m wm 
 
 III 11 
 
PRINCETON, N. J <f 
 
 BX 5056 .R58 1896 
 Rivington, Luke, 1838-1899 
 Rome and England 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
Rome and England 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL CONTINUITY 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. LUKE RIVINGTON, MA. 
 
 MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 LONDON: BURNS & OALES, LIMITED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § i. The Thesis ix 
 
 § 2. Canon Law xvii 
 
 § 3. Authorities xxvi 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH AND ITS RELATION 
 TO ROME 
 
 § Introductory 1 
 
 8 1. Pope St. Gregory, the real Apostle of England . 3 
 
 | 2. Rome the Mother and Mistress of Canterbury . 7 
 
 S 3- The Lines of Jurisdiction under the Care of Rome 10 
 
 S 4. The English Church Fed and Reared by Rome . 12 
 § 5. The History of St. Wilfrid a Proof that the Whole 
 of the English Church looked to Rome as her 
 
 Mistress in the Seventh Century ... 17 
 § 6. Some Anglican Writers on the Early English 
 
 Church . 25 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR'S REFUSAL TO DO HOMAGE 
 TO THE POPE 
 
 § Introductory ........ 37 
 
 «j t. Homage. ........ 39 
 
 § 2. Peter's Pence 47 
 
vi 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 
 
 | I. Bishop Creighton's Argument . . . • 51 
 
 §2. The General Situation 53 
 
 § 3. St. Anselm and the Pallium 55 
 
 § 4. St. Anselm goes to Rome 61 
 
 § 5. Bishop Creighton's Deductions Examined 65 
 
 § 6. St. Anselm's Motive 67 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AN ARCHDEACON AND A PROFESSOR; OR, WHY THEY 
 BELIEVED IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 
 
 § i. The Question 74 
 
 S 2. The Teaching of Giraldus ..... 75 
 § 3. Adam Marsh 81 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY IN THE REIGN OF 
 HENRY III. (1216-1272) 
 
 S 1. The Question 87 
 
 § 2. Freedom according to Modern Anglican Writers 90 
 § 3. Ecclesiastical Freedom as secured by Magna 
 
 Charta 91 
 
 § 4. Ecclesiastical Freedom as understood by the Epis- 
 copate .... 97 
 
 § 5. The Barons of England on Papal Supremacy . 98 
 § 6. The Protest of the Church of England against 
 
 Spiritual Independence of Rome . . 103 
 
 § 7. The " Far-off Suzerain " 106 
 
 g 8. Bishop Grosseteste's Letter 1 1 1 
 
CONTENTS vii 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BISHOP CREIGHTON'S ACCUSATION AGAINST POPE 
 HONORIUS III 
 
 § I. The Accusation stated 117 
 
 § 2. The General Circumstances 118 
 
 *!3. The Particular Circumstances . . . .121 
 § 4. Honorius' Letter . . . . . . .123 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE . . 130 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE POPE TO ECCLESIASTICAL 
 
 BENEFICES 1 56 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND WHEN 
 THERE WERE RIVAL CLAIMANTS TO THE 
 PAPACY 166 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE TEACHING OF CRANMER's PREDECESSOR IN 
 
 THE SEE OF CANTERBURY IN 1532 . I 7S 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 § i. The Thesis. 
 
 The thesis of this book may be put into the following 
 syllogism : — 
 
 1. There can be no real continuity between two re- 
 ligious bodies, one of which has persistently held that 
 the government of the Church was committed by our 
 Lord to St. Peter and His successors, whilst the other 
 maintains that " the Church of Rome hath no jurisdiction 
 in this realm." 
 
 2. (a) The Church of England as now by law estab- 
 lished, maintains the latter position, and has maintained 
 it since the middle of the sixteenth century ; whereas 
 (/3) the Church of England, from the days of St. Augus- 
 tine of Canterbury onwards, held that the government of 
 the Church lay with the Bishops of Rome as successors 
 of St. Peter by Divine appointment. 
 
 3. Therefore the Church of England as now by law 
 established, is not continuous or identical with the 
 Eccksia Anglicana or Church of England founded by 
 St. Augustine or St. Gregory the Great. That Church 
 of England must be looked for elsewhere ; it will be 
 found only where the doctrine is held that St. Peter and 
 
X INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 his successors, the Bishops of Rome, are regarded as 
 the rulers of the Universal Church. 
 
 This book offers evidence in behalf of the second 
 half of the minor premiss in the above syllogism (2, ji) — 
 namely, that the Church of England from the days of 
 Augustine held the Pope to be the divinely appointed 
 ruler of the Catholic Church. 
 
 This is the position which is strenuously opposed at 
 this moment by the great mass of those who belong to 
 the present Establishment. Everywhere they have set 
 themselves to declare their "continuity" with the old 
 Church of England. It is asserted that the Church in 
 England was always in a state of sufficient antagonism 
 to Rome to justify them in saying that the separation in 
 the sixteenth century did not change any essential feature 
 of her ecclesiastical government. It is said that when 
 most she went hand in hand with Rome, or most sub- 
 ordinated her life to the rule of Rome, she did so, not 
 because of any conviction that submission to Rome was 
 a necessity of Catholic life, but because it suited her 
 purpose on other grounds. 
 
 I have therefore set myself in this book to answer 
 the question, What is the value of those instances which 
 are adduced to prove the supposed independence of the 
 Church of England in past times? If I have placed 
 myself at a certain disadvantage in confining myself, for 
 the most part, to such instances, instead of choosing my 
 own ground and producing other positive evidence for 
 my contention, I shall, at any rate, avoid the accusation 
 of not fairly stating the opinion of my opponents. And 
 I venture to think that sufficient evidence has been 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER xi 
 
 produced, in dealing with these instances of the repudia- 
 tion of Papal jurisdiction, as our Anglican friends deem 
 them, to prove not only that the present titular Church 
 of England is not a spiritual continuation of the old 
 Church of England, but that the Roman Catholic body 
 in England is. 
 
 It is not, however, my purpose to deny a certain kind 
 of continuity between the present Establishment and the 
 Anglican Church of the past. There is a kind of legal 
 continuity ; there is a sort of material continuity ; there 
 is a continuity of nomenclature. But this is not what is 
 meant by the continuity of the Church, or, at any rate, 
 of the Church in her deeper aspects. The Church is 
 regarded in the following pages as the Kingdom of 
 Heaven upon earth. Her life consists in her supernatural 
 relations with her Creator. Unity of government, unity 
 of faith, unity of sacraments, constitute her unity — not 
 unity in name, or material privileges, or local habitation. 
 
 Now, in this work I do not touch on the unity of 
 sacraments. It might easily be shown that the Church 
 in England for a thousand years administered seven 
 sacraments as the provision which our Lord made for 
 her spiritual life, and that "Anglicanism" has muti- 
 lated the spiritual organism of the Church through 
 having materially changed this Divine economy. But it 
 is with the subject of government that I have dealt in 
 particular in this work. That subject comes indeed 
 under the head of faith ; it was, as I hope I have shown, 
 held to be a matter of faith that St. Peter and his suc- 
 cessors were appointed the governors of the Universal 
 Church ; but it is with this matter of faith alone, and 
 
xii INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 not with the whole range of the Divine deposit, that I 
 have dealt here. 
 
 And the question is not whether the old Church of 
 England was right or wrong in believing that the See of 
 Peter is the divinely appointed centre of unity ; it is 
 merely the question of fact, whether she did or did not 
 so believe. It is, therefore, strictly a matter of history. 
 Is it, or is it not, true that the Church of England — by 
 which I do not mean the Parliament, but the accredited 
 teaching body in England — held that doctrine concern- 
 ing her relationship to Rome to be a part of the faith 
 once delivered to the saints ? That this was the doctrine 
 of the Primitive Church I have shown elsewhere. 1 Here 
 I have entered on no doctrinal disquisitions, but con- 
 fined myself to the facts of history. 
 
 There is, however, a certain difficulty in meeting the 
 arguments for " Continuity " advanced by our Anglican 
 friends, arising from the differences amongst themselves 
 as to the cogency of the various arguments in its favour. 
 The late Lord Bowen is said to have suggested that the 
 judges, when drawing up an address which began with 
 the words, " Conscious as we are of our shortcomings," 
 but which was felt to be beneath their dignity, should 
 substitute, " Conscious as we are of one another's short- 
 comings." And it would be difficult for a committee 
 of Anglican writers, judging from those works which I 
 
 1 " The Primitive Church and the See of Peter," by the 
 Rev. Luke Rivington, M.A. (Longmans, 1894). The reader 
 is referred for an answer to the criticisms of Canon Bright 
 on this book to a little work called "Replies" (price is., 
 Burns & Oates). 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER xiii 
 
 have personally perused, to refrain from expressing some 
 consciousness of their considerable differences of opinion 
 on these historical questions. No book has had such 
 an enormous circulation as Mr. Nye's " Popular History 
 of the Church of England " ; and yet it would be unfair 
 to saddle a writer ot Bishop Creighton's calibre with 
 some of the extraordinary statements made by Mr. Nye. 
 Mr. Lane, again, has numerous statements which are 
 contradicted by Dr. Stubbs, whilst Dr. Bright has suc- 
 cessfully refuted Bishop Lightfoot on an important point 
 connected with this question of " continuity." 1 Dr. Cutts, 
 in his series of " Public School Text-books of Religious 
 Instruction," makes a point of the imaginary fact that 
 Lanfranc would not go to Rome for the pall ; 2 whilst 
 Mr. Hunt, in his work on "The English Church in the 
 Middle Ages," (rightly) speaks of Lanfranc's journey to 
 Rome for that symbol of authority. 3 On the other hand, 
 this writer disagrees (p. 19) with Dr. Bright as to Wilfrid's 
 appeal to Rome. Dr. Child, on " Continuity," disagrees 
 with all of these. 
 
 But last year a paper was read at the Norwich Church 
 Congress by Dr. Creighton, Bishop of Peterborough, 
 which met with such general and emphatic approval, 
 both at the Congress itself (according to all reports), and 
 afterwards in such representative papers as the Guardian, 
 the Church Times, and the Record, that it may be safely 
 
 1 Cf. infra, p. 3. 
 
 2 History of the Church of England, p. 74. 
 
 3 " The English Church," &c, p. 79 (" Epochs of Church 
 History"). There is no doubt about Lanfranc's journey to 
 Rome. Cf. Florence of Worcester, sub anno 1071, and Vita 
 Lanjranci, cap. xi. Paris, 1648. 
 
xiv INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 assumed to represent the general trend of opinion in the 
 Church of England. According to the programme of 
 the Congress, that paper dealt with the " Continuity of 
 the Church of England in the Middle Ages" — i.e. the 
 continuity between the body so called then and that 
 which has the same title now. The advantage of select- 
 ing that paper for my purpose seemed twofold : first, it 
 touches on what, according to the admission of Anglicans 
 and ourselves, are the salient points of the controversy ; 
 secondly, its writer is one whose record is such as to 
 command attention for whatever he writes on such a 
 subject. He has had the honour of filling a professor- 
 ship of history at the sister University to his own ; he 
 has been the editor of the English Historical Rroiew ; 
 he is the author of a " History of the Papacy," con- 
 spicuous for its courtesy of tone ; he is generally sup- 
 posed to have been selected for the high office which 
 he now holds, in part at least for his historical writings ; 
 he is at this moment president of a society called the 
 Church Historical Society, recently called into existence 
 for the express purpose of defending the Church of Eng- 
 land on historical grounds ; and, lastly, he has lately 
 been selected to represent the Anglican Episcopate at 
 the coronation of the Tsar, having been described in 
 the letter of recommendation sent by the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury to the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, as " a 
 distinguished historian, and one of the most learned of 
 living scholars and divines." Further, this paper which 
 Bishop Creighton read on the occasion of the Church 
 of England Conference at Norwich (October 1S95) has 
 been since republished by the Church Defence Institu- 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER xv 
 
 tion, under the auspices of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 with the title, " The National Church in the Middle Ages." 
 
 I have therefore taken this paper as fairly repre- 
 sentative of the line of argument adopted by members 
 of the Church of England on the subject of continuity, 
 and I have endeavoured to answer the question, Is 
 Bishop Creighton's argument sound ? Do the instances 
 he adduces from history bear out his conclusion ? 
 
 There is one point on which I have thought well to lay 
 special stress, and that is, the bearing of the Statutes of 
 Provisos and Prccmunire on the question of continuity. 
 These are the armoury from which the weapons used 
 of late in defence of the continuity theory as held by 
 Anglicans have been mostly taken. I have avoided as 
 much as possible any abstruse disquisitions on this part 
 of my subject, but what appears below (Ch. VII.) is the 
 result of a careful study of the Rolls of Parliament, and 
 other original sources belonging to the period of the 
 original promulgation and successive re-enactments of 
 those statutes. The result is that I have been more 
 than ever convinced that most of the current histories of 
 England grievously misrepresent the bearing of these 
 statutes on the question of England's faith in Papal 
 Supremacy. These histories either identify Parliament 
 with the Church, or take the side of Parliament against 
 the Church, 1 or mistake a moan for dogmatic teaching, 
 or convert the resistance to a particular exercise of autho- 
 rity into a repudiation of the authority itself. 
 
 1 e.g. "The English Church in the Middle Ages," in the 
 series edited by Bishop Creighton, called " Epochs of Church 
 History," and Bishop Creighton's own paper. 
 
xvi INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 I would also draw particular attention to the teaching 
 of Archbishop Warham, contained in Ch. X. Mr. 
 Gladstone, in his recent letter on Anglican Orders, has 
 repeated his erroneous conception (as I must consider 
 it) of Archbishop Warham's concession in 1531. His 
 Grace's letter, first published in full by Canon Moyes, 
 owing to the indefatigable researches of Dom. Gasquet, 
 appears for the first time in a book dealing with English 
 history, in the following pages (Ch. X.). Its impor- 
 tant bearing on the faith of the English Church at that 
 time will be seen at once. It precludes the idea that 
 the Episcopate of the Church of England, that is to 
 say, the teaching body, had imbibed the teaching of 
 modern Anglicanism, even in germ, before the tyranny 
 of Henry VIII. swayed the minds and determined the 
 action of many of its members. It shows that, although 
 the soil had been prepared, and the conditions rendered 
 favourable for a separation from Rome, the Episcopate 
 had not up to that time contemplated the idea of an 
 independent national Church. The idea of ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction, which the following pages show, if they show 
 anything, to have been that of the Church of England 
 from the days of Augustine, was still in possession. We 
 may dismiss from the items of evidence on this head the 
 so-called petition from Convocation about separation, 
 which figures in so many English histories. It was 
 certainly not a petition from that body, and probably 
 nothing more than a proposed rough draft from a civi- 
 lian's hand. 1 But the moral conditions favourable to 
 
 ' Cf. " Anglican Fallacies," by Rev. Luke Rivington, p. 23 
 (price 8d., Catholic Truth Society). 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 XVl 1 
 
 separation, in the shape of a spirit of subservience to 
 royal tyranny, and the preference of earthly to heavenly 
 interests, were in existence. " These, together with a lack 
 of learning consequent on the distressing condition of 
 ecclesiastical England after the Black Death, led to the 
 submission eventually tendered to a sovereign of unpre- 
 cedented power and unlimited unscrupulousness, which 
 Archbishop Warham would have regarded as schismatic 
 in form and Erastian in substance. Archbishop War- 
 ham's defence, of which I am speaking, completes the 
 chain of evidence which shows that in the intellectual 
 sphere there was no gradually gathering volume of dis- 
 belief in Papal jurisdiction ready to burst upon the 
 land, which is such a favourite idea with many Anglican 
 writers on the sixteenth century. 
 
 § 2. Canon Law. 
 
 There is, however, one sphere of proof on which I 
 have dwelt but little in the following pages, as it seemed 
 to demand, for effective treatment, more space than 
 could be given to it in this volume, and that is the 
 evidence to be derived from the Canon Law of England. 
 It will be well, however, to say something on the subject 
 here. 
 
 A few years ago 1 I ventured to question the historical 
 accuracy of a sentence to be found in the Report issued 
 in 1883 by the commissioners appointed to inquire into 
 the constitution and working of the Ecclesiastical Courts 
 
 1 Dublin Review, October 1890 ; art. i. p. 245. 
 
 b 
 
xviii INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 in the Church of England. That Report, which is signed 
 by such great names as Stubbs and Freeman, speaks 
 (p. 28) of " the canons passed in Legatine Councils 
 under Otho and Othobon" as having been "ratified 
 by the National Church under Archbishop Peckham." 1 
 Dr. Stubbs, in his "Oxford Lectures" (p. 25), uses the 
 same expression — "These canons, which might possibly 
 be treated as in themselves wanting the sanction of 
 the National Church, were ratified in Councils held by 
 Peckham " ; and again (p. 308) — " The constitutions of 
 Othobon, which were confirmed by Peckham at Lambeth, 
 and which, with those of Otho, were the first codified 
 and glossed portions of the National Church law." 
 That same Report says, "But the Canon Law of 
 Rome, although always regarded as of great authority 
 in England, was not held to be binding on the 
 courts." 2 
 
 Now here is the question of " continuity " in a nut- 
 shell. If the Canon Law of the English Church was made 
 independently of Rome, there is continuity between 
 modern Anglicanism and the Church in England before 
 the sixteenth century ; if it was dependent on Rome, 
 continuity is to be found between ourselves and the old 
 Church in England. Now the answer may be given in 
 a single sentence. Archbishop Peckham himself has 
 said that " the Sovereign Lord of all gave authority to 
 the decrees of the sovereign Pontiffs when He said to 
 Peter in the Gospel of St. Matthew, ' Whatsoever thou 
 
 1 The italics are mine. 
 
 2 " Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission," 
 1883, vol. i. p. xviii. 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER xix 
 
 shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven '"P 1 Con- 
 sequently Peckham could not have meant to " ratify " 
 the decrees of the Roman Pontiff as by a superior 
 authority. Those decrees must have been " held to be 
 binding on the courts." And if we look, for instance, 
 to the Council held in London by Othobon, the Papal 
 legate, in 1268, we find it stated in the Acts of that 
 Council, that the legate himself issued the constitutions 
 of which Dr. Stubbs speaks, and delivered them to the 
 English prelates to be observed by them and by their 
 descendants. And when some of the younger prelates, 
 whose jurisdiction seemed to be " diminished " by these 
 constitutions, appealed to the supreme Pontiff, Othobon 
 gave them a day in which to decide "whether the whole 
 community wished to prosecute the appeal [thus] inter- 
 posed." 2 But they gave in, and accepted the decrees 
 thus placed before them — decrees which embraced in 
 their provisions such subjects as, on the one hand, the 
 administration of the Sacrament of Penance, and, on the 
 other hand, the dress they were to wear. 3 When all was 
 finished the legate gave the prelates leave to return to 
 their homes. 4 
 
 Here is an instance of what was meant by the " accept- 
 ance " of legatine constitutions. They were received as 
 of binding authority, unless under appeal to the supreme 
 Pontiff. 
 
 1 Registrnm Epistolaruin (Rolls Series), Ep. 199, vol. i. 
 p. 240. 
 
 - " An tota communitas appellationem interpositam pro- 
 sequi vellet" (Wilkins 1 Concilia, ii. p. 1). 
 
 3 Wilkins' Concilia, ii. pp. I- 19. 
 
 4 " Licentiam tribuit ad propria repedandi " (loc. cit. p. 1). 
 
xx INTRODUCTORY CHAPTF.R 
 
 But whilst these sheets are passing through the press, 
 I have had the satisfaction of reading a very remarkable 
 article in the current number of the E?iglish Historical 
 Review (July 1896), which touches on this very point, and 
 altogether confirms my contention as to the constitutions 
 of Otho and Othobon having been considered to be bind- 
 ing in virtue of their Papal authorisation. The writer, 
 Professor Maitland, LL.D. (Professor of the Laws of Eng- 
 land at the University of Cambridge), calls in question the 
 same dictum of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, and 
 the same statements of Dr. Stubbs, and opposes inciden- 
 tally the same statement of Archbishop Peckham. But he 
 adds irrefragable evidence to the effect that the relation 
 between provincial constitutions and Papal decretals was 
 that of subject to superior. In other words, the Church 
 of England was governed from Rome. He draws atten- 
 tion to the fact that provincial constitutions in England did 
 not provide for the essentials of ecclesiastical life : these 
 were to be found in the common law (the jus commune) 
 of the Universal Church. In this respect the nation and 
 the Church of England differed essentially. The State 
 was producing " the most thoroughly national system of 
 temporal law that the mediaeval world could show. But 
 whereas the Engiish State was an independent whole, 
 the English Church was in the eyes of its own judges a 
 dependent fragment whose laws had been imposed upon 
 it from without." 1 " As to the theory that prevailed in 
 the Court of Canterbury during Lyndwood's tenure of 
 office, there can be no doubt, whatever. Peckham and 
 
 1 Eng. Hist. Rev., July 1896, p. 475. 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 XXl 
 
 his Councils could not 'ratify' legatine constitutions; in 
 such a context 'the sanction of the National Church ' = o " 
 (P- 463)- 
 
 "The English Church was a dependent fragment" — 
 this is the very kernel of my contention in this book, 
 and it is naturally a source of gratification to see it 
 maintained by one holding the position that Professor 
 Maitland does, and approaching the subject from a 
 different point of view. This able writer's proofs of his 
 thesis may be summarised thus : — 
 
 After pointing out that the words " common law " 
 {jus commune) meant in those times not something in 
 contrast to " statute " law, but the law of the Universal 
 Church, 1 he examines two witnesses of supreme import- 
 ance — William Lyndwood,the Archbishop of Canterbury's 
 official principal, and the author of one of the best known 
 and most highly esteemed works on ecclesiastical law in 
 the whole course of English history ; 2 and John of Ayton, 
 the famous canonist. John of Ayton wrote in the first 
 half of the fourteenth century, Lyndwood in the first 
 half of the fifteenth ; and we must bear in mind that 
 there was no such conflict of opinion on these matters 
 as is to be found now in the Church of England. The 
 doctrinal teaching of an Archbishop's principal official 
 did not differ from that of the Archbishop. 
 
 1 So that there is no meaning in such an expression as 
 " efforts were made to displace the common law for the canon 
 law" in "The English Church in the Middle Ages," p. 149 
 (" Epochs of Church History "). The same may be said of a 
 passage on p. 203 of the same work. 
 
 2 Lyndwood's Provinciate. The quotations that follow 
 are from the E. H. Review, July 1896. 
 
xxii INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 Now, in neither of these writers has Professor Maitland 
 been able to discover any denial, dispute, or even debate 
 as to the binding force of Papal decretals. They are 
 quoted as imperative documents. In Lyndwood there 
 are plenty of open questions, but "what we do not see 
 in our English books is the slightest tendency to doubt 
 the Pope's legislative power or to debate the validity of 
 his decretals" (p. 453). 
 
 John of Ayton discusses the question whether the 
 Pope is the dominus of all the Churches in the world, 
 and gives the opinion that he is, so far as the power of 
 " reserving " and "collating " them is concerned — exactly 
 the position maintained in Chapter IX. (pp. 157-9) of this 
 work. "We here see," says Professor Maitland, "our 
 English canonist citing a decretal which in the boldest 
 language claims that a plenary power of disposing of 
 every Church belongs to the Roman Pontiff" (p. 454). 
 Our canonist bemoans the use often made of this right, 
 but of the right itself he has no doubt. And, as Professor 
 Maitland says, " a moan ... is not a legal principle." 
 
 Again, "Lyndwood holds that no General Council 
 can be summoned without the authority of the Apostolic 
 See, and he cites without disapproval the opinion of 
 those doctors who maintain that the Pope is above a 
 General Council ; " and, as Professor Maitland 1 points 
 out, if there had been any treasured tradition of Angli- 
 can independence, Lyndwood, the head of English 
 canonists, lost "an unexampled and irrecoverable op- 
 portunity " in not referring to it. The idea of a General 
 
 1 Professor Maitland exaggerates the appeal of Chichele 
 to a General Council, as may be seen below, p. 148. 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHARTER 
 
 XX1H 
 
 Council being above a Pope is represented by Lynd- 
 wood as being " held only by one doctor, who has been 
 dead for upwards of a century, and who is suspected of 
 self-interest. And this after the Council of Constance ! " 
 (p. 456). Lyndwood speaks of the Pope being "above 
 the law." A Pontifical decretal is binding two months 
 after its publication. Indeed, it was simple heresy to 
 dispute the authority of a decretal. 1 So speaks the 
 great English canonist of the fifteenth century, whose 
 interest it was to magnify his Archiepiscopal Court as 
 far as possible. And it was " a principle to which 
 archbishop, bishops, and clergy of the province of 
 Canterbury have adhered by solemn words" (p. 457); 
 witness the constitutions of Thomas Arundel in Wil- 
 kins' Concilia, iii. p. 317. Decretals are defined by the 
 Archbishop as the "precepts of laws and canons duly 
 issued and canonically promulgated by the key-bearer 
 of eternal life and death, the vicar on earth, not of a 
 mere man, but of the true God, and he to whom God 
 Himself has committed the rights of the heavenly 
 kingdom." 2 
 
 And this teaching was not a passing utterance in a 
 moment of excitement, but the established principle on 
 which the action of the Court of Canterbury was based. 
 The Archbishop might make for his province statutes 
 which are merely declaratory of the jus commune of 
 
 1 " Dicitur etiam haereticus qui ex contemptu Romanae 
 ecclesi;c contemnit servare ea qua; Romana ecclesia statuit, 
 et etiam qui despicit et negligit servare decretales " (Lynd- 
 wood, Provinciate, p. 292, gl. ad v. declarcntur). 
 
 1 Wilkins' Concilia, iii. p. 314. 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 the Church, the law of the Universal Church— statutes 
 which recall it to memory, which amplify it and give 
 it a sharper edge. He might supplement the Papal 
 legislation ; but he had no power, according to Lynd- 
 wood, to derogate from, to say nothing of abrogating, 
 the laws of his superior. For nothing is clearer in 
 Lyndwood than that the Pope is the superior of the 
 Archbishop. The relation of the Court of Canterbury 
 to the Roman Court was not as that of one Church 
 to another Church, but of an inferior to a superior 
 court in the same Church. 1 Consequently, Lyndwood 
 speaks of Peckham's acceptance of Othobon's con- 
 stitutions as being executive, not authoritative, in 
 direct contradiction to the statement of the Eccle- 
 siastical Courts Commission, and of Dr. Stubbs, given 
 above. 2 
 
 The bishops did not enforce some of the decretals ; 
 indeed, John of Ayton says that the only constitutions 
 that were enforced with any alacrity were those that 
 brought profit to episcopal purses. It is well that our 
 English historians, who are so fond of attributing greed 
 to Rome, and to her alone, should remember that the 
 tendency of Papal legislation was often directed to 
 secure for members of the Church advantages of 
 
 1 "Verum est quod constitutiones legatinas non potent 
 archiepiscopus tollere, quia inferior non potest tollere legem 
 superioris" (Provinciah, p. 154, gl. ad v. adjicicndo). 
 
 ' l " Prasceptum potius executivum illius [constitutionis 
 Othobonis] quod primo statutum est quam auctoritativum, 
 videlicet cum istud pneceptum est ad excitandum negligentes 
 observare constitutionem ipsam " (Provinciate, p. 11, gl. ad 
 v. observari). 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER XXV 
 
 which the greed of English bishops was apt to deprive 
 them. 
 
 Professor Maitland also points out that the acceptance 
 of Papal constitutions meant no more than that they 
 were put in practice and their recommendations not 
 allowed to fall into desuetude. It was not making 
 them authoritative ; it only denoted their actual execu- 
 tion. The provincial legislation, which it must be 
 remembered proceeded from the Archbishop, not from 
 the Provincial Council (the Archbishop being Papal 
 legate ex officio), had for its scope the enforcement of 
 authoritative Papal enactments, bringing them to the 
 knowledge and to the memory of the people, so that 
 such statutes as were binding on the Universal Church 
 might not be disobeyed through ignorance ; or they 
 might adapt Papal decrees, but not deviate from them 
 in substance. The provincial laws were, in fact, "bye- 
 laws " in the modern sense of the term. 
 
 For instance, if you wanted to know the law of 
 marriage, you would not find it in the ecclesiastical 
 law of England as contained in the provincial constitu- 
 tions, but in the common law of the Universal Church, 
 to which these constitutions were ancillary, a mere 
 appendix. When Lyndwood discusses the law of 
 marriage, " whence it derives its name, how it is con- 
 tracted, where it was instituted, what are the causes of 
 its institution, what good flows from it, and what impedi- 
 ments there are to it," he at once says, "Of all these 
 matters Innocentius [the Pope] has treated, and yet 
 more fully Johannes Andrea;." 1 In other words, as 
 
 1 Lyndwood, p. 271, gl. ad v. matrimonium. 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 Professor Maitland puts it, he refers you "to the works 
 of two Italian canonists of high repute, one of whom 
 was a layman, the other a Pope." 1 
 
 It will be obvious that nothing would have more 
 amazed the head of the Court of Canterbury in a.d. 
 1430, than to hear a religious body which looks to Rome 
 as its source of jurisdiction and its court of appeal, 
 called an " Italian Mission " in a depreciatory sense. 
 The whole Church of England was so bound to Rome 
 that it literally lived on the decrees of Rome, and knew 
 of no ecclesiastical law that had not at least in principle 
 emanated from Rome and that had not the hall-mark 
 of Rome on it. 
 
 So that if we compare John of Ayton in the four- 
 teenth, and Lyndwood in the fifteenth centuries — two 
 undeniably competent representatives of the teaching of 
 Canterbury — we find no sort of tendency or disposition 
 to see in the position of inferiority and subjection on the 
 part of the English Provinces towards Rome anything 
 but the normal condition of things in the Church of 
 God. They knew no other relationship that did not 
 savour of heresy. 
 
 § 3. Authorities. 
 
 Besides the authorities actually quoted in this book, 
 there are a few that have been persistently consulted 
 — such as Rymer's Foedera, Wilkins' Concilia, and the 
 Rolls of Parliament. But a main source of information 
 
 1 Eng. Hist. Rev., p. 471. 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER xxvii 
 
 has been also the magnificent set of volumes known as 
 the Rolls Series. The series of witnesses contained in 
 this collection of chronicles, &c, if really studied, must 
 materially change our books of English History in the 
 future. But there is one witness whom I have learnt 
 profoundly to distrust, who has been a prolific source 
 of misstatement in our English historical literature, and 
 that is Matthew Paris. Long ago Dr. Lingard pointed 
 out, and in certain cases proved, the untrustworthiness 
 of this monk of St. Alban's. Unfortunately, Mr. Green, 
 in his admirable " History of the English People," leant 
 on Matthew Paris to an extent which has marred his 
 estimate of some personages and passages in mediaeval 
 history. I have given a startling instance of his un- 
 trustworthiness below (pp. 124-8). He is immensely 
 valuable for the letters which he has preserved, when 
 he gives them in full; but his summaries, where they 
 can be compared with originals, are quite untrustworthy ; 
 and his own comments are almost worthless, except for 
 those who prefer the ebullitions of spleen to a statement 
 of facts. The very epithet which Mr. Green uses of 
 him is suspicious, viz., "patriotic." His patriotism 
 generally consisted in misrepresenting the Holy See. 
 We can love our mother country as well as our mother 
 Church, the mother and mistress of all Churches ; but 
 Matthew Paris began with a twist against his spiritual 
 mother. 
 
 It will be noticed that I have frequently alluded to 
 certain "Church Historical Society Lectures." These 
 contain the latest instance of an Apology for the 
 Church of England, having been published under the 
 
xx\ iii 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 auspices of a newly formed society, of which Bishop 
 Creighton is president. The places in this volume in 
 which I have dealt with the two lectures of that series 
 which concern my subject, will be found in the Index. 
 
 In conclusion, I have to thank the attendants in 
 the Reading-room of the British Museum for unfailing 
 courtesy in the last few years, as also the Librarian of 
 the University Library of St. Andrews. 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH AND ITS RELATION 
 TO ROME 
 
 | Introductory 
 
 On page 112. line 3, delete "to that Pope.' - 
 
 1 1 5. for " Pope Innocent," lege "the Papal 
 Notary." 
 
 adds that " it is remarkable how soon the atmosphere of 
 their island home exercised its influence on the Norman 
 intelligence." This atmosphere led them to feel that 
 both "he [Anselm] and the King alike were bound 
 
 1 "The National Church in the Middle Ages," p. 1 r. 
 
 A 
 
2 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 to maintain the customs of the realm, and settle their 
 disputes by reference to them alone." " They said " 
 (when refusing to support the Archbishop in carrying 
 his appeal to Rome) " that it was contrary to the customs 
 of the realm which he had sworn to observe." 
 
 Now, this interpretation of St. Anselm's conflict with 
 William Rufus assumes that " the atmosphere of our 
 island home " was fatal to the idea of any necessary 
 dependence on Rome in regard to ecclesiastical disci- 
 pline ; the customs of the realm were against it. It 
 assumes, too, that these customs stretched back beyond 
 the Norman period, which commenced with the Con- 
 queror's reign, to whom William Rufus had nowsucceeded. 
 They " exercised their influence on the Norman mind." 
 
 It will be my endeavour to show that, on the contrary, 
 " the atmosphere of our island home " favoured the idea 
 of dependence on Rome in ecclesiastical matters ; that 
 the " customs of the realm " alluded to here had nothing 
 ancient about them, but were profoundly un-English ; 
 that, in fact, dependence on Rome was a leading char- 
 acteristic of the life of the early English Church. And 
 by "early English" is here meant the period stretching 
 from the seventh century to the time of the Conquest in 
 the eleventh. Beyond the seventh century we need not 
 go ; there is no need to occupy ourselves with the British 
 Church. She was not the progenitor of the Church of 
 England. It has been lately asserted by a considerable 
 Anglican authority that " we may confidently say with the 
 late Professor Freeman, ' It is contrary to all historica 1 
 fact to speak of the ancient British Church as something 
 . . . out of which the Church of England grew.' It 
 is equally unhistorical, we may add, to speak of the 
 Welsh Episcopate as the 'fountain' of the English." 1 
 
 1 " Waymarks in Church History" (p. 298), by W. Bright, 
 D.D., Prof, of Eccles. Hist., Oxford. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 3 
 
 I shall therefore in this chapter deal only with the English 
 Church as it started on its career in the end of the sixth 
 century. 
 
 § i. Pope St. Gregory, the real Apostle of England. 
 
 But here we are met with a new theory which has been 
 widely applied to the start of the English Church and to 
 the question of continuity. The Bishops of the present 
 Establishment, in commencing a large central institution, 
 or mass of buildings, called the " Church House," in 
 memory of the Jubilee of Her Gracious Majesty's reign, 
 adopted on their seal the following symbol of their 
 supposed historical position : Our Blessed Lord stands 
 in the centre, and beneath Him, on either side, are St. 
 Aidan on the right side, and St. Augustine of Canterbury 
 on the left. These two saints stand on even pedestals 
 receiving His blessing, and streams of water flow from 
 His feet to theirs, and from theirs downwards to (we 
 presume) the present generation. This is understood to 
 symbolise the theory stated, or, at any rate, brought into 
 prominence, by the late Bishop Lightfoot, who is re- 
 sponsible for the saying, that " not Augustine, but Aidan, 
 is the true Apostle of England." 1 
 
 This absurdly unhistorical theory, which found favour 
 with so great a writer, and has been adopted by the 
 present Archbishop of Canterbury, has been admirably 
 refuted by the present Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical 
 History in the University of Oxford. It would be diffi- 
 cult to add anything to his conclusive reasoning. Canon 
 Bright says, " If the title [of Apostle] belongs to the man 
 who first brings home to any part of a given people the 
 
 1 " Leaders in the Northern Church," by Bishop Light- 
 foot, p. 9. 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 knowledge of Christ and the ordinances of His religion, 
 then it is enough to remark that Augustine came into 
 Kent when all the ' Saxon ' kingdoms were still heathen. 
 He came to confront risks which Aidan, for instance, 
 had never to reckon with on appearing in Northumbria 
 at the express invitation of St. Oswald. He came thirty- 
 one years before the evangelisation of the East Anglians, 
 thirty-seven years before the arrival of Birinus in Wessex, 
 thirty-eight years before the 'Scotic' mission established 
 itself, with assurance beforehand of the fullest royal co- 
 operation, in Northumbria. His long precedency in the 
 mission-field is a simple matter of chronology ; it means 
 that he threw open the pathway, that he set the example, 
 and that a generation had passed away before ' Scotic ' 
 zeal followed in his steps." 1 
 
 Canon Bright shows that Bishop Lightfoot altogether 
 underrated the work of Paulinus, whom Augustine sent 
 to the North. The Bishop says that Paulinus " made no 
 way in Northumbria," grounding his accusation on the 
 statement of Bede that no cross, church, or altar had 
 been set up in Bernicia, which Bishop Lightfoot appa- 
 rently mistook for the whole of Northumbria ; and he 
 appears also to have forgotten that the centre of Paulinus' 
 work was York, in Deira, whence he had hardly had time 
 to organise his work with any fulness in Bernicia, which 
 was under a different branch of the royal line. Bede, 
 moreover, gives a very different account of Paulinus' 
 work even in Bernicia (St. Bede's own home) from that 
 which Bishop Lightfoot deduces from the absence of 
 churches, altars, and crosses. The historian speaks of 
 the work of Paulinus at the river Glen, how " the people 
 of Christ flocked thither from all villages and places " to 
 be instructed and baptized. " This he did in the pro- 
 
 1 "Waymarks in Church History," by W. Bright, D.D., 
 P- 309- 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 S 
 
 vince of the Bernicians. But also in that of the Deirans 
 he used to baptize in the Swale." 1 His work extended 
 to Lincoln, where he converted the reeve, and built a 
 church. 
 
 It has been assumed that Paulinus' work was super- 
 ficial, because Bede speaks directly afterwards of "the 
 year of apostasy " ; but, as Canon Bright points out, this 
 refers not to the Christianised people, but to the two 
 young kings, Osric and Eanfrid; whilst James the Deacon, 
 who was left behind when Paulinus escorted the widowed 
 queen to her old home in Kent, " took much spoil from 
 the ancient enemy." And so Canon Bright concludes, 
 "We have, then, good reason for believing that as 
 Paulinus was first in the Northumbrian field, as the 
 solemn national acceptance of Christianity was due to 
 him and to Edwin as his proselyte, as he worked in- 
 cessantly for six years chiefly in Deira, but also to some 
 extent in Bernicia, so the foundations which he laid were 
 not destroyed, but rather built upon and enlarged, when 
 Aidan came and had a prince for his fellow-worker." 2 
 And Paulinus was part of the mission direct from 
 Rome. 
 
 It is sometimes said that St. Aidan entered upon his 
 work without the sanction of Rome ; but this is contrary 
 to fact, for St. Gregory blamed the British bishops for 
 not doing what they could to evangelise the people 
 beyond the confines of their own dioceses. :i His stric- 
 tures were passed on these bishops on the understand- 
 ing that this was the part of a Christian teacher. Aidan 
 was, therefore, only following out a principle everywhere 
 understood, viz., that any one who engaged in mis- 
 sionary work beyond the limits of the jurisdiction 
 assigned to him as overseer of the baptized, was fulfilling 
 
 1 Bede, ii. 14. 2 " Waymarks," p. 315. 
 
 3 Ep., lib. vi. 58, " sacerdotes e vicino negligere." 
 
6 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 a duty incumbent on the Christian as such, when pos- 
 sible, and therefore he had all that was needed, i.e., 
 the indirect sanction of Rome. When St. Wilfrid, the 
 devotee par excellence of the Petrine prerogatives, went 
 to convert the people of Sussex, he asked no one's leave, 
 for none was needed. It was, as I have said, an under- 
 stood law expressed by Gregory the Great, that Christians 
 should, as far as possible, endeavour after the conversion 
 of those who were outside the fold, and when St. Aidan 
 brought them into the fold he brought them into com- 
 munion with the See of Peter — for those who, like St. 
 Aidan, differed only on some points of discipline such as 
 the tonsure and the date of the Paschal Feast, were not 
 outside that communion ; and St. Oswald, who stood 
 sponsor to King Cynegils at his baptism by St. Birinus, 
 was obviously in communion with this latter saint, who 
 came direct from Rome, and St. Oswald and St. Aidan 
 were in the closest possible communion of faith and 
 work. Besides, the way in which St. Bede speaks of the 
 monks of Iona and of St. Aidan himself forbids the sup- 
 position that they were not at that time in full communion 
 with Rome. 
 
 And so England has through all her history called 
 Gregory the Great her Apostle. Although it is true that 
 a large portion of our country was converted by Scots, 
 i.e., Irish (who had received their Christianity from the 
 Continent, that is, from those that were in communion 
 with Rome), still it was to the heart of the great Pope, 
 who saw angels in the Anglo-Saxon children in the 
 market-place at Rome, that our forefathers (left by the 
 British bishops to their paganism) owed the first seeds 
 of Christian truth. Augustine was sent by Gregory. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 7 
 
 § 2. Rome the Mother and Mistress of Canterbury. 
 
 It was from Pope St. Gregory also that the Church in 
 England received the first rough draft of her hierarchical 
 organisation : " To you, my brother," wrote the Pope to 
 Augustine, " shall be subject by the authority of our God 
 and Lord Jesus Christ, not only those bishops whom 
 you shall ordain . . . but also all the priests in Britain." 1 
 It has been said that St. Gregory was here violating a 
 canon of the Council of Ephesus which begins, " If any 
 one has invaded a province and brought it by force under 
 himself." This assuredly was not done by St. Gregory. 2 
 But that Pope did certainly claim to exercise jurisdiction 
 over bishops as distant from Rome as were those of 
 Britain, and as certainly the Church of England con- 
 sidered his claim to be just. At the Council of Windsor, 
 Archbishop Lanfranc quoted this settlement by Gregory 
 as the ground of the precedency of Canterbury over 
 York. 3 The Archbishop of York admitted the fact as 
 to Gregory's arrangement, and did not deny its binding 
 force on the first occupant of the See of York. But he 
 seems to have suggested that it did not apply to the suc- 
 cessors of the first Bishop. His plea was disallowed. 
 
 1 Bede, i. 29. 
 
 2 It was in reality no canon. It was a decree as to 
 bishops not going beyond their own patriarchates, aimed 
 at Antioch, which was said to have forcibly invaded the 
 Cypriot jurisdiction. 
 
 3 He gives the various Papal settlements of the question, 
 beginning with Gregory as the " ultimate strength " of his 
 argument and " the strong foundation of the whole case," 
 and ends (in writing to the Pope) with saying that these 
 are the reasons why his Holiness "ought to concede" the 
 primacy to Canterbury over York, and then says that he 
 (Alexander II.) is intrusted with the Church by divine 
 decrees. — Wilkins, i. 327. 
 
8 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 It was, then, from Rome that England received the 
 first authoritative outline of her ecclesiastical organisa- 
 tion, though London was at first contemplated as the 
 metropolitical centre ; but London was changed for Can- 
 terbury by another Pope (Boniface V.), who sent the 
 pallium to Justus of Canterbury. The next Archbishop 
 (Honorius) received the pall, by request from the King, 
 from Pope Honorius I., 1 and was authorised to ordain 
 to York, and York to Canterbury, in case of the death 
 of either, to save the long journey to Rome. 2 Thus it was 
 by Papal authority that the outline was drawn in the 
 first instance for the organisation of the English Church, 
 and by Papal authority that the centre was fixed at 
 Canterbury. 
 
