with the exception of the last we have touched upon, which was rendered peculiarly necessary by the servile spirit of the nation in those days, have been discerned, though with far less distinctness, in the other Teutonic tribes; for example, in France under the Merovingian dynasty the political power of the clergy was less steadily exerted in opposition to royal prerogative, though, when the latter attained a threatening pre-eminence in the state, we invariably find the clergy ranged with the asserters of national liberties1. Indeed it is evident that, before the Church was finally consolidated into one unanimous body, pervading all countries, and acting in obedience to a single absolute Head, and before the system of Church supremacy over kings, which to us is associated with the name of Gregory VII., was perfected by the craft of an ambitious priesthood, the most natural position for the clergy was that of antagonism to all despotic tendencies; for, so long as monarchs were free to deliberate on the subject of clerical power in the state, and to check ecclesiastical excesses without fear of the Vatican, they presented a far more serious obstacle to the advancement of the Church than was to be dreaded from the most capricious of popular movements. Accordingly we shall be justified in assigning to priestly influence no small share of the benefits accruing from the

1 See, for instance, St Leodgar's opposition to Childeric's revocation of the national laws which he had been induced to restore (Vita S. Leodgari, c. 4, ap. Guizot, Coll. des Mém ii. 332. Du Chesne, Hist. Fr. Scr. i. 603 ▲).

restrained authority of the sovereigns during the early mediaval period1.

But to take a yet more interesting example of the beneficial political action of the clergy, we discover, on turning to our own island, that the political position of the Anglo-Saxon clergy, while as yet the various national Churches had not been united under the See of Rome, differed in more than one respect from that of their

The following extracts from Ethelred's Laws illustrate the Anglo-Saxon feeling: "But there are some men who, on account of their pride and also on account of birth, scorn to obey divine superiors as they ought to do if they desired right; and often apply themselves to blame what they ought to praise, and account the worse for their humble birth those whose forefathers were not in the world either wealthy or proud through worldly splendour nor in this transient space of life flourishing or powerful; but these are neither wise nor wholly discreet, who will not obey God, nor better understand how often He has from little raised to great those who obeyed Him and justly spake. We know that through God's grace a thrall has become a thane, and a 'ceorl' has become an 'eorl,' a singer a priest, and a scribe a bishop. And formerly, so as God decreed, a shepherd became a king, and he was very great also, so as God decreed, a fisher became a bishop, and he was very dear and acceptable to Christ. Such are the gifts of God, who can easily from little raise to great all that He Himself will, so as the Psalmist truly said when he thus sang: Quis sicut Dominus Deus noster &c.? suscitans a terra inopem, et de stercore erigens pauperem, ut collocet eum cum principibus, cum principibus populi sui: he understands those that have fear of God and heed wisdom. We have all one heavenly Father, and one spiritual Mother, which is called Ecclesia, that is, God's Church; and therefore are we brothers. And then it is also just that each of us observe justice towards another" (Ethelred's Laws, vii. 21—23, 30, 31. ap. Thorpe, Anc. Laws, pp. 142—144).

* *

continental brethren, and that the influence they exerted on the state of people was, as might indeed have been expected from the general constitution of the AngloSaxon states, a more healthy and beneficial one.

In the first place they appear to have possessed this one great moral advantage over the clergy of every other European power, that the position which they occupied in society was a more moderate and definite, and consequently a more universally influential one. They neither swayed the whole councils of the nation, as did the haughty churchmen of Spain, nor were they, like those of France, merely occasional members of the great popular convocations. The composition of the Champ de Mars assemblies at a subsequent period under Charlemagne supplies us with sufficient proof that the nation of the Franks were never accustomed to look upon the clergy as a governing body in the state, while in England they formed as necessary a part of the Witenagemote as the thanes or the knights1. By this means they were

