Legatine Councils in England.
In 786, the two papal legates, accompanied by Wighood, a French abbot, sent by Charlemagne to assist them, reached England with letters from the Pope to King Offa, Aelfwold, King of Northumbria, and to the two archbishops.
George, Bishop of Ostia, went to King Aelfwold’s court, and Theophylact, Bishop of Todi, repaired to Offa’s. These kings then summoned councils of their chief men, both spiritual and temporal. The Northern Council assembled in 787; Offa’s Council assembled at Calchyth, i.e. Chelsea, London, in the same year. The legates placed before each Council the twenty Injunctions, which were drawn up at Rome previous to their departure. After the Injunctions were read out at each Council, they were signed by the two kings, the princes, two archbishops, bishops, and abbots. These ecclesiastical synods, presided over by the kings, were Witenagemóts, and the twenty Injunctions were so many laws regularly and legally passed. The 17th Injunction relates to tithes; therefore the payment of tithes received on this occasion a legal sanction in the two kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. Here then we put our fingers on the first case in which tithes in England had been legally ordered to be paid. Previous to 787 there existed the custom of voluntarily paying tithes. Some paid, and some did not. But in this year and in these two kingdoms only, the custom was made a legal obligation by the two Anglo-Saxon Parliaments.
“What copy,” says Selden, “of this synod the centuriators had, or whence they took it, I find not. But if it be good authority, it is a most observable law to this purpose. Being made with such solemnity by both powers of both states of Mercland (Mercia) and Northumberland, which took up a very great part of England; and it is likely that it was made general to all England.”[68] It is most important to note that for 120 years after these legatine councils were held, there is a dead silence in our laws and chronicles as regards the payment of tithes.
The legates, on their return to Rome, made a report to the Pope of their proceedings in England. The document was published in A.D. 1567 at Basle by the Magdeburg Centuriators, from a manuscript of which they give no account.[69] It contains, however, as Lord Selborne admits, abundant internal proof of authenticity.[70] Yet he adds: “But because it is not probable that, if the Injunctions which we now know from this source only had entered into the body of the public law of the three greatest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the eighth century, they would, in this country, have entirely disappeared.”[71] When such arguments from negative evidence as to laws are urged, I always think of Mr. Thorpe’s wise remarks, that “what we now possess of Anglo-Saxon laws is but a portion of what once existed.”[72] It contains twenty Injunctions, and was signed by the two kings and all the bishops, including an Irish and Welsh bishop.
In this document the object of the mission is thus stated: “To travel through and visit the island, and to confirm the authority of the Roman Pontiff acquired there formerly through the mission of Augustine.”[73]