 But it was Theodore who, soon after ascending the 
 throne of Canterbury in a.d. 668, broke up the huge, 
 unwieldy dioceses in the North, and organised the 
 Church in general on the more definite lines to which, 
 with the addition of certain details, it has adhered ever 
 since. And Theodore was the gift of Rome to England. 
 Two kings, Egbert and Oswy, had sent a candidate to 
 Rome for consecration, who died there ; and Pope Vita- 
 lian selected and consecrated in his stead the great 
 Theodore, who was commissioned by the successor of 
 Vitalian, Pope St. Agatho, to give a slightly more articu- 
 late form to the organisation of the Anglican Church. 
 It was to have twelve Sees covering the whole of Britain, 
 and their centre was to be Canterbury, which (so his 
 words ran) " was to receive the pallium from the Apos- 
 tolic See." In carrying out this precept — for such it was 
 considered — Theodore professed to act with the authority 
 of Rome. We have, indeed, evidence of the most irre- 
 fragable nature that Theodore held that the Apostolicity 
 
 1 Wilkins, i. 35. 
 
 2 Bede, ii. 18. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 9 
 
 of the Church involved her government by the Apostolic 
 See. As will be presently shown, 1 his teaching was on 
 all points entirely one with that of Rome, and we know 
 well what St. Agatho's teaching was as to the jurisdiction 
 and infallibility of his own See. In his letter to the 
 Sixth Council, a little later on, he gives the teaching of 
 Rome, as he interprets the words of our Lord in St. 
 Luke xxii. 32 as applying to the successors of Peter and 
 their infallibility. 2 And the name for the Pope became 
 in England simply "the Apostolic" {Aposto/iats), and 
 his See was uniformly called " the Apostolic See " — an 
 expression which took its permanent place in our eccle- 
 siastical literature for a thousand years, and which meant 
 on English lips not the Apostolic See of the West, but the 
 Apostolic See of the universal Church. And it was con- 
 sidered to be such not as having been the See of the 
 imperial city, but as being the See of Peter. 3 
 
 Accordingly, when Archbishop Theodore acted in im- 
 portant disciplinary matters, he professed to act as " the 
 
 1 Infra, p. 21. 
 
 2 Mansi, xi. 242. The Bishop of Stepney (" Church His- 
 torical Society Lectures," p. 76), speaking of the promise of 
 future infallibility considered to be contained in our Lord's 
 words to St. Peter, " I have prayed for thee that thy faith 
 fail not : and . . . strengthen thy brethren," says, " So far 
 as I know, no one suggested such a meaning till Pope Agatho 
 pressed the passage into his service about the year 680." 
 If the Bishop had been acquainted with the writings of St. 
 Leo the Great, he would have known that that saint inter- 
 preted the passage in the same way as St. Agatho about 
 250 years before. Cf Leon. Serm. in Nat. St. Petr. Ap., 
 cap. 3. 
 
 3 Cf. Giraldus Cambrensis, the Archdeacon of St. David's, 
 De Principis Instructione, Dist. i. (Rolls Series, vol. viii. 
 p. 106). " He is called Pope, as though Father of fathers or 
 guardian of the fathers. He is called Universal, because he 
 is over (pri?tcifiatur) the universal Church. He is also called 
 ' Apostolicus,' because he acts as vicar of the Prince of the 
 Apostles." 
 
io ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 envoy of the Apostolic See." It was as such (as we 
 shall see) that he deprived Wilfrid of his See of York ; 
 and as such he described himself in the Council of 
 Bishops at Hertford, a.d. 673 : " I, Theodore, unworthy 
 Bishop of the See of Canterbury, appointed by the 
 Apostolic See." 1 
 
 Another Pope, Gregory III., bestowed the pall on 
 York, 2 and thus the hierarchical constitution of the 
 Church in England was complete. And so it remained 
 in its main features, with the exception of a slight in- 
 terval, for 800 years. This exception, however, throws 
 such light on the faith of the Church of England as to 
 the centre of unity and source of jurisdiction that it 
 needs special mention here. Its history was as follows. 
 
 § 3. The Lines of Jurisdiction under the Care of Home. 
 
 In the latter part of the eighth century Offa, out of 
 dislike to the Archbishop and the "Canterbury nation," 
 conceived the idea of getting an archbishop for his king- 
 dom of Mercia, independent of Canterbury. Accordingly 
 he " long wearied " Pope Adrian with his assertions (or 
 claims), and in the end gained his point. 3 The Pope 
 sent the pall for Lichfield to erect it into an archi- 
 episcopal see. 4 But when King Offa and Pope Adrian 
 were dead, and there was a new Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, the latter induced the successor of Adrian to 
 rescind the decree and to reinstate Canterbury in its 
 primatial dignity over Lichfield, Worcester, Leicester, 
 and the rest. Kenulph, the new king, himself wrote to 
 
 1 Bede, iv. 5. 2 Citron. Sax., A.D. 735. 
 
 3 Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, § 87, p. 119, ed. Hardy 
 (Eng. Hist. Series). 
 
 4 Roger de Wendover, i. 138 (Rolls Series). 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH II 
 
 the Pope a letter remarkable for the spirit of charity 
 with which it speaks both of Adrian and Offa, as also 
 for its simple exposition of the English faith as to the 
 government of the Church. Speaking of Pope Adrian 
 as the pastor of Christ's flock, and of himself as the son of 
 Pope Leo, who had succeeded Adrian, and of the "Apos- 
 tolic dignity " of Leo's See, he says that he thinks it fit 
 " that the ear of our obedience should be humbly bowed 
 to your holy commands, and that what seems to your 
 Holiness ought to be followed by us should be fulfilled 
 with our whole endeavour." 1 He appeals to the canons, 
 as interpreted "by all our experts," 2 and "the Apostolic 
 statutes, which were decreed to us by our most blessed 
 father, Gregory, by the authority of which twelve bishops 
 ought, by the order of the same father, to be subject 
 to the (Canterbury) jurisdiction." He explains that this 
 applied to London in the first instance, but that Canter- 
 bury had been made the centre, as the body of Augustine 
 rested there, "in the basilica of the blessed Peter, Prince 
 of the Apostles." He then narrates how Pope Adrian 
 had "exalted the Bishop of the Mercians with the pall," 3 
 i.e., as Kenulph's words clearly mean, invested him with 
 metropolitan jurisdiction. He asks that this may be 
 reversed. 
 
 Now, Kenulph, in this letter, tells us that he is ex- 
 pressing the mind of all the experts of his kingdom. It 
 is therefore clear that in the judgment of Anglo-Saxon 
 Christianity the assignment of metropolitan jurisdiction 
 lay with the Apostolic See. 
 
 Moreover, Kenulph takes the opportunity of asking 
 the Pope to read through the letter written by Arch- 
 bishop Ethelard, in concert with "all our provincial 
 bishops," concerning "his own causes and necessities, 
 
 1 Gesta Regit m, § 88, p. 121. 
 2 " Peritissimi quique." — Ibid. 3 Ibid. § 88. 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 and those of the whole of Britain," and " to open to us 
 in the page of truth what the form of faith requires con- 
 cerning the subjects treated of in the said letter." 1 
 
 We have, then, in this series of communications be- 
 tween Rome and England concerning the Archbishopric 
 of Canterbury, an emphatic expression of belief in Papal 
 jurisdiction over this realm of England, acknowledged by 
 kings, archbishops, bishops, and canonists. And about 
 seven years later, allusion was made to this arrangement 
 of the Episcopal Sees (so peculiarly an act of jurisdiction) 
 at the Great Council of English Bishops at Cloveshoe, in 
 the following words: "The Apostolic Father (or Pope) 
 sent into Britain an authoritative precept of his preroga- 
 tive commanding the honour of St. Augustine's See to be 
 restored in all its completeness, with all its parishes 
 [dioceses], just as St. Gregory t the Apostle and Master 
 of our nation, arranged it.'"-' 
 
 § 4. The English Church Fed and Reared by Rome. 
 
 Thus England received its ecclesiastical organisation 
 from Rome. And having received it, she cherished 
 through those early centuries the closest intercourse 
 with her spiritual mother. From St. Mellitus onwards, 
 bishops went thither to unburden their minds, and to 
 receive direction and authoritative precepts. Bede tells 
 us how that first Bishop of London went to Rome "to 
 
 1 Gesta Regum, § 88. 
 
 2 " Sui privilegii auctoritatis praeceptum posuit et in Bri- 
 tanniam misit et pra-cepit, ut honor Sancti Augustini sedis 
 cum omnibus suis parochiis integeirime redintegraretur. juxta 
 quod Sanctus Gregorius, nostra; gentis apostolus et magister 
 composuit." — Wilkins, i. 167 (a.D. 801). Notice the word 
 "magister"; Gregory was not held to have launched the 
 Church in England, and then to have left it to itself. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 »3 
 
 confer with Pope Boniface about the necessary affairs 
 of the English Church," and how, whilst there, he 
 subscribed the decrees of a Council (610), and brought 
 back a copy of the same " to the churches of the English 
 to be prescribed and observed." 1 " From Rome, also, 
 we received," he says, "all things in general that were 
 necessary for the service of the Church" — and what 
 were they ? " Sacred vessels and vestments for the 
 altars, also ornaments for the churches, and vestments 
 for the priests and clerics, as likewise relics of the holy 
 apostles and martyrs." 2 
 
 Such, then, was the close relationship between England 
 and Rome. She depended on Rome for her organisa- 
 tion, and she had already — in the eighth century — in 
 the matter of the Lichfield Archbishopric, acted on the 
 principle of appeal to Rome in such matters as the 
 mutual relations of her bishops. But not only so. Her 
 whole tone was Roman ; her method of chanting her 
 services, the selection of the Saints whom she invoked, 
 her martyrology, her very faith, as well as her discipline, 
 all these were distinctly Roman. There was one man 
 in the preceding (seventh) century of whom Dr. Stubbs 
 writes thus : — " The debt which England owes to Bene- 
 dict Biscop is a very great one, and has scarcely ever 
 been fairly recognised ; for it may be said that the 
 civilisation and learning of the eighth century rested 
 on the monasteries which he founded, which produced 
 Bede, and through him the school of York, Alcuin, 
 and the Carolingian School, on which the culture of the 
 Middle Ages was based." 3 
 
 1 " Eccl. Hist.," i. 29. 
 
 2 In the ninth century a Continental author speaks of the 
 English as those " who have always been and are in closest 
 familiarity with the Apostolic See." — Gesta Abb. Fontan. 
 Pertz., ii. 289. 
 
 3 Cf. " Benedict Biscop," by Dr. W. Stubbs, in Smith and 
 
14 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 Now Benedict Biscop went no less than four times 
 to Rome in the seventh century, bringing back with 
 him Roman books, Roman privileges, Roman chants, 
 and Roman principles. Once he was accompanied from 
 Rome by an abbot, who taught the Roman method of 
 singing and reading aloud, "as it was practised at St. 
 Peter's at Rome," says St. Bede. And the methods of 
 celebrating the festivals of the year thus brought from 
 Rome, says the same authority, "have been copied by 
 many others elsewhere." This same abbot was com- 
 missioned by the Pope to inquire into the teaching of 
 the English Church on matters of faith, and he found 
 it thoroughly satisfactory from a Roman point of view; 1 
 just as a century later the English bishops, earls, 
 abbots, and other dignitaries said in public to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, " Be it known to your pater- 
 nity that the faith which we hold is that which was 
 planted at the outset by the holy Roman and Apostolic 
 See, under the direction of the most blessed Pope 
 Gregory." 2 
 
 Thus, in every way, the Church of England was 
 strictly Roman. Nothing could exceed the close and 
 intimate relations between Rome and England through- 
 out the early English (Anglo-Saxon) period. Kings 
 went to live in the Eternal City to be near the tomb 
 of the Apostles Peter and Paul ; others to die there in 
 peace ; others, again, to take the monastic habit. The 
 last of these royal pilgrims of whom we have any full 
 account lived in the very century of the Conquest — 
 
 Wace's " Dictionary of Christian Biography'' ; also an article 
 by Canon Moyes in the Dublin Review, April 1893. 
 
 1 Cf. Jaffe, Regesta Agathonis, a.d. 679, where John the 
 Abbot is described as Apostolic Legate, sent " to compel 
 Theodore to summon a synod and adjudge matters of 
 discussion." 
 
 - Haddan and Stubbs, iii. p. 512, A.D. 798. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 15 
 
 King Knut. He went there, where Alfred the Great 
 received his education, and was anointed by the Pope ; 
 where Caedwalla and Offa and Ina had worshipped, and 
 where the great Ethelwulf had followed his son Alfred. 
 And Knut wrote a letter from Rome to the people of 
 England, in which he speaks of having worshipped at 
 the various shrines in Rome, and adds, "This I have 
 done, chiefly because I learned that the holy Apostle 
 St. Peter received from the Lord the great power of 
 binding and loosing, and is the key-bearer of the 
 heavenly kingdom. Wherefore I have deemed it in the 
 highest degree useful to seek in a special way His 
 patronage with God." And he tells them further that 
 at Rome he met the Emperor, and that he obtained 
 from him the remission of certain taxes and tolls levied 
 on the archbishops who went from Canterbury to Rome 
 "when they visited the Apostolic See, according to cus- 
 tom, for the reception of the pallium." 1 
 
 For, as King Knut here observes, it was a custom, 
 and a very ancient English custom, for the Archbishops 
 of Canterbury to go to Rome for that little fillet of wool, 
 which lay for a night over the body of the Apostle Peter, 
 and was thence given to Metropolitans as the symbol 
 that their ecclesiastical jurisdiction flowed from Peter 
 and the See of Peter. We still possess the record of 
 archbishop after archbishop either receiving from Rome, 
 or going to Rome to receive in person, this sign of their 
 jurisdiction. Whilst other matters which might have 
 been thought more important are passed over, this is 
 expressly mentioned, showing the importance attached 
 to it by the English mind. Archbishop Tatwine (a.d. 
 
 1 Henry of Huntingdon, vi. p. 757, D., Barth. Cotton, Hist. 
 Anglic, sub anno 1036. Flor. Wigorn. 1031. It would be 
 childish to suppose that all this trouble would be taken about 
 the pallium if it were a mere ornament. 
 
1 6 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 73 1), 1 Nothelm (736), 2 Cuthbert (740), 3 Eanberht (764),* 
 Wulfred (804), 5 Ceolnoth (83 1), 6 Ethered (858-72)/ 
 received the pall, some from Rome, others at Rome. 
 But at length it became the regular custom to go to 
 Rome for it, as in the case of ^Elfsize (959),® Dunstan 
 (960), 9 Sigeric (ggo), 10 ^ilfric (99s), 11 ^Elfheah (1007), 12 
 yEthelnoth (1022), 13 Rodbyrht (1048). 14 We have also 
 a list of Archbishops of York who received the pallium 
 from a.d. 745 to a.d. 973, and again two in the eleventh 
 century. 
 
 Thus the intercourse between Rome and England in 
 these early centuries was both habitual and unfettered. 
 Nay, if an archbishop did not soon repair to Rome for 
 the pall, after the custom of going in person prevailed, 
 the king would urge him to make haste, as in 995. 15 St. 
 Anselm (to go for a moment into early Norman times) 
 tells us that in his time an archbishop not going to 
 Rome for the pall within a year of his consecration 
 would (unless the pall had been sent to him) deservedly 
 incur the loss of his archbishopric. 1 ' 5 
 
 1 Sim. Dun., sub anno. 
 
 - Chron. Sax., s.a.j Flor. Wigorn., s.a. 
 
 3 Rog. Wend., i. 227. 
 
 4 Flor. Wigorn., sm.) Lambrith, Chr. Sax. apud Wharton, 
 Ang. Sacr., i, s.a. 
 
 5 Flor. Wigorn., s.a. ; Rog. Wend., sub. 806. 
 
 6 Chr. Sax., s.a.; Flor. Wigorn., s.a. 
 
 7 Canon Lichf. apud Wharton, Angl. Sacr., i. 
 
 8 Flor. Wigorn., s.a. ' J Ibid. 
 10 Chron. Sax., s.a. 11 Ibid. 
 
 a jbid. 13 Ibid, and Flor. Wigorn., s.a. 
 
 14 Chron. Sax., s.a. 15 Ibid. 
 
 This list differs a little from Kemble's. After collating 
 the various original authorities, I found that that writer's 
 list needed a few additions and some minute changes. 
 Of course, the list only contains samples of a universal 
 custom. . • r ■ 
 
 16 Ep., lib. iii. 24. " On the occasion of its reception [i.e., 
 of the pall] he [the archbishop] had to swear obedience to the 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 '7 
 
 Kemble is therefore fully justified in saying that, as 
 a matter of fact (though he naturally regrets the fact), 
 " Saxon England was essentially the child of Rome ; 
 whatever obligations any of her kingdoms may have been 
 under to the Celtic missionaries — and I cannot persuade 
 myself that these were at all considerable: — she certainly 
 had entirely lost sight of them at the close of the seventh 
 and the commencement of the eighth centuries. Her 
 national bishops, as the Kelts and disciples of the Kelts 
 have been unjustifiably called, had either retired in dis- 
 gust, like Colman, or been deposed, like Winfrid, or 
 apostatised, like Cedd. It was to Rome that her nobles 
 and prelates wandered as pilgrims ; it was the interests 
 of Rome that her missionaries preached in Germany and 
 Friesland ; it was to her that the archbishops-elect looked 
 for their pall — the sign of their dignity ; to the Pope her 
 prelates appealed for redress or for authority," &C. 1 
 
 § 5. The History of St. Wilfrid a Proof that the Whole of 
 the English Church looked to Rome as her Mistress 
 in the Seventh Century. 
 
 There was little need of regular appeals in those early 
 centuries, although the case of the Archbishopric of 
 Lichfield in the eighth century shows that the limits 
 of ecclesiastical jurisdiction could only be changed (in 
 the conviction of the English Church) by the authority 
 of Rome. But some incidents in the life of Wilfrid 
 prove that the same principle of submitting the 
 lines of ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the authority 
 
 Pope in a form which gradually became more stringent ; in 
 early times he undertook a journey to Rome for the purpose." 
 — Stubbs' " Const. Hist.," vol. iii. chap. xix. p. 319. 
 
 1 Kemble's " Saxons in England," revised by W. de Grey 
 Birch, 1876, vol. ii. p. 367. 
 
 B 
 
8 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 of the Apostolic See obtained in the seventh cen- 
 tury also. 
 
 It must be remembered that the Catholic principle as 
 regards the settlement of quarrels has always been that 
 which is laid down by our Lord in Matt, xviii. 15-18. 
 Where any disturbance can be settled by the authorities 
 on the spot so much the better. This is not ignoring 
 any higher authority, but leaving it to do its work of 
 deciding on appeal. So that whatever could be settled 
 by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the rest of the 
 bishops, would naturally be terminated by their judg- 
 ment. As successors of the Apostles they had their 
 rights and their power of rule. But when quarrels could 
 not thus be settled, the higher authority of the Apostolic 
 See was invoked, and it was held that in obeying that 
 authority men would "hear the Church" in the fullest 
 sense. Now the history of St. Wilfrid brings out the 
 fact, that in the first century of the life of the Church in 
 England, it was the universal belief in this country that 
 the Apostolic See was the final court of appeal on matters 
 of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 
 
 Wilfrid left England with the consent of the kings in 
 whose temporal jurisdiction his immense diocese lay, 
 to be consecrated abroad, since the British bishops at 
 that time were, he said, " Quartodecimans," and out of 
 communion with the Apostolic See. Shortly afterwards 
 Chad was intruded into his See, and Wilfrid, whose 
 missionary zeal seems never to have been damped, went 
 in the spirit of the truest humility to work elsewhere. 
 At length Archbishop Theodore came on to the scene, 
 and brought with him the "decrees of the Apostolic See, 
 whose envoy he was," and restored Wilfrid. 1 
 
 1 Eddius, c. xv., Untie emissus venerat, a phrase that 
 frequently recurs. All through, Theodore is mentioned as 
 having acted in virtue of his relationship to the Holy See. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 Later on, Archbishop Theodore was induced to pander 
 to Queen Jurmenberg's growing dislike of Wilfrid's influ- 
 ence ; 1 and he divided the diocese of his own mere 
 will, and put three bishops into it, who were foreign to 
 those parts, without consultation with Wilfrid, and with- 
 out assistant bishops for the consecration. 2 The Arch- 
 bishop's action was not only hyper-Papal, but provocative 
 of perpetual discord, as Wilfrid always insisted. " By 
 the advice of his fellow-bishops," 3 Wilfrid appealed to 
 Rome, and made his way thither in person, only to find 
 that Theodore had forestalled him, having sent a monk 
 thither with letters from himself. St. Theodore, St. Wil- 
 frid, and his fellow-bishops — that is to say, the Church 
 of England by representation — thus all agreed in looking 
 to Rome for a solution of the question, which was one 
 of strictly ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and all of them did 
 so on the ground of its being " the Apostolic See." 4 
 Such was their idea of the Apostolic government of the 
 Church. 
 
 Wilfrid's petition to the Holy See was not that the 
 diocese should not be divided, but that the separate dio- 
 ceses should be ruled by bishops taken from amongst 
 the clergy of the present diocese, with whom he could 
 work, and that they should be accepted by the Episcopal 
 Synod. The Papal sentence was in favour of Wilfrid ; 5 
 but, on his return, king and nobles, nettled at their own 
 arrangement (which seems to have been of pecuniary 
 
 1 Eddius' " Life of St. Wilfrid." The quotations are from 
 the edition in the Rolls Series of Chronicles and Memorials 
 of Great Britain, entitled " The Historians of the Church of 
 York and its Archbishops," vol. i. The reason given here 
 by Eddius is also given by Eadmer, in his Life of Wilfrid, 
 cap. 26. 
 
 2 Eddius, cap. xxiv. 3 J bid. 4 Eddius, cap. xxix. 
 
 6 Cap. xxxii. It is important to notice the real nature of 
 Wilfrid's petition, because it is often exaggerated. 
 
zo ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 advantage to them) having been set aside, declared that 
 the Papal decrees were forged, and Wilfrid was thrown 
 into prison. 1 Wilfrid had brought with him relics from 
 Rome, which the Queen stole and wore on her person, 
 keeping them under her bed at night, and driving about 
 with them by day. She was shortly afterwards possessed 
 of a devil, and in consequence Wilfrid was released, and 
 her Majesty recovered. 
 
 There was nothing in all this action of royalty and 
 nobles of which Anglicans ought to be proud. It con- 
 sisted of lying and brutal tyranny, and the Archbishop 
 unfortunately connived at these irregular proceedings. 
 It is no evidence that these people, when in their senses, 
 disbelieved in Papal Supremacy, any more than it proves 
 their disbelief in God, against Whom they were in open 
 rebellion, so far as their falsehood about the decrees and 
 their brutality against Wilfrid was concerned. Indeed, 
 if they had not believed in Papal Supremacy, they 
 would have had no occasion to resort to falsehood ; 
 they would have resisted the decrees as Papal, not as 
 forged. 2 
 
 The Archbishop had played a thoroughly bad part 
 on any theory, and had he died in this mood he would 
 not have been known to posterity as St. Theodore. 
 But he made a good end. He bitterly repented his 
 
 1 Eddius, cap. xxxiv. 
 
 2 Mr. Lane goes the length of asserting, in defiance of all 
 documental authority, that they resisted the decrees because 
 they came from Rome ("111. Notes on Ch. Hist.," p. 91) 
 Canon Bright protests against this perversion of history. He 
 says, "This is to ignore evidence" (" Waymarks," p. 241). 
 Mr. Nye goes further still in ignoring evidence. He actually 
 asserts that after Wilfrid had been thrown into prison, " so 
 ended (sic) what was probably the first ecclesiastical appeal 
 to Rome, and it tends to prove that up to this time the 
 Church of England was wholly independent of the Pope of 
 Rome " (" The Church and her Story," p. 54). 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 share of the persecution. In order (as he avowed) to pay 
 due reverence to the authority of the Apostolic See, he 
 sent for Wilfrid, and made open confession of his wrong- 
 doing. He said, " Now I confess to God and to the 
 holy Apostle Peter " ; and he desired that, as some 
 reparation, Wilfrid should succeed him in his see. 1 
 
 But that was not Wilfrid's aim. He urged the Arch- 
 bishop to send messengers to his friends, with his desire 
 for reconciliation stated in black and white, urging them 
 " according to the precept of the Apostolic See, to restore 
 some part of my substance." 2 Wilfrid all through shows 
 no desire to receive all that he might have claimed. 
 " Some portion " sufficed. The Archbishop accordingly 
 wrote to King Aldfrid, urging him, "on account of the 
 fear of the Lord and the precepts of the prelates of the 
 Apostolic See," to be reconciled to Wilfrid — in other 
 words, to restore what alone he desired to retain. He 
 wrote also to King Ethelred to the same effect. The 
 result was that Wilfrid received back " many monasteries 
 and regions that belonged to him of right." 
 
 Wilfrid thus gained all that he wished, and gained 
 it as a matter of obedience to the Apostolic mandate. 
 
 But the quarrel revived. After the death of Ecgfrid, 
 King Aldfrid tried to recover some of Wilfrid's posses- 
 sions, on the ground that they had been distributed 
 by the order of Theodore, " the envoy of the Apostolic 
 See." He ignored Theodore's penitent reversal of his 
 unjust decision, and proceeded on the ridiculous ground 
 of his decision made at the time of discord. Wilfrid 
 had not insisted on perfect obedience to the mandate 
 of the Apostolic See, and the disturbance was fanned 
 by those very bishops who, if that mandate had been 
 obeyed to the letter, would have been expelled. His 
 
 Eddius, cap. xliii. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
2 2 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 opponents had only too gladly taken advantage of his 
 consent to something short of entire fulfilment of the 
 Apostolic decision. 
 
 Wilfrid appealed once more to Rome, and Ethelred, 
 King of Mercia, decided to do nothing until the matter 
 had been settled there. Wilfrid went again in person 
 to the Holy City, and the Archbishop (Berthwald) ac- 
 cordingly sent legates thither to place his own side before 
 the Apostolic See. Wilfrid asked particularly for the 
 possession of the monasteries given to him by King 
 Ethelred, and for the fulfilment of Pope Agatho's deci- 
 sion by King Aldfrid. But, he added — and this is of 
 importance — that if this last part of his petition, i.e., the 
 entire fulfilment of the original Apostolic mandate, should 
 seem hard to the King, he might at least have Ripon 
 and Hexham, with all their lands and possessions — this 
 being a substantial feature of Agatho's decree, who had 
 included them under the same privilege. 
 
 Archbishop Berthwald's legates only put in the plea 
 that Wilfrid had disobeyed the judgment of the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, " the envoy of this Apostolic See " 
 — the insistence on which appears to have amused the 
 Bishops of the Roman Synod. 
 
 The Papal decree acquitted Wilfrid, and ordered 
 Berthwald to hold a synod, in conjunction with Wilfrid, 
 to determine the best course, and to bear in mind the 
 decree of Agatho and his successors. 1 The matter was 
 thus, by order of the Pope, left to some extent to the 
 possibility of mutual agreement— in fact, to an amicable 
 settlement out of court. The Archbishop, " compelled 
 by Apostolic authority," came to a peaceful arrangement 
 with Wilfrid. King Ethelred did the same, swearing to 
 observe " the writings of this Apostolic See." Moreover, 
 
 1 Eddius, cap: liv. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 23 
 
 as he was about to resign his crown and retire into the 
 cloister, he bound over his successor, Ccenred, to " obey 
 the Apostolic decrees," which Ccenred promised to do. 
 
 There was more difficulty with a king like Aldfrid. 
 At first he seemed amenable to reason, but then he fell 
 back on the absurd plea that Theodore's decision, being 
 that of an envoy of the Apostolic See, and of almost all the 
 prelates of Britain, ought to be obeyed. He chose to 
 disregard Theodore's repentance, and the real mind of 
 the rest of the bishops. This, however, lasted but for a 
 while. He repented in an illness with which he was 
 seized, and which he attributed to his disobedience, and 
 " vowed to God and St. Peter " that if he should recover 
 he would "make good the desire of the holy Bishop 
 Wilfrid and all the decisions of the Apostolic See," a 
 vow made in the presence of, and attested by, the Abbess 
 of Whitby, for some time Wilfrid's opponent. 1 
 
 So far the evidence is complete as to the universal 
 recognition of the See of Peter as the proper court of 
 appeal for the Church in England. But there is still 
 more decisive evidence in the conclusion of the whole 
 matter. 
 
 The Archbishop, Berthwald, "at the command of the 
 Apostolic See," 2 held a council of all the bishops and 
 abbots and nobles, with the King "of the Northerns" 
 himself. Ethelred had satisfied the desires of his piety, 
 and exchanged his crown for life in a monastery, where 
 he had died and been succeeded by his son. The 
 Abbess /Elfleda, of Whitby, once Wilfrid's opponent, was 
 present. The Archbishop opened proceedings by stating 
 that he and Wilfrid had letters from the Apostolic See, 
 which they were asked to read in English. " We should 
 like to know," said the Synod, " what the Apostolic 
 
 1 Eddius, cap. lix. 
 
 2 " Ex praccepto Apostolicac sedis," Edd. lx. 
 
24 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 authority says." The Archbishop replied that the 
 " judgments of the Apostolic See were long," but that 
 he would give them a summary. " The Apostolic power, 
 which was first given to Peter, the power of binding 
 and loosing, has decided by its own authority concerning 
 Blessed Wilfrid," that they should be reconciled to him. 
 "To these my fellow-bishops the option of two decisions 
 is given by the Apostolic See." They were either to 
 enter upon a thoroughly peaceful understanding with 
 Wilfrid in accordance with the previous judgment, or 
 to go together to the Apostolic See and have matters 
 decided there in a larger council. Bishops would then 
 be deposed and laymen excommunicated if they dis- 
 obeyed. "These are the judgments of the Apostolic 
 See in brief." 
 
 Some bishops (those who were affected by the change) 
 still pleaded that the decisions of " Theodore, the envoy 
 of the Apostolic See, and of King Ecgfrid and the bishops 
 of nearly all Britain," must hold good. But the Arch- 
 bishop replied that the King in his last will had " made 
 a vow to God and Saint Peter, saying, If I shall live, I 
 will fulfil all the judgments of the Apostolic See which 
 I formerly refused to obey." If he died, his heir was to 
 be told " to fulfil the Apostolic decision concerning Bishop 
 Wilfrid, for the healing of my soul." A nobleman then 
 bore witness to the fact that the King and his nobles 
 had decided " that we should obey the mandates of the 
 Apostolic See and the precepts of King Aldfrid in all 
 things." Accordingly, peace was made with Wilfrid, and 
 he received the monasteries of Ripon and Hexham and 
 all the returns due to him, and a scene of general recon- 
 ciliation took place — they kissed and embraced one 
 another, gave thanks to God, and returned to their 
 several homes. 1 
 
 1 Eddius, cap. lx. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 -\5 
 
 § 6. Some Anglican Writers on the Early English 
 Church. 
 
 Now, it has been said by an Anglican writer in one of 
 the lectures of the Church Historical Society, recently 
 published, that "we may admit that the gradually 
 developing mediaeval theory, almost complete by the 
 last quarter of the eleventh century, looked upon the 
 Pope as head of the whole Western Church, and upon 
 all bishops as in some sense deriving their authority 
 from him. We may admit that this view was largely 
 accepted even in England after the Norman Conquest." 1 
 But he appears to deny this of the Anglo-Saxon Church. 
 We have now seen how such a denial can only be made 
 in defiance of the records. Further, we have seen how 
 certain it is that in the Anglo-Saxon period the See of 
 Rome was regarded as the See of Peter, the head of the 
 Apostles ; and, as the See of that Apostle, it was regarded 
 as the head, not simply of the Western, but of the Uni- 
 versal Church. But this writer adduces as proof of the 
 independence of the Church of England the title con- 
 stantly used of her from early times, viz., "the Anglican 
 Church" (Ecclesia Anglicana). To this it has been 
 replied that the term, as used in early English history, 
 did not mean what Anglicans now understand by it. 
 Professor Collins, however, urges that "the point is, not 
 that Gregory or any other individual calls us the English 
 Church (or the like), but that nobody has ever called us 
 anything else " (p. 55). Professor Collins does not seem 
 to have grasped the nature of the Catholic reply, which 
 is simply that men meant in those early days by the term 
 
 1 Rev. W. E. Collins, M.A., Professor of Ecclesiastical 
 History at King's College, London; "Church Historical 
 Society Lectures," 1896, p. 43. 
 
2 6 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 " English Church " that portion of the Universal Church 
 which is in England — the Universal Church (England 
 included) being, in tfieir conception, under the headship 
 of the Apostolic See. In other words, their conception, 
 or faith, was the same in this respect as that of " Roman" 
 Catholics now. Whoever (whatever their number) spoke 
 of the English Church then meant a Church strictly 
 dependent on Rome in the matter of jurisdiction. To 
 argue from the mere expression is first to give it a new 
 meaning, and then to use it in argument with that mean- 
 ing. The foregoing considerations prove that the meaning 
 of the term was in those days " that part of the Church 
 (tvhose centre is Rome) which exists in England." St. 
 Thomas a Becket calls it the Anglican Church, 1 as also do 
 the Popes themselves, and we know what they meant. 
 
 But Professor Collins hazards the statement that " the 
 English Church acted in the matter of Bishop Wilfrid 
 without paying the least attention (sic) to the Pope's 
 decisions in his behalf." 2 All that has been said above 
 amply proves the unhistorical character of this statement. 
 But we may also appeal from the Professor of Eccle- 
 siastical History at King's College to the Professor of 
 Ecclesiastical History at Oxford, 3 who says that " lie 
 would be much deceived who should imagine that the 
 temptation to manipulate facts, to misinterpret the pur- 
 port of events, or to read unwarrantably between the 
 lines of document?, has never been too strong for 
 Anglicans." And he gives as an instance that " it is 
 often assumed that the Northumbrian Church and realm 
 in 680 rejected the Roman decree in favour of Wilfrid 
 as being Roman, and as constituting an interference. 
 This is to ignore evidence." 4 But even Canon Bright's 
 
 1 Epp. p. 73, ed. Giles. 
 
 2 "Church Historical Society Lectures," No. iii. p. 48. 
 
 3 " Waymarks," p. 241. 
 
 4 Professor Collins begins the paragraph in which, accord- 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 27 
 
 own estimate of the affair is not quite adequate ; for 
 although he admits that "great respect was professed for 
 'Apostolic' decisions," he yet urges that "Wilfrid had to 
 be content with far less than Rome had at first awarded," 
 as though this argued some sort of independence on the 
 part of the other bishops. But we have seen that the 
 whole affair ended in complete submission to Rome on 
 the part of the English Church — to Rome as the Apos- 
 tolic See — and that Wilfrid obtained all that he desired. 
 
 What, then, are we to say of Mr. Nye's statement that 
 the first appeal to Rome ended with Wilfrid's imprison- 
 ment? or of Mr. Lane's deduction from the whole affair, 
 viz., that it proves "that Papal anathemas were nothing 
 accounted of in those days " ? 1 These are books that 
 have been circulated by thousands, the one by the 
 Church Defence Institution, the other by the Society 
 for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
 
 And what are we to say of the statements of a writer 
 of a very different order, who would have us believe 
 that the atmosphere of our island home was, before the 
 Conquest, fatal to the idea of settling differences by any 
 appeal to the Apostolic See ? 2 The first two centuries 
 of English Church life saw archbishops' uniformly going 
 to Rome for the pallium, or receiving it thence, English 
 Synods avowing that they held the faith planted here 
 from Rome, the limits of jurisdiction for the Archdiocese 
 
 ing to Professor Bright, he " ignores evidence," by saying 
 that " a very superficial knowledge is sufficient " to prove 
 his thesis. 
 
 1 " Illustrated Notes on Church History," p. 93 (8o,oooth), 
 S.P.C.K. Mr. Lane mistranslates a passage from Eddius 
 — "writings coming, as they called it, from the Apostolic 
 See." It should be, "coming, as you say," &c. The "as 
 you say " refers to the " coming," not to the " Apostolic See." 
 Cf. Bright's " Waymarks," p. 241. 
 
 2 Bishop Creighton, " National Church in the Middle 
 Ages," p. 3. 
 
28 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 of Canterbury settled at Rome in answer to petitions 
 from England, and the great quarrel as to jurisdiction in 
 the North settled by the judgment of the Apostolic See. 
 No one supposes that the Church of England grew less 
 Roman in the next two centuries ; but if her principles 
 remained the same, the only religious body now in 
 England that can justify her claim to continuity with the 
 early English Church is that which looks to Rome as 
 her court of appeal, by reason of Rome being the See of 
 the Apostle Peter. 
 
 What, again, are we to say of a writer who can so defy 
 all historical evidence as to say " Pope Gregory made 
 us a national Church, Ecclesia Anglorum, the Church of 
 the English ; nothing Roman in its name or constitu- 
 tion ; looking with confidence across Europe to Rome for 
 sympathy [as if this were a//] ; proud of its connection 
 with the greatest city of the world, the greatest See of 
 the West [when it is always called in England the 
 Apostolic See, or the See of Peter, or the Holy See] ; 
 but proud with a national English pride that knew 
 nothing of the barbarous Imperial Byzantine ceremony 
 of kissing people's toes [not a very refined way of speak- 
 ing], knew nothing of subservience to a foreign power" 
 [as if owning the See of Rome to be her mother was the 
 same as "subservience to a foreign power"]? 1 It would 
 be hardly possible to pen a sentence in more flagrant 
 contradiction to history than that rather flippant one 
 about " kissing people's toes." The allusion is to a 
 solemn ceremony which has had the sanction of all 
 nations at all times, and, not least, of the English nation 
 for iooo years. No one who has read ever so little of 
 the original documents of English Church life, but is 
 aware that an ordinary way of commencing letters to 
 
 1 "Church Historical Society Lectures," No. iv., by the 
 Bishop of Stepney, p. 90. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 29 
 
 the Holy See on the part of kings, nobles, Archbishops 
 of Canterbury, and other bishops, was with the phrase, 
 " Kisses of the blessed feet." The flippant distortion 
 of the expression by the Bishop of Stepney is of itself 
 sufficient to show not merely a remarkable indifference 
 to historical evidence, but the chasm that yawns between 
 his own ecclesiastical principles and those of every 
 Archbishop and Bishop of the Church of England, from 
 Augustine of Canterbury down to his last successor, in 
 the person of Reginald Pole. 1 
 
 Another statement made by the Bishop of Stepney is 
 disproved by the instances of early English teaching 
 which have been adduced above. The Bishop says in 
 the same lecture, "On what are modern Papal claims 
 founded?" (p. 85). "The great basis of modern Papal 
 claims was laid about 850 " — alluding to the forged 
 decretals. But the Supremacy of the Pope was, as we 
 have seen, acknowledged in England in the seventh and 
 eighth centuries. It could not, therefore, have been 
 Papal Supremacy which was founded in that ninth 
 century by forged decretals, whatever else it might 
 have been. 
 
 This same writer has produced an incident from the 
 life of Alcuin, the great English theologian of the eighth 
 century, from which he thinks it is proved that Alcuin 
 knew nothing of the Infallibility of the Pope. 2 
 
 Alcuin desired that a certain book should be sent to 
 four bishops, one of whom was the Bishop of Rome. 
 He does not say, " Let a copy be sent to the Bishop of 
 Rome, to the Patriarch Paulinus, and to Richbonus and 
 
 1 As regards kings, one could hardly select a fairer example 
 than Edward I., whose supposed anti-Papal tendencies have 
 been so glorified by writers on Continuity ; he says in a 
 letter to Pope Clement V., that he "devoutly kisses the 
 blessed feet " (Wilkins, i. 568). 
 
 2 "Church Historical Society Lectures," 1896, p. 80. 
 
30 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 Teudulphus," &c. ; but he places the Bishop of Rome 
 by himself first, " That a copy be sent to the Lord Apos- 
 tolic." He then says, "Another also to the Patriarch 
 Paulinus " ; and then " similarly to Richbonus and 
 Teudulphus, bishops, doctors, and masters, that each 
 may answer for themselves." The division is here mani- 
 fest — the Lord Apostolic, the Patriarch of Aquileia, and 
 the two Bishops, who were theologians. It does not 
 matter (as the Bishop of Stepney thinks) whether these 
 are separated by full stops, or commas, or by nothing. 
 The terms in which they are spoken of suffice to sepa- 
 rate them. For we know exactly what Alcuin meant by 
 "the Lord Apostolic." He meant one who held the 
 keys, and was supreme over all bishops, and whose ex 
 cathedra teaching was the norm of the Christian faith. 
 " O most excellent Father, I acknowledge you to be the 
 Vicar of his [Peter's] most Holy See and the heir of his 
 wonderful power." When these words of Alcuin were 
 produced in answer to the Bishop's deduction — that 
 Alcuin thought all the persons mentioned by him, who 
 were to receive a copy of the book, were on a par in 
 regard to the teaching office, because each (he did not 
 say of the four, but, as was pointed out, he may have 
 meant of the three) was to answer for himself, and their 
 agreement was to be considered evidence of the heretical 
 or orthodox nature of the book, — this answer was met 
 by the Bishop saying that the quotation showed not that 
 Alcuin believed in Papal Infallibility, but only that he 
 held that the Pope had power to cleanse from sin and 
 open the heavens to those who believe. 1 It might be 
 pointed out in answer that such a power involves 
 infallibility in teaching. But there is no need of 
 this ; for there can be no doubt about Alcuin's teach- 
 
 1 "Church Historical Society Lectures," 1896, p. 100. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 3' 
 
 ing on this subject, since he says in his ninetieth letter : 
 " Lest a man be found a schismatic, or a non-Catholic, 
 let him follow the most approved authority of the holy 
 Roman Church, that whence we receive the beginning 
 of the Catholic faith, there we may have the exemplars 
 of the salvation, lest the key-bearer of the heavenly king- 
 dom exclude such as he shall recognise as aliens from 
 his doctrine." 
 
 These last words are conclusive against the Bishop 
 of Stepney's deduction from Alcuin's words about the 
 book being sent to four different persons. It was 
 obviously sent to the Lord Apostolic for a different 
 purpose. Alcuin could not have meant to put the judg- 
 ment of the " Lord Apostolic " on a par with that of 
 others. The words in question do not necessarily mean 
 this. They must therefore be interpreted in accordance 
 with Alcuin's known teaching, not vice versa. Migne's 
 punctuation, therefore, which separates off the "Lord 
 Apostolic," seems to be right. Anyhow, the Bishop of 
 Stepney's interpretation is wrong, for the matter does 
 not depend on punctuation, but the meaning of words. 
 
 It will be seen from what has been said above, that 
 another statement of Professor Collins cannot be main- 
 tained, viz., that "it would be easy to show in detail 
 that other Papal encroachments in England, such as 
 legations and appeals, were of quite late date." 1 He 
 gives a quotation from a letter of Pope Paschal II. 
 written to Henry I. in 1115. He concludes the para- 
 graph with saying that "the English Church had not yet 
 begun to multiply appeals and references to Rome as 
 she did later." With this latter sentence we have no 
 quarrel. It proves nothing against the thesis of this 
 book. For the multiplication of appeals may be due to 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 49. 
 
3 2 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 various circumstances. It is the principle, and sufficient 
 instances of the principle, that is alone in question in 
 regard to continuity. But that " legations " were in force 
 long before this time is quite certain. Bede mentions 
 the legation of the Abbot John in the seventh century ! 
 And "in a.d. 787 two Papal legates, George and Theo- 
 phylact, were sent into England by Hadrian the First to 
 reform abuses which had crept into the English Church ; " 
 and of the capitula then drawn up, the legates say in 
 their report to the Pope that the English "in humble 
 submission and undisguised readiness . . . promised to 
 obey in all particulars." The signatures of the bishops 
 of both ecclesiastical provinces are affixed. 1 
 
 And the letter from which Professor Collins quotes, 
 as though it proved the late introduction of " legations," 
 was only one incident of a long struggle between Henry I. 
 and the Popes, in which Henry maintained that, because 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury was entitled to the autho- 
 rity of Papal legate within the kingdom, there was no 
 need of special legates. It was not the repudiation of 
 Papal authority, for that was held to be exercised through 
 the Archbishop by reason of his legatine powers ; nor 
 did Henry venture altogether to refuse entrance to special 
 legates. A succeeding Pope confirmed the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury in his legatine authority ; but he did not 
 bind himself to send no more special legates, although 
 he forbore to do so during Henry's reign. Consequently, 
 the whole struggle does not in any way establish Professor 
 Collins' thesis, that the Church of England was inde- 
 pendent of the Apostolic See, nor even that there were 
 no "legations " until the twelfth century. 
 
 Once more, Professor Collins gives three reasons why 
 
 1 "The Alleged Antiquity of Anglicanism," by Rev. Sydney 
 F. Smith, sec. 1, p. 85, who refers to Haddan and Stubbs' 
 " Councils," p. 362. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 
 
 33 
 
 "the claims made on behalf of the pallium" may be 
 resisted. He is not quite correct as to the nature of 
 those claims. It is not "true that the Roman Canon 
 Law by inference seems not to allow a metropolitan to 
 consecrate a bishop until he had it," if by "Roman 
 Canon Law " is meant that which obtained in the time of 
 Gregory the Great, to whose words Professor Collins refers. 
 It was enough to have applied for it, and to have had it 
 promised. But let that pass. The Professor's demurrer 
 to our claims is based (i) on a passage from Fulbert of 
 Chartres, of whom the Professor says, " no less a canonist 
 than Fulbert," as if Fulbert had written a book on Canon 
 Law. If the passage, which, as it stands, is ambiguous, 1 
 really means what Professor Collins takes it to mean, it 
 only establishes that one bishop, of high character, in 
 the beginning of the eleventh century, said what is con- 
 tradicted by the great body of canonists throughout the 
 Church. We must remind Professor Collins that one 
 swallow does not make a summer. The opinion of a 
 single bishop would not decide the question for a Catho- 
 lic. And certainly Professor Collins himself would not 
 abide by the judgment of Fulbert on the subject of 
 Papal Supremacy, for, in another letter, he gives the 
 approbation of the Roman Pontiff as a necessary condi- 
 tion of Episcopal jurisdiction. And in the next letter 
 but one he addresses Pope John as " Most beloved 
 Father, to whom the care of the whole Church has been 
 committed." 2 Moreover, the letter from which Professor 
 Collins quotes can hardly be considered a sufficient indi- 
 cation of Fulbert's judgment, since, if the Professor had 
 continued the letter, he would have had to tell his 
 
 1 Professor Collins omits the word " ut," which makes the 
 sentence he quotes difficult to understand. Probably it 
 should be " at." 
 
