necessary for securing the apostolical succession of ministers, and for assimilating religious communities with primitive antiquity, all the more considerable inhabitants were convened. Both laity and clergy solemnly admitted a serious loss, for the speedy reparation of which they were equally concerned. Hence it was by their united suffrages that a successor was appointed to the vacant see.1 His original nomination might seem to have rested with the crown, and the popular duty to have been that of approval or rejection. Having been chosen, the bishop elect was presented to the prelates of the province for examination. He was now interrogated as to the soundness of his belief, and required to give a solemn pledge for the due performance of his episcopal duties. A profession of canonical obedience to his metropolitan was also exacted from him. Of obedience to the Roman see, or of a belief in transubstantiation, there appears no mention in our earliest pontificals.3 Professions of such obedience and

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1 For the address of clergy and laity to the bishops of the province, see Bampton Lectures, 177.

2 For some of the interrogatories, see Bampton Lectures, 94. 3 Nasmith, in his printed Catalogue of Archbishop Parker's MSS. in the library of C. C. C. C., has the following remark on an ancient pontifical in that collection, No. 44: "Promittit eps ordinandus se plebem ei commissum ex sacris Scripturis docturum, officium episcopale fideliter obsecuturum, ecclesiæ Dorobernensi se fore subjectum et obedientem, et articulis fidei assensum præbet. Nihil vero hic invenies de subjectione a sede Romanâ ab electis postea exactâ, nec de transubstantiatione."-P. 28.

For the interpolations respecting traditions and papal constitutions, see Bampt. Lect. 95: for those respecting transubstantiation and remission of sins, see p. 420. It might have been remarked,

belief, are therefore, palpable innovations. Their occurrence in later pontificals only, deservedly stamps them as interpolations. Formularies, thus interpolated, contrasted with more ancient records, afford invaluable evidence against allegations of antiquity advanced by a Romish advocate.

The prelacy constituted a standing branch of the Saxon witenagemot, or parliament. Legislative assemblies merely lay were unknown to those who provided England with her envied constitution. It would be, indeed, a monstrous folly, as well as a gross injustice, to exclude from political deliberation that very class of considerable proprietors, in which alone information and morality are indispensable. On every meeting, accordingly, of the great national council, Anglo-Saxon archbishops, bishops, and abbots, were provided with appropriate places. Thus the civil polity of England was wisely established on a Christian basis. The clerical estate has formed an integral member of it from the first. An English prelate's right to occupy the legislative seat that has descended to him from the long line of his predecessors, is, therefore, founded on the most venerable of national prescriptions. It is no privilege derived from that Norman policy which converted episcopal endowments into baronies. It is far more ancient than the Conqueror's time; being

in the Sermon upon Attrition, that the insertion of an interrogation as to the remission of sins, in the later pontificals, is an incidental proof that the scholastic doctrine of sacramental absolution is of no high antiquity.

rooted amidst the very foundations of the monarchy.1

Under William, indeed, episcopal privileges were abridged. He found the bishop, and the earl, or alderman, sitting concurrently as judges in the county court; having for assessors the thanes or gentry within the shire. This tribunal entertained ordinary questions of litigation, and was open to appeals from the various hundred-courts. Its own decisions were liable to revision by the king alone. An AngloSaxon prelate was therefore continually before the public eye, invested with an important civil trust. After a reign of about seventeen years, the Conqueror abrogated this ancient usage, erecting separate places of judicature for ecclesiastical suits. A principle of exclusion was thus established, which proud and selfish spirits would fain abuse, until they have reduced, at least one order of competitors for the more attractive advantages of society, to hopeless insignificance.

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Soon after the conversion of Kent, an episcopal see was founded at Rochester, in subordination to that of Canterbury. To this, the archbishops are said to have nominated, until after the Conquest.3

1 For information upon the clerical branch of the Anglo-Saxon legislature, see Archbishop Wake's State of the Church, p. 135, et. seq., and his Authority of Christian Princes, p. 161.

