[2 Tim. ii. 4.] lays wicked hands on such. Let none but the pope * give him penance at the last, unless in extreme danger of death. If he die impenitent let his body remain unburied. 11. We charge, that if any man violently take away the moveable or immoveable goods of the church, he be excommunicate, unless he repent upon canonical warning. C King Stephen, who now reigned, had upon his advancement to the throne by a charter which you may see in Sir H. Spelman, vol. ii. p. 38+, made very fair promises to the Church, especially as to their estates, that prelates and others in holy orders should quietly enjoy what the Conqueror left them, and what they had acquired since; that they might dispose of their goods by testament, and that vacant sees should be under the guardianship of the clergy of that church to which the deceased bishop belonged as to temporal matters as well as spiritual. But the king soon forgot his promise, which greatly provoked the Churchmen against him; and it is probable that this canon was directed against the evil instruments who then committed great ravage on the Church. William Martell, (in France,) a notable courtier, was the next year by name excommunicated in a synod on this account. 12. We by apostolical authority forbid any man to build a church or oratory upon his own estate without his bishop's licence. 13. Here we allege the authority of Pope Nicholas, who says, "Since the soldier of Christ and the secular soldier differ from each other, it becomes not a soldier of the Church to bear secular arms;" for effusion of blood can scarce be avoided in this case: farther, as it is abominable for laymen to say mass, and consecrate the sacrament; so it is ridiculous for a clergyman to carry arms, and fight in wars, for St. Paul says, "No one that is a soldier to God entangles himself with the affairs of this life." See Corp. Jur. Canon. Distinct. 50. c. 5. 14. We add the decree of Pope Innocent ‡, that "monks who have been long in a monastery ought not to recede from their former way of living when they become clergymen" they must continue now they are clerks what they were before, and not lose what they had before their ad vancement. [See Johnson's first volume, A.D. 963. 38. p. 436. §.] + [Wilkins, vol. i. p. 412.] [The Latin has dicentis Victrico Rothomagensi archiepiscopo, W. Cf. 1 See ibid., causa 16, quæst. i. c. 3. 15. We forbid nuns, under pain of anathema, to use particoloured Grisian sable, marten, ermine, beaver-skins, or golden rings, or to wreath or curiously set their hair. Lat. Grisiis, furs of the Gris petit, a small French animal so called, which some say is grey, others that it is spotted. 16. We charge all to pay the tithe of all their fruit*, under pain of anathema. 17. We ordain, that if schoolmasters hire out their schools to be governed by otherst, they be liable to ecclesiastical punishment. I read regenda, not legenda. In this council the election of an archbishop to the see [Postof Canterbury was agitated, and within a few weeks after script.] Theobald was consecrated: some do expressly say that he was elected by the bishops in this council, at the instigation of the king yet Henry, bishop of Winchester, brother to King Stephen, being legate a latere from the pope, held several national councils under that character. In one of these the archdeacons are said to have been present, A.D. 1142, and particularly that the legate had private conference first with the bishops, then with the abbots, lastly with the archdeacons. And the legate in a speech made in this council affirmed that the choosing and ordaining of a king did of right belong principally to the clergy; Sir H. Spelman, vol. ii. p. 45. The chief occasion of these synods was the unsettled state of the nation by reason of wars between Maud the empress and Stephen, who had the right of possession. No canons or constitutions were made in any of these synods called by Henry of Winchester, excepting in the last, which here follow. A.D. MCXLIII. LEGATINE CANONS AT WINCHESTER. LATIN. Sir H. p. 47. p. 421*.] HENRY, bishop of Winchester, the pope's legate a latere, held a council in presence of King Stephen at London, in which it was with general consent ordained, 1. That none who a violated a church or churchyard, or laid violent hands on a clerk or religious person, should be absolved by any except the pope. The church or churchyard were violated by fighting or shedding blood there, or by seizing any goods or person within the precincts of holy ground. The present wars occasioned much profanation (if I may so say) of this sort; but it is probable that the legate and prelates had a particular eye to Aubry de Vere, who was charged three or four years before this with an intention to seize this legate, and all the bishops then met in council in the church at Westminster; and Aubry did not deny, but publicly in their presence justified his doing of it, at the command of his master King Stephen, though he was disappointed in his design. 