Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/392

Rh 372 ENGLAND [CHURCH. This powerful corporation paid only a doubtful and undet fined allegiance to Rome, and was not at all in the condition of vassalage in which most of the Continental churches were. It was in order to gain this vassalage from the English Church that the pope was induced to grant to Duke William the licence which sanctioned his attack upon England. The Conquest thus assumed almost as much of an ecclesiastical as a secular character. Hence the hard measure meted out to Saxon bishops and abbots. Hence the completion of Dunstan s work in enforced clerical celibacy and the exaltation of monasticism. Hence the complete separation of the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdic tions, and the exceptional immunities given to churchmen. The conqueror was crowned, not only by the archbishop of York, but also by two Roman cardinals as legates of the pope. These emissaries joined in a council with the Norman-English bishops (1070), authorizing, on the part of the pope, the deposition of the English primate and other bishops, and the spoliation of the monasteries, and effecting the complete subjection of the English Church to Rome. The establishing of the papal sovereignty over the English Church, and the settling of the Romish system in England, was entrusted to Lanfranc, a Lombard by birth, and lately abbot of Caen in Normandy. This very able man, becoming archbishop of Canterbury, contrived to overpower the rival claims of Thomas, archbishop of York, anil, aided by the pope s authority, to rule with absolute sway over the English clergy. A vast increase of vigour was everywhere soon discernible in the Church of England. The Normau prelates, skilled in architecture, erected those grand cathedrals which still in many places remain to do honour to their taste and munificence. The sees were generally transferred from the small places, in which they had been located by the English, to towns which had grown into greater importance and population. Thus Dorchester gave place to Lincoln, -and Thetford to Norwich. All places of trust and dignity in the church were soon in the hands of foreigners. Yet Lanfranc could not effect the complete supremacy of the monastic system. In the new foundation of Lincoln, secular canons were established as the chapter rather than monks, and about half the cathedrals of England retained this constitution. King William also soon showed signs of resistance to the claims of that imperiitm in imperio which his policy had created. He refused fealty to the pope on the ground that none of his predecessors had paid it. He claimed for himself the right of deciding between the rival claims of popes, and that no canons should be promulgated by the clergy with out his consent the very claim which, after nearly five centuries of contention, the clergy themselves admitted in the time of Henry VIII. The sagacity of the Conqueror must soon have discovered that he had introduced into the land an influence of necessity antagonistic and danger ous to the kingly authority. The name of Anselm, the successor of Lanfranc as primate, is famous in English church history as having boldly maintained a contest, during two reigns, for the privileges of the church, not only against the king, but also against the bishops and clergy, who were all ready to yield to the royal claims. The issue of this contest (1107) was that the crown was obliged to abandon its ancient right of investing the bishop in the jurisdiction of his see by the gift of the ring and crozier, accepting in lieu of that merely his homage for his temporaries, that henceforth the church was to be free to hold synods and enforce discipline, and that appeals were to lie to Rome. To Anselm thus must be allowed the credit (if it be a credit) of having emanci pated the church from feudalism to the state and trans ferred its feudalism to Rome. It is hardly to be wondered at that his successor William of Corbeil, in order to make this supreme authority of Rome more available for the purposes of his administration, consented to accept the appointment of legate of the pope (1125). There remained for the completion of the system two other points to be fought out under succeeding primates, viz., the exemption of clerks from the civil jurisdiction, and the right of the pope to nominate bishops in spite of the crown. During this century the Roman Church was at the height of its power and influence, the celibacy of the clergy, strenuously pressed by Rome, was becoming the rule rather than the exception, and a great revival of monasticism had given birth to divers orders in which the lax discipline of the old Benedictines was replaced by an ascetic strictness. Of these the most famous was that of the Cistercians or white monks, which was introduced into England in 1128, and which soon numbered 30 houses in England, some of which were conspicuous for their magnificence and beauty. The settlement of the Cistercians in England not only gave an immense impetus to monasticism, but it introduced into the church of the land a principle most disastrous in its after effects to the discipline and well-being of the church. The Cistercians were, by the charters granted to them by ths pope, to be exempt from all episcopal visitation and control. They were only amenable to the rule of abbots of their own order. This exemption was naturally destructive of all discipline, and it was a privilege so greatly coveted by houses of other orders that they stopped at no deceit or forgery of documents in order to obtain it. St Albans was the first great Benedictine abbey that obtained this privilege. Many others were occupied in a continued struggle for it. The military orders and their affiliated houses enjoyed it. The exemption of the abbey from episcopal control carried with it the exemption of the churches, often numerous, which were connected with the religious house by its hav ing become possessor of their tithes. Hence sprang the greatest disorders and difficulties, resulting, in fact, in the abeyance of all order, and the grievous licentiousness of many religious houses. That which ecclesiastics were striving after in the matter of church laws, the laity were encouraged to endeavour to obtain in the matter of civil laws. The privilege of being tried only in church courts, and being amenable only to church censures, was claimed for all connected with the church. To obtain this right, laymen took some degree of minor orders, or entered into the service of s-ome ecclesiastic. As all such could plead &quot; benefit of clergy,&quot; and, in fact, obtain a practical immunity from law, the greatest abuses prevailed. William of New- berry tells us that hundreds of murders were committed by &quot; clerks,&quot; for vhich no punishment was exacted. To abate this scandal was the great work of King Henry II., the most able of the early sovereigns of England, and the founder of that judicial system which has borne such good fruit. To uphold it was the work of Thomas Becker, arch bishop of Canterbury. By the Constitutions sworn to at Clarendon (1164) a sort of compromise was made. Clerks accused of crimes were obliged to plead in the courts of common law, but, on proving their clerkship, were to be proceeded against in courts Christian, under the surveillance of the lay authority, Should they plead guilty, they were be dealt with by the lay courts. The same Constitutions enacted that there should be an appeal from the&quot; archbishop to the king, which should be final, thus cutting off the ap peal to Rome. Bishops were to be elected by the clergy, but subject to the approval of the king. The power of ex communication and interdict was also limited, and the king had the revenues of all vacant bishoprics given to him. These Constitutions, which appear so favourable to the cause of the crown, did riot, in fact, settle the dispute. The arch bishop at once repudiated them. The pope declared them void, and the issue of the strucgle was, in the event, in