2 HICKES, Dissert. Epistolaris. Thes. i. 4.

3 GODWIN, De Præsul. 527. This archiepiscopal privilege, we are told, was relinquished in favour of the monks of Rochester, by Archbishop Theobald, in 1147. But Godwin's editor shews the statement to be inaccurate. The ancient usage appears to have been, that the monks of Rochester should choose their own bishop

When other kingdoms of the Heptarchy were converted, a single see was established in each. In Wessex this was the Oxfordshire Dorchester; in Essex, London; in East-Anglia, Dunwich; in Mercia, Lichfield; in Northumbria, Lindisfarne; and in Sussex, Selsey. Essex and Sussex remained permanently under one prelate. The diocese of Wessex was firstly dismembered by the foundation of a bishopric at Winchester;1 subsequently still further, by such foundations at Sherborne, Wilton,3 Wells, Crediton and Bodmin.5 Mercia was gradually divided into the dioceses of Sidnacester, Leicester, Hereford, Worcester," and Lichfield. Of these, the two former coalesced, and were placed under a single bishop, who resided at Dorchester.

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in the chapter-house of Canterbury. Probably Theobald relieved them from this mark of subjection. It is obvious, that while the old practice continued, the archbishop would be likely to influence the election. The see of Rochester was founded in 604.

1 The see of Dorchester was founded about 635; that of Winchester, about 663.-GODWIN, De Præsul. pp. 202. 203.

2 The see of Sherborne was founded about 705; it was removed to Salisbury some years after 1046.-LE NEVE, Fasti, 255. 256.

3 Founded in 905. Herman was chosen to it in 1046, and, subsequently obtaining Sherborne, he procured the union of the two sees. Before his death he fixed the see at Salisbury.—Ib. 256. 4 Founded in 905.--Ib. 31.

5 Both founded in 905; they coalesced about 1040, on the establishment of St. Peter's at Exeter, as a see for both Devonshire and Cornwall. The Cornish see had been removed from Bodmin to St. Germain's.-Ib. 79.

6 Founded in 680.-Ib. 107.

7 Founded in 680.-GODWIN, De Præsul. 447.

8 Sidnacester was founded in 678; Leicester, in 737. This

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Northumbria became two dioceses, of which a see for the southern, was fixed at York;1 for the northern, eventually, at Durham. East-Anglia owned. subjection to two prelates, during a considerable interval - an additional see having been established at Elmham. In later Saxon times, however, this arrangement was overthrown; the bishop of Elmham having under him all East-Anglia. At the Conquest, accordingly, England's ecclesiastical superiors were two archbishops, and thirteen bishops.- Wilton and Sherborne having merged in Salisbury, the two sees of Devonshire and Cornwall in that of Exeter.

For such variations in diocesan arrangements as might meet existing circumstances, provision had been made in the council of Hertford. It was there enacted, that as the faithful became more numerous, so should episcopal sees.3 No prelate was, however, to assume a discretionary power of providing for spiritual wants not placed regularly under his charge.

was soon transferred to Dorchester. That see was placed over also the diocese of Sidnacester, in the earlier part of the tenth century. -GODWIN, De Præsul. 281.

1 Paulinus was nominally the first archbishop of York under the Anglo-Saxons; but he could not maintain his ground in Northumbria. After his flight, York remained without a prelate until the appointment of Chad in 664. From Chad, accordingly, the series of archbishops of York properly takes its beginning.

2 The see of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, was founded in 635; this place having been burned, the bishop removed, in 882, to Chester-le-Street. In 995 the episcopal see was transferred to Durham. (LE NEVE, Fasti, 345. 346.) During a long period a see was established at Hexham, which had under its inspection a large portion of the modern diocese of Durham.

3 Conc. Herudf. can. 9. SPELM. i. 153. WILK. i. 43.