The forwardness of pope Alexander was answerable to the importance of this design; therefore a bull, which bears date at Tours, for the canonization of Anselm, was directed to his successor the new archbishop, with assurance that his proceedings therein should be confirmed by the court of Rome. And no doubt but the address of that court, which ensnared the body of the clergy, easily possessed the archbishop with an opinion of the great honour which would redound to him, by appearing at the head of those who were to assert the ecclesiastic liberty. But whatever springs the zeal of that prelate had, he was no sooner returned from the council of Tours, but he presently set this pretence into motion; the occasion and circumstances whereof, Hoveden and Brompton, both favourers of the pretence and of the conduct of the archbishop, thus relate.

Immediately after the return of the archbishop and his brethren from the council of Tours, a great controversy began betwixt the king and the clergy. "The king," saith Brompton ", "being desirous that justice should be equally and impartially distributed, and having notice given him by his judges, that several outrages, thefts, and murders were committed by the clergy, ordered,” saith Hoveden, "that such of the clergy as should be taken in felony, robbery, murder, or burning of houses, should be carried before the judges, and punished as the laity were, when found guilty of those offences "." On the contrary, the archbishop opposed this proceeding, and asserted, that "whatever faults the clergy should be found guilty of, they were only triable in the ecclesiastical court, and before the judges thereof."

The bishops and clergy of the province of Canterbury, in a synodical epistle written to pope Alexander, give much the same account of this affair. "The king," say they, "seeing the

peace of his kingdom much disturbed by the enormous excesses of some of the clergy, and not thinking the degrading of them for murder and other enormous crimes, a punishment sufficient to answer the guilt, or to preserve the public peace; he caused the laws observed by ecclesiastic persons in the days of his predecessors to be drawn into a body, and appointed that such of the clergy as offended might be punished according to those laws:"

a

Angl. sac. par. ii. p. 177.

b Brom. X. Script. col. 1058. N. 50.

< Hoved. Annal. par. poster. fol. 282.

d Ejusd. Annal. ann. 1167. fol. 293.

whereas say they on the other side, the clergy insisted on their being punishable by the ecclesiastic laws only. And as the king had the advantage in point of right, having the law and usage of England on his side, he had the advantage also in the management of this controversy; for whilst the address on the other side was fierce and impetuous, and carried on with very indecent reflections, the king, says the same provincial letter, on his side managed this dispute with all possible respect and veneration to the clergy.

"This," say they, "was the cruelty, which has made such a noise in the world; this the persecution, this the wickedness, which have been so much clamoured against." Whereas, says the same synodical epistle, as the king had declared he had no thoughts of lessening the honour of the clergy or the rights of the church, so he has promised, that if it appear that the aforesaid laws are any way prejudicial to the welfare or good of souls, or dishonourable to the church, he was ready to make such alterations, as with the advice of the clergy of his kingdom should be thought fit.

:

There were some other collateral branches of this dispute; as whether there lay any appeals' from the king's courts, or whether bishops might go out of the kingdom without his leave but the stress of this controversy was, in short, whether the king had any authority over ecclesiastic persons or in causes ecclesiastical, But because this affair did not only at this time divide the Western churches, but has remained a subject of dispute to after-ages, and the honour of the English church and nation, and the justice and authority of the kings of England, have a great share therein; before I enter upon the relation of this controversy, it may not be amiss to look backward, and to observe the laws and practice of the preceding ages, in the particular under question.

Religion has so just and undoubted a right to the most profound veneration and regard, that the ministers thereof never did and never can want a due respect, but where religion itself wants a due influence and authority on the minds of men. For the honour of religion, and of those to whose conduct the interest and ministry of holy things are committed, stand upon the same

a Hoved. Annal. ann. 1167. fol. 293.

1 Any appeals.] See Twisden's Historical Vindication, p. 28-38: also Barrow on the Pope's Supremacy, p. 417-37. 4to, 1680; and Inett, vol. ii. p. 195,6. 280,1. 376,7. a part of the present extract; and see also Iudex, under Appeals to Rome.

foot, viz. the honour of God, and cannot fail but with the foundation upon which they are built; and as they flow from the same common fountain, and stand or fall together, so they ever bear proportion to one another. Therefore the same holy warmth, which accompanied the first ages of the gospel, did also induce Christian princes to grant great privileges and immunities to the ministers thereof. They were excused from all those personal services, which might be burthensome to them, or which might withdraw them from the offices of their holy function, or render them little in the eyes of men; and their estates were exempted from many charges and burthens, to which the estates of other men were subject ".

