The English Church in the Middle Ages

by William Hunt

No writ was issued for the consecration of Thomas of York until Lanfranc had received consecration, and this delay was perhaps intentional; for when Thomas brought the writ to Lanfranc he was bidden to profess obedience to the see of Canterbury. He refused to do so, on the ground that Gregory had instituted two co-ordinate archbishoprics. On the other hand, the bishops of York, from Paulinus to Ecgberht, had not enjoyed metropolitan dignity, and even since Ecgberht’s time the see had occupied an inferior position to Canterbury. Lanfranc had papal decrees and other evidences on his side, and gained the king’s support by representing that an independent metropolitan at York might crown an independent king of Northumbria. William compelled Thomas to profess obedience to Lanfranc personally, and, with respect to the future, ordered that the question should be decided by the Pope. When the two archbishops went to Rome for their palls, Alexander was about to degrade Thomas and Remigius, bishop of Dorchester, who went with them, on account of canonical irregularity, and only forbore to do so at Lanfranc’s request. Thomas brought forward the matter of the profession, and further claimed Dorchester, Lichfield, and Worcester as subject to York. Alexander referred these matters to the decision of an English synod, and the case seems to have been heard before a mixed assembly of clergy and laity, which pronounced against Thomas; he was forced to make a general profession of obedience, the Humber was declared the boundary between the provinces, and he was left with only one suffragan, the bishop of Durham. This disproportion between the archbishoprics had not been contemplated by Gregory, for his division, which was based on the assumption that the whole island was under one rule, included Scotland in the province of York. Under William and Lanfranc the English Church made its power felt in yet unconquered Celtic lands. The claim of York was asserted over Scotland. As that country had no metropolitan and no organized episcopal system, the assertion was plausible, and a bishop of the Orkneys was certainly consecrated by Thomas. It is extremely doubtful whether the authority of Canterbury was in any instance acknowledged in Wales during this reign, though a few years later it was, as we shall see, successfully asserted. In Ireland the irregular condition of the episcopacy naturally led kings and bishops to look up to Lanfranc; he consecrated two archbishops of Dublin, who made profession to him, and he wrote with authority to two kings on matters of discipline. An approach was thus made to the ecclesiastical submission of Ireland, and the primate of Britain was not unreasonably held by Latin Christendom to be “Patriarch of the nations beyond the sea.”

National synods and ecclesiastical courts.

Under William and Lanfranc synods were again held frequently, and, in accordance with the king’s policy, ecclesiastical legislation, which had in the preceding age been provided for in the national assembly, was confined to them. They were councils of the whole Church; for the archbishop of Canterbury was acknowledged as primate of all Britain: they consisted of one house, and such of the inferior clergy as attended them were little more than spectators, for no one might speak without special permission save bishops and abbots. Their action was controlled by the king, and we find them held at the same place as, and immediately after the close of, one or other of the yearly meetings of the great council. Episcopal elections seem to have been made in these synods instead of in the national assembly, though in these, as in all else, the king was supreme. While the Church thus regained separate synodical activity, the bishops did not lose their places in the national assembly. Their right, however, no longer rested simply on the wisdom supposed to be inherent in their office; they now held their temporalities as baronies, and sat in the council as barons; for the old witenagemót had been transformed into a feudal council. A separation was also effected in the judicial system. The Conqueror declared the union of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction to be mischievous, and provided that henceforth no bishop or archdeacon should sit in the hundred court; that all spiritual causes should be tried by the bishop in his own court and be determined according to the canons, and that if any one disobeyed the bishop’s summons and remained contumacious after excommunication, he should be brought to obedience by the king or the sheriff. This establishment of ecclesiastical courts, with their own system of law, was doubtless pleasing to the Pope, for the old English practice was contrary to the spirit of Hildebrand’s work. Its ultimate tendency was to lead men to look to Rome as the supreme court of appeal in spiritual causes, and to set churchmen in opposition to the Crown. For some time after the Conqueror’s death the separation of the courts was not fully effected, and this tendency was scarcely apparent. Nevertheless, his policy raised up a power in England that in later days greatly hampered the exercise of the royal authority and brought some troubles on the country.

Removal of sees.

Among the more important synodical decrees of this reign is that of the council held at London in 1075, which ordered that bishops’ sees should be removed from villages to cities. The change begun by Leofric was carried fully out now that nearly every bishop was a foreigner. The see of Sherborne was moved by Hermann to Salisbury (Old Sarum), to be moved again when the present church of the new Salisbury was built in the reign of Henry III.; the see of Selsey was moved to Chichester; that of Lichfield to Chester, and a few years later to Coventry, where the bishop seized on the abbey by force; the see of Elmham was moved first to Thetford, and then to Norwich; and in the reign of Rufus, the bishop of Wells left his little city for Bath. While the decrees of ancient Popes and councils were cited as authorities for this measure, the act of the council, like all the conciliar acts of the reign, derived its force from the king’s approval.

Extent of papal influence.

Gregory had reason to congratulate himself on the part he had taken in forwarding the Conquest. The uncanonical archbishop was deposed, and his place taken by one who was especially pleasing to the Holy See; insular peculiarities were removed, the new foreign bishops were far more amenable to papal influence than the native bishops had been, and the changes effected in the government of the Church were generally such as he approved. In these and some other matters his desires were in accord with the policy of the Conqueror. Where it was otherwise he found that the king and his archbishop would act according to their own judgment. While Lanfranc cordially sympathized in Gregory’s attempt to root out the custom of clerical marriage, his action was governed by the circumstances of the Church over which he presided. In England the custom obtained too widely to be attacked without discrimination. Accordingly the Council of Winchester, in 1076, only partially followed the example of the council which Gregory had held in Rome two years before. It decreed that no canon should have a wife, that the marriage of priests was for the future forbidden, and that no bishop should ordain a married man deacon or priest. On the other hand, priests who were already married were not called upon to leave their wives. Other decrees of this council insisted on the sanctity of marriage, and the necessity of obtaining the Church’s blessing in matrimony.

Its limits.

The absolute supremacy of the Conqueror in ecclesiastical matters is expressed in three rules which he is said to have laid down, and which define his rights in relation to the papacy. He would have no Pope acknowledged as apostolic without his bidding, and no papal letters brought into his kingdom unless he approved them. Synodical decrees were to have no force unless he had first ordained them; and none of his barons or officers of state were to be excommunicated or subjected to ecclesiastical rigour without his precept. Nor did he hesitate to return a flat refusal to a papal demand; for when Gregory sent a legate to admonish him to be more punctual in forwarding Peter’s pence, and to demand a profession of fealty to the Holy See, he wrote that he admitted the one claim and not the other. Fealty he would not do, for he had not promised it, nor did he find that earlier kings had done it. He took his stand on his position as king of England; that which his predecessors had done he would do, but he would not grant the Pope any authority over his kingdom that they had not granted. Even Gregory was forced to suffer this; he seems to have blamed Lanfranc for the king’s independent answer, bade him come to Rome, and urged him to bring William to obedience. Lanfranc defended himself in becoming terms, but stayed where he was, and at last the Pope threatened to suspend him if he did not obey his summons. Gregory, however, had powerful enemies nearer home, and did not care to quarrel with a king who steadily refused to take part against him. His struggle with Henry IV. gave occasion for the exercise, perhaps for the enunciation, of the first of the Conqueror’s rules, and Lanfranc writes that “our island” had not yet decided between Gregory and the antipope Clement. Lanfranc’s own sympathies, of course, were with Gregory, but he would not condemn the action of the Emperor; he thought that the proper attitude for England was one of neutrality.

Norman bishops.