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CHURCH  AND  STATE 
IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 


THE  FORD  LECTURES 
DELIVERED  AT  OXFORD  IN   1905 

By   a.    L.    smith 

BALHOL  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 


OXFORD 

AT  THE   CLARENDON    PRESS 

1913 


OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON      EDINBURGH      GLASGOW      NEW    YORK 
TORONTO      MELBOURNE      BOMBAY 

HUMPHREY  MILFORD  M.A. 

PUBLISHER  TO   THE   UNIVERSITY 


LECTURE  I 

Syllabus 

The  Papacy  as  a  working  institution  ;  new  documents  available 
for  its  study.  The  two  sides  of  its  history  contrasted,  (i)  Its 
civiUzing  influence  ;  (2)  the  growth  of  bitter  feeUng  against  it. 
The  English  '  No  Popery  '  view,  not  merely  due  to  the  Reforma- 
tion, though  the  Reformation  does  have  its  roots  deep  in  the 
past ;  the  causes  were  at  work  as  early  as  1 250,  along  with  very 
opposite  influences. 

The  subject  of  the  lectures  therefore  is.  The  good  and  evil  of 
the  connexion  of  England  with  Rome,  especially  in  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century. 

Lecture  I.  The  effects  of  this  connexion  upon  the  English 
Church,  as  shown  in — 

(i)  The  Legatine  constitutions  of  1237,  and  their  most  impor- 
tant articles.  Comparison  of  these  with  the  long  series  of  English 
canons,  the  affiliation  of  these  latter  and  the  general  evidence 
which  they  supply. 

•  (2)  The  Gemma  Ecclesiastica,  its  hmitations  and  its  general 
character  ;  its  thaumaturgy  shows  that  the  Church  did  not  create 
but  did  control  superstition  ;  the  abuses,  ignorance,  slackness, 
and  immorality  among  the  clergy  ;  the  influence  of  Papal  central 
power. 

•  (3)  Grosseteste's  letters,  as  confirmatory  evidence;  also  his  own 
constitutions. 

(4)  In  the  Burton  Annals,  the  Coventry  visitation  gives  the 
same  picture.  The  Berkshire  rectors'  protest  examined  ;  very 
outspoken,  but  containing  no  attack  on  the  Papal  plenitudo 
potestatis. 
y  (5)  The  commentary  of  John  Athon,  later  in  date  but  may  be 
used  ;  his  criticisms  on  the  EngUsh  clergy  ;  his  acceptance  of  the 
Pope's  supremacy  and  judicial  and  dispensing  powers. 

(6)  The  Papal  Register  :  its  historical  value  as  authentic,  con- 
temporary, genuine,  careful,  and  representative.  It  shows  [a)  the 
ordinary  administration  of  the  Papacy,  and  the  effect  of  its 
central  decisions  ;  the  good  and  evil  of  Rome's  influence ;  the 
monasteries  as  needing  the  help  of  Rome  and  the  control  by 
Rome.  The  evidence  from  the  Bulls  issued  to  Grosseteste.  (&)  The 
abnormal  features  under  Innocent  IV,  pluralities,  &c.  (c)  The 
normal  administration  turned  to  partisan  purposes. 

(7)  The  Papacy  as  an  appeal  court ;  the  causes  of  its  develop- 
ment, (i)  especially  in  England  ;  (ii)  appeals  a  gravamine ; 
(iii)  a  choice  between  anarchy  and  centralization  ;  (iv)  it  did  not 
imply  foreign  judges  ;  (v)  the  resort  to  Rome  for  advice  ;  (vi)  the 
Pope  as  index  ordinarius.  The  prejudices  about  canon  law  apply 
to  its  later  stages  ;  the  ideal  aimed  at  in  the  system  was  a  kingdom 
of  God  on  earth.  Can  such  a  system  be  entrusted  to  ordinary 
men  ?   Can  religion  be  made  a  system,  without  detriment  to  it  ? 

(8)  The  confessional ;  Innocent  Ill's  rule  of  confession ;  its 
later  results,  to  make  obedience  the  one  virtue,  to  make  a  tariff  of 
penances,  to  centre  the  aims  of  the  Church  on  clerical  domina- 
tion, to  develop  casuistry.  Yet  the  objects  of  the  rule  had  been 
noble,  and  its  first  effects  good,  including  further  centralization. 


LECTURE  II 

Syllabus 

The  action  of  the  Papacy  upon  English  social  life,  illustrated 
from  the  province  of  the  law  of  marriage. 

Mediaeval  Church  views  seem  unpleasing  on  marriage  ;  but  had 
great  difficulties  due  to  rival  law  codes,  and  to  Scriptural  texts, 
in  bringing  principle  into  a  chaos  of  Jewish,  Roman,  and  Teutonic 
traditions,  (i)  Why  the  Church  was  timid  as  to  the  sacramental 
view  of  marriage,  and  never  insisted  on  the  presence  of  a  clerk 
in  orders  for  the  validity  of  marriage  ;  case  of  dower  and  other 
divergences  from  Church  law  show  (a)  a  growing  hostility  of 
secular  lawyers  ;  (b)  less  spirituality  and  less  tolerance  on  their 
part.  (2)  How  distinction  of  praesevti  and  futuro  arose  ;  argu- 
ment of  Peter  Lombard  ;  practical  results,  e.  g.  on  infant 
betrothals  ;  Paris  versus  Bologna ;  Pope  required  as  arbiter,  and 
the  law  approaches  certitude.  The  Papacy  also  checks  extremists 
and  enforces  compromise,  and  raises  a  presumption  in  favour 
of  marriage,  and  insists  that  only  the  Papacy  can  declare  void- 
ances.  (3)  How  rule  as  to  affinity  arose,  though  modified  in  prac- 
tice, especially  by  Papacy  as  to  degrees  of  affinity.  The  Papacy 
restricts  the  principle  also  of  spiritual  affinity  even  if  created  by 
the  confessional.  Relation  of  local  customs  to  Papal  authoritj'. 
{4)  Papal  decisions  as  to  marriages  with  heathen,  as  to  adultery, 
widows,  prohibited  seasons.  The  motive  of  these  rules  as  to 
consanguinity  and  af&nity  ;  the  more  lax  the  practice,  the  higher 
the  ideal.  (5)  Struggle  between  the  Papacy  and  the  canonists 
on  the  vow  of  celibacy  ;  can  the  Pope  dispense  from  such  a  vow  ? 
The  votimi  simplex  and  votuin  soletune.  Clerical  celibacy  a 
necessary  stage  in  history  ;  growth  of  the  theor^^  collides  with  the 
theory  of  Papal  plenitudo  potestatis.  (6)  Divorce  ;  it  took  the 
Church  eleven  centuries  to  make  marriage  indissoluble  ;  but 
tliis  rule  collides  with  monasticism.  Papal  compromises  on  this 
and  on  other  questions.  (7)  Development  of  Pope's  dispensing 
power,  despite  practical  limitations,  up  to  Boniface  VI H  ; 
acceptance  of  it  in  England  in  the  thirteenth  century  compared 
with  the  twelfth  ;  its  value.  (8)  Were  the  Reformers  quite  fair 
to  the  canon  law  ?  Is  it  fair  to  describe  all  this  law  as  '  a  game 
of  skill ',  '  a  maze  of  flighty  fancies  ',  something  which  outweighs 
'  all  the  merits  of  the  mediaeval  Church '  ?  Which  was  more  to 
blame,  the  mediaeval  Church  or  mediaeval  society  itself  ? 

Summary.  Importance  of  Papacy  as  final  appeal,  as  peace- 
maker among  canonists,  as  representing  workable  compromise,  as 
protecting  the  marriage  tie.  It  can  only  be  judged  in  its  historical 
setting  and  working. 


LECTURE  ITI 

Syllabus 

The  hold  of  the  Papacy  upon  the  best  minds  of  the  age.  The 
Papacy  as  a  Church-State  a  rival  of  the  lay  State  ;  their  relation 
in  the  thirteenth  century.  Grosseteste's  view  of  the  Pope  as  the 
head  of  the  Church-State,  contrasted  with  his  famous  letter 
and  with  Matthew  Paris 's  picture  of  him,  will  show  (a)  the  hold 
which  the  Papacy  had,  (b)  how  and  why  that  hold  began  to  relax. 

Examination  of  the  letter  (not  written  to  the  Pope)  ;  its  pecu- 
liarities in  style  and  argument  ;  compared  with  his  other  letters, 
e.  g.  to  Cardinal  Otto,  to  the  Pope,  and  to  the  King,  which  show 
complete  submission  to  Papal  orders.  Could  the  writer  of  these 
have  written  that  one  ?  It  closely  resembles  typical  mediaeval 
'  forgeries  ',  such  as  those  attributed  to  the  Emperor  Frederick. 
Grosseteste's  conduct  in  other  parallel  cases  ;  his  watchword 
'  rebellion  is  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft.'  The  letter  is  part  of  a  group 
of  documents  and  events  ;  (i)  the  dialogue  between  Pope  and 
Cardinals.  (2)  Grosseteste's  death-bed  speeches,  which  profess 
to  be  his  voice  but  the  hand  is  the  hand  of  Matthew  Paris.  (3)  Do 
contemporaries  support  the  letter  ?  (4)  Why  is  it  not  in  his 
collected  letters  ?  (5)  The  story  of  a  Papal  rebuff  to  Grosseteste 
in  1250  very  suspicious  as  told  in  Matthew  Paris.  (6)  His  sermon 
to  Pope  and  Cardinals,  its  great  interest  and  conclusions  to  be 
drawn  from  it ;  Matthew  Paris's  account  of  its  results  and  story 
of  Grosseteste's  suspension  and  his  estimate  of  Papal  exactions. 
(7)  Papal  answers  of  May  and  November  1253.  (8)  The  letter  to 
English  laity,  certainly  not  Grosseteste's.  (9)  Story  of  Grosse- 
teste being  excommunicated  is  unsupported. 

But  even  without  the  suspicious  documents  some  general 
conclusions  may  be  drawn  :  {a)  the  great  hold  which  the  Papacy 
still  had  on  England  ;  (6)  the  intense  Papalism  of  the  best  men  ; 
(c)  the  breach  made  by  Innocent  IV  ;  (d)  the  untrustworthiness 
of  Matthew  Paris  with  all  his  merits. 

Mediaeval  unity,  compared  with  modern  disunion,  despite 
some  tendencies  to  reunion.  Causes  of  modern  acquiescence  in 
this  condition  ;  prejudices  which  obscure  our  view.  Is  it  safe 
to  say  that '  all  has  been  for  the  best  '  ?  Or  need  the  Reformation 
have  come  just  in  the  way  it  did  ?  Have  we  lost  nothing  in  the 
process  ?  Has  not  a  theory  like  Grosseteste's  the  interest  of 
a  challenge  to  us  ? 


LECTURE  IV 

Syllabus 

The  movement  against  the  Papacy  ;  the  crucial  years  1246-54 
added  Provisions  to  Papal  Taxes.  The  English  grievances  at 
Lyons,  chiefly  touch  Taxation  :  the  Pope's  answer,  renewed 
protest  by  clergy  and  the  exact  bearing  of  this  protest  on  the 
theory  of  Papalism.  The  protest  of  Louis  IX,  its  remarkable 
line  of  argument ;  its  admissions  explain  why  the  Reformation 
did  not  come  for  nearly  three  centuries  ;  character  of  the  protest, 
and  its  date  1247,  not  1245  as  Matthew  Paris  thought ;  its 
complaints  verified  from  the  Papal  Registers,  showing  vast 
growth  of  abuses  under  Innocent  IV.  Contrast  of  the  EngUsh 
and  French  positions.  Immovableness  of  the  Pope  despite  new 
protests  from  EngUsh  laity  and  clergy,  1247.  '  Unheard  of  ' 
grants  to  Archbishop  Boniface  ;  complicity  of  Henry  III,  his 
vow  of  crusade.  Papal  attitude  about  Provisions,  1247-8,  as 
reflected  in  the  Registers  and  in  the  cases  given  by  Matthew 
Paris. 

General  conclusions  as  to  results,  1245-50,  the  death  of  the 
Emperor  Frederick — 

1.  The  practical  effect  of  Provisions,  why  they  were  so  hated. 

Even  Innocent  IV  has  to  temporize. 

2.  The  complete  acceptance  nevertheless  of  the  plenitudo 

potestatis  ;   this  explains  the  Papal  inflexibility. 

3.  The  contrast  between  the  position  of  Louis  IX  and  that  of 

Henry  ill  ;   England  '  the  milch  cow  of  the  Papacy  '. 

4.  Innocent  IV's  pontificate  constitutes  an  epoch  ;    the  idea 

of  appeal  to  a  Council. 

Critical  examination  of  Matthew  Paris  as  the  general  authority 
on  this  period  ;  his  personal  character  ;  in  many  ways,  though  not 
all,  a  typical  Englishman  and  a  typical  man  of  his  time.  How 
he  has  come  to  dominate  EngUsh  history  ;  the  varying  worth 
of  his  testimony  ;  it  needs  to  be  sifted.  But  does  he  give  an 
adequate  picture  of  the  Papacy  as  [a)  a  spiritual  power,  or  (6)  a 
poUtical  power  ? 

It  is  necessary  to  test  him 

1.  As  a  monastic  chronicler  ;   state  of  the  Benedictine  Order 

in  the  thirteenth  century ;  his  attitude  to  general 
Church  aims  of  the  time  and  to  the  Friars. 

2.  As  a  censor  of  the  Papacy  ;  the  grounds  of  his  opposition  ; 

its  inconsistencies  and  onesidedness. 

3.  As  a  poUtical  partisan  ;    his  aristocratic  sympathies,  his 

dislike  of  centralization,  his  lack  of  constitutional 
insight. 

4.  His  omissions  and  defects  ;    his  want  of  great  ideas,  his 

discontents,  his  want  of  true  critical  faculty ;  his 
textual  carelessness  ;  finally,  is  he  always  honest  and 
scrupulous  ? 


LECTURE  V 

Syllabus 

The  general  belief  that  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century 
was  to  be  a  new  epoch  in  the  history  both  of  the  Church  and  the 
world  ;  '  the  age  of  the  Holy  Ghost  was  to  begin  as  predicted  by 
the  holy  abbot  Joachim  '  (SaUmbene) .  Meaning  of  this  Joachimite 
persuasion. 

Henry  III  and  the  Papacy,  especially  (A)  from  the  Enghsh 
side,  1250-8.  Mediaeval  principle  of  commutations,  now  appUed 
to  crusading  vows  for  the  benefit  of  Henry  III ;  his  closer  alliance 
with  Rome,  1250 ;  its  objects,  e.  g.  Aymer  in  the  see  of  Winchester ; 
similar  cases,  1250-3,  Henry's  retort ;  chmax  of  the  alliance  is  the 
ofifer  of  Sicilian  crown  to  Earl  Richard,  1247  (?)  and  1250  and 
1252  ;  his  wary  refusal ;  but  Henry  III  accepts  ;  his  debts  and 
struggles,  1253-8,  and  final  renunciation  of  it,  1258,  but  not  till 
it  had  caused  the  national  revolt  of  i258-€5. 

The  same  relations  (B)  from  the  Papal  side,  1250-4.  Inno- 
cent Ill's  policy,  to  create  the  Papal  States,  taken  up  by 
Innocent  IV  ;  it  led  him  to  attempt  the  conquest  of  Sicily,  1248, 
by  Cardinal  Peter  ;  his  successes,  1249  ;  then  complete  recovery 
of  power  by  Frederick,  1250  ;  Innocent  recalls  Cardinal  Peter, 
makes  advances  to  Earl  Richard  ;  the  Emperor's  death,  December 
1250,  on  the  eve  of  final  victory;  importance  of  his  death; 
Innocent's  scheme  revived  at  once,  1251,  but  failed  again,  1252  ; 
he  lets  the  peace  party  try  a  settlement  with  Conrad,  January- 
June  1252  ;  on  their  failure,  Sicily  is  offered  both  to  Earl  Richard, 
in  November  1252,  and  to  Charles  of  Anjou,  who  draws  back  at  the 
last  moment,  October  1253  ;  Innocent  has  to  surrender  again  to 
the  peace  party  at  a  heavy  cost ;  his  objects  in  this  and  his 
double  deaUng  with  England  ;  the  part  played  by  Thomas  of 
Savoy ;  Innocent  was  on  the  eve  of  humiliation  to  Conrad  IV 
when  the  king  dies  suddenly.  May  1254. 

Reflections  on  the  great  duel  of  Papacy  and  Empire  ;  the  rela- 
tion of  Church  and  State  ought  not  to  be  hostile ;  they  have  the 
same  end  by  different  means  ;  the  mediaeval  failure  due  to  their 
passion  to  realize  their  ideals  and  to  embody  them  ;  of  this  both 
Papacy  and  Empire  are  instances,  but  the  mistake  was  greater 
in^(a)  turning  the  Church  into  a  State,  (6)  adding  the  ever  widening 
idea  of  Papal  States,  for  this  proved  a  fatal  legacy.  But  in  the 
great  duel  the  Empire  must  fall ;  even  Frederick  could  only  have 
postponed  the  day  ;  for  (i)  his  was  not  a  real  Empire  and  not 
Roman  ;  (ii)  the  head  of  Christendom  must  be  the  Pope  ;  (iii)  his 
unpardonable  sins  were  his  claim  to  rule  Rome,  his  hold  over  the 
Matildine  lands,  his  menace  to  the  Papal  aUies  the  Lombards, 
and  his  being  king  of  Naples.  In  the  struggle  he  was  more  honest 
than  Innocent  IV,  but  the  Papacy  still  represented  higher  ideals 
than  the  Empire  in  many  ways.  Yet,  but  for  Innocent  IV,  the 
Empire  might  have  gone  on  awhile,  and  (i)  continued  the  experi- 
ment of  an  orderly  tolerant  centraUzed  government  in  South 
Italy,  (ii)  continued  to  produce  great  results  from  the  idea  of 
Christendom,  (iii)  continued  to  aim  at  a  noble  vision,  the  co- 
operation of  the  two  swords,  the  Caesar  and  the  Apostle. 


LECTURE  VI 

Syllabus 

I.  Papal  position  in  May  1254  ;  Conrad's  will ;  Henry  Ill's 
acceptance  of  Sicily  ;  rising  in  Sicily  against  Germans  and  the 
meaning  of  this.  Submission  of  Manfred  ;  Innocent's  mistake 
in  despising  him,  Manfred's  revolt ;  Innocent's  double  dealing 
with  England,  total  defeat  of  his  army  by  Manfred  and  collapse 
of  Papal  designs  on  Sicily  for  the  fourth  time  since  1247.  The 
Papacy  clung  to  his  design  and  was  only  saved  by  the  deaths  of 
Manfred  in  1266  and  Conradin  in  1268,  and  even  so  fell  into  Angevin 
bondage  and  the  seventy  years'  Captivity,  a  contrast  to  '  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth  '. 

II.  Innocent  IV  tested  by  his  dealings  with  the  German 
Church.  His  treatment  of  bishoprics,  '  irregularities  ',  crusaders ; 
'  purging  '  the  chapters  ;  pro  visors,  pluralities.  This  is  what  he 
meant  by  '  a  spiritual  war  '.  He  earned  his  success.  But  was  it 
success  ?  Note  the  resentment  of  the  laity,  stiU  more  that  of 
different  sections  of  clergy,  the  prelates,  the  universities,  the 
reforming  party,  even  the  Friars  and  monks. 

III.  Estimate  of  the  personal  character  of  Innocent  IV  ;  his 
relations  to  the  Cardinals  ;  his  nepotism  ;  comparison  with  his 
three  predecessors  ;  his  prevision  ;  his  worldly  wisdom ;  his 
self-control ;  the  greatest  power  on  earth  was  at  last  in  the  hands 
of  a  consummate  man  of  business  ;  evidence  of  the  Registers  ; 
his  power  of  adaptation  ;  his  command  of  diplomacy,  instances 
from  the  biography  ;  his  selection  of  agents  and  use  of  them  ;  his 
condescension  to  men's  weaknesses  ;  his  use  of  the  Friars  and  of 
the  ideas  of  his  age.  Above  all  he  put  the  Papacy  on  a  financial 
basis  ;  views  of  contemporaries  and  of  his  biographer  on  this. 
His  attitude  to  culture  and  art  as  compared  with  Frederick  II. 
His  sublime  self-confidence.  '  The  Church  must  win.'  But  did 
he  win  ?     Did  '  the  Church  '  win  ? 


LECTURE  I 

PAPAL  INFLUENCES  IN  THE  ENGLISH  CHURCH 
OF  THE  EARLIER  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY 

During  the  last  fifty  or  sixty  years  the  study  New 
of  history  has   been   passing   through   a   change  for  "^his- 
which  amounts  to  a  revolution.     Its  sources  are  ^^/l^ie 
now  not  so  much  the  contemporary  chronicles  Papacy, 
as   the   contemporary   documents.     Vast   masses 
of  these  have  been  collected,  critically  sifted,  and 
calendared.      Take    the    greatest    institution    in 
history,  the  Papacy — take  it  at  the  most  creative 
and  decisive  period  in  the  modern  world,  the  first 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century.     There  are  now 
available  for  the  study  of  this  institution  during 
that  time  the  Registers  of  the  Empire  and  the 
Registers  of  the  Papacy  itself.    The  former  com- 
prise  14,800   documents  ;    the  latter  more  than 
8,000   for   the    one    pontificate   of   Innocent   IV, 
a  period  of  eleven  and  a  half  years. 

No  one  except  a  person  shielded  from  the  painful 
impact  of  new  ideas  by  proof  armour  of  sectarian 
prejudice  could  rise  from  even  a  cursory  study 
of  these  records  without  feeling  two  powerful, 
if  contrasted,  impressions.  On  the  one  hand,  he 
must  be  profoundly  stirred  to  admiration  of  the 
machinery  and  organization  of  the  Papacy  ;    its 

780  B 


2  LECTURE  I 

enormous  superiority,  not  merely  as  a  religious 
centre,  but  as  the  centre  of  law  and  government ; 
its  all-pervading  activity  and  almost  infinite 
potentialities ;  and,  finally,  the  absolute  and 
literal  acceptance  of  it  by  the  highest  minds  as 
the  veritable  oracle  and  tribunal  of  God.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  will  be  an  impression  as  deep, 
of  the  abuses,  so  unconcealed  yet  so  long  endured, 
which  ate  into  the  very  heart  of  the  system  ; 
of  the  narrow  selfishness  and  wholly  political 
character  of  its  most  cherished  aim,  the  aim  of 
a  petty  territorial  princedom  in  Italy  ;  of  its 
increasing  concentration  upon  this  one  aim,  till 
phrases  such  as  '  the  Church  ',  '  the  Faith  ',  and 
*  the  cause  of  God ',  came  to  mean  this  petty  aim 
and  this  alone  ;  and,  finally,  of  the  growing  bitter- 
ness and  even  outspoken  invective  which  it  aroused 
in  all  countries  and  all  classes. 

This  bitterness  is  familiar  to  us  in  the  Reformers 

of  the  sixteenth  century,  or  in  the  Puritans  of 

the  seventeenth,  but  the  following  passage  is  from 

a  treatise  of  1735. 

TheEng-     '  A  certain  set  of  men  .  .  .  did  set  up  and  for  many  ages 

^^f  ^  yf^  maintain  a  kingdom  of  their  own  over  the  greatest  part 

Popery '  of  the  Christian  world  ;   the  most  impious  and  oppressive 

tyranny  that  ever  exercised  the  patience  of  God  or  man  ; 

an  Empire  founded  in  craft  and  supported  by  blood  and 

rapine,  breach  of  faith,  and  every  other  engine  of  fraud 

and  oppression.' 

This  represents  not  unfairly  the  spirit  in  which 
the  average  Englishman  still  continues  to  approach 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  3 

what  was  at  any  rate  the  greatest  institution  in 
human  history.  He  has  not  consciously  formulated 
his  opinion  ;  perhaps  he  would  not  give  it  such 
robust  expression  ;  but  the  softening  would  be 
from  decorum  rather  than  from  lack  of  conviction. 
'  No  Popery  '  has  vanished  from  our  walls  and  our 
hoardings,  but  the  truculent  old  watchword  is 
still  written  large  across  our  historical  perspective. 
Yet  among  the  first  lessons  taught  us  by  any 
honest  study  of  the  past,  is  that  the  force  of 
criticism  is  often  in  inverse  proportion  to  violence 
of  language,  and  that  prejudice  is  worse  than  a 
crime — it  is  a  blunder  and  a  waste  of  time.  We 
cannot  frame  an  indictment  against  a  whole  era, 
and  history  refuses  to  be  packed  into  epigrams  or 
distorted  into  philippics.  Nor  will  any  one  who 
has  followed  even  in  outline  the  story  of  a  Gregory 
the  Great,  a  Hildebrand,  an  Innocent  III,  be 
willing  to  dismiss  them  as  *  a  set  of  men  who 
maintained  an  impious  and  oppressive  tyranny  '  ; 
or  willing  to  admit  that  this  great  spiritual  empire 
of  which  St.  Augustine  was  the  architect  required 
nothing  but  craft  for  its  foundations  ;  or  that  the 
Church  of  Grosseteste  and  St.  Francis  had  nothing 
but  blood,  rapine,  and  fraud  for  its  supports. 
How  came  it,  then,  that  the  mere  name  of  Popery 
should  stir  to  such  a  rabid  pitch  a  mind  from  which 
we  might  expect  judicial  calm  ?  Tantaene  animis 
caelestibus  irae  ?  For  the  author  of  the  treatise 
was  no  less  a  man  than  Sir  Michael  Foster,  Chief 


4  LECTURE  I 

Justice  of  the  King's  Bench,  a  man  eulogized  by 
Blackstone  and  Thurlow,  and  apostrophized  by 
another  chief  justice  a  generation  later  as  '  an 
embodied  Magna  Carta  of  persons  as  of  fortunes  '. 
The  usual  explanation  given  to  account  for  the 
depth  and  perennial  flow  of  this  stream  of  anti- 
papal  feeling  in  England  takes  some  such  form 
as  the  following :  '  The  Reformation  was  no 
sudden  cataclysm  ;  it  has  its  sources  far  back  in 
our  history.  Wiclif,  Boniface  VIII,  the  vassalage 
of  King  John,  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon, 
William  the  Conqueror's  refusal  to  hold  his 
kingdom  as  a  papal  fief — these  are  the  familiar 
landmarks  pointed  out  to  us  as  we  retrace  the 
movement  of  resistance  against  Rome  back  to 
not  sole-  its  fountain-hcads.  To  make  for  our  path  a  plain 
the  Re-  beaten  way  many  powerful  influences  have  con- 
tion!^'  tributed.  There  is  the  influence  of  insular  patriotism, 
which  so  often  forgets  that  to  be  an  island  and  to 
be  insular  need  not  be  equally  good  things.  There 
is  the  influence  of  Anglicanism,  with  its  claim  of 
independence  for  the  national  Church  and  its 
protests  against  '  Papal  encroachments  '.  There 
is  the  stubborn  spirit  of  the  layman,  which  even 
in  the  ages  of  faith  often  blazed  up  against  sacer- 
dotalism. Lastly,  an  easy  way  seems  to  have 
been  made  for  us  by  the  work  of  generations  of 
lawyers,  from  Glanvil  down  to  living  ex-Chan- 
cellors, who  have  always  been  jealous  for  West- 
minster  against    Canterbury,    and   more   jealous 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  5 

than    ever    when    Canterbury    was    backed    by 
Rome. 

But  though  each  of  the  five  main  aspects  of  the 
Reformation  movement  ma}^  assuredly  be  traced 
back  into  the  thirteenth  century,  and  some  of  them 
even  into  the  eleventh  century,  yet  we  must 
beware  of  thinking  that  those  centuries'  chief 
occupation  was  to  prepare  for  the  Reformation. 
Such  a  caution  is  by  no  means  superfluous.  For 
in  modern  times,  and  especially  in  the  most 
modern,  when  it  can  be  said  truly  that  we  are 
all  historians  now,  we  can  hardly  help  falling  into 
the  habit  of  what  is  called  *  reading  history  back 
wards  '.  Knowing  what  did  happen,  by  a  kind 
of  historical  fatalism  we  assume  that  it  was  the 
only  thing  which  could  have  happened.  More 
than  this,  we  assume  that  everything  which  did 
not  obviously  help  it  to  happen  may  be  relegated 
to  a  limbo  of  things  which  themselves  only  half 
happened.  Familiar  as  we  are  with  the  denouement 
of  the  great  drama,  we  tend  to  toss  aside  as  an 
interruption  everything  that  does  not  forward  the 
central  plot,  to  dismiss  all  else  as  side-issues, 
irrelevancies,  blind  alleys. 

We  even  go  so  far  as  to  regard  the  whole  of 
mediaeval  Church  history  as  an  introduction  to 
the  Reformation,  and  treat  all  appearances  to 
the  contrary  as  superficial  and  misleading  ;  all 
forces  which  tend  the  other  waj^  are  factors  which 
may  be  neglected,  like  the  weight  of  the  elephant 


6  LECTURE  I 

in  the  mathematical  problem.  Certainly  this  would 
make  history  very  convenient  for  the  personage 
who  calls  himself  the  plain  man,  but  is  it  quite 
so  satisfactory  in  other  respects  when  the  factors 
which  we  have  neglected  force  themselves  at  last 
on  our  attention  ?  If  we  could  absolutely  divest 
ourselves  of  prejudice,  if  we  could  approach  the 
greatest  century  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  an  open 
mind,  we  should  soon  find  two  propositions  taking 
shape  before  our  eyes,  and  one  notable  inference 
resulting  therefrom. 
The  pro-      i.  The  Papacy,   takinej  it  all  in  all,   was  the 

blemof  .J         r  -,     .  •         1 

Papal      greatest  potentiality  for  good  that  existed  at  the 
^^  °^^'   time,  or  perhaps  that  has  ever  existed. 

2.  During  the  first  part  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury the  hold  which  the  Papacy  had  on  Christen- 
dom was  still  increasing ;  whereas  half-way 
through  the  century  the  loss  of  that  hold  had 
become  a  foregone  conclusion,  and  the  only 
question  left  was,  How  long  would  it  take  for  the 
crash  to  come  ? 

3.  The  resulting  inference  is  that  herein  lies 
our  problem :  To  analyse  and  to  explain  the 
momentous  change  which  came  about  in  the 
interval  between  the  death  of  Innocent  III  and 
the  death  of  Innocent  IV.  To  locate  the  problem 
within  closer  limits,  let  us  take  the  pontificate 
of  Innocent  IV  for  our  time,  and  let  us  take 
England  for  our  place. 

Accordingly  the  heads  under  which  my  subject 


[PAPAL  INFLUENCES  7 

naturally  ranges  itself  are  as  follows  :    The  in-  Papal 
fluence  of  the  Papacy  (i)  on  the  English  Church,  ences 
and  (ii)  on  English  social  life,  especially  during  "£°^ 
the   early   thirteenth    century,      (iii)    The    exact  teenth- 

•^  .      .  century 

nature  and  extent  of  this  influence,  as  tested  in  England. 
the  case  of  the  greatest  English  churchman  of 
that  time. 

Then  turning  to  the  other  side  of  the  medal, 
the  dealings  between  England  and  the  Papacy 
during  this  pontificate,  (iv)  from  the  English,  and 
(v)  from  the  Papal  side. 

Finally,  (vi)  the  character  of  Innocent  IV,  and 
the  precise  nature  of  the  general  policy  which  so 
irrevocably  committed  the  Papacy  to  its  downward 
path. 

I.  To  observe  the  actual  working  of  the  Papacy  The  Le- 
on  the  English  Church,  it  will  be  most  convenient  council 
to  place  ourselves  at  a  particular  occasion — the  °  ^^^^' 
occasion  of  the  visit  to  England  of  the  Legate 
Otto,  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Palestrina.     He  was  in 
England  from  June  29,    1237,   till  January   12, 
1241  ;   and  in  December  1237  ^^  ^'^^  his  famous 
council  at  London. 

Almost  the  sole  authority  for  his  legation  is 
Matthew  Paris,  an  authority  which  must  be 
discounted  in  this  matter,  for  he  never  allows  that 
a  Legate  was  needed  at  all.  If  we  read  only  what 
he  says  about  the  Legate,  we  should  come  away 
with  the  idea  that  the  visit  had  no  other  aim  than 
to  extort  money,  and  no  other  origin  than  some 


8  LECTURE  I 

superstitious  hankerings  on  the  part  of  Henry  III. 
But  while  telling  us  of  the  fifty  fat  oxen,  the  hun- 
dred measures  of  wheat,  the  eight  casks  of  choice 
wine,    which   were    the    Bishop   of   Winchester's 
present  to  the  Legate,  and  of  the  King's  seeming 
to  worship  the  Legate's  very  footprints,  he  yet 
admits  that  Otto  had  a  high  character  for  holiness, 
fama  sancfi,  the  King  of  Scots  said,  and  Scottish 
standards    of    sanctity     are    proverbially    high. 
Matthew  Paris,  moreover,  admits  that  the  Legate 
acquired  great  esteem  by  a  general  refusal  of  other 
gifts.     We  have  also  the  articles  of  Otto's  Council 
to  show  the  urgent  need  of  reform  in  the  English 
Church,  besides  Otto's  announcement  that  he  had 
come  to  restore  the  Church  to  the  honourable  posi- 
tion from  which  it  had  fallen.^     Moreover,  in  the 
account  which  Matthew  Paris  gives  of  the  bold 
stand  taken  by  Walter  of  Cantelupe,  Bishop  of 
Worcester,   there  is  no  attempt  to  disguise  the 
character    of    the    opposition    to    the    immutator 
regni  ;   it  stands  confessed  an  outcry  of  pluralists 
and  illegitimate  holders.    *  Many  like  ourselves  of 
noble  blood ',  says  the  candid  bishop,  *  hold  plural 
benefices  ;    if  we  are  to  be  deprived  of  one,  we  will 
resign  them  all  in  a  body.' 
The    re-      It  has  been  said  above  that  the  articles  of  the 

forms  at- 
tempted. Council  show  the  need  of  a  reform.    These  are  the 

articles  in  brief : 

^  M.  Paris,  Chronica  Maiora,  iv,  p.  418 ;  casitm  is  softened  to 
statum  in  John  of  Athon. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  9 

1.  Churches  must  be  consecrated  within  two 
years  from  the  time  of  their  completion,  or  else 
mass  must  not  be  said  therein. 

2.  Priests  are  ignorant  as  to  the  proper  conduct 
of  the  sacraments. 

3.  Folk  are  reluctant  on  superstitious  grounds 
to  be  baptized  at  Lent  and  at  Pentecost. 

4.  Sacraments  are  refused  till  money  is  paid. 

5.  Parsons  are  ashamed  to  confess  to  their 
rural  deans. 

6.  Orders  are  conferred  on  bastards,  on  men 
with  no  title,  &c. 

7.  Churches  are  farmed  out,  as  is  also  the  case 
with  deaneries  and  the  offices  of  archdeacons,  &c. 

8.  Vicars  are  appointed  at  a  mere  pittance,  and 

9.  often  from  men  who  are  below  deacons' 
orders. 

10.  Benefices  are  held  by  force  on  rumour  of  the 
incumbent's  death. 

11.  Orders  are  often  given  to  a  man  who  seems 
miles  non  clericus. 

12.  Non-residents  and  pluralities  are  rife. 

13.  Short  coats  are  worn  by  clerks,  and  close 
caps  are  avoided. 

14.  Clerks  are  married  in  secret,  and 

15.  the  sons  of  such  marriages  succeed  to  the 
benefices. 

16.  Maintainers  of  robbers  are  suffered,  who 
ought  to  be  excommunicated. 

17.  Mere  novices  are  made  abbots. 

7B0  c 


10  LECTURE  I 

i8.  The  archdeacons  are  venal  and  oppressive. 

19.  Bishops  are  non-resident  and  inactive. 

20.  The  Church  suffers  from  ignorant  ecclesi- 
astical judges. 

21.  Evasions  and  sham  citations  are  practised 
in  ecclesiastical  suits. 

22.  Frauds  and  injustices  are  caused  by  there 
being  no  notaries  in  England. 

23.  Advocates  in  ecclesiastical  courts  ought  to 
be  bound  by  oath  to  plead  fairly. 

24.  Records  ought  to  be  kept  of  the  suits  in 
these  courts. 

When  Matthew  Paris  sums  up  the  feelings  of 
the  clergy  after  this  indictment  :  *  Cum  parvo 
gaudio  recesserunt,'  we  are  reminded  of  the  rich 
young  man  in  the  Gospel,  who  went  away  sorrow- 
ful. 
The  im-     Thcsc  canons  of  Otto,  like  those  precedent  and 

pulse 

came  those  Subsequent  to  his  Legation,  are  the  outcome 
Rome,  of  one  source,  and  that  source  is  Rome.  Thus 
much  might  be  proved  in  other  ways,  even  if  the 
circumstances  of  each  issue  of  canons  had  not 
come  down  to  us.  Otto's  canons  agree  closely 
with  the  law  of  the  Church,  as  it  was  by  now 
established  in  the  Decretals  and  accepted  by  the 
commentators.  From  their  writings  come  the 
copious  citations  with  which  Athon  backs  up  his 
edition  of  Otto's  constitutions,  in  which  he  glosses 
literally  every  word,  the  scantiest  rivulet  of 
text   meandering  through  meadows  of  luxuriant 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  ii 

commentary.  Otto's  canons  expressly  follow  the 
matter  and  often  the  wording  of  the  Lateran 
Council  of  12 16.  Thus  Langton's  prohibition  of 
fees  for  baptism  or  other  sacraments  expressly 
refers  for  further  instructions  to  the  Lateran 
decree  (§  66)  ;  and  again,  Otto's  order  (§  19)  that 
bishops  are  to  repeat  their  vows  twice  a  year 
is  found  earher  in  Langton,  but  comes  from  the 
Lateran  decree.  The  chief  points  in  Otto's 
canons  are  just  the  points  that  the  Papacy 
had  been  taking  to  heart  as  the  peculiar  vices  of 
England. 

These  articles  are  of  very  various  weight. 
They  range  from  trifles  (e.g.  §§  i,  13)  to  crimes 
(§§  14,  15,  16)  ;  but  in  each  and  all,  their  testimony 
is  confirmed  by  a  number  of  different  witnesses. 
The  English  diocesan  and  provincial  canons,  both 
precedent  and  posterior,  bear  out  Otto's  canons 
as  Legate.  So  does  Giraldus's  lively  work  called 
the  Gemma  Ecclesiastica  ;  so  too  the  long  series  of 
Grosseteste's  letters  ;  so  the  interesting  documents 
in  the  Burton  Annals  ;  and  so  also  John  of  Athon, 
the  first  manual  of  canon  law  for  English  use. 
All  these  works  supply  evidence  as  to  the  nature 
and  value  of  the  Papal  influence  on  the  English 
Church,  which  I  propose  also  to  illustrate  by  a  sum- 
mary analysis  of  the  Papal  Registers,  by  a  brief 
sketch  of  the  Papacy  as  a  court  of  appeal,  and  by 
some  estimate  of  Innocent  Ill's  new  rule  for  the 
confessional. 


canons. 


12  LECTURE  I 

other  Otto's  constitutions  of  1237  are  borne  out  by 

sets  of     provincial  and  diocesan  canons.     The  first  that 
Lyndwood  allows  in  his  collection  are  Langton's 
canons  of  1222  ;  and  these  are  largely  a  transcript 
from    the    Lateran    Council    of    12 16,    at    which 
Langton  was  present.    They  end  with  an  instruc- 
tion for  the  Lateran  canons  to  be  read  yearly  in 
each  bishop's  synod.    The  subjects  Langton  omits 
are  those  which  needed  the  wider  powers  of  a 
Legate  a  latere  :    the  illegitimate  sons  of  priests 
succeeding   to   benefices ;     the   non-residence    of 
bishops  ;  and  the  defective  working  of  the  Church 
courts.     Those  of  Edmund  Rich,  1236,  are  only 
diocesan,   and  are  also  largely  drawn  from  the 
Lateran  decrees  of  12 16,  even  to  the  extent  of 
borrowing  the  technical  term  vidom,  which  was 
meaningless  in  England  (§  34).     They  are  nearly 
as  stringent  as  Otto's,  but  of  course  had  none  of 
his  coercive  power  ;  and  for  that  reason  they  touch 
neither  the  courts  nor  the  archdeacons,  nor  many 
of  the  most  serious  points. 

The  canons  of  Durham  (probably  about  1222, 
under  Bishop  Richard  Marsh)  profess  to  carry 
out  Langton's  canons,  and  are  nearly  the  same.^ 
Thus  the  eighth  paragraph,  dealing  with  incon- 
tinent priests,  refers  for  fuller  details  to  the 
Archbishop's  rules,  and  warns  subordinate  prelates 
not  to  go  on  neglecting  them  for  pecuniary  gain. 
Another  paragraph  republishes  almost  verbatim 
^  Wilkins,  Concilia,  i.  572. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  13 

the  recent  order  of  the  Lateran  Council  of  12 16, 
which  enjoined  annual  confession. 

There  is  in  existence  a  set  of  canons  for  Coventry 
diocese  ;  they  are  dated  1237,  t>ut  are  evidently 
prior  to  those  of  Otto,  and  curiously  timid  in  their 
attitude  to  clerical  sinners.  For  incontinency 
a  priest  on  the  first  two  convictions  is  to  be 
fined  only. 

*  We  fine  in  money  because  men  fear  money  penalties 
most,  and  because  it  is  wealth  that  is  the  cause  of  wanton- 
ness. .  .  .  But  for  all  our  threats  of  excommunication  we 
fear  they  will  not  return  to  the  Lord,  for  the  spirit  of 
uncleanness  is  among  them.' 

A  priest  who  frequents  scot-ales,  who  haunts 
taverns,  or  is  a  tavern-keeper,  gets  off  with  a  fine 
of  65.  Sd.  The  only  offence  which  is  firmly  handled 
is  that  of  a  layman  striking  a  clerk  ;  for  such  a  deed 
the  culprit  must  go  to  Rome  for  absolution,  unless 
he  be  at  the  very  point  of  death. 

There  were  evidently  many  such  sets  of  diocesan 
canons  issued.  One  and  all  show  the  same  evils 
in  the  English  Church,  and  the  same  reliance  on 
Rome  as  the  only  ultimate  source  to  which  men 
might  look  for  reform.  Or  let  us  reverse  the  glass, 
and  consider  the  movement  not  locally,  but  from 
the  centre.  The  Registers  of  Honorius  III  show 
a  steady  pressure  from  the  Papacy  during  these 
years  to  keep  the  English  Church  alive  to  its 
own  gravest  abuses,  namel}^  the  married  clergy. 


14  LECTURE  I 

and  the  priests'  sons  succeeding  to  their  fathers' 
benefices.^ 
So  the        Just  as  the  earher  crop  of  provincial  canons 
evoked    are  the  outcome  of  the  great  Lateran  Council  of 
^Jq^^'^"  1216,  so  there  is  a  later  crop  (1246,  1250,  1255) 
Lyons,     produced  by  the  Council  of  Lyons,  besides  the 
intermediate  crop  from  Otto's  Legatine  visit  of 
1237.     C)f  this  latest  series  some  canons  are  pre- 
served only  in  fragments  ;  of  the  two  which  remain 
in  full,  the  Statuta  of  Richard  de  la  Wych,  Bishop 
of  Chichester,  1246,  expressly  repeat  the  Legatine 
statutes  of  1237  J  ^^^  example,  in  ordering  married 
priests  to  dismiss  their  wives  within  a  month,  on 
pain  of  suspension.    They  also  insist  that  monks 
shall  obey  the  rules  laid  down  in  Gregory  IX's 
decretals.    The  Statutes  of  William  de  Kirkham, 
Bishop  of  Durham,  1255,  enact  that  the  statutes 
of  his  late  predecessor,   Bishop  Richard,  are  to 
endure  in  full  force  ;   and  also  explain  that  these 
precedent  statutes  are  republished  now  because 
they  have  not  been  properly  kept,  especially  as 
regards   married  clergy.^     Over  and  over  again 
Their      thesc   local   statutes   present   identical   features  ; 
taiues!^^  the   same   abuses   among   the   clergy,    the   same 
reiteration  of  the  enactments,  the  same  reliance 
on  Rome  for  the  impulse  and  driving  force  which 
were  needed  to  produce  any  reform. 

In  the  year  1240  Walter  de  Cantelupe  drew  up 
a  very  full  set  of  canons  for  his  diocese  of  Worcester, 
1  Bliss,  i.  85,  105.  2  Wilkins,  Concilia,  i.  707. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  15 

on  which  we  may  make  the  following  summary 
observations  : 

1.  The  whole  set  professes  strict  adherence  to 
prior  rulings,  patrum  et  predecessorum  nostrorum 
vestigiis  inhaerentes. 

2.  Several  of  these  canons  expressly  repeat 
leading  canons  of  Otto's  Council  of  1237  (^'  S-  §  43' 
on  married  clerks  :  '  We  enact  nothing  new,  but 
devote  our  whole  energies  to  getting  the  statutes 
of  the  Council  of  London  ^  kept '). 

3.  Many  of  the  others  repeat  the  rules  laid  down 
in  the  canon  law.^ 

4.  The  only  articles  that  can  be  called  peculiarly 
English  touch  on  very  local  superstitions,  such  as 
holy  wells  (§  20),  or  sports  in  churchyards  (§§  4,  47), 
and  are  of  small  importance. 

5.  The  general  picture  exactty  bears  out  the 
picture  drawn  in  Giraldus's  work  ;  a  clergy  slack, 
ignorant,  backward,  unspiritual  even  when  not 
actually  immoral,  greedy  of  fees  (§§  15,  21,  23, 
32,  35-6)  ;  often  illiterate,  gamblers,  brawlers, 
professional  false  witnesses  ;  in  a  word,  a  state 
of  things  crying  aloud  for  drastic  and  continuous 
action  on  the  part  of  the  central  power. 

n.  The  Gemma  Ecclesiastica  of  Giraldus  Cam-  Evidence 
brensis  was  his  favourite,  his  gem  ;   the  one  work  ciraidus. 

^  Evidently  Londonensis ,  not  Lugdunensis,  as  in  Wilkins's 
text. 

2  Thus  numbers  3,  22,  31,  33,  35,  36,  37,  38,  41,  and  most 
of  the  long  series  of  rules  for  the  clergy  which  follow  after  47 
correspond  to  Otto's  3,  5,  18,  8,  4. 


1 6  LECTURE  I 

which  the  author  assures  us  Innocent  III  reserved 
for  his  own  reading.  It  primarily  apphes  to  the 
Welsh  Church,  and  that  Church,  it  may  be  said, 
was  ruder  and  more  backward  than  the  English 
Church.  But  on  the  other  hand  it  was  less  cor- 
rupted in  some  respects,  such  as  non-residence  ; 
and  even  in  its  worse  view  may  be  taken  as 
typical  of  evils  which  are  to  be  noted  in  the 
English  Church,  if  in  a  lesser  degree.  The 
work  deals  only  with  the  secular  clergy,  who 
were  as  yet  far  behind  the  monastic,  though 
two  centuries  later  their  state  was  more  whole- 
some. It  is  intensely  practical ;  it  deals  with 
actual  difficulties  that  he  had  seen,  and  actual 
cases  met  often  in  his  own  experience,  as  well 
as  what  he  had  heard  from  others,  and  what  he 
had  read  for  himself. 
State  of  It  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  time  that 
beUefs!^  the  main  topic,  the  centre  of  faith  and  discipline, 
is  the  Mass  ;  twenty-one  out  of  fifty-four  chapters 
of  the  first  half  of  the  book  are  on  this  subject. 
On  such  a  topic  the  popular  mind  was  ready  to  run 
into  a  wild  thaumaturgy  which,  as  extremes  meet, 
amounts  to  the  grossest  materialism.^  Certainly 
it  required  a  central  oracle  to  keep  things  both 
uniform  and  sane,  especially  seeing  that  the  mode 
of    transubstantiation    was    not    yet   necessarily 

1  e.g.  Giraldus,  Gemma  EccL,  p.  39.  The  Eucharist  changing 
into  a  hand  of  flesh  to  rebuke  the  woman  who  had  made  the 
wafers. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  17 

defined,*  though  later  it  came  to  be  so.  The  behef 
in  demonic  possession,  and  the  grotesque  inter- 
positions of  devils,  are  among  the  chief  things 
which  repel  a  reader  of  mediaeval  religious  books. 
The  evil  spirit  that  possessed  the  young  lady 
who  thrice  slapped  a  holy  man  on  the  face,  the 
devil  who  took  advantage  of  a  hasty  husband's 
malediction,  these  for  us  have  come  to  have  an 
almost  burlesque  flavour. 

But  such  stories  and  behefs  are  an  expression 
of  the  intense  reality  of  the  time.  Not  without 
reason  do  these  spirits  take  the  name  and  form 
of  the  old  heathen  deities.  The  battle  between  the 
new  Christianity  and  the  old  barbarism  was  but 
half  won.  The  savagery  of  the  Teutonic  world, 
the  corruption  of  the  classic  world,  jostled  at  every 
turn  the  mysticism  and  ideal  purity  of  Christianity. 
The  universe  was  indeed  governed  by  God  and  His 
angels  :  they  were  all  about  us.  But  the  Devil 
and  his  angels  were  as  real  and  as  omnipresent 
too.  As  every  virtue  was  embodied  in  some 
spirit,  so  every  sin  took  the  concrete  form  of  some 
diabolical  obsession.  In  one  remarkable  passage 
Giraldus  ^  shows  us  that  some  of  the  finer  minds 
were  beginning  to  revolt  from  this  materialization 
of  sin,  or  at  least  from  undue  dwelling  on  it.  At 
the  same  time  he  justly  feels  that  it  expresses  a 
reality   to   the   popular   conscience,   and  that   it 

1  p.  28.    Non  erubescendum  ignorare  fateri. 

2  p.  64,  11.  1-4. 

780  D 


i8  LECTURE  I 

must  be  met  on  its  own  gromid.    And  while  thus 
meeting  the  popular  view  and  making  terms  with 
it,  the  mediaeval  Church  did  not,  as  is  vulgarly 
believed,    increase    and    exaggerate    the    current 
superstition,  that  gross  spiritualism  which  often 
comes  so  near  the  fashionable  spiritualism  of  our 
own  day.    The  Church  was  responsible  neither  for 
influ-      its  creation,   nor  for  its  encouragement.     What 
l^l^  °     she  did  was,  on  the  whole,  to  tone  it  down,  to  pare 
Church,  away  its  chief  feature,  the  element  of  uncontrol- 
lableness  ;   to  bring  this  world  of  terrors  ^  within 
rule  and  measure  ;    to  make  the  achievement  of 
victory  over  it  a  plain  matter  of  business,  a  thing 
to  be  done  by  hard  prayer,  penance,  and  good 
works.     Hence,  with  all  his  formidable  ubiquity 
and  cunning,  there  is  a  touch  of  the  contemptible, 
even  of  the  ludicrous,  about  the  mediaeval  Devil. 
He  is  always  getting   cheated   in   his   bargains," 
sometimes  very  unfairly  cheated  ;   and  he  always 
gets  the  worst  of  it  when  he  encounters  a  saint. 
He  is  even  rather  slow  to  realize  his  own  limita- 
tions ;    for  example,  the  fact  that  he  only  lost 
by  entering  the  bodies  of  the  excommunicated ;  ^ 
and  rarely  has  he  such  a  triumph  as  he  has  in  the 
story  of  Galiena,*  as  told  by  Baldwin,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  while  he  was  Bishop  of  Worcester, 
Need  of       Of  simouy  Giraldus  gives  many  examples  ;   the 
Ssci^     bishop  who  bet  an  applicant  a  hundred  marks 

pline. 

1  Giraldus,  p.  98.  2  p  y^^  gj-jj 

3  p.  159.  *  pp.  228-30. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  19 

that  he  would  get  a  certain  prebend  ;  ^  another 
who  said,  '  Why  should  I  give  my  preferments  to 
those  who  have  given  nothing  for  them  ? ' ;  another 
who  maintained  that  small  livings  should  go  by 
merit,  but  fat  ones  to  his  relations  ;  the  bishop 
who  exacted  the  two  hundred  sheep,  when  the 
recipient  had  only  meant  to  promise  two  hundred 
eggs  [ova).^  He  quotes  Alexander  Ill's  saying  :  ^ 
'  When  God  deprived  bishops  of  sons,  the  devil 
gave  them  nephews  ;  '  and  he  thinks  that  things 
will  remain  thus,  unless  prelates  are  saints  like 
Thomas  of  Canterbury,  or  without  family  like 
Melchisedec.'*  Celibacy  he  regards  as  an  unattain- 
able aim.  He  points  out  that  it  was  not  ordered 
in  the  Gospels  or  by  the  Apostles,  but  only  intro- 
duced in  the  West  for  the  sake  of  decorum  and 
purity  ;  but  now  it  has  broken  down.  He  there- 
fore approves  the  movement  ^  to  enforce  it  in 
higher  orders  only,  a  result  which  he  declares 
Alexander  III  had  nearly  achieved.  As  things 
are,  concubinage  in  the  clergy  is  perfectly  common,*^ 
and  is  the  root  cause  of  all  their  abuses.^ 

Besides  their  simony,  the  offences  of  the  prelates 
are  so  many  that  they  require  dividing  ^  under 
headings  ;  indeed,  one  might  make  a  library  ^  of 
the  enormities  of  these  miseri  moderni  temporis 
episcopi,  who  are  fishers  of  money,  not  fishers  of 
men  ;    who  sell  justice,  traffic  in  pardons,  visit 

^  p.  295.        2  p.  332.       ^  p.  304.       ^  p.  296.       ^  ii,  c.  V. 
^  part  ii,  p.  277.     '  p.  281.     ^  part  ii,  p.  293.     ^  part  ii,  p.  294. 


20  LECTURE  I 

their  dioceses  not  once  in  seven  years  ;  and  who, 
even  if  they  do  well  at  first,  yet  soon  become 
corrupt.^  What  bishop  is  a  true  pastor  ?  Is  there 
one  who  has  got  in  without  the  aid  of  court 
favour  ?  '  I  do  not  say  bishops  cannot  be  saved, 
but  I  do  say  it  is  in  our  days  harder  for  them  than 
for  other  men.' 

Another  charge  which  the  clergy  as  a  whole 
undoubtedly  deserved  was  the  charge  of  ignorance. 
Examples  of  this  ignorance  are  many  ;  there  is 
the  bishop  who  fined  a  priest  for  having  joined 
the  sect  of  Catholics  ;  ^  the  priest  who  confused 
Barnabas  with  Barabbas,  and  St.  Jude  with  Judas  ; 
the  other  who  translated  lohannes  ante  portam 
Latinam  as  '  John  who,  leading  the  way,  carried 
Latin  into  England '  ;  a  third  who  preached  on 
our  Lord  using  hyssop  (Dominus  his  opus  hahet) ; 
a  fourth  who  discovered  a  king  called  Busillis 
(in  die-bus  illis)  ;  and  the  archbishop  who  first 
tried  in  isto  sacro  synodo,  then  being  prompted 
with  an  a,  tried  in  ista  sacra  synoda,  then  hearing 
his  prompter  say  o  and  a  tried  in  isto  sacro  synoda. 
Giraldus  has  pages  of  these  stories,^  and  attributes 
some  of  the  evil  to  the  displacement  of  the  study 
of  literature  by  the  study  of  law,  a  change  which 
it  seems  the  Sibyl  had  foretold. 
Abuses  A  very  curious  chapter  *  shows  the  tyranny 
cai  offi-    which  was  exercised  over  the  clergy  in  especial 

cials. 

1  pp.  294-304.  2  p.  331. 

3  pp.  341-9.  *  Book  ii,  chap.  32. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  21 

by  the  new  functionaries,  the  bishops*  officiates. 
A  good  prelate  often  had  an  official  so  bad  that  it 
was  like  the  case  of  the  monsters  who  had  maidens' 
faces  and  harpies'   bodies.     These  officials  were 
three  :    the  bishop's  confessor,  who  exercised  his 
cure  of  souls,   his  steward,   and  the  archdeacon 
who  did  his  judicial  work.    They  were  chosen  for 
fiscal,  not  spiritual  qualities  ;    in  fact  the  offices 
were   put   up   to   sale.      The   reputation   of   the 
bishop's  steward  may  be  gathered  from  the  story 
of  the  blaspheming  gambler,  who  offered  his  last 
coins  to  any  one  who  would  show  him  how  to 
avenge   himself   on   Providence  ;     the   prize   was 
awarded  to  a  bystander  who  said,   *  Become  a 
bishop's  steward.'     The  reputation  of  the  arch- 
deacon had  '  made  his  name  almost  equal  to  that 
of   archdevil '.    He   will   not   allow  parties   in  a 
suit  to  compromise  till  his  palm  is  well  greased. 
He  turns  the  canonical  rules  about  affinity  into  an 
engine  for  breaking  or  making  marriages  at  a  price. 
Worse  than  himself  is  the  gang  of  needy  relatives 
and  hangers-on  who  follow  him.    The  whole  class 
are  cormorants,  ravens,  birds  of  prey,  ffies  spoiling 
the  ointment,  unclean  dogs  who  hunt  the  game 
into  the  nets  for  their  masters.     They  are  fond 
of  saying,  '  The  labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire  ;  ' 
but  what  about  the  labourer's  rabble  of   atten- 
dants, including  huntsmen  and  falconers  ?     They 
make  the  lesser  clergy  take  oath  that  they  will 
send  all  cases  up  to  the  bishop's  court,  though 


22  LECTURE  I 

Pope  Alexander  forbade  such  oaths.  In  fact 
it  is  mainly  their  fault  that  the  whole  body  of 
the  Church  is  infected  through  and  through  with 
this  sin  of  avarice  ;  from  the  sole  of  the  foot 
to  the  crown  of  the  head  there  is  no  soundness 
in  it. 
Abuses  Despite  all  the  orders  of  Councils,  money  was 
ordinary  Still  taken  for  the  several  sacraments,  baptism, 
cergy.  matrimony,  extreme  unction,  and  ordination,^  as 
well  as  for  funerals,  institutions,  consecrations, 
anniversaries,  and  for  absolution.'^  It  was  im- 
possible to  prevent  money  passing  on  these 
occasions,  and  practically  impossible  to  keep  a 
clear  line  between  gratuities  and  fees,  between 
payment  on  these  occasions  and  payment  for 
these  objects,  between  money  penalties  for  sins 
and  money  consideration  for  absolution.^  But 
there  is  not  much  disguise  of  the  pecuniary  motive 
in  the  case  of  the  priest  who  took  every  mass  as 
far  as  the  offertory,  and  then  began  a  new  mass  ; 
or  the  subdeacon,  who  being  unqualified  to  read 
the  Gospel,  read  two  epistles  instead,  and  pocketed 
the  alms  and  oblations  with  the  remark  that  two 
epistles  were  equal  to  one  Gospel  any  day  ;  *  or 
the  ministers  who  multiplied  masses,  anniversaries, 
and  monthly  obits,  or  made  a  bid  for  a  big  collec- 
tion by  inventing  new  masses,  as  for  those  slain 
around  Jerusalem,  for  instance.^     We  hear  also 

1  pp.  46,  281.  ^  p.  312.  ^  ii.  32,  end. 

