673.

3. Bishops

and monasteries.

4. Wandering monks.

5. Wander

another, but be content with the government of the people committed to him.

3. That no bishop be allowed to offer any molestation to monasteries consecrated to God, nor to take away by violence anything that belongs to them.

4. That the monks themselves go not from place to place, that is from one monastery to another, without the leave of their own abbot, but continue in that obedience which they promised at the time of their conversion.

5. That no clerk, leaving his own bishop, go up and down ing clergy. at his own pleasure, nor be received wherever he comes without the commendatory letters of his bishop; but if he be once received and refuse to return when he is desired so to do, both the receiver and the received shall be laid under an excommunication.

6. Treatment of strange clergy.

7. Yearly synods.

8. Epis

6. That strange bishops and clerks be content with the hospitality that is freely offered them, and let not any of them exercise any priestly function without permission of the bishop in whose diocese he is known to be.

7. That a synod be assembled twice in the year. But because many occasions may hinder this, it was jointly agreed by all that once in the year it be assembled on the first of August at the place called Cloveshoo.

8. That no bishop put himself before another out of an copal pre affectation of precedence, but that every one observe the time and order of his consecration.

cedence.

9. Sub

division of

sees.

10. Corcerning marriage.

9. We had a conference together concerning increasing the number of bishops in proportion to the number of the faithful, but we determine nothing as to this point at present.

10. As to matrimony: that none be allowed to any but what is lawful. Let none commit incest. Let no one relinquish his own wife, but for fornication, as the Gospel teaches. But if any shall have dismissed a wife to whom he has been lawfully married, let him not be coupled to

another if he wish to be really a Christian, but remain as he is or be reconciled to his wife.

673.

tion and

canons.

After we had jointly treated upon and determined these points, to the intent that no scandalous contention should be raised henceforth by any of us, and that there should be no mistake in the publication of them, it seemed proper Subscripthat every one of us should confirm them by the subscrip- confirmation of his own hand, according as they had been deter- tion of the mined. I dictated this our definitive sentence to be written by Titillus the notary. Done in the month and indiction above written. Whosoever therefore shall attempt to oppose and infringe this sentence, confirmed by our consent and the subscription of our hands as agreeable to the decrees of the canons, let him know that he is forbidden every function of a priest and all society with us. May the Divine grace preserve us safe in the unity of the Church so long as we live.

VI.

COUNCIL OF HATFIELD, A. D. 680.

THE following account of the Council, held by Theodore at Hatfield, Sept. 17, 680, is supplied by Bede, H. E. iv. 17, 18.

[Gidley's tr. revised.]

680.

the synod.

At this time Theodore, hearing that the faith of the CircumChurch at Constantinople had been much disturbed by the stances of heresy of Eutyches, and being desirous that the Churches. of the English, over which he ruled, should abide free from such a stain, having collected an assemblage of venerable priests and very many doctors, diligently inquired what belief they each held, and found an unanimous agreement of all in the Catholic faith; and this he took care to commit to a synodal letter for the instruction and remembrance of posterity; of which letter, to wit, this is the beginning :'In the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in and place.

Its date

680.

Ratifica

the reign of our most pious lords, Egfrid, king of the Humbrians, in the tenth year of his reign, on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of October; and Ethelred, king of the Mercians, in the sixth year of his reign; and Aldwulf, king of the East Angles, in the seventeenth year of his reign; and Hlothair, king of the Kentishmen, in the seventh year of his reign. Theodore being president, by the grace of God, archbishop of the island of Britain and of the city. of Canterbury, and other venerable men sitting with him, bishops of the island of Britain, with the holy Gospels laid before them, in the place which is called by the Saxon name of Hatfield; we handling the subject in concert, have tion of the made an exposition of the right and orthodox faith, even as faith of the our Incarnate Lord Jesus Christ delivered it to his disciples, Trinity. who saw him present, and heard his discourses, and as the creed of the holy fathers has delivered, and generally all the assembly of approved doctors of the Catholic Churchwe therefore piously and orthodoxly following them, and making our profession according to their divinely inspired teaching, believe in unison with it, and confess according to the holy fathers, that the Father and Son and Holy Ghost are properly and truly a consubstantial Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity; that is one God in three consubstantial subsistencies [subsistentiis], or Persons of equal glory and honour.'

