A.D. MLXX. THE HEADS OF A COUNCIL CELEBRATED AT WINCHESTER. 1. CONCERNING the coming in of bishops and abbots by LATIN. simoniacal heresy. Sir H. 2. Of ordaining men promiscuously, and by means of vol. i. moneyt. 3. Of the life and conversation of such men. 4. That bishops should celebrate councils twice a year. 5. That bishops ordain archdeacons, and other ministers of the sacred order, in their own churches. 6. That bishops have free power in their dioceses both over the clergy and laity. p. 12. [Wilkins, vol. i. p. 365.] [One may wonder to see such a canon as this made by an archbishop [Addenda.] who was witness and approver of the exemption granted by King William to the abbey of Battle, which seems to have been the first precedent of this sort; and from which the popes quickly copied, and thereby not only raised great sums of money, but created to themselves great bodies of men immediately subject to the see of Rome, and independent on any other power, either secular or ecclesiastical. (For exempt monks and friars were so esteemed in the following ages.) If Lanfranc had obstructed this innovation, he had acted consistently with himself in making this canon, and shewed the world that he had not muzzled himself by accepting the archbishopric. For certainly these exemptions were one of the most flagrant invasions of episcopal authority, and one of the great scandals of popery (as they were afterwards improved by the see of Rome) and not removed by our Reformation. Yet it is probable this exemption of Battle abbey had been dropped in King Henry the Second's reign, if Thomas Becket had not supported it. The bishop of Chichester had brought the abbot to make profession of obedience to him, and when the abbot came (as the practice then was) to have his charter renewed soon after the king's accession, Bishop Hilary opposed it as to the "E libro Saxonico Wigorniensis Ecclesiæ; etiamque e libro Excestrensis Ecclesiæ."-Wilkins who here follows Spelman gives the above and next two sets of canons under A.D. 1076, but quotes the latter part of + [2. De ordinationibus passim fac- point of exemption; and so far prevailed, that the renewal of it was 7. That bishops and priests invite laymen to penance. 9. That bishops have their sees ascertained, and that none conspire against the prince. 10. That laymen pay tithes, as it is written. 11. That none invade the goods of the Church. 12. That no clerk bear secular arms. 13. That clerks and monks be duly reverenced. Let him that does otherwise be anathema. A.D. MLXXI. LANFRANC'S CANONS AT WINCHESTER. HEADS OF A COUNCIL CELEBRATED AT WINCHESTER⭑. LATIN. 1. THAT no one be allowed to preside in two bishoprics. 2. That no one be ordained by means of simoniacal heresy. 3. That foreign clergymen be not received without commendatory letters. 4. That ordinations be performed at the certain seasons. 5. Of altars, that they be of stone. 6. That the sacrifice be not of beer, or water alone, but of wine mixed with water only. 7. Of baptism, that it be celebrated at Easter and Whitsuntide only, except there be danger of death. 8. That masses be not celebrated in churches, before they have been consecrated by bishops. [These heads of a council at Winchester, as also the next set of canons, are extant in (X.) MS. Bodl. Jun. 121 f. 2b, to f4 a. Johnson's translation has been compared with this copy as well as with Spelman and Wilkins.] 9. That the corpses of the dead be not buried in churches. 10. That the bells be not tolled at celebrating in the time of the secret*. The Secretum Missa is the canon of the mass going before the elevation. Not that there was yet any such ceremony as that of the solemn elevation used in order to the worshipping of the host; but the bells were rung as soon as the consecration was finished, in order to excite the people to prayers, as William archbishop of Paris teacheth us in his fourteenth canont, and the consecrated host was shewed to the people at the same time; this was at the beginning of the thirteenth century; the worshipping of it came in soon after. It is great pity that we have not these and the foregoing canons at large, they would probably have given us considerable light into the practices of a very dark age. 11. That bishops only give penance for gross crimes ‡. 12. That monks who have thrown off their habit be neither admitted into the army nor into any convent of clerks, but be esteemed excommunicate. 13. That every bishop celebrate a synod once a year§. 14. That tithes be paid by all. 15. That clergymen either live chastely, or desist from their office. 