the reparation of liberty, retaining to themselves a power of adding, changing, and correcting as they shall think fit. Done in a council at Lambeth, and recited in the last action of the council, on Friday, the third of the ides of May, B the Dominical letter, A.D. 1261, in the seventh year of Pope Alexander IV. In witness whereof, &c. * I do not observe that this passage was cited in the late dispute concerning the antiquity of the rights of the lower clergy to sit and debate in convocation. Yet it seems very much to the purpose. I know some have very much degraded this Oxford copy of the provincials, with how much reason I leave to others to judge. A constitution attributed to Boniface, though Lyndwood says that some have thought it Robert Winchelsey's. 22. We have often heard from our ancestors that the [Lynd., m 'benefices of the holy water were from the beginning insti- p. 142.] tuted with a view of charity, that poor clerks in the schools might be maintained with the profits thereof, till they by improvement were qualified for something greater. And lest a wholesome institute by time run into abuse, we ordain that in churches which are not above ten miles distant from the schools which belong to the cities and castles within the province of Canterbury, [they] be conferred on poor " clerks. And [Ed.] because disputes, which we ought to remove, do often arise between rectors and vicars of churches and their parishioners about conferring such benefices; now we ordain that the rectors and vicars, who are more concerned to know who are fittest for such benefices, do take care to place such clerks in the benefices aforesaid, who are best capable of serving them according to their own desires in divine offices, and will be pliant to their commands. And if the parishioners will withdraw their accustomed alms from them in a malicious manner, let them be carefully monished to give them; and if there be a necessity, let them be strictly compelled to it ["by ecclesiastical censure of all sorts.] * Lyndwood doubts whether this be Boniface's or W. Reynolds'. Sir '[R. Win Notwithstanding this date, Wilkins [Dat. apud Westm. 6 idus Junii, Ann. Dom. MCCLXI. et anno pontificatus Alexandri papæ iv. vii, et anno illustris regni Henrici regis xlv. per p. 755.] Bonifacium Cant. archiepiscopum. W. JOHNSON, P chelsey's.] H. Spelman has it not. The Oxford places it as here. It is the only provincial constitution which I find to this purpose. But Giles Bridport, bishop of Sarum, in his diocesan synod ordained that rectors or vicars shall give the benefice of the holy water to a poor clerk that is a scholar, on condition that he attended the church on all solemn days. This was A.D. 1256. See Sir H. Spelman, p. 304*. Walter de Cantelupe had done the same for his diocese, A.D. 1240 †. Alexander of Coventry had done this earlier yet, viz., A.D 1237 1. See Sir H. Spelman, p. 209. But the decree of Peter Quevil, bishop of Excester, A.D. 1287, Sir H. Spelman, p. 375 §, is so like to this of Boniface that it is evident that he who drew one had the other lying before him; therefore either Peter had it trans[R. Win- cribed from Boniface, or else Walter Reynolds', if he made it first a prochelsey.] vincial constitution, took it from the diocesan constitutions of Peter, but the first to me seems most probable. William Courtney, archbishop of Canterbury, 1393, in a diocesan rescript, threatens some that lived near that city with the greater excommunication and interdict in case they persisted to refuse to have the holy water brought to them, and to pay the clerks for bringing it, which he calls a laudable custom prevailing throughout England ¶. 1 Benefice largely taken includes all payments and portions belonging to the clerks and ministers of the church without title, says Lyndwood. m "To scholars only," says Peter Quevil, more exactly than Boniface. These words are not in Peter Quevil, and indeed nothing could be more unreasonable than to pass all manner of censures on men for not giving accustomed alms; and scarce any thing more unreasonable could be devised by the art or blind fury of men than most of these constitutions of Boniface. A.D. MCCLXVIII. LEGATINE CONSTITUTIONS OF OTHOBON. LATIN. [J. Athon., p. 75. AN English council celebrated by the lord "Othobon, cardinal deacon of St. Adrian, legate of the apostolical see to the kingdom of England, as also to Scotland, Ireland, and Sir H. Spelman, Wales, in the cathedral church of St. Paul, London, on the vol. ii. ninth of the kal. of May, A.D. 1268, and the fourth of the p. 263. pontificate of Pope Clement IV., that is, in the fifty-second vol. ii. year of the illustrious Henry III., king of the English, Boni- p. 1*.] face and Walter, archbishops of Canterbury and York, the bishops, abbots, priors, deans, archdeacons, and other dignitaries of the Church being present. He had formerly been archdeacon of Canterbury, and was afterwards chosen pope, and called himself Adrian V., but he sat in the chair scarce forty days. His coming hither was for very good cause much resented by all degrees of churchmen, as for other reasons, so especially because according to the practice of the Roman court (which is to be very free of that which was none of their own) he by the pope's authority granted to the king three years' tenths of the clergy. The king at the end of that term complained that they had not been fully and entirely paid, therefore demands the tenths of the fourth year, to which, though the bishops consented, yet the inferior prelates and clergy returned a flat and obstinate denial, and represented the extortions made upon them in the three former years as altogether intolerable, and their own poverty as so great, that they were utterly unable to pay it. The commands and law of the Most High were published * ["Constitutiones domini Othoboni legati promulgatæ in concilio generali London. mense Aprili. A.D. 1268. Collat. cum MSS. Regio. 