen. A lord compared the Church to an owl that was unfledged until each bird gave it a feather to deck itself with; suddenly, he said, a hawk appeared, and the birds demanded back their feathers in order that they might escape. The owl refused; so they stripped him, and flew away in safety, leaving him in worse plight than he was before. Even so, he continued, in this dangerous war ought we to take back from the wealthy clergy the temporalities which belong to us and to the realm, and defend the realm with these our own goods rather than by increased taxation. The clergy took the hint, and promised the Prince of Wales in convocation to grant 50,000, a sum to which even those whose endowments had hitherto escaped on account of their smallness were obliged to contribute. John of Gaunt returned the next year, and probably took the lead of the anti-clerical party, in opposition to the Prince of Wales, who upheld William of Wykeham. Although this year an attack was made in parliament on the lawyers, the abuses of the Church did not escape. Pet.i.tions were presented requesting that the king would confiscate the revenues of foreign beneficed clergy who did not live in the kingdom--this was refused; that bishops' officials should demand less exorbitant fees in testamentary cases--in this matter the bishops were ordered to find a remedy; and that the benefices of clergy who lived in open concubinage should, if the bishop neglected to act, become _ipso facto_ void, and that the Crown should present--to this no answer was returned.

[Sidenote: Concordat with the Pope.]

[Sidenote: Conference at Bruges, 1374-1375.]

When John of Gaunt came back from his unsuccessful campaign in 1373 his influence in parliament was lessened. Nevertheless a pet.i.tion was presented against the encroachments of the clerical courts. A strong remonstrance was also made on the subject of reservations and provisions and on the withdrawal of money from the country by foreign ecclesiastics.

To this the king replied that he had already sent an emba.s.sy to the Pope to represent these grievances, probably in consequence of the pet.i.tion of the year before, and the matter was referred to a conference about to be held at Bruges. When the king's demand for a tenth was laid before convocation by Archbishop Whittlesey, the clergy declared that they were undone by the exactions of the Pope and the king, and that they could better help the king "if the intolerable yoke of the Pope were taken from their necks;" and Courtenay, bishop of Hereford, protested that he would not consent to the grant unless some remedy were devised for these evils.

The tenth was, however, granted, and all looked for what the negotiations at Bruges would bring forth. To this conference, which met the following year, Edward sent the bishop of Bangor, Dr. John Wyclif, and others, as his representatives to arrange a concordat with Gregory XI. The immediate results, which were declared in 1375, were unsatisfactory, for they were merely temporary in their application. However, in 1377, the king's jubilee year, Edward announced that the Pope had promised that he would abstain from reservations; that he would not provide to any bishopric until sufficient time had elapsed for him to hear the result of the capitular election; that he would respect the elective rights of other capitular bodies; that he would diminish the number of foreign ecclesiastics; that though he would not give up his claim to first-fruits, which were still held to be an innovation, he would see that they did not press too heavily on the clergy; and that he would be moderate in issuing expectatives and provisions.

[Sidenote: The Good Parliament, 1376.]

No parliament met from 1373 until the Good Parliament of 1376. In this parliament the party of reform was upheld by the Prince of Wales and the bishop of Winchester. The Prince of Wales died during the session of the parliament, and left the leaders of the party exposed to the vengeance of John of Gaunt. A series of accusations was brought against Wykeham, his temporalities were seized, and he was forbidden to come near the court.

Accordingly, he did not come up to the convocation of 1377, and Simon Sudbury, the archbishop of Canterbury, refused to specially request his attendance. His opposition was overruled by Courtenay, now bishop of London, who dwelt on the injustice that had been done Wykeham by the Crown, and urged the clergy to make no grant until he joined them. Wykeham came up to convocation, and the king promised to redress his wrongs. And here, at the point at which the quarrel a.s.sumes a new phase, when the clergy were about to aim a blow at their enemy, John of Gaunt, by attacking his ally, John Wyclif, at the opening of strife between Lollardy and the Church, and at the beginning of a new era in the relations between Rome and the English and other national Churches, brought about by the papal Schism, this narrative reaches its appointed limit.

[Sidenote: Summary, 601-1066.]

[Sidenote: 601-664.]

[Sidenote: 663-829.]