 2 Ep. 84, ad Joannem Papain. 
 
 C 
 
34 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 readers that Fulbert says, "Some things to be reverenced 
 by its are contained in the privileges of the Roman 
 Church, which, by reason of our negligence, are not found 
 in our archives." Clearly, therefore, on his own show- 
 ing, Fulbert's judgment on this subject could not be 
 considered final, nor indeed of great weight. 
 
 (2) Professor Collins' next reason can be disposed of 
 in few words. It is that "no less an archbishop than 
 Lanfranc consecrated Thomas of York in 1070, although 
 he did not receive the pallium till the following year." 
 But it was an express arrangement on the part of the 
 Pope that the Archbishop of Canterbury should conse- 
 crate a bishop for York, and that York should do the 
 same for Canterbury, immediately upon the decease of 
 either. So that it is not a case in point. 1 
 
 (3) The third reason is concerned with the complaint 
 of the Archbishops of Germany in 1786 about the ex- 
 pense of the pallium. This does not prove that the 
 pallium was not the sign of jurisdiction, nor that if 
 they had refused to receive it they would have remained 
 within the Church. 
 
 In the next paragraph the Professor makes the follow- 
 ing statement : " We know that Augustine and Theo- 
 dore, Dunstan and Alphege, Lanfranc and Anselm never 
 took this oath," i.e. " an oath of obedience to the Pope 
 on receiving the pallium." It is proverbially difficult to 
 prove a negative — in this case impossible. The oath 
 became more full and express as time went on ; but 
 that, at any rate, Lanfranc and Anselm took an oath 
 of obedience to the reigning Pope seems beyond doubt 
 For instance, Lanfranc of Canterbury, and Thomas of 
 York, went to Rome together to receive the pallium. 
 Did they take an oath of obedience? If we turn to 
 
 1 Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Angl., vol. ii. lib. iii. p. 351, 
 s.a. 1072 (Rolls Series) ; and Bede, ii. 18. 
 
THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH 35 
 
 Canon Raine's valuable " History of Four Archbishops 
 of York," by Hugh the Chanter, we find Urban II., in 
 a letter to Thomas of York, saying incidentally, " You, 
 after having received the pall from the Apostolic See, 
 after having sworn fealty, as is the custom for metro- 
 politans." 1 It cannot be supposed that Lanfranc, who 
 received the pallium at the same time as Thomas of 
 York, did not also conform to this custom. 2 If Augus- 
 tine and Theodore did not actually take an oath, they 
 certainly understood that the pallium bound them to a 
 special connection with the See of Peter. Neither they 
 nor Dunstan can be conceived of as capable of refusing 
 an oath, when it had become the custom to take it, which 
 is the position of an Anglican bishop. As William of 
 Malmesbury expresses it, Dunstan " arranged to go to 
 Rome to receive the ensign of his primacy." 3 
 
 Note. — A great deal is made of St. Dunstan's refusal 
 to restore a man to the Sacraments, after a mandate from 
 Rome in favour of the same. But we are told that 
 bribery was used to corrupt some of the officials, so that 
 the Pope had not the real case before him. St. Dunstan 
 knew this well, and said, " When I shall have seen him 
 doing penance for his fault, I will willingly obey the 
 precepts of the lord Pope." 4 There is not a tittle of 
 disrespect for Papal authority in this. The Pope would 
 have sanctioned such an interpretation of his command. 
 
 1 " Historians of the Church of York," vol. ii. p. 103 (Rolls 
 Series). 
 
 2 Florence of Worcester tells us that Lanfranc was con- 
 secrated by two bishops who were ordained at Rome by 
 Pope Nicholas, " for they avoided being ordained by Stigand, 
 because they knew that he had not received the pallium 
 canonically.' Such was the tone of the English Episcopate. 
 — Flcr. Wig. s.a. 1070. 
 
 3 M., Ces/a Regum, sub anno. 
 
 4 Vita, auct. Eatim., " Memorials of Dunstan " (Rolls Series), 
 p. 201. 
 
36 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 There was no breach between Dunstan and Rome. 
 His life, by the Saxon priest (anonymous), the earliest 
 authority on the subject, makes him a most filial son 
 of the Holy See. Eadmer's account of him, that the 
 Roman Pontiff, "having delegated to him the legatine 
 authority of the Apostolic See, appointed him pastor to 
 the nation of the English," 1 expresses a feature of his 
 ministry which comes to the front again and again. 
 John XIII. wrote to King Edgar, saying, "We concede 
 by all means from this Apostolic See what your Excel- 
 lency has laid before us through our brother and fellow- 
 bishop Dunstan, sanctioning it by Apostolic authority." 2 
 And when the saint desired to expel certain loose-living 
 canons, he did it "relying upon the authority of John, 
 the Prelate of the Apostolic See." 3 
 
 1 Vita, " Memorials of Dunstan," p. 199. 
 
 2 Jaffd, Regesta Ponlific, i. § 971. 
 
 3 Vita, auct. Eadm., " Memorials of Dunstan," p. 211. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR'S REFUSAL TO DO 
 HOMAGE TO THE POPE 
 
 § Introductory 
 
 At the Norman Conquest, says Bishop Creighton, " civil 
 business was separated from ecclesiastical business, civil 
 courts from ecclesiastical courts, and common law from 
 canon law ; but the King was over all ; and William 
 the Conqueror made answer to Pope Gregory VII., ' I 
 will not do homage to you, because I do not find that 
 my predecessors did so to your predecessors.' " 1 
 
 The subject of the paper read at the Norwich Church 
 Congress in which these words occur, was, as we have said 
 {cf. p. xiv.) "The Continuity of the Church of England 
 in the Middle Ages." The professed object of the series 
 of addresses of which this same paper formed a part, 
 was to show that the present Anglican Establishment is 
 in all essentials one with the Church of England from 
 the times when Christianity was first planted here. 
 Bishop Creighton undertook to show that there was 
 nothing in the essential principles and doctrines of 
 the Church of England of the Middle Ages which 
 differed from the teaching of the present Anglican 
 
 1 "The National Church in the Middle Ages," p. 2. By 
 the Lord Bishop of Peterborough. A paper read at the 
 Church Congress, Norwich, October 1895. The Church 
 Defence Depot, 30 Parliament Street, London, S.W. 
 37 
 
38 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 Church, of which he is himself a member and esteemed 
 official. 
 
 We must therefore understand his quotation of the 
 Conqueror's words to suggest some repudiation of Papal 
 Supremacy, or the quotation would be meaningless in 
 the context in which it occurs. It is, anyhow, a matter 
 of importance to show that William's words involved no 
 sort of repudiation of that supremacy, for this is certainly 
 the interpretation commonly put on these words by 
 Anglican writers. Mr. Freeman thinks it a "truly English" 
 utterance on the part of the Conqueror, comparing him 
 to Tostig ; and Dr. Stubbs, instead of dealing with the 
 words himself in his " Constitutional History," refers to 
 this passage in Freeman. 1 Mr. Nye, in his book, which 
 is at present selling by thousands, and which was for some 
 time circulated by the Church Defence Institute, under 
 the superintendence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 states plainly that the Conqueror's answer to the Pope 
 about homage " helps us to understand that, up to the 
 time of the Norman invasion, the Pope had no jurisdic- 
 tion over the Church or Crown of England." It would 
 be unfair to suggest that Bishop Creighton would sanction 
 such an unhistorical statement as this; but it is never- 
 theless evident that these words of the Conqueror are 
 considered by him, as they are by Anglican historians 
 in general, to bear some resemblance to the repudiation 
 of Papal Supremacy in the sixteenth century, and to 
 form a note of continuity with the present Anglican 
 position. 
 
 It becomes important, therefore, to consider what 
 
 1 Tostig, an English nobleman, having been robbed on 
 his return from Rome, outside the city, asked how the Pope 
 could expect his decrees to be obeyed in England if he 
 could not protect a man from robbery near Rome. A truly 
 Protestant kind of logic ! 
 
WILLIAM'S REFUSAL TO DO HOMAGE 39 
 
 exactly these words do mean. And the first remark to 
 be made is, that they do not occur alone, but in con- 
 nection with something else in which the Conqueror 
 acquiesced ; that is to say, the Conqueror did not 
 merely refuse homage, but he agreed to collect the 
 arrears of Peter's pence. What, then, was the homage 
 which he refused, and what were the Peter's pence 
 which, in the same letter, he promised to pay ? 
 
 § 1. Homage. 
 
 To understand the whole question of homage in con- 
 nection with the Papacy, it is necessary to bear in mind 
 the peculiar and commanding position which the Papacy 
 held amongst European states in the Middle Ages. 
 When the barbarian hordes that had overrun the greater 
 part of the Western Empire settled down within its 
 precincts, Europe found herself in a state of general 
 disturbance. Lesser powers, under such circumstances, 
 naturally gathered themselves under the shelter of greater, 
 and sought to maintain their own lesser sovereignty by 
 means of the protection of overlords. The lesser power 
 paid a tax to the greater as a symbol of the protection 
 which it could claim ; for without the protection of 
 something beyond itself it had no chance of existence. 
 Thus the feudal system naturally covered the greater part 
 of Europe. 
 
 But there was one power which, in the general belief 
 of Christendom, was invested with an authority beyond 
 the rest — an authority which extended to the other world, 
 and whose decision on certain matters affected men's 
 everlasting future. It was a power which men recognised 
 as acting, on the whole, on principles which lay at the 
 root of social stability — the principles of justice and 
 
40 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 clemency. Consequently, in the midst of a society 
 governed, like that of Europe, by the feudal system, this 
 centre of moral and spiritual influence — called univer- 
 sally " the Apostolic See," or " the Holy See " — naturally 
 took its place amongst the " protectors " of European 
 institutions, and it often became in the temporal order 
 what it was so suited to become — an overlord. It was 
 the one stable thing amongst the shifting social clusters 
 or precarious centres of rule which appeared and dis- 
 appeared as the passing characters of a play on the stage 
 of human affairs. 1 
 
 And when, in the end of the ninth century, the 
 Carolingian dynasty was found wanting — that is to say, 
 when the centre of overlordship and protection had given 
 way— those who looked for a means of imparting perma- 
 nence to the civil or religious institutions which they had 
 brought into being, or those who were endeavouring to 
 secure the continuance of such, and found themselves 
 without a rock on which to stay their feet, naturally 
 turned to the one power which contained within it the 
 promise and potency of permanent existence. It had 
 been there, in the providence of God, to save and to 
 build up afresh the conflicting elements of European 
 society in the days of a Nicolas and John VIII. ; and 
 it was here, towards the middle of the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries, to conserve what had been gradually 
 built up with its own assistance. 
 
 Monasteries naturally led the way in seeking the pro- 
 tection of the Holy See. Their founders felt that in 
 such protection alone lay any hope of permanence for 
 these institutions. They needed protection, first and 
 
 1 We find, however, that the feudal terms as applied to 
 the relationship of powers to the Holy See were used in 
 a looser sense. The analogy cannot always be pressed. 
 Cf. Hergenrother, " Church and State," Essay xiii. 
 
WILLIAM'S REFUSAL TO DO HOMAGE 41 
 
 foremost, from lay interference ; but they needed it also 
 from simoniacal bishops, the harpies, in those days, of 
 purely diocesan institutions. The Episcopate was never 
 meant to rule the Church apart from the Apostolic See. 
 The overlordship of the Holy See was, of course, liable 
 to abuse, and it is impossible to deny that "exemptions" 
 from episcopal jurisdiction led at times to serious evil. 
 But the normal " protection " given by the Holy See to 
 monasteries and other institutions did not involve their 
 withdrawal from episcopal jurisdiction ; it chiefly safe- 
 guarded the freedom of election to the post of ruler. 
 An overlord was a protector. In Roman jurisdiction, 
 which most frequently governed the relations of these 
 institutions to the Holy See, he had no right of use ; he 
 had no power of alienation ; he was the advocate of the 
 institution, not its immediate lord ; its patron, not its 
 direct proprietor. 
 
 But it was not monasteries alone that sought the 
 " protection " and assured advocacy of the See of Rome. 
 Cities and kingdoms did the same. When they first 
 appeared in the midst of conflicting states, and had 
 made good their right to take their place amongst exist- 
 ing societies — or when they were in danger of being 
 rudely exterminated by a neighbouring power possessed 
 with the lust of dominion, they would seek to secure their 
 existence by placing themselves under the protection of 
 the Holy See. Thus the Isle of Man maintained its 
 independence by becoming the vassal of the Pope. 
 
 In this way the Papacy found itself gradually invested 
 with a new power, over and above its position of supreme 
 arbiter of all that immediately concerned the integrity of 
 the faith — a power only accidentally connected with its 
 spiritual magistracy ; but it was the universal belief in 
 its supremacy over all Churches which underlay the 
 centripetal movement of the nations to the Holy See. 
 
42 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 It was as the See of Peter that it acquired and exer- 
 cised its accessory lordship in the temporal order. The 
 idea which runs through the juridical documents of those 
 centuries is, that in placing themselves under the " pro- 
 tection " of the Holy See they were placing themselves 
 under the protection of the Apostle Peter. Hence men 
 placed documents on the tomb of the Apostles in the 
 Eternal City, " commending " themselves, in legal phrase ; 
 and this was often considered a sufficiently formal declara- 
 tion of the new tie contracted between themselves and 
 the Apostle, whose successor was bound to give in the 
 hour of need that " protection " which they desired to 
 secure. 
 
 And this right to protection was asserted on the one 
 side, and acknowledged on the other, by the payment of 
 a tax, which symbolised the relation of protection, patron- 
 age, and advocacy on the part of the greater power to 
 the lesser. The tax might be small and merely symboli- 
 cal, or it might take the shape of an acknowledgment 
 of the duty of special service in return for the protection 
 promised. But it might also take the shape of an act of 
 homage, whereby the person became the homo (or man) 
 of the other ; and he who performed the act of homage 
 was bound, in most cases, to special forms of service, 
 such as supplying a military contingency in case of war. 
 
 It will thus be seen that a distinction must be drawn 
 between the act of homage performed to an overlord, 
 and a tax paid in the way of claim to protection, and as 
 a symbol of the consecration of authority by a special 
 relationship contracted with the Apostle Peter. The act 
 of homage was not by any means an inseparable accom- 
 paniment of a certain amount of fealty : a looser tie 
 might exist, but still a real relationship ; just as Philip I. 
 of France did away with the homage of bishops, but 
 exacted an oath of fealty. 
 
WILLIAM'S REFUSAL TO DO HOMAGE 43 
 
 We are now in a fair way to settle the meaning of 
 William's words to Pope Gregory VII., in which he 
 admitted the obligation of the tax, but refused to render 
 homage. 
 
 But, before passing to this, it will be well to point out 
 that the rights of the See of Peter either to homage or to 
 pecuniary remittances did not originate in any clutch- 
 ing after power on her part. It was not her fault that 
 Christendom at large believed in her as the See of Peter, 
 or that a general conviction of her sense of justice per- 
 vaded the nations ; it was not her doing that men 
 sought her "protection." If they called her the Holy 
 Apostolic See, this was not her own creation ; it was 
 their own religion that thus expressed itself. Through 
 Christendom men recognised that, if she did not 
 always act in the most perfect way in dealing with 
 the temporal interests that clustered round her throne, 
 she had no patent of infallibility in such matters. It 
 was no part of their faith, as it is no part of ours, 
 that her occupant could not err in some regions of 
 action. But that she displayed, on the whole, an 
 amount of justice and a power of dealing with distant 
 details, which was peculiar to her, was recognised by all, 
 and will be admitted to this hour by those who consult 
 history rather than prejudice. Had the Holy See been 
 always occupied as in part of the tenth century, she 
 must, one would suppose, have gone the way of merely 
 human institutions ; but in the eleventh century, with 
 which we are now concerned, she was destined to have 
 a Leo IX. to carry on the traditions of a Nicolas the 
 Great and of a John VIII., and at the particular time 
 in that century with which we have to do she was pre- 
 sided over by a Gregory VII. This latter Pope, amongst 
 other gigantic works, reorganised the finances of the Holy 
 See. He saved the archives from utter destruction, and 
 
44 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 reduced a financial chaos to something like order. 
 And it was with him that William the Conqueror had 
 to do. He it was who, after the Conqueror had been a 
 few years on the throne, ordered him to send the arrears 
 of Peter's pence, and whose legate suggested that in his 
 new position he should bind himself by a special tie to 
 the Holy See. 
 
 It may well be that Gregory, in proposing to the Con- 
 queror that he should accept the special protection of the 
 Holy See by doing homage, relied on the statement of 
 Alexander II., who had said that England had been 
 always under the "hand and guardianship {manu et 
 tuteld) of the Prince of Apostles." He must also have 
 been aware of the declarations of such kings of portions 
 of England as Offa and Ina; and of the expressions 
 used by Ethelwulf in the name of the western portion 
 of England, and again in more recent times by King 
 Knut in the name of the whole of England. 1 
 
 The Conqueror, however, disputed the historical fact, 
 and refused to regard his newly acquired kingdom as being 
 in need of entering upon the condition, honourable as it 
 was considered in those times, of such vassalage as was 
 expressed by the act of homage. Whether he was wise 
 or not in this refusal is not the question ; but he was 
 within his rights, regarded merely as a spiritual subject 
 of the Pontiff, and this Pope Gregory himself admitted. 2 
 William's act had no reference to the spiritual supremacy 
 of the Pope. That, indeed, was no matter of dispute 
 
 1 The Bishop of Stepney's account of this matter (" Ch. 
 Hist. Soc. Lect.," p. 89) is most inaccurate. He thinks that 
 Gregory VII. claimed, under cover of the Donation of Con- 
 stantine, "the ownership of all the islands of the West." 
 Ownership was not in question : it was not included in pro- 
 teclioti, and the act of homage did not involve it. 
 
 2 Epp., lib. ix. ep. 5, ad Hugonem Diensem Episc, Migne, 
 vol. 148, p. 610. 
 
WILLIAM'S REFUSAL TO DO HOMAGE 45 
 
 with him, nor (so far as the record goes) with any single 
 member of the Church in England. The overlordship 
 of the Holy See, that accessory and accidental relation- 
 ship of patronage and protection of the kingdom in its 
 temporal aspect, was perfectly distinct from Papal Supre- 
 macy in the ecclesiastical sense, although it naturally 
 flowed from it under certain circumstances. And the 
 refusal to do homage was therefore no infringement of 
 the rights and submission due to the Pope in matters 
 spiritual, and ought never to have been imported into 
 this question of "continuity." William the Conqueror 
 was careful to emphasise the fact that he was in no way 
 denying Papal Supremacy, for in the end of the letter in 
 which he refused his "homage," but promised to pay up 
 the arrears of Peter's pence, he went out of his way to 
 assure the Pope, not only of his continued affection, but 
 of his determination to "listen with obedience" to his 
 Holiness — i.e. in all spiritual matters (pbedienter audire 
 — cf. "hear the Church," Matt, xviii. 17). 
 
 And this distinction must be borne in mind in deal- 
 ing with the opposition raised against Papal exactions 
 throughout the Middle Ages, at any rate in England. 
 It was not antagonism to the supremacy of the See of 
 Peter so much as opposition to its exercise, or, at least, 
 to the exercise of any "overlordship," in the temporal 
 sphere. I do not say that William the Conqueror (who 
 was no hero in the moral order) did not extend his 
 action in ecclesiastical matters beyond the legitimate 
 confines of royal power, for he certainly did ; but he was 
 no Protestant in the sense of disavowing the See of Peter 
 as the divinely ordained centre of unity and source of 
 jurisdiction. And it is on this that the whole question 
 of continuity hinges ; and the Conqueror's action in 
 refusing homage, as though the Holy See stood, or was 
 in future to stand, in the te?nforal order, in the position 
 
4 6 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 of " overlord " to the kingdom of England, did not raise, 
 and was not meant to raise, the question of the supreme 
 power of the See of Peter over all Churches, that of 
 England included. 
 
 William the Conqueror did, indeed, introduce the 
 tyrannical custom 1 of admitting or forbidding at his own 
 royal pleasure, not legates, but legates a latere, from 
 Rome ; but he never dreamt of certain ecclesiastical 
 matters being settled without the authority of Rome, 
 and that by means of legates ; and the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury was invested with legatine power in per- 
 petnum! 1 He did not count his crown to have been 
 properly placed on his head until it had been set there, 
 not merely by the Archbishop of York, whom he rightly 
 selected instead of Stigand, but also, by way of confirma- 
 tion, by the Papal legate ; and he had already, 3 before 
 the question of homage came on, invited the legate to 
 hold a council at Winchester, in which it was said that 
 " the Church of Rome has the right of supervision over 
 all Churches." He allowed the Papal legate to depose 
 Stigand from the Archbishopric of Canterbury, just as 
 even William Rufus looked to a legate to depose Anselm 
 from the same See — Canterbury being considered to have 
 no superior in ecclesiastical matters except the See of 
 
 1 i.e. Tyrannical as regarded his own people, who were not 
 consulted on the matter. See Wilkins' dedication of his 
 magnum opus to George II., for his judgment on the in- 
 novating character of William's measures in this respect 
 {Condi., p. iv.). 
 
 2 For the appointment of Lanfranc by Pope Alexander II. 
 as his plenipotentiary in England, cf. Wilkins' Condi., i. 326. 
 
 3 i.e. in a.d. 1070. Gregory's letter is generally dated 
 1074. Mr. Nye, speaking of 1066, says that "the Pope at 
 once (sic) urged the Conqueror to pay homage to the Church 
 (sic) of Rome." Eight years elapsed ; and the homage was 
 not what Mr. Nye imagines. 
 
WILLIAM'S REFUSAL TO DO HOMAGE 47 
 
 Peter. Lanfranc of Canterbury and Thomas of York 
 were permitted to go to Rome to receive the pall. 
 
 The sum of the matter so far is this. The Conqueror's 
 refusal to do homage to the Pope concerned the question 
 of a special relation to the Holy See on the part of the 
 kingdom, of which relation William denied the previous 
 existence and present advisability. It was no sort of 
 protest against the supremacy of St. Peter's See over all 
 the Churches. 
 
 § 2. Peter's Pence. 
 
 Having shown that the Conqueror's refusal to do 
 homage to the Pope carried with it no sort of repudiation 
 of Papal Supremacy in matters spiritual, we will now ask 
 the question, What did William admit by the payment 
 of Peter's pence ? 
 
 That the payment of this tax outside of England 
 indicated, in the second half of the eleventh century, the 
 recognition of a certain consecration of the royal autho- 
 rity to the Prince of the Apostles — a kind of overlord- 
 ship tendered to the Apostolic See — is beyond doubt. 1 
 It was the token of a special relation to him and to his 
 See, such as, for instance, would secure protection in 
 case of absence on the Crusades. The burden of proof 
 that it was otherwise understood by the English at that 
 time lies with those who deny this. 
 
 There can, however, be no question that in England 
 it was also connected from the earliest times with the 
 need of maintaining the School, and the other institutions 
 which gathered round the School, of those Saxons who 
 
 1 See an admirable "study" on the Liber Cctisuujii, by 
 M. Paul Fabre, in the Bibliotlieque dcs Ecoles Franqaises 
 d'At/ienes et de Rome, Fasc, 62 ; Paris, 1892 ; to which I am 
 indebted for some of the materials for this chapter. 
 
4 8 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 went to study or reside at Rome. So close was the 
 tie between Rome and England in those early days; so 
 eager was the Saxon mind to reap the advantages of 
 study at the mother-See of Christendom, and of residing 
 at times close to the tomb of the Apostle Peter — whence 
 came, according to their belief, the jurisdiction of their 
 bishops — that a cluster of Saxon institutions grew up in 
 the city of Rome. And Ina, King of Wessex, and Offa, 
 King of Mercia, both taxed their people for the mainte- 
 nance of this Saxon School in the Eternal City. Our 
 authority for the first is Matthew Paris, 1 and for the 
 second, Henry of Huntingdon, 2 and others who have 
 copied from him. The tax was at first levied on each 
 family, and accordingly differed in amount. 
 
 But it is equally certain that, as time went on, if not, 
 indeed, from the first, this was not the only object of 
 the Peter's pence. For, in the ninth century, Ethelwulf, 
 we are told, " offered to God and to Saint Peter an 
 annual tax of a penny, to be paid by each house in 
 England ; this tax is known now," says the writer, 
 "under the name of Peter's pence." 3 And this tax 
 was in the time of EthelwulPs son, Alfred the Great, a 
 fixed due — part for keeping up the light in the basilicas 
 of St. Peter and St. Paul, and part for the privy purse 
 of the Pope. We are here on the firmest possible ground, 
 for our authority is Asserius, the contemporary of Alfred, 4 
 and Florence of Worcester. 5 And in the end of the 
 ninth century we meet with mentions, in the "Anglo- 
 Saxon Chronicle," of the "alms of the West Saxons and 
 of King Alfred " being sent to Rome. 6 And so, again, 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 331 ; ed. Luard (Rolls Series). 
 
 2 Mon. Hist. Brit., p. 730, A. ; ed. Petrie and Sharpe. 
 
 3 William of Malmesbury, Gcsta Reguvi, ii. 2. 
 
 4 " Life of Alfred," Mon. Hist. Brit., p. 472. 
 6 Mon. Hist. Brit., p. 552. 
 
 • "Anglo-Saxon Chron.," p. 68 ; ed. Thorpe. 
 
WILLIAM'S REFUSAL TO DO HOMAGE 49 
 
 the Chronicle of Ethelwerd draws a distinction be- 
 tween the alms of the people and the alms of the 
 King. Archbishop Phlegmund (a.d. 908) took "alms 
 on behalf of the people to Rome, and from Edward 
 on behalf of the King," i.e. as being due from him as 
 King and successor of Ethelwulf. 1 Obviously, by this 
 time, there was a tax on the people for the support of 
 the Saxon School at Rome, inaugurated by Ina of 
 Wessex and Offa of Mercia, and also a fixed charge 
 on the Royal Exchequer, dating from the time of 
 Ethelwulf, in regard to a portion of England, and 
 adopted by the whole country when under a single ruler. 
 There is an important entry in the Black Book of the 
 Archdeacon of Canterbury, in which Peter's pence is 
 traced to this latter origin alone. 2 
 
 And if we look a little further into the matter, we 
 shall see an indication of the idea that underlay this 
 latter tribute in the account given of it by the contem- 
 porary writer already quoted. Asser says that when 
 Ethelwulf sent young Alfred, his favourite son, to Rome, 
 Leo IV. in a way adopted him as his spiritual child, and 
 gave him the royal unction. King Ethelwulf then went 
 himself to Rome and engaged to send an annual sum to 
 the Apostle Peter in the person of his successor. 3 
 
 One can hardly avoid seeing in this a certain consecra- 
 tion of his kingdom to the Prince of the Apostles, and 
 an instance of what was known as the "commendation" 
 of person or property to an overlord. 
 
 1 Mon. Hist. Brit., p. 517, c. 
 
 2 In fol. 20b there is a statement as to the origin of Peter's 
 pence. Adelphus (Ethelwulf), father of King Alfred, granted 
 to Rome 300 mancuses : 100 towards the honour of St. Peter, 
 for the lights of the church there ; 100 for the like honour of 
 St. Paul ; and 100 for the Pope Universal, "to amplify his 
 arms." 
 
 3 Mon. Hist. Brit., p. 470, A.; ed. Petrie and Sharpe. 
 
 D 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 These two forms of tax blended in the following cen- 
 tury, and were collected all over the kingdom, as appears 
 from the laws of Edward and Edgar ; 1 and the net result 
 was applied to the twofold purpose of the Saxon School 
 at Rome and the support of the Holy See. But the term 
 Peter's pence soon came to signify in England, as else- 
 where, the special consecration of the kingdom to the 
 Apostle Peter. The letter of King Knut to his people 
 in 1 03 1 speaks of it as "what we owe to Saint Peter." 2 
 And more than thirty years later a letter of Pope Alex- 
 ander II. speaks of the English as sending "an annual 
 pension to the Apostolic See, of which part was paid 
 over to the Roman Pontiff, part to the Church of St. 
 Mary, which is called the Angles' School." 
 
 So that Pope Gregory VII. had some ground for sup- 
 posing that England had united herself, as a kingdom, 
 in a special way to the See of Peter, and for thinking 
 that William of Normandy might well be recommended 
 to swear fealty by the act of homage. But William as 
 he looked round about saw himself quite safe by this 
 time from enemies outside his island home, and felt no 
 need of "protection"; but on the other hand he was 
 Christian enough in his belief to recognise the value of 
 the consecration of authority, which was symbolised by 
 the payment of Peter-pence. Accordingly, whilst he 
 declined the special relationship implied in the act of 
 homage, he agreed in the same letter to pay up the 
 arrears of Peter-pence. 
 
 1 " Anc. Laws and Inst, of Eng.," Public Rcc, 1840, p. 73. 
 
 2 Flor. Wigorn.; Men. Hist. Brit., p. 597. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 
 
 § i. Bishop Creightoiis Argument 
 
 If there is one saint in the calendar who has hitherto 
 been, more than others, looked upon as a typical Eng- 
 lish Churchman, that saint is the great Archbishop of 
 Canterbury who resisted William Rufus. But, as already 
 noticed, 1 Bishop Creighton takes the Baronage of Eng- 
 land, and not St. Anselm, as the true representatives 
 of the Church of England. The barons, in spite of 
 their Norman origin, had, according to our author, 
 quickly learnt their lesson, and, influenced by the 
 "atmosphere of their island home," had come to feel 
 that both " he [Anselm] and the King alike were bound 
 to maintain the customs of the realm, and settle their dis- 
 putes by reference to them alone." "They said," when 
 refusing to support the Archbishop in carrying his appeal 
 to Rome, " that it was contrary to the customs of the 
 realm which he had sworn to observe." 2 Their action 
 is accordingly adduced as an instance of how the Church 
 admitted Papal jurisdiction on grounds of utility, but not 
 as an essential part of the system. " The barons supported 
 him in withstanding royal tyranny ; but they refused to 
 support him in carrying his appeal to Rome " (ibid.). 
 
 1 Cf. supra, p. i. 
 
 2 "The National Church in the Middle Ages," by Bishop 
 Creighton, p. 3. 
 
52 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 We have already seen that the customs of the realm, 
 to which allusion is here made, were not ancient, but 
 innovations on the old English ways, introduced by the 
 Conqueror. St. Anselm was really making a stand for 
 old English customs. The "atmosphere of our island 
 home" was favourable to the closest relation of subordi- 
 nation to Rome until William the Conqueror attempted 
 to restrict the Archbishop's intercourse with Rome. 1 We 
 shall now see that Bishop Creighton has misinterpreted 
 the situation in the rest of his account. The fact is, 
 that the barons supported St. Anselm when he was 
 opposing the King on the question of obedience to the 
 See of Peter in spiritual matters ; that they refused to 
 support him, and that only for a while, on a side issue ; 
 and that they afterwards, in the matter of investiture, 
 strongly recommended an appeal to Rome. I may add 
 that neither these barons nor that King, with whom 
 Bishop Creighton considers himself in continuity, were 
 favourable specimens of humanity; and if the barons 
 have to be placed on our side and not on his, it is not 
 because we value their support, but because we are 
 unable to admit that, if we consult history, even their 
 support can be claimed by the Bishop of Peterborough 
 and his co-religionists. 
 
 But if we do not value highly the opinion of the 
 barons, we certainly prize the judgment of the Arch- 
 bishop. And the enthusiastic admiration in the Church 
 of England, for so many centuries, for the names of 
 Anselm and a Becket shows what she thought of the 
 Conqueror's "customs." She invoked their names in 
 
 1 Cf. Wilkins' Concilia, Dedication to George II., p. iv. 
 Wilkins was an Anglican canon and archdeacon, to whom 
 we owe an immense debt of gratitude for having preserved 
 several Acts of Convocation, and collected, in his three in- 
 valuable volumes, numerous data for English Ecclesiastical 
 History. 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM S3 
 
 prayer, and kept their festivals sacred by masses, and 
 the shrine of St. Thomas became the glory of the mother 
 Church of Canterbury. But these saints were hallowed 
 in the eyes of the Church of England for their loyalty to 
 the Holy See and their opposition to the "customs" of 
 the Norman conquerors. The Church of England did 
 not teach that St. Thomas and St. Anselm acted up to 
 their conscience, but were mistaken in their loyalty to 
 the Holy See : there is no trace of such a thought in her 
 literature. 1 The struggle of Anselm with the licentious 
 despot to whom he owed obedience in temporal matters, 
 and who overstepped his rights in the spiritual sphere, 
 lived in that literature as the one bright star in that night 
 of tyranny. 
 
 § 2. The General Situation. 
 
 That struggle, as we have said, centred round the new 
 "customs" of the Conqueror. Hitherto English arch- 
 bishops had gone to Rome to receive the pallium as a 
 matter of course, and Papal briefs were not subject to 
 royal inspection before being delivered to the archbishop. 
 But now, when the new dynasty began, Lanfranc at once 
 had difficulties about going to Rome. His letters show 
 his readiness to render all canonical obedience to the 
 Apostolic See, but also what difficulties he had in deal- 
 ing with the despotic nature of the rough Conqueror. 
 He would have been glad to have had the pallium sent, 
 and so avoid the new jealousy of the Norman as to visits 
 to Rome. He was impeded in his desire to pay his 
 proper visits to the "threshold of the Apostles," and he 
 was obliged to plead that his service should be limited 
 to what would be strictly and absolutely necessary to 
 
 1 Dean Church, in his " Life of St. Anselm," thus quite 
 arbitrarily explains the regard felt for Anselm. 
 
54 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 satisfy the Canons. 1 If we are to take his words 
 simply as they stand, they breathe no spirit of personal 
 reluctance, but proceed on the assumption that things 
 which were not necessary might be laid aside "for the 
 present distress." He wished for a dispensation from 
 what he took to be the accidents of his relation to the 
 See of Peter. He had found himself in unexpected 
 difficulty, for the King had introduced the innovation 
 that no archbishop should leave the shores of England 
 without his leave, that no claimant to the Papal throne 
 should be recognised without his consent, and that no 
 Papal brief should enter England without being sub- 
 jected to his inspection. 2 In the latter point St. Anselm 
 resisted the new "custom" throughout; but in the first 
 point he was at the King's mercy. Moreover, he had 
 made himself in temporal matters the King's "man"; 
 he had performed homage, and taken the oath of fealty, 
 and as a baron he was unable to leave England without 
 royal sanction. 3 But there were cases in which the King 
 was clearly bound by canon law to give his leave to an 
 archbishop ; and it was here that the conflict arose. 4 
 It will be seen, therefore, that the customs of the old 
 
 1 Lanfranc felt that he could himself do by the Pope's 
 authority all that was necessary; what was advisable, but not 
 of necessity, could wait for better times. Gregory VII. had 
 written to the King, making Lanfranc his plenipotentiary. 
 
 2 Bishop Stubbs says, " The arrangement is described by 
 the faithful historian Eadmer as a novelty" (Const. Hist., 
 i. ix. 324). 
 
 3 This is an important point. It was on this ground that 
 the barons for a while seconded the King's tyrannical appli- 
 cation of his rule. 
 
 4 It must be carefully borne in mind that the word 
 "customs" has nothing to do with antiquity. Grosseteste 
 speaks of two successive acts creating a custom ; and our 
 English word to this day, used, for instance, in reference to 
 taxes, has nothing to do with antiquity — it simply means 
 dues, however recently created. 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 
 
 55 
 
 English Church were in jeopardy in presence of the in- 
 novations of the Conqueror. We have already seen that 
 Bishop Creighton's expressions as to the "atmosphere 
 of our island home" are altogether misleading. What 
 the barons would derive from that atmosphere would be 
 dependence on Rome, not the idea of disputes being 
 necessarily and finally settled where they arose. It is 
 always better if they can be thus settled ; but when they 
 cannot, the idea in our "island home" was that they 
 should be told unto " the Church " ; and the Church, in 
 the judgment of old England, sat in her supreme chair of 
 judgment at Rome. But William Rufus was intent on 
 taking a page out of the German Emperor's book ; and 
 the Norman barons, though on the whole they settled 
 down to English uses, were, in this matter of German- 
 ising the English Church, not wholly proof against the 
 pressure of the Red King. It would not, however, be 
 correct to say simply, as Bishop Creighton does, that 
 they supported the King against St. Anselm in the ques- 
 tion of appeals to Rome. They gave a temporary support 
 to their ruffian-master William, but it was only temporary. 
 
 § 3. St. Anselm and the Pallium. 
 
 St. Anselm, after having been consecrated, much against 
 his wish, to the Archiepiscopal See, and having allowed 
 some months to elapse, announced his desire to go to 
 Rome, according to English custom, in order to receive 
 the pall. The Red King objected. He had not yet 
 recognised Urban II., to whom the Archbishop proposed 
 to go, as the legitimate successor of St. Peter ; and he 
 seemed in no hurry to acknowledge any one as Pope. 1 
 
 The German Emperor had assumed the right to say 
 
 1 It lay in the King's power, if this new custom were 
 admitted, to delay the acknowledgment of a Pope indefinitely. 
 Urban had been Pope for six years. 
 
56 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 which Pope he would recognise in his dominions ; and 
 from one or two expressions in Eadmer's account it is 
 evident that the Red King was proposing to play the 
 Emperor in England. St. Anselm, however, had given 
 notice to the King, before consecration, that at Bee he 
 had already placed himself under obedience to Urban II., 
 and that he should not withdraw that obedience. The 
 quarrel then turned on the King's right to determine 
 which was legitimate Pope, and to keep the Archbishop 
 waiting until he had come to a decision on the matter. 
 In the course, however, of the friction which ensued, the 
 whole question of the relation of the two authorities, 
 Pope and King, came to the front. The matter was 
 reduced to the plain issue as to whether loyalty to the 
 King could be reconciled with obedience to the See of 
 Peter. Was there a region of action in which the Pope 
 was supreme, and in which, therefore, the King had no 
 right to hamper the obedience of the Archbishop ? Was 
 not the reception of the pallium at Rome a case in point, 
 in which no archbishop could be rightly hindered from 
 applying for that symbol of jurisdiction in person, or at 
 least explaining to the Pope why he did not apply? 1 
 Had the new customs of the Conqueror and his son, 
 William Rufus, any sufficient authority to interfere with 
 old English ways? St. Anselm, who proved to know 
 English habits well, became the representative of these ; 
 whilst the King and his simoniacal bishops, imported 
 from abroad, took their stand on the new " customs." 
 When Bishop Creighton says that the barons supported 
 the King on the ground that St. Anselm and his royal 
 master " alike were bound to maintain the customs of 
 the realm " (p. 3), he appears to suggest that they were 
 
 1 St. Anselm's letter to the Bishop of Lyons should be 
 consulted on this subject. He therein gives his object in 
 going to Rome (Ep., lib. iii. 24). 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 
 
 57 
 
 venerable customs, and to ignore the fact that the King 
 called them simply " his own and his father's " customs, 
 and the barons called them the same. They were not 
 appealing to the older customs of the English, but to 
 innovations of foreign importation, un-English, contrary 
 to the immemorial usages of the early English Church. 
 But even so, they did not go the length of laying down 
 the principle that the King could altogether prohibit the 
 Archbishop's access to the Apostolic See. Neither King, 
 nor bishops, nor barons, went so far as to maintain that 
 under all circumstances the King and Archbishop " were 
 bound to maintain the customs of the realm, and settle 
 their disputes by reference to them alone," as Bishop 
 Creighton puts the case. Apart from all the past history 
 of the nation (of which probably St. Anselm alone amongst 
 them had any real knowledge, considering the character 
 of the King and these uneducated barons), the Council 
 of London, under Lanfranc, had spoken of the Council 
 of Sardica as an authority, 1 and that Council distinctly 
 provided for appeals from bishops to the Apostolic See ; 
 and Lanfranc, within the last few years, had taught that 
 he came to England " compelled by King William [the 
 Conqueror], and ordered by Pope Alexander," 2 and had 
 asked the Pope to allow him to return to his cenobitic 
 life " by the same authority as that by which he accepted 
 the archbishopric, i.e. by the authority of the Apostolic 
 See." 3 And, in obedience to the same authority, he 
 had visited Rome with leave reluctantly wrung from the 
 Conqueror. 
 
 Anselm therefore insisted upon being confronted with 
 the question as to whether the King could lawfully hinder 
 him as a baron of the realm from going to Rome to 
 
 1 Mansi, xx. 451. 
 
 2 " Winchester Chronicle," Appendix. 
 
 3 Ep. i. 19 ; ed. Giles. 
 
58 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 receive the pallium from the Pope, whom he had already 
 recognised ; insisted, in strict accordance with English 
 usage, on referring the question to the proper tribunal 
 in the first instance, viz., the nation as a whole, as repre- 
 sented by bishops and barons and knights in council 
 assembled. The Archbishop brought the question before 
 this tribunal in the following shape : Was it a constitu- 
 tional principle that loyalty to the King and obedience 
 to the See of Peter were incompatible ; the discussion of 
 the point having been forced upon him by the King's 
 refusal, in deference to what he called his own and his 
 father's custom (and thus far only a custom of the realm), 
 to allow the Archbishop to go for the pallium in person, 
 or advise the Pope why he had not come — the refusal 
 being grounded on the plea that the King had not yet 
 recognised the particular Pope under whose obedience 
 Anselm had placed himself before his consecration? 1 
 
 At the Council which was now convened at Rocking- 
 ham, Anselm laid down the following principle in pre- 
 sence of the bishops : after quoting the " Tu es Petrus" 
 (Thou art Peter, &c), and " He that heareth you, heareth 
 Me," he continued : "These words, as we have received 
 them as having been spoken principally to Blessed Peter, 
 and in him to the other Apostles, so we hold them to 
 have been spoken principally to the Vicar of Blessed 
 Peter, and through him to the other bishops, who act in 
 place of the Apostles ; not to any emperor, or king, or 
 duke, or count." And later on, at the same Council, he 
 made the challenge, " Let him who, because I will nor 
 renounce obedience to the supreme Pontiff of the holy 
 
 1 The narratives in Eadmer's Historia and in his " Life 
 of Anselm " should be read together with the letter to the 
 Bishop of Lyons already mentioned (Ep., lib. iii. 24), and it 
 will appear beyond contradiction that this was the exact state 
 of the question. 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 
 
 5 0 
 
 Roman Church, would convict me of violating the sworn 
 fealty which I owe to the earthly king, stand forth, and 
 in the name of the Lord he will find me ready to answer 
 him as and where I ought." 1 The barons were non- 
 plussed, knowing, as the contemporary historian says, 
 that an Archbishop of Canterbury could be judged by 
 none but the Pope. The whole multitude was with 
 Anselm. And a knight came forward and knelt before 
 him, and bade him be of good cheer and "remember 
 blessed Job conquering the devil on the dunghill, and 
 avenging Adam who had fallen in Paradise " — i.e. reflect 
 that, though he seemed trampled on, he was the real 
 conqueror. The whole assembly murmured applause. 
 Further, when his great episcopal opponent, William 
 of Durham, had to face the Red King's fury on hear- 
 ing of Anselm's courage, he recommended his royal 
 master to take the crozier and ring from Anselm by mere 
 force ; for on the ground of reason he said there was 
 nothing to be done, "since all his [Anselm's] reasoning 
 rests on the words of God and the authority of Peter." 
 But whilst bishops — the meanest of men in the days of 
 William Rufus — could stoop thus low, the barons could 
 not. And this is where they "supported Anselm in 
 withstanding royal tyranny," as Bishop Creighton puts 
 it; 2 that is to say, they supported him in withstanding 
 the King when the King was all but persuaded into 
 depriving the Archbishop of his crozier and ring, be- 
 cause he insisted on recognising the jurisdiction of the 
 See of Peter over the See of Canterbury, whether the 
 King chose to recognise the occupant of the Apostolic 
 See or no. 
 
 1 Eadmer, Hist. Nov., sub anno 1095. 
 
 2 "The barons supported him [Anselm] in withstanding 
 royal tyranny, but they refused to support him in carrying 
 his appeal to Rome" (N. Ch., p. 3). 
 