*  p. 128.  5  p  135, 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  23 

of  the  Eucharist  being  perverted  to  the  purpose 
of  magic  ;  for  example,  there  is  the  man  who  says 
masses  over  the  waxen  image  of  his  enemy,  or 
repeats  a  great  number  of  masses  for  the  dead 
always  coupled  with  an  enemy's  name.  And  there 
are  frequent  warnings  against  the  revelling  and 
drinking  bouts  in  which  clergy  and  laity,  men  and 
women,  met  together  with  scandalous  conse- 
quences.^ 

A  writer  conscious  of  all  these  evils  in  the  The  ccn- 
Church  would  naturally  look  to  the  Holy  See  as  power, 
an  ally.  Giraldus  tells  the  story  of  Simon  of 
Tournay,  who  was  stricken  with  paralysis  of  the 
tongue  for  having  said  petulantly,  when  he  could 
not  get  an  immediate  audience  of  the  Pope, 
*  One  can  only  get  at  Simon  Peter  through  Simon 
Magus.'  He  sees  how  the  power  of  excommunica- 
tion was  abused  for  local  purposes  by  prelates 
who  pronounced  it  lightly,  frequently,  and  without 
consideration  ;  -  hence  in  England,  where  it  was 
once  so  dreaded,  it  was  now  held  in  more  contempt 
than  in  any  other  country.  This  local  abuse 
needed  control  from  the  centre.  But  Giraldus  is 
not  ultra-Papalist.  The  power  to  bind  and  loose 
is  in  his  eyes  a  declaratory  power,  like  that  of  the 
priest  to  whom  the  leper  showed  himself.^  *  He 
who  hath  not  deserved  the  sentence  of  the  Church 
is  not  hurt  by  it,  unless  he  show  contempt  of  it.' 
Here  he  is  following  the  French  school,  from  whose 

1  pp.  258, 261.         2  pp_  159-60.       3  pp,  48-50. 


24  LECTURE  I 

great  master,  Peter  Lombard,  he  borrows  largely 
on  this  topic. 

II L  Our  next  documentary  source  is  the  Burton 
Annals,  in  which  are  given  two  pieces  of  evidence, 
the  Coventry  visitation,  and  the  Berkshire  rectors' 
protest. 
Evi-  The    Burton     annalist    expressly    states   what 

the  Gov-  indeed  is  self-evident,  that  the  articles  of  visita- 
visita-  ^^^^  i^  Coventry  and  Lichfield  are  derived  from 
tion.  ^j^g  articles  of  Grosseteste's  visitation,  made  in 
1238  (or  1237).  This  shows  that  Grosseteste's 
articles  were  not  regarded  as  exceptional  or 
unwarranted.  We  know  too  that  Robert  de 
Weseham,  Dean  of  Lincoln,  was  made  Bishop  of 
Coventry  in  1244,  as  a  part  of  Grosseteste's  settle- 
ment with  the  Chapter.^  The  Burton  articles, 
moreover,  Uke  their  exemplar,  support  the  evidence 
given  in  Otto's  legatine  constitutions  of  1237, 
not  merely  as  to  the  grossness  of  the  evils,  but 
also  as  to  their  wide  prevalence.  It  is  the  same 
picture  of  a  debased  clergy  ;  often  married,  given 
to  taverns  and  brawling,  trading  and  usury ; 
embezzling  the  money  for  lights  and  for  chrismalia, 
and  grasping  at  obits.  Many  churches  too  are 
held  by  simony,  farmed  out  to  laymen,  robbed 
of  their  tithes,  and  used  for  markets  and  festivals 
and  law  courts.  Only  two  articles  refer  to  the 
laity  ;    but  as  these  imply  that  witchcraft  and 

1  Ann.  Burt.  267. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  25 

adultery  were  regarded  as  common,   we  cannot 

be  very  optimistic  about  lay  conditions. 

If  the  test  of  Grosseteste's  letters  is  also  applied  Evi- 
dence of 
to  the  charges  brought  by  the  Legate  in  1237,  Grosse- 

teste's 

the  answer  is  the  same  ;  whether  they  are  grave  letters, 
charges,  Uke  the  use  of  the  Eucharist  and  other 
sacraments  as  means  to  extort  money,  or  the 
prevalence  of  non-residence  ;  or  technical  charges, 
as  the  non-dedication  of  churches.  It  is  sufficiently 
significant  that  the  first  article  of  all  is  *  de  vita 
archidiaconi  et  familiae  eius',  and  that  four 
separate  articles  of  the  thirty-five  are  on  sexual 
immorality  of  the  clergy. 

IV.  The  Berkshire  rectors'  famous  protest,  given  The 

Berk* 

in  Matthew  Paris  ^  as  belonging  to  1240,  is  in  the  shire 
Burton  Annals  dated  1244,  and  ascribed  to  the  p^f^^Tt! 
whole  body  of  English  rectors.  But  the  Burton 
annalist  is  apt  to  misplace  his  documents  ;  thus 
he  ascribes  Innocent's  letter  of  1253  to  1258,  and 
he  confuses  the  occasion  of  Innocent's  demands 
in  1244  with  the  earlier  occasion  of  Gregory  IX's 
demand  for  one-fifth  of  clerical  revenues  in  1240. 
The  circumstances  as  well  as  the  wording  of  the 
protest  obviously  apply  to  1240,  not  to  1244  ', 
among  such  circumstantial  details  are  the  reference 
to  Frederick's  position,  and  to  his  blockading  the 
roads  ;  the  fear  of  a  second  precedent  setting  up 
a  custom  ;  the  fact  that  the  Legate  was  trjdng 
to  deal  with  small  clerical  assemblies,  because 
1  iv.  38  ;  Ann.  Monast.  (Burton)  i.  265. 

780  £ 


26  LECTURE  I 

he  had  failed  at  Northampton  to  move  the  bishops, 
who  said  that  the  country  clergy  must  be  con- 
sulted. Moreover,  on  the  other  hand,  the  protest 
contains  no  reference  to  the  particular  circum- 
stances of  1244,  when  Master  Martin  was  dealing 
specially  with  the  prelates.  We  have  good  reason 
to  believe  that  the  Burton  annalist  did  not  get 
hold  of  the  document  till  years  after ;  for  we  find 
that  Matthew  Paris  could  only  insert  it  on  a  fly- 
leaf— that  is,  it  only  reached  him  at  some  time 
subsequent  to  its  date.  These  subsequent  docu- 
ments he  took  great  pains  to  date  accurately  ; 
and  the  excellence  of  his  information  about  this 
particular  document  is  shown  by  his  version  of  it, 
which  contains  more  clauses  than  the  version  in 
the  Burton  Annals,  and  gives  far  better  readings 
in  many  places. 

Now  if  the  grounds  of  the  protest  be  examined, 
it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  no  attack  on  the  theory 
of  Papal  omnipotence.  The  nearest  approach  to 
such  an  attack  is  in  §  3.  Of  the  others,  §  i  argues 
that  there  is  no  obligation  for  the  clergy  to  join 
in  an  attack  on  the  Emperor  for  his  occupation 
of  the  Papal  States,  because  that  act  is  not  heresy, 
and  only  against  heresy  is  the  secular  arm  invoked. 
TheEmperor  has  notbeen condemned  by  judgement 
of  the  Church  as  a  heretic,  nor  is  he  to  be  treated  as 
an  excommunicate,  since  he  offers  to  abide  by  the 
voice  of  a  council.  §  2  says  that  the  patrimony  of 
prelates  is  their  own,  much  as  the  Pope's  is  his 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  27 

own.  In  §§  3,  4,  '  Whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  or 
loose  upon  earth  '  is  the  text,  not  '  Whatsoever 
thou  shalt  grasp  or  exact '.  Our  Lord  retains  the 
supremacy,  though  he  gave  St.  Peter  the  adminis- 
tration ;  so  the  separate  churches  are  under  the 
Pope's  care,  but  not  under  his  ownership. 

The  remaining  paragraphs  run  as  follows  : 

§  5.  Church  revenues  are  for  the  ministers  and 
the  poor,  and  cannot  be  diverted. 

§  6,  The  clergy  even  now  have  slender  revenues, 
and  often  there  are  bad  harvests  and  dearths  ; 
they  cannot  see  the  poor  starve  before  their  eyes  ; 
yet  no  English  clerk  is  now  allowed  to  hold  more 
than  one  benefice  without  special  dispensation. 

§  7.  On  the  last  occasion  of  such  a  contribution, 
it  was  wasted  because  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor 
at  once  made  a  collusive  treaty  (1229).  A  second 
contribution  would  be  dangerous,  for  the  law  has 
a  maxim,  '  An  act  repeated  makes  a  custom.' 

§  8.  The  Emperor  would  seize  and  slay  those 
who  contributed  against  him,  whenever  they 
should  have  occasion  to  repair  to  the  Holy  See  ; 
and  his  power  would  be  a  peril  to  England. 

§  9.  Such  a  contribution  could  not  be  made 
without  the  consent  of  the  King  and  magnates  as 
patrons. 

§  10.  The  King  is  the  Emperor's  ally,  and  would 
have  to  be  consulted. 

§  II.  The  present  Pope  on  the  last  occasion 
promised  that  it  should  not  be  made  a  precedent ; 


28  LECTURE  I 

and  to  consent  would  be  to  put  the  English  clergy 
below  those  of  any  other  nation,  for  the  French 
clergy  have  already  refused  to  contribute. 

§  12.  Most  of  the  clergy,  having  already  taken 
vows  of  Crusade,  cannot  discharge  these  vows  in 
addition  to  this  payment ;  also  they  claim  the  three 
years'  protection  of  their  estates  allowed  to  men 
under  such  vows. 
Its  nega-  These  clauses  present  the  Berkshire  rectors  in 
denceT^  various  lights,  as  caustic  critics  of  the  past,  as 
champions  of  the  rights  of  patrons  and  of  the 
poor,  as  acute  debaters  of  scriptural  and  legal 
texts.  But  the  whole  protest  added  together 
does  not  make  them  Protestants.  They  pass  by 
the  crucial  matter,  the  theory  of  Papal  supremacy ; 
the  question  whether  it  is  to  be  dominium  or  only 
cura  is  a  point  often  raised  in  these  struggles,  but 
a  point  with  no  reality  in  it.  What  is  dominium  ? 
Is  it  mastery,  ownership  ?  or  is  it  rule,  sovereignty  ? 
Where  does  '  administration  '  end  and  '  appro- 
priation '  begin  ?  If  the  Pope  is  Peter,  if  he  is 
the  rock  on  which  the  Church  is  built,  then  he  is 
pieni-  supreme,  and  holds  the  plenitudo  potestatis.  His 
^ustatfs'  P^^wer  may  be  tyrannically  used,  and  the  tyranny 
of  the  may  be  pointed  out,  even  with  telling  personal 
allusions  ;  it  may  even  be  evaded  on  ingenious 
if  mutually  destructive  pleas.  But  it  cannot  be 
denied  ;  it  is  the  Rock.  '  That  everything  in  the 
world  is  subject  to  the  Roman  pontiff,  is  an 
article    of   faith    necessary    to    salvation.'    Boni- 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  29 

face  VIII  was  not  the  first  to  say  this.  The  very 
completeness  of  the  acceptance  allows  a  certain 
laxity  of  practice,  and  tolerates  outspoken  criti- 
cism ;  just  as  we  Englishmen  tolerate  and  even 
join  in  criticism  of  our  own  country,  because  we 
have  a  quiet  assurance  that  when  all  possible 
concessions  have  been  made  to  other  nationalities, 
the  verdict  still  must  be,  England  first,  the  rest 
nowhere. 

What  chiefly  strikes  a  modern  reader  is  the 
outspokenness  of  the  Berkshire  criticisms,  and  the 
almost  ferocious  determination  in  Berkshire  to 
avoid  payment.  But  both  things  are  famihar  to 
any  one  conversant  with  mediaeval  documents. 
The  really  striking  things  are :  first,  that  the 
criticism  is  only  criticism,  and  does  not  approach 
to  mutiny  ;  in  fact,  it  starts  from  the  unexpressed 
axiom  that  mutiny  is  inconceivable  ;  secondly, 
that  the  Papacy  paid  so  little  heed  to  all  this, 
and  took  for  granted  that  payment  would  be  made 
in  the  end.  It  negotiated  the  amount  in  France 
as  a  bill  drawn  on  a  sluggish  but  perfectly  solvent 
debtor,  and  the  Berkshire  recalcitrants  had  to  end 
by  paying  up. 

V.  We  have  seen  that  our  Legate  in  1237  hadEvi- 

dcnc6 

drastic  views  as  to  the  reforms  needed  for  the  from 
Church  in  England.    When  we  tested  these  views  Athon, 
by  collating  them  with  those  of  Giraldus,  Grosse-  J-  '^^^ 
teste,   and  the  Burton  annalist,   we  were  citing  and 

Lynd- 

witnesses  who  at  least  lived  at  the  time.    To  set  wood. 


30  LECTURE  I 

beside  theirs  the  testimony  of  John  Athon  might 
seem  something  of  an  anachronism.  For  though 
he  is  our  earhest  writer  on  '  Enghsh  '  Canon  Law, 
though  he  expressly  wrote  a  commentary  on  the 
legatine  constitutions  of  Otto,  though  he  was 
himself  a  Church  dignitary,  an  old  pupil  of  Arch- 
bishop Stratford,  and  an  Oxford  man,  still  with 
all  these  merits  it  must  be  admitted  that  he  wrote 
not  much  less  than  a  century  after  his  text.  Yet, 
despite  this  interval  of  time,  he  may  be  utilized 
as  a  wdtness  to  the  continuous  importance  of  the 
Papal  supremacy  over  the  English  Church,  and 
that  because  of  certain  considerations.  In  the 
first  place,  the  view  he  expresses  is  clearly  one 
which  represents  a  continuous  tradition.  It  is 
the  view  expressed  in  the  Pupilla  Oculi  of  John 
de  Burgh  (1385),  and  by  William  Lyndwood 
(1430).  All  three  are  most  competent  to  speak. 
Lyndwood  was  '  official '  to  Archbishop  Chichele 
in  1430,  and  a  very  learned  man,  though  he  wrote 
for  ordinary  students.  De  Burgh  was  Chancellor 
of  Cambridge,  and  had  written  a  fuller  Sacerdotis 
Oculus,  of  which  the  Pupilla  Oculi  is  a  condensed 
manual  for  priests.  Athon  had  wiitten  learned 
and  critical  work  before  he  wrote  this  commentary 
for  the  public — a  very  ignorant  public  certainly,  for 
it  had  to  have  the  ablative  absolute  explained  to 
it,  and  to  be  informed  that  tempus  means  *  time  ', 
not  *  weather  '.  In  the  second  place,  John  Athon 
himself  regards  his  work  merely  as  a  continuation 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  31 

of  the  standard  glossators,  a  sort  of  elements  of 
Canon  Law  in  usum  Delphini  for  English  ecclesi- 
astical courts,  an  edition  with  a  commentary  and 
glossary  of  the  two  texts  which  were  most  used 
in  England,  the  legatine  constitutions  of  Otto  and 
Ottobono.  He  evidently  regards  his  commentary 
as  the  first  written  in  England  upon  these  legatine 
constitutions.  There  is  no  precedent  of  English 
authority  to  which  he  can  refer.  All  his  citations 
are  from  the  classical  canonist  authorities  :  John 
Andreae  (ob.  1348),  the  greatest  of  all  canonists  ; 
John  le  Moine  (ob.  1313)  ;  the  Archdeacon  Guy 
de  Baysis,  author  of  the  Rosary  ;  William  Durand, 
author  of  the  Speculum  and  the  chief  authority 
on  procedure  ;  Pope  Innocent  IV ;  and  Hostiensis, 
that  is,  the  Cardinal  Henry  of  Susa,  Bishop  of 
Ostia. 

The  third  of  these  considerations  is,  that  the 
influences  during  the  period  1250-1330  were  such 
that  it  is  a  euphemism  to  describe  them  merely 
as  unfavourable  to  any  increase  of  Papalism  in 
England.  The  Holy  See  had  lately  been  trans- 
ferred to  Avignon,  a  transference  which  men  soon 
came  to  regard  as  one  from  Rome  to  Babylon. 
France  was  becoming  the  hereditary  national  foe, 
and  the  Papacy  had  deteriorated  into  an  uncon- 
scionable tool  of  French  pohcy.  The  amount 
and  kind  of  English  Papalism  may  therefore 
safely  be  reckoned  as  having  been  at  least  as  great 
in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  centur}-   as  the 


32  LECTURE  I 

amount  and  kind  which  is  found  surviving  about 
the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  The 
Papahsm  set  forth  in  this  work,  dated  about  1336, 
is  all  the  more  convincing  because  of  a  curious 
undertone  of  reluctance  about  it.  The  Pope  of 
these  days,  so  Athon  feels,  is  an  extortioner  and 
a  jobber,  and  worse  still,  he  is  a  Frenchman. 
Still,  he  is  the  Pope  ;  and  the  Pope  must  be 
admitted  to  wield  vast  powers  of  general  supre- 
macy, of  judicature  and  of  dispensation  ;  thus 
English  Councils  are  held  by  the  authority  of  the 
Pope.^  This  authority  is  deputed  to  Legates 
a  latere,  who  can  therefore  call  a  council  even  in 
the  harvest  season,^  despite  bishops'  protests. 
The  Pope  cannot  err  once  he  is  really  informed.^ 
There  are  many  cases  which  the  Pope  alone  can 
judge, ^  and  many  where  he  alone  can  give  a  dis- 
pensation, especially  in  homicide  and  simony.^ 
He  stands  above  all  patriarchs  and  primates.  His 
dispensations  may  be  misplaced  and  inexpedient, 
they  may  be  mere  dissipationes,  but  there  they 
are  :  non  tamen  ignoro  Papam  sic  posse  dispensare. 
He  has  the  power,  howsoever  he  may  use  it. 

The  whole  of  John  Athon's  commentary  is  also 
an  unhesitating  admission  of  the  abuses  found  in 
the  Church  of  England  at  the  legatine  inquest  of 
1237.  He  never  traverses  the  indictment,  never 
protests  against  its  severity,  but  adds  touches  and 
piquancies  of  his  own. 
1  p.  I  k.        2  p.  5  c.       3  p^  10  p^       4  p_  41  d.       6  p^  25. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  33 

*  Our  prelates  are  pilots  asleep  in  the  storm.' 
'  The  clergy  uncanonically  wear  long  beards  : 
I  would  have  them  shorn  to  their  very  gums.'  ^ 

*  Churchmen  strain  the  canons  by  casuistry,  so 
as  to  give  countenance  to  England's  greatest 
evil,  robbers.'  ^  '  The  rural  deans  have  neither 
the  courage  nor  the  knowledge  for  their  work.' 

*  They  are  fat  with  the  plunder  and  the  blood  of 
the  poor.'  ^  '  The  northern  province  does  not 
conform  to  the  rules  of  the  southern.'  *  '  Forgers 
of  the  King's  seal  are  often  found  to  be  clerks  : 
such  offenders  are  justly  branded,  whether  clerks 
or  not.'  ^  *  The  conduct  of  the  officiates  suggests 
either  the  derivation  from  officio,  to  do  hurt  ;  or 
else,  if  derived  from  officium,  duty,  it  is  on  the 
lucus  a  non  lucendo  principle,  but  it  is  hard  to 
say  whether  it  be  their  own  iniquity,  or  at  the 
instigation  of  hypocritical  superiors.'  ^  '  Ecclesi- 
astical lawyers  say  to  a  scrupulous  client,  Answer 
thus  and  you  will  lose  your  case  ;  but  they  fail 
to  add,  if  you  do  not  answer  thus,  you  will  lose 
your  soul.'  A  long  list  of  such  excerpts  might 
be  made,  but  these  suffice  to  show  that  the  native 
churchman  took  an  even  gloomier  view  of  the 
English  Church  than  the  Roman  Legate  had  done. 

VI.  The  opening  of  the  Papal  archives  by 
Leo  XIII  gave  access  to  an  immense  body  of 
confidential  documents  hitherto  known  only  by 


^  P-  37- 

2   pp.  48-50. 

3    p.  61  '. 

'  p.  65  2. 

5    p.  69  '. 

«  p.  68  1. 

780 

F 

34  LECTURE  I 

The  Pa-  a  fcw  cxcerpts,  such  as  Pertz's  in  1824.  The 
fsters^^^"  Registers  which  cover  the  years  12 16  to  1307  are 
in  twenty-three  volumes  :  the  documents  therein 
which  came  from  Innocent  IV  numbei  8,352. 
Most  of  them  are  documents  issued  to  the  clergy. 
They  supply  a  vast  mass  of  evidence  to  test  the 
conclusions  as  to  the  mediaeval  Church  which 
are  drawn  from  other  sources.  Their  historic 
value  depends  on  the  following  characteristics  : 

1.  They  are  authentic,  for  they  are  registrations 
of  the  actual  minutes  or  drafts  out  of  which  were 
drawn  up  the  deeds  as  finally  issued ;  or,  in  a  few 
cases,  particularly  where  the  registration  is  belated 
or  where  the  draft  had  got  mislaid,  they  are  copies 
of  the  original  deeds. 

2.  They  are  not  second-hand  excerpts  from 
a  larger  original  Register.^ 

3.  They  are  contemporaneous  with  the  original 
deeds.  The  date  is,  in  cases  of  '  common  form  ', 
the  day  on  which  the  grant  was  approved  by  the 
Pope  ;  or  in  the  case  of  the  legenda — that  is,  those 
which  were  read  over  to  the  Pope  for  his  final 
approval — the  date  when  that  approval  was  given. 
Hence  very  often  the  date  in  the  Register  is  more 
trustworthy  than  the  date  in  the  deed  itself,  which 
it  might  have  been  found  expedient  to  antedate 
or  to  postdate.  The  belated  entries,  often  several 
months  late,  are  generally  due  to  a  deed  having 

^  Pertz  and  Rodenberg  in  Epist.  Pontif.  i,  ii,  iii,  and  Neues 
Archiv,  x.  510-85. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  35 

been  sent  back  by  the  holder  for  registration 
afterwards.  But  as  a  rule  a  mass  of  minutes  and 
rough  drafts  lay  before  the  scribe,  and  he  exercised 
a  certain  sort  of  grouping  in  entering  them  on  the 
Register. 

4.  They  are  uncoloured  and  genuine  transcripts. 
The  original  motive  in  forming  the  Register  was 
to  supply  the  Curia  with  a  store  of  precedents  and 
reliable  references.  Their  relation  to  the  history 
of  that  time  is  what  is  called  '  undesigned  coin- 
cidence *.  They  record  deeds  which  were  actually 
issued,  and  no  others.  They  were  never  meant 
to  be  seen  outside  the  Curia,  and  have  no  ulterior 
object  of  influencing  outside  opinion.  In  fact, 
they  were  as  a  rule  never  meant  to  go  out  of  the 
custody  of  the  head  officials  of  the  Chancery. 

Hence  (5)  they  were  very  carefully  drawn  up, 
and  their  wording  was  scrupulously  faithful  to 
their  originals.  Registration  soon  became  very 
popular  ;  a  lost  original  could  be  replaced  from 
the  registered  copy.  The  rapid  development  of 
the  system  meant  also  the  rise  of  a  highly-trained 
professional  class  with  many  grades,  from  some 
cardinal  who,  as  Chancellor,  drew  up  lists  of 
influential  persons  to  whom  the  important  circulars 
should  go  out,  down  to  the  mere  copying  clerks, 
who,  however,  had  to  be  good  Latinists  and  expert 
draftsmen.  One  must  not  be  misled  by  the  various 
slips,  especially  those  made  in  the  spelling  of  non- 
Latin  countries.    What  the  Registrar  wanted  was 


36  LECTURE  I 

a  record  of  the  exact  powers  conferred.  The  name 
of  an  official  might  be  reduced  to  an  initial,  and 
a  mere  shot  might  be  made  at  the  name  of  a  place  ; 
this  did  not  matter.  Lonkeincenton  ^  for  Long 
Itchington  did  not  affect  the  essence  of  a  precedent, 
even  if  it  had  already  been  spelt  Lonchiecenton  ^ 
in  the  same  Chancery. 

6.  The  registered  deeds  were  only  a  part,  perhaps 
not  even  a  very  large  part,  of  the  total  number 
of  deeds  issued.  Even  in  Potthast's  collection 
there  are  some  hundreds  of  deeds  of  Innocent  IV 
which  are  not  represented  in  the  Registers.  But 
without  doubt  the  part  is  fairly  representative  of 
the  whole.  For,  after  all,  with  the  exception  of 
a  handful  of  litterae  Curiales  inserted  at  the  end 
of  each  year — that  is,  deeds  registered  by  official 
order,  as  relating  to  affairs  of  high  policy  or  as 
affecting  the  familia  of  the  Pope  and  cardinals, 
— with  this  exception  the  question  of  registration 
or  non-registration  was  a  question  for  the  holder. 
He  had  to  pay,  first,  the  high  official  who  got  him 
the  grace,  then  the  abbreviator  who  drew  the 
minutes,  then  the  reader  who  got  them  passed, 
then  the  bullator  who  affixed  the  leaden  seal ; 
if  after  all  this  he  had  still  any  money  left,  he  might 
buy  the  luxury  of  registration. 

If  from  all  the  8,352  deeds  in  the  Registers 
of   Innocent  IV  we   select   those  which   concern 

^  Berger,  Les  Registres  d'Innocent  IV,  3243. 
»  Ibid.  1533. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  37 

England,  they  fall  into  three  groups.    In  one  group  they 

11  1  1  1  •   1        1  1      show  (a) 

would  come  those  documents  which  show  the  the  ordi- 
ordinary  machinery  of  Papal  administration  atjin^^°"' 
work.  In  another  would  come  those  which  illus- 
trate pecuUar  features  in  the  pontificate  of 
Innocent  IV.  Of  these  two  groups,  however, 
there  will  be  not  a  few  overlapping  cases  ;  for  the 
peculiarity  of  Innocent  IV's  activity  lies  not  so 
much  in  the  creation  of  new  machinery  as  in  the 
application  of  the  ordinary  machinery  in  extra- 
ordinary ways,  and  this  therefore  would  con- 
stitute the  third  group  of  documents.  Every 
Pope  since  Innocent  III  had  a  vast  number  of 
elections  of  prelates  brought  to  him  for  adjudica- 
tion, but  no  Pope  turned  these  so  openly  into 
opportunities  for  buying  support  in  his  political 
campaign  as  did  Innocent  IV  when,  for  instance, 
he  used  the  archbishopric  of  Canterbury  for  a  sop 
to  Savoy  ^  in  September  1243,  and  the  bishopric 
of  Winchester  to  secure  Henry  III  in  February 

1251.' 

To  take  the  first  group.  We  see  the  action  of 
the  Papacy  in  property  law  from  cases  of  dower 
and  wills ;  in  marriage  law,  dispensation  as 
to  kinship,  dispensation  as  to  illegitimacy  for 
orders  or  for  holding  benefices ;  in  suits  as 
to  advowsons  and  tithe  ;  in  exchanges  between 
abbeys  or  prelates  ;  in  settlements  inside  chapter 
bodies,  a  very  common  source  of  strife ;  in 
1  Ibid.  119.  2  Ibid.  4911. 


38  LECTURE  I 

strengthening  the  hands  of  bishops  to  set  up 
vicars.  We  see  it  as  the  only  power  that  can 
scrutinize  and  approve  new  foundations,  or  that 
can  raise  a  perennial  revenue  to  build  or  restore 
churches,  or  that  can  give  release  from  excom- 
munication in  serious  cases,  such  as  any  offence 
against  a  clerk,  or  when  pronounced  by  a  bishop  ; 
and  we  must  remember  that  excommunication 
can  be  incurred  quite  unwittingly. 
Papal  For  every  case  in  the  Registers  there  would  be 

gates,  scores  of  cases  decided  by  local  application  of 
Papal  power  through  Papal  delegates,  who  would 
often  be  foreigners  beneficed  in  England.^  But 
often  also  these  delegates  would  be  English 
prelates  holding  permanent  Papal  commissions, 
such  as  the  Bishops  of  Lincoln  and  Worcester 
held  for  years  in  the  business  of  the  Crusade  ; 
or  they  would  be  English  delegates  appointed 
ad  hoc  in  a  particular  case.  Again,  for  every  case 
that  came  before  the  supreme  court,  whether 
actually  at  Rome  or  by  delegation  in  England, 
there  would  be  many  lesser  cases  that  never  got 
up  so  far,  but  which  would  be  settled  in  the 
bishops'  courts  by  their  archdeacons,  or  even  by 
the  rural  deans  ;  or  else  they  would  be  satisfied 
with  appealing  from  the  bishop  to  the  archbishop. 

1  As  Henry  of  Susa,  the  great  Hostiensis  of  the  Canonists, 
recalled  when  he  became  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Ostia ;  but  he  was 
in  England  1244  (M.  Paris,  iii.  713)  ;  or  John  Saracen,  Dean 
of  Wells,  Papal  Subdeacon  and  Chaplain,  a  very  frequent 
figure  in  the  Registers  (3743,  3772,  4086,  &c.). 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  39 

But  for  all  these  lesser  and  local  cases  it  was  the 
decision  in  the  central  court  that  set  the  precedent. 

Fortunately  the  benefit  of  Papal  control  could 
be  obtained  without  necessarily  evoking  the  cause 
to  Rome.  A  threat  to  do  so  would  often  suffice. 
For  a  journey  to  Rome  or  even  to  Lyons  was  no 
light  matter,  when  of  three  who  set  out  on  the 
undertaking,  one  might  be  taken  by  pirates,  one 
turn  back  after  crossing  the  Channel,  and  only 
one  reach  his  destination.^  On  the  other  hand,  this 
distance  of  the  bank  of  issue  made  it  easier  to 
forge  its  notes.  Innocent  III  had  issued  elaborate 
directions  how  to  detect  nine  different  sorts  of 
sham  Papal  bulls  ;  and  Innocent  IV,  in  breaking 
up  a  whole  gang  of  reverend  forgers  who  seem  to 
have  had  a  long  as  well  as  a  lucrative  run,  charges 
connivance  against  the  prelates. - 

The  monasteries  were  a  part  of  the   English  Value  of 
Church  in   which   Papal   control  was  absolutely  the 
indispensable.    They  were  exposed  to  all  sorts  of  "^°"^^' 
exactions  from  secular  prelates,  to  claims  of  tithes, 
to  vexatious  summons,  to  violent  intrusions  by 
force,    to    fraudulent    alienations   by    their    own 
vassals  ;   from  all  these  evils  nothing  but  the  long 
arm  of  Rome  could  save  them.     They  found  it 
well   to   get   their   charters   confirmed,^  or   even 
re-drafted,  after  a  fire  or  other  damage.* 

1  Les  Registres  d' Innocent  IV,  116.  2  i^ifj  4086. 

3  The  Cistercians,  477-81  ;   Sempringham,  6364. 
*  Glastonbury,  1341. 


40  LECTURE  I 

The  newer  orders  required  constant  protection 
against  the  jealousies  of  the  rest  of  the  clergy.^ 
Often  they  needed  permission  to  convert  some 
of  their  church  revenues  towards  the  sustenance 
of  their  inmates,^  and  particularly  in  the  Order  of 
Sempringham,  in  which  we  hear  of  foundations 
where  there  are  a  hundred  or  two  hundred  nuns 
half-starved.  A  very  common  privilege  granted 
is  that  of  leave  for  the  monks  to  wear  caps  at 
service,  in  consideration  of  the  rigours  of  the 
English  climate.  The  right  for  an  abbot  to  have 
some  episcopal  insignia,  the  mitre,  the  ring,  the 
sandals,  the  crosier,  and  to  give  an  episcopal 
benediction,  was  highly  valued,  and  no  doubt 
well  paid  for.^ 
yet  they      On  the  othcr  side  of  the  account,  the  monas- 

needcon-         .  ,     ,  ^     .  ,       ,,       r^^         a 

troi.  teries  represented  a  great  danger  to  the  Church. 
A  large  number  of  the  advowsons  had  fallen  into 
their  hands  ;  for  example,  Glastonbury  had  six 
in  one  place,  Sempringham  had  sixty-two  in  all. 
In  this  last  case  the  unusually  solemn  act  of  con- 
firmation, sealed  and  signed  by  the  Pope  and 
seven  cardinals,  is  followed  at  a  short  interval  by 
a  bull  empowering  the  proctors  of  the  Order  to 
pledge  its  credit  for  fifteen  hundred  marks  *  for 
expenses  incurred  at  the   See   of   Rome  ',   some 

1  Dominicans,  449-58. 

2  e.  g.    Malmesbury,  4150 ;    St.    Augustine's,    Canterbury, 
Hospitallers,  2463-4. 

3  St.  Mary's,  York;    Westminster;    Evesham;    Coventry; 
Shrewsbury. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  41 

£20,000  in  modern  money.  Advowsons  held  by 
abbeys  often  meant  non-residence  or  ill-paid 
vicars  ;  it  cost  Grosseteste  a  long  struggle  and 
a  journey  to  Lyons  before  he  could  get  even  this 
abuse  moderated.  The  wealth  and  corporate 
pride  of  the  monks  frequently,  as  at  Canterbury 
and  Bath,  led  them  into  incursions  into  episcopal 
elections.  They  resisted  any  visitation  by  bishops  ; 
and  here  too  Grosseteste  had  great  difficulty  in 
convincing  the  Curia  against  powerful  bodies 
which  were  traditional  allies  of  the  Papacy,  and 
which  spared  no  money  to  support  their  case. 
It  was  not  that  the  monasteries  were  as  yet 
flagrantly  corrupt  or  immoral,  but  they  were 
certainly  drifting  into  indolent  comfort ;  they  were 
narrow  in  their  views  ;  they  were  soon  to  decline 
from  their  learning  and  culture.  The  vivid  picture 
of  monastic  life  and  thought  given  in  Caesar  of 
Heisterbach's  Dialogus  de  Miraculis,  despite  some 
features  that  are  beautiful  and  sincere,  has  yet  much 
in  it  that  is  unspiritual  and  unnatural,  petty,  even 
revolting.    It  is  like  the  smell  of  stale  incense. 

If    we    take    the    documents    relating    to    so  Evi- 

dcncG 

prominent  a  churchman  as  Grosseteste,  we  get  from 
a  striking  view  of  the  continuity  and  importance  su^/to' 
of  the  Papal  influence.    Besides  the  bulls  ratifying  ^g°g^^" 
his   plans   for   endowment   of   vicarages   and  for 
correction  of  monastic  discipline,  there  are  others 
evoking  to  the  Curia  and  settling  on  appeal  the 
long  contest  between  himself  and  the  Chapter  ; 

780  G 


42  LECTURE  I 

appointing  him  on  a  commission  to  inquire  into 
the  claims  of  Edmund  Rich  to  canonization  ; 
protecting  him  from  any  excommunication  save 
by  special  mandate,  or  from  summons  outside  his 
diocese,  or  from  Papal  commission  ;  authorizing 
him  to  take  steps  against  men  who  have  deserted 
their  wives  to  become  monks,  and  to  give  leave 
of  absence  to  study  theology  at  the  University  ; 
allowing  three  of  his  clerks  to  hold  an  extra  benefice 
each  ;  absolving  him  from  excommunication  in- 
curred unwittingly  ;  ordering  him  to  uphold  the 
rights  of  two  Papal  provisors  ;  putting  in  his 
hand  coercive  power  against  rectors  who  act  as 
justices,  sheriffs,  or  bailiffs  ;  empowering  him  to 
raise  to  priests'  orders  five  clerks,  though  dis- 
qualified by  illegitimate  birth.  There  are  also 
a  great  number  of  orders  to  him  as  Papal  com- 
missioner for  the  Crusade ;  to  pay  £i,ooo  to 
William  Longsword  ;  to  respect  the  Templars' 
immunities  ;  to  distribute  to  active  Crusaders  the 
legacies  and  commutations  of  vows  ;  to  satisfy 
Henry  III  without  paying  these  moneys  to  him  ; 
to  sanction  a  new  code  of  rules  for  Holy  Cross 
Priory.  This  is  the  picture  of  a  central  power 
alert,  active,  implicitly  obeyed,  exercising  an 
authority  which  for  the  most  part  is  obviously 
both  centripetal  and  salutary.  At  last,  in  October 
1250,  he  was  released  from  the  office,  subject  to 
audit  of  his  accounts. 
In  the  second  group  of  the  documents  in  this 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  43 

Register  come  those  which  ihustrate  peculiarities  (6)>fovei- 
of  Innocent  IV's  pontificate.  Grants  of  benefices  under 
to  Papal  nephews,  Papal  subdeacons  and  chap-  iv. 
lains,  writers  of  the  Papal  Chancery,  and  to 
nominees  of  cardinals,  are  almost  innumerable. 
A  typical  case  is  the  general  licence  to  hold  in 
plurality  several  benefices,  even  with  the  cure  of 
souls,  a  Hcence  issued  to  Ottobono,  '  our  nephew 
and  chaplain  ',  who  was  already,  as  it  happened, 
Chancellor  of  Reims  and  Archdeacon  of  Parma, 
and  to  his  three  nephews,  Percival,  Frederick,  and 
Giles,  all  of  whom  held  French  canonries  already. 
Besides  these  cases,  a  great  number  of  provisions 
are  issued  to  foreigners,  who  as  creditors  or  other- 
wise had  some  claim  on  the  Pope.  Thus  the  Counts 
of  Vico  were  important  nobles  near  Rome,  and 
provision  to  the  extent  of  thirty  or  fifty  marks 
is  to  be  made^  for  a  scion  of  this  family.  Most 
numerous  of  all  are  the  licences  to  hold  in  plurality. 
There  are  a  hundred  and  forty-three  such  licences  Jiuraii- 

•^  ^     ties. 

affecting  England  in  the  first  five  years,  and  in 
the  last  five  and  a  half  years,  a  hundred  and  fifty- 
nine.  In  a  few  of  these  cases  some  excuses  are 
assigned  :  one  of  the  livings  is  small,^  or  the 
applicant  is  a  clerk  of  some  great  personage,^  or 
he  is  of  noble  birth.^  In  the  vast  majority  there 
is  no  such  excuse  offered ;  and  some  instances 
are  very  flagrant,  such  as  the  following  :   *  Manuel 

1  3743.  ^  16  Kal.  Nov.  1250. 

^  1251,  Nov.-Jan.  ■*  End  of  July  1250. 


44  LECTURE  I 

de  Sauro,  citizen  of  Genoa,  kinsman  of  the  Pope, 
to  hold  the  rectory  of  Kettering  and  other  benefices, 
though  he  is  non-resident  and  not  in  orders.' 
The  abuse  was  accentuated  by  instructions  to 
bishops  to  evict  all  pluralists  who  were  not 
fortified  by  Papal  licence.  The  abuse  of  dispensa- 
tions went  to  the  length  of  issuing  them  in 
sheaves.  In  June  1248  the  new  Bishop  of  Bath  and 
Wells  was  carrying  on  a  brisk  traffic  at  the  Curia. ^ 
He  bought  protection  from  excommunication  for 
himself  and  his  staff ;  leave  to  celebrate  mass 
with  them  during  an  interdict  ;  protection  from 
provisions  ;  power  to  evict  incumbents  who  were 
absentees  or  of  illegitimate  birth,  unless  they  could 
show  a  Papal  licence  ;  and  power  to  admit  to 
orders  forty  candidates  who  were  of  illegitimate 
birth.  A  former  bull  which  authorized  him  to 
hold  on  to  all  his  former  benefices  for  an  extra 
year  suggests  how  he  raised  funds  for  these 
spiritual  luxuries. 
Parti-  A  third  group  of  documents  in  the  Register  is 
under^  made  up  of  those  in  which  the  Papacy  is  indeed 
Innocent  (^oing  its  normal  work,  but  doing  it  with  a  partisan 
bias.  Such  would  be  the  decision  of  elections  to 
prelacies,  and  in  the  cases  of  elections  in  Germany 
and  Italy  the  bias  is  unconcealed.  In  the  English 
elections,  the  question  of  leanings  to  the  Im- 
perialist or  anti-Imperialist  side  did  not  arise, 
and  each  election  was  decided  by  special  circum- 

1  4001-10. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  45 

stances,  of  which  the  appointments  to  Canterbury 
in  1243,  and  to  Winchester  in  125 1,  are  the  most 
conspicuous  instances. 

The  Papal  Registers,  then,  already  suggest  an 
interesting  distinction.  The  second  and  third 
class  of  documents  make  a  very  different  impres- 
sion on  us  from  that  made  by  the  first  :  it  is  the 
pathological  as  contrasted  with  the  normal  and 
healthy  functioning  of  a  great  organism. 

Vn.    There  is  another  side  of  Papal  activity  i'lic 

Papacy 

which  hardly  comes  into  the  Registers,  but  which  as  an 
was  of  immense  importance  in  its  relation  to  the  c?Jrt^; 
English  Church.  This  was  the  work  done  by  the 
Papacy  as  an  appeal  jurisdiction.  Such  juris- 
diction was  inherent  in  the  theory  of  the  Pope  as 
episcopus  episcoporum.  But  in  primitive  law  the 
idea  of  appeal  to  a  higher  court  was  strange.  It  was, 
therefore,  not  till  after  the  Norman  Conquest  had 
opened  the  way  for  influences  derived  from 
Roman  law  that  the  idea  of  appealing  to  Rome 
developed  rapidly.  This  development  over  the 
whole  area  of  Europe,  like  the  parallel  develop- 
ment of  feudalism  some  three  centuries  earlier, 
means  that  it  was  a  living  growth  from  below, 
not  a  mechanical  structure  superimposed  from 
above.  For  many  reasons  men  thronged  to  lay 
their  cases  at  the  blessed  feet  of  the  Apostle.  The 
very  theory  of  Canon  Law  was  that  it  was  an 
exposition  of  the  law  of  God  ;  it  was  best,  there- 
fore, to  go  at  once  to  the  highest  expositor,  God's 


46  LECTURE  I 

Vicar  on  earth.  At  Rome,  too,  there  would  be 
freedom  ahke  from  the  local  tyranny  of  prelates 
and  from  the  local  hostility  of  lay  officials.  More- 
over, the  prelates  themselves  encouraged  the 
practice  of  appeals.  For  the  law  spiritual,  in  the 
century  between  Alexander  III  and  Alexander  IV, 
was  in  a  state  of  luxuriant  and  embarrassing 
growth  ;  and  though  bishops  and  archdeacons 
had  to  dispense  law  and  justice,  they  were  rarely 
trained  lawyers,  or  at  any  rate  expert  canonists ; 
and  of  two  alternatives,  it  is  far  better  to  pass 
a  case  on  to  a  higher  court,  than  to  give  one's 
own  judgement,  only  to  be  overruled  on  appeal. 
Moreover,  most  appeals  in  Church  cases  took  the 
form  called  appeals  a  gravamine — that  is,  inter- 
locutory appeals  before  judgement  was  given,  the 
,  object  being  to  stay  proceedings  or  even  to  prevent 
their  inception  ;  and  these  appeals  required  no 
leave  of  the  court  at  all. 
its  value  The  practice  of  appeal  was  far  more  prevalent 
land."^  in  England  than  in  any  of  the  leading  countries. 
This  was  natural,  for  it  must  be  admitted  that 
England,  especially  in  regard  to  its  Church,  was 
distinctly  backward.  Then,  again,  the  scheme  of 
Church  courts  in  England  was  singularly  com- 
plicated and  overlapping.  The  archbishop  had 
his  court  of  Arches,  which  was  both  a  court  of 
appeal  from  the  bishops'  diocesan  jurisdiction, 
and  in  virtue  of  his  legatine  powers  a  court  of 
first    instance    besides.      He    had    his    court    of 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  47 

Audience  ;  his  Prerogative  court  for  wills  ;  his 
court  of  Peculiars  for  his  privileged  immunities  ; 
his  jurisdiction  in  Convocation  ;  and  an  informal 
personal  jurisdiction.  The  bishop  had  his  con- 
sistory court,  which  included  appeals  from  the 
archdeacon,  and  the  court  of  his  commissary, 
which  had  the  right  to  appeal  to  the  bishop 
himself.  The  archdeacons  had  acquired  a  cus- 
tomary jurisdiction,  independent  of  the  bishops, 
to  a  different  degree  in  each  diocese.  They  held 
chapters  of  the  clergy  every  five  months,  and 
exercised  visitation  in  the  bishop's  absence.  The 
rural  deans  prepared  articles  for  the  archdeacon's 
visitation,  and  made  presentment  of  offenders  ; 
but  they  were  charged  with  being  quite  ignorant 
of  canonical  rules.  All  this  system,  like  the  feudal 
hierarchy,  needed  a  strong  head,  otherwise  it 
spelt  anarchy  ;  and  all  the  more  so  because  of 
the  age-long  struggle  between  Canterbury  and 
York,  which  makes  it  hardly  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  there  was  no  one  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion which  we  can  strictly  call  the  Church  of 
England.^  The  choice  lay  between  anarchy  and 
the  plenitudo  potestatis}  The  struggle  between 
Archbishop  Boniface  and  the  bishops  of  his 
province  shows  the  sort  of  thing  that  might 
result. 

The  recourse  to  Rome  was,  after  all,  not  a 
complete  departure  from  native  authorities,  or  a 

*  Maitland,  Canon  Law,  p.  114.  2  j^j^j  p   ^22. 


48  LECTURE  I 

submission  to  foreign  judges.    In  the  vast  majority 
of  cases  appeals  would  be  handed  over  by  the 
Pope  to  delegates  ad  hoc  in  England.     It  was 
quite  common  for  an  applicant  to  the  Curia  to 
suggest   names   that    would   be   agreeable  ;     one 
could  thus  practically  appoint  one's  own  judges, 
subject   only  to   their  being   challenged  if   they 
were  obviously  unfair.^     Besides,  the  Papal  dele- 
gates had  very   elastic  powers,   to   fill  up  their 
numbers,  to  appoint  sub-delegates,  and  to  compel 
service.^ 
Resort         Finally,   Papal  jurisdiction   grew  very  largely 
for^d-^^  out  of  a  need  which  meets  the  English  student 
^^^^'       at  the  very  threshold  of  our  history,  the  need  of 
recourse  to  Rome  for  advice  and  interpretation, 
such  as  Gregory  the  Great  gave  to  Augustine.    A 
modern  judge  will  decline  to  answer  hypothetical 
cases.    But  the  Holy  Father  was  much  more  than 
a  judge.    He  was  the  counsellor  of  the  faithful,  the 
exponent  and  interpreter  of  the  oracles  of  God. 
To  act  on  his  declaration  was  to  be  beyond  the 
power  of  question  by  rival  litigants  in  this  world, 
or  by  demon  inquisitors  in  the  world  to  come. 
This    declaratory    function    was    in    the    fullest 
activity  in  the  interval  between  the  Decretum  of 
Gratian  and  the  Decretalia  of  Gregory  IX,  and 
again  between  these  Decretals  and  the  supplemen- 
tary Decretals  of  Boniface  VIII,  the  Sext.    A  great 

1  Hostiensis  Stunma,  col.  308,  ed.  Venet.    1605. 

2  28  X,  1.  29. 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  49 

proportion  of  the  Decretals  ^  are,  in  fact,  the 
answers  to  questions  propounded  in  this  way  by 
anxious  prelates,  and  English  prelates  seem  to 
have  been  the  most  anxious  of  all.'^ 

The  Papacy  is  thus  much  more  than  an  ordinary  The 
court  of  appeal.  In  fact,  as  early  as  the  middle  <  unfver- 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  it  has  come  to  be  the  ^^^  °^,*^^' 
*  universal  ordinary  '.  From  the  civil  law  was 
borrowed  the  maxim  Roma  est  p atria  omnuim,  and 
translated  into  Church  terms  this  became  Papa 
est  index  ordinarms  omnium.  In  other  words, 
a  great  number  of  ecclesiastical  cases  began  before 
Papal  delegates.  These  would  be  English  clerics, 
but  they  would  be  acting  under  powers  and  in- 
structions from  Rome.  Both  Bracton  ^  and  William 
of  Drogheda  *  assume  that  this  is  so  :  that  an 
action  in  these  courts  naturally  starts  with  an 
original  rescriptum  domini  Papae.  This  apparently 
was  more  the  practice  in  England  than  in  other 
countries.^  What  proportion  did  these  cases  bear  to 
the  whole  ?  We  cannot  tell  without  records  of  the 
proceedings  in  English  ecclesiastical  courts,  and 
where  are  these  records  to  be  found  ?  When  they 
are  found  they  should  throw  light  on  some  subjects 
of  great  interest,  one,  amongst  others,  the  debt 

1  Lyndwood  (p.  272)  defines  a  decretal  as  a  Papal  answer  to 
consultation. 

2  Potthast,  2350.  3  f.  412  ;  f.  253  ^\ 
*  Maitland,  Canon  Law,  112. 

^  For  Italy,  cf.  Maitland,  ibid.  p.  113,  note  ;    for  France, 
Fournier,  Les  OfficialiUs  an  moyen  age. 

780  H 


50  LECTURE  I 

that  the  EngUsh  Church  and  the  Enghsh  nation 
owed  to  the  jurisprudence  of  Papal  Rome. 
Canon  It  is  pecuharly  difficult  so  to  place  ourselves 
En'^-^^  as  to  get  an  impartial  view  of  the  relation  of  Rome 
land.  ^Q  England  in  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is  also  notori- 
ously difficult  to  appreciate  the  influence  of  law 
upon  social  progress  ;  for  the  historian  hardly 
ever  does  justice  to  legal  conceptions,  and  the 
lawyer  is  apt  to  be  impenitently  unhistorical. 
But  when  the  question  on  hand  is  the  place  of 
Roman  Canon  Law  in  the  English  Church  and 
State  of  the  thirteenth  century,  these  two  diffi- 
culties are  augmented  by  others.  For  besides 
these  two  time-honoured  and  avowed  prejudices 
against  the  dominance  of  Rome  and  the  dominance 
of  law,  the  word  Canon  Law  evokes  other  preju- 
dices which  are  just  as  powerful,  if  more  obscure. 
It  seems  to  call  up  associations  of  a  judicature 
which  made  every  sin  feasible,  of  a  penitential 
system  which  commuted  every  offence  for  money. 
Then,  again,  the  English  mind  always  likes  to  keep 
its  abstract  ideas  in  separate  bottles,  to  label 
religion  as  for  Sundays,  and  mark  it  off  thus 
from  law,  the  everyday  instrument.  Hybrids  are 
regarded  with  suspicion  in  general,  and  a  hybrid 
between  law  and  religion  is  not  likely  to  satisfy 
the  kindred  on  either  side.  Finally,  the  Canon 
Law  has  come  in  for  some  hard  words  at  the  hands 
of  those  who  have  championed  the  State  against 
sacerdotalism,  from  tlie  *  majestic  lord  who  broke 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  51 

the  bonds  of  Rome  *,  to  Thomas  Hobbes  in  whose 
mind  *  spiritual  and  temporal  were  two  words 
brought  into  the  world  to  make  men  see  double  ', 
and  who  incessantly  adduces  the  text,  *  My  king- 
dom is  not  of  this  world.' 

But  to  judge  the  ideal  aimed  at  in  the  Canon 
LaW'  by  the  condition  to  which  its  practice  had 
sunk  when  the  world  had  lost  belief  in  it,  is  as 
unhistorical  as  it  would  be  to  judge  the  monastic 
ideal  by  the  state  of  the  abbeys  in  1536,  when  the 
malleus  monachorum  took  them  in  hand.  The  The  aim 
ideal  of  the  golden  age  of  the  canonists  was  to  Law. 
make  a  working  reality  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
upon  earth  ;  to  express  the  laws  of  that  kingdom 
in  a  coherent,  all-embracing  code,  and  to  enforce 
that  code  upon  the  still  half-heathen  kingdoms  of 
the  world.  An  ideal  truly,  and  predestined  to 
fail ;  but  a  noble  ideal. 

That  the  clerk  hindered  from  holy  orders  by 
a  blemish  in  his  birth,  that  the  layman  who  laid 
sacrilegious  hands  upon  a  clerk,  must  present 
himself  at  the  threshold  of  the  Apostles  to  get 
absolution,  was  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
the  inward  and  spiritual  unity  of  Christendom 
under  its  visible  head.  The  General  Councils  of 
the  Church,  the  Legates  a  latere,  the  interposition 
of  commissioners  from  Rome  into  the  ecclesiastical 
courts  of  every  land,  were  further  developments 
of  this  principle.  That  it  led  to  vast  abuses,  to 
a  perversion  of  the  loftiest  belief  for  the  most 


52  LECTURE  I 

corrupt  and  tyrannical  ends,  is  a  commonplace 
of  history.  Corruptio  optimi  pessima.  But  to 
confuse  the  last  state  with  the  first,  to  deny  that 
what  came  to  be  so  bad  w^as  ever  good  in  intent 
and  idea,  this  is  not  historical.  Whether  such 
a  corruption  was  not  inherent  and  inevitable  in 
the  attempt  to  work  a  superhuman  system  by 
fallible  human  instruments,  whether  it  is  not 
inherent  in  the  very  design  of  thus  cutting  up 
rehgion  into  a  thing  of  books  and  chapters  and 
sections,  of  precedents  and  commentaries,  may 
well  be  asked.  But  these  are  questions  for  others 
to  answer.     A^on  nostri  est  tantas  componere  lites. 

The  con-  VIII.  At  the  Lateran  Council  of  1215,  Inno- 
'  cent  III  promulgated  a  momentous  order.^  Every 
Christian  man  or  woman  was  to  confess  at  least 
once  in  the  year  all  his  sins  privily  to  his  own  priest, 
and  zealously  in  his  own  person  perform  the  penance 
enjoined  on  him  ;  otherwise  to  be  debarred  from 
entry  into  the  Church  and  from  Christian  burial. 
This  rule  was  carried  out  by  the  very  weighty 
guarantee  that  any  one  who  neglected  it  was 
presumptively  chargeable  with  heresy. 

its  re-  The  later  results  of  this  rule  were  somewhat 
surprising.  In  the  first  place,  it  gave  a  much 
greater  efficacy  to  excommunication,  which  was 
now  backed  up  by  a  real  executive  officer,  the 
confessor,  instead  of  being  left  to  the  uncovenanted 
discretion  of  a  sheriff.    Sins  tended  to  be  brought 

1   C.  12  X.  V.  38. 


suits 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  53 

to  a  level  when  they  were  thus  regarded  prima 
facie  from  the  standard  of  obedience  to  an  ecclesi- 
astical authority.  Till  they  have  made  their 
submission  to  the  priest,  the  parricide  and  the 
borrower  of  books  from  a  library  are  alike  relegated 
to  outer  darkness.  The  first  half  of  Christian  duty 
becomes  obedience  to  the  hierarchy,  and  men  are 
apt  to  relax  when  half  their  duty  is  done. 

In  the  second  place,  the  confessional  implied 
penance,  and  penances  needed  to  be  classified  and 
tabulated,  with  the  consequence  that  their  exter- 
nality became  more  and  more  prominent,  to  the 
neglect  of  their  inner  significance.  The  outward 
act,  often  a  trivial  penalty  such  as  bread  and  water 
one  day  a  week,  or  often  a  mere  money  payment, 
came  to  be  regarded  as  everything  ;  and  the  true 
and  lively  faith,  without  which  good  works  are  but 
filthy  rags,  had  to  be  reasserted,  even  with  over- 
emphasis. Here,  again,  is  the  nemesis  awaiting 
attempts  to  stereotype  religion  into  a  cut-and- 
dried  set  of  rules.  Thus  the  passionate  impulse 
of  the  Middle  Ages  to  realize  its  ideals  and  to 
embody  them  in  a  material  form  ended  in  a  vast 
system  of  indulgence  and  an  undisguised  tariff 
of  sins. 

In  the  third  place,  the  Church  shifted  its  prac- 
tical aim.  In  the  earlier  centuries  she  had  aimed 
at  permeating  European  society  with  Christianity, 
or  at  least  with  her  view  of  Christianity  ;  at 
interpenetrating  society,  law,  and  even  politics. 


54  LECTURE  I 

as  well  as  art  and  literature,  with  the  principles 
of  religion.  Commerce  itself  was  to  be  moralized — 
a  somewhat  chimerical  aim.  But  from  the  middle 
of  the  thirteenth  century  the  aim  was  less  religious 
than  hierarchical ;  it  implied  the  domination  of 
Church  over  State,  and  of  clergy  over  laity,  the 
demonstration  of  the  civil  power's  derivation  from 
ecclesiastical,  even  the  substitution  of  Church  law 
for  secular.  The  struggle  for  the  dominance  of  one 
privileged  class  is  accompanied  by  very  unevan- 
gelical  concessions  to  the  other  privileged  class. 
The  Church  lets  nobles  have  private  baptisms, 
marry  within  prohibited  degrees,  hold  benefices  in 
plurality  and  in  absence  ;  while  the  villein  is  to  be 
debarred  from  orders,  and  the  stain  of  villeinage  is 
argued  to  be  a  just  reason  for  dissolution  of  the 
marriage  tie. 

In  the  fourth  place,  the  spiritual  jurisdiction  no 
doubt  lent  itself  to  casuistry,  that  dark  shadow 
which  has  clung  closely  to  all  great  religious  move- 
ments, even  movements  differing  so  widely  as  the 
Friars,  the  Jesuits,  and  the  Puritans.  This  ten- 
dency received  a  sudden  impetus  from  Innocent's 
orders  for  universal  confession.  The  confessional 
represented  the  forum  internum,  and  thus  came 
into  collision  not  only  with  the  law  of  the  State, 
but  sometimes  even  with  the  official  law  of  the 
Church.  A  conflict  of  this  kind  was  not  unknown. 
A  Summa  Quaestionum,  a  book  of  problems  more 
than  thirty  years  before  the  Lateran  Council,  had 


PAPAL  INFLUENCES  55 

put  the  case  of  a  man  bound  to  adhere  to  a  wife 
whom  he  knows  to  be  not  really  his  wife.  *  Yet  he 
sins  not  if  he  is  obeying  a  command  of  the  Church. 
.  .  .  If  the  objection  be  raised  that  he  is  acting 
against  his  conscience  and  therefore  sins,  we  answer 
he  must  let  conscience  go.'  But  now,  such  conflicts 
necessarily  became  more  frequent.  To  meet  them, 
a  demand  arose  for  manuals  of  cases  for  the  use  of 
priests  :  and  casuistry  is  come.  But  we  must  not 
antedate  it ;  for  example,  there  is  very  little  in 
John  Athon's  scheme.  It  is  an  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  clergy  to  win  back  from  the  individual 
what  they  had  lost  to  the  State  ;  and  its  spring- 
time is  the  fourteenth  century,  as  we  can  see  from 
Wiclif's  denunciations  of  it  as  novel. 