Each period of the history we have been studying has some special characteristics, and it may be convenient to sum them up briefly. The partial failure of the Kentish mission and the break-down of Gregory's scheme of government left the English Church in a disorganized condition, and Rome had to win a second victory to save it from Celtic customs and separation from the rest of Christendom. The hero of that victory was Wilfrith, its token the restoration of the see of York. A new period opens with the work of Theodore, and extends from the victory of the Roman party at Whitby to the end of the greatness of the Northumbrian Church, and the establishment of the sovereignty of Wess.e.x. The diocesan scheme of Theodore succeeded, and is the basis of our present arrangement. His attempt to bring the whole Church under the rule of a single metropolitan failed, for the northern Church was for a season more advanced than the rest of the land in religion and culture; and its failure is marked by the restoration of the see of York to metropolitan rank. From the first the Church was national in character, independent of the rise and fall of the petty kingdoms into which the land was divided, and it became a powerful agent in the accomplishment of national unity. Nor was it by any means a handmaid of Rome, for the attempt of Wilfrith to regain his position by invoking the papal authority met with derision and defeat. From the first, too, the Church and the civil power worked in complete harmony, and when national unity was attained, the Church bore its own share in every department of the polity it had done so much to create. For a moment, indeed, its work in teaching the lesson of union was threatened by the baleful predominance of Mercia; for the foundation of the Mercian archiepiscopate was an attempt to make the Church minister to the greatness of a single kingdom; its failure saved her from degradation, and probably saved the nation from prolonged division. By Archbishop Ceolnoth's alliance with Ecgberht, the Church adopted the interests of the line of kings under whom the unity of the nation was accomplished.

[Sidenote: 829-988.]

[Sidenote: 988-1066.]

While the invasion of the Northmen completed the ruin of the northern church, Alfred and his son imparted new vigour to the life of the southern province, and their work was carried further forward by the great churchmen whose names are connected with the monastic revival of the tenth century. This period of recovery may be said to close with the death of Dunstan. Although the relations between England and Rome became more intimate under the immediate successors of Ecgberht, and especially under Alfred, the work of restoration was not due to direct Roman influence; it was effected mainly through intercourse with France, Flanders, and Germany. Throughout the period the unity of action of the Church and State is strongly marked; separate conciliar action became rare, and both spiritual and secular affairs were administered by statesmen-bishops.

During the first part of the eleventh century this union became even more intimate, greatly to the loss of the Church; for the bishops were absorbed in worldly matters and party strife. Freedom from Roman interference and a long course of independent and purely national life, however good in themselves, proved dangerous, for the Church had not yet attained any widespread culture.

[Sidenote: Summary, 1066-1135.]

The conquest of England may be regarded as a papal triumph over a Church and a nation which had stood apart from Roman Christendom and followed their own devices. Both before and after his victory the Conqueror availed himself of the help of Rome. Nevertheless he was strong enough to hold his own even against Gregory VII., and refused to allow the Pope any authority in his kingdom excepting within limits of his own appointment.

The Church equally with the nation was conquered, and tasted the bitterness of defeat, but there was no break in the continuity of its life. Each Norman or French bishop who succeeded to the see of an English predecessor looked on himself as an English bishop, and the Church of the conquered people united conquerors and conquered in one English nation.

William strengthened the Church as a means of strengthening himself, and his policy of separating the spiritual and secular courts was followed by few signs of coming conflict during the strong rule of the Norman kings.

[Sidenote: 1139-1205.]

The conflict came after a suspension of the royal authority. The immunity of the clergy from secular jurisdiction confronted Henry II. as a dangerous obstacle to the success of his designs for the foundation of a strong and orderly government. His strife with Archbishop Thomas ended in his humiliation, but it left in the Const.i.tutions of Clarendon the groundwork of a system to which the future relations between Church and State made continual and progressive approaches. The Church lost by the dispute; for the energy that might have been devoted to producing a higher clerical standard was frittered in a somewhat ign.o.ble quarrel. Yet it also gained something besides a victory of doubtful benefit. Anselm, in a better cause, had already resisted despotism; and Thomas died for what he believed to be the rights of the Church over which he had been called to rule. Both alike a.s.serted the sacredness of spiritual things. Neither Anselm nor Thomas received any hearty support from Rome; in both cases the action of the Popes appears to have been governed by motives of expediency. Nor was it in the Church's quarrel alone that churchmen dared to encounter the wrath of kings. Thomas of Canterbury, Hugh of Lincoln, and Geoffrey of York each opposed the undue exercise of the royal power in secular matters, and were the earliest a.s.sertors of const.i.tutional rights.