6o 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 And now the question arises, Could such a jurisdic- 
 tion, traceable to our Lord's own words, exist without 
 some right of appeal to it ? — in other words, Can 
 this action of the barons be considered as excluding 
 appeals to Rome, as Bishop Creighton's antithesis im- 
 plies? Did they not, by their support of Anselm, give 
 their suffrage in favour of a jurisdiction which neces- 
 sarily involved appeals to the Apostolic See ? Indeed, 
 we may ask another question, Did the King himself, 
 thoroughly bad as he was, feel that he was in a country 
 in which all jurisdiction of the Apostolic See over the 
 See of Canterbury could be dispensed with and treated 
 as null and void ? It is certain that the King had no 
 such idea, any more than the barons ; for the King at 
 this very time was secretly negotiating submission to 
 Pope Urban, and asking for the pallium to be sent to 
 himself, so that he might give it to whomever he 
 pleased. He had no idea of dispensing with that in- 
 strument of jurisdiction from Rome; he had no idea 
 of an independent Canterbury in matters spiritual ; his 
 only idea was to impede the exercise of Papal jurisdic- 
 tion so far as it stood in the way of his course of sacri- 
 lege, licentiousness, and ruffianism. He now, in hopes, 
 it would seem, of injuring Anselm, ordered that Urban 
 should be recognised as the legitimate Apostolicus {pro 
 Apostolico haberi) or Vicar of the Apostle Peter. 1 No 
 one dreamt of an Apostolic government of the Church 
 being carried on in permanent separation from the Apos- 
 tolicus, although William Rufus did his best to rob him 
 of such powers as would interfere with his own sinful 
 life. He now endeavoured to induce the legate, who 
 came with the pallium, to exercise the power which the 
 Pope alone possessed, of deposing the Archbishop. He 
 
 1 Eadmer, Hist. Nov., sub anno 1095 ; ed. Luard, p. 69. 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 
 
 6 1 
 
 asked him to do it " with the authority of the Roman 
 Pontiff," 1 but in vain ; the legate had no commission 
 from the Roman Pontiff for that purpose. 2 
 
 Here, then, in the action of William Rufus we have 
 indeed an instance of the Papal jurisdiction being treated 
 as a matter of utility only. But the Red King did not 
 represent the Church of England ; indeed, he could only 
 regard Papal jurisdiction as of any possible utility to 
 himself, because it was accepted throughout England as 
 a matter of faith. Bishops and barons had revealed their 
 conviction that, whilst Canterbury was the mother Church 
 of England, the mother of Canterbury was Rome, the 
 mother and mistress of all Churches, and that there was 
 no power in England itself whereby to depose an Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, except the physical power whereby 
 the crozier and ring could be taken from his hands. 
 But the barons would not stand by the King in such 
 tyranny as this, and accordingly the tyrant turned to 
 the only power that England recognised as the ecclesias- 
 tical superior of the Archbishop of Canterbury, namely, 
 the Pope. But the Papal legate had not come from 
 Rome to execute the whims of a sensual despot. 
 
 § 4. Anselm goes to Rome. 
 
 The second incident to which Bishop Creighton refers 
 occurred after St. Anselm was in possession of the 
 pallium, which the legate, refusing to give it into the 
 hands of the King, lest his royal supremacy in such 
 matters should seem to be established, had placed on 
 the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral, whence Anselm 
 
 1 Eadmer, loc. cit. 
 
 2 This, and not (as Mr. Lane, in defiance of the record, 
 puts it) because the Pope could not do it, was the reason why 
 the legate refused (" 111. Notes on Church History," p. 161). 
 
6 2 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 took it, and thus established his continuity with all pre- 
 vious archbishops. 
 
 Religious .matters in England went from worse to 
 worse under the tyranny of the Red King. The life of 
 the Church was at a standstill ; no synod had been held 
 during the reign, and the Church could not live true to 
 herself without synodical action ; a form of unnatural 
 sensual indulgence had enormously developed in the 
 country; 1 simony reigned rampant, and the King in- 
 vented every conceivable means of despoiling the Church. 
 He was now proposing to sue Anselm for the inadequate 
 character, as he deemed it, of the military contingency 
 provided by the Archbishop for the war in Wales. St. 
 Anselm felt that the only thing to be done was to take 
 counsel of the common " Father of the Christian people," 
 as St. Augustine called Pope Melchiades. 2 
 
 But no baron could leave the shores without the King's 
 leave, and, according to the new customs of the realm, 
 this applied specially to the Archbishop. For the 
 Baronage was the King's council, and the Archbishop, 
 who was also baron, was by law the King's spiritual 
 adviser. At the same time there were cases in which 
 it was clearly understood that the King could not, with- 
 out some urgent reason, if at all, refuse his leave to the 
 Archbishop. 3 Now Anselm desired the counsel of the 
 Pope on the whole state of things, and demanded that 
 he should be allowed to have recourse to his spiritual 
 
 1 Anselm, lib. iii., ep. 62. The many decrees in regard 
 to wearing the hair, which Dean Hook ridicules, through noi 
 understanding them, had to do with the efforts of the Church 
 to suppress the unnatural vices which now come under the 
 criminal law. For a short account of these " effirmitiati," 
 see Lingard's " Henry I.," cap. I. 
 
 2 Ep. 43, al. 162. 
 
 3 This appears from what William Rufus said as to there 
 being no sufficient reason for Anselm going to Rome — suffi- 
 cient, that is, to the mind of the Red King 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 
 
 03 
 
 superior. The King refused ; but Anselm persisted, on 
 the ground that his approach to the Holy See was need- 
 ful (1) for the good of his own soul, (2) the cause of 
 Christianity, and (3) he added, "of the King's own 
 honour and advantage, if he would believe it." He 
 consulted the bishops as to this his right, begging them 
 to assist him. Their answer is noteworthy. They said 
 that they were simply afraid of the King. They had 
 their relations and possessions to look after, and could 
 not afford to incur the King's anger. They said they 
 could not soar to the unworldly heights on which St. 
 Anselm dwelt. 
 
 All these bishops, as Freeman shows, had bought 
 themselves into their sees, 1 and hence their contemptible 
 servility. " So low," says the same historian, " had the 
 prelacy of England fallen under the administration of 
 Rufus and Flambard. Neither as priests of God, nor 
 as Witan of the realm, nor simply as freemen of the 
 land, was there any strength or counsel in them. Their 
 answer seems almost to imply that they cast aside the 
 common decencies, not only of prelates, but of Christian 
 men." 2 
 
 Anselm, however, insisted on his right (which indeed 
 flowed from the mere fact that he wore the pallium) 
 of access to the Holy Father. He went and placed 
 himself by the King's side, where he had a right to sit, 
 and expostulated. He told the King that he had only 
 promised to obey him secundum Deum (according to the 
 will of God), and saving the supremacy of conscience 
 {per reciitudinem). But the King said there was no 
 mention of this. Anselm, not caring to insist on its 
 express mention, said that at the very least this was 
 implied. The King shook his head, and the barons 
 
 1 "The Reign of William Rufus," i. 348. 
 * Ibid. p. 495. 
 
64 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 joined in with their assent. Anselm went on, "What 
 you assert not to be in accordance with your custom " 1 
 — notice that expression — "viz., that I should seek 
 (requiram) Blessed Peter and his Vicar for the sake 
 of my soul's safety, for the sake of the government of 
 the Church of God, which I have undertaken — I pro- 
 nounce this custom to be contrary to God and upright- 
 ness, and therefore not only not to be kept, but I avow 
 that it ought to be altogether spurned by every servant 
 of God." After more in the same strain, he said, "The 
 fealty which I owe to God and His service, compels me 
 to approach the Pope, the head of Christianity, and to 
 seek counsel from him." Here the King and Count 
 Robert interrupted the Archbishop, saying that he was 
 " preaching a sermon," and with this the barons agreed. 
 But Anselm did not cease until he had said plainly, " To 
 swear this [i.e. not to approach Blessed Peter and his 
 Vicar] is to abjure Blessed Peter. And he who abjures 
 Peter, abjures Christ, who made him head (principeni) 
 over His Church." 2 
 
 After this, neither King nor barons prevented his going. 
 As he left the chamber, a messenger from the King fol- 
 lowed him, and said, "Behold, you will go," but he was 
 to take nothing with him that belonged to the King. 
 Then orders were given for his departure, difficulties 
 were to be placed in his way, but he was not to be 
 actually prevented from going. But before setting out, 
 the great Archbishop went into the ferocious despot's 
 presence, and claimed to give him his blessing ; the King 
 bent his head, and he and Anselm never met again in 
 this world. 
 
 1 Consuetudinis tucr. 
 
 2 Eadmer, Hist. Nov. Angl., sub anno, 1097 ; ed. Luard, 
 p. 86. 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 
 
 65 
 
 § 5. Bishop Creightoris Deductions Examined. 
 
 The inconsistency, then, of these barons was not (as 
 Bishop Creighton interprets it) an intellectual flaw, but a 
 moral fault. It did not (as he asserts) consist in their 
 thinking that Papal jurisdiction was a weapon to be 
 brandished, but not used; it showed itself in a craven 
 servility to the worst King that ever wore an English 
 crown — in cringing to his despotism when he chose 
 to repudiate the notion that the Archbishop's oath of 
 fealty implied a saving clause by which matters of 
 obedience were limited to what was right and in 
 accordance with the will of God. If Bishop Creighton 
 wishes to claim continuity with men in such a degrad- 
 ing act, we can say nothing; but it would imply more 
 Erastianism in the present Establishment than its worst 
 foes have been accustomed to attribute to it. 
 
 And certainly the inconsistency cannot be said to 
 have come, to use Bishop Creighton's phrase, from the 
 "atmosphere of their island home." We had no such 
 licentious tyrants in England before William Rufus ; and 
 though there was servility in barons, there was no dis- 
 position to hinder an Anglo-Saxon archbishop from 
 having access to the Apostolic See. Nor is it correct 
 to say simply, as Bishop Creighton does, that the barons 
 " refused to support him [Anselm] in carrying his appeal 
 to Rome." For when not under the mad fury of a 
 licentious despot, like the Red King, the barons behaved 
 differently; they joined in with the next King (Henry I.) 
 in advising Anselm to go to Rome and get the matter of 
 investitures settled there. 1 
 
 1 " Since it is your common desire that I should go [to 
 Rome]," said Anselm to the barons in the next reign, " I will 
 undertake the journey, although my strength has left me 
 and I am growing old." Cf. Eadm., Hist. Nov., s.a. 1103 
 (Rolls Series, p. 148). 
 
 F. 
 
66 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 Neither, again, was the appeal spoken of by Bishop 
 Creighton an appeal from a matter which had gone 
 through any English courts and needed to be settled 
 by an ultimate court of appeal. This was no case of 
 that kind, and therefore cannot fairly be quoted as a 
 precedent for repudiating all appeals to Rome as a final 
 court. It concerned simply the general question as to 
 the right of an Archbishop of Canterbury to approach 
 his ecclesiastical superior, that superior having, ex 
 hypoihesi, been made such by our Lord's own institu- 
 tion. For against the Divine institution of that supre- 
 macy neither the King, nor bishops, nor barons had a 
 word to say. The King himself tried to utilise this con- 
 viction, so deeply rooted in the English mind, when the 
 legate came with the pall ; the bishops admitted it as a 
 matter of doctrine at the Council of Rockingham ; and the 
 barons supported St. Anselm in his maintenance of that 
 doctrine when a bishop, who had himself appealed to 
 Rome in past days, suggested to the King a forcible 
 deprivation of the Archbishop's crozier and ring. 1 
 
 And the man who was selected for the contest on 
 behalf of Papal in place of royal supremacy in the 
 government of the Church, was, not as Bishop Creighton 
 suggests, a mere foreigner ; he was, as Professor Freeman 
 describes him, "the teacher of Normandy, the shepherd 
 of England, the man who dived deeper than any man 
 before him into the most awful mysteries of the faith, 
 but whom we have to deal with as one who ranks, by 
 adoption, among the truest worthies of England, the 
 man who stood forth as the champion of right against 
 both political and moral wrong in the days when both 
 political and moral wrong were at their darkest." 2 He was 
 the man who, to use the same writer's words, " became 
 
 1 William of Durham. 
 
 2 Freeman's " William Rufus," vol. i. p. 367. 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 67 
 
 the idol of all the inhabitants of England, without dis- 
 tinction of age or sex, of rank or race." He it was who 
 first entered upon the conflict between the old political 
 law of England and the new feudal law set up by the 
 Conqueror. There was no hope of settling things at 
 home in the absence of all synodical action, owing to 
 the King's feudal notions. For whilst the Conqueror 
 had done his best to stem the disruptive tendencies of 
 feudalism in the temporal order, he had initiated a policy 
 in regard to the Church, which tended, as Dean Church 
 remarked, " to place the duty and conscience of Christian 
 bishops under the heel of feudal royalty." It was in 
 the attempt to consolidate this anti-catholic policy that 
 William Rufus had to encounter the antagonism of one 
 of the most learned and saintly men of the day — Anselm, 
 archbishop, saint, and doctor of the Church. 
 
 § 6. Si. Anselm's Motive. 
 
 One task remains : it is to point out that Bishop 
 Creighton has altogether misrepresented St. Anselm's 
 motive. His account is that "he turned from the op- 
 pression of power founded upon force to power founded 
 upon an idea of the nature of justice." This does not 
 carry us far. For we all know that Anselm turned 
 from the Red King to the Pope. But the question is, 
 Was the power thus founded upon an idea of the nature 
 of justice, one that God Himself had placed on earth 
 for the lasting purpose of administering justice in eccle- 
 siastical matters? This is what St. Anselm held, and 
 this is what the Established Church of England denies. 
 But Bishop Creighton's account of St. Anselm's deference 
 to the Papacy is as follows : "The tendency to material- 
 ise rights and duties incident to a legal development of 
 
68 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 feudalism was to be counteracted by an ideal extension 
 of feudalism into an all-embracing system, embodied 
 in the theory of the Empire and the Papacy. Christen- 
 dom was held to be a great confederation, united under 
 two coequal heads, who regulated affairs by applying 
 those great principles of right and wrong which were 
 sometimes obscured in a small sphere." This is sup- 
 posed by Bishop Creighton to be " the medieval ideal " 
 — an ideal, however, which was never realised. The 
 Empire and the Papacy, he tells us, did not work together: 
 the Empire declined and the Papacy increased in esteem. 
 " So far as the mediaeval ideal ever became actual, it 
 was embodied in the Papacy." But in mediaeval times, 
 according to Bishop Creighton, "their principles were, 
 after all, legal and technical, to be perpetually discussed 
 — not ideas, which had an inherent power of conviction 
 and led to immediate action. They must have a good 
 case," and " they were ready to maintain their cause by 
 the means which were most easily available " (" Nat. Ch.," 
 p. 4). 
 
 This is the explanation offered of the recourse which 
 St. Anselm had to the Apostolic See. It was the only 
 thing available in the way of upholding justice. It was, 
 in fact, not because it was a Divine institution, but because 
 there were practical advantages in making use of its power. 
 
 1. Bishop Creighton, however, has misstated the "medi- 
 aeval ideal." Christendom was never " held to be a great 
 confederation united under two coequal heads," i.e. the 
 Empire and the Papacy. From the days of Leo III., 
 who inaugurated the new Western Empire, 1 to those 
 
 1 It was not a "restoration" of the Roman Empire. Mr. 
 Bryce's theory (" Holy Roman Empire," ch. vii., 8th ed., 1889) 
 is irreconcilable with the language of the Papal Diploma 
 of A.D. 800, and the general language and action of the 
 Popes and Emperors alike. 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 69 
 
 of Innocent III. or Boniface VIII., who are regarded 
 as the most unequivocal champions of the furthest ex- 
 tension of the Papal power into the temporal order, 
 the " ideal " of Papacy and Empire was never that of 
 " two coequal heads." The idea of the Empire on 
 that Christmas Day (a.d. 800) (which it has been said 
 was the next most fateful Christmas after the night of 
 the Nativity itself) when Leo III. placed the crown on 
 the head of Charles the Great— the idea of the Empire 
 was, not that it should rule over Christendom, but that 
 it should be amongst the kingdoms of Europe the special 
 protector of the Holy See. The Papal Diploma of De- 
 cember 25 thus speaks of Charlemagne as he "whom 
 by the authority of God we have to-day consecrated 
 Emperor for the defence and advancement of the Holy 
 Universal Church." 1 And that this Empire was never 
 meant to be coextensive with the Church, is proved by 
 the actions of the Popes themselves in accepting the 
 role of " protector " towards certain States, and thus 
 making the overlordship of the Empire impossible in 
 their case. Gregory VII., than whom there can be no 
 better exponent of the "mediaeval conception," insisted 
 on Hungary preserving her independence of the German 
 Emperor. 
 
 And as the Empire was inaugurated by the Pope for 
 the protection of the Church, and not for a rule co- 
 extensive with Christendom, so its " coequality " on its 
 own territory was never admitted. There was a region 
 of action in which it was paramount so long as it observed 
 the principles of justice taught by the Christian faith. 
 But the civil power was never exalted in the " mediaeval 
 ideal" to be coequal with the spiritual. It never rose, 
 in theory, beyond the role of the body in relation to the 
 
 1 Jaffe, n. 191 3, pp. 217, 218 ; quoted by Hergenrother, 
 " Church and State," Essay ix. § I, note 4. 
 
7o 
 
 KOMK AND ENGLAND 
 
 soul, a simile used of the relation of the State to the 
 Church by St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. Chrysostom, 
 expressing a sense of the true proportion between Church 
 and State with which the mediaeval conception was pro- 
 foundly penetrated. Gregory VII. and Innocent III. 
 used the simile of the sun's relation to the moon for the 
 same purpose ; and even from the ninth century onwards, 
 perpetual appeal was made to the principles enunciated 
 by St. Augustine in his De Civitate Dei as to the supe- 
 riority of the spiritual over the temporal order. Whilst 
 the civil power had its proper office, and was supreme in 
 that office so long as it kept within the bounds of justice, 
 the Church was held to be the judge as to whether these 
 bounds had been passed or not. This was the special 
 note struck by Innocent III. in his decretal Per vene- 
 rabilem, in 1202, and it was but an echo of the teaching 
 of Gregory VII. in the eleventh century, whose doctrine 
 was maintained by St. Anselm. Gregory, in his letter to 
 the Emperor Maurice, quotes the saying of Constantine, 
 that bishops were his proper judges ; and his successor, 
 Urban II., in the year before Anselm insisted on going 
 to Rome, had said in a sermon that the lowest priest 
 had a pre-eminence over every king. But a priest had 
 this pre-eminence only by virtue of his sharing in the 
 power of those keys which were given to St. Peter and 
 handed on to his successors — so long, and only so long, 
 as he was in communion with, and subordinate to, the 
 Vicar of Christ. Such was the mediaeval conception, 
 and a most tremendous reality it assuredly was. Papal 
 legates were being perpetually sent to the scenes of dis- 
 order, after the example of Clement, Bishop of Rome, 
 in the days of the Apostle St. John, sending his four re- 
 presentatives to Corinth to heal the divisions there. 1 
 
 1 " On the mediaeval theory, the King is a spiritual son 
 of the Pope ; and the Pope may be the King's superior in 
 
THE WITNESS OK ST. ANSELM 
 
 7 
 
 Here, then, we have the real motive of St. Anselm's 
 action, as described by himself in two letters, one to the 
 Pope, and the other to the Bishop of Lyons : he con- 
 sidered it impossible to stem the flood of unnatural 
 crime that had set in under the reign of an unmarried 
 King of irregular life, without further synodical action ; 
 in this he was hindered by this ferocious and licentious 
 despot, who soon died without a tear falling at his 
 sudden decease ; simony was rampant in the Church ; 
 the " customs " of the Conqueror and his despotic son 
 had become for the while the " customs " of the realm, 
 and these customs were a breach of old English ways, 
 and would have hindered free intercourse between the 
 Archbishop and the head of the universal Church ; but 
 such freedom of intercourse was involved in the rela- 
 tion which St. Anselm, in common with every archbishop 
 before him, believed the See of Canterbury to occupy with 
 regard to the See of Peter, that, namely, of subordination 
 in consequence of our Lord's gift of the keys to Peter. 
 
 In the next reign, King and barons agreed that 
 Anselm would most properly lay the matter of investi- 
 ture before the successor of Peter — showing that the 
 obstacles raised against such recourse to Rome by the 
 Red King did not represent the convictions of the 
 Church in England, nor even of these barons them- 
 selves. Not that Henry was a model exponent of the 
 mediaeval — that is, the more defined Catholic concep- 
 tion as to the government of the Church and world ; 
 but he was not the ruffian that his brother was, nor so 
 ignorant. He had, however, the blood of the Conqueror 
 in him ; and he had to be reminded by Bishop Ivo of 
 Chartres, that he was running against the " mediaeval 
 conception" of kinghood. The Bishop wrote, "We 
 
 things spiritual only, or in things temporal and spiritual 
 alike" (Stubbs 1 " Constit. Hist.," iii. xix. 313). 
 
72 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 admonish your Highness, with urgent entreaties, to suffer 
 the Word of God to be preached without hindrance in 
 the kingdom entrusted to you, and to be ever mindful 
 that the earthly kingdom must be always subordinate to 
 the heavenly kingdom, entrusted to the Church." 1 
 
 In short, the Bishop's estimate of Anselm's motives 
 and conduct cannot be extracted from the record as we 
 have it ; and perhaps in no respect is it more thoroughly 
 unjust than in the suggestion that his insistence on 
 having access to the Holy Father was due to his being 
 " a new-comer," 2 as though it were something un-English. 
 On this point we have a very competent witness in the 
 late Professor Freeman, who says of St. Anselm, that 
 " from the moment when he first set foot on our land he 
 won the rank of an adopted Englishman by standing 
 forth as the champion of the saints of England. Stranger 
 as he was, he has won his place among the noblest 
 worthies of our island. It was something to be the 
 model of all ecclesiastical perfection ; it was something 
 to be the creator of the theology of Christendom ; but it 
 was something higher still to be the very embodiment of 
 righteousness and mercy, and to be handed down in the 
 annals of humanity as the man who saved the hunted 
 hare, and stood up for the holiness of yElfheah." 3 Ead- 
 mer lays special stress on Anselm being more English 
 than Lanfranc. 4 In point of fact, he knew England well 
 for fourteen years before he was made Archbishop. 
 
 As regards his life as a whole, it has been said by an 
 
 1 Ivo Carnot., Ep. 106, ed. Duret ; Hergenrother, " Church 
 and State," Essay xiii. § 4, note 5. 
 
 2 "National Church in Middle Ages," p. 3. 
 
 3 Freeman's " Norman Conquest," vol. iv. chap. xix. p. 444. 
 /Elfheah was an Archbishop of Canterbury, whose sanctity 
 Lanfranc depreciated, but whom Anselm defended in defend- 
 ing English saints in general. 
 
 4 Vita Anselmi, i. 5, 42. 
 
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSELM 
 
 73 
 
 able writer, that, " in reality, Anselm succeeded in every 
 object for which he fought. He obtained the restoration 
 of the Canterbury estates ; he procured the holding of 
 synods and the enforcement of Church discipline; he 
 established the right of appeal to the Pope, and forced 
 the King himself to plead at the Romish tribunal ; and 
 he drew an impassable line between Church and State. 
 No man hereafter thought that the ring and crozier were 
 held, like the sword, from the King's hand." 1 All this 
 he did under the xgis of the inspiring belief that the See 
 of Peter was the divinely instituted source of jurisdiction 
 and centre of unity to the whole Church of Christ. 
 
 1 " History of England during the Early and Middle Ages," 
 by C. H. Pearson, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, 1867. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 AN ARCHDEACON AND A PROFESSOR ] OR, WHY THEY 
 BELIEVED IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 
 
 § i. The Question. 
 
 The Bishop proceeds to lay down (p. 5) that " in Eng- 
 land certainly the theory [of Papal Supremacy] was 
 strictly limited by a consideration of practical advan- 
 tages." And in proof of this, his lordship quotes from 
 two writers, of whom one, Giraldus (Archdeacon of St. 
 David's), " mocks at Papal pretensions " — so, at least, the 
 Bishop says ; whereas, the other, Adam Marsh (the cele- 
 brated Oxford Professor), teaches that " the successors 
 of Peter had the government, not only of one ship, but 
 of the whole ocean," i.e. of all Churches in the world. 
 And his lordship accounts for the assumed difference in 
 the teaching of these two writers by the fact that in the 
 interval between their respective utterances "the Papacy 
 had rendered great service to England in the troubled 
 times of King John, and had helped to restore order 
 during the minority of Henry III." "The theory of a 
 far-off suzerain " (and this, according to the Bishop, was 
 the real attraction of the Papal Supremacy) " had been 
 put into practice, and had been found advantageous." 1 
 Hence Adam Marsh taught the jurisdiction of the 
 Pope over all Churches, whereas Giraldus mocked at 
 Papal pretensions. In either case their belief in Papal 
 
 1 "The National Church in the Middle Ayes," p. 5. 
 74 
 
AN ARCHDEACON AND A PROFESSOR 
 
 75 
 
 Supremacy rested (according to the Bishop) on utili- 
 tarian principles, and therefore varied according to 
 circumstances. 
 
 Now, several questions present themselves. What is 
 the value of Giraldus' saying quoted by the Bishop? 
 For we cannot suppose that his lordship intended to 
 quote a worthless testimony. Does it express any one's 
 opinion but his own ? or does it intimate even Giraldus' 
 conviction as to the grounds of his belief in " Papal 
 Supremacy " ? 
 
 Then as to Adam Marsh. Can his words be inter- 
 preted as expressing a theory derived simply from the 
 experienced advantages of Papal Supremacy ? Is it even 
 true that he had only seen the utility of that supremacy 
 "in the troubled times of King John" and "during the 
 minority of Henry III.," or had he also seen " the middle 
 of the reign" of that monarch, which "saw it [the Papal 
 power] harmful and detested ? " For if the latter is the 
 case, we must seek some other grounds for Adam Marsh's 
 teaching on the subject, since he would have seen both 
 sides. 
 
 § 2. The Teaching of Giraldus. 
 
 What, then, is the value of this statement of Giraldus, 
 the Archdeacon of St. David's (if it be his statement), 
 that " the man who at Rome could not make good his 
 rights, even over a garden, is assuming to dictate to 
 kingdoms"? ("Nat. Ch.," p. 5). 
 
 Professor Brewer, the editor of the second volume of 
 Giraldus' writings in the "Chronicles of Great Britain 
 and Ireland," published by order of the Master of the 
 Rolls, says that the " reader must beware of interpreting 
 our author's accusations too literally" (p. lv.). Mr. 
 Dimock, the editor of another work by Giraldus — his 
 . Itinerarium Cambria — speaks of that as being "com- 
 
7 6 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 paratively free from all the bitter, evil-speaking, lying, 
 and slandering that not unfrequently make others of 
 his works absolutely repulsive " (Pref. p. xlii.). Pro- 
 fessor Brewer again, when editing a third work of 
 Giraldus, viz., his Speculum Ea/esice, warns us that that 
 composition is "not an adequate representation of the 
 state of the Church in general, nor of the Church of 
 England in particular" (Pref. p. xvi.). And the late 
 Professor Freeman, the historian, the continuator of 
 Dimock's Preface to Giraldus' " Life of St. Hugh," says 
 (p. liii.), " In estimating the historical value of any work 
 of Giraldus Cambrensis, we must remember the twofold 
 character of the man with whom we are dealing. We 
 are dealing with one who was vain, garrulous, careless 
 as to minute accuracy, even so far careless as to truth 
 as to be, to say the least, ready to accept statements 
 which told against an enemy without carefully weighing 
 the evidence for them. We are dealing with one who 
 was not very scrupulous as to consistency, and who felt 
 no special shame at contradicting himself." It may be 
 added that he was known also as Giraldus the Savage 
 (Sylvester). 
 
 But there was one point, at any rate, on which Giraldus 
 was consistent throughout his life, and that is, his belief 
 in Papal Supremacy. 
 
 Here is his own confession of faith, made a few years 
 after the time when Bishop Creighton thinks he wavered 
 as to his belief in that doctrine : 1 "The Pope is spoken 
 of as the Father of fathers, or the guardian of the fathers. 
 He is also called universal, because he presides over the 
 universal Church. He is also called Apostolicus (the 
 Apostolic), because he acts in place of the Prince of 
 
 1 This statement of Papal Supremacy is adopted byGiraldus 
 from Hugo deS. Victor, and should have been printed in the 
 Rolls Series edition, within inverted commas. 
 
AN ARCHDEACON AND A PROFESSOR 77 
 
 Apostles. He is also called the supreme Pontiff, because 
 he is seen to be the head of all bishops. His name is 
 changed at his ordination [to the See of Rome], because 
 the name of Peter was changed by Christ when he was set 
 over the Church. To him also the keys are delivered, 
 because the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven were 
 given to Peter by the Lord, that he might know himself 
 to be the doorkeeper of Heaven, whereinto he was to 
 introduce the Church." He then describes the Papal 
 office : " It is the office of the Pope to order masses and 
 offices, to change canons for the time for the utility of 
 the Church, to consecrate the emperor, to give the 
 pallium to archbishops, privileges to bishops or other 
 religious persons ; to govern, as Christ, the whole Church. 
 Therefore the Pope governs the Church as the Vicar of 
 Christ, [whilst] bishops preside over it in the place of 
 the Apostles." 1 And at the very time when Giraldus is 
 supposed by the Bishop of Peterborough to have been 
 "mocking at Papal pretensions," he was spending all 
 his energies on the endeavour to induce the Pope to 
 remove the See of St. David's from its dependence on 
 Canterbury, and make it (like Scotland, whose case he 
 quoted) immediately dependent on the Holy See. 
 With Giraldus, then, whilst certain accidents of Papal 
 Supremacy, such as composing the differences of king- 
 doms, might be (though I do not say they were) the 
 subject of sarcasm, the dependence of all sees in 
 Christendom on the See of Peter, i.e. Papal Supremacy 
 itself, was not a matter to be determined by practical 
 utility, but was established by Christ's own ordinance ; 
 in a word, it was with him, from end to end of his 
 strange life, a matter of faith. This he considered to 
 be the doctrine of the Church of England. And how- 
 
 1 De Priticipis lnstmctionc, Dist. i. cap. xix. 
 
78 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 ever unscrupulous he could be when writing of his 
 enemies, those who are well acquainted with his writings 
 will agree with Professor Freeman, that he was, never- 
 theless, " one of the most learned men of a learned age." 
 His teaching may be summed up in the following words 
 which occur in his Speculum Ecclesicz (Dist. iv. cap. xiii.), 
 written some years after the quotation given by the 
 Bishop of Peterborough : " As the whole world was 
 subject to the temporal empire of Rome whilst its 
 monarchy stood firm, so also all Churches throughout 
 the world are bound to supply what is necessary to the 
 spiritual Roman Empire, that is, to the principal Church, 
 that of Peter, which, being under Christ's government, 
 can never suffer shipwreck, and [they are bound] to 
 minister to her in all things as to their head." 
 
 It would be difficult to select an author less suited 
 to the Bishop's argument than Giraldus ; for if any one 
 article of his faith conies out more clearly than another 
 in the whole course of his life, it is that of Papal 
 Supremacy, or the divinely instituted headship of the 
 Church of Rome over all the Churches in the world. 
 
 What, then, of these words of Giraldus, quoted by Bishop 
 Creighton, as showing that he differed from Adam Marsh? 
 
 As a matter of fact, Giraldus does not use a crucial 
 word in Dr. Creighton's quotation. He does not say 
 that the Pope is " assuming" to dictate to kingdoms. 
 He says that the Pope is "endeavouring to bend king- 
 doms to his will" ("Nititur ad nutum flectere regna 
 suum"). The words were probably written, not when 
 Bishop Creighton supposes, i.e. " late in the twelfth 
 century," but, as Wharton, in his Anglia Sacra, sup- 
 poses, in 1203. 1 Innocent was then endeavouring to 
 1 Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. p. 434. The lines are : — 
 " Cui male sublatus Romas non cederet hortus, 
 Nititur ad nutum flectere regna suum." 
 
AN ARCHDEACON AND A PROFESSOR 79 
 
 induce Philip of France to bow to his decision, King 
 John having just appealed to His Holiness. He had 
 just published his famous decretal about the duty in- 
 cumbent on kings, whenever one side in a quarrel 
 appealed to the Apostolic See, to bow to its decision. 
 The Pope had, as we know, his difficulties as to property 
 in the city of Rome at the same time. Hence Giraldus' 
 remark. It was not a new situation ; and this is important 
 in weighing the meaning of Giraldus' remark. Giraldus 
 knew well that history was repeating itself ; and as the 
 history of the Papacy had not hindered him from 
 believing in its divine appointment up to this time, 
 so neither need we, nor indeed can we, suppose that 
 the strange spectacle which he describes in the verses 
 alluded to by Bishop Creighton, was to be understood to 
 have led to a change in his faith at this time. Some years 
 earlier, in October 1080, the King of Germany (Henry 
 IV.) was actually installing an antipope in the city of 
 Rome. Gregory, in all appearance, was weaker than 
 ever Innocent III. was in that city. But, as Hefele 
 remarks, " truly astonishing is the courage with which 
 Gregory, whilst engaged in a struggle for his own exist- 
 ence, keeps his attention upon the needs of the Church 
 in all parts of the world. . . . His own dire need never 
 prevented him for an instant from entering into every- 
 thing with Apostolic dignity and power, encountering 
 even the great and mighty ones of the earth with ad- 
 monitions and chastisements, when sacred things or the 
 duty attaching to his office appeared to require it." Had 
 Bishop Hefele desired to put these remarks into verse, 
 he might have done it in the terms used by Giraldus to 
 which the Bishop of Peterborough refers, viz., " Nititur 
 ad nutum flectere regna suum " ; yet Bishop Hefele 
 could not be convicted thereby of disbelieving in Papal 
 Supremacy. 
 
So 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 At the same time, I should be quite willing to concede 
 that there may be some sarcasm in the words, especially 
 if they were written at the date (wrongly, as I have said, 
 but confidently) assigned to them by Bishop Creighton. 
 For just then Giraldus had lost his case at Rome ; and 
 looking to his character of savagery, and unscrupulous 
 remarks against any enemy, he may have indulged in 
 some sarcasm at the Pope's expense. But what he 
 could not have meant was to mock at Papal pretensions 
 in the sense of disbelieving in the spiritual supremacy of 
 the Pope over the Church in England. For if Bishop 
 Creighton's date be correct, Giraldus was just then press- 
 ing on the Pope that he should place the See of St. 
 David, where he was himself Archdeacon, under the 
 immediate jurisdiction of the Holy See, withdrawing it 
 from any relation of subordination to Canterbury. The 
 Pope referred the matter by his Apostolical authority to 
 the Province of Canterbury, and with this Giraldus was 
 mightily displeased. It is therefore clear that if we 
 were to concede to Bishop Creighton the correctness of 
 the date assigned by him to Giraldus' utterances, it 
 would be out of the question, for it would argue an 
 entire oblivion of the situation, to suppose that Giraldus 
 was so much as hinting at any weakness in the claim of 
 the See of Peter to jurisdiction here in England. In 
 point of fact, later on Giraldus went to Rome for all 
 sorts of Indulgences, having resigned his preferment in 
 order to receive it back straight from the See of Peter. 1 
 
 I repeat, then, that it would be difficult for Bishop 
 Creighton to have selected a witness more completely 
 against his theory than this very learned, eccentric, and 
 savage Archdeacon, Giraldus Cambrensis. In one thing 
 
 1 This was in 1207. He also speaks of Innocent III. 
 as "qui tunc praefuit egregie constitutus" {cf. Invcctionum, 
 Lib. v. cap. xiii. and xx.). 
 
AN ARCHDEACON AND A PROFESSOR 8 1 
 
 he was consistent from end to end of his life, and that 
 was his belief in Papal Supremacy. 
 
 It is clear, then, that, so far as words go, Giraldus did 
 not differ from Adam Marsh by a hair's-breadth in his 
 teaching as to the legitimate and essential relation of 
 the Holy See to all other Churches. 
 
 § 3. Adam Marsh. 
 
 But was Adam Marsh's teaching as to the supremacy 
 of Rome over the Churches derived (as Bishop Creighton 
 asserts) from a sense of the practical advantages of that 
 supremacy? or was it, in his own belief, based on the 
 teaching of Holy Scripture itself? I will not, in justice 
 to Bishop Creighton, suppose that he professes to go 
 behind Adam Marsh's expression of belief and assert 
 that he saw this truth in Scripture because he appre- 
 hended the practical utility of submission to the Holy 
 See. That would be on a par with asserting that the 
 Bishop of Peterborough himself fails to see in Holy Scrip- 
 ture and the tradition of the Church what Adam Marsh 
 saw there, because he (the Iiishop) thinks he sees the 
 advantage and utility of being free from the Supremacy 
 of Rome. It is enough to know that Adam Marsh does 
 assert that Papal Supremacy is to be found in Holy 
 Scripture ; and that he regards it as flowing, according to 
 the tradition of the Church, from the words of our Lord 
 to St. Peter. To prove this we need not go beyond the 
 very letter from which Bishop Creighton quotes. In 
 that very letter Adam Marsh traces Papal Supremacy to 
 our Lord's words to St. Peter by the Sea of Galilee, 
 "Feed My sheep," 1 and also says that "the one and 
 
 1 Cf. Monumenta Franciscana (Rolls Series), Adam Marsh, 
 p. 419- 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 supreme Pontiff presides over all the nations of the 
 world by Divine institution." 1 Clearly, therefore, it was 
 with him not a matter merely of practical advantage, but 
 a part of the Christian faith. And Adam Marsh was, in 
 the language of the day, the " illustrious doctor " (doctor 
 illustris). He entered the Franciscan order some years 
 before, and as a Franciscan, in the first fervour of that 
 wonderful order, he necessarily held the doctrine of 
 Papal Supremacy as a part of the faith ; he held it all 
 along his religious life, as we have seen he certainly did 
 when he wrote the letter from which the Bishop quotes. 
 And Adam Marsh enjoyed a high reputation both for 
 learning and piety ; he was, according to Roger Bacon 
 (the best of witnesses) "perfect in all wisdom, Divine 
 and human " (cf. Bacon's Opus Tert., chap. xxii. and xxiii., 
 quoted by Professor Brewer in his Preface, page c, to the 
 Monumcnta Franciscana). 
 
 Such was the man whom Bishop Creighton opposes to 
 Giraldus, and whose belief he traces to a sense of the 
 practical utility of Papal Supremacy. He taught, as we 
 have seen, its Divine institution in the very letter from 
 which Dr. Creighton quotes. 
 
 It might be sufficient to stop here. But, as Bishop 
 Creighton occupies a considerable position amongst 
 English historians, I shall examine further into the ac- 
 curacy of his statement from another point of view. 
 His lordship maintains that the "difference" between 
 the "views" of Giraldus and Adam Marsh as to the 
 Papal Supremacy (a difference which we have seen does 
 not exist) " is to be found in the fact that the Papacy 
 had rendered great service to England in the troubled 
 times of King John, and had helped to restore order 
 during the minority of Henry III." Adam Marsh, he 
 
 1 Monumenta Franciscana (Rolls Series), Adam Marsh, 
 p. 415- 
 
AN ARCHDEACON AND A PROFESSOR 83 
 
 says, wrote the letter from which he quotes "early in 
 the thirteenth century." Naturally, therefore, so the 
 Bishop's argument runs, he spoke of Papal Supremacy 
 in the way he did, because "the theory of a far-off suze- 
 rain had been put into practice, and had been found 
 advantageous" (p. 5). His lordship adds that " if the 
 beginning of the reign of Henry III. saw the Papal 
 power both useful and popular in England, the middle 
 of the reign saw it harmful and detested " (p. 6). But 
 Adam wrote "early in the thirteenth century." It will 
 be seen that this date — viz., " early in the thirteenth 
 century " — is necessary to his lordship's thesis. 
 
 But, unfortunately for the Bishop's argument, Adam 
 Marsh wrote his letter not " early in the thirteenth 
 century," but in the very middle of that century, and 
 beyond "the middle of the reign" which "saw it [the 
 Papal power] harmful and detested." Professor Brewer, 
 in his edition of the Monumenta Fra?iciscana, in the 
 Rolls Series, assigns as the date of this letter the year 
 1250. On what grounds he fixes on this date he does 
 not say ; but he is clearly correct in so doing, for the 
 internal evidence in its favour is quite conclusive. Before 
 having seen Professor Brewer's conclusion as to the date, 
 I had fixed upon that same year myself, on the ground 
 that the letter speaks of the Pope (Innocent IV.) having 
 already presided at a general council, which could only 
 be Pope Innocent IV. at the Council of Lyons in 1245. 
 Moreover, it is said also to have been written on the 
 occasion of Henry's proposing to take the Cross, 
 which, since it must be after 1245, could only be in 
 1250. 1 Thus Adam Marsh actually wrote six years after 
 the middle of Henry's reign — that is to say, six years after 
 
 1 The same date is assigned to this letter in the volume of 
 the Oxford Historical Society on " The Greyfriars in Oxford" 
 (vol. xx. 1891, p. 136 ; ed. A. G. Little). 
 
8 4 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 the Papal power had, according to Bishop Creighton, 
 become "harmful and detested." Yet he spoke of Papal 
 Supremacy as having been not only prefigured in the 
 inspired account of our Lord's risen life, but as having 
 been instituted by our Lord Himself in His words to St. 
 Peter in St. John xxi. 17. He had seen the events of 
 1229; he knew of the rage, rising to white heat, against 
 Papal pecuniary exactions in 1231, so graphically de- 
 scribed by Mr. Green in his "History of the English 
 People" (i. 268, set/.) as having spread over the whole 
 kingdom ; he was the sworn friend of Grosseteste ; he 
 had been with him to the Council of Lyons, when the 
 English people laid their case of distress before the 
 Pope; he knew of the "complaint of the Archbishops 
 and Bishops of the Province of Canterbury about Papal 
 oppressions" (VVilkins' Concilia, i. 694; Matt. Paris, s.a. 
 1246) in the following year, and of a similar document 
 from the clergy, a third from the barons, and a fourth, all 
 but simultaneously, from the King — all this, and much 
 more, he knew, and yet, in spite of all, he speaks 
 of Papal Supremacy over all the Churches in the world 
 as derived from the words of our Lord Himself. The 
 middle of the long reign of Henry III. had passed, 
 and, if Bishop Creighton's account be true, the dis- 
 advantages, the harm, of the Papal power had been 
 manifest to such an extent as to make it "detested," 
 and yet Adam Marsh speaks of Papal Supremacy as of 
 Divine institution. What is this but saying that his 
 belief in it did not depend on its practical advantages, 
 but that, in spite of all appearance to the contrary, in 
 spite of manifest disadvantages in the shape of exactions 
 and oppressions, the faith of a Catholic Christian for- 
 bade him to rebel against it, though it did not prevent 
 his protesting against its exercise in certain directions 
 and under certain circumstances? He agreed with 
 
AN ARCHDEACON AND A PROFESSOR 85 
 
 Giraldus in holding (to use some further expressions of 
 the latter) that "the Holy Roman Church is the head 
 and summit, the fountain and source (fames), the mother 
 and womb and nurse of every order and of the whole 
 orthodox religion" (Spec. Ecd. Proem. IV 1 '"- Dist'"' s ). 
 
 One further question may be asked in reference to 
 this argument of Bishop Creighton's — and it will be 
 enough to ask it. How could the transactions between 
 Rome and England, during the twenty-seven or thirty 
 years which elapsed between the date assigned to 
 Giraldus' supposed mocking against Papal pretensions 
 and Adam Marsh's sense of the practical utility of the 
 Papacy, have awakened in the English people so deep 
 a consciousness of that practical utility as that their 
 belief in it could embrace the proposition that "the 
 successors of Peter had the government, not only of 
 one ship, but of the whole ocean " ? For this is Bishop 
 Creighton's position. 
 
 It is, indeed, a gain to hear Bishop Creighton speak of 
 the "great service" rendered to England by the Papacy 
 " in the troubled times of King John," and to hear 
 him admit that the Papacy "had helped to restore order 
 during the minority of Henry III." He is here following 
 in the steps of Mr. Green's last and best book, "The 
 History of the English People " ; and he is repudiating 
 Bishop Stubbs, who considers the action of the Papacy 
 in King John's reign a pure calamity." 1 But in spite 
 of the truth contained in Bishop Creighton's repudia- 
 tion of most previous Anglican historians on the reign 
 of King John, it is surely a great deal to say that the 
 
 1 The Bishop here also contradicts his brother, the Bishop 
 of Stepney, who, with scant regard for history, says, " The 
 action of one successor of Gregory and Vitalian after another 
 has been merely mischievous to the Church of England and 
 to the nation too" (" Ch. Hist. Soc. Lect," p. 89). 
 