2. That the plough and husbandman in the fields, should enjoy the same peace as if they were in the churchyard. They excommunicated all that opposed these decrees, with candles lighted: and thus, says Hoveden, the rapacity of the kites was restrained. This Henry of Winchester is said first to have introduced the practice of appealing to Rome; and on this account as well as others, deserved very ill of this Church and nation. [Addenda.] [The craft of popes, and the supineness of the English prelates, was never more visible than in point of the legatine power. W. Corboyl, or de Turbine, was the first English bishop that had this feather put into his cap by the pope, (as his predecessor Ralph seems to have been the first that took the wicked oath of obedience to the pope,) but it was soon plucked out again. For within a few months his legateship was forced to *.["Ex R. Hoveden, p. 488, et Matt. Paris, A.D. 1142.”] submit to John de Crema, who came here as legate a latere, and within a while was wholly divested of it, and it was conferred on Henry, bishop of Winchester. And who could object to such an honour done to the king's brother? It was very agreeable to Henry's inclinations. For he had requested the pope to erect his see into an archbishopric; and the monks of Winchester thought their bishop had a right to primacy, because Birinus their first bishop came as a missionary immediately from Rome, as Augustine did to Canterbury. But the pope, though he would not consent to make Henry a primate, yet he did that which made him more than a primate: for by giving him the legateship, he for the present set him above Canterbury, and made all the bishops in England subject to him. But he soon eclipsed him, by sending Alberic to act as legate a latere, and Henry's legateship expired this very year, 1143, together with Pope Innocent II. from whom he had received it. For Archbishop Theobald prevailed with Pope Lucius †, successor to Innocent, not to renew the legatine commission to Henry. And some time after he who had introduced the practice of appeals to Rome, was forced to go thither to answer an appeal made against him by his own monks, for purloining their treasury, and diminishing their great cross, which had weighed five hundred marks of silver and thirty of gold. Thus popes, under pretence of doing honour to English bishops, did really humble and mortify them. And the bishops, by accepting of his insidious honours, did in truth expose themselves and enslave the Church. Theobald was also the pope's legate, but he lived to see his primacy greatly diminished: for the Church of Ireland, which had acknowledged him and his predecessors as their metropolitan, had four primates created in the year 1152 or 3, by Pope Eugenius III. ["Qy. John de Cremona was sent legate from the pope A.D. 1125 (or 1126 according to this A.) This is the first time that character was ever received in England. After the breaking up of the council which this legate then held at Westminster, W. Corboyl went to Rome to remonstrate against putting a foreign legate on the English. The pope conferred upon him the same title, and A.D. 1127 he held a council at Westminster both as legate and archbishop. The third legate and the second foreigner received as such was Alberic, bishop of Ostia, who held a council here 1138. The fourth legate was Henry, bishop of Winchester, whose commission was given him by Innocent II., 1139. Mr. Johnson, therefore, seems to be mistaken in making John de Crema legate here after Abp. Corboyl, and Alberic after Henry, bishop of Winchester." MS. note, Wrangham. Mr. Johnson's statement must also be referred to England after the Conquest; as legates and legatine canons were received at Cealchythe A D. 785. See vol. i. of this work, pp. 264, sqq.] [MS. note, Wrangham substitutes Celestine II. for Lucius.] A.D. MCLXIV. PREFACE. ARTICLES OF CLARENDON. AFTER Theobald had sat twenty-two years, Thomas Becket, King Henry the Second's chancellor, was elected by the monks of Christ Church, and accepted, and declared by the bishops of the province. This was done in a kind of parliamentary assembly, 1161. In the year 1163 he and four of his suffragans, with four abbots, by the king's leave went to the synod of Tours, (to which also Thurstan of York sent his abbot of Fountain,) where Pope Alexander the Third, and seventeen of his cardinals were personally present: the archbishop came home soothed with the favours of the pope (who gave him a chair at his own right hand) and warmed with a speech made by Arnulph, bishop of Lysieux, in behalf of the liberties of the Church; from this time forward would not pay that submission to the civil courts which he had done before. Hereupon the king calls all the archbishops and bishops to Westminster, and the main point proposed to them was, whether they would observe the ancient customs. of the kingdom, or rather the customs used in the time of the king's grandfather, King Henry the First, (for they were called avitæ consuetudines,) [and] they promised to do it, saving their order. This did not satisfy the king, whose indignation they feared; therefore Becket goes to him at Woodstock, and promised he would comply without adding any such salvo the king required that this promise should solemnly be made before all the great men of the kingdom, and therefore called an assembly of them to Clarendon : there the archbishops and bishops did accordingly swear to observe these customs. But when afterwards these customs were drawn in the following form, and they were required to set their seals to them, the archbishop absolutely : |