16. That chalices be not of wax or wood¶. • [10. Quod tintinnabula non pulsentur, quando missa celebratur tempore secreti. S. W. The only variation of MS. X. is 'secrete,' as if the ellipse were orationis. Perhaps this head of a canon may be illustrated by the following: "Sonantibus omnibus dignis chorum introeant, eisque cessaatibus missam incipiant." Constitutiones Lanfranci, A.D. 1072; Wilkins, vol. i. p. 342. These last-named constitutions, printed by Wilkins from MS. Dunelm. B. iv. 24, fill forty-one follo pages, and give much informa tion respecting the use of bells and the arrangement of services at the time they are not in Spelman, and must have been unknown to Johnson.] [Additiones Willelmi Parisiensis Episcopi ad Constitutiones Gallonis Card. A.D. 1208. can. xv. Concilia, tom. xxii. col. 768.] [11. Quod de criminibus soli episcopi pœnitentiam tribuant. X. S. W.] § [13. Quod quisque episcopus omni anno synodum celebret. X. S. W.] ¶ [vel lignei, omitted in X.] A.D. MLXXII. LATIN. SOLDIERS' PENANCE. THIS is the institution of penance according to the decrees of the Norman prelates (confirmed by authority of the chief pontiff, by his legate Hermenfride bishop of Syon) to be imposed upon those men b'whom William duke of the Normans commanded to be in arms, and upon those who were in arms without his command and did of right owe him military service *. b Here I follow Mr. Somner's emendations: Sir H. Spelman's copy is corrupted. [Addenda.] [Somner thus corrects the Latin, viz., quos Willielmus Normannorum dux suo jussu armavit, et qui absque jussu suo erant armati et ex debito, &c.] 1. Let him who knows he killed a man in the great battle do penance one year for every one, according to the number [slain by him]. It is strange that they who allow the lawfulness of war, and of killing men in battle, should yet enjoin penance to men for doing their duty as soldiers yet this is what all the ancient penitentiaries do. The canons ad remedia peccatorum, which are the most ancient of the English, enjoin but forty days' penance for killing a man in battle. Can. 3+. 2. For every one that he struck, if he do not know that he died of the blow, if he remember the number, forty days for every single man, either all at once, or by intervals. 3. If he know not the number of men whom he has slain, or struck, let him do penance one day in every week, at the discretion of the bishop, as long as he lives; or if he be able, let him redeem it with perpetual alms, by building or endowing a church. * [Wilkins follows Somner's emendation as given in Johnson's note from the Addenda. The reading of MS. X., which seems to be the authority quoted in Spelman's margin, is as follows: quos W. Normannorum dux suo jussu, et qui ante he jussu sui erant, et ex debito ei militiam debebant.] + [Spelman, Conc., vol. i. p. 283.] 4. Let him that intended to strike any one, though he did it not, do three days' penance. 5. As for those of the clergy who fought, or armed themselves to fight, because fighting is forbidden them according to the canonical institutes, let them repent as if they had sinned in their own country. Let the penances of the monks be stated according to their own rule, and the judgments of the abbots. The clergyman's penance for murder was perpetual imprisonment; or at least living close in a monastery, on hard fare; but much was left to the discretion of the bishop. 6. Let them who fought through hopes of reward only, know that they ought to do penance as for murder. * The common penance for wilful murder was seven or ten years: yet by the old canon last mentioned it was but four years for killing a layman, seven years for killing a clergyman. This last case was now reserved to the pope, who acted at discretion. 7. But the bishops have appointed three years of penance to them who fought in the public war 'for the discharge of their amerciaments*. 8. As for the archers, who have ignorantly killed, or wounded any without killing of them, let them do penance for three Lents. 9. Whoever from the beginning of this battlet, before the king's consecration, have run up and down the kingdom to get victuals, [and] have killed any of their enemies who made resistance, let them do a year's penance for every one whom they killed. 10. But let them who have run up and down not for want of victuals, but to get plunder, and have killed any, do three years' penance. ['Pro misericordia' rather means 'for mercy,' that is, as a compassionate mitigation of the full penance. This and the foregoing sentence are clearly connected, and in MS. X. stand thus: Qui autem tantum præmio adducti pugnaverunt cognoscant se sicut pro homicidio pœnitere debere. Sed quia in publico bello pugnaverunt pro misericordia tres annos pœnitentiæ eis episcopi statuerunt. Bodl. MS. Jun. 121 f. 3 b.] [excepto hoc prælio, S. W. Rather, 'this battle excepted.'] |