86 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 restoration of order during the minority of Henry III., 
 which lasted only eleven years, could have undone the 
 supposed laxity of belief in Papal Supremacy indicated 
 (as the Bishop thinks) by Giraldus' mocking at it. And 
 the Bishop's further explanation is still more mysterious, 
 for he continues, "The theory of a far-off suzerain had 
 been put into practice, and had been found advanta- 
 geous." One would have supposed that the residence of 
 the Papal legate in England was not exactly a specimen 
 of the " far-offness " of the suzerain. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY IN THE REIGN OF 
 HENRY III. (1216-1272) 
 
 § i. The Question. 
 
 It has been the fashion of late to find in the reign of 
 Henry III. the germ of the ecclesiastical revolution 
 which took place in the reign of Henry VIII. Mr. 
 Green, in his " History of the English People," sees in 
 some incidents of that reign the little rift that widened 
 into a gulf, and parted England from Rome in the 
 sixteenth century. 1 Mr. Lane heads his chapter which 
 deals with Henry III., "The Reaction against Roman 
 Supremacy." 2 Canon Perry, in his "English Church 
 History," with more caution, heads the chapter contain- 
 ing his account of the same reign with the words "The 
 Reaction against Rome " ; but throughout he includes 
 Papal Supremacy as the object of attack. 3 And Bishop 
 Creighton says, "The reign of Henry III. was the 
 period in which, largely owing to resentment at Papal 
 interference, the cry was raised, ' England for the Eng- 
 lish ' " — a cry which his lordship proceeds to put on a line 
 with the repudiation of Papal Supremacy by Henry VIII. 
 in the preamble of the Act forbidding appeals to Rome. 4 
 National independence of Rome would thus have a very 
 
 1 i. 268. 2 " Illust. Notes," chap. xiv. 
 
 3 "Student's English Church History," First Period. 
 
 4 "The National Church," &c, p. 8. 
 
 87 
 
88 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 respectable antiquity. The cry began in the reign of 
 Henry III. in the thirteenth century, and " found its 
 final expression," according to Bishop Creighton, in the 
 reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 It is my purpose to show that the attitude of Eng- 
 land towards the Holy See all through the reign of 
 Henry III. was such that the Act of Henry VIII. for- 
 bidding appeals to Rome on any matter "whatsoever — that 
 is to say, in regard to matters of faith and ecclesiastical 
 discipline of all kinds — constitutes a vital difference be- 
 tween the religion of the two periods. Continuity with 
 the Church of England in the thirteenth century can, it 
 will be seen, be preserved only by a religious body which 
 holds that the Apostolic government of the Church in- 
 cludes its government by the Apostolic See. 
 
 Professor Collins protests (" Ch. Hist. Soc. Lect.," pp. 
 50, 51) against the reign of Henry III. being selected as 
 a witness to Papal claims on the ground that King and 
 clergy united in "encouraging the fullest intercourse 
 with the Papacy." But this is one point of my argu- 
 ment. It is an admission of the fact on which it rests. 
 Only the chief point of the argument is concerned with 
 the fact that they encouraged intercourse with the 
 Papacy on the ground of doctrine, not merely on the 
 ground of utility. Professor Collins also derives an argu- 
 ment against the Papacy from the fact that the acme of 
 its power coincided with a period of unusual " weakness, 
 violence, and oppression." But would he not resent the 
 application of this argument to the sixteenth century? 
 And is it not quite clear that the violence and oppres- 
 sion was concerned with the civil order, and in no way 
 sprung from the Papacy ? Grosseteste, to whom he 
 alludes, most distinctly shows that the greatest of all 
 dangers lay in the absence of that ecclesiastical liberty 
 which was safeguarded, as he taught, by Papal Supre- 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 
 
 89 
 
 macy ; and Professor Collins admits that at that time 
 " there were bishops of the highest character and ability " 
 
 (p. sO- 
 
 There is one difficulty in dealing with the reign of 
 Henry III., which must be at once recognised. It lies 
 in the fact that the Pope stood towards the realm of 
 England in a twofold relation. He was, to some extent, 
 its temporal overlord as well as its spiritual father. If 
 any value is to be attached to a man's word, England 
 was bound to recognise this. Henry II. had distinctly 
 avowed the relationship of vassalage, when, after the 
 murder of Thomas a Becket, he wrote to Rome in refer- 
 ence to his son's rebellion, saying, "The kingdom of 
 England belongs to your jurisdiction, and, so far as re- 
 lates to the obligation of feudatory right, I am subject 
 (pbnoxius) and bound to you only." 1 This was in 1173, 
 after the withdrawal of the constitutions of Clarendon. 
 And Henry III. took the oath of homage to the Papal 
 legate Gualo. 
 
 This first relationship was indeed indefinite, and 
 a matter always open to dispute ; it was destined 
 eventually to pass into desuetude; it belonged to the 
 accidents, and not even to the inseparable accidents, 
 of the Pope's spiritual supremacy ; but it has to be 
 taken into account. The second relationship, that of 
 spiritual father, had as yet never been disputed by the 
 Church of England. But as the attitude of the subject 
 in the temporal order towards his suzerain might enter 
 upon the region of sin, the spiritual supremacy would 
 necessarily mingle at times with the exercise of the rights 
 of overlordship, and hence the difficulty in some cases 
 of disentangling the exact title upon which obedience 
 was claimed or refused. Consequently, it has been the 
 
 Rymer, i. 35. 
 
9 o 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 misfortune of this controversy that Anglican writers have 
 been tempted to accumulate cases of resistance to the 
 Pope in one relationship and transfer them to resistance 
 in the other. They have constantly argued from expres- 
 sions of irritation, or instances of opposition raised against 
 the temporal accidents of that supremacy, to a denial of 
 the doctrine on which its essential features rest. If any 
 one complained of a tax, he is credited with denying in 
 principle the supremacy of the Apostolic See; and if 
 any particular exercise of that supremacy was objected 
 to, it is argued that the principle of supremacy itself was 
 repudiated. But to proceed. 
 
 § 2. Freedom according to Modern Anglican Writers. 
 
 Few words have been more often repeated in this 
 "continuity" controversy, and, I must add, more often 
 misinterpreted, than those with which the Magna Charta 
 opens, "Let the Church of England be free." These 
 words are constantly supposed to proclaim the deter- 
 mination of the English people to be free from Papal 
 interference. The late Lord Selborne, 1 whom Mr. Nye 
 and others follow, 2 says, "It was the Church, not of 
 Rome, but ' of England ' (Eccksia Anglicana), of which 
 the ' rights and liberties ' were declared to be inviolable 
 by King John's great charter, confirmed by Henry III." 
 These writers seem to imagine that the use of the ex- 
 pression " Church of England " somehow suggests that it 
 was not dependent on Rome ; whereas the real question 
 is, whether this "Church of England" as she called her- 
 self and as Rome herself called her, held the Church of 
 
 1 "A Defence of the Church of England," 4th ed., 1S8S, p. 9. 
 
 2 " The Church and her Story," p. 74. There is no date 
 to this "new and revised edition." 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 91 
 
 Rome to be the mother and mistress of all Churches, 
 herself included. In this case, as has been already 
 stated, the expression proves nothing. Similarly, Bishop 
 Creighton quotes the same words with this significant 
 comment," When the framers of the Great Charter enacted 
 1 Libera sit Ecclesia Anglicana,' they had a notion that 
 their own ecclesiastical institutions were the object of 
 their special care," &C 1 The Bishop introduces these 
 words into a paragraph which deals with what he con- 
 siders the gradual formation of a national Church in 
 England, independent of Papal Supremacy, free, that is, 
 of Rome. It is clear, therefore, what this writer under- 
 stands by ecclesiastical freedom. 
 
 But what did the Church of England in the reign of 
 Henry III. (1216-1272) understand by the term "free- 
 dom" as applied to herself? In order to answer this 
 question it will be necessary to describe briefly what 
 actually took place in connection with this subject in the 
 earlier part of that thirteenth century. 
 
 § 3. Ecclesiastical Freedom as secured by 
 Magna Charta. 
 
 Amongst other tyrannical proceedings, King John had 
 personally interfered with the election of bishops and 
 abbots. It was part of the struggle between the eccle- 
 siastical and civil powers which had been going on 
 throughout Europe, and in which Rome had been 
 throughout the consistent champion of the freedom of 
 such elections. So much was this the case, that " Roman 
 liberty " had become a technical term in reference to 
 monastic institutions. It meant in particular that free- 
 
 1 " National Church," p. 9. 
 
92 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 dom which dependence on Rome secured in the choice 
 of abbot or prior, with which lay patrons and bishops 
 were specially tempted to interfere. It meant freedom 
 from taxes arbitrarily imposed by baron or bishop. It 
 meant also freedom from other modes of episcopal inter- 
 ference with the temporalities of a monastery, as, for 
 instance, from any right of lodging in it which a bishop 
 might otherwise claim to the serious financial embarrass- 
 ment of the institution. It did not, however, mean in 
 those early times freedom from all episcopal jurisdic- 
 tion. 1 And as the election of the abbot was the prin- 
 cipal point in the freedom of a monastery, and was 
 secured to it very frequently by its being under the 
 " protection " of the Holy See, so with the Episcopate 
 itself. Wherever the civil power sought to make good 
 its tyranny over the Church, it aimed at drawing the 
 elections of bishops into its unrestricted dominion. But 
 the Holy See was in those times the barrier. The Epis- 
 copate without the Holy See has never yet for any length 
 of time resisted the invasions of royal supremacy. It 
 has needed the "strengthening" of St. Peter's See. 2 
 
 Thus " Roman liberty " had long been acknowledged 
 as synonymous with freedom from tyranny secured by 
 the protection of St. Peter. The Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury in ri74, in a struggle for what he considered his 
 
 1 Gregory VII. ordained that when the bishop was simo- 
 niacal, or out of communion with the Apostolic See, episcopal 
 functions should be supplied by a neighbouring bishop, or 
 straight from the Holy See ; but otherwise any privileges 
 accorded to a monastery were said to be " saving the re- 
 verence and justice due to the bishop of the diocese." Si 
 gratis ac sine praviiaie, are his words as regards the bishop's 
 tenure of his see. 
 
 8 The twenty-fifth canon of the third Lateran Council 
 (A.D. 12 i 5) condemned all who should " consent to an election 
 as to themselves made by the abuse of the secular power 
 against canonical liberty." 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 93 
 
 rights over the monastery of Malmesbuty, says: "We 
 know indeed that the Roman Pontiffs have often accorded 
 these exemptions for the quiet of the monasteries, and 
 because of the tyranny of bishops ;" and centuries before, 
 Bede had spoken of the Pontifical bulls issued on the 
 request of founders of monasteries, as being " for the 
 protection of their freedom, to render them safe and free 
 from all external invasion." 1 
 
 King John, then, had interfered in England with the 
 elections of bishops and abbots, and in this, beyond 
 everything, lay the freedom of the Church. The cry, 
 therefore, went up, not of "England for the English," but 
 of " freedom for the Church." Already the Holy See had 
 intervened to secure this freedom from royal tyranny, 
 and not altogether without success ; and the opening 
 words of Magna Charta signalised no new departure, but 
 were intended to bind the King to his promise already 
 made, to allow the chapters perfect freedom from the 
 detrimental action of Royal supremacy in the election of 
 bishops and abbots. 
 
 Why, then, it may be asked, did the Pope temporarily 
 annul the Charter, if the freedom which it was meant to 
 secure was not freedom from Papal Supremacy ? 
 
 The answer is plain. It was not the Charter to which 
 the Pope objected, but the way in which it was passed, 
 and the principle which the mode of procedure adopted 
 by the Archbishop and barons appeared to sanction. 
 The situation was as follows : — 
 
 In that year King John had brought England into 
 such a critical condition that she was in danger of 
 
 1 In munimentum libcrtatis (" Hist." iv. 18). St. Bernard 
 draws a distinction between monasteries whose founders 
 procured for them certain exemptions, and those which, after 
 having been founded, procured them for themselves — to the 
 depreciation of the latter. 
 
94 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 invasion. She had already lost Normandy ; she might 
 now have to submit to a new conquest from the Conti- 
 nent. At this juncture John decided to ward off the 
 imminent danger by doing what for various reasons 
 other states had done, viz. seek the " protection " of 
 the Holy See by making it the overlord of the kingdom 
 of England. An overlord, as we have already seen (p. 
 41), would not be entitled to the usufruct of the king- 
 dom — he would be simply its " advocate," or "patron," 
 although he would acquire some rights. Already a 
 special relationship had been admitted by the payment 
 of Peter-pence ; but not the overlordship which required 
 homage, and rendered a man, or city, or kingdom, a 
 " vassal." King John decided to do homage and acquire 
 the full rights of protection. He was not alone in his 
 decision. He did it with the consent of the barons and 
 the bishops. They and the Archbishop and representative 
 bishops signed the deed of resignation as witnesses. It 
 was done (as the words run) by their "common advice." 1 
 And the terms in which the overlordship of the Holy 
 See was asked and agreed to were those of the most 
 solemn promise a man could make. 
 
 Protestant writers have often dwelt on the thrill of 
 horror which ran through the land at this deed of shame. 
 But this is pure fiction. England did not shudder, but 
 lather approved. There was no disgrace in what John 
 had done, according to the sentiments of the age. This, 
 as Mr. Green, in his " History of the English People," 
 has pointed out, is an idea read into the history from 
 the sentiment of a later period. Those who do not 
 believe in the Apostolic See necessarily consider the act 
 of King John a disgraceful measure. But at that time 
 people did believe in the Apostolic See ; and they did 
 
 1 Rymer's Fccdera (ed. 1737), i. 57. 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 
 
 9 5 
 
 not recoil from the notion of a kingdom being placed 
 under the special protection of the Apostle Peter as its 
 overlord. As I have said, it was done by the "common 
 counsel " of the barons, as is expressly stated in the deed 
 of resignation. And as Mr. Green observes (" History 
 of the English People," vol. i. p. 230), "as a political 
 measure its success was immediate and complete." The 
 French King was checkmated. 1 
 
 But when, after this, the Archbishop and barons 
 forced the King to sign the Magna Charta in 12 13, in 
 which the person and the property of the subject were 
 protected from royal injustice — for this was the real 
 point of that Charter — they placed themselves, at least 
 technically, in the wrong. They could not fairly act 
 thus without consultation with their overlord. Innocent 
 III., as Mr. Green says again, " was indignant" (and, we 
 may add, justly indignant) " that a matter which might 
 have been brought before his court of appeal as over- 
 lord, should have been dealt with by armed revolt " 
 (" History of the English People," p. 248). There was 
 also an obnoxious clause in this Charter. Mr. Pearson, 
 in his " History of England," observes (vol. ii. p. 93, 
 1867) of the Charter: "Its gravest, perhaps its only 
 real defect, was the provision which allowed a council 
 of barons to wage war upon the crown." The Pope 
 doubtless objected to this ; but most of all he repro- 
 bated the way in which the Charter was introduced, 2 
 and accordingly annulled it, and excommunicated the 
 barons. His action had nothing to do with the clause 
 about the freedom of the Church ; for, in arguing with 
 
 1 The Bishop of Stepney quite misrepresents the whole 
 matter in his lecture in the Church Historical Society's 
 Series (S.P.C.K., 1896), p. 89. 
 
 2 He says the barons made themselves judges in their 
 own case (Rymer, 9 Kal. Sept. 12 15). 
 
96 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 the barons two years later, he pleaded this very freedom 
 as having been previously promised by the King, and as 
 being a satisfactory measure. 1 Neither was any objec- 
 tion raised by the Pope against the other clauses con- 
 cerning taxation and personal liberty, for, as Mr. Green 
 has said, " its [i.e. the Papacy's] after-action shows that 
 Innocent was moved by no hostility to English freedom." 
 As soon as John died, his son Henry being only nine 
 years old, " the position of Gualo as representative of the 
 Papal overlord of the realm was" (to quote Mr. Green 
 once more) " of the highest importance, and his action 
 showed the real attitude of Rome towards English free- 
 dom. The boy-king was hardly crowned at Gloucester, 
 when legate and earl issued in his name the very 
 Charter against which his father had died fighting" 
 (" History of the English People," p. 250).' 2 And the 
 legate took the initiative in proposing its issue. Now 
 as no one supposes that the Pope would command 
 England to cut herself off from Rome, we can be sure 
 that Pope Honorius, at any rate, did not see any re- 
 pudiation of Papal Supremacy in the words, "Let the 
 Church of England be free " ; and, indeed, Innocent III. 
 had, as we have seen, already (in 12 15) pointed to 
 this very clause as leaving the barons and bishops 
 with less excuse for continuing their animosity against 
 the King. 
 
 1 Cf. Rymer, a.d. 121 5, 3 KaL April, and 9 KaL Sept. 
 
 2 The Bishop of Stepney, in defiance of this fact, says, 
 " The Popes, as we have seen, freely used their authority 
 to curse our great charter of freedom" (" Ch. Hist. Soc. 
 Lect.," 1896, p. 91). 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 
 
 9 7 
 
 § 4. Ecclesiastical Freedom as understood by the 
 Episcopate. 
 
 Now this interpretation of the term freedom, as 
 meaning, not a cry of England for the English (which 
 is Bishop Creighton's interpretation), nor the assertion 
 of independence of Rome, as the late Lord Selborne 
 strangely imagined, and as Bishop Creighton also as- 
 sumes it to mean, but freedom from royal interference 
 in the elections of bishops and abbots — was universally 
 maintained later on in the reign of Henry III. For in 
 1252 the Church of England passed formal sentence of 
 excommunication against all "violators of ecclesiastical 
 freedom." The sentence begins thus : " By the autho- 
 rity of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of 
 the glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of the Blessed 
 Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all the Apostles, of 
 blessed Thomas, archbishop and martyr, and of all the 
 holy martyrs, of blessed Edward, King of England, and 
 of all the holy confessors, and of all the saints of God, 
 we" — and here follow the names of the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, of the Bishops of London, Ely, Lincoln, 
 Worcester, Norwich, Hereford, Sarum, Dublin, Exeter, 
 Carlisle, Bath, Rochester, St. David's, and an assertion 
 of the consent of the Archbishop of York — "anathematise 
 all who do violate the ecclesiastical liberties " — which 
 they then describe. They had already sent their list 
 of "freedoms" to Rome, and received for them Papal 
 confirmation. They accordingly quote as their authority 
 the Papal bull confirming their decision as to their 
 ecclesiastical liberties. What could be done more to 
 show that they had no thought, in all their complaints, 
 of resisting the supremacy of the See of Peter in its 
 
 G 
 
9 8 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 proper sphere of power, but that, however they might 
 complain of Papal exactions, they would set it down 
 as schism to issue an excommunication in regard to 
 ecclesiastical freedom without first securing Papal con- 
 firmation of their proceeding ? The idea of a national 
 Church independent of the See of Peter had not only 
 not entered into their minds, but was thus censured by 
 anticipation. This sentence of excommunication, with its 
 promulgation of the Papal bull confirming it, occurred 
 in 1252 — that is to say, some years after the middle 
 of the reign of Henry III., the date assigned by Bishop 
 Creighton, in which "the cry was raised of 'England 
 for the English "' ; a cry which, he says, " found its final 
 expression in the preamble of the Act forbidding appeals 
 to Rome" in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 All this is completely negatived by such an act as I have 
 just quoted, in which the Province of Canterbury placed 
 its freedom under the shelter of Papal authority — show- 
 ing that whatever ecclesiastical freedom meant, it did 
 not mean, in the mind of the English Episcopate, inde- 
 pendence of Rome. 1 
 
 § 5. The Barons of England on Papal Supremacy. 
 
 Six years after this emphatic declaration, on the part 
 of the ecclesiastical authorities in England, of belief in 
 Papal Supremacy as of Divine institution, we have the 
 clearest evidence as to the belief which reigned in the 
 mind of the baronage. They could be rebellious against 
 their own belief on occasion, but their belief is clear, as 
 the following facts will show. 
 
 1 Instances of this might be multiplied ; e.g. in the Lam- 
 beth Council of 1261 the "liberty of the Church" was used 
 all through for freedom from royal and other lay interfer- 
 ence (Wilkins, i. 746-753). 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 99 
 
 In 1258 those English barons who acted under Simon 
 de Montfort against the King had drawn up a scheme 
 for the government of the kingdom, including a council 
 to advise his Majesty. The first proviso was that the 
 foreigners in possession of royal castles should vacate 
 them. So far it was a cry of England for the English. 
 Simon de Montfort himself, as Hubert de Burgh before 
 him, gave up Odiham and Kenilworth ; but the proviso 
 was resisted by the aliens. They took refuge in the 
 Bishop's castle at Winchester. Now, this Bishop was 
 considered by Simon and his allies to be their greatest 
 foe ; it was he, they said, who had advised the King to 
 adopt his faithless and unconstitutional action. He was 
 at present only Bishop-elect. Simon de Montfort and 
 the barons accordingly communicated with the Pope. 1 
 They entreated him, out of his love for the kingdom of 
 England, " which has always been, and is, devoted to 
 you," "to remove the Bishop from the administration of 
 the church of Winchester, which was granted to him by 
 the munificence of the Apostolic See." In a second 
 letter they address the Pope as " Head of the Church 
 and Shepherd of the sheep of the Lord's flock, to whom, 
 in the Blessed Peter, it has been said, 'Feed My sheep.'" 
 And they devoutly ask "his Paternity" as suppliants, 
 "out of the care of the Apostolic See to provide accord- 
 ing to promise for the peace of ourselves and the king- 
 dom of England." 2 
 
 Now here is distinct doctrine. It is the same teach- 
 ing as that of St. Anselm, and indeed, as we have seen, 
 of all the divines of the Church of England up to this 
 date. The See of Rome, they say, derives her power 
 
 1 Their letters are to be found in the Addiiamenta to 
 Matthew Paris' Works, vol. vi., in the Rolls Series, ed. 
 Luard, 1882, p. 408 et sea. 
 
 2 Matthew Paris, vol. vi. p. 408. 
 
I oo 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 and authority from our Lord's words to Peter, "Feed 
 My sheep." 
 
 But they write a third time and say, "As it behoves 
 a thirsty man to have recourse to the living fountain 
 when the rivulets are dried up through the heat, so the 
 oppressed fly to the clemency of your See when justice 
 is overborne by might." So far we might suppose that 
 it was only on the ground of past experience of Rome's 
 justice that they thus speak. This would be remarkable 
 enough in 1258, the time when, if we are to believe 
 Bishop Creighton, the cry of "England for the English" 
 had gone up, with the meaning of desiring national in- 
 dependence of Rome as a Church. But this is not all, 
 for they go on to emphasise their belief that they are 
 having recourse to a Divine institution. " For therefore 
 has God set your Blessedness over the world in His own 
 place." Here again is definite doctrine of the same kind. 
 They then ask the Holy Father to intervene in regard to 
 the diocese of Winchester, " so that he [the Bishop-elect] 
 who respects no one, being punished, may learn that he 
 is subject to the Apostolic See, to whose special injury 
 he has done these things." 
 
 I know not how one is to produce proof of anything, 
 if this is not deemed sufficient proof of a doctrine under- 
 lying the recourse had to Rome, to the effect that the 
 Apostolic See was divinely instituted for the government 
 of the Church in such ecclesiastical matters as did not 
 belong simply to the civil order, in this case the deposi- 
 tion of a bishop-elect. The utility, therefore, was the 
 practical advantage to be derived from appealing to a 
 court which, in certain matters, all Christian men, accord- 
 ing to the teaching of the Church of England, acknow- 
 ledged as set over the Church by Almighty God Himself. 
 
 But there is something more. The Bishop of Peter- 
 borough, speaking of the times previous to Henry III., 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 101 
 
 says that "exception was taken to the presence of legates ; 
 and it was agreed that the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 should be regarded as the ordinary legate through whom 
 Papal communications were to pass." As a matter of 
 fact, owing to the irritation caused by the presence 
 of too many foreigners, Archbishop Langton, anxious 
 to keep people quiet and devoted to their mother, the 
 Church of Rome, had asked the Pope that there might be 
 no resident legate, a latere, during his own lifetime. But 
 belief in Papal Supremacy does not necessarily involve 
 the wish for legates a latere under all circumstances, 
 even in these days. But here, in the latter part of the 
 reign of Henry III., these barons actually asked the 
 Pope to send a legate, and moreover a cardinal. Pope 
 Alexander IV., who had succeeded Innocent IV. four 
 years before this, replied that the cardinals were then 
 few in number, and before sending a legate he should 
 prefer to be more fully instructed as to the state of 
 things in England. 1 But six years afterwards, Simon 
 refused to allow a certain legate to land, because he 
 came with authority to excommunicate him. These two 
 instances supply us with a rule on which these matters 
 proceeded. When it was a matter of removing a trouble- 
 some bishop-elect from the administration of a diocese, 
 Simon endeavoured to bring in the action of the Holy 
 See ; when it was a matter of interfering in his quarrel 
 with the King directly, he resisted the exercise of its 
 authority. It is not to be supposed that Simon de 
 Montfort stopped to argue the matter out on canonical 
 principles, but we can easily discern a principle at work. 
 Every one was glad to have the Holy See on their side 
 when in difficulty ; but the recourse had to its authority 
 on either side of a quarrel was due to the universal con- 
 
 1 Matthew Paris, vi. 414. 
 
102 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 viction that in some matters it was the divinely instituted 
 centre of rule. This Simon had stated totidem verbis. 
 
 After the battle of Evesham, in which Simon was slain, 
 Cardinal Othobon was sent as legate, and at the Legatine 
 Council of Northampton he excommunicated three or 
 four bishops who had sided with the unhappy Earl. 1 
 Rome had written to say that, before condemning 
 the Bishop of Winchester, some one must be heard on 
 his side, and had entreated Simon and his associates to 
 preserve their fealty to their royal master. "Techni- 
 cally," says Bishop Stubbs, " the fault must lie with 
 Simon" — which is the same as saying that Rome was 
 technically right in her decision. But the point to be 
 noticed is that each side deferred to the Holy See. The 
 one asked for a legate to be sent, the other received 
 him when he came — though both were prepared to act 
 against authority if it suited their purpose. But acting 
 against authority is not disowning the legitimacy of the 
 authority in itself. 
 
 What, then, must be our conclusion? Any theory, 
 to account for all the facts so far, must admit occasional 
 irritation, vehement opposition, and strong expressions 
 on the part of England towards Rome. But was this 
 the beginning of a discovery that " Papal jurisdiction 8 
 was "dangerous to Church and nation alike," as Bishop 
 Creighton puts the matter? This would be to ignore 
 another set of facts, a mass of evidence, which goes to 
 show that it was the settled belief of England that the 
 See of Rome was the See of Peter, and, as such, divinely 
 appointed to rule the Church. The truth, therefore, 
 appears to be this. Men often acted on their belief 
 through a sense of its practical advantages; but the 
 
 1 According to Bishop Stubbs, York, Durham, and Carlisle. 
 Wilkins gives a different list (i. 762). But the former is pro- 
 bably right, as Wilkins' is an impossible one. 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 103 
 
 belief was always there, and any denial of it would have 
 been deemed heresy, any departure from its essential 
 requirements, the sin of schism. 
 
 What the Rectors of the churches in Berkshire said 
 in 1240 exactly expresses the truth as held by the 
 Church of England in the reign of Henry III., and the 
 extent to which, and to which alone, a Catholic could 
 carry his irritation. They said, " When the truth says, 
 ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My 
 Church,' He reserved to Himself the ownership in 
 handing over the care [of the Church], as is evident from 
 the following words of the Gospel, 'Whatsoever thou 
 shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven ' ; not, 
 Whatsoever thou shalt exact on earth, shall be exacted 
 in Heaven." 1 That is to say, they could protest against 
 certain pecuniary exactions ; but they could not deny the 
 spiritual supremacy to be of Divine institution. Or, as 
 Edward III. afterwards put it more bluntly, "The Pope 
 was set to feed, not to shear the sheep." Two things — 
 (1) he was set to feed — set by Almighty God; it was 
 a Divine institution ; (2) the shearing was no part of 
 the Divine commission. To protest against the latter 
 was within their competency ; the former was fixed by 
 the ordinance of God, and could not be denied by 
 Christian men. Such, right or wrong, was the actual 
 teaching of the Church of England. 
 
 § 6. The Protest of the Church of England against 
 Spiritual Independence of Rome. 
 
 That this was the position maintained by the Church 
 of England at that time is placed beyond question by 
 the following episode in her history : — 
 
 1 Wilkins' Concilia, i. 680. 
 
104 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 1. When the Archbishops and Bishops of the Province 
 of Canterbury complained in 1246 of the Pope's oppres- 
 sive exactions, as they considered them, they speak of 
 the known "benignity," and recognised "sublimity" of 
 the ''■Apostolic See." They call that See their "own 
 holy mother," and speak of themselves as its "spiritual 
 children," "as we who are disposed with glad mind to 
 labour for her and for her dignities, and to be zealous 
 according to our power for her tranquillity, as we are. in 
 duty bound." They speak of " desiring to be found 
 fervent in devotion" to her; as being bound "to keep 
 our people in the unity of the Church, our mother." 
 They speak of themselves as "prostrate at the feet of 
 your Holiness in prayers with tears"; and they ask his 
 Holiness to remember "the fervour of Anglican faith, 
 and that the same kingdom has been specially devoted to 
 the Roman Church." 1 
 
 2. The abbots and priors write speaking of "the 
 Anglican Church " as " the city of God, of whom 
 glorious things are spoken, even to the latest times," 
 and as being "a special member of the Holy Roman 
 Church." 2 
 
 3. The counts, barons, and magnates, and the whole 
 of England, in the following year, address themselves to 
 what they call "the Apostolic See," calling on her as 
 their mother to cherish her own children, and saying 
 that they have "recourse with confidence to the asylum 
 of your pious affection." 3 
 
 4. And the King, at the same time, writes to the 
 cardinals speaking of his love for the Roman Church, and 
 his desire for its advantage and honour ; whilst to the 
 Pope he writes, "He who knows all, knows that we 
 
 1 Wilkins, i. 694. 
 
 2 Matt. Paris, s.a. 1264, vol. iv. p. 531 (Rolls Series). 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 533- 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 105 
 
 always have our mother, the Roman Church, in the 
 bowels of sincere affection," and says that he has re- 
 course to her "as a son to his mother." 1 
 
 Thus the whole of England, in its agony at being 
 pressed to contribute unduly towards the needs of its 
 mother, engaged as she was in wresting the Holy 
 Sepulchre from the grasp of the infidel, and in a struggle 
 with the anti-religious efforts of the Emperor Frederic, 
 protested ; but its protest differed toto ccelo from the 
 protest which became part of the religion of England in 
 the sixteenth century. Here, in the thirteenth century, 
 King, archbishops, bishops, and nobility go out of their 
 way to emphasise the fact that, whilst they considered 
 they had a right to protest against a particular exercise 
 of Papal authority in the temporal order, resistance to 
 the supremacy of Rome in the spiritual order would 
 have been, in their eyes, filial disobedience, and a viola- 
 tion of that form of unity and Apostolic rule which Christ 
 Himself had instituted for His Church. And the con- 
 clusion for the time being was that, having heard from 
 the Pope, the King could announce to his subjects that 
 "the storm has lulled." 
 
 How, then, can the Church of England be said to 
 have adopted a relationship of submission to the Apos- 
 tolic See as a matter of utility only, and not also of 
 faith, in that thirteenth century? That Church was her 
 mother; she had but a year before said so in public 
 before the whole Church. In the very act of making 
 her solemn complaint about oppression and taxation, at 
 the General Council of Lyons, she opened with these 
 words : " Our mother, the Roman Church, we cherish 
 and love with all our hearts, as we ought ; and we aim 
 at the increase of her honour with all possible affection. 
 
 Matt. Paris, s.a. 1264, vol. iv. p. 533 (Rolls Series). 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 To her we are morally bound (oportef) to have recourse 
 at seasonable times, that the filial grief which weighs 
 upon us may be relieved by a mother's care." They 
 then call to mind the close ties that had ever existed 
 between Rome and themselves. They plead the fact of 
 their continual payment of Peter's pence. This was in 
 I245- 1 
 
 § 7. The " Far-off Suzerain." 
 
 Bishop Creighton traces the "attraction of Papal 
 Supremacy as a theory " to that of a " far-off suzerain " 
 — "a remote suzerain with indefinite claims and little 
 power of enforcing them," as affording "an escape from 
 local authority." 2 
 
 We have already seen that the English Church was 
 penetrated with a profound conviction of the Divine 
 institution of the Papacy. Whether its suzerainty was 
 far-off or not would not have affected that conviction, 
 except as a subsidiary advantage or drawback; but it 
 is at any rate certain, from what has gone before, that 
 owing to the faith of England the power of enforcing its 
 claims possessed by the Papacy was such that the whole 
 machinery of the kingdom could be disarranged by an 
 "interdict." It is, however, worth while asking whether 
 the Pope can be called a "far-off suzerain" in regard to 
 the daily life of ecclesiastical England. We will endeavour 
 to see to what extent she leant on the Papacy for authori- 
 tative guidance and rule at the time when, according to 
 Bishop Creighton, she had begun to "prescribe limits to 
 Papal activity." 3 
 
 We have the power of doing this, owing to the recently 
 
 1 Mansi, xxiii. 639. 
 
 2 "The National Church in the Middle Ages," p. 9. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 10. 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 
 
 107 
 
 published " Calendar of Papal Registers " relating to 
 England, published in the great Rolls Series by Mr. W. 
 H. Bliss. I shall therefore select the year 1226, a date 
 which ought to be favourable to Bishop Creighton, being 
 that which his Lordship selects as the time when "the 
 theory of a far-off suzerain had been put into practice " 
 for some time (i.e. during the minority of Henry III., 
 when, mirabile dictu, a legate resided in England and 
 conducted many of the affairs of State as well as Church), 
 and when the limits to Papal activity had begun to be 
 prescribed. We will see what kind of matters, according 
 to English ideas, came under the jurisdiction of the Pope. 
 And we must remember that we have to do with no new 
 regime and no exceptional circumstances. The applica- 
 tions made to Rome are made as a matter of course, and 
 are a witness to what had been going on at the time 
 when the "far-offness " of the suzerainty had been, ac- 
 cording to Bishop Creighton, an irresistible attraction to 
 the English mind. We will take, especially, six months 
 from the reign of the very Pope selected by Bishop 
 Creighton, when England is supposed to have been on 
 the road to its present attitude towards Rome, and from 
 that middle portion of Henry's reign in which, according 
 to the same writer, " the cry was raised of ' England for 
 the English,' " as a prelude to the attitude of Henry VIII. 
 towards the Papacy. The instances given are from the 
 Regesta of Pope Honorius III. (Calendar, vol. i.). 
 
 In the second half of 1225 the Pope had sent a mandate 
 to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Papal Sub- 
 deacon, &c, on the petition of the Abbot and Convent 
 of Dorchester, for the removal of the body of St. Birinus 
 to a more fitting place in the Church. We have here 
 (1) the Pope regarded by the English Church as the 
 guardian of the bodies of the saints ; (2) the Pope acting 
 through the provincial authority, the Archbishop; and 
 
TOS 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 (3) all this at request from England herself. Then 
 came the canonisation of a saint named Lawrence, the 
 Archbishop having made satisfactory investigation as to 
 the occurrence of miracles, through the Bishop of Derry. 
 Presently a Papal mandate authorised four bishops to 
 receive evidence for and against the Bishop of Durham 
 concerning the alienation of some ecclesiastical property, 
 and another settled that the excommunication should be 
 relaxed. These are but selections from the latter part of 
 the year 1225 ; yet how much these few instances reveal 
 of the intricate relations of subordination and authority 
 between England and Rome ! 
 
 The year 1226 opens with a Papal injunction and 
 mandate to a count, sent on the complaint of the King of 
 England against him. The mandate orders him to return 
 to his fealty, notwithstanding any oath he may have taken 
 to the contrary. Again, at the request of the King, the 
 Pope sends an indult permitting the King's clerk, named 
 Stephen, to hold an additional benefice with cure of souls, 
 and then another exactly similar concerning a second clerk. 
 This is followed by a mandate to the Dean and primarius 
 of York to investigate the case of one wishing to be pro- 
 moted to holy orders in spite of certain impediments, and 
 to act according to their investigation. Soon afterwards 
 there is a permission to the Bishop of Salisbury, in answer 
 to his request, to take proceedings against pluralists and 
 other offenders, such as vicars who receive stipends with- 
 out providing for their cures. Then a licence to the 
 Archbishop of York to summon to his assistance four 
 principal persons when there is need of advice in the 
 affairs of his province for a particular purpose. Then 
 follow various mandates to priors and convents, to the 
 Bishop, Archdeacon, and Canon of St. Andrews ; and 
 presently a mandate to the Chancellor, Precentor, and 
 Subdeacon of Lincoln, to compel a prior and convent 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 109 
 
 in the Diocese of York to restore some land and money 
 simoniacally obtained. All these, be it remembered, 
 were cases that had been laid before the Holy See. 
 Soon there is an indult to the Archbishop of York to 
 grant dispensations to four of his clerks to hold one 
 benefice apiece, owing to the need of grave and literate 
 persons to assist him in his labours, and to the need of 
 support for them. Then comes a faculty to the Arch- 
 bishop of York, on his own petition, to revoke certain 
 alienations of goods belonging to the See, made in his 
 predecessor's time ; a mandate to the same about his 
 visitation of the Monastery of St. Mary and his lodging 
 therein ; a dispensation to the Chancellor of York to 
 hold a Church, confirming the act of the Archbishop, 
 Dean, and Chapter, in uniting a benefice with the Chan- 
 cellorship ; and, after other letters and indults on similar 
 subjects, we have a monition and mandate to the arch- 
 bishops, bishops, and other prelates, to the clerks and 
 the lay people in England, concerning the canonisation 
 of St. William of York, at the instance of the Archbishop, 
 Dean, and Chapter, with a remission of forty days' penance 
 to those who visit the Church of York on his feast. 
 
 Five years later we have an instance of what often 
 occurred in the management of an archdiocese. In 
 April 1 231, Pope Gregory IX. sent a mandate to the 
 Archbishop of York, at his request and that of the Bishop 
 of Chichester, to dispense Oddo, his clerk, who had been 
 previously dispensed by Pope Honorius, so that he could 
 hold one additional benefice. 1 It may be said how very 
 unnecessary such arrangements of the details of diocesan 
 work were. But that is exactly where the Church of 
 England differed from our Anglican friends now. She 
 believed in the Apostolic, not simply the Episcopal, 
 government of the Church, and the government of the 
 
 1 Regesta Honorii, s.a. 1 23 1. 
 
I 1 o 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 Apostolic See was an ever-present reality. For the in- 
 stances given are but samples of the way in which Rome 
 and England were knit together. I have taken only those 
 (and not all of those) that occur in the register of a few 
 months at the very time when the English bishops are 
 supposed by Bishop Creighton to have been treating 
 Papal jurisdiction with ridicule. 
 
 It is, indeed, difficult to understand what the Bishop 
 of Southwell and others can mean by saying that England 
 never was dependent on Rome, or how Bishop Creighton 
 can consider that the relation between England and 
 Rome can be accounted for by the natural attraction for 
 a "far-off suzerain," "a remote suzerain with indefinite 
 claims and little power of enforcing them." 1 The inter- 
 vention of the Holy See in the affairs of England was 
 more decided, and came quicker on to the scene, than 
 that of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the present day 
 reaches one of his suffragans. It took much longer to 
 bring the present Bishop of Lincoln to trial, and to settle 
 the matter of how the service of the Sacrament ought to 
 be conducted in a most important point, than it did to 
 bring Papal action into exercise at the time when Bishop 
 Creighton calls the Pope a " far-off suzerain." And the 
 acts of the Pope were seldom proprio motu : they were 
 called for by the King, archbishops, bishops, abbots, and 
 clerks having recourse to what they called " the Apos- 
 tolic See." It has been well said of the Papal action in 
 the thirteenth century that " the mandates are answers 
 to appeals, and the indults and faculties are answers to 
 petitions, in which the English bishops, abbots, and 
 chapters themselves took the initiative. They are in 
 nearly every case the first to invoke the exercise of the 
 Pope's authority ; and it is childish to suppose that they 
 would have invoked and obeyed an authority in which 
 1 " The National Church in the Middle Ages," p. 4.' 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY ill 
 
 they did not believe, and which they did not conscien- 
 tiously recognise. We might well apply to the mediaeval 
 English Church the unanswerable remark of the Pro- 
 testant writer Kemble, when speaking of Papal jurisdic- 
 tion as shown by the gift and acceptance of the pallium 
 in the Anglo-Saxon Church. He says : ' The question 
 is not whether the Roman See had the right to make the 
 demand, but whether — usurpation or not — it was ac- 
 quiesced in and admitted by the Anglo-Saxon Church, 
 and on that point there can be no dispute.' " 1 
 
 Now, this recourse to Rome could not have been sud- 
 denly arrested without some trace of such a stoppage 
 being left on the history of the period. But there is no 
 such trace. During the struggle between the King and 
 the barons, English people were too much occupied to 
 be perpetually recurring to Rome ; but we have seen 
 that, nevertheless, the same principle, the same doctrine, 
 as to the supremacy of the Holy See pervaded English 
 life. 
 
 § 8. Bishop Grosseteste's Letter. 
 
 The ecclesiastical situation cannot be better summa- 
 rised than by pointing to Bishop Grosseteste's attitude 
 towards the Holy See. We have in his conduct an accen- 
 tuated instance of the distinction between a repudiation 
 of Papal Supremacy and resistance to some form of its 
 exercise. And a summary of his doctrine is to be found 
 in his famous letter to the Papal Notary, Innocent, and 
 to the Archdeacon of Canterbury. 2 If ever there was a 
 prelate who had the courage of his convictions, it was this 
 
 1 Cf. Dublin Review, October 1894, Art. x. ; and Kemble's 
 " Saxons,'' ii. p. 371 note. 
 
 2 Cf. Burton's Annals, p. 311 (Rolls Series). See Robert 
 Grosseteste, by Mgr. W. Croke Robinson. 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 sturdy Bishop of Lincoln; and if ever there was a letter 
 which breathed strong conviction in every line, it was that 
 which he wrote to that Pope concerning the proposal to 
 give a certain benefice in his diocese to a minor. Canon 
 Perry ("Student's English Church History," Period L, p. 
 346) calls it "a letter which must be ever memorable in 
 English Church history, and which laid the foundation for 
 the bold protests of Wycliffe, and for the national recoil 
 from Rome of the sixteenth century." 
 
 Now, in this letter, vehement as it is against the 
 actual working of Papal provisions, the Bishop appeals 
 to Innocent's knowledge of himself as an obedient sub- 
 ject of the Apostolic See — "I obey as a son, with all 
 devotion and reverence, Apostolic mandates ; " and he 
 s'ays that "Apostolic mandates are not and cannot be 
 other than consonant and in conformity with the teach- 
 ing of the Apostles and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, 
 whose typus and person the Lord Pope especially bears 
 in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. For our Lord Jesus 
 Christ Himself says, ' He that is not with Me is against 
 Me ' ; but the most divine sanctity of the Apostolic See is 
 not and cannot be against Him." The Bishop calls the 
 power of the Pope " the greater and more divine power, 
 divinely committed to him for edification." Here is 
 clear doctrine, which severs the teaching of Grosseteste 
 by an impassable chasm from that of the Church of 
 England since the days of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. 
 Canon Perry recognises this in one part of his criticism 
 on Grosseteste's letter ; for he says, " No recoil is here 
 made from the Pope's mandate upon Church principles 
 [i.e. those Church principles which Canon Perry and 
 Anglicans generally hold], and the plenary authority of 
 the Apostolic See is fully recognised." In fact, the 
 Bishop says, "The most holy Apostolic See, to -which 
 every kind of power has been delivered by the Holy of 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 113 
 
 Holies, the Lord Jesus Christ, for edification, as the 
 Apostle witnesses, and not for destruction, cannot com- 
 mand or teach anything verging on such sin," i.e. as 
 killing souls through misuse of the pastoral office ; 
 " neither could he who is subject and faithful to the 
 same See with spotless and sincere obedience, and is 
 not cut off by schism from the same See, obey such 
 commands." Certainly the Bishop's idea of schism and 
 obedience is not based on " Church principles " as under- 
 stood by the present Church of England : it is the exact 
 contradictory; for according to those principles the 
 Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of 
 England (Art. 37), whereas, according to Bishop Grosse- 
 teste, that jurisdiction is of Divine origin and appoint- 
 ment. The reason he gives, by way of reiteration, for 
 resisting the particular appointments proposed, is " the 
 duty of obedience and fealty to the most holy Apostolic 
 See, by which I am bound, and my love of union with 
 her in the body of Christ ; ... all my action and 
 speech in this matter is neither contradiction nor rebel- 
 lion, but the filial honour due by Divine command to 
 father and mother." The supreme Pontiff was his 
 spiritual father, the Church of Rome his spiritual 
 mother. And so he says that, "briefly summing up, 
 I say that the sanctity of the Apostolic See cannot 
 decree anything except what is for edification, and not 
 to destruction ; for this is the fulness of power, to be 
 able to do all things for edification." So that he con- 
 cludes from this principle which he repeats throughout 
 his letter, that the particular kind of provision of which 
 he speaks (he is not speaking of all Papal provisions — that 
 would be a gross exaggeration, and is not contained in his 
 words — but such as this under question) could not come 
 from the Apostolic See, " for flesh and blood, which 
 will not possess the Kingdom of God, has revealed them, 
 
 H 
 
ii 4 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 and not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is 
 in Heaven." This is a dexterous application of the 
 promise to Peter, whose is the Apostolic See. 
 