Yet  Innocent  Ill's  rule  of  universal  private  its  origi- 
confession  had  been  directed  against  definite  and 
grave  evils.  The  ancient  scheme  of  public  penance 
before  the  congregation  had  broken  down.  It  had 
from  the  first  been  tainted  with  two  influences 
derived  from  Teutonic  law,  the  influence  of  the 
wergild  with  its  money  commutations,  and  the 
influence  of  the  curious  practice  of  vicarious  punish- 
ment allowed  in  the  case  of  magnates.  The  new 
rule  was  an  attempt  to  destroy  the  vulgar  material- 
ism, which  looked  on  penance  as  something  that 
mechanically  wiped  out  sins,  and  to  substitute  the 
doctrine  that  it  needed  confessio  oris  and  contritio 
cordis  as  well  as  satisfactio  operis  ;  and  that  the 
essential  prerequisite   indeed  was   contrition,   as 


56  LECTURE  I 

being  the  innermost  of  these  three,  the  one  from 
which  the  other  two  would  follow  as  fruit  grows 
on  a  tree.  If  this  loftier  point  of  view  could  have 
been  kept  up,  penance,  as  the  heartfelt  offering  of 
the  individual's  own  conscience,  need  never  have 
relapsed  into  its  former  mechanical  position.  For 
some  time  the  Lateran  decree  did  do  something  to 
elevate  it  to  this  higher  plane,  and  incidentally 
threw  aside  as  lumber  the  horrible  old  penitential 
books,  which  give  one  an  awful  vision  of  the 
Augean  stable  of  a  Christendom  as  yet  only  half 
Tenden-  Christian.  The  Lateran  decree  also  helped  to 
centraii-  increase  the  tendency  towards  centralization, 
because  the  number  of  cases  increased  in  which 
no  one  but  the  Apostle  himself  could  give  absolu- 
tion. It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  just  in  these 
first  three  decades  of  the  thirteenth  century  so 
many  diverse  influences  were  converging  upon  one 
focus  ;  the  result  was  to  heap  upon  the  Papacy 
numerous  powers,  not  merely  by  way  of  appeal, 
but  by  way  of  first  resort.  Taxation,  law-making, 
judicature,  were  not  so  much  *  usurped '  by 
Innocent  III  and  Gregory  IX,  as  thrust  upon 
them;  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  Church's  supreme 
disciphnary  power. 


zation. 


LECTURE  II 

THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  MEDIAEVAL 
LAW  OF  MARRIAGE 

That  the  Papacy  was  the  greatest  of  all  human  Papal 
institutions  is  a  proposition  on  which  students  of  on 
history  might  find  it  not  very  difficult  to  agree,  s^^^^^y- 
But  it  would  be  a  much  more  disputable  matter  to 
fix  the  turning-point  and  crisis  in  that  institution, 
to  answer  the  question  when  and  how  the  Papacy, 
from  being  the  apostle  of  religion,  the  organizer 
of  civilization,  the  heart  and  soul  of  Christendom, 
began  to  change  into  a  tyranny,  an  incubus,  and 
a  byword.    Before  an  answer  can  be  given  it  is 
essential  to  consider  the  Papacy  in  its  earlier  phase 
as  a  power  making  for  righteousness.    This  power 
can  be  seen  in  action,  not  only  on  the  English 
Church,  but  also  on  English  social  life.     But  to 
attempt  to  include  in  one  field  of  view  the  whole 
area  of  English  social  life  would  be  defeating  our 
own  objects.     We  should  have  to  stand  back  so 
far,  and  to  move  our  perspective  glass  in  such  wide 
sweeps  that  all  detail,  all  precision,  would  be  lost. 
It  remains,  then,  to  choose  some  one  province  within 
this  wide  area,  and  fix  awhile  our  eyes  upon  that. 
Now  there  is  probably  nothing  which  exerts  a  especial- 
deeper    influence    upon    a    community   than    its  agelaw!" 
marriage  law  ;    for  in  large  measure  this  shapes 

780  I 


58  LECTURE  II 

the  conditions  of  property,  the  social  ethics,  even 

the  practical  working  religion,  of  the  community. 

What  kind  of  marriage  law,  then,  was  it  which 

England  received  from  her  spiritual  mother  ? 

The  To  a  superficial  view,  never  does  the  mediaeval 

andThe  Church  stand  out  in  so  unpleasing  a  light  as  in  the 

law  of     history  of  her  dealine;s  with  the  marriaere  laws. 

mam-  jo  o 

age.  She  started,  it  might  be  said,  with  a  repulsively 

low  view  of  the  subject ;  she  shifted  her  ground 
completely  on  more  than  one  point ;  she  left  the 
laws  on  it  chaotic  even  beyond  mediaeval  tolerance 
of  chaos ;  she  laid  down  one  principle  after  another, 
only  to  let  lawyers  drive  a  coach-and-six  through 
each ;  she  failed  to  enforce  on  the  State  her  inter- 
pretations, though  it  had  been  made  her  sole 
province  ;  she  left  many  crying  scandals  and 
abuses  untouched  ;  she  introduced  a  dialectical 
distinction  between  verba  de  praesenti  and  verba  de 
futuro  which  was  a  premium  on  perjury  ;  she 
bound  on  men's  backs  the  grievous  burden  of 
degrees  of  consanguinity  and  affinity  ;  she  carried 
these  disqualifications  to  extremes  by  the  fanciful 
analogies  of  cognatio  spiritualis  and  affinitas  illegi- 
tima  \  and  she  reserved  a  power  of  dispensation  so 
wide  that  the  rule  seemed  to  become  like  a  rule  in 
English  grammar,  all  exceptions. 

All  this  is  true,  but  it  is  not  the  whole  truth;  and 
the  mediaeval  Church  might  say  like  Themistocles, 
*  Strike,  but  hear  me.'  She  has  a  right  to  a  hearing 
even  from  persons   born  with   minds   made   up 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  59 

against  her,  which  might  almost  be  said  to  be  the 
case  with  Enghsh  persons.  And  even  so,  it  would 
be  a  mistake  to  blame  the  Church,  too  hastily,  for 
all  the  abuses.  She  had  to  work  upon  an  extra- 
ordinarily complicated  and  barbarous  mass  of 
social  customs  ;  she  had  to  work  gradually  and 
tentatively ;  she  had  to  work  with  an  eye  to 
Roman  law  on  the  one  hand,  and  growing  feudal 
law  on  the  other  ;  and  what  two  systems  of  law 
could  be  more  inharmonious  ?    Above  all  she  had  The 

texts. 

to  work  within  the  strict  limits  of  certain  scriptural 
examples  and  maxims  which  were  very  narrowly 
interpreted  ;  *  It  is  better  to  marry  than  to  burn,' 
'  In  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  there  is  no  marrying 
or  giving  in  marriage,'  '  Whom  God  hath  joined, 
let  not  man  put  asunder,'  '  The  head  of  the  woman 
is  the  man,'  '  It  is  good  for  a  man  not  to  marry,' — 
such  are  the  texts  constantly  appealed  to,  while 
the  one  authoritative  example  that  was  to  be  made 
the  type  and  test  of  a  perfect  marriage  was  that 
of  Joseph  and  Mary. 

All  this  meant  that  it  was  only  by  a  long 
historical  process  that  the  Church  could  get  com- 
plete control  of  marriage.  The  barbarian  races 
had  to  be  converted  first ;  the  temporal  power  had 
to  cease  to  make  laws  for  the  whole  of  Christen- 
dom ]  the  see  of  Rome  had  to  feel  itself  driven 
step  by  step  to  take  up  this  law-making  function. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  Church's  control  cannot  be 
recognized   further    back   than   the    later    ninth 


6o  LECTURE  II 

century,  the  age  of  Hincmar ;  and  it  cannot  be 
said  to  be  at  its  height  for  much  more  than  the 
150  years  from  Gratian  to  Boniface  VIII,  the 
golden  age  of  the  canon  law.  At  its  height  it 
claimed  not  only  matrimonial  causes  proper,  but 
also  the  allied  matters,  such  as  dower,  legitimacy, 
inheritance.  But  these  excursions  into  debatable 
territory  brought  it  into  collision  in  England 
particularly  with  the  lay  lawyers,  who  insisted  on 
their  own  rules  of  dower,  their  own  tests  of 
legitimacy  and  inheritance.  These  collisions  were 
in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  In  the 
sixteenth  came  the  Reformation. 

Yet  the  Reformation  did  not  make  such  a  differ- 
ence as  is  often  supposed,  and  the  English  marriage 
law  remained  largely  canonical  and  was  even 
administered  by  ecclesiastical  judges  as  late  as 
1867. 
The  There  can  be  no  greater  social  evil  than  un- 

certainty in  the  marriage  law,  and  excessive 
facility  of  divorce.  If  this  were  the  United  States 
of  America,  with  their  thirty-seven  different  laws 
of  marriage,  it  might  be  necessary  to  bring  evidence 
for  such  a  proposition.  But  in  this  less  advanced 
country  the  proposition  may  perhaps  be  allowed 
as  axiomatic.  Now  the  varying  standards  of  what 
constituted  a  valid  marriage  in  the  early  Middle 
Ages  would  almost  defy  enumeration.  Into  this 
chaos  the  Church  had  to  bring  some  degree  of 
unity  and  rational  principle.    No  wonder  that  her 


chaos. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  6i 

action  was  cautious,  even  timid.  She  had  to  take 
account  of  Jewish  tradition  and  ceremonial  obser- 
vances ;  of  Roman  law  and  the  different  types  of 
marriage  therein  allowed  ;  and  of  the  tenacious 
Germanic  customs  varying  in  each  tribal  area. 

The  Hebrew  tradition  laid  a  disastrous  stress 
on  the  physical  side  ;  Roman  law  laid  its  chief 
weight  on  consensus  ;  the  Teutonic  tribes  con- 
tributed the  elements  of  betrothal,  dower,  and 
the  mund.  Outside  and  above  all  these  was  the 
Church's  conception  of  marriage  as  a  mystery,  a 
symbol,  a  sacrament.    Yet  even  here  a  distinction  Marriage 

IS     f\       Sri- 

had  to  be  made.  It  could  not  be  a  sacrament  in  crament. 
the  ordinary  sense,  not  a  medium  of  grace,  or  else 
the  giving  of  dower  would  be  an  act  of  simony,  an 
attempt  to  buy  the  gifts  of  God  with  money.  At 
a  later  date  the  Council  of  Trent  was  able  to  go 
further  and  lay  down  that  it  is  a  sacrament  in  the 
proper  sense,  a  means  of  grace.  But  in  the  earlier 
centuries  this  loftier  view  was  hampered  by  the 
need  of  protecting  the  principle  of  dower  ;  and 
this  is  an  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  the 
spiritual  view  had  to  compromise  with  the  material, 
the  canonist  make  terms  with  the  feudal  lawyer. 

The  sacramental  view  of  marriage  which  would 
make  it  indissoluble,  and  make  it  a  matter  solely 
for  spiritual  tribunals,  was  also  confronted  with 
a  much  lower  practical  and  popular  view,  which 
forced  undue  attention  to  be  given  to  the  physical 
conditions  ;    in  the  cases,  for  example,  of  affinity 


62  LECTURE  II 

by  illicit  connexion,  and  of  nullity  on  the  ground 
of  impotence.  For  this  popular  view  seemed  to  be 
often  countenanced  by  scriptural  texts  :  '  the  two 
are  one  flesh.'  On  the  other  hand,  important 
consequences  followed  from  marriage  being  a  sacra- 
ment. The  first  consequence  was  that  marriage 
must  be  accessible  to  all ;  and  thus  the  law  of  the 
Church,  after  a  long  struggle  with  Roman  law  and 
Teutonic  custom,  gradually  broke  down  the 
harsher  lines  of  parental  control  over  children. 
The  second  consequence  was  that  clandestine 
marriages  must  not  be  annulled,  but  punished  by 
penance,  for  example.  The  third  consequence  was 
the  equality  of  the  sexes  in  regard  to  rights  and 
duties  in  marriage.  A  fourth  was  the  presumption 
in  favour  of  marriage,  for  instance  if  the  parties 
to  a  contract  afterwards  cohabited. 
Difficui-  We  might  expect  the  sacramental  view  to  have 
another  consequence,  that  marriage  could  only  be 
validly  contracted  in  facie  ecclesiae,  as  indeed  was 
laid  down  by  the  Eastern  Church.  But  we  shall 
see  that  there  were  good  reasons  why  the  Western 
Church  only  worked  slowly  towards  this  position. 
Again,  if  the  Church  took  too  hard  a  line  in 
laying  down  what  should  be  the  essentials  of  a 
valid  marriage,  she  would  only  defeat  her  own  end 
and  increase  the  great  danger  of  the  time,  irregular 
and  inferior  forms  of  marriage.  Doubtless  she  was 
also  influenced  by  the  characteristic  mediaeval 
belief  in  the  efficiency  of  a  formula  per  se  ;    the 


ties 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  63 

mystic  words  in  praesenti  {magna  est  vis  eorum) 
could  not  well  be  supposed  to  have  no  efficiency, 
even  if  the  utterer  had  no  full  qualification  to 
pronounce  them.  In  old  English  law,  a  tortious 
feoffment  may  have  an  effectual  operation.  So  in 
the  Gemma,^  the  sign  of  the  Cross  made  by  an 
unbelieving  Jew  avails  to  keep  off  the  demons, 
much  to  their  disgust.     Hence  the  reluctance  oiin  fade 

P  CCLP  9  7  tip 

the  Church  to  lay  down  boldly  the  rule  that  a 
marriage  not  solemnized  under  Church  conditions 
is  null  and  void.  But  towards  such  a  rule  she  was 
steadily  working  all  the  time.  In  Mangnall's 
Questions,  we  used  to  be  instructed  to  reply  to  the 
question.  When  were  marriages  first  solemnized  in 
churches  ?  by  saying.  In  the  reign  of  King  John. 
This  is  a  distorted  form  of  the  fact  that  it  was 
Innocent  III  who,  at  the  Lateran  Council  of  1215, 
first  laid  down  as  a  general  rule  what  had  already 
been  adopted  in  parts  of  Christendom — as  for 
example  in  England,  where  Archbishop  Hubert,  in 
1200,  at  the  Lambeth  Council,  'saving  the  honour 
and  privilege  of  the  Church  of  Rome,'  ordered  the 
pubhcation  of  banns  three  times  before  marriage. 
It  was  held  indeed  by  the  House  of  Lords  in  1843  ^ 
and  in  1859  ^  that  the  EngUsh  Church  had  in  this 
matter  taken  an  independent  and  a  bolder  line  ; 
that  she  had  from  the  earliest  times  required  for 

1  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  Gemma  E celestas fica. 

2  The  Queen  v.  Millis  in  10  Clark  and  Finelly,  p.  534. 

3  Beamish  v.  Beamish  in  House  of  Lords'  Cases,  ix.  289. 


64  LECTURE  II 

a  valid  marriage  the  presence  of  a  clerk  in  orders. 
But  all  of  us,  and  not  merely  those  who  may  be 
members  of  the  Scottish  Free  Kirk,  would  be 
prepared  to  admit  that  the  House  of  Lords  can 
sometimes  be  surprising.  The  House  of  Lords, 
being  the  highest  Appeal  Court,  can  by  its  decisions 
make  law.  But  it  must  not  claim  to  make  history 
too.  The  fuller  documents  now  available  for  the 
study  of  history  make  it  impossible  to  accept  this 
decision  of  the  House  of  Lords  as  a  true  statement 
of  historical  fact.  And  the  very  hypothesis  of  such 
independent  action  on  the  part  of  the  English 
Church  in  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  and  thirteenth 
centuries  is  an  instance  of  that  misapprehension 
of  the  true  relation  of  England  to  Rome  which 
a  student  of  mediaeval  documents  must  needs 
repudiate.  On  this  point  the  famous  decretal  ^  of 
Alexander  III  is  conclusive.  He  decides  that 
a  marriage  duly  solemnized  and  consummated  is 
invalidated  b5^the  fact  that  there  had  before  been 
verba  de  praesenti,  '  I  take  you  as  mine,'  between 
the  woman  and  another  man,  though  this  prior 
contract  had  been  accompanied  by  no  religious 
ceremony,  and  had  not  been  consummated. 
The  It  is  true  that,  when  the  common  law  judges  lay 

Law!^°'^  down  as  the  condition  of  dower,  that  it  shall  have 
been  conferred  ad  ostium  ecclesiae,  they  seem  to  be 
insisting  on  the  religious  ceremony,  even  though 
at  the  time  (in  Bracton's  life)  the  Church  had  not 
^  Compilatio  Prmia,  4.  4  c.  6. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  65 

yet  mustered  courage  to  do  so.  But  Professors 
Pollock  and  Maitland  have  clearly  shown  ^  that 
what  the  lawyers  were  insisting  on  was  publicity, 
just  as  they  did  in  their  rules  as  to  seisin  and  in 
their  rejection  of  wills  of  land.  In  the  same  way 
the  English  common  law  diverged  from  the  law  of 
the  Church  when  the  barons  in  1236,  being  asked 
to  accept  the  Church  doctrine  legitimatio  per 
siihsequens  matrimonium,  that  a  subsequent  mar- 
riage legitimated  the  children  born  before  it, 
returned  their  famous  answer,  '  Nolumus  leges 
Angliae  mutari.'  In  the  following  century  the 
lawyers  carried  their  divergence  further  by  reject- 
ing the  '  putative  '  marriages  allowed  by  the 
Church  ;  marriages,  for  example,  where  there  was 
consanguinity  and  affinity  between  the  parties 
though  they  had  been  unaware  of  it  at  the  time. 
The  lawyers  also  a  century  after  Bracton's  time 
came  to  reject  the  Church  view  of  divorce  as 
depriving  the  guilty  wife  of  her  dower ;  they 
would  only  deprive  her  of  her  dower  if  the  marriage 
was  pronounced  to  have  been  a  nullity  from  the 
beginning.  All  these  divergences  from  Church  law 
illustrate  two  points  :  the  estrangement  from  the 
Church  and  hostility  to  its  legislation  which  had 
become  marked  in  England  by  the  fourteenth 
century  ;  and  the  fact  that,  with  all  its  hesitations 
and  confusions,  the  Church  view  of  marriage  was 

1  Hist.  Eng.  Law,  ii.  372-3. 

780  K 


66  LECTURE  II 

more  tolerant  at  once  and  more  spiritual  than  the 
view  taken  by  the  lay  world. 
Thedis-  One  of  the  Church  doctrines  on  the  subject  of 
of  pyae-  marriage  which  ultimately  did  most  harm  was 
fuiuro^^  the  importance,  a  factitious  importance  as  it  seems 
to  us,  attached  to  the  distinction  between  verba  de 
praesenti  compared  with  verba  de  futuro  ;  '  I  do 
now  take  you  for  my  wife  '  compared  with  *  I 
promise  to  take  you  for  my  wife '.  If  after  the 
former  words  the  parties  lived  together,  it  was  an 
indissoluble  marriage.  Even  if  they  never  lived 
together,  the  potency  of  the  present  tense  had 
created  an  indissoluble  bond  which  could  break  up 
any  subsequent  marriage  of  either  of  the  two  with 
a  third  person.^  Luther  spoke  bitterly  of  the 
fooleries  about  verba  de  praesenti  and  verba  de 
futuro  which  broke  up  many  a  marriage,  and  made 
out  others  to  be  marriages  which  were  not  really  so. 
Now  it  is  true  that  the  distinction  is  one  which 
seems  at  first  a  singularly  unreal  piece  of  quibbling. 
It  is  true  also  that  the  distinction  only  grew  up 
after  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century;  that  it 
was  the  creation  of  the  dialecticians  of  Paris 
University,  and  was  stubbornly  resisted  by  the 
lawyers  of  Bologna  ;  that  it  introduced  an  element 
of    confusion    and    perplexity    into    the    historic 

1  Peter  Lombard,  Sentent.  iv,  D,  27  c  '  Si  autem  verbis 
explicant  quod  tamen  corde  non  volunt,  si  non  sit  coactio 
ibi  vel  dolus,  obligatio  ilia  verborum  .  .  .  matrimonium 
facit.' 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  67 

development  of  the  law  of  marriage  ;  and  that  it 
placed  a  vast  adjudicating  and  dispensing  power  in 
the  hands  of  the  Popes.  Its  practical  working  too, 
as  shown  in  Alexander  Ill's  decision/  is  decidedly 
startling.  A  woman  had  married  a  man  with  all 
publicity  and  solemnity,  and  she  had  lived  as  his 
wife  with  him.  This  marriage  was  declared  null, 
because  formerly,  at  the  command  of  a  lord,  she 
had  gone  through  a  form  of  desponsatio  with 
another  man,  not  in  the  presence  of  a  priest,  nor 
with  any  of  the  ceremonies  of  marriage,  and  never 
living  with  him  as  a  wife  ;  and  the  annulling 
turned  on  the  fact  that  the  words  had  been  words 
de  praesenti ;  '  after  such  words  she  cannot  and 
ought  not  to  marry  another.' 

Yet  this  distinction  grew  by  a  natural  develop- 
ment out  of  the  various  conceptions,  Jewish, 
Roman,  Teutonic,  which  the  Church  was  fusing 
into  one  settled  ascertainable  code.  The  Jewish 
law  attached  great  importance  to  betrothal.  The 
essence  of  marriage  in  Roman  law  lay  in  the 
consensus  followed  by  the  domum  deductio.  Teu- 
tonic law,  to  give  a  man  full  power  (mund)  over 
his  wife,  required  a  betrothal  of  her  by  the  parents 
in  return  for  a  price  paid  by  the  man.  From  all 
these  sources  came  the  desponsatio  of  the  canonists. 
If  was  Peter  Lombard  who  did  most  to  enforce  the 
great  distinction  between  sponsalia  de  praesenti 

1  Compilatio  Prima,  4.  94  c.  6 ;   Friedberg,  Recht  d.  Ehe- 
schliessimg,  p.  47. 


68  LECTURE  II 

and  sponsalia  de  futuro}  His  argument  was  that 
a  real  consensus  implies  the  here  and  now,  and  it 
must  be  expressed  by  some  recognized  form  of 
words.  If  done  in  secret  it  would  be  still  binding 
inforo  conscientiae  ;  to  make  it  also  legally  binding 
in  foro  externo,  only  required  evidence.  This 
evidence  would  be  supplied  either  by  an  open 
avowal  from  the  parties,  or  by  their  living  together 
as  man  and  wife  ;  for  this  raised  a  presumption 
which  served  as  evidence  of  the  former  consensus. 
By  the  thirteenth-century  Popes  it  was  laid  down 
that  this  presumption  could  not  be  rebutted  or 
traversed.  Sponsalia  de  futuro  can,  on  the  other 
hand,  be  thrown  aside,  though  not  by  the  parties 
themselves.  For  after  the  twelfth  century  the 
Church  stepped  in  to  check  this  licence  of  repudia- 
tion, and  declared  that  persons  must  go  to  the 
Pope  for  a  dispensation,  which  in  practice  meant 
applying  to  a  Papal  delegate  empowered  to  hear 
such  cases. 
Action  This  was  surely  a  fair  and  reasonable  marriage 
Church.  1^'^-  The  Church  was  bound  to  keep  betrothal,  but 
she  saw  that  if  betrothal  was  to  be  so  important 
it  must  be  strictly  defined.  Judaic  and  Teutonic 
law  had  combined  to  introduce  the  custom  of  child 
betrothals,  and  the  property  interests  of  feudalism 

1  The  distinction  between  verba  de  praesenti  and  verba  de 
futuro  was  not  the  invention  of  Peter  Lombard  ;  it  is  already 
found  in  Hugh  St.  Victor,  and  in  a  decretal  of  Innocent  II, 
comp.  /  de  Spons.  iv.  i. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  69 

clung  to  these.  But  the  Church  Umited  them  by 
insisting  on  a  minimum  age  of  seven  years,  and  by 
relegating  them  to  the  category  of  futurity,  and 
qualifying  them  as  promissory  and  dissoluble. 

By  this  distinction  between  present  and  future, 
the  marriage  between  Joseph  and  Mary  ceased  to 
be  a  stumbling-block  ;  it  took  its  place  as  a  true 
marriage,  and  symbolical,  as  all  marriage  was 
defined  to  be,  of  the  spiritual  union  between  Christ 
and  the  Church.  Thus  the  Judaic  view  of  marriage, 
with  its  Oriental  grossness,  was  at  last  replaced  by 
something  both  loftier  and  truer. 

There  was  a  great  struggle  between  the  old  and 
the  new  theories,  between  the  legists  and  the 
logicians,  between  Bologna  and  Paris.  Was  the 
desponsatio  in  either  form  to  be  regarded  as  a 
marriage,  or  only  in  the  form  of  verba  de  praesenti  ? 
The  Paris  Summa  about  1165  says,  it  is  not  yet 
determined  whether  the  Galilean  Church  usage  or 
the  Roman,  that  is,  the  older,  the  Bolognese,  is 
the  sounder.  The  Cologne  Summa  about  the  same 
date,^  says : 

'  In  this  question  the  Gallican  and  Transalpine  Churches 
are  at  variance  ;  the  former  rejects  the  eight  causes  which, 
according  to  Bologna,  could  dissolve  a  marriage,  and 
insists  against  Bologna,  that  while  the  use  of  verba  de 
praesenti  constitutes  a  desponsatio  legalis,  verba  de  future 
only  make  a  desponsatio  canonica  ;  after  the  former  there 
can  be  no  other  marriage  ;  after  the  latter  there  ought  to 
be  no  other,  just  as  contracts  go  by  the  meaning  of  words, 

1  Scheurl,  Eheschliessung,  §  22. 


70  LECTURE  II 

not  by  the  secrets  of  conscience.  ...  It  is  a  conflict  not 
only  of  persons  but  of  Churches.  In  the  French  Church 
we  were  brought  up  in  the  faith,  in  the  other  instructed 
in  law.  We  must  not  wound  either  our  mother  or  our 
instructress.  The  Church  of  Rome,  waiving  its  superior 
authority  and  its  power  to  issue  decisions,  deigns  to  enter 
the  lists  with  her  daughter  and  meet  her  with  weapons 
of  argument.' 

The  last  words  might  seem  to  take  a  peculiar 
line  as  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Holy  See.  But  the 
context  shows  that  the  reference  is  not  to  the 
Papacy,  but  to  the  Italian  Church  as  against  the 
French,  Bologna  against  Paris,  and  Canon  Law 
against  scholastic  theology. 

When,  therefore,  as  was  the  case  up  to  about 
1 1 70,  the  very  central  definition  of  a  marriage  was 
disputable,  and  the  whole  law  of  the  subject  was 
in  a  state  of  rapid  flux,  the  legislative  activity  of 
the  central  authority  becomes  of  prime  importance. 
Still  more  would  this  be  the  case,  when  among 
the  Popes  of  the  next  fifty  years,  three  were  great 
Canon  Law  lecturers,  Alexander  III,  Innocent  III, 
and  Gregory  IX.  Thus  Sicard  of  Cremona,  writing 
in  1 180  on  the  question  between  Paris  and  Bologna, 
The  rule  remarks^  that  the  decrees  of  the  Pope,  Alexander  III, 

set  bv 

Aiexan-  have  now  settled  the  question.  It  was  settled  in 
favour  of  the  new  theory.  The  new  theory  had 
been  maintained  by  the  Pope  while  he  was  still 
Magister  Rolandus.  Now  that  he  is  Pope  he  can 
enforce  his  view  on  the  whole  world,  *  whatever 
^  Freisen,  op.  cit.,  p.  190. 


der  III. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  71 

opposite  views  may  be  held  by  some  persons,  and 
may  even  have  been  laid  down  in  judgements  by 
some  of  my  predecessors.'  ^  But  his  object  is  not 
merely  to  use  his  new  power,  like  Brennus's  sword, 
to  turn  the  scale  in  his  own  favour.  He  wants  to 
fix  a  line  after  which  the  parties  themselves  cannot 
recede.  This  had  been  the  reason  why  the  Church 
at  once  took  up  Peter  Lombard's  distinction.  Even 
before  his  distinction  was  promulgated,  the  Church 
of  herself  was  tending  that  way,  because  the  analogy 
of  the  law  of  property  suggested  that  marriage 
should  be  completed  by  traditio,  the  handing  over 
of  the  article  ;  and  for  traditio,  words  de  praesenti 
appeared  necessary.  It  seems  as  if  Alexander  Ill's 
decision^  in  the  English  case  came  early  in  his 
pontificate.  It  was  a  case  by  which  the  bare 
words  de  praesenti,  without  religious  ceremony  or 
cohabitation,  were  made  adequate  to  constitute  an 
indissoluble  marriage.  This  would  carry  the  new 
theory  out  to  its  extremest  point.  But  later 
decisions  modified  this,  and  the  general  result 
is  expressed  in  the  decretals  drawn  up  under 
Gregory  IX.  The  only  absolutely  indissoluble 
marriage  was  a  matrimonium  consummatum.  A 
matrimonium  non  consummatum  might  be  voidable, 
but  only  through  the  action  of  the  Pope  ;  the 
parties  could  not  break  it  off  except  in  the  single 
case  of  either  of  them  wanting  to  enter  *  religion  '. 

1  c.  3  X.  iv.  4. 

2  c.  6  (8),  comp.  I.  (iv.  4)  ;  c.  15,  comp.  I.  (iv.  i). 


72  LECTURE  II 

What  Alexander  III  then  had  done  was  to  intro- 
duce the  direct  action  of  the  Papacy  as  the  sole 
judge  of  doubtful  marriages  ;  that  is,  he  took 
a  great  step  towards  securing  the  greatest  of  all 
qualities  about  the  law  on  any  subject,  that  it  be 
ascertainable,  uniform,  and  final.  Thus  the  glossator 
Huguccio,  writing  before  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
century,  speaks  of  the  bad  old  custom  of  letting 
a  man  keep  a  second  wife,  when  he  ought  really 
to  have  been  sent  back  to  the  first ;  it  had  been 
supported  by  Gratian  without  any  warrant,  '  but 
now,  thank  God,  by  the  authority  of  Alexander  III 
and  Urban  III,  it  has  been  abolished  except  that 
it  prevails  in  practice  in  the  Bologna  district.'  ^ 
But  he  did  not  carry  the  new  theory  to  its  extreme, 
as  the  glossators  would  fain  do.  Here  we  see  the 
Papacy  in  the  guise  of  a  moderating  influence 
upon  the  more  headlong,  that  is,  the  more  logical 
canonists.  They  go  so  far  in  making  words  de 
praesenti  enough  to  constitute  a  valid  marriage, 
that  they  declare  consummation  to  be  unnecessary 
except  for  the  incidental  tertium  honum  of  off- 
spring ;  they  reduce  the  eight  causes  which  can 
dissolve  a  marriage  to  three  (nullity,  affinity, 
*  religion  ')  ;  they  tend  to  the  view  that  even  the 
former  two  of  these  can  only  affect  a  marriage 
which  has  been  made  fer  verba  defuturo. 
Pa\c  Robert  of  Flamborough  about  1207  ^  says  the 
checks    decretals  of  Alexander  III  allow  one  of  the  parties 

1  c.  5  X.  iv.  4.  2  Ed.  Schulte,  1868. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  73 

to  a  sponsatio  dc  praesenti  if  iinconsiimmated  ^  the  ex- 
to  enter  religion,  and  the  other  party  to  marry  ^^™'^  ^' 
some  one  else  ;  quod  ego  non  audeo  consulere.  He 
has  reached  the  logical  climax  ;  verba  de  praesenti 
make  marriage,  and  marriage  is  indissoluble.  But 
there  is  such  a  thing  in  this  world  of  makeshifts 
as  being  too  logical ;  and  there  is  certainly  no  use 
in  being  more  Papal  than  the  Pope.  The  ecclesi- 
astical left  wing  evidently  required  a  good  deal  of 
holding  back.^  Judaic  law  had  imposed  from  the 
first  its  very  carnal  view  of  marriage.  It  had  also 
imposed  the  view  that  betrothal  is  at  least  an 
inchoate  marriage.  It  became  necessary  to  define 
betrothal  very  exactly,  and  out  of  this  necessity 
had  grown  up  the  distinction  between  de  praesenti 
and  de  futuro.  This  scholastic  distinction  threat- 
ened at  one  time  the  whole  historic  development 
from  St.  Augustine  to  Gratian.  The  scholastic 
party  was  strong  enough  to  force  the  Popes  to 
accept  the  distinction,  but  the  Popes  were  strong 
enough  to  prevent  the  distinction  being  pushed 
to  all  its  logical  consequences.  The  price  paid  for 
this  compromise  was  a  considerable  amount  of 
confusion  in  the  marriage  law  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  a  more  than  considerable  amount  of 
invective  against  it  in  the  Reformation  century 
and  the  two  succeeding.  But  the  part  taken  in 
the  compromise  by  the  Popes  between  Gratian  and 

1  This  is  a  survival  from  the  Bologna  school,  Esmein,  i.  31. 

2  c.  2  X.  i.  7  ;  c.  7  X.  iii.  32. 

780  L 


74  LECTURE  IT 

the  Extra  Decretum  was  a  very  reasonable  part. 
Alexander  III  laid  down  that  if  a  mere  betrothal 
{defuturo)  were  followed  by  an  actual  cohabitation, 
the  law  must  presume  that  the  parties  meant  it 
as  a  marriage,  and  it  could  not  be  upset  by  a 
subsequent  marriage,  even  in  terms  de  praesenti 
and  with  cohabitation.  Gregory  IX  laid  down  ^ 
that  this  presumption  of  law  was  one  that  could 
not  be  rebutted. 
Papal  Besides  protecting  the  marriage  law  from  the 

appea  s.  g^trcme  scholastics,  the  other  benefit  the  Papacy 
conferred  in  this  half-century  was  the  substitution 
of  an  appeal  to  its  central  tribunal  instead  of 
the  unlicensed  action  of  the  interested  parties. 
A  marriage  might  be  voidable,  it  might  have  been 
a  mere  promissory  betrothal,  or  again  it  might 
have  been  a  betrothal  never  carried  out  though  in 
the  present  tense.  But  the  parties  could  not  of 
themselves  treat  it  as  void  till  it  had  been  declared 
void  by  the  head  of  the  Church.  It  required  his 
dispensing  power  to  declare  them  free  of  their 
former  obligations,  and  to  assign  the  due  penance 
for  breaking  these. 

There  were  other  uses  for  dispensing  power,  which 
have  sometimes  come  in  for  still  harder  words. 
It  was  freely  used  in  dispensing  from  impediments 
of  consanguinity  or  blood-relationship,^  and  impedi- 
ments of  affinity  or  relationship  through  marriage. 

1  c.  30  X.  iv.  I. 

2  Coke  {2nd  Inst.  684)  quotes  the  case  of  a  man  whose 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  75 

But  here  again,  in  dealing  with  affinity,  the  Church  The 

rules  3,s 

had  started  with  two  ideas,  a  Roman  and  a  Jewish,  to  affi- 
which  it  had  to  harmonize  and  to  work  into  ^'  ^' 
its  system.  The  term  *  affinity '  came  from  Roman 
law,  but  the  maxim  'They  two  shall  be  one  flesh  ' 
was  Judaic.  Under  the  pressure  of  this  maxim 
the  Church  assimilated  affinity  to  consanguinity. 
St.  Augustine  had  said,  '  Si  una  caro  sunt,  nurus 
est  fiha.'  Not  only  did  the  Church  forbid  the 
marriage  to  a  deceased  wife's  sister,  and  the 
marriage  to  a  deceased  brother's  wife,  which  Judaic 
law  had  countenanced  or  even  ordered  ;  but  the 
Church  tried  to  make  prohibition  extend  as  far 
among  affines  as  among  consanguinei,  that  is  to 
the  seventh  degree,  and  to  enforce  the  same 
distinction  between  degrees  that  would  annul  a 
marriage  and  degrees  that  were  only  impediments. 
But  she  had  in  practice  to  make  a  large  concession  ; 
the  penance  within  the  degrees  of  consanguinity 
was  heavier  than  within  similar  degrees  of  affinity.^ 

Misled  by  the  figurative  language  of  another 
text,^  the  Church  developed  the  doctrine  of 
affinitas  illegitima  .  .  .  de  sola  carnis  commixtione 
nascitur  (Gratian,  Bernhardus,  Thomas  Aquinas). 

Here  again  the  Papacy  had  to  take  the  function 

marriage  was  annulled  because  of  a  prior  intrigue  with  his 
future  wife's  third  cousin. 

^  Robertus,  Schulte,  p.  18 '  Plus  ilium  puniam  qui  accessit  ad 
sororem  suam  quam  ilium  qui  ad  duas  sorores  accessit.' 

2  I  Cor.  vi.  16  '  Qui  adhaeret  meretrici  unum  corpus 
efficitur.' 


76  LECTURE  II 

of  compromise  between  the  strict  canonist  rules 
and  the  laxity  of  worldly  practice.  Alexander  III 
laid  down  ^  that  affinity  created  thus  by  illicit 
action  did  annul  marriage  ;  when  he  was  only 
Master  Roland  he  had  remarked  that  the  rigor 
iusticiae  was  not  carried  out  in  practice,  especially 
as  to  affinitas  illegitima  superveniens.  Successors  of 
his  in  the  Bologna  chairs  ^  were  not  afraid  to 
criticize  him  outspokenly  for  his  views  of  affinitas 
illegitima  superveniens.  Their  language  speaks 
eloquently  of  this  body  of  professional  opinion 
as  a  powerful  force  with  which  the  Popes  had  to 
reckon.  Now  we  can  see  why  the  Pope  sent  his 
decretals  out  to  these  experts  for  their  approval. 
It  was  they  who  had  forced  him  into  harsher 
positions  than  he  had  taken  as  Magister,  when  he 
would  not  allow  that  this  offence  after  marriage 
necessarily  annulled  the  marriage  ;  now,  as  Pope, 
he  declares  it  does  annul  marriage.  Even  when  he 
yields,  as  in  case  of  a  man  guilty  with  his  wife's 
sister,  he  says  it  could  only  be  purged  by  pilgrimage 
to  Jerusalem  ;  and  the  story  is  to  be  hushed  up 
(dissimtilatum) . 

WTien  the  Popes  do  relax  the  rules,  they  have 
to  do  it  at  first  under  cover  of  the  professional 
distinctions  between  the  different  degrees  of  affinity, 

1  c.  2  X.  iv.  13. 

2  Robert  of  Flamborough  :  '  Nonne  hoc  iniquitas  ?  .  .  . 
Ego  dico  quod  si  velit  uxor  retinere  maritum,  non  est  ab  eo 
separanda  usque  ad  lertium  gradum  sive  manifestum,  sive 
occultum.' 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  77 

between  a  notorious  and  a  non-notorious  case, 
between  witting  and  unwitting  offenders.  Not  till 
Innocent  IV  did  they  feel  strong  enough  to  come 
out  from  these  shelters  and  boldly  pronounce  that 
a  valid  marriage  was  not  annulled  by  affinitas 
illegitima,  but  only  that  the  guiltless  partner  may 
live  apart  from  the  guilty  one. 

In  the  same  spirit  at  the  Lateran  Council  12 15, 
Innocent  III  had  cut  away  that  extension  of 
affinity  in  the  second  and  third  genus,  in  which 
the  canonists  had  revelled.  They  had  made  affinity 
in  the  first  genus  prohibitory  to  the  seventh  degree, 
to  three  degrees  in  the  second  genus,  and  to  two 
degrees  in  the  third  genus.  Henceforth  only  the 
first  genus  was  considered  ;  and  only  up  to  the 
fourth  degree  was  it  to  be  regarded  as  invalidat- 
ing a  marriage  unless  a  direct  dispensation  were 
given. 

The  Papacy  had  to  play  a  similar  role  in  moderat-  Spiri- 
ing  the  doctrine  of  '  spiritual  kinship  '.  Here  too  lUty.^ 
a  doctrine  had  been  elaborated  out  of  a  few  texts. 
To  enter  the  Kingdom,^  a  man  must  be  born  again 
of  water  and  the  Spirit  ;  and  St.  Paul  calls  Titus 
and  Timothy  his  sons.  If  baptism  is  a  birth,  then 
those  who  stand  together  at  the  font  are  close 
kindred.  I  cannot  marry  my  goddaughter  ;  my 
son  cannot  marry  her.  But  if  a  man  and  a  woman 
have  been  godparents  together,  can  their  children 
marry  ?      Tancred  ^   answers    this    question    and 

1  John  iii.  5.  2  Tancred  (ed.  Wunderlich),  p.  36. 


78  LECTURE  II 

others  by  remitting  it  to  Rome,  '  The  point  is 
new,  and  therefore  the  Pope  should  be  consulted 
on  it.'  Alexander  IIP  had  allowed  diversities  of 
local  custom.  The  canonists  objected  :  '  Is  a  mere 
local  custom  to  disjoin  those  whom  God  hath 
joined  ? '  One  famous  authority  (Huguccio)  ^  says, 
'  This  is  not  a  decretal,  or  if  it  is,  then  he  spoke  not 
as  Pope,  but  as  professor.'  The  Glossator  calls 
attention  to  this,  *  Note  that  here  he  finds  fault 
with  the  Pope.'  But,  after  all,  the  canonists  were 
setting  up  the  Holy  See  against  local  custom,  they 
were  defending  the  Pope  against  himself  ;  and  to 
find  fault  in  such  a  cause  was  a  subtle  flattery. 

There  was  even  one  party  at  Rome  ^  which 
wished  to  apply  the  analogy  of  baptism  to  con- 
firmation and  to  confession.  The  last  had  con- 
siderable practical  importance,  because  in  urgent 
need  a  layman  could  hear  confession.  The  Sire  de 
Joinville  might  forget  all  the  sins  confessed  by  his 
friend  the  Constable  of  Cyprus,  but  the  Church 
would  not  forget  that  there  had  been  a  confession, 
and  it  might  be  awkward  if  they  found  they  had 
become  blood-relations,  so  that  no  member  of  the 
one  family  could  marry  into  the  other,  and  that 
if  they  did  there  was  impedimentum  dirimens. 
A  further  subtlety  lay  in  the  doctrine  of  cognatio 
spiritualis  superveniens.  If  a  father  acted  as 
sponsor  to  his  own  son,  he  became  spiritually  a  near 

1  c.  3  X.  iv.  II.  2  Gloss,  on  c.  3  X.  iv.  11. 

2  Freisen,  op.  cit.,  p.  538,  note  5. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  79 

relation  of  his  own  wife  ;  must  he  not  therefore 
separate  from  her  ?  Alexander  III  had  the  good 
sense  to  say  no  ;  it  was  only  an  impedimentum 
impediens  and  could  not  annul  a  marriage  already 
subsisting.  There  were  doctors,  again,  who  tried 
to  work  in  the  Roman  law  principles  of  adoption. 
But  the  Popes  never  gave  in  to  this.  Again,  the 
schools  were  powerful  enough  to  enforce  on  their 
Papal  legislators  the  rule  they  worked  out  by  the 
early  thirteenth  century,  that  while  marriage  to 
a  non-Christian  was  null,  marriage  to  a  heretic 
was  valid  once  contracted.  On  the  other  hand, 
Papal  legislation  rejected  the  attempt  to  regard 
any  one  of  five  or  six  crimes  as  heinous  enough  to 
dissolve  a  marriage.  Innocent  III  followed  Alex- 
ander III  as  against  the  ruling  of  Clement  1 11,^ 
and  excluded  all  but  two  cases,  the  case  where 
there  had  been  adultery  with  plotting  death,  or 
the  case  of  adultery  with  promise  of  subsequent 
marriage.  Nor  could  the  Popes  be  induced  to 
follow  the  Romanist  views  in  making  it  infamia 
for  a  widow  to  marry  within  the  year,  or  in 
attaching  penalties  to  a  second  marriage.  And 
Clement  III  in  particular  abolished  the  old  theory 
that  the  prohibited  seasons  within  which  marriages 
could  not  be  celebrated  should  include  from 
Septuagesima  to  the  octave  of  Whit  Sunday  ; 
(which  this  year,  for  instance,  would  be  from 
February  11  to  June  10).    Even  so  this  prohibition 

1  c.  4,  5^X.  iv.'y. 


8o  LECTURE  II 

was  to  be  impedimentum  impediens  not  dirimens} 
In  each  of  these  questions  the  Papacy  is  a  correct- 
ing and  restraining  force. 

Otherwise,  these  doctrines  of  consanguinity  and 
affinity  had  certainly  been  stretched  to  a  point 
that  proved  impracticable.  Already  by  12 15 
Innocent  III  recognized  this;  he  reduced  the  pro- 
hibitory force  of  consanguinity  from  the  seventh 
degree  to  the  fourth,  and  refused  to  make  affinity 
The  mo-  prohibit orj^  beyond  the  first  genus. ^  The  canonical 
the  rules  were  no  doubt  more  often  a  dead  letter  in 
urci.  ^1^.^  than  in  any  other  sphere.  Moreover,  this 
graduated  scale  of  sinfulness  introduced  a  most 
undesirable  casuistry  into  a  social  region  which 
beyond  all  others  is  beset  with  temptation,  and 
which  needs  to  be  kept  straightforward  and  pure 
beyond  all  others.  Nor  was  there  any  region  in 
which  the  power  of  dispensation  was  so  dangerous 
and  so  demoralizing.  Yet  it  is  only  fair  to  say, 
that  the  too  lofty  ideal  set  up  by  the  Church 
expressed  the  horrified  recoil  of  the  highest  minds 
from  what  seemed  to  them  shocking  and  incestuous 
laxity.  We  must  never  forget  that  the  Middle 
Ages  had  onty  just  emerged  from  barbarian  society. 
The  sensuality,  the  violence,  the  gross  materialism 
that  were  still  all  about  them  provoked  protests 

^  The  Gloss,  on  c.  un.  X.  iv.  12  '  dicunt  quidam  quod  non 
dissolvitur  matrimonium  cum  illud  impedimentum  sit  tem- 
porale.  Uguccio  dicit  quod  non  est  matrimonium  nee  obstat 
quod  temporale  est  impedimentum.' 

2  c.  9  X.  iv.  14. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  8i 

that  seem  to  us  exaggerated.  From  such  protests 
came  the  exaltation  of  a  fantastic  chastity,  a 
fantastic  quietism,  an  unnatural  spirituality.  We 
have  to  enter  into  these  ages,  to  breathe  their 
very  air,  to  feel  their  sense  that  beneath  the  thin 
crust  of  social  order  and  religion  there  lay  the 
slumbering  fires  of  a  bloodthirsty  and  licentious 
paganism,  before  we  can  understand  the  canon 
law  of  marriage,  the  sacrosanctity  of  the  clergy, 
the  spread  of  monasticism. 

Another  trial  of  strength  between  the  Papacy  The  vow 
and  the  profession  took  place  over  the  vow  of  bacy.  * 
celibacy.  This  was  regarded  by  the  early  Church 
as  a  spiritual  marriage  to  the  heavenly  spouse.  It 
therefore  precluded  any  later  marriage.  This 
doctrine  was  connected  with  the  development  of 
clerical  celibacy  and  the  spread  of  monasticism. 
It  was  therefore  rapidly  worked  up  by  the  canonists 
in  and  after  the  twelfth  century,  especially  when 
they  got  hold  of  one  of  the  distinctions  in  which 
they  delighted.  This  was  the  distinction  between 
a  simple  vow  and  a  solemn  vow,  by  means  of  which 
they  made  St.  Augustine  say  that  though  the 
former  was  not  an  impedimentum  dirimens,  yet  the 
solemn  vow  was.  They  also  identified  the  solemn 
vow  with  the  desponsatio  per  verba  de  praesenti, 
and  the  simple  vow  with  the  verba  de  futuro  ;  and 
the  first  decade  of  the  thirteenth  century  versified 
the  rule  in  the  *  Marrow  of  Matrimony'.^  'Nam 
1  Schulte,  Beitrag.  iii. 

780  M 


82  LECTURE  II 

solemne  solet  de  praesenti  profiteri.  Ast  de  venture 
simplex  vult  usque  voveri,  .  .  .  Copula  legitima 
per  simplex  non  dirimetur.' 

Alexander  III  had  seemed  to  discredit  this 
identification  ;  therein,  says  Huguccio/  he  must 
be  taken  to  speak  not  as  Pope,  but  only  his  own 
opinion  as  Professor,  and  the  Pope  cannot  give 
dispensation  from  such  a  solemn  vow.  This  last 
maxim  was  laid  down  by  Innocent  III  himself  ; 
poverty  and  chastity  are  so  essential  a  part  of  the 
monastic  life,  that  not  even  the  Pope  can  dispense 
from  them.  But  the  general  feeling  was  that 
Papal  power  is  too  great  to  have  limits  set  upon 
it  even  by  the  Pope  ;  and  the  gloss  on  this  passage 
is  that  it  can  only  mean,  that  if  the  Pope  does 
dispense  a  man  from  these  vows  it  must  be  done 
by  setting  him  free  from  the  monastery  altogether  ; 
'  others  hold  that  the  plenitudo  potestatis  does 
give  the  Pope  power  to  issue  this  dispensation.'  ^ 
This  last  position  had  to  be  accepted  by  later  Popes; 
but  they  were  able  to  hold  out  against  the  extreme 
canonists'  strict  interpretation  of  all  such  vows, 
and  to  decide  that  an  impedimentum  dirimens  only 
came  from  the  solemn  vow,  not  the  simpler,^  and 
only  when  the  solemn  vow  had  been  followed  up 
by  taking  orders  above  that  of  subdeacon,  or  by 
entering  religion.* 

The  implied  vow  of  celibacy  played  a  great  part 

1  Schulte,  Litt.-Geschichte,  p.  43.  2  c.  6  X.  iii.  35. 

3  c.  6  X.  iv.  6 ;  c.  6  X.  iv.  15.  ^  c.  un.  de  Voto  VP.  iii.  15. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  83 

in  determining  the  rule  of  celibacy  for  the  clergy.  Celibacy 
This  is  a  question  which  hardly  receives  unpre-  clergy. 
judiced  treatment  from  English  historians.  If 
any  one  were  to  argue  at  the  present  day  that 
single-minded  devotion  to  a  profession  or  an  art 
is  hindered  by  matrimony,  he  would  probably  be 
told  first,  that  the  statement  is  untrue  ;  second, 
that  family  life  is  of  more  vital  importance  to 
a  society  and  to  any  normal  member  of  it,  than 
is  any  profession  or  art  ;  thirdly,  that  celibacy, 
generally  speaking,  is  a  condition  at  once  selfish, 
unpatriotic,  and  morally  dangerous.  And  each  of 
these  objections  would,  no  doubt,  be  valid  in  our 
present  society.  Yet  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
any  real  familiarity  with  the  early  Middle  Ages 
will  lead  an  unprejudiced  student  to  the  belief  that 
the  celibacy  of  the  clergy  was  at  that  time  essential 
to  the  setting  apart  of  a  clerical  order,  to  the 
purification  of  the  Church,  and  to  its  influence  upon 
the  world ;  that  clerical  celibacy  was  in  fact  a 
necessary  stage  in  the  spiritualization  of  European 
society.     Now  powerful  as  was  the  work  done  its 

growth, 

by  the  Hildebrandine  Popes  to  help  on  clerical 
celibacy,  yet  still  more  was  done  to  fix  and  develop 
the  doctrine  by  the  canon  lawyers.  It  was  they 
who  extended  the  rule  to  include  subdeacons. 
Alexander  III  had  pronounced  that  subdeacons 
were  not  to  be  regarded  as  being  in  orders  of  the 
higher  grade.^  He  had  even  given  a  dispensation 
^  c.  2  X.  iv.  6. 


84  LECTURE  TI 

to  a  subdeacon  to  be  married.  This  particular 
case  proved  a  great  stone  of  offence.  The  famous 
commentator  Huguccio  says,  '  The  man  must  have 
never  been  baptized,  or  been  too  iUiterate  for 
orders,  or  must  have  uncanonically  skipped  some 
grades.'  ^  Another  commentator  suggests  that  we 
can  get  over  the  case  by  holding  that  the  clerk  is 
bound  to  celibacy,  not  by  his  vow  on  ordination, 
but  by  the  rule  of  Church  discipline,  from  which  the 
Pope  can  give  a  dispensation,  whereas  from  the 
vow  he  cannot.  Another  has  heard  that  this 
particular  dispensation  had  not  been  issued  with 
the  Pope's  full  privity,  and  he  gets  over  it  thus. 
But  get  over  it  somehow  they  are  all  agreed  we 
must.  For  they  are  bound  at  all  costs  to  save  the 
principle  of  the  vow,  for  this  has  become  the 
recognized  way  of  meeting  the  awkward  text^  in 
the  Epistle  to  Timothy,  *  Let  a  bishop  be  the  hus- 
band of  one  wife.'  Here  and  in  i  Corinthians  ^  the 
apostle  Paul  had  given  priests  the  right  to  marry, 
but  he  also  said  that  celibacy  was  the  better  way  ; 
and  by  the  very  fact  of  taking  orders  it  was  said 
the  priest  chooses  to  abandon  this  right  ;  for  a 
vow  of  celibacy  is  now  annexed  to  ordination  and 
implied  in  it,  and  every  priest  is  aware  of  this 
Conflict  when  he  takes  orders.  The  conflict  here  between 
pienitudo  two  rapid  new  growths,  clerical  celibacy  and  the 
potestaHs.  p^pal    phuitudo    potestatis,   is  very   interesting. 

^  Freisen,  op.  cit.,  p.  758.  2  j  Y\m.  iii.  2. 

3  I  Cor.  vii.  8. 


THK  LAW  OF  MARRTACxE  85 

'  I  have  heard  it  argued ',  says  Robert  of  Flam- 
borough/  *  that  the  Pope  could  give  dispensation 
to  marry  even  to  a  priest  or  a  Cistercian  abbot. 
But  saving  the  reverence  due  to  my  Lord  the 
Pope,  what  I  have  laid  down  is  the  sounder  view.' 
That  there  was  such  a  divergence  of  views  is 
partly  due  to  the  remarkable  fact  that  till  Boni- 
face VIII  the  Church  never  positively  enacted  that 
orders  annul  marriage.  This  was  accepted  as  a 
principle  by  Gregory  IX,  but  direct  legislation  to 
this  effect  was  avoided,  because  it  was  felt  that 
marriage  was  iure  naturae,  was  a  right  of  which 
no  one  could  divest  a  man,  it  required  his  own 
act  thereto.  In  the  fourteenth  century  it  was  still 
disputed  which  was  the  element  in  orders  which 
annuls  a  marriage  ;  was  it  the  vow,  or,  as  the 
greatest  of  all  commentators,  John  Andreae,  held, 
was  it  the  Church  rule  ? — a  question  which  even 
the  Council  of  Trent  left  undetermined. 

In  the  matter  of  divorce,  the  Church  started  with  Divorce. 
an  aim  to  work  for,  that  marriage  is  indissoluble. 
'  Whom  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man  put 
asunder.'  ^  Only  two  exceptions  had  the  New 
Testament  allowed :  adultery,  and  the  desertion 
by  an  unbelieving  partner.^  But  both  the  Judaic 
and  the  Roman  law  had  allowed  divorce  to  a 
degree  that  has  been  called  '  unbridled  licence  ',* 
and  Teutonic  custom  had  recognized  many  causes 

1  Ed.  Schulte,  p.  7.  2  Matt.  xix.  6. 

2  I  Cor.  vii.  15.  *  Esmein,  ii.  46. 


86  LECTURE  II 

for  separation,  such  as  blindness,  leprosy,  insanity, 
captivity.  It  cost  the  Church  a  long  struggle  of 
eleven  centuiies  to  overcome  all  these  systems,  for 
its  sole  coercive  weapon  was  penance.  But  by  the 
time  of  Gratian  the  principle  was  achieved.  There 
may  for  good  cause  be  separation  a  mensa  et  toro  ; 
but  the  actual  vincuhtm  matrimonii  can  never  be 
broken  asunder.  What  seems  a  divorce  in  this  full 
sense,  is  strictly  only  a  declaration  that  the  marriage 
was  null,  from  the  beginning,  that  there  had  been 
no  vinculum.  But  here  again  the  clear  view  taken 
in  Gratian' s  Decretum  was  broken  into  confusion 
by  Peter  Lombard's  scholastic  distinction  of  prae- 
senti  and  futuro.  Thus  Bernard  asks  the  question, 
*  Can  a  wife  enter  religion  against  her  husband's 
will  ?  '  If  the  formula  is  spoken  in  the  present 
tense,  this  makes  a  marriage,  and  marriage  is 
indissoluble  ;  so  the  answer  ought  to  have  been 
no,  she  cannot.  And  to  this  answer  he  inclines. 
But  the  Church  inclined  to  say  yes  ;  and  he  has 
to  conclude  with  the  words,  Adhuc  sub  iudice  lis 
est.  Scholasticism  we  have  seen  was  a  mighty 
influence,    but    monasticism    we    see    was    even 

Papal      mightier.     The  Popes  took  up  a  reasonable  line. 

mSes^^'  ^  couple  Can  agree  to  separate,  but  both  must 
agree,  and  both  must  enter  religion.,  'This  has  been 
so  settled  by  the  present  Pope  after  long  con- 
troversy,' says  Sicard  of  Cremona,  1180,  referring 
to  Alexander  III.^  The  same  Pope  pronounced 
1  c.  4  X.  iii.  32. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  87 

that  not  even  for  leprosy  could  one  partner  desert 
the  other  unless  by  consent ;  ^  a  heroic  view  of 
conjugal  duty,  but  heroic  views  were  just  what  the 
twelfth  century  needed  in  every  sphere.  In  the 
same  spirit  the  Church  had  disallowed  the  old  right 
of  an  injured  husband  to  act  for  himself,  he  must 
sue  in  due  form  and  await  judgement  of  the  courts. 
The  Church  had  set  up  seven  or  eight  pleas  by 
which  a  guilty  wife  might  save  herself  from  judicial 
separation,  such  pleas  as  the  husband's  cognizance, 
or  his  having  been  reputed  dead,  or  his  condoning 
the  offence,  or  his  being  equally  guilty.  For  the 
Church  maxim  was  equality  of  treatment  for  the 
two  sexes  :  non  ad  imparia  iudicantur,  eadem  lex 
viro  et  rmdieri.  This  is  perhaps  Utopian,  but  it  is 
at  any  rate  above  the  gross  onesidedness  of  both 
Judaic  and  Roman  law,  which,  for  instance,  had 
made  even  Gratian  say,  '  The  wife  cannot  bring 
an  accusation  against  her  husband,  for  so  runs  the 
Roman  law.'  But  the  Popes  had  allowed  fairer 
treatment.  They  had  also  allowed  the  guiltless 
to  receive  back  the  guilty  party  after  penance, 
a  concession  to  the  indissolubleness  of  marriage, 
but  also  a  concession  to  social  peace  and  common 
sense. 