Nor did the favours to the ministers of Christ stop here, but Christian princes entrusted them with all the power that was necessary to serve the ends of peace and charity and holiness. Yet religion was never thought to strip princes of any of those rights, which nature and the ends of government have put into their hands. On the contrary, from the time that the gospel became the religion of the empire, all the concerns and interests thereof were taken under the care of the civil power, and so many laws relating to ecclesiastical persons and causes were made by the imperial authority, that they take up a great deal of room in the body of laws collected by the appointment of the emperor Justinian.

In short, those laws take cognizance of sacred things, persons, and causes. They determine when new churches shall be built, and how supported; how the rectors thereof should subsist; and appoint that their maintenance shall be sacred and inalienable a; to whom the patronage of churches shall belong, and by what measures that right should be conducted; how the bishop shall demean himself, if an unworthy man shall be presented; what articles of faith should be esteemed catholic; who shall be deemed heretics, and how punished ; and who shall be esteemed catholics i.

By the same authority too councils were convened, and the canons thereof confirmed and published. Particularly the imperial law determines that the councils of Nice, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and

Constantinople should be received, and that the books written by Porphyry against the Christian religion should be burnt; that Nestorius, Eutyches, Apollinaris, and their followers, should be esteemed heretics".

As the imperial authority thus acted in matters relating to religion and holy things, so it judged of persons too. It determined that every city should have its own bishop, and how far his diocese should extend; how persons should be qualified that were admitted to holy orders; how the lower clergy, the monks, the bishops, the metropolitans, the patriarchs, should behave themselves and by convening the bishops of the whole Christian church to the eight first general councils by the emperors, the world has one comprehensive and undeniable proof of the authority of princes over all ecclesiastical persons, received and owned by the universal church.

Ecclesiastical causes were no less the subject of the imperial authority. The laws of the empire direct that synods shall be yearly called, to consider of the matters of faith and discipline e; that the judgment and sentences of those assemblies should be conducted by the canons of the church and by the laws of the empire ; that the disputes amongst diocesan bishops should be determined by their proper metropolitan and two assessors; if they cannot determine them, then by the archbishop or patriarch1; that all causes of the clergy should be finally determined in the provinces wherein they arise, and that the clergy should not be called out of the province where they live to any foreign tribunal; and in what manner causes ecclesiastical shall be conducted, to whom the cognizance thereof does in the first instance belong, by what steps appeals shall proceed, and whose sentence shall be final and unappealable *.

The same laws direct, how a suit betwixt a layman and a clergyman shall be managed; and in case a layman shall commence a suit in the court of a bishop, and either party does not acquiesce in the sentence thereof, that then the cause may be reheard by the civil judge1; how metropolitans and bishops should be punished, if they neglect to convene their provincial or

diocesan synods; how a bishop should be punished, if absent a year from his diocese without the leave of the emperor, or, if he excommunicate a person without showing cause; how a deposed bishop should be treated, if he attempt to disturb the public peace.

And which is still more, the greatest part, and probably every one, of the aforesaid laws were made by the emperors with the advice of their bishops, and without any complaint were universally obeyed by the clergy and religious; yet, at the time of making those laws, the bounds of Christendom and the empire were much the same. So that one, who looks backwards to the first Christian emperors, and to the greatest and best bishops and clergy that ever served in the Christian church, and finds so many laws on the one side, and such dutifulness and obedience on the other, cannot but stand amazed at an attempt to withdraw the clergy and religious from the authority of the civil government, which at this time gave so much trouble to the English church and

nation.

If one was to run over the laws and histories of Europe after the fall of the empire, the case will appear still the same.---But to judge truly of the present controversy, it will concern us to look at home, and view the practice of our ancient EnglishSaxon ancestors.-Though the assertion of that learned gentleman, who affirms that a third part of the land of England was in possession of the clergy, at the time of the Norman conquest, cannot be allowed, yet there is no reason to doubt what that writer and M. Paris before him say of the great tenderness and regard, with which they were ever treated under the Saxon government; wherein the aforesaid learned writer observes, they held their lands by Frank Almonage, and subject to no duties and impositions, but such as they laid upon themselves in ecclesiastical assemblies e. Whether this be wholly true, I shall not inquire ; but it is certain, that their lands were excused from many of those burthens, to which other lands were subject; that the bishops had a great share both in the legislature and in the administration of justice; they were called to and had places in the great council; and, beside the proper authority allowed to them in right of their function, they were standing judges in the county b Novel. 123. cap. 10.

a Novel. 6. tit. 6. cap. 2.

e Codic. lib. i. tit. 3. sect. 14.

d Sir Will. Temp. Introduct. Engl. Hist. p. 175.

e Ibid.

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