 In fact, Bishop Grosseteste's language is in perfect 
 accord with the Vatican decree. According to that 
 decree, there is a region within which the Holy See 
 is secure of infallible guidance, and within which her 
 decrees are binding on every Christian man. But there 
 is a large region of action where this necessity of obedi- 
 ence under pain of sin ceases, and Grosseteste explains 
 that he is acting in such a matter, and that in the 
 subject-matter of his resistance he is dealing not with 
 the Apostolic See, qua Apostolic, but with things in which 
 the rights of conscience are supreme. Canon Perry's 
 criticism, that " by the declaration that the minister of 
 Christ might become Antichrist, and by the strong 
 condemnation of the iniquity of the act in question, 
 the Bishop takes up ground which is suggestive of, and 
 introductory to, a more complete and systematic rejec- 
 tion of Papal authority," must have been indignantly 
 repudiated by Bishop Grosseteste himself. The Bishop 
 could reply that he had expressly said that the Apostolic 
 See could not become Antichrist, and that it was on 
 this very ground that he contested the decree as not 
 that of the Apostolic See in the true sense. He could 
 have pointed to his emphatic declaration of the duty of 
 obedience in general to that See — of the power it possesses 
 by the gift of Heaven — of his definition of schism as 
 separation from the Apostolic See, and of his very earnest 
 and reiterated assertions of his filial relationship to it 
 Indeed it is difficult to imagine how Canon Perry recon- 
 ciles the idea of this letter of Grosseteste being an antici- 
 pation of the teaching of Wycliffe and the catastrophe of 
 the sixteenth century, with his own admission that " no 
 recoil is here [in this letter] made from the Pope's man- 
 
BELIEF IN PAPAL SUPREMACY 115 
 
 date on Church principles [i.e. Anglican principles], and 
 the plenary authority of the Apostolic See is fully re- 
 cognised." The difference between Grosseteste's prin- 
 ciples and the " Church " principles alluded to must be 
 considered vital, unless there is no vital difference 
 between Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism ; and 
 if there is a vital difference, the one cannot be the 
 parent of the other. It is. therefore, not historically 
 accurate to head the chapter, in which the letter from 
 Honorius III. and this letter of the Bishop of Lincoln 
 figure so largely, with the words simply, "The reaction 
 against Rome." It is only by confusing the issue that 
 this can be maintained as a proper description of the 
 events of the reign of Henry III. Opposition to Rome 
 in matters that concern her temporal overlordship, or 
 the exercise of supremacy in its accidental features, 
 and opposition to Papal Supremacy in its essence as 
 of Divine institution, are two vitally different things ; 
 and the two should not be shuffled about to do duty 
 one for the other. Canon Perry endeavours to effect a 
 climax by asserting that Bishop Grosseteste "followed up 
 this letter by one addressed to the nobles of England, 
 the citizens of London, and the commons of the whole 
 kingdom." But this latter was written a year before the 
 letter to Pope Innocent 
 
 There is, indeed, nothing in this letter that goes 
 beyond what Grosseteste said at the Oecumenical 
 Council of Lyons, where, nevertheless, he stood with 
 lighted taper in hand side by side with the Continental 
 bishops, as the tremendous Papal sentence against 
 Frederick II. of Germany was fulminated, and, in token 
 of agreement, every taper was suddenly extinguished 
 and dropped to the ground. 1 
 
 1 Mansi, xxiii. 643. 
 
Il6 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 Certainly it could be no idea of a "far-off suzerain" 
 that attracted Bishop Grosseteste. He bases his convic- 
 tion of the utility of Papal Supremacy (for, in spite of his 
 protest in this particular matter of an appointment of a 
 minor by provision, he does again and again speak of its 
 utility) on the ground of the Church's interpretation of 
 Holy Scripture — in a word, he believed it to be an institu- 
 tion due to our Lord Himself. It does seem high time 
 that this constant reference to Grosseteste as a precursor 
 of the Reformation should be given up. It was more 
 excusable when his writings were less easy of access ; 
 but now that every one can read them, it is no longer 
 common fairness to quote a passage or two, and ignore 
 the lifelong witness which the great Bishop of Lincoln 
 bore to the Divine institution of the See of Peter as the 
 source of jurisdiction to the whole Church. Bishop 
 Stubbs long ago admitted this fact in his " Constitutional 
 History," but his example has not been widely followed. 1 
 
 The sum and substance of the matter is this. It 
 would need an act of pure creation to introduce the 
 attitude of Cranmer and Elizabeth towards Rome into 
 that thirteenth century ; no amount of natural evolution 
 would transform the belief of England in the reign of 
 Henry III. into the system inaugurated by the preamble 
 of the Act of Henry VIII. (to which Bishop Creighton 
 refers), and expressed in the "Article of Religion " of the 
 Church of England, which says that "the Bishop of 
 Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England " 
 (Art. 37). 
 
 1 Bishop Grosseteste is claimed on behalf of Anglicanism 
 more than once in the recently published " Lectures of the 
 Church Historical Society," e.g. by Professor Collins, pp. 49 
 and 51. For Grosseteste's letters, see the Chronicles of 
 Great Britain (Rolls Series). 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 BISHOP CREIGHTON'S ACCUSATION AGAINST POPE 
 HONORIUS III. 
 
 § i. The Accusation stated. 
 
 But the Bishop of Peterborough, by way of establishing 
 his thesis that the Church in England "admitted the 
 Papal jurisdiction on grounds of utility, and then passed 
 through a long period in which it discovered that that 
 jurisdiction was dangerous to Church and nation alike," 
 appeals to an incident in the reign of Henry III., which, 
 he thinks, proves that a consciousness of the mischievous 
 tendencies of Papal Supremacy had already dawned 
 upon the mind of the English Church. The discovery 
 had been made, which only needed the circumstances 
 of the sixteenth century to bring it to a practical issue. 
 
 His account of the incident is as follows : " Already 
 in 1226 a nuncio had to answer complaints in Parlia- 
 ment about the corruption of the Roman Curia, and 
 the Pope confessed that much scandal and infamy was 
 deserved. But he pleaded that this came from his 
 poverty ; if he were decently rich he could afford to 
 be upright. Let me quote the letter of Pope Honorius 
 III. : ' For the entire rooting out of this scandal we 
 have provided a form, to which if you are willing to 
 consent you can free your mother from scandal, and 
 obtain justice in the Roman Court without need 
 of gifts.' The modest proposal contained in the 
 
u8 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 accompanying form was that two prebends in each 
 cathedral and conventual church should be granted to 
 the Pope. It is not surprising that, when the letter was 
 read in Parliament, ' each man made merry with his 
 neighbour over the greed of the Romans ' ; and the 
 King answered : ' This concerns the whole of Christen- 
 dom. When we, who live in the ends of the earth, see 
 how other nations behave towards such exactions, we 
 will discuss the matter.' " 1 
 
 According to this account of the matter, it would seem 
 (i) that the English took the initiative in examining 
 the Papal legate as to the corruptions of the Roman 
 Curia; and (2) that the Pope pleaded guilty to the mis- 
 carriage of justice on his part by reason of his poverty — 
 "if" (such is Bishop Creighton's explanation of the Papal 
 letter), " if he were decently rich he could afford to be 
 upright." 
 
 I hope to show that the Bishop's interpretation is 
 absolutely unfounded. 
 
 But in view of the radical and general misconceptions 
 as to the Papal claims in this matter of taxation, it will 
 be well to describe the situation first, and we shall then 
 see better what is the value of the incident described by 
 Bishop Creighton. 
 
 § 2. The General Circumstances. 
 
 The Popes of the Middle Ages had to carry on a 
 tremendous struggle for the independence of the Church, 
 not merely of the Papacy, but of the Church at large. 
 The weapon by which, of all others, they withstood em- 
 peror, duke, or count, was the power of excommunication 
 
 "The National Church in the Middle Ages,'' pp. 6, 7. 
 
BISHOP CREIGHTON'S ACCUSATION 
 
 1 1 9 
 
 which they held in their hands. Men believed in the 
 "Apostolic See"; and the Popes could rely on a suffi- 
 cient amount of the fear of God in their fellow-men, and 
 of belief in their own jurisdiction as the successors of the 
 Apostle Peter, for that weapon to be of some avail. Con- 
 sequently, at the time of which I am now speaking, the 
 thirteenth century, the Popes had become the centre, not 
 only of religious and moral effort, but of political and civil 
 order. From Rome issued all over the world streams of 
 beneficence and instruction ; the universities were closely 
 connected with the Apostolic See ; the ransom of slaves, 
 the equipment of missionaries, the struggle against the 
 Turks, the attempts to keep the Greeks within the unity 
 of the Church — of all this Rome was the centre and 
 mainspring. At this time two great religious orders were 
 carrying their missions of mercy and edification far and 
 wide, and they, too, had their close relations with Rome 
 as her obedient children, for they were the sons of St. 
 Dominic and St. Francis. 
 
 In the preceding period "the Papacy," says a Pro- 
 testant historian, " had united in one common bond the 
 different European nations, furthered their mutual inter- 
 course, and become a channel for the communication of 
 the sciences and arts ; and without it the fine arts, doubt- 
 less, would not have attained to so high a degree of per- 
 fection. The Papal power restrained political despotism, 
 and warded off from the rude multitude many of the vices 
 of barbarism." And at the time of which I am speaking, 
 the Holy See was in active relations with the whole 
 civilised world, and not least with our Northern com- 
 munities. In 1 2 19 the Isle of Man asked this same 
 Pope Honorius to extend to it " that privilege and pro- 
 tection which you concede to other kings who pay the tax 
 and are vassals to the Roman Church." In the follow- 
 ing year, Honorius threatened with excommunication all 
 
1 2 0 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 who should attack Denmark, on the ground that that 
 country had placed itself under the special protection 
 of the Holy See ("ad Romanse Ecclesia? jurisdictionem 
 noscitur pertinere "). I may remark in passing that it is 
 hardly less than absurd to talk of ambition as the key to 
 all this. It has been well said that the sovereign power 
 wielded by Rome at this period was due to her position, 
 not to her will (Michaud). 
 
 Now all this religious and political activity neces- 
 sitated a vast administrative mechanism — indeed, a 
 perfect network of offices and departments. In other 
 words, the enormous work thrust upon the Papacy by 
 a Christendom which never ceased to call it "the 
 Apostolic See," involved a Curia, with all the expenses 
 that belonged to a court. And not only the expenses ; 
 for since the Curia has to consist of men, and the 
 various departments of the administration have to be 
 filled with gradations of office, and, moreover, gradations 
 of pay, the consequences are obvious. Neither the sub- 
 ordinates nor the heads of departments, though they 
 be concerned in a saintly work, are necessarily saints. 
 Neither can the work of the Church be allowed to stand 
 still for the want of saints to work its administrative 
 machinery. What we might expect, therefore, would 
 be corruption, ever and anon, finding its way into this 
 centre of religious and political activity, and reflecting 
 amongst its officials the vices of the day. But at the 
 same time one would expect to find, ever and anon, 
 serious, and indeed to some extent successful, efforts 
 to stay the corrupt influences always at work. And the 
 true reformer would be intent not on altering the struc- 
 ture of the Church, but on recalling those who had to 
 do with its activities to greater purity of life. This was 
 the method of a Grosseteste of Lincoln. He could 
 declaim against and oppose the selection of an unfit 
 
BISHOP CREIGHTON'S ACCUSATION 
 
 I 2 I 
 
 candidate for an office in his diocese, even when it 
 came from a Pope j but he was careful to emphasise 
 the fact that the See of Peter had been divinely com- 
 missioned to govern the Universal Church. 
 
 § 3. The Particular Circumstances. 
 
 Such was the general feature of the times. But the 
 particular circumstances under which Honorius made 
 the proposal to which Bishop Creighton refers, were 
 these. After heroic endeavours to unite Christendom in 
 the work of ransoming the sepulchre of our Lord, and 
 of rescuing the eastern Christians from the terrors of 
 the advancing infidel, he had induced Frederic II. of 
 Germany, the most powerful potentate in Christendom, 
 to take the cross, and to vow that he would reckon him- 
 self justly excommunicated if he did not lead his forces 
 against the infidel within two years. This was in 1225. 
 
 It was in the breathing - time thus afforded that 
 Honorius sent a general demand for the consideration 
 of the various states, as to a way of stopping certain 
 scandals in the Roman Curia. Honorius had occupied 
 an important office in that Curia under his predecessor, 
 Innocent III., and had filled it by universal acknow- 
 ledgment with ability and integrity. He had been what 
 we should now call Chancellor of the Exchequer; and 
 it is to him that we owe a revised edition of the Liber 
 Censuum, the great register containing the dues of the 
 Holy See throughout the world. He had been in this 
 high position when the last General Council met, the 
 third Lateran ; and at the end of that Council the 
 question had been raised as to the advisability of im- 
 posing a tax on the various provinces of the Church for 
 the support of their universal Mother. A large number 
 
I 22 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 of prelates of the highest character had proposed that 
 the various Christian states should co-operate in provid- 
 ing the Holy See with a settled income for the immense 
 body of officials, whose maintenance was necessary for 
 her work. But the Pope (Innocent III.) had himself 
 decided that the matter should be deferred, lest it should 
 seem as if the Council had been convoked for that 
 purpose. Honorius, however, considered that the time 
 had come for reverting to the question of thus support- 
 ing the Holy See, in accordance with the weighty opinions 
 given on the subject in the Council of 12 15. 
 
 Now, whilst there were good general reasons, as 
 Giraldus pointed out, why the children should support 
 their mother, 1 there were also special reasons why 
 England should be foremost in this matter. 
 
 In a very remarkable history of English law before the 
 time of Edward I., recently published by Sir Frederick 
 Pollock, Professor of Jurisprudence in the University 
 of Oxford, and Dr. Maitland, Professor of the Laws of 
 England in the University of Cambridge, the learned 
 authors remark (p. 93), that in the Middle Ages "the 
 whole of Western Europe was subject to the jurisdiction 
 of one tribunal of last resort, the Roman Curia. . . . 
 The Pope was far more than the president of a court of 
 appeal. Very frequently the courts Christian which did 
 justice in England, were courts which were acting under 
 his supervision and carrying out written instructions. . . . 
 Each separate Church might have its customs, but there 
 was a jus commune, a common law of the Universal 
 Church. In the view of the canonists, any special 
 rules of the Church of England have hardly a wider 
 
 1 Giraldus suggested the very plan proposed by Honorius. 
 He insists strongly on the duty of daughters to support their 
 mother — i.e. the daughter-churches to support the mother of 
 all, viz., Rome {cf. Speculum Ecclesice, Dist. iv. cap. xix.). 
 
BISHOP CREIGHTON'S ACCUSATION 123 
 
 scope, hardly a less dependent place, than have the 
 customs of Kent or the bye-laws of London in the eyes 
 of the English lawyer. During the time with which we 
 are now dealing, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, no 
 English canonist attempts to write down the law of the 
 English Church, for the English Church has very little 
 law save the law of the Church Catholic and Roman. 
 When in the next century John de Athona wrote a 
 commentary on the constitutions made by certain Papal 
 legates in England — those which Cardinal Otho de- 
 creed in 1237, those which Cardinal Ottobon decreed 
 in 1268 — he treated them as part and parcel of a system 
 which was only English because it was universal, and 
 brought to bear upon them the expositions of the great 
 foreign doctors. ... On the other hand, a large portion 
 of this universal system was in one sense specifically 
 English. England seems to have supplied the Roman 
 Curia with an amount of litigation far larger than that 
 which the mere size or wealth of the country would have 
 led us to expect. Open the Gregorian collection where 
 we will, we see the Pope declaring law for English cases " 
 (p. 95). " From the middle of the thirteenth century on- 
 wards a mass of litigation, of litigation, too, which in no 
 sense can be called ecclesiastical, was handed over to 
 tribunals which were often constituted by Papal rescript, 
 and from which there lay an appeal to the Roman Curia " 
 (p. in). 
 
 § 4. ffonorius' Letter. 
 
 Such was the position of things when Honorius as- 
 cended the Apostolic throne. There was a special 
 reason why he, in particular, should attempt a reform. 
 In the high financial office which he held for some 
 twenty years under his predecessor, he had reason to 
 
"4 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 be specially cognisant of any evil reports concerning the 
 expenses connected with the administration of justice in 
 the Curia. Accordingly, in his letter from which Bishop 
 Creighton professes to quote, he speaks of these evil 
 reports. He says that they had their origin in the evil 
 tongues of people who came to Rome and spent on their 
 pleasures what had been assigned to them for the neces- 
 sary expenses of their work as proctors from the various 
 provinces. He accordingly sent his legates to the various 
 countries to urge them to agree to a certain proposal, 
 which I shall show was not what Bishop Creighton states 
 it to have been, and which involved no "greed" what- 
 ever, and certainly no admission of miscarriage of justice. 
 He speaks of these officials as followers of Gehazi. Now, 
 Gehazi induced Naaman to give him a gratuity contrary 
 to the wish of the prophet Eliseus, and his act by no 
 means involved the prophet in a miscarriage of justice ; 
 neither did it involve the consequence that the office 
 of the prophet should be done away with. 
 
 Bishop Creighton, however, gives us as historical fact 
 an account in which all turns on the "greed of the 
 Romans," amongst whom Honorius himself is included. 1 
 But where did the Bishop find this account ? It is to be 
 seen in Matthew Paris, the chronicler, that most untrust- 
 worthy monk of St. Albans. But Matthew Paris copied 
 it word for word from Roger de Wendover. And who 
 
 1 Even if Bishop Creighton's account were correct, " the 
 greed of the Romans" would not necessarily involve the 
 Pope. In 1262 Urban IV. wrote to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, and spoke of himself as "daily wearied with 
 the importunate clamours of creditors, and especially of the 
 Romans, to whom the Church herself is known to be in 
 debt for a very large sum " (Vatican Archives, Reg. No. 27, 
 January 23, 1262). And Honorius' immediate successor, 
 Gregory IX., had been compelled to leave the city in conse- 
 quence of the opposition of the Romans. The Bishop's 
 inference is therefore quite fallacious. 
 
BISHOP CREIGHTON'S ACCUSATION 125 
 
 was Roger de Wendover ? He was a contemporary of 
 Honorius, also a monk of St. Albans. But he was not 
 historiographer when the scene at Westminster occurred 
 which Bishop Creighton has described. He only began 
 his work in 1231. We do not know to whom we are 
 indebted for the account of the fifteen years or so before 
 that date, which includes 1226. We naturally ask, Was 
 the story of the laughter of the prelates, the record of an 
 eyewitness ? or was it gossip that reached the monastery 
 of St. Albans? Is the deposed Prior of Belvoir, our 
 friend Roger de Wendover, on his return in penance to 
 St. Albans, quite a trustworthy informant as to what 
 took place, when he was squandering the money of 
 his Order, which led first to his deposition, and then 
 to his appointment (perhaps by way of penance 1 ) as 
 historiographer in succession to the monk Walter ? 
 Surely before such great issues are decided by such 
 incidents we need to be safer as to our authorities. 2 If 
 we had only Roger de Wendover's account, which is all 
 that Bishop Creighton appears to have had, we could only 
 fairly conclude thus much : viz. — (1) that a letter came 
 from Pope Honorius, with a proposal about his having 
 the use of certain benefices ; (2) that a council met on 
 the matter at Westminster ; and (3) that it deferred any 
 conclusion for the present. This is history. But this 
 involves no such attitude towards the spiritual supremacy 
 of the Pope as could by any stretch of language be 
 called rejection in principle or germ. But even Roger 
 de Wendover is not responsible for Bishop Creighton's 
 assertion, that "a nuncio had to answer complaints in 
 
 1 So Sir Thomas D. Hardy, in his " Descriptive Cata- 
 logue," &c, vol. iii. 
 
 - Mr Green, in giving his authorities for the thirteenth 
 century, says that Roger de Wendover, " though full of 
 details, is inaccurate." 
 
126 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 Parliament about the corruption of the Roman Curia, 
 and [that] the Pope confessed that much scandal and 
 infamy was deserved." This is in direct contradiction 
 to our authorities. It was, according to Wendover and 
 Matthew Paris, the Pope who initiated the matter. 
 
 But in every other particular which the Bishop has 
 retailed, Roger de Wendover himself stands convicted 
 of complete misrepresentation. He could not have seen 
 Honorius' letter, as neither can Bishop Creighton have seen 
 it. Roger has simply given us a little ill-natured gossip 
 with the usual result, namely, false statement. Honorius 
 did not write anything like the words quoted by Bishop 
 Creighton. He did not urge the plea, that "if he were 
 decently rich, he could afford to be upright." This is 
 not in his letter. He insisted very emphatically on the 
 want of truthfulness in attributing to the Holy See what 
 was due to the ill behaviour of foreign proctors and 
 some of his officials. He called it " detraction," and 
 attributed it to " prurient ears " and " evil tongues." 1 
 Neither did he even allude to any miscarriage of justice. 
 When Bishop Creighton says, " Let me quote the letter 
 of Honorius III.," he is simply reproducing the detraction 
 of Roger de Wendover, repeated, as such a heap of ill- 
 natured fabrications were repeated, by Matthew Paris. 
 
 The letter of Pope Honorius to England is to be 
 found in the history of the Church of Salisbury in 
 Wilkins' Concilia, i. 558; in the Register of St. Osmund 
 (Rolls Series), vol. i. p. 366 ; and the corresponding 
 letter to the Bishops of Gaul, in Martene's Thesaur-ts 
 Novus Anecdotum, i. 929 (Paris, 1717). 2 The main 
 
 1 "Ad miserable mendacii subsidium recurrentes . 
 1 detractoribus ' obrepebat occasio . . . latra dolosa 
 lingua maliloqua." 
 
 2 This should be collated with the one sent to England, 
 in order to see the meaning of one or two phrases. 
 
BISHOP CREIGHTON'S ACCUSATION 
 
 127 
 
 point of the letter consists in this, viz., that proctors 
 from foreign countries, such as England, used to come 
 to Rome ; spend money given to them for necessary 
 expenses on their own pleasures ; tempt the officials of 
 the Curia, and then complained of their grievous charges. 
 He says he had seen this himself. 1 One can easily 
 imagine the results. In consequence, as the Pope says, 
 the matter had been mooted at the last General Council 
 (1215), and many prelates of worth 2 had proposed that 
 the various provinces of the Church should raise a 
 settled income in support of their mother, the Holy See. 
 As Honorius says, and it was the strict truth, the Holy 
 See was occupied with the " necessities of the children." 3 
 It was but fair, therefore, that the burden of this enor- 
 mous administration should be borne in part by those 
 children of the Church who caused it, and that it should 
 not depend on the gratuities of proctors, or the charges, 
 arbitrary, or even authorised, made by officials. The 
 Pope therefore, by way of giving effect to this wish of 
 the prelates, expressed in a General Council, asks for the 
 patronage or proceeds of certain benefices. Roger de 
 Wendover exaggerates the amount asked for, and Bishop 
 Creighton follows suit. 4 It is not, however, only in this 
 that the account of Roger de Wendover halts. Mansi, 
 
 1 " Multoties et audivimus et vidimus." 
 
 2 " Quamplurimos ecclesiarum praslati, magnique testi- 
 monii viri." 
 
 3 " Occupationibus multis et magnis involvitur pro 
 necessitatibus filiarum." The Pope likens some of his 
 officials to Gehazi. Would Bishop Creighton accuse the 
 prophet Eliseus of lack of integrity because he had to own 
 that his servant had asked for money from Naaman behind 
 his master's back ? 
 
 4 It was not two prebends from every cathedral church, 
 but one prebend from each, and the bishops were to give, 
 instead, "according to their means" ("secundum facultates 
 suas "). 
 
128 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 in his notes to Raynald's " Annais," shows how he, or, 
 which is the same thing, Matthew Paris, has completely 
 misrepresented the transaction of the same matter in 
 France, jumbling up dates, and adding impossibilities. 1 
 We may therefore take leave to doubt the truth of the 
 story reproduced by Bishop Creightcn about the giggling 
 prelates, since it would show a levity which certainly 
 the young King himself did not evince. 2 He quite rightly 
 guarded his own domain, and took care that no secular 
 property of his own should be devoted to the purpose of 
 the Pope's proposal. And he decided that the matter 
 was worthy of discussion. He did not say, even accord- 
 ing to Roger de Wendover, what Bishop Creighton 
 makes him say ; for his lordship's quotation substitutes 
 the words "we will discuss the matter," for a much 
 more important declaration in the original, viz., that 
 " the Lord Pope, when we shall have had the example 
 [of what to do] set by other kingdoms, will find us 
 more ready in obedience to him [in obsequiis suis] than 
 others." These words would not have sounded so well 
 in the ears of the Norwich Church Congress ; but they 
 are the words of the original, which the Bishop professes 
 to give. They are, moreover, words which take the 
 whole sting out of the incident. For the proposal of 
 the Pope could not have been treated merely as an 
 instance of the " greed of the Romans," if in England 
 
 1 Raynald, l: Annals," A.D. 1215 ; ed. Mansi, note I, p. 555. 
 
 2 Of course, one bishop may have nudged another and 
 spoken of the " greed of the Romans : ' — i.e. officials and 
 others whom the Holy See was compelled to use, and whose 
 greed in no way compromised the Holy See itself. But, 
 considering the untrustworthy character of Wendover's 
 account in other respects, we are not on historical ground 
 in the details of his report. Further, Bishop Creighton's 
 description belongs in part to what took place in France, 
 and not in England at all. He has confused the two 
 accounts. 
 
BISHOP CREIGHTON'S ACCUSATION 129 
 
 they were prepared to accept it, supposing that other 
 kingdoms did the same, and to accept it with a readier 
 obedience than others. 
 
 The letter of Honorius ends with a proposal to pre- 
 vent in the future any undue bestowal of benefices on 
 foreigners. It is a letter which exactly tallies with the 
 character always assigned to that Pope — that of mildness, 
 justice, and financial ability. 1 Certainly there is not in 
 this business between England and Rome a germ of 
 independence in regard to Papal jurisdiction, such as 
 could have produced the separation between Henry 
 VIII. and the Holy See by the growth of a thousand 
 years. 
 
 What the Church of England ended in doing in respect 
 to the request of Pope Honorius was to plead that her 
 payments, according to the terms of her settlement under 
 King John, absolved her from the necessity of further 
 aid to the Holy See, whereby (Bishop Stubbs remarks) 
 she saved her credit at the expense of her dignity. This, 
 of course, would only be the case from an Anglican point 
 of view, which was not hers. Throughout this reign, 
 whilst she did indeed protest against particular sugges- 
 tions and requirements of the Pope in financial matters 
 when the good of Christendom seemed to demand some 
 aid from the children to her mother, she nevertheless 
 disclaimed any wavering in her allegiance to the supre- 
 macy of the Apostolic See over all Churches in the 
 spiritual sphere. It is this fact which cuts up by the 
 roots the Anglican contention as to continuity ; it is in 
 ignoring this fact that Bishop Creighton has proved 
 nothing to the point between us — nothing as to the 
 continuity of the present Church of England with the 
 Church of the thirteenth century in this land. 
 
 1 The money raised for the Crusades went, not through 
 the usual channels, but straight to its destination. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 
 
 " The Church," says Bishop Creighton, "so far as it was 
 the organ of the nation, passed through the same process 
 [i.e. as that by which the nation was formed]. It was 
 part of Western Christendom, just as England was part 
 of Europe. So far as its institutions were part of a 
 universal order, they were unalterable ; so far as they 
 concerned the relations of England to foreign countries, 
 they were determined by national needs. About these 
 matters Churchmen were not allowed to have their own 
 way. The strongest instance of this is given by the 
 events of the year 1428, when Archbishop Chichele was 
 so pestered by Pope Martin V. to abolish the statutes 
 which prevented the Pope from disposing of benefices 
 in England, that he and the Archbishop of York pleaded 
 the Pope's cause before the Commons. With tears in 
 his eyes the Archbishop urged the danger of withstand- 
 ing the Pope. The Commons were not moved by his 
 pathetic eloquence. They only sent a petition to the 
 Council, representing that the Pope had acted to the 
 prejudice of the Archbishop and of our 'aller mother, 
 the Church of Canterbury.' They had their mother 
 Church at home, and not even its Archbishop should 
 induce them to diminish its independence, which was 
 likewise their own." (" National Church in the Middle 
 Ages," pp. 9, 10.) 
 
 The key to the position taken up by Bishop Creighton 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 131 
 
 in regard to Continuity seems to lie in those words : 
 "About these matters Churchmen were not allowed to 
 have their own way." " These matters " were, as the 
 Bishop has just explained, not such institutions as were 
 "part of a universal order," for these, he says, were 
 unalterable ; but they were matters which " concerned 
 the relations of England to foreign countries "—i.e. to 
 Rome. The point of his argument is that the Papal 
 Supremacy is to be numbered amongst these alterable 
 foreign relations. He is endeavouring to prove that 
 " the Church in England, while retaining its own 
 continuity in all essentials, admitted the Papal jurisdic- 
 tion on grounds of utility, and then passed through a 
 long period in which it discovered that that jurisdiction 
 was dangerous to Church and nation alike" (p. 11). 
 And as his strongest instance that in this matter of her 
 relation to Rome she proceeded upon the principle that 
 there was no question of faith involved, but only a 
 question of utility, the Bishop here adduces the quarrel 
 between Chichele and Martin V. about the Statutes of 
 Provisors and Praemunire. How far the Bishop is correct 
 in his account of this particular affair, I shall examine 
 presently; but the whole question of the meaning of 
 those statutes is so important, and, indeed, is just now 
 so much the Achilles of the Anglican argument, that 
 I shall first give a short history of them, and then 
 proceed to deal with Bishop Creighton's presentment 
 of the matter. 
 
 The first Statute of Provisors was passed in 135 r. It 
 concerned the question of patronage. It was a protest 
 against the unrestricted appointment of foreigners to 
 bishoprics and other benefices. The Pope, in present- 
 ing in advance, was said to provide them ; and when he 
 intimated his intent to provide to a benefice, it was said 
 to be reserved. The person thus provided, or appointed, 
 
132 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 was called the provisor. The ground on which the 
 statute went was the danger to the kingdom, if those 
 who, from their high position, were the natural counsel- 
 lors of the King, belonged to other countries ; and also 
 the financial difficulties involved in the withdrawal of 
 money from the realm by the foreigners whom the Pope 
 appointed, or " provided." Besides these grounds of 
 complaint, there was also the disadvantage of having 
 foreigners to minister to the people. Foreigners, said 
 the Commons in 1347, cannot help their spiritual sub- 
 jects in "preachings and confessions." 1 But there can 
 be no doubt to any one who carefully reads the Parlia- 
 mentary records of the half century, from 1307-1353, 
 that it was the money question that lay at the root of 
 the quarrel. Indeed, the note had been struck at the 
 end of Edward I.'s reign, when, as Mr. Green remarks, 
 " Need [of money] drove him on his return from Scot- 
 land in 1297 to measures of tyrannical extortion, which 
 seemed to recall the times of John." 2 
 
 And possibly, if Edward III. had not wasted such 
 a profusion of money on his foreign wars, we should 
 never have heard of the Statute of Provisors. The two 
 Statutes of Provisors and Prcemunire — the latter first 
 passed two years after the former (1353), declaring the 
 forfeiture and outlawry of those who sued in foreign 
 courts for matters cognisable in the King's courts — were 
 not, on any theory, creditable acts. For (1) they were 
 promoted by men who persistently avowed their belief in 
 Papal Supremacy, and passed in the teeth of Episcopal 
 protest. Now, although the statutes were not a denial 
 of that supremacy, they were inconsistent with that 
 perfect loyalty which becomes children towards their 
 parent, as the framers professed themselves to be. And 
 
 1 "Rot. Pari.," ii. 173. 
 
 - " Hist, of Eng. People," vol. i. bk. iii. p. 318. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 133 
 
 (2) consequently they were obeyed or disobeyed (the 
 latter most often) as circumstances seemed to demand. 
 Considering the language of the Statute of Prcemunire, 
 this must be considered a blot upon our English Statute- 
 book. 
 
 It is true, as Bishop Creighton remarks, that " the 
 royal armoury was stocked with weapons which Henry 
 VIII. used to surprising effect"; but it will be seen that 
 Henry VIII. thus linked himself on to what had been 
 condemned by the Church in England. 
 
 In considering, however, the bearing of these statutes 
 on the subject of Continuity, the important point to be 
 borne in mind is that, whatever any one else may think 
 of the attitude of their framers, they themselves did not 
 consider that they were interfering with the supreme 
 government of the Pope over the whole Church in 
 matters of faith or spiritual discipline. Pope Martin V. 
 considered that they did trench upon his prerogatives ; 
 but the English kings and Parliament persistently denied 
 the accusation. Perhaps it may be safely maintained 
 that there was something to be said for each side in this 
 quarrel as a whole. The following facts will help us to 
 form some estimate of what is to be said on either side. 
 
 It is usual to trace an anticipation of the Statute of 
 Provisors in the petition to the Pope formulated in the 
 Parliament of Carlisle in 1307. 1 In that petition our 
 ancestors speak of themselves as the "clergy and people 
 of the said kingdom, genuine professors of the Catholic 
 faith, who, as children of devotion, reverence you and 
 the Roman Church, and are full of fervent zeal for your 
 name and honour [ = office]." They complain of the 
 burden laid upon the kingdom by the residence here 
 (commorantes) of Papal nuncios and agents. They say 
 
 1 Stubbs' " Const. Hist.," iii. p. 353. 
 
'34 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 that they hold that " the Christian faith and those things 
 which have respect to the spread of the observance of 
 the faith itself and to the duty of Divine worship are 
 governed by your ministry." This is a declaration of 
 faith which must not be lost sight of in all that follows. 
 Their faith was at this time in diametrical opposition to 
 that which is now held by Anglicans : the Pope was in 
 matters of faith and worship the ruler of the Universal 
 Church. But, further, they proceed to say that " the 
 said Church [i.e. of Rome] is the mother and mistress 
 of all the faithful." Here, then, is a consideration 
 which is to condition and interpret all that they may 
 say. It is not to be supposed (so they virtually tell 
 us) that they are trenching upon the doctrine of Papal 
 Supremacy. That was no matter of mere utility, but of 
 faith. They then say that they feel sure that it is not 
 the Pope's intention that they should in any way be 
 crippled by " undue oppressions " ; but that they are 
 sure he has the will to guard them from such evils. 
 They feel that he has not taken in their condition, or 
 he would be the first to relieve them. They plead the 
 immemorial payment of Peter's pence — paid, however, 
 under a certain form, which the commissaries of the 
 Pope were then (they complain) endeavouring to exact 
 in a new way. They speak of the diversion of funds 
 meant for the Holy Land ; and, finally — a point which 
 became of supreme importance — they protest against 
 certain contracts being added by which "many causes 
 belonging purely to the King's Court are brought 
 before the said commissaries, to the prejudice of the 
 King's dignity." Again, whereas hitherto the Church 
 of Rome had one clerical agent for the despatch of its 
 business in England, now (they say) there are four. 1 
 
 1 " Rot. Pari.," i. 207, 208. The expense of Papal com- 
 missioners billeted on the people was considerable. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 135 
 
 Again, in a petition against the commissary of 
 Clement V. (William de Testa) and his commissioners, 
 they state their grievances in language which, as Bishop 
 Stubbs has said, " subsequently became classical, and 
 was adopted in the great Statute of Provisors." They 
 speak of the " Holy Church" as having been founded 
 "in all these estates of prelacy in this kingdom by the 
 King and his ancestors for them and the people " 1 — 
 words which have been often misunderstood, but which 
 simply mean that the benefices of the various ranks of the 
 hierarchy were founded for the advantage of the English, 
 and not for foreigners. As the previous quotation shows, 
 their words were in no way meant to favour the idea of 
 an independent national Church : they merely avowed 
 the principle of the nation benefiting by the endow- 
 ments of the past. 2 They again complain of cases being 
 drawn from the King's Court to that of the Papal com- 
 missary — cases, that is, which properly belonged to the 
 former — and of Peter's pence being collected according 
 to the will of the commissary, not in the form hitherto 
 usual. In all this there is not a vestige of intentional 
 rebellion against the supremacy of the Pope in matters 
 of faith or recognised ecclesiastical discipline. So far 
 it is beyond dispute that, as a Protestant writer has said, 
 "it would be a mistake to suppose that the King and 
 English people desired at this time to put a complete 
 stop to the Pope's power of appointing by provisions ; 
 . . . it was felt to be reasonable that the spiritual 
 
 1 "Rot. Pari.," i. 219. 
 
 2 Bishop Stubbs (" Const. Hist.," iii. p. 354) is not quite fair 
 in his summary of this passage : the Parliament did not 
 simply state (as he puts it) " that the Church in this realm 
 was founded by the King and his ancestors," &c; but it was 
 established in various ranks — alluding not to the orders of 
 the ministry, but the various degrees of rank which were 
 accompanied with endowments. 
 
136 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 head of the Church should share in the disposal of its 
 dignities and benefices." 1 
 
 The matter now slept until the reign of Edward III. 
 It was in the nature of things that, in carrying out his 
 grandfather's programme further and reducing customs to 
 fixed law, and in the endeavour to settle the relations of 
 the various estates of his realm, he should enter upon the 
 question of ecclesiastical patronage. His famous saying 
 to the Pope, that his Holiness was set to feed, not shear, 
 the sheep, expresses at once his belief in the Divine 
 institution of the Papacy, and the matters on which he 
 was prepared to oppose its action. In point of fact, 
 Edward III. wished to keep the shearing to himself. 
 His monstrously lavish expenditure on foreign wars 
 made him keenly alive to the withdrawal of the sinews 
 of war from the country, which certainly resulted from 
 the way in which the Papal provisions were often made. 
 The "Rome-runners" as they were called — men who 
 went off to Rome to get appointments for themselves 
 and others — increased the confusion. And it was to the 
 interest of the baronage to keep the patronage of bene- 
 fices as much as possible in their own and the King's 
 hands ; so that, whilst no one dreamt of supposing that 
 certain ecclesiastical arrangements could be effected 
 without the action or confirmation of the Pope — such 
 as the transference of a bishop to a new diocese — the 
 difficult question of how far the Pope, as spiritual head 
 of the Church, was justified in intervening in matters into 
 which endowments entered, not unnaturally occupied the 
 thoughts of King and Parliament. 
 
 The action of Edward in another matter complicated 
 the whole question. Until his reign the position of the 
 Pope as temporal overlord had been recognised by the 
 
 1 "England and Rome," by T. D. Ingram, LL.D., Bar- 
 rister-at-law, 1S92, pp. 104, 105. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 137 
 
 payment (or the theoretical acknowledgment of duty in 
 regard to the payment) of the tribute agreed upon by 
 John. But Edward abrogated, or at any rate disowned, 
 this relationship of vassalage. Henceforth the English 
 people looked upon themselves as bound to Rome only 
 in the spiritual and not in the civil order, the former tie 
 being recognised as binding through Divine institution. 
 The effect of this step naturally involved a tendency 
 to look with different eyes on the whole question of 
 patronage. 
 
 Under these circumstances an act of Clement VI., in 
 1342, was calculated to fan the flames of discontent into 
 a blaze. He conferred certain English benefices on some 
 of his cardinals. As we have already seen, strict justice 
 required, and England always recognised it as just, that 
 she should contribute something towards the maintenance 
 of those departments, over which cardinals presided, 
 which were devoted to the needs of the children through- 
 out the world. But the King refused to acknowledge 
 the power of the Pope in this particular shape. The 
 English regularly contributed Peter's pence; and this 
 was held to suffice. The Pope, however, repeated his 
 action ; but when the grantees sent their agents to Eng- 
 land they were driven from the kingdom. In the follow- 
 ing year an ordinance was drawn up in Parliament which 
 forbade the introduction, reception, and execution of 
 " letters, bulls, processes, reservations, instruments, or any 
 other things prejudicial to the King or to his people," 1 
 by which we are not to understand either letters or bulls 
 of any kind, but such only as " might turn to the pre- 
 judice of the King or his people, or to the blemish of the 
 rights of his crown." 2 This ordinance, however, was 
 
 1 "Rot. Pari.," ii. 144. 
 
 8 e.g. The bull of Pope Clement VI. to Edward III. 
 touching the peace with France was admitted as a matter 
 
1 38 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 not enrolled as a statute. 1 But in 1344 the Commons 
 prayed the King that no suits about presentation to 
 benefices should be made "in the Court of Rome or 
 other Christian Court." This was the natural sequel of 
 their previous action ; for if the grantees of a Papal 
 provision — i.e. the provisors, as the recipients of a 
 benefice were called— drew their case away from Eng- 
 land, the statute against such provisions would have 
 been rendered nugatory. 
 
 It will be evident that Edward was securing two things 
 by his action — the retention of money (his great want) in 
 the country, so that by means of taxation it might flow 
 into his exhausted coffers ; and the exclusion of French 
 influence, or, indeed, of any but English influence, from 
 the high places of his kingdom. It must be remembered 
 that the Pope was living at Avignon, and the action of 
 his Curia was often deplorable ; and, moreover, the Pope 
 was himself a Frenchman. 
 
 But, in spite of this, it is quite clear that there was no 
 idea of denying the Divine institution of the Papacy for 
 the government of the Church in matters spiritual. Nor 
 was there any avowed or admitted reflection on the Holy 
 Father himself. Three years later, the previous legisla- 
 tion having proved ineffectual to arrest the appointment 
 of foreigners, the Commons prayed the King to take 
 further steps ; and, on being asked what they recom- 
 mended to be done, they desired that a bill should 
 be introduced and executed to complain to the Holy 
 Father himself, telling him of the loss to the work of 
 the Church through the appointment of aliens, who 
 
 of course (Hemingford, ii. p. 410, Rolls Series). Also, in 
 1429, Papal bulls were delivered to the Archbishop in Con- 
 vocation, and immediately read out by him. They did not 
 touch the King's crown, but had to do with spiritual matters 
 (Wilkins, iii. p. 491). 
 
 1 Stubbs' "Const. Hist," iii. p. 355. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 139 
 
 could do nothing in the way of preaching or hearing 
 confessions ; and they asserted that these were " mis- 
 chiefs and defects " which " the Holy Father, who is 
 Sovereign Governor of Holy Church on earth, should look 
 to." So they urge the King to write to the Holy Father, 
 and inform him. 1 Throughout the controversy the Com- 
 mons assume that it is not the Pope who is to blame, but 
 his advisers and informants. They even profess to be 
 acting in his interests. The King promised to write ; but 
 we have no copy of the letter, nor definite account of the 
 result. 
 
 It is to be noticed that when they touched on the 
 subject of doctrine and the administration of Sacra- 
 ments, their expression of belief is clear and emphatic — 
 the Holy Father is "the Sovereign Governor of Holy 
 Church on earth." 
 
 At length came the actual Statute of Provisors in 
 1 35 1. England was at the lowest point of depression, 
 through the ravages of the Black Death. Never was 
 she more in need of money. The year 1349 had pro- 
 duced one uniform desolation. Amongst other laws 
 which could only be considered temporary (such as one 
 forbidding labourers to find employment outside their 
 accustomed habitat) came this Statute of Provisors. The 
 point of the grievance is described as consisting, not in 
 Papal provision simply, but in the actual provisions of 
 foreigners to posts from which the King had been wont 
 to take his counsellors for the safety of his realm ; so 
 that the appointment of foreigners to the position of 
 prelates and clergy would lead to the "subversion of 
 the State " ; whilst absentee provisors, or recipients of 
 benefices, would lead to the "annihilation of the Holy 
 Church of England " (through lack of endowments), and 
 
 1 "Rot. Pari.," ii. 173. 
 
140 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 prejudice would be done to the Crown. 1 It is difficult 
 for us not to deplore the policy which led to the con- 
 tinued appointment of aliens at a time of such financial 
 depression in England, whilst it is impossible not to 
 recognise that the Court of Rome had technical rights 
 in the matter. But one thing is quite certain, and that 
 is, that there was no intention in the mind of King or 
 Parliament of trenching upon what they held to be the 
 divinely-given rights of the Holy See. And, indeed, in 
 spite of the bluster which appears in these statutes, the 
 English people were not thoroughly in earnest in the 
 matter. "They were evaded," says Bishop Stubbs, 
 "from the first." They were disregarded by the Pope 
 on the whole, and King, and Parliament, and bishops 
 conspired to evade them. They were not a success in 
 any way. The University of Oxford had eventually to 
 complain that the temporary lull in the appointment of 
 aliens actually led to the degradation of the clergy. At 
 length the Commons echoed the University complaint, 
 and admitted that the net result was a loss of learning 
 and a danger of heresy. 2 There were, in fact, more 
 Papal provisions after the statute than before. 
 