This  view  of  marriage  as  indissoluble  was  perhaps 

too  high  an  ideal  for  the  society  of  the  time.    But 

that  is  just  another  of  the  cases  in  which  the  high 

pitch  of  the  ideal  measures  the  recoil  from  low 

1  c  I  and  c.  2  X.  iv.  8. 


88  LECTURE  II 

practice.    It  was  so  high-pitched  that  the  Church 
herself  could  not  fully  act  up  to  it,  and  had  to 
temporize  and  compromise.    But  it  is  evident  that 
there  is  some  unfairness  in  summing  up  the  Church 
view  of  marriage  as  low,  and  simultaneously  com- 
plaining of  it  as  impracticably  high.    It  was  high 
just  as  the  monastic  ideal  was  high,  and  for  the 
same  reason  and  with  similar  results.    It  was  above 
the  men  of  that  age  ;  they  could  not  attain  unto  it ; 
but  it  held  up  a  lofty  conception  before  their  eyes. 
The  chii-      In  the  treatment  of  the  children  of  a  marriage, 
^^^'       the  modern  world  has  come  round  almost  wholly 
to  the  attitude  taken  up  by  the  mediaeval  Church. 
Instead  of  making  illegitimacy  the  inevitable  con- 
sequence of  any  failure  in  legal  conditions  on  the 
part  of  the  parents,  she  confined  it  to  cases  where 
the  parents  had  been  guilty.    In  fact  she  took  an 
equitable  view  of  the  legal  situation.    She  legiti- 
mated all  children  of  'putative'  marriages, i.e.  those 
solemnized  by  the  Church  and  with  bona  fides  of 
the  parties.^    This  was  emphatically  decreed  both 
by  Alexander  III  and  by  Innocent  III.     In  so 
decreeing  they  had  to  run  counter  to  some  of  the 
leading  canonists,  like  Robert  of  Flamborough,  who 
had  only  allowed  such  children  to  be  legitimate  for 
purposes  of  inheritance  and  for  pleading  in  secular 
courts,  but  not  for  Holv  Orders  or  for  ecclesiastical 
courts.     Huguccio  had  even  insisted  on  a  refine- 
ment which  has  been  happily  called  a  lopsided 

1  c.  2  and  c.  14  X.  iv.  17. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  89 

legitimacy  ;  where  one  parent  had  married  in  bona 
fides,  the  other  not,  the  child  would  be  legitimate 
on  the  one  side  and  not  on  the  other.  The 
same  canonist  had  resisted  the  doctrine  of  legitima- 
tion by  subsequent  marriage  of  the  parents  ;  he 
would  let  such  children  inherit  but  not  take  orders. 
Here  again  Alexander  III  boldly  gave  the  doctrine 
its  wider  scope. -^  Matrimonium  omnia  precedentia 
purgat.  He  could  force  it  upon  the  Church,  but 
it  could  not  be  forced  upon  the  stubborn  EngUsh 
baronage  at  Merton  in  1236 ;  nolumus  leges 
Angliae  mutari. 

Boniface  VIII  enounced  that  the  Pope  has  all^he  dis- 

^  pensmg 

laws  in  his  breast.  But  this  full  development  of  power, 
the  theory  had  only  been  reached  by  a  long 
process.  Gratian  had  said  in  the  Decretum  that 
the  Pope  can  override  any  canon  laws  because  he 
represents  Christ,  who  was  dominus  legis.  Yet 
some  glossators  stigmatized  the  chapter  declaring 
the  consequent  Papal  powers  of  dispensation  as 
capitulum  difficile  et  famosum.  But  Gratian's 
principle  was  bound  to  gain  ground.  It  was  the 
only  way  to  effect  his  great  purpose,  the  concor- 
dantia  discordantium  canonum.  It  was  also  a 
consequence  of  the  scale  he  set  up,  in  which  the 
Bible,  the  first  four  Councils  (some  said  the  first 
eight  Councils),  the  Pope,  the  Fathers,  the  rules 
of  the  Church,  formed  a  descending  series  of 
authorities.  It  was  also  a  corollary  from  the 
1  c.  13  X.  iv.  17. 

780  N 


go  LECTURE  II 

doctrine  that  the  Pope  was  God's  vicegerent  upon 

earth.    Such  a  power  must  be  able  to  make  new 

laws.      And   the    social    and    moral    progress    of 

Christendom,  as  men  felt  and  said,  depended  upon 

such  new  laws  being  made.     Hence  it  has  to  be 

expressly  postulated  that  a  Pope  can  revoke  the 

decrees   of   his   predecessors  ;     '  they   cease   that 

moment  to  be  decrees,'  is  the  explanation  of  one 

glossator.^     Of  course  an  authority  absolute  and 

illimitable  in  theory  may,  and  must  in  practice, 

have  very  tangible  limitations.     But  these  also 

must  be  made  to  square  with  the  theory.     The 

different  churches  of  Christendom  had  very  wide 

divergences  in  practice,  but  the  hypothesis  had  to 

be  made   that   these   divergences   only  exist  by 

a  tacit  licence  from  the  Pope.    The  canonist  will 

often   have   to  reject   a   Papal  ruling  ;    but   the 

rejection  will  be  salved  with  the  formula  that 

herein  he  spoke  not  as  Pope  but  as  professor,  and 

a  mediaeval  was  even  more  accustomed  than  a 

modem  university  to  hear  one  professor  refuting 

another,  especially  when  the  subject-matter  was 

law.     When  Innocent  III  sent  his  new  decretals 

to  Bologna,  he  appealed  to  them  not  as  supreme 

pastor  to  his  flock,  but  as  a  professional  to  his 

fellows  in  the  profession  ;  '  I  send  them  to  you  that 

you  may  be  able  to  apply  them  when  need  arises,  in 

court  and  in  the  lecture-room.' "    Honorius  III  was 

bolder,  and  issued  his  as  law.    Gregory  IX  went 

*  c.  25  q.  I  V.  Contra  Statutum.  2  Potthast,  4157. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  91 

further  and  revoked  all  others.  This  left  only  one 
step  to  the  full  theory,  the  step  which  Boni- 
face Vm  took,  iura  omnia  in  scrinio  pectoris. 

In  no  subject  was  it  so  important  to  have  a  unity  English 
of  practice  throughout  Christendom  as  in  the  "P^'^^^"  • 
subject  of  marriage.  Nor,  again,  was  there  any 
Church  in  Christendom  so  Hable  to  become  insular 
and  unprogressive  as  the  Church  in  the  British 
Isles.  It  was  of  great  value,  therefore,  that  it  is 
an  English  canonist  who,  even  before  Gregory  IX's 
compilation  of  the  Extra-Decretum,  admitted  in 
the  plainest  terms  the  Papal  power  to  legislate  and 
to  issue  dispensations  in  matrimonial  cases .  Richard 
le  Poer,  Bishop  of  Durham  (1228-37)  refers  ^  to 
the  limitations  assigned  to  Papal  power  by  his 
countryman,  Robert  of  Flamborough,  thirty  years 
earlier  ;  the  Gospel,  the  law  of  nature,  the  first  four 
Councils,  the  canon  law,  had  been  the  limiting 
principles  assigned.  But  the  later  writer  points 
out  that  precedents  exist  for  the  overriding  of 
each  one  of  these  limits. 

The  frequency  with  which  this  passage  is  quoted 
by  the  later  glossators  shows  how  completely  the 
older  doctrines  had  given  way,  the  doctrines  that 
the  Pope  was  bound  by  his  predecessors,  that 
canon  rules  admitted  of  no  exceptions.  The  new 
idea  of  dispensing  power  had  risen  in  response  to 
a  real  need.  It  was  the  safety-valve  of  the  now 
centrahzed  machinery. 

1  Schulte,  Litt.-Geschichte,  p.  31. 


92  LECTURE  II 

Mediaeval  marriage  law  came  in  for  severe 
criticism  at  the  Reformation.  The  Statute  of 
1540  (32  H.  8,  c.  38)  speaks  of 

Henry     '  the  usurped  power  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  .  .  .  making 

yill's     that  unlawful  which  by  God's  law  is  lawful.  .  .  .  Many 
icclinGfs 

persons  long  married  and  often  with  children  ...  on 

pretence    of    precontract    not    consummated,    on    mere 

evidence  of  two  witnesses  were  divorced  ...  by  other 

prohibitions  than  God's  law  admitteth,  for  their  lucre  by 

that  court  invented,  the  dispensation  whereof  they  always 

reserved  to  themselves  ...  all  because  they  would  get 

money  by  it  and  keep  a  reputation  to  their  usurped 

jurisdiction  .  .  .  whereby  many  just  marriages  have  been 

undone  and  lawful  heirs  disinherited.  .  .  . 

Marriages  have  been  brought  into  such  uncertainty 
that  no  marriage  could  be  so  surely  knit  and  bounden  but 
it  should  he  in  either  of  the  parties'  power  and  arbitre, 
casting  away  the  fear  of  God,  by  means  and  compasses 
to  prove  a  precontract,  a  kindred,  an  alliance,  or  a  carnal 
knowledge.  .  .  . 

We  declare  all  marriages  lawful  that  be  not  prohibited 
by  God's  law  or  the  Levitical  degrees,  that  are  contract 
and  solemnized  in  the  face  of  the  Church  and  consummate 
with  bodily  knowledge  or  children  .  .  .  notwithstanding 
any  precontract  not  consummate  and  notwithstanding 
any  dispensation,  &c.' 

Henry  VIII  has  no  doubt  some  claim  to  express 
an  opinion  on  the  marriage  laws.  With  him,  as 
has  been  wittily  said,  marriage  almost  degenerated 
into  a  habit.  But  in  this  preamble  he  is  also 
voicing  the  criticism  of  the  Reformers,  who 
denounced  the  canon  law  for  faciUtating  clandestine 
marriages,  for  allowing  marriages  of  infants,  for 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  93 

the  rules  of  kinship  and  affinity,  for  the  conflicts 
between  Church  rules  and  State  rules,  and  for  the 
conflicts  even  inside  the  Church  sphere,  between 
the  forum  internum  and  the  forum  externum,^  and 
finally  for  the  insistence  on  celibacy  of  the  clergy 
though  a  confessed  imposture.  Luther's  words  on 
the  subject  are  well  known.  Calvin's,  as  not  so  Caivin. 
familiar,  may  be  quoted  verbatim  : 

'  Dum  e  matrimonio  sacramentum  fecerunt,  ubi  id 
semel  obtinuere,  coniugalium  causarum  cognitionem  ad 
se  traxerunt,  quippe  res  spiritualis  erat  profanis  iudicibus 
non  attrectanda.  Turn  leges  sanxerunt  quibus  tyranni- 
dem  suam  firmarunt,  sed  partim  in  Deum  manifeste 
impias,  partim  in  homines  iniquissimas.  Quales  sunt  : 
lit  coniugia  inter  adolescentes,  quae  parentum  iniussu 
contracta  sunt,  dissolvantur.  Gradus  vero  ipsos  contra 
gentium  omnium  iura  et  Mosis  quoque  politiam  confingunt. 
Ne  viro,  qui  adulteram  repudiaverit,  alteram  inducere 
liceat.  Ne  spirituales  cognati  matrimonio  copulentur,  Ne 
a  Septuagesima  ad  octavas  Paschae,  tribus  hebdomadibus 
ante  natalem  lohannis,  ab  Adventu  ad  Epiphaniam 
nuptiae  celebrentur  ;  et  similes  innumerae  quas  recensere 
longum  fuerit.' 

The  Reformers  did  the  great  service  of  vindica-  These 
ting  matrimony  as  an  honourable  state,  indeed  as  ignore 
the  '  truly  rehgious  condition  '.    But  they  reintro-  cafdeve- 
duced  the  variability  according  to  local  customs,  lopment. 
which,  even  if  endurable  now  that   Europe  has 
broken  up  into  nations,  was  illogical  and  intolerable 
when  Europe  was  Christendom.    Calvin,  rejecting 

1  Hostiensis,  Summa  de  Matrimonio,  p.  355  ;  Friedberg, 
Recht  d.  Eheschliessung,  p.  102. 


94  LECTURE  II 

the  interpretation  of  fiva-Trjpiov  by  sacramentiim, 
naturally  rejects  the  consequences  of  the  sacra- 
mental view.  Ignoring  the  historic  development 
of  the  canonical  rules,  he  does  not  see  that  they 
represent,  as  it  were,  so  many  lines  of  escape  from 
worse  conditions.  But  he  does  avoid  the  mistake, 
often  made  by  some  modern  writers,  of  attributing 
to  the  Church  itself  these  bad  conditions,  amid 
which  it  moved,  against  which  it  had  striven,  but 
with  which  it  sometimes  had  to  palter  and  to 
compromise. 

His  Tudor  majesty's  indictment  admits  of  some 
criticism,  more  than  would  have  been  safe  in  his 
lifetime.  The  *  pretence  of  precontract '  refers  to 
the  de  praesenti  and  de  futuro  distinction  ;  but  the 
main  element  in  this  was  its  attempt  to  spiritualize 
existing  views  of  matrimony  by  transferring  the 
stress  from  copula  to  consensus  ;  and  the  distinc- 
tion made  it  possible  to  undermine  many  existing 
abuses.  As  to  the  *  prohibitions  invented  by  Rome 
for  lucre  ',  most  of  these  were  far  more  stringent 
and  more  unreasonable  before  the  later  twelfth 
century — that  is,  before  Rome,  through  Alex- 
ander III  and  his  successors,  established  a  Papal 
control  over  the  canonist  schools.  The  '  dispensa- 
tions reserved  to  themselves  '  were  far  better  in 
the  hands  of  one  central  authority  than  left  to 
each  individual  bishop,  or  to  the  dubious  con- 
scientiousness of  the  interested  parties,  as  was  the 
former  practice.     The  '  frequent  disinheriting  of 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  95 

lawful  heirs  '  was  an  argument  that  might  be  met 
by  a  til  quoque,  for  no  decisions  could  be  more 
monstrous  than  some  of  those  deduced  from  the 
presumptions  of  the  common  law.^  '  By  means 
and  compasses  to  prove  a  precontract,  kindred,  &c.' 
is  a  complaint  of  the  number  of  impedimenta 
dirimentia.  But  these  it  had  been  the  marked 
policy  of  Rome  to  cut  down  and  reduce  in  number, 
from  their  maximum  of  sixteen  to  only  three  or 
even  one.  As  to  *  parties  casting  out  the  fear  of 
God  ',  it  was  something  to  have  put  into  them 
a  fear  of  the  Church,  and  it  certainly  was  not 
within  '  their  own  powers  and  arbitre  '  as  much  as 
it  had  been  before,  but  a  good  deal  less  so. 

But  we   have   also   to   face   a  weie^hty  indict-  Mait- 
ment  recently  brought  against  the  canon  law  of  censure. 
marriage. 

'  Behind  these  intricate  rules  there  is  no  deep  policy, 
there  is  no  strong  religious  feeling  ;  they  are  the  idle 
ingenuities  of  men  who  are  amusing  themselves  by 
inventing  a  game  of  skill  which  is  to  be  played  with  neatly 
drawn  tables  of  affinity  and  doggerel  hexameters.  The 
men  and  women  who  are  the  pawns  in  this  game  may 
if  they  be  rich  enough  evade  some  of  the  forfeits  by 
obtaining  Papal  dispensations  ;  but  there  must  be  another 
set  of  rules  marking  off  the  dispensable  from  the  indis- 
pensable impediments.  When  we  weigh  the  merits  of 
the  mediaeval  Church  and  have  remembered  all  her  good 
deeds,  we  have  to  put  into  the  other  scale,  as  a  weighty 
counterpoise,  the  incalculable  harm  done  by  a  marriage- 

^  e.g.  the  presumption  ol  access  in  absentia. 


96  LECTURE  II 

law  which  was  a  maze  of  flighty  fancies  and  misappUed 
logic'  ^ 

No  one  who  has  had  the  patience  to  follow  the 
canon  law  of  marriage  in  its  historic  development 
will  be  able  to  admit  this  as  anything  like  a  fair 
description.  There  assuredly  was  strong  religious 
feeling  behind  its  rules  as  these  grew  up.  If  they 
were  afterwards  administered  with  idle  ingenuity, 
and  in  the  spirit  of  a  game  of  skill,  this  is  the 
common  experience  of  what  happens  when  abstract 
principles  are  minted  into  current  coin  or  even 
into  counters,  and  the  fault  must  be  divided 
between  human  nature  in  general,  and  the  class  of 
lawyers  in  particular.  The  tables  of  kinship  and 
affinity  are  due  to  the  inconvenient  honesty  of 
taking  the  Bible,  and  the  Bible  in  its  most  literal 
sense,  as  authoritative.  As  if  the  load  of  Judaic 
tradition,  of  Roman  law,  and  of  Teutonic  custom 
were  not  enough,  the  set  of  texts  and  the  scriptural 
examples  which  had  to  be  worked  into  a  rational 
system  with  all  these  materials  made  a  task  of 
almost  impossible  complexity.  That  a  rational 
system  was  evolved  is  due  to  the  concentration 
on  this  object  of  the  most  powerful  minds  for 
continuous  centuries.  That  the  technical  rules  were 
forced  into  memorial  verses,  was  because  they 
were  required  for  constant  use  ;  they  had  to  be 
portable  and  handy.  There  was  a  time,  many  of 
us  can  remember  it,  when  even  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  (horresco  referens)  were  compressed  into 
1  Pollock  and  Maitland,  Hist.  Eng.  Law,  ii.  387. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  97 

doggerel  hexameters  ;  but  the  historic  significance 
of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  was  not  vitiated  there- 
by. That  the  forfeits  might  be  evaded  by  those 
who  were  rich  enough  was  not  peculiar  to  this 
branch  of  law.  Something  of  the  kind  was  said 
of  the  English  marriage  law,  long  after  Giant  Pope 
had  ceased  to  hold  that  demesne.  Indeed,  in  the 
prejudices  of  the  vulgar,  something  of  the  kind  is 
said  of  law  in  general,  even  in  our  own  favoured 
times  and  in  our  own  favoured  land. 

The  flighty  fancies,  the  misapplied  logic,  were 
the  very  things  against  which  we  see  the  Papacy 
setting  its  face  consistently,  brushing  them  away 
for  sound  sense  and  practical  compromise.  The 
maze  was  none  of  its  making,  and,  compared  with 
what  existed  before,  was  like  an  Italian  garden 
compared  to  a  tropical  jungle. 

Can  it  seriously  be  maintained  that  this  should 
outweigh  all  the  good  done  by  the  mediaeval 
Church,  that  institution  which  was  the  saviour  of 
society  after  the  barbarian  deluge  ?  Is  this  one 
consideration  to  be  really  a  counterpoise  to  all  the 
religion,  all  the  art,  and  most  of  the  literature  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  to  outweigh  the  names  of  Bede 
and  Anselm,  Langton  and  Grosseteste  ? 

The  Pope,  we  know,  can  be  fallible  when  he 
speaks  not  ex  cathedra.  Bishop  Stubbs  has  been 
convicted  by  Professor  Haitian d  of  making  some 
confusion  between  the  attitude  of  the  English  State 
towards  an  order  from  Rome,  and  the  attitude  of 

780  O 


98  LECTURE  II 

the  English  Church  towards  the  same  order.  But 
has  Professor  Maitland  quite  sufficiently  distin- 
guished between  mediaeval  Church  and  mediaeval 
society  in  general,  when  he  holds  the  former  respon- 
sible for  abuses  that  were  forced  upon  it  by  the 
latter  ? 

And  is  there  not  a  further  distinction  to  be  made, 

which  we  cannot  but  wish  more  emphasized  in  his 

brilliant  lectures  on  the  Canon  law,  a  distinction 

which  is  essential  to  the  true  appreciation  of  the 

history  of  the  Papacy,  the  distinction  between  the 

activity  of  the  canonist  schools  and  the  activity  of 

the  Popes  themselves,  the  distinction  between  the 

bar  and  the  bench  ? 

Sum-  It  appears  from  this  survey,  first,  how  vastly 

Papal °^  important  was  the  function  of  the  Papacy  as  a 

action     final  legislative  authority  upon  all  these  intricate 

upon  *-'  J       r- 

marriage  points,  SO  vitally  important  for  society  to  have 

law.  . 

incontestably  settled.  Second,  how  no  authority 
less  tremendous  than  the  Vicar  of  God  could  have 
silenced  the  canonist  schools  and  curbed  their 
exuberant  logic.  Thirdly,  how  much  the  Papacy 
represents  good  practical  sense  and  workable  com- 
promise. Fourthly,  how  steadily  it  pressed  in  the 
direction  of  reducing  the  number  of  causae  diri- 
mentes  and  relegating  them  into  the  list  of  causae 
impedientes.  Fifthly,  how  little  Henry  VIII's 
preamble  or  Luther's  Table  Talk  does  justice  to  the 
real  conditions  of  the  marriage  law,  or  at  any  rate  its 
historic  development  up  to  the  thirteenth  century. 


THE  LAW  OF  MARRIAGE  99 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  results  were  wholly  Com- 
satisfactory  when  the  English  law  did  take  a  line  withEng- 
independent  of  the  canon  law,  for  it  then  rejected  ^'^^^^^* 
putative  marriages  and  the  legitimatio  per  subse- 
qitens  matrimonium,  and  so  refused  to  accept  as 
good  enough  for  heirship  of  lands  children  who  were 
already  good  enough  for  heirship  of  movables  and 
for  holy  orders.  In  fact  we  cannot  feel  clear  that 
the  common  lawyer  is  qualified  to  throw  the  first 
stone  at  the  canonist,  when  we  think  of  the  many 
blots  on  the  history  of  the  English  marriage  law, 
such  as  the  wide  variance  between  the  English  law 
and  the  Scottish  with  Gretna  Green  on  the  frontier 
between  the  two  ;  the  iniquities  of  a  system  which 
produced  Fleet  marriages  by  making  the  essentials 
to  consist  in  such  externalities  as  the  banns,  the 
licence,  the  celebrant's  possessing  of  orders  ;  and 
finally  some  unlovely  aspects  of  Divorce  Court 
procedure. 

But  without  coming  down  to  modem  times,  the 
common  law  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  its  paradoxes 
no  less  than  the  canon  law.  Thus  it  encouraged 
infant  marriages  by  allowing  a  claim  of  dower  from 
a  child  nine  years  old  against  a  boy  of  four.^  It 
countenanced  the  open  sale  of  the  maritagium  or 
lord's  right  to  dispose  in  marriage  of  heir  or  heiress 
in  his  wardship.    It  would  not  debar  from  dower  ^ 

1  Coke  on  Littleton,  13a,  compared  with  c.  2  X.  iv.  2. 

2  Year  Book,  32-3,  Ed.  I,  p.  63  ;  Magna  Vita  S.  Hugonis, 
170-7,  quoted  in  Pollock  and  Maitland,  ii.  390. 


100  LECTURE  II 

even  a  guilty  wife  separated  a  mens  a  et  toro.  By 
a  preposterous  stretching  of  a  metaphor  it  gave  an 
actual  advantage  to  illegitimacy  ;  a  bastard  being 
nullius  filius  could  not  be  the  son  of  a  serf  and 
therefore  must  be  always  a  free  man.^  It  made 
the  freedom  or  servitude  of  children  of  a  freeman 
and  a  bondwoman  depend  on  a  triviality,  whether 
the  house  was  his  or  hers.^  It  set  up  so  powerful 
a  presumption  in  favour  of  legitimacy  of  children 
born  as  long  as  husband  and  wife  are  not  divorced, 
that  this  presumption  was  allowed  even  to  override 
the  confession  of  the  guilty  party,^  and  heirs  were 
foisted  on  an  estate  when  they  were  confessedly 
illegitimate. 

After  indulging  in  such  extravagances,  is  the 
English  common  law  entitled  to  scoff  at  the  *  maze  ' 
of  canon  law  and  rebuke  the  '  flighty  fancies  '  of 
the  canonists  ?  When  one  set  of  legal  authorities 
thus  takes  to  castigating  another  set,  the  mere 
historical  student  has  to  stand  aside  in  respectful 
embarrassment.  But  he  is  tempted  to  ask,  '  Quis 
tulerit  Gracchos  de  seditione  querentes  ?  ' 

1  Year  Book,  lo  Ed.  Ill,  f.  35  (Tr.  f.  24).  Coke  on  Littleton, 
32a,  32b,  235a.  2  Bracton,  f.  5,  194^. 

3  The  case  in  Pollock  and  Maitland,  ii.  396  and  390. 


LECTURE  III 

CHURCH  AND  STATE :   GROSSETESTE  AND 
THE  UNITY  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

Of  all  the  sayings  about  the  Papacy,  is  there  'ihe  Pa- 

pacy  as  a 

any  more  true,  more  suggestive,  and  withal  more  church- 
appreciative  than  the  famous  epigram  by  the  ^^^^^' 
greatest  foe  to  hierarchical  power  that  ever  lived  : 
*  If  a  man  consider  the  original  of  this  great 
ecclesiastical  dominion,  he  will  easily  perceive  that 
the  Papacy  is  no  other  than  the  ghost  of  the 
deceased  Roman  Empire,  sitting  crowned  upon  the 
grave  thereof.' 

This  saying  of  Hobbes  hits  the  very  central  fact 
about  the  Empire  of  the  Gregories  and  the  Inno- 
cents, that  it  was  a  translation  into  spiritual  terms 
of  the  Empire  of  the  Caesars.  It  defeated  the 
Hohenstauffen  because  compared  with  it  they  were 
but  pretenders  to  that  mighty  inheritance  ;  they 
were  barbarians,  tribal  chiefs,  feudal  figure-heads, 
when  brought  into  juxtaposition  with  the  classi- 
cism, the  world-wide  sway,  the  autocracy  of  Rome. 

No  wonder  that  the  Middle  Ages  portrayed  their 
relative  importance  by  the  contrast  of  sun  to  moon, 
soul  to  body,  heaven  to  earth.  It  was  inevitable 
that  as  the  Church  became  more  and  more  an 
organized  state,  the  ordinary  state  should  acquire  a 


102  LECTURE  III 

certain  shade  of  the  unspiritual  and  the  profane. 
As  the  civitas  Dei  became  a  reaUzed  system,  its 
rival  necessarily  sank  into  the  civitas  seculi,  and 
with  nothing  before  it  but  the  alternative  to  figure 
either  as  a  satellite  to  the  kingdom  of  light  or  as 
a  confessed  kingdom  of  darkness.  Already  to 
Innocent  III  the  sacerdotium  is  of  God's  ordinance, 
the  regmim  is  of  man's  contriving.  To  the  support 
of  this  view  no  one  ever  brought  a  more  intense 
Grosse-    conviction  than  did  Grosseteste.     In  his  eyes  not 

teste  on 

the  Pa-    only  all  Christians,  but  the  whole  human  race,  are 
P^'^^'      bound  to  be  subject  to  the  Holy  See,  and  no  one 
can  be  saved  who  does  not  fulfil  this  ;   it  has  the 
office  of  bringing  salvation  to  the  whole  world. 
What  a  monstrous  perversion,  then,  is  that  which 
sees  in  Grosseteste  nothing  but  a  harbinger  of  the 
Protestant   Reformation,   and   which   harps   per- 
petually on  a  letter  in  which  he  is  supposed  to 
meet  a  direct  Papal  order  with  flat  mutiny  ;   non 
com-       obedio,  contradico,  rebello.     This  letter  we  owe  in 
^l^      the   first   instance   to   Matthew   Paris,   in   whose 
Matthew  summing-up   of  his   character   the  same  note  is 
twice  struck.    The  holy  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  who  was 
the  chastiser  of  prelates,  the  corrector  of  monks, 
the  director  of  priests,  the  trainer  of  clerks,  the 
supporter  of  scholars,  the  preacher  of  the  people, 
the  persecutor  of  the  unchaste,  the  diligent  student 
of  the  Scriptures,  was  also  the  open  confuter  of  the 
Pope,  the  hammerer  and  despiser  of  the  Romans. 
It  is  Matthew  Paris,  again,  who  makes  the  dead 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  103 

Bishop,  coming  in  a  vision  by  night,  smite  the  Pope 
with  his  pastoral  staff,  so  that  he  never  had  a  day's 
health  thereafter.  He  had  said,  if  we  believe  the 
chronicler,  *  Rejoice,  all  sons  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,  for  my  two  great  enemies  are  dead,  King 
Conrad  and  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  ;  '  and  he  had 
written  to  Henry  HI  to  get  the  Bishop's  bones  cast 
out  of  the  church.  Is  this  the  true  light  in  which 
to  regard  Grosseteste  ? 

There  is  a  glaring  contrast  between  Grosseteste's 
words  of  devout  submission  on  the  one  hand,  and 
on  the  other  the  picture  drawn  by  Paris  and  the 
language  of  the  letter.  Let  us  examine  this  con- 
trast a  little  closer  ;  it  will  bring  us  to  the  inner- 
most convictions  of  Grosseteste  on  the  subject  of 
the  Papacy's  functions  and  services  and  on  the 
question  of  setting  bounds  to  Papal  power  ;  that 
is,  we  shall  be  able  to  measure  what  hold  the 
Papacy  had  on  the  best  men  of  the  time,  and  to 
discover  how  and  why  that  hold  began  to  relax. 

The  famous  letter  is  said  by  Matthew  Paris  ^  to  The 
have  been  written  to  Innocent  IV,  and  is  so  given  letter"^ 
in  Grosseteste's  letters.^  But  as  the  Vatican 
Register  shows,  it  was  sent  to  *  Magistro  Innocentio 
domini  Papae  scriptori  in  Anglia  commoranti  ', 
as  the  Burton  Annalist  ^  rightly  puts  it.  The  form 
of  address  to  a  Pope  is  *  beatorum  pedum  oscula  ', 

^  Hist.  Maior,  v.  389,  &c.,  vi.  229,  &c. 

2  Grosseteste,  Epistolae,  ed.  Luard,  no.  cxxviii, 

3  p.  432. 


104  LECTITRE  III 

whereas  the  form  '  noverit  discretio  vestra  '  is  that 
which  the  Pope  employs  to  his  own  notary. 

It  opens  without  any  of  his  invariable  courteous 
approaches  to  a  difficult  subject,  and  plunges 
bluntly  into  his  objections.  '  Be  it  known  to 
your  discretion  that  to  the  Apostolic  commands 
I  yield  with  the  affection  of  a  son  in  all  respects 
devout  and  reverent  obedience  ;  but  to  those 
points  which  are  opposed  to  Apostolic  commands 
I  offer,  out  of  zeal  for  the  honour  of  my  father, 
resistance  and  opposition  ;  to  each  of  these  courses 
I  am  bound  equally  and  alike  by  divine  command.' 

The  phrases  used  are  exaggerations  of  Grosse- 
teste's  own  in  other  places  ;  e.g.  the  phrases  that 
'  those  who  introduce  into  Christ's  ilock  these 
murderers  are  near  akin  to  Lucifer  and  to  Anti- 
christ ;  '  that  '  this  abuse  of  power  by  the  Holy 
See  is  a  sitting  down  by  the  side  of  the  powers  of 
darkness  in  the  pestilential  seat  of  the  pains  of 
Hell.'  There  are  awkward  repetitions  ;  '  the  power 
given  for  edification  not  for  destruction  '  comes 
thrice,  '  the  abominable  sin  pernicious  to  the 
human  race '  comes  twice.  The  conclusion  is 
abrupt  and  violent  ;  *  in  all  filial  obedience  I  refuse 
obedience,  I  contradict,  I  rebel,'  and  at  the  close 
the  text  is  very  awkwardly  worked  in,  that  '  these 
provisions  are  things  which  flesh  and  blood  have 
revealed  and  not  our  Father  which  is  in  Heaven  '. 

It  is  unlike  Grosseteste  to  lay  down,  with  no 
philosophical   and  scriptural  arguments  to  back 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  105 

it  up,  so  new  a  proposition,  so  startlingly  at 
variance  with  his  own  maxim  often  repeated  that 
to  resist  a  Papal  order  is  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft. 
It  is  unlike  his  procedure  in  similar  circum- 
stances to  make  no  reference  at  all  to  the  facts  of 
the  case,  the  youth  of  the  presentee,  his  foreign- 
ness,  &c.    Compare  it  with  the  letter  which  comes  His  other 

•     •  letters 

nearest  to  it  m  regard  to  these  facts,  letter  xlix  to 
Cardinal  Otto.  In  this  he  begins  by  the  most 
emphatic  assertion  possible  that  his  obedience  to 
the  Holy  See  is  not  the  compulsion  of  fear  but  the 
proffer  of  love  ;  that,  please  God,  nothing  shall 
avail  to  part  him  from  it,  neither  tribulation  nor 
straits  nor  persecution.  He  calls  on  Him  to  whom 
all  hearts  are  known  to  witness  that  weak  and  iU 
as  he  is,  he  would  undertake  cheerfully  any  burden 
imposed  on  him  by  the  Pope,  were  it  to  shed  the 
last  drop  of  his  blood  among  the  Saracens.  When 
he  approaches  the  grounds  of  his  objection  it  is 
with  an  apology  and  a  reiteration,  '  I  know  and 
know  of  very  truth  that  our  Lord  the  Pope  and  the 
Holy  Roman  Church  have  this  power  that  they 
freely  dispose  of  all  ecclesiastical  benefices.'  When 
he  goes  on,  'I  know  that  whosoever  abuses  this 
power  builds  for  hell-fire,  and  he  does  so  abuse  it 
who  uses  it  not  for  the  promotion  of  faith  and 
charity,'  he  is  leading  up  to  the  complaint  that 
the  patrons  ought  to  be  asked  for  their  assent, 
*  maxime  quando  de  facili  possit  requiri.'  It  is  an 
abuse  of  power  to  override  the  patrons  thus ;   but 

780  p 


io6  LECTURE  III 

the  power  to  do  so  is  not  denied,  is  indeed  repeat- 
edly asserted  ('  cum  beneficia  ecclesiastica  aucto- 
ritate  potestiva  conferantur ').  It  leads  to  scandal, 
it  puts  Church  dignitaries  to  confusion,  it  gives 
a  malicious  satisfaction  to  their  enemies,  but  it 
cannot  be  denied  or  invalidated  as  a  right.  Even 
when  it  upsets  the  appointment  already  made  by 
a  bishop  ('  dictam  praebendam  contuli  antequam 
vestrae  sanctitatis  literas  suscepissem '),  it  must  be 
borne,  however  grievous,  '  non  possum  non  ferre 
moleste.'  All  that  remains  is  to  plead  evidence  of 
past  submissiveness,  to  promise  future  submission, 
and  meantime  to  beg  that  something  may  be  done 
to  save  one's  face.  *  I  take  leave  to  say  that  your 
Holiness  ought  not,  by  thus  conferring  a  prebend 
in  my  Church  without  my  sanction,  to  have  put 
to  confusion  one  who  is  most  obediently  and 
devotedly  your  humble  servant,  especially  as  I 
always  have  been  and  always  shall  be  prepared  to 
make  liberal  provision  for  any  of  your  people  to 
much  more  than  the  value  of  that  prebend,  not 
under  compulsion  to  the  confusion  of  myself  or 
the  Church  committed  to  me,  but  of  my  freewill 
to  the  building  up  of  charity.*  We  cannot  even 
say,  *  Yes,  but  this  was  to  an  Englishman  ;  had 
it  been  not  Master  Acton  the  Legate's  clerk,  but 
an  Italian,  a  youth,  a  Papal  nephew,  it  might  have 
been  different  ;  '  for  the  very  next  clause  in  the 
letter  to  Otto  runs,  *  Let  me  recall  that  since  my 
consecration  to  be  bishop,  a  nephew  of  my  Lord 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  107 

the  Pope  has  been  promoted  to  one  of  the  best 
prebends  in  the  Church  of  Lincoln.' 

'  I  beg  therefore  as  a  supphant  prostrate  at  the 
feet  of  your  Hohness  that  you  will  in  your  benignity 
recall  the  collation  to  this  prebend  that  I  may  not 
as  a  very  abject  from  your  love  be  unable  for 
confusion  to  lift  up  my  face  before  you  and  my 
brother  bishops  and  my  subject  clergy/  To  the 
mind  of  the  writer  resistance  is  not  even  conceiv- 
able. *  Rebellion  is  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft  and 
refusal  is  as  the  iniquity  of  idolatry.'  ^ 

Apparently  next  year  the  Legate  returned  to  the 
charge,  but  this  time  not  by  direct  collation  but 
by  a  request  that  Grosseteste  would  present  Master 
Atto,^  the  Legate's  clerk  (no  doubt  the  same  man 
as  the  Acton  of  letter  xlix),  to  a  Lincoln  prebend. 
This  time  the  Bishop  admitted  Acton's  qualifica- 
tions as  to  learning  and  character,  but  offered 
three  objections :  (i)  that  to  appoint  him  solely 
on  the  Legate's  testimony  was  really  acting  on 
motives  of  fear  or  favour  ;  (2)  that  Acton  himself 
had  told  the  Bishop  he  had  not  got  a  dispensation 
to  hold  another  benefice  with  cure  of  souls,  and 
Grosseteste  himself  had  resigned  his  own  prior 
benefice  on  receiving  a  prebend  because  the  Pope 
had  told  him  the  two  could  not  be  held  together  ; 
(3)  that  Acton  was  not  quite  suited  to  the  post, 
well  suited  as  he  might  be  to  others.  Yet  after 
all  this,  such  is  his  conviction  of  the  spiritual 
1  I  Sam.  XV.  23  (Vulgate).  ^  Letters,  Ixxiv. 


io8  LECTURE  III 

motives,  the  wisdom  and  the  goodness  of  the  Papal 
Legate,  that  he  leaves  the  appointment  absolutely 
in  his  hands.  On  hearing  that  the  Legate  is 
offended  with  him  for  sending  a  messenger  without 
formal  letters,  he  positively  prostrates  himself  in 
the  dust  before  him.  The  Legate's  affection  has 
been  to  him  warmth,  life,  and  activity,  the  only 
thing  that  has  sustained  him  in  his  troubles  and 
prevented  undue  elation  in  prosperity  ;  it  has 
brought  him  joy  amid  sorrows,  consolation  in 
griefs,  rescue  from  straits,  relief  from  labours, 
sweetness  when  all  was  bitter,  light  when  all  was 
dark,  union  of  hearts  even  at  a  distance,  and 
a  perpetual  call  to  perfection.^ 

This  would  seem  pretty  well  to  exhaust  the 
language  of  reverence  and  submission.  But  even 
a  Legate  is  far  below  a  Pope,  and  to  the  Pope 
himself,  *  kissing  the  blessed  feet  with  utter  sub- 
mission and  reverence,'  he  speaks  of  this  submission 
as  due  not  only  from  all  Christians,  but  from  the 
whole  human  race,  and  as  the  necessary  condition 
of  attaining  salvation.  The  Pope  has  been  set 
like  Jeremiah  over  all  kingdoms,  to  root  out  and 
to  pull  down,  to  build  and  to  plant.  '  We  owe  to 
you  not  merely  our  bounden  duty  but  works  of 
supererogation  over  and  above  that.  ...  If  a  monk 
is  to  obey  his  superior  even  when  he  commands 
what  is  impossible,  how  much  more  must  we  obey 
every  command  of  him  who  is  in  the  place  of 
1  Letters,  civ. 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  109 

Peter  chief  of  the  Apostles  and  of  the  whole 
world.  ...  I  deem  all  that  I  have  to  be  more  truly 
yom'  property  than  my  own.' 

He  is  '  the  gate  at  which  whoso  knocketh  it 
shall  be  opened  unto  him  ',  '  the  well  of  living 
waters  from  Lebanon ',  'the  sure  author  of  hopes  and 
the  refuge  of  all  suppliants ',  '  the  church's  consoler, 
rescuer,  and  shield,  and  the  bridegroom  who  comes 
to  wipe  away  her  tears '}  Nor  is  this  mere 
diplomatic  courtliness.  The  same  language  is  used 
in  explaining  to  the  King  that  the  Bishops  had 
no  option  but  to  obey  the  Pope's  orders  for  a  tallage 
from  all  monks  and  clerks. 

To  the  King  he  says,  *  the  Pope  is  our  spiritual 
father  and  mother  to  whom  we  are  incomparably 
more  bound  than  to  our  parents  in  the  flesh  to 
honour  and  obey,  revere  and  help  him  in  every 
way.  Were  we  to  fail  to  help  him  now,  we  should 
be  breaking  God's  commandment  and  our  days 
will  not  be  long  in  the  land,  we  shall  not  be  blessed 
in  our  children  nor  will  our  prayers  be  heard,  we 
shall  be  heaping  curses  on  our  own  heads,  of  all 
which  things  Holy  Scripture  gives  manifest  proof. '^ 
For,  once  more,  *  rebellion  is  as  the  sin  of  witch- 
craft.' 

This  is  not  the  hyperbole  of  Oriental  compliment 

where  nothing  would  be  so  disconcerting  as  to  have 

it  acted  on.    H  Grosseteste  seems  to  strain  language 

beyond  its  limits,  it  is  because  he  actually  feels  he 

^  Letters,  cxix.  2  Letters,  cix. 


no  LECTURE  III 

is  speaking  to  God's  actual  vicegerent  on  earth, 
and  in  the  expression  of  feehng  about  what  is 
divine,  human  language — witness  our  hymns — has 
always  toiled  and  panted  in  vain. 

But  one  thing  we  may  say,  could  the  Grosseteste 
of  this  letter  possibly  be  the  writer  of  cxxviii  ? 
Let  alone  that  the  inconsistency  of  opinions 
expressed  within  twelve  years  would  be  such  that 
even  a  modern  politician  would  boggle  at  it,  we 
should  have  to  make  Grosseteste  a  man  capable 
of  using  language  which  if  not  that  of  deep  per- 
manent conviction  is  nothing  else  than  revolting. 
Is  the  On  the  other  hand,  ascribing  the  famous  letter 
genSne?  ^^  Grosseteste  is  just  like  what  a  writer  would  do 
who  was  trying  to  affix  the  support  of  a  great  name 
to  the  broad  general  denunciation  of  Provisions. 
The  facts  of  the  particular  case  would  not  concern 
him ;  indeed,  they  would  tend  to  narrow  the  issue. 
What  he  would  want  to  put  into  currency  would 
be  an  outspoken  protest  professing  to  come  from 
the  greatest  English  churchman  of  the  time  ;  one 
about  whom  there  was  already  the  rumour  of  his 
having  openly  rebuked  the  Pope  and  the  Cardinals, 
and  of  his  having  by  these  rebukes  goaded  the 
Pope  into  most  un-Pope-like  language. 
Forgeries  In  this  rcspect  of  putting  the  issue  into  a  blunt 
common.  ^^^  crude  form  and  neglecting  the  local  and 
temporary  details,  the  letter  is  very  like  the  many 
forged  documents  which  skirmished  about  the 
edges   of   the   great    duel   between    Papacy   and 


CHURCH  ANT)  STATE  iii 

Empire  ;  not  forgeries  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but 
academic  exercises  reminding  one  now  of  the 
speeches  in  Livy  or  Thucydides,  now  of  a  modern 
leading  article.  They  are  like  seventeenth-  and 
eighteenth-century  pamphlets  hitched  on  to  some 
great  name  to  sell  them.  For  the  ages  when 
plagiarism  was  no  crime  because  it  was  universal 
were  also  the  ages  when  there  was  little  critical 
sense  in  the  ascription  of  authorship.  Most  work 
was  either  anonymous  or  not  original.  A  few 
great  names  were  apt  to  gather  about  them  any 
floating  productions.  One  onty  lends  to  the  rich, 
and  some  such  loans  were  thrust  upon  them 
without  much  heed  to  real  appropriateness.  The 
glaring  inconsistencies  of  cxxvii  are  matched  by 
others  as  glaring  in  documents  circulated  as  from 
the  pen  of  Frederick  IT  All  are  eagerly  received 
by  Matthew  Paris,  and  in  both  cases  from  the 
same  motive  ;  any  stick  will  serve  to  beat  a  dog, 
and  a  zealous  anti-Papalist  may  be  in  too  great 
a  hurry  at  the  moment  to  inquire  whether  the  name 
of  Emperor  is  rightly  or  wrongly  insciibed  on  one 
weapon,  or  the  name  of  a  famous  churchman  on 
the  other. 

When  Grosseteste  does  meet  a  case  that  he  feels  Cases  of 
he  must  reject,  his  rejections  are  not  because  the  jectionby 
nominees  are  foreign,  for  often  they  are  English-  f^^^f^^' 
men  as  W.  de  Grana,^  a  boy  still  in  his  Ovid,  or 
the  kinsman  of  John  Blundus,-  the  Chancellor  of 
1  Letters,  xvii.  -  Ibid.  xix. 


112  LECTURE  III 

York,  whose  examination  paper  is  sent  to  the 
Chancellor  to  show  his  kinsman's  depth  of  illiteracy. 
So  the  Legate  Otto's  clerk  Acton  ^  is  an  English- 
man because  otherwise  the  point  would  probably 
be  taken  -  in  discussing  his  fitness  on  this  later 
occasion. 

The  Legate's  nominee  in  another  case  ^  was 
Thomas  son  of  Earl  Ferrers,  who  is  objected  to 
as  too  young  and  not  in  orders.  He  begs  the 
Legate  to  persuade  the  Earl  as  patron  to  present 
a  more  suitable  person.  Otherwise,  seeing  that 
many  things  can  lawfully  be  done  by  one  of  such 
position  as  a  Legate  which  a  mere  Bishop  cannot 
venture  on,  he  waives  his  own  standing  in  the 
matter  and  leaves  it  wholly  to  the  Legate's  discre- 
tion, only  reminding  him  that  at  the  Day  of 
Judgement  men  will  have  to  answer  even  for  every 
idle  word.  But  he  begs  that  a  suitable  vicar  may 
be  appointed  and  that  the  young  Thomas  reside 
regularly  in  the  benefice,  drawing  part  of  the  income 
without  cure  of  souls.  This  is  interesting  as 
showing  that  even  in  a  case  flagrantly,  as  he  says, 
contravening  both  scripture  and  canon  law,  he 
feels  in  the  last  resort  he  cannot  resist  an  authority 
derived  from  the  Pope,  but  must  be  content  with 
the  best  safeguards  he  can  provide.  The  next 
case  *,  that  of  the  nephew  of  Master  John  the 
Roman  sub-dean  of  York,  may  very  well  be  that 

1  Letters,  xlix.    M.  Paris,  iii.  419.  -  Ibid.  Ixxiv. 

3  Ibid.  Hi.  "  Ibid.  Ixxii. 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  113 

of  a  foreigner.  But  he  is  rejected  not  for  that,  but 
as  '  utterly  illiterate  ',  so  that  the  Bishop  on  his 
conscience  dares  not  make  the  appointment, 
grateful  as  he  is  for  much  kindness  received  in 
the  past  from  the  sub-dean.  In  a  last  case  ^  he 
does  not  reject,  but  cannot  admit  the  presentee, 
simply  because  he  himself  has  no  adequate  know- 
ledge of  him,  and  therefore  hands  it  over  to  the 
archbishop,  Boniface,  who  does  know  him,  with 
the  expression  of  a  hope  that  he  will  consider  more 
the  good  of  souls  than  any  one  man's  personal 
profit. 

In   five  other  cases   the  evidence  shows  that  Cases  of 
neither  would  Grosseteste  resist  an  appointment  sion. 
simply  on  the  ground  of  its  being  a  nominee  or 
relative  of  the  Pope.     His  reference  to  his  own 
appointment  of  a  Papal  nephew  shows  that  he  took 
pride  in  submitting  his   own  judgement  to  the 
weight  of  an  irresistible  command,  just  as  in  cxvi 
he  urges  the  Archbishop  of  York  to  do  so.    The 
Pope  had  charged  him  to  impress  on  the  Arch- 
bishop the  duty  of  making  a  provision  for  the 
Bishop  of  Cervia,  an  exiled  Papal  partisan.    '  We 
often  have  to  do  from  obedience  what  we  do  with 
sorrow  and  would  gladly  leave  undone  if  it  might 
be  so,  for  rebellion  is  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft.' 

Nothing  comes  out  more  clearly  than  his  deep  Rebel- 
sense   of   the   tremendous   responsibility   of   the  w?tch-  ^^ 
Bishop  who  admits  unfit  presentees  to  the  cure^^^^^* 
^  Ibid.  Ixxxvii, 

780  Q 


114  LECTURE  III 

of  souls.    He  must  answer  for  each  one  of  his  sheep 
at  the  last  great  day.    But  still  deeper  is  his  sense 
of  the  duty  of  implicit  obedience  from  all  mankind 
to  God's  Vicar  on  earth.    Even  at  the  Judgement 
Day  this  plea  will  hold  good,  that  he  had  yielded 
because  rebellion  is  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft. 
External     We  must  not  isolate  the  letter,  but  read  together 
It  is  one  the  wholc  group  of  documents  of  which  it  forms 
group  of  ^  part.    Such  a  one  is  Matthew  Paris's  story  of  the 
docu-      Pope's  wrath,  'Who  is  this  raving  old  man,  as 
dotard  as  he  is  deaf,  who  has  the  audacity  or 
rather  the  foolhardiness  to  sit  in  judgement  thus  ? ' 
The  Pope  had  a  good  mind  to  make  him  a  byword 
and  astonishment,  an  example  and  a  portent  to 
the  whole  world,  or  with  a  nod  to  '  our  vassal,  our 
slave  the  King  of  England  '  have  him  thrown  into 
prison.    Then  the  Cardinals  in  a  remarkable  burst 
of  candour  point  out  that  Grosseteste  cannot  be 
condemned,  '  for  what  he  says  is  true  ;  he  is  a  man 
holier  and  of  a  more  excellent  way  of  life  than  we 
are.     He  has  not  his  peer  among  prelates.     The 
whole  clergy  of  France  and  England  know  this. 
He  is  a  great  philosopher,  a  great  scholar,  famous 
as  a  lecturer,  as  a  preacher,  a  lover  of  righteousness 
and  purity,   a  persecutor  of  simony.'     As  their 
consciences    thus    pricked    them,   the    Cardinals 
advised  the  Pope  to  bide  his  time  ;    the  aged 
Bishop  could  not  live  long. 

The  letter  and  this  remarkable  story  are  bound 
together  in  Matthew  Paris  ;    even  if  they  do  not 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  115 

stand  or  fall  together.  We  must  not  be  too  ready 
arbitrarily  to  accept  the  letter  and  reject  the 
dialogue.  The  dialogue  scene  is  at  least  hen 
trovato  ;  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  the 
style  and  composition  of  the  letter. 

Still  more  remarkable  is  the  account  of  Grosse-  Grosse- 
teste's  death-bed,  which  also  comes  in  close  con-  deaSi- 
nexion  with  the  preceding.     The  dying  bishop  is  h^nii^s^ 
made  to  castigate  just  the  very  things  and  persons  ^^^^^"'^ 
that  were  the  objects  of  Matthew  Paris's  perennial  thew 
animosity,  the  violators  of  Magna  Charta,  the  non- 
obstante  clause  in  Papal  bulls,  the  usuries  of  Papal 
money-lenders  in  England,  the  exaction  of  legacies 
from  the  dying,  the  intrusion  of  unfit  Papal  pre- 
sentees, the  postponement  of  episcopal  ordination. 
He  is  made  to  denounce  the  Roman  Curia  as  the 
home  of  avarice,  usury,  simony,  rapine,  wanton- 
ness,   licentiousness,    gluttony,    and    pomp  ;     to 
denounce  the  king  as  its  accomplice  and  sharer  in 
rapine  ;   and,  most  startling  of  all,  to  denounce  the 
Dominicans  and  Franciscans,  for  whom  in  his  life 
he  had  nothing  but  eulogy  and  the  highest  esteem. 
These  two  orders  he  had  held  up  as  models,  from 
them  he  had  drawn  his  best  friends,  and  without 
them  he  said  his  work  would  be  impossible.    Now 
they  are  picked  out  as  object-lessons  in  a  fierce 
indictment  of  heresy,  for  failing  in  their  duty  to 
preach  against  Papal  provisions  ;    and  the  Pope 
himself  becomes  the  arch-heretic.    On  this,  Bishop 
Stubbs  is  content  to  observe  mildly  that  Grosse- 


Ii6  LECTURE  TIT 

teste's  view  of  the  Papacy  seems  to  liave  altered 
at  the  end  of  his  life. 

It  might  have  been  at  the  same  time  observed 
that  the  alteration  was  not  only  in  his  view  of  the 
Papacy,  but  in  his  view  of  logic,  his  view  of  good 
manners,  even  his  view  of  Latin  prose.  But  at  any 
rate  we  may  with  still  greater  caution  put  the 
alternative  that  either  Grosseteste's  views  altered 
or  else  that  those  of  Matthew  Paris  remained  the 
same  and  were  put  into  Grosseteste's  mouth. 
Shall  we  still  feel  quite  as  comfortable  in  the 
conclusion  that  '  the  fact  that  Matthew  Paris  gives 
the  famous  letter  as  Grosseteste's  must  remove  any 
doubt  as  to  its  genuineness '  ?  Or  do  we  not  feel 
even  more  ready  to  admit  with  the  same  editor 
that  '  it  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  it  is  in  none 
of  the  MSS.  which  contain  the  collected  letters 
of  Grosseteste  '  ?  ^ 
Do  con-  It  may  be  said  that  even  admitting  Matthew 
rariS°  Paris  was  bhnded  by  his  own  anti-Papal  zeal  on 
support  ^j-^g  ^Qp  q£  ]^jg  natural  tendency  to  the  dramatic, 
the  cynical,  and  even  the  spicy,  yet  there  must  be 
something  in  this  readiness  of  the  contemporaries 
to  believe  in  a  bold  anti-Papal  declaration  on 
Grosseteste's  part.  The  answer  to  this  is  twofold. 
First,  the  wish  was  father  to  the  thought.  Those 
who  believed  were  only,  among  contemporary 
authorities,  the  two  whose  personal  and  corporate 
bias  led  strongly  that  way.  There  is  no  evidence 
1  Grosseteste,  Letters,  ed.  Luard,  p.  xiii. 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  117 

that  other  contemporaries  beUeved.  There  is  the 
negative  evidence  that  the  more  sober-minded  did 
not,  or  far  greater  sensation  would  have  been 
caused.  There  is  the  positive  evidence  that  this  Why  was 
letter  was  not  inserted  among  Grosseteste's  till  the  coi- 
a  much  later  age.  The  first  MS.  of  Grosseteste's  }ette?s  ? 
letters  in  which  it  is  found  is  one  of  the  fourteenth 
century  (Cambridge  Public  Library),  and  there  is 
in  this  no  ascription  to  Grosseteste.  In  the  Cotton 
MS.  of  the  letters  of  Adam  Marsh,  a  MS.  dating 
from  the  early  fourteenth  century,  it  is  written  in 
a  later  hand  on  the  reverse  of  one  page,  but  not 
ascribed  to  Grosseteste.  In  the  fourteenth  century 
there  would  be  far  less  reluctance  to  repeat  an 
episcopal  defiance  of  Rome.  On  the  other  hand, 
Adam  Marsh  in  a  letter  written  within  a  year  of 
Grosseteste's  death,  refers  to  the  '  imperterritam 
illam  responsionem  . . .  seculis  omnibus  profuturam' 
which  '  the  bishop  our  Elijah  '  wrote  at  the  end  of 
his  life  ;  but  (i)  Adam  Marsh  describes  it  as 
written  *  tam  prudenter  quam  eloquenter  et  vehe- 
menter  ',  of  which  three  epithets  the  former  two 
hardly  suit  our  letter,  and  (2)  he  speaks  of  it  as 
sent  *  ad  formidandam  quam  nostis  maiestatem  ', 
which  could  hardly  be  said  of  ours.  On  the  whole 
it  may  be  suggested  as  a  solution  that  there  were 
several  letters  interchanged  between  Grosseteste 
and  the  Pope  on  this  case,  ending  in  some  sort  of 
protest.  This  was  talked  about  and  our  letter 
was  drawn  up  purporting  to  be  this  protest,  whereas 


ii8  LECTURE  III 

it  is  a  flat  refusal  and  obtained  currency  later 
as  such. 
storyofa      Secondly,   the   over-readiness   of   some   of  the 
Grosse-°  Contemporaries  to  father  upon  Grosseteste  an  anti- 
teste ;      Papal  manifesto  was  connected  with  their  similar 
greedy   acceptance   of  malicious  gossip   about   a 
rebuff   supposed  to   have   been   administered  to 
Grosseteste  at  the  Papal  court.     He  had  gone  to 
the  Papal  court  in  mid-Lent  1250,  in  his  character 
of  *  indefatigable  persecutor  of  monks  '  (Matthew 
Paris,  p.  96).    They  had  appealed  against  him  and 
*  cleverly  bought  protection  from  the  Pope  by  cash 
down  '  (p.  97),  '  pecunia  interveniente  \    When  he 
complained  of  his  disappointment  after  all  the 
promises  he  had  received,  the  Pope,  scowling  at 
him,  answers  him,  (p.  98)  '  What  business  is  it  of 
yours  ?     You  have  spoken  your  mind  freely,  and 
I  have  chosen  to  show  them  favour.    Is  thine  eye 
evil  because  I  am  good  ?  '    The  Bishop  sighed,  '  Oh, 
money,  money,  what  a  power  thou  art,  especially 
in  the  court  of  Rome.'     The  Pope  had  overheard 
him  and  broke  out  angrily,  '  You  Enghsh  are  the 
most  miserable  of  men.    Each  backbites  the  other 
and  strives  to  reduce  him  to  beggary.    And  you, 
how  many  of  the  monks  subject  to  you,   your 
fellow  countrymen  and  of  your  own  flock,  whose 
heart  is  set  on  prayer  and  hospitality,  are  you 
draining  of  their  resources  that  from  their  goods 
you  may  sate  your  own  tyranny  and  greed  and 
enrich  others  who  are  possibly  aliens.'     So  the 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  119 

Bishop  retired  in  confusion,  all  calling  shame  on 
him,  and  to  disguise  his  failure  he  turned  to  other 
business. 