9. B. 2. Lambeth. 17. Oxon. Magd. Colleg. 185. Lyndw. Provinc. et Spelm. ex Bibl. Cotton. Otho. A. 15. 7. et Vitell. A. 2. 42." Wilkins quotes a passage from the Chronicle of T. Wikes, and also refers to Rudborne and the Wa- Wilkins, of old, that the creature who had broken the yoke by departing from the peace of his God, by continuing in the observance of the law and commandments as their light, might expect the King of Peace, the Mediator, the High-Priest, who made all things new, having the hope of the promises given to the fathers as a refreshing shade. This is the glory of the adopted sons of the holy spouse, our mother Church, that they hear from her the commandments of life; preserving their heart in the beauty of peace, the brightness of chastity under the restraint of modesty, subduing the sinful appetite to the government of reason: to which end the decrees divinely promulged by the mouths of the fathers containing rules of justice and maxims of equity, have diffused themselves like rivers far and near. And the sacred constitutions of the chief pontiffs and of the legates of the apostolical see, and of other prelates of the Church dispersed throughout the world, proceed like smaller streams from those broad rivers, according to the diversity of times, which necessarily requires new remedies for such new diseases as are bred by human frailty. But unbridled desire being rooted in our first parents has poisoned their posterity, and running blindly on treads in pieces the rod of virtue and discipline, and as it were mad drunk invades the properties of others, so that it cannot abstain from what is forbidden, nor enjoy what is permitted, nor approve what is good. When we consider the ancient mischiefs of this plague we cannot but more bitterly lament the present ulcers of it, which we not only have heard of, but which we see and feel: for the present times are not more sunk below those of old in length of life, than in hardiness, and a damnable contempt of judgments. When the path of right is forsaken or perverted, truth gives place to power, favour leaves no room for justice; and whilst all seek what they think their own, the things of Christ, the good of souls, the honour of the Church, are not only clouded, but do wholly disappear through the darkness of a contemptuous ignorance. We therefore being destined from the bosom of holy mother Church by the hand of the most holy father our lord Clement, chief pontiff of the universal Church, to the office of a plenary legateship [that is, the care of planting, pulling down, and building up, which we have undertaken not out of a willing inclination, but out of a dutiful obedience] into the famous kingdom of England, (which hath fallen of late years from the height of glory into an extinction of both powers,) as also to Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, that we may fulfil our ministry according to the doctrine of the Apostle, as also [according] to the institutes of the sacred canons, (which are imitated by secular princes in their laws,) as also [according to] the constitutions of Otho of good memory, bishop of Porto, then deacon cardinal of St. Nicolas in Carcere Tulliano*, and likewise [according to] the provisions of provincial councils, which give wholesome regulations to the manners and actions of faithful subjects". Because we have found some of these observed by few, ["some by none,] we have thought fit with the approbation of the present council to make certain constitutions to be generally observed in an holy manner well pleasing to God; and to add certain capitula and punishments to those formerly published, which may by the divine assistance produce a wholesome reformation. The sense seems imperfect, though I have made some supplements of my own, and here followed either copy, as I saw occasion. < This is only in Sir H. Spelman †. 1. Baptism is known to be the first plank which brings those that sail through this dangerous world to the port of salvation; which our Saviour instituted as a gate to the other sacraments, as the authority of the holy fathers which followed Him does testify: since then an error in our entrance by the gate is most dangerous, the legate aforesaid to recall some from their execrable idolatry, who suspected danger to their children if they were baptized on the days assigned for the solemn celebration of baptism, viz., the sabbaths before the resurrection of our Lord and pentecost, hath ordained that the people should be brought off from this error by frequent preaching, and be persuaded to solemnize baptism, and to have their children baptized on the days aforesaid. And (since no one ought to die without receiving of this sacrament) that it be administered at other times by any one in [in regnis Anglie et Scotia apostolicæ sedis legati, W. This omission excepted, Johnson's translation agrees with the text of Wilkins in this place.] [Wilkins agrees with Spelman.] |