 In 1353 the famous Statute of Pramunire was passed, 
 which outlawed all who sued in foreign courts for matters 
 cognisable in the King's courts. This was with special 
 reference to the provision of benefices. It had no 
 reference whatsoever to appeals to Rome on matters of 
 doctrine, nor indeed of discipline. It would be the 
 veriest perversion of history to introduce the question 
 of appeals in general into the subject-matter of these 
 Statutes of Provisors and Pramunire. It is perpetually 
 recited in the Acts of Parliament and emphasised in the 
 arguments of King and Commons, that their contention 
 
 1 "Rot. Pari.," ii. 233. 
 
 2 Ibid. iv. 81, 6 b. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 14 1 
 
 was confined to matters cognisable in the King's courts. 
 That they sometimes stretched a point in regard to the 
 exact area legitimately covered by such matters is true 
 enough • but that they intended to throw any doubt on 
 the Divine appointment of the See of Peter as the centre 
 of government to the Church in a certain sphere of action, 
 is negatived both by the emphasis laid on the matters 
 about which alone they professed to contend, and by 
 their express assertions as to the truth of Papal Supre- 
 macy during the conflict. The Pope was their " Holy 
 Father"; the Church of Rome was "the mother and 
 mistress of all the faithful " ; the successor of Peter was 
 the "governor of Holy Church on earth" — these were 
 their definite assertions. 1 
 
 There is, however, another point of the last importance. 
 What part did the clergy take in the move? Bishop 
 Creighton says, "About these matters Churchmen were 
 not allowed to have their own way." Is not this admis- 
 sion fatal to his theory of continuity, except so far as it is 
 based on an Erastian conception of the Church ? How 
 can continuity, except on the Erastian theory, be dis- 
 covered in actions from which the influence of Church- 
 men was excluded ? Bishop Creighton speaks (cf. supra, 
 p. 130) of "the Church so far as it was the organ of 
 the nation." But the Church exclusive of Churchmen 
 could not be the organ of anything ; in becoming the 
 organ of the nation, whilst it shed its bishops and clergy, 
 its action would cease to be that of the Church at all. 
 So that if Bishop Creighton can prove that the Church 
 of England, as now by law established, is continuous 
 with the King and Parliament of the fourteenth century, 
 minus the clergy of that time, he will have proved that 
 it is no Church at all. 
 
 1 Cf. pp. 134, 139. 
 
I 4 2 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 He is, however, correct in saying that, in regard to the 
 Statutes of Provisors and Pramunire, " Churchmen were 
 not allowed to have their own way." To begin with, the 
 whole spirituality of England protested against anything 
 in these statutes which might be turned against "ecclesi- 
 astical freedom," in which they included the rights and 
 authority of the Holy See. The difficulty about these 
 Acts lay in their vagueness. If, for instance, the things 
 cognisable in the King's courts were rightly interpreted, 
 Churchmen could have no objection to vote for the Statute 
 of Pramunire, which they did later on in 1392. But it 
 was clearly not within the competency of the King and 
 Parliament by themselves to decide on every occasion 
 what was thus cognisable. So with the Statutes of Pro- 
 visors. There were cases in which the Pope had a clear 
 right to provide, and in which Papal provisions were a 
 boon. But so far as such provisions were held to inter- 
 fere with the safety of the realm, through the Crown 
 losing safe counsellors from the appointment of foreigners, 
 there was something to be said for the statute. As a 
 matter of fact, however, " the assent of the lords spiritual 
 was not given," as Bishop Stubbs admits, to the Statute 
 of Provisors in 135 1. 1 But in 1427 a formal protest from 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury, "legate of the Apostolic 
 See," and the Archbishop of York, on behalf of them- 
 selves and their suffragans, "and the whole clergy of our 
 provinces of Canterbury and York," was read " openly 
 by command of the King in full Parliament, and, at the 
 prayer of the said Archbishops and other prelates there 
 
 1 "Ch. Hist." iii. p. 355. Bishop Stubbs' account of the 
 protest in 1427 is not quite accurate. He says : " The two 
 Archbishops entered a formal protest against it [the statute] as 
 tending to the restriction of Apostolic power," &c. (iii. p. 356). 
 It was more than the two Archbishops ; and it was so far 
 as it tended to restrict Apostolic power that they protested 
 against it. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE M3 
 
 present, was enrolled here in the Roll of Parliament of 
 our sire the King." 1 In their protest they say they do 
 not " intend to consent in any way whatsoever {quomodo 
 libet consentire) to any statute now newly issued in the 
 present Parliament, nor to any old one promulgated 
 afresh, so far as statutes of this kind, or any of them, are 
 seen to tend to the restriction of the Apostolic power, or 
 to the subversion, weakening, or derogation of ecclesias- 
 tical freedom — but to dissent from the same, protest 
 against and contradict them ; and we dissent, protest 
 against, and contradict in these writings as we have 
 always dissented, &c, in past times. And we pray that 
 this our dissent, protest, and contradiction by the clergy 
 of the Parliament may be enrolled for a testimony of 
 the same." 
 
 It is impossible after this to quote these statutes as 
 evidence of a desire on the part of the Church in Eng- 
 land to throw off its allegiance to the Apostolic See. 
 The Church distinctly disavowed them so far as they 
 tended in that direction. 2 And, as we shall see, kings 
 and Parliaments did the same, for in the following cen- 
 tury these Statutes of Provisors and Prcenmnire became 
 the subject-matter of a quarrel between Archbishop 
 Chichele and Pope Martin V. It is from this quarrel 
 that Bishop Creighton derives his " strongest instance " 
 of the way in which "about these matters Churchmen 
 were not allowed to have their own way." But his lord- 
 ship has so mixed up two separate events in Chichele's 
 life, that the result is an appearance the very opposite of 
 that which is warranted by the facts. I shall therefore 
 
 1 Quoted from the Rolls of Parliament, iii. p. 264. 
 
 2 Mr. Lane (" Notes on Ch. Hist.," 1893, p. 229) actually 
 speaks of " the conduct of Edward and his Parliament, with 
 the assent and consent of the prelates and clergy, in this 
 repudiation of an alien jurisdiction" ! 
 
144 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 give a short account of the two incidents in Chichele's 
 life which Bishop Creighton has confused together. 
 They have never, so far as I am aware, been presented 
 to the English reader with sufficient detail for him to 
 deduce the conclusion which we shall see is properly 
 drawn from them. 
 
 In October 1427, Martin V. wrote to Archbishop 
 Chichele, complaining that "reserved" benefices (re- 
 served, that is, for Papal appointment) had been appro- 
 priated, and condemning all statutes or " customs" under 
 the shelter of which such appropriation had taken place. 
 He condemned them as contrary to "ecclesiastical 
 liberty." 1 At the same time the Pope wrote also to 
 Henry VI., reminding him that he had solemnly pro- 
 mised and passed his royal word that he would abolish 
 the statutes on this matter. The King had "protested 
 that he in no way intended to detract or derogate from 
 the rights and privileges of the Holy Roman Church 
 and the Apostolic See." And the Pope reminds the 
 King also that he had made an offer which would pre- 
 vent "any prejudice accruing to yourself or the said 
 kingdom." 2 
 
 The Pope also wrote to the English Parliament and 
 reminded them that the King had promised that he 
 would act in accordance with the Papal demand as soon 
 as Parliament could be convened, repeating the King's 
 assurance that no invasion of Papal rights and privileges 
 was intended ; and he reiterated his own promise that, 
 in case any one should fear temporal loss through the 
 
 1 Wilkins' Cone, iii. p. 471. Wilkins has disregarded the 
 order of time in his collection of documents concerned with 
 this affair. But the elates are given in most of the docu- 
 ments themselves. I find that Bishop Stubbs has adopted 
 the same order as that which has been (independently) 
 observed here. 
 
 2 Ibid. iii. p. 479. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 145 
 
 abolition of the statute, lie would take care that no harm 
 should happen "either to the kingdom or to any private 
 person." 1 In another letter to the Archbishop the 
 Pope made the same promise, and bade him say this in 
 Parliament. In each letter the Pope laid stress on the 
 royal assurance that nothing derogatory to the rights 
 and privileges of the Holy Roman Church and the 
 Apostolic See was intended. 
 
 In December the Pope wrote again more strongly 
 still, and pointed out that, whatever the King might 
 say, he was, however unintentionally, trenching on the 
 prerogatives of the Vicar of Christ by maintaining the 
 obnoxious statute. He also bade the Archbishop go 
 to the House of Commons and move for the abolition 
 of the statute. Chichele accordingly went on January 
 30, in obedience to the Papal mandate, to the meeting 
 of Parliament, and pressed the withdrawal of the said 
 statute. An account of the scene has been preserved 
 by the indefatigable Wilkins. The entire Episcopate 
 and the whole clergy of England were there by repre- 
 sentation. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, 
 the Bishops of London, St. David's, Ely, Bath and 
 Wells, and Norwich, with the Abbots of Westminster 
 and Reading, stood sponsors for the rest of the clergy ; 
 and the Archbishop acted as spokesman. His Grace 
 protested that he intended no prejudice to the English 
 Crown. He gave an exposition of the text, "Render 
 unto Caesar the things which are Ca;sar's," and treated 
 of the whole subject of ecclesiastical and "Ca:sarean" 
 jurisdiction, and alleged the authority of Holy Scripture 
 on behalf of the right of "our lord Pope in having 
 ' provisions,' as his holy predecessors the supreme 
 Pontiffs had in the kingdom of England and elsewhere 
 
 1 Wilkins' Cone, iii. p. 480. 
 
i 4 6 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 through the whole of Christendom, and as the lord Pope 
 himself has now in other kingdoms." He then said that 
 he was speaking in the name of all the clergy of the 
 kingdom not there present, and entreated the members 
 of the Parliament to deliberate carefully on the matter, 
 that the Holy Father might have cause for commending 
 the zeal and devotion of the King and the whole king- 
 dom towards the Apostolic See. He enforced his 
 argument with tears, declaring that he would rather 
 have no patronage at all than bring upon the kingdom 
 of England the effects of the Pope's displeasure. He 
 concluded with emphasising the fact that the Pope had 
 promised to apply all reasonable remedy to the causes 
 and occasions on account of which this statute had 
 been passed. 1 The prelates then retired, leaving certain 
 clerics who had been present to witness the deliberations 
 that were to take place. 
 
 Unfortunately we have no account of the deliberations 
 of Parliament after the Bishops had withdrawn. 2 But 
 the statute was not abolished, and the Pope appears to 
 have thought that Archbishop Chichele had not done 
 all that he might have done. He was accused to his 
 Holiness of being open to the charge of seeking his 
 own advantage through his patronage, and of being 
 generally disloyal to the Holy See. 3 Accordingly the 
 Pope decided to suspend him from his legatine com- 
 mission, upon which the Archbishop lodged his cele- 
 brated appeal before a public notary. The whole history 
 
 1 Mr. Ingram's account of this transaction is in several 
 respects inaccurate. He assumes that the Archbishops, and 
 five Bishops, and Abbots spoke only for themselves. (" Eng- 
 land and Rome," p. 1 19.) 
 
 2 Bishop Creighton's account is made up, as will be seen, 
 of two different incidents. 
 
 3 Bishop Stubbs is probably right in suspecting that some 
 hostile influence was at work against the Archbishop— pos- 
 sibly connected with Beaufort. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 147 
 
 of this incident is full of instruction. It brings out the 
 tremendous power with which the idea of communion 
 with, and obedience to, the Apostolic See in certain 
 matters had rooted itself in the English mind, and the 
 tenacity with which, on the other hand, our lay people 
 stuck to their possessions, or imagined possessions, in 
 the way of patronage. It must be remembered that 
 at this time the House of Commons was by no means 
 the independent body that it has since become. It 
 was much more under the influence of the nobles and 
 monied class. Accordingly we have the singular spec- 
 tacle of the Episcopate and clergy on one side, and 
 the wealthy patrons of livings on the other; whilst the 
 King had passed his word that no derogation to Papal 
 authority was meant, and would gladly have seen a 
 compromise effected. But here was a move on the 
 part of the Pope which would entail serious results to 
 the kingdom. The idea of the Archbishop no longer 
 representing the Holy See in his official acts as legate 
 was enough to set the whole kingdom in motion. The 
 whole ecclesiastical machinery would at once be out of 
 gear. Henry therefore simply refused to allow the Arch- 
 bishop to read the Papal bulls. He sent his messenger 
 to demand them, on the ground that he was bound by 
 his coronation oath to prevent "all and every bull and 
 letter of this kind " from being promulgated before he 
 had seen it, and they were delivered up unopened. 
 
 Meanwhile Parliament, the Archbishop of York, 
 Bishops, and the University of Oxford set to work to 
 defend the Archbishop of Canterbury from the charge 
 of being disloyal to the Holy Father. Their various 
 defences afford such a unique glimpse of the state of feel- 
 ing in England as to the relation of all Churchmen to the 
 Holy See, that it will be worth while giving some details. 
 
 The Archbishop appealed to a General Council, if 
 
148 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 the Pope should do anything "without summoning him 
 or legitimately forewarning him, or if the cognisance 
 of his case and the legal order (juris ordine) should be 
 pretermitted." 1 He appealed on the supposition that he 
 was to be condemned as having been disloyal to the 
 Apostolic See. He protested in these words : " I have 
 obtained and hold canonically the holy Church of 
 Canterbury with its rights, liberties, and all things per- 
 taining thereto; and having thus obtained it, I have for 
 some time possessed it peacefully, quietly, and without 
 disturbance, as I possess it at this present time; and 
 I have been and I am an obedient Catholic son of the 
 Roman Church and the Apostolic See, and so far as in 
 me lies an assiduous defender and promoter of the rights 
 and liberties of the said Church and See." 2 
 
 This was before the Papal bulls were presented to 
 him and seized by the King, probably on receipt of 
 information as to their contents. The Archbishop also 
 wrote to the Cardinal who acted as his patron at Rome, 
 saying that he had no opportunity of answering the 
 accusation brought against him, and speaking of the 
 Anglican Church as having been "always most devoted 
 to the Apostolic See." 3 
 
 But a still more important letter was now sent to 
 Rome, signed by the Archbishop of York, the Bishops 
 of London, Durham, Lincoln, Ely, St. David's, Exeter, 
 Bath, Lichfield, Worcester, Hereford, Carlisle, Roches- 
 ter, Bangor, and Chichester. It would be difficult to 
 overrate the value of this letter as evidence to the 
 belief of the Church in England in regard to Papal 
 Supremacy being a matter of faith, not of utility merely. 
 
 1 Wilkins, iii. p. 485. 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 This is sometimes represented as an appeal simply from 
 the Pope to a General Council ; but it was really an appeal 
 from the Pope acting without legal preliminaries, or in legal 
 form, to the Pope acting with the aid of a Council. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 149 
 
 They defend the Archbishop against the accusation of 
 not being a faithful son of Rome. They speak of the 
 faithfulness with which he had performed his duties, 
 and say that " he is so firm in faith and fixed in fidelity, 
 especially to the Roman Church, as that it is known 
 to the world, and ought to be known to the city [Rome], 
 that he is a faithful son of the Roman Church, continu- 
 ally, according to his powers, promoting and procuring 
 the stability of her liberty." They then speak of them- 
 selves as " most humble sons of your Holiness and of 
 the Roman Church, begging, on bended knees," that 
 he would give credence to their testimony on behalf 
 of their Archbishop. This was in July. How is it pos- 
 sible to see any continuity between an episcopate which 
 addresses Rome thus, and bishops who hold their position 
 on condition that they sign an article which says that "the 
 Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm"? 
 
 A fortnight later the University of Oxford also wrote 
 to the Pope. They say they rejoice to behold the 
 gracious person of Martin "preside as true head in the 
 body of the militant Church " ; and they profess that he 
 is "the one supreme Pontiff and Vicar of Christ, and 
 most true successor of Peter." They speak of the 
 various members of the Church being healed by "the 
 influence of one head " ; and, after a very beautiful 
 passage, in which the Church is described as the bark 
 of Peter well-nigh overwhelmed by the waves, they salute 
 the present Pope as having been raised "to the summit 
 of Apostolic dignity." They depict themselves as "with 
 bended knees prostrate in all obedience at the feet of 
 your Holiness." They then go on to rebut the accusa- 
 tions which they understand have been brought against 
 the Archbishop, and describe him as "not slothful and 
 negligent in guarding the liberties of the Church [in 
 which by implication they include the right to at least 
 
150 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 some provisions], but as a faithful son of your Holiness 
 and of the most Holy Roman Church." They address 
 their letter to "Martin, by Divine providence supreme 
 Pontiff of the most Holy Roman and Universal Church," 
 as from "the most devoted sons of your Holiness, the 
 Chancellor and the unanimous body of Masters of your 
 University of Oxford." 1 
 
 Is it possible to deny, in the face of these letters from 
 the entire Episcopate of England and the University of 
 Oxford, that the Church of England was at that moment 
 Papal to the core? Is it not plain what answer would 
 have been given by the Episcopate and University to a 
 suggestion that they should sign an article of religion 
 which says that " the Bishop of Rome has no jurisdic- 
 tion in this realm " ? No jurisdiction ? Why, the Church 
 of Rome (they must have replied) is our mother and 
 mistress : you touch the apple of our eye when you 
 assail her jurisdiction. Have we not made it plain by 
 the most precise and emphatic assertions that we are not 
 questioning her spiritual jurisdiction as of Divine origin? 
 Have we not shown that it is with us a matter of faith 
 that she is supreme over all Churches? If we think 
 that in some mixed matters, where the rights of earthly 
 property are inseparably connected with certain appoint- 
 ments, we have our rights, and are prepared to maintain 
 them ; if we claim to have a right of nominating to cer- 
 tain benefices, whilst we leave to the See of Peter the 
 authority to confirm our nominees in their office, why are 
 we to be thought rebellious against her whom all through 
 the conflict we have called our mother, styling ourselves 
 obedient children, and placing ourselves before her throne, 
 kissing the feet of its occupant, as we have again and 
 again described ourselves ? 
 
 1 Wilkins, iii. pp. 476, 477. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 15 I 
 
 If language means anything, this must have been the 
 answer of the Episcopate of England and the University 
 of Oxford to any such suggestion as that they should 
 declare that the Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction in 
 this realm. And what is this but saying that there is no 
 ecclesiastical continuity between the present Establish- 
 ment and the Church of England of that time ? Their 
 faith differs, and that on the vital point of where the 
 source of jurisdiction lies by the ordinance of Christ. 
 
 But, says Bishop Creighton, "about these matters 
 Churchmen were not allowed to have their own way." 
 And by way of giving "the strongest instance" of this, 
 he adduces certain words which the laity are supposed 
 to have used in answer to Archbishop Chichele's plea to 
 the Commons that they should abolish the Statute of 
 Provisors. "The Commons were not moved by his 
 pathetic eloquence. They only sent a petition to the 
 Council representing that the Pope had acted to the 
 prejudice of the Archbishop and of 'our aller mother, 
 the Church of Canterbury.' They had their mother 
 Church at home, and not even its Archbishop should 
 induce them to diminish its independence, which was 
 likewise their own." 1 
 
 It will be seen at a glance that the Bishop is mixing 
 up two events. There is nothing in the records of the 
 Session of Parliament to the effect that the Commons 
 said this in answer to Archbishop Chichele's appeal to 
 them to revoke the obnoxious statute. The words 
 quoted by Bishop Creighton do, however, occur in a 
 petition of the Council to the King in reference to the 
 Pope's threatened suspension of Chichele's legatine 
 commission — quite a different matter — and which led 
 to the very declaration of the Episcopate and the Uni- 
 
 1 "The National Church in the Middle Ages," p. 10. 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 versity of Oxford which have just been considered. And 
 the remainder of the letter is in direct contradiction to 
 Bishop Creighton's version of the matter. 
 
 The fact is that the Commons were as much terrified 
 at the idea of Chichele's legation being suspended as 
 were the Bishops and the University. Accordingly they 
 petitioned the King in favour of the Archbishop. Their 
 petition is headed in the Rolls of Parliament, " Pur le 
 reverent Pere en Dieu l'Ercheveque de Canterbirs." 1 
 They say that the Archbishop has been falsely accused 
 to " oure holy Fader the Pope " as though he had acted 
 against "the Libertees of ye Courte of Rome in this 
 land." Here is a point-blank contradiction of the stand- 
 point of the present Establishment, which is built on the 
 theory that " the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction 
 in this realm." They say that in consequence of these 
 false accusations "our holy Father was moved to make 
 certain process against him, in prejudice of him and oure 
 aller Moderye Cherche of Canterbury" (the words quoted 
 by Bishop Creighton), which they are all bound to worship 
 and sustain. " Wherefore we beseeche youre Heighnesse 
 as humblely as we can, for to have the said oure aller 
 good Fader recom missed." They ask the King for this 
 purpose either to send ambassadors to Rome, or else 
 to write to " oure saide holy Fader ye Pope, to have 
 ye saide Archebisshop and our Moder his Cherche of 
 Canterbury spali recommissed." And they conclude 
 with asking the King to annul any such process as they 
 have mentioned, as proceeding from an " undewe and 
 unskilful suggestion, and ye trouthe not knowen." In 
 other words, they wish the King to induce the Holy 
 Father to restore the legatine commission to Chichele and 
 the See of Canterbury, on the ground that he had been 
 
 "Rot. Pari.," iv. 322, 6, Henry VI. 1427 (Old Style). 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 153 
 
 misinformed, as though the Archbishop had been disloyal 
 to "the liberties of Rome in this land" and to the Holy 
 Father. It is, in fact, the same keynote as that of the 
 letter of the bishops and the University. 
 
 The incident therefore affords no support to Bishop 
 Creighton's contention tliat the Commons were opposing 
 the Archbishop. Nor, again, can any argument be fairly 
 drawn from the words quoted by Bishop Creighton, as 
 though the Commons were asserting independence of 
 Papal jurisdiction generally. If they say they have 
 " their mother Church at home," as the Bishop points 
 out, they also say that they have their Holy Father at 
 Rome. If they wish the King to stop the bulls contain- 
 ing the Papal suspension, they also ask him to have 
 recourse to the Pope, asking him to restore the legate- 
 ship, so that the Archbishop may still act officially with 
 the authority of the Pope. Even had the Commons 
 taken the line imagined by Bishop Creighton, their voice 
 would have been of no avail in determining the teaching 
 of the Church of England as against that of the Arch- 
 bishop, Bishops, University, and King. But, in point of 
 fact, they did no such thing. 
 
 This, then, is the point to be noticed in connection 
 with this subject, namely, that the quarrel about pro- 
 visions must not be taken as evidence of the attitude of 
 the nation towards the ordinary discipline of the Church. 
 This went on as before, the whole spiritual life of the 
 Church gravitating towards Rome. One of the distinc- 
 tive features of our present relation towards the See of 
 Peter consists in the way in which we look to Rome for 
 dispensations and for faculties in reserved cases — that 
 is to say, in matters of conduct in which the ordinary 
 diocesan discipline is insufficient. Some offences against 
 the moral law cannot be dealt with by a priest. The 
 bishop, in giving faculties to a priest, "reserves" these 
 
iS4 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 cases. Some offences can only be dealt with by the 
 Holy See itself. In giving faculties to bishops the Holy 
 See "reserves" them to itself. We are one body and 
 our intercommunication with Rome is both necessary 
 and frequent. Many of us hold special faculties straight 
 from Rome lasting for five years. In certain matters 
 we can only get dispensation through our bishop from 
 Rome itself. 
 
 It was exactly the same in the Church of England in 
 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. And all this inter- 
 communication went on precisely the same in spite of 
 Statutes of Provisors and Pramunij-e. This is seen by a 
 letter, of great importance to the subject in hand, ad- 
 dressed to the King by the Convocation of Clergy in 1447. 
 The Archbishop, "and all his brethren the bishops of 
 England," had in 1439 complained that the Statute " Pra- 
 munire facias" (Richard II., sixteenth year) was obscure, 
 and was being misapplied by the lawyers. They set forth 
 that it only applied to suits carried to the Court of Rome 
 and elsewhere outside the kingdom of England, against 
 "the King, his crown and regalia, and not to courts 
 within the kingdom." 1 Bishop Stubbs says: "It is fair 
 to say that these clerical remonstrances were called forth 
 rather by the chicanery of the lawyers than by any affec- 
 tion for Papal jurisdiction; the lawyers now and then 
 chose to treat the ordinary ecclesiastical jurisdiction as 
 foreign, and so to bring all the courts Christian under the 
 operation of the Statute of Pnetnunire." 2 
 
 It would be fairer still, and in closer relation to the 
 facts, to say that it was from the chicanery of the lawyers, 
 and belief in Papal jurisdiction, that they were led to re- 
 monstrate. This is clear from the end of their complaint 
 in 1447, to which Bishop Stubbs refers, which shows that 
 
 1 Wilkins' Cone, iii. p. 533. 
 
 2 "Constit. Hist.," vol. iii. ch. xix. § 393, note 2. 
 
THE QUARREL ABOUT PATRONAGE 155 
 
 the lawyers not merely extended the statute to courts 
 within the realm, but to subject-matters with which it 
 had no concern. For the complaint of "the Arch- 
 bishops of Canterbury and York, the bishops and other 
 prelates, and al the clergie of your reame of Englande," 
 was that certain evil-minded persons misinterpret the 
 words of the statute, " the which words, by their wilful 
 interpretation, they pretend to extend to those that pur- 
 chase licence for non-residence of the Pope, be it to go 
 school or for any other reasonable intent, or that get any 
 quinquennial or other confessional [a technical term for 
 faculties in cases in which absolution was reserved to 
 the Pope] or any other like dispensation of the Pope, 
 pretending it an exemption from the ordinary, whereas 
 no law written calleth it so." 1 In other words, the 
 Statutes of Provisors and Prcemunire were not meant to 
 touch the ordinary discipline of the Church, which in- 
 cluded dispensations from the Pope and faculties for 
 reserved cases. The Papal jurisdiction in these essen- 
 tial matters was untouched, and meant to be untouched, 
 by any such statutes. This was the judgment of the 
 entire Episcopate and clergy of the Church of England ; 
 and this is exactly the contention of this chapter. 
 
 The complaint reveals exactly the same system of 
 Church government as is in vogue at this moment 
 amongst Catholics {i.e. Roman Catholics) in England, 
 and also shows that the Episcopate of England at that 
 time held the same doctrine as to jurisdiction as has 
 been lately expounded by our Holy Father, Leo XIII. 
 The clergy of that time never consented to any statute 
 so far as it interfered with the ordinary jurisdiction of 
 the See of Peter over the rest of the Church. 
 
 Wilkins, iii. p. 556. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE POPE TO ECCLESIASTICAL 
 BENEFICES 
 
 We have seen that, in 1428, Archbishop Chichele, speak- 
 ing for the entire clergy of England, maintained in Par- 
 liament the right of the Pope to "provide" for benefices 
 in England. This was undoubtedly the teaching not only 
 of the Church of England, but of the Church throughout 
 the world. But as the matter of "provisions" (or of 
 filling up benefices) is one that figures so largely in the 
 "continuity" controversy at the present time, it will be 
 well to give a precis of the Canon Law on the whole 
 subject of the relation of the Holy See to ecclesiastical 
 benefices. 1 
 
 It must be borne in mind that " benefices," in the 
 sense in which we now use the word, did not exist before 
 the eleventh century. 2 In early times the clergy were 
 dependent on the funds immediately supplied by the 
 bishop, or on a share of common funds, or the use of 
 land which reverted to the common funds. There were 
 no benefices that could be "vacant" in the modern 
 sense of the term. When Parliament spoke of the 
 Church of England having been founded in the estate 
 of prelacy by the kings of England, the allusion (if it is to 
 
 1 Cf. Bouix, Tractates tie Principiis Juris Canomci, Pars 
 ii. sec. iii. cap. 2. 
 
 2 Thomassinus, De Beneficiis, pt. i. lib. ii. The second 
 volume of the 1728 edition contains the material from w hich 
 Bouix' precis is mainly taken. Fleury notices that the word 
 " prebend " occurs first in the Council of Melphis, a.d. 1087. 
 
 156 
 
RELATION OF THE POPE TO BENEFICES 157 
 
 be squared with history) is to the endowments conferred 
 from the time of the Conquest onwards. 1 A new form 
 of property thus came into being, and the exact relation 
 of the benefactor to the benefice, or the patron to the 
 living, wasdestined to become at times a subject of dispute. 
 
 All were agreed that when goods or lands, or endow- 
 ments of any kind, became ecclesiastical, they passed at 
 least to some extent out of the power of the donor. He 
 was no longer their owner. He might be the advocate 
 or protector of the property ; but the property belonged 
 to God, or, as some would put it, to the Church in 
 general. The Pope himself was not held to be owner 
 or possessor of such ecclesiastical goods. 
 
 But though not the owner, he was in strict and ulti- 
 mate right the administrator of all ecclesiastical property. 
 No one disputed this in the case of injustice or harm 
 being done to it. Nor was it a matter of dispute after the 
 Council of Lyons in 1273, that the Pope was the autho- 
 rity to which the alienation of ecclesiastical property must 
 be submitted. But further, just before the twenty-second 
 session of the Council of Constance (1416), Peter d'Ailly 
 (an Archbishop much appealed to in general by Galil- 
 eans) published a much-applauded treatise, in which he 
 maintained that " the Pope could rightly reserve to him- 
 self and the Apostolic See the appointments (ordinationes) 
 to the greater and elective dignities, and the bestowal of 
 other benefices." This he grounded (1) on the title 
 which the Pope possessed to the administration of the 
 Universal Church, (2) on the character of the material 
 thus subject to him, and (3) on the great antiquity of 
 this right. 2 The Council of Basle itself did not venture 
 
 1 The word "benefice" is only once applied to a church 
 in the Book of Domesday. 
 
 2 This treatise will be found in Gerson, " Opp.," t. ii. p. 925 
 sqq. Cf. Hefele on the Councils, 45. § 770 (1414-1418). 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 to deny or hinder this same right. 1 And just before 
 the events connected with Archbishop Chichele and 
 Martin V. which have been described above, the Uni- 
 versity of Paris had applied to that Pope for some bene- 
 fices or "provisions" to be "reserved" for some of its 
 members. Indeed, although not a matter of faith, it was 
 yet a matter of unanimous consent amongst the doctors 
 of the Church, that all the ecclesiastical benefices were 
 subject to the Pope as supreme governor. 2 
 
 It was not a principle due to the forged decretals. 
 To go no further back than Gregory the Great, whose 
 action has a special interest for us in England, 
 the principle was in full operation then, that is, two 
 centuries before the dissemination of those spurious 
 documents. Although, as has been said, there were no 
 benefices at that time, in the modern sense of the term, 
 which could be " reserved," Gregory conferred the posi- 
 tion of abbot on a nominee of his own, without con- 
 sulting the Bishop of Messina, in whose diocese the 
 abbacy was situated, but merely sending him word. 3 
 
 1 Sess. 31 {decret. de collat. bene/.) at Ferrara. Cf. Hefele, 
 48. § 807. 
 
 2 This was certainly the teaching of the Church in England 
 in the fourteenth century. Cf. Joh. de Athon. (John of 
 Ayton, the celebrated English lawyer and Canon of Lincoln), 
 p. 76, gl. ad v. sumntorum pontifiatm; "tenetur, dominium 
 ecclesiarum tarn per reservationem quam per collationem ad 
 papam pertinere.' Cf. " Eng. Histor. Rev., ; ' July 1896, p. 454. 
 When the Council of Constance "suspended" John XXIII. 
 from the exercise of his office, a deputy of the Univer- 
 sity of Paris protested against the Papal power of pre- 
 sentation to benefices being temporarily devolved on the 
 episcopate, on the ground that bishops did not usually pro- 
 mote as learned men as the Pope did. Cf. Jungmann's 
 " Diss. Hist.," vi. 34. 11. The Council held that the Pope's 
 right did not lapse to the Bishop, as it was a case of (what 
 they considered) suspension, and not a definitive sentence 
 against him. Cf. Hefele, § 753. 
 
 3 Greg., Ep., lib. i. 38. 
 
RELATION OF THE POPE TO BENEFICES 159 
 
 He acted in a similar way in regard to a priest under 
 Bishop Importunus, 1 and again in regard to a deacon 
 in the diocese of Syracuse." And, again, he arranged 
 that certain bishops should support with their funds 
 other bishops who had been exiled from their sees; 3 
 and he "reserved" the bishoprics of Dalmatia. 4 Bede 
 tells us how Pope Vitalian bade our Archbishop Theo- 
 dore confer an abbacy on a certain Hadrian Africanus. 5 
 But the application of the principle to benefices such 
 as arose in the eleventh century, naturally led occasion- 
 ally to complications. Nowhere, however, do we dis- 
 cover any denial of the right of the Pope to the supreme 
 care of such benefices. " The things of the Church," 
 says St. Thomas, " belong to the Pope as their principal 
 dispenser, but they do not belong to him as their lord 
 (dominus) and possessor." 6 An instance of the general 
 recognition of this truth is to be seen in the issue 
 of the quarrel between Edward I. and Archbishop 
 Winchelsey. 
 
 Edward was in need of money, and amongst other 
 unjust expedients for raising it, which disfigured his 
 rule, he resorted to that of taxing the clergy of his own 
 mere will. But just before this the Pope (Boniface VIII.) 
 had issued a solemn decree on this head in defence of 
 the clergy throughout the world. It was occasioned by 
 the representations made by French prelates as to the 
 arbitrary taxation to which the Church was exposed by 
 Philip the Fair in order to carry on his wars. The 
 same was unfortunately true of Edward I. The Pope 
 accordingly forbade the taxation of the clergy without 
 his consent, and the clergy were forbidden to submit 
 to such diversion of Church property under pain of 
 
 1 Greg., Ep., lib. ii. 10. 
 3 Vita Greg., 1. iii. c. 15. 
 6 "Hist.," 1. iv. c. 1. 
 
 2 Ibid. iii. 14. 
 4 Ep., iii. 15. 
 6 2a, 2a, 9. 100. 1-7. 
 
160 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 deposition. It was not a simple refusal to allow the 
 clergy to pay subsidies to the King, but they were 
 forbidden to submit to his commands on the subject 
 ■without the express permission of the Pope. 1 The decree 
 was based on the third and fourth Lateran Councils, 
 and the second Council of Lyons (1274). 2 
 
 In consequence of this bull {clericis Laicos), Arch- 
 bishop Winchelsey and the clergy refused to give the 
 King the aid he sought. The Archbishop, after con- 
 sultation with the clergy, 3 told the King's messengers 
 that " we have two masters under God, a spiritual and 
 temporal ; our spiritual lord is the Pope, and our tem- 
 poral lord is the King ; and although we owe obedience 
 to each, we owe greater to the spiritual than to the 
 temporal." The clergy accordingly promised to send 
 nuncios to the Pope at their own expense, for leave 
 to aid the King with a subsidy, and so to avoid, both 
 for the King and themselves, the penalty of excom- 
 munication. This they did. 4 But the King was furious: 
 at once he outlawed the Archbishop and the whole 
 Anglican clergy. A few of the northern bishops 
 managed to get money into the King's hands without 
 directly giving it, and so sought to avoid the royal dis- 
 pleasure and the Papal excommunication. 5 
 
 1 Many current histories omit this important condition. 
 
 2 The bull was eventually explained by the Pope to mean 
 less than the Kings of France and England had imagined. 
 It did not forbid exceptional action in case of necessity. The 
 principle, however, was not withdrawn. 
 
 3 Cf. Chroniion U'altcri de Heminburgh, vol. ii. p. 116. 
 (Rolls Series.) Walter de Hemingburgb (or Heiningford) is 
 the best authority on this whole matter ; besides being 
 almost a contemporary, he is admittedly accurate. (Cf. 
 Preface by Mr. Hamilton in the Rolls Edition. See also 
 Knyghton's account of the affair.) 
 
 4 Their letter is to be found in Wilkins' Concilia, ii. p. 232. 
 
 5 Hemingburgh, ii. p. 118. 
 
RELATION OF THE POPE TO BENEFICES 161 
 
 But Winchelsey stood firm. His goods were seized, 
 his servants left him, and he had to take refuge 
 in a priest's house, "not having throughout his Archi- 
 episcopate where to lay his head," but wandering as 
 though he were a public beggar, protesting meanwhile 
 that those who conceded anything in the way of supply 
 to the King without the leave of the Pope were excom- 
 municated. Some abbots and priors, when their goods 
 were seized, approached the Court and compromised. 
 But it was a sad time for the clergy in general. Being 
 outlawed, men dealt with them as they pleased. Clerics 
 riding on horseback would have their horses taken from 
 them without means of redress. At length, on August 
 i, 1297, 1 when the King was preparing to start for the 
 war in Flanders, an enormous assembly gathered in 
 London, and the King was entreated to lay aside his 
 anger before leaving, and to be "reconciled to his 
 spiritual father the Archbishop of Canterbury and his 
 magnates, and so to find himself in the bosom of mother 
 Church." 2 
 
 It was not the first time that Edward had acted first 
 on a bad and then on a good impulse. He sent for 
 Winchelsey, and not merely laid aside his anger, but 
 received the Archbishop into greater confidence than 
 ever, entrusting to his charge, in conjunction with 
 Reginald de Gray, his son Edward and the kingdom 
 in general, in presence of the whole assembly. He gave 
 command that everything should be restored to Win- 
 chelsey, even to the last farthing ; and shortly after he 
 wrote to the sheriffs to protect and defend the clergy 
 in general from all injury and molestation. It was a 
 tremendous moral victory for the Church. 3 
 
 1 This is the date given by Hemingburgh and Walsingham. 
 
 2 Hemingburgh, ii. p. 122. 
 
 3 Hemingburgh, loc. cit. Mr. Lane's account of this whole 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 In this instance the Pope's care over the property 
 of the Church prevented its being diverted from its 
 proper purpose to that of assisting in Edward's unjusti- 
 fiable wars. But it was in the matter of the bestowal 
 of next vacancies, or the " reseivation " of benefices for 
 expectant candidates, that the lay people of England 
 most resented the Papal government. Yet it was against 
 the abuse of patronage that they began their opposition, 
 and it is impossible to deny the existence of great 
 abuses. At the time when the Popes were at Avignon, 
 Spaniards as well as English protested against Papal 
 provisions when they saw their benefices bestowed on 
 Frenchmen. 
 
 But as the Spaniards did not mean any prejudice to 
 arise against Papal Supremacy itself, so the Church of 
 England, as we have seen, made it quite plain that she 
 admitted the principle of the Papal power to confer 
 benefices throughout the Church. And if at times 
 Parliament, as distinguished from the Church, spoke 
 as though ignoring this right, neither King nor nobles 
 acted upon the supposition that Papal appointments 
 were in themselves contrary to canon law. 
 
 The fact is, that the principle that the Apostolic See 
 has the supreme right, whether exercised or not, of 
 conferring benefices, flows directly from any belief in 
 Papal Supremacy such as our forefathers held. The 
 Church, in their eyes, was a society complete in itself, 
 and a distinct kingdom, one throughout the world. And 
 the form of its government was monarchical. This we 
 have seen running through all the declarations of the 
 Episcopate and the Universities. But although the 
 Church's sphere of action is in the spiritual order, it 
 
 affair can hardly be called serious history (" 111. Notes on 
 Church History," vol. i. p. 224). Even that great historian 
 Mr. Green gives an incomplete account of the matter. 
 
RELATION OF THE POPE TO BENEFICES 163 
 
 touches the temporal, and has a right to possessions in 
 the latter order. She is concerned with the bodies of 
 the faithful, and has rights over the matter of the Sacra- 
 ments, over material goods justly acquired, and those 
 dedicated to the expenses of Divine worship and the 
 sustentation of her ministry. Being one throughout the 
 world, these material possessions, since they are all 
 under some administration, necessarily come, whether 
 directly or indirectly, under the supreme government 
 of the spiritual kingdom. Consequently, although 
 bishops and others may, in accordance with laws con- 
 firmed in councils and by the supreme Pontiff, confer 
 certain benefices, still the power always rests with the 
 Vicar of Christ to suspend such laws in special circum- 
 stances and reserve to himself benefices of a certain kind. 1 
 In a word, all ecclesiastical goods, whilst they pass out 
 of the dominion of man, yet need to be administered 
 and applied to their proper use ; and the power of 
 administering the Church belongs to the Roman Pontiff. 
 Even Gerson said that "all benefices are subject to the 
 Pope as to their supreme governor (' tanquam ordinatori 
 supremo ')." And it must be remembered that the terms 
 " Vicar of Christ," "Apostolic See," "supreme Pontiff," 
 were of everyday occurrence in England up to the year 
 1534- 
 
 But, further, the beneficent results of patronage being 
 under Papal regulation as a matter of right, however in- 
 directly exercised, are too obvious to have escaped the 
 minds of thinking men. There is no chance of excluding 
 heresy or schism, nature being what it is, unless the 
 
 1 Bouix, Tractatus de Princ. Jur. Can., pt. iv. sec. iii. cap. 
 2, § 2. John of Ayton, giving the law of the Church in 
 England, as elsewhere, in the fourteenth century, says, " The 
 plenary disposition of Churches, ecclesiastical personages 
 and dignities, and other benefices, is known to belong to the 
 Roman Pontiff" (c. 2 in Sexto, 3. 4). 
 
ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 Papal government extends to this matter of patronage. 
 Kings will necessarily become supreme; and bishops 
 never do acquit themselves well of the charge committed 
 to their care, except when in such connection with the 
 Holy See. 
 
 Then, again, since the Church needs servants for her 
 special ministries connected with the Universal Church, 
 she needs benefices at her disposal for their maintenance 
 and remuneration. She needs also learned and well- 
 educated men for her ministry. A St. Paul has his func- 
 tion in the work of the Church. England discovered 
 that the degradation of her clergy was coincident with 
 the lull in Papal appointments, and both the University 
 and the Commons had to complain of this. Moreover, 
 considering the enormous influx of indigent clergy to the 
 Roman Court at Avignon, amounting under Clement VI. 
 to (it is said) 100,000, it is not surprising that attempts 
 to provide for some should be made by unduly exer- 
 cising a right of presentation. There was no such feel- 
 ing of separate nationality in ecclesiastical life as now. 
 The Church was all one, however nations might be 
 divided ; and the Church in all countries had one 
 mother, the Roman Church ; and if she did press hardly 
 on some, their protests and remonstrances were soon laid 
 aside, sometimes in their own interest, and sometimes 
 from the recognition of the hopelessness of any availing 
 resistance against the wishes of their mother in her ex- 
 ternally forlorn condition. 
 
 So that if we merely place side by side the various 
 statutes concerned with patronage we shall not have 
 before us an accurate presentation of the real mind of 
 the Church in England. We must take into account 
 both the protests of the spiritualty and the actual futility 
 of these enactments. We shall find that it is true, as 
 Bishop Creighton says, that " the armoury was stocked 
 
RELATION OF THE POPE TO BENEFICES 165 
 
 with weapons which Henry VIII. put to a surprising 
 use"; but it must be considered surprising because 
 they were never meant for such a purpose, and as in- 
 terpreted by him they do not reflect the mind and teach- 
 ing of the Church in England. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND WHEN THERE 
 WERE RIVAL CLAIMANTS TO THE PAPACY 
 
 The Bishop of Stepney, speaking of the " modern Papal 
 claim," which he does not seem to understand clearly, 1 
 says, "This infallibility in faith and morals was equally 
 true, shocking as it sounds — the fault is not mine, it is 
 inherent in the Roman position — this infallibility was 
 equally true of men so vile as . . . that Pope John 
 XXIII., whom the Council of Constance deposed for 
 crimes so abominable that fourteen of the seventy charges 
 could not be read out to the Council." 2 
 
 I propose to show that the Church of England did 
 distinctly hold that the Holy See was infallible in defining 
 doctrine, even when its occupant was a person such as 
 John XXIII. I waive the point as to whether John 
 XXIII. was really Pope at all (which is a question on 
 which the opinions of the learned differ), and will make 
 the Bishop of Stepney a present of that. 3 And I shall 
 not enter into the question whether the Council which 
 professed to suspend John XXIII. was within its rights 
 in making the attempt, supposing him to have been the 
 actual Pope. But I must, in passing, protest against the 
 
 1 e.g. He describes it as assuming that the voice of the 
 Pope "overrides all the Councils of the past if they conflict 
 with it " ; whereas the Papal hypothesis is that it never can 
 be in conflict with past (Ecumenical decisions. 
 