If  this  is  true  history,  then  Matthew  Paris  is 
indeed  in  luck.     He  could  not  have  devised  a 
situation  more  to  his  own  mind.    The  persecutor 
of  monks  repulsed  and  rebuked  before  the  highest 
tribunal,  but  getting  in  a  shrewd  side-thrust  at 
Papal  venality.    This  is  to  bring  down  two  birds 
with  one  barrel.     But  is  it  true  history  or  only  the  story 
dramatized  gossip  ?    The  Bishop  certainly  stayed  p^c^us.^ 
on  more  than  six  months  longer  at  Lyons,  from 
the  end  of  Lent  to  the  end  of  September,  though 
the  other  English  prelates  left  Lyons  nearly  four 
months   earlier.      In   a   letter   to   Adam   Marsh, ^ 
written,  it  seems,  early  in  his  stay  at  Lyons,  his  tone 
had  been  quite  cheerful,   and  had  led  his  friend 
to    believe   his    business    had    prospered.      That 
business  was  by  no  means  confined,  as  Matthew 
Paris  rather  implies,  to  a  struggle  with  the  privi- 
leged monastic  orders  who  had  so  many  livings 
and  whose  privileges  he  wanted  to  revoke.    He  had 
other  objects  for  his  journey — to  get  support  for 
his  scheme  of  adequate  endowment  of  vicarages, 
to  vindicate  the  right  to  excommunicate  a  sheriff 
who  would  not  back  up  the  bishop's  writ  against 
an  excommunicated  clerk,  and  probably  also  to 
get  protection  for  all  English  bishops  from  the 
claim  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  exercise 

*  Letters,  ed.  Luard,  Ixxiii. 


120  LECTURE  III 

rights  of  visitation  over  them.  Incidentally  it 
might  be  noted  that  dramatic  propriety  seems  to 
fail  a  little  in  bringing  a  charge  of  cupidity  against 
Grosseteste ;  and  in  putting  into  the  Pope's 
mouth  a  complaint  of  the  enriching  of  foreigners. 
Moreover,  it  would  be  rather  strange  diplomacy  to 
start  off  with  the  remark  on  venality  quoted  by 
Matthew  Paris,  especially  when  the  utterer  of  the 
remark  was  still  to  spend  six  months  of  active 
business  intercourse  with  those  on  whom  it  reflected. 
The  ser-  The  famous  sermon  itself  ^  is  attested  by  the 
Lyons,  evidence  of  the  prefatory  note  by  Robert  Marsh, 
Archdeacon  of  Oxford,  the  one  English  Clerk  who 
was  present  at  his  side.  It  is  still  better  attested 
by  the  intrinsic  evidence  of  its  style  and  tone,  and 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  only  a  development  of  ideas 
and  phrases  which  meet  us  again  and  again  in  his 
letters,  such  as  the  primacy  of  Moses  and  the 
parallel  between  the  Pope's  relation  to  the  Church 
and  that  of  a  bishop  to  his  diocese,  the  similitude 
from  a  pastor's  duty  to  his  sheep,  and  the  familiar 
comparison  of  rebellion  to  witchcraft.  The  pecu- 
liar phrase  '  Deilicatio  '  and  the  argument  built 
thereon,  and  the  elaborate  analogy  of  the  arts  may 
also  be  cited  as  characteristic. 

And  to  put  it  beyond  doubt,  there  is  Adam 
Marsh's  letter  -  of  August  15,  1250,  condoling  with 
the  Bishop  on  the  unavailingness  of  his  protest ; 

^  Browne,  Fasciculus  ii.  250-8. 
2  Mon.  Francisc,  p.  153. 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  121 

'  they  would  not  hear  him  because  the  Lord  would 
slay  them,'  and  comforting  him  by  historical 
parallels  beginning  with  Elijah,  John  the  Baptist, 
the  apostle  Paul,  the  martyr  Stephen,  and  other 
saints  who  withstood  principalities  and  powers 
and  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places.- 

The  sermon  is  a  long  document  which  must  have 
taken  a  good  hour  to  deliver.  But  its  essential 
importance  may  be  summed  up  under  the  following 
four  heads  : 

(A)  Its  Papalism.    It  was  a  confidential  address  its  Pa- 
to  the  Pope  and  Cardinals  alone,  from  one  known 

to  be  the  greatest  living  champion  of  the  Papal 
theory.  It  never  mentions  the  Papacy  without 
the  deepest  reverence  ;  it  is  the  book  and  school 
of  the  world,  the  throne  of  God,  the  sun  of  this 
sphere,  the  universal  official  saviour  ;  the  Popes 
are  clothed  with  the  person  of  Christ,  His  repre- 
sentatives, His  vicegerents,  they  are  '  praesidentes 
in  hac  sacratissima  sede  sanctissimi  Papae  '. 

(B)  Its  theory  of  Anglicanism.     He  not  only  its   plea 
exalts  the  Papacy  on  theoretic  grounds,  but  also  Bishops, 
because  he  sees  in  it  the  only  hope  for  control, 
purification,  and  reform  of  the  English  Church. 

It  is  in  England  above  all  countries  that  the 
bishops'  hands  need  strengthening,  because  in 
England  above  all  countries  the  four  enemies  of 
bishops'  authority  are  strong  ;  these  four  being 
the  exempt  abbeys,  the  royal  prohibitions,  the 
appeals  to  Rome,  and  the  appeals  to  Canterbury 

780  R 


122  LECTURE  III 

and  York.     It  was  just  for  this  he  had  come  to 
Lyons,  to  strengthen  his  hands  as  bishop  against 
monks  and  royal  officers,  and  to  check  illusory 
appeals.     Far  the  greater  part  of  the  address  is 
taken  up  with  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  episcopal 
office,  its  divine  appointment,  its  historic  descent, 
its  difficulties,   its  transcendent  importance  and 
responsibilities.     And  the  Pope  is  not  only  the 
first  of  bishops,  but  their  power  comes  by  way  of 
delegation  from  him  ;  he  can  delegate  it  to  them, 
but  even  he  cannot  diminish  it  or  rehnquish  it. 
Its  sense      (C)  Its  scnsc  of  the  pontificate  of  Innocent  IV 
ofacnsis.  ^^  ^  crisis  in  Church  history.    So  powerfully  does 
this  weigh  on  his  mind  that  it  has  forced  him  in  fear 
and  trembling  to  speak  out  that  he  may  not  incur 
the  curse  of  the  prophet,  *  Woe  unto  him  that  is  not 
of  clean  lips.'     And  he  does  indeed  speak  out ; 
*  from  the  least  to  the  greatest  they  are  all  given 
to  covetousness,  from  prophet  unto  priest,  every 
one   dealeth   falsely ;     by   reason   of   them   men 
blaspheme  God's  Name  in  every  land ;  they  are 
antichrists,  robbers,  betrayers  of  their  sheep,  men 
who  make  the   house   of  prayer   into   a   den  of 
thieves.     All  this  much  and  more  is  said  of  the 
bad  pastors.* 
Its   out-      (D)  Its  audacity.    But  what  makes  the  addiess 
ness.       unique  among  mediaeval  documents  are  the  pas- 
sages in  which  the  blame  for  this  is  brought  home 
to  the  guilty  parties  : 

*  Of  all  this  evil  what  is  the  prime  and  original  cause  ? 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  123 

The  cause,  fountain-head,  and  origin  of  it  is  this  court, 
not  only  because  it  does  not  clear  away  these  abomina- 
tions as  it  alone  can  do,  and  as  it  is  its  bounden  duty,  but 
because  itself,  by  dispensations,  provisions,  and  collations, 
appoints  these  bad  pastors,  and  so  leads  patrons  to  fill 
benefices  on  carnal  and  worldly  motives.  The  greater 
the  sinner's  position,  the  greater  is  the  sin.  Let  no  one 
say,  this  court  in  thus  acting  is  acting  for  the  behoof  of 
the  Church  as  a  whole.  Woe  unto  them  that  say,  "  Let 
us  do  evil  that  good  may  come."  Again,  let  no  one  say 
these  pastors  can  appoint  intermediaries  ;  these  inter- 
mediaries also  are  bad.  Nor  does  the  pastoral  charge 
consist  merely  in  administering  the  sacraments,  chanting 
the  hours,  celebrating  masses,  though  rarely  are  even 
these  done  properly  by  hirelings.  It  consists  also  in 
teaching  the  truth,  in  overawing  and  chastising  vice, 
which  hirehngs  have  not  the  courage  even  if  they  had 
the  knowledge  to  do.  It  consists  also  in  feeding  the 
hungry,  clothing  the  naked,  visiting  the  sick,  and  giving 
hospitality.  But  these  hirehngs  are  only  given  enough 
to  support  themselves.  And  all  this  is  worse  when  parish 
churches  are  appropriated  by  monastic  bodies.  This 
most  holy  See  is  the  throne  of  God,  and  the  sun  of  the 
world  in  His  sight ;  without  which  sun  the  world  would 
perish.  Those  who  preside  over  this  most  holy  See  are 
pre-eminent  among  mortals  in  being  clothed  with  the 
person  of  Christ,  and  obedience  is  due  to  them  as  to  Him 
in  so  far  as  they  are  true  presidents.  But  if  one  of  them, 
which  God  forbid,  put  on  the  garment  of  love  of  kindred 
or  of  the  world,  or  of  aught  else  but  Christ,  and  thus  act 
against  His  precepts,  he  who  obeys  such  a  one  manifestly 
separates  himself  from  Christ  and  from  His  body  which 
is  the  Church,  and  from  the  true  presidency  of  this  See ; 
and  if  the  whole  world  obeys  such  a  one  then  hath  come 
the  falling  away  and  the  son  of  perdition  is  at  hand.  God 
forbid  that  this  most  holy  See  and  those  who  preside  in 


124  LECTURE  TTI 

it,  whose  orders  the  whole  world  obeys,  should  by  ordering 
aught  contrary  to  the  will  of  Christ  be  the  cause  of  falling 
away,  or  of  schism  among  those  who  are  one  with  God, 
and  will  not  do  aught  contrary  to  the  will  of  Christ,  who 
hates  nothing  so  much  as  the  ruin  of  souls  caused  by 
handing  over  the  care  of  them  to  bad  pastors.'  '  It  is 
vain  to  plead  the  welfare  of  the  Church  as  justification.' 
'  Those  who  strike  with  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the 
sword.'  '  The  whole  world  cries  out  against  the  unbridled 
shamelessness  of  the  familiars  of  this  court  ' — '  If  the 
Holy  See  do  not  speedily  correct  itself,  destruction  will 
come  upon  it  suddenly  and  it  will  be  subjected  to  those 
terrible  things  which  God  hath  predicted  by  the  mouth 
of  His  Son  and  His  holy  prophets.' 

The  The  Pope  who  could  aUow  an  indictment  like 

attrtude  ^his  to  be  Spoken  to  him  was  a  strong  and  wise 
*°  ^*-  man.  It  was  characteristic  of  his  cool,  business- 
like good  sense  that  he  saw  it  was  better  not  to 
burke  the  indictment,  and  that  he  made  it  easy 
for  the  utterer  of  it  to  stay  on  six  months  in  Lyons 
after  it  and  to  carry  his  affairs  to  a  successful 
issue.  Innocent  would  not  be  wholly  displeased 
to  have  his  familiares  thus  made  to  feel  their 
unpopularity  ;  we  see  from  the  Papal  register 
that  even  an  absolute  ruler  may  often  find  it 
difficult  to  keep  his  bureaucracy  in  hand.  Not 
once  nor  twice  only  he  complains  of  the  impor- 
tunity of  those  around  him,  and  of  the  measures 
into  which  he  had  been  hurried  against  his  better 
judgement.  But  there  is  a  sound  legal  maxim 
that  a  man  is  responsible  for  his  agents  ;  and  he 
who  wills  the  end  wills  the  means. 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  125 

There  are  few  scenes  in  history  so  impressive 
as  this.  The  greatest  scholar,  writer,  and  church- 
man of  his  day  dehvering  this  appalling  lecture  to 
one  whom  at  the  same  time  he  salutes  with  emphatic 
reiteration  as  God's  vicegerent  on  earth.  Never 
does  the  essential  theory  of  Papal  omnipotence 
stand  out  more  clearly.  It  is  a  singular  comment 
which  the  great  writer  whom  I  have  quoted  has 
made.  According  to  Bishop  Stubbs,  it  shows  that  stubbs's 
Grosseteste's  view  of  the  Papacy  had  changed,  upon  the 
But  the  one  bishop  cannot  forgive  the  other  for  ^'^^"^^ 
making  episcopal  authority  to  be  derived  from 
Papal.  Between  two  such  authorities,  each  a 
famous  Oxford  Professor,  each  the  leader  of 
European  learning  on  several  subjects,  each  the 
head  of  this  very  diocese,  it  is  hard  to  have  to 
choose.  But  if  a  choice  must  be  made  let  it  be 
for  Grosseteste.  It  would  perhaps  be  unfair  to 
rest  it  on  the  accidental  fact  of  his  being  Chancellor 
of  this  University.  But  one  other  advantage  he 
has,  on  which  it  is  not  unfair  to  rest.  He  lived  in 
the  thirteenth  century  ;  and  on  the  question  what 
view  men  of  the  thirteenth  century  took  of  the 
Papal  power,  this  fact  may  fairly  count  for  some- 
thing. If  we  still  feel  uneasy  at  finding  ourselves  on 
a  different  side  in  an  historical  point  to  Dr.  Stubbs, 
we  may  fortify  ourselves  by  remembering  that  on 
the  acceptance  of  canon  law  in  England  as  authori- 
tative we  have  to  choose  between  him  on  one  side 
and  a  cloud  of  contemporary  witnesses  on  the 


126  LECTURE  III 

other,  including  the  three  English  canonists  Athon, 
De  Burgh,  and  Lyndwood,  for  Stubbs's  note 
written  in  1900  by  way  of  answer  to  Maitland 
cannot  be  said  to  alter  the  position,  even  though 
it  could  almost  be  put  on  a  half -sheet  of  note-paper ; 
or  again,  that  on  the  moral  and  spiritual  condition 
of  the  English  Church  in  the  fifteenth  century  we 
have  once  more  to  choose  between  him  and  con- 
temporaries like  Bishop  Pecock  and  Gascoigne, 
another  Chancellor  of  this  University.  If  we  are 
wrong,  we  are  wrong  in  good  company  on  this 
and  perhaps  on  some  other  matters  of  Church 
history  on  which  the  late  Bishop  of  Oxford  took 
a  pronounced  line. 
Was  But  the  consequences  of  the  scene  as  described 

teste's'  ^y  P^'^is  ^^^  ^  different  matter.  The  long  stay 
visit  to  and  great  expenses  of  the  Bishop  at  Lyons  are 
failure,    described   as   having    '  failed   to   accomplish   his 

as  Mat- 

thew  object ',  he  returns  '  sad  and  empty-handed  '.  He 
^lyl%  thinks  of  resigning  his  See  and  retiring  from  a 
world  which  is  going  to  perdition,  that  he  may  give 
his  time  to  meditation,  prayer,  and  study.  He 
actually  hands  over  the  administration  of  the  See 
to  Robert  Marsh  ;  and  is  prevented  from  final 
retirement  only  by  the  knowledge  how  the  See 
would  be  despoiled  by  the  King  during  vacancy. 
In  the  Lanercost  Chronicle  this  becomes  an  actual 
offer  to  resign  made  at  Lyons  ;  and  a  passage  in 
one  of  his  own  letters  (cxxx,  p.  430)  was  interpreted 
by  Luard  as  referring  to  resignation.     But  the 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  127 

passage  only  says  that  he  means  to  be  up  and 
domg,  to  '  break  the  bonds  of  wickedness  ',  but 
is  at  present  not  allowed  to  come  ;  probably,  as 
Felten  suggests,  his  doctor  forbade  it.  How  could 
the  idea  of  resigning  be  read  into  a  letter  whicli 
prays  that  nothing  may  ever  separate  him  from 
his  flock  and  which  breathes  a  very  flame  of  energy 
for  instant  and  radical  reform  ?  '  Redeem  the 
time  ...  we  know  not  when  our  Maker  will  take  us 
hence.'  *  He  will  require  his  people's  blood  at  our 
hands  ...  we  must  be  up  and  doing.' 

Besides,  Adam  Marsh's  letter  of  August  15,  while 
referring  to  Grosseteste's  feeble  health,  expresses 
joy  that  Grosseteste  does  not  mean  to  resign  ;  and 
his  other  letter  of  September  15,  which  could  only 
have  caught  Grosseteste  just  as  he  was  leaving 
Lyons,  speaks  of  the  '  opus  Dei  tam  formidabile  ' 
having  been  '  salubriter  perseveratum '  and  brought 
to  a  *  triumphalis  egressus  '. 

Matthew  Paris' s  account  then  would  have  to 
be  annotated  severely.  The  Bishop  returned  much 
less  '  sad  '  than  he  had  been  till  the  latter  part  of 
his  stay.  His  object  was  not  the  one  object 
Matthew  Paris  suggests  ;  and  he  succeeded  in  this 
one,  at  any  rate.  He  came  back  bent  not  on 
resignation,  but  on  visitation  ;  and  as  to  Robert 
Marsh,  he  had  been  the  Bishop's  officiarius  as  far 
back  as  1248.  There  is  nothing  of  the  chronicler's 
baffled  bishop,  tristis  et  vacuus,  about  the  Grosse- 
teste who  sent  round  to  all  his  clergy  the  tremendous 


128  LECTURE  III 

letter  cxxx  which  would  dissipate  in  their  minds 
any  such  picture  that  rumour  may  have  drawn 
and  keep  them  going  from  Michaelmas,  the  date  of 
his  return,  till  after  Christmas,  when  his  health 
allowed  him  to  begin  his  visitations.  There  is 
nothing  of  tension  between  him  and  the  Papacy 
in  the  action  he  took  when  leading  the  Bishops' 
resistance  to  the  Archbishops'  usurpations.  By 
his  advice  the  Bishops  sent  a  proctor  with  4,000 
marks  to  resist  Boniface.  This  sum,  and  the 
Pope's  being  now  out  of  the  Savoyard  sphere,  are 
in  Matthew  Paris's  eyes  the  determining  causes  of 
the  decision  going  against  the  Archbishop.  At  any 
rate  Grosseteste,  with  his  close  ally  Fulk  Basset, 
Bishop  of  London,  were  appointed  conservators  to 
see  that  the  whole  series  of  Papal  orders  were 
Grosse-  Carried  out.  The  whole  case  had  taken  from  about 
close  re-  January  1251  to  June  1252  ;  during  this  time  his 
with^Pa-  ii^terest  as  spokesman  of  the  English  Church  was 
pacy,      to  keep  from  any  cause  of  friction  with  the  Papal 

1250-3.  x  J  r 

power.  Yet  it  is  just  in  and  from  this  time  that 
Matthew  Paris  places  the  series  of  collisions  with 
that  power  which  are  made  to  reach  their  climax 
in  the  famous  letter  of  1253.  In  speaking  of  the 
good  side  of  the  Bishop's  strictness  in  his  diocese, 
his  purification  of  it,  his  forcing  incumbents  to 
take  orders,  his  preaching  to  priests  and  people, 
the  chronicler  goes  on  to  say  '  he  hated  like 
serpents'  poison  the  wicked  Romans  who  held  the 
Papal  mandate  that  they  should  be  provided  for. 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  129 

He  used  to  say  if  he  handed  over  to  them  the  care 
of  souls,  he  would  be  playing  the  Devil's  part. 
Wherefore  frequently  he  threw  aside  Papal  bulls 
and  flatly  disobeyed  such  mandates  '.  It  has  now 
risen  to  '  frequently  ',  one  should  note. 

Then  in  1252  came  the  famous  estimate  attri- 
buted to  Grosseteste  that  the  revenues  of  the  alien 
clerks  put  in  by  Innocent  IV  amounted  to  more 
than  the  70,000  marks,  while  the  net  royal  revenue 
was  not  one-third  of  that. 

This  estimate  he  had  undertaken  as  he  saw  to 
what  a  pitch  Roman  avarice  had  mounted,  as  the 
Psalmist  says,  '  the  presumption  of  them  that  hate 
thee  increaseth  ever  more  and  more.'  But  the 
amount  of  70,000  marks  can  hardly  be  anything 
but  a  monstrous  over-estimate,  as  far  as  we  can 
judge  from  the  actual  Papal  Registers  in  the 
Vatican,  and  from  the  fact  that  Innocent  IV 
himself  in  his  letter  of  May  25,  1253,  offered  as 
a  fair  compromise  a  maximum  of  8,000  marks 
a  year,  and  8,000  is  not  an  arithmetical  mean 
between  70,000  and  0.  In  Innocent's  letter  they 
assert  it  is  more  than  50,000  marks.' 

It  is  probable  that  Innocent  was  aware  of  opposi- 
tion from  Grosseteste,  and  tried,  as  Mr.  Stevenson 
suggests,^  to  overawe  him  by  the  unusually 
dictatorial  tone  of  his  letter  of  January  26,  1253. 
He  would  also  have  had  time  to  hear  Grosseteste's 
answer,  which  the  Burton  Annalist  says  was  sent 
1  Stevenson's  R.  Grosseteste,  p.  309. 

780  S 


130  LECTURE  III 

straight  to  the  Pope,  though  we  need  not  any  the 
more  assume  that  the  violent  letter  we  have  was 
the  actual  one  written  and  sent.  This  may  explain 
the  apologetic  tone  of  the  Papal  letter  of  May  25, 
1253,  both  excusing  Provisions  and  limiting  their 
future  amount  and  offering  to  compromise  by 
keeping  down  to  8,000  marks  a  year.  The  second 
letter,  November  3,  1253,  was  believed  to  be  the 
direct  result  of  Grosseteste's  letter,  and  thirty  or 
more  copies  of  it  were  forwarded  to  the  bishops 
and  chief  abbeys  of  England ;  it  is  a  complete 
restoration  of  the  old  rights  of  patronage  to  their 
old  owners.  It  may  well  be  called  by  Matthew 
Paris  aliquantulum  mitigatoriae,^  and  is  put  in  its 
sequence  immediately  after  Innocent's  mandate 
and  Grosseteste's  defiance. 
Matthew  But  in  the  actual  history,  Matthew  Paris  manages 
fair.        to  be  unfair  at  once  to  Pope  and  Bishop. 

Thus  he  is  very  unsatisfactory  about  the  two 
Papal  letters  of  May  13  and  November  3,  1253. 
The  latter  he  calls  only  aliquantulum  mitigatoriae ; 
it  is  much  more  than  that.  The  former  he  does 
not  give  at  all,  but  instead  of  it,  under  May  23, 
1252,^  a  brief  and  vague  declaration  against  Pro- 
visions in  general,  with  no  definite  pledge  of  reform. 
He  is  thus  able  to  insinuate  that  Grosseteste's 
action    had   no    actual   result,    though    his    own 

1  M.  Paris,  vi.  260. 

2  Ibid.  210.  The  true  date  was  May  1253,  as  the  Papal 
Registers  show. 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  131 

document  ^  disproves  his  statement  that  nothing 
came  of  it  but  *  connivence  and  dissimulation  '  on 
the  Pope's  part. 

There  is  another  letter,  the  last  of  this  group  of 
documents,  which  can  with  certainty  be  rejected 
as  falsely  ascribed  to  Grosseteste.  For  the  letter 
violates  all  Grosseteste' s  principles  by  appealing  to 
the  secular  power  for  armed  interference  in  an 
ecclesiastical  affair,  by  aiming  at  the  total  exclu- 
sion of  all  Provisions  and  even  of  suits  in  the  Papal 
court,  by  laying  stress  on  the  pecuniary  aspect  of 
the  matter.  It  is  too  crude  and  awkward  in  style 
and  argument,  too  rough  in  tone,  and  too  insular 
in  its  patriotism,  to  be  mistaken  for  his  by  any 
one  who  has  read  the  genuine  letters  of  a  man  who 
was  intensely  sacerdotal  and  Papalist,  spiritual- 
minded,  uninsular,  a  writer  always  dignified, 
polished,  and  profound. 

Matthew  Paris' s  account  of  the  visit  to  Lyons  in  Grosse- 
1250  is,  as  I  have  indicated,  quite  mconsistent  with  influence 
Grosseteste's  lifelong  convictions  as  to  the  pleni-  p^p^i 
tudo  potestatis  of  the  Papacy.     It  is  also  quite  Court, 
inconsistent  with  the  Pope's  treatment  of  him.    He 
was  evidently  regarded,  and  regarded  himself,  as 
carrying  great  weight  at  the  Papal  court.    He  was 
on  intimate  terms  with  at  least  four  of  the  Car- 
dinals (Otto,  Giles,  Thomas,  Raynald),  and  six  of 
the  high  officials  (Ernulfus  penitentiary,  Ranfrid 
notary,  John  of  Ferentino  a  chamberlain,  Martin 
1  M.  Paris,  v.  393. 


132  LECTURE  III 

a  chamberlain,  and  the  friars  Ehas  of  Cortona  and 
Raymond  of  Pennaforte).  As  long  as  he  lived  under 
Innocent  IV  he  was  receiving  important  bulls  from 
the  Papal  chancery.  One  of  the  first  bulls  issued 
by  the  new  Pope  (August  8, 1254)  was  in  his  favour, 
and  a  sharp  rebuke  to  the  extravagant  behaviour 
of  the  monks  of  Christ  Church,  Canterbury. 

The  great  suit  between  him  and  his  chapter  was 
decided  in  his  favour  by  a  bull  of  August  25,  1245. 
The  struggle  between  him  and  the  monks  of  his 
diocese  was  decided,  largely  at  least  in  his  favour, 
by  a  bull  of  September  25,  1250,  allowing  him  to 
institute  adequate  vicarages  at  the  expense  of 
monastic  impropriators  ;  a  buU  which  Matthew 
Paris  himself  quotes,  though  it  destroys  his  claim 
of  a  monastic  victory  over  the  Bishop,  and  though 
he  has  a  parting  shaft  at  the  Bishop's  action  as 
*  more  to  spite  the  monks  than  to  assist  the  vicars  '. 
other  Finally  a  dramatic  close  was  given  to  the  whole 

story  by  the  growth  of  the  legend  that  Grosseteste 
was  excommunicated  for  his  action.  This  legend 
first  appears  in  the  Lanercost  Chronicle,  and  is 
enlarged  by  the  later  writers  ;  '  he  appealed  to  the 
most  high  Judge.'  It  grew  out  of  the  Matthew 
Paris  story  of  Grosseteste's  being  suspended  in 
125 1.  But  there  is  no  evidence  at  all  for  it,  and 
there  is  direct  evidence  against  it. 

The  question  of  the  authenticity  of  Grosseteste's 
two  letters  to  the  Pope  and  to  the  English  laity, 
and    his    death-bed    utterances,    whichever    way 


stories. 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  133 

decided,  still  leaves  us  able  to  state  some  general 
conclusions.    These  are  : 

(i)  The  vast  potentialities  of  the  Papacy  during 
the  period  covered  by  the  greater  part  of  these 
letters,  i.e.  from  1230  to  1245.  It  had  a  deeper 
and  truer  hold  on  England  than  on  any  part  of 
Christendom.  Its  services  during  the  years  of 
trouble  12 16-19  were  gratefuUy  remembered,  and 
the  evil  days  of  Provisions  had  hardly  yet  begun. 

(2)  The  intense  conviction  of  the  best  minds  of 
the  age  that  on  the  connexion  with  Rome  depended 
the  security  of  the  national  Church  as  against  the 
secular  power,  the  internal  discipline  and  purity 
of  that  Church,  and  the  whole  prospect  of  further 
reform.  Only  when  he  finds  his  trust  in  Rome  to 
be  a  broken  reed  does  Grosseteste's  heart  fail  him 
awhile,  and  then  his  disappointment  is  so  great 
that  he  is  thrown  into  absolute  despair. 

(3)  The  width  and  depth  of  the  havoc  wrought 
in  this  position  by  Innocent  IV.  The  very  crudity 
of  the  views  for  which  the  popular  resentment 
sought  to  make  a  mouthpiece  and  champion  of 
Grosseteste  is  eloquent  of  the  mischief  wrought  by 
Innocent  IV  in  eleven  and  a  half  years  of  '  warring 
solely  with  spiritual  weapons  '. 

(4)  The  one-sidedness  and  the  violence,  the 
suppressions  and  the  exaggerations,  of  Matthew 
Paris.  He  is  our  chief  authority  for  the  period, 
and  so  is  indispensable.  His  dramatic  talent, 
his   outspoken  boldness,    his   appeal   to    English 


134  LECTURE  III 

prejudices  of  the  most  rooted  kind,  have  combined 
to  make  him  irresistible.  Obviously,  too,  he  takes 
a  keen  interest  in  seeking  information,  and  often 
has  access  to  documents  and  informants  of  the 
first  rank.  Yet  with  all  this  he  is  often  utterly 
untrustworthy. 

This  constitutes  a  serious  difficulty.     We  have 
been  accustomed  to  go  to  him  as  to  a  fountain-head, 

but,  as  Aristotle  says,  orau  to  vSatp  Trvtyrj^  ri  Set  knnriviiv ; 
iNiedi-  The   united   action    of   the   civilized   world   in 

^i^.     pursuit  of  the  highest  aims  which  it  could  con- 
modem   ceive  ;   this  was  the  dominant  thoue^ht  in  Grosse- 

disunion.  " 

teste's  mind  ;  it  is  a  thought  strange  enough  to 
modern  minds.  We  have  swung  over  to  the 
opposite  pole,  and  accept  disunion  of  the  most 
complete  kind  in  religious  beliefs,  in  political  aims, 
even  in  industrial  pursuits.  But  is  it  not  possible 
that  we  may  have  reached  an  extreme  in  this 
direction  ?  or,  to  vary  the  metaphor,  may  not  the 
wheel  be  now  at  its  lowest  point ;  may  it  not  be 
about  to  begin,  even  now,  to  mount  slowly  up 
again  ?  One  of  the  great  facts  of  the  last  fifty 
years  has  been  that  tendency  to  aggregation  of 
scattered  fragments  into  larger  political  units 
which  we  know  under  the  name  of  nationalism  ; 
the  union  of  Germany,  the  union  of  Italy,  perhaps 
the  movement  towards  a  pan-Slavonic  union.  Nor 
are  Brussels  conventions  and  Hague  conferences 
without  some  significance  in  this  direction.  At 
any  rate  we  need  not  assume  that  anarchy  and 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  135 

disruption  are  tilings  good  in  themselves,  or  that 
to  profess  a  religion  which  we  do  not  really  intend 
to  translate  directly  into  practice  is  better  than 
the  impetuous  idealism  of  the  Middle  Ages,  failure 
as  that  was.  There  are  some  failures  which  are 
greater  than  success. 

The  modern  English  acquiescence  in  the  anoma- 
lous, the  chaotic,  the  illogical,  is  more  modern  than 
is  sometimes  supposed.  It  is  due  partly  to  the 
Protestant  and  Puritan  trend  impressed  by  historic 
events  upon  our  religious  development,  partly  to 
the  piecemeal  and  rebellious  character  of  the 
development  of  our  constitution  ;  partly  to  mere  in- 
sularity and  isolation  from  the  main  currents  of  the 
European  stream.  But  we  must  not  expect  to  fit 
mediaeval  England  into  this  Procrustean  bed.  Still 
less  must  we  assume  that  mediaeval  England  is  irra- 
tional for  not  conforming  to  this  set  of  beliefs. 

We  may  fairly  be  asked  to  extend  to  mediaeval 
religion,  mediaeval  politics,  mediaeval  law,  some  of 
that  justice  which  is  beginning  to  be  extended  to 
mediaeval  art  and  mediaeval  literature.  At  any 
rate  it  can  fairly  be  asked  and  even  demanded  of  us 
that  we  do  not  misread  their  history  by  reading 
it  through  our  own  prejudices. 

Christendom  was  destined  to  break  up  into  the  Need  the 
nations  of  Europe.     If  any  one  says  that  this  mation 
disruption  was  all  for  the  best — that  what  had  to  come 
be  is  that  which  ought  to  be — I  would  not  quarrel  jj^^  ^^ 
with  what  I  cannot  presume  either  to  affirm  or  to  it  did  ? 


136  LECTURE  III 

deny.  But  if  we  reflect  on  the  beauty,  the  majesty, 
the  potentiahties  of  that  which  the  word  'Christen- 
dom' embodied ;  if  we  reahze  that  the  conception 
of  a  reign  of  God  upon  earth  was  the  ideal  to  which 
men  did  homage  in  their  hearts — however  much 
their  conduct  fell  short  of  their  ideal,  as  conduct 
now  falls  short  and  \^'ill  do  in  all  ages — if,  more- 
over, we  weigh  and  measure  by  what  cruel  blows, 
by  what  wanton  disillusioning,  they  were  forced 
to  loosen  their  clinging  hold  and  even  to  ask  in 
stupefaction  the  question  whether  God's  Vicar 
could  be  doing  Satan's  work,  whether  he  could 
be  the  Antichrist,  then  we  may  turn  and  meet 
the  problem  whether  it  has  been  for  the  good  of 
mankind  that  the  Reformation  which  had  to  come 
should  come  as  a  revolution,  that  the  Church  of 
saints  and  martyrs,  of  missioners  and  crusaders, 
should  be  dragged  through  the  mire  of  Avignon 
and  bound  to  the  chariot  wheels  of  contemptible 
Italian  dynasties,  should  become  *  an  example  of 
aU  the  shames  and  infamies  in  the  world ',  as  one 
of  its  greatest  servants  called  it  ? 

Has  it  made  for  righteousness  that  every  school- 
boy, as  Macaulay  would  say,  is  prepared  to  treat 
Papal  history  as  the  storehouse  of  instances  of 
hypocrisy  and  avarice,  immorality,  and  nepotism  ; 
that  to  the  average  man  it  is  the  monumental 
warning — a  superfluous  warning  indeed — not  to 
profess  virtue  in  politics  or  worldly  business  ? 

Have  we  as  a  nation  lost  nothing  by  our  recoil 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  137 

from  the-mediaeval  attempt  to  interpenetrate  daily 
life  with  religion,  to  set  a  standard  by  counsels  of 
perfection,  to  organize  and  centralize  the  agencies 
of  good  ? 

In  short,  has  not  Grosseteste's  view  an  interest 
in  itself  for  us,  if  only  by  contrast  with  our  own 
view,  as  well  as  an  historic  importance  as  giving 
the  key  to  his  age  ? 


780 


LECTURE  IV 

PROTESTS  ACxAINST  PAPAL  ABUSES,  1245-1254 
MATTHEW  PARIS 

The  cru-  The  movement  against  the  Papacy,  or  rather 
1^45^1^.  against  certain  measures  of  the  Papacy,  goes  back, 
as  we  saw,  to  the  Berkshire  rectors'  protest  in  1240,^ 
or  even  earher.  But  it  is  under  Innocent  IV,  and 
especially  after  the  Council  of  Lyons,  that  the 
movement  becomes  continuous  and  increasing.  The 
crucial  years,  therefore,  are  from  1245  to  1254. 
Before  him,  it  had  taken  the  form  chiefly  of  dis- 
content at  Papal  taxation  of  the  Church.  The 
taxation  had  become  constant,  and  it  was  to  make 
war  on  an  Emperor  for  whom  up  to  1245  there 
was  sympathy  felt  in  England  even  by  the  clergy,^ 
rather  than  much  reprobation.  But  by  itself 
taxation,  even  taxation  in  novel  forms  or  abnormal 
amount,  would  not  have  produced  more  than  the 
usual  struggles  to  escape.  And  after  1245  the  war 
was  on  an  Emperor  against  whom  the  voice  of  the 
Church  had  gone  forth,  and  his  manifestoes  to 
secular  princes  had  turned  the  clergy  everywhere 
against  him.  Taxation  therefore  would  hardly  have 
led  to  revolt.  But  Innocent  IV  gave  an  immense 
acceleration  and  bitterness  to  the  movement  by 

^  Ann.  Monast.  (Burton),  i.  265. 
2  M.  Paris,  iv.  307. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  139 

his  Provisions.  This  comes  out  in  the  two  letters 
sent  to  him  in  1246,  from  the  EngHsh  clergy  and 
the  English  barons.^ 

The  English  envoys,  William  Powic  and  Henry  The 
de  la  Mare,  had  been  sent  from  the  Parliament  griev- 
which  met  March  18,  1246,  at  London, ^  to  complain  ^"^^^" 
that  Innocent  IV  had  promised,  at  Lyons,  not  to 
exceed  twelve  Provisions  ;    to  leave  bishops  and 
lay    patrons    their    patronage ;     to    provide    for 
Enghsh  clerks  and  to  dispense  for  pluralities  in 
case  of  highborn  and  reputable  persons,  and  ne 
Italicus  Italico  immediate  succedat.     In  return  for 
these  promises  the  English  prelates  at  Lyons  had 
agreed  to  a  tax  on  English  clergy  for  the  succour 
of  Constantinople,  a  tax  ranging  from  one-half  on 
non-residents,   to  one-third  on  others,   and  one- 
twentieth  on  the  poorest. 

But  the  English  grievances  presented  at  Lyons  ^ 
had  been  Provisions  ('60,000  marks  a  year',  it  was 
said),  the  powers  exercised  by  Master  Martin,  the 
Non  Obstante  clause,  and  King  John's  tribute. 
Their  memorial  of  these  grievances  had  been  put 
aside,  and  hardly  touched  by  the  general  statutes 

^  They  are  given  fully  and  well  in  Matthew  Paris,  iv.  526, 
&c.,  580,  &c.  ;  in  a  shorter  and  more  confused  form  in  the 
Annals  of  Burton,  pp.  278-85,  in  which  the  general  grievances 
of  the  Parliament  are  tacked  on  to  the  barons'  letter,  and  the 
December  letter  of  the  clergy  tacked  on  to  the  letter  sent  by 
the  abbots  and  priors  in  March. 

2  Ann.  Monast.  (Burton),  iii.  169 ;  M.  Paris,  iv.  518. 

^  M.  Paris,  iv.  441-4. 


140  LECTURE  IV 

of  the  Council ;  and  they  had  left,  vowmg  to 
refuse  the  annual  tribute  and  other  ecclesiastical 
taxation  ;  and  Henry  III  had  angrily  backed  up 
this,  according  to  Matthew  Paris,^  though  with 
characteristic  mediaeval  tolerance  of  contradic- 
tories. The  King's  remarkable  words  to  Grosse- 
teste  ^  show  it  was  quite  compatible  with  absolute 
loyalty  to  the  theory  of  Papacy — another  warning 
against  the  modern  tendency  to  read  history 
backwards,  and  so  to  read  too  much  '  Protestant 
Reformation  '  into  these  protests. 

So  in  the  letters  of  expostulation  sent  by  the 
bishops  and  the  abbots,  there  is  the  most  humble 
acknowledgement  of  the  Pope's  supremacy  ;  *  they 
long  with  their  whole  mind  and  heart  to  be  found 
ever  more  and  more  fervent  in  devotion  to  the 
Holy  See ;  it  is  the  pillar  of  the  Church,  set  up 
by  God  and  not  by  man  ;  they  appeal  to  it  with 
prayers  and  tears.'  ^  Even  the  barons  write  '  implor- 
ing in  all  humbleness  and  devotion '  .*  The  King 
writes  as  a  loving  son,  which  he  means  always  to 
be  to  the  mother  who  nursed  him  at  her  breast.^ 

1  M.  Paris,  iv.  479. 

2  Grosseteste,  Epist.  338-9.  Cp.  M.  Paris,  iv.  528-35.  He 
promises  devotion  and  obedience  to  the  Holy  See  as  his 
spiritual  mother ;  the  day  he  ever  fails  in  this  '  damns  oculum 
ad  eruendum  immo  caput  ad  amputandum.  Praeter  com- 
munes rationes  quibus  omnes  Christiani  principes  tenentur 
ecclesiae,  nos  .  .  .  arctius  obligamur  .  .  .'  The  Holy  See  had 
saved  his  throne.  ^  M.  Paris,  iv.  530. 

4  Ibid.  533.  ^  Ibid.  535. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  141 

But  each  letter  closes  with  more  than  a  hint  of 
the  seriousness  of  the  crisis.  The  bishops  say  they 
cannot  restrain  the  national  feeling.  The  abbots 
predict  disturbance,  scandal  and  schism,  and  a 
split  between  the  regnum  and  the  sacerdotium.  The 
barons  say  they  will  have  to  '  set  up  a  wall  to 
protect  the  house  of  God  and  the  liberty  of  the 
kingdom  '.  The  King  speaks  of  the  danger  of  an 
irreparable  blow  both  to  the  royal  power  and  to 
the  Papal  authority. 

But  meantime  Papal  orders  were  going  out 
(March  24)  for  the  collection  of  the  one-twentieth 
already  demanded  at  Lyons  ;  and  a  new  Papal 
claim  ^  to  the  goods  of  intestate  clerks  had  been 
raised.  The  King  rejected  the  latter  claim,  and 
forbade  the  bishops  to  proceed  with  the  former  on 
pain  of  losing  their  baronies.  '  Thus  the  English 
■Church  was  between  the  upper  and  the  nether 
millstones,  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis.'  ^ 

When,  therefore,  the  Pope  was  able  to  beat  down  The 

1         11      1  •  •   •         1  Pope  in- 

contemptuously  all  this  opposition  by  the  mere  flexible. 
rumour  that  he  was  prepared  to  issue  an  interdict,^ 
the  plenitudo  potestatis  appeared  in  all  its  irresis- 
tibleness.  But  the  vital  point,  Provisions,  had  not 
been  touched.  There  was  even  a  belief  that  the 
Pope  was  willing  henceforth  to  issue  no  Provisions 
without  the  King's  consent.*  Certainly  the  Papal 
registers  ®  for   1246,   and   down   to   March   1247, 

1  M.  Paris,  iv.  552.  2  n^j^j^  ^59.        ^  i^i^.  561. 

*  Rymer,  i.  266.  ^  Nos.  2481  and  1672. 


142  LECTURE  IV 

contain  only  one  provision  for  a  foreigner  (Matthew 
of  Alperno,  Papal  chaplain,  and  that  with  a  sort 
of  apology,  that  he  had  lost  his  suit  against  Philip 
de  Lucy  for  the  Church  of  Overton  in  Winchester 
diocese  ;  Philip  being  a  clerk  of  Earl  Richard  of 
Cornwall).  The  last  in  favour  of  a  foreigner  before 
that  had  been  October  19,  1245,  in  favour  of 
a  Papal  chaplain  who  held  a  canonry  at  Hereford. 

Also  just  in  this  summer  of  1246  a  great  con- 
cession to  Enghsh  prelates  was  promised,  to  the 
effect  ne  Italicus  Italico  succedat.  But  most  of 
the  struggle  during  1246  was  concentrated  on  the 
subject  of  Papal  taxation  of  the  Clergy. 

The  envoys,  William  Powic  and  Henry  de  la 
Mare,  had  reported  to  the  Winchester  Parliament ^ 
June  7,  1246,  that  the  Pope  had  only  repulsed 
them,  saying,  '  The  King  of  England  is  now  kicking 
against  the  pricks,  siding  with  Frederick  {recal- 
citrat  et  Fretherizat)  ;  ^  he  has  his  plan,  I  have 
mine,  which  also  I  mean  to  follow.'  The  King's 
answer  at  first  was  to  forbid  all  collection  of  the 
tax.^  The  Pope  in  return  threatened  the  prelates 
with  excommunication  and  suspension  if  it  was  not 
paid  in  to  his  agent  by  Ascensiontide,  August  15. 
But  the  bishops  who  had  been  entrusted  with  the 
interdict  reasoned  with  the  King,  so  did  his  brother 
Earl  Richard,  who  had  some  secret  understanding 
with  the  Papacy  that  made  him  its  eager  supporter. 
The  King  was  cowed  and  gave  way,  and  *  the  whole 
1  M.  Paris,  iv.  560.  2  jbij  ^^S. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  143 

great  effort  made  by  magnates  and  bishops  and 
the  hope  of  hberating  the  kingdom  and  the  Church 
of  England  were  miserably  and  cruelly  foiled  '} 
Benefices  under  100  marks  had  to  pay  one-twen- 
tieth ;  those  over  100,  one-third,  or  non-residents, 
one-half  ;  non  obstante  any  previous  privileges,  '  the 
most  detestable  clause  of  all.'  ^  This  once  more 
roused  the  King  to  prohibit  the  Bishop  of  London 
from  beginning  the  collection  ;  and  getting  what 
comfort  they  could  from  this  flicker  of  resolution 
on  the  part  of  the  King,  the  clergy  on  December  i 
drew  up  a  formal  protest.  They  estimate  that  the 
tax  would  amount  to  80,000  marks,  a  sum  beyond 
the  power  of  all  England  to  pay  ;  for  to  raise 
Richard  Ts  ransom  of  60,000,  the  churches  had 
had  to  sacrifice  their  crosses  and  chalices.  It  would 
so  impoverish  canons  that  they  would  be  unable 
to  keep  residence,  and  monks  so  that  they  would 
be  unable  to  sustain  the  poor  ;  parish  priests 
would  have  to  drop  their  services  ;  the  countless 
poor  will  take  to  robbery.  The  clergy  therefore  Protest 
unite  in  a  refusal  in  the  Name  of  Our  Lord,  and  clergy^; 
appeal  to  a  General  Council.^ 

The  magnitude  of  the  sum  may  be  exaggerated. 
We  can  never  trust  mediaeval  figures  even  when 
they  are  given  with  the  greatest  definiteness,  and 
it  was  a  clerical  statistician  who  repeated  at  the 
Council  of  Constance  the  monstrous  misstatement 
that  the  number  of  parishes  in  England  was  45,000. 

1  M.  Paris,  iv.  561.  2  n^jd   ^So.  ^  n^ij.  583. 


144  LECTURE  IV 

Mediaeval  men  were  also,  even  more  than  modern, 
infected  with  an  ignorant  impatience  of  taxation. 
Still  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  seriousness 
of  this  appeal  to  a  General  Council.    It  was  the  one 
weak  joint  in  the  armour  of  Papal  power.     The 
most  loyal  clergy  in  Christendom  ^  had  at  last  been 
its  bear-  forced  into  a  position  that  must  sooner  or  later 
the         undermine  the  theory  itself.    They  would  disguise 
of  Papal  it  from  themselves  as  long  as  they  could,  but  it 
suprem-  jg  impossible  even  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  go  on 
indefinitely  accepting  a  theory  and  rejecting  it  in 
practice.    The  practice  must  in  time  react  upon  the 
theory.    That  it  took  so  long  to  do  so,  that  in  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  Enghsh  canon- 
ists would  still  lay  down  that  rebeUion  is  as  the 
sin  of  witchcraft,  this  only  proves  the  ineradicable 
hold  the  theory  had  upon  their  minds.     It  held 
them  by  what  was  best  and  strongest  in  them, 
and  it  remained  even  after  they  had  been  forced 
into  a  protest  that  looks  to  us,  but  was  not  to 
them,  a  denial  of  the  theory  itself.    Vassals  could 
only  protest  against  feudal  tyranny  by  a  temporary 
*  defiance ' ;  ecclesiastics  could  only  protest  against 
Papal  tyranny  by  appeal  to  a  Council.    But  the 
feudal  bond    still    remained    the  highest  expres- 
sion   of   social    duty,   and   the    Bishop  of  Rome 
still   remained  the   successor    of   Peter    and   the 
rock   on   which   the   Church   was   built.      Nearly 

^  M.  Paris,  iv.  530  '  regnum  sacrosanctae  Romanae  ecclesiae 
specialiter  devotum.' 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  145 

two  centuries  were  to  elapse  before  it  could  be 
said,  every  other  man  you  meet  is  a  Lollard.  But 
Innocent  IV,  by  the  end  of  1246,  had  effected  the 
first  stage  in  this  long  process. 

In  1246  the  laity  had  naturally  been  more  out-  The  pro- 
spoken  even  than  the  clergy,  as  we  have  seen.  The  st.Louis. 
laity  of  France  could  take  the  strongest  ground  of 
all,  as  it  was  Louis  himself  ^  who  presented  the 
gravamina  of  the  Church  and  nation.  He,  as  '  rex 
Christianissimus  and  a  devout  Son  of  the  Church  ', 
had  kept  back  his  feelings  in  the  hope  that  there 
would  be  some  redress  in  answer  to  complaints. 
The  nation  was  united  on  these  points :  they  were 
amazed  he  had  borne  it  so  long,  and  they  were  not 
only  fast  losing  that  devotion  they  used  to  have 
for  Rome,  but  already  it  was  nearly  extinct,  and 
even  worse,  turned  to  violent  hate  and  violent 
bitterness,  a  hatred  which,  as  all  Christians  must 
fear,  will  produce  some  terrible  and  portentous 
result.  If  these  things  be  done  in  the  green  tree, 
what  would  be  done  in  the  dry  ?  What  would 
happen  in  other  countries,  if  this  had  happened 
in  France  which  had  been  so  devoted  ?  The  only 
thing  which  was  keeping  the  laity  in  obedience  was 
the  royal  power.  '  As  to  the  clergy,  God  knows, 
and  many  men  know  too,  with  what  feelings  they 
sustain  this  yoke.  And  if  the  cause  be  asked 
whereby  this  offence  cometh,  it  is  this,  my  Lord, 

1  In  May  1247  ;  laity  in  June  1247.    M.  Paris,  vi.  (Addita- 
menta)  99-112. 

780  U 


146  LECTURE  IV 

I  take  leave  to  say  to  you,  that  you  are  bringuig 
new  things  upon  the  earth  ;  things  which  are  of 
a  truth  new,  and  hitherto  unheard  of.'  Such 
things  were  the  tax  on  temporaUties  of  the  GaUican 
Church  ;  the  use  of  the  threat,  Pay  me  such-and- 
such  a  sum  or  I  will  excommunicate  you  ;  the 
treatment  by  Papal  nuncios  of  the  highest  Church 
dignitaries  as  if  they  were  serfs  or  Jews.  It  was 
the  Papal  nuncio,  the  Bishop  of  Palestrina,  who 
first  devised  the  plan  of  calling  up  a  bishop  or 
abbot  and  saying  to  him:  'If  you  reveal  by  word 
or  writing,  by  act  or  sign,  what  I  am  about  to  say 
to  you,  you  are  ipso  facto  excommunicated ; '  and 
then  when  he  had  thus  sealed  his  lips,  going  on  : 
'  I  order  you  to  pay  so  much  for  the  Pope  on  pain 
of  excommunication.'  It  was  not  to  be  believed 
that  the  Pope  knew  all  the  oppressions  practised 
by  his  envoys.  But  the  Pope  himself  conferred 
multitudes  of  provisions  and  pensions,  he  conferred 
prebends  and  parsonages  before  they  were  vacant — 
a  thing  never  done  before,  and  prohibited  by  the 
law. 

*  Now,  though  you  are  not  bound  by  human  law,  yet  it 
is  seemly  that  you  should  bind  yourself  by  the  law  you 
yourself  have  made,  as  even  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
submitted  to  the  laws.  It  is  a  horrid  sight  in  God's 
church,  that  the  Hving  canons  should  daily  be  face  to  face 
with  those  who  are  waiting  for  them  to  die,  like  crows 
waiting  for  corpses.  The  pie?iitudo  potestatis  enables  you 
to  do  these  things,  but  its  exercise  ought  to  be  kept  in 
bounds  by  reason  and  moderation.     The  Holy  See  has 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  147 

the  primacy,  and  doubtful  questions  ought  to  be  referred 
to  it,  but  we  do  not  read  in  Scripture,  in  canon  law  or  in 
history,  that  it  ought  to  despoil  other  Sees. 

'  Pope  Alexander  III  took  refuge  in  France,  but  did  not 
lay  burdens  on  the  GalUcan  Church.  Pope  Paschal  took 
refuge  in  France,  but  did  none  of  the  things  that  were 
being  done  now.  Pope  Gelasius  took  refuge  in  France, 
and  CaUxtus  II  was  a  Frenchman,  but  they  laid  no 
burdens  on  the  Galilean  Church.  Innocent  II  took  refuge 
in  France,  but  he  laid  no  burden  on  the  GaUican  Church. 
It  might  be  said  that  they  could  have  done  what  is  being 
done  now,  but  did  not  choose  to  do  it ;  to  which  the 
answer  is,  "  We  grant  your  power  as  theirs,  only  let  your 
use  of  it  be  as  theirs."  Assuredly  if  it  was  not  expedient 
to  do  it  then,  it  is  less  expedient  now,  when  all  Christen- 
dom is  in  far  greater  disturbance.  And  pray  God  the 
disturbance  do  not  increase  ;  for  he  who  squeezes  too  hard, 
draws  blood."  But  all  your  predecessors  together,  it  is 
said,  did  not  confer  so  many  as  you  alone  have  done  in  this 
brief  time.  Gradually  your  power  has  increased  to  its 
present  boundless  extent.  .  .  .  These  foreigners  do  not 
reside  ;  they  are  mere  names,  perhaps  sham  names,  under 
cover  of  which  churches  and  patrons  are  plundered.  All 
that  the  Church  of  Rome  gets  is  the  scandal  and  the  hatred 
and  the  loss  of  her  subjects'  devotion.  Finally  the  king 
informs  you  of  what  you  know  as  a  fact,  that  he  loves  you 
with  sincere  affection,  and  deeply  sympathizes  with  your 
necessities  ;  but  all  that  cannot  make  him  neglect  the 
liberties  and  constitution  of  the  kingdom  entrusted  to 
him  by  God.  .  .  .  He  therefore  begs  you  affectionately  as 
his  very  dear  father  in  Christ,  and  he  earnestly  seeks  of 
you  for  the  honour  of  God,  of  yourself,  and  of  the  Church, 
...  to  spare  the  churches  henceforth,  to  cease  from  these 
acts  and  to  revoke  the  latest  of  them.' 

Here  we  have  four  times  repeated  the  acknow- 
ledgement  that   knocks   the   bottom   out   of   all 


148  LECTURE  IV 

Its  re-  resistance,  however  justifiable,  however  eloquent, 
acknow-  It  is  acknowledged  that  the  Pope  is  above  law, 
ment'of  ^^^^  ^^  ^^^  ^^^  plcnitudo  potestutis  ;  that  his  See 
thepieni'  holds  the  primacv,  that  he  can  act  as  he  chooses. 

tudo  po-  ^  •' 

testatis.  Then  there  can  be  no  talk  of  real  resistance  in 
the  end ;  it  can  only  at  highest  be  expostulation, 
or  no  more  than  humble  entreaty.  This  is  why 
there  will  be  centuries  of  continued  and  growing 
abuses,  why  the  intolerable  will  be  tolerated,  why 
frauds  and  scandals  seen  clearly  enough  will  yet 
be  submitted  to  ;  why  grievances  will  futilely 
tread  the  same  bewitched  circle  from  this  Parlia- 
ment of  Paris  to  the  Council  of  Constance,  or  even 
to  the  Diet  of  Worms.  The  mighty  theory  of 
God  upon  earth  once  accepted,  all  its  consequences 
must  be  accepted  too.  To  Wiclif  in  the  fourteenth 
century  the  Pope  may  be  '  a  sinful  caitiff,  perchance 
a  damned  fiend '  ;  a  hundred  years  earlier  even 
Grosseteste  could  allow  the  position  to  be  put 
that  the  Pope  might  be  a  heretic;^  but  his  power 
is  of  God,  and  common  men  have  not  to  judge, 
but  only  to  obey.  The  only  way  out  of  the  circle 
is  to  break  in  upon  the  theory  itself,  and  this  no 
one  was  yet  ready  to  do. 

Hence  the  Pope  has  only  to  be  firm,  and  opposi- 
tion must  soon  be  intimidated.     If  it  is  he  who 
gives  way,  there  must  be  special  circumstances  to 
explain  it. 
The  whole  letter  of  St.  Louis  is  interesting  from 

1  M.  Paris,  v.  402. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  149 

the  depth  of  rehgious  feehng  displayed  in  it.  The 
issue  was  one  which  evoked  this,  as  well  as  other 
lower  feelings  of  human  nature.  Jealousy  of 
foreigners  as  such,  and  tenacity  in  proprietorship 
of  church  patronage  are  strong  and  natural,  if  not 
lofty  motives.  But  St.  Louis  elevates  the  discus- 
sion by  his  genuine  zeal  for  the  ancient  loyalty  to 
Rome.  In  fact  the  document  is  so  characteristic  of 
him  in  its  minghng  of  simplicity  and  shrewdness, 
candour  and  discretion,  even  business  and  religion, 
that  this  alone  might  stamp  it  as  genuine.  It  is  its  date, 
wrongly  referred  to  1245  by  Matthew  Paris  and  by 
his  editor  in  the  Rolls  Series.  The  allusions  in 
it  evidently  belong  to  the  circumstances  of  1247,^ 
not  1245  ;  and  it  is  evidently  later  than  the  first 
appeal  sent  May  2,  1247,  ^^  we  know  by  a  con- 
fidential letter  from  Archbishop  Boniface  to  his 
brother  Peter  of  Savoy. ^  In  substance  it  is  much 
the  same  as  the  appeals  sent  a  few  months  earlier 
from  England,  though  it  is  couched  in  a  more 
stately  form.  The  chief  stress  is  laid  on  the 
unprecedented  character  of  the  Papal  taxation,  and 
particularly  on  the  abuse  of  Provisions.  It  cannot 
be  read  without  producing  a  conviction  that 
Innocent  IV's  pontificate  made  a  new  and  disas- 
trous epoch  in  European  history  parere  aliquid 
grande  monstrum. 

The  silence  of  the  French  chronicles  perhaps 

1  Berger,  St.  Louis  et  Innocent  IV,  270,  &c. 

2  M.  Paris,  vi.  13 1-3. 


150  LECTURE  IV 

indicates  Louis's  wish  to  keep  it  comparatively 
private ;  for  as  he  says,  he  has  hitherto  not  made 
formal  complaints  (dissimulavit  et  siluit),  but  only 
entreaties  (preces).  Its  appearance  in  Matthew 
Paris's  pages  may  mean  that  a  copy  of  it  was 
sent  officially  by  Louis  to  his  brother-sovereign  in 
England  to  keep  him  in  touch  with  what  was 
being  done.  Or  Matthew  Paris  may  have  got 
a  copy  from  Lyons  through  his  correspondents 
there  ;  he  had  already  got  the  letter  sent  from 
Lyons  early  in  May  1247  t>y  Boniface  of  Savoy  to 
his  brother  Peter  of  Savoy,  on  the  previous  French 
demands.  This  letter  must  have  come  to  Matthew 
Paris  through  an  English  channel ;  so  perhaps  we 
may  guess  the  French  king's  of  June  1247  did  too, 
though  it  came  later,  to  judge  by  the  documents 
among  which  it  is  placed.  The  date  assigned  to 
it,  1245,  was  only  an  after-thought  of  Matthew 
Paris,  adding  as  a  pencil-note  at  the  foot  of  the 
page,  '  Letter  presented  at  Council  of  Lyons  on 
oppressions  of  the  Church.'  If  he  had  brought  it 
a  moment  into  comparison  with  the  May  letter 
from  Boniface,  or  with  the  events  of  1245  and 
1247  respectively,  he  would  have  seen  its  date 
must  be  not  1245  but  June  1247,  as  it  must  come 
between  Innocent  IV's  announcement.  May  30,  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Narbonne  that  the  Emperor  was 
going  to  march  on  Lyons,  and  St.  Louis's  promise 
in  mid-June  to  defend  the  Pope  if  attacked, 
entic?^'      ^^^^  authenticity  of  the  document  is  patent  on 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  151 

the  face  of  it.    It  is  borne  out  as  to  the  abuse  of 
procurations  by  the  words  of  Thomas  of  Cantimpre ; 
the  Papal  envoys  came,  he  says,   '  cum  magnis 
exercitibus  potius   quam  famihis,'   by  the  same 
complaints   at   Metz,    Nimes,    Albi,    Cahors,   and 
other  places,  and  by  the  Pope's  concessions  on  the 
matter,  which  were  hastily  granted  June  12,  1247, 
reducing  the  scale  in  Narbonne  to  that  of  other 
provinces.^    It  is  also  borne  out  as  to  recent  Papal 
taxation  by  the  Verdun  chronicler  :    *  One-tenth 
of  clerical  revenue  was  taken  at  this  time  to  supply 
the  Pope  with  soldiery  ...  as  much  as  £1,000  in 
all  was  taken  from  the  church  of  Verdun.'     The  Evi- 
other  counts  in   the  indictment  are   more  than  f^e^*^  °^ 
borne  out  by  the  Papal  registers.    These  show  the  f^^gis- 
main  abuse  of  Provisions,  going  back  to  Celes- 
tine  III,  not,  as  King  Louis  thought,  begun  by 
Innocent  III  ;  but  it  is  true  that,  though  common 
under    Innocent    III,    they   increase   enormously 
under  Innocent  IV,  so  that  it  becomes  a  very 
usual  safeguard  to  procure  a  clause  exempting 
from  liability  to  make  Provision,  unless  this  clause 
be  specially  cited.     Often  they  are  granted  to 
minors   under   nineteen    (nos.   5191,   7224),   even 
minors  under  eighteen  (no.  376)  ;    in  the  greater 
number  of  cases,  however,  the  age  is  unspecified. 
Blank  forms  are  obtained  by  Prelates  allowing 
them  to  dispense  in  two,  four,  or  six  cases,  or  even 
up  to  forty  (no.  4003).     The  grants  often  imply 
1  Register,  2784,  3969  ;  Potthast,  117,  126. 


