Although the close union of the Church with the State during the period before the Conquest had some ill effects on the character of the clergy, it gave the Church a firm hold on the people. The use that it made of its influence on society lies apart from the main purpose of this book; yet some notices have been given of its efforts for social reformation. From it came all that there was of purity, gentleness, and humanity in the life of the people. By example and precept it taught the rich their duty towards the poor, it educated all who cared to learn, it purified domestic life, it exalted the position of woman and protected her weakness, it shielded the helpless from oppression, and proclaimed that the slave was precious in the sight of God. The clergy recommended the manumission of slaves as a meritorious deed; the ceremony was often performed at the altar of a church, and records of such acts are recorded in the missal-books of minsters. When a king or noble visited some church, it was held that the visitor paid a high compliment to the clergy if he freed a slave or a captive before their altar. The national character of the Church deeply affected the life of the State. Its unity in a large measure gave unity to the people, and created the nation. Its ministers held each his recognized place in the national organization; the parish priest, as the head of the parish, attended the hundred-court with the reeve of the lord; the bishop was a member of the national council, and sat with the ealdorman in the local courts. Great as the political power of the bishops was, they made no attempt to strengthen their temporal position at the expense of the national system; they did not seek to become territorial princes, like the bishops of the Continent, who held a position derived from the arrangements of the Roman Empire. This is true even of the two archbishops, though the high degree of temporal power attached to their sees is signified by the right they exercised of coining money. For, while the archbishops of Canterbury succeeded to much of the power once held by the under-kings of the Kentish kingdom, they did not use it in attempts to build up a subordinate princedom; and if the archbishops of York appear for a season as independent political leaders of the Northern people, they cease to do so when their province is thoroughly united to the dominions of the English king. In the midst of the struggles of contending parties and the treason of ambitious nobles, the English prelates continued faithfully to fulfil their duties to the State, and the clergy at large supplied it with a succession of able administrative officials. Churchmen bore their share of the national burdens. The fleets with which the king and the witan sought to guard the coasts were raised by levies from every shire. To these levies the lands of the Church were liable equally with those of laymen. Accordingly we find that Archbishop Ælfric, at his death in 1005, was possessed of ships and their equipments, the quota, no doubt, that he was bound to furnish when the witan decided on gathering a fleet. His best ship together with armour for sixty men he left to the king, and, besides this, he gave a ship to the people of Kent, and another to the people of Wiltshire—probably to help them to bear the burden that the war laid upon them. Moreover, the Danegeld, which was originally raised for the purpose of buying peace of the Danes, and was continued as a permanent tax on every hide of cultivated land until it was abolished by the Confessor, to be reimposed in a more oppressive form by the Norman Conqueror, was paid, except in cases of special exemption, on the lands of ecclesiastics as well as of laymen.
The freedom of the Church kept alive the national spirit in the evil days that followed the Conquest; it was used to restrain oppression, and the Church became the bond that united conquerors and conquered in one people. As regards the Church itself, its national character gave it independence, and in many ways it acted by itself apart from the rest of Western Christendom. From the reign of the Mercian Cenwulf to the reign of the Confessor it was virtually free from papal interference, and the Popes took little heed of what passed in England. It made saints of those who were venerated by the English people, and observed their mass-days in accordance with the decrees of the national council; it constantly used the tongue of the people in prayers and homilies; its doctrines were held and advanced with little reference to papal authority, and its rights were laid down by kings and enforced by civil officers. Isolated from the rest of Europe, England seemed to men like another world, of which the archbishop of Canterbury was pope. The isolation and strongly national character of the Church were not without danger to its well-being. To be cut off from Rome was to lose all share in the manifold and progressive life of Western Christendom. Had the Church of England retained its purely insular character, it would never have risen much above the level of the nation, nor have been able to elevate society. During the years immediately preceding the Conquest it sank with the nation. It was a period of exhaustion both in Church and State; and the time might have come when the isolation of the Church of England would have ended in a decay as complete as that of the Celtic Church. From such a danger the Church was saved by the Norman Conquest. It rested with the Conqueror and his successors to determine how far the Conquest was to lead to the fulfilment of Hildebrand’s expectations, to decide whether England should become the submissive handmaid of Rome.
CHAPTER V.
ROYAL SUPREMACY.
THE CONQUEROR AND LANFRANC—CANTERBURY AND YORK—SEPARATE ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM—REMOVAL OF SEES—EXTENT AND LIMITS OF PAPAL INFLUENCE—THE CONQUEROR’S BISHOPS—CHANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH—AN APPEAL TO ROME—FEUDAL TENDENCIES—ST. ANSELM—STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY—INVESTITURES—HENRY I.—COUNCILS—LEGATES—INDEPENDENCE OF THE SEE OF YORK—SUMMARY.
Deposition of English prelates.
In order to ensure the success of his invasion, William had given the Pope a strong claim on his obedience, at a time when the papal power was advancing rapidly under the guidance of Hildebrand, who in 1073 became Pope with the title of Gregory VII. Nevertheless William succeeded in using the papal pretensions to strengthen his hold on England, and in disregarding them when they threatened to weaken his absolute sovereignty in Church and State. In 1070, when he had completed the conquest of the land, he set about securing the submission of the Church, and invited Alexander II. to send legates to his court. Accordingly certain legates visited this country, and deposed Stigand and other bishops and abbots. Thus the Pope was gratified by the deposition of the uncanonical archbishop, while the Conqueror, by ousting the native prelates, crushed the strongest element of national resistance. York, which was vacant by the death of Ealdred, was given to Thomas of Bayeux, one of the king’s clerks; other Normans were appointed to different sees; Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, 1070-1089.and shortly afterwards Lanfranc was appointed to Canterbury. Lanfranc, a native of Pavia, a man of great learning and ability, and especially skilled in civil law, first came to Normandy as a teacher. He suddenly gave up this work, entered the newly founded monastery of Bec, and devoted himself to the monastic life. He became prior, and his talents attracted the notice of the duke, who made him his counsellor, and gave him the abbacy of his new monastery, St. Stephen’s, at Caen. At Rome, Lanfranc was honoured as the defender of transubstantiation, and his appointment to Canterbury was warmly approved by the Pope. He was a man on whom the Conqueror could safely rely for the furtherance of his ecclesiastical policy. Hitherto there had virtually been only one system of administration for both Church and State. William’s work was to create a separate ecclesiastical system, carried on by clerical officers. Yet the Church no less than the State was to be under his own absolute control; and so, while he needed a strong archbishop, he needed one who would exert his strength to maintain and increase the royal power. In Lanfranc he found an archbishop after his own heart, in exalting whose position he strengthened his own.
Canterbury and York.