The Commune of London, and other studies

by John Horace Round

Here we must turn to a third quarter, where the evidence is wholly independent. This is the Black Book of the Exchequer in which are entered the three letters from Pope Alexander, all of them dated from Tusculum, 20th September, 1172. Miss Norgate, in her History, referred to them as documents of undoubted authenticity;[396] but in her article, though stoutly maintaining that their evidence was not hostile to the genuineness of the “Bull,” she seems to have felt uneasy on the subject, for she changes her tone, and writes that they “purport to have been written by Pope Alexander III.,”[397] nay, even speaks of them as Alexander’s letters, “if they indeed are his.”[398]

To these letters, which Cardinal Moran pronounced “certainly authentic,” I now invite attention. The first, which is addressed to Christian bishop of Lismore (the legate), the four archbishops (by name), and their suffragans the bishops, speaks of the “vitiorum enormitates” made known to the writer by their letters (“ex vestrarum serie literarum,” “ex vestris literis”) and the “abominationis spurcitiam.”[399] No more exact agreement could be found than this document presents with the statement of Giraldus that the Legate’s letters, on behalf of the assembled prelates, recited “tam enormitates quam spurcitias” of the Irish. Again, the third letter, “to the kings and princes of Ireland,” similarly charges the Irish with “enormitatem et spurcitiam vitiorum”; and it confirms not only Giraldus but the ‘Gesta’ by its words: “in vestrum Regem et dominum suscepistis et ei fidelitatem jurastis ... vos voluntate libera subdidistis ... fidelitatem quam tanto Regi sub juramenti religione fecistis.” Their “juramenti debitum et fidelitatem predicto Regi exhibitam” is spoken of also in the letter to the prelates. Passing now to the second letter, which is to Henry himself, it introduces a new element; for while that to the prelates had referred to their letters and “aliorum etiam veridica relatione,” a vague phrase which, in the letter to the princes, reappears as “communi fama et certa relatione,” the Pope, in writing to the king, gives as his sources of information, first, the letters from the Legate and Prelates, and then the viva voce statements of Ralf archdeacon of Llandaff.[400] Now we know from the ‘Gesta’ that this Ralf was sent by Henry to hold the Council of the Irish Prelates at Cashel;[401] and we further know that the king had sent him to Rome as an envoy in the Becket business some two years before.[402] We have then, in this letter, confirmation of the fact that Henry sent a mission, with the prelates’ letter, to Rome, while the envoy it names is the very one whom he was specially likely to send.

So far, then, we find a most convincing agreement. Pope Alexander relied mainly for information as to the state of Ireland and as to the action of Henry on the written report of his Legate and the other prelates of Ireland, and on the personal statements of the king’s envoy who came with it. As to these points, there can really be no question.

But the best proof, to my mind, of the authenticity of these letters is that neither Giraldus nor any of the chroniclers used them, and that, so far at least as the ‘Gesta’ and Hoveden are concerned, they must have been purposely kept back. For the points of discrepancy are even more instructive than the points of agreement. It may have been observed that the ‘Gesta’ speaks of the documentary evidence as consisting of the prelates’ sealed letters appointing Henry and his heirs kings of Ireland. Giraldus, on the contrary, makes it consist of a report from the Council of Cashel on the State of Ireland. The letters explicitly confirm the latter statement, and wholly ignore the evidence described in the former. Moreover, the assertion in the ‘Gesta’ that the Pope made Henry and his heirs, in reply, kings of Ireland for ever is at direct variance with the letters, which do nothing of the kind. We must, then, it seems to me, conclude that the ‘Gesta’ and Roger Hoveden deliberately strove to represent the Pope as doing what he did not do, and dared not, therefore, quote the letters, knowing them to be not at all what was wanted.[403]

It seems to me a strong argument in favour of the letters to Henry himself, and one which may have been overlooked, that Pope Alexander pointedly speaks of Henry’s fresh expedition as undertaken, like a crusade, by way of penance for his sins:

Rogamus itaque Regiam excellentiam, monemus et exhortamus in Domino, atque in remissionem tibi peccatorum injungimus quatinus, etc ... ut sicut pro tuorum venia peccatorum adversus eam tantum laborem (ut credimus) assumpsisti, etc.

Even if the words do not imply that Henry himself had so represented it, they afford an answer to those who urge that the Pope could not have approved of such an enterprise by one who was himself at the time under a grave cloud.

Broadly speaking, they express the Pope’s warm approval of Henry’s expedition—as a missionary enterprise. It is as the champion of the church, and especially of St. Peter and his rights, that they praise him for what he has done. Specially significant is the fact that the rights claimed by Rome, under the Donation of Constantine, over all islands are not asserted (as by John of Salisbury) as justifying the grant of Ireland to Henry, but as entitling the Papal see to claim there rights for itself.[404]

Accepting, then, these letters as genuine, let me briefly recapitulate how the case stands. Their contents agree, we have seen, independently, in the most indisputable way, with the narrative of Giraldus. Moreover, that narrative, when carefully examined, leads us to infer that the Pope’s answer was despatched in reply to Henry’s mission; and with that inference the date of these letters (20th Sept., 1172) agrees fairly enough. Such a date as 1174 or 1175 would not agree with it at all. Lastly, Giraldus tells us that the Pope’s confirmation was despatched to Ireland with William Fitz Audelin; and, indeed, we should naturally expect that Henry, when he had succeeded in getting it, would lose no time in publishing the fact. Both the statement of Giraldus and that expectation are confirmed by the Pipe Roll entry, which proves that William Fitz Audelin did visit Ireland between Michaelmas, 1172, and Michaelmas, 1173, which is just the time that he must have done so, if he went there in charge of the Pope’s letter (or letters).

But now comes the hitch. If Giraldus had given us the text of the letter which the Pope really sent, and which is entered in the Black Book, it would have agreed with and confirmed his narrative in every respect. Instead, however, of doing this, he gave a letter, which even his champions do not venture to defend as authentic, a letter which does not agree with his narrative—for it ignores the legate’s report and the other information supplied—a letter which, for all we can find in it, was written in complete ignorance, not only of Henry’s visit to Ireland, but of every other fact in the case. In short, it is a mere general confirmation of Adrian’s famous “Bull,” and might as well have been issued before as after the king’s expedition. And so clumsily is it introduced that Giraldus does not even make the king ask for anything of the kind.