"In the Anglo-Saxon period the priest seems to have attended with the townsmen [and the Gerefa at the judicial assemblies of the Hundred and the Shire], but after the Conquest the clergy withdrew from the courts of purely secular authority" (Palgrave's Engl. Comm. vol. i. p. 83). In the two general Shire Courts to be held throughout England every year, "the Bishop and the Ealdorman were to preside, and respectively to declare the ecclesiastical and municipal law" (p. 117). So in Sweden, "those suits, which could not be decided within the limits of the Hærred, were reserved for the high remedial and inquisitorial court of the Reefsting, which was constituted in the following manner: The 'Laghman,' or Lawman, was Speaker or President; the Bishop, two Priests from the

preserved from claiming such an authority as to weaken their moral weight with the people, and possessed at the same time sufficient political influence to enable them to devote to the public weal the intellectual superiority of their class; at the same time, while their political influence was thus strengthened by salutary checks, they enjoyed advantages of social position unknown to the continental clergy, for we read repeatedly of prelates connected by ties of blood with the royal families of the Saxon provinces*; whence we may conclude that in

Episcopal Chapter, and two of the King's Council, were associated to him; and, if the latter were absent, two good and freeborn men were elected, to supply their places, by the Lawmen and the Clergy" (p. 113). In Iceland too, "when the Laugrett [or supreme judicial and legislative assembly] was assembled on the Hill of Pleas, it consisted of 12 times 12 or 144 members, virtually representing the people; to whom were added the Bishops and the Laghmen of the island. In this Court the 'men of Iceland were to reform their laws, if they would"" (pp. 115, 116). Instances of judicial or quasijudicial functions appointed for the English bishops and clergy may be found in Alfred's Laws, second set, § 1 (Thorpe, Anc. Laws, p. 27); Edward and Guthrum's Laws, §§ 10, 12. p. 74; Æthelstan's Laws, c. i. Preface, p. 83; Cnut's Laws, § 18. p. 165. The bishops frequently appear associated with the kings in the AngloSaxon laws; as in Alfred's Laws, second set, § 41 (ap. Thorpe, Anc. Laws, p. 39); Ine's Laws, Pref. p. 45; § 45. p. 56; Edward and Guthrum's Laws, § 12. p. 74; Laws on Ranks, § 8. p. 82; Æthelstan's Laws, c. i. Pref. p. 83; Edmund's Laws, Prefaces to both the ecclesiastical and the secular laws, pp. 104,105; Edgar's Laws, c. ii. §§ 3, 5. p. 113; Suppl. § 1. p. 115; Ethelred's Laws, c. vii. §§ 2, 5, 6. p. 141; and the Institutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical, § 5. P. 424.

* See Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. ii p. 373.

general the Church stood in a closer connexion than it did elsewhere to the nobility of the land1. This peculiarity as well as the preceding one may be explained by that one original distinction between England and the countries of the Continent which lies at the root of so much that is peculiar in the old Anglo-Saxon institutions, that the nation was not, as those of France or Spain were, composed of a small mixture of patrician Teutonic blood with the mass of the Celtic or, as we may term them, Roman inhabitants. The Saxons invaded England as a nation, not merely as an army, and the population was not only subdued but, to speak generally, exterminated before the conquerors. Hence the bond, political as well as social, which united the clergy to every rank of the people; hence the influence they obtained, as

1

In Norway, when the throne became vacant by forfeiture or incapacity, "according to the law of Haco, the foster-son of Athelstane, the Archbishop and Bishops and 12 of our best men in each diocese decreed the Crown to such of the brothers of the deposed Monarch as was deemed most worthy. The Laymen were sworn, and made the election upon their oath; but the Prelates gave their votes upon their conscience and honour. If the royal family became extinct in the direct line, the Bishops and Abbots, the royal Thanes, and all the royal Feudatories, assembled at the shrine of King Olave, in order to take counsel with the Archbishop concerning the succession to the throne, the Bishops were each accompanied by 12 men, as before, and these juries were to present upon their oath the name of the nearest heir to the deceased Monarch, &c. Unanimity was not required, and the verdict was given by the plurality of voices, provided the Clergy were on the side of the majority" (Palgrave's Engl. Comm. vol. i. p. 132).