152  LECTURE  IV 

absenteeism  and  pluralities  despite  the  strict  rules 
on  these  heads  passed  by  the  Lateran  council  of 
1215,  which  said  that  dispensation  from  the  rules 
was  only  to  be  in  the  case  of  persons  eminent 
for  rank  or  for  learning.  The  University  of  Paris 
in  1258  laid  down  that  a  pluralist  could  not  hope 
to  be  saved  ;  ^  and  Gregory  IX  was  believed  to 
have  said  that  the  Pope  could  not  dispense  for 
pluralities.  Some  of  Innocent  IV's  cases  were  no 
doubt  cases  of  benefices  too  small  in  salary  to  go 
alone  (nos.  2048,  4834)  ;  and  others  were  cases  of 
leave  of  absence  for  study  (nos.  1914,  2270).  But 
the  fact  remains  that  the  whole  system  grew  under 
him  to  monstrous  proportions.  Even  he  felt  it 
was  not  decent,  and  might  be  dangerous,  to  con- 
tinue the  pressure  on  France  during  the  Crusade  ; 
so  the  French  cases  decline  1248-50,  but  rise  again 
after  the  Emperor's  death  gave  the  Pope  a  free 
hand  once  more.  At  the  very  opening  of  his 
pontificate  his  nephew  Ottobono  had  been  pro- 
vided as  chancellor  of  Reims,  and  archdeacon  of 
Parma  ;  in  1248  he  and  three  Papal  great-nephews 
are  given  a  sweeping  dispensation  from  the  rules 
against  pluralities  (no.  3935).  Preferments,  pen- 
sions, or  dispensations,  follow  rapidly  for  Papal 
chaplains,  Gerard  of  Parma,  John  of  Vercelli, 
Adenolf o,  nephew  of  the  late  Pope ;  Papal  writers, 
Philip  of  Assisi,  Jacopo  of  Bevagna,  Master 
Rostand,  Master  Berard  of  Naples,  Henry  of  Milan, 
1  Berger,  St.  Louis,  p.  288  2. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  153 

Albert  of  Incisa  ;   and  many  others  in  the  service 
of  favoured  cardinals. 

Sinibald  and  Tedisio  Fieschi,  and  Bernard  of 
Foliano,  nephews  of  the  Pope,  hold  canonries  at 
Rouen  and  at  Beauvais  and  at  Tours.  John  of 
Camezano,  another  nephew,  held  a  French,  an 
English,  and  a  Flemish  canonry  simultaneously. 
Master  Stephen,  Papal  subdeacon  and  chaplain, 
nephew  of  the  cardinal  of  SS.  Cosmo  and  Damian, 
held  twelve  benefices  in  Spain,  four  in  France,  one 
in  Bohemia  (no.  6044). 

Behind  these  we  can  discern  less  presentable  figures 
many  in  number.  Yet  the  pressure  on  France  was 
as  nothing  to  that  on  England,  and  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  care  taken  to  avoid  the  central  part  of  the 
kingdom  and  the  royal  domain.  Also  the  protests  of 
Louis  were  listened  to,  while  those  of  Henry  were  not . 

In  England  it  was  patriotically  believed  that 
John  Tolet,  the  one  EngUsh  Cardinal,  tried  to 
reason  with  the  Pope  by  pointing  out  how  evil 
the  times  were  ;  the  Holy  Land  in  danger,  the 
Greek  Church  estranged,  the  hostility  of  the 
Emperor,  the  imminent  destruction  of  Hungary 
by  the  Tartars,  the  civil  war  in  Germany,  the 
Spaniards  incensed  against  the  clergy,  France  in 
revolt,  and  England,  like  Balaam's  ass,  after  being 
spurred  and  beaten,  at  length  finding  voice  ;  '  We 
[the  Papal  court]  are  like  Ishmael,  every  man's 
hand  is  against  us  and  all  hate  us.'  ^ 
^  M.  Paris,  iv.  579. 

780  X 


154  LECTURE  IV 

Compari-  The  chief  difference  in  the  position ,  as  it  developed 
tween^  in  France  and  in  England  respectively,  lay  in  the 
England  circumstances  and  the  character  of  the  two  kings. 

and  .  ^ 

France.  Louis  had  to  be  handled  with  far  more  respect  by 
a  Pope  who  was  a  refugee  within  the  sphere  of 
French  influence.  It  was  of  vital  importance  to 
conciliate  him,  already  far  the  most  respected 
figure  in  Europe,  the  friend  still  and  ally  of  the 
Emperor,  a  man  not  made  of  the  malleable  stuff 
of  Henry  III.  The  English  King  was  technically 
the  Pope's  vassal.  At  any  moment  he  was  capable 
of  being  caught  by  a  baited  hook,  as  Matthew 
Paris  puts  it.  Already  in  1246,  both  July  ^  and 
December,^  it  was  rumoured  in  England  that  for 
all  his  passionate  outbursts  he  was  preparing  to 
climb  down  from  his  heroics,  and  was  ready  to 
desert  the  cause  if  the  Pope  would  only  enable 
him  too  in  his  turn  to  squeeze  subsidies  from  the 
English  clergy.  A  chronic  bankrupt  cannot  afford 
the  unremunerative  virtue  of  constancy. 

Thus  a  few  '  shadowy  '  concessions,^  that  Provi- 
sions shall  be  notified  to  the  King  for  approval, 
that  the  proposal  about  intestates  is  recalled,  were 
enough  to  give  Henry  the  excuse  he  wanted  for 
desertion.  '  For  what  did  it  matter  to  the  venal 
notaries  of  the  Curia,  that  they  had  formally  to 
request  the  King  to  enrich  them  and  impoverish 
himself  at  an  order  from  the  Pope  ? ' 

1  M.  Paris,  iv.  559,  561.  2  ibid.  577,  579. 

3  Ibid.  550,  598,  604. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  155 

The  Pope  knew  what  manner  of  man  he  had  to 
deal  with,  and  remained  quite  firm  in  regard  to 
the  tax  from  the  clergy  of  one-twentieth,  one- 
third,  and  one-half.  He  also  by  steady  pressure 
got  in  the  annual  tribute  of  1,000  marks  ;  by  the 
close  of  1249  the  tribute  was  only  half  a  year  in 
arrear.^  He  even  appointed  new  collectors,^  two 
English  Franciscans — ravening  wolves  in  sheep's 
clothing,  Matthew  Paris  calls  them.  They  were 
armed  with  'thundering*  Papal  bulls, and  travelled 
about  on  excellent  nags,  with  boots  and  spurs, 
'  a  scandal  to  their  order.'  They  began  by  demand- 
ing 6,000  marks  from  the  See  of  Lincoln,  to  the 
'  stupefaction  '  of  the  Bishop,  and  400  marks  from 
the  Abbey  of  St.  Albans.  The  monks  made  a 
gallant  struggle  for  more  than  a  year,  but  their 
prior,  aged  as  he  was,  had  to  journey  to  Lyons, 
and  then  they  only  compromised  for  200  marks, 
besides  100  more  in  expenses.  Once  more,  in  the  New 
spring  of  1247,'  the  clergy  and  laity  sent  their  protests. 
joint  remonstrances  both  to  the  Pope  and  the 
cardinals.  To  the  former  they  dwelt  on  the  im- 
memorial zeal  of  the  Church  of  England  on  behalf 
of  its  mother  the  holy  Roman  Church,  to  which  it 
gave  service  devotedly,  and  '  never  means  to 
recede  from  its  allegiance,  to  which  it  owes  all 
its  moral  progress  [fer  incrementa  morum  semper 

1  Rymer,  i.  271, 

2  M.  Paris,  iv.  617-22,  and  vi.  (Additamenta)  119. 

3  Ibid.  iv.  595. 


156  LECTURE  IV 

proficiens).  Now  kneeling  at  the  feet  of  your 
Holiness,  we  earnestly  beseech  you  in  pity  to  spare 
us  the  demand  for  money,  a  demand  that  we 
cannot  bear,  that  is  beyond  our  power  ;  for  our 
country  though  rich  in  produce  is  poor  in  cash. 
We  are  also  ordered  by  your  Holiness  to  contribute 
to  the  King  ;  we  cannot  in  honour  fail  him  at  his 
need,  nor  ought  we  to  fail  him.  The  bearers  will 
explain  to  you  the  disastrous  consequences  which 
threaten  from  an  impost  we  cannot  possibl}^ 
endure,  bound  as  we  are  to  you  by  every  tie  of 
love,  obedience,  and  devotion  '.  This  hint  at  the 
end  is  couched  more  plainly  in  the  letter  to  the 
cardinals.  The  various  taxes  paid  by  the  clergy 
to  Papal  order  since  1216  are  enumerated.  The 
present  tax  will  go  partly  to  help  the  French, 
the  enemies  of  England,  to  reconquer  the  Greek 
Empire  ;  partly  to  help  the  Holy  Land,  which 
could  be  better  recovered  in  other  ways  ;  partly 
to  other  aims  of  the  Pope.  The  total  sum  de- 
manded could  not  be  raised  even  if  the  whole 
property  of  the  clergy  was  sold  up.  The  college 
is  begged  to  take  such  steps  as  will  prevent  the 
estrangement  of  devout  sons  of  the  Church,  and 
restore  them  to  her  bosom  and  to  their  old  obedi- 
ence. The  marginal  note  ^  opposite  these  last  words 
runs  :  '  Note  here  a  word  of  dread,  the  hidden 
threat  of  desertion  from  the  obedience  of  Rome.* 
But  all  was  in  vain.  The  prelates  themselves  gave 
1  M.  Paris,  iv.^597,  note. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  157 

way,  and  it  was  rumoured  that  the  King  had  entered 
on  a  collusive  arrangement  with  the  Pope.^  The 
year  1247  had  produced  an  increased  bitterness 
against  both.  The  next  year,  1248,  added  a  new  Arch- 
grievance  in  the  extraordinary  powers  conferred  Bonf-^ 
by  the  Pope  on  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,^  ^^^^- 
who  was  allowed  to  take  a  year's  revenues  of  all 
churches  vacant  within  the  province,  till  the  sum 
of  10,000  marks  should  be  collected.  These  powers 
dated  back  to  April  1246,  but  Henry  III  and  the 
English  had  resisted  the  execution  of  them  as 
*  new  and  unheard-of  extortion  \^  But  the  Arch- 
bishop was  that  martial  personage,  Boniface  of 
Savoy.  He  continued  to  act  as  captain  of  the 
Papal  guards  at  Lyons,  and  the  security  of  Lyons 
as  a  Papal  asylum  was  absolutely  dependent  on 
the  goodwill  of  the  lords  of  Savoy,  the  three 
brothers  Amadeus,  Boniface,  and  Peter.  It  is 
difficult  to  say  how  much  of  the  debts  on  the 
archbishopric  were  the  legacy  of  preceding  arch- 
bishops, and  how  much  were  the  fruit  of  this 
Papal  and  Savoyard  alliance.  At  any  rate  Inno- 
cent IV  kept  up  a  relentless  pressure  in  favour  of 
Boniface  ;  the  registers  of  1246-7-8  are  full  of 
imperative  orders  in  the  matter.  Before  the  threat  Com- 
of  excommunication  both  King  and  Bishops  once  Henry  ° 
more   had   to   give   way,   the   King   earning   the  ^^^• 

1  M.  Paris,  iv.  623. 

2  Register,  Nos.  1935  to  3471,  passim  ;  M.  Paris,  iv.  655. 

3  M.  Paris,  iv.  510. 


158  LECTURE  IV 

'  cordial  maledictions  of  the  whole  country '  ^ 
because  of  his  compliance.  He  had,  in  fact,  his  own 
axe  to  grind  at  the  Papal  court.  In  the  summer 
of  1247  he  had  taken  the  vow  of  Crusade,  and 
himself  allowed  his  motive  to  become  transparent 
by  securing  to  himself  a  Papal  grant  of  the  sums 
collected  in  England  by  pious  gifts  for  the  Holy 
Land  or  by  commutation  of  Crusaders'  vows.^ 
Parliament  had  flatly  refused  him  a  grant  in  July 
1248,  and  he  was  in  such  straits  that  he  had  to 
sell  his  plate  and  jewels  in  London.^  Yet  his 
attitude  showed  he  had  some  strong  secret  hope  ; 
*  the  servant  is  not  above  his  master.  ...  I  shall 
appoint  such  ministers  as  I  please,'  was  the  answer 
he  had  made  to  their  demand  for  ministers,  and 
he  consoled  himself  by  the  reflection  that  his 
treasures  would  come  back  to  him  as  rivers  all 
flow  into  the  sea.  They  had  been  sold  to  '  those 
boors  the  Londoners,  who  call  themselves  barons, 
usque  ad  nauseam  '  ;  whose  wealth  was  a  well  of 
riches,*  and  wells  are  made  to  be  pumped.  But 
meantime  his  reliance  was  on  the  vow  of  Crusade 
he  had  just  taken,  and  which  now  was  turned 
into  a  bond  negotiable  at  sight  by  a  Papal  con- 
cession issued  August  1247,  but  not  put  into  force 
till  immediately  before  this  Parliament.  This  is 
the  secret  of  the  bankrupt  King's  fit  of  self-assertion 

1  M.  Paris,  v.  36-8. 

2  Register,  No.  4055  (August  1248). 

3  M.  Paris,  v.  22.  *  Ibid.  iv.  547. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  159 

and  unusual  superiority  to  Parliamentary  grants. 
Thus  the  way  in  which  the  Pope  at  this  juncture  The 
handled  the  burning  question  of  Provisions  attitude 
becomes  intelhgible.  The  number  of  cases  was  provi- 
kept  few,  but  the  principle  was  maintained  by  the  ^^°^^" 
cases  being  very  striking  ones.  Since  the  remon- 
strance received  at  Lyons  in  the  close  of  the  spring 
of  1247,  down  to  the  end  of  1248,  the  Registers 
contain  not  much  above  a  score  of  documents 
which  are  acts  of  arbitrary  interference  with  rights 
of  the  English  Church.  Out  of  1,805  documents 
included  in  that  year  and  a  half,  twenty-eight 
distasteful  acts  is  not  a  large  number,  especially 
as  the  total  number  which  deal  with  Englisli 
affairs  is  so  large,  142  out  of  the  1,805  i  of  these 
twenty-eight  only  ten  are  acts  of  Provisions  for 
foreigners  in  English  benefices.  Marino,  Papal 
vice-chancellor,  is  to  get  preferments  in  Worcester 
diocese  up  to  200  marks  a  year  ;  ^  a  chaplain  of 
the  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Porto,  is  to  be  *  provided ' 
for  by  the  Archdeacon  of  Sudbury  ;  ^  the  Dean  of 
Wells,  John  Saracen,  himself  a  Papal  chaplain,  is 
to  find  the  following  warm  berths,^  for  a  scion  of 
the  noble  house  of  Vico,  preferment  of  not  less 
than  thirty  marks,  for  a  member  of  the  Roman 
civic  family  of  Pappazini,  not  less  than  twenty 
marks  ;  Guy  de  Foliano,*  a  Parma  cousin  of  the 
Pope,  is  to  have  a  cathedral  stall  m  Salisbury  ; 


1  Nos.  3061,  3062.  2  ]sjo.  3947. 

3  Nos.  3743,  3772.  *  No.  3789. 


i6o  LECTURE  IV 

six  other  documents  ^  record  that  the  Archbishop 
of  York  and  the  Bishop  of  Sahsbury,  amongst 
others,  have  purchased  for  themselves  protection 
against  such  Provisions.  Other  documents  ^  em- 
power the  holding  of  pluralities  by  John  the 
Frenchman,  Master  Paganus  a  Papal  clerk,  one  of 
the  Rossi  of  Parma,  Matthew  a  Papal  scribe,  John 
Odolino  Papal  subdeacon.  Others  ^  commission 
Papal  officials  to  secure  to  Richard  of  Cornwall  the 
share  promised  him  long  ago  of  the  Crusading 
moneys,  or  empower  *  Peter  Saracen  to  raise  £40 
on  the  Bishop  of  Durham's  bond,  or  authorize  the 
Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells  ^  to  deprive  of  their 
benefices  all  pluralists  and  sons  of  priests,  unless 
they  can  produce  Papal  dispensations. 

One  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  Pope's  judicial 
supremacy.  Philip  Ashley  ^  had  resented  the  Papal 
*  reservation  '  of  the  Church  of  Long  Itchington 
to  the  Roman  noble  who  was  Bishop  of  Bethlehem. 
When  the  Bishop's  proctor  appeared,  he  was 
beaten,  had  two  ribs  broken,  his  horse's  tail  was 
cut  off,  and  he  and  his  horse  tied  up  to  one  stall 
together.  When  the  Dean  of  Wells  tried  to  put  in 
force  his  power  as  a  Papal  commissioner,  Philip 
Ashley  had  persuaded  the  royal  bailiffs  to  interpose 
and  to  take  security  of  200  marks  from  the  bishops' 

1  Nos.  2584,  2793,  &c. 

2  Nos.  3002,  3425,  3987,  3988,  3991. 

3  No.  3528.     *  No.  3580.       ^  No.  4009. 
^  Register,  No.  3742. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  i6i 

proctors  that  they  would  not  proceed.  Philip  is 
therefore  cited  to  appear  within  two  months  before 
the  tribunal  of  the  Pope  himself. 

The  Papal  Registers  therefore  give  ample  proof 
that  all  the  hot  protestations  of  English  clergy 
were  as  vain  as  spray  upon  the  crags. 

Further  evidence  is  given  by  Matthew  Paris.  Cases  in 
As  an  example  of  the  miseries  that  came  daily  paris. 
upon  England  he  tells  what  befell  the  monks  of 
Abingdon  and  the  monks  of  Bury.^  The  best 
living  in  their  gift,  that  of  St.  Helen's,  Abingdon, 
worth  100  marks  a  year,  was  claimed  the  very  day 
it  fell  vacant  by  a  Roman  '  provisor  '  who  had 
been  biding  his  time.  But  the  very  same  day  the 
King  demanded  it  for  his  half-brother  ^Ethelmar 
of  Provence,  though  ^thelmar  already  held  so 
many  benefices  that  he  hardly  knew  their  names. 
The  abbot,  douce  man,  finding  himself  between  the 
upper  and  the  nether  millstones,  decided  for  the 
King  and  against  the  foreigner  who  would  be 
'  a  thorn  in  his  eye  '.  The  Pope  cited  the  abbot  to 
Lyons.  Old  and  ill  as  he  was,  he  had  to  go  *  in 
sorrow  and  fear  and  bitterness  ',  and  eventually  to 
console  the  Roman  with  a  pension  of  fifty  marks. 

The  monks  of  Bury  St.  Edmunds  could  not  get 
their  new  abbot  confirmed  till  they  had  bound 
themselves  to  pay  800  marks  to  a  creditor  of  the 
Pope.  One  of  the  monks  died  at  Lyons,  one  at 
Dover  on  his  way  back  in  bitterness  of  heart.  The 
1  M.  Paris,  V.  39-40. 

780  Y 


i62  LECTURE  IV 

blame  for  all  this  the  chronicler  lays  upon  the  pusill- 
animous conduct  of  our  miserable  king  {regulus), 
and  he  sums  up  the  year  1248  as  one  of  *  disaster  to 
the  reputation  of  the  court  of  Rome,  that  court 
without  courtesy  or  mercy,  which  is  manifestly 
threatened  with  the  wrath  of  God  '} 
Sum-  The  results  of  the  years  from  the  meeting  of  the 

results,  Council  of  Lyons,  1245,  to  the  death  of  Frederick  II, 
1245-50. 1250,  may  be  grouped  under  four  headings  :  The 
working  of  Provisions,  the  practical  value  of  the 
plenitudo  potestatis,  the  parallel  between  France 
and  England  and  their  differences,  with  the  effect 
of  Henry  Ill's  weakness  of  character  and  his 
peculiar  circumstances,  and  finally  the  epoch- 
making  consequences  of  Innocent  IV's  pontificate. 
Why  (i)  Much  that  was  healthy,  and  much  that  was 

sionr"  conscientious,  went  to  make  up  the  embittered 
were  so  EngUsh  feeling  against  foreigners  in  the  early 
thirteenth  century.  There  was  more  in  it  than 
mere  insular  prejudice,  mere  greed  of  office  and 
rivalry  over  court  favour.  It  was  by  foreign 
swordsmen  that  John  had  fought  his  way  back 
to  despotic  power  and  defiance  of  Magna  Charta. 
It  was  foreign  nobles  from  his  mother's  land  of 
Poitou  and  foreign  princes  from  his  wife's  kinsmen 
of  Savoy  who  incited  Henry  III  to  drive  away  his 
constitutional  ministers,  and  who  took  their  place 
and  so  aided  his  arbitrary  rule.  It  was  foreign 
nominees  thrust  into  English  prelacies  who  were 

1  M.  Paris,  v.  47. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  163 

the  obedient  henchmen  of  the  Papacy  in  the  task 
of  appropriating  the  preferments  of  the  Enghsh 
Church,  and  draining  her  revenues.  The  people 
had  but  now  attained  to  a  real  national  unity.  To 
resist  new  alien  intrusions  was  a  sound  and  natural 
instinct.  The  best  men  in  the  English  Church 
were  striving  their  hardest  to  raise  her  out  of  her 
insular  lethargy,  ignorance,  and  immorality.  To 
them  the  wave  of  absenteeism  and  pluralism 
seemed  to  be  likely  to  undo  all  their  efforts.  No 
wonder  that  the  abuse  of  Provisions  constituted 
the  crucial  point  of  discontent  against  the  Papacy. 
They  made  the  two  chief  grievances  presented 
by  the  Enghsh  envoys  at  Lyons,  and  the  chief 
part  of  Innocent  TV's  promises.  Inflexible  as  he 
was  about  taxing  the  clergy,  even  Innocent  IV 
found  it  well  to  temporize  about  Provisions.  In 
France  he  was  plainly  told  that  he  was  break- 
ing his  own  laws,  he  was  doing  more  than  all 
previous  Popes  added  together,  he  was  ruining 
the  French  Church  ;  and  aU  these  three  charges 
referred  to  the  abuse  of  Provisions.  What  an 
abuse  it  was,  in  fact,  the  Papal  Registers  show 
on  every  page.  Before  the  just  wrath  of  King 
Louis  the  Pope  gave  way,  and  1248-50  saw  many 
fewer  Provisions  in  France.  In  England,  the  re- 
duction was  from  the  spring  of  1247  to  the  end 
of  1248.  But  there  were  before  the  end  of  that 
time  at  least  several  conspicuous  cases. ^ 

1  A  case  not  in  the  Register  is  that  of  a  Papal  Chaplain  who 


i64  LECTURE  IV 

The  pie-  (2)  The  period  is  full  of  evidence  how  completely 
^pofe.^  accepted  was  the  theory  of  plenitudo  potestatis. 
stalls.  ji^Q  limits  attempted  to  be  set  to  it  by  the  canonists 
of  the  twelfth  and  even  of  the  early  thirteenth 
century  have  melted  away.  Even  the  most 
passionate  appeals  stop  midway  to  affirm  their 
loyalty  to  the  principle.  The  Holy  See  is  the 
pillar  set  up  by  God,  not  man.  There  needs  no 
more  than  the  mere  whisper  of  an  interdict,  and 
all  active  resistance  dies  down.  Rebellion  is  as 
the  sin  of  witchcraft.  That  the  Pope  is  above 
human  laws,  that  he  is  the  judge  of  the  whole 
earth,  that  his  power  is  unlimited,  that  he  can  act 
as  he  chooses,  these  admissions  come  in  the  very 
midst  of  King  Louis's  protests.  If,  then,  the  Pope 
yields,  it  is  not  to  mere  talk,  however  big,  but 
for  some  incidental  reasons  of  policy.  For  even  in 
Matthew  Paris's  documents  the  clergy  avow  their 
moral  indebtedness,  and  assert  their  unshakable 
allegiance  '  by  every  tie  of  love,  obedience,  and 
devotion  '.  It  was  well  reahzed  at  Lyons  that 
these  expressions  were  sincere,  that  they  out- 
weighed irritation  however  strongly  worded  and 
however  justly  felt,  and  that  they  could  be  safely 
exploited  still  further.  The  cases  of  John  of 
Burgundy,^  of  the  Papal  nephews  and  Papal 
hangers-on  aU  provided  for  in  1247-8,  the  cases 

is  '  provided  '  to  the  next  prebendal  stall  at  St.  Paul's,  and  to 
receive  meantime  an  annuity  of  equal  value  from  the  Bishop 
of  London.    P.  R.  O.  Papal  Bulls,  xx.  44.  ^  No.  4045. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  165 

of  the  abbeys  of  Abingdon  and  Bury,  are  quite 
logical.  These,  and  such  as  these,  are  the  answers 
made  to  English  supplications,  because  the  suppli- 
cants had,  at  the  very  outset,  given  away  their 
case. 

(3)   Many  things  combined  to  put  England  in  Contrast 

...  .  „  ^        .     ^^^  between 

a  position  far  worse  than  that  of  r ranee.  Louis  IX  st.  Louis 
was  a  strong  ruler,  a  heroic  warrior,  a  shrewd  man  ^y  hl" 
of  affairs  who  need  not  appeal  to  his  saintship. 
Henry,  '  the  king  of  simple  life,'  was  one  of  those 
who  bring  religiousness  into  discredit.  He  had 
a  difficult  part  to  play  as  a  vassal  of  Rome,  and 
he  made  it  more  difficult  by  so  often  needing  the 
aid  of  Rome  to  job  a  relative  into  some  prelacy, 
to  get  absolution  for  himself  from  some  oath 
imposed,^  or  to  get  a  finger  into  the  Church  pie. 
Then,  again,  the  Gallican  Church  had  held  more 
than  one  trial  of  strength  with  Rome,  on  great 
questions  of  theology,  of  canon  law  and  of  ecclesi- 
astical organization ;  whereas  England  only  boasted 
of  its  unbroken  tradition  of  obedience  ;  ^  she  was 
the  milch-cow  of  the  Papacy.  Innocent  had  to 
look  to  France  for  moral  support  against  Frederick, 
and  for  security  in  his  stay  at  Lyons  ;  he  could 
not  afford  to  have  against  him,  besides  the  Emperor, 
the  foremost  ruler  of  Christendom,  rex  Christianis- 
simus.    He  had  also  to  look  to  France  for  the  final 

1  Cf.    Papal   confirmation   of   Henry   Ill's    revocation    of 
grants,  Bliss  Register,  10  Kal.'Feb.  1249. 

2  Cf.  Ottobono's  letters  in  Eng.  Hist.  Review,  1890,  p.  luo. 


i66  LECTURE  IV 

repression  of  the  Albigenses,  and  for  the  future 
control  of  Provence,  perhaps  even  already  for  a 
future  King  of  Sicily. 

All  these  reasons  make  it  plain  enough  why,  in 
the  Registers,  not  France  but  England  figures  as 
the  happy  hunting-ground  of  pluralist  and  pro- 
visor,  nephew  and  chaplain.  Matthew  Paris  is 
much  incensed  by  Henry  Ill's  desertions  of  the 
cause,  by  his  bargaining  for  a  share  in  the  spoil, 
by  his  using  the  vow  of  Crusade  as  a  plea  to  be 
allowed  to  tax  the  clergy.  But  all  this  made 
little,  if  any,  difference.  A  king  of  Henry's  position 
and  necessities,  and,  above  all,  of  his  character  and 
convictions,  could  have  done  nothing  to  stay  the 
hand  of  the  Pope.  He  was  reminded  that  it  was  no 
use  his  kicking  against  the  pricks.  The  hopelessness 
of  the  situation  lay  not  in  the  pusillanimity  of 
a  regulus,  but  in  the  futility  of  setting  up  a 
tribunal  of  God  upon  earth  and  then  expecting 
that  it  could  live  without  a  revenue  and  administer 
the  whole  world  without  taxing  it. 
inno-  (4)  Innocent  IV  had,  in  fact,  made  it  impossible 

cent  IV 

an  epoch,  to  find  a  way  out  except  by  a  breach  in  the  theory 
itself  of  absolute  obedience.  It  was  inevitable  that 
all  this  exasperation  should  leave  a  permanent 
bitterness.  Men  saw  that  an  irreparable  blow  was 
being  dealt  to  the  old  feelings  of  affectionate 
loyalty.  King,  bishops,  and  barons  all  disclaim 
any  design  of  rebellion,  but  aU  agree  in  predicting 
it.    The  potent  word,  'Appeal  to  a  General  Council/ 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  167 

has  been  uttered.  The  change  in  attitude  and 
language  since  Innocent's  accession  is  unmistak- 
able. The  old  confidence,  the  old  reverence  can 
never  be  recaptured.  Even  in  France  a  deep  rift 
was  caused,  and  there  was  consciousness  that  the 
seeds  of  great  changes  were  being  sown,  aliquid 
grande  monstrum,  what  the  English  writer  puts 
bluntly  as  a  threatened  repudiation  of  Rome, 
a  manifestation  of  the  wrath  of  God  against  her. 

So  few  writers  on  England  do  us  what  we  feelcharac- 
to  be  adequate  justice  that  there  is  a  natural  bias  Matthew 
in  favour  of  one  who  starts  off  with  the  plain  and  ^^"^' 
simple  truth  that  English  character  and  demeanour, 
English  churches  and  cities  and  castles,  English 
rivers,  meadows,  forests,  and  fields,  are  each  and 
all  superior  to  those  of  any  other  country.^  Then 
Matthew  Paris  is  so  equipped  at  every  point  with 
healthy  English  prejudices  ;  against  the  Welsh  and 
Scots,  against  the  French  and  foreigners  in  general, 
against  Jews,  against  Jacks-in-ofiice,  against 
innovators  or  reformers  especially  in  religious 
methods,  against  either  injustice  or  incompetence 
in  rulers.  He  is  such  a  keen  partisan  for  his  own 
order,  such  a  sturdy  denouncer  of  iniquity  in  high 
places,  so  broad  and  human  in  his  interests,  yet 
not  too  learned  or  too  critical  in  the  pedantic 
sense,  and  quite  untroubled  by  philosophic  doubt, 
by  literary  fastidiousness,  by  religious  ecstasies  or 
terrors.     He  is  a  vigorous  writer,  but  no  stylist  ; 

1  Liebermann's  preface  in  Mon.  G.  Ss.  xxviii. 


i68  LECTURE  IV 

full  of  good  sense,  free  from  any  subtlety  ;  no 
wordy  moralizer,  and  what  is  still  better,  no  windy 
philosophizer.  He  had  none  of  the  in  differ  entism 
or  aloofness  of  the  cloister,  but  is  alive  with  all  the 
political  passions,  the  outspokenness,  the  blunt 
judgements  of  a  man  who  has  seen  the  world. 
Hypocrisy  or  over-religiousness  would  be  almost 
equally  repugnant  to  English  readers,  but  his 
monastic  robe  is  neither  a  cloak  for  ugly  things, 
nor  on  the  other  hand  does  it  hide  his  individuality 
or  make  him  hush  up  good  stories  against  the  great. 
He  appeals  to  us  as  a  hard  hitter  and  a  good  hater. 
He  has  all  the  English  respect  for  a  lord  along 
with  the  English  exaggeration  of  liberty  as  an  end 
in  itself.  Monk  as  he  is,  he  objects  to  undue 
spiritual  meddling  either  by  popes  or  by  bishops. 
He  has  little  patience  with  what  he  does  not 
appreciate,  and  is  not  above  burking  what  he  finds 
inconvenient,  or  defending  abuses  if  only  they  are 
old  and  vested.  The  respectable  appeals  to  him 
more  than  does  the  heroic,  and  seemly  living  more 
than  high  thinking.  In  fact  the  loftier  side  of 
mediaeval  thought  hardly  appears  at  all  in  him  ; 
its  idealism,  its  mysticism,  its  tenderness,  its 
grandiose  aims,  its  architectonic  concepts,  must  all 
be  sought  elsewhere.  In  his  merits  and  defects 
alike,  in  his  broad  humanity  and  his  marked 
limitations,  he  is  the  mirror  of  his  age  and  country. 
All  that  is  on  the  surface  he  reflects  so  that  it 
stands  out  before  us,  but  he  is  no  magician  to  make 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  169 

us  see  what  lies  beneath,  for  he  does  not  see  this 
himself.  His  books  bear  out  the  personal  present- 
ment he  has  left  us  of  himself,  a  big,  healthy,  fresh, 
vehement,  but  not  unkindly  man,  shrewd  without 
being  profound ;  sensible,  limited,  prejudiced ; 
full  of  life  and  its  dramatic  interests,  its  tragic  and 
its  comic  elements,  its  crimes  and  its  scandals,  its 
strifes,  and  its  prizes,  all  ending  in  the  dust. 

No  wonder  that  he  has  dominated  English  He  has 
history.  For  he  is  always  animated,  vivid,  life-like,  domi- 
Everything  comes  from  him  in  the  concrete,  En^lush 
under  a  picturesque  form.  Events  are  dramatized,  history. 
the  characters  express  themselves  in  appropriate 
speeches,  often  in  pithy  apophthegms.  A  great 
occasion  always  finds  him  ready  to  do  justice  to  it, 
to  give  it  full  stage  effect.  He  was  indefatigable 
in  using  original  documents,  in  repeating  the 
accounts  given  by  eyewitnesses.  Many  Papal 
bulls,  imperial  and  royal  letters  are  found  in  him 
and  nowhere  else.  Of  many  important  events, 
like  the  Council  of  Lyons,  his  is  the  only  contem- 
porary description.  Thus  the  modern  historian 
is  often  faced  by  the  demoralizing  alternative, 
whether  he  will  be  critical,  cautious,  and  dull ; 
or  will  accept  Matthew  Paris  and  make  a  good 
story.  Most  embrace  the  latter,  and  among  other 
consequences  we  have  the  greatest  ruler  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  Emperor  Frederick  II,  dressed  up 
to  be  a  figure  romantic  indeed  and  mysterious, 
even  appalling,  but  not  historical,  not  even  human  ; 

7S0  Z 


170  LECTURE  IV 

and  in  the  end  such  is  the  nemesis  on  those  who 
will  make  up  history  into  a  stage  play,  the  Frederick 
of  popular  fancy,  the  heretic,  infidel,  blasphemer, 
the  half- Mussulman  debauchee,  becomes  not  more 
but  less  interesting  than  the  man  as  he  actually 
was. 
Histesti-  Before  one  can  use  Matthew  Paris  for  the 
needs  Europcau  history  of  the  time,  his  evidence  has 
sifting.  ^^  i^g  ^gj.y  carefully  scrutinized,  for  it  ranges  in 
value  from  first-hand,  priceless  testimony  to  the 
most  extravagant  and  worthless  gossip.  I  cannot 
help  feeling  that  something  of  the  same  caution, 
though  in  a  less  degree,  applies  to  his  utility  for 
English  history.  We  must  allow  for  his  bias  in 
many  directions,  for  his  limitations  of  mind,  for  the 
incompleteness  and  varying  worth  of  his  sources, 
for  the  way  in  which  he  wrote  things  down  as 
they  came  to  hand,  for  his  perfectly  maddening 
confusedness  as  to  dates.  This  by  itself  needs  to 
be  set  straight  before  he  can  be  safely  used.  To 
take  only  one  instance,  he  actually  repeats  the 
same  events  at  distances  of  months  or  even  years. 
I  can  only  do  justice  to  his  chronology  by  applying 
a  remark  made  on  a  poor  musician,  *As  for  any 
notion  he  has  of  time,  he  might  have  been  born 
and  bred  in  eternity.'  I  do  not  forget  what  an 
advance  is  marked  by  Dr.  Luard's  edition  in  the 
Rolls  Series,  but  no  one  can  work  over  the  ground 
without  desiring  another  and  really  critical  edition 
by  some  thorough  scholar,  in  both  the  classical 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  171 

and  the  historical  senses  of  the  word  'scholar'. 
Perhaps  a  syndicate  of  scholars  would  be  needed. 

Matthew  Paris  is  first  and  foremost  a  monk  ; 
next  to  that,  he  is  an  Englishman  ;    therefore  he 
is  also  a  political  partisan.     Fourthly,  he  has  his 
omissions  and  defects.    In  robustness,  in  industry,  As  a  mo- 
in  eagerness,  in  strong  language,  he  is  a  Macaulay  chroni- 
minus  the  style.    He  is  also  a  Macaulay  in  preju-  ^^^^• 
dice,  in  wilful  blindness,  in  truculence,  in  lack  of 
spirituality.    He  is  the  last  of  the  great  monastic 
chroniclers,  as  he  is  the  greatest ;    the  last  great 
name,  too,  among  the  English  Benedictines. 

Thus  when  we  make  allowance  in  his  chronicle  A  Bene- 
for  the  idola  claustri,  we  must  remember  what  cloister 
was  the  atmosphere  of  a  Benedictine  cloister  of^^^^^^* 
the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Enormous 
corporate  wealth,  St.  Albans  being  the  wealthiest  of 
all ;  administered  by  a  body  of  no  great  number,  at 
Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  no  more  than  seventy  ; 
no  high  moral  or  spiritual  aims,  though  no  gross 
neglect  of  a  quantum  sufficit  of  moral  and  religious 
duties  ;  their  educational  work  being  done  by 
newer  agencies,  their  external  interests  concen- 
trated on  their  estates,  which  so  often  represented 
a  perversion  of  Church  endowment ;  their  internal 
interests  concentrated  upon  a  truceless  warfare 
against  any  control  or  supervision  from  without ; 
it  sounds  like  the  description  of  an  Oxford  College 
in  1850,  but  is  an  average  Benedictine  abbey  of 
1250.    Once  he  utters  a  sentimental  regret  for  the 


172  LECTURE  IV 

zeal  and  austerity  of  a  bygone  day ;  once  he 
welcomes  a  scheme  of  '  reform  '  as  a  hostia  de  caelo 
demissa,  but  the  reforms  were  simply  the  rule  of 
Benedict  as  modified  in  other  abbeys  of  the  order 
and  by  a  few  decretals  directed  to  the  subject ;  ^ 
but  when  it  came  to  actual  reform  he  was  up  in 
arms  at  once,  as  against  Bishop  Grosseteste,  who 
found  it  necessary  to  depose  ^  in  one  year  the  heads 
of  eleven  monastic  houses.  He  avenges  them  by 
telling  an  incredible  story  about  the  bishop's 
cruelty,'  and  he  boasts  that  St.  Albans  and 
St.  Edmunds  gave  refuge  to  those  so  deposed. 
But  we  find  that  Grosseteste  was  not  the  only 
bishop  who  was  malleus  religiosorum.  On  two 
other  occasions  he  shows  how  far  prejudice  can 
carry  him,  when  he  says  of  Grosseteste,  whom  he 
has  to  hail  as  a  saint  notwithstanding,  that  his 
insistence  on  monks  giving  their  vicars  a  living 
wage  was  *  more  to  spite  the  monks  than  to 
benefit  the  vicars  ',*  and  when  he  defends  the 
preposterous  insolence  of  Christ  Church  monks  in 
excommunicating  Grosseteste  during  the  vacancy 
of  the  archiepiscopal  see.^  But  unfortunately  for 
his  own  case,  he  gives  us  his  own  idea  of  what 
a  visitation  ought  to  be.^  First,  two  friendly 
priors   send   notice   they   are   coming   as    Papal 

1  M.  Paris,  vi.  175-85. 

2  Ann.  Monastici,  Dunstable,  iii.  143. 

^  M.  Paris,  V.  227.  *  Ibid.  300. 

5  Ibid.  iv.  248.  «  Ibid.  v.  258. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  173 

delegates,  for  St.  Albans  is  one  of  the  four  or 
five  exempt  abbeys  which  only  the  Pope  can  visit. 
This  gave  them  ten  days'  notice,  which  on  their 
petition  is  extended  to  thirty  days.  This  interval 
the  abbot  used  to  patch  up  a  truce  between  himself 
and  his  monks  on  all  disputed  points.  When  the 
visitors  arrived,  it  is  not  surprising  to  hear  that 
they  found  the  abbey  swept  and  garnished,  and 
nothing  needing  amendment.  A  body  thus  privi- 
leged were  raised  above  the  storms  and  struggles 
in  which  the  Church  outside  was  involved  ;  even 
the  struggle  to  escape  military  service  did  not 
concern  the  abbot,  who  had  reduced  his  quota  to 
six  knights'  fees. 

Thus,  to  the  general  Church  aims  of  his  time.  His  atti- 
Matthew  Paris,  when  not  actually  hostile,  as  he  the 
is  to  the  movement  for  strengthening  the  hands    ^^^^^' 
of  bishops,  is  at  least  comparatively  indifferent. 
The  great  movement  which  brought  religion,  and 
religion  in  its  purest  form  of  a  radiant  transfiguring 
inward  light,  to  the  serf,  the  outcast,  the  leper; 
the  movement  which,  to  use  the  striking  phrase  of 
Machiavelli,  saved  Christianity  by  restoring  it  to 
its  first  principles — this  awakens  no  sympathy  in 
him,  but  only  a  complaint  that  the  world  is  seething 
with  such  new-fangled  orders  which  have  gone 
further  downhill  in  thirty  years  ^  than  monks  in  four 
hundred  years ;   they  now  erect  buildings  of  royal 
splendour,  and  become  Papal  tax-gatherers,  death- 

^  M.  Paris,  iv.  511. 


174  LECTURE  IV 

bed  extortioners,  casuistical  confessors,  fishers  not 
of  men  but  money.  What  he  resents  most  is  the 
popular  belief  that  salvation  is  hardly  possible 
outside  the  Friar's  frock,  and  the  '  shameless  and 
desperate '  conduct  of  Benedictine  monks  who 
migrate  to  them.^  It  is  not  without  some  satisfac- 
tion that  he  tells  of  the  scandal  created  by  the 
contest  between  the  two  orders,^  as  to  which  was 
the  more  ascetic,  whether  Franciscan  bare  feet 
counted  for  more  than  Dominican  vegetarianism; 
or  of  their  loss  of  popularity  in  London  for  succour- 
ing some  Jews,^  and  in  Paris  for  innovations  in 
the  University.* 
As  cen-  II.  When  we  come,  then,  to  Matthew  Paris  to 
^^e°  study  the  relations  of  England  to  the  Papacy,  we 
Papacy,  niust  not  cxpect  to  find  in  him  any  full  or  generous 
recognition  of  its  activity.  To  Grosseteste  it  is 
the  sun  of  our  earthly  sphere,  the  source  of  light 
and  life.  But  Matthew  Paris  seems  to  think  that 
the  ecclesiastical  should  be  assimilated  to  the 
physical  climate  of  England,  and  should  learn  to 
do  without  the  sun  while  admitting  his  indispens- 
ableness  to  feeble  southern  races.  His  view  is, 
perhaps,  partly  a  survival  of  older  anti-Papal 
traditions,  such  as  the  bold  protest  of  Alexander 
the  Mason  (1212),^  who  came  to  such  a  bad  end, 
against  Papal  interposition  in  the  secular  affairs  of 
kingdoms  ;    or  even  the  striking  iirgument  put 

1  M.  Paris,  iv.  280.  ^  jbid.  279.  ^  Ibid.  v.  546. 

^  Ibid.  529.  ^  Wendover,  iii.  330. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  175 

forth  by  Bishop  Gerard  of  York  ^  at  the  dawn  of 
the  twelfth  century,  denying  the  primacy  of  Rome. 
But  more  probably  it  is  to  be  explained  as  made 
up  of  three  elements.  The  historic  element  is 
wrath  at  John's  vassalage  to  Rome  ;  this  comes 
out  in  his  declaration  that  the  *  detestable  parch- 
ment '  ^  was  burnt  at  Lyons  in  May  1245,  which 
it  was  not.  The  second  element  is  the  dogged 
resistance  to  all  Papal  demands  of  money,  which 
even  leads  him  to  the  childish  suggestion  that  the 
Pope  might  'live  of  his  own',  i.e.  maintain  a 
world-organization  out  of  scanty  and,  what  was 
worse,  unpaid  rentals  of  one  nominally  subject 
province  in  Italy.  The  third  element  which  goes 
to  form  his  view  is  simple  illogicality.  He  cannot 
deny  the  plenitudo  potestatis,  yet  will  not  have  it 
exercised.  He  cannot  deny  that  the  Pope  has 
power  over  the  Church,  but  tries  to  ride  off  on 
a  futile  distinction  between  dominium  and  cura.^ 
He  admits  the  Pope  is  God's  Vicar,  yet  compares 
the  merit  of  opposing  him  pro  lihertate  ecclesiae  * 
to  the  merit  of  the  martyr  of  Canterbury.  He  is 
driven  at  last  to  regard  even  a  Crusade  as  inade- 
quate justification  for  taxing  the  clergy,  and  to 
point  to  the  fate  of  St.  Louis  as  the  penalty  for 
such  sacrileges.^ 

In  the  great  duel  between  Papacy  and  Empire 

^  Mon.  Germaniae,  iii.  642  {De  lite  sacerdotii  et  imperii). 
2  M.  Paris,  iv.  417.  ^  Ibid.  39. 

4  Ibid.  V.  525,  540,  653.  ^  Ibid.  171. 


176  LECTURE  IV 

His  atti-  he  is  for  a  long  time  on  the  side  of  the  Emperor, 
the  Em-  whom  he  defends  in  a  series  of  scathing  comments 
^^^°^'      on  the  Papal  manifesto  of  1239  »   ^^^  ^^  s^-Y^  the 
manifesto   failed  because   the   whole   world  was 
estranged  from  the  Papacy  by  its  avarice.^     He 
scorns  Henry  H  for  publishing  the  excommunica- 
tion against  his  own  brother-in-law.    With  Inno- 
cent IV,  however,  he  says  all  shame  was  laid  aside. 
Provisions  which  had  hitherto  spared  lay  patrons 
now  became  daily.     So  the  chronicler  comes  to 
look  to  Frederick  to  free  England  from  this  Papal 
tribute,  and  he  makes  St.  Louis  complain  that  in 
refusing  Frederick's  advances  in  1246,  the  Pope 
had  not  acted  as  one  who  called  himself  servus 
servorum  Dei  ;  ^   and  St.  Louis's  brothers  threaten 
(1250)  that  France  wiU  revolt  if  the  Pope  will  not 
make  peace  with  the  Emperor.^    So  far  does  his 
partisanship  go  that  he  suggests  that  two  Tartar 
envoys  to  the  Pope  in  1248  were  being  persuaded 
by  secret  interviews,  presents  of  scarlet  robes  and 
furs,  and  so  on,  to  make  a  diversion  by  attacking 
Frederick's  ally,  the  Greek  Emperor."*   Think  what 
such  a  charge  meant  in  1248.     Two  and  a  half 
centuries  later,  even  a  Borgia  Pope  found  it  more 
seemly    to    perjure    himself    than    to    admit    an 
alliance  with  the   Ottoman. 

What,  then,  explains  Matthew  Paris's  abandon- 
ment of  the  Emperor  after  the  Council  of  Lyons  ? 

1  M.  Paris,  iv.  9,  100,  loi,  547,  561.  ~  Ibid.  524. 

3  Ibid.  V.  175.  ■*  Ibid.  38. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  177 

Partly,  the  excommunication  ;  the  dread  words 
may  have  been  unjust,  sed  magna  est  vis  eorum, 
and,  once  they  were  spoken,  the  Emperor  was  in 
fact  and  law  outcast  from  the  Church.  Partly, 
and  perhaps  mainly,  the  Emperor's  rash  letter  to 
lay  princes  touched  the  monk  of  St.  Albans  in  his 
tenderest  part,  the  pocket  ;  for  Frederick  had 
*  hardened  his  heart  and  brought  out  his  long- 
conceived  venom,  the  old  story,  to  reduce  the 
clergy  of  all  orders  to  their  position  in  the  primitive 
Church,  to  apostoHc  poverty  '.^ 

He  ventures  to  say  that  the  Pope  may  be  no 
true  Pope  but  a  heretic  ;  though  it  is  safer  to  put 
such  a  word  first  into  the  mouth  of  a  madman, 
who  announces  the  Devil  is  loose  ;  ^  thirteen  years 
later  the  Chronicler,  getting  bolder  against  Inno- 
cent IV,  will  put  it  into  the  mouth  of  a  dying 
Bishop.^  But  at  this  time,  1245,  it  is  the  Emperor 
whom  he  charges  with  heresy  for  this  attack  on 
the  Church.  But  even  while  brandishing  the 
charge  of  heresy  against  the  Emperor,  he  can  spare 
a  back-hander  for  the  Papacy.  '  If  she  succeeds 
now,  the  Church  of  Rome  will  assume  to  depose 
any  prince  or  prelate,  and  low-bom  Romans  will 
say,  "We  trampled  down  the  mighty  Frederick, 
who  art  thou  to  dream  of  resistance  ?  "  '  * 

Instead  of  being  representative  of  his  age  on  His  in- 
this  question  of  submission  to  the  Papacy,  Matthew  tency." 

1  M.  Paris,  iv.  474-8.  2  ii,[^  ^3. 

3  Ibid.  V.  402.  *  Ibid.  iv.  478. 

780  A  a 


178  LECTURE  IV 

Paris  represents  an  extreme  position.  He  is  like 
that  millionaire  who  said,  '  Merely  to  be  asked  for 
money  makes  me  feel  positively  ill.'  The  one 
constant  quantity  in  all  his  charges  against  the 
Papacy  is  extortion  of  money  or  money's  worth. 
Historians  have  been  somewhat  too  ready  to 
assume  that  his  attitude  was  the  typical  and 
normal  one,  whereas,  when  viewed  in  its  proper 
environment  and  background,  we  can  see  it  was 
(i)  extreme,  perhaps  unique  in  its  vehemence; 
(2)  perfectly  natural  in  a  man  of  his  views,  (3) 
perfectly  illogical.  For  even  he  admits  that  one 
or  two  precedents  ('  ne  ad  consuetudinem  trahe- 
retur')  admitted  will  rivet  the  Pope's  claim  for 
ever  ;  that  is,  one  or  two  practical  instances  will 
deprive  the  Enghshman  of  his  favourite  blundering 
refuge,  the  power  of  saying,  *  The  theory  holds 
good  of  course,  but  in  practice  .  .  .  ? '  That  is, 
Matthew  Paris  really  admits  the  theory,  but  hopes 
to  raise  objections  to  each  proposed  application 
of  it. 

Let  us  realize  that  when  first  he  shows  his  fury 
at  any  Papal  exactions,  Matthew  Paris  stands 
almost  alone  as  an  extreme  reactionary.  Next  let 
us  reahze  that  in  fifteen  years,  1239-54,  or  even 
in  nine  years,  1245-54,  the  national  sentiment  had 
caught  up  to  him  and  reached  the  advanced 
position.  We  shall  be  able  then,  and  only  then,  to 
measure  and  to  appreciate  the  havoc  wrought  by 
Innocent  IV. 


PROTESTS  AGAINST  ABUSES  170 

But  we  must  not  part  from  Matthew  Paris 
ungratefully.  He  is  the  greatest  historical  writer 
of  the  greatest  mediaeval  century.  He  is  wonder- 
fully good  reading,  if  rather  mixed  good  reading.  In 
the  forlorn  land  of  arid  annalists  and  platitudinous 
sermonizers  he  is  a  real  man  of  flesh  and  blood. 
We  owe  it  to  him  that  the  thirteenth  century  is 
alive  to  us  ;  we  owe  to  him  many  of  the  best 
stories  in  our  history  and  some  of  our  deepest  and 
dearest  prejudices.    Let  us  not  be  ungrateful. 


LECTURE  V 

AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY,  1250-4.    THE  DUEL 
OF  PAPACY  AND  EMPIRE 

'  The  age  Fra  Salimbene  OF  Parma,  when  challenged  by 
Hoiy^  his  brother  friar  with  being  a  behever  in  the 
Spected  prophecies  of  the  Abbot  Joachim,  admitted  that 
about  he  i^ad  believed,  '  but  after  the  great  Emperor 
died  and  then  the  year  1260  went  by,  I  dropped 
all  that  doctrine,  and  mean  to  believe  only  what 
I  actually  see.'  According  to  Joachim  the  Old  Testa- 
ment represented  the  age  of  God  the  Father,  and 
His  ministers  were  the  patriarchs  and  prophets ; 
the  second  age  was  that  of  God  the  Son,  working 
by  the  Apostles  and  their  successors ;  the  third  age 
was  to  be  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  His  ministers 
should  be  the  monastic  orders.  This  third  age  was 
to  begin  1260,  and  was  to  witness  the  opening  of 
the  seventh  seal  of  Revelations  and  the  letting 
loose  of  Antichrist. 

The  thirteenth  century  was  full  of  prophecies 
of  this  kind;  a  large  part  of  the  reUgious  world 
implicitly  followed  Joachim  ;  Merlin  still  circu- 
lated ;  there  were  no  less  than  ten  Sibyls  in  vogue ; 
there  were  Eastern  seers  like  'the  son  of  Agap  who 
knew  the  courses  of  the  stars ' ;  even  a  cardinal 
in  1256  prophesied  the  speedy  coming  of  a  new 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  i8i 

Emperor  from  out  of  the  mountains  and  caves,  who 
should  fill  the  whole  earth  with  his  roaring,  but 
then  would  rule  like  a  lamb. 
All  this  by  a  modern  would  be  expressed,  perhaps  A  turn- 

•^  .        .  ing-point 

not  really  better  expressed,  as  a  'Zeitgeist',  a  in  Papal 
consciousness  that  a  decisive  epoch  in  world-history  " 
was  at  hand.  Between  1240  and  1260  the  Papacy 
had  passed  the  turning  of  the  ways.  Nowhere  is 
this  better  illustrated  than  in  its  dealings  with 
England.  In  tracing  these  I  have  already  reached 
the  year  1250,  and  the  King's  vow  of  Crusade. 

The    Middle    Ages   were   pretty   well   used   to  Mediae- 
the  practice  of  money  commutations.     Feudalism  cipie  of 
assessed  its  duties  ;    the  law,  its  Hst  of  crimes  ;  tatiSl^ 
religion,  her  grades  of  sin, — all  had  their  price. 
You  could  buy  off  everything,  from  the  baihff's 
order  to  go  nutting  for  your  lord,  or  the  disabihty 
to  advance   a  villein's   son  to   orders,  up  to  the 
offended  majesty  of  the  King,  or  the  very  wrath 
of  God  Himself. 

But  even  mediaeval  matter-of-factness  was 
startled  by  the  extension  now  given  to  the  principle 
in  regard  to  Crusading  vows.  It  was  not  merely  that 
the  term  '  Crusade '  was  extended  from  heretics  to 
schismatics,  from  schismatics  to  poUtical  enemies. 
It  had  been  a  Crusade  to  burn  Albi  and  Carcas- 
sonne ;  it  was  now  declared  a  Crusade  to  attack 
Greek  Christians,  even  to  take  arms  against  the 
Advocatus  ecclesiae.  With  this  extension  the  idea 
lost  much  of  its  original  potency.     Worse  still. 


i82  LECTURE  V 

when  it  suffered  commutation  of  form  as  well  as 
diversion  of  aim,  '  the  Friars  Preachers  and  the 
Friars  Minor  sent  round  their  tax-collectors  to 
extract  by  any  argument  from  Crusaders  their 
journey-money.'  ^  They  accepted  vows  from  even 
the  aged  and  the  sick,  and  next  day  or  on  the 
spot  released  the  vows  for  money  down,  and  this 
money  then  all  went  straight  into  the  coffers  of 
Earl  Richard  of  Cornwall  in  satisfaction  of  sums 
promised  to  him  to  help  his  Crusade,  which  was 
over  and  done  with  eight  years  before.^ 
applied  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  when  Henry  III 
iii'svowtook  the  Cross,  March  6,  1250,  many  said  it  was 
sad?""  ^^^y  ^^  extort  money  by  the  aid  of  the  Papacy  ; 
and  the  Abbot  of  St.  Edmunds  taking  it  too  was 
only  in  derisum  omnium}  At  Henry's  request 
those  Crusaders  who  were  ready  to  start  were 
ordered  to  wait  for  him.  One-tenth  of  Church 
revenues  for  three  years  was  to  be  collected  and 
paid  the  King  when  ready  to  start.  But  this  he 
did  not  even  expect  to  do  till  the  summer  of  1256. 
Meantime,  however,  he  got  the  ransoms  from  those 
who  wished  to  commute  their  vows  for  money, 
and  these  came  to  a  large  sum.  But  his  personal 
example  could  not  prevail  upon  more  than  three 
of  his  courtiers  to  take  the  Cross.  And  the  solemn 
and  urgent  preaching  of  two  bishops  and  the 
Abbot  of  Westminster  left  the  Londoners  unmoved. 

^  M.  Paris,  iv.  9  ;  vi.  134.  2  ibj^.  v.  73. 