 2 "Church Historical Society Lectures," 1896, p. 65. 
 
 3 Jungmann thinks he was not (" Diss. Hist.," vol. vi., 
 xxxiv. 12). 
 
 166 
 
FAITH OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 167 
 
 cavalier way in which the Bishop invents a reason for the 
 fourteen charges not having been read out at the Council. 
 So far as the record goes, the reason was much more 
 likely to be that they could not substantiate them. Cer- 
 tainly one of the gravest of the charges no one now 
 believes to be true, viz., that Balthassar Cossa (after- 
 wards John XXIII.) poisoned his predecessor Alex- 
 ander V. As Hefele remarks, even more numerous and 
 more serious charges were made against Boniface VIII., 
 and were sworn to by several prelates ; but no one, when 
 it came to the point, attempted to substantiate them. 1 
 Animosity in an ordinary fifteenth-century prelate could 
 do a good deal. It is, however, of importance to note 
 that the charge of heresy was withdrawn on the motion 
 of the Cardinal of St. Mark. 2 
 
 The point to be established here is that the Bishop of 
 Stepney (and for that matter the Establishment in general 
 to which he belongs) differs toto cceZo on this point from 
 the Church of England before the so-called Reformation. 
 This latter religious body did distinctly believe and em- 
 phatically state, that if John XXIII. were called upon 
 officially to decide a point of doctrine, he would not be 
 permitted by Almighty God to define amiss. Here is a 
 plain issue, in which we place ourselves at the utmost 
 disadvantage possible. We select one of the few Popes 
 who — in the long line which, stretching through fourteen 
 centuries, had produced so many saints, martyrs, doctors, 
 wise and holy rulers — disgraced the See of Peter, and we 
 take the Church of England long after the time when, 
 according to Bishop Creighton, she had discovered the 
 inutility of the Papacy. But we maintain that even so 
 we can show that the faith of the Church of England 
 was in absolute antagonism to that which bears that name 
 
 1 Hefele, Cone. Gesch., § 755. 
 
 2 Ibid. § 753. Cf. Mansi, xxvii. p. 655. 
 
i68 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 as a matter of legal right. Whilst, therefore, admitting 
 the legal continuity of the present Establishment, we can 
 show, from the enactments of the Church of England 
 in that most depressing time of the Church's history, 
 that the spiritual identity between her and the present 
 Establishment is absolutely destroyed. 
 
 We are dealing here with an objection very frequently 
 raised against the unity of the Catholic and Roman 
 Church. The uncertainty and confusion of the end of 
 the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
 turies seem to some to constitute a proof that the Papacy 
 could not have been the Divine provision for the unity 
 of the Church. But, in point of fact, the distress of 
 those times only brought out more clearly the fact that 
 throughout Europe it was felt that there must be a Pope, 
 the only question being which was the true one. That 
 being settled, obedience was due to him from every 
 faithful member of the Christian Church. It was, in 
 short, a question not of principle, but of person. The 
 principle of obedience to the See of Peter was never in 
 question j the only question was, who was its proper occu- 
 pant. No doubt, occasionally theses were started which, 
 if accepted, would have much impaired the authority of 
 the Holy See ; but they were not destined to last, and 
 Europe settled down to a position of general obedience, 
 though with germs of evil deposited within her which were 
 calculated to bear fruit in the future. But these germs 
 were promptly counteracted here in England as soon as 
 they began to make themselves felt, as the following 
 incidents prove. 
 
 The two Popes in whose reigns the troubles occurred, or, 
 at any rate, reached their climax, were Alexander V. and 
 John XXIII. And we have clear evidence as to what the 
 Church of England felt as to obedience to Alexander V. 
 when he was chosen to succeed to the Papal throne at 
 
IN PAPAL INFALLIBILITY 169 
 
 the Council of Pisa. It is a question to this day whether 
 Alexander V. was, after all, the true Pope, but that does 
 not affect the question as to what doctrine the Church 
 of England held as to the Papacy itself. 
 
 Alexander V. was elected in 1409 ; and in that year 
 Henry IV. wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 recognising Alexander's election as valid. In so doing, 
 the King speaks of the Church of Rome as " the mother 
 of all Churches" (Wilkins' Concilia, iii. p. 321). He 
 calls Alexander "the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth"; 
 and he says that all his people ought "reverently to 
 accept Alexander as the Roman Pontiff, and the Vicar 
 of Jesus Christ here on earth." His Majesty is not here 
 professing to teach a new doctrine as to the Papal office; 
 he assumes that Alexander having been duly elected, 
 he had succeeded, as a matter of course, to the position 
 of " Vicar of Jesus Christ," since he was the Bishop of 
 Rome, " who is the mother of all Churches." The royal 
 brief from which I have quoted these words, occurs in 
 the mandate of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which he 
 sent to all the bishops, bidding them publish all and 
 each of the things contained in the said brief. Thus 
 Churchmen and laymen were at one in their belief that 
 the Church of Rome is the " mother of all Churches," 
 and that the Bishop of Rome is "the Vicar of Jesus 
 Christ here on earth." And this was after the inde- 
 scribable confusion which had attended the altercations 
 between Gregory XII. and Peter de Luna (Benedict 
 XIII.). It is difficult to understand how any one could 
 speak as the Bishop of Southwell, as quoted by Mr. 
 Nye, speaks of the relation of the Church of England 
 to Rome, saying, " It is a delusion that the Church of 
 England was ever Roman Catholic, or ever acknow- 
 ledged as a Church any subjection to the Pope ; " 1 or 
 
 1 " Church and her Story," p. 80. 
 
'7o 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 how Mr. Lane, speaking of this period, could think that 
 he has managed " to show what is the simple truth (sic), 
 that ' the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this 
 realm of England,' and legally never had" (the italics 
 are his own); 1 or how the Bishop of Peterborough 
 could say that " the Church in England . . . admitted 
 the Papal jurisdiction on grounds of utility," 2 when 
 time after time she emphasised her belief that the Pope 
 was " the Vicar of Christ," as being the Bishop of that 
 See of Rome " which is the mother of all Churches." 
 A mother is not merely a useful person to be discarded 
 at will, but a Divine ordinance. A mother-country is 
 one thing, but a mother-church, not by way of origin 
 only, but of present relationship, is another. And that 
 not merely origin is meant is obvious from the expres- 
 sion " all Churches." 
 
 But there is another passage in the life of the Church 
 of England of capital importance on this question, when 
 she distinctly and emphatically denned her position in 
 regard to Rome in regard to her doctrinal authority 
 and disciplinary power. On this occasion she showed 
 that she was not on the road to separation from Rome, 
 or to independence of her jurisdiction and teaching 
 authority, even after all her protests against pecuniary 
 exactions and uncalled-for interference. If the Bishop 
 of Peterborough's theory were based on history, we 
 ought to be able to note the gradual loosening of 
 the tie which had bound her spiritually to her mother. 
 Not one plain indication of such a desire has yet been 
 quoted, until the hour when Cranmer ascended the 
 throne of Canterbury, with the solemn oath of obedi- 
 ence to the Pope as Vicar of Christ on his lips, and 
 the intention in his heart, told not to the Pope, but 
 
 1 " Illustr. Notes on Church Hist.," i. p. 236. 
 
 2 " National Church in the Middle Ages," p. II. 
 
FAITH OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 171 
 
 to others, to break his oath so soon as he was seated 
 by Papal brief on that throne. For I shall presently 
 show that his immediate predecessor held the same 
 doctrine on the Papacy as I am now going to prove 
 was held by the entire Church of England in the fif- 
 teenth century, and at the very period when there had 
 just bee?i three rival claima?its to the Papacy. 
 
 A disappointed priest, John Wiclif, who had been 
 deprived of the wardenship of Canterbury Hall by a 
 new archbishop, whose decision was confirmed at Rome, 
 now turned his powers of invective against the Holy 
 See. It was not long, as it never has been in such 
 cases, before his entire teaching underwent a change, 
 with the result that at length he was brought before 
 a synod in London, and his teaching was dealt with 
 formally by the Province of Canterbury after his death. 
 Twelve Oxford divines were appointed to examine his 
 writings. They discovered in them numerous " pestif- 
 erous seeds." Their condemnation followed, the Pro- 
 vince of Canterbury issuing a decree which condemned 
 the writings of Wiclif, with this important salvo, viz., 
 that they condemned them " always in all things, 
 saving the authority of your most Holy See, to which 
 the declaration and final settlement (terminatid) of con- 
 clusions of this kind is known to belong." These words 
 were addressed to Pope John XXIII. How, I repeat, 
 can a bishop of the Establishment in England venture 
 on the assertion that " it is a delusion that the Church 
 of England was ever Roman Catholic, or ever acknow- 
 ledged as a Church any subjection to the Pope," as 
 Mr. Nye records the Bishop of Southwell to have 
 said ? or how can the Bishop of Peterborough exclude 
 Papal Supremacy from the essentials of the Church of 
 England's belief before the Reformation, as he does on 
 p. 11 of his "National Church in the Middle Ages"? 
 
172 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 How can the two Churches, so to call them, be the 
 same? Is there not an essential difference between a 
 Church that professes to believe that matters of faith 
 can only be finally settled by the declaration of the See 
 of Peter, and a Church which holds that she is legiti- 
 mately independent of Rome in matters of faith ? 
 
 But this is not all. The words of the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury and his suffragans in this year of grace, 141 2, 
 are too important for us to be content with one expres- 
 sion, however salient and decisive. They open their 
 letter to the Pope thus : 1 "To the most Holy Father 
 in Christ and Lord, John, 2 by Divine Providence 
 Supreme Pontiff of the Sacrosanct Roman and Uni- 
 versal Church; Thomas, by the grace of God and of 
 the Apostolic See, Minister [Archbishop] of the Church 
 of Canterbury, and the rest, suffragans of the Province 
 of Canterbury, after the recommendation of themselves 
 and of the Anglican Church, most humble kisses of the 
 blessed feet." This was the customary formula of sub- 
 missive subjection to the supreme Pontiff. 
 
 They proceed: "... the only-begotten Son of 
 God — proceeding from the Father by the illustration 
 of the Paraclete, who proceeds equally from Both — 
 erected the joy of our stability on the rock of a 
 new-born faith [Peter's], whilst He committed to the 
 prince of Apostles, key - bearer of eternal life, the 
 rights of earthly and heavenly rule. 3 For in his 
 
 1 Wilkins, iii. p. 350. 
 
 2 i.e. John XXIII. 
 
 3 The words used by Innocent IV. in the deposition 
 of Frederic II. at the Council of Lyons. The words may 
 refer to the binding in heaven what is bound on earth, or 
 to the accessory rights on earth which under certain cir- 
 cumstances naturally followed from the spiritual power of 
 the Apostle in his See. The latter is the more probable 
 interpretation of the two, owing to their frequent use in this 
 sense at this time. 
 
IN PAPAL INFALLIBILITY 
 
 173 
 
 person, after pouring forth prayers to the Father 
 [Luke xxii. 32], He most firmly established the Church 
 herself, so that the building of the eternal temple might, 
 by a wonderful dignity conferred by the grace of God, 
 hold together with firm solidity, and so, too, that human 
 rashness should not assault her, lest the gates of hell 
 prevail against her, but that she might ever persist 
 without failing in the faith she had received. For Christ 
 Himself, the Lord and Saviour, ordained that the 
 sacrament of this dignity and faith should so belong to 
 all the Apostles that He placed it principally only in the 
 most blessed Peter, the head of the Apostles, and in his 
 successors, from whose See, as from the head, He would 
 diffuse His gifts as into the whole body ; and that he 
 who should violate the most sacred firmness of this rock, 
 a firmness constructed by God Himself as builder, might 
 understand that he is an alien to the mysteries [i.e. alien 
 to the faith, and cut off from the Sacraments]. For this 
 is that most blessed See, which is proved never to have 
 erred, by the grace of Almighty God, from the path of 
 Apostolical tradition, nor has it ever been depraved and 
 succumbed to heretical novelties. But she it is to whom, 
 as being the lord and mistress of other Churches, the 
 surpassing authority of the holy fathers ordained that the 
 greater causes of the Church, especially those touching 
 articles of the faith, should be referred for their final 
 settlement and declaration." 
 
 There can surely be no question where continuity 
 with this teaching is to be found at the present day. It 
 is the Vatican Council by anticipation. Here is the 
 supreme jurisdiction of the Holy See and her infallibility 
 in teaching referred to our Lord's words to Peter, both 
 those in Matt. xvi. and Luke xxii. 
 
 They then speak of the false prophets who have risen 
 up against the authority and teaching of the Church, 
 
i 74 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 and, after mentioning Wiclif by name, they describe 
 themselves as those " who have been placed in this 
 Church by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, 
 and have been called to a share in your most holy and 
 supreme care." 
 
 They say they have gathered out of John's writings, 
 by the help of twelve men of the University of Oxford, 
 poisonous seeds, and they have condemned them by a 
 decree of the Province. 
 
 Now the doctrine which they have just laid down 
 as to the Holy See would naturally lead to their not 
 resting content with the authority of a Provincial Coun- 
 cil ; and accordingly, as a matter of fact, they proceed 
 to say that they passed sentence, "saving always in 
 all things the authority of your most Holy See, to which 
 the declaration and final settlement [or termination] of 
 conclusions of this kind is known to belong." 
 
 They ask the Pope, accordingly, to investigate the 
 opinions thus deduced from Wicliffe's writings, "and 
 to condemn and reprobate them with Apostolic authority, 
 for the good of the Holy Church of God, and specially 
 for the preservation of the Anglican Church, and the 
 more ample fortification of the Catholic faith." 
 
 Our conclusion then must be this. When the Church 
 of England had to drive from her bosom a nascent heresy, 
 she put forth her own strength and condemned it by a 
 provincial decree. But since she believed it to be part 
 of the Christian revelation that our Lord has ordained a 
 supreme judge under Himself to terminate such matters, 
 and that that judge is the occupant of a See that never has 
 and never can fail in the deliverance of the faith, owing 
 to our Lord's promise to Peter and to His prayer that 
 Peter's faith should not fail, they introduce a saving 
 clause which disclaims finality in their own decision, but 
 attributes such finality to the See to which they now send 
 
FAITH OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 175 
 
 the decree of the Province, and which was now occupied 
 by John XXIII. One does not see how it would be 
 possible to say in plainer words that Papal Supremacy is 
 essential to the Church— a matter of faith ; or how they 
 could more plainly censure by anticipation any idea of 
 a national Church independent of the See of Peter. 
 
 But we must go a step further. In the following year 
 a prominent Wicliffite came under the censure of Con- 
 vocation. Fortunately the Acts of Convocation in this 
 case have been preserved by the learned Anglican Canon 
 Wilkins. 1 Sir John Oldcastle was arraigned for heresy. 
 And what was the formal character of heresy accord- 
 ing to the English Convocation ? It was that " he has 
 thought and thinks, and dogmatises and teaches con- 
 cerning the Sacrament of the Altar and of Penance, &c, 
 otherwise than the Roman and Universal Church teaches 
 and affirms." 
 
 This was their rule of faith. And the words do not 
 admit of being interpreted as though the " Roman and 
 Universal Church " could be sundered ; for in the pre- 
 vious year they had addressed the Pope as "the Supreme 
 Pontiff of the Roman and Universal Church." 
 
 In pressing this teaching on Sir John, they say : " The 
 faith and determination of Holy Church touching the 
 blissful Sacrament of the Altar is this : that after the 
 sacramental words have been said by a priest in his Mass, 
 the material bread that was before, is turned into Christ's 
 Body ; and the material wine that was before, is turned into 
 Christ's very Blood • and so their leweth [ = remaineth, is 
 left] in the Altar no material bread, ne [nor] material wyn, 
 the which were there before the saying of the sacramental 
 words." Then after declaring the necessity of confes- 
 sion to a priest, they give the teaching of the Church of 
 
 1 Cone, iii. p. 353 seq. 
 
176 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 England as to Papal Supremacy, thus : " Christ ordained 
 Saint Peter the Apostle to be His Vicar here on earth, 
 whose See is the Church of Rome, ordaining and grant- 
 ing [that] the same power that He gave to Peter should 
 succeed to all Peter's successors, the which we now call 
 Popes of Rome, by whose power in Churches particular 
 special, be ordained prelates [they are speaking of the 
 power of jurisdiction], archbishops, bishops, curates, and 
 other degrees, to whom Christian men ought to obey 
 after the laws of the Church of Rome." (Wilkins, iii. 
 P- 355-) 
 
 Sir John's replies were considered heretical, and so 
 they tell the Bishop of London (one of their number) 
 what his duty in the matter is, after they had again and 
 again with tears exhorted the said Sir John "that he 
 would return to the unity of the Church, that he would 
 believe and hold what the Roman Church believes and 
 holds." 1 Sir John, remaining obdurate, was excommuni- 
 cated October 14 13. 
 
 Now it is open to any one to say that the Church of 
 England was wrong in her faith — that she misinterpreted 
 Holy Scripture ; but it is surely not open to any one, 
 from a logical point of view, to say that any body of men 
 is in continuity of faith and discipline — that is to say, in 
 " continuity in all essentials " — with the Church of Eng- 
 land before the Reformation, if it does not believe in 
 Papal Supremacy as a Divine institution. It is not open 
 to any one to argue that the Church in England had 
 "discovered" (to use Bishop Creighton's words) "that 
 that jurisdiction was dangerous to Church and nation 
 alike" (" National Church in the Middle Ages," p. n). 
 
 Such, then, was the emphatic declaration of the Church 
 of England as to her belief in Papal Supremacy at the 
 
 1 Wilkins, iii. p. 356. 
 
IN PAPAL INFALLIBILITY 
 
 177 
 
 very time when there had just been three rival claimants 
 to the Papacy — a period of indescribable confusion, but 
 one that could not shake the Church of England in her 
 rooted conviction that Jesus Christ had moulded His 
 Church in the form of a spiritual monarchy to last for all 
 time. This was in the fifteenth century, and the Church 
 of England had not even then made the discovery that 
 Papal jurisdiction was dangerous to the Church and 
 nation alike. 
 
 She had not even discovered it in the beginning of the 
 reign of Henry VIII. For that monarch was not pro- 
 claiming his own faith merely, but that of the Church of 
 England, when he wrote his book on the "Seven Sacra- 
 ments," which gained for him the title of " Defender of 
 the Faith," and which upheld the supremacy of the Pope 
 as of Divine institution. 
 
 M 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE TEACHING OF CRANMER'S PREDECESSOR IN 
 THE SEE OF CANTERBURY IN 1532 
 
 We have now all but reached the term of our inquiries. 
 We have come close up to the time when a new religion 
 took the place of that which had been the religion of 
 England for nearly one thousand years, when the rule of 
 faith was changed, and the authority which our Lord 
 appointed over His Church ceased to be recognised as 
 such even in theory. We have spoken of Henry VIII. 
 Bishop Creighton says, in allusion to the Statute of Prce- 
 munire, that " the royal armoury was stocked with weapons 
 which Henry VIII. used with surprising effect." 1 Most 
 true. Henry, acting in concert with the most unscru- 
 pulous minister that has ever guided the destinies of 
 England — Thomas Cromwell — initiated what has been 
 called a "royal reign of terror." He had an end to 
 accomplish — a divorce ; he had a position unparalleled 
 for the purpose; and he had a weapon at hand — the 
 Statute of Prtzmunire. "These statutes," says a Pro- 
 testant writer, speaking of the Statutes of Provisors and 
 Pramnnire, " made a profound impression on the mind 
 of the English people. The bishops and prelates . . . 
 walked in fear of them. For more than a hundred and 
 fifty years the ordinary Englishman believed that a person 
 convicted of a pramunire might be slain with impunity. 
 
 " National Church in the Middle Ages," p. 8. 
 
 178 
 
TEACHING OF CRANMER'S PREDECESSOR 179 
 
 This was in consequence of the words in them respecting 
 outlawry. This belief was so general that it became 
 necessary to extirpate it by legislative declaration in the 
 reign of Elizabeth." 1 
 
 The fear of the King's proceedings under this Statute 
 brought about the death of Cardinal Wolsey. Both King 
 and Cardinal had, like many of their predecessors, brought 
 themselves under its operation. And the King decided 
 to put it in force against the Cardinal ; but his Eminence 
 died before his trial came on. The King brought Con- 
 vocation to its knees through a similar threat ; and work- 
 ing upon their fears, he succeeded in wringing from them 
 an expression of his relation to the Church, which he 
 himself meant, if necessary, to use in one sense, but which 
 they meant to be understood in another. England was, 
 unfortunately, supplied with a set of prelates who were 
 not made of the stuff for martyrs. Neither were they 
 men of theological attainments, with the exception of 
 Bishop Fisher. Consequently they did not perceive the 
 mischief they were doing by their system of compromise 
 — a most disastrous course, but natural, considering that 
 they lived in perpetual danger of prison or death if they 
 incurred the wrath of an imperious master bent on the 
 satisfaction of his passions, and assisted by the unscrupu- 
 lous craft of Thomas Cromwell. 
 
 They did, however, save the situation so far as words 
 could do so, in 1531. They were induced to call the 
 King the " protector " and " supreme head " of the 
 Church of England "so far as the law of Christ per- 
 mits." 2 But they showed clearly by their amendments 
 
 1 " England and Rome," by T. D. Ingram, LL. D., barrister- 
 at-law (1892), p. 113. Pope Martin V. drew attention to the 
 almost barbarous savagery of the terms of the Statute of 
 
 Praemunire. 
 
 2 " Protector" was quite an admissible term, and was 
 doubtless understood to colour the following term. See an 
 
180 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 of the original draft of the declaration in which this 
 parenthesis occurred, that they did not themselves under- 
 stand it to include any spiritual jurisdiction. It differed 
 toto cce/o from the Act of 1534. But a diplomatic consent 
 to ambiguous expressions was not what the situation re- 
 quired. Their leader, Archbishop Warham, was at length, 
 although too late, brought to see this. For we have the 
 satisfaction of knowing that before his death he was pre- 
 pared to lay down his life for the truth which Henry 
 by his action was now clearly bent on denying, viz., 
 the necessary dependence of the Universal Church, 
 and therefore of the Church in England, on the See of 
 Peter. 
 
 There is a State Paper of the reign of Henry VIII., 
 which was published in extenso for the first time two 
 years since by Canon Moyes with the help of Dom. 
 Gasquet. It is to be found in the Dublin Review of 
 April 1894, accompanied by an article well worth perusal, 
 from the pen of the learned Canon. It is to be found 
 in the "State Papers, Henry VIII., v. 245," and has been 
 summarised by Professor Gairdner, who has fixed its 
 date indisputably from internal evidence. It is a defence 
 which Archbishop Warham, the immediate predecessor 
 of Cranmer, drew up for himself in the last few months 
 of his life. He had been threatened with a pmmum're, 
 and he appears to have decided to resist, even to death, 
 the charge under which he was to be tried. His de- 
 fence is of quite exceptional importance in relation to 
 the thesis of this book. It shows that up to the very 
 time when Henry was prepared to break with Rome, 
 unless he could induce Rome to allow of his divorce, 
 
 " Introduction to Mrs. Hope's First Divorce of Henry VIII." 
 (Kegan Paul & Co., 1894), by Dom. Gasquet. The subject 
 is clearly and concisely dealt with in this admirable intro- 
 duction. The volume is one that should be widely read- 
 
TEACHING OF CRANMER'S PREDECESSOR 181 
 
 the general conviction of the Church of England was the 
 same as it had been all along, the same as it has been 
 shown to be in the foregoing pages, concerning the ne- 
 cessity of accepting the jurisdiction of Rome in matters 
 spiritual. 
 
 Warham had consecrated a bishop, named Standish, 
 under circumstances quite usual, which were now, for 
 want of a better charge, to be adduced against him. 
 He says : " It is thought I should not consecrate any 
 bishop till after he had exhibited his bulls to the King's 
 grace, and had done his homage and made his oath of 
 fidelity to the same, and had sued out, as agreed with 
 his Grace, for the temporalities ; and also that I should 
 not give to a bishop his spiritualties until he were agreed 
 with the King's Highness for the temporalities of his 
 bishopric" (paragraph 2). 
 
 The Archbishop's defence is as follows. And it must 
 be remembered that he speaks not as developing any 
 new theory, but as rebutting a charge which he conceives 
 must be allowed to involve an innovation on the practice 
 and teaching of the Church of England. 
 
 He pleads that there is no provision made for examin- 
 ing a bishop-elect as to whether he has complied with 
 these supposed requisites, and that therefore an arch- 
 bishop cannot be supposed to be bound to know whether 
 he has. It never was done. It would be an intolerable 
 expense to have to send special messengers to the King 
 to find out the facts, wherever his Highness might chance 
 to be in the kingdom. The registers show that such a 
 course has never been adopted. The negligence, for such 
 it would be in the past, has never been noticed. Kings 
 have never dreamt of investigating such a matter in 
 regard to bishops. And then in an important paragraph 
 (No. 10) he touches upon doctrine. He says : "Almighty 
 God has ordained two powers — one spiritual and the 
 
1 82 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 other temporal. Wherefore, as the King's grace hath 
 the temporal power to grant and to deliver out of his 
 custody the temporalities of bishoprics at his pleasure ; 1 
 so in like wise the Archbishop of Canterbury for the 
 time being, having the spiritual jurisdiction of all bishop- 
 rics within his Province of Canterbury while they be 
 void, in the right of his Church may at his liberty grant 
 to him that is lawfully pro/noted at Rome in the Pope's 
 Consistory a bishop of any see, being void, the spiritual- 
 ties of the same bishoprick." 
 
 The words that I have placed in italics show the 
 continuity of Archbishop Warham's teaching with all 
 that has been shown to be the teaching of the Church 
 of England for upwards of 900 years before his time. 
 And it must be remembered that the Archbishop is 
 giving what he conceives will be admitted as true by all 
 faithful members of the Church of England. We see 
 also what he meant by allowing the words that the King 
 was supreme head of the Church " so far as the law of 
 Christ permits," to be passed in the Convocation of 1532 
 — what a vital difference between that Act of Convoca- 
 tion and the succeeding enactment of 1534. 
 
 In the next paragraph (No. n) the Archbishop pro- 
 ceeds to say : " And if the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 should not give the spiritualties to him so promoted as 
 bishop [i.e. in the Papal Consistory], till the King's grace 
 
 1 During the vacancy of a bishopric the temporalities 
 were in the King's custody, and the new bishop in each case 
 had to sue them out of the King's hand. The spiritualties 
 were in the hands of the Archbishop. St. Thomas a Becket, 
 in the hour of his death, was asked by one of his murderers 
 as to his allegiance to the King, and refused to own that the 
 King was his master in spirituals. "Spirituals" included 
 matters which belonged to this world, though they involved 
 a great deal more. Wolsey, in his fright, was prepared to 
 betray the spiritualties of a diocese into the hands of the 
 King. Warham refused. 
 
TEACHING OK CRANMER'S PREDECESSOR 183 
 
 had granted and delivered to him his temporalities, then 
 the spiritual power of the Archbishops would hang and 
 depend on the temporal power of the Prince, and so 
 would be of little or none effect, which is against all law. 
 And so there would not be two distinct powers, accord- 
 ing to Almighty God's ordinance [i.e. as God ordained 
 that there should be]." Further (paragraph 12), an injury 
 would be done to the bishop if, " after that an elect is 
 provided a bishop at Rome in the Consistory, and after 
 the presenting of the Pope's bulls to him," the Arch- 
 bishop still clung to the " exercise of the spiritualties." 
 
 It will be noticed that the Archbishop's interpretation 
 of the Statute of Provisors is exactly that given above- 
 It was not meant to forbid all provisions nor all bulls, 
 but only such as touched upon the rights of the Crown. 
 In this case the Archbishop argues (paragraph 15) : no 
 harm is done to the King, for the exercise of the Bishop's 
 spiritualties does not affect the region of the King's 
 rule. The bishop is not a "lord of the Parliament" 
 until he has done homage. 
 
 In the next paragraph (No. 16) the Archbishop draws 
 what I may call the dividing line between what has been 
 called the Church of England since 1534 (with the 
 exception of Mary's reign) and the Church of England 
 from 597 up to that date. He says, " And as touching 
 him that is consecrated, he is made no bishop by his 
 consecration, as peradventure some men think [the con- 
 fusion between orders and jurisdiction so characteristic 
 of present Anglican teaching seems to have been already 
 dawning], but he is made and provided a bishop at Rome 
 in the Pope's Consistory, and hath before his consecra- 
 tion all things appertaining to spiritual jurisdiction as a 
 bishop, and by his consecration he hath no jurisdiction 
 given to him, but 'only such things as be appertaining 
 to his order.'" 
 
1 84 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 And so further on (paragraph 19) he argues that it 
 " were according 1 that a spiritual man should first give 
 his oath of obedience to the spiritual head, which is the 
 Pope, which is not used to be done but at the time of 
 the bishop's consecration, and, that done, then to do 
 his temporal duty and fidelity to his temporal Prince, 
 and not to prefer the temporal Prince to the Pope in 
 a spiritual matter." 
 
 It will be seen that Bishop Creighton's theory, that 
 the Papacy was amongst the non-essentials of the Church 
 of England's teaching, and that by this time she had 
 discovered not only its inutility, but its dangerous and 
 mischievous character, was not held by the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury in 1532. Indeed, so patent did the 
 opposite seem to him, that he could plead it with the 
 King as a universally admitted truth. 
 
 His Grace proceeds to say that, in consecrating the 
 Bishop of St. Asaph, he was following the Pope's mandate 
 "in virtue of mine obedience, of which these be the 
 words, ' I will observe such mandates with all my 
 power, and will cause them to be observed by others.' 
 / was but the Pope's commissary, and the cotisecrating of 
 the said Bishop is principally the Pope's deed, which 
 commanded it to be done; wherefore, I think it not 
 reasonable that I should fall into a praimunire for doing 
 of that thing, whereby (if I had done to the contrary) 
 I should have fallen into perjury." 
 
 The next sentence proves that the King had not 
 sufficiently shown his hand in 1532 to make it useless 
 to appeal to the Catholic faith as it had been taught in 
 England from time immemorial. In fact, the King did 
 
 1 i.e. Fit, suitable, ecclesiastically right. It is the exact 
 equivalent of the word dico\ov9<bs, which the Council of 
 Ephesus used of the speech of the legate in which he 
 described the successor of Peter as the divinely appointed 
 ruler of the Universal Church (Mansi, iv. 1229). 
 
TEACHING OF CRANMER'S PREDECESSOR 185 
 
 not show his hand until the Pope had clearly shown his 
 determination rather to lose a province than tamper with 
 the marriage law, i.e. in 1534. At this time, i.e. 1532, 
 Warham could assume the old faith as to the Pope's 
 Supremacy to be a real argument. He was face to 
 face with the King's unjust attempt to bring him in 
 guilty under the Statute of Prcemunire ; he was in his 
 old age ; he had governed the Church in England for 
 many years ; he had led the clergy in their admission 
 of the title "head of the Church" as used of Henry, 
 though with a very different meaning from that which 
 it acquired in 1534 j 1 he had protested, with Tunstal, 
 that by the admission of that title, "so far as the law 
 of Christ permits," he meant nothing "to the derogation 
 of the Roman Pontiff, or to the injury or prejudice of 
 the Apostolic See." We have already seen what this 
 meant on Warham's lips. What follows sums it up in 
 a single phrase, which I place in italics. 
 
 For the Archbishop proceeds (paragraph 20) to say : 
 "And it seemeth not to be a reasonable ordinance by 
 the which a man doing according to his oath of obedi- 
 ence to the Pope, the head of all Christian men, should 
 fall into any penalty. . . . And where [whereas] in 
 this case, not doing the Pope's commandment I should 
 fall into perjury, and doing his commandment I should 
 fall into a prcetnunire, as is supposed, if a man could not 
 choose but fall into one of the said dangers of perjury 
 or prcemunire, melius est incidere in mantis hominum quani 
 derelinquere legem Dei." 2 
 
 1 This needs to be emphatically insisted upon in dealing 
 with our Anglican friends. Since the publication of the docu- 
 ment which is here produced, it is capable of demonstration 
 that the Act of 1531 differed vitally from that of 1534 in 
 regard to royal supremacy. 
 
 2 " It is better to fall into the hands of men than to desert 
 the law of God." 
 
1 86 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 Then, after summing up the foregoing reasons, he turns 
 to history. He appeals to the example of St. Thomas 
 a Becket (paragraph 22). Henry VIII. is doing exactly 
 what Henry II. did and repented of and disavowed. 
 That article of the Constitution of Clarendon was, he 
 says, condemned at Rome, and the King did penance 
 for enforcing it, and was bidden to give up " the 
 Statutes of Clarendon and all other evil customs against 
 the liberties of Holy Church." And the King gave 
 them up "as ill and unjust." He then shows that the 
 consecration of the bishop, being a good and spiritual 
 act, " can grow no ill to the Crown whensoever it done," 
 i.e. is done. Next he adduces Magna Charta on his 
 side, giving to it exactly the same interpretation as that 
 given above in these pages : Habeat ecdesia Anglicana 
 libertates illcesas, " Let the Anglican Church have her 
 liberties inviolate." 
 
 The words "Anglican Church" did not convey to 
 the mind of Archbishop Warham, nor to any other 
 prelate for five hundred years, the idea of a Church 
 independent of the See of Peter; and the liberties of 
 the Churcli did not involve the misery, as he would 
 have deemed it, of detachment from the ties that bound 
 them to him whom the Archbishop has just called 
 " the head of all Christian men." He proceeds to say 
 that the breakers of Magna Charta " were solemnly 
 cursed at Paul's Cross by the most part of the bishops 
 of England for that time being, and the same curse 
 [was] confirmed by Pope Innocent IV. But ecdesia 
 Anglicana non habet libertates suas illasas, 1 when the 
 Church hath not its liberties to consecrate bishops, but 
 at princes' pleasures." 
 
 There follows a remarkable passage in which the 
 
 1 " The Anglican Church has not her liberties inviolate." 
 
TEACHING OF CRANMER'S PREDECESSOR 1 87 
 
 Archbishop appeals to the misfortunes that befell those 
 that acted against the liberties of the Church (paragraph 
 26). He says he does not wish to take upon him the 
 judgment of God, and say determinately that the Kings 
 he mentions were punished by the hand of God for 
 making of such Acts. But he points out that Henry II. 
 was deserted at his death, and lay uncovered until a 
 servant pitied the disgrace; that Edward III. died in 
 poverty, and the hatred of his noble subjects; that 
 Richard II. renounced his right to the crown; and 
 Henry IV. was stricken with a loathsome disease. 
 And these were severally the authors and abettors 
 of the Constitutions of Clarendon and of the Statute 
 of Pramunire. On the other hand, St. Thomas died 
 for not consenting to or obeying such Acts, "and was 
 and is a holy martyr," so that those who made them 
 (the Statutes of Clarendon and the Statutes of Provisors 
 and Pramunire) may be thought to have incurred the 
 displeasure of God. He then (paragraph 30) refers 
 to Pope Martin V., " who was a very good and holy 
 Pope," and who " wrote to King Henry IV. concern- 
 ing the Act of Pramunire made against the liberties of 
 the Church. He proposes to produce his words in 
 full in his trial. He deprecates men drawing the sword 
 against him, and points to the end of those men who 
 slew St. Thomas of Canterbury. But if they do draw 
 the sword, " I think it were better for me to suffer 
 the same, than against my conscience to confess this 
 article to be a pramunire [i.e. to be a just case for 
 the operation of that iniquitous statute], for which 
 [article] St. Thomas died." " I should damn my soul 
 for where St. Thomas saved his soul and is a glorious 
 saint in heaven for denying of this article." 
 
 It is consoling to think that this good and learned 
 old man, as all agreed in regarding him, after a certain 
 
i88 
 
 ROME AND ENGLAND 
 
 weakness in allowing the term " head of the Church " 
 to Henry, with, it is true, a salvo which separated it 
 by an infinite distance from its acceptance in 1534 — it 
 is, I say, consoling to think that after all he had in 
 him the spirit of a martyr, and that he had decided 
 to put himself in continuity with the whole past of 
 the Church of England, and die for the supremacy of 
 the Pope if the King pressed the trial. It pleased 
 Almighty God to take him before the trial came on; 
 and, it must be added, it was in the mysterious counsels 
 of the Divine wisdom that a scourge should be allowed 
 to descend on our land in the shape of a Cranmer, to 
 break the continuity between the past and future— or, 
 to speak more accurately, to deprive the Apostolical 
 succession in this land of its legal position, and to sub- 
 stitute a religion which has regarded the Papacy, first, 
 as anti-Christian, and, nowadays, as, at any rate, non- 
 essential to the Church's life. 
 
 Our prayer is that God would speedily turn the hearts 
 of the children to their forsaken Father in Christ, the 
 successor of the Prince of the Apostles. 
 
Note to p. 119. 
 
 I am sorry to feel called upon to express regret at the 
 cavalier treatment of one of the greatest characters in 
 mediaeval history in a recent work by Mrs. Oliphant, called 
 " The Makers of Rome." That accomplished writer says in 
 her Preface, " Nobody will expect in this book, or from me, 
 the results of original research." Is it, then, quite fair to 
 speak of Innocent III. in the way in which Mrs. Oliphant 
 does on p. 277 ? In the first place, the question of his In- 
 fallibility ought not to have been introduced at all, since 
 it does not, according to the Vatican decree, extend to such 
 matters as the choice of Otho for Emperor, which is the 
 occasion of the authoress's remarks. And Innocent's espousal 
 of Otho's cause as against Philip admits of a very plausible 
 defence, to say the least, considering that the Pope, not 
 being gifted with prophecy, could not have anticipated 
 Otho's use of his position ; whilst it would have been out of 
 the question to advance Philip, considering his antecedents, 
 to the dignity for which Innocent preferred Otho. It is 
 naturally difficult to get English non-Catholics to estimate 
 justly a character like that of Innocent, considering the way 
 in which the history of King John has been so often dealt 
 with ; but both Mr. Green, in his " History of the English 
 People," and the late Professor Brewer, in his Preface to 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, p. lxviii. (Rolls Series), would have 
 taught the distinguished authoress to whom I have referred, 
 that there is another side to the history of that great Pope. 
 And is it not strange in these days to make the fact of 
 the Pope being " merely a man " " the one insurmountable 
 argument against Papal Infallibility"? We say as Chris- 
 tians, " I believe in one God the Father Almighty." If the 
 omnipotence of God be a truth, why can He not protect a 
 servant of His from error under certain circumstances in his 
 official acts ? 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adam Marsh, 74, 81-86 
 Adrian, Pope, 10, 11 
 Agatho, St., Pope, 9 
 Aidan, St., 3, 5 
 Alcuin, 13, 14, 29, 30, 31 
 Alexander V., Pope, 169 
 Alfred the Great, 15, 48 
 Anglican Church {Ecclesza Angli- 
 
 cana), meaning of the term, 25, 
 
 26, 90 
 Anselm, St., 16, 51-73 
 Apostolic See, 9 
 
 Apostolicus (name of the Pope), 9 
 Archbishop. See Canterbury 
 Augustine, St., of Canterbury, 4, 
 6, 12 
 
 Ayton, John of (Joh. de Athona), 
 xxi. 
 
 Benefices, 156 sqq. 
 Benefices, reservation of, 162 
 Birinus, St., 6, 107 
 Biscop, Benedict, 13 
 Boniface VIII., Pope, 159 
 British Church, 2 
 Bulls, Papal, 137, 147 
 
 Canon Law, xvii. 122 
 Canterbury, Archbishops of, 15, 
 16,71 
 
 Canterbury, Archdeacon of, Black 
 Book of, 49 
 
 Canterbury, Court of, xxiv. 
 
 Canterbury, See of, 7, 8, 10, 12, 
 46, 71 
 
 Canute. See Knut 
 
 Carlisle, Parliament of, 133 
 
 Charta, Magna, 93 
 
 Chichele, Archbp., 144, 145, 151 
 
 Church and Empire, 68, 70 
 
 Church Historical Society Lec- 
 tures, xxvii. ; 9, 25, 26, 28, 
 29 sqq., 44, 85, 88, 96, 166. 
 See " Stepney, Bishop of," and 
 " Collins, Prof." 
 
 Church, includes clergy, 141 
 
 Clement VI., Pope, 137 
 
 Clericis Laicos, bull, 159 
 
 Cloveshoe, Council of, 12 
 
 Collins, Prof., 25, 26, 31, 33, 88 
 
 Common law, its earlier mean- 
 ing, xxi. 
 
 Confession, 132, 175 
 
 Confessionals, 155 
 
 Constance, Council of, 157, 158 
 
 Continuity, its meaning, xi. 
 
 Council, General, appeal to, 147 ; 
 not superior to Pope, xxii. 
 
 Creighton, Bp. of Peterborough, 
 reasons for selecting his paper, 
 xiv. 
 
 Curia, Roman, 120, 123, 127 
 Customs, 54, 57, 64 
 
UJ2 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Decretals, forged, 29, 158; 
 
 Papal, xxiii. 
 Dunstan, St., 34, 35 
 
 Edward I., 159 sqq. 
 Edward III., 103, 132, 136 
 Empire, Holy Roman, 68 
 " English Church History, Stu- 
 dent's," 87, 112 
 Estates of Prelacy, 135 
 Ethelwulf, 48, 49 
 
 Freedom, ecclesiastical, 90 sqq., 
 97 
 
 Freeman, Prof., 38, 66, 72 
 Fulbert, of Chartres, 33 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, 9, 75 
 
 sqq., 122 
 Gregory, St., the Great, 3, 5, 6, 
 
 7, 12, 158, 159 
 Gregory, St., VII., 37, 43, 44, 50, 
 
 69, 70, 92 
 Grosseteste, m 
 
 Homage, 39 sqq, , 47 
 Honorius III., Pope, 96, 121, 
 123 sqq. 
 
 Ina, 15, 48 
 
 Infallibility of the Pope, 173 
 Innocent III., 70, 78, 79, So, 96 
 
 John, King, 93 sqq., 137 
 
 John, the abbot, 14 
 
 John XXIII., Pope, 166 sqq. 
 
 Kenulph, 11 
 Knut, King, 15, 50 
 
 Lane (" Illust. Notes on Church 
 History "), 20, 27, 61, 87, 161, 
 170 
 
 Lanfranc, xiii., 7, 34, 35, 46, 47, 
 
 S3- 54. 57. 72, 101 
 Legates, 31, 32, 46, 54, 60, 90, 
 
 101 
 
 Legatine commission, Chichele's, 
 146, 152 
 
 Legatine constitutions, their "ac- 
 ceptance," xix. 
 Lichfield, 10, 11, 12 
 Lightfoot, Bishop, 3 
 London, 8, 12 
 Lyndwood, xxi. 
 
 Martin V., Pope, 144, 150 
 Matthew Paris, xxvii., 124 
 
 Nye (" The Church and her 
 Story"), xiii., 20, 38, 46, 169 
 
 Offa, 10, 11, 15, 48 
 Oldcastle, Sir John, 175 
 Othobon, Cardinal, xviii., xix., 
 
 102, 123 
 Overlord, 39 
 Ownership, Papal, 157 
 Oxford, University of, 147, 149 
 
 Pallium, or pall, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 
 
 33. 35. 53. 55 W- 
 Papacy, the, in Middle Ages, 
 
 118-121. Sec Curia 
 Paulinus, St., 4 
 
 Peckham, Archbishop, xviii., xix. 
 Peter's pence, 47, 50, 106, 137 
 Praemunire, Statute of, 132, 140, 
 
 142, 155, 178, 179, 183 
 Protection, 39, 41, 157, 179 
 Provisions, 144 
 
 Provisors, Statute of, 131, 135, 
 139, 142, 155 
 
INDEX 
 
 193 
 
 Reserved cases, 153, 155 
 Rockingham, 5S, 66 
 Roger de Wendover, 125 
 Rome-runners, 136 
 Rufus. See William 
 
 Saxon School, 47 
 Simon de Montfort, 99-102 
 Spiritualties of a see, 182 
 Stepney, Bishop of, 9, 28, 29, 
 44, 85, 96, 166 
 
 Theodore, St., of Canterbury, 
 
 8, 10, 19 sqq. 
 Tostig, 38 
 
 Transubstantiation, 175 
 
 Urban' II., Tope, 55, 60 
 
 Warham, Archbishop, xvi., xvii., 
 1 80 sqq. 
 
 Wendover, Roger de. See 
 
 Roger 
 Wiclif, 171 
 
 Wilfrid, St., 6, 17 sqq., 26, 27 
 William Rufus, 55 sqq. 
 William the Conqueror, 37-50 
 Winchelsey, 159.^. 
 Wolsey, 179 
 
 York, Archbishop of, 34, 46, 108, 
 109 
 
 York, See'of, 7, 8, 10 
 
 THE END 
 
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