Catholic

Acceptance of the five general Councils and the Roman Council of 649.

And after many things of this kind that pertained to the confession of the right faith, the holy synod also adds this to its letter:

'We have received, as holy and universal, five synods of the fathers blessed and acceptable to God, that is of the 318 who were assembled at Nicæa against the most impious Arius and the tenets of the same; and of 150 at Constantinople against the madness of Macedonius and Eudoxius and their dogmas; and of 200 in the first Council of Ephesus against the most wicked Nestorius, and the

dogmas of the same; and of 630 at Chalcedon against Eutyches and Nestorius and their dogmas; and again of those who were assembled in a fifth Council at Constantinople, in the time of the younger Justinian, against Theodore and the epistles of Theodoret and Ibas and their dogmas, against Cyril.'

680.

And a little after: 'Also we have received the synod that was held in the city of Rome in the time of the blessed Pope Martin in the eighth indiction in the ninth year of the reign of the most pious Constantine'. And we glorify our Lord Jesus Christ as they glorified him, neither adding nor subtracting anything; and we anathematize with heart. and mouth those whom they anathematized; and those Anathema of all conwhom they received we receive, glorifying God the Father trary without beginning, and his only-begotten Son, begotten of doctrine. the Father before the world began, and the Holy Ghost proceeding ineffably from the Father and the Son, as those holy apostles and prophets and doctors have declared of whom we have spoken above. And all we who have with Theodore made an exposition of the Catholic faith have subscribed hereto.'

VII.

THE CANONS OF CLOVESHOO, A.D. 747.

MANY Councils were held at Cloveshoo, whatever the correct identification of the place may be. The most important of all recorded took place in the year 747, for the reformation of abuses. An abstract of the Acts of this Council is given in William of Malmesbury, Gest. Pont. i. 5. See H. and S. iii. 360. The document translated below is now lost. Spelman printed it from Cotton MS., Otho A. 1, which was burnt in the fire of 1731.

[Johnson's tr. revised.]

In the perpetual reign of our Lord Jesus Christ, who orders all things at the command of the Father, and by the

A mistake for Constans.

747.

747. Place,

and date

of the Council.

lively grace of the Holy Ghost.

The under-written acts were done in synod, at the beginning of September, near members, the place called Cloveshoo: these prelates of the Churches of Christ, beloved of God, being present, viz.-The honourable Archbishop Cuthbert; and the venerable prelate of the Church of Rochester, Dun; and the most reverend bishops of the Mercians, Totta, and Huita, and Podda; and the most approved prelates of the West [Saxons], Hunferd and Herewald; and the venerable priests Heardulf of the East Angles, and Ecgulph of the East Saxons, and Milred of the Hwiccians; also the honourable bishops, Alwi of the province of Lindsey, and Sicga of the South Saxons, in the year of our Lord's incarnation 747, indiction 15, the 32nd year of the reign of Ethelbald, king of the Mercians, who was then present with his princes and chief men [ducibus].

Letters

from Pope Zachary

are produced,

When the said prelates of the sacred order, of divers provinces of Britain, with many priests of the Lord, and of those of the ecclesiastical order in lesser dignities, met the venerable Archbishop Cuthbert at the place of synod, and they were set down to treat of, and settle the unity of the Church, and the state of Christianity, and agreement of peace, after a devout mutual salutation, the writings of Pope Zachary (the Pontiff and Apostolic Lord, to be venerated throughout the world) in two charters, were in the first place produced, and publicly recited, and explained in our own tongue, as he himself, by his apostolic authority, enjoined. In which writings the famous pontiff Zachary admonished, in a familiar manner, the inhabitants of this Isle of Britain, of our stock, of every rank and degree of quality, and authoritatively charged them, as present before him, and lastly in a loving manner entreated them, and suggested among other things that a sentence of anathema should be certainly published against those that persisted in their pertinacious malice and contempt of all this; as in them is evident to those who read.