3  Ibid.  loi. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  183 

When  he  called  the  citizens  '  ignoble  money- 
grubbers  '  they  muttered  that  his  Crusade  was 
only  a  plea  for  extortion.  That  the  noblest  motive 
force  in  mediaeval  life  had  sunk  to  an  object  of 
suspicion  and  contempt  was  the  natural  result  of 
the  abuse  of  it  in  Papal  hands  for  half  a  century 
past.  Hanc  pertinaciam  Roma  parturivit  is  not 
an  unjust  verdict,  even  if  we  must  reject  the  bitter 
French  reproach,  that  St.  Louis's  disaster  was  the 
fault  of  the  Pope,  who  'had  for  corrupt  motives 
prevented  Crusaders  going  out  to  Egypt,  and  sold 
them  to  Earl  Richard  and  other  nobles  as  the 
Jews  sold  doves  in  the  temple  ' } 

The  vow  of  Crusade  was  not  the  only  sign  ofHiscioser 

rl  111  rl  TICP 

Henry's  growing  pliability  to  Romish  influences  with 
in  these  years.  As  his  debts  multipHed  and  his  JJ°JJJ^ 
difficulties  increased,  he  looked  more  and  more  to  1250. 
the  power  that  could  open  to  him  the  purse  of 
the  clergy,  allow  him  to  repudiate  his  debts  and 
revoke  his  grants,  and  assist  him  to  fat  preferments 
for  his  foreign  relatives  and  their  hangers-on.  His 
relation  to  the  Papacy  came  to  be  that  caustically 
described  by  Matthew  Paris  :  '  like  a  child  that 
runs  to  its  mother  to  complain  whenever  hurt  or 
offended.'  The  Pope,  on  the  other  hand,  had  more 
and  more  need  of  the  friendship  of  the  English 
court.  In  1250  he  was  chafing  under  the  '  Savoyard 
fetters  '.^  Worse  still,  the  Savoyard  counts  were 
beginning  to  think  they  had  got  all  they  could 
1  Ibid.  188.  2  ibi(i_  226. 


i84  LECTURE  V 

squeeze  out  of  the  Holy  Father,  and  to  Usten  to 
the  golden  offers  of  the  Emperor.  The  Imperial 
arms  were  gaining  fast  through  1250,  and  France 
was  urging  him  to  peace.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
Pope  must  look  out  for  another  city  of  refuge.  He 
backed  up  Henry  III  in  a  dispute  with  Grosseteste, 
who  had  excommunicated  the  Sheriff  of  Rutland ;  ^ 
and  it  was  not  common  for  the  Head  of  the  Church 
to  give  away  a  single  point  in  this  matter  to  the 
lay  power.  He  held  a  long  and  secret  confer- 
ence at  Lyons  with  Earl  Richard  of  Cornwall,  on 
April  3,  1250.  '  Thus  the  very  day  that  the  Sultan 
took  King  Louis  prisoner,  the  Pope  was  baiting 
the  hook  to  catch  Earl  Richard.'  ^  The  rumour 
had  it,  that  the  object  of  the  conference  was  to 
induce  the  earl  to  undertake  the  decaying  Latin 
Empire  of  Constantinople.  But  another  version 
ascribed  the  Pope's  action  to  an  eager  desire  to 
be  allowed  to  take  refuge  in  Bordeaux  or  even 
in  England  itself,  for  men  said  from  Bordeaux  was 
not  a  long  voyage  to  England,  and  England  would 
only  be  the  worse  for  the  presence  of  the  Papal 
Curia — would  be  'defiled'  was  the  ugly  word  used;^ 
the  Papal  agents  and  usurers  were  quite  bad 
enough.  This  was  in  December  1250,  and  it  was 
in  December  1250  that  the  great  Emperor  died 
suddenly,  and  the  face  of  the  world  was  changed. 
The  motive  that,  in  what  Henry  was  pleased  to 

1  M.  Paris,  v.  109-10.  ^  jbid.  159. 

^  Ibid.  189  '  coinquinari  .  .  .  maculari  '. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  185 

call  his  mind,  had  balanced  the  fear  of  France 
and  of  Frederick,  was  the  desire  to  get  confirmed 
the    appointment    of    ^Ethelmar    or    Aymer    de  Aymer. 
Lusignan  to  the  bishopric  of  Winchester.*     He  of  \vin. 
was  no  more  than  a  boy,  not  yet  fifteen  years  ^^^^ter. 
old  ;    he  was  not  in  real  orders,  he  was  grossly 
illiterate  ;  but  he  was  Henry's  half-brother  of  that 
favoured  family  of  whom  William  was  Earl  of 
Pembroke;  Guy  was  crusading  at  Henry's  expense, 
and  had  already  500  marks  a  year  from  him  and 
many  other   gifts  ;    Geoffrey   held   the   wardship 
of  the  barony  of  Hastings ;   the  sister  AUce  was 
married   by  the  King   to   the   youthful   Earl   of 
Warrenne.    Guy   had   some   good   qualities,   but 
the  other  brothers  were  greedy,  roistering  swash- 
bucklers ;    Geoffrey  was  charged  before  the  Pope 
with  boihng   a  servant  alive,  and  preferred  not 
to  meet  the  charge.^     Aymer  already  held  more 
revenues  than  most  bishops ;   the  King  had  vainly 
tried  to  foist  him  on  to  the  monks  of  Abingdon 
and  the  canons  of  Durham.    Now  he  posted  down 
to  Winchester  and  harangued  the  monks  from  the 
cathedral  pulpit.     The  monks  were  perhaps  not 
more  converted  by  the  sermon  than  people  usually 
are  by  sermons,  but  they  had  no  choice  save  to 
yield,  for  they  knew  the  Pope  would  annul  any 
other  election.     '  Holy  Father,  why  defilest  thou 
Christendom  by  such  deeds  ?    Justly  art  thou  an 
outcast  and  a  wanderer,  .  .  .    God  of  vengeance, 
1  Ibid.  V.  183,  189.  2  Ibid.  vi.  406. 

-so  B  b 


nomi- 
nees. 


i86  LECTURE  V 

when  mlt  thou  sharpen  thy  sword  that  it  may 
drink  the  blood  of  such  evil-doers  ? '  ^ 

By  1253  the  alliance  in  this  matter  of  Church 
elections  between  Pope  and  King  had  gone  so  far 
that  free  elections  had  become  a  farcical  term,  and 
the  whole  bench  of  bishops  presented  to  the  King 
Henry's  a  protest.     But  they  made  the  tactical  error  of 
hi?  own  presenting  it  by  four  of  the  very  men  whom  the 
King  had  thus  intruded,  and  Henry  III,  who  said 
almost  as  many  witty  things  as  he  did  fooHsh 
things,  took  the  opening.     *  I  repent  of  the  past 
and  call  on  you  four  to  help  me  make  amends  by 
handing  in  your  resignations.     For  it  was  I  who 
raised  to  the  see  of  Canterbury  you,  Boniface  ' 
(here  a  line  has  been  discreetly  erased  in  the  MS.), 
*  It  was  I  who  raised  from  low  estate  you,  William 
of  York,  my  drawer  of  writs  and  paid  judge,  to  be 
bishop  of  Sahsbury ;    and  you,  Silvester,  the  lick- 
plate  of  my  chancery,  to  be  bishop  of  Carlisle. 
It  was  I  who  forced  upon  the  monks  of  Winchester 
you,  my  brother  Ajmier,  when  in  point  of  years 
and  knowledge  you  should  still  have  been  under 
the  usher's  rod.'  -    The  usher  would  have  wanted 
all  his  appliances  to  make  a  decent  pastor  out  of 
Aymer,  who,  five  years  later,  was  singled  out,  in 
May  1260,  by  the  united  baronage  of  England  as 
the  stone  of  offence  to  the  whole  kingdom,  the 
enemy  of  righteousness  and  peace,  the  weaver  of 
lies,  the  lover  of  darkness,  the  hunter  of  filthy 
1  M.  Paris,  v.  185.  2  ji^j^j   ^74. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  187 

lucre  ;  whose  officers  beat  to  death  a  clerk  who 
had  encroached  on  Aymer's  rights  of  presentation ; 
who  was  himself  popularly  believed  to  have 
poisoned  the  Earl  of  Gloucester  and  other  English 
nobles  ;  who  was  never  even  at  school ;  who  was 
only  in  acolyte's  orders ;  who  was  not  consecrated 
bishop  till  the  last  months  of  his  hfe ;  who,  even 
apart  from  his  see,  had  revenues  greater  than  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury.^  The  appointment  was 
regarded  as  a  great  concession  wrung  from  Rome  ; 
hence  in  a  fit  of  anger,  eighteen  months  later, 
Henry  replied  to  his  half-brother's  episcopal  fare- 
well, commending  him  to  the  Lord  God,  by  saying, 
'  I  commend  you  to  the  living  devil.  It  was  I  who 
promoted  you  against  the  will  of  God  and  His 
Saints,  and  the  will  of  the  rightful  electors.'  ^  But 
Rome,  in  Matthew  Paris's  phrase,  was  not  used  to 
plough  the  sands  ;  the  price  she  exacted  was  a 
provision  of  500  marks  a  year  for  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy's  son,  Robert,  a  child.^ 
The  final  stage  in  the  ill-starred  alliance  of  the  The  offer 

T-      T  ,  -.     1        -r^  of  the 

English  and  the  Roman  courts  was  the  offer  of  Sicilian 
the  crown  of  Sicily,  first  to  Henry's  brother,  then  ^^°^^ " 
to  his  second  son.  Earl  Richard  had  twice  already 
been  solicited  to  accept  this  damnosa  hereditas.  In 
1247,  says  Matthew  Paris,  on  the  death  of  Henry 
of  Thuringia,  the  Imperial  crown  was  offered  to 
the  Count  of  Geldern,  the  Duke  of  Brabant,  and 

*  Ibid.  vi.  401,  &c.  2  Ibid,  V.  332-3. 

*  Ibid.  324. 


i88  LECTURE  V 

then  to  Earl  Richard  'quia  vafer  et  abimdans 
nummis  et  quia  f rater  regis  Angliae  *.  This  state- 
ment receives  much  indirect  confirmation  from 
the  Papal  registers  about  this  date.^ 

Again  in  1250,  as  Richard  came  back  from  the 
East,  he  was  received  at  Lyons  with  extraordinary 
honours  by  the  Pope,  and  had  long  secret  con- 
ferences with  him.  One  rumour  said  that  he  was 
offered  the  Eastern  Empire  ;  ^  another  that  he 
was  sounded  as  to  the  Pope's  coming  to  England. 
But  the  later  offer  of  1252  is  described  by  the 
Papal  biographer  as  a  resumption  of  that  made 
already — that  is,  in  1250.  Now  in  August  1252 
a  Papal  letter  to  Henry  III  begged  him  to  put 
pressure  on  his  brother,  to  whom  also  Papal  bulls 
were  sent  direct,  followed  in  November  by  the 
Papal  notary,  Albert  of  Parma. ^  Then,  as  now,  an 
English  lord  fulfilled  the  conditions  in  Italian  eyes, 
refused  of  being  at  once  rich  and  stupid.  But  Richard 
Richard,  "^as  quite  clever  enough  to  see  why  he  was  to 
be  made  a  cat's-paw.  He  pleaded  ill  health,  inex- 
perience in  war,  and  unwillingness  to  supplant  a 
nephew,  Henry,  Frederick's  son  by  Isabella.  When 
further  pressed,  he  demanded  guarantees  in  money 
and  fortresses  and  hostages.  Finally  he  told  the 
nuncio  it  was  a  case  of  '  I  give  you  the  moon,  go 

1  M.  Paris,  iv.  561  '  occultas  causas  '  ;    cf.  v.  iii,  118  : 
Regesta,  4617,  7752,  7902-3,  7905-6,  791 1. 

2  Ibid.  V.  Ill,  118,  347. 

3  Rjmier,  i.  284,  288 ;  Berger  Register,  ii.  cclxxix ;  Muratori, 
Antiquitates,  vi..  col.  104. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  i8q 

up  and  take  it  '.^  From  Richard  of  Cornwall  the 
Pope  turned  again  to  Charles  of  Anjou,  "but  Charles 
refused,  June  1253.^  So  the  Pope  turned  back  once 
more  to  England.  His  nuncio  had  seen  that  the 
King  was  not  proof  against  the  lure.  To  Henry,  an 
impenitent  prodigal  and  an  irreclaimable  bankrupt, 
all  gold  was  glittering,  even  the  fairy  gold  of  the 
Sicilian  crown.  He  jumped  at  the  offer  of  it  for  accepted 
his  second  son  Edmund,  February  1254.^  Conrad's  H^nryiii 
death  (May  1254)  made  no  difference,  for  Innocent  Edmund. 
needed  Edmund  as  a  second  string  to  his  bow  even 
while  he  was  thinking  of  taking  up  Conradin.*  The 
Pope  urged  Henry  to  take  action ;  he  transmuted 
his  crusading  vow  into  one  for  vSicily,  he  extended 
his  leave  to  tax  the  clergy  from  three  years  to 
five,  he  pledged  himself  to  pay  the  King  £100,000 
as  soon  as  Henry  started,  a  Greek  calends  date. 
Meantime,  however,  the  pecuniary  tide  was  to  set 
the  other  way.  Henry  was  made  to  stand  surety 
for  the  immediate  debts  of  the  Holy  See,  and  next 
year  to  undertake  the  reimbursement  of  all  ex- 
penses hitherto  incurred,  which  were  reckoned  at 
134,541  marks. ^ 
This  was  the  sum  charged  by  the  next  Pope,  Results 

for  Eng- 

Alexander  IV,  to  confirm  the  arrangement,  and  he  land. 
also  made  the  King  renounce  the  claim  to  the 
£100,000.     Henry  was  thus  fast  limed ;    and  the 

1  M.  Paris,  v.  457,  680. 

2  Register,  Nos.  681 1,  6819.  ^  M.  Paris,  v.  361,  458. 
*  Rjnner,  i.  202-3  )   Berger  Register,  ii.  cclxxxv. 

^  Rymer,  i.  337. 


190  LECTURE  V 

four  years  1255-8  inclusive  are  taken  up  with  his 
struggles  ^  to  scrape  up  all  and  any  sums  of  ready 
money  to  send  to  Rome,  his  borrowings,  mort- 
gagings,  plunderings,  his  desperate  shifts  and  straits 
as  a  sort  of  royal  Micawber  before  the  remorseless 
and  insatiable  dunning  of  a  creditor,  who  began  by 
telling  him  that  he  must  cut  down  for  this  greater 
object  all  his  expenditure  on  works  of  piety  ;  who 
sent  him  blank  forms  ready  sealed  for  issue  to  the 
abbeys,  charging  them  with  sums  of  400  and  600 
marks,  and  taking  all  the  wool  crop  of  the  Cister- 
cians ;  who  mortgaged  the  King's  credit  right  and 
left  to  Italian  moneylenders,  and  dispatched  them 
to  England  with  assurance  of  instant  payment; 
who  threatened  his  helpless  debtor  with  excom- 
munication when  the  nation  turned  mutinous ;  who 
made  him  buy  dearly  each  adjournment ;  who  made 
him  levy  taxes  on  the  clergy  and  impounded 
the  proceeds  midway  ;  who  had  three  successive 
agents  in  England  to  see  that  the  screw  was  kept 
on  ;  and  who  finally,  when  the  country  had  been 
driven  to  revolution,  revoked  the  original  grant 
and  declared  all  the  instalments  forfeit.^  Every 
motive  was  exploited  that  could  be  found  in 
a  character  like  Henry's  :  personal  ostentation, 
family  pride  and  affection,  religious  scrupulosity; 
he  was  plied  with  flattery,  bribes,  reproaches, 
menaces,  and  ecclesiastical  censures,  all  in  turn. 
In  1254  soldiers  were  engaged  on  letters  of  credit 
^  Rymer  i.  316,  &c.  2  jbid.  428. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  191 

drawn  in  his  name.    In  1255  ;f 4,000  was  accepted 
on  account,  and  he  was  told  he  must  send  money 
and  troops  immediately.    In  January  1256  he  was 
asked  if  he  was  going  to  let  the  mortgagees  foreclose 
on  the  very  churches  of  Rome  ;    in  May  he  was 
pledged  to  find  60,000  marks  for  Siennese  creditors 
of   the   Papacy,    and   10,000   for   the   Pope   and 
Cardinals ;     in    June    there    were    three    sets    of 
bankers,  each  guaranteed  to  receive  prior  payment 
to  any  others  ;  ^   in  September,  so  desperate  was 
the  situation,  that  an  attempt — a  vain  attempt — 
was  made  to  wring  a  contribution  from  Scottish 
purses.^     In  1257  the  Pope  talked  of  issuing  an 
interdict  ;    and  actually  proposed  a  tax  of  one- 
third  of  the  whole  realm  of  England.    It  was  said 
that  Henry's  debt  now  amounted  to  350,000  marks.^ 
Men  said  Pope  and  King  were  now  bound  in  an 
alliance  of  shepherd  and  wolf  against  the  sheep. 
The  clergy,  helpless  against  their  joint  oppressors, 
caught  between  hammer  and  anvil,  agreed  to  pay 
42,000  marks,  but  insisted  on  confirmation  of  a  list 
of  thirty  canons,  for  which  they  were  ready  to  die 
like  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury.     Even  Henry's 
incurable  belief  in  something  turning  up  now  gave 
way.     In  offering  to  resign  the  Sicilian  crown,  he 
said  three  true  things  ;    that  he  had  paid  a  large 
part  of  the  Church's  expenses  ;  that  the  resistance 
of  his  prelates  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  do 
more  ;   that  he  had  taken  up  the  cause  from  his 
1  Ibid.  343.  2  ii3i(j  -^^g  3  M  Paris,  v.  521. 


192  LECTURE  V 

devotion  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  rather  than 
for  temporal  gain.^  It  was  an  unkind  cut  when 
the  last  Papal  agent,  Herlot,  in  his  final  report, 
attributed  the  whole  failure  to  Henry's  arbitrary 
modes  of  procedure  and  the  unpopularity  of  the 
National  foreign  favourites.^    These  two  causes  had  indeed 

revolt  in  _  ,      .         ^. 

1258.       made  smouldering  discontent  for  over  thirty  years; 

but  what  fanned  it  into  the  flame  of  1258  was  the 

fatal  Sicilian  affair. 

These  These  dealings  with  England  must  now  be  studied 

as  seen    from  the  inner  or  Papal  side.    England  had  been 

Papai^^^^  goaded  into  revolution  by  the  business   of  the 

side.       Sicilian  crown.    Her  highest  ideal,  the  tribunal  of 

God  upon  earth,  had  been  debased  into  a  byword 

and  a  shame.     And  all  for  what  ?     To  carry  out 

a  futile  and  suicidal  project,  the  incorporation  of 

The  goal  the  Sicilian  kingdom  into  the  Papal  states.    This 

policy     was  the  most  pernicious  consequence  of  the  whole 

fateful  legacy  of  policy  left  by  Innocent  III,  to 

gather  temporal  sway  into  spiritual  hands,  to  unite 

Popedom  and  kingdom.     That  masterful  genius 

had  had  to  bow  even  his  inflexible  will,  to  confess 

to  failure  after  ten  years  of  bitter  disappointments. 

But   the   project   he   abandoned  has   proved  an 

irresistible  lure  to  Papal  ambition  ever  since.     It 

was  the  one  infatuation  that  beset  the  clear  hard 

mind  of  Innocent  IV,  that  turned  to  ashes  all  the 

success  which  he  had  achieved  by  such  superhuman 

strength  of  purpose  and  such  outrage  to  morals 

^  Rymer,  i.  359.  2  ^^^^  Monastici,  i.  464. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  193 

and  to  religion  in  his  methods,  and  that  at  last, 
as  men  thought,  broke  his  heart.  As  early  as  the  fixes  the 
Council  of  Lyons  he  had  made  up  his  mind,  not  Socent 
merely  to  depose  Frederick,  but  to  disinherit  JY  ^f°"^ 
Conrad  too.  The  race  of  the  Babylonian  king  was 
to  be  blotted  out,  the  whole  brood  of  the  viper  to 
be  crushed.^  Thrice  did  Frederick  offer,  and  thrice 
in  vain,  to  abdicate  in  favour  of  his  son.^  For 
some  time  a  decorous  show  was  kept  up  of  not 
including  Conrad  in  the  irrevocable  condemnation. 
The  contemporaries  ^  do  not  regard  Conrad  as 
expressly  excommunicated  or  as  beyond  recon- 
ciliation. The  Holy  Father  must  not  seem  deaf 
to  all  offers  of  peace  and  penance,  at  least  from 
the  son.  Nor  could  he  afford  to  drive  the  neutral 
princes  of  Germany  into  Conrad's  camp.  Nor  did 
it  yet  seem  feasible  to  shake  Frederick's  position 
in  Sicily  without  the  aid  of  some  foreign  prince. 
The  great  plot  to  murder  the  Emperor  in  1247 
had  only  served  to  prove  his  strength,  his  prompti- 
tude, and  his  ruthless  vengeance.  Louis  of  France, 
too,  had  to  be  taken  into  account,  who  had  in 
1247  P^t  great  pressure  on  the  Pope  to  accept 
Frederick's  overtures.*  But  as  soon  as  the  sails  led  him 
of  Louis  were  out  of  sight  on  their  way  to  the  tempt 
East,   Innocent   declared,   August   1248,   that  he^Jg^"-j^^ 

1  Rodenberg,  Innocent  IV  u.  Sicilien ;  Rodenberg,  Epist.^^-^~^- 
Pontif.  585,  and  681,  xvii. 

2  Regesta  Imperii,  3511  ;  M.  Paris,  iv.  523,  v.  99. 
^  Nicolas  de  Curbio,  p.  388  ;  M.  Paris,  v.  248. 

*  M.  Paris,  iv.  523. 

780  C  c 


194  LECTURE  V 

would  never  make  terms  with  Conrad  ;  he  issued 
an  extraordinary  document  to  win  over  the 
Sicilian  clergy  ;  ^  he  threw  aside  all  the  cardinals 
who  had  been  at  his  right  hand  since  his  election  ; 
he  appointed  the  one  man  in  whom  he  had  come 
to  have  sole  confidence,  and  gave  him  extraordinary 
powers,  both  temporal  and  spiritual,  for  the 
invasion  and  conquest  of  Sicily  ;  everything  was 
arranged  for  the  direct  government  of  the  land 
by  the  Holy  See  itself,  and  Cardinal  Peter  Capocci  ^ 
was  expected  to  carry  this  out  as  successfully  as, 
after  a  stay  of  eighteen  months  in  Germany,  he  had 
carried  out  the  election  of  the  second  Anti-Emperor, 
William  of  Holland,  November  4,  1248.  But 
mundane  warfare  needs  other  qualifications  than 
does  that  of  the  Church  militant.  Things  seemed 
at  first  in  his  favour  since  Frederick's  startling 
recovery  of  all  Piedmont  and  the  Savoyard  counts 
in  the  last  quarter  of  1248.  For  these  gains  in  the 
West  were  balanced  by  the  capture  of  Enzio,  in 
May  1249,  and  consequent  defections  in  Lombardy 
and  Romagna.  The  Legate,  during  the  winter  of 
1249-50,  was  able  to  win  over  nearly  all  the  march 
of  Ancona.  But  with  this  he  came  to  a  standstill. 
There  was  bad  news  from  Germany,^  which  meant 
a  check  in  the  supplies  of  pay  from  Lyons.  The 
Count  of   Manipello,  with  the  first   blast   of  his 

^  Dec,  1248,  Regesta,  8056  ;    Rodenberg,  Innocent  IV  tind 
Sicilien,  p.  65.        ^  Ibid.  p.  70  ;  Episi.  Pontif,  ii.  681,  viii. 
^  Regesta  Imperii,  4987^ 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  195 

trumpets,  seemed  to  scare  back  to  the  Imperialist 
standard  the  fickle  towns  of  the  Mark.    Above  all, 
Frederick  himself  had  recovered  from  the  illness 
which  had  kept  him  inactive  all  the  winter.^    The  Frede- 
old  belief  in  their  wonderful  Emperor's  invincibility  victories 
was  never  stronger  than  with  this  blaze  of  success  ^^  ^^^°' 
all  along  the  line  in  1250.^     On  the  Rhine,  too, 
Conrad  was  victorious.    Now  we  see  why  the  Pope 
took   advantage   of   Earl   Richard  of   Cornwall's 
return  from  the  East  to  give  him  a  most  flattering 
reception  at  Lyons,  to  entertain  him  at  dinner  with 
unusual  cordiality,  and  to  have  long  and  secret 
conferences  with  him.    Now  we  see  why,  when  the 
French  princes  pressed  him  hard  to  have  peace, 
he  began  to  take  steps  to  get  a  refuge  in  Bordeaux.^ 
For  though  the  whole  world  believed  the  Pope 
beaten  at  last,  yet  he  would  not  give  in.    He  had 
to   recall  the  Cardinal  Peter,   who  was  to  have 
done  such  great  things.     He  gave  up  the  idea  of 
a  conquest  of  Sicily  by  a  Church  army  under  Church 
generals,  and  for  Church  advantage.    He  promised 
a  new  army  and  new  captain  for  125 1.    Then,  on  impor- 
December  13,  1250,  after  only  a  few  days'  illness,  his 
the  great  Emperor  died.     Had  he  lived  a  year  ^"^^^^ 
longer  he  must  have  won  as  he  had  won  before.* 
He  had  overcome  three  Popes,  and  he  must  have 

1  Regesta  Imperii,  3816.  ^  Ibid.  3823. 

3  Ibid.  38I7^ 

^  Cf .  the  Papal  biographer,  M.  Paris,  Salimbene,  the  Paduan 
chronicler,  &c. 


196  LECTURE  V 

overcome  a  fourth.  But  it  was  a  duel  between 
a  man  and  an  institution.  The  Papacy  was  an 
organized  system  almost  independent  of  the 
personality  of  its  rulers,  greater  certainly  than 
any  one  Pope.  But  the  Empire  was  only  a  survival, 
galvanized  into  occasional  activity  at  considerable 
intervals  by  some  of  the  masterful  inheritors  of 
the  purple.  All  depended  on  the  character,  the 
resources,  and,  most  of  all,  the  prestige  of  an 
individual.  Frederick  had  never  stood  so  high 
in  reputation,  so  near  to  final  triumph,  as  at  that 
moment.^  '  He  whom  none  could  overcome, 
succumbed  to  Death.'  To  Papal  circles  it  was  the 
outstretched  hand  of  God  :  '  He  saw  Peter's  bark 
near  to  shipwreck  ;  He  struck  down  the  tyrant 
ThePopeand  saved  her.'  ^  On  January  19,  1251,  Innocent 
revives  had  not  yet  heard  the  momentous  news  ;  by  the 
scheme  25th  ^  he  had  already  written  to  Sicily  to  assure 
to  the  cities  free  election  of  their  magistrates,  to 
promise  the  barons  new  fiefs  ;  he  had  promised  to 
bring  them  his  own  presence  ;  he  had  reappointed 
Cardinal  Peter  Capocci.  The  idea  of  a  direct  Papal 
State  had  been  revived  in  its  fullness.  The  Cardinal 
was  allowed  to  bring  over  reluctant  cities  by 
guaranteeing  that  they  should  be  under  no  king  or 
lord,  but  in  the  demesne  of  the  Church.  Fanned 
thus  into  flame,  the  old  elements  of  disorder, 
feudal,  municipal,  and  racial,  broke  out  all  over 

^  Regesta  Imperii,  3823.  ^  Nicolas  de  Curbio. 

*  Regesta  Imperii,  3835^. 


AIMS  'OF  PAPAL  POLICY  197 

the  double  kingdom.  It  is  true  tliat  the  iron  frame 
of  administration  erected  by  the  hand  of  Frederick 
withstood  even  these  blows,  and  by  the  end  of 
April  125 1  Manfred  had  put  down  the  revolt 
everywhere  but  in  Campania.  Yet  Manfred  him- 
self came  forward  to  offer  submission  to  the  Papacy, 
and  with  him  came  his  kinsman  and  friend,  the 
Marquis  Berthold  of  Hohenburg,  captain  of  Fred- 
erick's German  troops.  Innocent  might  at  one 
stroke,  without  bloodshed  or  expense,  have  re- 
settled the  Holy  See  in  its  overlordship  of  Naples 
and  Sicily,  severed  the  dreaded  link  with  Germany, 
divided  the  Stauffen  House  against  itself,  and 
reduced  Conrad  to  harmlessness.  All  this  he  could 
have  done  but  for  the  infatuated  passion  for 
direct  Papal  rule.  Other  motives  concurred.  His 
triumphal  progress  through  Lombardy  ^  had  for 
the  moment  excited  even  his  cool  brain.  His  past 
successes  beyond  hope  made  him  impervious  to 
disappointment ;  sooner  or  later  Sicily  must  be 
his,  anyhow.  And  was  not  Manfred  after  all  one 
of  '  the  dragon's  brood  '  ?  And  was  there  not 
strife  already  sown  between  him  and  his  legitimate 
brother  Conrad  ?  So  he  only  offered  to  Manfred  but 
terms  lower  even  than  what  he  got  under  Frederick's  ^^^^^ 
will.^  Manfred  refused,  and  the  chance  was  gone.  ^^5i' 
Innocent  had  again  staked  on  the  highest  throw, 
and  again  was  to  lose  the  substance  in  grasping 

1  Nicolas  de  Curbio. 

^  Rodenberg,  Epist.  Pontif.  iii.  100. 


igS  LECTURE  V 

at  the  shadow.  Once  more  his  cardinal-general 
failed,  and  had  to  be  recalled.  Once  more  Papal 
resources  were  exhausted.  In  a  few  months  the 
enemy  might  be  again  in  the  Patrimony  of  the 
then  lets  See.  It  was  a  necessity  once  more  to  fall  back  on 
p^^fy^^^  foreign  intervention.  But  at  this  very  juncture, 
try  with  January  1252,  Conrad  had  arrived  in  Apulia  and 
taken  possession  of  his  kingdom.  Now  Conrad  had 
the  illusion  that  the  Church's  great  quarrel  had 
been  a  personal  one  with  his  father.  He  knew 
that  peace  would  be  welcome  to  his  own  partisans 
in  Italy,  and  to  an  important  party  in  the  Curia 
itself,^  a  party  which  now  came  forward,  as  it  had 
done  in  1245  and  in  1247,  and  as  it  did  in  1254 
in  the  election  of  Alexander  IV  to  be  Innocent's 
successor.  Nothing  brings  out  in  a  stronger  light 
the  unshakable  self-reliance  of  Innocent  IV.  He 
let  the  peace  party  try  their  hand  because  he  was 
sure  they  would  fail.  He  had  the  fortitude  to 
shelve  his  own  views  for  theirs  during  six  months, 
and  to  give  them  complete  and  ungrudging  support 
in  order  that  their  failure  might  be  the  more 
complete  and  signal.  He  withdrew  Cardinal 
Capocci  and  appointed  as  legate  the  Cardinal 
Bishop  of  Albano,  the  leading  exponent  in  the 
Curia  of  a  concihatory  policy.  To  satisfy  their 
desire  for  a  more  spiritual  and  less  poHtical  line 
of  action,  he  revived,  by  a  series  of  measures  from 
April  to  June  1252,  the  attack  on  heresy  in  the 
^  Rodenberg,  Innocent  IV  u.  Sicilien,  p.  117. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  199 

Lombard  cities.^  He  restored  to  the  churches  in 
Germany,  in  Italy,  and  in  Sicily  their  rights  of 
free  election  of  prelates,  rights  which  he  had 
snatched  from  them  during  the  last  four  years, 
and  in  so  doing  he  laid  down  what  had  been  his 
chief  weapon  in  the  great  struggle  against  the 
Empire.  But  his  biographer,  who  had  been  his 
chaplain  and  confessor  through  his  whole  pontifi- 
cate, betrays  his  master  when  he  tries  to  defend 
him.^  He  argues  that  it  was  evident  at  once  that 
the  negotiations  were  a  fraud  on  Conrad's  part, 
because  Conrad  insisted  on  the  Empire  and  Sicily 
as  his  rights,  though  he  must  have  known  these 
claims  inadmissible.  It  was  really  Innocent  who 
foresaw  that  Conrad  would  insist  on  these,  and 
who  was  as  far-sighted  as  Conrad  was  blind.  How 
could  the  Papacy  desert  William  of  Holland  in 
Germany  or  the  Sicilians  now  enduring  exile  for 
their  adherence  to  the  cause  of  Rome  ?  How 
could  the  Papacy  abandon  that  severance  of 
Sicily  from  Germany  which  had  been  its  watchword 
for  sixty  years  ?  That  the  negotiations  continued 
to  June  1252  is  evidence  of  Conrad's  honest  but 
unstatesmanlike  optimism  ;  it  is  evidence  also  of 
Innocent's  shrewdness  and  self-restraint.    After  all  On 

•        1      •  11  •        1     1         •    1  failure  of 

he  gamed  time,  and  he  gamed  the  right  to  revert  the  peace 

^  M.  Paris,  vi.  302.  Conrad,  in  his  manifesto  of  1254,  sa5^s  he 
found  heresy  openly  preached  when  he  came  to  Milan,  Brescia, 
and  Mantua  ;  '  quia  salva  reverentia  domini  Papae,  dicuntur 
ecclesiae  filii  speciales.'  ^  c.  31. 


200  LECTURE  V 

party  In- to  his  own  policy  of  no  surrender.    The  point  of 

resumes  departure  is  given  by  the  withdrawal  of  legatine 

policy!^  authority  (June  17)  ^  from  the  Bishop  of  Albano 

and  the   substitution   of  two   vehement   Sicilian 

prelates.    But  the  change  was  not  so  soon  known 

outside.    As  late  as  August  13  ^  the  Venetians  were 

stipulating  to  be  included  in  the  peace  expected, 

and  of-    and  the  Pope  gave  the  promise.     But  already,  on 

fers 

Sicily  to  August  3,^  the  offer  of  Sicily  to  Earl  Richard  of 
and  to  Cornwall  was  drawn  up.  Indeed,  to  save  time,  an 
Charles,  identical  form  was  prepared  to  be  used  on  Charles 
of  Anjou  if  Richard  of  Cornwall  declined.  Each 
was  told  that  he  had  been  unanimously  chosen 
by  the  cardinals,  and  on  each  identical  personal 
compliments  were  lavished.  But  the  Papal  envoy 
did  not  arrive  in  England  till  November  ii,  1252  ;  ^ 
and  after  that  it  took  no  less  than  eight  months 
to  be  off  with  the  first  choice  and  on  with  the  new. 
In  this  interval  the  Papal  prospects  had  got 
steadily  worse.  Conrad  was  master  of  the  whole 
kingdom  except  Naples,  which  he  was  besieging. 
His  half-brother,  Frederick  of  Antioch,  was  on 
the  Abruzzi  frontier,  so  that  the  Patrimony  was 
threatened  on  two  sides,  while  Brancaleone,  as 
Senator  of  Rome,  reduced  Papal  sovereignty  to 
a  nonentity.  Against  these  results  Innocent  was 
powerless.  He  did  not  even  send  help  to  Naples. 
All  he  could  do  was  to  deal  out  promises  of  future 

^  Epist.  Poniif.  iii,  under  the  dates  given. 
2  M.  Paris,  v.  346-8,  368. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  201 

liberties  to  the  Sicilian  Church.  He  had  still  the 
firmness  to  refuse  Earl  Richard's  demands  of 
guarantees.^  But  as  soon  as  he  saw  Richard  was 
not  to  be  had  on  the  terms,  he  lost  not  a  moment  ^ 
in  turning  to  Charles.  The  Papal  biographer,  to 
ease  the  awkwardness  of  this  transition,  represents 
that  Charles,  hearing  of  the  offers  made  to  Richard, 
volunteered  himself.  The  amount  of  truth  con- 
tained in  this  statement  is  that  Charles's  first 
impulse  was  eager  acceptance,  and  that  the  deal- 
ings with  Charles  were  well  advanced  even  before 
the  final  refusal  had  been  received  from  Richard. 
By  mid-June  1253  Innocent  was  treating  Charles's 
acceptance  as  an  accomplished  fact.  He  sent  full 
powers  to  his  envoy,  Albert,  to  enable  him  to  set 
things  in  action  at  once,  and  empowered  him 
especially  to  borrow  money,  no  matter  from  whom 
or  at  what  rate  of  interest,  and  to  pledge  all  the 
churches  and  abbeys  in  his  Legation.  He  dis- 
patched the  deed  of  investiture  sealed  by  all  the 
cardinals.  He  notified  to  his  partisans  in  Sicily 
the  coming  of  the  deliverer.  Unfortunately,  the 
deliverer  meanwhile  had  thought  better  of  it.  The 
terms  ^  had  been  not  hard,  except  those  stipulating 
on  behalf  of  the  Sicilian  clergy  for  complete  free- 
dom from  lay  taxation  and  jurisdiction,  and  from 
any  interference  in  their  elections.     When  they 

1  Ibid.  457. 

2  25  April  Albert  left  England  and  by  12  June  he  had  seen 
Charles,  got  his  acceptance,  informed  the  Pope,  and  received 
his  ratification.  ^  Epist.  Pontif.  iii.  178-81, 

780  D  d 


202  LECTURE  V 

seemed  to  stick  in  Charles's  throat,  the  Pope  threw 
in  the  title  of  King,  and  went  so  far  as  to  offer  that 
the  terms  should  be  submitted  to  the  arbitration 
of  two  prelates  and  a  knight,  to  be  nominated  by 
Charles  himself  ;    but  he  added  the  remarkable 
proviso  that  this  was  only  a  blind,  and  Charles 
was  to  bind  himself  by  letters-patent  to  make  no 
use  of  the  further  concessions  thus  obtained.    This 
was  an  ingenious  response  to  Charles's  plea  that 
Charles    his  counsellors  were  against  the  project.    The  best 
back  at  Counsellor,  however,  was  probably  Charles's  own 
t  e  last,  pej-cgption  of  the  inadequacy  of  the  resources  of 
Provence  as  against  Richard  of  Cornwall,  a  prince 
who  was  said  to  be  able  to  put  down  a  gold  coin 
for  every  silver  one  of  the  most  wealthy  man  in 
England.     Perhaps  also  the  offer  of  Hainault  by 
Margaret   of   Flanders  to  buy  Charles's  alliance 
against  the  enemy,  William  of  Holland,  was  already 
in  the  air,  though  the  offer  was  not  actually  made 
till  after  July  4,  1253.     In  October  Charles  had 
gone  off  to  this  new  field  of  warfare  ;    Conrad 
had  taken  Naples  and  was  writing  to  his  faithful 
burgesses  of  Speier  and  Cremona  that  he  was  only 
staying  to  collect  treasure  for  a  return  to  Lombardy 
and  Germany.    The  Romans  had  forced  the  Pope 
to  return  to  his  city  after  nine  years'  absence ;  ^  and 
Revival  this  meant  that  he  was  once  more  entering  into 
peace      the  negotiations  proposed  by  Conrad  and  deferring 
party.     ^Q  ^Yie  peace  party  in  the  Curia.     To  convince 

1  M.  Paris,  v.  417. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  203 

them  that  he  had  sincerely  entered  into  this  path, 
he  issued  a  document^  which  is  a  judgement  out 
of  his  own  mouth  upon  his  whole  pontificate.  It 
admits  that  the  practice  of  Provisions  is  hostile  to 
honestas  and  to  ordo,  that  it  was  forced  on  him  by 
the  iniquity  of  the  times  and  the  shamelessness  of 
the  office-seekers,  and  that  it  would  be  a  mighty 
and  triumphant  joy  to  shake  it  off.  He  solemnly 
promises  that  henceforth  only  natives  shall  be 
appointed  to  church  preferments  in  each  country ; 
he  declares  that  he  does  this  at  no  one's  solicita- 
tion, but  of  his  own  motion  ;  and  ends  with  the 
extraordinary  clause,  'Any  one  who  contravenes 
this  is  exposed  to  God's  curse  and  to  ours  ;  any 
letters  of  ours  that  run  counter  to  this  may  be  torn 
up.'  Such  intrusion  of  a  personal  element  is 
unprecedented  in  the  briefs  of  Innocent  IV.  It 
shows  what  strong  measures  he  was  prepared  to 
take  that  he  might  convince  the  peace  party  that 
the  perversion  of  spiritual  functions  into  pohtical 
means  had  been  forced  on  him  by  political  needs. 
It  shows  also  that  he  had  to  put  down  a  very 
heavy  concession  by  way  of  deposit  to  get  the 
peace  negotiations  on  foot  again  after  past  ex- 
periences. Indeed  his  objects  were  the  same  as 
during  the  former  negotiations  of  the  spring  of 
1252  ;  first,  to  gain  time  ;  second,  to  make  the 
peace  proposers  learn  for  themselves  that  they  were 
driving  against  a  wall.    A  sort  of  compromise  was 

^  Epist.  Pontif.  iii.  200. 


204  LECTURE  V 

The        arrived  at  by  which  through  all  the  negotiations 
dealing    ^ith  Conrad  a  secret  offer  of  the  crown   to  the 
Conrad    ^^§^^^1^   court   was   being   made.      Many   of   the 
and  with  documents  remain,  though  many  more  are  now 
land.       lost ;   but  it  is  clear  that  the  English  court,  which 
was  in  Gascony  from  mid-August  1253  to  the  end 
of  1254,  was  in  constant  and  confidential  correspon- 
dence ^  with  Rome  during  the  last  six  months  of 

1253,  ostensibly  about  Henry's  vow  of  Crusade, 
but  assuredly  also  about  Sicily,  and  with  a  curious 
degree  of  intimacy  and  mutual  understanding.^  It 
seems  certain  that  the  offer  of  the  crown  to  Edmund 
had  been  made  long  before  the  conditions  were 
accepted  in  December  1253,  and  the  public  an- 
nouncement made  in  March  1254. 

It  would  take  months  before  any  fruit  could 
come  of  this  new  arrangement.  Innocent's  cue, 
therefore,  was  to  spin  out  the  time.  Already 
Conrad  had  retired  from  the  frontier  to  winter  in 
Apulia.  The  formulation  of  the  charges  the 
Church  had  against  him  and  the  allowance  of 
a  space  for  his  reply  brought  matters  to  March  22, 

1254,  ^^d  by  this  date  the  agreement  with  Edmund 
was  safely  ratified  and  sealed. 

The  part     The    man    who    perhaps    did    most    to    bring 

by  Tho-  Henry  III  into  the  Papal  nets  was  Thomas  of 

Sa^ov^    Savoy,    the    most    cosmopolitan  ^    and    versatile 

member   of  that   shrewd  and  successful  family, 

^  Papal  Registers.  2  Potthast,  15181. 

^  Rymer,  i.  297. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  205 

true  mountaineers  and  borderers  like  our  own 
chieftains  of  the  Scottish  march,  *  who  sought  the 
beeves  that  made  their  broth,  In  Scotland  and  in 
England  both.'  After  an  adventurous  career  in 
Flanders,  he  had  returned  to  his  native  land  to 
be  bought  over  by  fiefs  from  Frederick  II,  which 
he  then  secured  by  promptly  ratting  to  the  other 
side  and  marrying  the  Pope's  niece.  He  professed 
the  part  of  a  peacemaker  in  Conrad's  behalf,  but 
was  really  acting  in  Papal  interests.  As  the 
Queen's  uncle,  he  was  welcomed  at  King  Henry's 
court  in  Gascony,  where  we  find  him  with  his  two 
brothers  in  the  spring  of  1253.  There,  too,  was 
Cardinal  Ottobono,  the  Pope's  nephew ;  Peter 
Cacheporc,  Archdeacon  of  Wells,  and  Peter  Acqua- 
blanca.  Bishop  of  Hereford.  The  one  Englishman  Sicily 
who  by  the  side  of  these  foreigners  attests  Henry's  for  Ed- 
acceptance  is  John  Mansel,  the  King's  trusted  "^"^^* 
clerk.^  It  does  not  appear  that  any  of  the  diffi- 
culties which  had  deterred  Charles  presented 
themselves  to  Henry's  sanguine  mind,  and  he  was 
got  on  much  cheaper  terms.  He  accepted  also  the 
fullest  precautions  for  complete  freedom  of  the 
Sicilian  Church,  as  they  were  inserted  by  the  Pope 
in  his  final  revision  of  the  agreement. 

Conrad  could  not  perhaps  regard  it  as  treachery 
that  the  Papal  campaign  should  all  these  months 
be  going  on  against  him  in  Germany  by  appoint- 
ment of  a  new  legate,  by  preaching  a  Crusade,  and 
1  Epist.  Pontif.  iii.  407. 


2o6  LECTURE  V 

by  inviting  William  of  Holland  to  come  for 
coronation  as  Emperor.  But  this  affair  with 
England  would  be  taken  very  differently  by  the 
young  king,  who  had  already  been  fooled  in  the 
same  way  twenty  months  before.  Innocent 
betrayed  what  he  feared  by  leaving  Rome  in 
April  1254  fo^  th^  safe  inaccessibility  of  Assisi, 
by  being  in  a  hurry  to  confirm  the  English  treaty 
(May  14)  and  to  act  on  it  at  once  by  allow- 
ing the  Crusading  tenth  to  be  handed  over,  and 
by  instructing  Henry  to  crown  the  boy  king  and 
But  In-;  provide  him  with  a  royal  seal.^     He  might  well 

nocent  1  .  ^  .  i  j  • 

was  only  be  anxious.  A  boy  ol  nine  years  old,  even  in  an 
Smrad's  ApuHan  dress  and  with  the  symbols  of  royalty, 
death,  backed  by  the  I  O  U  's  of  the  most  insolvent 
sovereign  in  Christendom,  did  not  constitute  a  very 
solid  defence  against  a  son  of  Frederick  H,  who  had 
a  victorious  army,  a  united  people,  a  full  treasury, 
and  a  just  case.  A  bitter,  a  not  undeserved,  and 
an  inevitable  humiliation  apparently  awaited  the 
Pope,  after  all  his  shifts  and  turnings. 

Was  Henry  HI  to  save  him  ?  Would  not  a 
majority  of  the  Pope's  own  counsellors  welcome 
the  downfall  of  what  they  deemed  an  unspiritual 
policy  ? 

But  not  once  or  twice    alone   in  history  has 

death  proved  to  be  the  Papacy's  best  ally.     The 

institution  is  immortal ;    it  has  only  to  wait  till 

the   tyranny   be   overpast.      If   the   t5Tant    dies 

^  Rymer,  i.  302. 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  207 

defeated,  the  lesson  is  obvious.  If,  as  to  Conrad's 
father  and  grandfather,  to  Frederick  II  and  to 
Henry  VI,  death  comes  in  the  full  wind  of  success, 
at  the  very  moment  of  victory  alighting  on  their 
ensigns,  then  still  more  is  the  Divine  warning  one 
that  all  may  read.  What,  then,  when  the  victor  is 
in  early  manhood,  when  he  is  the  third  victim  of 
his  doomed  family,  leaving  only  an  infant  son  ! 
What  could  this  be  but  a  judgement  of  God  in 
very  deed,  and  could  the  Papal  chancery  do  less 
than  claim  it  for  such  ?  If  anything  was  wanted 
to  complete  the  dramatic  total  reversal  of  positions 
in  May  1254,  it  was  supplied  by  Conrad's  own 
will  and  testament. 

The  words  '  Church  and  State '  represent  what  Reflec- 

1  •     •  1  •  tions  on 

ought  to  be  an  alliance,  but  is  m  modern  times  at  the  duel 

of  Pa- 
best  a  dualism  and  often  an  open  warfare.    Partly,  pacyand 

no   doubt,   this  is   due  to  historical  causes,   the  Empire. 

modern   State   taking   its   revenge   for   the   long 

domination  of  the  ecclesiastical  power  in  the  past, 

just  as  the  maxim  '  cuius  regio  eius  religio  '  marked 

a  sixteenth-  and  seventeenth-century  reaction  of 

nations  against  the  autocracy  of  Rome.     But  in 

large  part  the  opposition  of  Church  and  State 

expresses  an  opposition  between  the  two  sides  of 

human  nature  which  we  must  not  too  easily  label 

as  good  and  evil,  the  heavenly  and  the  earthly,  church 

the  sacred  and  the  profane.    For  the  State,  too,  is  |J^ 

divine  as  well  as  the  Church,  and  may  have  its  have  the 

.  ,     ,      .  -    .  same 

own  ideals  and  sacramental  duties  and  its  own  end. 


2o8  LECTURE  V 

prophets,  even  its  own  martyrs.  The  opposition  of 
Church  and  State  is  to  be  regarded  rather  as  the 
pursuit  of  one  great  aim,  pursued  by  contrasted 
means.  The  ultimate  aim  of  all  true  human 
activity  must  be,  in  the  noble  words  of  Francis 
Bacon,  '  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  relief  of  man's 
estate.'  And  this  aim  may  be  approached  either 
by  the  way  of  compulsion,  organization,  legislation, 
in  fact  by  political  means  ;  or  else  by  the  way  of 
conviction  and  inspiration,  in  fact  by  the  means 
of  religion.  If  this  be  a  just  distinction,  then 
where  the  Middle  Ages  failed  was  in  attempting  to 
unite  the  two  spheres  too  closely,  to  make  politics 
the  handmaid  of  religion,  to  give  the  Church  the 
organization  and  form  of  a  political  State,  that  is 
to  turn  religion  from  an  indwelling  spirit  into  an 
ecclesiastical  machinery. 
The  This  was  an  instance  of  that  mediaeval  passion 

vai  pas-  for  realization  of  its  ideals,  for  their  expression  in 
reaUz^e^  Concrete  form  and  in  practical  conduct,  which 
ideals,  meets  the  student  of  the  Middle  Ages  at  every  turn, 
and  which  makes  it  so  hard  to  do  justice  to  both 
aspects  of  the  time.  Thus  the  adoration  for  the 
land  '  over  whose  acres  walked  those  blessed  feet, 
That  bore  for  us  the  Cross  on  Calvary,'  took  shape 
as  a  fully  equipped  feudal  kingdom  of  Jerusalem. 
The  submission  to  texts  such  as  '  Keep  yourselves 
unspotted  from  the  world  ',  and  '  Take  no  thought 
for  the  morrow  ',  was  materialized  into  the  stone 
walls  and  the  sackcloth  of  a  cloister.     The  daily 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  209 

miracle  of  the  universe  was  translated  into  wonder- 
working images  and  a  swarm  of  angels  and  demons. 
Sin  and  despair,  the  moral  struggle  with  its  relapses 
and  its  victories,  were  transferred  to  a  topo- 
graphical hell  and  purgatory.  The  bliss  of  the 
redeemed  was  located  in  the  successive  planetary 
spheres. 

It  was  a  beautiful  and  a  generous  impatience 
which  thus  sought  to  reaUze  the  ideal  by  giving 
it  concrete  form  and  local  habitation.  But  in  the 
nature  of  things  it  was  foredoomed  to  failure  ;  the 
ideal  thus  brought  down  to  earth  takes  on  some- 
thing earthy,  it  is  subdued  to  the  element  it  works 
in  ;  '  the  Most  High  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made 
with  hands.'  Now  the  mediaeval  Empire  was  an  The  ideas 
attempt  to  embody  in  actual  work-a-day  institu-  underlay 
tions  certain  ideas  which  were  both  true  and  deep,  Ej^pirg, 
but  not  able  to  stand  the  strain  of  being  thus 
materialized.  Such  were  the  ideas  of  a  common 
European  civilization  based  on  a  common  official 
language,  a  faith  held  in  common,  and  common 
principles  in  law,  government,  and  society;  the 
idea  of  a  common  inheritance  from  ancient  Rome  ; 
and  the  idea  of  a  common  interest  against  the 
menacing  outer  worlds  of  heathendom  and  Islam, 
The  mistakes  were  the  endeavours  to  build  out  of 
these  an  actual  political  structure  which  should 
take  in  aU  Europe  under  one  government,  and  to 
apply  the  name  Roman  Empire  to  this  dream- 
fabric.  But  even  this  was  not  so  profound  a 
780  E  e 


210  LECTURE  V 

The  mistake  as  the  other,  the  Papacy's  mistake  of 
mtstakef  endeavouring  to  build  rehgion  into  a  state  organi- 
zation, to  make  the  heavenly  city  into  an  earthly 
city,  to  set  up  a  rival  spiritual  Empire.  Have 
we  not  been  warned,  '  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world  '  ?  Worst  of  all  when  by  a  fatal  logic  it  was 
argued  that  the  head  of  this  spiritual  Empire  must 
also  be  a  temporal  ruler,  first  of  the  actual  city 
of  the  Seven  Hills,  then  of  the  Latin  and  Sabine 
dominions  adjoining  the  Patrimony  of  St.  Peter  ; 
then  of  the  provinces  of  Spoleto,  Ancona,  Romagna, 
even  Tuscany  ;  and  finally  of  all  south  Italy  and 
Sicily  too.  If  the  Emperor  who  called  himself 
King  of  Kings  and  Caesar  Augustus  was  the  most 
unreal  of  mediaeval  unrealities,  the  Pope  who 
would  be  at  once  successor  of  the  Apostles  and 
feudal  lord  from  the  Rubicon  to  the  sands  of 
Africa  was  worse,  he  was  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
The  Papal  States  were  a  veritable  body  of  death 
to  the  true  spiritual  life  of  the  greatest  institution 
in  human  history.  The  mighty  duel  between  these 
two  great  antagonists  was  not  actually  decided  till 
Even  the  day  that  Frederick  II  died.  Could  any  one 
rick^i'i  have  saved  the  Empire  from  its  inevitable  doom, 
could      it  was  he  with  his  e^enius  for  rule  down  to  the 

not  save      _  "^ 

the  minutest  details,  his  marvellous  fiscal  organization, 
his  clear-cut,  patient,  inflexible  policy.  *  Si  Pergama 
dextra  Def  endi  possent,  etiam  hac  defensa  fuissent.' 
Great  man  as  he  was,  stupor  mundi,  the  world's 
wonder,  he  could  not  avert  the  inevitable  hour 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  211 

but  only  delay  it.  His  Roman  Empire  was  not  Unreaii- 
an  Empire  ;  for  the  union  of  western  Christendom,  Empire. 
a  very  real  union  in  some  ways,  was  not  and  could 
not  be  a  political  union.  Nor  was  his  power  Roman, 
real  as  it  was,  but  a  fortuitous  concurrence  of  four 
widely  different  elements  :  the  kingdom  of  the 
Sicilies  where  he  was  absolute,  Germany  where  he 
only  existed  by  sufferance  and  at  the  cost  of  ever- 
increasing  bribes  to  the  Princes,  middle  Italy 
where  he  was  accepted  from  fear  of  his  arms  and 
as  an  alternative  to  Papal  suzerainty,  Lombardy 
where  he  was  only  the  head  of  one  of  the  two 
party  leagues  and  that  one  the  weaker  of  the  two. 

But  among  all  these  difficulties  he  with  his  genius.  Rivalry 
his  resources,  and,  above  all,  his  infinite  patience,  ship  of 
might  have  established  a  modus  vivendi  for  doiT^^'^* 
himself  and  one  or  two  successors.  What  ruined 
his  Empire  was  that  it  came  into  collision  with 
the  rival  schemes  of  the  Papacy,  not  merely  the 
Papacy  as  a  spiritual  power,  though  this  alone 
must  have  proved  fatal  to  the  Empire  sooner  or 
later,  for  Christendom  cannot  serve  two  masters, 
and  if  one  must  be  chosen  it  will  be  the  one  who 
claims  to  speak  in  the  name  of  Christ.  But  what 
precipitated  this  ruin  was  that  he  came  into 
collision  with  the  Pope,  not  as  Pope  merely  but 
as  Bishop  of  Rome,  and  suzerain  of  the  old  Latin 
territory,  claiming  to  be  heir  of  the  great  Countess 
Matilda,  and  secretly  resolved  to  be  direct  ruler 
of  the  kingdom  of  Naples  and  Sicily.    It  was  the 


212  LECTURE  V 

Above     fatal  lure  of  a  Papal  State  of  the  Church  that 

all  the 

coUision  determined  the  first  excommunication  of  Frederick 
Papai^^  by  Gregory  IX,  the  invasion  of  his  kingdom  in 
states.    }^js  absence  on  Crusade  by  a  Crusading  host  under 
the  banner  of  the  Cross  Keys,  the  support  treacher- 
ously given  to  his  rebel  subjects  of  the  Lombard 
League,  the  second  excommunication  of  him  as 
a  beast  of  blasphemy  on  a  monstrous  charge  (the 
Three  Impostors'  story)  which  they  had  afterwards 
the  decency  to  drop.    And  now  it  was  the  project 
of  incorporating   south   Italy   with   those   Papal 
States  which  made  Innocent  IV  deaf  to  anything 
Frede-     but  extirpation  of  the  whole  viper's  brood.    Per- 
more       sonally    Frederick    and    Innocent    were    not    ill 
than^in-  i^S-tchcd  as  combatants.     As  regards  diplomatic 
nocent.    morality,  if  these  two  terms  can  be  coupled,  it 
was  diamond  cut  diamond.     But  circumstances 
made  Frederick  the  more  scrupulous,  the  more 
honest  of  the  pair  ;   he  wanted  peace  as  badly  as 
his  Prussian  namesake  in  the  thick  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War.    But  aU  the  same,  what  the  Empire 
stood  for  was  force  and  militarism  ;  its  watchwords 
at  best  were  order,  ancient  rights,  Roman  Law, 
But  the  absolutism.    The  watchwords  of  the  Church  were 
stiu^^^    a  higher  kind  of  order,  duties  above  rights,  volun- 
the°^  ^°^  ^^^y  submission  to  God's  law.    What  it  professed 
higher     to  stand  for  was  the  higher  side  of  life  ;  its  message 
to  be  that  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,   its  weapons 
solely  spiritual.    The  victory  over  the  Empire  fell 
to  the  Papacy  because  the  Papacy  not  merely 


AIMS  OF  PAPAL  POLICY  213 

represented  the  temporal  policy  of  a  succession  of 
astute  Italian  nobles,  but  also  still  had  its  great 
spiritual  function  and  represented  the  whole 
Church. 

Both  Empire  and  Papacy  embodied  a  true  unity 
among  the  nations  of  Christendom,  but  the  latter 
was  unity  in  a  deeper  sense,  and  for  this  reason  the 
Papacy  won  and  deserved  to  win.  Of  the  two  men 
Frederick  had  almost  the  whole  right  on  his  side 
in  the  immediate  circumstances  of  the  struggle, 
but  when  we  have  admitted  Innocent's  immediate 
aim  to  be  a  pernicious  illusion,  and  his  means  to 
be  both  irreligious  and  immoral,  we  must  yet 
recognize  that  behind  him  were  ranged  greater 
rehgious  and  moral  forces  than  the  Empire  could 
muster.  He  won  by  the  past  of  the  Papacy,  but  at 
the  cost  of  its  future. 

