sors, money legate, Holy Father, coming to me in your behalf, bade me 1076. to do fealty to you and your successors, and to think better done by my predecesin the matter of the money which my predecessors were wont to send to the Roman Church: the one point I agreed to, the other I did not agree to. I refused to do fealty, nor will I, because neither have I promised it, nor do I find that my predecessors did it to your predecessors. The money but the for nearly three years, whilst I was in Gaul, has been care- formerly lessly collected; but now that I am come back to my king- collected dom, by God's mercy, what has been collected is sent by be sent. the aforesaid legate, and what remains shall be dispatched, when opportunity serves, by the legate of Lanfranc our faithful archbishop. Pray for us, and for the good estate of our realm, for we have loved your predecessors and desire to love you sincerely, and to hear you obediently before all [præ omnibus]. shall still XVI. THE CONQUEROR'S MANDATE FOR DIVIDING THE date is quite uncertain. The document is printed by Wilkins from a MS. belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, compared with one in the Lincoln Register (Remigius 9). The text in Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes, i. 495, and Stubbs, S. C. 85, agrees with Wilkins. [Tr. Stubbs, S. C. 85.] for mend laws. William, by the grace of God king of the English, to Necessity. R. Bainard, and G. de Magneville, and Peter de Valoines, ing the and all my liege men of Essex, Hertfordshire and Middle- bishop's sex greeting. Know ye and all my liege men resident in England, that I have by my common council, and by the advice of the archbishops, bishops, abbots and chief men of my realm, determined that the episcopal laws be Secular siastical causes to be separated. to be de mended as not having been kept properly nor according to the decrees of the sacred canons throughout the realm of England, even to my own times. Accordingly I command and eccle- and charge you by royal authority that no bishop nor archdeacon do hereafter hold pleas of episcopal laws in the Hundred, nor bring a cause to the judgment of secular men which concerns the rule of souls. But whoever shall be impleaded by the episcopal laws for any cause or crime, Ecclesias let him come to the place which the bishop shall choose tical causes and name for this purpose, and there answer for his cause cided at the or crime, and not according to the Hundred but according bishop's to the canons and episcopal laws, and let him do right to discretion according God and his bishop. But if any one, being lifted up with to Church pride, refuse to come to the bishop's court, let him be summoned three several times, and if by this means, even, Contempt he come not to obedience, let the authority and justice of to be penal. the king or sheriff be exerted; and he who refuses to come to the bishop's judgment shall make good the bishop's law [emendabit legem episcopalem] for every summons. This too I absolutely forbid that any sheriff, reeve, or king's emphasis minister, or any other layman, do in any wise concern himself with the laws which belong to the bishop, or bring another man to judgment save in the bishop's court. And let judgment be nowhere undergone but in the bishop's see or in that place which the bishop appoints for this purpose. law. Further as to the separation of causes and place of penalty. XVII. WILLIAM AND THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. THESE three Canons are taken from Eadmer, Hist. Nov. i. 6. There is nothing to guide us as to the exact date. [Tr. Eadmer, Rolls Series, p. 10. Cf. Stubbs, S. C. 82.] Eadmer says: "Some of those novel points I will set down which he (William) appointed to be observed. . . 1. He would not then allow any one settled in all his 1. As to dominion to acknowledge as apostolic the pontiff of the acknowledging . City of Rome, save at his own bidding, or by any means to the Pope, receive any letter from him if it had not first been shown to himself. decrees, 2. The primate also of his realm, I mean the Archbishop 2. proof Canterbury or Dorobernia, presiding over a general vincial Council assembled of bishops, he did not permit to ordain or forbid anything save what had first been ordained by himself as agreeable to his own will. munication 3. He would not suffer that any, even of his bishops, 3. excomshould be allowed to implead publicly, or excommunicate, of barons, or constrain by any penalty of ecclesiastical rigour, any of &c. his barons or ministers accused of incest, or adultery, or any capital crime, save by his command.' XVIII. HENRY'S LETTER TO ANSELM, A. D. 1100. HENRY had been crowned during Anselm's absence. The letter which follows was written by the king to explain the reason for this. The document is often quoted in illustration of the archbishop's constitutional position at the time. [Tr. Anselm's Letters, ed. Migne, tom. 159, iii. xli. Cf. Stubbs, S. C. 102.] 1100. to come at counsel; Henry, by the grace of God king of the English, to his Anselm is most good spiritual father Anselm, bishop of Canterbury, requested greeting and demonstration of all friendliness. Know, my once to dearest father, that my brother King William is dead, and take I, by God's will, having been elected by the clergy and people of England, and already consecrated king-although owing to your absence against my will-I, with all the people of England, require you, as our father, that with all speed you come to take care of me, your son, and the same 1100. and the hurried coronation ed as necessary. Money is promised and the people, the care of whose souls has been committed to you. My own self, indeed, and the people of the whole realm of England I commend to your counsel and theirs who with you ought to take counsel for me; and I pray that it displease you not that I have received the royal blessing without you, is explain from whom, had it been possible, I would have received it more willingly than from any other. But there was such necessity, because enemies wanted to rise against me and the people which I have to govern, and so my barons and this same people did not wish it to be deferred longer; by reason of this, then, I received it from your representatives. Indeed, I would have sent to you from my person some by whom I might also have dispatched money to you, but owing to the death of my brother the whole world is so disturbed all round the realm of England that they would not have been in any wise able to reach you safely. I advise you then and enjoin you not to come through Normandy, but by Witsand, and I will have my barons at Dover to meet you, and money to convey you, and you will find, by God's help, means to pay off well anything you have borrowed. Hasten therefore, father, to come, lest our mother the Church of Canterbury, so long tempest-tossed and desolate, should any further, for your sake, experience the loss of souls. Witness, Girard, bishop, and William, bishopelect of Winchester, and William Warelwast, and Earl Henry, and Robert Fitz Haimon, and Haimon my steward, and others, as well my bishops as barons. Farewell. route prescribed. XIX. CANONS OF THE COUNCIL AT WESTMINSTER, THE following canons are given on the authority of Eadmer, Hist. Nov. iii. 67, &c., but there is some uncertainty as to Councils held in this year, and Eadmer evidently gives a summary. [Tr. Eadmer, l. c., Rolls Series edition, p. 142.] 1102. [The first canon concerned the practice of simony, for 1. Simony. which certain members of the Council were deprived on the spot.] 2. Bishops are not to undertake the office [of judge] in 2. Bishops. secular pleas, and are to dress not as laymen, but as becomes religious persons, and are always and everywhere to have honest persons witnesses of their conversation. 3. That archdeaconries be not let to farm. 4. That archdeacons be deacons. 3. Archdeaconries. 4. Arch 5. That no archdeacon, priest, deacon, or canon marry or deacons. retain a wife, and that any subdeacon who is not a canon, 5-8. Celihaving married after profession of chastity, be bound by the bacy of the same rule. 6. That a priest as long as he has illicit intercourse with a woman be not lawful nor celebrate mass, and if he do so that his mass be not heard. 7. That none be ordained to the subdiaconate, or beyond, without profession of chastity. 8. That sons of priests succeed not to their fathers' churches. clergy. 9. That no clerks at all be the agents or proctors of 9-13. Con. secular men, nor be judges of blood. duct and dress of 10. That priests go not to drinking bouts nor drink to clerks. pegs1 [ad pinnas]. 1 Cf. Bishop Stubbs, Mem. of St. Dunstan, Rolls Series, Pref. p. cviii. |