I  have  said  that  the  Empire  might  have  lasted  yet,  but 
several  generations  more.    A  fair  trial  would  then  cent^iv" 
have  been  given  to  the  most  interesting  experiment  ^^^  '^^' 
that   history   contains   of   a   government   unique  might 
among  governments  between  the  fall  of  Rome  and  lasted 
the  seventeenth  century,  being  highly  centralized  combfii- 
and  rigorous  as  to  justice  and  good  order,  and  ^^^°^^^^j!^_ 
at  the  same   time   economically  prosperous   audition, 
tolerant  to   other  religions.     For  such  was  the 
government  which  Frederick  himself  planned  out 
and  began  for  the  two  Sicilies  in  1235.     Again, 
we  cannot  but  regret  that  the  union  of  European 
states,    however    incomplete,    was    shattered    by 


214  LECTURE  V 


and  con- external  causes  before  its  time.  For  this  potent 
theunion  Conception,  the  unity  of  Christendom,  was  still 
tendom^'  capable  of  producing  vast  effects  ;  so  tenacious 
of  life  was  it  that  not  even  with  the  fall  of  the 
Hohenstaufen  could  the  Empire  die,  though  it 
was  a  shorn  and  parcelled  Empire  that  lived  on 
under  Hapsburgs,  Luxemburgs,  and  Wittelsbachs, 
Thirdly,  we  must  allow  that  it  was  a  beautiful 
and  ennobling  vision  which  the  mediaeval  mind 
imagined  when  it  dreamed  of  the  Caesar  and  the 
Apostle  seated  side  by  side,  the  two  great  powers 
working  in  harmony  to  carry  out  God's  will  upon 
earth. 

If  it  was  but  a  vision  it  was  one  of  those  which 
come  through  the  ivory  gate  to  elevate  and  to 
purify  an  age,  and  to  give  it  the  inspiration  which 
can  only  come  from  an  inward  ideal. 


LECTURE  VI 

THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  IN  SICILY  AND  IN 
GERMANY.  HIS  CHARACTER  AND  ULTIMATE 
INFLUENCE 

Conrad's  will  had  two  startling  clauses.^     It  Papai 
committed  his  infant  son  Conradin  '  to  the  hands  a°  May^ 
of  the  Church  '.     It  committed  the  regency  of  ^^54- 
Sicily  to  the   Marquis   Berthold,   the   chief  man 
among  the  German  officials  and  captains  now  in 
south  Italy.    Each  of  these  bequests,  and  especially 
the   latter,  practically   made   the  Pope  supreme 
arbiter  of  the  situation.    Thoroughly  grasping  this 
fact,  he  saw  that  his  strength  was  to  sit  still.    He 
had  just  concluded  the  unfortunate  arrangement 
with  Henry  III,  or  rather  he  had  empowered  his 
envoy  Albert  to  conclude  it.^    The  resources  of 
his  diplomacy  were  quite  equal  to  cashiering  this 
arrangement,  but  all  in  good  time,  there  was  no 
need  for  indecorous  haste.     It  would  be  almost 
August   before  he    could  hear   exactly  how  the 
business  stood.    But  his  mind  had  at  once  reverted  innocent 
to  his  darling  plan,  the  complete  incorporation  of  h^g^p^^n 
Sicily  with  the  Papal  states.    He  received  Berthold's  |°^.j 
embassy  graciously  in  mid- July,  but  '  told  them 
flatly  he  meant  to  have  possession  of  the  kingdom, 

1  B.  F.  W.,  Regesta  Imperii,  4632,  4632". 

2  Hon.  Germ.,  Epist.  Pontif.  iii.  409. 


2i6  LECTURE  VI 

and  be  lord  of  it,  promising  for  Conradin  when 
he  should  come  of  age  that  he  should  have  grace 
done  him  as  regarded  his  rights,  if  any,  in  the 
kingdom  '}    After  fourteen  days'  negotiations  the 
treaty   was   suddenly   broken   off.      The   envoys 
'  walked  fraudulently  and  had  not  the  fear  of  God 
before  their  eyes  ',  is  the  version  of  the  faithful 
Nicholas.     But  when  this  biographer  breaks  into 
abuse  of  the  other  side,  it  always  means  that  his 
own  case  presents  something  awkward  to  cover  up. 
The  fact  is  that  by  August,  Innocent  had  heard 
two  pieces  of  news.    One  was  that  his  envoy  had 
withheld  the  final  ratification  of  the  agreement 
with  Henry  III.     '  The  king  '   (he  says)  '  impor- 
tuned me  in  season  and  out  of  season.    But  I  saw 
his  helplessness.    I  knew  the  aid  must  come  soon 
to  be  of  any  use  at  all.     So  I  refused  to  redraft 
the  agreement,  and  left  matters  where  they  were.'  - 
This  does  not  quite  concur  with  the  view  Henry 
took,  for  it  is  clear  that  he  regarded  the  matter 
as  practically  settled,  and  himself  as  free  to  confer 
Sicihan  estates  at  least  on  paper.^    But  this  con- 
stituted a  most  convenient  situation,  that  Henry 
should  feel  himself  bound  while  the  Papacy  should 
feel  itself  legally  unfettered. 
Rising  in     The  other  gratifying  news  was  the  information 
its^me'an-  ^^  ^^^  rising  tide  of  feeling  in  Sicily  against  Berthold 
*^&-         and  his  Germans.    There  was  something  of  national 

^  Jamsilla,  507  E  ;  also  B.  F.  W.  4643©. 

2  Epist.  Pontif.  iii.  411.  ^  Rymer,  i.  308,  310. 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  217 

feeling  in  it,  for  tlie  rule  of  the  Rogers  and 
Frederick  II  had  developed  an  unmistakable  con- 
sciousness of  unity  among  all  the  varied  elements 
of  the  two  Sicilies.  But  there  were  other  motives 
in  it  too  ;  there  was  jealousy  of  the  powerful 
native  bureaucracy  against  German  arrogance  and 
greed,  there  was  a  revival  of  the  ineradicable 
traditions  of  autonomy  on  the  part  of  the  cities, 
there  was  a  recrudescence  of  the  unconquerable 
feudal  instincts  of  the  nobles.  And  behind  all 
this,  inspiring,  urging,  controlling  them,  must  have 
been  the  powerful,  ubiquitous,  silent  working  of 
the  Church.  The  Pope  had  sent  out  no  Legate  ; 
he  had  issued  no  manifesto  ;  but  he  had  moved 
down  to  Anagni  to  be  within  reach,  to  quote  his 
own  words,  and  he  knew  that  the  Sicilian  kingdom 
which  was  written  on  his  own  heart  was  also  an 
object  of  ardent  hope  to  all  true  sons  of  the  Church.^ 
His  plan  was  identical  with  that  conceived  by 
Innocent  III  on  the  death  of  Henry  VI  ;  Sicily 
for  the  Sicilians,  under  Church  governorship.  It 
was  not  an  appeal  to  nationalism  in  the  full  modern 
sense,  for  German  troops  fought  under  the  Papal 
banner  as  well  as  against  it  ;  and  to  tlie  men  of 
the  south,  officials  from  Rome  would  be  almost  as 
distasteful  as  from  across  the  Alps.  But  the  move- 
ment was  at  any  rate  one  of  surprising  vehemence 
and  unanimity.  Innocent  threw  into  it  aU  the 
tireless  energy,  all  the  boundless  resourcefulness, 
^  His  own  words  in  Episi.  Pontif.  iii.  277, 

780  F  f 


2i8  LECTURE  VI 

which   had  marked   the   Council   of    Lyons   and 

the  year  after  Frederick's  death.     The  record  of 

this  his  last  half-year  is  almost  monopolized  by 

Sicilian  documents.    All  foreign  holders  of  Sicilian 

fiefs  were  to  get  investiture  from  the  Holy  See 

by  September  S,  or  suffer  forfeiture.-*    A  host  was 

collected  by  preaching  a  Crusade  in  Italy,  and  was 

put  under  the  command  of  his  nephew  Cardinal 

William  Fieschi,  as  Legate,  with  the  old  soldier 

Albert    Fieschi    at  his  right  hand.     The  fullest 

powers,    both   temporal   and   ecclesiastical,    were 

conferred  on  the  Legate,  with  a  formula  never 

used  on  any  other  occasion  by  Innocent,  '  all  the 

powers  we  should  have  ourselves  if  we  were  present 

on  the  spot  in  person.'  ^     He  was  even  to  mark 

the   new   Papal  rule   by   issuing  from  the   mint 

a  new  coinage.    But  before  this  host  could  gather, 

already  by  mid- August  the  national  revolt  was  so 

universal  that  in  the  face  of  it  Berthold  resigned. 

Submis-  Manfred,  who  had  probably  commended  himself  to 

Manfred.  P^pal  favour  when  he  was  a  member  of  Berthold's 

embassy,  was  at  first  made  regent  for  Conradin, 

but  was  then  induced  to  submit  to  Rome,  Con- 

radin's    rights    being    guaranteed,    and    Manfred 

himself  appointed  vicar  from  Faro  to  the  Bay 

of  Amalfi^  with  a  munificent  salary  of  800  gold 

ounces  and  the  fief  of  Taranto,  and  the  others  as 

in  Frederick's  will.     When  Innocent  crossed  the 

Garigliano    frontier    to    take    possession    of    the 

1  EpisLPoniif.  in.  28^.      ^  ibid.  285.        ^  Ibid.  287,  289. 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  219 

kingdom  that  he  had  won  at  last,  he  was  met  by 
Manfred,  who  respectfully  held  the  bridle  for  him. 
It  was  natural  that  he  should  assume  that  he 
could  dispose  at  his  will  of  this  young  man  who 
had  been  so  submissive  to  him,  so  submissive  to 
Berthold  and  to  Conrad,  just  as  he  had  disposed 
of  Edmund  of  England,  and  as  he  had  relegated 
Conradin's  claims  to  a  convenient  futurity.  But 
he  made  one  fatal  error,  and  that  the  most  fatal 
of  all  ;  the  selfsame  error  which  was  fatal  to  the 
genius  of  a  Julius  Caesar  and  a  Napoleon.  He 
despised  those  whom  he  had  trampled  on.     The  inno- 

cent's 

contemptuous  way  in  which,  to  reward  partisans,  mistake 
estates  were  granted  away  which  had  just  Manfred. 
been  guaranteed  to  him,  must  have  opened  to 
Manfred's  eyes  the  gulf  on  the  edge  of  which  he 
was  standing,  and  must  have  warned  him  that 
he  too  would  be  flung  aside  as  soon  as  he  had 
served  a  purpose.  It  was  only  ten  days  later  ^ 
that  Manfred  found  an  armed  ambush  laid  for  him 
by  a  personal  enemy  who  was  high  in  Papal  favour. 
In  the  scuffle  that  ensued  the  man  was  slain,  and 
the  Pope  at  once  declared  Calabria  forfeit .  Nothing 
was  left  for  Manfred  but  to  raise  the  standard  of 
revolt.  Pliable  and  confiding  as  he  had  been  when 
the  weapons  were  those  of  diplomacy,  now  that  it 
came  to  action  and  the  field  of  warfare  he  proved 
himself  a  true  son  of  the  great  Emperor.  He  threw 
himself  on  the  loyalty  of  the  Saracen  troops-  at 
1  18  October,  Regesta,  4644^.  2  Regesta,  46441. 


220  LECTURE  VI 

Manfred  Luceria.  They  rallied  enthusiastically  round  the 
prince  who  spoke  their  tongue,  they  swept  aside 
their  own  treacherous  commandant  and  handed 
over  to  Manfred  the  Imperial  treasure.  This  was 
on  November  2.  Innocent's  feverish  activity 
during  the  next  month  is  the  concentration  of 
every  energy,  every  resource,  by  one  who  sees  all 
his  work  falling  into  ruins  about  him,  but  who 
means  if  he  cannot  win,  at  least  to  fight  to  the 
end.  For  though  the  bishops  and  the  cities 
remained  faithful  to  a  rule  which  promised  them 
independence,  yet  the  barons  and  mass  of  the 
people  had  no  liking  for  the  idea  of  a  priest-king, 
and  they  flocked  to  Manfred's  banner,^  even  those 
who  had  cried  for  Papal  intervention  against  the 
inno-  Germans  before.  Amid  such  a  crisis  the  Pope's 
des-  ^  unflinching  tenacity  of  purpose  has  something 
perate     which,  had  the  cause  been  a  better  one,  we  might 

energy.  '  '  *=• 

caU  sublime.  To  retain  the  cities,  he  renewed  the 
assurance  that  they  should  never  be  under  any 
but  direct  Papal  rule.^  Yet  in  the  same  breath 
he  renewed  the  negotiation  with  Henry  III  ^  as 
if  nothing  had  interrupted  it,  for  English  gold  and 
English  credit  were  the  only  source  from  which 
he  could  feed  the  army  in  Apulia  now  under  the 
Cross  Keys.  That  the  pledges  to  the  cities  and 
the  pledge  to  young  Edmund  of  England  were 

1  M.  Paris,  V.  460. 

2  Epist.  Pontif.  iii.  354,  Nos.  394,  396,  411. 
^  Rymer,  i.  312. 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  221 

diametrically  contradictory  troubled  him  not  at 
all.  With  him,  diplomacy  had  always  been  the 
art  of  untying  the  knots  itself  had  tied,  and  he 
had  always  had  two  alternative  means  to  his  end. 
So  shrewd  a  judge  of  men  must  have  appreciated 
that  Henry  was  not  the  king  to  carry  out  an 
enterprise  from  which  Charles  of  Anjou  had  shrunk. 
But  even  the  shrewdness  of  Innocent  IV  fell  into 
the  usual  Itahan  estimate  of  English  wealth  as 
a  reservoir  at  once  accessible  and  inexhaustible, 
and  the  usual  Itahan  contempt  for  English  gulh- 
bility.  He  was  right  in  thinking  it  would  be  easy 
when  the  time  should  come  for  it  to  throw  aside 
Henry  as  a  squeezed  orange,  but  wrong  in  thinking 
that  the  squeezing  could  yield  an  unlimited  amount. 
But  probably  he  trusted  that  the  time  of  need 
would  be  over  soon,  that  he  would  ride  out  this 
storm  as  he  had  so  many  before.  He  still  held 
the  larger  half  of  the  kingdom  and  the  larger 
army.    Thus  the  news  that  came  to  him,  ill  andMan- 

f  red's 

overwrought  as  he  had  long  been,  was  a  fatal  victory, 
shock. ^  Manfred  had  won  a  great  victory  at 
Foggia  on  December  2.  The  army  of  the  Keys, 
the  *  Crusaders  '  led  by  the  Pope's  own  nephew, 
had  broken  up  in  panic  and  cowardly  surrender. 
It  had  melted  into  the  rabble  of  which  it  had  been 
compounded.  The  'Sultan  of  Nocera'  was  abso- 
lute master  of  the  Church's  kingdom. 

For  ten  years  all  Innocent's  plans  had  centred 
1  M.  Paris,  V.  471. 


222  LECTURE  VI 

What  it  on  one  subject.  They  had  been  carried  out  with 
Innocent  a  forethought  that  resembled  divination,  with 
unexampled  tactical  skill,  and  with  a  resolution 
that  amounted  to  heroism.  He  had  lavished  on 
this  object  the  utmost  resources  of  the  Church, 
illimitable  as  they  might  seem  to  be  ;  he  had 
sacrificed  to  it  her  spiritual  character  and  her  hold 
on  the  future  ;  he  had  sacrificed  his  own  con- 
science and  reputation.  It  was,  he  avowed,  the 
thing  nearest  to  his  heart.  Now,  when  at  last 
after  innumerable  disappointments  he  stretched 
forth  his  hands  confidently  to  grasp  it,  it  slipped 
from  him  like  something  in  a  dream.  For  the 
fourth  time  in  seven  years  the  cup  was  dashed 
aside  as  he  raised  it  to  his  lips.  He  had  meant 
his  pontificate  to  be  the  fulfilment  and  the  fruition 
of  two  of  the  chief  ideas  of  his  great  namesake 
and  predecessor.  The  two  boldest  conceptions  of 
Innocent  III,  the  conception  of  a  territorial  Papal 
state,  and  the  conception  of  a  union  of  temporal 
and  spiritual  dominion  in  one  hand,  were  to  have 
been  combined  together  and  realized  on  a  large 
scale  by  Innocent  IV.  It  was  a  glittering  prospect 
that  had  again  and  again  during  the  last  sixty 
years  opened  out  before  the  statesmen  of  the 
Lateran  ;  or  rather  an  ignis  fatuus  which  had 
lured  them  aside  from  their  true  work,  and  from 
the  vast  sphere  of  beneficent  influence  awaiting 
them  ;  a  temptation  characteristic  of  the  Middle 
Ages  in  that  it  offered  to  the  Roman  Church  all 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  223 

the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  and  the  glory  of  them, 
but  at  the  price  of  her  own  soul. 

Such  a  sudden  irremediable  collapse,  such  a 
humiliation  inflicted  by  a  youth  he  had  despised, 
and  due  to  the  folly  of  the  one  nephew  of  his  own 
whom  he  had  entrusted  with  high  powers,  might 
well  break  the  heart  even  of  Sinibald  Fieschi. 
Like  the  battle  in  which  Greek  freedom  fell,  it 
must  have  killed  with  report.  The  news  could 
not  have  come  to  him  before  December  5,  and  on 
December  7  he  was  dead.^ 

With  his  dying  breath  he  adjured  the  cardinals  Ti^e  Pa- 

,  ,  pacy 

to  continue  the  war.    Alexander  IV  had  been  kept  con- 
in  the  background  by  his  self-willed  predecessor,  his 
and  the  poHcy  thus  bequeathed  was  alien  both  to  poi^^y' 
his  ideals,  which  were  more  spiritual,  and  to  his 
temperament,  which  was  more  indolent.     But  he 
could  not  shake  off  the  burden.     The  shade  of 
Innocent  seemed  still  to  hang  over  the  Papacy, 
as  it  plunged  ever  deeper  into  conflict  with  the 
Sicilian  king,  and  ever  deeper  into  humiliation, 
till  at  last  it  was  only  saved,  as  he  had  been,  by  the 
friendly  intervention  of  death.    Had  not  Manfred 
and  Conradin  successively  fallen  on  the  battle- 
fields of  Benevento  and  Tagliacozzo,  nothing  could 
have  rescued  the  Papacy  from  a  Sicilian  yoke. 
Even  so  it  only  escaped  by  substituting  the  yoke  and  so 

•  Trills    CrWi^ 

of  a  French  cadet  hne  ;   and  the  golden  prize,  the  tive  to 
incorporation  of  the  two  Sicilies  with  the  Papal  ^^^^^^• 
1  Nicolas  de  Curbio,  c.  43. 


224  LECTURE  VI 

States,  was  further  off  than  ever.  Incidentally  the 
Angevin  connexion  led  within  a  generation  to  what 
has  been  well  called  the  Seventy  Years'  Captivity 
at  Avignon.  The  Papacy  had  rooted  out  the 
greatest  dynasty  in  history,  only  to  find  itself 
bound  to  the  chariot  wheels  of  France.  Was  this 
a  result  for  which  it  was  worth  while  to  have 
dragged  in  the  mire  the  Church  of  Anselm,  Bernard, 
and  Francis  ;  to  have  ruined  the  loftiest  ideal  ever 
essayed  by  man,  the  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth  ? 

Where  we  endeavour  to  draw  out  a  sequence  of 
scientific  causation,  a  far-reaching  chain  of  logical 
results,  the  mediaeval  historians  threw  their 
thoughts  into  a  dramatic  form,  a  vision  of  judge- 
ment. The  hterary  and  artistic  form  perhaps 
contains  as  much  essential  truth  as  the  modern 
attempt  to  be  scientific  and  philosophical. 

This  is  the  form  in  which  the  verdict  of  England 
is  presented  by  Matthew  Paris. ^ 

'  In  the  week  that  Innocent  IV  died,  one  of  the  cardinals 
had  a  vision  by  night.  He  seemed  to  be  in  heaven  before 
the  tribunal  of  the  Lord,  on  Whose  right  hand  stood  the 
Virgin  Mother,  on  His  left,  a  matron  of  noble  form  and 
rich  attire,  who  bore  in  one  hand  a  model  which  was 
inscribed  in  letters  of  gold,  "  The  Church,"  When  Inno- 
cent knelt  before  the  throne  and  with  clasped  hands 
prayed  for  pardon,  not  judgement,  that  noble  lady  spoke 
against  him:  "  Oh,  just  Judge,  give  judgement  righteously. 
I  accuse  that  man  for  three  things.  First,  that  whereas 
thou  didst  found  the  Church  and  endow  it  with  Hberties, 

^  M.  Paris,  v.  471-2. 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  225 

he  has  made  her  a  wretched  handmaid.  Second,  that 
whereas  the  Church  was  founded  as  the  salvation  of  sinners, 
that  it  might  win  the  souls  of  the  wretched,  he  has  made 
her  a  table  of  money-changers.  Third,  that  whereas  the 
Church  was  founded  in  faith,  justice,  and  truth,  he  has 
made  faith  and  morals  waver,  he  has  subverted  justice, 
he  has  put  out  the  light  of  truth.  Therefore  I  say,  render 
me  just  judgement."  Then  saith  the  Lord  to  him,  "  Go 
and  receive  reward  according  to  thy  deserts."  And  there- 
with he  was  taken  forth.' 

In  the  Classical  Age  and  in  the  Age  of  the 
Renaissance  men  saw  in  catastrophes  like  these 
the  work  of  Fortune,  the  capricious  play  of  a 
mocking  and  even  malicious  power  ;  voluit  Fortuna 
iocari.  In  the  Middle  Ages  men  saw  in  such 
catastrophes  the  manifest  Hand  of  God  ;  iudicia 
Dei  abyssus.  History  in  our  days  feels  no  tempta- 
tion to  explain  the  world  as  the  sport  of  chance, 
but  she  has  also  become  chary  of  drawing  moral 
lessons  from  every  fall  of  a  tower  of  Siloam.  If 
one  must  try  to  express  in  a  phrase  the  abiding 
impression  left  by  a  study  of  Papal  activity  during 
the  period  which  opens  with  the  accession  of 
Innocent  III,  and  closes  with  the  death  of  Inno- 
cent IV,  one  might  find  it  in  the  words  with  which 
that  greatest  of  all  Popes  himself  gave  judgement 
on  this  territorial  policy,  *  Whoso  touches  pitch  is 
defiled  thereby.'  ^  Might  we  not  even  think  upon 
that  great  text,  '  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world '  ? 

We  have  seen  the  effect  of  Innocent's  policy  in 

^  Gcsia  Inn.,  c.  18,  in  Muratori,  Ss.  iii.  489. 

730  G  g 


226  LECTURE  VI 

France  and  in  England.     It  is  well  to  take  a  view 
of  its  working  in  Germany, 
inno-  *  The  stars  shall  fall  from  heaven,  the  rivers 

cent's 

dealings  turn  to  blood,  sooner  than  the  Pope  abandon  his 
German  purpose.'    This  was  the  word  that  went  forth  from 
Church;  Lyons.     The  purpose  was  war  to  the  death  in 
Germany.     Let  us  see  what  were  the  weapons. 
The   first   was   the   German   episcopate.     Under 
Barbarossa  they  had  been  state  officials.     Inno- 
cent III  had  transformed  them  into  an  independent 
hierarchy.     Gregory  IX  tried  intimidation,   but 
the         Innocent  IV  appealed  to  mundane  motives,  local 
^^  °^^'  associations,    individual    interests.      No    Church 
principle,    no   Church   property   was   allowed   to 
stand  in  the  way  of  securing  one  of  these  new 
proselytes.-^    He  had  only  to  ask  and  have.    The 
Bishop   of   Liege   was   allowed  for  twenty-seven 
years  to  go  on  without  taking  orders  at  all,  though 
he  was  bound  by  oath  to  his  chapter  to  do  so.   We 
ask  why  was  this  allowed  ?     He  was  brother  of 
the  Count  of  Geldern,  an  important  recruit.    All 
'  irregu-  manner  of  '  irregularities  ',  that  is,  slaughterings, 
'  plunderings,    and    burnings,    were    pardoned    in 
Papalist  clerics.  For  them,  the  rule  against '  priests' 
brats  '   in  orders  had  no  terrors.     Any  one  who 
would  serve  against  Conrad,  who  was  befriended 
by  some  leading  Papalist,  who  was  powerful  enough 
to  be  worth  winning  over,  found  no  prohibited 
degrees  to  any  marriage,  no  cause  or  impediment 
^  Papal  Registers,  passim. 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  227 

to  any  match.  If  the  keeping  of  an  oath  '  would 
redound  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  cause  of  the 
Church  ',  absolution  was  openly  given  on  this 
ground,  or  to  reward  an  adherent  or  retain  a 
waverer.  Other  supporters  were  secured  by  the 
simplest  of  all  considerations,  cash  down  ;  one- 
fifth  of  all  Church  revenues  for  a  year,  or  all 
vacancies  for  five  years,  or  moneys  levied  for 
Crusade.  Churches  were  saddled  with  soldiers' 
pay,  with  Papalist  leaders*  expenses,  with  com- 
pensation of  damage  done  by  the  Imperialists.  The 
whole  German  Church  in  ways  almost  countless 
was  made  into  a  vast  war-treasury.  No  see  or 
abbey  was  so  influential,  no  parish  priest  so  poor 
as  to  escape.  At  every  Church  ceremony  the 
anathema  by  bell  and  candle  was  preached  against 
'Frederick,  late  Emperor'.  Every  fortnight  the  Crusade 
Crusade  was  preached  against  him,  to  the  furthest 
mission  stations  of  the  Baltic.  Crusaders  for  the 
Holy  Land  were  to  be  turned  back  for  this  holier 
war  at  home,  four  weeks'  service  in  which  earned 
as  much  indulgence  as  a  Crusade  to  Jerusalem. 
Every  place  that  failed  to  join  in  this  was  put 
under  Interdict.  By  Christmas  1245  the  last 
priest  ceased  ofiiciating  in  Worms.  Six  months 
later  at  least  eighteen  bishops  and  abbots  were 
under  excommunication,  and  others  deposed. 
There  was  a  great  'purging',  too,  of  the  chapters,  purging 
Clergy  were  deprived  because  their  relatives,  or  chapters, 
the  patrons  of  the  livings,  were  Imperialists.     In 


228  LECTURE  VI 

November  1247  by  one  fell  sweep  all  prelates  who 
provi-     had  not  yielded  were  summoned  to  Lyons.     By 

sions,  -^  1 

one  stroke  (September  1246)  the  Pope  reserved  to 
himself  all  episcopal  elections,  and  in  1249  ^^1 
abbeys.  In  1248  in  the  one  chapter  of  Constance 
eighteen  prebends  were  granted  to  Papal  provisors. 
pluraii-  The  dispensations  to  hold  pluralities  are  counted 
by  hundreds.  Between  1245  and  1250  twenty- 
nine  out  of  the  fifty-four  German  sees  were  filled 
'  the  by  Papal  nominees.  Now  we  see  what  Innocent  IV 
sword"^  had  meant  when  he  told  the  Cistercians  he  meant 
to  fight  Frederick  with  '  the  spiritual  sword '. 
There  was  indeed  a  hideous  sincerity  in  his  boast. 
Everything  spiritual,  everything  religious,  became 
a  means  to  one  political  end.  The  revenues  and 
offices  of  the  Church,  its  disciplinary  and  peni- 
tential system,  its  highest  ideal  of  the  Cross,  its 
lowest  pecuniary  motives,  its  very  sacraments,  were 
forged  into  weapons.  From  this  prostitution  Papal 
policy  was  never  hereafter  to  shake  itself  free. 

This   degradation  of  the   German   Church,   its 

ruthless  conversion  into  an  agency  of  temporal 

warfare,   produced  a  deep  resentment   not   only 

among  German  laity,  but  among  the  finer  minds 

resent-    of  the  clergy .    The  lay  feeling  had  already  expressed 

j^Jy  °    itself  in  the  interesting  poem  of  the  minnesinger 

Freidank,  '  The  two  swords  go  not  into  one  sheath.' 

and  the  The  clerical  feeling  comes  out  in  four  documents  ; 

first,  in  the  Peacock,  a  bitter  satirical  poem  on  the 

Council  of  Lyons  ;    second,  in  a  strange  mystical 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  229 

appeal  from  a  Dominican  friar,  one  Arnold,  to  the 
laity  and  the  secular  powers  against  the  hierarchy 
and  that  perverter  of  the  Church  and  the  Gospel, 
Innocent  IV  ;  third,  in  a  call  to  all  princes  to 
reform  the  Church  and  recover  the  temporal  sword  ; 
fourth,  in  an  academic  demonstration  in  complete 
syllogistic  form,  that  Innocenscius  Papa  adds  up 
to  666,  the  number  of  the  Beast,  and  he  is  therefore 
the  Antichrist.  These  four  survivals  of  what  was 
doubtless  a  copious  literature  show  the  revolt  not 
merely  among  the  upper  clergy  and  the  universities 
and  the  advanced  mystical  part}^  but  even  among 
the  friars  themselves,  the  standing  army  of  the 
Papacy.  And  there  is  evidence  of  the  same  feeling 
in  the  Cistercian  order. 

This  is  what  Innocent  IV  did  for  the  German 
Church.    Is  this  a  victory  ? 

The  reputation  for  cunning  and  tenacity  which  Personal 

,  charac- 

the  ancient  writers  ascribed  to  the  Piedmontese  ^  ter  of 
has  never  ceased  to  be  applicable  to  them.  In  cent  i v. 
the  Middle  Ages  the  Genoese  in  particular  were 
reckoned  to  be  hard  men  of  business  even  in 
comparison  with  the  traders  of  Venice,  Pisa,  or 
Marseilles.  Sinibald  Fieschi  was  a  typical  Genoese, 
and  was  regarded  as  such  by  his  compatriots.  At 
the  same  time  he  had  the  qualities  of  that  Pied- 
montese nobility,  to  which  his  family,  the  Counts 
of  Lavagna,  belonged  ;  intense  family  pride,  cold 
unwavering  materiahsm ;  a  vengefulness  that, 
^  '  Haud  Ligurum  extremus  dum  fallere  fata  sinebant.' 


230  LECTURE  Yl 

once  aroused,  never  slumbered,  never  forgot,  but 
pursued  beyond  the  grave.  His  high  birth  gave 
him  a  just  self-confidence  and  a  social  tact  that  had 
early  marked  him  out  for  diplomatic  missions  ; 
these,  in  turn,  gave  him  knowledge  of  the  world 
and  a  wide  knowledge  of  human  character,  at 
least  upon  the  seamy  sides.  He  had  the  Italian 
courtesy  and  grace  of  manners,  the  Italian  show 
of  spontaneity  and  even  gaiety  that  have  so  often 
captivated  and  befooled  the  '  barbarians '.  He  had 
all  the  Italian  respect  for  decorum,  ceremony,  the 
externals  of  hfe.  No  one  ever  saw  him  dress  or 
behave  or  speak  in  any  way  obviously  unbecoming 
to  his  order  or  his  high  office.  No  one  could  pour 
scorn  on  him,  as  they  had  on  his  predecessors,  for 
bursts  of  passion  or  for  extravagances  uttered 
Hisreia-  in  convivial  intercourse.  Nor  did  he  make 
thenar-  ^^i^^gory  IX's  or  Innocent  Ill's  mistake  of  being 
dinais.  domineering  with  the  cardinals.  Not  that  he  was 
free,  any  more  than  they  had  been,  from  critics 
and  opponents  within  the  CoUege,  But  he  listened 
to  all,  he  let  them  try  their  own  way.  He  ab- 
stained even  from  predicting  their  failure,  though 
he  was  quite  ready  to  ensure  it  if  things  turned 
out  unexpectedly  feasible  for  them,  as  when  he 
threw  over  his  own  legates  and  fled  from  Sutri  in 
1244  to  escape  from  an  imminent  treaty.  By  this 
apparent  open-mindedness,  he  avoided  the  scandal 
of  scenes  between  the  Holy  Father  and  his  brethren 
such  as  had  shocked  the  faithful  and  offered  a 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  231 

leverage  to  the  enemy,  even  under  Innocent  III. 
Innocent  IV's  cardinals  were  two-thirds  of  them 
his  own  creations,  without  ever  being  allowed  to 
rise  to  a  position  of  favouritism  ;  but  he  let  them 
share  freely  in  the  wealth  that  flowed  into  the 
Curia,  and  he  rewarded  good  service  bountifully, 
nor  ever  wantonly  rebuked  or  revoked  or  dis- 
credited his  legates  :  hence  no  Pope  was  better 
served,  or  more  the  master  in  his  own  house.  It 
was  he  who  instituted  for  the  cardinals  their 
red  hats,  to  be  an  outward  sign  and  reminder  that 
they  were  to  be  ready  to  shed  their  blood  for  the 
Church. 

Yet  it  is  doubtful  if  any  one  felt  affection  for 
him,  or  he  for  any  one.  His  munificence  was 
calculation  rather  than  generosity  ;  it  was  not 
from  the  heart  but  from  the  head,  the  broad  view 
of  the  merchant  prince  who  knows  that  it  pays 
to  pay  well.  Even  his  nepotism  was  not  from  the  msnepo- 
ordinary  motives  any  more  than  it  was  confined  ^^^"^" 
within  the  ordinary  limits.  He  gave  on  a  lavish 
scale  to  his  relatives,  partly  that  they  might  be 
the  better  equipped  for  his  service  ;  partly  because 
he  preferred  men  on  whom  he  could  depend  as 
being  nobodies  without  him  ;  partly  perhaps  from 
the  strong  Italian  sense  of  the  '  casa  ',  the  group 
of  expectant  kinsmen.  He  found  good  places  for 
a  brother  and  for  eight  nephews  to  whom  he  was 
now  the  universal  provider.  But  he  was  far  above 
the  vulgar  weakness  of  pushing  them  into  functions 


232  LECTURE  VI 

to  which  they  were  not  equal.    His  relatives  had 
no    influence    upon   his   pohcy ;     they    were   his 
instruments,  never  his  inspirers  or  his  guides.    His 
legates,  except  in  the  one  case  of  William  Fieschi, 
1254,    were    selected   by  fitness,    not   by   family 
interest,  and  were  expected  to  be  successful. 
Compan-     His  three  predecessors  in  the  Papacy  were,  each 
his  three  in  his  own  Way,  far  superior  to  him  ;   Innocent  III 
cessors.    ^^  grcatucss  of  soul,  Houorius  III  in  moral  good- 
ness,  Gregory  IX  in  fiery  vehemence.     But  all 
three  had  failed  to  achieve  the  goal  of  supremacy 
for  the  spiritual  over  the  secular  power.     This 
achievement  was  reserved  for  him  who  had  none 
of  this  greatness  of  soul,  none  of  this  moral  good- 
ness,   and    who    above    aU    eschewed    fire    and 
vehemence,  and  was  simply  practical.    He  seemed 
to  have  laid  to  heart  a  lesson  from  each  of  the 
three.     The  Pope  who  was  to  win  must  not  aim 
too  high,  but  must  confine  himself  to  what  was 
within  his  grasp  ;   he  must  realize  that  not  good- 
ness but  self-interest  dominates  in  mundane  things  ; 
he  must  never  be  in  a  hurry  nor  make  an  enemy 
His  fore-  unnecessarily.    Thus,  firstly,  he  moves  to  the  goal 
^^^    '      step  by  step,  making  good  each  foot  of  ground 
before    proceeding    to    the    next  ;     his    measures 
working  out  in  an  orderly  sequence  as  of  a  great 
plan  of  campaign  which  unfolds  itself  with  logical 
fatality,  because  each  move  in  it  has  been  thought 
His         out  long  beforehand.     Secondly,  he  relies  not  on 
wisdom,  any  great  religious  idea,  not  on  traditional  ecclesi- 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  233 

astical   tactics,  but  on   common  motives   of   the 
world,  the  desire  of  office,  land,  money  ;    he  turns 
everything  to  its  material  use  ;    whatever  is  ex- 
pedient, is  lawful ;  oaths  and  vows,  indulgences  and 
absolutions  and  dispensations,  benefices  and  tithes. 
Heaven  itself   and   Hell,   are   all   converted  into 
the  sinews  of  war.     The  cause  sanctifies  all  that  is 
done  for  it.    Canonical  rules,  moral  principles,  legal 
sanctions,  all  go  by  the  board  and  are  cut  adrift  when 
*  St.  Peter's  bark  is  tossing  in  the  storm  '.  Thirdly,  His  self- 
he  is  never  out  of  heart  or  out  of  temper  ;    he  *^°" 
never  gives  needless  offence,  or  forgets  that  he 
who  is  to-day  an  adversary  may  to-morrow  be  an 
ally.     He  knows  that  he  must  take  men  as  he 
finds  them,  and  that  violent  language  only  weakens 
a  case,  and  that  violent  measures  are  apt  to  stiffen 
neutrals  into  declared  foes.     It  is  this  marvellous 
patience  that  gives  him  the  courage  to  open  a 
campaign  with  such  slender  resources  as  he  seemed 
to  muster  in  the  autumn  of  1244,  and  to  maintain 
it  with  such  composure  in  a  crisis  as  in  the  spring 
of  1247  ;    to  postpone  an  advance  till  the  time  is 
ripe,  as  it  was  for  the  move  on  Sicily  in  May  1254  ; 
to  endure  with  perfect  equanimity  such  persistent 
recalcitrancy  as  that  of  the  German  lay  princes 
up  to  125 1  ;    to  reject  ostensibly  no  mediation 
however  futile  he  meant  to  make  it,  as  he  did 
with  the  Count  of  Toulouse,  the  two  Patriarchs, 
the  King  of  France.    Then  when  his  hour  at  last 
came,  this  calm  inflexible  nature  assumes  a  terrible 

780  H  h 


234  LECTURE  VI 

aspect,  and  has  something  about  it  of  more  or  less 
than  human.  The  sentence  on  the  Staufen  in  1248, 
when  at  last  all  reserve  can  be  thrown  off,  is 
absolute,  final,  irrevocable  ;  neither  Frederick  nor 
son  or  descendant  of  his  is  to  rule  as  Emperor  or 
King  on  any  terms  ;  the  brood  of  vipers  is  to  be 
exterminated.  *  The  stars  might  fall  from  heaven 
and  the  rivers  turn  to  blood,'  he  said,  *  but  this 
word  should  not  be  taken  back.'  ^ 
A  man  of  The  greatest  power  on  earth  was  at  last  in  the 
usiness.  j^^nds  of  a  consummate  man  of  business — that  is, 
one  who  combined  perfect  clearness  of  plans  and 
boldness  in  setting  them  going,  with  the  keenest 
practical  sense  of  the  means  required ;  and  an 
unconquerable  tenacity  in  the  execution  of  them 
by  those  means.  The  very  day  of  his  election  he 
struck  the  key-note  of  his  pontificate  ;  he  called 
together  his  brethren  the  cardinals  to  discuss  the 
measures  needed  to  secure  the  peace  of  the  Church 
and  to  deal  with  the  Emperor.  These  were  the 
expressions  ever  on  his  lips.  He  would  show  that 
his  one  object  was  a  lasting  peace  for  the  Church; 
his  one  principle  to  act  through  and  with  the 
cardinals  ;  his  one  preoccupation  the  Emperor. 
Evi-  He  set  to  work  with  a  tireless  diligence  that  makes 
the  Re-  his  registers  an  Overwhelming  mouumeut.  Nothing 
gisters.  escapes  him,  from  Iceland  to  Tunis,  from  the 
pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  land  of  the  Tartars. 
Nothing  is  too  little  ;  nothing  is  beneath  his 
^  Epist.  Pontif.  iii.  406. 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  235 

attention  ;  every  one  is  worth  cultivating  ;  every- 
thing will  come  in  useful  some  day.  He  is  full  of 
enterprise  and  not  afraid  to  throw  himself  into 
a  new  set  of  circumstances.  No  conjuncture  finds  His 
him  unprepared.  The  most  diverse  forces  andadapta° 
impulses  of  that  motley  time  are  all  welcome  to  ^^°"' 
him,  because  he  knows  how  to  avail  himself  of 
each.  He  is  as  much  at  home  in  a  summer's 
retreat  among  the  pious  friars  of  Assisi  as  in  a  six 
years'  residence  in  the  armed  camp  of  Lyons  ;  in 
a  Cistercian  chapter  at  Cluny  as  in  the  tumultuous 
civic  receptions  at  Genoa,  Milan,  and  Bologna  ; 
in  secret  conclave  with  St.  Louis  or  in  stormy 
interviews  with  Brancaleone  and  the  repubhcans 
of  Rome.  From  each  he  can  extract  the  one 
quality  they  have  in  common  for  his  purpose,  the 
concentration  and  focusing  of  all  elements  of 
opposition  to  the  Empire. 

Business  methods  applied  to  politics  are  what  is  His 
euphemistically  called  diplomacy ;  and  Innocent  IV  macy. 
had  full  command  of  the  arts  of  the  diploma- 
tist. No  one  knew  better  how  to  deceive  without 
lying  ;  though  from  this  latter,  too,  he  did  not 
shrink  on  occasion,  as  in  the  peace  negotiations  of 
1244,  or  when  he  assured  Azzo  of  Este  that  there 
had  been  no  peace  negotiations  in  1247.  ^^^  it 
often  sufficed  to  let  a  false  impression  go  uncon- 
tradicted, such  as  the  impression  that  his  flight 
from  Genoa  was  to  escape  not  from  his  own 
promises  and  his  own  plenipotentiaries,  but  from 


236  LECTURE  VI 

threatened  personal  violence  ;    or  the  impression 
that  Frederick  was  not  sincere  about  peace  in 
1245.     He  knew  also  how  to  keep  the  benefits  of 
an  act  which  he  had  reprobated,  as  in  the  surrender 
at  Viterbo  ;    and  how  to  let  others  do  the  dirty- 
work,  as  in  the  murder  plot  of  1246-7,  or  in  the 
scurrilous  pamphlets  which  circulated  freely  among 
the  assembled  fathers  at  Lyons.     The  biography 
gives  a  very  unpleasing  reflection  of  the  sort  of 
statements  that  were  put  about  in  the  confidential 
circle  nearest  to  the  Pope  ;  such  as  that  Frederick 
sent  Christian  virgins  as  presents  to  the  Sultan, 
that  he  lived  and  consorted  wholly  with  Saracens, 
that  he  pulled  down  a  church  to  build  privies  on 
the  site  of  the  high  altar,  that  he  poisoned  Louis  of 
Thuringia  and  sent  the  assassin  who  slew  Louis 
of  Bavaria,  that  he  not  only  committed  but  openly 
advocated  unnatural  sins,  that  his  death-bed  was 
a   scene   of  frenzied  torments   and  blaspheming 
despair,  and  so  on  through  a  long  list  of  statements 
of  equal  value  with  these.    Unfortunately  for  the 
biographer  he  could  not  be  aware  that  documents 
were  extant  and  would  be  preserved  which  abso- 
lutely  disprove   some   of   the   charges   where   he 
rashly  committed  himself  to  definiteness,  as  when 
he  says  that  the  Emperor  denied  supplies  and  the 
use   of  his   ports   to   the   French  king  while   on 
Crusade,  whereas  five  official  orders  from  Frederick 
and  several  letters  of  thanks  from  Louis  prove  the 
exact  contrary. 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV 


^5/ 


Innocent  had  too  good  a  command  of  the  science 
of  the  game  to  allow  himself  often  to  be  forced  into 
that  last  resource  of  diplomacy,  a  revoke.  But 
even  a  repudiation  of  engagements  he  was  pre- 
pared to  commit  if  necessary.  Thus  he  threw  over 
the  assurances  given  as  to  recalling  Geoffrey  of 
Montelongo  in  1243,  and  the  promises  made  by 
his  legate  to  Jesi  in  1248.  At  the  other  end  of  the 
diplomatic  scale  is  the  maxim,  not  to  show  one's 
hand  prematurely.  His  biographer  notices  how 
'  benignly  '  the  Pope  received  advances  even  from 
Conrad,  from  Manfred,  from  the  rebellious  Romans. 
He  felt  so  sure  of  himself  and  of  his  own  strength. 

One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  in  the  way  of  His 
powerful  rulers  has  always  been  the  selecting  and  agents. 
the  controlling  of  their  instruments.  But  Inno- 
cent IV  had  a  keen  eye  for  character.  He  discerned 
exactly  which  men  to  employ  for  which  work,  and 
could  find  how  to  get  the  best  out  of  a  passionate 
partisan  like  Rainer  of  Viterbo,  an  honourable  and 
well-meaning  respectability  like  Cardinal  Otto,  a 
*  son  of  Belial '  like  Philip  of  Ferrara.  In  each 
case  he  did  justice  to  their  quahfications,  but 
recognized  their  limitations.  Hence  no  success 
made  him  exaggerate  what  an  agent  could  do,  or 
tempted  him  to  confer  more  powers  than  he  had 
at  first  designed,  or  led  him  into  dangerous  impulses 
of  gratitude.  No  subordinate  could  force  his  hand 
or  dazzle  his  j  udgement .  Cardinal  Rinaldo  of  Ostia, 
though  of  high  birth  and  much  influence,  was  fat 


238  LECTURE  VI 

and  lazy,  so  he  left  him  behind  in  1244.  Geoffrey  of 
Montelongo  was  a  scandalous  ruffian,  but  a  first- 
class  fighting  man  and  a  power  among  his  Lombard 
compatriots  ;  so  to  the  wars  in  Lombardy  he 
was  kept  despite  his  petitions  for  release.  Albert 
Behaim  was  as  hot  of  tongue  and  hot  of  head 
as  he  was  greedy,  but  his  zeal  and  his  Bavarian 
connexions  were  useful,  so  he  was  removed  from 
Germany  and  kept  at  Lyons  as  an  underling  and 
a  go-between.  The  Pope's  own  chaplain  and 
confessor  was  only  rewarded  with  a  bishopric 
at  Assisi,  and  that  after  many  years'  devotion. 
Rainer,  who  did  such  yeoman  service  in  the  Papal 
State,  was  never  raised  above  the  cardinal  diaconate 
he  held  before.  The  legates  in  Germany  were 
none  of  them  entrusted  with  a  long  term  of  office  ; 
the  frequent  changes  enabled  the  Pope  to  keep 
the  strings  well  in  his  own  hand.  He  had  no  more 
hesitation  in  shifting  and  superseding  them  than 
a  commander-in-chief  would  have  in  elevating  a 
younger  and  more  capable  general  over  the  heads 
of  others.  Thus  when  in  August  1248  he  saw  the 
hour  had  struck  for  the  long-cherished  move  upon 
Sicily,  he  would  not  commit  so  great  an  enterprise 
to  any  of  the  *  old  gang  '  who  had  borne  the  burden 
and  heat  of  affairs  in  mid-Italy  for  five  years  past. 
With  suave  apologies  to  Cardinal  Rinaldo  of  Ostia, 
on  whom  he  could  not  think  of  laying  so  grievous 
a  load,  to  Cardinals  Stephen  and  Richard,  and  with 
no  apology  at  all  to  Cardinal  Rainer  of  Viterbo,  he 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  239 

passed  them  all  over  for  the  newer  man,  the  son 
of  a  Roman  citizen,  Peter  Capocci,  cardinal  of 
St.  George,  who  had  just  been  so  wonderfully 
successful  in  Germany.  Him  he  summoned  in 
haste,  November  1248,  and  conferred  on  him 
unprecedented  powers.  He  was  not  afraid  to 
back  his  own  estimate  of  a  man,  and  he  was 
rarely  deceived  in  it. 

It  was  quite  in  keeping  with  Innocent's  self-  His  use 
contained  and  self-sufficing  nature  that  he  fuUy  weak- 
understood  the  weaknesses  of  men  and  made  these  ^®^^^^- 
too  subserve  his  purposes.  He  could  be  a  courtly 
and  splendid  host.  His  great  entertainments  at 
Lyons  are  often  recounted  admiringty.  He  entered 
readily  into  aU  the  pomp  and  show  that  made  his 
return  from  Lyons  one  long  triumphal  progress. 
At  his  departure  from  Lyons  the  crowd  was  too 
vast  for  any  one  building,  so  he  held  a  grand 
ceremonial  of  farewell,  and  gave  them  his  benedic- 
tion in  the  fields  outside.  He  allowed  himself  to 
be  escorted  into  the  cities  under  a  baldacchino 
supported  by  the  nobles.  At  Milan  he  passed 
through  jubilant  multitudes  for  ten  miles,  and 
never  all  the  way  failed  in  condescension.  Milan 
might  well  rejoice,  as  the  onlooker  says,^  with 
a  joy  indescribable,  for  after  twenty-four  years  of 
stubborn  struggle,  and  many  a  day  of  darkness 
and  despair,  she  had  won  her  heart's  longing,  and 
was  free  to  plunge  into  that  desirable  saturnalia 

1  Nic.  de  Curbio,  c.  30,  in  Murat.  Ss.  iii.  592. 


240  LECTURE  VI 

of  anarchy  which  was  to  end  in  two  centuries  of 

stifling  despotism  followed  by  three  and  a  half  of 

degrading  foreign  thraldoms. 

His  use       Again,  he  fully  grasped  the  importance  of  the 

^}^2     new  mendicant  Orders.     He  had  friars  about  him 

X*  llcliS. 

in  his  household.  He  made  them  the  almoners  of 
the  systematic  largesse  by  which  he  won  over  the 
turbulent  population  of  Lyons  during  his  seven 
years'  stay.  He  was  particularly  cordial  to 
Salimbene  in  1247/  ^^^  ^^  John  of  Parma,  General 
of  the  Franciscans.  He  lived  with  them  for  months 
at  Assisi  '  Uke  a  brother  among  brethren'.  He 
canonized  one  of  them  who  had  been  murdered  by 
the  heretics  in  Lombardy.  Very  fittingly  friars  of 
both  Orders  watched  his  coffin  after  his  death, 
as  they  had  worked  fanatically  for  him  during 
his  life. 

He  was  well  aware  of  the  enthusiastic  side  of  the 
religion  of  his  day,  though  assuredly  far  enough 
from  a  sympathetic  sharing  in  it.  Accordingly  he 
made  much  show  of  negotiations  with  the  Emperor 
Vatatzes  in  1254,  as  an  ostensible  step  to  securing 
the  reconciliation  of  the  Greek  Church.  He  sent 
out  two  friars  with  full  ecclesiastical  equipment  to 
complete  the  conversion  of  the  Tartars,  who  were 
rumoured  to  be  inclining  towards  Christianity. 
But  these  were  official  duties. 
He  put       Innocent  IV,  the  first  Pope  who  was  a  con- 

the  Pa- 

pacy  on  summate  man  of  business,  was  the  first  Pope  to 

^  Salimbene,  f.  284°,  ik.c. 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  241 

admit  without  disguise  that  the  Papacy  must  have  a  finan- 
an  adequate  financial  basis,  and  to  perceive  the  basis, 
vast  potentiahties  of  taxabiHty  in  Christendom. 
A  world-state  as  he  conceived  it  could  not  be  made 
a  reality,  could  not  be  administered  without  laying 
the  world  under  contribution.  In  this  he  displays 
his  strong  common  sense.  All  his  contemporaries 
realized  that  with  him  began  a  new  era  in  the 
fiscal  system  of  the  Roman  See.  No  doubt  he  knew 
well  enough  what  bitter  things  about  '  Romish 
avarice  '  and  the  *  venality  '  of  the  Curia  would 
be  said  in  many  a  monastery,  and  even  lead  to 
riots  in  many  a  land.  But  he  knew  too  that 
taxation  was  always  received  with  ignorant  im- 
patience, that  hard  words  break  no  bones,  and 
that  monks  and  laymen  must  pay  up  in  the  end. 
His  biographer  computes  that  in  the  seven  years' 
residence  at  Lyons,  besides  the  ordinary  expenses 
of  the  household,  the  court,  the  chancery,  more 
than  200,000  marks  (some  three  and  a  half  million 
pounds  in  modern  equivalent)  were  paid  out  for 
the  struggle  with  the  Empire. 

'  The  richest  of  all  the  Popes  since  St.  Peter,' 
'The  long  delays  and  infinite  cost  of  the  Papal 
court,'  these  two  notes  sound  over  and  over  again 
in  the  chronicles.  But  they  do  not  take  into 
account  the  inevitableness  of  such  a  development. 
Quite  apart  from  undertakings  of  a  questionable 
character,  the  regular  expenses  of  the  Papacy 
could    no    longer    be    left    dependent    on    casual 

780  I  i 


242  LECTURE  VI 

offerings,  semi-voluntary  fees  from  suitors,  and 
occasional  levies  of  tithes,  with  territorial  rents 
which  were  always  in  arrear.  Innocent  IV  made 
all  these  sources  of  revenue  fixed  and  regular,  and 
added  new  sources.  For  instance,  he  empowered 
representatives  present  at  his  court  to  borrow 
large  sums  and  pledge  their  abbeys  at  home  as 
security.  He  backed  up  by  spiritual  sanctions  the 
actions  for  the  recovery  of  these  loans.  He  entered 
into  close  relations  with  firms  of  bankers,  Roman, 
Florentine,  Siennese,  and  he  had  resident  financial 
agents  in  the  chief  European  capitals,  merchants 
of  our  lord  the  Pope,  as  they  called  themselves. 
The  Papacy  had  to  be  put  on  a  business  footing, 
like  every  other  institution.  No  one  was  better 
fitted  to  accomplish  such  a  task  than  this  astute 
matter-of-fact  Genoese.  What  revolted  Christen- 
dom was  that  he  brought  the  financial  aspect  into 
such  repulsive  prominence,  that  he  drained  the 
wells  so  dry,  that  he  converted  everything  to  such 
utterly  secular  objects. 
Innocent      It  is  not  easy  for  a  man  of  affairs  to  be  a  man 

was  a 

canonist,  of  general  culture  too.  But  there  is  one  study  at 
least  of  which  he  must  feel  the  value,  the  study  of 
law.  Sinibald  Fieschi  was  already  famous  for  his 
knowledge  of  this  subject,  when  he  first  attracted 
the  notice  of  Honorius  III  in  1223,  and  made 
himself  useful  to  the  Legate  Ugolino.  As  Pope  he 
always  had  about  him  in  his  palace  a  school  of 
theology  and  of  canon  law.    Among  canonist  Popes 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  243 

he  ranks  with  Alexander  III  and  Innocent  1 11.^ 
Beyond  this  his  intellectual  interests  did  not  go.  His  atti- 
He  does  not  seem  to  have  touched  at  any  point  the  culture 
literature  or  art  of  his  age.      He  spent  no  money  ^^^  ^""^ 
on  fine  buildings  nor  even  on  religious  foundations. 
He  had  the  credit  of  starting  at  Lyons  the  rebuild- 
ing of  the  Cathedral  and  the  Rhone  Bridge  ;   but 
it  was  ages  before  either  was  completed,  and  his 
share  seems  to  have  consisted  chiefly  in  the  offer 
of  indulgences   to   contributors.     His   mind  was 
severely  concentrated  on  his  one  absorbing  object. 
In  this  respect,  as  in  so  many  others,  he  presents  Com- 
an  utter  contrast  to  Frederick  II,  that  extraordi- wkh 
narily  varied  and  many-sided  personality,  which  ^^^^^ J J^ 
reflected  every  aspect  of  his  time  and  responded 
to  every  impulse,  which  embodied  every  form  of 
culture,   was  full   of   the   joy  of   life,  of   art,  of 
friendship,  and  which  presents  to  us  a  nature  that 
if  it  sometimes  repels,  more  often  attracts,  and  is 
always  fuU  of  a  strange  fascination  ;   a  nature  so 
powerful,  rich,  and  manifold,  that  by  contrast  with 
it  the  figure  of  the  Pope  is  cold,  narrow,  unlovable, 
even  inhuman.    Yet  at  bottom  they  have  qualities 
in  common.    In  each  there  is  the  same  swift  clear 
intelligence,  the  same  power  of  dominating  and 
dwarfing  those  about  them,  the  same  matter-of- 
fact  appeal  to  men's  interests,  the  same  infinite 
power   of   taking   pains.      Both   have   boundless 
patience,  boundless  confidence  and  resourcefulness. 
1  Schulte,  Gesch.  d.  canonischen  Rechts,  ii.  91. 


244  LECTURE  VI 

Each  has  one  great  purpose,  and  each  is  willing 
to  advance  towards  it  inch  by  inch,  to  sacri- 
fice for  it  repose  and  health,  and  life  itself. 
Frederick's  belief  in  his  destiny,  in  his  imperial 
vocation  to  curb  and  rule  Italy,  is  conspicuous. 
Hi5  self-  But  Innocent  had  as  strong  a  belief  in  the  supre- 
dence.  niacy  of  the  Holy  See,  and  in  its  predestined 
triumph.  '  The  victory  must  needs  come  to  the 
Church  always.'  This  is  what  sustained  him,  so 
that  hope  radiated  from  him  as  from  a  pillar  of 
fire  when  hope  had  gone  out  from  all  the  rest.  It 
was  this  that  made  him  such  that  he  never  flagged, 
never  forgot,  never  gave  up.  The  stars  in  their 
courses  fought  for  him.  When  Frederick  was 
advancing  to  Lyons  in  1247,  the  revolt  of  Parma 
came  to  save  him.  When  Italy  seemed  lost  in 
1249,  it  was  the  capture  of  Enzio  which  changed 
the  face  of  the  sky.  When,  in  1250,  his  party  in 
Germany  was  shattered,  when  his  long-prepared 
attack  on  Sicily  was  a  fiasco,  when  France  herself 
had  turned  in  wrath  upon  him,  at  each  darkest 
hour  of  all  the  dawn  appeared,  as  when  the  great 
Emperor  himself  had  died  a  sudden  death  in  1250. 
'  Victor}^  must  needs  come  to  the  Church.'  But 
Was  it  a  had  the  Church  really  won  ?  Was  the  victory  of 
for  the  Innocent  IV  a  victory  for  the  Church  ?  Was  it 
Church?  g^.gj^  ^  victory  for  his  own  plans  ?  He  had  taken 
the  Church  at  her  highest  and  best,  in  the  climax 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  that  glorious  flowering- 
time  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  eleven  years  had 


THE  POLICY  OF  INNOCENT  IV  245 

destroyed  half  her  power  for  good,  and  had 
launched  her  irretrievably  upon  a  downward 
course.  He  had  crushed  the  greatest  ruling  dynasty 
since  the  Caesars,  and  ruined  the  greatest  attempt 
at  government  since  the  fall  of  Rome.  In  ruining 
the  Empire,  he  had  ruined  also  the  future  of  the 
Papacy.    Was  this  a  victory  ? 

Dante  puts  in  the  black  starless  air  of  the  outer 
circle  of  the  Inferno  the  shade  of  him  che  fece  lo 
gran  rifiuto.  Of  all  Dante's  tremendous  verdicts, 
none  has  such  a  bitter  ring  of  scorn  as  this.  It  is 
generally  interpreted  of  one  individual  Pope  ;  but 
it  might  well  stand  as  judgement  on  the  whole 
Papacy  of  the  thirteenth  century,  when  it  bartered 
spiritual  leadership  for  temporal  rule,  the  legacy 
of  St.  Peter  for  the  fatal  dower  of  Constantine. 


oxford:    HORACE    HART    M.A. 
PRINTER   TO    THE    UNIVERSITY